Sandy Hook

The events at Sandy Hook are a horrible tragedy.  The initial reactions of so many were, of course, an outpouring of horror and grief.  Then came other voices.  Sometimes it is better not to react but to respond.  Our reactions are not always our best moments.  A little time to reflect is helpful.  I am glad to have a few days to think and pray before wanting to respond. 

Some want instant revenge, but the perpetrator is dead.  Where will our revenging energy now direct?

Some are calling for gun control.  I am sure that conversation is appropriate and will no doubt happen. 

I think a conversation about the effect of saturation news coverage and the infamy that such deranged shooters seek – that conversation needs to be had. 

I think a conversation about mental health and how we make it OK to suffer mentally needs to be had.  

Also the issue of allowing loneliness in our crowded society – and the evil that loneliness is.  

Then the role of violent video games on growing minds.  We know advertising works  - it’s a trillion dollar industry.  So bathing young minds in games where they blow away people – that’s a conversation that needs to be had.  

Then the role of family, and the effects of family breakup (The murderer's parents had divorced three years ago).  

However, I am sure that the 24 hour news cycle will make this horror fade from view quite quickly.  When the funerals are over we will be into Christmas and then then Fiscal Cliff will be the next item of blanket coverage.

So let's see how we react to Sandy Hook: individually, community, nationally.  As for me, I want to be sure that no-one around me in isolated , lonely, or suffering mentally without recognition and help.  I will ensure my gun is well locked where only I know the location of the key.  i will listen out for the gun control conversation and make my views known. I will not use this wicked man's name, or feed his infamy in death. 

Then I will leave revenge to God.  Christ is the judge.  Will not the judge of all the earth do right?

Our Father, may Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.  Even so, come Lord Jesus. 

Celebrating Faithful Leadership

It was a poignant moment: my third Sunday not pastoring a church any more, and there we were at a friend's church on Sunday, as they celebrated the ten year anniversary of his pastorate. It was a good moment.  His church gathered around him and celebrated him, his wife, their children and the gratefulness they felt for him.

It was the Sunday before Thanksgiving, so it was even more special.  The District Superintendent had been invited and gave a nice speech, there was a letter from the presiding General Superintendent, and in classic Church of the Nazarene style, a significant church dinner.  Congratulations to my friend and 'brother in the Lord' Geoff DeFranca.  This is how a church should love their pastor - intentionally, and conferring dignity.  I have written elsewhere that real love always confers dignity on the person loved.  This was a great example of that agape-love at work. Well done Community Chapel, Nashua NH and well done Geoff.  Please invite me to your 20th also!

2 Corinthians 3:7 (ESV): Now if the ministry of death, carved in letters on stone, came with such glory that the Israelites could not gaze at Moses’ face because of its glory, which was being brought to an end,  will not the ministry of the Spirit have even more glory? 

This Sunday, the pulpit that has been my Moses' staff (my identity and my position, my prosperity - at least relationally) for the past decade, will have another preacher standing in it.  Like Moses, my time has faded, and the baton has passed into the hands of others, whomever they may be (I do not know).   As I read the above scripture this morning, I am reminded to have a sure and confident peace for the well being of Journey Church.  It is not the face in the pulpit that brings the presence of God into His Church, but rather it is the Holy Spirit.  

This past week I have read and heard so many deeply touching testimonies and thanksgivings for my time as pastor of Journey Church.  It's been quite overwhelming!  I am deeply thankful for such a celebration and such a real community of Christ-followers - each and every precious person.  Each of these kind words reminds me of two things: that the people of Journey Church love God, His church, His people, and those who do not yet know this Christian Way, and that also if there has been any glory, any fragrance of God, any presence of The Holy Spirit, it has had nothing much at all to do with me, and everything to do with Jesus.

Will not the ministry of the Spirit have even more Glory?

New Dawn

Today is my last day as Pastor of Journey Church in Derry NH.  It's been 10 and a half years of not just a role, but a very real identity - pastor. What a privilege, what a joy. I have loved almost all of it and even in the really bad days I have sensed the presence of God, and that has been enough for me.  I have learned a huge amount about Him, about people, community, public worship, leadership and what it is to lose oneself in the greater story and identity of Jesus Christ.  Beautiful.

Today will be a tough day.  My wife and I have been praying, preparing, bracing ourselves, grieving together, and daring to look ahead together.  Each step of the slow dislocation has been painful, but yet, but yet...

This morning I was up early as usual.  The cool morning air is crisp, the breeze shakes autumn leaves from the trees in the darkness.  It is a melancholy time of year.  Then I notice the dawn sky burning bright luminous red - grey clouds set aflame by the rising sun.  I stand and worship the God who gives gifts of light to those who see them.  It only lasts a few minutes before the sun is up and those clouds are scudding across the sky.

Change is coming to Journey Church and to me.  I have profound peace that as I leave, the God of the Dawn will gently care for His church, and for me.

