Eaton Ford - Freedom?

We discussed the final details of the leaflet for the Eynesbury kids camp, and we also talked around the issues in reaching out openly when this might put our families or friends in danger. Although this is not something that is a problem for us in the UK right now, it is a severe problem in some countries. It's interesting to ask ourselves how we'd react if this happened for us. We have no idea how the political and social scene will change, wherever we may live!

Chris asked, 'What are the two most important things we can do to make the church more successful?'. The major points seem to be that we should listen to the Lord's direction and follow it, and that we should give one another the freedom to do the same. After all, we must love the Almighty with all our heart, mind and strength and we must love our neighbour the same way we love ourselves (Mark 12:28-34, Romans 13:8-10). If we have that kind of love in our hearts we cannot help following the Lord's commands and giving one another the freedom to do so too.

Yahshua set us free so that we could live free (Galatians 5:1). And if he has set us free, we really are free! (John 8:36) Does this mean we are free to follow whatever men and women tell us? No! We always had that freedom, Israel demanded a king 'like the other nations' and in modern times people have followed all sorts of leaders.

No, we were set free to follow the Lord! We are free to hear his voice, to walk as he reveals, to love, and to give that same freedom to one another.

Eaton Ford - Family tragedy

We have only brief notes from this meeting.

Jim mentioned King David who was 'a man after the Lord's heart'. Despite this, he had some major issues in his life. One of his sons raped his own sister, and then another son killed the first. We thought about what a dreadful experience this must have been for David. What a tragedy to overtake a family.

We also talked about street pastors, an opportunity has come up to take part in training for this.

Eaton Ford - Grass and flowers

This was a very unusual evening. Dot joined us and arrived ahead of everyone else, Chris was still pushing the vacuum cleaner around as they were late home and had run out of time so she helped finish the washing up and then we took coffees through to the conservatory. Donna also joined us this week, then Sean arrived and told us that because of family committments he'd need to leave early tonight, and the minutes ticked by and there was still no sign of Jim. Then finally, just as Sean was leaving, Jim arrived after a meeting at work that had overrun.

We did spend some time in prayer, but most of the time was spent planning out the basic design for the youth camp leaflet. We showed Dot the 2007 camp video which she hadn't seen before, and we decided on a folded A4 leaflet with the main details on the front in colour, a centre spread of further information for parents, and notes on how to apply on the back cover.

Dot shared a vision she'd had recently. She was walking through a desert, a barren landscape of boulders and sand. The boulders were too large to move and it was terribly hard work walking in the dry sand. Then she noticed that the path she was walking along was turning green and there were little flowers underfoot too. The green path stretched behind her, marking out the route she had taken. Ahead she could see only desert and a little gully where there was a stream. And she understood that when she walked near the stream, the green path became more lush and healthy, but if she strayed away from the stream the green carpet thinned out and became more sandy again.

Eaton Ford - Empty barn?

While we were chatting this evening and considering prayer needs, Jim's mobile rang with news that a friend's toddler granddaughter had just fallen downstairs and been taken to hospital. We prayed for her and for all the family, and heard later that she was home from hospital with no ill effects.

As we moved into a time of quiet peace in the Lord's presence, Jim reminded us that, 'Even though the barns are empty, I will rejoice in the Lord' (Habakkuk 3:17-18). He pointed out that when we face difficulties in our lives we have to get through them, and often this involves praise and thankfulness despite the problems.

We spent most of the evening considering how to proceed with the youth camp now that we know the school field will not be available. We discussed the kind of leaflet we would need for a door-to-door drop and what information we should put on it.

Little Paxton - Eating the scroll

Sean wasn't able to join us this week, so Jim and I sat in the garden and chatted. We enjoyed the view and the balmy evening. Jim's back garden overlooks a footpath, and beyond this a large stretch of the Paxton Pits Nature Reserve; what a beautiful, peaceful place.

We talked broadly about the terrible state of Britain today - young people who are more and more doing whatever they want, not respecting other people, uncaring, and often selfish - parents who have largely been responsible for this behaviour by not raising their families properly, broken homes, single parents struggling to cope, living on benefits, having no self respect - the economy in a dire state, mostly due to a borrow and spend mentality encouraged by the banks and a consumer-driven society.

We hold all these things before the Lord in prayer. He is the only place we can turn! We don't want to see people suffer, we want to help wherever we can, but the problems are too big and are way out of control.

Jim read out Ezekiel 1 which had greatly impressed him when he started the book on his own earlier in the day. It is an amazing display of Yahweh's power and glory. It seems strange, almost unintelligible, yet it speaks volumes about the Almighty.

