SatNav

My good friend Ricky is having a go at finding the place of the Old Covenant in Christian thinking over at his Doubting Thomas blog. Basically, he doesn't find much place for it - and I disagree. But I do think that an awful lot of Christians would start from a place of agreeing with a lot of what Ricky says. So I posted a (very) long comment on his site, and I offer here an edited version of it.

The problem many people have when faced with the Old Covenant, is a misunderstanding of the concept of "The Law".

There are 613 laws within "The Law" in the Pentateuch, and about two-thirds of them are about how we relate to God. The remaining third are about how we relate to each other. Strangely, we focus massively on that latter third, as if it's the stuff that really matters (well it's about us so of course it's more important - hmmm...) and that is symptomatic of the problem, but there's an even deeper issue at stake.

Some Christians want the Old Testament Law to be viewed as obsolete; and Ricky voices this opinion clearly by writing "The laws in there do not apply to us", and I think at this point what we have is a view of the Bible that works like this:

In the beginning God created everything and it was glorious. But people sinned, and spoiled it all. So God pondered what he could do to restore poor fallen humanity - and came up with plan A - The Law. The only problem was - it didn't work; no-one was good enough to keep it. So then he came up with plan B - Jesus and the cross, and this time because it didn't depend on us being good (but sneakily on us being bad) it worked a treat. And all lived happily ever after.

Am I right? Is this (albeit in simplistic form) something like how you think it all works? And now that we have the cross, grace, forgiveness, PLAN B, we can ignore the vastly inferior plan A?

Respectfully, this is theological tosh.

The cross is plan A from all eternity. Always. But here's the thing - without the Law and the Prophets, it cannot be understood. They are signpost and guidebook to the destination of salvation, teaching how to get there, and what it will look like when we see it. Without them, we are tourists on the Gare du Nord thinking we have seen Paris.

The Old Covenant is given that we might have a world view that comprehends the New Covenant. At the birth of the New Covenant, the Old becomes obsolete in the way that the SatNav (that's "GPS" for US readers!) in your car is obsolete when it says "you have reached your destination" at the end of a long and arduous trip. But it still shows you the journey from death to life, the key route points along the way, and crucially major things to see now that you have reached "Life".

Would you agree that the Christian life is to be a life marked out by regular acts of worship in which we encounter God, and that our lives in between these acts are to bear the marks of having met with God and having been transformed by him into his likeness? Hey presto, you've just agreed that Leviticus is relevant for Christians today. And I agree with you.

Now - beyond that, there are fascinating conversations to be had. Not because The Law can be wiped away, but understanding The Law not as a moral code to inflict misery on humanity, but rather as a map of salvation to point us to Jesus, that map needs to be studied and understood. It has gold for the treasure seeker. Ricky in his blog brings up the whole issue of the principal of "Sabbath for man" and this is a crucial issue for us as Christians, because the whole Law works that way: God working to make people's lives better. Eternally better, for sure, though I wish we weren't so hung up about that - the OT really doesn't make a secular/spiritual distinction, it just seeks to make life better, presuming that this means everything. And if Jesus catches The Law being used to make people LESS, he gets angry.

Children.

Sinners, tax collectors.

Prostitutes.

Women with a menstrual flow who are forbidden to touch him - but then, his touch heals; so she had no flow by the time her finger left his robe.

Philip Yancey has a great phrase: "Jesus, the sinless friend of sinners". We in the church have made the Old Covenant so obsolete we haven't the foggiest idea what it's for anymore. So some ignore it (and become friends of sinners, but sinless? Nonsense - they are indistinguishable from the people they befriend) and some think they keep it (trying to be sinless, they point at people who they consider to be "less", and so are no-one's friends) and The Law is broken to a thousand pieces and stamped upon and ground into the soil in a torrent of abuse and an ungodly fight for power in the church.

If only we had kept sight of the best signpost and guidebook to the destination of salvation God in his wisdom saw fit to grant us, and to learn its wisdom and its lessons. We might have a little more understanding in our contemporary debates. For sure, the Law without the Cross can be bitter, but the Cross without the Law is weak - both ways we are incomplete. And there's really no need.

The Psalmist says: "O how I love your Law!" (Psalm 119.97) and we think him slightly strange. But it is we who are odd - we who have lost the beauty of The Law and find something given as a precious gift to lead sinful, broken people closer to God as being irrelevant and even to be despised. The Law is given that we might understand Jesus, who comes not to abolish the Law but to fulfill it; or, as the Psalmist goes on to say just a few verses later:

103 How sweet are your words to my taste,
sweeter than honey to my mouth!
104 I gain understanding from your precepts;
therefore I hate every wrong path.

And again:

111 Your statutes are my heritage forever;
they are the joy of my heart.
112 My heart is set on keeping your decrees
to the very end.

Though perhaps it is that well-known verses inbetween that will help make my case best of all:

105 Your word is a lamp to my feet
and a SatNav for my path.

I confess, I may have changed a word in there.

St Paul himself argues that: "The law is holy, and the commandment is holy, righteous and good." (Romans 7:12) for this reason. It's not enough - but it was never meant to be (which is kind of the argument of Hebrews - taking all sorts of details of the Law it shows how they point to Jesus and says along the way that these details were always and ever supposed to have this role: "The Law is only a shadow of the good things that are coming", Heb 10.1) for that is the role of Jesus. But if you try to get Jesus without understanding the Law, it's like trying to make pancakes without flour.

Or me driving from Pontypridd to Warwick in two hours without using SatNav.

So I'm with the Psalmist. I love anything that points me to Jesus. And if people want to use this stuff to make life harder - I think Jesus would be quite stern about that, because that's not what it's for. Truth is truth: and truth here is purpose. The Law exists to point us to Jesus. That was its raison d'etre from day 1 (Heb 11.39-40, anyone?) and remains so now. I'll drink to that. Deep, and long, and often.

Final Furnace 2008 Report

Last year at Furnace, I felt like I was auditioning for the part all the time. I discovered that I liked doing the work – helping young adults connect with God, and seeing Him bless their socks off – and hoped I would be allowed to do it again.

