Bless God?!

A few weeks ago my housemate built me a bed from scratch. It’s amazing - a bed 5 ft off the ground, with sliding shirt hangers underneath, and all from a few blocks of wood and some hardboard from a skip. I was seriously chuffed and the week after he made it I couldn’t stop banging on about it.

So there you go - it’s not that I’m not a praising kind of person. It might not be Tottenham that does it for me, but give me a new bed or three points to the Hammers and I’ll be waxing lyrical. But the challenge of Sunday's sermon on Ephesians 1.1-10 was whether or not we ‘bless God’. Hmm. Do I? I’d even estimate 90% of the time I sing praise songs in church I’m not actually mindfully thankful.

I was chatting the other night with a friend and we quickly reached the conclusion we’re both really unthankful to God when it comes to day-to-day life. So today I’ve been trying to think about my day with the reality-specs on, knowing that God has given me every good thing in it and therefore being thankful to God for the great time with a friend, the pleasure of the Mars Bar milkshake, a productive morning at work. The ‘what are you thankful to God for?’ question is one we’ll definitely start asking each other. But Sachy showed us Ephesians 1 is about more than just that; Paul grounds his praises to God with the reasoning that he ‘has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing’. And then it’s bam-bam-bam.

On Monday morning I thought about some of the particular blessings Paul says God has lavished upon us… all of them are blessings – they’re things that God has given to us because we are included in Jesus, because we’re Christians. We talk about ‘not deserving them’, but I realized how easily I pass over the reality of that in my emotions. The whole shebang of Paul’s super-sentence (1v3-14) is the heart and soul of being a Christian. And it’s all stuff that I don’t and can’t have any natural claim on – being chosen, being made God’s child, forgiveness of sin… it’s all complete unmerited gift. And so I found the refrain in v6 and v14 a really great way to anchor my prayers and prompt me to being glad – ‘to the praise of his glorious grace’. To complement that I’ve found a few songs all about praising God to ‘sing’ along to on the old mp3 player as I walk to work, keeping in mind God’s gracious inclusion of me in his plan.

This has started to help me bridge the gap between knowing logically it’s a good thing to be ‘in Christ’, or articulating the goodness of the gospel when I’m chatting to someone who’s not a believer, and then actually knowing these blessings and realizing the goodness of being included in this plan so that I’m actively praising God. Its gonna take lots of adjusting my eyes to the Ephesians 1 planetarium and its gonna take questions from my Christian mates, but I’m praying that my thankfulness for all that I have in Jesus will remain long after the novelty of a new bed has faded.

The original post from In the Shadow of the Gherkin can be found here.

The Wheels on the Bus are Falling Off...

A friend pointed me in the direction of this. It's an article announcing the launch of a new bus-advertising campaign from the British Humanist Association, inspired by an article by online Guardian writer Ariane Sherine. Its all in response to a campaign featuring Bible verses on London buses and underground over the last few months, followed by Alpha's bus campaign 'If you could ask God one question'.

Sherine's point is that there needs to be a counter-view expressed, so that those 'vulnerable' to religious advertisting are not fooled into believing there is a God, and specifically for her a God who is angry and has power to cast into a Hell.

The comments left in response to the article are worth a read. Lots of people unhappy with being told there is a judgment. Lots of people complaining God's validity is questioned by him not having recently put in an appearance. Yet also lots of people unhappy with 'atheist proselytizing' . Overall not much concern with whether or not the BHA have much ground for their claim, or likewise the reliability of the truth of the original campaign calling for faith in Jesus.

Ironically the advert uses the word 'probably' (amusingly it's the way to avoid being sued, a la Carlsberg). But surely if anything 'probably' should cause you to realise you can't in fact 'stop worrying and enjoy your life' until you work out whether or not you'd put your money, make that your life, on the strength of that probably. It just smacks of carefree-I-don't-care-if-I-sit-on-the-fence middleclass culture - that's the world we live in at the moment.

Happy Where You Are...

Been spending some time munching through Jeremiah Burroughs' The Rare Jewel of Christian Contentment at the moment, and thoroughly enjoying it. Burroughs was a Puritan knocking about during the first half of the seventeenth century and ended up preaching not too far down the road from me in Stepney.

