What kind of witness?

Recently I had a mail item in the church mail box which concerned me. It offered something to people for free and made quite a thing out of helping folks learn to read the bible. At first glance what's wrong with that? As a Christian I am all for people reading the bible and helping them make sense of it as best we can. After all as Timothy tells us its a good diet for us.

The publicity was for a course, run by a church group that many mainstream Christians would not accept as Christian. However I don't want to get into that at the moment. The point is that what they seemed to be doing is attracting folks to the free bible study course without saying who was behind it and so what the underlying things that they were going to be teaching about the bible actually were. A sort of stealth approach possibly because the truth might put some off from coming.

It got me thinking about what we do through Church and our faith lives, under the heading of "outreach". How much is either so "in your face" that folks are put off and so propagates the label that we Christians are intolerant, rule based people and such or is done by stealth so that there is no obvious connection to the church or our faith even though that's the underlying reason for doing it.

I know that some won't agree with me, but shouting out loud in the streets seems to put most off  and sometimes seems to draw attention to the message giver rather than the saviour we serve. Personally that's was my impression of a  you tube clip put up recently trying to show the police in the UK victimising a street preacher as he shouted out his message and refused to reduce his volume after complaints. What kind of witness is that? Perhaps we need to use more effective ways to touch people with the truth and in case you are wondering, I have done plenty of street work and door knocking myself. Chris Duffet gives some excellent ideas on the Light Project web site of ways to connect in public.

What kind of witness does it give if we are not being open and honest about who is doing whatever it is? Our saviour was up front and open about who he was, talking to and ministering to groups of people where-ever he came across them, in his earthly ministry. Yes he upset people, yes there was opposition to him, but he also attracted people who would give up lifestyles and lives to follow him and give out the message. His honesty earned him ridicule, torture and death. But his witness sparked a movement that has endured through the centuries, witnessing to the God who calls to us, his people, through an incredible witness, Jesus.

We, that is the church, are ambassadors for an incredible saviour, lets not be afraid to let people know who we are, but lets also not frighten folks away with our sometimes well meaning but badly thought out methods. Last year handing out free dough-nuts and chocolate in a high street with lots of shops, car dealers and
other businesses, telling folks why we were doing it, surprised many and got folks talking and sharing.

How we witness what we believe plays a key part in how those who see or hear it take it. Let's try and be good witnesses ...

Harvest - need or greed, a time to take stock

Living in a country which is one of the richest, economically, in the world can give us a false sense of what is what. I recently saw that the use of Food banks in England has shot up over the last year and certainly there are many who through no fault of their own are struggling financially while others are in that place because they have over extended themselves to have what they want.

As I have been preparing for harvest, I have been wondering how this compares to say farming families in the drought ridden or war torn parts of Africa? What about those in areas of the world where our first world "needs" have resulted in stripping the land bare and then produced landslips and floods when the rains come down? Is it about need or greed, our desire to live well and prosperously, their desire simply to survive? Gandhi said, many years back that "the world has enough for everyone's need but not for everyone's greed."

Its easy to put such things as famine, drought and war out of our minds as we seek to provide ourselves with a good standard of living, I include myself in this! Jesus said we would always have the poor with us so maybe we can put up a case for looking the other way. However we have also been given responsibility for God's creation, all of it. So I don't think we can simply get on with our lives and look away. Often it is our very way of life that is creating the ecological and other problems that mean 3rd world counties cannot produce enough food, have adequate medicines and have to cope with drought and flood.

The church I am in is supporting the Baptist Missionary Society's' Hungry campaign this Harvest to help farmers in Uganda recover the land that is rightly theirs but through war they have been dispossessed of. Check it out if your are interested.

The point, it seems to me, is that if, as Christians, we want to be in tune with God's heart, them justice and mercy are absolutely key. Christ's compassion for humanity meant that he did something amazing for all of us, gave us life through his death. Is it time for each of us to take stock and give more of the bounty we receive, in compassion, to those who struggle to survive? To curtain our greed so that we can meet their need? Will any of our children or grandchildren die of easily curable or preventable diseases or malnutrition or flood?

Harvest is a celebration of God's plentiful provision for all, salvation, love and life. Lets praise God for all we have and lets be fair in how we share it.

