iGod

'Red Rev' Giles Fraser?

Just reflecting about the resigination of the Canon Chancellor of St Paul's Cathedral, Rev Dr Giles Fraser. While left-leaning The Guardian fetes the man, I hear, maybe not surprisingly, the Daily Telegraph takes another view.

Whatever side you take, he typifies the need for the Christian to speak up and get involved in politics and injustice, even when it doesn't always make you universally popular with your own peers.

US Christian activist Shane Clairborne says:

"Theologian Karl Barth said, 'We have to read the Bible in one hand, and the newspaper in the other.' For too long we Christians have used our faith as a ticket out of this world rather than fuel to engage it.

"In his parables, Jesus wasn’t offering pie-in-the-sky theology… he was talking about the real stuff of earth. He talks about wages, debt, widows and orphans, unjust business owners and bad politicians. In fact Woody Guthrie breaks it all down in his song “Jesus Christ.” The song ends with Woody singing, “This song was written in New York City. If Jesus were to preach what he preached in Galilee, they would lay him in his grave again.”

"The more I read the Gospels, the more they seem to confront the very patterns of the world we live in. At one point Mary, pregnant with Jesus cries out: “God casts the mighty from their thrones and raises the lowly… God fills the hungry with good things and sends the rich away empty…”. You can’t help but think if she were alive in contemporary America some folks would try to accuse the Virgin Mother of being Marxist or promoting class warfare. But all through Scripture we see this–over 2000 verses about how God cares for the poor and most vulnerable.

"What would Jesus say about Wall Street?"

 What would Jesus say about the Square MIle?

Would he be for locking up St Paul's Catherdral or for an open air church service?

The thing I am taking away is that if we want our message to be heard we have to first hear what culture is saying. This is not so much about wanting to sound populist like a politician, but to help us avoid sounding pompous like an old fogey.

May God grant us wisdom and courage in these times!

ASD

10 Commandments for Church Planters and Pastors

A cracking top ten by Rich Nathan, Senior pastor of Vineyard Columbus, Ohio:

Pastors and church planters face enormous demands as we try to juggle family responsibilities, ministry, and often, school and part-time jobs. How can we live sustainable lives? We read of tragic pastoral failures on a weekly basis. Most pastors don’t last in the ministry for five years (perhaps the only way we pastors are like pro football players!). I’ve been a pastor for 25 years. Here are ten practices that have enabled me to pastor for the long-haul.

#1 Build a rock-solid daily personal devotional life with God. This simply means that you spend time every day soaking in God’s presence. You can handle an enormous amount of pressure, if your foundation is solid. Pressure is not the problem. Weak foundations are the problem. If your foundation is shaky, you won’t be able to handle very much at all. Maybe you’ve heard the expression: “You can’t fire a cannon out of a canoe.” If you are really going to accomplish something; if you are going to be able to achieve and do the great things that God has in store for you to achieve and do, you need a strong foundation. The cannon of your life needs to be bolted into granite. And the granite of your life is your rock-solid personal time with God every day.

#2 Choose a prayer partner, who is a peer and with whom you can be utterly transparent. What I have personally done in my own life for the past 20 years and what we require of every pastor on the staff of Vineyard Columbus is to have a prayer partner. At Vineyard Columbus we take one day every month outside of the office talking and praying with our prayer partner. We have a set of accountability questions that we ask each other such as:

a. Are you struggling with sexual purity in any way?
b. Have you seen any pornography, or anything on TV or in a movie that you shouldn’t have watched?
c. Have you done anything sexually you shouldn’t have done?
d. Are there any emotional attachments forming with someone who is not your spouse?
e. Have you handled your money and financial dealings with absolute integrity?
f. Have you experienced any breach in any relationship? Are you at peace with everyone?
g. Have you forgiven everyone for everything?
h. Are you experiencing intimacy with God on a regular basis?

#3 If you are married, schedule a weekly date night with your spouse. It is really important to stay current and to fuel romance and intimacy with your spouse. My wife and I have a regular date every Monday. It doesn’t need to be expensive. It could be coffee and a long walk through a park or a leisurely breakfast. But schedule a weekly date with your spouse outside your home.

#4 Get financial counseling from a professional financial counselor. Strongly consider (if you are married, with your spouse) going to a course like Dave Ramsey’s Financial Peace University. Life is sustainable when your financial house is in order.

#5 Ruthlessly avoid all compromising situations with the opposite sex. There are few things that derail people from the plan of God more than sexual impurity. Jim Downing, who is one of the patriarchs of the Navigator organization, was asked some years ago: Why is it that so few people finish well? His response was profound. He said: “They learn the possibility of being fruitful without being pure. They begin to believe that purity doesn’t matter. Eventually, they become like trees rotting inside that are eventually toppled by a storm.” Live a sexually pure life.

