Mrs Colville

Today at Church we thought about sowing seeds of goodness (Galatians 6:7-10).  It reminded me of Mrs Colville from Gateshead.  

What did Mrs Colville do?  It was embarrassingly simple really. In the middle of the 19th century she went from door to door seeking to tell people about the Gospel of the Lord Jesus.

She arrived in Ballymena in Ireland with the Baptist Missionary Society.  Going from door to door one day she was she found two ladies who were already conversing with a young man about spiritual things.  His name was James.  James subsequently sought out Mrs Colville for further discussion and his life began to change.

The story moves to Kells, a nearby village, where two young men - Jeremiah Meneely and Robert Carlisle - were walking home with the school-master following a school property meeting.  Robert asked them had they heard about the great change that had come over James.

That autumn, reflecting on James's change of life, Jeremiah was inspired to begin a Prayer Meeting.  After 3 months nothing much had happened, except two more men had joined.   On January 1st the first conversion took place as a result of the prayer-meeting.

But after that there were conversions one after another. By year's end about fifty young men were taking part in the prayer meeting.

From that meeting in North Antrim the seed of revival grew into the great Revival of 1859 in Ulster, one glimpse of which might be seen in this description of one of countless great meetings which often lasted days - I could not get into the building; every open window was more than occupied. In the vestry room there were those under conviction of sin; it was a scene impossible to forget and equally impossible to describe. An old man, a boy, and a young man were in varying stages of upset. They all wanted to be free from sin. “ I know that my redeemer liveth, the young man said. “I know that He can save my soul. I know that He can wash me from all uncleanness in the fountain of His atoning blood. But, Oh I have crucified Him, I have crucified Him."

Or this from the local newspaper in one town:  Common street prostitutes and public nuisances who had frequently been convicted for drunkenness and loitering are now clothed with attention to decency and struggling to earn their livelihood by honest labour, and by learning to read. They are all daily and humbly beseeching pardon for their past sin and in regular attendance at some place of worship.  At the Raceview Woollen Mills by twelve noon the factory had to close down as so many of the employees were crying out to God.

Mrs Colville had returned from her Mission Trip sad at the poor response.  Yet she had been the sower of a seed that, even in the amazing events of 1859, had scarcely begun to reveal its true harvest.

Meanwhile in Edinburgh . . .

A young lady was converted in that great revival of 1859 and all she could pray for was one thing. That revival would break out in her little church in Edinburgh. Time went by - thirty years went by - and she still had not seen an answer to her prayers.  But she was sowing in prayer as surely as Mrs Colville had previously done to lead towards that Revival in which this lady had been saved. But that will take another blog.

Martyring

The killing of Father Jacques Hamel while conducting morning mass in his church in Saint-Etienne-du-Rouvray is appalling at every level.  Except one.

It is appalling because of the even-greater-than-usual contrast between the savagery of the attackers and the fragility of the attacked.  It is appalling because of the religious framework of the attackers pitted against the religious framework of the attacked.  It is appalling because it crosses so many boundaries that are rarely crossed outside conventional war (and then quite rarely) - the young against the elderly, the cruel against the kind, the neighbour against the neighbour, the strong against the weak - I could go on.

In one respect this killing was, however, immediately given a different character.  Where the Press and the politicians used the words killed or murdered, some Catholics started to use the word martyred.  

Not only so, but the line of succession of being violently killed at the Eucharist or Mass has been traced through through Oscar Romero (1980) and Thomas Becket (1170), two famous martyrs.

Now there is a considerable theological gulf between Father Hamel, French Catholic Priest, and me, an English Baptist Protestant.  As to that gulf, God is for both of us the judge.  Nevertheless I like the sheer subversion of 'yet another killing in mainland Europe' being transformed by the word martyr.  For the deaths of all Christians who die because they are Christians are a testimonial of their crucified Lord.   "Can you be baptised with the baptism I will be baptised with?" the Lord enquired of his disciple.

To put it another way, very many Islamic leaders will be rushing out disclaimers that the extremists (yet again) in no way represent Mohammed, God or Islam or them.  Meanwhile, all the current Bishop of Rome needs to say about Jacques Hamel is that on that wretched morning he represented the story of the Lord and His love   Three men died, but only one of them died successfully.  Two of them wasted their lives and their deaths.  One I guess hadn't wasted his life, and certainly didn't waste his death.

