Six Reasons Why New Year Resolutions Get Broken

January is often seen as a reality-check after the excesses of Christmas and New Year’s Eve celebrations.  Wills are resolved, to quit smoking, to go to the gym, to improve our quality of life in some way or other.  And the vast majority of resolutions made have been broken by the end of January, abandoned as a bad job by the end of February, and all-but-forgotten by the end of March.  Why?

Jesus speaks of reality-check moments.  He calls them ‘kairos’ moments: time that has a significance that transcends the chronological record – just as New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day have a cultural significance that transcends the inevitable and unremarkable progression from 23:59 on 31 December to 00:00 on 1 January.  And Jesus says that the rightful response to kairos time is to repent and believe: that is to change our mind about something and to live in a different way in relation to that thing.

The process of repentance can be broken down into the steps of observation, reflection, and discussion.  The process of believing can be broken down into the steps of planning, putting in place an accountability structure, and acting.  (These steps are illustrated in Jesus’ teaching of his disciples.)

Here, then, are six reasons why New Year’s Resolutions are quickly broken:

We fail to observe

New Year may be an arbitrary kairos, but it is no less a kairos for that.  But most resolutions are made because we feel that a New Year’s resolution is in order; made as an emotional Pavlovian response to the chimes of Big Ben, or the hangover of the next day; selected from a pre-set and limited menu.  For the most part, we fail to stop and observe the small but tell-tale signs; the often incidental ways in which our body tells us that something needs to be addressed before further damage is incurred; or the easily-missed pieces of evidence that someone else has discovered the benefits of a different approach to living.

We fail to reflect

Even if we happen upon a change that has the potential to do us good, we tend to fail to reflect adequately on the matter.  For example, if our resolution is to quit smoking, we need to reflect on the stress-triggers in our life, which have been managed by nicotine.  To quit smoking without addressing stress will very likely raise our experience of stress, thus driving us back to smoking.  Or, for example, if our resolution is to stop binge drinking – arguably the greatest social health crisis facing British society at present – then it will be inadequate to continue going on pub crawls with our friends at the weekend, with the intention of keeping to soft drinks.  Success will depend on moderating behaviour; on recruiting friends to support – even join you – in your decision; perhaps, even on finding new friends.

We fail to discuss

Most resolutions are made on our own.  If we are brutally honest with ourselves, very few of us trust anyone else enough to ask them “What do you think I need to change about my life?” and to take on board what they say in reply, whether they are our doctor, our spouse, or a friend.  Such discussion helps inform – and possibly revise – our own observations and reflections.  We need to confront our fear of confrontation, and our addiction to individualism over community.

We fail to plan

Change doesn’t happen by accepting that it needs to happen.  Many people know that smoking, or over- or under-eating, or lack of exercise is bad for their health.  Change needs to be planned, or it will not happen.  An intention is not a plan.  Plans need to be practical, detailed, and managed in incremental steps with clear measurable goals that stretch us without being unattainable, so that we are encouraged rather than discouraged.  Plans often need the input of an outside ‘expert’ – such as a training programme created for us at the gym.

We fail to make ourselves accountable

Again, here is the weakness of the triumph of individualism over community.  Succeed on your own, and you get to claim all the glory...but you massively reduce your chances of succeeding at all.  We need the encouragement of others to press through the wall we will hit when trying to make any change of attitude and behaviour.  We need someone to expose us when we go back on our intentions and try to hide our failure; someone who will think no less of us, but will help us get back on our feet, will forgive us our failure and our trying to hide our failure, and who will strengthen our resolve by accompanying us on the journey.  Every Frodo needs his Samwise.

We fail to act

That is, we might well put our resolution into action, but without having observed, reflected, discussed, planned and made ourselves accountable to carrying out our plan, we are very unlikely to still be acting out our resolution after not very many weeks.  On the other hand, at the end of the day a resolution is only a wishful thought, and discretion is the better part of valour: we might as well admit that we won’t be able to change, rather than fail in a very public manner...

Discipling Children

Here is a link to a fascinating and challenging white paper on children's ministry from Doug Paul's community, Eikon.

Teach Us To Pray : Deliverance

“but deliver us from the evil one.”

God has committed himself to deliver his people from subjugation to evil, has revealed himself as deliverer. But Jesus reveals to us that the path of deliverance does not turn back from evil, or skirt around it: God delivers his people from the evil one by bringing then through death to life. This is the pattern of Jesus, who died and was raised to life. This is the pattern we are called to: to take up our cross and follow him; to lay down our lives for our friends; to be seeds that fall to the ground and die, in order to bring forth a harvest. This will be our ultimate experience: dying in this body, and being raised to a resurrection body: somehow recognisably us, in continuity with the present, but free from the constraints of our currently perishable and perishing bodies. But this is not a one-off event: it is God’s pattern.

When we pray, “deliver us from evil” God will answer, but his answer will look like a passing through death to life: whether that is through physical death to resurrection life, or through other deaths – the death of a dream, a vision, the death of the Self, of what I want.

And this has implications, both for us who are delivered from evil and for the evil out of which we are delivered.

The implication for us is this: like Jesus, who still bears the scars of crucifixion in his glorious imperishable resurrection human body, we will always bear the scars inflicted on us by the evil one. We will always bear the scars, and, over time, those scars will be beautified. And we bear the scars because it is the scars that carry our story: the scars that remind us and help us to tell others that we were once held captive by evil, in this form or that, and have been set free. Those scars might be physical, or emotional, or simply the evidence of things done to us: of the places in our lives where we experienced a tearing, and heard a testimony. And these scars become like the memorial stones of old: places where, whenever we pass by that way again we say, here we met God: places we return to in order to go on, further.

The implication for evil is this: for God, it is not enough to remove evil, so that it ceases to exist: rather, God always works to redeem evil, so that something good is brought out of it. Read Jesus’ genealogy: there is Rahab the prostitute, dedicated by her parents to a mighty chaos demon; Solomon, whose parents had committed adultery, David cheating on one of his closest friends, and then having him murdered in an attempt to cover his own tracks. And in Jesus’ mission, we see prostitutes and those guilty of adultery and murder transformed by the kingdom of God. This, then, is why deliverance cannot be away from or around evil, but must go straight through the middle, must pierce its heart, must break down the very gates of hell and claim it as a territory of heaven.

So, what is on your heart in relation to deliverance? From what do you seek to be delivered? Or who do you long to see delivered from some manifestation of evil or other?

And what does God want to say to you today?

Does he want to beautify your scars? To take you back to the place they were incurred, in order to hear again the testimony you first heard there – or perhaps failed to hear and still need to hear?

Does he want to see good brought out of evil, evil as you experience it redeemed rather than removed? To strengthen you, or the one for whom you pray, to endure the transformation? To pray for those who persecute you?

