see-through faith

Found a lovely tiny book in The Samaritans’ Secondhand shop today – 50p!  Called Go Girl! (Helen Exley). It’s full of lovely, wonderful pictures ‘elfin’style by Caroline Gardner, and fun and inspiring sayings from all kinds of women (and a few men).

I love to wake up and meet the day.
I think that life is not to be wasted or thrown away. (Goldie Hawn)

50p well spent methinks

I somtimes think there is a perfect logic to life, like in maths, an underlying logarithm, if you can just find it. But the trouble with this maths is that every little part is essential. If you take away pi then circles just stop making sense. [He] is like pi, and I am both the geometrist and the circle. I need him so that I can make sense of the world and I need him so that I can be understood. There are infinitesmial million of numbers in the world, but only one of them is pi

I love this quote. It’s NOT taken from life of pi, but rather from a rather weird, thought-provoking debut novel called The Glass House by Sophie Cooke. (Published in 2005, my copy is a secondhand one)

What I love about the quote is that  Pi  could be anyone or anything I suppose, but for me it’s both God and the person who really makes you tick – your best friend/spouse.  I like that double blessing, and perhaps it is linkedin my understanding because I do firmly believe that your partner for life – the one you spend so many hours with, and are so intimate with (in what you say and are, as much as in what you do) is a gift from God.

Not quite

I’ve always been quite lucky really insofaras I enjoy my own company and space. So the idea of a programless, peopleless Easter hasn’t been threatening at all. Quite the reverse. I’ve look forward to it as a sort of mini retreat and time to declutter my mind as well as a time to springclean my little flat here.

Only I’ve picked up a bug. Nothing life-threatening, just a silly little bug that’s put bed rest at the top of the agenda this weekend. Not at all how I’d expected to be spending Easter I have to confess.

more than half way through lent, Clare gets in touch with the NT women. Fasincating daily update. Read here

the e-word

evangelism

we don’t know whether to love it or hate it, do we?

I think one reason for that is evangelism in the West has mostly been based upon models developed within Christian countries, and Christendom.  That’s meant that most of those who came to faith ‘got saved’ in recent years have had church backgrounds at a time when fewer and fewer people have such a background and the ranks of the unchurched are (in most european countries) rising. Finland of course is an exception here. It’s still firmly within Christendom with about 90% of teenagers chosing to confirm their faith (even if then they are not regular church attenders, and many drift away from the church again in adulthood). It’s meant that the models don’t work because the conditions are no longer what they used to be.

Britain is very different to the Finland of course. Not only are most people not really part of the church (other than on a census form) but the country is much more pluralistic in attitude. In Finland you might learn a lot about other faiths, but you won’t actually easily meet people of other faiths because in many ways the nation is still very monocultural. Not so in England.  And that has meant some very pragmatically different approaches to the ways the good news is shared.

For many it’s still an e-word
But things like Mission-Shaped Church are challenging that.

One approach to evangelism begins not with the message we wish to proclaim but rather with listening to the beliefs and experiences of others and looking for connections to the Christian gospel with them and their stories. This approach requires the building of relationships and a willingness to go to where people are in mission rather than expect them to come to us. We can call it incarnational … but what is important is that it it the church (groups of Christians) not only going out, but also staying where people are rather than dragging them back to church as we know it.

As part of my job as intern over at Cliff College I have been priviledged to be co-leading a course on interfaith evangelism this semester.  This week we went on a field trip to Galeed House, an interfaith community meeting place run by Christians in the heart of a predominantly non-Christian neighbourhood. We were indeed priviledged becasue the work at Galeed House has been long term and consistent and real relationships have been formed with both men and women in the community. That meant they welcomed us friends of Galeed House too. We women ate with women, visited people in their homes, and got to play with children too. I even got to sit on an English lesson for immigrant women. The male students in our group met with men, helped dig gardens and also worked with boys and young children. It was a fabulous experience for me.

It was a very humbling experience for me. We came in on the shirt tails of Galeed House. And for me it was a living embodiment of 1 Cor 3, where different people plant and water but it is God who gives the growth. We may not yet see the results of our labour (or the long hard and patient work of others) but interfaith evangelism is a long term commitment, built on building friendships and walking with them on their journey. Not unlike the way of the early church where the conversion process usually took 3 years of intense mentoring.

When doing some reading this week I was reminded of this important truth.

Those who come to faith often find it hard to be accepted by churches, and indeed would naturally express Christian faith in their own culture. Insights from the C1-6 explorations of evangelism among Muslims are likely to be helpful in this area and it is likely that longer term mission in this culture will be served by planting churches in that culture.

