By the rivers of Babylon...

My fellow-leader, friend, who is also my brother-in-law, who is also my brother-in-grace, who is also a very fine chap indeed, read out a psalm in a leaders meeting the other night. It’s that one made famous by Boney M – ‘By the rivers of Babylon…’

It struck a chord as he read it out. It starts with these moving words:
By the waters of Babylon,
    there we sat down and wept,
    when we remembered Zion.
On the willows there
    we hung up our lyres.
For there our captors
    required of us songs,
and our tormentors, mirth, saying,
    “Sing us one of the songs of Zion!”
How shall we sing the Lord's song
    in a foreign land?

Then moves to a prayer of devotion to the psalmist’s homeland:
If I forget you, O Jerusalem,
    let my right hand forget its skill!
Let my tongue stick to the roof of my mouth,
    if I do not remember you,
if I do not set Jerusalem
    above my highest joy!

It ends with some of that psalmy violence that tend to smash and jar on modern ears:
O daughter of Babylon, doomed to be destroyed,
    blessed shall he be who repays you
    with what you have done to us!
Blessed shall he be who takes your little ones
    and dashes them against the rock!

We have been through a tough time over the past couple of years. Now, to put this in perspective, we haven't faced anything like the terrors and trials of, say, our persecuted brothers and sisters in Syria and Iraq. But we have seen the closure of dreams, the departure of friends, the collapse of some ideals.

At times it has felt, as we arrive at yet another guitar-and-tambourine worship session (you may have to be a charismatic Christian to get what I mean here) – at times it has felt like, ‘How shall we sing the Lord's song in a foreign land?’ In this place of desolation, where broken hopes stare at us and mock us? Zion – the ideal, the dream, the heady days of youth and optimism – seem a memory more than a reality.

Yet love has held us. The love of very faithful, very generous, very kind people. And behind that the love of a very faithful, very generous, very kind God. And now the waters are rising. Gently, new hope is coming. And I find myself ready to pray, ‘Don’t let me forget. I really do love the church of Jesus. At her best, at her most loving and given and generous, this Jerusalem of Jesus really is above my highest joy.’

But what about that last stage of the psalm? Am I ready to take the ‘little ones’, the attractive, alluring, cute things of the world – entertainments, distractions, diversions, pollutions – and ‘dash them against the rocks’? To use Jesus’ words, ‘to enter violently’?

Almost. The tide is rising. I want to live for God. I want to live for Love.

Vote Jesus

I want us to be a Green Party church, not a UKIP church.

(I’ve broken the law of polite conversation: never mention politics or religion. And I mentioned both. D’oh.)

What do I mean, anyway? ‘Green Party church’?

I went to the Green party conference this week. Just one day (the last), for two sessions – Q&A with the leaders and a plenary. It was in preparation for an event in just over a week’s time – Natalie Bennett, the Greens’ leader is speaking at the Northampton Jesus Centre.

I’ve never been to a political party conference, so it was a fascinating experience on that basis alone. And I suspect the Green Party may be more interesting than most. Still small enough to have the feel of a sparky group of activists yet with a real enough political platform to feel like a credible party, it was an interesting blend of people. Fair few eccentrics. Quite a few beards. High proportion of LGBTQ people (the kind you don’t need sophisticated gaydar to spot). A number of disabled people. Mix of social classes. A guy from ‘Occupy’ who looked like Jesus.

Old and young. But especially young. Lots of young people. Young people engaging with passion; young people speaking with conviction; young people putting forward motions, debating with the facts at their fingertips, pursuing their urgent points with eloquence.

21st century Jesus?

Furthermore, I noted lots of what some would call – not me and certainly not them, but some – ‘political correctness’. I’ve mentioned the range of people. Then there was the moment when questions were temporarily only allowed from ‘those who gender-identify as female’. There was the respect shown – along with the sense that there was nothing unusual about it – when a young man with a severe speech impediment brought a motion.

It all had a fresh feel, of a future of possibility, of a world worth fighting for. It was forward-looking, aspirational. There was also a strong sense that everyone had a voice; everyone would be listened to; anything could be brought to the table.

Now for a frank admission: it made me envious. I want the Jesus movement I’m part of to attract sparky young activists like these. Lots of them. I’m desperate for us to be a magnet for those with imagination, passion, drive. And, yep, we could do with a few big brains, too.

We have our eccentrics. We have our beards. I love them. They make us us. I love the young people who have grown up in church circles and owned its vision as theirs.

But oh God, send us an army of youngsters from all over the place, too. And let us honour their new voices, be open to their fresh ideas, not have ‘off the table’ taboos. Let us work out our passions and priorities through dialogue and debate, listening and loving the other.

The Green Party, like any other party, has to define its policy. That was what the plenary sessions were all about – agreeing on and finalising policy. Policy, by definition, doesn’t mean ‘anything goes’. But that policy would be reached through listening and openness working together with leadership and vision.

I like that.

I long for that.

