Silence, a spiritual growth spurt and students - Jonny's intern update

Hey Fam, 

Jonny with his goddaughter

To reiterate my last update: I'd love to meet you if I don't know you or talk to you more if I only know you a little bit. A massive part of how amazing this year has been for me is feeling more known by Emmanuel Church and meeting amazing people and families that I haven't met before and generally being a part of the (part of the) body of Christ that Emmanuel Church is. I love serving you guys and I love doing church with you. I'm hopefully relatively approachable so please do say hi whenever!

Silence with God

Since Christmas, God's slowly been growing me. One thing I wanted to implement into my internship year is an hour a day in silence with God. Now this has been really hard and I haven't been able to do this everyday for example Sundays are packed every week but I have been implementing that into my daily life slowly. So, I sit on a chair facing the wall or facing outside, I turn my phone off and I sit. And I sit and I sit. For the first couple of weeks this was really hard. 15 mins is okay but the next 45 minutes are severely hard and in some cases painful. But as I said in my last update, to pray is to change and I really feel that God's been changing my heart through this time. Usually I find the first 30 mins are me talking to God about my current situation but then the last half of the time I suddenly find myself going deeper. I start talking about what's really going on with my heart 

  • what are my passions?

  • why does seeing that news article make me feel really upset?

  • why when I do 'this' do I feel really alive?

  • why when I do 'this' do I feel really annoyed with myself?

  • what's my heart really wanting to talk to God about?

It's been a journey and will definitely continue to be but John Parker told me that this is a period of a spiritual growth spurt for me and I feel that this hour a day is the greatest way I feel I grow. I hope all that made sense - please talk to me if it didn't (or if it did). 

The students and 20s weekend away

Students and 20s Weekend Away

I did a write-up of the weekend away which you can find here. As someone who is really stuck into the vision of the students and 20s team, the weekend away is so important. One thing I asked God for this year is to give me great relationships with the first years and I feel that prayer has been answered and to see them integrate and become just as much part of the student body as anyone else at the weekend away was so special to see. The weekend bought such fun and gladness to my heart. I led a seminar called 'hunger for the Word' with a student called Joel and through that I loved that part of the fun together was encouraging each other to get stuck into the Bible. 

I'd love to encourage you, whoever you are, to try and chat to some of the students and 20s whenever you can. There is so much that they can learn from you and also so much that you can learn from them.

Blessings to you all. Doing church with you is so great. I look forward to Sundays all the way through the week. Thanks for supporting us 3 interns so well. 

FP update: Becki & Rachel

We have 3 fantastic young people interning with us this year: Rachel, Becki and Jonny. Here’s an update on what they’ve been doing from Becki and Rachel.

Becki: I have honestly learnt so much in the last couple of months, a lot of it focussing on my identity and the power of speaking truth over myself and encouraging others to do the same. Something else that I've been doing that is really exciting is songwriting! This has been quite a process for me after growing up surrounded by the "perfect" nature of Classical music and I want to share some of that journey with you in this update.

A verse that I often cling onto as a musician is Ecclesiastes 3:11: "He has made everything beautiful in its time." This chapter speaks of the different seasons of life, how there is a time for everything, to embrace seasons of planting, healing, weeping, laughing. This verse encourages me to not wish away my current season, but to embrace how I am learning and growing in my gifts. I often struggle with a fear of not being good enough, of not knowing enough about the Bible, of not being skilled enough in my worship leading. Recently, I have been praying into this as well as partaking in the Freedom in Christ course. I am learning that in God's eyes I am worthy, that I am an imperfect human so even attempting to create a perfect piece of art is impossible.

I grew up in a Classical sphere of music where to continue in your musical journey you have to be the best; there is a constant competition between you and the people you sit next to in the choir or orchestra. When the next round of auditions arrives, you have to fight to maintain your seat, there is a need to perfect your singing or playing. A striving for perfection is equally common in composition. As the main section of my degree, I wrote the first movement of a piano sonata in the style of Mozart as well as a wind quintet based on a theme by Purcell in the style of Britten. Throughout this process I was constantly comparing myself to these composers, composers who seemingly perfected their arts from a young age.

Surrounding myself with truth has been such an essential part of this journey. I know that my identity doesn't lie in creating "perfect" pieces of music, God delights in me and the things I create! This is still very much a journey though, both spiritually, emotionally and practically! Currently I find that writing chords, melodies and harmonies often comes very naturally, however words are proving to be more difficult, but I'm finding that the Psalms is a really great place to start!

I'm really grateful for all the love and support I receive day by day by you as my family, and as always, feel free to grab me after the service if you want to chat about this in more detail!

Rachel with her dad

Rachel: Hi, I’m Rachel, one of the FPs at Emmanuel. This is an update of some of what I’ve been doing recently. It was very recently the Hub weekend way, where I ran a seminar on listening to God in your own devotional time. It was so encouraging to hear some of the stories of God speaking to people, but also really nice to be there for some of the community building that happened on the weekend. There were so many testimonies shared on Sunday of what God had been doing that weekend, so maybe ask a student in the next couple of weeks about their time there. You’ll be encouraged!