The Christmas World of 'YOUANDME'

Have you ever heard of the 2013 world of Youandme?  It's a crazy world of busy-ness, of buying and selling and of a hectic pursuit of hedonistic pleasure.  This is a world of few absolutes, and many relatives.  This is a world without security and assurance and where much more is said about “hope so” and “might be” than “know so”.  It is a world where sin is preferred to righteousness and where the temporary pleasures of sensuous gratification are considered of greater value than the eternal/spiritual pleasures of forgiveness, righteousness and assurance of a heavenly home.  

In this world, God is a vague, distant, irrelevant concept – definitely not a personal, loving all powerful Creator, intimately concerned about his world and the people whom he loves. Christmas in this world of Youandme is for revelry and pleasure, for self-seeking, sensual indulgence and excess in both spending and selfishness.  A different Jesus lives in this world – a figure in a bizarre childrens story of a virgin conception and a birth in a smelly shed at the back of a packed out inn.  Yes, the world of Youandme is a dark world!

Yet to such a world the Creator God came.  The Logos, who was and is and always will be God, stepped into such darkness and shone in all His glory.  Yet as John tells us “he came to that which was his own, yet His own did not receive him” (John 1 v 11 ).  His own world did not receive him; his own people did not receive or acknowledge him as Messiah king.  How could they have missed him?  Hadn't Isaiah told them?  Hadn’t Micah told them?  How could they have missed it?  Because then, as now, the world was the unholy world of Youandme.  A messy world of blind eyes and damned souls.  Christmas?  The more you think about it, the more staggering it becomes!!

You Love This City and You Love These Streets

After our emphasis on praying for the city last week, it was very providential that last Sunday found me preaching at the Sunday morning service of Colin Glen Christian Fellowship in Andersonstown Leisure Centre in west Belfast.  I loved preaching there.  This is a church planting effort – a small work which I and several others help to advise through being on a council of reference.  Growing up in my background, I could never have imagined that one day God would grant me the glorious privilege of preaching his word in such a location.  God is doing great things in different parts of the city, including those areas which were previously spiritually quite barren.

Including myself and Maggie, John Duffy and his wife (who lead the fellowship) and their 2 children and another 4 people who were visiting from another church, there were 20 of us in total.  After years of meeting in John and Elaine’s front room, they now meet in a great room in the leisure centre – not too big or too small with an attractive book table and some modern technology to help us along.  The location is great and the possibilities are many.  As people were gathering in other parts of the centre for swimming lessons and fitness classes, the faithful folks commenced the worship service.  John led us skilfully on his guitar and I was moved that we again sang “Turn your eyes upon Jesus” (see previous blog!).  I preached on the Majesty of Christ from Colossians 1 vv 15-23.  In the hedonistic and confused world of 1st century Colosse, against a backdrop of overt gnosticism, a world very similar to our own in terms of its philosophical understanding, the church there was called to bear witness.  Paul upheld the majesty and the wonder of Christ, and using language borrowed from the gnostics themselves, Paul affirmed that in him the fullness of the godhead dwelt bodily.  It is through his cross that peace with God is obtained and we know that he will present us blameless in his sight one day.  What a theme.  And how appropriate for Belfast – all of it, north, south, east and west.  A city divided for so long; a city with broken hearts and broken streets and broken relationships.  And how good to see people from different backgrounds meeting together in the heart of west Belfast to affirm that Christ is the only Saviour and the only hope.

This little work needs your prayers.  They produce all their literature in both English and Irish and over the next 6 weeks or so will be distributing 4500 gospel calendars in the area. He loves this city – all of it - and he loves these streets - all of them!!

A Shepherd Looks at Psalm 23

Reading around our Psalm 23 series, I was led to “A Shepherd Looks at Psalm 23” by Philip Keller.  It has become a classic of Christian literature because of its simple yet profound insights into the role of a shepherd and the various challenges of sheep management.

Keller was a shepherd who knew the Great Shepherd.  He died in 1997, aged 77.  His book brings new life into the all too familiar phrases contained in the Psalm, those phrases we only know on a superficial level, yet are far more profound than we have ever imagined.  Green pastures, rod, staff, oil and so on, all have profound meanings at the level of sheep-shepherd relationship and God-believer relationship.

