Simplify

As many of you know, especially if you read this regularly, during my time out here God has been speaking to me a lot on wealth and what is a Christian view on money and wealth. As many of you know I strongly feel the idea of tithing 10% is not actually what God calls us to do – this was just something to help and not the ideal. The ideal is that we live on what we need and share what we don’t need with those who don’t have what they need. However, I struggle with working that out in practice, as many of us who believe this do.

So, recently I became aware of the Simplify project which the evangelical alliance has launched for October and thought I would share it with you as a way we could practically work this out in our lives. The idea is that you live on what you would receive on benefits and give the rest away for a period of time (they suggest a month). Whilst not necesarily perfect in the way it works, I think it is a great idea which I wanted to share with you all. The information can be found on their website: http://www.eauk.org/simplify/

Over here my heart has been broken again and again by the poverty that I see, and poverty which none of us can say we know nothing about – as Christians it should break our hearts everytime we see poverty, whether it would be in the UK or abroad, but out hearts are not broken to do nothing, but to move us into action (words from a great worship song!). There is poverty all over the place, and we cannot say there is nothing we can do – we can pray, but we can also act and be the answer to our prayers…………

There is so much going in our world at the moment, and many people in the UK are really feeling the pressure of the recession, and the reaction is to tighten our belts, and with that the thing that normally goes is our giving……… and yet most people in the UK have a car – this makes us better off in physical terms than about 90% of the world……

Please do not do this out of obligation – pray about it, talk about it, and lets see if we can really start making a difference where we are, with whom and what we are. (God calls us to be cheerful givers not obligatory givers…….)

Bendiciones

Andy

A new theology from a long time ago

Hey everyone

So recently I have been thinking about what is theology, or what do we mean when we say we are doing theology. You see, my background leads me to think that doing theology is reading the latest John Stott book, or offering from Don Carson, or even from Wright, or maybe having an indepth discussion in a small group  - this is what my church and my CU seemed to teach me when I was at university. Theology was reading, it was studying, it was dissecting.

But you see, this always rubbed me up the wrong way when I was at uni, and even after. The God I read about in the Bible seemed to be about relationship – a point that the CU and church seemed to talk about, but then they just spend their time in academic conversations. (I hasten to add at least the church seems to have changed since those days, not so sure about the CU).

This got me thinking, especially recently. My ‘doing theology’ had always seemed to be different to theirs. For me, I learnt more about God by doing rather than reading. I thought it might just be my learning style or something silly like that, but then a few months ago something happened that made me realise it wasn’t that.

You see, a few months ago I was seriously considering starting a relationship with the young lady I can now call my girlfriend, and it made me realise things about falling in love, about being in a relationship with someone. I could not grow in that relationship by reading a book about her, or by reading someone elses commentary on her. They might give me a bit of enlightenment, but they weren’t going to be much good in the long run. What was important for us was to share our passions and to spend time with one another working towards the same goals, whatever that would be.

And so things clicked, I realised theology, knowing God, and not just knowing about Him, was only going to grow if I spent time with Him, and sharing in His passion – passions for justice, for people. How much sharing in passions for people and justice can we do from a chair reading a book or sat in a group discussing the theological difference between different greek words for love. We know love by experiencing it, not by a clinical study of it in lab conditions!

You see, there is a difference between knowing about God and knowing God. The word theology is so often misinterpreted as the study of God, but actually the Greek comes to a much deeper meaning of understanding God. To understand is a very different thing – is to have a thorough familiarity with that person or object or concept. Familiarity suggests a passing of time together, a relationship and closeness to the object or person. Not some clinical study.

And this is how Jesus helped people understand Himself. He spent time with people, He passed time, shared His life in fact with His disciples. He passed every moment with them, shared His life. They shared His passions, and spent their time doing as He did, not reading some book on Him.

You see, if you are someone who spends their whole time reading books or listening to sermons on God, you will only ever know about Him, you won’t know Him.

Let’s spend time with Him, and I don’t just mean in prayer, I mean living with Him – where He is. Sharing our lives with Him, talking with Him, sharing in His passions.

Bendiciones

Andy

Is our faith dead?

