I love R C Sproul. I respect him for his diligence, learning and commitment over many long years. He is a keystone in modern Reformed Theology, and whilst I don't subscribe to everything he says I still go to him as a reliable resource when I have questions. That is why it was so disappointing to read his small book on the church and the state.
I have been wrestling through the issues surrounding the modern divided economy, the gross inequality in our present, twisted version of capitalism, and trying to approach the starting of a new business that is equitable, communal and Christ-like, as much as a business can be. It has also been election time in the UK. Whilst I have always voted as a matter of principle (except when I have been too busy, or simply forgot!) I have become ever more disgusted and detached from the electoral process and the hobbling, crippled political elite it seems to support and enable.
So I went to RC to get a perspective on how I am to act in light of scripture as a citizen of the society I am 'passing through' on the way to my homeland, the Kingdom of God.
Now I have already 'Logos'-ed the heck out of the topic, seeing what scripture says first hand and looking thoroughly at the history of the Church, protestant, Western, Eastern and African, to see what we have done in the past, the good bad and ugly of it. I may get round to writing something about this at another date. For now though I just want to chew over what Sproul said on this complex and essential topic.
Sproul starts off with some excellent ground work, outlining important concepts about not confusing geographical nationhood with Christianity: we have a greater loyalty to Christ's Kingdom, and no other temporal earthly kingdom can truly hold itself up as the shining, spotless paradigm of virtue that His coming Kingdom will truly be. America, more than any other country in the last 70 odd years, has confused this line in dangerous, and provoking ways more than any other, placing itself as "the city on the hill" and "the light of the nations" in several presidential posturings.
This was all good to hear. He did not, however, seem to take his own advice about confusing national ideology with Christian thought. Not only does he suggest that anything vauguly socialist, such as the re-distributioon of wealth (which he lables as theft) should be excluded from the political sphere, but, of all the many problems facing the world system and America as the leading representative of this, suggests that abortion (a truly horrific problem of mass genocide of the unborn for primarily economic reseons) and high taxation of the rich are on the same level of centrality and importance.
I was flabergasted. Being British I guess I don't understand how conflated modern, neo-classical economic thinking has been conflated with republican voting and therefore Christianity.
Why not address the system of soft-money donations that ammount to the same as legal bribery? Or the state socialism for the rich that gives food stamps to the working poor, thereby sponsoring low wages and high profits for global mega-conglomerate corporations? Or the unjust scales used in the punishment of crimes, such as black drug related crimes as compared with corporate larceny that can ruin the lives of thousands? or the lack of oversight of the financial sector, that sees a market ethic (that is to say a Darwinian cronyism) penetrating all walks of life? Or the state support of transatlantic and international trade agreements that put corporations (a-moral 'people' in their own legal right) above sovreign nations? or the growth of monopolies (something God hates- see Malachi)? Or any or the issues which face our modern, failing system? Corruption? national and personal debt? The waging of wars against foreign powers against the will of the electorate for the protection of individual and corporate wealth?
No. Apparently it is taking some of the ridiculously huge profits made (largely but not exclusively) through the perpetuation of these same things and putting it back into the hands of the same people who have been robbed, oppressed and discriminated against, institutionally, under both the Republican and Democratic party's watches.
Is Christianity in America still so hung up on Communism, and so desperate to conserve the (largely illusiory) golden past as a quasi-Christian (actually Deist/pagan) nation that it is blind to it's own iniquities?
If so it could be that they will miss what God is trying to show them, and miss the repentance He is calling all Western power to. We have had wealth and power and we have used it predominantly to preserve our own place in the sun. Now we are suffering the heat stroke, sun burn, skin cancer that is the consequence of our immoral use of the trust God gave us.
So R.C. I hope you bring out a ammended version that tackles all the above issues.
Monday 15 June 2015
Thursday 30 April 2015
Social enterprise and the Kingdom of God.
Have spent the last couple of days on a course about self employment which has been excellent. encouraging and challenging. Prior to that it was a relay of vomiting children, 5 nights in a row, a total of 9 hours sleep in 5 days! So we are all trying to get back on our feet, and I need to get back to work.
I have a load to do!
