The art of grabbing people's attention

This morning I'm reflecting Jesus' so-called sermon on the plain, starting with the words that appear in my previous post.Here's how things kick off...

You can imagine the crowd turning up – a right mixed bag:

poor folk and rich ones;
people in fine clothes who have breakfasted well
and people in work-wear who haven’t eaten yet today;
people able to take a morning off,
others who risk not earning what they need to eat today…

They’ve all come because they’re interested; they’re keen to know what this Jesus is all about; perhaps they even crave a spiritual experience – some might even have received one already.

Jesus’ words would have left each of them spluttering, like they do us – if we’re paying attention:

     blessed are you when your benefits are cut
     and the damp’s rising in the wall of your temporary accommodation…
     blessed are you when you can’t afford your five-a-day
     and the payday loan is due…
     blessed are you when people call you scrounger and cheat…

     woe to you if your salary is 80 times that of your workers
     and your table’s heaving with enough food
     to feed a small Malian village…
     woe to you when people say how well you’re doing…

The lucky people are not the healed and healthy, the well-healed and wealthy, but those who know they’re bankrupt and busted and only God can help them.

I imagine that by v26 he either had their attention or could see them turning and walking away – which was his intention. This is not Robbie Williams saying ‘let me entertain you…’ This is God’s Son grabbing his audience’s attention; calling us to a life of discipleship: do we stay or do we go?

For those with nothing, the choice is easier than it is for those laden with stuff; but for both there’s a sense of disbelief to overcome – does he mean it?

• Is there good news for the likes of us; those the world looks down on; those who feel their poverty and ill-health to be God’s punishment? It sounds like there is…shall we hang around to hear more?

• Is there good news for the likes of us; we who’ve worked hard and saved, got an education, bought a stake in the race and are reaping the rewards? Sounds like there isn’t… Should we hang around to hear more?

Yes: Jesus is speaking to disciples (17b, 20a), to those who are listening (27; 7:1): this is good news for everyone: a radical shake-up that changes everything and from which everyone emerges a winner… No wonder there’s singing at the back!

Building on the Big Welcome

We had a good morning yesterday. I had a very interesting and overwhelmingly positive reaction to my musings on Bowie and Nathanael (see my previous post) and the church had a large number of visitors. Intriguingly, many of those were visitors from overseas, including Lithuania and Holland. It says something significant about the way Bromley is changing.

It was, of course, the Big Welcome (or Back to Church Sunday as others call it), so it was great to have a number of visitors in our congregation (though I'm not sure many of them were there because of the efforts of the church inviting them!) I suspect the visitors pitched up because of our location - in the town centre, close to bus routes and recognisably ecclesiastical - and, I'd like to think, because of the welcome we offer once those people come close.

We've been having a conversation about welcome recently, pondering how we can capitalise on what we're already doing, how we make people feel at home among us.

A key part of this has been how we can help people to belong at the level they want to. We have tended to operate a 'one-size fits all' policy: everyone coming to church is looking to be actively involved in the church's programme, certainly wants to join a home group and is probably keen to volunteer in Sunday School, youth work or the women's meeting.

But recent experience suggests that this is not the case. we have a number of people who 'belong' to our church - in that they attend weekly without fail (often more regularly than long-standing committed members) but do not want to become members and certainly don't see volunteering in the church's programme as the path to fulfilment. They are even pretty iffy about the hone groups as they are currently constituted.

I suspect other churches are facing these issues. I'd be interested to know how others tackle it. Our conversations continue. I'll keep you posted.

Applying the lessons learned at the latest conference

Back home from NAMs to a day of sermon preparation. In the light of Steve Holmes' reflections on the sermons - which were very thought-provoking - this task will be an interesting challenge.

This Sunday we're kicking off our series on Ecclesiastes, reflecting on how this enigmatic author urges us to see that life is not a rehearsal. Steve's central case is that the sermon is for inspiration not information; it is for inspiring the listener to live up to the call of the gospel, rather than informing her of the content of the gospel.

