Yali Jubilee 2011

children in the wilderness

This week I intend to preach on Genesis 21:14-21, which is the story of Hagar and Ishmael. If these were ordinary times - if I were twenty years younger - I'd be making an orderly passage through the Gospels and Epistles before I turned to Genesis again. That was my custom, and I have always felt it was effective as teaching, which is really what all this is about. Now, though, I talk about whatever is on my mind - Hagar and Ishmael at the moment.

The story of Hagar and Ishmael came to mind while I was praying this morning, and I found a great assurance in it. The story says that it is not only the father of a child who cares for its life, who protects its mother, and it says that even if the mother can't find a way to provide for it, or herself, provision will be made. At that level it is a story full of comfort. That is how life goes - we send our children into the wilderness. Some of them on the day they are born, it seems, for all the help we can give them. Some of them seem to be a kind of wilderness unto themselves. But there must be angels there, too, and springs of water. Even that wilderness, the very habitation of jackals, is the Lord's. I need to bear this in mind.

 (Gilead by Marilynne Robinson, p.135)

Kiss On My List (Hall & Tunstall)

Copenhagen (Lucinda Williams)

Thundering news hits me like a snowball 
struck in my face and shattering
Covering me in a fine powder and mist
and mixing in with my tears

And I'm 57 but I could be 7 years old,
Cos I will never be able 
to comprehend the expansiveness 
of what I've just learned

You, have disappeared
You have been released
You are flecks of light
You are missed

Somewhere, spinning round the sun
Circling the moon
Traveling through time
You are missed

Walking through unfamiliar streets
and I'm shaking unfamiliar hands
and I'm hearing unfamiliar laughs
and lovely language I don't understand

It's late October in Copenhagen
The skies are grey, the snow is falling
I see my breath outside, I'm freezing
I'm motionless, I'm disbelieving

You, have disappeared
You have been released
You are flecks of light
You are missed

Somewhere, spinning round the sun
Circling the moon
Traveling through time
You are missed

You can't do it all? Then say so...

Saying you can't do it all is not a failure of leadership, it is effective leadership. But despite all the books and articles, like Jim Collins' Good to Great, that preach such reasonable humility, the culture of heroic leadership persists. Consequently, resources are wasted, false hopes are raised, and quagmires persist. When a leader comes along who is willing to offer a realistic assessment of strengths and weaknesses, and to state what an organization — or nation — should not do or should stop doing, that leader should be received with gratitude and not mockery.

from Good Leaders Acknowledge What Can't Be Done.

Albert's GCSE Prom

Having completed their GCSEs, Albert's school year had their leavers' prom last night. Here's the young man in his finery....

Granny's 80th birthday

Today is Mavis' 80th birthday. She's having a birthday tea with lots of friends on Saturday. As a family we had a couple of days away last week and stopped by at the Queen's pad. Here's a photo of us near there.

Influencing Church Culture

Ron Ashkenas has some thoughts that might help you with thinking through how to handle the culture of your church.

music for the sunny days of summer

Looking for some sounds to go with the weather? Then why not try The Sundays' album, Static and Silence - it's a corker.

writing (& speaking) more clearly

Some helpful advice from Seth Godin here.

Flaunt The Imperfection

The third album by China Crisis, Flaunt the Imperfection, is beautifully done and probably their highest high. The nice folks at Spotify and at Grooveshark will satisfy your curiosity.

How to keep things simple

A helpful post over at 99% on how to keep things simple, the main points being:

1. Simplicity of access - centralise your essential materials

2. Simplicity of space - give yourself a blank slate for creation

3. Simplicity of tools - explore your ideas with pen and paper

I like that. A lot.

Old songs; new settings: City Hymns

If you like old hymns in new settings and, sometimes, with new tunes then you might be the ideal candidate to give this new album a listen.

Pastoral authority is fundamentally relational.

So says this piece by Matt Tebbe - worth a read.

Costly grace

is costly because it calls us to follow, and it is grace because it calls us to follow Jesus Christ. It is costly because it costs a man his life, and it is grace because it gives a man the only true life. It is costly because it condemns sin, and grace because it justifies the sinner. Above all, it is costly because it cost God the life of his Son: 'ye were bought at a price', and what has cost God much cannot be cheap for us. Above all, it is grace because God did not reckon his Son too dear a price to pay for our life, but delivered him up for us. Costly grace is the Incarnation of God.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, The Cost of Discipleship, p.37

Can't sleep? Try cooling your brain...literally.

If you're a bit of an insomniac, even occasionally so, you might want to check this out.

HT: Lifehacker.

The Purpose of Romans

You can read Mike Bird's take on the purpose of Romans here. Almost as interesting is the word-cloud he illustrates his post with.

The Truth About Antidepressants

This is a very interesting presentation.

(HT: David Murray)

What is the church's greatest need?

In a recent piece on ministerial calls, Carl Trueman begins thus:

If the great need of this hour, as of every other, is preachers of the gospel, then it is surely worth while to reflect on a regular basis on the nature of, and qualifications for, a call to the ministry.

I don't want to engage here his thoughts on the subject of calls but to question the original premise: are preachers of the gospel the great need of the hour? I ask simply on the back of preaching through 1st Peter and the decided lack of emphasis on that topic. And Peter doesn't seem to be alone in that regard: yes, Paul wants ministers of the gospel to be all they should be and John is concerned that people recognise true teaching from false, but their letters don't seem overly heavy on saying that preachers are the great need of the hour.

What they do emphasise, it seems to me, is the need for churches and Christians to be what they are and what they are called to be. And Peter, along with his Lord, sees that as properly evangelistic (1 Peter 2:11,12; cf. Matthew 5:16).

Now, of course, faithful preachers are essential in that task; after all, they are given by the Lord to equip the saints for works of ministry. But that isn't the same as saying preachers of the gospel are "the great need of the hour" - or is it?

Maybe this is related to where the church finds itself. During Christendom's long years, there was a shared body of truth that was accepted, albeit only nominally by most. Perhaps the great need then was for those gifted in opening up the tacitly agreed metanarrative (ie. gospel preachers). But in a pluralistic age, not too unlike the context into which Peter's letter was sent, where there is not even a nominal agreement on truth, perhaps the greater need is for the kind of thing Peter calls for in the main body of his letter: deeply authentic Christian living.

So: a great need for gospel preachers? Yes. An even greater need for gospel living? I think so.

How long should a sermon be?

Length is the enemy of strength. The delivery of a discourse is like the boiling of an egg; it is remarkably easy to overdo it, and so to spoil it. You may physic a man till you make him ill, and preach to him till you make him wicked. From satisfaction to satiety there is but a single step; a wise preacher never wishes his hearer to pass it. Enough is as good as a feast, and better than too much....

The speaker's time should be measured out by wisdom. If he is destitute of discretion, and forgets the circumstances of his auditors, he will annoy them more than a little. In one house the pudding is burning, in another the child is needing its mother, in a third a servant is due in the family; the extra quarter of an hour's prosiness puts all out of order.

C H Spurgeon

(HT: David Murray)