Leeds: Chris Denham
A strange thing has happened to me recently. For years the geekyness within me has ruled and dictated the things I enjoy, watch and do. Space Treking Alien War style tv and films would be the first picked off the shelf in Blockbusters and anything that talked about the latest technological breakthrough would be the choice read. Lately though, I’ve found the movements of a small white ball being kicked around by 22 men to have started to put a chink in my neat star trek uniform! I blame it on the lodger!
Last summer we took in a lodger – he’s our Youth Pastor in Leeds and he needed a place to stay, we needed a lodger and voila a deal was made! Even better was the fact that he works in a restaurant so most evenings he would be out till after midnight meaning that we hardly ever see him around. But his love of the Game was quite clear from the fact that every morning when I’d get up and put the TV on for the kids the channel was always set to EuroSport news or something similar. I didn’t even know we had those channels!
Then Leeds United started looking good for promotion so I started to keep track of the progress feeling a certain sense of loyalty to the city where I now reside but that also provided me plenty ways of annoying my Huddersfield town lodger. Further more my son Joel started attending practice sessions of said Game on Saturday mornings increasing the exposure. Finally it’s now of course World Cup season and so it’s become incredibly difficult to avoid anything to do with what’s happening – if anything it seems to be drawing me in a little deeper...
It really is amazing what a little exposure can do to you!!
Now that all may just be light-hearted fun and games but the truth of the matter is that we are all affected by the people we surround ourselves with and the places we choose to live. Surround yourself with negative thinking and you’ll soon be thinking negatively. Surround yourself with people who like to eat a lot and you’ll soon be adding on the pounds. The same goes for surrounding yourself with positive, healthy people and you’ll soon feel inspired to be positively healthy! That’s how our world can affect us!
But imagine being part of something even bigger, even greater. Something that gives you not just a sense of being happy, but a sense of purpose – an understanding why you were born! Imagine connecting with people whose presence in your life actually lifts you, encourages you and gives you the courage to step out and do new things. Imagine connecting with the one person who knows you better than yourself and understands how you think and why you act the way you do because he created you! He mused over you for eon’s before you were even born!
The Church is not a social club and Jesus Christ is not some impersonal God that is worshipped. The Church is a body, a place where everyone belongs and Jesus is real and very much wanting to connect with you today. If you’re going to let someone influence the way you live and breathe – then why not make an appointment with your maker and begin the incredible journey of discovering who you really are! You never know – you may just find there’s a bit of geek lurking underneath somewhere – or worse still, something of a sports fanatic!
Where to start? Hope City Leeds has great gatherings every Sunday at 11:00am. Plus this month we have our two BIG MOVIE WEEKENDS on 4th and 11th July when we’ll be bringing life lessons from Disney’s UP and Avatar. So bring along a friend, have some fun and begin to discover more about who God is and what He has for your life!
Bless ya!
Chris Denham
Congregation Pastor
Feel free to message me on my blog at www.chrisdenham.co.uk where you can catch up all the goings on in Leeds and in the Denham household.
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