Day 102 and I've been thinking.......

Day 102 finds me in a reflective mood.
Been thinking about the difference between compassion and justice. We have several global partnerships (Kenya, Tijuana, Guatemala and perhaps something new in Haiti emerging), in each partnership we act with compassion but been reflecting on where our justice is. We treat the wound but not the cause of the wound.

Been thinking about what we do every Sunday on our campus. Is it incredibly easy to invite people to church on Sundays? Who am I inviting in? Are we filled with Christians who invite?
The new Reveal publication "Focus" reminds us again that to be missiological is to understand the culture and the culture wants to be wowed on Sundays. For right or for wrong we need to live in our culture, while being counter cultural. There is a difficult line to hold to where you are cultural enough to be attracting, but counter cultural enough to not be selling out.

But my biggest reflection these past few days comes from a thought in the book by David Olson The American Church in Crisis. Here's what he writes "On any given Sunday, the vast majority of Americans are absent from church and if trends continue, by 2050, the percentage of Americans attending church will be half of what it is today."

He then goes on to suggest to avoid this dismal future the American church needs to engage with three critical transitions:

1. The transition from a Christian to a post-Christian society.
2. The transition from a modern to a post-modern society.
3. The transition from a mono-ethnic to a multi-ethnic society.

The first transition was the reason the INS accepted me to work in the US. I come from a post-Christian society (the UK). In my lifetime it has shrunk from 25% church attending to 4% attending. For years the church did not waken up to this reality. Not waking up costs it dearly.
Sadly, I see mirrored in most US churches and denominations a stubborn but ignorant refusal to accept reality. We are moving fast to a post-Christian society with secular overtones. Been heading this way for the past 20 years .....we are only a few years away from full arrival.

The second transition from modern to post-modern freaks the life out of most Christian leaders. For years I've been reading and studying in this arena and while I cannot claim full knowledge I can agree that a seismic shift is happening at the philosphical level and we actually have already moved somewhere. To too many church leaders this shift is a threat to truth and orthodoxy. Not so. But this fear is causing us to react too slowly and too abstractly. In many ways we are in danger of remaining holding onto the flannel graph in the digital age.

As for the third transition - this is huge. Possibly only 8-9% of Evangelical churches are multi-ethnic or multi-cultural. WOW!! We have been amazed that Redeemer's Church is 50% white, 45% brown and 5% other! Amazing. But my reflection is to realise that we are not too sure how this has happened (not great leadership) and, we are guilty of putting on the cruise control and not digging deeper and being passionate about truly outworking what God has been doing. This one needs more fuel added to it and needs my leadership placed fully on it. Watch out Redeemer's!!!!!

Intentional follow of Jesus ...reflective consideration of where we are, where we are going, and what needs to be done.
A`Sabbath' activity.

Day 100 and sitting in the pew.

Day 100.
Wow!
100 days gone of 2010.
100 days of trying to intentionally follow Jesus Christ.
Day 100.
Fitting it was a Sunday.
Not so fitting it was a Sunday I wasn't preaching.
Preaching makes it so much easier to follow Jesus.
I preach the truth; point people to Jesus; lift Him up - boom a successful follow.
But what about when I'm not preaching.
What then?
I guess this puts me in the same spot as the other hundreds of people who don't preach every Sunday.

How do you intentionally follow Jesus as a member of the audience?

Place your tithe in the offering basket as it passes?
Follow along the reading of Scripture?
Quietly line up and take communion?
Sing the worship songs?
Greet the people around you with a smile and a warm hand shake?

As I mulled this over I realised the major mistake I fell in to. Sure I get to preach the amazing truth of Christ and that is followership; but that takes 40 minutes, twice a Sunday - 20 minutes more than an hour.
There are 24 hours a day.
If all the following I do on a Sunday is 80 minutes of a script ....ouch!
If all I do is listen for 40 minutes on a Sunday - that's not the best following either.

Sunday needs to be more than that, at least for me.

So I bought lunch for people.

Forgive me telling you what my right hand did (sorry left hand you're not meant to have found that out).
I just needed to do something.
Something more.
Having listened to a Sunday morning all on the topic of friendship - it was time to be a friend.
buying lunch wasn't trying to buy friends, it was trying to express friendship to a group of guys who are my friends.

Something small.
Something quite simple.
But it felt like more than simply listening to a message i was trying to put some flesh on to what we sat and listened to.

But ...imagine if I did that every Sunday, imagine the other 799 people at Redeemer's Church did every Sunday.
Imagine what that could lead to.

It's been good not to preach, but still to intentionally follow.

Day 99 Gardening.

Day 99 was spent tackling Satan.

Gardening.

This was my intentional follow of Jesus.

Damn you Satan!

Blisters.
Sweat.
Back-ache.

Don't even mention Eve.

