Rent "Rent"...

Last night, I finally got around to something I’ve been meaning to do for a good while. You may not know, but I have a minor (and I say “minor”, but mean fairly major…) love of musicals. So, I took a night to watch the movie “Rent”. It finished in the wee hours of this morning, and yet, since then, I haven’t been able to shake it off me.


In case you don’t know what this stage-musical-turned-movie is about, it’s the story of a year in the life of 8 friends at the end of the 1980’s in New York. There are many issues that this film deals with, we see them struggling with addiction, death, sex, drugs, disease, relationships and more, all in the space of 525, 600 minutes…

The thing that strikes me is that this is a world that is so far removed from my own, and probably from most of you that are reading this right now. You might be thinking “Thank goodness!” and I suppose in some ways, I’m thinking that too… And yet, the picture that keeps coming back to me is an image of Jesus, this Jesus who we assume we know, a Jesus whom we think fits into this neatly packaged box we have created for Him, and this Jesus I see is sitting somewhere that I wouldn’t expect. The Jesus of the Bible, the true Jesus who we are encouraged to pretend didn’t exist more often than not, is a Jesus who sat with the tax-collectors, the leprous, the prostitutes, the outcasts and the despised.

These are the people Jesus spent His time with. And, I’m pretty sure as I watched Rent last night that, were Jesus here today, those people who were on the screen were the ones He would be sitting with. The drunk, the addicted, the HIV+.

There’s a whole world out there that we from our pedestals call “the marginalised”, literally millions, if not billions of people living with these questions on their lips:

“Will I lose my dignity,
Will someone care?
Will I wake tomorrow
From this nightmare?”

“Will I” From Rent
(watch it on http://youtube.com/watch?v=2FKJhKwDaTQ I’d advise it! Great song…)

The challenge? As the family of God, our job isn’t to sit in our churches, Bible colleges and houses and read about the love of God, to theorize about what it means to be “Jesus with skin on”. The challenge for us is to DO it. To take this message of the love of Jesus to these “marginalised”, because, the truth is, in Jesus’ eyes, there’s no such thing as an “outsider”.

While not what I would call an “easy watch” by any means, if you feel like you need to be inspired to see this world through some different eyes, I’d advise a viewing of this movie. Give me a call and I’d be glad to watch it with you.

A few pictures...

The DTS has been going great, we’re winding up to head away on outreach in about 7 weeks! It’s coming up quickly! Here’s a few photos from the last few months….

A few pictures from a retreat we took at the start of January to Bushmills on the north coast with a few other year out programs:



Some pictures from my birthday dinner:




And finally, a few shots from a recent fancy dress party we had:



You'll also be impressed to know that I won the limbo competition...that's right all 6' 4'' of me... I was as suprised as anyone! Note the shock on Erin's face behind me in this next picture! Oh yeah....i went to the party as a picnic...in case you couldn't tell....

A Retraction...

Am I allowed to do this? Days after writing that last blog entry, I was asked to put together a talk on something that was pretty close to my thinking and heart at the time. The title of the talk was:

“Disciples & Ambassadors: In & Out of Season”

While putting this talk together, I realised that a lot of the stuff I said in that last blog, I don’t necessarily agree with anymore. The biggest thing that struck me is that I really don’t think there is this mysterious question of “What can I do differently?” Sure, I’m sure there’s something that I’m doing that I could be doing better, but the point seems to be that I was looking for an easy way out. A way to “do” spirituality that was easy for me, and really made me want to engage all the time, a way that was never difficult or found me struggling from time to time.

I think in this time of preparation for this talk I realised something, and it’s something I think I’ve always known, but have also always struggled with! The Christian walk is not an easy one. It’s not one in which we can wander through life on this perpetual cloud of happiness, always feeling like we’re on top of the world, and if I try to make it this, then I’m pulling the wool over my eyes.

I think the challenge for me right now is to figure out how to have a good relationship with God all the time, whether I’m in one of these good seasons and times of my life, or in the middle of a bad one.

I distinctly remember a few times over the last six or seven years when I just couldn’t get inspired to read the Bible. I’d go into town and into one or the other Christian bookshops and see a new Bible, in a different cover, whether it had some cool new name or a shiny metallic cover. I would think to myself, “If I had THAT Bible, I would read it every day!” I was thinking that I’d be so inspired to read it because it looked cool. But the thing was that I would get home, and a few days later, the book that had seemed so new and exciting had now just become normal, my “new Bible” had just become one of a growing collection sitting in a pile gathering dust.

