2009 in review

Posted at 7:06 PM

2009 was a year of big changes. I graduated, moved city, and started work as a Relay worker. I organised a gig in a pub for the first time, having finally found people to collaborate with, and then left Bristol the week following. I wrote my first (and probably last, for a while at least) piece of music for orchestra. I recorded and produced a CD for my choir.

In a way, none of the things that happened this year are what’s important about it. Reflecting on the past few months at least, it seems that I’ll remember this year because of what I learnt more than what I did – something that will hopefully continue as term begins again tomorrow and I start student work afresh. I’ve learnt that grace motivates us to change. After a tough first term of Relay, I’ve been refreshed and challenged by the truth that I’m utterly dependent on God, and so should stop acting like he needs me in order to work – it’s not my ministry, it’s God’s ministry! It’s liberating and difficult at the same time, because my flesh wants my work to be about me and my gifts, not God and his gospel. Putting my selfish desires to death is hard, but that’s okay: God’s promised that he’ll do it so I can fight hard in confidence. (There’s so much more that could be said, and would have been if I’d managed to write an entry about it a month ago…)

2010 began with a realisation that, as I’m dependent on God for everything, I should be praying – and joyfully, the God I’m praying to is my loving Father. A Praying Life by Paul Miller could be the book with the most immediate impact on my spiritual life of recent years (a big thank you to Jim Walford for the recommendation!). My prayer is that God will help me continue to actively put my trust in him each day, particularly as I seek to share Christ with those who don’t know him yet, and look to find my joy and rest in him.

Grace and godliness

Posted at 6:38 PM

My former staff worker Jim Walford hasn’t been blogging long, but he’s been consistently writing brilliant entries. His latest is no different:

All too often CUs can be not much more than holy huddles of students with very little evangelistic endeavour and no real commitment to prayer. And this is something we need to challenge. But the answer is not to remove things we normally associate with church life like systematic teaching from the Bible and times of singing and praise. Remove these from the CU meeting and all zeal for evangelism and prayer will die.

Why is this? Well, Jim answers the question better than me, so go read his article. In short: the more we love and delight in God and his gospel, the more we’ll want to tell people about him; stirring up joy in our hearts is the best motivation for evangelism there is!

It strikes me that this principle is extendable beyond gospel proclamation. When I sin, it’s because I believe that it will give me more satisfaction than following God. How then do I confront sin? I remind myself of the glorious gospel, and delight myself in God once again. It’s in seeing more of God and his grace towards us that motivates us to change, as we see that in living for him we can find true joy. We fight the fire of sin’s pleasures with a burning passion for God that’s greater (to paraphrase John Piper heavily).

Secondly, how is it that we grow as Christians? Grace spurs us onto lives of godliness. Paul writes to Titus:

For the grace of God has appeared that offers salvation to all people. It teaches us to say “No” to ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright and godly lives in this present age, while we wait for the blessed hope – the appearing of the glory of our great God and Saviour, Jesus Christ, who gave himself for us to redeem us from all wickedness and to purify for himself a people that are his very own, eager to do what is good. (Titus 2:11-14, TNIV.)

How can grace teach us? Surely the more we understand God’s grace to us in Christ, the more we’ll want to live our lives for him. The joy of our salvation will overflow into obedience. John Piper comments on Twitter:

‘Right behavior’ without right feeling is not really right behavior.

This joy isn’t optional; it’s the necessary starting place, otherwise our good works will be done out of duty or legalism.

So fight sin by cultivating joy in God; godliness, too, should grow in response to God’s grace; and as Jim writes, having our hearts stirred to admire and love Christ more will mean we want to share him with others. It’s all tied up together; we love God more because of the cross, as it shows us God’s love for us despite our sin; our love for God inspires our worship, in resisting sin, growing in godliness, loving the lost and living and speaking for him. Grace doesn’t just save us in the past, but changes us in the present, and gives us a glorious future. God’s salvation is truly awesome.

The importance of terminology

Posted at 1:18 AM

Words matter. Despite what literary deconstructionists say, we can communicate meaning with them. The words we use have an effect on what we think, and vice-versa. Using a word that isn’t quite right, or that someone else has a different understanding of, can lead to miscommunication, and sometimes to wrong thinking and practice.

We have to be careful that we have the right definition of words we use as Christians, because we can misunderstand what God is saying if we don’t. For example, if your understanding of the word “evangelism” includes living a distinctive life, not just telling people the gospel, you won’t feel the same urgency when being encouraged to evangelise. If your understanding of the word “doctrine” is that it is by definition dry and irrelevant, you’re going to think Paul was being boring when encouraging Titus to teach what is in accord with sound doctrine (Titus 2:1). If you think “faith” is by necessity “blind”, then half the New Testament is going to sound anti-intellectual. Words matter.

