The last few months have been a bit bizarre for me. For a long time I seemed to just lose a bit of motivation. For a long time, I had been pursuing a new job, a new home, new gifts and opportunities in church and breaking free of my past – and it seemed that in February/March, I kinda achieved it. I got my new, brilliant flat and decorated it how I wanted it, I got a new, less stressful job, I am doing things in church and getting lots of encouragement and feeling like I’m being discipled. I was reading the Bible and books generally more than ever before, and felt alive in a way I hadn’t before.

Indeed, all these things are still going on in my life. Life is good, and I am growing in God and being discipled in a way I have never been, and learning more about God all the time. I’m reading the Bible regularly and reading a whole lot more. I’m growing in my gifts and getting more opportunities. Those things haven’t stopped or changed.

But something happened. I got to a point and suddenly I’d achieved all the things I wanted to achieve for so long. The things God had been pushing me to do, had given me the desire to do and opened doors for me to do were all happening or had happened.

I had so many issues I wanted to deal with, so much pain, so much frustration, so much pushing me into this new life and I dealt with them all and God took me on a journey. The problem was that when I finished working these through, it was like I was out of conflict. I was in a good place – which, for me, is a rare thing. I was in a comfort zone. I knew that I didn’t want to be there, and God doesn’t generally like us getting too comfortable.

It was at that point I sat down and started wondering why I wrote this blog, what the purpose of it was, who it was for. Now, with some space away from it, I’ve realized a lot of my motivation before did indeed come from wanted to please, impress and get support from others. To get others approval, to be well known, to get numbers. In one sense my heart had been in the right place – my passion and vision, and my heart, were focussed on God and doing it for Him out of what He had given me. I have always been pretty self-aware, more than some people think, and my desire was always to please God and I became aware that if I didn’t write I felt a bit empty. Lonely even. Almost like I was trying to earn God’s approval so I could do all the other things He wanted me to do, or pay Him back for all the ways He’d blessed me.

But praying last night it all became clear to me.

God has things for me to do. To write. To create. To talk about. He has given me insights, ideas, dreams, words and a real heart for His church and for exploring what it means to follow Him. He’s given me this gift of writing, a gift of speaking and communicating, and the gift of intelligence, insight, understanding and interpretation, to be able to see the bigger picture and understand things more deeply.

I don’t say any of that to be arrogant, I’m just trying to be honest about my gifts – and these weren’t given for my fame, glory, enjoyment or amusement, but to be stewarded responsibly.

So I need to get to work on the things God has given me, and when and where they make it public isn’t the issue, its about being faithful to what God gives me. The purpose of this blog, I realised, can be for me to explore these ideas in bite-sized chunks, throw ideas out for people to look at, to take people on my journey with me. That’s not to say that anything I publish would be rough notes, but just that a lot of the time it will only be a part of something bigger I am working on, or end up contributing to something bigger.

In many ways, to be honest, that’s what this blog has always been about, taking a look back over the years and various posts. Most of those posts I still have, and could well be the core of something I work on in future.

Of course there may be times when I get a little bit of inspiration and write it down, and it stays complete in itself. But overall this can be more of a testing ground for ideas, for me as much as anyone else.

It can be a safe place to explore things I am working on, ideas I have, conclusions I’ve come to, in a place where I can get feedback but it still be relatively rough.

The difference is that this way the blog isn’t the point. The blog isn’t the focus. My focus will be working on the stuff I’ve been wanting to work on for ages, that God has given me to do but I’ve been procrastinating about for various reasons, one of them being the blog/private work dilemma. Now I clearly can have my priority as working on the things that God is giving me to do in a more disciplined, organised way, but with the blog as an outlet for ideas as they come to me in a relatively organised way.

I’ve often said the Bible isn’t the point, Jesus is. Well I’ve finally realised. I’ve made that decision. My blog isn’t go to be the point anymore. The point is me exploring what God is giving me to do, studying, learning and writing, and developing my gifts and myself, and stepping out of my comfort zone into the challenge of self-discipline. The blog is merely an outlet for me to use to test, explore and experiment with things in a safe context, and I don’t need to feel guilty about not blogging for a while, because the blog isn’t the point.

I have Don Miller to thank in a big way for this. He’s a great author and has written some great books, but he also has an equally good blog. On the front page he says himself that the blog is essentially a testing ground for future work, and that many of his books have started life there. I’ve been reading the blog for a while and had kinda noticed it, but last night God kinda woke me up to the idea in reality, so thank you God and thank you Don.

I’m writing this blog today partially for myself, because I want to get down exactly where I am right now to remind myself, to focus my mind and clear it of the clutter.

But I’m also doing this for you, my readers – because those of you who know me, who I keep in contact with, who are reading this, I want you to be accountable for this. I want to give you permission to remind me of this if you think I’m going off base, or I ever seem confused as to what I’m doing.

There are several other things I feel I need to share with you after last night’s moment of clarity,but those are for another day.

For now, I’ve shared with you my moment of clarity. Please don’t ever let me forget it.

