Filed under Discipleship …

Oct 13 2011
Bible, Christianity, Church, Discipleship, Faith, Jesus, leadership, wisdom

THE CHURCH BUILDING CYCLE. (ALC Network Day)@StephenMatthew_

 Stephen Matthew has become a friend whose wisdom I appreciate greatly, he has been very generous with his time and encouragement, mentoring me individually through numerous conversations over in Bradford and also coming across to meet with some of our leaders at Ivy recently as we prayed and planned into our future. He is a surveyor by background and combines theological acumen, practical skills and a pastoral heart through 25 years of ministry to be a man with a brain worth picking for anyone who wants to build a prevailing church. Here’s my notes on his talk at the ALC Network day this week: 

There are only two kinds of churches:

  1. The church everybody wants to build (It’s there in Acts 2, and the ideal church, it inspires us).
  2. The church God wants you to build.

If you try and copy the church ‘out there’ you’ll always fail.

God wants to speak to YOU about YOUR people and place. It’s always bespoke.

You work the process and start to build from scratch or reinvent what’s been built so far.

What comes next carries challenges. When people get involved. People present challenges! You hit the barriers, you get frustrated by money etc. How to sustain momentum?

One Pastor he knew, got a very excited small team around him and for two years planned to change everything. Expected eager embracing of the whole thing. It didn’t happen. Why? Well it had taken two years for him to get excited about it. It would take a while for the people to get there too!

Church building is not linear – it’s CYCLICAL.

You don’t do one bit then it’s done, then do the next bit. One thing leads to the next. There is nothing in the church building process that you change which stays the same. You have to keep spinning these plates. Every church has a building CYCLE. 8 things:

1. Communicate Clear Vision – Consistently

Tell them again and again and in various ways what kind of church you’re going to be. Through music, posters, message. Proverbs 29:18.

2. Change – in line with the Vision

This tests their trust in you. Will you DO IT?  If you’ve talked about it, you have to do some things about it. It shows you’re serious about it. Appoint new ministries etc. Start something.

3. Use the Power of a Good Report

Because some will love the change and some will hate it, and if you don’t take hold of it, the negative report will always win out. Use testimony and good report –  of lives being changed. Eventually the good will overwhelm the bad.

4. Model the Culture

People have to see it in me as the leader. I have to be devoted, if we’re going to ‘devote ourselves.’ If we’re going to reach the new culture I have to look like the church we’re going to build. ‘Set and example as a leader

5. Regularly call for the spirit of Agreement 

This usually looks like turning up. I agree – because I’m going to sign up for that and be there to help. What triggered Nehemiah to build? What he felt. He felt what God felt for the ruins of his city. We have to call people to feel it too, then pull together. Invite this agreement.

6. Call for SPECIFIC Involvement.

Because some people will lavish words of agreement on you – but it’s all words. They need eyeballing and saying, ‘We need you – HERE. Have you ever considered being involved here?’ You have to call for involvement. Get proactive in speaking to them, calling forth that involvement. Let them know how to get involved. They should increasingly feel involved, the model is that it’s all hands on deck – ‘So how do I get involved?’ Nehemiah ended up with shopkeepers and goldsmiths and priests building with him. But they all FELT IT and made the decision to build right where they are. Put a ministry fair on, with desks and stalls – and get the healthy competition going to get more people involved in something they will love that will benefit the Kingdom.

7. Celebrate their Contribution

We only survive because of our volunteer army. Honour and celebrate the volunteers. Hybels says this positive volunteer cameraderie  never happens by accident. How do you foster it? FEED them. Get them a drink. Volunteers get a sandwich. Have a volunteer party and thank and celebrate them. Depts put forward their ‘volunteer of the year.’ Usually someone hardly anyone has ever heard of.

8. Keep the Prize before their Eyes

Why are you doing this? Because it affects this... When they were building, Nehemiah had the trumpet blower at his side so if they were getting spread out they could be rallied together. Which gets you back to the top of the circle again.

When you don’t do any of this – things slow down.

What do you need to do more of in your church to keep the wheel turning?

Final observation – this needs to happen in every department of the church. For it to happen anywhere in the church it has to happen everywhere in the church. Every leader, every department. It’s not just about what comes from the platform on a Sunday.

