Deeper, Sharing, Expressing

January 27, 2010 at 9:56 pm · Filed under Uncategorized

I have been playing around with a few words that might summarise what we are about as followers of Jesus. All of them take place in community.

Deepening our life with Jesus – Discipleship
Sharing our life with Jesus – Mission
Expressing our life with Jesus – Worship

When we want to deepen our life with Jesus, strengthen it, mature it, enliven it, resource it, we are entering into a process of discipleship.

When we want to share the joy we have found in Jesus with others, or the peace we have found, or the purpose we have found, we are doing mission and we want others to enjoy the Life we have received.

When we find ourselves expressing ourselves in words or actions or songs that honour Jesus and indicate the respect and delight we have in him we are worshiping him.

Together these three are the centre of all that we are and do as Jesus people… and they are best expressed when we do them as part of a community.

What am I doing that is helping me deepen my Life with Jesus?
What am I doing communicates this Life with others inviting them to experience it too?
What am I doing that expresses my heart’s attitude to Jesus in words, actions or songs?
Who am I doing this all with?

3 words – 4 questions

Leave a Comment

Fresh Start 2

January 9, 2010 at 7:21 pm · Filed under Fresh Start

A good friend of mine did this great cartoon the other day on his blog which has stayed with me ever since.

I want this year to be different from last year, better, more, improved, fresh…
I have felt like this before… probably felt like this last year… but this year especially I want to make a fresh start.

I like the word fresh over the word new. New implies completely different from the old. New implies that everything old was bad. Fresh implies different but not completely, better but still connected to the old. I want this year to feel clean, exciting, invigorating, hopeful. I like the word fresh, and I want to make a fresh start.

The cartoon resonates though because I know all too well the difference between a good intention and failed attempt at newness. I have been biting my nails for the past 40 odd years and I still can’t kick the habit, despite some pretty good tries. Far be it for me to imply that I have life licked. I am familiar with failure.

But inside lies a part of me that hopes for a new me, a fresh me, a better me. Inside there is a pull towards hope.

And my thinking about these things has coincided with the celebrated snow days of the past week – days whitened and cleaned by a dusting of beautiful snow that has transformed everything. It is certainly a fresh start to the year.

It has also coincided with a number of significant conversations with friends about change and the possibility of it in our lives. Is it really possible that we can change? Can we leave behind old habits that destroy us and others? Are we able to get better? Is the future really positive?

It is indeed possible to change some external things in our lives quite simply and these little things can have considerable effect on us – tidying a room, cleaning the car, sweeping the leaves, taking the rubbish down to the dump, tidying our clothes cupboard, cleaning out a kitchen cupboard, throwing away things that are broken, putting the Christmas tree away…

But the inside…? Is this so easily changed…?

The person I try to follow, suggests that the heart of the human problem is the human heart and that this is the centre of things. If we want to change we will need to change our heart. Inner transformation will change the rest.

As I reflect about my own failings and inadequacies, my own lostness, my own emptiness, and as I reflect on the issues my friends are facing too, we are all in this boat together. Guilt, shame, regret effects us all… We all have things we want to forget or hide from, we all have skeletons. And then there are things we have done that have hurt others, not just ourselves… times we have made wrong decisions and bad choices. Times we have acted selfishly and thoughtlessly and angrily and jealously and hurtfully… And then there are things that have happened to us that have hurt – actions or words from others that have hit us hard and wounded us, marred us, broken us.

Through life our fragile hearts get easily damaged…

And for things to be better, to be fresh, I need forgiveness, I need the debt cancelled, I need to be released. And I need to set free others too of the ways that their actions or words have cost me. I need to forgive them too… let go of it all… set myself and themselves free of what they owe me…

It may be the same old me that enters this new year that left the old one, but it needn’t stay that way.

The remarkable and I think unique thing about the story of Jesus is the way that his life, death and resurrection tells a story about God’s demanding justice being yoked to his God’s unending love, his natural anger being exhausted by his own total sacrifice. If I have anything from my faith it is a sense that God can make a new beginning possible for me and others because of Jesus, because of his Spirit living in us.

Forgiveness is central to this fresh start.

