Doh!

We visited a local church on Christmas day, for the first time. We actually enjoyed it - it felt quirky and therefore similar to the church we ministered in and loved in Liverpool - Trinity Church, Page Moss. Half way through the service an elderly lady appeared, dressed from head to toe in pink, complete with angel wings and halo - not, as we assumed, to take part in the service, but just because it was fun to dress that way. The service proceeded normally, but you had the feeling that chaos or comedy was never far away. Our kind of church.

Then the service ended, we shook hands with the Vicar, and came home. Which disappointed me, because the members of that church should have been all over us like a rash. A family, two middle aged parents, a son of 24 and a daughter of 18 - families like us are gold dust in church these days. Maybe they assumed we were just visitors to the area, or once-a-year churchgoers - but the point is, nobody even asked. They don't have any contact details for us, so there will be no follow up. Honestly - pathetic and tragic.

Compare this to Mike's recent trip to the dentist for a check up. They found nothing that needed any work doing - but all the same, a day after his visit a postcard arrived welcoming him to the practice.

If we can't even get the very basic concepts of welcome and care for people when they visit our churches, then there is little hope. So we're going to go back to that failing church, and see if we can change things round!

Thoughts and Prayers

I write this blog as Christchurch struggles to cope with yet more powerful aftershocks. The social media sites have been filled with messages of support, a simple, immediate and effective way of conveying our deep and sincere sympathy for the folk of that battered city.

I was provoked to write again after a long silence by one such twitter - which ended "my thoughts are with you all again today". While understanding the sentiment, I was struck by what an impotent expression of support this is. Thoughts alone offer no hope, no solution, and little comfort.

My experience so far has been that my Christian faith is at its best and most useful in times of crisis and emergency. To be able to send the promise of prayers is so much more powerful a statement - that into this mess we can intentionally invite the Lord God Almighty, Creator of the Universe, Lord of Lord and King of Kings - offers supreme hope, consolation and a little optimism.

So with joy I send my prayers to the distraught and drained folk of Christchurch; to a friend's friend whose son who has Spinal Muscular Atrophy; indeed to anyone, anywhere, at any time. Prayers do not arouse God to action, or bring him into a situation - as Bishop Kelvin wrote "God is not, cannot be absent." But they serve to remind us that he is available, and able, if we can but see.

Very Important Things

I did one very important thing today.
I spoke with a Bishop, but it wasn't that.
I booked into a significant and strategic conference, but it wasn't that either.
I helped make a major step in deciding Church Army's future internationally, but it wasn't that either.

It was this...I went for a jog, and came across a (non-Christian)friend of a (non-Christian) friend. I stopped to chat, interrupting my exercise, and he introduced me to two more (non-Christian) friends. And so the Kingdom spreads, "The kingdom of heaven is like yeast that a woman took and mixed into a large amount of flour until it worked all through the dough."

Jesus while on earth seems to have spent most of his time simply being with people, and I intend to do more of just that.

Much ado

A modern day parable. We have a little solar flower, which sits near one of our big French windows, soaking up the sun, and for most of nearly every day it is a minor flurry of activity, with leaves and flower moving constantly in a pleasingly un-coordinated manner!
During a time of prayer today, Monika rightly observed that our little solar flower is symbolic of much of church life, and our own. We soak up energy from the Son, and respond by producing a flurry of un-coordinated activity - which, just like our little flower, produces absolutely nothing. Being active but producing nothing is what the flower is supposed to do - and achieving this gets the flower noticed, as it taps irritatingly against its plastic flower pot.
I shall remember that flower each day, and pray that I may be saved from such unproductive activity, designed to attract attention but to produce nothing. I shall take the flower to meetings, to help save us from such a fate. I shall share this parable with anyone who will listen. And in doing so my unproductive solar flower will bless others in spite of itself - as God, in His mercy, enables me to do.

