When life/church feels flat...

Life can be great can't it? We have all had times of overflowing joy or settled contentment or anticipation and excitement. Those are great. But to be honest most of life is "normal". A bit good and a bit disappointing! Some things going well others less so. Some things making us happy and others sad. And then there are times when life is really quite tough. Hopes dashed, feelings hurt, relationships painful.
All of this is also true of church life. There are times when church life can feel exciting, and a church as a whole can be full of joy, or have a settled contentment. But usually church life is "normal", and sometimes it is really quite tough. That can be true of individual's experience of church, and it can be true of our corporate experience of church.

For us as a church last year was really very exciting. Sending a missionary to France, appointing an assistant pastor, starting a new meeting. When new things are happening, and others are anticipated the whole feeling of church is really quite exciting and this usually permeates to most of the members. However when church is "normal" and there aren't a whole raft of exciting developments going on, when people let each other down, or life is individually tougher, the experience of church can be less invigorating, or even (dare I say it) a bit of a drag!

What then can we do when "normal" starts to slip in to tough? How should we respond? 

First I would say keep doing what you know. Has church ever been a blessing? Have you ever found help in reading the Scriptures? Has God ever answered your prayers? You may not know what to do, but don't stop doing what you know. You may feel like God has left you on the shelf for a bit, still don't stop doing what you know. It is not without reason that God has blessed us with his written word, a word that is "living and active". It is not without reason that Jesus taught his disciples to "pray and never give up". And it is not without reason that God has called us not only to himself but into churches where we can strengthen and encourage one another, "growing up in maturity into Him who is the Head."

Second talk to people. If something in your life feels stuck, go chat with a Christian who loves you, whom you can trust (even a pastor). Give them permission to ask you questions you don't want to face. Be honest with them about where your life is at right now. 
It may not be that your life feels stuck, but that church is stuck for you. Something isn't working, church isn't helping the way it was. Again chat to people, especially chat to church leaders so that they know. It is easy to go along as a church leader oblivious that all your hard work is not helping anyone, because it used to and no-one has told you that it doesn't any more! Stop your leaders running themselves into the ground for no good to the church! Be careful not to develop a critical spirit - that can kill a pastor as quick as poison. But don't suffer in silence. Believe it or not you are deeply ingrained in your pastor's heart. He will fall over himself to do all he can to bless you! So talk to your leaders especially about your struggles with church.

Third, and perhaps most critically, be thankful. Be deliberately thankful. Be deliberately thankful for everything good that you have. It is interesting how much in the New Testament letters thankfulness is flagged up. For instance Philippians 4v6-7 says; "⁶ Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. ⁷ And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus."
So often one or two individual things that are not going how we would like give everything in our lives a grey covering and take our joy out of what we used to love. Because this one thing hurts right now, everything else is undone by it. Conscious consistent thanksgiving reminds us that though somethings are hard right now, God is good. Every good and perfect gift comes down from above, and we do have so many of them. Ultimately we have Christ himself. Through faith we have the righteousness of God gifted to us through his death for us. We have his love, we are given his Spirit. We have a hope that cannot fade. So what ever is happening now, however "normal" or even painful it is, it is not worth comparing to what we have in Him.

However "normal" your life is right now, you have in Christ a constant source for thankfulness and praise!

Creation And Quantum Physics

Before Easter we ran our Sunday evening Connected series as "God On Trial" and had a good number of people come with dissenting views about the world around us. Conversation flowed across many subjects, but inevitably returned to scientific inquiry many times. I say inevitably because most of the dissenting voices had an underlying philosophy that was basically Scientific Determinism.

It got my brain going again on various subjects that I haven't looked at for some time. One of those was quantum physics. I have for a while been meaning to get at it but hadn't yet managed it. So I went out and bought Stephen Hawking's fairly recent title, "The Grand Design". Certainly quantum physics is a very interesting area of study. Stephen Hawking presents it very well, though I am yet to be convinced by all his conclusions, especially about history on a big scale. (I need to read this book a few times before I really get to grips with everything he says in it I think.)

Anyway, for all you big thinkers (and mainly physicists I would think) out there I have some questions which Stephen Hawking doesn't address, or if he does he just fobs them off as not relevant, or with an aside that shoots down a straw man rather than deal with the issue. These questions are beyond me to answer, but I am wondering if any of you might have ideas, or places I could go to read a different (but as well thought through) perspective. Here goes:


Do the observations of quantum physics on a minute scale (e.g. quantum buckyballs) have anything to say about God as creator beyond, "this is how God made the universe"?

