Steve McGanity

Spiritual Strongholds Part 3

2011-10-20T23:43:00.002+01:00

One of the difficulties around understanding spiritual warfare is that the Bible says so very little about it! If the scriptures have everything we need for salvation and life we can only assume that the Spirit does not require us to know that much about spiritual warfare. What we do need to understand is the victory Christ has won for us and to live in that. However, there are tantalising little insights that scripture gives us that point to certain realities of which we have only a limited understanding. One of those insights is in regard to how spiritual strongholds can affect whole geographical areas.

One of the things scripture hints at is that the demonic powers are structured in some sort of hierarchy. This would make absolute sense because we know that angels seem to have a hierarchy. In Jude v9 we read a reference to Michael as an ‘Archangel’ or ‘chief angel’ and as demons are simply fallen angels it would seem logical that a similar hierarchy would also transfer in their fallen state. When Paul talks about our spiritual battle with ‘principalities and powers’ there is a suggestion that this refers to levels of demonic structure.

There are also intriguing references in Daniel about angels fighting against spirits who appear to have influence of a geographical area (Daniel 10, 12). This has led to a train of thought that there are ‘territorial spirits’ who are able to influence and even control a geographical area. There is a lot that rings true about this idea, we only have to look at certain areas or cities to see that there can be certain values or beliefs that have a spiritual stranglehold on that area. However, despite the fact that many books have been written on this, we have to be really careful about how far we follow this train of thought, as the Bible is not definitive on ‘territorial spirits’ at all. It also has no record of Christians dealing directly with a ‘higher level’ demon who would have influence over an area.

Are there ways of understanding how the demonic influences geographical areas? My next post or two will offer a suggestion.

Spiritual Strongholds Part 2

2011-10-18T12:18:00.005+01:00

2 Cor. 10:3 "...On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ"

Paul describes strongholds as arguments and pretensions. As I said in my previous post wrong teaching and damaged emotions can lead to wrong thinking and behaving. Therefore strongholds are areas of our live in which we have been persuaded to believe and follow something contrary to God’s word, they set themselves up against the knowledge of God. How can we demolish these strongholds?

Firstly, remember that Jesus has already won the victory "He forgave us all our sins, having cancelled the written code, with its regulations, that was against us and that stood opposed to us; he took it away, nailing it to the cross. And having disarmed the powers and authorities, he made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross." (Col 2:13- 15). Jesus has done it all, any and every demonic power has been disarmed. The only weapon they have against you is deception and lies.

Secondly, because we are demolishing wrong thinking we need to demolish it with the truth. Strongholds are such an effective weapon of the enemy because so many people in the west know the Word of God. By reading, learning and meditating on the word of God we allow its truth to shape our thinking. Paul calls us to allow our minds to be renewed (Rom 12:2) . We take every thought captive to Christ when we seek to bring our thoughts and motivations to be in line with the will of Christ. This happens when the truths of God’s word are applied into our lives by the Holy Spirit. David Devenish in his book ‘Demolishing Strongholds’ lists some basic truths of scripture that are foundational for every christian in demolishing a stronghold;

We have been born again (1 Peter 1:3)
When we are, we are new creations (2 Corinthians 5:17)
We are fully accepted by Jesus (Romans 15:7)
We are not condemned (Romans 8:1)
We are secure in our relationship with Him (Romans 8:38,39)
We have been blessed with every spiritual blessing (Ephesians 1:3)

Thirdly, we then begin to live by the truth of what we believe. This takes a combination of prayer and action. If you struggle with feelings of rejection learn to live and act according the truth that you are accepted by God. Let that thought be the one that counteracts all the negative thoughts of rejection. Which version of your life will you live by the one you have been persuaded to believe by the enemy, who is the father of lies, or the one that is described by God in scripture, who is the source of all truth. This also takes prayer. Ask the Holy Spirit to help live you by the truth revealed in the Bible. He is the one who walks with us to lead us into all truth (John 15:13). It is the truth that will set you free (John 8:32).

Today, why don’t you take some time out to reflect on the scriptures above and begin to allow them to shape your thinking about who God is, what he is like, who you are and what you are capable of.

Strongholds Part 1

2011-10-17T16:54:00.004+01:00

As part of our current sermon series on spiritual warfare this week I will be putting on my blog a few reflections on the area of spiritual strongholds. I touched on this on Sunday (16.10.11) but wanted to have a space to say a few other things that I didn’t have time for within the sermon. I particularly wanted to do this because strongholds are very rarely discussed and yet are such a powerful weapon of the enemy.

"We do not wage war as the world does. The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ." 2 Cor. 10:3

I described strongholds as patterns of wrong thinking, and therefore wrong behaving, that have become deeply engrained within us. They are recurring or repeating thoughts that are not in line with the truth that God has given us in scripture. Wrong thinking can dramatically and negatively affect the course and quality of our lives. Strongholds have the power to influence individuals, churches, communities, cities and nations.

They are created by wrong teaching, consistently giving in to temptation, others people’s wrong attitudes and behaviour towards us, the pressure of the culture around us and a variety of other ways. Through these the enemy seeks to create sustained ways of thinking that are detrimental to our relationship with God or to the quality of our lives. Wherever the enemy gains ground in your life he will seek to make it permanent by establishing a stronghold around that area.

For instance, a simple example would be someone hurts you and you feel bitterness towards them. You decide not to work through the process of forgiving them and so the bitterness grows. It would be really easy for the enemy to capitalise on that bitterness and so the enemy says ‘You can’t let anyone else get close to you, they may hurt you as well’ or ‘Why should you forgive them, don’t let them off the hook’ or ‘Why is it always you that gets hurt?’ From a point of giving in to temptation (choosing not to forgive) strongholds of isolation, anger or self-pity can develop and become thoughts that start to shape how we live, relate to people and even how we feel about God.

The good news is that we can find freedom from strongholds, as Pauls says we have weapons that ‘have divine power to demolish strongholds’. Over the next few days I will be sharing some thoughts about strongholds, both personal and cultural, and looking for clues in scripture that point to the weapons we have to tear them down.

New Wineskins

2011-07-15T21:55:00.004+01:00

In my last post I talked a bit about George Whitefield and his ability as a preacher. As a contemporary of Wesley he is one of the key figuresin the birth of Methodism. However, without John Wesley Methodism would have never existed. It was Wesley's organisational ability that allowed the move of the Spirit to flourish. Placing people into small accountability groups that encouraged purity and witness enabled those who came to salvation to continue in their relationship with Jesus. Whitefield's preaching may, arguably, have been more effective but his effectiveness as a revivalist was hindered by the fact that once he had left a town or city new converts were left to themselves. Wesley drew new converts into accountability groups and so allowed the missional effects of the revival to continue way after he had left.

Every move of God should change the Church. It is unrealistic to expect the church structures to remain unchanged when the Holy Spirit visits! Jesus says in Matthew 9 "Neither do men pour new wine into old wineskins. If they do, the skins will burst, the wine will run out and the wineskins will be ruined. No, they pour new wine into new wineskins, and both are preserved."

We at St Andrew's have at different times experienced the power of the Holy Spirit at work amongst us that has changed much of the nature of who we are as a church. We also need to continue reshaping the structures of the church. Our move to Missional Communities is a way of establishing new wineskins in response to what God is doing amongst us and, to some extent, in preparation for what he is going to do in the future. As with Wesley's groups they need to have the same focus on discipleship and mission. In that sense what we are doing is not new, we are part of a history of pioneers who want to work with what the Lord is doing.