So where am I going with this? I think it all comes down to the fact of what do I value? More than anything I value relationship with God. But the sad truth is that I am a human being, made of flesh, and the flesh that I inhabit on this earth struggles sometimes with what my spirit longs to be doing.

There are no easy answers here. There’s no magical way I can click my fingers and suddenly find the perfect way to have relationship with God. Rather, it’s going to take perseverance, commitment and dedication to this goal. The very least I can say about this is that I’m willing to give it a go.



You should also know that I went bowling with the youth group I help out at the other night. While we were there, I realised that this “new” way of bowling I told you about last time wasn’t all that great after all. I think I was happier (if not a little bit better) in my ignorance of the past 23 years!

Ten-pin bowling...with a lesson

A fellow YWAM staffer on the base here, Ramy, and I, can quite often be found in ‘Glengormley Superbowl’ on a Monday or Tuesday, when they have a “two for one” bowling offer on those days. It’s a good time of getting away for night out, and a chance to talk through our weeks and what’s going on in our lives.

This past week opened my eyes to something I did not know.

Apparently for the last 22 (nearly 23 for anyone who’s counting ☺) years of my life, I have been bowling the wrong way! I have always wondered how people manage to get so much power behind the bowling ball, and always blamed my lack of dedication to an upper body weights routine! But, I realised this week it’s because I have been bowling (try to imagine this…) throwing the ball with the back of my hand pointed towards the pins, instead of my palm facing upwards after I let go of the ball.

Hopefully that makes sense. But if not, it doesn’t really matter! Long story short, I’ve been bowling wrong, and there’s a much better way to do it! I discovered a way that seems to work a lot better, a way that provides me with a lot better chance of getting rid of those pesky pins.

In the same way, I’ve realised that I’m on a bit of a hunt for a new way of doing “relationship” with God. For a lot of my life, my relationship with God has been, for lack of a better word, “cyclical”. I am generally hot or cold in my interaction with our creator, either finding it hard to escape from his presence and the knowledge that he is closer than the air around us, or else, finding it hard to imagine he’s there at all.

I’m not sure why this is, but I know that this isn’t the way God intended His relationship with us to be. One thing I know for sure is that it doesn’t have anything to do with God, no matter what we do, he doesn’t desert us, or leave us abandoned to ourselves. So that leaves me to the conclusion that it must have something to do with the way I’m relating to Him.

What, the question is, can I do differently?

That’s a question I’m not quite able to answer just yet I don’t think! I’m trying to explore God in new ways, discover Him in places I didn’t expect. I think a big part of this journey is seeing God in every aspect of my life. If I try to compartmentalise my life, saying “this is the ‘God’ part and this is ‘my’ bit” then I’m leaving Him out of something pretty serious. God doesn’t want a part of our life, he wants our everything, but this is something that’s pretty easy to say and can be difficult to put into practice!

As for now, I realise that there’s so much more to explore about my relationship with God. I realise I don’t have it sorted, and I doubt (in fact I’m SURE) I won’t have it sorted this side of eternity. But one thing I’m sure about is that there are ways of meeting God that I haven’t explored, and these are the ones I’m interested in. Seeing God in new places and experiencing Him in ways I didn’t think I could!

Here’s to 22 years of bowling like an eejit, and 22 more of discovering that there’s so much more to God than what we see or know now.

Snow and a Retreat

Last Thursday night brought us the gift of snow! We had a great time playing in the snow with our students and introducing our South African student, Precious, to snow, which she’d never seen before! (I introduced her by putting a full snowball down her back…I’m working to getting her to forgive me for that one!) Our mature years also didn’t stop us from engaging in an impromptu snowball fight with some of the neighbourhood kids.

Here’s some pictures from our side of the city:




The snow continued through the night, and I later found out that our area of Belfast saw a particularly deep snowfall.



This made for a decision to be made concerning our staff retreat which was scheduled to happen in the other YWAM base in Northern Ireland, Closkelt.

Closkelt is situated in the middle of the countryside just outside of Banbridge, which we assumed would make an interesting drive in this weather! It went ahead though, and we were surprised to see the snow having melted mostly outside of Belfast and the country relatively green again!


