Sign Up for SoL 

I’m looking forward to the conference. It will be great to meet people I’ve only ever met on Zoom when I’ve led on the European Emotionally Healthy satellite courses, and to learn from the EHD team.  

We will be running Emotionally Healthy Spirituality this Autumn, starting 20th October. This time around we are running the course on Zoom and on a Tuesday evening. My hope in doing this is that people for whom a Saturday morning (when we’ve previously held the course) just does not work, might be able to do the course. The course works well on Zoom, and it means you can do it without commuting to The Point, and for some people may help with childcare challenges. That’s my hope anyway! 

Like any course this is simply a tool, but I think it is a rather good discipleship tool. So, why not consider signing up?  

Click to Sign Up Here

Victorious 

The theme for Sunday 11th October is, Let’s Go: Victorious: Announcing the Victory of the Cross. We are going to explore this theme through the lens of Colossians 2:8–15; 20. 

Two Requests 

As I’ve started to think about this, I’ve a couple of requests to ask you.  

1. Read and re-read the passage. It is deep and rich, and worth pondering on. 

1. If you are able to, watch the film The Shawshank Redemption staring Tim Robbins as Andy Dufresne and Morgan Freeman as Ellis Boyd “Red” Redding. In particular, pay attention to the story of Brooks and Red’s soliloquy after his death. Hopefully, the reason for this request will become clear on Sunday and I’ll probably reference this part of the film. While the point I’ll look to make should (hopefully) still make sense if you’ve not seen the film, it is such a great film this seems like a good excuse to watch it again! 

See you all on Sunday. 

Brodie 

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There is something other-worldly looking into the eyes of a new human. It reminds us that the world is much more mysterious and wonderful than we think. Indeed, that there must be much more to our life than cells and molecules, chemistry and biology.

Western modernity saturates our souls with its sceptical perspective. It has taught us to reduce life to what can be measured and calculated. It has driven Christians to demythologise our beliefs and explain away or relegate the supernatural dimensions of our faith. As a result, many of us have an ingrained scepticism about miracles.

In fact, my Catholic friend Ruth has just published a book detailing miracles and supernatural moves of the Spirit in Scotland. She warns her readers that both Catholics and Protestants are likely to be offended by the things she has witnessed! (Hill Country, Ruth Black)

Academic Craig Keener has catalogued modern Christian miracles across the world. His book “Miracles Today” is a great summary of what God is doing. Of course, you do not need to go very far in places like India to discover that many people have come to know Jesus through a miracle of healing or supernatural encounter.

Ultimately, when your faith is based on the miracle of resurrection from death of the eternal God made flesh, all other miracles are small potatoes!

Something in us kicks back against the unbelieving orthodoxy of our day. We hear stories from others around the world and through history and we know we need more than our own skills to see the kingdom of God come.

Recently, we are told, western societies have become increasingly open to the supernatural.

But what of us Christians? The book of Acts calls us back to our radical roots. On Sunday we will be considering Acts 5:12-16 – Luke’s summary of the life of the first Christians where miracles, signs and wonders were central to their outreach and life together.

This came as a direct result of their prayer in Acts 4:30 for more of God’s power. So let’s join them in praying to see more of God’s power at work amongst us too and impacting our communities and families!

Prayer is the key to the supernatural power of God. So here is a challenge: what would happen if we stepped beyond our customary “you’re in my prayers” to ask

“can I pray for you now?”

I know that many of us have had some of our biggest and best prayers unanswered. Yet even in that, God answers other prayers – I know I’ve been there.

Luke calls these supernatural events “signs” to tell us that they point beyond themselves to a greater reality, to a hope bigger than the world. Now we see and experience in part but these sparks of light in this world are the first signs of the dawning day of God’s kingdom, assuring and proclaiming to the world that God is bringing all things to his glory.

It’s time to light more sparks!

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I am no social scientist, but it does appear that we live in a more fragmented society these days with less opportunity to build the connections that shape and stabilise our personalities and challenge our self-centredness. The self has become sovereign, and my self–interest, my self-fulfilment and my self-determination eclipses all other considerations. 