Regular readers may have noticed I have not posted anything for a while now, and the reasons for that are something I felt I should share. The title may lead you to think this had something to do with politics – but I have an unwritten rule to rarely if ever discuss politics here. No, ‘the choice’ of the title is something totally different.

This all began with something God had been doing with me, and I felt it right to share with you. The reality is that God has been challenging me about why I write this blog. This quickly led on to the question of why I write at all.

What is the purpose of me creating and writing this material?

Do I do it for myself?
Do I do it for affirmation from others?
Do I do it because I’m trying to prove something to someone?
Do I do it because I feel if I don’t then I people will forget about me as a writer and I will have no future in writing?

Even more so, the even bigger question became the following question:

Does my identity lie in my writing, in what I produce, or does it lie in Jesus and His pure and simple love for me as I am?

If I never wrote anything again, would I still feel valuable and important?

Because the truth is,

I am valuable and important to God,

with
or without

any works.

Any writing.
Any creating.
Any involvement in church.

That’s not to say those things aren’t important, that I shouldn’t be doing them and that God doesn’t want me to do them. I and all of us have a responsibility to use our gifts in a way which blesses God and His people, whatever that looks like. Everyone is called to serve God and be obedient to whatever he calls them to.

But my identity should not be coming through my creativity and my blog, my identity should not lie in what I do.

And it’s the same for all of us

Our identity is in Christ and His love for us. That we are loved, valued and accepted just for being us, not for anything we’ve done. That’s the scandal of grace. In a world where all approval and acceptance comes from achievement, a culture which values you on what you achieve or how much you have, this is the scandal Jesus confronts us with.

Its not easy to accept , it doesn’t feel natural to accept it, because we are so ingrained in a competitive culture disconnected from God that we can’t understand love for love’s sake. The disconnection we have from God makes it uncomfortable for us.

So this is what God has been speaking to me about.

I have been reading ‘The War of Art’ by Steven Pressfield (a must for anyone who writes or creates in my opinion) and one thing that stood out is this idea of being professional with your writing/creativity. This idea that when you’re an amateur you give up easily, you are overly emotionally invested in something and can get more easily overwhelmed by it all, and its easier to give up because its only a hobby, something on the side.

Treating something as work means you turn up and do it even if you don’t feel like it. You give your all to it even at sacrifice to time and energy. You persevere through difficulty, and you accept it may not be perfect. You don’t worry about what people say about it, you are more interested in being faithful to what you’ve been given and producing something you deem to be of good quality, and actually getting it out there.

The act of creating something and doing it well is more important than just getting it in the public domain in order to please someone.

For a while I’ve felt God was calling me to be more serious about my creativity, speaking/teaching and writing. Reading ‘The War of Art’ gave me that focus.

I need to be proffessional with my writing, speaking and creativity.

My motivation needs to come from the fact that God has gifted and called me to do this and that I need to work hard at and be faithful to what God has given me. To persevere with it and work hard at it, no matter what my emotions are telling me or worrying about making sure people see it or even like or agree with it. To only share things when they are ready, and if they are to bless others rather than validate me.

I realize there is a certain irony in me writing and publishing this, however I am only doing so as I feel this is something God wants me to share, primarily to challenge and inspire others through telling a part of my own story.

We all need to examine our motivations for what we do.
We all need to examine what we put our value and worth in.
We all need to examine where our identity lies.

So ask yourself honestly:

Why do you do the things you do?
Why do you serve where you serve?
Are you looking to impress or prove something to someone?
Where, in whom or through what does your identity and value come from?

They are tough questions to ask and answer honestly, I don’t disguise that.

Yet its only through honestly answering these questions are we really going to grow.

They are questions I am still exploring and trying to find the answers to in my own life. Only through doing that can I discover and accept my true value, and in so doing deepen my relationship with God, know Him better, and ultimately serve Him in the way I’ve been designed to.

I do believe that God wants me to continue writing and creating, and continue with this blog. But only when I have something to share, not because I have to share something. Like now, I have something I feel God wants me to share, and so I am sharing it with you. For a long time I wrote because I felt I have to, out of fear and because I wanted approval. Now I write because I have something to say, and it won’t all end up here and even if it does, I’m not setting myself a deadline where I feel I have to get it onto the site. Its about getting it right, doing it well, being professional and being faithful and obedient to what God gives me to say and what He wants me to do.

That’s the choice we have.

We can choose to worry about pleasing others and trying to fit around their agenda, and acting and living out of fear. Or we can choose to please and serve God, and be faithful and obedient to what He calls us to.

We can choose to gain our value from people or achievements, or we can choose to see our value where it truly lies, in God’s unconditional love for us, which cannot be earned.

Are you willing to go on that journey in your own life?
If you already are, then what is God saying to you now and how will you respond?

Ultimately, its our choice.
My choice.
Your choice.

What’s it to be?

