Permission to Speak

I'm firing off some thoughts quickly here before I go to bed because I'll have lost my train of thought by morning.

For some quick background, I've spent the last couple of years feeling reasonably despondent toward church. It's not that I've felt distant from God or fallen out with anyone in my church family...it's just been a feeling of vague disconnection from church life. I tried going around other churches for a while (a year in fact) and ended up back at my home church having not really found what I was looking for. That all led up to tonight where I met up with a couple of guys who I've had a prayer cell with for years. And I left feeling more encouraged, passionate and enthusiastic about my spiritual life than I have in a long time.

And all that happened was we talked.

We were having a chat about things we would like prayer for, and I explained that I felt this disconnection, and for the next hour we talked about it.

I know this sounds very simple, but I think a lot of people don't have access to open discussion about where they're at.

A few years ago I did a bit of a 180 regarding my views on homosexuality. I was brought up in a church environment and was taught that it was sinful. The Bible backed it up and I never questioned it. But like many Christians, I reached a point where I had to assess why I really believed it, and without going into the details, I ended up on the other side of the fence. When that happens, you are in a strange place in church life. There are a lot of people you feel you shouldn't mention that to. And over the last couple of years the more things I've started to question, the more I found myself struggling with the inability to say certain things and express certain views in church. Not to say that nobody within the church is willing to have a discussion, but I sometimes feel like churches are akin to country clubs. If you're the right type of person who acts the right way, you're welcome into the club. But if you don't fit in perfectly you'll find it difficult to be a part of the group.

This can be pretty devastating to people's faith. If someone's not free to work out what they believe and why, then they don't really believe anything. If people believe what they believe purely because that's what it takes to be part of church, then they don't have a faith. And that's why whenever I was able to have a totally honest and open conversation about what's been on my mind spiritually it was such a relief.

Churches should be the place where people are able to open up and be honest. We should be fostering an environment where people are able to build a concrete relationship with God that they are confident in. And if you feel defensive whenever someone expresses a different opinion or asks a question you feel is dangerous, then I'd implore you to ask whether your reaction is going to help or hurt. Experience new things. Listen to the opposition to your views. I've known a fair few people who have chosen to drift away from their faith rather than talk to someone about it, and if we were a church that allowed people to ask questions and share their opinions I don't think that would be the case...

Keeping a church happy?

Haven't written on here in over a year, but I feel like tossing some thought out and trying to put them in a somewhat coherent order.

In my home church I lead the praise in the morning and evening service once a month, and I also take part in a team of people (the heroically named Worship Action Team) who are in a sense responsible for the ongoing worship life of the church. We organize the praise times, manage the different areas of worship in various aspects of the church etc. And if truth be told, it's incredibly easy to become complacent and forget what that responsibility really means. The members of that team have stood up and said that we each believe God is calling us to take on a role in ensuring that the members of the congregation can comfortably meet with and experience the presence of God when they enter into a communal time of worship in our church. Not something to be taken lightly!

Now I see no reason to not throw this out there right at the beginning: I frequently find myself unsatisfied with many aspects of our worship services.

There.

I said it.

I'm often told I'm much too cynical but the truth is I know many other people who are finding themselves in the same boat. And I should make it clear, I am fully aware that this isn't the forum for rambling on about how I or anyone else thinks a church should be run, and that is not what I'm looking to do here. But at the same time, why not get some thoughts out there before we become the sort of people who spend Sunday afternoon bitching about Sunday morning? The kind of people who use the order of service just to figure out in advance what they're not going to enjoy over the next hour?

You see, our church is blessed with a large congregation the range of which is enormous. We are not a young church with a few old folks, nor vica versa. Nor are we particular traditional or modern, and it is a wonderful thing in many ways. I believe that young and old can learn a massive amount from each other, and to see people of such different backgrounds and characters within the one family is an incredible thing. And yet, among the blessings, tensions exist.

Every year a group of our young people head out to Summer Madness and outreach teams and other such events, and experience worship much more suited to them, and while it inspires and encourages and challenges them in amazing ways (I am convinced this is why we have so many leaders in organizations who are in their late teens and early twenties), it hits them like a ton of bricks to come back to a typical church service. And likewise, we have people who have been coming to Orangefield and offering up their time and their services for years and years, and perhaps resent the idea that the worship which they have enjoyed should be altered or changed to something they don't relate so easily with. Piled onto this we have people who have come from other churches, and they have joined us because they find us to be a welcoming and friendly place (I have genuinely never been to a church that does the 'family' thing quite like Orangefield) and yet they struggle with how we do worship because they have come from something very different. And this isn't speculation, I know people who have said they're in this situation!

And so we have the current situation, whereby we try and throw a little bit in for everyone. We make sure we have at least one hymn per service, we tend to open up with a more modern upbeat number, we make sure we do a new song every now and then, we have a youth service every once in a while, we have a couple of services that we routinely keep very traditional, and we make sure that we stick to the same service layout each week so that all of these things are kept in check.

But my issue is this: By trying to keep everyone happy, we keep no-one happy.

People don't leave thinking of the little bit of the service that was for them, they leave thinking about the 90% that wasn't. Now, I used to be very much of the opinion that this was down to the attitude of the individual, that the style of worship or the layout of the church service shouldn't really matter if we are there to meet with God. Should our ability to meet with God really rely on what's going on at the front of the church? Surely our relationship with God should be beyond the mechanics of a service? And I still think there's truth in that (slightly hippy-ish) argument. But over the last while I've come to thing that perhaps that is ignoring the responsibility of someone who says they want to lead worship. If what's going on at the front doesn't matter then why would anyone be called to lead? Moreover, if it is completely down to the attitude of the individual then why would we meet as a church?

Nowadays I find myself looking at it a different way, which was greatly inspired by a young chap the past summer. At the end of our outreach week we had an evening of worship and the opportunity was given for anyone to come up to the mic and share a little encouragement or thankfulness or anything they felt God putting on their heart, and Phil Douglas came up and acknowledged that we were all bowled over by what God had done in the past week, but then pointed out that we shouldn't be surprised when God responds to His people doing His work. We should always look to Him, and we should always be expectant that when we do He will get involved. I'm paraphrasing and he put it much better, but it's an incredibly important thought, and one that I think is of paramount importance to the worship-life of a church. I fear that we have become too heavily focused on what the various different opinions and personal preferences in the congregation think we should be doing as a church, rather than what God is calling us to do.

Let me give an example. Each of our four worship team leaders have experimented in services over the years with things a little out of the church's comfort zone; things like open times of prayer, or getting people to pray with the people around them. But because there is always that initial air of awkwardness or because some people let it be known afterwards that they don't like such things, it happens very rarely. Now, if all four of the people who lead our worship have felt called to try things like this out, it would seem to me pretty clear that God is telling us there is a place for this in our communal worship. So it seems crazy, and if I'm honest a little infuriating, that we wouldn't push for it.

