Cookie's days

Submerge

2012-01-31T09:31:00.001Z

I truly inspiring day yesterday thinking about the missional church.

Sometimes you meet people with such an incredible story you know the things you learn from them are going to remain with you. John Hays founded Inner Change: A Christian order among the poor. He was compelling and helpful on so many levels.

He started by telling us that there are three stories

1. Your story
2. Your communities story
3. The biblical story

You need to know how to put them together and this he told us always takes time.

We must, he said, be people 'who nail our feet to the ground' that God has called us to which was a phrase that resonated with all of us.

John is the author of Sub-merge which he said his friends tell him that when you read it usually ruins your day.

In the afternoon, a great fellow called Mike Hewitt from NFI came to tell us about planting churches in the East End. He too has a remarkable life and story and we learnt much about what it means to do church in a white working class context.

His insight about the current way we do church- even planting- being unbiblical was fascinating.

Today: The Church gathers disciples who do evangelism (in some cases)
NT/Acts: You do evangelism which gather disciples to produce a church

We have flipped the model which explains rather a lot of our current outcomes he suggested.

Sandwiched in the middle we heard about Mission Year.

All different stories but all such a blessing.

I did a book review of The Shaping of things to come and interestingly had one of its quotes about 'story' on my heart all day which seemed to fit where God took us.

'Ivan Illich was once asked what is the most revolutionary way to change society. Is it violent revolution or is it gradual reform. He gave a careful answer. Neither. If you want to change society, then you must tell an alternative story he concluded' [Page 32]

A lingering thought that John offered was be sure to talk to those who are old in our communities. They know the story best out of anyone but few take the time to ask, seek them out and learn it. It was fitting I concluded my day with my amazing friend Audrey [82] who is coming to lead our Quiet day. She's going to teach our people about intimacy with God through Scripture, solitude and hearing God's voice.

We all have a story to tell and a story we are writing.

It's too early to tell if mine will be good one.

Train and release

2012-01-30T07:50:00.000Z

Talking about the Missional Church today@ St Mellitus

"The reason the UK church is not effective in mission is because we are not making disciples who can live well for Christ in today's culture and engage compellingly with the people they meet.....Jesus has a "train and release" strategy, while overall we have a "convert and retain" strategy" Mark Greene 'Let my people grow'

Tim Chester, Total Church, Page 35

A Question

2012-01-29T08:06:00.001Z

"So here is the question to test where you have been sucked into the world's distortion of love: Would you feel more loved by God if he made much of you, or if he liberated you from the bondage of self-regard, at great cost to himself, so that you enjoy making much of him forever?"

Don't waste your life

Fatal success

2012-01-28T14:04:00.001Z

“As I write this, I am fifty seven years old. As the months go by, Irelate to more and more people who are young enough to be my sons anddaughters. You may be in that category. I have four sons and one daughter. Fewthings, if any, fill me with more longing these months and years than thelonging that my children will not waste their lives on fatal success.

This longing transfers very easily to you, especially if you are in yourtwenties or thirties. I see you, as it were, like a son or a daughter, and perhapsin these pages I plead with you as a father who loves you dearly, or the fatheryou never had. Of the father who never had a vision for you like I have foryou-and God has for you. Or the father who has a vision for you, but it’s allabout money and status. I look through these pages and see you as sons anddaughters, and I plead with you: Desire that your life count for somethinggreat! Long for your life to have eternal significance. Want this! Don’t coastthrough life without a passion”

Don't waste your life, Piper (which you can also download a PDF of here.)

Saturday blog-sweep

2012-01-28T09:54:00.000Z

Kathy Keller on reasons you should not marry an unbeliever

This went thru my mind

Eight ways to approach scripture

Sex marriage and fairytales

Swimming through jellyfish

Five ways to find a mentor

1password

Ben Witherington on the death of his daughter

Sentamu's pitch for Canterbury

Famous theologians on creation and So what are you going to try for God today? (via Dash House)

If you are a leader why are you investing all your time in the wrong people?

Activism

My measly opinion

C S Lewis and the power of story

For such a time as this

2012-01-27T09:50:00.000Z

We say we are too busy to pray. But the busier our Lord was, the more He prayed. Sometimes He had no leisure so much as to eat (Mark 3:20); and sometimes He had no leisure for needed rest and sleep (Mark 6:31). Yet He always took time to pray. If frequent prayer, and, at times, long hours of prayer, were necessary for our Saviour, are they less necessary for us?

Author Unknown

The Kneeling Christian, circa 1930, ch. 7.

Prayer is so necessary in these days.

Recently I caught some of a program called Party Paramedics which both shocked and saddened me- a world in my own story I am all too familiar with. It gave me yet more reason and burden to pray for this nation and the urgent mission of its church.

Last night at Kingdom Come a band of saints numbering 300 or so from across this city and further afield gathered. I took a crowd and we prayed with others for our leaders, the church, church planting, schools, students, prisons and specifically at the end for North Korea.

We heard about Revival Run which was new to me and of all the things that God has done through a small church in Ramsgate and the prayer movement that it has unleashed.

Pete Greig author of the simply wonderful Red moon rising, which I commend, spoke of the necessity of prayer.

The next gatherings are on 29th March and 28th June @ HTB .

This is the film we watched together about North Korea but be warned its content is quite intense. I found it particularly striking given my father was a POW in Korea from the age of 18-21. It is a little out of date given the recent death of the father but as we know he has been replaced by the son.

Severe discipline

2012-01-26T16:07:00.002Z

"In the morass of subjectivity came a Professor of Literature from the University of Virginia, E D Hirsch. Reading his book Validity in Interpretation during my seminary years was like suddenly finding a rock under my feet in the quicksand of contemporary concepts about meaning......

....My debt at this point to Daniel Fuller is incalculable. He taught hermeneutics- the science of how to interpret the Bible. Not only did he introduce me to E D Hirsch and force me to read him with rigour, but he also taught me how to read the Bible with what Matthew Arnold called "severe discipline." He showed me the obvious: that the verses of the Bible are not strung pearls but links in a chain. The writers developed unified patterns of thought. They reasoned. "Come now, let us reason together, says the Lord" (Isaiah 1:18). This meant that in each paragraph of Scripture, one should ask how each part related to the other parts in order to say one coherent thing. Then the paragraphs should be related to each other in the same way. And then the chapters, then the books, and so on until the unity of the Bible is found on its own terms.

I felt like my little brown path of life had entered an orchard, a vineyard, a garden with mind-blowing, heart-thrilling life-changing fruit to be picked everywhere. Never had I seen so much truth and so much beauty condensed in so small a sphere. The Bible seemed to me then, and it seems today, inexhaustible. This is what I had dreamed about in the health centre with mono, when God called me to the ministry of the word"

Don't waste your life, John Piper

A bit and a bob

2012-01-24T09:57:00.001Z

I have been listening to The Rend Collective's Home Made Worship and think their version of 'Be thou my vision' is stunning.

If you wondered if God is glorious and majestic then do watch this video to convince yourself. It will keep you from having too high an opinion of yourself and our tendency towards our little self-promotion projects which can't really compete with creating the universe :)

Furtick has got lots of hassle for bringing Christians from different tribes together to preach the gospel at the Orange Code Revival. These are the supposed 'best in class' at preaching to lost folk so why not have a listen via the podcast and see if you agree.

I don't know if you noticed..... but I wrote a bit about preaching last week. David Fitch has views on y'man.....

Bethel have gone all acoustic with The Loft Sessions which I am enjoying.

As I am now trying to do three jobs here is some helpful advice on 'How to train your church'.

Really challenged by Don't waste your life which I seem never to have got around to reading. Better to read it sooner rather than later as the title probably suggests.

Cool office pod (via Ben Armett)

If I can include a list of books that someone liked you know I will. Buy one and tell me what you think.

At the St Mellitus 'Church Planting Program' we've been debating Attractional vs Missional and Reggie McNeal has some views (via J R Briggs).

Love David Keen for keeping the C of E's blunt sword a tiny bit sharper by showing us the numbers evacuating the church (one example he tells us of a diocese, unnamed, that saw a 20% decline in both decades averaging at 36%!) Now even though there is no 'performance managment' as we used to call it in the real world I presume their was a Bishop but one may ask what on earth was he doing? I feel for him poor chap and other Bishops - it must have been so very depressing or perhaps no one told them until too late that people were no longer coming to church.

A few reflections on a few strategic questions that might have stemmed the tide that I have no idea if the 36% decline winner asked. You don't really have to be a seasoned missiologist to work this out. Who did he ordain? Did he have a mission strategy at he outset? How did he deploy his resources? How did he spend his time? What efforts did he make at evangelism and did he ever think of recruiting evangelist's to lead churches? Did he have a church planting strategy? Did he ask for any help or expertise from others who may have the knowledge or experience he lacked? What were his staff doing? Did he allow anyone around him to give him truth or did he believe his own propaganda? Did his fellow Bishops not pull him up on things or one of the Archbish's? Did he teach, visit and encourage his clergy? Did he train his clergy? Did he have any focus on youth and children and if so what was that? What books was he reading and who was he engaging with to help stem decline? Did he call his people to fasting and prayer? Did he monitor men's attendance at church? Did he engage the learning of those churches that were experiencing some growth in his area and ask them how they go about it? I could go on. All the while during that period we talked almost singularly about gender and homosexuality at our synods. Don't get me started or I will have to write another one of those long essays :) More detailed numbers from David here and he concludes:

"My fear is that bishops/synod/etc. will look at these stats and say 'oh hurrah, things are getting better'. Well, they are, in the sense of a man who has one leg amputated one week and only has to have half a leg amputated the following week."

Don't waste it.

2012-01-23T07:34:00.000Z

A quote from this:

“You don’t have to know a lot of things to make a hugedifference for the Lord in the world. But you do need to know a few things thatare great and be willing to live for them and die for them. People that make adifference in the world are not people who have mastered a lot of things, theyare people who have been mastered by a very few things that are very, verygreat. If you want your life to count you don’t have to have a high IQ and youdon’t have to have a high EQ, you don’t have to be smart, to have good looks, you don’t have tobe from a good family or from a good school, You just have to know a few basic, simple, glorious,majestic obvious unchanging eternal things and be gripped by them and willing to lay down your lifefor them which is why anybody in this crowd can make a worldwide difference cosit isn’t you it’s what your gripped with. One of the really sad things about this moment right now is that thereare hundreds of you in this crowd who do not want your life to make adifference all you want is to be liked maybe finish school, get a good job,find a husband or a wife a nice house a nice car, long weekends, good holidays,grow old healthy have a fun retirement die easy no hell.

And that’s all you want.

And you don’t give a rip whether your life counts on thisearth for eternity and that’s a tragedy in the making. A tragedy. “

Don't waste your life, John Piper

Prayer

2012-01-22T08:59:00.002Z

"The greatest answer to prayer is more prayer"

Samuel Chadwick quoted in Fresh Wind Fresh Fire, Page 29

Anguish (once again)

2012-01-21T08:00:00.000Z

Politeness

2012-01-18T13:24:00.000Z

When I was at Vicar Factory my college principal used to say that the mark of what it means to be an Anglican is 'politeness'. It was not something he worried too much about :) We English don't like people who are not polite. We like nice people in the C of E who have manners, write thank you letters, smile and shake our hands as we leave church. We won't have listened to a word the Vicar preached (rightly as very often it is sadly utterly unmemorable), will criticise them over our Sunday lunch and pick to bits all their inadequacies. At least they think we think that are doing a good job. Incidentally, my friend who is training for ordination has had NO instruction in preaching. Amazing- none, nada- not a jot.

I have been fascinated after posts about A blog post for Brits by Mark Driscoll and this interview that evangelical Christians have been so offended by his recent comments about the British and our preachers (that would be me then). We evangelicals, in variety of the crowds I run with often harp on about the short-comings of other tribes or people or neighbouring churches or those within the institution of the C of E.

It seems I am good at dishing out a bit of criticism (or helpful observation as I prefer to call it) but rather poor at receiving it.

I asked a crowd of church leaders this week a simple question.

"Have you seen anybody saved? Are people coming under the new birth as a result of your preaching or indeed of any preacher you know?"

There was silence. There was a bit of testimony to a salvation or two coming in dribs and drabs but they were all as a result of people coming to Christ on Alpha. Some of these were leaders, in UK terms, of 'big churches' by our standards. But they are big churches where seemingly very few are actually coming to repentance and faith in Christ. There are of course exceptions but these are often non-C of E.

Many churches run good programs and courses and lots of prayer ministry that Christians love to consume but there is not a culture of, nor expectation that, people will be converted and moved to repentance under the preaching of God's word.

No one asked anyone to church to listen to me preach last Sunday (that might be because it was gift day!) but I should ask why. Why do people not want to bring their friends to church? (There are of course a host of reasons) In fact, not one person had asked anyone who does not yet believe in Jesus to come to church with them to hear the gospel and encounter God through his people and presence. Now, happily by ten minutes in there were a few faces but none that anyone had actually invited.

Why is that?

The gospel is surely the call to repent and believe in Jesus Christ.

Does it matter that people believe in Jesus?

Like really really eternally matter?

There isn't a 'nice' way to preach repentance and faith and too often perhaps the truth is I fail to. Faith yes but repentance is a bit of a tricky one. Sin and stuff. Keller and others do manage 'nice' but Driscoll is Keller born in a trailer park with a drink-soaked Irish family line and a non-Ivy league pedigree. He unquestionably has issues -anger being one- but he's working on it he tells us. This may however take a while. Smith-Wigglesworth would have been a sight on You tube though wouldn't he?

Tell me how you nicely tell people that they are utterly separated from a holy God who is unable to look for a moment upon their sin and as a result they are destined for eternal hell. In burning love, praise God, he sent his Son and through him and him alone salvation is offered but only through his blood soaked body on the cross where he died for the sins of the world absorbing God's wrath. To receive this, you must repent and humble yourself and accept the Lordship of Jesus Christ, die to self and live out the rest of your days for his glory (and not your own). This will inevitably, if you do it wholeheartedly, cause you trouble, suffering and difficulty and for some, even death.

What Driscoll perhaps is asking is is this message being preached with courage, love and power in this land in a way that is resulting in significant numbers of non believers coming under the new birth as a result of the preaching.

Let me be frank. The preaching in the pulpits of the C of E is in the main dreadful. The diet in most churches is an eight-minute dull platitude that will very often not even make mention of Jesus or the Cross, let alone call anyone to repentance. Now don't get me wrong- the gospel is being preached but in only in a few select places is it resulting in conversion (Soul Survivor being one and Mike P among others is a man of great courage but that is a festival not a church)

In contrast, there is a church in Seattle which saw 800 people repent, believe and be baptised on Easter day alone listening to this sermon.

I know there are cultural factors and the States is more 'Christianised'

It takes a bit of guts to preach like this though. Trust me I am a preacher.

They were converted it seems under the power of preaching.

I have been debating with a few fellow preachers and friends and my thoughts have narrowed to the question, "Is the Lord with him?". If he is then it's worth hearing his comments on this land and if not then I can carry on business as usual. Why are so so many listening to him and finding blessing through it? They (men and women) tell me so everywhere I go. Only today, by HS appointment having heard of this man only on Monday I met an Acts 29 planter who is setting up near me as I plant in Barnes. Movements move and this one seems to be moving whether we like it or not.

I, with a small crowd of men went to listen to my critic preach in the Albert Hall and all of us were moved to tears of repentance. He is not my tribe (being what one might term on the 'Hot Prot' team) nor is he my nationality but he does seem extremely anointed and is being used powerfully by God. The same could have been said of John Wimber. Let's agree fiery with 'the anointing' is something amazing but fiery without anointing is just aggression and cold lovelessness. There are a few of those 'without' religious types in UK pulpits and they are both scary and not bearing much fruit. Parking that, am I pleased that many people are coming to Christ through him? Am I excited that as a result of this movement a church is being planted in West London? Or am I not excited and if not why is this? We, grown men were all blubbing and shaken to our cores. Fact. He didn't say nice things, but he said true things that our hearts acknowledged as true it's just no one had had the courage to say them to us so directly with the Spirit's power. Ask the men who attended with me and the profound impact it had on them. We were diverse in age, occupation, life experience and circumstance but were all deeply moved.

Now the thing is this.

Most don't like my critic for good reasons that they will tell you but I for one am taking time to think whether or not he might have a some truth to tell me. Albeit one that now lands squarely at my door.

One word of caution. Is it not that the old wineskin rarely embraces the new? RT Kendall said as much to New Wine Leaders eight years ago preaching from Hebrews 13. I remember that hotel room in Coventry as though it were yesterday for lots of reasons. I seem to remember spending a great deal of time on the hotel carpet under the Spirit but that is a discussion for another time.

"May we never be a network who misses out on a move of God because it does not start with us" was the concluding call.

It would be a bore if just when we have all decided as a church to be egalitarian God goes and flings a loud-mouthed complementarian with a bible in his hand into our midst. He seems to know said bible backwards and is confusing us all and making us think through our doctrine and its relationship and impact on both the culture and the church. Blast. God will have habit of being God sometimes even when I disagree with him. Or it's not God and the things I think are right in which case I can ignore it-phew. Or it's not a major deal either way which is the easiest option- Hybels seems to be doing OK?

Decisions.

Darrin Patrick shares some thoughts on his journey on this very thorny one, author of The church planter, which unsurprisingly is a read I have checked out. This was the tinder box issue at the end of the interview. Most evangelicals in the UK thirty-five years ago would not have been the least bit troubled by Driscoll's theology of church leadership but today it's a whole other matter as the Premier interview showed so starkly. Now this might not be a move of God and Driscoll's doctrine might be crackers 'in the UK climate' and passe in which case stand down everyone and get on with whatever you're up to.

