Pete in Lismore

So what’s everyone up to for Easter this year? Recycling? Borrowing? or coming up with something brilliant and new?!

I thought I’d share my plan for this Easter with you just to get the juices flowing if they’re not already…

I’m basing my talks on two chapter headings Tim Keller uses in his latest book “King’s Cross”, which is a reworking of a recent sermon series he did on Mark’s gospel. His chapter headings for the death and resurrection are “the end” and “the beginning”. I really liked the way that in those simple headings he captured the history altering significance of the first Easter – there is now a beginning after the end. I don’t think I’m actually going to use too much of Keller’s material but the basic idea contained in those headings will form the big idea of my easter “mini-series”.

On the music front we’ll be doing two items – “what have we done” by Northern Conspiracy on Good Friday which you can find here, and “the saving one” by Starfield on Easter Sunday.

I’d also encourage you to checkout two video resources that you may want to somehow make use of either at Easter or another time. The first is newly put together by my brother and former SCPC team member Wade Iedema, it’s a very evocative reflection on the cross, you can find it here. The second is more general gospel than specifically an Easter resource but I really love it so thought I’d share it, see it here.

Have a great Easter.

Gotcha! You thought I was actually going to tell you how to vote this Saturday. Some of you were keen for any guidance, others were keen to jump down my throat and box me around the ears (if you can do both those things at the same time?!)  for being so presumptuous, while still others hadn’t even realised we’ve got an election coming up.

Well, you’ll be disappointed/glad/disinterested to know that I’m not really one for telling people how Christians should vote. I reckon most of that sort of advice is based on drastic over-simplifications and shockingly wayward interpretations of both politics and what it means to be a Christian.

But every now and then I come across someone (YES, even on the interweb!) who actually makes a whole lot of sense and approaches issues with wisdom, insight and a good sense of humour. So if you want to approach your vote on Saturday in an informed and responsible way can I suggest you check out this series of articles. The link will take you to the first one and you can follow the series through further links at the top of the screen.

Happy voting!

It seems to me that most of us in ministry have a tendency towards martyrdom. Not the real, healthy God-centred kind of martyrdom that can encourage and inspire, but the unhealthy me-centred  kind that wallows, distracts and discourages. We’re reading Tim Chester’s “You Can Change” in our staff team at the moment and came across this excellent perspective last week…

“One of my recurrent sins is self-pity. If someone treats me badly, I get in a huff. If something goes wrong, I’m grumpy. I can just wake up in a black mood. I act as if I’m all that matters in my life; as if I’m the axis on which my world spins. But I’m not. I was made to glorify God and enjoy him forever… there’s such freedom in accepting this is God’s world, not mine. I’m grumpy because things aren’t going my way. But I’ve no right and no need to expect them to go my way. It’s enough to know that they’re going God’s way and his ways are good.” (page 117)

  How cool is that?! I love that last sentence! What a freeing, God-glorifying perspective! Now, to live it out!

A couple of ideas came together in the shower the other morning. It always happens in the shower…

I’d just been reading the hoohaa caused by Justin Taylor’s denunciation of Rob Bell’s forthcoming book “Love Wins: Heaven, Hell & the Fate of Every Person Who Ever Lived” and was wondering what causes someone to become a universalist. My thoughts then turned to the concept of  ”survivor guilt”, often experienced by those who are spared from a catastrophe in which many others perish. I wondered whether in spite of all the theologising that goes on, survivor guilt might be a significant contributor behind the scenes for your average universalist. The universalist knows that he is not worthy to be spared God’s coming wrath while many others perish and has been persuaded that it must be arrogant or unloving to conclude that this is what the gospel teaches.

As someone once said, we will either allow the truth to shape our view of reality or allow our reality to shape our view of the truth. For the universalist, “love wins”. But not God’s idea of love, the universalist’s.

I imagine this book could well be sitting on your shelf somewhere as you toil away in your ministry. Like your Bible, it’s whispering, “take and read”!

If you ever got as far as chapter 7 you would have read the following gem on the battle to be DISCIPLINED in prayer, a quote from Dr J Sidlow Baxter…

As never before, my will and I stood face to face. I asked my will the straight question, “Will, are you ready for an hour of prayer?” Will answered, “Here I am, and I’m quite ready, if you are.” So will and I linked arms and turned to go for our time of prayer. At once all the emotions began pulling the other way and protesting, “We’re not coming.” I saw Will stagger just a bit, so I asked, “Can you stick it out, Will?” And Will replied, “Yes, if you can.” So Will went, and we got down to prayer, dragging those wriggling, obstreperous emotions with us. It was a struggle all the way through. At one point, when Will and I were in the middle of an earnest intercession, I suddenly found one of those traitorous emotions had snared my imagination and had run off to the golf course; and it was all I could do to drag the wicked rascal back. A bit later I found another o fthe emotions had sneaked away with some off-guard thought and was in the pulpit, two days ahead of schedule, preaching a sermon that I had not yet finished preparing!

