The Prodigal Son

On the EA Scotland web site this month is the August 2gether cmail. Short reflections on the Prodigal Son, Luke 15:11-31 - well worth a read - here.

Those by Pete Anderson and Keith Short are really good, the third one is by me, so let me know what you think.

Risk or die

We had a very good meeting of the EA Scotland executive. I always enjoy being at these meetings and sharing in what God is doing in Scotland. I find it refreshing having been at too many other meetings where the gospel doesn't get a look in.

Fred Drummond was talking about a movement of prayer sweeping our nation, about church and individuals steping out from the safety of the usual and well known in the risky place of the new and uncertain. God has shown himself faithful and the God who goes ahead of the risk takers for the gospel. Fred spoke of a kairos moment, a significant time in God's purposes when the Spirit is moving.

Churches, congregations who refuse to take risks for the gospel are congregations and chruches that are choosing to die. Risk is setting your sail to catch the wind of the Spirit, is losing everything to gain Christ. I'm weary of living in the 'safety' of no-risk which is the tied up in the harbour way of not following Christ.
There's an Ian White song I like, 'A ship that's in the harbour, is still and safe from strom, but it was not made to be there, it was made for wind and storm.'

Father, where you are at work show us and give us courage to risk all for you.

Bible Fresh Launch

I hope to see you at the bible fresh launch Monday 25 January at the ICC, Glasgow at 2 p.m. finished by 4 p.m.

Krish Kandiah will speak on bible fresh and there will be a real consultation about how we in Scotland can make best use of this opportunity to transform our nation through the bible.

Scotland Prayer 2010

I'm very excited about the initiative supported by the Evangelical Alliance Scotland, Pray for Scotland, Alpha Scotland and CARE for Scotland - Scotland Prayer 2010 - visit the web site here.

We can join in by praying the Lord's Prayer at 12 noon each day.

We can organise pray rooms in our communities - see the web site for details on how to organise a 24-7 prayer room.

There are two national events already in the diary -
Global Day of Prayer on Pentecost Sunday - 23 May
Prayer for the Nation on St Andrew's Day - 30 Nov

Let's not pray about 'the work' in 2010 may God teach us that prayer is 'the work'.

... if my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land. (2 Chronicles 7:14)

Bible Fresh

Things are beginning to pick up on the Bible Fresh front.

We have a group meeting in Scotland to prepare events and resources for the Bible Fresh initiative in 2011. This year is the 400th anniversary of the publication of the King James Version of the bible, and rather than simply celebrate an old book the plan is to encourage the church and many people to re-engage, or engage for the first time, with the bible for themselves.

There are to be four streams in this national initiative:
Bible reading
Bible experience
Bible training
Bible translation

Just now I'm working on some ideas for using blogs to help us engage with bible reading. Watch out for more news on this exciting project and please do pray for biblefresh: it could change your world.

EA Scotland podcast

There is a new podcast from EA Scotland. This month it is with Martin Clark, Director and Worship leader at Souled Out in Aberdeen. You can listen to this podcast and catch the back catalog of other podcasts here.

Souled Out is an inter-denominational (representing seven churches), city wide ministry primarily involved in organising large-scale worship events. Previous speakers to Souled Out events have included J. John, Tony Campolo, Mike Pilavachi, Pete Greig, Steve Clifford and Nicky Cruz
In this interview Martin shares his heart for worship and praise within the local church and within Souled Out. He talks about a number of issues including the celebrity culture within the modern worship scene and how we can start to see more songs being written by Scottish worship leaders.

2gether Scotland Magazine

The EA in Scotland have re-launched our magazine, here is the blurb on it.

2gether Scotland Magazine
The Evangelical Alliance Scotland has just re-launched our new 2gether Scotland Magazine. This has previously just gone out to our members in Scotland but we are now making this available, free, to any one who wants it. We can also send more than one copy to your church or organisation.

