Home : Jonathan Crabtree

16:11 Forge 0 Comments


 This post is about home, but I guarantee the home I am talking about isn't the one you were expecting. Im going to talk about our true home as christians, the home where all our family live and our father lives, and that home is heaven. Now although we may have a house and a family on earth, and although we have bodies and possessions on earth, they are all just temporary until we reach our final destination, which is in heaven with god and all our other brothers and sisters where we will live with god and praise him for the rest of eternity! Now I personally can't wait for the day when I get to sit at the table with christ and eat with the rest of the family! Its going to be an amazing experience. But while we are down on earth we need to remember that what we earn hear in possessions and other things is only temporary, however our spirit will live forever, and so will everyone else's spirit, so while we are down here we need to treat each other in such a way, and remember to invest in people before you invest in possessions. This is something I have had to learn and am still learning now, but as much as we may try and blend in with the crowd, try and fit in, if we truly are citizens of heaven it wont be possible, because the fire inside of us cant blend into the background! It is there for all to see like a city on a hilltop, rather than trying to hide it you need to let it out and recognise that some may find it strange, some weird, but more than you expect will be drawn to it and will come to know christ because of it! We need to populate heaven and let everyone we can know about his good news so that they can share the prize that we will be given when we enter the gates!

 My prayer for you is that your true home would be reviled to you. that you would come to terms with the fact that although life as a christian can be a hard and lonely one on earth, your true home is not here, but in heaven and that you would stop trying to hide our faith and blend in, but that you would let it shine out like a beacon for all to see, so that they may see the light too and be drawn nearer to god, Amen.

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Music, Guilt, and Secular Things : Jonathan Crabtree

16:24 Forge 0 Comments


Just to put this into context, recently I have been having quite a few conversations to do with music, regarding either how it can have a bad effect on your life if you listen to secular music, how it has a great impact on your life if you listen to worship music, and also how there is not enough good christian music out there to listen to. So after a while of meditating, prayer and talking I decided to write a blog post about it and share my opinions on these topics, and also see what responses I get from you guys, so please express your opinion via a comment below, or a message or however you like :)

Firstly I want to start with the idea that listening to secular music has a bad effect on your spirit. Now there is a problem with this rule from the very start and that is that you are calling everyone who isn't saved or who's music is aimed at the masses sends out a bad message, or is a Satanist or how ever you want to put it. The fact is people who don't know god can be good people, because the fact is wether we are saved or not we are made in gods image and that means we share some of gods characteristics, we all have the ability to love, to have apathy, to care for others, god placed these gifts in every single human being from the start. The only reason people turn bad is because their life becomes twisted by sin, however this twisting doesn't happen to everyone who doesn't know god, because as I said you start with good in you, and that good can be cultivated by good people. Obviously there are secular musicians out there who speak down and sing about all sorts of bad things like drugs, casual sex, anarchy the list could go on, but this christian outlook that all secular music is like that and should be treated as a sin and that people who listen to secular music are sinners is wrong. The fact is secular music talks about life experience and allot of things that christian music wouldn't dare to touch. If we leave the whole secular world behind under that basis that it is unholy and bad for us, which we easily could, we would disconnect ourselves as the church from the world and the good news would be completely lost. We need to recognise the significance of the outside secular world and realise that allot of what they do is more creative, more dynamic, more strategic, more productive, and to be honest we should look at that, take inspiration from it and apply it to our christian world. Why should we only listen to worship songs while we pray? a friend of mine confessed to me, as if it was a sin, that he listens to burial when praying because he finds that future garage stirs his spirit. Why should that be frowned upon? why should he feel condemned for that? there is nothing in his songs that speak down, they are all instrumental, the fact is in that situation he is doing nothing more that worshiping god for that music that he is hearing! God made music, he facilitates it so that we can enjoy it, praise him with it and praise him by it, when we listen to music that stirs us up and it makes   us think of god is it any worse than a worship song? I don't think it is. Don't think that when I talk about secular music I am telling you its fine to listen to music that includes swearing, foul language and other stuff similar to that because I'm not, I'm saying that we should stop considering all secular music as that and stop feeling condemned for listening to it. The fact is the reason there isn't a massive underground christian music scene that makes generic music, or dance music, or electronic music, or what ever genre that you fancy is because the church has a mentality that all music that isn't primarily worship music is bad, this then discourages the christians who are into that type of music from listening to it and they move on from it, or listen to it secretly as a guilty pleasure, or even worse listen to it blatantly as a rebellion against the rules. Its "rules" like this which are making the church less and less accessible to young people, young people of this generation are calling out for god, but don't want to be confined and squeezed into rules and regulations and are being pushed away from the place their heart is crying out for. This is why these modern super churches are exploding. its because there is an atmosphere in there that no matter who you are your accepted, its a culture of evolvement and inclusion that makes people welcome, rather than regulations and rules that cross your name off the list of desirables. The fact is if god had a list like that we would all be crossed off the list, but he gave his son up so we could be free of it. In the same way we need to accept everyone no matter what they have done, or what their tastes are, and rather than accepting them, but asking them to change their tastes, we need to welcome them for who they are, because the fact is god designed them that way, if someone is lively and energetic and enjoys that sort of music, don't tell them to stop jumping in worship or give them dirty looks, thats who god made them to be! God created our inmost being, he knitted us together in our mothers womb! He designed us all just the way he wanted! so we need to accept that in ourselves, and in others.

