Category: Personal Perspectives

Water

New Supplies... Neighbours need it

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by Martin Scott
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The screenshot above of the Palestinian woman bathing her kids puts a different perspective to any complaint we might have about life. It again illustrates that we are in the top x% of the privileged in the world.

A small challenge this morning making breakfast with no running water. Dirty dishes that we could not wash yesterday, no water in the tap, no water in the toilet cistern… at least I had a shower back in February so that part was not urgent…

So here is a story.

Saturday morning we get a panic call from Alejandra. We have never met her, but we sent her our keys so as she could stay in our apartment in Madrid. We can go back there legally now, but for over a year we were not able to travel there because of lockdown. We all have choices to make, and we sensed that giving her the keys was a redemptive choice, redemptive as it pushed back against a culture that we do not wish – we have to sow where we want the world to go, surely that is the practical outworking of refusing to acknowledge the lordship of Caesar?

The boiler is broken and water is pouring out. She then said she woke at 2.00am to the sound of rain, but it sounded inside the apartment. Back to sleep… woke and got up at 8.00ish. So some 6+ hours of water pouring out had caused quite a lot of damage, inside the kitchen and to the apartment below as well.

One day later, we had just been out for an hour, and when we came back the neighbour asked if we had water. Up we go and discover no water. An hour later he owns up that he had drilled through our water pipe, with the words that we had heard the day before – ‘Your water poured out everywhere’.

Compared to the Palestinian woman in the screenshot our situation is a blip, an inconvenience… but 2 cases of ‘all your water came pouring out…’ over neighbours are either coincidental, weird or…

Our entry to Madrid was ‘ up the inside of a sewer pipe’. We certainly had challenges, and then to remind us the upstair’s (there is one floor above us) toilet leaked through our ceiling. Not too pleasant water coming in. Now in both places our water has poured out (sorry neighbours!).

There is only one source for water – spiritual water. How we connect to that source can change. In both places the first step was that the mains water supply was stopped. Re-connections, new conduits etc., had to be put in. Then a connection back to the main source. I don’t think we are reading too much into it, for this has been our story this year. Thank God for water (past), thank God for the sign that neighbours can benefit from ‘your water pouring out’. But we are now in a season of getting a whole new supply of water, different pipes etc… OK more to it – but I think this might be a sign wider than ourselves. A year is here for connection to the one and only source, but expect changes, for the flow to neighbours of the old supply is changing.

Oh… and hopefully by the end of today we will be able to wash the dishes, and I will need to consider carefully if another shower might be due.

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Where do you want the world to go?

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by Martin Scott
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So we have a birthday in the apartment today. I have had more birthdays than Gayle (they do get a little repetitive don’t they?) so this one is definitively hers. She is now older than 45… Been an interesting few weeks.

Gayle is convinced that many aspects from 23 years ago (did you pick up the maths there – 46 divided by 2) are somehow coming round again but very differently. Interesting cos when I was 46 I got up in the early hours of the night with two prayers. ‘If it’s OK with you I would like anther 46 years, I think I might need at least that long to make some kind of difference…’ and a second prayer… ‘Raise up some 23 year olds who carry all the maturity of a 46 year old, who show no fear of demonic powers, can discern where cities are at and call for their destiny.’ First prayer took no length of time at all, the second quite a bit longer. A few weeks after this I had an interesting experience. I called someone asking them if they would be willing to take on something that I had initiated. I had not spoken to them prior to this on the phone, and as far as I remember never after. I recounted my 46/23 night time experience and the person listened, then once I had finished said to me ‘You do know what day this is?’ I had no idea what they meant (Tuesday, Friday… whatever). It was their 23rd birthday. I might at times be slow to catch on but that got my attention.

I am no longer 46, indeed I had a revelation a few days back while running. The revelation was that I am probably already beyond half my life span. I’ve had to think about that since then – as I am only half way between 60 and 70…

So today belongs to Gayle. And amazingly in the days before her birthday so many ‘coincidences’ of what took place 23 years ago.

We are both very grateful for months of protracted meetings in ‘Marsham Street’ 24/23 years ago. So many people found faith. A wonderful input to those gatherings, Dale Gentry, said amongst many other snippets of wisdom ‘sow where you want to go’. Inspired by those gatherings in 1998 and went to Leeds to meet with Steve, Mike, Paul and others to suggest we meet across the city to pray (I met with them 23 years ago). A couple of months later Sowing Seeds for Revival began. Never asking to go anywhere, but one city and region opened after another and led to 8 years of fairly intensive travelling.

Now here we both are 23 years on from that time. So much has changed. Nothing looks the same. The fires burn as strong but the expectation of outworking? So different.

Sow where you want to go has become

Sow where you want the world to go.

