Invitation.

A couple of days ago had an invitation to attend a celebration of a couple that had been pastoring a church for five years this Sunday. Nothing unusual in that you might think, but it was from the church in Tonyrefail where just over five years ago I resigned as Pastor and in many ways started the journey that I am still on today (although I realise the journey starts when we start journeying, we just do not appreciate that at the time). A journey that began with much rejection, pain, disillusionment, bitterness, loss of identity, wilderness, doubt and many, many twists and turns. A journey that now continues with many, many twists and turns, but a lot more healing, hope, sense of adventure etc. I can honestly say I would never want to go back to that life. There is no choice. The new landscape is home. Of course part of that new landscape was beginning the night shift in the holy aisles of Asda. That will be five years in October. What an adventure that has been in my new community of believers, non-believing believers, thinkers, non-thinkers, people, just people. Many have come and gone since the start of the store five years ago. But all of them at some stage would have had a conversation with me about belief, non-belief. Some would have shared life’s joys, others life’s pains. No one has ridiculed my beliefs, most just wonder how an ex-church minister ended up working on the night shift of Asda. Many want to hear some parts of my story. This will never make a classic Christian novel because revival has not broke out, swearing has not stopped, I have no reports of people getting healed or delivered. But what I do have is a story of walking with Jesus in the night shift. Sharing love, hope, grace, joy. One guy once told me he had become a Christian after thinking about our conversations and debates, I never started a nurture group for him or told him how he should be discipled, maybe I should have done, but he seems to have lost interest now a young lady has come on the scene. Life, just life. Other people who told me they were atheists became agnostic, at least that is a step forward. Two are practicing pagans, and I have great relationships with them both. We talk about loads of things. At Easter one of them wanted to know why Christians had stolen their festival? I liked that one. I love the people, all who are on a journey. Not one yet at destination land, and neither am I. Sharing life together. And those aisles where I get to spend loads of quality time thinking, praying, chatting to God. What a privilege. Getting paid to do the night watch with Jesus. Those aisles are holy places.

Isolation.

The biggest enemy at first was isolation. From having a diary full of speaking engagements, conferences, coffee with people who wanted to talk God and the prophetic, to having page after page of empty entries. It was painful. It hurt. It tipped me well over the edge for a while. I had to detox to reboot myself. I had to find me in the middle of the clutter. At my lowest point I realised the most powerful thing, even though I had ignored Him for a while because I probably blamed God for the mess, He was still around, watching, waiting, willing me on. Once I woke up and smelled the coffee isolation was no longer an enemy but an opportunity. Not many people have the opportunity to paint with virtually a totally clean canvass. I did. One thing that I learned very quickly was not to paint too quickly, and the other was always to use temporary paint as the picture constantly shifts. I have thought about starting 101 different things, but never felt the grace to do it. Maybe one day, who knows. I have no concrete plans, just ideas. I have learned that the greatest thing in life is true vision. Jesus, only Jesus. Seeing everything then through Him brings colour into the grey. I see Him and feel His breath everywhere I look and walk. And then just when you think you may be the only one along comes a new connection of others walking off the beaten pathways. Individuals, small groups, people who have stepped out of the boat, drowned but who have had the kiss of life. People with scars that tell stories and hopes that reach for a hundred more. My life is no longer dependant on having a full, active diary, but I have had the privilege of finding amazing connections, friends for life. Lives that resonate together to create a beautiful sound of adventure. This has taken me to Sweden, Latvia, Kenya, Cramlington and Romford. Where next? Who knows. But these are for more than preaching engagements, this is life, walking, talking, kitchen table fellowship. Eating, laughing, sharing, breathing. Not people to impress with personal prophecy but people to stand with and love. This year alone so many dots joined, what a picture emerges, I am full of awe. The new landscape is glorious and full of hope for the future.

Identity.

I now realise my identity is not what I do but who I am. It is not what others expect of me, it is me. It is not what others hope of me, it is me. The pressure to perform to please is off, I can just walk. I realise that even in the new landscape people will paint a picture of who you are, especially if they think you are of a prophetic nature. Sad really that even under the umbrella of prophet our understanding and definition are so narrow. People still look for the personal prophecy or word for the city. This bothered me at one time because I thought I would be a disappointment if I did not perform. But I have just realised the weight of expectations and the image people draw of you. I do not journey to impress anymore, I journey to walk and share and journey. This may include prophesying, but it has to flow from who I am not what others want. That should be the same from us all. To be free from the bounds of expectation. I am me, and I do not want to be a clone of anybody else. I have learned to be happy in my own skin.

Invitation 2.

What did I do with the invitation marking five years of that couple in Tonyrefail? I graciously declined. Not out of hurt, there would have been a time that would have been true, but because that was about then, this is about now and the invested future, whatever that may be. I will be spending the weekend doing something completely different. On Saturday I will be taking my first wedding in the new landscape. A young pastor that I have built a great relationship with over the last couple of years, is getting married and asked me to do the business. That makes me laugh, but what a privilege. This young guy has gone through separation and divorce, and now has found a new love, and all he has received is grief from other ministers in the valleys. Funny how two marginalised, misunderstood people have found connection and a point of reference to which we can share life together. So instead of spending the weekend stepping back, I will be spending the weekend looking forward. A day of new beginnings for this couple, what a sign for these days. A day of grace, laughter, happiness, food, friends, love, joy, people. What better way to spend a Saturday. The five year+ non-plan has been great so far. I’m sure there is so much more ahead. Here’s to the next five years.