Perhaps this is what Qohelet was doing: looking life squarely in the face and calling his hearers/readers to live life out of what they know to be true about the world and God. We'll see.

Having completed all the corrections on the manuscript of The World of the Early Church, I returned home to an email asking another set of questions of me. Hopefully, these will be straight forward. I have to say that I'm really quite pleased with the way the book's turned out; I think it looks and reads really well.  All being well, it will be in bookshops next March.

Falling short but feeling excited all the same

On the train to Bristol for a Prism planning session using my dongle. The experience so far is that the connection is slow and occasionally haphazard. Of course, 'slow' is a relative term, since connection speeds are vastly quicker than anything we experienced just a few years ago. But today we expect instant and lightening fast.

Last night I rounded off our series on living the resurrection by looking at Philippians 3:10 and reflecting on our dreams and God's role in them. Philippians 3 is one of my favourite passages; I've preached on it often and yet I still feel that its heart eludes me. Someone said that yesterday's sermon was really helpful and cast new light on one of their favourite passages.

But I felt that yet again I had not done the passage justice, that what I wanted to say about it lay just beyond my finger tips - much as Paul's complete knowledge of Jesus is just another step beyond his grasp. And maybe that's the way it has to be with this text. Our knowledge of Jesus will always be partial, our view through the distorting mirrors of our own perception, and so our thoughts about and reflections on this amazing text will always leave us feeling excited but dissatisfied.

Maybe this should be true of all our preaching. Like my internet connection, it's good but not as good as we'd like it to be.

Being a holy people in an unholy world

As an experiment - which I started last month - I am posting my perspective from our church magazine on my blog and facebook for those who would rather access it electronically than in print. I hope it's of interest to a wider audience - I've shortened it a little, cutting out the very specific stuff.

Not long ago the comedian Frank Skinner wrote a fascinating piece for the Times. In it he welcomed the increasingly marginal status of the Christian faith in the UK. Now Skinner is not noted as a popular theologian but his comments certainly made us sit up and listen.

Skinner said this: ‘There was a time when social pressure made people go to church. If anything the reverse is now true. Most adults you see in church nowadays are there because they want to be there. That’s not decline, it’s progress.’

Now, that’s an interesting thought, worth pondering for a few minutes...

He follows it up with this one: ‘I’m a little wary of muscular Christianity…It seems to be in direct contradiction to “Resist not evil, but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also”. This is the doormat as positive role model — a doormat who’s more concerned about the “welcome” than the muddy feet. Surely the central image of Christianity is someone who can shoot fireballs out of his fingertips allowing himself to be nailed to a wooden cross — submission as the ultimate show of strength — love as impenetrable armour. Most British Christians are badly dressed, unattractive people. We’re not pushy and aggressive members of society.’

Now, of course, we’re better dressed than the average congregation, but surely Skinner has a point. Being a follower of Jesus is not about status, power, influence, being the centre of attention. Rather it’s about serving people and being, like servants, a bit anonymous as we do it; people get served but they’re not sure who did it.

And this chimes in with the major theme of Paul’s passionate letter to the wayward Corinthian church. It is a sustained meditation on what it means to live a cruciform life, that is a life shaped, as Jesus’ was, by the cross.

His plea is that his readers take seriously all he’s taught them about Christian living. In the course of this he offers a model of life based on the character and cross of Christ, a life that he lives. The trouble is that this life is perceived as weak and worthless by his readers. It doesn’t bring them the kind of attention and status that people in Corinth valued so highly; it doesn’t help them win friends and influence in high places.

Now, of course, we’re not interested in such things. But we do think we have a right to be in the place of honour in public debate, that our view of morality is to be given preference over anyone else’s. And we’ve lost that over recent years and it hurts and, if we’re honest, we resent it.

With a mixture of charm and invective, Old Testament exposition and explanation of the difference between Jesus and every other religious teacher on offer, Paul urges, cajoles and encourages his readers to make it up with him and with Jesus. In doing so, he says, they will be able to live the kind of life that God calls them to.

