These amazing guys are just some of of our fabulous musicians, regularly helping people find their way back to God through using their gifts at Ivy Church – as well as finding many other outlets to turn places into parties wherever they are.
We’ve come a long way since All Things Bright And Beautiful, but they actually are very bright, very beautiful people who I love lots.
Treat your ears!
Don’t you just love TED talks? All this knowledge, free. I’m a junkie for it. Turn the TV off and learn something.
Anyone who’s a parent, grandparent or in any way knows an adolescent or someone likely to grow into one should watch this one. And for adolescent, really, read ‘Up to 25.’ The speaker’s voice isn’t exactly calming I know – but bear with it please she has some great insights.
the link is here if wordpress messes me up yet again:
My notes:
Physiologically the chemicals that tell you ‘I am angry’ go in 90 seconds.
Unless you press repeat on them.
Nobody can MAKE me angry, or make me anything. It’s always my choice to respond (as Dr Covey would no doubt concur – cf. Habit 1 of 7 Habits)
We like to think we are thinking people who feel, whereas actually we are feeling people who think.
The Brain’s main question, most of the time = ‘Am I safe?’
We feel safe when everything’s as normal. Familiar.
When it all gets shaky for whatever reason, our amygdala goes on alert – but we can control that by our self talk. The reason people get violent is because they didn’t wait 90 seconds.
The TEENAGE BRAIN is different, biologically.
We are born with twice as many neurons as we need.
The cells not stimulated die away.
0 – 10 is all about ME finding my way around the world.
Prepuberty you get a boost, an exhuberance.
Then….
Puberty involves a major growth spurt (upsets the amygdala)
a hormone flood (mood swings)
and 50% of the synaptic connections get pruned back, you lose half your mind! How unfamiliar does that make you feel!?
And you grow testosterone receptors on your amygdala – which leads to AGGRESSION.
The prefrontal cortex is the last part of the brain to get reattached. This is the part that deals with ability to plan ahead, control impulse, sense danger, understand consequences and their appropriateness.
Whatever you want to do later, do it as a teenager. This is the time to ‘tend the garden of your mind.’ Choose who you want to be later.
You become an adult at 25.
Parents? ‘Keep ‘em alive – to 25.’
Teens? Keep your brain cells alive – to 25.
Our left brain society is leading to environmental and mental issues. We mask our pain with substances. The teenage brain is most vulnerable to this. You can choose who you want to be in the world.
CREATE and cultivate a conscious relationship with your brain!
Jesus made this statement to get people to move away from the crowd, to be a disciple; It involves three steps:
Dangerously Surrendered.
Control stops me surrendering fully to God
To say not me and mine in the kingdom of meWe want to arrange life to make us comfortable
I want to get a car park space
And a green light
I am more interested in you listening to me than the other way round
Shallow? Petty?
But if you’re going to move from the crowd to being closer to Jesus that has to change
Fear keeps us from saying yes to God
If I really lived 100% abandoned to God, won’t he allow something terrible to happen
So I put boundaries around my yes.
The fears crowd in at bedtime so I pray ‘I will do anything for you – except don’t let me or mine get cancer or… Don’t touch this dream.. Or relationship’
As if we say ‘I need to protect them from him.’
We are afraid our surrender will increase evil – but evil will come anyway, no matter what.
It’s misguided and it doesn’t work, so don’t withhold from him.
When evil comes- and it will, God is our greatest resource.
Aslan is the King! He’s not SAFE but he is GOOD.
We love to see his power work for us, our way.
But when that same powerful God allows that person to walk away, & he could have changed the outcome – now we are not happy with his power.
When ‘He is good ‘ becomes the bedrock of my life, then I can give my unreserved yes to God
Read one day about the AIDS crisis – and how could I have lived so insulated it didn’t matter to me.
One day I would stand before Jesus. what if he asked me why when he showed me this thing and invited me to get involved in it- how could I look in his face and say ‘I had a busy life..’