What is sad about reading through God's General's is to see how quickly those within methodism began to lose their focus on purity and proclamation and reduced themselves to political squabbles about church order. We cannot lose sight of the call of Jesus to 'GO and MAKE disciples", the moment we do that we become less than we ought to be.

When Preaching was Rock and Roll

2011-07-08T11:13:00.004+01:00

Currently, I am reflecting on a book of biographies I am just about to finish reading. It is 'God's Generals - The Revivalists' and it details the amazing lives and ministries of some key men of God from the early 1700's onwards. One chapter is about George Whitefield, who was a remarkable man and preached in the UK and America at the same time as the Wesley's.

Whitefield was, by all accounts, a remarkable preacher and a pioneer in evangelism. He was the first in his time to preach in the fields, something which the Wesleys and others then went on to copy. He had been ordained at 22 and quickly became known across Londan as the 'boy preacher'. However, it was not long before pulpits were closed to him because of his affiliations with 'methodism'. His passion for the lost would not deter him from preaching so he preached wherever he could. He began travelling up and down the country finding suitable feilds to preach in. As his fame grew the crowds gathered to hear him would be vast, the most conservative estimate of some crowds was 10,000, while other claimed it was 30,000.

When crowds came to see Whitefield what they saw was a small, round faced, cross eyed man but what they heard was one who 'preached like a lion'. Whitefield grew up wityh a love of the theatre. he read plays as a teenager, learning the lines and practising his delivery. he learned how to project hs voice so that he could be heard over vast distances. His sermons where dramatic, entertaining but always convicted people of their need of the free grace of God. Someone once said that they would give £100 to just be able to say 'oh' like Whitefield! As Whitefield preached the power of God would fall on those who were searching for Christ and hundred's would be saved. People would be crying out, falling to the floor and weeping hysterically as the presence of God filled their lives.

His journals and the journals of others of his day tell of how crowds would gather hours before Whiteield was to preach. One writer tells of how he was going to hear Whitefield and as he approached the twon all he could see what what looked like fog over the town. As he got nearer he realised it was dust from the countless feet and horses hooves of those gathering to hear Whitefield.

We live in an age when the spoken word seems to have become overlooked. I was reading a column in the Independant the other week that looked at our current politicians and asked where are the great orators. Were are the people who can capture our imagination by the power of speech. Have we become so tied to soundbites and Twittering that we have forgotten how to use the spoken word. Some people say that preaching is coming to an end, that new media will overtake preaching. Yet even now as people become immersed in new forms of communication what I see are people who are also desperate to hear a real person speak (aren't you tired of automated telephone answering systems!!). The Church mustn't give up on preaching as some would have us do. Of course we need to adapt our style to the current age and the current need, pretty much as Whitefiled did, but we need to preach boldly, courageously and in the power of the Holy Spirit.

Praying for Revival

2011-07-01T15:39:00.005+01:00

I've been reading a great book recently by Roberts Liardon. It's called 'God's Generals - The Revivalists' and is a history of just some of the key people in revivals between mid 18th century to the present day (check out www.godsgenerals.com). It is a fascinating and hugely faith building read. So I thought I would spend a number of posts just refelecting on some of the events I have read about in the book.

The one things that stands out above all others as I read this book is that prayer is so central to seeing revival come. The book starts with just a brief story of the Moravians who had such a major influence on John and Charles Wesley. These were followers of the teaching of John Hus (left), who was burned at the stake for preaching against the doctrines of the Catholic Church in July 1415. They had spent many years simply looking for a place to worship until they settled in Herrnhut, Germany. In the August of 1727 they began to experience an outpouring of the Holy Spirit on their churches. This in turn led to a growing passion and conviction to take the Gospel to the ends of the earth and a desire for the power to make it happen. This led to them agreeing together to pray round the clock for the gospel to be spread and revival to come. This they did 24/7 for 100 years. Those 100 years saw them send out more missionaries than any other church at that time. It was also a time of tremendous revivals in the UK and America.

That same emphasis on prayer is then seen in the life of every revivalist that Liardon looks at. It is particularly evident in the life of Charles Finney who would send a colleague, Daniel Nash, ahead of him by 3 or 4 weeks into whatever city or town he was visiting to gather people to pray. Nash would pray with power and faith, Finney would preach and the Lord would do the rest.

What is evident as you read of the lives of these saints is that they prayed because they desperately wanted to see unchurched people saved and knew how desperately they needed the Spirit's power if that were to happen.

It is really easy to read these stories of the great men and women of God and feel guilty that our prayer lives look so weak by comparison. I know that much of my lack of prayer is because I know I can 'get by' in my own strength. I know that in my own strength and with what I know I can share my faith, preach a half decent sermon, lead and pastor, but the thing is I will never see the same results that Wesley or Whitefield or Finney saw. I look at my own prayer life and I know that I have ever reached the same level of desperation for God's power for salvation that these saints did. So that is now my prayer for myself 'Lord give that same desperation for your power' and maybe when I'm desperate enough I'll start praying like these revivalists.

2011-03-24T03:24:00.003Z

I thought I was getting used to the poverty here in Haiti (which of course isn't a good thing). The this afternoon we went out to the mountains to the north east of Port au Prince. There we saw poverty on a completely different level to what we have seen so far.
In a small town in the moutains is Pastor Nahum who oversees a church and a small school of about 100 children. He and a guy called Timothy run the 'Back to Life' project in this small town. Here, as well as educating the children of the school, they also feed hundreds of malnourished children in the area and provide a home for 18 orphans. The home is actually the Pastors house, where he lives with his wife and six children. the building they live in is tiny for the 26 of them, but the Pastor and his wife do this without any regret. Instead we saw just the joy of being able to serve the Lord in this way. He didn't ask us for money to help build the new orphange he and Timothy are planning. He didn't ask us to provide food for the children. He just asked that we remember them in prayer.
Each day has been more shocking than the one before for Andreas and I. Tomorrow we fly out to the largest island around Haiti. It is called Lagonave and we will visit an orphange and the site where Compassion and others are looking to rebuild a hospital. We expect to see even greater poverty than we have seen so far.
The question going through my mind is that with so much need and poverty what can I do. That is where I think Compassion's idea of changing the world one child at a time comes into it's own. There are so many needs out here that it could be so hard to know what to do that paralysis sets in and nothing get's done at all. But something needs to be done and sponsoring a child is, at the very least, a great way of changing just one life. What I have seen so far tells me that sponsoring a child transforms the life of the whole family.
"All they asked was that we should continue to remember the poor, the very thing I was eager to do." Gal. 2:10.

