We looked tonight at how the church sells itself to newcomers, and how people make money from selling things to Christians, including the Church Copyright License which churches buy to cover the copyright for songs they sing.

Several of the classy items we showed can be seen here at Gadgets for God. A selection here, for D, C and K...




This week's challenge is to make a clever church sign using www.churchsigngenerator.com. Either email them to us please, (there's a link on the main runway page) or put them on the blog yourselves.

Anyone look familiar on the poster for the Circuit Youth service in July...?
Don't worry - it's only going up in all our churches, so your mates won't see it. Unless... that's an idea - maybe I'll head over to Malbank, St Thomas Moore and Shavington High later on today... Just kidding! ;o)

As it's half term week, it was film night this evening (new tradition). We watched the slightly controversial film Saved!, about the lives of teenagers in a Christian school in America. It showed how Christians can have a superficial faith, and how true belief can be developed by difficult circumstances.

The challenge this week is to fill out the booklet of questions about your response to the issues raised in the film.

A HUGE well done to all of you who managed to do the World Vision 24 Hour Famine. About half of you kept quiet all day (apart from C who apparently spoke either one or two words depending on who you ask...) with only notebooks to communicate. Feedback from parents (enjoying the rare peace and quiet) was very positive, with more than one suggesting we do it more than once a year.

A big well done to the other half who fasted all day. It sounds like it was tough! The pic's of J at the end of his fast (looks a bit faint to me).

I'll let you know how much was raised, but we're so pleased with all your hard work, as the group total should be really impressive. World Vision will be sending us special certificates for our highest fund raisers (Well done G & J!)

Your hard work will be really appreciated by people in need in the Third World - you should feel really proud of yourselves. :o)

Tonight we talked about the Holy Spirit - who he is and what he does. We discussed the fruits of the Spirit, which everyone who is a follower of Christ develops throughout their life: love, joy, peace, patience, gentleness, self control, faithfulness, kindness and goodness. We acted out four of these in small groups, and the rest had to identify the fruit. Special mention must go to K's portrayal of an orange-tempter - how did J resist?

We also looked at the gifts of the Spirit - not necessarily for everyone, it is up to God who gets what, but you can ask him! The gifts are: wisdom, knowledge, faithfulness, miraculous powers, healing, prophecy, discernment of spirits, speaking in tongues and interpreting tongues.

We also talked about how people sometimes encounter the Holy Spirit in charismatic worship services.

Here are some photos of the little sketches, taken by A.



This week's challenge is to spot and remember a scene in a TV programme or film you watch in the week in which one the characters demonstrates one of the fruits of the Spirit.

We thought tonight about how suffering happens to us all at some point in our life, and a few ideas of how to cope when things go wrong.

Firstly, bad things do happen to Christians - we’re not promised pain free, happy healthy lives. Roughly the same proportion of Christians wear glasses, have strokes or get leukemia as non-believers, and exactly 100% of them die of something. The Bible says several times that trouble will come our way at some point - here’s the reference we used this evening.

It’s not the person's fault when bad accidents happen - Jesus said so when he talked about eighteen people killed by a collapsing tower, a local disaster that would have been on everyone’s mind. When things go wrong in your life, the last thing you need is to feel that you’ve somehow brought it on yourself. Bad things just happen sometimes.

The Bible also tells us that when we suffer, it can make us stronger characters, and also helps us to be more understanding when our friends have tough times of their own.

Finally we reflected on the promise in the book of Revelation that one day it will be okay, that pain and suffering and death will be no more. It's hard to hang on to when you're in the middle of a rough time, but it is the truth.

'God promises a safe arrival, but not a smooth journey'.