Really? After what I have done for you?
So I resurrendered to God again.
Have you?
When God draws close you tell him to back away and tell him the reasons not.
You back away into the crowd
That means you are not his disciple
He wants you to take up your cross.
To be Seriously Disturbed.
Don’t shy away from this ‘we all have our cross to bear,’
He was saying there’s a move from the crowd to the cross – saying ‘I will do it!’
Jesus was so moved by our need that He came and took up a cross. He was willing to die.
So where are you disturbed enough to be able to say ‘I will give my life for that.’
We get disturbed because our favourite team lost or the price of vegetables
How disturbed are you that there are more slaves alive today than ever.
That 163 million children are orphans
That there is a porn epidemic
Could you give your life for something?
She prayed ‘Jesus you have called me to be an AIDS advocate – and if in the process I get HIV, so be it. ‘ it was not a
There was no cross art , tattoos or sculptures the cross was real and only about death
Jesus wants us Gloriously Ruined for him.
‘I will follow to the end, whatever the end means.’
I am no longer the same.
Not as much interested in trivial things
The pursuit of wealth, health and happiness in & of itself will ruin you.
So be ruined instead for a kingdom that lasts and can never be taken away from me
Jesus said don’t invite repayers to your banquets, invite the recidivists.
Dangerously surrendered
Seriously disturbed
Gloriously ruined disciples
Set a table for the poor, the addicts, the sick and broken.
Like the invisible God became visible in Jesus, now WE are meant to do that for people.
Set the table. That’s your purpose. Making the invisible God visible through your life.
NOTES FROM INTERVIEW AT HTB LEADERSHIP CONFERENCE 2014
NG – How do you cope when your world is rocked- as it was when Matthew died?
RW – I wish we could be as unified in evangelism as we are in grief. Because there was an outpouring from the Body of Christ. Why can’t we be as unified about the mission?
KW – I will grieve for my son every day until I see him again. But we have to go through it together. This could tear us apart, though divorce is never an option for us.
RW – So we decided to grieve differently, together. Because the stats are against you staying together when you’ve lost a child. So, whatever you’re feeling is okay. Enter into a deeper level of grief.
Easiest death? Godly old people, ready to go
Then death of spouse, death of child, you’re not meant to outlive your children
Then suicide
Some rejoiced and laughed that their son had killed himself. What do you do?
And they are public figures, so they used social media to journal their journey because it would be public anyway.
Kay: I realised I am not alone, there are people grieving every night alone. Why be alone?
People want you to move on, to get over it.
I am not the same person now. Don’t tell me to move on. Unless you’ve held your child’s ashes, don’t give me your opinion.
Take the words ‘at least…’ out, when you’re trying to bring comfort.
‘at least you can marry again’
at least you can have more children’
Because that’s minimising it.
A generation ago people wore black for a year. Now, we can’t see it so easy. But people all around us have ungrieved mourning and bright clothes on.
grief is good.
RW: We want to STUFF grief. Especially men. But it will come out. There is no growth without loss, you’re going to lose a lot. We live on a broken planet. Or you get stuck. You can’t go around it you have to go through it.
Tears are not a sign of weakness but of love.
Matthew said at 17, ‘I know I’m going to go to heaven, why can’t I go now?’ He was incredibly courageous to live with pain.
Jesus wept.
KW: Unexpected learning? How much depressed believers have to teach us. many feel ashamed because the message they get is ‘pray more, confess sin’. Some of them are the most courageous people just to put one foot in front of another. Some people LIVE in the valley, they never walk out of it like the rest of us. We can learn form them what to do when the darkness doesn’t lift. When it doesn’t ever feel good, walking with God anyway.
RW: 1/3 of the psalms are laments. ‘Life sucks, but where else can I go?’ I observed my life and observed the 6 stages of grief.
1) Shock – purely human emotion. Keep waiting for Matthew to walk through the door.
