The 15 Revolution

Travelling on train from Leeds sat down opposite lad with builders boots on, plaster splattered clothes and kit back - I was wearing suit, stripey shirt and yellow tie - total contrast. Just said to the lad “long day?” And we struck up a conversation. He’d finished college and everywhere he’d tried had no jobs. He was doing jobbing work here and there. We exchanged a few ideas, talked about what some people were doing with properties and he was upbeat about making a go of it. He asked me about my work too .
We didn’t pray over his tool bag, I simply took the time to talk to a young lad who looked fed up by asking “long day?”
When I left him I wished him well and encouraged him to stick with it. He was blown away that someone from another generation with a job poles apart would take an interest in him. (15 mins that’s all on a train)
He was enthusiastic in his response, giving me the biggest thumbs up I’ve seen in ages and said “see you later mate”.

We were travelling home from Pembrey last Sunday.  We had the kids and one of our daughters friends was with us too.  We noticed a people carrier on the side of the road with flashing hazard lights.  The woman driver was walking away from it while on her phone.  It looked like she had broken down, so my wife and I looked at each other and she said, `15`.  So I turned around at the next roundabout and we stopped to ask if she needed help.  She said she had run out of fuel and she was phoning someone to get a petrol can and walk to the station.  We said to her, `There is no need, we have got one, hop in to the car and we will take you to the station.`

When she got into the car she turned to my daughters friend and said, `Oh hello!, What are you doing here then?`  It turned out she knew this lad, and his father.  As we drove to the station, we found out that she was a Christian and she went to a church locally.  It turned out to be more than fifteen minutes, but since then we have been blessed by God because we stopped to help someone, and that someone turned out to be our sister in Christ.  We cannot wait for our next 15 minutes.  Bring it on…….

Today I had my first 15 minute Revolution as I was walking home from school.

It had not been a particularly enjoyable day due to the pressures of my upcoming exams, and the overall oppressiveness of living in a school consumed by darkness had overwhelmed me yet again.  As a result, I sneaked out of the bottom entrance of school so I could walk home alone. Well, my idea of a peaceful walk home in the sunlight listening to Casting Crowns and praying, was soon shattered as I felt a tap on my shoulder.

I turned around to find out that a girl from my year group whom I had spoken to once or twice before, decided that she wanted company on her walk home. (This particular girl was seen as one of the outcasts in the school. She is by no means, ranked as popular and has few friends at school). I have to say that I was somewhat less than amused by this new arrival. But, frustrated though I was, I pulled out my earpiece to listen to her.

She began to ask me a slew of questions, things like how my weekend had gone and what I was up to, all the general small talk questions. She was sweet enough about it but I really did not feel like talking. It was then that I remembered Paul’s message about inconveniencing myself for the benefit of someone else. I then thought, ‘Ok God, I get it, I hear you’, so I began to also ask her some of the similar questions that she asked me. I got one opportunity to share a little bit of my faith with her on the topic of the music that I enjoy listening to. After we split to go our separate routes home, I began to thank God for the experience. I realised that not only did she seem to benefit from the small chat we had (her expression had become happier by the time we parted) but I too became particularly pleased and was very grateful for the experience.

I was working in Preston 3 weeks ago and a man who appeared to be homeless asked me for my car parking ticket as I left the Car Park.  I did not want to give it to him as I did not want him to sell it to buy drink or drugs.  I felt bad as I did not have anytime to go and buy  him anything to eat and drink or find out his situation. He was blind in one eye and as I drove away I kept thinking about him.

3 weeks later I was back in Preston and went back to the Car Park during my lunch break to put more money in the machine.  A man approached me offering to sell me a car parking ticket; as  I looked at him I realised it was the same man!!  I politely declined but asked him if he would like something to eat.  He said yes, and I went and bought him a soup and sandwich and them had a chance to talk to him.  He had been homeless for 9 months and was waiting for a place to come up soon.  I chatted to him for a while and left him with an ALC card saying we could help him if he did not get anything sorted out. I look forward to seeing him again in 3 weeks time to see if he has found a place to live.

Here I am stuck at work on Sunday morning while I know that across town my brothers and sisters are meeting at ALC Belfast.
I’d just taken my first break of the day, and reading the last chapter of “I am not my father” when on my ipod the song started “This is the air I breathe”. Immediately God touched my heart and I was connecting with Him. I closed my eyes and just entered in…
Then out of the blue another team leader came out to ask my advice on something. Immediately I tool the “spiritual” high road and saw the Devil behind this. I mean I’m missing church, and this is my moment to connect with God.  It has to be the Devil, right?
Margaret had a difficult decision to make that could have financial implications for the business. She need reassurance that her decision was right.
So, I dealt with my bad attitude and did what Jesus would have done. I closed my book took out my earphones and gave her my undivided attention.
What was God doing here? I don’t know. The day’s not over yet!
Margaret made the right decision in the end. And, I think I did too.

