CharisMissional - my new blog

Just to let you know that I’m now blogging at CharisMissional.

After blogger here on blogger for a serveral years now I decided it was time to move to WordPress. In doing that I thought I could perhaps re-launch the blog with a bit of a clearer focus. Some time ago I posted a little post about the word CharisMissional. The more I’ve thought about it the more that seems to be where I’m coming from.

Why CharisMissional?

Don't worry, I'm not trying to start a new movement or anything, it's just my attempt at a witty name for the blog! The word CharisMissional is a blend of the two words – charismatic and missional – that I feel are both important to my Christian faith.  The new blog will be dedicated to helping other Christians learn about the gifts of the Spirit and mission and hopefully to share their own insights and experiences in these areas.

What Will Happen To This Blog?

I hope to keep this blog going. I will post here any thoughts or comments that don’t really fit in my new blog. One of the reasons for the new blog was that I realised a lot of my posts were about Christianity, mission and those sort of areas. I’m not sure yet what will now appear on this blogger blog now. Perhaps reflections of a more personal nature or other topics that I’m interested in. You’ll have to wait and see. Also there is still plenty of stuff on this blog that I’ll revisit and keep on linking to on the new one.

In the meantime please feel free to follow me at CharisMissional.

Missional Living

This article has been updated and moved to my new blog called CharisMissional.

Can you please follow this link to view the post?

Thank you!

Birmingham Alive Mission

Our church recently had a mission. This meant that several of us were busy for a few days experimenting with different ways of having conversations about God and serving people.

Here are a just few examples of the sorts of things that we were up to:

• We delivered some free Christian literature around the houses close to where we often meet and were presently surprised by the positive responses we received. It was good to be a listening ear to people and people remembered us doing community clear-ups, carol singing and free barbeques.

• We chatted with in coffee shops.

• One evening we went out with Paul & Jackie distributing sandwiches and teas and coffees to people sleeping rough in Birmingham city centre – chatting and praying with people as we went.

• A few of the team were out late the following night having a conversation in one of the bars in Bindley Place. The original plan was to head for clubs on Broad Street and I thought it might not be my scene. But they had a good conversation in a quiet bar so I think I’ll join them next time.

• We joined in with a nearby Vineyard Church in their Healing in the Streets. We were impressed how gently this was done and we found many people spontaneously coming to us for prayer.

Throughout the whole mission I really enjoyed the conversations we had both with others and among ourselves. Being an introvert it was encouraging to me to rediscover that you don’t have to be a extravert to do this sort of thing.

This was all very exciting!

72 Christian leaders meet at Antioch to seek God about mission, the kingdom and apostles

antioch 2009

Reflections on the Community Fun Day

I have now added a set of photos on flickr for yesterday’s Community Fun Day.

Instead of meeting on Sunday our church threw itself into supporting this event and many of us came as volunteers. This was our worship. A few helped with the set up and stewarding, Heather & Roo did face painting, I was involved with a team from our church in organising a prayer tent and my wife Nettes ran the bric-a-brac stall. The day was initiated by Karis Neighbour Scheme and lots of local organisations got together to arrange it. Everyone worked very hard. Apologies to any I have missed.

In the prayer tent we offered prayer including prayer for healing and laying on of hands. A few completed prayer-cards and posted them in the box. We had a good time praying with these cards at the end of the day. And we prayed with a few in person, anointing at least a couple of people with oil. It was good being a listening ear. People also took away some of the free resources. There were some booklets, we had printed some of Stephanie's poems on card and printed these downloads on how to pray from an excellent website called rejesus.

It was a steep learning curve for me. I'd never really done anything like this before. But I knew that a few from our church had run a prayer tent last year. So I was very greatful to have people around me who knew what they were doing. It is a lot harder than I realised to put up signs on a tent. And one problem with being in a tent is that your papers tend to blow around. It was very quiet at first and I thought that we might have no vistors. But in the end we were encouraged and felt that all who came to the tent received a blessing.

Across the site some good relationships were built with people in the community. For example, both Nettes and I had a chat with the people from our local LETS. I also met Karis's Jude Greenwood, for the first time, who among other things is an associate of Spring To Life specialising in life coaching. And through this event I met Gwen the minister of the Church of the Redeemer who mentioned that her church was starting a Messy Church.

All in all it was a great day. A special thanks to Annabel from Karis for getting this off the ground!

Prayer Tent at Community Fun Day

On Saturday a few of us from our church will be running a Prayer Tent at a local Community Fun Day.

We will offer to pray for people in person or give them the opportunity to jot down a prayer or request on a card and post it in a box. We will pray with these cards when we open the box at the end of the day. We will have some other free resources on the stall and trust that people will come along and be blessed.