2011-03-23T11:47:00.003Z

It's Wednesday morning here in Haiti. Yesterday was such a full on day that I didn't have time to do a blog and was too exhausted by the the time we got in the room to go to bed. We travelled out of the city to a place call Leogane which had been badly affected by the earthquake. As we drove through the city and then out through some of the country we really got a chance to see both the devestating effects of the earthquake but, more shockingly, the devestating effects of poverty here in this country.
Whereever we go here there are people living in the worst possible conditions you can imagine. Hundreds of thousands of people still living in makeshift tents, either in large groups our simply dotted throughout devasted buildings. Many of the people still fortunate enough to still have a home that is standing are living in just the smallest, dirties buildings. Unemployment here is ridiculously high. Everywhere we go there are either groups of men gathered with nothing to do or people trying to make a living by setting up stalls inbetween the rubble on the pavements selling anything they can.
Yet the Haitian people have such tremendous heart and courage. We spent the day with Pastor Menard and the school he runs which caters for 800 children of all ages. All around the school there is nothing but tents and makeshift homes. Compassion pays for the most disadvantaged (it's all relative isn't it!!) children to attend his school. The other parents pay $120 a year for their children to go. Its is the most highly respected school in the area. These children are living in such abject poverty but sang songs to us about the goodness of God with huge smiles on their faces. They, and their teachers, meant every word. Pastor Menard is anothe extraordinary church leader. He told us about the day his church fell down in the quake and about how he felt when he couldn't reach church members stuck under the rubble of buildings they were living in. He told us that in the days after the quake he wore a baseball cap with the word's 'Jesus is my Boss' on it to remind everyone he met that there was someone greater than any earthquake. He told us that his passion to reach the lost and the broken is greater than ever. His church too has grown, more than doubled in the last year. And as we stood in the large makeshift tent that now functions as his church he told us ablout his hopes for the future. Jesus said "blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the Kingdom of God". I've seen that today.

2011-03-21T23:34:00.003Z

Blogging doesn't come naturally for me, but for the next week I have a reason to do so. Andrea and I are in Haiti with an organisation called Compassion who are showing us around some of the projects they have set up in partnership with local churches. It is our first time into one of the poorest countries in the world. Each day I will give a brief idea of what we've been up to.

Today was surprising. We met Pastor Ivan (I don't know how his name is spelt!) who leads a church in an area called Delmas in Port-au-Prince. An amazing pioneer who has grown a huge church that is seeking to radically transform its community through child sponsorship. They work with 500 children as part of their child development program all chosen from the poorest families in their area. Their main building was intact after the earthquake but some of the others they had collapsed. They have temporary 'buildings' (walls with tarpaulin sheets for the roof) that double as classrooms during the week and a worship space on sunday.

Every sunday they have three services, at each service they have some people meeting for worship on the ground floor, some on the second and others on the third floor. Each service is three hours long. the pastor said his church loves to worship! All together there are 8000 people in his church. At every service they will see 50-70 people come to Jesus and the church has grown by 3000 since the earthquake. Pastor Ivan said that when the earthquake came people thought it was jesus coming back and that has made them reconsider what they think about Jesus. This humble, visionary Pastor is looking to raise $3million to build a worship space for 25,000 people and he has already bought some of the land around his current church to enable growth to happen.

Today was surprising because I thought I would be talking about kids and poverty and despair. Instead I'm talking about hope and vision. Amidst the rubble and dire poverty God is moving powerfully. That really shouldn't be a surpise should it!

Whatever It Takes

2010-02-28T23:41:00.001Z

"I have become all things to all people so that by all possible means I might save some." 1 Cor 9:22

How many friends do you have on facebook? Some people pride themselves on how many they have, I don't know what the record is but I know some people who have almost 1000! Every friend, on Facebook or not, who isn't a follower of Jesus is part of your mission field. It is you assignment to share Jesus with them at every opportunity and in every possible way. If you assessed your friends and looked at what they were like how would you describe them. Sociologists would say that mostly we find friends who are in some way like us. They will have a similar background, similar interests (that's why most christians don't have non-christian friends!), similar job etc. What does that mean for our mission?

Paul could have easily have been a missionary to the jews. His background, upbringing and education seemed to make him the perfect missionary to the jewish people. However, he spent most of his time as a missionary to non-jews. He learned what it would take to adapt and change in order to be effective as a witness to Jesus amongst different cultures and people. He says in 1 Cor 9 that he became like a slave in order to reach slaves, like a jew to reach jews, to the weak he bacame weak. Paul did whatever it took to reach those people that Jesus sent him to, even though that meant great change for him personally.

Your mission field is your circle of friends and family who you see regularly. But God also puts across your path people who he is calling you to witness to. People who may not ever meet another Christian, people who may be very different to you, people who you may not even like - what will you do with those people. What would it take to be in a position to share your faith with them? It would take some level of relationship, it would mean you taking the time and effort to get to know them, to be alongside them and to discover what God might be doing in their lives.

Who is God calling you to get to know today?

Learning From Paul 2

2010-02-28T23:40:00.002Z

"Paul took the disciples with him and had discussions daily in the lecture hall of Tyranus. This went on for two years, so that all the Jews and Greeks who lived in the province of Asia heard the word of the Lord" Acts 19:9,10

If finding the places where people gather was a key to Paul's methods, the second is the time he gave to a place. Here in Acts 19 in Ephesians he spends 2 years, elsewhere he also spends substantial time preaching and developing churches. However, there are also ocassions when he spends very little time in a town, city or region, even if those times were proving fruitful.

What he doesn't do, however, is spend any length of time in places where there was no fruit and there were those times even for a missionary as good as Paul. Just look at his time in Athens in Acts 17, he spent time, day after day, debating in the synagogue and market place, but it says at the end 'A few men became followers of Paul and believed'. Compared to other places Paul does not seem to have spent a lot of time there before moving on to Corinth.

Jesus says in Mark 6:11 "And if any place will not welcome you or listen to you, shake the dust off your feet when you leave, as a testimony against them." They are tough words for us, especially if we are trying to share Jesus with people who we care about. The more we care, the more likely it is we will be happy to spend time trying to show the love of Jesus with them even if they are not responsive in any way. The same can happen in our clusters. A cluster can spend a ot of time working with a specific group of people or in a particular area and not see any positive response. There are two things we need to recognise in those situations.

Firstly, Paul learned that sometimes we are called to sow or water seeds rather than reap the fruit. In those situations do what you can to let people see Jesus as best you can and then move on. Others will cme along to water and reap, that's the way God works in these situations. But secondly, remember time is short. Time spent on someone who will not respond means time lost on people who would respond. Paul could have spend long periods of time in places were the response was negligible and missed out on places where the fruit was ripe for picking.

Who are the people you are trying to reach out to. Do you need to stay or to move on?

Learning From Paul 1

2010-02-28T23:40:00.001Z

Paul is perhaps the greatest missionary the church has ever seen. He was responsible for planting and establishing numerous churches as well as leaving behind letters that continue to shape our understanding of God and guide how we should be as churches. Whenever Paul travelled around different cities he usually followed what seems like a method that we can learn from today.

Firstly, he went to the places where spiritual people hung out. For the most part that meant he would go to the Synagogue in that city. The Synagogue was a great place for him to go to as it gave him the opportunity to preach Jesus and debate with the Rabbis there. However, when that route wasn't possible he went to other places like the Lecture Hall belonging to Tyrannus or the Areopagus in Athens (Acts 17) or a river were people gathered to pray and debate (Acts 1611ff). These are all places were people were spiritually open and had an interest in religious things. There in these places he would preach, debate and argue, heal the sick and begin to build a church.

Today it's not that easy to find gatherings of spiritually open people apart from in Church, which kind of defeats the object! But it isn't hard to find places where people gather more generally and usually in those places you will find people who are spiritually open. It could be in the staff room at work, the pub, the shopping centre. The thing is, every reason why people gather usually has some sort of spiritual connection. The staff room is the place of fellowship where relationships are built. The pub can be the place of debates and discussions or a place to drown out the hurt and pain. Shopping is according to many sociologists is the new religion, most people shop in the big shopping centres more for the experience than the actual shopping. Our issue isn't finding places where people gather but finding ways of bringing Jesus into those places and there are no easy answers to that question.