They matter in how we use them, too. If we always refer to where we meet as a church as “the church”, we’ll gradually – even if we wouldn’t say this! – begin to think of the church as something we attend, not something we’re part of. If we refer to the pastor as the minister, we may start thinking that ministry is something other people do. If we refer to the pastor as a priest, we slide into thinking he intercedes for us before God.

Now, referring to the pastor as a priest is actually a true statement! It’s just that we’re also priests, and the most perfect priest is Jesus. Using a correct statement nonetheless gives rise to a dangerous idea – that of someone other than Jesus as an intermediary between us and God.

During the course of New Word Alive, I came across a couple of words in very common use that I felt could be (or were already) prone to these kind of dangers. The first was “mission”, and the second was “worship”.

Rejoice in the Lord

Posted at 12:07 AM

One of the seminars I attended at New Word Alive was on the topic of worship, or what I think I’d call “rejoicing in the Lord” (from Philippians 3:1 and 4:4), or “delighting yourself in the Lord” (Psalm 37:4). I’ve written on the topic before:

If I want to fight sin, I have to look to God for my joy. I have to delight myself in him, or put it another way, to find my delight and joy in him, rather than looking elsewhere. The more we look to God for our joy, the more sin’s attractions dim and fade. And the more we stop sinning and live God’s way, the more we experience life the way it should be – life depending on our awesome creator God, lived to his glory. It’s there we find our eternal joy. (Joy and sin, January 2008)

This is what Christian maturity looks like in this life: a desire to know more of Christ. We shouldn’t be stagnant in our desire to know him better; in fact, if we think we’ve arrived in the Christian life, that only goes to show we’ve missed the point of the Christian life. We are saved for a relationship with the God who made us, and if we stop building our relationship with him, we’ve missed the point of our salvation.

Paul wants to know Christ. It’s the one thing he does – pressing on to know him (3:8), gain him (3:8), and be found in him (3:9). If I ask myself “how much does this describe me?” the answer is “worryingly little”. I find it very easy to settle into a rut and go through the motions. I can very easily think of myself as mature, because I know more about God, about the Bible, about theology than other people. If I’m not wanting to know God more and more, and not just about him, then I’m showing that I’m not mature. I need to press on to know Christ more. He died so that I could know him; knowing him is what we were made for. (Maturity, March 2008)

The seminar took my thinking further, by looking at what this “rejoicing in the Lord” looks like – something I really should have done before, given the importance I’d ascribed to it! Marcus Honeysett, who was leading the seminar with Anna McCracken, took us to Psalm 27:

One thing I ask from the LORD,
this only do I seek:
that I may dwell in the house of the LORD
all the days of my life,
to gaze on the beauty of the LORD
and to seek him in his temple.
(Psalm 27:4, TNIV)

To gaze on the beauty of God, and to seek him where he may be found. To enjoy God, but also to pursue him. There’s the desire to know more of Christ, and there’s the delighting in God we need. Here is joy; here is Christian contentment; here is Christian growth. We enjoy God, and delight in him. We do this by praising him. Marcus commented that in praising God, our joy is somehow completed, like a husband telling his wife he loves her – yes, he loves her before he says so, but he delights to tell her! So it is with God. We also delight in him by meditating on his character, his love, and what he has done for us. As David says in Psalm 19:

The law of the LORD is perfect,
refreshing the soul.
The statutes of the LORD are trustworthy,
making wise the simple.
The precepts of the LORD are right,
giving joy to the heart.
The commands of the LORD are radiant,
giving light to the eyes.
(Psalm 19:7-8, TNIV)

We delight in him by reminding ourselves of all he has given us: answered prayer, good friends, our church family, the beautiful creation.

I was challenged. The fact is, I don’t do this anywhere near enough – in fact, barely at all! I need more of this in my life. And this is before we look at the second part, that of pursuing or seeking. The psalmist writes in Psalm 42:

As the deer pants for streams of water,
so my soul pants for you, my God.
My soul thirsts for God, for the living God.
(Psalm 42:1-2a, TNIV)

Is that longing part of my life? If it’s not, what am I filling my life with, that the desire for God isn’t there? The longing for intimacy – why is it not driving me to God? Marcus’ had two phrases that talk about this: “you seek more of the one you enjoy. You pursue what you prize.” So why might this longing, this seeking, this pursuing, not be part of my life? Could it be that I’m not prizing Jesus as highly as I should? (The answer to that question, in case you were confused, is “yes”.)

No wonder Paul considers his religious credentials rubbish (Philippians 3): they prevent him from rejoicing, delighting in God, by tempting him to prize them and not Christ. I wrote about this last year, but haven’t truly taken it in.

