My Christian Blog

Newfrontiers - Praise Is Rising CD

2007-04-13T11:54:00.000+01:00

There seem to be so many Christian CDs nowadays with live worship on, especially in the UK (where I am) - all the big Christian events release at least 1 live album per year - Soul Survivor, Spring Harvest, New Wine etc etc.

After a while you get a bit overloaded with them all, especially as many of the songs, and even the worship leaders, can be the same on different CDs. You get that "deja-vu" feeling, you know?

I'm pleased to say that the CD "Praise Is Rising" from the Newfrontiers group of churches seems to me to stand out from the crowd. The event in question is the Together On A Mission 2006 with Mobilise conference, where over 4000 people gathered from 54 nations in Brighton, UK. The band is good, featuring most of the crowd from Church of Christ the King in Brighton - Stuart Townend, Kate Simmonds, Lou Fellingham and Evan Rogers, the songs are excellent, and the crowd seem to be excited and full of worship for Him.

Some new but already familiar songs are there - Matt Redman's "Even Though I Walk (You Never Let Go)", a haunting version of Paul Oakley's "You Have Loved Me (Father Me)" and a rip-rocking version of "You Are So Good To Me (Shout To The Roof)" , again written by Paul Oakley. The title track "Praise Is Rising (Hosanna)" is a strong track, which will certainly be heard in major events around the UK over the next year or two.

On the whole, a highly recommended album which is a good snapshot of UK live Praise and Worship in 2006/2007.

You can buy this album here Praise Is Rising CD - Newfrontiers

Frank Peretti

2006-07-20T00:50:00.000+01:00

I can't drag myself away from reading Frank Peretti's "This Present Darkness". I read another of his books "The Visitation" a couple of years ago, and thought it was quite a gripping read. Then I happened to see a copy of "This Present Darkness" lying around when I was "between books" so I decided to give it a go.

Wow! It's as "can't put me down" as any Harry Potter book! The story is one of big corporation guys infiltrating a town and gradually taking over the whole place - police, judges, retailers, colleges, churches even. The thing is, these guys are demon-possessed and the takeover marks the start of an epic battle between the Angels, backed by prayer warriors from one small church, and the demons themselves. It's well written, with plenty of twists and turns, and builds to a fantastic climax.

If you haven't read any Peretti, why not give him a try? Millions of people worldwide already have!

This Present Darkness by Frank Peretti

The Visitation by Frank Peretti

Out Of The Ashes

2006-02-18T23:37:00.000Z

Wow! As the owner of a Christian music website based in the UK, I get a few sample CDs sent to me from time to time. Mostly these are from people who have not got a record deal and who are looking for independent distribution. It's good to help these folk out a little by offering their CD online, and bringing it to a wider audience.

The other day I received one such CD from a church called The Hope Centre in Oswaldtwistle, Lancashire, UK. I popped it in the car CD player as I was just going on a long drive to a business meeting.

The first couple of tracks seemed nice enough; nothing amazing, just pleasant. A bit like Hillsongs, I thought, without quite so much smooth production work.

About track 6 I started to take an interest in what I was hearing. There was a sort of mantra going on in the song, something like "I will never be alone, will never be afraid, will never be without you"....it was almost on one note, slightly hypnotic, and it was building and building and ......suddenly I was starting to get into it.

The next few tracks were good, but I didn't get the same "goose bumpy" feeling again until track 11, the title track "Out Of The Ashes". Now this is one of those tracks that doesn't need several listens to grow on you...it was there, straight away. A great song, good melody, strong lyric "It only takes a little faith...".

So I hit the back track button and listened to the whole CD from track 1.

By the third play I had 3 songs that were on my "excellent" list.

By about the 6th play I had 6 songs that were on my "exellent" list.

Now, after a week or so, I can't get enough of this CD! It's one of the best worship albums I've heard in the last 12 months. And it's British! Hallelujah!

All credit to the guys at The Hope Centre for bringing out a CD that holds its own against the likes of Hillsong, Vineyard and Abundant Life. Recommended - highly!

Read more about it here:

Out Of The Ashes CD - The Hope Centre

Andy

God On The Beach - Part 2

2005-10-09T01:04:00.000+01:00

Well, I finished the book, and I would highly recommend it to everybody.

Nothing spectacular happens in this book - which may come as a shock to some (it did to me)......you know how every Christian book you pick up seems to come with stories of amazing conversions, amazing healings, amazing blessings......and after you've read a few hundred of them, you start to get a bit jaded?

Michael Volland's book is refreshing in that respect. He's an ordinary guy, he's from the UK, not America (sorry to all my American friends - no offence!), and God works slowly in him from the beginning to the end of this book - and somehow that gives me hope, because God seems to work in this unhurried, unspectacular way in my life too...so I can relate more to Michael than I can to some evangelist who flies to Africa, wins several thousand souls, heals a raft of terminal illnesses, and is home in time for tea.