Relationships Continued (4)

As my youngest son and his fiancée prepare for their wedding this Sat (3rd Aug), in the church that we all went to before I came to Harlow, I have been reflecting a little on how we prepare for what should be a life-times journey. In a society where we want everything as we want it and we want it now - possibly why the fast food shops like McDonalds, Kentucky Fried Chicken and Burger King are so popular - fast, easy and throw away if we don't like it. Maybe that's why we can't buy wedding cakes in those places - they take too long to make well and are not easy to mass produce.

Good food needs thought, care and love. To make what will hit the spot for the person or people we are cooking for, the ingredients need to be good and wholesome, the cooking done well and the presentation makes it all look good and appetising. The result carried out with love, is good.

As we prepare for the life long journey, called marriage that we are going to share with our partner (and before you ask no I don't hold with same sex Christian marriage). That too needs to be prepared with thought - it should not be rushed into, that's why we do marriage prep. with the couples that marry in the church I Pastor. It takes care, getting to know your partner, learning to love them for who they are and not who we might want them to be and accepting their traits even if they are sometimes annoying. It takes good ingredients - compassion, compromise, sharing, caring, forgiving, supporting among others.

The whole is carried out with love. A love that grows as the marriage grows, a love that can overcome all things , can take joy in each other and can bond two people more firmly than if they had used super-glue.

My wife and I are celebrating 36 years of marriage this year, we have been blessed that our children have found good marriage partners and my prayer is that they will enjoy life long marriages that will grow in every respect as they go on. Christ is central to our marriage and is important to our children, part of the preparation for a Christian marriage must be to put God in the right place - above everything else. If God is relegated then self will win and self is a destructive force in a marriage.

Fast food beef burgers and chicken snacks are no substitute for the real thing and the real thing takes time to prepare and get right, just like a good wedding cake. Marriage takes time to prepare for and to mature and blossom, the real thing has no imitations, no quick and easy alternatives.

Responsibility - measure with the right yardstick

Responsibility is a strange word in many respects. We can expect others to be responsible and yet not consider our own actions, attitudes and words through the lens of being responsible for them. Its OK to hold others to account but when they try to hold us to account we can get cross, react badly and try to make ourselves feel better about it by soliciting others to our case.

Sounds a bit like any soup opera on the TV, the ability to do what suits me but not wanting responsibility for the impact that that has on others. Yet sometimes as Christians we play out the same drama as if its all OK almost as if the result we want makes how we achieve it fine. But actually its not fine, its never fine to be careless as a Christian about the things we do or say and the attitudes that we hold. David found this out when he took what he desired, Bathsheba, even though she was someone else's wife and God disciplined both of them. Peter when he erred towards the old Jewish practices rather than stick with what the church council had agreed had Paul on his case to correct him.

In both cases they had chosen to act and their actions had not met the standard required of God's people. Possibly one acted on impulse after all he was King so he could have whatever he wanted and who would dare question his choices or actions? The other may have been bowing to people pressure, taking an easier option for a while. We can't tell for sure.

What about those of us who are Christians? How often do we actually reflect on our actions or words or lack of them? How often do we consider before we do something?

Paul tells us to take captive every thought to make them conform to the ways of Christ. In effect be responsible for what we do, say, omit, don't do or say - measure them with the right yardstick - Christ. Every Christian has been given the gift of the Holy Spirit to guide us and lead us into all truth. Let's be responsible for the thoughts of our hearts and the words of our mouths and not justify them by our own, often skewed, agendas, desires and emotions.

Surprise endings ...

Do you like surprises? I am in two minds, some surprises are nice - like when the children invite us over or when we can unexpectedly get together. Others are not so good - like cars breaking down or pipes suddenly bursting.

This Sunday in church part way through the sermon, there was a loud bang, the air shook and so did the building, definitely a shock - was it the second coming? No, unless we were being left behind or something. Was it part of the building falling? No, no sign of dust, large pieces of masonry dropping on us. Turns out it was an Air Force jet generating a sonic boom having been sent to intercept an airliner that the air traffic people had lost touch with. I suspect the arrival of a jet must have been a bit of a shock for them.

Jesus told a mixed group of religious leaders and onlookers that their idea of heaven and hell was skewed, that they were in for a shock when the time came as to who would be in Heaven and who would end up in Hell. Just in case we are in any doubt, Jesus also points out that words are not enough, the truth of our faith is borne out in how we act towards each other. When we accept Jesus as our Lord and saviour it is always a life changing experience, our lives, our attitudes, our thoughts and so our actions will change to be more like His.

The shock will be that for far too many, Jesus is going to be saying "I never knew you" on the day of judgement.