Christ Church Guest House

During our stay in Jerusalem we stayed in the old City at the Christ Church Guest house, it is part of Christ Church which is the oldest Protestant Church in the Middle East. The location was great, service was great(actually it was manned by a team of 10-15 volunteers), lack of A/C was just fine with me. This Guest House is a form of ministry used to be able to house short and long term missionaries to Jerusalem and one night I got to talking to two men in their mid 50's. I was sitting near them doing some writing in my Journal and they struck up a conversation. One man worked for an NGO in Palestine to outfit disabled children with wheelchairs. He was accompanied by a full time missionary who started telling me about some of the amazing experiences the Lord has used him in. The one that sticks in my heard(I am writing this a week after) was as we were talking about boldness and how the Lord allowed him to talk to two Palestinian women and how they are both following Christ today. These are the people that I enjoy spending my time with and I love to see how the Lord is using them to redeem his kingdom.

This cat lived at Christ Church and was a handful, every meal it
would try to eat you food when you were not looking.
Sneaky little thing.

All is Great in the Lord

Paul Shackelford

More Photos from our entire trip: https://plus.google.com/photos/102484709808402381964/albums/5664263551425737985

Rise Again - Needtobreathe

I have been reading a book about the arts and Christians role in creating culture. Steve Turner, the author, asserts a major critique that modern Christian art does not speak about real life. The art created does not sound genuine or have any ties to real life that people outside the faith can connect with. While reading the book I listened through this album and I think that this song does a great job of breaking the mold. The members of Needtobreathe are all outspoken followers of Jesus but very little of the art that they produce mentions Jesus or Christianity at all. Instead they craft creative music, written from places of pain and joy. "Rise Again" steps through pain that occurs in life as we see relationships stretched and torn. The bitterness of broken hearts and friendships is then contrasted with the truth that we will get up from this pain and rise again. "I can see us moving on, I can feel that coming on strong", the joy that comes after the

Twenty-Four - Jess Ray

Lately I have been listening to lots of music and podcasts while working and biking to work. I was feeling a need for some new music so I turned to NoiseTrade to check out some new artists. My favorite thus far is Jess Ray because of the honest lyrics, tastefully simple musicality and overall enjoyable listening environment. While on my flight back to Atlanta I was struck by this song at first because of the drums that propel this song behind the walking guitar. If I were to add drums to a track like this it would have been done in a very similar manner. Once I got past the drums I was awe struck by the simple power of these lyrics, take a read below and follow the link to her blog to listen. To me it was not written for an outward expression of hope or encouragement but rather as a inward proclamation to the soul. As the psalmist often choose to sing, this song speaks inward in a call to stand up and be reminded of truth all to often forgotten. As I gear up for the star

Alleluia - Jesus Culture with Martin Smith

Once again worship last night was Glorious! Had a great day just chilling with my SDP folks from last summer, went up the river and just talked about the past season of life and where the Lord is leading us into. Exciting and scary stuff but it was great to be back with some awesome people who speak some potent truth. Last night during worship was one of many firsts... For the first time in a long time I actually stood while I sang, for the first time in a long time I was singing from a place of Joy, for the first time in a long time I did not care how I worshiped my Lord I just worshiped. Well its not like these things have not happened ever in my life, but I just felt so much peace during worship. So I decided to throw the song that we just repeated for a long while up here, mainly cause I did not know the name so I was looking it up and now I am pumped, gotta buy this album! All the angels cry out, Holy is the Lord God All the earth replies, Holy are You Thi

Letters from Lilongwe

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