Appreciate the season

I am not a great one for looking backwards. I have many fond memories which I cherish but there is also the pain and disappointment of past failure and hurt. However I am far more inclined towards Paul’s words:

But one thing I do: forgetting what is behind and straining towards what is ahead, I press on towards the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenwards in Christ Jesus. Philippians 3: 13 – 14.

However I have had some conversations recently with long time friends that have reminded us that we have rarely appreciated the times and seasons we were in. For instance about 20 years ago we had precious times at our church when meeting in the filthiest college hall where God’s Spirit was poured out wondrously.  Now we remember God’s Spirit and what he was doing. Then we focused far too much on the terrible conditions.

About that time we also put on a series of conferences which were amazing. As a church we worked hard together and though we loved what we were doing, we didn’t really appreciate the significance of it.  Now we look back with incredible fondness on those days recalling the camaraderie, the sense of common purpose despite the hard work and most of all what God was doing. 

There were the days we ran the youth outreach programme Arrows of Fire taking young people to the nations. O my goodness, it was hard work even though we loved it. Now we see the fruit of that time but then we never really appreciated what we were doing or the investment we were placing in young people’s lives.

I have no desire to wallow in nostalgia but I do wish I had appreciated more the time I was in whilst I was in it.

But what about the bad times? No one likes them and for some the bad can be really awful.

I have never experienced any of the terrible horrors of life but one thing I do know is that God is with us in the darkest hellhole to shine his light and presence. I look back on some of my dark days with a shudder but I know God was working. I was never alone and it is in the dark times our faith grows and we are strengthened with a greater trust in God.

A wise person once said to me as I felt trapped in pain, hurt, disillusionment and despair, ‘Ask God to show you what he is doing.’ I took God’s hand and walked. There were no quick fixes but change and healing did come and I was the stronger for it. I hated it but I can appreciate those times.

However I think it is also just as important to ask God what he is doing in the good times. I know I can lie back and just enjoy it but I believe there will be something wonderful to realise and truth to recognise and be thankful for.

I want to encourage us to appreciate our season, to be thankful and to ask God to show us how he is working in the good and help us through the bad. God will use it and build something eternal into us that will bear fruit for years to come.

Get ready! It's harvest time.

When my arthritic joints complained loud and long about jogging, I took up swimming. After several months of enjoying the space of a large open-air pool, with a change of season to chillier weather, I have now started swimming at our indoor pool.

Recently I went down early to swim my lengths and found the whole pool fairly full with people intent on swimming their own lengths. There were no lane markers, just a free-for-all.  Everyone had their own space which they were relentlessly occupying and I struggled to fit in. I only really got a space to swim, instead of dodging round everyone else, when some people finished their swim. It reminded me of how church can be.

There is much talk of our being on the edge of breakthrough, that there is a sound of harvest in the air and my concern is how we are going to make room for a harvest or a significant influx of new people into our midst.

Unfortunately too many churches are like the swimming pool. Everyone is busy in their own space and no one is prepared to move over to make room for anyone else especially newcomers. It is a well-known fact that in all churches, traditional and new, everyone has their favourite place to sit. It may no longer be my pew but it is my row or my seat. How will we react if someone else sits there? How will we feel if instead of having a spare seat next to us, someone new and dare I say it, maybe not smelling so good, sits next to us?

However it is a lot more than just where people sit.

Harvest and great moves of God mean new Christians, lots of them, people who have no idea how things are done in church. Will we be the people who welcome them, not just with a superficial greeting but with a genuine invitation to join us? Will we talk to people and help them feel at home?  I loved going to a church in New York who not only welcomed visitors but also explained what was happening and why. It was very refreshing.

Harvest may also mean we are going to have to dust off our discipling skills both individually and as churches. Jesus said “go into the world and make disciples …’ He didn’t ask us to just make converts.  Discipling is a messy, time consuming process. New Christians need a lot of attention and I have always been very grateful to the people who discipled us in our early days.

In previous years, most people in Britain had a basic understanding of Christianity and the church. Our British culture was based on it. Most people would go to church once or twice a year – it wasn’t a complete unknown. Nowadays though many people, even those brought up in UK, have no idea at all about Christianity and the Church. Many may become believers from other cultures and even from other faiths.  Churches, no matter their worship or service style, have a very definite culture.  An awful lot of people in Britain today will have no idea about that culture and will need help feeling at home.

Newcomers to church need to feel they have friends, people who like them. If we are too busy in our own friendship circle with our own ministry to speak and live lives with others, people will slide out the back door as quickly as they came in the front.