That call is to be a holy people in an unholy world. Paul’s focus is on how his hearers will develop a way of living that puts a broad grin on the face of God. They’ll do it by hearing again the story of Jesus and his cross and building their lives on it as he’s built his life on it and offers that as an example to follow.

And while this way of living inevitably means that we don’t do some of the things our neighbours do – for Paul’s readers that meant avoiding what went on in Corinth’s temples and private function rooms – it mainly means that we develop a community life that has our neighbours looking enviously on wanting what we’ve got.

As we explore this letter between May and the beginning of August, we will look at how we can build and nurture strong, mutually supportive and encouraging relationships, how we can develop a community life based on equality and justice, where the weak are cared for and all are channelled into good works, how we can reflect the values of Jesus in our lifestyle at church, at home, at work and at play.

Celebrating St George

It's St George's Day. For some bizzare reason a range of English people, some with questionable attitudes to foreigners and precious little interest in the Christian faith, will be celebrating the life of a Middle Eastern Roman soldier martyred for his faith under Diocletian for refusing to worship the emperor.

One suspects that the recent revival in the cult of St George - it was a major feast in medieval and early modern England - has something to do with the surging confidence of Welsh and Scottish people in the wake of devolution and the perenial self-awareness of Irish people who have managed to get their saint's festival - St Patrick's Day - celebrated by any and everybody across the globe.

There's a parade featuring St George in the City of London today for the first time since 1585. According to stgeorgesday.com (yes, our saint has his own website featuring Ian Botham on the home page!) over a million of us think we should have the day off to celebrate.

I'm preparing for Sunday at the moment - only one sermon as I've just talked to my morning preacher who has made it back from the States! I am focusing on how knowing the power of the resurrection enables us to live a cruciform life. I know nothing of St George - I suspect most of what we know is legend and rumour - but if he died for his faith, standing against an imperial ideology that sought the worship of its citizens, then he'd grasped what Paul is saying in Philippians 3:1-4:1 and especially v10.

In this sublime piece of rhetoric, Paul shows how the cruciform life of Jesus is the model for the lives of his disciples. Paul shows how it's working out in his life and urges us to work it out in ours. And it hinges on knowing the power of Jesus' resurrection. For only that power enables us to leave our old lives and press on into the future that God has for us. And only that power enables us to share the sufferings of Jesus in our daily lives - whatever those sufferings might be.

If those who want to celebrate St George's Day want to celebrate this, pass me a banner and count me in.

Figuring out the reasons

I've been pondering the church's teaching programme on off over the past few months (as regular readers will know). I've completed the first draft of a feedback form for sermons which I will distribute to interested parties for comment this weekend.

But as we veer towards the end of our series on Nehemiah, I have been asking myself whether some books of the Bible lend themselves to Sunday ministry better than others.

I've made no secret of my struggles with Nehemiah as we journeyed through his memoir and I think I'd have to say that I'm not alone. this series has seen attendance at our later service drop off quite significantly.

And most noticeable among those who aren't attending are our young adults. This is a major disappointment. Clearly what we're offering is not seen as essential or even worth checking out.

In this we are not alone. Earlier this morning I read a series of papers posted on the EA website (here) examining why churches struggle to attract and hold onto 20s and 30s. The stats have been available since Peter Brierley published The English Church Census in 2005. They tell us that while 12.84% of 65-74s are in church on Sunday, only 3.5% of 20s and 4.5% of 30s attend regularly. I gather the figures for Scotland are if anything worse.

Only 7% of the average congregation of an English church is aged between 20 and 29. You don't need to be a genius to work out the implications of this for the future of the church. As David Voas, consistently the most interesting and challenging commentator on the sociology of church life in the UK points out: 'on average people experience little change in their beliefs and practices once they reach their early 20s.'

He draws a wider lesson from this with implications for church thinking across the board: What secularization does is to change the environment in which children are raised and the likelihood of an effective religious upbringing.'

Those looking across the pond for answers on this will find only questions. Barna tells us that six out of ten teenagers who are active in church will drop out in their twenties and Pew Forum figures suggest that only 17% of the members of evangelical churches in the US are aged 18-29.

