Hymns for the Rest of Us

“When I attend services, I go to the Episcopal Church. I like the creeds and prayers, and the fact that they truly mean it when they say all are welcome. Yet, my faith in Christ has moved me away from the organization we call “the Church,” and into what feels like a more intimate and even mystical “relationship” with the Spirit. I think there’s something to the biblical notion of “where two or three are gathered”—and more often than not, two seems to be the winning number.”- Musician Phil Madiera talking about his new album ‘Hymns for the Rest of Us’.

Musician and songwriter Phil Madiera has recently put together an album of songs focused on the idea that God loves everyone and yet not a typical Christian album. In an interview in the Christianity Today magazine I read the above quote and liked the heart behind it. That whole tension between attending services and the mystical relationship, there was much that resonated with my own journey and feelings. Then the concluding remarks that two seems to be the winning number.

All Are Welcome. Are All Welcome?

There has to be a place for diverse community. The problem with many gatherings/churches/ministries etc. is that a set ‘dress code’ is communicated, and I do not just mean physical clothing there either. How we are to think is communicated from the pulpit, how we are to live is communicated through transference of rules, laws and guilt, where we are to go and how often is forced upon us by a programme that forces commitment, who we are to hang out with is made very plain by the no unequal yoking policy. On the door there may be a sign that all are welcome, which may be true in heart and theory, but in practice if the visitor does not get moulded into the ethos of the community they are soon either shunned, ignored, told to leave or made to feel uncomfortable. No one is allowed to remain a seeker because they have to make a decision. They have to go on a course. There is a place in the future for gatherings. They are integral to who we are. What they will look like and what happens there is up for grabs at the moment. Yes there will be non-religious creeds and prayer. But all need to be embraced and made to feel welcome. I saw a picture of this on my recent visit to Sweden when a day of prayer took place in a church building where anyone could come along and be prayed for. No one was judged, all were embraced. We had a politician and we had Muslims, we had broken hearted missionaries and grieving parents. Many nations, many beliefs and yet space to pray, receive prayer, worship, not worship, talk, cry, laugh, love, connect. No set formula and yet a flow. People telling their story and not afraid of being honest. No one trying to make anyone into a Christian or a certain type of Christian. Prophecy flowing, spiritual songs released, practical help given. Witnessing the all embracing Christ at work through us. All are welcome.

Intimate and Mystical Relationship.

Moving away from the organised church into a more intimate and mystical relationship with the Spirit. I think many of us will relate to that. In my own journey it was a road of discovery, not one I went looking for. I stumbled into this grace. Fell headlong into a relationship of love that was there all along and yet not appreciated. Some go looking for the treasure and others stumble across it in a field. I stumbled. This is discovering where dependence needs to lay, in relationship with Him. We were not created to go to church, we were created for communion with Him. Yes we are relational beings and we build relationships with others, but we have to rediscover the intimate and mystical union with Him. I now go to gatherings out of my relationship with Him, not to draw near to Him or find Him. Life becomes my worship and prayer because He is in and through all things in life. My work is as holy as my songs. My family is full of Him as much as any gathering. My need is met in Him and not in getting together. This walk with Him is precious.

Two The Winning Number.

More often than not two seems to be the winning number. I know those verses are maybe taken out of context and are not really about gathering in the sense that we mean it, but I am sure there is a principal here through all strands of life. There is something in the Biblical notion of when two or three are gathered. I am finding more and more that it is those times around coffee tables and kitchen tables, in living rooms and on journeys, that when I am with just a few people there seems to be an amazing grace on those times. Deep ministry takes place. Prophetic words and prayer are released in the natural setting of conversation. Deep calls out to deep. A fresh honesty in conversation releases a fresh flow of life from heaven. Our conversations take on journeys of their own where we learn and love and laugh. God speaks deep into my spirit from throw-away comments. We all become the ministers together, no leader, no pulpit, no titles, just connection and relating together. Gifts colliding in a pot to bring a tasty meal in the mix. Stories of life, hope, pain, despair, death, future, faith released and the privilege of listening to how others arrived in this place. In God’s economy 1+1=3. He always adds to what we have or what we lack. I see more in my life journeys taking place just to connect with the one’s and two’s. Flying around the world to sit at a breakfast table. This does not make sense to many who build for big, the empire mindset. Yet it is so the heart of God. Jesus would take a long way round journey for the one. Phillip gets taken out of revival in the city for the one. Because two is more and more becoming the winning number. So Mr Madiera I can relate to what you are saying. There are others of us on similar journeys. We may all find different expressions of the journey, different levels of connectivity into gatherings, different ways to connect to the one’s, different ways to love and be loved, yet all walking a life embraced by Him in many spheres. What a journey we are on.