This year, I’m over that “audition” panic. I have the job, and actually, I love it and think that passion and vision and gifting a small amount of ability will get you a long way. That and an amazing team of wonderful people. Here you have them – seated (l to r): Diana, Anita, me, Ed, Matt; and standing (l to r): Elen, Kirsty, Mike (from Superhero), Matthew, Tim, Mark, Abi, t’other Mike (from Superhero), Gary, Tim (from Superhero – holding a couple of John’s dreadlocks from Superhero), Martin & Ben.

Highlights? Praying for a guy whose knee has been crook for a year. He had surgery after messing it up doing Thai boxing. He can’t kneel without great pain. As we pray for him, I place my hands round his knee, and feel it flutter in a way a knee shouldn’t do. After a couple of minutes it sort of pops into my hands. I ask how he feels. He says, he can feel it grinding. He wants to try kneeling. There’s no pain. None. Two days later – still no pain. I make him pray for my bogus knee, and for a while I too am pain free, though it hasn’t stayed as good as it was for a while. But it is better than it was. Doesn’t matter – feeling that healing was astounding. Astounding.

Seeing one guy start the week really low and go through a wonderful turn around. Not all sorted, but all turned round and able to get on with living with God.

Seeing another choose to try again with God when he’d really walked away for a whole year.

Watching people grow in expectancy that God loved them and would meet with them.

Seeing a few people want God to touch them on the first night; but two thirds of the room went down on their knees on the last night when invited to let Him in.

Making friends. Renewing friendships. Jazz in the cafe, and listening to wonderfully wise and godly people speak to us of their lives with God. On the first night, Nigel James quoted Max Lucado, who said that given five minutes with young Christians he would want to say: “Let God love you”. So we asked everybody all week what they would say. This is what we got:

Let God love you - Max Lucado via Nigel James
Be unafraid (don’t let the fear stop you) – David Parker
You are loved and lovely in the Father’s eyes – Kenny Borthwick
Cling to the cross – Dai Hankey
Be ignited with a passion for Jesus – Nigel James
Have a holy dissatisfaction for the way things are – Mark Melluish (though we didn’t get to ask Mark, actually, and we have simply taken this tag line from his sermon which was excellent!)
Discover who you are in God’s sight – Bruce Collins
Receive God’s love; give it away; and love the person in front of you – Andy Booth (Do you like the picture? Andy, a keyboard, the cross and a Mac; if only Trish & the kids were in it, it would have everything.)
God loves you; deal with it – Me

The Furnace – it’s a blast. I’ve just had a text from a team member saying that they were “blown away” by being part of it (I used those words all the time, because they were true), and then they added – for real, not just to use those words! When you do a seminar on prophecy and then get people listening to God and speaking over each other, hearing Him speak like this for the first time & discovering that what they are daring to say is stunningly accurate to the person listening, it’s hard not to be.

It’s hard not to be blown away by the wonderful love of God who wants all these young adults to know Him more, every day.

Lord, may it be. And thank you for giving me a place in their stories. It has been a joy and a privilege.

Wednesday, but thinking of Tuesday

Wonderful, Matt Collins playing one of his own (brilliant) songs at Tuesday night's cafe, with Jess Wilson and Bruce Collins (Matt's Dad & incidentally chairman of New Wine Cymru) watching on.

I've just read one of Andy Booth's blogs about this event, and he is remarking that it is great to meet up with old friends - and to make new. So it is. My team here is amazing - all of them. All of them. And across the conference I am meeting wonderful people - even at the B&B where I am staying.

Hey - I need to pay tribute to Andy. he will be speaking at our Cafe tonight, and if he is coming to this event next year, I want him to be one of our main evening speakers. He is an amazing humble man of God. He leads a church where they have the number of people attending every week that this conference sees in its adult venue, but he quietly allows people to pigeon-hole him as the worship leader, though his experience in speaking, teaching and leading ministry prayer is enormous. I do not have his humility. If I were him, I would find the way he seems not to be consulted on issues on which he is truly qualified almost unbearable. He just fulfills his role here and blesses people. A man of God. Awesome.
And this is Superhero in action. I am going to be their road pastor, after the example of Nigel James and Third Day. (Unless they also tour to a war zone. then they are on their own. And with Jesus.)

Amazing prayer, wonderful worship, great teaching.

No sleep.

God is good!

Stoking the Furnace

The Furnace continues to fire! This is a great week, with very long hours, and very good friendships, and very good times with God and with his people.

The cafe is a joy. Being able to sit with great men of God and speak to them of their lives and calling and hear how they work is a total privilege. David Parker was awesomely inspiring, but then Dai Hankey and Kenny Borthwick were also remarkable, and last night with Nigel James was both fun and inspiring all at the same time.
David came back to speak at one of our eveing meetings, and was simple and direct, calling us to dig deep wells into the Scriptures so that God's living water could flow deeply in our lives. The ministry afterwards was wonderful. Many folk were gloriously touched by the Spirit.

And the weekend band have been supplanted by Superhero, who have joined up with Matt Collins. This is them all pretending to be keyboard players. They are phenomenal. There is a world of difference between a collection of good musuicians and a BAND. A group who play as a unit, a seemless flowing machine. And Matt's worship leading is a joy - a thing of beauty and simplicity.

The team is great. Great. I love them to bits. All of them.

And now - I fancy an afternoon nap. More snaps to come!

Firing Up The Furnace

I here am at New Wine Cymru, running The Furnace, the young adults stream of the Welsh New Wine conference.

New Wine is a charismatic gathering, originally Anglican with strong Vineyard links for those of you for whom that means a lot, and we spend the best part of a week worshipping, teaching the Bible, experiencing God and trying to encourage folk in their faith. Last year was the first time The Furnace existed - check back for details - and now we are here again. Matt Collins is leading worship in our main venue, and last night we had just shy of seventy people there - which was about a third up on the first night last year.

Later on we had a cafe, with a chat show where David Parker was our main guest, and Tim Bannister sang three songs. David is a Vineyard pastor & an astoundingly inspiring man. Wonderful.

We have had a great time: the sense of the presence of God is tangible. There is a real peace in our venue, and I pray this will grow through the week. Nigel James, our first speaker, quoted Max Lucado, who said that given 5 minutes with young people he would tell them to "Let God love them". David Parker added, "Don't let fear stop you - don't be afraid!"