I am trying to build something. This is a good thing, and something I would not have had the time or inclination to do when I was smoking dope, drinking up or pouring my life into K/D ratios on CoD! God has better plans for us than we have. The modern culture definitely wants to give us "bread and circuses", to eat up our time and energy on entertainment, secondaries, stuff that cant and wont make a difference. We were not made for such stuff! We were given a mission, a job to do, something so significant that eternity will not forget it. But if the devil can bait the world with something tempting to our ever-warring flesh then he will do. Anything to stop us building God's Kingdom, tending is garden.
The stuff I have to do, aside from the simple fact that I have no technical ability with furniture, is all out of my capacity: heavy on the admin, paperwork and structure. But it is amazing how God has schooled me for this moment, taking on process and policy design for church even though I hate it, getting me ready for what was coming.
I am just trusting him that He will fulfill it all as I go along, as long as I sweat over what He has given me and never, ever move past His good news and continue to pray as though it all depended on Him.
I have a load to do!
I am trying to build something. This is a good thing, and something I would not have had the time or inclination to do when I was smoking dope, drinking up or pouring my life into K/D ratios on CoD! God has better plans for us than we have. The modern culture definitely wants to give us "bread and circuses", to eat up our time and energy on entertainment, secondaries, stuff that cant and wont make a difference. We were not made for such stuff! We were given a mission, a job to do, something so significant that eternity will not forget it. But if the devil can bait the world with something tempting to our ever-warring flesh then he will do. Anything to stop us building God's Kingdom, tending is garden.
The stuff I have to do, aside from the simple fact that I have no technical ability with furniture, is all out of my capacity: heavy on the admin, paperwork and structure. But it is amazing how God has schooled me for this moment, taking on process and policy design for church even though I hate it, getting me ready for what was coming.
I am just trusting him that He will fulfill it all as I go along, as long as I sweat over what He has given me and never, ever move past His good news and continue to pray as though it all depended on Him.
Kingdom Building and giants
So we have had a crazy couple of weeks. I won't bore you in one post with all of the details. It will be far better if I took a number of posts to bore you with the details!
We recently went on holiday, looking for some respite and relaxation close to family. Before this, I was digging my way through the practicalities of setting up a social enterprise, loving the theory, excited at the possibilities, but very much feeling out of my depth when it came to the technical side. I'll admit I'm not a very practical guy, I like theology, philosophy, thinking, sitting, talking about stuff: your typical daydreamer! Which, I admit, might be a nice way of putting your typical lazy beggar. I hope this isn't the case. I'm pretty self-motivated, and able to work consistently and hard at whatever sitting, philosophising, theologizing etc. etc. I'm presently doing. And I have worked really hard at putting bones on the vision. I can see it in the future, see that slice of God's kingdom growing, see some of the how and the why and the what of it.
However.
I've also seen my complete lack of technical ability, and hit a wall before the holiday when it came to business plan specifics. I looked at my previous experience, my own skill set, and was forced to ask myself why I thought I should be the one to take this forward.
And I didn't have an answer.
So feeling pretty despondent, we went away. The holiday turned out to be far less than relaxing, with Judah screaming most nights and a real sense of heaviness that seem to accompany us. I had some great time to pray and seek the Lord, and Jeanette and I had some great conversations, and an evening of prayer together which was very precious.
It wasn't until we returned home when I was reminded, and I can't even remember by whom, that we do what we do because God says so, not because we are equipped, but because he is sovereign. There is a great Song on the new Social Club album "Us", called Carpe Diem, which I mis-heard to say "it's not about how good you are but about how good He is to me". I like that.
He is good, so we walk on, dark vallys and shadows and death and all that.
So we will keep going, daily, trusting Him for every step.
We recently went on holiday, looking for some respite and relaxation close to family. Before this, I was digging my way through the practicalities of setting up a social enterprise, loving the theory, excited at the possibilities, but very much feeling out of my depth when it came to the technical side. I'll admit I'm not a very practical guy, I like theology, philosophy, thinking, sitting, talking about stuff: your typical daydreamer! Which, I admit, might be a nice way of putting your typical lazy beggar. I hope this isn't the case. I'm pretty self-motivated, and able to work consistently and hard at whatever sitting, philosophising, theologizing etc. etc. I'm presently doing. And I have worked really hard at putting bones on the vision. I can see it in the future, see that slice of God's kingdom growing, see some of the how and the why and the what of it.
However.
