‘It’s alright – I know what sex I am love’ came the response from a man when I told him what job I did. The phrase Gender Advisor is not exactly the clearest of job titles. It does make it open for comments such as ‘Do you work in a sex change clinic then?’ and ‘So what do you do once you’ve separated the men from the women?’

The very title of my job can actually scare men off. The word gender conjures up images of bra-burning feminists of the 1960’s that has somehow stuck with us. Not something that is helpful when you are trying to bring men and women together to work in partnership and harmony. I need men!

It is easy to slip into stereotypes and makes assumptions about people and words that we use. A challenge I have is to try to engage men in gender issues when the vast majority think it’s a ‘wimmin’s issue’. The reality is very different. Gender looks at the cultural stereotypes we have of men and women. They differ from culture and culture and change over time. So the images we have of what men did in the 1800’s certainly is different from today. The same applies for women. Roles change over time as opportunities for education & employment increase and policies are in place to support this.

Gender equality is all about ensuring that men and women have the same opportunities in life, laws that are applied equally, discrimination based on being male or female ended. Gender equality includes equality for men. It is not about raising the rights of women at the expense of men. That is not equality. It’s about restoring a balance: a balance that has historically been skewed for a long time. Both men and women suffer as a result. In my work it is often men that don’t think that they need equality, or that they see it as bringing them down a peg down a two. That is just not the case. It is often about having a new vision and seeing how better life can be when all are considered for the talents, skills and experiences they have. Allowing both men and women to be who God created them to be. Not boxed in by what society tells us we ‘should’ be. This applies equally to men and women.

I see in the media in the UK a real dumbing down of men that is frankly unhealthy and at its worst, sexist. The new diet coke advert is an example of this. At one point in the ad a woman pinches a man’s bum in the bar. If it was the other way round there would be a stream of calls complaining. So why should it be acceptable the other way round? It is not. It objectifies men. It is unacceptable. It makes my job harder.

The ‘F’ word has also been much maligned and misunderstood. I’m talking about Feminism. The very word makes men want to run in the opposite direction. It is a movement for equality. You could say Jesus was a feminist. He pushed and challenged the cultural boundaries of the day. He allowed women to financially support his ministry (Mary, Martha, Mary Magdalene and a host of his other female followers would have actively supported him), he mixed freely with women in his daily life, he taught women theology (Mary) that was unthinkable in his day, he allowed a woman to show him affection in public (Mary Magdalene washing his feet), he restored women’s dignity, self worth and value (Samaritan woman, woman bleeding), he displayed a balance (woman caught in adultery). Overall Jesus treated women as equals, subjects not objects. He was radical, inclusive, and counter cultural in his day.

When we look at feminism from the perspective of restoring a balance, the balance that was from the beginning, it is easier to engage. In my job I need men to bring about changes. They are often the ones in positions of power, authority and responsibility that can bring about change. I need men to model healthier relationships to other men to stop violence against women. I need men to confident in themselves and who they are in God to step out in faith and be counter cultural in today’s society. Not conforming to the pressures of society that tells us that money, status, power, who you are having sex with, and consumables are who you are. We have the good news to share. As every person who has been to Sunday school will know, the answer is Jesus. We need Jesus to bring us into a newness of relationship with him. To challenge those areas that are not right. To bring our self value and self worth based on money, status, power, cars, consumables, sex rather than on whom we are in God before Jesus. We are loved, restored, forgiven, highly valuable, amazing, powerful, heirs with Christ, part of a family, unique. We need to apply these truths on the inside. Each one of us, both men and women, are needed to bring about God’s kingdom here on earth.

I am one person doing a job in a large organisation. The task is massive. It’s a UK issue. It’s a global issue. I can’t do it on my own. I need men to join in the journey for better, healthier relationships. To journey on restoring the balance between women and men. Will you join me on this journey? Men are required – apply within.

Mandy Marshall is Tearfund’s Programme Development Advisor focusing on Gender issues & Co-Director of Restored. She has travelled extensively with Tearfund over the last 17 years.

If you ask my wife Anna she might claim I still suffer from selective hearing, especially when the vacuuming needs doing or the dishwasher needs emptying. Personally I don’t sweat it, I’m more concerned with my worrying case of selective thinking. You know what I mean? The kind of thinking where I push to the back of my mind all the stuff I don’t want to think about, be that the questions about God I simply have no answer for, or choosing to ignore the standards I know I should be implementing in my life.

Because thinking about them is only half the story. Doing them is the other bit. Maybe that’s why I disengage the brain so frequently – it’s easier not to get depressed by thinking about all the things I should be doing. It’s easier to distract myself in a world full of five minute fads and constant noise.

