From an English Pulpit

Help

2012-02-07T21:53:00.002Z

30 . . . Jesus said, “A man was going down the road from Jerusalem to Jericho. Some robbers surrounded him, tore off his clothes, and beat him. Then they left him lying there on the ground almost dead.

There was, last week, a man sitting on the pathway outside our church buildings . . .

31 “It happened that a Jewish priest was going down that road.

He was hypothermic and had drunk too much and it was below freezing and all he wanted was to die and his wish looked like coming true. We called an ambulance.

When he saw the man, he did not stop to help him.

The ambulanceman talked to him for a while. Because the man didn't 'consent' to come(though in fact he could not have moved if he did) . . .

He walked away.

He walked away and called a police officer.

32 Next, a Levite came near.

The police officer turned up in a big van.

He saw the hurt man, but he went around him. He would not stop to help him either. He just walked away.

She walked around and spoke on her radio. Because 'the man didn't consent' she drove away too.

33 “Then a Samaritan man travelled down that road. He came to the place where the hurt man was lying. He saw the man and felt very sorry for him.

But the volunteer workers in our Church Drop-In centre felt sorry for the man.

34 The Samaritan went to him and poured olive oil and wine on his wounds. Then he covered the man’s wounds with cloth.

Whether he consented or not they ushered him into the hallway of the church and put a blanket over him.

The Samaritan had a donkey. He put the hurt man on his donkey,

They called the man at Wycombe Homeless Connection, a Christian Charity run by our group of churches. He came and sat with the man. And talked with the man.

and he took him to an inn. There he cared for him. 35 The next day, the Samaritan took out two silver coins and gave them to the man who worked at the inn. He said, ‘Take care of this hurt man. If you spend more money on him, I will pay it back to you when I come again.’”
And persuaded the man to go with him until he could enter the Night Shelter that evening (run by volunteers from the churches)

36 Then Jesus said, “Which one of these three do you think was really a neighbour to the man who was hurt by the robbers?” 37 The teacher of the law answered, “The one who helped him.” Jesus said, “Then you go and do the same.”

And thankfully for the man in 21st century Wycombe - his followers still do.

Glorious Ruins

2012-01-25T20:42:00.000Z

I've been sorting through my ridiculously large collection of photographs, a product of the digital age's invitation to wastefulness. Though I have a moderate interest in history it is hardly my obsession and so I am amazed to find how many photographs I have that look something like this . . .

It is a picture among many pictures that I have of ruins.

In my defence, I have rarely found myself alone as I have stood seeking to get the corner of the broken buttress or the top of the long-empty window frame in my composition. Ruins, and Britain has a seemingly biased love for them, are somehow glorious. So much so that, for example, I am not as sure I would have taken this picture of the significant but unpretentious abbey if it were still complete.

Glorious ruins was the picturesque phrase coined by Francis Schaeffer to describe humanity in this fallen world. I think that is very good. The vestiges of greatness are there. Last Sunday and this Sunday we are having infant dedications in our services. Who cannot wonder at the newborn human life? It makes us proud to be human.

Yet history cruelly draws our wondering gaze to horrific wonders; isolated and even systemic stories of infanticide, a fate only narrowly escaped by the infant Lord of Glory in Herod's jurisdiction. There is no human aspect that does not show brokenness as well as beauty, where the glory is the glory of ruins.

It is the peculiar work of God that makes humanity's ugly story somehow glorious. Not so that we will see our belonging in the ruins but that we may see a portent of our undeserved glory there.

I thank Thee, Lord, that here our souls

Though amply blessed,

Can never find, although they seek

A perfect rest;

Nor ever shall, until they lean

On Jesus’ breast.

Uncle John

2012-01-13T19:52:00.001Z

Friday is my day off as a rule. Yet it is a favourite day for a funeral or memorial service whereupon I lose my day or have to have it another time. So why today would I take my day off and use it to go to, of all things, a memorial service? For a family member, obviously - but no, this elderly gentleman was not a member of my family or even a friend. I went to honour the life of a man who has not only shaped me by his preaching and writing, but has helped to create the spiritual landscape in which I have been blessed with a saving knowledge of God in the Lord Jesus Christ. Today was the Memorial Service for John Stott.

St Paul's Cathedral was an unlikely setting for a Service respecting such a humble man yet suited to the purpose partly because it was the place in which 'Uncle John' was ordained, that it was London's Cathedral (the city of his birth and core ministry) and that it is big (for there were a lot of people there of course). I was in a seat about a mile and a half down the nave observing minuscule people at the front (and, much closer by, the back of Nicky Gumbel's head) as they brought their tributes from the continents of the earth. The three senior clergy of the Church of England were there - the two Archbishops and the Bishop of London - though I know that more by the hearing of the ear than the seeing of the eye!

Of a thousand observations that might be made I make this one: that John Stott grew as a child in All Souls, Langham Place, where his whole life ministry was centred. Yet his influence on the worldwide church was as great as anyone in Western Evangelicalism. In later years this was turned into travel miles, but for many years it was the result of a faithful Biblical ministry in the centre of a world City. It is but one of the countless ways John Stott imitated Christ. Jesus spent nearly all his life in one area too. But he still changed John Stott the Londoner, and his Gospel of saving love reached the ends of the earth long before the internet.

Nor do any of us need to change the world by racing round it so much as by bringing Jesus to the part to which we have been called.

Going, going . . .

2012-01-12T13:18:00.001Z

Today I walked through Wycombe past the Salvation Army 'Church' (as it is slightly incongruously called these days) building. Then . . .

. . . then comes Black's, an outdoor clothing shop that has a sister branch in town. It only had its staff in - no customers. Its owner is now in administration. Past a glass door to upstairs offices and next comes a boarded up shopfront that appears to have been long unoccupied.

After this is the remains (you have to look hard to see this) of a Box Clever shopfront which was also a furniture outlet for a short interim time.

Then comes the Alexon Clothing shop - its closing down sale in full swing.

Next a large Toy Shop lies empty. It has moved to another shopping centre.

You could buy a Subway sandwich next or a Kebab next door to that and then there is a bereft-looking charity shop where some other retailer had previously been. Next to the Charity Shop is the former Officers Club shop. Closed of course.

Then comes the old Burger King restaurant. But that's closed.

Next to the old BK is a large shop that is so closed as to be untraceable as to its former owners though it now has pictures of local trees in.

First Choice is next. That was a travel agent, though not any more. Even though it belonged to the more successful of the UK's two main travel groups it has closed.

I suppose it's good news if the Salvation Army has any wish to expand into shopfronts . . .

A Happy New Year

2012-01-08T16:39:00.006Z

Yey! I love baptisms!! It was wonderful to witness two today!

Happy Christmas!

2011-12-24T23:48:00.000Z

Bedlam

2011-12-23T14:44:00.000Z

Is there time to write a blog today? Has anyone time to read it? The last working/full shopping day before Christmas weekend. It's bedlam!

But then Christmas always is bedlam [a place, scene, or state of uproar and confusion]. The roads are bedlam, the shops are bedlam, the church is bedlam and the home is bedlam!

Though in a way the problem is that they are not bedlam. The word's association with chaotic situations derives from the Bethlem Hospital in London which was, in fact, a lunatic asylum of such grandeur that it became a tourist attraction. Unfortunately it was not an attraction for those confined within and their miserable environment was both the voyeuristic draw and the derivation of the name for chaos as bedlam.

Originally it began as Christian foundation and the Order that ran it was named, of course, after the place and the event that the other sort of late-December bedlam ostensibly celebrates but more often buries beneath its confusion.

Thus the answer to Christmas bedlam is, well, Bedlam. Caught neatly, I think, in the folk carol Joly Wat that feels more like the first Bedlam where the Prince of Peace was found.

Whan Wat to Bedlem cumen was,

He swet, he had gone faster than a pace;

He found Jesu in a simpell place,

Betwen an ox but and an asse.

Ut hoy!

For in his pipe he made so much joy.

‘Jesu, I offer to thee here my pipe,

My skirt, my tar-box, and my scrip;

Home to my felowes now will I skip,

And also look unto my shepe.’

Ut hoy!

For in his pipe he made so much joy.

Departed

2011-12-19T22:19:00.002Z

He died last week.

He'll be sadly missed by those who loved him. Already I've seen real tears at his loss. I suppose one must admit that he never showed any belief in God who created him. His life was consumed with material things rather than spiritual. Not for him the real meaning of Christmas or Easter, not for him any interest in the words of Scripture, the promises of hope. He lived his life for this world only. And now he's gone. Missed by some, a gift to this world from his Maker, but apparently oblivious to this. He died without hope.

Christopher Hitchens and Kim Jong il died last week too. I was not writing about them but about our much-loved guinea pig Alfie yet the observable parallels are alarming as their souls await their next appointment. Alfie, meanwhile, has just become part of the back garden (and our memories). He rests in peace (except he doesn't because he's gone).

Advent

2011-12-10T00:30:00.000Z

Psalm 102

2011-11-30T18:00:00.001Z

St Andrew's Day (today) is Scotland's national day because of alleged stories of ancient saint's relics being taken to be enshrined there.

Thankfully, Scotland has given the world higher spiritual input than this. Not least, psalm singing.

There are several things to remark here.

Is it imaginable that God could ever be praised without a band or an organ? And if so, how poor would that be? Erm - that might work quite well actually.
Could Psalm 102 possibly be intended for singing? Well, I know it's a Psalm but all that sense of misery in it - and not even a praisy linking bridge to chant . . . Erm, yes, the Psalms are for singing.
Can groups of people - congregations I think they're called - do the singing themselves? No-one gyrating or enrobed at the front? Surely not . . . Oooh look! They can!

1 To this my prayer O listen, LORD!
And let my cry for help reach You.
2 In day of grief hide not Your face.
Your list'ning ear toward me O bend;
The day I call, Your answer send,

3 For all my days go up in smoke,
And like a hearth my bones are burned.
4 Like grass my heart is crushed and dried;
I daily food forgotten leave;
5 My skin and bones together cleave.

With sighs and groans my frame resounds.
6 I'm like a desert pelican,
Or like an owl in ruined wastes.
7 I lie awake, as on the roof
A sparrow stands, alone, aloof.

8 All day my foes their taunts repeat;
Those filled with anger curse my name.
9 I food with tears and ashes mix,
10 For You on me in anger frown;
You raised me up to throw me down.

11 An ev'ning shadow are my days;
Like grass I wither soon away.
12 But You, Jehovah, sit enthroned
Forever; Your memorial
Abides through generations all.

Just a minute

2011-11-26T21:39:00.000Z

Sermons don't come much shorter than this.

I would be a rich man if I had been given a donation every time someone made a comment about long sermons in my hearing or reading with the implication that a shorter sermon would obviously be better (see previous blog regarding a disappearing newspaper's editorial, for example).

As I did not attend the service I cannot confirm directly the success of this attractive advertisement for brevity but I was outside not long before the service was due to commence and there was no queue! I did some further investigation on the Church's website however. Websites, for all their techno wonder, are often more out of date than a good old fashioned notice and thus I read an earlier version of the service there:

1.10 pm Holy Communion (said) (lasts twenty-five minutes), with two minute sermon.

Aha! I have, then, discovered that if I get my sermons down to two minutes I will find that is way too much to bring them in - exactly 100% too much in fact. Thoughts race round my head - what if the new one minute version is also unsuccessful? Half a minute - would that work?

The good news is that, given restraining circumstances, a preacher can make a decent fist of it in about five seconds, "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved" (Acts 16:31).

Except that we are told that the apostles then spent time telling the family the Word of the Lord.

And if Jesus had not taught all afternoon long there would never have been the feeding of the five thousand who had listened and learned hour after hour. Indeed, they would have never been fed at all - which is rather the point.

