Transforming Our Community, Transforming Our Church

Posted on 18 February, 2012 by Justin

“If we see people hungry, thirsty, lonely, naked, sick or imprisoned, and we are not motivated to help them by this fact alone, we should at least be motivated by seeing that by serving them, we are serving Jesus.”

Those of you who have read my personal blog (shameless plug) will be used to me waffle on aimlessly with my musings on anything and everything splattered with clear use of online thesauruses and Wikipedia to make me seem clever. However this post will be different. Well, excluding that first sentence.

This post is to pose some quick questions for me, our Church and our community following the Transforming your Community conference in Hedge End the other weekend. But don’t think that this post isn’t for you if you didn’t go to the conference. I only went on the Sunday night and, to be honest, I don’t remember much of what was said! Yet, despite my brain not really taking in much of the words, I really felt my heart take in some of the atmosphere of love and serving that the Americans had bought over. What I really got out of it, and subsequently from Richard’s excellent preach the following Sunday, was that of our call of lives of mission and serventhood. And that this doesn’t mean giving up ourselves or our own personal plan . This is ourselves. Serving is our only response to Jesus.

I’m going to interrupt this hodgepotch of jargon for a bible verse: Jesus was talking about a king in Matthew 25 (in a very thinly veiled metaphor of himself). This King said:

“For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me…Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.”

So, if we see people hungry, thirsty, lonely, naked, sick or imprisoned and we are not motivated to help them by this fact alone, we should at least be motivated by seeing that by serving them we are serving Jesus. People who serve and help others will often say that doing stuff for others makes them happy. Some may say this because they are pompus or overly humble, but if through serving we are serving Jesus then surely his goodness and love will follow us and therefore serving others will make us happy.

This blog is starting to turn into a preach or an essay and that’s what no-one wants. Lets get into the nitty gritty of how we can serve our community. 2 points, 2 questions, 2 challenges. There’s way more that could and should be said and discussed, but we’ll see where we go from here. I want ideas, actions and things starting to happen.

1) Charity starts at home?

(I’m not sure that if you put a question mark after a sentence it actually becomes a question but by thinking these thoughts you are causing me to digress!).

What I mean by this is how can we have a heart for serving our community if we don’t have a heart for serving our church? I know there’s exceptions to this and I know other churches may be the same, but in general, to be honest, our attitude to serving is pretty stinky. How many times do I hear people groan on a Saturday when they remember they are on set-up the next day. Or moan about how little other people serve. Or leaving a serving team because they don’t feel ‘called’ to do it anymore. Let me put this out: No one is called to put chairs out on a Sunday morning. Yet neither is anyone called to wait until we find out what our calling is. The bible, and good common sense, teaches a good theology on rest. We do need to rest, but I’m convinced that the more we serve, the more time and energy we give into serving the body of Christ and beyond, the more we will find God’s rest in abundant life. My first challenge to you is simple: Next sunday, get to church for 8:30 to help with setup and anything else that needs help with and leave when everything is packed away at the end. Don’t just to it for one week. That’s just like a good deed you can pat yourself on the back for. Do it for four weeks in a row. Go on I dare ya. Serve, serve and keep on serving.

2) How can we have an impact on our local community?

I don’t really have any direct answers for this one, but one thing is for sure, there are so many people who are hurting in this city. Parents with troubled kids, children with troubled parents. Prostitution, unemloyment, depression, homelessness – it’s all there. I believe we need to think seriously about what the church can do to help all of these things. Paul, him off of the bible, claims that he tries to be all things to all people. If he can do this, so can we. In the long run (and if the church isn’t in this for the long run, what’s the point?) we should be thinking, how can we reach these, and all the other demographics in Portsmouth? Challenge two, therefore, is this: Pick a people group (Navy, homeless, students, middle-age divorced men, alcoholics, etc) and come up with an idea of what we can do to care for them. A real idea that can happen. Don’t worry about money or facilities. They will follow vision.

This post is a bit of a mixture of random ideas I know, but i suppose that’s what happens when you don’t plan what you write! I do hope that this will challenge people and that particularly point 2 will stir up ideas of what we can do to share God’s love with our community.

Comfortable in Your Skin

Posted on 16 February, 2012 by Fiona

Beautiful models are shown on billboards, newspapers, magazines, television, everywhere. The media are forever encouraging women to “slim down.” Telling us what the correct size should be. This is another way of how society is influencing how people think and behave.

Models from the 21st century – such as Kate Moss, have an alarming BMI (body mass index) of just 15%. However actress/model Marilyn Monroe from the 1950s, had a BMI of 20%. The ‘healthy’ statistic is between 21-25% BMI. Were Kate and Marilyn doing anything wrong with their bodies? Of course not, we are all God’s perfect creation.

