Engage Brain

Ever heard the expression "Engage your brain before opening your mouth"?

People with mindsets or opinions can be apt to jump to conclusions when particular phrases or words are used and our reaction becomes pretty much a preprogrammed or "learned"  response to that phrase or word. As evangelical Christians we all accept the trinity (Father, Son, Holy Spirit), the deity of Christ, the death and resurrection of Christ and the need for forgiveness of sins through Christs atoning work on the cross.

We use words like crucifixion, resurrection, atonement, sin, forgiveness and phrases like the blood of the lamb, penal substitution, dying in our place, sin's penalty, being born again and so on. But so often our view is shaped by how we or possibly more often, how others (we have heard about or read), read scripture.


Then when someone comes out with a different view or uses a phrase differently to the way we like it used like salvation, sin, holiness, grace etc.we run to the metaphorical barricades and start hurling verbal missiles. Take a look at the comments on any web site that takes opinions from Christians and you, I suspect, might be surprised at the venom injected into the discussion. Remember this is between brothers and sisters in Christ.

The Bible seems to say something different when talking of false teachers 1Tim 6 - "But you, man of God, flee from all this, and pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, endurance and gentleness. "

What we show is an argumentative, opinionated, often arrogant and intolerant  mindset - 1 Peter 3:8-12 tells those in the Church to live in harmony, love each other ...  and includes "they must seek peace and pursue it. Peter advocates a style of Christian living that is an example not a constant battle-ground.


We need to show those qualities or virtues in all of our dealings.

Relationships Matter 3

There are many myths about good and bad marriages and I cannot say I am an expert on either, having been married to one woman for 33 years, I have little experience of the myths, only of the reality. The reality is relationships are often hard work but have incredible moments and times which I would not swap for anything.


I know that when we married it had little to do with God, since neither of us were Christians but it did have to do with a funny sense of ownership. I wanted to be with the woman I married and I wanted it to last. My rose coloured glasses were stretched with early conflicts and misunderstandings, arguments and selfish attempts to get our own way with each other.

No one prepared us for that and to be honest, we struggled ... (maybe it would have been easier if we had asked God to work on it with us!)

From around 4 years into our marriage we have been blessed to have known (and in some cases still know) good Christian people who have stood with us, encouraged us and helped us as we have needed it. We have also had to let go of many of the selfish preconceptions that we had when we married as we have learned to compromise and "prefer" the needs of each other.

But relationships matter to God, and in reflection I can say that in the hardest times for example during post natal depression and the emotional disconnection that went with it or the death of my wife's mother and father close together or the medical problems we had with one of our son's early in his life, we have grown closer as we have handled it.


Possibly its only in looking back that I can see how much that I have been changed through the on-going relationship that I have with my wife and for that matter how much she has changed. I also see God's hand in our lives, how much scripture has underpinned us and helped us - I think that perhaps each day I have a better understanding of those verses, that God gave in 1 Corinthians 13, yes - written about the church, but speaks so much into all relationships of the love we should share and how it causes us to behave. It cements one truth I know I have learned - love is not a feeling is an act of our will - we choose to love in each situation and season just as God has chosen to love each of us and his Church.
 
Try listening to this song and reflect on what your relationship with you partner means to you ...

Shortly we will be taking marriage preparation classes with some couples preparing to start their marriage journey's hoping and praying that they will find these great truths in their relationship with each other and with God.

Relationships matter 2

This is my second thought on relationships, this time focused on divorce.

Divorce is a big issue for many Christians since God seems to have a negative view of it. God uses pretty harsh language through the prophets, likening Israel's (in the Old Testament)  behaviour to that of an unfaithful partner. Why is God so down on divorce? Possibly because it signifies the break-up of something that should have been being nurtured between two people and instead has fallen apart with all of the associated issues. God's language is even more vehement through Micah (a prophet) - "I hate divorce ...".


Divorce is a big issue for society, it breaks families, relationships, often generates huge patterns of long lasting hurt, anger and resentment and if stats are correct for 2009, affects over 99K children a year in England and Scotland combined!

I am sure we can all cite cases where the situation could only be resolved through divorce and there are, in my opinion, some which Christians should advocate divorce in for example where violence is being done to one or other or both and cannot be stopped or where children are being harmed. However many relationships break up for reasons which may well have been resolvable if only those involved had tried earlier or not given in to temptation or wrong encouragement.