Again, let me make it clear, this is all just thoughts being poured out and nothing more. So I guess what I'm trying to say is it makes far more sense to me to become a church that can be united by its worship, as opposed to one whose attitude of worship takes on different personalities at different times and welcomes people in one moment before alienating them the next. And here's the really uncomfortable bit...to do this, people will probably leave. AND THAT'S OK. To go back to the earlier example, if the church decided that they were going to be a church that prayed together and in front of others during their services, I have no doubt that some people would decide they weren't comfortable with that and would find another church more suited to their personal tastes. This is a good thing! We are all one church, one body, it shouldn't be a terrible tragedy if someone goes to a church that allows them to worship comfortably! We seem to be worried that if we don't cater to everyone's needs then someone might leave, but as far as I'm concerned one of the few benefits of having a church with so many denominations and styles is that regardless of how you want to worship God or involve yourself you are certain to find somewhere that fits you! And if our church was to decide that they want to return to a strict traditional style of worship then I like to think that while I would almost certainly go elsewhere, that I would still feel they had made a massive step forward and there would be no ill feeling whatsoever.

This is a bit of a mess, I know, and I should probably say, I'm not trying to speak on behalf of anyone, but a lot of these thoughts have been influenced by conversations with fellow Christians. Hopefully it resonates with some people or at least gets some thoughts stirring.

I'll leave you with this:

"Day by day continuing with one mind in the temple, and breaking bread from house to house, they were taking their meals together with gladness and sincerity of heart, praising God and having favour with all the people. And the Lord was adding to their number day by day those who were being saved."

Acts 2:46-47

What God are we worshipping?

I mentioned some of this thinking on Sunday morning in church, but I've been pondering it a little more so figured I'd finally getting round to putting something new up here.

I've been re-reading Rob Bell's 'Velvet Elvis' lately and there is a point in it where he says:

If there is a divine being who made everything, including us, what would our experiences 

with this being look like? The moment God is figured out with nice neat lines and definitions, 

we are no longer dealing with God. We are dealing with somebody we made up. 

And if we made him up, then we are in control. And so in passage after passage, 

we find God reminding people that he is beyond and bigger and more.

Between Bible College and church services (which take up a fair portion of my time) I have quite a few people telling me about God; His character, His will and what He wants, and of course this is beneficial. But I wonder at what point do we become complacent by assuming we know all about God?

A while ago, I was part of a discussion with a few people about a very touchy subject, that of whether babies who die automatically go to heaven. As you would expect it was quite emotionally charged, and at one point a girl adamantly insisted: "Well the God I know would not send a baby to Hell." I like to think that through our prayer lives, through our worship, and through our study of the scriptures that we gain an understanding of God. The fact that He is a relational God implies that He wants us to know Him intimately and vica versa. But can we really base a conclusion which (as far as I'm aware) has no scriptural basis entirely on who we think God is? To me that seems dangerously close to moulding God that He might fit our needs and beliefs.

Try thinking about this...

God is a perfect being. He cannot be near sin, or even look upon it Habakkuk 1:13a. We, on the other hand, are gold medallists in screwing up. We defy the commands of God every day in a thousand different ways, and it is only by the power of Christ's sacrifice that we have any hope of being in unity with Him.

Now, given those two statements, ask this: When was the last time you felt challenged in church? It stands to reason that when we come before God, we are doing so having fallen far short of what He requires. We should be coming to Him, hat-in-hand, needing forgiveness and the strength to change our lives, the passion to become more like the example Christ sets in the gospels. And yet (and I don't think I'm the only one) I go to church ever week, sing the nice songs (all of which seem to revolve around forgiveness, unconditional love and the happy God...not the angst, desperation or the suffering that populates so many of the Psalms) and leave with the warm, fuzzy feeling of having been in God's presence. Surely if I was truly coming into the presence of God, I would be ashamed! I would struggle to stand His holiness in light of my own misgivings. I would leave church with the thirst to do better, not leave every week with 'it's all going to be okay' tattooed on my heart.

If I am honest, I am guilty of dumbing God down and ensuring that He fits comfortably around my own failings, rather than washing over them. I have made up a version of God who drives me, but not too hard. Who loves me, but not so much that He changes me. And this keeps me happy. But the thing I want to remind myself of is the belief that there is far more joy to be had when in total communion with God than when blissfully ignorant of His call.

But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it.

Matt 7:13

Many of us find the happiness that comes with complacence and comfort, but I want to be one of the few striving for the greater joy of a life lived with God. The God who is beyond and bigger and more.

Smartphones

About three years ago, I bought my first iPhone. It was the 3G model and I was very excited about it, drowning in the Apple hysteria that has held the world hostage ever since. And up until about a month ago when the phone packed it in I was very happy with it. I used it for Twitter, did all my emailing with it and had the Bible on it which is always handy.

Now, when it broke I was gutted, I mean, how do you exist in the modern world without all these things and much more in your pocket at all times?

Well, I am currently using the phone I had previously, a Sony Ericsson which does none of the things previously mentioned. It texts, it phones and it has a reasonable camera, but this is about it (except for a truly addictive mini golf game). And I have to say that I haven't missed the other things one bit. Not only that, but on Saturday night I decided that I was done with smartphones for the foreseeable future. 


You see, I have just returned from Summer Madness (tenth year...depressing thought, no?) with over fifty young people from our church, and it was an incredible time of fellowship together. There was incredible worship to take part in, some wonderfully gifted preachers brought challenging and through-provoking messages, and most importantly God sent His Spirit down and touched a lot of people. Lives were changed. Brilliant, yeah? And yet, people didn't get as much as they could have. Why? Because of smartphones. Over the four days spent at Glenarm Castle there were eight main meetings. Each of these meetings lasted maybe two hours. Within this time there was a talk, probably thirty to forty minutes long. In every one of those talks I looked round at different points and saw at least half of the young people in our group sitting with their iPhone or their BlackBerry in between their knees trying to be discreet, checking FaceBook or something else. And as you looked over the rest of the crowd of people there, it was exactly the same. I stood up at one point and there was a sea of little lights, a couple of inches in size, as people sat on their phone while the person on the stage tried to reach them with scriptural message. 


Does this not worry us? Is it not a horrifying thought that we cannot focus for half an hour in today's society without caving into the need to check our phone? Worse still we readily give the phone a priority over the Word of God. 


The irony of it was that the theme of the week was Fashion Gods, with focuses on consumerism and being countercultural. And yet almost every member of our group had paid the high cost to have one of these phones in their possession, just the way society tells them they must. And don't get me wrong, I had one for years, but this week has changed my view on them in a big way. 


As usual, all opinions welcome!

Old versus New

Going into overdrive with these posts here...I'll make this a quick one though.

A few weeks ago when I was leading worship in church we were singing Before the Throne of God Above. I asked our powerpoint guy to put up the original words instead of the new updated ones. You know, 'graven on His hands' instead of 'written', 'bid me thence depart' instead of 'force me to depart' and all that caper. This led to a debate with a team member as to whether we should update songs lyrics and the Aaronic blessing etc.

