Falling With Style

At this time of year in church life there are not many quiet moments. At the end of a busy term, Christmas, and all the events and activities associated with it, looms large on the horizon. Add to that tiredness, late nights, too many people, and the need of a break - It doesn't feel always like there is so much peace and goodwill around! Coming into my office this morning, aware of a long list and a longer day ahead, I grabbed an old paperback from the shelf which I haven't touched for 20 years. It literally fell open on a page which stopped me in my tracks, and pulled me up short from my unthinking tendency to busyness without intimacy. Ever been confronted by a text which shows you up in this way so readily? Well, here it is. The book, Mike Bickle's Passion for Jesus. The quote, as follows: Song of Solomon 1.4 "After the maiden in the Song of Solomon awakens to fervency, she prays a twofold prayer. 'Draw me after you and let us run together.' Th...

Fifty years before Fawkes, England was already lit up by bonfires. During the last 4 years of Queen Mary’s reign 288 people were burned at the stake for their biblical faith, including women and some children. Countless others died in prison. Foxe writes with his usual gusto, ‘the faggots never ceased to blaze whilst Mary was alive.’  41 perished in the flames from Sussex, including 17 from Lewes alone – Much of the strong bonfire tradition and feeling in these parts goes back here rather than to 1605 and the Gunpowder Plot.  Bloody Mary of course gets the blame. Her zeal in persecuting the new breed of English Protestants now famous. She perhaps deserves our sympathy though- As the disowned daughter of her monster father, Henry VIII, she grew up in terrible fear and conflict. Mary watched the outrageous treatment of her mother and found her own estrangement from the man who should have protected her the most, her father and her King. No wonder the poor girl had issues! Her su...

'One anothering' is one of those church phrases that the rest of the world rarely registers. However, the fifty nine one another references in the New Testament are all so active and powerful that it's time we gave them a bit of profile and started living them out. As I make some space to study and think about the kind of culture we want to live in, these verses could form the very heart of our lives together. Eat, sleep, read, repeat as the song goes (almost!) In our lives, churches, homes, workplaces, we seem to be in perpetual transition. In such a climate, our key relationships with one another are what matter most, what demonstrate most readily who we are as disciples, and yet they are the arena where we come under most pressure. So here is our prescription -  Copy and print. Stick them around the house, meditate on them in the mornings.  We will mature as we align with this truth, as we let them become the default setting, the climate control for this season...

I've just returned from a wonderful two week holiday in a far flung place, but if you write to the locals next week they would not remember me. There is no trace of me having been amongst them, no legacy from my impact, any tracks left in the sand long since washed away. John Livingstone Nevius spent only two weeks in Korea in 1890, yet the simple advice he gave to missionary leaders on that visit continues to shape the ongoing growth of the Korean church to this day! Travelling into Korea from his base in China, Nevius was at odds with the normal, colonial missionary approach. He understood that both the gospel and church plants failed to penetrate national culture when they remained in the hands of western missionary leadership. Nevius believed that local leaders could and should be trained. Leaders who could establish their own churches and reach their own people far more effectively. Thankfully the Korean missionary group who heard Nevius in 1890 were open to his remarks. ...

As a young boy growing up in the Salvation Army, it seemed as though every home I would go to had a dark and terrifying print of William Booth, usually on the stairs. It was worse at night, the beaked nose, the stern face, the full white beard - all left a young Junior Soldier like me in awe of The Founder! As an adult, I'm no longer scared of William Booth, but I remain in awe of his life, the ferocious pace, the crystal clear vision which first impacted the East End of London, then quickly spread around the world. 150 years ago today, Booth began preaching in the filthy poor streets of the East End, true Dickensian England at it's worst. His motto from the start, 'Go for souls and go for the worst!'  Night after night in those early days he would return home after midnight, bruised, bleeding, his clothes sometimes torn after being assaulted. It was only after the conversion of former prize fighter Peter Monk that Booth had a bodyguard to stand with him in the ...

I’ve recently read a great little book called, ‘Running with the Kenyans’, By Adharanand Finn.  At a time when my training has suddenly got a little more serious, his personal story of transformation through running has made all the effort seem inspirational, almost spiritual. There are some great quotes from his book here which runners everywhere will find themselves identifying with.  Enjoy, then get your trainers out! ‘Every day in Africa a gazelle wakes up. It knows it must run faster than the fastest lion or it will be killed. Every morning a lion wakes up. It knows that it must outrun the slowest gazelle or it will starve to death. It doesn’t matter whether you are a lion or a gazelle. When the sun comes up, you better be running.’  Abe Gubegna, Ethiopian author. ‘No race begins at the start line.’  Haile Gebreselassie ‘If you want to win something, run 100m. If you want to experience something, run a marathon.’  Emil Zatopek ‘When the missionaries arrived...

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