Finding Liberty.

On Saturday I had one of my normal car journeys. My son wanted to go to Swansea City football Liberty Stadium to watch their match against Blackburn. Having travelled there to see my team Queens Park Rangers (no sniggering at the back please!!!) on Boxing Day I confidently and theoretically knew my way. I passed a few junctions pointing to Swansea and was thinking I was going a bit far out. You see I was looking for a sign that wasn’t there. A sign with a little brown ball on it saying ‘Stadium’. But what I did see was a sign saying Park and Ride to the football so I thought I would follow that. This sign took me further away from Swansea. To the frustration of my lovely passengers I was lost again. I say again because in my experience of car driving this is nothing new. Even with A.A. maps printed from the Internet I can miss junctions and turnings. Have been at the edge of divorce courts many times as I have grappled with unknown routes and roads that should be the way. And being a good male driver I never ask until it is too late. Pride. I then ask passers-by who just guess where I need to go, stop at a garage and try to read a map or ask an expert. This has caused me to be late on a few occasions. This time in Swansea I kept calm outwardly while inwardly I was thinking ‘shit I’ve done it again.’ Then I noticed a bus in the park and ride. Brain wave or stupidity I thought, follow him. He took off straight away, got back onto the motorway (yes I was doubling back) and thankfully it was not the happy shopper going to Cardiff it was heading to the stadium where I soon picked up the right signs. My son Joel arrived with ten minutes to spare. No point being too early!!! Everyone had a great day and forgave me again. What they need to understand is that I’m not lost, I’m just finding my way. I will get there in the end.

Season of Departures not Arrivals.

I think for too long as believers we have been too mindful of arrivals. We always have to do something that arrives at a conclusion so we can measure whether this has been a success or not. Our whole ethos of salvation is about arriving in heaven. Everything we do on earth is about preparing for arrival. The stuff we do on earth is about conclusions, getting people to say yes to Jesus, fulfilling the vision, having a full church, getting 100% attendance of members, get all members functioning, being healed, set free, sorting out the marriage issue, giving up the besetting sin, sorting it out. That is why the bookshelves of our shops are full of step by step guides to everything. Follow these steps and hurrah!!! Easy peasy. If that book about how to get rich quick or how to grow a successful church really worked we would no longer need books we would all be the writers. But the reality is the majority of us, or even all of us, are lost somewhere in the journey of life trying to find the keys to get out. Then because we measure ourselves with the successful we feel failures. We then have to try another way. We have to stop living in the season of arrivals, it is killing us. We have to have a new mindset of the season of departures. Jesus commissioned this season with one simple word ‘Go!’ He never talked about where it would lead us except on an incredible adventure, and just as Abraham never knew where he was going but one day arrived there, so will we. Arrival is God’s responsibility, departure is ours. Signs only follow those who depart. Live life daily with a departure mentality and things begin to happen. Lives begin to connect. Not up to us to make those connections come to a conclusion which we have a habit of doing. Thinking we have come into a persons life to be the answer. Be part of their story for this day. Living like this we can shout out, I am not lost, just finding my way.

Just Wandering.

The whole of life has taken on a fresh perspective for me. Instead of always trying to get somewhere to show to people that I have arrived, I live as a wanderer. It does not help when people ask for evidence or fruit that my journey is of God because I have nothing physical to show them, and yes I have been asked this. They want to talk to my disciples, the converts, the changed lives that I am teaching and training. They want to see the church I am building, the people I am gathering with. I have nothing concrete. Just the wide open canvass of the journey with God. The streets, the lives I walk by. The conversation that will never be part of a book or ever lead to a sinners prayer for salvation. The love and grace shown to the guy struggling in his life of what we would term ‘sin’ but loving without judgement. Laughing with him, crying with him, praying for him. Wandering into new relationships and rediscovering old relationships. Releasing words of hope for other travellers to say it is all right to be a sojourner. It is alright to not arrive. It is alright to not know where you are or where you are going. Jesus never told us to suss that bit out, He just said go, get to the departure gate and just journey. Relax in the joy of the unknown, the unanswered, the wild, the undiscovered. There is no hurry to move on from here. In fact the rest of your life may be spent here, but with Him it can be a place of wild contentment. People will question this, especially those who live to conclude everything and build something that is to be seen. They will never understand. They will think you are lost. That one day you will find yourself again and plug yourself back into something. But I’m not lost, just wandering. I am not lost, just finding my way. Better to have steps ordered by the Lord than by a step by step book. This is a field of dreams, of space, of freedom, of wander and wonder. What better place to be than where I am right now.

