Have we lost the plot?

As I engage in debate with other Christians and theologians and church ministers, I keep wondering "have we lost the plot?" Are we spending so much time dealing with these apparently important questions and cultural skews on the gospel message that we are truly loosing the plot when it comes to Christianity? Have we lost the simplicity of the message?

We discuss all sorts of aspects of theology or things like being the best at music, inclusion, having welcoming premises, giving an attractive message or a challenging message, using the latest techno wizardry even whether we should hand out decent coffee or instant coffee before or after church activities. But how do they fit with the message we have been charged to give? Aren't all of these ancillary to the message we are called to give, the message that still seems to hit the spot for many who hear it? And are they any substitute for giving our best to giving out that message?

Jesus seems not to have had food to feed the 5000 or the 4000 let alone coffee, and yet they all ate and were satisfied, men, women and children. The sick and possessed came to him and found healing, the sinful found release and recovery through him. In Jesus the religious (and anyone else who wanted it) found a new track to follow that gave them truth and freedom and hope. He is our example.

Over the centuries theologians and other clever folks have written countless pages on their interpretation of scripture but it seems to me that understanding of scripture is open to all not a reserve for the educated. It is open to all through the work and inspiration of the Holy Spirit. As Jesus said ...

John 14:26  But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you. 

Joh 16:13  But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all the truth. He will not speak on his own; he will speak only what he hears, and he will tell you what is yet to come. 

I struggle at times to understand why if we are, as Christians, filled with the Spirit of God, the Spirit of unity, we cannot agree on so many areas of scripture and its interpretation.

Eph 4:2  Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love.
Eph 4:3  Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace.
Eph 4:4  There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to one hope when you were called;

Jesus' prayer for the church includes this ...

Joh 17:23  I in them and you in me--so that they may be brought to complete unity. Then the world will know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me. (my emphasis)

Perhaps our biggest issue is that our learning and reading and disputing, sometimes driven by our pride in what we "learn" and apparently understand, gain greater importance than relying on the God of the universe to lead us in all truth and righteousness. My right is better than your right can be the cry."Be still and know that I am God" comes to mind.

I am not trying to offend theologians and those with higher education (after all I have what is considered higher education) but to challenge the way we seem to do things. I struggle with the way in which it seems that God can lead one group to believe that his truth means one thing while leading another to believe the exact opposite? Doesn't this suggest that we simply have not got it yet? Can we not accept that? Must we be right in our understanding to the exclusion of all other interpretations? Are we in danger of and have we (the Church) been in danger of, fitting our understanding to our desires and aspirations (and I include myself in this) or of shaping our understanding to fit the situation or our latest piece of learning?

Some of the most able preachers of the gospel and effective evangelists that I have come across in recent history seem to have been relatively uneducated and yet were greatly used by God (Tozer, Wigglesworth, Hudson Taylor are just some I recall). Often, it seems to me, the simplicity of their approach worked well.

 Have we or are we loosing the simplicity of the message we are called to proclaim by being so polarized in our views?

Good Friday Poem

I shared this poem yesterday at our Good Friday reflection, we live in the knowledge of the resurrection of Christ, but its good also to remember the price paid for our freedom in him.

Have a great East, celebrating the greatest of all events - "He is risen".

The jeering crowd like jackals stood,
To see what must be done.
Though once they thought this man was good,
They didn't see God's Son.

They called Him Rabbi, Teacher, Lord,
Yet now He was Rome's slave.
So all His claims were now ignored,
For who was He to save?

The nails were driven deep inside...
More drops of blood soon fell...
Once lifted, hoisted, crucified,
His life was just like Hell.

Torment and torture lay ahead.

Excruciating pain.
His scourged back stung and bled and bled
As briars bruised His brain.

His mother wept each passing hour.
'Dear God, have pity, please! '
And yet there came no sign of power,
No rescue, no release.

The soldiers gambled for His clothes.

One wash and they'd be clean.
His life and death the Father chose,
Thus stays the Nazarene.

'It is finished! ' the Saviour screamed
With one great final sigh...
Though not defeated as it seemed,
For Jesus had to die.

To think, the Holy Spirit shares
Forgiveness in His Name!
No other man on Earth compares.
Not one could do the same.

