Barack Obama this week spoke publicly on the subject same-sex marriage. He made clear his endorsement of same-sex marriage and championed the push to make it legal.

It’s a big issue being discussed in popular culture and the church right now.Different people both in and outside the church are taking stands on opposing sides – and there are some very cruel and unloving words being said by some, on both sides.

The thing is, all of this discussion on the rights and wrongs of same-sex marriage completely misses the point.

It’s not the right discussion to be having in the first place.

There’s a much bigger and more significant discussion we should be engaged with. One that goes to the root of the issue.

A discussion on what marriage is. (more…)

Last time I talked about Steve Jobs, about the process of death and resurrection and how in order to live a full, free live in tune with the way of Jesus, that we need to learn how to embrace the process of death and resurrection in order to truly live.

Today I want to take that discussion on. Because if this process of death and resurrection is true for us in our own individual faith journey, then it is certainly true for us as a church – a community of believers worldwide, and individual churches – and even possibly true of religion and maybe Christianity itself.

I’ve never been a fan of religion. To me it always seemed like a moral version of politics. The Oxford definition of religion is:

“the belief in and worship of a superhuman controlling power , especially a personal God or gods; a particular system of faith and worship ; a pursuit or interest followed with great devotion”

Contrast that with the unofficial definition of it in the picture above:

‘An organised system  or institution of belief based upon the traditions of men instead of the pursuit of friendship with God – or the act of playing church, exchanging internal truths for external performance, substituting spiritual realities with carnal rituals’

I wonder, which of those is truly most accurate about the Christian religion and what the church of Jesus looks like today? Many would say there’s a bit of both, others would point largely to the latter one and still others would ignore and disregard the latter one as cynical and dismiss it completely. Such is human nature.  The real question is, does the church today and the Christian religion accurately reflect what Jesus originally intended – and what are we willing to do to ensure we continue to be faithful to the way of Jesus? (more…)

Not long ago I was helping out at our local Foodbank. The Sutton Foodbank is made up of a group of people from local churches in Sutton (surprisingly enough), who have come together to meet the needs of the needy of our community, working in conjunction with local authorities and charities. We provide people with free food, donated to the Foodbank by local residents and churchgoers, for them and their family for three days.

It’s not much, but it’s something. And it does make a difference. On the surface, it’s something that is very much in tune with how Jesus wanted us to live and I’m proud to be involved with it. The vision is amazing, and I completely believe in it.

The thing is, like a lot of things, the reality is often a lot harder.

Recently a woman came in who was homeless. We sorted out the voucher and gave her some food, enough for three days. I sat down and talked to her, and a friend she had made who was in similar circumstances.

I sat there as she told me her story about how she had come to this situation, and about the reality of her homelessness.

Sleeping under trees, on buses, finding spare beds in hospitals.

It became clear we couldn’t just give this person the same food we always gave people. She had no place to cook food, no place to prepare food or make hot drinks.

Above all, she didn’t even have any cutlery or utensils to eat the food we were giving her.

She’d be eating with her hands effectively, unless we gave her something or she found something to eat with. (more…)

Have you ever had one of those ‘eye-opening’ moments? Those moments where something that maybe you knew as head knowledge, or had heard from someone, but didn’t really get, became clear to you? When you suddenly got it.

I like to call them ‘oh yeah’ moments. Because whenever I see people have those moments they pause, and then go ‘oh yeah’, starting at a lower octave and then raising the pitch as they get into the yeah. It’s actually quite a funny thing to see, especially when you do get it and have done all along.

I suspect God must have a right laugh at us, seeing us finally get things which He’s known all along – and I mean that in a good way, you know the way you laugh at something in hindsight which you couldn’t at the time. I think that’s often how God laughs – with us, not at us, but He can laugh whilst those things are happening because He already knows the outcome.

Anyway, I had one of these moments the other day whilst reading my Bible and looking at some of the teachings and sayings of Jesus. It got me thinking about heaven & hell in a brand new way. (more…)

I’ve now been back from Greenbelt for three or four days, and had sufficient time to digest what happened over that weekend and what God was doing. Greenbelt was the first time I’d really been away on my own. Although whilst I was there I was blessed to meet loads of people I knew completely randomly – thanks God for the divine coincidences that I prayed for! – I travelled and went through the whole experience on my own, very deliberately. I have to confess there was a slight fear in doing that for the first time, but more the kind of fear which I knew I had to embrace, rather than one I was really scared of.

I have to say as I went around the site and heard such amazing speakers as Brian McClaren, Rob Bell, Peter Rollins and Phyllis Tickle, and experienced the whole Ikon experience on the Saturday evening – which was without doubt the most edgy, creative and innovative worship/liturgical experience I have had – I saw and experienced a freedom in God I had not felt before. I felt alive in new and fresh ways and saw God moving in dynamic, creative and energetic ways which I’d not seen before. There was real discussion about issues that mattered without any fear, even between people that disagreed, there was a sense that we were all participating in this big discussion, a bigger movement that was going on, and this was merely a marker point in that.