I'll reflect further on the implications for us in due course. This is one of the challenges facing the new leadership our church is choosing at the moment. My prayer is that we'll be up for it.

How to create a dialogue in church

It's been great to read the responses to my post on Lent with Stanley over on Facebook - especially as they're from members of my congregation!

What is really encouraging is the genuine hunger they reveal for having their lives shaped by God's word. This is, of course, music to a preacher's ears. So thanks for your responses.

For those who haven't picked this up on facebook, here's what people said:

Sara said
I have never commented on someone else's conversation but have been thinking about this a lot. If you guys want to know what is happening as a result of your sermons you have to ask. If there were a bit more testimony about then you would feel better and others would be inspired. My suggestion is to ask 5 people to feed back to you the next week what they thought God was saying to them in the sermon and how it played out during the week. We would all become a bit more accountable and focus on God changing us and our circumstances.

Becky said
Feedback and more testimonies....i like it! It is always great to have more people from the congregation involved in the services. .....and I would also love to have a 'bit more' to the sermons...I've been listening to a series of hour long sermons and they have been really challenging me - although i do pause and rewind and relisten fair amount!...not sure that would go down well in a Sunday service!

And Rob suggested longer sermons!

So, this week, I'm going to be working on a simple questionnaire/feedback form to give a few folk the chance to respond to what they've heard which could then form the basis to a testimony slot a week or so later that would enable people to hear how people's lives are being affected and shaped by what they are hearing.

It would also give the preacher the chance to clarify and expand on things said so that over a period of time a genuine dialogue between preacher and people would develop.

Yesterday, I had a number of people say to me how helpful the sermon was. This is always great for a preacher to hear but what I wanted to ask everyone who made such comments was 'So what? What difference is this sermon actually going to make to you this week?'

Well, some kind of feedback form would help me get a handle on this which in turn would help me to shape future sermons in the light of reactions to former ones.

And a regular testimony time would give the opportunity for people to say what they were learning, how it's affecting their daily lives at work and challenge the preacher to develop thoughts or even return to material that hadn't been clear enough first time round.

It's quite an exciting thought.

Dreaming simple dreams

Happy New Year, everyone. 2010 has started well for us, catching up with old friends, eating, drinking and making merry. Hope it's the same for all of you.

I thought I'd link my blog to my facebook page (just cause I can, really). It'll mean it ups my profile over there as it should automatically display anything new I post here.

We're thinking about hopes and dreams tomorrow in church and I wanted to keep it simple. So there'll be no unveiling of a great mission strategy born of a dream that our church building will be bursting at the seams; and no step-by-step guide to realising our hopes of being fitter, more beautiful and infinitely more spiritually alert.

Just the simple thought that I hope that this year I'll get to know Jesus better and that as a community of his followers, that's what we will all be hoping to achieve together. And in knowing Jesus and the power of his resurrection and the sharing of sufferings, becoming like him in his death so that we might somehow attain to the resurrection of the dead (Philippians 3:10), we might draw others into our adventure of faith.

It's a simple dream. It was Paul's. And it might just turn the neighbourhood upside down if it fires us as it fired him.

Happy New Year.

Life is sweet

The lecture went well on Wednesday. I had far too much material, so had to edit as I talked; the students were well-informed and lively, asking good questions, making even better comments. I enjoyed it; I hope they did.

I'm intending to post it at some stage - but it will need a bit of editing.

We also had the launch session of the juice bar project yesterday. This is a project we're doing with the youth service and Salvation Army that aims to train a group of young people in mixing cocktails and all the skills needed to run a bar (selling non-alcoholic beverages).

Our other partner - the key one - is Fruto del Espirtu, is a company set up to import fruit juices from Colombia that form the basis of excellent exotic cocktails. The juices are grown and bottled in areas where cocaine is produced. The company is attempting to offer farmers a profitable way of not growing coca, the basis of cocaine. And the buyers of the product in the UK are helping to support these farmers and thus, in a tiny way, combat the cocaine trade.