Baptist Times

2011-11-22T21:24:00.001Z

The news that the Baptist Times is to be published no more after 2011 struck me is a similar way to that described by Catriona Gorton; I'm somehow sadder than I expect to be. Steve Holmes has written a good blog on why it probably matters.

The Baptist Times has not played a large part in my life. Apart from a supplement where our Church was featured my only appearance in the paper was for one of my inductions to a Pastorate: a couple of weeks later a more famous Baptist minister (also called John Roberts) arranged for a rebuttal to assure his friends that he had not, in fact, been called to the church that I'd been called to!

Oh, and when I was a student I had a letter published too. It was about the ecumenical movement and somebody took it and turned it into a pamphlet which was my introduction to the fact that once your words are out there you have little control over them - a helpful lesson ahead of blogging!

The predominant effect of the Baptist Times over the years has been to irritate me. So, true to form, before I read the announcement of its closure (I never read papers and magazines from front to back and the announcement was near the front), it irritated me again.

Often it is the pretentious letters (and that happened again) but there was also the editorial. This was mocking refreshments after services and (of course) the length of sermons. The editorial was headed 'First Impressions' and was alluding to the woeful ones that Baptist Churches allegedly give. But you know what? Scarcely ever - in any of the churches I've served - have I heard first-time or relatively new unchurched people complain about the refreshments (which is unsurprising if you've visited a hospital, travelled on a train or sat in an airport lately). More astonishingly they scarcely ever complain about the length of services or even sermons. No, the complaints - if they come at all - come from people who have been going to church for years (and frequently on behalf of their growing children who are in the process of deciding that the Christian faith may not be for them. I think we Christian parents have to accept that the coffee is unlikely to be the major factor there . . .)

I wouldn't greatly respect these potshots on any week but they had a special irony on a week when the paper itself was seen to be a failed enterprise after 156 years. Statistically the fall in BT circulation is catastrophic compared to the decline in Baptist Churches. Maybe if they'd offered coffee/biscuit vouchers and free sermon DVDs . . .

Gold in Concrete

2011-11-15T12:25:00.000Z

As things turned out (see last week's blog), Jimmy Savile's coffin was encased in concrete to prevent thieves stealing some of his extravagant jewellery which was not inside but might have been (or indeed investigating whether the coffin was real gold . . . Tutanjimmy's tomb as it were.)

All that concrete is going to make it very difficult on resurrection day.

Like moving a stone I suppose.

Gold

2011-11-09T08:31:00.001Z

Prior to today's funeral, showman Jimmy Savile's golden coffin lay 'in state' in a hotel in Leeds. We'll miss him, epitomised in his epitaph IT WAS GOOD WHILE IT LASTED.

A couple of days before we've heard of the conclusion of the trial of Michael Jackson's doctor - and the international star also had a golden coffin. Sadly the story of Michel Jackson, notwithstanding hos great talents, was that it was not always good while it lasted. That was why he died young.

Who else? There was Carl Williams (2006); he was a killer himself killed in jail in Australia after being a leader of the Melbourne underworld; Nick Rizutto, son of the imprisoned Mafia boss in Montreal (2010). And so on: golden coffins have some interesting associations.

There's nothing new about golden caskets either. The gilded bed on which old Tutankhamen's remains lay is but one of the golden treasures that, since their discovery, have made his death arrangements among the best known in history. Sadly for him, the treasures were so wonderful that he (or at least his remaining molecules) were separated from the gold so that museum visitors can see the gold. So the danger of too much gold in your dying place is that the living will take it from you, or you from it.

The real trick would not be about gold at all. It would be to be able to exit the place to join the living once again. Lady Gaga achieved this earlier this year at Radio 1's Big Weekend. For her first song she emerged from a golden coffin to launch her song set. Great show! Sir Jimmy was proud I'm sure. But the tricky, and achingly important, part of the real trick would be to do that after being publicly dead, say on the third day . . .

Jesus'll fix it.

Happy Hallowe'en!

2011-10-31T08:00:00.001Z

This seems like a good day for a dose of John Bunyan.

Hallowe'en is a helpful annual reminder of why it is a good thing to be progressing through this world rather than belonging here - something well worth celebrating!

Young

2011-10-24T17:30:00.000+01:00

Yesterday we had an Evening Service where the average age of the participants was under 20 years old. And no-one was as old as half my age. I like that.

I thought about it when I read about the UK Youth Parliament. I think that is a great idea too. But what I noticed about that is that it is three days - not three full days mind - in the summer hols. I am confident no young person I have met even knows it exists. I am not entirely convinced that most politicians know it exists.

Here's the blurb: 'For the last ten years MYPs from all across the UK have come together to take part in workshops, debates, and develop the UK Youth Parliament’s campaigns for the year ahead at our annual summit.'

Laudable, but definitely not powerful.

When young people - indeed when children - lead times of worship and reflection on the much greater things of God the amazing thing is this: they are often more able and powerful than adults. And certainly, as heaven looks down, heaven does not think,

'Oh, it's just a Youth-led Service tonight'

Dentist

2011-10-15T23:58:00.001+01:00

Yesterday I went to the dentist.

My official position on this is that 'I hate the dentist'. I am not alone in thinking that of course.

This is wrong in a number of ways.

For a start, my dentist is very nice. She's funny and, as far as I can tell, she's good at her job. So I don't hate my dentist at all. Perhaps, instead, I hate going to my dentist.

But that is wrong-headed too. I'm afraid my teeth are not in the condition of the ones in the mirror above but at least this time there was no work to be done. To find that out, and have them cleaned, and come away with change from a £20.00 note - it's hardly the worst thing in my week. Perhaps I hate being treated by my dentist.

This too is crazily wrong. Frankly, I have had most of my dental treatment at short notice when I have been desperate to be treated by my dentist. It is closer to the truth to say I hate not being treated by my dentist - the kind of dread that comes with a worrying crunch on something hard when away on holiday. Perhaps it's just the thought - I hate the thought of being treated by my dentist.

But no. That thought is a great privilege as I walk past my dentist's surgery as I often do. Along the road from her is my doctor's surgery, down from there the hospital (just past the pharmacies). To walk to all four and home again would be about two miles. How many places in the world is that possible?

I don't hate my dentist at all. I hate having bad teeth sometimes.

And when somebody says the hate God or Jesus (or probably even the Church) they probably mean they hate not being righteous - only they never think about it long enough to work it through.

Off-Road

2011-10-09T16:50:00.000+01:00

Some years ago I visited Rhode Island and saw this historic Church - the first Baptist Church building in America.

Yesterday we had an awayday for our leadership at this Baptist Chapel:

It's not very big, and its not as old as the one in Providence, Rhode Island. More pointedly it is situated behind a Post Office and a Public House. Is this typical of the Brits, we ask? Americans (even early ones) give themselves a prominent landmark, we put ourselves out of the way in, effectively, someones back garden.

History tells a rather different story. Chapels were built off road because in their founding day their founders were lucky if they were allowed to build at all. Indeed, there were times when, in England, a body of believers outside the establishment could only meet - as would today be true in some other lands - in private houses.

It isn't getting any easier to witness publicly for Christ in 21st Century Britain. But it's immeasurably easier than it's been for many of our forebears and many of our brothers and sisters through the world.

Teenager

2011-09-27T21:56:00.000+01:00

So Google is thirteen today!

And yet it is so hard to remember life without Google. Was there a time when a whole day passed and nobody, nobody in the wide world said, "Just google it"? How did you find the Stagecoach timetable? How did people find Luther's 95 theses? Is it possible that Alexander the Great conquered the world and it wasn't mentioned on Google? Could Methuselah have lived 969 years and not used Google even once?

The preposterous thought that Google has become what it is in such short order is a solemn sign I think. Could one entity rise to prominence in a world of billions of people as the Biblical prophecies suggest? Can the whole world really be part of anything when there are billions of us that will never meet each other?

Google is, methinks, not the Beast! But perhaps it reminds me how plausible the previously implausible has become. In no time we could be at the end of time.

Expensive

2011-09-21T10:33:00.000+01:00

Dietrich Bonhoeffer died at the end of World War II in a Nazi Concentration Camp after his willingness to challenge the Nazis. He wrote

Cheap grace is the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance, baptism without church discipline, Communion without confession, absolution without personal confession. Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ, living and incarnate.

Costly grace is the treasure hidden in the field; for the sake of it a man will gladly go and sell all that he has. It is the pearl of great price to buy which the merchant will sell all his goods. It is the kingly rule of Christ, for whose sake of one will pluck out the eye which causes him to stumble; it is the call of Jesus Christ at which the disciple leaves his nets and follows him.

Such grace is costly because it calls us to follow, and it is grace because it calls us to follow Jesus Christ. It is costly because it costs a man his life, and it is grace because it gives a man the only true life. It is costly because it condemns sin, and grace because it justifies the sinner. Above all, it is costly because it cost God the life of his Son: "you were bought at a price," and what has cost God much cannot be cheap for us. Above all, it is grace because God did not reckon his Son too dear a price to pay for our life, but delivered him up for us. . .

Book Review - Love One Another

2011-09-13T20:09:00.000+01:00

Love One Another

Becoming the church Jesus longs for

By Gerald L. Sittser

IVP 188 pp £8.99

This is a reworked version of Sittser’s 1994 book Loving Across Our Differences. Sittser’s book deserves respect because its original version was born out of immense family tragedy in which he lost his wife, daughter and mother in a car accident. The pastoral care that he and his remaining family received from his church gave him the passion for the subject of this work.

Sittser has written a straightforward, readable and useful book on pastoral and fellowship issues in the local church. There is much illustrative material but the chapters of the book are built around the ‘one another’ sayings in the New Testament. From these sayings he is able to address areas such as Comforting One Another, Being Subject to One Another, Forgiving One Another, Encouraging One Another and even, though with understandable difficulty, Admonishing One Another.

Sittser’s expositions of Paul’s pastoral thinking are often insightful and almost always helpful. It might form a supporting text for a local church studying what the Bible says about Christian fellowship or pastoral care. It would also provide encourage warmth and breadth for the thinking of Pastors, Elders or Deacons, possibly on a retreat.

Never Once

2011-08-30T22:19:00.001+01:00

The Priority of Preaching

2011-08-28T14:42:00.000+01:00

This little book derives from the author’s spoken contributions to the 2008 Evangelical Ministry Assembly. The Biblical focus is on parts of Moses’ addresses recorded in Deuteronomy. Its origins as Assembly material mean that it is more a structured defence of consecutive expository preaching than an example of it. It also has the style of a transcript but has good readability.

The reader can well imagine how the arguments graciously delivered here would have encouraged listening preachers. There are many insightful moments that will certainly elevate the preacher’s sense of responsibility while, hopefully, keeping him humbled by the Word.

Valuable distinction is made between teaching and preaching. They are not the same thing and teaching, for all its discipling value, cannot be the main agency for winning hearts to the Lord Jesus. The book also offers a strong defence of local church ministry – all over the world the local church is a counter-cultural sign in a fragmented world that reassembly is taking place . . . The podcast is not the point.

Anyone – inside or outside the faith - who has wondered why so many often small local assemblies of believers and enquirers sit listening on a Sunday to a man speaking what appears to be a monologue and puzzle as to its value should read Christopher Ash’s book. It matters more than the world can imagine, more than the world can know (unless it listens).

The Priority of Preaching by Christopher Ash is published by Christian Focus Publications 122pp £7.99

"Pardon?"

2011-08-05T16:30:00.000+01:00

The telephone is a boon to people who are deaf, I've been told. I know friends who find a voice on the telephone easier to hear than one in real life. But there comes a point where this is no longer true because the deafness is profound. I had to give on on such a call this past week and it brought to mind one of the most difficult pastoral conversations I have ever had.