Is Feynman's "sum of histories" really the best explanation for the results of the double split experiment, especially where delayed observation changes the resultant distribution? 

Is it really legitimate to say because an unobserved buckyball may have taken one of several paths that we can't be sure of the history of the universe? There seems to be an element of taking what we see on the minute scale and applying it on the large scale when the large scale does not behave in the same way (i.e. we know the path of an unobserved football doesn't behave the same way as an unobserved buckyball).


I am sure there are more questions to be asked, and my head is still only just starting to get to grips with all this, so the questions probably display my ignorance as much as anything. But if there are other useful places to go which will help me get my head around all this, especially from a Christian perspective I would love to know!

It's not always bad when things don't go as you planned!

Have you ever planned something at church for a specific purpose and found that God has used it for something entirely different? This for me has not been a unique experience.

Not long after arriving at St. John's Wood the church took a bold step - to close the evening service and replace it with an afternoon cafe. The idea of the cafe was that it would be place where we could invite friends to relax with us in the hopes of being able to share the gospel with them. After some time, and very few people except church people coming through the doors, we discovered that God was using the cafe (and subsequently lunch, which grew out of the cafe) in a different way; to grow the church into a community again, to get us loving each other, spending time with each other and knowing each other. We talked together, played together, laughed together, cried together.
Because we were at church in the afternoon, it made sense to stay for lunch. Now we have lunch together every Sunday. The number of conversations that the Lord uses to bless over lunch and during cafe can't be numbered and their effect can't be underestimated. None of this was what we planned for cafe, but this is how God used it.

Between September 2011 and September 2012 we spent our Sunday evenings planning a new evangelistic service to be launched in September 2012. I was delighted that the format we came up with was different from what I had in my mind when we started! As we launched we were committed to a meeting (not a church service) that would be an easy invite for our friends to come to and talk very openly about what we/they believe, our/their doubts and questions. So it proved up to Christmas. The bigger invitational events proving especially well attended. However this last term something different happened. We ran a series called "God on trial," tackling some of the more common objections to Christian faith. One of our members decided (without really thinking it through) to invite an internet group called the "London Humanists". Connected had not been intended as a place to invite "hostile" people to talk about faith. However that is exactly what it has been. Between 5 and 35 atheists and humanists descended upon us (about 15 of us) and argued, shouted, interupted and to be honest often insulted us for 2+ hours every Sunday night for 6 weeks in a row! It was great! I certainly, and I don't think any of us actually, would have planned to invite such a crowd of hostile people to Connected. We would have been too concerned about others who were enquiring and might be put off, and members who would be shaken by having their faith attacked so forcefully week after week. The first concerned proved to still be a concern , the second was blown out of the water.

The response of the church to such an unexpected situation was fantastic. Humble, warm, welcoming, loving, firm in their faith and so encouraged in be able to share their faith with the people who came in. On a table with three or four atheists would be sat perhaps a Bible college student, an aspiring film writer and new Christian! Each had different approaches to tackling the issues raised. Strong apologetics and polemics, testimony of God's grace over troubled times and good or a new and sure conviction of the love of God that comes to all who call on the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. We all had better evenings and worse. One evening I spent talking with one woman who stubbornly refused to talk about the topic under discussion and basically spent 2 hours insulting me. But then another week I had the chance to explain in some detail how the OT sacrificial system points to the Lord Jesus, his cross and God's loving desire to draw us into his family., to an atheist who finally really wanted to understand what was being said rather than just pick holes in it.

This atmosphere and environment was definitely not what we had planned. But God used it to his glory and has given us much food for thought. Certainly we will continue with our bigger events (here's Sam Chaplin warming up for our Feb invitational) and we will want to move Sunday nights back towards inviting friends and interested others, but please do pray for us as we think through how we might continue to share the gospel with those that are more hostile in a way that is spiritually fruitful!

The big lesson I take from all this is, "It is always worth seeking to honour God with bold faith, just as long as you are ready for God to do what he wants, rather than what you want!"

