suffering

I was round at Marcia’s house last night after church with Tim and Alan. It was great fun – talked for a couple of hours over tea and choc-chip cookies… nice!

We got onto the topic of suffering – a controversial and sensitive topic with many people. We were thinking about why suffering happens. There is the oft-given example of Job: in that it was a test from God so Job could prove himself (although, I don’t think this is all that Job’s story is about). But how do you communicate that idea to the mother who has just lost a child after birth?

Then there is the idea that suffering is there so that the glory of God may be seen (e.g. the people Jesus healed). But how do you communicate that idea to those who suffer and have prayed – apparently in vain – for healing all their lives?

1 Peter 5:8 gives another possible reason for suffering; that is, that Satan and those under his authority are actively seeking to hurt people. Without the appropriate Armour, and God as our rear-guard, we can get hit.

But then there is a fourth area from which, I believe, suffering can originate. Psalm 23:4 has had new light thrown on it recently for me. Apparently, the Valley of the Shadow of Death was an actual valley outside Jerusalem back in the days of sandals. Shepherds would have to help their herds negotiate crags and cracks in the ground and should a stray sheep fall into one the shepherd’s staff would be able to pull the sheep out. There was always the threat of wild animals, which the shepherd would fend off with his rod. (Hence, “your rod and your staff, they comfort me.”) But back to the crags and cracks… these are, perhaps, the times of suffering that we have wondered into of our own accord.

I’ve never really thought about suffering in-depth before, due to the fact that by God’s grace I have suffered very little thus far. These intial thoughts of mine seem to make sense, though… well, to me at least. When we talk about suffering and it’s causes, perhaps we should be careful not to wildly and blindly lump all suffering into the Suffering Box; rather, we should be sensitive that there are different sources of it.

relating faith

I have just finished reading Donald Miller’s book Searching for God Knows What. It is the second book of Miller’s that I’ve read and this one has challenged me even more than the first one.

I highly recommend this book to anyone who is spiritually aware and wants to progress with their faith.

I’ll never read the balcony scene from Romeo & Juliet the same way again!

cssm 06 remembered

This is (more or less) the report I delivered to my congregation on Sunday morning 23rd July, 2006. I’ve posted it for those of you who were interested in how CSSM went but weren’t there that Sunday morning.

Thank you all for your prayers and support. CSSM was a very positive experience for me, much better than I had anticipated. A few years ago I had applied to do a different team for a different organisation but had such a bad experience during the training weekend that I pulled out before the team started properly.

I was scared the same thing would happen at CSSM, but it was just the opposite. Everyone made such an effort and I felt like a part of the team immediately.

Working on the team was great: devotion times were class – so open and honest – and everyone mucked in to get things done even if they weren’t scheduled for that particular duty. In addition the craic was great and I’ve made some lifelong friends.

Castlerock CSSM is divided up into four age groups: minis, minors, majors and maxis. I was placed with the majors – 10 to 12 year olds – with three others and was asked to speak to the teenage maxis at one of their special events. I was rather nervous about working with the 10-12 year olds because most of my experience is with teenagers. But, thanks to God and a couple of great section leaders, things went really smoothly.

One of the things that shocked me most was the depth to which the kids were thinking, as shown in the questions they were asking during the question times:

• Why is ‘us’ used in Gen 1:26?
• What is hell like?
• Can I trust the Bible?
• What’s the difference between Protestantism and Roman Catholicism?
• What is the rapture?

These are just a flavour of the questions being asked. Pretty deep stuff, eh?!

Did God move at CSSM? Yes! Of the many, many kids that came five were saved during CSSM…

And the report goes on. CSSM is something I wish I’d done years ago now that I’ve done it. I’ll definitely be pushing the older Elevation ones and RUSH people to go for it.

