I was chatting to my daughter this morning and was struck once again at how easy it is for her to talk about God to those around her. I had overheard her the day before walking to school, excited that she had found out another friend goes to church every Sunday. ‘Wow we are both Christians!’ she exclaimed, beaming. She then said that her other best friends didn’t know about God and didn’t go to church – so she had to teach them. I wonder whether it is simply the freedom of childhood, or whether she is an evangelist in the making! It is so overwhelming at times to stop and actually take a step back and look at my kids. Life is usually far too busy and I am often too harassed to be as grateful as I should be, but there is so, so much potential hidden in their little bodies and only God knows where they will end up. It is so important to pray for them and to help develop their giftings. I just hope I am not too caught up in myself and the jobs I have to do to give them everything they need to fulfil the potential placed inside of them. They are an amazing gift and I need to remind myself of that every day. This term has so far been a difficult, emotional one as they have both had to try to find their way in changing friendship groups. It’s been hard, frustrating, tiring and emotional for me (as a lot of it reminds me so much of my own childhood!) but I am so glad it is me that gets to walk this journey with them. What a blessing – help me Lord to be strong but also gentle. I want to be the one they keep talking to as they grow older.
Tag: biblical values
Is my life about promoting God…or myself?
I have steered clear about directly commenting here on the raging debate that occurred as a result of Driscoll’s interview in Christianity. I have written a few comments on other people’s blog responses, however, and it is the whole idea of celebrity Christianity that has stuck with me, and many others too. As a newbie writer I am held in that tension of wanting/needing to promote myself but it is far too easy to get caught up in the whole process of trying to get yourself known. As a Christian isn’t that beside the point? It’s all about dying to self and revealing the wisdom and glory of God through the way we live. I know when you make your living from an industry that hardly ever takes notice of unknowns there is an inevitability about trying to promote yourself to a certain degree. But the celebrity culture we have in western Christianity today is quite strange and there is something in the recent debate that we should probably be very grateful for – it has made a lot of us uncomfortable and made us turn to look at our motives once again.
Here’s what I wrote in response to one helpful blogger (and then thought it could quite easily be a posting on my own blog…so here it is! 🙂 ):
As a new-ish writer I’m always so excited about new contacts I meet, but also get really frustrated when I see what a small world the Christian media world can be – and because I’m not that known I can be overlooked. I was having a little moan to God about this one day when I was suddenly stopped in my tracks – I read something a well-known worship leader wrote a few years ago but it was as if God himself was talking to me, reminding me that I’m called to be faithful where I’m at. Chasing after status can so easily distract you from the needs that are right in front of you. As a busy mum, church/worship leader, school governor etc I come across needs all the time. Am I doing all I can to serve those right in front of me or have I started to get impatient when someone starts taking up too much of ‘my’ time? Time I could be spending researching and writing? And why do I get disappointed when I read someone with a ‘name’ writing on a subject I know I could write on easily – or have pitched similarly in the past but was turned down? I have to remind myself to be grateful for every single opening God does provide for me, and juggle that with my other responsibilities closer to home. And yes, when you do have a platform of any sort at all there comes an added responsiblity. I have been writing about family issues, marriage and worship leading in the last week. But if I take a look at my own marriage, family, worship of God and discipleship of the worship team I am responsible for do those hold up to the same scrutiny I’m asking other people to do in my writing? The last thing I want to be is a hypocrite – and yet I think there are times that I am.
I think perhaps the thing we all need to bear in mind is that our lives, and our works, will be refined through the fire – and those things that were not of lasting, eternal worth will be burned up. Are we seeking after and promoting those things that will stand up to that test? God says that when we feed or clothe one of the least of them we are feeding or clothing Him – is that something we always remember or are we eager to get through that aspect of our ‘ministry’ so that we can turn our attention back to something that we feel will benefit us, or our careers? It is horrible to write that down in black and white and then read it back – and I’m sure that is not how any of us set out. But, honestly, when I’m tired and juggling too many things my patience and humility is in short supply and I guess there is a small element of that in the way I perceive things. If this whole Driscoll episode causes some of us to re-evaluate and re-prioritise then some good will have come as a result. Whether we agreed with him or not, were offended or not, isn’t the point. Can we look at our lives and be happy with the way they are going in terms of promoting God and His kingdom, rather than our own statuses and agendas?
Socially networking, but how is your connection with God?
As usual, I have had many ideas for blogs running through my head but little time to write them. And my time today has been cut down even more – for lovely reasons though. It was the last day of my children’s holiday before school starts back. We had a friend drop by in the morning and then this afternoon we took a spur of the minute decision and went to the cinema. It’s been a really precious time – but that’s not the point of this blog!
What I want to think about today is whether our technogically based lives these days leave any space to properly connect with God. With phones that gives us instant access to the internet it means that not only can people reach us at any time, anywhere, we can also be constantly connected to twitter, facebook and other networking sites. And, be honest, how hard it is to ignore those status updates that show a new posting has come through?!
I obviously don’t know what your own personal devotional times with God look like, but I’ve been thinking about mine ever since someone I’ve been mentoring emailed to ask how much time she should be spending with God one on one, and how much time do I spend. At first I was rather disgruntled by the questions – after all it isn’t about quantity but about quality right? And each individual needs to work out how they best connect to God and when. But then I was ashamed. Ashamed and not wanting to answer her question. Because recently I’ve got busier and busier with work and I had to acknowledge the fact that making time for God has got harder. It has been significantly harder since having kids but the last quarter of this year I can look back and see I didn’t do much quiet dwelling in God’s presence. There was always a bit of work to do, the kids to sort, someone who needed my help at church – oh and a few hundred tweets to wade through. And I would say I’m worse off now.
