As you may have noticed, it’s nearly Christmas. We are all out there, buying presents for one another. Getting excited by the upcoming festivities. Many of us are full of joy at the anticipation of the celebration of Jesus coming.

I spoke to my sister recently about presents, discussing what each of us wanted for Christmas and our plans for the day. She mentioned to me how excited I got about presents, and how in the past – once in particular, when we didn’t open presents till 9pm (yes, really) – I have moaned about when we are going to open presents.

Initially I dismissed it and smiled. But as I reflected on the comment the smile faded.

I looked at myself, and realised I took more pleasure out of receiving than giving.

And I felt a deep sense of (more…)

I’ve been loving talking about the theme of Advent the last few weeks in my blog series. Many of you will also know that last year I did a guest post for Christine Sine’s blog, ‘Godspace’, which was then more recently published in a book of Advent reflections.

Well this year, I’ve been at it again.

I’ve written another guest post for her site for this Advent – this time it’s on the theme of ‘Jesus is coming, what do we expect?’, which all the posters on her blog throughout Advent have been posting on.

I have guest-posted a blog in relation to this theme entitled ‘Have we lost Jesus at Christmas?’ which has gone live today! You can find this post here, so feel free to go have a look and leave a comment! (more…)

We’re now entering into the final week of Advent, Christmas is almost upon us. In this Advent series so far we’ve looked at the shalom, peace of God, how we can discover God right where we are amongst us, and about grace. Today, as I draw the series to a close, I want to talk about joy.

When my mum died, I felt immense pain, grief and sorrow. I was angry, I was upset, I was hurting deep down. It was one of the worst moments of my life. For a long time I wanted to go back in time and do something to stop it happening.

But as I started to process this grief – through prayer, counselling, talking to friends and hearing memories of her, remember the good things about her,  things began to change.

I reflected too that as a Christian she wasn’t completely gone, and that I would see her again.

This year, eleven years after it happened, I looked back and saw all the good that God brought through that pain, the transformation that took place in me as a result of it, and I began to see that it was part of the plan for her to die when she did, that God knew it would happen then and planned for it, that it was her time to die, I felt something deep inside – something I feel now every time I think of her.

Joy.  (more…)

Time passes so quickly. It hardly seems to be December, yet we are already two weeks into Advent, coming into our third week. Having spoken of shalom, the peace of God on the blog already this advent, and also about how we need to embrace the God who is all around us right here, right now, it seems right today to speak about grace.

I won’t pretend for one moment I can answer all the questions all of us have around this subject, or cover it wholly and completely in one short blog post. But I want to at least have a worthy examination of the subject.

What do you think of when you think of grace? Personally, I think of undeserved merit. Something given without thought of reward, without condition. We talk of people in some situations showing us grace, or being gracious toward us or when faced with difficult circumstances.

Grace is often talked about as a quality we display in certain situations or circumstances – a quality some people possess, and some don’t.

In other words, a specific type of personality.

The thing is, I don’t believe that grace is simply a quality that some possess and others don’t – not in terms of a personality trait.

No. I believe true grace is very different, much greater than that.

Read the quote below: (more…)

We are now well into the first week of advent. As we approach the second week of advent, having thought about the heart of our lives, the rhythm of our lives, the shalom of God in my previous post now it’s important to go to the root of how we see God. Part of the calling inherent throughout creation is a pattern, a rhythm of death and resurrection, and the time of advent is very much a time of preparation and renewal.

It allows us to examine ourselves again before God and given that Christmas is about Jesus birth and coming in the flesh, it’s important we examine our attitudes toward how we see God. So what I wish to do today is to examine this more fully – maybe not quite in a way you may expect, but with something I believe is fundamentally important to a healthy view of God and His creation.

So let’s begin in scripture. In Genesis 28 Jacob gets sent away by Issac. Whilst he’s away, in the very same chapter, he lays down to sleep, putting his head on a stone to rest it. The lowest of the low it would seem, totally alone and thrown out, having to lay his head on a stone. But during this sleep he has a dream, a dream about God. God says the following to him: (v 13-15) (more…)

This weekend is the first of Advent. Can you believe it, still November and it’s advent already? Christmas within touching distance. It’s amazing how time flies isn’t it? Hardly feels that long ago since the start of the year, and advent is here already.

