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20160823_193428We’ve just been to Soul Survivor.  For the uninitiated, it’s a Christian youth festival, held as five separate weeks in various places around the UK.  We went to the last week in Shepton Mallet, Somerset together as a family with our church youth group and with 6,500 other people.

It was fantastic.  Uplifting, moving, healing, restorative, life-giving, fun, peaceful, worshipful.

But I had an initial concern that it would be all about the hype and the froth.  I had had a passing observation of Soul leader, Mike Pilavachi, and he has, shall we say, a large personality.  Would the big top and the light show make it just another spiritualised buzz for young people, to dry up like the mud in the fields as the tents are pulled down and the cars drive away?

It wasn’t like that. While rightly being the centre of attention at times, Mike, when it mattered, constantly put the attention back to Jesus.  He was not afraid to turn off the light show and simply ask people to pray in quietness.  People weren’t asked to come forward to receive ministry from the big holy guru, but to simply to pray for and care for one another.  I saw people moved with contrition, with love, with peace, with joy.

And there was music. Lots of it.  Some loud, some repetitive, some light, some profound.  It carried people away without getting carried away, if you know what I mean.  And while the lyrics were not 18th Century theological treatises, they were meaningful and biblical.

It reprised me with an ongoing thought I’ve had about charismatic worship of this kind, the sort that’s done well.  What does it do?

Firstly, it expresses an obedience to the Scriptural injunction to build one another up with “songs, hymns, and spiritual songs” and to “sing and make music from your heart to the Lord.”

Secondly, there is a sense of expectation that this form of worship is an effective means of encountering the grace of God in particular, life-giving ways.  This is the charismatic sense in which the worship incorporates prayer, healing, restoration, and a growing intimacy with the Holy Spirit.

These are two marks that characterise sacraments.  The two canonical Sacraments of the Lord’s Supper and Baptism are done in obedience and are an effective administration of God’s grace.  We encounter God in the Sacraments, by the power of the Holy Spirit.

Musical worship is not a Sacrament, but in this sense it is sacramental.  In the midst of musical worship we can encounter the grace of God in a particular way as the Holy Spirit ministers to us.

What struck me at Soul Survivor however, was another aspect of this.  The two Sacraments also have the characteristic of being a memorial, in the broad sense of the word of “an aid to memory.”  Jesus commands that the breaking of the bread and the pouring of the wine and the sharing together should be done “in remembrance of me.”

As I watched over six thousand young people singing about Jesus it was clear, by this they were remembering him, and they were remembering who they are in him.  It was truly a memorial.  It was kerygmatic.  It was a connection with and a proclamation of the Way, the Truth, and the Life.

And my prayer is this: that as the young people dispersed into their year, that they would take the remembering of these songs, this worship experience, with them.  In whatever stresses and strains they experience, that they would be led to remember Christ there, away from the big top, in the midst of reality.  That they would do life in remembrance of him, and so bear much fruit for his glory. Amen.

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clockworkI’ve recently had cause to reflect on my mortality.  I can now count myself amongst that (rather large, as I am finding) cohort of people who have had the doctor gaze and use the “c-word.”  In my case, it’s bladder cancer.

In my situation, while there are some unknowns remaining, there is not cause for great concern.  From the moment I saw blood in my urine (if you see it, get it checked!), the time to having a wonderfully acronymised TURBT operation was less than a month. It was a large tumour but caught quite early.  All signs are good for a full recovery with minimal subsequent treatment, and we’ll know for sure after an appointment next week. God bless the NHS!

But it’s made me think, of course.  Despite the fact that my particular cancer journey is merely a tiptoe to the front gate compared to the epic expeditions of some… I’m 41 years old, and mortal, and now very aware of that fact.

There are three components to my musing:

Firstly, I’m not afraid of dying. I’m really not.  1 Thessalonians 4:16-18 is a comfort, and I can echo that wonderfully defiant hope-filled proclamation from 1 Corinthians 15: “Where, O death, is your victory?  Where, O death, is your sting?”  I will be raised on that last day, if our Lord does not return first.