I've also seen my complete lack of technical ability, and hit a wall before the holiday when it came to business plan specifics. I looked at my previous experience, my own skill set, and was forced to ask myself why I thought I should be the one to take this forward.
And I didn't have an answer.
So feeling pretty despondent, we went away. The holiday turned out to be far less than relaxing, with Judah screaming most nights and a real sense of heaviness that seem to accompany us. I had some great time to pray and seek the Lord, and Jeanette and I had some great conversations, and an evening of prayer together which was very precious.
It wasn't until we returned home when I was reminded, and I can't even remember by whom, that we do what we do because God says so, not because we are equipped, but because he is sovereign. There is a great Song on the new Social Club album "Us", called Carpe Diem, which I mis-heard to say "it's not about how good you are but about how good He is to me". I like that.
He is good, so we walk on, dark vallys and shadows and death and all that.
So we will keep going, daily, trusting Him for every step.
Thursday 26 March 2015
Roots and Shoots in growing the Kingdom of God
Capitalism. It is the ocean we swim in, whether we like it or not. The Darwinian business and economic model is so entrenched in the world system that it seems a Christian business is almost a contradiction in terms.
But God desires growth: His Kingdom come is not some naive wish-fulfilment but a real and concrete growth in righteousness in every area and relation. He takes the broken things in the world and redeems them to something beautiful, and scripture (especially places like Malachi) warns and threatens against immoral use of wealth and growing monopoly. The warning has an aim: that His people should TURN from those practises to something more in line with His Kingdom purposes, more in line with His character, more in line with imago Dei. To stop what they are doing, and generally to do the opposite.
I know that, in Morecambe as in a great many other places, hope is hard to come by when your highest legitimate aim is to join the ranks of the working poor. This might be why so many people live week to week on the pounds worth of hope that the lottery provides. It, along with other forms of gambling, offers the hope not just of a limited burst of pleasure, but a radical change of lifestyle. It is, of course, a false hope. Statistically you are more likely to be hit by a lightening bolt, and it doesn't take much research to unearth the sad tales of those who have won but not prospered by it. This limited achievable aspiration leads to many looking to less legitimate ways of raising their game: simply put, crime does pay, as anyone who knows a local drug-dealer can see. Money, cars and fresh clothes, if not lasting security.
Our God is the King of hope though, a lasting hope. One that starts as small as a mustard seed but grows continually until eternal life. The certainty of things unseen. So what hope can He bring to Morecambe, in real, measurable and practical ways, or indeed to any area of the world? Mercy ministry? Yes, sure. But that is not enough. In Proverbs it says "there is much profit in the fallow land of the poor, but injustice sweeps it away". We as Christians are not just to feed the hungry, but to bring about justice for the poor. The fact that this country even has a label for "the working poor" is a shame on us. Our government subsidises Big Business in the form of tax credits: ensuring that corporations don't need to worry about their workers starving, and maximising their profit margin through tax-payer support of their negligently poor wages.
Christians need to offer a realistic alternative to this. We have to see business as mission; wealth creation a purposeful blessing to be shared; profit for the community rather than from it.
This is something I am presently trying to get to grips with, as we need, as a house, as a 'project', for lack of a better word, some more structure within which our church family can grow. We need jobs for the jobless, purpose and vision and hope, encouraging entrepreneurship, growth and giving people more to aim for than yet another temporary, part-time, minimum wage, zero-hour or unlimited hour contract nonsense. People need security. They need a row to hoe of their own. God gave each family in OT Israel their own land: they were to work it, blessing him for the increase, sparing what they could for the poor. How can we do that as Christians, so we are not simply sharing the good news that Christ came to save sinners, but showing something of the new heaven and new earth that will be ours through the perfect life, agonising death, and glorious resurrection of the Son of God. How can we both pray and act towards bringing the Kingdom of God here, in part and shadowed as it may be, now?
I will let you know what I find. More on this again I suspect!
But God desires growth: His Kingdom come is not some naive wish-fulfilment but a real and concrete growth in righteousness in every area and relation. He takes the broken things in the world and redeems them to something beautiful, and scripture (especially places like Malachi) warns and threatens against immoral use of wealth and growing monopoly. The warning has an aim: that His people should TURN from those practises to something more in line with His Kingdom purposes, more in line with His character, more in line with imago Dei. To stop what they are doing, and generally to do the opposite.
