Heart of a strawberry

The strawberry crown is the heart of the plant; all the other parts (such as the leaves and roots) grow from the crown and remain attached to it. In the same way, Jesus is at the heart of the church. In him we grow and through him we are attached to one another.

A strawberry crown

What is at the heart of a strawberry? I don't mean a strawberry fruit; I mean the plant that bears the leaves and the flowers and the fruit.

If you examine a strawberry plant carefully you'll notice leaves and roots, flowers and fruit, and the runners with young plants on them. But notice something else.

Unlike many plants the strawberry has no stems and no branches. From the deepest root to the tallest leaves and the longest runners, every part is joined together in the centre.

Does this sound familiar? It should do!

The centre of church life - What is at the centre of the church? Jesus is! The heart of a strawberry plant is called a 'crown'. The leaves, the roots and the rest all spring direct from the crown. The strawberry crown rests at ground level and planting strawberries too high or too low will cause them to grow poorly or even die.

Jesus needs to be at 'ground level' in the life of the church, and everything about the church springs from him [Tweet it!]. We all inherit his nature; we all need to stay in touch with him. And being in touch with him implies that all of us will be in touch with one another also because we will all be where he is. The different parts of a strawberry plant stick out in different directions, but they are all joined to the centre. And that's exactly how we are in Christ.

And that's why, in the context of church, we must always focus on Jesus and recognise that his proper place is at the centre of everything we are and do.

Questions:

• Is Jesus at the centre of all you think, say and do?
• If not, who is?
• Having everything joined to the centre keeps a strawberry plant small. Does this affect your view of church?

See also:

• How to grow strawberries - One hundred dollars per month
• It's all about Jesus - Verge network
• Strawberry - Wikipedia

How does a strawberry grow?

Strawberry plants reproduce vigorously by means of runners. Each year a plant can produce several more which will root themselves in the soil before the connection with the original plant is lost. If strawberry plants didn't die we would soon be inundated.

Strawberry runners

The humble strawberry is a powerful example of the explosive growth of movements [Tweet it!].

A strawberry plant is not very large. It is not tall like a tree, and it's not wide like a bush. You will rarely see a strawberry plant wider than about 30 cm or higher than 20 cm.

The plant has a small root system and a central growing point with anything up to about thirty leaves.

It is not protected by spines or thorns or poisonous compounds, it carries small flowers with white or pale pink petals, and it produces the beautiful fruit that most of us love to eat with cream in the summertime. And that's more or less it.

Oh, it also produces runners...

Here's what happens when a strawberry is planted and left alone to grow.

Runners - In late summer, strawberry runners appear as little shoots growing from the centre of the plant. At first they grow upwards, but soon begin to bend under their own weight. At the end of each runner, a small strawberry plant begins to form. Eventually the runners are long enough to touch the ground, looping up and out and down. By this time the little strawberry plants at the end of the runners have started to grow roots. These take hold in the soil and the baby plant grows. Finally the runner shrivels and dies and the new little strawberry is on its own.

And strawberry plants are very good at making runners. It's not unusual to find a runner making another runner, even before the first baby plant has taken root. In fact, this can happen several times so that the mother plant has a daughter, a granddaughter and a great granddaughter all at the same time! Not only that, the original mother plant will probably produce three or four runners, or maybe more.

Twelve months later, all these young plants will have rooted, become independent and will be producing strawberry fruit (and more runners).

Can anyone spot a parallel here with the way the church grows? It might not seem at all obvious, but it's there. Maybe there's little resemblance to church growth in terms of the institutional, denominationl systems that are all around us, but what about the early church as represented in the New Testament? Think about it!

Questions:

• Assume a strawberry plant makes eight new plants each year. How many plants will there be after two years? (Each of the new plants and the old plant can produce eight more.)
• How many plants will there be after three years?
• Why doesn't church grow like a strawberry? Or does it? Can it? Should it?

See also:

• Alan Hirsch - The forgotten ways
• Grow your own strawberries - BBC
• Keep on running - Mal's allotment
• Social movement - Wikipedia
• Strawberry - Wikipedia

Fail to succeed

The secret of success is to be unafraid of failure. We may fail repeatedly on the journey to success, but if we are afraid to fail and ashamed to fail we will never experiment and so we will never reap the amazing rewards of success.

Success!

Paul Saffo is a technology forecaster in Silicon Valley.

When the BBC asked him to identify the secret of Silicon Valley's huge success, here is what he said.

The secret to Silicon Valley's success? We know how to fail and we have been doing it for decades. Failure is what fuels and renews this place. Failure is the foundation for innovation.

