ANNOUNCEMENT - Celebration meeting at Moggerhanger Park

Come and join us to celebrate our shared life in Jesus Christ. We plan to meet at Moggerhanger Park on Sunday 16th November from 16:00. We will provide tea, coffee, and light buffet-style refreshments - probably sandwiches and cake or similar. Do feel free to bring food with you if you wish.

There is no fixed plan for the evening. We are meeting early so that families with small children will be able to come, but we will continue as late as necessary until people need to leave. If you can't join us until the evening that will be fine too. There is no formal 'meeting' time and no agenda, but we expect to have an opportunity to meet and chat with those we don't know and spend time focused on Jesus in whatever way he leads.

This invitation is going out to small groups meeting in and around Cambridgeshire, Bedfordshire, and Northamptonshire. It is also going out to people we know more widely who might be interested in making contacts outside their own area. We don't wish to be exclusive so if you have been invited please feel free to prayerfully invite others. If you are reading this, do consider yourself invited.

For practical reasons, however, we feel it's important to keep the numbers small enough that people can get to know everyone else present.

Please let us know by Monday 10th November if you intend to join us (contact details below). We need to know numbers for reasons of space, food, and seating and there will be a cut-off when the numbers reach the maximum we can accomodate - first come, first served so let us know quickly if you feel you should be there on the night.

Contact details - get in touch if you wish to come, if you are also replying on behalf of others please include the total number.

• Email - chris@scilla.org.uk
• Home telephone - 01480 370459
• Mobile - 07775 805783

Date and time - Sunday 16th November from 16:00.

Location - we plan to meet at Moggerhanger Park near Sandy, Bedfordshire. Their website has directions.

The map below is centred on the Park's buildings. You can drag it with the mouse and resize it to see more, Sandy and the A1 are about two miles to the right. You can click the blue marker to get driving directions.

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Eaton Ford - waiting and calling on the Lord

Ruth told us about opportunities at her local Anglican church in Offord d'Arcy where she is helping to run an art event on the theme 'Angels'. This led us to think more deeply about reaching out to others. We tend to think in terms of doing this as individuals but biblically we need to work together. Chris mentioned that Yahshua sent the disciples out in twos. We are called to be one (John 17:20) if we are to represent Christ in the world. We are his body and he has only one body, if we don't come as members of his one body we are representatives, not of Christ, but of someone or something else.

Ruth read from Isaiah (40:31), 'Those that wait (or hope) on the Lord shall renew their strength'. Hope involves waiting, but it's an expectant waiting. We need to wait in expectation for him to move, moving in our own inadequate strength just isn't good enough.

We were also reminded again of 1 Corinthians 13:1. What is love? The answer lies in the verses that follow, but basically it is selfless and is focused unwaveringly on the other. This is true whether 'other' is Yahshua or anyone else.

Roger mentioned a friend who has leukaemia, we prayed for him and also for Roger to be able to reach him with the good news. Ruth reminded us that we must 'seek first the Kingdom, and all the things we look for will be added to us (Matthew 6:33). She prayed for the youth work next summer.

And Chris mentioned the Valley of Dry Bones in Ezekiel (Ezekiel 36:33-37:14). The entire army was restored, but it was done through the restoration of each individual person. This is just like the Bride of Christ, the Church. She is being restored in our day, person by person, individual by individual. And it was achieved by Ezekiel's obedience in prophecying over the bones. He was also called to prophecy over the breath (spirit) to come and enter them. Like the soldiers in the valley we began as dry bones, we were connected with sinews, the muscles were added, we were covered with skin yet we were still not alive. The final act is for the Spirit to come into us so that we are not only complete but also alive! We need to pray for the non-believers around us in the same way Ezekiel prayed.

Great Doddington - earthquake and desert

Tonight had a sober tone initially when we prayed for Pete Shortall-Strike, aged 29, who died suddenly and shockingly last week, and for his family and friends. It is hard to make sense of the death of such a vibrant, vivacious young man who appeared to have his whole life ahead of him.