The team is fantastic - Kirsty and Esther and Mark from St Catherine's, plus Ben, Ed, Matthew, Jess and Elen (who arrives tomorrow). Tim & his tech guys are amazing. Diana and Anita complete the squad with prayer ministry responsibility and cafe duties.

We will work hard: 11am to midnight every day. But it is glorious. Now - an hour off before I do my next seminar...

Oops

Today The Times published an article by Archbishop Henry Orombi entitled The Church Cannot Heal This Crisis Of Betrayal.

I was saddened by it. By the "I love Anglicanism so much I must stay away" line. I get the purity stuff, but I also think there is perspective. You know my feelings about the relative merits of concepts such as love, grace, kindness, forgiveness, participation in the body etc over and above the current row on human sexuality, which (whilst having its place in the debates of the church) cannot compare with certain basic Gospel commands.

So I dashed off a letter to the Times.

Oops.

Here it is - well, the second one down. I agree with Dr Butler, and Barbara Self and Ron Wood also I think make excellent points for the debate in general rather than simply at Archbishop Orombi, though his article rather lays him open to this charge. Richard Haggis' first paragraph also needed saying, though I am not sure I can go with his whole letter. Others are coming from places I am not, but when we speak, this is what happens.

I was very glad I added my line about prayer: I think Henry has a hard time of it, and knowing the bad choices I regularly make in my small corner, I can only thank God that I do indeed make them in my small corner. I did not mean to be rude to an Archbishop, but to plead for some perspective, and for the greatest of Biblical truths in all our doings.

Fifteen Love

Unless I am much mistaken, today is the fifteenth wedding anniversary of John and Clare Hayns. Happy anniversary! I was best man to them, back in my twenties. Gave a very outrageous speech - to which nobody listened, mercifully, as Clare's father had given the greatest Father-of-the-Bride speech ever and so there was no interest in anything that followed.

Clare has just been approved as a likely candidate to become a vicar. John, for those of you as don't know it, is a juggler. Well, children's entertainer. Well, corporate schmoozer. We used to do a bit of street theatre together, many moons ago.

Just before the wedding, John & I drove up from Oxford to Stratford to see King Lear. Clare had gone with her father, and John was missing her. Hadn't seen her for hours. I was a student at Wycliffe, John a lay-assistant at St Aldate's church, but his NUS card was still valid. We got to the RSC to find it wasn't King Lear at all, but the Merchant of Venice. John was sure it should be Lear, but we decided to get tickets anyway. At 7.28, two minutes before curtain up. (Obviously, Doctor Who wasn't in the cast for that Shakespeare play). With our student passes, we got front stalls for peanuts.

And, as we sat down in our shorts and T-shirts, in the best seats in the house, John was thrilled to discover that Clare and her father (dressed up to the nines, having paid a small fortune) were fortuitously sitting directly behind us.

In the interval, Tom looked forlornly at his drink, and then even more disgustedly at me, standing where his daughter should have been (John and Clare having vanished), and I practiced my pastoral skills on him: "Cheer up pops, this is what life is going to be like from now on!"

Hmm. Perhaps that speech at the wedding fifteen years ago today wasn't just for his daughter. I'm just wondering if there might have been the slightest element of "Best man? BEST man???" going on there...

Congrats, both.

Fools Seldom

You see, it wasn't just me confused by these two stories. I found this in The Times. Thank you, Peter Brookes.

Surely Some Mistake?

This is not the Archbishop of Canterbury fretting over recalcitrant American Episcopalians, apparently, but the missing Serbian war criminal Radovan Karadzic who has been hiding at Lambeth Palace for the last ten years.

Or have I been confusing two stories in the news today?

That's Hymn!

This is a photo from my trip to the States earlier this year - my good friend Kenn Hughes directing the orchestra and choir at Hermitage Hills Baptist Church in Nashville, Tennessee. Kenn sent me an email a couple of weeks back, "because we have had a church contact us and they would like to do a “Hymn Tour” in the UK for the summer of 2009" (his words). He thought I might help set an itinerary and be a guide for them.

Now, those of you with your UK heads on will appreciate how I felt when two or three emails later Kenn continued: "I don’t want to scare you but we are talking about the largest Southern Baptist Church in the US and they are talking about a choir and orchestra numbering approximately 200 people."

Not quite what I had expected.

But it sounds like a really interesting & fun idea, and I've just finished a first proposal for them which I hope they might like. It will take in London, Salisbury, Gloucester, Worcester, Oxford, Olney, Bedford & Cambridge, and feature a variety of hymn writers from Elizabethan times to the present, though there is a strong weighting to the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.

Did you realise that "The Lord's My Shepherd" was written by the Speaker of the Barebones Parliament under Cromwell? Or that the composer of the tune for the US national anthem came from Gloucester? Or that George Herbert's church will need seven visits in order for everyone on this tour to get inside it once?

I hope it all works out. If it does, they will be performing concerts in five places which I hope they will enjoy, and which hopefully will be opportunities to share faith in Jesus through the music and the words of these songs of praise. I'll let you know!

The first time I saw Paris

Here is my Mum, in Paris, where we took her for a birthday treat last week. None of us had been before, so it was a bit of the blind leading the blind, but we had a great time, and most imporatantly, Mum thoroughly enjoyed herself.

I witter on here from time to time about the importance of family, so here is an unashamed family blog! Me, Mum, Gill (my sister) and Ben (my nephew) enjoying two days away together in Paris. It was Gill's idea. She was coming over from Florida for two weeks, and thought that Ben should see somewhere in Europe, and we could combine it with a treat for Mum. I knew that Mum was really keen to see Paris, and so the idea was born. The three of them flew from Manchester, and I flew from Cardiff, and we met on the Gare du Nord!
First stop, the Arc du Triomphe. Ben wanted to go to the top - so we did. Well, he and I did. Gill & Mum stayed on the ground (quite wise) a pattern repeated later at the Eiffel Tower. We took buses, metros, trains, and we actually walked places. The Musee d'Orsay was my favourite stop - all those Monets, and what a fantastic building - though Notre Dame as the sun set was pretty good too.

