life at the cutting edge

change of address

2011-12-30T12:05:00.002Z

Having been in hibernation since the summer, this blog will be re-starting very shortly - but at a new address: www.latce.wordpress.com.

tornado

2011-06-02T21:43:00.005+01:00

As I stand on the threshold of another Friday, I'm wondering where this week went!

But I think I know. Last week's storms have left a trail of devastation in their wake: and the challenge of trying to create a measure of order out of all the chaos and consternation thereby caused has been hugely time-consuming.

Meetings, e-mails, conversations by the score: hours and hours (quite literally) of working things through with a whole range of folk, confused, distressed, perplexed as to what's going on. And a great amount of prayerful reflection and painful, heart-searching thought.

In a former life, when I worked on farms in the summers, I once was asked to burn a field of straw. The day was calm and windless, but my tiny match, when its flame lit the straw, triggered a mini-tornado.

Don't ask me how exactly. I don't really know the physics or the chemistry of what was going on. All I know was that in seconds flat a raging fire had begun and a spiralling tunnel of flame was racing down the field at the rate of knots, creating a gale in its wake.

Scary. And the damage it caused was immense.

Strange how the tiny spark of a single 'match' (or 'mis-match': I'm speaking now in relational terms, and how these things are viewed by the Word of God) can fuel such winds of false and unscriptural teaching which then spiral into massive, big 'tornadoes', and wreak such rapid havoc on an unsuspecting land.

centenary

2011-05-26T22:05:00.002+01:00

Today I celebrated a rather special centenary. The 100th anniversary of my father's birth.

Although he died many years ago now, his legacy lives on in the lives of many, I'd guess. Certainly in the lives of his family. And today we're glad of the chance which this milestone affords to acknowledge our debt under God to this gentle and most gracious man.

He helped us to see from our earliest years what a wonderful thing it is that the Lord has effected for us in the gospel, our belonging at last to a family, and our knowing this God as our Father. He made the security and dignity of that an easy thing for all of us to grasp.

Something the Lord once declared through the prophet Isaiah has been very much a word which the Lord spoke to me: and I often think of my Dad in this regard as well -

"All your sons will be taught by the Lord, and great will be your children's peace." [Is.54.13]

That's a fine legacy for any man to leave. And today once again we all salute him.

culturally correct

2011-05-25T23:16:00.003+01:00

The Wednesday lunchtime service provides something of an oasis for us all. A chance to draw near to the Lord, take time apart and get our eyes on him.

The Scriptures are central to our worship. Not because they're treated as some idol that we worship: but because the Scriptures are the Word of God, and through them he still speaks.

Generally with alarming clarity and cogency and force. Today was no exception. There was again an immediacy to the preaching of the Bible. A directness.

A "this is that" sort of thing, which means that what we're reading from a whole long time ago is spoken with directness to the very sort of issues which we ourselves are dealing with today.

Sometimes it's almost scary how direct it is. It certainly touched a lot of raw nerves today and reduced not a few to tears.

It was the contrast between David, celebrating the mercy and grace of God as the ark of God was returned to the heart of the life of the people of God - and Michal, the woman to whom he was wedded, disdaining the show of delight which her husband thus had expressed.

David rejoiced in the gospel of grace, the transforming, renewing mercy of God extended at cost to the Lord to men such as him who'd done wrong. I received mercy. The mercy of God through the grace of his Son at the cost of the cross which he bore.

Michal's 'religion' was altogether different. Dressed doubtless in all her ecclesiastical finery as she watched, and looked down, from her window, she was always so culturally correct.

She didn't believe in conversion, she believed in being correct. She had little thought for the heart of God, her only concern was what others would think.

David. Michal. They lived on two different planets. Not the Mars and Venus sort of stuff. This was the difference between heaven and earth, the kingdom of God with its vibrant enjoyment of a righteousness known in the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the dominion of darkness with its counterfeit claim to correctness.

David going on to a reign of extraordinary scope. Michal, we're told, was without child until the day she died.

It's the difference between being blessed and being barren, being alive and being dead.

Where do we fit in that story? Out on the streets with David, whose living will impact the world: or up at the window, so very correct, like Michal, who now will be totally fruitless to the day she finally dies.

It's a stark and telling distinction the narrative makes. And, like all of the rest of the Scriptures, it's really very up to date indeed.

tacking

2011-05-24T23:16:00.004+01:00

In the far off days of student life, when summer holidays went on and on for months, I sometimes worked on farms in Easter Ross.

The father of one of the guys I knew up there had a sailing boat. Not exactly a full blown yacht, but more than merely a rowing boat - though not by much. It had a mast and a sail, and a rudder.

My friend took us out one night to enjoy the delights of the Cromarty Firth from the sea instead of the shore. A pleasant evening sail.

At least it was to start with. The tide and thew wind were all in our favour as we headed out and down the firth right on out into the vast open spaces of the North Sea. We fairly glided through the water - a wonderful sensation being carried along at such speed by a little boat such as that.

And then it was time to come home. My friend swung the boat around.

The wind by now had got up, and something approaching a gale, I suppose, was blowing us out to sea. I think I inwardly panicked at that particular point. It hadn't quite dawned on my carefree mind that getting back could present a problem.

The wind which had blown us so thrillingly right out to sea was still .. well blowing us out to sea. Only now it was stronger than ever.

"How do we get back?" I casually asked, with as much in the way of a jocular, nonchalant spirit as an ignorant land-lubber like myself could muster. I secretly hoped my friend would have an engine stashed away, unseen and out of sight: because it seemed like an awful long way we'd have to row back home - and I wasn't quite sure that we'd manage against the force of the wind and the tide.

"Same way we got here," my friend replied. "We sail."

I think I muttered a vague "Of course!" but the laugh was more nerves on my part than enjoying the joke I assumed that my friend had been making.

I mean, how do you sail right into the wind, when the wind fills the sail and drives you the way that it's blowing?

Logic was always a strength of mine, I thought. Though I started to feel that either my logic or my sense of humour must be failing pretty fast.

That was the day I learned my 'maritime logic'. A whole new way of living which defies the normal laws and means you can indeed go forward when the wind is blowing right into your face.

That was the day I learned about 'tacking'.

Sailing downwind is easy to understand. Sailing upwind, directly into the wind, is also easy to understand - it's impossible. The sail just flaps limply and the boat simply drifts downwind.

Tacking's the stuff of which heroes are made. It's the boldness which dares the impossible, the courage to go where all logic dictates you simply will never arrive.

Tacking's the skill which we're now going to have to acquire in the grave new world of our day, when we dare to fly (or sail) in the face of the powerful winds of a godless, defiant rebelliousness now sweeping right over our land.

If we don't learn this skill then we'll all be completely at sea.

We have to learn just how it is that we defy these gales and resolutely dare to press on forward back to solid ground again, against the wind.

Tacking's the skill of standing for truth when the winds of culture's godlessness are blowing in your face.

Tacking's the strategy of faithfulness when living in a society of godlessness.

Tacking's the maritime logic adherents of Scriptural truth must adopt when the winds of political correctness start blowing the church from her moorings and leave her adrift, all at sea .

Tacking is all about angles and getting those angles all right.

Tacking is all about patience and learning to think now long-term.

Tacking is all about boldness and daring to trust in a logic which reason suggests shouldn't work.

Tacking is faith in the raw.

I learned it first in the Cromarty Firth. And I'm learning it fast once again.

weather

2011-05-23T22:40:00.005+01:00

Having been there all day, I walked back home from big church here in town tonight.

Transport had been disrupted. The country had been at a standstill. The travelling public was static.

No one was journeying anywhere.

The country had been hit by chaos.

A new and unusual 'low' had come.

It's been that sort of day.

The walk back home was long and hard. Against the wind all the way: a strong, gusting wind which sometimes drove me backwards and made the walking hard and very wearisome.

I'm only 58 years old, so my 'going home' is, potentially anyway, a good, long hike.

But that long walk home is going to be a thoroughly uphill struggle, going right in the face of a powerful secular wind.

That's what ministry now is going to be like.

Sometimes the weather itself provides a very graphic commentary on what's going on.

Indeed, I'll not be surprised if we wake up tomorrow to a Sodom and Gomorrah sort of landscape and find the land covered in a layer of thick volcanic ash!

suddenly I see

2011-05-18T21:25:00.004+01:00

K T Tunstall may not be everyone's cup of tea, I appreciate. No matter.

She's a Scottish singer/song-writer. And among the songs she sings is one called "Suddenly I see".

I'm not entirely sure exactly what the song is about (though I've got a pretty good idea): but the powerful statement right at the heart of the song is crystal clear. Suddenly I see.

We had the song played on Sunday night by one of the girls in the crowd of young folk who meet here Sunday by Sunday.

They're a lovely, lively bunch: and part of each evening is given to one of these folk where they get the chance to play a bit of music which they like and draw out something of the spiritual significance of the song for them.

K T Tunstall's "Suddenly I see" was the choice of one of the girls this Sunday past. It's a catchy sort of tune, and the singer's voice is attractive.

So we listened until the song was done - and then the girl spoke: to explain why it meant so much to her.

Reason - that was her experience in three short words. Last year it had been. At a Powerpoint evening here in town (Powerpoint is a regular get-together from right across the town of Christian youngsters).

During the course of that evening it was like she 'suddenly saw': she suddenly saw that following Jesus was how she wanted to live the rest of her life.

It was powerful stuff. It reduced her to tears at the time - and the tears weren't all that far away from any of us the way she shared the thing.

Suddenly I see. That's how it sometimes is. Blind, or not really seeing the thing at all for long enough: then, suddenly, it all becomes clear: it all falls into place. And it's like how did I never see that before?

I knew a man whose experience was just like that back in the days when I was in Cumbernauld. Suddenly, he would narrate - suddenly one day, while he was right at the top of a ladder, cleaning someone's windows, suddenly he got it, the whole Jesus thing became clear.

Suddenly I see!

I knew another man back in those far-off Cumbernauld days, who'd been coming to worship for 25 years - largely for what he termed the aesthetic experience. And then one morning, sharing in worship, listening to Scripture being read and then expounded, suddenly it was like a veil was removed from his eyes, and it all became clear.

Suddenly I see!

That's not always how it is. But more often than maybe we dare to think it could be, it is. The Lord opens eyes and people suddenly see.

There's a man in the Bible like that. In fact there are loads of folk in the Bible like that. But I was thinking about a pretty important and high up man, religious through and through, who went into the temple one day and - well, suddenly he saw.

He saw the Lord as he really is, and was driven to his knees - Woe is me, he declared.

He saw glory. And in that very same moment he also saw sin. It's the sight of the awesomenenss of the glory of God which enables us to see the awfulness of the sin in our lives.

Maybe that's how it always is.

So I'm praying in these days for that suddenly I see sort of thing: praying that in God's grace and mercy he would give us eyes to see the beauty of his holiness, that we might see as well the folly of our sin and our presumption in ignoring what God says.

May there be many who find themselves saying - suddenly I see.

excited

2011-05-10T21:58:00.001+01:00

I love what I do.

I love engaging with the Scriptures. And I love engaging with people (which you may find quite surprising since I'm essentially a bit of a 'loner', and more than content with my own company).

Few things are more rewarding, therefore, for someone like myself than the opportunities to teach and apply the Bible: bringing the Scriptures to bear on the lives of ordinary people. And seeing the difference that makes.

But all of that involves hard graft. Getting to grips with the Scriptures. Getting alongside people. And figuring out how best to build the bridges between the two.

There's a lot of such preparation required this week. The midweek service tomorrow. A teaching session with a grooup of people tomorrow evening. The chance to speak at the ladies' weekly meeting at a church in town on Thursday morning. The Scripture Union group at school that same day over lunch. The morning and evening services this coming Sunday. And the young folk's meeting on Sunday night.

Seven separate bits of preparation. An average kind of week!

As I say, it doesn't magically happen. The Lord gives us his Spirit, for sure. And without him we'd be lost (in every sense!). But the promised work of his Spirit is no excuse for lack of preparation, and no reason to shirk the rigorous disciplines involved in handling the Word of God.

A fair bit of time today has been spent in that work.

Not all of my time, certainly. I've had meetings with folk - over coffee, at lunch, and again up town this evening. I've had some fairly lengthy telephone conversations with a number of different folk (e-mails are great in their way, but they're never the same as speaking with folk). And there have been people I've been out to see as well.

That engaging with people goes hand in hand with my engaging with the Scriptures. The two belong together.

I had a note the other day from a couple who've recently come to the point of radical faith in the Lord. "We have taken these vows very seriously and are excited by the future as our relationship with the Lord grows and deepens. .. New beginnings - we can't wait!"

And, yes, although it's the end of that process of bringing the Scriptures to bear on the lives of such people, they're quite right - it's actually just the beginning! And it is, as they say, so exciting.

You can see why I love what I do!

the how question

2011-05-09T22:10:00.003+01:00

I was AOL rather than AWOL.

Absent on leave. I took some holiday after Easter and vacated the realm of cyberspace.

There's a wonderful freedom in doing so: but a price to be paid when you re-enter that realm, and find a mountain of (e-)mail piled up behind the metaphorical letter-box on your cyberspace front door.

Someone asled me Do you manage to switch right off? And when I replied that I do, they then went on to ask How? I was interested by that, because a number of other people had also been asking me questions - on all sorts of different themes - but alwasy the question was how?

They know what they ought to be doing. They just don't know how to be doing it.

I remember being warmly accosted, a long time back, after a Sunday service, by a good and godly young man, always full of encouragement, who said - You know, I really appreciate what you said today, and I know that's what I must do: but I need you to tell me not just what it is that I'm meant to be doing - I need you to tell me how to do it as well.

Practical application.

Remind me, yes, that I need to switch off: but tell me how to as well - because I'm not really sure how to do it: and therefore often don't.

Remind me, yes, that I need to forgive: but tell me how to as well.

It was C S Lewis who once remarked - “Every one says forgiveness is a lovely idea, until they have something to forgive.” The theory's fine. It's the practice with which we struggle.

And, yes, it's the practice which is the key. None of these things comes naturally. We have to practise. And practise hard and long.

So you learn to play music by practising hard. You work at certain disciplines (called 'scales' I believe). They may not seem much fun at first. But you work at these irksome disciplines, and bit by painful bit you find that the music is slowly beginning to flow. It starts to come quite naturally.

It's the same with driving a car. All that reversing round corners. All those 3-point turns. A multitude of vehicular exercises, until driving the car is something you do more naturally.

The so-called 'spiritual disciplines' are that sort of thing. They're not an end in themselves. They're not a set of rules you keep to earn yourself some brownie points.

They're a set of practical steps you can take to help you start living the life of the kingdom of God: until your living that life like that comes altogether 'naturally'.

You remember the song There's a hole in my bucket?

The inept Henry pesters the saintly Liza (well, she must have been a saint to cope with the incessant demands of this man). With what shall I mend it? he asks. With what shall I cut it? And so on.

It's the How? question dear Henry is always asking.

I guess there's a Henry in most of us as well. We know what we're meant to be doing. We just aren't sure how to do it.

And a large part of learning to live out our lives as followers of Jesus Christ is getting to grips with the how? question.

'Til we start to live the new life in an easy and natural way.

Holiday Club - thank you!

2011-04-20T22:03:00.002+01:00

It's difficult to measure the significance of last week's Holiday Club.

Those who are involved as part of the team find it very hard work, but they all immensely enjoy it, and there's a wonderful sense of the Lord himself being at the heart of it all.

It's humbling, and itself a powerful testimony, to have so many of our teenagers involved, giving up a week of their Easter holidays to this: and as humbling to see such a number of adults, already employed in tough and demanding jobs, setting aside this week of holiday time to serve as a part of the team: and humbling, too, to have such a number of retired and older folk pouring their all into doing what the week requires.

We receive some feedback, of course. Here's a note that was pushed through my door today -

"Dear All,

I meant to send this card as soon as 'Holiday Fun Club' finished but have been struggling to find a quiet minute to do so!

I wanted to say a HUGE thank you to all who were involved with making the church week such fun. What a massive effort from everyone and my children enjoyed every minute they were there. As a teacher, I know how much fun it is to be in the company of children, but I also know how exhausting it can all be! Your hard work is greatly appreciated!

I myself particularly enjoyed the games night on Wednesday and we all look forward to it all next year already!

Thanks again."

That from a family who aren't along at the church at all - apart from this Holiday Club week. It gives them a feel for the life that we live in Christ. Fun, commitment, joy, service.

I'm often wanting myself to say a huge thank you to all the countless individuals who, throughout the year, and not just through that week of Holiday Club, pour so much of themselves into this epic adventure of following Jesus and serving him in this our generation.

What a thrill, and what a privilege, to be surrounded by so many friends who give their all to further Jesus' purposes and make him known to others.