I know that, in Morecambe as in a great many other places, hope is hard to come by when your highest legitimate aim is to join the ranks of the working poor. This might be why so many people live week to week on the pounds worth of hope that the lottery provides. It, along with other forms of gambling, offers the hope not just of a limited burst of pleasure, but a radical change of lifestyle. It is, of course, a false hope. Statistically you are more likely to be hit by a lightening bolt, and it doesn't take much research to unearth the sad tales of those who have won but not prospered by it. This limited achievable aspiration leads to many looking to less legitimate ways of raising their game: simply put, crime does pay, as anyone who knows a local drug-dealer can see. Money, cars and fresh clothes, if not lasting security.
Our God is the King of hope though, a lasting hope. One that starts as small as a mustard seed but grows continually until eternal life. The certainty of things unseen. So what hope can He bring to Morecambe, in real, measurable and practical ways, or indeed to any area of the world? Mercy ministry? Yes, sure. But that is not enough. In Proverbs it says "there is much profit in the fallow land of the poor, but injustice sweeps it away". We as Christians are not just to feed the hungry, but to bring about justice for the poor. The fact that this country even has a label for "the working poor" is a shame on us. Our government subsidises Big Business in the form of tax credits: ensuring that corporations don't need to worry about their workers starving, and maximising their profit margin through tax-payer support of their negligently poor wages.
Christians need to offer a realistic alternative to this. We have to see business as mission; wealth creation a purposeful blessing to be shared; profit for the community rather than from it.
This is something I am presently trying to get to grips with, as we need, as a house, as a 'project', for lack of a better word, some more structure within which our church family can grow. We need jobs for the jobless, purpose and vision and hope, encouraging entrepreneurship, growth and giving people more to aim for than yet another temporary, part-time, minimum wage, zero-hour or unlimited hour contract nonsense. People need security. They need a row to hoe of their own. God gave each family in OT Israel their own land: they were to work it, blessing him for the increase, sparing what they could for the poor. How can we do that as Christians, so we are not simply sharing the good news that Christ came to save sinners, but showing something of the new heaven and new earth that will be ours through the perfect life, agonising death, and glorious resurrection of the Son of God. How can we both pray and act towards bringing the Kingdom of God here, in part and shadowed as it may be, now?
I will let you know what I find. More on this again I suspect!
Thursday 19 March 2015
interesting article
http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2014/06/25/has-capitalism-become-incompatible-with-christianity/morality-should-not-be-priced-in-the-marketplace
This is a topic that I am wrestling through at the moment. The world, dropping rapidly into the bed it has made, and the Christian neo-Con right seem to be attempting to salvage something God hates: not profit per-se but the inordinate pursuit of it, the maximizing rather than the optimizing of profit. What does a Christian Business ethic look like in opposition to the corporate model responsible for so much inequality and pain look like? How do we make all this nonsense look as ridiculous and self-defeating as it actually is? This is a brief article I found interesting, from a secular point of view.Monday 16 March 2015
Where we have come from part 3.
Flash forward several years: my wife and I are commuting to a church plant in Morecambe (a place I formerly loathed as I saw the worst it had to offer as a bin man in the area, battering my way up and down filthy back alleys, but now Christ has worked a deep and real love into my soul for the place and the people who call it home). I was coming back from a leaders meeting and felt a real sense of pressure, or 'burden' in Christianese, to pray for more detail about the vision God had given me all those years ago. I prayed a long time, deep into the morning hours, and felt a strong sense of direction in a more specific way than I ever had before.
I went after work to share with my good friend and pastor, Richard Scholes, what I felt God had put in my heart and mind: a shared house where people, disconnected from family or from dysfunctional and destructive family backgrounds, could come and be a part of our family and the wider church family. Richard was not home, but his wife was, so I described this renewed vision to her. No sooner had I finished my speechifying than Richard walks in.
He had just come from a meeting with a young man of our church who desperately wanted help to move on from destructive cycles. He had asked if it were possible for him to move in with any church family that might take him. Richard mused "woulden't it be great if there were a place like that, a family home where people could move in and be discipled in a family context?"
I nearly fell of my chair at this confirmation from God that I was not mad (okay, not just mad. Okay, not isolated in my madness).
If God tells you something, share it with others. Many people will try to put you off, but I do believe that when it is His will, He will encourage, nurture and provide for His Kingdom growth.
