I don’t normally write posts and post them on the same day. I usually take time to edit and refine them, to allow the message to marinade in my heart, before finally sharing it. As a writer who is growing in his gift, it’s a good discipline to learn.

But occasionally you need to take a risk. You need to go out of your comfort zone.

And you just have something on your heart to share which you know needs to get out.

As it is.

Raw and naked for the world to see.

I would think of it as is kind of a ’5 minute Friday’ of my own, on a Thursday, unprompted, unedited, on a theme which has come straight from the heart. It’s even in a different font, because it’s come straight from Evernote & I’m not quite technically savvy enough to change it. That’s how raw it is.

Seriously though, I’d recommend occasional spontaneous writing and sharing to anyone, especially those passionate about writing & creativity. It will unlock thoughts, feelings and questions you never knew existed.

Anyhow, here we go with mine….

 
I want to write words whose power goes beyond words.

I want to write words which open our imaginations to endless possibilties, words which point to infinity, which open our souls to the reality that nothing we can ever describe, experience or imagine can ever truly capture, contain, know, or aptly describe the wonder, love, grace, nature and awesomeness of God, or who He is.

In one way words are very limiting, but if we use them well, they can be liberating.

Words must always be the beginning, never the (more…)

I’ve heard many people talk about ‘calling’, ‘mission’ and ‘purpose’. It’s becoming almost part of our DNA as Christians now to have a ‘calling’.

One of the standard questions Christians eventually ask when they get to know one another is what that person feels ‘called’ to do. Come on, we’ve all heard it haven’t we – we’ve probably asked it ourselves, perfectly legitimately.

But calling has been undersold. It’s much more – and different – than we have been led to believe.

Calling is not just supernatural. It’s an evolutionary process, which goes on through our entire lives.(Tweet this here)

Last year (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…)

I must admit I’m a bit of a fan of Apple technology. I’m not so addicted that I have to possess every new piece of equipment they create – I don’t own an i-pad for example – but I am a fan of their creations. I admire their simplicity, their creativity and sheer audacity, which is implicit in everything they do. They have such imagination and are often the innovators and trendsetters in their field, much like I’ve often advocated Christians need to be every field, which is a whole other blog post.

The truth though is that I can’t get my i-phone out and try to get it to comprehend me, or understand me fully. It might know a lot of facts about me – it knows my Facebook friends, Twitter followers, websites I’ve visited, stuff I’ve written, phone numbers of friends and family, and personal details like my address – but it doesn’t understand me completely and cannot explain or understand the depths of my soul, my emotions, what makes me weep, and the complexities of why I do what do, have the friends I do or how I work inside and out, on any more than a factual level. It cannot comprehend the depths of me. I mean, we’d think someone stupid if they asked their phone or computer to understand the depths of their soul wouldn’t we?

Now, the i-phone is a created object. We designed and created it, and so have set the boundaries within which it can work. We have boundaries we have to work within and which limit us, some imposed on us, some of our own choosing. So by definition, as we have defined the boundaries within which the phone works, it’s never going to be able to break those boundaries.

It might work hard, it might try to expand and grow, but the phone on its own is very limited, and there’s only so much it can do.

Human beings have spent thousands of years trying to understand the mystery of God. Great theologians have come and gone, and come up with new and fresh understandings, we’ve had the Bible interpreted and re-interpreted countless times and it has had a profound affect on our values. We have used our imagination to come up with images – through words, pictures, songs, and poetry, to describe God and try and understand Him.

All of these things can point us towards God, and connect us to Him, and bring us into deeper and more intimate relationship with Him. All of these things are good in themselves and helpful in us going deeper with our creator and understanding Him better.

But there is always one simple problem.

We are God’s creation.

We didn’t create Him, He created us.

We are all, essentially, creations of His imagination. (more…)

One thing I like to do on the blog is to find and share resources that have helped and challenged me, and which will provoke questions in our minds and get us thinking. There’s a video which is a constant challenge to me, it’s been around for a while now and is constantly updated, called ‘Shift Happens’. You may have seen it before, but nevertheless I would recommend it, its probably one of the most challenging short films out there right now, and leaves us with lots of questions.

I’m going to leave you all to watch it, but as it goes on just ask yourself the following…

- What can it teach us?

- What questions does it raise?

- How can we answer those questions?

- What does it mean for our way of life?

- Is there another way for us to live – a different rhythm, a different story to tell?