Secondly, I do have some worries, and they are about those who depend on me, most fundamentally my family.  I manage this anxiety by returning to a truth that I have had to fall back on a number of times as a husband and father: God is trustworthy.  Sometimes I feel the answer to my anxious prayer is a divine “Do you trust me with them, or not?”  And that pokes until there is life-giving movement.

Thirdly,  within myself, my response is this: I’m not done with my life yet.  Yes, I know my life is not my own, and there are always acts of fate and providence that I cannot control.  But it’s my reaction to a real and present sense of mortality: I don’t want to shortcut, I want to get to the goal the long way ’round.

You’ll have to forgive my nerdiness, because I’m referencing Doctor Who here.  In the episode The Girl in the Fireplace the Doctor jumps from point to point in a woman’s timestream.   She realises what’s going on: that he goes the “short way”, moving from decade to decade in a blink of an eye.  But she “takes the long way ’round”; she lives her life to the end.  It all happens because of clockwork robots, of course, because, well… Doctor Who.

But my point is this.  I want to live life, the long way ’round.  I want the good times and the storms, because blessed is his name.  The fading like autumn grass is a felt reality, so I don’t want to waste the summer sun, but get on with obeying the truth and sincerely loving according to the enduring word of God.  The thought of missing out on all that, whether life be a fight or a cruise, produces a regret in me and makes my mortality more foe than friend.

There are times where, like Paul, we long for heaven, and groan even more for the resolution of all things at the end.  I think there are some who might feel rightly cheated if I were to enter into my rest before the work was done and the trials were ended!  But nevertheless, this transitory life has the very depths of value, even and especially in the work and the trials it brings.  And so my aspiration, resolve, my longing, becomes this: Bring it on. Let’s get there the long way ’round.

[UPDATE, 3/8/16]  We have now had the follow up appointment and the news is good.  The CT scan was clear and the tumour has not spread.  The histology shows that it is a slow-growing form of cancer, and therefore not highly aggressive.  I will not need any further treatment except for regular checks for the next five years and intervention if required.  Apparently (according to the doctor’s bladder cancer app!) there is a 24% chance of the tumour recurring in the next year, and a 40% chance of it recurring in the next five years (which is a little concerning, but not a problem with regular checks).  There is a smaller chance (less than 1%) of it developing into a more aggressive form. [/UPDATE]

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people-1149873One of the most important dynamics in living churches is that of intentional one-on-one relationships that help individuals mature in their faith.  We have our Sunday gathered worship times, and our small groups, and prayer triplets and things like that, but intentional personal investment is invaluable.  Many of us can reflect on the individuals who have invested in us over the years, be it formally or informally; they are invariably God’s gift to us.

These investing relationships, however, are not all alike.  There are a number of words and phrases that we use to describe them.  The three I want to pick up on here are “discipleship”,  “mentoring”, and “spiritual direction”.

Understanding the differences between these is important.  There is a lot of overlap, but the semantics informs the intention of the relationship.  And the intention helps guide the expectations of those who are entering into it.  It also allows each form of relationship to be valued in its own way.

Here, then, is how I would describe these three forms of investing relationships:

MENTORING: This is a broad category and the word has a high semantical overload.  It is also the word that most readily overlaps with secular domains.

Broadly speaking, the mentoring relationship is a reflecting one.  A mentor helps you to analyse and articulate what is already there.  In mentoring, goals are clarified, actions are identified, resources are suggested.  A mentor is someone to “bounce off”, to run ideas past, to seek advice from, and to approach with questions.  They willingly allow their experience to be tapped.

The process is driven and shaped by the person being mentored.  The mentor does not direct, and will not even provide accountability unless it is requested.  The scope of mentoring can be quite small, focussing on professional life, or a particular issue or obstacle.

SPIRITUAL DIRECTION:  The key to this form of relationship is in the phrase itself.  It is spiritual in that it considers life holistically and deeply, and with particular attention to our relationship with God.  It explores matters of conscience and calling, prayerfulness and petition.