And it is this forgiveness that I think is the glory of Christianity, the glory of God’s son and the glory of God’s character.

Leave a Comment

No room

December 28, 2009 at 1:06 pm · Filed under Advent

As a proud brother I am once again impressed with Martin’s art, this time displayed in a gallery in Leeds.
Advent themed, each artist had one piece each.

Check it out here…

And apparently Mart’s was the best!

Leave a Comment

Fresh Start 1

December 28, 2009 at 9:57 am · Filed under Fresh Start

“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.”
Matthew 11:28

Tory and I have been praying together on Tuesday evenings for the last three months or so – maybe more…  Not for long – about an hour – but each week we went down to the church building, switched on the ligths at the front and let it all out with God…  Sometimes others have joined us, mostly we have been on our own.  Each time we have felt better for it.

As I have indicated in a number of ways to people, I have found 2009 to be a hard year and I have felt low at times.  At some points I guess I lost confidence and others I felt uncertain of the way forward.  My disappointments, though, have forced me to reflect… to reflect on my direction, my manner, my hopes, my expectations, my work/life balance, my spiritual life…  And out of this I noticed that within me was a deep hunger for more of God and more of his Life in me, more for myself, more for my life as a member of a church, more as Christian, more for us as a church family/community.

As I have been reflecting on it all I have realised that the scripture story is full of such times…  All of the heroes of the faith, old and new, Abraham or Paul, Moses or Peter, went through times of frustration, uncertainty and wondering…  I am in good company.

But knowing this is not quite enough.  I want to learn more about how to keep myself in tune with God.  I want to learn how to encourage others to find life in the same place too. I want to learn how to shape the life of a community so that it lives a distinctive life in contrast to the dominant cultral forces of our age.  I want to be part of a growing and lively distinctively radical and passionate community focused on Jesus.

In all this Tory and I have wondered what 2010 has in store for us – and what we ought to do in 2010 that is different from 2009… and one of the things we believe that God is renewing a hope within us and enabling us to make a ‘fresh start’.  A fresh start is as much an attitude of mind as it is a change in circumstances.  When you move into a new home or when you move into a new job or when you have a new child, these things inevitably reshape or redirect our lives and we ‘feel’ that something is new.  New jobs, new houses, new children, force a new way of seeing the world upon us and we often feel as if we are starting again.  This is how we feel 2010 wil be.

Of course we are not starting a new job or moving home or having a new child but I am looking forward to 2010 being a fresh start for us in many ways.  Freshness is a lovely thing.  The fresh ice of a morning sunrise when all is frosty and white, the fresh smell of coffee, the fresh taste of strawberry jam, the freshness of a gin and tonic…  all good.  And I am hoping for a fresh start in my life.

A fresh approach to my worship
A fresh hope for my community life with others
A fresh mission in the local school
A fresh expectation
A fresh desire
A fresh start.

And I am starting by taking Jesus seriously when he says that his yoke is easy, his way is easy, his life is easy.
I am starting with a fresh trust.

Comments (1)

Boxing Day

December 26, 2009 at 10:02 am · Filed under Uncategorized

And so Advent is behind us and the Christmas celebration is upon us. I am a little disappointed in myself that I didn’t manage to complete a post a day this past week, though my thoughts have been many and varied as I got closer to this annual feast. Here is a list of some of the things that I seemed to find myself settling upon:

  • God is a god of more not less. The enemy comes to steal and destroy. Jesus came to give life.
  • Giving is fun and being able to give people things, being rich enough to do so, is a deeply humanising thing. Send a Cow, a charity I visit often have this at the heart of their values and they are always talking about ‘passing on the gift’. Being able to give is the difference between being rich and poor.
  • Living in the present is really hard, as is living in anticipation of the future world breaking upon us.  Advent is hard work.
  • Hospitality and welcome are central to the Christian story and are counterbalances to the family emphasis of Christmas.
  • Poverty in Twerton is by no means just financial.  It is social, emotional, aesthetic, and spiritual.  Things can be bought, but the these other things take longer to get hold of.
  • Christmas is an totally dominant cultural event.  It is impossible for us not to be shaped by it.  It dominates November and December far more than we imagine.  It is hegemonic in its power.
  • People are vulnerable.  Death is often very near.  Life is short.
  • Christmas is a feast.  Feasting is good.  But one day everyone will be invited to feast and not just a few.