For example verse 4 says “Even though I walk through the darkest valley, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff they comfort me”.  We often think of the valley experience  as that which occurs when we or a loved one are approaching death.  But in the Hebrew it can refer to any deep, dark valley we pass through.  As a shepherd himself, David would have been so familiar with the experience of leading the sheep through the deepest, steepest valleys of his homeland, where dangers lurked and sheep would be naturally terrified.  No sheep would ever walk through a valley like that without knowing the shepherd personally and trusting him implicitly.  The shepherd’s rod and staff were an essential part of his kit – and unique to him.  Shepherds would have found it impossible to swop rods or staffs – they were personally chosen and shaped and honed with hours of practice and use.  God’s rod is his word – His staff is His spirit.  Only by allowing the word to form us and the Spirit to fill us can we pass through the deepest valleys as we ought.

Oh and by the way, isn’t it great that we pass THROUGH the valleys – we never stay there.  For the Great Shepherd wants his sheep to get to the higher grounds – to the table land which he has already prepared for us. 

That’s often the way it is with familiar scriptures – it’s not so much familiarity brings contempt but rather familiarity brings familiarity.  And we can miss important truths learnt from the culture of the day, the setting, the words and phrases of great profundity. 

Turn Your Eyes Upon Jesus

Have you ever heard the old song whose chorus is........

“Turn your eyes upon JesusLook full in his wonderful face
And the things of earth will grow strangely dim
In the light of his glory and grace.”

It was written in 1922 by the hymn writer Helen Lemmell.  Strangely, that old hymn has come back to me many times in the last few weeks.  I say ’strangely’ because it was something that I thought was well gone from my mind – relegated to the past, discarded into the recycling bin along with Redemption Hymns, Mission Praise, overhead projectors and Schofield Bibles.  Yet this old hymn has been imprinted onto my mind in fresh ways lately.   So maybe God’s got something to say 

• Turn your eyes – consciously, purposefully, deliberately turn into new directions. Turn away and turn round and see.........differently
• Upon Jesus – the incarnate one, the spotless, unblemished Son of God, the perfect Saviour, the mighty God, the Redeemer, the Lamb of God, the soon coming king. He’s the one we are to look at deliberately
• His wonderful face – what a face – the one that looked with love upon the woman taken in adultery; the one that looked with forgiveness and grace into the failed disciple Peter’s eyes; the one that was creased with tears at his friend Lazarus grave; the one was racked with pain and crowned with a crown of thorns. That face.
• The things of earth will grow strangely dim – all those wonderful attractive which seemed marvelously seductive; all those things suddenly seem less important; all those petty idols that grip my heart lose their power; the gods I worship are seen for what they really are - illusory and deceptive, empty and lifeless. All of them will mysteriously and strangely GROW dim – like the screen on my laptop when the battery dies. That which seemed to be powerful becomes dead to me.
• In the light of his glory and grace- for he alone is glorious and he alone is full of truth and grace. And he is altogether wonderful

Wow! You know what that means – the bigger Jesus becomes in our thinking, in our consciousness, in our mindset, in our lives then and only then does everything else pale into insignificance.  Make more of Jesus in your life and in your thinking exalt him high, honour him in all things look at him.  For the more you look at him, then the more wonderful he becomes!!

Here’s the full hymn...

O soul, are you weary and troubled?
No light in the darkness you see?
There’s light for a look at the Saviour,
And life more abundant and free!

Turn your eyes upon Jesus,

Look full in His wonderful face,

And the things of earth will grow strangely dim,

In the light of His glory and grace.

Through death into life everlasting

He passed, and we follow Him there;

O’er us sin no more hath dominion—

For more than conqu’rors we are!

His Word shall not fail you—He promised;

Believe Him, and all will be well:

Then go to a world that is dying,

His perfect salvation to tell!