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Encouragement : Jonathan Crabtree

07:32 Forge 0 Comments


This sunday Dave Niblock spoke an amazing word in the evening about encouragement and how it can be the difference between life and death and I agree with that whole heartedly, so Im going to carry on from where I left off on my last post, the joy of relationships and continue to go deeper into that but from this perspective of "encouragement".

Encouragement in its rawest nature is to en-courage or to give courage. Now courage in not an under valued commodity, everyone understands how important it is and often we all think we need more of it, but I for sure have never connected that to encouragement, and yet thinking about it deeper the very thing encouragement does is fill you up with more courage when you are feeling low on it. This is so important in your relationships around you. Im going to ask you the question, do your friends fill you with courage and speak words of strength into your life, or do they do the opposite? because there are only two options, encouragement and discouragement, there is no mid ground. You need to root yourself into an atmosphere of encouragement and life to put you at the optimum strength level. Everyone needs strength to get through life. Life in its nature takes away your courage, it wears you out knocks you down, tells you you wont amount to anything, when the truth is that in christ we are more than conquerers! So to stop those lies taking over your life you need to take control, and the best way of doing that is by surrounding yourself with people who believe that to and know it, so you can remind each other and keep your heads up! We should all be working as a unit for the same cause, and that is gods cause, to love god before all else and to love others as you do yourself. If you are with people who have that goal in their heart then that will naturally encourage that spirit, however in the same way any part of your life can be encouraged in the same way. If you surround yourself with sport fanatics, you will grow a love for sport. If you surround yourself with Fashion fanatics, you will grow a love for fashion. If you surround yourself with Jesus fanatics, you will grow a love for Jesus. If you surround yourself with gossip fanatics you will grow a love for gossip. If you surround yourself with hate fanatics, you will grow a love for hate. Now don't get me wrong, im not saying if there are people out there that you know who gossip or hate you should ignore them and never speak to them, because as I said, our aim is to love others and that doesn't fulfil that purpose, however there is a difference between people you are friendly with and friends. You need to talk to those people, get to know them, but don't let them get in a position where they influence you, don't put your roots in them, because they will encourage the wrong things in your life, and discourage the right things in your life. Even good people who aren't christians can discourage you without even meaning to. Its just to do with perspectives on life. To put yourself in the best position possible you need to put your roots in people you know are on fire for god, and who know the plans god has for them, that is when your life will be encouraged to the max, and then you can take that courage and encourage those people who you are friendly with.

Another thing to remember is to keep encouraging your friends. It can be so easy to take people for granted and let them go on without letting them know what they mean to you like I was saying in my previous post, and encouragement is a powerful tool in those circumstances, If your friends are going through a tough time or working hard for something, encourage them, even if it looks like they have it all together, let them know they can do it, give them a boost, it can make all the difference.

Something great that dave said on sunday was that one second of encouragement before is worth an hour of praise after. And this statement is so true. Don't wait for your friends to arrive and then applaud them, give them a boost to the top and help them to get there. Life isn't all about where you end up, its about the journey, and you remember the people who have encouraged you, you don't remember the people who praise you. Thats just worth thinking about.

My prayer for you today is that you would understand the power of encouragement, that you would see the difference between encouraging people and discouraging people, and that you would give them the strength to do something about it. I pray that you would seek out your friends and encourage them, but also thank them for the encouragement that you have received from them in the past, And I pray that you wouldn't take your friends for granted, but love them and encourage them for the whole journey of life, and not just on the highs. Amen.

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Who can you teach? : Sam Williams

14:09 Forge 0 Comments



The Year of Happiness: Who can you teach?, i was reading a freind of mines blog today and thaught It was worth a share!


"Today I went to the hospital, nothing major but it did make me think. The doctor looking after me was a trainee. Bradford Royal Infirmary is a teaching hospital and I've been going there for the past 21 years of my life so its nothing out of the ordinary to me but it got me thinking. Everyone, whatever their job, started with training. As I was sat in location 3 of 3, the pharmacy, I got to thinking about teaching others. We all have skills that we excel at, things we can freely give to others that will ultimately lead to them being better people. I know some people might see letting trainee doctors prod you not for them but at the end of the day if there weren't any willing volunteers like me around we would never have new doctors. The doctor who took my history was amazing, he checked everything, asked me all the questions he could think of and he even had warm hands (way to go young Jedi) I put all my confidence in him and thanks to him I'm on my way to a diagnosis. 

