Episode 9 with Mark Lyndon-Jones

Elim MPower

In this episode we are in conversation with Mark Lyndon-Jones, leader of ministry to men across the Elim movement in the UK.

We open with a review of Mark’s written devotion from Philippians 3:13-14, that he brought to set the tone for men across Elim in 2020 at the beginning of the year. We reflect on the great athletic achievement from Eliud Kipchoge, who became the first athlete to run a marathon distance in under two hours, beating the mark by just 20 seconds.

Mark encourages us as men to remember that if Paul is able to bring us such inspirational words, to strain towards what is ahead and forget what is behind, both from a prison context and also from a history of being against Christianity, then we too must not dwell on our past failures or the limitations of our current situation.

Equally we are also to avoid being comfortable solely with historic victories. We must keep pressing ahead, to the new mission and ministry Jesus always has lying ahead for us.

Mark summarises it well with this: “You can’t start a new chapter in your life if you keep re-reading the last one.” He says a great way to unblock and free us up from spiritual inertia is to take Paul’s advice and do ‘one thing’ i.e. crack on and get at least something done. Ask a friend, ask a leader and ask the Lord for the ‘one thing’ we should be doing next.

The clues as to what that might be can lie in either what we are frequently wound up about; or conversely whatt we are delighted by. There are dramatic parallels between Paul’s exhortation to strain ahead and Lot’s wife looking back, and so we need to lean into what the Lord has for us in the future.

Gents – be encouraged, keep pressing into Jesus, and take hold of what He has for you!

We also talk about the MPower plans for hosting at least 200 instances of the #mpowerbigbreakfast around the nation this September, in partnership with Reach, Elim’s evangelism team. We are aiming for a couple of thousands guys to join these breakfasts, and for a couple of hundred men to start following Jesus. You can sign up for a pack to host a breakfast at https://mailchi.mp/m/mpowerbigbreakfast

We discuss MPower’s ‘Fuel for the Week’ weekly devotional email, and the growth of the'Discipleship for Busy Blokes' podcast since we launched last October.

We round things up with some great banter from the ‘spin the wheel’ game – Mark tells us his hero, shares some ‘know how’ on getting men to connect better and also a tremendous life-hack around, would you believe it, tiling in the bathroom!

Mark closes with an encouraging prayer for us all as guys.