Personally, I love advent, largely because thus far, in its truest meaning, it’s been spared from the corruption of consumerism. As Christians we can still take this time and really focus on the heart of the Christmas message, the coming of Christ. Consumerism has it’s own ‘advent’ I grant you, with advent calendars and present buying, but the actual heart of advent has escaped the consumer trap.

Advent, for me, is a time of both preparation and remembrance.

Preparation, as we prepare for the coming of Jesus, we start to ponder anew the meaning of His coming and our own response to that.

Remembrance, because we begin to remember his coming and it’s implications for us and the world around us, and we begin to look back over the past year and see what God has been doing in our own lives.

Often it’s good at those times it’s good to stop and reflect. So during this advent, I’m hoping to write a few blog posts on some of the themes and issues we encounter at this time of year.

First, I want to look at the the theme of peace – or rather, shalom. (more…)

As many of you know, I occasionally guest blog for a few other sites. One of these is Christine Sine’s Godspace, for which I have written several guest posts. Last Advent I wrote a seasonal devotional for the site. This year Christine and a few others decided to compile a book of devotionals for Advent, and mine was selected to be part of this. The book has recently gone to press – you can see the cover in the picture to the left/above – and is now available from their site.

It’s called ‘Waiting for the Light: An Advent Devotional’. Having seen a provisional copy of the book I can tell you it’s packed full of quality devotionals, one for each day in Advent, written by a variety of different – and very good – authors, including Tom Sine and my own pastor Jason Clark.

Believe it or not Advent is only about three weeks away now – time does move so quickly doesn’t it? –  and over the years I’ve come to value it as much as, if not more, than Christmas Day itself. It allows us to prepare ourselves fully for the coming of Jesus, and reflect more fully on His coming and it’s meaning for us. It also allows us time to reflect on what God has been doing in us over the last year, as we prepare for Jesus coming at Christmas, and then the new calendar year ahead.  (more…)

We often live in a fantasy world. The world of advertising and media all around us feed us this idea of what life could and should be life, if only we had this product or that amount of money, or if we held a certain status – especially at this time of year. We all know of course that this is never going to happen to us, that we’ll never be rich, famous, or even have the real happiness that we always see in the movies.

Well we do don’t we?

Maybe it’s just me, but often I can get caught up in these ideals of what life is about. As a writer it’s easy to daydream – in some ways, it’s part of the job. But it’s so easy to get caught up inside your own fantasies of what you’d like your life to be, and I don’t think it’s just writers who do this. (more…)

It’s Christmas. Time to celebrate the birth of Jesus, the birth of hope. In a consumer society, it’s time for us all to go out shopping for presents for friends and relatives. But I’ve been thinking recently about the whole concept of what happens when we buy something, because I think it can speak volumes to us about the culture we live in, and the contrast it presents with Jesus economy, Jesus’ vision of how we should live.

It all begins with the transaction. In the process of purchasing a product, we are buying control of that product or service. We can do what we want with it, when we want it, how we want it, within certain external boundaries. But often when we buy something we don’t use it for what we bought it for straightaway. Sometimes we get home and forget why we even bought it or why we needed it.

Have you ever bought a DVD or CD, for example, but don’t watch or listen to it straightaway? But you still feel good inside don’t you? You feel satisfied and content.

Why? (more…)

Last Advent you may remember I was asked to write a blog post for Christine Sine of Mustard Seed Associates, a Christian community in Seattle, USA, which was published on her blog Godspace. This year I was asked to do the same, and today my blog post ‘Know the reality’, about the reality of the Advent/Christmas story, is published on her site and you can find it here.

It’s part of a series being published on the site throughout lent about how Jesus can become real to us in this advent season, and there will be new blog posts published on the site every day of lent by various authors with their own take on this topic – obviously this started nearly a fortnight ago now, and all the other reflections can be found merely by looking at the ‘recent posts’ section of the site . (more…)