At the end of that hour, if you had asked me, “Have you had a ‘good time’?” I would have had to reply, “No, it has been a wearying wrestle with contrary emotions and a truant imagination from beginning to end.” What is more, that battle with the emotions continued for between two and three weeks, and if you had asked me at the end of the period, “Have you had a “good time’ in your daily praying?” I would have had to confess, “NO, at times it has seemed as though the heavens were brass, and God to distant to hear, and the Lord Jesus strangely aloof, and prayer accomplished nothing.”

Yet something WAS happening. For one thing, Will and I really taught the emotions that we were completely independent of them. Also, one morning, about two weeks after the contest began, just when Will and I were going for another time of prayer, I overheard one of the emotions whisper to the other, “Cone on you guys, it’s no use wasting any more time resisting: they’ll go just the same.” That morning, for the first time, even though the emotions were still suddenly uncooperative, they were at least quiescent, which allowed Will and me to get on with prayer undistractedly.

Then, another couple of weeks later, what do you think happened? During one of our prayer times, when Will and I were no more thinking of the emotions than of the man in the moon, one of the most vigorous of the emotions unexpectedly sprang up and shouted “Hallelujah!”at which all the other emotions exclaimed “Amen!” And for the first time the whole of my being – intellect, will and emotions – was united in one co-ordinated prayer operation. All at once, God was real, heaven was open, the Lord Jesus was luminously present, the Holy Spirit was indeed moving through my longings, and prayer was surprisingly vital. Moreover, in that instant there came a sudden realisation that heaven had been watching and listening all the way through those days of struggle against chilling moods and mutinous emotions; also that I had been undergoing necessary tutoring by my heavenly Teacher.

So. I ask myself, “Will, are you ready for an hour of prayer?”…

This is the title of one of my most recent book purchases – as far as titles go I was instantly hooked! You can’t see the subtitle but it’s “a liberating approach to finding God’s will OR how to make a decision without dreams, visions, fleeces, impressions, open doors, random bible verses, casting lots, liver shivers, writing in the sky etc.”

OK! You had me at “Just do Something”!

This book really delivers – it’s VERY readable, immediately connects with the existential issue and doesn’t give pat answers. Even better, it’s arranged in an extremely logical order and does a great hatchet job on the many Spiritual-sounding ideas so often pass for how people make decisions big and small.

This is now my new “go to” book on the subject and I anticipate giving heaps away. Better still, at only $10 (through bookdepository.co.uk) I can afford to!

Grab a copy and have a read, and then it give it to someone before they go and lay out another fleece!

We’ve got a committee of management meeting tonight and as well as the ongoing bits and pieces have planned an “issue discussion” on advertising.

Part of the reason is that whenever we do any newspaper advertising (“editorials”, ads in “religious notices” etc.) I always get cheesed off at how expensive it is and the fact that we have no way of measuring its effectiveness. To be honest, I’d rather not do it at all and just plug away at convincing people to invite friends etc.

I guess part of the question is “who are we targeting with our advertising?” My guess is, “no-one in particular” and this probably blunts the effectiveness of whatever we do. I think another part of our motivation is simply competing in the religious marketplace, trying to make sure that people know we’re around so we have a chance to convince them to come to OUR church and NOT THEIRS! This feels at least a little bit wrong.

So what is the place for advertising your church? And if there is one, what are the best, cost-effective ways of going about it?

I’d love anyone’s input!

So, I was thinking about hell this morning and wondering if my current take is adequate. When I talk about the eternal destiny of the unsaved these days I usually refer to it in terms of being shut out of God’s presence and his goodness. I guess this is because it seems to me that the Bible emphasises the relational dynamic in salvation history more than the context or environment within which that relationship happens. What do you reckon, have I gone soft on “hell”?

This’ll test the friendship!

Anyone wanna pass on a  brief synopsis of the depressingly-titled above-mentioned tome?

I’ve just learned that I’m meant to have read it and written a 1500 word review before Monday. As I’ve got a  few other things on between now and then it seems a little unlikely.

Maybe I’ll just read Affluenza and see a review on that is acceptable – sounds much more interesting!