If you have ever been to a Christian rally of some description, you will have no doubt heard the following question:

    What if you died tonight, would you be ready? Would you go to heaven or hell?
    
In retail circles this is known as the hard sell. It is a pointed question to force you into a decision without full facts, full knowledge or full understanding of what you are committing to.

This question has always grated against my soul for two reasons"

First, as I've already said, it's a hard sell and you don't know all the facts. Christianity is about becoming Christ-like, but asking a question purely on eternal destination is like asking "Will you be catching the right bus home tonight?" It's orthogonal to the conversation.

Second, following of from the first, the question gives no appreciation to the question, "How now shall we live?" What happens after you make a commitment to Christ (praise God) and like the 99.9999999999% of people who leave the rally you don't die? How are you going to live?

This should be the informing factor of faith development. To do otherwise leaves us with churches full of people in Spiritual arrested development only concerned with the destination and not the journey.

Following up from my last post, On the market I want to reflect for a moment on what I believe God's motivations are for moving me on from one church to the next (wherever that is).

We were reading through James chapter one in my bible study last night and a passage that really hooked into people was:

 4Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything. 5If any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to him.

Mature and complete, not lacking anything, that really resonates with me. In my mind it links to a Scriptural principal that I live my life by. It is the lesson from the parable of the talents: "Well done, good and faithful servant! You have been faithful with a few things; I will put you in charge of many things. Come and share your master's happiness!"

Our maturity and completeness is borne out of our faithfulness to God in the small things that he has given us. When we show faithful with that He gives us more. This is no "Prayer of Jabez" increase my borders nonsense but a call to Christ likeness.

I believe that over the past 10 years of my Christian life God has been calling me to ministry. This wasn't something I was able or prepared to do in the beginning. It started with a call and in faith I answered and that began a journey.

In just answering the call of God he began to add more to me. I found myself leading a bible study, leading the congregation in worship and other things that I will label small, not to belittle them but to put them in context.

Being faithful with those things came more responsibility, soon God opened the door to bible college so I could further learn and grow. Along with it came the role of Student Pastor at my church. The role stretched me, made me think differently and brought me to a higher place in my relationship with God.

From there God has placed more responsibility on me with a pastoral position and the position of Elder in his church.

At each turn God has taught me something, entrusted me with something and allowed my care of that something to stretch, grow and test me. After every instance of faithfully dealing with that something, he has given me more.

Leaving my current church is a real stretching time for my faith. I have been ministering in the same place for the past 8 years, the church that I was brought to faith in and with people I have known for up to a decade. But in many ways these circumstances make it difficult for me to reach a new level with my relationship with God.

It's not that I am complacent, or totally unchallenged, but God wants to finish a work in me, to make me more mature and complete and I can not do that where I am.

I want to challenge you, it doesn't matter if you are a pastor or not. Where are you in your relationship with God? Is your faith complete? What is the last thing he entrusted to you? Where you faithful or has your faith stagnated?

My observation is that when we fail at the task at hand most people just plain give up. They say "I've failed God" and cease to look for the opportunities he is bringing their way.

Is that you? You can continue to grow even after failure if you repent. When you admit your failure to God, I can almost guarantee that he will find another way for you to grow and mature in him.

Happy new year!

While my wife and I rang in the New Year in the style we have become accustomed to over the years, surrounded by friends. This new year has given me a great deal to pause and reflect on.

For some time now someone very close to me has been suffering from several persistent and painful illnesses that is causing them much distress. While the doctors have offered little to no explanations to what ails them they have been asking me the question "Why wont God heal me".

My own story of coming to faith begins with receiving healing from God. Others I know have received healing for physical, psychological and spiritual issues. The niece of an elder in my church had one leg shorter that the other and it grew an inch after she received prayer. I'm not talking over time, but visibly growing.

Such talk unfortunately puts me in a camp that some people label "religious nut job" but I can only speak of my experiences and I can not attribute them to the natural.

So why wont God heal this person close to me? It's a horrible question to be asked. When we are the one in pain we generally attribute it to malice, God is being vindictive of punishing a person. If we have never suffered pain we tend to be a little more philosophical, God's ways are above our ways (or God works in mysterious ways).

The answer that I give a person is different to an answer someone else gives because our theology is challenged and shaped by our experiences. The more we get to know God, the more we experience in life and the more we actively reflect on our experiences the better placed we are to contribute to the conversation.