THE EARLY CHURCH – AND NOW

I've heard some people say that they wish they could live in the days of the early church. They perhaps imagine that those were heady days and wonderful and that there were no problems and the sun always shone and the fellowship was sweet and the teaching was pure and the music not too loud and every church member read their Bibles every day (OT only of course), prayed frequently and grew rapidly into spiritual giants and everyone lived happily ever after.  But it wasn't a bit like that so when some people say they wish they could go back to the days of the early church, I often wonder what church they mean?

What about the Corinthian church? - immorality abounded (including incest) and there was serious abuse of the Lords table. Some of the members were even threatening to take other members to court.

How about the Colossian church? – ongoing struggles with the gnostic heresy and in danger of downplaying the uniqueness of the faith

How about the churches in Galatia then? – too much emphasis on law and in danger of becoming legalistic and ignoring freedom in Christ

How about the church in Thessalonica? - some of their members had given up their jobs in anticipation of the soon coming Christ. There was also a lot of confusion about those who had already died in the faith

What about Thyatira?- they tolerated the false teaching of Jezebel.

Pergamum? Some there held to the teaching of Balaam and the Nicolaitans.

Sardis? Dead

Not all plain sailing was it?  Then, as now, they struggled with doctrinal purity, sinful members and petty (and not so petty) disputes on secondary issues.

We are always fighting for the purity of the church and for the growth of the members.  The enemy does not make this task easy.  In fact he places a higher value on the church than many of its members do.  He realises the importance of God’s church more than many Christians do.  That’s why he pays it so much attention, 200 years ago and now.  He doesn’t care if he destroys it from within or from without, using fair means or foul, appearing as an angel of light or as a roaring lion.  He has the church in his sights and all tactics are available to him.

Don’t so much look back to non-existent good old days – look in and examine yourself and look up to the Head of the church who has preserved it through 2000 years and will do so until he comes to take us onto Himself.

Trev's Top Ten Tips

At our recent Ministry Leaders Meeting I shared with our leaders “Trev’s Top Ten Tips” for leadership.  Just various lessons I’ve picked up along the way, both from experience and from others.

Here’s a brief summary............

• Lead Yourself – no one can lead others who doesn’t know how to lead themselves in private disciplines, basic organisation and sense of order, mastering moods and emotions and a basic level of consistency.
• Integrity – saying what you mean, meaning what you say ; keeping promises; faithfulness
• Clarity – harder than it sounds. People can live without certainty, they cannot live without clarity. Work hard at being clear
• The Power of the Little – Jesus fed 500 plus people with a little boy’s little lunch. Little things mean a lot – small words, text messages, small acts of kindness, notes of encouragement etc
• It came to pass - don’t get too hung up with the problems of the moment. The things you worry about usually pass; the issues you grappled with this time last year are probably history now
• Don’t try to meet every need – in John 5 Jesus held the man at the pool of Bethesda. Only him. There were loads of others around the pool that day. Their needs went unmet – and he was the Son of God. Even he didn’t meet every need.
• Find out where God is at work and go there. It’s easier to minister where God is already preparing hearts and minds
• Celebrate successes and learn from failure – every small success is a cause for celebration. The Jews were always celebrating God – that’s why they have so many feast days! Don’t dwell on failures – just learn from them.
• Connect to succeed- leadership largely about connecting with people. You cannot lead if you are not a people person Find out how to make proper connections with the people around you, especially your co-leaders
• Influence comes from trust and trust comes from actions. What you do encourages others to trust you. Then you get their ear and their heart then you are really in a position to influence them for good.

Deep and Wide

During my holiday I really loved reading a book called “Deep and Wide”, written by Andy Stanley, the pastor of North Point Church in Atlanta, USA.  Firstly, I thought, that’s a great title.  How come nobody ever thought of writing a book with that title before? Immediately you think of the old chorus

Deep and wide,

Deep and wide

There’ s a fountain flowing deep and wide (altogether now)

But this isn't about the love of God depicted as a fountain – this is a book about church.  And I love books about church.  Because I love church.  It’s my life and I owe church an awful lot. Had I not found a good church after I became a follower of Jesus I don’t know where I would be today.  Had my children not been part of church life, they would be far, far worse off today.  Trust me, despite all the problems and all the bad church experiences, you are better off being with a good group of God’s people and enjoying the life of community together.  It’s what you were designed for.

