“Don’t react – act” I try to live by this, but in this day of email, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Whatsapp, Telegram, Messenger, tic tok (not a clue about this, but I do know it’s a big thing!) it’s so easy, when something grinds, to get your fingers working on the keyboard to make your point with exclamation marks!!!

I almost did this today, so close, but I decided to blog instead because only those who want to read it, will.

It seems to me that communication is regarded as unimportant (to some) today. Here are some things that I think should be cancelled!

Thumbs up emoji

Now, before you get a bit twitchy if you use the thumbs up emoji, let me explain. If you’ve had a long conversation with someone that’s come to an end, one of you may do the sign off and thumbs up is more than appropriate. What isn’t, in my opinion, is when you pour your heart out and take 5 minutes to write a message and the reply is the thumbs up emoji! Has it ever happened to you? It’s not nice is it?

Not answering emails or messages

I ALWAYS reply to messages, usually quickly too. If you’re reading this and I didn’t reply to you, it is honestly because I either never got it or it slipped past me, if you know me well, you’ll know that I do reply. It seems, even when you get to the top of the ladder, that it’s OK not to reply. When you don’t get a reply from someone, it makes you feel unimportant. I feel like writing some times and saying ‘hey, I have a gift of some money for you’ just to see if that would get a response. How do you get to the top of your game and still have that trait? Someone needs to coach you if you’re in that place. You should never think you’re too important to reply to someone who has taken the time the time write to you.

Salutation

I try and start all my messages with at least ‘hi’ and, most times, I use the person’s name and I’ll sign off with either my name or an emoji (not the thumbs up one! Hahaha).  If you chat to someone a lot then this isn’t as important, but when you haven’t talked to someone for ages and you’re discussing something that’s a big deal to you, at least consider the other person. Do you remember learning how to write letters at school? There were correct salutations depending on who you were writing to. Using a pen or an old typewriter meant you took much more time to write and your thinking went into it. You didn’t want to have to start again with either ink or a typewriter. Tipex looked terrible and didn’t really do a good job especially for me as I didn’t have the patience to wait for it to dry! I’m not suggesting we go back to those days, although I still use a pen and paper in certain situations, I’m just saying maybe we need to think more about what the person receiving our message will feel after they’ve read it. Read before you click send.

Maybe because communication is so easy now, we’ve lost the skill.  I pray that I will never get too busy to reply properly to every communication that comes my way. As my teacher would write often, ‘could do better’ If necessary, let’s do better at communication.

“Excuses excuses…..”

Have you ever said those words either to yourself or to someone else? I’m sure you have.

I’m reading an excellent book at the moment called, ‘Chase the Lion’ author – Mark Batterson. I highly recommend it. I highlight and write stuff down every time I pick it up.

He bases it on a fabulous Bible verse that I remember from a  book I had as a child! It wasn’t one of the ‘favourite’ Sunday school bible stories, but I wish it had have been!

It’s found in 2 Samuel 23:20

“And Benaiah the son of Jehoiada was a valiant man of Kabzeel, a doer of great deeds. He struck down two Ariel of Moab. He also went down and struck down a lion in a pit on a day when snow had fallen.”

It’s one of those verses that you could easily read past without much thought, but as you read Mark’s book, every time he mentions Benaiah, you have to shake your head at amazement of that one thing he did!

Picture a 500lb (35 stone) lion…. I’ve seen many in the flesh, not behind bars in a zoo, but out in the savannah of Africa! They are formidable creatures, they are the king of the jungle. What would you do if you were face to face? Lions can run 35mph, their roar can be heard 5 miles away.

What would I do, what would you do? I can say with 100% certainty that I wouldn’t have chased it, it would have chased me and had me for lunch! Not Benaiah! It was snowing, he could follow the lions paw prints, he went into the pit with the lion! He didn’t chuck a spear at it from a distance – he chased it down into a pit! When I get to heaven, I think I’ll ask to see the video recording of this! It doesn’t say how the lion was killed, just that Benaiah won the fight!

That’s not all Benaiah achieved, he also struck down an Egyptian with the Egyptian’s own spear. He ran to him, snatched his spear and killed him with it. (2 Samuel 23:21)

Benaiah was one of King David’s 3 mighty men and he went on to become the commander in chief of Israel’s army when the crown passed from David to Solomon. (1 Kings 2:35)

What does Benaiah have to do with us? I think, for me, he makes me look at my life and wonder where I may have allowed fear of the lions in? We’ve all faced the lion of Covid for over a year now. How have you responded? We know it’s a serious disease and it has taken lives although, by the governments own admission, not as many as we were first told, but that’s another story. It has caused chaos in the world for sure.

