Pastor Nigel

A GRAMMY...AND AN INTERVIEW.

I'm in Mark Lee's guest bedroom (my regular home from home) having just congratulated Mark on the Grammy award for Live Revelation as best Rock Gospel Album. We are back in Atlanta 24 hours earlier than expected because of severe snow forcing the cancellation of today's WinterJam concert.

 On Wednesday evening I'll be doing a live interview about life on the road with the guys. It's being conducted by a website called Obscure Genius and the details are as follows:

LIVE ONLINE WEBINAR INTERVIEW WITH NIGEL JAMES

WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 3RD, 2010

9:30PM EASTERN

http://bit.ly/pastornigel

THE UNEXPECTED.

Learning to expect the unexpected is one of the laws of life on the road. I flew back into the USA on Wednesday to join Third Day on Winterjam again and was supposed to have a simple 25 minute flight from DC to Philadelphia on Thursday lunchtime to rendezvous with the guys. However, a 'biohazard situation', as the stewardess called the overflowing toilet, forced the flight to be cancelled and left me no choice but to rent a car and drive nearly 200 miles to the show in Reading, Pennsylvania. Thank the Lord for the classic rock stations which helped me maintain my sanity through the terrible rush-hour traffic in DC and Baltimore. Today proved equally unexpected, but a little more pleasurable with trips to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland and to see Avatar in 3D. Just in case you think life on the road is all leisure we did find time to read a Bible passage and pray together. I shared with the guys the story of an axehead floating in 2 Kings 6. 1-7. Go read it for yourself-at first glance it appears to be a random and insignificant story about not damaging a tool you have borrowed from a buddy, but everything is in scripture for a purpose, and I summarized the lessons we could learn from this story as follows:

• The Lord is interested in the seemingly small and unimportant parts of our lives.
• The Lord is able to make good our mistakes and rectify our shortcomings.
• The Lord is a supernatural God and still rules over nature.

More importantly, losing an axehead gives us a picture of what it could be like to lose the cutting edge of our faith, and to accept a Christianity that has no power and sharpness. We prayed that we would never get to that place and asked God to renew the cutting edge of our faith and to show us the miraculous.

THE FATHER OF COMPASSION AND THE GOD OF ALL COMFORT.

We've all been stunned by the images coming out of Haiti over the last few days, and like most of you we have struggled to articulate our thoughts and been desperate to know how to help.

At a time like this it's vital to get our theology right. Did God cause this to happen to Haiti? No. But it is part of the consequence of living in a fallen world. Does he stand idly by watching devastation and suffering? No. He's present in the suffering, bringing hope, compassion and comfort to those who suffer, to those who mourn and to those who minister to the broken. It's in the darkest places that the light of Jesus can shine the brightest.

We turned our devotions tonight over to interceding on behalf of the people of Haiti and used 2 Corinthians 1.3-4 as our focus verses: 

Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God.

We simply prayed that our Lord would be the Father of Compassion and the God of all Comfort to Haiti right now. We specifically prayed for Mark Stuart, from Audio Adrenaline, who has been in Haiti throughout this traumatic week visiting the Hands and Feet Children's home.

If you haven't contributed to a Haiti disaster relief fund you can do so through World Vision along with many Third Day fans. We believe we will hear many miraculous stories of God at work in Haiti in the coming days.

WINTERJAM STARTS.

So we are out on the WinterJam tour and the first weekend has been great! It's a different experience not being a Third Day tour, and has some challenges-especially the length of the tour at 42 shows!

In our first devotional time as a band we focused on these verses:

 May the God who gives endurance and encouragement give you a spirit of unity among yourselves as you follow Christ Jesus, so that with one heart and mouth you may glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.  (Romans 15.5-6).

And we talked about three important characteristics that were going to be needed on this tour:

• Endurance
• Encouragement
• A spirit of Unity

We noted that all of these were gifts from God and couldn't just be summoned up ourselves, but that if we truly asked God for these things then the end result would be a unified act of glorifying Jesus. 

THIRD DAY UK FANS FUND CHURCHES IN INDIA.

I'm four days away from joining the band at the start of the WinterJam tour and really looking forward to ministering with the guys again. I have just received pictures from India of the official opening of the Seethanagaram church. This is a small village church which has been constructed from funds given by fans at Third Day's concert in London last June. Actually we raised enough money and pledges to build another church as well, which is currently being constructed. This brings to a total of 15 'Ignite India' churches that Ignite in the UK have co-ordinated the fundraising and construction for.

 

For more information about Ignite India churches you can visit www.igniteindia.org.uk