But like churches themselves, not all books about churches are good.  In fact some books about church and some churches are just terrible.  But this is a good book about church – how can we become deep and wide at the same time.  That’s the theme, based on Stanley’s own experience of creating a group of churches like that.  The suspicion is that if a church takes people deep then it cant be wide and it will die; and if a church goes wide, to do everything possible to bring in unchurched and unsaved people, then nobody ever goes deep  and grows mature.  No, No, says Stanley, both are possible and he teaches ways of doing that in this book.

I was challenged to think of the changing culture where vast swathes of people have no or little contact with church.  The numbers are increasing.  The current generation has largely abandoned the faith of its grandparents and its parents.  Often the reason for that is because the church culture itself alienates people – the church gets in the way of the message.  The medium contradicts the very message it is supposed to articulate.  Church gets in the way of Christ.  The model hinders the mission.  Does that matter?  Of course it does.  I have seen people get passionate and steamed up about all sorts of trivial church things, yet care nothing for those on their way to a lost eternity.  And if that continues, then one day all the doors in every church will be closed permanently, the secularists will have won and the devil will laugh.

Argue it how you will, this cannot be a good thing.  A message which is for everybody should not exclude anybody.  But making that happen is not easy.  It takes courage and new thinking and an awareness by every member of every church that church is not primarily for them – its for the lost, the outsider, the stranger in our gates, the lonely and the hurting. Why?  Because there really is a ’fountain flowing deep and wide’ and the church should encourage all and deter none, “to plunge right in and lose their sin”.

2 Boys Destined for Kingship

With the birth of George Alexander Louis on Monday last, we now have 3 direct living heirs to the throne for the first time since the late 19th century.  George is destined for a different life from you and me.  I doubt if he will have to queue for diesel at Tesco or wait endlessly listening to dreary music while his service provider tells him “your call is important to us – please hold the line” No, if the monarchy remains, he will probably inherit the throne one day.

How different the early circumstances of another one destined for kingship - the great King David. He moved from Shepherd to Sovereign.  Having just started preaching on his life, I've been thinking about this other young man destined for greatness.  The youngest of 8 (how unusual, isn't it normally the firstborn who ascends to the throne?) he was deemed so insignificant by his father Jesse, that when the boys were made to pass in front of Samuel, the national prophet, for examination, he was left out.  Probably not even deemed worthy of being in the parade.  But here was the man after God’s own heart that was promised; for man looks on the outward appearance but God looks on the heart.

What was it that God saw in his early life that destined him for kingship?

• Spirituality – for to be after God’s own heart requires deep commitment to spiritual things. If you are after God’s own heart, you want what God wants, care for what God cares for, get grieved by what grieves him, long for the same things and desire the same things. 
• Integrity - Psalm 78 v21 says he was a shepherd of integrity. Thats a key quality God looks for. I love this quote………..

“A person with integrity is not divided (that’s duplicity) or pretending (that’s hypocrisy). He or she is “whole”; life is “put together and things are working harmoniously. People with integrity have NOTHING TO HIDE AND NOTHING TO FEAR. Their lives are OPEN BOOKS”

• Humility – he was tending the sheep and made no attempt to muscle in on the show before Samuel until he was summoned. 
• Obscurity – he was quite happy to see character formed in the fields away from the limelight. 
• Dependability - for when he stood before Saul and offered to take on Goliath, he admitted that he had fought lions and bears, who might want to steal his sheep. Having fought wild creatures in obscurity, the 9’6” tall Philistine was no problem. Imagine George having to prove himself by taking on the odd lion or two!!

Who knows what life will throw up at you in coming months.  Wouldn't it be good to face it as a person after God’s own heart?

The Importance of Church Membership

Is there a difference between ATTENDING a church regularly and JOINING a church?  I believe there is.  Absolutely. Is there a difference between going with someone and marrying them? Absolutely.  The difference is vast and vital and valuable.

Church is thoroughly biblical.  We live in a world of evangelicalism where church is downgraded, devalued and downplayed.  Shame on us.  Many modern Christians are spectators of Christianity rather than participants.