At Greenbelt it felt like the shackles of religion and ‘the church’ were down – and in its place we had real community, real freedom and real honest and frank discussion concerning faith and how it relates to the world we live in, and how God is a reality in the world we live in right now, rather than something separate from it.

To me that is how faith should always be – church is important and what we believe is too, but it needs to be about a God who is part of the whole of creation and active, participating in it, and has set us free through death & resurrection, not an imposed set of rules and structures which hold us down.

That freedom is what I experienced at Greenbelt. (more…)

As some of you know, I occasionally write blog posts for other sites. Not long ago I was asked to write a blog post for Christine Sine on the theme of ‘Worshipping God in the real world’. I was struggling as to what to write and it was about the time for me to write it, and then we had the riots, looting and violence in London and the rest of the UK last week.

As I prayed and reflected on those events God really spoke to me and it became very clear precisely what I had to share. It also became clear it wouldn’t be easy to share.

So I wrote the post anyhow, and sent it off, and today is published a blog post on Christine’s site entitled ‘Worshipping God in the reality of riots’. It’s one of the most uncomfortable and challenging posts I think I’ve ever written, and I would love you all to read it.

Christine and her husband Tom live in Christian community in Seattle and head up an organisation called ‘Mustard Seed Associates’, and I’ve met them and heard them speak a number of times, their blog is worth a read in its own right. I would recommend to you all that you add it to your blogroll, they have so much to teach us about what it means to live intentionally before God, and a lot to contribute to the ongoing discussion of what means to follow Jesus in the everyday.

Anyhow, my blog post is now up on their site and you can find the post here, go have a look and reflect on it – and let me know your thoughts. I’d love to hear your responses…

Have you ever got to a point where you have simply had enough?

When either yourself or people you know and love are suffering, and no matter how much you pray, no matter what you do to try and be the answer to your prayers, no matter what is said, there is simply no answer?

The current riots in London, the city where I work and very close to where I live, have left a lot of people afraid, confused and angry. Violence and fear are powerful weapons, and often we feel like there is no hope. At these times we can be at our most cynical – we see negativity wherever we look, and people often blame religion or the church. People wonder where God is, and use events like this to justify their lack of belief in God.

Even as someone who follows Jesus, I find it hard to understand why circumstances like this keep on occurring – and this applies not just to events we see on the news. It applies to circumstances our own lives too.

For example, when my mother died no one tried to pretend everything was okay. My friends all knew that no amount of words were going to change the fact that my mum was gone, and she wasn’t coming back.

No amount of words of encouragement or assurances of prayer were going to quell the pain and the confusion I was feeling, the anger I felt at God for taking my mum away from me, and with my mum herself for – as I perceived it in my anger – her abandoning me.

Nothing could solve the problem.

My mum was gone and there was nothing either myself or anyone could do. It hurt. It didn’t make sense. It wasn’t fair.  (more…)

“I mourn the loss of thousands of precious lives, but I will not rejoice in the death of one, not even an enemy. Returning hate for hate multiplies hate, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that.” — Martin Luther King, Jr

“Love your enemies”  – Jesus of Nazareth

I was on Twitter when I found out.

I was looking down the latest posts and the trends. I soon saw the term ‘Osama Bin Laden’ was way high up on the trends (though not as much as a certain Rob Bell had been two months earlier for releasing a two minute video…) and I read a tweet which said ‘so that’s what Jack Bauer has been doing the last few years’ or something to that effect.

Something inside me knew what had happened, and I knew it had nothing to do with Jack Bauer. I went straight to the trusty BBC website and it was confirmed.

Osama Bin Laden was dead. (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?

Today I bought a new album (which shall remain nameless, though as it came out today that narrows it down considerably, especially for those who know me) and as I purchased it in the shop I suddenly had this thought come over me, which has come over me a lot more often recently.

‘Do I need this?’

‘Why did I buy this?’

Now to be fair it’s a great album and one I’ve been planning to buy for a while by one of my favourite acts, it wasn’t that expensive and will get a lot of use. But that wasn’t the point.

Me being a deep thinker, these two thoughts very quickly went beyond the superficial and into why any of us buy anything, why we have possessions, why they are so important to us, and my eyes began to open.

It’s all about control.

When we buy something, we gain control over it. We gain the right of possession, we can do what we like, when we like, how we like with what we have bought without consequence (as long as its legal of course). But there is a feeling, an emotion, a sense of satisfaction we feel inside when we buy something we really want. (more…)