Hatfield Heath

Roman’s 12:2 says that we are to be transformed by the renewing of our minds. Now what does this mean? In the context of the scripture and because of what Paul has just spoken of about grace; that’s what the “therefore…” is there for; it’s speaking of grace transforming our lives by transforming our minds, and this being tested.

We are to be active in this, doing what is right and not being conformed, or moulded by and formed by the world’s ways, but by grace. The goal is knowing what is good, acceptable and perfect.

Can we make it also mean that we are to believe what God has done in our lives, ignore the evidence to the contrary, and wait for the reality in our lives to catch up with the reality of what God has done? No. Not in morality, not in health and not in wealth. This is empty headed, over-spiritualizing intellectualism that ignores the visceral reality of the scripture. We are called to live right (Ephesians 4:17-24). Associating this scripture with the process of healing diminishes its power.

The scripture is talking about the realities of living in the world. It’s talking about doing the right thing despite the pressures around us to do otherwise; despite what we think. That is, not gossiping, not slandering, not telling lies, not getting angry, not being bitter, not being proud… things that start in our minds and destroy the work of grace.

Romans 12 to 15 let us know what we are to do as a result of receiving grace. Not if we like, or as the Spirit leads: we are to allow grace to transform our minds so that the realities of the life in Christ we live are pure. Romans 12:2 is not an excuse to wait for our minds to be transformed before we do right. It’s not an encouragement to believe in a healing that has not happened.

Paul’s call for us to renew our minds in Romans 12 prefaces 3 chapters of dos and don’ts. It’s an invitation to the hard work of living by grace, actively casting off and putting on, because we are founded in grace. Grace takes us to painful places and much of the battle is in our minds which need to go through the pain of transformation through testing.

For the moment all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant, but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it.
(Hebrews 12:11-10 ESV)

Now that’s a thought for the day. Stephen Foley writing in the i, (p.4, 14/02/2012) leads with, ‘Thousands of Chinese factory workers will be given the chance to detail the punishing conditions on assembly lines producing Apple iPads and iPhones…’ We also learn that workers typically earn 30p an hour, working 10 hour shifts with only one break. In 2010 in one factory there was a spate of 13 suicides or attempted suicides.

It’s a difficult one but, whatever you think, how has this made you feel? Threatened? It’s surprising how wedded we are to our technology. Dismissive? It’s not my problem and there are many other equally difficult questions to avoid each day, and I don’t need something else to feel guilty about. They work and they look good; what’s your problem? (Genesis 3:6)

Apple are incredibly brand aware. They ferociously protect their brand image and defend their product integrity. At present they are fighting to ban Samsung’s Galaxy Nexus smart phone in the US because it looks and behaves like an iPhone. An illustration used recently at our church noted how Steve Jobs insisted that every part of an Apple product conformed to his design ideals, even the parts you couldn’t see. You can see the parallel aspiration in the life of the church.

What is the Christian brand and how far do we go to protect it?

Luke 4:17-22

If you get a chance read this comments on the i news story. The comments make fascinating reading. I have highlighted Apple but, it has to be said, they have owned up and are trying to do something about it.

I've always been a cheerful sort of chap.

The Ancient Greeks had a saying that a thought is a thread and that a storyteller spins yarns. These are all pictures from weaving. Yarns are threads and they are formed by spinning. A textus is a piece of weaving and so a piece of writing came to be known as a textus from which we get the English word text. The metaphor has moved into common speech as we spin yarns and follow the thread in a story.

It is funny to think that this ancient term that referred to the craft of writing and depth of thought is now used to refer to what we do on our mobile phones and following a thread is an online activity.

But we can redeem the humble text!

Every month my pay as you go account offers me 100s of free texts and free access to the internet for £10. My credit just builds up and I religiously top up not wanting to waste my money on sending a text, when they are ‘free’. I hardly ever use my phone to talk, except in emergencies; old school.

So what to do with my bulging pay as you go account? Give it away!

70007 text ‘Barnabas’ and Barnabas aid gets £3. www.barnabasfund.org

70070 text ‘CHUN09’ & £amount to donate to the Leprosy mission http://www.leprosymission.org.uk/

And just to see how generous you lot are I have set up a page http://www.justgiving.com/Marc-Humphries and if you text

70070 with MEMH48  £amount  and you will have donated to Shelter.

Just a thought… do your children top up £10, use their free stuff, then run down their credit. You could encourage them to give by creating a page as I have done. The pay back could be that you give them £10 a month to top up, if they give away more than £1 a month in text giving. They could set up their own page to track their giving and encourage their friends to join them as a fund raising team.