No. Tell a lie. The two patisseries we found, and the six cakes I ate - those would be my personal highlights. I realise that the Louvre and the Mona Lisa was interesting, and but you can't get a decent Mille Feuille for love nor money in Pontypridd.

Ben had a wonderful time - and did a great job in climbing all the stairs up the ET. I love spending time with him, and can't wait to see him again in August when I fly over to Florida. Gill was on good form, insisting that her sense of direction was better than mine. She did find the hotel; but couldn't then count the bridges on the Seine and made us walk for ages to the Musee d'Orsay!

A wonderful trip, and a great family time.

Colours to the Mast

Interesting times for the former Bishop of Monmouth, pictured here on the December night he priested the former curate of Glyncorrwg.

You know, for me the Anglican church is a big house. Lots of us live here. Like any community, we have opinions and disagreements. Regularly I find that I am right and many of my housemates are wrong.

But the moment I think that this means I can push them out of the door, or force them into my room in order to stay in the house - that moment I have just exiled myself, because I have forgotten what being an Anglican is about.

Important note to self - Total number of church members who agree with me on everything: One. Me. Apart, of course, from those issues where I disagree with myself. And then I am in real trouble, because if I can only worship with those with whom I am in complete agreement, I don't know where to turn.

(Though as a church by definition needs more than one person, I guess that doesn't matter anyway. I'm still stuck in a corner jabbering pointlessly whichever way I look at it.)

It's a BIG house! And sometimes those housemates - the ones who are wrong, because they are different to me - surprise me because God loves them and they have a life with God and I learn things from them. And I am enlarged by being allowed to be part of the same family. This is part of an ancient and venerable doctrine that Jesus had a thing for; it's technical name is "humility". It's not so popular these days. I'm not so good at it, myself, though I note with dismay that I may have caught this from my betters.

For of the 880 bishops invited to the Lambeth Conference, the ten-yearly gathering of Bishops across the Anglican church world-wide, 230 have something better to do and have said, "No thanks".

Women Bishops is the issue for a very few. Homosexuality for more.

Tosh. It's selfishness and pride and self-advancement and arrogance. It's a lack of godliness and a frankly amazing rudeness that beggars belief.

Here am I trying to teach my folk about living in Righteousness - living in right relationship with God - and those who would present themselves as leaders in Biblical teaching and authority (over those they say would question the Bible) choose to flout page after page after page of grace and authority and humility and other clear Biblical virtues over tiny secondary issues that amass all of two or three lines of script in the whole of the Bible text. Matthew 23.23-24 was written for these men, good men, kind men, misguided and now misleading men.

My Archbishop here says stupid things. So do I. We disagree with each other. We are both wrong - him usually on a bigger stage and with bigger consequences. Do you know what? He's my archbishop and I love him dearly, and pray for him, and like him, and as an Anglican if he asked me to do something for him I would do it if I possibly could. We might have a ding-dong row in private (it's happened!) but then life goes on. I might continue to oppose his views on certain issues (including the headline, terribly non-essential stuff that's flying around now: for the record, Jesus matters, bishops don't, and that's that) but I won't live my life in that place.

This is the Church of God!

Hello LOVE! Hello GRACE! Hello GENEROSITY! Hello TRUTH! Hello FRIENDSHIP! Hello PEACE! Hello the wonders the Spirit pours upon us all -

AND HELLO SHARING THESE WITH THE WORLD!

I just thought I'd nail my colours to the mast. And though no-one has ever invited me to Lambeth, and never will, as a Christian my calling is to be an Anglican. So I would never dream of saying no.

High Praise

As many of you know, we are working our way through Romans at the moment. On Sunday mornings, in my Wednesday Bible group, even sometimes with the Mothers Union.

It's my teaching style to try to take the complex ideas and put them in words that everyone can remember. Through Romans 6 I teach that Sin and Righteousness are presented as alternatives, and that as Righteousness is primarily "Right Relationship", Sin has to be seen as "Broken Relationship", or as one keen-witted person put it - Wrong-teousness.

What I'm trying to do is get away from Sin as judgemental-morality-failure, which is a terrible reading of Romans. And right here, right now, I'm not going to go into the whole argument -

Except to say that on Wednesday as we were going through Romans 7 in some detail, and I was explaining how this all related to the person trapped in Sin, the broken relationship, seperate from Christ, one of my congregation actually said to me those golden words, those preacher's promised-land syllables of High Praise:


"Well, we certainly didn't know what sin was till you came."

Amen & Prayers On Top

MMP, a regular commentator here, published this a few days ago, with reference to the current struggles in the Church of England. At a time when I find that some of my Anglican friends are speaking to me far more than usually, and some have gone very quiet, all I can say is - read it. And then: Amen. And prayers on top.

Funny Valentine

Another track from that May filming evening with MGQ at St Catherine's. MFV is one of my favourite songs: sweet, reflective, yearning, and amazingly adventurous harmonically for 1937. We give it a slow start and then a gentle lilt. Enjoy!

Story Telling

Ricky blogs about Doctor Who episode by episode, and I often comment. But at the end of a terrific season, it's time for a small entry here on this site.

You know, I really enjoyed it. Good stories told well. I love story telling. I love characters that are clear and interesting. I always enjoy the lonely Doctor and the friends he draws around him - and I love that here has been a whole series of Prime Time TV where the focus has been Friendship. Not romance, but friendship. And that, in the end, the cost of the friendship was sacrificial made it all the more valuable.

Stories make sense of life; they allow experience and emotion to collide into a narrative, and that narrative pushes things that sometimes defeat us into shapes we can comprehend, and comprehending take power over.

A smile of recognition, the words " I know what you mean", a certain (although often nameless) feeling of familiarity - these are the gifts the story-teller grants an audience, gifts with which to face life and the battles it brings, and sometimes to fight those battles a little more successfully.

This is of course one of the reasons why Jesus teaches in parables. It's why the Bible is recorded in narrative form so often.

It's why movies and TV shows and plays and operas and books and even video games work so powerfully: in stories we see ourselves. We are supposed to. In good stories, we see ourselves bettered, freed, lifted, taken on. And when we leave the story, the bettering, freeing, lifting, taking on - it stays with us. Fable only works if it comments on reality.