Few if anyone who reads this blog would ever have met the lady but I'll call her Mary. Mary lived on her own but had a son David living locally who never came to our Church. I had never seen her there either but I had met her in hospital and her husband when he'd been alive so had kept, so to speak, in touch. She had another son, John, in South Africa. And that's where the call headed:

"Hello, Mary"

"Hello. Hello, who's that? Is that you, John?"

"It's John Roberts from the Church"

"How are things with you, then? I hope everyone's well"

"Yes, thank you. But how are you?"

"Yes, the leaves are falling here. What's the weather like there?"

"IT'S JOHN FROM THE CHURCH, MARY"

"It's getting colder now too. The night's are drawing in. I expect it's warm there already, is it?"

"I'M JOHN ROBERTS FROM THE CHURCH, MARY, I'M RINGING TO SEE HOW YOU ARE."

"Yes, it will soon be winter now. The leaves are beginning to fall, you know. How is everyone anyway?"

(Giving up) "We're fine, thank you"

"David's very good, you know. He does all that needs doing" (Oh dear. Was that a pointed comment? I didn't know. I didn't like being a surrogate telephone son).

The phone call eventually ended - though that wasn't easy to achieve given that I was cast in the role of ringing from South Africa to check on my mother. I hoped that John's wife and family were indeed alright as I had answered for them!

And I realised what my prayer times must seem like from heaven's perspective.

John Stott

2011-07-28T11:11:00.000+01:00

John Stott's death yesterday ends a wonderful life in this world that made the Bible live for generations of us. As a young professional in London I can remember hearing him expounding the Word of God, in those days as Rector Emeritus of All Souls Church, Langham Place.

Expounding the Bible is not the Baptists' strongest point. A testimony here, a thought there, a cup of coffee, a prayer meeting for revival . . . I think I would have never understood the richness of Bible exposition were it not for those days in All Souls. My Council Estate ears struggled with his Queen's Chaplain voice but that was a small discomfort in return for understanding that the Bible speaks when the preacher allows it to do so.

Thank God that today there are others of influence, not least in North America, who are dedicated to letting Scripture speak. Blessed indeed is the Church that, although it has different expositors, only ever has one speaker - the Word of God. And in John Stott's ministry All Soul's was extraordinarily blessed over a generation, and so were countless others throughout the world. I thank God for him.

Duilisc before Carcair

2011-07-20T23:26:00.000+01:00

Activist Christianity struggles to grasp this but, honestly, the work and worship of God transcends filled diaries. Look at this section from a wonderful old Celtic prayer-poem, attributed (possibly correctly in this case) to Columba;

At times kneeling to beloved Heaven -

At times psalm singing;

At times contemplating the King of Heaven

Holy the chief;

At times at work without compulsion

This would be delightful.

At times plucking duilisc from the rocks

At times at fishing;

At times giving food to the poor;

At times in a carcair:

The poem pictures a life devoted to God in which formal worship is offered at times to the Chief of Heaven. But there are also times to pluck duilisc.

Although beaches often feature in today's commercials the people on the beach are almost always running or jumping (or surfing, or horse-riding, or driving). Even the sea edge has become a busy place in our society.

Columba, in common with all Celtic saints, knew that God would not be neglected by taking time to enjoy his handiwork. Thus we imagine the breezy summer Atlantic shoreline and a man in a habit plucking juicy seaweed (duilisc) from the rocks just because he can, and it's free, and God is there. Duilisc washes in on the tides from June to September; you won't get to pluck any in January even if you can stand upright on the windswept, gloomy, wave-lashed shore. Get plucking because there are also times in a carcair.

We don't know exactly what carcair meant for Columba. A carcair was a prison - it may have meant the enclosed hermitage or imprisonment by hostile communities. But either way it was a great loss of the freedom that the seaweed-plucker enjoys!

We are wise to remember how, a little further inland, the Lord said in his greatest discourse, 'Consider the lilies of the field how they grow'. He credited us with the intelligence to realise that such consideration would only happen by taking the opportunity while it blooms and before the carcair, or in his case the cross, at a time yet to be.

Natural Wastage

2011-07-13T11:36:00.002+01:00

There's nothing like a Church committee as a setting for making bizarre new theology.

The Daily Telegraph carried a report on the General Synod at which a member was quoted as follows:

“The perfect storm we can see arriving fast on the horizon is the ageing congregations,” he said. “The average age is 61 now, with many congregations above that. … 2020 apparently is when our congregations start falling through the floor because of natural wastage, that is people dying."

The Salvation Army coined the term 'promoted to glory' for its members passing through death to life everlasting (a vertical contradiction of falling through the floor). The Apostle Paul liked the phrase fallen asleep in Jesus. John Bunyan in Pilgrim's Progress famously described arriving in a Celestial City:

Now, while they were thus drawing towards the gate, behold a company of the heavenly host came out to meet them: to whom it was said by the other two shining ones,

"These are the men that have loved our Lord when they were in the world, and that have left all for his holy name; and he hath sent us to fetch them, and we have brought them thus far on their desired journey, that they may go in and look their Redeemer in the face with joy." Then the heavenly host gave a great shout, saying, “Blessed are they that are called to the marriage-supper of the Lamb.” Rev. 19:9.

There came out also at this time to meet them several of the King’s trumpeters, clothed in white and shining raiment, who, with melodious noises and loud, made even the heavens to echo with their sound. These trumpeters saluted Christian and his fellow with ten thousand welcomes from the world; and this they did with shouting and sound of trumpet.

This done, they compassed them round on every side; some went before, some behind, and some on the right hand, and some on the left, ... And now were these two men, as it were, in heaven, before they came to it, being swallowed up with the sight of angels, and with hearing of their melodious notes. Here also they had the city itself in view; and they thought they heard all the bells therein to ring, to welcome them thereto. But, above all, the warm and joyful thoughts that they had about their own dwelling there with such company, and that for ever and ever; oh, by what tongue or pen can their glorious joy be expressed!

Alternatively, you can call it natural wastage . . .

Christians would be wiser to value older people and reach them with the Good News of eternity in glory with Jesus than, "Hey, join us and soon become our natural wastage".

Cats and Dogs

2011-07-08T09:55:00.001+01:00

A king can see a cat but a cat can never see a king.

This famous saying refers to the issue of perception: the cat sees a king but not as a king, the king sees the cat as a cat.

Dogs don't see kings either though they have no proverbial saying to say so. I heard a preacher refer to his dog as a ministering angel. He had been in a time of quite deep despair in which nobody he felt understood him. Except his dog. It, he said, looked at him and ministered to him as others couldn't.

Preachers think too hard sometimes. Instead of seeing the proverb in the dog he saw an angel there. The despairer saw the dog but the dog did not see the despairer.

But this is not the good news. The good news is that the One who loves us best sees us the most clearly! God demonstrates his love for us in this, that while we were sinners Christ died for us. He knows me and he loves me.

Preparation

2011-06-27T10:50:00.000+01:00

The season starts here.

This is the week when the players return for preseason training, something that largely determines where they get to in the football season to come.

It is 30 plus degrees today. It is a long way from a winter's night in Hartlepool.

There is grass, but goalposts and lines will be replaced with cones and slalom posts.

No crowd roars, cheers or jeers. Maybe an odd(!) chaplain stands and watches sympathetically (not empathetically).

In itself it is pointless. Grass, running, a field, sweat. It is all about the prize of victories (and bonuses) in the autumn, winter and spring.

The work of God's people on earth is not the end but a means to an end. Making disciples really means calling people to pre-season training!

Paul wrote: I have become all things to all men so that by all possible means I might save some. I do all this for the sake of the gospel, that I may share in its blessings. Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one gets the prize? Run in such a way as to get the prize. Everyone who competes in the games goes into strict training. They do it to get a crown that will not last; but we do it to get a crown that will last for ever. Therefore I do not run like a man running aimlessly; I do not fight like a man beating the air. No, I beat my body and make it my slave so that after I have preached to others, I myself will not be disqualified for the prize.

Easter Weekend translated for cats?

2011-06-15T22:35:00.010+01:00

Duke

2011-06-11T13:53:00.001+01:00

Congratulations to the Duke of Edinburgh who was 90 yesterday. Is he really 90? I fear he looks no older than me . . .

He tried to sound 90 in his interview,

"I reckon I've done my bit so I want to enjoy myself a bit now, with less responsibility, less frantic rushing about, less preparation, less trying to think of something to say," he said. "On top of that, your memory's going - I can't remember names and things."

In the light of which it is somewhat strange that his wife bestowed upon him a new name/title to remember - that of Lord High Admiral, a title that was hers until yesterday.

Isn't that marriage? You get to your 90th birthday and for a present the wife decides you should be doing one of her chores to help her out . . .

Time

2011-06-10T23:41:00.000+01:00

The British (though strangely no individual Briton I have met) are quite keen on ancient peculiarities. We had a dose of them at the Royal Wedding recently when the Archbishop, dressed in finery that threatened to outshine the bride but bespeaking some other century, led the couple in thees and thous, past a betwixt and a wedlock and generally reminded us of the glories, if such they be, of ancient Church of England liturgy.

You can get an ancient peculiarity daily in Oxford Cathedral (which, were I an Anglican, would be my diocesan mother church). For Oxford cathedral keeps Oxford time, not Greenwich Mean Time or British Summer Time like the rest of the nation. So the 11:00am service starts at 11:00am Oxford time, which was five minutes later than London. So, unless you've adjusted your watch, it will be 11:05 to you.

It's all a bit of odd fun, isn't it?

Mmm. Yet in the field of human life there are few things more important than than marriage, the public commitment of a man and a woman to stay together faithfully until parted by death. If there is something more important it might be a service of worship at which humans gather to address, and be addressed by, their God and Saviour. So why, I wonder, are these things the ones that are anachronistic? Why make these the museum pieces?

Although, of all the things that happen in Oxford, only the worship of almighty God is stuck in this time warp the real peculiarity is this - that worship of almighty God is the only thing happening in Oxford that will also happen in a New Order of things when time itself is history . . .

Buttons

2011-06-04T00:00:00.000+01:00

That morning Hudson Taylor had donned his customary frock-coat, as befitted a Victorian English gentleman, and started another day of brave, even reckless, Christian ministry. Here he was in the depths of China, a place forbidden to foreigners, far beyond the reach of consular support. Yet as he preached in town after town along the inland waterways he found that his foreignness guaranteed him an audience. And that, after all, is what every preaching missionary needs.

Irritatingly his foreignness seemed to be more alluring than the message itself. And on this, as it was to be, historic day pairs of eyes were transfixed upon him. Before the question, the wonderfully polite man had explained that they understood the usefulness of the strange things (buttons) on the front of his jacket. They were there to go through the holes and somehow hold the clothing together in the cold wind. But, the foreign teacher was asked, "What can be the meaning of those buttons in the middle of the honourable back?"

A lesser missionary might have laughed off the question about his decorative buttons. Hudson Taylor was not such a man. The question haunted him as he made his way to the next location. He resolved to dispense with the niceties of western regalia and adopt clothing, and habits, that were the best suited for his purpose of pointing the people of inland China to Jesus.

What a different place the world would be if Christians and their Church had more frequently dispensed with ornamental buttons!

Help!

2011-05-27T16:55:00.002+01:00

Stretch out thy hand, victorious King;

My reigning sins subdue.

Drive the old dragon from his seat,

With all his hellish crew.

Ah, we don't sing verses like that often (at all, actually)!

Um. We don't win battles like that often either unfortunately. I wonder if there's a connection?