From day one, I was never scared of Covid. I know the enemy tried to plant fear in me, especially when we were re-opening as a church, but, for my own life, I was secure. Why? Because if I had died (no desire to die I hasten to add!), but if I had, the incredible, awesome (in its fullest sense) amazing, eternal truth is, I would have woken up in a paradise that I can’t even begin to imagine! (John 3:16) So, I’m confused as to why, at the time of writing, (April 2021) some churches are still not open and so many Christians are not back in church. So many, it seems, are in retreat of the lion and not enough are chasing the lion into the pit.

In Damascus, there is a church lead by Brother Edwards. His congregants walk down sniper alley just to worship together!

Will we have to change the lyrics to some of our victory songs? E.g. you have delivered me from all fear (except for Covid) Tongue in cheek, but you get my point.

Some people may never go back to church simply because the online version has become the new normal and so much easier than getting out of the house on a Sunday morning. However good that has been, especially in the early days of Covid, it cannot in any way compare to all being together in one place and having the shared experience of worship, the word and the Holy Spirit within each one of us. The gathered church should be a place of equipping, encouraging, worshipping, learning, developing kids, youth and adults in preparation to go into the world making disciples, teaching them to obey everything Jesus commanded. You can’t achieve this on line, in my opinion.

In Damascus, there is a church lead by Brother Edwards. His congregants walk down sniper alley just to worship together!

I’ve purposely written that sentence again…. Because there goes any excuses we have.

I think it’s time that churches open the doors again and created to be the safest places for anyone to go. Our God is the Lion of Judah and is more than capable of protecting His children.

In Damascus, there is a church lead by Brother Edwards. His congregants walk down sniper alley just to worship together!

D x

• WordPress

Saturday 25th April – day 33 of first lock down

Acts 2:42 is a great verse and one that I talk about a lot. It says this:

“And they devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and prayer”

Key words being, ‘they devoted themselves’ it was all on the believers to devote themselves to what was on offer. In other words, it takes effort to grow a life in God. If you are a professional athlete, the work that has to go into winning medals is staggering. I had a look at a typical training schedule for someone training for the 100 metres (around 10 seconds of a race)

An easy training day: – 8am – 6 mile run;

3pm – 2 hour spin class;

9am – 5 mile run

A hard training day: – 5.30am -80 minute swim

10am – 1 hour swim

3pm – Bike intervals – 90 mins

Wow! That makes me sweat just reading it! Athletes know about devotion to a task.

Another great scripture is in 1 Timothy 4:6-10

“If you put these things before the brothers, you will be a good servant of Christ Jesus, being trained in the words of the faith and of the good doctrine that you have followed. 7 Have nothing to do with irreverent, silly myths. Rather train yourself for godliness; 8 for while bodily training is of some value, godliness is of value in every way, as it holds promise for the present life and also for the life to come. 9 The saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance. 10 For to this end we toil and strive, because we have our hope set on the living God, who is the Saviour of all people, especially of those who believe.”

Train yourself for godliness – train yourself – but not just for this life, but for the one to come! When I first read that, it got my attention. Won’t we all be the same once we get to heaven? This suggests not, this suggests that I need to train myself on earth as it will hold promise for the life to come. You see, it’s me that’s going to heaven – I won’t turn into someone else when I get there. There are rewards in heaven for the lives we live on earth.

Devote yourself, train yourself. It goes back to building your life on the rock doesn’t it. When you build on rock, you’re giving yourself THE best chance of winning when a storm hits!

So, during this lock down, we all have a great chance to become wiser. We train our bodies so that we don’t get wider! Haha! Plus we can devote ourselves to prayer, teaching, breaking of bread – I know we can’t do the fellowship part right now!

Think about your kitchen. Some times, I have a mad clean out. I get to the back of the cupboards and inevitably find a jar of pickles that went out of date last century! Everything gets pulled out, shelves get cleaned, the in date stuff gets put back. When it’s done, it feels great! Let me suggest doing that with your life. Search and see if there is anything lurking in the ‘back of a cupboard’ that you need to ditch. Set time aside every day to sit with God. Devote yourself, train yourself and you’ll be ready for any storm!

After thought – 28th November 2020

Here we are coming to the end of yet another lock down, although if you’re in tier 3, it doesn’t really feel like we’re coming out! At least we can begin to do our Christmas shopping, if you haven’t already! Could we ever have imagined on the 25th April when we talked about the above, that we would still be here 7 months later! The above message hasn’t changed. And I trust you are still training and devoting yourself. I hope you are reading your Bible, I hope you are going to church, I hope you’re getting wiser and not wider.

Since the 25th April, John and I have been busy working on a website. You will find all kinds of things there but I wanted to bring your attention to last weeks podcast because we spoke about storing up treasures in heaven which fits nicely into what is written in this blog. The link is below and the link for our website is below that.