Chris remarked on the parallels between Ezekiel and Revelation. There is the scroll with words of lamenting and woe, it tasted sweet like honey but turned the stomach sour (Ez 2:8-3:4, Rev 10:8-11). And there is mention of shepherds and sheep in Ezekiel and the Lamb on the Throne in Revelation (Ez 34, Rev 5:1-14, 14:1-5). There's the fallen Jerusalem in Ezekiel and the new Jerusalem in Revelation. Then there is the water flowing out from the Temple gate, the River of Life, and the trees on the riverbanks for the healing of the nations (Ez 47:1-12, Rev 22:1-5).

And we also considered that amazing passage about the valley of dry bones (Ezekiel 37:1-14), and how the vision is being played out today in the coming together and remaking of the church. The end result will be a mighty host of the newly alive, ready to function and serve. Now that is indeed something to look forward to!

Eaton Ford - Japan

Sean told us about the trip to Japan he'd made with his son Joe who is learning Japanese. They spent some time in Tokyo and also in Nagasaki which Sean felt is a beautiful city.

Apparently you can't buy a car in Japan unless you can house it off-road, so car ownership is less common than in Britain and city traffic is not as congested as it is here. Public transport is good. They travelled by train while they were there and were impressed by the punctuality, the politeness of staff, and the respect that people show one another.

We talked about meeting at home in small groups and the sometimes subtle differences between church home groups, the cells of a cell church, and a network of house churches. Jim felt there is a real need for a group to feel like a family.

We also discussed holding another Moggerhanger-style meeting. If we do, Jim thought it would be useful to ask each group to share something about the style of their meetings, how they got started and so forth.

Jim explained that in the River Church's life group they had looked at Psalm 19. Verse 105 is especially striking, 'Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light for my path'. The psalms have themes, for example comfort is the theme of Psalm 23. It's important to recognise we have light for the journey.

Chris mentioned Job 23 which he'd read recently. It's clear that Job wanted a chance to meet Yahweh so he could put his case before him. The problem for Job was that Yahweh was unavailable. Wherever Job searched he was nowhere to be found. And the 'thick darkness' Job speaks of is mentioned a number of times in the Old Testament. This darkness (or hiddenness) prevents the contact Job so craves. Yet we learn from Paul that we are now 'hidden in Christ', in other words we are now on the other side of the veil of hiddenness, and that explains why the world cannot understand us. What a privilege we have!

Jim ran with this thought, reminding us that we know where we're going because Jesus has gone before us to prepare a place for us. His love is so deep, so high, so long and so wide! HalleluYah!

Eaton Ford/Little Paxton - Cup of tea!

This was a very unusual evening. We began by visiting the hospital to see a friend, but discovered that he'd already been discharged. It was a wild goose chase!

Then we spent some time at John's house in Eaton Ford and met one of his work colleagues, Pete. We spent the time chatting about old times, events that had happened at work, trips abroad. It was fun and very entertaining.

Finally, Jim and I returned to Little Paxton and finished the evening in discussion and prayer over a cup of tea.

Little Paxton - Camp

This was a quiet and relaxed evening, only Jim and Chris were there.

We discussed the plans for the Youth Camp in July and its pre-meeting on 25th May. We still have no venue and are hoping to take this forward soon. But the choice of venue is out of our hands, we need to discuss it with someone else who is not available at present. We are not nervous, but we are depending on the Lord to provide whatever we need and lead us in the right direction.

Jim read Luke 22:24-27 and we talked about how, if you want to become great, you must choose to be weak. We discussed how the church belongs to Yahshua, not to us. This is a point made by Wolfgang Simson repeatedly, he knows how important it is. The church is not ours to rule or plan or build, not ours to order. It is Christ's - he gives the orders, we carry them out.

Chris was interested in Matthew 21:33-46, this passage came just before the passover meal shared by Yahshua and his disciples. He tells them the parable of the tenants and then he says, 'He who falls on this stone will be broken to pieces, but he on whom it falls will be crushed.'

This is an intriguing saying. Jesus is the stone.

If we fall on him we will be broken. We believers have fallen on him, we fall on him for his mercy, grace, and forgiveness. And he does indeed break us! In becoming believers, if we are serious about it, we are challenged to change our ways. We can no longer go on being the people we were, we are utterly broken.

But if Yahshua falls on a person, that person will be crushed. We usually think of 'crushed' as destroyed, snuffed out, but there is another possibility. Perhaps we could say that Christ 'fell on' Saul on the Damascus Road. Saul was crushed, not in the sense of destroyed, but in the sense of having a completely new and different perspective. His views, opinions, and certainties were crushed and he had to begin again.

Eaton Ford - Wolfgang Simson

We chatted over coffee and shared about this and that in an open and natural way. Somehow, Christ is present in it all if we just open our eyes to see him!