Teach Us To Pray : Guidance

“And lead us not into temptation,”

God wants to speak to us about his guidance.

Jesus reveals himself to be the good shepherd of his sheep – those who follow him – who calls them by name, and who sits in the entrance to the pen, making himself the gate between the protection of the pen and the provision of the pasture (John 10). He leads his sheep, by going ahead of them and because they know his voice; and the sheep experience an inward direction (in to the pen) and an outward direction (out to the pasture).

Jesus identifies himself with the image of God as shepherd found in Psalm 23. Here, the sheep are led from the winter pasture, which has been grazed, up the hillside gulley to the high summer pasture, the tabletop mountain covered in lush grass and strewn with wildflowers, where the shepherd rubs oil into any wounds incurred on the way. For the gulley is the place of death: of steep drops, fast-flowing flash floods, and predators lying in wait behind rocks. But in this place, the sheep are not afraid, because the shepherd has two sticks: one with which to steer wayward sheep back onto the path, and one with which to drive back predators. The shepherd’s rod and staff: the symbols of discipline (keeping us on the path) and freedom (safe from harm).

God’s love is expressed through discipline and freedom. Discipline trains us, to follow him, and to experience freedom in the world – even when our outward circumstances are constrained against our will by the actions of others, as persecuted Christians have testified in Nazi death camps, Soviet gulags, Chinese prison cells, Sudanese freight crates...

This, then, is how God guides us: through discipline and freedom.

There are times – as in the gulley – where God’s voice gives very clear direction, and our refusing to listen will only result in our harm: God will move to rescue us when we call, but we might wander a long way and get into all kinds of a mess before we swallow our pride. But in the pastures, there is considerable choice of where to wander.

God’s guidance is not narrow. He has not drawn out a line our life must follow, and if we get it wrong somewhere we go off into at best God’s second-best and at worst a life of irrelevance in his sight. There are times when God’s guidance is specific and clear, and many, many times when it is broad.
I do not believe that there is only one person out there made to be your soul-mate, and unless you can find this needle in the haystack (albeit with God’s assistance) you are condemned to loneliness or meaningless relationships. And yet, I do believe that God works in our lives to prepare us for the relationships we enter into. I don’t believe that my wife is the only person I could have married (though she may well be the only person who would have me); and yet I do not believe that it is a coincidence how well her gifts complement my gifts and her abilities compensate for my shortcomings. I do not believe that there is only one job we are to take up at any given time; though I do believe that God prepares us (through discipline and freedom) for the work we choose or are chosen to do – and I do believe that sometimes God makes it clear that we should apply for a particular job, while often he says, “I have gifted you in these ways: go invest as you see fit...”

There is, then, the temptation to not listen to the shepherd’s voice, and so be led away by another voice; and the temptation to be paralysed by choice-anxiety, not prepared to take the risk of moving without specific instruction. There is the temptation to mistake the gulley for the pasture, to be selective in which words of discipline we listen to, as if there was no danger of falling; and the temptation to mistake the pasture for the gulley, to live as though there was no healing and no provision. Submitting ourselves to loving discipline, and embracing disciplined freedom, is the way to follow the good shepherd, to go in and out through the gate for the sheep.

Where are you seeking guidance today? And what does God want to say to you?

His sheep know his voice.

Teach Us To Pray : Forgiveness

“Forgive us our sins, for we also forgive everyone who sins against us.”

At the very heart of Jesus’ pattern for how we ought to pray is the acknowledgement of our need to receive forgiveness, and our call to hold out forgiveness to others. This prayer is about living in freedom, and setting captives free. It is, again, a conversation in which we experience invitation and challenge...and, again, a conversation that begins in the hidden place but moves into active involvement – God’s, and ours – in the publicly visible place.

Invitation: to living in freedom. Challenge: to setting captives free.

One of the things I observe of urban and Generation Y cultures (and Generation Y is a thoroughly urban culture, though they are clearly not the only urban generation, and for this among other reasons not the only urban culture) is a massive sense of entitlement: I am entitled to something for nothing, and entitled to complain if that thing is taken away, even though I contributed nothing towards it. (I have news for you: in another urban setting, Jonah got there first: Jonah 4:5-11)

‘Entitlement’ blinds us to true justice – which requires something of our participation if it is to flourish – and to true mercy – for mercy is the participation justice requires. As God has said, what is required of us is this: that we act justly, love mercy, and walk humbly with our God (Micah 6:8).

Forgiveness is totally alien to the culture of entitlement. The invitation to receive forgiveness challenges our cherished and unquestioned belief that we are those who are more wronged than guilty of doing wrong. The challenge to extend forgiveness to others invites us to let go of the identity built on that belief, the identity that places ourselves higher than those who serve us, and to be proactive in changing the world. Forgiveness is alien to us: both subversively attractive and downright terrifying.

Receiving forgiveness frees us to forgive others...and forgiving others causes us to realise more fully our own need for forgiveness. Invitation leads to challenge, which in turn challenges us to receive invitation, which leads to further challenge...The more we take hold of the discipline of forgiveness, the greater the freedom we experience, as a degree of freedom frees us to free others, and in so doing to recognise our need for and receive further freedom: it operates as a ‘virtuous circle’ by which the kingdom takes grip of our lives and will not let us go.

This is what we are called to: to live in freedom, and set those held captive – by resentment, by pride, by bitterness, by prejudice, by not being allowed another chance – free. And the extent to which God can bring freedom into our lives is limited only by the extent to which we are willing to go and do likewise. We were made to be free: and for this very reason the accuser has a vested interest in selling a false freedom: a freedom found in consigning those who have wronged us to judgement, while refusing to take responsibility for restitution towards those we ourselves have wronged. Burn your bridges, and keep on running. That is not the road to freedom, but to self-imposed solitary confinement. It does not deliver what it promises, however much it pours into the advertising campaign.

Forgiveness is perhaps the greatest of all expressions of God’s provision.

Forgiveness is the ultimate revenge of the wronged – whether God or human – and the most powerful weapon known to both: on the cross, the fully-God fully-human Jesus cried out, “Father, forgive them; they know not what they do...”

Where do you seek justice, or mercy? What might God want to say to you about that, about your role in bringing about what you long for?

Or what might God want to say to you about forgiveness?

Do you need to receive forgiveness today?

Do you need to extend forgiveness to someone else today?

Teach Us To Pray : Provision

“Give us today our daily bread.”

God wants to speak with us about his provision. This flows from his character – God reveals himself as, among other things, our Provider – and is made manifest in his kingdom – that is, wherever the rule of the Provider extends, there in that place there is provision for those who live in that place. As we experience God’s character and kingdom, we experience his provision as a daily reality in our lives: and as we share in God’s character and in the exercising of his kingdom rule, we become people who extend provision to others.