Have we redeemed text? I hope so because giving is a habit our children need to learn. Now how are we doing…

Spindle tree in full pink fruit

One of my key beliefs is in the sovereignty of the human will (Genesis 1:27).

I believe in the sovereignty of God; he is all powerful and holds the whole creation together. God is good.

I see in the act of creation, the incarnation and salvation sovereign acts of self limitation (Philippians 2:1-11). I strongly feel that God has limited himself for the glory of his wonderful grace and that all our wills are created sovereign. This is one way I understand being made in the image of God.

God’s will is supremely free. His will is not bound. To exercise free will, our sovereign wills  bind to his sovereign will. Free will does not mean we exercise our will outside the will of God. Our will is only free, I believe, when the will of God is sovereignly our will. This is how I understand the mystery of God, creator and God made flesh.

The futility of sin is the fact that our wills are no longer free but bound by the slavery of selfishness and disobedience to the call of God. Our concept of self determination cloaks free will with the idea that we are free to sin. We are not free when we sin, we are made free in Christ so that we do not sin.

Jesus sets people free and commands them to go on their way and sin no more. While we are still sinners and bound by sin, we are forgiven and our experience of love and acceptance illuminates our life so that we have the hope of salvation. Sin no more, is a command to us based on the grace of forgiveness(1 John 3:1-10). But God does not take away the gift of our sovereign wills, we still need to turn to him.

Believing in Christ, we never lose the promise of salvation as we struggle with sin. Belief in Christ is a moment of peace and joy, an experience that sets us on the way to be imitators of Jesus; to be holy as he is holy. Believing in Christ is the creation of a new identity from which our sovereign identity grows. It is a decision to follow Christ, to be faithful to him (John 3:16-18). The battle begins as our character and circumstances are challenged and the gift is, our hearts are turned from stone to flesh. We hear the perpetual call, Go, and sin no more.

This is a simple command; go, and sin no more (John 8:11); be holy as I am holy (1 Peter 1:13-16). It is a call to imitation, to realise the divine image within all of us. Jesus’ teaching is easy and its outworking light.  Jesus says, love God with every fibre of your being and love everyone else (Mark12:30-31).

It is a true metaphor that speaks of arming ourselves for this life. Life is not easy but Jesus’ message is (Romans 13:12). We need every defence and weapon available, as, for some of us, we meet failure after failure and despair upon despair. Some struggle against circumstances and suffer. Others, if not all, struggle with the heavy burden of self. Our hurts and disappointments and the hidden world of our experience crowd in on the truth of who we are in Christ as we stumble and stumble again. For some of us, that one word of belief, that single word of freedom, is all we have in the struggle. But it is enough; it is the seed planted in good soil which is not strangled.

Our confidence is in God, as in Christ we are new creations hidden in him. As we set our hearts to forgive and be kind, yet feel nothing; as we seek to serve others and only feel failure, we know that, even so, in Christ we are saved. God may invade us with supernatural revelation but he will not take control and enslave us to it. He may reveal himself through miracles and supernatural encounters but he will not take away grace and bind us to the repeat of transient experiences. God limits his sovereignty for the glory of his wonderful grace so that we might freely bind ourselves to his will.

When everything else falls around our ears, the word of faith; the still, small, quiet voice, speaks, …My burden is easy and my yoke is light. He does not say pull yourself together and cheer up he says, …Come to me (Matthew 11:28-30). He knows your heart; it is his new creation and he will never let go (John 10:27-30).

This is love, that I am free to love. This is power that I am free to take up my cross and follow Christ. This is grace that I am freed to live in Christ.

Download this as a free book

Kierkegaard made an art of writing short provocative parables designed to shake us out of our comfort zone. He is often quoted, but not much read. To download a book for free visit Plough Books. From him you will gain the insight that,

There are people who handle the ideas they pick up from oth­ers so frivolously and disgracefully that they ought to be pros­ecuted for illegal exchange in lost and found property.

And so in the fear of prosecution I will share the words of others on two of Jesus’ parables; the treasure found in the field, reburied, everything sold, and the field scurrilously bought to obtain the treasure and the pearl of great price, which the merchant sold everything to obtain. (Matthew 13:44-46)

Nouwen notes in The Inner Voice of Love that having found the treasure and experienced its value you have to leave it and sell everything to obtain it;

You can only seek God when you have already found God. The desire for God’s unconditional love is the fruit of having been touched by that love.

Bonhoffer writes,

Costly grace is the treasure hidden in the field; for the sake of it a man will gladly go and sell all that he has. It is the pearl of great price to buy which the merchant will sell all his goods.

Ortiz in his book Disciple combines this teaching with Matthew 16:24-25 to teach that we get to keep everything but now it is radically under the ownership of Christ.

