Pilgrim Soldier

As always these days it’s been awhile since I last posted anything. It seems to be more a case of trying to keep the blog alive at the moment as life has been so busy because of training! Anyway, just a thought that came from the last book that I was reading, Pete Grieg’s A Vision and a Vow.

In his book Grieg writes:

Lately I’ve been longing more than anything else to belong to a community that is purely and simply deeply kind.

Kindness seems to be an underrated commodity, even in the church, and to be honest I’ve been unkind a lot in my own life and have suffered been on the receiving end of a great deal of unkindness within some of the congregations I’ve been a part of. So the idea of a church community that places a high value on kindness is appealing to say the least!

Imagine for a moment belonging to a place/community where everyone is kind to each other, not just those who they have things in common with but those they don’t. That’s what we should be aiming for if we believe in the fruit of the Spirit. Love, joy, peace, kindness…! What’s more in that sort of community the aim would be to constantly strive for more of the same, not out of a spiritual one-up-manship but out of a genuine love for each other!

Grieg goes on to say that in the context of our striving to be more evangelistic:

Ironically, it may well be when we stop “doing” evangelism and start loving our neighbours for their company rather than their scalps, that the Church will grow in breadth and depth.

I wouldn’t invite people to a church where people are unkind to each other but I would certainly invite people to a place where kindness is part of the make-up!

It’s been over 2 months since I last wrote and it seems that this college lark is curtailing the time I get to spend on blogging and even commenting!

One of the things that I love about the Army is the diversity that there is here in the UK. So far we’ve been involved in 3 different corps since arriving in London, all of which are very different.

Deptford, where we soldier at when we’re not on placements, is small and unique and we simply love being there as its a real home for us and the girls!

Chalk Farm, where we’ve now led 5 meetings since January, is a wonderful corps with a traditional style of worship and is full of lovely caring Christian people who clearly have a genuine love for each other and those cooming into the building.

Forestdale, where we spent a week on placement last month has a more contemporary feel and a sense of vibrancy about the worship, but faces very real challenges in reaching out to the community around it!

Whilst I miss being involved in one fellowship all the time, I love the experience of seeing what else is out there and spending time worshipping with some real Godly people.

The next few weeks hold more of these experiences as we are spending Easter at Poplar corps in the East End of London and then will spend the summer at Thornton Heath in South London.

In his book ‘Life Together’ Deitrich Bonhoeffer writes about the real privilege it is to be part of a worshipping community of God’s people. I hope that the experiences I’m having here at college will help me to never lose sight of that, even when things might not be going so well!

It was another of what are known in WBC (William Booth College) language as ‘Corps Sundays’ today. A Corps Sunday is a Sunday (remarkably enough) when you go along to the corps that you have chosen to attend during the time you are in college. For Zoe, the girls and I we’ve joined up with Deptford Corps, which is only just about a mile from where Zoe & I used to live before going to Latvia.

Now Abigail is not in the happiest of moods at the moment; a combination of being ill and 19 months old, meaning that she is not really happy to sit around and wants to be up and about all the time. Because of this I was sat at the back of the hall with her, slightly away from the meeting. I suddenly realised as I looked around that I was no longer seeing the corps as a place to go and be involved with for the next 18 months. Instead I’ve begun to see it as my corps, the place that I go be part of the community.

As I chatted to the guys after the meeting, talking about the Mens’ group we’re doing on Friday, I realised that I was valuing their friendship as well as the fact that the group fulfils some of the college curriculum requirements. So Deptford is my corps now and I love being part of that community!

The last week has been spent on our Social Placement at Faith House. It has been a great week and has left me with a lot to think about over the coming days. The challenge for the future is particularly strong and trying to put it fully into perspective is not going to be that easy.

Having said that it has certainly brought a few things to mind as I wrote my reflections in my journal. One of the main things is how poorly we tend to reflect Jesus’ way of doing things. I suppose I’ve always felt that many churches did not embrace those on the margins of our society, but having been immersed in just a fraction of their lives this last week that sense is really strong at the moment. How many churches do you know that would unhesitatingly embrace a drug-addicted prostitute into their fellowship? What about the dishevelled homeless guy?

Mahatma Gandhi is reputed to have said, “The best test of a civilised society is the way in which in treats its most vulnerable and weakest members.” For some reason I’ve never really thought too hard about those words; I’ve simply accepted them as being valid. This week though I’ve been forced into reconsidering their focus. Maybe it’s me but too often I think we see the society of which he was talking as being the society of our country, headed by the government. But I think the real society that we need to consider is much more basic than that. It’s about us and our place in society. So the phrase could be seen as being, “The way we, as the individuals who make up our society, treat the most vulnerable and weakest members of that society is the best test of our society.”

So how do we treat people? Do we go out of our way to include everyone in our corps, or do we still enjoy our little cliques that prevent the weak and vulnerable from being part of it? I’m ashamed to say that I haven’t gone out of my way that often, but this week has challenged me to think differently.

