• Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn't do than the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbour. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.
    Mark Twain
  • I was smart, but I had not yet learned to listen.
    Stanley Hauerwas (highly-respected, oft-quoted theologian.)
  • The collective hallucination was that life can change, quite suddenly and for the better. It still strikes me as a noble desire...
    Mavis Gallant
  • To expect the unexpected shows a thoroughly modern intellect.
    Oscar Wilde
  • If you've forgotten the language of gratitude, you'll never be on speaking terms with happiness.
    Old saying
  • In the 21st century the artists will lead us. They are the ones who dream. Dreams and pragmatism are always in tension.
    Donald Goertz
  • The world has introduced you to yourself, and bound you to a destiny that was not your own.
    Ex Vice-President, Zambia
  • Artists don’t owe the world anything, least of all explanations.
    Sam Haskins
  • We are sleepwalking towards an avoidable age of crisis - one in seven people go hungry every day despite the fact that the world is capable of feeding everyone.
    Barbara Stocking
  • When the forms of an old culture are dying, the new culture is created by a few people who are not afraid to be insecure
    Rudolph Bahro
  • Church history has proven again and again that true revival is ignited from the ground up, and never the top down.
    Neil Cole
  • Dictators are never as strong as they tell you they are.
    Dr Gene Sharp
  • The narrative of redemptive history is pointing us in the direction of love where violence is no more.
    Walter Brueggemann
  • Can the church stop its puny, hack dreams of trying to ‘make a difference in the world’ and start dreaming God-sized dreams of making the world different?
    Leonard Sweet
  • The strongest cultural force at work today is the power of story.
    Robert McKee
  • Thanks for the underground and disparate church that stills know how to be the wonderful body of Christ.
    Steve Lowton in a recent email.
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Changing times

How the times are a-changing. Not being inside the UK means that I am not always in touch with what really is being said and actioned. I have come across two recent events: the banning of prayer before the Town Hall meetings in Bideford (see a comment by Dyfed), and a report in the Telegraph that Trevor Phillips, the chairman of the Equality and Human Rights Commission, has said that once beyond the door of the ‘temple’ Christians are not above the law. He drove home his point with the example that Roman Catholic (and other Christian) adoption agenices do not have the right to deny adoption to homosexual couples under equality laws, regardless of their faith position. In other words, despite what the agency might itself uphold they cannot become an exception when it comes to issues of equal rights for all. His comments are not simply being made at the expense of Christianity for he likewise made points about sharia law.

Although I think there are gaps in his argment that an average driver might be able to manoeuvre through without hitting too many objects, it is not that aspect I wish to open up. However, I consider the two examples are signs of a shift in the times. Lord Carey, former archbiship of Canterbury, has responded with a call to respect the nation’s heritage with an acknowledgement of the CofE as the established religion. Certainly his call to understand the history of a place is well grounded, but through that kind of argument are we expecting more than we should?

So cards on table: I have been seriously injected with a dose (I don’t think overdose) of Anabaptism. Separation of church and state. The requirements of Jesus are for his disciples. Not swearing allegiance, etc.

But back to signs of the times. Yes we can consder that there is a growing disrespect to faith. However, our history has been one of imposition (did the Reformation ‘succeed’ through winning hearts or through the conversion of a ruler?). I am currently reading the spread of the Spanish Empire. The ‘natives’ could have the Gospel preached to them and given the offer of conversion and submission to the crown of Spain. A neat little package all thrown in! General Franco conquered Spain as son of Spain and servant of God. The Catholic hierarchy more or less totally backed his crusade (which for some could be spelt genocide).

Of course ‘we’ can argue that we have not been so bad as that. Maybe.

We are coming to the end of an era. That era has many facets to it but one is that of christendom. I do not consider that christendom was ever valid, and we have to learn to live on the margins again as servants not as rulers.

We have prayed for first century realities in terms of faith, but I suspect to really live in those realities we will need to have a similar context. Faith expressed in the public arena, but not with Christianity in a privileged centralised position.

This is a decade when so much will be unrecognisable by the end of it. The process is something though we will have to embrace. A process where we recognise that change does not take place through no. 10, Brussels or the White House, but in lives that are absolutely committed to follow the Crucified One.

Economies are going to be shaken (this being a pivotal month), circumstances will be harder, privileges will be lost. And in all that Jesus will not need to be defended.

