12 months ago I undertook a review of search traffic within Google to understand the search traffic of ‘religions’ within the UK. Click here to view original post.

Back then we highlighted the fact the although there are more references on Google for the term ‘bible’ compared to ‘Koran’, there was though more users searching for religious terms ‘Muslim’ and ‘Islam’.

Well 12 months on and it would appear that the number of references within Google UK for ‘bible’ has increased to 8.8M compared to a leveling for the term ‘Koran’. 12 months ago the ration was 6:1 in favour of the term ‘bible’, that figure now stands at 23:1. So is Christianity really under threat in the UK of distinction, or is just media hype?

What is also interesting is that if we spreads the research to the four corners of this planet it would appear that searches for ‘Islam’ and ‘Muslim’ are on the decrease, is this the turning that we have all been awaiting.

Also I wonder why historically traffic for the terms ‘Islam’ seems to decrease around holiday times!

Dilbert strip

“Now you are the body of Christ, and each one of you is a part of it. And in the church God has appointed first of all apostles, second prophets, third teachers, then workers of miracles, also those having gifts of healing, those able to help others, those with gifts of administration, and those speaking in different kinds of tongues.”  (1 Corinthians 12:27-28)(NIV)

I have always steered away from guns and gun crime purely for the reason that there are too many innocent lives affected but this activity. For every one person killed by a firearm, there is a network of family and friends who suffer most. This network is then expected to pick-up the pieces and resolve the void left by this crime.

I normally don’t advocate programs on television, but a trailer for one program really got me thinking and to the point that it is a great humbler to the rest of us outside of that world.

A few weeks ago I was fortunate enough to see a performance by Teen Challenge in which a reformed group of young chaps provided a really strong performance on growing in a drug and gun culture. It was hard hitting, emotional and most of all to common story that seems to growing. If you ever get a chance to see these guys in action then I would strongly recommend. Click here to view their website.

Gun Crim on Channel 4

How smart is this – a biblical version of the Yellow Pages!

For me it can often be frustrating trying to remember passages that I may have read which I think would be beneficial for the situation I am in, maybe this is all part of my spiritual growth!

Click here to view God’s Yellow Pages.

What can I say that has not already been written or said about the revival currently taking place in Lakeland, Florida?

It was by chance in the middle of April that we started to watch the revival on GOD TV and have been glued to the telly since. We normally watch it the night after the event – rather than staying up till 4am each morning and are rescheduling our life to be able to watch ths! We have even tuned in to the webcam for the current UK revival taking place in Dudley, UK; although a much smaller event, it is equally as inspiring to see people being healed here in the UK.

What is amazing is that Todd is still talking about the great revival to come and this is just the beginning. The number of people being saved is just awesome and I pray that it continues to grow from strength to strength. And isn’t it great that God has chosen somebody like Todd to lead the revival; a man with such a great testimony and a true servant to Jesus has been called to be fearless in the duty he has been called to undertake.

With the media streaming the event, is this truly the first global revival that the planet has seen and placing our hands on the telly or monitors really does feel like we are there. In fact we know a couple in our church who have been also been watching and have noticed improvements in their knee and ears retrospectively. Hallelujah.

I would love to hear from anybody who has actually been to the revival and share their experience of their time there.

Does anyone know of a Christian event in the UK that does not require a small fortune to attend?

I am not talking about the church outreach programs but festivals that I can take the family to. It seems that there is a good profit margin in the production of a festival within the UK and I am not sure who actually profits from it. When I compare this to the US market, it seems that all the best events across the pond are either free or nearly free. This then makes the events inclusive rather than the UK mentality of exclusive. That reminds me of Rick Warren’s Purpose Driven Life description of a perfect church and the lack o them – well maybe these UK events are the first step towards this mentality. What about us chaps who can’t afford to spend huge amounts to attend events?

I am no expert on this subject matter but the only ‘free’ event that I know about in the UK is Creationfest in Devon during August but surely there must be others but where is the Christian event calendar which promotes this – in fact why not start one know. If you know of a good Christian festival which does not requires a month’s wages to attend, then please leave a comment below.

“And as soon as the commandment came abroad, the children of Israel brought in abundance the first fruits of corn, wine, and oil, and honey, and of all the increase of the field; and the tithe of all things brought they in abundantly” Chronicles 31:5

Since becoming a Christian one of the biggest leaps of faith I found was the issue of tithing. In fact it is fair to say that before I became a Christian there was a huge chip on my shoulder about this especially as finances were tight. It just did not seem possible that I could find an additional 10% of my income for tithing. But in the way the Lord works best, he has helped us resolve this issue and after much thought we started tithing in February this year.

