I don’t know whether my talk last Sunday was actually recorded because we’ve been having hassle with that, but the main focus was ‘Why we need each other.’ Let me summarise it. Our culture applauds independence. But we read in Romans 12: “Just as our bodies have many parts and each part has a special function, so it is with Christ’s body. We are many parts of one body, and we all belong to each other.” That means people need people. Too often we don’t realise how much we need every other member of the church – we think independence, not interdependence. God wired all of us in such a way that we can only fulfil his purposes for our lives in community, in relationship to each other. That’s what we’re going to be looking at as a church family for the next 40 days, 40 Days of Community. We looked at three reasons why it’s great to be in a small group with a few other friends who you get to know on a deeper level than just casual […]
Author: Anthony Delaney
I speak, I write, I lead.
Never Walk Alone
Out of the jungle
I’m reading General William Booth’s classic ‘In Darkest England and the Way Out.’ (You can download it free if you follow the link). Well worth reading on its own merit – a book years ahead of its time, very influential in social policy and politics. Booth starts by reminding his readers of Mr Stanley’s (‘Dr Livingstone I presume?’- actually he probably never said it) exploration through the Congo, the descriptions of which were being read voraciously all across Britain at the time. I just returned from speaking at a funeral and my mind went off at a tangent as it does, I was struck by certain parallels. Stanley was describing to his readers in Victorian England what they could not perceive. ‘The Lost Continent.’ Darkest Africa. Pygmy tribes and cannibals. How could they imagine ‘forests’ (he uses the word because the word jungle hadn’t yet been coined) larger than France, where it poured rain every day and the sun rarely pierced the canopy? Then there are the tribes Stanley encountered. They had never seen a white person before. He describes […]
Fix Your Eyes
Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. Standing waiting for buses as a kid, I always could read which one it was before everyone else. At the age of 16 I went to get my eyes tested, as part of the preliminaries for joining the Police Cadets, I whizzed through the usual chart on the wall, and just to be smart read out the tiny writing at the bottom saying where the chart was made and who by. They put me on some other machines, testing for colour blindness and then depth perception – I recall looking down a tunnel and having to say what position various dots were on targets. At the end of the session, the Doctor said, “Well Mr Delaney, you have sniper vision.” I was devastated! I had wanted to be in the police so much, but I had some awful condition that he’d […]
BUT
Personally I really loved the film, Zoë didn’t like it at all – said it was one of the worst things she’d ever seen. It was called No Country for Old Men, and it swept the board at the Oscars this year. And I am not going to give the end away except to say that when it ended – all around the cinema, there was a collective “What?” People didn’t ‘get’ the ending. A Vicar friend told me years that if I wanted to imagine a world without God, I should see a film called Seven. It is a horrible film. The thing is, the ending of it is so shocking- because you’ve been preconditioned to expect a good ending, and you don’t get a good ending. Evil triumphs. It’s awful! I was kind of in shock for days after that film. It’s a bit like when we watched a film called Jude – based on Thomas Hardy’s Jude the Obscure, it’s just so depressing, and that’s the happy bits! The thing is with these stories, we don’t want […]
What day is it?
Years ago I took a large cross out on the day before Easter and preached out in the street. Some people became Christians that day, including a young gypsy guy who’d been driving past in a van – he later admitted he was off to do something illegal – he saw a man with a cross, stopped to listen to the message, and when I approached him he said, “Yeah – you got me.” Within minutes he gave his life to the Lord of the cross. Oh happy day 🙂 That same day, I was approached by a furious woman, who told me in no uncertain terms that this was ‘the wrong day to do this.’ It would have been okay to carry a cross in some solemn religious procession on Good Friday, but didn’t I know this was Easter Saturday – the wrong day! Well, today is in fact Holy Saturday so she was doubly wrong, because it is also the day of salvation! A couple of years ago I received an irate letter from a local person here […]
See the invisible
The invisible man married the invisible woman. They’re fine – but the kids aren’t much to look at. ‘Doctor! Doctor! I think I’m invisible.’ Sorry, I can’t see you right now. If in doubt, start with a lame joke. Or two. Then let me point you to something amazing you have to watch Rowan Atkinson must have seen the unseen, to help others to see it there. I was just listening to a Bill Hybels talk where he admits that people might think he’s all about applying leadership principles and strategies, but he says a huge amount of what he does and has done is (to use his words) ‘very mystical.’ He talks about hearing God’s whisper and going with that. We aren’t very good at focusing on the invisible. We like the seen, the known, the safe. I love the Billy Graham quote you can hear sampled on DC Talk’s Jesus Freak album, on the track – ‘In my mind’s eye.’ Can you see God? You haven’t seen him? I’ve never seen the wind. I see the effects of […]
The wisdom of crowds?