So in the changing times we must resist the temptation to try to restore something from the past. A new day is here with the increasing possibility of first century faith being expressed in a twenty-first century setting.

Posted in Prophetic Perspectives | 2 Comments

Just a thought

Mike Morrell’s blog is always worth a read. In a recent blog he writes about how we can end up so in trouble when we go down the heresy-hunting route, and that being accused of guilt by association is not so bad a thing (even if it hurts!!). With a debt to the German pastor Martin Niemöller (1892–1984) who wrote about the inactivity of German intellectuals following the Nazi rise to power and the purging of their chosen targets, group after group, Mike put these lines on his blog:

First they came for the charismatics,
and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a charismatic.
Then they came for the emergents,
and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t emergent.
Then they came for the universalists,
and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a universalist.
Then they came for me
and there was no one left to speak out for me.

Spare a thought for the Rob Bell’s and others who have tried to push certain discussions into the open. Just a thought: let’s not be too quick to dehumanise others.

Posted in Personal Perspectives | 4 Comments
  • I am the main contributor to this site, though there are guest writers from time to time. Hopefully, what is presented are perspectives not the final word!

    I am currently developing a part of the site with a focus on the 'gates of society'. That section will develop more as a forum with links to other articles, so that it becomes a resource for the future. I will also be looking for other contributors into the various subject-areas.

    In my spare time(!!) I enjoy putting together wordpress sites, and also coaching people to make their own - open to hearing from you on that too.

Previous posts

I believe history affects geography

By Martin Scott

I am glad that the ‘I believe in sin’ raised a few (unresolved) issues. Continuing to try to get to some of the core ‘what I believe’ stuff this one is in some ways related to that earlier post. Some of the same dilemmas arise here as we consider the implications of this belief. There [...]

2 Comments »

The Traveller’s Rest- Orphaned Fathers and Mothers.

By Paul Leader

Living Room, Living Conversation This weeks blog takes it’s inspiration from a living room conversation that I had with a great friend Tony John. Tony and Pat are a couple that I love so much, walking paths, pioneering paths, living paths. They knew what it was to walk a more ‘liquid’ expression of church before [...]

3 Comments »

The Traveller’s Rest- Turning the Tables.

By Paul Leader

The Lord’s Table Growing up in the Assemblies of God tradition one of the first things I was introduced to as a serious Christian was the traditional Sunday morning ‘Breaking of Bread’ service. This was the meeting that all committed Christians had to make a special attempt to get to because of the command to [...]

6 Comments »

Identity and finger prints

By Martin Scott

The issues raised about the nature of ‘sin’ and in particular the oppression of corporate sin is a discussion that has to go and on. Personal (the flesh), corporate (the world) and principalities and powers (heavenly and earthly) all intersect in this one. And as Cheryl says we cannot avoid it all – oh boy [...]

3 Comments »

I believe in sin

By Martin Scott

Been a long time since I have put up a post with the ‘I believe…’ title, so here goes – not a complete statement, nor covering every angle. What is meant by ‘sin’, what do we understand as ‘original sin’, solidarity with Adam and the like? There are ‘laws of life’ that we are to [...]

31 Comments »

The Traveller’s Rest- Honk if you Love the Lord.

By Paul Leader

Dream On. On Tuesday a friend, Karen McCrill Howard, shared a dream with me. That dream meant more to me than I am sure Karen would realise. I found such encouragement in it that I wanted to share it and a few thoughts surrounding it here. Before I go any further here is the dream [...]

9 Comments »

The Traveller’s Rest- The Empire Strikes Back.

By Paul Leader

Just Saying!!! Funny that when you least expect it something that is said or done does not just cause a ripple but a bit of a tidal wave. On Sunday morning I posted the following status update on Facebook; So many status updates on a Sunday about life changing meetings, messages and ministries. This event [...]

18 Comments »

Relationships – let’s categorise them!!

By Martin Scott

I was interested in reading Paul’s last blog about ‘birds of a feather’, and also while Michele was with us she mentioned a perspective that was very helpful indeed. She said that she heard some time ago the concpet of three types of relationship: relationships for a reason relatationships for a season relationships for a [...]

9 Comments »

Recent magazine articles

Editorial Vol. 1.4

By Martin Scott

With this fourth magazine, I will have successfully moved all the articles from the original forum. That forum (and now this magazine) was designed to help us explore how to interact with the gates of society. Hopefully it presents perspectives and when there are different viewpoints expressed that the differences will only help enrich rather [...]