Sow into people who are carrying / desire to carry something of the future. This I understand as being the nature of the New Testament understanding of ‘gift’. Freely offered to enable someone to move toward their destiny.

Seedtime and harvest. 23 years ago a lot of seed. Seed sown with expectation. But… expectation just does not cut it by itself, for expectation is shaped by the past. 23 years later, and during these past 23 years fruit, fruit, fruit. Seed sown on good soil; but then seed sown into the world; seed that was ‘the word of God’ becomes seed that is the ‘sons and daughters of the kingdom’ (parable of the sower gives way to the next parable). Sow where you want your life to go becomes sow where you want the world to go.

We are grateful for the connections we have where there is church growth. But absolutely sold out to the places where there is world growth.

It is a good time to have a birthday.

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The Door is Out

Trying to enter through the exit door

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by Martin Scott
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After I finished recording the previous two conversations with Michele she launched into two dreams she had had a number of years prior that shaped her direction. I said, let me record that second one! Here it is. When God has called us out there is something to see (if we turn around)… OK I will let her tell it.

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Conspiracies

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by Martin Scott
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I receive every week the ‘Weekly Word’ from Jeff Fountain (YWAM and The Schumann centre for European Studies). They are always informative and today he tackles head on ‘What is it that makes ‘evangelicals’ so susceptible to conspiracy theories?‘.

https://weeklyword.eu/en/evangelicals-and-conspiracy/

He has felt compelled to write as the silence of ignoring it he now considers is to be complicit. Are there decisions taken behind closed doors that if we found out about them would cause deep concern? Without doubt. Yet when we propagate conspiracy theories that cannot be substantiated are we really promoting the hope that entered the world when the proclamation that Jesus’ body is not in the tomb but that he is risen? Or are we feeding distrust (leads to suspicion, hatred and violence) and fear?

I have had many shocking experiences in a Christian context. One that sits up there quite highly was in 2008 prior to the USA presidential elections when I heard from a pulpit a youth pastor proclaim that no-one should vote for Obama because he ‘was a Muslim’. I challenged him afterwards saying that there is no evidence for that claim. He replied, acknowledging what I had said, and then added, ‘I know, but it helps our cause to say so.’

We might not like a candidate or their policies but we also need to realise that the world we live in is messy. Charles Strohmer interviewed a Christian pastor (Joel Hunter), way more conservative than I am, who was one of Obama’s spiritual advisers. It is worth a read, not to endorse Obama, but maybe to slow us down a little in our assessments:

Conversation with Conservative Pastor Joel Hunter, Spiritual Advisor to President Obama

It is as Alexandr Solzhenitsyn said that when we draw the line of good / bad between ourselves and someone else we will inevitably live it out with great error. The line does not run between us but runs through us and through them. Let’s assume the line comes through me and I am 55% ‘good’ (go on be generous to me and it is only a hypothetical example) but the part that is not on the ‘good’ side is pretty significant also. (How do we measure the ‘good’ part? I think the level of love in difficult situations I show, and to what extent I am able to see, as that is a measure of ‘those who are in Christ’.) That good / bad dualism stems from the garden and came to an end in the Garden, so that the future ‘garden’ might be where there will be no more tears, no more sorrow…

Paul seemed to expect that the touch of Jesus would be transformative. He exhorted us not to speak a falsehood. That is challenging. Not to lie is not too difficult, for we can bend the truth and still not tell a lie. But not to speak a falsehood… not to leave someone else with a wrong impression.

Time to stop, otherwise I will be reviewing the generous 55% ‘good’ level.

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An Interview

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by Martin Scott
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I was interviewed by Stephen Hill (New Zealand) a week ago and I will embed the YouTube below. Stephen wrote an excellent prophetic commentary on John’s Gospel that I read and benefited from during the beginning of the lockdown. I have the highest respect for Stephen, he is honest and transparent, and his insights come from his clear relationship to God – and also to himself. He knows God, and he knows himself. Here is his site:

https://www.ancientfuture.co.nz/

Check out his interview with Andy Glover – I watched that this morning, and I valued greatly his down to earth but profound revelations about 2021:

https://www.ancientfuture.co.nz/post/conversation-with-andy-glover

https://www.ancientfuture.co.nz/post/some-prophetic-thoughts-for-2021

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What words can we use?

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by Martin Scott
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Words have meaning. Probably the true meaning is what is attributed to those words rather than the ‘root word means’ (cringe when your favourite preacher does that). Some words, in certain contexts, probably simply become unhelpful as the hearer cannot make the adjustment needed to enable the word to be the bridge that brings across a healthy concept. Gayle and I do not use the word ‘Christian’ in Spain. One could use it, but by the time all the qualifications are put in, perhaps the listener will have switched off. We tend to use ‘follower of Jesus’, acknowledging that phrase also needs explaining. Indeed one might wish to suggest that the ‘God’ word is too loaded with meaning already to be of use! Where does one stop? (I was very struck by Michele Perry’s phrase that ‘our words create worlds’.)

