CWW friends

Last Friday at the CWW fringe event I had the chance to meet up with friends from the CWW commission. Here's a photo:

L to R - Peter Gardner, Mike Lyall, GK, Susan Clark, Ramsay Shields, Alison Jack, David Denniston, Iain Cunningham, Peter Neilson and Albert Bogle. It was a shame that Fyfe Blair, Susan Brown, Marjory MacLean, Alan Miller and Pat Munro weren't able to make it.

Let me share some lessons I learned on CWW

1. When you are interviewing someone, let them get a chance to speak.

2. Different ideas are good. If you only think the same ideas as you already hold you won't grow, I'm not saying you always need to change your ideas, but, you do need to think through what others think and believe.

3. Listen and speak. Sometimes we need to be quiet so that we can hear others. Listening is respecting and loving. But we don't only listen, we speak. When we speak we share with others, we are honoured by the respect and love they show us when we speak.

4. Unexpected friends are good friends. There are some we hear of and know about who we can well imagine being friends with, they can be good friends. But what a joy to meet others you didn't know, hadn't heard about, wouldn't have chosen to meet and find in them friends, sisters and brothers to trust and share with, living stones whom our one Father will use for his glory.

I'm not sure yet how much our God has done in our church through CWW, but I know how much he has done in me through my sharing in this work. Thank you all for sharing it with me.

Creation Sings

Leaving the Assembly I bought this new cd from Stuart Townend Creation Sings. I listened to it more than twice on the drive home, but haven't watched the dvd disc yet.

Thanks Stuart for a wonderful set of songs in praise of our great God and our wonderful Saviour. A great version of Ps 27. Lot's of new songs to download (legally) and learn on the guitar and share with the folks down here.

Some quotes that encouraged me after the Assembly:

from Holy Spirit, living Breath of God:

"Holy Spirit, from creation's birth,

Giving life to all that God has made,

Show Your power once again on earth,

Cause Your church to hunger for Your ways."

It is God's church and he will set his Spirit within us that we might seek his ways.

from My heart is filled with thankfulness:

"My heart is filled with thankfulness

To Him who walks beside

...

Whose every promise is enough

For every step I take,

Sustaining me with arms of love

And crowning me with grace."

I don't need to walk by sight since I walk by faith. His promise is enough, more than enough, even if I never see his promise fulfilled, may I keep on in his way and be sustained by the love and grace of his mighty promise.

If you don't yet know Stuart's work this is a wondeful cd to begin with.

What's next?

Sorry I've not been blogging for a while, I've been at the General Assembly.

I'm sure others will have been blogging about what's happened, I'm more interested in what's next? How can we build, or re build, one Church in our nation?

Today I've been in Glasgow meeting with the Evangelical Alliance Executive together with Steve Clifford and his wife Anne. Steve is the new General Director of the EAUK. It was a good time and I'm very encouraged about the future of the EA in the UK under Steve's leadership.

No doubt I'll be back to blogging about other things soon.

On Justification

Mike Bird has a post which is well worth reading on NT Wright and Justification, you can find it here.

This debate between NT Wright and traditional reformed views of Justification will run for some time yet. Much better to carry on the debate with an attitude of submission to Scripture and a desire for the glory of God in Christ. Thanks for this post Mike.

Good Music Friday

The new Branford Marsalis Quartet album is great. Released in March this is a must listen to set of tunes.

The Quartet have been playing together for ten years now. In today's Jazz world keeping the same line up for ten years is a rare thing. But it really does pay off as the musicians really hang together in this set.

Great bass work from Eric Revis if you are a bass fan (and why wouldn't you be?). It looks like the Quartet are only playing England in the UK this year, but let's hope it isn't too long before they find their way up to Scotland.

Let Love Be Found Among Us

The Lord has a way of bringing things together. I’m preparing to preach on 1 John 4:7-5:4 for Sunday evening. The key theme is ‘love one another’ which is intimately connected by John to the nature of God, who is love, to the gift of God, which is Christ, to the purpose of God for our lives that we display his love before one another, for one another.

Yesterday I read in the Times of a minister in our church comparing those who disagree with him to Nazi panzer divisions storming into France. Today I read in the Press and Journal another minister in our church calling those who disagree with her fundamentalist terrorists. (I've deliberately note included links to these offensive articles).

Lord, have mercy.
Christ, have mercy.
Lord, have mercy.