Don’t let anything get on top of you, get on top of it!

See you next time, D x

Podcast link

 https://anchor.fm/deb-bullock/episodes/Store-up-your-treasure-in-heaven-emsj6q)

Website link

https://www.this-is-us.org/

Last week we talked about building on rock and that the consequences of not doing that are great. ‘The fall of that house (the one built on sand) was great!’

This week we’re looking at the life of David. Another fantastic story of winning in the face of great defeat.

Did you know that an ant can carry 20 times its body weight? That’s incredible isn’t it? Whenever I read a fact like that, it makes me think about what I am capable of now that I have the creator of the universe living inside of me! Let me pose this question that was asked of us once, many years ago, by God, through John: “What would you attempt for God if you knew you couldn’t fail?” Pause, think, dream, then do it!

David was a shepherd boy, he looked after sheep. This gave him hours of time to prepare with his sling shot for what was to happen one day in his future. Hours! He had also killed bears and lions – note plural because it was more than one (1Samuel 17:36) I’d be very impressed if he’d killed just one of each, but here it’s plural! Go David! I’d like to suggest that David was building his life on a firm foundation so that when the biggest battle of his life came along, he was more than ready!

Goliath

Goliath was 9ft. His coat weighed 8 and a half stone (55 kilos), his spearhead was 1 stone (6.6 kilos) he was carrying a lot of weight and weaponry. Goliath had been taunting the Israelites for 6 weeks, (1 Samuel 17: 16) no-one would take him on, Saul and all of Israel were dismayed and greatly afraid. (11) David arrives with his brothers’ packed lunches and says, ‘I’ll do it!’ (31) You’ll know that Saul gave David his armour which was far too heavy and big for him, David took his sling, picked up 5 stones and took his place to bring down Goliath. Verse 48 tells us that he ran to the battle line! Great picture of confidence.

What giant, if any, are you facing today? We are all living with the Covid giant. How are you reacting to that? Are you retreating? Are you dismayed and greatly afraid? Or have you girded up your loins, prepared your sling shot and ready to run at it? I hope it’s the last option. We can’t declare Psalm 91 and then retreat can we? Truth is, if we’ve killed lions and bears, we should be ready for anything!

When you build on rock, you have much more confidence in the face of battles, you have much more confidence in prayer when the storms of life hit.

Afterthought – November 14th 2020

Listen to this quote from Myles Munro

“The kingdom of darkness gets its power from that which we do not know. The truth we are ignorant of cannot protect us against satan’s deception”

What an incredible sentence. In other words, if we don’t know the word of God, if we don’t spend time building on the rock, if we don’t know what God says about who we are in him, satan can and does throw us around like rag dolls! “My people are destroyed through lack of knowledge.” (Hosea 4:6)

It’s not enough to know Jesus (it is for eternity, that’s all you need for that, praise Him) but, if you want a victorious life on earth before you live in paradise forever, you must get to know about Him and His word.

You’re not protected because you’re born again. You’re protected because you’ve practised with your sling shot and killed a few lions and bears! You’ve put the ground work in. You’ve built on the rock.

Go sling a few stones!

See you next week! D x

CHAPTER FOUR

Saturday 11th April

One of my favourite parables is found in Matthew 7:24-27. It’s the story of the wise and foolish builders.

I’m sure most of you reading this, will know it, but just in case, here’s the story!

2 men, 2 houses, 1 storm (commentators say that the houses were next to each other which makes this even more poignant in my thinking)

1 man built his house on rock, he dug down deep for his foundations. The other man built his on sand. He didn’t dig down deep for his foundations.

A storm came and the house that was built on rock stood firm, and the other? You guessed it, it collapsed and was ‘utterly destroyed’ some versions say this.

The message behind the story, if you want to survive a storm, you have to build a solid foundation. Jesus explained it this way: if you hear the word of God and apply it to your life, you are like the wise man. If you hear the word of God and don’t apply it to your life, you are like the foolish man and your ‘house’ will not stand firm.

How many times have you seen Christians shipwreck their lives? More often than not, if you were to ask how their building progress has been going, it’s likely that it hasn’t or if it has, it’s been mainly on sand.

Jesus never promised a life without storms, storms and challenges are  what test us and helps us grow, but he also never said we would be on our own to deal with the storms. We have access to the master builder who helps us build wisely, if you listen to Him.

I have to say at this point, that there are some, many storms that we absolutely bring on ourselves because of the silly choices we make at times. We have to submit to God and to ‘acknowledge Him in all our ways’, only by acknowledging Him, talking to Him, asking Him for His thoughts do we receive the promise that comes in the second half of that verse which is, ‘and He will make your paths straight’ (Proverbs 3:6) So often, we don’t acknowledge Him, we don’t take His advice, we do our own thing and wonder why our paths aren’t straight….