The reading that stuck with me for most of CSSM was 2 Timothy 2:20-21. No matter what our age or ability, God can use us. We need to be ruthless with the sin in our lives, make ourselves holy and set apart, and He will use us in ways we can’t dream!

piper & doing church again

I went to New Horizon this evening with Tim. John Piper was speaking and I was dead keen to hear him. Piper spoke about how the purpose of the universe is to praise the greatness of the glory of the grace of God – the alliteration is his own. He went on to illustrate that this purpose was fulfilled to the greatest extent on Good Friday and that we will, therefore, spend eternity praising the slaughter (Piper’s word) of God. I have a whack of Scripture references that I’ll have to go over again and the big lad said something that requires (a lot) of further thought:

It is not evil in God to will that there be evil.

It is not sin in God to will that there be sin.

I’ll post further on this soon, it requires more thinking.

On the way home, Tim and I had a good chat about the state of play within our church – we attend the same church. We were talking about how there is a lack of passion (Tim’s word) and joy (my word), that it seems to be catering for the minority within the church and that so much could be done. We both agreed that we wouldn’t think of inviting anyone to church because we know that whoever we were to invite would be bored useless unless they were sufficiently indoctrinated/brainwashed into thinking that the way we do church was good. Does that not say that something needs to be done/changed?

What Tim was saying was along the lines of my doing church post. I don’t think he’s read it, though - don’t think he knows about this website.

Church isn’t relational enough as it stands right now; it’s too school-like. It needs to do more to address the needs of the individual on a weekly basis and less addressing of the perceived general needs of the congregation.

piper & doing church again

I went to New Horizon this evening with Tim. John Piper was speaking and I was dead keen to hear him. Piper spoke about how the purpose of the universe is to praise the greatness of the glory of the grace of God – the alliteration is his own. He went on to illustrate that this purpose was fulfilled to the greatest extent on Good Friday and that we will, therefore, spend eternity praising the slaughter (Piper’s word) of God. I have a whack of Scripture references that I’ll have to go over again and the big lad said something that requires (a lot) of further thought:

It is not evil in God to will that there be evil.

It is not sin in God to will that there be sin.

I’ll post further on this soon, it requires more thinking.

On the way home, Tim and I had a good chat about the state of play within our church – we attend the same church. We were talking about how there is a lack of passion (Tim’s word) and joy (my word), that it seems to be catering for the minority within the church and that so much could be done. We both agreed that we wouldn’t think of inviting anyone to church because we know that whoever we were to invite would be bored useless unless they were sufficiently indoctrinated/brainwashed into thinking that the way we do church was good. Does that not say that something needs to be done/changed?

What Tim was saying was along the lines of my doing church post. I don’t think he’s read it, though - don’t think he knows about this website.

Church isn’t relational enough as it stands right now; it’s too school-like. It needs to do more to address the needs of the individual on a weekly basis and less addressing of the perceived general needs of the congregation.

a new future?

It happened again, this time at CSSM. Someone – actually it was more than one person – said to me, “You should be a minister,” or words along those lines. I don’t know if I’ve ever blogged on this before – about people telling me to become a minister.

It all started after a youth service back in my church in November/December 2003, in which I was asked to deliver the sermon. People seemed to get a lot from the sermon, which is humbling because it means that God was speaking through me. After the service, I was chatting with a few mates and they shook my hand and said about me becoming a minister. One of them, however, disagreed and said I’d make a good preacher/teacher rather than minister. (This is an important distinction that I’ll come back to later.)

The next time someone told me about becoming a minister (outside of idle conversation that I have since forgotten) was when my own minister, JD, wrote me a letter on 7th March 2004 inviting me to consider that God was calling me to become an ordained minister. I still have this letter. Ever since reading it, the idea has always been in my head… and it still is, hence this post.

Over the years since, I have spoken a few times: youth club epilogues, local youth events, small group meetings, etc. Nothing major, but people have carried on telling me the same thing.

January 2006 saw the small groups in my church tackle and explore the area of Spiritual Gifts. My top two gifts, respectively, are Administration and Teaching. Members of my small group said that they knew Teaching would emerge to be a gift of mine, and so did I. One lady in particular says she believes I should teach (the Bible).

Just before I left for CSSM at the start of July, the Elevation leadership met together to pray for the young people. Out of the blue, Al handed me a leaflet for the Cornhill Training Course. The leaflet’s tagline was Training preachers in partnership with local churches. He said he had received the leaflet through the door and he’d studied at Cornhill and said it was a fantastic year. He was wondering who he should give it to in church and he thought of me.

