There names are Matt and Erin and you should definitely get to know them. They will be starring in announcement videos, playing football, and generally making the vibe excellent around the Canvas House over the next few months.  Make sure to say hello.

This is a post from Canvas entitled New Exchange Students!.

Nathan:

I love it when someone tells a good story; when he takes you on an emotional rollercoaster or into a time period you’ve never lived through. My grandfather used to tell the best stories… the kinds of stories that took you into the mining families of Eastern Kentucky… his stories were great because he had lived a pretty extraordinary life…but, mostly because as he got older, he made a lot of stuff up. And the same was true for my great-grandmother… like the time Al Gore came into her room at the nursing home just to “get to know the voters.” Or the time she saw me on t.v. while she watched a professional American Football game…

Stories are great. And we’ve all got them locked in our brains as we wait for the perfect time to share.

We also find ourselves living out our story. I’m living Nathan’s story, Natalie is living her story, Dan is living his, Bex is living hers. We’re writing our lives out one second at a time as we make decisions, remember the past, and hope for the future. Everything we’re seeing, smelling, tasting, hearing, laughing at, crying about…. That’s all going in the book.

Our stories are special. Everyone has one. And all of our stories are worth telling because they teach other people about who we are and if we look closely, they might give us some insight into how life is or should be.

Natalie and I were talking and we really feel like we’ve got some stories worth sharing… some funny stories… you know, we just wanted to have a little fun up here.

Natalie:

Four years ago, when as Robert talked about our team was just a humble 5, we launched our very first Tuesday night… (Natalie & Nathan) did the very first formal “talk” at canvas together, mainly because we were nervous not knowing if you all were going to throw beer cans at us or just get up and leave as soon as we opened our mouths to speak.  So, in honor of this, right now, being the “last formal word” that we get to say to you, we decided to close just as we began.  (that is why we are both up here).

As Robert shared with you last week, we have a lot of history here in England, in the great Selly Oak.. As Robert also shared, Nathan lived with us right after we got married.. and while it sounds like another version of the film “you me and dupree” it was really a lot more like this… us waking up every morning, coming downstairs to find Nathan passed out on the couch in nothing but boxers that he has presumably owned since high school… Jenn, I hope he has updated his collection, for your sake… and though some days it felt like Nay Nay had crashed the love nest, my side of the story is that really I felt like I moved into a fresher guys hall and that collectively Nathan and Robert assumed the mutual age of 14 and would spend many nights giggling and playing FIFA til 3 am… OR, my favorite, sitting on the setee and literally WEEPING whilst watching “Extreme home make over”  and I am hardly exaggerating.  This is why Nathan had to move out (besides the fact that its slightly unhealthy for at the time a newly married couple to be living with 4 exchange students and Nathan..) also because I felt like Wendy taking care of the lost boys… and as patient as I feel like I can be, both Nathan and Robert will recall the few times I snapped and demanded that they get off their backsides and clean the house, and there would be no more FIFA or eating until everything was clean.  Those were fun times, great memories created, of course my favorite was as Robert shared in part last week, when we discovered that we were pregnant with Benjamin and we woke NayNay up in his boxer shorts and all to tell him the news and his response was “we’re going to have a baby!”

Nathan:

(Insert: Story of the hot sauce at the Braden’s. If you don’t know the story… ask Nathan.)

Not only do we all have funny stories to share, we are living a story. We are writing our own stories. Stories are important to understanding how the world might work or could work. And tonight, in order to answer the question, “Who is Jesus and what does he mean to me?” (or I should say, “us”), we wanted to share with you a story from Jesus’ life.

This is the last time we’ll have a chance to tell you what’s on our hearts and minds, Natalie and I. So, if there’s anything you’ve ever heard from us, this is what we want you to remember… This is a story about a man whose own story was completely altered!

From John 9: The disciples were walking around with Jesus. Remember the disciples? Those guys who followed Jesus around, learning from him, watching him, wanting to be like him? Sometimes doing really dumb stuff? Well those men were walking around with Jesus when they came across a man who was blind. And not only was he blind, but the story goes on to say that he had been born blind. He hadn’t been able to see for his entire life.