What is healthy? We are told that those who are too thin can live shorter lives compared to those who are overweight, and being underweight can lead to osteoporosis. However, those who are overweight suffer from heart disease and diabetes. How confusing!

It can get very tiring in this country for men and women to hear about how they should “fight the flab” and how if you’re over or underweight you must seek help. 1 Samuel 16:7 says:

“But the Lord said to Samuel, “Do not look on his appearance or on the height of his stature, because I have rejected him. For the Lord sees not as a man sees: man looks on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart.”

How exactly should we treat our bodies according to the Bible? 1 Corinthians 6:19-20 suggests a good answer:

“Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body.”

What does this mean? God has blessed us with a body – a temple of the Holy Spirit – so does God care if we have a packet of crisps or have a bit of chocolate? God views us as his perfect creation whom He loves so much He sent His Son to die for our sins. As Christians we should accept our bodies that God has blessed us with, and know a new freedom. Not being comfortable in the skin you’re in and feeling like being trapped are lies from the enemy. After all, Matthew 6:25 says:

“Therefore I tell you, do not be anxiuos about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than good, and the body more than clothing?”

I couldn’t have put it better myself.

Stop…

Posted on 13 February, 2012 by Jimmy

Did anyone see that advert recently? Y’know, the one where a woman is on her lunch break at work and when someone comes to her desk she ‘kindly’ reminds the chap that it’s her lunch break and she’s not to be disturbed? No? Well, here it is if you want to look at it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fqblffQNUCw. The reason I like it isn’t because I’ve got a freakish fascination with shouting, or because I’m sponsored by KFC, but because I admire the sentiment of defending your personal time.

In related news, I moved to London 6 months ago and one big thing I’ve noticed is the pace of life compared to other cities. For example, in a conversation with a friend of mine who works in insurance I made the offhand suggestion that he leave his office, switch off his phone and ignore his e-mails so that he gets the chance to relax during the day. His response was that he’d probably have to stay and make up the time. This shocked me. Are the hours we are seen to work more important than our stress? At what point did this happen?

I’m not a business minded person in the slightest, so I don’t quite get the drive behind this. But I do get stressed, I do get tired, and I do get worn out. So it’s at those times that I have to remind myself to take a ‘micro-sabbath’. What I mean by Sabbath may not be what you traditionally think of (i.e. the day of rest, I don’t think I could get away with a day off whenever I feel run down). What I’m talking about is a protected personal time. A time which is set aside where I don’t allow other people to make demands of me.

Now, this isn’t a result of laziness, I’m by no means averse to hard work, and I like to think that I’m not unhelpful. Instead, these are periods of time which are unusually self-centred.
This becomes more and more important in an age of around the clock connectivity where demands can be made of us at any time. Making for yourself an island of protected restful time can (in my opinion) only be beneficial physically, emotionally and mentally; which I am sure is why God wrote one into the commandments: “Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy” (Ex 20:8).

On the Sabbath, you’re not to work or let anyone else in your house work because you’re remembering that God rested, made it holy, and blessed. But why did He bother? It’s not like God gets tired and needs to rest, so why did He? Turns out He is ridiculously wise. He knows that without intervention we can be prone to working ourselves into the ground (especially if “work = money”). So He told us that it was His will that we rest a while. In short He’s saying something like: ‘Guys, listen. If I decided to take a day off (and I’m omnipotent!) don’t you think you should too?’. He is concerned about our well-being, so much so that He commands us to look after ourselves.

But as can happen to God’s ideas once humans get involved, there is a negative side to the Sabbath commandment. Fast forward a few hundred years and you’ll see the Pharisees and other rulers busting at the seams because it’s a Sabbath and Jesus is doing something! He’s breaking a law and they’re going to make sure He knows about it!

‘But the ruler of the synagogue, indignant because Jesus had healed on the Sabbath, said to the people, “There are six days in which work ought to be done. Come on those days and be healed, and not on the Sabbath day.”’ (Lk 13:14)

Tragically, they had totally missed the point. They were enforcing the law simply because it was there and not for the good it does. Jesus put it better in his comeback when he said simply:

“The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath” (Mk 2:27)

‘Legalism’ is the nasty and totally unnecessary side effect of the Sabbath commandment but the idea itself is ultimately a good one. Ideally, we need to be able to take a break but not get so strict about it that we get stressed out about taking a break. Protect your lunch breaks from work tasks, leave time for hobbies, family, friends; or just chilling out on your own.

And one last thing, don’t feel guilty about taking time off (you night not, but I sometimes do). It’s God’s idea, so anyone who has a problem with it can go and bother him.