'It may be said of one who is contented in a Christian way that he is the most contented man in the world, and yet the most unsatisfied man in the world'.

Being content has connotations of being happy with second-best, but that's not what Burroughs is on about. Contentment is bound up with knowing God is in control, and so one can be contented 'if he has but bread and water'. Yet at the same time there is a sense in which we are to be dissatisfied in the world; 'that is, those things that will satisfy the world, will not satisfy him.'

That's a brilliant observation I reckon: the two sides of contentment, finding a satisfaction in any situation, yet not being satisfied with it alone, for only God will satisfy. Another helpful thing Burroughs points out is that Christian contentment 'is not opposed to all lawful seeking for help in different circumstances, not to endeavouring simply to be delivered out of present afflictions by the use of lawful means'. That is, in situations of suffering it is not ungodly to ask God to deliver us from them and to keep in mind that he may well do that. He says that's what marks true Christian contentment out from glib stupidity.

I reckon that's something of what Paul is talking about in Philippians - being content in every situation, yet still a striving forward, a longing for the inheritance of God.

The Importance of Listening...

The lovely people in our evening meeting have kicked off a blog to encourage us to be thinking about applying God's word long-term. We were talking today about the danger of not listening well as we hear God's word preached and its been brilliant to be forced to actually confront the deafness that so quickly springs up within us. It seems that a sermon can be so transient - you hear it on a Sunday, I pray it through on a Monday, but then... where does the word go?

Encountering God can't be a momentary thing - it must change, transform, hit... That's what 'applying the word' is all about of course, but I don't really think about application like that. What has God been teaching me over the last few weeks? How has he changed me recently? Not just did I understand that passage on Sunday, or even be wowed by the God in it, but whether I am encountering God. Long-term transformation. How has reading Romans changed me over the last 3 weeks? As I've seen Jesus call me to sit at his feet in Luke and challenge my view of discipleship, have I responded?

Hearing that ends in doing. It's not rocket-science, but I find it easy to forget.

I felt I was being picked on and bullied on a daily basis and that there was no respect whatsoever for my religious beliefs.

With all the column inches and TV coverage given to the abortion debate in the Commons this week, this nearly slipped me by.

Lillian Ladele, 47, a marriage registrar for Islington Council, was threatened with the sack after refusing to preside over gay marriages on the grounds of her Christian faith.

"I am a Christian and I hold the orthodox Christian view that marriage is the union of one man and one woman for life to the exclusion of all others and that this is the God-ordained place for sexual relations.

"A civil partnership is marriage in all but name. Regardless of my feelings for the participants, I feel unable to directly facilitate the formation of a union that I sincerely believe is contrary to God's law.

"My beliefs do not mean I wish people who are homosexual to receive detrimental treatment. My God does not love anyone any less because of their sexual orientation.

"But the Bible explains that sin cannot be ignored, and it creates a problem for any Christian if they are expected to do or to condone something that they see as sinful.

"I cannot reconcile my faith with taking an active part enabling same sex unions to be formed as I believe this is contrary to God's instruction that sexual relations belong exclusively between a man and a woman within marriage."

"The council knows that if I am required to choose between my conscience and their desire that all registrars must undertake civil partnership duties, then I will have to honour my faith and face unemployment."

The Daily Mail gives it some treatment here. It seems to me that this could be seen as an example of my last post; no doubt there have been much accusations thrown at Ms Ladele of gay-bashing, despite her seeming to explain her position clearly.

But more than that, it's surely the denial of a Christian's right to hold beliefs that actually affect their life. Doctors not being able to refuse to take abortions and nurses forced to practice euthanasia are two other examples that have probably come up or will come up. But aside from the debate about whether you can hold a job in which your beliefs greatly affect your capacity to complete the job, this does seem to highlight the de-Christianizing of our society, and specifically what it will look like for a Christian involved in that society.

Living an Unwritten Doctrinal Basis...

Some formed up thought from chatting with a friend the other day about how we talk about what we do as Christians. We were chatting to his unbelieving mates and their big questions about God were stuff like 'Does God hate it when you swear?' and 'If I say f*#@ will God condemn me?'

