Wise words

I while back someone wrote me this quote in a card:

'The gift came from heaven, let it go to heaven. Prayer brought it, gratitude sung over it, let devotion consecrate it'

Spurgeon

Recovering fundamentalist

via Ron Edmondson

Revivals and cultures

My neighbouring Vicar and pal Simon Downham told a story in his Pentecost sermon of a time several hundred church leaders gathered to hear Gordon Fee teach on the Spirit from Galatians. They had, so they believed and 'felt',  a wonderful time of worship and as Fee was about speak the leader of the meeting announced that the Holy Spirit "was powerfully present". Fee paused and then responded by saying: "He might be here, but given you are all white and middle class and all from one nation I cannot be sure"

Fee's point was that when a move of the Spirit occurs the nations are gathered in as happened at Pentecost. Recently, I read this report of conversions in Manchuria in China in 1908. As I aside, I enjoyed the cultural awareness and engagement of Scottish missionaries indicated by their use of the descriptor 'John Chinaman':

‘A power has come into the church that we cannot control if we would. It is a miracle for stolid, self-righteous John Chinaman to go out of his way to confess to sins that no torture of the Yamen could force from him, for a Chinaman to demean himself to crave, weeping, the prayers of his fellow-believers is beyond all human explanation

Perhaps you will say it ‘s a sort of religious hysteria. So did some of us.....But here we are, about sixty Scottish and Irish Presbyterians who have seen it- all shades of temperament –and, much as many of us shrank from it at first, every one who has seen and heard what we have, everyday last week, is certain there is only one explanation- that it is God’s Holy Spirit manifesting himself…..One clause of the Creed that lives before us now in all its inevitable, awful solemnity is, “I believe in the Holy Ghost!’

from Keep in step with the Spirit

The expression ..'..inevitable, awful solemnity..' has stayed with me.

Revivals and Conversions

As readers will know I am still following the events in Cwmbran with interest. Here is a latest update that reports that over 300 have given their lives to Christ and 60 of these were recently baptised.

One of the marks of revival is of course people coming to believe in and follow Jesus. This has various names to describe it -conversion, regeneration, the new birth (this is a good talk called 'What happen's in the New Birth' that explains what it is), salvation, 'being saved' and so on but they all denote a sense of both an event and an experience. In other words, in response to the proclamation of Christ people repent and believe on him.

For my Pentecost sermon I revisited the conversion story of C T Studd as told in Norman Grubb's book Cricketer and pioneer which puts words to one such conversion event:

“ But my friend exclaimed, ‘ Oh my child if anyone has had a warning from God, you have;  Give him your heart and nothing will ever disturb the peace of mind he will give you’ I was not conscious of wanting any such thing, but unlike my usual self, instead of mocking at such words but myself kneeling and saying ‘ I have never decided for God but I will tonight’ Then I realized I knew the devil as a person, as he actually seemed to come to my side, torturing me by bringing to remembrance all the times I had mocked and scoffed and said I would never love nor yield my allegiance to overshadow me and a voice, oh so different, asked ‘ Child, what do you want?’ To get to God but I can’t’ for their seemed a vertitable great gulf fixed, and I like Bunyan, with so great a load on me that I could not move.  Suddenly close to me was raised the cross with Jesus Christ nailed upon it, and with riven-side, and I saw blood flow.  Quickly the words came to me….’Why wast though there? And immediately a voice replied,  ‘ With my stripes you are healed.  The vision of the cross disappeared, my burden too, and I arose.  My friend greeted my with’ well what is it to be?’ I said ‘ I have seen Calvary and henceforth he shall be my Lord and my God” Page 73

Tim Challies has a timely piece on the great Welsh hymn Guide me O thou Great Jehovah' . Do sing it this new day and do pray for the people of Cwmbran, for Richard Taylor and all God is doing in that place.

Real power

A friend sent me this AW Tozer quote this morning: 

'We are turning out from the Bible schools of this country year after year young men and women who know the theory of the Spirit-filled life but do not enjoy the experience. These go out into the churches to create in turn a generation of Christians who have never felt the power of the Spirit and who know nothing personally about the inner fire....The only power God recognizes in His church is the power of His Spirit whereas the only power actually recognized today by the majority of evangelicals is the power of man...’ 

The Root of the Righteous, 1955, p.88

For the pod: Jesus is better than anything else

There is something better than the things you most desire.

There is joy in not having that thing you think you most desire.

If the thing you most desire isn't Jesus it won't bring you lasting joy.

Piper continues to preach and of these messages I commend to you Jesus is most magnified in us when we are most satisfied in him.

It may very well change the way you see everything.

You would be much blessed to listen to it twice- one of them with a pen and paper in hand.

Saturday blog-sweep

Talked off a Bridge

You too can write a blog

Why reading books matters

What  can Karl Barth teach us about the gospel?

What day changed the course of Christian history?

God's provision

The legacy of Keith Green

Four reasons to trust what the Bible says

What do we mean when we say 'the gospel' ?