2) Sorrow – it’s a godly emotion, you can
3) Struggle – why?? see it in Job, in Abraham, Jacob – wrestling is a contact sport and that’s fine. But you’re NOT going to get an explanation. It’s like an ant trying to understand the internet. Explanations never comfort. You need the comfort of the Holy Spirit
4) Surrender – I’d rather walk with God and not have all the answers. ‘thy will be done’
5) Sanctification – Rom 8:28 anyone can bring good out of good. Only God can bring good out of bad.
6) Service – 2 Cor 1. The thing that was hardest in your life is the very thing God wants to use as your message. Our greatest ministry does not come out of my strengths but my weakness.
How do you forgive?
When there has been someone else involved. (Someone sold him a gun illegally)
KW – That sits in my soul. But forgiveness is good for me. There are also the Drs and psychologists who let him down badly too and abandoned him in the hospital. How could he do that?
But then I thought of OUR failures. The ‘I wish I had… said… done…’ I was at a banquet i knew that psychiatrist would be there, wanted to cancel, but inside I was so mad, angry. Then I recall Corrie Ten Boom recognising a guard from the death camp. God said ‘You as my child do not have the liberty of not forgiving this man.’
So as she drove, she said ‘God I don’t want to forgive him, but I will – and if I see him I will shake his hand.’
RW – 3 reasons to forgive
1) I have been forgiven by God
2) Resentment makes you better. It only hurts you, not them anyway.
3) I’m going to need forgiveness in the future. If you refuse to forgive you burn your bridge to heaven.
It’s about the battle for hope, he was due to preach about HOPE. Everything on his schedule was about hope. Then he got bronchitis, and the message that was due to preach on the day Matthew died was ‘What to do on the worst day of your life’ – and then it was.
From the day you pray the most dangerous prayer; USE ME, satan puts a target on your back. He’s out to steal your hope.
KW – We had a box full of promises from all his life, and they seemed to have all come to nothing. So I had to say to God ‘please show me how to rebuild hope.’ Now my son was not on this earth. 1 Cor 15;43 These bodies are buried in brokenness but will be raised in glory.’ Now I stand over my sons grave and know his body was buried in weakness but will be raised in strength. Ezek 36:37 ‘All that was destroyed will be rebuilt.’
Eric Little: ‘Circumstances may appear to wreck our lives, but God is not helpless among the ruins.’
Matthew is now running through heaven, restored, and one day his body will rejoin his spirit. God rebuilds ruins. So I am in the process of rebuilding hope.
RW. Anyone who struggles with mental illness needs to know. Your chemistry is not your character. You’re not in sin, Matthew always knew who was in pain in any room. Everything in this world is broken because of sin. There’s no perfect people. So why is it if my heart or liver doesn’t work properly and i have to take a pill for it I have no shame over that, but if I take a pill for my mind’s struggles should I be ashamed? We all have broken brains and broken sexuality. We hold treasure in jars of clay.
What happens if you drop a jar of clay?
We need to remove the stigmas. Of all places the church should be saying to struggling people not just they’re welcome here, but they’re wanted.
Yes God can heal mental illness, but sometimes that has to wait till heaven.
If I could hear Matthew now he’d say ‘You were so wrong, because heaven is so much cooler than you ever described it.’
There are 7000 promises in the Bible, and God has all of eternity, not just my lifetime, to fulfil them!
(This is from last Sunday night’s talk at the Ivy AGM – Awesome Gratitude Meeting)
One of my favourite author/ speakers died last year – his name was Brennan Manning. If you have ever read ‘Ragamuffin Gospel’ you’ll never forget it.
I have read lots of what he’s written and listened to many of his talks, but it was only this week I heard the amazing story about how he got the name “Brennan.” Because his real name was Richard Xavier Francis Manning – a good Irish catholic name, to be sure.