As most of you know – and if you don’t, just read the rest of my blogs – I’m passionate about church, I’m passionate about Jesus. I’m passionate about exploring what it means to follow Jesus and what it means to do church and be church, and discussing, theorising and engaging with these issues. That passion and enthusiasnm is real and authentic. I enjoy books about all of these subjects by many different authors and theologians and have learnt a lot from them.

But a systematic theology, an organized structure, almost mathematical theory for faith, like an equation, well I’m not so sure. Systematic theology sounds so limited, so restrictive, so religious and inflexible and sounds like something that Jesus stood against, something the Pharisees would produce.

Can I say that? Is that okay?

Is it okay for someone genuinely interested in discussing Jesus and understanding what church is and means, someone who wants to understand what it means to follow Jesus in our culture and someone who wants to explore and understand the Bible more deeply, to not have to use some systematic, scientific formula?

Jesus can’t be squashed into some system which is easy to understand and comprehend. He can’t be fitted into a formula.

He’s bigger than that. He’s more powerful than that. His teaching, His way of living, His plan for us and values He stands for are bigger than anything we can comprehend. There has to be an element of mystery to God, otherwise He’s not God.

God has to be mysterious, otherwise He’s just a watered down version of God, a comfortable version we can box up and understand and be comfortable with, who never gets us out of our comfort zone and rarely does anything unexpected.

Its not that the ideas and theories theologians come in are bad, or unimporant. Its not that they aren’t correct in their conclusions in many ways. Their contribution is significant, important and shows us more about one dimension to God. Systematic theology has its place and can help us understand God.

But basing faith in Jesus around systematic theology? Evangelism through systematic theology? No thanks.

For me , I prefer the see and talk about the Christian faith as a journey and a narrative. A story which has been going on since the beginning and is described in scripture, and is still going on now. An evolutionary and revolutionary story lived indivually but yet in community, the story of a relationship between God and His creation which we are all invited to be a part of. A story that’s part of my story just as I am, as a follower of Jesus, now part of God’s story.

People can talk about theories and ideas all they like, but its often stories that you find people remember.

Stories of how God has transformed someone’s life, or how He’s healed someone or done something people thought impossible. That’s why testimonies are so powerful, because they are true. They are stories about how God has really worked practically in someone’s life.

The Bible is a mircocosm of God’s story and our story in relationship with Him, a story of our rejection and disconnection from God, the world’s disconnection and His attempts at restoring all things, the centre of which is Jesus on the cross. It tells us who God is and how God wants us to live, how He’s acted throughout history.

Its a story of rejection, disconnection, suffering and pain, and God’s restoration, salvation, healing and ultimately resurrection in Jesus.

That same story is still going on, and the invitation to follow Jesus is an invitation to join in that story, and to become part of a community who have joined their life to that story, and have made God’s story their story.

Systematic theology can be useful, it can be important and can be helpful for learning about God, understanding Him better and deepening our relationship with Him. An academic view and study of God can help us see God in different ways and explore new ideas and concepts about God, and these are all important in their own way./

They all have value and significance.

But if you can explain God completely and base a faith on a systematic, scientific way of thinking, you are not experiencing God fully. You are not leaving room for mystery, and you are missing the relational side to God.

Jesus wasn’t just about theorising, or fitting faith into a system. He knew His stuff in terms of scripture and about God – in a way no one else did – but He spoke about it and discussed it in a way everyone could understand, and invited everyone to join in with this life and story. His way was an invitation to join a story, to join your life to something new, bigger and greater than anything else ever seen. It was an invitation to enter into relationship.

Remember that it was a fisherman, not a theologian or academic, that God chose to give one of the most important sermons ever – and I think there’s a reason for that.

God can do anything with anyone.
God doesn’t require us to have a qualification to serve Him.

Peter was no theologian, but he had a story to tell. He has experienced God in Jesus, and had been transformed by God. His words carried authority because of his story and his experience of transformation by God.

Okay, lets just take a little step sideways for a moment.I’m going to tell you a bit about my story with God.

As a teenager, I was bullied at school. And I mean bullied. Not physically but mentally. I was made to feel useless, worthless and unimportant. People betrayed my trust, they threw things of mine around, hid things, made fun of my faith. I had a few friends, but no one I could really trust or talk to. Even at church I was outside all the social groups, and an outsider. I thought I didn’t matter, and was worth nothing.

I got home from this suffering, only to find my parents fighting, my Dad suffering from stress and taking it out on me, my mum ill and depressed and escaping to alcohol, and me usually stuck in the middle of violent arguments between them.

I was totally alone. The only esacpe I had was to pray in my bed. God was the only person I could trust or who cared.

A few years later my parents had divorced – and had dealt with their own problems – and I had moved on. But then my mum died. I had nothing. No energy or strength or hope. Again, the only person I could talk to was God.