Finally, at CSSM just passed, I was asked to speak to the teenage group at one of their special events. It was nothing major; I simply had to give my testimony. (Given that I am now 24, my testimony now takes about 15 minutes to deliver.) After that, a lot of the leaders said that I should be a minister.

Now, back to that thought I said I’d come back to…

For a long while I wanted to be a youth minister but, unfortunately, it isn’t possible (as far as I am aware) to simply be a preacher/teacher in the Presbyterian Church in Ireland; if you are an ordained minister, you are to pastor as well. And this is my big hang-up: I have lived far too sheltered a life to be given authority to speak into and affect others’ lives in a pastor’s role. As far as pastoring goes, I believe I suck at it. I just don’t think God has gifted me that way, which suggests I shouldn’t do it. (Perhaps I’m being to closed-minded by limiting myself to PCI…)

But with regard to preaching/teaching/speaking? Yes, I do believe God has gifted me… but how do I use that and not get landed with pastoring full-time, too?

Then, I begin to wonder why God has so gifted me with computers and given me the job I have if I am “meant to be” a minister, preacher, speaker, whatever. What’s more, I’ve just got a house, so to leave work and head back to university would be financially crippling… or is that just lack of faith on my part. (How easy it is to second-guess oneself!)

I always ask God to make Himself obvious when He’s speaking to me because I’m as thick as two planks, and I wonder if what I’ve shared with you is the result.

Maybe I should write more…

doing church

Do you ever think we do church wrong these days? 

They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer. Everyone was filled with awe, and many wonders and miraculous signs were done by the apostles. All the believers were together and had everything in common. Selling their possessions and goods, they gave to anyone as he had need. Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people. And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved.

Acts 2:42-47 (NIV)

I’m in the middle of a CSSM (Childrens’ Special Service Ministry – SUNI) and it is going really well. There is such an awesome unity amongst the leadership team, and a real spiritual connection between us. It’s just so easy to be a Christian and to do Christianity at CSSM.

This is something that I’ve been made to feel bad about before, you know. In fact, I dare say if you’re a Christian reader of my blog, you’ve most likely been made to feel bad about this point too. Speakers chastise us for being those who find it easy to be a Christian at church or churchy things but struggle and fall short when we leave the church avenue. But, when I read Acts 2:42-47, I wonder if they have any right to chastise us… perhaps our idea of church is messed up and we aren’t doing church the way it was done in the good old days of the Apostles. Perhaps as a result of not doing church the right way, we lack the support, partnership and encouragement that a church is meant to give in order for us to live a life worthy of our calling, making it easy to be a Christian in 21st Century Northern Ireland.

I think the experience I’m having at the Castlerock CSSM is closer to the New Testament church model than the traditional model. The passage above says that “every day they continued to meet” (emphasis mine). Traditional church doesn’t tend to meet every day. Yes, there are groups that meet during the week, but they don’t include everyone all of the time, which means no one is meeting every day. My CSSM meet together to praise, pray, chat, eat, sleep, serve and much more every day.

I don’t want to offend, but church rarely fills me with “awe” and I don’t see spectacular events happening often. My time at CSSM has had me in awe of God, in awe of the way other leaders serve, in awe of the wee cell groups and how they get on. Every day I see spectacular events in the lives of the children that attend. (Now, I’m sure spectacular events do happen at church, but I think we don’t meet together often enough to know.)

The concept of community and idea of relationship in traditional church seems, in general (there are exceptions) forced, rigid and cold. The very same concept and idea at CSSM are vibrant, easy and free.

Whilst at CSSM my mood is constantly joy. The model at CSSM is conducive to a joyous mood. And, as a result of my mood, I am eager to serve, eager to speak out, eager to have a quiet time, eager to share, and desperate to praise and pray.

I don’t mean to glorify CSSM (or even Castlerock CSSM above any other CSSM); I merely wanted to compare the CSSM model of the fellowship against the traditional church model of fellowship.

I can’t wait for Sunday evening when I’ll get back up to CSSM… I can’t always say the same about church. That sounds harsh, but it’s honest.