The burger king ultimatum

Have it your way say the tagline of the burger king ads highlighting a world where we are in control, masters of our universe (subway run one similar at the moment) the underlying message is one of personal choice and preference being paramount to our happiness.

The thing is there is a downside to this culture of “have it your way”, we come to expect it as a norm, we want everything our way and when we don’t get it our way we feel cheated, let down and treated badly. Can you see where I am going with this?; my kids very often have to learn around the dinner table that there is compromise, that not everyone can have it their way all the time and sometimes that can lead to tantrums and mighty large doses of sulking (Ok it’s not just the kids).

And we see this attitude coming into church life as well, people are quite happy when church is going in the direction that they want it too, it’s all whoop, whoop and the leadership and senior leader are heroes, however the moment that they don’t “have it their way” it becomes a different story, blame, accusation and incineration become the weapons of choice.

I am reading through Hezekiah at the moment ( expect to hear it at City gathering soon) and it is amazing at a time when God was richly blessing their obedience and determination to follow him, giving them great success there was still those on the sidelines throwing brickbats because they didn’t have it their way.

James wrote a blog about the art of followship, perhaps that is the thing that the burger king attitude erodes, perhaps it is time to learn about submission and trust and to stop being selfish and childish. As Rev Mick Jagger once said “you can’t always get what you want, but if you try sometimes you might just get what you need”.

What’s the real you like?

Not the you who pretends to have it all together to satisfy everyone’s expectations, Who hides how they are feeling, how they are hurting so they don’t get more hurt. Who masks their creativity for fear their shortcomings would be exposed, not that you.

The real you, loved and forgiven by God, finding and living your identify in Christ, free to be all that you can be, full of life and zeal and vigor.

What is the real you like?

There is something wrong with the picture

Ok sorry folks but I am venturing into the world of politics here, this is the week when the scandal of MP’s expenses has been revealed and what a sorry state of affairs it is too. I don’t know what has saddened me most, the initial greed shown by our elected leaders or the way they have tried to justify there actions. We have seen a vulgar parade of MP’s with an whole list of excuses, that they made mistakes, that they acted within the system and it is the system that is wrong but not one has admitted they were greedy, they were on the make.
I can’t help thinking in another century the Army would be storming Parliament right now, make no bones about it we have been let down spectacularly by our parliamentarians and hiding behind the system will not excuse this sort of behaviour.
But beyond the indignation lies something that each of us needs to face, contrast this, in the same week an MP claims expenses to have his moat cleaned 26,500 children will die of preventable causes related to their poverty each day. 26500 today and guess what? It will happen again tomorrow… and the next day… and the next. In fact around 10 million children will be dead in the course of a year.
This is not poverty caused by natural scarcity but by a set of priorities imposed upon the world by the rich & powerful , we in the west squander food resources as we turn a blind eye to the untold horror of poverty, maybe this and not global warming is the true inconvenient truth. Consequently, the modern poor are not pitied…but written off as trash. A disposable by-product of a consumer economy that has produced the first culture in which a beggar is considered nothing. If fact in some countries the poor are exterminated by hit squads to protect the tourist industry, after all no one wants to be reminded of a inconvenient truth while on vacation.
Jesus urged us to look after the most vulnerable of our society, he modeled compassion for the poor and the underprivileged, he championed them while instructing us to have a social responsibility mindset.
And here we despite our global worldview, oblivious to the basic needs of fellow man while enjoying and abusing the trappings of great wealth. While our leaders endulge in liberties with the public purse the church remains mute, perhaps it is time to stand, to be heard, to fight for what is right.
In Mark 4:11 Jesus was filled with compassion but it did not stop there, he reached out, he touched and he spoke life.
I’d like to ask God why He allows poverty, suffering, and injustices when He could stop it. I don’t because I’m afraid He would ask me the same.

strange people

I just stumbled upon one of those sites that are all into exposing false prophets etc, that think that they got it right and everyone else is wrong.

they ‘exposed’ among others, hillsongs, Billy Graham,Rick Warren, Mother Teresa, Charles Finny and John Wesley.

it takes all sorts I guess but some quick observations.