• They get their teaching from their favourite Christian celebrity through their iPad or from Christian events
• They find worship communicated to them through Christian media.
• They bounce from event to event, from website to website.
• They don’t want regular commitment or accountability.
• They ignore the ordinances of communion and baptism despite the clear command of God to do so.
• They do not want to be accountable or disciplined or challenged.
• They want the church to be there when they need it but they consider the latest Christian “big thing” as far more valuable than the faithful local church pastor who is trying to build the church in his locality

Many churches therefore have given up trying to enforce membership.  They no longer require it nor ask for it, they have given up on any biblical notion of challenging people to believe and belong;  to gather together as part of the local church.  We have often heard the phrase “a personal relationship” with Jesus Christ – far more biblical is the idea of 'a corporate relationship with Jesus Christ'.  He is the head of the church!  Paul wrote most of his letters to 'churches'.  They knew their members, they knew their names and their struggles.  In certain circumstances they were urged to put people out of the church.  How could they do that if they didn’t know who was in?  Membership is necessary.  The NT knows nothing of the idea of a Christina who has less than full commitment to the church.  Did Christ give less than full commitment to the church?  Are you threatened by the idea of church membership?  Why?  Because of hidden sin that might be exposed?  Because of how you might be challenged to serve or give?  Are these things really threats?  Should they not be joy?  Are you concerned that you might have to give up some independence?  That you might actually have to commit to turn up at 11 on a Sunday or to a prayer meeting when you would rather just 'make up your own mind' how to spend your time.  Isn't that just nonsense?

Here are a few (just a few) of the many, many benefits from church membership.  

You.....

• Learn to live with other believers in community
• Learn how to handle conflict in a biblical way
• Find opportunities to serve and exercise gifts
• Avail of the ordinances of baptism and membership
• Have people to hold you accountable
• Learn to be faithful, disciplined
• Be part of a spiritual family
• Receive spiritual benefit from others
• Have authority figures in your life
• Have spiritual caretakers
• Receive solid teaching in a crazy world

This is an obedience issue, a fellowship issue, an authority issue, an identity issue

Do you want to be known as a Christian?  A member of the body?  A fellow believer with others?

Get into membership – you cant just keep on “going out” for ever

Our Daily Bread

We all learnt the Lord’s Prayer as children and probably have fond (or otherwise) memories of school assemblies where we recited it ad nauseum.  For that reason some of its rich meaning has been lost in over-familiarity and sense of “well we know what it’s all about.”

But as we‘ve been unpacking it recently in our evening series, it has had renewed force in my life.  It starts with God. All our praying and all our lives should derive their main focus from Him - His glory, His name, His kingdom  - and yet how often are we all about the great god “Me” rather than the great God who is in heaven!

And it moves to us in our great moral needs of forgiveness, deliverance from temptation and evil. And in the middle?  The only statement in the whole prayer about material provision - “Give us this day our daily bread” – more of a recognition of the Giver than a request for something to be given.  It points us to the SOURCE of all things - God.  It reminds us of the SUBSTANCE we need – bread, not the luxuries but the basics.  It reminds us of the SEEKERS – us, for we are part of a community and it grounds us in the SCHEDULE God works to - ‘daily’.

But the word Jesus uses for “daily” is an interesting one.  It is “epiousious” and is only used here and in Luke 11 v3, which is Luke’s parallel record of the same model prayer.  It is difficult to pin down the exact meaning but it is wider than we might think.  The idea is that not only do we ask for bread for today but every day going forward.  This is a prayer for continual provision which frees us from greed, self-sufficiency, selfishness and ongoing worry and stress.

I’m constantly challenged about how to live a contented life in a mad, materialistic society. Surely one of the ways is to get a God-perspective on our lives, to have gratitude, which comes from contentment, which comes from peace, which comes from living each day close to the Father’s heart and recognising the one who is the Bread of Life.  It’s tough but well worth the daily battle to realise that it’s bread alone we need. Everything else is a big bonus!!