Jim related how he and Pam had been away for a short break in Norfolk and had travelled a small distance by bus to return after a four mile walk along the beach. The bus can be mechanically lowered and the driver used this feature to help a woman with a child in a buggy, with the bus lowered she was able to board the vehicle much more easily. There was even a space set aside for the buggy so that everything was convenient, no need to unstrap the child, fold the buggy, and stow it away.

We thought how our outreach is sometimes less straightforward than it might be. It's as if we are using an old-fashioned bus instead of a fully-featured new bus. There are several steps involved instead of everything working naturally and conveniently to help those who want to travel with us.

Chris thought of our friends Peter and Paul (good names, they're both there in the Bible!) Both these friends have been in hospital recently. Both of them have used their stay as an opportunity to speak to other patients about Jesus. They have encouraged others and are now expecting several to come to one church meeting or another. We should all be this open and natural in our sharing!

Jim also mentioned spending some time in the city of Norwich and visiting the Cathedral where the architecture, carvings and furnishings almost all pointed to Christ.

For the rest of the evening we watched the DVD of Wolfgang Simson at the 2008 House Church Conference in Dallas. Jim enjoyed it as much as I have done! In his talk Wolf expresses the important view that we need to be a part of the whole. We cannot afford to be just another denomination, there is only one church and we are part of it so we must live and work together with all the believers where we live. We live to serve Christ, not ourselves.

Little Paxton - Summer planning

This evening we discussed plans for the Youth Camp in the summer and prayed again for the Lord of the harvest to send in more labourers. It was good to have the video and other materials from Pete and we were able to make a start on planning, sketching out our main ideas for an event in Eynesbury, perhaps in May.

The video below was made for a camp in 2007 and will be updated for this year's event.



Although we discussed some of the practical aspects this evening, we are also very aware of Father's hand on everything that has happened so far. He has put us in touch with the right people at just the right moment at every point along the way. Usually he has surprised us, sometimes we haven't even understood what he's done until afterwards. There is already an impressive array of 'coincidences' and these are encouraging us to expect more around the corner.

We praised him and thanked him for it all. All the honour and glory is his!

Eaton Ford - a DVD track

It snowed again! Sean set out and then decided it was unwise to continue, Pete didn't make it either, but Jim arrived and brought Pam - a lovely surprise to share with them both.

We chatted for a while, then watched a track from one of the House Church Conference DVDs from 2008. The track we watched was Bill Hoffman talking about 'The Church at Table Number Two', a very interesting story about going out to where people are instead of drawing them in to where we are.

This was an unusual meeting because of the snow, but it was a great evening.

Eaton Ford - Jesus with us

We were expecting to meet with Pete and discuss the proposed summer youth camp again. But his son, Alex, phoned just before the meeting to say he's unwell and would not be able to join us.

We prayed for Pete's health and comfort, and also for others who were not with us tonight - Paul, John, Roger, and Ruth for example.

We spent a while talking about the Holy Spirit, how he is a help and comfort to us in our individual lives, how he reveals Christ to us, how without him we would only be able to do the physical parts of our Christian lives (reading, praying, teaching, sharing). We thought that when we rely on him he enables us to partake in the spiritual nature of the Father and the Son. He is given so that we can not only see the Lord in all his spiritual aspects (though imperfectly) but also grasp something of his spiritual purposes and ways of working. And as we glimpse him more and more, so we begin to grow more like him.

He is not in the business of changing our behaviour, instead he wants to change our hearts and then we will naturally do the things we need to do.

We had a picture of a stone-built courtyard, the masonry looked like a cathedral or castle style of building. The courtyard was paved with flagstones and in the centre was a circular stone plinth.

Above the plinth was a sparkling figure, it was Jesus and he seemed to be half present and half absent, rather like the halfway stage in the Star Trek transporter. He is coming, he is not fully here yet but neither is he fully absent. We can see him but we still don't see him fully, but he is coming and we will see him.

Although we don't experience him completely, he is with us.

Eaton Ford - Youth Camp

This evening we met again with Pete after a long gap over the Christmas/New Year break. We thought and discussed and prayed and were greatly encouraged by the end of the evening.

Pete explained that the campsite was booked and that YWAM were involved again (though with different participants this year). He plans to meet with us again next Thursday too and will be able to bring some materials along with him - a short video presentation and some leaflets.

Little Paxton - Jim and Chris

Sean couldn't make it tonight so there were only two of us (and Jesus, of course - he is always with us).

We talked together about church life and encouragement.

Eaton Ford - Out in Society

We thought about the Christian life out in society. We are indeed 'jars of clay', we see the Almighty's glory in Jesus face - a treasure indeed! Jesus shared his life with us, we need to share our own lives (which is really his life) with those around us.