Now in my head I'm thinking well, actually we're all screwed because we've all rejected God - that's the heartbeat of the second half of Romans 1, right? But how do I convey that to someone who's view of a Christian is made up of a list of things you can't do. If my student housemates are munching hash cakes, why shouldn't I have a slice? If I do, does it show I'm free. If I don't, does it reinforce the rule-based definition of what a Christian is in their heads?

We reckoned that a really important way to helpfully portray the Christian life is by encouraging people to see that our 'faith' is not a merely spiritual-realm-thing but actually a physical thing - it affects your day-to-day actions. That seems to be what was going on in 1 Corinthians, with the Christians reckoning that it was the spiritual that mattered, therefore they could do what they like with their bodies (including major incest for one).

But Paul's response was to remind them their bodies were the Lord's. It was my experience that it's very easy to explain to your mate on the football social that the reason you don't want to get hammered at the bar is "because you're a Christian", but really that contains no sense of what Christianity is. You may as well say you're not getting wasted because you're a Muslim, or because you're against the abuse of underpaid Chinese alcopop bottlers... or something.

But actually we're in relationship with the living God - we know our King Jesus, and we want to live for him both in thankfulness and to please Him. Surely, that is what we want to convey, and before we convey anything, what we want to be thinking as we live each day.

Because people still die for Jesus...

Therefore do not be ashamed of the testimony about our Lord, nor of me his prisoner, but share in suffering for the gospel by the power of God...
(2 Tim 1.8)

"This is to let you know the sad news that David Mohamed Ali, a Somali Christian evangelist and a long-standing member of St Matthew's, was shot dead last week by two Islamist terrorists in Badoia, Somalia, because of his Christian faith. He had been sent to Badoia by Ethiopian and Somali border police, for reasons that are not clear.
David was an intelligent and gifted evangelist who thought deeply about hisfaith. For a while he ran a website for Christian Somalis. I had recently given him a reference to do a Degree in Theology at ETC (EvangelicalTheological College), Addis Ababa. He was single man, aged about 35, who was based in Addis Ababa but travelled widely sharing his faith.
We thank God for his life and courageous witness, and pray for his mother,sister and other members of his family. We also pray for the SomaliChristian community, that they may be comforted and strengthened at this time when Christians are under great pressure in Somalia.
David's death comes just two weeks after four Christian teachers (2 BritishSomalis and 2 Kenyans) were killed in Beledwayne, Somalia."

HT: Michael Jensen

Free Song...

Click here to download for free I Have A Shelter, a great song from the the lovely people at Sovereign Grace Music. It's taken from their new album Come Weary Saints, which I can totally recommend. I particularly love the album because...

1. It's BIG on God's sovereignty.
2. It portrays the Christian life as it really is; cross-shaped.

3. There are some brilliant songs on there.

Which, you have to say, are a cracking combination, with the first two being wonderful things to write brilliant music about.

I have a shelter in the storm

When troubles pour upon me

Though fears are rising like a flood

My soul can rest securely

O Jesus, I will hide in You

My place of peace and solace

No trial is deeper than Your love

That comforts all my sorrows

I have a shelter in the storm

When all my sins accuse me

Though justice charges me with guilt

Your grace will not refuse me

O Jesus, I will hide in You

Who bore my condemnation

I find my refuge in Your wounds

For there I find salvation

I have a shelter in the storm

When constant winds would break me

For in my weakness, I have learned

Your strength will not forsake me

O Jesus, I will hide in You

The One who bears my burdens

With faithful hands that cannot fail

You’ll bring me home to heaven

© 2008 Integrity’s Hosanna! Music (ASCAP)/Sovereign Grace Worship (ASCAP) (Admin. By Integrity’s Hosanna! Music) Sovereign Grace Praise (BMI)(Admin. By Integrity’s Praise! Music)

Ever feel guilty writing a prayer letter?

I first started sending an email round to friends with a bit of news and some prayer points when I did six months of my gap year in South Africa with SU. A lot of the people recieving it were families who'd hired me to cook dinner parties for them, allowing me to raise a bit of cash to fund my trip. Once I hit Durham I'd send an email once a term or so, with a bit of info about what I was upto, some encouragements from CU and church, and prayer points, both general and specific, for the term ahead. A remotely funny anecdote never went down badly either.

