I don’t know how many of you readers caught ‘Deborah 13: Servant of God’ on BBC Three last night…I know I didn’t. I did however watch it on iPlayer last night.

I read about the documentary on Saturday and made a point of making a note that it was on. The documentary followed 13 year old Deborah and her family of 10 brothers/sisters.

The family are all evangelical Christians and live in a very remote place in Dorset. All the children are home-schooled and don’t really mix with anyone other than their siblings.

I have to admit I made a note of the documentary expecting to be annoyed by ‘bad Chrstian press’ and I’m sure had the documentary been on Channel 4 I would have been, however I was pleasently surprised and think the family pose a challenge for Christians across the board!

Firstly God is centainly on the agenda in their household! The day begins and ends with bible study as a family, every meal is accompanied by grace and at the end of the programme when their eldest son returns to university they pray for a safe journey. I loved that in their family prayer and looking at God’s word was right out there in the open and I only wish that more Christian families included that… I don’t think I’d ever thought of the idea of family bible study but I shall certainly think of it again!

Secondly the children didn’t care about looks! Right at the start of the documentary Deborah was asked if she knew who Britney or Victoria Beckham were and she didn’t know! Deborah had no interest in fashion or reservations about her looks which in my opinion was a great thing because her self worth was based on something other than our ridiculous culture!

The not so good…

Although generally I think the children were in a good family atmosphere and that the older brother being at university shows that perhaps their Christian bubble upbringing isn’t a bad thing there were a few things that I raised an eye-brow at…

Firstly the family were t-total and of the belief that alcohol shouldn’t be consumed by Christians…to which I’d probably enquire about Jesus’ first miricle of water to wine!

Secondly Deborah seemed to be very focused on the idea of people going to hell which although is technically true it seemed like she had a very negative view of the world rather than looking at the positives within it.

All in all though I thought it was a positive reflection of Christianity in todays culture and a real challenge to think about how seriously we (as Christians) take our faith

To watch it on iplayer click here

(2 votes, average: 4.5 out of 5)

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The last year I’d say I’ve been on a journey, I’ve discovered that actually feelings towards sung worship change

I’ve found that worship songs don’t always hit the nail on the head for me…

I’ve found that I’m left wanting something more from worship

at the same time I acknowledge that worship thankfully isn’t about pleasing Mark but pleasing God

as a result of this I think I’ve been learning two things…

firstly learning to worship God even when I’m not in the mood…acknowledging that God is more important than grumpy Mark

SECONDLY I’M LEARNING TO FIND GOD IN UNUSUAL PLACES

(and to stop doing a Rob Bell and doing 1 line paragraphs!)

I was watching an interview with Paramore on youtube at a church in America and the very lovely lead singer Hayley Williams was talking about how when you’re on tour and you can’t get to church every Sunday you learn to find God in other places…and actually when you work for a church or find that church doesn’t always work for you or perhaps if you happen to be super-spiritual you learn to find God in unusual places too.

I’m a massive fan of music and so often the finding of God has been in songs from artists whether Christian or not….back when I was in year 10 and I bought New Found Glory’s ‘Sticks & Stones’ the song Sonny spoke to me, a while back I posted on a Five Iron Frenzy song that got me thinking about God, I wear a hoodie with the Relient K lyric ‘It’s the beauty of grace that makes life not fair’ on the back and more recently I’ve even found God in sections of Lily Allen’s new album (which is surprisingly good!).

It’s interesting to find God in places outside of church because you get a different perspective of things, you find that people who don’t talk the church-lingo often have some interesting things to say about God whether you agree or not but they get you thinking about Him and I heard someone say that ‘whenever your mind turns back to God it’s an act of worship’

So don’t rely on church to provide you with God (even if you get the manufactured lights & smoke version of the almighty one) but go fishing…or rather searching for Him…you never know God may be behind the sofa all along…or in that new CD from Blink 182 when they release it in the summer!

(1 votes, average: 3 out of 5)

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