Mike Campbell - obituary

2011-04-19T22:10:00.003+01:00

This is the obituary which appeared in The Times today, highlighting something of the courage and convictions of Mike Campbell, the white African who dared to challenge Mugabe. It's a powerful testimony to a man who dared to act justly, love mercy and walk humbly with the Lord.

Click on the picture to read it.

alone

2011-04-18T22:01:00.005+01:00

It's often remarked that 'growing old never comes alone'.

It's a euphemism, of course. A kind way of acknowledging that as the years go by and we move into that stage of life called 'old age', all sorts of issues begin to emerge which we haven't encountered before.

Aches and pains which never used to be there. A decline in our physical stamina. A stiffness in most of our joints. A loss of that sharpness of vision. A slowly increasing deafness. Limbs which will no longer do what they're meant to do. A mind which starts to function less than coherently. A memory slowly going AWOL.

It's simpler, and kinder, I suppose, to observe that growing old never comes alone. We all know what's intended by the phrase.

And yet, a very large part of the struggles of increasing years is that fact that growing old does in fact 'come alone'. An aloneness is often a feature of those advancing years.

The folk who were always there for us, are often no longer there. A person's spouse has maybe died. Their friends have often likewise now departed this life: and those that are left are less able themselves to be out.

And, increasingly confined as often those well up in years can be - at home, in a Nursing Home, or for long spells in hospital - the out-of-sight-and-out-of-mind phenomenon sets in. Folk no longer visit as they used to do.

You can feel very much alone.

Seeing folk today has impressed that on me again. An elderly man in the Hospice. A lady confined in a hospital room on her own. A lady moving up in years whose husband has now died.

Growing old doesn't come alone. Except, of course, it does. Very often with our growing old comes the experience of being alone.

It's an aspect of our pastoral care whose pressing demands lie much upon my heart these days. We're an ageing population - and an ageing congregation, too.

It's a ministry more needful now than ever! We must find the ways to make the words of the song our own - You'll never walk alone!

Holiday Club - day 3

2011-04-13T22:06:00.004+01:00

There are close on 160 children now who have been registered for the Holiday Club. The place is simply swarming with children these mornings! It's a wonderful sight, and a wonderful privilege we have in sharing the gospel with them.

The morning starts with them all crowded into the church.

There's a comedy sketch to begin with. Our local hero, Orran McSporran, comes on to compete in a games contest against two other competitors from the team. Today the guy is thoroughly pentitent. He'd been cheating the first two days, which the children all spotted - and so they've been jeering him since. Today the girls who were leading out front changed the script, got Orran McSporran to say he was genuinely sorry, and managed to get all the jeers turned to cheers!

We sing the theme song, Undefeated Champion - a fast-moving, knee-slapping, arm-waving event which all of them certainly love.

After that it's time for the puppets. The puppet show tells the story straight from the Bible. Today it's the story of the feeding of the 5,000 and Peter walking on the water. The children watch and listen with rapt attention. Sometimes you could hear a pin drop it's so quiet.

And remember that's a hundred and fifty high-as-a-kite children!

They split into groups after that - "remember to follow your leader!" - and head off for their games, and crafts and 'group times', when they also get their snack. We've a hard-working 'kitchen staff' and folk who've fed in their home-baking. The miracle of the feeding of the 5,000 doesn't seem a million miles away from where we are!

At the end of the morning they all come back to the church.

More singing.

A talk on the story of the day. Today it's my turn. Nothing is impossible for God. Feeding 5,000 with a few small scraps of food? Walking on the water? I tell them of how God met our needs in a previous church in a quite remarkable way. It seemed completely impossible: but he did it. To this day I don't know how! We want them to know how great this Jesus is, and learn to trust him too.

There's a memory verse to follow. We want to get the truths of the Scriptures stored in their sponge-like minds.

The children then pray. Groups of the children come out and say a short prayer. Some of the prayers are quite moving. With child-like simplicity they hit the mark.

Another song. This time quieter. I have a Maker.

There's a game with some of the children out front competing against one another. Today it's who can blow the most bubbles.

Some more singing and then we're done for the morning. Power and might ends the morning on something of a high again. He is the King of kings! He is the King of kings! He is the King of kings!

Louder and louder! A great noise - and a great sight, to see these children praising the Lord like that with all that they are and have.

And that's just the morning!

There's a games night tonight as well. Hundreds are out at that. Twenty different games and twenty different groups of folk moving round the hall. The place is packed. It's a wonderful opportunity to get alongside a range of different people - children and parents alike, all having so much fun.

I've preparation to do, and visits to make as well. People and families to see as ever. And a meeting late on as we work to move things on along the many different 'fronts' on which the work of the Lord progresses in these days.

Sometimes I wonder how it will all get done. But I've to remember as much as the children themselves - "nothing is impossible with God!"

undefeated champion

2011-04-11T21:54:00.001+01:00

Our annual Easter Holiday Club started today.

Undefeated Champion is what it's called. And it's a thrill for all of the team to be part of what the Champion continues to do.

It's a busy, full, fun, and presence-of-God-unmistakeably-in-our-midst sort of week.

And this year it features Orran McSporran as a wanna-be champion. Our John missed his career in acting! He's brilliant, and the children all love him.

He won today. And he thinks he's the champ. But is he really? Truly?

Of course not. There's only one undefeated champion. The children are quick on the uptake.

the white African

2011-04-06T22:23:00.003+01:00

You remember the Channel 4 film, Mugabe and the White African?

At some considerable risk to the producer, director and camera crew, the film narrated the bold and godly way in which a farmer and his family in Zimbabwe dared to challenge Mugabe.

Mike Campbell, the white African of the film, died today. [See the details in The Zimbabwean]

My brother told me a while ago (and he should know, since he's married to Mike's daughter, and sees them all the time) - he told me that the whole experience aged the man overnight about 20 years.

Mike and his wife have sought to live their lives in obedience to the call of Jesus Christ, and dependence on his promised help. They knew that that is costly. But they also always knew that the cost which they might be called to bear was as nothing compared to the cost that their Lord had borne already for them.

They took to heart what the Lord insists is the heart of his call in Christ - to act justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God. Mike and his wife did just that.

They looked to the Lord for everything, and over all the many years they've proved God's loving faithfulness again and again. They've followed where he led. And in challenging Robert Mugabe's attempts to oust them from their home, they were not only convicted of the need to act justly and seek justice in the face of cruel and violent oppression, they were conscious as well of the huge responsibility they had under God for the 500 or so workers and their families who were also being harmed and destroyed by the actions of that leader.

They knew that to walk humbly with their God meant acting justly and loving mercy. And they knew that it might well be a costly thing to live like that and follow Jesus Christ in latter day Zimbabwe.

They were not afraid to walk with the Lord. Indeed, within their hearts, like Paul of old, their desire has always been -

"to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, and so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead."

Well, today Mike died, a man whose earthly frame bore the scars of the cross of his Lord.

Those who honour the Lord, the Lord in his turn will honour. Be sure of that.

Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord henceforth. Yea, saith the Spirit, that they may rest from their labours, and their works do follow them.

To God be the glory.

dark riders

2011-04-05T21:55:00.003+01:00

Dark riders from 'the land of Mordor' stalk the land these days.

The moment we start to follow the Lord, we find ourselves caught up in a massive cosmic conflict. We are born (when we're 'born again') into battle. It's as simple as that.

Everything in hell reacts violently to the work of the Lord. If the legions of hell were less instinctive in the way they invariably react, it might well be harder to see what was going on.

But hell is anything but subtle when the Lord starts progressing his work.

Hell cottons on, far quicker than sometimes we ourselves may do, to what the Lord is doing. There's little doubt in my mind these days that the Lord is on the move. Locally and nationally. Something big is afoot. There are tremors all over the place, little, almost imperceptible tell-tale signs of the footsteps of the Lord.

Stirrings in the hearts of different folk. Marvelous works of power. God's Word released in energising, Spirit-powered grace.

Hell takes notice and, convulsed by a certain desperation, panic and horror, reacts in violent fashion.

But the devil invariably overplays his hand. The way that the same assault is replicated in one context after another gives the game away. He's plainly out to undermine that work of God, and between today and yesterday there's been a constant barrage from the pits of hell against the church of God. A vicious, mean and underhand endeavour on the part of hell to set God's people one against the other and fracture any oneness we may have.

The devil knows there's so much strength in unity. So the dark riders from the land of Mordor start galloping out across the varied contours of our corporate life, intent on tearing huge long trenches of ill-feeling and division through our ranks.

As I say, it's the fact that this has been replicated at point after point these last two days - in all sorts of different contexts - it's that which gives the game away. It's really rather obvious what's going on.

Especially on the back of a significant word from the Lord on Sunday, which all of us were deeply conscious of: especially on the back of folk from different backgrounds coming together from right across the country on Monday.

Hell is roused in anger.

We must be more alert than ever and constantly on on our guard.

We must learn to plead the cross of Jesus and apply it moment by moment.

The dark riders are done for. But not by any magic.

life

2011-03-30T22:01:00.005+01:00

No two days are ever the same. Except for their being pretty full!

I have the enormous privilege of sharing with folk in the highs and the lows of their lives.

This morning again I had time with Calum; he's shortly to be starting as minister up at Macduff, and this was really his last main chance to touch base with me here before he goes. It's a daunting prospect for any young man - but exciting, too. And there's lots he wants to talk about.

I forget sometimes that I'm actually getting older: and I suppose as well it sometimes doesn't really cross my mind that a younger generation wants to tap in to the reservoir of decades-long experience I've gained.

The time that we have flies by. There's never the time to pursue all we want to be covering. But I share his keen expectancy, and have no doubt that he'll be greatly used by God in following through that calling to Macduff.

There's the lunch-time service next. The last for a while as we take a bit of a break through the next few weeks as the schools move into holiday mode.

Being the last of the 'term', we celebrate the sacrament. The bread and wine are passed along the pews. There are those for whom this is, I think, the first time in long years that they have taken part in this; a tangible way of their welcoming Jesus himself into their hearts and lives.

It's a simple, moving service, centred round the briefest exposition of the Word, remembering that Jesus Christ has brought us near: to God - and also to each other. A communion service.

There's something very fitting in our sitting round the tables in the hall and sharing lunch together once the service in the church is done. A sense of belonging, being bound to each other in Christ.

There are 'lows' in life as well, of course. And through the afternoon I'm spending time with people who have recently been bereaved. Mainly those well up in years, for whom their own impending death must plainly be quite soon. I mean, when you're up in your nineties you know you don't have ages still to go.

We talk about Jesus, and why he's so different from anyone else, and why it's because of all that he's done that we're able to cherish the hope that our death isn't really the end.

One lady hasn't been at worship for long years. She used to be at worship in the dim and distant past: but 'other things' crept in. Things which made it hard for her to share in weekly worship, so the habit of a worship-less observance of a Sunday slowly formed. A very hard habit to kick.

She seems glad to be able to talk about Jesus again. It somehow helps to buttress what small hope she has been fostering in her heart. But there's masses of ground to make up with her. Years and years of the soil of her heart remaining simply fallow and unploughed.

It's best that our hearts are being 'ploughed' and 'harrowed' and sown with the seed of God's Word when we're young. Or at least a good deal younger than ninety!

So I'm meeting with folk in the evening as well and we're working away at the Scriptures. Seeking to learn what they mean. Seeking to see how the Scriptures apply to our lives. Bedding the seed of the Word in the soil of these teachable hearts.

And seeing the growth which then follows is a privilege, joy and delight!

giving

2011-03-29T22:04:00.004+01:00

As the heat of the sun melts the glacier ice, so our hearts are finally melted by the warmth of God's love in Christ. Giving best flows from gratitude, not guilt.

We've been working at this for a while, the issue of our giving. Not just giving in financial terms, of course, though that as often as not is a good and helpful guide to the state of our hearts.

We want to cultivate a culture of giving, a pattern of living where generous, costly giving is very much the essence of our way of life.

We want to preach Jesus, in other words. We want him to to be seen and honoured and known.

But how does that cutlure of giving come about?

Certainly not through guilt. Guilt is to giving what duty is to doing. As a motivating factor, it only ever gets you just a little way along the road at best.

I saw someone tonight who exemplified that pretty well. You're making me feel guilty! he said, when I asked him, a member elsewhere of Christ's church, where he'd worshipped since coming here four or five years ago.

It wasn't a loaded question at all. But it felt to the man like the question was laden with guilt. Such guilt can make a person pitch up at our worship, I suppose. But I'm not under any illusions that such feelings of guilt will really effect major change. Guilt may get him to worship: but it won't ever keep him there.

Guilt like that may chip little bits of the glacier ice away. But it won't ever melt the whole mass. Something more is needed. The warmth of the love of the Lord. A profound and overwhleming sense of gratitude.

Grace is a pre-requisite for a culture of giving.

The grace of God being preached. The grace of God being lived. The grace of God being felt and known. The grace of God pervading all our life. Our words, our conversations. Our friendships, our relationships. Our actions, our reactions. Our outlook and our attitudes.

Grace in every single fibre of our corporate life.

A group of us here have been meeting together a few times now to think this whole thing through. We were meeting again this evening. And, again, I think we made some progress.

It's not just giving as such which we want to promote - though there are good practical reasons at present for needing to do just that ('balancing the books' is the phrase which springs to mind)! It's a culture of giving which we're wanting to foster and grow.

And that always starts with grace.

The most extended treatment of this theme which Scripture gives is found in Paul's second surviving letter to the church at Corinth. For two whole chapters the guy goes on at length about the principles of giving. He starts with grace.

"We want you to know about the grace that God has given the Macedonian churches."

It's a work of God, a work of God's grace in the hearts of these glacier men.

"Out of the most severe trial, their overflowing joy and their extreme poverty welled up in rich generosity."

Not the most auspicious set of circumstances, you'd have thought - severe trial and extreme poverty. But it's joy which prompts their giving. Gratitude and sheer delight in God: not guilt or any sense of duty.

Grace.

"For you know the grace of our (note that possessive pronoun!) Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, so that you through his poverty might become rich."

The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ.

It's where he begins, and it's where he ends as well.

"Because of the service by which you have proved yourselves, men will praise God for the obedience that accompanies your confession of the gospel of Christ, and for your generosity in sharing with them and with everyone else. And in their prayers for you their hearts will go out to you, because of the surpassing grace God has given you. Thanks be to God for his indescribable gift!"

Grace and gratitude.

A potent combination!

revolution or evolution?

2011-03-28T22:16:00.003+01:00

If you want to move forward, is revolution preferable to evolution?

The one is high-risk, often quite painful and costly, but at least has the merits of speed, closure and certainty. The change has been effected and everyone knows where they stand. They may not like it, but at least there's no confusion.

The other is gentler, slower, and more overtly sensitive to need people have for time and space when countenancing change. But it suffers from the danger that the time of transition can often be very confused, and the change may never actually happen.

It's the classic how-do-you-get-into-the-swimming-pool sort of question. Do you take a running jump, or gingerly ease your way in down the steps at the shallow end?

Is change meant to be a gradual thing? Or a sudden and radical turn-around?

I guess there's no simple answer. In most places the sun rises slowly and the light of dawn creeps bit by bit across the morning sky. But at the equator both sunrise and sunset are quick. Dark becomes light in an instant almost.

It depends a bit where you are.

Most of the time the change which takes place in God's world is gradual and slow. Spring comes slowly. The flowers take time to grow into blossom and bloom.

But sometimes it's sudden and rapid.

My day's been spent debating such issues in one sort of context and another. How does change happen? How do we bring it about?

Do we go for broke (the spirit of the revolution)? Or do we work away with patient grace and faithfulness, content to seek a merely slow and incremental growth (the way of 'evolution')?

They're not easy questions. And there aren't ever any easy answers.

Jehovah Jireh

2011-03-23T21:56:00.002Z

Wednesdays mark a mid-point through our week.

I always know the benefit of the chance to pause and to join with others in worship. It's not long - a mere half hour or so - but those moments of worship together are manna to the soul.

We've quite a large number of elderly folk for whom that sort of service works well. Right time of day, and right length of time. Plus there's a shared lunch afterwards The full package: fuel for the soul and the body. What we all need, no matter our age or stage.

It's another service to prepare for, of course. And there are all sorts of things on the go today, with much to be done with a view to the time on Friday with the children from the school, and people to be seen, and issues to be worked through.

And the 'annual meeting' of the congregation at night to be prepared for too.

There aren't that many out at the meeting tonight. I'm never quite sure why that's so. People have busy lives, I know, and the prospect of another evening out is often not attractive one small bit.

But it's good to take stock from time to time. And in doing so tonight for the first time in all of the years I've been here it's clear that we're now being obliged to be looking in faith to the Lord. The sums don't add up in terms of our giving these days. We're having to look to the Lord to provide.

We've found ourselves constrained by the Lord to appoint a Development Ministries Leader. But when you check our income for last year and factor in a salary for this new post - well, you're left asking the sort of question Isaac asked his Dad when climbing Mount Moriah.