Now that I've passed from student to that well-worn category of 'full-time paid [but yet not actually paid] Christian ministry', I'm reliant on a base of supporters to fund my living costs. Obviously it makes sense and follows biblical principle that those supporters don't just write me a cheque now and again, but are actually involved in what I'm doing. One of the best and most precious ways of that partnership being fleshed out is in much needed prayer, and so I send out an email every couple of months with detailed stuff to give thanks for, and points for prayer. This also goes to a group of mates who offered to pray for me this year. All well and good so far.

However, nearly a year after graudating, out of all the friends who send me prayer letters/updates all but one are involved in some sort of Christian training scheme/church position. Obviously it's great to be praying for people in those kind of positions, but at the same time it could indicate a potentially unhealthy focus on what 'Christian ministry' is. I was chatting with my friend James about this a few weeks back. From nine-to-five he's dealing with invoices for a rail-delivery company, but he keeps friends far flung updated with a little email now and again containing prayer and praise points.

There's a number of caveats to bring to the table. Maybe it's just I'm not that great at keeping in contact with friends. Maybe our culture is such that people are more likely to have one or two pals who they keep in touch with for prayer. I suppose in reality you are going to be praying for those you are close to, so its clearly unrealistic to expect everyone to be exchanging prayer news with everyone. Also those who are still part of the same church should be in a position where they can pray for each other regularly, and I guess there's a good argument for the local church being the place where people recieve most prayer support. And we wouldn't ever want to say you can only pray for people whom you are 'up-to-date-with'.

All that said, this doesn't remove the fact that it seems prayer letters are the norm for church workers, whilst those involved in full-time Christian ministry at the office, in the classroom, at home, etc, are less likely to send them, or are less likely to be encouraged to send them. I'm pretty sure it's symptomatic of an unbalanced focus on church positions in some sense - i.e. if you're going-for-it-keen then you'll work for a church and therefore are entitled to send out prayer letters. I guess it could also indicate a prayerlessness within Christian friendships? I've certainly been convicted, as I've been thinking, about how badly I care for friends far flung. We're all busy people but an unwillingness to keep in touch and to pray in an informed way for each other can't simply be something that being busy is allowed to create.

So what to do? Encourage a few mates in different walks of life to send round a monthly email updating each other on the ministry they are involved in? I was reading in From Cambridge to the World (incidentally a brilliantly written and non-triumphalist book detailing the work of the Cambridge Inter-Collegiate Christian Union) how back in the day graduated CU members would send round an annual letter reporting what they were up to and how they could pray for each other. I have a mate who, in this vein, set-up a password-protected blog for his mates so they could regularly load up their prayer points.

...thoughts?

This Made Me Laugh...

Book plugs are always one of the tough gigs to do in the student world, at CU, church, conferences, etc.
Don't want to trivialise the book; do want to make the book sound attractive without being too geeky; don't want it to sound like the book-plug they heard last week; do want to look like I'm not just reading out the blurb on the back.
This video, one of the highlights from the student stream at New Word Alive, takes up the challenge with hilarious results.

HT: Bish

Who's your Daddy?

Reading Ephesians 5 with Steve on Wednesday. I often find myself cruising through these back-end sections of Paul's epistles as if they're some after thought sticky-taped on. No doubt I'm governed by some misguided approach where I tell myself I'm in need for some 'real theology' not just some 'do this and don't do that'.

Of course that's all rubbish - everything Paul says is completely rooted in what God has done for his people. We're called to be 'imitators of God as beloved children' (5v1). Paul's not whacking Christians over the head with a load of 'to-do' lists, rather he's getting right into the heart of the relationship between Christian theology and Christian living.

The call to imitate God is not some wishful thinking on Paul's behalf, but rather its based on the wonderful reality that we are now God's beloved children, and children imitate their parents. This pattern pops up again and again in the back end of Ephesians - reason for action is everything, and for Paul the reason is knowing who we are. In v3 our identity as 'saints' means certain stuff isn't even to be named among us. In v4 it isn't that filthiness and crude chat is bad that should stop us from doing it, but that it's 'out of place'. Again, in v7-8, 'do not associate with them; for one time you were darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Walk as children of light...'.

