That question...

One of the most significant, memorable and formative events of my time as a Staff Worker to date came within the first few weeks of starting the job. I was listening to Rico Tice's first talk at Forum and I was spellbound. The particular moment I'll never forget though was when he asked us to write down the answer to one question: "how does God feel about you today?" What he said after that cut me in two. Here the link to the talk. He poses the question about 10 mins in.

2 weeks to go until the Biblical Evangelism Conference

Not sure what BEC is? Check out this link.

The premise behind the weekend is simple: Romans 10:17...

faith comes by hearing and hearing through the word of Christ

If it’s really true that God brings people to faith in his Son, by hearing the word of his Son, what better way could there be to spend a weekend than learning how to teach it in a persuasive and clear way?

If you’re up for it, apply online and let me know. I’ll see if I can sort a lift for you.

Bible study isn't about education, it's about homage...

So this week I was in Exeter for some mid-term training with the rest of the staff and Relays from the South West, led by the inimitable Marcus Honeysett. Part of our time was spent thinking about how we could raise the bar on the Bible Studies we lead. At one point Marcus asked us what we thought the purpose of "Bible Study" was. It was a simple question, but it challeneged me deeply. It sounds silly I know, but in the hustle and bustle of ministry I can forget the essential fact that the goal of Bible study is not merely understanding - but worship!

If you're invovled in leading a Bible Study, Marcus' post on Bible Study Questions is a must read.

Why don’t we talk about fasting?

One of the things in the Christian life I’ve never been sure about is the practice of fasting. I just don’t know whether I should be doing it or not.

The only passage I can see in the scriptures that comes closest to instructing Christians to fast is Matthew 6:16-18 where Jesus says “When you fast…”. Jesus simply assumes his hearers fast, so… (the logic goes) we should too.

Only Jesus doesn’t seem so much to be to addressing the practice of fasting as an end in itself. Rather, he seems to be much more concerned with the hypocrisy of parading your “acts of righteousness before men”. He was speaking to Jews, who at the time had a practice of fasting, and Jesus so says, when you do it, do it in secret. The transferable principle for Christians today seems to be much more to be along the lines of ensuring our “righteous acts” (ie those things we are explicitly commanded to do elsewhere in the New Testament like giving money away and praying) are done in a discrete none flashy way. Not necessarily that we should fast too.

Tim Chester, on the other hand, thinks we should. I find what he says persuasive. The paragraph that particularly got me thinking though, in view of my love of cake and biscuits and other sugary, faty, salty food, was this one…

When we in the western world have emotional needs many of us turn to food for refuge. We self-medicate with food. The result is ill-health and weight gain. The result is an over-consumption of the world’s resources that contributes to the hunger of other people. And every time we miss the opportunity to turn to God. We don’t live by bread alone. We need God in our lives so that life without God is an empty life. And we cannot fill that emptiness with food. Fasting helps re-oriente us away from self-medication through food towards finding refuge in God. We particularly we turn to foods high in sugar, salt and fat. These consitute our comfort foods. We find comfort in sugar, salt and fat. Sugar, salt and fat instead of the living God. We must be mad! Fasting helps restore our sanity.

Should we fast? In my mind the jury’s still out. One thing’s for sure though: if we don’t fast, it should be out of conviction. Not because we can’t bothered. Not because it is something Christians never seem to talk about. If Chester is right, fasting could be an opportunity to learn to depend on God. And that’s something none of us should want to miss out on.

“You are the accidental by-product of nature, a result of matter plus time plus chance. There is no reason for your existence. All you face is death.”

On Tuesday I'm speaking at the lunchbar we've called "Can we really know if there is life after death". As usual, the bethinking website has been invaluable in helping me prepare. Of particular help has been William Lane Craig's article The absurdity of life without God. It's well worth a read if you have a few minutes, especially the section entitled The necessity of God and Immortality and the following few sections after it. In these sections he simply shows how impossible it is to believe that life has any meaning, purpose or value if there is no life beyond the grave.

It seems to me this thought alone has great apologetic power. Who really lives as though our lives are no more significant that of an earthworm beneath our feet or a blade of grass in a nearby park? None of us. Intuitively we all know that what we do matters. That human life has inherent value. That our actions are significant. And therefore we all tacitly affirm that this life is not all there is.

Lane Craig puts it much better than I can so check out his article. Unfortunately he isn't able to speak at the lunchbar on Tuesday, but I am, so bring a mate and pray that I'd be able to clearly give a "reason for the hope we have". See you there!

Join us on the 17th

Taste the goodnes of the gospel: be transformed for mission.

If you are in any doubt whether it will be worth it listen to a snippet of Mike's teaching from previous Transformissions.

Hopefully see you there!

Ben and Jerry’s Evangelism Training

One concern that is often expressed about Christian Union meetings is that they seem very similar to a regular church meeting. "Surely", it's said, "if the reason for the existence of CU is mission, shouldn't the majority of the CU meeting be given over to evangelism training and praying for the spread of the gospel within the university?"

It’s a question I have much sympathy with. All too often CUs can be not much more than holy huddles of students with very little evangelistic endeavour and no real commitment to prayer. And this is something we need to challenge. But the answer is not to remove things we normally associate with church life like systematic teaching from the Bible and times of singing and praise. Remove these from the CU meeting and all zeal for evangelism and prayer will die.

Why? Well because of the Ben and Jerry’s principle. Ever since I tasted Ben and Jerry’s Caramel Chew Chew I haven’t needed any training in how to tell others about it. Similarly the times I’ve been most excited about evangelism is when I’ve been most excited about God and His gospel!

This is a point that John Piper powerfully makes in the opening chapter of Let the Nations be Glad (the book a few of us read over the summer and met to chat about this week). He simply says

“you can’t commend what you don’t cherish” (p17).

So if a CU is going to be a vibrant missional community, it will always be seeking to help its members cherish God - to worship Him - afresh. Piper famously says that worship is “the fuel of missions”. Of course, there is a much needed place for evangelism training, but more fundamentally CUs need to be places where hearts are continually stirred to “value, admire and prize Him who is above all else that is valuable and admirable and precious” (my paraphrase from p206).

We’re meeting again at the Bristol University Chaplaincy to chat about chapters two and three of Let the Nations Be Glad on Wednesday at 9am. So come along if you’d like – you don’t have to have read the book to join us!