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Oct 05 2011
Church, Discipleship, Faith, Family, Religion

BE AVAILABLE – Jon Acuff at Catalyst 2011

Quitter – Jon Acuff at Catalyst 2011

A diamond is just a rock we’ve assigned value to. Do we assign value to the wrong rocks?

How do we BE PRESENT to the things God is doing?

  1. Be available.

To what God has in motion. One sign of how available you are is how much you feed to social media. When you give life to the mobile phone rather than the people you’re actually with. Hang up before you arrive. We are the first generation that has to have a Twitter/ Facebook conversation about what they put online etc. Let the family be your family, not your content. Don’t document for strangers what your family are relating to. It makes them feel like silver medal.

Another sign? You don’t have real friendships. Who are your heart friends – those you’d really miss? Hang out with some people. Spend time with a few. Build it.

Another sign? You get drunk on what’s next and new, and miss NOW. Just sit there, and grow. Culture feeds us to think next. We want what’s new. We create a list of books just to finish them. Movies just to have watched them.

Why do I want to start a ‘new one’ – why not get behind an existing one?

In the prodigal son story, there’s an elder son – who’s not available. Too busy for the party. When the whole farm began to celebrate, he was in the field. Doing what? ‘Slaving for you!’

A beautiful picture of availabilty? Christ. He had time for tax collectors in trees and women at wells. Dinner with sinners.

How to get available.

  • Push away from the table. Self help? Don’t always try to be better at being who you are.
  • Unplug. Don’t kid yourself that how you relax is to read leadership books. every city needs its parks, green space – or it’ll suffocate! How do you cultivate space. Why do you have great ideas in the shower? Because its the only place you get quiet. Make shower moments in your week, to receive. Musician’s first albums are often great, the second is squeezed out.
  • Ask WHY. Why do I need to worry about that? Why do I need to write a book? Have you lived it yet? Ask why and a lot of problems disappear.
  • Get counselling. Why do we think it’s great to get pre-marriage counselling, but not for marrieds!? His counsellor asked him, ‘What do your voices tell you?’ Write them down. His voices say, ‘Are you happy? why don’t you do something perfectly then you’ll be happy.’ That voice sounds like a friend but it’s a foe.

Everyone hears this voice: ‘Who are YOU, to do THAT?’

We think that’s God, but it’s not. He knows who you are. He knows what you are there    for.

- Another voice, ‘You’re not as good as theirs.’ Thanks to the internet, it’s so easy to find others to compare to and we never give ourselves chance. Comparison? Never compare your beginning to someone else’s middle.

  • Another voice, ‘By now it should be… bigger/more..’ Why can’t I just learn from others? Why can’t I be humble enough – rather than have that sense of entitlement and jealous that makes you want something you don’t really want, and ignore the things you already have.
  • Another voice: ‘The critics are right.’ I brush off positives., but listen too hard to critics. Critics Math = 1000 compliments plus one insult = 1 insult. Why do we worry about one critic so much that it makes so many other thousands of positive people’s voices fade away.
  • Last voice. ‘If I had enough time, I’d do it.’ The devil is afraid of people who DO, not just DREAM. Dreamers who DO change the world. When you don’t give time to the things that matter, those things will suffer atrophy.

Luke 15:

Sheep

Coins

There was a SON….And he doesn’t explain it. In the prodigal son story, the father never says a word to the son. He never talked to him, but to the servants. What if when God’s quiet it’s not because he’s mad with us but because he’s planning a party or hugging us.

Be available to God. Get empty to let him fill you up.

Sep 04 2011
Bible, Community, Discipleship, Football, Jesus, Manchester, Prayer, prophecy, Religion, Theology, Uncategorized

Debra Green – Mountains or Fountains

My notes from this, the first talk in our 40 Days of Ivy DNA Series: RELEVANT.

People are surprised when we as a church are normal rather than ‘religious’

Text –  John 4- the samaritan woman at the well.

1) Jesus asked – ‘Will you give me a drink?’ This is a very controversial conversation for him to have at all. He’s showing us the type of Saviour he is. He’s speaking to her in her language, about her every day life and needs. Connects with the familiar.

If we want to be relevant we need to offer and speak into what people need.

Cf Breathe City Church in Stoke- their ‘When‘ ministry: giving clothes to the poor in the city. Thousands of clothing packages given.

When we meet the felt needs of people, we’ll be relevant. We’re not relevant because the worship is great or the preaching is good: people outside of church are not even asking about that anyway!