For me, this series of Doctor Who worked. Thanks to all involved.

Stunning

My good friend Andy Booth is a really creative guy; he has just posted on his blog the most beautiful thing I have seen in a long time. It is a video clip of the end of a sermon at his church. Click here for the link and then click again on the little video screen to see the clip, and watch the whole thing - it takes about seven minutes. I am literally sitting here weeping.

Bowled Over

Two dreams.

I was at a friends house, asleep, middle of the night. I was awoken by people singing and handing out flowers and chocolates at 4am. It was already quite light. I told them off - why were they waking me with their songs so early? When i returned to my sleeping bag, I knocked over a glass of water producing quite literally a "wet blanket".

Later the same night:

Out ten pin bowling with friends, we had just set up the scorecard on the computer and started to bowl. The first person bowled for the first time - but the automatic reset on the pins refused to work. We asked someone to fix it. It wouldn't reset. Then a screen came down, and when it lifted, there was no more bowling - other sports were on offer: I complained. We didn't want skiing or rafting or clay pigeon shooting. Rafting! As if we were dressed for water! That we were offered these upgrades for free was irrelevant.

I went back to our group - who were now (fully clothed) swimming in a pool. I was not ready to accept the changes on offer - they had dived in.

***

There are times I feel God speak to me through dreams. For a while it's like a radio tuning in; for several nights the dreams get more vivid, till something sticks out & remains. Here, I am revealed as someone who complains whilst around me other people are trying to bless others. I miss the blessing because it is not exactly what I want or was prepared for.

Yesterday I preached from Romans 6 that we should not live as people stuck in sin - a life with a broken relationship with God, "wrong-teousness", and all the acts that come from that; we should live as people who have a life gifted with a right relationship with God through Jesus - "righteousness". Then after church I was so consumed with a letter I needed to write to someone, complaining about a remark they had made in a letter to me saying they had not said something which they really had said, that I failed to take an opportunity to pray with and bless a non-Christian Chinese student who came into our Church. Complain, complain, instead of bless, bless. Wrong-teousness instead of righteousness.

And I am bowled over by the number of times a day there are opportunities to assert myself and show how right I am, when instead I could find time to bless someone else. I am awe-struck that it takes a couple of dreams to reveal me to myself and make me want to change.

O Lord, thank you for this moment; I am truly sorry. Make me a man of blessing, not complaining, and please, please help me break these unknowing habits of a lifetime.

Welsh Assembly Makes Vicars Lives Harder

Oh yes...pity those poor vicars who have just got new curates. The Assembly have banned the use of electronic dog collars for training purposes. See here for details - though this video from the BBC may only be available in the UK. The rest of you will have to go here for the back story! (It may not all be about clergy but it's a neat idea!)

It's Petertide, when we ordain new vicars. Here are three:
Matthew Trick with his wife Sarah. Matthew was with us for a year as placement student from St Mike's Llandaff, and will be part of this year's Furnace team at New Wine Cymru.


Richard Wood, who has been a good friend for ten years is hiding behind Archbishop Barry here. Richard's wife Naomi was of course Children's Worker here before Kirsty. Appropriately for the ecclesiastical season, at St Davids, where he was ordained, four of the seven were called "Peter".


And Wayne David used to be our oirganist here at St Catherine's, and is now NSM in Merthyr. He was ordained priest (unlike the other two who were made deacon) - which is the free upgrade you get after a year if you behave well & don't thrown into prison. It took me eighteen months, of course, but that's another story.


This is me & Gill Tuck before the St Davids service, after enjoying ice cream & chips (a local delicacy - North American readers need to get a translation matrix in to realise I just said "ice cream and fries") in the sunshine. Lovely. I spent three years in this diocese, 1996-99, and barely recognised this cathedral... but then I worked at St Michael's Aberystwyth before Stuart Bell was made a Canon, so I guess in those days he barely recognised it...

And here are Gill, Stewart and May painting the town red after the service. Honestly, such reprobate behaviour. We had a great trip out.

Seriously, it was a wonderful day - to be there for Wayne, laying hands on him as he was ordained, to support Matthew who looked really in awe of the whole experience, and to be with Richard who has been such a good friend for so many years.

My favourite moment of the whole day was at St Davids. As the communion started, the first person up was Richard's mum, and she received the bread from the Archbishop, and then the wine - from her newly ordained son. I was sitting just to the side and saw the look on her face, and the hesitation, and the immensity of the moment well up within her & threaten for a second to overwhelm. It was a wonderful and holy sight.

Trifle

So I answered a couple more questions from the box yesterday.

1. If Jesus died to pay for our sins, who did he pay? Great question, but with a problem. Firstly, we use the word "pay" in different ways - I go to a shop to buy a Mars Bar. To get the Mars Bar I have to pay the shopkeeper, who then gives me my chocolate. Or - the people of Zimbabwe are paying for greed of their leaders. In one, there's a transaction; in the other there's not, but people are still paying.

Interesting fact: Nowhere, not once, not anywhere in the New Testament in all the verses about what happened on the cross does it say "Jesus paid for our sins". The NT does not create the problem of somebody needing to be paid, because it doesn't use this language. So why do we?

The best I can come up with is a Trifle.

If you are not British, you might be wondering why I am thinking of "something unimportant" when trying to describe such a weighty matter; but if you are British, on seeing that word the first thing that flashed through your mind was something akin to the picture at the top of this post. That's my point.

A trifle can be something insignificant - or a Great British dessert. It depends on your perspective.

I think that we get the "Jesus paid for my sins" theology because of the word Redemption. And for Gentiles in St Paul's day, they would hear this word and maybe think of the slave market, and of somebody having their freedom bought back. A price had to be paid - and yes, someone had to be paid. Of course, in salvation terms, we are using a metaphor, and it's never too healthy to push metaphors too far - they break. If this is the right picture for Redemption, we need to stop before someone gets paid, or we end up wondering is it the Devil? Or a schizophrenic God? It's a picture to help us understand a truth! Don't force the detail!

Hmm. Trifle. I wonder if I'm talking about a dessert here & you are still thinking "something unimportant"?

