Struggling with your faith and its outworking? Two people recently have shown me the contemporary truth of transforming grace in their lives (Romans 12:1-2). The second I know, the first I don’t.

Faith Under Fire.

Andrew White has been the vicar of St George’s in Baghdad since 2005. Remarkably by the age 10 he knew that he wanted to go into medicine and a priest! Whilst working at St Thomas’, London on the Crash Team for cardiac emergencies God called him into ministry via Ridley Hall, Cambridge. During his time there he was diagnosed first with ME and then MS. He asks: is it not that sometimes God moves through adverse circumstances and even sickness when we will not cooperate with Him in health and tranquility? He is the living truth of a motto given to him by Lord Coggan (“Don’t Take Care, Take Risks”).

He is inspired by the Christians in his congregation whom he says have much to teach us about experiencing the fullness of the presence of God.  St George’s is outside the Green Zone and he lives each day believing on 1 John 4:8 “Perfect love drives out fear”.

Faith Down Under.

Nearer home, a 24-year old from our congregation in The Hague has also heard the call of God and answered it late January 2013 by giving up his job and flying to Cape Town to work at the Helderberg Sports Academy in its townships’ programmes.  In the townships 80% of the children do not live with their biological father.

He has worked to fund the start of the programme, but is reliant on God’s provision for its continuation.

Please pray God will provide for both these men’s needs and use them greatly for His kingdom.

Transforming Grace.

In the Explore Bible Devotional app I read recently:

“Grace never leaves people where it finds them. David’s experience of God’s favour transforms him into a willing, self-sacrificing servant.”

As a well-known hymn concludes:

“ Were the whole realm of nature mine, that were an offering too small. Love so amazing, so divine demands my soul, my life, my all.”

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“…let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven.” (Matthew 5:15)

Bloated and fatigued by the excesses of the festive season, resolving to stick to New Year resolutions; spare a thought for Cluj. Cluj is an old Romanian university city in Transylvania and home to a soccer team that played in the same group as Man Utd in the Champions League this season. Less glamorously it has a district called Pata Rat that is not only home to the city’s rubbish dump but also to families of Roma gypsies living in, on and from the rubbish.

I wrote about my church’s (APCH’s) mission to the Roma last year (Mission Possible); thirty three of us revisited in 2012. What a difference a year makes! A permanent multi-functional building has been built in the centre of the shanty village and is a beacon of hope for permanence, sanitation, education, medication and a symbol of trust in God in the lives of the Roma who live there and those who help them.

We erected six more pre-fabricated houses; at a cost of EUR2,500 each and a life span of ten years means families’ lives are being changed at EUR250 per year per family.

We provided a children’s programme and a food distribution programme. The latter is tough emotionally. Seeing 100+ filthy children waiting prayerfully and patiently for a meagre meal of a sandwich, a banana and a drink is heartbreaking and all the more shocking in that in this European city it is a daily occurrence.

If you haven’t been on a mission trip, maybe you could add it to your New Year’s resolutions and pray that your life is active in the service of others: pray in the words of Charles Garfield: may your life be a mission and not an intermission.

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Looking down to Fishermen’s Wharf and the Golden Gate Bridge and all the other wonderful sights San Francisco has to offer, high above the streets of San Francisco atop Nob Hill sit several buildings which have cameo roles in Hitchcock’s Vertigo (recently voted the best movie of all time). Across the square from the Fairmount Hotel sits Grace Cathedral, this is not only modelled on Paris’ Notre Dame but has copied stained glass from Chartres. Sad to say, I’ve have yet to visit Chartres but I am determined to do so in the near future as what fascinated me about Grace Cathedral was its labyrinths. These objects too have been copied from Chartres. In Grace Cathedral one labyrinth is in the chancel and the other is outside, after all this is California.

No Minotaur, underground caverns or golden thread, these labyrinths are two dimensional projections on the floor. Such labyrinths have been traced back as far as 324 AD and in the USA, at least, seem to be enjoying something of a renaissance. They are used as an aid to prayer.

Tracing a labyrinth’s path (I write “path”, singular, as unlike a maze there is only one path to travel) there are no blind alleys or cul-de-sacs, and you can’t get lost, at least not geographically. However, you may find you can lose yourself in God’s presence and transcend the space mentally, emotionally and spiritually.

Something quite supernatural may be felt as you walk slowly from the entrance to the labyrinth towards its centre and back out again, praying or meditating on words of scripture. The concentration induced by the exercise somehow helps one to centre-in on God. The usual mental distractions to prayer (vividly described by Henri Nouwen as like monkeys in banana trees) melt away as one leaves the entrance and picks up the rhythm of walking and praying. Fascinating.

But you don’t have to be in California or France to experience a labyrinth. You can replicate the experience by simply tracing a labyrinth with your finger or pen. I find it a very helpful tool for my quiet times, particularly when distracted by the cares of everyday life, maybe you will too?

Can you recommend a good hotel in Chartres?

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Where did you spend the summer? I was fortunate to spend mine in California/Nevada doing the LA, San Francisco and Las Vegas triangle. It was a trip of a lifetime that I will never forget.

One of the highlights was the opportunity to visit Saddleback Church in Orange County. Since I’ve been a fan of Rick Warren for a long time, this was a modern-day pilgrimage for me.

Saddleback is a mega church by any standards. It’s a wonderful campus of landscaped grounds and different venues (or tent pavilions), which share the message from the main auditorium (pictured above) but have individual worship styles in each tent.