We read from James 2, especially verse 8 that tells us loving our neighbour is a 'royal law'.

Jim saw people waiting on a platform for the train and sure enough the train arrived - but it didn't stop.

Little Paxton - Germinating seeds

We chatted over hot drinks and just enjoyed one another's company for a while. Jim explained how lost he would feel without a Bible and the opportunity to read it often. We thought how remarkable it is that there is something relevant for us on pretty well every single page.

Chris turned up Numbers 1:41 and read it out as a tongue-in-cheek challenge, 'The number from the tribe of Asher was 41,500'. Sean and Jim considered this and almost instantly came out with the thoughts that Asher was greatly blessed, that the 41 500 were also richly blessed, and that we are blessed too because the passage expresses how the Lord pours out abundant good things on his people. It seems Jim and Sean are right, there is something valuable to be found in every verse!

We prayed for our children and for our wives, and Sean told me that a seed has been planted in my daughters. That I don't need to be anxious about them because it has been planted, it has not died, and one day when the conditions and the time are right those seeds will sprout and grow.

Thinking about children and wives, Chris said that we are not perfect fathers or perfect husbands so the situations with our families are not, and cannot be, perfect. But despite this it's important to remember that his love in us stretches, but will not break. We don't love our children because they always behave the way we would want them to behave. We accept them despite their imperfections because we love them! And Father's love towards us is exactly the same, he doesn't love us because we are good. But because we are in Christ, he loves us despite our faults.

Eaton Ford - Cable and thread

There were just two of us this evening as Jim was late home from work while Roger and Ruth remain unavailable on Thursdays until 4th December.

Sean and Chris talked together about a range of things over coffee and cake. During a time of prayer the Lord gave us a picture of his love. He told us,

'Your love is like a very thin cotton thread, the kind you might use to sew on a button or perhaps even finer than that. My love is like a huge, steel hawser that you might use to moor a mighty oil tanker. The thread and the hawser are connected, tied together.'

'My love is awesome in its power, your love seems feeble and fragile by comparison. It looks as if your love could easily be broken. But my love is not only powerful, it is also gentle. You are safe in my love, you will not be harmed.'

Thinking about this later it was clear that when his love pulls on us he does it so gently that our little thread is not broken. When our love tugs on him, we could never hope to move the steel hawser even a millimetre, but he moves gently towards us in response to our puny pull. When we tug on him he does move, not because we are strong but because he cares.

Little Paxton - planning for Moggerhanger

Very brief notes only for this meeting.

We travelled over to Moggerhanger Park to make some final decisions about the planned celebration on 16th. The main decision was whether to use a room in the main house or to use the 'Garden Room'. We quickly agreed that the 'Garden Room' was ideal with plenty of space and a mix of tables and chairs at one end and an open area with rearrangeable seating at the other.

We retired to Jim's office and spent the rest of the evening chatting and in prayer.

Eaton Ford - Paint and light

< 15th December 2004 | Index | 23rd May 2006 >

Rosie reminded us about the great wave we were shown during our last meeting, which sadly I didn't mention in the notes. Of course, since that meeting the dreadful tsunami has struck coasts throughout southeast Asia. Thinking about this we knew that the wave picture was not a warning of disaster, but an illustration of the way he lifts us and carries us along in the direction we should go.


There is such power in a wave. And the tsunami made that clear in a truly terrifying way. Yet there's nothing to fear in his wave, the power is there for our benefit, not to destroy. But this evening Father had a different message for us. He showed us an artist at work with watercolour paints. As the artist dipped his brush into the water, the colour swirled through and transformed the colour of the water. In the same way, Yahshua's presence in us swirls throughout our being and gradually changes us into his colour. He has dipped himself into our lives and we will never look (or feel) the same again!

And again, we were shown clouds parting and strong sunlight shining through. He is the clouds, but not only is he in the clouds, he also becomes visible to us as they part. We had such a strong sense that he has chosen to reveal himself to his people.

And he is making himself visible in many ways. He does this for us in his creation. He does it throughout history. He wants everyone to see, but not everyone chooses to see. But we also know how important it is; seeing him is far more powerful than just hearing his word!

He reminded us of 'Doubting' Thomas. Yahshua told his disciples, 'Peace be with you. Blessed are those who have not seen but have believed.'

And finally he made it clear to us that he only shows us what we need to know. There is so much more that is hidden for now, what we need is shown to us as we go along. It is given at just the right moment. When a beam of light shines through a hole in the cloud it only lights the next step for us, not the whole journey. We can only live one day at a time, so why would we need to know the details for tomorrow? It's not our plan we are following, but his! Praise you father, you give us all we need, right when we need it! Thank you.

< 15th December 2004 | Index | 23rd May 2006 >