I went after work to share with my good friend and pastor, Richard Scholes, what I felt God had put in my heart and mind: a shared house where people, disconnected from family or from dysfunctional and destructive family backgrounds, could come and be a part of our family and the wider church family. Richard was not home, but his wife was, so I described this renewed vision to her. No sooner had I finished my speechifying than Richard walks in.
He had just come from a meeting with a young man of our church who desperately wanted help to move on from destructive cycles. He had asked if it were possible for him to move in with any church family that might take him. Richard mused "woulden't it be great if there were a place like that, a family home where people could move in and be discipled in a family context?"
I nearly fell of my chair at this confirmation from God that I was not mad (okay, not just mad. Okay, not isolated in my madness).
If God tells you something, share it with others. Many people will try to put you off, but I do believe that when it is His will, He will encourage, nurture and provide for His Kingdom growth.
Friday 13 March 2015
Where we have come from Part 2
We were, at one point in our tempestuous history as a family, homeless. Don't get me wrong: not the 'living on the streets, begging for food, sheltering under an overpass' kind of homeless. We were sheltered by the family we inherited as part of joining God's Kingdom, church family, family by The Blood rather than blood family. With two kids, both under three, it was not an easy time, but I don't want to make out it was that difficult either. It was the discomfort of close community, of being guests, of having no space to call your own, of uncertainty and anxiety about the future and the pride-breaking charity of others. It was good in the way that the gym is good: hard work, discomfort and results you cant see immediately but you feel down deep in the fiber of your muscles.
During this time I was confused and not a little dismayed. We looked at housing but my wage only allowed us to consider places that literally made my wife cry. Dripping, black and furry damp, cold with no internal heating, single glazed windows where the breeze visibly lifted the curtains when the window was shut Not good.
So I went out one day on the farm we were staying at, took my Bible and, like Jacob, said to God "I'm not moving till you bless me", sitting down and struggling in prayer as I asked God what He wanted me to do. An hour passed, then two, and all I was getting was bone cold and further discouraged. I attempted to build a kind of alter, realizing as it collapsed that I was still trying to do something to reccomend myself, my cause, to God. To blackmail Him really. Finally I surrendered, sat, opened my Bible and read, ignoring my own voice, ignoring the doubts and fears that battled with my faith. I read and read. Another hour passed.
But by now I was not seeking God for what He could do for me. Nor was I trying to recommend myself to Him with my actions. I was just seeking His face, seeking Him for Him.
At that point, 7 years ago, he asked me clearly what I wanted, then gave me a vision for "a house of many rooms, that The LORD would build, where the orphan would find sanctuary". His vision, my heart's desire.
This did not answer my questions. It did not get me and my family a home of our own immediately. It seemed impossible. But He spoke, and the rest became suddenly less important.
We have been praying about this vision ever since then. Asked others to pray. Asked Him to bring about what He said He would, never moving a step in our own strength to attempt to make it happe, as we had no strength to bring it about without His action on our behalf.
Now I sit in a 'Kingdom built' house, many roomed, and one we hope to make a peaceful place where anyone abandoned by family can find new family. We offer it as sanctuary.
And this is just the beginning.
During this time I was confused and not a little dismayed. We looked at housing but my wage only allowed us to consider places that literally made my wife cry. Dripping, black and furry damp, cold with no internal heating, single glazed windows where the breeze visibly lifted the curtains when the window was shut Not good.
So I went out one day on the farm we were staying at, took my Bible and, like Jacob, said to God "I'm not moving till you bless me", sitting down and struggling in prayer as I asked God what He wanted me to do. An hour passed, then two, and all I was getting was bone cold and further discouraged. I attempted to build a kind of alter, realizing as it collapsed that I was still trying to do something to reccomend myself, my cause, to God. To blackmail Him really. Finally I surrendered, sat, opened my Bible and read, ignoring my own voice, ignoring the doubts and fears that battled with my faith. I read and read. Another hour passed.
But by now I was not seeking God for what He could do for me. Nor was I trying to recommend myself to Him with my actions. I was just seeking His face, seeking Him for Him.
At that point, 7 years ago, he asked me clearly what I wanted, then gave me a vision for "a house of many rooms, that The LORD would build, where the orphan would find sanctuary". His vision, my heart's desire.