Thank you Father for this life of gospel service.  Thank you for sustaining me, for Your faithfulness, for the privilege of seeing these wonderful people at their worst and at their best and for seeing You  in each one of them, all the time.  It has been a rich privilege indeed.  They call me pastor, and we call you Father. The first may change, but Your praises will be eternal.  In You we live and move and have our being.  May it always be so. Amen,

Gospel and Church

In The Church Between Gospel and Culture, Richard Halverson wrote: "When the Greeks got the gospel they turned it into a philosophy. When the Romans got it they turned it into a government. When the Europeans got it they turned it into a culture. When the Americans got it they turned it into an enterprise."
Quoted from Ed Stetzer

The point is: the Gospel is so powerful at redefining humanity both individually and corporately that it redefines and satisfies our ways of thinking about ourselves, truth and life (philosophy), our ways of relating to each other organizationally(government) our ways of being together artistically and relationally (culture), and even our ways of wanting to bring the best of ourselves to God's work (enterprise).  However. the gospel is more than all of those things. It is God's mission - the 'Misseo Dei' as it is now fashionably called by the insiders.  

Reflecting back on the last decade and half, I find myself turning to thinking about the Gospel in very simple ways.  I want to open my Bible with people who are outsiders, and to tell them the story of The God who is Father, who came as Jesus, loved us, died for us, and came again as Spirit to live within and among us.  I want to pass a cup of wine and break-open a loaf of bread.  I want to sing the songs of previously unknown love.  I want to be accepted, valued, nurtured and deeply loved by people who will look out for me, especially when I don't love as a I should. I want to do that for other people too.  That will be enough Church for me for the rest of my life.

Karl Giberson and unguided evolution

I have come to admire Karl Giberson as someone who robustly integrates his Christian Faith and his embrace of scientific understanding. As a leading thinker, co-founder of BioLogos, book writer, regular correspondent at the Huffington Post religion pages, he is clearly a shaker and mover in this area of thought.

I recently listened to a debate involving Karl:

http://www.faithandevolution.org/debates/can-a-christian-be-a-darwinist.php

In listening to this, I find I cannot embrace some of what Karl is saying. While I am certainly a Christian in the middle of the historical orthodox (small o) faith, and while I hold a very very high view of the Holy Bible as inspired scripture, inerrant (theologically) in it's autographs, and while I embrace science, especially biology and the wonderful advances in genetics and the implications of the human genome project... I have to say that I fully believe that God guided and indeed guides creation. I do not believe that God did/does not guide creation. Dr. Giberson seems to suggest an absent watchmaker approach - perhaps more theistic than specifically Christian, in which God sets creation in motions and then sits back to see what will happen. He suggests that God awaited to see which species would attain sentient, conscious awareness and that any such life form would enjoy a relationship with the creator. I do believe that God created actively (which might have involved evolution), and did not use evolution passively.

That said, it is entirely possible that God, on other planets spinning around other suns in our, or other, galaxies has created other races of persons and if so I would have no surprise if we find that Christ went there and died for their sins also. Indeed it would be entirely consistent with the self-revealed character of God we find in The Bible.

An ancient earth; micro evolution; common ancestry? I have no problem with that.

No historical Fall? I have a problem with that. I do not believe that God created a system that intrinsically needed death and suffering in order to exist. I see The Fall as having corrupted creation at the physical level as well as at the spiritual. 

I am grateful for this ongoing dialog. There is much work to do to continually understand the context of the timeless truth of the gospel within which our scientific discoveries sit.

Values at the Ballot Box

Yes it's Roman Catholic, but if you can get past that, I think this is well said:

http://youtu.be/D9vQt6IXXaM

I want an Administration in the White House and a Congress that has the humility not to either laugh and sneer at it's citizens, nor look down on the x% that lives the life at the bottom of the heap.   I'm not sure either option on offer works well for me.  That said, the big big issues - life, prayer, freedom of worship, are all in the mix.  As a pastor, I want you to vote.  As a Christian I want you to honor God in your choices over your own interests.  As an American, again, I want you to vote. Oh, and I approve this message. :-)

First World Problems

Hope the video puts your day into perspective.  Great charity too. http://youtu.be/fxyhfiCO_XQ

Appetite, Affirmation, Ambition

Mike Breen's latest post on ChurchLeaders.com is an interesting one, not least for his practical application of the temptation of Christ as a lens through which to see the devil's strategy on the contemporary church:

http://www.churchleaders.com/outreach-missions/outreach-missions-articles/162326-an-obituary-for-the-american-church.html?p=1

I think we do pretty well at Journey Church against these threats.  Over the years we have developed a church culture that is not about self-seeking.  Our leaders and so many members are serving people, not consumers.  They produce rather than take.  I think we are a consumer-friendly church that is easy to invite people too.  It's quite a balance.  To have understood the consumeristic nature of every pre-Christian that walks though our door - to provide a place that meets the high expectations of society, and yet to plainly proclaim the ancient gospel faithfully. This has been my goal over the last 10 years, and I do take grateful satisfaction that Journey Church does it well.  We work cooperatively with some other churches (not all are easy to work with) and we do work hard to not steal sheep from other churches.  That said, I think it is possible to grow a large church, or a large network of churches, from 'home Christians' that have no church roots.  I am continually astonished at how many rootless-Christians there are out there, many of them carrying partial understandings of God and the gospel.

The value for me personally was to let those three words speak into my own heart - appetite, affirmation, ambition.  Which are my frailties?  Appetite and ambition are not my drivers. For me, the chink in the armor is probably 'affirmation'.  I need to be affirmed by God.  Not often, but every now and then. Perhaps one day I will grow beyond this, developing a spiritual maturity that rests more, but for now, if I don't sense God's pleasure for a while, I get fretful. 

How about you?