In my post about ‘the uprising’ I included the quote:

“unless the Bride of Christ is holy, no one else in the world will meet the Lord. Without our holiness, they won’t see the Lord.”

I’ve found myself coming back to that quote a few times because I found I needed to give the thought more consideration.

The first thought I found myself having was about the make-up of the Bride of Christ. My understanding is that it is actually the Church universal, rather than the individuals that make up the Church.

However, this was followed quickly by the reality that unless the individuals are holy, then surely the Church universal can’t be! At the very least there would be implications for the local expression of the Church should the members of the congregation not be pursuing holiness. This for me is where the crunch comes!

I believe passionately that the only way to reach the lost and to fulfil the Church’s mission in the world is at the local level. And by local I don’t mean at the level of the town, but at the level of the street!

In a paper to the Incarnate conference earlier this year Geoff Ryan said that he believes:

that God cannot – or will not – present himself in a neighbourhood or a community or amongst a people, unless his people, The Church, are themselves physically present and sharing life with the community.”

This is a difficult statement and whilst on one level I agree, I disagree on another level. However, if we accept that at some level this is correct it makes sense of Olivia Munn’s quote from the book. If the Church is not fulfilling its divine appointment and mission within a particular location then how will God be seen in that place? The only way for the Church to fulfil its mission is through the actions of its individual members working both individually and co-operatively. Therefore if the people of God, both as individuals and as a community of believers are not holy then how can the light of God reach the communities they live and serve in?

When thought of like this it makes absolute sense that our individual and corporate holiness is the key to fulfilling the mission!

While we were on holiday I was reading a daily reading book by Jeff Lucas which focussed on the life of King David. It is really interesting with a number of new insights into the man that David was and his life, plus it of course gave me food for thought in my own life.

One of the points that Jeff Lucas raised was that while David was on the run from Saul he called upon God for help and protection, but then he says that:

“he needed more than God to get him through these harrowing days. His emerging friendship with Jonathan…was such a tangible source of strength to him.”

This got me thinking about someone I am in regular contact since coming back to the UK. I speak to him most weeks and he very clearly has a strong faith. However, he has chosen to act out his faith outside of the Christian community. This is not because of a calling to do so but simply because he cannot find a congregation that fits in with his rather rigid view of his faith. On those occasions we touch on this area of his faith it is very clear that he expects everyone else to change their opinion to reflect his thoughts to the extent that he forces his opinion on those who come into contact with him.

This really is a great shame, because he undoubtedly has gifts that would be very valuable to a local congregation and would certainly gain from others. Instead though his thoughts are becoming more and more entrenched.

Just as David needed his very human relationship with Jonathan in order to cope with the problems that he faced in life, so we as Christians need relationships with other believers. We are made for community and its why human relationships are not only the source of such devotion and intimacy, but also why the enemy puts so much effort into trying to destroy them.

Consequently, unless called to a life of solitude by the Holy Spirit we should seek out communities of believers that we can be part of. However, it shouldn’t be on our terms but for the betterment of the community so that the kingdom of heaven is extended.

Over the weekend I managed to finish Provocative Church and can honestly say that I have enjoyed it immensely. Not only have I enjoyed it, but it has also given me a real challenge in how to respond, especially in regard to leading my current congregation forward into mission and evangelism.

What’s particularly good is that this book emphasises the need for holy living, both as individuals and as congregations. In this respect Graham Tomlin recognises the need for the church to put the emphasis on discipleship, something that is to me fundamental if we want to see both change socially and within the church. This emphasis on the local congregation becomes even more obvious when the following is taken into account.

God wants to show off his wisdom and craft to the rest of the cosmos. God the divine artist wants to hold an exhibition of such beauty and power and wisdom that anyone who looks on, whether they come from earth or heaven, will be overcome with wonder and awe. It is to be a display of his ‘manifold’ wisdom.

Yesterday, Zoe & I took part in our very first Rogation Sunday procession. This is a traditional part of the church year which is still carried out in many parishes, around the UK at least. We went to support the band who have been processing with the congregation of a tiny Surrey village, called Peper Harow, for the last 40 years. The idea of Rogation processions is that they go round the village and ask for God’s blessing upon it, particularly through the blessing of the land and crops.

What strikes me is that yesterday the procession wasn’t going around the village praying simply that Christians would be blessed, but that the whole community would be regardless of their faith or beliefs. The only agenda was that the earth would blessed and that through this God would be glorified. Surely through this blessing asked for by the church on behalf of its community, the people who were looking on, slightly bemused in many cases, were given the opportunity to see God’s people in Peper Harow reflecting the glory of God. Many in today’s church would probably write off the ritual and ceremony as archaic and irrelevant to our post-modern world, but just for a moment yesterday we were part of God’s manifold wisdom for that small corner of His creation.