While growing up, his best friend was Ray. The two of them did everything together: went to school together, bought a car together as teenagers, double-dated, and so forth. They even enlisted in the Army together, went to boot camp together and fought on the frontlines together in the Korean War.
One night while sitting in a foxhole, Brennan was reminiscing about the old days in Brooklyn while Ray listened and ate a chocolate bar. Suddenly a live grenade came into the trench. Ray looked at Brennan, smiled, dropped his chocolate bar and threw himself on the live grenade. It exploded, killing Ray, but Brennan’s life was saved.
When Brennan became a priest he was instructed to take on the name of a saint. He thought of his friend, Ray Brennan. So he took on the name “Brennan.”
Years later he went to visit Ray’s mother in Brooklyn. They sat up late one night having tea when Brennan asked her, “Do you think Ray loved me?” Mrs. Brennan got up off the couch, shook her finger in front of Brennan’s face and shouted, “What more could he have done for you?”
Brennan said that at that moment he experienced an epiphany. He imagined himself standing before the cross of Jesus wondering, Does God really love me? And Jesus’ mother Mary pointing to her son, saying, “What more could he have done for you?”
We sometimes might wonder, Does God really love me? Am I important to God? Does God care about me?
We might look at our church and think about making big plans and whether it’s really possible for us to make a massive impact on the city. Will God give us what we need?
The answer is in Romans 8:32 He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things?
What MORE could he have done for us?
And how do we honour what Jesus has already done for us?
Two ways:
1) By being really, deeply, increasingly GRATEFUL and…
2) By asking for MORE. Because that shows we know what a kind God he is, so we can ask again.
Saul of Tarsus never got over God saving him. He never got tired of telling the story of his conversion. Over and over, just look through the book of Acts, he’s unstoppable, every chance he gets. Later he writes –
1 Tim 1:12 I am grateful to Christ Jesus our Lord, who has strengthened me, because he judged me faithful and appointed me to his service, even though I was formerly a blasphemer, a persecutor, and a man of violence.
Paul says he was once so far away. Anti-God and he didn’t even know it. Religious but self-righteously so wrong – about everything. Some of us know the feeling.
Likewise, I never want to get over the most important thing that ever happened in my life, when Jesus Christ saved it, revealed his love and his glory to me, and I wasn’t even his friend – I was his enemy.
I threw the grenade he fell on! He died in my place. He was battered and whipped and suffered for my sin. He shed his bled for me. What more could he have done for me?
But then there was more. Always more.
I’ve been a moaner and a worrier and a complainer at times. I’ve not been anything like as appreciative as I should have been of people who have helped me so much through the years, or the God who put them there so many times. But he has forgiven me of so much, protected me, rebuked me, kept me from falling countless times. Wow.
What more could he have done?
Always more. He’s given me a wonderful wife, an incredible family, every one of whom is walking with him too. Of course there have been hard times too along the way but I’m also grateful tonight for the tough times too because He has always only ever been good in all of that. He’s given me the best friends anyone could want, good health, blessings and blessings and blessings.
The list is endless. Because there was always more. He has been pleased to use me. Called me to serve him full time, for which I am eternally grateful. What more could he have done?
But then there was more! 5 and a half years ago he called us back to this city with this personal promise from Genesis 31:3 right at the centre of the call here to Manchester: The LORD said…”Return to the land of your father and grandfather and to your relatives there, and I will be with you.”
Ivy was and is a church full of incredible people. I tell leaders all over the nation and all over the world about the changes we’ve been through and the unity and loyalty here is astonishing! Ivy people amaze me time and time again. And they attract more and more Ivy people who amaze me more and more. You can’t out-challenge Ivy people. They step up and step out in faith, time and time and time again.
I am so grateful for the leaders who’ve been there on the journey and everyone who has waded in with us as we’ve moved from here to there, then to there, then to there, and then back here at about the same time as going there and then there, and now we’re going to go here, there – and everywhere. Ivy people get excited by being on that journey with God. This is not a normal church.