This applies not only to our work as Christians within the muslim communities, but for example with people from new age backgrounds. Steve Hollinghurst’s books are really helpful in exploring this. E.g. the grove booklet New Age Paganism and Christian Mission is a good starting point. For futher reading you could try Mission-Shaped Evangelism (excellent read) or Robert Webbers Ancient-Future Evangelism

Maybe evangelism isn’t such an e word after all, but rather a f for friendship word. And that’s something we can all do (and in very different ways too)

A friend (my angel during angel week last year at college) posted this word for 2012 over in facebook

‘… For i am going to do something in your days that you would not believe, even if you were told.’ (Habakkuk 1:5)

It encouraged me so much.

God doesn’t always tell us things in advance – that’s part of the adventure of the journey I think (and yes very frustrating at times!). I’m not too great at following the Spirit. I like to think of myself, my life, my journey as being a bit like a sailing boat, with the sails set to catch the wind – and sail off to the distant enticing horizon – but all too often the wind comes from the ‘wrong’ direction, and my sails are set wrong, and it seems as if the boat is about to capsize – indeed it does capsize, and it’s then I realise I’ve put my faith, my trust, my hope in either the boat or the way I’ve set the sails.

God is going to do something in my life that I would not believe even if I heard Him tell me.

That’s part of the adventure. That’s part of sitting in a new sailing vessels, with the sails not set, but watching and listening for the sign that He is on the move.

Archbishop Rowan said that mission is about seeing the Spirit at work and joining in.

It really is that simple.

But seeing means being alert and ready. (Isn’t that what Jesus was refering to in that parable? You know the one about the wise women and the lamps! Mt 25:1-13)  It also means being ready to obey …

The prophetic word for 2012 means a lot to me personally. I don’t quite get it -and that IS the point. It doesn’t even say that the ‘something’ that God will do will be wonderful, but because He is my Father, I can trust it will all work out for good.

Welcome to whatever God wants to happen in my life, and through my life, this year!
Thank you Angel for that word to ponder on. It’s encouraged me no end!

In Turku here on the south coast, as you can see, the day is less than six hours long at this time of year, while in Rovaniemi on the Arctic Circle it is just over two hours long. North of that, the sun remains below the horizon. Shudder. We call that time Kaamos, and while it’s not pitch black all the time- it is dark – with the sky brightening a bit around midday – sort of like twilight.

I think that’s why the words of John minister so well to us at this time of year.

The darkness is passing away. The true light is already shining. (1 Jn 2:8)

At last the days start to lengthen now, but only at a rate of about five minutes a week.  The best time is in March when the days lengthen rapidly about 5 mins a day. I love that. But this year I’ll be in England then

weather here in England.

Today we lit the third candle on the advent wreath in the local church.  I love Advent. I say it every year, but it’s clear – clearer than before – that Finland is still far more rooted in Christendom than England is.

Advent just isn’t the same. Just sayin’

It’s not that the Brits don’t know about advent. They do.  Well some of them. But it’s more that advent has become another commercial season … with advent calanders being the chocolate count down to Christmas, the commercial festival of the year.

It makes me sad.

Today, the third Sunday in Advent is the date trdiationally set aside to contemplate on John the Baptist. How he prepared the way for the people to receive Jesus (though many did not) and who said of himself I have to become smaller that He might be greater.

Today I would have loved to have heard about that – and been reminded that Christmas IS coming and it’s time to get prepared – not for the day itself with all its trappings and syncretism- but a time of allowing God to prepare us for the truth of the Incarnation once again, because, as Bill Hybels says “vision leaks” and we need to be reminded that Christ is what Christ-mas is all about.

There are a lot of spiritual activities here at the college

morning prayers
housegroup particpation  /Celebration on alternate Tuesdays
student-led service on Sunday night (NOT an alternative to going to church elsewhere)

Additionally all the undergrads have weekly mission placements to go to. That ranges from helping run junior alpha or Sunday school, working in the multifaith cafe at Sheffield uni, or feeding the homeless.

I wanted to serve too. One of the optional things students can be involved in is Inspire. So part of my service to the college community is that I help organise this. This year there will be four ‘training sessions’ for the Inspire bands, in order to help them grow in confidence and ability in  being in band and getting the most out of it. We’ve had one session so far and I need to schedule the next one in very soon.

What I love even more than doing Inspire stuff is doing the ministry time for the MA students. It’s usually on Wednesday evening or on Tuesday before housegroup, although this weekend because of bonfire night we did it on Monday. It is such a privilege to do this, ensuring there is a time of ministry and prayer for these men and women of God, who, week in week out are busy serving God in churches and other organisations and who so seldom get to be at something they aren’t themselves leading. Of course I always need someone’s help to get the singing going …

Yesterday ought to have been my research/study day (after all the PhD is the main reason I’m here!) , but even the best laid plans …

I ended up having an afternoon out and about in Derbyshire.

Baslow (doctors surgery)

Chesterfield (unexpected Bible exhibition then exploration of city centre shopping)

Tescos (yes the one in Chesterfield is so huge it probably qualifies as a village town of its own!)

Matlock (via Chatsworth)

If you have no idea where these places are, this map might help; (Cliff College is situated in the east of the park, between where Curbar and Calver are marked) and this site is all about the peak district!