It’s a creative, inspiring and wise guide towards divine mystery. A helpful settler for the soul. It invites your participation in spirit, thought and voice. It’s a book of devotional meditations and exercises designed for spiritual growth and imagining community differently.

This workbook style title is roomy and invites much reflective re-imagining as to how the kingdom of God is realised in your life. Full of scripture, insight and creativity. This will drive you towards silence, free-thought, meditation and new insight, made possible by the Holy Spirit. It’s fused with lots of creation inspiration stirring the reader to whole-life renewal, reigniting wonder and all contributing towards deeper formation in the pattern of Jesus Christ.

It’s compelling and poetic material that’s structured in a 28-reading pattern with brilliant applied theology, warmth and endless invitation. Devotion, the power of language, love and incarnation are the initial creative forces that are at the heart of this. The creativity is the powerful stuff and the uniqueness of this title is unparalleled.

Harrity won’t let you miss his core thesis: you are created, designed and intentional. So go and live that ‘one beautiful life’ with purpose, delight and joy.

Mike Breen says it this way:- “The church is the effect of discipleship, not the cause of it. For most pastors, the operating system is not discipleship, but the church. The problem: the church is not the operating system of Jesus. The Gospel was meant to be simple, but hard. We’ve made it complicated, but easy. “

1 As inspired by Brennan Manning:- “The life of Jesus suggests that to be like God is to show compassion”, Trystan Owain Hughes really helpfully writes on gay marriage and the local church. 
2 please stop it Primark! ‘Habit, convenience and culture will eventually silence conscience.’ More behind the labels from the brilliant Threads.
3 God does not walk on by…….”For I have chosen you and will not throw you away!” David Westlake’s great offering here.
4 +Tim Truro speaks of shaping ministry and vicar-training differently.
5 Verge resources on being practical in mission: lots here!

“Some people fool themselves by seeking the Spirit’s gifts instead of His fruit. Even though we appreciate the gifts, we must be careful where we put the emphasis. Jesus never said, ‘You will know them by their gifts.’ He said, ‘You will know them by their fruits.’ Matthew 7 v 20”

If we function according to our ability alone, we often claim the glory; if we give ourselves over to the power of the Spirit within us, God gets all the glory. This is just a glimpse of the Pentecost life……

I’m always needing renewed Holy Spirit life. The oldest prayer is the greatest truth:- “Come Holy Spirit!” The beauty of Pentecost is that its Babel reversed, we’re invited to a pattern of obedience, prayer is central, unity gets forged in these unlikely discipleship, and through it all the disciples remain utterly open! They are courageously patient for ten days together in the unknown. Waiting & then receiving all that Jesus promised. Acts 1 & 2 are worth close attention!

I am really helped by what Michael Green says about Pentecost and these first disciples:-

”Unless we are in vibrant touch with the Holy Spirit, little of his character will be seen in us, and our impact will be negligible. I do not imagine the disciples waiting for the Holy Spirit before Pentecost knew quite what they were waiting for. They had seen one outstanding life which seemed to them full of the that great Spirit of God, the life of Jesus. They had his promise that the Spirit would be passed on to them. They did not fully know what that meant but they were open. They didn’t deny the possibility of some of the ways of the Spirit becoming real to them, while welcoming others.”

Romans 8 v 2 in The Message, captures it brilliantly. ”The Spirit of life in Christ, like a strong wind, has magnificently cleared the air, freeing you from a fated lifetime of brutal tyranny at the hands of sin and death.”

You can be forgiven! You can be healed. You can be found. You can have hope. You can be filled with the Spirit and be used to draw people closer to Him. That’s the radical optimism of Pentecost! They waited and prayed: those first disciples desired to be changed.

Today, on this Pentecost Sunday, I pray with joy and anticipation. You are actively making all things new! Bring life—your life, to our places of dryness and death. Restore to us the joy of your salvation, the hope of your resurrection, a passion for your glory.

Do you want Pentecost life afresh? Let us desire (again) to be changed…….

“Grace beckons us to new places in our lives, to become new persons shaped by the love of Christ.” Pete Scazzero.

