SPIN LIKE THE WIND-the blog of Nigel James.

REVELATION TOUR-2 WEEKS IN.

Highlights of the tour so far:

* Discovering PANDORA radio-courtesy of Mark Lee. It's like the Genius feature on iTunes but it's streamed from the web. You can type in a band and then have hours of their music or music of a similar vein.

*Consistently high numbers of World Vision children sponsored each night.

*Catching up with Jeremiah Lacoille and members of HolyFire ministry in New England. 'Miah used to intern at Ignite a few years back.

*The concert at Geof Barkley's church- he used to play keyboards for Third Day. Mac invited him onstage for one more song-a heartwarming moment.

*Scotty Wilbanks-the current keyboard player- performing the next song wearing an LSU tee-shirt as a tribute to Geof who was never seen onstage without some LSU merchandise on.

*Hearing Geof talk about him fostering an 8 year old boy called David.

*Watching the movie Paul Blart:Mall Cop  with Mark and Stephanie Lee. Low expectations but found myself laughing out loud a lot!

*A longer than usual Bible study and prayer time with the band on the subject of Living in the presence of God. You can follow the devotions on my road pastor blog.

*Listening to Surrey v. Yorkshire pre-season cricket match online from the United Arab Emirates ( how sad am I?)

*Catching up with Mike Winegeart from ACU who drove to the Fort Worth concert to see me.

*The agony of following Wales v. Ireland rugby online/by text message. 

*Visiting First Baptist Church of Hattiesburg, Mississippi, where Mac Powell and Mark Lee led worship at both morning services. They wheeled me out to pray at the end of each service-I think people understood my accent.

*Drinking Land of a Thousand Hills coffee -a coffee shop in Atlanta frequented by David Carr and Tai Anderson from Third Day. The shop imports fairly traded coffee from a collective they have set up in Rwanda. The guys have invited Thousand Hills out on the road to give them some profile.

*David Carr getting hit bang on the nose when pitching a wiffle ball (a plastic ball with holes in) to Dave Hanbury of Revive who walloped it straight back.

* The British Commonwealth (me and the Aussie band Revive) losing 9-1 to the USA (Third Day and Brandon Heath) in the aforementioned Wiffle Ball (baseball with the plastic ball) game.

*Listening to the redemption stories of people each night- for instance a couple whose marriage was as good as over 6 months ago but the husband listened to the song 'Revelation' a few weeks ago and begged God for a fresh revelation about his marriage and his future. Now he and his wife pray together and are back in love. She was weeping as she shared this story with me, and he had a big grin on his face and a thankful heart when I met him a while later.

LEPROSY COMMUNITY.

Ever since I've been working with Pastor Prasad in India, we've made a habit of visiting a church based on a leprosy colony. We take food and clothing with us, and worship alongside these people who live in terribly difficult circumstances but who know what it means to find hope in Christ. Ignite are aiming to build a church for the colony, whilst City Temple will begin to provide clean toilet facilities in their simple homes. We also want to initiate a vaccination programme for the children living in the community.

CHOICE No. 6- Being committed to the local church.

 And let us not neglect our meeting together, as some people do, but encourage and warn each other, especially now that the day of his coming back again is drawing near. Hebrews 10.25

On the day before I leave Cardiff for 3 weeks touring with Third Day on the Revelation tour, it's a good time to look at my sixth 'good choice' in life. My whole life has been spent being involved in local church- from the one I was born into, the one I went to at university, the one I began my ministry life in and met Gill, the one we were members of for the first 10 years of our marriage, and now City Temple where we have been for the last 10 years.

It's easy to pick holes in local church, and even to fool yourself that you can live as a Christian without the fellowship of the local church. Yet once you start reading the Bible seriously you see that the local church is God's idea, it's the body of Christ on earth, and as Bill Hybels says 'it's the hope for the world today.'