It took me years to face up to how it affected me. Bitterness, anger and rage began to overtake me and control me as I ignored my pain and grief. I got to rock bottom with an act of rage which hurt someone physically. It was the lowest point of my life, and opened my eyes to how much I needed healing and restoration. And as I opened my eyes to my issues, God was there waiting to help me. I got counselling, I got prayer, joined a good church and home group, did discipleship and got ministry and healing. I began to escape my past, find my true identity and was healed and restored, released and transformed. Serving in church ,writing, speaking, moving house, losing weight, growing in confidence, wisdom and maturity. Learning and understanding more about Jesus and church, and embracing and embarking on a new story, a new future, which has only just begun.

Its a story of pain, disconnection and suffering, followed by healing, restoration, forgiveness and resurrection. I went to my lowest point and God came to save me, restore me and bring me back to Himself.

Sound familiar?

Don’t those themes and that sequence mirror a little of the story of God and His people in the Bible I described earlier?

That’s because our stories all echo the Biblical narrative in one way or another. Because the Bible is a narrative, a story, a metaphor for all of us. Its a true story, and it keeps on becoming true again and again as we live out our stories.

We all have pain and suffering, we are all disconnected from God in one way or another, and the door is open for all of us to have healing, restoration, forgiveness and resurrection, and new life – if we choose to. The story of the Bible is all of our stories, and one important part of a bigger story of God which is still being told now, and which we are all invited to be part of.

A variant of that story is happening to each of us, and God wants to be part of it and for us to deal with in and through Him and in community with others who can serve and bless us and be part of that process.

That’s church.

That’s following Jesus.

That’s the gospel

And while academics and theologians have their place and are important contributors to that story, and to how we live this out practically in our everyday, Jesus doesn’t need us to be theologians and doesn’t want us to try and fit our faith into a systematic theology, or any kind of theology.

He just wants us to be part of His story, to join our story to His.

I’m sure many of you saw the first General Election debate between the leaders of the three main parties last night. By the way, for those in the US, outside the UK or who don’t follow politics, here in the UK its election time, and yesterday was the first time ever we’ve had a leaders debate – which are apparently common in the US. Anyway I was watching it and assessing all three leaders – Gordon Brown (Labour), David Cameron (Conservative) and Nick Clegg (Liberal Democrat).

Now obviously my interpretation of how this went is largely grounded in my political opinions – which I won’t go into here – but the more I saw David Cameron the more two things struck me. Firstly, on the face of it, his communication and public speaking skills were excellent. Body language, story, vision – all were there. But on the other hand, once we got beyond this and into the meat of policy, he just didn’t convince at all.

There was no meat in his fine looking sandwich. There was nothing beyond style. He buckled when questioned on issues that his party don’t really want to talk about – as they are unpopular – and didn’t have any real answer to his opponents.

Gordon Brown, the Labour leader, was the total opposite.

He didn’t have the style, the charisma or body language. But boy did he have substance. He came across as a man of integrity who genuinely wanted to make a difference. He came across as a man who had a plan and wasn’t afraid to be honest about it. He may not have had style, but at least there was some meat in his sandwich.

Nick Clegg, the other leader involved, in my opinion, had both. He had the style and the charisma, and he had substance and authenticity in what he was saying. He had a plan and was honest about it, and he communicated it well.

Now this isn’t a post about politics. Others have said plenty about that.

I have been working a lot recently on developing a teaching/public speaking gift which I feel God is growing and developing in me. But yesterday reminded me that there’s no point in being a great communicator if what you are saying lacks substance, lacks credibility, lacks integrity and isn’t grounded in truth.

And I began to see that its the same for every single one of us.

Christians can talk the right talk, put on the right show for everyone, look like they are doing the right thing and living the right way. But God doesn’t just look at the surface. He can see well beyond that. If its all just words and no action, then its totally pointless. James talks about it a lot in his book in the Bible, talking about faith without action being dead, that religion without action is nothing at all, that there’s no point in just saying the right thing, that real faith is about living it.

Its not about being a Christian.

Its about living as a disciple of Christ.

What happens then is that the words we do speak will gain so much more authenticity. We won’t even need words to communicate what we believe or think, because our actions will speak for us. They will show that our lives truly are lived around and governed by a different story, a bigger story.

We live in a very image-driven world, politicians need to cultivate a good public image, they need to be good with the media, good communicators and easy on the eye. They need charisma and style. In fact, we’re constantly told we have to pursue a particular type of image or look to succeed. We’re constantly fed from around us what’s important and what we should be buying or investing ourselves in to make ourselves and our lives worthwhile.

How often have you done something because you wanted to be ‘cool’? You see someone wearing some kind of clothing, or talking a certain way, or acting a certain way, and you just want to be them. You want to be ‘inherently cool’ and this person seems to be, so you’ll copy him or her because by doing that makes you feel better about yourself, that suddenly you belong.

I think we all do this to some degree. I just think its so ingrained in our subconcious that we don’t even realize it a lot of the time.

We all want to fit in. We all want to be popular. We all want to be accepted. Its why we put on those masks, because we want people to think we are a certain type of person and not who we really are – and we all hide part of who we really are.

The reason for this? Because we’re all disconnected from the one person in whom we have our inherent value. God.

God loves us.

Just because He does.

There’s nothing we can do to change this and nothing we can do to earn it, or to have it more than anyone else.