But if we help people and connect in people in prison, in debt, when we are marked by hospitality, or playing football like our new team IVY COSMOS – it’s great fun AND an opportunity for a conversation. We don’t have to fall into the sacred/secular divide mentality.

Is there someone you can have a chat with over the water?

2) Mountain or Fountain?

The Samaritans and Jews had a lot of theological, intellectual, religious debate about worship places.

The subject isn’t a bad one. There’s a lot in the Bible about mountains – but this is a religious debate that’s really a red herring / smokescreen to get away from the real issue of life: it’s not WHERE you worship, but WHO.

She’s thinking to impress him with her religious knowledge and grasp on current affairs and debate -

But Jesus says, ‘let’s not debate Mountains – I want to talk about Fountains!’

Jesus will change the question.

It’s not about the mountain of religion

It’s about the fountain of relationship.

Her heart was getting filled in all the wrong ways.

It’s not about discussing imponderables till 3am – after that question, along comes another…

come to the fountain!

The churches that are growing are those that are not stuck in religion, and my clever arguments are not going to win people over to Christ. It’s more about making Jesus accessible.

The harvest is plentiful!

Where?

Where people are. Go where people are.

Because people are dissatisfied and needing a fountain – of living water.

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Apr 15 2011
8 Comments
Bible, Christianity, Church, Discipleship, Faith, Heaven, Jesus, Religion

Why I believe – Part 3: The Crux of the matter

CS Lewis said there are only three options with regard to who Jesus is based on his claims and actions and the witness of scripture and history:

Liar?

Lunatic?

Lord?

Your decision! And not to decide is a decision. If he’s Lord – the appropriate position to connect with him, starts on our knees. He’s not a hypothesis to consider but the God we were made to worship.

There was a famous occasion where some friends of a paralysed man lowered him through the roof in a crowded home to get him to Jesus. I would have thought his most pressing need was obvious (sometimes what we think we know gets in the way of what we need to know) – he couldn’t move to walk. Paraplegic or quadriplegic. Jesus knew what he needed more, first and foremost:

 ‘Son, your sins are forgiven.’

The religious people there to check him out were amazed, not that Jesus was focusing on forgiveness – but that he was OFFERING it!

They said, ‘Who can forgive sins, except God alone?’

And you know what? They were RIGHT!

The only person who can truly forgive you is the one who you have sinned against and wronged. In forgiving sin like this, Jesus wasn’t pronouncing absolution in some general religious sense, but claiming to give what belonged to God, the ability to judge or forgive sins. How could he? Because Jesus is God.

Jesus said, ‘Trust in God – trust also in me!”

That’s the kicker. The ultimate test. Not just the perfect life, the blameless character, the unsurpassed teaching, the most powerful healing, and resurrections. Not just the offer he made to give people forgiveness of sins, and lavishly pour upon them his love forever (oh – and eternal life too!). Not just the claims to be God, to return in glory and one day be the judge of all people, when all who have ever lived will be raised from the dead. ‘Blasphemy!’ Cried his accusers.

How do you know it’s real? Jesus’ offer of love of another kind, love that surpasses knowledge – how do you know it’s for you?

That’s the CRUX of the matter, isn’t it?

As Good Friday approaches.

That word Crux of course = Latin for cross. The most important symbol of Christianity. The cross gives us the answer. The most profound thinkers have never fully grasped it. The best religious brains at the time couldn’t see what was going on. Why the cross? Why?!


Why would this wonderful God-man end up, nailed up – impaled outside the city walls on a blood stained pole, amid the flies and the heat on a cross? A death no Roman could have ever been sentenced to it was so beneath contempt. Jesus was mocked, despised, reviled, spat on, flogged. Then, it got worse. A terrible lingering half-death, until all the lights went out as his Father covered the Sun to hide the shame of it all and yet this cross is said to demonstrate God’s love to us? How come?

I watched the new movie ‘Source Code’ the other day and a recurrent theme of that is, ‘If you knew you only had a very short time to live before you died, what would you do?’ – Good film by the way!

We are in a series at Ivy Manchester looking at what have become known as ‘The seven sayings from the cross.’ We’re calling it ‘Cross words.’ It’s seven short sentences Jesus mouthed as he hung in agonised dying agony. They’re available as podcasts and this series (not yet finished) is from one of those talks.

