How Many Days To Go?

A Christian leader said in my presence recently 'Christmas is all about Jesus'. This in order to begin an advertising campaign to get people to 'come to church at christmas and bring their friends'. This is of course pretty much incorrect.

Jesus was not born on December 25th. No chance. Clever people have worked out His d-o-b fairly accurately and it's not Dec 25th. Any suggestion that it is, real or implied, is a lie. Nothing more,nothing less.

No-where in the scriptures are we told His birthday. No-where are we encouraged to celebrate the event at all. Biblically, once we have marvelled at the cruel beauty of His coming in heart-stopping humility, there is little more to be said. The only really ongoing lesson is the almost total indifference that the world had to His first coming. They still treat the Lord of Heaven and Earth similarly today. His second coming may very well have a different impact.

Someone clever has worked out that 75% of annual church resources in time, money and effort are put into the 3 weeks of Christmas activity. Yet it is computed that less people find Jesus at this time than any other time of the year. As an evangelistic event it is a disaster. But then, if it's based on a lie, what do you expect?

I also discovered recently, that in many major moves of God where there has been evidence of prayerfulness, true piety, repentance, worship and godly living, there has been (albeit for a short time) a rejection of celebrating Christmas.

It is self-centred, gluttonous, self-indulgent, sentimental and wasteful. There can be no place for the Jesus I know in that.

By all means have a meal with your family and friends. By all means let's cheer up the cold and wet winter with some good food shared between those we love.

But as for Jesus, He is no more and no less there than any other day of the year.

To say anything else is simply not true....

Wishful thinking?

I went for a walk this morning, and thought about my present thinking. What do I want? In which direction am I heading? This is what I came up with:

I want to spend times of quality with my Heavenly Father. Those times will be spent honoring and glorifying His Precious Son, the Lord Jesus Christ - He will be the centre of all thinking. We will be led in all things by the Holy Spirit and no-one else.

That's it. End of. (As the boss would say!). There is nothing else and therefore, nothing else matters.

Can I, will I, find it? Here in Leicester? Or is it wishful thinking? We'll see.
I do not believe God creates a desire in someone without the opportunity to achieve it....

There's Some Good Food Going!

The boss and I visited a local congregation on Sunday, where a good friend was preaching. We also met some old friends which is always pleasant and encouraging to know that they are still 'going on' and being blessed.

The leader of the congregation read the words 'Taste and see that the Lord is good'....and it caught my attention. Familiar words, read many times. As I meditated on them, I felt the Lord saying to me that we must move on from that. 'Tasting' is an experience for the unconvinced, those who are distanced and need the flavour to invite them in. I've been to tastings in restaurants - and you don't get much!

I felt the Lord saying that we are nearer to Him than that. We are in the dining room, the banqueting hall. We are not 'tasting' - we are convinced! We tasted and found Him to be good. Very good. And now we are invited to feast on Him. There's plenty to go around, and we will not run out! We can eat as much as we like.

We have to enter in to the dining room. We have to sit down. We have to reach out and help ourselves....He will eat with us, break bread with us, and satisfy us completely.

Good, eh? My appetite is growing.....

Church - The Non-negotiables....

'Non-negotiable'....that's a bit strong I hear you think. Surely most things are negotiable? Not at all. I have a few non-negotiables I wish to share with you. You are free to disagree, but make sure (for your own good) that you are on solid biblical ground before you do. Any other foundation is at best suspect, and at worst, heretical.

My first Non-negotiable for church life may surprise you. The early church gathered pretty well exclusively in homes. So must we. The Acts of the Apostles gives us a clear mandate for insisiting that the church meets in the homes of the believers, or a person of goodwill to the church. There is no biblical mandate for buildings erected for 'church services'. Indeed the whole emphasis of scripture is against that model. There are a number of reasons for this:

They are expensive. I read somewhere that if all religious buildings were to be sold, the poor would have every need met in the entire world. A church meeting in a house can give 90% of their income away. Expensive to build and expensive to maintain. A drain on resources.

They foster and tend the view, that we 'go to church'. This plants in our mind that we turn up for a couple of hours on a Sunday and that's it. Church is 24/7/52. No less.

They mean 100's can turn up and spectate, whilst a few 'gifted' and paid people do all the work in presenting us with some stuff to respond to. Totally unbiblical. End of.

In a home, a handful of people can gather, share what they have brought to build one another up. They can eat together, pray together, share together, support one another, give and receive. A family, indeed!
Just as it was, and was always meant to be.