I always like to strike a balance when planning a service between modern songs and older tunes/hymns, and this isn't for any congregational reasons (keeping the peace between younger and older members), it is because of the lyrics. First of all, as Graham and I were discussing recently, the words of hymns like Before the Throne are incredibly deep and powerful. They paint pictures with a descriptive quality that is largely absent in modern contemporary worship. For example, 'graven on His hands' is a far more striking image that 'written ion His hands'. Graven is a permanent mark, carved forever leaving a scar, whereas as to write something is temporary or removable. It sits in harmony with the pain and sacrifice that was made for us. This is true of many hymns. Not that I don't think there is a place for simpler expressions of worship; one of my favourite modern worship songs is David Crowder's 'Rain Down' which contains only fifteen words. I love that worship is deeper than lyrics and so much can be expressed without relying on language the way everything else in our life does, but there is certainly much to be said for the way hymns move us by their words.

The other reason behind a wide range of songs is that we worship a God who is outside of time. The God who we will worship this Sunday morning is the same God who met with Moses on the top of Mount Sinai. He remains unchanging, and I like that our congregational worship can reflect this through the words we sing. Older language speaks of a time that has past, yet the words that were written then speak of the same God we now serve. I think by modernizing everything we can lose this aspect of God from our services.

Give me thees, thous and thys any day :)

A Continuation...

Okay, following on from the post I put up a couple of days ago. Our prayer cell met up last night and we spent a little time on the subject of worship, and some more thoughts are brewing which lead on nicely from the last ones.

A while ago I had a chat with someone who questioned me as to the amount church has moved forwards over the last number of years. Now, this is an interesting question. In my time at Orangefield things immediately seem to have moved on in a huge way. I have been there for twenty-four years, taken part in the leading of worship for eleven years and been leading worship for about six years. Jump back with me to the turn of the millenium...

There is a set team of musicians who lead every service, along with a praise group (choir) of around twenty-five singers. The songs we sing are from the Presbyterian hymn book with some additions from the Mission Praise collection. These books are found in the pew in front of you and most of them are simply led by piano/organ and voices.

Now we move forward through time and things begin to change. We jump from one set group to four different worship teams, people happily sign up to take part in the leading of the congregational worship. Each team is bursting with eleven or twelve participants. We move into our new building where instead of hymn books or acetate sheets we have powerpoint and cameras on screens the whole way through the service. We have a hugely updated repertoire of music, with filing cabinets full of modern worship songs including the latest tunes from the CCM charts. Our worship on a Sunday is louder, more energetic and freer than ever before.

Things have come a long way, right?

Well, I'm beginning to wonder if our attitude of worship has come the same distance that our exterior aesthetic has. All of these changes, while important and exciting, are much more to do with the way our worship looks and sounds than to do with the heart behind it. And it begs the question, if that is all that changes then is it worth anything? Don't get me wrong, I think steps are being taken. We are starting to include times of corporate prayer and lead in a more personally focused way; things which would not have been present in the past and which encourage a greater focus upon God during our time gathered together. But this small step forward is miles from where we could be.

When you lead from the front of the church you spend a great deal of time looking out at people during the worship. Sadly, like every church, there are people you see whose minds are totally elsewhere. They don't sing, they don't get involved, they stand up and sit down when they are told and stare blankly ahead the entire time. That is a separate issue down to the individual needing to make the effort to come to church prepared. However, you also see people who are genuine worshipers. You can easily tell when someone is singing the songs not just as words but from their heart. They understand what they are proclaiming, and they are honest as they proclaim it. This is wonderful, but it is scratching the surface of what worship should be. By this I mean that it is all one-way. They pour out their praise to God and make a joyous noise, but absolutely no time is given to allowing God to respond and meet with His people. As soon as the last chorus is sung we are to sit down and something else in our programme immediately starts up. Instead of a time where we meet with God, we write Him a letter and don't bother with the reply.

This strikes me as the major change we need to make but have not yet pushed for.

Yet more worship stuff...

So there's no real singular point to this post, I'm just kind of pouring out a load of stuff that's been in my head over the last wee while and seeing if anyone has any thoughts on it.

Something which has been on my mind quite a bit of late is the issue of how we can gather an entire congregation of people into an attitude of worship. One thing which I find a bit bothersome in my church is the rigid structure most of our services are cumbered with. We would rarely have more than two songs in a row, things are dotted with short prayers, offerings and other such bits and pieces and rather than a smooth flow it always seems very compartmentalised to me. The main reason for this is that I feel much more at home when there is half an hour or so devoted to praise, when you can get lost in it and have time to do business with God. Now, on the other hand there are people in my church who can't stand that. I've heard people say that their focus wanders if we spend too much time on one thing, or that they don't like standing for such a length of time.

For example, a few months ago I led a service slightly differently, in that we didn't pick or practise the songs beforehand. We just began to play and had an extended time of praise where we just played the songs as they came. Now, after this service several people approached myself or other members of the team and said that they had loved it, while others said they felt no sense of worship at all. Fairly polarized results!

So if a church service is meant to be a body of people coming together to worship God with one voice, what do we do? How do we get past the physical things that we like or dislike?

At the risk of sounding like a naive hippy, if we are truly in an attitude of worship, intent on focusing upon only God, then these things should be in the background. The songs we sing and the way we play them shouldn't be a decisive issue on whether or not we will feel able to worship.

After that unplanned service one of the things mentioned was that people struggled to worship because the words were not coming up on the screen fast enough (obviously because there was no list of songs). My immediate reaction to this was to ask why we are okay with the fact that people are rendered unable to worship if they are not given some words on a screen to sing? But in actual fact nothing hinders my own attitude of worship more than when people lead a song differently to the way I know it. If the tune is tweaked slightly or a different word used it totally jolts me out of any form of worship. We all have comforts in our churches which have become crutches.

It seems incredibly clear to me that we must get to a point where we are able to meet with God without relying on computers, tuners and fancy resources. People all over the world rejoice in the name of God with their voices alone as this is all they have. We have been blessed with much more but we must get out of the habit of relying on them, making them the primary element of our worship.

But how do we get there? What is the first step toward letting go of earthly things and allowing God a central place in our service?

Praying for yourself

"Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; 

knock and it will be opened to you."

Matthew 7:7, ESV

We recently had a worship night for young people in our church, one which we hold every couple of months. A group of six people (including myself) lead the times of praise at these events, and the usual procedure is that we meet up two or three times before each event to have a run over some songs. Before this most recent event we had three meetings, and at each one we had a short time of prayer to open up the time together. The idea was to pray for three different elements of the event, one at each practise, as follows:

1. Praying for the hearts and attitudes of the young people coming along, for an openness among them to let God work freely.
2. Praying for Ruth Cooke and Jonny Elliot, leading the talk based on the work of IJM.
3. Praying for ourselves and for each other, for personal focus in the week leading up to the event.

I have genuinely never found anything in my prayer life as challenging as the ten or fifteen minutes I spent at our third practise praying for myself. 