Spurgeon and the Primitive Methodists

http://www.jdgreear.com/my_weblog/2012/08/look-unto-me-spurgeon-in-the-snowstorm.html

Charles Haddon Spurgeon is a man I greatly admire.  Not tall of stature, not handsome, he lead the Victorian era in England as the foremost preacher of the time.  Imagine Rob Bell and Bill Hybels and Rick Warren rolled into one.  He preached to huge assemblies.

His sermons was filled with wisdom and love, and sometimes a little vinegar.  Had I remained in the UK it seems likely that I would have attended Spurgeon College in London, which still prepares ministers to this day.

I recommend the blog posting from J D Greear in the above link.  It is a great story for me, a Wesleyan, to read.  You can pay as much money as you like to hear any of the great preachers and teachers of our day, and if they are a thoroughgoing Christian it all comes down to that great advice - trust the holy love of Jesus Christ to save you now and forever.  Amen.

Narrative Theology

     A brief conversation with a friend provoke later reflection about what is called 'narrative theology' (NT).  Briefly,  NT is viewing the Christian understanding of God in terms of 'story', especially God's story and our story transecting it, becoming one with it.  As such it is a communicative framework.  It's about communicating the gospel - it's an applied theology, but still essentially communicative.
     I love this approach but I do have strong reservations.
The problems come not with narrative theology itself, but with people's handling of it.  The key point is that it is GOD'S story, not ours. So we need to handle it with all the care and respect such ownership demands of us.  What IS God's story exactly?  Do we really know it inside and out? When we tell God's story do we do so in a Biblically correct way?  Or do we know a part of the story and tell it as if we are telling the whole story?  This would be to tell partial truth, which can do so much harm.
    Telling only the part of God's story that we know, or the part we feel comfortable with, can play havoc with people's precious lives.  With good intentions and perhaps unwittingly, a part-story can mislead people. Have you ever met anyone with an unBiblical view of God because they were told God is love, without being told that God is also just?  or perhaps that God is a fearsome judge, without being told of God the servant-King?  Or perhaps that God is transcendent and holy but not that God is imminent and personal?  In church we find people damaged by a partial gospel quite often.  The damaged one's who never come to church again worry me most of all.

So yes, narrative theology is good, but in my view, only as a secondary theology.  The danger comes when NR is our primary theology.  Rather I would suggest a thoroughgoing Biblical theology of God, Christ, The Holy Spirit and Humankind is what is needed as a primary theology.  This may not be easy to acquire, or hip, but it grounds us deeply in the whole gospel.  Only then, with our feet firmly in the whole Bible revelation of God should we add secondary paradigms such as narrative theology, liberation theology, feminist theology, pastoral theology etc.

Telling God's story is a noble task.  First, ensure we know all there is to know of God, and allow God to 'know' all there is to know of us.

How to Use the S.O.A.P Method of Bible Reading

By Kate Lee, eHow Contributor, reposted from http://www.ehow.com/how_2324318_use-soap-method-bible-reading.html

S.O.A.P. stands for Scripture, Observation, Application, Prayer. It’s a great way to delve more deeply into your Bible reading, and record your thoughts, emotions and connections when studying scripture. S.O.A.P. is meant to be a journal you create with your regular Bible reading, using the process as you read each day, but it can also be an effective tool to help you connect with particular passages. You can use it with any Bible reading plan, whether you’re reading straight through from Genesis to Revelation, or following a reading plan from your church, study Bible or the internet.

Instructions
Use the S.O.A.P Method of Bible Reading

1. Find a quiet time and space to read your Bible, preferably at the same time each day. Many people find that reading scripture in the morning helps get their day off to a focused start.

2. Complete the “S” by reading the scripture. Don’t just skim through it, but really think about what it means. Imagine what the people involved were experiencing. Write down a verse or two that really stood out to you in your journal.

3. Complete the “O” by writing down observations about the scripture you just read. You may want to write your own summary of the passage, but more importantly, think about what God has to say to you through this part of his word.

4. Complete the “A” by writing down how this Bible passage applies to you right now, in your daily life. For example, in the parable about the prodigal son, which character do you identify with most: the loving and merciful father, the son who squanders his life and then repents or the resentful older brother? Do you see similar situations in your life right now? How can you respond in the way Jesus taught?

5. Complete the “P” by writing down a prayer. This is a personal message from you to God, so don’t worry about getting the perfect words down. Just make it honest and heartfelt. Remember that God always listens, and already knows your needs. He just wants to hear from you.

Seven Things that God Won't Ask On That Day.

1.... God won't ask what kind of car you drove. He'll ask how many people you drove who didn't have transportation..

2.... God won't ask the square footage of your house, He'll ask how many people you welcomed into your home.

3.... God won't ask about the clothes you had in your closet, He'll ask how many you helped to clothe.

4.... God won't ask what your highest salary was. He'll ask if you compromised your character to obtain it.

5.... God won't ask what your job title was. He'll ask if you performed your job to the best of your ability.

6.... God won't ask how many friends you had. He'll ask how many people to whom you were a friend.

7... God won't ask in what neighborhood you lived, He'll ask how you treated your neighbors. 

With thanks to Ginnie Young for this list.

Yoga break dance - kinda....

Mother's Day

I am not a terrible parent. but I am also not a great parent.  On this eve of Mother's Day, one of my children reminded me that he isn't perfect either.  My  experience of being a parent is that it isn't all that I had hoped it would be.  I love my children deeply and intensely.  Nobody involved in my family, and I think all families, are perfect.  We could do with getting over any such notions.