I can see the fire and the wood, okay, Dad. "But where is the lamb for the burnt offering?"

Translated into our own situation - Where's the money to pay for this post?

An awkward question for Dad to be having to answer. Abraham was very clear about God's call. This is what the Lord had said to do.

It made no sense from a merely human point of view, it simply didn't add up. Sometimes that's the way it is in following Christ.

But the call of God was clear. And so the answer that he gave his son was pretty clear as well. "God himself will provide..."

It became a pivotal moment in the life of Abraham's family: a foundational truth in the way they lived their lives.

They called that place The Lord Will Provide.

That's where we're at ourselves these days. And it's no bad place to be. Scary, for sure. There must have been a sick feeling in the pit of Abraham's stomach. Humanly this was him pressing the self-destruct button.

But that dying to self and living entirely for Christ is the platform for his resurrecting power to be released.

Hudson Taylor, the pioneering missionary to China, had two plaques on his sitting room wall, I seem to recall. One said Ebenezer - "hitherto the Lord has helped us." The other said Jehovah Jireh - "the Lord will provide."

He's not let us down in the past. We'll trust him for the future!

Are you up for the ride?

Aslan on the move

2011-03-22T22:00:00.004Z

Tuesdays always start at speed these days.

The soups have to be made before I'm off to the school for the first of the two assemblies at 9am. By the time I'm back from the school it's after half past ten, and half the morning has gone!

Today I'd agreed to meet with folk at 11am, with a view to the 2 hour 'Easter presentation' which we hold for the P7 pupils on Friday of this week. There's a team of about 8 of us who'll lead the children through that time: we need to get our act together, know what each is doing, and how it'll all fit together. It's a useful time, and we're all looking forward to the time with the pupils this week.

It's great fun, a wonderful opportunity to help get clear what Easter is really all about, and it's lovely having the children along at our halls. So it's more than worth the effort to ensure that it all runs smoothly and well.

But it's almost time for my weekly meeting with Douglas. The morning again has flown.

It's good to have the time to talk and pray things through each week with Douglas. There's a certain sort of buzz about the place along the road at Holy Cross these days, where Douglas is. Things are happening. Maybe the outside observer would miss it all. But to a man like Douglas, attuned to the work of the Spirit of God, it's thoroughly unmistakeable. He hasn't known anything like it in all of the years that he's been here.

In a strange sort of way it mirrors what's happening here. Something's afoot. In the language of the Narnia Chronicles, Aslan's on the move. We're glad of the chance to pray, and are conscious in praying God's purpose is thereby being furthered.

Once Douglas is gone, there's another member of the team involved in Friday's 'Easter presentation' to be seen. She couldn't manage this morning, and this is her first time involved in the thing, so I need to work the whole thing through with her and put her mind at rest.

Prayer reflects our dependence on the Lord. Preparation reflects his involvement of us in his work. We are his co-workers. We have to do the work.

At night there are two rather different meetings to attend. The first up town, with big church leaders from around the city of Edinburgh. The second a team of folk from wee church here, applying our minds to the practical issues relating to our giving as a people in these days.

And before I know it, another whole day has gone by!

There's a lot going on. Aslan's on the move. That's the deepest truth about these days.

It's important for us to be ready.

attractive

2011-03-21T22:50:00.002Z

A meeting day. Meeting different people, at different points, all through the day.

Folk were coming from all over the country to a meeting here from late morning through until mid-afternoon. One arrived good and early - before I was back from seeing some other people. He was highly impressed by the welcome he received from the lady who does our cleaning here.

She's a marvel. Her cleaning is top of the range in terms of the work that she does. And she's always so amazingly warm and welcoming - to absolutely everyone. This guy was so impressed by her that he felt obliged to comment on the welcome that he was given.

That's how it's meant to be.

The gospel lived out in the lives of his people. it's very powerful stuff.

We were reading the other Sunday morning what Paul has to say to Titus about teaching his people to translate the gospel into every sphere of their lives, including their working lives -

".. so that in every way they will make the teaching about God our Saviour attractive."

That's exactly what this lady invariably does! An object lesson for us all.

thankfulness

2011-03-16T22:16:00.005Z

There are all sorts of very real privileges that go hand in hand with being a parish minister.

Not the least of which is that of sharing with a family in a time of sore bereavement, and leading the service of worship to mark the passing from this earthly life of one who's been so dear to all of them.

It is, for sure, a privilege. Hard work, far from easy, and often thoroughly draining. Yes. That goes with the territory. But a privilege, very definitely.

This morning there was a service of thanksgiving along at the crematorium. The man who'd died was 92 and the chapel was filled to capacity - standing room only. There would have been a good 70 people present - perhaps a few more. Not bad for a man that age, and indicative of the esteem in which he was held and the impact that he'd plainly had on many folk.

When you reach that age most of your own contemporaries are no longer there. It's getting to be the last man standing sort of thing.

His grand-daughter read a poem: and his son spoke, too. Not an easy thing for either in the swirling of emotions in their hearts. But they both did really well. Another sort of tribute to a man they loved so much.

It was that sort of life that he'd lived, I think. People warmed to him. Family, friends, colleagues and neighbours - all alike were drawn to him.

My perception was that it all stemmed from his gratitude - an outlook and an attitude to all of life which at its core was thankful for the many varied blessings that he'd known. It does something to a person when there is that deep-seated sense of gratitude within. And it almost invariably warms folk to the person, too.

No wonder that we're always being exhorted to that gratitude ourselves.

"O give thanks to the Lord, for he is good:

his love endures for ever."

That latter line is the potent refrain that runs through every verse of one of the songs in the Bible. Line after line after line. Driving home this fundamental truth into our hearts. The Lord loves us. And his love is enduring and strong.

A multitude of different things each day bear witness to that love. And none more so, of course, than that supreme expression of his love - the giving of his Son, the Lord Jesus Christ.

Those who know Jesus - they above all will be thankful.

To have been rescued and saved and delivered by God - how can a person be anything other than grateful? And how can each day be seen by such folk as anything other than truly a gift from the Lord?

Our whole perspective on life turns around when we cultivate this sort of gratitude deep in our hearts.

The tasks to be done, however routine and mundane, become an act of worship whereby our thanks is being continually offered up to God.

The challenges and problems that we face, however hard and tough, become, not one more cause for big complaint, but rather one more context for reliance on the Lord.

The whole of life is altered when there's thankfulness like that. We become the sort of people folk are glad to have around. Warm, uplifting, humorous, fun: kind, understanding, patient and true.

There's really nothing quite like being a part of such a fellowship where genuine, heart-felt gratitude to God is at the core of who folk are!

on the move

2011-03-15T21:51:00.003Z

Another day when it's a case of hitting the ground running.

There's the soup to be made at its start, of course - and I'm careful today to take my keys with me when I go outside with the peelings. I've learned from last week and the memory is still very fresh.

Then along to the school where this morning I get to lead a whole-school assembly. That's a lot of children all in one hall. And it's a big age-span, too: P1s and P7s are a whole world apart in all sorts of ways. But it's good to see them all there and I'm able to carry on the theme for the month - forgiveness - in a way which I hope is practical and intelligible.

There's a lot of preparation I must do. Six separate services each requiring careful preparation (3 funeral services, 2 Sunday services, and the midweek service tomorrow) - and that's before I ever get round to thinking about the SU group on Thursday.

None of them simply happen! I'm dependent on the Holy Spirit, for sure: but I'm called to work alongside the Holy Spirit - and that means doing the work. Which in this sort of situation translates as thorough preparation. He's at work, so I'm at work, and together we'll see the task done.

So I try to make some time today to do such preparation.

There are interruptions, of course. Other things requiring my attention. People who are needing to discuss some urgent matters and to get some issues clear.

Douglas is in for his lunch, and there's time for prayer with him. He's encouraged by what's now going on down the road at Holy Cross. They've a website up and running now, a symbol of the progress that there's been. There's a sense of all sorts of things now coming together in a way that hasn't been true for years.

It's the same here, too. There's a sense of there being those silent 'rumblings' as the Lord begins to move: you have to have your ear right close to the ground to hear these gentle 'rumblings', for sure - but they're there!

The Lion has risen and is trampling through the undergrowth today!

There are folk to be seen as always, of course. And calls to be made. And e-mails to write. And deadlines to meet. And admin to do. And a lot of organising still to do, related to all sorts of things the coming days will bring.

I could happily use a 48 hour day, and still be looking for more of that wonderful commodity called time. But, like everyone else, I only ever get a 24 hour day!

I have to use it wisely, fully, well. I only get it once!

shaking

2011-03-14T21:53:00.002Z

There's very little let-up at present. The days are full, the weeks are short, and there's much that's going in.

Most of my Mondays for the last few weeks (and into the forthcoming weeks, too, about as far as the eye can see) have been taken up with my meeting with other Christian leaders in a range of different contexts.

These are hugely significant days. Almost certainly more so than most folk really imagine.

There's a great verse towards the end of Malachi, the final book of the Old Testament.

"Then those who feared the Lord talked with each other, and the Lord listened and heard." [Mal.3.16]

Something important is happening when there is this coming together to talk of those who fear the Lord. And something important will follow as well.

The Lord sits in on all the conversation, on all that's being said. It's not that he's quietly eavesdropping. Anything but. Those who gather like that to talk are keen that he be very much the centre of it all. We're talking together with him and about him and from him.

And he hears. Not just in the sense that it all somehow registers with him. But in a far more potent sense. He hears and responds. He hears and heeds.

Something is triggered in heaven by such people thus gathering together to talk: the streams of grace start to flow. The Lion of Judah is roused and starts to move.

These are the days in which we're living. And this coming together of leaders, in all sorts of different contexts, is as good an indication as you'll get that something important's afoot.

But it does make for weeks seem that much shorter!

Today saw me off and away for the bulk of the day. And the evening's been filled with some visits to folk - and then some preparation, too, since I've the assembly at school which I'm leading tomorrow first thing.

These are days of great 'shaking'. What we have seen, and are seeing, politically (in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya, for instance) and geologically (in Christchurch and Japan, for instance), is strangely mirroring a profound 'shaking' which increasingly is being felt spiritually as well.

"And you will again see the distinction between the righteous and the wicked, between those who serve God and those who do not." [Mal.3.18]

That's how the prophet goes on. That's the sequel to what he's said before. That's what happens more and more when those who fear the Lord start coming together to talk with each other before the Lord - and when the Lord himself responds.

There's a sifting. A massive spiritual shake-up, which sorts the stones from the earth.

prayer and fasting

2011-03-09T21:55:00.006Z

Ash Wednesday. The start of 'Lent'.

An appropriate day for a day of prayer and fasting with a view to the forthcoming 'General Assembly', when big church gets together and addresses all the issues that are out there to be faced.

A whole load of congregations up and down the land have been marking today like that. And not only here in Scotland. Hundreds, maybe even thousands in America, resolved that they would join us in this day of prayer and fasting with that big May meeting in view.

And millions in China as well. The whole House Church movement in China was mobilised and engaged to pray and fast for the Church of Scotland at this time. That's an awful lot of people and an awful lot of praying and an awful lot of urgency in our crying out to God.

Did we know so many folk do really care about what happens here? Did we really grasp the fact that God himself is that concerned he puts it in the hearts of all these people to be joining thus in prayer?

Something big is surely going on when a massive, millions-strong army of seasoned praying warriors way out east is mobilised like this to pray.

There was a sense of that throughout today. A powerful word at the lunch-time service: the Lord very present indeed.

There was, of course, lunch for those that wished - there isn't a three-line whip! But I skipped the lunch and got things sorted out and ready for the afternoon session when our 'Upper Room' was open for leaders from across the city to gather and join in a time of prayer together.

We broke the afternoon into three hour long sessions. People drifted in and out, but along with the chance to talk a bit, we were able to read the Scriptures and spend some good long time each hour in prayer.

There was no great rush to get back for tea (it's a day of prayer and fasting after all!). But we'd organised an evening on the south side of the town where folk from all the different congregations could gather again for prayer.

Again, a great spirit prevailed. Urgent, earnest praying in the confidence that something's going on, the Lord's at work. We prayed that the fire of the Lord would fall - the fire of the Spirit of God.

We looked at what happened a long time ago at another general assembly. Elijah on Mount Carmel, confronted with a rampant form of Baalism within the church of the day, hopelessly outnumbered as he addressed his appeal to the floating voters with his make-your-mind-up message - How long will you waver between two opinions? - in the context of a 'gospel' that'd been thoroughly watered down.

All very pertinent stuff!

And then prayer. A simple, specific, God-honouring prayer. Let the fire fall. And it did.

And we trust it will!

more consequences

2011-03-08T22:11:00.004Z

Last week at the SU group we got the children to play a game of Consequences. Fairly innocuous 'X met Y...' sort of stuff.

Not all of them made much sense, but some interesting little stories emerged. Like this one -

"Ben met Jacqueline at Edinburgh.

He said to her, 'I love you.'

She said to him, 'Do you want to go to the swimming pool with me?'

And the consequence was that they had a baby."

Consequences.

Sometimes our actions, however small they may seem, have consequences way beyond what we'd have imagined.

It's been a busy few days, and today, I knew from the start, was going to be full and quite rushed. A bit like yesterday, when I was chairing an all-day meeting of folk out of town and then was back for an evening of important pastoral ministry in the home of one of our members.

So this morning I was down first thing, a good bit before 7.30am. There were soups to be made, for a start.

However ...

The previous night the tap on the automatic boiler in the kitchen (which gives us boiling water round the clock) had been left a tiny fraction on.

Not a trickle of water or anything like that, just a steady little drip into the tray at the base of the boiler. So small as to be easily overlooked when closing down for the day the previous night.

But come the morning when I went in first thing the kitchen floor was flooded. A steady drip through the hours of the night can soon amount to a massive pool of water! So the soup-making's right-away postponed. There's a floor to be mopped and flood damage now to be remedied.

Once done, I left the bucket and mop in the corridor and got the soup on the go. Then out by the fire exit to dispose of the water I'd collected from the flooding on the floor.

Except it's a very windy morning and the fire door blows shut behind me. Now I'm locked out of the building completely - and left standing in the vestibule (it at least was open which was just as well because the wind was cold and raw) with my apron on. Twiddling my thumbs and waiting for someone with keys.

It's a healthy reminder from the Lord, I realise, that it's not what I do that counts. Sometimes he takes us out of the frame to make his point.

He anaesthetised Abram and sent him to sleep, after all. To underline the point that it's he, the Lord, who does it all. We do well to remember that.

Well, a keyholder arrived, and I got round to the school for the first of two assemblies I'd be at - a little late, for sure, but better late than never.

Then back to the halls to begin to address a pastoral crisis which I've been alerted to. And then a quick rush round to the school again for the assembly mark 2 (this time the younger pupils).

From there it's off to a meeting to do with our pastoral ministry here. I have to leave before, I think, they're finished, as I'm meeting up with Douglas and going off to the local fraternal.

I'm back just in time to be coming through the doors just a few short steps ahead of the folk I've arranged to meet at 2pm. A family right in the midst of terrible grief after the death of their 23 year old son. Time with them cannot be rushed. I feel their pain acutely.

They're barely gone before I'm seeing the person whose crisis I had learned about this morning. There's more pain. Consequences really.

Consequences of things now way in the past. And consequences, too, of choices being made in the present.

We're complicated people; and life is full of heartache. Oh for heaven, when the sorrows, tears and fault-lines in our make-up will be gone!

I've a quick turn-around over tea, including the chance to see a friend from ages back (I can't say an old friend, because she's not that old!), before a full-length meeting at night at which, not least, we're looking at the congregation's finances.

There are matters to concern us here. We live in harsh economic times. Everyone's feeling the pain.

But we're having to think about consequences once again. Can we really afford to sustain a new appointment? Can we really afford not to?

And how are we best going to foster a culture of giving and its consequence of growth?

coming together

2011-03-03T21:40:00.004Z

All sorts of things are finally coming together. Not my words, but those of Douglas, the minister friend with whom I share a weekly lunch and a regular time of prayer.

I know, you're thinking it's usually a Tuesday that Douglas and I have lunch. But these are days of turmoil and change, and if there ever was a thing resembling routine in my life, it's certainly disappeared!

Thursdays have changed to Tuesdays, so far as the school is concerned. At least in the main. The assemblies are no longer held in the school today.

But Scripture Union is. Again there's a crowd of children. High as kites. We play a round of 'Consequences'. It's fun, and they all enjoy it.

Then we're into the text of Scripture and seeing how our words and deeds always have consequences too. We need to be careful in how we live. Jesus' way is best.

My morning's been filled with people. Some by arrangement, others hae just called by. There are things to discuss and work through. If Facebook's a guide to how things have gone, then it's not wasted time -

"Many thanks for your counsel today, much appreciated."