The Premier interviewer, like so many in our pews, had neither a bible in his hand nor any doctrine that he was happy to be pinned down on. He does seem a jolly nice fella though. I can bet you he knows the words to 'How Great' by Chris Tomlin. In contrast, members of Mars Hill have to read this book (which is thick, thorough and has hundreds of footnotes) in order to join the Church, that would be everybody- no read no join. He taught ten hours of sermons on the book in hour long chunks. I will say that again. People are coming to be taught the doctrines of the Christian faith from the bible in their droves for ten hours of intense theologically dense scholarly teaching. Hang on a minute, wasn't the title meant to say 'Might Believe'- surely that is a mistake? Actually 'Should' in Driscoll's world, and arguably the bible's, really does mean 'Should'. A thought. How many of your people can articulate their doctrine of the trinity (Chapter one) and where can you find similar teaching from a UK pulpit? Starts to explain a little of the reason why 30m and counting sermons have been downloaded. I would wager few would not find some merit in Driscoll's brilliant teaching on Mary and Martha and find it's truths helpful even if you don't like the style or the man?

At some point that nobody quite noticed, perhaps as everyone fell over in 1993 under Toronto, some people/churches stopped reading bibles and teaching its truths and as they woke up started listening only to worship albums. Maybe it is time for everyone who calls themselves an evangelical to pick up their bibles again and to start reading them- really reading them. Have some evangelicals in the UK simply now only got that written on the outside of the tin but poke around a bit and the liberal reality appears? At least liberals know they are liberal and say so, unlike your man on Premier who I don't think knows quite what he thinks from the sounds of it and certainly couldn't justify it from the bible. But might it be even though it's not very convenient, culturally insensitive, intellectually superior and it goes against what we've agreed in the C of E at a synod meeting, oh and it's not very English, God might be in all this somehow.

I am reading Ezra. When we studied it at IME my dear liberal pals went puce in horror. You know the bit when God tells everyone that they have married people and they weren't supposed to. He can do that you know- being God n'all. Shocking stuff. All very messy and clearly has a cultural context (we love saying that about the difficult bits in Scripture) but wouldn't it be a thing if when every one actually started studying Scripture they realised they have made some wrong decisions and now have a right old mess if they wanted to unpick them. We'd look like complete idiots if we found out we were wrong (Josiah comes to mind) and what's more we've passed all those resolutions in our synods about gender and human sexuality but while doing so our society's gone down the materialist, social and secular swanny and the church has disappeared? Did you see that Kodak has gone out of business. Extraordinary. Massive business that didn't know what its core proposition was and hence failed to survive. That's what happens when you forget what your core proposition is.

He's right on one thing certainly- twenty something men are not exactly smashing the doors down of my church- let's be really honest about that one. They are getting smashed in the pub, rioting across London and leaving their girlfriends fatherless for other women and fathering more children or did you miss that part of last summer?

Question. Can we disagree and beg to differ but at the same time see the good in this movement and even find some grace to encourage it for the glory of God- even when the theology, culture and style is so much not our own? Now, you might say he needs to do they same to us. Perhaps he does and maybe he too needs to be a bit (a lot) more graceful and generous. All the children have to learn to play nice in the playground, but every once in while the big kid whoops someone. We've been whooped. He needs to say sorry, be nice and work out how to get along with the other kids, even if they are different and he knows his bible a lot better.

But here's the dilemma. God in his grace has raised up preachers down the years who have been enabled by the power of the Spirit to see significant numbers come to faith. This can happen through one or two individuals (Spurgeon who was weird looking, Whitfield who was squinty eyed, MLJ who was rather depressed and grumpy, Evan Roberts who was a bit crazy and Welsh and John Stott who had a few quirks my friend tells me- he shared a house with him as a Curate) that then go on to impact a whole nation. In the States MLK (by all accounts v. imperfect) and Billy Graham come to mind.

Of course there are people who can teach the bible in England. It's silly to say otherwise. But the real question I am being asked as a British preacher is what impact is this bible teaching having on this land and on God's church for its transformation. Is the gospel we preach causing unbelievers in a hugely secular godless culture under the power of the Spirit to come to repentance and faith in Christ.

If not, then should us preachers not take a fraction of a moment to be asking why not? It doesn't mean we adopt his style to do so would be insane and end in tears but should we not be praying for an anointed preacher to take our unsaved friends to listen to so they can get saved?

Of course by God's providence a preacher may be raised up or maybe as many have said this is not the English way. Its only American's who like personalities, we do things small and quiet and fresh expressiony and I think in some ways we do. Maybe all is well in the garden (but we know it is not which is what Why plant churches? speaks to)

Maybe, just maybe, people are not being converted (which my very small sample tells me in my circle they are not) because my gospel is a bit doctrinally flabby due to my lack of courage. I can't speak for others they will have to work that out before the Lord but I know I could do better if I was less concerned about my 'niceness'. I know that to show some in this culture the truth of the gospel would lead people to think that I am not 'nice' and would require some 'non-nice' truths that would over time cause me some mighty trouble. It is possible to be not very nice yet very loving- the greatest of loves being sharing Christ and seeing that love burst forth in a new salvation life. We so easily settle instead for non-missional Christian huddles of comfort, bible study groups, and perhaps, for the keen, a Christian festival. Driscoll is right we fly in someone who is preaching and teaching thoughtfully about hell, the Crazy love stuff and living radically with great impact on those who do not yet believe but doing so somewhere else. Have any of you actually read the Chapter 4 of Crazy love on the lukewarm?

When one gets offended it is for two reasons usually:

1. There is hurt because what has been said is wrong and need not be listened to. In this case that may be so I don't yet know.

2. Or there is something to hear because what has been said has some truth but we don't want to face it

The offence has come it seems chiefly because the person who offended us isn't very cuddly and didn't say it very nicely. He shouts sometimes, he looks different, he is a big personality, he is steeped in the word of God, he says offensive things on occasion that he often regrets and he gets angry about sin and sinners yet crowds of people are flocking to him and 30m sermons have been downloaded, 400 churches planted and 175k are in the movement. Oh, and this has happened in fifteen years. He needs softening by the Spirit of course and is very imperfect, as am I. The only thing he isn't currently doing is eating locusts and honey :)

Maybe he is nasty, nuts, a loon or maybe he is a prophet to our land and for our day.

Most think the former and I am just exploring a case for the latter.

The frustrating thing about prophets is they don't actually give a hoot what we think. They couldn't care less.

How frightfully rude.

Steve Furtick is a man whose story I have followed.

He is currently embarking on something called Code Orange Revival Meetings. His idea is to gather twelve of the best preachers in the English-speaking world that he could convince to come and he's beaming their sermons live currently in order to see as many converted as possible. Preachers including T D Jakes, Craig Groeschl, Christine Caine and James MacDonald have been asked and they are from a variety of tribes but for the good of the gospel they have laid their differences aside for the greater good. Now there's an idea. Furtick also invited Matt Chandler and this is I think an example of the type of preaching Driscoll is talking about that is seeing people converted and that the blog post was asking for in the UK. This is the sort of preaching that is not it seems spilling out of the pulpits in our churches and doesn't get much of a laugh. It won't get you liked but it does see sinners repent and believe by the thousand. This is after all the task of the preacher.

Why is this sort of preaching not English and not what I do? Because it's not nice. Because there is a cultural gap - yes I know that. Yes, there is much good happening here in the church I know I know. Yes, there are lots of nice Vicars. And yes, there are lots of views about fame seeking American's and the nasty cult of church celebrity. But dear preachers let's be honest - preaching like this takes a bit of metal and wielding the bible with such confidence and skill is quite something. The question I am asking myself and you will have to make up your own mind if you are a preacher is am I preaching with enough courage and is there something in all this for me to hear? Perhaps if I had more courage while remaining me and more preparedness to not be liked but to bear the cost of the cross then perhaps more may be born again under my preaching.

When you witness the whooping crowds at the beginning of Chandler's preach (he is so exceedingly rude- shockingly so at the start) and then contrast this with the hushed tones at the end of the sermon you have some sense of what the power of the gospel preached looks like.

It is why Furtick called Matt Chandler and didn't call me.

By the way, I will happily do it for Furtick next time if he asks but my real hope is that next time he might at least have one of his telephone numbers that starts +44 and maybe I pray that number may be yours?

George Whitfield offers response to critics of British preachers

2012-01-17T10:18:00.001Z

“Let my name be forgotten, let me be trodden under the feet of all men, if Jesus may thereby be glorified…let us look above names and parties; let Jesus be our all in all…I care not who is uppermost. I know my place…even to be the servant of all.”

George Whitfield

Too much cowardice in the British Church?

2012-01-16T07:55:00.003Z

Now in recent days there has been a bit of a broo-ha-ha brewing due to some alleged things an American pastor from Seattle said about British bible teachers. As I am both British and a preacher it is clearly worth some food for thought.

Mark Driscoll has written a post called 'A Blog Post for the Brits' in response to his statements being taken out of context. In the meantime, it might be helpful to listen to what Mark Driscoll and his wife actually said and it is possible hear the interview they gave to Premier Radio.

The Tall Skinny Kiwi has some initial thoughts.

I have views that I will try and share soon if I have time and, for what it's worth, I think he may have a point or two but you decide.

Is religion OK?

2012-01-15T08:25:00.000Z

There has been a bit of debate about the difference between religion and the gospel in recent days because of this video which has gone viral (10m and counting). I was reminded of some thoughts about religion by Tim Keller which I have posted before but it seems timely to do so again.

RELIGION: I obey-therefore I’m accepted
THE GOSPEL: I’m accepted-therefore I obey.

RELIGION: Motivation is based on fear and insecurity
THE GOSPEL: Motivation is based on grateful joy.

RELIGION: I obey God in order to get things from God
THE GOSPEL: I obey God to get to God-to delight and resemble Him.

RELIGION: When circumstances in my life go wrong, I am angry at God or my self, since I believe, like Job’s friends that anyone who is good deserves a comfortable life
THE GOSPEL: When circumstances in my life go wrong, I struggle but I know all my punishment fell on Jesus and that while he may allow this for my training, he will exercise his Fatherly love within my trial.

RELIGION: When I am criticized I am furious or devastated because it is critical that I think of myself as a ‘good person’. Threats to that self-image must be destroyed at all costs
THE GOSPEL: When I am criticized I struggle, but it is not critical for me to think of myself as a ‘good person.’ My identity is not built on my record or my performance but on God’s love for me in Christ. I can take criticism.

RELIGION: My prayer life consists largely of petition and it only heats up when I am in a time of need. My main purpose in prayer is control of the environment
THE GOSPEL: My prayer life consists of generous stretches of praise and adoration. My main purpose is fellowship with Him.

RELIGION: My self-view swings between two poles. If and when I am living up to my standards, I feel confident, but then I am prone to be proud and unsympathetic to failing people. If and when I am not living up to standards, I feel insecure and inadequate. I’m not confident. I feel like a failure

THE GOSPEL: My self-view is not based on a view of my self as a moral achiever. In Christ I am “simul iustus et peccator”—simultaneously sinful and yet accepted in Christ. I am so bad he had to die for me and I am so loved he was glad to die for me. This leads me to deeper and deeper humility and confidence at the same time. Neither swaggering nor sniveling.

RELIGION: My identity and self-worth are based mainly on how hard I work. Or how moral I am, and so I must look down on those I perceive as lazy or immoral. I disdain and feel superior to ‘the other

THE GOSPEL: My identity and self-worth are centered on the one who died for His enemies, who was excluded from the city for me. I am saved by sheer grace. So I can’t look down on those who believe or practice something different from me. Only by grace I am what I am. I’ve no inner need to win arguments.

RELIGION: Since I look to my own pedigree or performance for my spiritual acceptability, my heart manufactures idols. It may be my talents, my moral record, my personal discipline, my social status, etc. I absolutely have to have them so they serve as my main hope, meaning, happiness, security, and significance, whatever I may say I believe about God
THE GOSPEL: I have many good things in my life—family, work, spiritual disciplines, etc. But none of these good things are ultimate things to me. None of them are things I absolutely have to have, so there is a limit to how much anxiety, bitterness, and despondency they can inflict on me when they are threatened and lost.

(via TULLIAN TCHIVIDJIAN )

For the pod: The church is the hope of the world

2012-01-14T15:01:00.001Z

I remember where I was when I first heard Bill Hybels preach about his passion for the church. His phrase 'The church is the hope of the world' has been with me ever since. I had missed him coming to speak at our church in the early 1990's (something of a theme sadly at the time) but I listened to him later on a cassette in my car. If there is one man alive who has an ability to a caste vision possibly better than anyone else then it might be Hybels. He is in tears by the end of this talk, as I nearly was as I drove up the M3 this morning. If you want a reminder of what it is we are all supposed to be doing and a kick to get on and do it then listen to this.

Saturday Blog-sweep

2012-01-14T14:40:00.002Z

Does Jesus hate religion? and do also read this gracious response.

Driscoll thinks English preachers are cowards

A thought on the Iron Lady

The first thing you do when you sit down at the computer

13 ways to raise grateful kids

Why church planting and How to plant a Church (via Dash House)

A letter from Martin Luther on Spiritual Warfare

Descriptive vs prescriptive

What the Elephant Room tells us about evangelicalism

Be wide-awake

2012-01-13T08:26:00.001Z

"Be diligent in action. Put all your irons into the fire. Use every faculty for Jesus. Be wide-awake to watch opportunities, and quick to seize upon them."

Charles Spurgeon

(via What's Best Next who has a book on productivity coming)

Everyone gets to play

2012-01-12T10:27:00.000Z

I have been thinking a bit about 'Vocation' and chatted recently to someone about what it means to be ordained.

I love Wimber's phrase that 'everyone gets to play'.

At a time when the Church is finally starting to awaken (as David Keen observes) to its call to mission and growth this needs I think to be matched but a rethinking on Vocation so that so many more can be empowered to get involved to pray, serve, create, innovate, risk, fail, have courage, lead initiatives and gather others into the advance of the Kingdom in this land. This will only happen if religious professionals in dresses (and me not in a dress:) can get out of the way and let the folk in the pews get on with it.

Tim Challies writes more on this in The intrinsic value of what you do (Yes you!) which I hope will affirm you if you run a business or are a mum, a doctor, a teacher, a student or any other occupation that might brand you as 'the laity' and thereby somehow as less holy, less connected to God or less able to be effective for the Kingdom.

It's quite simply poppy-cock to think that I am more connected to God than you (assuming you have repented and believed in Jesus).

God seems in my experience to use those who are hungry for Him, those who seek Him, those who wait on Him, petition Him and love Him.

'Many are called but few are chosen'

Matt 22 v 14

Who are chosen?

Are the chosen confined to Wesley, Whitfield, Wimber, Gumbel and Pullinger or indeed to the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Clergy?

No. Those who are chosen are those who quite simply desire to be and can't help themselves. Those who by the Holy Spirt at work in them yearn for it and are desperate for it.

By grace he is at work in some and that is a work of power.

It's interesting that the context of Matthew 22 is a directive to the religious professionals of the day.

I am one of those so must never say I haven't been warned.

So seek Jesus, spend time with Jesus, ask Jesus, listen to Jesus and just see what happens.

YES YOU.

Finally, I share a MLJ quote from the Sermon on the Mount which goes some way to clearing up once and for all the misconception that any Christian is more 'special' than anyone else. The wonder of mercy and grace is the fact that you are a Christian at all.

"Read the Beatitudes, and there you have a description of what every Christian is meant to be. It is not merely the description of some exceptional Christians.

I pause with that for just a moment, and emphasize it, because I think we must all agree that the fatal tendency introduced by the Roman Catholic Church, and indeed by every branch of the Church that likes to use the term ‘Catholic,’ is the fatal tendency to divide Christians into two groups—the religious and the laity, exceptional Christians and ordinary Christians, the one who makes a vocation of the Christian life and the man who is engaged in secular affairs.

"That tendency is not only utterly and completely unscriptural; it is destructive ultimately of true piety, and is in many ways a negation of the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. There is no such distinction in the Bible. There are distinctions in offices—apostles, prophets, teachers, pastors, evangelists, and so on. But these Beatitudes are not a description of offices; they are a description of character. And from the standpoint of character, and of what we are meant to be, there is no difference between one Christian and another.

Let me put it like this. It is the Roman Catholic Church that canonizes certain people, not the New Testament. Read the introduction to almost any New Testament Epistle and you will find all believers addressed as in the Epistle to the Church at Corinth, ‘called to be saints.’ All are ‘canonized,’ if you want to use the term, not some Christians only. The idea that this height of the Christian life is meant only for a chosen few, and that the rest of us are meant to live on the dull plains, is an entire denial of the Sermon on the Mount, and of the Beatitudes in particular.

We are all meant to exemplify everything that is contained here in these Beatitudes. Therefore let us once and for ever get rid of that false notion. This is not merely a description of the Hudson Taylors or George Mullers or the Whitefields or Wesleys of this world; it is a description of every Christian. We are all of us meant to conform to its pattern and to rise to its standard."

Religion vs Jesus

2012-01-12T07:34:00.001Z

Thanks to my pal Peter for this one.

Does anyone care about the line if they love the product?

2012-01-11T08:45:00.001Z

I met with my little team of sinners to try and craft what is known as 'A vision statement'.

You know the sort of thing that if you get those ten words right will birth you a mega-church.

I failed spectacularly I'm afraid.

So here is my thought for the day.

Can you be a church without your 'brand' having a tagline?

The other day, I realised Carlsberg has changed its copy-line from 'Probably the best lager in the world.....' to 'That calls for a Carlsberg...'

You like me may not have noticed and 'probably' don't care.

The line has changed but the thing is the beer is still the same.

Psalm 34 v 8

Until I think up 'a line' my holding position is this:

'Love Jesus'.

That'll just have to do for the time being.

"The biblical fact is that there are no successful churches. There are, instead, communities of sinners, gathered before God week after week in towns and villages all over the world. The Holy Spirit gathers them and does his work in them. In these communities of sinners, one of the sinners is called pastor and given designated responsibility in the community. The pastor's responsibility is to keep the community attentive to God. It is this responsibility that is being abandoned in spades'

Eugene Peterson, Working the angles, Page 2

Home-made worship

2012-01-10T18:16:00.001Z

A few in our church are currently rather keen on The Rend Collective Experiment. Their new album is called Home-made worship so do check it out and this is a bit of an introduction.