Over the years I've been involved in worship groups, outreach teams and youth groups, all of which have involved an active prayer element, and I've always been a fan of it. I get a real kick out of a time of prayer, there's something very reassuring and exciting about calling upon God to involve Himself in what we're doing. But in this moment I became very aware of how rarely I pray for myself. I had no idea where to begin. Ask me to pray for a team that's about to begin, for a friend in need or a situation on the other side of the world and I will have no problem at all, but when I tried to turn the focus on myself, I really struggled.

Don't get me wrong, I've prayed many prayers over the years for exams coming up and for steady nerves before I speak at something and all that kind of thing, but that's always been in relation to a specific thing. This was new, the idea of just praying that I might be who God needs me to be in order that His Spirit might use me. I've been leading worship in various ways for about five years and this was the first time I'd realised this. I had to be honest with God, accept that He knows all my flaws and that I must acknowledge them before Him if I am to ask for His help in overcoming them. I felt so exposed before God, terrified that if I let my walls come down by mentioning my inner issues in prayer that He would see me for the struggling sinner I really am.

That verse from Matthew is such a widely-known one, a sentence many of us have been able to speak from memory ever since Sunday school. Yet how many of you are like me and have no idea how to take it for what it really is? Am I really the only one who has no problem praying for the healing of the physically sick because I believe God is that powerful, yet can't fully convince myself deep down that he can help me overcome some personal weaknesses?

Ask and it shall be given. Simple as that. Lust stopping you from being who God wants you to be? Ask God to take away your lust. Struggling to maintain a devotional life with God? Ask Him for the determination to keep it up. Job done, case closed. As long as we ask God with the faith that He requires of us, it really is as simple as that.

So let's strive for that faith. The results of those times of prayer we had at our practises was clear. Young folks responded to the movement of God through their worship in ways I hadn't sen in them before. Ruth and Jonny spoke a powerful and challenging message about the world and what Christians need to be doing within it. So if God responded to these prayers so clearly what reason have I to doubt that He will respond to my most personal and desperate prayers? With the assurance God has blessed me with through this last event I am making a conscious decision to pray for myself openly and honestly with God, and if anything here has sounded familiar to you I hope you can do the same :)

Prayer is not asking. It is a longing of the soul. It is the

daily admission of one's weakness. It is better in prayer

to have a heart without words than words without heart.

Mahatma Gandhi

Musings on Musical Content

Last year I put up a post about the debate over what Christians should and shouldn't watch on TV or in films, and a similar chat recently emerged between a friend and myself. Essentially this friend was flicking through my iPod and started to laugh when they found music on it by a band who call themselves Holy F**k. (Breathtaking electronica, well worth a listen!) They then said that they would never have such a thing listed in their music library and made a 'what-if-your-minister-found-that-on-there?' kind of joke. So we mulled over this for a while, debating what a Christian should be listening to.

For the record, there is a lot of stuff on my iPod that I wouldn't play at my gran's 80th birthday party. There's some Eminem (I'm somewhat ashamed to say), a lot of Bill Hicks stand-up material (covering all manner of subject matter) and the Team America soundtrack (enough said). Not to mention a wealth of classic bands who ever now and then let a dodgy word slip in there (John Lennon, Pink Floyd, Dave Matthews etc etc etc...).

Now, people are always quick to relate to the passage in the Bible where Peter denies Christ, how he curses to try and convince people he isn't a follower.

He began to call down curses, and he swore to them, “I don’t know this man 

you’re talking about.” Mark 14:71

People then say that from this that to swear is to distance yourself from Christ, and following on from that they say that it is no better to put this stuff into you head through what you watch and what you listen to. While I don't entirely agree with this viewpoint I can understand the reasoning and I have an awful lot of admiration for the restraint of people who discipline themselves this way. My problem, however, is that many people take the idea of 'swear words' too seriously, letting this cloud their judgement.

My view on swearing in a nutshell is that there are no bad words, there are only bad intentions. Now I don't use bad language, but I don't believe God set certain words aside as naughty words that we're not to use. I believe that man has always used words to hurt, and over time this use has stuck with certain words. So for me, intent and nature mean more to me that specific language where listening is concerned. If I were a parent, I like to think that I'd be happier with my children listening to Manic Street Preachers who have the odd curse word, than Katy Perry or Rihanna, wherein the soul purpose of the music is to glorify and glamourize a lifestyle which God finds totally abhorrent. Some of the music on Cool FM genuinely disgusts me and it might not contain a single word which you couldn't say on daytime TV. Therefore I find it difficult when a Christian won't listen to a particular song or watch a particular film because of the verbal content, but they happily pick up the latest compilation of radio chart-toppers.

Food for thought...

Reflections on church

A housegroup has recently been formed in Orangefield Presbyterian for young adults, and right from the beginning there has been a challenge set in the meetings: how well are we functioning as a church? This does not mean, how happy and comfortable are our members? It means, to what extent are we seeing the kingdom of God enlargened or advanced? How do we see God's hand at work through what we do? These questions are posed in our housegroup, but answers are not handed on a plate. A thought will be thrown out to the group, then people reflect on it and discuss it. When you start to think about it, you start to realise some worrying things.

I recently performed a survey within the church for a college assignment, and every answer I recieved stated that the person in question was, to some degree, not engaging with the worship in our church. By this I mean, they either did not feel free to become lost in worship, they did not feel like they were meeting with God, or they did not feel the time spent worshipping encouraged them in their Christian walk.

This is a very serious thing.

And this is not simply the young people not liking some older songs or any situation like that, these responses came from a wide variety of people, male and female, young and old. Robin Mark states:

"That [God] requires our worship, totally and without wavering, is a Biblical fact."

Our worship is the basis of everything in our Christian life. Without prayer, praise and a firm understanding of the scripture (so, everything we do on a Sunday!) nothing else can function properly. Our community outreach, our fellowship, our mission work... We cannot jump to step 2 without first taking care of step 1. Well, we can, but it will soon fall apart.

A few years ago, I attended Hillsborough Bible Week and R.T. Kendall was speaking. He suggested that if the Holy Spirit were to suddenly be removed from the Christian church in the UK, that the vast majority of churches would continue without noticing a thing. This thought genuinely scares me, that a church could be so misled in it's work that it completely neglects the influence of the very God it's serving. What if that were your church? 

In a situation where people are able to say that their time in worship in their home church is not enabling them to meet with God, it is a time for radical change. To me, that is not something that can be accepted and allowed to continue OR be gradually changed over an extended period of time. The latter is often how we tend to do things. We have "special services" once in a while, where we do something a little out of the ordinary. We dip a toe in rather than plunge; and for the most part, this is the better option. A lot of the time it is a bad idea to change something and just expect the congregation to be okay with it.

But I don't think that is the case here.

I don't think we can continue going about the everyday church procedures while the foundation of it isn't as it should be. 

After thinking about it a great deal over the last few weeks, I would propose 2 things. They are only my own rambling thoughts which you are more than welcome to disagree with, but for what they're worth:

1.