So how do we pursue God? We seek to know him better, more deeply. How do we do that? By throwing ourselves entirely on the grace of Jesus Christ, and by depending on him for everything – there, we deepen our relationship as we grow to trust him more. We throw ourselves into the Bible, because it’s all about Jesus. We serve him, and as we go beyond our comfort zones we come to know his provision for us.

So my prayer is that this will increasingly describe me; that I will long to know God more and delight in him more; and that I will know God more as a result, and so delight in him still further. Writing this down now – well, I can’t wait!

Learning from the charismatic movement

Posted at 10:10 AM

Here is Dave Bish’s summary of Dan Edelen’s analysis of the needs of the charismatic movement. I’ve seen charismatic theology accompanied by Scripture being ignored or misused, a selfishness shown in seeking emotional experiences with little internal change, a very Old Testament view of Christian worship and Christian meetings (namely, the two are far more connected than Romans 12 and Hebrews 10 would have us believe) and a lack of discernment (shown most clearly in ignoring or expressing irritation at the testing and weighing of teaching by others). Two things to say, then.

Firstly, praise God that these problems are by no means universal! It’s years since my first encounters with the charismatic movement, and since then I’ve read and listened to many, many charismatic speakers who have all helped instil in me a deeper love and a better understanding of God, a greater day-to-day experience of God, and a greater love of the Bible, but more importantly, Christ. It’s brilliant to hear that those in the movement are as concerned about parts of it as I am, as there’s no way I’m ever going to be listened to! It’s also brilliant that those in the charismatic movement are effectively shaking up many conservative Christians and getting them excited once more about God’s sovereign plan for the world. Conservative authors and speakers like Jim Packer have been calling for deep relationships with God for years; in my case, at least, it took the charismatics I know to get through to me! Recently, it’s mostly through charismatic writers and bloggers that I’ve grown to love God more and love Scripture more, and learnt to be more discerning, more loving and more accepting of those different from me.

Secondly, the striking thing is that each of Dan’s points has to do with a loss of focus on Jesus and his importance. This particularly hit home because I recognise that I can do exactly the same things. Very easily can I slip into a pattern of life that sidelines Jesus, or make the things I read all about abstract issues and not about Jesus. Rather than over-emphasise the Spirit, I can over-emphasise the Bible as an end in itself, and theology as a pursuit for its own sake, rather than both as a way to know and love Jesus better. I may not make the mistakes as publicly as some in the charismatic movement, but I make them all the same, in my own, quiet, conservative evangelical way.

In summary, these problems are by no means universal in the charismatic movement, and they’re not specific to it either. So let’s all throw out dry and boring theology and teaching; let’s recover passionate preaching about Christ from his Word, and let’s live whole lives for God’s glory, enjoying his presence with us, through good times and bad. Let’s not expect things to be easy; let’s not forget our flesh is sinful; but let’s remember that God has given us new hearts, and he gives us the grace we need for each day. Let’s keep our eyes on Jesus, and remember that both the Spirit and the Bible point to him and help us to know him and love him more.

Let us know; let us press on to know the LORD;
his going out is sure as the dawn;
he will come to us as the showers,
as the spring rains that water the earth. (Hosea 6:3, ESV)

Unique

Posted at 9:53 AM

Humans are obviously unique. But it’s surprisingly hard to say why. (New Scientist, 24 May 2008.)

Then God said, “Let us make human beings in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.”

So God created human beings in his own image,
   in the image of God he created them;
   male and female he created them. (Genesis 1:26-27, NIV.)

When God is no longer in the picture, we’re left with the blind, pitiless indifference of the Selfish Gene. Without God, we can never be clear on what it means to be truly human. Because of Jesus, we can see clearly what humanity is like! We’re more sinful than we ever imagined (the necessity of the cross shows us that, and we stand in stark contrast to the way Jesus lived), but we’re more loved than we ever dreamed (the fact that Jesus died that death for us shows us that!). In Jesus we see a picture of true humanity, worshipping God with our whole lives, as we were intended to be.

We find the eternal joy we were made for in the eternal God who made us. We find what it means to be human.

Art for art’s sake

Posted at 3:30 PM

My plan had been to write a few more entries before heading to New Word Alive, but time has probably got away from me. I’ve been researching an essay on music in the sixties and so have been much occupied by listening to The Beatles. I’ve also been reading a lot of history and philosophy of music to go along with it, so my brain is reasonably frazzled. Modernist (not “modern”) music (the stuff the academics were writing) was getting weirder and weirder post-WWII. First, though, a bit of context.

The nineteenth century was when an idea that we now take for granted hit the world of music: art for art’s sake. This philosophy says that the inherent worth of a piece of art (be it music, painting, poem etc.) is separate from any utilitarian (related to usefulness) or didactic (related to teaching) function. Composers such as Bach (who was writing in the mid eighteenth century) would have found this concept alien. To Bach, he wrote a chorale because his employer wanted a chorale and it helped the congregation take on the words. He wrote his inventions as exercises in composition and as keyboard practice.