My lunch and time spent in prayer with Douglas is short. I've another call to make in the early afternoon. This one affecting the future.

And then some further calls as well. And I'm conscious the time is slipping by, time that I'd planned should be used with tomorrow in mind. There's a service of thanksgiving here in the late afternoon.

I then thought this evening might afford me some time for that. But it doesn't work out quite like that. I'm seeing a couple with marriage in mind. And the time flies by again. We spend some good time together. Important time.

The Lord is very much there. There are tears. Something quite remarkable is going on. Tears from a person who doesn't do tears by and large (so I'm told - this is the first time I've met them). They're a lovely couple, and the Lord has pitched up and it's just like the springtime's arrived and the snows of strange longing are starting to melt in their lives - and that's why the tears start to flow.

There's something here that I think they've both been longing for. For years. It's the Lord for whom they're longing, without a doubt. We commit to seek his blessing on their lives.

All sorts of things are finally coming together for them as well.

Exciting, remarkable days.

peace in the storms

2011-03-01T22:07:00.005Z

Perhaps the 'spicey' soup I made today was symbolic. Variety is the spice of life and every day is certainly different.

Not just different from other days, but different from what I'd planned. A day very rarely works out the way I had anticipated.

There was the soup-making bit at the start, of course. And then along to the school - with the assemblies now re-arranged each week for a Tuesday rather than a Thursday.

Even the Head is taking his time getting used to that. "I have to get myself organised a lot earlier in the week," he confessed. I guess it leaves him free-er later on.

'Forgiveness' is the theme this month. I'm getting to lead a 'whole-school' assembly in a couple of weeks and that will be my theme as well. It's a good gospel theme after all. And it ties in well with Easter.

Back from there to a pre-wedding meeting with the bride-to-be and her mother. The wedding takes place on Saturday (though I'm not the officiating minister) and there were all sorts of things to work through with them both in relation to the ceremony in the church.

Weddings can be a hugely stressful thing for those most closely involved. I recognise I always have a part to play in easing the tensions and calming the nerves and putting folk right at their ease. Jesus brings peace.

Today was no exception. Folk want to know the day will all be just fine. I try to help them see just why it will be so. Talking them through the whole thing. Walking them through the whole thing.

It takes some time, but it's always worth that investment.

From there it was off to a leaders' lunch-time get-together in a different part of town. A chance to touch base with some men who've been friends for years. To meet and talk and then, at the end, to have the time to pray together, too.

Back to some admin that was long overdue. Then out again to see some folk. Then back to call the local firm of undertakers. A funeral they'll be having to arrange in the days ahead.

A young man died in an accident over the weekend at a a 4x4 rally event. How suddenly everything can change. Not only vehicles, but lives and families can be turned upside down in an instant.

I'm out at night to see his grandmother, one of our older members. The young man's mother and father are there as well. His brother too. What pain there is in grief.

There are a couple of other homes to be calling by, too. Different needs. Different situations. Some full of anticipation and excitement. Some full of disappointment and worry.

Jesus had compassion on the people. I understand that.

It's a privilege to be given a feel for that in my day by day life.

Whatever it is people face - he's there.

learning to live

2011-02-24T21:59:00.006Z

The local school has changed its assembly day from a Thursday to a Tuesday. Mainly, I think, to suit the availability of the PE teacher.

It means a Thursday's not so full of the school, so far as I'm concerned. Just the Scripture Union group, which was starting up again today after their mid-term break last week.

The numbers were down just a bit on what they've been - but still pretty good. Almost 20 children, some of them high as kites as they're off tomorrow to an SU weekend away. Thankfully I've two other folk to help me - otherwise we might have been veering towards a scenario reminiscent of Egypt or Libya.

It verges on chaos at times - but it's a very happy chaos and I hope that bit by bit they're learning from the Bible and discovering how to live.

We were learning again today about how to handle those who've done you harm.

A situation most of us face, at least from time to time. And, of course, we also do a lot of harm ourselves sometimes. We're none of us perfect yet - that has to wait until heaven. And as a result, we're always rubbing rough and ready shoulders with a load of other rough and ready people. It's often really painful, sore, upsetting.

Forgiveness is easy - until you need to show it! That's where the cross of Jesus and the work of the Holy Spirit start to kick in.

Discipleship starts at the cross. Always.

Discipleship's really the cross of Jesus being ingrained through every fibre of our being. Not just his cross as an ornament slung around our necks.

But as a 'dye' (or more truly a 'die') shot through every single cell within our being.

"We always carry around in our body the death of Jesus," declared the apostle Paul.

The call to 'die'. Daily. Wholly.

In body, mind and spirit.

In conduct, speech and attitudes.

The 'die' of the cross ingrained through all my being.

How many of us try to live as a 'scipl'?

You're wondering about that strange little word 'scipl'?

It's just disciple without the 'die' involved.

It doesn't work. It doesn't make sense. It can't be done.

We're learning to live by learning to die.

'multi-tasking'

2011-02-23T22:10:00.004Z

Like most of my days, the larger part of today was filled with people. Talking, praying, meeting with people.

Sometimes here in the privacy of the room that's called our Pastoral Office. Sometimes in the privacy of a person's home.

Listening to them. Listening with them. Listening for them.

The Lord is always present. He's at work, unseen, and most times too unheralded, in people's lives. I'm listening all the time to try and figure out not just where they are at, but, more to the point where He is at: indeed, exactly what He's at.

It's demanding work in its own particular way. I'm interested that often at the time of prayer we have each morning here, I'm prayed for by the others in terms of the so-called multi-tasking that I do.

I smile a bit at that, since it's meant to be only women who are up to such multi-tasking. But that aside, I'm grateful for the prayer along those lines, because in truth it is a particular sort of multi-tasking that I'm doing.

I'm having to listen in two directions at once.

I'm listening intently to what the person is saying: I'm seeking to follow exactly what it is they're trying to say, in both the words they use, and in what they're not saying too.

And I'm listening intently as well to what the Lord himself is saying through it all: and what it is that he wants said by me. It requires a fair amount of constant concentration.

But it has its rewards! Being aware of the Lord so at work in the lives of these people; seeing him at work, and speaking, in the talking back and forth that's going on; knowing as I pray with folk that God's own hand is somehow at that moment being stretched out and laid with grace upon a person's life.

In at least a couple of instances here today the person I was seeing was not entirely clear just why they had come 'knocking at my door'. They just had a sense that they needed to come, were meant to come. And I don't doubt for a moment that that was indeed the case.

There was a reason. There were things that the Lord needed to say.

There were marvelous answers to prayer.

There were moments of revelation: an insight afforded which prompted the person to say they wished that they had met me a good ten years before.

There was healing and help being afforded; renewal and growth being seen.

There were burdens being shared, commitments being made, and friendships being fostered in Christ.

Who ever thought that the work of a pastor was dull?!

together

2011-02-22T22:05:00.007Z

It's Tuesday, which generally means that I'm lunching with my friend from down the road, Douglas. Today was no exception.

We were barely sat down before he was saying, "You seem busier than ever!"

Well, I suppose I am. The decline in the number of 'posts' on this blog over the last little while is a tell-tale sign of that. Things are hotting up.

The large bulk of yesterday, for instance, was taken up with a major 'strategy' meeting. Important, and useful: we live in days of very real significance, and the need for God's people to be getting their act together at and for such times is absolutely crucial.

That's me, middle row, second from the left. [No, just kidding!]

That seems to be a thing writ large for us on the opening pages of the book of Acts - the story of the early church. Jerusalem is not an easy place to be back then, if you're a follower of Jesus Christ. The tide of public opinion is pretty much against you: there's an open and destructive hostility towards Jesus, the Word of God. 'Truth' has been tossed aside.

So the small band of followers of Jesus get together. The word suggesting 'togetherness' gets a bit of underlining by simply being repeated. As if to say, it's important they're together.

And then, when the critical day comes round, we're told they are not just 'together', but also "in the same place."

So far as the Greek is concerned in what Luke wrote, it's not necessarily a geographical reference. It's as much that they're in the same place spiritually, reading from the same script, as it were, at one with one another. They've sorted things out and got their act together.

And something astonishing happens. Quite unexpected. It throws the whole thing upside down. It reverses the numbers game in one remarkable moment. The Spirit of God comes down. Thousands are convicted and converted.

A corner is turned. The Jesus story moves on in a way that few if any in Jersualem could ever have expected.

And the starting point to it all? The opening line in this whole new chapter of grace?

"They were all together in one place."

There's something about that sort of 'unity', that sort of 'togetherness' and being at one with one another, that even the Lord himself recognises as a potent sort of force. It was the Lord himself, after all, who declared at the time of the tower of Babel - "If as one people speaking the same language they have begun to do this, then nothing they plan to do will be impossible for them."

That's without God's Spirit.

One people, speaking the same language .. nothing .. will be impossible for them.

So when you factor in the powerful Spirit of the God for whom nothing is impossible to a people who've got their act together and are as one - well, it stands to reason that there'll be no stopping them.

How vital, therefore, in these significant days, to be in this way 'together', 'in the same place', 'at one'.

But it's time-consuming, too, of course. That was a whole day out of the frame. The week gets suddenly shorter.

And because the days are significant ones, today there's been a lot of work to do through e-mails and by letter. A lot of people to speak with and to be in correspondence with as well. A lot of careful thinking to be done, as all sorts of things come together in our congregational life.

Farming is one of the images used to describe the work of the gospel. I've worked on farms, so I know how it goes.

Some of the time it's all pretty slack. The workers are not idle, but it's just a case of keeping things ticking over. Other times it's hectic. All hours of the day and night. I've been there, done that, got the payslips to prove it.

It's little different with the work of the gospel. For long enough it all seems fairly harmless, routine stuff, with little to show for your effort.

And then the harvest season comes around. And all of a sudden the pace quickens, the hours lengthen, and it's round-the-clock commitment that's required!

There are signs, I think, that the season of harvest is near.

When I first came here, the word the Lord had given me was exactly along those lines. I had been brought here in the providence of God for a harvest he would reap.

It's been a long time coming! But I'm wondering if maybe what I'm seeing at this time is indicative of God's harvest now arriving here at last. A lot of things are finally coming together.

Together.

One people. One language. One place. For such a people, nothing will be impossible.

I think we do well to get ourselves ready for fireworks!

walking on the water

2011-02-16T21:53:00.006Z

The day has just ended with our monthly time of congregational prayer.

More and more I'm aware of the pressing need for that. And I was much encouraged to see a significantly larger number of folk coming out to that tonight than has been the case for months.

These are faith-stretching, stepping-out-of-the-boat-and-starting-to-walk-on-the-water sort of days. In looking to appoint a person as Development Ministries Leader we're doing what we've not had to do in years, in some ways.

We're having to step out in faith. We're having to look to the Lord to raise up the person he means to be doing this work: we're having to look to the Lord to show us the future he plans: we're having to look to the Lord to provide the finance it will need.

So it was good to be getting together like that tonight and be bringing these things to the Lord. One lady came up to me at the end and said, "It's exciting!"

It is. Scary in a lot of ways. But definitely exciting, too.

We have a wonderful set of premises. A church building which is spacious, bright and attractive, and technically quite well-equipped. A delightful little cottage, roomy, warm and furnished really well. Two sizeable suites of halls, both encompassing a range of different meeting areas, and fitted out with kitchens which are more than up to standard. An expansive, open, and, in some ways, secluded area of gardens, which loads of folk like to enjoy. And a massive car park.

Six separate parts to our premises, each of which would be the envy of many another congregation.

And all on a main arterial route in and out of the city.

I mean, have we landed on our feet or landed on our feet?

But how best to use them? That's the crucial question.

We're grateful for our heritage, the vision and commitment of our forbears in the faith, who've left us with this 'legacy'. We're conscious of our calling, too: the fact that all these premises are very much a stewardship entrusted us by God, and meant, by him, to be themselves the context for his gospel being proclaimed through our community, an asset which is used by us to further all his purposes of grace.

We have that sense of destiny. We have that sense of purpose. We have that sense of this all being siginificant. Danger - God at work!

But as we've prayed and worked at this, the conviction has grown in our hearts that all that God means to accomplish can only be done through our setting aside a person to provide the leadership needed.

Someone with vision and drive: someone with energy, passion and zeal: someone with loads of initiative, someone with good people skills: someone who makes things happen.

For the last 15 years or thereabouts, the Lord has been building a platform. Showing us what can be done.

It would be easy, I think, for us simply to settle right back into routines which now are quite comfortable, things that we've done now so often we could do them I think in our sleep!

But the Lord simply won't let us settle like that. There's a whole lot more he means yet to do. All that the past many years have involved is really no more than a start. A kind of pre-match, warm-up session, to ensure that we're now ready for the action, and can hit the ground all running when the vision, which he all along has cherished in his heart, at last kicks in.

Exciting days, indeed!

But they're days when we're now right out of our depth. And unless the Lord himself is out there on the water with us all ... then, for sure, we'll simply sink!

people

2011-02-15T21:52:00.004Z

The Lord has a sense of humour.

Someone was saying that to me both yesterday and today. And I guess most folk discover it for themselves sooner or later.

Having underlined on Sunday evening that one of the qualities charateristic of a pastor is his being good with people, the last two days for myself have been absolutely brim-ful of .. you guessed, people!

People with whom I've been talking through issues now facing us here.

An elderly man whose hearing and sight, along with his legs, are failing him more and more. He's glad of the chat (mine is one of the very few voices he's able to make out and hear) and the company too, and the prayer that we share in before I'm off and elsewhere.

A younger man who's recently come to the point of faith, and crossed the line and entered the kingdom of God - and who ever since then has been ill. We talk at some length about 'the wiles of the devil'; why and how it is that following Jesus involves us in a battle.

Leaders within the congregation here, whom I need to see and speak with as we fashion out a whole new sort of framework for the vital pastoral ministry we seek to see being exercised among us here.

There's a meeting then with my 'chaplain', who has come, I guess, to check I'm still OK. I am.

Every minister here in the city is accorded a 'chaplain'. Pastoral ministry, too, I suppose, in slightly different context.

The chaplain's involved in another, very different congregation in the city centre (different denomination and everything). We chat about that church and how things work out there. It's useful for me to be hearing how other congregations go about their ministry.

My friend and fellow-pastor in the church along the road is in for lunch. Douglas is back after some weeks away in his native America. it's good to be seeing him again and to have the chance to catch up. A lot of water has flowed beneath the bridge since I saw him last - both sides of the Atlantic.

It's mainly his story we have time for today, since I've already arranged to be meeting with someone else.

We've got our monthly congregational prayer coming up tomorrow night. There are things to be thought through, planned and prepared. These times of prayer are more and more important. I'm hoping there'll be more and more folk coming out to share together in prayer. That's when and how things happen.

I've a mountain of things to prepare. These are significant days. But there's not a lot of time! I'm having to prioritise.

At night I'm out again in various homes. Touching base with different folk. Praying folk into their future. Calling folk into God's future.

People. All sorts of different people.

I think of what David once said when Abigail came out to meet him - "Praise be to the Lord, the God of Israel, who has sent you today to meet me." [1 Sam.25.32].

My prayer is, every day, that that would be the experience of those whom I'm with - that they will indeed feel, on account of what's said and done, that the Lord has sent me to meet them today.

forming the future

2011-02-09T22:02:00.004Z

We are building for the future. Both the more immediate future in our land and in our world: and also that great future which is promised us in Christ.

What that more immediate future is going to bring and hold - who knows? But we're building for it, and working towards it.

I was meeting again this morning with the young man from our fellowship who's been called to be the pastor of a church up north. There are all sorts of issues he wants to work through and get clear in his mind before he starts that work.

He's glad of a 'wall' to bounce things off: and I'm happy to help him consider the issues there are.

It's a long-term work of the Lord to which the man is called. God takes his time and is in no rush. HIs work is thorough and careful and most of the time it is bit by bit by bit. I'm glad to play a small part in that work in helping this man in advance of the work that he'll do.

"The things you have heard me say in the presence of many witnesses entrust to reliable men who will also be qualified to teach others." [2 Tim.2.2]

There's that sort of strand to the work that I'm called to by God. Entrusting to other reliable men the things that I've been taught myself by godly, gracious, thoroughly reliable men.

It was straight from seeing this man to the lunch-time service. The end of the road for Nabal who had shown such thorough disrespect in the face of the kindness of David. He meets his end at the hands of the Lord.

The story is an object lesson in 'entrusting ourselves to the One who judges justly' [see 1 Pet.2.23]: as Jesus did. 'Vengeance is mine,' says the Lord. He makes a far better job of the thing than we would ever do. It's always best to leave it to him.

One of the ladies present at the service came up at the end and shared with me the story of her daughter through these recent months. Her employer had treated her badly, a Nabal sort of man I fear he was. To cut a long story short, the man has got his 'come-uppance', and she has been wonderfully (and in some ways, very manifestly) vindicated by the Lord.