Hey everyone…..

So yesterday I had the opportunity to preach on James 2 : 14 – 26, one of my favourite passages in the Bible. All about faith and action. I will put my talk up here in a bit more time, and also some of my other talks, (sorry only in Spanish) for you to peruse, but wanted to ask a question which has been bugging me for a while now?

Is the faith of the modern church dead?

I reckon, on the terms laid out in this passage it is. You see, the modern church, has this preocupation with knowledge and numbers, whilst forgetting the beggar outside their very own door. Yes, in theory we know what we should be doing, but how many churches really are doing?

And by churches I mean every member of the church. I can see the objections already forming in your head. Well, our church has 10 mission partners. We have a weekly prayer meeting for the homeless. Our church sends money to the local soup kitchen….. etc……

But you see our faith is something far bigger than all this, something far more radical. It calls each one of us to live by faith that is in action (note that it is note faith leading to action – one does not come first – they are one and the same in the passage – without one you cannot have the other). Each one of us should be living our faith. If we are not living with actions our faith is dead!!!

Is your faith dead?

And the actions are not things like sharing the gospel with words, (in fact James strongly attacks this in the passage………). Yes, share the gospel, but it is a gospel with practical implications too. A God who loves so much to send His Son to save the beggar from eternal damnation, but can’t be bothered to clothe him and feed him???!!!! A church that loves a beggar so much so as to save him from eternal damnation, but then takes out an order against him because he ruins the image of the church????!!!!

You know, its easy to share the gospel with words. Sure it might cost us a friend or two. But to feed the beggars and clothe the prostitutes, and pay for drug rehab for the addict – that costs us that new car or the holiday in Africa this year……..

But this is the faith that James is talking about – faith with action, and with cost. REAL cost.

Abraham was credited with faith not because he had a great time chatting to God every morning from the comfort of his armchair (or whatever they had back then), but beacuse he stood at the altar, knife in his hand ready to kill his own son…….. Rahab, because she took in her town’s enemies, knowing that if her people caught her, at the very least they would stone her to death……

Actions and faith…….

Cost and faith…….

Love in action……

Not just in words……..

Even the demons stand up and say I believe in God, the difference with the church is that we then act with actions of love, actions of sacrifice……

Do you have the faith of the demons or the faith of the people of God?

The hypocrisy of the modern church

Hey everyone

Sorry it has been so long since I last posted here – this post is a big one and a strong one. 

I have recently been utterly broken by the hypocrisy I have seen in the western church – and to be frank the lack of compassion and passion for God’s creation. 

As many of you know I work in Bolivia, with street children. Within this work I have the privelege (and it really is a privelege) to work alongside a team from El Alto – a really poor are of La Paz. I have been blown away by their heart and passion for the work – they really have surrendered everything they have to God and to the ministry they have. You see, they are just starting a new church – they have a massive vision to see a new centre for street kids – a church building that will be used 24-7 and primarily is there to serve the community rather than the needs of the church. What a vision! 

However, they know this is a vision for the future and that it doesn’t act as an excuse to get out of the here and now, and so even when they can’t even afford their own building they are going out three, four times a week to minister to the street children – handing out food, organising football games and giving their time and money freely and gladly without a thought to the future. They understand the importance of bringing the Kingdom of God now – and they do it sacrificially but you would never know unless you spent a lot of time with them. 

For example, the leader of the team, is an ex street kid, and doesn’t own a house, doesn’t have a paid job, but works for the church and the ministry whether he is needed. He is recently married and has a beautiful 2 month old baby, and most people in the church in the UK or America would probably call him irresponsible for not providing for his family, however he knows the blessing of God in all his life, and so does he wife – and I have never seen someone so happy in their ministry. He freely gives up what money he has that week to buy the bread or chocolate for the street ministry.

But, do you know the most exciting thing, this is not the vision of a handful of people in the church – it is the whole church, and its contagious. The church doesn’t see this as the ministry of a few with the ‘calling’ or the ‘gifts’ for this ministry. They see it as an integral part of being ‘church‘.

