Some Things Are Never Simple

We live in an area of Portsmouth which has quite a close-nit community - lots of people know each other and hang out together and I think that has both positive and negative effects on the community as a whole. The other day a neighbour of ours asked to borrow something of ours and we naturally said yes but when it was returned to us we noticed that it was completely broken.

Typical - you try and do a nice thing, yet something like this happens and it plops you into a sticky predicament. The mentality of a lot of people in Portsmouth would be to handle this situation by going round and starting an argument about it - probably demanding some money for a replacement. Now I don't believe that is the way God would handle the situation where He here with me but at the same time I don't think that God calls Christians to simply be a walk-over and ignore things that matter to us. Yet the passage where Jesus tells us to 'turn the other cheek' does also make me wonder where the right path lies (although that same passage also says to not refuse people who want to borrow from you!)

It is a common battle I find myself in - I want to stand up for God and be different in my thinking and in my actions - but yet it seems difficult to find the narrow path of what is going to demonstrate that Christians are not afraid to stand up and talk about things but at the same time talk about things in a productive way that enhances a relationship rather than destroy it.

So I did go back round to have a chat - I figured I'd take the approach of 'just wondered if you had noticed that it doesn't work any more and if you knew what had happened to it'. Sadly they weren't in - so i'll have to go back another time. At the end of the day, our relationships with our neighbours is more important than the broken utensil and so I won't demand any money off of them. But I still find it hard to talk about things like this without coming off as being confrontational and shirty.

Learning to Fly on iTunes!

Just in case you were interested...

I recorded a couple of CD's back in 2003 and 2005 and the latest of which is now available on iTunes to download. This is quite cool - as this is something that is normally quite difficult to achieve if you are an independent artist as I am. However, the nice folks over at TuneCore which certainly help you out there.

I think I was kinda bullied into putting them up there by my good friend Rob :). But I figure that whilst I feel they have served the purpose of writing and recording them here at Kings in Portsmouth it doesn't harm anyone to put them out there for anyone who stumbles across them!

So, if you want to get it on iTunes you can do so by searching for 'Gareth Matthews' or by clicking this link here.

A 268 Generation

Last Thursday I travelled up to London to go to the first Passion event in London. If you have never heard of it this is a movement in the USA that seeks to inspire students to live after God and encourage them in that. Now technically (well, actually entirely) I am not a student, but I can drive a minibus and so I was roped in to go - and I'm glad I did.

So the event kicks off in the Hammersmith Apollo with Chris Tomlin and his band pumping out some worship, Matt Redman leads a few songs a bit later, the David Crowder Band pumped out some tunes and Louie Giglio spoke. It was extremely well put together and I really enjoyed everything they did - and you could really sense the heart behind it. Sometimes the worship felt quite showy - especially from Mr Tomlin as I feel strongly that worship is not simply a performance. However, in a sense, the entire crowd was really up for worship - so perhaps not much leading was really needed!

The highlight for me (which is kind of odd as a musician and worship leader) was Louie's talk. Blymey, that man has a stunning way of communicating the Gospel and inspiring people to hunt after that. The Passion movement is based on Isaiah 26:8 - which talks about God's name and His renown being the desires of our hearts, or as he put it 'wanting to make God famous'. This is something that has been really on my heart as late as I really desire to be someone who shines Jesus through everything I do.

I think my problem is that sometimes I get so caught up in being normal and relevant - all good things that Christians should be - that I forgot that we actually need to stick out and be different. To be 'in the world and not of the world'. I was very inspired to turn this around and start making an effort to stick out in the things I do, the things I say and the way I live. That doesn't mean that I am going to go completely into wierdo mode - but perhaps I may not be afraid to talk about Jesus and allow Him to shine through what I do and the way I live.

I have an excellent CD from the Revelation Warehouse that was released back in 2001 called Biography that was recorded at a time when things in the 247 prayer movement were really kicking off. There is an amazing part of that CD which never fails to move me when someone prays 'God we are so sorry when we don't look any different from the world'. That is my prayer today and something I want to change!