Moreover I am interested in both how you gage happiness and how you obtain it, so as I think it can be very subjective perhaps the place to start is to look at what makes me happy.

Now I am not going to look at happiness events, A wolves win, a night in with Deb without being interrupted by the girls every 5 mins, the entire xfactor studio being sucked up in a vortex and hurtled thousands of miles into space never to be seen again would all make me happy but they are events, unlikely, unrealistic events at the moment.

No I am talking about long term measurable happiness that we all long for so here goes, three things that make me happy .

Happiness is shared

I believe to be truly happy you need relationships; I am so privileged to be part of a great church, to have great friends, to be surrounded by a great family, to have a great wife. Paul writes in Philippians 1 how he prays with great joy when he recalls those he is doing life with. You want to get happy get building some great relationships with people who will do you good.

Happiness is confident

In the wise words of Pastor Bobbie McFerrin “don’t worry, be happy”. I sometimes feel we spend so much time worrying about what will probably never pass or that we can’t control we don’t have time for happiness. We worry about what people think rather than being secure in who we are.

We are so busy looking for approval, stop it!, seriously, we LIKE you, God LIKES you, you don’t need to become someone you are not just be the best you that you can be then celebrate that fact. God has said that he wants to make us a great people but so many struggle with that, we think it will lead us to be big headed or arrogant, it could if you let it but keep your feet on the ground and be confident in who you are and hey presto, Happy!

Happiness is progressive

I said earlier it is possible to have great moments of Joy but that in itself will not make you happy, happiness, true happiness comes from a sense of purpose and realisation of Destiny. Knowing where you are and where you are going, understanding what you are achieving and Building with your life.

So there you are my thoughts on happiness, do you agree, what have I missed that you would have included. Let me know but most of all stay happy!

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In order to do this I had to drive from Cardiff (Wales) through England onto Dunkirk (France) across Belgium before a overnight stop at Luxemburg. The next day we diverted into Germany before heading down through Burgandy to the French Alps.

What a great journey, yes it was a lot of driving but it was worth it , the views looking over Grenoble and across to Mount Blanc were quite literally breathtaking.

It made me realise how important the journey is, and here is something that is bothering me at the moment, it has become rather in vogue to use the term Journey, I hear it not only in Church circles but in politics, in fact it has become a trendy analogy and that is dangerous.

It is dangerous because we sort of treat it like the flavour of the month, it becomes over familiar and soon goes out of fashion. I was listening to an interview with James Blunt where the interviewer made the point that the song “you’r beautiful’ became so popular it actually harmed his career because the public became sick of him.

I hope we don’t get sick or even blasé of the concept that the important thing about this life is not the events but the journey we go through. I hope we don’t become so set on getting there (wherever there might be) That we fail to see the spectacular scenery along the route of life.

This continental trip was primarily to do a job, to help move some stuff from one flat to another however I was blessed to see the vistas of the Alps, to experience Luxemburg which I want to revisit as it was a fabulous place, to relive some of my childhood memories eating frites and Mayo on the side of the road, to see the vineyards along the Mossel river. To experience some of the lovely scenery at the foot of the Alps, not to mention all the great food and wine.

We need to enjoy the journey of our lives, as I get older I realise it more and more

The problem is the council is very good at releasing pictures regarding the regeneration of the city, where they have proven to be less good, in fact quite awful, is in actually delivering real tangible results. Someone commented to me that the only people who make money in this city are the architects who provide the drawings, other than the odd supermarket development we have yet to see the promised investment in the city, indeed while other cities have seen a plethora of development in the last decade or the cranes have been visible by there absence in Stoke on Trent.

Leaving the political ramifications of this to one side there is a lesson here for Church leaders, it is important to not just paint a good picture of were you want to go or what you want to deliver, you have to deliver results.

Seriously I am sick of hearing leaders sprout off about filling football stadiums, how about this that you fill your auditorium first, that you complete that social action project that you have promised to engage in, that you reach in and speak life to that area of need in your city/town/village, that you will develop and nurture your people to help them to become all that they can be in Christ.

Or if you don’t have the capacity to do this stop drawing pictures, telling everyone you
are going to, seriously it’s not just your credibility at stake it has a knock on effect for the rest of the church.

