For the First Time...

I've been enjoying a new experience. For the first time (and hopefully the last time) I've had the joys of type-setting this month's Church magazine. Not really something that falls neatly into the role of treasurer I agree, but due to illness, busyness and general lack of experience with Publisher, it turned out that this month I was best placed to do the job.

And actually, I've quite enjoyed doing it. Okay, it was made easy for me - I had the template from before, I had the articles written by others - and there are lots of articles - and I had the computer and software already sorted out - I just needed to sit there and work out the best way to fit things in, to play with titles, to move boxes around - to make sure that what comes out is a professional looking communication - something which lets those within and outside our family get a little taste for what we're about.

This sort of stuff is important. As a church we have literally hundreds of  people coming in and out of our buildings every week - people who's only contact with us is their use of our rooms. Yes, they meet our people - and the cafe staff, and the receptionists and the staff who are in the building all the time do a really great job of talking to people and making them feel welcome. But one of the easiest and best ways for people to find out a bit about us is to be able to give them a lively, interesting and easy to read magazine, which shows a little of what we do, a little of why we do it, and hopefully a lot of Jesus in the process.

Which leaves me wondering, does my life serve the same purpose? Do people look at me, and, knowing that I'm a Christian, see something they like? Do they see the good things I experience from being part of a church, reflected back to them, or do they see someone weighed down with responsibility and restricted by duty and obligation? Most importantly, do they see the love of God, the mercy, grace and forgiveness that I have received, or do they see the judgementalism and legalism that they expect from Christians? Do they see, in me, at least a little bit of Jesus? 

Knows Me By Name

After a busy day, I'm sat down in front of the TV, watching the England / France Rugby match with Mrs W (we don't know the score so if you read this before about 9pm, DON'T TELL US!). I do like international rugby, but unlike my wife, I wouldn't really identify myself as a rugby fan - football is really my game (if you can really call supporting Ipswich liking football...).

But Sarah definitely identifies herself as a rugby fan, and more importantly (to her at least), an England Rugby fan. Most of the time, in most things, she'd call herself British I'm sure, but when it comes to Rugby, she's definitely English! 

Now I don't think there's anything wrong with supporting, even passionately supporting a sporting team, especially one with which you have a connection... but the where that kind of thing goes wrong is when we can't leave that part of our identity behind. If the time comes when I, as an Ipswich football fan, find it impossible to be friends with a Norwich fan, thats when I've lost the plot about who I really am -- and when so called sporting fans turn into hooligans as a way of "supporting" their team - then that is just plain stupid. 

As human beings we are obsessed with our identity, with asserting who we are, making it clear what we stand for, stamping our feet and shouting about ourselves. We define ourselves by our nationality, or our race, or our sexuality. We classify ourselves by our religious or our political beliefs. We draw lines, divide ourselves up, and pretty soon end up isolated, because actually, when we identify so strongly in this way, we find actually, no-one else shares our personal identity enough to actually get along with them.

And yet, when we do this, we miss the basic, fundamental, most important part of our identity - that of being a child of God. And that is an identity that we share with every single other person on this planet - individuals yes, but individuals who are equally loved and cared for by the God who knows each and everyone of us by name. Yes, he has made us all different, all unique and special, but not so that we can divide and despise - so that together we can help each other, carry one and other, provide and care and love one another, in the way that He loves each and everyone of us. 

So instead of stamping our feet and asserting our individuality, if we can only remember this true identity, then our differences become something to be celebrated and enjoyed, not hated and despised. So even while I watch this match, I need to remember that the other side are God's children too -- even the French! ;-)

Got some questions to ask of you

Sometimes it seems that there are more questions than answers... more things that don't make sense than that do. Things where, even, when I know God is at work and in control, it doesn't seem that way, things which make me want to cry out "Where are You in this God?", "What are You doing here?", "Why is this happening?" Things which just seem to confuse and confound and destabilise.

Again and again this Lent things seem to be coming back to these words from Isaiah --

"For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts."

-- because things seem to be happening around me which just don't make sense.

At the end of the day though, I don't think God minds the questions. I think he's big enough to take my confusion, to take my questions, to let me ask the "Why?" questions that don't seem to have obvious answers. After all, as all parents know, their children love to ask "Why?", and as parents we just have to be patient with those Why questions, answering those we can and recognising that sometimes, the answer is just too complicated for the asker to comprehend.

