Hello

I am Lydia, one of the lead Pastors of Hope church. I’m writing this blog to share my heart a little and as an opportunity for you to get to know me a little better.

These will be brief musings over a cuppa; so brew up the earl grey (personally I prefer Sherston or Wiltshire tea company) and draw up a chair...

I shall start by giving you the shortest history of me: I am of “mixed European heritage” - half Spanish half British. I was not raised a Christian; I came to faith when I was thirteen years old. (However, I always believed there was a God and spoke to Him secretly as a child.) Due to my teenage years being wracked with battling a disease that took me near to death, I matured very quickly and at the VERY young age of 19 I married my husband Mark. (He was quite young too – only 21!) We continue to enjoy a very happy marriage and we have been blessed with two children, Beth and Jake who are currently teenagers.

When you journey with God there are so many important moments that accumulate to get you to this moment. I heartily recommend that you take some time to sit down and remember your own journey realising what and when those significant moments were – many of my own “God moments” are occurring to me as I write and it is truly delightful to see God using his rod and his staff to keep me on His path and to move me to each new pasture.

Anyway God didn’t just give me a husband he gave me a “partner” in life... He has married together our gifts and used us together time and time again in his work.

God has given both of us a desire to use popular culture to His advantage. There is always something grasping the nation’s attention – at the time of writing it is mostly Olympians turned bad and unannounced horse-meat in food products! And there are always new and revived books, movies, TV programs and games. Often God directs us to notice these things and to see parallels with our Christian lives. So on a Sunday don’t be surprised by the references to the world around us – Our daily lives, the things we watch, think about and talk about should be as much a part of our Christian lives as prayer – we can not be half worldly and half spiritual. The Christian faith is not a set of religious rules with rituals on Sundays it is LIFE.

Jesus said “I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.” (John 10:10) He even said; “I am the way the truth and the LIFE.” He never said ‘join my club or religion’. He did say, “Follow me” And what did He do? Jesus lived in the culturally relevant world at the time and related it to the Kingdom of Heaven.