I couldn't do what I do without being firmly earthed in a local church.I rejoice in the fact that when I travel to minister I'm being sent from City Temple, and that when I return I'm welcomed back to share stories of what God has been doing. There are countless times when I know I am being carried and supported by the faithful prayers of people in church, and that is an incredible comfort and privilege.

I don't really mind what expression of local church you go for- whether it's very traditional or extremely radical, but in order to fully function in the way God intended you must be involved in church.

One of the growing excitements about touring in this season with Third Day is that our concerts are often in big churches again, after a few years of only playing arenas. It's great to find out what God is doing in these local churches, and I'm making it a priority to talk to leaders and pastors, and to re-affirm their ministry in the local church.

BRECWAST GWEDDI CENEDLAETHOL CYMRU.

Two days of earlier-than-usual starts in a row for me. Tomorrow I'm on a train at 7.25am to London for the EAUK council meeting, whilst today I attended the National Prayer Breakfast of Wales at the Millennium Centre in Cardiff Bay. I sat between the chief of Police for Cardiff and Mike German-assembly member and ex-deputy first minister of Wales. I was impressed by the short speech from Paul Murphy MP-he's the Secretary of State for Wales- who focused on the rich Christian heritage of Wales and the importance of not being afraid to own up to our faith in public or private life. The main speaker was Roel Kuiper, a Senator representing the Christian Union party in the Dutch government. One fascinating comment he made was about the difference between contract and covenant. Most business transactions are based on contract, but Christians should live by covenant. Contract is legalistic, self-serving, whereas covenant is relational and highly values the interests of the other party. I'm going to explore this further- particularly with regard to the way most business is done in the Christian music industry.

2 NEW SERMONS POSTED.

I've just posted 2 recent talks that I gave at City Temple:

1. Anointed by the Holy Spirit- this was from a series of meetings called 'Deeper' which were aimed at delving deeper into the presence of God and His purposes for us. The talk focuses on the difference between an Old Testament anointing by the Spirit of God and a New Testament anointing by the Holy Spirit.

2. Confidence in Uncertain Times- this was a Sunday morning sermon and reminds us of some of the certainties that come with our Christian faith even though we may be living in uncertain times.

GATEWAY SCHOOL OPENS IN INDIA.

I'm sitting at home one day after returning from India to attend the official dedication and opening ceremony for the Gateway School. On reflection, here are my highlights:

• Having Gill accompany me, and seeing her enjoy the trip so much.
• Watching her cut the ribbon to open the school, after 3 years or so of fundraising. 
• Traveling with our friends Paul and Amy Reed. We arrived 4 days before the team from City Temple. Gill and I enjoy Paul and Amy's company very much, and they had been a consistent support in the fundraising.
• Renewing my friendship face to face with Pastor Prasad and his family- Sunee, Evangeline, Victor, Vinod, Sagar, Prabhakar...  the list goes on. 
• Having a whole trip illness free ( apart from a little too much sun one afternoon). 
• Taking the opportunity to visit some of our Ignite India churches- including the dedication service of one, and one currently under construction. 
• Playing golf with Bryon Castle and Richard Tugwell, and receiving some tuition from our new friend Silveraj- the top amateur player in India! 
• Speaking at the dedication service for the school, and preaching on this verse:    And Jesus grew in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and men.   
• Attending and speaking at the Blessings Festival on the Come Together Compound (home of the school) and seeing many people young and old become Christians, and many significant healings.
• Observing the City Temple team grow in faith and confidence as they saw God use them powerfully.
•  Praying for a young pregnant, married woman and her husband. He had infected her with HIV, and her family was unaware of this situation.
• Visiting the leprosy church that we had long been supporting, and agreeing to build an Ignite church there and also to fund toilets for each of the simple houses on site. 
• Swimming briefly in the Indian ocean on an afternoon trip to Kokanada. 
• Visiting a goat market with Prasad to buy meat to feed all who attended the opening of the school. We sent Sagar off with 3 goats in the back of an auto-rickshaw, and those goats provided enough meat to feed 500 people.
• Flying by Emirates Airlines and getting upgraded from Dubai to Hyderabad on the way out.  
• Returning to City Temple last night to show some pictures and tell some stories.  
• YOU CAN SEE A SELECTION OF PHOTOS OF THE SCHOOL OPENING IN MY PHOTOS ON THIS SITE.    
•   

India mission trip.

