Just reading the 4 page pull out in todays Manchester Evening News about the Urban Heroes awards ceremony we attended to celebrate the great work of the Message Trust got me feeling great about the city and hopeful for a fantastic future for people like Steph the overall winner and many more.

So here’s a quiz.

How many of these statements are true about the city I love to live in?

Vegetarianism was founded in Manchester

Suffragettes were founded in Manchester

The TUC was started in Manchester

The First Law of Thermodynamics was discovered in Manchester

The world’s first Industrial Estate was built in Manchester

The first computer was built in Manchester

The first canal was made in Manchester

The first Railway was in Manchester

Rolls Royce started in Manchester

The first submarine was made in Manchester

The first British aeroplane was designed and flown in Manchester

The first Transatlantic flight was from Manchester, by Mancunians

The first permanent professional orchestra was in Manchester

Top of the Pops started in Manchester

Roget’s Thesaurus started in Manchester (bonus point – what’s another word for Thesaurus?)

The first football league was set up in Manchester

The first gas supply was in Manchester

The first municipal parks were in Manchester

The first reservoirs were in Manchester

The first free public library was in Manchester

The first British matador was from Manchester (what a lot of bull!)

The first UFO landing pad is in Manchester

Answer? All of them (and many more) are true.

Innovation is in the water!

She’s the next in our line of heroes/ heroines. I’d appreciate quick, short thoughts and comments as I pray and get ready to preach about her on Sunday.

Joshua 2. What’s so honourable about a prostitute telling lies to betray her own people and save her skin? Why does she make the Hall of faith Hebrews 11 list – and even became an ancestor of the Lord?

Guess who the most consistent golfer is? That’s right – the Tiger. Take a look at the perfect swing right here -

Consistency counts – but how do we achieve it?

On day 2 of the Daniel fast and a couple of people have been in touch to ask whether chocolate counts as a vegetable. Someone suggested a chocolate orange was okay! I have managed to lay off tea and just go with hot water instead – and I love my tea! But it feels great to say no to something good, to say yes to Someone better.

I noted yesterday how from being a young lad, Daniel had a great love for God, and as long as he stayed intimately close to God, Daniel was given the wisdom he needed to be  consistently wise. And it all comes down to our practices in the end. Your practices will make you, or break you.

Tiger Woods started when he was 18 months old and uses what he calls the “over-kill method” when practicing. And it’s not just any practice. He repeats perfect swings until he burns them into his mind and body. Then, even under the most intense tournament pressure, those swings hold up. That’s how consistency is built, one practice at a time. The secret of success is in your PRACTICES. What you do in practice, you’ll do under pressure. And I’m not just talking about sport am I?

We’ll look at some of the key practices Daniel kept up, that helped him be consistently wise.

1) Go for God.

Daniel didn’t always have it easy. But whatever he faced, Daniel always kept in mind the size of his God, not the size of the problem. At one point he stood before the emperor – the most powerful man in the world at the time – but because he was used to being in the presence of God, he wasn’t freaked about that. He said to the King, “My God holds your breath in his hands, and owns all your ways…”

His friends were just the same. When the king wanted to make them bow down like everyone else in Chapter 3 they looked at the massive gold statue he’d made, and said, “Sorry your majesty, but our God’s a lot bigger than that.”

The Bible (Ps 110) says, “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.” That doesn’t mean we have to be scared of God, if we know Him as Father. It means we have to have a right perspective. That God’s always Sovereign, in charge, all powerful, holy and good – he’s God – and we’re not.

I love Daniel 10. The young boy has become the old man by now, he has been praying and fasting – that’s his practice - and he’s seen visions of angels, but it’s like that’s not enough for him. Daniel starts off praying for understanding – he wants to understand the visions – not just have them, and he always wants to see and connect with God. it’s not clear whether he gets angels here or possibly a touch from the Lord of hosts…

one having the likeness of a man touched me and strengthened me. And he said, “O man greatly beloved, fear not! Peace be to you; be strong, yes, be strong!”

When you pray, when you worship – do you go for GOD?! Surely we want to encounter GOD!? We don’t just want answers – we want the One who is the Answer. We want His face not just his hand. We don’t just pray to meditate and think things through ourselves . Of course we want understanding and revelation and strength and wisdom and answered prayer– but not for their own sake!

