What can I say three years running Yve and I have made the trip to join the rest of the CGi tribe and enjoy a week of excellent ministry worship and fellowship. Only difference with this year Tribe 07 was that it topped the lot.

New venue Cefn Lea has meant a wonderful new environment for all concerned, more appropriate and fellowship conducive personal accommodation, better facilities for families, the actual teaching seminar venues more varied and useful. Quite simply a much better place to be and relax.

The schedule was toned down as well making us all feel much less harassed and stressed, for me that's a biggy.

Don't worry all the stuff you would expect from Tribe is there, Tribe Nation, What Now Cafe, awesome roof raising worship times, excellent high calibre speakers, heart melting ministry times, prayer Pods and 24hr prayer opportunity and of course the odd salvation or 5, 3 of which in the Paisley youth alone!

Can I praise this event enough, no not really, will I be there next year, you try and stop me, would I recommend that absolutely everyone try and get there, would I ever.

One thing that struck Yve and I in the first 2 days was that nearly everyone we spoke to at breakfast and evening meal was either going on M:Power or thinking about it this coming year, I must say this was entirely unprompted by any of the M:Power teaching staff...I feel a bit like a walking advert for M:Power, oh wait we all are!

Get your deposit paid, if this year is anything to go by next year is gonna be bustin big style...

Regards
Steven

My Sister in Law was down visiting just last week and she has said that she wanted to take the kids to the Xscape centre for one of the evenings and would I like to tag along and join them on the Sky Park thing.

Now I am not afraid of heights per se, Yve is so much so she struggle to go up open stair wells. Anyway I said to Lesley my Sis that if Thomas wanted me to go up then I would to help them out. See big brave Uncle Steven willing to lend a hand.

We started at 5.50 and went on everything, i.e. a combi ticket which means the skypark route the Powerfan drop and the climbing walls. Now all in it's £23 per adult and that's for all the equipment and instructor for nearly 2 hours. Really great fun.

The zip slide to start with almost halted me but carried on determined to actually climb the apparatus rather than just sit down and waltz round as were advised we could do at anytime. needless to say the first couple were a doddle but when it came to the vertical logs, petrified was how Lesley described my face, and I could be seen gripping this log for all i was worth and determined not let go but just couldn't get my legs to find a foot place to continue.

I did the rest of the route without much difficulty as it's mainly logs and stuff to stand on. The 2nd time round as I neared the end I could sense I was really sweating, not from the heat I might add.

Next the PowerFan drop one wee girl in our group was very hesitant went our several times and never made it in the end. I did go out got hooked up and then bailed, went back to gather composure. I did eventually do it twice in the end it was go out get hooked up and drop before I could think about it was the best tactic. I went down so fast that the instructor at the top asked if I was ok, asking me while I was flat on my back at the bottom. My legs were so jelly I just couldn't hold myself up at the bottom when I landed.

We then all went onto to the climbing walls and had some goes on trying to reach the top of the artificial walls of varying degrees of difficulty.

I have to say through all this as I was quite scared though willing to have a go, my nephew Thomas 8 and Niece Jemma 10 in August were going ground great guns down the PowerFan without a fear or looking back in mind, really put me to shame.

Scared of heights, perhaps but at least willing to give it a go and after all your harnessed in good and sound so the risk is minimal.

Entry by Steven

THE VISION

So this guy comes up to me and says "what's the vision? What's the big idea?" I open my mouth and words come out like this…
The vision?

The vision is an army of young people.

You see bones? I see an army. And they are FREE from materialism.

Light flickers from every secret motive, every private conversation.
It loves people away from their suicide leaps, their Satan games.
This is an army that will lay down its life for the cause.
A million times a day its soldiers

Such heroes are as radical on Monday morning as Sunday night. They don't need fame from names. Instead they grin quietly upwards and hear the crowds chanting again and again: "COME ON!"

Every soldier would take a bullet for his comrade at arms.
The tattoo on their back boasts "for me to live is Christ and to die is gain".

And the generation prays

They are incredibly cool, dangerously attractive

On the outside? They hardly care. They wear clothes like costumes to communicate and celebrate but never to hide.
Would they surrender their image or their popularity?
They would lay down their very lives - swap seats with the man on death row - guilty as hell. A throne for an electric chair.

With blood and sweat and many tears, with sleepless nights and fruitless days,

Their DNA chooses JESUS. (He breathes out, they breathe in.)
Their subconscious sings. They had a blood transfusion with Jesus.
Their words make demons scream in shopping centres.
Don't you hear them coming?
Herald the weirdo's! Summon the losers and the freaks. Here come the frightened and forgotten with fire in their eyes. They walk tall and trees applaud, skyscrapers bow, mountains are dwarfed by these children of another dimension. Their prayers summon the hounds of heaven and invoke the ancient dream of Eden.

This is taken from the 24-7 website http://www.24-7prayer.com/cm/ it was while I was in North Carolina that I got a wee glimpse of my own vision, cause I thought I had lost it. No comments on that particularly please...

If I remember I first used this mantra/vision to a group of Youth it has to be read with emotion and depth to get the full effect, and if done right can be exceptionally challenging.

I would encourage you to visit the site and see for yourself as well as getting the chance to visit a 24-7 prayer room/site. Religious or not believe or don't it is an exceptional place just to connect with yourself, don't not going cause you think it is going to be a place full of religious nutjobs, cause it ain't.

Posted by Steven