Christmas Carols

I have a confession to make.

I hate Christmas Carols.

I can hear the gasps - a Christian Minister who hates carols?!?

Old, boring, funny words. Inaccurate depictions of what was most likely to have occurred. Some questionable theology. Many slow and dirgey - Silent Night just about puts me to sleep.

But the past few days I've been tuned in to 96.3 on the radio - Rheema, and I've heard a few carols that have been modernized, and found myself singing along. This morning I could actually be seen and heard singing It Came Upon The Midnight Clear - I knew the melody from years of tenor horn playing, but it had been put to a sing-along tune with a modern beat.

And as I’ve been flicking through the Christmas Praise, looking at songs for Christmas Day, and for our caroling in the streets, I’ve been reminded to look beyond the music style to the underlying message. In each case the song writer has written a tribute and a testimony to the God of the universe becoming a human being.

A baby.

Even humbler than that, a baby born in a hick town via a woman raised in a bogan province. And she gave birth to the little guy where cows do their business.

Not the easiest story to write a hit song about.

Except that despite the ordinariness of the detail shines the story of a big shot (God) deciding that the best way to touch hard hearts was to get down on their level. Christmas is the story of the extraordinariness of the love of God.

So this year, rather than hating Christmas carols:


I will tolerate them! J

Another Sacred Place

I visited the All England Tennis Club last weekend, more popularly known as Wimbledon. And at the beginning of our tour, the guide advised that we could take photographs of whatever we wanted, and go just about anywhere, but we couldn't touch the grass. In fact, we weren't allowed within a metre of the grass. And we were warned that there were surveillance cameras and if we touched the grass we would be asked to leave the tour.

The reason? The grass is sacred. Well I guess it's more of a case of not wanting it damaged in any way, but the guide actually said, "to us, the grass is sacred."

What is sacred? The common dictionary definitions include

1. Dedicated to or set apart for the worship of a deity.

2. Worthy of religious veneration

3. Made or declared holy

4. Dedicated or devoted exclusively to a single use, purpose, or person

5. Worthy of respect; venerable.

6. Of or relating to religious objects, rites, or practices.

 

Yeah maybe they qualify under definition 4, as the main courts are ONLY used for the Wimbledon Tennis Championships each year - no one plays on that grass at any other time. And each year, the grass is ripped up and sown again from seed! You've got to respect that!

 

I wonder, what in your life is sacred?

Is It Any Wonder?

Dublin - a bar on just about every corner.

And a beggar on almost every street.

And a man or woman wrapped up in a sleeping bag at night in doorways all across the city.

A Sacred Place

One of the highlights of a weekend in Dublin was the journey to Glendalough in the Wicklow Mountains, and the Monastery of St Kevin.

Born in 498, he was reputed to at one point have lived a life of solitude for 7 years, perched on a perilous precipice, before establishing a community of prayer in this picturesque valley where two lakes meet. Legend has it he died aged 120!

At its peak, a thriving community developed around the monks and their churches and places of prayer, as lay people came to live amongst them and serve them. Little huts formed in a ring around these various small stone chapels, where the monks would spend the majority of their time.

This is what prayer can do. It draws people. It is powerful.

I felt I was in a sacred place; it was a place where prayers were uttered to God for century after century.

May we in our day create sacred places through our lives of prayer, places that draw people into a prayerful community.

Rare Breeds at Hadleigh Farm

I visited The Salvation Army's Hadleigh Farm this week. This was part of William Booth's 'In Darkest England and the Way Out' vision, to establish a farm colony. It operated for many years as a place for prisoners or recently released prisoners to work, learn skills and give them some meaningful to do to keep them out of trouble. It is a property of about 900 acres towards the south east of England.

These days it has over 200 people with intellectual disabilities who work there in a variety of fields, supported by a staff of 70 and 40 volunteers. Some do hospitality in the cafe, others learn skills in the kitchen, some in the carpentry shop or grounds maintenance or agriculture. (As an aside - it is also the site for the 2012 London Olympics Mountain Bike competition)

Also on site is a 'rare breeds centre' where sheep and goats and pigs and assorted other farm animals that are rare or endangered are cared for and bred. The photo above shows some Bagot goats who were quite friendly.

Rare Breeds - how appropriate on a number of levels. Firstly, I find it wonderful that The Army is playing a part in preserving God's creation. Appropriate too in relation to William Booth, and also The Salvation Army. I see William Booth as one of a kind, a rare breed, with enormous vision, and passion and drive and determination to match - and I don't think too many would argue that the whole Army is itself a 'rare breed'.