Another great potion of scripture showing us the responsibility that we have to grow in Jesus…. 1 Timothy 1:18-19

“This charge I entrust to you, Timothy, my child, in accordance with the prophecies previously made about you, that by them you may wage the good warfare, holding faith and a good conscience. By rejecting this, some have made shipwreck of their faith.”

 By rejecting building a solid foundation – some have made a shipwreck of their faith. Strong words, yet words that we rarely hear from pulpits today.

Look at what is a available to those of us who believe..

John 15:5

“No longer do I call you servants, for the servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you”.

Wow! Jesus has made known to us, ALL that he has heard from the Father! Our job is to study it and to build on a firm foundation. And if we do that, when storms come, our houses will stand!

After thought – 7th November 2020

This week, the story broke of the New York Hillsong’s pastor, Carl Lentz. He was fired from his role due to a moral failure, an affair. A cool, trendy, relevant pastor (he baptised Justin Bieber) taken out because, as far as I am concerned, was building his house on sand. He wasn’t doing what was right (Genesis 4: 7) and he wasn’t adding to his faith – 2 Peter 1:10.

“Therefore, brothers, be all the more diligent to confirm your calling and election, for if you practice these qualities you will never fall.”

The consequences of a shipwreck and a house collapse are massive. What now for Carl, his family and the church? Huge repercussions. No doubt, that with God’s mercy and grace, they will all recover, but there will be a huge price to pay.

This Kingdom that we are a part of isn’t a game, it’s serious. Carl wasn’t the only one who fell this week. We were speaking to good friends of ours just this week and they told us of a highly respected Tanzanian pastor who has been doing the same thing, to the point of getting a girl pregnant.

I wonder how many other pastors/church leaders are having sex with people they shouldn’t be? I wonder if this is a major reason why we are not seeing what we should be seeing?

“The kingdom of heaven is advancing and forceful men take hold of it!” Matthew 11:12

If you’ve lost your grip, if you’re on a slippery slope, if you’re building on sand, if you’re sleeping with someone you shouldn’t be – stop it. If you’re texting someone you shouldn’t be – stop it, or it will spiral out of control. You think texting is innocent? How do you think Carl started on this path? I think I am safe in saying, he didn’t wake up one day and commit adultery. He began by making small, wrong choices and ended up in bed with someone who is not his wife. If you continue on a path of wrong choices, the enemy is waiting to pounce, if we give him a sniff of a chance, he will take anyone down.

Don’t down tools, build on the rock.

See you next week! D x

CHAPTER THREE

I was going to make a change to the blog today, but having woken up to the headlines that we could be facing a full lock-down, it will have to wait! So, on to week three of our on line BRAVE mornings.

Saturday 4th April 2020

Psalm 91:5-6

I will not fear.. Make sure that you can confidently say this because of where you are dwelling. You can’t say, ‘I have no fear’ if you’re not abiding where you should be.

In Genesis 1:26-28

It says,

Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.

I learned an incredible thing regarding these verses from Myles Munroe. You would think that ‘created’ and ‘made’ mean the same thing, but they don’t! When you look at the Hebrew meaning – which I love to do – they mean different things.

The word, ‘created’ is the Hebrew word ‘bara’ which means to create from nothing.

Adam was created from the dust, it was from nothing that brought Adam’s flesh into the earth.

‘Make/Made’ is the Hebrew word, ‘Asa’ which means to form something that is already there!

So, get this!

The flesh of man was created from nothing, but he was ‘MADE’ in the image of God! God has always existed and his character, his power, his essence is what we were made from! How amazing is that? He made us to be like Him. We are an integration of parts that were created from nothing and made from things that already exist. How marvellous is God’s creation. We were made from the essence of God Almighty.

What should this mean for our every day life? I challenge myself and you with this question: Do we live from the essence of God every day? Or does the part of us that was created, rule the roost? Do we understand what it means to live from the essence of God part of us?

Some serious questions here, yet, if we can truly learn how to live from the essence of God part, we have the potential to change any part of our lives that we are not satisfied with, e.g family, marriage, job, finance, health etc…. If Jesus said he came to give us life to the full (John 10:10) then it behoves us to learn how to do that so that we become ‘life magnets’ to everyone we meet.

Wherever you go and whoever you meet, be a life-giver! Overflow with hope and with joy.