The Race Against Time?

Posted on 22 January, 2012 by Nathan

When I prise open my eyes in the morning, my default response is one of confusion: “why would someone invent the alarm clock?”, “who in their right mind schedules meetings first thing in the morning?!”, or “was that a crazy vision I just dreamt or could it be real?”. I suppose that question 1 can be explained by theories of human technological advances, consumerism or even a capitalist exploit to maximise the output of workers; question 2 remains a far-off mystery to me; and as for question 3, BBC News is often my first port of call.

As I sit patiently waiting for the home page to load, the fog starts to lift. A sense of urgency kicks in: “I must check to see whether or not Darth Fader has indeed overcome our galaxy”. “What about the Teletubies? Please tell me that they haven’t managed to release another chart-topping single!”. News websites checked, and these fears are (thankfully) relieved.

Some dreams, on the other hand, aren’t as outlandish as they may at first appear. Take the concept of a futuristic world, in which time is governed by a super-elite, wielding the power to pause, rewind and even skip time. Waking from my slumber after such a dream just last week, I logged on to BBC News as usual, only to find this news article: ‘Time experts debate whether to abolish the leap second‘. How very interesting…

To save you, dear reader, from having to swat up yourself, allow me to explain. In the same way that the earth’s full rotation around the sun amounts to one year, a full spin of the earth on its axis amounts to one day. Obviously. Except, the more scientifically astute among us will know that this statement is false. The earth takes 365 and a quarter days to rotate around the sun, and that is why we add an extra day to our calendar every four years (eg. 29th February 2012). Similarly (but unknown to me until now), a day is not twenty-four hours long. Using an atomic clock, which measures time by monitoring the vibrations of atomic particles, scientists observe that the earth rotates in an irregular rhythm, causing its complete spin to take a fraction of a second more, or less, than twenty-four hours.

Fascinating! So, a day is not really a day, and nor is a year really a year. Scientists have been adding a “leap second” every year or two to prevent our clocks from going out of sync with our perception of time, and this has been the subject of recent debate. Without the “leap second”, it is calculated that our descendants could be getting out of their beds as the sun rises in the late afternoon in a few centuries. So, my dream wasn’t all that crazy at all. If scientists wield the power to abolish the “leap second”, perhaps they do have some measure of control over time, albeit only by a few tiny seconds over our entire lifetimes.

Here is where it gets exciting; you and I have a lot more say over time than do the scientists. We all know the fundamentals: our God loves us, and hears our prayers; our God is infinite, and therefore exists outside of space and time; our God is all sovereign, and therefore has all dominion over the passing of time on earth. But also (and this might sound odd at first), our God is faithful in His love for us, and works in mysterious ways to help us – including the manipulation of time.

Joshua, an Old Testament hero of the faith, certainly knew this to be true. When Joshua was leading the people of Israel in battle against the enemies of God in Gibeon, he prayed:

“Sun, stand still at Gibeon,
and moon, in the Valley of Aijalon”
(Joshua 10:12)

God honoured this prayer:

“And the sun stood still, and the moon stopped,
until the nation took vengeance on their enemies.”
(Joshua 10:13)

This was a miracle of cosmic proportions, completely orchestrated by God, and called upon by a man of God. This event took place some 2,600 years ago, but if we truly believe that our God is the same yesterday, today, and forever, then His power remains constant, as does His faithfulness towards those who know Him. When we are faced with challenges that are time-sensitive, we ought to pray with absolute faith that God is sovereign over every single factor – including time.

A recent demonstration in my own life: I was working on a university essay and, true to form, I had left myself a mere twenty-four hours to complete it. I managed to reel off some 1,500 words, and thanks to an error with my laptop, the work was lost. This happened at 3am, with just nine hours left until the submission deadline, and zero hours of sleep. I cried out to God to help me, and He was faithful. In this instance, He didn’t pause time, but rather spoke into my hands as they typed. I submitted a first class assignment, thanks to God’s incredible faithfulness.

So the bottom line: God is faithful. He is sovereign. He is on our side. Whatever troubles we might face, including those that are time-sensitive, let our faith in Him remain strong. He is the God who has power to make the sun stand still when His people pray, and even when He allows time to progress, He is able to make ways for us, beyond our understanding. Let us be solid in our faith of the unchangeable God, let’s be prepared to pray big prayers; seemingly impossibly prayers to the God of the impossible.

If you have similar testimonies to share, please get in touch with us at blog@solentcc.org.

How Many People Is Your Church?