At the GP conference, a speaker said, in passing, ‘UKIP’s main support base is older, less educated people; the Green Party’s main support base is younger, more educated people; so the future is ours!’ It got a laugh, a small cheer, a ripple of applause.

The implication was that UKIP represents the defensive views of a dying breed, hanging on to prejudices largely out of fear of change, whereas the Greens represent the aspirations of the rising generation based on hope and imagination.

I leave the political judgement to you, dear Reader. But as I consider our church and movement – we could go either way. We could cling onto safe old views and fear change. We could dismiss justice as ‘political correctness’, park power firmly with the status quo.

Or we could open our ears and our hearts to a fresh word for a fresh time from a fresh generation.

I’m getting older. I have to face it. I’m older than Jesus now (he’s 33 forever). Young people like him tend to tip tables over, tend to hang out with the wrong people, tend to say what sounds like our worst nightmare and keep saying it.

Bring it on, I say.

Vote for change. Vote Jesus.

Got goats, high horses, and sacred cows

Two posts today got my goat. (If you think you can work out which posts, don’t bother, you’re probably wrong - and what would it profit you to be right?)

The first was a quote on a ‘moral issue’ that a friend posted up on a social media site, which I took serious issue with. In my view the moral point it was trying to make was, in fact, immoral. The second was a longer post from another friend, lionizing a Christian from long ago, and defending (or at least excusing) this particular luminary’s – in my view – execrable views.

Christians, I find, when they get on their high horse, so often choose the wrong horse.

In my opinion.

Which is the dilemma, isn’t it? It’s so easy, in disagreeing with what I see as self-righteousness or preachiness, to get - well - self-righteous and preachy about it in return.

Later today, I was reading and writing about some of what Paul wrote in his letter to the Romans. ‘Love is the fulfilling of the law’ he wrote.

Relevant to my got goat? I think so.

Paul is addressing a particular problem – differences of outlook in the Roman church on vexed questions of Jewish food laws and festivals.

Not situations we generally face in our non-Jewish church context. But the principle Paul lays down is still relevant: 'If your brother is grieved (by your actions or attitude) you are no longer walking in love'.

So sometimes we may have differences of opinion or outlook. (Indeed, in my experiences, it’s what Christians are good at.)

The crucial thing is that we can learn to ‘disagree well’.

That is, to make love our highest priority, even as we work through our differences (and let’s not pretend that that is always easy!)

In it all, we must avoid hurting 'one for whom Christ died'. Love will 'pursue what makes for peace and for mutual upbuilding'. Or as he put it in another letter: ‘Love does not insist on its own way’.

Love actively seeks to encourage, to join people in brotherhood, and to build a church of compassion and generosity.

There are several issues I can think of straight away that my friends and brethren and I need to find a way ‘disagree well’ on. Give me five minutes and I’ll think of several more.

Oh God: help us slay our sacred cows. Help us get off our high horses. Help us unget our got goats.

Help us make love our highest aim.

KBO

There’s a line from a song we’ve been singing a bit more just recently:

‘We’re not fighting for survival; we’ve come to take the land.’

Problem is: it has felt rather like fighting for survival of late.

I ought to clarify. We’re not living through civil war or famine or earthquake. Compared to such dire circumstances – which some on our planet face on a daily basis – what you are about to read is certainly a privileged western whinge.

But there is a sense of sustained battle in our church. Times are hard. Challenges are many; encouragements sparse. Some key people have stepped back. Some regions have had to shrink, some plantings uprooted. Converts struggle, veterans lose confidence.

Taking the land may have to wait. Right now we’re fighting to survive.

But is that such an ignoble fight?

‘Success,’ Winston Churchill reportedly said, ‘is the art of moving from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm’. That great man also adopted as his personal motto the acronym ‘KBO’ – which stood for ‘Keep B*ggering On’. (I insert the asterisk for the sake of my conscientious Christian readers. And my mother.)

It may not sound very glamorous, but it occurs to me that if it’s good enough for Churchill it’s good enough for me.

Sometimes ‘hanging in there’ is the fight we must win.

‘I have fought the good fight,’ the apostle Paul famously wrote in what may have been his last letter before martyrdom. But in that same letter he also wrote: ‘ All who are in Asia turned away from me... Demas has deserted me... Crescens has gone to Galatia, Titus to Dalmatia. Luke alone is with me... Alexander the coppersmith did me great harm... he strongly opposed our message. At my first defence no one came to stand by me, but all deserted me...’

He was fighting for survival; he also took the land.

May I do the same in my day, in my way.

What is the most important Christian virtue? Myself and a dear friend discussed this many years’ ago. I remember our conclusion: endurance. For what good is any towering virtue or feat of faith or accomplishment if before the end of the story you quit the field?

Keep me fighting for survival; and I might just take the land.

Duck church

One morning the ducks waddled along to duck church. When they got there they waddled into their duck rows and sang some duck songs. Then the time came for the duck pastor to preach to them all.