To those who are responsible for our services. So many of our meetings involve lengthy discussions about how long services are to be, or in particular how much time is allowed for different sections of the service. If we fall into a situation where structure is our defining factor on a Sunday then we cannot expect God to get involved. Every week when the worship team meets to pray, we ask God to move, we ask Him to be the center and the focus rather than us, and we ask that the congregation can experience Him. But we're asking Him to do these things within our constraints. Our hearts are not truly desiring those things if there is uproar every time our praise runs on a little longer than it sometimes does. We need to be less worried about the rigid layout of our services. Many of the answers I got to those questions mentioned the worship feeling suffocated, that there was no room for the Spirit to move.

2.

To those who attend our services. NOBODY can make you worship. Nobody in any position of leadership in any church in the world can force you into a time of worship. If you do not come into a Sunday service prepared to meet with God, really hungry to experience His power, then it doesn't matter how the worship is led, you won't engage the way you should. Ask yourself how often you truly prepare yourself before worship to meet with God, to allow Him into every aspect of your life and to ask Him to move.

It is important to remember that we should never seek to make worship comfortable (whether leading or experiencing). That is not the aim. God challenges through worship, He pushes us and moulds us, and a lot of the time this is uncomfortable. 

If you have any thoughts on this stuff do let me know.

The holidays are coming...holidays are coming...

My Twitter feed has been alive over the last coupld of weeks with people on two sides of a battle. One the one hand, we have people who from the middle of October are in full-fledged Christmas mode, putting up countdowns, quoting Christmas songs and generally being obnoxiously cheerful. On the other hand, the people who moan about Victoria Square having their lights up before December even starts and snap at anyone who mentions the possibility of putting their tree up. Where am I? I suppose I'm somewhere in the middle. I hate putting the tree up but I love the dinner. No pain no gain, I guess...

I find myself wondering more and more each year to what extent we do take part in the commercialization of Christmas though. As Christians we obviously have a very different approach to and meaning behind the celebration of Christmas. We set a particular time apart each to commemorate the coming of God in human form to take part in the salvation of all mankind. Probably worth a mention once a year, yes?

So how does God feel about his people getting sucked in to the way the world has trivialised it? If we weigh up the amount of time we spend pondering over presents, decorating houses, writing cards, watching the films on tv and even simply daydreaming about a few days off work; against the amount of time we give it the proper focus it deserves, are we really surprised that God is not glorified to the extent He should be? Countercultural living is surely never more important than at a time of year when something profoundly spiritual is abused by marketing and industry.

Don't get me wrong, I absolutely love Christmas, genuinely can't wait each year. There's nothing wrong with that. And even though the world doesn't quite get it, it's still a time of year that seems to promote only love and compassion. But what better chance is there for Christians to shine than when celebrating the birth of Christ? Instead we so often choose to go along with the superficial.

If I had more time I'd also go on about how even the Christian worship folks seem to pounce on the market in order to sell a few CDs of Christmas songs, but for another time...

How does church affect our worship?

Haven't done one of these things since before the summer holidays, and a lot has been going on since then. We've had Summer Madness, I battled through Round 2 with Oxegen, and our church had our summer outreach week, JAM.

So a little overview of these things first to set the scene for something that's been on my mind.

Summer Madness was my ninth year (I think) and my third going with a group of obnoxious sods from Orangefield. We had around thirty-five young people this time round and it was a phenomenal week of worship and teaching. I confess the last couple of years I've felt less and less impressed by the festival and worried that maybe it was just me getting older but thankfully this year reassured me. Martin Smith was a total blessing in the worship and Simon Guillebaud and Duffy Robbins proved that totally different speaking styles can be equally instructive.

JAM was also a third year affair, with 50-odd people staying for 8 days in the church building and three different programmes running every day (check out the podcasts) and the answer to prayer evident throughout the week was unbelievable. The Friday night saw a massive response among the teenagers attending where our designated prayer room couldn't cope with the number of people looking to get in.

And in hindsight there's something that's been on my mind from these two spectacular events.

Anyone who's been to Summer Madness knows that the worship is some distance away from the average Presbyterian church. The songs range from dance-based bouncy numbers all the way to the epic soaring tunes (or, "Coldplay" worship) and it's very involved. There is a lot of hand-raising, people fall on their knees, the band can play for five full minutes without anybody singing anything and the atmosphere of worship is not broken or strained. It's a wonderful experience, and usually a real highlight of the week. And at JAM there was a lot of the same thing. We had a few worship sessions where people entered in in very emotional ways. There was some crying, some response through prayer etc and a lot of hands in the air.

SO WHY DOES THIS ONLY HAPPEN IN CERTAIN PLACES?

I'm not talking about how it happens a lot only in some churches, I mean among our own people. The same people who worship like this at Summer Madness largely don't on a Sunday in a church service. This isn't a problem and I'm not saying it's something that should change, it's just interesting. It seems to imply that our worship comes from a different place in one area than from another. Does it solely have to do with the way the worship is lead? Obviously there is a vast difference between the two settings; our church doesn't boast a powerful lighting show, we don't play hour-long uninterrupted sets on a Sunday morning and we don't hand-pick our worship solely with the teenage listener in mind. But if this is true does it mean that we are too heavily influenced by what happens around our worship as opposed to the worship itself?

Or maybe it's just the place in which the worship occurs. Perhaps it is easier to feel free in the way you worship when you find yourself in a crowd of 6,000 people around your own age, who you don't know, than it is in a church building in which your family and people of different generations are standing. Here the problem presented would be that people feel pressurized in the way they choose to express their worship by those around them. Worried about what would seem appropriate to people rather than before God.

I mention this simply because I enjoyed leading worship massively at JAM, always do. It's genuinely one of my favourite things about the week, seeing people respond to God freely. If you have any feelings or general musings on the subject fire away!

Things to change

The world's perception of Christians and their God

"I do not find in orthadox Christianity one redeeming feature."

- Thomas Jefferson

"In no instance have the churches been guardians of the liberties of the people."

- James Madison

"Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people."

- Karl Marx

"Our Bible reveals to us the character of our god with minute and remorse exactness. It is perhaps the most damnatory biography that exists in print anywhere."

- Samuel Clemens

"No man ever believes that the Bible means what it says; he is always convinced that it says what he means."

- George Bernard Shaw

Our attempts to achieve our own standard of perfection

"According to the Bible, God responds more to desire than he does to competence...that's good news if you're messed up!"

- Bart Campolo

"Seeking to know is only too often learning to doubt." 

- Antionette du Liger de la Garde Deshoulieres

Spare some change?

 

"You know why banks are closed on Sunday? 

Cos if they wasn't, church would be empty!"

- Chris Rock

 

Chris Rock is one of my all-time favourite stand-up comedians. If you can get past the some of the more lewd subject matter and live with his incredibly foul mouth then you discover he is miles ahead of anyone else on the modern comedy scene. The key to his genius rests almost entirely on his ability to look at topics that are important to our society such as politics, race and religion, and put them forward (with humour) in an unashamed and totally straight-on style. There is no sugar-coating, no delicate nature and no dancing around things.