It is direction in that the relationship is “directive.”  This is not in the sense of a manipulation or domination, but in the sense that a doctor can be directive in pursuit of increased health for the patient.  The direction is cooperative and always constructive.

The spiritual direction relationship is about shared discernment.  The spiritual director assists with self-reflection but also speaks truth from a shared source of inspiration such as Scripture.  The director can bring spiritual exercises, or directions to explore: forms of prayer, actions of repentance that need to be considered.

DISCIPLESHIP:  For many “discipleship” is not easily grasped.  It is sometimes an empty phrase that is used as a churchified version of “mentoring” or a hipper version of “spiritual direction.”  However, the best framework for considering discipleship is “apprenticeship”, in the older sense in which a more experienced person shares life and purpose with an apprentice, not just vocational skills.

Jesus was a discipler.  His disciples travelled with him, ate with him, argued with him, and learned from him.  Only rarely did he exclude them from his activities and his time.  Discipleship is about sharing life.

The relationship is shaped by vulnerability and openness.  A way of life, and necessary skills, are passed on through allowing the other to observe and participate in the inner life that is then expressed outwardly.  Vocation is not just about skills but about foundational motivations and values, about what moves and guides and what is done in response.  Someone who is discipling needs to be willing to open their lives and explain and demonstrate what moves and shapes them.  They will find themselves challenged by the relationship, as much as they invest in the other person.

In this way the Christian discipler is not making their own disciples, but disciples of Jesus.  They bring another into both the interior and exterior of how they follow Christ, and so bring others into that same “followship” where Jesus is the guide.  Paul’s “imitate me as I imitate Christ” expresses this dynamic.  Good discipleship therefore doesn’t create dependence, it creates community at which Christ is the centre.

Similarly, propagation is inherent to discipleship.  The sharing of life includes the sharing of the discipling dynamic itself.  Discipled people will find themselves discipling others, in their own way.  There was wisdom in Jesus’ ways, his discipling ended up founding a movement and changing culture.

I am heartened that the Church of England, and Anglicanism in general, is (re)embracing the language of discipleship.  The General Synod report, Developing Discipleship, (written by Bp. Steven Croft, soon to be the Bishop of our Diocese of Oxford), approaches it with an understanding of the depths and breadths of what it means.  Likewise, when we use the phrase we must realise that it is not about lipservice to a trend, nor even about advancing oneselves: discipleship allows us to put all things, together, at Christ’s feet.   It is therefore costly, requires courage, challenges our character, and changes church culture.  We should not use the word lightly, but we should certainly pursue it.

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EnglandI have learned that the Scottish love Scotland. And the Welsh love Wales.  But do the English love England?

As I’ve shared this observation with my English friends, and as it becomes clear what the final question is going to be, before I even ask it they are shaking their heads with a wry expression,  “No, no we don’t.”

Love? It’s as if it’s a category mistake.  I’m not sure what the prevailing sentiment actually is:  Respect? Concern? Admiration? Affection? Options that have been volunteered to me range from the negative (“We resent our society.”) to the self-deprecating (“We’re a little bit embarassed about England.”) to the faux-humble (“We know we’re good we don’t need to flaunt it.”) to the perplexed (“Well, we don’t know who we are anymore.”)  Of course, support for cricket and rugby teams cannot be questioned, and is a common expression of loyalty. But love? What does that even mean?

As an “outsider” observer I can offer some musings about why this is the case:  Perhaps England as a concept isn’t “local” enough; we can speak of love much more readily for Yorkshire, or Cornwall, or Norfolk!  Perhaps England doesn’t have the experience of shared and common adversity that is present in the history of the other UK countries; there has been very little to knit the country together in it’s own identity. If you’re English, or you know England, I’d love to hear your thoughts and opinions!

