Overwhelmed by freedom

Posted: 8 November, 2011 in Christian Life, Discipleship
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Over this year I have been visiting a friend in Wandsworth prison. Just about every week I have gone to the prison, sat in the visits hall and we have talked and prayed together. Even though he is the one who’s been stuck in prison, I have been uplifted and encouraged so much by our meeting together and it has been a real source of strength to me in living out God’s calling to me in the ‘freedom’ that I have on the outside.

I was privileged last week to be able to pick him up from that prison and drive him to another prison outside of London (a category D open prison – for the transfer inmates who qualify are released on licence from one prison to make their own way to the new prison and must report in by a certain time.)

The experience was both moving and challenging. It was moving to see my friend be visibly overwhelmed by a freedom he hadn’t experienced for a long time. Little things that I take for granted in everyday life were an emotional experience as he remembered, just for a few hours, what life outside of prison was like. Trees, Hills, Birds, Houses, McDonalds reststops and lunch whereever and whenever we wanted to take it on the way, were overwhelming things for him. I was glad to be able to share the experience with him, and it will be a memory I will treasure for the rest of my life.

But it was challenging too…and here’s the big thought:

When was the last time I was overwhelmed by the freedom I have in Christ?

Jesus said “If the son sets you free, you will be free indeed”, and then he gave up his life so that we might receive this freedom. Yet do I truly act free? Do I understand the freedom I have? Am I overwhelmed by what Jesus has done for me – raiding the prison, setting me free from the chains that were keeping me captive, and giving me a new “Anything is possibly for him who believes” life.

Or do I forget the freedom that I have: either taking it for granted, or allowing the enemy to deceive me into stepping back into the prison and shutting the door?

The world is bound up in all kinds of mess, and what it needs most are a people who live as if they are truly free. A people who are daily overwhelmed by the freedom they have in Christ. A people who exercise that freedom by going into their world with a faith that “I can do anything through him who gives me strength” and who set about the task of helping others find freedom in Christ.

So, are you free? Do you need to be overwhelmed by a fresh revelation of that freedom? Are there any areas of your life where you’re actually in bondage and you need to be set free? There’s good news for you:

“If the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed” – Jesus in John 8v36

Relationships, relationships, relationships

Posted: 8 November, 2011 in Discipleship
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I love people. I love relationships. Relationships are important. But – at the risk of being controversial – when it comes to the mission of Jesus, I think I’ve heard more about relationships in recent times than is healthy.

This post, which a pastor-friend of mine retweeted just about sent me over the edge. The author quotes statistics which suggest that the USA is very open to the gospel, talks about faith to overcome fear being required to share the gospel. And then he says most of all we have to develop relationships with those outside the church.

I don’t want to be beligerent or be pedantic about something the author might not have intended. But this is a funny conclusion to draw. I went to comment on it, but it wouldn’t let me. So here are my thoughts on the matter….

Read the rest of this entry »

Christian Leadership

Posted: 29 September, 2011 in Christian Life
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Quote from the Willow Creek Global Leadership Summit:

“…Christian leadership is not an end itself… It’s about mission, about helping others come to know Christ and transforming society evermore into the likeness of how God in his kingdom would want it to be. So it’s critical that when we’re working with and developing younger leaders that we don’t sell them ‘leadership’… if we want to sell them anything we sell them a vision of the kingdom of God…”

One Cheering Gleam…

Posted: 9 May, 2011 in Christian Life
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A.W Tozer writes this in ‘The Pursuit of God’. Some things haven’t changed:

“In this hour of all-but-universal darkness one cheering gleam appears: within the fold of conservative Christianity there are to be found increasing numbers of persons whose religious lives are marked by a growing hunger after God Himself. They are eager for spiritual realities and will not be put off with words, nor will they be content with correct ‘interpretations’ of truth. They are athirst for God, and they will not be satisfied till they have drunk deep at the Fountain of Living Water. This is the only real harbinger of revival which I have been able to detect anywhere on the religious horizon.”

Any spiritual awakening or revival starts with a people who are hungry for God, seek him desperately, and are not content with anything less than knowing him personally and being satisfied in his presence.

1. Come as you are with your truth

Posted: 28 April, 2011 in CAYA2011, Seminar Notes, The Church
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This first session by James Emery White was one of the more academic/philosophical sessions to establish some thinking and foundations of the culture we live in. If you’re not wired as the big thinking/philisophical type I’d still recommend you skim it as there’s good stuff there, but you’ll probably enjoy some of the other sessions more.

Book recommendation– “Serious Times” by James Emery White

The culture we live in

We are entering into a new age of church. Historian Christopher Dawson suggested that there have been six identifiable ages in relation to the Church. Each lasted three or four centuries, and each followed a similar course. He contended that each of these ages began and ended in crisis. The heart of each crisis was an intense attack by new enemies — within and without the church. These attacks, in turn, demanded new spiritual determination and drive by the Church.Without this determination and drive, the Church would have lost the day. We are standing in the middle of another one of those crises, and at the beginning of another age.

Previous generations always had the concept of God.No matter how dark, they wouldn’t have thought to have a world without God. A world where we start with ourselves and look to develop truth from there. But this is what we have in the world around us. The issue is not philosophical atheism – where people are aware of the arguments, think it through, debate, and come to a philosophical conclusion that there is no God. This is not even at the heart of secular religion, and not the principal challenge to the Christian church.

The heart of the matter is FUNCTIONAL atheism. There is a rise of people who don’t just spend time thinking about religion and rejecting it. They’re just not thinking about it. There are three things that shape culture: Education, Mass Media, Upper Echelons of legal system. God is/has been systematically removed (or opposed by) these three in our society.

Our culture is feeling the sickness of its disease.

Lack of vision – nothing in culture calling us to be more than we are. Lack of values – producing empty souls. There is a world operating apart from God and finding it can’t handle it without him. Nietzsche – “God is dead and we have killed him. How shall we the murderer of all murderers ever comfort ourselves” Read the rest of this entry »

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