The prism of our preconception prison.

The other day i got quite upset, someone on Facebook deleted me as a friend and i have done it to others as well i guess we all have. Now i have never met this person, and only knew them for about 3 weeks via Facebook, but it got to me. Now we all come with baggage and have our push buttons, but does it matter what a stranger really thinks of you? in truth no it does not. But all of us at some stage suffer with it, we dissect it, run it around the garden in our head and want answers, which by and large rarely come or matter.
You see the prisons we make for ourselves are worse than any man made Prison on the planet, we wrap ourselves in guilt, we beat ourselves up and generally blame ourselves for the actions outside of our control when it's not our fault 90% of the time. Our own private prisons to keep us bound up in guilt, fear and failure, our prisons where we let the thoughts and doubts out when we start to feel to good about ourselves and need to reign things back in.

We need to demolish these mental prisons, realise we are all unique, we are all special, we are all great in some way. Yes we may fail at times but that does not mean we need to lock ourselves up in a world of doubt and fear. A few years ago i gave some advice to a friend which I'm going to share here, it seems stupid but it does work i proved it and so did this young woman. Each day when you get up and fell like it aint going to work out for you, when it seems like nothing is going right and every turn off the roundabout is blocked. Look in the mirror and tell yourself you are LOVED LOVED LOVED, its so simple but it does wonders for our doubts and fear, it starts to banish them. Many of my friends good friends are like myself going through the ringer one way or another at present. Its time for us to rise up, to look in the mirror and scream at the top of our lungs I AM LOVED, because we are, i love each and everyone of you, i can't always do a lot, but i can always lend an ear or a shoulder to cry on, apparently my hugs are pretty good as well. So guys and gals next time you feel that Prison of preconception is getting the better of you, kick the door open and tell it where the hell to go

Peace people

Andy

Everyday God

God in his wisdom uses everyday things to show he is an everyday God, not just a wake up call for a Sunday morning. The parables Jesus told were about everyday things, they used the common to put across the divine, Mustard seeds, sowers, fishing, the everyday was used to get across the idea of the kingdom of God, so why have we moved so far away from the simple ideas? why do we now need answers to everything, what happened to trust. Now its a fact of life that no matter what you say or how you answer it's never going to be enough for them, in fact i think in some cases Jesus himself could sit with them and it still would not be enough for them, they would even dare to argue with the real person of Jesus sat in front of them, and in some ways thats really sad. You see with some people you can't win, they need the last word, they need something and I'm not sure what it is, but it eludes them and it eludes me. You can't know everything about everything its an impossibility to retain that level of information, so why do we expect to have all the answers about God, before we trust him fully? do we not know enough about his character to say "you know what, i have enough to trust him, and to trust he has the best in store for me"? but our post modern era requires we question everything, and "if it fits my ideas then its fine and thats the truth so don't you dare question my pathway, don't require me to actually surrender to Jesus, because well if you do that and surrender to him fully, you are an evangelical who does not take the Bible seriously" I know how my car works, not fully but i know the basics of the internal combustion engine and electrical conductivity to know what makes my car tick, but i never designed my car and that pesky manual which gives me information about my car was written by someone else. So i have to trust that manual when it tells me certain things about my car, even when they make little or no sense to me, i have to trust the designer that he/she knows what they are on about, you see they have all the information, and funnily enough to drive my car efficiently and effectively i don't require all the information in the manual, i do not require all the answers. Genuinely i believe God is an everyday God, not just in the way he communicates with us, but by the way he interacts with us, by the way he uses the everyday to get his point across, i never wanted to know everything, because i like the discovery of new things about God, i like the divine spark and intervention which takes place in the everyday. Its not about knowing it all, its about trusting enough, its about letting go and sometimes just letting God, for some people that will never be enough, for me I'm more than happy to trust, you can call it blind faith, you can call it foolishness, in reality it's not likely to change me to much, not because I'm arrogant, not because I'm dumb, but because i have learnt i don't need every answer going to trust in God. 

Get ORFF my land!!!

