I’m inspired!

I’ve been to Bergen attending Kristent Fellesskap’s easter conference. It’s been great in every way! I was very inspired, and I got to know many knew people. I stayed with some very hospitable and wonderful girls. They were awesome. I did not know them before I came, but they let me stay with them, and told me to make myself at home and invite people over if I wanted to. That’s obviously how they live. They have an open home with an open fridge. ;) The first afternoon they had about twenty people over for dinner, and the day after there were also a bunch over for dinner. They also had people over for breakfast every morning. –whoever wanted to come. (This works great as long as the guests help out a little.) They simply take God’s word about hospitality and fellowship seriously, and it was truely a blessing to me, and I’m convinced it is a blessing for everyone that comes by their house!
The meetings were great. So inspiring. I think a Christian conference is good when it inspires you to go home and start living out everything that’s been preached and talked about. So many conferences feel great. They’re like a spiritual kick, and when you come home you realize that life is not like that. You just wish you could go back and experience it again. Well, this conference inspired me to go home and live a life lead by the holy spirit and in fellowship with other christians.

It was great to see the holy spirit move, people healed, and hear many testimonies about neighbours and friends that have been saved lately. If that’s how it is in Bergen, it can happen here in Oslo too!! God is awesome!

How can they not love him?

Matt Redman sings:
”If you know you’re loved by the king,
sing, sing, sing!
If you know you’re loved by the King,
live for Him, live for Him!"
I ask myself whether it’s possible not to love God if you have experienced God’s love. I know some people that call themselves Christians, that grew up in christian families and still keep some faith. They pray every once in a while, but show no passion whatsoever about the name Jesus. I ask myself how that is possible. How can they not love him if they know how much he loves them? God’s love is amazingly great! He, himself, died for my sake. And for your sake. If we know we’re loved by the King, we really ought to sing to him and live for him!

It also strikes me how his love is the only thing that can make me sing to him and live for him. My love for him is simply response to his love for me. I love him only because he loved me first.

We shine like the stars! (Phil. 2:15)

Today I received Matt Redman's newest cd in the mail. (It's so nice to get "oldfashioned" mail!! Anyway...) I really like Matt Redman's songs. There are some really great songs on there! The song "Shine" is just really expressing my dream! (It is not really my dream, but God's plan.) And I do believe it is happening everywhere there are christians! Things I read about, hear about and things I see prove that. It's just really powerful:

Lord we have seen the rising sun, awakening the early dawn,
And we´re rising up to give you praise.
Lord we have seen the stars and moon, see how they shine,
They shine for you,
And You´re calling us to do the same.
So we rise up with a song, and we rise up with a cry
And we´re giving you our lives.

We will shine like stars in the universe,
Holding out Your truth in the darkest place.
We´ll be living for Your glory,
Jesus we´ll be living for Your glory.
We will burn so bright with Your praise O God,
And declare Your light to this broken world.
We´ll be living for Your glory,
Jesus we´ll be living for Your glory.

Like the sun so radiantly
Sending light for all to see,
Let your holy church arise
Exploding into life,
Like a supernova´s light,
Set your holy church on fire;
We will shine.
So we rise up with a song, and we rise up with a cry
And we´re giving you our lives.
Jesus, we will shine.

It's awesome!

23 reasons for why I love my church

I love my church because:
They bring me closer to Jesus.
They encourage me.
They inspire me.
We talk about God, Jesus, the bible, and help each other to know Him more.
We’re a house church, and we actually get to know each other.
We’re a house church, and everyone participates and shares with each other.
We’re a house church, and we eat together.
We don’t necessarily meet only once or twice a week, because we know each other and love each other, and hang out anytime, any place, which means we can “have church” anytime, any place!
We worship God together.
We laugh.
We have fun.
We can watch movies or go for a beer together as well as praying or reading the bible together.
We bring words from God himself to each other. (Wow, that’s pretty amazing really!...)
We help each other live our lives with God, not only when we meet, but also during the rest of the week.
I can count on them when I need them.
We have dreams and visions.
I believe in them.
I believe we will grow in number.
I believe we will see many people saved, and great things happen to people.
We’re not only a social club. What we’re up to is a lot more important than that!
We’re spreading God’s kingdom and love in Oslo and everywhere we go.
They help me see with “prophetic eyes”. I don’t do things just to do them. –I do them for a greater reason. This makes everyday life and even boring things very exciting!
And last, but least: We don’t meet on sunday mornings! ;)

I'm so glad there is such a thing as cinnamon rolls!

-I think cinnamon rolls make the world just a little bit better. ;)

I've had a great weekend i Risør, a tiny and beautiful town by the ocean south in Norway. My wonderful friend Bente lives there, and this weekend I have been down there to visit, which was really nice! One of the things we did, was baking, and I ate many many cinnamon rolls yesterday. Mmmmmmmm!! Thanks Bente! :)

That summer feeling...

