SPIN LIKE THE WIND-the blog of Nigel James.

THE ANOINTING.

Being part of a Pentecostal denomination I often hear talk of the anointing of God, and I've been reminded of it today when reloading a stack of my sermons onto this site. I'm not being arrogant when I say this but I have been immensely aware of God's anointing on me as a speaker whilst listening to bits and pieces of various sermons. Every so often really powerful and insightful phrases spring up, and I certainly hadn't written them down before, I couldn't have remembered them afterwards, and definitely wouldn't have used them had I been recording the talk in my study. Simply, they were Holy Spirit inspired, and this afternoon I've been tremendously thankful to the Lord for calling me to and equipping me for a preaching ministry and for the Holy Spirit's anointing as I preach ( well-at least most of the time when I preach!). Listen to a few of my talks and see if you can figure out the completely Holy Spirit inspired segments.

HEAR ME.

Audio sermons back online!

AUDIO SERMONS.

A number of faithful readers have informed me that the audio files of my sermons have not been fully uploaded and all finish half way through the sermon. That's a lucky break I hear some of you say! I'm going to take the files off for a while and try to upload a few of them full length as soon as I can.

ANOTHER BUSY WEEKEND.

The last few days have been hectic- with some notable ups and downs:

Good- the Willow Creek Leadership Summit in Bristol on Friday.
Very Good- Bill Hybels' interview with writer, film-maker and founder of Make Poverty History, Richard Curtis.
Good- the ensuing discussions with Chris, Steve and Kate, the other leaders from City Temple who travelled with me.
Very Good- going to watch Cardiff Blues v. Leinster with Bethan on Friday night. I love this Dad and Daughter time.
Very Bad- Cardiff's performance as they lost 19-30 and threw away a 17 game unbeaten home league record.
Good- travelling to Rachel and John's wedding on Saturday- they both used to work for Ignite.
Very Good- the speech by Peter James, Rachel's vicar, who gave her away and in the long-term absence of a father spoke highly of Rachel's mum. Peter and his wife also bought Rachel's wedding dress. The man of God modelled the fact that God is a father to the fatherless and a defender of widows.
Good- seeing Maaike and Wouter, and baby Jolijne, from Holland.
Very Bad- listening to the last few minutes of the match on my transistor radio in the wedding reception as Fiji beat Wales in the rugby world cup.
Bad- long journey home late night Saturday.
Good- getting to know Vicky Blyth from Scripture Union Wales a little better as she travelled with Gill and I.
Very Good- Jay Fallon's sermon on Sunday morning about The Hidden Power of Greatness- servanthood! When boxers have had enough and can't go on they throw in the towel. As soon as we throw our towel in, and lose our servant attitude, the devil has us just where he wants us. If you want to be the first, then be the first to love, forgive, serve, show compassion, act mercifully, and thank the Lord for the towel of servanthood that you carry around.
Good- praying for Mel Price in the morning service. She's off with Elim International Missions to Mozambique where she'll be using her Occupational Therapy training and her passion for youth and children's ministry.
Good for him, bad for us- our son James flies to Dallas, Texas today to begin a new life in the USA. He's really excited and can't wait to settle back into Dallas life (he was there for 6 months last year), but we'll miss him. Gill will especially find it tough.
Very Bad-The England cricket team's abject performance in losing to Sri Lanka in the first one day international of the series.
Good-anticipating tonight's concert at St. David's Hall in Cardiff with Roger Hodgson, Supertramp's main writer and lead singer. Bring it on!

CELEBRATIONS.

Friday was my birthday- 47 years and still going! After Bethan and I had seen Cardiff Blues beat Glasgow Warriors, Gill and I enjoyed a really good Chinese meal together at Yang's in Grangetown, Cardiff, and yesterday she bought me a new desk for my study. In fact, I'm writing this blog at it now.
Today is our anniversary- 18 years of marriage. How anyone can live with me for that length of time is a complete mystery, which just shows how fortunate I am to have met Gill. Thank God!

HOPE 08 AND IGNITE HOPE.

Yesterday we launched IGNITE HOPE which is our contribution to HOPE 08. HOPE 08 is a nationwide mission mobilising the whole church, for the whole country, for the whole year. The challenge is to do more, do it together, and do it in word and deed. So Gary Smith at Ignite has this great vision of gathering 500+ young people over the Mayday Bank Holiday weekend, motivating them and sending them out into social action teams all over Cardiff, the Vale of Glamorgan and some of the South Wales valleys. Yesterday over 50 church leaders gathered to hear about the vision from Gary. I kicked the proceedings off with a little thought about Jesus. When Luke introduces the Acts of the Apostles he says this:
Dear Theophilus: In my first book I told you about everything Jesus began to do and teach. Acts 1:1
Jesus was both a talker and a doer- he managed to be a man of proclamation and practical action. That's our challenge! Jesus began to do and teach and we have the responsibility of carrying on His mission.

A GAME OF TWO HALVES.