Leave a comment »

Is the stock market evil?

By Martin Scott

Issues of finance, ‘making money work’ for us and the like is very problematic to discuss. There is a minefield of facts, figures and conflicting ideologies. So this is simply a starter discussion. A basic understanding of shares in public companies in theory makes them accountable to the shareholders. So far so good… however, in [...]

32 Comments »

Business Productivity and Employment – the real challenge to capitalism?

By Nigel Dutson

The headlines inspiring the Occupy Wall Street protestors currently (and inspiring many blog posts here) have much to do with increasing income disparity that is apparent in most parts of the world presently. It is clear that the proportion of total income going to the richest ten percent or so has risen sharply over the [...]

1 Comment »

Business Values

By Martin Scott

I was reading a post by Prabhu Guptara regarding the values taught (and needing challenging) by business schools. It is from a lecture on ‘The role of business schools in promoting values in business’. Here is a substantial part from the closing part of the post (found at:

Leave a comment »

At what cost?

By Andy Knox

Just wanted to throw some thoughts out there about the health cost of some current business practice. We all know of the Erin Brockovich type stories, where big companies have had detremental effects on the health of whole communities and ecosystems and how this continues to happen all over the place. As a GP, I [...]

1 Comment »

The coming energy crisis?

By Tim

This is a topic that has been on my mind for some time. It is a very strategic issue, in that the key factors may not come in to play for some time, or may not combine in a world-changing way for some time, but sooner or later they will and the effects will be [...]

2 Comments »

How much do you earn and why?

By Nigel Dutson

There has been some discussion on these boards regarding disconnect between what some people get paid and the contribution they make to society. I thought the article by John Kay in todays FT might be interesting to some of you. Full article here ft.com. Extract: “Two broad economic theories describe the allocation of income and [...]

1 Comment »

Abortion and mental health

By Andy Knox

Well worth a read of Dyfed’s blog on this subject. It continues to be an ethical minefield that causes cockles to rise on both sides of the fence. On the point of mental health post abortion, some argue that it is the guilt put onto ladies who have had an abortion by the pro-lifers that [...]

Leave a comment »

Medicalisation….

By Andy Knox

The last president of the RCGP, Dr Iona Heath wrote an amazing article in 1999 called ‘The Medicalisation of Human Grief’. In it, she critiqued how when people are grieving, or sad about how life is, we are often all too quick to diagnose depression and try and cover things over with an antidepressant. She [...]

Leave a comment »

Education: interview with Sue Mitchell

By Martin Scott

Here is an interview with Sue Mitchell that focuses on the gate of education, and then a well publicised video clip on changing education paradigms by Ken Robinson.

3 Comments »

micro blogs:

  • Valencia: street protest
    22 February 2012

    This article seems to give a fair report of the current state of play in Valencia. February and crisis in the Peninsula?


  • Streets of Spain
    20 February 2012

    Not sure what is being covered outside Spain, but in excess of 1m people on the streets, objecting to the austerity measures of the new government. ‘We are living in 2012, supposed to be a time of freedom…’ ‘The epoch of Franco has returned’ were two quotes on the TV tonight.


  • After death?
    13 February 2012

    What happens when we die? question is not a precise one to answer. Here (McKnight/Thistleton) a common way round the post-death/resurrection ‘problem’.


  • A new blog
    8 February 2012

    Andy Knox has started a new blog, with a focus on the NHS. Passion for change in the medical world. A big ‘yes’ to Andy.


  • Eviction of who?
    2 February 2012

    The Guardian raises this issue: Occupy London’s eviction is a failure for the church, not the camp. It quotes an American author Chris Hedges as posing the challenge thus: “The Occupy movement is the force that will revitalise traditional Christianity or signal its moral, social and political irrelevance.”


  • The year of the cooperative

    2012 hailed as the year of the cooperative. Working together, sharing and having a say in the future.


  • Those bad Arminians
    27 January 2012

    John Piper on Arminianism: “Do you separate from a denomination that allows pastors and seminary teachers to believe and teach this error? You can. We do.” Now that is quite a position. Unity of the body, but excluding many…


  • Garzón’s second case
    24 January 2012

    The second case against Garzón has opened. ‘We cannot remain silent on it’ Amnesty International.


  • Worshipping wealth: China
    23 January 2012

    Worshipping wealth: a strong take on China and the pursuit of wealth.