After thought – 31st October 2020

I think the timing of this word is great for us today! In light of the potential news that may be coming. Woman of God, rise above, realise who you are made from and live and walk from there. Nothing can stop us if we live from the essence of God. ‘The same Spirit that raised Christ from the dead is living inside us, giving life to our mortal flesh!’ Romans 8:11

Don’t be defeated. Don’t let it get on top of you, get on top of it!

See you next week! D x

Chapter Two

On March 20th 2020, I was reading in my daily readings the story in Exodus 32. Moses was up the mountain and God was writing the commandments for him on two tablets of stone. After he had been gone for some time, the people pressured Aaron into taking things into their own hands. ‘Let’s build a golden calf and forget God and Moses’ This really spoke to us as leaders that our role was to get up the mountain and be with God! We were truly in uncharted territory and peoples’ thoughts, views and opinions were flying around, bombarding pastors and leaders of how to charter the waters ahead. Being honest, it was tough! What we decided was, we would listen to everyone, we would pray and think things through, but at the end of the day, we would ultimately seek to do only what God was telling us to do. Things eventually calmed down and everyone found their rhythm. Our first BRAVE broadcast was on the 21st March. The day that would have been our conference.

March 21st 2020

Psalm 91 was where we began our BRAVE online journey  ‘He who dwells in the shelter of the most high, will abide in the shadow of the Almighty, I will say to the Lord, ‘my refuge and my fortress, my God in whom I trust’

How big is God’s shadow? Think about that for a moment. It can surely cover a lot. There’s never not enough room in His shadow. But you have to do something in order to abide in that shadow. And that’s ‘dwell’ we have to make a choice to dwell or we can’t abide in the shadow. Too often we quote the ‘my refuge and fortress’ part and ignore the ‘he who dwells’ part. We must dwell and abide in or for God to be our refuge.

Today, (March 21st) would have been our BRAVE conference and I would have been talking to you about ‘boots, not flip flops’ We need to adapt our footwear depending on where we are walking in any given season. You cannot climb a mountain in flip flops.

We have to make a choice to advance even if that is from our lounges for now.

The encouragement from today is to make sure that you dwell, no virus can stop you doing that! Nothing can stop you growing in your faith. We have so much access now to online teaching that, if you use your lock down time wisely, you can get closer to God than you’ve ever been before!

After thought (October 23rd, 2020)

When I broadcast this on the 21st March, if you’d have told me we’d still be going through the ‘C’ word, I’d never have believed you! Right now, Wales is in a very strict lock down, even churches have closed again. So sorry for that.

Thanks be to God, Psalm 91 hasn’t gone anywhere, hasn’t gone into hiding, isn’t in lockdown. We can still dwell, we can still choose to do that. If you’ve fallen down, if you’re in despair, get up, get up, get up. Get up high and look down on what might be bringing you down. Don’t let it get on top of you, you get on top of it!

It’s harder now; this has been going on for a long time…. And, we are absolutely believing that our authority in God will turn things around quicker than is being anticipated. In the natural, it seems there is no end in sight, BUT we are not natural beings! We are supernatural. Elijah stopped the rain. We can stop Covid. We can stop the deceit and fear that is being spread across our land. If you don’t think we can, then we may as well stop praying for anything.

If Covid has stopped churches opening (talking about ones that can and are not) how can we just go back to singing victory songs, lack of fear songs, once it’s gone away? ‘I’m no longer a slave to fear’ will have to change to ‘I’m no longer a slave to fear (except the fear of Covid) A bit tongue in cheek there, but a serious point to consider. It’s time for the church to rise up. If you have any influence in your church and it isn’t open but could be, open it! Talk to your leaders, start a prayer meeting! Get up Church. Your nation needs you.

I was 19 – in Bible College, forcing myself to go to the ‘pastor’s wives to be’ meetings! Rebelling (in my head) against flower arranging and organ playing roles. The importance of a hostess trolley tipping me over edge and causing me to make  the declaration, ‘I’ll never have a sisterhood and I will never speak at women’s meetings!’ This is not for me! I will not be moved!

Aren’t you glad that God doesn’t take any notice of our protests?! Because, fast forward 32 years and, speaking to women (and men) is one of the sweetest spots in my life! I love it! I love communicating truth in plain language. I love being real and, hopefully, scratching where people are itching. These Lock down blogs came from a ‘kick up the backside’  from a friend of mine, who sent me a word to say, you need to write more!  Here is what she said:

“Hi there, I wanted to say this to you for a while , take it , leave it , chuck it or embrace it .

YOU NEED TO WRITE AGAIN

I have lavished and savoured BRAVE … You bring a REALNESS into women’s lives ..we ( the everyday women ) cannot always relate to the the women with amazing words from God , but who walk in circles of rich and famous and in doing so … have lost the realness of being a working class girl . Debbie, you haven’t lost this and you must KNOW that all you have poured into us online , needs to be in a book for generations of women … stories of lockdown … Jesus in lockdown …

Do it ! I’ll buy first 20 copies!” (I’ll hold you to that Gana! – haha!)