Fruto's chief exec, Rutie, gave a presentation on the company and then got the young people to start mixing up cocktails - which we got to taste. The aim is to get a juice bar up and running for the summer holidays and if it succeeds, maybe beyond.

Today I met the manager of our local Starbucks and it looks like we'll be starting cafe church again in May.

So, it's been a busy week so far but a good one.

Just the sermons for Sunday to sort out now...

Learning our ABCs

We had a good evening yesterday. We were completing Mark 6 - one of the key chapters in the first half of Mark's story. It marks the end of Jesus' public ministry in Galilee. From chapter 7 he'll be travelling in the further reaches of Israel, the mixed territories to the north and east of Herod's territory.

Full notes on the passage can be found here (click the downloads section and follow the link). I just want to comment on a couple of aspects of discipleship that I highlighted last night because I think they're interesting and often not prominent in our conversations about following Jesus.

Jesus uses the politically charged episode of the feeding to teach some intensely personal lessons about discipleship, one of which is that disciples need to learn to accept responsibility for what's going on around them.

Five thousand blokes had turned up spoiling for an uprising because the Twelve had been out preaching up a storm in the towns and villages of Galilee. But as soon as a need arises - these people need feeding - the disciples tell Jesus to send them away to find food somewhere else.

Jesus says to the twelve 'you give them something to eat'. This is, of course, not his last word on the issue. But it is important that it's his first word.

It highlights the fact that discipleship is as much about a new relationship with the world as it is about a new relationship with God. In Hebrews 2 the author reflects on Psalm 2, a picture of how people were created to steward, manage the creation but have clearly failed. The world is in a mess and human stewardship of it is largely to blame.

The author points to Jesus, however, who is a trail-blazer in the restoration of the human stewarding of creation. He doesn't do this alone, he brings others with him to share his rule(Hebrews 2:5-18). And that is what Jesus is doing in Mark 6:37. He is pointing out that part of being a disciple is to accept responsibility for what is happening in the world, responsibility for being part of the solution, having been rescued from being part of the problem.

We don't emphasise this aspect of discipleship often enough, preferring instead to play up those aspects of relating to God that result in good things coming into our lives - forgiveness, new life, hope, the holy Spirit, etc. And these are indeed good. But they are not the whole story.

The idea that we are called to accept responsibility for what is happening around us because we are called to share in Christ's reign, can be seen in Paul's emphasis on Christians being people who do good works (Eph 2:10; titus 2:11-14, etc), Peter's teaching on the soft difference being about doing work in the world that demonstrates the effectiveness of the gospel in creating a people who embody the good values that everyone aspires to but can't live out.

The rest of the ABC of discipleship flows those this acceptance of our responsibility, namely, that we bring to Jesus what we have (not what we don't have - so we're realistic about what we can do) and we co-operate with him in making a difference. All this grows from a deepening awareness of who Jesus is, something the 12 got a glimpse of in the next story, namely Jesus walking on the lake and revealing himself to be not just the one who distributes miraculously multiplied loaves, but the one who does the maths.

This why there's a twin references to loaves in 38 and 52. The depth of the disciples' incomprehension about Jesus is focused on what the loaves should have told them about him.

it seems to me that these are lessons about discipleship we need to learn for the times in which we live.

A lesson from the pigs?

We were looking at Mark 5:1-20 yesterday evening and during the interactive session on what we might learn from this, the question of what Jesus was doing with the pigs came up.

You'll know the story. Jesus is confronted by a demonized man who is besieged by a legion of evil spirits. They beg to be sent into a nearby herd of pigs rather than the abyss to await judgement. Jesus obliges. What's going on?

I suggested that through this action Jesus is passing a stern comment on the business-as-usual approach adopted by the townsfolk - and probably its leading citizens. The demonized man had been marginalized by this community that was making a good living through rearing pigs for sale, no doubt, to the sizable gentile populations of the region - not least the Roman army garrisoned around the area. He was chained and shoved out of the town into a graveyard.