Today

2011-05-21T23:59:00.036+01:00

"Quick!"

According to eccentric old Harold Camping you only have 60 second left - no less than that . . . . .

"No, Wait!!"

No, wait a minute - or more - Harold is over in Western America. Phew! 8 hours more!

"No, don't wait!!!"

You and me both - we can't see 60 seconds ahead ever. So old Harold was not right on two counts: he was too early regarding the Lord's return, and he gave us too long - the time to make Christ Lord of our lives is always NOW.

Ranks

2011-05-14T17:25:00.003+01:00

I paid a visit to Eton College Chapel as I was passing by yesterday. Maybe it was because it was Friday 13th and I was hoping for some shaft of blogging light, but it was not to be.

Instead of light I was reminded of one of the weirdest hymns I have ever sung. Apparently this was the hymn in Chapel on Monday - Ye watchers and ye holy ones.

To say that this hymn is not often sung in Baptist churches is like saying that Hillsongs don't often lead worship at the British Humanist Association's annual meeting. That is why I once had the experience that is much rarer for a Pastor than most people of being in a service where a hymn left me so bewildered in its first verse that my spinning mind failed to give the rest any attention . . .

Ye watchers and ye holy ones,

Bright seraphs, cherubim and thrones,

Raise the glad strain, Alleluia!

Cry out, dominions, princedoms, powers,

Virtues, archangels, angels’ choirs:

Alleluia! Alleluia! Alleluia! Alleluia! Alleluia!

Subsequent investigation suggested my problem was a lack of identity with Dionysius the Areopagite fed by that general Baptist malaise of Church history beginning with the previous Spring Harvest, New Wine or random other Christian Conference. For here the hymn writer has somehow managed to get all nine ranks of angels into one verse. Which is clever.

But then people at Eton College are clever, so it was understandable that they sung such things.

Whether identifying nine ranks of angels is clever is another matter entirely. I suppose there is the prospect of having a very long time to sort this kind of thing out in eternity (as in "Excuse me, are you a Virtue or a Throne? Oh, a Princedom - I can see you're busy. Can you have a [fairtrade] coffee in about a thousand years and tell me what a Princedom is then? Thanks. Oh, okay, two thousand then.")

For the rank ignorant Baptists there is always the consolation of the hymn we'd sung the previous Sunday which describes Jesus taking his human identity to the grave and then . . .

Humbled for a season, to receive a name

From the lips of sinners unto whom He came,

Faithfully He bore it, spotless to the last,

Brought it back victorious when from death He passed.

Bore it up triumphant with its human light,

Through all ranks of creatures, to the central height,

To the throne of Godhead, to the Father’s breast;

Filled it with the glory of that perfect rest.

Ranks of heavenly beings may be a clever study, but its spiritual worth is no more than that of studying cloud formations as your plane transports you across the world to see your closest friend.

Gone

2011-05-04T17:17:00.001+01:00

History will not easily forget Osama Bin Laden. Any attempt to describe the first decade of this century will almost certainly feature his name and in his death he has comfortably dislodged the Royal Wedding from the front pages.

His infamy hasn't stopped the American government acting to try to make his name and reputation disappear as soon as possible following his killing by a Special Forces raid in Pakistan. They opted to remove his body and dump it (I suppose the official version is bury it) in the Arabian Gulf.

In one way this reminds me of the Roman authority's Easter Guard, positioned in front of the tomb to make sure that the dead died. It is a curiously fearful thing to do, a superpower vs. one man.

On a more heartening note it reminds me of God. The prophet Micah describes God dealing with his people's sin; You will cast all our sins into the depths of the sea. (Micah 7:19) Sin is God's enemy and he doesn't want it coming back to haunt us.

Rest Home to Royalty

2011-04-29T20:38:00.002+01:00

A day of days in our nation!

While crowds risk their lives in the political turmoil of the Arab World in this undeservedly blessed land we crowd to see a glorious celebration of human love at the centre of our national life. We have every reason to give thanks to God as we observed the elevation of Kate Middleton to the heart of the Royal Family.

And in it all one Scripture Reading. It was beautifully read and a majestically suitable passage for a marriage. And a great deal else. For just yesterday afternoon I was reading that same Scripture from Romans 12 and from my point of view it had made a journey at least as dramatic as Kate Middleton!

The setting I read it in had been a little different: the hearers were in single figures, one was in not the transcept exactly but in her bed with the door open next door, their average age at or around 90 years and more, and walking frames replaced State Coaches while a CD recording replaced the Westminster Abbey Sub-Organist, choirs, fanfare trumpeters and the English Chamber Orchestra. Yet to these elderly saints in the rest home as we shared Communion the apostle's words were still rich and replete with meaning and significance.

I won't forget today anyway, but if I were to do so Romans 12 would always remind me of God's timeless word, a victory of faith over fashion.

Happy Easter!

2011-04-24T16:05:00.000+01:00

Augustine: Homilies on the Gospel of John; Tractate LV.

2011-04-21T10:09:00.000+01:00

But why should we wonder that He rose from supper, and laid aside His garments, who, being in the form of God, made Himself of no reputation? Literally, “emptied Himself,” as in the Greek.

And why should we wonder, if He girded Himself with a towel, who took upon Him the form of a servant, and was found in the likeness of a man? Phil. ii. 6, 7.

Why wonder, if He poured water into a basin wherewith to wash His disciples’ feet, who poured His blood upon the earth to wash away the filth of their sins?

Why wonder, if with the towel wherewith He was girded He wiped the feet He had washed, who with the very flesh that clothed Him laid a firm pathway for the footsteps of His evangelists? In order, indeed, to gird Himself with the towel, He laid aside the garments He wore; but when He emptied Himself of His divine glory in order to assume the form of a servant, He laid not down what He had, but assumed that which He had not before. When about to be crucified, He was indeed stripped of His garments, and when dead was wrapped in linen clothes: and all that suffering of His is our purification.

When, therefore, about to suffer the last extremities of humiliation, He here illustrated beforehand its friendly compliances; not only to those for whom He was about to endure death, but to him also who had resolved on betraying Him to death. Because so great is the beneficence of human humility, that even the Divine Majesty was pleased to commend it by His own example; for proud man would have perished eternally, had he not been found by the lowly God. For the Son of man came to seek and to save that which was lost. Luke xix. 10.

And as he was lost by imitating the pride of the deceiver, let him now, when found, imitate the Redeemer’s humility.

Franklin

2011-04-16T22:43:00.001+01:00

Approaching the Royal Wedding fixes our thoughts on Westminster Abbey and marriage. A marriage with an extraordinary end is commemorated there and today is important in the story.

Among the very many monuments in what is our National Shrine is a monument to Sir John Franklin - 'This monument was erected by Jane, his widow, who after long waiting and sending many in search of him, herself departed to seek and find him in the realms of light.'

Today is his birthday and his birth is a lot easier to understand than his death. For sure his remains are not in the Abbey. Indeed they are somewhere quite unknown and very, very cold.

Born on April 16, 1786, John went to sea at age 15 with Admiral Nelson. He survived the Battle of Copenhagen then returned to England only to leave again, this time on a voyage to chart Australia. He next joined the Battle of Trafalgar, and later the attack on New Orleans.

He fell in love with Arctic exploration, and when the ships were forced to return to England, he joined another expedition to chart the northern coasts of Canada.

One of his crew wrote of him, "We have church morning and evening on Sunday. The men say they would rather have him than half the parsons of England."

In 1845 he sailed from England to look for the Northwest Passage and to explore the Arctic. Two letters came from him, then news ceased. Years passed. His beloved wife Jane spent a fortune searching for him. Finally a boat was found frozen in the north complete with two of the crew's skeletons - and Sir John Franklin's Bible.

Psalm 139.9,10 was underlined: If I. . . dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea; even there shall thy hand lead me, and thy right hand shall hold me.

A hand that reaches further even than the hand of a loving wife.

Fore!

2011-04-01T02:40:00.000+01:00

Today I feel impelled to tell the story of one of golf's most famous words, aptly pictured here:

The game of golf as we know it developed amid the coastal sand dunes of Eastern Scotland. St Andrews is enshrined as the town most associated with the development of the sport that now spans the world. And with it the shout, "Fore" as the now traditional warning.

At the beginning of April in 1877, Alexander Kilcallon was playing on the Royal course when, like many before and since, he was struck by a ball 'inflicting a wounde grievusse'. What was to make Alexander's story amazing was that exactly a year later to the day - this day - he was struck by another golf ball in a very similar way. The duality seemed too much of a coincidence and he consulted the Minister of the Kirk (Church). The Minister, Rev. Hamish Kincaird, was not at all sympathetic. He despised the worldly pleasure of sport and pointed Alexander to a Biblical Proverb that occurs identically twice (in Proverbs 22:3 and 27:12) - identical verses for identical incidents. In the King James version it reads

A prudent man foreseeth the evil, and hideth himself; but the simple pass on, and are punished.

Perhaps it was the way that the Reverend Kincaird pronounced the word foreseeth to make his point, but Alexander Kilcallon took the word back to his golfing party as a cry of warning. Presumably it was quickly reduced to the one syllable that any passing walker is wise to observe!

Not the intended application of the Proverb but very useful and undoubtedly the most shouted Biblical syllable on the golf course - though perhaps others are sometimes used in anger as well . . .

Lent

2011-03-25T17:09:00.000Z

Ball Skills

2011-03-23T11:50:00.002Z

Does a Football Chaplain need ball skills?

I've been asked a few questions about being a Sports Chaplain, but never that one. Yet only last week I was in action with the ball yet again. And when the ball comes to me I must, of course, make a judgement as to what move to do next, whether on the training field or, as Saturday, during a game.

Could it be that in these straightened times Chaplains are being drafted to make up the numbers? Well no. The ball skill I refer to is the equivalent of those demonstrated by the pet dog with the stick - the skill to catch or fetch. Whether standing by the training field or watching, say, the youth team play there are times when in the absence of a ball boy there is a Chaplain!

The Chaplain-cum-Ballboy must do his retrieval without fuss, equipping the right player with the ball so that the player can use his abilities in the real contest. Notwithstanding the video above, I help but do not score the goals!

In this respect, a Football Club Chaplain is very much like a Church Pastor. As a Pastor I return the ball of ministry every time I close a meeting or complete a visit because it is the congregation who spend most of their time in the centre of the challenge in the everyday world.

Love wins (one thief or two)

2011-03-22T18:25:00.004Z

The Baptist Times devoted its centre page spread to defending the cause of Universalism last week. Why? It is timed to chime in tune with Rob Bell's new book Love Wins - a splendid title after which things deteriorate rapidly. There is not a lot of point in a small town British pastor answering an American Megachurch Medialogue so I defer to Al Mohler's blog. Still, no-one looks evangelically trendier than Rob Bell - it would give our church a real street cred boost if Rob (and his specs of course) applied to join us . . . So shucks - now he can't. (Here's part of our church's basis of faith: The personal and visible return of Jesus Christ to fulfil the purposes of God, who will raise all people to judgement, bring eternal life to the redeemed and eternal condemnation to the lost, and establish a new heaven and new earth.)

Leaving Rob Bell to Al Mohler, I feel no such qualms about addressing the centre spread of the Baptist Times, the disappointing mouthpiece of the fellowship of churches that I serve. Robin Parry, the article's writer, is a pleasant enough chap I'm sure; he has cut out for himself (once he emerged from a pseudonym) a reputation as an evangelical universalist. The difficulty with labels is that when someone sticks two on themselves - in this case evangelical and universalist - and then turns round and says, "See, they go together!", it seems mean-spirited to try and tear one off and say "No they don't". After all, they stuck their own labels on themselves. If I want to say I am an Islamic Baptist or a Sinn Fein Monarchist who are you to tear one of my labels off?