Posted on 17 January, 2012 by Nathan

I wonder how you would answer that question? 100… 300… 500? I suppose it depends very much on your counting technique. Do you take an average, or count on your highest Sunday? Do you include ‘every thing that creepeth’ within your building, whether a willing participant or simply there by accident? Children, pets, infestations, angelic visitors?

But really, that’s not what I’m asking. The question wasn’t ‘how many people are in your church?’ but rather ‘how many people is your church?’ There’s a world of difference.

In Ephesians 4, Paul writes the following:

‘And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers, to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, so that we may no longer be children, tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes’ (Ephesians 4:11-14).

There is much to be said about this passage and the picture it paints of how the church should look: well-equipped, mature, stable and discerning. Paul draws the comparison between a mature adult and a gaggle of immature children and says the church should aim to be like the former, and unlike the latter. But re-reading this passage again today, I was struck by something I’d never quite seen before. Andrew Lincoln, in his commentary, makes the following observation:

‘Not only do silly infants contrast with the mature adult (cf 1 Cor 2:6; 3:1; Heb 5:13,14) but the plural of ‘children’ also contrasts with the singular of ‘the mature person’, individualism being a sign of childishness, unity a sign of maturity.’ (Andrew Lincoln, Word Biblical Commentary: Ephesians, p257)

Re-read that if necessary. Digest it. Do you see what he’s saying? Paul suggests that the kind of church he wants Ephesus to become, and the kind of churches we should aim to build, are not only mature as opposed to immature, adult as opposed to childish, steadfast as opposed to flimsy, but also one as opposed to many.

Why didn’t Paul keep both references in the singular form? Why didn’t he contrast manhood with childhood? It is for the very simple reason that an immature church is best depicted as a bunch of disparate, childish individuals, all concerned with their own desires and agendas, whereas a mature church is best described as one unified person.

God wants churches that are genuinely one; united in vision, heart, soul, mission, love and service. This theme of oneness comes out elsewhere in the letter far more obviously (1:22-23; 2:14-22; 3:6; 4:3-6, 15-16; 5:23b, 30) and elsewhere in the Pauline epistles (1 Cor 12:12-31). To be certain, complete unity is a difficult thing to imagine, let alone attain, and we must never confuse unity with uniformity. Paul doesn’t want a church full of people who look the same, dress the same and are thoroughly indistinguishable from one another. But he does want them to be so knitted together that they are best described not as many, but as one being. Paul wants our churches to be numerous and diverse, yet also united; one person.

So I ask again; how many people is your church? The fewer the better.

By Liam Thatcher. Originally published on the ‘Theology Matters‘ blog site on 27th May 2011.

Welcome to Solent: Connected

Posted on 16 January, 2012 by The Solent Web Elves

Believe it or not, there are sixty-six cities in the UK, but counting them could prove a tad tricky. While numbering not many more than the mere fifty states that America has to offer, any effort at tallying Britain’s greatest metropolises would inevitably prove a greater struggle; for instance, I have yet to see a Hollywood production set in Ely (population 15,000). Hollywood favours its own native cities, and understandably so: no British equivalent to Los Angeles or New York exists in my mind, nor do we have an English answer to Miami (despite what the sales reps at Butlins would have you think).

English cities are a mixed bunch. The smallest (granted city status in 1205) is Wells, Somerset, with a population of just over 10,000. Wells seems somewhat impressive in comparison with the Welsh ‘city’ of St David’s, whose population stands at 1,797. Thankfully, Britain has the likes of London, Birmingham, Liverpool and Manchester to demonstrate to the outside world that we understand what cities actually are (phew). But do our cities really demonstrate character? Yes, sometimes…

There is something special about Portsmouth; England’s 20th largest city. Talk to any day visitor to the city, or to any new student, and they will agree with me. Portsmouth has a certain allure, and it goes much further than merely being the home of the Royal Navy. For many of us, the city has a particular ‘pull’; at Solent Community Church are a dozen or so people who moved to Portsmouth to study, and who have never been able to bring themselves to move away.

These people, and many others who have a passion for our city play a very special role in seeing Solent connected. God has put a strong core of people in churches across the city with a heart for reaching the lost. William Booth (founder of the Salvation Army) once described Portsmouth as a “dark” place. Today there are nearly 100 churches in Portsmouth and the surrounding area, and increasingly we are finding ways of working together to connect people with the living God. It is an exciting calling.

This blog is updated by people who share in the excitement of this calling. We want to see Solent connected with Jesus, and this is where we will be sharing our thoughts, dreams, testimonies and more. We love our city, and we believe that there is something special about Portsmouth. Please partner with us and check back regularly; we welcome submissions from far and wide: email them to blog@solentcc.org.

Thanks, and stay connected.