Gana! She gave me the push I needed. So, thank you for your love and encouragement to get me writing again. I’ve written loads of blogs and you can subscribe on my page if you’d like to look back and get notification when I write a new one. In last weeks blog, I talked about Social media and I am gradually working my way off it so, if you enjoy what you hear/read from me, please subscribe!

I’ve decided to write said book in the form of a weekly  blog as it’s not as daunting as writing a book, and I feel this is something that is achievable in the business of life.  And, once they’re all written down, I will collate them into a book as I did once before..take a look here if you want:

ALL IN ONE PLACE

A WHOLE NEW WORLD

At the beginning of 2020, we initiated a catch phrase for our Church in Newcastle that said, ‘John 10:10 in 2020’ Everyone was excited, it became a buzz word and we were all up for it. March 2020 came and stopped us all in our tracks. Covid-19. A phrase none of us had heard before, suddenly became responsible for everyone heading into their homes not to venture out again for a good few months!

The week this happened, was the week before our BRAVE women’s conference and up until THE lock down day, it was on! When Boris announced BRAVE wouldn’t be on (he didn’t single it out of course, but I knew what he meant) I cried. My husband John, took me in his arms and I wept. The team had worked so hard and we had put together what we knew would be a fantastic day! It was heart breaking. Our BRAVE team gathered quickly at the church that same night – 2 of the girls were still painting in preparation for the conference – ‘It’ll be ready for next time’ was the cry! We sat in a circle bewildered at what was happening. ‘I can’t imagine not coming to church’ one of the girls said. ‘How long will this last?’ Was a question on all our lips! If I’m honest, I thought it would be for a few weeks – how wrong was I.

I think that if we’d have known  it would be around 6 months  before we began to meet in church again, that Monday night would have felt so much worse. I’m thankful that God so often only shows us a step at a time!

After a time of prayer, we left that meeting not sure when we would see each other again, and it felt so strange, even stranger as hugs had been banned!  We simply said, ‘bye’ and walked away from our church.

We decided not to retreat, we decided to keep going forward. For John and I, this wasn’t going to be a time to sit back and chill out – we made the decision to advance and not retreat!

We quickly realised that we would have to stream our services from our house! One of our tech guys came and set up microphones, sound desk, software on our laptop and got us ready to go! Our lounge regularly became a studio with books (for camera stands) wires and tables everywhere! If you tune in,  all you saw were our faces and the Lion! (We had a great picture of a lion as our back drop) if you could have seen ‘back stage’, you’d have thought our house had been burgled! But, it was worth it to communicate and try our best to keep our church together.

We decided from the get go to do all of our Sundays and later, Wednesdays, ‘live’ rather than pre-recorded. We don’t regret this even though it gave us a few challenges and gremlins to deal with on the spot. It just felt like even though we weren’t together, we were. That first Sunday was probably the most stress we’ve felt in the build up to church for a long time! Would it work? What buttons? What about the sound? What about the internet? Would anyone show up?

When the meeting was over and I pressed the button ‘stop streaming’ John and I collapsed on the sofa thankful to God that it had gone well. And, as the weeks and months went by, we relaxed into it more and more and actually got to enjoy doing live TV! Of course, it helped us greatly that we could do it between us as I lead worship too. In fact, someone quipped, ‘we’re grateful that our pastor lives with our worship leader!’

We did so much fun stuff too! ‘Dancing Queen’, ’Way to Amarillo’, ’Shoop shoop song’, ‘Reach for the stars’,  Social distancing videos, Through the Bible readathon (this is still continuing! We started in Matthew and are now in Romans!) Daily devotions! The list goes on, our church got involved. People who had no clue about all things internet and social media, jumped on it to be a part of what was to go on for months! We’d made sure that in the seriousness of the crisis, we found plenty to laugh about too.

We did Easter on line! We had our first year church anniversary on line. Parties were cancelled and life as we had known it, stopped!

It’s fair to say that we became very busy with the online world! 2 live meetings, 2 pre-recorded, zoom meetings and then of course, I started the BRAVE facebook group. A group where we could Be Real And Victorious Every day. Every Saturday morning, I went live and we joined together on a journey from bubbles, to balloons, to hot air balloons among other things!

The group has attracted many women  from around the place and so, another great thing to come out of lock down. We’d never have done it had it not been for this season and I trust that it will continue even if that’s in a different form, long after things are back to normal – take heart, they will be.