And if you knew you only had a short time to live, and if every word meant you had to push up on a nail that held your feet to exhale it. If every sentence brought your death sentence closer and shortened your life – wouldn’t you want to make those words count?

Many people were crucified by the Romans. Thousands in a single day at times. They once ran out of wood and just nailed people to the walls around Jerusalem. Many hundreds of thousands of crosses then, but we only remember this one. Those who were dying usually shouted and swore and cursed those who put them there.

Here’s what Jesus said: in Luke 23 – ‘Father, forgive them, they don’t know what they are doing.”

But

…they did know what they were doing, didn’t they? They were whipping him, driving long cruel nails into him, putting a crown of thorns on him, and killing him – very slowly. Laughing at him the whole time.

They did know.

And the problem is, when  I sin, I do know what I do, too. All too often it’s not something that just happens, I choose to be selfish or greedy. I do know what I do.

Sometimes I justify it.

I say I can’t help it

Or nobody’s perfect

Or everyone else is just as bad

Or I’m not as bad as Adolf/Saddam/(insert name)…

But really, I do know what I do, when I do wrong.

So I don’t think that’s what he was saying, when Jesus prayed that one sentence prayer to God.

He called him FATHER.

Then… he said FORGIVE – because they knew exactly what they were doing...

But they didn’t know who they were doing it to.

Blinded by Satan and religion and jealousy and pride, they gave a criminal’s death to the Christ – the holiest, most perfect and good man who is God.

They spat on him and laughed as he died and said they were doing it for blasphemy, ‘Because you being a man, called yourself a King, the Son of God.’ There’s a dark irony in that.

They knew not what he was. They knew not what they were doing, and who to – that they were killing God. Spitting in his face.

And I don’t see what my sin is, or what it does to a holy God, either. That’s why I need what I don’t deserve. Grace. Forgiveness.

A nanny wanted to explain the reason for the cross to the children in her care and she wrote the hymn, ‘There Is A Green Hill Far Away,’ to help them get it. You might already know the words? Do you get it?

We may not know, we cannot tell,

What pains He had to bear;

But we believe it was for us

He hung and suffered there.

He died that we might be forgiven,

He died to make us good,

That we might go at last to heaven,

Saved by His precious blood.

There was no other good enough

To pay the price of sin;

He only could unlock the gate

Of heaven and let us in.

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Apr 08 2011
6 Comments
Bible, Christianity, Discipleship, Jesus, Prayer, Religion, Theology

Why I Believe – Part 2 (Does Jesus qualify as God?)

Maybe Jesus didn’t think of himself as God at all?

I went back to those eye witnesses. Christians believed it to be the sourcebook for what they believe about Jesus. And the gospel of John opens with the startling claim that Jesus, this guy John the writer knew as a best friend – he was ALSO God! ‘The Word.’ (Read Jn 1:1-3, 14).

But would Jesus agree that he really was all that – and more?

What kind of God would you want God to be, to be called God? Theologians talk about various ATTRIBUTES of God, for God to really be called God, he’d have to fit the bill.

God would have to be immutable (unchanging). The Bible says, Jesus is – the same, yesterday, today and forever.

You would think God – to be worthy of worship – would be eternal: he’d have no beginning and no end. Jesus fits the bill.

You’d want him omniscient – all knowing; and I read how Jesus met with people and knew all about them, the good, the bad and the ugly – he gave wisdom and teaching that cannot be surpassed. He knew what other people were thinking. He knew and predicted in advance time and again that he’d go to Jerusalem and be rejected, condemned, tortured, die on a cross –and rise again on the third day. He knew the past of people with a story to be ashamed of. He knew the future of the Jewish people and described it down to incredible detail. Those closest to him said, “You know all things…”

That knowledge can be a great comfort or a great problem for you.

Nobody else knows… but Jesus knows.

We’d expect God to be omnipresent. Jesus now says, “I am with you always, to the very end of the age.” He also said, “Wherever two or three gather in my name, I’m there with them.” So, Jesus is here.

We’d want God to be omnipotent: Jesus walked on water – and enabled others to at least have a go, he healed every kind of disease, set people free from dark spiritual powers that bound them, and said, “all authority on heaven and earth have been given to me.”

They say, power corrupts – and absolute power corrupts absolutely, but those who knew him best knew Jesus was HUMBLY omnipotent. Jesus can do anything!