How to get a bit sorted out for 2012

2012-01-10T08:33:00.000Z

If you are like me the New Year is a bit of a time of resolution and sort out. We all tend to have fresh intentions to get things done.

I am covering a Sabbatical at my Church, doing some part time study at St Mellitus and planning a church plant so I used the time between Christmas and New Year to have a bit of an organisational overhaul.

1. Getting things done

This is about getting a process in place to capture all the things you need to do. Reading Getting things done is helpful or you could alternatively read these posts on productivity.

You no doubt have the plague of email to deal with and also have snail mail. I can't describe how helpful it has been the read this called How to get your email inbox to zero every day. This is the simple principle of only having three categories for your email:

1. Answer
2. Hold
3. Read

There is similarly helpful advice on How to get the mail

There is also a post on How to set up your desk

2. Getting things sorted

A couple of friends have been heavily evangelising me about Evernote. At last I have now got myself Evernoted thanks to Michael Hyatt's superb set of posts called How to organise for maximum efficiency- check out all the related other posts. It is well worth the time and effort to work through this and comprehend the power of this amazing application. One point of note - you don't need to buy a scanner you can simply use 'Scan-drop' and then you can achieve the thing we all hope for which is paper-less-ness.

Hope that's a help folks and especially for those of us who want to spend less time doing email, filing and paperwork and more time talking to people about Jesus and making disciples.

For the pod: Healing and deliverance

2012-01-08T08:47:00.000Z

It's good to be back after a break and I even got the odd complaint that I had been away for too long. Blogging, like anything else, is something you have to watch and for me it is helpful and necessary to lay the blog down every now and then and regroup.

Many years ago I listened to a speaker who in his opening talk said he was 'just a fat bloke on his way to heaven'. His talks during that week captivated me in so many ways and so did all the charismatic goings-on around them. The man's name was John Wimber who sadly died of cancer not long after I heard him teach. I have had much happen in my life since those early personally messy Christian days. I am now a little more rooted in my understanding of the gospel (which was a word that mystified me or to put it better I failed to fully grasp in my first Christian years) , of grace and, most importantly in my story, of justification by faith alone. Freedom came through this revelation rather than through speaking in tongues or experiencing physical healing both of which I had.

I have been discipled and encouraged by many along the way which is crucial, I've read a book or two, I've even been to Vicar Factory but in truth I never ever want to grow up out of my 'first love' experiences of the Spirit. Newton has some good insights into what growing actually looks like. What I have been mulling on since listening to this talk are three important words: Gospel, Spirit and Kingdom. Too often it seems, we divide into 'Gospel' people or 'Spirit/Kingdom' people and the truth is we are to be both but being such a people is the challenge.

If Wimber is remembered for anything it might be for the rediscovery of 'the third person' of the Trinity in the Church of England (among others) on the back of what is sometimes described as the charismatic renewal. For the history of this and the curfuffle this caused Martyn Lloyd-Jones Volume 2: The fight of faith tells the story, although Murray seems to commentate through seemingly disapproving cessationist eyes. MLJ came to his own conclusions on the Spirit in his work Joy Unspeakable which is when some think he lost the plot by advocating a second blessing, while others think he finally found it. You can hear the whole fascinating MLJ story and the debates that raged told here. Sadly, the church remains terribly divided over these matters to this day.

I will always remember Wimber's lovely question that he asked his pastor described in 'The way it was' (and I paraphrase) and it has always stuck with me,

"When do we do the stuff?" said John

"The stuff?" his Pastor replied confused

"Yes, the stuff I have been reading in the Bible (he had been reading Acts)"

"Oh, we don't do the stuff any more"

"Really? Why's that? Surely God is the same yesterday today and forever"

We read this at the beginning of Acts which Wimber took to be the story of what following Jesus was meant to be look like:

'....I have dealt with all that Jesus began to do and teach....He presented himself alive to them after his suffering by many proofs, appearing to them during forty days and speaking about the Kingdom of God' Acts 1v 1-3

The rest, one might say, is history. The remarkable things happening with Alpha and at HTB, St Mary's and through the Trent Vineyard and its movement, NFI and many many other churches would not be happening without this remarkable and humble man's influence (accepting of course providence and all that :) If you want a read on this then 'The Way in is the Way on' is a good place to start as is Simon's incredibly helpful book on the Holy Spirit called God inside out for some grounded theology and helpful explanation of all these, at times, complex issues. I also commend Arnold's Three crucial questions about Spiritual Warfare for more good teaching on this issue. At the outset, I do think robust teaching, pastoral wisdom and insight is so important in an arena where too often things can end up in a car crash. Being a 'charismatic with a seatbelt' is a good thing because without it one can get nastily thrown through the windscreen when the wheels come off.

I listened to John Peters, a C of E Vicar, give what he describes humorously as 'a rant' about the importance of the Spirit. If Wimber made a disciple or two, and he did, then John Peter's is one of his most vocal and effective in this land having seen literally thousands pass through the church he planted in London. When it concerns matters of the Spirit it is good to be in safe hands and John has been blessed with those although, as you will hear, he is very honest about his failings. This talk called Healing (4th December 6.30pm) contains incredible testimony to two divine healings and is remarkable in its force and passion to communicate what John, for one, feels can so easily become a forgotten or ignored truth. Francis Chan in fact entitled his excellent book on the Spirit 'The Forgotten God'. The testimony alone caused me to sit up straight- one of someone who regained sight in one eye and another of someone healed of a congenital heart condition. What follows then is John's explanation of why each of us should pursue the things of the Spirit and in many ways it is his 'one' sermon that he has given hundreds of times. I do admire John's fiery zeal, courage and no-nonsence unreligious manner that has got him I imagine into some Driscolesque hot water down the years.

There is much food for reflection here. I try to navigate a course my old Vicar directed me on of being a man of both the Word and the Spirit. Sadly, it seems too often we all more easily land with a bias to one rather than the other. This sermon is a call to take note and listen up if you are more cautious on these matters, not least because if these testimonies be true you will be forced to do so (you can either see or you can't so it is surely pretty easy to prove or discount?) We must all work out our theology of healing and you have one even if you think you don't. This talk will at very least leave you with a few things to ponder as it has me and do please dig into the Scriptures anew. If you are already pursuing the things of the Spirit and the charismatic is not new to you, this may be an encouragement or a prompt to pursue the Spirit even more earnestly and with greater faith (Ephesians 5:18).

For an alternative angle on this, I also commend P J Smyth's talk called Suffering Sickness and Healing which my pal, who also happens to be a Consultant surgeon, said is quite the best he has ever heard on this subject of suffering and healing.

For any interested, St Mary's are running a training day called Third Person: How to pray for people in the power of the Spirit on Jan 21st that I am attending with a few others from our church and you might like to come along.

If you want to dig deeper into some teaching on the Kingdom then do check out these.

Saturday Blog-sweep

2012-01-07T12:20:00.000Z

Steve Jobs on how to change the world

Things for church leaders to stop and start doing in 2012

Social media projections

A youth movement to end slavery

Slow moral creep on assisted suicide

I was wrong

Jesus Creed Books of the (last) Year

Six tips for reading your Bible (via T.Wax)

Alistair Campbell on getting happy and staying grumpy

Ten trends for the next ten years of church

'Real Marriage' reviewed by Tim Challies, Rachel Held Evans and Aaron Armstrong. Seemingly, it may be rather more helpful to read this on marriage but you decide.

Seven habits of highly unsuccessful executives (via Dash House)

Leaders are innovators

On calling

Journalling tips

Ronnie Corbett gets a CBE. About time.....

Blog-o-liday

2011-12-23T10:46:00.003Z

A huge thank you to all my readers

I'll be back in 2012

Festive Blog-sweep

2011-12-23T10:25:00.000Z

Reflections on Fruit Bearing

Top posts from 'Reclaiming the mission'

Tips for Dads at Christmas

Jared Wilson on Gospel Wakefulness

The Incarnation

The King's English

Buzzard's Best Books of 2011 and How to read in 2012

Parenting Grown Children

The Real Christmas

John Stott's Daily Prayer (via J R Briggs)

Watchful and Thankful

2011-12-22T09:12:00.003Z

Do you ever do something that seems a complete waste of time that you think even the stolen locust verse will fail on? Yesterday, I drove to the 'Parking shop' in Twickenham to get a new permit only to find it had closed. Then I sat in a traffic jam for nearly an hour. Now, like you, I have a lot on and I don't know if anyone's told you but 'this is a very busy time of the year' for us Vicars what with all those oranges, candles and midget gems :) Anyway, I turned on Radio 4 and you'll never believe it but there was a program about John Peel called John Peel's Shed. What are the chances of that in the week I write about him ? I have to tell you it was pure radio joy and the story about 'Sandra' is a complete must-listen. The narrator is a comedy genius in my opinion- don't miss it.

Now onto weightier things. I also listened to this interview with Jerram Barr about The Heart of Prayer which blessed me. What a delightful and wise man who also wrote the super The Heart of Evangelism

Here's a thought for some pre-2012 praying.

'Devote yourselves to prayer being watchful and thankful'

Col 4 v 2

1. Be Devoted: Sometime over Christmas gather your family (or some friends) and devote a segment of time to prayer. Organise it or it won't happen. Maybe allocate a meal to talk things through and pray at the end.

2. Be Watchful: Do a review of the year. Let your kids reflect on what they have learnt in life and what has been going on in their hearts. Ask them how church has been and school and their friendships. Really listen (turn off your phones!) What have they struggled with and what has gone well. What have they read in the Bible that has impacted them or what talks can they remember. How have they been praying? Has Jesus answered? If you want to do an amazing thing in 2012 read The Jesus Story Book Bible with your kids. Truly DO THIS AS A FAMILY OR ON YOUR OWN (EVEN AS A GROWN-UP IF YOU WANT A FRESH WAY TO READ SCRIPTURE) IT WILL BLESS YOU UNIMAGINABLY. I have been reading it to our Primary School and we have near-on unleashed a revival. All the kids are now badgering their secular parents for Bible stories. How cool is that.

Anyway - share your 'watchful' stuff of the year and then pray together. Be honest. If you are a parent do be sure to repent in front of your kids. In your 'watchful' segment where you have messed up tell them. Admit fault and be honest with your failures and struggles. If you don't and are not in the habit of doing this you will just raise pious religious kids who think Jesus is about rules and having to get it all right. Religious kids almost all end up rejecting faith when they leave home.

As an aside, I have been blessed this year by Note to self which I have on Kindle via my phone. I recently read a chapter in a bad moment shopping in the Westfield Centre. A chapter every now and then, particularly on those bad days, really reminds you of grace. It's a real tonic.

3. Be Thankful: At another meal why not have an annual review of thanks. You could even be a bit American and start a Christmas tradition of having a thanksgiving meal where you do this. It might be become a nice family tradition if you always cook the same food etc. There is so much to say thanks for isn't there? Again, get the kids doing this thankful thing early.

Where does wisdom come from?

2011-12-21T09:07:00.000Z

‘We are face to face here with one of the most vitalsubjects in connection with our Christian life. Prayer is beyond any questionthe highest activity of the human soul. Man is at his highest when, upon hisknees, he comes face to face with God....It is the highest activity of the human soul and therefore it is at thesame time a true test of a man’s spiritual condition'’

Martyn Lloyd-Jones,

The Sermon on the Mount, Page 361

I have written quite a bit about Proverbs over the years. If you were looking for a book of the Bible to immerse yourself in during 2012 you could do worse than choose its wisdom. 'Your plan God's plan' proved a popular talk so did 'The Heart' which a friend listened to yesterday. Also, it's good to ask at this time of year as one buzzes about with credit cards and your lists a simple question, "How's my prayer life and my time in the Scriptures?" and ask of your church, "Are we/ have we been/ are we intending to be devoted to praying and what does that look like?" (Col 4:2).

Here are a few more recommendations for some 2012 wisdom preparation and a year end heart prayer and soul repair:

The Two Great Tests: In a season where you may very well be overwhelmed by the godless idolatry this talk will give your heart peace and perspective.

The Healing of Anger: If we are at all in danger of emotions spilling over it is at this time of year. Regrets and pain so easily surface in tandem with sherry, fairy lights and mince pies. This is worth a listen.

Planning: If you are in a mode to get better prepared and sorted for the year ahead you would do well to listen to this. It offers tons of practical wisdom on how to get all your ducks better in a row.

Friendship: Here is some wisdom on friends. As you scan your address book and wonder who to send a card to (if you send them at all) this might help you reflect on a God's eye view of friendship.

The Wounded Spirit: Sometimes we have to admit to ourselves that all is not well. We are all to a greater or lesser degree a bit wounded. Sin does that whether we planned on it or not. Facing our issues, habits or past is hard but much better it is faced than denied for another year.

The Nativity Story (through kids eyes)

2011-12-20T15:56:00.004Z

Mike Breen recommends this film for your Christmas Eve services....

Who do we do our Carol Services for?

2011-12-20T09:08:00.003Z

If you were a certain age in the 1980's and liked music there was only one man to listen to. His name was John Peel. He had the remarkable quality of being the most innovative and contemporary DJ, yet managed to be well into his 60's before Radio 1 retired him off. I think he would laugh at the thought that he now has an inaugural lecture (what does inaugural mean again- first I think?). Anyway, he now has one and Pete Townsend gave the first speech. He bemoaned the lack of innovation in music and had a good old pop at iTunes. You can watch a bit here.

Why am I telling you this? Well perhaps, like me, you will have been to or laid on a Carol Service. These days you seem to have a choice- traditional or innovative-and which do you think 'Church folk' generally prefer? You guessed it. So often for the people who don't come to church we lay on a 'traditional' service we think that 'they' really like that 'they' then rarely come again to. Eh? I thought 'they' liked it. Is it not that 'church folk' like Carol services and post-Christendom folk don't know what they like or what a Carol Service is 'supposed' to be because the truth is they increasingly aren't coming to church? The vital statistics are telling us that.

This year we decided to have a service that was more representative of what we normally do on a Sunday. We tried not to worry if 'they' would like it and took a risk on more traditional folk not getting their carol fix. We reworked Carols with alternative tunes, added some creativity, some testimony and then had a good old non-seeker friendly worship experience right bang in the middle of it all. Do you know what happened? People seemed to encounter God. 'They' as far as I could discern seemed to love it. We didn't get it completely right by any means and quite a few have given me 'views' and I am still reflecting, hence this piece, but I do think the risk was worth it.

Now I know we don't want to encourage this sort of thing catching on in the C of E at Christmas but can I give a John Peelesque nudge for a corporate try at something authentic, worshipful, unapologetic and dare I suggest even 'new'. If Pete Townsend was giving the church some advice he might ask us about our A & R department and say, "Why don't you lot write some new Carols and sign some new bands?". "New?". Whatever next. As Matthew Parris said in his great article in the Times on Saturday we need to be a people who 'Stand up for our faith' and maybe that means some innovation whilst also clearly declaring the Gospel. Did I mention that the average age in the pew in the C of E is 61 and most, it's fair to say, do not enthuse about 'new' as the late John Peel used to. Never mind singing about a bleak midwinter- we're actually in one! As Craig Groeschl wonderfully says,

“All people [or churches] end up somewhere in life, but few end up there on purpose.”

I caught some of a debate about worship and 18 minutes in Piper is asked the question "Is worship for believers or non-believers?" No prizes for guessing his answer. I have been pondering this one for our Church plant. I think we should also be asking this question especially about our Carol Services don't you? Are they for us or are they for 'them'? However, is not the most important thing surely that our worship is in fact for God and what really matters is not if we like it or our visitors like it but that God likes it. That's the real test. How do we know the answer? Well, that's probably a different post and in the meantime you would do well to read this excellent book called Now to him: putting Christ back at the centre of our worship.

As I've been on about music, the Reformissionary has just released his Best albums of 2011 which are always worth checking out. I think John Peel would enjoy it.

Ten things as a starter kit for 2012

2011-12-19T11:06:00.000Z

A while back I wrote 30 things for a soul MOT.

Now is the time to start preparing our heart and minds for the things that may lie ahead in 2012. Here is a starter kit that might bless you.

1. Listen to 'Your plans God's plans'

2. Watch this

3. Plan to start using a journalling bible

4. Read 'Why work?' over Christmas.

5. Load these podcasts and sermons that have blessed me in 2011 onto your phone/pod for 2012: a. Keller on most things 2. Pete Grieg on praying 3. Jonathan Martin on church and life 4. Steve Furtick on the lost 5. Platt on discipleship 6. Groeschl on innovation and evangelism 7. Driscoll on Proverbs 7. MacDonald for teaching 8. Rich Nathan on growing and culture 9. John Peters on the Spirit 10. Ponsonby and Piper on Romans

6. Get hold of 'For the love God' and start using it on January 1st

7. Read 'How does the disciple live'

8. Plan a morning of solitude, Scripture and silence having listened to Running with the witnesses.

9. Listen to this while you peel your Christmas potatoes and stuff the turkey.

10. Read 'Three Questions on productivity' and 'Productivity is really about Good Works'. If you are one of those "This is the year to get organised"people then read 'Getting things done' and these posts on how to do it. If you are content to remain a bit higgledypiggledee (how do you spell that?) then just ignore Point 10.

What does it look like to repent and believe?

2011-12-18T08:06:00.003Z

Telling others is quite a passion in our church at the moment (and I hope always will be). A courageous lad convinced his RS teacher at school to let him speak about his Christian faith and then allow his class to ask any questions they wanted. The whole lesson was allocated to this. I don't know about you but I was doing lots of things when I was 14 and I have to say apologetics wasn't one of them. He showed this great testimony to his classmates. I also suggested this resource of Keller answering questions as part of his preparations.

Our Carol Service today @ 6.30pm here. All welcome.

For the pod: Why we all need the gospel

2011-12-17T10:24:00.003Z

I don't think I have ever shared this as a 'For the pod' quite simply because it is such a bone-shaking sermon called 'Why we all need the gospel'. I just love it that Francis Chan has the pluck to go to Piper's church and suggest that just maybe the pastors listening (it was a pastors conference!) may not actually be saved.