Pukewarm Bathwater.

This train of thought is a bit of a rabbit hole journey, so I trust you’ll stick with the ramble and find something of interest or point of connection. It started a few months ago when someone said to me for the n’th time, ‘don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater.’ This has always been a phrase that has grated with me because I know what this person is really trying to tell me. ‘Don’t throw anything away’. ‘Keep everything the same’. ‘Hoard up everything even if it has no use.’ What these people end up doing, and they want you to do it as well, is to keep hold of not just the baby but the bathwater as well. These people end up throwing nothing away. The bathwater has long gone lukewarm, or pukewarm as the book of Revelation calls it, or even downright freezing, but we cannot throw it out because some bit of magic may happen to rekindle or revive what was. God started it and therefore what He has begun He will complete. Someone at some point in history, could even have been me, has said ‘God wants us to do this’. So if God was the initiator how can we be the one to end it? Why do so many things that start off as being God breathed end up being pukewarm? We just so love to start things off, but we are terrible at closing down. We are terrible at hoarding ‘spiritual’ stuff, activities, meetings, but terrible at getting rid of what has no use, because it may be useful one day. We start, but we have to learn to finish stuff, burn the plough, the bridges, the ministry, the meetings. Time to de-clutter and discover in the space the stuff that is really important. What is the baby that we need to keep hold of? What does that represent? We may be afraid that if we chuck out the bathwater we may throw the baby out as well. It may feel like that for a season, but there comes a time of rediscovering what is important and worth keeping hold of. We need to learn to shut things down before we wear ourselves out doing good.

Hoarding ‘Holy’ Stuff.

I remember when I first turned up in Tonyrefail when I was ‘appointed’ as ‘pastor’ for the first time (all this language that does not sit right with me now). I could not believe what they hoarded in hidden corners of the building, or even in plain site. To get an office in the building I had to take over a small cupboard that was full of junk that would not get 50p at a car boot sale or yard sale. Cheap cups and plates given by dear saints of years gone by thrown out of site, but we could not throw them away because they were ‘holy’ relics of bygone years. So precious no one had seen them for years. They only liked them when I planned to throw them away (and I did). Hymn books that had not been used for 15 years. We’d better keep them just in case, even though the words can be put on the overhead projector. A church organ that was broken sitting to one side at the front of the church, that had a speaker that was bigger than the room where my office was. Got to keep hold of that it was bought/donated by such and such a family. Cannot throw it away or sell it. We allow sentiment to hold us, but is it really sentiment or something else? A family hold over the church? We’ll support you as long as you do not touch this? But it is not just about stuff. All those meetings, things we do. We just have to keep on doing them. We believed God said we need to do it so we have to keep on, keeping on, even though everyone has lost interest, there are no benefits, it wears us out, we have to keep pressing on. So many projects going on that we thought God had initiated, but now the original fervour has gone it becomes like hard work, but we have to be faithful. I remember once a Korean speaker with a passion for early morning prayer came along to Tonyrefail, and with authority and a persuasive nature he told us that we needed to pray every morning as a church at 6am to see break through, including Christmas day I remember him saying. This became a thus saith the Lord and the next morning we all gathered. It was like revival as over 20 of us gathered and prayed. This momentum and excitement went on for about 6 months through rain, shine and even snow we would be there. And yes Christmas morning. We were such good Christians, now revival would surely come. What we could not see was the creation of an us and them, the holy, obedient one’s that did it, and the half-hearted that didn’t. How proud. (I remember when the Sowing Seeds team came with Martin they became a part of this for a week too. After about 8 to 10 months people lost interest. It came down in the end to three of us. We were knackered. I came to a decision to close it down. The guys still there thought I missed the boat as God told us to do this. But God never asked me to be tied down to a man’s controlling words, even if he told me God said it. I finished it. Loads of us are doing stuff that we need to learn to finish. If we feel compelled to do it out of necessity or pleasing people or through a Word of the Lord, and there is a weight to doing it around our necks, this is not a yoke from the Lord. So many of us fill the diary’s with stuff that needs to be de-cluttered.

Living Life to the Full.

Living life to the full is not the same as having a full life. So often with God less is more. How many of us are dictated to with control and manipulation when we do not realise that those things have taken place? I should go and show my face, show my support. Must go to the such and such a meeting because there will not be many there. God wants us to gather and pray and hear the Word, because I need these things to grow. We have to fellowship together in church. Those dreaded words, ‘missed you on Sunday’, the kindest words of interrogation you will ever hear. Translated really as, where were you when you should have been here. Commitment is key. We often think it is hard to start something, but in the Christian world it is so easy to start something, the problem is finishing something. Getting rid of the religious stuff from the past, the relics from a bygone age. Yes God may have at one time blessed these things, but His blessing in the past or even the present is not a sign that God wants us to do these things. He came in his glory to Solomon’s Temple but He never wanted it built in the first place. He just cannot help blessing us. Just because ‘God turns up’ in our meetings and gatherings, it is not God’s sign of approval to what is going on, it is just a sign of His character. We should not measure stuff by apparent blessing. It is time to throw out that pukewarm bathwater. Time to free ourselves into a life that is lived to the full. Time to rediscover what the baby really is, the important stuff that we have lost in all that murky water. I’ve started, now I need to learn to finish, to close, to fold some stuff. I will not live life to the full until I have given away my full life.