Sisters and brothers, listen to yourselves. Is this what we have come to? Is there no way we can disagree with one another without also descending into name calling and insulting one another? For the avoidance of doubt ‘insulting one another’ is not close to the same as ‘love one another’.

I believe that God has revealed to us, in his word, that human sexuality is to be enjoyed and celebrated in celibacy or between one man and one woman within the covenant of marriage. I know that my believing this is offensive to those who disagree with me. But I too am offended when I hear my God and my Saviour condemned as a liar or a fool by those who seek to reject his revelation and dismiss his word. It is easy to be offended.
Given that holding any position in this debate will offend someone for whom Christ died, can we not agree with one another, because we love one another, that we will speak and act in a way that does not add to this offence? If we find ourselves unable to speak or act in support of what we believe to be a Godly, Christian position in a way that is loving and Godly perhaps the position we are speaking for is not Godly. If we are unwilling to speak or act in a way that is loving, for the sake of God, in the name of Christ Jesus our Lord we should be silent.

What we need today is not greater displays of offensive rhetoric, but greater displays of Christ like love.

Please, pray for the Church of Scotland, pray for all who speak on this sensitive and contentious matter, pray that in all we do and say the love of Christ would be seen and displayed among us.

Reading Calvin

I caught this link from Mike Bird's blog euangellion.

Princeton Theological Seminary have a web site on Calvin which contains a reading plan for the Institutes for 2009, the 500th anniversary of Calvin's birth. Follow this link and check out this very useful resource.

I find there are too many people who have made up their minds about Calvin without every having read Calvin. The later Calvinists did not always very faithfully represent the Calvin they claimed to follow. Always better to read Calvin for yourself, his brevity means it itsn't a hard read and it is usually worth it.

Passion - is no excuse!

I didn't see the game on Wednesday, only the highlights. It seems clear that the Referee did make some big mistakes.

At the end in his interview I heard Guus Hiddink ask us to accept that his players were passionate about winning the game and therefore, their conduct was acceptable.

I completely disagree - passion is no excuse!

We have grown too accustomed to footballer expressing their disagreements with refereeing decisions in a wholly inappropriate way. I read some years ago of school boys in the highlands who when playing football shouted and contested every decision, but when playing shinty always accepted the ref's decisions and got on with the game. Is shinty a less passionate game than football?

Passion is no excuse for offensive and rude behaviour.

If this is true in relation to football, how much more in relation to the church and the way we speak to and about one another. Passion is no excuse for rude and offensive behaviour.

At the General Assembly later this month we will be hearing a case and debating an overture which concern human sexuality. This is a subject which arouses strong passions. I'm not against passion or being passionate, we should feel strongly about our God and his glory and his honour which is reflected in our human behaviour. Passion is no excuse for offensive behaviour. I fear my posting on this is already too late as around the blog world, in the press and on web sites rude and offensive comments about sisters and brothers with whom we disagree are legion. The fruit of the Spirit is self control, not dispassionate unconcern, but self control. Can we pray for self control for ourselves and for others taking part in the General Assembly?

Be as passionate as you like, but in Christ's name also be self controlled, gentle, humble, kind, gracious, tempered with love ...

Pentecost is coming

We move so quickly from Easter into Pentecost. I came across this quote in von Balthasar,

It makes a great difference to the act of contemplation whether I see myself as an isolated subject, who, albeit assisted by God's grace, endeavours to understand something of the mysteries of revelation; or whether, in faith, I have the conviction that my inadequate attempt to understand is supported by the wisdom of the Holy Spirit dwelling within me, that my acts of worship, petition and thanksgiving are borne along and remodeled by the Spirit's infinite and eternal acts, in that ineffable union by which all human doing and being has been lifted up and plunged into the river of eternal life and love. (page 76)

Two things here. First of all it is good to be reminded of the inner working of the Holy Spirit in the life of all Christians as we try to pray and live as Christian disciples of the Lord Jesus.
However, I also note here that von Balthasar views prayer as an exercise in 'understanding something of the mysteries of revelation'. Such a view of prayer saves us from thinking of our best prayers persuading God to change his mind and do what we want. It also, however, surely changes how we think about trying to understand what God has revealed of himself. Do we give ourselves to prayer - contemplative prayer - when reflecting upon God's revelation in creation, in Scripture, in Jesus Christ? Or do we have very wise and very clever methods of study which take priority over such prayer?