Crisis Management

Just been reading a cracking book “The Church in an age of Crisis “ by James Emery White, who is the pastor of Mecklenburg Community Church in North Carolina. The sub title is “25 New Realities facing Christianity”

This is a well researched attempt to understand modern culture, the modern mind and lifestyle – a “whirlwind tour of our day” and the obvious challenges it presents for the Christian church, as we seek to communicate unchanging truth to a fast, changing world.

The 25 new realities are conveniently divided into 5 sections, namely Faith, Mindset, Marriage and Family, Media and Technology and Mission and each of those is subdivided into 5 e.g. the 5 realities of modern day marriage and family are “We’re just not into marriage”; pornification; modern family; regarding gender and the disappearance of childhood. 

I found myself saying yes, yes, yes, many times throughout this book. Using comprehensive research, Pastor White very helpfully pinpoints the key cultural markers of our day. The book doesn’t attempt to say what we should do about living in such a world and how we should work out our calling to be salt and light in our world – that is left to each reader and each church leader to think through for themselves. But at least he does paint a very helpful picture. Whilst much of it is specifically orientated to a north American mindset, none of us should be unaware of how relevant this is for our own culture too.
 
Here’s one example of many I could choose. In a chapter entitled, “Is Google God?” he shows how indeed for most people Google has become the fount of all knowledge and information, even though much of what you read is little more than “endless volleys of nonsense, folly and rumour masquerading as knowledge, wisdom and even truth”. A practical and relevant example – google “Easter - its meaning and its origins” and you will get millions of articles. The average, non –churched biblically illiterate person may read any one, believe it is definitive and be further misled away from truth. There is a disconnect in our world between information (much of it false) and knowledge and wisdom.

The implications and challenge for the modern church should be obvious. The men of Issachar understood the times” (1 Chron. 12 v 32) – and so should we, so that we are effective witnesses for the unchanging Christ and reveal eternal realities to a confused world.

Sinful Nature and the Flesh

I’ve been preaching on Romans recently. What a book! Last week we were in chapter 8. The key/hinge verse is v 5 which says, “Those who live according to SARX have their MINDS SET on what SARX desires but those who live according to the Spirit have their MINDS SET on what the Spirit desires”.

This word SARX literally means “flesh”. Translation is a notoriously complex task as it is very difficult to convey all the nuances of a word in one language into another equivalent one word translation (eg try translating Ulster ‘banter’ or ‘craic’ in one word to someone from another country). The NIV translators in the 1984 version translated ‘SARX’ as ‘sinful nature’. The newer 2011 translation has gone back to the translation ‘flesh’, originally favoured by the KJV.

The NT uses the Greek word effectively to mean “the meat on the bones”, literally “the flesh”. So for example in John1 v 14 “The Word became flesh and dwelt among us” ie Jesus took on human skin.

But the NT also uses the expression to refer to the tendency to sin that is a part of fallen human experience. So faced with the challenge of translating ‘SARX’, the translators were a bit afraid of conveying the impression that ‘sarx’ referred only to the physical (as in our expression in English ‘the sins of the flesh’) so they went for ‘sinful nature’. But this could convey the impression that we have two natures when Paul clearly says that we have one – the new nature that comes from being in Christ. Hence “there is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus” (Romans 8 v1) so in the 2011 version they have gone back to the translation ‘flesh.’

But Romans 8 v 5 is crucial in the sense that that it provides a very clear test as to whether or not you truly belong to Christ. Where is your “mind set”? What world/realm do you live in? What dominates you? What is your default mental position? What are the issues in life which really motivate you and mean most to you? What do you really live for? What controls you? What matters more than anything else? If you could only have one thing what would it be? If it is not Christ above all, then serious self examination is required.

We are all dominated by a certain “mindedness”. The only difference between an unsaved ‘moral’ person and the worst rogue you can think of is on the outside, not the inside. Counterfeit gods come in many shapes/sizes but unless our lives are dominated by the One true God, His cause and His glory, then according to Paul we haven’t really got it at all. Makes you think doesn’t it??