But it would be my prayer that every corps and mission centre would be a place for 'rare breeds' - rare in our holiness, rare in our devotion to prayer and spiritual growth, rare in our passion for the lost and our zeal to serve. Rare in the personalities of people who call our corps 'home'. Rare in our passion and drive and determination to see the Kingdom come.

Perhaps a sign over the door 'Rare Breeds Centre' might be taking things a bit far, but may it be a sign that hangs over the door of our hearts.

Sharing Joy

This is one of my favourite photos from a wonderful weekend. On Sunday, the officers of the ICO joined with The Salvation Army's Regent Hall corps for the day. In some respects, the highlight was when we marched from Oxford Street, about 200 Salvationists right through the busy city streets of London with police escort, marching to the beat of the drum as the band played, all the way to the Cenotaph at Whitehall for a Remembrance Day service, where only hours earlier the Queen and various politicans had laid wreaths. We sang, prayed and the Word was preached, as hundreds stood behind the barricades taking it all in. Then the march back, again a witness to tens of thousands of Londoners and visitors of the presence of The Salvation Army in London city.

But this photograph was taken in the morning, at Oxford Circus at the Open Air meeting. Again we marched, and people with cameras were catching the moment. The band played, people prayed, a short word was given. However this time, I was actually able to talk to people. And for these two characters, I was a witness to the presence of God.

We shared a few stories and a good laugh. Yes, evangelism can be light-hearted! No conversions. Couldn't even get them to come to the meeting. But we shared joy. We shared God. And you just can't do that while you're marching!!

Real Christian Art

I visited two cathedrals on Saturday. The first was St Stephen's in Nottingham, which was the church that William Booth, founder of The Salvation Army was christened in (hence, the reason for the visit). It was so beautifully ornate in side, and had some of the most wonderful Christian artworks, decorations, 14th century choir stalls - very beautiful.

Then to Coventry and the Coventry Cathedral, re-built after the old one was bombed and destroted in World War 2. A magnificent modern cathedral, breathtaking in it's structure and furnishing and stained glass and stunning sculptures and artworks.

I visited two cathedrals - but to me I didn't visit any churches.

A favourite author of mine, Mike Yaconelli puts it like this, "churches are not glistening cathedrals filled exclusively with beautiful Cinderellas. Churches are noisy rollicking madhouses, filled with yelping, dancing, odd people who follow the real Cinderella wherever he goes."

These cathedrals can be beautiful places of worship, and I enjoy worshipping in these surrounds from time to time, and God is present. But we know that the church is not the building, it's the people. And people make things complicated and messy, they leave fingerprints and spill cordial. They have warts and pimples and big hair and no hair and they can be loud and yeah sometimes really annoying.

Ss long as I live, my ambition is to continue to bring together a group of people who come as they are, with all their oddness and variety and colour, with their difference of opinion and different clothes and their own unique way of expressing themselves, who have their eyes fixed absolutely on Jesus, who are so filled with God's love that amidst the rollicking madhouse that happens when they come together the love and glory and light of Christ shines brilliantly bright.

Now that's art!

House of Prayer for People of Many Nations

My house will be called a house of prayer for people of many nations, said God in Isaiah.

Here is the room where we meet each day for our lectures, but also for many, many sessions of prayer, peoples of different nations and languages and cultures. All coming together as brothers and sisters in Christ.

This is the room where God is doing a work in me.

This is the place where God is filling me with love and joy and compassion, and ideas and drive and inspiration.

Here is where God is making me dangerous, with boldness and zeal and Holy fire. Beware when I return to Oz!

The General

What a privelege it's been to meet this woman. She led us in worship on Sunday, and spent the day chatting with us today (Tuesday) about servant leadership, spiritual authority, and answering questions about the Army and her vision and challenges.

She was inspiring, wise, but most of all, humble to the extreme. Very approachable and down to earth. It was truly a joy to have her share with us.

Uggs

Who would have thought that Ugg boots would become so trendy, even with their own shop amidst the high fashion labels of London?

No one really seems sure of the history of the name 'Ugg' and various theories are around. The owner of one company that has been making the boots since the late 1950s claims that he invented the name. He says that his inspiration came from his wife, who called the boots ugly.

It's a reminder that what one sees as ugly, another sees as beautiful or trendy or desirable.

But when it comes to human beings, there is one who never sees any of us as ugly - our Loving God. We were created in His image, and although our sin has made us to be 'ugly', God forgives us, looks on us as righteous, and loves the beauty in each of us.