My 'sister in the Lord' Nanci shared this blog post with me, which is worth the read: http://networkedblogs.com/xw3Nd

So to all the imperfect Moms:  thank you for being fragile, vulnerable and for pouring your life into us kids.

Thank you to all of God's agents in my life: to the many 'Mom's that have loved me.

Without Blemish in the Sewers of London.

Colossians 3:23 NRSV:  "Whatever your task, put yourselves into it, as done for the Lord and not for your masters..."
Colossians 3:17 NRSV:  "And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him."
1 Corinthians 10:31 NRSV:  "...whatever you do, do everything for the glory of God."



If you open your Bible to the book of Leviticus or Numbers you will discover that the phrase "without blemish' crops up time and time again - dozens upon dozens of times.  The usual context is relating to sacrifices for sin.  Just as old Israel had to kill a perfect animal to make their sin good, so Jesus - the perfect man/God took the blood offering upon Himself to remedy the death-consequences of our sin.

Now that we can be free of the guilt and shame of sin, and indeed now that we can leave behind the sins we would once have chosen, the phrase 'without blemish' takes on a new meaning for us Christians.  Our lives are given as a grateful sacrifice not to earn God's grace, but because God's grace has already been given to us, even when we were ugly in our sin. 


We want our lives to be 'without blemish' so that they please God, and honor Him.  God deserves our best - our excellence. The above New Testament verses remind me that our work should be excellent too - for no better reason than it honors God.

Back in Victorian England, humble bricklayers built the complex London sewer system.  Even though nobody but rats and the odd sewer-worker would ever see their handiwork, they laid complex and beautiful arches and tunnels adding decorative touches to structures that would serve for hundreds of years to come. We don't know their names, but their craft and their art stands as a testiment to their character. They did beautiful work when nobody but God was watching - or would ever likely see it.

·         Jesus Face Cloth in the Empty Tomb

        It is significant that John 20.7 pays particular attention to fact that when Peter and John raced to the empty tomb on that first Easter morning they found the cloth used to cover Jesus' face in burial, carefully folded folded and left aside.   A friend asked me what are we to make of this fact?  Here is my reply:

• Two men saw it – Peter and John – which would make the fact admissible in a Jewish court
• Some scholars have suggested that the scripture implies that Jesus’ resurrection body simply passed through the cloth – as if He were a ghost, leaving the cloth folded.  However that is saying more than the scripture warrants. Also, why would the facecloth be left when the body cloths were left separately?  It doesn’t make too much sense.
• The best explanation is that the scene the disciple discovered was an orderly scene, not a chaotic scene.  What is the significance of this?
• If grave robbers had stolen the body of Christ, they would either have taken the body still wrapped – in which case there would be no cloths left or
• They would have cast the cloths aside to steal the naked body
• In no case would they have paused to take the time to carefully fold the face cloth up
• The suggestion is that the grave was empty – but not because of grave robbers
• Most powerfully the scene is contrasted with John 11.4 – the raising of Lazarus – when Lazarus came out of the grave still wrapped in cloth – so that others had to unwrap his body.  The clear implication is that Jesus was raised from the dead, had time to unwrap Himself (or be unwrapped by angels?) and left the tomb in an orderly fashion. 
• Personally, I can imagine Him being touched by the care that His buriers had taken to wrap His body – a loving act – and Jesus wanted to reciprocate that little token of love.

Why Marxism Misses The Mark

    In a recent sermon I made the unconventional comment that Marxism may have been the best system of organizing a society without reference to God.   Let me quickly say I am 180 degrees opposite from a Marxist.  Karl Marx was a brilliant thinker but he got it 180 degrees wrong.  He managed to think about the deep yearning within every human heart for justice, fairness, security and safety.  He managed to think about equality in a society.  He struggled to eliminate poverty.  But he ignored God, or perhaps more accurately, dismissed God as a projection of human needs, by people, onto a fictional external 'big man in the sky'.  Many fashionable 'new atheists' have taken this thinking right from Marx and still try it out today.
    It think it is fair to say that Marx was really a social theorist.  Marxism thing well in theory, but doesn't live well in practice.  Soviet style Marxism lasted from 1922 to 1989.  In China the same theories are still being worked and reworked, although they bear little resemblance to Das Capital today.  North Korea and Cuba are still Marxists states.  By and large however, Marxism fails every time, because it is a flawed theory.  It's flawed in that God does, in fact, exist.  Additionally, God has made man in His image, and not the other way around.
   It is remarkable to note in every society, in every age, in every culture, in every stripe and shade of human, that people are both moral and spiritual.  There has never been a non-religious society. That should tell us something.  It tells me that people are wired, designed, in their DNA to worship God.  Left without  clear vision of God, we will fall back to worshiping God substitutes.  These are things that we try to use to fill the void in our hearts and minds that should be filled with God.  God-substitutes might be sex, power, money, careers (another version of power), distraction, toys and entertainment (versions of distraction) etc etc.  In other words, if we don't worship God, we worship something else...idols. Everybody worships.  A review of your calendar and bank account spending patterns will help you to identify your idols.
    Eliminating idols is a two fold process.  First, identify the idols and dethrone them, de-sacrilize them, debunk them.  Second, build a real relationship with God.
   