Of course, as parents we also recognise that sometimes our children are too busy asking the "Why?" questions to actually listen to the answer. Maybe we need to remember that when we're asking questions of God - perhaps, when I've ranted, questioned, despaired and complained enough, I need to shut up for a few minutes and listen - maybe God actually will answer. But even if he doesn't I need to remeber those words of Isaiah once more, and to trust that He knows what He's doing, even if it doesn't make a lot of sense in the eyes of "Impatient from Coventry".

You Speak of Signs and Wonders

There are some fantastic, selfless and amazing people who work in the NHS, and I'm really grateful for them. There is also a fantastic and frustrating amount of bureaucracy, which I'm not so pleased about! Bureaucracy which has meant that we have spent the last nine months trying to get an appointment for our youngest to see a Ear Nose and Throat specialist, to see we need to do anything about the fact that most of the time he can't hear. 

We thought we were getting somewhere last month, when after several months of being passed back and forwards between the GP, Speech Therapist and Audiology, we finally got a referral to the ENT department... only to be told that the earliest they could even think about taking a booking for an appointment was the end of March, with an unspecified wait after that for the actual appointment itself. 

At this point, we started to despair, wondering about going private, and what else we could do, when suddenly, not 24 hours after being told that there were no appointments at all, we get a phone call out of the blue offering us an appointment next Saturday! 

To Sarah and I, this was clear evidence of God at work - of how He looks out and provides for us. No doubt some people reading this will want to offer a different, more mundane explanation - but at the end of the day, whether this came about from a miraculous intervention, or just because the bureaucracy finally caught up with the demands, then I still see God at work.

Sometimes I think as Christians we can get caught up on Signs and Wonders - on miraculous interventions. I've been in Christian circles where the dominant view seems to be that if you haven't seen at least six miraculous things before breakfast, there's something wrong with your faith and you need to repent of whatever sin is holding you back, but I don't really buy that. Although I believe God can and does do the miraculous, my experience is that He is just as likely to work through the everyday - through the normal mundane things, because He is the God of the everyday and the normal and mundane, just as much as He is the God of the miraculous and supernatural. 

And as I right this another question occurs to me - I wonder what would happen if we, His people here, got just a little bit better at giving God the glory and praise and thanks for the everyday and mundane things he does? I wonder if then, perhaps, we might be more likely to see His miraculous power at work as well? 

Where is the Love?

Ahh, Valentine's Day - a day to celebrate soppy, over the top, mushy, romantic love. A day where everything is washed in a delightful shade of pink, where hearts and flowers can be seen in every supermarket, card shop and pound shop in the country, A day where everyone is trying to get me to buy expensive gifts for my loved one.

Now, don't get me wrong, I enjoy the chance to buy my wife a present, to demonstrate that I love her and to make her feel just a little bit special... although I'm probably not being a very good husband if it takes a special day each year for the last two of those, and despite what Amazon may suggest, a Kindle is a pretty huge Valentine's Day present....  But is that really what love is all about. In a world where you can buy a facebook girlfriend for £5 a week, have we collectively lost the plot when it comes to love?

I don't know if part of the problems is that we don't really know what we mean when we talk about love. We focus on romantic love, but we do so in a shallow manner -- we talk about falling into love and falling out of love, as if its something that happens to us, outside our own control - as if our personal feelings are the most important thing in the world.

But the world seems to be realising that this isn't all there is to love. Real love, as demonstrated in Jesus' life is an action of choice. We choose to love our friends, our family, our neighbours, even our enemies. We may not always agree with them, we may not always like the things they do, or even the people they are. But we can and should chose to love them nonetheless - that is the commandment, and the example of Jesus, who demonstrated his love in the ultimate manner - by dying on a cross. Perhaps in that context, Amazon's suggestion to buy my loved one a Kindle might seem like a cheap alternative after all!

