Graih

Just returned to town from a three week road (and boat) trip that included a Retreat (not long enough), the Keswick Convention and even (briefly - twas more than enough) the General Synod (!).  But from the Isle of Man I loved visiting and hearing more about the above ministry which I first heard about several years back from the church's then pastor.  Coming from London it is amazing to see this kind of work being done, needing to be done, and being done so well in such a place as the island.

Praise God for these guys.

Holiday Pics - No 3 Thirstless

By inspiration of my wife I offered this chap some water on a hot day in the Grandmaster's Palace in Valetta.  You could hardly have a grander place!  You could hardly have anything more welcoming than some water on what was a very hot day.  But he didn't drink any: there was grandeur,  me, real refreshment but, in his case, no life.

Sometimes when, in the glories of worship we share the life of God in his Word we offer real refreshment in the grandest of spiritual palaces.  But there is not always drinking.

Congratulations?

If there is one point in an Induction when I wince it is when someone (often someone who I feel should know better) congratulates the new Pastor on their appointment.  The Biblical verbal phrase that seems to cover this kind of appointment is being set apart.  The implication - no, it is the explicit meaning - of congratulation is of human achievement, of promotion, of a new job successfully negotiated, of privilege or of some combination of some of those.

Setting apart is not a reason to be congratulated or commiserated.   If the year 4 teacher in one school is promoted to be Deputy Head in another you send a congratulatory message.  If the year 4 teacher is assigned year 2 next year you observe and note the change.  That is setting apart and exactly characterises the New Testament's approach to Christian ministry though of course not the disciples' - which earned them a telling off from Jesus.

 

“You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great ones exercise authority over them.  It shall not be so among you. But whoever would be great among you must be your servant,  and whoever would be first among you must be your slave,  even as the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”

 

This seems clear enough.

 

Today one of the Gentile rulers, David Cameron, changed his Government cabinet around - in the lordly manner that Gentile rulers do when an election is looming.  Meanwhile, in the Church of England Synod  the decision was made to allow the appointment of female Bishops.   David Cameron thought this was a great idea - most specifically, "a great day for the Church and for equality".

 

It all sounds so plausible.  It is a total denial of the meaning of ministry.  What is this equality?  Seen in the skewed vision of a venerable British establishment Institution and through the eyes of a Gentile ruler women have just broken through a glass ceiling.

 

Seen through the eyes of Jesus and the radical values of the Gospel they have secured a lower place than they had when generically left at home doing the ironing.  No congratulations there then.  Wait a minute: here comes (my italics) Regional Minister (Team Leader) of the East Midlands Baptist Association the Revd Dianne Tidball with the official Baptist line:

 

“Congratulations to our Anglican friends on having the wisdom, courage and grace to open the door to women becoming Bishops.  We are pleased to learn that the vote enabling women to fulfil all roles within the church has been passed.  We are delighted that the wider church will have the opportunity to benefit further from the gifts and experience that women, already in senior roles, will bring."

 

That's it I guess.  If you believe in senior roles, you offer congratulations.  Is there anyone out there who believes Jesus actually meant what he said?  If we are denying ourselves how can we thereby be congratulated or achieve a this-worldly equality?

Induction

So many people kindly travelled to my Induction today.  Many, many thanks to them and those kind enough to write their greetings and promise their prayers.  Here's the statement I read:

 

My calling to Christian ministry in its dedicated full-time form came when I was working for NatWest Bank.  I was at the Keswick Convention in the Lake District, a large annual gathering of people seeking to know God better.  Following that clear sense of call the first role I enquired about was in administration for a medical facility in Bangladesh.  I was told it would be a good idea to go to a Christian training college first. 

So I left my home in North London and went to BTI in Glasgow, the furthest I’d ever travelled up to then! I wondered what far-flung place or places in the world my commitment to follow Jesus might take me.  I wonder where then I’d have guessed I’d be called to in 2014?  To what obscure desert, mountain range, city ghetto or jungle valley?