Rollins in the Orthodox Heretic says that Kierkegaart reflected that if you have sold everything to obtain the treasure you now have nothing, as the pearl only has value if you sell it, the one thing you are bound not to do. Having obtained the pearl you are now materially destitute whilst possessing something really precious.

Sometimes we run away from simple meaning and construct a wall between us and the message…

Whoever loses his life for my sake shall find it. (Matthew 16:25)

Kierkegaard writes;

All our Bible learning has become nothing but a fortress of excuses and escapes. When it comes to existence, to obedience there is always something else we have to first take care of. We live under the illusion that we must first have the interpretation right or the
belief in perfect form before we can begin to live – that is, we never get around to doing what the Word says.

Grapes in my garden

Woke early this morning, early enough to walk out into the countryside before going to church. What a wonderful morning; the leaves just turning and the hedgerows bright with berries. The dew was heavy and the sun shine was fresh and clean.

We walked towards the airport and breakfasted at McDonalds. Conversation turned towards thorny issues and the mess that is life. I had read Psalm 55 before heading out and I mused on the idea of being taken up on the wings of a dove and escaping into the peace and silence of the wilderness; the place of reflection and reforming (Psalm 55:6-8).

Walking back, anticipating going to church and our particular form of worship, I reflected on how worship is called out of that place of beauty and peace,  a place of grace where we know God. Luther taught that our righteousness does not do God’s work but God’s righteousness brings forth the fruit that is God’s work. Put simply he said it is the tree that swells the fruit. Jesus taught he was the Way, the Truth and the Life and that we are to worship in Spirit and in Truth.

We are in the time when we are called to worship where we are, from who we are in God. The tree is not the institution we attend it is the heart we bring with us. What a privilege it is that we can look within and explore our Inner Land and cry, beautiful! because of the work of Christ. All hearts strive for this peace; this light, and it is found in Jesus.

As I walked up the road, a cyclist came towards me, sat up on his bike, freewheeling, and cried, lovely! Let worship begin.

View from my garden bench

Reading… It takes me a long time to read a book. I find it a task and the focus necessary draws a lot out of me. I tend to dip into a book over a year and have several going at once. Occasionally a book will grip me and I will read it in a couple of sittings but this is rare.

Currently I am dipping infrequently in to Henri Nouwen’s The inner Voice of Love. The other day this sentence drew me down,

‘You are confronted again and again with the choice of letting God speak or letting your wounded self cry out.’

Another book I am reading over a long period is Growing Leaders by James Lawrence. This fine book is a breath of fresh air synthesising Christian leadership theories into a British context, giving a voice to those ill at ease with the dominant culture of our time but grateful for its insights.  This morning I read,

Our primary calling involves laying everything before God and placing God above all things. Yet our secondary calling must surely encompass the relationships that are part of being human, a glorious gift from a relational God.

Our primary calling is God’s call to himself; our secondary calling is our service to the world.

That these two ideas have spoken to me is an encouragement I am pleased to share.

The fountain at Cambridge Botanical Gardens

The church is a work of the Holy Spirit, who works creatively and deeply in the hearts of people to bring glory to Christ in his church. The principle is that the church is his work and he blows through the church like a wind, illusive yet manifest (John 3:8). We do not have control of how the Spirit works in the church and those born of the Spirit are similarly free.

How do you recognise a work of the Spirit in the church? Well it has the character of the Spirit: The Spirit is not bound in a method or a form though he might inhabit it. Living a Spirit filled life is being open to the breath of the Spirit blowing into every part of your life. Your concern is not in its location in any form, practice or discipline but in its call to worship and transformative effect.

The work God does in our heart, works its way out, effectively achieving its purpose, love. We are called to obedience to this principle, that we speak from the truth of the Spirit and not  from the pain of our anxiety and ambition. We cannot bypass the deep work of the heart as it is God’s promise to us (Ezekiel 36:25;27). We are called to trust God who is faithful to achieve this purpose in whatever way he chooses, in Christ, and who cannot be confined by walls or methods. Any other way is not the work of the Spirit (John 3:6;8).

The church is a called people formed by the hand of a good and loving God. He will build his church; we will hear his call safe in our identity as children of God. (1 John 3:1;3)

I believe families are less able than they were when these schools were established to be part of the daily running of Christian schools. Fewer families are able to offer their time for free and so the burden of running the schools has moved to a waged workforce. Our workforce needs paying fairly in order to preserve workers’ households. This makes the schools relatively expensive to run because of current economies of scale. The schools are too small to be sustainable without sacrificial wages or a volunteer workforce.