That can make modern people, with our preference to choose what we like, consume what we want, and put our own interests before others, difficult disciples. We are suspicious of others controlling our lives, offended when our views are contested and like to make things about me. 

We have become familiar with the condition of “Narcissistic Personality Disorder”: the extreme end of a spectrum that charts how blind we are to our own imperfections and how inflated are our ideas of our own importance.  

There once was a nymph named Narcissus, 

he thought himself very delicious, 

so, he stared like a fool. 

 at the face in a pool  

and his folly today is still with us. 

Even if we can’t admit to being “delicious”, or meet the formal criteria for a personality disorder, the lure of popularity, the need for the clicks and likes of affirmation pulls at all of us. Not only does that mean we resist the challenge to lay down our lives for others, but it leaves us susceptible to charismatic, charming, populist leaders and movements in politics, culture and even church (or encourages us to become them!). 

So, the call of Jesus to “deny self, take up the cross and follow me “and the cost of “losing life that we might gain it” is a massive and ongoing challenge to us all. This Sunday as we consider what it means to reach out into our communities with the good news of the gospel, we will be thinking about the challenge and cost of following Jesus from Matt 16:24-28. 

It is important to remember that Jesus calls us to offer a “living sacrifice”. That is the offering of our real selves given in his service. Christian self-denial is the reordering of our priorities so that Jesus may be first, not an instruction to forgo healthy self-care, or employ a regime of self-punishment mental or physical.  It certainly does not mean denying the God given gifts and personalities we are to apply to His service. That, of course, does not mean it is easy. 

Matthew 16:24 -28 I understand was spoken off the back of Peter’s confession of Jesus as the Messiah at Caesarea Phillipi. The context is significant for Caesarea Phillipi was a place which was regarded as a gate to Hades – a portal to the underworld and a demonic stronghold. Jesus demands wholehearted allegiance in a place where there are multiple competing claims for commitment from the gods and idols of the day. 

To be Christ-centred today requires us also to commit to him in a world of idols and influences hotly contesting for our hearts.  

Spiritually that requires us to renounce ungodly spiritual attachments. 

Relationally that requires us to renegotiate the human ties and influences that shape and influence us, whether hidden in our past or evident in our present. 

Personally, that requires us to bring our vulnerabilities into the light of Jesus’ healing, seeking forgiveness for our sinful thought patterns and attitudinal responses, and recognising the gifts God has given to us that we might place them at his disposable. 

This is what it means to take up our cross. That we re-evaluate and rearrange our lives through the lens of the cross.  

I take up the cross that stands between me and the spiritual and relational influences that seek to manoeuvre my values and reactions. 

I take up the cross that stands between me and the injuries of life.  

I take up the cross that stands between me and my sinful failures and their consequences.  

Yes, take up the cross and follow.

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“Look for the houses without electrical wires or cars” said our guide.

We were in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania: Amish country. The Amish were a persecuted Christian community in Europe who found sanctuary in the USA in 18th century. To maintain their community and faith they reject many expressions of modern life and technology.

Much of what I knew of Amish life came from the 1985 Harrison Ford film “Witness”. I had the idea that these were people living in a massive commune far from the rest of the world, completely detached from and totally unaware of mainstream culture. Living a luddite lifestyle, stuck somewhere back in the 18^th century.

How wrong.

Amish farms were, in fact, intermingled with “English“ (their word for the rest of us) farms and through trading their produce they were in constant interaction with the world around.

They were not stuck in the 18^th century. Community elders defined what inventions were to be rejected as worldly as they became available. Off-limits were clothes that were not “plain” and connection to electrical or telecoms grid. But solar panels (to charge high speed electric scooters) and propane power were everywhere. We are talking the ultimate in off-grid organic living.

Of course, there might be much for us to question.

Yet it left me thinking about what it is to be “in the world but not of the world”. To ask the question about how my lifestyle choices are a witness to Christ.

How can I be deeply connected to my community and culture without losing a distinctive witness to Christ?

