HELLS BELLS

Society by and large are fascinated with hell and the Devil, popular movies have a theme of evil and popular music especially rock, blues and metal and even some old school composers have a fascination with what it's going to be like or how to get there and much of what we class as classic literature is based on ideas of hell and damnation my all time favourite book (paradise lost) is a prime example. So why do we have a fascination with it? why do people write about it, or sing about it, more so than ever before Hell sells it's a marketers dream. Society seems comfortable with a concept of hell and seems happy to a degree that it exists because certain people deserve and need to be punished. A straw poll of friends was interesting to say the least, some believed in hell more so than heaven because " bad people need to be punished and don't deserve a break" revenge is an ironical thing and i guess it's human nature to want revenge we may call it justice but its good old fashioned tit for tat ethics. Then we come to the church who have struggled with the idea of hell and the punishment that awaits those who go there. The everlasting refrain is " how can a God of love do…………." simply put i'm not God, heck i don't even rule in my house thats the cats job. But we do have to look at it and see why if it exists and i'm a traditionalist in this case ( or am at present) why God would push people there and not allow them paradise. So in a very anthological way i'm going to explain it like this and it's not going to make some people happy and thats fine with me. If i tell my son to slow down while he is driving and he does not, and ends up with a ticket because thats what the system says needs to happen he is rightly going to be punished by the law. Now before you all start screaming grace grace grace, we can all take a text from the good book and make it fit our ends so lets try and avoid that. But if the death of Jesus on the cross was to sort my sin out ( yep i know ) not a popular view in some circles and the death of Jesus meant anything and i need to be redeemed, what am i redeemed from? for me it's an eternity away from God as opposed to eternity with God ( and yep i know many Christians now doubt heaven exists) but i had to be redeemed from something if the sacrifice of Christ means or meant anything. It makes me chuckle and belly laugh when i talk to good God loving Christians who cannot get their heads around the concept or reality of hell, but many of my non Christian friends have no real difficulty with it. Has it become that we get so wrapped up in grace that we forget there needs to be another side of the coin, there has to be balance it's a spiritual necessity in my eyes.

Hell sells from movies to music, my band play a number of songs that i have been told i should not sing as a God loving man (highway to hell and anything by the evil AC/DC) Alice Cooper, Megadeath and good old Led Zeppelin, most of these people worked out long ago that the devil shifts units, much like sex sells the devil sells, look and see AC/DC's break through album Highway to Hell, Iron Maidens breakthrough album the number of the beast, they have shifted millions and millions of units between them infact AC/DC have sold in excess of 160 million albums worldwide and at one stage last year were out selling the Beatles on a weekly basis they were the biggest band on the planet. This is not definitive and i have purposely tried to avoid theological speak because if we looked at all the concepts in every strand of the church we would still be here when Jesus returns, and thats another blog for another day

Peace people

Andy

Do i blame me or do i blame God???

At this point in my life i'm struggling with church and all that goes with it. You see when i was homeless and rootless i was capable of maintaining my relationship with God, now that i'm settled i struggle with it all. I'm more than happily married to a wonderful woman who really makes my life complete, and i struggle with the grace that has been shown to me. You see i'm fairly self deprecating and i realise that i'm the luckiest SOB on the planet. But what do i do with the fact i'm struggling with what i call my faith, you see i'm not distant from God because of him but i'm missing something from what i class as my Christian life. God never moved from me i guess in all honesty i have just got bored with Church, the whole process and structure has bored me rigid, is that because of me or my denomination? over the past few months i have so desperately wanted to leave Methodism in the dust, because to me the whole broad church thing does not work, but a few ministers who i trust have told me i'm needed, which is nice but it's not enough for me at this point in time. The churches i minister in are wonderful and appreciate my honesty in the pulpit, and tell me so. But i'm struggling like a boat without an anchor in a storm, i'm just not feeling it anymore. My prayers have not gone unanswered and they are being answered regularly with God proving himself time and again. People are being blessed because of my faith and that means something. But i'm just struggling to put it all together, my heart tells me that those people around me who have helped me ( Pam Richardson, The Noronahas, Bob Hyde, Tom Osbourne, Mark and Sharon Gilborson, Pete Pillinger and Anna Flavell) deserve me to make a fist of this and complete the work God has given me to do, but can i be bothered?. You see Church has never been important to me, when i was homeless i maintained my faith by witnessing to the glory of God even tho i was living on the streets. And that is where my problem probably lays you see i have always been fairly independent as a person and as a Christian that is not a good thing because like it or not i have to rely on God. But when i had no ties i was able to do what i felt God wanted without fear of the church people having a go at me about what i did because i just did not care what people thought ( yep i'm bad) now i have to be sensible and tow the line to a certain degree and that hacks me off big time. You see one of my problems with church and it's structure is that certain things are expected, but for me i have no real desire to follow the norm, i'm not that sort of person. I sing in a kicking Rock n Roll band (ask Tom Osbourne) and i do not fit what society thinks a Christian should be. You see i'm getting fed up with the claptrap that makes up church and stops people coming to faith, reality is what matters, not some structure that is actually going to push people away from God. Where i am at present is waiting for the right time to probably walk away, sit at the back of church on Sunday and let the good folk whom i love get on with it and just do my own thing as the people i deal with don't want to know about CPD or CHURCH councils, what they want is a reality in faith, something that connects with them and makes some form of sense not just a religious idea that alienates. My biker friends, my inked friends, my muso friends mean the world to me, they help me, they show me and need me. It may come to the fact i walk away from Church but  i will never walk away from God no matter how stupid it seems or how hard it becomes, church is part of it but i have always been a follower of JESUS first and foremost and a church goer second. This will probably upset some people and for that i guess i have to say sorry, but i have to follow my heart and that is a different matter. Years ago Bob Hyde sat with me when my life was falling apart, he listened and loved, in those moments he taught me so much about Jesus, not church, not structure, but about faith and that is where i am. 90% of my time is spent with non christians and i love it, and i have a good example in my best friend and saviour JESUS.