I looked closer and found Jesus was a carpenter’s son, who grew up in a small impoverished dusty village, much more like those I saw in Haiti than here.

Fully human, He experienced the range of human emotions, sweated, ate because he was hungry and got tired and thirsty. He was tempted in every way as we are, yet didn’t give in like we do.

Fully man, but worshipped -and accepting it- as being fully God too! Fully God. God – in a body! Col 2;9 For in Him the whole fullness of Deity (the Godhead) continues to dwell in bodily form.’

As much man as if he were not God, as much God as if he were not man. The second person of the Trinity. Sent by the Father, empowered by the Holy Spirit, to be Saviour of the world.

From his birth – he shared and received the glory and honour due to God and never tried to stop anyone who gave that to him. Throughout his life he expected not just to be respected as a rabbi, a prophet, a holy man, but to be worshipped and adored by all creations, all people and even the angels as the Lord, the only God. For all eternity He said that all should honour him, the Son, as they honoured the Father! (John 5:23)

That would be an OUTRAGEOUS claim for a human being. He said that he always did what God the Father wanted him to do. He said people’s eternal destinies hung on how they responded to him – because he had the power of life and death.

He said, ‘I am the door, I am the bread of life, I am the resurrection and the life…’

Who?!

Who do you think you are Jesus?!

‘I am the way, the truth and the life!’

The New Testament doesn’t just describe him as a spokesman of God, like Isaiah or Moses was. No. He was the person of God – revealing himself as a person, so we wouldn’t have to guess what God’s like any more. Because we could never guess accurately his indescribable beauty, holiness, justice, power and love – God sent his Son.

Christ, the very best the Father had, who pre-existed as God, who was actually ‘here’ before here was here – steps into the world he created it to rescue it, to write himself into the story, be born of a woman that first Christmas, and die on a cross for our sins that first Easter. He expected that people would pray to him as to God, and as you look in the book of Acts, you see the very first Christians did! They called him Lord. They refused to call Caesar Lord, and died for that.

They sang praises to, and about his name. He said they should obey him as they’d obey God. They expected him to answer prayers – and he did!

I haven’t time to go into the evidence of the resurrection now, and you can look around on that yourself, though I’m so look forward to our big party at Gorton Monastery on Easter Sunday – because Jesus said he’d die and three days later be raised to life, and then he left the tomb and appeared that first Easter.

And again. And again and again – over 40 days, to friends, to family, to doubters – up to 500 of them at once – and gave them ‘many convincing proofs’ that he was the same man, the same God, the same Lord.

Oh, and he has met with me and multiple millions since to change our lives, destinies and eternities.

Thomas, doubting Thomas, said. “I won’t believe- unless I put my fingers in the nail holes.” Jesus appeared to him and said, “Go on then!”  (I paraphrase).

Then Thomas knelt down right there and then and said of Jesus, “My Lord…and my God!” When you see who Jesus is, and you see how wrong you have been – that’s the only appropriate response.

Apr 04 2011
Bible, Christianity, Church, Discipleship, Faith, history, Jesus, Manchester, Religion, Theology

Why I believe – Part 1.

What brought me to become a Christ follower was a truth encounter.

I didn’t find Jesus’ face in my toast one morning or anything like that -

My lovely Christian friends Mr and Mrs Kitcatt may like this picture

I was a police officer – used to examining evidence and coming to conclusions as a result of that investigation. I knew how to look at evidence. And I also knew how to face facts. If the implication of the evidence was that Jesus is who he claimed to be – the one and only Son of God, then that changes EVERYTHING.

If that really were true, then I would have to make a choice – to follow him; or try to forget him.

I’d been on the trail of happiness, meaning and purpose – searching in various areas and come up empty. I’d tried my best to live a good life (by my standards anyway), but had a trail of broken promises and resolutions to show for it. In my life I’d swung at times from believing in Jesus like I had done Santa as child, to ditching him along with church. Eventually after a wander through some new age and comparative religions I heard the Marxist phrase about religion being ‘the opiate of the people,’ which made me sound clever in the pub and came to regard Jesus  as a mythical figure, or if he did ever exist he was either a irrelevant prophet or a religious nutcase out to stop people from having fun.

Then, in pursuit of a particular girl, I ended up at a church event that was fun, with a speaker who was interesting and passionate, met a group of people who had a peace I couldn’t understand and a joy – despite living in the same world I did – I knew I hadn’t found elsewhere; and they said it was all wrapped up in knowing this Jesus.