Over the next few days many of us will be travelling to see family.  I am aware that the New Year is running towards us and I want to be ready for its arrival.  There is a fresh start coming and I for one am looking forward to it.

May God go with us in our journeys
May we go with God
May we find the Life we are looking for
May the Life find us
May the Son of God rescue us from evil
and lead us into a future with him
and may we know the grace of the Father
and the breath of the Spirit
May we be full

Comments (2)

Advent 22

December 21, 2009 at 11:47 am · Filed under Advent

Day 22
20th December

Ephesians 3:20,1
Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen.

More. There is more for us all.

Last night the ‘church’ was warm and cosy and filled with people, each with thier own story. We were gathering, like thousands across the city, and millions across the world, for our annual celebration of carols.

In keeping with our own situation the service was simple, uncomplicated. No fancy frills or amazing choirs or brilliant film clips or moving dramas. Just simple readings, and songs, and prayers all moving along at a gentle pace. Rounded off with the now indispensible Mulled Wine and mince pies, the wild and varied family left happy, commenting about the experience and the candles (we do them well!) and the cosyness of it all. It was good.

When I was thinking/praying about what to say my only thoughts were a simple phrase which got me mulling. “Tell them ‘there is more.’”

Christmas is indeed a time of more, and better for it. I for one am no bar humbug when it comes to the food or the presents to the chocolate. I love it all. Bring it on. I want more. But in this ‘moreness’ we are recognise our hunger for even greater, even more significant things that we long for – happiness, contentment, peace, forgiveness, laughter, friendship, health. And it is these things that I think God’s son comes to answer.

“The thief comes to steal and destory – but I have come to give you Life,” says Jesus. “The enemy comes to take stuff away from you, to rob you of your confidence or your contentment. The enemy comes to make you jealous, make you sad, make you cry, make you worried, make you sick, make you angry – I have come to make you whole, forgiven, free, passionate, alive, ambitious.”

If God is a God of more, how does that change things? Is he really going to meet these desires in me? Will he really come up trumps? Will he really answer the deepest longings of my heart?

“Tell them there is more,” he said to me. Remind them of their hungers, of their passions, of their longings. And tell them that these are good. Tell them to seek, to search, to reach out. Make them thirsty. Remind them of their desire.

And tell them that I have much more for them on offer than they could ever ask for even imagine. Tis is what I am like. I am the God of more. The enemy is about less. I am more.

There is more…
and I am at the front of the queue with my bowl, “Please sir, I want some more.”

God is not Mr Bumble.

Leave a Comment

Advent 21

December 21, 2009 at 11:25 am · Filed under Advent

Day 21
19th December

Psalm 23
Even though I walk through death’s dark vale you are with me
Your rod and your staff they comfort me

I’ve been walking with a family through this dark valley this past week following tragic suicide of the Dad/Husband/Son/Brother… The words from Psalm 23 were read out at the funeral, as they are at most funerals. And once again they cut through the air of despair and sadness bringing a shaft of light.

The questions that rang out around the room, silently, behind the eyes of each mourner (the place was packed) were big, troubling, deep questions. Too big perhaps. They need addressing, of course, for they were real questions that cut to the core of what life is or isn’t about – questions about meaning, about forgiveness, about guilt, about death, about purpose, about psychology, about health, about family, about love… but perhaps not today or this weekend. They will linger for some time and they will need attention, but their day will come. Today, this weekend, something else is needed.

We all needed to know that we were loved, and forgiven, and held. We needed to know that one day we would be put back together again and that the shattered dreams and lives would somehow find away to be put back together again. We needed to know comfort, even in this darkest of valleys. We needed to know the love of family and friends, the touch of a hand on ours, the kiss of a cheek, the warmth of arms wrapped around us, the tenderness of a handkerchief passed to us as we cried.

These things mattered, they went in deeply.