When I was working for the Halifax Bank there were two places where people gathered. In my imaturity as a Christian I avoided both really most of the time. During the day it was the staff room were people gathered, while I usually went to the Christian coffee shop down the road. After work it was the pub, but I was usually too busy going to christian groups to go there. Looking back I remember how 'spiritual' I felt at those times, but now I recognise how fear was paralysing me in the mission field that God had placed me.

Why not spend some time today thinking about where you live, work or play and ask yourself 'where are people gathering?' Are you there in those times and places or are you too busy being spiritual instead of being a missionary?

Courage

2010-02-26T00:21:00.001Z

J Oswald Sanders, the director of China Inland Mission early last century, once said "A great deal more failure is the result of an excess of caution than of bold experimentation with new ideas. The frontiers of the Kingdom of God were never advanced by men and women of caution". Mission has always been, and always will be, a risky business. Mission wil always require boldness, courage and a willingness to fail. Whether is it simply the courage to speak to you work colleague about what Jesus means to you, starting a new cluster or stepping out into mission overseas mission requires courage. Unfortuantely courage isn't an attitude easily found in church life.

I'm sure that at some point you have watched the Wizard of Oz and remember the cowardly lion. The lion wanted to find the wizard so that the wizard could magic up some courage for him because he was tied of being afraid. Lions are meant to be big fearless ferocious creatures but this one was a wimp! What he discovered at the end of the story is that courage isn't the absence of fear it is doing the right things in spite of fear. Courage is not letting fear paralyse us.

For the Christian courage is about recognising that fear need not paralyse us. Why? because "God will be with you wherever you go". If God is for us who can be against us. We are meant to be a people who are salt and light in our community, a people who are healing the sick and casting out demons, a people who are prophetically speaking to individuals and nations, not hiding away in buildings too afraid to do anything different or new.

is fear in some way paralysing the missional drive God has placed in your Spirit. Maybe today is a day to repent and believe?

Passion for God

2010-02-26T00:18:00.002Z

In the last post I thought about how our love for others should make mission as natural as breathing. Today we think of the other side of the same coin - our love for God. The most passionate people for mission, evangelism and the growth of the Kingdom have always been those who, above all else, are passionate about God. Every Christian movement that has grown throughout history has started with a white hot love for God. Starting with St Paul, through to people like John Wesley, St Francis, Martin Luther, and more recently, John Wimber and Mother Teresa, there has been one common denominator and that is their passionate love of God that propels them forward into mission.

Every Christian starts out as a passionate follower of Jesus whose love is evident, but time and the worries of life drain that love away. The things that make up our walk with Jesus - prayer, worship, giving, service, Bible - become a chore rather than a delight because the love we once had for God has become lukewarm. One of the ways in which our relationship with God is described in Scripture is as a marriage - we are the Bride of Christ. Every marriage goes through ups and downs and in those times when love fades, work needs to be done in order to regain a regain love that was lost. Experience tells us that it is absolutely possible for love that was once lost to be rediscovered. If you feel that you have lost your first love for God what can you do to regain it? Here are some suggestions but I'm sure you can add others.

Time - are you giving proper time to your relationship with God?
Communication - every relationship needs good communictaion, especially listening. Are you listening to God?
Focus on His beauty - everything you read in Scripture will say something about the character and nature of God. Whatever passage you read this week spend time searching for what it says about the character of God.
Remember his love for you - THE CROSS - take time to gaze upon the cross and to worship Jesus.

The Heart of God

2010-02-24T15:32:00.002Z

"For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, so that whoever believes in hims shall not perish but have eternal life"

Following Jesus involves many things that we as Christians can focus on - prayer, the Bible, worship, fellowship, pastoral care, spiritual warfare, healing, prophecy, giving - the list seems endless at times. Sometimes we just need to remember what is the focus of the heart of God. Early in the last century one of the world's greatest theologians, Jurgen Moltman, said "It is not the church that has a mission of salvation to fulfill in the world; it is the mission of the Son and the Spirit through the Father that includes the church." Mission is not something that God does it is an attribute of his character, it is nature to be always wanting to draw the lost and the least into his Kingdom. The problem for the Church worldwide is that mission has been relegated to an occassional activity that has to be worked at rather than an expression of who we are. We have made Church to be something that is for us so that we might be comfortable while God is drawing us to sacrificially follow him into the world calling people back to Him.Mission is not just a good idea it is the very heart of God.

'For God so loved the world...' are such well known words to us that they lose their power. It is because our God is so loving that mission is such a natural expression of who he is. It is not something he has to work at or plan for or wait for the right opportunity. His is always reaching out longing for the lost and the least to turn to him and be saved. His heart is that everyone should be saved and so his Holy Spirit is constantly at work in the world convicting people of sin, righteousness and judgement. Our assignment is to so capture his heart of love for the world, his longing for all to be saved that Mission because as natural a part of who we are as it is for God himself.

Is it possible for us to regain mission as an expression of who we are and not simply an add on activity? Can we be the kind of people who find mission as natural and as vital as breathing? When we do we might once again truly reflect the character of God.

Back

2010-02-24T15:31:00.003Z

I think it is time to revitalise the blog seeing as it has been such a long time simce I posted, so over the next few weeks I'll be putting up some stuff I'm doing for St Andrews based on our church values.

What a Week

2008-08-04T11:16:00.003+01:00

What an amazing week the New Wine conference at Newark was this year. This was my eighth New Wine (the last two on the Leadership Team) and I think this has been the best so far. It just seemed like God was at work every where. There must have been around 25 people saved (which in a Christian event isn't bad!), literally hundreds of healings, people sensing God's call to go - either into the difficult areas of this country or abroad and others just getting refreshed by the presence of God.
I have always New Wine to be a consistently positive experience, but this year I was just blown away by the grace and mercy of God in the way that he used me in different ways throughout the week.
There are three particular things in the week that have really encouraged and challenged me. On Tuesday night I led a policeman called John to the Lord. He then came to my seminar on Friday. He arrived early and sat at the front writing in a notepad. We had a chat and when I asked him what he was doing he said he was keeping a journal because he didn't want to forget a thing about that week. I just love the passion and desire of new Christians.
The second thing was Thursday night. We had Baroness Cox speaking in the evening on the persecuted Church and, to be honest, I really thought that this was going to be the low point of the week in terms of the evening meetings (there always seems to be a low point, except for this year!). How wrong was I!! Baroness Cox was an absolutely amazing and challenging lady who does incredible things for God. The worship and the ministry that night were just filled with the presence and power of God. To top it all we had an offering that raised £70,000 for the Message Trust to develop Eden projects across the nation.
Finally, I loved working working with the guys from the Message. For the first time we had set up an alternative venue for the morning Bible Studies which would have a more Urban feel. Andrea and I were hosting the event - which basically means we gave the notices! - and then handed it over to the people from the Message. These guys were talented, committed and amazing people of God who have given their lives to reaching people in the estates and city centres. Every day I was impacted by the challenge they brought, they just loved God and loved people.

IT ALL DEPENDS ON GOD!

2008-07-10T09:15:00.002+01:00

With all that God is doing in Church at the moment I'm so glad that it doesn't depend on me! This video sums up what God does for us.

