Incredible. Out of all the apartments in the town, God chose to move into my block. I remember it so vividly, the moment I learned the almighty had moved in. I parked my trusted Punto in my designated space and clocked a brand new BMW a few places down. Though in the Bible God models true humility, it seems things have changed for the creator. The car’s number plate proudly read: Ade is God. Hallelujah. Its finally happened I thought.

I fell to my knees majestically in the car park, awe-struck. I chose not to dwell on the fact that God had revealed his new nickname, and also chose to spend £79,999 on a vehicle when some of his neighbours struggled to come to terms with devastating redundancies…after all, God can do what he likes. Hallelujah.

Some of the residents watched bewildered as I bowed continuously to the Lord’s chosen chariot. I felt sorry for them. How they would rue the day when they refused to bow before their God. I knelt for hours until it happened. The moment I’ve been anticipating my whole Christian life. I was approached by the Lord. He stood at just 5ft 6″ tall, and wore torn G-Star jeans and a t-shirt which had pictures of women on the front. Hallelujah, God cares about fashion…and women.

He looked at me as I bowed before him. And then he actually spoke. I broke down in tears as his voice engaged with my sinful being. “What are you doing mate?!” He asked me powerfully. I assumed the reason he called me “mate” was because I’d accepted the atonement of Christ which makes me a friend of God, saved by Grace, through faith so none can boast.

I mumbled an answer repeating the words Lord, saviour, forgive me, thank you. He opened his boot and reached for his robe, which was disguised as a brown River Island leather jacket. I waited for the moment where I’d have to give an account for my faith. But it never came. In fact none of the things listed in Revelations took place. I looked through my tears for the unattainable number of people groups singing in different tongues the songs of praise and worship for their saviour. I listened intently for the music of the heavenly realms and prepared myself for a glimpse of the new creation. But nothing happened. I slowly dried my eyes as BMW Ade stood over me and told me I was embarrassing him using some uncouth language and a violent gesture. “I thought you were God” I mumbled.

Turns out he’s not the messiah, he’s a very naughty boy.

Peace.

Some of them will be thankful, hopeful, joyful. Others will be furious for the sake of poverty, activists for the Christian faith, trailblazers amongst sleepwalkers. Some of them will know the words to every song of praise, faithful subscribers to Driscoll, Bell, Piper and Chan.

Some will force their tears, others will fight against them. Some will claim to be followers of Jesus, however, others will know that they are not.

Nothing has changed since Jesus addressed his crowds. The heart of man is deceitful all the time. The good news is that the Spirit of God and the Word of Truth is bigger than the human heart. So what do me and Dave do tomorrow, when we head to New Wine’s 18-30s conference for Christians? How do we look to serve and encourage the crowd of chameleons? How do we deny our reputations and sinful desires to help those who need Jesus?

We’ll strive to be mere signposts. Unassuming, plain, servants who fight under an audience of one. We will fly the CVM flag in a bid to point young men to their Father.

Code Two: I owe everything to him, I will do anything for him.

Please pray for us as we attempt to inspire a generation to see men follow Jesus.

Dallas Willard was speaking at our Sunday meeting recently and proclaimed “God made coffee” (among other things).  He was challenging us to remember to thank God for the many good things we are surrounded by and try and to start the day by blessing something of the amazing world we live in.

It is a sunny day and I am sitting drinking a coffee, watching the world go by and feeling very content.  Isn’t it amazing how such simple things can make us feel so happy?  I am in Central London and yet I am touched by the glory of God’s creation and brought closer to God as a result.  All that was needed was to reflect upon a little bit of sunshine and a hot drink made from some roasted beans!

I think that using the ordinary to remind us of the extraordinary is at the heart of leading a life of worship, ‘the practice of the presence of God’ that the monk Brother Lawrence wrote about way back in the 1600s.  I guess when we get this practise honed we will be able to say like Paul that we are content in all situations because we will see God wherever we are and in whatever we are doing.

Philippians 4:12

“I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want.”