My answer is often wholly unsatisfactory to the person who is suffering because it requires trust.

For my mind, the question isn't, why wont God heal me or even is it God's will for miraculous healing. The question we should be asking is have I surrendered by heart and will to God? Can I truly say "Your will be done"?

I do not believe for a minute that God wants us to be suffering and that it is his will for us to suffer but I can say that those times he allowed me to stay in the pain of my circumstance, I grew.

This does not mean that we should cease praying for healing of the sick and otherwise afflicted but we should also be mindful that God often uses our circumstances to draw us closer to him. I don't believe that makes him capricious, I think that he knows best.

I will continue to pray for healing for the person close to me but I will also continue to pray that their relationship with God grow tighter and stronger through this experience.

I ran across this lovely little ditty recently, it's a utilitarian approach to a love poem.

You are aesthetically pleasing,
the reason for which I first noticed in you.
And later I found your personality equally pleasing.
I also noted your chest to waist ratio is suitable for birthing.
Therefore, I think you should live in my house.

I'm not pointing any fingers here but there seems to be a lot of that kind of love going around at the moment. You look nice, lets live together. It's a challenge for the emerging pastor to gently confront our culture (or when necessary tread lightly and carry a big stick).

I can never think of a better way to inspire people towards godliness than giving them the higher aspirations of God. Listen to what Paul says love is:

 If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have not love, I gain nothing.

 Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

 Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when perfection comes, the imperfect disappears. When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me. Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.

And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.

Love is so much more than "Hey I like the look of you" and when we model it to others, it can become a higher ideal that we can all aspire too. It is the only way we can combat the photoshopped, vanilla, lust fueled and disposable version of love offered up to us.

That's the kind of love I want to have!

I had the pleasure of catching the train with a friend this morning. This friend and I debate and solve all the worlds problems every time we get together, it's a great iron sharpens iron time.

Out conversation momentarily touched on exclusivity and how it affects us. Consider this...

One day I bought the Serenity DVD box set, my wife and I watched it, enjoyed it and loved it. We lent the box set to this same friend and his wife, they watched it, enjoyed it, loved it and became fanatical about it :)
Not long after they ordered their own copy which didn't come in a cardboard box, rather it had a fancy smancy tin box.
Well I felt ripped off and envious of my friend because I didn't have the fancy tin box. So annoyed was I that I planned to go out and buy it.

Stop, hammer time!

What's going on here? I soon came to my senses and realized that my friend didn't really have anything more than I had, and even if he did, what does it matter?

There seems to be something wired into us that quests for the biggest, newest and shiniest objects. The tin box, the larger house, the best looking wife (I win there suckers! :)

I believe that this is part of our sinful nature that we can redeem. Instead of lusting after the better house or car or XBox, how about we redirect our desire into seeing God's will be done for the poor in our community. Let us boast about how there is no one in need in our community and spur the next town over to do the same.

I've been reading a lot about monastic orders recently and I think that they had something going for them, let's spurn the desire to accumulate treasures on earth and instead build up our heavenly storehouse!

It's about credibility, would you follow a pastor who built up his house instead of the church? The call to be an emerging pastor is in this detail, being counter to the consumer driven culture of this world.

Personally, I'm still trying to get the balance right but that's a step in the right direction.

I've been reading today a lot about Pope Gregory (590 - 604) and his influence on the English church as well as some of his correspondence as recorded by Bede.

I'm fascinated by him as a missionary leader, sending out missionaries to the Saxon's to bring them Christianity. It was in fact the second time Christianity was brought to the Saxons, the first time was by sword but this time by the accounts I'm reading were with love (missionary zeal).

Bede records many pastoral letters between Gregory and the Bishop of London which are worth reading and apply to today's emerging pastor but I want to paraphrase something from his Homilies on Ezekiel. It shows that he thought the contemplative life of monks would be best validated if it bore fruit in action.

"Of the two wives of Jacob, whom spiritual writers regarded as tech biblical types of the contemplative and active lives, Rachel was beautiful, but Liah was the fur tile one. Gregory himself thought he had married Rachel when he became a monk; but being pope was like waking up in the night to find oneself in the arms of Liah. It was a shock, but while there were those who still lacked the Christina faith, it was a necessary shock" ¹

As emerging pastors we need to be filled with that zeal for fertile living, lives that produce fruit.

