#233 Focus

Amazingly, Children in Need raised a stunning £26 million in just one night. In spite of the economic crisis the British people have once again shown their immense generosity to needy people. But what is it about Children in Need that causes such an enormous outpouring of generosity and altruism?


Firstly, it is focussed. As the title says, it is about children – and those in need. Throughout the evening, real examples were shown of how the money in past years had been used and made a real difference to its recipients. It was not money being ploughed into a black hole and being gobbled up by administrative costs but it was being directed to those in need in order to – well – make a difference.

Secondly, it was about fun. All the projects which raised money had an element of enjoyment as well as sacrifice. It was also about community – people working together for a common goal. The Greek word for church – ekklesia – means just that – a gathering of people meeting for a common purpose – to worship and serve God.

Thirdly, it is for everyone. There is a stunning array of personalities from all walks of life from pop stars to weather girls to – errr – Terry Wogan. There’s no need to put on religious language or pretend to be holy – just be yourself and get stuck in – without embarrassment.

Interestingly, BBC Radio Nottingham is featuring the large churches in Nottingham all this week – churches like Trent Vineyard, Grace Church, Cornerstone and Talbot Street – all churches with congregations around 1,000 and above. The big news is that they are financially rich. Cornerstone have raised £4 million in the last 4 years and are in the process of redeveloping the former MFI building to make it into their new home. Ironically, this feature coincides with the introduction of the on-street parking charges on Sundays which is hitting the pockets of the members at some of the less well-off city centre churches hard.

Again, these large churches are focussed. Their worship is focussed on one building, not the many as is the case with traditional denominations. Their ethos is focussed primarily on mission – they know what they are about and every member is urged to take an active part. Also, the experience of worship is exciting. Yes it may be too loud and modern for some but it clearly attracts all ages, especially the young.

So, what about us? Are we focussed? Do we ask ourselves the question, ‘what am I really good at?’ Some of us (and I include myself in this) can run around like headless chickens attempting to do many things – some of which are not within our primary skill set. How much more fulfilled we would be if we simply focussed on our true calling. The same is true of some churches – they have loads of activities – some overlapping with or duplicating other activities. Would it not be better to ‘do less and do it well’? People are not attracted to things because they are local – they are attracted to things because they are good. So why don’t we resolve to concentrate on excellence rather than on volume? Let’s get focussed!

#232 – Like Little Children

Last Sunday I was preaching in a local church and asked one of the worship leaders to conduct the start of the service, including the children’s address. At the start of this address he walked boldly towards the front of the church brandishing a large length of rope. I became uneasy, not least because I had yet to preach. Anyway, he asked for volunteers from the children to help him with his illustration. At once a flurry of hands went up and a host of children joined him at the front of the church for a tug of war.

Now the worship leader is a highly experienced person when it comes to leading children and his presence at the front was enough to stimulate such an eager reaction. But it made me think how different it would have been if the church was only full of adults. Would there still have been an eager response to his appeal for volunteers? I doubt it.

So why is it that adults fail to show the excitement and eagerness of children? What have we lost? Jesus said that we should become like little children in order to enter the Kingdom of Heaven (Matthew 18:2).

I suppose one reason for this lack of childlike sparkle is that life has dealt us some sobering blows. The premature loss of a loved one, a sudden illness, a broken relationship, failure, unemployment or bankruptcy – any of these can diminish the sense of ‘child’ within and rob us of our innocence.

Another reason is that when we take on greater responsibilities, pressures mount up. We make excuses like ‘I haven’t got time for this or that’. What we really mean is that we choose not to have time for this or that. We speed through life without noticing the beauty of nature, the smile of a person in the street and the many acts of kindness which are directed towards us. Life’s many blessings can go unnoticed and the world may seem a more hostile place than it really is.

Children, on the other hand, make time. They can sit and play for hours with toys or friends in a world of dreams. Everything that comes their way carries a sense of wonder and newness. Each situation is full of possibilities and the concept of failure never enters their minds.

So how can we rediscover our inner child?

The first step, and I believe one of the most important, is to deal with our anxieties. Jesus teaches on a number of occasions that worry should be shunned - see Matthew 6:25 for instance. Anxiety can eat into our souls like maggots into a piece of meat. We need to make a conscience decision to repel anxiety as soon as it rears its head.

