Lent resources are popping up all over the place on Christian sites at the moment. This season is now under way. Our church doesn’t do Lent so things like this still feel very new to me. For a few years now, on and off, I’ve been following the church calendar in my Bible reading programme. I found a book Ancient Future Time by Robert Webber, which aims to introduce the church year to a new generation of evangelicals. Reading it gave me the idea of incorporating into my Bible reading, the lectionary – the plan of Sunday Bible readings that is traditionally used in churches.

I can fully understand those who might cock a snoot at the traditional calendar, especially when some churches follow it too rigidly and it is associated with routines that some find boring. Yet now I find the lectionary is something that I love to dip into and explore. I like Jonny Baker‘s phrase: that he thinks of traditions like these as a ‘sort of dressing up box’. I am finding the church year gives a rhythm to my devotions that I can use and enjoy as much or as little as I want to.

Lent is about a lot more than just ‘giving something up’. But it is not to be approached legalistically. I don’t believe that we have to pray, read the Bible, give or fast at Lent more than any other time. But I think there is something powerful when the focus of our Bible reading becomes more communal. I am finding that Lent is giving me an opportunity to join in with the devotions of many other Christians across the world as I dip into these resources during this season.

What do you think?

Further Reading

When I originally posted this three years. Scott Lencke suggested this link:
New Covenant Lent by Internet Monk

Concluding our short series on missional project Reach Out Network is another ministry that you might like to support. RON exist primarily to serve the needs of the homeless sleeping rough in and around the city centre in Birmingham and to bring God’s love into the lives of needy people. Reach Out Network touch many people’s lives each week. Reach Out Network is headed up by a friend of mine Paul Atkin. Paul is financed by individual sponsors through stewardship services. Those who sponsor Paul or who help with Reach Out Network are not limited to one church.

Tackling homelessness

Homelessness is a big problem in Birmingham and Reach Out Network is tackling it.

I have found it quite an eye opener to join them on the streets giving out soup and sandwiches, chatting and praying with some of the rough sleepers. It’s just wonderful how they create a safe place in which people are very happy to open up. Rather than expecting people to come to them Paul – as some outreaches like this do – and his team walk around the city centre and know many of the places that rough sleepers gather.

As the team ventures out into the city centre a couple of nights a week people are fed and conversations about Jesus sparked off very naturally.

Running a Drop In Centre

Paul also runs a weekly Drop in Centre that currently operates from our little church building the Ledbury Centre. As well playing games like snooker and dominoes and chatting over coffee and sandwiches there is usually a short talk with a Christian focus in the middle of the day.

I think it is amazing how a number of people from different churches are involved in this – all pulling together. Paul is part of our church but he is from a Pentecostal background.

There is quite a mix of people that also come to the drop in that they run at the Ledbury Centre. Some are members from churches in and around Birmingham coming to help, some are currently or have been homeless others just come for somewhere to go. There is a great family feel to the place and everyone can play their part.

Promoting the work through Awareness Days

Reach Out Network also hosts Prayer and Awareness Days with presentations from other organisations, giving opportunity to pray for them and the needs in the city. Reach Out Network have good links with many other groups in the city and know exactly the right place to refer people to where they will get the appropriate help. The next Awareness Day includes some will be on March 10th and includes some exciting developments.

Paul is a missionary here in the city centre of Birmingham and is well worth supporting.

Further Reading

Follow this link for further posts on Reach Out Network on my previous blog.
Ministry to the Homeless on our church website.

Healing on the Streets is a very biblical way of doing street outreach that is straight forward and has been very successful. It is something that you can easily get involved in if it’s happening near you.

Healing on the Streets training

The groups that do this ministry offer training in the Healing on the Streets model and after one session often on a Saturday morning you would be welcome to join them in praying for people. If you’re really keen you can talk to them about your church launching a regular Healing on the Streets. Their training course encourage you to pray for people in a similar way to the way Jesus and the early disciples prayed. It has been remarkably successful. By simply following these guidelines they have prayed for loads of people and seen many answers to prayer.

How does Healing on the Streets work?

Practically this involves simply placing out a banner and some chairs on the street for people who wish to be prayed for to sit on. In twos people talk to the person wishing to receive prayer in a very humble and gentle way to ascertain the need. If there is a physical need then they are encouraged to speak to the illness in the name of Jesus to leave and to the person her part of the body to be healed. Though this may sound strange in their training they go through the scriptures that show this and do this in an amazingly gentle and non-hyped way. Any immediate results are then noted and a pack of material explaining a bit more is offered to the person who has been prayed for.

