"The masseurs have become the massees!"

Ok, so I already knew God was pretty good at sorting out our debts, but I never really thought he was in the business of racking up his own! Check this out...

"He who is kind to the poor lends to the LORD,
and he will reward him for what he has done."

Proverbs 19:17

So when we give to the poor, essentially we're lending to God. We give, they receive, he gives its back - no doubt with plenty of interest!! I love how the whole bible weaves together to display God's character. He promises to pay everyone's spiritual debts because he's a loving, mericful, generous God. And so, because he is such not just sometimes but all the time, he also steps in and pays material debt too. The not only does it demonstrate his heart to bless the poor but also backs up everything he tells us about it being better to give than receive. Not just from a moral point of view, in that it's a jolly good thing to do, but in an actual, tangible sense too - if you show kindness, God will show it back; if you give, even just a little, so much more he'll give back to you! Why? 1. Cos he loves to see his kids doing his will and 2. Cos he's just better at it than us!! I love Jesus.

*tangent*

While I've got you, check out this extract from friend-of-the-blog, Eugene Peterson:

"An understanding of people as sinners enables a pastoral ministry to function without anger. Accumulated resentment (a constant threat to pastors) is dissolved when unreal - that is, untheological - presuppositions are abandones. If people are sinners then pastors can concentrate on talking about God's action in Jesus Christ instead of sitting around lamenting how bad the people are. We already know they can't make it. We already have accepted their depravity. We didn't engage to be pastor to relax in their care or entrust ourselves to their saintly ways... We have come among the people to talk about Jesus Christ. Grace is the main subject of pastoral conversation and preaching. "Where sin increased, grace abounded all the more" (Rom. 5:20)."

Cheap laughs

"Take no part in the worthless deeds of evil and darkness; instead, expose them. It is shameful even to talk about the things that ungodly people do in secret. "

Ephesians 5:11-12

"Those who control their tongue will have a long life;
opening your mouth can ruin everything."

Proverbs 13:3

Hmmm....

Maybe more like expensive ones.

Respect?

As I was driving to Bolton this morning I was thinking about the people I most respect in life, and what is about them that makes me do so.

It dawned on me that often I can be far too concerned about knowing the right things, or being up with the latest arguments, or being able to present a water-tight theology. Translation: looking the part. Then, i reason, I can be a great example to people for how to live the Christian life. And if nothing else, you couldn't label me 'wooly'. Sorted.

But you know what? The people who I look up to and think 'yes!' to are people who don't necessarily talk a good game (i'm sure they could) but actually get on and live it. They don't waste time theorizing but let what they know about who God is affect their attitudes and decision. As such, they hit a great balance between knowing the truth and living a magnetic lifestyle that is relevant to those outside of God-club without compromising their integrity.

Jesus had this nailed. He didn't fight theology with the Pharisees, he pointed out their hypocrisy and told everyone else to get on with sacrificing themselves for God and others. And he had that element of danger too, he was exciting, people wanted to be around him, he wanted to be around them. He didn't care about the little stuff. He taught when we wanted to. He partied (evangelical translation: "had fellowship") when he wanted to. He maximised his life from a position of complete acceptance as a son of God.

I want to be like that.

"All the Athenians and the foreigners who lived there spent their time doing nothing but talking about and listening to the latest ideas... Paul then stood up in the meeting of the Areopagus and said: "Men of Athens! I see that in every way you are very religious...
..."The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by hands. And he is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything, because he himself gives all men life and breath and everything else...
..."Therefore since we are God's offspring, we should not think that the divine being is like gold or silver or stone—an image made by man's design and skill."

Bits of Acts 17

Deeper.

So we finally went and did it... Deeper is officially out of the bag and ready for your interest!

You can check out the (rather attractive) flyer right here

If you build it, they will come.

So tomorrow is the day we finally re-launch Deeper!!

Deeper is Vinelife's gap year opportunity that I've been tasked with redeveloping and over the past few months I've been putting together a week-by-week overview of how it'll all look. Personally, I think it looks great and if i wasn't going to be leading the thing then I'd want to be doing it myself. (honest - i'm not just on a sell)

Now we have all the graphics and a rough infrastructure in place we can finally unleash it on the (un)suspecting reach congregation. So hopefully over easter a few people will really consider taking the challenge on and I can spend the rest of my intersnhip tying up loose ends and getting ready to hit it hard in September.