"'No weapon forged against you will prevail, and you will refute every tongue that accuses you. This is the heritage of the servants of the Lord, and this is their vindication from me,' declares the Lord." [Isaiah 54.17]

Leave it to him to sort these things out. He does a good job. Entrust yourself to him: he always judges justly.

Of course, in the story of David and Abigail, there's a sobering end to the tale. Nabal dies. David takes Abigail as his wife. That's his second wife. Indeed, in truth his third wife.

In the flush of delight at the grace God has shown him through this lady's intervention, keeping him from taking revenge himself on the curtly Nabal, David lowers his guard at a different point in his life. Women.

Everyone else was indluging in this sort of way. More than one woman.

But the ultimate downfall of Israel had its ultimate origin here. The seeds of the country's collapse were sown at this moment of time.

You can draw straight lines between David's taking another wife here and his taking another man's wife later on. You can draw straight lines between that affair with Bathsheba, and the pattern with women adopted by David's son, Solomon, born to him by Bathsheba ('if Dad could behave like this, then why shouldn't I?'). You can draw straight lines between Solomon's countless women and the seeping into Israel's life of the worship of other gods.

David, of course, wasn't really thinking of the far-off future fate of this his land, when taking to himself a second wife. But the devil surely was.

Scary.

Entrusting ourselves to the love of the righteous Judge is one thing. It needs to be matched by our submitting ourselves to the lordship of His Son.

We are to be as wise as the serpent himself in the seeds that we sow in the present, through our godly, patient, self-denying living day by day.

We're affecting the future, one way or another. May it be for the good of our people. May it be for the glory of God.

how a society dies

2011-02-07T22:04:00.004Z

On Friday past Melanie Phillips had a piece in the Mail Online to which I was alerted.

Confession (1): I tend not to read the newspapers much at all, and when and if I do it's not the Daily Mail.

Confession (2): I'm not the world's greatest fan of Melanie Phillips. I don't read her columns, and I've only ever seen her a few times as one of the panel on Question Time.

However, this piece which she wrote on Friday past was more than a little interesting. Not just because she chooses to call a spade a spade, but because her conclusion is so stark and clear.

Here's what she wrote -

In our allegedly multicultural society, there is one religious group which is apparently not to be afforded equal respect, let alone treated for what it embodies - the foundational creed of this nation. That group is Britain’s Christians.

Somerset community nurse and committed Christian Caroline Petrie has been suspended and faces being sacked and even struck off for offering to say a prayer for an elderly patient. Although startled, the patient - herself a Christian - did not make a complaint and was in no way offended.

Nevertheless Mrs Petrie’s boss wrote to her saying she was required to uphold the reputation of her profession - which apparently means demonstrating ‘a personal and professional commitment to equality and diversity’ and not using her professional status ‘to promote causes that are not related to health’.

Apparently, Mrs Petrie previously received a warning about promoting her faith at work after she offered to give a prayer card to an elderly male patient.

Now there may be a valid point here about professionalism. Offering prayer cards comes close to touting one’s faith, which might well be thought inappropriate on the wards. But even so, one would have thought that a quiet word in the nurse’s ear would have been all that was necessary. Instead, Mrs Petrie was packed off to an ‘equality’ course for some diversity training.

This Orwellian response has now been followed up by the draconian action of suspending her with the possibility of outright dismissal from her job simply because she offered to pray for another patient.

Suspension and dismissal are sanctions to be used for mistreating or neglecting patients. Yet here they are being used against a nurse for offering to bring a patient a form of spiritual solace - which the patient was able easily to refuse and which caused her no problem. Is this not an utterly idiotic over-reaction?

I am a Jew; but when my mother was in the last stages of her terminal illness she was cared for by deeply devout Christian nurses who regularly prayed for her. Far from being offended by this, I was touched and comforted by this signal that they cared so much about her.

Moreover, this is not actually about upholding professionalism in nursing. It is all about foisting upon nursing the sinister and politically correct ‘diversity’ agenda – which means in effect treating Christianity as inherently offensive.

Demonstrating ‘a personal and professional commitment to equality and diversity’ apparently means that offering Christian solace to anyone at all, even if they don’t belong to another faith, somehow damages ‘equality and diversity’. Would the same action be taken, one wonders, against a Muslim nurse offering to pray for a Muslim patient?

It is but the latest in a growing line of incidents where people find themselves singled out for opprobrium for expressing their Christian faith. These include the Heathrow check-in worker who was banned from wearing a cross around her neck at work; the Relate counsellor who was sacked for refusing to give sex counselling to homosexuals; and the woman who was forced to stand down from an adoption panel because she disapproved of gay adoption.

It was particularly telling to compare this incident with the astounding video footage featured in yesterday’s Mail on Sunday, showing police officers running away from chanting demonstrators who took part in a violent protest in London against Israel's military action in the Gaza Strip.

The ten-minute amateur film shows 30 officers being chased by a crowd of up to 3,000 people who broke away from an official protest march last month. Absurdly, the police claim they were ‘going backwards’ but not running away. But the video clearly shows the police retreating under fire, being chased through central London by protesters chanting ‘Allahu akhbar’ as they pelted officers with traffic cones and screaming ‘cowards’ and ‘they’re going to get it’.

It is hard not to reach the dismal conclusion that a society faced with violence in pursuit of the goal of overturning Christian values and conquering Britain for Islam turns tail and runs away - while at the same time coming down like a ton of bricks on any expression of those Christian values which underpin British society, in the interests of ‘equality and diversity’.

This is the way a society dies.

She's closer to the truth than most folk care to imagine.

This is how a society dies.

shaping lives

2011-02-03T21:53:00.003Z

There were 27 children at the Scripture Union Group today.

Not that I counted them as such. We had a game which involved them coming up with a word beginning with the succeeding letters of the alphabet (My best friend is Annoying .. Beautiful .. Clever .. Dog .. etc), and by the time we'd got through them all we were back at the letter A again.

My best friend is .. Abigail, said the last girl in the queue. I wasn't sure whether she was telling the truth about herself, or remembering the name from the Bible.

27 is a lot of children to be herded together at lunch-time! The numbers increase from week to week - not because I do a brilliant job of giving the thing a plug, but simply because they start to bring their friends.

Which is pretty much how evangelism's meant to work. One shall tell another, as the song rather quaintly puts it.

They're a lively bunch and although the time is pretty short, we cover a good bit of ground. Behavioural problems abound, of course, so it's really a help that the Scriptures are always so down-to-earth and practical.

We were on today about owning up and saying sorry; and making amends; and warning our friends when they're planning on doing something wrong. And just about all of that was immediately applicable there and then.

No need for merely theoretical application: it was Scripture being applied to the here and now.

A lot of pastoral ministry's basically that. Bringing the truths of the Word of God to bear upon the lives and situations of God's people in their varied states and stages.

And much of my time every day is spent in this sort of thing. On a one to one basis explaining and applying what the Scriptures have to teach.

Starting when they're young is always for the best! And teaching these young children not just what the Scriptures say, but also how they can apply it to themselves is a vital part of what I'm seeking to do.

It's the business of shaping lives for the glory of God. Hammering out, with the Word of God, the contours of the grace of Jesus Christ in all their lives.

A privilege indeed.

spin

2011-02-02T21:52:00.006Z

There's spin and there's spin.

My head was spinning this morning, that's one sort of spin, for sure.

A hectic morning with a (metaphorical) hundred and one different tasks to address.

E-mails and letters and phone calls - some pastoral, some personal, some essentially clerical (and not, I should add, in the 'dog-collar' sense of the word): preparation, writing, planning.

I'm hopeful we'll be able to produce another 'mini-magazine' for distribution round the community in the week or two before Easter. There's a fair bit of planning involved in that.

And the time is short. Easter, I know, is late this year, but to get the thing produced I'll need to have the contents complete by the end of the month. Which, starting from scratch as I am, is not a lot of time!

Lunch-time brought a welcome break with the half-hour service of worship. The story of David and Abigail. Which brought some interesting discussion over lunch together afterwards.

Was Abigail a 'goodie' or a 'baddie'? Swayed perhaps by the first description we're given of her (she was "intelligent and beautiful"), and impressed by the speed and wisdom with which she addresses a potentially disastrous situation (for her family and for David as well), I've always thought her a 'goodie'.

But plainly not everyone agreed! The view was expressed that actually she was a predatory opportunist sort of woman, keen to get out of her marriage, with a fancy for the young man, David, and quick to throw herself onto him as soon as she possibly could.

Is that fair? Particularly since she's no longer around to defend herself.

It does raise the question as to what construction we place on the conduct of other people, though. The worst? Or the best?

That's the question today in our modern world of 'spin'.

Is it simply naive to believe the best of others? Or is that not what 'love' will seek to do?

Talking about the construction we put on the conduct and circumstances of others, when I visited one of our older members this afternoon in one of the local hospitals - a lady up in her nineties - I found her with a glass of brandy in her hand!

Mid-afternoon and all - some would think in terms of a definite 'problem'. Others perhaps would see the thing as medicinal.

I haven't a clue where the drink came from (she did have two friends in with her as well, though I don't think they had brought the brandy in): but it didn't seem really to be doing her much harm - she seemed remarkably well! Lucid and right on the button.

It would be easy, though, to interpret the thing in a negative way. And I guess that's why the Scriptures stress how important it is that among us as the followers of the holy Son of God "there must not be even a hint of sexual immorality, or of any kind of impurity, or of greed, because these are improper for God's holy people." [Ephesians 5.3]

Not even a hint. Because a hint is more than enough for the cynical spin of our modern world to kick in and point the finger in a vicious and damaging way.

Love, by contrast, believes the best.

Love seeks the best and sees the best and gives the best and brings out the best in others.

We love, because He first loved us like that.

reversing the trend

2011-02-01T21:57:00.005Z

Most folk will choose the escalator rather than the steps if given the choice.

It maybe makes sense. Why waste your energy, when the machine will do it for you? But maybe, too, it's a measure of the way we've grown so lazy.

Our 'get-up-and-go' has often almost gone. I heard someone on the radio today arguing that since the Thatcher era it's harder and harder these days to get any volunteers.

Maybe it's 'human nature', this regular gravitation to a life of indolence and ease, where we look to have things done for us instead of getting up and out there to be doing things for ourselves.

It subtly creeps into the life of the church as well.

Where is the sort of commitment of a former generation which sees folk ready to give their lives, year after year after year, to serve the Lord in hard and tough locations where there's maybe little fruit to see?

Where is the sort of commitment of a former generation which sees folk ready to sacrifice a lucrative career and offer up their lives to Christ in serving for a pittance in some place?

Where is the sort of commitment of a former generation which sees folk ready to give of their time and their strength in costly spheres of ministry?

Where is the sort of commitment of a former generation which sees folk ready to take on tasks and undertake responsibilities for long and arduous years?

Where is the sort of commitment of a former generation which sees folk ready to fight the good fight right to the bitter end, to run the good race right on through to the finishing post, and to keep the faith in the face of a hostile world?

I'm generalising, I know.

But we've become too much an escalator generation. We've chosen the path of the moving stairs, instead of the climb up the steps.

The trend can be reversed!

I came across this little Youtube clip today (see below) which hints at how such a change can come about.

A group of engineers took up the challenge and found a way to prompt an 'escalator people' to choose instead the life of climbing up the stairs. It can be done!

Think outside the box a bit! Be a bit creative! See the possibilities there are when we start to show there really is a better, far more interesting way to live.

Our 'escalator lifestyle' trend has got to be reversed. Here's how! Click on the picture below

end-time midwifery

2011-01-31T22:04:00.002Z

Mother Theresa used to observe (I think) that the ministry she engaged in was akin to that of a midwife.

Except that whereas a midwife is bringing a person into the world, she was helping a person leave this world. She saw it as a privilege.

So do I. And at least some part of my time is spent thus.

Not just in the more formal aspects of 'departing this world' in the sense of conducting the funeral services in respect of those who have died - though there is quite a lot of that, and today has been no exception: but more particularly in 'accompanying' folk through the final days of their earthly life.

There's been that today as well. People who don't now have long to live at all. The chance to spend time with them.

I'm sure I once heard that in days gone by it used to be that when looking for a new minister a congregation would set them with a dying person for a while, and see how they ministered there.

How do you speak with a person who's soon to die? What will you say? How will you be?

Richard Baxter was a pastor in Kidderminster a few centuries back: his famous couplet remains powerfully challenging -

"I preached as never sure to preach again,
And as a dying man to dying men."

Mother Theresa was right. It's midwifery at the other end of our earthly lives - and infinitely more important.

cathedral building

2011-01-26T21:55:00.003Z

This morning I was spending some time with one of our young men.

He's recently been called to be minister up in MacDuff and he has some time between now and his starting date (mid-April) to prepare himself and his thinking for this new challenge in his life. There were a number of things he wanted to talk through with me and it was valuable to have some time with him - though I think we'll need some more!

The man whom he's succeeding there in MacDuff was there for nearly 40 years. I've known him well for the bulk of that time, since early in his ministry I was part of a mission team from my congregation which for three successive summers spent a couple of weeks up there.

Indeed, MacDuff was the place where I preached my very first sermon! So it holds a rather special place in my affections. And I'm thrilled to bits that this young man has now been called to minister there and carry forward the faithful, godly, and eminently fruitful ministry of his predecessor.

It's that sort of thing which the Lord delights to see. Not just sporadic, dramatic eruptions of life, but the steady flow, down through generations, of faithful Bible teaching, conversions to the Lord Jesus Christ, and the solid building of well-taught disciples who'll be able themselves to pass on that faith to the next fenerations as well.

A kind of dynasty of biblical faith. The sort of thing our land once knew.

That's the perspective I have. I'm in the thing for the long haul. I'm involved in something whose fruit, I trust, will stretch way beyond my lifetime, and down through many generations.

So the time with this young man today was truly well spent. We're preparing the next generation of preachers and pastors and leaders. We're seeking to build them up strong, to equip them for fruitful ministry.

There was encouragement, too, this evening, along those lines.

Another young family man (well, younger than myself, so he qualifies as young in my book!) crossing the line and coming to faith and entering the kingdom of Christ. What a sense there was of the rejoicing of the angels in heaven!

A dynasty of godly, Christian faith is only slowly built. Weeks and months and years of God's own work within the hearts of men like this in bringing him to faith. And weeks and months and years beyond as well in building and establishing him in Christ, in such a way that he in turn will be the means whereby long generations of believers will be raised.

You know the old story of the three stonemasons who were asked what they were doing (you can find it in the Rule of St Benedict)?

The first one said simply, I'm cutting stones and laying them side by side.

The second one saw more purpose in his daily tasks, and declared I'm building a wall.

The third man saw the thing in a much more long term way. I'm building a great cathedral, he said. It wouldn't be built in his lifetime. But he knew that he was part of something big and wonderful.

What am I doing day by day? I'm building that 'cathedral'. I'm involved in establishing in our land once again a dynasty of biblical faith.

leadership

2011-01-25T22:06:00.004Z

There are interesting things going on in our local church life these days. 2011 will be a big and significant year.

In the latest issue of our magazine (which isn't quite out yet, so I shouldn't really quote from it now!) I've likened the thing to what's called these days the 'perfect storm'. Three meteorological phenomena which combine to create ... well, a storm of massive proportions.

In the 'weather' of our local church life, three significant movements of the wind of the Spirit of God are coming together. In the realm of spiritual meteorology, as in the natural realm, you ignore such things at your peril! More of that anon.

It's a time, though, without a doubt, for strong and godly leadership.

Which is part of the reason we're taking such time at our Sunday evening services to explore what Paul had to say at the conference for church leaders he held with the folk from Ephesus. That one talk which he delivered there (see Acts 20.17ff) is a powerful, challenging thing.

He pretty much says it all.

But I've been interested, too, to have been reading my way through Tony Blair's A Journey. I wouldn't have gone out and bought the book myself - political biography has never really been my sort of thing. I was given the book at Christmas, and the giver suggested I'd get no little benefit from taking a read.

In many ways, the book is all about leadership. Tony Blair's leadership in particular, obviously. But issues of leadership nonetheless.

Now I'm only maybe half way through the book, but already there have been some very striking comments which he makes. One in particular rang huge big bells in my mind.

He has a whole long chapter (and I mean long - almost 50 pages) on Northern Ireland, and the process by which the 'Good Friday Agreement' was reached. Early in the chapter he has this paragraph: he's talking about the different factions in the province, whose history is littered wth complexity and grief - the deeply held, entrenched, ingrained positions that there are, and the long-running sores of dispute: then he writes this -

"What happened in those circumstances is in essence what happens in countless such disputes: the unreasonable drives out reason, by the use of unreason.The way this happens is very simple: those who do not hate, who want peace, who are prepared to countenance 'forgive and forget' (or at least 'forget') become slowly whittled down in number, seeming unrealistic, even unpatriotic to other members of the group. What starts as an unreasonable minority ends up consuming the reasonable in its snares and delusions." [p.153]

I found the whole paragraph, and the last sentence in particular, an extraordinarily apt commentary on much of what's been going on in recent times within the church here in our land.

