How Cool Is That?

 First lets clear up the Copyright Info:

A friend on mine, by the name of Dr John Dempster, lives in Inverness, Scotland. He writes a weekly piece called Christian Viewpoint for a group of local secular newspapers. He also very kindly sends me a copy.

I asked his permission to share some of these and he replied saying that as long as it states First Published in the Highland News Group of Newspapers then I have permission.

Remember these are written for a group of secular newspapers. Pray that they will bless the readers who may have no other Christian input in their lives.

This week his piece is called

HOW COOL IS THAT:

‘How cool is that?’ Lindsay said. Preaching at the Culduthel Christian Centre a couple of Sundays ago, she described receiving a powerful sense late one night that she should pray for someone she knew. As she prayed, she became aware of a strong impression that there were certain specific thinks God wanted her to say to this man.

‘Help me not to be able to find him if I’ve got it wrong and you don’t really want me to say this to him,’ she asked God next morning. But she did meet her friend, and courageously passed on the words she’d been given. When she’d finished, he told her that the night before a family crisis had prompted him to ask questions about whether God might after all be real. And then hours later there was Lindsay with a relevant word she said God had given her for him.

How cool is that?

Lindsay Howie, who works in Inverness with Youth for Christ was speaking about her commitment to sharing the good news that God reaches out in love through Jesus Christ, and about her conviction that all of us as Christians are called to communicate that love in action and in word to those around us.

As Christians we believe God is always present when we meet as a church, yet sometimes he seems to draw particularly close. That morning he spoke through an ordinary young woman and his presence was powerfully felt. I think Christians who want to be useful to God can profitably ask whether there’s anything we can learn from Lindsay, whether anything about her particular approach to sharing the Bible’s teaching made it easy for God to work through her.

Firstly, there was her willingness to say ‘Yes!’ when invited to preach, despite the fact that when she was asked some weeks before she wasn’t feeling at all close to God. In addressing us therefore, she was not self-confident, but God-confident, humbly sharing a message she believed God had entrusted to her.
Then there was her readiness to share her own story. Lindsay described how, just after her father died when she was a teenager, she found herself calling out to God although she had no religious background or church connections. As she prayed that first ‘Are you there, God?’ prayer, she felt an inner peace and wholeness. The very next day she was telling people at school enthusiastically about God despite knowing so little about him. Lindsay’s words that Sunday had power because she shared the evidence of personal encounters with God.

Thirdly, Lindsay willingly used the gifts God has given her. Energy, joy, passion, and humour were much in evidence – Lindsay’s a gifted communicator. But more specifically it seems she has the God-given ability to hear from him specific things to speak into people’s lives. After the service that Sunday she spoke with a friend of mine, telling him things which she could not possibly have known by natural means, so that her words assured him of God’s presence and concern.

Another reason why God was able to take ownership of Lindsay’s words was her honesty about her pain. She described a period of time recently when she lost any sense of God’s presence and struggled to keep believing. Her natural instinct as a Christian youth worker was to keep the pain of God’s absence a secret from those around her, but she discovered that when you’re real about your brokenness, God can work through you to heal others. And it’s often in helping others that you yourself once again catch glimpses of God’s love.

A final reason I believe we found Lindsay’s words refreshingly real was the simple fact that she’s a woman. Most sermons are preached by men, who may have a deep intellectual understanding of Christian faith and life, but don’t always possess the sensitivity and depth of empathy which are instinctive in many women. We often refer to God as ‘he’, but of course God is neither male nor female, and we believe that the divine personality includes the full range of masculine and feminine characteristics. That Sunday, as a woman, Lindsay was able to give voice to the feminine side of God, to God’s gentleness, sensitivity and compassionate love.

Christians believe that just as God spoke through Lindsay, so he can make himself real to others through each of us. We each have a story to tell, a faith to share, God-given gifts to use. We can each ask God for the strength to be courageous and honest and real. And if we feel we don’t yet have a story of personal encounter with God that story can begin today, for God’s love is calling out to us.

How cool is that?

John A. H. Dempster
First Published in the Highland News Group of Newspapers

__________________
Ray.

ENJOY A RENT FREE HOLIDAY WITH

Christian House Sitters

www.christian-housesitters.com

Please help us to spread the message

Hi,

I realise that this may be a slightly unusual blog entry but I am hoping that some of my readers may be able to assist me.

The Christian House Sitters service is becoming well known in a lot of the English speaking countries. Places like the UK, USA, Canada, South Africa, Australia and New Zealand. For obvious reasons it is much harder getting known in the countries where the main language is not English.

If, therefore, you have any contacts would you mind telling them about us?

Naturally feel free to spread the word to Christians and churches in English speaking countries as well.

At the moment we are really needing more houses in Europe. So if you have contact with Christians or churches please pass on the news.

Not sure what to say?