David Keen wrote this about a Chan quote I posted recently

"I hate the internet, life would be much more comfortable if I didn't keep coming across stuff like this."

Hold on to your hat David.............

Saturday Blog-sweep

2011-12-17T10:12:00.002Z

Is Cameron right to call Britain a Christian country? Cranmer has the whole speech for you to read

Kingdom People's Ten Favourite Reads of 2011

Massive on-line collaboration and Must-reads on the psychology of being (via J R Briggs)

4 ways to move ahead in the New Year instead of remaining stuck

Rules for Reverends now exceeds 100!

Jeff Vandersfelt on How to share your faith and on Life on mission

It's not that I have to it's that I get to

Churchill for pastors: 5 Leadership lessons (via Dash House)

"One crazy road trip where Jesus is the driver" says Mark Driscoll. Don't miss watching this insane documentary about the history of Mars hill. "Money stifles innovation" he says and the account of how Mars Hill got on the web is fascinating. If you want to plant a church you should probably watch this and if you don't once you've watched this you never know, one day, who knows? It couldn't be more crazy than this :)

How to apply Scripture when it does not apply directly and personally to you (via Preacher smith)

Why studying the Bible won't (necessarily) change your life

Tim Keller on coming together on Culture

How to use the iPad 2 as a typing machine (via Jesus Creed)

34 Hitchens quotes that probably won't offend you (the picture of him in the gym is utterly priceless!)

(via 22 Words)

The end of each year as the end of your life

2011-12-16T08:07:00.002Z

I can't stop thinking of Christopher Hitchens (1949-2011) this morning, a remarkable and engaging man and this obituary is worth reading.

Why plant churches? is the most read thing I've written all year amazingly. Today, I am meeting with the Bishop of Southwark to talk about church planting and mission which I am looking forward to. He has spiritual oversight over the whole of South London down to Reigate, Croydon, Greenwich, Richmond (about 7 million people the vast majority of whom have no contact whatsoever with the institutional church yet reside in its parishes). He certainly needs our encouragement and prayer in these days.

Nick Spencer wrote this in the Guardian on Wednesday in relation to the new British Social Attitudes Survey.

'I feel it is incumbent on me to admit the following: the latest instalment of the annual British Social Attitudes (BSA) survey reads like a nightmare for anyone (like me) who is concerned about the future of the Church of England. Chapter 12 of BSA 28, published last week, feels more like an Anglican epitaph than a chapter of social analysis.'

Piper has some sobering thoughts and reflections in this film at the end of another year and his quote landed with me as I reflect about Hitchens, the C of E and think about my own 2012 and all there is to be done. It might make me (and you?) more focussed on what we should really all be doing and prioritising if we imagined next year as our last, as this one turned out to be for Hitchens.

"......the end of the year has occurred to me as the end of my life where I treat the end of a year as though this year were my life and it is now over and now I meet Jesus.....'

John Piper

(via Adrian Warnock)

Best reads of 2011

2011-12-15T07:00:00.000Z

1. The King's Cross: This has made first place not because it is by Tim Keller but because it is the book that seems to have brought most blessing and encouragement to others in 2011. I have been recommending it constantly all year to my church and as 'Live Life', our discipleship group, we have studied the gospel of Mark together because of it. As ever with Keller, it is a grace-saturated, faith-inducing read that has become my 'give-to' book for new believers in order to get them off the runway on the fundamentals of the gospel. Give this book away to anyone and everyone who you want to know Jesus and grow in their love and knowledge of Him. You could do much worse than choosing to read this as a husband and wife or with a friend or simply as a 'remember again' read on the good news. We must always be a people who are 'remembering again'. Real treasure lies for you within these pages, I promise you that. The nicest story I heard about someone being blessed by this book is of a wife being truly overwhelmed witnessing her husband sitting in bed next to her reading the King's Cross. She could never in a million years have imagined such a scene. You have people in your lives, families and offices you think will never know Jesus don't you? GIVE THEM THIS BOOK, pray like billy-ee-o (how do you spell that?) and see what happens.

2. Bonhoeffer: It is hard to capture how this book impacted me as it seems to still be working itself out. I have discovered that biographies are so often the 'way-in' to a writer, particularly if you've never read any of their books. The next one on my list is this one. It worked that way for me with Edwards and Lloyd-Jones and was the same with this but something altogether more profound went on. This is not just the Bonhoeffer story. It tells the chronicle of his times with all it's infamous horrors and the architects of it, who include the German church. Have you ever wondered how such a thing as the holocaust could ever be enabled to happen? This will explain it for you and terrify you as it tells what happens to a nation when the church rests in passivity and collusion with its pervading culture. When the church ceases to preach the gospel be very afraid. There are some wonderful insights into the whole theological story of the early twentieth century, if that sounds a bit dull to you, it won't be. You will also get to know Karl Barth reading this and also many others who were on the European and American scene. The battles that are now playing themselves out Bonnhoeffer so accurately predicted. He was indeed a prophet and one who we should all turn our ears to afresh in order to perhaps better understand our own times. A shout out to Gary for putting me on to this- thank you!

3. Unbroken: This is story of one of the most incredible lives ever lived. Louie Zamperini was an athlete, a pilot, a prisoner of war and a wonderful man of faith. It is extraordinary what he went through and survived, as though he almost lived three lives in one. I am not sure why I connected so much with Zamperini, perhaps it was because my own father was a prisoner of war in Korea. The tales that are told of his torture by the Japanese were harrowing but were also amazing because of his courage and resilience. My father survived similar things and always viewed the rest of his days as his 'second life' which managed to produce me. Always behind this story and all our stories is the steady hand of God's providence and the battle that there is over each of our souls. If you have known anything of the grace of God and have experienced the new birth you will be familiar with how we all fight but happily eventually lose. Zamperini is not different from you and I on that one and how it plays out is compelling stuff.

5. Fresh wind Fresh Fire: This has been more than just a book to me and I discovered it through Steve Furtick, who might just get the new podcast of the year award. He tells the story of what he has come to call his 'Page 23 Vision' that he had while reading this book at his parents kitchen table aged 16. He has since gone on to plant Elevation Church and spoke this year at Willow Creek to 100k leaders across he world. Not bad to get all that done by the age of 32. Now, I have no aspirations to run a mega church but I do however long to pastor a church that prays and expects the kingdom to come. As I am embarking on planting one in 2012 this book will be a continual reference point for me to keep myself and my people on the task of calling on the name of the Lord. Why is this book so special to me? On the morning that I watched 'Page 23 Vision' and this baptism film which incidentally made my heart burn I resolved to finally get around to reading Cymbala's book. THAT VERY MORNING our ex-church warden Andrew, who now lives in Egypt, was in church for one day only. He marched up to me with a smile and thrust Fresh wind Fresh fire into my hand telling me I just had to read it. He has never given me a book before or since. In that moment, God got my attention.

6. The Papa Prayer: 'The true centre of prayer, its real point , is relating to God' so says Larry Crabb. We all have lots of questions about prayer and if, like me, you have been following Jesus for a while the list grows longer not shorter. Yes some amazing things, but these are married with non-answers, confusions and seemingly wrong answers in some instances. Crabb asks lots of the things we have all thought but never quite managed to put into words. Deep pastoral things come to mind as you read this and you will be reminded of specific people and particular seasons of prayer where maybe prayer has not seemed to do what it says in the book (it does exactly what it says in fact and this will help you see that). His basic thesis on praying seems to be 'Come as you are' not as you think God wants you to come. If you are in a mess- tell him, angry- tell him, happy -tell him. Reading this reminded me a little of the fantastic book Answering God that Peterson wrote on the Psalms. Papa prayer also tells us again who it is we pray to. He quotes John Piper saying 'No man stands on the edge of the Grand Canyon and says, 'Aren't I something!' I hope lots of you who want to explore prayer more honestly and to pray more fervently and enjoyably will be blessed by this book. Paul wrote 'Devote yourselves to prayer being watchful and thankful' (Col 4:2) and I hope that will be so for you having read this helpful book. Be devoted to prayer dear friends.

7. The One Thing You Need to Know: I do enjoy a business/management book every now and again and came across Buckingham through the Willow Leadership Summit. He used to work in research and is now a guru with a great belief that we should be about our strengths and not our weaknesses. I have struggled on this one and am often foolishly hoping I may become someone I know my weaknesses are never ever going to let me be. Nor should they. If you want to read one book on leadership, management, vision and all the other bits on bobs you could not do better than this one. It's packed with all sorts of great quotes and illustrations and some really helpful advice on doing life a bit better and more effectively. Although I am probably more Eugene Peterson than Bill Hybels, the Bishop's in the C of E could well do with putting this on their Christmas lists particularly on Vision (how to develop a clear one). Buckingham tells us of 'The Stockdale Paradox' which is 'a willingless to look at the brutal reality of a situation but remain hopeful that one will overcome it'. Doesn't the C of E need a bit of that right now. If you think it's time for you to do a little less 'being' and a tad more 'doing' this will certainly put a bit of zip in your doo-dah.

8. Serious Times: Every now and again you read a book and as you are reading it you think of people you would like to give it away to in the hope that they will read it too. I do that rather a lot with books and I am sure most of them remain unread on the bookshelves and bedside tables of those I give them to. Why did 'Serious times' make my pulse race? Well, it's because it is a book about how to have a significant life. A life that is called, a life that sacrifices and a life that makes an impact. Who doesn't want a life like that? I have a burden for such lives because my own life languished and, in so very many ways still languishes, in ineffectiveness in its response to the gospel. I long for my life and those lives I pray for and try to encourage to be gripped with a single-minded abandonment to the gospel of Jesus Christ. This book reminded me of that and offered me a narrative on how that might come to be.

9. Rumors of God: experiencing the kind of faith you've only heard about: This is a late entrant onto the list and came as a recommendation from the excellent blog of J R Briggs who may get my 'best new blog find' prize for this year. The first thing you need to get over is that they have spelt the title of the book wrong but once you've done that there is so much to enjoy. This is written by two pastors and is worth reading just for the story told in the first chapter. Reading it reminded me of how I felt when I read the prostitute story in those first pages of 'What's so amazing about grace?' that is probably imprinted on most of our minds. These two men come across as thoughtful, dynamic and gifted pastors and each chapter has something original to say. Recently, I complained that so many Christian books steal from the same narrow canon of authors but this is not the case here. It is full of good teaching, interesting quotes, new angles on things and encouraging stories. It is well worth popping on the list of the books you plan to read in 2012.

9. One Day: This is a novel that I read in one sitting travelling on the Eurostar from La Rochelle to Paris and parts of it made me laugh out loud. I am not sure if that's because so much of the content seemed strangely familiar to me or because the time-frame is one that I almost exactly lived through. Sometimes these lad/chick-lit reads can be rather predicable, smutty and are often incredibly poorly written. Not so with this one. It is packed with emotion, cultural commentary and good humour. On the serious side, so many people in my city and my parish live lives like this. In fact, there are Tribes of them and I love this tribe and have a heart for them because in some ways it's my own. But the life lived as this herd of people doing and buying the same things as every one else, when it all comes down to it there is nothing eternal, little that lasts and not much that is redeeming to show from it all. This book makes me want to make that different. Perhaps that is not Nichols' is point however it is the one I took out. Oh, and some idiot let an American make this film and I can't yet bring myself to watch it. Yorkshire accent surely means Yorkshire accent . It is no doubt an unquestionable disaster on the screen as this form of English humour almost never translates into American. Apologies to my American readers, who I love dearly, but it's true on this one I'm afraid.

10. The Pastor: One of my favourite pastors is Eugene Peterson. He became famous for his contemporary translation of the Bible called 'The Message' but he is much better known if you happen to be a pastor as a writer of books around what 'being a pastor' actually means. I have read most of them and each one has been a blessing and I have also enjoyed his amazing five part series of theology. A Christian life that never walks its way through 'A long obedience in the same direction' is a barren one. However, this is the book most Peterson fans have all been waiting for, the story of his life. He must be over eighty yet still manages to write such beautifully crafted sentences about what it means to live and work out this Jesus life. In recent years, like so many when they get a bit older, I think he has just had a bit of fun writing attributions for books that he knows are going to get lots of people hot under the collar ('The Shack' and 'Love wins' just to name a couple). I don't think he gives two hoots what anyone thinks about him which is why I like him so much. He has tons to teach our non-reading business/gadget/iMac generation of pastors with all their techniques and schemes about what we are all actually supposed to be doing. Sadly most are too busy tweeting to bother listening to his advice and giving time to read the books he recommends. He introduced me to John Calvin among many others. The truth is, I am enjoying this book so much I have not yet finished it and have been reading it all year. It is one to be savoured. So what might be his summary advice to pastors from the extraordinary life he has lived? Maybe this: "Teach your people to pray" but I will tell you for sure when I have actually finished it.

Best reads 2009

Best reads 2010

Love without a 'then'

2011-12-14T08:31:00.000Z

I've been turning this over in my mind:

'Scripture teaches that people are saved by grace through faith-they're not saved by faith through grace. I once heard a pastor say it like this: "Grace creates conditions for faith; faith does not create the conditions for grace". In other words it is God's kindness toward us in the midst of our guilt that enables us to believe in him; it's not the expectation that once we believe in him, then he will be kind to us. God loved us when we are still his enemies, not once we have it all together.

The gay community hears the church say: "Change your ways, then God will love you" The Muslim community hears: "Change your ways, then we will love you." The atheist hears :Believe in God, then he will love you." But what Jesus actually says is, "I love you now. As you are. Come to me. Receive my grace."

You don't have to change for God to love you. God loves you as you are. This is what enables you to change. Paul said: God's kindness is intended to lead you to repentance" It is not faith, then grace; it's grace, then faith'

Rumours of God, Whitehead and Tyson

Best sermon of 2011

2011-12-13T08:24:00.003Z

I confess the best talk that I listened to this year was one that I had very low expectations of. We took a crowd to see Jesus Culture at the Hammersmith Apollo. I am unsure at the best of times about the idea of a touring worship band and assumed the talk might be a little bit of a 'me-centred' bless up. Anyway, with my Charismaniac-omter fully cranked to high I set out for a jolly and, so I thought, fairly unchallenging night out. How wrong I was. How very wrong. The talk given by Banning Leibscher entitled 'Bikes, bartering and baking cookies' was one of the most challenging things I have heard in a long while and the young people sitting all around me were left dumb struck. It might just have been a word for me (a far from young person) and the place I was in but I think it may be more than that hence I share it with you.

In summary, because I know many of you won't be able to hear it- Christ wants all of you and me and you need to submit fully and give him your all. This was his word to the assembled young people, "He calls you come and die" he told us "totally and utterly. This talk and the fourth chapter of Crazy love about the lukewarm have been the two wrecking balls for my plans for a nice comfortable gospel and nice comfortable life (which of course I am still desperately trying to hold on to like a drowning man grabbing onto a buoy as the tide goes out). I know preaching is a dish best served live so it might not translate on DVD but it's good stuff. I think the only way you can listen to the talk is to buy the album Awakenings but there you go. It's stunning.

"Lukewarm people do not live by faith; their lives are structured so they never have to. They don't have to trust in God if the unexpected happens-they have their savings account. They don't need God to help them-they have their retirement plan in place. They don't genuinely seek out what life God would have them live-they have life figured and mapped out. They don't depend on God on a daily basis-their refrigerators are full and, for the most part, they are in good health. The truth is their lives wouldn't look much different if they suddenly stopped believing in God."

Francis Chan, Crazy love

Telling others

2011-12-12T09:49:00.001Z

So many are trying to get things all together in time for Christmas so that it's just perfect. You know those ad's (apart from this one) that are glowy, smiley and completely untrue. Sadly, what they mostly precipitate these days is an increased credit card debt trying to live this unattainable dream. Perfect house, perfect tree, perfect presents for the kids, perfect sumptuous food and all the 'right' perfect people around us. I honestly think that the greatest lie of this time of year is that perfect is actually achievable.

If you want something to jar you out of that delusion this sermon will and amazingly it went to Number 1 on iTunes downloads. A sermon about the crucifixion Number 1 on iTunes- who would have believed it (a deeply deeply full-on one to boot just so you're warned). However, at least a few more people might be awakening to the fact we are so very not perfect but for Jesus. There is only one who is perfect at this time of year and that is Jesus and he is alive and the saviour and hope of the world.

Every year when I worked doing a proper job I would invite friends in my office to our Carol service. Sometimes they even came. Then, when I resigned to start this chapter of the book, lots of people kept on asked me 'Why are you leaving?'. The summary for them was simply that God had called me to tell people about Jesus (Romans 10:14-15). I had to tell so many this that in the end I decided to write an email so that when someone asked I could simply say 'I'll send you my email.'

Here's the thing. I didn't want to leave having worked with friends for thirteen years and not have told them the gospel and the best way I came up with doing that was to write it out and email it to them. It potentially made for an interesting farewell when you have an internal email with over 3000 users (I decided in the end not to send it to 'All users' but nevertheless hundreds had got the email by the time I left). Imagine working next to people year after year after year and NEVER getting around to telling them about Jesus. Tons of people are in that place.

Now you don't have to be a weirdo and remember they have to work with you every day but they DO need at some point to hear the gospel and you are one of his followers and the way that happens is YOU TELL THEM or invite them to listen to someone like me who will do that for you. You are salt and light and in the absence of anyone else I'm afraid you're the messenger. You're the grand plan. You're it until Jesus finds a more suitable sinner to take the job. I have a renewed passion for this 'telling others' business having preached on the second coming last weekend. Please tell someone as the Spirit gives you a prompt to (and He will if you ask him to)

That email is called 'What's it all about?"and it's my best attempt to explain the gospel to people. I am sure a few Pharisee's will pick holes in my attempt but it is a fifteen minute read that I wrote as best I knew how back then for the people I worked with. I wrote it because I wanted them to believe in Jesus. Recently, a friend emailed my gospel essay to a friend in Hong Kong as a way of telling them the good news and it had a wee smidgen of power and another friend posted it on facebook as a way of telling his friends. Anyway, my passion remains that we must be a people who tell others and if my short-ish effort can help you tell your friends about Jesus then please do send it, post it to facebook and wait to see who might click, tweet it, email it or print it off and give it away. Perhaps combine it with an invitation to your Carol service and see what might happen. Alternately, for the visual types you could post this.