    Karl Marx understood the darkness within human nature, at least to some extent.  He didn't understand the depth of darkness within the human heart.  Any Marxist society ends up being run by a despot.  Ironically, communist societies in practice are little different from fascist societies. Marx also didn't understand much at all about the light in the human soul - the gentle wakings of the Holy Spirit, who can lift a person, any person, from blindness to spiritual daylight.

I believe in the Holy Trinity.  I believe in the cross of the Jesus Christ - fully God, fully human, who died to remove the guilt and punishment for my blindness, my darkness.  I believe in the empty tomb that promises God's victory over my death.  I believe in the Holy Spirit who leads me into all truth. I observe the truth of God in my heart, my mind, my life, and yours, in our lives together.

The Boy With The Bike

 Is the name of a French language movie (with English subtitles).  I love the movies, especially thoughtful films with great character development.  When a movie is life-affirming, so much the better.  So here we are in April, and I think this may be a contender for my movie of 2012.  It's low budget and won some prestigious awards, which usually means plenty of good writing. If you've ever fostered kids before, then this movie will take you right to the heart of what it is to have your world redefined.  A really great movie.

How Do I Vote? Part 3: Psalm 72 

I started to wrestle with the fact that Mitt Romney is a professing Mormon and Barack Obama speaks the language of Christianity.  Now I wasn't born yesterday.  I know full well that politicians are a slippery breed.  Their words and public persona are groomed and spun to give us the public image that will cause people to vote for them, back them and elevate them to positions of political power. I don't distrust all politicians all the time - that would be cynical without proper foundation.  However, I believe what a politician does more than what he or she says. 

On the face of it, Barack Obama's words tell us he is a Christian with a thoroughly biblical understanding of the divinity of Christ and the atoning completed work of Christ on the cross, and the freedom we have in the resurrection.  Check this video out to see what I mean.  Told you.  Those words are good words.  They affirm a biblical, historical, orthodox view of Christ.  Those words bring glory to Christ by explaining to millions of people who Christ is.  They may never have heard it before, but Barack Obama said those words.  Yes he did.  And yet, do his policies and values reflect Jesus Christ?  In part yes, in part no.  I think that he seeks to implement just laws and to protect the humble and needy in our society.  However, if I am an unborn child, I think I might have some issues with his values.  Let's not get caught up in one-issue politics here.  I am trying to take a broad view.  The world is not a simple place, so let's review our politicians across the whole spectrum of what we ask of them: foreign policy to domestic policy; social ethics to business policy; financial policy to military philosophy.  So his words honor Christ, but his policies are a mixed bag.

Then there is Mitt. Let me be plain and simple without being disrespectful. Mitt is a Mormon - a member of the so-called 'Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter Day Saints'.  This is not a Christian church.  It is a sect, at best.  They are not Christian because they fail each of the key criteria of what has historically and generally been considered to determine what is Christian: They deny the divinity of Christ.  They deny the Trinitarian understanding of God.  They deny that the cross atoned for all sin.  They deny the resurrection as the guarantee of eternal life for all who place their trust in Christ.  Period.

Hint: anytime a belief-system either takes away something from Christ, or adds something to Christ, that is a red flag that they are not biblical, historically orthodox Christians.  Mormons cannot affirm the basic creeds of the Christian Church - the Nicene and Apostle's creed.  They supplement the Bible with the unChristian 'Book of Mormon'.

Don't misread me here. I like Mitt Romney.  He seems like a decent guy.  I like Mormon people.  They have great family values that put most Christians to shame. They really seem like decent people with strong family values. That's great. But they deny the true Christ and substitute Him with a false, corrupted version of him, that many people won't know is a false 'christ'.  If Mitt becomes President, then Mormonism will gain credibility and respectability and a false version of Jesus will be elevated in the public mind, to the likely detriment of the gospel.   I like Mitt, I like many of his polices (not all of them), but he denigrates my Lord by subscribing to a modern sect that is essentially gnostic. 

So who do I vote for now?  A man whose words honor Christ but who's policies I mostly do not agree with (I am speaking just personally for myself at this point), or a man who dishonors Christ with his religion, but who's policies I tend to agree with more?   I need further thought on this.

Now to Psalm 72.  Read the whole Psalm but especially verses 2, 3, 4, then 7 and 12, 13, 14:

   2 May he judge your people with righteousness,

    and your poor with justice.

    3      May the mountains yield prosperity for the people,

    and the hills, in righteousness.

    4      May he defend the cause of the poor of the people,

    give deliverance to the needy,

    and crush the oppressor.

    7      In his days may righteousness flourish

    and peace abound, until the moon is no more.

    12      For he delivers the needy when they call,

    the poor and those who have no helper.

    13      He has pity on the weak and the needy,

    and saves the lives of the needy.

    14      From oppression and violence he redeems their life;

    and precious is their blood in his sight.

These words reflect the social ethic of God as expressed throughout the whole Bible. i select them because they are representative and summarize what the whole Bible tells us is God's heart and mind.

I conclude that I should vote for the candidate in any election that lives out these values. That is honoring my citizenship of heaven first, and letting it shape and direct my actions and choices as a citizen of a nation.  Could I vote for a non Christian President?  I think so, if he or she lives out these values.  Sure, I would prefer if they were Christian.  I notice in my Bible that God uses plenty of pagan rulers to do His will.  Think of Cyrus for one. You could name a dozen more.  Could I vote for a Roman Catholic candidate, a Mormon candidate, or even (gasp!) a Muslim candidate, if they implemented and lived out the values expressed in Psalm 72.  yes, on balance, i think I could.  After all, I am electing a civic official, not a church leader.  Would I prefer the true name of Jesus be glorified in our public life.  Certainly.