That is a constant call and continuing challenge.

Jesus came not to call the righteous, but sinners. He was found eating and drinking with “tax collectors and sinners”. Incredibly he did so without compromising his character or values.

This Sunday we are considering Jesus’ unrelenting heart for connection with broken human beings.

Matt 9:9-13 tells the story of Matthew the wealthy, dishonest tax collector and Jesus’ summons to him to follow. Jesus comes in for criticism from some religious types for hanging out with such a disreputable group.

God is reaching out to surprising people in unexpected places. The whole of scripture shows that God is constantly drawing close to his broken creation and rebellious people, even his enemies. In fact we could summarise God’s purpose as his costly and relentless drive to simply be with us.

So we should not be surprised that when God shows up in person, in Jesus, we see this very same heart overflowing towards the people he meets. Jesus shows us that God goes not only to those who receive him warmly but to those who need him greatly.

Jesus loves sinners!

This passion for people is ultimately manifest for all to see in his life laid down on a Roman cross.

Jesus is our motivation for mission and he is also our model for outreach.

As we head towards Sunday you might like to think about how we interact with people around us in a way that is shaped by the way Jesus dealt with people. How might we be more connected without compromise?

Iain

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Pike Street 

One of the things the church had organised for us was to take a meeting at a mission on Pike Street.  

At the bottom of Pike Street is the famous Pike Street Market which has featured as a backdrop or location in numerous films including Sleepless in Seattle, and The Vanishing to name two.  

The part of the street we were in was less photogenic. The mission was below a strip joint. At first we could not get in to the mission because the police had a guy, spread eagle on the ground, with their guns pointed in his back. The mission reached out to anyone and everyone, but particularly the poor and marginalised. 

We led the meeting, and people responded and were prayed for. But as we were packing up to go, a guy with a wee dog came in. The team got chatting to him.  

The Guy with the Wee Dog

He’d a busted-up leg, so we prayed for healing and saw God touch him. But he needed more than his leg healed – he was homeless and needed a roof over his head that he could call home. We were in an unfamiliar city and were unable to provide a good solution to his homelessness problem. I felt an overwhelming sense of helplessness.  

How was the good news of Jesus good news for this guy? He needed more than a prayer for his leg. He needed a home and a stable job. 

My sense of helplessness and that the gospel of Jesus needed to meet all this guy’s needs and not just his spiritual need was visceral.  

A Word 

The next day the co-leader of our team came and said he felt God had given him a word for me. I’d not shared with anyone on the team my reaction to the guy with the dog at the mission. Ed (the name of the co-leader) said, “God sees you’re in turmoil and have loads of questions, but I believe he says to you that you need to learn to walk by faith, not by sight (2 Corinthians 5:7).” 

Lifelong Learning 

As Ed shared it did not answer all my questions, nor did it conjure up a home for the struggling man. But it filled me with hope. God had seen my dismay that we could only scratch the surface of what the guy with the dog needed. And if God had seen my dismay, then surely God had also seen the needs of the guy. 

Learning to walk by faith and not by sight is a daily, perhaps even hourly, lifelong learning  

Luke 4 

This experience, over 30 years ago, still feels fresh and was formational in multiple ways for me.  

It means that I can never read our text for Sunday, Luke 4: 14 – 21, as just referring to spiritual poverty, blindness, captivity, or oppression. The good news of the kingdom, of “the year of the Lord’s favour” (v19) is practical and earthly as well as spiritual and heavenly.  

Key to the passage is Jesus’ declaration that the Spirit of the Lord was upon him and had anointed him for a specific purpose. In John 20:21 Jesus says; ‘As the Father has sent me, so I send you.’  This means you and I are sent with the Spirit of God upon us, and we are also anointed to minister as Jesus ministered.  

What an incredible truth, a truth which I know I don’t always walk in and need to learn to do so more.   

Put me to what you will 

At my ordination, Rev. Dr. Deirdre Brower used what is known as the Wesleyan Covenant Prayer. It is a prayer of commitment and availability to be who God needs us to be and has called us to me in any and every circumstance we find ourselves in.  