For them the answer to the question of ‘what is church?‘ is it is pouring out God’s love and fellowship with everyone they know. For them the vision of the church in Acts is not an old vision – it is the present and future vision too. To share in fellowship with all – not just with time , but with everything they are and have. It is beautiful. 

For them the question as they think towards the future and having a new building, is not how can this serve us, but how can this building serve those that they and Jesus love – the community they are in. Mid-week meetings and such like don’t come into the equation – because it is a vision for their whole lives and for the whole world. For them church is not about a building or about meetings, youth groups, bible study groups, worship groups – it is about a contagious and radical love for everyone where possesions, time and resources are meaningless – just as in the Kingdom of God.

How many churches do you know like that? Really?

Or how many churches do you know which are more preoccupied about their budget line, or their sunday meetings, or bible study groups?

Because all that is meaningless without the vision of the kingdom – a vision which isn’t about numbers, budget lines, or bigger buildings, or comfier seats – its a vision about radical and contagious love.

Anything else is just hypocrisy – religious acts and hypocrisy – pharisitic and pointless.

Andy

Barack Obama, Evo Morales or Jesus for bloke to save?!

Okay – I know this post is going to probably get some stick off some people but here goes! I have been really quite scared to be honest, by the hype put around the inauguration of Barack Obama today, including by a lot of Christians…..

You see, Barack Obama will disappoint on the hopes people have pinned on him, not because he is a bad choice (I personally was very happy when he won!), but because he is human. And people seem to be forgetting this. You see the phrase ‘God Bless America’ and ‘God Bless the President’ seem to forget that God has blessed the whole world with His Son Jesus who is the only one who will succeed in everything that the world seems to want through Barack.

Humour me for a moment as I draw a parallel between Bolivia and America. You see a few years Bolivia celebrated as Evo Morales was elected as the new president of Bolivia. It was heralded as the start of a new amazing era in Bolivian politics. Speak to the majority of Bolivians on the street now, and they will admit too much hope was pinned on a mere man. Bolivia is now divided more than ever and is really struggling nationally and internationally.

That is not to say that Barack’s presidency is going to be a disaster, but we do have to remember he is not the saviour – Jesus is the Saviour. When we start worshipping a man we start to fall foul to the very thing that broke God’s heart – their desire for a king. Israel thought a king would solve all their problems and actually it just caused more problems for them and drove them further from God! Who is going to be our King this year? Is it going to be Barack Obama or Jesus, corny as it sounds!? but true!

You see America and the world does not need Barack Obama, in fact it could actually, dare I say it, manage without him! What the world needs now is Jesus – which are we can to share with people – our excitement over Barack or our excitement over Jesus?

Bendiciones!

Andy

Book idea

Hey everyone

Another post in one day – it’s almost like Christmas. Wanted some feedback from people. Really feel called to write a book about is wealth wrong in a biblical context. The idea I have is to go through and do an exposition of various passages with the following chapters:

1. The story of Israel – redemption and oppresion
2. The law and the year of Jubilee
3. The prophets speak out – Hosea/Micah
4. Jesus and wealth – the call of The Prophet
5. A rich young man and a poor widow
6. The early church and the death of a couple (Acts 2 – 4)
7. The revelation church
8. Where next?

Basically the idea being to argue that wealth is wrong! Wondered on ideas people had and what people would want to see in a book like this. Don’t want it to be an academic text, but readable and accesible for all!

Bendiciones

Andy

Recent thoughts

Okay, so the last few weeks have been a bit crazy on a practical note but I have also been doing a lot of thinking (yes, I know its a dangerous thing to do). Basically, I really think that we need to be praying like crazy at the moment for the prophetic voice of the church to start speaking out again. 

This came out of thoughts recently about what my role is at the moment within my immediate context and also a wider context, and also from a conversation with a good friend in a coffee shop yesterday! 

The interesting thing is that there are some prophetic voices speaking out at the moment – two that come to mind on a large scale are Rob Bell and Shane Claiborne – both of whom are calling for a radical revolution within the church at the moment, and both of whom are facing immense persecution from the conservative church. (Remind anyone of how the oh so righteous Jewish religion reacted to Isaiah, Ezekiel and the other prophets???)