The other week I was invited to a planning meeting for the event at Karis Neighbour Scheme and it looks like this is now going to be a regular event.

Please pray that this goes well.

Day Out for the Drop In

Yesterday, our church’s Drop In went on a trip to Stratford. I’m a bit of a nervous driver but I decided to take a risk and offer a few places in my car.

We had a picnic by the river Avon and then half of us went on some boats. There was plenty of time to explore and some of us ended the day hanging out at Starbucks.

I think this was such a treat for the guys especially as a few of them are homeless.



I am glad that I went.

Interesting Sunday

Our Sunday morning church meeting in the style of a pub quiz certainly got a lot of people involved. And a few of us also had a good time in the evening on outreach. We met some interesting people including one man who was involved in organised a squatters protest in Edgbaston. As it was bank holiday weekend more people were out on Sunday night and also some events from Birmingham Pride were still going on. As usual we gave out sandwiches and teas & coffees to some of the guys who were sleeping rough around the city centre.

Reach Out Network: Prayer and Awareness Day

Last Saturday I went to a prayer and awareness day run my Reach Out Network – name for the activities run by my friends Paul & Jackie Atkin. The aim of the ministry is to reach out to those on the fringe of society, in particularly the homeless helping them to overcome addictions and other issues as well as talking about Jesus with them.

Paul began by telling his own story. I was stuck by how an important part of his conversion involved facing his own mortality. He realised that not everyone in his local graveyard had died at an old age. In fact there was quite a spread of ages. Later He had known members of his own family die. And over the years he had known eighteen rough sleepers who had died.

During the day there were a number of presentations by organisations that are working together in this ministry to the homeless. Steve, our church elder, introduced Church Alive commenting that we all have different styles and that we are all learning to work together and to see each others ways of doing things is just as 'right' as our own. We heard the amazing story Sally Livingstone of Livingstone House whom God had told to “pick diamonds out of excrement”. We also heard from Betel – a rehabilitation community based in Birmingham. They described themselves as 'contemporary monastic' and explained how they enable their members – many of which have been rough sleepers – to work in the community's businesses.

Paul then interviewed a shy chap who was sitting next to me who turned out to be someone who was currently homeless. Paul asked him how the church could best serve the homeless. This chap explained that friendship and acceptance is what people want, as well as an opportunity for a change of life. He pointed out just how unsafe sleeping on the streets is especially if it is not with some others that you trust. And at the end of the day he and a couple of others, who we have known for sometime, indicated that they wanted to become Christians.

The Role of the Church in the Current Recession

Here are three Christian links I am looking at that are relevant to our current global economic crisis:

Are You Recession Ready? discusses how it time for the church to start thinking about getting ready for the recession. This might involve things like looking at how we handle our money and how we give to and serve the poor.

Bible on Money is a very good page of the Generous Giving website that points to a list of key Bible verses. Click on each verse for comments.

Mission and Recession is another good article on the way forward for the church at this time. Please note that this article has a second part.

I feel that handling money is something that our church has some practical wisdom on and teaches well. This together with the fact that we are involved in ministry to the homeless indicates to me that we are getting there. Reading these articles suddenly made what we do feel very relevant.

Thanks to Andrew Jones for pointing to these links on his blog.

Soup Run

A group of us were out last night in Birmingham with Paul and Jackie Atkin giving out soup and rolls as well as some blankets, from a van. We had a good time chatting and listening, building relationships with those we met - even though one homeless guy was drunk another a bit aggressive to his mates. Paul prayed with one man. I had a good conversation with another who asked about enlightenment! Soon we got onto exploring what Jesus meant when he said to love our enemies. And one chap was just walking around the van until we left because he felt it was a safe place.

Related posts:
Down and Out in Birmingham
Churches really are working together

Why I am so proud of my wife

I met my wife Nettes eight years ago through a Christian dating website – Christian Connection. I have so many reasons to be proud of her. I love her creativity. I love her artistic talent. The list could go on.

We have always tried to share the domestic chores and child care but I find that Nettes is often left doing more than her fair share. I know we’re not the only ones. But I think she is extremely patient with me.

I love her heart for doing mission here in the inner city of Birmingham. I love the way she reaches out to people. She just loves mixing with people in the neighbourhood. I love the way she has made friends with asylum seekers. And I love her enthusiasm to meet people through our church's Drop In.

This week she came home with a bundle of leaflets about social enterprise. A friend had set up a successful social enterprise called Sport4Life. "Here are some organisations we could contact to see if we could do something like that," she said. "Perhaps this could be the next step with the ministry to the homeless?" I just love the way she is always striving to move forward in God.

I love you Nettes. Happy Saint Valentine's Day!