May we learn to see each other through God's eyes.

Moving On

At the graveside of William and Catherine Booth - founders of The Salvation Army, at a place called Abney Park.

If you look at the background you'll see that there is a lot of foliage - nothing at all like the cemeterys I'm used to visiting. But this cemetery 'went broke' a number of years ago, and the local council now have control of and responsibility for the land, and it has been designated as a woodland. So the trees and bushes are just allowed to grow, and will eventually overtake the thousands of tombs and headstones - in fact most already have.

Some of my colleagues were shocked. A place of burial of such significant people - how could this be?

But you know, the more I read of the Booths, the more I'm persuaded that rather than have us spend time and energy on their graves, they'd prefer us to be spending our time and energy in the mission field. One day their grave will disappear under foliage. Let's pray and work to ensure that their legacy never disappears.

How Something Becomes A Museum

One of the enjoyable experiences of the previous weekend was my visit to the Birmingham Jewellery Quarter Museum. It was orginally a jewellery factory by the name of Smith and Peppers, founded late 1800s by a man and his uncle. The business then passed on to three Smith children of the next generation, Mr Tom, his brother Mr Eric and their sister, Miss Olive. None of these had children, and the three siblings ran the business for many, many years, until they were aged well into their 70s and early 80s. During that time, they continued to hold to the practices that had served them so well, manufacturing in the same way and style and with the same methods and machinery, with very little changing over the years.

It came to the point where they were unable to carry on the business any longer. They were too old, plus profits were decreasing due to cheaper labour available elsewhere, and because they had stuck with outdated practices and failed to bring the business up to modern manufacturing standards. With no children to pass the business on to, and no buyer to be found due to the antiquity of the factory, one Friday in 1981, at the usual closing time, they just locked the doors and left, unaware they would be leaving a time capsule for future generations.

The building was subsequently sold to the Birmingham City Council. It was several years before the doors were reopened, and the council employees discovered a virtual time capsule of jewellery production, and techniques, as well as more personal work life related items some dating back as far as 1899.

Tools were left strewn on benches; grubby overalls were hung on the coat hooks; and dirty teacups were abandoned alongside jars of marmite and jam on the shelf. Old ledger books and order books remained open on the desks.

Because in the eighty years before its closure little changed with the working practices or equipment used within the family-owned business, even the décor had more in common with early 20th century trends than a thriving business in the early 1980s, leaving an insight into the jewellery trade of the turn of the century.

It was fascinating. And as my great grandmother's family were all heavily involved in the jewellery trade, gave me a real insight into how their working lives would have been spent, and the lack of occupational health and safety measures!

It also served as a reminder, not just for business, but certainly for the church, that if we continue to hang on to the practices of the past, we will quickly become a museum.

Smith & Peppers never changed their product, and that product (gold jewellery) is still very much in demand. But where they failed was (a) not keeping up to date with advances in manufacturing, and (b) not developing a future generation for leadership.

We in the church can be guilty of the same. Our product is still attractive and 'saleable' (Jesus), but we must continue to move with the times, to explore new methods, to package and present our product in a way that appeals to generation after generation, in our mission, our evangelism and our worship. And we must continue to give young people a voice, and develop them as future leaders. If we don't, people will very soon wander through our abandoned church buildings as museums and reminders of the past.

Worship from the Heart

I spent the weekend in Birmingham, the place where my father's parents grew up and lived prior to emigrating to Australia. It was a special journey and a memorable time.

Sunday morning I went along to the Birmingham City Corps, and somewhat enjoyed a traditional Salvation Army service, complete with two songster messages and even a Singing Company item, and a skilled brass band.

Since being at the ICO, my hunger and thirst for God is growing, so I left the meeting not completely satisfied, and made my way to the Birmingham Cathedral, and caught the last half of the Eucharist Service (the sung version). And wouldn't you know, I walked in just in time for the offertory!

Here was another group of Jesus-followers, worshipping in a different style to their Salvo brothers and sisters, and in a different style again to our style of worship at my Salvo corps in Australia.

Yet we all worshipped the one God, in the name of Jesus.

And it was brought home to me again - it's not how we worship, but what is in our hearts as we worship. Jesus is just as pleased to hear prayers read from a booklet as he is spoken from the pulpit or offered from the congregation. Yes - Jesus is just as pleased to hear a robed choir singing in Latin as He is uniformed Salvationists singing and clapping, as He is non-uniformed Salvos blasting out their praise music on guitars and drums - as long as it is done in spirit and in truth. As long as it's coming from the heart.