Below are some of the I have learned in 25 years of leadership, and believe me I am still learning, still a work in progress.

1. Be right, remember he is the master builder, make sure your vision comes from the source, to often it is easy to fire arrows into the wall then draw targets around them, in other words don’t try to fit God into your vision it usually falls flat and gets messy
2. Be focused, don’t be distracted, all to easy this one, be get like Nehemiah, go on read it see how tenacious he was about the Project that God had placed in his hands
3. Be real, don’t try to spin it out if it has not happened, be honest with people
4. be prepared, it’s gonna take a lot of hard work and sacrifice and stuff, I always think of Joshua going across the Jordan into the promised land, he still had to fight for it, there was still work to be done, too many leaders think when they receive the vision that’s when the hard work is done, absolutely not it’s only just began. There will also be those who oppose you, sometimes from inside your ranks. Deal with it.

It’s so true that you will never see it till you see it, but it is just as true that words without actions are futile, after all it is the book of acts that outline the growth of the early church not the book of intensions. Pastor, leader, be a doer.

These were people, more than that people with back stories, people with dreams and hopes, aspirations. We saw them emerge triumphantly, we saw them greet their families and loved ones, we saw them thanking God for their deliverance. We saw them smile.

They no longer represented numbers, from the moment Florencio emerged from the aptly named phoenix pod that had carried him the 15 min 2000ft journey to the surface to when foreman Luis Urzua was the final miner to reach the surface they became people, guys who had endured awful conditions to emerge victorious, triumphing over adversity.

Church leaders are in the numbers game, OK I know it was trendy a few years ago to say ‘it’s not about the numbers’ but by and large we were lying, trust me having hang around leaders for many years it’s one of the first questions asked, one of the most talked about subjects. To be honest I don’t think we should apologise for this, rather as the 33 have shown us understand that each number actually represents someone, they represent people, more than that people with back stories, people with dreams and hopes, aspirations.

I think that we need to not only embrace the numbers game but realise what it represents, it talks in Acts 17 about understanding in him (Christ) we live move and have our being, behind each number we reach we understand it is about far more than numbers, just like the miners,

Sky news as each miner came out of the ground the number ticker on the bottom of the screen changed, number 7, number 16, number 23 but as well as the number the names Franklin Lobos who had played football for Chile in the 80’s, Mario who had led the rescuers in a rousing cheer, Richard the cool dude sporting a dapper goatee beard.

I pray that God would add another 50 that he would entrust us the leaders with another 50 people, that’s the numbers I ask for but I understand I don’t know the names yet but I will. I don’t know the stories yet but I will.

I like numbers

Do you get them?

I think most people do, in fact I think even pastors and great men of God get then, perhaps even Rick Warren gets them.

Most of course would never admit to getting them, not sure about Rick because to be honest that is total speculation

It’s sort of a bit of a mute subject, it sort of exposes us and lets be honest none of us like being exposed or in any way transparent

However yesterday I had one

I was watching the news

They were talking about a new marine census that had been completed and how they had found loads of new life hundreds of miles below the surface of the water, new species that they had never found before.

That was the time it happened

It just sort of got out there

A wibbly wobbly thought

“How could God be real, how could all this life exist, how c an I have faith in God”

Strange how stuff makes you think sometimes

Then I began to realise, the reason for my wibbley wobbley moment was for a second I forgot something.

I had forgotten just how massive and majestic God is, I had somehow brought him done to my level and allowed the word impossible to be transposed onto him.

How foolish

But

It happens, I think there are times when it happens to all of us, the trick is to not smash ourselves up about it or start to ponder aloud what would happen if we only had faith the size of a mustard seed.

No rather how about this

We simple smile and move on, overjoyed at the fact that he is great and wonderful majestic and scary yet compassionate and caring and friendly and forgiving. That paradox that God could be as vast as he is yet as personal as he is. That try as we will we can never get it more than looking through a glass darkly and one day the revelation that is yet to come will blow us away

In the meantime let’s learn from our wibbly wobbly moments and allow faith to win!

Yesterday my Eldest daughter spoke in city youth; my middle daughter is already a old hand at writing sermons and writes them for fun. It is one of those times when as a father I feel not only immensely proud but also immensely thankful.