Just email us at Scotland@eauk.org

We are really excited about how our newsletter may be able to benefit the evangelical church across Scotland. We hope it will become a key resource for individuals, churches and organisations wanting to know what the Lord is doing across this nation through His people. With stories, interviews and articles we hope you will be able to share with us in the vision to see this nation transformed through a church united!

Just Generation

Is a one day conference for a generation passionate to see justice roll on like a river, righteousness like a never-failing stream.

Saturday October 31st, Destiny Church, Gorgie Centre, Edinburgh.

You can book for the conference through the web site here.

Alistair Stevenson, EA Scotland, has done a power of work for this conference along with others from the Scottish Bible Society, tearfund, the Leprosy Mission, International Justice Mission UK and Care.

The key speakers are Ruth Valerio and Chuck Freeland.

The vision behind the conference is to bring together a young generation of Christians in Scotland who are deeply concerned about issues of justice and mercy.

If you can help make this known to young people please do that, and encourage them to come along.

Audio and Video of Brian McLaren

From the front page of the EA Scotland site you can listen to Brian McLaren speaking at St Paul and St George's on Love Came Boldly (1 John 1:1-4) and view a video of Brian, a podcast recorded during his visit to Scotland in Dec 08.

Both well worth checking out.

Unity2transform

During 2009 EA Scotland in partnership with a number of other groups will be hosting prayer events in 10 towns and cites around Scotland under the banner Unity2transform.

It is always good to encourage prayer and to meet for prayer, there is no other reason needed. However, to unite in prayer with the aim of seeing transformation is exciting.

We are holding one of these events in Stranraer on Sat 30th May - watch out for more details later.

I was reflecting on this banner and the word transform. Our initial thought might be that we are uniting 2 transform someone else, or something else. Our community, our nation, our neighbours, our church and yes, all of these need transforming.

What about ourselves? Don't we need to be transformed? In prayer do we seek to change God, or have God change us? Surely it is the latter. In our uniting for prayer we will be the ones who are transformed. In this we will become agents of transformation in our communities, our nation, our neighbourhoods, our church.

Listening to Brian McLaren (3)

This is the last of my posts on my 24 hours with Brian McLaren. Thanks to Keith, Alistair of the New Evangelical Theological Symposium for the opportunity to be with you all.

Brian McLaren on the Big Questions
Speaking to a gathering of over 100 Brian addressed the big questions. He opened with an illustration from his time as a youth leader. He asked the young people what were the questions occupying their church groups, and then he asked what questions they discussed at school with non-Christian friends. The two lists were completely different and there could be no doubt which one was the more significant list. The point is that not only are our ‘church questions’ not relevant to our community beyond the church they are insignificant before a holy God who loves this world.

Brian has been studying the global problems we are all facing and asking what does the message of Jesus say about these problems. You can read of this in Brian’s book Everything Must Change. Brian has identified four global crises:
1) Our prosperity system can’t stop growing beyond the limits of sustainable growth,
2) The growing gap between the rich and the poor is stretching our equity system to breaking point,
3) Our security systems can’t cope with the anger of the poor and the fear of the rich,
4) Our world’s religions are failing to provide a story capable of dealing with the first three crises.

Does our telling and re-telling the story of Jesus and the good news of the Kingdom of God address these pressing crises? If it does not have we misunderstood the message of Jesus? Are we in fact misrepresenting the good news of the Kingdom which Jesus came to announce?
Clearly Brian is not replacing a set of irrelevant questions asked within our churches with a set of culturally relevant but equally irrelevant questions. Every culture does have its own irrelevant questions and the church exists to challenge these with the questions posed by the announcement of the Kingdom. Identifying these crises in this way may well be an example of how God uses such crises to recall his Church to a faithfulness to the good news of the Kingdom from which we have slipped. These are the big questions we must answer, knowing that Jesus and his message of the Kingdom provide the answer for us.