Questions will hang around for some time. But today, this weekend, we just needed to know that we were going to be ok, that we were loved by others, that we weren’t being judged or held responsibile. We needed to know peace.

That was my prayer, as I looked out across the room of still faces, braced against the grief as much as the cold air, that God would come, that he would be welcomed in, that his staff would be allowed to guide, and his arms allowed to embrace.

God does that in numerous ways. And I pray that today, this weekend, this week, this year, all of those who held each other in that service and sang with the children’s choir about the child saviour being given for us, that Jesus will draw close – that wonderful man/God who comes to the sinner, the wrecked, the depressed, the oppressed, the possessed, the down and out, the mourning and the broken and brings his comfort, his healing and his presence.

At this time of Advent, when we connect with the pain of our world, the prayer ‘Come Lord Jesus’ has an urgency and potency like never before.

Come Lord Jesus… for us all.

Leave a Comment

Advent 20

December 19, 2009 at 6:13 pm · Filed under Advent

Day 20
18th December

Isaiah 25:6-9
6 On this mountain the LORD Almighty will prepare
a feast of rich food for all peoples,
a banquet of aged wine—
the best of meats and the finest of wines.

7 On this mountain he will destroy
the shroud that enfolds all peoples,
the sheet that covers all nations;

8 he will swallow up death forever.
The Sovereign LORD will wipe away the tears
from all faces;
he will remove the disgrace of his people
from all the earth.
The LORD has spoken.

9 In that day they will say,
“Surely this is our God;
we trusted in him, and he saved us.
This is the LORD, we trusted in him;
let us rejoice and be glad in his salvation.”

Two images:

  1. One a child showing me a drawing he had done for his Dad’s funeral. A picture of him playing top trumps on it and red settees. There is a voice buble coming from his lips, “This is great! I’m really enjoying this!” And there is one coming from Dad’s lips too, “So am I”.The child shows me the picture he has drawn with pride so that I might understand better what his dad was like. He has laminated the picture and he says he will put it by the coffin on Saturday morning. I note that it looks like he has more card in his hands than his Dad, and that therefore he must be winning. “Yes, I am,” he says, “I meant to draw it like that.” He runs off happy to have done the right thing and pleased to have shown me.
  2. The other a meal around a table, some farmhouse cider (6%) from Cornwall brought as a gift, some bubbly Rose, and plates full of food. Chicken, peas, potatoes, all in a lovely sauce. 8 of us around the table, chatting, laughing, telling stories, enjoying time together.

Two images… same day…

The prophet man called Isaiah was gifted with some of the best lines of scripture. I am jealous of his ability to hear what God was saying. He lived through difficult times and yet was able to perceive and attend to what God was thinking and feeling for a generation. He was a star!

In this passage – one of my all time favourite – he is painting a picture of the future that God is promising his people. God is not complicated in his imagery. He speaks in down to earth words and down to earth images. And in this passage he talks of a feast, on the top of his holy mountain.

Can you see it?

It is a great banquet, like a wedding feast, a table laden with food, the best of wines and the finnest of meats. It is extravagant. It is rich. It is warm. I has alcohol in it (twice).

Wine is good. Cider too. Especially the home brewed farmhouse type my mate brought from Cornwall. It brings colour to our cheeks and enlivens a cold evening. And food is great too. Taste matters. We love it. We like food not just because we get hungry, but because of the look of things, the taste of things, the smell of things. How many cook books do you have at home?

In this passage, the picture is of God inviting us to a great feast, a wonderful meal, a party. I love it.

But there is something better than just food to cheer our souls. At this time, the ‘day of the Lord’, when the feast is being served, the ’shroud that covers all people’ is finally taken away for good. He is talking about death and the fear of death and the pain of death. And as a result there is no more crying or tears. Everything is made new.

I particularly like the way that God is depicted as the one who will ‘wipe away tears from our faces’. Can you imagine that? All the faces that have every cried tears being tenderly touched by the hand of God who wipes them away… It is a moving and tender picture to hold in our minds.