Its just there.

Whatever we think of ourselves, its there. Inviting us, loving us, forgiving us, accepting us and, if we allow it to, disciplining us. It’s greater than any love we can experience or understand anywhere else, and its got substance. Its grounded. Its a love that knows human experience and suffering, that chose it deliberately and embraced it, so it can embrace us.

In Isaiah it talks about the suffering of the Messiah, and one verse always stands out for me.

“He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to Him, nothing in His appearance that we should desire Him” (Chapter 53, v2)

Jesus didn’t do image. He didn’t do looking the right way.

Jesus was more concerned about living the right way and doing the right thing – and not just publicly, but privately. He was interested in following God and being obedient to Him, He was interested in making a difference in the world, and living out what He taught. Yes, of course, He was clearly a great teacher and communicator, but His message would have meant nothing without the example He showed in His own life – He said He had come to complete the law, which meant essentially to put flesh and blood on it, to show us how God intended us to live as a human being – and He did it.

He spoke about the greatest love being when you lay down your life for a friend.

Then the next day He laid down His life for His friends – and His enemies.

He spoke about forgiveness and loving your enemies.

On the cross He forgave those who had executed Him.

His words were backed up by actions.They were grounded in truth.

Maybe sometimes we should just stop talking.

Examine ourselves.

Ask ourselves “Do my actions back up my words?”

This is a question I’ve been asking myself this week, and the answer hasn’t been easy to hear.

But I think we all ned to know the answer to that question in our own lives. We all need to be honest with ourselves. Because when we are honest and lay things down at the cross of Jesus, there is a resurrection to follow. A new life, a new beginning, with the past gone and forgotten.

So lets get some substance.

Lets get grounded.

Because actually, it could be the beginning of a journey to a deeper, stronger and more authentic faith than we’ve known before.

I’ve heard stories about dramatic conversions. Criminals, addicts and others meeting Jesus and suddenly have their lives transformed, and going on to become leaders and having amazing lives of service to God. I used to be jealous of these people, envious. I wanted the dramatic conversion, the excitement and romance of meeting with God, the radical changes almost overnight. I’ve been in church since a young age so over time I got so hardened to these kind of stories. When I hear them, even now, they don’t seem remarkable to me.

I used to think this was merely down to bitterness and resentment, and jealousy of these people and thinking God picked them above me.

But now I believe something different.

I now realize it was because I had been brought up in an environment where Jesus was a daily reality to me. He wasn’t some radically different person, far away.

He was part of my life.

I was – and am – aware of Him and in relationship with Him in the same way I’m aware of family and long-time friends. Its just normal to me. God is part of my everyday reality. I talk to Him when I’m at home, walking places – sometimes outloud, sometimes in my head – but its an ongoing conversation, a relationship which is part of my everyday. Its not something I need convincing of, or something different from reality, or separate from the world I live in, its the centre of it.

I’m not aware of a reality with out Jesus in it.

I’m not aware of a life without Jesus in it. It doesn’t exist for me.

When I talk about praying, reading the Bible and about trying to live like Jesus, it doesn’t seem weird or radical, it just seems normal. Like sun, wind, rain, people, animals, gravity – its just part of my world and the world I live in. I require no proof it exists, I just know it does from experiencing it and seeing it with my own eyes.

When I see the world, I see God as the ultimate reality.

All things come from Him and belong to Him – its only us that screwed it up. God is everywhere in everything if you look for Him, whatever label people put on it.

Spiritualists tap into the spiritual side of God without acknowledging the person of Jesus as part of it. Other religions tap into truths about life and about how to live in the way God calls us, but miss out the part about Jesus. In each of us there is this inherent impulse knowing what is right and what is wrong, something beyond our minds, something deep inside. There is an impulse to innovate and create. Its merely our disconnection from God which causes illness, natural disasters, and which drives people to live in a way which is morally and legally wrong. Look behind the surface and most criminals are usually products of their upbringing, or have mental illness. Its the disconnection from God which has changed them into what they become.

Most people deep down know that this world is screwed up.

That there’s something wrong, something that needs to be changed, hopes for something better.

That impulse is again from God, the impulse which leads many to seek Him. Some people think they can provide this hope, but most people who do raise and inspire this hope usually end up letting people down. People put their faith in these people and when they aren’t perfect, which they never were, they hold it against them,

Everything originally comes from God and belongs to God. It was all good until we decided we know better (we do it a lot, we usually don’t know better – how many times have you realized something was a mistake in hindsight?) and that screwed it all up. Jesus came and made possible a restoration and reconciliation of all things back to how they were, and now invites us all to join Him in this, which is the invitation of the Christian faith.

To follow Jesus isn’t to join a religion or cult.

Its to open your eyes to the ultimate reality of the universe, of time, of all things.

To see that there is a God behind it all, that we’re disconnected from Him but that He has made possible a restoration of this relationship, and of this world to the kingdom of Heaven. He invites us to join Him to help make that restoration possible, and to have our eyes opened to the truth and reality of God everywhere, in everything and somewhere in everyone, the reality which links all things together and negates the need for labels as words which separate entirely different things, but instead merely as words which describe another part, another dimension, of God’s ultimate reality.