Philippians 4:8-9 ‘Summing it all up, friends, I’d say you’ll do best by filling your minds and meditating on things true, noble, reputable, authentic, compelling, gracious—the best, not the worst; the beautiful, not the ugly; things to praise, not things to curse. Put into practice what you learned from me, what you heard and saw and realized. Do that, and God, who makes everything work together, will work you into his most excellent harmonies.’ (The Message)

Jesus certainly knew what He was saying when He told us to love Him with all of our hearts, our bodies and our minds.

Before too long the more vocal members of the meeting were drawing up a timescale of change. Life became an abacus of prediction where even the most pragmatic mind was converted to sheer optimism. They had truly nailed down the best way to transform the world around them. In less than two hours it seemed like a room full of strangers had discovered the secret which had escaped their ancestors. They could almost hear the voices of heaven calling out their names in the awards ceremony of history.

And slowly, in the background, tiny droplets of rain began to fall on the windows of the bespoke office. As quiet as a child sleeping still in a Bethlehem cattle market, was the rain falling outside.

As the volume of the weather increased, frowns began to grow on the faces of those with big names. Soon the discussion fell silent. Nothing but the rain could get a word in edgeways.

For all the plans and schemes, strategies and visions, each leader was totally helpless. Though the silence in the room was clearly the only winner of bragging rights, the group squirmed like awkward children. They were on a roll, but now were forced to pause. The room was completely dependent on the rain stopping before they could return to barking out their mission statements.

Yes, without vision the people perish, but without submitting to the sovereignty of God we may as well be playing hopscotch with the hedgehogs.

Nothing grows without Jesus watering the plans. Nothing. We are absolutely minimal in God’s agenda for this world, in fact, it’s a grace gesture that we are involved at all. There’s a very thin line between vision and selfish desire. And I am as guilty as anyone when it comes to thinking more about my importance than I should. If there’s one lesson I hope to master in this world, it’s how to deny myself for the sake of others.

Peace.

I didn’t expect Matt to come out with that. I didn’t realise I was so predictable.

We only had an hour or so for a mug of tea outside Euston and a quick catch-up after probably a good six months apart. Naturally we hit our headlines: family, work, holiday plans… and of course I asked all the relationship questions us girls like to know (got to make sure you guys are treating your ladies right!) But I have never been in a situation where my friend has asked themselves “the God question” first. It was quite refreshing really, but it did take me by surprise.

I appeared to have created a habit in my friendship with Matt that meant every time we caught up, I’d ask him where he was at with God and what he was thinking about church. Except this time, he was so expecting the faith challenge, he beat me to it! Away he goes with what’s in his head: his struggles with church, how he reckons the Bible should be taught and the over-arching message of love he believes we often miss with God.

He wouldn’t call himself a follower of Jesus, but he also won’t write it off. He genuinely had spent hours thinking through where he stands with Jesus the evening before, in order to discuss it with predictable old me over a cuppa. The habit of our God-chats actually enabled Matt to give it some head space and reassess where he is.

In Colossians 4 it says “make the most of every opportunity. Let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone.”

What are we seasoning our conversations with? What flavour do the lads around you sense? Would you risk salting your chats so that blokes can taste the difference?

As much as I don’t like being thought of as predictable, I’ve decided to embrace my apparent tradition of routinely asking my friends about where they are with God. Anyone else feel like joining me in acquiring this habit?

During my adventure into my possessions I soon realised that only the things which were affiliated to shared memories were worth keeping. I got rid of around a quarter of everything I owned (mostly scrap paper and odd socks). I dreamed up an idea for wristbands entitled What Would Jesus Scrap? but concluded it probably wouldn’t make sense to anyone not moving house or working in the scrapyard industry.

After the great purge had finally come to an end, I eyed up my belongings which were still fearing the axe. And after a few breaths I arrived at a sobering epilogue. I have nothing of my own. Despite my HD TV and the receipt to match, my Seagull guitar giving to me by Dave Magill, a bread maker and am armchair fitting for Scrooge, none of it is mine. I cannot prove this to you, but I can explain.

There is nothing in this life which I can keep my hands on for a substantial amount of time. The things that last the longest are probably relationships, everything else will need replacing and destroying at some stage. I have nothing. I didn’t even contribute to the clothes on my back, and if I had done, they still wouldn’t feel like they were mine. As life walks me down its random path I am quickly losing all sense of ownership. And the strange irony that surrounds it all, is that things which are closest to “brand new” in my apartment, feel the most alien to me.

As my musings meandered into hunger for a poached egg on toast, I pictured Jesus on the cross with nothing in his hands but nails he didn’t put there. A peace I’d not tasted for a long time proved a fitting appetiser for my healthy lunch which followed.

Luke’s account of Jesus returning to the Father reads:

It was now about noon, and darkness came over the whole land until three in the afternoon, for the sun stopped shining. And the curtain of the temple was torn in two. Jesus called out with a loud voice, “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit.” When he had said this, he breathed his last.

The centurion, seeing what had happened, praised God and said, “Surely this was a righteous man.” When all the people who had gathered to witness this sight saw what took place, they beat their breasts and went away. But all those who knew him, including the women who had followed him from Galilee, stood at a distance, watching these things.