A son asked his father, 'Dad, will you take part in a marathon with me?'
The father who, despite having a heart condition, says 'Yes'. They went on to complete the marathon together.
Father and son went on to join other marathons, the father always saying 'Yes' to his son's request of going through the race together.
One day, the son asked his father, 'Dad, let's join the Ironman together.' To which, his father said 'Yes' to.
For those who didn't know, Ironman is the toughest triathlon ever. The race encompasses three endurance events of a 2.4 mile (3.86 kilometer) ocean swim, followed by a 112 mile (180.2 kilometer) bike ride, and ending with a 26.2 mile (42.195 kilometer) marathon along the coast of the Big Island ..
Father and son went on to complete the race together.

AND GOD TURNED UP!

2008-07-01T10:03:00.002+01:00

We've been having a great year at St Andrew's this year. There has been a growing sense of expectancy and hunger. We've seen more people healed this year than any other year and we've seen people come to faith. This last Sunday though was something else!
I knew all week that it was going to be a good Sunday. I'd had a sense that God was up to something. The main service started off with a real sense of the presence of God in the place that just grew throughout the service. I always enjoy preaching but that day it just seemed so easy and comfortable. The sermon was part of a series on 'When Heaven Invades Earth' and the theme was exploring what it means to have the presence of God in us and whether that internal reality should effect our external reality (to use a phrase from Bill Johnson).
After the sermon we moved into ministry and I invited anyone who wanted ministry to the front. Probably 2/3 of the congregation came forward. That's when God really seemed to turn up. I had never before seen a response like it in just and ordinary church service. These people were desperate for more of God. The presence of the Holy Spirit was manifesting in more powerful ways than we had seen before in Church. I was awesome to be in the middle of it praying for people.
My colleague, Mike, was leading the service and it was one of those times that just seem hard to bring to an end. Afterwards there were people praying for each other all over the place. It is always hard to 'encourage' people to go home at St Andrew's, after this service it was even harder.
As they were leaving someone asked me 'What do we do now?' Someone close by said 'Yeah, what's next Sunday going to be like?' For me the answer is really what is Monday going to be like because that is what really matters. But then again it does raise expectations for next sunday - what a downer though, I have to preach elsewhere that day.

TIME TO START AGAIN

2008-06-30T15:46:00.004+01:00

I originally started this blog as a way of putting up some thoughts and ideas while I was on sabbatical. This was for my own use and for people at my church, St Andrew's, to keep up with what I was doing and thinking.
Having had over 6 months off from blogging I think it is time to take it up again. So I've given the blog a new look and will be trying to update it on a regular basis.

Coming Back

2007-11-27T14:34:00.000Z

I've been asked if I will be making changes when I get back to church and if I have a new vision for church. The answer to both those questions is yes. However, before I do anything with regard to what I feel God has been saying to me over the last four months, the first thing I want to do is find out what God has been up to in Church while I've been away. I don't want to come back to church with ideas and plans that I feel are from God and then actually cut across what God has been doing in the life of our church. So my first task will be to listen.

I'm also still working on some aspects of what I feel needs to be done in Church. Some of the changes I have in mind are small, others could be quite difficult to develop, others you may not see come into effect for a couple of years and there are changes that will effect every area of church life. So probably for the next 4-8 weeks I'll still be refining some of my thoughts. As I have mentioned in a previous post I am writing down how I see things developing in Church and this will include a timed strategy . This document will then be shared with the leadership of the church. It won't be secret and it will be open for discussion.

I am really looking forward to getting back to church. You'll never know just how much I missed everyone there. I can't wait to find out what God has been doing, so don't hold back on telling me your stories. I also know that a number of people have been working incredibly hard during my absence - Mike, Sue, Julia and Anna, - to name but a few. I hope you all appreciate what they have done for you.

Nothing New Under The Sun

2007-11-21T23:54:00.000Z

At the beginning of my sabbatical I had two things in mind. Firstly, how were we going to develop a process that allowed people to grow in their faith in a practical and intentional way. The second thing was really just a hunch that real discipleship happened best within a framework of small group and one to one relationships.

I really liked that word 'intentional', it kind of caught my imagination, perhaps because it was what I saw of Jesus discipling of the twelve. It was by accident, it had purpose and direction. So I started to use the phrase 'intentional discipleship' in my thinking and when I talked to other church leaders on my travels. This was a phrase I was quite 'proud' of really, I'd never heard it used before - that was until I got to page 73 of the book I'm currently reading (Transforming Discipleship) and there in bold lettering is the phrase 'Intentional Discipleship'. I was gutted!! This was my phrase - I'd thought of it all on my own. In fact I'm writing down the things I believe we need to work on out my sabbatical in a document I'm calling 'Intentional Discipleship'. But there really is nothing new under the sun is there?.

However, despite being gutted, I'm also really encouraged by this as I feel it is confirmation from God that all that I've been thinking of over the last four months is really from him. Interestingly, the book (which I bought in America) is all about using relationships as the main focus for discipleship and even goes on to say some the very same things I'd been inspired by at last weeks conference (There really is nothing new!). I didn't know the book was going to say these things and I hadn't been inspired to read until this week. So I really feel God is confirming things to me.

Who Are You Being Discipled By?

2007-11-21T23:25:00.000Z

Everyone, Christian and non-Christian, is being discipled by someone! A person is either being discipled into the ways of the world, the flesh and the devil or into the ways of Christ. In our discipling of others we are constantly in a battle against these other disciplers (media, influential friends and family, tradition etc).

Individuals have responsibility for their own discipleship. They should be looking to learn and grow in their following of Christ at every opportunity. However, it is the responsibility of the Church to provide the time, resources, relationships and encouragement to ensure that everyone has the right opportunities to grow. The Church needs to create an ethos in which everyone is expected to grow in their faith and is hungry to grow.

What I have realised more than anything else in my time off is that radical discipleship happens within a type of relationship that we see don't see enough of in Church. It is the kind of relationship Jesus had with his disciples, that Paul had with Timothy, Titus and others and that Barnabus had with Mark. Yes, we can grow through all sorts of ways - Bible Study, Cell groups, sermons, training events and courses, the list is endless. But what we see in the New Testament is discipleship through relationship. The kind of relationship in which one person takes a small group of others and invests something of themselves into that group of people. Within that group there is honesty, love, authenticity and accountability.

I see discipleship as being about the formation of the whole person into the likeness of Christ in terms of character, purpose, motivations, action and destiny. It is helping a person discover who they are in Christ and to live in that discovery for the rest of their lives and in every area of their life. This is a huge task and one that no person can do on their own - all the evidence of the New Testament says that. I know some people would want to say that they are being discipled by Jesus through his Holy Spirit. That is true - but it is absolutely clear in the New Testament that this only happens through the mediation of other people.

So who are you being discipled by? Very few people in our church would be able to answer that. However, it is my intention that, within a few years, anyone who is serious about their growth as a Christian would be able to give a very clear answer to that question. To actually get to that point will require some changes in Church life and it is really hard to say just how big a change will be required.

Relational Discipleship

2007-11-18T12:11:00.000Z

It only takes a casual reading of the Gospels to understand that Jesus spent most of his time with just twelve people. It seems that a huge part of the purpose of his ministry was to invest all of who he was into the lives of those twelve guys. He deliberately chose those twelve out of the many who he could of chosen. He spent most of his time, not in teaching the crowds or healing the sick, but in letting these twelve into his life so that they could understand who he was, what he was like and to share in his passion for God and the lost. Finally, he deliberately left the twelve to carry on the work that he had started in the cross and resurrection.

