Brokenness and Bogroll

A friend recently told me of a conversation he had years ago with the Christian evangelist, Bruce Anderson. Speaking about a mutual acquaintance, who had entered a time of extreme brokenness in his life, Bruce commented "Now God can really use him!"

Recently I've been meeting with a man whose life is broken. He has, by his own admittance, brought much of it on himself. As we sat chatting in my church office, he wept openly, his heart breaking for himself and others involved in his life.

Having no tissues in the office, I had to nip downstairs and grab an industrial size roll of toilet paper from the mens loos, which for the next two hours my friend slowly unrolled, used and binned.

I had informed 2 of my fellow leaders that I would be meeting this man, and I emailed them to ask them to pray during that time.

As time went by, we both seemed to realize that we were sat in the 'pigsty' of the prodigal son. This was his moment to come to his senses, and find his way back to the Father who loves him.

We read Psalm 51, where David pours out his repentant heart to God. It finishes "A broken and contrite heart God will not despise!"

"Did God forgive David?" my friend asked.
"Yes," I responded, "though there were lifelong consequences, David was forgiven!"

It was one of those moments...

"Would you like to pray with me?"
"Yes please," he responded.

We had talked about the Cross, the place where God himself took our brokeness on himself, and I was about to share with him how he could come Jesus, hoping to tell him the "ABC," or "4 spiritual laws" of coming to Christ.

"Do I talk to God or Jesus," he asked. I told him that Jesus is God, and before I could even finish my sentence, he burst into the Kingdom, pouring his pain and hurt out to a Gracious Saviour, and simply asked Jesus to come in!

I prayed too, then ripped the toilet roll from his hands, my face too, now wet with tears.

Jesus used many images to describe the Kingdom, but right now now seem so meaningful as brokenness and bogroll!

Fresh Paint and the Smell of Glue

For the last few months our church has been preparing to move into our new building. For 13 years we have, like many other churches, been living a nomadic existence. School halls, community centres, and homes have sustained us through various ups and downs since we planted the church in 1996.

As I write I am lying on the floor of the new church office (no furniture yet) as we prepare to open this weekend. The smell of fresh paint and carpet glue fills my nostrils, and seems to heighten the dreamlike sense I have of moving in!

At school today, as my wife picked up our girls, a classroom assistant stopped her for a chat.
"I was on the bus yesterday going into town. Everyone was looking at your new church building and commenting on how good it was looking!"

Those words mean a lot. If you knew the state the property was in when we bought it... Broken windows, the stench of death, smashed furniture. Paperwork and destruction littered the auditorium. A year ago some of us saw a parable there. This broken building is like the lives of so many people in our world - broken, destroyed, and aparently hopeless - but faith is the substance of things not seen!

It is not about buildings is it? Empty churches are the Cathedrals to our folly! It is ALWAYS about people.

Moving into our new church building is a sign of God's promise to us. Transformed buildings make people sit up and take notice. God is in the tranformation business, and He has an agenda for change.

Will you commit again to his agenda, not through conformity to this world, but by being transformed by the renewing of our mind!

Church pastor wins nomination for his inspiring leadership

Kevin Ward is an old friend of mine. HE has planted 3 churches in the last 20 years, and it looks like he is at it again. Have a read of the article linked here.

Church pastor wins nomination for his inspiring leadership

On being Irish (ish)

Ireland, Ireland, together standing tall
Shoulder to shoulder we'll answer Irelands Call!!!!

What a glorious weekend for Ireland's rugby team! I even had the joy of watching it with a group of Welsh young people. From the euphoria of O'Gara's 78th minute drop goal, to the heart stopping missed Welsh penalty bang on time, followed by the huge relief - We had done it. Only our second ever Grand slam, and the first in 61 years.

Mind you, the only time I felt Irish for years, was when we played rugby. For the first 5 years that I lived in England, I got hoarse explaining that I was not Irish - but British! Eventually I got fed up trying to explain the complications of Irish politics to the uneducated of uninterested.

The situation got even more complicated during the muddied waters of the peace process. Talking to the enemy! How easy for those who didn't live in it to tell us all how to fix it.

However, the seeds of peace, reconciliation and hope were sown by men like Gordon Wilson, who in the rubble of the remembrance day bombing at Enniskillen in 1987, held his dying daughters hand as she whispered "daddy - I love you!" Then hours later he offered forgiveness to her killers - amazing! As a young Christian at the time, I felt like killing the b******s myself. Then I heard Gordon Wilson speak from his hospital bed - honestly, it melted my heart.

Like many Irishmen, I am still on that journey. It felt almost complete 2 weeks ago....
2 soldiers and a policeman lay dead on Ulster's streets. Then, standing shoulder to shoulder (just like the rugby team), with the Chief of Police came Martin McGuiness. This self confessed ex-IRA leader called the murderers 'traitors.' "If you have any information give it to the police," he said. It almost felt like listening to Gordon Wilson again.