The motivation for my thinking about this is missiological and prayerful.  It was sparked by the opportunity Gill and I had recently of spending time in retreat at Ffald-y-brenin in Wales.  As part of the rhythm of prayer there they include a “Caleb prayer for Wales.”  It’s a prayer for mercy and revival:

O High King of Heaven,
Have mercy on our Land.
Revive your Church.
Send the Holy Spirit for the sake of the lost, the least, and the broken.
May your Kingdom come to our nation.
in Jesus’ mighty name.
Amen

Prayed by the Welsh, this prayer is gentle but fervent, and with deep deep roots.  It recalls revivals of the past and yearns and longs for new things in the present.  It imagines life-giving restorative reconnection with God intermingling with the valleys and the hills, the families and the industrial cities.  It looks to “Jesus’ mighty name” as a hope for the lost, the least, and the broken.  It is prayed confidently in acknowledgement of God’s will, because they love their land, and they want God’s best for it.  The prayer reveals a missiological heart.

But if “love for England” is an ungraspable concept, what do we have that can stir us for God’s mission?  What is it that wells up (or could well up) within the English to pray this prayer for their land?  What is the missiological heart for England?

My conclusion is this:  England is and can be loved.  It can be loved with a missiological heart – even those big detached chunks of Southern England that are geographically defined more by their train line to London than their sense of “nationhood,” community, or place.

My prayer for myself, and for the church, is that we would grow in this love.  That we would be more and more moved with the heart of God.  This means to be prayerfully weeping because of the sin we see, and the destructive things we know are hidden away to fester, and the roots of idolatry now writ large in the whole Western world.  It means travailing for lives and communities to be convicted, awakened, and turned towards life-pertaining things.   And above all it means hope – to be trusting in God’s mercy as we dare to believe that the villages and market-towns, the estates and seething throngs of commuters, can somehow encounter and embrace, together, a living experience with a risen Saviour.

Can England be loved? Yes.  But it will take, as they say with a phrase now full of meaning, the “love of the Lord.”

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In the light of reading Good Disagreement? I found Maajid Nawaz’ Big Think video on dialogue and the Future of Tolerance of interest.

I don’t know much about Nawaz but he appears to be a centrist at the hinge point of moderate Islam.  He recounts a constructive dialogue with atheist Sam Harris.  They continue to disagree but have disagreed well.  The video is well worth a watch (embedded at the end of this post) but his main points towards good disagreement are:

Adversarial Collaboration

An agreement between opposing parties about how they’ll work together or gain a better understanding of their differences.

Emotional Process

“Re-humanizing” your adversary, even though you disagree with his or her perspective.  Try to see the other person holistically, as someone with valid human experience.

Intellectual Process

First, identify common ground.  Isolate specific points of agreement.

Practice intellectual empathy. Acknowledge when the internal logic pattern of a n argument makes sense, even though you may disagree with the premise.

Recognize your own moral compass and maintain your courage.

These points are well made.  Good Disagreement? arrives at many of them, grounded on a Christian worldview.  I would love to see Nawaz’ philosophical underpinnings.  Emotional and intellectual honesty, personal generosity, with the courage to maintain your convictions… these appear to be the ingredients for constructive tolerance.  I applaud his stance.

It doesn’t mean it’s easy.  There are two significant difficulties:

a) Nawaz and Harris can exercise these qualities because of their existing separation.  What I mean is that, apart from the vague obligations of living on the same planet and in the same society, they have no need to interact or collaborate.  They can approach their interaction from a relative position of great freedom, and part ways at relatively little cost.

Disagreements that are “in-house” are more fraught.  When the institutional, historical, or even theological, ties are strong, that freedom of separation is reduced and good disagreement is hampered.

In that circumstance another component is needed: a form of “giving each other space.”  The Church of England is still working out what this means internally; the Shared Conversations are the current attempt as I understand it.  In the wider Anglican Communion troubles of the last decade or two the gift of space was attempted through instruments such as indaba and moratoria (on same-sex blessings and ordinations, and episcopal incursions) and these simply proved to be not enough.

