Open Heaven: Making c21st Disciples

First Fruits

This is the first courgette picked from the Open Heaven vegetable patch and more, and bigger, ones have followed. There have also been some small (but very tasty!) carrots and some kohl rabis (a bit like turnip).

We started the OH Vegetable Patch in Mel and Matt’s garden back in the spring, and applied for an allotment plot at the same time, for a number of reasons:

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Club Mission Wins Prestigious Award

Our Club Mission team, who have spent much of the last year demonstrating God's love to students in the union, has been voted the ‘Team of the Year’ at the Loughborough Experience awards. It was an incredible surprise for us, not least because there were only 3 other nominees, all of which are fantastic, well established committees;  RAG (recently praised by David Cameron in the House of Commons for raising over £1 million this year), AU Exec (for winning BUSA again) and SOC FED (who organise and manage all 59 LSU clubs and societies).

"The Loughborough Experience Award was set up …to recognise, and reward the students who put a lot of effort into life at Loughborough".(1) It's an evening of publicly honouring people who have gone above and beyond to contribute to 'The Loughborough Experience’ which has, in turn, enabled Loughborough to win the prestigious Times Higher Education Supplement (THES) award for the Best Student Experience 4 years running.

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Work Matters

Over the summer we're looking at a series called 'Work Matters'. Our aims for this teaching series are twofold. Firstly, that we all gain a deep recognition that our work matters to God - that it is deeply spiritual, reflecting the image of God the Worker that is within us. Secondly that we'll know our work also matters to our church community at Open Heaven.

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Annecy Awake!

Speeding through the landscape on Europe’s fastest train, the industrial estates of Northern France give way to lush farmland and forest until the steel track begins to cut through the increasingly undulating terrain. The TGV rounds a wide bend and finally, after 11 hours of travelling, the crystal clear waters sweep into view. Stretching into the distance, reflecting the mountains still capped in snow that surround its shores, Lake Annecy presents a stunning welcome.

There are worse places God could send you. Ali Wilson and I travelled to Annecy this April to meet some members of the church community in the town and take part in a week of mission activities. Much to the despair of the language police, the French continue their passion for using English words in their promotions and everyday language. These few days of inter-church outreach activities were no different being engagingly entitled ‘Annecy Awake!’ (exclamation mark obligatory).

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The Think Big £50 Challenge

Our Think Big campaign has so far seen a great response, with many in the church giving generously and sacrificially. Up to this point we've generally avoided organising specific fundraising events. Partly this is because we wanted to give God the opportunity to see what he could do in us, but also it's partly because we recognise that it's all too easy for it to end up with the same people being asked to turn up and give to the same event.

However, the summer is a great time to be running fundraising events and for those of you who are living elsewhere for the summer (e.g. students) it's a great chance to raise money outside of regular OHers.

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Why Does Everyone Need Their Own Lawn Mower?

This question prompted the idea of a database of the items people have available that they don't mind sharing with the rest of church. It was a good idea that gave birth to OH bay.

Great, but perhaps a little bit exclusive. Jesus did say we'd be known by the love we showed each other as his disciples, but also called us to bring others into this love and open it up to all. So what about sharing that lawn mower with others on your street, maybe even people we don't know yet?

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Cambodia Update May 2010

“They claim it might be cholera that killed him.” The project manager broke the news that the younger brother of a child in our feeding program had died from severe diarrhoea.

It’s ROASTING hot but I was making the most of the early morning cool when I looked up at the razor wire around the compound and wondered when I stopped noticing things like that. It made me realise how certain things now appear normal and I became aware of how at home I feel. Growing up in Asia means that a lot in Cambodia is ‘normal'; other things have become ‘normal’; yet there are still some which will stay ‘abnormal’ – like passengers on motorbikes who have an arm in the air holding an IV drip or seeing people with missing limbs - a reminder of the Khmer Rouge horrors.

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Sharing in the Sufferings: The Dyers’ Journey

I asked Sally Ann to write an article about the journey of suffering they are on as a family as it helps us as a community to understand and support them a little more. It also gives us all a precious insight into the depths of God's presence in pain and it holds up a very mature response to life, faith and death that we can all learn from.

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Lobbying Andy Reed

On 1^st March I joined around 100 members of the Speak Network, a Christian network of students and young adults who campaign and pray about issues of global injustice, to visit parliament to lobby our MPs about government support for the arms companies.

Speak recently launched a new arms trade campaign which is asking the government to do two things:

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