Let's fly higher

I remember my first Stoneleigh bible week as though it were yesterday. The sense of joy, excitement on the car journey there, the awe at endless rows of tents, caravans and banners announcing a church's name, it really felt like, “terrible as an army with banners” from Song of Songs.  My highlights were the big meetings, thousands packed into cow sheds worshipping, listening and open to heaven. 
Lives were changed, we fell over and laughed in the Holy Spirit's presence, we saw miracle after miracle. Amazing times!

Westpoint does the same number on me every time I arrive on site, 50 plus churches with their tents, flags and banners, rooting us back to our Newfrontiers history but also our faith history, “living in tents with Isaac and Jacob, heirs with him in the same promise”. Hebrews 11: 9.
Westpoint reminds us of our history, it encourages and facilitates outworking community and it aligns us to God’s big plans for the world around us and for each believer and each church. 

Everyone gets to be blessed, from the youngest child who gets wonderfully saved or a 7 year old who steps out in a spiritual gift, the teenagers hearing God for a nation, the parents surrounded by loving friends with Godly counsel and the over 70’s hearing God has a new adventure for their lives. 

Last year Westpoint finished with a prophetic encouragement as churches and a movement to fly (like the Red Arrows) without limits, to soar, to spiral and to link up in new formations as the Holy Spirit directs. 

I am praying for an incredible move of the Holy Spirit at Westpoint 2016, more power, more healings, more unity and great prophetic clarity as I share about  'Truth to Tell' about sight and the local church. 

This is a wonderful time for us all to come to be a blessing as well as be blessed. Please don't miss it, come expecting great things from God so we might attempt great things for God.

More blessed to give than to receive

Well known parts of the bible bounce around our minds like confetti on a windy day and can be quoted at key moments of confusion or difficulty.

Recently I found the words of Jesus “it is more blessed to give than receive” tripping off my tongue. I caught them, stopped and reflected asking myself “is this true of my life”? Would I rather give £1000 or receive £1000?

No brainer.

What about forgiveness, would I rather someone apologise to me or I apologise to them?

Even something as simple as encouragement! Do I go to church hoping some keen believer will say something kind and encouraging to me, “great preach last Sunday”, or do I come prepared to speak these life words to my brothers and sisters.

The U.K. society is fragmented, marriages break down, close friends leave and abandon or just plain overlook the other.  

Churches can easily fail in this area of building community because all too often we demand more from others than we are willing to invest. Like the banking world we want friendship prosperity but because of our massive demands and unrealistic expectations of others these friendships are destined for meltdown and bankruptcy .

Tragically members make their way to the exit or sit forlorn on the” lonely step”!

In the Christian family, the church, we need to rehearse with faith that “it is more blessed to give than receive”.

This alone has the power to revolutionise our churches in Commission. Every member coming to community group and Sunday's with a bag full of gifts, words of encouragements, cards, groceries,  presents and gifts of the Holy Spirit. We work hard and sacrifice to make sure others know they are loved, valued and needed.

Don't wait for someone to leave before thanking them or asking them over for dinner, you be the blessing.

It is more blessed to give than receive, chew on this.

Slow down you move too fast

Slow down you move too fast

Approaching my 55th birthday I am worried at the speed of things around me and within me.

Sitting in T5 Heathrow I look at human ants scurrying, spraying, carrying and pushing to get to their destination. I have often felt myself like a washing machine on speed. Even on holiday I find myself rushing, checking my watch, people watching and checking the departure board every ten minutes in case the flight is cancelled.

But I have this hunger and desire.

I want to know rest, deep rest, soul rest, yet understand that it is as flighty as a butterfly and as elusive as a mini bar of soap in a bubbling jacuzzi.

It is a fact the Western world is getting faster, we walk 10% faster than we did 20 years ago, we process eighty times more information in a single day than we did back then. Our electronic age has shrunk the world, the bleep of a phone alerts us to football scores, world news, family fun or an e mail that desperately needs answering before the day is over.

So what do I, we, do?

I lift up my eyes to the hills, where does my help comes from? It comes from the Lord, the maker of heaven and earth, the one who neither tires, nor sleeps and is in control of all things.

God rested on the seventh day, and invites me, you and every child to enter in, to kick off our shoes and switch off all external distractions. In that place alone, with the audience of one we can more fully know and be fully known. In the contemplative tradition of the Church to practice soul resting, by three disciplines of recollection, quiet and union.

I am once again hearing the refrain from Simon and Garfunkle

Times are changing

It's is a full time job keeping up with change! My supermarket decides to change the gluten free aisle, my bank tells me it is changing the way it does internet banking, there is a new look to my weekend newspaper and my wife wants new clothes for summer! Can't anything remain constant?

When you boil life down to its core, the name of the game is change. And most of us resist it.