One of Keith Green’s songs had a line about how Jesus rose from the dead but the church is asleep in the light. Brian McLaren should serve as an alarm call to us. If we read or hear what he says we are challenged to reflect upon how we live and tell our Christian story. Even if we do not agree with Brian and find we need to change our thinking about the gospel, our serving of the mission of God in the Kingdom will be more faithful for having reflected upon a challenge offered to us from a brother engaged upon a common quest with us of serving Christ in our generation.

Listening to Brian McLaren (2)

More from 24 hours with Brian McLaren

Before you read my thoughts, take a moment to read Brian's meditation on this inauguartion week - Inaugural Week Meditation: So Happy

Let's keep on praying for Obama and the USA.

Brian McLaren on the Biblical Narrative
Brian holds that Western Christianity (i.e. Northern Europe and North America) is not the religion of Jesus but a synthesis of Judaism and Greek-Roman philosophy. In particular the Biblical narrative many of us have grown up with is flawed by this influence. Our received Biblical narrative is in six parts: Eden, Fall, History, Redemption, Heaven, Hell. This narrative pattern is read in terms of Platonic/Aristotelian ideals. Brian suggests that the Exodus provides a more Biblical narrative shape: Creation – Liberation – the Peaceable Kingdom. The question then is what happens to Jesus and the message of Jesus when we read it in this narrative shape? The characteristic message of Jesus about the Kingdom of God suddenly takes a more central place than in the received six line Biblical narrative in which the Kingdom is pushed forward in to Heaven.

I am grateful to Brian for this challenge to think more deeply about the received shape of the Biblical narrative which is so prevalent within our evangelicalism. However, Brian is very anxious to remove the Fall from his narrative shape and I would prefer he spoke more clearly about what we call Redemption. Even if we talk about Liberation on what basis is someone liberated and what about those who resist or reject any offered liberation? We might not like the answers Brian gives, but if we are to hold onto this traditional form of understanding the Biblical narrative we can’t do that because this is the way it has always been, we have been challenged to articulate a more meaningful and Biblical reason for reading the Bible in this way.

No one reads the bible without prior influences or presuppositions. It is time to be honest about this. What are our presuppositions as we approach the bible? How does our cultural background influence our reading of Scripture? These questions have been brought with increasing force before us over the past 30 years or so, it is time to work out some answers.

Listening to Brian McLaren

24 Hours with Brian McLaren

At the beginning of December around 30 of us gathered in Perth to meet and discuss theology with Brian McLaren. Brian is a theologian who arouses strong passions and opinions all over the world; no one it seems is lukewarm towards Brian. I found him to be a most gracious and humble scholar, in this a real example to us all as we engage with one another, especially when we disagree with one another.

Brian McLaren on the Bible
For many evangelical this is the shibboleth question, what do you say about the Bible? Brian spoke of three ways in which the Bible can be read and suggested a forth which he preferred. Some people read the Bible flat, like a legal constitution; it doesn’t matter which bit you pick up it all has the same value and legal significance. Some people allow the Old Testament to set the framework within which the whole Bible is read, others allow the New Testament to dominate and read the whole Bible through this lens of the New Testament. What happens if we recognise the unique role of Jesus as the Word of God and read both the Old and New Testament in the light of Jesus and his revelation of God?

This is a real challenge to us, do we allow Jesus to be the hermeneutic which governs our reading of the Bible or do we allow the Bible and our way of reading the Bible to govern what we think about Jesus? I would have liked to have more time to hear Brian giving examples of how this different hermeneutic works out in handling specific passages and across the sweep of the whole Bible.

For example, how do you read the OT with Jesus as the controlling hermeneutic without abusing the OT? Certainly the OT finds its fulfilment in Jesus but how do we read that in the OT?

The major question for me here is this, which is the touchstone for us the bible or Jesus? The principal element in our Christian faith must be this Jesus who is proclaimed as Christ and Lord, to whom the Scriptures bear witness. No one is saved by what they believe about the bible, but by Christ.