If you are an ordinary Christian living in the UK right now, and you want to try and understand more about how God can use you to come alongside people that you meet (especially young people)......you should read this book. God On The Beach. Period.

God On The Beach

2005-09-26T12:27:00.000+01:00

I'm just reading "God On The Beach" by Michael Volland. So far, I like what I've read. Why? Because Michael seems pretty much like me, and I'm guessing he's probably very much like a lot of other Christians who are carrying around a huge bag of problems with insecurity and reluctance to "go and tell the people".
Michael signed up for an on-the-beach evangelism mission in Newquay, Cornwall, UK - and admits that the main reason was to get some good surfing in! He hope that he'd be able to fade into the background so that he could enjoy his time there and let others do all the evangelising. But God had other plans!
I'll post some more thoughts when I've reached the end of the book. Which won't be long, because I can't wait to get back to reading it each evening.....

More info about "God On The Beach" by Michael Volland here

Gary Oates - Open My Eyes, Lord

2005-07-22T07:23:00.000+01:00

I have just finished reading this book - OPEN MY EYES LORD is an amazing book from an American pastor, Gary Oates. It tells of how he had an experience, quite late on in his life, which revolutionised his spiritual life. Since then he has been able to see Angels and has witnessed many miraculous healings. Whether you think all this signs and wonders stuff is on the level or not, this is one book you should read, if only to try and understand more about it. Oates certanly comes across as a completely level headed, family man with no hint of pretence or exaggeration about him.

More about OPEN MY EYES LORD by GARY OATES:

Disappointment With God

2005-06-13T08:30:00.000+01:00

No, I'm not about to let off a big tirade of Disappointment with God, despite the title of this post. I spotted Philip Yancey's book "Disappointment with God"on the shelves and decided it would be worth a read, for 2 main reasons:

We've all experienced a sense of disappointment with Him at some point in our lives
I find that I can read Yancey's books easily - ever since reading "Soul Survivor" a couple of years ago, I've admired his ability to put things across in a way that is engaging and easy to follow.

Anyway, I've been reading Disappointment with God for a week or so, and I suppose I'm a third of the way through it. The biggest thing that struck me so far is the concept of an Old Testament God who is disappointed with us (or....in particular the Israelites), to such an extent that He is weeping for the broken relationship that He so lovingly created in the garden. I'd always cleanly divided God into two easy-to-digest parts: an Old Testament God who was all powerful, vengeful and ready to inflict destruction on the people when they had strayed too far from His rules; and a New Testament God who loved the world so much that He was prepared to give His only Son, Jesus to attone for our sins. The idea of an Old Testament God who could be hurt, who could feel like a saddened parent, who tries all sorts of ways to communicate with their child....this face of God never occured to me. Now I want to read the Old Testament again and find all the places where this new God, this God I never considered, can be found.

Anyway, these two books can be found here:

Disappointment With God - Philip Yancey
Soul Survivor - Philip Yancey

Blessings,
Andy

Diary Of God's General - John G Lake

2005-05-27T22:25:00.000+01:00

Well, this was quite a small book so it didn't take long to read it. It's a very powerful book indeed, although it suffers (as does Todd Bentley's "Journey Into The Miraculous too IMHO), from lapsing at times into a catalogue of healings that occured at each meeting. Once you've read "5 people were cured of cancer" half a dozen times for different meetings, it starts to lose its impact.......which it shouldn't, cos it's an incredible thing and not run-of-the-mill at all.

I suppose one of the things that came out of reading this book for me was the reinforcement of the idea that the Holy Spirit has not just been working since the 1990's "Toronto" stuff started. Somehow, the accounts of miracles and healings seem to have a greater weight for me, given the social environment that they occured in.
Anyway, I have to confess that I put Todd Bentley's book aside when the John G Lake book arrived, cos I was getting a little bit bogged down in Todd's. Sorry, Todd. It's a remarkable book and you have a remarkable story to tell, but I felt that by 75% of the way through, I had discovered all I need to know about your ministry.

So now what? Well, I had to go on local radio the other day to talk about a book called "What Would Jesus Eat". Since I hadn't read the book, I had to gen up pretty quickly about it, as I only had 12 hours' warning! the radio station were approaching it from the angle of "here's another fad diet, let's see what the public think about eating loaves and fishes every day".....which of course is rubbish. The book actually tries to look at the limited amount of evidence about what Jesus' probable diet would have been, and argues that, if anyone should know what is a healthy diet, He should. So it's not about weight-loss programmes, it's about eating a healthy, basic, Mediterranean style diet. Which can't be so bad.