I figured I’d been wrong about church, wrong about (some) Christian ministers, wrong about Christian music and drama – maybe I’d been wrong about Christ? That was enough to get me looking. .

Over a period of time, most importantly, I started to look at what the witnesses had to say. That’s the policeman’s first job.

I interrogated 4 guys, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. They wrote four accounts that have survived pretty much as written all these centuries. These guys claimed to have known this Jesus. I checked out their credentials and saw that what we call the gospels rank as some of the best attested historical documents in existence. Written within thirty of forty years of Jesus’ death and the resurrection which they all reported. Like all good witness statements they’re told from different perspectives of the eye witnesses, but the events and central figure they describe are clearly the same. They haven’t been embroidered or materially changed since they were first written down.  I went to the John Rylands library in Manchester city centre to actually see one of the most ancient part manuscripts, from the gospel of John, dated around 125AD!

I found that it wasn’t just the gospel writers who focused on Jesus. Aristocratic Romans wrote about this peasant in backwater Jerusalem. Pliny wrote letters to the Emperor Trajan saying how much trouble he was having getting these people to worship the Emperor. He had tried various means to force them and he asked about their religion. ‘They meet on a fixed day before dawn and sing a hymn to Christ as to a god, and to bind themselves by oath…not to commit fraud, theft, or adultery, not falsify their trust…I judged it all the more necessary to find out what the truth was by torturing two female slaves who were called deaconesses. But I discovered nothing else but depraved, excessive superstition.’ He went on to say that those who renounced faith in Christ would be set free, but those who did, he felt, were not really Christians anyway.

The Governor of Turkey at the time, Tacitus, wrote about this new religion: “the name Christian comes to them from Christus, who was executed in the reign of Tiberius by the procurator Pontius Pilate…”

He was against this new cult, remember!

How fast did this religion grow and spread across the Empire? Jesus was crucified in AD 33, the city of Pompeii near Naples was destroyed by volcano 46 years later, Christian wall paintings, mosaics and inscriptions are there….together with a chapel!

Jewish writers didn’t want to give much mention of Jesus because they saw it of course as a threat to their religion. But the Mishna do mention Yesuah of Nazareth as a trouble causer, an illegitimate man whose birth was in doubt, who did magic to lead people astray, before he was hanged on the eve of the Passover.

Flavius Josephus, the greatest Jewish historian, who was certainly not interested in promoting Christianity, writing in AD90, said in one of his twenty books of Jewish history;  Now there arose at this time (Pilate’s governorship) a source of further trouble in one Jesus, a wise man who performed surprising works, a teacher of men who gladly welcome strange things. He led away many Jews, and also many of the Gentiles. He was the so-called Christ. When Pilate, acting on information supplied by the chief men around us, condemned him to the cross, those who had attached themselves to him at first did not cease to cause trouble, and the tribe of Christians, which has taken this name from him is not extinct even today.” (FF Bruce’s version).

So Jesus existed. Search for Jesus on Amazon and you’ll find 270,000 books and counting! Google him and you get 300 million references. But what’s so special about him? Wasn’t he just a travelling teacher or a religious rabble-rouser like those people in history and those who put him on a cross believed? Or wasn’t he just a nice, good man who went around in a nightie carrying lambs and was misunderstood? Wouldn’t he be turning in his grave at the thought that people were still following him – as God!? Maybe he didn’t think of himself as God at all?

My next post will continue the story…

Feb 21 2011
Bible, Christianity, Discipleship, Holy Spirit, Theology

Alan Taylor at Ivy MCR on Ecclesiastes 2

Ecclesiastes 2:1-11

Haagan Daas ice cream advert – says it gives you the desires of your heart in a way that lasts and lasts.
Yeah, right.

Advertisers know we are wired for pleasure

What’s that got to do with God?
It has everything to do with him because you were made to be a worshipper

Where are your desires? Do you enjoy God? If you do, you can have everything else!

Solomon’s wealth has been estimated at $126 Billion!

We live in a hedonistic world. Check out the student lifestyle- sex and drugs and party to truly be ALIVE.

It promises life.
The bible warns of the evil desires of youth. Some never grow up!

Pleasure in anything else but God will not satisfy, neither will performance. How do we know? Solomon tested it. Other are testing it now and being broken in the tests.