Who wants normal?! Normal is over-rated, and underachieving.
In the last 5 and half years God has done so much for us. I am stunned as I consider how many hundreds of people he’s added to the family. Just looking back over the last year! WOW. What more could he have done for us?!
Phil 4:6 says Do not worry about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.
We have some major building plans before us as we look to transform our existing building into a missional hub. That involves bigger financial targets, as we prepare to grow a national church planting network as part of New Thing, a global network we belong in now. This year we plan to do more mission, plant more Ivy churches, train more and more leaders, make more disciples, and reach more places in the nation and the nations.
According to the God, how much of this should we worry about? (Fill in the blank ________ )
How much should we pray about, ask God about, make requests about? ALL OF IT.
But the phrase I want to underline here, is ‘WITH THANKSGIVING’.
Because I’m in danger of taking so much for granted.
I know as a ‘Go for it’ leader there are times when I have been very focused on the front end at times of getting people on board with the projects, but not thankful enough for those who didn’t just get onboard but without whom we’d never have a hope of getting there.
Elders, staff (Past and present), buildings team, children’s and youth workers, coffee makers, chair putter outers, welcomers, generous givers, sound team, worship team, missions team, Ivy team. Sundays and through the week. There’s so much going on – life bursting out everywhere and I can’t catalogue it and I literally CAN’T thank everyone, enough. But I’m sorry when I didn’t.
And I just owe God so much, I know I am a favoured man. God’s been so good to me. But at times I’ve just been good at asking and whatever supplicating means and making my requests known – but paid so little attention to the thanksgiving that was missing.
One thing I used to love when I was leading an Anglican church, there were some great prayers people had written to help you pray. Sometimes the words, written centuries before, would just resonate. There’s one for when you’re just generally thankful – but especially for Jesus. That has always been a favourite!
How much MORE could He do for us?
It’s Ivy’s year of more. I believe it, even though I don’t know much of what it entails, we make the path as we step into it.
But even if he never did anything more for any of us; we owe our ultimate gratitude for God’s ultimate gift, as these words from the C16th remind us. Why not pray it where you are?
Almighty God, Father of all mercies, we thine unworthy servants do give thee most humble and hearty thanks for all thy goodness and loving-kindness to us and to all men.
We bless thee for our creation, preservation, and all the blessings of this life; but above all for thine inestimable love in the redemption of the world by our Lord Jesus Christ; for the means of grace, and for the hope of glory.
And, we beseech thee, give us that due sense of all thy mercies, that our hearts may be unfeignedly thankful; and that we show forth thy praise, not only with our lips, but in our lives, by giving up our selves to thy service, and by walking before thee in holiness and righteousness all our days; through Jesus Christ our Lord, to whom, with thee and the Holy Spirit, be all honour and glory, world without end. Amen.
Tomorrow we finish a series I have loved us going through at Ivy, all about David. We’ve been in his life for months and learned a lot.
But as we draw a close on his life, I’m left wishing he finished better – and praying that I will finish well.
David was a man after God’s own heart. But as we track through his life we know that David’s heart was often broken. All of our hearts are broken by sin. By wrong things we’ve done and things done to us. Last week we saw how at times, temptation won and sin reigned in David’s heart and controlled him.
If you want to check out my video teaching on that fall with Bathsheba it’s available free on ‘Ivy Player’ on www.ivymanchester.org now
Now while David was forgiven of that because he turned to God in repentance, consequences came back to bite him. That’s something we often forget ahead of our sin, or even post confession.
Consequences.
There were consequences with regard to how much God could bless him, because that was linked to how much God could trust him. Ouch.
God effectively said to him, ‘I’d have done so much more through and for you…’ But David’s legacy was limited because of his sin.
And of course there were massive consequences in his family.