So today I thank God for coffee and for sunshine.

Even fairies would have envied this fairytale wedding. My good friend Tom, a guy I lived with for six months, got married to a lovely girl called Sophie last week. She is from a place called Bath, and Tom rarely has a bath. To quote the vicar: “These two are the opposite of each other, but God knows they are the right person for each other.” I cried like a puppy when he said that.

The mansion in which they wed overwhelmed me and my bread-stealing flatmate Paddy. We headed straight for the champagne table after the service. And after that we hit the oldest pub in England for some “Real ale” not this lager tripe. There was so many overwhelming moments last weekend I could have churned out a million blogs, but there is one that sticks out.

Tom and Sophie follow Jesus. For me this makes the whole wedding thing a different kettle of fish. I’ve been to a load of weddings, but when the bride and groom are glowing during the songs of worship, something inside me snaps. I guess it adds a lot more to the vicar’s words of “God’s plan for our lives.”

The problem with public places is that you can’t really hide. So when I stand alongside non-church going friends, I always get really worried they’re going to think I’m one of the abnormal freaks that get carried away with this whole God thing. This started to happen at the wedding. I saw the faces of a few non-church going friends as people started to sing passionately about Jesus. My stomach started turning. I guess this happened because up until the age of 16 I did not put my faith in Jesus and I know exactly what people are thinking.

And then it happened. My bread-stealing flatmate Paddy lifted his hands in worship. I looked at the bride and groom in the hope they would calm his passions not to freak out the those who were not used to this sort of thing.

And as my eyes darted around the room, it hit me; hold on, here we are celebrating the wedding of two people who follow Jesus. I follow Jesus. I love Jesus. The things he has done in my life cannot even be compared to anything else. In fact, if we were created by a creator, then to respond in thanks is a normal thing. Though my bread-stealing flatmate was one of the few with his hands raised and smile a’growing, he was perfectly normal. There is not one atom of my character that believes we were not created by God to have a relationship with him.

I lifted my hands. And why not. I’m sick of feeling ashamed of my love for my creator. And yes it makes atheists uncomfortable, but when they talk of meaninglessness I don’t mention a word. I sit quietly like someone who has no opinion though my Jesus died on a cross outside Jerusalem to set the world free.

My only regret is that I didn’t jump up and down in the wedding. I should have taken a flag and a tambourine.

Join Carl Beech, Andy Drake and the team on Saturday 14th November. We will network, worship, pray, get inspired, get to grips with God’s plan for our lives and get some tools to live life well for God. More than ever we need to be in a band of brothers. Get along for the day and stoke the fires of your faith.

The Details

Saturday 14th November 2009. The Gateway, Yeovil Community Church, Addlewell Lane, Yeovil, Somerset, BA20 1QN. 9:30am – 4:30pm. £15, including lunch.

For more information see www.yeovilcommunitychurch.co.uk or www.cvmen.org.uk.

Teamwork

The CVM team is small (but perfectly formed!) for most of the year, and then for just one weekend we get to be in a team of 350.  Usually we have just a handful of office and ministry staff, some regional directors and a group of amazing trustees, then when we go to conference we get to add a whole host of other passionate guys to the mix.

This weekend our small team was joined by the most inspiring worship group led by Graham Kendrick (great job guys); a whole gang of AV nerds, sorry, experts (!), who did the most fantastic job of making the meetings run slickly; a mix of visionary speakers in our main sessions and seminars  (what legends!); the amazing Matthew Dietz who informed and entertained us in the Arts Theatre; Gram Seed who spoke with power on Saturday night; the guys running the bookshop and ministry stands; and last (but not least), all the guys who came to the conference and went away fired up – what a TEAM!

What now?

So now we’re back in our homes, offices or schools, and everything is back to normal.  Or is it…..? God spoke this weekend, some guys found Him for the first time, and others heard a specific call for their lives.  Others went away with renewed passion and vision to live the life that God wants – and it would be all too easy to let that fire go out in the next few weeks.  DON’T!!!

