Love and Universalism

There’s a lot of stuff about Christian universalism around at the moment.  I guess some people have a real problem with it.  I would probably be accused of being a universalist by some, but I think I’d want to define what I mean by universalism a bit.  I think Jesus is the way,  the truth and the  life – but I think what Jesus did at the cross was much much bigger than traditional evangelical Christianity would have us believe.  I think the traditional view that everyone is doomed to hell and only by repenting from sin, saying a prayer and behaving like a ‘proper christian’ for the rest of their life can they escape God’s wrath is a deeply flawed view of the gospel.

God’s love is absolutely universal.  Most Christians wouldn’t disagree with that, after all Jesus himself said “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.” – John 3:16 (NIV).  God loves the world – not just a teeny bunch called ‘the elect’ or ‘the chosen’ or even ‘the Jews’, he loves the whole lot.  No-one is beyond redemption through God’s great grace demonstrated in Jesus – no matter what they’ve done.

God is a massively creative, supremely intelligent, overwhelmingly compassionate father; would he be satisfied with rescuing 30% of the sum total of the world’s population from eternal separation from him? (I’m not even getting into the existence or otherwise of hell in the classic Catholic sense – see my friend, Dyfed’s, blog for that).  The story of the prodigal son is the example of the father heart of God.  No punishment for sin there, just a welcome embrace and full restoration into the family.  No I think God’s plan for rescue is rather larger than 30%.  Can you see God accepting that the enemy gets 70% of all mankind?  (I’m totally guessing with the figures here but do you have any hard evidence that the total population of the world for all time is more than 30% born-again Christian – I bet it’s a lot less than that!)

Jesus comes and does away with the problem of sin.  He co-crucifies the entire creation in his own sacrifice on the cross, there are many verses in the New Testament about this but here’s the kicker for me “For the love of Christ controls and urges and impels us, because we are of the opinion and conviction that [if] One died for all, then all died” – 2 Cor 5:14 (AMP)

There’s also “at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.” Phil 2:10-11 (NIV). If we include the character of Jesus into that statement we know that this won’t be a heavy hand crushing people to their knees and forcing a confession through gritted teeth – this will be a glad honest response to the glory of the risen saviour.

So am I saying everyone gets to spend eternity with God?  Not quite.  However I think the percentage that do is going to be more like 99.9999999999999999999% - I think there are some people who even if they could see God in all his glory and see the love in Jesus’ eyes, would still want to reject him.

Why bother to evangelise then?  Well perhaps we shouldn’t ‘evangelise’ – perhaps we should do what Jesus did. Love people.  Heal people.  Accept people.  Preach the kingdom.  Care for people’s ‘here and now’.  The fact that God doesn’t simply beam you up to heaven as soon as you believe is an indication to me that God completely cares about our ‘here and now’ life.  God created a world because he wanted a world, filled with people in union with Him. Planet Earth isn’t a maze in a laboratory and we’re not the rats.  This life is NOT a test where the good rats are those that go down the ‘Christian path’ and get to go home to the scientist’s home (Heaven) as pets and the bad rats that don’t find the route through the maze get a lethal injection in the back of the neck and are thrown into the incinerator!  God created us for relationship!  Those of us in relationship with our creator, our big brother Jesus and our Father and the wonderful Holy Spirit have the job of introducing people to him, by word and by lifestyle and primarily by demonstration of the love that motivated Him in the first place.

So if you believe in a hell and judgement version of Christianity I hope you’re preaching the Good News, the Gospel of Grace, not because of fear of eternal punishment but because of love for people and because God wants relationship with them now not just after they’ve died.

If you believe Jesus fixed the whole of humanity at the cross and we’re all in – then I hope you’re not ignoring the Great Commission because you think everyone’s eternal destination is assured but that you’re preaching the Good News, the Gospel of Grace, because of love for people and because God wants relationship with them now not just after they’ve died.

What happens when an unbeliever dies and if/how they get a chance to accept Jesus post-mortem I honestly don’t know; but what I do know with absolute certainty is that God is great and just and right and whatever he decides to do is going to be GOOD – it’s his nature.   