Don’t get me wrong – I think the things we can achieve via the internet, and the connections we can make with other individuals (and for me the work contacts I’ve made) are fantastic. But keeping up with the very small amount of social networking I do has made it even harder for me to connect to God – because it is just one more thing that gets in the way – that I find vies for my attention and often wins over quality time with my maker.
I watched the last episode of Living with the Amish over the holiday period and, again, was challenged on the same point. One family had left the most strict Amish community and was going it alone. This meant they had embraced some technological advances – including the internet. The eldest daughter of the family was interviewed and she said that her brothers now have facebook and twitter. She said she didn’t know what they were (and didn’t want to know) but she was sad for her brothers, because they now wasted so much time that they could be reading God’s word – and she then patted her Bible as if it was her most precious possession. That really resonated with me. Not because I want to give up on the internet, but I do want to make sure my priorities are straight as I start this new year – with all the joys and challenges it will most certainly bring. How about you? Are you connecting with God as well as you are with others on the internet?
A pioneering woman, pt 5: women leaders
Wendy Virgo on women as leaders:
Within evangelical circles Newfrontiers is often labelled as being the movement who won’t let women be leaders. How would you respond to that label?
We have always been very diligent to discern what is a biblical way of conducting life in our churches. It has not always been comfortable, and this particular issue has often been completely misunderstood. The reality is that we probably have more women active in our churches, and also involved in leadership, than in most others. Other churches can have a very limited idea of leadership. They may have one pastor or a small team of deacons or leaders who do everything. From very early on, we discovered that the church is the Body of Christ with every member finding their gift and playing their part. So we encouraged everyone, men and women, to pray, prophesy, lead in singing, read scripture, share a testimony or vision and heal the sick when we came together on a Sunday or midweek.
Women in Newfrontiers churches lead worship, baptise new Christians, hand round communion, pray publicly, prophesy, teach, train counsellors, preach, run Alpha, steward, heal the sick, cast out demons, witness in the streets, administrate conferences…in fact everything men can do, so do they! But because we see in the Bible that overall responsibility both in the church and in the home has been designated by God to men, we do not have women elders.
The Bible shows that men and women are made in the image of God. That means that masculinity and femininity came out from God. Both express something of God, and have equal value. There is also order in the Godhead; the Son eternally submits to the Father, but is of equal worth. So also wives are of equal worth to their husbands, but honour them by godly submission. In turn, husbands are to lay down their lives for their wives, as Christ did for the church.
A pioneering woman, pt 4
The final parts of my interview with Wendy Virgo will come at a faster pace – so I can post them all before I go offline for a week! 🙂
In an age of family breakdown within society do you have any comments on the challenges facing Christian families today, and is there anything that particularly concerns you?
I think life has become much more complex and less predictable now. The challenges today are different: in some ways life is easier, in others, much harder. We have become used to things that used to be luxuries: washing machines, microwaves, televisions, large fridge/freezers. We take good hygiene and sanitation for granted, and health care. But I am sad that many values that once were generally upheld have declined; for example marriage itself is now under attack, and indeed has a very loose definition. A “family” used to mean biological parents (of course, some were adoptive) being responsible to provide a home and nurture their offspring, but now this has become a vague term.
I think parents today have to fight against increasingly hostile attitudes to Christianity, and work hard to teach and train their children – and create and maintain a godly ethos in their homes. I am absolutely amazed at many of the young families that I know who are very committed to this and serious and intentional about raising their children to love God and honour Him with their lives. My own children and their spouses are doing an incredible job, and I really admire them.
Another cause for concern for me is the decline in Bible knowledge, even among Christians. The United Kingdom is now a multi-faith society and it is right for individuals to have some knowledge of other religions as we learn to live side by side; but it is depressing that the average person has a very hazy idea about even the basics of Christianity.
A pioneering woman, pt 3
Here is the third part of my interview with Wendy Virgo.
As you have both grown in your ministry, to the local church and internationally, has your understanding of any issues changed over the years? Have your approaches changed at all?
I think that principles do not change, but the ways they are applied must be flexible. As we have got involved in church planting in other countries we have had to learn a lot about cross-cultural issues; we had to recognise that we are not seeking to import English ways of thinking, but to try to understand what is a biblical way and to establish that. I think this is one of the reasons that wherever I go in the world to visit one of our churches, I feel instantly “at home”. I may be in Mexico, Australia or Zimbabwe, and I may be experiencing different food, climate, dress and customs, but when we gather as the people of God and worship Him, we are together expressing a culture that belongs to the kingdom of God.
We have to be confident that the Gospel is still the power of God for salvation and is relevant to every culture and stratum of society; we have to be persuaded that biblical values hold true and work in every nation. For example, Terry has preached the Gospel of grace all over the world and has often come up against certain practices that are traditional but very legalistic. These have had to be challenged, not because we don’t like them, nor because this is “not Newfrontiers” – not even because “this is old-fashioned and no one does this anymore”. Things have to be evaluated on the grounds of “is this biblical?” For example, in Armenia, it was deemed unspiritual for a man to wear a tie; but in some areas of Africa it was deemed unspiritual if they did not wear a tie! We have to help people to see that the grace of God declares that what you wear is totally irrelevant to your worth or spiritual status! This could, however, be quite hard to establish where there is a hardened tradition. People often flounder on details and have difficulty identifying what is a primary issue that must be attended to, and what is a secondary one and therefore not worth fighting over!