Stamford - Fisherfolk evening

< 24th October 2011 | Index | 7th November 2011 >

This evening took me back to the 1970s and 80s in more ways than one. The music was great and a lot of good thoughts were shared, in the songs, in the form of short stories and experiences from the past, and in conversation afterwards.

Some friends from the 1970s, Paul and Jenny, had invited me to a Fisherfolk evening. They planned to play some of the wonderful old music created as part of the Charismatic Renewal, a revival that swept through the church at that time.

We gathered at Stamford Free Church where there was a warm welcome. When the band of five musicians began playing and singing I was astonished at the quality of the music. I'd known it would be good, but somehow they had really captured something of the original Fisherfolk feeling.

All the songs were familiar and I certainly enjoyed myself. But I'd like to explain how the evening affected me in other ways, ways that are relevant today, not just memories of the past.

Dot, introducing the songs, spoke eloquently about joy and family. She explained there had been no joy in going to church when she was young. She was very aware of the responsibilities laid on her, almost as if she had to earn her way to heaven. Many people still see things this way.

For Dot it all changed, she was filled with joy, she was baptised, and she discovered a sense of family. She was surrounded by brothers and sisters in this new life of fellowship! Dot reminded me how important family is. We are supposed to live in our Father's house. We are meant to be at home with him. And we are meant to be full of life and joy and love.

Whenever and wherever people follow Jesus wholeheartedly they will be full of life, joy and love. The fruit of the Spirit is more fundamental than the gifts. And when we live like that the world will see Jesus in his people.

Thank you Dot and Jenny (vocals), Mark (drums), Paul (guitar) and John (piano). Thank you for reminding me how we should all live today. I can hardly do better than finish with a few words from  one of the songs.

For our lives together, we celebrate
Life that lasts forever, we celebrate
For the joy and for the sorrow
Yesterday, today, tomorrow
We celebrate

< 24th October 2011 | Index | 7th November 2011 >

TECHNOLOGY - Ecotricity

Ecotricity is the utilities company that Donna and I use for our gas and electricity supplies. They are a company with a difference, quite unlike any other energy company in the UK and perhaps in the world - unless you know different...

We switched to 'ecotricity' some years ago when they were smaller than they are now. They're still far smaller than their competitors and getting started in competition with international giants was no walk in the park.

But Dale Vince who founded and runs 'ecotricity' is full of unusual and effective ideas. He's also determined to make a difference and change the way we obtain and sell energy. Read Dale's blog for more on his thinking about green energy.

'Ecotricity' is different from the rest because it was built around a green and clean model. Take a look at their awards page to see how well they have been doing with that objective.

For electricity, their current mix is about 60% green (mostly wind energy). For customers like us who opt for a slightly higher cost plan, it's 100% green. And the profit earned by the company goes into new green generating capacity.

If you live in the UK please consider switching to 'ecotricity'. And if you live elsewhere in the world maybe you could build a windmill and go into business yourself!

THOUGHT - Of wine and wineskins

In the 1970s and 80s we talked a lot about new wine and the older and newer wineskins we might use to hold it. Perhaps it's time to revisit this topic to see how it might apply to church today, particularly organic church.

I'm sure we're all familiar with these words of Yahshua, 'Nobody pours new wine into old wineskins. Otherwise the wine will burst the skins, and both the wine and the wineskins will be ruined. No, they pour new wine into new wineskins.' (Mark 2:22)

The idea here is that new wine is actively fermenting and is full of fizz, it's literally alive with active yeast. Old wine is inactive, even dead; fermentation is finished. Wineskins were made of goatskin and when new were supple and stretchy, old ones were stiff, brittle and cracked.

New, fizzy, active wine will stretch a new wineskin but burst an old one. We felt Jesus was saying that the New Covenant could not be contained in the old wineskin of Judaism but needed a new, more flexible one, the church.

In the 70s we thought that old wine and old wineskins also represented staid denominations with their stuffy, inflexible liturgy and rigid forms of structured management. The new wine represented the fresh, vigorous outpouring of spiritual gifts and if these were released within the traditional church there would be an explosion.

The answer would surely be new forms of meeting at home without leadership structures and inflexible service patterns.

Well, maybe. But it didn't work out quite as we expected.

The new house churches ran into difficulties as leaders were recognised and given authority. Sometimes the spiritual outpouring faded away, but sometimes it continued unabated. And outrageously, even the denominations began encouraging the use of spiritual gifts, sometimes in special meetings or even in their normal Sunday services.

It seems the Holy Spirit was no respecter of our ideas about wineskins!

Perhaps the wineskins are not so much about organisations and structures as they are about the hearts of the people within those organisations and structures. That makes far more sense, Jesus is interested in people, not organisations. We bring people to him and he builds them into the structure as he chooses. We are living stones. Did you ever hear of stones deciding how to build a house?

More on wineskins in a future post...

Meanwhile, can you suggest things we could do as we meet to encourage the flow of new, fizzing, spiritual wine?

THOUGHT - Tent pegs in bronze?

In some correspondence recently I wrote, 'Let the Kingdom be extended. Spread the tent pegs wider still'. What did I mean by that? For some, the tent peg reference may be clear, for some it may seem odd.

When I wrote, 'Let the Kingdom be extended', it was me speaking in my own words. I am hoping, praying, and expecting to see Christ's Kingdom extending further and wider and deeper in my own life and in the lives and activities of others near and far.

But what about those tent pegs?