Rachael had a picture of Father sitting in an armchair having a chat with his children. He was saying that His will and our will are like two techtonic plates under a continent, and that when they move in different directions they rub up against each other, and it's not surprising therefore that the friction causes a little smoke, and an earthquake sized shift in the ground beneath our feet, or a bit of a rumble.

A prophesy was heard, that the day is coming when it will rain in the desert, the day is coming when the rivers and lakes will dry up, and the time is coming when Father and His people will stand together, they will see Him and know Him.

Prayers were said for the political leaders grappling with the complexities of the global banking crisis, that they would be guided to make the right choices and that they would inject a moral code into the system to reduce the likelihood of this happening again. We also prayed for Abigail Maynard and her parents Chris and Judy, that the Lord would intervene with Abigail's liver failure and that her parents would be strengthened and their work for the Lord glorified.

Our prayers centred around 'praying' into God's will - being so much aware how easy it is to follow our own will, and sometimes when we translate our will as His; we all felt the need to be at peace with our situations even when we don't understand what is going on around us, our families, our friends...lets face it, the world!

Little Paxton - Caring and giving

Because some of us this evening didn't know about the amazing way Father's been touching us recently, we began by outlining the two strands that we are aware of so far. Jim and Chris explained how the youth camp for next summer and the networking of small house meetings had come about.

Jim read Psalm 115:1,4-8 which had spoken to him during the week. He reminded us that we need to give the Lord all the glory and trust only him. People in our day place their trust in so many idols that have no life. We have heard so much in the news recently about financial catastrophe, money and financial institutions are things many people have trusted greatly and now they are anxious as they see the system's fragility.

John prayed for revival in our part of the country, for Open Door as they move to the Priory, for the churches they have planted out in nearby towns, for The River, and for all the other groups of believers in and around St Neots.

Ruth mentioned the people who are worried about not having enough heat this winter and may not have enough food. She explained that love expressed in care is true spirituality, and she prayed for the spiritually hungry to come to the Lord's feast which is spread out for them.

Chris reminded us that Yahshua told his disciples to pray to the Lord of the harvest to send harvesters. The harvest is ready now, where we live, so we prayed for the Lord to send his harvesters here.

Roger told us that it's good that small groups around the area will be meeting together on 16th November. Jesus prayed that his church would be one. The smaller kinds of groups make it possible for people to relate together more closely and look after one another when there are problems or difficulties.

Jim told us that we have a living faith. When we give our money, our time, or our family to bless others it blesses the Lord too. he can really use that kind of giving, and in the process he always seems to give us so much more back as well!

Chris said that because we had thought and prayed so much this evening about all these things, it would be good to read John 15:1-17 again and it would have even more depth of meaning than usual.

Great Doddington - A white lily

After talking about forgiveness for a while we listened to a track from a Bill Johnson CD in which he tells a story about his (fictional) history as a pen thief. It had us in stitches! But it also spoke to us about the depth and breadth of forgiveness that we have in Christ.

We talked a bit more about condemnation and righteousness and then Jody read Romans 5:1-21. Rachael shared a picture of the Lord's house. There were a lot of people there, having a party, but they didn't know him. They were busy putting up decorations for their party but because they didn't know Jesus they couldn't see him and they didn't realise he was quietly watching them. As they put up decorations and lights and speakers he was following and quietly taking it all down again.

Some of the people didn't realise what was happening and just went round and round redecorating places they'd already done before. Some noticed that what they had done been mysteriously undone, those people turned round and saw the Lord and began to relate to him and have a conversation with him.

Chris thought that we need to do what Yahshua does. We are called to be like him, we are called to do what he does. When people see us and talk with us they need to see him and hear him.

Jody prayed that we'd take him into our whole life, into our family life, life with our neighbours etc. She asked for wisdom to say his word, the right word, at the right time.