After Gana’s encouragement, I agreed that it would be good to capture what these months have been about for us as a group – for us to always have something good to remember in what surely has been a most bizarre time for the world. As I look back though my notes, we will revisit the things that we talked about and the things that we learnt via BRAVE. Join us on the journey if you want! 

See you next time!

This is probably one of the hardest blogs I’ve written as it’s really going against the tide of the times and it’s not easy reading! I don’t want to put any of you who choose to read this under pressure, but I couldn’t not write it either! On a plus note, John and I read just this morning (10^th October 2020) that there is pressure for social media networks to knock off algorithms that users would choose to opt in to, so maybe there is some light coming. It comes off the back of a tragic story of a dad who is blaming Instagram for the suicide of his 14 year old daughter who had been watching self-harming videos. It can be a very dark world….not the internet, social media.

For some strange reason, I really love watching the Jurassic Park movies! I wouldn’t say I have an obsession with dinosaurs, but maybe I have! Anyway, I think it’s movie 2 when a couple have lost their son and they go searching for him on dinosaur island! As the mum is running at one point, she runs into a paraglider and gets tangled in the strings of it. She fights to free herself from the strings. If you’ve seen it, you’ll be able to picture the scene. For me, social media is a little like this. It can feel like a tangled web especially if you have numerous accounts!  

Recently,  I watched the much talked about ‘The Social Dilemma’ (Netflix) It had a huge effect on me and, from the minute it finished I knew I wanted out. I can’t recommend watching it  highly enough.

My Twitter and Instagram accounts were deleted the same night, simply because I hardly used Twitter. Instagram, although I preferred it, didn’t  have the same grip as Facebook – ‘grip’ being an appropriate word! Why that is, I don’t know. And it may not be your experience, but for me, the afore mentioned were fairly easy to delete and I can honestly say, it felt very  liberating and I don’t miss them at all.

Facebook, however, was, I thought, going to take some plotting and planning – why? Because I do do a lot of stuff on there. Video ‘preaches’; Women’s groups -I lead one and am a part of another, our church interacts on there,  (even more-so since lock down), ‘everyone’ is on there; we live stream our church on there and so on… So, I began to ask the question is there a better way to do all these things without the grip of Facebook.

I watched Social dilemma  again before I wrote this as I wanted to take it in once more as there is a huge amount of information. I wanted to take some notes and then pick out the poignant ones for me and for you if you’re interested.

I have also just finished reading, for the second time, ’10 arguments for deleting your social media accounts right now’ by Jaron Larnier.

After absorbing these two resources twice, in my opinion, I am left with no option but to delete my Facebook account. Right now, I can’t see any positives that can outdo the negatives, but I will say here and now, that if that changes, I will simply come back! It doesn’t have to be for any of us a forever decision. That’s not what the book is called. It’s a call to arms for now!

A call for change.

I did a pros and cons list and it felt a bit like the chapters in Deuteronomy where God lays out the positives and the negatives of obeying or not obeying His commands. I’ve always wondered why the negative list is longer, but then I did my own lists regarding social media and got the same scenario! The reasons to leave were many more than the reasons to stay. I think God was saying back in the day that  life is less complicated if you just obey me; (I also believe it is still the case today, but that’s for another blog!) and, I believe, in 2020, life is less complicated without the snare that is social media. Here are my two lists.

Reasons to stay: Friends; influence; keeping up with your kids and family.

Reasons to leave:  You and I  are a product that is sold to advertisers; it owns you; it fills your newsfeed with what you believe; they advertise to you what you have searched for; they are watching you; they own your photographs; it dictates your thoughts; it makes you mad; it makes you want to argue your point; it interrupts you; it distracts you; it takes so much time; It can make you fake nice; it makes you addicted to ‘likes’; it makes you addicted to comments; fake news; it makes you think on things you never would have if you hadn’t seen a certain post; it makes you sad.

I know there are many more, that list took no time at all to come up with.

Before I go on, it’s worth saying that all of the contributors of the social dilemma program are former employees, CEOs, presidents, engineers etc… of Google, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest and the like, so they were in it (the system) and now they are out. If they are out, they are worth listening to, add to that the fact that none of them allow their kids on social media – that should make us give them our attention.