Labels like science, or even different religions to a degree, can become merely words which describe another place we can find God. Do you really think God is smaller than not being able to speak through truths spoken by non-Christians? By other religious leaders like the Dali Llama? Essentially, if its true it belongs to God, whoever said it. It it connects you to God then it belongs to Him. If something artistic or created it can connect you to Him without it being strictly ‘Christian’.

God can be found anywhere, in anything, if only you look for Him. He is the ultimate reality.

This may all sound idealistic, controversial or niave. But I’ve been through a lot of pain and suffering in my life, a lot of heartache and grief. I’m not disconnected from the suffering of the world, I don’t live in this ideal world where everything is perfect, because guess what, its not.

My mum’s dead.

My parents divorced.

Its not a perfect world and life isn’t easy or painless, whatever you believe or whoever you follow.

I’m glad now that I have been brought up with this understanding of God as a part of my daily reality, and didn’t have the amazing conversion experience – because I didn’t have to experience the greatest sufferings, losses and pain in my life unaware that there was a loving God who would get me through it all and not abandon me. He was there all the way through – and through the cross has experienced it all Himself. Abandonment. Betrayal. Loss. Abuse. Torture. Injustice. He’s experienced it all first hand.

That’s why I have hope.

I have hope in a God I believe is involved in every aspect of my life. A God who can be found anywhere in anything – even a conversation – if I look for Him. A God who has never abandoned me no matter how many times I’ve broken His heart, and who loves me not for anything I’ve done or my achievements, but just for being me – and that love is without condition, without reason, without explanation – its just love for loves sake, by a God who is love.

A God who didn’t cause my suffering, but has been there for me throughout and continues to be, and has worked miracles in my life.

My God, the ultimate reality. The only reality.

As you can probably tell, there’s been less posts on this site recently. From a purely practical point of view, this is down to the fact that I’m still moving house and everything is still going on around that, and although I’ve moved I’m still ‘in transition’ for a few more weeks. However, being away from this for a while has actually given me some perspective.

I’m actually now thinking about why I’m writing this blog, and what I’m writing, and about what God wants me to do. Even as I write the different options are going through my mind.

I’ve realized that I’ve been so busy doing I’ve forgotten about who its all for and what its about.

You see I don’t want to write a blog for the sake of it. I don’t want to write a blog to be famous. I want to write because its what God wants me to do, and because its going to impact people’s lives. If its only to satisfy my own ego and pride, and to get compliments, that’s no reason to write a blog. I’d rather not do it than do it for those reasons. Things are changing in my life in a big way. I’m more involved with ministry in my church and preparing and writing things for services, an area God is really blessing and growing me in, and which is taking up more of my time – and which I’m really enjoying. I really feel as I do this I am walking God’s path for me and that its the beginning of something I will do long-term. As a result I’m assessing whether there are areas I serve, more practical ones, which God wants me to give up to allow me to do more ministry. There’s also an opportunity in another area of ministry which I’m praying about too.

So where does my blog fit into this?

I love writing, and I think its one of my gifts that God wants to develop and grow in me, that is for sure. I get encouragement constantly from around me that this is something I was born to do, something that I could do well and maybe professionally in future.

I know that I need to write. Its just what I write that I need to think about.

As I am growing in a gift of public speaking/teaching I feel its right that I start to research and prepare and practice a few of these, even if no one ever sees or hears them. I need to remember that I promised God once I moved I would have a study/writing night once a week and make sure I commit to this. I also am thinking about devoting some time to a book project, although I currently have no set idea in place as to what that will look like, or how I will go about it.

I do enjoy writing this blog, and its a good place to share my own reflections and thoughts on different issues around church and how to live as a disciple of Jesus. Some of my best posts have been things which have literally welled up from inside and poured out on here, and I do believe that its worth keeping this blog as it helps me crystalize my own ideas on Jesus and the church as much as anything else, and is also good in that it helps my profile as well, in terms of awareness of what I write and what I have to contribute.

So there is definitely a place for a blog in my areas of ministry. I think that I probably need to do two things.

Firstly, I need to devote more of my time to studying, preparing, writing and practicing talks/reflections/teachings/presentations. I need to devote a night every week to developing this gift that God is clearly prospering me in.

Second, I need to make my time on my blog possibly less, but make the time I do have more focussed, and make my blogs an extension of my study and talk preparation. This will probably improve the quality of what I write, although the quantity of it is likely to diminish.

There are so many things I still want to write about – the flaws of the prosperity gospel, the pharisees and their modern equivalents and also the principle of the sabbath – and I still intend to write about these topics here. However, if I take this new approach it will mean that when these pieces do go public, that the quality, length and depth of them will be higher than maybe it would have been, as more time will have been spent preparing them. There will still be the occasional inspired pieces, but less of them as I try to refine that and use those ideas for bigger, deeper pieces. Less, I hope, will be more.