Each month Teresa and I sit down and work out how much we should tithe and then write the cheque, place it in the envelope and pray over it. This is us building our covenant with God and allowing to respect the Lord for allowing us to give this back to him.

Now back to my original point; should you tithe before or after tax. We have spoken to many people who tithe before tax because they believe that we should tithe our income as they did in the Old Testament. For example I have not yet found a bit of scripture that says a tithe was made of a sheep but the wool was shaved off first as this was not actually within the skin of the sheep. It always talks about the full tithe offering being made – “Thou shalt truly tithe all the increase of thy seed, that the field bringeth forth year by year.” Luke 18:22 – again notice the word ‘all’ being used in this scripture.

In the UK it is also questioned whether we should tithe government benefits such as child tax credits or income support and again I think this is down to personal opinions. To me this is still an income and one that should be accounted for.

I remember watching a program on the God channel about how to tithe correctly and they used the 10, 10, 80 rule. The first 10% of your income should be tithed, the second 10% should be put aside for a rainy day and the remaining 80% should be used for everyday living. If you use this theory then it makes sense, but the problem then revolves around the fact of whether you can survive on the 80%! This then becomes a worldly problem because you are then once again worrying about money.

After much thought we decided that we wanted to tithe before tax, we felt that an income was actually God’s money and by giving some back each month the Lord then knows that we are not money focused. Whereas if we did tithe after tax then we are actually just looking at ways to gain a little extra money and thus idolising money rather than Jesus.

I suppose ultimately tithing should be done with a happy heart and at your own discretion. We were talking about whether we should reconsider the way we tithe as others within the church tithed after tax, but how could we go back on our word to God – that is not even an option and just the Devil working against us.

When I get to those pearly gates I want to be able to say that I was over cautious with regards to tithing in order to cover every base. And I can also say that I helped my church both physically and financially to the best of my ability. I am not quite at the level that Rick warren is at and able to reverse tithe (give 90%) but what an awesome thought that would be.

What is your view on tithing?

Let me tell you about a miracle that has happened this week.

My car, a Smart car, failed its MOT last week; two warning lights were appearing on the dashboard and had been doing this everyday for the past 4 months. Although I knew that it would probably fail its MOT based on this I thought I would still put the car in to the garage for an MOT anyway and asked them to put any problems right. Well, when I went to pick the car up later that week, it was no surprise that it had failed its MOT based on this fault. What also did not surprise me was the fact that the garage could no fix the fault.

Why is it that one of the cheapest cars to buy on the market can also be one of the most expensive for a service? There is an odd tie-up with the Smart car; Chrysler build the cars and Mercedes market and service the vehicles. Basically this means due to the complexity of the car any work required generally needs to go through a Mercedes garage and an automatic ‘0’ added to the bill!

Back to the miracle; the car went to Mercedes to fault find. They found that a sensor needed to be replaced and it would cost about £250 to fix. That’s right for a small sensor that was really not going to affect the running of the car was going to cost me £250 to fix. Next problem, I had 5 days to get it fixed otherwise the MOT would run out on the car and would mean that I could not legally drive it. Final problem was that I did not have the funds to fix the problem - To fix the problem would mean that we would go into debt this month and probably next month as well. Surely God would not want that!

We needed some serious praying time!

The day after the car came out of the Mercedes garage and I was thinking about how I could afford to get the car fixed all of a sudden the warning lights went off and stayed off. That was it the car was booked in for re-test for the MOT and has passed. Although there was a nervous wait in the waiting room – Jesus would never leave me.

The warning light has still not come back on, this is not to say that it has tried a couple of times, but to no avail!

Now to my family that was a serious miracle; God has helped us continue to run a car for me to get to work without costing us a fortune to do so. I think it is down to two things; us starting tithing just two months ago and also the power of prayer. Two great offerings to the might Lord because he deserves it.

Have faith and God will provide!

Do you think this is what God meant when he said we should give 100% when at work. I think not I hear you say. In reality this is probably a true reflection of the majority of workers and their commitment to work.

During the period of Lent, Teresa and I am working through Rick Warrens ‘Purpose Driven Life’ course. My brother’s church is undertaking the course as a church and we have been blessed with the opportunity to work at it at the same time. The 40 day course has really inspired me as to the true values of life. We are on this planet as an opportunity to develop skills which can be used in the Kingdom of God and we are not self-centered but God-centered are just some great messages the course has provided so far, and we are only on day 13!

Seriously, if you haven’t read this publication then I highly  recommend that you get your hands on a copy and make time for God. I know for sure that when we have finished the course we will be going through Purpose Driven Church.