 

^1. McManners, J. The oxford illustraed history of Christianity, p940

On the train this morning I was listening to a lecture by Pastor Mark Driscoll about Spiritual Warfare. It's a touchy subject for most people. I have met those who have come from a church torn apart by it (the church subsequently closed it's doors) and were burned heavily by it.

There seems to be two types of responses to spiritual warfare, either we deny it's real (taking the cessationist route) or we see demons behind every action, misstep and misdeed that confronts our lives.

Both seem to be equally dangerous to people, when we deny the reality of the supernatural we begin to cut out the heart of God and His ability to change hearts and lives. When we embrace it too fully we begin to abdicate our response to the all of the natural struggles of life to the work of Satan.

I met one of the latter people early on in my Christian walk. A friend produced a Book of Mormon in a bible study as a discussion point, the persons first reaction was to get the book out of the house because "familiar spirits were attached to it". If only it were that easy to tie us Satan and his followers.

Let's look at some facts:

• The bible says that when Satan fell 1/3 of the angels rebelled with him, it also says that the heavenly creatures do not marry or are given in marriage (and consequently reproduce) so there are a fixed number of them out there.
• When these angels became demons they did not gain omnipotence, omnipresence or any other aspects of God. They are not everywhere and can not see everything you do but they have been studying mankind for a long time and have a pretty good bead on people.
• God and Satan are not equals. God created Satan as an angel. The bible suggests he had a pride of place in heaven which eventually led to his downfall but to use a boxing term, he doesn't have the reach to land a blow on God.

Let's get past this stuff in our churches and start to look at the real effects of spiritual warfare in the lives of people. The real consequence of all of this is that are hearts are not renewed by Holy Spirit, that we accept a false teaching of Christ or follow our hearts elsewhere. Satan battles to have us turn our hearts from God and he doesn't do that by camping in books.

These thoughts have been circling my head for a little while, it's about our ambition.

I consider myself a very ambitious person, I look for opportunities to develop, grow, excel and climb higher in my corporate position. I've had to do a lot of thinking about how ambition reconciles with ministry because the drivers are not the same.

Sure if I was (still) a Catholic I could seek opportunities to become a bishop (although being able to only move diagonally doesn't really appeal to me) or a cardinal. But as a run of the mill protestant there are not many opportunities to climb the ladder.

There is a school of thought that suggests that we subliminate (push down, bury) our thoughts and feelings such as ambition in the context of ministry but I don't really like that idea much. I feel that God has made me this way for a reason and it can be used for his kingdom if only I could figure out how.

Sublimination also seems to be a counterproductive exercise because that suppressed ambition may express itself in a more unhelpful way down the road.

I've thought that I could apply my ambition to a goal such as winning as many souls as possible but on the face it that always seems so contrived an answer. We should all showing the gospel to people but if I base my ambition on it I will be falsely disappointed if someone does not come into God's family. It's a dangerous thing to base your ambition on something out of your control, after all it is the Holy Spirit that convicts.

The working draft of my thinking lately places ambition as motivation towards effectiveness in the broader sense.

Being effective in ministry to paraphrase Paul (2 Timothy 2ff) is to be a soldier of Christ, to be an athlete striving and to be a farmer working hard each day.

If my ambition is to be redeemed it has to be towards these goals, to be an effective soldier of Christ by listening to my commanding officer at all times, not being distracted by fleeting fads and thoughts. To be an effective athlete I need to be in training each day and to be an effective farmer I need to get up each day and do what needs to be done, not putting off the planting, sowing or reaping until another day.

Today I'm thinking about what constitutes a spiritual retreat.

I'm (trying) to write this Sunday mornings sermon and I keep coming up with the same nothing that the last 20 revisions came up with. I think that I really need to get my physical and spiritual batteries recharged and quickly or I am going to continue to slide into trouble.

The problem is every time I've attempted such a venture in the past I either get distracted by something and chase that down or I force the issue so hard that God can not meet me. It's a bit like writers block, the more you push it the harder it is to get the words out.

One of my favorite movies is "Stranger than Fiction". Right now I can identify with the author (sans chain smoking and queen latifa as my personal assistant). I know that there is something there, it is just around the corner. I can feel it's presence just beyond my perception but the harder I reach, the more slippery it becomes.