We all suffer at some stage with Bigotry or intolerance, it may be occasionally it maybe regular, but we all do suffer from it at some point, even those of us who deny it. Personally i know i suffer with it at times, quick to put down, quick to put my own walls up, we all do it, unfortunately its part of human nature. There are certain things which contain bigotry and intolerance in a big way, Politics is one, Religion is the another, it goes with the territory. Some will now be saying no Andy your wrong i don't suffer with bigotry or intolerance, I'm not going to accept what you say, which basically proves the point, thats an act of intolerance to a view you don't like or maybe makes you think about your own actions. You see we all think we are right, we all have that element of pride, history or experience which says I'm right you are wrong.

In the last few weeks i have seen both intolerance and Bigotry, in all sorts of people, people of faith and people of no faith, and in reality they are both as stubborn, bigoted and intolerant as each other, i would even go as far as to say some people of faith are so bigoted and intolerant of others views its worse than those who have no faith. One of the cries you often hear from people of faith is that my way is right, because i have a different, better experience than you, or worse still because i have been studying longer than you, i have the higher ground both Biblically and morally (its been used with me in the last week)

So what do we do about it, how do we deal with the problem of personal bigotry and intolerance. Firstly we have to deal with our own, we have to listen, we have to learn, we have to be open to maybe changing some deeply held opinions. You cannot expect the world to be a more tolerant place until individuals start being less bigoted or intolerant. We have to start somewhere and it needs to start with you and me. Over the past week i have left a number of Christian sites, due to intolerance of others opinions or just plain bigotry, you see i know where my bigotry lays, i know where my intolerance lays, i know i can be  a real nasty, gobby, hard hat wearing fool, with an attitude which is very poor at times. Thing is i don't enjoy being treated with intolerance, so it would make sense to change my attitudes to things, not everything because as much as some of my views can be bigoted some of it is down to interpretation. Do you find yourself always needing the last word, always having to be right, if you do its a safe bet to say you suffer with intolerance and bigotry.

Its time for change but that is going to need work, its going to require a change of heart on certain things, it requires grace and understanding. Next time you post something read it back to yourself aloud, see if it still sounds ok or is it going to sound stupid when its spoken out? if it is bigoted or intolerant, it maybe an idea not to post it, none of us always need the last word, none of us is always right, but we all have that level of intolerance and bigotry no matter how small it is.

Pax people.

Mt Tribe

Labels are important, they give us information, they identify things especially in cooking or the kitchen. We wear labels to identify ourselves as such and such a person. We wear clothing labels to say a number of things from look at the money i have, to I'm sporty, our football shirt identifies us with other like minded people and gives us a sense of belonging. Labels it would seem are important, they help us, sometimes they hinder us, but we all wear a label of some description whether its a real one or a metaphorical one.

But there is a downside to labels, they can create an us and them mentality or worse still a have and have not mentality, they can especially in the young and teenagers help create bullying so its not all good, so do we need labels?

In cooking we do, you don't want to put half a jar of Paprika on your roast chicken, you don't want to use sugar if you don't like it. So labels have a point they inform us and help us. We wear them as a badge of honor and some of us wear them with pride, I'm a Leeds fan and am happy to nail my label as such to the mast. Also I'm a biker so i wear the uniform or label of that as well. My faith is my biggest label as its the biggest part of my life.

This is where it gets sticky, you see i genuinely think and believe Jesus was not and is not interested in the label we wear, he was all for equality, he was all for understanding and never sent someone away because they never wore the right label. He engaged with those outside and inside the circle of faith, treating all equally and not giving a snide remark towards those of a different class or social construct. It saddens me that many Christians will deride other Christians for not wearing the correct label, whether that is their church, their particular brand of theology or because they have differing opinions. Debate is great and needs to happen, but when it gets personal thats really not on. Over the last few weeks i have been told my theology on such and such is wrong, that my opinion is not as valid as someone else's as apparently i don't take the Bible seriously, not because of heresy, but because i think differently, my labels often get me into trouble. It has to stop, we serve a God of Love and as such need to temper everything we say with that love, we are not better than anyone else because they think differently, respect needs to be shown. Those labels are just that they are labels, they help but can hinder and cause division. Society wants to label everybody in someway, the Church should be acting differently and not labelling, one of the labels that really gets my goat is "Fundie" short for fundamentalist, its used as an insult 9 times out of 10. So what if i do have some fundamental traits does that give anyone the right to put in a slight dig and insult? One of my great friends is Tom Osbourne he is a minister (or will be soon) we are as different as chalk and cheese. He is very liturgical and likes his worship that way, I'm very add hoc in how i do things during worship. But Tom and i get on really well, he has seen my band a few times and i enjoy our chats, at no time have we hung those labels on each other or used them, we just accept each other and get on with Gods business.