All of a sudden I felt a longing for summer.
Walking around my grandma's garden
watching all the blooming flowers,
listening to the bees buzzing
and smelling the earth.
Feeling the heat of the sun in a silent moment,
then to be refreshed by a cool wind.
Hearing my grandma calling my name
to tell me the waffles and limonade are served.
Later to ride my bike through the golden fields on my way home
thinking that I'm very blessed to have a grandma with a cottage and a garden.

"Faith is the bird that feels the light when the dawn is still dark."
(Rabindranath Tagore)

New experience

It seems like half the population of Oslo are sick these days. I've just had my turn. It's so incredibly boring being sick! I hate it! Fortunately these harse colds don't last too long. I'm almost well again.

I had an interesting experience though. During the weekend I was on a trip with a nice bunch of youth leaders from the church at Jessheim. Among other things I was going to lead the worship. My only problem was that I had no singing voice whatsoever. A lot of the time I could only whisper. How interesting to lead worship without being able to sing! I was able to talk loud enough for them to hear me (barely), but singing was hopeless. Still I really felt like I was leading them in worship.
Again that reminded me about what's important when leading worship. It's not about the singing. Of course not! It's about reminding them of who he is and why he is worthy of our time, focus, and praise, isn't it? And about helping them to let go of distractions and other things that keep them from giving him their all.
It was a cool feeling standing not quite in front of them, sort of hiding behind the pianist, just trying to focus on God without being able to hit a note, and every once in a while I'd say something that I felt God may have wanted me to say...
I guess the best way of leading worship is to worship God yourself. Sometimes I feel like God says that to me before I am going to lead worship. I might be a little bit stressed or nervous, or maybe I really really want something exciting to happen, so I ask God how I'm going to do this. Then I often feel like he says "Just worship me!"
That's a relief.

Oh no! Not another blog about church?…

There are so many of the blogs I drop by that talk about church. House churches, emerging churches, church this and church that... Even though I find it important and interesting, I have also thought that I’m not going to be one of those "church bloggers". Mostly because there are so many wise people saying many wise things about the subject, and I tell myself I have nothing to add.

But now I’ve changed my mind! I have many different kinds of friends. Friends that read my blog. Some are christians, some are not. Some are christians that know a lot about the bible, and some are not. Some have good experiences with the consept “church” and some actually have really bad experiences. People have totally different ideas about what church really is.

Some of my friends believe the church is a building. Mere building. Some other people realize church is more than that, but still have some ideas of the building as something holy in itself. Others know that church really is the fellowship between christians, but still refer to some building as “the church”. I have had great experiences lately that church has got nothing to do with a building!

I belong to a church that owns no building. We meet in each other’s homes every week or as often as we feel like hanging out. I have not lived a more exciting life than after I became part of this church. That is because we function like a church is supposed to. We meet. We eat and have a good time. We catch up with each other. We praise and worship God. We read the bible. We encourage each other. We try to let the holy spirit flow. We don’t need a special building for this to happen! It can happen anywhere.

I want my christian friends that belong to other fellowships to feel free to have church anywhere at anytime. (Its very biblical!) And I want my not-christian friends to understand that being a christian is not about services sunday morning in some holy building. It’s about being changed and starting living the life God created you to live, among fellow christians. No building is holy. God doesn’t dwell in a building anymore (like he used to in Israel). He dwells in every person that received him! That’s why we can have church anywhere at any time! (And that’s how they did it in the bible!) Church is a great thing!

Sing a new song
to the Lord!
Let the whole earth sing
to the Lord!

Sing a new song
to the Lord,
for he has done wonderful deeds.

I will sing a new song
to you,
O God!


(Psalm 96:1; 98:1; 144:9)

I took the world's shortest personality test. Tell me, my friends, is this the truth about me? (I especially challenge Bente to answer this question.)

Your Personality Profile

You are funky, outdoorsy, and down to earth. While you may not be a total hippie... You're definitely one of the most free spirited people around. You are very impulsive - every day is a new adventure. However, you do put some thought behind all your actions. Still, you do tend to shock and offend people from time to time!

The World's Shortest Personality Test

Kicking it every tuesday...

Yeah! That's right. I've signed up for a funk dance class. Who would've thought that! I've always had a dream of being a dancer. (Just not big enough to realize.) I used to dance around the living room at home when I was little. I would dance for hours...at least that's how I remember it. I've always loved watching dancers, and thought it would be so great to be able to do whatever they do. So this semester my friend Hanne and I are taking funk dance lessons at the Spin Off dance academy. It is so cool! Yeah, cool is the right word. I've never seen more baggy pants than on our sweet instructor this last tuesday! It looked like she had been flown right in from the backstreets of L.A. or something. And she was really good!! Tuesday nights are going to be a blast.




