Saturday, October 27, 2007
Cool?
I was reading a magazine the other day, (for the sake of not getting sued, I won’t mention the name!! ☺) It had an article in it entitled “Hip” in which it showed you everything that you need to be cool in the world we live in today…
According to this magazine, the things I need are as follows:
This bicycle:
An apartment in this building:
This bag:
This particular brand and bottle of water:
And the list continues… These are the things that the world around us is telling us we NEED, the things that we can’t do without, the things that we DESERVE and owe to ourselves to have.
But what does God say? What is God’s ‘check-list’ of the things that we “need”? In the New Testament, Paul lists the things that we as Christians should have:
“Love, joy, peace, patience,
kindness, goodness, faithfulness,
gentleness and self-control”
Galatians 5:22-23
Maybe these things won’t draw turn heads as we walk along the street, maybe we won’t be upheld in the eyes of this world as a celebrity or a trend-setter because of them, but I’m thinking that maybe this isn’t such a bad thing…
The things from the first list are all things that we can buy with money, but they are also things that are (as the article suggests) “Hip” right now. In a month or so these things will be “out of style”. The second list, these nine attributes (known as the fruits of the spirit) may not win us awards, but we can be assured that they aren’t going to go out of style! What they can do is help us walk closer to the heartbeat of God, see people through his eyes and keep our minds focused on Him and His ideals.
I’m not sure about you, but I think that’s better than a bike.
According to this magazine, the things I need are as follows:
This bicycle:
An apartment in this building:
This bag:
This particular brand and bottle of water:
And the list continues… These are the things that the world around us is telling us we NEED, the things that we can’t do without, the things that we DESERVE and owe to ourselves to have.
But what does God say? What is God’s ‘check-list’ of the things that we “need”? In the New Testament, Paul lists the things that we as Christians should have:
“Love, joy, peace, patience,
kindness, goodness, faithfulness,
gentleness and self-control”
Galatians 5:22-23
Maybe these things won’t draw turn heads as we walk along the street, maybe we won’t be upheld in the eyes of this world as a celebrity or a trend-setter because of them, but I’m thinking that maybe this isn’t such a bad thing…
The things from the first list are all things that we can buy with money, but they are also things that are (as the article suggests) “Hip” right now. In a month or so these things will be “out of style”. The second list, these nine attributes (known as the fruits of the spirit) may not win us awards, but we can be assured that they aren’t going to go out of style! What they can do is help us walk closer to the heartbeat of God, see people through his eyes and keep our minds focused on Him and His ideals.
I’m not sure about you, but I think that’s better than a bike.
Friday, October 26, 2007
change in northern ireland
2007 has undoubtedly been an historic year. The "chuckle brothers" are on their thrones in Stormont and change is sweeping Northern Ireland: immigration, the housing boom, the re-imaging of Belfast as a post-conflict city, a gradual closing down of illegal activities by paramilitaries, and a SLOW increase in the universal conscience of our population towards caring for the environment and the global poor at the same time as their worship of the consumer god.
One unchanging fact is the continual decline in church attendance and the steady mis-trust of religion to offer any hope for humanity.
Roy Searle of the Northumbria community, described the situation both in the UK and in Western Europe as "the church being in exile...and we’re having to figure out how to sing the Lord’s song in a foreign land." This "foreign land" is Ireland, but not as we know it. We worship this God of consumerism, we feast at our computer screens, and we dine on the back of cheap Chinese labour. God is at best a delicacy nibbled on by those in the Christian sub-culture.
If we are in 'exile', how do we get out, or how do we live with integrity and relevance. The worst thing we can do while in exile is sing about how happy we are, and how great things are going, and how revival is here. If we are in exile we need to realistically assess the situation, and offer consolation to those who have lost in this exiling process, and find God in the midst of the ashes of Christendoms past achievments.
What does this mean for organisations like YWAM and for training programmes like the Discipleship Training School that have been born out of happier times in church history. We need YWAM to be an agency that seeks to offer vibrant realism and hope to a church and society that has lost God. We need to live a prophetic alternative to the consumer God, and we need to be a catalyst to seeing more Christians do likewise whether they are YWAM ers or not. Our DTS needs to journey as society changes and be more and more relevant and not less and less.
Our hope in Northern Ireland is that our DTS' are being relevant, that they are places where seekers can sojourn with us, hear truths, apply them to their lives, see the world as God sees it, not through the lenses of blind idealistic optimists or pessimistic fatalists. But we need to see the world that is really there, and find the God who is there, and bring the two together.
In the words of Rabbi Abraham Heschel, "God is a stranger in the world. The Shechinah, the presence of God, is in exile. Our task is to bring God back into the world, into our lives."
One unchanging fact is the continual decline in church attendance and the steady mis-trust of religion to offer any hope for humanity.
Roy Searle of the Northumbria community, described the situation both in the UK and in Western Europe as "the church being in exile...and we’re having to figure out how to sing the Lord’s song in a foreign land." This "foreign land" is Ireland, but not as we know it. We worship this God of consumerism, we feast at our computer screens, and we dine on the back of cheap Chinese labour. God is at best a delicacy nibbled on by those in the Christian sub-culture.