Secondly, we need to make time – time for people, time for hobbies, time for relaxation, time for learning – time to simply stop and observe what’s around us. Try walking around your home for 10 minutes and looking at the furniture, the photographs, the souvenirs you have collected – let their memories seep into your heart and relive the joys. Give thanks for all you have and all you are.

But finally, develop rhythm in your life. My job is anything but rhythmical and I need to discipline myself to make time for things that matter. It’s so easy to be stampeded from one job to the next and be driven by the ‘to-do list’. No – every job must be given the time it needs, even if the next one slips down the priority list. A job well done brings satisfaction and makes the next job more worthwhile.

So, as we approach Advent, will we simply cascade through the month worrying about Christmas shopping and parties or will we stop and gaze with childlike awe and wonder at what God has done for us in Christ? Will we put ourselves into the scene in Bethlehem and imagine we are one of the characters – experiencing the excitement and tension of the occasion? Will we experience the miracle of ‘God made man’ or simply turn the page of the calendar into 2012?

Evangelism Bulletin 231 – Power to the People

So a group of anti-capitalism protestors with a less than clear message pitch their tents and sleep outside (or some of them do as the police’s thermal imaging cameras have shown), bring St. Paul’s Cathedral to a halt, trigger the resignation of two of its senior staff and leave the Church of England in a position of acute embarrassment because of its less than decisive response to the issues being raised. Even now I wonder whether the Archbishop of Canterbury who advocates the introduction of the Tobin Tax (a tax on currency transactions) and the Bishop of London who has been ‘flown’ in to run St. Paul’s in the wake of these resignations, are actually singing from the same hymn sheet.

 I say this, not to add to the plight of the Church of England with whom I have some sympathy, but to demonstrate that even the small, insignificant voices of the general public can, in fact, have world-changing consequences – and why not? Decades ago, the sight of Robert Lindsay dressing up as Citizen Smith and raising his revolutionary fist in the air with the cry of ‘power to the people’ was seen by many as an out dated and hopeless figure. But, is ‘people power’ seeing a resurgence?

 The Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou has secured the unanimous backing of his cabinet for a referendum on the eurozone debt rescue plan, leaving other European heads of state in fits of fury after they negotiated long and hard to secure a bail-out package which is now in jeopardy. But why shouldn’t the people of Greece have their say? Why should the financial gurus tell the Greek people what hardships they should face in the future when they, along with many other highly paid executives, see their salaries increase by around 50%?

 This all begs the questions, ‘have the common people got it right?’ Can we leave the big questions in the hands of so-called experts any longer? Has it all come home to roost for the financial institutions who plunged us into this crisis in the first place. Has the great institution of the Church of England found itself unable to answer the question ‘what would Jesus do?’ for fear of losing its financial backing from the very people being criticised by the motley bunch of protesters camped on its doorstep? Is the axe hanging over the great institutions which have underpinned so much of society for so long?

 Maybe we are seeing something for which Christian people should rejoice. Perhaps this is a sign that God has had enough and his Spirit is sweeping across the globe in an unprecedented way. Didn’t Joel prophecy that God would ‘pour out his Spirit on all flesh’, even the lowest of the low? Is this the moment when the Spirit fans the flame into an inferno? I remember that 2,000 years ago the religious and political establishment were rocked by an uneducated, Galilean peasant who eventually met his fate on a cross. However, the movement he founded, which has little to do with the erection and maintenance of large buildings in big cities, has grown ever since in the hearts of his followers – people upon whom the Spirit has been poured out as prophesied.

The Greek debt crisis will no doubt rumble on for some weeks now with the world’s financial markets cascading out of control and the politicians losing sleep. They will be asking themselves if it is right to use their taxpayers’ money to bail out a country which has consistently overspent. But with Ireland, Portugal, Spain and now Italy perilously close to melt-down, why don’t they simply give in and cancel everybody’s debt and be done with it? After all, that’s what Jesus did! (Isaiah 53:6, Luke 15:22-24, 1 Corinthians 6:20)

As the staff of St. Paul’s and the European leaders try and dig themselves out of these messes, I am reminded of the parable which Jesus told of a rich man who sat in his luxurious house, seemingly oblivious to the plight of the beggar at his gate (Luke 16:19-31). The point of this parable is that in God’s Kingdom roles will be reversed. It was the poor beggar who was favoured by God while the rich man faced eternal torment, pleading for the poor beggar to bring him relief.