Part of me is worried that we won't have any takers, yet since I've started working towards it in earnest I've had the same phrase rattling around my head which I really believe is prophetic encouragement...

...If you build it, they will come.

Well the front door's in place so let's see what happens!

New season, new start.

It transpires that the winter months have not been so conducive to regular bloggery but now that the sun is starting to fight its way back from behind the iron grip of British gloom, I invite you to dust off your metaphorical glasses and watch as I take this leaf that I'm holding and proceed in turning it right the way over! aaah... much better.

I'm not going to try and fill in all the gaps since my last post as I'm not sure there are enough characters left in this here window to do so. I will, however, tell you that things have been progressing very nicely. We had both the Youth and Reach weekends away, as well as putting on the second 'Gathering', so it's been a busy time but then I wouldn't want it any other way! Reach itself is going great and we've continued to see new people coming along as well as seeing those who've been around for a few months getting connected with lifegroups and starting to move towards involving themselves with the myriad of ministries that we have at church.

One thing that God is irking me with at the moment re: gathering new people is that we do so with people who aren't Christians yet. It would be really easy for me to look at numbers and say "we've gathered x amount of students. great. job done." but that just won't cut it. 1) we're dealing with hearts and minds, not attendance figures and 2) the vast majority of the growth we've experienced at reach this year hasn't been so much growth as transfer - i.e. settling in those who came to Manchester already as Christians. Don't get me wrong, it's been amazing to have been blessed with so many students and it's so important that we do our best to stop them from falling away from God when they come away to uni, but I'm also really conscious of the need to not rest on our laurels and think we're a healthy, growing church because we've got more bums on seats. We need to be doing all we can to see the lost saved, people coming from death into life! So that's one of my main foci at the moment - working out what I, as student worker, can be doing with our students to get out there and "do the stuff". So watch this space!! It's so encouraging tho as it's something that God's really put on our heart as a church and Phil & Sarah and James et al are doing a great job in challenging and facilitating us in living as partners in that there Great Commision.

There are a couple if things it would be great you could pray about if that's your style:

1. I've got a few 'preaching engagements' over the next few weeks and would appreciate being covered going into those - Man Met CU on 17th March, Reach Exchange seminar on 22nd March and then Salford CU on 26th April.
2. Next year! It's still up in the air as to what's happening after my internship finishes so if you could pray that God's will would be done but, more specifically, that if I'm to stay at Vinelife he would make the required resources avaialable.

That should sort you out for now - catch you again very soon! (I promise)

Much given; much expected

Ok, so my grasp of the concept "in the next few days" may be somewhat loose, yet I am a man of my word and so hereby goes the afore promised post...

Throughout the last term at Lifegroup we've been looking at the theme of 'Radical Disipleship'. In essence, we as Christians are a people called to lives that are both radical - in terms of our rejections of a 'worldly' life, and disciplined - in that we adhere to the patterns God has set out for us instead. We looked at a variety of topics - namely: forgiveness, time, love, money, evangelism - all of which were rooted in the challenge of Romans 12:2: conform or transform? Blend into society or allow the Holy Spirit to transform you into the person God destined you to be?

Anyway, it became increasingly apparent over the weeks that God was putting his finger on a couple of foundational issues that seemed to permeate, in my mind at least, every discussion or study we had. Hence my desire to engrave them somewhere a little more permanent that my short-term memory. If others benefit, great, but my main motive here is a selfish one - to put these challenges in front of my own eyes to inspire me to step up and meet them. Otherwise I've just spent the last few weeks spouting a load of hot air.

Ok, so here are the two (main) things:

1. At a foundational level, Christianity is incredibly simple.
   
2. Generosity, or 'open-handedness' as i like to call it, is the key to honouring God with the gifts that he gives us and the tasks that he calls us to.

Let me explain further...

Essentially the guide to living the Christian life is presented clearly by Jesus when asked what was the greatest commandment:

"Jesus replied: 'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.' This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: 'Love your neighbour as yourself.' All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments."

Matt 22:37-40

Simple. Love God with everything we've got and do likewise to those around us. Now I know that the outworking of that is anything but simple, but the blue print for how to live couldn't be any clearer. The key thing is recognising the assumptioms behind Jesus' statement and also understanding what love is. I'm sure everyone's heard the chat about the different kinds of 'love' in Greek, but the distinctions really do help us to depart from a 'candles-and-roses' perception of love - an emotion, and one which, more often than not, is associated with weakness as much as strength. No. This agape of which Jesus speaks is not so much a request that we dote on God but that we, like he himself would later demonstrate, sacrifice ourselves for him. And not just partially either - but with all our heart, soul and mind. Everything; no half measures.

