New Real Food Bible Study website

Just to keep you up to date, I've redesigned the website for the core ministry area I'm involved in (and I'm now reasonably proud of it). Check out Real Food Bible Study here - it'll describe much better than I can what we do each week.

The academic and the bon vivant

Imagine two men came to each give you a talk on fine wines of the world. The first man is exceptionally well-read, and has consumed several books on the subject. He can talk to you about the variants of vines that are planted, the orientation and elevation of the vineyard that the wine has come from, the type of the soil that the vines have grown in. However, he has never tasted any of the wines himself.

The second man is less well-read. He hasn't got the level of knowledge of the first man of the acidity of the soil, or the way in which the wine is matured. However what he has done is he has drunk all of the finest wines in the world and so his talk talks about the taste, the complexity and the joy of these fine wines.

Which of these two talks would give you a greater passion for fine wine? I would have thought the second, and I think that the same applies to preaching even more closely. It is very easy (especially for someone like myself) become concerned with reading books on the subject, but not becoming acquainted with the subject - God himself who lies behind the pages. If I however spend my preparation time "living" with the passage, then I'll be better equipped to teach God's word as one who has seen the joy of living out the truths in the passage and one who knows the richness of the word lived out.

Father, help me to be a man who doesn't think study of your word begins in the office, but starts in my own heart, and one who speaks firstly to myself before I dare relate your word to others.

Amen

In at the deep end

I have no idea what is going on here

So progress is finally being made in the US of A, but I'm both busy and engaged in a fair few cultural differences. Hence 'football' - I've watched two games, and have very little idea what is going on. I think I know the absolute basics, but the minute people start talking about what is going on then I'm afraid I'm completely lost. I'm repaying this cultural favour however by trying to explain the laws of cricket to the Americans, and finding absolute bemusement meeting me in return. 

However I know have a social security number, which seems to be the magical key to opening up many previously closed doors. I now have been able to open a bank account, (which enables me to be paid), book a driving test (and some more driving lessons), and join the library. The library is a particular treat - a Greenwich resident left them $25 million in their will, and now the library is one of the best in the USA. Firstly its huge, and also its generously equipped with just about every book I could want (at the moment I'm reading a bit of Aristotle and I've got the new Hawkings book reserved). It's a great place to go and do some work - if I fancy a change of scenery its a great place to go and work.

The Real Food Bible studies are going OK - we could do with some more people at them however, so the next few weeks I'm planning to meet as many people as possible for coffee or dinner. I've also done the first men's study in Acts (and also a good bit of Luke). The key surprise for me is that the central character in Acts is Jesus - hence Luke's introduction "In [my previous book] I have dealt with all that Jesus began to do and teach" - the implication is that Acts is all about what Jesus is continuing to do and teach. I've also led the last two services and lead again tomorrow - the fact that I hadn't figured out exactly what happened in the service didn't seem to stop Tom deciding I was 'ready'.

So progress and frustration in equal measure at the moment - much like the rest of Christian ministry I suppose.

Prayer:

- progress at Real Food in particular 

- that ongoing work on Ephesians would go well

Dave

Working on the Bible studies and tans

So this week has been a bit of a blur, but I'm enjoying myself in Greenwich. This is very much helped by the temperature being 30C+ most days, which is great - it feels a lot like being in the South of France at the moment. Yesterday I went yachting with Tom, and I'm planning to do a little more sailing in the next month or so. I've also been swimming in a couple of people's pools - again, very good.

However the bulk of my time is not spent sunning myself, but inside in the office working hard - I'm making progress with Ephesians. It's striking that what Paul prays for the Christians he writes to in Ephesians is not that their life would be easier, or that they'd not suffer. Instead Paul prays for a greater knowledge of the love of Christ - this is what he thinks will change the Christians in Ephesus. I've been thinking through how I pray - do I pray this for individual Christians? I'm also about to start studying Acts, which we're doing for the Men's Breakfast. I wanted to start this last week, but I've been kept a little busy.