At our prayer meeting this week, we were challenged about how harvest will impact us as a church and as individuals. My feeling is that now is the time to start thinking about this topic and change our own mind-sets and heart attitudes. How are we as individuals and churches going to build a welcoming attitude of openness and help people feel at home? We can also, as churches, start considering how we are going to disciple people and with what resources. This will need to be across the ages not just for adults.

This is not the first time this topic has come up in my Christian lifetime and I suspect the Church missed something previously. We just did not get ready. I really do not want to have to walk this circuit again so my prayer is that I, my church and the Church will prepare both our hearts and our programmes for the breakthrough and harvest we have been praying for for years.

Just keep jogging

The final blog based on the topic of jogging.

As you will know from these blogs, I have not only taken up jogging, aged over 65 but can now jog for 30 minutes without stopping. The main thing I have learned is that to succeed you need to master your breathing and pace. Speed is not important – finishing is the goal.

How similar this is to the Christian life. We are exhorted to run our race to win the prize which is the crown of life given to us when Jesus rewards his faithful servants. We are not in a race against one another – we are in a race with ourselves – to persevere and finish. My prayer has always been that I want to finish strong, not fast - strong. I don’t want to crawl over the line but jog over with my head held high knowing that like Paul, I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.

So many give up. I can think of all those whom I knew, who were there with me in church and who have now turned away. I also remember all those who were running well and whilst they are still there they are no longer running with passion. They’ve given up their calling and ministry through hurt, disillusionment and discouragement.

There is so much that can hurt or disappoint us but our goal is to keep going and do the best we can. Like Jesus, Paul endured terrible hardships for the Gospel yet he finished because he had his prize in mind.

So as the writer to the Hebrews says ‘… let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us’. He goes on to say Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith who for the joy set before his, endured the cross, scorning its shame and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.

Jesus endured the cross for us – because of the joy of seeing millions redeemed and coming into relationship with our heavenly Father. There are Christians around the world facing terrible circumstances for their faith. So next time that no one turns up or we are let down – again - let’s not give up or give in but fix our eyes on the prize and keep jogging to the finish.

Earlier this year, I took up jogging, something I had never done before in my life. I have always been active but actual jogging – no way. I needed some inspiration to get going so I found a suitable podcast and for 8 weeks followed the programme successfully. The eighth week was particularly inspirational as it used the launch and landing of the space shuttle Discovery to start and end the run.  There was a real sense of achievement after running for 30 minutes nonstop for the first time.

We all need inspiration to help us in our lives. Over the years, many people, Christians and non, have inspired me to live better, to make the most of my life and to give to the world.

However, as Christians we need also to be inspirational. There is so much negativity about Christians and the Church that when people come across someone who has an authentic faith being lived out on a daily basis, it becomes a source of comment, question and hopefully helps someone towards salvation. I know that was very important when we got saved over 30 years ago. The friends who had been encouraging us took us to a water baptism service. It was the first time we had been to a full immersion baptism. I was struck by the fact that the people in this church were getting a lot more from life, church and their Christianity than I certainly was. It was an important step along the way.

We all impact those around us both positively and negatively with our words, actions and attitudes, often quite unrealised. We have a friend in South Africa who has an amazing testimony of God’s deliverance and salvation from drug abuse, prostitution and a lifestyle of abuse.  We were all in our home group one day when she commented that looking at the married couples had really helped her realise that marriage could work. Her experience of marriage had not been good, yet observing the marriages of various older couples – not perfect but working – helped heal her extremely negative view of matrimony.

I am always amazed at the comments people make about my life, telling me they’ve noticed I don’t swear, that I am a Christian even when I’ve said nothing. On one occasion, when I was just standing admiring the bowls green before a game I was asked if I was praying for the match. I wasn’t but I offered to do so if they would like!

We also though need to inspire one another in our Christian walk. I love being around people who have a different or deeper faith to mine but I believe we all have a role to play in inspiring one another. In 1 Thessalonians 5: 11 Paul wrote Therefore encourage one another and build each other up, just as in fact you are doing. This was written in the context of Christians awaiting Jesus’ second coming but it’s appropriate in any circumstance.

Encouragement and inspiration may be overt but also unintentional by a positive lifestyle full of love for the Lord, a passion for his name and a consistency in the good and not so good times. God didn’t save us to be grumblers and complainers but to be light to the world, to see things from God’s perspective and to show this to our world.