I've been busy - Mission, Prayer and my apologies for the prolonged absence.

To those who look in regularly, my apologies. I have been busy with many things. Our church is organising a mission and there is much to do  We are staging our outreach to West Bromwich in conjunction with another church from a different denomination. 

The mission will take place during Holy Week. You learn more about it here. Not every planned event has been listed, as yet.

One of my tasks is to encourage people to underpin the mission with constant and regular prayer. I would like to ask you to join with us is seeking the Lord's blessing on this outreach.

I'm looking for committed intercessors. If God burdens you for this outreach , please contact me.

Every Blessing in Jesus,

Ian

Drop the dead dummy and talk to the Builder.

This morning I had a dream. I was and am still rather tired and decided, unusually for me, not to go to church, but to get some much needed rest so that I could concentrate on other church-related matters. But when God wants to speak to you, He gets to speak to you; sleep notwithstanding.

I dreamt that I was visiting a friend's church on the other side of the city. The church he pastors is mostly Nigerian and rents space from a Baptist Church. My own church has a similar arrangement with an Asian Church, as do quite a few churches. I should add that my friend is a man of prayer and faith and a dedicated intercessor.

In my dream, I was not actually in the Baptist church but in a house. As my friend came towards me, he seemed to be headless. As he got closer, I realised that he was carrying one of those headless tailor's dummies. It was dressed exactly as he was and, for the most part, obscured him.

Then the scene changed. Clearly the house was being renovated. Signs of building were everywhere but it was chaotic. There were a great many people in the house doing various things. (It was clearly not intended to be a message about his church as everyone else in the dream was white. The reason for this is explained above.) I could see toddlers playing with the building materials, seemingly under the illusion that they were helping - as children do.

People were living in the house as it was being renovated, but without any sense of demarcation between work areas and the rest of the house.

One man spoke to me. Everything about him said 'builder' and at first I thought that he was a contractor. He told me, in no uncertain terms, that the situation was dire. People had stepped out in faith and invested money in the works, but the money was running out and the work was no-where near completion. It was piecemeal and chaotic. He was actually doing some of the work and I thought that he was worried about being paid, but then it turned out that he had invested in the building and was a part of the congregation. The way he spoke to me left me thinking that he expected me to do something about the situation.

I sat down at a table with some of the people. A slim, attractive, dark-haired, young woman joined us. "Everything will be alright", she told me. She had invested money and was full of faith that it would come right. Despite her obvious beauty and faith, I found myself wondering if she was being naif? I thought that the builder had a better grasp of the situation.

After prayer and reflection, once awake, I decided that the dream was from God and when I shared it with a friend and prayer-partner, she also found that it spoke to her.

On the personal level (see my advice in my post on The Magnificat - slide twelve), I have to ask what am I carrying around that looks good, but is headless (Christ-less and dead) and is obscuring the man of prayer ( the New Creation)? It is a serious challenge on use of time, money and gifts within the church.

Secondly, what is it that the Builder expects me to do? He was the Builder and a part of the Body (The Head). He has made the major investment in the building. Clearly I need to speak to others as well. But what else should I do? How can I be most effective in helping to right the situation?

On a wider level, many churches need to take a hard look at what they are doing. Are the spiritually immature (the toddlers) being left to 'help' when they are hindering? What of the dead dummy? Is there Christ-less leadership that is obscuring spiritual leadership?

On the denominational and universal church level, the question becomes, how do we get rid of the dead dummy? 

As to the investment that had been made, we have to ask about our stewardship, not only of our own time and talents, but also that of others. Are we using our gifts and the gifts of others to the best effect? 

At the widest level, and increasingly, local churches and even dioceses, are asking if it is right to fund godless leadership. The same is true of many denominations.

We have to drop the dead dummy.

We need to be better organised

And we need to talk to the Builder about the building works.

 

If my people, who are called by my Name, humble themselves and pray (Part One)

The text, for those who have trouble with a rather individual cursive, reads as follows:

Scandal after Scandal. No institution safe. Not even the Church or the media ( inc. news)

     God will bring his people to  their knees in prayer. He will horrify even those who are a little awake in order that they might pray. He will terrify the sleepers that they might awake , repent and pray.

22.8.92

Thirty-one years (it now being October 2023) ago a Christian in prayer heard from the Holy Spirit. But what to do? Who would listen? Blogs were unheard of.

Nontheless, it has all come horribly true and not just in the UK. The Church was singled out as judgement begins in the House of God.

The media (news), meant the TV news and especially the BBC which was enjoying a partially deserved reputation for accuracy after the Falklands War. It never meant the newspapers.  Who ever believed them?

We have been horrified with 9/11 and 7/7 as well as the aftermath of these events. We have been terrified with a beheading on the streets of London.

But still no prelate, priest, politician or prince calls out for prayer and repentance.

When you can't sleep - Pray!

Here in the humid, hot conditions of the UK,  it can be hard to sleep at night (it's not always like this!). Have you ever noticed that you often begin to doze off when praying? There are all sorts of reasons including genuine tiredness, but the Enemy hates us to pray. This can be put to good effect - really.

One the one hand, God sometimes wakes us up to pray and intercede in the quiet of the night. Often, such times of prayer accomplish great things as  we respond to a specific urging of the Holy Spirit. I recall such a time at Bible College. It had to be supernatural as we had a very full schedule and needed all the sleep we could get. It resulted in my call to the West Midlands and my staying here rather than returning to the Durham Dale where I was born and bred or going elsewhere.

