Charting the journey of a Salvation Army Cadet
Tomorrow is moving day! We’re packed, well all except the last few small things that we need in the morning! Sometime early tomorrow afternoon we will arrive in Camberwell at the College and start our new life.
We’re really looking forward to settling in and we’ve got a week to do so before Sian starts school on 8th September!
Have no idea how quickly we’ll be back online, hopefully not too long!
Last Sunday was my last in command of Godalming Corps and we had an amazing evening meeting! As often happens on these sorts of occasions we had a few extra people in the meeting which boosted numbers a little. The meeting itself was good and led by our good friend and sponsoring officer, Adrian Allman. I didn’t even get up to preach until the meeting was an hour old, and it usually only lasts one hour!
People said nice things about our ministry and we received a few presents, all of which was great but it shouldn’t be about us and what we’ve done, but what God has done through us!
So I get up to preach and I’ve known what I should say for weeks now, so I start and soon realise that something is happening. The Spirit is there and is touching people through the words I’m delivering on the Spirit’s behalf. The words are about having a big God! They are about allowing His glory to be seen through our everyday lives! And then the Spirit challenges them and me, and out of my small congregation of 25 people 13 make their way forward to surrender themselves to our awesome God, and the meeting becomes not about Zoe, the girls and me leaving, but about the God who we serve.
The scenes on Sunday night will stay with me a long time and I am glad to have served the Lord in Godalming and will miss this small group of Christians. I know though, that He has greater things in store in the future!
Our God is great!
One of the more controversial Bishops I have ever met was the former Primus of the Scottish Episcopal Church, Richard Holloway. If anyone hasn’t heard of him then let’s simply say that given his very liberal viewpoint it wouldn’t be that common for me to quote him. However, in the latest issue of ThirdWay which dropped through my letterbox this morning there is a transcription of a discussion between the most famous of the so-called ‘Militant Atheists’ Richard Dawkings and Richard Holloway. Whilst I can’t agree with a lot of what is said I had to agree with the former bishop when he said this:
“…Christianity is not a noun, it’s a verb. It’s not a faith that you can hold in any abstract way, it’s a journey, it’s a way of being, a way of travelling.”
Maybe if more church-goers saw Christianity in this way we would be closer to fulfilling God’s plan!
It’s strange to think that I only have two Sundays left in charge of the corps here in Godalming. We have had a challenging year in some ways, what with knowing that the appointment would most likely be for just one year and that we also had to adjust back to living in the UK after 6 years in Latvia. At times things have been difficult, in fact at times they have been quite demoralising, but God has brought me through the experience wiser and stronger in my faith.
This coming Sunday evening will be the highlight of the year for me personally. Why? Well I will be enrolling a soldier! To see the way this mature woman has grown in her faith is such an encouragement and as we shared together last night she said the following,
“The only thing now is that I have to study the Bible more. Not because I’m supposed to but because I want to!”
Says it all really, doesn’t it! I have to admit that I was almost skipping down the road as I walked home beaming with pleasure.
The following is part of my sermon for this morning. The sermon as a whole is based on the story of Peter walking on the water, and why he started to sink.
I believe that Jesus is desperately trying to reach out to many Christians who are floundering in their faith because they have taken their spiritual eyes of him. The tragedy is that many of those he is reaching out to, don’t even realise they have a problem! They are like the church in Ephesus that is spoken to by the angel in Revelation 2
:
I know your deeds, your hard work and your perseverance. I know that you cannot tolerate wicked men, that you have tested those who claim to be apostles but are not, and have found them false. You have persevered and have endured hardships for my name, and have not grown weary. Yet I hold this against you: You have forsaken your first love. Remember the height from which you have fallen! Repent and do the things you did at first.
When we are first saved we are so in love with Jesus that we follow him unreservedly. We would get out of the boat and walk on water for him, but slowly but surely there is the danger that we allow the problems of our lives to divert some of our attention from Jesus. And slowly but surely we lose the gleam of that first love. We stop taking risks for him, whilst at the same time carry on doing the stuff that he has asked us to do. Our willingness to be busy for Jesus takes over from simply being with him, and we become like Martha in Luke 10:38-42 where she is so busy making sure everything is right, that she is in danger of missing out on simply spending time with Jesus.
And of course the real problem with Martha is that she didn’t even realise that what she was doing was wrong. In fact, she wanted her sister to join with her!
In Jesus’ response to this situation there is a sense of a gentle chastisement. “Martha, Martha, you are worried and upset about many things, but only one thing is needed.” I get the image in my mind that Jesus was gently patting the cushions next to him, trying to convey the sense that he simply wanted to spend time with her!
The root of everything that goes wrong in our faith is when we stop focussing on Jesus! When we concentrate on him then we can deal with whatever comes our way and our faith need not suffer. Of course it’s difficult, but its the only way!
This afternoon we did some more of the packing, which means that all but a handful of books are now safely packed away ready for the move. A few had to be left out because I need them for the sermons I’ve got planned for my last two Sundays (17th & 24th August). So for the first time this year I’m virtually bookless! This is not a state that I like to be in as I really do enjoy reading!
On that note, last night around 12:40am I finished reading the latest book, Pete Greig & Dave Roberts Red Moon Rising. Zoe read this before me and really enjoyed it and I finally got round to reading it over the last week or so. It has solidified a few more thoughts in my mind about the need for prayer and in many ways confirms just how poor my own prayer life can be. I’m definitely going to be signing up for regular sessions in the college prayer room (they do have one don’t they?)
It’s also proven to me how easy it is to settle for a mundane type of faith. The only differences between any Christian and the amazing stories in the book is an openness to God’s leading, a willingness to listen and follow, and a belief in a God that is able to do more than all we can ask or imagine.
One of the biggest problems I think we continue to face within the Church is the traditionalism that is so destructive to the Gospel message. I recently read a blog post that touched on the subject from a viewpoint of liturgy and worship, but it made me think about how traditionalism actually acts to hamper mission.
Maggi Dawn, who wrote the piece says this at one point:
At the same time, though, there are aspects of our tradition that are not as traditional as you might suppose. As Anglicans, we are famous for our “Choral Tradition” – something so well established we usually never question it as the backbone of our worship. Yet this form of worship is significantly different now than it was a couple of centuries ago. Much of the music we now consider standard is actually very young. And the use of the organ in Church is a surprisingly modern innovation. At one time parish churches had a musicians’ gallery where strings and wind instruments were played, and singers would lead. When the first pipe organs were installed in Churches there was outrage! Letters were written, and petitions made against this modern innovation that was (so it seemed at the time) incapable of conveying the beauty of worship,. Yet gradually it was recognised that the grandeur of the pipe organ offered a new and apt way of sounding the praises of God.
Of course the argument over styles of worship is one of the favourite battles of the traditionalist elements within the church. We have them in The Salvation Army, and the Anglicans have them. In fact I remember a situation from my time working for the Anglican Communion when a colleague was lambasting ‘happy-clappy’ worship yet when their style of worship was described as ‘bells and smells’ they were horrified by such a disgraceful attack on the way God had spoken to them on numerous occasions!
Traditionalism tends to want to keep the status quo. It seems that its scared of anything new; anything that could alter that status quo! The saddest thing is that they put so much energy into defending their position and end polarising the views into either ‘you’re with us or you’re against us’ type attitudes. This always hampers what is really important and that’s growing as disciples and reaching out to make new ones!
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