(Picture from http://www.urbanmyths.org/article.aspx?id=39.)

A friend of mine, K-V, found a very funny advertisement for this car on finn.no, which is a very serious page for all kinds of advertisements. So all my Norwegian or Norwegian speaking friends out there, you ought to check it out here! It's great!

Look alikes...

My hilarious Welsh friend Joe wrote about this page on his blog: http://www.myheritage.com/FP/Company/face-recognition.php. There you can post a picture of yourself (or several like I did) and find out what famous person you look alike. I just want to recommend it if you have some extra time for something funny. I had a big laugh. Except from being matched with people like Nicole Kidman and Gillian Anderson (from X-files. I hate that series, by the way...), I was matched with people like Sean Connery and Eminem! Wow...

Slow start –so what?

During every holiday I feel like I put God at a distance. I want to be as close to him as always, but it’s something about that holiday life that makes me so busy with other activities, even though I haven’t really been doing a lot of things worth mentioning. Strange, isn’t it?! It’s just hard finding time for God when my everyday routine is spoiled. (Not that I usually really have a routine. That’s student life. Ha ha.) So when the Christmas holidays were over and we had entered the new year, I thought everything would be good again. I would start school, get up in the mornings and start spending time with God. That’s not really what happened. Well, I started school and got up in the mornings, but my bible reading and prayers were still absent. Sigh... Not spending time with God makes me feel bad. I know it’s all about God’s mercy and that he doesn’t try to make me feel guilty, but lack of fellowship makes me more vulnerable.

That’s why it was so great meeting with all my church people last night to have dinner together, and hear that it’s not only me feeling that way. It was good to be reminded that I’m not supposed to “whip myself into shape”. Even though the Bible encourages to work out our salvation (Phil. 2:12) and compares the life of a disciple with being an athlete, who has to work very hard (1. Cor. 9:24-27), it isn’t God’s whip that makes us do it. It is God’s love!

Last week my house group leader, Steffen, read these verses to me:
"7 I once thought these things were valuable, but now I consider them worthless because of what Christ has done. 8 Yes, everything else is worthless when compared with the infinite value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have discarded everything else, counting it all as garbage, so that I could gain Christ 9 and become one with him. I no longer count on my own righteousness through obeying the law; rather, I become righteous through faith in Christ. For God’s way of making us right with himself depends on faith. 10 I want to know Christ and experience the mighty power that raised him from the dead. I want to suffer with him, sharing in his death, 11 so that one way or another I will experience the resurrection from the dead! 12 I don’t mean to say that I have already achieved these things or that I have already reached perfection. But I press on to possess that perfection for which Christ Jesus first possessed me. 13 No, dear brothers and sisters, I have not achieved it, but I focus on this one thing: Forgetting the past and looking forward to what lies ahead, 14 I press on to reach the end of the race and receive the heavenly prize for which God, through Christ Jesus, is calling us." (Phil. 3)

Ok, I had a slow start in 2007. So what? Now Im pressing forward. To reach God’s love.

I wanna be a song writer! That's what I wanna be when I grow up.




(Pic from www.flickr.com.)

Im thinking a lot about what I'll be doing after the summer. I'm done with my studies after this semester, and I dont really know what will happen next. I'd kind of like to work for a while. (Maybe I'll go back to studying more later.) But I don't know where or as what. I like lots of things. But I'm also sure there are lots of jobs I wouldn't like... Right now I have two part time jobs. I work in the bakery in a grocery store right down the street. I also direct a youth choir. I really like both. I don't really care whether the job is related to music (which is my education). At least not yet. I can always do musical things anyway. I think I need some ideas. Does anyone have any ideas for what I can start doing after my graduation? Any suggestion is good. :)

I have been watching quite a few movies over the last couple of weeks. Christmas vecation gives time for what I don't have so much time for during the rest of the year. Over the last couple of years I have developed a rather great interest in movies. I mean, it's mainly for my umusement. I'm not the kind to analyse and be very critical, I simply enjoy a good story, good actors, nice shots and impressive effects. However, I really fell in love with a movie a saw on TV on boxing day. I just had to buy it. The funny thing is that it's not a typical great movie. The story is simple and it's a cliché. But it is a movie that makes me smile. It's the "High School Musical" from Disney (2006). I love it. The story is perfect if you don't want to get emotionally involved, but just watch something fun. It's full of singing and dancing, and the pictures are colorful. It's also very clean, free from all vulgar humour. And it doesn't really matter that the acting isn't the greatest, because it's not a deep and serious movie. It's a real feel good-movie!

New years party


in the old parsonage

Thanks to Eivind and Bård Olav, who threw the party.