So all in all, the site will remain. However, it will – much like its title – evolve into something slightly different – and maybe better – than it has been before. I am excited by this new development, although a little daunted by the prospect of devoting more time to study and research without being able to post the results straightaway. Its a big challenge and step of faith for me, and one I can’t get out of having declared it so publicly.

However, that’s how it needs to be. The more I think about it, the more I realize this is what I need to do to move forward – and steps of faith, new challenges, they are never easy.

But its the only way we grow.

In case you’re wondering where I’ve been, I am moving house at the moment so am pretty busy with all sorts of things, so haven’t had much time to write. Have a couple of blogs in the pipeline, hope to have them up in the next two weeks.

The whole process of moving my stuff out of my house was long and arduous, but the biggest thing of all was the sheer volume of stuff I’d accumulated over the years. Things from school and university, multiple numbers of books I’d lost and bought again, old magazines, clothes and other things which had just built up over the years and I hadn’t even realized it. I’m sure those of you who’ve moved house before know what I mean. You find stuff you didn’t even know you had, and wonder just where it came from.

Getting rid of some of it was hard, but it was healthy. It symbolized me moving on from my past, putting it behind me and moving forward into a future, into my own identity away from my past.

I think just as I stored up a lot of material things, that we store up a lot of things inside our hearts sometimes which only come out when we take a step of faith, when we a take a risk in ourselves and try to move forward. I know last year doing Living Waters and Flow were both tests and steps of faith in me, forcing me to confront baggage I had long ignored. Counselling was the same. I found things inside I didn’t even realize were there. Habits, attitudes, motivations, feelings I didn’t even know existed inside, and none of which were healthy, were brought to the surface.

And its only by facing up to this garbage that we can finally examine it for what it is and move on. All the stuff I want to keep is in boxes and cases, and there was probably just as much garbage I didn’t need in that house and shed as well. By dumping it all I leave it behind forever, never to go back. By facing up to myself and my issues and working them through, I have found it is easier to move on. You still remember what has past, but then it belongs firmly in the past.

Its history.

Its just a memory.

You get closure, and resolution – and it feels inside, both emotionally, mentally, spiritually and physically (because they are all interconnected) like a burden has been

lifted.

This can be a painful process, but its healthy. But it can’t be done alone. I certainly couldn’t have got rid of all my house garbage without some help (thanks Dad, sis and Alex) and I couldn’t have dealt with my garbage in my heart without someone being with me every step of the way. Its important to have someone walk through this process with you.

But of course, there’s one other person who we really need to go through this with. Jesus.

If we are walking through this process with Jesus by our side, someone who is always faithful (certainly in my experience He is) and is on our side – and knows what its like to have to let go, He was 100% human as well as 100% God remember – then although it will be painful, we will make it through the other side. The other side won’t be a bed of roses either, and in future we will have more letting go to do, and risks to take, but at the moment we come out the end of each of them we will be more whole, more like the person Jesus made us to be.

We will have a deeper knowledge of God, and it will become that little bit easier to trust Him.

We can let go and move on.

Over time I have realized that Evolving Church is more than just about church, its about the Christian faith.

The idea of church and how we live out our faith are inexorably linked – as they should be. Jesus didn’t intend us to be disciples of His on our own, but in the context of community. Its an idea He modelled Himself during His ministry and how the movement of Christianity grew so quickly.  How we do church is inevitably linked with how we follow Jesus, and our ideas and perceptions on what following Jesus means.

This is a critical time for me in my writing and teaching, and my discipleship  - indeed my life as a whole. The process I have been through the last three years which culminated in being baptized, and now with the New Year and my moving house, has in a sense reached a pivotal or transitional moment. A moment where things will evolve and change and where I need to look at where I am being challenged and need to grow. I have reached a marker post in my life and now need to see where it is taking me next.

That will inevitably mean a shift in the content and style of this site and in a shift, or an evolution, in terms of the vision and mission of the site. I have realized that I need to grow and develop in my writing and teaching. I need to take more time over posts, go deeper and also do more writing outside my blog.

A friend said to me recently that the secret of developing a movement, an idea, a vision, is to create your own space. To create something, somewhere where these ideas have room to grow, to evolve, to develop. Where movements can grow, where things can be refined and developed and other people can join in. Evolving Church is one such idea, for me. My real vision for Evolving Church is to create a space where people can connect, discuss, debate and be equipped to restore, reclaim and redefine the vision of what church can and should be in a post-modern context.

A place where we can face the issues and discuss them openly, being real about the dilemmas the church, the community of followers of Jesus Christ, faces and how we can build a church more in keeping with His vision of church in the culture we live in. Being open and serious about exploring how we can reclaim the things that have been lost, and ditch religion, dogmatism and tradition and focus on the values of love, grace, mercy, forgiveness, peace, justice, sacrifice and community – in the context of how Jesus defined them and lived them out.