This is one aspect of discipleship that we are very weak on. I knew this when I first started my sabbatical and it was one subject that I wanted to work on. Last week I attended a conference at St Thomas Church in Sheffield. This is the Church that LifeShapes came out of and they have worked hard at developing what could be called relational discipleship. I attended the conference because I knew that there would be a lot of teaching on how they have established these kind of relationships.

The Church is really three Churches. It started at St Thomas, Crookes, but as that grew they developed another congregation which is now called St Thomas, Philadelphia. Since then The King's Centre in Sheffield has become part of the set up there. Altogether they are about 2000 people and are a very mission focussed Church. This is based on a strong ethos of discipleship, worship and innovation.

It was a really stimulating week for me. I came away with a lot to think about, not just on relational discipleship but also cells, my leadership and the direction of our church. There is a lot I could put in this post but I'll refrain for now until I have processed it a little more and integrated it with some of the things I have been thinking about. For now I'll share a word I was given on the last day by Nicole Brown (who some of you will know). She said she had a picture of me standing on my 'land' (our community). She said that God knows how much I love the land I am in and that he was saying the land will yield its fruit. She also had the words 'shattered glass', although she wasn't sure what they meant. Although I'm not sure what those words mean, I did remember a time a few years ago when I felt that God was talking to me about a glass ceiling in church. In other words there was something hidden that was hindering our growth. May those words relate to that, maybe they don't. If you have any insight let me know.

Growing Through Encounter

2007-11-05T10:58:00.000Z

In the last two posts I've outlined two things needed for a person to grow in Christlikeness. The first was education, the second was experience and the third one I want to look at now (also begins with an 'e'!) is encounter. Everyone who wants to grow in their faith needs to encounter the living lifechanging God we worship and to do that on a regular basis.

When you look through scripture and reflect on the lives of people in our Church it is clear that an encounter with God can (and should) change lives. There are those who say that we shouldn't be basing our faith on 'experiences' or events that could have an emotional content. They would say that these things can lead people astray and of course they are right. However, when encounters are balanced by education and experience then they have perhaps even more potential to encourage growth.

When I think of some of the things I have struggled with personally over the last few years I find that I have only really found some level of victory over them when I have encountered the power and the presence of God. This year, during the New Wine Leadership Conference in May, the presence of God was powerfully at work amongst everyone there. It was there in the presence of God that he changed something in my life that I had been struggling with. I hadn't asked the Father to do it, I wasn't even aware of what he did at that time but in the encounter I had with him then he did something that I couldn't have done myself.

Unfortunately, we cannot program in the time and place were we can encounter the powerful presence of God. It is something the He, in his grace, decides to do. There are two things that we can do that make it more possible to meet with God in that way. Firstly, expect that God will change you and that it is his desire and his will to change you. We need to create an ethos in which people believe that God can and will act at any moment in time. We need to teach them to understand it means to be a child of God and to live every day in His presence. There are too many people in St Andrew's who know that God can change lives but they don't trust Him to do it to them! Underneath it all, the underlying belief system at work in their hearts is that God doesn't love me enough to do anything in my life.

Secondly, we can create as many opportunities for God to act as possible. This is something we are pretty good at in St Andrew's. Every opportunity is given to receive prayer and to experience the presence of the Holy Spirit at work amongst us on a Sunday morning. Perhaps we need to do more work on this in cell groups and other meetings we have. Someone in Church once complained to me about the times we have when we invite the Holy Spirit to come. They, quite rightly, said "he is here all the time isn't he so why pray that prayer". The fact is that in asking the Holy Spirit to come in that way we are asking him to work in us in a more specific and powerful way. We are putting ourselves in a place where He has full access to our lives to mould us and change us into the likeness of Christ.

I believe that these three; education, experience and encounter, form the basis of our growth in Christ and provide the structure for discipleship to take place in the Church.

Growing Through Experience

2007-11-01T13:38:00.001Z

Following on from my last blog. the second thing we need to grow in our faith is experience. It is obvious that just being around God, living the Christian life and belonging to a group of Christ followers is part of growing in the faith, or at least it should be. However, I've seen lots of people who have lived a long time without ever growing up emotionally, relationally and intellectually because they have never bothered to learn from their life experience. In the same way just being a Christ follower for a long time is no guarantee that a person is mature in their faith unless they have taken time to learn the spiritual lessons that their life experience provides them.

Every experience of life we have is an opportunity to grow in our understanding of who God is, how he works and who we are as God's children. In Romans 5 Paul says "we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope." Everyone in our Church has life experiences that they can use to grow in their faith. Those life experiences do not have to be overtly spiritual in nature for us to learn spiritual truths, to God everything is spiritual. We have seen people in our church go through incredibly difficult times, some of those people grow amazingly through those times, others seem to wilt and die. Lots of people do all sorts of work in Church, some of them seem to thrive and grow in that work, others just find it a drag and don't grow. What makes the difference?

the difference is a person's ability to stop, reflect, learn and act on their experiences. It's their ability to look honestly at what is happening, to ask questions and to seek the answers from God that determines their growth. That is why I thought the first session in the lifeshapes course was so important as it provides a focused way of reflecting, earning and growing through our experience of life and service. Some people are naturally reflective types and do this sort of thing naturally. Others of us need to make time and intentionally go through the learning process, but we all need to do it. The alternative is that our life experience is wasted, we don't grow as we should and we miss out on all that God can do through us.

How Do We Grow?

2007-10-29T19:42:00.000Z

During the last couple of months (as you will have gathered from my last post) I've been thinking about how it is that people grow, what is that they need to be changed into the likeness of Christ? I've come to the conclusion that there are three things needed if a person is to come to maturity in the faith.
The first is EDUCATION. We all need to learn about what it means to follow God and to keep on learning all of our lives. God is too big and the adventure of following him too expansive for us to get to know all that we can in one lifetime. I've used the word education rather than teaching. 'Teaching' puts the emphasis on the teacher, education puts more of an emphasis on the learner. We each have the responsibility to discover for ourselves the riches of Christ's grace. This is not about getting to know the Bible better, although it is part of it. When Jesus gave the great commission he said "Go and make disciples of all nations....teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you". The whole point of learning more is about the transformation of our character and behaviour. If what we learn doesn't transform us in some way then it is a pointless exercise.
There are three things here that I have been thinking about. The first is how we encourage people to 'feed' themselves and to take responsibility for their own growth. In all the conversations I've had with people from church it is clear that few actually do that. They will ocassionally read the scriptures, but not in a regular systematic way, perhaps never read a christian book and very rarely attend any christian event, apart from sunday worship (and then not every week), where there may be life transforming teaching.
The other thing is about the responsibility of those who teach in church to teach well and to seek to accommodate those who learn in different ways. Not everyone learns well by simply sitting listen to a sermon, not matter how good it is. I'd like us to work harder at making sermons and other teaching events more interactive, visual and relevant. This is an incredibly difficult thing to do well, as anyone who has seen our different attempts up until now, will testify. However, we have to keep working on it more and more. James 3:1 says that those of us who teach will be judged more strictly than others. This is not just about being doctrinally or biblically correct in our teaching but also in the character of the teachers and the way in which the teaching is presented.
The last thing is what other ways can we provide for teaching on certain subjects and what should those subjects be. For a person to grow in their faith I have, after a lot of thought, concluded that there are certain things that we need to provide teaching on for basic discipleship. They are; how to learn, spiritual disciplines, overview of the Bible, who we are in Christ, discovering your gifts/strengths/purpose, how to develop a supernatural lifestyle and understanding evangelism/our mission. It's a bit of a list and I'm sure that other could suggest other subjects, but these are I believe the ones that we need to work on. How they will be delivered though is another question (and yes I have thoughts on that as well).
The next two blogs will cover the other aspects of what is needed to grow in discipleship.