We want GOD! Daniel CONNECTED to GOD! God who is the source of revelation about what had happened to him, and what was happening to him, and what would happen.

Don’t just pray through a list – even a good and worthy list – go for God’s face!

Whatever you’re going through – practice this – keep the size and the love and the POWER of God in mind. Whoever rules the nations’ governments, in Babylon or Britain – God’s on his throne! And if he appeared here so we got just a GLIMPSE of his majesty and awesome glory, we’d be trembling too! But then he’d touch you, and tell you – “You are deeply loved!”

We’re going through a series on Bible heroes at the moment on Sundays. Yesterday’s focus was on Daniel. If we were going to look for longevity in consistent wisdom in the Bible, I’d probably want to make a case for Daniel. Lots of other guys started out well and finished badly. Or they had a very chequered past and came through at the end. But Daniel had the kind of testimony sometimes people underplay – they feel they have to leave the church maybe and get into drugs or something so they come back having made good, then they’ll really have a testimony. I often counsel teens in church – YOU DON’T HAVE TO DO THAT! You can have a story that says, “God has been faithful to me all my life, and he’s helped me live faithfully too.” That is a powerful story!

He was just a human being like us, but Daniel’s exemplary character leave him as one of very few people in the Bible who gets 5 stars all the way through his life, one of a very small number we read nothing negative about.  Over more than 70 years he lived the life God wanted him to and he left a legacy stretching over the reign of 3 kings in two of the greatest empires of ancient history. What was it that made him wise? Consistently wise? So he stands above the rest?

When the Babylonians invaded and took over Israel, Daniel was one of just a few young guys carried off back to Babylon to go through a kind of brainwashing (like The Manchurian Candidate if you ever saw the film?), taken to a foreign country to become part of that new culture, then when other Jews were brought in successive waves over the years the job of Daniel and co would be to help them become not good Jews, but good Babylonian citizens.

Download the talk from our church website if it helps, but one of the key points I highlighted as we read Daniel’s story was that Daniel and his friends – even though they were young, had a great love for God, lived out their faith publicly, and as long as he stayed intimately close to God, Daniel was blessed with skills and favour and courage and wisdom. The culture changed their names – replaced their Hebrew names and gave them all names that reflected Babylonian gods: Daniel became Belteshazzar, and his friends Hananiah, Mishael and Azariah became – Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego.

We know how Daniel ended up – prime minister, prophet, powerful and influential beyond belief. But remember how Daniel got started. A captive. A stranger in a foreign land. Powerless. His homeland was in ruins, he’d have to spend the whole of his life in exile from it. The king says, “You have to have your name changed, speak our language, learn our ways. Eat what we tell you. Forget what your god told you to do. Drink what we tell you. Forget what your God said to do… How do you handle that?

There were some things in the culture they ended up going along with – but other things they wouldn’t stand for (or bow down to!). They didn’t just assimilate. They could have given way to self pity having lost everything – parents, homeland, heritage, but when they met together, this little group, they’d tell each other – ‘Don’t forget who you really are! Don’t forget who the real God is! They can change our names – but they’ll never change our hearts.’

It all started with a decision Daniel made. When the prevailing culture tried to fill his plate, he resolved to do without – in order to do what God wanted him to do.

Daniel resolved not to defile himself with the royal food and wine, and he asked the chief official for permission not to defile himself this way… “Please test your servants for ten days: Give us nothing but vegetables to eat and water to drink. Then compare our appearance with that of the young men who eat the royal food, and treat your servants in accordance with what you see.”

At the end of the ten days they looked healthier and better nourished than any of the young men who ate the royal food. To these four young men God gave knowledge and understanding of all kinds of literature and learning. And Daniel could understand visions and dreams of all kinds.

At the end of the time set by the king to bring them in, the chief official presented them to Nebuchadnezzar. The king talked with them, and he found none equal to Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael and Azariah; so they entered the king’s service.

The King James version says they looked ‘fatter’ than the rest – but I didn’t play that one up too much! I’m thrilled that many people stood to say they’ll join us in this ten day fast too, really going for God, going public with our faith, going together with others and going against the flow of our culture – praying each day for our city while fasting from rich food – eating fruit, vegetables and water. Today is day one!

