The Demolition Squad seminar from The Gathering – 2013.

tg13: Demolition Squad seminar from CVM on Vimeo.

5 Principles of Sharing Your Faith

Beer Mat Apologetics is the stuff we do with our friends, in the pub, when we’re talking about Jesus. Yes, every man is an expert, and yes, we all have opinions about everything.

Into this arena we want to present Jesus well. Christianity – as a faith – makes sense emotionally and rationally and we can communicate it on both of these levels.

Check out the blog post ‘Beer Mat Apologetics: Five Principles of Sharing our Faith‘ for five principles to help you share your faith more effectively with your friends, family, and colleagues.

The Gathering 2014

Bookings are now open for The Gathering 2014. It’s bigger and better than last year and features great speakers and lots of fun!

Mark the 20-22 June on your calendar and invite your friends. It’s going to be great!

“Get a house group going this Lent.” was the exhortation from the pulpit at my church eight years ago.  I did and the mixed group I started is still running and healthy.

Being an expat church group the membership changes every year and only 3 of the 10 original members remain but I thank God for his blessings on this group.

We’ve shared each other’s trials, tribulations, temptations and triumphs down the years and the tangible love demonstrated in hands-on practical as well as financial ways has been moving and encouraging and gives a glimpse of the style of family relationship we will share in heaven for eternity.

We’ve just finished studying Tim Keller’s Gospel in Life (Grace Changes Everything) series and, as always, I have cherished the openness, insights and willingness to share doubts as well as knowledge in a safe, secure environment.  From Ash Wednesday we will be in Rick Warren’s Transformed.

Can I inspire you to get a house group going this Lent?

 ²⁴ And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds,²⁵ not giving up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging one another—and all the more as you see the Day approaching. Hebrews 10:24-25

I recently started watching Homeland. I think it was the combination of Damian Lewis donning US military uniform again as well as the nominations for all those awards that had me curious. I don’t know what I was expecting, but it wasn’t what I found myself watching. Homeland is brutal. Sure, there’s the violence and the sex etc. but it was the uncertainty of the plot that was most assaulting. I wasn’t sure who to cheer for. However, I kept watching, certain that at any moment Captain Winters would emerge and save the day.

Stories surrounding conflicts – be it Band of Brothers or Homeland – are gripping because they are stories of struggle. If truth, hope, and beauty are lights that guide us then in wartime those things can become awfully dim. How people struggle to find that light through the chaos is the stuff of inspiration to authors and screenwriters.

War for those involved in them is not a thought experiment but rather a brutal testing ground of all that you believe and hold to be true. Perhaps this is why those that cling on to hope through turmoil provide us with some of the greatest film plots.

But you don’t need to have been to war to know the struggle for the good is within us. Even in the day-to-day rhythm of life we can ask ourselves what the purpose of our existence is. War may present these questions both suddenly and acutely but equally the monotony of life can provoke an unshakeable longing to simply ask ‘why?’

When we watch the stories of triumph over despair on our screens we watch them actively looking for resolution. We want the hero to win, to overcome the odds, to persevere at all costs. Be it Batman, or Oskar Schindler, or Andy Dufresne – we long for the good to defeat the bad. There is something within us that agrees that it is right and noble to seek and strive for the good of a cause, a person, or an ideal.

That we all believe in a concept of goodness points us to a greater reality. The desire to cheer for a winner, the good side, makes perfect sense if there is, ultimately a good side.

Without belief in God it’s still a worthwhile thing to strive for the good and lament the wrong but the advantage the person of faith has is that this all makes sense to him.

Without God we can cheer for a winner but how can we ever be sure we’re cheering for the right side? If there is no standard, no ultimate right and wrong, then is there really any such thing as a right side at all or is our belief in goodness just a construct or perhaps based only on group consensus? Here’s hoping you’re in the right group – and the strongest and largest group – if that’s the case, because history points out that there the majority often get their way.

The moral tensions teased out on our screens taps into a deep desire in all of us, a desire based on an understanding of some kind of moral code, an order. That these things resonate so strongly with us suggest that we are wired in such a way to know right from wrong, which in turn points to a standard beyond ourselves and our cultures.