I am beginning to arrive at the conclusion, that here in the UK, the church which has lost this truth will be driven back to this biblical blueprint for gathering in the not too distant future. It may have to be persecuted to bring it about...so be it. If a child is not obedient, after a number of warnings, there has to be pain. It was always so.

Every single move of God over the centuries, has started in homes. Only as they have grown have they gravitated to buildings.

In passing, as I cease this rant, let me say this. I visit church buildings. I see 'foundation stones' inscribed with the words 'To The Glory of God'. Underneath I see the name of the person who laid the stone. To whom is the glory really given? Buildings have, since Babel, been to man's glory and no-one elses.

That's enough for now, more later.

Team Work....

I had this thought. Yes, a lonely experience! Thinking about Jesus and His relationships with people - and His 'team'. He spent time on His own. He spent time with 3 selected men. He spent time with the multitude, with crowds, with hangers-on. But the picture we have of Him, and the stuff He did mostly, was with 'The Twelve'. Men, chosen largely because of their potential, from a fairly wide background. One was even a thief. Some older, some young. Some educated and some not so. But that is not my point. 12 is.

Since then all sporting activities have teams of 11 -15 mostly. Yes, there are '5's and 7's - and I know we have 'the bench' and so on. But broadly speaking we have teams of around the 12 in number. Interesting. Now in sporting events, we have the team 'performing' and the crowds 'spectating'...paying their money and watching.

Bit like church, really. When they met in homes 12 - 15 would probably have been the number of those gathering.....then they started to grow and the ambition of a few was to build larger - rather than more. When they had 12, they all brought what they had to the communal gathering and contributed to the body. Everybody 'feeds' - everybody is 'fed'. Simple, beautiful....and effective.

Nowadays, a few present something to the spectators. Few participate, few contribute. We pay our money, takes our choice, walk away. Jesus obviously got it right. He always did. Sporting teams know that 12 is a good number for strong relationship activity.

Where are we going wrong?

Towards Biblical Church.....?

I've decided to become more positive. It occurred to me that a lot of the time we/I get drawn into a despairing negativity by what we see around us in church life. With the Bible in our hands, the Holy Spirit in our hearts and the cause of Jesus predominant in our thinking, we look around and wonder what on earth is going on, and when is Heaven going to do something about it.

So, my blogging is going to begin to state positively what the church must become in order to fulfil what the Father requires of the Bride for His Son. Having pondered and prayed much about this, and read tonnes of stuff, my fingers feel inclined to put something readable down.

There are, of course, a few groundrules.

Traditional thinking - the manmade variety - is out of the window. There are Godly traditions we must keep. But manmade ones - out! Now this is not easy for me. After 63 years in church life you must pick up a few, but I am determined to let them go. If you don't think I am, tell me.

Also, it must be Biblical. Nothing else will do now. I (literally) don't care what man has made up. I may lose some friends, and that's a shame, I will miss you, but time is short. And a few less people at my funeral won't worry me too much! I am learning to love His Book increasingly, and He has revealed so much of His Will to us, that we must begin to drop our own plans, and adopt His. Urgently. We are facing a wipe-out in this country. Our enemies are around us, and within. Satan is (shorterm) rubbing his hands. Longterm he knows he's lost. It's the bit in between I plan to address.

I cannot offer you a 'local model'. What I am planning to present does not exist in my city of Leicester UK, to my knowledge. I believe it exists elsewhere, but I have no desire/leading to
move. This is theory as far as I am concerned. I long for the practical outworking.

I start soon.

I Can't Get My Head Around This One...

Someone recently mentioned that we are to celebrate soon in the UK (apparently it was a couple of weeks ago in the US...so we are not 10 years behind..) the event 'Back to Church Sunday'. I choked.

Google is so useful. I discovered that the CofE, Baptist and Methodist denominations jointly sponsor this event in an attempt to get people to attend a church service near their home, perhaps for the first time ever, or for the first time for a long time. Sometimes I just cannot believe what I hear and read. The more I think about it, the more ridiculous it sounds.

How can you 'go back to church'? You are either in it, or not. The Church is a people who have been gathered together in His Name. Sure, you can opt out. And sure, a decision is made on joining. But you don't 'go' anywhere. So you can't 'leave' anywhere. So you can't 'go back' anywhere!

When are we going to see that we don't 'go to church'? Ever. We 'are' church. Always.

What a difference it will make. Instead of 2 or 3 hours a week. 24/7. 52.