In terms of personal stuff, it's been a little frustrating as I don't yet have a social security number - I'll be able to pick one up on Tuesday. When I have this I can open a bank account, book a driving test and generally settle into live a little more. This will be much appreciated - I'm getting around by bike at the moment, which is fine but Greenwich is pretty spread out (largely due to the fact everyone has a plot of land the size of Devon), so I'm pretty reliant on being picked up for every single social occasion.

I hope everything is well - the forecast tomorrow is clear blue skies and 32C, so I'm off to the beach. Nice. I'd value your continued prayers:

Praise:
- Greenwich so far has been great - I'm very much enjoying it
- Making decent progress on study for bible studies

Prayer:
- smooth progress on all the other admin needed with the US Government
- that I'd be making progress on the study this week and be "teaching myself first".

Fresh off the plane, feet behind the desk

Several people have asked me about a prayer letter, and I thought that given my previous success in putting these sort of things together, this might be a more preferable option. My good friends Craig and Amanda have set a sterling example at their blog of updating every week - I guess I'm not likely to be that reliable. The general idea is to give semi-regular updates on what is happening here both in terms of my personal life and also what I'm teaching.

I landed on Tuesday around lunchtime, and was still a little out of sync - the first two days I woke up at 4AM, but I'm doing better now and have thoroughly adjusted. The church family is great - they've been really kind to me and I arrived to an apartment already filled with food! They've been really hospitable so far, and today we had a church family lunch to welcome me (which was a little strange). I'm getting settled in and used to both American culture and the church as a whole. The other thing I've done is get cracking on the teaching material for this year.

We have a 20s-30s small group, which studies books of the Bible in turn. I'm the overall leader for this, and this term we'll be studying Ephesians up to Christmas. We start studies on September 8th, and the evening has a short introduction, 30-40 minutes of study then a 10-15 minute talk summarising the main points (which I'll give each week). At the moment the hard work is going in on producing a prep book for the whole term. This is based on Dig Deeper as each week we'll introduce a different bible study tool to use that'll help us to understand the passage better. If you've never read the book, I'd recommend it as the single best book I've read on understanding the Bible and studying it for yourself. The hope here is to further train the guys in Real Food to read their own Bibles. Putting the prep book together is proving to be a lot of work - I'm doing a good bit of exegesis on each passage and reading a couple of commentaries (FF Bruce and P.T O'Brien) as I don't want to have prep notes already produced and then completely change my mind on the main point of the passage later in the term. This is not the full work I'll do on each passage as I'll do fresh exegesis and a lot more work week by week, but I guess it's taking around 3-4 hours of work for each passage for the prep book.

The second bit of work is going to be the monthly Men's Breakfast which starts on September 11th. I've decided we're going to tackle Acts. I've read through most of Acts with a City worker in London, and it's a book I'd love to teach in more detail. I've got to get started on this - I'm planning to do this this week and I'll start out by reading through the book a few times and then listening to a couple of Proclamation Trust talks on teaching Acts by David Cook.

It'd be good to hear from you. I'm looking to get hold of a new digital camera - when I have one I'll send through pictures of my apartment and also my car. I can't (legally) drive yet and need to pass a US test, but I've had a bit of fun getting used to it and driving it around the parking lot at the back of the Women's Club. I'd particularly value your prayer.

Praise:

• That I'm here safely! As you might well know it was a little touch and go with the visa application, so it's great to finally be here.
• The church has been really friendly - I've enjoyed the first week and looking forward to getting cracking with the teaching.

Prayer:

• Pray for the preparation work this week - I have a lot of work to do on Ephesians in particular. Please pray that I'll get it done, but also that God will be teaching and encouraging my heart through the study of his Word.
• There is lots of 'life admin' still to be done - I still need to get a social security number, bank account, driving license etc...
• Pray as I get to know the church better that I'll make friends. I'm also concious that I'm going to be prone to making cultural faux pas so please pray that I don't unintentionally create barriers for ministry by doing this.