For all have sinned and gone astray
Like sheep in darkest night.

But blessed are they that find the Way
And walk within His light...

He died for you. He died for me.
God's Son fulfilled God's plan.
From Calvary came clemency!
Behold the Son of Man!
Behold the blood! Behold the Lord!

For this man was the Christ!
The Lamb of God! His heart outpoured!
The Saviour sacrificed!
Oh, who can count the callous sins
That Jesus suffered for?
Behold the precious Prince of Peace,
The King of Love and more!

Denis Martindale

Intentional Surrender

Surrender has very negative connotations. For folks like me who love looking into history and especially military history, surrender suggests loosing, being weaker or somehow being less than others.

Intentional is a little simpler and easier to go with, something that we do with consideration or intent, something we decide rather than getting into it accidentally or in some way fall into.

Put the two together and it makes a strong and yet difficult phrase. "Intentional surrender."

In the context of the Christian faith, Jesus gave us the extreme example of this. Choosing to put aside his status ...
Php 2:6-7  Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage; rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness.

Intentional surrender to the task in front of him, led Jesus to follow God's plan for his life, his ministry and ultimately to his death on the cross. As we approach Easter, it is worth reflecting a little on what that says to us about our attitudes, our ways of life and that phrase "Intentional Surrender".

Who or what do we live for? What is important to us? How do we handle being part of a church, if we are? How easily do we accept the leadership of others, even others who seem to us to be the wrong people by our judgement? What if you are a high powered executive or someone who runs their own business? What if your perceived spiritual or leadership experience in church life appears to be extensive? How well do you take being led by someone without your apparent experience?

God's ways are often hard for us to understand,

1Co 1:27  But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong.

We need to be reminded that God does not see things our way and we need that reminder as we consider Intentional surrender to his will, In my understanding it means Intentional surrender to those we are in fellowship with in our churches, Intentional surrender to those God gives responsibility to. It is in our weakness that we best recognise our need for God.

Christ did not surrender because he was weak, he surrendered to the cross because he was strong and made an amazing choice, for each of us, to die in our place. Intentional surrender requires strength on our part, its not about giving up, its about intentionally surrendering to God's will and plan and then actively giving it all we have to support, encourage and lend our skills and abilities to those God has called to lead or organise his people.

If there were more intentional surrender in churches, there would, in my opinion, be a lot fewer church problems with control, leadership, splits over control and our churches would be far more harmonious places, living out God's will for us, together.

Rich Conversations

Over the last week I have had some conversations that each in their way have caused me to think because I engaged with the other person / people, heard what they were saying, responded and enjoyed the discussion. What I call rich conversations because from each I gained something important. Let me share a few:

I wonder if you consider the kinds of conversations that you have with others, at home, at work, where you socialise? Conversations can be quite throw away, passing the time of day and not really taking in much because we are mentally off to the next thing or texting / emailing at the same time as talking.


We are running an Alpha course at the church where I am the Pastor and the discussions after the meal and video are really good. Talking about things which, church folk often take for granted or assume that all other church folks understand anyway. The concept of the Holy Trinity and how you explain it was one such. And no matter the examples people use to try, it is for me something that is but cannot be adequately explained. A part of the mystery of God. But discussing it helped the group understand that not everything in faith has nice neat answers.

Then there was the discussion with a regular at the church on the nature and content of the New Testament, in the bible. It all seems the same, with the same themes was the starting point. The bottom line being that it seems we really don't need it all. However when we talked through what was actually there, the nuances and differences and what would be lost if you reduced it, the person wondered why we don't talk more about this in church. A bit of a challenge for me. But again a very useful conversation.

A last example was a chat at a minsters breakfast with another minister where we considered what people take in from a typical sermon and the way in which people seem all too often to dismiss what they don't like the sound of or the challenge of. It made me realise that one of the things I miss in Pastoral ministry is the deeper conversations that we had when studying for ministry at college. Perhaps I need to encourage these in church?

So different conversations, in various settings and yet each with gems for me to look into or learn from.