That metaphorical line.

We often hear the term they/ we/ such and such have crossed a line, even Obama used it with regards to the atrocities in Syria, but where is this line drawn? You see we all have a different idea on what is right or wrong, there are universal things we could probably all agree on but having said that i'm not certain it could happen. You see some people find swearing or nudity in art unneeded and will switch off or not attend a gallery because of it, personally i have few problems with bad language in art or in life, but those are the circles i move in and the people i interact with use those sorts of terms, obviously if it's tv you just switch off or change channel but you cannot do that in real life unless you stop interacting with those people. My line is the N word i don't like it and have used it only twice in my entire life and one of those was in context but it still made me feel dirty. We will have different ideas but what if those lines we draw take us away from a society we are meant to interact with, is it right to separate ourselves from a hurting society because they use terms or cross the lines they do? personally i think the answer is no, we stay and put our sensitivities to one side and try and interact and influence those around us. Years ago one of my closest friends had a real problem with the Simpsons and refused to watch it i have no idea if he watches it today at all, now if he does it is a change of heart and opinion he has had. That brings us to another difficulty, as society changes and what is acceptable changes do we change or stay the same.
One of the questions we need to ask is this, is our own line moveable or static? does it reflect us, society or God does that line enable or inhibit, does it make us better people or worse people? as the line is different for different people each of us will have a different view on it and how we apply it. It maybe as simple as switching channels or turning of the radio, it may mean we have to swallow our pride to achieve something greater than our own opinions and our own ego's. Society changes and will continue to change in some ways thats good in other ways it's bad because things we all hold dear may crumble and fall, what we need to do is stand up for what is right and that is a whole new ball game because just like the line our opinions of what is right will differ greatly.

Edison and that darn lightbulb!!!!

Thomas Edison is a man i admire, he was an inventor and seemed to be a genuinely nice chap. He had a tenacity that many of us lack in life and was determined to the uppermost to achieve his aims, the most famous being the lightbulb. When asked by a reporter if he felt like a failure he replied" no i now know 999 ways not to make a lightbulb, the figure is never set in stone, some biographers say it was 1000, 3000 10,000 times before he got it right, but the number is not as important as not giving up in the face of what appears to be failure, and keeping on going even when people are laughing at your "failure". Edison could teach us a great deal as could a lot of great inventors and scientists of our times.