Have you ever heard someone say something about you, and the instant you heard it, it made sense?

Like it ticked a box, you connected with it in some deep divine kind of way, almost like you always knew this thing about yourself, or had felt it on some level, but someone saying it had merely confirmed it or vocalised it for the first time? You may even have thought this thing about yourself, but had either been too afraid or unwilling to admit it.

That happened to me the other day.

As part of my discipleship and growth I have booked myself in for some Skype coaching sessions with a well-known worship leader, someone with experience in ‘full-time ministry’ (though I dislike that phrase, as we all are one way or another) and who has studied theology and reflection at length, someone who can sharpen me, challenge me, and push me and move me on in my walk with Jesus and indeed in my writing. (more…)

Last week I wrote about the link between the idea of Sabbath/rest and discipleship. As I was writing that piece I began to realise there is a link between Sabbath and creativity as well.

In fact, to be honest, Sabbath at its best is at the heart of what it is to follow Jesus, and effects every area of our life. Sabbath is part of a rhythm of life that God designed for us, which is about, as we see in Genesis, creating and resting. Which brings me to the dimension of creativity in relation to Sabbath. This is a little longer than most of my posts, but please, stick with me, because what I have to say I think could be really important in terms of how we see God, how we see creativity and work. So stick with me.

In Genesis 1 & 2 God creates for six days, and then rests. When the Bible talks about what God defines as work, its talking about creativity.

You see, as I have written elsewhere before, creativity is not just about art, design and music.

Its about bringing something new into the world.

Its what we do every day.

Every piece of work we produce, whatever our job, whatever we do during the day which brings something new into the world, then we are essentially creating.

Writing letters, doing presentations, solving crimes, treating sickness, putting out fires – they all bring something new and good into the world. Something that wouldn’t happen or exist if they weren’t there. Stopping a crime. Saving a life. Doing someone’s accounts, working in a bank and taking care of people’s money, working in a shop and providing people with a service and serving people, writing books or articles.

All of it is creative. All of it brings something into the world that wasn’t there without us. And you can say ‘well if I didn’t do it someone else would’. But the thing is that if everyone said that no one would do anything. If you don’t do what you do then something is lost to the world.

All of us have a role to play in the Kingdom. All of us are in one sense being creative when we work, we are bringing something new into the world. In the world God intended, God creates a world that isn’t perfect.

Yep, it wasn’t perfect. That’s not the word the Bible uses, that’s not what God says.

Perfect would imply static, that it can’t change, grow, that nothing further can happen. It means plants can’t grow, life can’t happen. Nothing can change.

Creation isn’t static. It’s not perfect. Maybe it was without sin, but not perfect.

We often use the word ‘perfect’ to mean, ‘without sin’, but that’s not actually true. God called His creation ‘good’ when He first created it, and that was before the fall. So actually we can say it wasn’t perfect without any fear of being heretical, because God doesn’t describe it as ‘perfect’ Himself, but its still without sin.

There’s a big difference.

God said it was good.

He made the world and made each thing with the potential to make more of itself, each plant, each animal and us humans. He made everything to develop and grow and to create more. He creates everything with the ability to go on creating, with the ability, in one sense, to evolve and grow and make more, to almost join Him in the work of creation, in the context of what He has made and how He’s made it, within the boundaries that He has made.

This changes everything. When you look at it from this perspective, then God’s invitation through the cross is not to join His religion, but to be come a participator and co-creator with Him, in bringing His kingdom back to this world, in what He calls the restoration of all things – which, when used in the New Testament, usually means literally, all things.

Its no surprise that at the end of the Bible when Jesus comes back, He doesn’t come to take us anywhere else.

He comes back here.

And its a city He brings back, which, of course is the natural progression and development of what we had right at the beginning – a garden.

So where does this fit in with Sabbath?

Well Sabbath is where we take a break from our work, our creativity. Sabbath is where we reconnect with God and with the creation, and enjoy it. We recharge our batteries, we feed our souls.

I’m only beginning to figure out what this means for me. I think, for me, it means engaging with what we normally call ‘creative arts’. It means going to a gallery, watching a play or performance of some kind, going to a gig, watching a film, looking at books on art and design, or maybe finding some resources online on creativity. Maybe it means going to the country and engaging with creation, going for a walk (not that I can do that very often, but nevertheless, I know it works).