But the real point is this, divorce, like living together rather than marrying, is not God's best for us. Being who we are means we understand too late what we have broken by the actions or lack of actions that caused the break-up. God's best is that we find partners who we will invest our lives with and who in turn will invest their lives in us.

When however it has gone wrong and a person is divorced, the next difficulty is can they remarry with God's blessing? Can they be married again in God's eye's? A question I have been asked a few times of late. In a perfect world with no sin, there would be no divorce because none of us would marry "the wrong person", non of us would "stop loving" our partner ... but we are what we are and the result is broken relationships and a desire often to form new ones with the hope of something better.

 Fortunately for us, God is forgiving, its in God's nature to forgive even when his people break relationship with him time and again he offers a new start. That new start is shown to us in Christ - we are told to admit our wrong doings and accept forgiveness for them, forgive as you expect to be forgiven. Then and only then can we move on, works in progress but hopefully the wiser for our experience able to try again with God working with us, making a better and more lasting result of a subsequent marriage.

Relationships matter

Over the last few weeks I have had a number of conversations with people around the church and on the edge of the church about relationships, married, civil partnerships, living together, divorce and so on. In this thought I want to consider living together.

God tells us throughout the Bible that he wants a relationship with each of us and often this comes up as a covenant or agreement between a person or people and God. Such a covenant has benefits and demands so that to enjoy the benefits the beneficiaries have to accept the need to take on board the cost.

Our relationships, Biblically anyway, fall into that same form, God puts a man and a woman together for a number of reasons, companionship, friendship, producing children. They leave their parents and agree to be only for each other for a life-time. A covenant agreement which in human terms is often framed in a marriage ceremony, with vows to seal it before God and to ask God's hand and blessing to this coming together of a man an a woman.

In this day and age many skip the formal covenant and opt for a more open ended (OK not always), relationship, living together. This appears to have a degree of freedom, perhaps a little less commitment while enjoying the benefits (Sex, relationship, children ...). In my view not God's best for us but and heres the KRUNCH - in God's view it seems that once a man and a women joined together as one, have made love / had sex or whatever you want to call it, they are married in our sense of the word - two have become one. No apparent certificate or ceremony, but then I don't read of Adam and Eve having a wedding with bells and songs God puts them together and tells them to populate the world!


Think carefully before you give in to yours or another's desire to gratify sexual need or to find happiness where previously you had none or to rush into moving in before considering the long term, it doesn't come free of responsibility.Think carefully before you take the step of living with someone - just because there is no certificate or ceremony  does not mean that there is not the same responsibility, cost and benefit equation coming into being over that relationship - the real difference is that God has been left out and to produce wholesome, long-lived, fulfilling relationships we need all the help we can get, especially God's.

One positive is that there are courses run by churches to help those considering long term relationships - marriage, no matter where they are starting from (single, married, living together). The Relationship central marriage course and pre-marriage course are good for exploring relationships and helping to build healthy marriages.

Golden Oldies

I reflect sometimes on things that people remember well and the things that we are constantly changing. Does each church reflect one culture as it incorporates new things or do they reflect a wide range?

A book I read a little while ago "Re-Emerging Church" suggests that there is a time window of opportunity for the church, related to the baby-boomer generation (born 1946-1964). As they are starting to retire and look back at familiar things of their childhood, one such is church because many went to Sunday school and are looking for familiar, comforting things. However when they drop by the local church often it does not resemble anything that they recognise. Modern hymns, casual dress code, changed or no liturgy etc. all of the things that they recall gone with the result that many don't go back again. A chance to re-engage with them and to possibly lead them to faith rather than comfort, lost.

When I think about it, given that I am a mid-generation boomer who didn't go to church as a child, my heart does respond when I hear some of those old hymns and tunes. Recently at music practice in church, my wife came out with a classic song and it started a session of singing some of those wonderful old hymns that left us exhilarated.

Thats is not to say that I don't love to sing the modern songs, although some, like some of the old ones really should have been binned at birth! But perhaps the point is that we should not make church to be how we like it and forget that others may find comfort in some of the old familiar things that we have tried to put out.

There is something profound and comforting, not to say challenging about understanding the Lord's Prayer when we say it or when the Creeds of the church are spoken out together or when we sing the verses of a well penned, easy to sing Hymn. After all they were written to remind us of the great truths of our faith.