When God’s people lived in the wilderness, between being slaves in Egypt and entering into the land God had promised to their forefathers, God provided them with manna: the bread of heaven. It came with instructions: only take what you need for the day ahead; except on the day before the Sabbath rest, where they were to take enough for two days. Those who took more than they ate found that by the next morning what they had kept back had become riddled with maggots. But, we are told, those who took little did not have too little, and those who took much did not have too much.
Jesus reveals himself to be the bread of life, that comes down from heaven: manna: God’s provision for a people in the wilderness between slavery and the land they will inherit: which is a good way to describe the place those who follow Jesus live – those who have been set free, but do not yet experience what we hope for.

Jesus took five loaves of bread, blessed them, broke them, distributed them to feed a multitude, and instructed that what was left over be gathered up: twelve basketsful, one for each tribe in the wilderness (Matthew 14:13-21). Later, in a similar way, he fed another, slightly smaller crowd (4,000 men, plus women and children; as opposed to 5,000 men, plus women and children) with seven loaves, and had gathered-up seven baskets of leftovers, the symbolic number of perfection (Matthew 15:29-39).

If, moved by compassion, Jesus feeds crowds with bread, then he is concerned with physical provision. But if Jesus is himself bread, then he is also concerned with spiritual provision. Spiritually, he is enough for us, day by day: neither too little to satisfy, nor too much to be digested. Physically, he gives more than enough: in order to make a point: God’s provision is restoring the kingdom that is in turn the outward expression of his character.

If we are honest, we don’t really believe this. It is too offensive: we see people go hungry, and we listen to the whisper that says, “God does not always provide...” or we listen to the whisper that says, “How can you, who has so much, dare to ask God for anything when others have so little?” and so we fall silent. Instead, we feed ourselves – food, and more – and fail to satisfy our appetites: and so we consume and consume, or we lament absence in our lives, until we become sick.

Jesus tells us to pray asking that God would provide us with our daily bread. Jesus tells us to do so because the nature of our relationship is this: God is our provider, and we are to receive his provision, and to use what he provides to provide for the needs of others. As Jesus also says, freely you have received, freely give. Which requires two things of us: first that we receive what God wants to give us; and then that what we have been given, we bless, break and distribute...and finally gather-up the leftovers – the evidence of what has happened here, whatever that may be – as a testimony to God’s provision.

How would our experience change if we started to pray, “Give us today our daily bread”?

What does God want to say to you concerning his provision?

Does he want you to be able to receive something?

Does he want you to give away what you have received?

Teach Us To Pray : Kingdom

“your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.”

As we share in God’s character, so we share in the kingdom that flows out of that character: a realm within which spiritual orphans are adopted into God’s family and experience his love; a realm within which what is good is nurtured, and what is evil is destroyed.

God’s kingdom is being extended throughout the world, often coming up against resistance from the kingdom of the false prince of this world, the ‘satan’ or accuser, who delights in turning neighbour against neighbour in order that his agenda to steal, kill and destroy might run unchecked. The global trafficking of arms and drugs and human beings: brought home to us – made manifest – in the children carrying guns and the dealers and the pimps on our streets. But the very purpose of God’s kingdom is to redeem what has been lost, to restore what was stolen, to bring order out of chaos and life out of death.

This, God has been doing since the start of our story. And at the start of our story, he appointed us to exercise this kingdom rule on his behalf. We were tricked into abdicating, to the accuser; and yet, God committed himself to us, and promised...Jesus, who would restore us to our original calling to be co-heirs and ambassadors of the kingdom of God. And God’s future – where our present night will be completely overwhelmed by a new day; where there will be no more sorrow or sickness or sin or shame – is breaking-in to our present and will continue to break in to our future presents until the night is over and the morning comes. It does so as we participate in welcoming-in and publicly naming the manifestations of the kingdom that has come; in the struggle for the kingdom that is delayed in its coming; and in the anticipation of the kingdom that is to come. If you have ever got up while it is still dark and sat waiting for the sunrise you will understand something of the inevitability of this process; if the sun rose behind clouds, you will understand something of the delay, and – in back-lit clouds – something of the transformation of what is: but only if you have got up and gone out to wait.

Prayer is a conversation in the hidden place that moves into active involvement – God’s, and ours – in the publicly visible place. God does not want us to ask him to bring in his kingdom, and then wash our hands of responsibility. He invites us to listen to his will, in order to challenge us to participate in its manifestation. God’s will, outwardly expressed in his kingdom come, is like ten-thousand thousand splendid things: but not all in one place. Physical healing; emotional healing; streets cleared of litter; local youths, or senior citizens, befriended; NGOs supported; politicians lobbied to take measures against human trafficking, or to speak up for those falsely imprisoned. We are called to participate in his will: but we ourselves are finite creatures, utterly overwhelmed. And so we come to God asking, what is your will for this place, for these people, at this time, on this day? What, in your will, do you want me to participate in today? Jesus said that he only did what he saw the Father doing, but he didn’t do everything on one day: morning by morning he asked, what is your agenda here, now?

What part of his will does God want to reveal to you today, in order that you might participate in it?

What part of God’s will does he want to be made manifest in and through the life of your community?

Teach Us To Pray : Character

“Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name,”

God wants us to know his character, and Jesus reveals to us that God is both Father and holy. Jesus will go further, unpacking what he means by father: not the abusive or absent father that sadly too many people experience in their earthly fathers, but what a father is meant to be: one who loves and delights in his children, who longs for intimacy with them, who loves to give good gifts; in whose presence there is un-self-conscious laughter, and the tender wiping-away of tears. The sort of father I fall so short of being.

And yet, God is also holy: and our flesh cannot approach him and live.

There is, therefore, a tension: that in God’s presence, something of who we are is called to live, to experience life in all its fullness; and something of who we are is called to die. We are invited, as we are, into the relationship we were always meant to know: and challenged to become who we were made to be, and are not.

Invitation and challenge: this is how God relates to us: this is how Jesus, who reveals God’s nature to us, related to men, women and children 2,000 years ago: and this is how Jesus still relates to men, women and children today, as he is present in the midst of his people, the body of Christ, through his Spirit indwelling us...

Indwelling us: this tension, this invitation and challenge, this call to live to God and call to die to self: within us.

God invites us to know him as Father, and challenges us to be holy as he is holy. Invitation, and challenge: invitation, and challenge: invitation, and challenge...the closer we draw, the more we are challenged – in order that we may draw closer still.

And this is so alien to us. To have invitation extended to us: to generations increasingly abandoned by our parents, who have learnt not to expose ourselves to another, not to allow ourselves to be hurt – or to have and inevitably hurt children in our turn. The invitation itself is a challenge, to grow into maturity.

This is so alien to us. To have challenge extended to us: to increasingly fatherless generations, who are so fragile as to see discipline as rejection; and whose parents have sought to keep us as friends, as peers, rather than risk losing us. The challenge itself is an invitation, to grow into maturity.