Those things, I have found, feed my soul. They inspire me, they take my mind in different directions, they give me fresh energy and inspiration, and I enjoy them all. It may be different for you, but its those things, the things that give you extra energy, inspiration and fuel for life, that you need to engage with when you take a Sabbath.

Still with me? Great,  just one more point I want to make.

There’s one other thing I’ve noticed about Sabbath and creativity. Think about what we often do when we talk about taking a break, getting away, having fun, or taking a holiday.

Does it often involve staying in our homes, shutting all the windows & slumming it all day?

No, we usually go somewhere outside. We like to go to the country, or go somewhere where we can sit outside in the sun, or we go skiing, or just plain go out somewhere. We talk about wanting to ‘get some fresh air’ or ‘get out in the open air’.

When we want a break, it often seems natural to us to reconnect with creation.

Is that a coincidence?

I don’t think it is. Its because when we want to take a break from what we’re doing, to get some space, we’re designed to want to go back to where we came from. Often, by reconnecting with nature, I think we are obeying a primal impulse that wants us to reconnect with God. And its amazing how often we so much better for it, and it gives us fresh energy for the rest of life.

We are all creative beings, and we are designed to need rest, to model what God did in the initial creation. Part of that I believe that when we do take this rest, and when we reconnect with our creator, even on a very primal, basic level, then it can give us fresh inspiration & energy for us to take into the rest of our daily lives.

Of course, its important to spend specific time devoted to silence, reflection and prayer in our Sabbath, and to spend more focussed time with God.

But the point is that Sabbath is meant to reconnect us to our creator, in whatever way we do that – and that it can be done through engaging with His creation.

Then, we ourselves have more energy and inspiration, and a deeper connection with God. This allows us to play our role in the restoration of the world to how God intended it, and part of that is through our work, our creativity, through bringing something new into the world. The scriptures say said that ‘whatever you do, do it in the name of Jesus Christ’, which essentially is saying that every act is an act of service to Christ, everything we do is a sacred, spiritual thing.

We need to look at work in a new way. We need to see it not just as work, that thing we do to get money. We need to see it as our way of bringing something new into the world, our role in remaking the world, our part in bringing God’s kingdom back, as part of an ongoing relationship with God. We need to get away from this idea that only church leaders are ‘in ministry’, and that we somehow need to use Christian jargon to serve God or do ministry, or have the right theological qualifications.

We’re all ministers, we are all serving God and being His representatives wherever we are, and we are all charged as followers of Jesus with bringing the kingdom back, playing our role in the restoration of all things.

We do that in our work, and in doing that we are essentially bringing something new into the world that wasn’t there before, and we’re being creative.

Sabbath is the way then that we reconnect with God in whatever way works for us, to give us the energy, inspiration and motivation for the rest of life, to do our work well and to be a minister of the gospel wherever we work in whatever we do.Creativity and sabbath, together with work and discipleship, are all inexorably linked. They are all part of the rhythm of life for which God designed us. In a consumer society where the pace of life moves so fast and we are always so busy, do we ever take the time to just rest and enjoy creation?

Do we ever create space just for God?

Do we allow ourselves a break to reconnect with God and creation?

If we don’t, it’s going to be much harder to be able to create, to work well, and to be able to live the full life that God wants for us.

In such a busy world with so much busyness and stress, Sabbath, surely, is needed more than ever.

The more I think and research the idea and concept of sabbath, the art of rest, how we need to get rhythms in our lives in order to be fully productive and properly rested human beings, the more I am beginning to see there is a bigger story at work here. I guess I should have realised this at the beginning, but God has been taking me on a journey and only now am I beginning to see where this is going and what it means.

You see, the art of rest and sabbath, and the rhythms of our lives, are inexorably linked to being a disciple.

Its that simple.

You may already have recognised this, but its taken me a few weeks researching this to realise just how close these are – in fact, they may well be two sides of the same coin. Because to live a life where we are fully rested, where we always have enough energy for life and where we have a good pattern at work in our lives, it means we need to be orientating our whole lives rightly.

Church itself can become an excuse not to rest. We think that we’re doing something for the kingdom, something good and so therefore its allowed. And because its much harder to be silent and disconnect, then we go for the thing that will keep us busy, make us feel good and which actually comes more naturally to us.

I have found trying to create a space for silence and really listen to God is one of the most challenging things I have ever done. I find it very difficult at times to be patient in silence.

There is so much noise in the world around us, that we often don’t realise how much we like it. Even if its background noise, noise we can ignore, we still feel safer and more comfortable if there is some kind of noise going on, something to stop us having to think, engage with ourselves, face up to reality, or remind us of what we’re really feeling deep down inside.