In one of the Zoom groups someone said I am not sure I like the ‘saved’ set of words. Again not without validity. If saved immediately communicates ‘saved from hell / saved from the wrath of God’ we are going to face a difficulty in using it. We have moved so far from ‘saved for…’ when we use the saved set of words. (I have been so blessed in one Zoom group where there is a view shared from a Catholic perspective, and another coming from an Orthodox viewpoint when looking at such concepts.)

[And ever so important and got nothing to do with this post… to accompany the current three books in the series I have been writing some articles relating to those books. Find them at https://3generations.eu/explorations. For the techies – pages are stored in JSON files, and loaded via javascript, with the text in MarkDown format. Thought you might like to know (David in Alsace?). A lot faster than accessing a database.]

Words, can they be redeemed? Some maybe can’t or in certain contexts might not be able to be redeemed. Then we come to the New Testament. That presents another challenge to us. Here are a few words used that could be (could be??) misunderstood:

  • basileia – kingdom (of God) and Empire of Rome.
  • eirene – peace. Peace through the cross; peace by the sword (with the temple to peace built on the hill deicated to war in Rome.
  • ekklesia – ‘church’ or Roman governmental office.
  • king of kings = Caesar or Jesus (as also Saviour, lord, lord of lords).
  • son of god – Caesar or Jesus?

The terms are so obviously parallel, and used without an immediate explanation of ‘Jesus is Lord, but not like Caesar and not like…’

And the painful word ‘despot‘ – well not really, the Greek word despotes is used of Jesus and of God is used some 5 times in the New Testament. We might get the word despot from this but it does not get its meaning from the word despot!

I find it interesting that the New Testament easily used words that were in common use all with an Imperial meaning already stamped on them. They were greatly redefined though as they could only be understood through a Jesus’ lens.

Some words we might not be able to use as they have become too corrupted; some we might have to use with explanations; all words we have to use through the Jesus lens of our lives. As Francis of Assisse said

Preach the Gospel at all times. Use words if necessary.

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Change of era

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by Martin Scott
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I really keep up with things… always on the cutting edge of every trend… so just picked up on Pope Francis speech of 2015 (did you notice how cutting edge I am?).

He spoke to a gathering of Italian Catholics in Florence that the Church must be open to change while rejecting a “controlling, hard, and prescriptive” style. Here are a few extracts:

It is not useful to search for solutions in conservatism or fundamentalism. We are not living an era of change, but a change of era.

Christian doctrine is not a closed system incapable of generating questions, doubts, queries, but it’s alive, and able to unsettle, animate. Doctrine has a face that isn’t rigid, a body that moves and develops, it has tender flesh: that of Jesus Christ.

He called in the same speech for the Catholic church to be ‘a free Church that is open to the challenges of the present, never on the defensive for fear of losing something.’

It was the phrase:

We are not living an era of change, but a change of era.

that caught my attention. A clever turn of phrase but something that captured the wider scenario. I recently wrote in a newsletter using the analogies of the current time as being either, we have entered a storm, winter or the beginnings of an ice-age (analogies not original to me). The first two are simply a variation on the ‘era of change’ phrase. The difference simply being of time duration; the third analogy of course would mean a before and after of immense proportions. An after that is not visible to current sight.

Looking wider than changes being encouraged within the Catholic church, or the church that is essentially shaped from the ‘gathering’ the changes are visible within our world. Elections being stolen… or democracy not being respected… are serious accusations, but perhaps we are witnessing the end of an era, for after all elections have been pretty much settled for decades not by democracy but by money and the power that money can exercise. Now with an emphasis on ‘the seven mountains of influence’ we are in danger of adding to the erosion of genuinely hearing the diverse voice from the public square (see the Michele Perry’s critique that I referenced in a previous post: https://dmperry.com/2021/01/19/why-the-7-mountain-mandate-is-toxic-theology/).

This week Jeff Fountain (YWAM and the Schumann centre) interstingly pikced up on the ‘Seven Mountains’ in his weekly word newsletter:

I was actually present the first time Loren spoke on what he called ‘mind moulders’ in August 1975. He talked of these spheres as ‘classrooms’ through which nations could be discipled. Given his pentecostal background, it was an epiphany for him about the implications of the gospel for all areas of life. Those from Reformed backgrounds would have recognised echoes of Calvin’s understanding of society, especially as taught by Abraham Kuyper. Others however embellished the idea, creating the Seven-Mountain teaching that God wanted Christians to infiltrate all these areas to dominate and rule non-Christians with ‘Christian principles’. This was not Loren’s emphasis. I am allergic to this power-based concept which unfortunately has been widely embraced. 