Furthermore, this isn't just about how we interact with God; it extends to how we interact with everyone (including ourselves). The sacrifcial love that God calls to is a full-time vocation: it is as much about our horizontal expressions of love (i.e. to those around us) as it is our vertical expressions of praise, adoration and obedience to our creator.

Here comes the crux. The only way to be able to actually walk this out is by coming to truly recognise who this God is who asks us for everything. For if we don't have that, then ultimately every attempt at self-sacrifice will be doomed from the outset - we'll be doing it because someone else told us it was a good idea, not in response to the sovreignity of God. But if we do recognise that Jesus is Lord, that everything comes from him, and that ultimately everything is for him, then not only will we be able (in his strength) to lay down our own desires in favour of his, but we won't want to do anything else anyway. Once we loosen our grip on theses 'lives' of ours and start to see them purely as time, opportunity and talent given to us by God, the only thing that makes sense is to use them for his glory.

If everything comes from God (James 1:17; Colossians 1:16) then our response should be thus: give back, obey, give away! I.e. respond to what God has given us by giving back in return - time, money, energy, future plans etc etc; obey his commands - not to earn his love but because he already bestows it upon us; and share what he has given us with all those around us - if what we have is so good and so needed, why don't we want others to get some too?!

This whole concept of 'giving' is what I'm talking about when referring to 'open-handedness'. It's about saying that it's not just about me - i'm not just going to take everything that God's given me - gifts and abilities, money, my eternal salvation! - and keep it to myself. I'm going to recognise that God gave everything for me and that he wants me to give everything back in return. And that doesn't happen in a vacuum - it involves choices, and changes in patterns and behaviours that will effect and impact others; hopefully in a way that alerts them to the fact that God has got all this great stuff for them too!

Not only is this a challenge from God, it comes with a stark warning for any ignorance towards it, most notably in the shape of the parable of the talents/minas (Matt 25; Luke 19). God gives us gifts, yes. In fact, everything is a gift from God. Yet he calls us to be good stewards of these gifts. And the way we do that is quite clear - invest in them. I.e. don't just admire them, but use them to further the kingdom. Otherwise, we're no different to the "wicked, lazy servant". Now I'm not talking about stuff like playing in a worship band because you're kick-ass on the guitar, although that concept does come into. I'm talking about everything. Money's an obvious one to mention, but for me the biggest area is that of evangelism, and with this I will close.

Our salvation is a gift from God. Fact. We don't earn it, so we must have been given it. Therefore, like any other 'talent' we need to be open-handed with it. That means we don't just hide ourselves away in 'God-club', patting ourselves on the back because we've accepted God's gift of grace, but that instead we give of our ourselves in order to help others recognise this awesome truth - we make God's love real to people by showing that it is really in us. In order to invest this gift, we'll need to sacrficie certain things - it might be time, it might be money or a career, it might even be our attitude towards our non-Christian relationships. One things is certain, though: if we are generous with our gifts, God will honour that. If our heart is for him and for his glory, even when it hurts, then he will take our 'not enough' and make it 'more than enough'.

Read this passage from 2 Corinthians and look beyond the context of money.

"Remember this: Whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and whoever sows generously will also reap generously. Each man should give what he has decided in his heart to give, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver. And God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that in all things at all times, having all that you need, you will abound in every good work. As it is written:
"He has scattered abroad his gifts to the poor;
his righteousness endures forever." Now he who supplies seed to the sower and bread for food will also supply and increase your store of seed and will enlarge the harvest of your righteousness. You will be made rich in every way so that you can be generous on every occasion, and through us your generosity will result in thanksgiving to God.

This service that you perform is not only supplying the needs of God's people but is also overflowing in many expressions of thanks to God. Because of the service by which you have proved yourselves, men will praise God for the obedience that accompanies your confession of the gospel of Christ, and for your generosity in sharing with them and with everyone else. And in their prayers for you their hearts will go out to you, because of the surpassing grace God has given you. Thanks be to God for his indescribable gift!"

2 Cor 9: 6-15

It speaks plainly about a spirit of generosity - a generosity that produces results. By giving of ourselves, by being open-handed in all areas of our lives, "men will praise God for the obedience that accompanies our confession of the gospel of Christ, and for our generosity in sharing with them and with everyone else." I'll have some of that!