I wonder if we are stuck in the slave market, where our Reformation forefathers insisted we should be, when in fact the wonderfully Jewish St Paul was at the Passover feast? For Redemption for a Jew was all about Passover - and just as the people of Zimbawe are paying for their leaders' greed, so at that feast lambs were slaughtered to figuratively pay for the sins of the people. Sin caused death. Sacrifice. During worship. They weren't "paying God", but sin had a price - and in these deaths there was prefigured a time when one would come who would bear the true price of all that had been done in dividing humanity from its Creator as the Son felt seperated from his Father.

You tell me: I'd love to get this right!

2: What does Sooty eat & is he a Christian? Clearly a harder issue, I replied that in our Family service of three weeks' ago I fed Sooty Kit Kats. I did not know his usual diet. And was he a Christian?

People are Christians. Or not. But a heaven that just has people has no place in my Bible - the one I read of there has animals and gardens and rivers and lots of feasting and parties. God promises the redemption of the whole of Creation, and so I think we will be wonderfully surprised by the life we find there.

And for a different take on this - Camillofan had a great post recently. Read it!

Revival Envy

You may have heard about revival meetings at the Ignited Church in Lakeland Florida, led by Todd Bentley. It's a Pentecostal thing (more than a Charismatic thing - for what that means) and it's focussed on two points as far as I can see: healings, and imparting the power to heal to others in order to spread the blessing.

You can watch a YouTube buzz on it here. And then follow the links to see whatever else you would like. But come back - I have some thoughts about it all.

The first and obvious question: is it for real? I don't see why not. I have listened to some of Todd's preaching via the web and found it terrible. If you have to be a great preacher to be blessed by God that cuts most of us out straight away, and actually I think St Paul makes it clear that clever preaching can get in the way of blessing sometimes: go check out 1 Corinthians 2.4-5 to see what I mean.

We want to be purists and pharisees: the guy doesn't get all his theology right (i.e. exactly like mine) so he must be a fake and thereore I can ignore everything else. That position takes some arrogance, some ego.

But wait a minute, comes back the reply, I'm just exercising discernment here! Then let's look at the fruit of Todd Bentley's labours. From what I have seen, poor, weak, crippled, blind, deaf & sick people have come away better than they went to his meetings. I don't like the preaching, I don't like the style of the worship, I don't like the way they get prayed for - but they are getting preached to, they are worshipping, they are getting prayed for, and God is blessing them.

Note to self: the more we preach, worship & pray for people, the more people can get blessed. Here's discernment: if I worked as hard at getting people to come under the influence of the Spirit as is going on in Lakeland right now, we'd see more blessing in Pontypridd.

Second question: am I going to go and see for myself? No. I could. Lakeland is half an hour from my sister's place. This was probably all happening when I was over there earlier in the year and I knew nothing about it. I drove past that church many times. I just happen to think that God is God; not geography. My problems are not I haven't been to the right meeting! And if I open my heart to him and serve him with all my heart, he will bless these people here, these nameless unknown people here, every bit as the "Christian Celebrities" that are flocking to the place I think of as a shopping mall. ("Oh Marcus," says my sister, "Let's go to Lakeland! Dillards have got a sale!" That's my first frame of reference.)

Final concern: hype. Show & tell. I got an email today inviting me to a Sunday evening service in Tonbridge. 189 miles away. "Our senior Pastor...is currently in Lakeland Florida having an incredible time experiencing what God is doing out there and receiving encouragement and impartation for the UK." It then goes on to say that someone (whom I am supposed to know) has prophesied that over the next month God will do something significant so a great list of Charismatic celebrities are going to be a part of what is happening. This is my big problem.

And I want to be careful. Is this revival envy? Do I envy the Kent pastor's enjoying himself so much he doesn't want to come home (which is also in the text of the email) and the fact that he has a church where he can indulge that? Or is there genuinely something daft about this guy (whom I know slightly - we were at Wycliffe together) "receiving encouragement and impartation for the UK." For their church, of course. For their area, why not? For all who would like to come and receive - very sensible. For the UK???

Nothing like self confidence, is there!

And the list of the great and the good who are going to Lakeland that come with this email to validate the whole thing (why does God need validation?) makes me uncertain, and the YouTube clips of miracles and the relentless GodTV coverage (every night, apparently - I never watch it - no sex and violence) just turn what ought to feel like something holy into a freak show. The X-Factor or American Idol, but the early weeks - only the best miracles will make it to the studio shows.

When Jesus healed someone, he took them aside. Privately. Hardly ever in a public place. It was about compassion and care, and often followed with - don't tell anyone. So, of course, people told, and everyone wanted to know more.

These days, we say - tell the world! Show the world! Use YouTube! Smile, your miracle is on TV! And I fear that no-one cares. Because we have made something holy into a cheap version of something nasty.

I'm going to change my mind.If I get out to Florida again this year, I might try to get along to Ignited Church. But my priority will be to spend a Sunday with my sister's best friend Scarlett and her family - I did not know these wonderful people were Christians till this last journey, and for me it matters far more to worship with them than to be a part of anything else God may or may not be doing. For I would give the world for my sister and nephew to share in the love of Jesus, and I have far more faith in that journey happening through these friends than through all the miracles in Christendom.

Still Reading Around

And then I found this.

Check out Richard's Crafty Curate site for some amazing pictures and animations. And do follow the first link and play the animation of this slide - it is simple and beautiful. Thanks Richard for some really wonderful stuff.

Reading Around

Like the rest of you, I take great pleasure in reading around. Ben's Blog (see the links on the right) has some great quotes and I'm waiting to get round to reading some of the books he refers to. Farmstrong is snappy and opinionated and often very funny. Camillofan is by one of my most longstanding friends, and I love her family and her revealing take on life.

MMP defies characterisation. But this I read there today:

But I've been re reading some new testament recently...a profound shock in and of itself....and this sheep biz is all over the place.

It's about "belonging to......"
no, not a group, not a flock....
but to a shepherd.

Go here for the full post and for the full treat. Or just stop what you are doing and think for a while about the wisdom of those words.