So much of Jesus' ministry was conversations with his disciples and would be disciples, encouraging, teaching, challenging, honing their skills so that eventually they would be able to go out on their own and spread the word. The gospels are full of the accounts of these conversations. Some dealing with very human things like who might sit alongside Jesus in heaven and who would be the greatest in his Kingdom, while others dealt with the need to be clued up and ready. One of the conversations that I love reading is that between Nicodemus, a religious leader, and Jesus. Nicodemus hears but cannot understand, he listens with a particular mindset and struggles with Jesus' words.

Often when we hear each other in conversation, we don't truly hear or understand. We come to the conversation with out own word filters, placing our own understanding on them rather than giving time to fully understanding what the other is saying and meaning. Rich conversations take time and focus and a desire to go deeper with them, to find the richness. Try it yourself, it is rewarding.

Uncertainty and Faith - A Christmas thought

These are the notes I used to give the talk at our churches Carols Service last night (20th Dec), Not used word for word, I thought it was worth sharing.

Werner Heisenberg, who is considered by many to be the father of quantum physics, concluded with his principle that there was an uncertainty in the precise values of certain properties of atoms – one of the building blocks of all things.

The Guardian newspaper described it like this:

"It tells us that there is a fuzziness in nature, a fundamental limit to what we can know about the behaviour of quantum particles and, therefore, the smallest scales of nature. Of these scales, the most we can hope for is to calculate probabilities for where things are and how they will behave. Unlike Isaac Newton's clockwork universe, where everything follows clear-cut laws on how to move and prediction is easy if you know the starting conditions, the uncertainty principle enshrines a level of fuzziness into quantum theory."

Tonight we have been celebrating an event which for many is fuzzy, unclear, hard to believe. Angels appearing to people, telling them of the coming to be of things spoken of hundreds of years before, things that many had long forgotten or laid aside as simply dreams or wishful thinking. A king is born.

Consider how Mary must have felt visited by an Angel – Pregnant, without being married! Something which in those days meant that she could be stoned to death – her uncertainties had to be laid at God's feet. How would Joseph react, what about her parents and more importantly how would the village react – who was going to believe her story?

Consider how Joseph must have felt when Mary told him. How can I believe her? What has she done and if he was like any other men who is the father? Uncertainty all the way.

Fortunately God intervened, Joseph also had an angelic visit and was told of the King that Mary carried, and instead of disowning Mary, married her, owned the baby and their uncertainties vanished like mist in the morning.

For all of us, life has uncertainties, I am sure each of us can think of a few. How about what we believe? I am a scientist, an Engineer by training and profession (a degree in applied sciences – engineering) and am a Chartered Engineer. Science and reason were my certainties although I quickly found as I studied that much of science is based on assumptions. There is a fuzziness to it. But I also believe that the Christmas story is true, a fact. God came to us to complete us, to help us live as God would have us live, to enable us to know him and his love for us, to grow better at forgiving and loving each other.

There is a fuzziness to faith since we cannot prove it but have to take a step into the unknown, a step into the uncertainty that often surrounds us as we explore faith. I took that step well over 20 years ago, accepting Jesus as the King of Kings and Lord of Lords. Have you taken it yet? If you have then I hope like me that in spite of the fuzziness that is inevitable with faith that it enriches your lives as it has mine, I hope that it has helped you to be the person God wants you to be and I hope that it has given you a desire to share the Good News of Jesus with everyone.

If you have yet to make that faith step or are wondering what it means to be a follower of Jesus – a Christian – wondering if its about going to church or trying to pray or maybe being a good person or whatever – then let me encourage you to take the step of inviting the grown up Jesus, the saviour that the baby in the manger is, be the centre of your life today, if you need some help figuring that out – fill in one of our Alpha cards or contact me   (if you live near Harlow, if not find an Alpha or explorer course near you). We start that exploration into the fuzziness of faith on Tues evenings in January

In 1973, Werner Heisenberg who was a Christian, gave a speech before accepting the Romano Guardini Prize for his paper "Scientific and Religious Truth." He spoke of the relationship of the two truths.

A famous quote of his : "The first gulp from the glass of natural sciences will turn you into an atheist, but at the bottom of the glass God is waiting for you.

Are you ready to explore the glass? The King of Kings is waiting for you there.

Have a Happy Christmas.