So the key really is: How do we treat the person in front of us?  I want to do what I see my Father doing, I want my friends and family and total strangers to be in the loving relationship with my Father that I have through Jesus and that means I love them.  Unconditionally.  Unreservedly.  Whether they reciprocate it or not.

Sexism in the church, I've just had enough!

I’m not sure when I first noticed the sexism in the church, perhaps being brought up a Catholic you’d think it was obvious that something was amiss in the equality for women stakes. I think it was my teenage years where I started to question how a priest could teach on a Sunday about marriage or childcare when he wasn’t married and didn’t look after any kids.

Entering the charismatic movement and hearing women introduced on the platform as someone’s wife, no name, just Pastor/Prophet So and So and his wife, caused me some consternation and a dislike for platforms. The ‘women’s ministry’ related to children, family and other women. Responsibilities in the church; run the crèche, organise Sunday school or be an intercessor and certainly no female leaders as it is unscriptural for a woman to teach men. Women were expected to take the babies out of the meetings if they were noisy because the men had to stay in to hear the word of the Lord! Being told I couldn’t do youth work unless Phil wanted to do it too, really was the nail in the coffin for being around Christians for a while.

In the last fifteen years I've been a part of Pioneer Wirral church/community and they/we have endeavoured to ensure that sexism in any form is avoided. So the rest of the blog has come from church life in general rather than specifically one church.

Archetypal roles for women are still expected in some churches, there is still an expectation to stay home and raise the kids, any career aspirations are suspicious and only really permitted until the kids come along and then only really acceptable if you could establish that it was God’s call on your life and if it is in an area of employment where you will be caring for others or maybe teaching toddlers all the better. Women who aren’t married by 25 should be missionaries abroad as nobody knows how to relate to them so pack them off and once you’ve been married for two years you should be pregnant by now.

Paul, our eldest son, went to a Christian school for a while with Accelerated Christian Education as it’s syllabus and when the colouring in at four years old included questions like, what does mummy do? Right answer- bakes the cookies and cleans the house, and what does daddy do? Right answer – carry a briefcase and a tool box we knew there were problems ahead and when his teacher started to wear a head scarf, we left. That was in the early 1990’s not the 1950’s! We are sure that twenty years later things have moved on in that particular school.

About twenty years ago I did an assertiveness training course with some friends, teaching us the difference between passive, aggressive and assertive responses to situations. I have found in the ‘church‘ context that aggressive women are definitely unacceptable, assertive women make others nervous whereas passive women are considered Godly. What is that about!!!!

Now I don’t believe I’m the only woman who has experienced more sexism in the church than in any context outside of the church structure. It’s as if the world woke up to women’s equality and the church decided to ignore it. We can blame Eve and pull out a couple of scriptures from the New Testament and oppress women believing we are being biblical, however Jesus seemed to treat women differently and certainly his annihilation of the curse on the cross speaks of a return to equality for the genders as referred to in Genesis. If you’re struggling with Eve being Adam’s helper and therefore equal I suggest you go and read it in the Hebrew or if you cannot accept that perhaps the scripture that says we are created in God’s likeness, male and female, not male and male. Paul’s teachings are thrown about depending on who’s reading them and depending on whether you want to read some of his writings about women in the context of the culture or the church issues he was writing to or even from his own understanding, (shock horror), or consider them fully applicable to today’s culture and context.

I’ve heard teaching on the existence of a hierarchy in heaven; God is at the top, then Jesus and then the Holy Spirit and therefore a hierarchy on earth is the ‘right way’ to do things too and therefore women are subject to men. It is interesting to note the hierarchy theology came into the church around the time that the clergy laity split was established. More recent thinking might ‘just’ put women who are married under the headship of their husband, subject to him and no other man and I’m not too worried about this scripture as long as the husband is laying his life down for his wife, loving her as Christ loves the church. I don’t accept this scripture as meaning that the husband is meant to control his wife, to ensure she is well behaved or to ‘wear the trousers’. I believe it means that he is to cover her with his life, that he is to protect her, watch over her and care for her. It doesn’t mean he’s the one with the intelligence and therefore the decision maker, any good marriage will share decisions and work in the best interests of each other. Christian marriages should reflect the equality of the one-ness that it represents.

Here’s a few of the phrases that have an undercurrent of sexism and should be avoided – I think!

1. ‘The time is coming for us to release the women/it’s time for them to rise up and take their place….’ – I think you’ll find we were released by Jesus, the curse is over, women hankering after men, men ruling over women, the curse is, once and for all over! We don’t need to be released by men we need to not be oppressed, patronised and generally considered the weaker sex. If you want to have a women’s conference to release women then consider having a men’s conference instead and teach the men who women are in the light of the completed work of Jesus.

2. ‘So you’re a feminist I won’t hold the door open for you or carry your bags’ – er no, you can still do all that, it’s just manners! I would hold the door open for you and help you carry your bags, unless they are too heavy. I don’t mind being called a feminist when the person calling me one understands what feminism is. Here’s a definition of feminism; the theory of the political, economic, and social equality of the sexes. Unfortunately the times I have been called a feminist in a church setting there has been a sense that feminist means a person who is ‘worldly’ who should therefore be ignored and considered a troublemaker, certainly not listened to, she can’t be right as that would mean acknowledging that inequality is a bad thing!

3. The ‘Ladies meetings’ instead of women’s meetings. Words change in their meaning over time and since the gender revolution the word “ladies,” contains an inference of inferiority or condescension when used in certain contexts. In England, the main use of “ladies” and “gentlemen” is for public loos and to address groups “Good evening, ladies and gentlemen” unless you are in a church structure and then pretty much everything is referred to with ‘men’ and ‘ladies’. The word ‘ladies’ originally referred to aristocratic women and the word ‘women’ refers to the opposite of men. This is the main difference between the two words. One has the inference of status, manners and appearance whereas the other is just the opposite of men. In church structures using the word ‘ladies’ has been used to keep women in line, been told to ‘act like a lady’, has meant that your freedom is restricted because you're not allowed to act in all sorts of ways that men are allowed to act, such as having an opinion on something other than family matters, being able to hear from God for ourselves and be able to teach someone older than 16! Women are not blushing maidens, pristinely presented at all times and who faint at the slightest cross word. ‘Ladies’ has a connotation of weakness and therefore shouldn’t be used in a context where women are to be considered equally with men. Ladies are supposed to have reserved standards of behaviour that highlight their femininity. Ladies cross their legs, don't swear, burp or fart, are modest and always buttoned-up. Ladies don't play in the mud, get their dresses dirty or climb trees. You were considered a tomboy if you did these things rather than a girl who liked to wear jeans, be loud and get muddy. I understand why some women are happy, very happy to be called a lady, it gives that whole picture of well mannered, well groomed, well brought up which is great unless that is all you are and if in some contexts that is all you are considered to be that is inequality! To be referred to as a woman in the context of church meetings, in matters of theology, lateral and logical thinking, driving even, acknowledges that they are more than ladies, they are equal with men. I think 'ladies' has an implication of being essentially decorative, rather than essentially effective and I don’t think I’m alone in that.

There’s the sense that good Christian women should all the look the same; styled hair, modest but existent makeup, big shoulder pads, pearls or scarves and Laura Ashley dresses, flat shoes and no curves. They shouldn’t be too feminine in their outward appearance, single women in particular should pretty much cover up head to toe and ensure no curves are visible or she might just have a Jezebel Spirit and tempt all the husbands away!!! Such a shame God gave her those curves!

Words matter, and our language choices have consequences. If we believe that women and men deserve social and indeed spiritual equality, then we should think seriously about how to reflect that belief in our language use, especially in our humour!

So a couple of folk have rattled my cage on the sexism front again this last few weeks and whilst I’ve moved on from shouting ‘women’ when someone announces a ‘ladies’ meeting and have become a bit more understanding, I think it’s time to move from assertive response to sexism to aggressive intolerance. If we cannot have equality in the church; our daughters will grow up thinking they are less than they are, unbelieving women will look into our churches and wonder what century we are living in and maybe the most destructive effect of sexism in the church is that women will not be heard and my gosh that is tragic!

Church, Jesus and stuff.

Sorry folks - This blog entry is now gone!

It will, however, reappear as a chapter in Mags' book when the time comes.

Twinned with the Trinity

It is a myth that the Trinity is difficult to understand and should be left to the theologians. The arrival of Jesus as a human was the moment when the Trinity became accessible to us all. Through belief in Jesus we are told in the bible that we have full access into the Throne room, the veil has been torn. So it does not therefore add up that we cannot discover the truth about the Trinity, it also says in Colossians that we have Christ dwelling within us, in Ephesians that the Holy Spirit is given as a deposit and in John, Jesus prays that we will have full unity with the father as he has unity with him. Colossians goes on to say that all the fullness of the deity is in Christ and we too have been given the fullness. So looking at scripture our access to the Trinity can be externally, as in walking through the veil, and internally on the basis that it is within us which leads me to conclude that understanding the Trinity is not just for the professionals but for all of us.

My reading of scripture suggests that God likes the idea of us being with him, wants us to discover more about him and the same can be said for Jesus and the Holy Spirit. If we believe only the one scripture, ‘Gods ways are higher than our ways’ regarding understanding God and then settle for only the one verse and use it for justifying why we can’t understand the Trinity, how do we then align scriptures such as; ‘we have the mind of Christ’, ‘fully reconciled to God’, ‘co-heirs with Christ’ and ‘you have been given fullness in Christ’?

There is a discovery to be made, an adventure to go on where the secrets of God are revealed to his children – that is you and me. God is relational; he lives in relationship with Jesus and the Holy Spirit and thanks to all that Jesus accomplished on the cross also with us. He is not a distant deity floating on a cloud somewhere playing chess with humanity completely out of reach and unfathomable. 1 Corinthians 2:11-16 sets out some good words to inspire us that understanding God is possible through his Spirit. No training necessary, no good report card necessary, a free gift of God’s own Spirit.

I am not saying that we will fully understand everything about God, that would make us God, but I think we have been put off learning about the Trinity on the basis that it’s just too hard for us mere mortals. One more lie from the enemy that we perpetuate through certain beliefs; some people have a better relationship with God than us, some people are more gifted to understand God than us, some people are more favoured by God, some people find it easier to understand deep theological mysteries like the Trinity, and so we miss out on the treasures available to us. The stories in the bible show person after person understanding so much without any teaching, without a mentor, or a leader/priest, even a bible! John the Baptist would have been an interesting character in Sunday school! We too can understand the Trinity, how they work together, what that kind of relationship looks like and where/how/ do we fit into their relationship.

Somewhere we lost the ability to learn about God for ourselves, to hear from God directly. Our need to send somebody else wasn’t left in the desert with Moses and the Israelites. In any other of our relationships we do not accept third hand information, imagine being married and only talking to your partner through a third party. That only tends to happen with the relationship is either brand new – ‘my mate says will you go out with him’ or when it has totally broken down ‘tell the applicant that the respondent in the divorce wants the house’. It is nonsense and yet this can be our relationship with the Trinity. People become dependent on their leaders to access God for them, read a million books about God, watch God TV to hear what others have discovered, ask the prophetic/ministry team to find out what God thinks about them, spend hours in mental distress because they believe hearing from God is so difficult and there is a need for accuracy. So in amongst our desire to send someone else we have traded our relationship and live a third party one instead. We think the bible is too difficult for us to understand and yet we have its author living inside us. We think we are so distant from God that he can’t hear us. We think we are ‘in sin’ and therefore cannot now here from God as opposed to the truth that we are ‘in Christ’ and therefore can hear directly from God anything that we want an answer to. We make comments like – ‘oh when I get to heaven I’ve got so many questions for God when I get there’, according to scripture you are seated in heavenly places, why not ask now?

The time is gone for the special man with the special ministry with the next best impartation, the cat is out of the bag or the revelation of Christ in you is being declared. The full gospel is once again being preached, the gospel that tells the whole truth and nothing but the truth about what Jesus did at the cross. The truth that on the cross Jesus dealt the death blow to our sinful nature and brought full reconciliation to God. The good news of the gospel of Jesus Christ is that you are now included in Him, you are in Christ and therefore you have full access to the full Trinity. Now you have been co-crucified your sinful nature has died and you are no longer subject to sin and cannot therefore become distant from God because of sin. You do not bungee jump in and out of your relationship with God and he does not find you favourable one day and difficult the next. He is not hiding from you hoping that you one day you will find him, if you pray really hard/loud/consistently/earnestly and search 24/7 for him, showing him enough passion and ensuring you don’t do anything that is naughty otherwise he will have to go and hide again. How can he hide when he is inside you? He does not fully reveal everything about himself to us in one go as we would explode but this is not to be confused with hiding from us. He does not live in a desert or send us into one because Jesus already went into the desert for us. He does not give us the silent treatment to make us love him or search for him more, he does not punish us or withhold anything from us. The full outrageous gospel is that we have been given everything, have access to everything and have been restored into a full relationship with all of the Trinity.

The truth of the gospel is that we have now been twinned with Jesus, he is our twin-brother, he is our identity, and everything we are is dependent on everything he is. We have been co-everything with Christ. Co-crucified, co-resurrected and co-heirs. Our relationship with God is fully dependant on Jesus’ relationship with God, co-linked, integrated into, he is in us and we are in him. We totally belong to him, he has purchased us, paid full price for us and adopted us into the family. The Spirit of adoption confirms it and we only need to believe it.

Even here we have been hoodwinked that some have more belief than others, more faith to believe than others and yet even our faith is a gift given to us by God. Faith is not spelt R.I.S.K., it is spelt G.I.F.T.! All we are required to do is say ‘Yes’ to what Jesus has already done for us. Our agreement is all that is needed. He gives us the faith to believe in Jesus, he gives us the Holy Spirit to reveal Jesus to us and to remind us of all truth and he has done everything necessary for us to be fully reconciled to him.

The gospel has the power to set us free, and not just from our sinful nature, it will also set us free to believe that we are completely in Christ and live in the midst of the Trinity.

Responsibility

It’s funny how when you hear a phrase or are having a conversation and something just doesn’t seem right but at the time you can’t really explain what and why. I can find myself continuing the conversation, listening to the other person and agreeing with them but knowing that somewhere in my head I just don’t agree but can’t seem to collect the thoughts together enough in that moment to be able to express it. The other person is making good points, agreeable points, nothing wrong with points, but still I retain a feeling that I don’t agree, there’s something niggling me that means I am unsure of my agreement. The conversation ends and the other person walks away thinking I agree with them, probably because I just have, and I wander off to ponder why I just don’t like the phrase or the agreement seemingly reached.

So this blog comes from a conversation about church and this particular phrase; ‘you can’t just walk away from your responsibilities’– which I agreed with at the time but now I’m not so sure. I think whether you can or not depends on whether those responsibilities are rightly placed or based on a questionable structure in the first place. It has me thinking about what are these ‘responsibilities’ where do they come from and can you walk away from them with a clear conscience. I think some of the answers to that question lie in our understanding of what is a church and what is a community and where does being ‘responsible’ for the structure and its members come from and is it forever. Living in relationship with other people creates a sense of responsibility. Society has a collection of rules, which apply to everyone, dictating how to behave in the best interests of other members of the society. When people become linked by more than society i.e. work or club membership, the rules for behaviour intensify. These rules are usually well known, recognised, mostly agreeable and depending on how much you want to be in the specific group of people you will abide by the rules. Maybe this is where our thoughts on ‘belonging before you believe’ come from, because of people’s need to be part of a community we changed the rules of ‘church membership’ to be able to incorporate into the church community people with no belief in Jesus. We include people and whilst there is no consensus on belief there is a sense of responsibility for their welfare and their journey into belief.

The rules and responsibilities between friends and partners can be more intense, rules/obligations relating to honouring, caring, respecting, being the shoulder to cry on, being the person who will get out of bed in the night for you. It is perhaps true to say the closer the relationships, the more responsibilities there are to each other. There are some relationships that you cannot walk away from, there is a depth of love that means you don’t want to stop being responsible for each other. A parent never wants to stop being responsible for their child, the sense of being needed for something, having an input in their lives, doing what is possible to ensure their well-being. Sometimes such depth exists between friends, where regardless of distance or time there is a tie that looks covenantal.

Here’s a dictionary definition of community: - a social group of any size whose members reside in a specific locality, share government, and often have a common cultural and historical heritage / a social, religious, occupational, or other group sharing common characteristics or interests and perceived or perceiving itself as distinct in some respect from the larger society within which it exists. A couple of points from that definition; shared government is an interesting concept and has the implications of government of others, a sense of leadership and submissiveness, agreement and consensus to rules. When moved across to understanding church community we can see that there is governance in church structures. Based on our interpretation of biblical principles, our culture, and depending on the style of church, the government is either very clearly established, easy to identify and traditional or has the appearance of being more vague but in reality it is still strongly established. The leaders make the decisions based on their interpretation of the scripture and sometimes, but not always, with the mandate of the congregation. There perhaps lies one of the reasons for a clergy laity split, somebody has to be responsible for the governance of the church and our interpretation has led us down the path that the governance is specific men/women who have either applied for the job, been to seminary or have been seen to carry the qualities of leadership. As a leader in a church how can you walk away from this governance responsibility? I would suggest that it is possible if you also walk away from the style of church that requires a style of governance that dictates the beliefs of the group and governs from a place of platform/pedestal. Jesus’ leadership comes from a place of submission to God, servant-hood and certainty of his identity and his church leaders should come from that place also. I don’t think it is a church leader’s responsibility to lead like a king, to sit on a pedestal and dictate what God is saying to the congregation today. I believe we have one king and all believers are his priesthood. Church structures might need people who will be administrators of the finances and the schedule but not leaders in the place of Jesus. I don’t believe this is one-sided; congregations love their kings (aka strong leadership) and being consumers, (only contribute when asked specifically and usually by manipulation). It is much easier to be told what the bible means or what God is saying and much easier to lead when you do it all yourself and stop trying to equip people! What would happen if all the leaders in all the church decided they were stepping down, (an interesting phrase) and instead left the meeting open to everyone to bring what God is saying to them, perhaps a song, a good news story, a prayer, a prophecy, a teaching session, a need, would it still be church? What if only one person brought a talk to encourage others in their journey, would that still be church? What if all you did was drink tea and share lives, would that still be church? In these scenarios I don’t see the need for governance, administration and organisation perhaps but not the governance in the sense of one person/s over the others. There should be only one person over our heads and his name is Jesus.

Back to the definition, ‘distinct from the larger society’ and I think this one is a whopper for our social engagement and our understanding of responsibility - ‘in the world but not of it’.

The word 'church' in the New Testament is translated from the Greek word 'ekklesia' which comes from two words 'ek' meaning 'out' and 'kaleo' meaning to 'call.' An ekklesia or 'calling out' was not just an assembly. The word ekklesia was a political term, not a religious term. The New Testament writers could have chosen other words for church that would represent a group gathering together but they chose a political term, one that had the added element of coming out of the established system. Something about this gathering of people that was to be distinct from other gatherings.

Today our churches are set apart from the local communities and this has led to a massive call to re-engage, to re-emerge, to be seeker-friendly, make our meetings much more attractive and accessible to the unbelievers. Let’s give away prizes and make everything excellent and this will encourage people into church, once they realise we are ‘fun’ they will want to join. This is great for church numbers, it may work to get people through the doors to hear the gospel from the pulpit, it may help people belong to a community and help people once ‘in’ to journey into belief. Another shape of emerging church is to engage with the community outside of ‘church’ hours and move away from the central focus of the church meeting. We’ve done teaching relating to being Christ where you engage with community, in your sphere of influence, being outward, and kingdom focused rather than trying to attract folk into the church meeting.