Pooling Resources

Final day here at the Bellevue San Lorenzo. So I took advantage of an English couple I was chatting to by the pool to get a shot of me here at the side of the hotel's classic brochure view... and then returned the favour.

This has been a really short break but a good one, and one I'd love to repeat. The hotel is so peaceful, the food so good, the views great and there is plenty of chance simply to relax. Which I think I needed.

When I first came to Pontypridd, Mary who was minister at the church across the road, was always away on holiday. She split her five weeks in the year into a week off every two months or so. At the time I remember thinking that I couldn't understand how she did it - it took me ages to unwind, and then I'd be winding back up again. If I took three weeks off, only the middle week actually worked as holiday. But now I begin to get it. You have to choose your breaks well. Be places where you really can relax. And then a short gap can actually be genuinely refreshing. I suppose this is how some clergy work with caravans or a cottage in the country.

A caravan sounds like hell to me. A cottage in the country? Depends which country. And whether there's a waiter who brings me strawberries and champagne.


My simple tastes are easy to please.

Guesting on Farmstrong

My good friend JD Walt on his excellent blog Farmstrong (which you really ought to include in your favourites) has been asking questions about how we define worship, because (to quote) "the way you define worship will determine the way you design worship".

I had a think about that and emailed a thought or two, which JD has posted on his site. have a read and either reply there or here if you have any comments.

Chocolate Cake for Breakfast

To be accurate, chocolate gateau, fruit tart, torte, sweet croissants, bread, ham, proscuitto, cheese, fresh fruit, fruit juice, cereals, scrambled eggs, fried eggs, bacon and coffee.

Not that I had all that obviously.

I am allergic to cheese & I don't like cereal.

Then I felt like some exercise, so I ambled down into Malcesine & caught the paddle steamer across the lake to Limone.

More cobbled alleyways and tiny shops, though slightly classier shops really - fewer "gift" places and more nice foody stores.

Which clearly I needed.

Devil May Care

Lake Garda. Where James Bond crashed two Aston Martin’s recently – or at least, his stunt man did. And where I am on holiday. Reading the latest James Bond novel by Sebastian Faulks.

In the most beautiful hotel. Glory. Praise God for all his good gifts

(later)

OK, we all know I love my food. But the proscuitto and melon, quail and risotto, veal, and white chocolate and pinapple dessert followed by the most perfect cappucino ever that I am currently enjoying make this hotel like heaven on earth. Officially.

Plus they are showing all the football.

Without Steve MacLaren.

PS - thanks Andy for the video of Matty - fantastic!

Maths Equation

Here are the questions we have had in our question box for me to answer so far.
1. If Jesus is the Son of God, why do we call him God?
2. In 1 Corinthians 15.29 what does it mean about “those who are baptised for the dead”?
3. So if Jesus died to pay for our sins, who is he paying?
4. What would you give Sooty to eat & is he a Christian? (He appeared in a recent sermon!)
5. If you continuously turn your cheek with offensive neighbours, do you persevere, & if so for how long? Do you keep saying hello or do you give up?
6. Why do the Jews celebrate the Sabbath on Saturday? I know they must count Sunday as the first day, but there must be more to it than that.
I’ve had a go at number 1 so far. And you know, I think my answer was great, but I think others would disagree. I mentioned it this weekend to someone who replied – “Great! Trinitarian theology!” and I thought to myself, “No, not really.”

I mean, I could have chosen to answer it that way, but I didn’t. “Son of God” biblically is surely primarily a kingship title; not a relational one? It occurs forty-odd times, as opposed to “Son of the Father” which actually only gets the one look in. And the Father/Son relationship of Jesus and the Father is complex because although Jesus calls God “Father”, there is a question about how equivalent this is to a human relationship in the dynamic of the Trinity.

I didn’t go there.

I stayed with Kingship. Which is what I think “Son of God” as a phrase is actually about, though I accept that there is a bigger question as well. Because Scripturally I think it is clear that the true king of God’s people is – God himself. So when the Gospels (and especially Matthew) spend time establishing that Jesus is the true King of God’s people (“Son of God”), they are by that route making it clear that Jesus is God, and not doing some daft false confusing relational maths equation of “Jesus equals his own Dad” standard.

But what would you have said? And how would you answer the ones I have to do when I get back from holiday?

The Godfather IV

Ben, Micah, Flo and now Laetitia. I am amassing godchildren.

When James and Bethia asked me to be godfather to Laetitia, I was both astounded and thrilled. I am sure they have rafts of spiritual people they could ask, and the phone call I received from James whilst I was at the New Wine leaders thing at Harrogate was totally unexpected. Bethia was quite clear – my role is to pray; others will give gifts. Which is lucky, because I am pretty poor at working out what a little girl would like for her first Christmas.

But I will pray for her.

And as everyone was busy getting ready on Sunday morning, Laetitia was entrusted to my care. So I sat chatting to her for a while, and then I thought – hang on, no-one’s around, why don’t I pray? So I placed my hand on her head and prayed for the Lord to bless her, and for her never to have a day when she does not know Jesus in her life.

It was a joy to spend some with some of James and Bethia’s friends and family. The Ewins are always good company, and James’ mother Lindy was in fine form, and this was the first time I really got chance to talk with her husband Brian (Hutton – the law Lord). Bethia’s mother and father were a delight too, and again I had really only seen them at the wedding, so this was a lovely chance to meet them properly.

James’ church is plugged into an organisation called Christians against Poverty which works to give financial advice to struggling families, and to bring them to Christ. I think I need to find out more about this group; in the current climate, and with some families in Pontypridd undoubtedly suffering, this may be something we need to think about.

Nice n Easy does it!

Thanks to Matthew Truelove for the editing, and to Chris, Dan, Tom, George & Stephen for the playing!

Ask and you shall receive

I read a blog (following a link on a friend's blog) this weekend asking what questions you'd like to ask in church but daren't.

It made me want to cry.

Some comments in answer to the blog were bitter, some were bitchy, some were crude; most were simply honestly wanting to be real, seeking the reality of life and faith and fearing they weren't allowed to do so in their church. O, as a pastor and a teacher that hurt more than anything.