Faith in God provides a grounding point that makes sense of this world as we experience it. The moral clues in all of us serve as a pointer to the true nature of reality. With morality secured, there is hope that the winning side may be found and known.

Now, if only I could work out who is on that winning side in Homeland. But that will have to wait for another season or two I fear.

There is an old saying that “wisdom is the comb that life gives you when your hair has fallen out”.

Another phrase often used is “being wise after the event”.

Anthony Trollope wrote that the wisdom of those of mature years comes from reflecting on our failures rather than considering our successes. A sentiment echoed by Alexander Pope who said “by experience (we are) wise”.

My point is that acquired wisdom comes about as the result of what we have learned from the lives we have lived – and more often than not it comes from the mistakes we have made rather than the times we have prospered. Personally, I never thought I would look back at the times when I have cried – and find myself laughing. Or think of the times when I have laughed – and find myself crying. As the years go by, however, this seems to happen to me more and more frequently.

Whilst I believe that you are never too old to gain more wisdom – indeed, you only become old when you STOP learning! – the duty of the older man is to give wise counsel to the younger man. The sad aspect of our times is that the young seem more interested in a legacy of money than of wisdom, character and faith. But, like us, they will learn as they get older!

“So, Lord, teach us to number our days: that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom.”
The Book of Common Prayer 1662

Ethos – part of Youth for Christ have released a new video looking at the question of morality.

This – part II – was written by Andy of the Demolition Squad. Take a look and tell us what you think!

And if you missed part I have a look here: Can We Prove The Existence of God?.

Are we communicating and speaking the same language on a day to day basis to the people we meet? A good starting point for thinking about spreading the gospel. With a friend a few years ago we stared to have a coffee and share about how to operate an iPaq. From this evolved a Churches Together computer group which continues to help people .

COMMUNICATING

A Computer and Phone IT group has been meeting in our church cafe weekly for 4 weeks. Meeting together to try and keep up to date learn from each other about laptops, computers, phones and tablets,. People are interested who don’t understand this new technology, but want to learn at their own pace .

THE CHALLENGE

We are looking at learning more about internet shopping, Face Book, Twitter, Anti- virus, Blogs, down loading a bible App. and other areas suggested by the group. With a personal touch, we learn more allowing us to communicate better with family, friends ,missionaries and other areas in our lives. Allowing us to reach out with God’s love, with a Christ like vision. to serve the people we come in contact with

WHERE TO FROM HERE?

Passing on a vision and keeping things fresh in a joyful way is not easy. As with modern technology and spreading the gospel we need confidence to pass on. We have found the best way and learning and helping each other is on a one to one basis. A challenge to do this is by developing Christian lead groups on church premises such as a café with Wi-Fi, art classes, photography groups, cell groups, etc. running in parallel with the secular keep fit, music groups etc. Out of something new and challenging one of the fruits will be if it brings new people into the ‘church’ ?

Today we start a new series of blogs on some of the difficulties we can encounter when reading the Bible. At face value, the Bible can seem to be full of contradictions. When people level this at us, we need to take them and it seriously, so let’s see how we can respond. We shall start with the first book of the New Testament. There’s lots to choose from, so let’s look at some of the more interesting ones.

The Book of Matthew

Problem: Ch 2: Verse 2 – The Bible seems to commend (and God blesses) the Magi for following the star, when elsewhere astrology is condemned.

Response: Astrology is a belief that looking at the position and movement of the starts can help us to foretell events. The star in the biblical account is there to announce Jesus’ birth, not to foretell it. The star given to the Magi was a proclamation, not a prediction, of what had already happened. Also, elsewhere in the Bible stars and planets are employed by God to reveal His desires. Psalm 19:1-6 affirms that the heavens declare God’s glory, while Romans 1 teaches that creation reveals God’s existence.

– oooo –

Problem: Ch 4: Verses 14-16 – Does Matthew incorrectly quote Isaiah 9:1-2, or does he change it?

Response: It isn’t necessary to quote a passage verbatim in order to accurately communicate its meaning. Rather than distorting it, Matthew simply condenses the meaning of the passage. To paraphrase accurately is not to distort, otherwise no news report or historical account could ever be accurate, since summary is essential to history.