What I wouldn’t have expected was to be just 2¾ miles away from my then home in Finchley and be here in Muswell Hill.  Not only that, but I have been called to Pastor a Church that I occasionally attended when I lived up the road.  In the event, I used to travel twice as far as this from Finchley commuting each day to work in Central London.  It is, I suppose, a reminder that the adventure of Christian service is not to see the world but to change the part of it the Lord calls us to serve in. 

When the opportunity arose to explore a call to this Church I was excited by the opportunity to work for God in our capital city.  Through our multi-national congregation and the church’s long history of support for missions we will yet touch many parts of the earth in the years ahead even though we don’t visit them.

At the same time our Church offers the privilege of ministry in a real local community.  In our years of local church ministry Diane and I have enjoyed immersing ourselves in genuine community.  We have felt very kindly welcomed to Muswell Hill and we look forward to doing good here in the name of Jesus Christ bringing comfort and challenge in the Good News of the Gospel.

I am especially grateful to be called to Pastor a Church which was founded, to quote its original Trust, holding ‘the Deity of the Lord Jesus Christ and the Sole Authority of the Holy Scriptures and that interpretation of them usually called Evangelical’.  These are the roots from which, by the grace of God, we will seek to bear fruit in this community for his glory.   

Together as Pastor and people we do not appear to amount to very much in a great city.  But as Pastor and people with the Spirit of God and the Word of God and the Love of God I believe that in the unfolding years we will make a real difference.

Days to Remember 10: Dem Bones

One memorable day the builders laying the foundations of the Church's new building downed tools and left the site.  They had found human remains.

 

A very detailed plan of the graveyard the Church had between 1845 and 1854 (after which it was closed) exists.  However it has no reference point, just lines of named graves.  If you could find Mrs Jones you could possibly find Mr Smith a few feet along but there was no way of fining either of them.  Tales were told of a line of headstones that once formed a kind of fence down the side of the property next to the car park.  The assumption was that they had been moved in some previous building enterprise.  They exist no longer.  Plainly Baptists are a lot less careful about the dead than the Church of England who seem to have graveyards of antiquity well-kept around many of their churches.

 

The coroner however did not question my predecessors' carelessness in respect of their predecessors remains.  Instead he declared me entirely trustworthy - 'as priest' - to judge the remains as old and to 'reinter them with suitable dignity'.  I suppose this conjured up the idea of the churchyard sexton doing the honours with a robed vicar overseeing with prayers.

 

Baptist Colleges, though useful in many ways, help little with the really scary things of church life like baptising people without drowning them, dedicating infants without dropping them or marrying people without embarrassing them. Failure in such common practicalities indicates the total unpreparedness most Baptist ministers would feel at standing on a building site with a builder in a suit holding a black bag full of unearthed bones of former members and the Church Administrator standing nearby watchfully.  I duly felt unprepared.  The coroner's trust weighed heavily on me as the builder turned the sack over and a pile of old bones fell at my feet.  This action did not lend itself to great dignity, any dignity really, though I was wearing a jacket and tie as a start.

 

The plot of land where Mrs Jones and Mr Smith and the others would end up would be hidden under the path and entry way of the new building.  The temptation (had I been alone) to leave the pile intact would have been strong.  A sort of old Baptist ballast.  My onlookers and the distant brooding instruction of the coroner ('due dignity') led me to attempt a certain dignified reconstruction. 

 

Suppressing the part of me that wanted to burst out in despairing laughter, I began the task of placing the parts of Mrs Jones and Mr Smith in reasonable order - two leg bones, two legs, two hips, the middle bit (if the reader is unfamiliar please rewatch the earlier YouTube).  I laid these ancient Baptist remains with admirable dignity given my internal sense of the bizarre.  But like any old jigsaw from before 1854 there were pieces missing - most alarmingly a shortage of skulls which created special problems as it was not a lack that could be hidden from the beady-eyed builder in a suit.  There were too many legs as well though that was easier to deal with by some clever positioning as I learned my new trade.

 

Quite what parts of Mrs Jones and Mr Smith ended up in what order I shall never know and I trust the Good Lord to sort matters out on the Great Day.  I reflected that it was the one experience of Christian Ministry when I had the most authority over Church Members and even then I couldn't get them into order  . . .