The unreasonable drives out reason, by the use of unreason. ... What starts as an unreasonable minority ends up consuming the reasonable in its snares and delusions.

One part of strong and clear leadership surely involves being able to see what's going on. And another part surely involves being bold enough to stand against that overwhelming tide and figure out how best the process is reversed.

It's an interesting read, that chapter he has on Ireland - not just for the inside account that it gives of how such a thing was resolved, but also as a mirror on so much that's going on within society at large these days.

And in the church as well. Those with ears to hear, let them hear!

just another day

2011-01-19T21:58:00.005Z

The morning was here with Scripture Union.

Our work with young people is vital. This was a chance for those who work in the schools with SU groups to gather together and share with one another (there was another such meeting at night).

It was good to hear of the many different schools where children keep on coming to the SU group. At some of the schools there are something like 60 young children who come along. There are about 20-30 at Davidson's Mains (though they don't all come at once).

We may not ever get long when we meet each week, but seeds may be sown and the Lord can do wonders with seeds!

* * *

Lunchtime saw the resumption of our midweek lunchtime service.

It was great to be back! And the crowd of people there suggested that those who keep coming felt pretty much the same.

We were thinking today about how we react - and why we can sometimes be over-reacting in how we respond to the things which come our way.

* * *

A brief meeting after lunch, then the rest of the afternoon immersed in preparation for two funeral services coming up tomorrow.

Two very different services; and each of them so special for the families concerned.

My call is to serve the Lord. I am a servant of his Word. I have to be always asking Lord, what are you wanting to say?

It all takes time. And services such as these two coming up tomorrow can never be rushed. I need to sort of 'lock myself away', barricade myself against the flow of interruptions, and be able to discern the Word of God.

* * *

The evening saw us gathering again for a time of congregational prayer.

Not very many come out to these times. There's work to be done in that regard. Folk are busy, of course, with a host of other commitments. But we need to be clear that our coming together to pray is an integral part of our life as the people of God.

With a speaker from the Overseas Missionary Fellowship, our focus was on East Asia. Thailand, Japan, and the massive long country of Indonesia, in particular.

Some heart-rending statistics which would surely drive even the hardest of hearts to be crying to God for his grace. And some encouraging statistics as well. Of the roughly 100,000 Chinese people coming to the west each year to study, something like 10,000 are converted and return there as new Christians.

Our God does remarkable things. Often unseen from the eyes of the many.

Who knows what the Lord may be doing 'behind the scenes'?

In the lives of the children at school. In the lives of the folk who come out to the Wednesday worship. In the lives of the people who'll gather tomorrow to mourn.

Who knows?

He's greater by far than we think. And he does some quite wonderful things.

hearing God

2011-01-18T22:02:00.001Z

Yesterday I was on about Listening.

I suppose in a way that's what today's been about as well. Listening for the Lord and hearing him speak.

Bill Hybels has a book, relatively recently published, called 'The Power of a Whisper' with the sub-title - Hearing God. Having the guts to respond. It's typical Hybels. Good, clear and both challenging and encouraging at one and the same time.

It's about listening for the 'whispers' of the Lord.

Relationship with the Lord is the heart of the gospel. And relationship involves this two-way communication. Our speaking with him, his speaking with us.

It's wonderfully real.

I met with someone today who'd been hearing God speak. A powerful, challenging, potentially life-changing word - which had repercussions for myself as well.

He asked me how what the Lord had been saying to him impacted on myself. Did it ring any bells?

Well, it certainly did! The Lord has been pointedly drawing some things to my attention along precisely these same lines. It seemed a striking confirmation for us both.

I met someone else later on who'd been hearing those 'whispers' of God. Last week. Tuesday and Wednesday in particular. A strange and strong compulsion to be praying for two people. Why she didn't know - she only knew they needed to be prayed for at that time.

One died on the Wednesday morning. The other was bereaved.

Later still I was aware of the Lord again speaking very clearly with another of the people I was with. Through all of our talking, the Lord seemed to lay on my heart the text of John chapter 9. The man born blind.

And in particular the words that Jesus spoke to the man - Go and wash in the pool of Siloam.

This is a person who's close to the point of commitment. What next?

Go and wash in the pool of Siloam.

It seemed like the Lord was speaking that word and pointing the way to proceed. We chatted about exactly what those words would mean. But it was really clear enough!

So I'm praying the person will come back in these coming days like the blind man in the narrative, a whole new person, rejoicing in the change that Jesus brings!

As Charles Wesley wrote in one of his hymns -

He speaks and listening to his voice

New life the dead receive.

listening

2011-01-17T21:54:00.005Z

"What's this?" she asked. "A photographic memory?"

I couldn't quite see what she was on about, so I asked her to explain.

"You remember all the details," she responded. I was seeing this person in regard to a service of thanksgiving that's coming up. She'd been chatting about the family - the names of the children, the fact that her mother and father had both changed their names, the choice of the praise that they wanted: all those sorts of things.

"You must have a photographic memory to remember all that," she declared, when I referred back a little bit later to what she'd been saying.

"No," I replied. "I'm just careful to listen."

Listening is an important part of all our lives. Being aware of the detail which matters to people we're with. It's often the detail which counts so much.

You remember that great Buddy Holly song? Well, maybe you don't! But I was a great Buddy Holly fan and loved the way he used to sing: and especially the song 'Rave on'. It starts with the rather telling words -

Little things you say and do make me want to be with you ...

Do you see that? It's the little things which matter. The detail.

We sometimes say the devil's in the detail. But in truth, the Lord is right into the detail as well.

Why do you think there are all of those lists of people with odd sounding names? Huge long lists of names, which, when you're reading the Scriptures, you really just want to skip over. Why are they there? Why such attention to detail?

Because what may seem a little and insignificant thing to you and me, matters a lot to the Lord. He doesn't miss a thing. None of us is too small, too weak, too odd, for him to care about.

He knows, and cares about, every smallest detail of our lives.

Isn't that what Jesus meant when he said that even the very hairs of your head are all numbered? The Lord knows us, down to the smallest detail. He doesn't miss a thing.

And one simple way of letting folk know that's the case is by listening with great care to what's being said.

Half of the time in our varied conversations, we're either speaking ourselves or thinking of what we'll say next. Listening sometimes doesn't rate that highly in our conversation skills.

But the Lord is great at listening. He hangs on our every word. He hears the smallest little pin drop in our lives. Because he cares, because he loves us more than we could ever guess.

How do I get that across to folk if not at least by listening that attentively myself?

The little things are always what mean just so much to people that we meet.

Most folk think that preachers spend their time in always speaking. Not so.

Most of the time it's listening that we do.

under the radar

2011-01-13T21:55:00.002Z

I fear that I'm in danger of dropping off the cyber radar!

If that happens it will not be so much because there's nothing to write - it'll be because I'm struggling to find the time to write it!

These are busy days, with a lot going on, and much that's more than suggestive of the Lord himself being at work among us here.

Today there's been the school again - a couple of times this morning, now that the schools have returned. The theme for the month is Purpose. It seems unusually appropriate!

There's been a session this evening, as well, to train up folk involved in the tasks of projecting in our worship here each week. A fair bit of time has been spent today preparing for that. Most folk think it's a simple case of pressing a few buttons now and then. Not so!

It's a definite ministry, properly understood. I want folk to see it as such. An eight-page manual now helps to explain how it works: and highlights, too, just what's involved in ministering in this way. I think that came across tonight: I hope the evening helped.

There have been a number of deaths as well. Perhaps it's the time of year.

Meeting and speaking with people in connection with these also takes large amounts of time.

I'm conscious again of just what a privileged life I lead, being able to share with these people through times of great sorrow and loss, and bring (please God) a sense of the Lord's own presence and comfort and care.

So if and when I maybe seem to fly beneath the radar of these cyber 'posts', you'll understand it's not that there is nothing going on, so much as there being almost way too much!

layers of leaders

2011-01-11T22:06:00.002Z

Most of the morning today was spent in meeting again with others in relation to pastoral work.

In one of his books Philip Yancey speaks about a Chinese Christian he met, a man called Brother Shi, who'd been brought up in a thoroughly atheistic home and groomed for a life as a Communist Party activist. He tells of how the man had come to faith in Christ and had turned his back on the Party: and of how he now had a far-reaching 'pastoral ministry' across the land.

You work with layers of leaders,' Philip Yancey had observed to the man. 'If you added up all the church members under them, how many people in total are you responsible for as a bishop in the unregistered church?

The guy had paused to think for a moment, doing some mental calculations. 'Hard to say for sure. My best guess is two hundred and sixty thousand.'

That's pastoral ministry through what Yancey calls 'layers of leaders'. It's something like that which we're trying to develop as the pattern for pastoral ministry among God's people here.

Not that we have 260,000 people. Nothing like.

But it's that sort of pattern, that sort of framework we're trying to lay down as the 'grid' in the life of this local church, with recognised pastors each responsible for a kind of 'mini-church' of up to 50 people, and using the gifts of others among their 'fifty' to share in the pastoring work.

Layers of leaders.

It's taken a while to develop this pastoral 'grid', but we're starting now to get there: it's beginning to take some shape: it's a framework for the future, when we sense that this sort of disciple-making pastoral ministry is going to be more and more important.

praying for your pastors

2011-01-10T21:51:00.002Z

Pastoral ministry is a key aspect of any congregation's life.

We've been working hard at this for months now, seeking to establish an appropriate framework for such pastoral ministry, which will secure the ends for which it's there.

But we readily recognise that it's not just the framework that needs to be right - it's us as well, the pastors through whom that pastoral ministry is exercised.

Last night at our regular Sunday evening worship we started to take a close look at what Paul has to say about the sort of pastoral ministry he exercised (and wanted to see being exercised by others): and as the lead in to that we sang together James Montgomery's hymn which is a prayer for pastors.

Get beyond the slightly antiquated language, and it's actually an extraordinarily pertinent prayer which God's people would do well to be praying for all their pastors, all, that is, who have responsibility for the 'care of their souls'.

Here are the words of the hymn. Let me encourage you to take these words and make them your specific, regular, earnest prayer for those who are your pastors.

Pour out thy Spirit from on high; Lord, thine ordained servants bless; graces and gifts to each supply, and clothe thy priests with righteousness.

2. Within thy temple when they stand to teach the truth, as taught by thee, Saviour, like stars in thy right hand the angels of the churches be !

3. Wisdom and zeal and faith impart, firmness with meekness, from above, to bear thy people on their heart, and love the souls whom thou dost love.

4. To watch and pray, and never faint; by day and night strict guard to keep; to warn the sinner, cheer the saint, nourish thy lambs, and feed thy sheep;

5. Then, when their work is finished here, in humble hope their charge resign. When the Chief Shepherd shall appear, O God, may they and we be thine.

They will appreciate hugely your praying for them thus!

And you yourself will benefit greatly from the increasing richness of the pastoral ministry they'll begin to exercise.

blinkered?

2011-01-06T21:49:00.004Z

It's quite easy to think in a rather blinkered fashion. Indeed, there are sometimes good reasons for ensuring we do think like that.

Blinkers keep us focussed. They prevent us from being distracted. We all need that.

But they also keep us from seeing the wider picture. And that's never so helpful.

Our blinkers make the likes of myself look only at the church. A church which is only a few steps away from real crises.

Financial crisis, as reserves run out and we near a terrible 'melt-down'. Spiritual crisis, as the anchor of sola Scriptura (Scripture as our sole authority) is thrown out. Relational crisis, as ministers, members and even perhaps some congregations move out.

But 'church' is not all that's going on in God's world. And we need to be careful to ensure that we see all these possible crises emerging along the horizon of coming months in the context of all else that's happening here in our land.

What's going on in the church - and whatever God's doing in and through all that is thus going on - is not taking place in glorious isolation.

We live in a land where a number of powerful factors are presently coming together to create what could well be a maelstrom of chaos we'll all have to face.

Our economic and political situation is releasing pent-up energies of anger and hostility today whose issue could be frightening and extreme.

We face a massive debt, the like of which this generation simply hasn't known or had to face like this before. We're treading on ground that is new, and it's far from a comfortable walk.

Similarly, we're having to live with a coalition government: and it seems, because it's largely new, the concept's one which many simply do not understand, and don't know how to work.

The end result is a feeling of hurt and betrayal, and the pain that's being increasingly experienced is growing in a culture of incessant blame.

Moreover, we live now in a desperate moral vacuum.

Those energies of anger and hostility, in other words, are coming to the surface in a nation which has long since lost the notion of there being the moral absolutes we once could take for granted in our national life.

Those clear moral parameters which once held in check the anger and the aggro that a people felt are now no longer there. The law of the jungle, where animal instincts are given full sway, where you do what you like, and where might is right - the law of the jungle is what our permissive society has effectively brought.

Factor into all of that environmental factors - snow and ice and floods and drought and earthquakes and volcanoes and tsunamis and the quickly melting ice-caps and the slowly rising level of the seas - and all the consequential chaos which these bring: and you start to get the picture.

And when, on top of all of that, you take account of the rampant, bold aggressiveness of Islam and of secularism, you start to see how close we are to what could well be chaos in our land. We hover more and more upon the edge of real implosion.

Who knows if the whole of our landscape is going to be re-drawn? What's going on in the church can't be seen in isolation. It's part of a much bigger picture.

I smiled over Christmas when I saw the effect of the weather.

The harsh extremes of snow and cold meant many were not able to attend their usual place of worship. We had many who live in the locality here, who normally travel to all sorts of other parts of the town to share in the worship of others elsewhere - Baptist, Methodist, etc - who were forced to 'go local' and share in our worship here.

It was great! Folk who love the Lord and love his Word, all gathering together in this way, pretty much on their doorsteps.

And it felt like the Lord was telling us all, You'd better get used to this! This is the shape of the future.

God's people uniting together. Where they live. Regardless of the 'tag' they've previously worn.

It may just be that that's what's going on.

In the crises and chaos which the future may hold, it's our bonds in Christ which will bring us and hold us together.

the ancient paths

2011-01-04T10:09:00.003Z

Pastoral ministry is a hugely important dimension of what we're seeking to do.

Disciple-making can't be done without it. So we've been giving a good deal of thought to this in recent months, since our raison d'etre as followers of Jesus Christ is that of going and making disciples.

It's a kind providence of God, therefore, which sees us here at the start of a brand new year, picking up on the book of Acts (on Sunday nights) at the point where Paul explains at some length the nature of the pastoral ministry he's sought to exercise.

There's a lot for us all to learn. Because this is challenging stuff, which highlights how far we have drifted from what the Scriptures exhort us to be. It's time for us to be getting right back to where we're meant to be.

I spent quite some time on this again through the course of yesterday. We'll take some time, these coming Sunday evenings, working through the different issues which Paul's ministry throws up.

It's not a new sort of pastoral ministry we're seeking to exercise here - except in the sense that it's different by far from what we've been accustomed to. But it's not new, so much as the old being embraced and applied once again.

Ask for the ancient paths, as the prophet once declared [Jer.6.16]

Those are the paths we're now seeking to walk.

silence

2010-12-30T21:22:00.005Z

It takes some time for the dust of Christmas to settle.

When Christmas falls on a Saturday, there's a three-day burst of high-octane and extra-ordinary worship. Followed by a calm that, by contrast, is almost eerie.

People's energy levels dip to the point of oblivion. Excitement becomes exhaustion. The rapturous praise of the festive days is lost in the sound of silence.

I sometimes think these days which follow Christmas are akin to what we read of in the book of Revelation. "There was silence in heaven for about half an hour." [Rev.8.1]

The growing, three-fold crescendo of praise which has gone before, culminating in the glorious celebration of the Lamb at the centre shepherding his people and leading them to springs of living water; and the wonderful affirmation that God will wipe away every tear from their eyes - that growing crescendo of praise is suddenly lost in a hushed and holy silence.

Now, I appreciate that the relative calm and quiet that's descended on all of our lives since Christmas Day and Boxing Day were done is certainly a very different thing. But the 'silence' on this blog these last few days is more the thing I mean.

The whole extraordinary thing we celebrate at Christmas time is just too big to take in on the hoof. The reason why we celebrate with soaring songs of elevated praise is huge - so large and all-encompassing, we need some time and space to ponder and reflect upon it all. To allow the sheer mystery to soak through all the superficial garments of our praise and get beneath our skin. To allow our hearts to marvel once again at God's great, all-sufficient grace in Jesus Christ.

The 'wee lamb' there in the manger (as we sometimes describe a baby) has grown to be the very Lamb of God. The Lamb of God has now become (what wonderful pictures the Scriptures set out!) the Shepherd of the flock.