Failure is essential because even the cleverest of innovations - and businesses - fail a few times before they ultimately succeed.

Consider Google: at least half a dozen other companies tried to turn search into a business, but Google was the first to crack the code and turn search into a huge business.

And even when companies succeed, the only way to survive in the long term is to flee into the future by relentlessly innovating.

Church life fail? - If church in the West is to survive and flourish, we need to change the way we do things and the way we think. Church as we know it in the West has been retreating gradually for as long as I can remember. The same old ways will not do better tomorrow than they did yesterday.

How will failure help us succeed? It won't! So what does Paul Saffo mean by 'knowing how to fail'? What does he know that we don't?

It's not failure that brings success, but the willingness to fail. When the key to success is to do things differently it's essential that we experiment. Sometimes experiment fails. Perhaps it fails often. But sometimes it succeeds.

Trying new things, experimenting wildly, and not being afraid to fail - this is what has made Silicon Valley so successful. To succeed it's essential to have a dream and to run with it. And if it fails, try again with something else.

Church in the West needs to experiment madly without fearing failure. It's like surfing. Keep trying to catch the big wave. Sometimes you will miss and be left behind and will have to try again on the next wave. Sometimes you will catch it just right and be propelled forward at high speed. It will be exhilarating. The successes redeem the failures.

So if  you are involved in church life and there seems to be little or no progress, go and try a load of new ideas [Tweet it!]. When something works, run with it. You will be propelled forward at high speed and it will be exhilarating. Go for it!

Questions:

• Which of the following strategies is most likely to succeed? Doing again what failed last time, or trying something new and untested.
• You have never tried surfing. Do you expect to succeed or fail on your first attempt? Where will you go for advice, an experienced and successful surfer like the one in the photo or a novice like yourself?
• Success is a common goal and driver in Western culture. Does this make it easier or harder to try out new ideas?

See also:

• Be the Light
• More soup and bread - Journeys of heart and mind
• Paul Saffo - Wikipedia
• Reusable launchers - Journeys of heart and mind
• Verge network

House2House magazine

House2House magazine has interesting articles for people who follow Jesus. There's a lot of good material here, so visit the site, take a look, and decide for yourself. If you like what you see you can sign up for delivery by email. Prepare to be encouraged and challenged!

House2House Magazine

House2House Magazine is a great resource for anyone committed to life in Christ and especially (but not exclusively) for those interested in smaller forms of church gathering.

Meetings at home, in places like pubs and coffee shops, organic expressions of church, missional movements, small groups and cell groups - all of these and more will find much of interest and value in the online magazine.

House2House publishes frequent new articles on a range of church topics [Tweet it!] including hearing the voice of the Holy Spirit, growing in the journey with Jesus, encouraging one another, giving, stories from the lives of real people, spiritual gifts, reaching local people and much, much more.

History - Let me tell you a bit about the origins and history of the magazine. Some years ago, Tony and Felicity Dale launched a printed magazine of the same name. It ran for a while and was distributed world-wide in a variety of ways.

Paper publishing is in decline due to the convenience and efficiency of the internet and the web in particular. House2House eventually decided to cease publication, and a recent effort to relaunch it as a crowd-funded venture failed.

Now, however, it's available once more as an online magazine. It's free for anyone to read, is funded through donation by those who are led to do so, and is regularly updated.

Don't miss out on this great resource. Read the articles, sign up to receive new material by email, and discover what others are thinking and doing.

And if you feel brave, enjoy writing and have something to say, create an article of your own and submit it to the editors.


Questions:

• Have you come across House2House Magazine before?
• Do you find stories about church life interesting? Are they helpful? Do they encourage you? 
• Would you consider writing an article and submitting it?

See also:

• House2House Magazine
• House2House - website
• The story behind House2House - Simply Church

The Railway Man

Good films tell good stories; 'The Railway Man' is a great film. This is the true story of Eric Lomax, a prisoner of war under the Japanese in Thailand, the brutality of building the Burma Railway, his later marriage and subsequent friendship with one of his Japanese captors.

The Railway Man

Donna and I went to see 'The Railway Man' last night. What a film!

It stars Colin Firth and Nicole Kidman and is a marvellous story of redemption, forgiveness, freedom and life. It's based on real events and real people.

Eric Lomax (Colin Firth) is an ex-soldier. He had served in the British Army in Singapore at the time when the Japanese captured the city. As Japanese prisoners, he and his fellow servicemen suffered most terribly while constructing the railway through Thailand and Burma (the railway made famous by the film 'Bridge over the River Kwai').