Of course, probably the greatest passage about love is that found in 1 Corinthians 13... and particularly verses 4 - 8a. It is probably the most common passage read at weddings - certainly most weddings I've been to. And yet, when you read it with 1 Corinthians 12, and 1 Corinthians 14, and indeed most of the rest of the book, it becomes clear that its not really about romantic love, about the husband/wife relationship - or rather, that that is only one type of relationship it refers to - actually, its about living in community, about being the worshipping people of God together that matters - and love, choosing to love one another, and to love those outside the community, that is the glue which holds the community together and allows them to be the visible image of their saviour in the world today.

{And for those wondering, I know the Black Eyed Peas used this title for one of their songs, but U2 also used the lyric in "Love and Peace or Else" on the Album "How to Dismantle An Atomic Bomb"... so I haven't broken my own rule, honest!} 

Time is a train...

Suddenly, Lent is here... Where has the time gone? How has it suddenly got to Lent already? I mean, Christmas has only just finished hasn't it - at least, it feels that way - given that my feet have hardly touched the ground since then.

Yes, I know Easter is early this year... which means the gap between Christmas and Lent is shorter than usual... and the fact that I've spent most of the last six weeks with a cold, cough or some other sort of ailment probably doesn't help either. But the problem really is, time does not stand still. To continue the U2 quote from the title, "Time is a Train, Makes the Future the Past" -- and nothing stands still.

So how do we respond? Apart from throwing our hands up in despair complaining about how fast time is passing, or burying our heads in the sand, refusing to accept that things have moved on that is?

The paradox of it all for me is that this ever-changing, ever-moving world was created and is sustained in its ever-changing-ness, by the eternal, unchanging, ever-constant God. "Yesterday, Today and Forever, You are the same, You never change" we sing - and yet His world changes, irrevocably, second after second...

I often think that we, as Christian believers, as the church, don't manage to hold these two things together very well. Often we assume that the unchanging nature of God applies also to our structures, our organisations, our patterns of worship - as if to change the way we do something - even down to the agenda of a meeting - can be seen to be denying the fundamental nature of God.

And then, as the world around changes, as society changes and our expectations change in light of it, we forget the timeless truths of who God is, and who we are as His children - and jump wholeheartedly into the latest thing... Even when we adopt a change for the right reason, we sometimes (often?) throw the baby out with the bathwater and abandon anything related to the old, however good and Godly it was in the first place?

Is there an easy solution - I doubt it, otherwise better minds than mine would have come up with it years ago. But as a guideline, we (and by we, I really mean I) need to remember both sides of the "paradox" -- and when something new comes along, reflect on it in light of the timeless truths of God... and remember that, although He doesn't change His people never still stand.... just like the ever ticking clock!

Getting Over Certainty

I don't think anyone who knows me will be surprised to find out that I consider myself to be a logical, rational, thinking person - someone who makes decisions based on evidence, who comes to considered opinions, who doesn't make his mind up until he has facts to back it up, and who is prepared to change his mind, but only if careful analysis of the facts demonstrates that my understanding was flawed.

This has served me well so far, in most of my life. It certainly is helpful professionally - its what is expected of an accountant after all. But there are times, particularly when I'm dealing with God, where it really doesn't help me at all.

Because sometimes, God's ways are not subject to my careful logical rational analysis. Why should they be - after all, his ways and thoughts are higher than mine - they have to be, otherwise surely I too would be God!  

Sometimes its quite easy - this blog started after I got baptisted, which was something I knew I had to do, even though it didn't make logical or rational sense to me at the time - when God intervenes directly, when he tells me directly what I should be doing, then I can overide (with something of a fight) my rational side and get on with it.

But its harder when God doesn't tell me directly. When someone I trust, someone I know is going to be listening to Him tells me that they are sure God wants us to do something, but its something I don't understand, can't rationally comprehend, and don't "feel" it for myself either - thats when its hard.

Our "me-centric" culture says I should object, and object strongly. If someone thinks God wants something, and I don't get it, then they jolly well need to make me understand. God may have spoken to them, but He hasn't spoken to me, so why should I trust someone else? Its my opinion after all -- no-one else has the right to make up my mind for me, do they?

And yet, if its someone I trust, someone who I know wants nothing more than God's will, then, unless I have strong reasons, strong God-given doubts - unless God clearly tells me that this is not what he wants, then the community-way has to be trust - to accept that person's decision, and to whole-heartedly through myself behind their proposal - to accept that somethings will never be certain, because the mind of God is something we can never fully know.