I’d just got back home after a red eye long haul flight, landing at Gatwick airport at 6.40am. By the time I got to Leeds it was mid afternoon, so I’m sure you can appreciate that I was feeling just a little tired at this point, having been awake for 24 hours straight.
While I was away, my neighbour had given birth to her second child, a little girl. I remembered how she had struggled after having her son back in 2006, so I went to say hello before I had even set foot in my own house. As soon as she opened the door, I could tell by the look on her face that she was in need of a shoulder to cry on. Her face crumpled, and tears began to roll down her face.
As you can imagine, I was hoping to have a quick coo over the baby, hug my neighbour in a congratulatory manner, and then head home to scrub off the airplane grime. I felt as if I needed to prop my eyelids open with a matchstick, but I stepped into my neighbour’s house, as I could see she needed me at that point.
My neighbour was having real problems feeding her baby. I’ve got two children, one of whom I fed until she was 16 months old, so I understood how she was feeling about it all. We talked through everything she could do to make things easier, I changed baby’s nappy, cuddled the baby to give my neighbour a break (and indulge myself, there’s nothing so lovely as that new baby smell!!). I must have been there almost half an hour before I felt I could leave her. She was a lot calmer after having talked it through with me, and was feeling more positive about how she was doing with her new baby. She had been beating herself up about being a bad mother, which was not even vaguely true, but her post natal hormones had kicked in nicely, leaving her feeling horrendous.
I am so glad I pushed myself to spend that time with her, it was only half an hour, but it was when I myself was feeling completely exhausted. It helped her so much, she has since thanked me for going out of my way that day. My 15 minute revolution (or 30 minute as it ended up being) left me feeling good, even though I was tired, smelly and ready to soak in the bath!

My wife Pat and I run a home computer support company. Early in 2007 we had a call from Peter, a man in his eighties who wanted help with Word processing and transfering a lifetimes slides onto his computer. Once every two weeks for nearly a year I visited and we had our lesson.

On Christmas eve 2007 we called to take Peter and  Murial, his wife, small gift and a card. When we arrived they were both in tears, his doctor had told him that morning that he had liver cancer and only had a few months to live.

Peter died in the spring of 2008. We called a few times through the year to see Murial but not as often as we should.

On Tuesday of this week I had a gap of a couple of hours in my day between appointments so I thought I would do the shopping. As I drove to Morrisons I heard a voice say “go and see Murial. But I reasoned If I see her I won’t have time to do the shopping, I’ll make time to see her tomorrow. “What about your pledge to be inconviencienced ?” the voice countered.

I turned the car around and drove to her house. She was surprised but pleased to see me. As we chatted I said “it must be nearly a year since Peter died”. She replied “it is exactly a year today, I have just come back from taking flowers to his grave and I need someone to talk to”.

At one point she asked if I thought God loved her, I told her he must do as he re arranged my entire day and prompted me to be there to tell her just that.

I was coming out of the supermarket when i noticed and elderly couple whom i knew waiting at the bus stop.
I knew they lived near to me and i knew it was no big deal at all to ask them if i could give them a lift home instead of the bus.
Well the woman turned anxiously to me and explained that she would have ordinarily have said thank you but we’re fine, but that morning she and her husband had come up to do some shopping but when she came to pay for the stuff, she couldnt find her bank card! She thought she’d dropped it while waiting for the bus near her home!
So I told them to jump in and we’ll retrace her steps! Suddenly we were on a mission!!
Got to where they lived, they jumped out and started searching for the card on the floor by the bus stop. After nothing found I left them and went home.

Coming out again at the end of the day in the car I spotted them again and so i stopped and asked her if the missing card had been found.
She was so relieved to say she found it on her bedroom floor, but she just kept saying “thank you thank you for helping” over and over again. Me just taking that extremely small step had made a huge difference to their day, sometimes it’s only the small insignificant things!!

So the other week I was in town with a few friends and my sister and we had been sitting around for a while just chatting and stuff but I had noticed that there was a girl just sitting on her own not so far away so I said to my friend and my sister that I was gonna go and talk to her so I ran off and said hiya to her. The girl looked a bit confused but I just started a conversation with her and she told me her name was rachel, my friend and sister then came over and started talking to her aswell and we decided to go to clements Rachel said she was cold so my friend bought her a cappucino and we stayed with her for a few hours until she met up with some other friends. We got talking to her about church and exchanged phone numbers so she said she would come to church sometime and she was glad of the company anyway. We all felt good about it and so did she. I suppose it didn’t really inconvenience us too much but it made everyone happy

I have been very challenged by the 15 Revolution as even though I am involved with two Love Bradford projects I tend to compartmentalise my life and leave the 15 Revolutions to those times.

A couple of weeks ago I was working in Central Manchester and as I was leaving the car park saw a homeless person asleep in an entrance.  I did not want to wake him up but as I was 40 minutes early for my appointment decided that I would buy him a sandwich.  It took me several minutes to find a shop as I did not know the area and then returned with sandwich and literature (which I always keep on me now!) but by the time I got back he had gone!

On the following Sunday Robert and I were starting a breakfast for the Walking Free people to come to before church.  We had 24 people come to the breakfast, a number of them came to the service afterwards, 2 of them for the first time.  I felt that, not only did God make up to me for the lost opportunity in the week, but I also am starting to be more aware of opportunities to help people outside of my set routine.