Sea Parable

Sea Parable is a moving little three minute cartoon by Andi Mac that encapsulates all of Church history and the Church's reluctance to evangelise. It really packs a punch.

Thanks to Jonny Baker for this link.

Churches really are working together

Tomorrow and the following Friday I’m covering for Helen in our Drop-In while she and Steve go to Africa for a week. You may recall that I blogged about the Drop-In and our mission to the homeless just before Christmas. But what stuck me today was that fact that there will be other Christians there: Christians who are not part of our church or our network.

Christians from different churches working together is not new. But over the past few years we seem to have increasingly been involved in outworking this idea. For instance, just before Christmas we were involved in a massive food parcel programme with a couple of other churches in our neighbourhood through Hope 08.

It’s not just in one off projects that we are getting to work together. There are couple of people in our church that work for Karis Neighbour Scheme. This is a Christian based charity that works with a number of churches showing neighbourly acts of kindness. It was featured on Secret Millionaire last year. My wife also organises a crèche for the ESOL classes that Karis runs. Through this and Karis’s Welcome to Ladywood project we have had the privilege of meeting refugees and asylum seekers who have come to Birmingham.

We also know people through an organisation called Restore that encourages people in a number of churches to befriend asylum seekers.

And now we're involved in a Drop-In and ministry to the homeless that are also supported by Christians from other churches. Yes, we really are all working together to serve our community.


Update: I've now created a set for the Drop-In on flickr.

One Million Decide To Follow Jesus Through One Website

Seriously. This is no joke. Just over one million now have decided to follow Jesus by clicking through LookingforGod.com. Of course it’s more than a click. This website, which is already in many languages, leads people through a process that at the end invites them to pray a prayer of commitment. Over at GodRev.com you can watch the decisions in real time and Google Earth them you want to. Thanks to Andrew Jones for showing me this. Andrew has met Eric Celerier the author of this site and has heard some exciting stories.

In order to protect the responders the site only tells you to town or city where the person on the internet accessed the site from. Many of these decisions are coming from countries where Christians are persecuted and where the church is known to be growing. Locals could well respond with violence if they knew any more precise details. So I don’t think there is any provision to put people in contact with churches.

I would not blame people for being sceptical. The site admits that decisions don’t make disciples. And the gospel message comes over a bit too simplistic and sentimental for me. Perhaps I need to recapture a bit of naivety. One million is some claim but if only a tiny fraction of those are sincere it's still thousands swept into the kingdom. "By setting up this website", Andrew explains, "a transparent process has been created that tells its own story". Each person leaves their record behind. I have no problem believing a million people have confirmed that they have said the prayer on this site. I just wonder what exactly that means.

Down and Out in Birmingham

On Thursday afternoon, I went round the city centre with Paul Atkin giving out some presents to some homeless guys. Between us we must have given away about a dozen packages, each containing a hat, a scarf, a pair of gloves, and a pair of socks, toothbrush, toothpaste, soap and deodorant. Many of the guys shook our hands and one even gave us a big hug. He said that he had wanted some gloves for some time and that it was lovely to wear a new woollen hat. Many of us had donated the contents and Paul had already given out lots of these presents and has since packed some more. Paul knows these guys as he has been working with them for about ten years now.

Paul came to our church when he married Jackie this year. Our little daughter Callie was one of their bridesmaids. Since then our church has launched a ministry to the homeless headed up by Paul and Jackie. They spend their time talking to people and helping people in practical ways such as showing them the right forms to fill in to get a flat or distributing clothes, blankets and sleeping bags that have been donated.

On Fridays, we use our little church building as a Drop In Centre. People will come for a coffee & sandwiches, play pool or dominoes and to do some art. I have been dropping in myself for half an hour or so most weeks and mixing with the people. This Friday, Steve our church elder, made us all a glorious curry as a Christmas treat. There was about thirty of us there and we knew that several would be sleeping on the streets that night. We have seen a number of people from the Drop In join us in our Sunday church gatherings at the community centre. And not surprisingly last week there were many there for our church’s Christmas dinner. It is just great to be around these people.

There is a very good account of what we are doing ministering to the homeless in Birmingham, from the website for our network of churches – Lifelink International. It is worth watching the videos. They are not just people talking. There are some good shots of the Drop In and the work on the streets. It gives you the flavour of what we are doing.

Credit Crunch

What's the answer to today's financial crisis? Getting another credit card? I don't think so. Thanks to Mark Sayers for the link to this disturbing advert.

Over at Between Two Worlds, David Kotter has some thoughts about the current situation - also from an American perspective - that are worthy of note for Christians. I found this article via Tallskinnykiwi and then Christian Personal Finance. Thanks guys!

