stevej's blog

We have a new baby daughter, Eleanor Rose Abigail Jones. Born Thursday 4th Feb at 6.35am and weighing 9lbs 6.5oz.

Bev is doing well, and Amber and Lois are delighted. Lois is especially pleased to have been elevated to the rank of 'big sister'!

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A few pics...more

Bev and I have still not been overtaken by the arrival of baby Jones no.3, so last night’s evening on gender roles went ahead as planned. About 25 people from across the church gathered in Osney. We looked at the range of views that exist and at some of the relevant passages of Scripture, and there was lots of discussion!more

We were expecting company last night for a curry, but the snow got in everyone's way (apart from the takeaway delivery man!). So, Bev and I spent a quiet evening in front of the fire with said curry, watching 'The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe' on BBC3more

What a great meeting we had last Sunday morning (3rd Jan).

A number of people stood up to prophesy, and there was a remarkable measure of agreement between what different people had to say. Rich Taylor has very helpfully taken some notes and grouped it all under three main headings: expectation and attempting great things - hope - being filled with the Spirit.

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I've just got home from the first Cafe Church at Costa on the Cowley Road. There were about 25 of us, including 4 or 5 people who I'd not met before. It was great to meet new people, and a great venue to sit and talk about things that really matter.more

 As part of preparing to preach on Sunday, I’ve been re-reading ‘Passion for Jesus’ (by Mike Bickle, Kingsway, 1994). The following section struck a chord with me, as he puts into words something that I’ve been thinking about quite a lot recently…

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When I preached this morning, I had another go at inviting questions by text. Here are my responses to the two that I didn't answer before the end of the meeting...

Did the Jews repair the torn curtain in the temple?more

Wow! It's been over 3 weeks since I last posted something here. I always find September and October to be the busiest time of the year. In this last week, I delivered 6 different talks to 7 different groups of people, which is a lot more than I usually do - and it took up up a lot my creative energy.more

My experience of answers to prayer is that even miraculous things don’t often feel that miraculous in the Hollywood way of things. It’s more like, you blink and things seem different and you gradually realise something amazing has occurred.more

We had a scan at the JR yesterday, and discovered that baby no. 3 is almost certainly a girl. Not having found out the sex of the first two before they were born, I'm finding it a bit weird to know this. It's made more the whole thing feel a lot more real, and I'm getting more and more excited about being a dad again.more