Wine and folly:
33,000 deaths in UK every year through alcohol. Look at any casualty dept to see this incredible brokenness.
40% in casualty there through alcohol.
Do not be drunk with wine, be filled with the Spirit! Why? So I can be myself, not get drunk & pretend to be someone else.

Sex?
He had 700 wives and 300 concubines! Go to freshers week and you’ll see how crazy this casual sex goes and how many abortions (106 a day) and the escalating number of STDs there are.

We are aiming natural desires at the wrong target.

Could be football, work, eating: promises Life; but deceives you- because only God can satisfy.

What do we abstain from – to gain Him? Choose something 40 days, no coffee: no football: because it may have a hook in my heart and I want God to have it all.

Are we interceding for our nation? Be a watchman on the Walls.

Performance can be an idol. Status.
We could love our to do list. This doesn’t mean we are passive! But Solomon built great buildings etc. Nothing satisfied him.

What are we going after? Is our first desire the Kingdom?

That’s not to say we get caught up in religious activity all the time if that’s for approval of others, or even God.

Antidote? Sabbath means stop, cease, be fully OFF. Get some worship music on, get into enjoying Gods presence!

Solomon outperformed & outachieved us all- there’s always going to be someone better!

Bs 11 & 12.
It’s vain!
Pleasure is not found in selfishness but in serving! Did you learn to love? Everything else is vanity!

Jesus said there will come a day when the ‘love of most will grow cold.’ We have to live as if Jesus could come back very soon. Are our hearts hot toward him? We are in a selfish & individualistic culture. Will we be different?
Love most. Sacrifice most.

The only real pleasure is in God , who is’ most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in him’ (Piper)

God is glorified by people who get satisfied in Him. Seek first the Kingdom. He can add the rest!

Satisfied doesn’t mean you have settled on a level. What’s your vision for your relationship with God?

Real life isn’t found on a pleasure ride, or religious performance – but receiving. Finding our true home. Entering into the divine life.
How to pray?
Please and thank you

Please Holy Spirit, fill me.
Thank-you that you do..!

Dec 19 2010
Bible, Christianity, Christmas, Church, Discipleship, Faith, Manchester, Prayer, prophecy, Religion, REVIVAL, Theology, wisdom

How Wise Are You?

Great talk for Christmas by Debra Green at Ivy MCR this evening- my notes…

The Wise men. We don’t know how many came, but they had three gifts. The most Jewish of the synoptic gospel writers wants to tell us about these people & the universality of the good news.
The shepherds are in.
These magi – are included.
Unlikely guest list!
Only those with eyes to see. Those who are seeking, find.
It’s hard these days to get Christmas cards – only 1% of cards have a ‘religious’ sense.
£16.7 Billion will be spent this Christmas by Britons. Many will go into more and more debt?
How wise are we?!
Could it have been a supernova?
Or just the manifestation of the glory of God? Because it was moving.
It seems only the magi saw the star. By that, Christ was revealed. Jesus then becomes the star. The star of the show.
There’s a move to remove Christ from Christmas.
Our job is to reveal him to the world.
How?
By speaking of him.
This is great news for all people!
When you follow a star, & find a stable.
Disappointed?
They went to the palace to look for him.
But he went where least expected.
You could be looking for a star & find a stable. After a long journey.
Not what we were expecting?
But something amazing is there.
The Magi’s job was to be interpreting signs for life, the signs of the times. Some take this as a word that astrology is okay. Today so many are into horoscopes etc – it’s a dangerous guide!
Lev 20:6 & many other passages warns against such.

It needs the church, to reveal Jesus.
God is bringing light to great darkness – Is 9.
The North Star is the only one to be guided by. If you lose it, you will get lost.
Jesus is our North Star!
If you seek him
Get on the journey
Search
He’s looking for you
Revealing himself
You will find the one you are looking for. He is your direction.

The Wise men made the wise choice. They worshipped him.
Lay face down before him.

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Oct 06 2010
Catalyst Conference 2010, Church, Discipleship, Faith

Alan and Debra Hirsch – UNTAMED at #Cat 10

Seminar by missiologist Alan Hirsch and co-writer (and wife!) Debra Hirsch on true discipleship. Anyone who’s read The Forgotten Ways knows this has to be good. Anyone who hasn’t read it really should! They are a couple of way cool Aussies.