– oooo –

Problem: Ch 5: Verse 14 – Jesus tells his disciples that they are the light of the world, whereas in John 9:5, he declared: ‘I am the light of the world’. So, who is the light of the world, Jesus or us? (And who’s paying the energy bill for all this?)

Response: Both! Jesus is the primary light of the world, and we are the secondary light. We are the reflectors of Jesus’ source light, in the same way that the moon is the reflector of the sun’s source light.

– oooo –

Problem: Ch 5: Verse 42 – Jesus clearly says ‘Give to him who asks you, and from him who wants to borrow from you do not turn away.’ But, if we took this literally, how would we provide anything for our families. Also, Paul says that those who do not provide for their own families are worse than infidels (1 Timothy 5-8).

Response: Context is key. As we know from other things Jesus says (no good father would give a serpent to his child), this does not mean we should give people what will harm them. Furthermore, it does not mean give to those who flatly refuse to work. Paul is emphatic: ‘If anyone will not work, neither will he eat’ (2 Thessolonians 3:10). Finally, the whole context of Jesus’ words here are to reaffirm the spirit of the law, and to counter the legalistic misinterpretation of the OT that says take revenge on your enemy with ‘an eye for an eye’. By contrast, Jesus says not to retaliate against your enemy: love him, and give him help. Jesus no more expected His listeners to take this command without qualification than He intended them to literally cut off their hands and pluck out their eyes if they offended them!

– oooo –

Problem: Ch 5: Verse 43 – Jesus said of the Old Testament, ‘You have heard it said, you shall love your neighbour and hate your enemy.’ So why did the OT say that it was Ok to hate your enemies, and why would a God of love allow that?

Solution: It didn’t, and He didn’t. Jesus said ‘you have heard’, and not ‘it is written’ as he often did when quoting scripture. He is actually criticising the Jewish tradition that had grown up around the Old Testament – a tradition that was corrupted, based on the pharisaical misinterpretation of the text. God never commanded His people at any time to hate their enemies, while Jesus said that the greatest of all commands were to love God and to love our neighbour as ourselves (Matthew 22: 36-37).

– oooo –

Let us know what passages you struggle with, and we’ll try and cover them in future blog posts. Until next time…

I was thinking about the lives of John Lennon and Vladimir Lenin recently when I came across a trivia quiz where you have to decide if a given quote was said by Lennon or Lenin.

Here’s a couple of examples:

“God is a concept by which we measure our pain.”

“There are decades when nothing happens; and there are weeks where decades happen.”

“Can a nation be free if it oppresses another nations?”

“A lie told often enough becomes truth.”

You can take the test and find the answers here.

The quote that started my thought process was Lennon’s assumption in 1966 that “Christianity was in decline and the Beatles had become more popular than Jesus Christ.”

Lenin, writing on Socialism and Religion, agreed with Marx that ”Religion is opium for the people. Religion is a sort of spiritual booze, in which the slaves of capital drown their human image, their demand for a life more or less worthy of man.”

Here we are 90 years after the death of Lenin and 34 years since Lennon was murdered and Communism hasn’t crushed religion and, certainly worldwide, Christianity goes from strength to strength.

I’m reminded of the words of Jesus when He told Peter that, “I will build my church and the gates of Hell will not prevail against it.”

Inspired by the exposed, volcanic coast of western Lanzarote, at La Santa, where CVM holds its annual sports outreach week every March.

Read 2 Peter 3 v 8.
But do not forget this one thing, dear friends. With the Lord a day is like a thousand years and a thousand years are like a day

Recite this out loud:
Whipped up by hurricanes, horizon-wide,
Reined in from a quarter million miles
By The Moon in her gravitation grip,
They’re seething through their night-long thunder ride
Until their reins are loosed and all’s let rip
On the rumbling, raging, roaring morning tide.

In charging ranks of teetering waterfalls,
Jade, grey-green and sapphire water walls,
From rain cloud shadow or a blue sky lick,
Racing on through sun and head-on squalls,
Trailing exhaust plumes of rainbow slick,
Their age-long-ranging wave song, “Praise the Lord”.