So if he's spot-on in his narrative and perception, how does this quote make us feel?

This line comes from a routine about people's obsession with money, and while it's directed at Americans it offers a chilling depiction of a culture in which, whether we like it or not, 'church' is becoming more heavily rooted. You see, churches tend to mimick the world in an attempt to bring people in. The world has fast-paced pop music, so Christian music moves into the same style. The world has clubbing, and there are Christian dance venues opening up across the UK. This isn't a bad thing of course, the church has to change with culture otherwise it will lose it's relevance. But would we notice if we were gradually adopting other aspects of the world? 

I recently found myself struggling money-wise as I was getting less and less hours in work, and it was looking like I would have to pull out of a couple of things I'd planned to do over the summer. It really stressed me out. I made it out to myself like it was the end of the world. I'd gone and bought a ticket to Oxegen and wasn't going to be able to go because I couldn't afford the travel costs. I'd committed myself to helping out at Summer Madness with my church youth group and wouldn't be able to afford it. As it happens, without me mentioning this at all a member of our congregation gave me some money because they felt I needed it, which was an incredible moment. But what does it say about the things I lean on that as soon as the money dries up my life is thrown into disrepair? Is that a sign that I rely on money too much? Is my hope truly built on nothing less that Jesus' blood and righteousness?

I'm a member of a church which is still working it's way through paying off a £3million building, and as such an awful lot of what we do is in some way associated with money, whether it's paid events or monthly donations. Now I'm not saying at all that our church is misplacing it's focus, but it certainly becomes messy when you try to rely on God as well as the things that money affords you. Especially when we read stories in the New Testament about how people met in houses and sold their possessions. It can kind of feel sometimes like we're getting gradually better and better at storing up earthly treasures. Or at least blurring the line of seperation between what's a necessity and what's an indulgence. Does a church need incredible lights, fabulously comfortable chairs and a sound system that could power Glastonbury? Or are those just things we subconsciously think give the image of our church that we want people to have? Seems like an important line to hold on to. 

"He who has no rule over his own spirit is like a broken down city without a wall."

Proverbs 25:28

Don't get me wrong, money is a phenomenally grey area. Christians throughout the world sit at both ends of the spectrum, and none of them have the authority to judge any of the others. But surely we can at least agree that we have to try hard to have rule over our own spirit. Ask any Christian and (I hope!) they will tell you that they want God to have a higher grip on their spirit than money does. So if we take hold of our own spirit then we can totally make it God's. The first thing that comes to mind with me is that when I work, I feel like I've earned it. My job is dull, depressing and makes me get out of bed at 6 in the morning! I feel like I earn my week's wages! But not once do I ever thank God for the money. In a world where people die of starvation, a world where £2 a week can feed a family through some charities, not once do I thank God for the £50 I get every week. To me, that sounds like a key factor in offering my life to something other than God. The moment I forget to see something as a gift from God is the moment I have lost my focus; the moment I have lost rule of my spirit. 

If you feel the same or agree at all, let's change it starting now. Maybe after a while the image people have of the church won't be that they're in church because the bank's closed :)

Light in the Dark

Just over a year ago I got a craving to do something. I wanted to shed all modern comfort. I wanted to go somewhere where I would encounter the most godless people and situations. Somewhere were the rain beats the earth into an uninhabitable state. Somewhere that would truly test my ability to cope with the conditions.

As such I went to Oxegen music festival.

I absolutely loved Oxegen. I am returning this year and can't wait for it. However it would be fair to say, it's a good thing Summer Madness is right before it because you certainly jump into a sinful place! Don't get me wrong, the rumours of violence and danger are totally untrue, it's a very friendly place, but you are constantly surrounded by drinking, drug use and sexual promiscuity from the moment you enter the grounds to the moment you leave. And yet there was a moment in that weekend that will stick with me to my dying day.

On the Sunday night Sproule and I went to see Mumford & Sons. We had seen about twenty bands over the weekend, we were tired, unwashed and while it's not the way it should be, we had become climatized to the sin around us. Mumford & Sons were the last band we would see that weekend and it was a truly incredible gig. Then they started to play a song off their album called Awake My Soul, and it was a very unusual experience. To anyone who doesn't know the track, it canters along in their lovely folk style, and then finishes with a stomping chant. And at that point in the song 8,000 people packed inside a massive tent all raised their hands and sang in unison 'Awake my soul, for you were made to meet your maker.' Most of the band's lyrics come with spiritual undertones and as I understand it Marcus Mumford is indeed a Christian, but it was a strange moment to see so many people who were living in such an ungodly way sing such godly lyrics. Obviously the words were not sung by the people in any kind of worshipful sense, but it stuck with me as a reminder that God's light not only breaks into dark situations, but in fact that is where it is the most noticable.

I have mentioned to many people that I have attended or am attending Oxegen and their response, while never condemning or judgemental, is that they wouldn't go to a music festival because a lot of what goes on there contrasts with their spiritual views. Fair enough. I don't go to clubs for that reason (and the fact that the music is the worst thing about the world). But how often do I pray God's light into clubs? How often do people pray for the people who go to a music festival to drink themselves stupid or take substances to help them forget about the rest of their lives? We can all list places in Belfast (or wherever we live) that we wouldn't like to walk through on a dark night but how often do we pray for them? There is so much that Christians can readily identify as not of God, but we never seem to want to change that. Maybe it's because we forget that God's power is greater than our own and He can change what we can't. Or maybe we automatically assume that if we don't want anything to do with it neither does God.

But these aren't the truth.

The truth is that God wants the whole world to be His. One day every tongue will confess You are God, one day every knee will bow. We sing these words, we should also mean them. We shouldn't just be praying for and reaching out to the contemplative people who we occassionally chat to about our faith, but also those who live every day of their lives directly in opposition to us.

"For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him."

John 3:17

In a world that offers so much evil and glorifies a person's right to do what they like, it's hard to believe that the situation can really be made right, but we have to believe that the slightest touch of God on a life, whether it's a discussion that arises in the workplace, or song lyrics sung to a huge crowd some rainy evening in Ireland, can radically change a situation.

The Modern Worship Scene

I imagine that many of you would be familiar with contemporary Christian music whether you listen to CDs or sing the songs in church. You may even know your Tomlins from your Redmans better than I do. Now I've found myself in many an argument in the past based on my musical preference, but lately Christian music has just been driving me up the wall and I'm venting :)

Over the years I have steadily collected a vast library of music, a fair portion of which is worship music. For the longest time I've listened to these records happily, some of them I have played to death, some I have used in our youth fellowship, and there was always a flicker of excitement when a new song was used in a church service and I thought, 'I know this one!' Lately though, this has become less and less the case.

I can't honestly be the only person who's noticed that the lyrics of every Christian song these days are exactly the same? The same shallow, uninspiring phrases shared back and forth between the writers. I'm thinking largely of Chris Tomlin's Our God as I write this. (I'm genuinely not looking to single anyone out, that's just what crept up on my iPod on the way to College this morning.) A couple of references to things Christ did and then a list of comparative terms describing God. And that carries on throughout the entire album. It feels as if some songwriters just scribble down a handful of clichés, throw them up in that air and go with whatever order they land in.