And the mark of maturity is the ability to reproduce. God – who is mature – does not want us to merely know his character, but to share in that character...and to see that character multiplied into the lives of others, as we ourselves grow into maturity. The prayer continues, “your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven” – and this takes place as, among other things, God’s people share in his character, and in the kingdom that flows from that character. A kingdom in which the fatherless are fathered, and what is unholy is made holy...

So what does God want to speak to you about his character today?

A word of invitation, to one who believes themselves unloved?

A word of challenge, to one who believes themselves righteous in their own eyes?

A call to love, to father – or mother, for God is described as both mother and father – spiritual orphans?

A call to reach out and touch lives that are not holy – that are not made clean, and set-apart for God’s use, to fulfil God’s purposes in the world – and so to infect them with holiness?

Teach Us To Pray : Introduction

Jesus taught his disciples how they should pray. And if we, too, are disciples in the Way of Jesus, then we should give weight to his words: Jesus’ model is not merely one among many possible options, but the one we are to make our own. On the other hand, these words, recorded in Matthew 6:9-15 and Luke 11:1-4, are not a mantra: they provide the context for a conversation between God and God’s people. For that is what prayer is: a listening to what God wants to speak to us about, and a bringing to God our lives. And Jesus says that God wants us to bring our lives to him, to listen to him, in relation to six areas: six areas of interaction, beginning in conversation in the hidden place and moving into active involvement – God’s, and ours – in the publicly visible place. These six areas relate to God’s character, kingdom, provision, forgiveness, guidance, and deliverance. Over the following posts, I intend to unpack each of the six phrases a little.

Within the Rule of The Order of Mission – which is expressed in an iconic form using Lifeshapes* – ‘praying as a way of life’ is represented by the hexagon: each side of the shape recalling a phrase of the prayer. We seek to engage with this prayer in various ways. We might run through the familiar words, perhaps a number of times over, until we sense a check: and there we ask, is this the thing that God wants to speak to us about today, through his Holy Spirit; or the thing that is weighing on our spirit, which we need to bring before God and hear his voice address today? It may be one or the other, and as prayer is a conversation, the expression of a relationship, either is as valid a starting-point as the other. At other times, we might pray through the entire prayer on a Sunday, and then take each of the six phrases in turn and pray them through the rest of the week, Monday to Saturday.

* ‘Lifeshapes’ are a series of tools for discipleship – for helping us to follow Jesus, and to help others to follow Jesus. Recognising that we live in an iconic culture, where brand logos both carry and unlock significant volumes of experience for us – try it: how much information and experience does the Disney logo, or the Apple logo, or the M&S logo recall to your mind? Choose a logo and write a list – they make use of simple iconic shapes to carry and unlock biblical teaching to live by, with a focus on the life and ministry of Jesus. The beauty of iconic symbols is this: that, just as with every new Disney (etc.) release, the reservoir of knowledge their logo carries and unlocks expands; so with every new thing we learn about living as disciples, the reservoir of knowledge the Lifeshapes carries and unlocks for us also expands.

Mary : Martha : Lazarus

Today is the festival of Mary, Martha and Lazarus, ‘Companions of our Lord.’ These two sisters and brother opened their home as a place where Jesus experienced the ministry of hospitality. And Jesus gently pointed-out to Martha that busyness can be a distraction; that, though there are things that need to be attended to, we need to allow ourselves space to listen to his voice. It is a voice worth listening to, for the words it speaks are transformative – as these siblings discovered when Jesus stood at the tomb of his friend declaring, “Lazarus, come out!” and with these words calling life out of death.

This month I have written a lot – have been productive. Less over the next month: time for a summer break: time to slow down: time to abide: time to listen more closely: time to allow the words I have heard to do their work in me. Constant busyness denies us this necessary space, this necessary cyclical stage in our spiritual growth.

Stability

One of the things that I observe living in an urban context is the degree of instability in people’s lives: the extent to which life is overwhelmed, the extent of family breakdown, of drug misuse, of unemployment, of debt.

Wealth and education do not make you a better person, but they do shield you to a certain extent from the impact of instability, and they also mask the instability in our lives from our neighbours. And so it is not so much that the urban context is more unstable; but rather that the instability is more visible.

I am enjoying watching Rev on the BBC, a sit-com built around an inner-city vicar. It is a thoughtful and thought-provoking comedy; its intention is not to offer escapism, but to remind viewers of value where we have neglected to see it – in the broken people. Adam, the vicar, talks to God, and tends to ask very good questions. But he doesn’t get answers, directly. What we learn is that the kingdom of God empowers us to sit with the broken, to live in the midst of instability. And this is true. What we don’t learn is that the kingdom of God empowers us to see the broken put back together, to create colonies of stability in the midst of instability.

It is often said that simple answers are of no use. This is not true. Simplistic answers are of no help to anyone. But simple answers are exactly what are called for. Because simple answers are the only answers we have the capacity to live out. Our problem is not that the answers we need are too complex, but that they are simple but hard, and what is hard is unpalatable to us.

There is an order to the flow of transformation: it originates with God, first does its work within us, and is then manifest in how we relate to the world in general. (That is, the flow of grace is UP-IN-OUT.)

Here, then, and drawing on Benedictine wisdom via my friend Mark Carey, is how we move towards stability in our lives:

It begins with obedient listening. That is, we choose to listen to God, and we choose to believe what he says. That when God says, “You are my child, whom I love; with you I am well pleased” we accept that to be true, and do not dismiss God on account of our – or someone else – knowing better. The parent, or partner, who tells you that you are worthless.

This is simple, but hard. Hard, because – escalating from Eden on – we are bombarded with so many other voices, so many other opinions, so many deceptions that are pleasing to the eye but ultimately taste bitter in the mouth. You are nothing unless you are size 0.

So, what do you hear God say to you about your identity? Do you dare to believe him?

As we take on the discipline of obedient listening, we will discover that God does a work of conversion of life in us. That is, God calls us to be the person he has created us to be – revealed to us by obedient listening – and begins to change the direction of our lives. We move towards stability by choosing to obediently live out our God-given calling.

What does that look like in practice? This is an internal transformation. We find ourselves, by degree, no longer held captive by a false image of ourselves (expressed in eating disorders, self-harm, addiction); by ungodly values (such as fear, or lust, or the desire for power over others). We choose instead to say no to such things. For example, if we are married we choose to be faithful; we choose to put our marriage before a promotion or other unilateral career decision that will pull us apart. New priorities begin to emerge. This, too, is simple but hard: for these emerging priorities are profoundly counter-cultural. At the same time, we find ourselves growing into the person we were created to be, as certain things are put to death and other things are allowed to flourish.

In what ways can you identify how God has transformed your inner values? What new priorities are emerging?