Value judgement

One of the new stated values of Church Army NZ is "Sharing Jesus radically on the margins." But I have moments of self-doubt when I am no longer sure that I know where the margins are or who dwells there, let alone how to begin sharing Jesus with them.

We could discuss further, read more books, attend other conferences and write further documents, because that seems to be the default position of much of Christendom. I am aware of the great danger I am in - as I train others in evangelism, run seminars and workshops in evangelism, speak at conferences in evangelism, enable and support others in evangelism - that I forget how to actually connect with the hope-less and unlovely and invite them to follow me in the most exciting, exasperating, exhausting journey ever - as a follower of Jesus.

So this Sunday we are heading for the margins - otherwise known as Avondale Market. Here thousands gather week after week to browse, socialise, saunter, and occasionally purchase. A minority are white. The Christians will be there, faithfully witnessing, apparently oblivious to the fact that nobody is listening.

Our task is both simpler and infinitely more complex. We will seek the margins, to see who we find there. A read of the Gospels tells me that Jesus spent most of his time at the margins - in a social, religious, moral and physical sense - so I expect to meet him there, along with some of his friends. We will seek to follow Jesus on the margins and see who joins in. I might get a whole new seminar out of this!

Balanced evangelism

I struggle sometimes with the tension between "proclamation evangelism", and "presence evangelism". Speaking words that nobody has any interest in is a waste of time, but just being there isn't enough either! So I found these thoughts from members of a Servants of Asia's Poor team in Mexico supremely helpful.

"Through being here we have seen the effect that living in poverty has on people’s self-belief and hope. Poverty is limitating; it entraps people in lies that speak to the very core of their being and robs them of their joy and dreams. If transformation is to come to communities and people trapped in these kind of circumstances, it has
to offer more than just financial gain or improved living conditions. While these things certainly help people to have access to better goods, services and opportunities, they don’t necessarily touch people to their core, and help bring about internal change in how they see themselves and their community. Spiritual transformation, however, has the ability to break down lies and distrust
and build healthy new paradigms and core-beliefs.

This is something that can’t be forced and can’t be achieved by what we do. It is the work of the Holy Spirit guiding and calling a person into new life with God. And it
can achieve true and lasting transformation in a person’s life. Having said this, spiritual transformation has to be wholistic. It has to touch a person’s physical needs as well. As the adage goes: a starving person thinks of nothing but food. So we need to realize that at times the best way to share God’s love with another is by offering them food when they are hungry, clothing when they have none, or friendship when they are lonely. When we fail to seek wholistic transformation our desire to see hope where there is hopelessness will always fall short."

To which I have nothing to add.

Camping out?

Normally, it is great to be in a country which leads the world in welcoming each new day - but Harold Camping, with his prediction of the world ending last Saturday at 6pm, left NZ facing the rapture before anyone else could test his prophetic accuracy. We all know now, as we knew then, that he was wrong. I was saddened by the whole sorry episode, and the way in which it brings the followers of Jesus into disrepute once again - but pleased that most Christians displayed grace and sympathy to his misguided followers, rather than ridicule or condemnation.

Repentance, admitting I got things wrong, asking for forgiveness, and expressing a desire to do better next time - this is all at the centre of the Christian life. How we are perceived as thinking that we are better than everyone else - when the reality is that we know all too well our "sinfulness" and our need for God's mercy and grace, I'm not quite sure.

But then along comes such a brother as Harold Camping. He got it wrong in 1994, and he got it wrong last Saturday. Surely now he will admit his stupidity in doing something Jesus plainly said we would not be able to do? Surely this time round he will slink off into embarrassed oblivion? Sadly - no! Instead he now informs the bemused, irritated world that the rapture will be five months later - I would tell you the actual date, but frankly, I don't care.

To slightly change a very famous prayer -
God, grant me the serenity
to accept the things about myself I cannot change;
the courage to face up to and admit and change the things I can;
and the wisdom to know the difference.