This did not answer my questions. It did not get me and my family a home of our own immediately. It seemed impossible. But He spoke, and the rest became suddenly less important.
We have been praying about this vision ever since then. Asked others to pray. Asked Him to bring about what He said He would, never moving a step in our own strength to attempt to make it happe, as we had no strength to bring it about without His action on our behalf.
Now I sit in a 'Kingdom built' house, many roomed, and one we hope to make a peaceful place where anyone abandoned by family can find new family. We offer it as sanctuary.
And this is just the beginning.
Monday 2 March 2015
Where we have come from pt 1
We have been privileged to "stand on the shoulders of giants": to be a part of this vision is to be a part of something that has been seeded a long time before we arrived on the scene in the hearts of others, others who had their own vision and goals blocked in the will of God so that we could see their prayers answered through us.
A recent visitor to (and, hopefully eventual, member of) HomeChurch has been a long time lover of Morecambe. Committed to the cause of Christ, His kingdom come, and the people of Morecambe, she and a few others from various churches in the Morecambe area used to meet up to pray for the city and it's inhabitants. They wanted to open a place where people without a family could be a part of a family: the family of God. They prayed to this end for a long while, and looked at the very house we now live in, hearing from God that it would be a place of discipleship, love and spiritual growth. they attempted to buy the place, even put in an offer to it's owners around 2012, but for one reason and another the whole thing fell through.
I can imagine what that felt like. I may be guilty of ascribing my own experience to others, but it is not hard to imagine them feeling let down, even hurt by God, and possibly angry at themselves. "He said it! Did I hear Him wrong? was I imagining it? Why would He point to something and not deliver? What did we do wrong? Have we failed?
I'm not sure any of these questions are wrong questions, as long as they are asked directly of God and not grumbled at His people. We can be guilty, like the children of Israel in the desert, of complaining about God, rather than dialoguing WITH Him. All of the Christian walk boils down to relationships. Us to Him, Him to us, us to others. When we put the relationships in the wrong order we end up with various kinds of very destructive sins: gossip is taking a one another relationship and spreading it across to other people, but gossip against God, grumbling and complaining, is taking the us/God relationship and spreading it to others in the same way. The questions we have of God should be shared privately with God and our anger dealt with. Some of this is contained in the LORD's prayer: Your Kingdom come, Your will be done is a statement that implies my will is secondary to the all encompassing purpose of the "hallowing", or showing as awesome, holy and righteous, of His name. Sharing one's own will with God is a part of the process, but only the beginning. It is sharing and allowing His sufficiency, His good, perfect and pleasing will, to overcome our own feeble empire building.
I am glad that those faithful folk submitted to His will. What He promised He has delivered, and not because of anything better or more significant about us, but because it pleased Him to do so, and His will is the hope of the nations. Every endeavor we pursue in the cause of Christ is surfing on the back of another's faithful prayer and service: we have been privileged to see that. Many, the Bible says, do not see the fruit of their faithfulness, the promises of God come to be. remember they are no less blessed for it, for everything done in secret will be made known, and many who are last shall be first. Let us remember that the next time we confuse our worldly success of perceived failure with the blessing or disfavour of God. God does not promise our own dreams will come true, but that He will place us in the middle of His dream: a world of saved sinners, made saints by His blood, a world of love, peace and joy, a world that can only be fully realized at His return, but a heaven that invades earth in the here and now as we live before Him in humility and repentance. A good dream. A revolutionary dream.
Who wants to be a part of that?
A recent visitor to (and, hopefully eventual, member of) HomeChurch has been a long time lover of Morecambe. Committed to the cause of Christ, His kingdom come, and the people of Morecambe, she and a few others from various churches in the Morecambe area used to meet up to pray for the city and it's inhabitants. They wanted to open a place where people without a family could be a part of a family: the family of God. They prayed to this end for a long while, and looked at the very house we now live in, hearing from God that it would be a place of discipleship, love and spiritual growth. they attempted to buy the place, even put in an offer to it's owners around 2012, but for one reason and another the whole thing fell through.
I can imagine what that felt like. I may be guilty of ascribing my own experience to others, but it is not hard to imagine them feeling let down, even hurt by God, and possibly angry at themselves. "He said it! Did I hear Him wrong? was I imagining it? Why would He point to something and not deliver? What did we do wrong? Have we failed?