When Ian Paisley entered Government with McGuiness, and was asked how he could sit with a leader of the IRA, Paisley responded "Even murderers can repent and find forgiveness!"

What a few weeks. What a weekend. What a turn around.

U2 - White as Snow

Tony Compolo has called Bono a modern day prophet! You may or may not agree with that. However, Bono's commitment to peace, aids relief and campaigns like Jubilee 2000 along with his consistency declare at the very least, his sincerety.

What makes the case though for the 'prophet' tag is the overt (and sometimes ambiguous) Christian content to many of U2's songs...

From "Pride - In the name of Love" to the iconic "I still haven't found what I'm looking for," the band's Christian faith (and sometimes doubt) is rarely below the surface.

Recent track "Jahweh" includes the lyrics...
Yahweh, Yahweh
Always pain before a child is born
Yahweh, tell me now
Why the dark before the dawn?

Take this city
A city should be shining on a hill
Take this city
If it be your will
What no man can own, no man can take
Take this heart
Take this heart
Take this heart
And make it break

The broken heart that Bono recognises a broken world should bring in us, can only find healing and wholeness in God, and specifically through the death of Jesus for our sin. My heart needs to be broken over the state of the world, but more so over the state of my own heart itself.

Nothing I do can bring about the wholeness and healing I desire... only Grace can do that... and so Bono sings on the track Grace. Reminding us that Grace travels outside of Karma, the song concludes...

What once was hurt
What once was friction
What left a mark
No longer stings...
Because Grace makes beauty
Out of Ugly Things

In the latest offering "Get on your boots" we discover where such Grace can be found, Grace that can forgive even me with all my brokeness. On the song "White as Snow" we discover...

Who can forgive forgiveness where forgiveness is not
Only the lamb as white as snow

John the Baptist said "Look - the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!"

If your heart is breaking, and you need Grace, not Karma, if you are struggling to forgive yourself - Look at Jesus on the Cross - The Lamb as white as snow who died to take away your sin!

Hope for Christmas

Christmas is here for another year. But this year, more than any I can remember since the 1980's Thatcher era when unemployment topped 3 million, people are worried about their jobs, security, income and home reposessions.

Economists tell us it is worse than we can even imagine. The RBS and HBOS were, we learn, a day away from not opening for business in mid-October.

The darkness is closing in... Many people hear the depressing messages, amplified by the endless media coverage, and fear the worst. Credit card debt is out of hand - and the Government has the gall to tell us to keep spending - and that spending is based on more borrowing.

Personal debt in Britain is now over 1.3Trillion pounds. There is no doubt that the Nation is heading for a fall, and the drastic measures being pursued by the government is only keeping the wolf from the door, as we store up trouble for the future.

Into this dark world shines the Light. And John writes about Jesus, "The Light Shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it!"

However simplistic it sounds, it is nevertheless true. Jesus is the light of the world, He is THE Hope!

Along with many Christians, we are involved in helping people learn life skills, get out of debt, and grow in confidence as they face enormous personal hurdles. However, if all we are offering are programmes (however good), we are only dealing with symptoms, not cause.

We need to offer Jesus. He is the Light of the World, and when He shines into peoples lives no darkness can overcome Him.

Man-flu

I've got, what my wife calls "man-flu!" I feel dreadful - headache, blocked up nose, chesty cough and I can produce flem all the colours of the rainbow (well there have to be some compensations!)

Of course, it is just a bad cold - a virus. Someone told me that there are around 200 cold viruses in circulation in the UK at any one time. Once you have had one you have life-time immunity from it. Still - I think it's flu...

A fellow evangelist once put forward to me the concept that religion should not be taught in schools, and schools should not, by and large, have 'christian' assemblies. His theory ran that RE (or RS) and in particular, Christianity, is so poorly taught, or at least, presents such a wimpy, soft at the edges version of Christian faith, that it effectively innoculates much of the population against future contact with the real thing!

I always disagreed with him, feeling that UK law continues to give us a real opportunity to take the Good News about Jesus into our schools. I for one, am still involved in doing this, having had 2 opportunities already this week. (Follow the link to see one way some in Manchester are reaching real kids) http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=LWjLf0rfvz4

However - he may have had a point. Our churches (I generalise of course) continue to suffer with a distinct absence of men. "Women and children first" was the cry when the titanic went down, and with a continuing lack of male leadership, switched on fathers, and loving faithful husbands in many churches, some of them will soon go the way of the Titanic too.

What kind of man are you? What kind am I? If non-christian men look at me will they see a real man, or the 'gentle Jesus meek and mild' kind of guy that they may have been innoculated against? If we are going to reach men we must be deliberate about it. Great kids and womens ministries are fantastic (as a Father of 3 young daughters I am involved in both), but mens work will not happen by accident. Men must be pursued, confronted, engaged, deliberately targetted and attracted. Our churches must be man-friendly!

To coin a phrase "Real men followed Jesus - they still do."