How do you turn that around? Fasting has worked in the past but my wife doesn't like me doing it. I have a tendency to go to extremes. The last time I fasted I went about 4 days with only a little water and I was a wreck physically. I did however get the answer from God that I was seeking (that is he answered, not he gave me the answer I wanted).

In my sermon I'm going into the area that we can have our spiritual identities stolen if we do not use them, that is, if we are not being the ministers of reconciliation that God calls us to be we will start filling our lives with other things. I feel I've started to fill mine with business and I want it back!

This is the third part in the unintentional series on business following on from Confronting busyness with vision and Overburdening our congregations. Burn out, drop out or drop dead.

I say unintentional because initially I was really just ranting about something I see as a problem for the church and pastors, getting those people in the pews committed to the vision of the church (universal) and growing Spiritually.

Something that has been keeping me awake at night, and I do actually mean that it has been keeping me awake, is the questions

1) Are we making disciples of Jesus or just a crowd of followers,
2) If our church was to disappear tomorrow, would anybody notice?

The questions have popped up so many times recently that I know that it is God asking me to explore them in my own life and own church and ministry.

This is the third part in the unintentional series on business following on from Confronting busyness with vision and Overburdening our congregations. Burn out, drop out or drop dead.

I say unintentional because initially I was really just ranting about something I see as a problem for the church and pastors, getting those people in the pews committed to the vision of the church (universal) and growing Spiritually.

Something that has been keeping me awake at night, and I do actually mean that it has been keeping me awake, is the questions

1) Are we making disciples of Jesus or just a crowd of followers,
2) If our church was to disappear tomorrow, would anybody notice?

The questions have popped up so many times recently that I know that it is God asking me to explore them in my own life and own church and ministry.

I've had a few conversations with people about my last post "Overburdening our congregations. Burn out, drop out or drop dead"

Some helpfully pointed out that I had not addressed one fundamental issue, the cause of busyness.

What has changed in the last 50 - 100 years to cause the busyness? And what can we do as ministers to help remedy this situation? How can we begin to point people to sacrificing some of their free time for God's purposes?

What a Sunday! It seems God can continue to teach me even when I get a little crusty and belligerent on the outside :)

In the third week of the church wide bible study series we learnt about meekness. Meekness is one of those qualities that is misunderstood as well as unappreciated by society and the church at large. Think about the first thing that comes to mind when you when you read the work "Meek".

Most people will answer something along the lines of "mild", "weak", "timid", "humble" or in a similar vein when the true meaning of the word is something far different.

Jesus encouraged us with the words "Blessed are the meek for they will inherit the earth" but how can mild, weak and timid people do that?

When Jesus uttered those words he spoke of meekness as being "strength under control". I liken it to a horse that has been broken in by it's rider. The horse has not lost any of it's strength or power, rather it is now channeled through the desires of it's master.

Have we allowed ourselves to be bridled by Jesus? To be led in the way He desires or are we following our own desires.

I am being taught the lesson of meekness at the moment as far as it goes for holding my tongue. It is becoming more apparent to me that even if what I say is right, it's not always right (or the right time) to say it. Meekness for me is bringing my tongue under control for God's sake.

One of the most frustrating issues in ministry is waiting at the well for people to drink and drink deeply. As the old saying goes, you can lead a horse to water but you can't make it drink.

Ministry is about leading horses, I mean people, to the water and waiting patiently as they discover that they need to drink the water to be sustained.

When a Samaritan woman came to draw water, Jesus said to her, "Will you give me a drink?" The Samaritan woman said to him, "You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink?" (For Jews do not associate with Samaritans.) Jesus answered her, "If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water." "Sir," the woman said, "you have nothing to draw with and the well is deep. Where can you get this living water?"  Jesus answered, "Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life." (John 4:7-14 slightly abridged)

In ministry there seems to be a great deal of waiting at the well with people. We speak to people about the water, try and sell them on it's benefits, tell them how the water has sustained us in all times but ultimately we are required to wait patiently as they make the decision to drink for themselves.

It's just painfull to see people...

One of my favorite college subjects is one called "Personal Formation". It is 3 years long and works to grow the individual in themselves. It's run as a small group (typically about 8 people) who get together over regular periods during the year to reflect on themselves, life and ministry and how God is forming them. I had my third session this year on Monday and we were introduced to the term, Missionalism. This is the tipping point from being a sucessful leader and drawing yourself into a cult of personality and sucess. And I'm prone for it!