So many people I know, in particular people of my age, are seriously disillusioned with the church at the moment – many to the point that they don’t know what to do, but the problem is these people are not doing anything about it! We need to get up, listen to the Spirit and do something about it!!!

Interesting point – if you look back at the diaries and accounts of the New Years Eve meeting with some of the main movers in the revival in the UK about two hundred years ago, we see an account of an incredible evening where prophecy was pouring forth and the people were really letting the Spirit go whole hog! (The churches that came out of that movement are now some of the most conservative in the UK – what’s going on?!)

You see, as the church deadens the Spirit so we deaden the church. Cessationists (those who believe the Spirit stopped with the apostles) need to be pointed out for exactly what they are – the murderers of the modern church. They might as well have hammered the nails into the cross themselves. We have a living God – a God who speaks and talks and wants to be heard. We also have a living God who listens to the cries of His people – so lets start listening, but not just listening. Lets be a people who cry out for His church and for His people.

Rob Bell co-wrote a book recently entitled ‘Jesus wants to save Christians’ and its true He does, and this church desperately needs saving. SO let’s let the prophetic voice of the church be heard.

Bendiciones

Andy

Andy´s new year speech – a message to the churches

Hey everyone

Sorry for not posting anything for ages, as anyone who keeps up to date with my normal blog will know the last few weeks have been a bit hectic. Okay, so I thought as the Queen, and every other minor celebrity seems to be able to give a Christmas and New Year speech, I thought it was my turn.

The problem being, that my thoughts as I sat in service on New Year´s Eve were not happy, reassuring ones but quite worrying and scary ones. The church all over the world is suffocating at the moment, and as the church likes to point the finger at secularisation and the evils of the world, so I want to point my finger at the church itself.

For years now the letter to the church in Ephesus has haunted me when I have been praying for the church. “You have forsaken your first love“, but do you know what I think is scarier at the moment is that actually we have forsaken love all together. Not just our first love, but love.

Paul in his letter to the church in Corinth puts it likes this – “If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have not love, I gain nothing.”

The church today has become nothing – if anything a resounding cymbal. We are so worked up about either numbers or about knowledge (how many churches are known for their good teaching, and how many churches think they are the bees knees because of this?!) or about allowing for “the Spirit to move” in prophecy and tongues, that we have forsaken love. How many churches now are known for their love? This has got so serious that as I say it is not secularisation suffocating the Church, but the church is suffocating the Church.

Bonhoeffer recognised this years ago when in the introduction to his book “The Cost of Discipleship” (SCM Press) he says – “Perhaps it would be just as well to ask ourselves whether we do not in fact often act as obstacles to Jesus and His Word.”

The church is suffocating itsef then through forsaking love. So what does love look like? Paul continues with – “Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.”

I can but hope that this year the Church would meditate on this passage for long periods of time. The Church as a body and the Church as individuals. After a decade where the church has been torn apart by academic debates on issues such as homosexuality and female leadership, and where churches have started to worship knowledge over and above Jesus Christ, we desperately need to see love come within the church. A love that perseveres, a love that is patient, a love that does not fear for its own being, a love that does not boast and a love above all that is not seeking its own rewards, but those of the Kingdom of God.

In particular we must move away from our heavy dependence on head knowledge, for one too many Christians can give the answers to one too many questions, whilst too few can be seen to have actually taken up the call to follow Jesus, sacrificing everything for Him. I have to wonder is Jesus was to return to the earth today, who would the church listen to? Him who knows all, or the academics such as Stott and Carson. For at the moment the focus seems more on following the academics and popular writers than on following Jesus and bringing in the revolution of His love. (And this is not just the curse of the Western church but also that of the highly exalted South American liberation church which seems to worship the god of holistic mission whilst failing to live that out in reality.

Love is absent in the church today, and without love the church is nothing. I fear if we do not recognise this soon we will see the end of the church, and then what would happen.