Daniel’s wisdom in the big, public arena, came from the small, disciplined, victories won in private. Jesus said he expected his disciples to fast (he said, ‘When- not ‘if’ you fast.) Fasting is a private discipline that if you practice it you’ll win public victories. What’s your experience of fasting been? Daniel fasting is a great way to start.

Our vision as a church is to be

KNOWING (knowing God and worshipping Him)

GROWING (in loving relational community with each other) and

GOING to the world with the message and love of Jesus.

It’s a hybrid of Mike Breen’s teaching on the TRIANGLE (Grow up, in and out – see my old post on this) and Thom Rainer’s Simple Church.

Last week I met Mike Breen and some other great guys in a learning community I’ve joined in the Lake District with the ECPN looking at church planting. These people force you to think, to pray, to plan, to commit stuff to paper – dynamite and a headache! It was great to spend time with Andy and Alan from our staff team and talk these kind of things through.

What I came back with was the challenge to our church to see 1000 new people come to Christ in the next two years. Sounds like quite a tall order, but 3000 were added at Pentecost in a day and here in Manchester really it just needs everyone we presently have coming to be praying, witnessing and inviting more!

I have personally made a public commitment to tell someone about Jesus and invite someone to church every day, and since then it’s gone really well – some great conversations and even some people saying they’ll check us out.

This really requires us working through the logic of our vision, to be asking our people, “Well if we’re supposed to be Going, WHERE are you going?” What is the mission field the Lord of the harvest is calling you to?  My role in that? Well I’m here to encourage, inspire and train people to be missionaries, to Manchester.Jesus said, “Come to me” and he also said, “Go into all the world and make disciples.”

Have you come to Him yet? Don’t put it off another day. And then get going!

and ever since I first read it, I knew – it’s a Pioneer’s life for me!

“According to Wes Seeliger in his book Western Theology, there are two kinds of people, two visions of life. The first sees life as a possession to be carefully guarded. They are called Settlers. The second sees life as a wild, fantastic gift. They are called Pioneers.

These two types give rise to two kinds of theology: Settler Theology and Pioneer Theology. Settler Theology is an attempt to answer all the questions, define and housebreak some sort of Supreme Being, establish the status quo on golden tablets in cinemascope. Pioneer Theology is an attempt to talk about what it means to receive the strange gift of life. The Wild, Wild West is the setting for both theologies.

In Settler Theology, the Church convenes at the Courthouse. It is the center of town life. The old stone structure dominates the town square. Its windows are small, and this makes things dark inside. Within the courthouse walls, records are kept, taxes collected, and trials are held for the bad guys. The courthouse is the symbol of law, order, stability, and most importantly, security.

In Pioneer Theology, the Church moves in a Covered Wagon. It’s a house on wheels, always on the move. The Covered Wagon is where the pioneers eat, sleep, fight, love, live and die. It bears the marks of life and movement—it creaks, it’s scarred with arrows and bandaged with bailing wire. The Covered Wagon is where the action is. It moves toward the future, trying not to get bogged down in old ruts. The old Wagon isn’t comfortable, but the pioneers don’t seem to mind. They are more into adventure than comfort.

In Settler Theology, God is the Mayor. He is slick and fancy like a dude from back East. His office is on the top floor of the Courthouse. He looks out over the whole town, as his eagle eye ferrets out the smallest details of town life. No one actually sees him or gets close to him. He keeps his blinds drawn. But since there is order in the town, who can deny that he is really there? The Mayor is predictable and always on schedule. The Settlers fear the Mayor, but look to him to clear the payroll and keep things running. Peace and quiet are the Mayor’s main concerns, so he sends the Sheriff to check out any Pioneers who might ride into town.

In Pioneer Theology, God is the Trail Boss. He is rough and rugged, full of life. He chews tobacco, drinks straight whiskey. The Trail Boss lives, eats, sleeps, and fights with his people. Their well‑being is his concern. Without him, the Wagon wouldn’t move and living free would be impossible. The Trail Boss will get down in the mud with the Pioneers to help push the Wagon, which often gets stuck. He prods the Pioneers when they get soft and want to turn back. His fist is an expression of his concern.