Parry cites seven myths (by which he appears to mean lies) about univeralism (which he defines as the view that, in the end, God will redeem all people through Christ.)

Myth 1 : Universalists don't believe in hell

'Most universalists believe that hell is not simply retributive punishment but a painful yet corrective/educative state from which people will eventually exit (some, myself included, think it has a retributive dimension, while others do not).'

But what Parry describes is not hell, but closely akin to purgatory, 'an intermediate state after death for expiatory purification; specifically : a place or state of punishment wherein according to Roman Catholic doctrine the souls of those who die in God's grace may make satisfaction for past sins and so become fit for heaven'

The Biblical metaphors for hell are darkness - the absence of light - or the landfill site (gehenna) or fire where waste is disposed of. Every metaphor shouts 'no hope'. No metaphor remotely whispers, 'Here comes Jesus to teach you and save you'.

Based on this evidence the myth is completely true.

Myth 2: Universalists don't believe the Bible

'The question is not 'Which group believes the Bible?' but, 'How do we interpret the Bible?' The root issue is this: there are some biblical texts that seem to affirm universalism (e.g. Romans 5:18; 1 Corinthians 15:22; Colossians 1:20; Philippians 2:11) but there are others that seem to deny it (e.g. Matthew 25:45; 2 Thessalonians 1:6-9; Revelations 14:11; 20:10-15).'

Four texts on each side. Seems a fair debate. Except that these are strangely chosen texts: Matthew 25:45 is no proof text for hell but it does come at the end of three whole stories in which Jesus plainly teaches the final division of humankind at the judgment. By contrast the texts that seem to affirm universalism do not do so at all really - for example the universal acknowledgement that Jesus is Lord (Philippians 2:11) is not in the context of salvation but exaltation, Romans 5:18 is previously qualified by addressing the reader (5:2) as standing in that grace 'by faith in Christ'.

The whole witness of Scripture is to a messianic faith-salvation for those who believe. There is no balance of proof texts but an overwhelming story which is believed or rejected.

Furthermore, it is a logical fallacy to imply that because something is an interpretation of the Bible it is worthy of a balanced debate in the community of faith. There are many interpretations that can be summarily dealt with as off-centre and discredited long ago and universalism is one of them. When people complain that universalists don't believe the Bible they do not mean that universalists necessarily think that they don't believe the Bible. They mean that they are looking at a Rembrandt painting and interpreting it by concentrating on the frame.

Myth 3: Universalists don't think sin is very bad

Rather the objection is that the universalist doesn't think sin is very judged. You'll have to look hard in the article to find God judging, the fundamental verb that joins with the nouns sin and hell.

Myth 4: Universalists believe in God's love but forget his justice and wrath

'. . . all of God's actions [are] motivated by 'holy love'. Everything God does is holy, completely just, and completely loving. So whatever hell is about it must be compatible not simply with divine justice but also with divine love. Which means that it must, in some way, have the good of those in hell as part of its rationale.'

I guess that here we hit the Bell interpretation of Love Wins. The fatal flaw shouts loudly - 'whatever hell is about' - as if we have no guidance regarding this. Hell is the judgement of God on sin. Hell is not intended to be experienced as an invitation to know God's love any more than it is experienced positively as a revelation of God who is light. God is all light; hell is all dark.

Aha, but what do things look like if we emphasise that the God who judges sin is the God who is love?

The Scriptures are plain enough about that, aren't they? It looks like Easter. For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only son that whoever believes in him should not perish but have everlasting life. The cross is is Love's provision on the road to hell. For whoever.

Myth 5: Universalists think that all roads lead to God

Parry complains that universalists still believe Jesus is the means of salvation - just that he saves everyone in the end somehow. This simply means 'all roads lead to Jesus' which is the supposed myth rewritten but identical in content.

Myth 6: Universalism undermines evangelism

Parry might worry that he has to dig as far as Elhanan Winchester for an example of a universalist evangelist, not a name that rings loudly through the annals of missionary endeavour. It is a poor judgment of human nature to imagine that the church is going to risk all for something that is going to happen anyway. There are people who parachute out of planes for the fun of it. But not many. I've always waited for the guy in charge to bring us all safely in without doing a thing. I always will.

Myth 7: Universalism undermines holy living

This is not traditionally a strong complaint against universalism though it renders many New Testament things meaningless. Why try so hard in the Letter to the Hebrews to stop believers falling away when on this account they are just taking a diversion? Why make any effort in church discipline? Does it really matter if you take the road to forever life with Jesus through the chapel while I take it through the brothel?

________________________

One day an astonishing throng of the redeemed will gather round the throne of the Lamb, lives it scarcely seems possible could be cleaned will wear the washed robes. This every believer believes.

One dying thief. But the universalist believes two. Mary Magdelene but also, the universalist believes, Judas Iscariot. Those shaking their heads at the wonder of the love and grace that sought and saved them but, the universalist believes, accompanied incongruously by people who never wanted - of their volition - to be there; sinners kidnapped into a forced marriage by an anti-volitional, disregardingly predestinating and dehumanising Universal Love.

I don't think so. Like Christopher Hitchins (I don't write that often), I hope not.

Tides

2011-03-18T10:48:00.001Z

Looking at the wreckage - physical, psychological, economic - from the great tsunami tide in Japan my memory triggered a strangely reminiscent picture that I saw in the Maritime Museum in Liverpool. It is called 'Waiting for the Tide'

In Hoodless's painting all the big things - the river, the steamer, the famous waterfront buildings - are peripheral to a chugging tug and a pile of stuff that is just lying there, as on docksides things do. Waiting.

While the tsunami leaves everything washed up and waiting - waiting to be found, waiting to rebuild, waiting to return - other tides are waited for.

This is why, in so much Biblical imagery, the overwhelming wall of water that has so devastated thousands of lives is, rather, a picture of blessing - he will come like a pent-up flood that the breath of Yahweh drives along. The Redeemer will come to Zion, to those in Jacob who repent of their sins, declares Yahweh.

There is a flood that rescues as well as a flood that destroys.

Forfeit

2011-03-15T00:03:00.001Z

Sword drill. Ah, those were the days. For my daughter, church youth is about conferences and worship bands that imitate the third support act in a gig with Christian multi-media half-whizzy imitations of secular videospeak.

But I had sword drills.

Perhaps it is wise that in an era when religion is the more associated with acts of violence there are no longer sword drills. But I should point (sorry!) out that these exercises did not take place in open fields behind the church building skewering dummy infidels. Rather it was a reference to the Bible - the Christian's sword - and a hunt for words in a given chapter.

"1 Chronicles 6 and the word is bias". (Difficult one that actually). Whoever shouted out the right verse number got a point. Such innocent, non-techy pleasures . . . . All of which introduced me emphatically to the Bible as a weapon, the alarming results of which are visible in this photograph.

What good is it for a man to gain the world but forfeit his very soul? So reads the text. And beneath it the squashed remains of the irritating fly that made preaching a misery for the short time before it innocently landed on the page carelessly misreading a combatant preacher honed from a young age to using the Bible as a weapon.

Though as I best recall the idea was that the Bible was only a weapon when it was opened. I can now confirm it is also a weapon when shut - rapidly.

Shaking

2011-03-11T16:13:00.007Z

God is our refuge and strength,

A very present help in trouble.

Therefore we will not fear,

Even though the earth be removed,

And though the mountains be carried into the midst of the sea;

Though its waters roar and be troubled,

Though the mountains shake with its swelling.

C H Spurgeon: 'What then? Then will the earth be removed, . . . our mountain will be carried into the midst of the sea! But since God is our refuge and strength we ought not to dread the day.'

It's no yoke

2011-03-07T22:11:00.001Z

Jesus said, Come to me all you who are weary and carrying heavy burdens and I will give you rest.

Father

2011-03-05T14:22:00.000Z

Last Weekend it was sunshine, seaside and reflecting on the Love of God. I guess any made-for-Christian-TV commercially put-together set of Bible texts has its limitations but I think this video captures something important about the nature of God which religion often misrepresents.

Bless

2011-03-02T08:15:00.001Z

We had a great Church Weekend Away on the sunny South Coast of England. We basked in spring and in the love of God! Then we came home on highways clogged by accidents to cold drizzle and a working week. So it was appropriate - if uncomfortable - that our evening worship back in Wycombe ended with this benediction:

May God bless you with discomfort
At easy answers, half truths, and superficial relationships,

So that you may live deep within your heart.

May God bless you with anger

At injustice, oppression, and exploitation of people,

So that you may work for justice, freedom, and peace.

May God bless you with tears

To shed for those who suffer pain, rejection, hunger, and war,

So that you may reach out your hand to comfort them and to turn their pain to joy.

And may God bless you with enough foolishness

To believe that you can make a difference in the world,

So that you can do what others claim cannot be done,

To bring justice and kindness to all our children and the poor.

Amen

Happy St David's Day!

2011-03-01T08:04:00.000Z

Kind of the Welsh version of Auld Lang Syne! Is it just my welsh blood that thinks there's no real comparison?

Morons of the Oxy kind

2011-02-28T23:29:00.001Z

As a former foster parent who also believes and - horror of secular horrors - teaches the Bible I am singularly unimpressed by the supposed wisdom of Messrs Munby and Beatson in their judgement against the Johns released today. The case was not necessarily wisely brought either but it deserved better than it received. How can highly-paid judges use a non-word like Pentecostalist? Or make daft statements like this nation has an established church which is Christian when they presumably mean religion not church? Or state that they are thoroughly secular and then declare Religion – whatever the particular believer's faith – is no doubt something to be encouraged. Even religious people couldn't agree with that never mind atheists!

In the words of Robert Pigott (BBC), . 'Today the message was that courts would interpret the law in cases like the Johns' according to secular and not religious values.' People 'with traditionalist Christian views like Mr and Mrs Johns' might well not make good foster parents.

We have moved steps nearer a day when, in the United Kingdom, 'Christian Foster Parent' is an oxymoron [a figure of speech that combines contradictory terms]

Mind you, while I'm on the oxymoron theme, Munby and Beatson also declared, We sit as secular judges.

But if the much-maligned Bible is true there's also coming a day when 'secular judges' will itself be an oxymoron: For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may receive what is due for what he has done in the body, whether good or evil.

I've a feeling that Day might go somewhat better for Mr & Mrs Johns. And I hope, for their sake, that Messrs Munby and Beatson find out what church really means before then too.

Book Review: Entrusted with the Gospel

2011-02-20T14:21:00.000Z

The six chapters of this book are successive expositions of 2 Timothy transcribed from addresses at the national conference of The Gospel Coalition in Chicago in 2009.

Naturally the bi-annual conference is mainly attended by key leaders and the expositions are orientated to those listeners. The preachers are six leading American expositors - John Piper, Philip Ryken, Mark Driscoll, K. Edward Copeland, Bryan Chapell (whose advocacy of Scripture will warm many hearts) and J. Ligon Duncan. Each chapter is therefore distinctive in style and depth, making the book more of a sampler than a coherent whole. That said, almost every page contains rich expositional material such as is all too rarely heard from major evangelical voices and the whole is a readable, insightful treatment of Paul’s parting letter.

As a demonstration of the enduring richness and power of expository Biblical preaching, even in our 21st century, this is a fine book. Every preacher, and everyone who believes in Biblical preaching, should read it and a blessing will surely result.

Entrusted with the Gospel. D.A.Carson (Editor). IVP 158pp £8.99

The Food of Love

2011-02-14T20:45:00.002Z

I know Valentine's Day is important but I also know that jet engines are important. It doesn't follow that I understand them or know what to do when one comes near. (Actually when a jet engine comes near it is a good idea to duck . . .)