How does this Church of love look like? Well look at the effect that Jesus and his disciples, and then the early church had on the people they met and then we would see what the church is capable of. Nothing has changed in the power of God´s name, but everything seems to have changed in the hearts of God´s people. This is a costly call, a think that many of the great heroes oif the Christian faith have known – whether it was Peter the fisherman giving up his entire livelihood when he heard the words “Follow me”, or the life of Bonhoeffer who died at the hands of Hitler, or the life of Wilberforce who gave his health for the love of God and Jesus.

As a church are we ready to listen to Jesus and be part of his revolution of love? If we are we need to be getting on our knees and pleading with God and interceeding for the Church on this, and not just staying on our knees but then getting up and taking the call to “Follow Me” seriously and sharing the revolution of love with everyone we meet.

Bendiciones

Andy

A truly irresistable revolution

I don´t know how many of you guys have read Shane Claiborne´s book ´The Irresistible Revolution´- I first read it over the summer, and I am just starting to read it once again. It is a book that has caused many people to react after reading it, and unfortunately for some after just hearing about it. For some it has caused the reaction that I suspect is that which Shane was hoping for – to stir people into thinking about the way they live out their Christian lives, but for others it has caused a reaction strongly against what he has said. Maybe as the cover says the book has comforted the disturbed and disturbed the comfortable.

I guess I am writing this post as a defense of what he says, and to be honest a defense of what the Bible calls all Christians too. I come from what would traditionally be called a conservative background theologically, with many friends I know having reacted strongly against this book, however I feel Shane has really captured that which is fustrating many people in the church today – we have become far too comfortable for the calling of Jesus. In fact, as Jim Wallis writes in his foreword, this book even challenges those boundaries which we have put ourselves into in the modern church – are we a conservative, a liberal, an evangelical, or even as I used to call myself a ´realistic evangelical conservative!´Or are we simply followers of Jesus. (I hope to write more on this soon in a seperate post).

You see the Bible calls to an extremely controversial role – to lose our lives in order to follow Him. To give up everything to follow Him. To lay our lives down for Him. These are things we all seem to know in our heads, and many would claim to know in their hearts – but do they? How many of us justify our wealth because as far as we are concerned the Rich Young Man was called just to lay it down because it had become an idol. (An extremely popular interreptation of this text is now to contextualise this to say it is purely that the wealth was an idol for this man and is not a teaching about giving up EVERYTHING for Him). Shane challenges us, and in fact the Bible challenges us that this is soooooo off the mark! The teaching of the sheep and the wolves in Matthew 25 blatantly contradicts this! (Once again, I want to write more on this exergesis in the next few weeks). (Maybe actually that fact that we are so relunctant to accept the teaching of giving up everything is a sign that the wealth is actually an idol for us…..)

But this teaching of giving up everything goes so much deeper. How many of us are willing to give up our liberty for the sake of Him….. When we see injustice are we happy to just sign a petition against it or pray against it or are we willing to get up and take some direct action. When God sees the injustice of what Egypt is doing to His people He doesn´t just send a piece of paper to Pharoah he sends locusts, disease, gnats and finally the death of the firstborn to Egypt – He takes direct action! (This is not to say we should send such things to those committing injustice – as for a start we would have to send them to ourselves……!)

The core of all this is God´s love for His people – and by this we don´t mean just those Christians or Israel – His people are all those He created…. Even that really smelly tramp by the door of your church. This call is a truly prophetic one and with real fire. We are in an age where the church is so worried about wealth that they even take legal action against a tramp who stole a few items from the church (can´t help but think of the story of the musical Les Miserables). Are we really showing love for His people – and by this not just by running a once weekly soup run or giving money to a charity – are we really getting down there and getting our hands dirty – socially, politically and financially.

I wonder what the church would look like if we really took this call seriously – maybe at long last we would see a serious attempt at Making Poverty History. You see this call started with Jesus and continues with Me and with You.

In fact – if you haven´t read it, read The Irresistable Revolution and The Bible too and do it allowing the Spirit rather than your wallet and brain to work in you. Shane is no theologian in the conventional sense – but he has far more to show us about what it means to be an actual follower of Jesus than any Systematic Theology that I have ever read. Maybe because he doesn´t just talk – he does……

Hi

Hi everyone

This is my new blog to share theological musings over the next however long! Will update very soon!

Blessings

Andy