And in typical disciple fashion, they began pelting Jesus with questions. “What did this guy do that made him deserve to be born blind?” One even asked, “What kind of sins did this guys parents commit that made God decide to make this man blind?!” These questions went on and on until Jesus stopped them. And in typical Jesus fashion, he used this incident as an object lesson.

Jesus said, “You guys don’t understand who I am. And you have no idea what you’re about to see. When you experience what you’re about to experience, the questions you’re asking will seem superfluous.” And after he calmed down his disciples, he told them,

“While I am in the world, I am the light of the world.”

Jesus then leaned over, spit on the ground, and made some mud with his saliva (I know, it’s gross, but it’s pretty crazy what happens next) He took the mud and placed it on the blind man’s eyes saying, “Go and wash your face off in the water.”

The blind man did just what Jesus told him. And when he came back from the water, the story tells us, “he came back seeing.”

The man could see! What?! This man who had been born blind and had never seen what the trees, sky, his family looked like, had just been given sight in a split second! Jesus, the light of the world, opened his eyes to possibility, hope, to color, beauty, and a God who wants us to see the world the way he does: with love.

Amazing.

Natalie:

This is one of my favorite stories in the Bible.. imagine this guy’s story, imagine being blind your whole entire life, day in, day out just trying to beg enough to eat and then one day you meet this Jesus guy and he makes it possible for you to see, to really SEE for the first time..  this man especially at the time period he was living in, was basically given LIFE.. imagine for a minute what you would do first.. yell and scream and run through the street and experience color for the first time, look into the faces of your family and friends? … just laugh or cry because of how clear everything is? …  Like being asleep and then waking up to the world for the first time..

As you all know, Robert and I have a son, or as Nathan said, we all have a son, Benjamin… and I love that little guy so much… I think being a parent is incredible, really, I love every minute of it. It is an absolute Joy… but by far, and I think most parents would agree… the best time  of day when you have a child is when they first wake up… kids, especially babies wake up so happy, so full of life, they bounce right up. And for Benjamin it usually begins with Mommmmy! Dadddddy!  Followed by laughter and lots of words that I don’t fully understand yet, but we’ll get there… and then our response is “ Look who’s awake!!”  Lets get up, lets explore, its a great day to be alive… what are all the things we are going to do and experience today?!!  And its incredible, and its exhilarting.. and watching Benjamin come alive every morning and run throughout the house and yell and laugh like its the first day ever, and its going to be the best day ever…

That image… the man seeing life for the first time in that way… THAT is what following Jesus is like.

…And since this is the last time we will have the opportunity to say formally on a Tuesday night anything at all…THAT is what we want to leave you with…

That, out of all of our stories, all the hilarious, beautiful, intriguing things that have happened in our lives over the past four years of living our lives with Canvas… this is what we want you to hear… that when our stories bump into God’s bigger story– the story of God sending his son Jesus to live in our lives, to heal our wounds, to forgive our short comings, that there is a whole new world that we become awake to…….. it’s like being blind and then being able to see.

This is a post from Canvas entitled Tuesday Night Talk from Nathan and Natalie.

• Spirit In the Sky by Norman Greenbaum | Listen
• Rolling In the Deep by Adele | Listen
• Have You Ever Seen the Rain by Creedence Clearwater Revival | Listen
• Green Eyes by Coldplay | Listen
• If I Had a Million by Fink | Listen

As usual, if there’s something you’d like us to play for you, send us a song request!

This is a post from Canvas entitled Last Night’s Music.

Many of you have asked to see the music set lists from each Canvas Tuesday Night at TC’s. Whether you missed last night or you just want to have another listen to something you liked, here’s it is. Enjoy.

• Get Over It by OK Go | Listen
• All Right Now by Free | Listen
• Learn to Fly by Foo Fighters | Listen
• The Devil Went Down to Georgia by Charlie Daniels Band | Listen
• After Hours by We Are Scientists | Listen

As usual, if there’s something you’d like us to play for you, send us a song request!