Oh yes, there are the few that love it; leaders typically who see change like a fresh breeze to a sailor aboard his yacht, or a new chapter of a great novel, a changing room to leave behind the past and dress for the future.

Change is never easy or indeed quick.  Changes challenge our comfort, upset our rhythm, mess with our diary and even our wallets! Excuses come readily, complaints drop from our tongues as plentiful as the rains of Spring. Yet God is in the change business, his word brings the challenge of change to our lives. God wants every child of his to grow up, to break sinful habits, to put off first in order to put on something new. Col 3:5-14. Change is the master of the fitting room and invites us daily to undress, count the cost and dress for the future.

Change takes time, it is made up of small steps, and it is often the smallest of these steps in a Godward direction that end up the biggest steps in your life.

Commission will also embark upon a season of change as we embrace the vision that God has put before us. 20:20 vision will take all our efforts together, involving taking risks, maintaining the tension of caring for and building the local church while pushing forward with church planting and working into areas where Christ is not yet known.

As we embrace this vision we may feel tempted to look back or even complain. But the real name of our tailor is the Holy Spirit. You can always count on him to disturb a meeting, to turn over the tables, to set fire to our well made plans. He lifts before Commission a mirror and challenges us to get changed, prepared for the adventure of our lives.

Butterflies of Friendship

Butterflies of Friendship

If I were to choose one creation miracle that speaks of the existence and majesty of God it would be the butterfly. The hungry caterpillar book can never do justice to a fat slug like bug weaving a web of silk or perhaps a coffin like burial only to emerge a few weeks later into the most frail and beautiful imago* that can fly and light up a garden.

                                               

These little creatures I have loved since a boy. Fishing net in hand, chasing down warm sunny lanes, to capture speeding Red Admirals or floppy Marbled Whites. Then with clammy hands retrieving and holding with awe such rare jewels before releasing them to their habitats. Not all made it, hard are the lessons and fragile the wings of butterflies. Scales of downy talc was left on my palm and tiny wings were damaged beyond repair so poor butterfly lazily floated onto the grass its flying days past.

Friendship mirrors my experience as a young boy with butterflies.

There can be elusive, rainy, dark days of loneliness searching for a friend or partner, chasing lanes and pathways to find that special one or group where we can belong. Yet that moment when we spot the opportunity and marvel at the grace and beauty of this new character can easily become clumsy moments of grabbing or grasping, trying to control and hold onto something we believe could bring us joy.

Cluttered the houses and homes of our nation, formal the churches, desperate the loneliness of those who have been handled then discarded.

Christian love is releasing love, it handles with gravity and yet lightness every person that God brings across our path. We can marvel and rejoice in their beauty and gifts. We can take pleasure in meals and deepening friendship and love without ever slipping into the ruination of grasping or controlling.

All relationships should be releasing, a parent with a child, a tutor with a pupil, a discipler with her disciple.

Heather and I have watched 4 children grow into adulthood, and prayed and rejoiced at steps and choices as they have each moved from slothful caterpillars eating you out of house and home to responsible adults that have taken their wings and flown.

*

In biology, the imago is the last stage an insect attains during its metamorphosis, its process of growth and development; it also is called the imaginal stage, the stage in which the insect attains maturity.  Wikepedia

Hacked off by hackers

Hacked off by the hackers

"You've been hacked" my good friend and tech wizard Andi announces.

"But how?”  I sheepishly reply. 

"By opening your e mail attachment and answering the password question." 

“What now?"  I say feeling glummer by the second, like some contestant in a quiz show that gets dumped out on the first question. 

"You will need to phone your bank, Amazon, E-bay etc. to change your passwords,” and in that second you know that a few hours of your day have just gone up in a pile of pungent smoke.

"Hello this is Rachel how can I help you?" 

"Morning Rachel, I may have been hacked and need to change my passwords etc.".  

"No problem Guy, let me run you through some security questions".

 The equivalent to Who Wants to be a Millionaire begins.   "Name, date of birth, post code?"   I am off to a flier.   "Second and fourth character of existing password, wife's maiden name?"  There is no stopping me, I begin to feel smug, a smile breaks out on my lips.   "And lastly, name of your favourite teacher?"

You are kidding, I begin to sweat, favourite teacher, I hated my teachers, a favourite?

Rachel presses me, the sand in the egg timer clearly running out.

"Mr Amos?”

“Wrong, I'm afraid, would you like another go?"  It's Gollum versus Bilbo all over again. 

"Miss Curtis or Mr Cooksey," I gamble.

"Both wrong I'm afraid, we will have to go right back to the beginning!"

I hang up, and on that very subject imagine doing likewise with the miserable so and so who so rudely messed up my day.

I guess we all face similar days and frustrations that rob us of joy and peace. So we pray, “deliver me from the evil one”,  knowing that God alone can free us and deliver us from the results of hacking and indeed from being hacked off!