Sweeping on, majestic, to a line
Where red-hot streams had stopped and formed a rind
Of wicked, brooding, matt-black, lava rock,
Frozen at the place and since the time
When, halted by the waves’ explosive shock,
It turned to tortured shapes of wild design.

Ten thousand years ago, the line was made
And ever since, the daily battle’s raged
As each wave’s every rippling liquid ounce
Rears up, a water-muscled monster, caged
Until from its one, suicidal pounce
The cynic rocks with white, wave blood are sprayed.

The powers of darkness, against The Lord of all,
Another battle raging since the fall
Of angels and of humankind from good.
But victory cannot now be forestalled.
His Kingdom’s seed is sown as martyrs’ blood,
His mills grind slowly, but grind exceeding small.

As long as there’s The Moon and Earth still spins,
Tides will flow and waves, ride on the winds
For ages upon ages, bit by bit
Revealing in their battle which side wins,
As rock is pebble-pounded down to grit,
Two battles sealed, as soon as war begins.

Doubt is a pain too lonely to know that faith is his twin brother.

Khalil Gibran

A few years ago, I was having a conversation with a guy in a coffee shop. At the time I was trying to speak to more people about God, so I shoehorned into the conversation that I was a Christian. Naturally, this guy then strung out a list of gripes he had with Christianity, and I responded in what I thought was a relevant way, socially acceptable way.

‘Don’t you ever have doubts?’ he asked with a foam moustache.

‘All the time!’ I replied, thinking that by showing that doubt was a regular part of being a Christian, he could become a Christian and still be racked with doubt. I thought it might be an easier sell that way!

I now look back and feel like I got it badly wrong. I conflated too many different things into one big post-modern mess. Let’s try and break it down.

The problem isn’t that Christians struggle with doubt. It’s what we do when we hit a wall of doubt that is vital.

Firstly, a question is not a doubt. We all have questions about God, and as Christians we don’t need to feel that’s problematic. Asking a question, and getting a good answer, strengthens faith and understanding. A worldview that doesn’t allow for genuine heartfelt questions is only going to suffocate and stifle. What we must do, however, is ensure that we act on the questions we have, and earnestly seek the answer. It’s only by refusing or failing to do this that a question burrows and frets its way into the psyche and becomes a doubt. Looking back to my conversation over coffee, what I really meant (and should have said) was that I had *questions* ‘all the time’.

‘It’s sounds really painful, having all these nagging doubts to deal with every day,’ my co-drinker suggested. And it would be, wouldn’t it, if you’re entire worldview was based around the certainty of uncertainty?

My real problem was not my own beliefs about God, but my own desire to be seen as culturally normal. I mistakenly saw doubt as the flipside to the sort of blind faith that leads to extremism, as well as believing glib phrases like the one at the top, where doubt and faith are Siamese twins. By suggesting that Christianity was something I believed but was also something I might be wrong about, I could maintain friendships and not be labelled as a fundamentalist. This sort of behaviour is best summed up by a ‘This is my truth – what’s yours?’ type of approach.

But guess what? God isn’t a postmodernist. The Gospel is either true or it’s the greatest hoax that has ever been pulled. It isn’t a bit true, or true for me but not this other guy. Some things just are black or white.

I realise I’m talking in broad strokes here, but some Christians can overplay the role of doubt within Christian life. The idea is that, by emphasising doubt, we put the focus on always searching for answers, on questioning everything. This is the accepted cultural standard for our time, but the problem is that this sort of approach can turn doubt into an idol, so that you’re own scepticism and rational faculties become, oddly, your God. If you make an idol out of doubt, then when you try and tell people about your faith, what is there to commend it? ‘Come, be like me, and base your life on uncertainty.’ If your message is ‘I’m certain that I don’t know’, then why would anyone see anything true or meaningful about your life?

Jesus didn’t ever say ‘doubt in me’. He asked people to follow Him. Following Jesus doesn’t mean the path is always clear and free from obstacles, but it does require a commitment to follow. Sometimes you’ve just got to dig in, man up, and trust your lead scout. Faith isn’t about blind obedience, but nor is it predicated on a shrugging uncertainty. It is a sure and certain hope that we have in Jesus.