Christian schools need to build capacity and make strategic plans to do so if they are to be sustainable. Part of this I believe includes the pooling of people resources. Our foundational resource is the people who began the Christian schools movement and have the subject expertise to bring on the next generation of teachers. They are the DNA of the movement.

Given that we believe that this Christian schools movement is part of God’s economy for the local church, where are we being lead? We cannot change our vision because on our circumstances, but we can look at our circumstances and see what they are teaching us about our core task.

I would like to focus on our use of technology and how this empowers us to bring forward a new generation of teachers for our Christian schools. We need people who are Jesus centred, strong in the church and have a heart for the poor. We need people who are committed learners, willing to reflect on their teaching practice. We need the next generation of Christian schools’ leaders trained as teaching practitioners in a technology rich culture.

I believe the context I am describing means we have to move away from a staff who are completely subject focused and specialists, to a staff more learning focused with developing specialisms. I propose an apprenticeship programme for Christian teachers.

We value the gifts of subject leaders but, in a Christian School, it is wisdom we value principally and so we are looking for character leaders who can be supportive in the education of the children. We want learning mentors who are settled in the peace of Christ, love his church and strong in its mission. It is this way of life we want to model to our students, setting them in the path they should follow; to live in the way, truth and life that is Jesus.

The use of technology will enable us to gather our dispersed expertise to a virtual centre. From this virtual centre we can deliver high quality, distinctively Christian curricula, emulating face-to-face tuition, distributed online. Students can then be encouraged in their learning by mentors who are teacher apprentices within the Christian schools, who, as they become more proficient and expert, take a greater role in designing face-to-face personal learning programmes.

Teacher apprentices would need to be comfortably numerate and literate and open to further study. They would need to be part of a discipleship programme or outreach activity within their own churches. The school would be a centre of learning for all its staff with supported professional development. Teaching apprentices should be financed in open studies at a graduate level, preferably in the subjects they are teaching or in Education.

Teaching apprentices who are already graduates should be sponsored in post graduate studies at Masters level.

Teaching apprentices, themselves being learners, will be well placed to help in the personalisation of materials and the design of learning experiences, with the direction of local teaching leaders and the online course directors.  When they have completed their studies they are then able to pursue professional studies or remain in teaching, themselves becoming leaders in the programme.

The vision is, Teaching Apprentices will have good GCSE results in Maths and English and A levels or equivalent in their area of study. Some may already be graduates. They will be embedded in local churches, work part time in our schools and be sponsored in part time or distance delivered studies, either in their subject areas, or in Education. They will be taught to design learning experiences for their students based on a central pool of learning designs overseen by subject specialists. These apprentices will achieve certification of tertiary education or gain a post graduate qualification with vocational experience.

The Open University offers open graduate programmes nationally (www.open.ac.uk) as do local institutions. There are also part time study options. These often take up to 6 years to complete.

The vision needs praying about and discussing.

I would like to explore its feasibility and trial it as a case study in our humanities department (History, Geography and Religious Studies).

I would like someone to explore available graduate programmes and to look at the possibility of developing a government accredited advanced apprenticeship programme (www.apprenticeships.org.uk/Types-of-Apprenticeships/Education-and-Training/Supporting-Teaching-and-Learning-in-Schools.aspx ).

If there is anyone who would like to explore this with me I would be glad to discuss it. Initially we will need to make online courses and resources available, based on course already being used or provided by examination boards. We will then need to decide how apprentices can be supported locally and online. This will mean finding online subject directors from across the Christian Schools Trust or elsewhere who are enthusiastic about collaborating online.

I am struck by the danger of declaring that the cross of Christ deals with our sickness as well as our sins. People aren’t always healed but we are eternally forgiven. The cross of Christ declares the now of our forgiveness and the not yet of our physical wholeness.

If we declare that Jesus bore our sickness at the cross and that it is the cross that assures our healing, and people aren’t healed; that healing isn’t guaranteed, what are they to think if we then declare that the cross deals with sin. Is this equally in doubt?

Daily we experience suffering in our bodies; we experience the putting to death of Jesus so that the life of Jesus may be revealed in our bodies (2 Corinthians 4:10-11) and ‘Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day.’ (2 Corinthians 4:16).

John Stott writes ‘”Bearing the penalty for sin”  is readily intelligible, since sin’s penalty is death… But what is the penalty of sickness?”’ (Stott, 2007, p. 285) Is sickness a fault? Sometimes you can feel that, if you bear the guilt of not being healed.

But praise God! I have been physically healed many times. I live in the expectation of being healed many times again in this life , for the glory of Christ, and being eternally healed in the next, because of the cross of Christ.

Reference
Stott, J. (2007) The Cross of Christ, 20th anniversary edition, IVP