The creation of ACNA and the GAFCON movement has codified a separation and encouraged its members (crf. Nawaz’ last point.)  This movement is in many ways unfortunate (who wanted to have these disputes anyway?) but has been quite necessary, not least for the purposes of good disagreement.  My hope is that this invigorated confessional identity, which clearly demarcates a philosophical and increasingly institutional separation, will not only catalyse clarity in the disagreement but also generous interaction.  My hope that this will occur at the forthcoming meeting of Primates, from both sides.  But that brings up the second point:

b) It takes two to tango.  Nawaz recounts a constructive interaction with a similar motivated interlocutor.  This isn’t always the case.  In my experience the most machiavellian groups are self-styled as tolerant and progressive.  There’s a belligerent political strategy: seek dramatic change using absolutist rhetoric, and in the face of consequent dramatic resistance, complain about the hard-hearted impositional schismatic “refuses to dialogue” bigotry of the other party.

Of course belligerence begets belligerence in a vicious circle intertwining both sides of a debate.  But the burden is uneven.  When there are proposals for fundamental and irreversible change on the table, the risk of good disagreement is higher for those who oppose the change.  In a place of belligerent stalemate, the risk of stepping back to good disagreement for the proponents of change is, at worst, a “non-decision” of the status quo.  The risk to the opponents is that the irreversible change occurs.  This is why decrying bad disagreement works unevenly, and why it can be used politically to take resistance to change out of the game; you’ll hurt yourself, but you’ll hurt your opponent more.

All in all, unless both parties turn away from belligerence at the same time, good disagreement simply isn’t.  Nawaz talks about his good disagreement as a delicate exercise.  A similar delicacy is needed in the context of Anglican good disagreement.  It is why I admire those who are seeking to bring it about.

Photo Credit: “Russia georgia scrum” by Hr.icio – Own work. Licensed under CC BY 3.0 via Commons.

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51ka0d0GNNLI am continuing with my chapter-by-chapter, essay-by-essay review of Good Disagreement?  Previously:

Ashley Null. Big fan.  He is an absolute authority on Reformation History.  I heard him speak on Cranmer at the Anglican Future’s Conference in Melbourne earlier this year.  He is a true exegete of history: he connects you with the essence of history, not merely its facts and propositions.  In his contribution here Null brings the accounts of divisions amongst the early Reformers, particularly controversies about the nature of the eucharistic elements, as background information for what good disagreement might look like.

His basic point is this:

The Reformation should not be written off as an era of only “bad disagreements”… the confessional identities which still divide Western Christianity today are, in fact, the enduring result of that era’s successful attempts at “good disagreement”, if only within specific streams. (p85)

Even if not fully achieved, unity and agreement were sought after.  Disagreements were, by and large, carefully and constructively managed; it was only on matters which, in good conscience, could not be held indifferently, that separate identities were embraced.

If there is an ongoing question that this book forces upon the current troubles it is this: “What sort of disagreement is this?”  Is it overcomable difference of opinion, or is it fundamental matters of foundation?  Take a look at the following facebook discussion stemming from an Ian Paul post to see the complexity of this in the real world, beginning with a reasonable conclusion that the differences are not (to coin a phrase) indifferent:

How then does Ashley Null’s essay help us?  I’m not sure that it does much more than give us some historical analogies.  Although perhaps these can serve as some object lessons for us.

Null’s exposition of the eucharistic controversies get us somewhere towards that.  Here he speaks of the Northern and Southern reformers – Luther, Melancthon, Bucer, Zwingli and the like – and the genuine desire to “call one another “brother” and to engage in intercommunion” (p90).  There is good conflict resolution, an agreement on what they disagreed on, and on the relative importance of those disagreements, articulation of the common ground, honesty about the differences, exploration of language that would hold acceptable ambiguity and so on.  It’s a genius that the Anglican tradition was later to elevate to an ideal!  But despite this “good disagreement” in the end there was actually disagreement and separation.

To correlate to the contemporary debates, we can use this legacy to note that there has actually been a great deal of good disagreement already – balanced resolutions, indabas, reports, and now shared conversations and (very) delayed decisions. History affirms us.