As we gather for worship every week (to honour God), may we be sincere, may our worship be heartfelt, and may Jesus smile on us for our earnestness and love and gratitude towards Him.

Moving into the neighbourhood

Yesterday (Oct 26) I visited firstly the grave of the founders, William & Catherine Booth, then to where it all began - the East End of London, the place where William 'found his destiny', joining the Whitechapel Mission which he was soon to lead and rename The Christian Mission in 1865, before changing the name to The Salvation Army in 1878.

We visited the corner on Mile End Waste where he first met the missioners and stepped forward to 'have a word', the site of the Mission's tent meeting on a disused Quaker burial ground where he was invited to preach, the Blind Beggar pub where he took his 12 year old son Bramwell to show him the sin and degradation, proclaiming "these are our people", and the early buildings that the Mission used for their meetings, the first being a Burlesque Theatre!

Astonishingly to me, all of these places were within a very short walking distance of each other. It was some years before the Mission grew large enough to begin expanding out of what was essentially a small neighbourhood. It was in every sense of the word a local mission.

It was a reminder to me that God has placed us in a neighbourhood, and we too can achieve great things for God in our neighbourhoods if we possess the zeal for the Gospel that WIlliam Booth had. We don't need to cover huge goegraphical areas to see great results - we just need to start right where we are.

Servant Leadership

Sunday night I went to worship at Holy Trinity Brompton, an Anglican church with a vicar by the name of Nicky Gumbel. He has received fame across the world as the face of Alpha, a program that serves as an introduction to Christ and Christianity, and has been employed in countries all around the world. Many, many people have come to faith as a result of doing Alpha.

We attended service number 3 of 4. Interestingly it was at 5pm, and was aimed at young adults, although there were enthusiastic worshippers in front of us who must have been in their 70s, together with many of my vintage. But average age would have been 25-30. And it was quite similar in format and style and ambience to what we have at Sanctuary Mornington.

Nicky Gumbel himself gave the message, and spoke of servant leadership. Here was a man who travels around the world constantly, yet still wants to be so very much involved with each of his local congregations (HTB now has 3 campuses, with multiple services at each). What also impressed me was reading the church bulletin to see that Nicky himself still leads a mid-week Alpha course. After 21 years!!

His message of servant leadership resonated so much more because here was a man still prepared to be involved at a grass roots level, despite the success of Alpha and the personal acclaim afforded him.

A living example of a servant leader!

St Pancras

It was a special journey for me last weekend as I visited the very church where in the 1700s my ancestors were christened and married. To touch the door that they would have touched, and walk the grounds where more than likely they were buried was a strangely comforting experience.

As I look at my family tree, and back through my family history, I realise how much my existence depended on the circumstances of the past. My faith tells me that God had my life planned, and if so, so many things had to fall into place over hundreds, indeed thousands of years, for me to be me.

And as I look at my children now, it is incredible to think that one day I will be a name on someones family tree, part of the puzzle that is their life.

Lords

A pilgrimage of a different sort - a visit to a famous London cricket ground - Lords. What a highlight to sit in the dressing room, on the very seats that my cricketing heroes sit on every 4 years as they play for the Ashes. To do the walk from the dressing room, down the stairs, into the long room, out through the doors, and finally through the gates on to the pitch - one of the most sacred walks for a cricketer.

On Wednesday I will take another sacred walk as I visit the East End of London, the site of much of William Booth's early work, the site where he 'found his destiny'. And as someone once said, 'When he found his destiny, he found mine as well.'

Through the God-inspired actions of General Booth, many of us have had our destinys determined. The Aussie cricketers take their sacred walk on to Lords maybe a handful of times in their lifetimes, but I get to take my sacred walk for the Lord every day.

By love serve

Found this plaque in the garden at William Booth College where I spent one night before moving on to the International College for Officers (ICO). It's interesting in its wording...

It doesn't say "serve with love" or even "with love, serve". I think it's signifcant that it says "By love serve", because unless we serve compelled by love, it won't be true, unselfish, Christ-like service. There must be another reason or reasons for serving. Becuase it is only out of love, or 'by love' that we can truly serve.

Time

It's not until you are stuck in one place, unable to move far or sleep that you realise how long a day is.

24 hours is a long time. Never again will I say "I didn't have time". Rather, "I didn't prioritise well"

The Countdown

Less than 2 weeks to go until I depart for London for the International College for Officers - I thought this would be a good way to record my experience, and to share it with those interested persons (if there are any) keen to know what I'm getting up to.

So visit my blog for daily posts, starting October 10th, 2011.