‘You can fly!’ he said, and the ducks all quacked with excitement.

‘You can fly! You can fly!’ the duck pastor repeated. More lively quacking from the duck congregation, and many now jumped up and down with excitement at the thought that they could indeed fly.

Then the service came to an end and all the ducks waddled home.

This pointed little fable was told by one of our congregational pastors yesterday and is reproduced here without permission. But I don’t think he’ll mind.

Worth living for?

From a recent Jesus Army event: 'recieve the light, live in the light, shine the light'

So, what are we really living for?

Recently a group of up-and-coming Jesus Army leaders met and considered what our core values are. After a great deal of talk we came up with a mahoosive list, which we then boiled down, down, down into the following:

God. It would be unfortunate if He wasn’t on the list, and on the list first. In practice this means we want God to be central to our thinking and actions and we want to be prophetically led – based on what we sense Him to be saying to us, and based on His character and heart: love, joy, peace...

God’s kingdom. By which we mean, the corporate dimension of belonging to God together. People gathered around a common ideal: to live God’s way (takes some working out in practice, but if it’s a core value, we’ll put in the effort).

Community. Closely related to the above, but with some important definition: sharing, all things in common, equality, spiritual family.

Discipleship. We’re all learners and will always be learners. We want training, mentoring, mutual strengthening to always be live among us.

Mission. Never just an in-club, always outward looking. We aim to be a church for all kinds of people, with a particular love for the poor and disadvantaged. Being missional doesn’t divide between ‘evangelism’ on the one hand and ‘social action’ on the other. It’s all one: bringing and being God’s message to the world.

Death and resurrection. The cross is our central symbol, our ultimate reality. Powerfully enacted in baptism, reaffirmed in communion, it means our lives will be ‘death-and-resurrection shaped’. Separated from old habits and patterns; celibate-spirited (single or not, we’ll be single-minded), aiming for simplicity, willing to sacrifice. We follow Jesus...

It’s not a definitive list; we’re not the Council Of Nicaea. But it was a useful act of setting our compasses.

The journey continues. You're welcome to join us.

Pope hope

Do we live in the age of a second Saint Francis?

Early days, I know, and routine as it's become to lionise the current Pope, the Luther in me wants to dissent on principle... but it really does appear that Jorge Mario Bergoglio - Pope Francis - is a true spiritual leader for our times.

I read a quoatation from his First Apostolic Exhortation “Evangelii Gaudium” yesterday, which struck me (quite a few extracts struck me: get a flavour here):

“Sometimes we are tempted to be that kind of Christian who keeps the Lord’s wounds at arm’s length. Yet Jesus wants us to touch human misery, to touch the suffering flesh of others. He hopes that we will stop looking for those personal or communal niches which shelter us from the maelstrom of human misfortune and instead enter into the reality of other people’s lives and know the power of tenderness. Whenever we do so, our lives become wonderfully complicated and we experience intensely what it is to be a people, to be part of a people.”

Pope Francis hugs a man in his visit to a rehab

Touching suffering... wonderfully complicated... intense empathy. Having gone through a degree of ministry burn-out of late, I might have found such words repellent. But no: they refreshed. Is a mark of a saint that he or she speaks words - the same words - that from another would have a different effect?

I posted the Pope's words on Facebook and my brother, a social worker, commented, “I can draw some parallels with my profession here”. My brother works with adults with learning difficulties, work which I can imagine can be tough, long and thankless.

This may be another mark of a saint: he can speak to any and all, man or woman, western or eastern, of any religion or none, with words that will resonate.

I applaud all who “touch the suffering of others”, who embrace human solidarity and refuse the blandishments of self-centredness. I don't always want to want to walk that path myself, but as another saint (Teresa of Avila) almost said, I want to want to.

Speak on, Pope Francis. I, for one, am listening.


(A little theological postscript for those who may question my approach to 'sainthood' in this post. I, along with reformed Christians generally, believe that 'the saints' are all who are being made holy - sainted - by Christ: all His followers, not just a select few. But I maintain it's good to recognise those who have made special progress, who become able to speak to and for humanity, to reresent human potential and beckon us all higher. Call them prophets if you like; call them stars. Like the word martyr - originally a word to describe all Christians as witnesses, which came to be especially used of those who died for their testimony - the word saint can, I think, bear these two levels.)

Rapture kindled eye

What do Martin Luther King, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Oscar Romero and Queen Victoria's granddaughter have in common?

Read on and I'll tell you.

Last Saturday was the Jesus Fellowship's annual 'Praise Day', a large-scale, stage-presentation style event run by my church each year in the International Hall at Ponds Forge, Sheffield.

Towards the end of the event, we very often have a special item in which we honour the martyrs of Christian history (followed almost always by a hearty singing of the hymn 'For all the saints' - it's the Jesus Army's version of All Saints Day). This year was no exception, and I was given the - somewhat awe-inspiring - task of coordinating the moment.

Inspiration came in the form of ten statues in Westminster Abbey. Standing above the West Gate on ten niches stand ten statues: ten twentieth century martyrs.