But the correlation also fails: Luther et al. began from existing disunity (excepting a vague sense of embryonic protestantism) and were attempting to find unity.  In the current situation we have an ostensible unity around presumed essentials, which some wish to modify.  On the face of it, the only positive (non status-quo) decision that can be made is to move away from the essentials, and therefore weaken the unity (“live and let live”) or fracture it according to conscience (“let us walk apart”).  Courtesy and gentleness must still abound, but it’s a very different dynamic.

In that regard I found Null’s contribution a little irrelevant, with conclusions that are basically motherhood statements: “scandal for the church to be divided,” “theological truth mattered”, “not all theological issues were of equal importance.” (p106).

The most assertive thing he does is remind us of the base authority of the Bible.  Cranmer saw the Bible both as the “sole basis of unity in the essentials of faith and morals” (p107) and also as the basis for “wide parameters for the development of institutional life.” (p107).  Scripture as the basis for both unity AND diversity.  But if Ian Paul’s facebook post tells us anything, it’s that it’s our understanding of Scripture, and therefore our understanding of unity and diversity itself, that is on the table!  Without that common ground even history will struggle to help.

Next: Part 7, Ecumenical (Dis)agreements by Andrew Atherstone and Martin Davie

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Gill and I are long time fans of the Australian Christian musical phenomenon that is Sons of Korah.  Headed by Matthew Jacoby, the Sons of Korah project is to set the Old Testament psalms to music.  Their philosophy is one of interpretation rather than re-interpretation; they provide a literal musical “translation” more than a paraphrase.  The lyrics are often word-for-word of an English text.  The composition makes heavy use of strings and multi-layered folk melodies to communicate not just the meaning, but the feeling, of the psalms.  They are both affective and effective.

It was a great delight, therefore, to have Matthew Jacoby’s book Deeper Places thrust into my hands by Gill after she had eagerly devoured it herself.

Here Jacoby lays out not just his philosophy for approaching the psalms, but the philosophical imprints of the spirituality that he has learned from them.  It is the essence of his doctoral studies and so this is no touchy-feely pop-psych pseudo-tract; it is a deeply applicable theological treatise.  It has fed my soul, expanded my mind, deepened my homiletics, because it has drawn me to the Word of God and the words of God’s people.

For Jacoby the psalms express an holistic spiritual journey.  The ultimate end is to instil “rightly oriented desire” (p68) in the hearers/readers/singers.  It is no accident that the “chief end of man” is quoted towards the end of the book as he explores themes of enjoyment and praise.

At the highest point of the spiritual journey portrayed by the Psalter, we find people enjoying God.  In their enjoyment of God, they become vessels of praise to God. This deeper sense of praise is precisely what is meant to “glorify.”  We can praise God in a shallower sense with words alone, but we can only glorify God by enjoying him. (p161)

But, as they say, it’s the journey that counts.  The psalms are not just about praise and glory, they are also full of query, doubt, tension, and raw lament.  It is in the consideration of these aspects that Jacoby’s commentary is of the greatest value.

Jacoby locates the beginning of the praise-bound journey not in victory but in the raw brokenness of this world.

From our perspectives, they [the psalms] express the desire to feel loved, to be affirmed and validated, to feel secure, and so forth.  This earthly spirituality, as I have called it, is also seen in the psalms in the ample expression they give to the complications of our human dysfunction.  Human dysfunction does not guide these expressions, but our dysfunction does cause a constant tension in our relationship with God that must be brought to the surface with honest communication, as it must be in any relationship.  This is what we see in the psalms. (p26)

In his definitive metaphor God is imaged as an ocean in which we are suspended.  The human dysfunction is a shell that not only insulates us from the divine, but propels us upwards to the shallows like a bobbing submarine.  In contrast, the journey of the psalms is ever deeper, and necessarily a journey of tension; the lament of human hurt mixes with the life-filled promises of God until the shell bursts and we are consumed inwardly and outwardly by God’s presence, which we therefore glorify.