1 the me, me, me generation article from Time Magazine is well worth a read
2 radical missional Christianity through the lens of Ed Stetszer: “At this time and in our culture, a consumer church is a greater danger than a radical Christianity [focused on making disciples].”
3 a helpful Gmail keyboard shortcut cheat-sheet here for luddites like me!
4 David Keens conference summary notes from ++Justin on evangelism, renewal and church growth
5 Angelina Jolie’s story of immense courage and character, and Pete Scazzero’s reflections.

Come, Holy Spirit, fill the hearts of your people
and kindle in us the fire of your love.
All who are led by the Spirit of God
are children of God and fellow-heirs with Christ.
Come, Holy Spirit, fill the hearts of your people.
Renew the face of your creation, Lord,
pouring on us the gifts of your Spirit,
and kindle in us the fire of your love.
For the creation waits with eager longing
for the glorious liberty of the children of God.
Come, Holy Spirit, fill the hearts of your people
and kindle in us the fire of your love.

Grace is getting what you don’t deserve and not getting what you do deserve.

Grace is the opposite of karma.

Grace is the love of God shown to the unlovely, the peace of God given to the restless, the unmerited favour of God. Grace is free sovereign favour. Grace is unconditional love towards the one who does not deserve it.

Grace is love that cares and stoops and rescues.

Grace is God reaching downward to those in rebellion against him. Grace is one-way love.

Jesus is the fulfillment of the Isaiah prophecy: the bruised reed of your life He will not crush, and the smoldering wick He wont snuff out, until He’s led  your life’s story to victory, and finally home!

Will you let Him love you as you are, and not as you should be?

Just as Brennan used to say: “Cause nobody..is as they should be.”

Julie and I went south of the river here in London town and found ourselves inspired and humbled by Dallas Willard’s input. Amongst the many wise words, the genius and gracious replies to questions, there was a tangible godliness manifest through it all.

His teaching straddled more disciplines than most with brilliance, humility and grace. Dallas Willard has through the Holy Spirit birthed a revolution of true living faith in me: helping me to re-imagine discipleship and meaningfully root how change actually happens. There is so much texture and soul to his writing. Dallas calls us to actually follow Jesus without ducking it, persuasively banishing notions of vampire-Christianity and inhabiting the counter-intuitive power of the upside-down kingdom, right here-and-now! Many generations after will be shaped by the pathways he’s laid and the clues offered to a different and more excellent way.

Here are some of my favourite lines from my dog-earred books of his.

“It’s not how hard we try—it’s how easy it becomes to do the things Christ told us to do.”
God’s words are never “just words,” but power.
Joy is a pervasive sense of well-being.
“Most problems in contemporary churches can be explained by the fact that members have never decided to follow Christ.”
“In the end, what God gets out of your ministry is you!”
“Grace is not opposed to effort, it is opposed to earning. Earning is an attitude. Effort is an action. Grace, you know, does not just have to do with forgiveness of sins alone.”
“Does the Gospel I preach and teach have a natural tendency to cause people who hear it to become full-time students of Jesus? Would those who believe it become his apprentices as a natural ‘next step’? What can we reasonably expect would result from people actually believing the substance of my message?”
If you devote yourself to the teachings of Jesus it will be evident to everyone.
Our primary task as pastors is to be an example, not to think of fancy things to say, our primary job is to be a certain kind of person.
One of the most difficult things in life is being right without hurting people.
The mark of a disciple of Jesus is the ability to do what needs to be done when it needs to be done.
Temptation to sin is always temptation to not trust God.
“The world can no longer be left to mere diplomats, politicians, and business leaders. They have done the best they could, no doubt. But this is an age for spiritual heroes- a time for men and women to be heroic in their faith and in spiritual character and power. The greatest danger to the Christian church today is that of pitching its message too low.”
“A disciple is anyone whose ultimate goal is to live as Jesus would live if he were in their place.”
“An indication of our greatness, for all our dustiness, is found precisely in the fact that God pays attention to us, meets us, and gives us work to do.”

Despite losing him from this world, far too early. I am one of so many that are indebted for Dallas Willard’s life and faithfulness. Dallas challenged me to look further into my soul than I could have ever imagined, walk paths I would have never travelled, and helped me challenge myself towards a transformed soul.  Thank you Dallas for engaging with discipleship fruitfulness here and now!

I’m marked by the little-and-large impact of Willard’s life. The legacy of the books written and influence of a life lived saying ‘Thank-you’ right to the final breathe. Immense.