It's said that the very best salesmen will sell you something you don't need, don't want and can't afford and afterwards you will thank them for the privilege. That's the kind of thoughts that come to me when I think of the Catholic church in the Middle Ages. It's not that their product (eternal salvation) isn't needed; it's not that you don't really want it, it's the fact that they are trying to sell you something that you can have for free! They were selling ice to Inuit's and everybody was grateful for the privilege. Well, not everyone was happy. The Catholic church had this nice little racquet going

As I mentioned earlier, we are now in the third week of our eight week bible study series on the beatitudes and I don't think things could be going better. There is a lot of conversation being generated by the participants and even new groups coming on board since it kicked off. We now have close to 100% adult participation which I believe is a testimony to how God is working in the lives of our church at the moment. Besides running my own group, I'm attending one of the new groups that were formed for the study (and I believe will continue to progress afterwards). It's been a strange experience for me to not be in the drivers seat but God is certainly working through the new leader (who had a great mentor :) to bring out His agenda for the group. It's this group leaders first time of leading "full time" and I've been encouraging him along the journey but I thought I should share some of the insights I've had with him.

This was a very exciting weekend for me, I had the honour of performing two baptism's. The first was my grandmother who I've mentioned previously. It was a very emotional experience for the both of us, and I will admit I was a little nervous in doing it. I'm not exactly sure why I was nervous, public speaking isn't an issue for me, but I did use an unfortunate word, I announced that we had three "victims" who were being baptized, definitely poor phrasing and a couple of people mentioned it to me afterwards.  

Here's an action shot of Gran going into the drink :)

There were three people being baptized, the second was John, a man who has come into our church through the soup kitchen (well it's really a BBQ) that we run every fortnight in a block of housing commission flats. Although I wasn't doing the baptizing I had an indirect hand in it. My dad was the one to baptize John! I had the pleasure of baptizing my dad a couple of years back and to see him growing in God like this is just amazing!!!

Here is the two of them before it happened. (Dad's on the left :)

Just over a year ago Sally and I made some new friends, Gary and Rhiannon. They started coming to our church and soon after to our bible study. We have been blessed to know them and travel with them in their Spiritual journeys as well as seeing their family begin to grow with a beautiful little boy. I'm usually someone who has a lot of acquaintances but not many close friends, Gary and Rhiannon were fast friends and we love them a lot.

Rhiannon expressed her desire for baptism some time ago and after a little electronic cajoling (I love email) she hopped in to be buried with Christ and identify publicly with his resurrection.

Here's some before and afters.

Join with me in praying for all three of them as they continue their Spiritual journey in Christ.

It’s hard to even know were to begin with this post! Thursday night I arrived home, said a quick hello and goodbye to my wife then I was whisked away to a conference centre past Kurrajong, I’m still not exactly sure where! (Not that it was a secret; I’m just bad with directions).

 

You leave your watch, phone and blackberry at the door and just allow yourself to be immersed in an environment that is full to the brim with God’s love.

 

The Walk to Emmaus is a ridged program but I didn’t have a problem with that. By ridged I probably mean structured, it uses a time proven template to lead you deeper into God’s arms and deeper into a knowledge of his grace.

 

One person articulated that on his first walk he soon had the program figured it out, the program is there to break you, and he’s right. Have you ever seen one of those war movies like “Band of Brothers” or “Full Metal Jacket”? The latter particularly shows how the U.S. Marine corps has designed their regimen to crack every single recruit and then rebuild them in their image.

 

Emmaus is sort of like the Marine Corps, only much better and with a lot more food! (I think I have gone off lollies). The talks and times of Spiritual devotion are all designed to break the crusty shell of self hate, sin, pride, false conviction, whatever is in the way of us and God, and allow God to minister directly to our spirit.

 

This breaking is done in an atmosphere far from the Marine Corps, it is done with the lavishing of God’s love on the participants. From the table leaders, the Spiritual and Lay directors to those who faithfully wait on you during your meal times, so when you do find yourself broken before God (as I did) you are not cold and alone but surrounded by examples of His grace.

 

All in all, it was an intensely personal experience that left me confronted, sometimes in a state of shock (in awe of God’s love shown through others) but most of all, closer to God. May I remain broken in his presence.

 

De colores!