Am I finished thinking this through?  No.  I am continuing to pray and so offer these blog posts to elicit thoughtful, gracious, prayerful, intelligent response.

Please don't react.  Sleep on it.  Then let me know what you think.

Thanks!

How Do I Vote? Part 2: Citizenship Considerations

In my first blog post I framed a question in order to tease apart the considerations of how a Christian should consider voting in the upcoming US Presidential election.  By the way, I am NOT going to conclude by telling you, or even me, who to vote for.  That's between you, your conscience, and The Holy Spirit.  My interest here is how we will each make the decision.

I want to start by considering that every Christian has two citizenships.  If you have read Augustine's brilliant book Two Cities, then you'll know where I am heading with this.  If you haven't then it'll still seem familiar because of Augustine's huge influence on our thinking.  Yes, I have a citizenship in my nation here on planet Earth.  I was British, but now I am American. (By the way, you may have been born in America, but I chose America - so I am definitely patriotic!)  One day, 36 years ago for me, I chose to follow the Lord Jesus Christ for the rest of my days.  I turned away from my old life and its self-centered priorities and identity, and started a new life with the living Jesus Christ as the center of the universe, recognizing that the Holy Bible was food to me, prayer was breathing, and fellowship with believers (i.e. church) was a drink of water to me.   A new life, a new identity, and a new citizenship...in heaven.  Heaven is more that a location, it is a Kingdom where God reigns unchallenged.  Heaven has collided with 'the world' and continues to intersect in the heart of every Christian, and in every place where God is working to redeem and recreate the fallenness of His original creation.

It is more than just a metaphor then to refer to heaven as a 'place' where the new, ultimate reality of our new life as Christians takes place.  It is, I would argue, more real, more actual than our old lives lived without reference to God.  One fine day, Heaven will overwhelm and transform this old world.  The apostles referred to that total re-creation as the 'new heaven and the new earth'.  Indeed the two go together because they will then be the same thing.

In the meanwhile we are in this world but not of it.  Paul in Philippians gives us language and thought to help us live in the 'already, but not totally yet' nature of the heaven that has started to break into the old world. Philippians 3:20 "But our citizenship is in heaven...".  yes indeed.  That is our primary identity.  And from there we take our values.  This is a permanent citizenship and in all ways is superior to our worldly citizenship, which is temporary.

Consider Jesus' teaching in Luke 20:20-26.  The scribes tried to trick Jesus into either committing blasphemy by paying homage to the Caesar Cult, or transgressing Roman law by refusing to pay Rome's taxes.  Christ resolves the political conflict by changing the frame of reference.  Paying to Caesar what is Caeser's was more that a deft tactic to slip out of the dilemma.  What 'amazed' the crowds was the second part of His answer: Give to God what is God's.  What belongs to God?  Everything!  Even the tribute that Caesar demands.  So by understanding that God has first-call on everything, you are now free to render the tax to the civilian authorities that they demand.    God's priorities first, then the state's.  Heaven's rule first, and then within that context, consider our earthly obligations.

If you doubt this interpretation, lay it alongside Romans Chapter 13.  We Christians render the honor that civilian authorities require of us only because we understand that our first duty, to God, is fulfilled when we do so.  Good government gives us civic peace, and the gospel can readily spread when there is peace in the land. Sure enough, there can be earthly government that utterly conflicts with God's rule.  When that happens (the 'beast state') Christians are to stand up for heaven's values and lovingly confront evil government.  (Romans 13 is tempered by Revelation 13.)   Christians are liable to be persecuted and even executed when that happens, but none the less, that is the call placed upon each of us.  Christians have been executed for standing up to evil empires from Nero to Nazi.  But let's not have any nonsense talk that we in the US today are in that situation.  We are nowhere close to it.  Maybe if you lived in North Korea, but not North America.  Let's reject hyperbole.

So, back to Philippians and 1:27a "Only, live your life in a manner worthy of the gospel of Christ..."  Yes, while I am here in this little, short, wonderful life, I will live with the call of God as my first priority.  I will order all of my earthly business in the light of my higher identity - my citizenship of heaven.  I will love Christ by living obediently to His commands and values.  Being a Protestant, I understand that I will work that out personally.  Not individually, for I am part of the church, but personally.   I am a member of the church, and so I also reject the rampant individualism of the modern age.  That is why I am writing all this on my blog - so you, my Christian brother and sister, can help us to think this through with me.

Now that I understand that I will make my voting decision based on my identity as a Christ-disciple, a Christ-follower, a 'little Christ' - that is, a Christian, I want to consider in part 3, a couple of different approaches.

Thank for reading this far.  You're obviously a thinker! :-)

How Do I Vote? Part 1: Framing the Question

If I am to boldly live out my calling to shepherd (i.e. pastor) my church, then I have to work through every practical implication of my new life being lived in, to and for Jesus Christ.  This will necessarily take me into some controversial areas.  One such area is to consider the ways in which I will make the decision of which candidate to vote for in civilian elections.
Consequently, I do not invite your reactions (there are already too many of those in our world!) but I do invite your carefully considered and prayed-through responses. Help me think this through.  Let's reason together as brothers and sister who tenderly care for each other.  Let the dialog be filled with kindness, and free of the acrimony and knee-jerk hostility that sadly characterizes so much of the political discussion in our society.  Christians don't talks and write like that.  No.  Rather we speak the truth, in love.  That qualifier - 'in love' - means that we speak the truth only in love, never without love.  Love means good manners, politeness, mutual respect, with graciousness, that always bring glory to our Lord, because as children of God, we always represent God, and His graciousness. If we loose an argument but argue with love, then we have won the greater point. We have reflects God's graciousness.  People will remember our grace long after they have forgotten what the argument was about.