Two Years In London

There are various ways in which it is now obvious that we have been in London a little while.  Here are a few:

1.  I think that a house costs over £1 million.  If it is a large house it is over £2 million.

2.  I believe that red traffic lights are advisory that something might cross your path as you proceed.

3.  I expect to see a crime committed most months (this month so far it has been a hit and run driver and a bag thief at the supermarket)

4.  There is always a bus coming.  Well, unless you really, really need one.

5.  No meeting of any kind ever starts on time.

6.  Half the population is at school/college.  The other half is their parents.

7.  Jeremy Corbyn is a popular local politician.

8.  A steady job is one that lasts more than eight weeks.

9.  Parking space is more precious than a £1 million house.

10. The countryside is found way up north in the London Boroughs of Barnet and Enfield.  There might be more of it further out but I've forgotten.

Enduring Politics

The current politics of Britain are as amazing as anything in my memory: the leader of the Conservative Party exiting when not required to do by his parliamentary colleagues and the leader of the Labour Party refusing to leave when told to go by his parliamentary colleagues.

In Christian Ministry I have never been much attracted to siding publicly with party politics and when I read the rants of Church leaders that do I am even less inclined.  But as David Cameron left Downing Street yesterday - unable to move straight into his £3.5 million West London home because it is currently rented out at £7,800 plus per month, and humming happily as he returned into the PM's house after making his public announcement - it illustrates a vast contemporary trend that stretches deep into the life of modern Britain.  It is a trend further illustrated in the public faces of the referendum campaign who quickly disappeared from view, at least until Boris was resurrected last evening.  When the going get's tough the tough just go.

Into this whirling world of 'I'm off now - byes' has stepped Jeremy Corbyn.

He represents many strange anomalous things over against proper contemporary politics.  Teresa May decimated the front bench of politicians she sat with but (unless another surprise is in store) she will incongruously face Mr Corbyn at her first Prime Minister's Questions.

Quite a lot of leadership theory seems to revolve around instant departure; in the business world as well as politics, in the church as well as in education.  Yet Mr Corbyn, together ironically (he's a republican) with the Queen represents those outdated qualities of sticking at it.  As such they haunt the swirling world of proper 21st century leaders with the potential value of enduring.

Christians may think all sorts of things about all of this.  But at least they should recognise that the apparently quirky quality of enduring is, in their discipleship and in the church, a very divine quality.

Summer Sundays

We had a very good time in the Lord's presence today at church.  But who is 'we'?

Every summer in my ministry life these July Sundays present an exaggerated version of the constant challenge - where is he/she gone and why?  No response to this ever seems to me to work very well.  Blithely assuming that usually healthy people are healthy later uncovers some sudden illness and a sense of neglect; unwisely imagining that someone who is a strong Christian could not be lapsing yields a later story of having witnessed too lazily the first signs of decline; pursuing the absentee on the other hand provokes a sense of Big Brother and loss of freedom - in short, July presents like a multiple choice question where each answer is wrong.

In general it is not, in my general experience, wise to assume the best (which is why many services begin with confession).  Any reading of history yields support for the view that many a non-engaged Christian is simultaneously disengaged from the Word of God and from God himself as, centuries upon centuries ago, the great Eastern preacher John Chrysostom, preaching on John remarked;

If a harper, or dancer, or stage-player call the city, they all run eagerly, and feel obliged to him for the call, and spend the half of an entire day in attending to him alone; but when God speaks to us by Prophets and Apostles, we yawn, we scratch ourselves, we are drowsy. 

And in summer, the heat seems too great, and we betake ourselves to the market place; and again, in winter, the rain and mire are a hindrance, and we sit at home; yet at horse races, though there is no roof over them to keep off the wet, the greater number, while heavy rains are falling, and the wind is dashing the water into their faces, stand like madmen, caring not for cold, and wet, and mud, and length of way, and nothing either keeps them at home, or prevents their going there. 

But here, where there are roofs over head, and where the warmth is admirable, they hold back instead of running together; and this too, when the gain is that of their own souls. How is this tolerable, tell me? Thus it happens, that while we are more skilled than any in those matters, in things necessary we are more ignorant than children. If a man call you a charioteer, or a dancer, you say that you have been insulted, and use every means to wipe off the affront; but if he draw you to be a spectator of the action, you do not start away, and the art whose name you shun, you almost in every case pursue. But where you ought to have both the action and the name, both to be and to be called a Christian, you do not even know what kind of thing the action is.