Memories and freedom - Lomax was always fascinated by railways but couldn't forget or deal with his secret memories of wartime captivity and torture. He met Patti (Nicole Kidman) on a train journey in northern Britain and they fell in love. Later they married, but Eric's past haunted him until a friend discovered that Takashi Nagase (Hiroyuki Sanada), the Japanese interpreter who had assisted in his interrogation, was alive and working as a museum guide on the railway in Thailand.

Eric travels to Thailand and arrives unannounced; the two men meet and a tense exchange takes place. Through this experience Eric is able to move forward in his life. Later, when a letter arrives from Hiroyuki, Eric decides he must go to Thailand again, this time with Patti.

Some parallels - 'The Railway Man' is a great film and a wonderful story. Like all good stories it contains elements of human life at its most gripping and poignent [Tweet it!]. Wisdom, anguish, love, grace and forgiveness are all clearly portrayed.

Because of this, the story has many parallels with the greatest story of them all - the story of a powerful father who sends his one and only son to bring grace, love and forgiveness to a lost and desperate people so that darkness may be replaced by light and death may be overcome by life. These themes are eternal and significant.

Questions:

• Have you seen 'The Railway Man'? What did you think?
• What other films would you recommend? Do any of them provoke thoughts on deep human experiences and eternal truths?
• All stories are worth hearing, all stories contain truth. Is this statement true or false?

See also:

• Bridge over the River Kwai - Wikipedia
• Burma Railway, The - Wikipedia
• Eric Lomax - WIkipedia
• Law or grace? - Journeys of heart and mind
• Railway Man, The - Wikipedia
• Singapore - Wikipedia

More soup and bread

Visiting Huntingdon with soup again, we are astonished at the way Father is leading us. We spent several hours walking and meeting people, but nobody needed or wanted soup. But just as we were about to leave we met a man on a mobility scooter and everything changed.

In Huntingdon

Following the first soup run to Huntingdon, we have repeated the exercise twice more.

On 12th January Sean went on his own as Matt and I were at Open Door in St Neots. And on 19th Matt, Kevin and I visited Huntingdon with flasks of Donna's tomato soup.

I'd better backtrack a little. Kevin is a friend from Caffè Nero in St Neots. He's part of a group of local people I've got to know quite well by visiting Nero's between 15:00 and 16:00 several times a week. With a swollen ankle and visitors over the Christmas period it's been quite a while since I was there.

Meeting on the street - I had met a group of the Nero guys in town. They were chatting in the street and I stopped to join the conversation. It crossed my mind to invite Kevin to join us on 19th, and I was amazed by his enthusiasm to come along and help with the soup run. Matt and I loaded the soup, rolls and paper cups into the car and collected Kevin from Nero's. John and Gordon were there as well and they were very supportive of Kevin.

When we arrived in Huntingdon we spent some time walking, chatting with people who were willing to talk (and a few who were not), and offering soup. We visited the river bank, a play area, the bus station, the High Street, and other parts of town. But we failed to give away a single cup of soup.

A special encounter - We sat by the fountain, warmed up our hands with some of our own cups of soup, and chatted. Just as we were considering leaving, we were making our way along the High Street and saw a man sitting on a disability scooter. Kevin was very clear and definite at this point, walking right up to the man and offering him soup [Tweet it!]. After a few moments he said he would like soup and Kevin gave him some from one of our paper cups.

Soon we began chatting about football and other things. Gerald told us a bit about himself and explained that he was waiting for his wife who was in one of the shops nearby. When she returned we chatted briefly with her too, and then I asked Gerald if we could bless him. He agreed, so we prayed a short prayer for him and for his wife before saying goodbye and heading home. Gerald wanted to shake us all by the hand before we left, there was a real connection between us.

All three of us felt we were in Huntingdon that morning specifically to meet Gerald and his wife. It's not that the walking and talking in and around the town centre wasn't good. It was good but it wasn't special. Meeting Gerald was special, and we knew it.

We don't know what will come of this. We don't know if we'll meet Gerald again. We will continue to pray for him and for his wife. And we are excited about what is happening in Huntingdon!

Questions:

• What makes a meeting special? Is it about us, or about the person we meet, or about the Almighty who arranges our day if we are following him?
• Matt and I almost passed by the one person we were supposed to meet in Huntingdon. But Kevin's eyes, mind and heart were wide open. What might you miss in your own life if you are not fully awake and open?

See also:

• Caffè Nero
• Chat at Nero's - Journeys of heart and mind
• Crowds are fed, The - Journeys of heart and mind
• Huntingdon - Wikipedia
• John, food for thousands - Cruising the gospel
• St Neots - Wikipedia
• Sharing soup with strangers - Journeys of heart and mind