Lovely Limerick by the Banks of the Shannon

We spent last week in Limerick, where I started my formal Christian ministry in September 1986.  We spent 8 years there as a family and my youngest daughter Rachel was born there and she was keen to revisit to see her birthplace, the hospital where she came into the world, our old house and it gave me a chance to reconnect with some of the folks, who are still in Limerick Baptist Church – worthy warriors who survived my 8 years of ministry among them.

The roads are now fantastic.  Between Lisburn and the outskirts of Limerick we only had 1 traffic light.  When the Celtic Tiger roared, it roared loud and the signs of growth and progress are hugely evident.  The city itself has changed incredibly since we lived there.  In those dark days of the late 80s, the city was known as the city of the 3 ‘P’s’– priests, poverty and pox!!  In our 3^rd month there, one of the main shop buildings in O’Connell street fell down one night in a strong wind and landed in the middle of the road.  It was a decaying place and the Catholic church held sway and firmly gripped the hearts, minds and thinking of the populace.

Now there are shiny hotels, shopping centres, coffee shops and restaurants.  The church’s grip is weakened; the sex abuse scandals hastening its decline.

When we arrived there in 1986, Limerick Baptist Church consisted of about a dozen or so hardy souls and met in a large red brick building in O’Connell Avenue.  It was a building nearly 100 years old and was sucking the church’s resources in terms of maintenance and upkeep.  We spent 6 years leading the church through change and into a brand new building in the suburbs where the people were.  When the building was opened 20 years ago this month in 1993, it was only the 2^nd Baptist church built on a green field site in the Republic of Ireland for a century.

It was strange being part of the congregation last Sunday morning, worshipping with what is now a thriving, multicultural congregation.  I looked at the bricks and remembered how we had even chosen the colour of them, laying out various samples on our living room floor.  The site was large, too large for a church 20 years ago and we debated long and hard whether we needed such a large site.  But years ago, the church sold off a large bit of it for a large sum of money to a property developer, during the boom years – not only securing the church’s financial future, but also bringing new houses, people and families to the church’s doorstep.  I remembered the difficult days, knocking endless doors and seeking to share Christ, praying for God to move in this dark place – and meeting much resistance.  And now seeing His work flourishing under the good leadership of  Pastor Paul Ritchie did my heart good.

How good is God.  How strange are his ways and how good to know He is working.  There will always be a bit of me left in lovely Limerick by the banks of the Shannon.

Birthdays are Good Days!!

Guess what? It’s my birthday today. 2 of my favourite birthday quotes are…..

“You know you’re getting old when the candles cost more than the cake!!”

“For my birthday I got a humidifier and a dehumidifier.  I put them in the same room and let them fight it out”

When I was 18, I thought 40 was pretty old.  I remember not long after I started going to church, one of the deacons had a 40th birthday party.  I remember thinking how old that was – 40!!  That was 22 years away.  That seemed a lifetime.  But here I am now – way past 40 and 50 and still motoring on.  You see an old person is someone who is more than 10 years older than you!!

So today, on my birthday, I put up the cards, read the text messages and got reflecting again on my likes and dislikes list.  What am I passionate about and what really sends me into a rant. Despite my age (or perhaps because of it)……

Im still passionate about my family, Christ, the scriptures, the gospel, the gathered church, worship, preaching, truth, communion, believers baptism, small groups, grace, leadership, discipline, good stewardship, relationships, making the most of every opportunity, good holidays, John Grisham, Jaffa cakes, midget gems, steak, chicken, being organised and sport in general (to name but a few!!)

I still don’t like legalism, dishonesty, lack of integrity, inconsistency, deceit, false teaching, bad theology, hypocrisy, immorality, blasphemy, those who tell you ‘how’ to do it when they have never done it themselves, strong winds, freezing rain, liver, spinach, mushrooms and any team except Manchester United!!

I’ve got many things wrong in my life and sometimes allowed wrong emphases and faulty thinking to distort my perspectives and my judgments.  But, by God’s grace, I am still trying to get passionate about the right things.  And as I look back on my years I can say “Ebenezer” – up until now the Lord has helped me.

I read this today...

“Teach us to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom”(Psalm 90 v 12).  A good prayer for any day – especially your birthday!