As I have observed it, people who go their own way and ignore God’s advice and commands about marriage, relationships and sex INVARIABLY end up with much more complicated lives.
All kinds of consequences. Mixed up, messed up families.
There’s no such thing as private morality.
‘Well what goes on in private doesn’t matter to anyone else.’
Crap.
It doesn’t just affect you – it affects generations of people, it affects society. David was told in scripture really clearly that a King should not ‘multiply wives.’ One’s more than enough! But he thought ‘I know best, and I have these needs, and I’m the special one…’ so he added lots of wives. Seven official ones, some count eight. He probably lost count too, what with all the concubines as well.
Then Bathsheba, someone else’s wife. And twenty children. Talk about complications!
The Bible pulls no punches in describing the murky gory detail of what went on with David’s kids, following his sin with Bathsheba. The terrible example he had set, his private contrition but public abdication of responsibility as a father; it’s X rated stuff at times, Game of Thrones has nothing on these power games and lies. Everyone’s in bed with someone or wanting to be.
To say the family ends up a mess as the years go on is a massive understatement.
So in the week a new prince was born, tomorrow we finish the series with the story of King David and a prince called Absalom in a royally messed up family. You’ll be able to listen to the talk on our website free podcast next week if you like.
But I want us to reflect on the families around us. To pray for and think about our own families. Families in our culture. What does that even mean these days?
Because David modelled sin to his kids as they grew up, then ended up as a passive father while they went from bad to worse. Probably because of his own failure, because of guilt and shame, because he’d set such a bad example, he was frozen solid as a dad. He didn’t engage with his wives because he had too many, he didn’t step up, discipline or confront his family as it went more and more dysfunctional.
Why? It seems David needed to be liked by his children more than he needed to be a Dad to them. He cried a lot and got pathetic around them but he wanted to be a pal not a parent.
He kept telling himself, ‘It’ll be okay, it’ll be ok.’ It was not okay!! The snowball was just getting bigger and bigger and bigger…
Problems don’t go away just because we want them to, or ignore them long enough. Resentments grow stronger. Patterns get deeper. Rifts become wider. That’s why God wants us to deal with and discipline sin, not deny it! He wants us to see sin for what it is and the damage it causes. To confront it and take action.
Before private sin leads to public shame.
Help us Jesus.
David was the second king of Israel his reign – 1010 to 1002 BC A righteous king, but not perfect.
2 Sam 7:1-16
David has built himself a great house, satisfied and at peace at last, with material provided by the King of Tyre.
But then he looks at ark in its tent and starts to think, ‘What about God?! His house?’
I think he had a good motive for this, he wanted to bless God. He wanted God to feel at home. Nathan says yes.
But then he prays.
Prophets have to pray not just say!
And God reveals that it’s a good plan, but ‘I am going to build YOU a house, David!’ His vision becomes a REvision. He revises it.
Plans are not a bad thing. But we need to Work, Rest and Pray! We need to take our plan and pray it through.
Do not go with your plan.
It’s good to write down our list.
To honour God and reflect something of his glory by building the best. To take inspiration from other people.
Study. Be diligent.
And submit your plan to him.
And wait to hear from God. He may want to do something far better!
A divine appointment is better than what is in your diary.
Our best intentions? His are better!
Work
God has a plan to blow your mind.
God says ‘and I will give you rest.’ Bring your heart to God today, it’s not too late. Rest. Rest is not the opposite to work- it’s just putting ourselves in his will.
Pray!
God has a bigger plan and he will give you more than you expect. He will take what you offer him He will bless the house (vs 27)
Unless The Lord builds the house, the Labourers labour in vain
I believe that this Saturday, God is going to do something supernatural in the lives of the men who come to the Diamond Geezers Day here in Manchester, releasing our potential for supernatural greatness.