I'm not sure any of these questions are wrong questions, as long as they are asked directly of God and not grumbled at His people. We can be guilty, like the children of Israel in the desert, of complaining about God, rather than dialoguing WITH Him. All of the Christian walk boils down to relationships. Us to Him, Him to us, us to others. When we put the relationships in the wrong order we end up with various kinds of very destructive sins: gossip is taking a one another relationship and spreading it across to other people, but gossip against God, grumbling and complaining, is taking the us/God relationship and spreading it to others in the same way. The questions we have of God should be shared privately with God and our anger dealt with. Some of this is contained in the LORD's prayer: Your Kingdom come, Your will be done is a statement that implies my will is secondary to the all encompassing purpose of the "hallowing", or showing as awesome, holy and righteous, of His name. Sharing one's own will with God is a part of the process, but only the beginning. It is sharing and allowing His sufficiency, His good, perfect and pleasing will, to overcome our own feeble empire building.
I am glad that those faithful folk submitted to His will. What He promised He has delivered, and not because of anything better or more significant about us, but because it pleased Him to do so, and His will is the hope of the nations. Every endeavor we pursue in the cause of Christ is surfing on the back of another's faithful prayer and service: we have been privileged to see that. Many, the Bible says, do not see the fruit of their faithfulness, the promises of God come to be. remember they are no less blessed for it, for everything done in secret will be made known, and many who are last shall be first. Let us remember that the next time we confuse our worldly success of perceived failure with the blessing or disfavour of God. God does not promise our own dreams will come true, but that He will place us in the middle of His dream: a world of saved sinners, made saints by His blood, a world of love, peace and joy, a world that can only be fully realized at His return, but a heaven that invades earth in the here and now as we live before Him in humility and repentance. A good dream. A revolutionary dream.
Who wants to be a part of that?
Monday 16 February 2015
A word about getting here, and a warning about where we are going.
How to start? Or, a better question, where and when to start?
This project (a word that is neither accurate nor adequate, but will have to do while I give you the skinny) has been brewing and bubbling in different lives for a number of years, and, as you will see, is just part of a plan that God had in mind before space and time became here and now. So I will start with posts explaining in a bit more detail what we are doing, or at least flailing around with the intent of doing, and then in further posts give you some history, which has been fascinating, terrifying, miraculous and a privilege to live out.
The great thing about this blog for you, dear reader, is that you get to miss out on all the bits that were, well, boring, if I'm being honest. The day in, day out stuff: the painting, praying, plotting bits, the waiting, wrestling, walking stretches. The life outside of the Facebook highlight reel we all seem to judge ourselves by these days. It is important to remind myself, and you who will be witness, that all this did not happen at once, that much of what happened, though resolved with hindsight's rosy glow, was far more mysterious and obscure to walk through than it might appear from a simple summary of it's parts. Now we see the picture: then we saw a step, had a word, felt a push. Faith kept us going when we couldn't see, and faith will lead us on as we continue on this narrow road. You get to look back with us and judge for yourself if coincidence is explanation enough, if faith is folly, or our folly faith, and this testimony shall be a reminder, in old Christianese an 'Ebeneezer', for us as we walk on in the same glorious mystery.
And this is key: what shall follow these initial summaries, these statements of intent and explanations of the how, why and what, are just the beginning. What follows this will be the ongoing chronicles of normal people, broken people, believing for their daily bread, believing that Christ came into the world, lived, died, rose for the forgiveness of sin and holds out the real hope of the nations. Not a utopian ideal; not a political revolution; not 'faith' for faith itself, a kind of naive wish fulfillment towards a cosmic 'force'. Hurt and hurting folk in a busted world trying to live with, not just around, each other, in the belief that all who are 'in Christ' are one together, are family and closer than family. We have a real, living hope in a real, specific Kingdom, with a real and wholly glorious King. This will mean posts where we are riding high on fulfilled promise, or sinking low in doubts and fears.
I intend for it to be a real tale of real family, not a set of perky updates about "living in the victory"! We live in victory for real, but all that 'best life now' nonsense? You want that, this isn't the blog for you. The life we lead in the flesh will be resolved one day: our ultimate hindsight will be postmortem, when all our questions will be answered by our Man of Sorrows, our Prince of Peace, our Friend of Sinners. Till then we will fight and strive with all the power God allows to will and to work His good pleasure.