Through the process of conversion of life, our direction, our values, our priorities change. Through the process, God reveals to us the priorities that will fulfil our vocation, our calling. And stability is made manifest – takes on solid, visible shape – in our lives as we choose to stick to the priorities that will fulfil our vocation.

What does this look like in practice? This is an external transformation. Vocation is a misunderstood word in our culture, narrowly applied to a particular religious vocation, to be a priest or a nun or a monk. But vocation simply refers to who and what God has called each one of us to be and to do. To do something because you recognise that you were ‘made to be’ that thing is to recognise a vocation. We can choose to be a lawyer because we want to earn a lot of money, or because we sense a call to see justice and mercy manifest in our society. We can do a job - any job - because we need to do something, anything; or because we recognise that we were made to do that thing. Society tells us what we ought to aspire to be – for many of the young girls in my immediate context, that is to marry a footballer, and go from shops to spa to party; in other contexts, with ‘wider’ horizons, we are told that we can be whatever we want, often resulting in the paralysis of too much choice. We can drift, or chase one dream after another; or, having heard God’s call, we can set about the priorities that will fulfil our call. If you are called to be a GP in a deprived area, that will call for a certain set of priorities – priorities that will change as we move from school pupil onwards – and you will need to stick with them. The same is true if you are called to be a shop assistant or a plumber or an electrician or a soldier or a stay-at-home mum or a musician or an artist or an athlete. Certain things cannot be allowed to distract us, or replace those priorities. Yet again, this is simple, but hard: society tells us that you can have it all...though the evidence suggests the reality that this is not true, and the more we try to have, the less we end up with.

Can you identify the priorities that will fulfil your vocation? Where are you being distracted at present? What current priorities are false, and need not to be the focus of our attention? Who is holding you accountable to stick to the priorities God is revealing to you?

This UP-IN-OUT process – though not the outcome – is the same whatever our god is. So if our god is pleasure, or financial security, then as we listen to the voice of our god a work of conversion will take place in our lives: our values and priorities will be shaped by what we listen to. But false gods offer false stability: as already noted, education and wealth certainly provide a shield against the impact of instability, under the cover of which instability can continue to work undetected; a colourful mask to hide behind, but no real security.

It is a process that goes on in all our lives, largely unconsciously. The key to helping broken lives be put back together again is to empower people to intentionally engage with the process, flowing from its True source.

MRS GREN : On Friendship

Recently, I have been reflecting on friendship. Regardless of whether you are a social extrovert, who recharges in the company of many others, or a social introvert, who recharges on your own or with one or two others, everyone needs a few close friends – even Jesus had three close friends among his wider group of disciples.

There are seven properties that are true of every living organism: movement, respiration, sensitivity, growth, reproduction, excretion, and nutrition. These physical properties have spiritual parallels, which I have written about here. However, it strikes me afresh that they have particular outworking in the context of friendship, for what it means to be a good friend. That is what I want to consider here (it will help to have read the earlier post on MRS GREN first, for context).

Movement
Friendship comes in a variety of expressions, or seasons – and all the more so in a highly mobile society. I have friends that I get to see on a (more-or-less) weekly basis in my immediate context; friends further afield who Jo and I make the effort of travelling to spend an evening with once a month (because, for the kind of reasons I am exploring here, it is worth it); and friends who I no longer get to see on a regular basis, because we live in different countries, but whom I keep in touch with (love facebook). Each has had its season – whether short or long, recent or in the ever-growing past – of regular face-to-face contact.

To attempt to maintain all my friendships at the same level would be unsustainable. And some are for a particular time, and others are for life. But not only do my friends move: my friendships move me. That is, my perspective on the world, on life, on God, on the church, on society – on anything and everything – changes, and it changes more than anything else through the relationships that God has brought into my life, at various points. Good friendships help me to follow after God more closely – to be, and be known as, God’s friend. Stagnant or unhealthy friendships don’t help me grow. And it is not that I can only be friends with those who share my own views on God: my views have been challenged and enriched, my perspective has moved, through the friendships of those who do not share my views – whether atheists or agnostics, Christians of very different persuasions, or (though I lack this among my friends at the present moment) those of other faiths.

How has your perspective changed as a result of a friendship over the past twelve months? Can you identify friends-for-now, and friends-for-life? If so, give thanks for both (we need both); if not, ask God to provide what you lack.

Respiration
Physically, respiration is to do with the process of carrying oxygen – the fuel of life – to every cell in the body. Spiritually, the discipline of prayer is the means by which the Holy Spirit enlivens us. In the context of friendship, we ought to ask: does this relationship speak life to me? or, do I speak life to my friend? When I have spent time in this person’s company, do I feel more alive, or, do they feel more alive? The reality is that, as we all face struggles in life, there will be times when we are giving out more than we are receiving and times when we are receiving more than we are giving out – and that is okay. But if as we reflect on a friendship we realise that it is a relationship that speaks death to us rather than life – a friend that encourages us in life-destroying thoughts, words, or actions – then that is a good indication that it is not a healthy relationship for us to continue to invest in.

When did you last pray for your friends? What might you use as a prompt to prayer? (Facebook statuses make good prompts.)

Sensitivity
Living organisms need to be sensitive to the stimuli in their environment – light, water, the presence of other organisms (possible predators, or prey), pollution...Spiritually, we are called to be aware of certain changes in our environment: to identify and interpret the clues as to what God is up to as his Spirit brings life out of death and order out of chaos; and as to what the thief is up to as he comes to steal and kill and destroy (John 10). In the context of friendship, we need to be sensitive to the ways in which Jesus is bringing life in its fullness, and the presence of the thief. We are called to listen to God for our friend’s future, and to speak into their life prophetically, calling what is declared of them in heaven to birth in the present. This is to see their full potential – and not just from a worldly perspective (“you can be anything you put your mind to” – as opposed to “you will never achieve anything”) but from a heavenly perspective (“I think God might be calling you to be [this kind of person] and I’m telling you so that you can weigh that, ask God to confirm it if it is right”). It is also to see those things that stand in the way of them fulfilling that potential – clues include recurring patterns that run down family histories – and to speak prophetically into those situations, too, that God might redeem curses and release blessings.

What do you hear God saying about your friends? Are you willing to speak into their lives, and stand with them in the fight for their identity?

Growth
Growth does not occur by attending to growth, but through indirect effort: where the other indicators of life are healthy, healthy growth is a consequence. Likewise, we should not necessarily be seeking to grow through our friendships – this is to see friendship as a means to an end, to risk using people – but a healthy friendship ought to result in our growth.

God has an intention for who he has created us to be, as a unique person and in the context of our relationships. And it is in the context of our relationships that we discover our identity, and grow into it. Our closest friends are those who know us most fully, and who will encourage and challenge us to keep on becoming the person we are called to be. On the other hand, an unhealthy friendship will flatter our ego, encouraging us to stay just the way we are now, ‘warts and all’ – ‘keeping it real’ rather than putting to death what is unhelpful and nurturing what is good.