Over the last few weeks a great deal of my time has been taken up with Prayer, doing it ( for others and for myself as my health is poor at present) speaking about it and hopefully helping people to understand it better. Now one of the things which has kept cropping up is "why God answers some prayers and not others" the simple answer is i have no idea, does it make God unfair and nasty, in some eyes yes. We Can all give examples of prayers not being answered how we expected or how we wanted. We have possibly prayed for healing for a friend and it has not happened and we wonder why, what is God playing at. That will obviously colour our ideas on how and why prayer does or does not work, but trust comes into it somewhere along the line and trust we must. Obviously prayer helps if you believe in an interventionalist God, some people do not believe God wants to get involved because of unanswered prayer and that colours what they feel and feelings are not faith, it's emotion and we have to try and separate the two. You can pray without believing in an interventionalist God, but if you believe God is not going to get involved there seems little point other than offering platitudes to an empty space.
Also a big part of prayer is relationship, our relationship with God through his son, what we know of God and how our relationship with God helps our prayer life. Relationship is key to a good and productive prayer life, our relationship with God and how we view him will affect how and if we pray. If your view of God is of the man with a big stick, who will belt you every time you step out of line then you are likely to encounter problems, if you view God as a loving caring father the chances are you will approach prayer differently, you will approach it as a conversation as a relational conversation where you lift your mind and heart towards God and engage with listening and understanding. Many times i have prayed for things and they have not been answered how i thought they should be, does it stop me praying? NO it does not in fact if i'm not seeing answers or getting movement i tend to pray longer and wait for movement to happen. Many times i have prayed and seen people healed, yes i know some will argue that the body repairs itself, the brain tricks etc etc. But when there is no other explanation than a miracle taking place you have to go with that. Sherlock Holmes said something along this line (and i know he is a fictional character) "Once you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth.” Thats how i approach prayer, i don't fully understand why it works or does not work but i know it does, and just like Edison keeping on trying to make the lightbulb and not giving up when things did not work out, i'm prepared to keep going with knowing God is interested even if i don't fully understand it, and he will keep proving himself to me and to you through what you pray.

We are playing Marbles with Diamonds

In my time as a Christian one thing that has always bugged me is the ability some Christians have to concentrate on the irrelevant and miss the big issues. Now this will upset some of you and i know who you will be, it will also bring out all the old platitudes that get trotted out when this subject comes up, it's not meant to offend but i know some of you will be offended so i will apologise in advance for that.
A few weeks ago Pete Pillinger posted a link about" the questions the church is asking, but society is not" or something along that line and it got me to thinking, are we actually asking questions at all and more importantly are we actually relevant to the society we live in. As most of you are aware i'm blessed to have more non christian friends than christian friends and i really do thank God for that everyday. But something happened on Friday that got me thinking about how we as Christians are so dependant on having the title and for some the title is more important than the job description and doing the job. On Friday a friend called Matty introduced me to his daughters friend and called me the Vicar, she was shocked because her idea of a vicar was a collar, straight laced and a boring old fart and unfriendly (her words) where as i'm covered in ink, i smoke and i'm friendly(her words). During the conversation i had to try to explain to her that i was not a Vicar, not ordained, and not a dog collar wearer, but that i was a God botherer, when her eyes glazed over i realised something. When people come to us as Christians for help, they don't really care about what your title is, they want your help, they want someone who can give comfort and point to something different they want a friend i guess. So does it really matter in the real world if you are called a Vicar by non church people, they know i preach and as such that makes me a Vicar and to be honest trying to explain the ins and outs of ecclesiastical thought is not going to cut it as their eyes glaze over. Legally yes it matters for certain things but when the chips are down does it matter a flying fig what they call me, as long as i'm able to help them or point them to someone who can or better still point them to God.
This is the crux of the matter we spend a lot of time discussing trivialities, hymn books, structure and asking ourselves lots of questions that are really only relevant to us, they only matter to us and don't tend to matter to society at large. So do we carry on playing Marbles with Diamonds or do we/ can we become relevant to societies questions and stop the games? I'm sure we can i'm just not sure we have the desire to do so, and that will cut some of you. Thomas Eddison is a hero of mine, he was a scientist and an inventor, i'm an engineer and love the idea of Eddison working away but that is a blog for another day.

I don't ride a motorcycle, i'm a biker.......

There is an element of snobbery in the bike scene, those people of my ilk take the mick out of power rangers (sports bike riders in colour co ordinated leathers etc) who have no idea where to find a spark plug and always take the bike to the garage and pay extortionate prices for work to be done, i'm more of a hands on type of person. The point i'm getting at is there are certain things that make you a biker over being a bike rider and the differences are subtle and to the untrained eye non existent but they do exist. When you become a member of a bike club there are certain things you have to follow lets call them club rules, these rules are there to help everybody in the club and are enforced without favour you can fight them but they are not likely to chance just because you may not like them. Bikers are a rare breed they believe in honour, integrity, loyalty and they will always help out a fellow brother or member it's part of an unwritten code.