Reduced Romans

The Reduced Romans

(Passage divisions and draft summaries)

1v1-7 Paul is all about Jesus his Lord and the gospel and so is the church in Rome

1v8-15 Paul’s desire is to come and have a harvest among the church in Rome (discipleship and evangelistically)

1v16-17 Paul’s confidence for that is in the gospel

1v18-20 God’s wrath is revealed against people who deliberately turn away from him

1v21-32 as they replace God he hands people over to sin that destroys until everyone claps sin that destroys.

2v1-5 Therefore we cannot stand in judgement over them

2v6-16 God’s perfect coming judgement is coming in Christ on all the Gentiles who will perish without the law.

2v17-29 and on all the Jews because to live by the law you must keep the whole law.

3v1-8 Certainly the Jews have an advantage, and God is righteous in judgement

3v9-20 But all are under sin (see the OT)

3v21-25 But now righteousness has come as a gift from God.

3v25-30 Grace shows God’s righteousness and brings humility

3v21 This gospel upholds the law

4v1-12 Abraham proves righteousness is by faith

4v13-17 Abraham is the father of those of faith righteousness

4v18-25 It is faith in God’s promise that is counted as righteousness

5v1-2 Therefore we rejoice in the hope of glory

5v3-5 we rejoice in suffering

5v6-8 For Christ died for sinners, showing God’s love

5v9-11 So because of righteousness by faith we rejoice in God

5v12-14 Death reigned before the law

5v15-17 one trespass led to death, one free gift to righteousness

5v18-21 Therefore grace trumps sin and reigns through righteousness

6v1-5 Walk in newness of life

6v6-10 The old self is dead and we live with Christ for God

6v11-14 So present yourself to God as instruments of righteousness

6v15-18 Now you are slaves of righteousness

6v19-23 therefore willingly be slaves of righteousness that leads to eternal life

7v1-6 Because you are dead to the law, and alive to bear fruit for God

7v7-12 The law is righteous but sin uses it to kill us!

7v13-25 Sin still dwells in me, chaining my body to evil, though my mind desires what is right. Praise God for salvation in Christ!

8v1-4 There is no condemnation, for the law of the Spirit has freed you from the law of sin and death

8v5-8 In the flesh you cannot please God

8v9-13 But if Christ is in you, the body is dead and the Spirit is life

8v14-17 Because those led by the Spirit are sons and heirs!

8v18-24 The sufferings of now pale away compared to the hope of glory – the redemption of our bodies

8v24-27 Therefore we wait with patience and the Spirit intercedes for us

8v28-30 and God, even in our suffering, works for our good – to be made like Christ!

8v31-34 If God is for us, who can be against us?

8v35-39 Nothing can separate us from the love of God.

9v1-13 What about the Jews though?

9v14-18 God is not unjust to exclude some Jews

9v19-29 Who is saved is down to God’s choice and it is his right

9v30-33 Israel did not pursue righteousness by faith

10v1-13 Christ is the end of the law for righteousness, you must call on him to be saved

10v14-17 The Jews need the gospel preached to them

10v18-21 They have heard before but they turned away

11v1-10 But God has not rejected them – he continues to keep a remnant, his elect

11v11-22 The stumbling of the Jews opens the door to the Gentiles (which is designed to make the Jews jealous and bring them back)

11v23-32 As mercy spilled to the Gentiles through the Jews hardening, so that mercy will spill back to the Jews and thus all (elect) Israel will be saved.

11v33-36 GLORY TO GOD!

12v1-2 THEREFORE worship God!

12v3-8 By being humble in service in the church in a gospel stylee

12v9-18 Love well

12v19-21 Put yourself in God’s hands and overcome evil with good

13v1-6 Respect authorities

13v7-10 Love your neighbour

13v11-14 Put on Christ

14v1-6 Welcome the weaker brother

14v7-13 Don’t judge, live and die to the Lord

14v14-23 Pursue peace and upbuilding (do not destroy God’s church)

15v1-7 Please your neighbour to the glory of God

15v8-12 Just as Christ came to serve Jews and Gentiles

15v13-16 Joy, peace and hope to you, through the grace I have written

15v17-24 For the work of Christ please help me on my way to Spain

15v25-33 As other churches have helped Jerusalem, help me on to Spain by material and spiritual means

16v1-16 Welcome Phoebe and greeting my brothers and sisters.

16v17-20 Beware and be well

16v21-27 GLORY TO GOD THROUGH JESUS CHRIST!