The Wisdom of Crowds: Why the Many Are Smarter Than the Few and How Collective Wisdom Shapes Business, Economies, Societies and Nations, was written by James Surowiecki to argue that decisions are often better made by a group than could have been made by any single member of the group (the whole group is smarter than even the smartest person in it). He does go on to say that it matters how the group is made up, that people in it should be allowed independence, diversity of opinion etc., rather than just advocating crowd psychology as the answer to everything. These democratic wiki days attribute a great deal of prestige to wisdom of the many, but I have to ask – is it at the expense of the individual? What if the crowd is wrong? What if there’s just a trend, or a panic, or pressure to conform? The Bible says, “Do not conform to the pattern of this world.” I love that bit on Life of Brian when he shouts at the crowd, ‘You’re all individuals!’ Check out the […]
Wrong about everything
Sometimes I read a book or hear a talk that makes me think just about everything else I’ve ever read or heard about it is wrong. If the subject is something trivial like, say, what’s the best car on the market, or how to bake a souffle – who cares. But when the book is about what you have devoted the greatest part of your adult life to, and which you intend to devote the rest of your life to, that’s either infuriating, exciting, terrifying or shattering. Or all of the above. Yesterday I read a book that nearly did that, I read it in one sitting: Gary Bishop’s book Darkest England and the way back in is phenomenal and very challenging, but left me with some, “Yes but hows” personally. I cried a couple of times reading it, was challenged by the terrible injustices of a nation like Britain where the poor are desperate to hear the gospel but hardly anyone goes with it, while we encourage consumerist Christianity that has a form of religion but denies its power. […]
There but for the grace of God goes Anthony Delaney
They say everyone has a double. To have a double and a namesake appear on the same page of a paper is quite disconcerting! A number of friends have been kind enough to point me to various news sites featuring another Anthony Delaney, also 43 years of age – I know I don’t look it 🙂 My homeless namesake was living at Gatwick Airport for months, until magistrates found him in breach of his ASBO and brought it to an end. If you follow the link you’ll even see that they picture Tom Hanks from his overly cute 2004 film The Terminal . I was told by a nurse years ago that I look a bit like Tom Hanks, those of you who know me may agree or disagree? Let me know. Do you know what came to mind as I read the other Mr Delaney’s sad story – knowing that if Jesus hadn’t put his hand on me and called me to follow him, I could well have ended up in as sorry a state or worse? ‘There but […]
HECKLERS
I’m reading a book about stand up comedy. Really very good, it’s helping me think about how to connect better with those I’m speaking to, especially in church. I was thinking I might even try out at an ‘open mike’ session somewhere, some time. One good section was about hecklers, and various ways comedians deal with them. My favourite approach is Harry Hill’s, who says ‘he found suitably surreal ways of answering hecklers, like telling them, “You heckle me now, but I’m safe in the knowledge that when I get home, I’ve got a nice chicken in the oven.”‘ Made me laugh anyway. I don’t get ‘heckled’ much when I’m speaking, unless it’s street preaching where I’ve had a few people swear at me and shout out to put me off. At my home church up North we used to have a disturbed lady who’s undress in the middle of sermons (not mine). Reading through the gospels it’s interesting that we think of Jesus as a teacher, yet much of what he did was not didactic ‘sermon on the mount’ […]