The Year of the Ratz.

Who would have believed that one of the most prophetic statements of 2012 so far would come from the head of the Roman Catholic Church? I suppose only us people that think that God only speaks through a certain type of prophet. People who have much smaller vision of the heart and grace of God than we should have. As I have blogged before ‘if God can speak through an ass he can speak through me.’ This quote which is from Pope Benedict XVI’s book ‘Faith and the Future’ has really hit home through it’s honesty and insight and I think makes greater impact because of who wrote it. At first read it maybe offers a disheartening view of where the church is at and what it is going to go through, but I see so much hope in these words. Hope that the present and the future are being aligned by God. This is the link to the quote http://lifeondoverbeach.wordpress.com/2012/04/09/benedict-xvi-the-church-will-become-small/. Here are a couple of excerpts;

“The church will become small and will have to start afresh more or less from the beginning.”

“It will be hard-going for the Church, for the process of crystallization and clarification will cost her much valuable energy. It will make her poor and cause her to become the Church of the meek . . . But when the trial of this sifting is past, a great power will flow from a more spiritualized and simplified Church.”

“And so it seems certain to me that the Church is facing very hard times. The real crisis has scarcely begun. We will have to count on terrific upheavals. But I am equally certain about what will remain at the end: not the Church of the political cult, which is dead already, but the Church of faith.”

The church will become small. Not words that writers of church growth manuals and leaders of mega churches would adhere to. So against the flow of our heritage of adding numbers, filling buildings, multiplication, crowds, vision for more etc. and our obsession with numbers. What would two ‘pastors’ talk about when they greet each other if it is not about numbers? Have to revert back to talking about the weather. Small does not feed the ego, make one feel powerful and mighty in God, create a bunch of spectators to hear our latest thoughts. Small is small. It is surely a sign of weakness, failure, no hope. Yet something inside me cries out ‘small is beautiful.’

The Day of Small Things

Zechariah spoke about not despising the day of small things or small beginnings. In Luke it talks about being faithful in the small things. We are being called back to the small things. In the past there was always a motivation of walking here and being faithful with the small, that was that if we were faithful here God would give us something bigger. I thought like that too as I was leading a small church, that because I was faithful in that leading God would give me big in the future. I now think that is a wrong motivation rooted in and feeding the ego. Last night as I was working I sensed God say to me ‘what if things never got any bigger than they are right now? Would you be content in Me?’ I had to meditate on this for a while because things are pretty small here where I stand at face value. There is my family and I. At times I feel as if it is only me (Elijah I know how you feel). I am involved in no regular relational gatherings. There is no one who wants to meet regularly for coffee or prayer in the area. I feel marginalised and often alone in the journey. What if this was as big as it got for me? Am I really finding my contentment in Him alone? How do I cope when the ego is not being fed? These words were a great challenge as I thought about them. What is my heart? Am I just doing this dutifully believing that one day many doors will open again and conferences will happen where I get invited to share and local gatherings will take place where my story can be told? Maybe God only wants my children to hear my story and that is all. My work colleagues and that is it. Being faithful in the small is not always longing for the bigger, it is finding hope in the now. Content where I am standing at this present moment.

Small is the New Big

Then after pondering that thought I heard the voice again ‘nothing is ever as small as you think it is. This small is so much bigger than anything that has ever gone before it.’ I am realising more every day that God is up to something bigger than me. The difference is no man will be able to take the credit or the glory or the centre stage for what is happening, what is about to happen. I am alone and yet have never felt so connected, so plugged in. Not a part of anything but a part of something amazing. Finding friends and relationship in many places, not out of ambition to build but through accidentally finding each other. Dots being joined, a picture emerging, hope for the lost, small particles filled with huge potential, wildfire uncontrolled. A world wide web that goes beyond the computer network. One that does not need an apostolic leader to head it up and make one bigger network of churches and cell groups, please God let us never go there again! One that does not need ministry names and headquarters and subscriptions to join. This is completely Wind blown. It takes no effort to be a part of this, many times I just watch and marvel at what God is doing. If you cannot join it by signing anything or being a part of something, we cannot leave it either. We are joined in Him. As I said recently on Facebook, I am part of your ‘church’ whether you like it or not, just because I do not go where you go it does not mean I cease to be part of the ekklesia in this region. The only way to leave is to leave Him (unless you believe in once saved always saved but that is someone else’s debate). But that is getting astray a bit. What I see more and more is that small is indeed beautiful. I love the small. Because I know in Him that the small I am a part of is indeed bigger than I would ever realise.