Those are the things God really wants to deal with, and out of fear, impatience and busyness we just plain ignore them.

Not only this, but our bodies get used to this too. Our bodies get used to needing noise to feel comfortable, so even on a very subconscious level we are uncomfortable in silence.

But its something we need to do.

Its something we were designed to do – and designed to need.

There is a way of being human which Jesus came to show us, an original design for us, an original routine. The Bible emphasises this right from the beginning. There are two accounts of creation, and the first one is more of a symbolic one, one with deeper metaphorical and symbolic meaning, as opposed to the second which follows more practical and logical order – and in the culture in which it was written, order is important. The writer is saying that while the account of creation as it happened is important, but that the bigger story is more important. And the first story shows us there is a rhythm, a cadence, a routine, a pattern to life which God models – He creates, and rests. He works and rests. In fact He takes a whole day off at the end – and its so important He declares it Holy. In fact, the day of rest, the period of time set aside to recharge and reconnect – is the first thing to be declared Holy in the Bible.

Rest is that important to God.

He wants us to work, but He also wants us to fully rest. He wants us to set aside a day to disconnect, to recharge, to reconnect with Him and be reminded of what’s all around us, to enjoy life, to celebrate, to feed our souls.

How often do we really do this?

I know I don’t do this nearly often enough. I find it so hard to turn off my phone, not check my e-mails and not go on any social network site for a whole day. I think many of us do.

Have you ever tried it?

Do you think you could do it?

What questions does it immediately, instinctively raise when I suggest that?

‘But if I do that I…..(add your own comment here).

But really, is it not possible to do that at all?

But it shouldn’t be that hard, it really shouldn’t.

We got along for centuries without these things, and ultimately we should be able to go a day without them. We might have to plan it, to tell people in advance so they know not to contact us that day, and ultimately to leave some way open to contact us in case of emergency, but it shouldn’t be the mission that I know it could feel like for many.

Now one other thing, let me get this straight.

God does want us to work.

Sorry people, just because I said God wants us to rest doesn’t mean us taking loads of days of work doing nothing! Seriously though, when talking about rest a lot it can lead us to think rest is all that matters, but that’s not the case. God wants us to work, He designed us to work, to create, to bring new things into the world, to contribute to the world, to build His kingdom here.

But He doesn’t want it to become our life. Just like He doesn’t want rest to be our entire life.

Either end of that spectrum is bad, God wants us to get what we would call a ‘work-life balance’ in today’s culture.

He wants us to use what He has given us to contribute to the world and build His kingdom here. But He also wants to rest, recharge, reconnect with Him, remember what’s important and remember that the world doesn’t depend on us. The ultimately, its all in His control not ours. Its almost an act of faith, and an act of great humility to take a sabbath, because we’re recognising that the world can go on without us, that its God that sustains the world not us.

I have more to share with you on this topic and I’m excited by where this is going, and I hope to share something else on it with you this week.

I still have lots more study and research to do before I get anywhere near where I want to be, this is essentially a journey I’m on, and I’m still very much on the theory and the initial discovery. But it excites me, because God is clearly doing something with this and I am interested to see where this goes. I hope you will continue on this journey of discovery with me.

Next time, I’ll be exploring something I touched on briefly in this piece. The link between rest/sabbath and creativity, what that looks like, where it comes from and how it impacts us.

 But what Dawkins does is totally different.

You see, the problem he has is that he operates on a set of assumptions that are fundamentally wrong. The principle one of these is that somehow religion and religious worldviews are somehow in a different category from so-called ‘non-religious’ worldviews. There is an assumption that what he believes is somehow in a different category from faith, because its based on science or something more proven or more accepted by mainstream culture, when in fact his own worldview itself is not 100% proven and involves a level of faith.

And when actually the Christian faith for example is just as much a worldview as his own.

In this documentary for example he criticises faith-based schools for ‘imposing ideas on children’. In one example however there are muslims attending ‘Christian’ schools, and in fact are still muslims. He is genuinely shocked by this, but fails to see this as evidence that his ideas are flawed.

He also just assumes the theory of evolution is right, and that its perfectly fine to tell people as fact that its true, and gives the impression that anyone who tries to convince someone of a different view of the history of the world and how we got here is forcing a false idea of them.

