Monthly Archive for February, 2008Page 2 of 3

What a difference a year makes

Published
by
Graeme
on February 17, 2008
in My Pilgrimage
. 0 Comments

This week is half-term here in Surrey and Zoe and the girls have just left to travel down to my in-laws in Taunton. I’ve got a little bit of spare time before I head off to the evening meeting so I was just having a look back through my old entries on the blog. It suddenly dawned on me that this weekend last year I was at Sunbury Court for my Assessment Conference. Those of you who have followed this blog for awhile, or who know me, know that the results of the weekend didn’t quite work out as planned.

Yet as I look back over the last year I can see that God really was in control of these events. As the weekend started last year I was challenged deeply through Phil Laeger’s arrangement of “I’m in His hands” which so simply reminds us that whilst we may not know what is going to happen, God holds us in His hands and knows what is in store for us. So after getting over the initial shock of being turned down, I resolved there and then to ‘jump through’ whatever ‘hoops’ The Salvation Army put in my way, because I was confident of what it is that God wants me to do with my life.

There were some difficult steps along the way but God has been there all the way through with the family and I. But what a difference a year makes. Looking at my own life, I am a far more rounded person and have learnt a great deal about who I am in Christ. My faith has been stretched like never before. My ministry is, though difficult at times, starting to make some steps forward, and of course my beautiful wife will now be my ‘official’ partner in ministry after we’ve been training together.

After the despair of 12 months ago the future is bright. Yet still I know that everything is in God’s hands!

Profound effects

Published
by
Graeme
on February 16, 2008
in My Pilgrimage and discipleship
. 2 Comments

Over the last month my life has been touched by a young man I’ve never met and who died two months ago, and today his life has been a real challenge to me.

A month ago I received an e-mail that was requesting a Salvation Army band to take part in a Memorial Service for a young man who had died in December aged just 30. Along with his family, he had been involved in The Salvation Army as a child and his mother has maintained a link with the officers who were commanding the corps at the time. Due to this link they wanted us to supply a band for the occasion, something we were more than happy to do. So along with members of the bands from my corps plus 2 others we went along to the service and played for the 4 hymns.

The preparation for this has involved a little of my time and I’ve been interested to get to know something about this man as I’ve been preparing. Today, I was able to sit in the church and listen to some of the tributes that were given in his honour. During one tribute his brother said something along these lines:

My brother seemed to have a profound effect on everyone who met him.

I couldn’t help but think about my own life. What sort of effect do I have as a follower of Jesus on those I meet?

Consumerism and discipleship

Published
by
Graeme
on February 13, 2008
in Community, My Pilgrimage and discipleship
. 0 Comments

As I was catching up with some online reading the following caught my imagination.

We live in a culture that has the name of Christ on its lips but that does not know what it means to live a life of radical discipleship - people are unaware that the virtues of consumerism and the virtues of faith in Christ are quite opposed to one another.
read more here

Although I couldn’t put it quite as eloquently as this, its something I’ve felt for a long time now. I know I’m a victim of this in my own way as I love gadgets, and recently succumbed to the temptation to buy an iPod Touch. I didn’t really need it, but even so I did!

Consumerism and materialism are all pervasive these days. It is almost impossible to read a paper or watch the TV without having the senses assaulted by advert after advert, usually offering things we don’t really need for amounts we can’t really afford. They are fuelling the incredible amount of debt that is being racked up day after day, and which causes so much concern to so many people.

This is having a knock on effect within Christianity as well. Many of the people I meet within the local area are not attending their own local church. They are commuting to the church that best suits their personal needs and freely confess that they’ve moved church numerous times to fit the needs they have at the moment. I’ve been part of that process myself in the past, passing numerous corps to get to the one that I was going to enjoy most, rather than attending the one that was nearest to where I was living.

Without a doubt this is an extremely consumerist and individualistic approach to our church-going. What is wrong with going to the church nearest to our place of living? How are we going to reach out to the communities which our churches are placed in if Christians who live within those communities travel away from them to the more popular or, dare I say it, trendy churches?

2 years on!