Maximilian Kolbe was a Polish friar, who volunteered to die in place of a stranger in the Nazi death camp of Auschwitz, during World War II. He is the patron saint of drug addicts, political prisoners and families. Pope John Paul II declared him "The Patron Saint of Our Difficult Century".

Manche Masemola was a South African convert to Christianity. She attended baptism classes against her parents’ wishes. When she came home she would be beaten. Manche said she would be “baptised in her own blood”. After one severe beating, Manche died – without having been baptised. Manche's mother denied murdering her for 40 years – but before her death she became a Christian and was baptised herself.

Janani Luwum was an Anglican Archbishop in Uganda. In 1977, Archbishop Luwum delivered a note of protest against arbitrary killings and unexplained disappearances to dictator, Idi Amin. Shortly afterwards the archbishop was accused of treason. He was murdered in 1977, by either Idi Amin personally or by the dictator’s henchmen.

Elizabeth of Russia was a German princess, granddaughter of Queen Victoria, and sister of the last Russian Empress. She was famous in Russia for her beauty – and for her charitable works. After a revolutionary murdered her husband in 1905, Elizabeth publicly forgave him and campaigned without success for him to be pardoned. She left the Imperial Court and became a nun, dedicated to helping the poor of Moscow. In 1918, she was arrested by the Bolsheviks and buried alive.

Martin Luther King was a Baptist minister and one of the world's most famous civil rights activists. In 1964, King received the Nobel Peace Prize for combating racial inequality through nonviolence. He was assassinated in 1969.

Oscar Romero was a Roman Catholic Archbishop in El Salvador. Following his outspoken criticism of injustice and violence on many occasions, he was assassinated while he was celebrating the Mass in 1980.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer was a German pastor, theologian, and prominent anti-Nazi. He strongly opposed Hitler and was involved in plans to assassinate him. He was arrested in April 1943 by the Gestapo, imprisoned in a concentration camp, and executed by hanging in April 1945. It was just 23 days before the German surrender.

Esther John was a Pakistani Christian nurse and evangelist who was murdered by a Muslim fanatic in 1960.

Lucian Tapiede was an Anglican teacher from Papua New Guinea. He was killed during the Japanese invasion in 1941. Eight Anglican clergy, teachers, and medical missionaries killed by the Japanese were together called the "New Guinea Martyrs."

Wang Zhiming was a Chinese pastor and evangelist, killed during the Chinese Cultural Revolution under Chairman Mao. Many Christian leaders were imprisoned, denounced or beaten. One later stated, "I cannot recall how many times I was made to kneel on the rubble and how much blood flowed from my knees due to their sharp edges. When I could not hold out and fell to the ground, merciless beatings followed. Then I was pulled up and forced to salute the portrait of Chairman Mao. My refusal to do so resulted in another round of beating.” Wang Zhiming was executed in a stadium in front of more than 10,000 people on December 29, 1973.

*

With a huge picture of their statues projected across the backdrop, and signs to represent them and the thousands of others who have given their life as a direct result of their consciencious stand for Christ, their stories were told. A minute's silence was held in their honour. It was an awesome moment. Then we did indeed sing 'For all the saints' - with this rarely sung verse included:

For Martyrs, who with rapture kindled eye,
Saw the bright crown descending from the sky,
And seeing, grasped it, Thee we glorify.
Alleluia, Alleluia!

Dying we rise

I write with news of change. We have decided, after ten years, that it is time to wind up White Stone, our community house on Leamington Road and its wider household membership. After a few months’ prayer and thought for the whole of our church congregation in Coventry, the decision was made to strengthen our communities by closing one of our five houses and rejigging the teams in the remaining four.

But which one to close? It is, I suppose, a good sign that no household rushed to volunteer! As it happens, the White Stone team had been showing signs of considerable strain for some time. We've had some truly wonderful times over the years, with a cast of amazing people sharing the journey – but it hadn't always been easy (see posts like this, this, and this!) and the core team had grown tired and some had suffered a degree of burn-out. It had become difficult to generate fresh energy and forward momentum.

Our story on a scroll; our calling on a carving.

So we’re ‘quitting while we're still ahead’ or something like that. We’ve been very supported by our local friends – that’s helped enormously in a tough time. Needless to say, it’s a time of grieving and loss for us. But it’s also the right move, I believe. One of my dearest friends (and fellow White Stone pioneer) coined an apt neologism to describe the sensation: ‘grelief’ – an odd combination of grief and relief. This just about sums it up.

A number of us are going to move to one of our other community houses in the area. My wife, children and I, however, are going to live in our own place for a while and take stock. We'll still be linked to the community – part of a common purse, and maybe even with one or two others living with us – but we're looking forward to having some more time and space. People are referring to it as our 'sabbatical' which sounds rather nice (in reality I'll still be working for the church and three children mean that life is never exactly quiet!)  