As my kids grow up I am beginning to realise the pressure that comes from wanting to see your kids flourish and make the most of themselves, last week I make the Birthday cake for my youngest daughters 10^th Birthday, man they grow up fast.

I realise they are their own people with their own thoughts, they have aspiration and ambition, I as their parent cannot guarantee how they will turn out but I can create an environment that will help and I hope cause them to flourish and make right life choices

I want an environment for my girls that is

• Positive , that believes in them , that causes them to dream big dreams, that banishes the word can’t and celebrates the word can
• Loving, that they know that they are loved, cherished and in knowing this have an understanding of their worth. To me one of our society’s greatest failings is our vilification of youth, we need to produce and show positive role models and we can only do this through love.
• Honest, If I want my girls to  be honest with me I must be honest with them, tell the truth in love, create a open environment, build trust.
• Challenging: I refuse to rap my girls up in cotton wool, I want to stretch them, to cause them to think and become bigger people that will excel in the worlds they live in. I want to cause them to think and apply wisdom to decisions, they cannot do this if they have it all on a plate
• Spacious, I want them to have room to grow. I want them to make mistakes and learn from them while always supplying a safety net to help them if they need it, which is quite a balancing act for a parent to achieve.

When I put the cake in the oven I had to wait and hope that it would turn out right, however I trusted that if I put the right ingredients in it would stand a good chance. As it turned out the cake was a winner, full of chocolaty goodness.

I am thankful that we have a loving home, a great network of friends, an amazing church and a great youth and kids ministry which I believe provide the ingredients to produce beautiful kind amazing young woman who will grow up to flourish and become all that they can be.

Chocolate cake anyone?

Then

I realised

I had won the battle and lost the war

D’oh

They left more or less the same way they had come; they were no closer to Jesus.

A few years later I had the chance at work top befriend a guy who happened to be a JW, this time I was a little more mature and considerably wiser, I treated him with respect while not compromising my witness. We played squash together, we had some great talks. I heard from him the other day on Facebook, I don’t think he is a JW anymore but I don’t think he is a Christian either. I hope one day he will be, I hope the Holy Spirit works on him and some of the stuff or witness that I gave comes back to his remembrance.

Sometimes we forget that we are just signposts, we point the way to Jesus, it is the work of God that convicts and works on the heart of man, sometimes we try to do God’s work for him and we mess it up and get in the way.

Sometimes we forget that we are to love people and we get it wrong, we end up burning books or turning a blind eye to wrong or getting all judgemental.

I know that sometimes Jesus got angry and overturned things but more often than not his anger and hard words were directed not to the lost but the hypocritical, judgmental religious types.

We are called to be salt and light; we are called to use the resources we are given for good. In Matthew 25 we hear the story of the guy who plays safe with the resource he was given, he buries it, it stays safe but makes no return, it does not affect anyone else’s story positively.

So there it is, the end of an experiment in blogging and for the conclusion of the conclusion, well I guess everyone is expecting me to finish with that statement, you know the one, I am not, you have probably heard it enough already. As for me what these two days taught me is that I am still very much a work in progress looking to navigate and serve!

Now anyone up for some pie and mash, luvverly

After all my enthusing about the British Museum Debs decided she would like to see it as well so off we trotted (I lie we took the tube, by now my feet were killing me) I showed her all the sites we had seen before then we went down into my favourite bit, the Africa Galleries and looked again at the artwork made from Guns. The tree made of guns was called the ‘tree of life’ there was a video that went with it and explained how it had come about. A local Bishop had started a project called ‘tools for guns’ villagers who had hidden their guns out of fear and mistrust were given a opportunity to hand in their guns and get something in return, one guy on the video told how he swapped over three guns and got some roofing and a hoe in return. On village pooled all their guns and got a tractor. The guns are cut up into small pieces and are used to create fantastic artworks of which the tree was commissioned by the British Museum to represent Africa.

The Bishop spoke with passion about how he is removing the guns from Mozambique one village at a time. He realises that his actions affect the stories of others.

