Monthly Archives: March 2009

Cake

Gaz Simmonds | March 20, 2009

Well i love these sunny days, and i had no idea that they would come so soon out of the blue!! I Started the day with an injection for Mozambique! My 4th out of 5 i think! So getting there, different nurse, and it turned out she goes to Aldates, so that was funny!

Then me and Matt went to play some basketball, i didn’t realise there even was a court here! But Matt saw it, so that was fun! Had a couple of kids come and join us too! So had a good laugh, a part from the time our ball went into the canal, we saved it don’t worry!!

Then i went and hung out in Christ Church meadows for a bit, did some reading in the sun! Lovely!! And it even feels this evening that my face is glowing, like it does in the summer when you catch some sun! Yes! And its March! I love that!

Also me and Alanna made our cake that was bought at the Auction of Promises! The guy gave us £30 for it! And just specified he wanted lots of Chocolate, so we sure gave him that! Check it out…

I’m off in a moment to lead worship in the 24/7 prayer room anyway! Between 10 and 11! I’m already a little tired and not had a proper meal this evening, mainly due to my lack of effort! But i’m looking forward to it! Maybe some Chips from the kebab van will go down well after!

God Bless

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New songs

Gaz Simmonds | March 20, 2009

So last night I played a bit of electric guitar at risky! Which was so much fun! I spent some of the afternoon learning my riffs and stuff and it was cool! For any electric guitarists out there, I tell you, tap delay is where it is at!! I’m probably a little slow catching on to this one! But it’s so good and very simple to use too!

We did a couple of new songs too, one called run from hillsong, and also on the soul survivor album! Which was good that has an awesome guitar riff too which I was a little scared about as it was the first song! But it was ok ha! I managed to get a good bit of tap delay in the middle too where it breaks down! Fab!

And the other one we did was called remain by ben cantelon, it isn’t too new I guess it was on his album a couple of years ago now I think! But that was good! such a good song!

Vince then spoke on Christian dating! Which was really cool actually

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Preaching Practice

Gaz Simmonds | March 17, 2009

Just got back from our first afternoon of preaching practice. It was slightly scary when i found out i had to go first!!! So it was almost a little awkward to start, but good fun!

I must say i really struggled getting everything in the time limit! We only had 8 minutes! Which was so difficult! They told us when we had 1 minute left, at this point i had not yet got onto my main point!! Slight error! But something to learn from!! I got there in the end!

It was also scary when i walked in the room to find that Simon Ponsonby was also going to be sitting in as well as Charlie Cleverly! Which was a little scary!! But it turned out to be a really blessing, because at the end they both and Jo Braithwate (Charlies PA) Gave us feedback on our sermons which was really really helpful! So i feel like it was such a good experience learning from these wonderful people.

I even managed to get a little story in there about going to a Mcfly gig, and they even said they liked that which was nice! They said also that they thought i was a good communicator which was really encouraging because my worry is always that i will end up reading out my sermon or something! So luckily that didn’t happen and they said that was a good thing

It was a good laugh also, Charlie said he wanted the congregation to be like that of a Nigerian church, so at regular points Charlie would shout out, ‘Preach it’, or ‘Testify’! At times this was quite a distraction, but it was funny!!

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Worship

Gaz Simmonds | March 15, 2009

Just got back from Worship Central in London, which was a really cool day! I feel like i came away having learned a lot Which is always good! This evening while worshiping i was thinking a lot on what it is to worship, so i scribbled down a few things i thought i would share…

I was thinking more tonight that sung worship really isn’t about just songs, and singing nice melodies and harmonies, not even when you do so for 20 minutes straight or whatever! But it is more when you are moved into that place where you really open up to God everything within you, when you feel most vulnerable. When you become undignified before God. It is shouting at the top of your voice, or screaming your head off the words that you need to bring before God, or at times not even words maybe.

If your anything like me you may hate dancing, no matter how loud the music is or how ‘banging’ the party is! I hate dancing, so i know there is defiantly something up when i feel so moved to just dance, or jump up and down before God! But that’s what worship is! Bringing before God the things that we wouldn’t give to the world.

Today i heard the analogy, of Jesus being the only worship leader, when he was on earth he worshiped his heavenly father. So when we worship, we are joining with Jesus as he, and we praise our Father in heaven.

Worship is not when we plough through the same arrangements, feeling the same feelings and leave knowing no more of the Father, but rather worship is when we reach into heaven, when we stretch out as far as we possibly can, in the hope that we can glimpse some of the glory of God. We all know that Revelation teaches us that when we get to heaven there will be no more weeping, no more hurt, and no more sadness. And that is such a great thing to look forward to. But i believe that we can also have some of that here on Earth. The Gospels do not end with Jesus dying on the cross, and not even with Christ’s Resurrection. But they end with the Holy spirit being poured out into each one of us, so that we can Worship the Father, through the son, By the spirit. And the holy spirit brings some of heaven to earth every single day.

So Basically, lets reach into heaven, and bring some heaven to earth… ‘Let Your kingdom come, Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven’

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Trying To Be

Gaz Simmonds | March 14, 2009

So i thought i best keep up to date with all these technological advances! It seems MP3s could be the new Vinal very shortly. Apparently video, or MP4 i believe they aptly name it, is now the place to be. So here is my first attempt! Here is a song i wrote last summer called Trying To Be, let me know what you think! If it proves to be a good move i might even try one of these for a song i have more recently written too!

Blessings,
Gaz

Posted in General, Music, Worship | 1 Response