This brings me to Christians, there are certain things you really need to believe in my opinion if you are a Christian, you may not understand them, you may not fully agree with them but certain things in the Christian faith are what we would call needed, to claim you are a Christian if you don't believe them then there seems little point in claiming they belong to your faith path. One of the things i hear a lot of lately across all churches is that prayer does not really work, now if you believe that, thats fine and dandy but prayer is the life blood of the Christian and if we believe it does not work why bother praying? there is no point what so ever other than pandering to some need to feel good which has it's place but it's a waste of time if it's only being done because well we always do but, you know i don't believe it works. As Christians we have to believe there was and is something unique about Jesus, he was not just another fool with a Messiah complex but was the real deal, if not again why bother? Because lets be honest if we don't have something great to proclaim within the gospel we may as well not bother and let people believe any old stuff if it makes them happy. We all struggle at times with our faith, we all have doubts at times, our thought change over the years through experience and hardship, but what does not change is what God is capable of doing in our lives. If you don't want to believe in the bible, the God of the bible and his son thats fine, just don't try and mould him into your image of what God should be, according to your understanding or lack of it. If you don't see how prayer works that's fine, if you believe people are never healed today thats fine. Just don't try and deny it happens for those of us who have seen it, yes sometimes people are not healed, sometimes they are and in all honesty thats one thing i struggle with but it will not stop me praying for people to be healed, because i have seen them healed. The question is am i a Christian just because i attend church or am i a Christian because it's my life blood however that is worked out, am i a Christian because it's what i have always done but have no real desire to yield to God or his will because well " i don't see how God could... ya ya ya, because i don't get it" You and i are not God we are his followers and follow we will and if  ABC is the way then thats the way it is. You see you can be a motorcycle rider, only ride when the weather is fine, keep your bike polished and send it to the garage to change a spark plug,or you can be a biker and ride through all the storms, dirty bike that still runs well, ride all the time even when it's tough but ride you will because it's in your blood. It's the same with the Christian walk when the sun is shining it's fairly easy, but when the dirt hits the fan it gets tough, we wanna park up and make excuses as to why we are not doing, it's easier to park up in the garage and wait for the storm to pass, some of us are going to ride the storm and reach the end, we may be bruised we may have crashes that de rail us for a time, but we will get back on and hit the road again, which type are you?

Tho i speak with the Tongues of angels....

Tongues is a fairly divisive gift of the spirit, not because of the spirit but because we know better than the spirit or God. Pentecostals believe that speaking in Tongues is the initial evidence of the baptism in the Holy Spirit, and if you don't speak in tongues you are not baptised in the Spirit. Then there are those believers who give it pride of place of all the gifts, mainly because it is a show gift, it's public in the sense it is spoken out and as such people can see it at work. Without wanting to get too deep, tongues is a useful gift, it enables the person to communicate at a different level than normal words, but in no way demeans prayer in normal language given to God, it never was meant to make people feel inferior or superior, that unfortunately is a human trait and not a spirit one. Tongues do not make you a super christian, they enable you to speak in a heavenly language and communicate at a deep spiritual level with God.

The day of pentecost was a great day and the fact that the tongues given on that day were to let people hear the gospel of Christ in their own language ( i know many of my pentecostal friends will baulk at this) but from a reading of the book of acts thats what it was for, it was a mass pouring of Gods spirit to enable communication, and communication which was needed. The Apostle Paul in some respects put's it way down from other gifts, because even back then people who did it felt superior probably and the gift was being abused which is why he gave instruction on how to use them in church. As with any gift of the spirit it can be abused, which comes back down to human nature i guess. The greatest thing we can do in practical and spiritual terms is to love, love trumps it all and loving can be a spiritual act especially when we have to or need to love people who wind us up, or rub us the wrong way, love is preeminent it is the be all of everything we do, people need to be loved, need to feel worth and we as Christians need to follow the example of Jesus in all of this, which is to love the unlovely and love without recourse of payback. Tongues is useful to the Christian, it's useful to congregations, it's useful to the body of Christ. We as individuals need to keep our pride in check and not put the gift above the giver which tends to happen. Having spent 16 years of my life in one of the biggest Pentecostal denominations on the planet, i have witnessed the way tongues can be elevated above the giver, but that does not mean we throw the baby out with the bath water because it gets abused as a gift. If we did that a lot of things in church would need to be thrown out as well, because it's not just spiritual gifts that get abused in churches, many things do and we need to guard against that in all forms not just the spiritual ones. I speak in tongues daily, i'm pentecostal after all and it goes with the territory, being Methicostal as i now term myself has it's drawbacks but the pro's far out weigh the cons involved in the spiritual gifts i have. Balance in all these things is important, practical help goes a long way to helping people, at times it will feel silly and we wonder what God is playing at, God is God and at the end of the day can do what he want's with me as his follower, i'm capable of trusting him enough to know he will not let me down.