Christian ethics, that is how you live as a believer in Jesus, is always worked out and motivated by taking note of who you are. It's what fits. Of course if there's no knowledge, if there's no awareness of who we are, then we're either gonna forget and worse head elsewhere for our sense of identity, or we're gonna drift into a stuffy moralism that has lost sight of reasons and truth and thinks of Christianity as actions alone.

That's why simply remembering my identity, as a child of God, a joint of Christ's body, a member of the household of God, is such a precious and cruical thing to do each day. It rams home the importance of a book like Ephesians in stopping us in our tracks and giving us a reality check. This is reality.

Furniture demolition, cups of tea, and being church...

I spent a couple of hours yesterday morning joining a mate as he helped clean out a flat lived in by one of his distant elderly relatives. The old lady in question is suffering from dementia and had been moved out of this top-floor flat in west London to live with family up in Scotland.

As we attacked old beds with saws to make them fit down the stairs, lugged 60's design chairs down four flights, and then shifted it all into a minibus, we realised the reality is we were stripping an apartment of a lifetime's worth of collected possessions. Old hoovers and chairs and pans off to the dump, pictures and books and crockery to the charity shop; it was a pretty sad moment really.

I would hardly have said there was much there that was in anyway unnecessary - it didn't make me suddenly want to streamline my material existence (although, that wouldn't be a bad thing for me to do!). But it did ram home the realisation that at the end of the day all these bits will be left behind. Whether it's being mowed down by a bus in my mid-twenties, signing out at seventy-five, or just being carted out of my home to somewhere, where for a few years, they'll sit me in front of a TV for most of the day and feed me my meals; we will leave this stuff behind us.

Yet it wasn't just furniture being left behind. As we chatted over cups of tea made in very retro china cups there were stories. Stories of a battleaxe of a Christian lady. Stories of the many gatherings in the flat as she opened up her home in loving hospitality. Stories of a woman who loves playing her part in God's body. And as the day went on two things happened: the flat got barer and barer, but also more and more people turned up to help out. Again and again, "Hi I'm a friend from her church" was the opening line. No sermons, no singing, but definitely church in action.

This One's For Hugo...

Term's winding to a close here in London, so there's a little more time for brain consolidation and trying something new.

One of the big things exciting me at the moment is the recently launched Theology Network website, courtesy of Mike Reeves, Dan Hames, and those kind people at UCCF. It's the kind of resource that I'd have loved to have had at my fingertips when I began my degree, but the brilliant thing is it's all about theology being for all, not just those who are studying it for their degree at Uni. Theology is simply knowing God better - not something confined to turning through dusty textbooks and debating abstract concepts. There's a decent stack of articles and mp3 lectures on everything from church history to engaging with world religions.

I'm currently enjoying Reeves' fantastic series on the Trinity which seems to have snowballed since he first gave the talks a while back. The very title 'Trinity' is normally enough to put the majority of us off - but that lack of clarity and occurence regarding the subject in our Christian lives and churches is exactly what he addresses. Part 1 is ready for your digestion here. Enjoy!

Lessons from Mark #01...

To follow is to leave.

(Mark 1.16-20)

Theses on the megachurch door...

This post by Jared Wilson, a teaching minister at a church in Nashville, TN, got me thinking. It's 27 theses to post on your brand-spanking-new glass doors at church. Here's three that struck me.

3. Honest Christians will differ on what constitutes a “biblical church,” and while disagreement is understandable and okay, beware of any church that says, explicitly or implicitly, “we do it right” or “we do it better” than the church down the street.

12. Church leaders don’t really need to choose between fidelity to the Gospel and engaging the culture. They just need to make sure they put them in order. First things go first and inform secondary things. Fidelity to the Gospel should inform your cultural engagement, and not vice versa. If your first aim is to please man, you will please some god, but it won’t be the God you want to please. But if your first aim is to please God, you will please some men.

14. Decide if you’d rather give people what they want to hear or what they need to know. People need to know they are sinners in need of a Savior. People want to hear that deep down they’re okay and their good buddy J.C. affirms them in their okay-ness, which is b.s. that helps nobody.