I love this time of year basically cos I get to tell lots of people who would never otherwise hear of Jesus about him. It's why I left my nice comfortable job and pension. Last week, I got to tell 250 parents of kids at a posh nursery the gospel. The nursery owner gives me three minutes, yes three minutes, to do that and I think it is the most important three minutes of my year. How many people responded? One. But was it was worth it? Oh how it's worth it. Amazing. It's truly truly amazing when anyone comes to know Jesus. May I never ever tire of it.

Wrestle

2011-12-11T08:17:00.001Z

We must wrestle earnestly in prayer, like men contending with a deadly enemy for life. —J.C. Ryle

For the pod: A sermon tattoo

2011-12-10T10:20:00.001Z

David Platt and his book Radical and his Secret Church have impacted me this year. I love his passion for disciple-making, community, mission and radically loving the poor and those in need. It's a great cocktail. He is however pretty full-on as you might expect of someone who calls his book 'Radical' and he would never be described as wooly.

He is anti-consumerism (in churches and of stuff) and is v good pals with Francis Chan and shares his Crazy Love outlook (incidentally Chan is speaking at New Wine this year which should put a rocket up us). Having spent yesterday in the Westfield Centre I confess I am with them on the consumerism.

He is very single-minded about disciple-making and this talk lays out the Vision God has given his church.

Some talks you listen to have an illustration that stays with you and this one has one that will be with me for quite a while. Here's my question to you? Have you ever felt the urge to tattoo something you heard in a sermon on your body? No, I didn't think so. It's what you might call having a lasting impact as a preacher. This talk is worth listening to just for that story but it is also very good teaching and full of passion.

Enjoy being very challenged.

Saturday blog-sweep

2011-12-10T09:40:00.001Z

Seth Godin: The world has completely changed in the last five years

Kevin de Young's top books of 2011 and his best read of the year and some sneak peaks and some others best reads

Hitchens on what he's learned from Cancer

Why cynicism might kill a generation

Practical ways to avoid consumerism this Christmas

A divine slap in the face

Six things I wish I had known when I started leading small groups

Making reading a family affair

Are you righteous?

A digital nativity

Mike Breen on Church as family

Pray-as -you-go

2011-12-09T08:29:00.001Z

Two of the Men on Mountains did an Ignatian silent retreat as part of Sabbaticals from Vicaring. One was more temperamentally suited to it that the other and I'm not sure I wouldn't go completely insane being silent for 30 days:)

Today I introduce you to the Jesuits (God's marines).

Tons of people struggle with the idea or discipline of 'a quiet time' don't they? Maybe you are one of them.

'Pray as you go' is a potentially fresh way you can pray, listen to Scripture read and very simply prepare your heart and mind for each day.

It very simply sets the lectionary reading into a format for prayer, music and reflection that you can then pop on your ipod. If you are someone who might want to grab 15 minutes with God and perhaps you have struggled to find a workable way to do that.

Maybe you are a mum with young kids but you might be able find ten minutes or you have a commute on a train or bus that you could redeem or you might just want a new fresh means of spending time with God.

You can walk across a park doing this, or sit on a bench or take 10 in a pub or a coffee shop or listen in the car. It might just be something you have on the pod to do every now and again. Anyway, I hope it may be a blessing to some so why not give it a go and see how you get on.

Available as a podcast on iTunes.

How to transform a nation

2011-12-08T08:29:00.001Z

Finished and sent off my CV.....

I read this post called 'What happened to the book reviews' by Tim Challies and couldn't agree more. If you're a bit of a reader you will soon start to notice that the pool of Christian books draw from the same, fairly limited, canon. The quotes from Lewis, Chesterton and others continually reappear which is not in and of itself wrong but just goes to show that only the few are able to write anything original or with quotes you have not read before.

A friend tells me my sentences are too long so I am putting On writing on my Christmas list. I told him to read Ephesians 1 and that Paul's written Greek could also be a bit lengthy :) Also, if you want to see a man who has done a bit of reading then check out Rick Warren's personal library. For years, so he tells us in this fascinating interview called 'How to stay mentally fresh for ministry' he read at least a book a day. Is this perhaps a contributing factor to his being possibly the most influential pastor alive and the author of the world's best selling non-fiction book? See him interviewed here about the Purpose driven life.

If you are interested (which you probably aren't), the best non-fiction book I have ever read is Peter the Great by Robert Massie. It is a massive tome and I read it day after day every evening lying on a sofa in my flat in Moscow. He remains an inspiration for me and he literally transformed his nation. So imagine my joy to discover that Robert Massie, now 82, has written the biography of Catherine the Great. This one is also going on the Christmas list.

Now of course, there are not many who manage to transform a nation. It takes creativity, courage, new thinking, battles, rule breaking, preparation, learning and resilience. Peter the Great has all those things and, it has to be said, an extreme partying and vodka habit. Wouldn't it be a thing if someone felt called to do that for the Church of England (apart obviously from the Vodka and prostitutes:).

Andreas Whittam Smith of the Church Commissioners said this to General Synod:
“I have seen large companies perfectly and impeccably manage themselves into failure. Every step along the road has been well done.

“Every account is neatly signed off.”

Then finally they find they have “gone bust”, he said. “I sometimes feel the Church is a bit like that.”

He added: “I wish that all of us would have a sense of real crisis about this.”

(h't David Keen)

Now would be a good time for a Peter or a Catherine or even a Warren don't you think?

The Way

2011-12-07T09:53:00.001Z

One day I am blogging about an 18C Puritan Calvinist, the next I am bigging up a film about Catholic/Spiritual/ Life pilgrimage. I am either confused or interesting you'll just have to decide. Anyway, last night I gathered with some friends to eat and watch the film 'The Way'. I found it to be a truly wonderful and moving experience that brought tears to my eyes. A tale of broken-ness, loss, friendship, community, simplicity, life, death and faith. If you can't think of anything for your Christmas list do put this on it. Interestingly, I am also reading a book given to me by a Catholic friend called 'Letters from the desert' that seems rather providential timing. He often despairs at my Protestant ways :) Much to reflect on currently. Oh and I've been reading the BCP 'Ordering of Priests' to get the job spec for my CV.....

For the pod: The Chieveley Profundity

2011-12-06T08:39:00.001Z

Yesterday I wrote my CV for an interview I have next week (don't ask). Now that's a funny old business. I always remember Dan Allender saying in Leading with a limp that if, like St Paul, you started your CV by saying 'I am the worst of sinners' (1 Tim 1:15-16) no one would ever give you a job. I wondered about whether or not selling a container of Silk Cut while living and working in Moscow to a slightly scary man from Armenia in mid-1993 was relevant to the role of Clerk in Holy Orders in the C of E. I have decided to leave that specific incident off for the time being but it certainly ticks the box for the Pauline qualification. Oh, and he had a gun in his briefcase. Also, do you think I can list the fact that I can do the highland fling under 'Achievements'?

Anyway, on now to the pod recommendation. I remember spotting a funny looking man on the cover of a book in the biography section of a Christian book shop and for whatever reason I bought it. His name was Jonathan Edwards. He would, no doubt, have told me I bought it by the providence of God and it is providence too that you are reading these words about him :) Now, I probably should have been cautious about reading a book about a man who wears a curly wig but through its pages I was introduced to an extraordinary mind, pastor, thinker and theologian and great friend of George Whitfield who is my preaching hero. Here though is a warning- reading Edwards is really rather hard as I discovered when I decided to do an essay on 'The nature of true virtue'. It is a pig of an essay to read (which I had to do about seven times before I came anywhere near to comprehending what he was on about). Why bother doing any of this you may wonder? Well.....

1. He is possibly one of the top ten theologians, if not minds, of all time
2. Most of the things that prompt you to start a sentence, "I wonder what..." Edwards has looked into the Scriptures and all of the thought that was available to him and pondered it better than you and I will ever probably manage- even with Google.
3. People are still reading him avidly three hundred years after he went to glory which might tell you something. The same may not be the case for Joel Osteen or Joyce Meyer, but I am happy to be proven wrong.
4. He was making sense of charismatic woop-up's long before John Wimber ever came along and his reflection on the Religious Affections has yet to be bettered.
5. Everyone should have at least one friend who wears a curly wig.

This talk called 'Sweet sorrrow: The happy root of holy living' unlocked a truth that was deeply deeply profound for me. It happened, just so that you know, as I drove past Chieveley Services on the M4 on Saturday which is an unnecessary but amusing detail to share. Now the talk is by John Piper who I know, because lots of my readers tell me, is not everyone's cup of tea. On this one though, might I suggest you cut dear John and his, at times, unfortunate manner and views some slack. Piper's statement in this talk that Edwards knew something at 20 that 99% of pastors will never comprehend let alone their congregations made me truly sit up and listen. I think it might be where he got his thought for 'Don't waste your life' which if you haven't watched you should. It might prevent you ending up old collecting shells....

Now, when it comes to the Chieveley profundity, as it will henceforth be known, Piper had to say it three times and translate the sentence from the Edwards sermon into his own words and then explain it twice. In short, you really will need your thinking caps on for this one my friends- Edwards is no Yancey, Ortberg or Hybels (all of whom I love) but may I commend you to make the effort and fire up the old grey matter for this one. If you get this thought and then read Ephesians in one sitting I guarantee your world will be a different place. Perhaps a comfortable chair with pen and paper, a long walk in the park with the pod, an hour in a coffee shop with a journal, a drive up a great British motorway (if you choose the M1 you might have your own 'London Gateway' services moment, formally known by its proper name as 'Scratchwood' if I'm being a true service station pedant, or indeed you may have a Newport Pagnell revelation) This isn't an easy talk but it really is potentially life changing.

So what I am so excited about? It's the fact that God is more pleasurable and contains more joy than anything else you can experience in this life. Now I have known this for some time and hence changed the whole course and vision of my life because of it but the penny dropped for me in a fresh way. And I agree with Piper that most Christians don't get this at all which is why they are more excited about their loft conversion than Jesus. The Edwards thought is kind of summarised in this quote from Rumours of God: experiencing the kind of faith you've only heard about (which may well make a late entry onto my list of books of the year) and if you have no idea what Piper is on about reading this excerpt might tell you the same thing in a rather more accessible way.

'Let me guess. You would like to have more money-financial stability, a comfortable living environment, perhaps a newer car. You'd have a progressing career, be respected in your field. You'd like to have emotionally healthy friends, who are energetic, encouraging, spontaneous and fun. Maybe you'd wish to change something about your appearance- lose a few pounds, be taller more athletic. If you're single, you might desire to find a life partner, someone supportive, kind and attractive (not just on the inside).

Maybe you want to have kids. Or maybe you already have kids and you want them well-educated, high-functioning, successful, well-mannered children who do better in school than your friend's kids

Or perhaps you'd like to be famous and influence millions of people around the world for the greater good.

There's nothing inherently wrong with these dreams. They are the carrots the media dangle in front of us. But what's interesting is that for the most part, the desires and dreams of Christians are the same as non-Christians. Essentially we are dreaming and longing for the same things. This seems odd- shouldn't we be different from non-Christians. Shouldn't our dreams be fuelled by a different story?"

They should indeed. Oh my goodness, truly they should indeed.

If this awakens in you a desire to know a bit more about Edwards you might like to start on the George Marsden's A short life of Jonathan Edwards.

These talks are also well worth checking out:

Pursuing a passion for God through Spiritual Disciplines: Learning from Jonathan Edwards

A God-entranced vision of all things: Why we need Jonathan Edwards 300 years later

Interview with Piper on Edwards

Jonathan Edwards: The life, The man and The legacy

What we lack

2011-12-05T08:00:00.001Z

"Does anyone think that we today lack preachers, books, bible translations and neat doctrine statements? What we really lack is the passion to call upon the name of the Lord until he opens up the heavens and shows himself powerful"

Fresh Wind, Fresh Fire, Page 150

Cutting against the grain

2011-12-04T08:53:00.001Z

"One does not escape that easily from the seduction of an effete way of life. You cannot arbitrarily say to yourself, I will not continue my life as it was before this thing, Success, happened to me. But once you fully apprehend the vacuity of a life without struggle you are equipped with the basic means of salvation. Once you know this is true, that the heart of man, his body and his brain, are forged in a white-hot furnace for the purpose of conflict (the struggle of creation) and that with the conflict removed, the man is a sword cutting daisies, that not privation but luxury is the wolf at the door and that the fangs of this wolf are all the little vanities and conceits and laxities that Success is heir to—-why, then with this knowledge you are at least in a position of knowing where danger lies."

Tennessee Williams 'The Catastrophe of Success'

Saturday Blog-sweep

2011-12-03T10:06:00.001Z

I would love to read more, But.... (via Dash House)

Keller speaks to Google about the Meaning of Marriage

Contemporary youth work created the Emerging Church?

The Luke 10 Project

Seven ways Satan tries to destroy a Church

5 reasons to use a bound Bible in Church (via Jesus Creed)

The Gary Speed suicide

How to shrink your Church (via Challies)

Where I find refreshment and Who do you need on your planting team (via J R Briggs)

It's all done

2011-12-01T10:39:00.001Z

One thing matters

2011-11-30T09:17:00.000Z

"There is only one relationship that matters, and that is your personal relationship to a personal Redeemer and Lord. Let everything else go, but maintain that at all costs, and God will fulfil His purpose through your life. One individual life may be of priceless value to God's purposes, and yours may be that life"

Oswald Chambers, My utmost for his highest

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Amazon: an astonishing business story

2011-11-30T08:37:00.001Z

Thanks to Michael Hyatt for this extraordinary infographic about Amazon.

Four books on Marriage

2011-11-29T09:52:00.001Z

1. The Marriage Book: This is the book of the Marriage Course which is a hugely fruitful ministry to married couples. A friend says that doing the Marriage Course was the best decision she has made for her marriage and she and her husband found it to be such a help and blessing. This is a book that is really good to give to anyone, be they Christian or not, and is packed with wisdom on cultivating a healthy relationship. Excellent also for those who are preparing for marriage as a primer on what they might be in for.

2. The Meaning of Marriage: I was first introduced to Keller through a beaten up old cassette tape about relationships a dear lady in my church gave me and it contained such vast amounts of wisdom that I tracked down his church and bought a set of sermons. I wanted to hear him teach the Bible and the rest is history. This book is one you might want to work through week by week as a 'date-night' read in 2012 and I can't imagine it will not be a massive blessing. One to perhaps to give friends for Christmas?

3. The Real Marriage: One of Mars Hill's most podcasted sermon series is the Peasant Princess. It contains some subjects you will not have heard discussed before in church and offers very candid views about sex and relationships. This is the book of the talks and will be nothing if not controversial but is worth checking out, least of all because of the massive popularity of the talks which seemed to strike a cord with so many. As with most matters Driscoll, it will land in the 'love it or hate it' category but few will probably remain indifferent.

4. The Sacred Marriage: Perry Noble described this as the best book he had ever read on marriage. I came across Gary Thomas reading the excellent Sacred Pathways and he certainly writes well and clearly. I have bigged this up in the past and it seems worthy of being on this list.

Charismatics have more fun?

2011-11-28T08:37:00.001Z

When I say more fun I need to qualify that by saying theologically. Sally posted this quote and I have been mulling on it. I tend to agree but then as a charismatic I would say that wouldn't I. My thought is that there are dangers either way. It's easy to put things down to experience and neglect the mind as is a tendency for charismatics but also one can be all mind and no encounter which can produce brittle and harsh people who lack love. If you want a context for the quote you can listen to Godpod 64 which is where the statement comes from.

By the way, if you fancy starting to dip your toe into theology (particularly if you are minded to think this theology and apologetics stuff is for someone else who is clever) you should start podcasting 'The Godpod'.

"What impressed me about many Christians in the charismatic tradition is that for them the heart of their faith was not a doctrinal idea or a statement but a lived encounter with God through the Holy Spirit, and in that context theology becomes really quite fun and creative because you're not arguing over it because you have this deeper common experience of God in Christ through the Spirit, and theology is just trying to describe it. Many charismatics seemed more open to learn, open to think and explore rather than getting tied down over tight doctrinal statements over which they would argue with one another. The charismatic tradition has it's problems like any other but the thing I love about it that it says that the heart of faith is an encounter with God. It places God and our relationship with God at the heart of things rather than our ideas about God"

Rev Dr Graham Tomlin Dean of St Mellitus theological seminary

Engaging with the debate of our times: Lennox v Dawkins

2011-11-27T16:40:00.001Z

A teenager in our church with a passion for apologetics sent me this fascinating debate (I did myself out of my Sunday afternoon nap to watch it after witnessing his enthusiasm!) You might want to point similarly-minded young people in your church with an interest in this area to Ask and the excellent work of the Zac Trust.

You could do a lot worse than gather a group together on both sides of the argument and watch this lively and informative discussion and then all go for a pint or a coffee and talk about it. If you want a 'one stop shop' on the question of our times this debate comes pretty close.

For the pod: Rob Bell's 'New Calling New Venture'

2011-11-26T15:14:00.001Z

If you have not heard of Rob Bell welcome-this is called the Internet.

He is the founding pastor of Mars Hill Bible Church, (not to be confused with the other Mars Hill), the creator of Nooma and writer of many books including the infamous 'Love Wins'. Michael Patton had an interesting recent reflection called "Why we love C S Lewis and hate Rob Bell?"

I can remember where I was when I watched the first Nooma film called Rain and being very moved by it. After that, for a season, I came across his films everywhere as people showed them to youth groups, at church events and even in services. While I was living in Canada for a summer some years ago I gave someone the film 'Matthew' when they told me of their suffering following the suicide of their brother. It helped them grieve. Some time later they became a Christian I happily heard.