Labels can be good they can be bad, i guess what I'm asking for is a bit of understanding, a bit of thought before we label people, especially without knowing all the facts, but we jump because we don't like the label someone wears. Thats maybe a big ask for some people, because their Labelism/Tribalism is very much ingrained, lets just try and be a bit more considerate about labelling people before we know all the facts and just have a quick soundbite to go on.

THANKS TO THOSE WHO ANSWERED THE QUESTION I POSED YESTERDAY ON UK METHODIST, YOUR IMPUT WAS REALLY HELPFUL.

In the beginning

Firsts are very important milestones in our lives, they can define something for us, they can ruin something for us, they can make something magical for us, we all like firsts (and seconds). We have our first kiss, our first love, normally followed by the crushing blow of the first heartbreak. We have our first drink, our first push bike, our firsts are vitally important to how we view things in our lives, those first give us experience, some good some bad, but we learn from them or at least we should. One of my great loves in life is music and in particular Rock in its purest form, the first time i saw Whitesnake live for the first time i was hooked, the beat the lyrics, being stood with 5000 other fans screaming at the top of our voices, it was a defining moment in my musical education, a love affair that is still going strong since 1981, i often joke that the band has been the only stable thing in my life and in some respects its true.

But we have first in other parts of our life too, we have the first time we respond to God and how he responds to us, the first time a prayer is answered is phenomenal, it shows that God is interested in us as individuals. That moment when you realise for the first time is defining, it sets the pattern for what we start to understand about God, how he interacts with us and how we interact with him, because we do interact with him. First times are vital for our growth and for our ability to say "look it may look dark now, but it will get better". As we move along through life we tend to forget those first times, life compresses us, society compresses us and for some unknown reason CHURCH compresses you into a box of its own design, and we forget.
Over the last few months i have been saddened by somethings i here people say, saddened by peoples ability to forget the first, and think its always going to be bad news, its not all doom and gloom, we just sometimes need to change our glasses and look at things differently. We all go through bad times, none of us are immune, the time my father died was the first time in my life i had seen death up close and personal. It knocked the life out of me, stopped me in my tracks, you never do forget the death of a loved one, but through that pain and grief when Dennis died (my mums 2nd husband) i was able to do the funeral, it was hard, it was painful, it was a first time. But this time it was different, you see i believe in life after death, as much as i believe in life before death, and this time it was easier in some respects.
First times are vital to us, i can still remember my first kiss, my first girlfriend, my first bike (push and motor) i can still remember like it was yesterday that first encounter with God, that moment when God reached down into my messed up crappy life and said" hey son, take my hand i got you" that will never leave me. Firsts are important they are brilliant, they can be fun, they can hurt. Spend sometime soon thinking of firsts, and celebrating when things where probably a lot easier, because we all need to be child like at times.

My church is a football ground.

Football IS a funny old game and those who follow it tend to be fanatically passionate about it. The football season has finally ended in England, Man City won the premiership, Liverpool despite everything didn't and some teams performed escape miracles on par with Houdini himself. There was blood, sweat and tears on the final day and it should be no different, i want my team to play with passion, to play like life depended upon that 3 point win. There is this theory that Football is the new religion, stadiums are the new churches, managers the new ministers and the players are the new idols to be worshipped and in some respects that is perfectly true, but if you dig a bit deeper it actually goes to the core of a person, it goes as deep as and in some cases deeper than faith. 