Now I mentioned that I've been in arguments before around music, and they usually find me trying to point out that Rihanna, Lady Gaga, Bruno Mars, Tinie Tempah... (the list is endless) are shallow momentary celebrities and nothing more. A big part of this is to do with the lyrics, which are consistently empty and devoid of any meaning or originality. (Not that this is the fault of the singer in question. I mean come on, it's not like they write them) So I accept that other people may feel differently about the importance of the lyrics in a song from myself, but surely nobody could deny the importance of what we sing when we are praising God? Surely that is of a greater importance than what we listen to on the radio?

Another thing that I've found trying is the epic and theatrical nature of these songs. Again, not pointing fingers at specific people, but last year a group of us went to see Hillsong United performing at Whitewell Tabernacle in Belfast. It was a hugely enjoyable night and a great gig, but it was just that. A gig. As I stood there, singing along and watching the lasers and flashing light, becoming slightly engulfed in the output of the smoke machines, I kept thinking to myself, "this is how they do church." Every Sunday, these lights, effects and pyrotechnics. The choir of twenty people providing swells and overwhelming background sounds. The string orchestra brought on to highlight the emotionasl pinacle of each song.

Not so long ago a Christian bookshop in Belfast closed down and in their everything-must-go sale I picked up a few albums. There was a Hillsong acoutic set, the new Chris Tomlin, a Michael W Smith one and a Paul Baloche album from a few years back. The first three all fell into this category, with songs builing up to that emotional moment, where you could just picture the lights exploding on and everyone throwing their hands into the air for the final chorus. Songs that wouldn't be out of place at Glastonbury. The last one however, reminded me of what worship music can be. Paul Baloche's 'Live In Asia' is just a typical five-piece band praising God across the world, and it's an outstanding experience. There was no attempt to push the audience into feeling emotional or responding the way the leader wanted, just honest and beautiful songs written in worship.

And this is why Paul Baloche is not the household name that Tomlin is. Paul Baloche wrote the song Open The Eyes Of My Heart, which according to CCLI was at one point number 2 in the list of songs most widely sung in churches worldwide. Also on that list was Baloche's Above All (number 22). Yet Baloche has not sought the same status of Christian rockstar that so many others have. Somebody recently told me about a trip they had made to the church of a well-known Christian singer. The worship band played they're songs and everyone sang along. Standard church service, yes? But then, the artist came on, and the band left while the singer was greeted with cheering and screaming from the audience. Is this church? Is God glorified by one person being idolised? I see this at Summer Madness every year as well, certain artists who reach a point in the Christian scene attract a fanbase, and as soon as that happens things are in danger. If you give in to that success then you are no longer solely trying to glorify God, but meet people's expectations and hold on to the admiration of man. Do we really believe Chris Tomlin didn't spend a portion of his songwriting time for the new album thinking about how to best please his devoted following? How his fans would recieve this new music? How well it would go down on the tour to promote the record?

I'm well aware that I am offering no answers to any of these problems, and I don't think there really are any finite answers out there to problems like this. It's just one person's opinion, and it's just his way of mulling the thoughts over: plastering them on the internet ;)

My recent struggle

I still remember it like it was yesterday. For the most part, it was yesterday.

On Sunday evening after the church service a few of us retired to a friends house and had a relaxed evening of games, tea and chatting. And then it happened. I didn't even notice it at the time. I got up, said my goodbyes and left. Not until I arrived back at home and was walking up the stairs sis I reach into my pocket. I found nothing. I checked my other pockets, then growing nervous I raced back out to the car. Not there either. I tore open my bag, knowing I would never have put it there, but in desperation I threw everything else to the floor and dug to the bottom. Nothing.

This was how I started a 24-hour period without my iPhone.

The sad thing is that while it sounds like I'm making the ordeal a lot more dramatic than it actually was, I'm really not. I genuinely ran about the house, furiously retracing my steps over and over again, even after I was sure I must have left it at the friend's house. I didn't want this to be the case because I wasn't sure if I would see her for the next few days and I wasn't prepared to go that long without my phone. I went for the best part of yesterday without it and it was eventually returned to me Monday evening 9.13 GMT.

And even then it had run out of battery.

Only after I once again had it in my possession and had returned to sanity did I begin to realise the situation. I honestly struggled to make it a day without my phone. Several times I thought of texting various people out of nothing but boredom then remembered I couldn't. I couldn't use Twitter, I couldn't check my email, I couldn't look up cinema times...there were an awful lot of things I wanted to do, that I would do most days, that I suddenly found myself unable to do...and my life fell apart.

How much do we invest in things like mobile phones without even realising it?

It doesn't even need to be a phone, what about laptops? MP3 players? Or cars? I've heard many people complain about how much more difficult their lives become when their car is away getting repaired.

Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moths and vermin destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moths and vermin do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. Matt 6:19-21

The thing is, I actually use my mobile phone for an awful lot of churchy things. I text back and forth organizing worship team practises, I don't have internet in the house at the minute so I do all my emailing with church folks via the phone, I follow Pete Grieg and Ken Castor on Twitter because they always have something helpful and spiritual to say which is nice on a troublesome day, and on top of that there are any number of apps allowing me to carry the entire Bible around.

But what I'm realising is: that isn't necessarily a good thing.

What does it say about my Christian faith or my current standing with God that my spiritual life relies so heavily on an earthly treasure? And an earthly treasure at £300 no less! Are our treasures in heaven or on earth?

Orangefield: The Movie

A little break from random issues that have been on my mind. Gary and myself discussed who would play the central cast in a movie of Orangefield Presbyterian Church, based on either looks or personality or both. Suzi Finlay made out a list a while ago but I couldn't remember any of them! Any better suggestions or if you have somebody who isn't on the list then leave a comment.

Gareth Shaw "Michael J Fox"
Jonny Tweedie "Michael C Hall" (you know, Dexter)
Graham Moucka "Dana Carvey" (Garth from Wayne's World)
Robin Jamison "John Goodman"
Alex Clarke "Elizabeth Olsen"
Glenn Harrison "Dylan Moran"
Andrew McCallum "Paul Dano"
Michael Jordan "Jason Biggs"
Alan Tweedie "Nick Frost"
Hannah Douglas "Katie Holmes"
Steven Nelson "Lee Evans"
Sam Lamont "Robbie Coltraine"
Stephen Simpson "Josh Radnor" (Ted Mosby)
Suzanne Simpson "Tina Fey"
Miranda Crawford "Chloe Moretz"
Dean Francis "Cillian Murphy"
Laura Campbell "Helena Bonham Carter"
Anna McAdams "Ellen Paige"
Katie Entwistle "Sarah Chalke" (Elliot from Scrubs)
Phil Douglas "Zac Efron"
Jon Campbell "Elijah Wood"
Emma Entwistle "Evanna Lynch" (Luna Lovegood)
Robbie Jennings "Zach Galifianakis"
Jonny Elliott "Tom Cruise"
David Sproule "Seth Rogen"
Ken McBride "Mufasa the Lion"