 It seems to me that the staff of St. Paul’s have missed an amazing evangelistic opportunity when they could have presented the true message of the gospel, not only to the protesters outside, but to the world’s media.

Evangelism Bulletin 230 – Leaders and Dictators

It is certainly trying times for those in leadership positions, especially where the country is undergoing considerable change. The ‘Arab Spring’ has brought rejoicing all over the world as we have seen former dictatorships gradually displaced by democratic governments. In some situations like Tunisia and Egypt, the transition has been relatively peaceful. But sadly in Syria, and just recent in Libya, many lives have been lost as dictatorial leaders desperately try to cling to power.

So, when does a leader become a dictator? Although seen as eccentric, Moammar Gadhafi was courted by world leaders like Tony Blair in the hope that he would shake off his eccentricity and conform to the standards of other national leaders. Sadly Tony Blair’s faith in the redemption of human nature was misplaced in this case and the awful bloodshed of recent weeks has been splashed endlessly over our TV screens. The sorry story culminated in the death of the man himself.

But, what is it in our human nature which can tip a leader over the edge into dictatorship? Looking back to the time of Jesus, we remember that King Herod was paranoid about the report from the wise men that a new king had been born. This resulted in the slaughter of innocent children in the vain hope that this new king would be eradicated before taking power away from him. And yet, centuries earlier, I think of Moses who wearily led the Israelites through the wilderness for forty years, enduring their groaning, criticism and lack of faith and then, when standing on the threshold of the ‘Promised Land’ was told by God that his time was up. Can you imagine what he must have felt like after all that hard work, to look enviously on the lush meadows to be told he wasn’t to enter? Can you imagine how hard it must have been for him to pass on the baton to Joshua whom God had raised up to succeed him?

Elijah no doubt felt the same. We read in 1 Kings 19 how his faith abandoned him after the contest against the prophets of Baal, when hotly pursued by Queen Jezebel. He cowered in the cave, sulking in his self-righteousness and sense of abandonment and watched as the elements raged outside but God was nowhere to be seen. Then, in a moment of awesome divine power, a gentle whisper conveyed the voice of God to this depressed leader. I wonder how much of his depression was triggered by the fact that Elisha was waiting in the wings to succeed him.

One of the facts of life for me as an Evangelism Enabler is that I am employed to do myself out of a job. Wherever I go, I seek to enable others to pick up the baton and take over the tasks I have trained them for. It doesn’t bother me in that wherever I go, there is always more that can be done – the supply of work will never dry up. But there is still the nervousness about the ability of others to take over. The perfectionist in me wonders whether they will come up to the mark. We all know the saying, ‘if you want something doing well, do it yourself’. But then I think back to when I started out.

I sometimes look back at the sermons I have preached over the years. I can still remember the first sermon I ever preached and can honestly say how bad it was. What must the congregation have thought? On the other hand it was also the most important because it allowed me to put my foot on the first rung of the ladder. John Wesley, apparently, would burn his sermons every seven years. Looking back on some of mine, I can see why he did that!

Another facet of good leadership is the willingness to be outshone. I am currently leading, along with a team of four, a new course called Compass. We rotate the leadership week by week. In preparation for last week’s session I looked at the material and thought how hard it was to lead. Fortunately another team member was scheduled to lead that night and she did it brilliantly – far better than I could have imagined myself leading it. Sadly, some leaders feel threatened if they are not the best at everything they do. Good teamwork relies on each team member valuing the unique contribution made by the other team members.

But leaders come and leaders go. It seems to me that we differentiate leaders from dictators by their ability, or lack of it, to let go of the reins and allow new leaders to take their place. As a sarcastic friend of mine once said, ‘the graveyards are full of indispensible people’. May I not grow so possessive of my role that I find it hard to let go when the time comes. If only Moammar Gadhafi had adopted the same approach, just think how many lives would have been spared.