We pick a church because it resonates with us, our folks went there, a friend, there is something that gets you to a church to start with. Then invariably that church stays with us (well at least from a denominational) point and we become………. (fill in your own blank) Its no different with football, i'm a Leeds fan have been since i was 6 years old, something about that team hit me and stuck with me, i'm now coming up the fast side to 50 this year. The team has let me down, they have lost, they have won, they have made me cry with happiness and weep tears of pain, it's all very real when it's a team you are passionate about. Church/God can do the same to us, make us happy make us weep, and affect us in various ways, you see church and teams are very close bed fellows. It requires faith in God to be a Christian it's difficult to believe without faith. To follow Leeds requires an amount of faith that is monumental, it requires me to put my trust for 90 minutes in 11 guys running around a football pitch, who at times seem to have no idea what they are doing. Church is the same at times, when its going great we are all happy, when its going bad we all bitch and moan. Offering up sage advice to those in charge, offering our "expert" opinion when actually we sometimes only have a small idea of what is going on, we see the 90 minutes of play not the effort gone into getting there on the pitch. You see you can be a passionless follower of a team or God, only interested when they are winning or doing well, or you can have a passion which is all consuming, a passion which makes you go back time and time again, and gets you believing things will get better. Faith is required to follow a team, its a foregone conclusion that you need it to follow God, yes stadiums are the new churches, people attend because they feel they belong, they feel wanted. In our churches do people feel that way? if we are truthful we have to say at times no they are not. Football and faith are not that far apart they require certain common things to make them active work. For those of you who don't follow football, you can now cat ch up and watch your normal tv for 3-4 weeks, then its going to be wall to wall football for a month as it's the World cup, Passions will run high, things will be said, advice will be given. Lets actually try and be as passionate about God as we are about something we follow, whether a team or a programme, whether it makes sense or not, lets just practise a bit of passion and faith, because thats going to win through at the end of the day

Ramble on

I'm going to probably upset a few people with this entry and i guess sometimes you gotta do it. For all of my walk with God i have classed myself as Evangelical, I'm a proclaimer of the good news, a born again fundamentalist with reasonable leanings. So its with some sadness that yesterday i found out that Steve Chalke and Oasis trust have been removed from the evangelical alliance. Now this was heart breaking for myself on a number of levels, but thats another day. What has become apparent now to me is that whether you call yourself, fundamentalist, liberal, conservative, or just plain weird, you have to stay within the confines of the label you wear, and don't you dare move away from it. All of my christian life i have struggled with church, i have struggled with its systems, its idiocy, its stubbornness to move forward, because we are holding onto the past, and in truth it sucks big time. You see i was never comfortable with being a Christian, i was never part of the in crowd, but i became the go to guy if you needed brutal honesty. Sometimes churches accepted what was said with grace, other times i was asked to apologise for what i said (yes really) My formative years of faith where in a hardline Pentecostal church, then into Methodism where i seemed to find some sort of fit for my faith. The problem is i despair and weep at times over what the church does and what Christians do, more time spent in committees, more time arguing over that semi colon in Timothy, more time denying the God of the Bible, and questioning whether or not the Bible is literal or not, whether it was written by monkeys or a spaceman. If I'm going to be brutally honest I'm thinking of throwing in the towel, just upping sticks and saying "stuff it" you see all i ever wanted from my faith was acceptance, acceptance from God which i got in spades, and acceptance from Christians, which has never been fully functional or fully coming from certain parts. The church should be a place where everybody feels safe, where everybody feels welcome and in all honesty its not. Christians have difficulty accepting each others diverse views, so what chance have we really got with dealing with the views of other outside of the church.
Over the years i have been fortunate to have met some incredible people, they have challenged me, nurtured me, helped me and saved me from myself, some have been Christians others have been as unbelieving as you could ever imagine. What that has taught me over the years is that all views count even if i don't like them, even if we disagree at least we know our voice counts. The exclusion of Oasis from the Evangelical Alliance is a step to far for me, its a step that says "if you do not agree completely you aint coming in" which is wrong wrong wrong. We should be able to accommodate creationists alongside those who think differently. Those who hold to male headship and those who don't, just when did sexuality become the defining factor on inclusion, when did my sexuality become an issue because it flipping well should not be, when other things are never seen as definitive.

Tomorrow being May 4th i take my last service on the preaching plan, as i have after praying long and hard realised i need to take a step back and stand down. Part of this is due to ill health,part not being able to fulfil the study side of local preaching, and not wanting to get stuck in a rut. Its taken me nearly a year to reach this decision, and I'm some what sad but excited about the future. My ministry has  taken me to some different and funky places (baptising a new convert in an oil drum at the Glastonbury festival) was one of the great highlights, met weird and wonderful people and enabled me to see a whole lot of life and acceptance.

Be at peace people, be with grace, be love.