I believe that Evolving Church can become more than just a blog. It can become a space where people looking for hope can come and find hope through being a disciple of Jesus. A place where people dissolusioned with church as it is or who want change can come and be equipped, encouraged and inspired. A place where people can come and discuss these issues safely, maybe in a forum. A place where people have opportunity to contribute to the discussion through their own blog posts. I myself want to expand my range of creativity in how I communicate this message – podcast and video are two areas which are vastly underused and where maybe there is room for exploration, and as I develop my gifts and grow in my faith my contribution will change and be influenced as a result – hopefully in a positive way.

Although the growth of this site and this vision is in one sense tied to my own developement and growth, in the end this isn’t about me. Its about Jesus and the church, its about the vision, its about getting the message out there, its about refining and developing this vision and fleshing it out more. Creating bigger space for this idea to grow. Obviously I grow, it is easier for me to see that bigger picture, and set myself new challenges and explore these ideas in fresh, new ways.

I believe that ultimately this will need to go beyond this site. That, however, is the future.

I need to re-evaluate things and develop new ideas, and think about how to take this on further. I would value your prayers and support as I do this, and I hope that you’ll continue to read and comment on this blog as I continue to post my thoughts and reflections here and as I start to explore where to take this idea next.

I saw the film ‘Avatar’ recently, a film shot with a new kind of camera in 3-D. I’d heard a lot about how amazing it was, how it would change my view of all other films forever and how the CGI was so good you found it hard to believe it wasn’t real. I put on those big NHS-style specs in the cinema wondering what it would look like and how it would be, and whether like a lot of hyped-up things it wouldn’t deliver. But it did. It was incredible. I was blown away by it. It was an incredible film, and the story itself has a lot of subliminal messages – personal, theological and political, which I will write about soon.

But having seen this film in 3-D which such amazing CGI, having my eyes opened to a different way of seeing a film and watching a film which took the concept of filmaking to another plane is such a compelling way, has changed my view of all other films like it which have gone before. It makes the Matrix, in its CGI anyway, look dated – which is quite an achievement given how radical it was for its time and how much it pushed the boundaries in its own right at the time. The Matrix is still one of my all-time top films, but now I wonder how good it could have been if it had been made with this technology, in this way. I start to imagine what a Superman film might look like with this technology.

It doesn’t matter if I take the 3-D glasses off, I can’t deny the experience I’ve had, what I’ve seen and what might be possible anymore. I have seen it and experienced it, it is a reality for me now.The bottom line is now that this has become the bar by which all future films of this nature will be judged. I have what is called ‘The Curse of Knowledge’ now, in that all other films of this type will be compared to this one.

I could see this film in 2-D and although the content of the film would be the same, I wouldn’t have seen the whole picture. I would have missed something. Something would have been incomplete about it – and that is easier to say now I’ve see it in 3-D.

My eyes have been opened to see what is possible in film, and what could be possible in the future. It makes what has past seem old and dated – not bad, but dated.

My eyes have been opened to a new reality, a new story.

As I thought about this I couldn’t help but think about how knowing Jesus and following Him has done the same thing for my life. What God has done in my life and how He has changed my life are undeniable, and the more I choose to orientate my life around Him the more I see of Him and the more He can do. And the more I see of Him, the more I experience Him, the harder it is to go back.

Even if I screw up and ignore Him. I can’t get away from the truth that He is real.

Even if I’m so angry with Him I want to reject Him completely, I can’t. Sometimes in fact I get angry that I can’t deny Him, because I know He is real.

I know what the reality of our story on earth is all about, what life itself is all about, and I can’t ignore it. Like taking off the 3-D glasses, even if I do I can’t deny what I have seen and experienced, I can’t deny the reality. I can’t deny what has happened and what might be possible anymore. I have seen it. I have felt it. I have experienced it.

Before I knew Jesus, I could keep going on with my life in 2-D, and experience life and enjoy it and go through the same experiences and be none the wiser. It might still be fun, it might still be good and fulfilling, it would have the same problems. But having seen life in 3-D, seen it in its proper context, seen the reality of God, then I can’t go back. The other life seems boring and incomplete in comparison. It doesn’t square up to the reality I have seen and experienced through God, and I can’t go back to it or deny it, because I have seen it and experienced it.

Even in my lowest and darkest times, I cannot ignore that reality. I cannot ignore the truth. Like Avatar has changed my view of film forever, meeting God and experiencing relationship and life with Him, meeting with Him, has transformed my idea of what life is about, about the reality of our world, about what is important, about everything.

No matter how much I try and ignore and deny it, I can’t go back. Its there.

You can keep on living your life in 2-D if you want. It may be enjoyable, it may be fulfilling and happy, and you will have good and bad times. But I can tell you, unless you have truly experienced God and understood who He is – beyond religion, beyond tradition, beyond even the church, bigger than anything you can imagine and loving and gracious in ways that you can’t even explain – then you won’t have seen the complete picture.

You won’t have seen what’s possible. You won’t have seen everything in its proper context. You won’t have understood reality at its deepest and truest level.

Trust me, its worth a look.