What is Healing on the Streets really like?

When I did this a year or two ago I found it to be a really simple easy pattern to follow. Often people are nervous about starting up conversations about Jesus and street evangelism might sound scary. But Healing on the Streets gives you a very simple formula to follow. It’s about setting up setting a situation that people will very naturally come to enquire and engage in. It’s not about trying to engage people who aren’t interested or are antagonistic. It’s about offering a service in Jesus’ name and seeing what comes of it.

If you set this up in a busy high street it is amazing how many people do come with the minimum of pressure. If this is happing anywhere near you I would suggest that you go along, listen to the training and take part. You might even find you want to set up a Healing on the Streets as a regularly outreach for your church.

Check out their main website here.

One exciting idea for a missional project for Christians is to have a stall at a Mind Body Spirit festival. There nearest I’ve come to this is running a prayer tent for our church at a local fun day but some groups have brought such ideas to mind body spirit events reaching out not just to the general public but specifically to spiritual seekers in this new age context. Dekhomai are one such group that do this on a regular basis but I have heard of at least a couple of other such ventures. This is something I would love to be involved in.

Why Mind Body Spirit festival?

These festivals are filled with people who are interested in spirituality and though they might already be into their brand of spirituality if Christianity is presented appropriately will be of great interest to them. If someone is looking for a spiritual touch of healing this is an opportunity to anoint with oil and lay hands on someone and to see God heal. Perhaps someone is looking for some guidance. Wouldn’t it be great to point them to Bible verses that have a bearing on the issue or even to bring a prophecy to them? This is the sort of thing people are very open to in this context.

How to get a stall at a Mind Body Spirit festival

One practical hurdle to doing this is the cost. There are a number of these Mind Body Spirit events occurring around the country. A church or group of churches or Christian group wanting to do this will need to hire a stall for the period the convention is occurring. They then need to plenty of material to offer and have a number of activities ready to engage people. This might just be tracts and offering prayer and but you would do well to tailor your approach and material to the sort of people that are there. Diakoma suggested some of the reJesus material and even the Jesus Deck. Check out the link – it’s not as dodgy as it sounds! But others might prefer to rely more on the Holy Spirit to bring prophecies to the people that they meet.

Mind Body Spirit events sound quite a challenge for a Christian

Of course it must be a challenge to do Christian outreach in such a context. All around are influences from other spiritualities that we need to respond to appropriately. I worry that in this context either Christians will appear too antagonistic condemning others involved in new age spirituality or that someone may to be too enthralled with everything else that is going on that this is a distraction to their own faith. There needs to be a loving acceptance of people and a humble presentation of the gospel in this context but as Christians we need to hold on to our distinctiveness as people who believe we have the answer. This is not an easy balance.

Still I think I would find such a missional adventure exciting and in some ways feel more comfortable bringing Christian spirituality to bear in a context of people seeking spiritual encounters than in a context when spirituality is not on people’s agenda.

Continuing this blog series on missional project I want to look at Karis Neighbour Scheme a local organisation that we are working in partnership with.

Karis Neighbour Scheme serves the people of Ladywood a deprived inner city area of Birmingham. Whatever the need people from the area are welcome to pop in to their offices in the Church of the Redeemer for a chat. You can also apply to volunteer for them to help meet others needs or sign up to give regular donations.

So what do they actually do?

Karis focus is on serving the local community. It is known to be working hard to alleviate some of the effects of poverty in the area by for instance giving out food parcels for those in need or offering a free advocacy service. There are many people that we know that have been helped by them in many ways – even if it is just by gaining a support network through going to one of their many community groups. A number of asylum seekers and refugees and others new to the county have benefited from the free ESOL classes that Karis run. There are others who sound very pleased and satisfied to take part in community allotment that Karis have organised. We know a number of people who have enjoyed volunteering – by for example doing some DIY or gardening for others – and also fund-raising for Karis, knowing that what they are doing is having a real impact on the community.

What do I think of them?

Karis is a well respected charity in the area and I think they are doing a wonderful job. So if you live in the Ladywood area it is an ideal organisation to get involved with. I have found everyone to be very friendly and welcoming. Karis are very good at understanding the needs of the area and are very aware of all the provision that already exists.

Their aim is not to duplicate provision and they are excellent at signposting people to other organisations that can help if for any reason they can’t provide the help needed. They’ve been great in working with us with our project of WorkShop the local job club that we run every Thursday morning.