For this we will need a reminder of all the good, bad and ugly we have already walked through. We will need to look back, see the LORD's faithfulness to us even as we staggered and stumbled through our 'before', and trust ourselves afresh to Him when the way is dark, the load is heavy and our steps faltering.
So this blog is for us too, oh reader, and not words on a screen, but breath, and blood, and memory. A A journal of sorts. I hope it will bless, encourage, rebuke, exhort and inspire you to pray for us. I pray that it might be a word in season to some hopeless soul, some questor for truth, some traveler without a home destination, some angry revolutionary bitter with the world's failed answers, and turn them to Christ. A big hope turned over to a big God.
I hope that you too will be challenged to live up to the counter-cultural vision that is the heart of true Christian living: each to so love his neighbor that personal cost is no consideration. I hope this for myself. I hope this for my family. I hope this for those who come here. God above, let none who read and none who write be left unchanged for the process.
Grace and Peace.
This project (a word that is neither accurate nor adequate, but will have to do while I give you the skinny) has been brewing and bubbling in different lives for a number of years, and, as you will see, is just part of a plan that God had in mind before space and time became here and now. So I will start with posts explaining in a bit more detail what we are doing, or at least flailing around with the intent of doing, and then in further posts give you some history, which has been fascinating, terrifying, miraculous and a privilege to live out.
The great thing about this blog for you, dear reader, is that you get to miss out on all the bits that were, well, boring, if I'm being honest. The day in, day out stuff: the painting, praying, plotting bits, the waiting, wrestling, walking stretches. The life outside of the Facebook highlight reel we all seem to judge ourselves by these days. It is important to remind myself, and you who will be witness, that all this did not happen at once, that much of what happened, though resolved with hindsight's rosy glow, was far more mysterious and obscure to walk through than it might appear from a simple summary of it's parts. Now we see the picture: then we saw a step, had a word, felt a push. Faith kept us going when we couldn't see, and faith will lead us on as we continue on this narrow road. You get to look back with us and judge for yourself if coincidence is explanation enough, if faith is folly, or our folly faith, and this testimony shall be a reminder, in old Christianese an 'Ebeneezer', for us as we walk on in the same glorious mystery.
And this is key: what shall follow these initial summaries, these statements of intent and explanations of the how, why and what, are just the beginning. What follows this will be the ongoing chronicles of normal people, broken people, believing for their daily bread, believing that Christ came into the world, lived, died, rose for the forgiveness of sin and holds out the real hope of the nations. Not a utopian ideal; not a political revolution; not 'faith' for faith itself, a kind of naive wish fulfillment towards a cosmic 'force'. Hurt and hurting folk in a busted world trying to live with, not just around, each other, in the belief that all who are 'in Christ' are one together, are family and closer than family. We have a real, living hope in a real, specific Kingdom, with a real and wholly glorious King. This will mean posts where we are riding high on fulfilled promise, or sinking low in doubts and fears.
I intend for it to be a real tale of real family, not a set of perky updates about "living in the victory"! We live in victory for real, but all that 'best life now' nonsense? You want that, this isn't the blog for you. The life we lead in the flesh will be resolved one day: our ultimate hindsight will be postmortem, when all our questions will be answered by our Man of Sorrows, our Prince of Peace, our Friend of Sinners. Till then we will fight and strive with all the power God allows to will and to work His good pleasure.
For this we will need a reminder of all the good, bad and ugly we have already walked through. We will need to look back, see the LORD's faithfulness to us even as we staggered and stumbled through our 'before', and trust ourselves afresh to Him when the way is dark, the load is heavy and our steps faltering.
So this blog is for us too, oh reader, and not words on a screen, but breath, and blood, and memory. A A journal of sorts. I hope it will bless, encourage, rebuke, exhort and inspire you to pray for us. I pray that it might be a word in season to some hopeless soul, some questor for truth, some traveler without a home destination, some angry revolutionary bitter with the world's failed answers, and turn them to Christ. A big hope turned over to a big God.
I hope that you too will be challenged to live up to the counter-cultural vision that is the heart of true Christian living: each to so love his neighbor that personal cost is no consideration. I hope this for myself. I hope this for my family. I hope this for those who come here. God above, let none who read and none who write be left unchanged for the process.
Grace and Peace.
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