Everyday the news seems to indicate that we are moving into a recession and people fear that their livelihood is at risk. For those not eligible for housing benefit or a council house, privately renting can be very costly. Getting a mortgage is thought to be a prudent move by many. In some parts of the UK it may even be cheaper to buy than to rent. But then there is the risk of getting into debt. Of course, taking out a secured loan such as a mortgage isn't debt in itself but defaulting on the repayments is. With falling house prices and a stagnant market a home owner could end up with massive debts. People now need to be more careful than ever if they are not to end up losing their homes.

Our church has just started a mission initiative towards the homeless. There is an ever present need for this but, I was just thinking, with the ways things are going we might be seeing even more people in debt who could end up on the streets in the near future.

Perhaps it is time for Christians to start seriously praying for the economy? What do you think?

See also Credit Crunches by Cross Rhythms' Mal Fletcher.

UPDATE: There is a fascinating money programme article which is linked to an episode this BBC series screened in November. Property: The End of the Affair basically argued that renting could be a lot more prudent than buying. Many first time buyers today can’t get a mortgage and feel they are missing out while others are desperate to hold onto their property ownership. Yet economically it could make a lot more sense for people in the UK to rent, as is the norm in many other countries, rather than buy – especially in the current financial climate. They argued that buying property could be just as risky as borrowing money to buy shares – which as we all know may keep falling.

Mission Shaped Intro

Another course that is worth a look is this one on Mission Shaped stuff from CMS. Follow the PowerPoints and PDFs and find some interesting thoughts on rethinking church to reach contemporary culture. One difficulty I have with this is that it is obviously aimed at people in settings such as Anglican and Methodist and feeling a bit ineffective. Not that any type of churches have all the answers but it would be interesting to adapt this to take other types of churches, such as ones like ours, as starting points in the re-thinking process.

Homegroup on Mission

Last week our homegroup was discussing some of the past teaching in the church. Our focus was one message on Mission. We were saying how practicing the presence of God then this will enable us to have an influence for good on those around us. Luke 4 shows us that Jesus came to deal with poverty (spiritually and physically) and to bring insight and bring liberation from oppression and debt. Yes, we too have the same mission. Where are we doing this? We talked about projects such as our kids club and youth club but also our partnership with Karis Neighbour Scheme. But also we can help the poor and oppressed by changing our shopping habits e.g. consider how products are made or farmed, buy fair trade & not trade with companies that oppress people. We also noted the importance of peace (Hebrew: shalom = wholeness) in John 20::21 "Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I am sending you." and that Jesus gospel involves teaching all principles including shalom and liberation not just what we thing of as ‘the gospel’ in Matthew 28:19-20 "Teach these new disciples to obey all the commands I have given you". We were asked at the end what one thing we could put into action this week as a result of this word. I said that we would buy fair trade coffee for the church on Sunday morning before anyone else got a chance to buy any other coffee!

Men's Breakfast with Hudson Luwi from Zambia

I’ve just got back from a men’s breakfast with Hudson Luwi from Lusaka in Zambia. Seven of us ate and chatted with Hudson at the Reservoir Café and then we adjourned to the Ledbury Centre. I was struck by how Hudson is so humble and unassuming. It was only as the morning progressed that I realised that he leads a church of about 300 and then later that he has responsibility for a few other churches of similar sizes and teaches at a Bible College. It is clear that he lives by his motto of leadership that it is relational, that we lead by influencing people and that we can best influence people by having relationship with them.

How had he managed so much with so little resources? In the West we have so much that our first port of call is to those resources. When we have no access to these things then our first call must be on God. Another insightful comment that he made about Britain is that Christians talk about their faith very quietly. He was saying that we should not be ashamed but be proud to be Christians and not divide our spiritual life from our ordinary life. He encouraged us to be talking about spiritual things at work say just as we do at church.

Hudson was talking about how his church was active in the community for example by giving away clean water. Rather than expecting people to come to their meetings they were actively going into the community not so much to knock doors or preach in the streets but to be available to serve people. He said that they had seen big evangelists breeze in and make many ‘converts’ whom they never saw again. He would rather see Christians building relationships, having one-to-one conversations and serving people.

But what is our ‘clean water’ with which we can serve our community? I wondered. Hudson was saying that rather than making great plans and budgeting lots of money they had followed Jesus’ call to come and follow him. When Jesus called the apostles they knew that the end result would be but not the exact steps to get there. Jesus led them one step at a time. In the same way he talked about how he had taken one step at a time to build their church building from which they are now giving away the clean water and how with God’s help they had even survived opposition from urban gangs.

I am looking forward to seeing more of Hudson and his family on Sunday.