Not sure at the moment whether I’ll come back for the evening lab session or just get the CD. Have to finish the last chapter of my book while I’m over here!

Their new book is called UNTAMED. They wrote it in Idaho – in a snowstorm. It’s all about discipleship.

What’s missional discipleship?

Discipleship is a strategic issue. Fail there, fail everywhere. Churches that really change the world are raising disciples that change their world. They were together in church ministry for 16 years in Melbourne. Obviously there are highs and lows in that. Some people, friends, didn’t remain on the path of discipleship..

What are the obstacles on that path?

1) Theological – when we get God wrong, we’ll be wrong all over the place. Now we all get theology wrong – in heaven we’ll find we did well to get 6 out of 10 for that – but we need to be clear on the Trinity.

2) Consumerism. Money, Richard Foster’s Money Sex & Power should be required reading. Materialism is an alternative religion. It’s the air we breath and don’t even notice. More, more, more – and craving recognition etc. People get identity, belonging, purpose etc fro what they buy

3) Church. What we do and how we are is very consumerist. put the money on the plate and did I get anything out of it? Get rid of clergy/laity divide. Men & women in partnership.

4) Personal. (Identity & sexuality). These are huge issues for the church. What IS the family?

Missional Incarnational practices. 6 Ps in the book to bring into our lives to do that.

The Bible is explicit in talking about idolatry. Anything that takes us away from loyalty to God. Discipleship is removal of idols.

We need to look at Monotheism. Tim Keller has written a book on Money sex & Power too and frames it as idolatry. To engage our culture with only ‘you are a sinner before a holy God’ and they don’t feel guilty before we make them feel better that’s not going to us being good news folk.

Idolatry is how to engage in modern people. Do you feel like a sinner? No.

Do you feel obsessed with relationships? Overworked – yes.

When Deut 6 talks about God as One – it says that in the context of their being many gods worshipped in various spheres of life (agriculture, work, family etc). The Shema declares Yahweh is ONE. He claims all aspects of our lives. You are not to distribute your life across all the other Gods.

This is the metaphor of discipleship – to bring your whole life under God and away from those idols that offer much but give nothing.

Discipleship = offering my will back to God. The one God.

We find ourselves overwhelmed by all the competing gods. CS Lewis says you can love even your wife too much if you love her more than God. First& second loves.

This is Shema spirituality. Jesus said there’s only this – Love the one God, and love people.

Now we could say didn’t the people of Israel confess monotheism but practice polytheism?

Don’t we?

We have to look at how we worship the One God.

We have made the nuclear family an idol – we’ve bought into a pattern which closes off our family. If we lived more like and extended, embracing family – brings in your friends etc – broaden it out. Refocus the family! It’s become about looking after me & mine instead of looking to the world around us.

When we look at evangelism – we have an idea about passing on information about Jesus that calls forth a response. But we have to look at it in the context of discipleship.

Cf, The great commission. We’re to disciple the nations. There is pre-conversion discipleship and post-conversion discipleship. Invest in people far from God, work with the Imago Dei in them and then after that – it’s the Imago Christi. This commits us relationships all along the journey.

In social set theory they look at closed & bounded sets. Some are IN and OUT and there are walls of conformity to show who is who and where they are.

Traditional model – We are IN church. We go OUT to the world and get people to BELONG, BELIEVE the same as us and BEHAVE the same. It’s all about getting them to conform. Then our job’s done.

Jesus clearly addressed that model in many parables! because some people who look in and out and vice versa. We tend to focus on the externals.

More helpful model = the centred set. Jesus is at the centre – and everyone is in some way relating to Jesus. Some are way away and facing away. Some are close and facing in. We are to disciple everyone not just the Christians. Point them all to the CENTRE.

Our role is to call forth the Image of God in everyone. They are created in the Image of God, so while sin is very real and a destructive force; it’s marred the image.

A Japanese tourist met afarmer in the outback. Saw a lot of sheep roaming about. Asked, ‘There are no fences  - how do you keep them in?’

Answer – “We don’t need to build fences – we just dig a well and the sheep don’t wander very far.”

If we believe Jesus is the living water, we don’t major on rules and regulations. (High conformity)

Instead – Taste and see!

When we Jesus disciples born again?

Probably at Pentecost – they were pre conversion disciples until then. Relationally rich & loved.

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