It's a big change for us, this sabbatical from load-bearing leadership. We need time and space to be restored and find fresh vision and direction. Please pray for us.

The house on Leamington Road probably won't be sold, but used somehow. It may even house a newly formed community team. That would be rather wonderful – the house has been a place for God and we’d love it to continue to be. We’ll see.

In my bleaker moments I can feel only loss, pain, bewilderment, anger: ‘Our holy and beautiful house and all our pleasant places have become ruins’ (Isaiah 64:11). Yet at other times, I remember that death is God’s way into eternal life. ‘It is in dying that we’re born to eternal life.’ After all, we follow Jesus, crucified and raised.

I don’t know about you, but my natural mentality doesn’t easily grasp the paradox of life from death (even if it is all over the New Testament I claim to live by). In the latter half of his ministry, Jesus repeatedly told his disciples he had to die. And repeatedly ‘they did not understand what he was saying, and were afraid to ask him’ (Mark 9:32). After he was raised they were as slow to understand: ‘Was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer these things and enter into his glory?’ (Luke 24:26).

It was necessary. ‘Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit’ (John 12:24).

From Jesus’ death, freely chosen, came life for the world. I pray that from our small ‘death’, freely embraced, new opportunities may spring; new dreams, new joys – new life.

God, don't you care?

Okay, so a few things have happened recently that have got me down. Much as I'd like to be superpastor ('is it a bird? is it a plane? no!...), I've found myself finding it hard to believe in anything very much and fighting an 'I quit' reflex.

And to cap it all, I'm in the odd position of preparing a Sunday morning talk on faith/faithfulness (set up the topic in advance back in a sunnier spell). As someone once said, 'God must love me'...

But in the course of thinking my way through faith and realising I don't have much, I came again across the story of the stilling of the storm in Mark's Gospel.

'Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?' scream the terrified disciples as Jesus snores serenely 'on the cushion'. ('On the cushion'? Did Jesus take this 'snooze-through-life-threatening-scenarios' aid everywhere, or only on small boats?)

Do you not care? Fair question, I reckon. Ever known that feeling? It's all cracking off, drowning's imminent, and God's asleep somewhere on his heavenly cushion?

So, Jesus gets up, rather unreasonably tells them off  ('Have you still no faith?' - looks like he may be irritable when just woken up, too), and flicks away the storm like we might a gnat.

If it was me I'd want to finish the story (or the sermon) with a pithy, pious conclusion like: 'And they were all filled with faith and said "You are the Lord!"'.

But not Mark. His rather more realistic conclusion goes like this: 'And they were filled with great fear and said "Who is this?"'

Yup. Reading this I think 'What a relief, I am a disciple of Jesus after all. And as unbelieving, fearful, bewildered, baffled, and hard-done-by as the first lot. I'm relieved to be in the refreshingly flawed company of guys like the twelve disciples.

And I'm relieved that faith is not so much about its quality as its object.

Oh Jesus, help

‘Christians! They do my head in sometimes!’ I was letting off some steam, chatting to my brother recently. ‘Gays! They do my head in sometimes, too!’ he replied (he’s gay). Just goes to show any group we belong to – even, or perhaps especially, those we derive something of our identity from – can be uncomfortable things to belong to.

I write a weekly Bible study for the members of the Jesus Army around the UK. This week I wrote about the final chapter of Paul’s letter to the Galatians. The issues threatening to tear apart Paul’s churches now seem rather remote to us – questions of Jewish law-keeping don’t generally cause too much hand-wringing in British churches today.

But that doesn’t stop Paul’s teaching, especially in this last section of Galatians, from being deeply relevant to us today when we consider some of the issues that do threaten to tear our churches up. So: read Galatians 6, and then, if you like, you’re invited to read what I wrote for the Jesus Army to ponder:

The crisis in Galatia (see Gal.1:6-7) had left the churches there deeply divided. Groups looked down on other groups as less ‘right’, even less Christian, and sneeringly condemned them. Paul has dealt with this at a theological level in the first five chapters of Galatians; now, to close, he deals with practical and heart issues surrounding conflict.

Christians’ dealings with each other should be characterised not by obsession with status or smug self-righteousness, but by a spirit of gentleness (v.1). Their heart should be to bear one another’s burdens (v.2), not to condemn one another. Ironically, self-important people make themselves the least important (v.3). Each person should take responsibility for their own life before seeking to take responsibility for others (v. 4-5, see Mt.7:3-5).

Paul urges a generous approach which focuses not on criticising and pulling down, but on giving and doing good to everyone, and especially to those who are of the household of faith (v.6-10).

In his handwritten postscript (v.11-18), Paul brings his letter to its powerful conclusion. The true marks of a Christian are not about outward status (v.12-13); they are the marks of suffering love. Paul embodied this lifestyle – so different to the world’s power-hunger – in his own suffering (v.17), as did Jesus at the cross (v.14). Suffering love brings new life (v. 15). True followers of Christ – God’s true people, the Israel of God (v.16) – will take up their cross and live lives of grace (v.18).

