Ready: Living Urgently in a Messed-Up World

Kissing a Lifestyle of Convenience Goodbye

I’ll be up front – I am writing this at the worst possible time for my family and me. Rachel and I are in the throes of moving from Thailand to Vietnam. Not only are there the logistical challenges of visas, accommodation, flights, ‘yard sales’ (to borrow a term from our American friends) and endless packing, there’s also the emotional upheaval of goodbye meals with friends and colleagues, daily ‘lasts’ of what have been routine activities for the past five years, and a variety of emotions that range between excitement, sentiment and a growing realisation that we have little idea of what we are heading into.

We had our final packing day on Tuesday, and then we officially leave Chiang Mai, Thailand, on Thursday. In fact, since this is scheduled to go live on the second Friday in April, you’re most likely reading it on our very first day as official residents of Hanoi. Oh, and add a three and one-year-old into the mix, and you will be rightly wondering if spending time writing this is the wisest use of my time… and you’d be in good company with my long-suffering wife. (Editor’s note: thank you, Rachel!).
Continue reading “Ready: Living Urgently in a Messed-Up World”

Ready: Introduction

What’s This All About?

Most of you who read Firebrand Notes on even a semi-regular basis will know that about eighteen months ago we produced a film/music project called Jesus Come. Not only were Mairi and I really pleased with the way the project turned out, we passionately believe in the message that it carries: that the world is in a desperate, desperate mess (more than we can see) and people are hurting (beyond our capacity to understand); Jesus Christ is the only hope to bring justice and order and He is coming again.

For generations, the church has flitted between the excessive polarities of, on the one hand, talking about the Second Coming too much (while doing very little) and, on the other, focusing on an ‘attractional’, ‘relevant’, seeker-sensitive model of church (while failing to teach disciples to live in the reality of His coming).

In both cases, the gospel is generally more of a fix-my-life-make-it-better prescription than it is an invitation to surrender, suffer, die and live in the evangelistic power of the early church.

Houston, we have a problem.

What Is The Problem?

Continue reading “Ready: Introduction”

New series: Ready

To find someone in need who desperately needs your help, complete the following 5 simple steps:

1) Wherever you are about your day, look up from whatever you’re doing

2) consider what you see

3) pray for discernment

4) pray for courage and wisdom and power

5) open your mouth/move your feet

We’re soon starting a new blog series called “Ready” because we’re convinced that most of us aren’t.

Ready for what?

For the second coming of Jesus Christ!

In Ephesians 2:12 a scene is painted that is unimaginably awful: living in the world without Christ and without hope.

The chronic brokenness in people’s lives is as obvious and constant as the rising sun and you and I are called to be life-giving hope in Jesus’ name!

Whether you think about it a lot, only occasionally, increasingly, infrequently or as little as possible, the reality is that Jesus Christ is en route to planet Earth as King and as Judge. We have to be found living ready, like a present, continuous tense.

We’re called not to bunker mentalities of passive, fruitless waiting, but to *urgent* lifestyles of prayer and worship and bold intention to tell of Jesus.

You know you are!

We’re looking forward to welcoming special guest writers to the blog so please join us over the coming weeks and make this blog series happen.

>>Sign up for this series here<<

Thanks so much for reading

Maranatha

Hire Me

It’s been a complete joy for me to run this blog for the last decade. My own fire to see Jesus known and loved has, I hope, grown in intensity through the storms and calms of life.

Now I thought it was time that I offered my services in photography/videography and writing production to help anyone wanting to improve their own digital presence.

So, have a look at the new portfolio site below! I’d love to hear from you if I can help and would be very grateful if you might be happy to send a shout-out.

Thank you 😎🎈

🎈Nick Franks Digital 🎈

The Places We Call Home

Space

When you’re relaxed and at peace, when things are sweet between you and God, (currently not just fundamentally), you tend to notice things. This is because the spaces that you need in order to hear, and the discipline that you need in order to listen, are too often rammed with the traffic fumes of anxiety and fear, idleness and unbelief.