YWAM Closkelt

We were in Closkelt for only one night, but it was a great time of fellowship between the two bases, and a chance for us to get onto the same page and vision for the future of YWAM in Northern Ireland and further afield.

The vision of Jonny, our national director was that these two bases would be 2 parts of a greater family, and it feels like this is taking place through these meetings we’re having and time spent building up something special between our two bases.

Outreach: Both Big & Little “Oh”

On the DTS we have 2 forms of outreach on the programme, the local outreaches we do here in Belfast on a weekly basis during the lecture phase (known as “Little O”) and the big outreach phase which takes place the few months immediately following the lecture phase (“Big O”).

We started local outreach just before Christmas, two of our students (Meg & Kyle) and I are working with the Belfast Education & Library Board detached youth workers on the Shankill to meet and talk to young people in the area who are unconnected with youth centres or organisations…more on this in the future, when we’ve done it a bit more! But this blog is all about Big O!

I now know where I’m going to be going in April and May of this year! Drum-roll please…….I’m going to Rwanda and Burundi! We are splitting into two teams on the DTS and one team is going to Rwanda/Burundi (Team ‘RnB’) while the other team is going to India!

There’s a pretty interesting story behind India, so I’ll give you the low-down on Rwanda & Burundi after that…

Before coming back on staff with YWAM Belfast, for the last year of Bible College, I felt myself developing a heart for India, God seemed to be putting it in my path fairly frequently, I kept meeting people from India, missionaries who had been there and having issues relating to India laying heavily on me. I wasn’t sure what this meant, or why it was happening, because I knew that YWAM Belfast had never been to India before on an outreach and I hadn’t heard any rumour that one was planned! So I was confused as to why God seemed to be calling me to YWAM and also putting this seemingly contradictory calling on my heart. But, as per usual, He knows what He’s doing…

I arrived on the staff retreat, and was talking to Erin and while talking we realised that we had both been feeling the same things for that area of the world, me for India, her for Pakistan. We decided to explore it more. When Erin was praying with another member of staff, she independently of Erin also said “Why don’t we go to India for outreach?” We then, months later discovered that a Sri Lankan member of staff had been quietly praying for the year that this DTS outreach would go to India, she hadn’t told anyone, and she hadn’t tried to manipulate the situation. She just prayed and waited for God to work. And it seems He did!

So, you may be asking…. “Why aren’t YOU going to India, Tom?” And believe me…this is a question I was asking myself and God a lot in the run up to Christmas. I was so excited when I found out that we decided to go to India, that I was sure I was going. I had my mind made up! But the thing was, I didn’t stop to say to God, “I know you put India on my heart, but is it THIS India trip that you want me on?” I just powered through, having decided myself that this was the right time!

So, when we started praying as staff about which outreach location we should go to (Rwanda/Burundi or India) I was pretty surprised to hear that God seemed to be telling me to go to Rwanda & Burundi! So, to cut a long story short (if only this was my motto all of the time!) I realised that the timing for India being on my heart was for group confirmation that we should be going there…I think India lies in my future somewhere, but it’s up to God to bring it back into my life somehow!

The exciting thing about the India team is that the ONLY reason they are going there is because God has directed. It was never in our planning to take a team to India, it was never in the over-arching plan of YWAM Belfast, but only because God spoke and led us there are we going. This has some pretty exciting ramifications. The team going there can know that, regardless of the hard times they will no doubt face, they are there on a very much God-ordained trip. They know that they are there for a reason, and that God has a very specific purpose for them while in India. Watch this space for more news of the India team!

BUT, in other news, I realise I sound pretty excited about India, and I’m not even GOING there! (Yet! ☺) But, where I AM going is Rwanda & Burundi.

These two countries are right in the middle of Africa as you can see below, you might need to put some glasses on to see them! They are the two red countries in the middle of all the green!


Below you can see the two countries a bit closer up!


On the DTS group going here, we’re a small team of 5 students and 3 staff members. One of our students has been to Burundi 4 times before, and has plans to stay there long-term in the future, so this is an exciting trip to see roots going down and potential for ministries stretching not just 2 months but into the future!

There is a lot of stuff to consider as we start planning an outreach to these two countries. I don’t know how much of the history you know of these countries, but both of them have been torn by internal and ethnic war over the last 15 years, and the hurt still runs deep within the people there, so it’s an intimidating place to be going into, but exciting, because of the potential for seeing God working in healing in the people. On our team we are all aware of the need for God to be at the centre of our group and the ministry we do there. We can do nothing in these countries without our God to strengthen and guide us. The challenge is in remembering this throughout all the time!