Days to Remember 6: That 22nd Feeling

I am not privy to what David Cameron feels when he has his regular audience with Her Majesty the Queen.  I imagine he feels somewhat smaller than in many other settings.  Here's one reason - the list of British Prime Ministers who've served under Queen Elizabeth II:

 

Winston Churchill 1951-55
Sir Anthony Eden 1955-57
Harold Macmillan 1957-63
Sir Alec Douglas-Home 1963-64
Harold Wilson 1964-70 and 1974-76
Edward Heath 1970-74
James Callaghan 1976-79
Margaret Thatcher 1979-90
John Major 1990-97
Tony Blair 1997-2007
Gordon Brown 2007-2010
David Cameron 2010-

 

He may be Number One just now, but in another way he's Number 12.

 

It is manifestly unsuitable for a Pastor to compare himself with the hierarchy of politics, though some perhaps do and others do on their behalf. 

 

And yet it evokes a thought remembering one day visiting our oldest Church Member at the time.  My relative longevity and seniority was put into brutal perspective.

 

"It's the Pastor to see you", said the carer down her ear.

 

"Who?"

 

"THE PASTOR"

 

"Oh, I don't know"

 

"YOU DO KNOW HIM.  THE PASTOR FROM UNION BAPTIST CHURCH.  YOUR CHURCH."

 

"The Church?  Who?"

 

"IT'S THE PASTOR - PASTOR JOHN FROM THE CHURCH.  HE'S COME TO SEE YOU"

 

"Oh, I don't know."

 

"YES - YOU KNOW HIM - JOHN ROBERTS -THE PASTOR"

 

"Who?  I don't know, there's been so many of them . . ."

 

Ah yes, you have to have stamina to outlive the elderly ladies of a church.  I may have had the microphone on many Sundays but I was just another in a long, long, line for her!  22nd overall in fact.

 

It reminded me of a pastoral visit I did in the storied First Baptist Church of Dallas where Dr W A Criswell had been the celebrated leader for nearly 40 years at that time.  The elderly lady complained about the new preacher and how she had much preferred his predecessor - who finished in the mid 1940s. 

 

Thank God (albeit perhaps through slightly gritted teeth) for those who remind us we are but parts of chapters in a Greater Story.

Inductions

Last week I went to two Inductions in local churches.

At one I was offered a small round wafer and some wine; at the other a piece of cake and a cup of tea.

 

At one the Presider wore an extraordinary white hat and a very large white frock with gold trimmings; at the other the Presider wore a suit and tie.

 

At one the Mayor, Imam, several ex-mayors, the Town Clerk, some local Funeral Directors and wotnots were present; they didn't make it to the other one.

 

At one there was a choir and the organist played Widor's VIth Symphony; at the other there was a violinist and the opening hymn had the wrong introduction.

 

At one the inducted was given the keys of the Church door after swearing allegiance to Her Majesty the Queen; at the other the inducted was given a handshake.

 

It was hard, overall, not to notice the difference between an ancient Parish Church and a Baptist congregation of recent establishment.

 

Hard for me not to notice that is - I doubt that God noticed much and certainly wouldn't care. After all, he did some inductions on the Galilean beach in just two words with no dressing up at all . . .

 



Ball Skills

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.

Path

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 significance 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 unequivocally (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!

Ten

Today is the Tenth Anniversary of my first Sunday as Pastor in my current church. Alarmingly this is my second Tenth Anniversary! But time is not the issue, is it?

A few days ago I heard an interview with a professor who had researched the effects of trees on the human spirit. Apparantly the good professor’s research revealed that if you drive down a tree-lined highway you arrive more relaxed, less stressed, than you do if surrounded by concrete. This effect is more pronounced in heavy traffic. And it works in walking too.

But the interviewer came up with a devastating question, "Do trees have the same effect when their leaves fall off?"

And the answer was no. Without their leaves they are essentially useless to changing the passer-by. Like the Christian church really. It doesn’t do any traceable good by just being there. It must be seen to be alive..

I have come, said Jesus, that they might have life, and have it more abundantly..