Are they a Christian charity?

Karis was initially aided in its set up by a number of local churches and has continued to have a good relationship with them. If people want to chat about faith or ask for prayer they are very open to that but they are certainly not there to preach at people. As primarily a Christian organisation Karis aims to serve the community in the name of Jesus offering a listening hear and practical help. Of course Karis’s help is available to all regardless of their backgrounds and beliefs.

How can I be involved?

If you want to volunteer then you can complete an application form on their website and subject to suitable references and a CRB check you could soon be part of the team serving this area doing a bit of gardening or DIY or by befriending or advocacy or even raising funds for Karis. You can make yourself available for as little as an hour or two a week or much more if you want to.

Also when you do your shopping why not buy a few more tins than you need and if you are passing by pop them into Karis’s store cupboard for them to give out as food parcels to those in need?

If you are looking for a charity to support by a regular donation Karis Neighbour Scheme is well worth considering.

Over the next few weeks I want to do a series of posts on missional projects – that are either very inspiring or that I am involved with in some way. These are all worthy of your support in some way or other and you may find ideas here of something that you could do in your own community. I’ll start of with Sweet Notions a brilliant idea for a social enterprise.

What is Sweet Notions?

Sweet Notions collect used jewellery and accessories sell the good stuff at mobile boutique events or pop-up shops. With the money from these events then train women rescued from trafficking, addiction and homelessness to create products using the rest of the items as raw materials. At what they call design camps these girls develop these craft skills in an enjoyable and therapeutic environment. This produces more goods to be sold.

The result is much more upmarket than a charity shop. Getting into more lavish places the produce is highly valued as stylish and socially responsible.

How can I be involved in Sweet Notions?

It’s well worth buying from them or donating your old accessories or your time to help them as a volunteer. You might even want to set up a franchise of this in your own area.

Not only is this a way to recycle your old good enabling you to de-clutter valuable space in your house it is also helping many vulnerable women who are getting their lives together. This is growing social enterprise that is being replicated in a many areas. Shannon Hopkins started this in the States but is also operating in London and others are also looking at and starting to run with this idea.

Of course it’s a lot of work and running around collecting the stuff, organising events but if you work with or have contact with a vulnerable group that could benefit from this it could be well worth your while.

Update

There website appears to be down at the moment. When it’s back I’ll let you know!

Christmas is not over. In fact we’re just in the middle of celebrating Christmas. Rather than just celebrating on one day it our family tradition to celebrate over all twelve days – by having some nice meals and exchanging some small gifts on each day.

The meaning of Christmas

Though we do send gifts we don’t really buy into a lot of the materialism associated with Christmas. A number of our presents are gifts given to a charity on behalf of the recipient or small gifts sold to raise money for a deserving course. For us, as for many Christian, Christmas is a time to remember the incarnation – how God was made flesh and became one of us humans.

What is the incarnation?

Joel Tarbutton is doing a series on how to walk in the ways of Christ – taking on Jesus identity and his behaviour. He sent me a link to his Christmas message looking at the incarnation – how Jesus humbled himself to take on not just human form – but that of a humble servant.

The king was born in feeding trough. This did not look like the perfect home for God – surely it should have been a more serine and sanitised home for the Son of God. Yet God comes to us as we are warts and all. We don’t have to have everything sorted out before we can come to God – he comes to us. Christ finds us in our mess before we are cleaned up and lifts us out of the muck and gives us something stable to build our lives on.

Incarnation and Kingdom

Mission is all about proclaiming God’s kingdom – a king that is willing to get involved in the mess of our lives and serving us in his selfless death.

One fascinating comment that Joel Tarbutton makes is “Christ obliterated all ideas of the sacred & the secular – the incarnation means that there is no longer secular space only kingdom space.”

It looks like he’s going to say more about Kingdom in the coming weeks. So it might be worth checking back to this page to hear his later talks.

I’m having a bit of break for Christmas and so thought it might be time for a reader discussion on the topic that is very topic. Simply what do you do at Christmas

Share you own experiences and ideas of how you celebrate the season.

It could be something spiritual
It could be just your own celebrations
It could be what Christmas means to you

I’ll share some of what we do and what it all means to us later

Have a good Christmas!

I’m trying to get my head around this little video from an church planting organisation called Church from Scratch. I’m not sure what the title of the video means just play it and see what you think.