Jesus is suggesting that the town had a duty of care to this man that they neglected while they got on with their money-making venture. So, in an act of judgment on business as usual, Jesus frees the demonized man and interrupts the town's casual reliance on cash.

Afterwards, someone asked me what the town's people could have done, since the demonized man was fearful and uncontrollable. That's a good question. But, it seems to me, that Jesus is saying that they should have done something more than cast him out, chain him up and get on with their lives. Care has a cost attached to it and part of that cost is that there'll be a shift of priorities from doing things for us to recognising the interests of those in need in our community.

I wonder if reading this story in the light of our current economic woes might help us reorient our values around caring for the vulnerable rather than maximising our own self interest.

Endings are always beginnings

We reached the end of our journey through Christian Hope yesterday morning. And I think it's fair to say that I've never had such a response to a teaching series. Overwhelmingly, people have talked about how the series has 'put the lights on', connected things they didn't realise were connected and opened vistas of the future that have a profound influence on the present.

Apart from basking in the glow of a well-received series - always nice! - more importantly, it suggests to me that there is a appetite for serious, applied Bible teaching. There are lots of people who want to think about their faith, think about how Christian teaching as well as our experience of Christ impacts our daily living and conversation. This is hugely encouraging to a minister!

We also came to the end of our series on 1 Peter yesterday. As part of an evening service during which we commissioned Clare, our new youth worker, we reflected on what lessons we've learned from reading Peter's wonderful letter. Preparing this series has certainly opened my eyes afresh to how the followers of Jesus relate to one another and the society in which we live. It's left me with lots of things to reflect on regarding social ethics and community life.

I'll probably blog on it at some point. As someone who writes as well as preaches, I think there are books, study guides or something in both these series. I'm sure there are lots of others out there producing good teaching that leaves a mark on its audience that would benefit from wider distribution. Sadly, the publishers seem less interested in such material these days. Am I the only one who has noted that good Bible study material is getting harder to come by? (Or is this just me slipping effortlessly into grumpy old mandom?!)

Getting excited with Isaiah

As I get into our series on hope, I'm scurrying around my study looking for resources that might contain answers to questions that are popping into my head. Well, today as I was reading Isaiah 65 I kept asking myself where I got the idea that Isaiah spoke about the nations bringing their wealth into Jerusalem and that this act was a key part of Isaiah's vision of the end times?

I found my old tattered copy of Richard Mouw's When the Kings Come Marching in: Isaiah and the New Jerusalem (Eerdmans 1983) and realised that this little book has shaped my understanding of eschatology probably more than any other text (apart from the Bible). It was republished in a revised and expanded form in 2002 (I've ordered that).

I read it the year it came out and remember being very excited about it. Since then, its message has insinuated itself into my thinking about the coming city of God, life after the eschaton, all that stuff. And today, as I read what Mouw has to say about Isaiah 60, an enigmatic chapter that John Goldingay suggests is 'the longest unstructured stream-of-consciousness prophecy in Isaiah', I found myself getting really excited all over again.

In particular Mouw points out that a number of characters - notably the ships of Tarshish - which are judged earlier in Isaiah, feature in chapter 60 coming laden with goods and gifts into the holy city to serve God. What's happening? Mouw suggests that earlier references to these players are about purification, not destruction and that what's happening in Isaiah 60 is a description of God redeeming culture, the fruits of human creativity.

Starting from Psalm 24:1 - 'the earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof' - Mouw takes us back to Genesis 2 and the mandate to subdue and fill the earth, arguing that the 'fillings' that humans make are our cultural artifacts, arts and crafts, political and economic systems, everything that makes life sustainable (and unsustainable - because of the Fall) on planet earth. All this is not written off by God. Rather it is redeemed, washed and brushed up for the great parade as His holy city is revealed to his rather stunned people.

More than that the politicians who have 'filled the earth' with governments that have instigated wars and campaigns for justice, empire building and grand initiatives to feed the hungry will march into the city to account for themselves before the people they ruled over. God will decide between them (Isaiah 2:4) as they bow before the king of kings (Phil 2:11) who has stripped them of their power (Col 2:15) and who exercises judgment on behalf of those who've suffered at their hands and cry out for a just accounting (Rev 6:9-11; 1 Pet 2:12, etc).