“…the psalmists deliberately bring two things into tension.  They deliberately highlight the reality of their situation as it stands in tension with the reality of God and his promises.  As both realities are amplified, this very tension then becomes the seedbed for faith and hope.  Faith is conceived by the injection of the divine promise into the open wound of a heart that has allowed itself to be wounded by reality.” (p86)

I have long rejected the association of “spiritual” with “ethereal.”  To be spiritual is to go deep, into gut-level issues. And spiritual work is work that (often painfully) adjusts our foundations, or is so rooted upon our foundations that the depths of our soul is welled up and out.  Jacoby threads this notion through the Psalter, revealing it’s nature not just as a song-book but as an exercise-book for life.

Like his songs, Jacoby has taken what already exists and has brought it to life in lively language that I for one will be referencing again and again.  He has done the preacher’s task in an extraordinary way.  In the very best sense he has opened the Word of God.

 

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A moment of reflection from this morning’s drive while listening to Christy Nockels’ Healing is In Your Hands:

Amongst the lyrics are echoes of Romans 8:35-39

No mountain, no valley
No gain or loss we know
Could keep us from Your love

No sickness, no secret
No chain is strong enough
To keep us from Your love…

In all things we know that
We are more than conquerors
You keep us by Your love

Romans 8:35-39 reads:

35 Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will hardship, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? 36 As it is written, “For your sake we are being killed all day long; we are accounted as sheep to be slaughtered.”
37 No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. 38 For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, 39 nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. (ESV)

IMG_20141028_085331It’s a passage that I know well.  It’s one of my favourites and has been a source of comfort for me when the emotions of the day feel like alone-ness, anxiety, or even abandonment.

The phrase that struck me today is this: “We are more than conquerors.”

It’s one of those phrases that has what I call “teleological significance.”  It speaks to our purpose, our ambition, our direction, our goal.  There’s two facets to this:

The first recognises that what we observe in and around us in the world is a form of conquering.  I see Islamic extremists beheading Christians; they are trying to conquer the world with their expression of Islam.  I see areas of my own society, the Western World, which is blindly slipping into intolerant impositions that gives little value to freedom of conscience; it’s another form of attempted conquering.  It has ever been the way of the world.  This should not surprise us.

The natural response is fear.  What does the future look like?  Will I and my children and my children’s children be safe?  To be safe, we look to win.  We fight back.  We use the same sword as what we perceive is against us: we spin and tear down, we demolish people as well as ideas, we demonise, we hound, we yell; we try to conquer.

The second facet recognises the reality: we are more than conquerors.  And our safety and security rests not on the ways and woes of what is around us, but upon the love of God in Jesus Christ.  The Kingdom of God is not headed by a weakened or sin-wracked king, but by the one who has conquered even death.  The foundation of our ultimate citizenship is sure, as is the certainty of it’s future.  God is the God of history, do you think he has abandoned this part of it?

And on that basis we face the conquering hordes (whoever or whatever they might be), not with fear, but in love-filled confidence.  We speak and act on truth with our confidence not in ourselves, but in the love of God.  We apply ourselves to his purpose.  We invest ourselves in his loving works.  We seek to capture every thought that’s floating through the social conscience and reimagine it in the light of the fact that God is actually real, and Jesus has actually risen and inaugurated the life of a renewed world.  He is so much more than any pretentious conqueror.  And we rest and work and have our being in him.

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OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAIt’s time to announce it:  At the beginning of August I will be taking up the role of Associate in the Parish of St. Nicolas, Newbury, in West Berkshire, in the Diocese of Oxford.  In July, the Briggs Family will be moving to England.

There’s no doubt about it, this is a big move!  In some sense it has come as a surprise.  But mostly it clearly aligns with how God has led us, and is leading us, in ministry, as a family.

Tasmania is our home in many ways, where we have been formed by God, and learned to trust him.  Over the years he has given us a passion for discipleship and for growing church communities that worship God in every part, and so bless the world.  But at the same time as rooting us where we are, he has lifted our eyes.  And that same passion has had us looking, and now moving, to England.  God has called us to the other side of the world.  This is a step of faith, trusting that God will meet us in Newbury, and bless us to be a blessing.