Whilst I was in the States, one of the churches I visited had a programme where they had forms you could fill in and hand over so that the preacher would address any questions the congregation raised. He gave five minutes at the end of his sermons to answering a couple of issues this way every week. Not every problem can be answered this way, but some can, and this process well handled (and he dealed with it excellently) seemed to me to encourage a culture of asking questions - treating them as the friend of faith.

So I have put a box at the back of church, and forms for people to fill in. They can put their name on the forms, or fill them in anonomously (though I ask them always to indicate which service they usually attend so I can try to answer at the service they are most likely to attend). I may use the question within a sermon, or I may take a couple of minutes after a sermon if it's appropriate. I promise to answer as well as I can. If someone isn't then happy, they should simply put the same question back in the box - I'll get the message. And I will never disclose who asked, even if they do put their name on the paper.

I don't want anyone from my church having to write on such a blog. And that may be blindly idealistic of me, cos some people will always have things they would never say openly, but in the family of our church, my prayer is we can really be open and really learn, and I can really find out what people want to know and teach into that - especially if it means I have to do some learning along the way.

And yes, even by the end of today, the first day the box has been out, there is the first paper in there, and it's a fantastic question: "Jesus is the 'son of God' so why say 'Jesus is God'?"

You want my answer? You'll have to be at one of my 11am services soon!

Here's that sympathy I promised...

Which is why I am in pastoral ministry.

Champion

As I wrote here, "one more game to make it a great" season.

Make that a champion season, as they say where I grew up.

Here are Derek, Matthew, Aled, Matty & I waiting for the Champions League final to start tonight. All United fans. The invitation to the Vicarage only went out to United fans - no Chelsea followers welcome here this evening, though clearly they were in our prayers: for defeat and consolation following defeat. You see, it's both judgement and compassion we see in action.

I felt confident United would do it. 2-1 in ordinary time. Wrong.

And as we hit the end of extra time, with penalties looming, I felt very bad. We all did. Chelsea have an inevitable machine-like quality to them - and a far better goalkeeper.

Cut to our celebrations on winning 6-5 after the shoot-out was done. Ronaldo, our 42 goal superhero (yes, another wonder goal in the first half) missed his penalty, but Edwin Van Der Saar, our weak link, saved the final Chelsea spot kick and won the Cup for us.

How glorious that it was one of our least likely heroes that won the day. How salutary. How perfect.

How perfect. Being a football fan is for moments like these - whether it is the MK Dons you follow, and promotion up to League One provides it, or Fulham and escape from relegation does it, the emotional release that comes from the victory of your tribe is a primal human joy. Probably fundamentally a male joy, to stereotype.

Losing is unbearable. Tomorrow I will give my Chelsea friends a thought. But tonight the joy is too much: the TV in the background is proclaiming it loud and clear.

And I feel champion.

On the hoof

Wednesday morning, again.

I preach unprepared not because I haven't bothered, but because it is a discipline. Three readings, set by the lectionary, and then the congregation gets to choose which one I explain for them.

Bible exposition in its rawest form. I have to know my stuff. I have to be able to explain anything that they want to know. I have to enjoy preaching the word, to love teaching the Bible. They love setting me the text.

This morning, they asked for Isaiah 40.12-17, 27-31. I know, I know, but that's what the lectionary does - bleeding chunks. So I started with a reference to Gill's Sunday morning sermon: Trinity Sunday asks us to look at the whole of God, which is a big ask. But if all we see is the bigness of God (vv12-17) we haven't seen the whole of God, for in vv 27-31 we find the Creator who touches the weak and gives them strength.

The transcendent God who becomes immanent.

Which are big theological words for the Mothers Union: so I found myself retranslating and, on the hoof, describing the pleasure, the wonder and the paradox of these verses as "the God who is really huge is also the God who is really here".

And then he was. In the silence, in the awe, in the midst of those dear, dear people with all they face, we waited upon him and felt ourselves soar awhile.

Trinity

For Trinity Sunday, I decided to choose the wisdom option: get other preachers in. That way, the inevitable heresies that fly out of pulpits across the land on this day of all days would, at least, not come from my mouth, and I would just get to look intelligent and thoughtfully concerned should any of my flock notice a stray extra-biblical doctrine float its way towards them. I'll include photos of all three preachers who were at St Catherine's yesterday.

Speaking of which, I had two wonderful friends to hand. Last year Gill Tuck, our pastoral visitor, who I have heard too many times proclaim that preaching isn't really her thing, gave the best Trinity sermon I have ever heard - but it was at our evening service, so most of our folk didn't hear it. This year, both morning congregations got the full benefit. Using all sorts of images and pictures which by themselves are insufficient, she piled layer upon layer of trinitarian illustrations on top of each other, till she found all of them helpful and none enough - the Trinity is best known, best experienced, best found in love. And her conclusion was lovely.

In the evening we had the wonderful Aled Edwards, OBE, Man Utd fan, chairman of Cytun, North Walian and evidently shark hunter.

He took us on a journey through John 16, perhaps the two most poignant moments of which for me were his story of going on his son's stag weekend (and that's where the shark comes from) - and yes, that was poignant: I'm not sure how many Dads go on their son's stag weekends. The love between father and son that would make this work is quite something. And then he gave us a comment from an African friend - "you have watches, we have time." Just as I had been thinking about the length of the service.

I fear that people want to go home and do something else, and I often am guilty of not letting us spend enough time with the Spirit at the end of a service because I am somehow programmed into not overrunning a time limit I have invented.

And the Lord gently reminded me that he will take time with us - and that when it is him taking time (as opposed, I suppose, to me just wasting time) no-one minds. Certainly, last week we overran at everything and there were no complaints, as everyone waited to be filled with the Spirit.

So after Aled had spoked, we took time to wait on God, to worship, to pray, to bask in his presence, to allow him to work in us. It seemed to pass in an instant. The service started at six, so I was totally shocked when I looked at my watch and saw it was twenty to eight!

By the way, Aled has a great blog; have a read through it - it's lots of fun!

* * *

Oh, sorry - you were expecting a third picture? The third preacher was me (substitute, unused). Look again at the photos above and you can see me! No, not in a shark costume - that's my hands holding Gill's birthday cake a couple of weeks ago. It's chocolate: do you think I'm letting go?