It is a prayer which reminds me that I’m sent as Jesus was sent, and so the Spirit of the Lord rests on me, rests on us, to proclaim the good news of the kingdom.  

Here is the prayer: 

I am no longer my own, but yours. 

Put me to what you will, place me with whom you will. 

Put me to doing, put me to suffering. 

Let me be put to work for you or set aside for you, 

Praised for you or criticised for you. 

Let me be full, let me be empty. 

Let me have all things, let me have nothing. 

I freely and fully surrender all things to your glory and service.  

And now, O wonderful and holy God, 

Creator, Redeemer, and Sustainer, 

you are mine, and I am yours. 

So be it. 

Amen 

See you Sunday. 

Brodie 

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I’d written the Wednesday Morning Office for 2nd September several weeks ago and included in it Wendell’s poem The Peace of Wild Things to aid our reflection on Matthew 6:25–34 about not worrying. This seems all the more poignant now.

Key to all of Wendell’s writing, be it his novels, essays, or poetry, are the ideas of place, soil, and planting. His love for the land he farmed was not sentimental, but worshipful as he understood the deep connections between God as creator, and how this flows into our understanding of place, how we tend the soil, what we plant in the earth, and what we allow to be planted in our souls.

These themes of Wendell’s life and writings drew me back to Iain’s sermon on Sunday and in particular his section on “Take ground: The Soul.”

Soul Soil

Taking ground through caring for our soul makes me think of the parable of the sower and the soil (Matthew 13:1 – 23; Mark 4: 1- 20; Luke 8:4 – 15).

I don’t know about you, but more often than not, when I’ve read this parable I’ve read it evangelistically, i.e. as about sharing the gospel with someone. But that is only half the story, for the parable is about discipleship.

Eugene Peterson called discipleship “a long obedience in the same direction.” He even wrote a book with this as its title, read it, it will nourish your soul!

Discipleship includes evangelism, our sharing the good news of Jesus is a key way we grow in our faith. Yet, growing in our faith, also requires care of the soil of our soul, care which includes obedience and faithfulness (i.e. in the same direction). It is not either/or but both /and.

Obedience

Yet, obedience to the commands of Jesus does not always come easy. Sticking with the imagery of Jesus’ parable, often we are like soil which is rocky, dry, full of thorns. That results in obedience to Jesus which is patchy or sporadic.

Wretched man that I am!

It can feel that we are caught in a bind given obedience cultivates good and rich soil, yet obedience needs good and rich soil to flourish. No wonder the apostle Paul cries out “ I’ve tried everything and nothing helps. I’m at the end of my rope. Is there no one who can do anything for me?” (Romans 7:24 The Message).

Paul answers his own question for us by exclaiming, “The answer, thank God, is that Jesus Christ can and does.”

Keeping in Step

That the Bible tells us to keep our eyes fixed on Jesus lays bare the truth that even while we desire to follow Jesus, we can be easily distracted and not fix our eyes on him. I’ve really appreciated and benefited from learning a slowed down spirituality through Emotionally Healthy Discipleship (EHD) which prioritises being with Jesus before doing for Jesus.

To stick with the imagery from the parable, EHD has given me some tools to get rid of some rocks, break up some hard ground and pull out some weeds.

A good number of you have already done either Part 1 or Part 2 of Emotionally Healthy Discipleship, and I know from some of the feedback that many of you have also found it incredibly helpful in tending to the soil of your life that Christ may grow richly in you for the sake of his mission in this world.

I’m planning to run Emotionally Healthy Spirituality which is the first part of Emotionally Healthy Discipleship this autumn. So far, we’ve run this on a Saturday morning, but that excludes many people. In a move to try and make this available to those who can’t make a Saturday morning it will run on a weekday evening and take place on Zoom which saves on travelling time and hopefully makes it a possibility for those who need childcare. Details about this will be in the update soon, so watch this space.