1. their Websites always seem to be black! don’t know why
2. they always have the word earnistly in there somewhere
3. they never Celebrate good stuff they are just interested in pointing out what is wrong.

my aim one day is to be exposed on their pages as someone who loves and speaks life, who thinks that Jesus is Awesome, Who admits that they are not perfect but are totally forgiven.

life is too short and pulpit time too precious to be taken up with what is wrong, it is about time we focused on what is right.

in defence of the all-star

I have deliberately been using the word all-stars a lot this week to see what sort of reaction I would get, it was pretty much what I expected.

It perplexes me sometimes this false humility and modesty that grips the church and keeps us pale and boring in the world’s eyes and using words like stars in a church context becomes a repellent affront to this mindset.

What worries me is what this view is secretly saying, it is saying don’t raise your head above the parapet, don’t shine, don’t dare to be different, don’t rock the boat, don’t just don’t.

So we don’t because we don’t want to appear conceited, or arrogant or showy, we just merge back into the crowd and fade away.

The thing is Jesus never wanted us to fade away or to be insignificant he wanted us to be creative, vibrant, full of beans, daring, different, challenging.

He has given us gifts to use and play with, dreams to dreams and tools to achieve great things.

It is time to shine like stars for the king and not hold back, I have made up the BCC is a church that champions all-stars, we are committed to investing in those that love the Lord with all their heart and are actively busting a gut to accomplish great deeds for their king, they are the stars, some are up the front, some behind the scenes, some are quiet some are loud* but all share that passion and zeal for the house and we love what they are doing.

All stars are not just imaginative but they are creative, they get things done, they make things happen, along the way sometimes they get things wrong but they are not afraid to fail, they get up dust themselves down and go again. They are all stars it is what they do.They spend the time in secret seeking God and aligning themselves to his ways.

And the news for them is this. When you want what God wants for the reasons God wants it your unbeatable and unstoppable.

So go on shine and show them what you got, afterall you’re an all-star !

* at BCC it is predominantly loud to tell the truth

Debunking the culture question

I recently twittered a remark that it was a great privilege to be in a place where I can shape culture, one of my old buddies posed the question back at me, what on earth does shaping culture mean, like I can reply to that in 140 words.

However it is a question I have been thinking about myself recently as I get ready to write “here be dragons!”

The dictionary defines culture as the set of shared attitudes, values, goals, and practices that characterizes an institution, organization or group, whether national culture wrapped up in ethnicity or corporate or organizational culture within groups, businesses and organizations it certainly exists and is directly influenced by the landscape it is in.

I recently visited the Eden project in Cornwall (nice pasties) where they have created giant biodomes to create the right environment and atmosphere to cultivate tropical plants.

At BCC we have a duty to not just listen to God but to obey him and let him direct our paths, through that vision is formed and imparted to the body.

While part of Selah youth network one of our taglines was to “create a culture that redefines church for future generations” it was just theory back then but I truly believe we are seeing that at BCC.

There is a new culture and people have embraced it and are actively operating in it, as James & Becky and the other leaders have sought to let God direct our paths so the values and cultural pillars that make BCC what it is have become defined and amplified, and myself along with others have a great responsibility and privilege to shape that culture, to see it develop and flourish almost organically. People at BCC are operating and amplifying the culture that is being outlived.

So to answer the question how is it shaped, I would suggest in my experience by consistent behavior, by modeling and championing, by living out, if you encourage people to be generous and major on this you create a generous culture, if you reward trust you shape a culture that is true and so on.

Here at BCC we are committed to be Generous, True, Honouring, Healthy, Clean, Positive and secure, that is our culture, it is what we do and the greatest thing of all is that we do it for the Glory of God

Beware the keyboard Warriors

Amazon got into a bit of bother this week as lots of facebookers and twitterers got there knickers in a twist concerning the way Amazon categorised their books basically certain books including erotic and gay literature became more difficult to find on their WebPages.

