Injustice Acoustics 2 – Music Event

I like Justice (understatement of the century) and part of my work with young people is about finding ways to engage them in issues of justice in the local community. Now this is not easy at all, not because the young people are not willing (they are majorly up for justice) but its finding safe ways to do it! Last year a friend and myself realised we could use music and coffee to take peoples money and give homeless people beds…so thats what we did…and we are doing it again! 

May 28th 2011 @ Starbucks Park St, Bristol we are holding an entry by ticket only event where all the money raised, will be given to the Julian Trust. Simple. Buy a ticket, a coffee and enjoy music from talented young people and as you have fun we can change lives. Sweet. 

Reflection on the Mystery of God

Hi Friends,

So I haven’t blogged in a while which sucks so I thought I’d share a recent session/reflection I did on the mystery on God. Feel free to use it or ignore it. I don’t mind!

The ‘M’ factor
Recapturing the mystery of God

There are many things that we as people can predict, like the results of eating badly, drinking to much, not revising, or running in front of a car; but should this human skill of reason be used when it comes to understanding who God is? and if so how much should we rely on our reason? People still over eat, drink to much, fail exams and take a trip over a land rover. So even the best results of our reason are not perfect, yet we can so easily fall into the trap of claiming we who are not perfect can fully understand perfection. Its a bit odd and very unreasonable really… To think we can put God in a box and presume he will stay there. The Catechism states that the ‘Chief end of man is to glorify God, and enjoy him forever’ and whether you like the catholic church or not, I think they hit this nail on the head. Do we have to know everything about something before we can enjoy it?

We are all guilty of this, even the most holiest of youth workers (that is a joke). To question, search and dig for understanding and worth, is part of the way we were made and I would like to suggest that is one of our most fascinating attributes, but is it really going to work on God, can we fully know God?

What am I not saying is that we cannot know God or better put that we can’t trust the Bible, quite the opposite! The Bible is full of stories that show us snap shots of what God is like and most importantly, we have Jesus! Through whom we see God in action still today with hands and feet and a cheeky bit of whit (maybe thats just in my mind). What the bible isn’t is a text book of answers. It is full of answers but it draws you into the journey not the exam room. The difference? the journey doesn’t stop, the exam ends and you forget everything about it. the journey is exciting and energizing whereas the exam is daunting and a means to an end.

Paul is often made out as the person who knows it all, he is the most dominant writer in the NT and is very good as making things tangible, ordered and simple to understand. The problem is he has this little rant in Corinthians 13 which I love because in amongst his practical letter to the Corinthians he basically says, but its not even about what you know its about how you love; because we don’t know it all, we can’t know it all, but we know love and we can do love:

‘We don’t yet see things clearly. We’re squinting in a fog, peering through a mist. But it won’t be long before the weather clears and the sun shines bright! We’ll see it all then, see it all as clearly as God sees us, knowing him directly just as he knows us! But for right now, until that completeness, we have three things to do to lead us toward that consummation: Trust steadily in God, hope unswervingly, love extravagantly. And the best of the three is love.’

(Corinthians 12-13)

Part of our gift as humans is to develop and make something simple extremely complicated. Take the wheel. One bloke made a circle, someone imagined putting two together to make a cart and now we have space ships! Things you think you ‘know’ for a fact now, may change and develop and what you would fight for now may seem absolutely crazy in the future! you just don’t know, until the day Christ comes and all is restored. But as Paul makes clear until that day, you can have faith that God is good, otherwise he is not God, you can hope that Revelation 21 is the end game otherwise life is meaningless and you can love, which is the perfect expression of faith and hope and humanities greatest God like characteristic.

Get some head space:
1. Are you excited or scared by the thought that faith is a journey not an exam?

2. Paul says above all things we should love, what is your capacity for love, when someone says the phrase ‘Unconditional Love’, How does that make you feel?

3. Whatever you answered to 1 and 2 spend some time praying into it with God.

1. – He wants you on this journey and if scripture is anything to go by God is gracious enough to walk it through with us.
   - Read Luke 24:13-35

Hope this was insightful!

Shalom.

Spotting real tangible growth

God and the Young People

“I can’t stand your religious meetings.
I’m fed up with your conferences and conventions.
I want nothing to do with your religion projects,
your pretentious slogans and goals.
I’m sick of your fund-raising schemes,
your public relations and image making.
I’ve had all I can take of your noisy ego-music.
When was the last time you sang to me?
Do you know what I want?
I want justice—oceans of it.
I want fairness—rivers of it.
That’s what I want. That’s all I want.
Amos 5:21-24

Ouch. Sometimes when we read scripture we just have to stop and re-think how we are doing this Christianity thing. I love Church, I love festivals and cool God slogans (one of my all time favs -‘GSUS, more then a chord’) and I must confess that noisy music with some ambient lights and some profound lyrics like ‘oooh oooh oooh’ really excite me and make me feel great about being a Christian. But is all that stuff what following Jesus is all about?
According to Amos, God just isn’t interested in that stuff as much as we are. Sure we can glorify God through that stuff, but it is a very small part in Gods plan. What excites Father Gods heart is to see his people being little Christ’s where it really matters- in our ‘living it’.

This is what has been on my heart as the youth worker. Father God, let the young people know what it is to be a true follower of Jesus, if the traditions are getting in the way, scrap them. When I first started at Cairns I would always worry about numbers on a Sunday morning and began thinking through how to get young people into the doors. I thought, ‘maybe if I preached more or enticed them with sweets and maybe even money that will do it and then as soon as they get through the door BAM, God will reveal himself and they will love Church and come every Sunday’. Seriously, I really thought that! and I must confess I did try coaxing some young people in with the sweets thing, but realised as time went on that my perspective was all wrong. God reminded me that if I really wanted young people to meet him, then I had to truly show them His heart and not just parrot the same old ‘right answers’.

We over complicate things really. What is on Gods heart is simple, he wants his people back and he wants them to look like Jesus in the everyday. To be more concerned about their neighbour’s welfare then whether or not they should go to church on sunday. To put scripture into practice and not just into memory. So what should we do? Scrap Sundays? of course not, it’s the body gathered. Change it so that it doesn’t look like the contemporary culture from the 80’s, yeh maybe someday…But its not even about that. It is simply about getting our hands dirty again. Doing the stuff we so often talk about on sundays–being the light God has called us to be (Matt 5).

Now we have arrived at the reason for my rant.
I’m excited! Because God is moving in the young people I work with and they are growing into mighty fine followers of Jesus and action has been the catalyst. From what I have seen the young people understand what following Jesus looks like when they clean up some single mums garden they don’t know from Adam, but knowing it just might making a difference to her life. They get it when they spend a week serving in orphanages and the most powerful message is not a ‘God slot’ preached but simply holding a little boy that even in Europe seems to have been abandoned by government and worthless in society. They get it when they can fight for the things that are on Gods heart, like justice and fairness, equality…you know the kingdom stuff.

So if, like me, you have been worried about how much the young people are growing when they seem so disengaged with traditional Sunday morning ‘church’, then ask them what they are doing instead and if they are getting their hands dirty with God. Why not ask them what they think is on Gods heart. I think, you’ll find something is happening and its spot on… And when you find that out, give thanks!