A full report when I arrive home but suffice to say our trip has been very rewarding. Gill has enjoyed every moment-especially the official opening of the Gateway School and visiting the leprosy church. Here's a photo of us out to dinner with Pastor Prasad and his wife Sunnee.

CHOICE No. 5- Reading Voraciously.

I've always abided by the principle that leaders are learners and that learners are readers. Therefore leaders must be readers. I've made a habit of reading as much as I can- you can see a wide range of books listed on this site. I'm heading off to India with Gill in a day or two, along with Paul and Amy Reed-friends from Ignite. We'll be opening the Gateway School and visiting Ignite churches. Already in my travel bag are a selection of books to read on the plane and late night in India when I can't sleep!

Here's a selection of some of my all time classic favorite and most stimulating books in the realm of Christian ministry, discipleship and leadership.

Axiom-Bill Hybels

Leadership- Rudolph Giuliani

What's So Amazing About Grace?- Philip Yancey

Celebration of Discipline- Richard Foster

Preach the Word!-Greg Haslam

Wild at Heart-John Eldredge

The Secret Message of Jesus-Brian McLaren

Evangelism by Fire- Reinhard Bonnke

The 21 Most Powerful Minutes in a Leaders Day- John Maxwell

Sex God- Rob Bell

Prov. 15:2 The wise person makes learning a joy; fools spout only foolishness.

WHAT"S BEEN HAPPENING.

With only 5 days to go before Gill and I head off to India to officially open the Gateway School the last week or so has been pretty busy;

City Temple hosted the On Earth As It Is In Heaven conference with Bill Johnson from Bethel Church, Redding, California. In the Wednesday evening over 90 people were healed of various ailments by the grace of God, including one young lady on our India mission team who had been only told that day by her doctor that an MRI scan showed up such a serious condition in her spine that she needed an immediate operation and definitely wouldn't be able to travel with the team. She woke up the next day and for the first time in 12 years didn't need her pain medication.

I' m still digesting some of the lessons learned from a one-day conference the week before, on creativity in church services, led by Nancy Beach from Willow Creek. It was organized by the Willow Creek Association, which specializes in leadership training. I managed to finish and send off my latest research paper for the Master's degree a few days early so I went to this conference with Shikala Mansfield from CT and Chloe Roberts from Ignite.

Last night I spoke at the latest Ignite event for young people in South Wales. Gary had felt it was about time that the importance of the Ignite Declaration was put before people again, so much like old times I preached on that, using a portion of Isaiah 53.8 as my key text. At the last count, there were about 400 young people there who used the declaration with me as a holy moment and a bold statement before God, and over 100 of them signed the card format of the declaration for the first time.

As well as heading up the mission focus at City Temple, I've been beginning to give the student/18-30 leadership some guidance- Derek and Angela Hermann along with my old mate Pete Joyce head this area up and I'll be increasingly supporting them over the next year or so.

I've also booked my flights for the next Third Day tour-I'll be going over on the 12th March to the 5 April for my first chunk.

ALTERNATIVE CAREER.

Someone asked me the other day what job I would be doing if my life had taken a different path. Interesting question! I've always struggled to do something just for the money, so it would have to be something I was really interested in. Taking the 'impossible dream' options out of the equation ( like playing for England at cricket, being a world famous rock star, working for MI6 as the next James Bond),  I've come up with the following:

1st choice- not too far away from what I already do - Chaplain in the Armed Forces.

2nd choice-as I love writing and I love sport- Cricket journalist.

3rd choice-playing all my old records and CD's- Presenter on a classic rock radio station.

4th choice-the live audience, my stock of jokes- Stand Up comedian.