The fact is these books were still on sale, there was no censorship but still people who were not interested in the books in the first place sat behind their screens and got most indignant at the whole affair.

Strange if WH Smith decided to put the offending books on the top shelf no one would bat an eyelid but somehow behind the safety of the laptop something happens that turn us all into cyber warriors. now some things are worth complaining about, the recent Express piece of crass journalism concerning the survivors of Dumblaine for instance however we now seems to be a bit lost in the mist and have started to rouse up righteous indignation about the drop of an hat.

Recently we at BCC have been on the end of some of that for having the audacity to put huge banners around the City stating “Jesus Is!” this seemed to annoy some e-activists who were quick to fill up the local newspapers forum on why we should not be posting this message at Easter and why we should not be forcing Jesus on people.

Funny as no where on our posters did we force anything, when coca cola advertise they don’t force coke on people, they inform, they advertise, they exercise their right to exist , that is democracy in action.

The fact that our campaign was the most talked about thing in the city for the past two weeks as been fantastic! We are seeing tremendous growth every week because we Love Jesus and we are secure in who we are.

My concern with the rise in keyboard warriors is I cannot see the difference in the eexplosion of post-event, blog-orchestrated indignation to the over he top reaction the papers gave to the Jonathon Ross affair which received far greater exposure than it ever deserved.

We live in an age where everyone goes to extremes and things get blown out of all proportion because it is so easy to do so, there is no cost to us sat behind our keyboards. So why does this erk me so much, because in doing so we lose the art of debate, of talking through issues, we also create not only a blame culture but also a incite culture.moreover instead of defending censorship we actually inadvertantly encourage it.

As a Christian leader I value the conversation, I want a level playing field of debate free from censorship because I actually believe in what I stand for and I am Secure in my beliefs, what I don’t want is knee jerkism which blinds people to reason and truth and sets up barriers.

Jesus said ‘who the son sets free is free indeed’ I value the fact that we are free to speak and be, I just hope we don’t spoil it.

no strings attached

I was coming through the city centre the other lunch time when I saw a guy stood with a placard giving it the old fire and brimstone sermon while people crossed the road to avoid him, he had amassed a crowd of zero, no one wanted to listen. i must admit I found the whole thing very sad, sad that they guy was trying his best but so out of touch with the crowd it was unreal.

On Sat morning a number of guys from my church gave out free Hot cross buns to the people of Tunstall where I live, my instructions were simple, no witnessing, no hard sell just the hot cross bun and an invitation leaflet to BethelCityChurch, the response was overwhelming, people started to smile, they stopped they talked, a couple even asked us to pray for some stuff, in an hour we had given away 250 hot cross buns and put a smile on peoples faces.

When i read the bible it tells me that Jesus loved people uncondtionally, that s it he just loved people. no strings attached.

I m sure the fire and brimstone guy is very sincere, I am sure deep down he is doing what he is doing because he loves people, the trouble is n one is feeling the love, what may have worked a generation ago does not resonate with people today.I wish he could have joined us giving out hot cross buns on Sat, the results would have been far better and not only that I am sure he would have had fun!

the most useless armour in History

so here was the young pretender David about to go into battle and what does King David do, he gives him his armour, the bible says that David found it so ill fitting he could hardly walk.

 

however the armour was usless far before it was given to David, it was just as usless for Saul at that time because with Golieth in the way he refused to stand up to the giant, in fact each day the troops come out and went through the motions without ever having any intension to engage with the enemy and take the ground.

it took a boy, a sling, a stone and an awful lot of bottle to get the breakthrough

what will it take in your life? ministry?church?

anyone twittering

just opened a twitter account as I am getting rather bored with facebook, wondered if there was anyone else from BCC twittering at the moment?