I have spoken a lot this past 12 months of the process of death and resurrection. Usually, what comes out in my writing is a reflection of my own journey, and this past year, 2011, has been one where this reality of this truth has been manifest in my own life.

Now you may think, entering into a new year, that death isn’t exactly the best place to start, especially after we’ve just celebrated the birth of Jesus. But paradoxically, I believe death is actually the very best place to begin if we’re to experience a year of transformation and growth.

I have experienced death – and of course grief, something I will speak of in a future post – first hand. I lost my mother when I was 23.

It wasn’t actually my first experience of grief, as I’d lost grandparents before. But it was the first time a person in my direct family or network, who I had a very close relationship to, had passed away. It wasn’t even the biggest shock. My mum had suffered from asthma for years and we had all come to accept that the asthma would eventually claim her life – but none of us had really expected it so soon.

But death is something that wakes us up to who we are – and by death I don’t merely mean facing our own, or others, or going through grief. I mean experiencing the emotion, the power and ultimately, the process, of death in our own lives.

You see death is the engine room of life. (more…)

I’ve been overwhelmed in the last couple of weeks by the response to my both the first and second posts in this series on abstinence. What often happens when you write is God takes an issue you’re passionate about and care deeply for, and inspires you to write something. But what you’re not prepared for is how others will respond. I have to confess a feeling of risk when first posting the initial blog post, and wasn’t too sure how people would react, given the nature of the topic.

However, the response to both was amazing.

I received questions, heard some great points made on either side, from all sorts of sources too. Posted to me on Facebook, via Twitter, as well of course some great comments in direct response to the posts themselves. That’s been brilliant because one thing I love is a good discussion.

I genuinely feel that healthy discussion, showing love, respect and grace, whatever your opinion, is actually a very positive and constructive thing, whether you ultimately agree or disagree.

So thank you to all those who’ve contributed.

This third part of the series is really about drawing it all together and possibly answering some of the questions people who’ve either commented directly or replied to the post on social networking have put forward.

The first thing I want to say is to be totally honest. I am tempted in this area. (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…)

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…)

There’s been a lot of debate and discussion on the role of women on the Twitter/blogosphere recently, most of it healthy. All the time as I have been reading – and there have been excellent posts in the last week by both Vicky Beeching and Anna Blanch on this subject, amongst others, and indeed I myself posted on the Biblical role of women earlier in the week.

But to me there was something missing.

I felt a man’s perspective on gender issues was just not there. You see, I think we should all absolutely be championing women in leadership, and that the Bible is pro-women, and it’s absolutely right that women find their voice. I made that clear in my post earlier this week, with some theological background.

I just know, from my own experience as a man, that one danger of going to far with feminism can be that men no longer know what it is to be a man. They grow up without a clear definition of masculinity. We are told to ‘get in touch with our feminine side’, and then criticised for not being ‘man’ enough, all the time trying to be men and be positive about masculinity, without being anti-women or sexist in any way.

I think this is a serious problem, especially in church where people have different perceptions of the role of both men and women. I’m an egalitarian, I believe the question isn’t gender when it comes to leadership and teaching, it’s about character, gifting and calling. If you have those, then your gender, although part of who you are, is not relevant.

Your gender should never preclude you from any role.  (more…)

There was a long and in depth discussion on Twitter this week concerning the role of women, and whether they should be teaching or leading in church. I did add my contribution to it, but seeing how some women – many of whom I know and are gifted leaders – being treated in a way which I found hurtful, and given the importance of the topic, I felt it important that I put something out there about where I’m coming from and my thoughts and reflections on this topic.

First, the elephant in the room. Yes, I’m a man talking about women. So, my view or experience may be limited in some ways, but I’m going to share what I know.

I am thankful to my pastor Jason who did a great talk on this which has helped me in my preparation, and want to acknowledge that here. But this is an issue which I care about deeply. The attitude of some male leaders out there and how they have talked about and treated women, and the mistreatment of women even in attitude and tone, has upset me I’ll be brutally honest.

One of my biggest passions is seeing all people, men and women, fulfill their divine calling in God, and be free to become the people they were created to be. When women are limited, criticised, put down or stopped from doing this because of what I consider to be bad theology, that upsets me.

So what I’m going to do is outline briefly the main perspectives on this issue, look at a couple of Bible passages relating to this and try to outline them and what their real meaning is, and then offer some thoughts and reflections on this.

(more…)

“Death is the destination we all share. No one has escaped it.  And that is as is should be, because death is very likely the very best invention of life. It’s life’s change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new” – Steve Jobs, 2005

How many of you have ever had a problem with an app on your smartphone or i-pad or similar? What’s one of the most often used ways of dealing with it? Yep, delete the app and reinstall it. It worked the other day for my hotmail app on my i-phone, and has worked several times. How often when your computer or electronic device seems to crash or freeze, or not be working, is the response to turn it off and on again? And it works. So often, in fact, more often than not.

It’s truly phenomenal.

I have no idea why it works that way – but it does seem to doesn’t it?  Essentially you need to let the machine or phone app die, in order for it to live again and achieve it’s full function.

Which reveals a process fundamental to all life, and at the heart of the way of Jesus.

Death – followed by resurrection.

Seeds fall to the ground and die, giving birth to plants, flowers, trees – some of which bear fruit for us to live. Even vegetarians are eating something which has died, because fruit has to die in order for us to eat it. Meat, we all know, came from a living being, which had to die in order for us to enjoy the meat.

Even in drink, something has to die in order for us to have fruit juice, beer or wine. These are all things which provide us with life. Indeed, the thing that often makes the soil good for growing food is manure, which is dead waste from animals – and often the more recent it died, the more fertile it is.

It’s just everywhere

Which brings us neatly to the quote at the top by the late Steve Jobs (pictured), who passed away only this month. I think he had it spot on when it came to assessing this topic, even though he may not have realised it, and indeed as a muslim would probably not have encountered it as Christians would have.

What he spoke about was truth.  (more…)

Whilst away at Greenbelt two issues that raised their heads were the issue of sabbath and its role in my life, and also social networking and worship. I went to a good discussion between four prominent Christian tweeters including @vickybeeching and @drbexl, and just today I was involved in a debate on Twitter, ironically enough, started up by @vickybeeching, on the role of Twitter and social networking in church, and whether it’s appropriate or not to Tweet in church.

I think the issue of social networking and how we engage and use this tool in our worship, as it becomes an increasingly big part of our daily lives, is one that desperately needs addressing and discussion. As ever, I don’t think any of us has a final answer, it’s a discussion that will go on for years to come with good arguments on every side.

To me it opens out bigger questions – what do we mean by church? What do we mean when we use the word worship? How do we see God – and how would Jesus use Twitter? These are all very important questions, which we need to be reflecting, and pondering on, which aren’t all going to get answered in a short blog post here. But it’s important to engage with the discussion and be part of it, it’s one of those balancing acts of faith, and we need to be participating in it, not standing on the sidelines, so here’s a little look from my own perspective and a few thoughts. (more…)