Here is a suggestion:

Christian House Sitters is an internet based service.
Christians who want to take a holiday and need someone to look after their home and or pets can register.
Christians who need a break can register.
Christian House Sitters will bring the two halves together.
This way many Christians who could not afford a holiday will be enabled to take a break and see other countries.

HOUSE SITTERS
Will benefit by being able to have short or long breaks in their own country or abroad.
Their only expense will be the actual cost of travelling to and from the destination.
They will know that they are helping another Christian and that when they arrive they will be introduced to the home owners Church and Christian friends.

HOUSE OWNERS
Will benefit from being able to leave their home and animals in the care of a Christian having confidence that they will love the animals and care for the property honestly.
They will also know that you are helping another Christian to have a holiday.
They have the added security of being able to ask prospective House Sitters for a reference from their Church leaders.
Their only expenses are the normal gas and electricity charges
House Sitters normally cover their own telephone costs
Using someone from this site means that they will save money.
In the UK having someone to look after pets costs an average of £200 per week.
The majority of us can’t afford that.
Also if one hires a sitter through an agency they select the person. You have no idea who you are letting into your home.
The site includes a suggested agreement for the parties to sign. This offers additional security.
Using this service they are able to make contact with potential sitters and prayerfully select the right person or people. 

Full Details: www.christian-housesitters.com

Email:  manager@christian-housesitters.com

Houses come in groups. Most Odd.

People often say that you can wait ages for a bus then four arrive at the same time.

I did not realise that the same principal applied to houses. They seem to go through fashions. For a period we seemed to only get houses in the UK. Then for no apparent reason this changed to the USA. Now we are in our Down Under phase.

We have had a whole bunch of people list their houses in Australia and in New Zealand. 

In fact the last 2 houses we listed on the site came from the same town in New Zealand. Most odd.

I am not complaining there are some really fabulous properties. If it was not so expensive to get there from England I must admit that I would be very tempted to take some of them myself.

We have got houses near the Great Barrier Reef, houses with magnificent views, houses where the owners are even saying that they will leave a car for the house sitters to use, houses with pets and again some houses with no pets to look after.

Naturally we are still getting houses elsewhere. I have just looked at the site to double check because naturally the list changes almost daily. New properties are added and existing places find a suitable house sitter.

Today we have properties in, as I said, New Zealand and Australia but also in South Africa, America, Spain, England and Scotland.

Why not come over to the site and have a look around.

We may be able to help you find a sitter for your home when you next have a holiday or we may be able to help you have a rent free holiday somewhere nice.

Ray

Christian House Sitters

www.christian-housesitters.com

The world is full of odd people

I thought that I would share some of the strange requests and questions that we have received at Christian House Sitters.

These all came from people who had visited our web site and sent their messages from the site.

If I am doing Christian House Sitting will they still insist that I get a passport to travel to ……….(name of country)?

I was tempted to reply by saying. No all the world govenrments know me and so they do not expect a passport from anyone I have approved.

Your house sitters look after pets as well. Please can you find me a puppy for my son? It is his birthday next week. 

I was tempted to ask if they wanted me to get one of our sitters to steal a puppy.

How many houses will you have in ……….(name of country) next August?

I was tempted to reply. Sorry but my prophetic  powers do not extend to that

Can you help me get a job in America?

This person wanted me to arrange a Green Card, and then get her a job. When I asked why she had approached me she replied that it was because she is  Christian.

There have been loads more but this small selection will give you the flavour. In some ways these messages are great. They provide Marilyn and I with a good laugh in the middle of an often busy day. The tricky part is crafting a suitable reply without upsetting the person who sent us the question.

Having said all this I am delighted to say that 99% of the folk who contact us are great. We have, as a result, got some wonderful houses all over the world.

God bless you,

Ray

www.christian-housesitters.com

Australia. House Sit.

Once again it is a pleasure to highlight yet another house on the Christian House Sitters website.

Just think what it would cost to rent somewhere like this for your holiday. Then realise it is available fre of charge as are so many other fabulous houses.

This one is in Austrlia

Location:  AUSTRALIA Near to Mackay Queensland

Dates: 15th Dec to 31st Dec 2007

Brief Details: 

Close to Mackay, Queensland, Australia. This is a 3 bedroom,comfortable house with 10 foot ceilings (3mtrs), tongue and groove walls.
The carport is covered, but not attached to the house.
There is a large kitchen, with a good sized pantry, dish washer, large fridge and plenty of bench space.
The bathroom has a lovely bathtub and plenty of cupboard space for towels/bed linen, etc.
The house is very close to the GORGEOUS Whitsunday Islands and the Great Barrier Reef situated on an 800m2 block in the heart of the MAGNIFICENT Pioneer Valley, with stunning views of the nearby Great Dividing Range, sugar cane fields and the Pioneer River .
The Pioneer Valley, apart from being one of the richest sugar cane growing areas in Australia, is by far one of the most picturesque valleys in Australia. Travelling through this fertile valley, you will discover a community steeped in pioneering history. The Valley encompasses many quaint townships and Australia’s largest continuous stretch of sub tropical rainforest Eungella National Park.