This Sunday

Our new Autumn preaching series formally kicks off Sunday 13th when we will pick up the “Let’s Go” theme Iain introduced last week. This week we are sticking with “Let’s” and a word beginning with “G” Let’s Grow. So, basing ourselves in Acts 2:42 – 47 we are going to think about “Let’s Grow” and how three key practices of the Christian life help us grow in Christ and witness to Christ as saviour, so others come to Christ, know the life he gives, and grow in him also.

Let me end with a poem from Wendell Berry. If you click on the title you can listen to Wendell read the poem for you.

The Man Born to Farming

The grower of trees, the gardener, the man born to farming,

whose hands reach into the ground and sprout,

to him the soil is a divine drug. He enters into death

yearly, and comes back rejoicing. He has seen the light lie down

in the dung heap, and rise again in the corn.

His thought passes along the row ends like a mole.

What miraculous seed has he swallowed

that the unending sentence of his love flows out of his mouth

like a vine clinging in the sunlight, and like water

descending in the dark?

Grace and peace. Brodie

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My week kicks off with a coffee and a fresh page of my notebook: dated and entitled “to do”. I write up my (expanding) list and draw nice big boxes to tick off my achievements. This week I have a funeral and Sunday sermon preparation at the top of the list. Many years ago, a wise person illustrated their planning with a bucket, sand, rocks and pebbles. “How do you get everything in?” they asked.  The answer: biggest stones first then pebbles and sand. Try it for yourself.  

So, I make space for the big, unseen, God focussed items first. There are always many noisy nagging little demands and distractions begging for attention, but I fight them off and fit them around the other stuff.  

It is an immense privilege and awesome responsibility to deliver God’s word week by week. It’s one I take very seriously and carve out focussed and uninterrupted time as a weekly priority. It seems even more vital in today’s world that QPBC is a church of Word and Spirit, anchored solidly in scripture and empowered by the Spirit. So, I like to get into sermon preparation on a Monday morning if possible. That way thoughts and prayers are percolating through my head throughout the whole week. It’s not something I find natural or easy, so some weeks my brain is a furious whirlwind as I cry out to God asking, “what on earth do you want me to say about this?”. Usually there is a turning point when my anguish turns to revelation and an assurance of the Spirit that this is where things are going. 

To remain fresh and not simply repeat the QP back catalogue I read more generally, take notes and squirrel away my thoughts and reflections for a moment when they might be required. Currently I am working my way through “The Unseen Realm” by Michael J Heiser and learning about the Nephilim and Rephaim, and other strange and supernatural creatures of the Old Testament… Coming to a sermon near you soon! 

On the list this week is leading a funeral, and time to plan our Sunday prayer to kick off Prayer Surge (12:30pm in the sanctuary area after the service: come and join in!). This blog was not on my list… but our Tuesday afternoon team meeting is a great reminder of who is doing what this week. 

Like many of you, every day includes digital whack-a-mole with emails, WhatsApps and every form of messaging just shy of pigeon-post streaming into all manner of digital inboxes. Don’t believe what you hear! Most of you are super-nice and encouraging in your correspondence.  

This is also annual staff review season, so I am meeting with our SLT and some of our lovely staff to discuss what they are up to and why! This week we also have an extra SLT meeting – you can pray for us – it’s tonight (Thursday) and I had minutes and agendas and papers to get out to everyone and we have some decisions to make!  

Planning events, gathering teams and publicising what we are doing together is a big role for our staff in a church like QPBC. So, I am grateful to be assisting Nick Fletcher with Alpha and not carrying it all myself – thanks Nick! This week we have a training evening.  

Most weeks you will find me trying to find a parking space at the Queen Elizabeth University Hospital or some other health establishment, or popping in to see someone at home.  

Did I mention there is a sermon and blog (!) to do? 

Somewhere in this, Anne and I may find time for a walk together and I may even get a couple of runs in to resist the creeping tide of physical decrepitude. I am generally good at taking my days off so we may see our kids or hack back the jungle that we call a garden.  

Of course I could not get through this week on my own. So, this week the blog comes sponsored and supported by  

The Macaulay family, the QP team, the power of the Holy Spirit and many great cups of coffee.

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