I am not with him on everything by any means, but it is unquestionable that Bell has had one of the greatest impacts on the cultural landscape of contemporary Christianity as anyone around. You've got to have a bit of pluck to preach through Leviticus as your first sermon series. There are those who don't think he's frightfully sound and on some things he's not, but the fact this annoys some in certain tribes so much seems to be all part of his enormous appeal and it'll always get you a gig at Greenbelt.

I do particularly love his recovery of the discipline of Sabbath that he shared in the edgy Velvet Elvis and each of us should probably have his quote on our fridge doors to remind us to take rest weekly and seriously (especially if you are a work-a-holic evangelical pastor as Bell is/was. Only you can decide if the 'was' refers to evangelical or pastor:)

"There are so many layers to the healing of the soul. One practice that has brought incredible healing is the taking of a Sabbath. Now when we read the word Sabbath, most of us think that the real issue behind the Sabbath isn’t which day of the week it is but how we live all the time.

I decided to start taking one day a week to cease from work. And what I discovered is that I couldn’t even do it at first.

I would go into depression.

By the afternoon I would be so . . . low.

I realized that my life was all about keeping the adrenaline buzz going and that I was only really happy when I was going all the time. When I stopped to spend a day to remember that I am loved just because I exist, I found out how much of my efforts were about earning something I already have.

Sabbath is taking a day a week to remind myself that I did not make the world and that it will continue to exist without my efforts.

Sabbath is a day when my work is done, even if it isn’t.

Sabbath is a day when my job is to enjoy. Period.

Sabbath is a day when I am fully available to myself and those I love most.

Sabbath is a day when I remember that when God made the world, he saw that it was good.

Sabbath is a day when I produce nothing.

Sabbath is a day when I remind myself that I am not a machine.

Sabbath is a day when at the end I say, “I didn’t do anything today,” and I don’t add, “And I feel so guilty.”

Sabbath is a day when my phone is turned off, I don’t check my email, and you can’t get ahold of me.

Jesus wants to heal our souls, wants to give us the shalom of God. And so we have to stop. We have to slow down. We have to sit still and stare out the window and let the engine come to an idle. We have to listen to what our inner voice is saying."

Bell then took his theology on the road and played rock stadiums for Emergents. But the truth is it all really kicked off when he decided to write his book on heaven and hell called 'Love Wins'. He went global. We've been there and tweeted that.

Recently though, a friend recommended a talk he gave to Mars Hill called New Venture New Calling which I listened to and really enjoyed on a car journey. There are surely few better communicators around whatever you make of the content of his sermons (many of which have blessed me over the last decade) and books. This tells you the whole story of Mars Hill and announces the story that is yet to begin for him in LA.

Grace and peace to you Rob for the next thing. I am quite sure this is not the last we will hear of you, despite Piper's famous tweet. You're probably not done yet.

Saturday blog-sweep

2011-11-26T14:23:00.001Z

The Nativity Factor

Common grace and Amazing grace

Four books

When you aren't sure what to do next

Eight traits of effective Church leaders (via Dash House)

Can Heretics be saved?

25 books on a napkin

Ravi Zacharias responds to a Muslim ( via Challies)

I feel distant from God

Roland Allen

Gratitude is free (via Kingdom People)

How to get out of that funk

Strangers

2011-11-25T08:52:00.001Z

As you might know, I am planning to plant a church with a few people, some faith and lots of prayer. We met for the first time in my friends home on Wednesday. Twenty years ago two of the people in the room were not Christians but they became so within months of each other in the same Church. I was one of them.

We were both influenced by, prayed for and discipled by the same man. His name was Andy and we had both played rugby with him. Recently, Andy met another of our mutual friends at a party in Salisbury having never met him before and quite by chance and by piecing together some information Andy was told the news that we were both still following Jesus and I was a Vicar. He was absolutely stunned. I met with Andy as an infant believer, he gave me a copy of Every day with Jesus for new Christians, we read the Bible together and he encouraged me on the way. We only did this a few timesas I remember and then I moved to another city and we lost touch.

Please watch Strangers and then have a look around you, ask the Holy Spirit and see if there is any one person you might be able to meet up with (and it might only be for a hand full of times) to be a friend to, to encourage and to bless them in their walk with or questions about Jesus. You never know, in twenty years time they might end up having a crack at planting a church :)

Discipleship is all about Jesus

2011-11-24T08:18:00.001Z

Discipleship is about loving Jesus.

I know I should make it more complicated than this but it seems to me that if you love Jesus with all your mind, heart and soul and give your best Spirit-filled shot at loving others too you will make a follower or two.

My discipleship lesson 1-0-1 of the day then is this........now wait for it.........love Jesus

It has always struck me that I got all the way through the selection process to be ordained in the C of E and no one ever asked me that simple question, "Do you love Jesus?" (John 21). Oops.

Fortunately I did and do.

I happened on this film of Kayleigh this week which I had not seen and didn't know she had made. Kayleigh is part of our church family and has come to love Jesus and seeing this encouraged me and many others greatly. I baptised her in the summer. This is I guess why I get out of bed in the morning. I am going to watch it on those days that come every now and then when a smidgen of encouragement is needed.

Resources for making disciples

2011-11-23T08:46:00.001Z

Downline resources look interesting as a means of making a few disciples upon the 'less is more' principle that I have been writing, praying and thinking about recently (h/t Provocations and pantings).

Make disciples

2011-11-22T09:26:00.001Z

Smoking

2011-11-22T08:48:00.001Z

"If you want to win this world to Christ, you are going to have to sit in the smoking section."

Neil Cole

How to make disciples

2011-11-21T09:03:00.001Z

This quote by Neil Cole has stuck with me over the past few months and I can't shake it.

"Ultimately, each church will be evaluated by only one thing - its disciples. Your church is only as good as her disciples. It does not matter how good your praise, preaching, programs, or property are; if your disciples are passive, needy, consumeristic, and not radically obedient, your church is not good."

Search and Rescue: Becoming a disciple who makes a difference

Radical by David Platt

How many people in our churches are thinking small? Most churches want to be big and most church leaders if you hang out with them for long enough will tell you how big there church is. There's even a conference for such churches which I'm sure serves a good purpose. However, it's not a relevant fact in the least it seems to me when it comes to the effectiveness of actually making a disciple in our increasingly consumerist church culture. The question you must ask is 'How are you getting on at making genuine and growing disciples?' and "Tell me HOW you go about doing that?" (large churches may indeed be able to help here but in my experience they are often just large gatherings of Christians very few of whom are proactively discipling another person. The truth is most people don't know how and don't feel confident enough to lead another in 'The Jesus Way'). I have been asking people/Vicars (who are people too:) that question of 'How' and have yet to find anyone who can give me an adequate answer to the question of what their plan is for encouraging and equipping disciple-making.

Here are two more questions for you that narrow this in a bit.

Who am I discipling ?

How am I discipling them?

Who should be asking these questions? Everyone who calls themselves a follower of Jesus. Now here is how you might do it.

1. Identify ONE PERSON

2. Start immediately to pray for them and go on doing so.

3. Ask them if they would like to meet to learn more about how to follow Jesus

4. "Therefore GO" (Matt 28). Agree to meet once every two or three weeks anywhere that mutually suits you both (a coffee shop, a station, a park, a lunch spot, a bench). The principle is you are going to them. You are the sent one and your movement is to them out of a desire to love, serve and make a disciple of Jesus.

5. Agree what you are going to do in the hour you are going to meet (read through a gospel or a letter, read through 'The Kings Cross', work through Galatians 5:22-23, Matthew 5-7, listen to these talks on Proverbs and discuss them, do a Discovery Bible Study etc. The specifics are not the main thing as there is no shortage of resource. Your overarching intention is to love and encourage another in the way of following and loving Jesus and to resource their soul led by the Spirit as a result of having spent time with them. Matthew 28:19-20 suggests discipleship should have two elements a. Teach b. Obey. So discipleship in its simplest expression is about imparting something of the teaching of Jesus and then actively choosing to put it into practice and holding each other to account to do so (Teach and Obey).

6. Agree ONE THING for each of you to do and pray together at the end of your time together.

7. Do this for two or three months. It is OK to set a time-frame to this.

If you do this and I do this and we teach others to do this too we might make one or two disciples don't you think? Do this one person at the time and be assured the fruitfulness of your life will be unfathomable.

The Shaping of things to come and The Forgotten Ways

Radical

2011-11-20T17:38:00.001Z

The man with the stick

2011-11-20T07:50:00.001Z

The Anglican Church is debating something called the Covenant. Nobody who doesn't come to church could care less I know. Most in the church couldn't either it seems and of course the documentation explaining what it is is utterly impenetrable and confusing. The sea of incomprehension in the faces of our PCC was a sight to behold. I have read it and, for what it's worth given the choice, I recommend going with our CEO Rowan and being in favour. Rebellion never works out that well as I read the story or did I miss something?

Basically, as I understand it which I may well not have, it is a call to remain orthodox (I know orthodox is sooooo last year) which the Windsor Report has already done. A bunch of people who don't want to remain orthodox (for cultural/theological reasons that they argue about with passion as Lesley does. I disagree with her but I do love her zeal) Those against Windsor decided to show the leadership of the Church where they could shove their report and did their own thing with seemingly very little consequence.

Instead of actually doing something about this act rebellion (or campaign for justice depending on how you view it) and heresy the C of E approach is, you guessed it, to produce another document. Now that was always going to be a belting idea. Your tracking with me here I can tell. The Covenant then is an attempt at calling the same bunch of people, some of whom are here and some the other side of the pond, to orthodoxy and, surely to no one's huge surprise, it's not going down that well (why would it when they have already told everyone what they believe albeit in my view that they are profoundly wrong). Though, let's be honest, simply as a stand alone document it is probably more interesting and informative reading the manual for my Bosch washing machine than the Covenant and this in itself isn't winning it many fans. You do always seem to produce an absolutely cracking read if you draft something by committee, particularly when it's a C of E one :)

Now on to more pressing matters. This is a conversation someone had with a girl this week in our local secondary school.

Q "Would you like to come to church with me some time?"

A "Come to church? Won't the man who holds the stick and walks up and down beat me for being bad. And anyway how much do you charge ?"

There are two worlds. Anglican Church world (weird looking men and women in dresses debating matters of Christendom such as the Covenant) and the real world that has long since checked out of any interest in such things, assuming they had any in the first place. The average age of a bum on a seat in the C of E is 61. I say that again 61.

We are now living in post-Christendom as 'The shaping of things to come' will tell you (arguably one of the most important books published in the last decade for those with an interest in mission)

"We're the minority and we have a message to change the world" says Mike Breen. Yes we are and indeed we do.

Wake up church. By the time we get this Covenant thingy agreed it may all be game over so why not debate being on mission and what it means to proclaim the gospel and then let's all get on with it shall we. This dear girl and one's like her living near you desperately need us to. Their souls depend on it.

Saturday blog-sweep

2011-11-19T12:35:00.001Z

Gladwell on Steve Jobs

Wesley on reading

What is the mission of the church?

The best ad you'll see this Christmas

The place of beer in Spiritual Warfare

10 resolutions to help you thrive in ministry

Tim Keller's message to Stott's memorial service

If you are busy you are doing something wrong (via Dash House)

One

2011-11-18T12:55:00.001Z

For the pod: Present Sufferings Future Glory

2011-11-17T07:42:00.001Z

Recently, I acquired a book that I have not yet read but will surely need to one day and until then it will sit on my bookshelf. It is called 'The Hardest Sermons you'll ever have to Preach'.

My friend is living through one of these dreadful moments following a tragedy in his church when his friend and colleague on the staff Joanna was knocked off her bicycle in Oxford and died in the street. Please pray for Simon and the community of St Aldates and for Joanna's family and friends as they walk through the aftermath together and do listen to 'Present Sufferings Future Glory' that he preached through tears from a text in Romans 8. Simon has been preaching through Romans for fourteen months and I commend this as some of the finest Bible teaching you will find in the Church of England. Available on itunes here.

I watched this short film a while ago of people on bicycles which has the strap-line 'Life is short' and as I have watched it anew it has moved me deeply for obvious reasons. Pray for St Aldates, for Charlie and Anita as they lead this extraordinary church that was such a blessing to me for two years, for the city of Oxford full of students living life which is indeed short and who need to hear the gospel of Jesus Christ so desperately in these days. Whilst the world says 'Life is short' we know that for Joanna, in the blinking of an eye, it wonderfully became an eternal reality. Pray for the proclamation of the Gospel in that great city and for his anointing on those tasked with preaching it. Personally, it has also prompted me to count my own days and use them as fruitfully and creatively as I can and to be thankful afresh for God's amazing mercy and goodness to me. May God use this heart-rending event and work it for good and for His glory.

Bethlehem Booking Hotline

2011-11-16T08:21:00.001Z

How good is this :)

Newton : My dead friend

2011-11-16T07:24:00.001Z

My story involves at one point my giving up my job to go and work for my local church. I was wholly unqualified for the task and knew nothing of theology or church practices or the nuances of the thing that is the Church of England. I genuinely has no idea what on earth the people who 'worked for the church' were supposed to do and floundered wondering what I should do apart from pray and read the Bible.

In those early difficult days suspecting my utter lack of competence for the job would soon be discovered , I happened upon a dead mentor- a man by the name of John Newton. I discovered him quite by chance (not that we believe in that) through a couple of sermons called 'Principles of Christian Growth 1' and 'Principles of Christian Growth 2' and immediately went and bought a copy of his letters. I have been dipping into them on and off ever since, particularly when I hit a situations that perplex me, which is almost all the time. What I have learnt from Newton is the things that assail my own soul and other people's souls are in fact exactly the same for him as they are for you and me.

So, if you are currently struggling with a secret sin or character trait or habit that you think you will never defeat, reading Newton will encourage you that he faced the same. If you are wondering how on earth you will attain maturity in the faith (Eph 4:13) and need a few tools to help you achieve this, he will be your helper. If you want to know how the gospel transforms your inner being and the process by which that occurs then Newton is a man who can give you a tip or two. If you feel amidst a battle with all its difficulties and snares Newton will explain to you the rules and means of combat. Finally, if you are a pastor or are involved in pastoring others and are looking for a one-stop shop handbook of wisdom for the job (if ever such a thing exists) then these letters will come as close as any to that. For all our whizz bang techniques, courses, prayer ministry, musical shows and all the dry ice of some parts of the contemporary church, the truth is walking out the gospel hasn't changed at all, it has never been easy and is unlikely to become so any time soon.

Imagine my joy then at finding this post called 'John Newton's Preface to Pilgrim's Progress' which for a Newton fan like me was the very happiest of discoveries. You see none of us when we make the decision to follow Jesus have any idea how hard it is going to be. Very few of us, particularly if you are a first generation follower, are prepared for the long journey and the painful surgery the Spirit has planned for our characters and souls. On many days one may, as I have often, feel like giving up or turning back (as Bunyan captured so brilliantly) but by amazing grace we each one of us really can and will be able to persevere. So if you need a companion to walk with you in the Spirit then I doubt you will find a much finer friend than John Newton and reading this preface today may be just the encouragement your soul needs to keep putting one foot in front of another.

The Harsh and Terrible Reality of Sex-Trafficking

2011-11-15T09:19:00.001Z

This film is a terrible window into the dreadful world of twenty first century slavery.

Happy? A quote that got into my sermon

2011-11-14T08:23:00.001Z

Vicky Beeching (here singing 'Yesterday, today and forever') is listing her favourite quotes which are well worth reading. This one struck me so hard it ended up in last nights sermon.

"Change while you have the chance"

Jack Welch

(h/t 22 Words)

Be here now

2011-11-13T17:06:00.001Z

Don't be somewhere else- 'Be Here Now'

For the pod: Like or love?

2011-11-12T07:04:00.001Z

It is no secret to readers of the blog that I have been working through the book of Luke as my day-off habit which amounts to nearly one hundred sermons (I have missed quite a few but have listened to a lot). I reflected at length on the content of one sermon and its preacher here (at the helpful prompting of a friend). I started on the journey because someone told me once to always be working through a gospel in some way or other and I happened upon this series of teaching which was just about to get going. Somehow or other I have stuck with it.

Yesterday, I spotted a quote by Adrian Plass that goes like this, "God is nice and he likes me" and I tweeted that I was pondering it. A Vicar pal wanted to know more about my thoughts. I will tell you why I was pondering it - it was because I had just watched a sermon and was still reeling. It is called Jesus' Crucifixion and Death.

If you have bothered, as I have, to listen to so much Bible teaching then this must surely be the one it all centres in on, that it revolves around and is the one that might explain the passion and at times offensiveness, in some people's eyes, of its preacher. The Cross is offensive and always will be (1 Corinthians 1:18). Facing that and coming to terms with that and owning your part in that and choosing to believe that the cross happened for you is what the Bible calls salvation. No one deserves it and so often it is those who truly realise how little they deserve who embrace the gospel. This is the sermon that it has really all been about (documented as Death by love). It made me think about my own life, my priorities in the time I have left, my preaching, it made me think about why the church you will see is full and yet so many others are empty and rarely see a converted soul from one year to the next. It made me wonder if I have made the Cross 'Of first importance....', it forced me to face my own sin and receive God's burning love anew. It shocked me and reminded of Gods extraordinary and indescribable goodness and it made Jesus's love profoundly real to me once again. It may well not do that for you but this sermon landed deeply on my heart.

When as a child my Vicar (a dear man as I always say) dressed up in that funny outfit, when he sung that liturgy rather off key, when he went through the same communion words week after week, when he shook my hand at the door and said 'See you next Sunday' and when I then watched the old ladies in hats on Songs of Praise later in the day this is the event that we had been reenacting and been thankful for. This is the event that means St Bottock's and Rev Bob-a-job's like me are here in the first place. We have come so far in some quarters since that day at Golgotha that we have even now managed to turn the gospel and the task of proclaiming it into a comedy called Rev that we are all chuckling along to. The Church to many in these days is not much more than a joke, when it should instead be a source of resurrection power. This is, I have to tell you, an incredibly important way to spend an hour of your life or 'the most important hour of your life' to quote the preacher. Alternatively you could watch the omnibus edition of Eastenders. Is "God is nice and he likes me" a reasonable descriptor? Love to me- amazing grace love -truly seems a better fit. Watch this and then only you can decide.