He seems to think its okay to indocterinate people to believe his own worldview, because he beleives it’s scientific fact and therefore applicable to different views.

But to try and educate people in a different worldview – while still educating them about scientific views of the world like evolution – is somehow imposing ideas on people. If he had his way, he’d have all children being educated in the theory of evolution as fact, and religions as something seperate, something that’s not proven.

 The reality is that his own worldview is just that – a worldview, and it should be subject to the same questions and criticisms as other worldviews like the Christian worldview. His own worldview he might think is based on fact – but evolution isn’t 100% proven fact at all, and requires some level of faith just the same as a belief in any other worldview.

I think his view of the Bible is that it’s not really factually based so can’t be believable, and there is no proper evidence to support the Christian worldview.

Which is of course a total lie.

The gospel and the book of Acts for example, are a historical record of events written not long after they happened by some people who were involved in them, and if not, based on accurate testimony of those who were there. When historical events were handed down verbally at that time it wasn’t like Chinese Whispers where things get changed and altered over time – there was a strong emphasis on keeping the story the same, as that’s how events were handed down.

Paul speaks about 500 people who testified and were still alive who had seen the risen Christ – he tells believers in his letters to go and speak to them to hear about the story – and to be honest if they were all trying to create a fictional relgion having someone raise from the dead and the first witness to be a woman - whose testimony wasn’t valid at the time in a court of law or in culture – really wasn’t the way to do it.

And I don’t think it would have lasted 2000 years.

The point I am making is that there is historical and factual evidence for the Jesus worldview, and that’s of course not including the testimony of the many people whose lives have been transformed by faith, and people who have been healed from disease.

Of course, the Christian faith can’t be 100% proven, it involves a level of faith. But so does Dawkins’ worldview, despite having a lot of evidence to back it up.

Dawkins, for someone who is clearly intelligent, comes across as very naive and ignorant. He worries about parents imposing their views on their children, but doesn’t seem to mind when trying to make sure his own children are attending a school which supports his worldview of how he wants his children to be educated. There’s a Catholic priest he talks to about this who almost straight out says Dawkins trying to force his opinions on others – and there is a valid argument that he is.

He comes across more and more as someone who seems to be double-minded when it comes to religion and faith, and blind to the fact that his own worldview is equally valid as those who follow one of the world religions and in a very arrogant narrow-minded way seems to think his worldview is exempt from this.

Now let me make this clear. The church is not perfect.

The church is divided, hypocritical and has been guilty of all sorts of awful things.

It has been narrow minded and arrogant, and stil can be.

But religion and the church can distract us from the real message and teaching of Jesus – grace, mercy, love, forgiveness, justice. Religion is a massive problem and Jesus didn’t like religous people, and the church so should not be restricted or bound up with religion that they forget the heart of the message.

 Above all though, Dawkins worldview should be subject to the same criticisms and questions, and he either fails to see this, or just chooses to ignore it.

 I have no personal gripe with Dawkins, he’s perfectly entitled to his views and free to express them. I truly hope one day he discovers what I believe to be the reality of Jesus, and that science and faith, rather than being opposites, can help explain and compliment each other, as many scientists who are Christians beleive. As a Chrisitan I am called to love him as a brother, and pray for him. Don’t miscontrude my valid criticisms for a personal attack, as I’m not interested in that and its not the way I want to live.

But if he continues in the way he is, then I will not and cannot respect him.

To me, he seems as intent on imposing his own worldview on people in exactly the same way that he accuses ‘religous people’ of doing, and thinks that because his worldview is ‘scientifically proven’ then its fact, and isn’t subject to the same rules as ‘religions’.

Until he realises this, and sees the foolishness and arrogance of this view – even if he remains an aethist after seeing this – then I won’t respect him at all, and there’s no point debating what he says.

Ultimately, to me we are all part of God’s big story throughout history. The Bible is a collection of books telling God’s story through history and which tells us about what He’s done and how He wants us to live. God’s story is still being told and the invitation of Jesus through the cross is to become part of God’s plan to restore the world to how He originally intended it. Science helps us explain the how of God’s world, but God wants us to know the why first, and that can only be done in relationship with God. Science can help us understand a dimension of God, can help us understand how best to use the created world and explain how it all fits together.

But its just one dimension of a God who is bigger than any of our wildest concepts of Him, and more powerful and awesome than we will ever know this side of death. A God who can’t be explained by science, because He made science.

My hope and prayer is that one day Richard Dawkins discovers this God for himself.