The last two days I've been in London at the EVANGELICAL ALLIANCE UK Council meetings. About 50 of us representing a wide variety of denominations, ministries, and geographical areas gathered in Church House next to Westminster Abbey to discuss the role of the EAUK as an umbrella body representing evangelicals. I led the short devotional time at the start of yesterday's agenda and had given much consideration to what I would speak about. Eventually the Lord led me back to a favourite focus of mine- the relationship between Paul and Timothy in a talk I have entitled The Miracle of Generation Blessing Generation. I simply challenged us to put a high priority on identifying, equipping, supporting and releasing the next generation of leaders. When looking at the relationship between Paul and Timothy I see that it was a relationship:

*Started on a positive choice- from both sides, with some risk attached. See Acts 16.1-5
*Based on honesty- they ralked about the real stuff. See 2 Tim. 2.23-24
*Developed over time-no 6 week discipleship course for them, or a quick coffee every so often. See 2 Tim. 1.3
*Focused on Jesus- Paul talked to Timothy a lot about himself, but he talked more about Jesus. Count the times Jesus is mentioned in 2 Tim.1
*Strengthened by service- they had an active missionary relationship. See Phil. 2.22

A fascinating discussion under the title 'Emerging Church- Passing Fad or Paradigm Shift?'
was led by Jason Clark from a network called EMERGENT UK which gathers together folk who are involved in various expressions of emerging church.

Tonight we have a Rugby World Cup outreach event at City Temple and tomorrow I go to see Wales play Australia in the Rugby World Cup! My good mate Andy Gourley is over from Brisbane- he runs a ministry called RED FROGS CREW and is also Chaplain to the Queensland Reds Super 14 rugby team.
He's helping out at the outreach event tonight and yesterday he introduced me to Danie Coetzee, a South African currently palying for London Irish. He's a strong believer and has played for the Springboks. Here's a photo of Danie, Andy, me, and Andy's mate Craig from Perth, Australia. We filmed a video message from Danie for tonight's meeting and we'll show it just before we watch the second half of the England v. South Africa match on TV.

WILD AT HEART AGAIN.

Just back from a Wild at Heart men's weekend with 24 guys from the church. We use the Wild at Heart DVD series by John Eldredge, with Chris Cartwright and I facilitating the sessions. This is the third weekend we've led in 20 months and each one has been special. Gary came along at short notice, and led one of the small groups, and our good mates Matt Gregor and Pete Joyce were there as well. The first one of these weekends we did was a very significant time personally for me in beginning to respond to God's tugging at my heart with regard to future direction, and this weekend seemed equally as significant for Gary. We all had great fun abseiling, climbing or going on the ropes course, plus opportunities to get to know some other guys better, and a real sense of God doing a work amongst the participants. A selection of memorable lines from Eldredge:
A deep sense of validation is core to our identity as a man.
Masculinity is bestowed by the Father.
The question 'Do I have what it takes?' can only be answered in the trial.
To walk away from the poser in us we have to step out of our fears and conquer them.
You can't write your story, or let anyone else write it- The Author of Life writes it and invites you to join in the adventure. Living a life of comfort in a small story will mean you never see the adventure that God has for you.

YOU DID NOT CHOOSE ME BUT I CHOSE YOU.

Over the last year or so I've been waiting on the Lord to show me the next chapter in the exciting story of serving Him and as a result of meeting with Gary and the Ignite trustees the future is beginning to be clarified:

From January of 2008, my role within Ignite will shift emphasis. I'm going to be taking the good news of Jesus to Wales and the nations, and helping release young people into that ministry. I'll be committed to depositing the Ignite declaration into the lives of young people, and will spend an increased amount of time supporting the ministry of Third Day in my role as their ‘road pastor’. I will be around the daily workings of the Ignite office a lot less and will step down from some director’s responsibilities, but will still be involved in a number of our specific projects.

This marks ongoing steps to the fulfilment of prophetic words spoken over me nearly 5 years ago by Mark Dupont at a conference in Heartland Church, Fort Wayne. I wrote down the key points of the prophecy in my journal and here they are:

*Being handed a shepherd's staff for apostolic ministry and preaching in cities.
*Bringing unity to broken and divided churches.
*An angel of healing and an angel of prophecy will accompany me for the rest of my life.
*Don't take any steps just because they are the pattern of the past, but be led by the Spirit into small but strategic steps, no longer having the freedom to go everywhere.
*A new authority for gospel preaching in Cardiff and Wales.
*Seeing revival fire spread from Wales into the UK and republic of Ireland, into Europe, New Zealand, Australia and America.

Of course, I have begun to see much of this come to pass over the last 5 years but I firmly believe the time is right to increase the intensity and the reality of this prophecy. I wrote my notes on the prophecy in what is now an old journal, but in my current one I wrote the following back in May as a crystallisation of where I am:

I am being called:
To take the good news of Jesus to Wales and the nations
To release young people into that ministry
To deposit the Ignite declaration into young people all over the world
To go outside the church but to go from the church
To trust in God for the people, resources, finance and Holy Spirit power.

PREACH THE WORD!

I've just been reading John Stott's chapter on 'The Paradoxes of Preaching' in Greg Haslam's book Preach the Word. Stott talks about the art of Double Listening- both listening to the voice of God and the voice of the world around us. This enables our preaching to be Biblical AND contemporary. He reminds us not to listen in equal measure, our ears should always be closer to God's voice than the world's voice.
Stott refers to many great quotes-here are a few:
*First light, then heat. - Richard Baxter, The Reformed Pastor, 1656
*There must be light as well as fire. Some preachers are all light and no fire, while others are all fire and no light. What we need is both fire and light.- C.H. Spurgeon.
He who no longer sows in the study will no more reap in the pulpit.-C.H. Spurgeon.
*What is preaching? Logic on fire! Preaching is theology coming through a man who is on fire.- Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones.