Falling With Style

This weekend I've kissed a number of people on the lips, the eyebrow, the ear and even the forehead. This embarrassing intimacy is all the result of difficult European greeting customs which us Brits should never be subjected to! In spite of travelling regularly and schooling myself in language and cross cultural understanding, the actual moment of greeting still baffles me. I know it's coming, as they approach and dip their head, I seize up, unsure whether to swerve left or right. Consequently I either meet them full on the mouth, or some awful near miss which more resembles a yuppie 'mwah' than a genuine Italian 'Ciao'. Returning home on Monday with the scars of fumbled greetings still fresh in my mind, I recalled this old but still brilliant Pam Ayres reflection on the matter. It's still best in her own words: But Don't Kiss Me.. I want to ask a favour of the friends that I might meet, To all of my acquaintances who pass me in the street, Give me a c...

Sometimes the news reports shock us with striking gospel parallels out of nowhere. Yesterday's news carried such an impact, detailing how Judith Tebbutt is preparing to come home after a six month kidnap ordeal from a remote Kenyan beach resort. Taken by Somalian pirates and held with her husband, Mrs Tebbutt is now facing up to a return to normal life - if this will ever be possible for her. During the kidnap process, her husband David was shot dead by the Pirates. Along with the immense grief and sense of loss, she is also reported to have paid an £800,000 ransom, plus a further £20,000 'accomodation costs' to the Pirates. When the ransom money was dropped by plane earlier this week, her release was confirmed. It is hard to imagine how someone can adjust to freedom and normality after such an ordeal, especially when it has been at such great cost, emotionally, physically, financially. Deep in this awful story we find the seeds of hope from a greater story-One that we have...

After 244 years of publishing facts about the world, Encyclopedia Britannica is finally stopping print versions.  Imagine the events they have chronicled? From the Enlightenment to the Crimean war, the Britannica boys were there at the cutting edge. Encyclopedia Britannica  defined my childhood. It was how we found stuff out in the olden days. We had big dusty versions at school with intriguing arbitary pairings on the spines to show what was covered therein - kiss to Mountbatten? Britannica was considered so vital to a child's development that we nearly got a set at home. In the end, I think Dad was put off by the salesman refusing to tell him the price until he had completed his little talk, especially when we all knew that the full deluxe leather bound set would cost more than a new car! So thanks to the pushy salesman, I got through my schooling and exams in the library with the tomes out around me on the desk! In this wiki instant age it is a surprise it's taken them this ...

Here is one more great Brother Andrew story which illustrates how big a task lies ahead for today's church in awakening the generation which grew up behind the Iron Curtain to the worth and value of the scriptures. After his early forays into Eastern Europe, Andrew had the opportunity of getting into China, then during the Cultural Revolution, about as closed as it was possible to be to western influence, never mind Christian thought. Brother Andrew picks up the story on a bridge to the border crossing: 'At long last the British Customs officer (from the Hong Kong side) told us we could cross the bridge. We went single file, stepping cautiously on the cross ties. There were half a dozen of us Europeans in our group; the others were mostly businessmen from England, France and Canada. At the halfway point the shade of green in which the girders were painted was changed. We were in Communist China. On this side of the border was a much larger complex of buildings, neat and dull, t...

I have enjoyed meeting in the homes of men and women in Romania who knew first hand what it was to be blacklisted from jobs, prevented from getting an education, arrested and beaten for having bibles or even just meeting with other believers. One man I met in the city of Cluj Napoca recently became a follower of Jesus at a church meeting held in the old Secret Police building. What is more amazing is that this man last saw his father when he was taken into that same building 40 years ago. His father was interrogated for being a Christian and never came out again. Now decades later this avowed atheist, a product of the former Communist regime, gave his life to Christ in the same building his father had given up his life in! This story is not surprising when we read Brother Andrew's account of life in Romania at that time. I'm posting some more Brother Andrew escapades, realising that most of us have either forgotten these stories, or simply had no idea that such conditions exist...

I grew up understanding how the world worked. East and West, the fracturing of Europe after the war, the continuing cold war. It was just how it was. What went on behind the Iron Curtain was the subject of spy novels and a mystery to most of us. I avidly read books like Bother Andrew’s ‘God’s Smuggler’ as a boy, amazed at the terrifying adventures and near misses. Never really thinking that things would be any different, that this closed, controlled world of the communist regime would open up. Of course it did, and it is now with some awe that I find myself working into Romania, amongst believers who lived through these times, whose lives are still shaped so profoundly by having endured the totalitarian regime. Today, I can travel door to door from my house and be in a city in a former Communist state in under 6 hours. Today I can openly visit churches, preach the gospel, carry a bible, all without fear of imprisonment or worse. It is hard to express just how incredible these changes ...

What is it about Lent which makes us come over all medieval? It's the 21st century, and we are post modern charismatics, yet to read some of the trending twitter feeds and blogs this week, you would have to assume that the Reformation never happened ! I've got news for you, the Reformation DID happen. Not only do I no longer need to wear a Tudor codpiece to keep in step with fashions, but I've also got the privilege of living after Luther, Calvin at al. Luther did all the lent stuff, all of the time - all before the light of the gospel of grace broke over his broken life. His mad monastic lifestyle, through which he was trying to get right with an angry God, nearly drove him insane. But then came a glorious moment of relief whilst reading Paul's letter to the Romans over and over - suddenly it came - the righteous shall live by faith! Don't get me wrong. I'm all for some quiet reflection in the run up to Easter. I like to do a little Lent reading, I even enjoyed...