This is a post from Canvas entitled Last Night’s Music.

• Hush by Deep Purple | Listen
• That’s Not My Name by The Ting Tings | Listen
• Steady As She Goes by The Raconteurs | Listen
• Supermassive Black Hole by Muse | Listen
• Eleanor Rigby by The Beatles | Listen

As usual, if there’s something you’d like us to play for you, send us a song request!

This is a post from Canvas entitled Last Night’s Music.

A meal at Birmingham City Mission.

Canvas cares about people. It’s what drives us, so we are hosting a week long tinned food drive starting today, 23 March. All food will be donated to Birmingham City Mission‘s Resource Centre which offers help and support to the needy and marginalized in Birmingham and it’s suburbs.

This week, bring your tinned goods to the Canvas house to take part in the efforts (3A Teignmouth Road, B29 7BA).

This is a post from Canvas entitled Canvas Food Drive.

Here’s what we’ve got on for the next few weeks

• Aaron’s Guitar Workshop | Wednesday 2 pm
  Learn some guitar essentials. | Contact Kevin
• Relationships | Wednesday 5 pm
  What the bible says about love and sex. | Contact Josh
• Afternoon Delight | Monday 5 pm
  What Canvas is all about. | Contact Nathan
• Knitting | Friday 2 pm
  Learn how to stitch it all together with Alli. | Contact Alli

If you want to get involved, just contact the group leader or send us a general message and we’ll get you to the right place. Small groups are an excellent way to get the most out of the amazing community at Canvas.

This is a post from Canvas entitled Yeah, Small Groups!.

Mr. Rodericks, rocking.

Have you always wanted to learn to play the guitar? If so, our resident face-melter Aaron Rodericks is hosting a Guitar Workshop at Canvas (find us) each Wednesday from 2pm to 4pm. Bring your guitar and your questions and get to it!

Learn some principles of great guitar playing, learn your favourite riffs and licks… learn the difference between riffs and licks. If you have a song you’ve been dying to learn to play, bring it and see if Aaron can’t help you figure it out from beginning to end. Who knows, maybe we could even play that song in the Tuesday Night Canvas Band, with you on guitar!

Sound good? Get in touch with any questions.

This is a post from Canvas entitled New Guitar Workshop.

If you are coming along to experience the greatness that is the Weekend Away, here are a few things you should bring with you.

• Sheets/duvet cover for single bed or a sleeping bag
• Pillow
• Towel
• Toiletries
• Cash for petrol (£5), dinner on the way, and a pub on Saturday
• Warm clothes (we have a big bonfire on Saturday night)
• Sports clothes (there’s some open time and open fields)

Whatever you decide to bring, be sure to try and pack light to save space in vehicles. This is going to be a fantastic weekend. We hope you’re ready!

This is a post from Canvas entitled Weekend Away Packing List.

CANVAS TUESDAY NIGHTS @ T.C.’s. 8 PM. Every week, we eat a delicious, warm dinner, listen to the Canvas band play some great music, and hear a talk about our journey through the Christian faith. Hope you can make it this week to check it out.

BBQ @ URBAN VILLAGE. THURSDAY 12-2 PM. In the garden of Urban Village, we grill a large amount of burgers for your eating pleasure. When you come to grab some lunch this week, we hope to have all the outdoor heaters on!

THURSDAY NIGHT @ THE CANVAS HOUSE. 8 PM. Every Thursday night, people get together at the Canvas House to do something fun. This week, in the spirit of the holidays, we’re making Christmas crafts and watching a film. We hope to see you there.

FRIDAY BASKETBALL. 3 PM. Come by the Canvas House on Friday afternoon around 2:30 and we’ll walk to the old gym on campus where Robert will “school” Matt Price in the art of jump-shooting.

As always, the house is open each day with tea, coffee, and WIFI… and most likely, Mark will be available to lose in Call of Duty.

See you soon!

This is a post from Canvas entitled This Week at Canvas – 29 November.