Measuring Growth

2007-10-17T23:51:00.001+01:00

Most Church leaders I know (and I include myself in this) have a major obsession and that is the number of bums on pews on a sunday morning. There is a very good reason for this, how else is a church leader going to know if they are being 'successful'. Things like bums on pews and also how much money is given every week are one of the few things we can measure as church leaders. We all know that numbers on a sunday are not necessarily the best way of measuring success (Jesus wasn't always very good with numbers!!), but they are one of the few things we can actually measure in Church. I use the word 'success' guardedly because it's not a word that sits easily in the context of Church life. Some people don't like it because it makes the church sound like a business. We could easily use biblical words like fruitful but for now I'll use 'success'.
There's some research come out of Willow Creek Church, and documented in the book 'Reveal', that looks at how we can measure the one thing that needs to be measured in order to gauge 'success' and that is our hearts. After all a truly successful church is one in which all its members are growing in their discipleship. Success is really defined by the christlikeness of our membership but how do you measure that. Wiilow Creek have tried to do that. Drawing on the skills of a top market researcher who specialises in assessing people's attitudes and behaviours to different products, they have tried to assess their church members on how they feel they are growing in the faith. It is a very interesting book that expresses the struggle they had in trying to develop a tool to assess whether people are growing or not. Through the research they make a number of interesting discoveries and were able to create predictive models of how people might feel as they grow in faith.
The interesting thing for me on this is that I have been thinking about how we could develop a questionnaire that helped us to consider whether people felt they were growing in their faith, what they found helped them most in growing and how the church could help them grow. Can it be done, can we really measure people's hearts. I think whatever could be done would only ever give an indication of what was happening in the hearts and lives of church members, but it is certainly better than what we have now in terms of that kind of information which is simply hearsay and intuition. So at the moment I'm slowly working on trying to develop this form. Maybe nothing will come of it but you never know in a few weeks time I might be asking you all to help me measure your heartsand let's see how 'succesful' we really are!

Developing Strengths

2007-10-08T15:14:00.000+01:00

Over the weekend Andrea and I were at the Willow Creek Association Global Leadership Summit. There were 8 sessions across two days and each session had something major to reflect on afterwards. However, the session that stood out for me was by a guy called Marcus Buckingham who advises companies and corporations on how to recognise, develop and use the individual strengths of their employees. He made the point that all to often we focus on building up a persons weaknesses rather than fulfilling the potential of their strengths.
This obviously has relevance to the church and to our discipleship. We recognise that we have God-given natural abilities and personalities and we also have supernatural gifts that all must be used in serving God in the world. A major part of our discipleship is recognising what they are and looking for the best way to use them. Most Christians I know would say that they haven't yet discovered what those gifts and abilities are, despite the fact that there are great tools for helping with this, Willow's network course and the S.H.A.P.E. course from Saddleback Church are great for helping people with this.
Part of the problem I think is they way we run church. Churches tend to focus on fitting people into their existing programs rather than fitting their programs around the gifts and strengths of the people in the church.
Listening to Marcus got me thinking about what would St Andrew's look like if we focussed on people's strengths and gifts. If we only developed our Church life around what people had been gifted to do rather than trying to shoehorn them into what we are already doing or think we should do. The strengths and gifts of the people in our church is our most valuable resource - maybe we are wasting that resource?

"And All Is Stripped Away"

2007-09-24T16:59:00.000+01:00

I've been reflecting on these words from Matt Redman's song 'When the Music Fades'. They pretty much sum up how I've been feeling over the last few weeks. After all the excitement of going away in August, September has been a much quieter and more difficult time for both Andrea and I. It's hard to put into words why it has been difficult and I suppose there are a number of things going on.
Firstly, we are both missing everyone at St Andrew's very much. While we have seen a few people about, it's not the same as seeing people regularly throughout the week.
Secondly, we are missing being involved in the work of the Church. When it has been part of our lives 24/7 for the last 10 years, it is difficult to just have that taken away.
Thirdly, we have sensed God speaking to us about what we should be doing over the rest of the sabbatical and that is different to what we have planned.
So it feels for us like a lot of what makes us who we are has been stripped away and now it is just us and God. Actually, while that sounds great, it is not an easy place to be at. The outcome of this is that we are changing the focus of the rest of the sabbatical. I had focussed a lot on learning from other churches and church leaders (in other words pandering to my need to do stuff!). However, from now on the focus of the next two months for us will be more about being with God and deepening our relationship with him.
In reality the plans we had made will not change much, except for the fact that we will now not be going to California for a conference. I will still be doing a lot of reading and thinking about discipleship and how we 'make disciples'. The main change is the focus or emphasis.
Over the last weekend Andrea went on an 'Encounter' weekend with Frontline Church and had a great time. The weekend deals with all sorts of things that can hinder a persons walk with Jesus - sin, unforgiveness, the demonic etc. - so she's come back a different woman!! I'm planning to go on an Encounter early next year, for my own benefit but also because I believe that there are things we need to learn from these Encounter weekends.

Reflections on American Visits

2007-09-14T14:46:00.000+01:00

While all the churches we visited in America were different and had things that I liked and disliked, there are some general reflections that I have made since getting back to the UK.
Firstly, there was a huge emphasis in these churches on the creative arts. All the Churches, apart from Mars Hill, were very visual in that they used excellent images on the screens, they used dance and drama effectively and, as I have already said in my descriptions, had very good music groups. Most of them used lighting to very good effect, for instance at Willow Creek the lighting colour on the stage would change depending on the type of worship at the time.This level of emphasis on the creative and visual is something that we do not see very often in the UK. When it is done as well as these churches did then it can be a real help in worship and learning.
Secondly, All the churches emphasised organised, instructional and relevant teaching. What I found particularly helpful in some churches was each member of the congregation was given a sheet outlining the sermon and containing all the relevant Bible verses. They may also have questions for personal reflection and questions for Cells on the sheets as well as ideas for further reading.
Thirdly, all the churches had clear, well organised and multipliable leadership structures. They were particularly good at identifying and making space for new and young leaders.
Fourthly, on a negative note, there was very little emphasis on encouraging people to encounter God in worship or through prayer ministry. The worship was well performed but there was little passion or space for God to move. By the end of three weeks we were desperate for worship that seemed to connect the heart as well as the mind.
Finally, there was a great openness and forthrightness about money. Not in a TV evangelist kind of way but in a positive, 'this is part of your worship' kind of way. A number of the churches had courses on how to deal with money in a Biblical way.