The change of era scenario means that we can be looking for quick answers, and the ‘Seven Mountains’ comes into give us a quick pathway. The question we have to ask of all such pathways is whether it is the pathway of ‘those who follow the Lamb wherever he goes’.

The comment of Paul that not only signs and wonders accredited his work but that they were accompanied with ‘great patience’. A long term vision. In writing the four foundational books (by foundational I mean they are pretty much foundational to me – probably not sufficient to erect a tower block on!!) I have suggested, non-critically, that we are pre-Pauline, that we do not really know what he was up to with his ‘got to get an ekklesia in every city-state, province of that blasphemous empire’… In that sense all our best work is probably a prelude to catching up to what he was about, and then a challenge awaits us! I do not think Paul would be doing today what he did then. But he would have the same vision, captivated as he was by the Gospel. So, if that be true, we have to somehow find a way of going from pre-Pauline to post-Pauline (yet being faithful to Paul!). Change of era.

Change of era and a long term vision.

But Jesus will come back soon. Yes… we can spell the word soon but the calendar does not help us.

Paul probably anticipated a very soon coming, maybe in his life-time. We might well think Jesus will come back way soon… maybe, maybe not. We might even go through a crisis that seems to set the whole world back decades / even centuries and have to find a way of moving forward. Maybe. Loads of maybies cos I think we are somewhere between the winter and ice-age scenarios.

Either way change of era; great patience. Uncertainty… if we can hold in we come to place of openness.

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Just how catastrophic?

Or what if?

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by Martin Scott
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In the last post I used the term ‘anthropecene age’ (big word… no expert here with keyboard I assure you!). The suggestion with the use of this term is that since the ice age we have lived with a reasonably consistent climate, but that there has been a huge shift due to our behaviour and that the next era will not be settled in the same way. Add to that the increase in pandemics in the 20th and now the 21st centuries and it seems likely that we have to think of the future as markedly, as opposed to marginally, different to the past. [A while back someone sent me a very helpful paper on the church and the pandemic, suggesting that there were three analogies that might help us think through a response. If it is a storm, it will pass, so just shut down until it is over; if winter then think a little longer term, make sure the supplies are in place etc., but again it will be over, just the time till things are back to normal will be longer. But if it is akin to an ice age we should not be thinking this will be over, and we will not be able to predict too accurately what will come out the other side. I consider this is not a storm, and it is something more sever and longer lasting than a winter….]

It gets me thinking… and, although I understand the hope that everything will get back to normal I am really not convinced that is the case. What if this coincides with a couple of awesome scenarios? What if we really will see something along a ‘third phase’ outpouring of the Spirit. From Pentecost of 2012 I have been declaring that that is what we are entering into. Let me explain… I see a pattern in Peter’s prophecy in Acts 2: this [outpouring] is for you, your children and for those afar off. What does ‘afar off’ mean? Does it simply mean they get pulled into ‘us’… or as per Peter / Cornelius is the discovery that God is already present in and among ‘the afar off’ for ‘us’ to find out?

Then what if…

Come on there has to be a lot of ‘what if’s?’ if we are going to get our heads to no longer determine what is and what is not.

What if Paul was very smart but only had revelation to a point? Sure revelation way beyond the likes of you and me, that I don’t think is to be disputed. After all you have to have serious revelation to go about planting (right word?) an ekklesia where there was already an ekklesia, planting / initiating the true body of people who would make sure that their polis (city / city-state) was transformed. The ekklesia of Jesus was where he pinned his hopes, not the one that was sanctioned by Rome that already existed. So given he had incredible revelation; but what if he saw the first step on the process. What would he consider today? Would he think primarily geographically, because I am sure he was shaped by discipling ‘all nations’ (ta ethne: I know we like to think of ethnic language when we consider this, but it was simply an overarching term for all those that are not seeking to live from a covenant relationship with God… now that opens up whole communities that we need to think about, and arguments about sovereignty being restored to nations when the nation -state of today is NOT the nation of the Bible is likely to cause us to miss this moment… Blah de blah…)

But beyond the blah blah, maybe we need to think again about the first step in our context, and as we enter this so named ‘anthropocene’ age. And maybe we need to be already thinking about steps 2 and 3… steps that Paul perhaps did not have sight of; after all he was keen to get to Spain so that the whole of the Imperial land could be impregnated with the first step. Until the first step is complete maybe there wasn’t revelation for the steps beyond?

What if…?

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