Monthly Archive for November, 2006Page 2 of 3

Application approved

Published
by
Graeme
on November 17, 2006
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Following a meeting this morning I sat down at my desk to find the following e-mail in my inbox:

No doubt you will be delighted to note that the Officer Review Board - having carefully considered your application to be a single spouse officer - have approved the application, and the [leader of The Salvation Army in the UK] has endorsed it.

This is the first hurdle leaped in my route towards full-time ministry as an officer in The Salvation Army. The next step is my assessment conference that will take place in the UK from 16th - 18th February 2007!

Whilst my application has been proceeding as if this was already the case to get the official confirmation was extremely exciting. God has made this call so clear in my life that even this little step gives me incredible joy!

What have you got to hide?

Published
by
Graeme
on November 16, 2006
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I’m just in the process of trying to get a police check done here in Latvia for my application for officership. It seems that, after hours of research, that a place exists that can check me out across a whole range of databases to make sure that I’m squeaky clean.

However, this got me thinking a little about how our outward lives reflect our inward one. It’s possible for us to know so much about individuals lack of criminal activity, yet what would my spiritual police check look like if The Salvation Army were to ask God for this within my application?

Somehow I suspect that instead of a few words saying that I had committed no crimes, it would more than likely have quite a bit on the form. However, unlike a criminal record it can be wiped clean through the grace of God.

Deeply frustrated

Published
by
Graeme
on November 15, 2006
in old uksalvationist posts
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In a fit of carelessness I left my copy of The Irresistible Revolution in Crawley before boarding our flight back to Latvia. Having spent the last 3 weeks reading it and having my mind totally blown away, being deeply challenged and posing many questions to myself, I did this with just a matter of 20 or so pages remaining to be read! Aaarrrggghhhhhhhhhhhhh!

Great campaign?

Published
by
Graeme
on November 15, 2006
in old uksalvationist posts
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While I was in England I discovered the (Red) Project. At first glance this seems like a wonderful project and is a great idea as the money raised is going to save lives! Well known brands like American Express, Motorola, Apple and Gap are going to give away huge amounts of money when people buy or use their (Red) labeled products. In a world that desperately needs more funding to be put into HIV/AIDS research this can only be applauded.

But for those of us who follow a different path I suspect that we should try to avoid it! We shouldn’t fall for a clever marketing gimmick in order to put money into work for those far less fortunate than ourselves, and lets make no mistake, almost everyone (if not everyone) who reads this will be more fortunate than the victims of AIDS who will be helped.

Should we spend $200 on a red iPod simply so we can give $10 to AIDS research? Should we buy a new mobile phone from Motorola simply so a percentage of our bills can support others? Or are we called to a different path? Are we called to a road that sees us giving the $200 to God’s work in some way and forgo the iPod?

For the last 5 years I have tried to raise the necessary money to run the children’s day centre that Zoe & I set up and Zoe runs. Believe it or not it costs only about $50 000 per year to run, yet this year we are falling the best part of $10 000 short of that aim. It’s going to be a similar story next year as well. It frustrates me no end that these big corporations line their own pockets first and then give such tiny proportions of their huge profits away, while I can’t even raise $50 000 to help underprivileged kids. In the 9 months since I started this blog I have purposefully not used it to raise any money, but maybe I should just once!

So in a totally shameless parody of Project (Red) I challenge you instead to put your hand in your pocket for a few of whatever currency you like and send it to your national Salvation Army fundraising department as a donation to Patverums Children’s Day Centre in Riga, Latvia (see link on the right) and let me know that you’ve done it by using the contact me form on this blog. I can’t give you anything in return except the knowledge that you will be helping kids here to have a slightly better life.

Commitment to community

Published
by
Graeme
on November 10, 2006
in old uksalvationist posts
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Archbishop Rowan Williams writes the following in his Introduction to the Faithful Cities report that was published earlier this year.