I was with Mairi walking through a small Scottish village on the Eastern coast of the UK a few hours before Christmas last year, passing through plumes of our own breath and treading the seasonal crispness under foot. It had been a stressful end to a stressful year and we were easing in to a couple of weeks away from the front line.

Continue reading “The Places We Call Home”

The Hardest Lesson I’ve Ever Had To Learn

Broken-down World

The sting of injustice is never pleasant. Like an incurable disease plaguing the entire world, all of us can see injustice functioning on a global scale every single day. We witness Robert Mugabe, corrupt Bankers, terrorism, famine, Rogue Traders, lazy Landlords, disallowed goals that have crossed the line, recruitment processes that look legal but that are internally rigged, false imprisonments, false biblical teaching, the ivory trade, endangered tigers, abuses of power, human trafficking and a whole other nightmare of unimaginable dysfunction that, somehow, manages to endure.

Despite the rare pockets of glory, our best efforts to act justly and the promises within the redemptive mission of God, we still live in an unjust, broken-down world.

Global becomes Personal

Global injustice like this is meant to provoke us into faith-filled action and to woo us into the caring shelter of God, but, like a nauseating hors d’oeuvre before our eventual main course of numbness, it has a nasty habit of shutting us down.Continue reading “The Hardest Lesson I’ve Ever Had To Learn”

The Political Right and the Kingdom of God

Where We’ve Been Living

Here in the UK, we’ve been living of late in a barely-believable world of political and humanitarian drama. This has included the refugee crisis that’s come close to our shores via the Calais Jungle and multiplied thousands who have drowned at sea in attempts to make it to Europe via the dinghies of death. Continue reading “The Political Right and the Kingdom of God”

11 Tips To Stop Being Unhealthy in 2017

“The greatest gift you can give anyone is a healthy you” as my previous pastor once said. It’s true – you’re not going to be the rock solid blessing you’re supposed to be to others if you’re not healthy and fit.

So, drawing on my decade of experience working in the NHS and for private health clubs as an exercise specialist, here’s a set of rapid-fire vlogs to help you get going this year – feel free to drop me a line for any specific help:

Set a long-term goal
Get some new kit
HIIT – Mix up your training types
Fitness Blender
Find a mate
FITT acronym
Be realistic
Les Mills BODYPUMP – Build lean muscle to beat fat
Get some new trainers! Never run in old shoes!
SIS Electrolytes
Polar self-tracking

*Body Pump info HERE:

*Fitness Blender info HERE

*Science in Sport Electrolyte info HERE

* Self-Tracking info HERE

Continue reading “11 Tips To Stop Being Unhealthy in 2017”

The Cinderella Gift of Discernment

An Unlikely Bride

The Disney fairytale Cinderella is a story about an unlikely bride mistreated at the hands of her guardians but who eventually rises from the doldrums of her slave labour to become the star of the ball and the stunning wife of Prince Charming. The tale is a love story of redemption, beauty, justice and power, all punctuated by the sweet grace notes of gospel-joy.

More specifically, as the supernatural source of Cinderella’s salvation, The Fairy Godmother’s presence in the story is a poetic type of the gift-giving Spirit of Power in the life of the Christian. Cinderella herself typifies a specific gift of the Holy Spirit that we’re urged to long for – a gift that enables our tasting and seeing of the joy to be found only in God.Continue reading “The Cinderella Gift of Discernment”

The Apprentice: I Genuinely Believe

I’m sure a lot of us are looking forward to this coming Sunday and the final of the twelfth series of Lord Sugar’s The Apprentice. I for one am going to be genuinely nervous for young Courtney as he attempts to string four or five words together before his buffering kicks in like a pre-broadband dial-up. Seriously though, I wish the lad well – wouldn’t he be the most unlikely winner ever?

Watching the semi-final last night, one main thing struck me and actually spoke to me quite powerfully: No, not the unbelievably unprofessional business plans that are handed to Claude and Karren every single series; no, not the unbelievably stupid personal content on the candidate’s CVs; no, not the unbelievably fabricated facts and figures that the young entrepreneurs think will hold water.

The thing that struck me most Continue reading “The Apprentice: I Genuinely Believe”