All i would love you to do, is either reply to this and leave your email address and name. Or send me an email with these details to gaz@gazsimmonds.com, I hope the whole double name thing in the address isn’t too weird haha! I didn’t feel ‘profesional’ enough to go for a ‘mailinglist@gaz…’ haha!!

I promise i will not email you too often! Just once in a while, you know how it goes…

But sometimes this really gets me down; the main thing that this happens with at church is the sound system!! And the most annoying thing, I’m usually at the other end of the room and it is nothing to do with me! All I want to say is, ‘yes I know its awful system, if you can’t stand it then please go to the back and do it yourself! (Or get out your cheque book and buy a new one!)’ But obviously this is probably not the way to conquer the situation.

This is something I have really been asking God to give me grace for, because it is easy to take the negative stuff to heart. But actually I think there is 3 things we need to do…

1 – Don’t take it to heart, more often than not its just someone’s opinion, one of the amazing things about the world we live in is that no-one in the world seems to share all the same opinions about anything, so sometimes take it with a pinch of salt.

2 – Criticism is a positive thing, however negative it is! It’s amazing how often I do something and suddenly think back to some constructive criticism I received even years ago, and think oh hang on a minute, I’m still learning from that.

3 – Be positive. I find that I seem to get more and more skeptical as time goes on, and I really do ask God to help me to find positive things in everything. Sometimes it is so hard. But I’m getting there!

I find that with some things, we look for negative comments just for the sake of it. Yes, like I said negative things are good because we can learn from them. But we really need to stop searching for negative things just for the sake of it. It’s actually ok to say, hey hang on a minute. That was good!

So my challenge… Go find something you hate, and find something in it that you love!

Comfort is so easy to achieve, and always looks so desirable. But the saying rings true, the grass is always greener on the other side. Comfort quickly becomes boring, stale, over rated.

But why is it so hard to leave the comfort zone? Why is it so hard to think outside the box? I love writing, I especially love writing songs. Yet when I sit down with a pen it is sometimes so hard to write. The same, boring ideas float round my head. The same cliché sentences that already send people straight to sleep, the same boring rhymes. Why is it so hard to find a way outside the box?

When we spend too much time being comfortable, it gets harder to break away. Waking up in the morning it can be so hard to get up, and it seems the longer we lie in bed, the more difficult it becomes to get up, well this is how it works for me anyway! Yet when we get into a pattern of getting up, it becomes easier, yes we will have off days. But when you get yourself used to it, it becomes natural.

I envy people who have the perseverance to master their skill so much that it becomes 2^nd nature. I long to have the same determination, but I spend too much time getting half way and being satisfied to quickly.

I long to stretch myself so much that I find it hard to sit comfortably, I strongly believe God longs for us to become uncomfortable, He did not send us to earth just to rest, and have an easy time. That’s what heaven is about! But we are here to grow, try, and try again. Sometimes at great cost. When this is not happening, something is wrong.

I find there is nothing worse than looking back on a day off and thinking, well I slept till 12, I watched TV, played on the Xbox, had a shower and got dressed at 4pm, and watched TV all night because it was too late to do anything. What a waste. So my challenge is simple… What can we do today, that will make tomorrow, a yesterday that we will want to live again?

Christmas is well and truly upon us anyway. On Wednesday i lead worship at the first Carol Service of the year. Which was just for the local beavers. Was a good event though about 100 kids filled the church, parents and all! It was also the debut of the a couple of the new youth band. So that was really good, they did such a good job, I messed up more than them with the lyrics! Why do christmas carols have so many bizare lyrics?!

Tomorrow we have our Church Christmas Crafts market, which should be fun. I am organizing the cafe, which i am excited/scared about as this isn’t my usual cup of tea, (Get it?! Cafe – Cup of tea!!) But i am really enjoying it. Hopefully it will be a really good Christmassy day.

I am in a good mood right now because i think i have just put the final touches to a couple of songs i have been working on for over a year. Will hopefully get a demo done in the next week or two…

I have the proof copy of the Christmas magazine right in front of me as i write. Ready to go to the printers this week. Trees are going up, the Coca Cola advert is on TV, and it is exactly one month till Christmas Eve.

I must say that I never really believed people who work in Church, when they say how busy they are. Until last year. And i realised, yeh its Kind of a lot of work. But this year, I have been blown away again. There is so much to do!

It is such a relief when you can tick things off the to do list though i must say. The Christmas Magazine, ‘Spotlight’, is done, proofed and will be printed this week, and delivered next week. Can’t wait to see the finished product! Next week we have our Christmas Crafts fair at church. I took the fliers into the local schools. Best get printing the menu for the Cafe!

But the big one is planning for the Christmas Services. Christmas Eve is the big one. With 2 services repeated at 4pm and 6pm, I can’t wait! Got the Choir practices booked in for the debut of our new Contemporary Choir along with the Band Practices, should be rocking.

I will keep you updated of what’s going on. I love Christmas! And in the midst of all this, I am off to see delirious on Saturday in Leeds with Katie. Can’t wait.

I just don’t understand. Surely the Auditions is the only time we can put up with awful acts that can’t sing. But John and Edward are still in? It’s getting a little humiliating for the other acts!! What is going on.

I think they should change the voting system to you vote for who you want to get rid of! John and Edward would be gone without any questions!

Really excited about some of the songs i have been writing lately. Hopefully get some recorded soon. Just ordered myself a firewire interface for my Mac So I will definitely get some demo’s done then.

Good start to the weekend! Now, what to do with the rest of it…

So practically, the real aim is that the Church is open much more than it has been before. Monday to Friday the Church is now open from 9:30-12:30, for people to come in and pray. As a staff team, we now try to work physically in church every morning between these times.

It has already been quite something being open like this. It is so refreshing to come into a church each morning, which has people there praying, instead of just being greeted with a cold empty building!

For the 2 weeks this has been going there has been a steady flow of people every day which is really encouraging. In the next few weeks we plan on letting the whole community around know. And we also have a little pavement ice cream type board on the way! Reading ‘Church Open’ (I will post a photo when we have it!!)

So yeah, if you live around chesterfield, do pop in and join us in prayer at some point.

Thought i would tell you about the latest addition to the Simmonds’ household, who actually has been here for about a month or so now! Meet Eva…

Isn’t she beautiful?! We got her when she was just 9 weeks, Its pretty scary how much she has grown in just over a month!

More blogs on the way i promise.

On Sunday i lead worship at a Youth and Children event thing in Derby Cathedral. Which went really well actually, it was a really good turn out and a nice service.

Myself and Chris are, as i have previously mentioned, working on a new website which is exciting, hopefully i will bring you news on that very shortly.

I am really enjoying being back at home, but working. It’s nice being able to see Katie more often!

I am by the way also loving Logic Pro! Been working on a couple of Demo’s, maybe if i figure out how to put one on here i can give you a sneak preview of a song or two i have been writing!

First School assembly tomorrow! Scary stuff! Luckily I am not doing it on my own!