  • World views
    9 January 2012

    Over this side of the pond it is amazing to hear a presidential candidate suggest that the national health service in the UK devastated Britain!!! World views are incredible – mine is accurate of course…


  • Viral networking
    4 January 2012

    Here is a Guardian newspaper article. Interesting with respect to the last year and the movement that is not going away. And interesting when we consider the impact that the Jesus virus had in the first few centuries.


  • At last
    23 December 2011

    ¡Por fin! At last we are in Cádiz with furniture and internet. Internet works – furniture, a lot still to be squeezed in!! Back to blogging this weekend.


  • Mark Neale’s blog so worth reading
    15 December 2011

    But I don’t want to go to church

    But I don’t want to go to church part 2

    But I don’t want to go to church part 3


  • Worth a read

    A succinct piece by Peston that seems to dig right into the eurozone fault line.


  • Jesus -WWJD – on the news
    9 December 2011

    BBC web-site carried a great article on the WWJD movement. Only one error I could spot!! Great how Jesus is in the public space: not religion but Jesus.


  • Born again… Muslim
    8 December 2011

    Tall skinny kiwi has a good blog on this: not as theory but reality.


  • Embracing Tomorrow
    25 November 2011

    Just put this book into epub format (for ebook readers such as IPad). Go to resources (top menu) and then ebooks on the menu if you wish to download.


  • New governments
    21 November 2011

    The countries under threat in the EU were termed the PIIGS (Portugal, Ireland, Italy, Greece and Spain), now all of them have, one way or another, been swept from power by the euro-zone debt crisis.


  • End of an era?
    20 November 2011

    36 years ago today Franco died. Also today Spain votes in a new government. Will there be a shift – a shift in real terms? Spain was forced to borrow at almost 7% interest last week. Almost a million houses are empty. 23% unemployment. In Cádiz province the ‘carnival musical groups are already practising the typical chirigota songs that parody the powerful. Rajoy, Angela Merkel and the European Central Bank can all expect to feature in them by the time carnival comes around in February.’ (Tremlett). February?


  • 70,000 praying in Egypt
    15 November 2011

    Over 70,000 people attended a prayer meeting in Egypt. The largest Christian event in over 1000 years. Read Tallskinnykiwi’s report.


Recent comments:

Videos:
  • The upside-down church
  • Mark 5 & Europe
  • Christendom & Europe
  • Developing a WP site

What more blogs?

No, of course not, nothing even similar... well maybe very similar indeed, but hopefully you can use them differently. At the foot of this home page you will find 10 more blogs, these ones are grouped together, they will only be replaced every few months with a new set of 10. They can be downloaded as an emagazine, or read here as blogs (click on one and read, or use the 'emagazine' link in the menu above). Here on this site you can also add your comment.

Their core focus will be toward the gates of influence in society. They will not be the final word, hopefully provocative with some practical aspects thrown in.

The first four volumes will be uploaded here in quick succession, after that a breather before the next one. You can access earlier volumes from the emagazine page using the menu at the top of this page.

So you see - nothing like a blog!!

Recent magazine comments

The 'Gates' of society

Gates

Much of the material that will be central to these posts will cover perspectives on the 'gates' of society, the places of influence that shape the culture. If transformation is a desired outcome, such aspects as strategic prayer and understanding the redemptive gifts of places will play their part. As prayer opens up space, filling it will be vital, not in a controlling, top-down sense, but with a servant spirit. Finding appropriate terminology is difficult. Maybe 'transformation' is not the right term, perhaps 'transfiguration', where inner qualities burst through.

I have chosen to use the term 'gates' and although they can be defined any number of ways these are the seven ways I have chosen to group them by:

  • Arts & entertainment
  • Business, commerce & trade
  • Education & training
  • Family & community
  • Health, science & technology
  • Media & communication
  • Politics, government, law & order

Download in epub/mobi

E-formatting

These are in two formats. Epub can be read in many ereaders, such as Ipad, kobo etc.; if using a kindle then the format will be mobi. If there are difficulties in reading the format an internet search should show any peculiarities for your specific ereader

Vol 1.1 Epub format   Vol 1.1 Mobi format

Vol 1.2 Epub format   Vol 1.2 Mobi format

Vol 1.3 Epub format   Vol 1.3 Mobi format

Vol 1.4 Epub format   Vol 1.4 Mobi format