In what ways have you grown into your identity in the past twelve months, and who has stood alongside you and supported you in that process?

Reproduction
Living organisms have the capacity to reproduce, albeit in a variety of different ways, and albeit that this capacity is not fulfilled in every organism. In the context of friendship, the principle of reproduction reveals to us that friendship is not intended to be self-serving, but rather friendship enables us to invest ourselves into the lives of others. A healthy friendship is not defensive and inward-looking – like two mirrors placed opposite each other, referencing themselves into infinity – but is secure enough to be open to others.

Many plants reproduce by cross-fertilisation. Likewise, one way in which our friendships can be reproductive is by bringing different friends together, to see what might come of it (this is the basis of social networking). But this requires of us that we overcome the fear that our friends will get on better with each other than they do with us, and we will be left friendless...

Are your friendships overly-exclusive? Who are you introducing to whom?

Excretion
Physically, the processes of life have the by-product of creating toxins, which need to be dealt with; otherwise, in time, they compromise and even endanger life. Spiritually, toxins build up within us – toxins such as resentment, anger, disappointment, gossip, pride, lust – and these, too, need to be dealt with. The spiritual process of excretion is confession and extending/receiving forgiveness. In the context of friendship, I have known so many friendships where toxins have been left unaddressed until they have built up to such an extent that the friendship withers and dies, or explodes spectacularly – often with an impact on surrounding relationships. Our society tells us that it is better to tell everyone else how hurt we have been, how wronged we are, than to deal with the matter at its root. But Jesus tells us to sort out such matters quickly, face-to-face; bringing in a mediator if this fails to resolve the problem.

A healthy friendship is marked by the regular practice of extending and receiving forgiveness, for the hurts that are unavoidable by-products of life. Unhealthy friendships may be marked by a lack of this practice (constipation) or by an excessive compulsion to seek forgiveness (diarrhoea), which indicates insecurity.

Do you regularly extend and receive forgiveness in your friendships?

Nutrition
Living organisms require nutrition, and face problems through under-nutrition (not enough food), mal-nutrition (the wrong sort, or balance, of food), or over-nutrition (too much food). Mature organisms also learn to feed themselves, whereas infants are dependent on others to feed them. Spiritually speaking, we must learn to feed on God’s word, which comes to us in various forms including the Bible, testimony, and prophecy.

In the context of friendship, a loving friend will not stand by and collude with eating disorders. However hard, however costly, to love someone is to fight with them – in the face of the messages society bombards us with – against anorexia or obesity. This is as true on a spiritual level as it is on a physical level: as friends we need to support one another to ‘eat’ healthily. And that includes sharing with one another where we discover good food, or the means to prepare good food for ourselves (much of what I post on my blog is to do with teaching people principles by which to prepare and digest good food, spiritually speaking).

What does your spiritual diet look like? Are you sharing good things you have discovered with your friends? What have they shared with you?

The Square : Defining The Priorities Of Life

‘Lifeshapes’ are a series of tools for discipleship – for helping us to follow Jesus, and to help others to follow Jesus. Recognising that we live in an iconic culture, where brand logos both carry and unlock significant volumes of experience for us – try it: how much information and experience does the Disney logo, or the Apple logo, or the M&S logo recall to your mind? Choose a logo and write a list – they make use of simple iconic shapes to carry and unlock biblical teaching to live by, with a focus on the life and ministry of Jesus. The beauty of iconic symbols is this: that, just as with every new Disney (etc.) release, the reservoir of knowledge their logo carries and unlocks expands; so with every new thing we learn about living as disciples, the reservoir of knowledge the Lifeshapes carries and unlocks for us also expands.

In the Gospels, we see Jesus lead those he calls to follow him from a place of unconscious incompetence, through conscious incompetence and conscious competence, to unconscious competence. These are the stages we go through whenever we step out from our known experience of life into something unknown.

Let me illustrate this by describing learning to drive. As a child, we know what it is like to be a passenger in a car, and we give little thought to the possibility of driving. As we approach the legal age, we might begin to pay attention, to ask questions. But when we are given power (insured on our parents’ car, or given professional lessons) and authority (a provisional driver’s licence) to drive, we have no idea what is actually involved. We over-steer round bends; we stall at lights. This is unconscious incompetence. We quickly move to conscious incompetence: very aware of our inability; our confidence that we will ever learn taking a massive hit. But with practice, with encouragement and instruction, we begin to learn the skills, grow in experience and confidence. At this stage, we still need to concentrate on what we are doing: this is conscious competence. Finally, we reach the stage where we can drive without having to think about driving: we automatically check our mirrors: this is unconscious competence.

At the stage of unconscious incompetence, we need to do what we are told: the instructor is very directional, does not burden us with massive amounts of information. At the stage of conscious incompetence, we need a great deal of encouragement, and to be reminded of the vision, the greater freedom that being able to drive will give us, in employment, in leisure, in the practicalities of day-to-day living in a car culture. At the stage of conscious competence, we need opportunity to drive, to put in the hours (as far as learning to drive is concerned, this stage only really happens once we have past our test: then we must drive: one of the reasons why I always lacked confidence in driving was that I did not have the opportunity to put in those hours when I passed my test). At the stage of unconscious competence, driving is ‘natural’ – though note that precisely because our competence is unconscious, we will find it hard to teach someone else to drive unless we retrace our own steps, recalling to mind the earlier stages we had to pass through, and in particular the stage of conscious competence.

These same principles – stages of learning; and corresponding phases of leading, requiring different approaches – apply to anything in life, including ‘spiritual’ things such as learning to lead others, or learning to exercise the power and authority Jesus gives us to heal the sick.

Jesus’ intention is not that his disciples remain unconsciously incompetent, consciously incompetent, or even consciously competent: but that we reach the place of unconscious competence (with regards to healing, Peter reached the place where his shadow falling across the sick healed them).

These stages define our priorities in any given point: are we leading as directive visionary, or encouraging coach; as delegating releaser, or removed-but-available consultant?

The Triangle : Balancing The Relationships Of Life

‘Lifeshapes’ are a series of tools for discipleship – for helping us to follow Jesus, and to help others to follow Jesus. Recognising that we live in an iconic culture, where brand logos both carry and unlock significant volumes of experience for us – try it: how much information and experience does the Disney logo, or the Apple logo, or the M&S logo recall to your mind? Choose a logo and write a list – they make use of simple iconic shapes to carry and unlock biblical teaching to live by, with a focus on the life and ministry of Jesus. The beauty of iconic symbols is this: that, just as with every new Disney (etc.) release, the reservoir of knowledge their logo carries and unlocks expands; so with every new thing we learn about living as disciples, the reservoir of knowledge the Lifeshapes carries and unlocks for us also expands.