Perhaps this leads to the ‘called-out’ local community being torn between their desire or vision to be good news to the community in which it resides and the distinctive nature of being a church, the called out community. The phrase ‘in it to win it’ would suggest that we stop being ‘called-out’ because we want to be seen to be the same, not too different, not too weird, to fully engage with our communities on their level. (Not to be confused with 'in it to win it' on a personal level where that is the calling for most christians on a daily basis). The shift in emphasis means there is a shift in perceived, but not necessarily agreed, responsibilities. The rules start to change, the responsibilities widen from those in the church to the whole community outside the walls. Tension arises on the basis that people are no longer fulfilling their responsibilities to the church structure. The cry of ‘what about my needs’ ‘who will be looking after me now’ starts to filter to the surface. It is now more than just sending out the evangelists on raiding parties now the rules have changed and we are all evangelists, all carrying the message of good news. It is part of who we are – go and make disciples, preach the good news, heal the sick and raise the dead. How can we walk away from this responsibility? The church is the bride of Christ, it declares the manifest wisdom of God, it is Christ’s body, and once we believe that, it will affect how we respond to our responsibilities to the church and the community. Perhaps we have misunderstood the meaning of the word ekklesia, it was not to be a closing of the doors and cultural separation, a fear of being contaminated by the world outside and perhaps not even a blending in to the community so we can’t be seen. Perhaps instead it is to be a distinct group of people who know Jesus to be their saviour, called out from darkness into the light and nothing to do with structures and meetings and everything to do with our relationship with Jesus and humanity..

So back to the reason for the blog - ‘responsibilities’, which ones can you walk away from? Certainly those that we were never meant to carry in the first place and one of the biggest in the church structure is the responsibility for other people’s relationship with God. We have confused leadership/discipleship roles with that of becoming somebody else’s priest. If I step into the role of being responsible for a person’s relationship with God I am becoming their mediator and that job is already taken. I can teach, I can disciple but the ultimate responsibility is the individuals and I do them a massive disservice if I don’t teach them to access God personally, to learn from God independently from the church and its leadership, to have a dependency on Jesus not on the leader of the church. This is a responsibility we should all be walking nay running away from!

There is the responsibility to each other that goes beyond the structure and here I think is the core responsibilities that you cannot walk away from. We are in relationship with the people in our churches and it is here that if people become responsibilities rather than relationships we’ve lost the plot. Our responsibilities flow from our relationships and this flows from our relationship with Jesus. As soon as we forget our relationship with Jesus then we forget our identity and we forget to see people. We forget that Jesus works from a place of restful relationship with his father and we too can work in complete restfulness where people are a pleasure and a privilege to be around.

The Science dictionary states a community as: - A group of organisms or populations living and interacting with one another in a particular environment. The organisms in a community affect each other's abundance, distribution, and evolutionary adaptation.

A good definition of the church perhaps; the living organism that is more than its meetings and structures, the living entity that affects people’s abundance. The place where we are responsible to each other for well-being, goodness and love. A community where the structures and the meetings are secondary to the relationships and where the responsibilities are based on loving relationships rather than historic or governmental rule keeping.

Broken Britain?

Just a short rant today!


I'm heartily sick of this 'Broken Britain' nonsense!  Britain isn't broken, it may be mildly sprained at worst but it sure ain't broken!  Why is this?  Because we don't live in Zimbabwe, Afghanistan, Iraq, Somalia or any one of the many other countries or regions around the world whose society can truly be called 'broken'.