In opposition to the hopeless and empty future held out by those who fail to believe in the God revealed in Jesus, I have learned to trust this image and I take it with me when I meet young children (11 and 8.) who are going through the deep sadness of loosing their Dad. I couldn’t say it in words, but behind everything I was trying to communicate to them lies a hope deep within me that gives me confidence and peace even in the worst of situations. One day God will come and trun things around, lay a table for his friends, crack open the bottles of wine and feast with us. And on this day the tears that are so real today will be wiped away, never to return.

May we know this. May we know this deeply. May we see it and feel it and live it. May we trust it completely. For it is the hope we have been saved into.

Leave a Comment

Advent 19

December 19, 2009 at 5:44 pm · Filed under Advent

Day 19
17th December

Psalm 121
1 I lift up my eyes to the hills—
where does my help come from?
2 My help comes from the LORD,
the Maker of heaven and earth.

Ok, I know I’m slipping, but no worries… Wednesday was Tory’s brithday and we had a great day together, but it was difficult to get time to post. Thursday was full, but profitable, and Friday and Saturday have been taken up with preparing for a funeral for a guy who took his own life last week. It has been a week of contrasts. Birthdays, nativity plays, presents, shopping, staff Christmas lunch, grieving families, school governing concerns, preparing for the weekend…

Perhaps your week has been similar… perhaps different. Either way, the verses from Psalm 121 help me. When everything is going off around us where do we look to for strength or stability of peace? ‘My help comes from you, maker of heaven..’ says the psalmist.

Asking for help is not as easy as it might seem. I like to be self sufficient. I prefer to sort things out myself. I don’t mind asking someone to hold the ladder for me, but I hate the idea of being dependant on others. I like getting on with things myself.

Probably pride…

I notice this in myself when people ask me how I am, especially in weeks when they know, and I know, I am rediculously stretched and busy. I don’t mind being busy or stretched, but I find it hard to know how to talk about it. I have noticed recently that I steer away from asking for help, even when I could do with it, and I think it ’s because I prefer to hold onto a view of myself as capable and in control. I wouldn’t want people to think I am needy.

Of course this is crazy… and I guess I am learning not just to notice this in myself but to allow others to help me out. It does me good and it does them good too.

Sometimes though, when we are facing real trouble, like the wife of the freind who took his own life and is now left looking after here two boys on her own, we are are not sure where to turn to. At times like this our freinds remind us that it is good to look up to the mountains and turn to God, the maker of heaven and earth.

The sky is clear tonight and the stars are out. He made those. How? I have no idea, but I am convinced there is a creator. This creator apparently loves us so much as to be interested in every hair on my head, and every sparrow that falls to the ground. If he is really like this, perhaps he is worth turning to in the midst of it all. More powerful than any power in the universe, more compassionate than any love, more patient than time… this is the God who made heaven and earth… and according to the psalmist he is worth looking up to for help.

That’s where I am heading right now.

Comments (1)

Advent 18

December 16, 2009 at 10:37 pm · Filed under Uncategorized

Day 18
16th December

Hi… I am still on my ‘last days’ exploration… and I came across this weird bit in Paul’s letter to the Corinthians… weird that is, in the way that Paul argues his case… I can’t imagine talking like this myself.

Have a read yourself and have a think about it…

1 Corinthians 10
1For I do not want you to be ignorant of the fact, brothers, that our forefathers were all under the cloud and that they all passed through the sea. 2They were all baptised into Moses in the cloud and in the sea. 3They all ate the same spiritual food 4and drank the same spiritual drink; for they drank from the spiritual rock that accompanied them, and that rock was Christ. 5Nevertheless, God was not pleased with most of them; their bodies were scattered over the desert.

6Now these things occurred as examples to keep us from setting our hearts on evil things as they did. 7Do not be idolaters, as some of them were; as it is written: “The people sat down to eat and drink and got up to indulge in pagan revelry.” 8We should not commit sexual immorality, as some of them did—and in one day twenty-three thousand of them died. 9We should not test the Lord, as some of them did—and were killed by snakes. 10And do not grumble, as some of them did—and were killed by the destroying angel.

11These things happened to them as examples and were written down as warnings for us, on whom the fulfilment of the ages has come. 12So, if you think you are standing firm, be careful that you don’t fall! 13No temptation has seized you except what is common to man. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can stand up under it. 14Therefore, my dear friends, flee from idolatry.