Such a passage leaves me asking questions like: What is the difference between having a ‘spirit of gentleness’ and just being timid? How can I show generosity of spirit to those I meet, those I know? Who am I inclined to look down on, and how can I change this? And what does it really mean to have grace flowing from my spirit?

The New Testament isn’t just a book I read; the New Testament reads me. And it invites me to be more like its main character.

Oh Jesus, help.

True me or not true me?

'This above all: to thine own self be true' says Polonius, in the first Act of Hamlet. So: is Polonius right?

Thus I tweeted moments ago.

The other night, a dear friend listened to some of my stored-up disappointments, frustrations and questions, and gently asked afterwards: are you happy with who you are?

It was the right question. Behind some of my fuming was the sense that I wasn’t quite sure.

We can put up with a lot, said my wise friend, if we know we’re being true to ourselves. If we don’t know that, it doesn’t take much to get us down.

 It switched a light on for me, this did.

I know that Polonius’s famous dictum tweeted above can be a clichéd excuse for self-congratulation and pomposity (indeed, this was probably true of Polonius, and that was Shakespeare’s irony). But that doesn’t stop it being true.

I’m grateful to have such wise friends. And I’m even more grateful that this particular friend is my wife.

Fear of fire

This year, for the Jesus Army, has been dubbed the year of ‘hearts on fire’. Led by Mick Haines, our main leader, we’ve become aware again of our great need of God. At a recent leaders’ conference, Mick read this passage from early Methodist pioneer Samuel Chadwick:

The church is powerless without the fire of the Holy Ghost. Destitute of fire, nothing else counts; possessing fire nothing else really matters.

A confession: talk of the fire scares me a little. I know as a charismatic-Christian-type it should set my heart beating and my blood racing. But at the leaders’ conference I found myself feeling a reticence I couldn’t immediately explain. Was it reluctance to get into hype? That would be a safely smug conclusion – but it wasn’t, not really.

It’s God I’m afraid of. God tends to get me into trouble.

‘The fire’ led me into Christian community. It hasn’t always been easy. The fire demands I forgive those who hurt me. Those who think that is easy have never really been hurt. The fire led me to give up a job I loved. The fire demands I share all my money and most of my time. The fire led me to put hope in some who subsequently let me down. The fire insists I continue to (in Churchill’s famous phrase) move from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm.

Some may think of the fire of God as warming, like a homely hearth. I’ve come to think of it as scary and liable to scorch.

So it was comforting to me when a friend quoted Malachi chapter 3. ‘Who can endure the day of his coming?’ asks the prophet, and I know what he means. ‘He is like a refiner’s fire’.

But Malachi adds another metaphor to fire: ‘like fullers’ soap’. The fire – burning, blazing, roaring, consuming, purging – is also soap – gentle, cleansing, soaking, renewing.

When God comes close – and we know he must if we’re to be renewed as a movement – he comes as fire and it’s right to fear him.

But the presence of God is also like a warm bath filled with cleansing soapy, bubbly, lather. Get in, get cleansed, get healed.

(As Malachi puts it, no longer say ‘It is vain to serve God. What is the profit of our keeping his charge or of walking as in mourning before the LORD of hosts?’) Let cynicism and disappointment be washed away. Be renewed. Be refreshed.

I’ll have some of that.

Martin Luther, alive and well

Martin Luther's still converting people, 500 years on.

A friend of a friend (who also happens to be a friend in his own right) was brought up a Christian, but pretty switched off to the childhood faith he inherited from his parents.

A bright kid, he's doing A-level History. His period is the 16th century - the Reformation. His teacher lent him a book about Martin Luther and the revolution he kicked off from the day he pinned a little list to that church door in Wittenberg.

Result: my friend's friend (who also happens to be my friend) is being galvanised into real, living, excited faith. Something about Martin Luther has brought him to life. He's being converted.

Made me think of some of the worthies who've inspired and influenced me (that eclectic bunch from Augustine to C.S. Lewis to Watchman Nee to Francis of Assisi).

G.K Chesterton defined tradition as 'giving our ancestors a vote'. Well, it seems that some of our ancestors have even more than a vote - their legacy continues; their ministry endures.

Inspiring stuff.

Who inspired you?

Ten ‘other’ commandments

Some of us are inclined to try too hard. If you're like that, you may find these ten 'alternative' commandments (which a friend wrote for me a while back after a prolonged time of trying too hard that had left me pretty burnt out) helpful:

Thou shalt not be perfect, nor even try to be.
Thou shalt not try to be all things to all people.
Thou shalt leave undone things that ought to be done.
Thou shalt not spread thyself to thin.
Thou shalt learn to say ‘no’.
Thou shalt schedule time for thyself and thy supportive network.
Thou shalt switch off and do nothing regularly.
Thou shalt be boring, untidy, inelegant and unattractive at times.
Thou shalt not even feel guilty.
Especially thou shalt not be thine own worst enemy but be thy best friend.