Whatever is going on in Isaiah 60 - and it is impressionistic and raises all sorts of questions about who remains in the city, for how long and what is the nature of the final judgement, of the settling of accounts and setting things straight - one thing is certain: the eschatological hope of the Bible - for this and other Isaianic texts sweep into the New Testament underpinning all its eschatological teaching - is absolutely rooted on planet earth; it is a physical, tangible hope with a recognisable shape. More than that, the way we live now, the things with which we fill the earth, shapes what we experience there.

In God's eschatological scheme our lives matter. How exciting is that?!

The dark art of sermon preparation

Finished preparing for Sunday - and strangely it was like pulling teeth. This morning I felt really muddled-headed and unable to concentrate. But the grey matter started to clear after lunch.

I have focused on three aspects of the story of Zacchaeus that are Lucan favourites - finance, family and faith (remember I still carry the DNA of an unreconstructed evangelical baptist about my person!) - and I think it works ok.

Sermon preparation is still something of a mystery to me. Earlier in the week, I was feeling pretty chilled, on top of the passage and knowing generally what I wanted to say. Today, I looked at a blank screen and wondered if the passage would ever reveal its treasures.

Then suddenly it takes shape - first in my mind and then, through my fingers, on the screen. And it seems to come in a flash. One moment there's nothing, then there's a page of relatively coherent notes, then there's a worksheet and an edited version of the notes. And before I know it, I'm having a cup of tea, putting the finishing touches to the PowerPoint wondering where it all comes from.

Of course, a sermon's not really finished until it's been preached because, after all, this is an oral art form not a written one. So I don't know whether it's any good yet... But then, when are we are able to assess that - as we deliver it? As people comment immediately afterwards? Weeks later when an echo of what was said turns up in conversation or a question or an email?

The beauty and brilliance of Bailey

While preparing for Sunday's teaching on Luke, I have been reminded just what a wonderful scholar Ken Bailey is.

We're looking at the story of Zacchaeus and Bailey begins his reading with the simple observation that both this story and the one before it (the healing of the blind man) take place in Jericho (a fact obscured by our chapter divisions!).

So what we have is a single story in two acts of how Jesus offers the same unconditional love to both oppressed and oppressor alike. From this flows the fact that the crowd is a key character in both stories with their affections swaying one way, then the other as the narrative unfolds - and of course, it's the crowd in which we are located.

Bailey also shows how his understanding of repentance as 'the acceptance of being found' works itself out in both halves of the story. It's great stuff. And it's beautifully written as well - unusual in New testament scholarship.

You really ought to own (as well as consult regularly) Kenneth E Bailey Jesus Through Middle Eastern Eyes: Cultural Studies in the Gospels (IVP 2008). Alongside this Jacob & the Prodigal: How Jesus retold Israel's Story (BRF 2003) and the combined volume Poet & Peasant and Through Peasant Eyes: A literary-cultural approach to the parables in Luke (Eerdmans 1983) are also essential reading.

Shall I use the 'E' word?

So, I've been thinking a bit about our forthcoming series on hope, trying to give it some shape and find Bible passages that illustrate different aspects of the theme.

And I've hit my first issue: do I use the 'E' word?

They used it at Spring Harvest and it was marvellous to see all kinds of, I assume, Charismatic Christians talking earnestly over their Butlins' carry outs about 'Eschatology'. I imagine this doesn't happen in most churches across the UK on an average Sunday.

Did it help people? Well, you'll have to ask them. But the ones I talked to did find the word quite useful for labelling the full extent of Christian hope. It enabled them to see that hope is about more than the second coming and whether that's to be expected before, during or after the tribulation/millennium/rapture. Indeed it enabled most of them to realise that they could jettison the theology of the Left Behind series and still remain perfectly sound Bible believing Christians.

So, shall I be using the 'E' word?