On the other hand, what if you simply can't sleep? We need to quiet the mind. Prayer can be a good way of stopping the incessant internal dialogue that keeps us awake. And anyway, He gives His Beloved sleep.

So once the intercession is over and you really need to sleep, what can you do? 

Something that has migrated over from our Eastern Orthodox brethren is the 'Jesus Prayer'. Like Metropolitan Anthony Bloom, in his book 'The Essence of Prayer', I am going to keep this simple. There are those who go much further with breathing techniques etc. All are clearly influenced by the practices of Sufis and other such Eastern mystics. They all come with a spiritual health warning which Anthony Bloom repeats.

The prayer itself is quite simple:

Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God; Have Mercy on me, a sinner.

It is intended, not to be mindlessly repeated, that would be vain repetition, but with full attention and concentration on the meaning of the words. The word 'Mercy' in Greek is related to 'Oil' , so one is asking for the Holy Spirit, for relationship, for love. However, this is not so obvious in English. To our ears it sounds like a constant petition for forgiveness without any real hope or assurance.

I started to alter the formula for various reasons. Firstly, I am well aware of the reasons for the spiritual health warning when involved in meditation and contemplation. I wanted to focus upon the One, True God and not just any spirit making that claim.

Lord Jesus Christ, Son of the Living God; etc.

Then as the good, little (metaphorically speaking) Protestant that I am, I realised that Mercy had already been obtained.

Lord Jesus Christ, Son of the Living God; You have had Mercy upon me a sinner.

I had now moved from petition to proclamation.Then I realised that I should be thankful.

Lord Jesus Christ, Son of the Living God; Thank You for Your Mercy upon me a sinner.

I have now moved from proclamation to praise and to Presence. As a forgiven sinner the veil is rent and I can enter the presence of God in relationship with Him as an adopted Son, or as the Bride of Christ or as a companion of and one anointed by the Holy Spirit. Which brings us full circle.

Prayer, petition, proclamation, praise and Presence. All enjoined upon us by Jesus.

Now as the prayer is repeated (mindfully), the one praying will move through all these stages and move into worship or fall asleep.

Should you fall asleep, you fall asleep with your mind fixed on Jesus. It will positively affect your dreams and your sleep.

It's a win-win situation.

It works for me and I pray that it will work for you. 

Every blessing in Jesus.

A Parable written in the desert sands?

This is an amazing story in its own right, but as I read it, I began to wonder if it was a word from God, a parable for our pastors and leaders in the West. In short, did the physical desert have something to tell us about the spiritual desert that is Western Christianity?

I came across it in 'The Telegraph' a UK national newspaper. The first thing worthy of note is that it mentions answers to prayer!  This is all but a miracle in the current socio-political climate.

The article is by a Geoffrey Lean, a journalist specialising in environmental issues. I have no idea what he may or may not believe but his article is fascinating.

The underground forests that are bringing deserts to life.

An Australian missionary, one Tony Rinaudo, working for World Vision, one day gazed despairingly out on the unforgiving desert, wondering: “How many saplings, how many people, how many millions of dollars would I need for this?” 

Driven to prayer, he says, he “saw for the first time what had been there all along. Seemingly useless small bushes scattered over the dry land, which we had despised as weeds, were actually the outward signs of a vast underground forest.” (quote from Geoffrey Lean's article)

He realised that what was thought to be scrub and weeds were in fact shoots from the buried stumps of long-felled trees.

Anyone who knows the Tenach/Old Testament should, by now, be thinking of Isaiah 11.

Once he realised what was happening, all that was needed was pruning, protection, provision and then trees! Followed by praise, to wit:

Rinaudo – who now works internationally for World Vision – still finds that previously “hopeless” people “dance and sing” when they discover the underground forest, and how they can “change their lives, and the world, with a pruning knife”.

The meaning of this parable.

Pastors, priests, presbyters, prelates, preachers, patriarchs, prophets, popes or whatever you want to call yourselves, this is for you.

In the arid desert of Western Christianity many of the people you serve, note serve, do look like weeds and scrub. As a preacher and a teacher, I know the feeling. We need to see that many of them have been battered by life and by something that looks a lot like the church. They are haphazard Christians with shoots that go all over the place.

Like the forest, can two thousand years of Christianity just disappear? We have a godless younger generation, but there are still many of the older and middle generations who know something of Christ.

Firstly, you pray.  

Let God show you who these people are and what they are really like in His sight.

Secondly, you prune.

John 15:2 Starting with your own heart and then, with divine wisdom, lovingly discipline the disciples. This is the Cross, this is sacrifice, laying down our lives for God and our neighbours. Our pruning hook is the sword of the Spirit which is the Word of God. Go carefully here.

Thirdly, you protect. 

Which is to say, protect the Church from false teachers and false prophets. Watch out for the wolves in sheep's clothing, the demons disguised as angels of light. Guard your pulpit. If the Bible says it is sin, it is sin; no matter what the world, the governments and even some senior leaders in the Church may say.


Fourthly, you provide. 


Which is to say, you preach and you pray. May I refer you to Acts 6:4  and also to God's-conditions-for-revival-taken-from.html

Fifthly, by God's Grace and Spirit, you praise.  

So many forget to thank God for what He has done, but if you want to preserve all that has been so hard to win, then praise God and give Him the Glory.

There are 7000 who have not bowed the knee to Baal. God's-power-and-compassion-our-weakness.html

There's the parable and the sermon outline. It's not exegeting scripture, rather using scripture to exegete Nature. 

So please, prayerfully consider, is this not God's word to us; a parable written in the desert sands?

You can see and learn more about Rinaudo's method below and even more here.