On a personal note, I’m going to be leading this team of 8 people to these countries, something that I haven’t done before. It’s quite a big prospect for me to undertake, so I would very much appreciate your prayers as we start to put our team together, to bond, and prepare ourselves for our adventure and whatever God has planned for us!

There’ll be much more on these countries over the next few months, but if you’re after some reading, check out these sites for a bit more history on these two beautiful countries

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burundi & http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rwanda

Pre-Christmas Catch Up (Somewhat belated...)

I’m sitting here on my bed at home, full up after two consecutive turkey-dinner eating days, and realising that I should probably make good on my promise to catch this site up on what’s been happening!

When last we talked…. we had just gotten back from Harpenden and our lectures with their DTS. We came back straight into a week of “Forgiveness Training” with the other YWAM ministry here in Belfast. They were training us in how to lead other people in the Forgiveness journey, and how to teach it in schools. On the Tuesday of this week we had an opportunity to go into a school and lead a class in discussion and thinking on this subject which was a good experience, and just a small window into the great work that the guys are doing here working in schools.

This week was also very much charicterised with a great gift in my life... My very good friend Jessica who i went to college with for 2 years at Belfast Bible College was in Belfast for a visit! She was welcomed with open arms into the YWAM Belfast community, staying with us for the week. Jessica is one of my best friends and having her here was a real blessing, it's been funny telling her all about this place I'm living in now and the people I'm sharing my life with with her not having met or seen it! So it was nice to introduce her and give her a taste of Shankill living!

Below are some pictures from her visit...I feel I need to apologise, i think there's at least one picture (and I think you'll be able to guess which one) she told me specifically not to put up here...and yet, here i go.... Aww well, she'll forgive me! (I hope!)

This is not Jessica's usual look! It was a special one night only thing...but i think it suits her!


Jessica, me and a good friend from Dublin Karen spent a weekend on the North Coast. For some reason, this is a tradition of ours when we get together, a picture with toothbrushes! (Mum...I hope you're proud!)


Jessica and I headed down to the City Hall to check out the "Belfast Eye"


It felt like the week was over before it began! Went by pretty quickly...but it was nice to spend a good bit of time with some good friends.

We then were straight into a week of lecture with another “year out” group, also based in Belfast, called the “Sword of the Spirit”, and again these lectures were on Reconciliation. But interestingly from two different angles. A representative from S.O.S. (Sword of the Spirit), Bruce Yocum, spoke for the first few days on the theological and Biblical basis on reconciliation and ecumenicalism working itself out, while our very own Jonny Clark from YWAM NI took on the last few days speaking on how these two issues can work in a practical way.

The following and last before Christmas week, (sorry! I’m powering through these to get through everything!) saw a move in a different direction for the DTS, up until now, it has been quite intellectual in content, using our heads a lot, but the emphasis for the next few lecture weeks is really going to be on the heart, trying to learn by encountering God in his deity and grow spiritually, not just in our brains. So, to start us off on this journey, Jonny gave lectures on the “Father heart of God”, leading us in discussion and meditation on God’s love for us and how it mirrors that of a father for a child. There was a lot more to it than this (but you’ll have to do a DTS to find out what! ☺) Then the week was finished off by two visiting speakers called Andrew & Nice Bowers, who came to speak on “Original Design”, basically the premise being that we have been created to be someone pretty specific, God did not just throw us together and hope for the best, but he has an exact and beautiful design for each of us, but the problem is that oftentimes we don’t believe it, we lose sight of what this is, or else never actually discover it in the first place! Andrew and Nice walked us through this topic, and spent a lot of their time (including their time off) praying with each of us individually and seeking God as to what He designed us to be.

The lecture times are really some of the pivotal moments on a DTS, and we have been very much blessed so far this year with committed speakers who very much value the students that we have and inputing into their lives. And on the flipside, the students have been appreciating what it is that the lecturers bring to the table, fresh ideas and wisdom gained from years of actually getting out there and doing the things that they are talking about, serving God in very practical ways and getting to know Him intimately through this.

One exciting thing though is that it’s not all classroom on this DTS, there’s very much an opportunity for our students to practice what they are learning. In the next blog, I’ll be letting you in on some exciting news about outreach!