In Settler Theology, Jesus is the Sheriff. He’s the guy who is image sent by the Mayor to enforce the rules. He wears a white hat, drinks milk, outdraws the bad guys. The Sheriff decides who gets thrown in jail. There is a saying in town that goes: those who follow the rules and believe that the Sheriff is sent by the Mayor, they won’t stay in Boothill when it comes their time.

In Pioneer Theology, Jesus is the Scout. He rides out ahead of the Wagon to find out which way the Pioneers should go. The Scout faces all the dangers of the Trail and suffers every hardship. He is even attacked by the Indians. Through his words and actions he reveals the true intentions of the Trail Boss. By following the Scout, those on the Trail learn what it means to be a true Pioneer.

In Settler Theology, the Holy Spirit is the Saloon Girl. Her job is to comfort the Settlers. They come to her when they feel lonely or when life gets dull or dangerous. She tickles them under the chin and makes everything okay again. The Saloon Girls also squeals to the Sheriff whenever someone starts disturbing the peace.

In Pioneer Theology, the Holy Spirit is the Buffalo Hunter. He imagerides along with the Covered Wagon and furnishes fresh meat for the Pioneers. They would die without it (and him). The Buffalo Hunter is a strange character—sort of a wild man. The Pioneers never can tell what he’ll do next. He scares the hell out of the Settlers. He has a big, black gun that goes off like a cannon. He rides into town on Sunday morning to shake up the Settlers. You see, every Sunday morning, the Settlers have a little ice cream party in the Courthouse. With his gun in hand, the Buffalo Hunter sneaks up to one of the Courthouse windows. Then he fires a tremendous blast that rattles the whole Courthouse. Men jump out of their skin, women scream, dogs bark. Chuckling to himself, the Buffalo Hunter rides back to the Wagon Train shooting up the town as he goes.

In Settler Theology, the Pastor (the clergyman) is the Banker. Within his vault are locked the values of the town. He is a highly respected man. He has a gun, but keeps it hidden in his desk. He feels that he and the Sheriff have a lot in common. After all, they both protect the Bank.

In Pioneer Theology, the Pastor is the Cook! He doesn’t furnish the meat. He just dishes up what the Buffalo Hunter provides. This is how he supports the movement of the wagon. He sees himself as just another Pioneer who has learned to cook. The Cook’s job is to help the Pioneers pioneer. He doesn’t confuse his job with that of the Trail Boss, the Scout, or the Buffalo Hunter.

In Settler Theology, the Christian is the Settler. He fears the open, unknown frontier. His concern is to stay on good terms with the Mayor and keep out of the Sheriff’s Way. “Safety First” is his motto and the Courthouse is his symbol of security, peace, order, and happiness. He keeps his money in the bank. The Banker is his best friend. The Settler never misses an ice cream party.

In Pioneer Theology, Christians are Pioneers. They are persons of daring, hungry for new life. They ride hard, and know how to use a gun when necessary. The Pioneer feels sad for the Settlers and tries to tell them of the joy and fulfillment of life on the Trail. They die with their boots on.

In Settler Theology, Faith is trusting in the safety of the town; obeying the Law and keeping their noses clean; and believing the Mayor is up there in the Courthouse.

In Pioneer Theology, Faith is the spirit of adventure; the readiness to move out; the willingness to risk everything on the Trail. Faith is obedience to the restless voice of the Trail Boss.

In Settler Theology, Sin is breaking one of the Town’s ordinances.

In Pioneer Theology, Sin is wanting to turn back.

In Settler Theology, Salvation lies in living close to home and going to the Courthouse.

In Pioneer Theology, Salvation rests in being more afraid of a sterile life in Town, than of death on the Trail. Pioneers find joy in the thought of another day to push on into the unknown Wilderness. They realize their Salvation by trusting the Trail Boss and following his Scout, while living on the meat provided by the Buffalo Hunter.

The Settlers and the Pioneers portray in cowboy-movie language the People of the Law and the People of the Spirit. In the time of the historical Jesus, the guardians of the ecclesiastical setup, the scribes and the Pharisees and the Sadducees, had hunkered down in the Courthouse and enslaved themselves to the Law. This not only enhanced their prestige in society, it also gave them a sense of Security. Man fears the responsibility of being free. It is often easier to let others make the decisions or to rely up the letter of the Law. Some men want to be slaves.

[excerpted from The Lamb and The Lion by Brennan Manning, 1988, pgs. 23-27]

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