Anybody left out, it's either because we couldn't think of somebody worthy enough to portray you, or we're harbouring some long-standing grudge against you :)

UPDATE:
Dave Whitcroft "Bill Bailey"
Anna Shields "Audrey Tautou"
Mark Smyth "Matt LeBlanc"
Sam Clarke "Alan 'Steve the Pirate' Tudyk"
Pete Ryan "John Candy"
Niall Francis "Joaquin Phoenix"

UPDATED ONCE AGAIN:
Olivia Blakley "Zooey Deschanel"
Keith Lunn "Ryan Gosling"
David Allison "Woody Allen"
Nicola Clarke "Halle Berry"
Stephen Douglas "William Shatner"
William McCollum "James Buckley" (Jay from The Inbetweeners)
Sarah Sloss "Emily Blunt"
Tom Coard "Michael MacIntyre"
Ben McMechan "Michael Cera"
Mark Dawson "Paul O'Grady"
Stephen Ellis "Jim Parsons"
George Sproule "Hugh Laurie"
Abigail Crawford "Elle Fanning"
Keith Crawford "Kelsey Grammar"
Marty Sloss "Mike Myers"
Kirsten Shields "Keira Knightley"
Megan Jamison ?
Craig Blair "Peter Kay"
Catherine Bailey "Emma Stone"
Keith Trimble "David Duchovny"

What shall I watch?

Raising an issue here that has been talked about by Christians forever, hoping that maybe someone can throw in their two cents!

I was watching a film last night, and I did something I have never done before. I switched it off because of the sexual content. Now, anyone who knows me knows of my unflinching addiction to films. I have collected around 300 DVDs which sit in my bedroom and I would head to the cinema about once a week (and that's not even getting into TV boxsets!). So I have reached the age of 22 and have seen thousands of films in my time, yet this is the one experience I have had where my viewing has been altered by the content to the point of me refusing to watch any further. At the other end of the spectrum, I have a close friend who walked out of the cinema when a group of us had gone to see a film on the grounds that it contained too much bad language. We both claim to be Christians, yet our view on what it is right to watch is radically different. Surely this is not okay, that the body of Christ is so divided in it's view of Christian living?

When it comes to sexual content in a film, many Christians refer to it as pornography. I have heard Christians in the past refer to the TV show Friends with the term, as well as various films which involve racy storylines or images. The secular world, on the other hand, have a somewhat different view on what constitutes pornography, one which would almost certainly not contain Friends. So what is pornography? What makes something pornographic? The World English Dictionary defines it as 'writings, pictures, filmes etc. designed to stimulate sexual excitement.' If this is true then not only are the seedy films in the top corner of HMV porn but so are many other things, including about 75% of the adverts on television! By that logic Christians should be avoiding the vast majority of films and TV shows that exist nowadays.

In the Bible we are told by Christ, "What goes into a man's mouth does not make him 'unclean,' but what comes out of his mouth, that is what makes him 'unclean.'" (Matt 15:11). Now if we take this to be Jesus talking about more than simply the Kosher laws, then we understand that it is a Christians deeds that set him or her apart. I am not implying that nothing we take in has any value or importance of course, but I can't help thinking that if I can watch a film with questionable content without feeling the need to go out and repeat them or let them have a direct influence on my lifestyle then there is no danger.

Take a standard pornographic film, the kind that comes taped to the magazine on the top shelf. If I am to buy it, watch it and become sexually stimulated by it then we can all agree (I would hope!) that this is a sinful and wrong situation. Now, the DVD in my player is not some kind of evil DVD. The camera that shot the acts in question is not an evil camera. The people involved aren't even evil people, they are simply lost prodigal children of God. What is evil is the lust and desire that the film brings up in human people. It influences their life in a negative way, and if that is true then the film is to be avoided. By that same logic, if someone finds themselves watching X Factor purely because they lust after Cheryl Cole, then they should avoid that show for the very same reason! I like to think that if I found myself watching certain things for that particular reason that I would have the sense and the strength to stop. Likewise if I found that watching certain things led to me using bad language or acting in any way unbefitting to a child of God that I could put a stop to it.Surely the only reason for not putting yourself through something is because it will have a negative effect on who you are and how you live?

But maybe I have it completely wrong, feel free to leave an opinion whether you agree, disagree or just aren't sure!

Prayer for the Church

I was listening to a song earlier in the week by Vineyard songwriter Jeremy Riddle entitle Prayer for the Church, in which he sings of the different states the church often finds itself in (such as times of strength, weakness etc) and asks God for the appropriate response through prayer. As I listened to it I became painfully aware of how little time I spend praying for my church. God has blessed me greatly with the people that surround me every Sunday and yet I devote almost none of my quiet times or moments spent in prayer meetings to that body of people. Don't get me wrong, I will pray for a friend going through a hard time or a group in the church that's struggling, but I can't remember the last time I prayed for the congregation of Orangefield Presbyterian as a whole.

I am of the opinion that Christians who don't go to church because they believe they can serve God anywhere and don't have to confine they're experience to a building on one morning of the week are fooling themselves. I don't doubt that everyone (if there is anyone!) reading this is fully aware of the meaning of and reasoning behind a church: it is meant to be more than simply a place where we can meet to worship a God we individually serve, but a family of people, bound together by the blood that was shed for them. It is a communal thing. People are very much aware of this, because they have been told it over and over again. This, in itself, is dangerous. The more we hear something, especially it would seem, something that is about our Christian life, the less important it seems to us. Let's face it, with each Easter service it gets harder and harder to experience the same joy about the resurrection. Each Christmas we get more complacent with the importance of the birth of a Saviour. We know these things inside out, and therefore we think about them less.

The result is of course that we are quick to notice the personal gain in the idea of a church, but we overlook the challenge. Group worship to give us a sense of family? Check. People to go to if I'm in trouble and need a chat or a prayer? Check. A multitude of groups to keep me focused? Check. The list goes on and on, and never let it be said that the church is not a blessing for all these reasons and more. But how often do we see the challenge in being a part of a church?

Keep watch over yourselves and all the flock of which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers. Be shepherds of the church of God, which he bought with his own blood. Acts 20:28

Sometimes we are not to be the one in need of prayer but the one praying for others. Sometimes we have to offer something in a group rather than only take. Personally if I look at my own church life I'm very rarely a shepherd, and I suspect I'm not the only one.

I'm currently trying to pray more for my church, and for those who have not heard the song I mentioned earlier, the lyrics of the bridge say of the church,


Now she's shining
Her light is blinding as she sings Your name
Now she's beauty
Up from the ashes, Your love is on her face 

I guess it's plain and simple: If this doesn't sound like the church you're currently a part of, then prayer is desperately needed. I say desperately because desperation is something we so rarely feel about our calling. The song speaks of small divisions, moral crises and things which nibble away at churches; things which need to be prayed against, until His love is on the face of our churches.