If you’ll come along to the Message building and connect to God’s presence there, hearing His Word and doing what He says, I believe that God is going to raise up from the day some spiritual leaders to make a massive difference in this world. And the reality is that this is so important because there’s a huge shortage of godly men in our nation. In the church men too many men have relegated themselves into passivity, or fallen to compromise and shame.
One of the most tragic verses in the Bible is Ezekiel 22:30:
I looked for a man among them who would build up the wall and stand before me in the gap on behalf of the land so I would not have to destroy it…
God said:
I looked for a man like that…
How many did He find? The Bible tells us:
...but I found none.
NONE. Zilch. Not one; not one man who’d stand in the gap! Perhaps if God were speaking that verse today, He’d say:
‘I’m looking for a man with guts, integrity and commitment. I’m looking for a man who will use the strength I give him to stand up for those who cannot stand up for themselves; I’m looking for a man to impart spiritual truth to the next generation. I’m looking for a man who would stand in the gap.’
If that’s you (or you want it to be) please book in now and join us at the Diamond Geezers Day on Saturday. It’s not too late there are still spaces. There are various great speakers and activities, lunch thrown in with the very low price, the very first opportunity to buy my Diamond Geezers audio book (at a special price) and various freebies to equip you to make a difference where you are, standing in the gap!
Book in here http://www.message.org.uk/shop/diamond-geezers-mens-day/
GP Taylor visits Ivy Manchester this Sunday – as his blockbuster Hollywood movie is filmed.
I’m so excited that this Sunday Ivy Manchester will host a fantastic guest for interview at 7pm at our Didsbury site on Barlow Moor Rd, one of Britain’s best selling authors.
We recently hosted the author of The Shack, Wm Paul Young. Now it’s time for some home grown talent.
GP Taylor is the author of the best-selling novels Shadowmancer, Wormwood and Tersias. Like myself he has been a police officer and Anglican Vicar, but is also a former rock band roadie and motorcyclist. He worked in the music industry with such bands as The Stranglers, Sex Pistols and Adam and the Ants. He became involved in the occult and lived a life that was, in his own words “into all sorts of weird and wonderful things and wasn’t leading a godly life”. He goes on to say, “I was promiscuous: I was a liar, a cheat and a drunk,”
We will learn on Sunday how he then turned to Christianity. This is a great event to bring friends along to and I expect we’ll pack the event out so get there early!
Having dropped out of school himself, Graham Taylor is now passionate about the education of children, and believes we underestimate their potential. He tours the country giving talks to children. “There is nothing better,” he says. So at 4pm at the Church centre Graham will entertain families and kids with a story telling workshop with our children’s leader Dave Hill.
“Children relate to me,” GP says. “They get excited about books – what can be better than that?”
His books have been translated into forty-eight languages and are being now being turned into Hollywood films to the tune of £50 million, but he had to sell his motorbike to fund the first print run of children’s novel Shadowmancer. The book grew in popularity by word of mouth before Faber and Faber bought the rights to it, and his next ten books, for £3.5million. The rights to the production were sold for a further £2.5million!
He went on to write the Mariah Mundi series which critics hailed as ‘Hotter than Potter’ – a rival to JK Rowling’s franchise. It is now being turned into £25 million Hollywood film starring Michael Sheen, Sam Niall, Iona Gruffud and Keeley Hawes -’Mariah Mundi and the Midas Box’ is set for release later this year.
Graham is married with three children and now devotes most of his time to caring for his daughter Lydia, who has Chrohn’s Disease.
Just finished the wedding of a fab Ivy couple. Congrats to Pete and Chloe!
This is not them by the way – they’re way younger but I’m praying their love will go the distance and they field-tested my new book as part of their marriage prep. It’s now available (today is the first day it’s out) on Kindle. So if you love your e-reader, ipad or Kindle (like me) go to this link to check it out, take a peek inside and if you do download it PLEASE review it so others can be encouraged.
I’ve been blogging about the book at http://bestmarriage.org too, so check that out if you have time.
Thank you!
Anthony Delaney 
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