Do whatever you have to …. Write down what God said, tell someone else who will remind you when it all seems too hard, listen again to the CD that you were given as you left, start doing it!

Wouldn’t it be brilliant if we could all bring someone to the CVM conference in 2010, who has been saved between now and then through our determination to  Stand Up!

And if you didn’t come this year – book the date for next year now (10-12 September) – it could change your life!

Not only did Mr. Graham Kendrick provide us with great worship this weekend, he’s now gone and put some of the songs online!

Download: Stand Up, I Know He Lives, Forth In His Name, and Love Each Other here.

I want to turn some attention to men and worship culture, writing from the perspective of one who is in the arena and not carping from the sidelines.

I do have things to say but all my comments and thoughts come from a passion to see blokes not only become full on followers of Jesus but to see them integrated into healthy, vibrant, life giving, radical, dangerous churches that are good for everyone involved.  These blog posts are about evangelism … not about the Christian ghetto.

So here we go.  Time to put a head above the parapet!  And boy is this dangerous territory.  If worship is our highest calling then it is no wonder that it’s the area in most churches that causes the most debate, ungodly aggression and immature reaction.

Important: when you start engaging with this, please don’t think from your personal perspective. Remember, these posts are about missional thinking (i.e. doing stuff that isn’t about what we like) so, think for the rest of this article about your bog standard average bloke who walks into church; try to think from his perspective.  It might be useful as well to think about what God likes.  There’s a radical thought!  (More on that point later.)

Here are some subjects I will be commenting on:

• Volume
• The Sexualisation of worship
• Recasting the language of intimacy
• Worship styles
• Alternatives to singing
• The working class and worship
• Who should lead worship
• Small groups and worship

We begin by looking at “volume” a seemingly harmless issue but the cause of so much tension and ungodly reaction in congregational churches.

Volume

I was once invited to go to a classical music event called “Prom Praise” at Christmas with a contingent from my church.  Some of the party were people who were being quite forthright in their complaint that the worship in church was too loud. However, that evening I saw the light! It was so loud in the Royal Albert Hall that I couldn’t hear myself sing!  Man, the hall was rocking! So why weren’t the complainers complaining?  Why were they glowing after?  Why wasn’t the volume in this context offensive?

Of course, the whole time they hadn’t really found the volume in church worship offensive.  They couldn’t have!  After all, I had the evidence in front of me.  What they were finding offensive in church was the style! Drums, bass, lead guitars, jeans etc.  But where there was an orchestra causing the noise by people who were classically trained, that was ok!   It’s amazing how often we aren’t aware of what is really upsetting us and blame something else.

So what about blokes and volume? (Be aware that I write as someone who isn’t always into high volume.  I appreciate peace and quiet! For example I appreciate the subtle tones at the start of Barber’s Adagio for Strings, although I like the volume cranked up later!).  Here are some brief thoughts:

High volume levels are bloke friendly because I suspect that most men don’t like to hear themselves sing. This is because most men can’t sing very well.  When the volume is up it feels safer and better for all concerned!

We will talk about style later but for now I also want to make the point that men like songs that have objective truth in them that speak about who God is and what he is about.  We don’t like stuff that tries to tell us how we feel! The sort of songs that men like to sing need to have a bit of welly! It’s no good singing the praises of the living God who made something as outrageously huge and spectacular as the Eagle Nebula at reduced volume.  What’s that all about!?

When William Booth of Salvation Army fame wanted to use music to reach poor, white, working class blokes he used brass bands.  Loud, distinctive and from the street with many colliery bands already in existence, it was the sort of sound that the working class loved.  The rich weren’t the biggest fans but that didn’t matter to Booth.  He wanted to go to those who the church had passed by.  If we were to employ the same tactic today we would have very loud drum and bass music or progressive rap on the streets and in church.  We need to get that kind of missionary perspective back.

Is there a time for quiet?  Yes of course.  Is there a time for reflective worship?  Yep!  Do we need to crank the volume up more and adopt styles that allow for it?  Absolutely.