A River of Gold (Nov '13)

(Dave Jones)

I've been thinking around our GOLD values recently. Hats off to Colin, they are a stroke of genius. GOLD describes the way we as a church think about the character and nature of God. 

G – Good   He only ever does thoroughly goooooood things. He only ever acts in ways which are wonderful, beautiful, creative, restorative; cleansing and healing. 

O – Open   Our Father is not controlling. He has given humanity complete freedom to do whatever we want - throughout every layer of creation. He has chosen to be open handed with His dealings with us, primarily because of… 

L – Love   Love is the very core of God’s nature. It’s impossible to force someone to love you and for it to be real. God is Open and will not control us, but instead treats us as who we are – free people, free to love Him back if we want to. God’s love was demonstrated and pushed to the absolute limits for you on the cross when Jesus cried ‘Father forgive them, for they know not what they do.’ God is love (1 John 4:8). 

D - Dynamic (Dunamis) power   This describes the way He still operates and the means by which He is fixing all the brokenness in this world. Jesus’ mandate in Luke 4 was to ‘Preach the gospel to the poor…proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to set free those who are oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour.’ He did just this – demonstrating miraculously that the Kingdom of Heaven was at hand. and then commissioned and empowered the church to do the same, and the Kingdom is still at hand for us today. 

So what does all this have to do with us? Here’s the hit. CHRIST IN YOU!!! (Gal 2:20) When you became a Christian you became a brand new creation. (2 Cor 5:17). Your Spirit was mystically joined with Christ’s Spirit (1 Cor 6:17), and, like it or not, there’s no going back. 

This does however have implications on how we see the GOLD values. They now become descriptors and guideline for our nature, our behavior, and our dealings with the world, not just God’s. 

That means we too are to stand for everything GOOD in this world – honesty, integrity, kindness, fun, laughter, creativity, health, care, gentleness, peacefulness…We’re to be OPEN handed with our dealings with one another. Like God, we must not control people, all we can do is control the way we are with people and the options we are able to offer them. But the reality is, control happens sometimes without even noticing - through manipulating our social subtleties and expectations – it’s always good to keep a check on this. 

LOVE is the way in which we should act, and is the filter through which we are to make our day to day, and larger ethical, decisions. I have a simple mental process: I go through 1 Cor 13 and ask myself ‘Is this the way of patience? The humble way? The posture of kindness towards this person? The road of forgiveness..? and so on. DYNAMIC POWER – yep, you’ve guessed it, is the way we are to be. We must mentally fight until we are in right alignment with God on this one. For me this is a daily thing. We must not settle until we really believe that the Kingdom of God is at hand. Dynamic power is not just about miracles though, it’s about seeing the world Hope-full-y. Knowing that the God who created the universe is with you, and loves (and likes) you, which changes the game completely. It now means there is always a way through, a solution, so you can keep your hope alive – in your family, business, school or wherever God has placed you. 

To conclude, GOLD isn’t just about what God’s like, it’s a call to us, to a radical way of thinking and living.

Favour (Sep '13)

(Colin Barnes)

I hope we’ve all had a good summer break. I love the seasons and rhythms in life, and the slower pace of life in August, as many of us holiday, is always welcome. I have enjoyed a family camp in Cornwall, and as I write this am sitting in Soul Survivor surrounded by around 6000 young people! (Just one wonderful fruit of the good things that the Lord has been doing in this land in recent years) 

Whilst on holiday in Cornwall I like to fish at least once, a childhood pastime that still draws me – provided we can eat what we catch. This year Rachel caught the biggest fish of the day, a beautiful (tasting) ling. She out-fished us all, including some highly experienced fishermen who’d brought all their own gear! I was proud of her and thought to myself, she experienced favour today. She got more than she deserved. She hadn’t invested any money in expensive equipment or spent years learning the skills required to become an expert. That got me thinking about our Father’s love for each of us and His determination to treat us better than we deserve, a concept called grace which is closely linked to favour. 

Take a moment right now just to meditate on that… the Creator of all things is looking to bestow favour on you today! When we really know that, we can face the challenges of life with a lot more confidence. 

Things can seem pretty daunting when we’re relying on our own strength to see us through. But when we know that the Lord is looking to bestow His favour on us, to give us our heart’s desire, to treat us better than we deserve and that He’s working in all things for good, hope rises in our hearts. 

