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Mark Sayers: The Trouble With Paris: Following Jesus in a World of Plastic Promises
Joseph Michelli: The Starbucks Experience: 5 Principles for Turning Ordinary Into Extraordinary
Jean-Dominique Bauby: The Diving Bell and the Butterfly: A Memoir of Life in Death
Ori Brafman: The Starfish and the Spider: The Unstoppable Power of Leaderless Organizations
Donald Miller: Blue Like Jazz: Nonreligious Thoughts on Christian Spirituality
It's been a fantastic week. So much so that I didn't get round to uploading the last few days of our Soul in the City week.
God has done some amazing things this week, and all of us who were involved feel deeply privileged to have been a small part in what He continues to do in Tollington.
With that in mind, here is a short video of best bits from all 5 days. Our hope is that as you watch all that God did it will inspire you to both seek him and also to get out there are go for it with Him in your own context.
(NB: The video may take a few moments to load as it is presented in high definition)
(The best of Soul in the City '09 (Tollington) from Bill Cahusac on Vimeo.
Day 1 of Tollington Parish's Soul in the City is over- bring on tomorrow!!!
We could hear them still singing on the main stage as we left, and although bed time had long since come and gone our children were still awake and soaking up the atmosphere.
As I drove the family home I reflected on the smiles on the faces of the one hundred and fifty members of the Tollington Parish.
I thought about the children in our church who had never left London before looking wide eyed at the vast expanse of green, parents taking their sons and daughters on the Ferris wheel for the first time, the young people worshiping, the "aunties" (our elder Nigerian ladies) holding hands with the twenty somethings and dancing to the music. Of a day where there really was something for everyone.
A day where we joined thousands of others and celebrated all that is good about God.
Just before he fell asleep one of my children asked if heaven would be like The Big Church Day out.
That summed it up perfectly.
My inbox didn't know what had hit it. And that was just in the first few days.
He hadn't been at our church long when he asked if we could meet.
"This just isn't how I imagined it would be" he sobbed into his coffee,
"However hard I try I feel my past being thrown back in my face."
The real tragedy was that the condemnation weighing him down wasn't so much a metaphysical experience- no, the ones ready to stone him had been his family of faith .
A community of faith who found it hard to let him move forward. To leave the past where it belonged. In the past.
He hadn't broken any laws of the land, he'd made some bad choices in his personal life. He knew what he'd done was wrong. He'd come to the foot of the cross, confessed it, known the freedom that forgiveness brings and joined his local church.
It struck me as I listened to him that while God consigns our past to history, sometimes there are those who find it harder to forgive and forget.
The worst part- the only thing he had done was be honest about his life before he had known Jesus.
It seemed to me to be so contrary to the character of God.
Who forgives.
Who heals.
Who says in him we are new creations.
Who says that as far as the east is from the west so far has me moved our sins from us.
Who has been waiting for us to come home, and when he sees us in the distance runs to meet us.
Who throws his arms around us and kisses us.
Who celebrates.
Sometimes I need to stop. To down arms.
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