The Imperial War Museum like most of the Museums in London is an impressive place for someone like me interested in twentieth century history it is a tresure trove of information. Recently installed in the museum is the Holocaust exhibition, I decided to take a look not really prepared for how it would effect me, I think I can honestly say it was on of the most moving and hard hitting exhibitions I have ever witnessed.

Now, I know about the Atrocities committed by the Nazi’s, the ethnic cleansing, The concentration camps, the mass genocide, what was chillingly fascinating was how this came about, how a nation can be so swept up in nationalist fervour to allow or turn a blind eye to this happening.

As I was walking around the exhibition and saw how the Jewish people were demonised by the state I can across one information board that stopped me in my tracks that sent a shiver down my spine.

It highlighted the fact that anti Semitism started not by the Nazi party but by Christian Churches burning Jewish Literature and books. I guess those churches never realised what started out as or at least what they conceived was peaceful protest would end as badly and horrifically as it did, I suppose Pastor Jones in Florida never realised his actions would change the stories of those shot dead in Baghdad.

I asked the question how a nation can get caught up in such hatred so quickly. I love modern Germany its people, I have found them intelligent, polite, measured, but how did they allow this to happen.

Deborah visited Yugoslavia shortly before the atrocities that occurred there, she remembers how friendly and hospital the people were, yet weeks later the whole area she stayed in was ravished with war and misery and became linked forever with ethnic cleansing.

I remember speaking to a friend who was involved in a inner city London gang, he tried to explain to me how one second they were like kids laughing and goofing about the next they would commit acts of unspeakable rage and violence.

Truth is I don’t understand but I recognised that it can and does happen, to think that we are now too educated or too civilised to allow this to happen again is at best naive and  at worst dangerously complacent.

My belief is that burning books is never right, that the God I serve is the God in Psalm 40 who inclines his ear to me, the Jesus of Mark 1:41 who is so filled with compassion he reaches out to the leper woman and touches her, he speaks words of life to her.

On the wall at the end of the Holocaust exhibition is a quote from the Philosopher and politician Edmund Burke “In order for Evil to triumph, good men must do nothing” I was speaking to our welcome Pastor Michael Syson about the exhibition and he explained how he had gone to a Holocaust exhibition in Israel, One of the displays in this exhibition was a tree garden that had been planted to honour the ‘righteous gentiles’  who had helped the Jews during the Holocaust, each tree represented someone who had sought to help the Jewish people, Michael turned the corner expecting to see hundreds of trees, there were not, it was sparse, he recalls the shock of so few who had come to their aid, he noted that inaction as well as action changes the stories of others.

The Alpha course has been an amazing success al the more so because the concept is incredibly simple, it is a tem week course that introduces Christianity in a non threatening way. It is a million miles away from the hate filled posturing and diatribe of Pastor Jones in Florida. It aims to build not burn bridges to resonate with a lost generation. The Alpha course is now available in churches up and down the country thousands of people are coming to know Jesus and I do a mean Nicky Gumbell impression.

Taking of impressions I made my way to the Victoria and Albert Museum, I am no stranger to this museum but this time I was going for one reason only. It seems the Pope is on his way to the UK to do a couple of gigs (or masses as he calls them) as a result of this the Raphael Tapestries that were originally commissioned to sit in the Sistine Chapel and now housed in the Vatican museums where brought over and reunited with the original ‘cartoons’ (drawings) that Raphael drew for the Belgium Tapestry makers.  I got my ticket and made my way to the gallery the first Tapestry I saw depicted St Paul on Mars hill debating with the politicians of the day. 

Strangely enough this story was in my thoughts all of the last few weeks having just completed an essay on it and having blogged on it last week. Paul had rolled up in Athens and been outraged by all the idolatry and worship of false Gods he had seen. However rather than get all angry with the Athenians he attempted to find common ground in order to convince them that the unknown god they worshipped was actually the one true and living God and he couldn’t be contained in Idols rather he held the whole world in his hands.

Some dismissed him, others ridiculed him but for others something resonated, it got hold of them and they became believers.

I recalled this story as I looked up at the fantastic artworks presented above me, I thought of the incredible missionary journey of the Apostle Paul, I thought of the fantastic ministry that was born out of Holy Trinity just a few doors up from where I was standing and I realised that Nicky Gumbell and Paul had something in common, both had first had experience that their actions affected the story of others