Now that doesn’t mean that things always work out exactly as we’d hoped, but it does mean that over time we experience His goodness in our lives leading to thankfulness, joy and fruitfulness. Even when bad things happen to us, He is able to bring good out of them, to bless us, despite what others may have intended. You might call this, the ‘abundant life’ that someone once promised us! 

In all His dealings with people, God’s intention has always been to bless us (to favour us) so that we can, in turn, bless those around us. That’s what He told Abraham and that’s what He is saying to us today. But here’s the thing, Luke tells us that Jesus grew in favour with God and men (Luke 2:52) and Peter commands us to grow in grace, the ability to receive more than we deserve (2 Peter 3:18). We can actually grow in grace and favour. 

As I was praying for us all, I felt that this is what Father wants for you and me in this season, that we grow in our ability to receive His favour, to walk in more of His blessing. Not so we can be selfish, but so that we may be a greater blessing to those among whom we live. So, how do we grow in favour with God? Well, I believe it is by following our Community Aims: Looking on the face of Christ, Loving everyone we meet and Living like heaven is near. Let’s endeavour to worship Jesus constantly knowing we become like what we admire. Let’s do good wherever we can, treating others better than they deserve, and let’s expect God to answer our prayers and work wonders through us. We cannot earn His favour, but we can make the channel through which we receive wider. You see grace (like forgiveness) flows into our lives like a river, or more accurately, like water through a tap, the more we give away the more we will receive.

Luke tells us that now is the acceptable time of His favour towards us (4:19). So let’s determine to walk in that favour and grow in it, just as Jesus did.

Valuing our heritage (Jul '13)

(Jan Vickers)

Robin and I recently had a holiday in California and one of the highlights for us ageing hippies was hugging the giant Sequoia trees.

It was extraordinary to be touching a living organism that had been alive for over 1800 years. A similar feeling to kissing a 150 year old giant tortoise I met last year! You may have guessed that biology was a part of my heritage! 

This last year I have had the immense honour of having a beautiful American, Allison Wyatt from Redding CA, doing life alongside me. Introducing her to our amazing British culture has been an important part of our year. Recently we visited Chatsworth House in the Peak District where yet again I found the need to hug trees! 

We journeyed on to Yorkshire where I was able to share with her my personal heritage. We visited Scarborough, where I was born and bred, and the small Methodist Chapel in a local village where, aged 12, I gave my life to Jesus. We prayed round the Methodist Central Hall where my father had been saved and received his call to preach under the eye of Methodist preachers Sangster and Newman. There we discovered that the lady who is now seeking to bring life again into that place was someone I had led into life in the Spirit when we were 17 whilst working together in a Methodist hotel! 

Allison and I prayed in another church where I was raised and spoke with my old youth leader who shared movingly of his hunger for life to come once again into those dry and ageing churches. There we were given an old Order of Service from 1955 with my father's name as the preacher; his sermon title was The Fellowship of the Holy Spirit. I felt as if that fellowship was spanning the decades.

Over these past months Colin has been sharing with us The Big Story that we are part of. God's story. Looking back at my roots reminded me that I have a spiritual inheritance through my parents, their faith and the Methodist movement that brought salvation, revival and community transformation to our nation. I now have my part to play as the Pioneer group of churches, of which River is a hub, is forging connections with the Methodist church to help resource and revitalise that call to impact the nation once again. 

Looking at a cross section of one of those fallen giant trees I saw the rings, showing year by year the history of that tree, the growth, the droughts, the fires and yet life continuing for generations. Looking at our own lives we can see the years of growth and years of hardships but through it all we see the amazing faithfulness of The Ancient of Days whose wisdom will never fail and whose plans to restore this world continue. Surely we have an amazing inheritance and a wonderful legacy to hand on! 

An old hymn writer, Joseph Hart, wrote in 1759: 

"THIS, this is the God we adore, 

Our faithful, unchangeable Friend; 

Whose love is as great as his power, 

And neither knows measure nor end. 

'Tis Jesus, the First and the Last, 

Whose Spirit shall guide us safe home; 

We'll praise him for all that is past, 

And trust him for all that's to come.