It appears to make a very good point that as Christians we can ‘build walls’. I think what it is getting at is that we can be in some way isolated from the culture we are in. All our friends are Christians and we find that we tend to exclude those outside even though we do want to reach out to them. It can become a bit forced we are trying to pull people in and get them to be like us. Breaking down the walls like these is a good thing. Of course I don’t think that they mean we should lose our distinctiveness – we still need to be godly – just that we should not be unnecessarily different.

What I don’t really get is what they mean by the person going out – a long way out. If they mean leaving the church in order to plant another one then I’m not sure that this is good. If they mean sent out by the church but still in relation then I feel that I would be more comfortable with that. What we plant doesn’t necessarily need to be a clone of the church we are planting out from.

But I wonder if planting churches is the only way to break down this wall. Shouldn’t we be looking to reform what we are part of and make it more like the church we have a vision for? Do we really need to start from scratch again?

The other week my mother died and we have just had the funeral yesterday. Things like this make you ponder our mortality and my mind turned to this question. As a follower of Jesus I don’t fear death but events like this do make you wonder. My mother never professed faith in Jesus so I don’t feel I can I rejoice that she’s gone to a better place in the way that I would when celebrating the death of someone who shared my faith. But is it as simple as Christians go to heaven and non-Christians go to hell? That’s the question I’m wrestling with here.

Some who claim near death experiences believe that they have received a glimpse of the afterlife. A recent popular book Heaven Is For Real tells one little boy’s account of his near death experience. You can read Scott Lencke’s review of this book here. The BBC documentary The Day I Died gives the best case I have seen for these being more than just physiological phenomena of the brain where someone recounts conversations in an operating room that they could not possibly have heard as they were clinically dead. Could it really be that when we die we become a disembodied spirit and journey to a place of light and meet our departed relatives? Does the Bible agree with this?

Do Christians go to heaven?

Unfortunately I don’t think the Bible is as clear about this as people think. A lot of what people think about heaven and hell come from the book of Revelation which is a very symbolic book. I tend to view it as a prophecy mainly about the experiences of the early Christians on the earth. For example I would take the image of New Jerusalem with its streets paved with gold and gates made of pearls to be a symbolic picture of the church rather than a literal picture of heaven.

The Bible refers to death as going to sleep. There is also the phrase that Paul used about death: ‘to go to be with the Lord which is far better’. This has led others to think that we become disembodied spirits with believers in some form of bliss with God awaiting the resurrection of our bodies. This is probably what people mean when they talk about going to heaven.

God is gracious so doesn’t everyone go to a better place?

Jesus’ message of grace exposes the myth that it is good people who get there and the bad will be punished in hell. Jesus makes the point that being religious is certainly not a guarantee of eternal life and in fact reading the gospels it would appear that the sinners have a better chance. Eternal life is given to those who believe in and follow Jesus.

But what of those who never professed any belief in Jesus or the gospel? One traditional understanding is that they will burn for ever in hell as they continue under God’s wrath and judgment. But there is a minority view that everyone is eventually accepted be God and welcomed into his presence.

Jesus claimed to be the only way to God. In The Evangelical Universalist the author sees people coming to God through the Christian gospel. But he argues that they are given a second chance after death and so make it through the fires of hell out the other side. This book makes an excellent case for this from the scriptures and so I would not say that this is an unchristian view, however I am not quite convinced by it.

So do unbelievers go to hell then?

In one chapter of the book Essentials the leading evangelical author John Stott pointed out that the idea of the immortal soul is really from Greek philosophy rather than from the Bible. He said that God gives immortality to believers. He saw hell as real, but he argued for it being the final destruction of the unbelievers not their everlasting torment. Personally I would tend to agree with this. The book on this that I am yet to read is the Fire that Consumes by Edward Fudge.

What happens to those who have never heard the gospel?

The best answer to this that I have heard is that God judges people on the revelation that they have received. There are some who may have reached out to God but not known of Jesus, the Bible or the gospel of grace as we would understand it. I am inclined to agree that if someone has reached out to God in this way and not rejected God’s grace in Jesus then they receive eternal life with God.

But what of those who reject the gospel?

I must say that there is a real danger of dying without God and going to a lost eternity. But I would add that there is always the possibly of someone accepting the gospel right up to their last conscious moment. They may not get the opportunity to verbalise this but I am convinced that God still forgives.

Ultimately we cannot know in this life exactly what it will be like in the next. All I can say is that I do believe that there is an eternal reward for those who do follow Jesus. For those, like my mum, who have never made such a decision I wouldn’t be so quick to pronounce their fate either way.