Pray…no longer a four letter word.

Here in the U.K. the story of Bolton footballer Fabrice Muamba has been shocking, heartbreaking, full of hope and full of faith. Muamba collapsed during a football game with a heart attack at age 23. After literally dying on the pitch the game was abandoned as the medical profession took charge. In hospital he recovered but was still in a serious life threatening condition. This is where the game all changed. Before this event the main talking points were all about racism, hate, anger. Both players and fans were involved in throwing around some offensive statements about others. Court cases, bans, controversy all abounded, but now a situation of life and death faced them. The atmosphere completely changed, transformation occurred. There was a four letter word ringing around the football grounds, the newspapers, the new studios. It was contagious, it was not considered offensive, no one was claiming that it was politically incorrect, the papers printed the full word from page to page without batting an eyelid. The word was pray. Pray for Fabrice Muamba. From the most religious to the foul mouthed drunken lout of the terraces the word was worn on T-shirts and talked about freely-pray. Believing unbelievers praying for a full recovery of Fabrice Muamba. The amazing part of the story is that God seemed to listen. Muamba’s recovery was nothing short of miraculous. Today the news has come out that he is walking in the hospital. We always have said that God listens to and answers every prayer, even when we were maybe clutching at straws. Always used faith as a measuring rod of success or failure in prayer. Even though we really were not sure who should have the faith or how much of it measures into a mustard seed. Then just in case we would say ‘God always answers prayer by saying yes, no or wait.’ Think that just about covers every bit of ground for every response. Cop out comes to mind really. How prayer works will I think always remain a mystery. No greater mystery than when God seems to listen intently to believing unbelievers. This whole situation is a sign to us that the atmosphere has changed, there is a shift. God is still very much on the agenda of our Nation. Just not found where we think He would be. Choosing to inhabit the terraces of the foul mouthed fan than church buildings. Prayer is no longer a swear word.

Pray…a personal story.

To bring this to a present personal experience, this week I had a message from my friend, Geoff Reed from Cramlington, that his daughter-in-law had been taken into hospital with meningitis. Having a six month old baby only added to the worry and stress of the situation for the family. What can we do in these situations but pray? Cry out to God for the situation. I put the prayer request onto Facebook and have been blessed with the response. Not necessarily with the numbers of people that posted a response but with who. There were the friends and believing believers. This great family that God is building standing together. As an aside began to see a clearer picture of the community that God is building without buildings and walls. Dots are being joined to make a beautiful picture of the flexible wineskin that God so desires. A part of each other. Those from the past story of my life, those from the present and those from the future, all joined together. Then there were those who I would term at this time believing unbelievers. People from work (including a Pagan who claims to be a Wiccan- talk about blowing apart theology and pre-conceived ideas), people who I grew up with, people who from week to week may never give God a second thought, and yet here they were standing in prayer for my friends. Are they really believers? Are they unbelievers? Are they believing unbelievers? Who is God listening to more? Does he hear the prayer of the seasoned intercessor more than the prayer of my work colleague who at the weekend may have been drunk? We love to quote verses like ‘the prayer of a righteous man avails much,’ but then doesn’t Paul say ‘there is no one righteous, not even one.’ The first quote is based on Elijah, the manic suicidal depressant, oh yes and a bit of a prophet on the side. The running scared man of faith who can call down fire and yet be intimidated by words and threats. A normal guy with doubts and faith in one body. Made righteous by the righteous One. We are all just normal people desperate for God to do something when we can do no more. Believers and unbelievers believing together. My friends daughter-in-law is seemingly responding to antibiotics. And as people of faith we better say responding to the prayers. Please pray along with us those of you who are reading this. Let us believe for a full recovery. Let us widen this community standing together. Whether you are a believer or an unbeliever. Together lets believe. Already people from Romania, Latvia, the U.S.A., Sweden, Wales, England and Asda are standing together. No pressure but just join in whatever way you see fit if you want to. That uniting four letter word PRAY.

Lord, I believe; help my unbelief!

Maybe we are all really a community of believing unbelievers.