Last year at Furnace, I felt like I was auditioning for the part all the time. I discovered that I liked doing the work – helping young adults connect with God, and seeing Him bless their socks off – and hoped I would be allowed to do it again.
This year, I’m over that “audition” panic. I have the job, and actually, I love it and think that passion and vision and gifting a small amount of ability will get you a long way. That and an amazing team of wonderful people. Here you have them – seated (l to r): Diana, Anita, me, Ed, Matt; and standing (l to r): Elen, Kirsty, Mike (from Superhero), Matthew, Tim, Mark, Abi, t’other Mike (from Superhero), Gary, Tim (from Superhero – holding a couple of John’s dreadlocks from Superhero), Martin & Ben.
Highlights? Praying for a guy whose knee has been crook for a year. He had surgery after messing it up doing Thai boxing. He can’t kneel without great pain. As we pray for him, I place my hands round his knee, and feel it flutter in a way a knee shouldn’t do. After a couple of minutes it sort of pops into my hands. I ask how he feels. He says, he can feel it grinding. He wants to try kneeling. There’s no pain. None. Two days later – still no pain. I make him pray for my bogus knee, and for a while I too am pain free, though it hasn’t stayed as good as it was for a while. But it is better than it was. Doesn’t matter – feeling that healing was astounding. Astounding.
Seeing one guy start the week really low and go through a wonderful turn around. Not all sorted, but all turned round and able to get on with living with God. Seeing another choose to try again with God when he’d really walked away for a whole year.
Watching people grow in expectancy that God loved them and would meet with them.
Seeing a few people want God to touch them on the first night; but two thirds of the room went down on their knees on the last night when invited to let Him in.
Making friends. Renewing friendships. Jazz in the cafe, and listening to wonderfully wise and godly people speak to us of their lives with God. On the first night, Nigel James quoted Max Lucado, who said that given five minutes with young Christians he would want to say: “Let God love you”. So we asked everybody all week what they would say. This is what we got:
Let God love you - Max Lucado via Nigel James
Be unafraid (don’t let the fear stop you) – David Parker
You are loved and lovely in the Father’s eyes – Kenny Borthwick
Cling to the cross – Dai Hankey
Be ignited with a passion for Jesus – Nigel James
Have a holy dissatisfaction for the way things are – Mark Melluish (though we didn’t get to ask Mark, actually, and we have simply taken this tag line from his sermon which was excellent!)
Discover who you are in God’s sight – Bruce Collins
Receive God’s love; give it away; and love the person in front of you – Andy Booth (Do you like the picture? Andy, a keyboard, the cross and a Mac; if only Trish & the kids were in it, it would have everything.)God loves you; deal with it – Me
The Furnace – it’s a blast. I’ve just had a text from a team member saying that they were “blown away” by being part of it (I used those words all the time, because they were true), and then they added – for real, not just to use those words! When you do a seminar on prophecy and then get people listening to God and speaking over each other, hearing Him speak like this for the first time & discovering that what they are daring to say is stunningly accurate to the person listening, it’s hard not to be.
It’s hard not to be blown away by the wonderful love of God who wants all these young adults to know Him more, every day.
Lord, may it be. And thank you for giving me a place in their stories. It has been a joy and a privilege.
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