Beethoven, on the other hand, wrote symphonies for their own sake – not to teach anyone anything, nor to bring about moral improvement, but so the public could enjoy them as art. They had inherent worth that could be appreciated.

In post-war modernist music, this idea was taken to its logical conclusion. If art is for its own sake, and pure art is that which is unsullied by utilitarianism or anything else, then true art must therefore be something separate even from entertaining or pleasing an audience. Composers pursued “progress” in music, trying to withdraw any human bias from the compositional process, aiming in so doing to create a music entirely separate from human decision. It was a quest for “true art”, or “pure music”.

There were two major schools of thought. One school sought the eradication of human interference by stricter and stricter rules governing what notes must come next in a composition. This became known as “total serialism” and generally sounds not dissimilar to a three year old child playing the piano, only with fewer and some quieter notes. The second school went to the other extreme, composing by chance. The most famous of these composers, John Cage, was responsible for 4’ 33”. Funnily enough, music determined by chance sounds not dissimilar to the above mentioned three year old also.

Into this vacuum of “serious” music that was listenable came popular music that tried also to be art (The Beatles’ later songs and albums for example). The difference was that they were more like Beethoven – the logical conclusion of “art for art’s sake” hadn’t hit yet. They aimed to entertain and be artistically appreciable.

As a Christian my aim is to “do all for the glory of God” (1 Corinthians 10:31). The art I create doesn’t exist for its own sake; it should exist to bring glory to God. It can do that whether or not I consider it art (where its innate qualities give God glory as evidence of his gift of creativity to me, and his gift of beauty to the world), or not as art (where it’s my aim to serve and give others enjoyment that gives God glory). Both of those things applied to Bach. He didn’t think of his music as “art”, but he wrote it to give God glory, and today we can appreciate its beauty, its detail, its genius as signs to the creativity and grace of our God. (As an aside, each manuscript of Bach’s we have ends with the letters S.D.G. – “soli Deo gloria”, or “to God alone be the glory”.)

With God in the picture, aesthetic philosophy isn’t bankrupt, nor does it lead to elitism, where only the educated can understand art. It leads us to thank our God and creator for his great gifts of beauty, taste, texture, colour, rhyme, rhythm, maths and music. When I write music, I’m not trying to create something with an innate worth completely separate from what I or others enjoy listening to. I’m trying to create something that reflects just a little of the beauty and the majesty of the God who gave me the creativity and skill to do it. Art doesn’t exist for its own sake; it exists for God’s glory and our joy.

Maturity

Posted at 6:52 PM

Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already arrived at my goal, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus. All of us, then, who are mature should take such a view of things. (Philippians 3:12-15, TNIV)

I’ve been carrying on with Mike Cain’s talks on Philippians that I’ve written about before, and something struck me from his second one that hadn’t before. Paul is writing as one of the spiritual heavyweights of his day – one of Christ’s apostles, an authoritative teacher. If anyone was to be considered mature in the faith, it would be Paul. From the passage above, what does he say characterises such Christian maturity?

I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind, and straining toward what is ahead, I press on…

We don’t mature as Christians and then plateau. There’s no point in the Christian life where we think “aah, we’ve made it!” this side of the new creation. Christian maturity is shown by an attitude that says “we’re not there yet”. We always keep growing; we are continually striving towards our goal. Christian maturity isn’t a passive state we reach – not the maturity we obtain in this life, anyway. True maturity in this life is shown by striving for… what? What is the goal Paul is striving towards? It’s in the verses just beforehand.

I want to know Christ – yes, to know the power of his resurrection and participation in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, and so, somehow, attaining to the resurrection from the dead. (Philippians 3:10-11, TNIV)

What he’s striving for is to know Christ. This is what Christian maturity looks like in this life: a desire to know more of Christ. We shouldn’t be stagnant in our desire to know him better; in fact, if we think we’ve arrived in the Christian life, that only goes to show we’ve missed the point of the Christian life. We are saved for a relationship with the God who made us, and if we stop building our relationship with him, we’ve missed the point of our salvation.

Paul wants to know Christ. It’s the one thing he does – pressing on to know him (3:8), gain him (3:8), and be found in him (3:9). If I ask myself “how much does this describe me?” the answer is “worryingly little”. I find it very easy to settle into a rut and go through the motions. I can very easily think of myself as mature, because I know more about God, about the Bible, about theology than other people. If I’m not wanting to know God more and more, and not just about him, then I’m showing that I’m not mature. I need to press on to know Christ more. He died so that I could know him; knowing him is what we were made for.

Let us strive to know the Lord. His appearance is as sure as the dawn. He will come to us like the rain, like the spring showers that water the land. (Hosea 6:3, HCSB)