Tomorrow can't come quick enough and a more gentle following of Jesus.

Day 98 and thanks to a fly I get it.

Day 98 and as I headed out to the car tonight I sniffed and a fly went up my nose!
Didn't see that coming, neither did the fly.
I de-sniffed and the fly came back out.
Intentional follow of Jesus Day 98 .....practise sniff resurrecting.

Seriously, I was walking innocuously to my car, my thoughts elsewhere, my work for the weekend under my arms, and from nowhere I get a new experience.

When last did my faith in a miraculous supernatural God grant me such an newness?

My fly encounter has given me food for thought.

Not that I'm a sensationalist, or a theologically woolly charismatic. (I am a third-way believer for anyone interested.)
But a new experience, more than yesterday would sometimes be appreciated in this faith walk.

The sad thing is every day Christ invites me into new experiences but I miss them.
Every time I share my faith with someone - the Holy Spirit hovers around me and something eternal and supernatural takes place.
Every time I help the poor .....the presence of God is there in all his supernatural presence.
Every time I pray ......boom how supernatural an experience is that!

So the list could go on.

One innocuous fly moment and my spirit is thumped into taking hold of the supernatural experiences Christ invites me into everyday.

Thanks fly ....or was it God?

Day 97 - I'm British!

Day 97 and excuse the gap in my blog. Things happen. Only the thing that happened was unexpected and threw a pretty big curve ball our way. Just three weeks after Carolyn's mother passed away, Carolyn received news on Easter Sunday that her father passed away as well.
So ....another 12,000 mile round trip and another funeral service.

Easter Sunday saw us talk about death in a very blunt way. Easter Sunday afternoon saw us deal with deal in a very real way.

Powerfully poignant. Death has a way of being like that.

So, the past few days, instead of reflecting on Easter services and the great time we had with so many people attending and our Arts Team pulling off an incredible portrayal of the Passion, has seen us be more introspective than usual.

It's amazing what Lent prepares you for!


Just today I was walking into our new Fresh & Easy store to be accosted by a protester telling me not to shop there as they are British!!! Wait for it ............I smiled, told them I was British and loved having something British in town!
It was funny (to me).
Hello ...free market!
Hello ... global marketplace!
Hello ....everywhere you go in the UK there are American stores!!

However, leave aside the rather weak, if not somewhat ironic, certainly hypocritical union issue at stake ...it was fun to say "hello I'm British!"

So, what would it be like if I walked into stores or shops and announced I was a Christ-follower.
Strange idea.
But, I wonder if by announcing that statement before I ate or shopped ....would I eat and shop differently.

Part of the joy of Fresh & Easy are the British products they sell. Small reminders of our culture.
What sort of impact would my Christian claim make if I wore it proudly as I entered a store?

Would I buy junk?
Would I buy cheap?
Would I buy only the essentials?
Would I buy green?
Would I buy healthy?

So today .....I used cash (thank you Dave Ramsey .....not quite Jesus!! for keeping me on the cash course - no more credit or debits cards); I bought a simple loaf of bread; and I bought the cheapest laundry stuff (yep, gotta do that for a week!).
I ignored the candy aisle, and got only the thing I needed to do dad's cooking tonight boys, and 'here's a help with the laundry'.

I walked out of the store and I'm sure I heard the protester whisper to her colleague "he's British"...or did she see my self-control and my simple shopping bag and say "he's a Christ follower?"

Day 91 - a very Good Friday.

Day 91 and what a day.
Good Friday.
A memorial service where we taught about heaven.
Finishing writing Easter weekend preach about death.
Watched final dress rehearsal of Easter services dramatic presentation - a reworking of the crucifixion of Jesus.
An amazing end to Good Friday.
Seeing Jesus, suspended between heaven and earth and breathe his last - wow!

Easter services (Saturday & Sunday) @ Redeemer's Church ....make sure you come and invite, invite, invite.

What a Good Friday.

Everything forced me today to reflect on Christ's death.
Made intentionally following Jesus deeply moving today.

What a day ....what a tomorrow and Sunday a comin'!

Day 90 - just trying.

Day 90. April 1, 2010.
Holiday isn't finished even although vacation is.

Getting set for Easter weekend. For past 2 months been reading about death. Here's the logic - only to the level you understand death can you ever understand resurrection.
Easter Sunday is all about resurrection, but that journey requires grasping death.

Hard reading.....and you'll need to to wait until our three Easter services are ended to hear what I've been learning (sorry).

All I can say. ........ my over 40 phobia is perhaps more spiritual than you think!

So, another day of studying and writing, and hopefully intentional follow of Jesus.
Was it in my writing - Saturday and Sunday will tell.
Was it foregoing a much wanted private lunch to sitting with a church member and listening - maybe?

Or, was it just getting up and trying to do my best.

Take your pick.