I guess the first thing to say is this:  I am neither a Republican, not a Democrat.   More on that later.  So I don't ever vote along 'party lines'.  God has given me a decent brain and expects me to use it.  That means not allowing someone else to tell me how I should vote.  I need to think through each voting issue for myself. Political parties may or may not be a political necessity but I am under no obligation to join one.

Second thing to say is this: I have the earthly privilege of being a citizen of the United States.  Part of that privilege is the right, and the duty, to vote.  To not vote is to squander the God-given influence I have been given in order to effect and drive the democracy I am a part of.  To not vote is to be delinquent in my duty as a citizen.  I have heard many people say that a single vote counts for nothing and politics is a joke anyway.  Maybe.  However, if a totalitarian regime was to take your vote away from you, then you would sure want it back again!
If we had any doubts about the power of a single vote, we need only think back a few short years to the 2000 General Election of George W Bush against Al Gore when the presidency was decided by 537 votes from Florida.  I would imagine that there are 538 democrats in Florida who now wish they had voted!

Let me end this first post in this series by framing the question.  It seems likely that in November I will have the choice to vote for either President Barack Obama or Governor Mitt Romney to be the next President of the United States.  What considerations should we, as Christians, use to decide how to vote?

That's the question.

In my next blog post, I will start by considering the two citizenships that each of us has, and which one drives the other.

Am I Saved? Part  2: Sorry

As Elton John once sang "Sorry seems to be the hardest word".  When it comes to God, most people in our North American 21st century society ignore Him.  We mostly try hard not to think about God.  He is the ultimate 'inconvenient Truth'. Instead we live our lives the way we want to. 'I did it MY way' ought to be carved on most tombstones.  This is the equivalent of the lunatics running the asylum.  We are not wired to work or live independently of God, it's just not in our DNA.  When we do, we find in ourselves and others, despair, pain, emptiness, a need for purpose and significance that nothing in this world can fulfill.  This 'hole in our soul' sits there, like a meal that we ate, but cannot digest.  Consciously or unconsciously, we cope by either addressing the void within us by trying to fill it with whatever comes to hand: romance, sex, power, or self-adoration.  Or we try to distract ourselves so we don't notice it for a while: the entertainment lifestyle.  We buy a never ending stream of toys, immerse ourselves in movies, books, soap opera TV or the Internet.  It's stupid, ugly and insults God, who has made us, created a wonderful future for us, and invites us to live with Him in the here and now, as well as forever.

Basically, everybody worships something: work, spouse, money, lifestyle....or we could worship exactly what we were designed for: God.   Step One to being saved is to recognize our deep need to stop living without God, and to start living with Him.  Not just 'with' Him, but to invite Him into the very center of our lives. Indeed to hand over 'our' life to Him, so that it becomes His life in us.  We can see that there is a throne in the middle of our heart, and we must step down from it, bow down at God's feet and ask Him if he will graciously sit on the throne of our lives.

Step One then, is to recognize that our life is a bankrupt and hollow pretense without God ruling over us, living in us, and restarting our lives.  Sorry.  I am sorry God, that I have lived so far without you.  I have tried to ignore you.  I am truly sorry.  Please forgive me for my blind selfishness.  Please forgive me.

These are more than words. Words come from our very core.  God promises that if you confess your sin, He WILL forgive you.  It's not a cheap forgiveness.  As you'll discover it costs Him His life, and to turn away from yourself, will cost you what is left of your life.  The Bible speaks of dieing to ourselves.  The word sorry should tear at us as we say it to God.  The good news is, God has a new life to swap for you old one.

Next step: Thank you

Gandhi's Seven Deadly Sins

I read today that Gandhi taught the students at his ashram in India that there are, in his worldview, seven deadly sins.  They are:
1. Politics without principle
2.Wealth without work
3. Commerce without morality
4. Pleasure without conscience
5. Education without character
6. Science without humanity
7. Worship without sacrifice.

I believe that these tenets show just how deeply Gandhi was influenced by Christianity, and especially the Sermon on the Mount. How wonderful it would be if we acted in all that we did with these warnings in mind.  I might perhaps change number 6 to read 'Science without humility" which might or might not be an improvement.
My hope is that every one of our lives will be a light in the world and salt on the earth - a life in which every tiny aspect is an act of Worship to Jesus Christ.  Let's live for Jesus.

IF by Rudyard Kipling

IF you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream - and not make dreams your master;
If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: 'Hold on!'

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
' Or walk with Kings - nor lose the common touch,
if neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And - which is more - you'll be a Man, my son!

Copied from: http://www.kipling.org.uk/poems_if.htm

Am I Saved?  Part 1: Saved from what?