No-one is likely, on a daily basis, to blow up your car with a land-mine or grenade on your way to work, or lie on a roof top with a sniper rifle shooting at innocent passers-by.
Our government is largely honest, even if we disagree with its policies.
Our police are overwhelmingly trustworthy and honest.
Our courts are overwhelmingly honest and you're unlikely to be sent to jail for something you didn't do, nor will you be executed by the state no matter what you did.
Our schools, by and large, teach our children well and care for them.
Our hospitals are staffed by well trained & professional doctors and nurses.
Our banks and financial institutions are mostly stable and reliable, even the ones that wobbled were propped up and not allowed to fail.
We have freedom to follow any faith, even the ones that appear as mad as a bucket of frogs.
We have food, water, shelter, heat, light and entertainment all readily available.


There may be some problems with Britain but STOP calling it 'broken', call it Great again.


The church, in particular, needs to start prophesying blessing to our land when it speaks about it instead of constantly cursing it with the label 'broken'.  The Gospel is good news to our land, not a wailing lament, a critical judgement or a pity-party for those who like to sit around slagging everything off or moaning about how everything used to be better in some rose-tinted 'golden age'.  The golden age is now.  God is good, the Gospel is true, the kingdom is at hand.


I live in 'Blessed Britain' you can too.

I quit!

I read an article today on the BBC website called ‘I Quit!’ It talked about the recent, numerous high-profile resignations and the different reasons and methods people use to resign. The strapline read ‘Some hang on until the bitter end and some leave under a cloud but is there a way to go with grace?’ What a fantastic question; is there a way to go with grace?

The article pointed out that resignations have sometimes been used as a kind of protest that people will resign from their position when they feel they can no longer tolerate or be associated with the policy of those employing them. Our conscience will at times, despite the consequences of our actions, inform us that resignation is the only way to do what is right, to do the right thing. Clearly one person’s definition of right and another’s can differ which leads to calls for resignation where there is the appearance of wrong doing. The article points out ‘When some resign they leave with their heads hung in shame, for others it's a moment of defiance, and there are those who acknowledge that they have done wrong and leave quietly.’

It was the phrase ‘I quit’ that sparked a few thoughts about quitting; it reminded me of the Brother Lawrence quote – ‘I have quitted all forms of devotion and set prayers but those to which my state obliges me.’ which has been a marker phrase in our house for a few months. It is the call to avoid going through the motions, going to the meetings because we should, it has been a call to resist the status quo, to stop doing things that we have just always done and taken time to think about what we actually believe. To stop doing those things that perpetuate myths and fallacies. Our intent is to focus our attention on practising the presence and believing more what Jesus has already done for us rather than inattentively meandering along a well-worn path. To consider prayer a continuation of our relationship with God, to simply turn our gaze towards his face and continue the on-going conversation rather than enacting something that suggests there is a separation between us and God or a separation between the sacred times and the secular times.

I have quitted using phrases that make no sense in the light of the finished work of the cross, such as; praying for an open heaven, when Jesus opened heaven and left it open for humanity to enter; praying for an outpouring of the Holy Spirit when he has already been poured out on all flesh; referring to the land as dry or a place as hard as we carry the springs of living water and all of the earth is the Lords. I have quitted living under the old covenant terminology when I have been rescued by the new covenant. I have quitted looking to others for impartations and anointing when God tells me I have the fullness of the deity within me and have been fully anointed. I have quitted thinking that I have to pray the right prayers in the right order at the right time in order to be heard. I have tried to quit pointless squabbles about doctrine as nobody has the whole truth and trying to change somebody else’s beliefs is not my job.

Is there a way to go with grace? Yes, Yes and Yes. To go with grace means to quit all forms of law. I can quit anything that suggests I can earn or keep my salvation or that my relationship with God is about me keeping the rules. I am blessed because he loves to bless me, it is his character not mine that leads to blessing. I am righteous and holy because he says so, I am reconciled, accepted and loved because he says so and he tells the truth. Jesus came full of grace and truth and anything more than that or mingled with that is not for me. I cannot mix in some law, just to be sure of my salvation, keep all the rules just in case it is too good to be true. Mixing law and grace is the same as saying the cross was not sufficient to fulfil the law, that sacrifice is still needed and law keeping is still necessary, something which Paul rebuked the Galatian church for believing. So I have quit law keeping and have gone the way of grace. His grace is sufficient for me.