The Lord God said to
Jonah, "Should I not pity Ninevah, that great city,
in which there are more than one hundred and twenty
thousand persons who can not discern their right hand and
their left . . ."
The Church service co-ordinator, asked
if I would be interested in preaching again. This
was a parish without a minister and they are
experiencing a great variety of services. We were
booked for the 30th July. I asked him to prepare
the congregation for radical changes which he did
two weeks before the service...
In this new millenium, some
2000 years after the birth of Christianity, while
the western church is in decline and the second
and third world churches are in advance, one has
to ask "How Accessable is the Church?"
While the physical doors are unlocked and the
population warmly welcomed in the press and by
external signage, yet still the masses stay
away...
How much do you know? What do you know
of God? One can say "I know this" and
another "I know that." But when it all
adds up in the end what do we really know? This
is I believe the inference of the book of Job...
There was someone standing on a
rock by the sea tending something unseen. There
was purpose about his action with arms stretching
out and drawing in, reaching out and pulling in.
He seemed to be getting closer. His face and body
now easily discernible as a native. He looked my
way as if something caught his attention but
returned to his work, as a man would do having
seen nothing. I stood and watched and as I did a
fish magically floated towards his hands...
Just as our Government swings between
the left and the right of politics so our
churches have these two tensions over the
politics of the things of God. This causes so
much tension at times and from what can be
gathered this always has been the case. However
for the new believer to come into the church
system and understand these tensions today is a
long hard struggle for the inexperienced mind. I
have been faced with this dilemma myself and been
asked to explain it many times to those who are
feeling bewildered...
Picture for a moment you are
standing on a bridge and towards you flows a
great river. This river is your source of
sustenance, your cup full of coffee or tea. You
are quietly drinking away and you notice a faecal
blob floating by; a floating excrement. Having
just been drinking from this same flow, how do
you feel? Disgusted, sick and ready to reach I
imagine...
Too often we hear the
eloquent prayers that hardly make the ceiling let
alone the floor of the throne room of heaven,
myself included at times. We must learn how to
pray in the realms of principalities and powers,
heavenly hosts and rulers of ages rather than the
realms of flesh and blood. Above this though we
need to incline the ear and render obedience to
the often quiet voice of God, speaking strange
things through His children...
I had just watched the opening
scenes of The Magelane Sisters, a DVD my father
hired for the new DVD player I had installed at
my parents. The young Irish lass Margaret wept as
her eyes met her father's after rejoining the
wedding party. She had just been raped upstairs
by her cousin finishing his beer nearby. I
couldn't watch anymore...
1 Chronicles 25 we read
about the musicians that they should prophecy
with harps, stringed instruments and cymbals,
Jeduthun, who prophesied with a harp to give
thanks and to praise the Lord. This makes me
think about all Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 14.
Pursue love and desire spiritual gifts especially
that you may prophesy...
There is an issue that has wide
ramifications in the church today that can not be
ignored by anyone who has been touched by the
Holy Spirit. The measure of who we are is
determined by the ground we stand on, that is the
beliefs we hold on too. The group who hold firmly
to precise boundaries or rules of existence find
the freedom of the Spirit led very difficult to
accept...