Tent pegs are mentioned in the Bible. Paul was a tent maker and sometimes used his expertise to earn a living. That meant he was not always dependent on the help of the people in the local churches. Just like Peter, Andrew, James and John who were commercial fishermen, Paul's spiritual work reflected his trade. They became people catchers; Paul became a maker of shelters in the form of new churches. (I might come back to this idea in another article, it seems interesting.)


But tent pegs first appear in Exodus (see this Bible Gateway search for more details). The pegs were part of the Tabernacle, the place where Yahweh lived amongst his wandering people. The instructions are detailed - they are to be made of bronze. And notice Exodus 35:21...

'Everyone who was willing and whose heart moved them came and brought an offering to Yahweh for the work on the tent of meeting, for all its service, and for the sacred garments.'

The church is also a kind of tent, a tabernacle. Just as the Tabernacle was a mobile, temporary precursor of the Temple that would later be built in Jerusalem, so the church is a mobile, temporary precursor of the Bride that is yet to be fully revealed. Just like the Temple to come, the Tabernacle contained an innermost place where Yahweh rested in utter glory.

And where is his glory contained in the church? In the heart of every member, every part of the body, poured out in abundance at Pentecost and still burning brightly in every follower of Jesus today. The power and the glory of the Most High, the Father and the Son and the Spirit, is contained in us. We are the bride of the Lamb. That power and that glory is intended to be manifest in us today. It always was, it always will be.

Israel wandered in the desert for forty long years, sometimes grumbling, suffering needlessly because they had refused to go straight in to the promised land. Has the church done this too? Are we afraid of  'the giants in the land'? What are our giants? What prevented us going straight in? What did Israel learn in the desert? What has the church learned in 2000 years of 'desert wandering'?

And finally, one more thing to consider. In 1971 (the year is not precise) a great outpouring of Holy Spirit power and glory was underway in a house church movement - but it came to nothing. Since then forty years have passed bringing us to 2011. Coincidence? Perhaps...

But back to those tent pegs. I was quoting from Isaiah 54. (The word 'stakes' in verse 2 (NIV) is translated pegs in, for example, the NASB.) We noticed this chapter in the late 1970s and spent some time thinking about it prayerfully. I believe this passage is about the church, the bride of the Lamb. Forty years on, is it time for a fresh start into the place of promise? What does it mean to enlarge, stretch, not hold back, lengthen, strengthen?

But this comes with a warning. None of it will happen if we are looking for power or glory. Instead we need to have a burning hunger for Jesus - and only for him. And everything we think and do must be not only in his name, but for his sake and for his glory.

I'd like to hear what others think about this. Please comment.

Brampton - A place of safety

< 10th October 2011 | Index | 29th October 2011 >

We were reminded about places of safety. What are they? do I need one? How do I find one? How can I be sure I'll be safe there?

Right at the start we had a reminder that 'where two or three are gathered in my name, I will be there with them' (Matthew 18:19-20). As I shared those words, Sean was prompted to explain that he'd seen a picture in his mind, two young children were running into the ark.

This in turn prompted me to mention three words that seemed relevant - ark (obviously), but also temple and mountain. If he's in one of those places we need to run there ourselves because he himself is our place of safety.

And if he's with two or three gathered together - that is the right place to be.

I was reminded of an old song -  'The Celebration Song'

In the presence of Your people
I will praise Your name
For alone You are holy
Enthroned in the praises of Israel

Let us celebrate Your goodness
And Your steadfast love
May Your name be exalted
Here on earth and in heaven above

And then I saw small, oval photos of people. They were just head and shoulders portraits but they were from different generations. Some were sepia prints, others were black and white, others were in colour. The whole thing seemed like a genealogy. We didn't understand the meaning.

We thought again about Sean's picture of little children entering the ark and remembered that Yahshua said. 'Let the little children come to me' (Matthew 19:13-15), and also, 'Unless you come like a little child you won't even see the Kingdom of Heaven' (Luke 18:17). We prayed that Father would make us as straightforward as little children.

By searching a little we found that the Mishnah says, of the cities of refuge, that if the High Priest dies the refugees would not be punished for their crimes and would be free to leave. This seems especially significant in the light of Christ's death.

Sean remembered how Jesus also said, 'If you, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children; how much more will your Father give to you the Holy Spirit? (Luke 11:9-13)' Sean saw himself as very small in the King's city. And Father said, 'Even your small is much too big'. We are so small and he is so big and powerful; this helps our faith as even our largest problems are small and easy for him. His desire is the very best for us and he encourages us to believe.

I saw a picture of a man struggling to pull a very heavy handcart up a steep hill. He was out of breath, sweating heavily, and working extremely hard for very little progress. But Father just reached in and turned the horizon slightly so that it became a gently downhill slope. Now the man only needed to guide and control the cart, not provide the power to move it. What had seemed almost impossibly hard now seemed effortless.

Sean said that we need to see things with Father's perspective, not our own. We need to believe that he wants good for us and not harm.

And finally he told us, 'If you look down you will just see the dust. But if you look up you'll see my sun in the sky and feel the warmth on your face.

< 10th October 2011 | Index | 29th October 2011 >

TECHNOLOGY - Robotic cyclist

A Japanese hobbyist has built a robot cyclist. The video is quite amazing to watch.

The robot is much smaller than human size and this will account in part for the sometimes erratic and wobbly ride. But it's an impressive achievement. It's not the first time a robotic cyclist has been built, but as far as I know this is the smallest.

One day, no model railway will be complete with tiny robotic pedestrians, cyclists and road vehicles moving around the tiny landscape. Now there's a thought!