Saturday Blog-sweep

2011-11-11T19:16:00.001Z

The most important article on leadership ever written

How to make more time to read

Highlights of the Steve Jobs biography

How to pastor single people in your church

David Fitch on the King Jesus Gospel

Kellers talks from Berlin and on Gospel Polemics

Three important questions from N T Wright

Mike Breen on rethinking Seminary Training (listen up C of E.....listen up)

Write to understand

Disciples

2011-11-11T09:44:00.001Z

A pal recommended Neil Cole's Organic Church to me.

Epic Jesus

2011-11-10T08:58:00.001Z

This talk is still ringing in my soul weeks after hearing it. Here is a taster and one reviewer said he read 'Epic Jesus' in one sitting and it stirred in him a wonderfully renewed vision of Jesus and the gospel. He writes:

'The book is brief and should be read in a single sitting. It's powerful. It's really a summation of the gospel in all its glory, and a nice answer to those who think the gospel is simply the news that Jesus died for our sins. It is that, of course, but that fact is embedded in a greater story, and that story is good news from start to finish.'

This can all be done for just £2.88 which seems a bargain to me.

(h/t Wilderness Fandango)

Missional church: their needs not yours

2011-11-09T09:10:00.000Z

"You don't realize Jesus is all you need until Jesus is all you have."

Tim Keller

Three of us at our early prayer gathering @ 6.30 all woke at 3.30am and then couldn't go back to sleep which is a funny old thing. We prayed Psalm 40 together then went for breakfast. Recommended if you feel in a fix today -the Psalm not the breakfast :)

Sometimes people ask me how it is possible to find time to write a blog and why I bother? I tend to write a post first thing in the morning and I am generally up early with the lark. Other bloggers may be nocturnal types which I am not.

1. A blog can be a place that is easy to create. Actually, it doesn't take very much time to get a blog going and one like this could be up and running in 15 minutes and then it's a case of starting to write and share a few things. Google reader is the secret to my quick information collection.

2. A blog can be a place where you can pastor and influence for good. Many in the city are not 'in church' (whatever you think that means) except for an hour or two on a Sunday. A blog enables disciple-making Monday to Saturday as people do life which Jesus died and rose to give them in all it's fullness didn't he? Is it a profitable use of one's time you may ask? Who knows? I do wonder sometimes but it seems to bear quite a bit of fruit every now and then as people read some books, download talks and find ideas which does I suppose pass the John 15 test. I have a few Vicar pals who use Facebook in a similar pastoral way to promote theological debate but there is a lot of competing noise that there isn't with a blog. Facebook it seems can suck time away and leave you with little to show for it other than the 'I've just had a cup of tea' notifications. Mike Breen former Vicar of St Thomas Crooks in Sheffield (who sadly left these shores for the US) is a good example of someone using his blog as his main vehicle for communication and is fruitfully bringing influence and change through it to the wider church.

We do sometimes talk of being 'at church', organising people to 'do church' and turning up 'to serve the church' and do more 'for church'. Here's a brain-stewing thing. The church is a people who are sent out on mission and very many now live rightly or wrongly on social media. (1 Peter 2). Sally, who I was at Vicar Factory with, has turned her social media status into a thing of growing influence and celebrity, C of E style, and even appeared on You and Yours recently as well as often on Sky. Fame indeed:) Don't get me wrong 'I believe in preaching' and 'doing church' is important- some say on a good day I'm not half bad at it. I am currently immersed in a message on 2 Timothy 4:1-8. But there's more to the kingdom than just preaching and being very busy doing church there is connecting and understanding too.......

3. A blog can be a place where you can share some of yourself - thoughts, humour, reading, listening, concerns and experiences with any passers by. Some people have loads of bookmarks on their computer- I have a blog so you can see them too and share in them. It is also part diary and all-access spiritual journal.

4. A blog is a place where you can write. I enjoy writing and more recently people have encouraged me to do more of it. I reflect and work out questions on my mind about culture, theology, contextualisation (posh word for doing God stuff in a place), mission and church issues in this fine land and beyond. Sometimes I just write a bit and bob that strikes me.

5. A blog is a place that can resource others and accessibly store things. It fits the way God has shaped me as a resource investigator i.e a recommender (my BCofE employers spent £000's sending me on countless courses one of which was a day on Belbin). I have a lot of things I am enthused about, reading, thinking and you should be glad I bung it all here or I would be driving you mad with my badgering recommendations and enthusiasm.

6. A blog is a place that you can encourage others. I try to encourage friends (some of whom live in foreign parts), people in our church, pastors and leaders with a few things that quite frankly I pray might keep each of us all running the race and following Jesus. The race is a hard one if your experience of following Jesus has been at all like mine and many who are in leadership so often get burnt out or bereft of hope and ideas. My prayer is that this is a blessing to a few saints which is I think the grand plan of the Covenant.

7. A blog is a place where people who don't yet 'come to church' can hear about Jesus: I am amazed that 441 people have read 'What's it all about?' ('clicked on' is not the same thing as read I realise) which started life as an email I sent to my work colleagues nearly a decade ago whenever they asked why I was leaving to become a Vicar. It sits tucked away on the sidebar which is why I am so surprised. Were this a booklet among the thousands in a naff Christian bookstore no one would have read it. Do print it off, use it, send it, turn into into a leaflet, email it and share it if it's at all helpful to you in communicating the gospel to your not-quite-yet-follower friends. Is the blog not possibly a teeny-weeny bit of the church coming to the people?

8. A blog is a place to put follow up resources from sermons and events. I post material I come across as I prepare sermons and following them share things. A quote here, a thought there, and idea written out or a book referred to. Hence my post on Prayer-walking which I spoke about on Sunday.

9. A blog can be a place that connects you with social media. I don't spend a lot of time on Facebook but I do have the blog available there via a link. The same in true of Twitter. You might think 'twitter witter woo' as some pastors do but if you want to be heard where the world is making a noise then it's there I'm afraid. It's what the Resurgence call 'the air war' on the internet putting good news in the midst of much that's not good at all.

By some miracle I do now seem to have quite a few readers (a few thousand hits a month) which astounds me considering I have no proactive means of acquiring them other than word of mouth. Thank you for being a reader if you are one and haven't just clicked here while surfing for American biscuits :)

Here is my thought for today. If you get involved in church things the danger is that you spend a great deal of time thinking about what you want 'our' church to be or do for us. What music do we like? What are the children's groups like? Does the coffee taste nice? What time suits us best to meet? Now all these things might be dandy but your non-attending community couldn't care less about such things. It's why Reggie McNeal's thoughts (a really really really good way to spend 45 mins) together with Keller's thinking are so very profound and contain some of the most important paradigm-shifting stuff I have listened to in recent years.

"Your job is to bless people- period. Don't have an evangelism strategy have a blessing strategy"

Reggie McNeal

His book Missional Renaissance is very helpful for mission in post-Christendom (but it is set in the US which does not have a parish system and is full of Americans :)

The starting point for your church should be the Kingdom of God. The King is at work if we only took the trouble to look. As Peterson says God is particular. I know about all the other stuff and you need to do that too but don't do it to the exclusion of loving those who aren't yet coming and don't do it unless you're also working out what the father is doing. Tim Chester's book Total Church really captures this.

You might also be helped on this by watching Go, See, Feel, Do

A dear pal rang me up and was so excited about Redeeming our communities and its possibilities for their church. He was doubly excited he knew about something I didn't and also said to read Debra Green's books. However, I did send him Scott Hodge who has some thinking on this and his team loved it.

"We have to get really good at sending people out"

Scott Hodge

Where's the need of your community? Ask the police is one option seemingly. We have discovered this to be true as we have launched Street Pastors this year. This might be a way in for your church to meet its communities needs and love your neighbours.

Praying with your feet

2011-11-08T09:55:00.001Z

On Sunday, I preached on the subject of 'Teach us to pray' and referred to a super book I highly recommend called Sacred Pathways by Gary Thomas. If you don't have it you can find a summary of its ideas in a chapter of Courageous leadership. One form of prayer I spoke of was 'Prayer Walking' and it got lots of response from people. As it happens, yesterday I met a Clerk in Holy Orders who greatly enjoys this practice as he walks around this fine city of ours.

Here are some ideas J R Briggs put together to get you walking and praying. Why not give it a go alone, with your dog, with your family, with a prayer partner, with a new believer or with your community/home group. We have used this method frequently during our whole nights of prayer. Jesus said 'When you pray.....' and maybe this can be a new 'when' for you or is perhaps not something you have not even thought of? One person said to me on Sunday 'Is praying as you walk really allowed? I feel so liberated now I know I can pray as I walk around the park?'' Trust me- it's allowed!

1. The important practice of praying with your feet

2. Nine reasons to pray with your feet

3. The frequency of praying with your feet

4. Creative ways to pray with your feet.

Send me my scrolls

2011-11-07T09:17:00.005Z

'When you come, bring the cloak that I left with Carpus at Troas, and my scrolls, especially the parchments.'

2 Tim 4 v 13

A friend I work with has started to study theology at St Mellitus and if you wonder who on earth St Mellitus is this is the story. St Mellitus was birthed out of HTB and is one of the many extraordinary ministries and initiatives that are having a global impact that have had their start there. Among these are Alpha, The Marriage Course (which is now being run in China authorised by the Government), the Wilberforce Trust with its work in social transformation and the excellent God at work course which we took some of our church through last year (written by Ken Costa).

The things God is doing through St Mellitus and the St Paul's Theological Centre excite me because it is making theology accessible to huge numbers of people who may not ever have considered it. Maybe that's you?

Recently, I was discussing the story of Martin Luther with my friend who is now writing an essay on Justification by Faith. He is being tutored by Graham Tomlin who used to work at my old Vicar Factory and wrote a very helpful introduction to him called Luther and his world. By the way, if you want to know about Luther and wonder why he is such an important dude (which everyone should want to know:) you could always watch this talk called 'The role of Scripture and the Life of Luther' by Timothy George. If you watch this and then get the bit between your teeth for more reading this is a good starter kit on the Reformation. Everyone I think should explore the doctrine and man upon which the Reformation hung.

Too often, certainly in the C of E, theology is the preserve of those in a dog-collar and a dress with letters after their name and if the Reformation, with all its imperfections (as I am discovering), was about anything it was about a desire to make the gospel and scripture and, by extension of this, theology accessible to all. Isn't it great that in the heart of London and, wonderfully as part of the C of E, people from all walks of life ('the laity' as we ontologically changed folks like to refer to you.....:) can now commit to study theology and grow both in their love of God and knowledge of him (Romans 12:2) They can do this while also being rooted in the context of their local churches.

You can enrol as an independent student and study part time or do your ordination training through the college. They have accredited courses if you want letters after your name and are being Rev'd up or why not explore the School of Theology as an option for some first study. This is worth thinking about if you lead a church and have people in your churches who would like to study or are sensing a calling-point them here. A 'dip your toe in' for some of you might be to take a module or two? If you are a worship leader you might like to check out the Worship Academy or for youth leaders there is this great course.

In 'Why Plant Churches?' I suggested the need for a seismic shift in the way people are trained and equipped given these latest depressing vital statistics (Do read this). I agree with David Keen that at some point soon someone must have the courage to blow the whistle and call time on the old system in order to usher in the new. Amidst the gloom though there is much to be encouraged by in so many churches across the land and in the C of E in particular. There is so much new hopeful creative thinking around planting and grafting currently and lots of prayer going on. As it so happens, I will be starting a wee bit of study at St Mellitus from January-sharpen the saw and all that. 'Why plant churches?' might be a bit more than a blog post I pray. I do believe there's life in the old girl C of E yet.

As a final aside, I gave my pal Tony Reinke's new book called Lit!: The christian guide to reading books to aid him in his studies which is a good accessible introduction on how to read books so that you get the best out of them. You might want to get hold of it.

Redemption

2011-11-06T07:41:00.003Z

(h/t Tim Challies)

For the pod: Epic Jesus

2011-11-05T18:55:00.002Z

Frank Viola is a thinker, preacher, writer and clearly a reader looking at this reading list. He is not shy of a bit of controversy either. A few weeks back I listened to his talk that someone recommended from Colossians called Epic Jesus and it gave me a renewed understanding of the vastness of God. I don't know if you have a pressing decision, a drama you face, a person on your heart or you are just in need of a reminder of the gospel and God's love and grace. This one really should hit the spot- at least it did for me. It's about Jesus. Jesus is Lord over your life and over all.

Saturday blog-sweep

2011-11-05T17:39:00.001Z

Steve Jobs and Kingdom Work?

The unfamiliar sound of the C of E getting it's act together.

The ultimate napping infographic

Piper on Halloween and What Christians should know about Halloween

A God-centred theology has to be a missionary theology

Five factors that brought life to a dying church

A new way of training church planters

Never walk alone

2011-11-04T09:42:00.000Z

At one point yesterday the subject of resources for Church planting came up and my pal Wayne shouted out 'Just read Cookies days' as he's a fan- he even recommended it in his parish notice sheet :) So as a response of gratitude here are ten things quickly off the top of my head that I hope will bless our newly forming cohort of people exploring opportunities for growth and planting.

"I planted the seed, Apollos watered it but God has been making it grow'

1 Corinthians 3 v 6

1.They might like to read If I wanted to recommend one book a church planter should read....

2. They keep an eye to the blogs of Mike Breen, J R Briggs, Ben Sternke, Doug Paul, and Justin Buzzard (all linked on the side bar among many others that I hope will encourage and birth new thoughts)

3. They could subscribe to the leadership coaching podcasts at both the Resurgence and Perry Noble.

4. They may be blessed if they do one of these 30 things.

5. They should follow and be inspired by the story of Steve Furtick (you should perhaps show his planting story to your team?) and let him teach you how to preach for decision.

6. They might want to ponder on the brilliant content of 'Ten reasons not to join a church plant' and 'Ten reasons to join one'. Every planter should do their first baptisms as he did in a hot tub on a trailer in the middle of the street - but must say surprised myself in thinking Cranmer could add a few more words to proceedings:). Perhaps that is because I am reading his biography.....

7. They may save a bit of time if they find a planter who has done a bit of thinking on a framework for discipleship

8. Watching this may break them anew with a burden for the lost as it does in me every time I listen.

9. Listening to Missional Communities and their role in Church planting may be a blessing and watching What do missional communities look like? Also reading Launching missional communities might be stimulating.

10. And finally this film will get any church planter praying

Followers not leaders

2011-11-03T07:55:00.000Z

I am in the place I did my Alpha retreat twenty years ago led by my dear friend Peter. He says of me that I am one of the people who most disappointed him on any course:) (and he has led hundreds) as I seemed to make no progress whatsoever. I am gathered here with others who are all planning to plant churches or exploring opportunities for church growth in their contexts across this land. How weird and wonderful is that?

I was unable to sleep for all the emotion of coming back here so I read Simon Walkers book 'The Undefended Life' late into the night. He gets the title from a quote attributed to Melanie Klein

'Maturity is the freedom to live an undefended life'

Simon led the most interesting and frankly challenging course I did at Vicar factory and anyone faintly interested in better understanding oneself and God should read this book. If you 'lead' anything, this book will help get perspective on what on earth that actually means.

You know sometimes you read a paragraph of a book and it stops you dead and makes your heart beat with an insight. I did that reading this:

"If there is one thing I would have the reader take away from this book, it is the significance of these lines [John 5:19]. It is upon this that everything I have written hangs......(p.123)

....Some have rightly noticed that we should talk less of leadership and more of followership- in other words, the things that make people follow the leader. I would want to go further and suggest that leadership itself is an act of followership. There is no such thing as leadership in the sense of executive agency and decision-making that we often take it to mean. The leader is not in the business of taking decisions about the things that happen. Rather she should be in the business of responding to the leading of God's Spirit.

The only kind of leadership possible is described in John 5:19, where the Son describes his following of the movements of the divine Father. The chief quality of a leader, then, should not be the capacity to make decisions or be visionary, but rather to listen and be attentive. It is startling that we often seek to train our leaders to be better communicators (by which we mean 'speakers') believing that leadership is some act of persuasion. In fact, we should be looking for individuals who have cultivated a stillness of spirit such that they can attend to the movements of God.....

....I am not the slightest bit interested in following men and women who can depict a grand vision, or who have confidence about 'the way we need to do things'. I want to follow and learn from the men and women who struggle with the pain of the world and who are generous, kind, self-effacing, seeking to learn, fragile, patient, still and free, those who have known failure and been crushed. I want to follow the one who can laugh at him or herself and who does not try to achieve mighty things. As someone once said, 'The immature man seeks to die heroically for a cause; the mature seeks to live maturely for one' (p.160)

I will be pondering these words for some time to come.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Hearing

2011-11-02T09:07:00.001Z

If you watch a more moving film this week or indeed month I will be amazed. Thanks to Mark Meynell for finding this story of a woman hearing for the first time. This moved me deeply.

One life

2011-11-01T09:10:00.002Z

A ton of people no doubt will have watched the Steve Jobs address to Stanford University since his recent death. It is a great and inspiring talk and in it he speaks of not settling for a lesser dream with your one life and a lesser dream in your work. What is hard for those of us who call ourselves followers of Jesus is what does it mean for us to 'live the dream'?

I have long been impressed and encouraged by Scott McKnight who is a theologian, teacher, preacher and writer of the blog Jesus Creed. He seems to be a man of thoughtfulness, challenge, generosity and love. Actually, in truth he also just seems like a kind nice man and we all need a few kind people in our lives. I have read a couple of his books recently and particularly enjoyed One Life.