#6 Take care of yourself physically. Join a gym. Get into the habit of walking with a friend. Watch your diet. It is not enough that you’re involved in ministry. It is not even enough that you grow in internal purity and intimacy with God. You are a whole person. Your life is integrated - body, soul and spirit. You cannot neglect your body or your emotional life and continue to do well. So, take care of yourself physically.

#7 Do not confuse knowledge or skills or giftedness for spiritual maturity. You are gifted. You may know a lot. You may help many people. None of those things are the same as spiritual maturity. Spiritual maturity is a matter of your internal character, your honesty, your willingness to forgive everyone for everything, your joy during trials, your trust in the sovereignty of God, your endurance in hard times, and your unwillingness to compromise integrity. Don’t confuse knowledge or skills or giftedness for spiritual maturity.

#8 If you are married, take a great marriage inventory with your spouse and have a professional marriage counselor discuss the results with you. Here at Vineyard Columbus we offer a marriage inventory called LIMRI. We have regular marriage retreats. Do a marriage inventory especially at the front-end of pastoring, and every few years after that.

#9 Join a small group (and if married, join with your spouse). Christianity is a team sport. We cannot grow successfully apart from biblical community. Join a men’s group, a women’s group, a coed group, or a recovery group where you can know and be known.

#10 Cultivate the fear of the Lord and a fear of sin. We sinners always dreadfully under-estimate the cost of sin and dreadfully over-estimate our ability to manage the consequences after we choose to sin. Sin costs and once you choose to sin, the consequences are out of your hands. We read in Proverbs 14.26-27, He who fears the Lord has a secure fortress, and for his children I will be a refuge. The fear of the Lord is a fountain of life, turning a man from the snares of death.

Deuteronomy 10.12-13 says, And now, O Israel, what does the Lord your God ask of you but to fear the Lord your God, to walk in all his ways, to love him, to serve the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, and to observe the lord’s commands and decrees that I am giving you today for your own good?

Psalm 34.9 tells us this: Fear the Lord, you his saints, for those who fear him lack nothing.

Psalm 128:1 says: Blessed are all who fear the Lord, who walk in his ways.

 

ASD

What are you doing for Hallowe’en?

I am conscious at this time of year there can be some embarrassed coughs over the mention of Hallowe’en parties. As a pastor I have parents coming up to me in church and other places asking what they should do when their child gets invited to a Hallowe’en event. These are not necessarily all Christians either. Whether we have faith or not, there is a lot of squirming and sighing around the 31^st October.

Other people ask me questions like is it really all that bad? After all, what’s wrong with a bit of dressing up and fake blood? Aren’t Christians just getting a little bit anal about the whole thing? Is Satan really waiting around the corner to pounce on our children as they put on their plastic skull mask and latex severed fingers?

Here’s my take.

The thing I find most abhorrent is not the direct allusions to the darkness of horror, although they do concern me greatly, but the way manufacturers and supermarkets prey on the vulnerable with their vast array of related products. It is unrelenting.

Already poor, struggling parents are creaking under the social pressure to keep up with the ‘haves’ with supplying their darlings with DS Ninetedos, Wii, iPods etc, along with all the other seasonal gift occasions of the year. Then the Hallowe’en train comes to town with its expensive Scream masks, flimsy ghoul costumes and devilish chocolate products. Asda alone is expecting to make £280m from the event.

Most of us know that this growing annual event has come from the States, but do we really want to become as obsessed as the Americans with it?  I have lost count on how many US vampire films and TV programmes have been made in the last few years, but that seems to be an ever-growing genre.

Am I simply being a killjoy or could it possibly have an unhealthy underside to it all?

I recently read in one newspaper how grown adults in the UK will be dressing up and pretending to be zombies on the streets in some cities in mock battles to mark the occasion.

Maybe these people have too much time on their hands, but you can’t help but be a little concerned at the level of involvement in this year’s Hallowe’en.

To question the fun, light-hearted spirit of Halloween may get you labeled as an earnest bore who is quietly tiptoed around in the school playground, but you know what? I’ve stopped caring.

I wonder why we have become so accepting of this American import. Fireworks Night was seen as our main thing, but it feels like it is being usurped by Fright Nights instead.

Now I have no doubt there is some fun dressing up in a white sheet going wooo-oooo, but when the sheet is replaced with a mutilated corpse carrying a plastic axe and going ‘Aaaaaagh!’ enough is enough surely?

Then there is the dreadful trick or treating. (sorry I am on a roll!) Is it really okay to knock on a random stranger’s door at night trick or treating? You know what, it really does scare elderly residents and very young children. It is only fun if you are in on the joke.

Besides, I bet their parents are probably the ones who take offence when in the daytime the JWs come knocking. Intrusion is intrusion, but at night even more so, especially when opening up the door to a pack of menacing children.