Jody also saw a white arum lily, huge but perfect with beautiful, waxy petals. She saw that each of us is perfectly formed and very beautiful, and she understood that we are be ourselves like that during the coming week. People will be drawn to his beauty in us. She shared a word from the Lord, 'You are to go out and invite them in. You are not to reject the world but you are to go out into it and bless them.'

Rachael also spoke out his words, 'The place where I am is like a raging forest fire. It purifies you, and it leaves behind the ash. Go out into the world and share the love and life that is in you - it will not come back empty'.

We shared the bread and wine together, his body broken for us - but in another sense we are his body now. He is building us although we have been broken. There's a kind of symmetry here - his body was whole and became broken, but now we who are his body and were broken are becoming whole. It is a mystery.

In old covenant times the Jews believed that the life of an animal was in the blood, so when the blood was let out in sacrifice, it was the life that was being poured out. So when we share the wine representing his blood, we also share the wine in its other meaning representing his life. And because in reality too we have a share in his blood poured out for us, so we also have a very real share in his life.

Up, up and away!

Yesterday was a very special day. Elon Musk's company, SPACEX, launched a small rocket and carried a dummy payload into Earth orbit. So why is that special? Here's why - it's a major change from government funded space programmes to private spaceflight. SPACEX is a privately owned company, and they achieved this all by themselves.

I was so excited that I mailed a congratulatory message to the company, here's what I wrote...

To everyone at SPACEX and Elon in particular. Well done everybody, this is a great day for spaceflight and space exploration. In fact it's a major turning point that will go down in history. On Sunday 28th September 2008 private individuals running a private business have a space programme!

From this day forward, spaceflight is no longer the domain of governments and big business alone. Cheaper orbital access is coming with the Falcon family and in a few years with Dragon - first for cargo, then for astronauts. This is fundamentally different from major aerospace companies launching communications and weather satellites. Why? Because they are in it to use expensive technology developed by or for government programmes. The days of cutting edge at high price are coming to an end, to be replaced by routine at budget prices.

SPACEX - you have changed the world... er, I mean space!

Congratulations!

The company - Elon Musk had already run several highly successful startup ventures including PayPal. He has spent some of the proceeds on innovative technology startups like Tesla Motors and Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX).

SpaceX has designed and built Falcon 1 from scratch, it is intended to be cheap to operate, mainly reusable (the first stage is designed for recovery, the second stage is expendable), and simple. Simplicity is really the key, a simple design is likely to be both cheaper and more reliable than a complex design.

The successful flight - After three launch failures, the fourth attempt resulted in a smooth ride to orbit. Falcon 1 has shown it can do the job and the next flight in early 2009 is expected to loft a Malaysian satellite.

This will begin a revenue stream for SpaceX and put the company on track for eventual growth. Meanwhile, 2009 should also see the first flight of Falcon 9, a much larger and more powerful launcher.

Meanwhile, although the first success placed only a dummy payload into orbit, it did so accurately and without incident. The icing on the cake was that the second stage engine was successfully restarted while in orbit, something SpaceX hoped to achieve, but not necessarily on such an early flight.

The future - Falcon 1, Falcon 9, and perhaps Falcon 9 Heavy will meet the same requirements as other launchers already in the market place, but they'll do it at perhaps a third of the price. This suggests that SpaceX may be a name to watch, they might be able to clean up, taking over a large part of the space launch business.

Not only that, the company is building a cargo delivery craft, Dragon, which will launch on Falcon 9 and is also expected to fly in 2009. And a passenger version is already under development and may fly in 2010, carrying up to seven astronauts to the International Space Station (ISS).

As if even that is not enough, the launch manifest for 2011 has a Falcon 9 booked for Bigelow Aerospace who plan to orbit their third inflatable habitat, Sundancer. It will be the first privately developed and launched craft capable of use as a manned space outpost. Bigelow already have two development systems in orbit, Genesis I and Genesis II, both are still in operation and returning images and other data at the time of writing.

In other words, SpaceX and Bigelow taken together represent the beginnings of private, manned, orbital spaceflight. Now that really is exciting!

See also: Dragon readies for launch