I read a survey that explains what women don't want for Valentine's Day

Don't buy clothes.

So I didn't buy clothes!

Don't cook a heavy meal.

So I didn't cook.

Don't treat her as though she's any other woman.

So I didn't.

Instead, we went shopping in the local supermarket for our week's groceries . . .

Fallow

2011-02-06T14:44:00.000Z

I love the simple truth of this song. Not every Sunday is a high experience, despite efforts all round. Not every Church is in revival very often. Not every land is feasting on the Lord. There is more to the Kingdom than days of feasting . . .

Menno

2011-01-31T13:14:00.001Z

450 years ago today Menno Simons died.

"True evangelical faith cannot lie dormant. It clothes the naked, it feeds the hungry, it comforts the sorrowful, it shelters the destitute, it serves those that harm it, it binds up that which is wounded, it has become all things to all people."

Menno -from whose name derives the Christian denominator Mennonites - is notable as a man committed wholly to the Bible. In an age when the Catholics and Melchorites, from opposite extremes, sought to exercise political, worldly sway, Simons headed into the scriptures.

More remarkably, and rather like his Lord, there are chunks of his life that remain unknown. His birth is unrecorded, his upbringing is obscure and his years on leaving the Catholic priesthood appear to have been spent at no fixed abode, as they say at the Magistrates' Court. Yet his influence was immense as he doggedly wrote and spoke of the Scriptures. He called warmongers toward peace, the indulgent toward sacrifice and the Church toward Jesus.

All those, now, who accept this means of divine grace, Jesus Christ, with believing hearts, and enclose him in their consciences, believe and confess that their sins are forgiven through his sacrifice, death, and blood; that his wrath and damnation will not be upon them forever; that he accepts them as his beloved sons and daughters, and gives them life eternal. All such become of peaceable and joyous spirit, and give thanks to God, with renewed hearts; for the power of faith quickens and changes them into newness of life, and they walk thus, by the gift and grace of the Holy Spirit in the power of their new birth, according to the measure of their faith, in obedience to their God who has shown them such great love.

Breaking

2011-01-28T14:09:00.000Z

Philip Yancy tells the story of a guy who told him over dinner,

"I'm going to leave my wife and children for another woman. Will God forgive me?"

He answered,

"He will, but you may not want Him to"

In the moment that one of earth's relationships is selfishly broken - the more so with earth's deepest relationship of marriage - the initiator is, consciously or unconsciously, destroying their relationship with God. "Inasmuch as you have done it to one of these, the least of my family, you have done it to me"

That's what the wise Philip Yancey saw and, as the story is reported, his prophecy was proved sadly right.

A song for a day with two funerals

2011-01-21T00:48:00.000Z

A (Short) Text for Blue Monday

2011-01-17T23:15:00.000Z

Many people who have been taught the Bible as children have also been wedged full of statistics and verse numbers, books with the most chapters, middle verses and the like. Outstanding in this series of not-very-useful information (for none of it is any use at all when trynig to help someone understand God's word for them) is the shortest Bible verse. It is so short and memorable it has become a kind of moderate English expletive:

JESUS WEPT.

(I wonder how many computer users have quoted this text in the face of a frozen screen, a Windows error message or the untimely launch of a virus scan?)

Just as well, then, that this is not the shortest verse in the Bible at all. Only in the English Bible. Originally written in Greek, the shortest verse in the New Testament says something very different in its fourteen Greek letters.

Translation : BE JOYFUL ALWAYS. 1 Thessalonians 5:16

Not only more redeeming of a bad moment on the computer - it's also just the antidote for Blue Monday.

Pass

2011-01-13T22:13:00.000Z

Our daughter passed her first major exam today. Wow! Was she excited!!

Our town with its fine schools (and not a little private money ploughed in for extra activities and tutoring) has much to be thankful for.

121 million children in the world have no education from any school system at all.

270 million have no access to health care so even if they learn something they may die before they can make use of it.

Yes, today was a good day. But even our bad days are good days if only we could see it.

Columba

2011-01-07T17:21:00.000Z

I'm still looking forward to 2011 but as so often happens even the first week has had its sadnesses. The wise Columba realised that we need God in the whole circle of life:

My dearest Lord,

be a bright flame before me,

be a guiding star above me,

be a smooth path beneath me,

be a kindly shepherd behind me,

today and for ever more. Amen

Happy New Year!!

2011-01-01T13:25:00.000Z

Here's a cracking topical 2011 challenge.

Click here for a whizzy website all about the King James Version of the Bible, 400 years old in 2011.

Found the site? Great.

Now see how long it takes you to find the following people on its pages:

1. Queen Elizabeth II

2. Prince Charles

3. King James

4. Boris Johnson

5. Jesus of Nazareth

Hint: One of these characters is, er, devilishly hard to find . . .

Happy Christmas!!

2010-12-25T09:00:00.003Z

Here's why!

Sooty Red

2010-12-22T20:59:00.000Z

Last summer we visited the (reproduced) iron age house at the Chilterns Open Air Museum. Unseen in the photo is the hole in the roof for the smoke to go out. And the little thingies (demons, faeries, and the like) to come in as was universally believed.

Chimneys were a great invention. We've dispensed with them in the centrally-heated-now but at the beginning they were a miracle cure for a very nasty problem. But along with the chimney continued folklore about hearth-gods and chimney spirits.

What better place, then, for the magical Santa to come in by than the spirit channel of the chimney? OK, so it messes up his red coat somewhat making the red a sooty red. But he is a power for good after bogeymen of various kinds spooked the chimney.

At least in this respect Santa says something useful about Christmas. I guess one way of retranslating the angel's instruction

you shall call his name Jesus because he will save his people from their sins is

he'll go through a dark place for you but get very dirty in the process.

Not so much sooty red as blood red.

Birthday

2010-12-19T09:40:00.038Z

Today is the birthday of Horatius Bonar.

The depth of his devotional poetry is being rediscovered and rightly so. It is quite ironic that this pastor-poet wrote hymns from within a church that would not sing them! Until very recently the Free Church of Scotland would only sing Psalms.

Quite a journey to North Cali. But that's the joy of Christian music. Why not take a moment of time to listen this through? You haven't time? Well it takes longer than this to hear Jesus' voice usually so maybe, just maybe, make 2011 a year to stop.

To come.

To rest.

To learn.

To find.

Then, and only then, to walk in His company. It was good enough for Horatius . . .

Bonar also famously wrote,

Take thy first walk with God!

Let Him go forth with thee;

By stream, or sea, or mountain path,

Seek still His company.

Thy first transaction be

With God Himself above;

So shall thy business prosper well,

And all the day be love

Open?

2010-12-18T20:15:00.000Z

Today we had our Open House.

It's the day when everyone is invited to our house all at once for calories (sorry, mince pies) and tea/coffee. This is Christmas, after all.

Of course an open house is one thing. As we discovered last year when there was a couple of inches of snow on our hill, an open road is quite another.

And this year?

Let's make that 5/6 inches of snow, at least in places. Eight hardy souls made it however!

An invitation is one thing, a way is something else.

Although Jesus is both.

Advent - a study in waiting

2010-12-05T13:36:00.002Z

St Andrew's Day

2010-11-30T21:58:00.000Z

I've spoken in a lot of places. In front of thousands, hundreds, dozens and less than ten; in freezing cold and searing heat, before vagrants and fabulously wealthy people. More stories than a blog could ever cover.

But one place I spoke I will certainly never forget and Scotland's day - St Andrew's Day - is a special day to remember it. It was February, it was cold and windy and it was Howmore Church on South Uist in the Outer Hebrides.

To the west of Howmore Church there is a small area of moorland, a beach and then the North Atlantic Ocean. Some thousands of miles later comes northern Labrador and Hudson Bay. To the east there is not much either, as the picture shows. Yes, that building is Howmore Church.

Amazing to think, on St Andrew's Day, that the news of Jesus the Messiah that Andrew first shared with his Galilean brother Simon (later called Peter) reached as far as Howmore! The ends of the earth indeed.

Synod

2010-11-24T10:10:00.000Z

Rarely does the Supreme Governor of the Church of England stray into deeply theological territory. I suppose that in the week after one of her junior bishops called her son Big Ears it is unsurprising that she is looking a little beyond her Church for virtue!

The Queen addressed her Church's General Synod thus,

"It is rightly acknowledged that people of faith have no monopoly of virtue and that the wellbeing and prosperity of the nation depend on the contribution of individuals and groups of all faiths and none."

Wow. I wonder if she realised what she said?

This is profoundly true and far too little understood. There is no difference in the duties and opportunities of virtue for the Atheist, the Agnostic, the Believer, the Nominalist, the Buddhist, the Muslim or the whatever. This is explained by the apostle Paul:

For we must all of us appear before Christ's judgement-seat in our true characters, in order that each may then receive an award for his actions in this life, in accordance with what he has done, whether it be good or whether it be worthless. [Weymouth's translation]

Virtue will indeed be expected all round. Nelson Mandela, Stephen Hawking, Queen Elizabeth, Kim Jong-il, Barack Obama, Richard Dawkins, Pope Benedict and every one of the rest of us. Does faith help virtue? I think this is possible. Indeed, our Lord said that his followers would be light and salt in a dark and rotten world.

But at the heart of the Christian message is no virtue. Just the opposite in fact. A cross. Condemnation, not complements. Death not life. Savagery not elegance. Blood not beauty. Bad not good. Shame, not virtue.

What the Synodic observation lacks are two further observations:

1. That people of faith and people without faith - all of whom have the same possibility and responsibility for virtue - ALL FALL SHORT.

2. There is forgiveness through a crucified Saviour who calls us to him.

To put it another way - the call to virtue is universal, the remedy for our failing it is unique. Thank you Jesus!

Formidable

2010-11-06T11:04:00.001Z

Our oldest Church member died recently. The word most of us could agree well-described her was the word formidable.

You don't get to live to 102 years old without having some determination, and Evelyn had plenty of that. And then some. Even at a century old she was still, well, formidable.

Which brings me to Melville Beveridge Cox.

On the face of it he was decidedly not formidable. He set out as a preacher in New England in 1822 before contracting tuberculosis. You don't usually live to 100 after having TB. He gave up preaching .

He moved and began working in a bookstore. He edited a weekly Christian magazine. He married. That might be calculated to turn a sickly man into something a little stronger. He and Ellen had a baby daughter, but not long after her birth both Ellen and the baby died of cholera.

The weakly widower volunteered for missionary work in South America. This was refused but instead he was assigned to Liberia, the African state being formed from freed slaves. There were doubts that this not-at-all formidable man would last long in Africa.

He began as quickly as he could with a church and two mission stations further up the river. By now he had malaria, and 15 weeks into Africa he was dead.

This story of hopeless weakness is formidable too, however. His story had so inspired other, stronger people that even as he died five further missionaries were en route to take up and expand his work.

In truth, all human formidability is to be found in God alone.

The Curious Incident of the Baptist Beer Barrel (and a Bottle of Whisky)

2010-10-31T21:40:00.000Z

What might I find in the Church recycling bin?

An old sermon perhaps? There'll have been a few of those that could be usefully composted I fear. Some old hymnbooks? No, you're wrong there. Churches never throw out old hymnbooks. Indeed, Christian newspapers contain baleful ads pleading with others to take ancient, useless hymnbooks into new ownership. I assert you are more likely to find a collection of diamond jewellery in a recycling bin than a hymnbook.

I suppose in some churches there might be a weekly wine bottle from the Mass. In a Baptist Church make that an old grape juice carton.

Yet if there is one thing nearly as unlikely as an old hymnbook in Baptist Church recycling it has to be what we found last week. A barrel full of beer. And a bottle full of whisky too!