More Todd Bentley

2005-05-10T11:55:00.000+01:00

OK, I'm still working through Todd Bentley's book.....maybe I am finding it a little easier to come to terms with now....not sure....I want to find out more, see what Todd's influences have been, try and see how I feel about this whole charismatic miracle healing and deliverance ministry scene...I have decided to read up on one of the guys that Todd mentions frequently, John G Lake, he seemed to have a powerful ministry, both in the USA at the Divine Healing Institute in Spokane, Washington, and when travelling and preaching in Africa.

I've ordered a book from the States to read up on John G Lake "Diary of God's General". I'll post my thoughts once it has arrived and I have digested it.

Journey Into The Miraculous - Todd Bentley

2005-04-19T18:57:00.000+01:00

I've just started reading a book called "Journey Into The Miraculous" by Todd Bentley. A number of my Christian friends have been to see Todd speak at venues in the UK and come back saying that he's really on fire for God. I thought I'd read the book and see what all the fuss is about.

I'm up to chapter 6 at the moment. Basically the book covers Todd Bentley's life story to date, and in particular, his incredible experiences of the miraculous power of the Holy Spirit. Todd led a life of sin up until he was saved, and its always interesting to hear about lives that have been so dramatically reformed by God's awesome power.

I'm feeling a bit over-awed by some of Todd's experiences as I get deeper into the book. There's a point where the brain starts to say, "is this all for real?". Maybe that's a lack of faith on my part. I'll post further comments as I get through the book.

You can get Todd Bentley's book here:

http://www.christianbits.co.uk/product.php?id=NDTB007

More to follow.....

Facedown - Matt Redman

2005-04-05T23:16:00.000+01:00

Just finished reading the book "Facedown" by Matt Redman, something I had promised I would do for about the past 4 months, ever since I watched the Facedown DVD and was deeply moved by some of the worship on it (there is a lady doing some poetry while the band play soaking music in the background...it is just breathtaking - if anybody knows who the lady is, whether she wrote the poem, and whether there is any more where that came from, PLEASE email me and let me know).

Anyway, the book.....I was pleasantly surprised, because I suppose I had imagined that the book would be just an accessory for the CD/DVD - in other words, I expected very shallow content, and not much to get the brain going....OK,OK I was wrong!!!!!! Matt Redman writes extremely well, and he has obviously done a lot of reading, with quotes from sources as diverse as Tozer, William Barclay, Bill Bryson, Spurgeon, C S Lewis, etc etc.

I particularly liked the section which focuses on the "otherness" of God - "He is not like one of us, He is utterly incomparable - He is beyond the furthest horizon of our imaginations. He is off te scale of our comprehension."

He finishes by saying, "We live as worshippers of the otherly in a culture of the ordinary." - Amen to that, Matt.

Where Is God When Things Go Wrong?

2005-03-23T13:39:00.000Z

Wow...last night I discovered a FREE book on the web, called "Where Is God When Things Go Wrong?" by John Blanchard. You can go to the Evangelical Press website and view the entire book as a PDF file (you need Acrobat Viewer to view it, most computers have this already installed).
I even printed out the book on my trusty laser printer so I could read it in comfort. Its a very thought provoking book indeed, and bang up-to-date relevant (even makes reference to the recent Tsunami disaster in Asia).

If you would rather buy this book, it is only available as a 10-pack (ideal for home group study or church use). You can buy it here: Where Is God When Things Go Wrong - John Blanchard

Intro

2005-03-18T22:26:00.000Z

Hi to anyone that somehow finds this blog!

I thought I would get a blog going that keeps folk up to date with what Christian books and Christian music I am into each week.

Me: My name is Andy Rigby, I live in Haslemere, Surrey UK. I became a Christian about 10 years ago (I am 48 now). I won't bore you with all that "it changed my whole life" stuff. But it did. Period.

I play guitar and sing, and write a few songs. I used to do a lot of that stuff when I was a teenager, but it all faded away when I got into my twenties. It took an experience of God to wake up all those sleeping gifts and get me back to playing and writing again. Now I lead worship in our local church (St Stephen's Church, Shottermill).

Recently I decided to quit my regular job so that I could concentrate on running my Christian books and music website "Christian Bits" and also devoting more energy to my worship leading and songwriting. Its a scary time, but I feel that God is watching me very carefully, and He knows my heart and where all this is taking me.

What kind of music do I listen to? Loads! 10 years ago it was Graham Kendrick that kicked it all off, nowadays its people like Chris Tomlin, Matt Redman, Watermark, Delirious and Hillsong. Oh, and throw in a little bit of Kate Simmonds, namelessmusic, Rex Allchurch and Russ Hughes.

Favourite albums at the moment:

Favourite books at the moment:

Well, that's a bit about me. As I discover new albums and new books I'll post my thoughts on here.