The Church of England in one of its more thoughtful outspoken moments said recently: “Halloween trivialises evil”. I think it needs to be said loudly and clearly. Hallowe’en sucks as much as a ravenous vampire.

A writer in the Times said last year they saw a Jack the Ripper Hallowe’en costume on sale for £10.99. They commented: “They are still available online this year, with an adorable accessory kit of “doctor’s bag and bloody knife” — a nod to Jack’s penchant for draping women’s reproductive organs around their necks. Well, if you can’t have a giggle over serial killers, what’s the world coming to?”

So, harmless fun or a bad tasteless joke?

The most disturbing side to this all is that we are becoming desensitised to what is good or bad. The lines are blurred with our response being everything is acceptable in moderation. The trouble is Halloween is not moderate, just plain OTT…and annoying.

Of course the Church will not be listened to. Not with the current hostility of Humanist groups and celebrity New Atheists holding centre stage.

My fear is though when faith groups and the odd humourist writer in a quality newspaper stop putting up an opposite view I wonder what happens next. History is not littered with great examples when faith views are excluded.

For me personally, the real evil is in the exploitation of vulnerable people whose lives are already just about held together with duct tape and string.

It is easy to see Halloween as a fun distraction, but ‘evil’ doesn’t not always come with cloven feet, pointy tale, goatie beard and a trident, it is much more subtle and seductive, like consumerism and capital greed.

The alternative is to offer something inclusive and non-consumerist. Christians celebrate God’s Light coming into the world to expose the darkness, but it needs a little imagination to see what that practically looks like.

One thing I know it isn’t is preaching to young children that they are going to hell. Maybe a better place to start is to stand up to injustice and the exploitation of the weak in times of financial pressure and much uncertainty.

Last year a Rector in County Durham urged people to boycott Hallowe’en, as many children already live hard lives and “there is enough darkness and evil to be going on with”. Hallelujah to that.

ASD

What is real?

One of my daughters was recently invited to a Build-a-Bear party in Colchester. The event was at 1pm, but somehow she managed to be up and dressed by 5.45 am. Quite an achievement, even by her standards.

My rather tired but very satisfied daughter returned later in the evening wearing the biggest grin and proudly hugging a new white furry bear. What dad could not fail to be moved?

And then it happened. She asked me to squeeze the left paw.

Out blasted the Star Wars theme. Dah, dah, de, de, de, daah dah! Quickly trying to recompose myself, I asked her if she had named her bear. (Each bear is given a birth certificate when made in the shop. They even put a red-shaped heart in it. I kid you not!)

"Princess Leia" she quickly responded, "but I call her Fluffy!"

Not feeling The Force to be strong, and being a bear of little brain, to quote AA Milne, I was getting all rather confused. All that I knew was apparently wrong!

Propelled into a state of flux I later looked around my bedroom and found my very own 40-something-year-old teddy bear (yes, I still have it!). It has faded yellow fur with frayed feet and a balding tummy. The rough straw-like stuffing is starting to pierce through the perishing stitching. If you squeeze the paws the only thing you are likely to experience is a small cloud of dust.

What did I name my teddy? Well, just Teddy, actually. Not very original I grant you, but just to remind you, I was very young. It certainly didn't come with bells and whistles or play any film theme.

But what it did come with was a lot of love.  One of my favourite children's stories is the Velveteen Rabbit by Margery Williams. It features the old and wise Skin Horse telling the Velveteen Rabbit in a child's nursery what it is like to be real.

“’Real isn’t how you are made’, said the Skin Horse, ‘It’s a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a very long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real.”’

The curious rabbit wants to know if it hurts. He is given the honest answer that sometimes yes it does, but being Real is when you are loved to bits and start falling apart. Yet, we can never become ugly, except to those who don’t understand.

There is a common experience found in all human beings and that is the desire to be loved to bits. It is an experience so profound, so deep, that I find it hard to believe that we are just the result of a random act of colliding atoms billions of years ago.

No-one wants to be like a toy left in the box, devoid of being loved. This is why the Toy Story films resonate with so many of us and leaves grown men crying.

Some of the most pivotal words to be found in the whole Bible are in Deuteronomy chapter six, verse four where it says we are to love God with all our heart, soul and strength. This kind of love is not a slushy sentiment, or a genetic weakness. It evokes in us what it is to be real.  It also mirrors perfectly how much God actually loves us. In our church one of our key values is to be real with God and each other.

To be a Christian, a real Christian, is someone who loves God and others to bits. This kind of love is powerful and changes worlds. I have to say, too, it is the deepest and most profound experience I have ever had.

ASD

 

 

 

 

 

 

Steve Jobs - living life, expecting death

"No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don't want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life's change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new. Right now the new is you, but someday not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it is quite true.

"Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of others' opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary."

Steve Jobs, 2005 Stanford University Commencement Speech

Full text here.

Pax.

ASD