A good point...

"A church's understanding of evangelism will flow from its understanding of conversion and its understanding of mission."

Paul Clarke

Last Nun Standing (a Reality Check)...

The most popular news story on bbc.co.uk at the moment is this one - a pretty comic tale of a three-woman strong convent that has now been reduced to one remaining member after the other two attacked her. I suppose the reason that it's heavily clicked on is because it's funny, unusual, and pretty ironic.

The article dubs the nuns as from 'the most austere order of the Roman Catholic Church, devoted to a life of prayer, penance and quiet contemplation.' The theory of a special sacred life may look nice and spiritual but the practice, three nuns not being able to get on without physically attacking one another, kind of shows up what life, and even the Christian life, really looks like. You can live in a convent for 44 years but you can't escape the flesh, the world, and the devil.

I reckon the temptation's there for all of us - especially with blogs - I want to point out the sacredness of my routine, the holiness of my actions, but in reality I'm only kidding myself. I might not use the garble of 'devoted to a life of prayer, penance, and quiet contemplation', but I'm equally as likely to spin on about how often I'm captivated by God, ham up the prayerletter to make my exploits look extra devout. Maybe the balance is hard to strike - we are pressing on towards the goal, trying to let go of every hinderance, and we are living in hope that day by day we are being changed by God, and made more like his Son. But with that comes the brutal truth that we are sinners crying out for rescue.

Back to the nuns' story... now the local Archbishop has got involved and written to the Pope to get his permission to call the bailiffs in to force the last nun to take down the barricades. The remaining nun's response? "She has written to the Pope telling him she will only leave when God decides it is time to go." Can't leave this story without questioning the seeming madness of that comment (if the press quotation is accurate).

She's nailed the issue in one sense; God is sovereign and when He decides it's time to go, then it definitely will be (and that could be in the shape of the local authorities banging on the door and forcing her out!). But the manner in which she seems to be using that phrase gives me the creeps. Maybe I'm taking her out of context, but I reckon it's symptomatic of what Christianity looks like all too often in our culture - all too easily reckoning God's will is this or that without giving much time to what God has declared his will to be in his written word. We have to rescue the foundational truth that God has ordained what pleases him and what doesn't. Without even getting into whether or not being a nun is a good thing to do, the point in question seems to be whether I can defend my actions on the basis of what God has said to me personally, with little thought to what's he's spoken in Scripture.

So, what's the gospel?

It's been about three months since I last whacked some thoughts up on the blogosphere. So, what's brought me back from the cold? I wanted to take a look at some thoughts on Brian McLaren's soon-to-be-released book Everything Must Change.

Every few weeks I get some circular emails from a couple of Christian bookshops and it seems stuff by McLaren, Rob Bell and others that are often put under the 'emerging church' label, is ever-present. If these are the books and DVDs that an increasing number of people in the UK church are buying (and that makes sense if that's what the likes of Wesley Owen are heavily plugging), then we need to be pretty clear as to what's at the heart of them.

So, Tim Challies gives us an insight here as to how McLaren sees his gospel, his good news. And if we want to be gospel-guarders, as Paul desperately desperately urges us to be, then it would be good to give it a read.

I charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who is to judge the living and the dead, and by his appearing and his kingdom: preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, and exhort, with complete patience and teaching. For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths. As for you, always be sober-minded, endure suffering, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry.

2 Tim. 4.1-5

Men Behind the Book...

Great interview with Sach and Jeffrey, writers of Pierced For Our Transgressions, over here. Normal Christian people contending for the faith. It's what it's all about.

“You’re supposed to be helping him, ‘getting him off the streets’…”

Here's a refreshingly unacademic post worth a read from the blog of Frog and Amy Orr-Ewing; it's a piece written by Rachel Hughes, a youthworker in Peckham, and speaks of the realities involved in reaching unchurched young people with the gospel - always an exciting thing! It's a conversation between Rachel and two young people at one of the youth clubs she runs, and it rings true with what is fairly normal outside middle-class Britain I guess. I'm always indebted to having the camera zoom-out and being reminded that there is more to Christian ministry than student work.