It's more than the million dollar question.  It's the only question that matters.  If you miss it, you life could be a tragedy.  If you get right with The Question - your life could be a beautiful prelude to a truly forever life of fulfillment, joy and wonder.  Here are seven things you should know:

1. Saved from what?
God is.  God is a person.  He is all-powerful, all-knowing, ever-present, and here is the key thing we need to get our heads around, He is Holy.  Holy means so many things: He is perfect, merciful, compassionate, true, faithful, loving, kind...and just.  He won't let injustice, cruelty, carelessness, lies, wickedness and evil go unpunished.  He demands justice.  If you want a snapshot of the definition of what He requires from you, read the Ten Commandments in the Bible.  You'll find them in the Bible book of Exodus, Chapter 20.  Nobody measures up to this pattern of perfection, but the way.  It doesn't matter if you think you are basically a good person.  If you only stole from one person - you are still a thief.  If you only told one lie - you are still a liar.  If you only lusted once...you get the idea.  Actually it's not so much about what you have done, it's more about who you are, that you would do it at all.

So we can view this life, this world, as a place of decision.  You can decide to live your life with God at it's center, or with you as it's center.  In order to allow us to make an informed decision, God has ensured that every life has enough of Heaven in it, and enough of Hell in it.  Our world is full of beauty and ugliness, life and death, friends and enemies, love and hatred, faithfullness and cheaters for us to understand what Holy is and understand what Self-centered is.  God has told us that He has created two places that await us after we die: Heaven and Hell.  Briefly, Heaven is eternal life with God - and all the bliss and wonder that means.  Hell is eternal life without God, and all the horror and pain that means.  While God is in charge of all things, He has allowed us room within His sovereignty, for us to have a role in where we will spend eternity.  By His grace, you get to choose.  He will confirm your decision not only in this life, but on Judgment Day.  So what can we be saved from exactly? Hell, eternal living-death, life without God both here and forever, from 'sin' (which means anything and everything that comes between us and God), from ourselves, from our past (shame), from our present troubles, and from our future without God.

Next episode: three movements of the heart that will move us from unsaved to saved.

Transience

In a little over 24 hours I'll climb onto a jet liner, leave this old, crowded island, and in next to no time I'll land back in the US.  I know the leaving is coming.
This morning I went to the sparcely attended 8 AM service in the 875 year old 'mission church' constructed by the Benedictines as they sought to evangelize this outpost of London for Christ.  Beneath a leaning brick wall is my father's grave.  This little church, is an island of Christianity in a land that seems to have forgotten the Lord. Long may the community that worships here persist.
This sense of transience, of not being here for long, and yet being part of a great movement of people and God together is reassuring, compeling, purposing.  The arrogance of dull intellectual atheism, the indifference of this sprawling city, the noise of the jets continually taking off from nearby Heathrow (the world's busiest airport), the rush of the traffic all around, familes taking their kids to Sunday soccer games, all pass by this little brick church.  Inside, the confession is made, the Lord's prayer is said together, bread is broken and wine is shared.  God quietly does his work in human hearts.
I pray for my church far away, those precious people.  I sing my favorite hymn in the car on the way home and I know I am just passing through.
"This is my Friend, in Whose sweet praise
 I all my days could gladly spend."

Home

I am a British American, which means that I have two nations that I know well.  The odd thing is, the old country just doesn't feel like home any more.  It's familiar, I know my way around and the ways of the people,  but I am an alien here.  When I am here, I feel a little bit like a stranger on the inside.

When I come to the US, I know that is not where I started out.  I've had to learn my way around, to adapt to the way people are.  However, that is where I belong now.  I am much more at home there.

Today, as I drive around London's M25 ring road late at night, it occurs to me that there is no place that is fully home for me: neither England nor New England.  I am a perennial stranger.  Then the great truth become apparent.  As a Christian, a Christ-follower, a disciple on The Way, only in The Father am I truly at home. I am at once always home, and at the same time always a stranger in a strange land. And it's OK.

Polemic disease
A friend posted a funny cartoon on facebook today, and I wanted to 'like' it...but hesitated, thought better of it, and passed on to something else.  It's bothering me that I made that decision, so here I am bloging about it.  The cartoon was a joke aimed at the Republican Party.
What was my motivation for wanting to 'Like' the cartoon? 
1) It made me chuckle
2) I wanted to thank the friend who posted it for making me chuckle
What was my more powerful motive for NOT wanting to 'Like' the cartoon?
a) I'm a pastor and most of my church is Republican, and a good chunk are staunchly Republican.  There is a real danger (almost certainty) that some of them would have interpretted my 'like' as an anti-republican jab, and that would harm my relationship with them.  I value my relationships more than my need to thank a friend for making me chuckle.
b) I'm a pastor and many of my church is passionate about supporting traditional marriage and might have seen my 'like; as a vote in favor of lesbian marriage.
c) It was a political cartoon, and I'm a pastor and many might have seen my 'like' as political involvement and will think less of me for getting involved in politics. (This topic needs a whole blog post of it's own.)
d) Facebook is a forum where people often instantly react, rather than step back, consider, pray, consider some more, and respond thoughtfully and charitably.  Thus Facebook is a relational minefield.  Postings loom larger than the people who post them.
e) I live in a circle of brothers and sisters in Christ, friends, colleagues and aquaintances that are soaked in the polemic of America in an election year.  Anything you say or do is considered fair game for rapid judgment, condemnation and polemic over-the-top heavy interpretation.
Wouldn't it be nice if we could just laugh at ourselves with a little levity?
Relational footnote:  I lean right, but not exclusively, and believe in traditional marriage.  I also like to chuckle.