Peace.

So, today the plumber came over (and no he wasn’t late). He arrived, asked me what the problem was and proceeded to crack open the boiler, taking bits out and turning the taps on and off. I had no idea whether what he was doing was right really … or wrong for that matter. However, his experience far exceeds mine in the area of heating and plumbing. This set my cogs in motion … (always dangerous).

Isn’t it funny how as a young (or perhaps youngER, bearing in mind I am only 22) guy, I would often write-off the opinions of those older than me as they seemed outdated or “old and stuffy”. Yet now that I am (if only slightly) older I can appreciate that I know next to nothing about the things of life … especially the spiritual things. Having only been a Christian for five years, in some situations I probably talk or act rather over-confident or become frustrated far too quickly with the proposed wisdom of those who are much older and wiser and definitely far more mature in their faith than me.

This isn’t right and is probably rooted in impatience, arrogance and pride; or any of the above … cue the alarm bells. As I grow in my faith, as I ‘get older’ as a Christian I have discovered more of God’s character, I have read much more of the Bible, experienced the tensions and wrestled with the doctrines of the Church; all of this has taken time and I could not have learnt it any other way.

Christianity is not just a belief system it is a way of life and the only way you can truly develop and experience it fully is by living it.

This should not dissuade young adults from continuing their involvement in the planning of things we feel passionate about however. Our youth and enthusiasm if properly channeled by good, wise leadership and oversight into the realms of kingdom building work, will mean we are able to carry out God’s will in powerful ways that perhaps are beyond the physical limits of our more mature Christian brothers and sisters.

So lets give the old boys (and girls) a little more credit, they probably know a little more about the world than we young whippets do … but, lets not lose our zeal for God and keep pushing forward for the kingdom and making things happen.

5lim

I have seen the hopes of my friends become a reality during the last 12 months while many others have been tackling the ever-present curse of grief.

I have come to the conclusion that nothing ever ends in our lives; things just merely change. This leaves two opposite thoughts bouncing around my head.

1) Freedom from the pressure of ambition.

2) Fear of the inevitable unknown.

Sometimes I wish I could have a two second glance of my life one year from now. I don’t know how that would affect me today, but I guess it would take away any fear of the unknown.This desire for a time machine fills my thought life occasionally, but it is instantly smashed to bits the moment I encounter God.

Though the challenge of the fluidity of life hovers above me, the greatest challenge of all is do I trust God with my today.

With that I mind I look back on 2010 with a completely new set of eyes. I see the lessons I have learned by reading the Word of God, the unquestionable love which wraps the Christian Church up into an invincible body and the creator’s constant desire to have a focussed friendship with me.

In the book of James, the Word of God sums up what I’ve tried to say in this scatty blog.

Now listen, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money.” Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. Instead, you ought to say, “If it is the Lord’s will, we will live and do this or that.”

Peace.

Do you remember ‘Celebrity Deathmatch’? Don’t worry if you don’t, it just means you’re sophisticated.

‘Celebrity Deathmatch’ was a programme on MTV a few years back that had plasticine models of celebrities fighting each other in a wrestling ring. It was stupid of course but to the Philistines amongst us it was funny. Think about it; who wouldn’t want to see Simon Cowell and Tom Jones in a no-holds-barred fight?!?

Ok, only me then.

As I observe the Christian community, I am often reminded of Celebrity Deathmatch. Christians continue to slug it out with each other over all kinds of differences; this stream pits itself against that stream; this church is better than that church. Maybe even, “our men’s ministry is better than their men’s ministry”.

You’ve got to stop sometimes and ask; is this really what Jesus died for?

I had the pleasure of attending a planning meeting recently for a new men’s event in the South West of England. There were about 20 men representing all kinds of churches and theological persuasions. They were meeting together because they had a heart for seeing men live full on for Jesus. Not only were they debriefing a recent event they’d held for over 500 men, but they decided that night to up the ante and go aim to reach 1000 men next. Awesome.

Their united vision for declaring Jesus overrode any difference of opinion they might have had about secondary and tertiary issues. What an incredible example they set for me and you.

You know, I think that even when the things that currently divide the Christian community get sorted, new things will just take their place.

I’m not advocating ignoring the issues, but rather getting perspective on them. The eternal destiny of people around us and the spiritual direction of the country we are in have to be tier one priorities.

Sadly, it’s often men who are the loudest, most aggressive and most destructive when it comes to division in the church. For my part, I’ve seen enough Christian Deathmatch to last me a lifetime, and to be honest, I’m sick to the stomach.

We need a new generation of men who can disagree wisely and work together powerfully. Men who put their arms around their brothers rather than throwing jabs at them. Men focussed on the main battle and not distracted by side skirmishes.

What those men are doing in the South West can be done anywhere. So why isn’t it?