This Child, whose birth we celebrate so well, has grown to be the matchless Man, whose death on our behalf has dealt at last the death-blow to the things which grieve us most. And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.

Christmas without Easter would be terrifying.

The holy, pure and altogether righteous God, come down to be with us: well, that would be simply frightening ... if we don't have One to take on our behalf a mediatorial role.

It's Christmas as the start of something new which gives us cause to sing. God has come down not simply to be with us, but to do something for us.

What good is the birth of a little child so long ago, if that's all the whole thing amounts to - what good is that birth to a person who's struggling with illness and soon to die?

But if this is the coming of God himself, intent on effecting the greatest of all rescue acts, addressing the problem of sin, removing sin's guilt, breaking sin's power, and, finally, utterly banishing sin's very presence in a world made wholly new - well, that gives us all, whoever we are, whatever our personal circumstances, that gives us all good cause to rejoice.

We all need the silence to take it all in.

It's a huge thing God has done!

shining eyes

2010-12-21T21:40:00.006Z

Benjamin Zander is a classical musician.

He loves classical music. And he thinks that everyone else in the whole wide world will love classical music, too. They just need some help in seeing it.

"Classical music is for everyone," he argues. "They just don't know it yet!"

He makes it his life's work now to help other people discover its joys for themselves.

Replace 'classical music' with whatever stirs your spirit and 'floats your boat', whatever is the passion in your life. You're maybe a teacher of English Literature, and you doubtless feel exactly that enthusiasm for your subject. Or a teacher of Maths. Or you're heavily into environmental issues and you feel that way. Or anything else.

It's for everyone, you'll want to argue. They just don't know it yet.

Well, that's how we Christians are when it comes to Jesus and the gospel. Jesus is for everyone. The good news is for all.

It's just they don't all know it yet. There's some explaining to do!

Anyway, if you've got a spare 20 minutes then you'll certainly not waste that time if you watch the clip below. Benjamin Zander helping a crowd of 1,600 people 'discover' classical music.

Transfer what he's saying and doing to what we're about as the church and you'll catch some sense of of what it is we're about.

Classical music with shining eyes.

time

2010-12-20T22:04:00.003Z

Christmas week. I love it!

But there's a lot on and it's an early start. I've a few things to do before heading off to today's first-thing-in-the-morning Royal High School assembly.

They're having 'Nation' assemblies rather than year-group assemblies at Christmas this year. Everyone in the school is allocated to one of four 'Nations' (the Picts, the Scots, the Britons and the Angles): doing it this way means there are four assemblies instead of the usual five (I get Wednesday 'off' - which is just as well since there's a Primary School Christmas service that morning first thing, and I've yet to learn the skill of being in more than one place at a time).

I speak on a different theme to each of the four assemblies - though they're all tied in to Christmas (albeit in a discreet sort of way - they're 'whole school' assemblies, after all, intended to be inclusive). Today I speak about time.

The shepherds gave their time - hours, certainly, once they'd left their sheep and walked up the hill to Bethlehem, seen the young couple and their new born baby and shared with them the equivalent of the regulatory 'cup of tea' (hospitality counted for much in those days).

The men from the east gave their time - in their case certainly weeks and more probably months. They took the time to travel; and they gave, as well as their costly gifts - they gave perhaps as much as a year of their lives in a way that would have been a huge and timely encouragement to Joseph and Mary.

Years back now, when I was just starting on the long adventure of fatherhood, I heard a statistic which shocked me to the core. The average amount of (quality, 'dedicated') time a father gives to his children every day.

10 seconds.

There are reasons why that is the case - because most fathers would be shocked at the thought that that might be all that they gave to their child each day.

They're busy men. They're tired probably (they work quite hard, after all - and probably stay up way too late at night). They're maybe distracted and worried (they have responsible jobs doubtless, and maybe on the personal front their lives have become just a little complicated too).

And yes, they're probably selfish and lazy as well.

10 seconds can end up being a good day.

I talk about the gift of time to the Britons today. It's a salutary lesson for all of us at this time. Christmas sees us all getting busy and tired and distracted and worried: and we all can be selfish and lazy as well.

It sets the note for the day. Time. Giving people time.

I'm out seeing folk in the morning. And then again in the afternoon. Along at one of the hospitals. I give the man's wife a lift back home. It would be a couple of buses for her otherwise - and not at a good time of day.

It's slow going back, the traffic is rush-hour-compounded-by-snow sort of speed. It takes some time. But then, it's time I'm glad to give. And time that she in her turn is glad to be given. It makes a little difference to her, I think, at a difficult time for them all.

And I'm out seeing someone at night as well. A person I've come to know just a bit in the wake of two bereavements. It's been hard and sore, the path of grief this person has had to walk.

But I've had the sense since I first was involved that the Lord is at work through the darkness of sorrow and grief, and that somehow, in God's kind providence, these griefs will prove to be the entrance to a whole new work of grace within this person's life.

It'll take time, I don't doubt. And part of the time that's involved is the time that I'm willing to give.

It's another long day by its close. And I'm left to wonder again where all the time went!

The answer, I suppose, is simple. It was given away.

More often than not, that gift of time is actually far more valuable than all of the gold, myrrh and frankincense which the men from the east carefully brought.

ditch the ditto

2010-12-15T22:04:00.008Z

I came across this striking photo today of two homes which have been decorated with external Christmas lights.

You might argue a lack of creativity on the part of the folk on the right. Or, I suppose, you might argue, conversely, a huge creativity on their part.

As a comment on society at large, it's perhaps a graphic picture of the way our lives get lived.

We're a good deal lazier, probably, than once we were. We don't put it in those terms, of course. We speak instead of the need for rest and the right we have to some comfort.

But, hey, we're often rather lazy.

Our meals now come pre-packaged. The microwave is wonderful. Why take the trouble to do things ourselves when others will do it for you.

We're a good deal less creative, too. The whole fashion industry, for instance, is built on our sheep-like commitment to 'DITTO' as the way we now express ourselves.

Someone else dictates the way we dress. I mean, how creative is that?

Christmas is anything but a lazy sort of 'ditto' from the Lord.

It's God the great Creator at his own creative best. Even the angels of heaven are stunned at the sheer creative daring of the Lord, as he fashions out incredibly a way of full salvation for humanity which satisfies at once the dictates of his righteousness and love.

Whatever else you choose to do to mark this festive season, don't take the lazy option and descend to doing some 'ditto' sort of thing.

What did we do last year? Let's just do ditto again.

What have our neighbours decided to do? Let's just do ditto ourselves.

What does everyone else always do? Let's just do ditto ourselves.

Celebrate the brilliant creativity of God! Celebrate the bold, expansive goodness of this God who finds solutions and is glad to pay the price!

Set the trends, instead of simply following suit.

Dare to ditch the ditto.

impending death

2010-12-14T22:10:00.006Z

There have been a series of deaths in recent days.

And a series of funeral services coming up, of course - along with a series of services, talks and assemblies in both of the schools. The next two weeks will be full to overflowing - I'm trusting God's grace will be just the same!

Many faithful stalwarts in our congregation's life are getting on in years. The shadow of death inevitably looms quite large across the frontiers of our congregation's life.

These elderly folk are the visible reminders to us all of the former generations, the ones who've gone before us, and whose labour we are privileged to enter now and share. We really want to honour them, by building on the work they've done.

It's hard getting old. When your future is largely behind you, regrets and fears can subtly sort of infiltrate the soul.

With your living mainly done, you start to think you maybe didn't really do enough: you think of what you might have done and could have done and maybe even should have done.

But now, of course, you can't. The time and opportunity is gone.

You wonder what your dying will be like. You wonder just what happens when a corpse is all that's left. You wonder what awaits you at the judgment seat of God.

These are now no longer merely academic questions. These are where an ageing person's at.

What will our dying be like? The New Testament chooses not to say that Christians die: instead, we're told, we sleep. That's what it's like. A child going to sleep in her mother's or father's arms. Comforted, warm, and secure.

And we sleep with the prospect of waking refreshed, renewed, restored, a whole new day awaiting us, a day that's bright and clear and pulsing with adventure.

What happens when we die? A corpse, indeed, is all that's left - at least to human sight. There's been a separation. We are body and spirit together. That, from the start, has been the essence of humanity. God joined the two together, body and spirit, breathing life (spirit) into the dust of the earth.

So death does what we're told should not be done. Death separates what God has joined together. God is committed to remedying that. Resurrection (the joining together again of body and spirit) has been guaranteed. God will have the final word.

But before that day of resurrection comes, when at last we're clothed again with all those bodily senses which enable us to taste and see and hear and smell and touch (and thus enjoy to the full and revel in) the splendours and the beauty of God's handiwork - before that day we nonetheless are able to enjoy being in the presence of our Saviour God.

We depart this life and go to be with Christ. Which is far better.

We know something of this in our present experience on earth. There are times when we know God's presence, times when we're touched by his love, times when we sense his hand upon our lives. Such times as these transcend our physical senses. They're in a different realm. They're somehow beyond the body.

That knowledge of his presence, that awareness of his love, that sense of his kind hand upon his child - that's all part of the 'far better' thing which the Scriptures assure us is ours when as Christians we die.

What awaits us at the judgment seat of Christ? This can be a worry, even a fear. But it needn't be, and it's not meant to be. The gospel is clear and emphatic.

There is, therefore, now no condemnation for those that are in Christ Jesus.

Are you in Christ Jesus? Is your life wrapped up in his? Have you entrusted your life to him?

If so, then there is, as of now (and indeed as of long, long ago), no condemnation. None at all.

It's all been dealt with. All the doing has already been done. By Jesus. For you.

That's what makes it good news. For the Christian at any rate. And that's the key issue always. Is a person 'in Christ'? Are you 'in Christ'? That's the crucial transaction. That's the one thing you and I are to do.

What must we do to do the works God requires? Jesus was once asked. His reply was simple - "The work of God is this: to believe in the One he has sent."

Period.

Everything else has been done by him.

These are the things that we all need clear and settled in our hearts and minds. The ageing not least, but young and old alike.

Because death is coming to us all - and none of us can ever tell just when.

changing seasons

2010-12-13T22:12:00.005Z

There's probably no ideal age to be.

I've always concluded that my 'optimum' years would be when I was 45-55. Optimum because my physical vitality and spiritual maturity would be in their best balance.

Before 45 I might be strong on ideals and energy, but (by definition) I'd be lacking in experience and the sort of wisdom which is tied in closely to that experience.

After 55 my physical condition would be deteriorating, for all that my spiritual maturity would more and more (one would hope) be coming into its own.

Realistically, with the best will in the world, I'd have to recognise that after the age of 55 my energy levels would be less, I'd tire more easily, I wouldn't be able to do quite as much as once I did.

Translated into the way I live my life, I long since realised that the emphases would inevitably have to change. I'd be less and less fit for the physically demanding and more and more able for the spiritually demanding.

I'd have to learn to pace myself better, and I'd have to learn to prioritise slightly differently.

Of course, when you're in that 45-55 age bracket, while you may be at your peak in terms of that balance between your physicaly energy and spiritual maturity, you're probably also having to cope with the greatest demands.

For those in work, in that ten year span of their lives, they're often holding down extremely responsible positions, working long hours, and facing enormous pressures.

For those who are married with family, their children are now often at an age when the demands on time, finance, energy and the heart, are invariably huge and exhausting.

Cash is constantly needed, a taxi service is regularly required, sometimes at unearthly hours of the morning or the night, difficult, direction-setting decisions are having to be made, and the strains inherent in that age when your offspring is neither entirely a child nor entirely yet an adult can stretch the heart to breaking point.

Very often, too, the demands of caring for ageing parents begin to kick in as well. Sometimes there's travel involved, sometimes some practical help: sometimes support and encouragement, sometimes advice and the need for the power of attorney.

If you haven't learned to 'juggle' by the time you've reached that age, you often have to learn to do so then. Quickly. It can often feel like a hundred and one different plates which you're trying your best to keep spinning.

Maybe it's just as well that a person is at their peak at that time of life. Most times, they need to be, to cope with what that time of life will often bring!

"There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under heaven." So says the so-called 'Teacher'. And, it's this which at least in part I think he means.

There are these different seasons in our lives. We need to learn to recognise just where we're at, and what particular 'activity' this present 'season' demands.

I'm not 18 any more - despite that being the way I most times think of myself. Forty years on from that (not quite, but roughly), I'm into a very different 'season' in my life. The activities to which I give myself are bound, therefore, to be different.

The priorities in the ministry I seek to exercise are bound to be different too. I'm getting beyond that time when the balance has been at its best between the physical vitality and the spiritual maturity. I have to adjust. I have to be clear as to just what it is that this new, incoming 'season' best fits me for. And concentrate on that.

There isn't an 'ideal' age to be as such. The age and the stage we're at, the 'season' we are in, is simply 'ideal' for certain sorts of activity. Our truest wisdom lies in being able to see just what those activities are and then giving ourselves to them.

true grit

2010-12-09T23:13:00.004Z

We had the P7s here from the local school this morning. The bulk of the morning anyway.

All 76 of them, plus their teachers, plus some 'crowd-control' helpers the teachers had brought along too. Not that you'd have guessed there were that many children along, they were that well behaved and engaged with the whole thing so well.

We work through something of what Christmas is really about with them all. In some ways the whole thing gets boiled right down to the five simple pictures they have in the centre-page spread of the work-books we give to them all.

Mary and Joseph go to Bethlehem to register.

There's no room at the inn for them when the baby Jesus is born.

Shepherds out on the fields around Bethlehem are the first to hear the news.

In response to the angelic message, they come to see for themselves.

Wise men from a distant land also come to bring their gifts to the new King who's been born.

The children seemed to enjoy it all. The teachers certainly did: they had a demanding morning undergoing a customer-research, coffee-sampling exercise, which they're prepared to do again come Easter time!

We pray that the message gets home. Christmas isn't complicated. Remove the 'fluff' and it's a simple, stunning message of the most audacious thing God ever set in motion.

And we can get to be part of the action, too!

A quick tidy-up once they're gone, then off to the school myself - this time for the last Scripture Union group of the term.

Our usual venue has been taken. It's being used by the staff for their annual Christmas lunch today. It's getting to be a tough day for these P7 teachers. Coffee all morning, then a Christmas lunch!

We find another venue, in the computer room. The children are loud and boisterous once again - they generally are over lunch, it's a chance for them all to be letting off steam. But they seem to enjoy the time and they keep coming back for more.

Today I'm trying to help them put Jesus on the map of all their lives. They need to know the basic facts.

Where was he born? Where did Jesus grow up?

Real places on the real map of the world in which they live, close to places like Turkey and Cyprus where some have been on holiday.

Bethlehem, Nazareth, Jerusalem: these are all real places. Places you can visit still today.

Jesus is for real. It's not a made up story.

The afternoon is different.

Real people again, coping with the sometimes harsh realities of this very real and in-urgent-need-of-major-repair contemporary world.

Only a Jesus who's definitely for real is going to be any good.

Made-up stories are no use at all for folk like this who are coping with illness and death and bereavement, and with breakdowns of health or the break-up of homes, the disruption of family life.

I'm walking back home later on and a car is skidding all over the place. Stuck in a rut, and unable to move either forward or back.

I stop to give the lady a hand. In part it's a case of instruction - explaining how to handle the car and what I need her to do: and in part it's a case of a hands-on approach as I give her the push which she needs (well, not her so much as her car, you'll undestand!).

It's another little cameo, portraying what the gospel is about. Our world is now skidding all over the place. People are stuck in a rut. They feel they're not going anywhere, and all their best efforts are only making it worse.

Jesus comes to rescue us. A real Jesus. Who knows his stuff, because he's been here himself and he knows the course well. And who's able to get us moving once again, and going somewhere purposeful in life.

I spend my life explaining gospel principles: and then, when it comes to applying those basic principles, I'm seeking, too, to help the folk I'm pastoring to work them through and work them out, and thus to help them get back on the highway of God's purpose for their lives.

True grit, I guess.

a stitch in time

2010-12-08T21:39:00.005Z

Another full day, shortened by the fact that I had a visit to the dentist in the morning.

That involved a 3/4 hour hike through the snow, across the hill, to get there, a full 3/4 hour there (not all of it in the dentist's chair - well, it was, I suppose if you include in that phrase the waiting room chairs), and then a 3/4 hour hike all the way back.

Maths isn't my strong point, but that works out at over 2 hours of the morning removed from the frame. Not that it's wasted time. A stitch in time saves nine, and a filling in time saves a lot of hassle later (hopefully).

The dentist gave me an injection to numb that part of the mouth, though he needn't really have bothered - not because I'm a big brave lad, but more because my mouth was numb already from the cold. It was freezing! Beautiful to look at, but absolutely freezing. Probably about -14 or so again.

I think my mouth started to thaw out at some point through the afternoon. Certainly a good while after the lunchtime service, where the attendance was up on last week, but still (because of the weather) noticeably small.