I am tempted to because it will enable us to set the series - reasons to be hopeful - in the context of a full-orbed grasp of Christian thinking about the future and how it affects our lives in the present. What do you think?

Surviving my first week

I've survived my first week back at work!

Having not been in the habit of preparing sermons, getting three ready was a bit of a challenge. but I think we're there.

I delivered the first yesterday - a short (though not short enough!) reflection on Jesus the light of the world from John 9 (what a wonderful story that is - full of wit and irony). The other two are for Sunday - David and Mephibosheth in the morning; Jesus, Simon the Pharisee and a woman of dubious morals in the evening.

I've also been catching up with people and getting up to speed on what's been happening while I've been away. it's been good to see people again.

One of my other projects - now I've got a lovely new guitar - has been getting a collection of songs together to record. I now have 32 (written over a period of 32 years - coincidence or what?!) dusted off, tidied up and ready to roll. A mate has all the gear needed, so in my spare moments (hopefully there'll be some) over the next couple of months, I'll see what they sound like and select a a dozen to put on a CD. I've been promising myself that I'd do this for the last three years; now it seems I have the chance.

End of the journey, start of the adventure...

We're looking forward to a busy day at church.

This afternoon and evening we have a festival of the nations, featuring the Kidzsing choir from Johannesburg, an innovative project called Fruto del Espiritu which is seeking to help Colombian farmers grow fruit for fruit juice rather than coca for cocaine (they've got a contract to supply fruit cocktails to the Dorchester Hotel no less) and Gareth Davies-Jones is rounding our evening off with songs from his new album, Water and Light. Oh and there'll be food.

And this morning - my last before going on sabbatical - I am rounding off Matthew by returning to 28:16-20 (where we started) and looking at what we've learned about being and making disciples as we've read the five discourses.

I shall be stressing that disciples are believers with L-plates who pass on to others what they're discovering about the life of faith. There should be something of the wide-eyed, 'wow, look what I've just found out about Jesus' about our evangelism.

Paul captures it in Philippians 3 where he talks about wanting to know Jesus (v10), pressing on to grasp more and more about him and at the same time planting churches and urging others to discover the Christ who'd revolutionised his life and promised to do the same for the world.

So, although we've reached the end of our journey through Matthew, in a very real the adventure with Jesus in the world is just beginning - as it was for the 11 who met him on the mountain. Will we worship or hesitate, offer our lives to his adventure of mission or shrink back into the safety of our church programme?

And then it's getting ready for the Baptist Assembly in Blackpool at the end of the week. After that, we're off to Prague for a month to stay at IBTS. I'm really looking forward to time away, recharging the batteries, reflecting on where I'm at and thinking about what God is saying about the next phase of my ministry. We're certain that it means staying put, that God has fresh challenges for us here. we're looking forward to being re-envisioned for the adventure.

I shall be blogging while away, I think., because there'll be tons of stuff to reflect on and express an opinion about while we're away. So, keep in touch...

Further thoughts on sheep and goats

We had a great conversation over coffee at our local chic cafe this morning about the gospel, assurance of salvation, what we believe and how we live - all issues touching on Matthew 25.

One of the things I came away more certain about is that the issue of faith and lifestyle is a tension that we resolve at our peril - and certainly at some risk to our theology.

We are saved by faith and judged by works - is that the argument of Romans 2? What we do is evidence of the reality of our faith - is that the argument of James 2? As we await the coming king in whom we have put our trust we will live lives built on and reflective of his values - is that what Matthew 25 is about?

[I think the answer to all these questions is 'yes and...']

I guess something else I've thought about since Sunday - and yet another person this morning told me how challenging they found what I'd said on Sunday morning - is that it's no one's job but God's to decide who's a goat and who's a sheep. The trouble is that we are always comparing ourselves with others and, depending on our temperament, reckoning ourselves better or worse than them.

We really should only compare to Jesus, commit ourselves to following him whatever (much like Paul in Philippians 3) and trusting him to enable us to live up to his call. By his grace we'll not go far wrong if we live this way.