The children’s building is amazing: the network of classrooms and modern facilities are above and beyond anything I have seen or could’ve dreamed in a church.

Welcomers were dotted around the campus offering ice-water bottles with the latest campaign wording: Better Together.

Fully appreciating the dangers of isolation in a mega church, Saddleback has a hugely active small group network emphasizing the need to live our lives together and with divine purpose.

Steve Gladen is the pastor of Small Groups at Saddleback and has published a book this year called Leading Small Groups with Purpose.

If you are leading or thinking of leading a small group you might want to check it out.

I found it a goldmine of inspirational ideas, clearly arising from years of experience. It made me smile, cry and cringe as I recognized my own shortcomings and failures in leading a group.

I give thanks for the blessed refreshment of holidays and for the opportunity to look afresh at my small group, its structure, format, members and their unique giftings and issues. I pray that we all would be truly better together this coming year.
If you are not a member of a small group: why not join one this autumn; if there isn’t one nearby, September is a great time to start one!

If you’re already leading, be encouraged in Steve Gladen’s book’s final words:

“You matter to God and leading and building health in your small group is an incredible and eternal privilege.”

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Do not merely listen to the word and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says. James 1:22

 Are you listening, are you acting?

The challenging words above from Jesus’ brother are unequivocal. They call for us not only to open our ears and pay attention to the preacher or teacher, but to absorb the Word into our deepest being so we are marinaded in it to the extent it breaks forth in action out of love for God and our neighbour.

So, are you serving or are you being served? Hopefully both. But so many in our congregations are consumers and not contributors. Excuses, excuses, excuses; too busy with work, family, health, wealth issues. Busy, busy, busy. Really?

The importance of being Ernest (or Tom or Dick or Harry)

I responded to a message such as this 20-odd years ago when my children were very young. Sunday School teachers were, and sadly still are, in short supply.

What are your memories of Sunday School?

Carly Fiorina (erstwhile CEO of Hewlett Packard) in her interesting autobiography Tough Choices recounts how she was given a coaster at Sunday School that read;

“What you are is God’s gift to you. What you make of yourself is your gift to God.”

Clearly these words are foundational for her and gave her direction. My own memories are less inspirational and are more along the lines of being inoculated against organised religion! Fortunately that immunisation has long since worn off and I have found enormous reward in teaching Sunday School, even now as an empty nester.

I teach 11-13 year olds in a wonderful team that consists of two couples and a young man. This means our pre-teens have four men in their class at different times throughout the course of the year. This is unique in my experience and so valuable as the children, particularly the boys, see male role models in a predominantly female preserve. Hopefully this gives the boys, at least, some incentive to explore their own faith at a key moment in their physical, emotional and spiritual development.

For me, the empty nesting season in my life has led to less busyness and allows me more time to plan, to teach, to lead; although I miss my own children’s help in finding the cultural references!

As the academic year comes to a close we face the perennial problem of staffing for the forthcoming year. How is that? With 25 children registered in my class that means there must be close to 50 potential teachers; how light the load would be if they all stepped up next year!

Are you listening, are you acting?

S0 where does that leave you? If not here, Sunday School, where? If not now, when? If not you, who?

Are you being served or are you serving?

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“ … whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.”
Matthew 25:40

If you want to walk on water you’ve got to get out of the boat!
John Ortberg

Don’t we just love to stay within our comfort zones, hiding behind our busyness and (over) commitments. I know I do.

Late last year, however, my wife and I stepped out of our boat (a comfortable life as expats in The Hague) and worked in a trash belt near Cluj-Napoca, Romania amongst the Roma gypsies for a week. We went with more than 60 members of our church (The American Protestant Church of The Hague (APCH)) via Dortmund and Wizz Air (!) to Cluj. Our home was a diaconal centre and although basic, seemed like a 5-star hotel after a day at the dump; however 2 days without water gave us a taste of what the Roma lived with daily.

We divided into teams: house building, house renovation, food distribution, medical and children’s work. I was in the 2-man renovation team which mended windows, fixed doors and patched walls of the small dilapidated shacks which the Roma families know as home. Through the day, as we worked, I could “zone out” the incredible poverty – the scantily clad children, bare foot in the rubbish and the mud; the filth, the dogs, the rats and the cockroaches but in the evenings back at the centre (and now as I write) the faces of the children came back to me and my eyes filled with tears at the recollection of the plight of these families. How can this be possible and in a European country?

Wisely we were instructed at the outset that we would be frustrated and saddened by our seemingly meagre efforts in light of so much need.

Indeed it was so. We could do little to change their lives but many of our lives would be changed by them.

The rubbish dump itself was like a scene from a post-nuclear strike: apocalyptic. The children cling to the garbage trucks as they enter the site so they might have first pickings from the truck’s load.

As the temperatures drop in the northern winter and the snows fall, I can’t help but wonder how they forage for food and recyclable goods in such conditions.

Yes, I have seen the BBC documentary of the organised Romanian gangs descending on our shopping streets; yes, I haven’t heard a good word said about the Roma and yes, maybe some of the criticism is well-founded but surely no matter what your political persuasion, social prejudices or knowledge about these people: it is a fundamental human right to have access freely to sanitation, education and medical attention?

If you’ve been thinking but hesitating about going on a mission trip, hesitate no longer; get out of your boat and pray that Jesus would be your guide and strength as you step out on the water and make mission possible.

www.proromi.nl
www.apch.nl/missiontrip

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