Talk talk

A friend asked me how I plan a talk. 'Do you aim for three points or intro, middle, end, or what?' he asked. 'Or both?'

Of course, I responded that for it to be an evangelical sermon worth its salt, it categorically must have three points all beginning with the same letter. That was a joke. I didn't really say that (no offence to those wedded to the alliterative approach).

Actually, in all seriousness, I do think the 'three points beginning with p' approach is based on a fairly fundamental mistake preachers and speakers can make: namely that people are going to remember what we say. It's a bubble burster this, but they almost never will.

What people remember is how you made them feel.

That is worth thinking about. ('It's not what you say it's the way that you say it'..)

So I didn't say 'three points beginning with p'. I did quote another friend who once said about planning a talk: 'Say what you're going to say, then say it, then say what you just said!' In other words, one main point, reinforced three times.

I like this, though I confess I'm rarely so disciplined in my talks. I tend to think 'intro' (warm your listeners up with an apt story or joke - and if you can't think of an apt one go for one self-evidently and self-deprecatingly inapt), 'main bit' (usually based on scripture, directly or indirectly, and I try to put the scripture up on the screen), and 'summary' (reinforce the main point).

Also I almost always project pictures to go with my talk, even if they seem non-essential, because they engage a different part of people's brain and keep them with me.

In some settings, and for longer talks, it can be good to break for a few minutes and get people talking to each other in pairs about some related question. This refreshes concentration and helps people actively engage with the topic.

Lastly, there's nothing better than genuine passion and nothing worse then hype (and I've done both over the years!)

Love that lasts

My friend, a committed, lifelong celibate, blogged on Valentine’s Day. He made the point that those who have chosen to remain single out of love for God and for humanity (rather like Jesus did) can be just as romantic – more! – than any human couple.

I agree. And I’ve seen it in him and in many other passionate celibates of both sexes. In this post I’m going to explore the corresponding truth – that couples cannot just rely on romance; there has to be gritty, lifelong commitment (such as, in fact, I have also seen modeled in my celibate friends).

Fortunately for me, this post will be easy to write because this week I read two excellent pieces on precisely that topic: lasting love. One from a C of E Archbishop and another from a retired C of E bishop. (Since I’m staying with my in-laws, good Anglicans both, whilst writing this, it seems an opportune moment to say that I think the Church of England has some impressive leaders.)

The Archbishop of York, John Sentamu, is a master publicist with the common touch, a great communicator (and makes a good duo with his boss, the altogether erudite Rowan Williams). Two days ago, on Valentine’s Day, Sentamu wrote an article about what makes love last the test of time. Church Times? Theology Today? No – it was in The Sun. (Read it here.)

Sentamu made the point that when couple marry, contrary to popular belief, they don’t say “I do”, they say “I will”. It’s not just a declaration of “how I feel today”, it’s a declaration of “what I will commit myself to tomorrow”.

Great point, well made. True love, in the end, must be willed, not just felt; must be for the long haul, not just for now.

Then, last night, I was reading a book by Tom Wright, until recently Bishop of Durham (and in my view one of the greatest Christian writers and teachers of our time). As it happened, the passage I was reading was on the same topic, that of lasting love.

Wright writes:

…the excitement of romance is like the excitement of striking a match. It’s sudden, sparky, dramatic – and it doesn’t last long. The question is, What are you going to do with the match once you’ve struck it?

The answer…is that you will use the match to light a candle. A candle isn’t as exciting as a match, at least not to being with; but it can be far more beautiful, far more evocative, and far more long lasting. Human couples need to learn that lesson, to prevent them supposing that, when the match has gone out, something has gone dramatically wrong and they must look for another match to strike as soon as possible. To learn this, indeed, is part of the road to the virtue of chastity.

(from Virtue Reborn)

Love is the aim, the goal, the end. Love is the word that sums up not only mature humanity, but also God himself. But it takes work, effort, grit.

It may even take gasping out prayers and sweating blood in a garden, like it did for Jesus.

Thank you, God, for passionate celibates. And for steely-eyed, determined, married couples. May we all have not just a happy Valentine’s Day, but a happy forever after – in love.

Prophetic change

The prophetic word engenders change.

At our New Year celebration on December 31st, our main Jesus Army leader told us that the coming year would be a year of 'courageous faith and action'. He proceeded to unpack this with reference to courageous biblical heroes like Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, thrown into a furnace for refusing to bow to a mad king's statue, or Eleazar, who fought on when all his fellows fled. As we trust God and act on that trust, we will advance as a church.

Yes, 'courageous faith and action' could be a mere slogan. Yet I do believe it's prophetic for us - mainly because I trust the integrity of the man who brought it to us. (We're blessed with a main leader who is both spiritual and humble - good qualifications for being a conduit of God's 'now' word.)

Another leader, a mentor of mine, commented that 'Courageous faith and action' is certainly better than 'Action and hope for the best', which he confessed has sometimes been his approach.