If we are in 'exile', how do we get out, or how do we live with integrity and relevance. The worst thing we can do while in exile is sing about how happy we are, and how great things are going, and how revival is here. If we are in exile we need to realistically assess the situation, and offer consolation to those who have lost in this exiling process, and find God in the midst of the ashes of Christendoms past achievments.
What does this mean for organisations like YWAM and for training programmes like the Discipleship Training School that have been born out of happier times in church history. We need YWAM to be an agency that seeks to offer vibrant realism and hope to a church and society that has lost God. We need to live a prophetic alternative to the consumer God, and we need to be a catalyst to seeing more Christians do likewise whether they are YWAM ers or not. Our DTS needs to journey as society changes and be more and more relevant and not less and less.
Our hope in Northern Ireland is that our DTS' are being relevant, that they are places where seekers can sojourn with us, hear truths, apply them to their lives, see the world as God sees it, not through the lenses of blind idealistic optimists or pessimistic fatalists. But we need to see the world that is really there, and find the God who is there, and bring the two together.
In the words of Rabbi Abraham Heschel, "God is a stranger in the world. The Shechinah, the presence of God, is in exile. Our task is to bring God back into the world, into our lives."
Wednesday, October 17, 2007
community where?
Mother Theresa said "we can do no great things, only small things with great love." I said in the previous post that there are possibly 4 great evils facing the world - poverty, ethnic and religious conflict, HIV and other preventable diseases, and climate change. Into a world facing such enourmous challenges it is striking that Mother Theresa's quote really cuts me. I find it easy to live in a world of grandiose dreams and at times illusions. Jesus is interested in us living in reality. And you know what? Reality can't be created by a graphic designer, it can't be posted on YouTube, no virtual image can be a substitution for the bare facts of life. Reality is what we walk out every day of our lives - its being a 'dreamer of the day'.
As I seek to walk out a life that is relevant, credible and meaningful I realise that I can't do it on my own. Peter Gabriel wrote a haunting classic entitled "I love to be loved". As I live longer on this planet I think I realise that that is the cry of all humanity - "I love to, I want to...be loved." Sometimes we can be tempted to think that somehow we are wrong to want to be loved, or that some how it is a mark of our insecurity...and one day when we are finally perfectly holy, we won't need anyone, except maybe God. But the truth is that we were created to be loved by God... and by others. Scripture says "God puts the lonely in families." We were created to have family, to have friends, to have community.
One of the most prophetic things we can do as individuals in the iWorld of 2007 is to live in community and to try and create community every where we go. For all of us these new communities will look different. There can be no ellaborate formula for what one is or isn't. But at the end of the day, at the simplest level, it is about human beings loving each other in small ways, and helping each other love others in small ways. For Jean Vanier this was what he tried to envision with "L'Arche", for Shane Claiborne it is "The Simple Way", for me it was a Youth With A Mission community in the heart of the Shankill and Falls Roads.
I recently heard Dietrich Bonhoeffer quoted as saying "the person who loves their dream of community will destroy community even if their intentions are ever so earnest. But the person who loves those around them will create community." This is our mandate, our manifesto if you will, as YWAM in Ireland - to love each other and the world out there, in small ways, and by so doing create community. Its not our desire to create a little kingdom, but we want to be part of catalysing more and more people to make bold, risky, huge decisions to live lives that are made up of small acts of love in the midst of darkness and despair.
As I seek to walk out a life that is relevant, credible and meaningful I realise that I can't do it on my own. Peter Gabriel wrote a haunting classic entitled "I love to be loved". As I live longer on this planet I think I realise that that is the cry of all humanity - "I love to, I want to...be loved." Sometimes we can be tempted to think that somehow we are wrong to want to be loved, or that some how it is a mark of our insecurity...and one day when we are finally perfectly holy, we won't need anyone, except maybe God. But the truth is that we were created to be loved by God... and by others. Scripture says "God puts the lonely in families." We were created to have family, to have friends, to have community.
One of the most prophetic things we can do as individuals in the iWorld of 2007 is to live in community and to try and create community every where we go. For all of us these new communities will look different. There can be no ellaborate formula for what one is or isn't. But at the end of the day, at the simplest level, it is about human beings loving each other in small ways, and helping each other love others in small ways. For Jean Vanier this was what he tried to envision with "L'Arche", for Shane Claiborne it is "The Simple Way", for me it was a Youth With A Mission community in the heart of the Shankill and Falls Roads.
I recently heard Dietrich Bonhoeffer quoted as saying "the person who loves their dream of community will destroy community even if their intentions are ever so earnest. But the person who loves those around them will create community." This is our mandate, our manifesto if you will, as YWAM in Ireland - to love each other and the world out there, in small ways, and by so doing create community. Its not our desire to create a little kingdom, but we want to be part of catalysing more and more people to make bold, risky, huge decisions to live lives that are made up of small acts of love in the midst of darkness and despair.
Monday, October 15, 2007
Coffee - the drug of Christians
So they say that coffee is the drug of Christians, well I am apparently 67% addicted, having done this test recommended on Donovan Palmer's blog. Click on it and take your own test...
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