I know that some of us reading this will wish we could delete and go off grid. I know this to be true because my daughter has just deleted and she had people saying to her they wish they could!  The fact that we think we can’t is proof of what all the Larniers of this world tell us and that is, we are addicted to social media; it is a drug; they designed it as such. Every time you get a ‘like’ you get a small dopamine hit. What??? I hear you cry. Read the quote below from the first president of Face book, Sean Parker:

“We need to sort of give you a little dopamine hit every once in a while, because someone liked or commented on a photo or a post or whatever… . It’s a social-validation feedback loop … exactly the kind of thing that a hacker like myself would come up with, because you’re exploiting a vulnerability in human psychology…”

Here’s Chamath Palihapitiya, former vice president of user growth at Facebook:

“The short-term, dopamine-driven feedback loops we’ve created are destroying how society works… . No civil discourse, no cooperation; misinformation, mistruth…. I feel tremendous guilt. I think we all knew in the back of our minds—even though we feigned this whole line of, like, there probably aren’t any bad unintended consequences. I think in the back, deep, deep recesses of, we kind of knew something bad could happen… . So we are in a really bad state of affairs right now, in my opinion. It is eroding the core foundation of how people behave by and between each other. And I don’t have a good solution. My solution is I just don’t use these tools anymore. I haven’t for years.”

‘I just don’t use these tools anymore!’ ‘I feel tremendous guilt’

The most extreme consequences are the levels of self harm and suicide that have increased by 150% and 70% respectively in teen and pre-teen girls (The social Dilemma) Many stories like the one mentioned at the beginning of this blog.

Part of the Netflix program shows a young girl posting a photo of herself. She doesn’t get as many likes as she would like so she deletes it and does another one with filters…. This gets her friends going with likes and heart emojis etc….

 I don’t know about you, but, I am very grateful that social media wasn’t around when I was a kid.

More evidence:

  “We’re being tracked and measured constantly, and receiving engineered feedback all the time. We’re being hypnotised little by little by technicians we can’t see, for purposes we don’t know.”  (Jaron Larnier)

And one more:

What ads are most likely to have a certain effect on you, what news, what cute cat pictures mixed into the feed of news you are getting from family members? (Jaron Larnier)

Doesn’t it send a shiver down your spine when you think that every time we are on social media or google, (yes, google!) our actions are being watched? Actually down to the point of how long you spend looking at an image– yes, really.  Watch ‘The Social Dilemma’

Addiction is the only reason why we would stay connected to something so sinister as pointed out here by Jaron.

Addiction is a big part of the reason why so many of us accept being spied on and manipulated by our information technology,

They have us believing we can’t live without it. For some, that’s more the case than for others. There are people I know who have literally joined facebook just so they can watch church and they don’t do anything else. But for others, even me, it’s a battle to delete because of what I do on there. The reasons to leave though are shouting louder to me at the moment and so I will find a better way!

Jaron and the speakers on the social dilemma documentary are fighting for change. And they want us to be part of the solution. The ONLY way that things will change is if people delete their accounts. This, they say, will give space for the bods at Silicon Valley  to create something better.

No one set out to create the bad side of social media, but nevertheless unless we delete, nothing will change. What the ex-builders of social media are predicting during the next 20 years if we don’t change it, isn’t good! Watch ‘The Social Dilemma’

One of the main reasons to delete your social media accounts is that there isn’t a real choice to move to different social media accounts. Quitting entirely is the only option for change. If you don’t quit, you are not creating the space in which Silicon Valley can act to improve itself. Jaron Larnier

I’m pretty sure none of us would say we are addicted to social media, I certainly would have said I wasn’t, but the more I’ve studied this, the more I’ve come to realise,  I was addicted. Unless you’re a robot, you can’t post a photo or a comment and not check on it later or every 10 minutes to see the likes or comments and if you haven’t had many likes or comments it affects your mood! If you happen to see someone’s post and it’s negative, you can spend hours talking about it, thinking about it, wanting to make your point against it.

I don’t know if you’re aware but everyone has a different newsfeed. The people that are watching you, fill your feed with what they know you will react against or like.

What’s the alternative? What about my friends? Well, you don’t have to give up on your friends, phone, email, text. What about influence? Get your own website, record podcasts. What about my kids and family? Phone, email, text.

Sure, it’ll take more effort to stay in touch. A bit like climbing a hill. But it’ll be worth it because we won’t be being spied on and our data won’t be used to sell to advertisers. Let’s climb the hill and set ourselves  free from the snare of social media. Of course, I’m not telling you what to do, I’m just presenting you with some of the facts that I have found so compelling that I need to act.

So this is what I’m going to do. If you want to keep in touch, my email address is debbie.bullock50@outlook.com you can subscribe to this blog so you’ll get an email every time I write. For BRAVE, we can do YouTube LIVE, I’ll be doing podcasts and we have a YouTube channel that you can subscribe to – just go on YouTube and search for John & Debbie Bullock. We managed perfectly well before it and we can do it again! I will end this with one of the many one liners that made me smile in Jaron’s book.

“To free yourself, to be more authentic, to be less addicted, to be less manipulated, to be less paranoid … for all these marvellous reasons, delete your accounts.”

…..at least temporarily. D x