Know as ‘The Natural Way’, the trip along Eungella road through the Pioneer Valley to Eungella National Park is a unique destination with many varying attractions, activities and townships to view along the way.
Platypus often frolic in the river which is just a hop, skip and a jump from the front door.

NON SMOKERS.
Pet friendly people (They have two dogs and three cats all whom are very affectionate)
Young/retired/families all welcome
 

For full details see www.christian-housesitters.com.

RUNWAY TO ETERNITY

A friend on mine, by the name of Dr John Dempster, lives in Inverness, Scotland. He writes a weekly piece called Christian Viewpoint for a group of local secular newspapers. He also very kindly sends me a copy.

I asked his permission to share some of these and he replied saying that as long as it states First Published in the Highland News Group of Newspapers then I have permission.

Remember these are written for a group of secular newspapers. Pray that they will bless the readers who may have no other Christian input in their lives.

This week his piece is called

Runway To Eternity

Every evening for 43 years regardless of the weather Robert Flockhart stood in the street in the heart of Edinburgh and despite considerable opposition in the early days, uncompromisingly preached the Christian message. This month sees the 150th anniversary of his death in September 1857.

On the day he died, Flockhart had a visit from Dr Thomas Guthrie, a well-known Edinburgh minister. The dying man’s face was ‘radiant’, Guthrie tells us. ‘I’m sorry to see you laid low,’ he said to the invalid.

Born near Glasgow in 1778, Robert Flockhart had joined the army as a young man, and served overseas. He led a dissolute life until his conversion to the Christian faith while he was in India in around 1810.

He was an undoubted eccentric, and may have had mental health issues, and he acknowledged that sometimes he spoke unwisely. But the genuineness of his faith was beyond question, and living in Edinburgh following his discharge from the army he set up a school, visited hospitals and prisons and preached in the open air outside St Giles Cathedral with passionate sincerity.

Guthrie confesses that in saying he was sorry to see Flockhart laid low he was speaking out of his sense of regret that he was shortly to lose a friend. It would have been more appropriate, he admits, to congratulate Flockhart that with God’s help he had served Jesus Christ well, that ‘his fight was so nearly done, and the crown so nearly won.’

He goes on ‘It would be difficult to convey any idea of the delight expressed in the look and the tone with which he quickly replied “I’m going home, I’m going home.” The scene was worth a thousand sermons and would have given birth in the coldest heart to the wish “Let me die the death of the righteous, and let my last end be like his.”

Is this a faithful record of what really happened, or simply an over-dramatised Victorian death-bed scene? Well, at the weekend I was talking to a friend whose father had just died in Edinburgh at the end of a long and fruitful Christian life with a confidence identical to Flockhart’s. As well as the inevitable feelings of loss, my friend spoke of his sense of triumph that his dad could say with the Apostle Paul in the Bible ‘I have fought the good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith.’ ‘Life isn’t a dead-end,’ my friend went on. ‘It’s a runway!’

The Christian faith which gave joy, purpose and hope to my friend’s dad is the same good news which inspired Robert Flockhart. It begins with a warning – that we are by nature far from God, alienated from him, lost. But God forgives us and draws us to himself when we quit trying to sort out our own lives, and instead allow him to set us free. Flockhart describes abandoning all his attempts to make himself good enough for God in the picturesque phrase ‘I let all my doings fall to the ground.’

He used the picture of sewing with needle and thread to describe the message he preached. You can’t sew with thread alone – the needle must go first and prepare the way. Similarly, he said, it is the piercing, unwelcome message of human sinfulness which prepares hearts to receive God’s forgiving love.

Another picture describes what we receive when we are open to God. ‘In tropical countries’, Flockhart said ‘I’ve seen trees whose fruit seemed as if it wanted to drop into your mouth, it was so rich and ripe.’ For him, reading the Bible was like sitting in the shade of a fruit-laden tree while God said ‘Open your mouth wide, and I will fill it.’

God’s forgiveness is one fruit. Another is God’s loving acceptance of us. Yet another God’s presence in us, helping us live for him. There are many such fruits: the one we eat last of all is a forever spent with God.

My friend tells me that that last day he shared with his father – walking in the late summer sunshine, eating together, visiting in hospital, watching television – couldn’t have been more perfect. Then in the evening, as they chatted at home about something inconsequential, my friend’s father collapsed. He died in hospital shortly afterwards.

Death does not come to all of us so easily, and yet Christian faith enables us to approach it with confidence and hope. Last week an old man found his fingers placed around the final fruit. ‘I saw him come to the end of the runway. I saw him take off,’ my friend told me, his eyes filling with tears. ‘And I miss him, of course I miss him, but John it was thrilling.’

John A. H. Dempster

First Published in the Highland News Group of Newspapers

__________________

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CHRISTIAN HOUSE SITTERS

http://www.christian-housesitters.com