Set some goals

Fascinating and beautiful Gaelic singing

via Tim Challies

Spend 20 minutes listening to this

via Ann VosKamp

For the pod: Francis Chan on 'Why we all need the gospel'

Evangelicals know that the power behind the eighteenth century revivals and the great nineteenth century missionary movement was prayer, and that the prayer was made out of hearts agonizing over the prospect of all who leave this world without Christ being lost. Was such prayer misconceived? uninstructed? foolish? wrong-headed? An evangelical who values his heritage must ponder that question, recognizing that if universalism is true all that missionary passion and praying was founded on a monstrous mistake.

J.I Packer

Cited in: Evangelical Affirmations by Kenneth Kantzer and Carl F.H. Henry, Zondervan, 1990, p. 107-108, 

Understanding that God is a God of love yet is also a God of wrath (Eph 2:3) is a hard thing for the modern mind to comprehend. It's hard for my own mind to do so. We are so sanitised by 'search for the hero inside yourself' psychology that most people believe they are no longer, as the Scriptures clearly state, sinners in need of a saviour but are instead good people who need their idolatry blessing. The Telegraph tells us Christianity in the UK is declining 50% quicker than previously thought.

Let's do a bit of church history friends. Marcion was a chappy who thought the God of Joshua and Judges (which we've just read through in BiOY) was a rather judgemental and un-cuddly fellow so he decided to relaunch him with the nasty bits edited out. He also rejected/ cut out the bits of the New Testament that didn't fit with his misguided theological worldview. The church rightly decreed that he was a heretic.

It's therefore interesting to note that vast swathes of the western church have largely erased the reality of hell and judgement and never dare teach this or warn their people and congregations of its prospect. As Pentecost arrives in the church year so few pulpits will properly unpack Peter's first sermon in Acts 2 -especially this verse. I read recently that the idea of the wrath of God has been so offensive to Presbyterians that they have even decided to edit it out of their hymn book.

We would all do well to listen to Francis Chan explain 'Why we all need the gospel' and it may as a result put some passion in our sandals of peace to crack on with the mission. He also wrote the theologically thorough Erasing Hell which is worth reading if you want to do a bit of robust study on this.

The brains of Steve Jobs

Christians will – and should – continue to feel bad for not sharing their faith. Christ is the most glorious Person in the world. His salvation is infinitely valuable. Everyone in the world needs it. Horrific consequences await those who do not believe on Jesus. By grace alone we have seen Him, believed on Him, and now love Him. Therefore, not to speak of Christ to unbelievers, and not to care about our city or the unreached peoples of the world is so contradictory to Christ’s worth, people’s plight, and our joy that it sends the quiet message to our souls day after day: This Savior and this salvation do not mean to you what you say they do. To maintain great joy in Christ in the face of that persistent message is impossible.

John Piper

The Darkness that Feeds on Self-Absorption taken from When the Darkness Will Not Lift by John Piper, 2006, Crossway Books, a division of Good News Publishers, Wheaton Illinois 60187, p. 65.

In his talk on organisational health, in response to the question ‘What is a vision?’ Patrick Lencioni said it was a combination of these six questions :

1. ‘Why do we exist? 
2. How do we behave?
3. What do we do?
4. How will we succeed?
5. What is important right now?
6. And who must do what?

Recently, my friend's were helped to make their business work better by reading the book 'Will it make the boat go faster?'. I have been pondering that phrase ever since they told me it.

The C of E could use a bit of vision as in many areas it's in crisis. So much that it does and spends its money on, to use the Olympic analogy, doesn't make the boat go faster.

It amazes me that in the church you can get promoted for not doing the mission (and no it's not Christlike not be doing what Jesus has told us to do- that being making disciples). I know unmerited promotion happens in other organisations too but we need now to be appointing people who want growth, know how to do and are passionate about evangelism and it's just not good enough to say 'it's not my thing'. It's all our thing. Cardinal Christoph told us how he challenged all his Bishops on this and to ask themselves if they themselves are preaching the gospel and doing evangelism in order to reach the lost. He reported a rather stony silence was the response among his colleagues.

In the C of E it seems to be fairly normal practice for people who have overseen decline of one area to be given bigger jobs with a greater level of challenge and therefore oversee more dramatic decline somewhere else. It doesn't take the brains of Steve Jobs to work out that they may not be able to do the new job either. This is particularly true because the C of E, unlike other organisations, has such limited performance management processes, indicators and accountabilities. Surely, this is not a gender issue as has been our long debate- it's a competence and organisational issue. It's all mystifying to people like me who have worked outside the church.

Here's a thought. It might be a helpful idea for the A of C to look at these statistics and then call up whoever is responsible and ask them to apply Lencioni's six questions to their Diocese. If I was Justin Welby, I would want the report on my desk by Monday (as no doubt happened in BP and my former company when crisis hit and yes, if you needed to, you worked the weekend). We haven't got the time to spend 18 months fannying about on a Synod. 

Did I mention I wrote something called 'Why plant churches?'

It's urgent dear folks. Urgent.