What did you make of that?

I stumbled across it because I was using Bible Gateway to search out how often the phrase ‘age to come’ came in the NT. I had 10 results. And this was one of them: verse 11, “These things happened to them as examples and were written down as warnings for us, on whom the fulfilment of the ages has come.”

You will notice that it’s not really an ‘age to come’ quote at all… it talks about the fulfilment of the ‘ages’…

I was about to ignore it but then decided to think a little harder about it all…

Paul is using an old Jewish story as an example for us to learn from. He is fully aware that we live in a ‘new age’, or as he puts it we are people ‘on whom the fulfilment of the ages has come’ and as a result he wants us to stay awake, or alert, to dangers of ‘falling away’ or being tempted away from the truth that has been revealed to us. Apparently this a serious danger and one we need reminding of. His tone is urgent and straight. He seems deadly serious.

John Eldridge points out that we live in a war zone. Greg Boyd, another of the people I try to keep up with, believes this too. They both get this from the bible. And the narrative tells us that we need to be vigilant against temptation which is one of the ways that the enemy of God leads us astray and wounds us.

But I noticed something else. Paul isn’t just retelling the story to encourage us to ’stand’ up to temptation for our own benefit, because falling into sin will damage us us or hurt us or others… no, he is warning us of the serious consequences of falling away which will face us as a result of God’s judgement.

This is altogether a different way of making the point. He is not telling us to avoid speeding (for example) because if we speed we might crash our car and get hurt, he is telling us to avoid speeding because if we are caught speeding we will definitely be punished for doing so.

God, in this passage, is not just warning us to avoid messing up things, he is acting as a judge.

End times and Judgement go together, however much we dislike the idea.

But this is as it should be.

Going back to the previous post about the overlapping two ages (the present evil age and the coming beautiful one), as Christians we belong to a story that says that God is anything but ambivalent to the injustice, crime, pain, illness, violence and sin of the present age. All of these things are abhorrent to him… and rightly so… for all sin needs to be dealt with, obliterated, extinguished because sin has no place in the future age (or age to come). And so, when the ‘day of the Lord’ comes, as every Jew knew, it would be a day of ‘judgement’ when God would act as judge against all perpetrators of evil, however small, and judge in favour of the victims of these things.

The logic is straightforward and sounds true and good. But even as I write it I am aware that these words have a particular sound to them. No-one likes to talk about judgement any more… not even me….

But what if I am the victim? What if I am the oppressed? What if I am the abused, or raped, or murdered, or insulted, or rejected, or injured? What if I am the ’sinned against’? Then, perhaps, I want God to be an angry God of justice. I want him to take steps to judge the wrongs committed against me, or others. I need him to. For if he didn’t he would be ignoring the pain inflicted upon me and how could he then be described as loving?

I was thinking about this a little while ago when I was thinking through how forgiveness works, both between people and between us and God, and I decided that having a God that was angry at injustice, pain, oppression, anger, abuse, etc was infinitely more preferable than having one that would just let bygones be bygones. But the downside of all this judgement is, of course, the fact that we (as opposed to others) might do things that warrant us being in the firing line. And that sounds frightening.

This is the point, I think, that Paul is making. We are children of the age to come. We are people who rightly belong (because Jesus has bought us freedom) in the age that is breaking upon us. We are the people who have been gifted this ‘eternal life’ (what amazing thought!) through no work of our own, all through grace. And yet we could get tied up again in the old way of life that belongs to the age that is passing away and which will eventually be jettisoned into a fire so that it never again disfigures God’s good creation. Such behaviour does not fit the new world on its way and it should not fit our lives either. Bad stuff is going to end up in only one place. Rubbish is destined for the bin.

And so in this strangely uncomfortable passage Paul uses the pull of the age to come to urge us to right living. He reminds us that we are people on whom the fulfilment of the ages has come, and in doing so he calls us out of falling back into idolatry and out into the life that is of the Spirit.

I can’t remember the last time I read 1 Corinthians 10.
It is a chapter of warning…
a warning that we are encouraged to take seriously.

Comments (1)

Older Posts »