We all started as blank canvases, free to become whoever we choose, we are all born trainees. Your dentist, your teacher, hairdresser, driving instructor, bank manager, you name it they were all trainees. Parents encourage their children to crawl, walk, talk, run, read, write by learning from others so why shouldn't we, as colleagues, family, friends, encourage others to learn what we know? We are all teachers! I'm sure you know many things I simply don't, like how to shoot a photograph so that minimal editing is needed, the state of the English economy or how to play the piano. The thing you can do what I can do. Teach. If we all give some of our time over to teaching someone something new we pass on our intelligence. 

Folk stories and fairy tales were passed on by word of mouth from generation to generation, they weren't written down for many generations but they survived for one reason they we told, taught and retold.
If you can give just a little of your knowledge away we can increase everyone's thinking and keep our tales going on forever.

Take some time to be a teacher." 
Sam Williams

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The Joy of Relationships : Jonathan Crabtree

16:16 Forge 0 Comments



This last month or so in edge all the preaching has been about relationships, and how they should be at the core of everything we do, it states clearly that we were designed to be a unit, a team, we weren't designed to fight the world alone as the outside world often makes us believe, which is why we need to cherish the relationships we have and not take them for granted. Now I can tell you for free that in the past I have had friends that meant the world to me, but over time I have neglected them to the point where we barley talk. Your friends are a joy, they can be the source of your strength and the props and fuel to getting through your life, its a given rule that you cant get anywhere without anyone else! So if someone else is helping you down the road, let them know and invest in your relationship rather than sucking out all the fuel and driving off to the next destination. As much as that can work for a while it is not sustainable or healthy. As humans we need to be in fellowship with others, god designed us that way, so if we just live day by day scrounging the energy from select individuals and changing those individuals daily then eventually you will run out of places to go, and ultimately you wont have been in "fellowship" with anyone. Im not saying Im perfect in this matter, in fact Im still trying to sort things out in my own life, everything I say on this blog is not just a preach to you, but its a preach to myself. But just take it from me, its better to invest before you grow apart rather than to try and build a bridge after! So this week take time out to let your friends know they are wanted, let them know how much they mean to you and how much they help you. It will change your life, and change theirs! Go on, I DARE YOU!

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With Everything : Jonathan Crabtree

12:01 Forge 0 Comments



For those of you who don't know, my church is ALC bradford and Friday nights at ALC are getting to a whole new level, the room has such a tangible feeling of god that no one can deny. This friday 7 new people gave their lives to christ and on that night the final song in worship was with everything. I had the honour of leading worship, and this blog post goes into more detail as to what I said on friday night when I was leading worship.

 Basically while I was deciding what songs to include in the set list I thought deeper into the songs than I have ever done before. Its surprising how easily you can get caught up in songs and miss out the message that is healed in the song, and when I came to with everything I realised how this message had been missed so much. The lyrics say, "with everything, with everything, we will shout for your glory" and the tone of the song makes people want to shout and go mental worshiping god, but thats the problem, we were worshiping god all out, but just for the sake of it, there was no depth behind that worship, or depth behind the lyrics, which lead me to think, why do we give everything, whats the reason behind our singing "with everything" and I began to list them, because he gives us wisdom, courage, blessing, strength, the list went on and on, but then I thought to myself, Is that really enough to give everything for, and I said to myself, if God didn't do any of these things for me would I still give my everything, and the answer was yes, and the reason was Jesus, the fact is all of what god gives us now is just a bonus from the ultimate gift that he gave us, which is eternal life and a chance to know him! We give everything, not for what he does for us, but because of what he has already done. No amount of wisdom, courage, blessing or strength could ever compare to gods gift of eternal life, and the reason that demands everything, is because he gave up everything he had so that we could have the chance to give everything to him. He gave up the realms of heaven and came down to the squalor of a stable, to live a life of need, to experience pain and suffering to the ultimate. It says in the bible that he was unrecognisable as a human being when he was on the cross, he was whipped with iron nailed whips, kicked and beaten within an inch of his life and nailed to a cross to suffer the most brutal death sentence just so that we could have a relationship with us! He could have left us, started again, abandoned us, but no, he came down to heaven and gave EVERYTHING for us.

 This is why we give everything. Because he gave everything for us. We don't give everything because of what he gives us, but because of what he gave us on the cross!

 Just in case you dont know what the song is, here is a link to it on youtube... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a8wY6BPFoWU

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