According to Jesus, the greatest commandment is this: to love God with all of our heart (volitional, what we choose), and with all of our soul (emotional, what we feel), and with all of our mind (intellectual, what we think), and with all of our strength (physical, what we do). And the second greatest commandment is this: to love our neighbour (Jesus defined our neighbour as whoever does not share our beliefs about God) as much as we love ourselves (that is, those who share our beliefs, our own faith community). Indeed, Jesus goes so far as to say that everything else in the Bible hangs on these two commands: is, in effect, commentary, showing us who God is and how to love him; who we are and what loving one another looks like in practice; and who is our neighbour and how we are to relate to them.

And so life is all about attending to these three different relationships, and learning how to express love for God, self and neighbour in the choices we make, in what we feel about ourselves and others (emotions are important, but don’t overrule choice), in what we think about ourselves and others, and in what we do towards ourselves and others.

This is worked out in all kinds of ways. For example, in raising children to maturity, we need to give them three things: love, discipline, and freedom. They need the security of knowing that they are loved, of growing up in a loving environment – and love, whether we acknowledge it or not, comes from God. And they need discipline and freedom, which go hand-in-hand. For example, my children are currently under the discipline of learning to read and write and manipulate numbers – and the extent to which they can experience freedom in the world is determined, to a large degree, by the extent to which they can take on these disciplines. Likewise, they experience the discipline of having breakfast every morning, and a (more or less) regular bedtime at night. Again, the discipline of healthy nutition and sleep patterns – of a disciplined lifestyle – directly impact their capacity to explore the world in which they live, and how they relate to others.

This is simple – just three things to attend to – but hard (our mistake is to believe that parenting is complex, but somehow ought to be easy). It is interesting to observe the relationship between Millennials (those born after 1980) and their parents (the youngest of the Baby Boomer generation and oldest of Generation X). These parents have largely reacted to their own childhood experience of absent fathers – whether emotionally absent because they found their identity almost entirely through their career, rather than as husbands/fathers; or physically absent, through rapidly rising divorce. In reaction, as parents themselves, they have sought to always be there for their children, and to be friends with their children. They have seen discipline as punishment, rather than training – and raised a generation who see discipline as rejection. They have seen freedom as abandonment, rather than maturity – and raised a dependent generation who have a high view of entitlement and a low capacity for perseverance. As a result, Millennials struggle to leave home, or even contribute to the running of their parents’ home (in truth, their parents struggle to let them go, or even let them contribute); struggle to operate as adults in the workplace; struggle to enter into lasting relationships. But love hopes to see the one it loves grow to maturity, and compels us to attend to finding the balance between too much/too little discipline and too much/too little freedom.

The Semi-Circle : Living In Rhythm with Life

‘Lifeshapes’ are a series of tools for discipleship – for helping us to follow Jesus, and to help others to follow Jesus. Recognising that we live in an iconic culture, where brand logos both carry and unlock significant volumes of experience for us – try it: how much information and experience does the Disney logo, or the Apple logo, or the M&S logo recall to your mind? Choose a logo and write a list – they make use of simple iconic shapes to carry and unlock biblical teaching to live by, with a focus on the life and ministry of Jesus. The beauty of iconic symbols is this: that, just as with every new Disney (etc.) release, the reservoir of knowledge their logo carries and unlocks expands; so with every new thing we learn about living as disciples, the reservoir of knowledge the Lifeshapes carries and unlocks for us also expands.

On the night of his arrest, walking through Jerusalem from the Upper Room where he had celebrated the Last Supper, to the Garden of Gethsemane at the foot of the Mount of Olives, Jesus and his disciples look up at the Temple. There on the wall is the giant gold frieze of a vine, the symbol of God’s people planted by God himself in the Promised Land, lit by the firelight of hundreds of thousands of pilgrims gathered in Jerusalem to observe the Passover. And Jesus declares that he is the true vine (John 15), and goes on to describe the experience of the life of his disciples:

they are the branches that grow out from the vine, bearing fruit;

once the fruit is harvested, the branches are pruned back: those branches that have not borne fruit are cut off and thrown in the fire; while those that have borne fruit are pruned right back to the vinestock;

the vinestock (as all trunks do) grows thicker year-on-year, surrounding the pruned-back branches, from which they will grow out again, themselves stronger, able to bear more fruit than the year before.

There is a rhythm: of remaining, or abiding, in the vine; growth; fruit; and pruning. And we should expect just such a rhythm in our lives; learn to recognise the points where abiding turns to growth, growth to bearing fruit, fruitfulness to pruning; and to go with the gardener, rather than resist him.

So, as we spend time with Jesus, in the hidden place where no-one sees, in time we will become aware that our faith for producing a particular fruit in our life – patience, perhaps, or exercising the gift of healing – is growing. And then we will experience a season of fruitfulness – we demonstrate a patience that we had not known before; we pray for those in need of healing, and see healing more often than in the past. And then, just as we are enjoying this new experience, something happens: we stop bearing fruit; we might even notice that the fruit we were bearing, we are no longer bearing – we seem to be more impatient again; we pray, and don’t see healing, again. If we don’t know to expect this – if we don’t see it as a gentle invitation to abiding again (the idea of retreat in order to go forward) – then we will worry that something has gone wrong: that God has let us down, or that we have let him down and he has abandoned us, for now at least. In fact, it is un-pruned branches that grow too thin to support the weight of fruit, too long for goodness to travel from the vine. The life that does not embrace this rhythm will see a law of diminishing returns, bearing increasingly less and increasingly bitter fruit. On the other hand, the life that embraces this rhythm will bear much fruit, in season.

The Circle : Choosing To Learn From Life

‘Lifeshapes’ are a series of tools for discipleship – for helping us to follow Jesus, and to help others to follow Jesus. Recognising that we live in an iconic culture, where brand logos both carry and unlock significant volumes of experience for us – try it: how much information and experience does the Disney logo, or the Apple logo, or the M&S logo recall to your mind? Choose a logo and write a list – they make use of simple iconic shapes to carry and unlock biblical teaching to live by, with a focus on the life and ministry of Jesus. The beauty of iconic symbols is this: that, just as with every new Disney (etc.) release, the reservoir of knowledge their logo carries and unlocks expands; so with every new thing we learn about living as disciples, the reservoir of knowledge the Lifeshapes carries and unlocks for us also expands.

Jesus’ entire ministry is introduced and summarised by the declaration: the time has come: the kingdom of God is at hand: repent and believe. (Mark 1:15)

That is: here is a [kairos] moment, an opportunity, where something of heaven is available to break-in to your day-to-day experience on earth; and the way in which we enter into that experience is through taking-on a change of worldview [repent], and then living-out that new way of being in the world [believe].