This is his book on discipleship and what I really liked about it is it is not a book of things to do. So many discipleship books are ten chapters of things we should all be doing more busily to be more efficient and effective for Jesus- we evangelicals love a bit of extra activity. Instead though, this is about the kingdom, about love, about eternity, about justice, about wisdom, about sex and about peace. The last chapter, which I finished this morning, speaks about repentance (which was timely) as the key to things and then McKnight goes on to share that his favourite theologian is Bonnhoeffer. His hope is that 'One life' would be his version of 'The Cost of Discipleship'. This makes me like him even more than I already do.

Here is a question for you. Have you noticed how many people give up on faith and following Jesus? So many young people in church today won't be there by the time they are twenty-five. So many I know 'used to' go to church but they got hurt or got enlightened or got clever or moved on or grew up or ducked out. They always have a good reason. I was chatting about this to a friend who is a Chaplain to students and he asked me for a recommendation on what he should read with them to encourage them to be disciples and explain what it means to be a disciple. Without hesitation (because I was reading it at the time:) I suggested 'One life' and so he is going to buy ten copies and read it with them. This is just such a good book about the principles of discipleship. In other words, it helps you understand what the Jesus-follower life is supposed to look like if you actually bother to listen to the things Jesus taught and gracefully integrate them into your way of living as you follow him.

Why not buy this for a young person you want to disciple and read it with them as you mentor and encourage them?

Why not buy this for some students and meet in a coffee shop to talk about it?

Why not buy it for your teenage son or daughter who is complaining about church and asking a thousand questions about why it is we should bother following Jesus anyway?

Why not read this with some friends from your church?

Why not gently offer this to someone as a book to read if they are ticked off with church but still love Jesus?

Why not buy this for someone who way back when was in the CU with you or sat next to you in church but now isn't there any more?

Why not read this a chapter a day as part of your devotions as I did and was blessed?

This is a super book and has left me feeling hopeful and thankful that I am a follower of Jesus and importantly it encouraged me to keep following. You can't get a much better sort of book than that.

For the pod: The process of change

2011-10-31T13:15:00.004Z

One of the things that is hard for us individually and corporately is seeing and achieving change. Change does not come naturally- least of all in our own hearts and lives- let alone in others. 'Smile or die: How positive thinking fooled America and the World' is an example of the million pound industry that has developed out of our yearning for personal change. Failure to see change and growth in ourselves and others can really get us down and sometimes defeats us altogether. I think it's why so many give up on church and following Jesus.

How then does change happen? One word from Scripture sums it all up and that word is repentance. Luther entitled the first of his 95 theses he nailed on the Wittenberg door 'All of life is repentance' and I recommend this paper on the subject.

A story is told (in one of these sermons) of Charles Spurgeon who week after week preached messages on repentance until eventually a lady approached him and complained about it. "When are you going to stop preaching on repentance?" The great man looked her in the eye and replied "When you repent"

Most people don't want to repent which is why most people are not Christians. Most Christians don't want to repent which is why so few are transformed. Most preachers don't preach about repentance because it doesn't make you very popular (John the Baptist and his head come to mind....) Witness the letter the Duchess of Buckingham wrote to Lady Huntingdon when Huntingdon, a new upper crust convert, tried to share the gospel with her by inviting the Duchess to hear George Whitfield:

'I thank your Ladyship for the information concerning the Methodist preachers. Their doctrines are most repulsive and strongly tinctured with impertinence and disrespect towards their superiors, in perpetually endeavouring to level all ranks and to do away with all distinctions. It is monstrous to be told you have a heart as sinful as the common wretches that crawl on the earth. This is highly offensive and insulting; and I cannot but wonder that your Ladyship should relish any sentiments so much at variance with high rank and good breeding.’(Pollock, P.103)

So many people who have been following Jesus for decades, attended hundreds of church services, been members of home groups, been on Christian holidays, tithed their money, been in a prayer group and shown up at countless conferences are still stuck in exactly the same place struggling, grumbling and battling with the same old gubbins (anxiety, anger, self-pity, pride, porn, over-eating, over-drinking, over-spending and over-doing)- the same issue year after year after year. Who among us has not thought, "Am I ever going to defeat this?" exhausted by our efforts to 'try harder' (which is a complete waste of time by the way) or 'resolve better' as our methodology for personal sanctification and change. We can have been to Toronto, Tacoma and Torbay (and I've been to all three) to little effect. So why is it that so many in the church are quite patently not living in the joy and freedom that the gospel speaks so clearly of? Well, perhaps it is because most of us have not really understood what repentance is and, until we do, we will more than likely stay stuck in the same unfruitful spiritual mud we are currently in. I was certainly stuck there for far far far far too long and revelation on repentance reading Romans was (and still is) crucial to me.

A final word on repentance should perhaps go to Eugene Peterson. He says repentance is:

...'.deciding that you have been wrong in supposing that you could manage your own life and be your own god; it is deciding that you were wrong in thinking that you had, or could get, the strength, education and training to make it on your own; it is deciding that you have been told a pack of lies about yourself and your neighbours and your world. And it is deciding that God, in Jesus Christ, is telling you the truth. Repentance is a realisation that what God wants from you and what you want from God are not going to be achieved by doing the same old things, thinking the same old thoughts. Repentance is a decision to follow Jesus Christ and become his pilgrim in the path of peace.'

These are not feel good talks and MacDonald is not a frightfully feel good guy (try and get over that if you can) but their content if you listen to them and apply this brilliant teaching is totally and utterly life changing. Once you've listened to them once- listen to them again. Pray them through. Make notes. Give them to friends. Talk to friends about them. Talk to your spouse about them. Teach and discuss these truths with others. These two hours may save you years of frustration, failure and pain.

You can podcast it here (I generally find talks easier to listen to than to watch) and you can get it through itunes. But you can watch also:

Process of change- Part One

Process of change- Part Two

Saturday Blog-sweep (on Monday)

2011-10-31T12:31:00.002Z

Four disciplines of the heart

Keller on Scoffers, scorners and snark

Eugene Peterson on 'Measuring success'

10 steps on sharing your faith at work

Towards a discipleship framework

Perry Noble has seven things he thinks 'WE GOTTA TO READ' (he enjoys CAPITALS) and I commend reading them all.

Steve Jobs on Christianity

The Lausanne Covenant

Making disciples for dummies

A new liturgy that is causing a buzz ( or you can read the BCP for free:) (h/t B. Armett)

Blog-o-liday

2011-10-23T15:57:00.002Z

All is grace

2011-10-23T15:55:00.003Z

One of my 30 things was to buy someone a random present. I did this recently which was fun and the present I bought for a friend was All is grace because I know Brennan Manning is one of her favourite people. I also bought it for another friend for their birthday. My 'random present friend' chatted to me at church this morning with tears in her eyes and said that she read it in one sitting. His story deeply, deeply moved her.

You see there are tons of people who talk about the gospel, the Bible and the church and the 'this' and the 'that' and other peoples 'this's' and 'that's' but they forget to talk about grace or worse still experience it. Some people (you know 'some people') say Manning hasn't got it all worked out quite right (which is quite possibly true) but to be honest he is in good company there because nor have I and nor have you although we may be on the way :)

As it happens, someone else also came up to me yesterday to tell me they are reading 'What's so amazing about grace?' and exclaimed "It's amazing!" I know grace is completely amazing and Yancey's book is too and I would medicate everyone reading it at least once a year to keep their hearts soft and demeanour un-brittle. My church complain to me on the odd occasion because I speak about grace really quite a bit-in fact boringly often. I do this because it took me so long to grasp it and I pray daily that I continue to grasp it. D L Moody once said, "A man can no more take in a supply of grace for the future than he can eat enough for the next six months, or take sufficient air into his lungs at one time to sustain life for a week. We must draw upon God's boundless store of grace from day to day, as we need it." Brennan Manning is a man who has clearly encountered grace too and drawn on it often- so often perhaps that it offends some. If you want a book you might read in one sitting this may be it.

You might also like to listen to this called 'A Counter-culture of Grace'.

Page 23

2011-10-23T07:00:00.002Z

"A few months after my commitment to Christ, someone slipped me a book called Fresh Wind, Fresh Fire by a pastor in Brooklyn named Jim Cymbala. It was the first Christian book I ever willfully read. And it read like a highlight reel of the miracles God had performed in Cymbala's church. Addictions broken. Families restored. Souls saved. A city illuminated. I was mesmerized.

As I sat at my parents kitchen table with the book open, hands still wet from washing the dishes, I stumbled across a line that set the trajectory of my life. It was on page 23:

'I despaired of the thought that my life might slip by without seeing God show himself mightily on our behalf'

It's hard to put into words how tightly that one sentence gripped my imagination. Somehow the Holy Spirit translated that line into a tangible impression in my teenage heart, and I knew: one day I'm going to start a church in a big city to reach people who are far from God"

Steve Furtick, Sun Stand Still

You can see how the story played out in 'This is how we change the world'

For the pod: Passing the test

2011-10-22T17:29:00.002Z

Lifechurch.tv has been an encouragement to me and Craig Groeschl's books and preaching continue to bless me. I can commend The Christian Atheist (which inspired a preaching series we are working through) and It and his new book Weird. This church brought the world You version (the most downloaded Bible App) among all sorts of other innovative vehicles for communicating the gospel in the 21C around the globe.

Yesterday in the car I listened to some excellent teaching by James MacDonald called Passing the Test Part 1 on dealing with life's trials. You and I may not be facing difficulty or trauma but we surely will at some point in the future and we would each one of us do well to listen and learn from James 1 and then to pray and prepare our hearts and minds for the things that lie ahead.

The second message is on Passing the test Part 2 is on giving and is a very good and challenging talk on generosity. They are both examples of good, solid and practical Bible teaching.

Saturday blog-sweep

2011-10-22T17:00:00.001Z

An outline of the Keller's new book on marriage

Like a bullet

Dealing with email overload ( h/t Dash house)

The King Jesus Gospel

A review of 'Rid of my disgrace'

The history of the iPhone

Is church too easy for men?

How to choose your worship leader

The Trinity in 4 minutes

How to pray for missionaries

Get drunk on grace

The permanent revolution

How do I study the Bible?

2011-10-21T08:38:00.004Z

A thought for the day is that so many people who are not Vicar's or community/mission/home-group leaders in churches often feel ill-equipped, unqualified, not clever enough or just overly-daunted about studying the Bible for themselves that they never actually give it a try. Most pew-sitting Christians, certainly in the C of E, are not that different it seems from the pre-Reformation Church who had under law to let 'the Priest' alone distill truths for them (or as was more common hear the churches dogma and propaganda read out to them by often ill-educated medieval Priests in the form of pre-prepared sermons from the Bishop) . There was no [widely distributed] English language Bible available read by ordinary people until the KJV which is why the KJV 400 year anniversary celebrations are so important to take note of and follow. The common man could not read the Scriptures for themselves hence where we get the wonderfully chosen, life-giving and emancipating title of The Book of Common Prayer. Remember this, you were not permitted or able to read the Bible for yourself prior to the Reformation except if you were part of a monastic community or the establishment. It is stunning to me and ironic that never once as a child can I remember my Vicar (a dear and kind man) during one of the awe-numbingly boring journey's through the BCP liturgy suggest any of us actually read or study the Bible for ourselves which is exactly what it was supposed to birth a hunger for in us (as I am now Ordained in the C of E you could conversely argue that it did exactly that!). Boring though it seemed at the time, it did by God's providence and his grace get the stunning words of the Prayer Book into my DNA which have, as a consequence, been with me, blessed me and are within me to this day.

So it saddens me even more that still so few feel able or permitted to study the Bible for themselves and discover its treasure (particularly oddly sometimes in those that call themselves 'Bible-believing' churches) when there is such liberty and resource to do so. I will tell you what put me on to this realisation anew. A friend had to prepare something and to do this they needed to study the Bible. In order to facilitate this I gave them a few commentaries, told them to allocate some space and time, gave them a few pointers on how to do it and encouraged them that it wasn't that difficult. When I next saw them they were so enthused by their study and their revelations having been immersed in both the Bible and the commentaries. This really got me thinking.

I think most people, if they read the Bible's at all, do so as part of what has come to be known as 'a Quiet Time'. This is the time we allocate to be alone with God, read scripture and pray. All of these are good things. However, the next step on from this is what is called 'Study' whereby you decide to dig deeper into a book, a topic, a chapter or a word in order to find God's perspective on it. Our times of Facebook, 100 TV channels, the Net, Smartphones and innumerable leisure opportunities make personal study a less easy thing to embark upon. Few therefore seemingly may ever make this leap and this is such a sadness. I rightly or wrongly define study as simply 'reading the Bible with a pen in your hand'. Instead of your reading being just devotional it becomes participatory, interactive and life-transforming not just for you but for others.

I came across a book a few months ago that was such a truly helpful book when it comes to Bible study that I just wished I had found it years ago. Reading it made me immediately want to go out and buy everyone I knew a copy. It won't surprise you at all to know that Rick Warren author of The Purpose Driven Life is quite keen on equipping his people to study and it seems that doing so has proved incredibly fruitful for those in his church, thousands of whom have been sent out on mission. All I want to do is recommend this excellent book and believe just reading and applying the things it teaches will set you on a course that is unimaginably exciting for you. Do this for me. Allocate one hour, sit at a desk or table or in a coffee shop and read the first couple of chapters and prayerfully resolve to embark on ONE study. Even if you don't want to study the chapter called 'How to have a quiet time' is worth price of the book. It is my prayer though that some of my readers may even become preachers, teachers, pastors, missionaries and fully-equipped disciplers of others simply as a result of this post. I think it was J B Phillips who said that translating the Bible was like rewiring a house with the electricity plugged in. May this book help you I pray discover the power of the Scriptures for yourself.

So if you are someone who has never studied the Bible or if you are a seasoned Bible student and everyone in between I want you today to buy Rick Warren's Bible Study Method's and get started on some study.

30 things to do for a soul MOT

2011-10-20T08:20:00.001Z

Thanks to Steve Furtick for this idea.

We so easily get dry and disillusioned with God and weary with life. If you find yourself in that place today then why not resolve to do one or more of these:

1. Pray Psalm 27 out loud slowly

2. Do some exercise and eat something healthy

3. Write a list of things you are thankful for (1 Thes 5:18).

4. Watch, listen, sing along and dance around your kitchen to How Great

5. Having done Number 4 with all your family then explain to each other what it means to be a child of God (John 1:12-13)

6. Take your wife on a date (Eph 5:25)

7. Read a gospel through in one sitting

8. Take a nap

9. Encourage someone who encourages you (Hebrews 3:13)

10. Pray in tongues (if you have this gift) for 10 minutes (1 Cor 14:4)

11. Write someone an encouraging letter

12. Tidy up your office/ study

13. Find a place to serve in your church (Romans 7:6)

14. Go back to church

15. Give some cash away (2 Cor 8:7)

16. Listen to Running with the witnesses.

17. Confess a sin/ your sins/ a secret sin to someone you trust (James 5:6)

18. Call on the name of Jesus

19 Plan to spend a morning alone with God (Matt 6:6 -put it in your diary)

20. Allow your husband/ wife/ a friend to spend a morning with God and enable them (put it in their diary)

21. Go and look at something beautiful ( go around a gallery, visit a cathedral or wander around a museum)

22. Eat your favourite food

23. Watch a movie that makes you laugh

24, Lay hands on your kids as they sleep and pray for them

25. Make love to your spouse (1 Cor 7:5)

26. Call a friend you haven't spoken to for a while and catch up on their news

27. Buy a present for a friend for no reason other than to bless them and if you can't think of anything make it Fresh Wind Fresh Fire.

28. Start a journal with the help of this

29. Sit in a nice pub in a nice place and have a drink and eat a bag of S & V crisps

30. Oh and last but not least- eat curry.

The wind bloweth where it bloweth

2011-10-19T08:07:00.000Z

Love

2011-10-18T18:02:00.001Z

Augustine: "God loves all he has made"

Stott: "God does not love us because Christ died for us - Christ died for us because God loved us"

Kierkegaard: "God loved us first"

St John: "We love him because he first loved us"

Medieval mystic Margery Kempe: “Daughter I have suffered many pains for thy love – therefore thou hast great cause to love me right well, for I have bought thy love full dear”

Maths

2011-10-18T08:26:00.004Z

1. Meet nice man who is friend of friend in pub
2. Man wants to talk to me about theology, science and church
3. Man very clever musician who studied maths at Cambridge
4. Can't answer many of man's questions
5. Invite man to listen to William Lane Craig @ Methodist Central Hall debate on 'Does God exist?" with 3000 people.
6. Arrive late. Realise have invited the only man who shouts out very loudly at William Lane Craig and Stephen Laws my friend having told me it's what he thinks Jesus would do.
7. Feel rather embarrassed
8. Then start enjoying being with possibly the most interesting and passionate man in Methodist Central Hall
9. As I think God already exists and am tired conclude debate is a bit pointless

10. Think would rather have a pint with the atheist (who seems fun) than William Lane Craig (who maybe is a teeny weeny bit dull and is slightly too polished)
9. Another man shouts out (feel relief that it's not just us)
10. Debate ends and relieved not been thrown out (we were on our last warning)
11. See friend from church who I had randomly told about the debate and works around corner
12. Friend has invited her friend to come to debate too
13. At end of debate all the people around us confront my man
14. My man loves it and they realise they have bitten off more they can chew
15. End up in pub with my man, the two girls and random atheist we have collected along way (nice chappy from NZ)
16. My man turns discussion in pub to Maths
17. Know nothing at all about Maths so utterly stumped
18. Friend from church announces she read Maths at university. So did her friend which is how they know each other.
19. I'm silent
19. Long discussion about Maths things and God and Jesus
20. After a while chip in and ask everyone if three random people at a debate about God ending up in pub all having read Maths yet talking about him might prove he exists.
21. By expression on faces realise everyone thinks that was an interesting point
21. Feel rather pleased with myself (having failed so badly on the maths)
22. Friend of friend leaves and tells two men Jesus loves them
23. Get train home wave off man who thanks me profusely and has clearly had a simply dandy time.
24. Go to sleep thinking this may be yet another good story for book if I ever write it:)

A bit of a summary of the debate here. The podcast of the debate will be available here