Visit to New York

2007-09-06T23:44:00.000+01:00

At New York we only go to visit one church, The Journy. The other Church I hoped to visit, New Life Fellowship, is based in Queens which was a train journey out of Manhatten. Unfortunately there werte problems with the trains and they were stopping at the station we needed, so we never got there.
However, the visit to The Journey was well worth the visit. The Journey has a number of sites throughout New York and seems to attract a mainly young and highly networked congregation. Like the others this church is well into the creative arts and the service included a well performed dance by someone for whom dance must be their career.. Normally dance in worship leaves me pretty cold but this wasn't too bad.
The talk was very good and was helped by the fact that everyone received a leaflet with the outline of the talk, the main Bible verses used and spaces to write in - a great idea. Nearly all the Churches we visited were good at provided free material and information to new comers and new Christians, but this one was especially good. The was a free book, CD's of talks and a whole bunch of other stuff as well.
I also enjoyed the worship at this Church a bit more than the others as the worship time was longer and perhaps more passionate than at some of the other churches we visited. It felt a little more like being at St Andrew's.

Visiting Churches in Grand Rapids

2007-09-05T22:56:00.000+01:00

The next two Churches we visited were both in Grand Rapids.
The first, Daybreak, has a big emphasis on 'Seeker' services in the same way that willow Creek does. The main difference it seemed was there is a greater emphasis on using the creative arts in the services at Daybreak. The music, visual media etc were stunning. Every year they host a conference on using the creative arts in worship. I was given a complimentary copy of the magazine they produce along side the conference and it was one of the best quality magazines I'd seen produce by any Christian organisation. The interesting thing for me was that they introduced at the service a new member of staff whose sole purpose was to work on spiritual formation and discipleship, which of course is what my sabbatical is all about. I was able to spend a good time with him just talking through how he saw his new role and how churches can disciple people.
Later that evening we went to Mars Hill. If any of you have seen one of the nooma videos or read the book Velvet Elvis then the guy in the Videos is Rob Bell and he is the teaching pastor and founder at Mars Hill. They meet in a converted shopping centre with the main meeting place right at the centre of the large building. The service actually happens in the round, the stage area is in the centre of the floor space. It felt a bit weird at first getting used to seeing peoples back on stage but we soon got used to it. The service was great, although we were dissappointed that Rob Bell and the Mars Hill worship band weren't there. Instead they had a guest preacher and worship band from another church, so we didn't really get a real feel of what the church was like on a sunday. But we got to spend some time with someone on the staff there and talk through what they get up to as a Church.
One of the things that came up in both the visits to these churches was just how highly 'churched' much of that area was. One of the comments made to me was that they were horrified to discover that only 50% of their local community go to Church! I informed this guy that for us here in the UK that would be like going to heaven, he just couldn't get his head around the fact that attendance at church here is well below 10%!!

Good to be Back

2007-09-04T10:20:00.000+01:00

Well it's great to be back. We had a wonderful time in America saw some great places, visited interesting churches and met some amazing people. I thought I'd fill you you in on the Churches we visited for a few days and then some reflections on our experiences of them.

We visited two Churches in Chicago. Of course we went to Willow Creek. This was on the Saturday night at one of their 'seeker services' (a service geared to non church members). The first thing top say about the place was what an amazing building it was. It's on a huge campus with car parking for possibly 1000's of cars. We arrived late (it's an hour out of Chicago) and went into the wrong auditorium. What we thought was the main meeting place was just the venue for the youth work. The main auditorium seats over 7000 people in really comfortable chairs. The sound, lighting, comfort and just general attention to detail was fantastic. The place has its own restaurant (it seats hundreds of people and has a variety of food) and huge bookstall.
For me the service wasn't as good as the facilities, but then again the service wasn't aimed at people like me. That's not to say it wasn't well done. The talk was interesting and memorable and the music was of a really high standard, but for me seemed a bit straight and passionless.
This was a big contrast to the church we went to the next day. Community Christian Church (CCC) is a network of 8 Churches across the Chicago area that are doing some innovative things. The Church we went to is their newest. Its was planted about 14months ago and meets in a local school. I think there are about 150 people meeting in two services, one a spanish speaking service. The way they do the talks at CCC is interesting. To ensure that all the churches are getting the same high standard is projected on big screens at the other venues. I really wasn't sure how I'd like this but to be honest it really didn't make much different. The talk was on how we can be 'hooked' on all sorts of things. While the talk was going on on one screen, there was another screen showing the powerpoint presentation. During the talk a young guy came on the stage and started moving a pile of stones from one place to another and then back again. The idea was to show the pointlessness of some of the things we get stuck on. The service had the same attention to detail as Willow Creek with the lighting sound etc just done on a smaller scale.
This particular Church is situated in one of the poorer areas of Chicago and out of all the churches we visited was the one Andrea and I felt most at home in. The service dealt with real issues, the worship was nowhere near and professionally done as at Willow Creek but had more passion and the people were warm and welcoming. I had a great chat with the pastor a few days later and I will comment on that in a future post.

The Next Post

2007-08-08T23:37:00.001+01:00

I go off to America tomorrow to visit a number of churches. Unfortunately, I don't know if or how often I'm going to be able to update the blog. If not there will be a lot to catch up on when I return.

Empire or Kingdom

2007-08-08T17:15:00.001+01:00

This is the title of a chapter in the book 'Let My People Grow'. The chapter asks the question of whether churches, and especially church leaders, are seeking to build the Kingdom or to build an empire. The writer then goes on to say that if we are to build the Kingdom Churches need to spend far more time in eqiupping their members to be salt and light in the homes, workplaces etc rather than getting them to just do church stuff better.
This is a comment I've heard a lot and I know that I constantly find myself in the empire building role rather than the Kingdom building one. However, I'm not yet sure anyone really knows what it would take to equip Church members to be radically live out their faith in the workplace etc. Most books on discipleship are about learning to pray, reading the Bible, fellowship etc not about how to see Kingdom values in a secular workplace or how to be a good employee!
So what does the Church need to do to provide a better base from which it's members can enter their everyday world and live for Jesus in it? Certainly at St Andrew's we need to be working on people discovering a sense of vocation to their jobs (paid or unpaid - ie home maker) and then showing that the Church values the work they do. After all it really is in the home and in the workplace that Christians have the most opportunity to witness and make a difference.
For me I know I need to keep working at changing my focus to a Kingdom mentality.

Here we go!

2007-08-05T00:33:00.000+01:00

Well after all the months of planning and organising my sabbatical has now started and what a strange feeling it is.
Firstly, I've been overwhelmed with God's goodness. When we started to plan this we never for one minute thought we would raise enough money to be able to do even half of what we wanted to do and yet through all sorts of ways God has provided for us. I have been amazed at how generous the people of St Andrew's have been to us, and yet really we shouldn't have been. In the 10 years we have been there they have repeatedly shown themselves to be an amazing and wonderful people of God.
Secondly, It is a slightly unnerving feeling to know that for the next 4 months I'm not working. Andrea has also just left her job and she put it succinctly when she said 'who am I now'. When your identity is so wrapped up in what you do (and that's not a good thing) to suddenly have nothing to do is - well, just weird! I keep coming to my desk to just look for something to do out of desperation. I've had strange thoughts, like 'what am I going to talk to God about now there's no church?', 'what am I going to do all day?, 'Will Andrea and I get on now that we are together 24/7!!!?'
The fact is that I do have things to do, it's just different to what I've been used to and so my other main emotion at the moment is excitement. Excitement about what I will see of God in other Churches, excitement about what I will discover about myself and excitement about spending more time with God and also with my family.
And so here we go - four months into the unknown - I can't wait.