Published
by
Graeme
on February 11, 2008
in Blog stuff
. 0 Comments

As well as being 6 months since we got back to the UK I’ve just realised that last Saturday saw the second anniversary of me launching my first personal blog. As is made clear by the last post this year has been a year of change, including a change of name for the blog.

All this change has meant a reduction in the number of posts I’ve written, but I still enjoy recording my thoughts down in this medium. Its also been nice to interact occasionally with people of the back of my thoughts, so thank you those who have commented in the past and feel free to do so again in the future!

6 months on

Published
by
Graeme
on February 11, 2008
in My Pilgrimage
. 0 Comments

We’ve now been back from Latvia for 6 months and over on her blog Zoe wrote an entry that summed up the things she missed about Latvia and those things she enjoys about being back in the UK. It does seem amazing that we’ve been back this long already as sometimes it only seems like yesterday since I spent almost all my time in Bruninieku iela 10a, which was where we lived, worked and worshipped for almost 6 years.

So where am I today? Well it’s been an interesting few months and I’ve discovered a great deal about myself and about the God who I serve. I’m more certain of my calling now than when we left Latvia and the Lord is continuing to reveal more about what He wants me to do for him. I’m also far more aware of my own failings and the things I need to rely on God for. His Spirit is guiding me and strengthening me and I honestly can’t wait for the opportunities that I’m going to have over the coming months.

That’s me! I’m not one for lists so I won’t even begin to make a list of things I miss about Latvia. I would say though that I miss the friendships that we formed over the years there. It can be a lonely life as a Corps Officer, especially in a traditional corps like the one I am in and there is an expectation that the officer stays at arms length relationship wise. I can’t quite get that one, but it has made me realise how good the friendships were! As for what I am enjoying about being back in the UK, well its as simple as being able to communicate freely with people, both about their lives and about spiritual things. I look forward to many more conversations of these sort over the coming years.

Questions

Published
by
Graeme
on February 7, 2008
in Mission and Reading
. 0 Comments

I’ve now finished reading Disciples and Citizens, but it ends up putting many questions in my mind. Here are some of the questions I’m asking off the back of the final two chapters.

How can we allow the Spirit to work through us as individuals and church communities to herald God’s future and create hope that His future is possible?

Is it possible that the demise in church attendance is because the ‘future-made-present’ isn’t manifest within our communities and consequently the future doesn’t look attractive, even to people of faith?

If our evangelistic efforts concentrating on trying to scare people into heaven by the use of a ‘negative’ future and fail to show them a tangible example of God’s future in the present, are we being faithful to the Gospel?

The book is great and I would recommend it to anyone, especially if you’re in the UK. However, it doesn’t give a set of easy answers as to how to be a disciple in the 21st Century, it simply sets out why real discipleship is so essential for the future. We need a discipleship that is grounded in heaven but expressed in the world. Discipleship that isn’t corrupted by the world, but instead transforms it into localised expressions of the kingdom of heaven.

Shrove Monday

Published
by
Graeme
on February 4, 2008
in Mission
. 0 Comments

One of the problems we’ve been facing here is the fact that most of the people who come through our doors on a weekly basis are either members of the corps, or have been coming for the best part of 20 years. This means that there is a certain flow to every week that sees little deviation.

So Zoe & I decided that we would hold a special evening at the corps. Seeing as this week is the start of Lent, and that our Tuesday programme is already busy, we instead set up a Pancake Day evening tonight. Zoe, along with the husband of one of our adherents, spent two hours in the kitchen cooking many pancakes!

The wonderful news is that 30 people came, of which only half attend on a Sunday! Several others come to various of our weekday programmes, but 7 (plus 2 babies) came who have only been in the building one or less! This included the two couples who we are getting to know fairly well in our street.

Whilst there was nothing overtly evangelistic about the venture this evening it was great to be able to build upon the relationships that have been made over the years. It was great to see people chatting to each other and for myself I enjoyed the chance of spending some time with my neighbours and getting to know them a little bit more!

More than anything it was nice to open the doors to a group of people so that they experience something of the community that is possible within church.