2015 - 1 (1)IMG_20150307_120852We are looking forward to being part of St. Nic’s as the church acts in the vision of “being good news, and bringing good news.”  We have already visited the parish as part of the appointment process where we discovered a great affection for the church family, and for the town itself.  We are looking forward to putting down new roots and discovering the details of God’s purpose there.

familyThe next few months (weeks really) are all about our family making the transition.  Please be praying for us.  In particular:

  • Pray for our children.  Anna (who is now 18yo) will be coming with us, possibly after some gap year travelling.   The other three will be transitioning into a new school system.  We have already visited one of the local schools, and met some of the teachers and are encouraged by what we see.  Please be praying for Samuel, Ethan, and Miriam.
  • We are also in the process of applying for Gill’s spouse visa (I am a British Citizen, and so are the children, so we can travel on UK passports).  Please be praying for all the paperwork to go smoothly.
  • Please be praying as we dismantle our household goods and either sell them off or pack them up and send them.  There are lots of logistics, and plenty of hidden expenses that we will have to face.

Throughout this whole journey there is one thing that is certain: God is good.  And he is kind to us.  We have never known such blessing and assurance.  We have been aware of his presence and his deep peace.  Where we have had financial needs, he has provided for us through the love of his people.  Where we have faced fears and anxieties, he has blessed us with words of comfort through the love of his people.  We will have more need of such things before this journey is through; but we remain convinced of God’s trustworthiness and that, in the words of Psalm 27, we will see the goodness of the Lord, here and now in the land of the living.

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One of the tasks of my job is to preach sermons. I enjoy this ministry. It is both analytical and creative. It involves dwelling upon the deep things of God and his word to us in Scripture, and also upon the deep realities of the people whose faith, community, and lives we share.  A preacher must allow the text to preach to himself first, and this is a deepening devotional exercise.

1043405_40777795In recent times many of us preachers have had our sermons recorded, turned into mp3s, and placed online.  It doesn’t make us “internet preachers”, but it is the “tape ministry” of a previous decade in current form.  It also means that, for better or worse, our homiletical efforts are recorded for posterity.

I’ve recently had cause to review some of my past and present sermons.  It is quite the educational experience!  There are times for both cringing (“I said that?!?”) and delight (“Wow, I’d forgotten about that, that speaks to me now.”).  I’ve learned a lot from doing it and thought I’d share some thoughts:

For example:

Here is a very recent sermon from St. David’s Cathedral.  It is something of a “topical” sermon, as opposed to an strictly “expositional” one.  It was part of an advent series on the “Signs of Faith” and drawing on the response of Mary to the announcement of the angel.

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Like all Cathedral sermons, it’s an “aim for 15-20 minute” timeslot and this went a little over.  It is preached from within the confines of rather towering pulpit.  There is no data projector or any other easily-appropriated form of visual aide.  This means that the structure of the sermon hangs on oral cues.  That’s something I had to “re-learn” when I came to the Cathedral.  Here’s another example, more expositional in nature, looking at the Parable of the Talents in Matthew 25:

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A Cathedral is an interesting place to preach.  Sometimes up to 20% of the congregation are only there for one week, being tourists or short-term visitors to the city.  There needs to be a balance of speaking to the regular congregation and the awareness of ongoing contact, with ensuring accessibility for those who are only there for the one experience.  On some occasions, particularly the big Christmas and Easter services, you have to be almost like a “visiting preacher” and avoid over-familiarity.  The next example is from a Christmas midnight service a couple of years ago.  It had to be shorter, speak to a very very general audience, and definitely be on message about Jesus:

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But I have not only preached in a Cathedral.  I have also preached in the “rural town” context of North-West Tasmania.  And not in a pulpit, but in a school hall, a surf club room, and sometimes even outside in a park!  In this context much longer, meatier “teaching times” were the order of the day.  It was a more intimate setting with more assumed familiarity of both congregation and preacher.  The homiletical structure could be communicated through visual cues on a data projector, and through peripatetic movements and gestures as wireless microphones allow.  Here’s a typical example from 2009, preached in the West Somerset Primary School hall.  The slides that were used are here: pdf

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Photo credit: http://www.freeimages.com/photo/1043405

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