An Adventure in Ministry

In the afternoon we spent some time at the Southern wall of Jerusalem. Here we looked at some of the ruins left from the period of the second temple. We stood on the steps where Jesus would have definitely walked when he came to Jerusalem for festivals.  We sat and considered how the area may have looked when the temple was still standing and what it means for us. Helen set a picture of what the temple would have been like at feast days. The sights and sounds, the hustle and bustle, the mayhem of it all. She then said. "The temple doesn't sound or smell like the house of prayer we imagine today." This really challenged me. I expect a house of prayer to be calm and peaceful but that isn't always the case, God can also be in the hubub.  I also considered that the bible says we are the temple of the holy spirit. Sometimes in church we can discount people because we don't believe they can become our vision of the temple, calm, ordered and compliant bu...

We entered Jerusalem through the Lion gate. We then walked to the ancient pools of Bethesda. We sat in the gardens of the church and read from John Chapter 5. we considered how in verse 8 Jesus told the man to: "Get up, pick up and walk!" For me, however, I considered how the man had been looking for healing wherever it could be found. He couldn't even get into the pool but he was desperate to cure himself.  When Jesus saw him, his first words were, "Do you want to get well?" So often we look to other things to give us the healing only Jesus can give. We need to look ONLY to him and faith that we will Get up, pick up and walk! We went inside a beautifully simple church and sampled the acoustics singing 'Praise my soul, the king of heaven' it gave me goosebumps!  We then stood and looked over the ruins of the pool of Bethesda. At the side of the pool was a plaque that read: 'Jesus is all-powerful, omnipotent; He alwa...