What did we do? What could we do? What should we do? How could such a thing happen?

We did exactly the same thing as we would have done if we had found old hymn books there. Concluded it could not have been us, an enemy hath done this, and called the Police.

Spending Review

2010-10-19T17:11:00.000+01:00

Blog Action Day

2010-10-15T22:55:00.000+01:00

Unsafe water and lack of basic sanitation cause 80% of diseases and kill more people every year than all forms of violence, including war. Children are especially vulnerable, as their bodies aren't strong enough to fight diarrhoea, dysentery and other illnesses.

90% of the 42,000 deaths that occur every week from unsafe water and unhygienic living conditions are to children under five years old. Many of these diseases are preventable. The UN predicts that one tenth of the global disease burden can be prevented simply by improving water supply and sanitation.

Every year our church gives thousands of pounds to help directly with building wells for people in Tanzania. We praise God for our members Andrew and Miriam who have been willing to give some of the best years of their lives to help people have this most basic resource.

Scars

2010-10-12T21:48:00.001+01:00

Last Sunday we looked at 1 Peter, a New Testament letter that has a lot to say about being believers in an unbelieving world. The Bible makes little pretence that following that guy with the cross is going to be easy. Chapters like 1 Peter 3 appear discouraging to the contemporary ear that is used to relentlessly positive input.

Yet the wounds (not the self inflicted careless ones of course) of the believer are the badges of allegiance, a direct link to the One we follow. Here's Amy Carmichael's take on the theme:

Hast thou no scar?

No hidden scar on foot, or side, or hand?

I hear thee sung as mighty in the land,

I hear them hail thy bright ascendant star,

Hast thou no scar?

Hast thou no wound?

Yet I was wounded by the archers, spent,

Leaned Me against a tree to die; and rent

By ravening beasts that compassed Me, I swooned:

Hast thou no wound?

No wound, no scar?

Yet, as the Master shall the servant be,

And, piercéd are the feet that follow Me;

But thine are whole: can he have followed far

Who has no wound, nor scar?

Worldcom

2010-10-09T18:20:00.080+01:00

Most Sunday mornings I'm booked in to work. That's kind of par for the course for a Pastor!

When I'm not at my Church I'm nearly always at someone else's. So it was a very unusual Sunday last Summer when I had to transport my daughter to camp and I joined the motorway hordes who believe they have found something better to do than go to church. One of the larger buildings I passed, and shiny too, was this one.

It was Sunday and it was empty. It looked very high tech and expensive. Then again, the company concerned could well afford it as this extract from one of their reports shows . . .

'For the quarter, the company posted consolidated net income, excluding goodwill amortisation, of $710 million, or 25 cents a share, equalling analysts' forecasts. The company reported net income of $1.3 billion, or 44 cents per share, excluding charges, a year earlier.'

More accurately I ought to state, they APPEARED to be well able to afford it. This was WorldCom's UK headquarters (a mere rabbit hutch compared to its American cousins). And yet, as we now know, Worldcom was moving forward in a way analagous with the Sunday traffic on the adjacent M4: at high speed on a road to nothing that lasts. Now, after uncovering $11 billion in accounting mistatements, the CEO is in jail for a long time.

If only all those people driving past would learn the lesson of Worldcom and go to church.

Mmm. But that CEO did go to church. In fact, he taught Sunday School in a Baptist Church.

It is not where I place my bottom that ultimately matters, even when that place is a church pew. It is where I place my heart.

Digory

2010-10-03T00:22:00.001+01:00

Only as a result of my summer holiday in Cornwall did I learn the interesting story of Digory Isbell, a stonemason who, with his wife Elizabeth, opened their little cottage as a preaching station for John Wesley, the great evangelist.

Their gravestone at Altarnun church bears this inscription, which somehow manages to encompass the meaning of Christian marriage, sacrifice, spiritual warfare, obedience, promises and glory. A kind of introductory course on Christianity written by two lives and a memorial,

Reader, may thine End be like theirs.

From early Life, under the Guidance and Influence of divine Grace,

They strengthened each others Hands in God,

uniting to bear their Redeemer's Cross

and promote the interests of his Kingdom

in the face of an opposing World,

thus estimating Scriptural Christianity;

in Youth, Health and Strength

their conduct was regulated by its precepts;

in Age, Infirmity and Death

They were supported by its Consolations

And in a happy Immortality

They enjoy their rewards.

Harvest Immortality

2010-09-28T22:43:00.000+01:00

"Are you setting them out geographically?" my friend asked, looking at the swathe of harvest boxes in our sanctuary prepared for distribution following our Harvest Thanksgiving on Sunday.

I replied, "Just now we're still working on separating between each side of the River Jordan . . .".

In case that's lost on anyone Jordan is a metaphor for life's final journey, as in

When I tread the verge of Jordan bid my anxious fears subside,

Death of death and Hell's destruction land me safe on Canaan's [i.e. the Promised Land's] side.

People have gone to extraordinary lengths to ensure they live on beyond their earthly passing and the internet offers new ways of continuing when you've ceased to exist. However I believe one very good way to attain earthly immortality is by getting your name on a Church Harvest Distribution List.

Scarcely ever have I sat on the Monday after a Harvest without dissecting a list of names between the living and the dead and for all my efforts this year we still managed to attempt a delivery to someone who had passed away in the summer.

Only the Lord can save your immortal soul. But to save your name on earth? Hey, just get on a Church Harvest List and your name will live on when you've gone. In fact, some goodhearted soul will even pack you some food or flowers and come looking for you. Tesco's may not deliver food to me after I'm dead but if I can just get on that Harvest list . . . .

55lbs

2010-09-23T20:02:00.000+01:00

Today is the Anniversary of the diet I began last September 23rd.

There's 55lbs less to carry about now. Which is the equivalent of . . .

or, perhaps most alarmingly,

New Saints

2010-09-19T12:43:00.013+01:00

On the day that the Pope continues the labyrinthine ecclesiastical process of canonisation for John Henry Newman, and in the spirit of my previous post, I offer a somewhat more dynamic and wholly more glorious expression of saint-making.

Simple really.

Simple really

2010-09-18T11:38:00.001+01:00

Here we are in the midst of Mr J.A. Ratzinger's visit to the UK. I am listening to Latin emanating from the middle of golden pillars shrouded in clouds of incense.

For me the most telling thing about this visit is how good it is at its simplest and how, as it moves into higher things political and ecclesiastical, it moves further away from the Carpenter of Nazareth.

Here are the wonderful words the Pope spoke to schoolchildren yesterday;

"Happiness is something we all want, but one of the great tragedies in this world is that so many people never find it, because they look for it in the wrong places. The key to it is very simple -- true happiness is to be found in God," he said. "God wants your friendship. And once you enter into a friendship with God, everything in your life begins to change."

Or to put it another way, Sic enim dilexit Deus mundum ut Filium suum unigenitum daret ut omnis qui credit in eum non pereat sed habeat vitam aeternam.

I will

2010-09-15T17:18:00.000+01:00

In the past week I have had time with families where people have just been married and where others are celebrating anniversaries and others are facing life-threatening illness together. In tribute to them all and in gratitude for the marriage God has given me I offer J R Miller's moving description of a precious gift mistakenly maligned.

Not me

2010-09-12T23:10:00.000+01:00

9/11

2010-09-11T13:33:00.001+01:00

This is a date that not many of us will forget for a while.

On September 11th 2001 I was also in a tower, smaller by far than the World Trade Center, yet one of the tallest in our town. Here it is:

I was visiting Ellen. She was an older lady and beset with very serious illness (from which within a month she died to this world). It was soon after 2:00pm British Summer Time and I had picked up a story of a potential bomb or plane crash in New York. By the time I was at the hospital there was that general muttering about something big happening and my last listen to a radio emphasised how big things were becoming.

Sitting at Ellen's bedside it was possible to sense that a nurse here and there was speaking to another along the lines of, "Have you heard the News?" or "Something's happening in America, isn't it?".

What I will never forget is how, on that least normal of all 21st century afternoons, my pastoral visit to Ellen was absolutely unaffected. She, it was clear, was coming to the close of her life. We spoke together; we prayed to God who was not phased by unfolding drama elsewhere (he who upholds all things). I was about to travel through turbulent days: My sister in Christ was coming to that Place of Rest where such things are overwhelmed by the love of God and seeing her Saviour face to face.

It has always given me a perspective on this Anniversary. As a Christian Pastor I have a higher calling than world events, even those triggered (as many of them have always been) by socio-religious frameworks. Soul work is the real work.

For, as Jesus might have said, what does it profit a man if he gains [a lot of media attention and influence in Manhattan Planning Department] and loses his own soul?

Steps

2010-08-31T09:34:00.000+01:00

Some time ago I was visiting another church. The meeting was over and the night was dark for it was getting late.

"There's a woman out there with a child" said an elderly lady who had come back in after starting out for home."

On the steps of the church a woman had been sitting with her young child. Invited in, we heard her story and prayed to the Lord for her and her family. It was a story of tragedy, separation, lovelessness and despair.

But she had sat on the steps of a church. There was no way of her knowing that a meeting had been taking place as, by the time she was there, everyone was in the meeting at the back of the buildings. Yet she chose a church building over the nearby fast food places - all lit up and welcoming - or the Public House round the corner. In her despair it had been something to her just to get to the steps of a place where God's people meet and sit there, crying.

It reminded me of the woman in the Gospel who touched the edge of Jesus' clothing. One of the worst mistakes a human being can make - but plenty of even religious people make it - is imagine that there is a lot of preparation required to receive God's response.

Sitting on the steps will do.

Path

2010-08-13T10:27:00.001+01:00

On the face of it this is a very ordinary picture of a very ordinary scene.

A tree, some shadows, some grass and a path.

Yet for me this short path has almost as much signiifance as any place or person in my life.

It is, looked at one way, a very expensive piece of path. At the time of the incident I am writing about I was working in the City of London in finance. It is never possible to predict how life might have turned out in other scenarios but by an estimate I worked out a few years ago what happened on this path had already cost me over £500,000.

Looked at another way it was a place that, for all it cost me, money couldn't buy. For it was on this path - at or near the spot on this photograph - that God spoke to me so clearly that I left my work in finance and used such money as I had already saved to start paying for a Bible College Course to train to work full-time in Christian work. Many people have longed for such a calling and never heard it.

Why, though, did I add up the financial cost of the path those years ago? Because I was fed up with news of someone buying a second or third house when we haven't a first? Or another new car slotting into the car park next to my ageing homage to the Ford dealer's service record? No.

The reason I did my sums was to check out a belief I hold that God only speaks unequivically (in clear visions or audibly) when He has something hugely life-changing to say. For me that path was the place that utterly reshaped my life by cost and call and adding up the cost helped me to see that. The call was not in the particular of a calling to a town, pastoral ministry, a country or whatever. Instead it reflected the most fundamental calling of all - just as the Saviour called his first disciples to leave their nets (in my case net profits) and follow wherever He leads.

Want unmistakable guidance? Pause a moment before you ask for the most expensive encounter you may ever have in this world!

Hope

2010-08-07T09:32:00.002+01:00

Today marks the beginning of a new football season.

As chaplain to Wycombe Wanderers Football Club I have stood in the sunshine (they were running of course) on the first day back in training over a month ago. This week - a month of training and friendly matches later - everyone is geared up for the new season and full of hope.

Of the 24 teams in our league I have not seen anyone at or around the Club who thinks we can possibly end up lower than 5th. I think we'll do better than that.

There's just a little problem.