That moment can be anything that interrupts or disrupts the flow of our life, big or small, positive or negative; often a change in our circumstances, or our resources in the face of our circumstances. The bus is late, and you find yourself getting agitated; someone you love is diagnosed with cancer, and you feel helpless and scared; your child is born/starts school/leaves home, and your life changes, again; you lose your job – or are promoted at work; celebrate a significant anniversary, or face divorce; are shown a small kindness or a pettiness by a stranger; a friend speaks a word of encouragement, and tears spring from your eyes out of no-where...these are all kairos moments.

Repentance breaks-down into observation, reflection and discussion:

God draws our attention to observe something in the moment, something that may seem trivial or incidental at first (when his disciples are worrying about how they will provide themselves and their dependents with food and clothing, having given up their means of income to follow Jesus, he draws their attention to the birds of the air and the flowers of the field, Matthew 6:25-34); and speaks to us as we reflect on what we have now seen afresh, and as we discuss what we have seen with others: discipleship is not a private, internal matter, but is intended to take place with others: for God uses others to shape us, just as he uses us to shape others.

Likewise, believing is a practical activity that breaks-down into three parts – plan, account, act:

With those we have processed our repentance with, we make a plan for how we are now going to live differently (e.g. rather than worry about lack of resources, we will bring our needs to our heavenly Father, trusting him to provide what we need); and, crucially, we give our friends permission to hold us accountable to the decision we have taken, the plan we have made. With a plan and accountability in place, belief is now acted-out in how we live differently from before as we move on from the kairos moment.

Repentance is about discovering who God is and what he is like, and the implications for us as those who receive his love, his forgiveness, his mercy, his joy, his strength, his peace, his provision, his healing, his guidance, his deliverance...It is about hearing God’s voice day-by-day: and may involve recognition of our unbelief in a given matter (we call this confession); or may simply involve discerning that God is calling us into a new venture (we call this being led by God’s Spirit). Believing is about learning to live in the light of what we have discovered. It is about walking with God day-by-day. The two go hand-in-hand: repentance in one area of our life leads to a belief that brings us to another moment, another opportunity for repentance...and in this way, rather than life being something that happens to us, our life becomes a place where heaven continuously breaks-in to earth: where foretastes of, and signposts to, the future change the now, drawing it closer to the not-yet.

Why Church : Fivefold Reasons

[This post is dedicated to Doug Paul as a birthday present, to complement his interest in how apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers plant Christian community in different ways.]


Why would you go to church? If the answer is, Because I like to sing along to Christian karaoke, look around: you might notice that most of your neighbours aren’t there with you...

Why would you get involved in the life of a church? Can I be so bold as to suggest a level of self-interest – and to mean that in a positive way, and not as a criticism?


Allow me to summarise Ephesians 4 in this way:

Jesus is the Great Apostle (‘sent-out’ one) of our faith; the Prophet greater than Moses; the Evangelist par excellence, who not only carries the Good News but literally embodies it; the Good Shepherd; and the Teacher who teaches with unmatched authority.

Jesus has created each and every one of us to reflect an aspect of his nature (the ‘grace’ given to all): as an apostle, prophet, evangelist, pastor or teacher. In distributing these gifts, he ‘apportions’ the grace as he chooses – some get a greater share than others to invest; what matters is what you do with it.

When we come into a saving relationship with Jesus, we offer ourselves – whether apostle, prophet, evangelist, pastor or teacher – to him in tribute; and he in turn gives us to the church, as spoils of war in the clash between the princedom of the fallen angel of light and the kingdom of heaven.

In this context – redeemed, and taking-up our function in the building-up of the body of Christ, the church – our identity as apostle, prophet, evangelist, pastor or teacher finds a fulfilment that it cannot find until we have been redeemed and so deployed. To put it another way, the colony of the kingdom of heaven on earth needs us; but so too, we need the colony. And it is not limited to ‘what we do when we gather in a worship service’ but is, rather, concerned with equipping us to live out the kingdom in this world, in our families, our places of work, our places of leisure...

We are created to display a facet of Christ; created with the need to find our fulfilment in him; created to display, with others who have been made to reflect other facets of Christ, a fuller picture of Jesus to the world (that is why the church, rather than the individual believer, is described as the body of Christ).


And so an apostle, a prophet, an evangelist, a pastor and a teacher would each have a different answer, at the deepest internal level, to the question, Why church?

And where most of those reasons are not met, not allowed expression, when the church comes together, why would (m)any of them want to be there?

On the other hand, where those reasons found authentic expression, a pre-Christian – or a baby Christian, or a mature Christian, for that matter – might just be interested...


Why would an apostle come to church?
Because an apostle wants to make a massive impact on the world, and the church is intended to be the place above all other places where people can be led in teams that bring transformation to communities, business, society...


Why would a prophet come to church?
Because a prophet dreams of a better world, and the church is intended to be the place above all other places where dreams of a better world are conceived, carried to the point of birth, nurtured to the stage of maturity...


Why would an evangelist come to church?
Because an evangelist loves to tell good news stories, and the church is intended to be the place above all other places where good news stories are celebrated and passed-on by word-of-mouth throughout the wider community...


Why would a pastor come to church?
Because a pastor is looking for opportunity to care for others, and the church is intended to be the place above all other places where the broken and hurting, the discarded, are shown compassion and have their inherent dignity as the crown of creation recognised...


Why would a teacher come to church?
Because a teacher searches for both understanding and the wonder that lies beyond our understanding, and the church is intended to be the place above all other places where understanding and wonder are equally cherished...


Church is the place where we learn how to relate to one another, how to work together, complementing each other. So, why is that so hard? At the deepest level, God chooses to use us to bring one another to maturity. Some of the battles we need one another to help us win include:

Apostles have a tendency (note that tendencies can be resisted: they are not inevitabilities) to leave behind a trail of collateral-damage, a high friendly-fire count...

Prophets have a tendency to withdraw from others. They can be seen as extreme, causing others to withdraw from them; and they can withdraw themselves, as a defence-mechanism, emerging to deliver the word God has placed on their heart and then withdrawing again. They are tempted to feel isolated. I am a prophet: I withdraw to my prophet’s cave (or study): I pull away from others at the gathered point: bear with me: but don’t let me get away with it...

Evangelists have a tendency to struggle to connect with those who do not share their view that a particular message is good news – an irony, given that the Good News is in fact so many good news stories...

Pastors have a tendency to create dependency, or to allow dependency on them to be fostered...

Teachers have a tendency to see themselves as stockbrokers of truth, controlling its value and reaping the benefit; rather than as investors of truth, handing a deposit over to another in the hope that it will grow beyond their own investment...


If there was a community of people committed to love one another in the face of these tendencies, and to allowing themselves to shape and be shaped by one another, to maturity...that would be...