[The Church’s] fundamental beliefs are about …commitment –God’s commitment to a people, Christ’s commitment to a weak and failing body of human followers, the commitment embodied (literally) in the incarnation and resurrection. The question the Church always has to ask of any society, and any project within society, is about how it reflects the kind of enduring commitment to individuals and groups that builds them up and changes them and makes them what they can be.’
pg v - Faithful Cities (2006) Methodist Publishing House and Church House Publishing

He goes on to say:

In other words, the deeper issues around regeneration and development that are raised … are to do with how our corporate life shows something of what God is like and thus something of what humanity, made in God’s image, might be.’
ibid

I’ve only just started to read this book, but the more I look at the world at the moment the more I realise that what is really missing is a sense of community. Intolerance and injustice are complicated issues and I don’t want to trivialise them, but I’ve got a suspicion that the root of a lot of these issues in the world is because of the breakdown in our communities, and the fact that we are simply not prepared to get to know people any more. We make snap judgements about both individuals and groups based on media portrayed stereotypes and we’re all guilty of it. If we were more prepared to take time to get to know people many of these prejudices would disappear and maybe the world would be a better place.

In a comment on another post Martin says:

Perhaps the hope for our community is the church after all.

Let’s face it, everything else seems to be failing! If we want to see real change we’ve got to get outside our buildings and out into the communities in which we live. This is the place Jesus called us to follow Him into! Only then will we see the regeneration and transformation of society that only the Creator God we follow can achieve.

The joy of chatting

Published
by
Graeme
on November 10, 2006
in old uksalvationist posts
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Well I’ve been in England for a little under 48 hours and I can’t believe how easy it was to switch into English mode. Normally, there is a certain element of re-entry stress with some of the simplest things causing unproportionally high levels of discomfort.

Something that I have really enjoyed has been the possibility to simply chat with complete strangers. This has happened three times already! The first was one of those random conversations you have with complete strangers on trains. I had to get from London to Lincoln and struck up a conversation with a guy on the train. For the first time in ages I got a real chance to witness to someone without having to worry about language. It was so easy to move from the question of what I am doing in Latvia onto matters of faith and although I’ll never know what happens with the guy I was chatting with, I know I was faithful in what I said!

The second chat was over lunch with my sister, her fiance and her work colleagues. It was just like the days when I went to the pub with my own friends from work and it was wonderful to be in a situation that meant I could talk a bit about my adopted country of Latvia and Patverums.

Finally, the conversation that had the most effect on me personally was in the Christian Bookshop here in Lincoln. I went in looking for a particular book and then simply got chatting with the owner of the shop for about 30 minutes or so. We shared our thoughts about some of the books we are reading and he recommended a couple of books (one of which is now on order) and I recommended the book I am still reading, The Irresistible Revolution. It was wonderful to meet a fellow Christian who I don’t actually work with, who is also seeking a deeper and better way of following Jesus.

England has changed a lot over the last 5 years in ways that I can’t begin to fully understand, but the experience of these last two days have given me a new found confidence about returning next year.

Individualism

Published
by
Graeme
on November 9, 2006
in old uksalvationist posts
. 2 Comments

In the books I’ve been reading lately, as well as in a couple of articles I’ve been forwarded, there has been quite a bit of mention of the individualistic nature of modern Christianity. It’s something that I’ve been thinking about quite a bit as well.

During most of the second half of the 20th Century, and on into the 21st, the evangelical arm of the Church has taught us to put a emphasis on our “personal relationship with Jesus Christ”. Through this we have concentrated on personal worship, personal holiness, personal sin, personal this and that, and have often neglected the communal aspects of the Christian life.

Perhaps one reason the much of the Church has lost its power is because many churches are not longer about God, but about our individual selves.
Thoughts on Individualism - Relevant Magazine

Like it or not, I think the writer of the above article has hit the nail on the head. Much of the Church has lost its power and of course this is a complex issue. Now I for one don’t want to see a return to the Christendom days of the Church as I believe that it has a much more important role to play today than the sort of controlling social influence it was for the majority of its history.

The sort of power it has lost is one that makes people sit up and take notice of it. The cult of individualism within our churches is a significant cause of this. We see individual leaders either raise them selves up as examples, or be put there by others. When they fall the faith of thousands is rocked! The media love this as it shows that all Christians are hypocrites who are not to be taken seriously.

I long for a day when it becomes impossible for one Christian to be held up as an example for all, because its impossible to single out an individual for such high praise. The only individual we should care about is Jesus! Yes it’s important to maintain our individual faith in Christ and grow to be more and more like Him. But just as important is the community aspect of the Gospel. We are not called to be individuals but to be a community.

I cannot be the Church on my own! It’s simply not possible. I think that’s one reason that Jesus said that wherever two or three gather in His name He’ll be there. It’s not that He isn’t with us as individuals but the real work gets done in community.