Those who have read my blog recently will know I’ve been writing a lot on the theme of faith in the digital realm. I’ve written on how I believe the digital realm and interactions we have there are real, true & meaningful and how the digital realm can help us understand truths about ourselves better, and therefore help us deal with those issues. I’ve also written on how important it is to find a balance between digital and physical interaction. Of course many of you will be followers of mine on Twitter (@JamesPrescott77) and know I love social networking, and discussions on Twitter, Facebook and other social networks – indeed you may have been involved in some of those discussions!

I also love to write, and many of you know that I guest blog from time to time. But now these two parts of my life have come together in more clear way.  (more…)

This weekend is the first of Advent. Can you believe it, still November and it’s advent already? Christmas within touching distance. It’s amazing how time flies isn’t it? Hardly feels that long ago since the start of the year, and advent is here already.

Personally, I love advent, largely because thus far, in its truest meaning, it’s been spared from the corruption of consumerism. As Christians we can still take this time and really focus on the heart of the Christmas message, the coming of Christ. Consumerism has it’s own ‘advent’ I grant you, with advent calendars and present buying, but the actual heart of advent has escaped the consumer trap.

Advent, for me, is a time of both preparation and remembrance.

Preparation, as we prepare for the coming of Jesus, we start to ponder anew the meaning of His coming and our own response to that.

Remembrance, because we begin to remember his coming and it’s implications for us and the world around us, and we begin to look back over the past year and see what God has been doing in our own lives.

Often it’s good at those times it’s good to stop and reflect. So during this advent, I’m hoping to write a few blog posts on some of the themes and issues we encounter at this time of year.

First, I want to look at the the theme of peace – or rather, shalom. (more…)

Earlier this week I posted a short blog post promoting a new book of Advent reflections I’ve contributed to. But even before beginning writing the blog, I felt an inner conflict. A conflict I’m sure many of the creatives reading – and many more of us – have experienced at some point or other.

A conflict between wanting to share something I’d helped create with people, in order to help bless them – because I genuinely believe the book can and will do that in so many ways – and my own pride and ego, which is desperately wanting people to read it and give me great responses to boost my confidence.

It’s a conflict between healthy ambition and selfish ambition.

A conflict between that part of me that wants to honour God with what I create and see it help others in their walk with Him, and my own ego which wants success for selfish reasons.

It’s also about my own insecurities – that I can’t quite believe that I have had even moderate success at something I love doing and might actually have a gift for, because some part of me just won’t accept that I can be successful, or that God might actually have made me for a purpose and that this might a pointer to what that might be.

Promoting something you’re a part of or have helped create feels a bit selfish, and not very Christian – and certainly, it’s very tempting, especially in the self-centered ‘i-culture’ we live in, to simply promote things for those reasons.

We all want to be loved, and something we often do is look for that in people, rather than simply embracing the unconditional love & grace of God, which doesn’t value us according to our achievements, but sees us in all our nakedness, all our fear, doubt and all our sin – as well as our achievement – and loves us anyway.

A love that would love the same if we lived our whole lives and achieved nothing and got it all wrong every single moment.  (more…)

I occasionally write posts for other blogs, and one of these is Godspace, written by Christine Sine of Mustard Seed Associates – see links to the right. Each Lent and Advent she invites bloggers from all over the world to write posts appropriate to the season, and I was asked to write a blog post for her on the the question of ‘What difference does it make?’, which is the theme of her Lenten season blog series.

In it I write a little about the rhythm of Lent, and how Lent and giving things up – and taking up new habits – for it is about surrendering control to God.

It’s just been posted here. I’d highly recommend you go and have a read, and share it with others.

Last Advent you may remember I was asked to write a blog post for Christine Sine of Mustard Seed Associates, a Christian community in Seattle, USA, which was published on her blog Godspace. This year I was asked to do the same, and today my blog post ‘Know the reality’, about the reality of the Advent/Christmas story, is published on her site and you can find it here.

It’s part of a series being published on the site throughout lent about how Jesus can become real to us in this advent season, and there will be new blog posts published on the site every day of lent by various authors with their own take on this topic – obviously this started nearly a fortnight ago now, and all the other reflections can be found merely by looking at the ‘recent posts’ section of the site . (more…)

Change.

It happens all the time, it’s inevitable. No matter what you do, your body is going to age and eventually it’s going to die. Your body is never the same, it’s always creating new cells to replace old ones. You get a new skin every 30 days (which also happens to be the moon cycle for months, and the length of the female menstrual cycle – strange coincidence, it’s almost like it’s all designed…). Things have to change. If they don’t then they become dated, they stand still and get left behind. Our character and personality changes all the time too. Every day we gradually become different as we experience different things. We are never static, we never stay the same. Many changes we don’t notice are happening until a period of time has passed, because many are small or internal changes where the fruit only comes out later.

I’ve said many times we are all on our own individual journeys with God – whether we know we are or not – and a lot of what appears on this blog is about my journey. God has really been putting me through some big changes in the last four years, and this site and my own writing has developed along with it. (more…)