Every one of the 46 league games will involve . . . an opposition! Not once in those 46 games will the eleven other guys say, "Hey, we thought you'd come fifth or higher. We'll let you win to help you." All our hope is based on ourselves, and we haven't seen the opposition - not one of them - yet. In this way, thousands of football fans start every season full of hope that quite quickly fades away. Watch this space!

But back in the real world of the Bible there is a hope that cannot fade:

All praise to God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. It is by his great mercy that we have been born again, because God raised Jesus Christ from the dead. Now we live with great expectation, and we have a priceless inheritance—an inheritance that is kept in heaven for you, pure and undefiled, beyond the reach of change and decay.

Simply put, the believer's hope is based on a defeated opposition, not a waiting opposition. Jesus is risen. Death and sin are defeated. This is a hope that cannot be ambushed by the Other Side!

Hands

2010-08-01T14:45:00.002+01:00

For the first time in absolutely ages we sang Nun danket alle Gott - well, Catherine Winkworth's translation of it - this morning.

One reason I chose it was because I heard it introduced by a nationally famous worship leader recently. "With hearts, and hands - we've all got hands haven't we?" he raises his hands as in prayer -"and voices". Cue the band. Cue a congregation thinking Martin Rinkart might have been encouraging some expressive hand movements in worship.

This was so far off the mark as to warrant a redemption, I thought. Most of the people around Pastor Martin at the time were using their hands to bury corpses . . .

How much richer the truth is!

Trust. But then again . . . .

2010-07-26T21:09:00.000+01:00

I enjoyed this classic good-bye letter from a Baptist Pastor. You'll miss the irony unless you read to the bitter end, where I've added a picture to help . . .

Well, it is time to say goodbye. Twenty-one months ago I changed from being an outside consultant to your interim pastor. The different role has been good for me and for the congregation.

There is a quality of relationship between pastor and people that is like no other. It is one of affection, trust, shared spirituality, common faith, and mutual work and service. It takes time to cultivate and a lifetime to enjoy. . .

You will read this after my last Sunday has passed and our formal goodbyes have been said. I will have returned the shepherd’s staff and the keys of the congregation. They will be waiting for a short time to be received by the pastor who comes after me. May you welcome him with grace and warmth. . . .

Faithfully,
David

NOTE: Please return any books you have borrowed from me.

Faithfully,

Waiting

2010-07-26T12:29:00.000+01:00

Waiting.

It has to be the most miserable way to live a life? Stuck in the terminal.

We should live in this evil world with wisdom, righteousness, and devotion to God, while we look forward with hope to that wonderful day when the glory of our great God and Saviour, Jesus Christ, will be revealed.

Last evening we thought about these words. If we only have one life in this world why do Christians waste it waiting? What good is it to believe mainly in the future? Why would anyone want to lay up treasures in heaven when they've never seen heaven? Why not just live life to the full and to hell (whoops . . .) with the consequences?

The Terminal shows that just because someone is waiting, doesn't mean life is meaningless. To the contrary, Viktor ends up with some better relationships that the people rushing past him.

Sure, this world could be a better place to wait in. But the fact I am waiting for Another Place does not make my life useless - just a great deal more hopeful!

Yippee!

2010-07-22T10:35:00.001+01:00

Here's one of the most spectacularly encouraging news items I have ever read - male death rates have fallen by a quarter!

I confess I was sceptically thinking the rate had remained stubbornly at 100% with a couple of notable exceptions . . .

Mathematics

2010-07-17T09:07:00.002+01:00

Nothing like a nice simple picture, eh?

Except that there is a plus on the left and none on the right.

In between there is an equals sign, but plainly that is wrong. On the left there is a mathematical symbol as well as two carrots. The three pictures don't equal the two pictures. Unless you look mathematically.

This is helpful in studying the relationship between Natural Science and Religion.

The carrots are genetic, physical and observable but mathematics never has been and never can be.

The argument that all that is real and true must be sensorially perceived would mean that belief in a creator God who is invisible cannot be real. Nor can mathematics.

So, if you find a mathematical sum that is real and true in the picture take heart. There might be Someone else true too, Someone who lies behind all carrots! Or possibly you just see some pixelian pictures of carrots and symbols that don't add up.

That way a lot of things won't add up either . . .

Building

2010-07-14T18:42:00.095+01:00

Christians have every reason to be thankful for the work of Peter Brierley and Christian Research. I hope that he'll excuse me picking some holes - some important holes, I think - in his recently-reported research reported to the Pentecost Festival. Peter's strong point has always been collecting data and delivering it in understandable ways. Interpreting it is tougher.

Let's take just one glaring statistic because I think it teaches alot more than it appears to teach: in 1990, there were (allegedly) 120,000 conversions and (definitely) 60,000 deaths, in 2009 there were (apparently) only 80,000 conversions and (definitely) 120,000 deaths of Church attendees.

Does this, as Peter deduced, show a lack of evangelism?

A conversion is only a conversion for sure when the pilgrim reaches the end of the journey. Be faithful to the point of death and I will give you a crown of life. Professions, not conversions then. But are they even professions? Aren't there still here the formal additions of automated confirmations, of aspirational declarations for other purposes such as getting the kids into the local faith school? Ironically the deaths - those who have died in the body of believers - are more accurately described as converted.

And who does what here? Instinctively we feel that the Church does conversions and God does deaths. Yet with modern medicine we can hold death off quite significantly. We cannot by our knowledge add a single soul by conversion. Are these statistics a picture of what we are doing or of what God is doing? If God is doing less converting do we do more evangelism or do we do more praying? Is our hurt about numerical decline of the visible church more about gospel passion or our own pride and influence?

The Church is a building. That's all it is. A building, never a declining. Added to, never subtracted from. Every new believer one new living stone that will never die, not an inadequate shoring up of a wall that once had many more stones in.

We are too earthbound. Biblically, eternally, heaven-perspectively we belong to a number that cannot be counted but every day is added to until every last one of God's children is home and everyone left outside has to confess they never wanted in.

It is not the Church that is declining.

The statistics show that what is declining is the spiritual state of the country and the culture.

Medicine

2010-07-10T19:23:00.000+01:00

On the verge of the World Cup Final between the Netherlands and Spain it seems only fitting to think Dutch.

Herman Boerhaave was a great physician nearly 500 years ago.

When he died he left in his will a book to be auctioned. It came with his highest commendation for he had written it himself and he was one of Europe's most respected physicians.

The auction proceeded to a substantial sum.

The book, however, was not what it seemed. Page after page was blank! Right at the end Doctor Boerhaave had written:

Keep your head cool, keep your feet warm and you will leave doctors poor.

I sometimes wonder if there are not too many books (and blogs and twitters) and not enough wisdom.

Confession

2010-07-05T12:28:00.001+01:00

David Powlison has written this interesting article on personal confession.

Among the great things he writes is the too-easily-forgotten certainty; God welcomes all who are weary with sin.

If I find sin an enemy, I can be sure of a very powerful and wonderful Ally.

Fabio

2010-06-28T22:23:00.001+01:00

It took some getting used to, having an England football coach called Fabio Capello. Surely that must be a musical instruction? Fabio didn't speak English but football is, I quote the Football Association, a universal language.

No point in being sniffy about these things. Our church frontage is Italianate (apparantly). Why should we not integrate an Italian front to our national football team? Success!! Fabio led our national football team to a glorious qualification for the World Cup finals tournament in South Africa and then . . .

Then Fabio, previously known for his record of successive successes, became as English as apple pie. He led us to ignominious sporting defeat. Football is a universal language. And everyone says the same thing - when England play in the World Cup they get knocked out by Germany (if someone hasn't knocked them out earlier, which very nearly happened). Fabio speaks our language! He's entered our culture! He's integrated - one of us now - remembered for sporting defeat.

It was so different when he was appointed. Then, from his very limited store of English vocabulary he uttered the priceless comment (on the prospect of being England football coach),

It is a beautiful challenge

That was a first. No English coach has ever called it that. Nor with the benefit of a wider vocabulary and the experience of failing will Fabio himself ever utter the phrase again. A unique way to remember him. It inspires me to a text from Ecclesiastes for Fabio;

He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the hearts of men; yet they cannot fathom what He has done from beginning to end.

Fabio has certainly driven me to think less about football and more about eternity. The rest is self explanatory.

Except of course the text is really about God. The unfathomable works of God are a cause for spiritual longing and praising His glory. The unfathomable works of Fabio became a cause for switching TV channels and planning summer vacations instead.

Hearing

2010-06-21T13:25:00.000+01:00

I owe this story to an elderly lady who told this tale about - an elderly lady!

The vicar dropped by to visit the lady who had been taken ill. Because of her age and the seriousness of the illness it seemed time to prepare for the End.

"Vicar," said she, "You will take my Funeral Service when I pass away, won't you?"

"Well yes, of course, when that time comes."

"You'll do it, won't you? Not the young curate?"

The vicar was a little alarmed. He had thought the young curate was quite competent and liked. "Yes, I'll do it. But may I ask why you insist on it being me rather than my colleague? He's very caring."

"Oh, I do believe he's very kind. But in the services I can never hear a word he says."

Rites

2010-06-16T14:28:00.000+01:00

Saturday I was conducting a Wedding.

Sunshine, specially printed Orders of Service, specially chosen music, reunited family and friends, invitations to eat, specially smart clothes, flowers, official certificates, smiling faces, photographers, bubbles, excitement, congratulations, toasts . . .

Yesterday I was conducting a Funeral.

Sunshine, specially printed Orders of Service, specially chosen music, reunited family and friends, invitations to eat, specially smart clothes, flowers, official certificates, faces in tears, no photographers, no bubbles, no excitement, no congratulations, no toasts . .

In every wedding there is a funeral. Say it after me . . .

until we are parted by death

What a miserable thing it appears to be that in our most glowingly romantic hour we intone our certain end. For a Christian this is greatly mitigated by its opposite, courtesy of our Saviour:

In every funeral there is a wedding.

And I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no more sea. And I, John, saw the holy city, New Jerusalem, coming down from God out of Heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a great voice out of Heaven, saying, "Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and He will dwell with them; and they shall be His people, and God Himself shall be with them and be their God. And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes, and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain; for the former things are passed away."

Schumann

2010-06-08T19:51:00.001+01:00

Robert Schumann is 200 today.

Of course he isn't. His birthday is.

His short life petered out in an asylum, neither the first nor the last gifted person to live too short a life and despair in part of the short life he had.

Yet as I played Traumerei today (no, the video is not me - he's a proper pianist) I felt that it is better to have lived a short time with passion than to live a long, cold life.

Jesus only lived 33 years and he wept and he shuddered and he sweated as it were drops of blood and he stormed and he cared and he ached and he loved and he cried out.

Whitehaven

2010-06-07T22:15:00.003+01:00

I only went to Whitehaven once. Yet I clearly remember it without my memory being jogged by the killings committed by Derrick Bird last week.

Just as it has come into the media glare for all the wrong reasons, so I remembered it as such. Before I drove there during a lakeland holiday the name Whitehaven somehow conjured a vision a little like its namesake in Queensland, Australia . . .

I drove over the hill down toward the town to be confronted by something like this, only wetter and darker . . .

A more depressing sight set between beautiful lakeland hills and the sea it was hard to imagine. And I fully expected to maintain this personal prejudice against the rain-battered bricks of Whitehaven until the day I die for I have certainly never intended to return as a holidaymaker to reassess my view.

My view has been reassessed however as a result of Derrick Bird's actions. For it was also in the rain that the people of Whitehaven gathered last evening to remember and respect those who were killed last week. A thousand people.

What is beautiful about Whitehaven is a community where people care and support each other and, however stumblingly, turn toward the Prince of Peace. Deliberately, or accidentally, they have reflected to us all the character of God in a world that they know better than most sometimes reflects the darkness of another prince.