The fact is that genuine prophetic words bring real change. Last night, at our little local Agape meal, I spoke a little about what 'courageous faith and action' may mean for us - in particular, being true to our radical call. So we explored Acts 2 again, and what it means to be 'devoted' - to word, fellowship, sacrament and worship (Acts 2:42). It produced some truly hearty discussion and a sense of change in the air for the coming year.

I think if I'd just chosen my own topic it wouldn't have been quite the same. As a pastor I've learnt that something's released when I support and unpack the word of the prophets.

So I'm looking forward to 2012. God, grant us courageous faith - and the courage to put it into action.

Naturally speaking

I’ve been thinking about natural strengths recently, partly prompted by writing a study on two pretty impressively able characters, one from the Old Testament – Elisha – and one from the New – Paul. On the one hand, God clearly chooses, calls, and uses people of capacity and character to further his purposes. On the other, he chooses what is “foolish in the world to shame the wise and what is weak in the world to shame the strong”. And he calls us to “die to” much that may be naturally good, for the sake of something spiritually better. (Or so Hinds Feet on High Places says, so it must be true, eh?)

So I posed the question on Twitter: “What is the right biblical attitude to natural talent? Die to it? Use it? Both? Half & half? Or what? Answers on a posttweet please.”

Most of the answers were basically positive towards natural strengths and talents, with the caveat sometimes added that we should “give glory to God” for them (Not always quite sure what this means in practice beyond putting pious expressions like “Praise the Lord” on our lips, which I can never quite get into despite being a passionate Christian. Post for another day?)

Anyway – Elisha and Paul. Some thoughts taken from the studies I wrote:

Elisha has many qualities: his determination (ploughing parched ground with twelve yoke of oxen); his full-blooded commitment (burning the tools of his old occupation when called to follow Elijah); his loyalty and resolve to follow his mentor closely once he sensed the time for Elijah’s departure was near, his heart-devotion glimpsed in his quiet grief at the thought of this departure. His boldness and faith are evident in his request for a "double portion" of Elijah's spirit.

Israel had many kings, but they were rarely her real leaders. True leaders were anointed not just with oil, but with the Spirit. In the era of 2Kings, the monarchy was so unspiritual that true godly authority in Israel had reverted to prophets. The issue of Elijah’s successor was vital because he would represent God’s authority in Israel. The Bible narrative hints at Elijah’s likeness to Israel’s founding prophet: his parting the water by striking it with his cloak is reminiscent of Moses’ parting the Red Sea with his staff. When Elisha is able to do this, too, he is shown to be the true successor of Elijah, just as Joshua was successor to Moses. Elisha now carries God’s authority.

Reading and pondering all this, I find myself asking: which of Elisha’s qualities can I aim to grow in? But also – how can we, in our church, ensure those with anointing (rather than just natural ability or a “leadership” label) carry true authority among us?

In Paul’s world there were three key groups: Jews, Greeks and Romans. Paul was the ideal man to represent the gospel across his world: a pure-bred Jew who studied under a leading rabbi; a Greek-speaker with good knowledge of philosophy; a Roman citizen by birth. He is at pains to stress his Jewish pedigree to an audience of zealous Jews; he makes use of his Roman citizenship on more than one occasion; in Athens and Corinth, he quotes Greek poetry and philosophy.

Sometimes these advantages led to gospel opportunities: impressed with Paul’s excellent Greek, a tribune allows him to speak to the Jews, whom Paul addresses in Hebrew. Sometimes they led to Paul escaping imprisonment or punishment, as in Jerusalem and previously in Philippi. And sometimes they did him no good at all: the Jewish crowd still turn on him in Jerusalem; the Athenians dismiss him as a "babbler"; tradition says Paul was beheaded in Rome!

Paul saw his natural advantages as rubbish compared to the “surpassing worth of knowing Christ” and having God’s power working in him. But he certainly wasn’t against using natural strengths when the situation called for them!

We’ve landed slap bang in the middle of another paradox, I feel. I must ask myself: what are my natural strengths? Am I able to “consider them as rubbish”? Conversely, can I freely offer them to God to use them for his plans and purpses, for the gospel?

A time to rest

I got a lot done today. Unfortunately, almost none of it was what I set out to do at the beginning of the day. Phones ganged up on me. Emails ambushed me. My agenda was hijacked.

It's tempting, tonight, to hive off to the office at home and get some work done - some of that work I wanted to get done today. After all, I'm heavily involved in leading a national youth event next week. Et cetera. Okay, so tonight's supposed to be a night of deliberate friendship, yeah, but if you knew the pressure I'm under...

No. Wrong. I must not bow to the subtle workaholism that drives. Spending time with people tonight is life. I won't put life on hold.

Not many people get to the end of their life, look back, and say 'I wish I'd spent more time at the office.'

So. Tonight's time for rest. Time for friendship. Time for play. Time for worship, perhaps, or for sharing of hearts. But I'm staying away from the office.

I may even switch my phone off.

Now that would be radical.