Then there's been the session we're having with the Primary 7s tomorrow to be prepared for. The thing's been a bit on hold, until we knew for sure that it was going ahead. But the school confirmed today that it's definitely going ahead.

We've done this now for a year or two at Christmas and Easter. The whole P7 year group come round to the halls (with their teachers and one or two helpers), and we work through a two hour, inter-active presentation with them on the theme of Christmas (or Easter, obviously, at the second event).

It's a fun time, when hopefully at least something of what Christmas is all about comes across to the children. A case of trying to separate the 'bubblegum' from the 'fluff', if you can see the force of that illustration.

It's when we're young that the message ideally is heard and embraced. The older we get and the more set in our ways we become, the harder it is to embrace the good news of Jesus. So we want to try and disentangle all the strands of Christmas in such a way that they're able to see very clearly what it's all about.

It makes life a whole lot less complicated later on. A stitch in time sort of thing again.

We put our work among the children growing up within the community here right up there at the top of our priorities.

Not because other things (and other people) don't matter as much (they do), but partly because the opportunities today for work among the young are fewer and farther between than once they used to be and need to be grasped when they're there.

And also because the one stitch now is going to avoid the nine (and often significantly more) metaphorical stitches later on.

picture postcard

2010-12-07T21:26:00.008Z

Picture postcard stuff indeed!

But who wants to live in a postcard?

On the plus side, I'm a good deal fitter, I'm sure, for my walking wherever I'm going instead of taking the car. The down side - I can't get to see so many folk.

On the plus side again - it ensures a slower pace of life, a better sort of rhythm to the tasks I need to do. The down-side - it makes the day a bit longer, since the tasks all still need to be done!

The freezing feel of Narnia has crept across our horizons. Literally - and perhaps spiritually as well in our land. "Always winter but never Christmas."

Who knows but the wicked witch has been at her work again in our land.

We're needing our Aslan to come once again. Remember that great line in C S Lewis' book, 'The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe' -

"Aslan is on the move. The witch’s magic is weakening.”

The melting snow is how C S Lewis describes his own conversion. This is how he puts it in 'Surprised by Joy' -

“I felt as if I were a man of snow at long last beginning to melt. The melting was starting in my back — drip-drip and presently trickle-trickle. I rather disliked the feeling."

May there be many for whom the snows begin to melt, and the cold chill of winter slackens its grip on their lives, through the course of these next few weeks.

light in the darkness

2010-12-06T21:52:00.003Z

Shovelling snow is something I think I could now do in my sleep!

A lot more of that today, with another morning's worth of steady snow, leaving a further thick-piled carpet over all the paths and ground.

We had a long-wheel base van stuck in the car park and sliding in such a way that it completely blocked the entrance to the car park. A challenge to dig and shovel that one out, but we managed in the end - wth the help of two of the doctors from the local surgery who were out themselves to shovel some snow since there was a distinct lack of patients.

You can tell, though, that folk are getting just a little bit weary of yet more snow. Sound travels further when the snow's on the ground - which meant that I overheard a driver up on the main road (where traffic was crawling at best) regaling another fellow driver with a three-word rebuke, "You xxxxx idiot!"

Frustration and tiredness as much as anger or blame was the root of such remarks, I suspect (and it wasn't the only remark like that which I overheard today!).

It's cold, it's dark, and it's getting increasingly depressing for a lot of folk. So the reading today from 'biblefresh' was more than apt.

'Biblefresh' is "a movement of churches, agencies, colleges and festivals seeking to encourage and inspire churches across the UK to a greater confidence and appetite for the Word of God,[whose] vision is to make 2011 a year of the Bible to help individuals and the whole church gain greater skill in handling the scriptures and a greater passion for hearing and obeying the Bible."

We've signed up to it.

I'm using through these days a series of biblefresh 'Advent Reflections' which, according to the covering note, "are based on material from WordLive, Scripture Union's free, daily, multimedia guide available at http://www.wordlive.org/" (https://www.scriptureunion.org.uk/89157.id).

Today's passage is Isaiah 9.2-7

Reflect: God raised Isaiah's vision to the future hope that would one day be fulfilled in Jesus. Even though Isaiah couldn't have known how or when God would do it, he sees clearly theh birth of a baby - the one who would be called 'Wonderful Counsellor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.' In a dark world, God's light shines in Jesus.

Pray: for opportunities today to share his light.

Well, there have been opportunities all right to share his light - in all sorts of practical ways.

For all those who, for a whole variety of reasons, feel like they are people walking in darkness, may that great light, the light of God's presence and love, shine upon them and open up for them a future bright with hope and possibilities

walking

2010-12-02T22:20:00.003Z

A while back I was given, and read, a 300+-page book on .. walking.

It's called Wanderlust: a history of walking by a woman called Rebecca Solnit.

I wondered, to start with, whether there really was enough to the whole simple business of walking to warrant a book that long. But I soon discovered there is.

One of the points which the author was careful to make is that our brains function best when we're moving along at walking pace. Sitting at a desk may be fine for all sorts of things, but that static condition is not as good as the steady, rhythmic movement of a walk.

We often talk of getting up from our desk and taking a stroll to 'clear our heads'. Why? Because the movement and pace of the walk is strangely conducive to helping us think at our best. We seem to be made, in other words, to be those who think on our feet.

I've been walking a lot today. The snow on the ground has confined the car this week to the role of some snow-clad, ornamental statue in the driveway. I've been hoofing it here there and everywhere.

Over the hill to Murrayfield this afternoon, to a nursing home there and a visit with a lady there whose husband had just died the day before.

Throughout their 57 years of married life they've been a devout and godly couple, devoted to one another, and together devoted to the service of the Lord.

Theirs was a marriage the way it's meant to be. Openly God-honouring in the worship which they offered him together every day. Manifestly Christ-glorifying in the way they sought to show both Jesus' Lordship and his servanthood in how they lived their life. And constantly grace-imparting to a multitude of different folk with whom their paths would cross.

They've been together a huge support to me across the years, and a ceaseless source of faithful prayer, encouragement and strength. To countless others as well.

It's a bit of a hike across the hill to the nursing home, but more than worth the effort. It was good to see her and to talk with her for a while.

The Lord was very present. He's good and kind and gentle, easing himself, in a way that's not intrusive, into sorrows such as these and becoming himself the balm that grieving people need.

"You will be taking the service, won't you?" she kept on asking. Her short-term memory now is far from good. It mattered to her that I would be leading that worship. She needed the re-assurance.

Down the years it's meant so much to me to know that they were always there and always so committed to supporting me in prayer. It was humbling to hear her concern that I would be there for her and for her family in this sore time of sorrow. Of course I would be there.

* * *

At night I was hiking my way out west this time, to the outskirts of the city and a home on a hill in Cammo. A meeting arranged some time back with a group of folk, which ended up just myself and the man whose home and hospitality I was able to enjoy on my own!

A profitable time, nonetheless, as iron sharpened iron in our thinking about next year. 2011 marks the 400th anniversary of the King James (or 'Authorised') Version of the Bible. Loads of churches are marking the year with a thing called Biblefresh. We were giving some thought as to how we might be marking it ourselves. I find it exciting and full of enormous potential. But more on that another time.

And then, of course, the same hike back. It was that which made me realise how helpful all my walking through the day had been. My brain ticking over at optimum speed. A lot of good time for clear thinking and none of the barrage of telephone calls to interrupt my line of thought.

And the chance, on occasion, to stop and to chat with some folk.

There's a lot to be said for our walking. Enough to write a whole book!

the narrow path

2010-12-01T22:04:00.006Z

Narrow is the road that leads to life, and only a few find it.

Today provided a graphic illustration of just that - at least when it came to the regular lunch-time service.

There was a path (hardly a 'road') through the thick-lying snow. And it was narrow. And only a few 'found' it.

There were six of us there at the service today. Five if you exclude myself as the one conducting the worship and preaching. Four if you exclude the pianist who'd rung to check whether the service would actually be on.

One of the four expressed her gratitude afterwards - "Thank you for treating us as if we were a large congregation!"

The singing was lusty, and largely in tune (no thanks to me!). The prayers were the more direct and specific, given our common awareness of people not there and the reasons for that. And there wasn't any skimping on the reading and expounding of the Scriptures.

The road is narrow that leads to life, and those who find it are few.

It was Jesus who said it. And he plainly meant it.

That 'narrowness' lies at the heart of our discipleship. Whatever may be the merits of a so-called 'broad' church, it certanly doesn't mean that there's a breadth to the canvas of credal, confessional faith.

We can't just believe what we want. There's an uncomfortable 'narrowness' to the truths of the gospel from which we're not able to wriggle free at all.

God is our Maker, holy and sovereign and good.

We are rebels, sinful, tainted and destined for hell.

Jesus is the very Son of God, our only Saviour.

Audaciously entering this tarnished world, and living out, as fully man, a life of matchless obedience, he suffered in our place and bore (to the point of exhaustion) the rightful wrath of that holy, loving God.

His being raised from the dead confirmed that his work was completed, authorised him to pour out his Holy Spirit on his people, demonstrated that he is the one who will judge us all at the last, and guaranteed that all who have trusted in him shall share one day in that resurrection to eternal life.

His return is awaited. Be warned. Be prepared. Believe.

The gospel declares such non-negotiable truth. It is uncomfortably 'narrow'.

And it's not just what we believe that is marked by this challenging 'narrowness'. it's how we behave as well.

Discipleship is a way of life. His way. According to his word.

Which doesn't sit comfortably with the standards and values and lifestyles of the God-disowning country where we live.

A nation which prides itself increasingly on being so 'broad-minded' that it tolerates, encourages, and wants to applaud just about anything and everything in terms of a so-called 'liberal' (a complete misnomer since it's actually enslaving rather than liberating) outlook on life and living.

Following Jesus involves our deliberately taking that 'narrow' path.

The 'wide' gate, and the 'broad' path, which we seem constantly to be being encouraged to choose, is a literal dead end.

Its comfortable 'room for manoeuvre', and its very attractive 'freedom' to believe what you want and behave as you like, hides the destination. It leads only to destruction.

Jesus said it, not me.

The sooner we get back to a proper understanding of this radical discipleship the better it will be.

You don't want the fountain of life freezing over!

Messiah and the mall

2010-11-30T21:56:00.003Z

We're made to be creative. Like God himself.

Christmas is God at his creative best. 'Dropping in' on the world, to the surprise, consternation and delight (depending on who you were) of the multitudes.

Brilliant. Audacious. Breath-taking. Life-changing. Turning a corner in history.

How 'creative' can we be in a manner reflective of God?

Well, how about this. Back on the 13th November this year a whole crowd of unsuspecting shoppers got a big surprise while enjoying their lunch. 'Christmas' kind of happened all over again. (Click on the picture to view it)

There were over 100 participants in this 'Christmas Flash Mob', using their combined creative talents (and a good deal of Spirit-given courage, since they risked occasioning offence, ridicule and possibly [who knows these days] the sanctions of the law), to sound out that glorious good news of Jesus all over again!

Isn't this what we're called to be and do as Christians?

gospel ministry

2010-11-29T21:48:00.006Z

Like most of the country, a thick carpet of snow covers all our ground.

We have a lot of ground, including a sizeable car park, which slopes up and away from the hall. Drainage, accordingly, is not generally a problem.

But the downside comes when there's snow or ice. Park at the top of the slope (if you manage to get your car there) and there's a chance that your parked car will slide back down the slope of its own volition.

Having a huge big car park is great. But it's a lot to clear when there's been a heavy fall of snow. And since the doctors' surgery is right beside us and patients use the car park when they go there, we can't exactly leave it untended - a miry pit from which there's no way out.

I was out shovelling snow the larger part of the morning. I thought I'd make a start before the snow had got trampled down, so it was a half past seven start. And that was me 'til after 11am!

Mainly because every time I thought I'd call it a day someone else got stuck and I had to go and dig them out.

It seemed to me a graphic illustration of the essence of the work to which I'm called as a preacher of the gospel. Digging people out and setting them on the road again.

Psalm 40 puts it in that sort of way. "He lifted me out of the slimy pit, out of the mud and mire (read 'snow and ice'): he set my feet upon a rock and gave me a firm place to stand."

That's what the Lord does, in and through the gospel. Digging people out seemed like a graphic illustration.

At the other end of the day, another illustration. I'd called by a couple to see if they needed provisions. While there, the lady of the house fell. It was just as well that I was there as she might have remained on the floor for a good long time otherwise!

As it was, we got her on her feet again, and all was safe and well. As I say, another illustration of the work of gospel ministry. Getting people back on their feet again.

We are a 'fallen' (and often 'falling') people. Jesus puts us on our feet again. Psalm 40 again - "he set my feet upon a rock, establishing my way"

Like clearing the snow and digging folk out of the slippery rut into which they've slid; like helping folk who have fallen back onto their feet again, the work of gospel ministry is hard and uses muscles you didn't know you had.

But there's more than a little satisfaction at the end result!

Jonah

2010-11-25T21:53:00.003Z

You'll know the story of Jonah, I'm sure.

But the 8 minutes you'll need to hear it re-told by a child will not be wasted time! (Click on the picture to view it). One of our older members e-mailed this in - The story of Jonah like you've never heard it before, and probably never will again.

pastors

2010-11-23T22:17:00.006Z

Talk about 'meeting together'!

Having underlined yesterday the importance of meeting together, I find today is a long succession of meeting with different people. It's a steady, seamless stream of people, all by arrangement, mainly here, but I'm 'off-site' and out and about as well.

Conferring with a range of different leaders across a very varied spectrum of the church's life: and working through with other folk I'm meeting with some painful pastoral issues.

It takes me from the morning through to meal-time at the end of the afternoon. And then there's also a meeting at night with the leaders here, addressing the next year's budget.

One of the folk I've been seeing today highlights the value of taking some time 'apart'. Simply getting away for a day from time to time. Pastors need that space, he says.

He gives me a leaflet along these lines. The leaflet has a number of intersting quotes -

"Pastoral ministry is deeply rewarding and an immense privilege. [I couldn't agree more. It is a huge privilege, sharing with so many people in spheres that are essentially such 'holy ground'. And yes, it's wonderfully rewarding, too - not least in seeing the Lord at work, effecting change, and bringing gneuine healing].

"But the role brings with it particular vulnerabilities and peculiar pressures. The Gospel may be unbreakable treasure but the messengers of the Good News are positively fragile."

They have to be. They have to be utterly sensitive. Sensitive to the Lord, to what he's saying and doing in a person's life. Sensitive to the person they're with, to the needs and the feelings that person has, and to what's being said in what is not being said.

That sensitivity, though, does make a pastor vulnerable. He feels the weight of others' cares as though they were his own. He feels the hurts that others know as if they were his own.

And because his skin is never thick (he can't afford such calluses to grow across his heart), he often struggles inwardly with an aching sense of failure and most times feels acutely any criticism made.

The leaflet quotes from C H Spurgeon, a preacher from a by-gone generation, whom I always have admired -

"It would be a dreadful thing to be a pastor without cares ... but some are overloaded with cares and overweighted with sorrows."

I remember my grandmother speaking about Spurgeon (their lives over-lapped). He was a remarkable man, an astonishingly eloquent preacher in the Baptist Church, occupying, with his sizeable frame, the Metropolitan Tabernacle pulpit in London for many long years, and drawing vast crowds of people every week.

The pastoral ministry consequent on that was huge. The Word of God, expounded by a man anointed by the Spirit of the Lord, simply ploughs the ground of human hearts and brings all sorts of things right up to the surface. Things which need to be addressed, worked through.

Pastoral ministry, properly understood, is the personal application of the Word that's being expounded. Given there were thousands every week attending that worship in London, Spurgeon had a lot of that to do.

Outwardly you'd have thought he had it all together. But the struggles he had in himself you'd hardly believe. Lifelong, massive struggles, in a number of different areas of his life.

Overloaded with cares and overweighted with sorrows.

The man spoke (or wrote, since the quote is from the book, 'An all round ministry') from very real personal experience.

But then, that's pretty much what the great apostle Paul was saying, too, when he spoke about the trials and afflictions he'd endured.

He wrote that "the God of all comfort .. comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God. For just as the sufferings of Christ flow over into our lives, so also through Christ our comfort overflows. If we are distressed, it is for your comfort and salvation: if we are comforted, it is for your comfort, which produces in you patient endurancec of the same sufferings we suffer." [2 Cor.1.4-6]

He's saying, in a sense, that pastoral ministry involves a great amount of empathy. There's a sense in which the pastor has had to have been there, known that, and got, not the T-shirt, but the scars and wounds to prove it.

Pray for your pastor! He's not some thick-skinned superman. He carries the cares and the burdens of those for whom he cares as though they were his own. He feels for his people. He aches for his people. He yearns for his people.

And the pain of that yearning is great and intense and ongoing.