Gini was my first love (or should I say lust?). It didn’t work out well, much to my chagrin…
I was given 5 minutes as part of 24-hour speaking event, and this is what I came up with.
Feel free to pass on to folks who could do with hearing it.
Next steps? Over lockdown I’ve been looking at the Alpha Course. Short videos that are so clear and helpful. Here’s the first one:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hBMMD5C0k-s
William Booth’s last speech to the Salvation Army ended with this: “While women weep, as they do now, I’ll fight. While little children go hungry, as they do now, I’ll fight. While men go to prison, in and out, in and out, as they do now, I’ll fight. While there is a drunkard left, while there is a poor lost girl upon the streets, while there remains one dark soul without the light of God, I’ll fight – I’ll fight to the very end!”
Greetings!
The above and below are a few of the stories I shared in this talk from the New Wine National Leaders Convention, just before lockdown kicked in. Seems like a long time ago now. There’s lots of juicy material in there, worth a listen!
Amy Carmichael was someone who knew the meaning of suffering, and yet continued in sacrificial service, for many years rescuing young girls from temple prostitution in Hindu temples in India. She spent her last two decades mostly bed-ridden, using the time to write at least 35 books of meditations and reflections. When she died, in accordance with her wishes, no headstone was erected. Instead, the thousands of girls she had rescued placed a bird bath over her grave, inscribed with the word Amma which means ‘Mother’ in Tamil.
This is the poem she wrote about the suffering involved in being obedient to the gospel call.
Have you no scar?
No hidden scar on foot, or side, or hand?
I hear you sung as mighty in the land;
I hear them hail your bright, ascendant star.
Have you no scar?
Have you no wound?
Yet I was wounded by the archers; spent,
Leaned Me against a tree to die; and rent
By ravening beasts that compassed Me, I swooned.
Have you no wound?
No wound? No scar?
Yet, as the Master shall the servant be,
And piercèd are the feet that follow Me.
But yours are whole; can he have followed far
Who has no wound or scar?
She said: “We profess to be strangers and pilgrims, seeking after a country of our own, yet we settle down in the most un-stranger-like fashion, exactly as if we were quite at home and meant to stay as long as we could. I don’t wonder apostolic miracles have died. Apostolic living certainly has.”
A certain mission society in South Africa once wrote to David Livingstone, “Have you found a good road to where you are? If so, we want to send other men to join you.”
Livingstone replied, “If you have men who will come only if they know there is a good road, I don’t want them.”
He later wrote in his journal on one occasion concerning his “selfless” life:
“People talk of the sacrifice I have made in spending so much of my life in Africa. Can that be called a sacrifice, which is simply paying back a small part of the great debt owing to our God, which we can never repay? Is that a sacrifice, which brings its own blest reward in healthful activity, the consciousness of doing good, peace of mind and a bright hope of glorious destiny hereafter? Away with the word in such a view and with such a thought! It is emphatically no sacrifice. Say rather it is a privilege.”
My life motto is John 10:10 where Jesus says: “I have come that you might have life, and life to the full.”
This talk on the Adventure of Calling was given a few months ago in North Carolina. It definitely applies to all of us, and is worth a listen. Below I’ll paste a few quotes that I included:
If you want the adventure of calling, you have to COME:
“My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road ahead of me. I cannot know for certain where it will end. Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think I am following your will does not mean that I am actually doing so. But I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you.” Thomas Merton
Two Cornell psychologists (Gilovic and Medvec) did lots of research, found time key factor in regrets. Tend to regret our actions in short term, but long term regret inactions. Study found that in an average week, action regrets slightly greater than inaction regrets – 53% to 47%. But people looking back at end of lives, inaction 84% to action 16%. So end of lives we may have made a few mistakes but our biggest regrets will be risks we didn’t take. Anticipating future regret, Mark Twain warns us, “Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbour. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.”
Oswald: “If you abandon everything to Jesus, and come when He says, “Come,” then He will continue to say, “Come,” through you. You will go out into the world reproducing the echo of Christ’s “Come,” That is the result in every soul who has abandoned all and come to Jesus. Have I come to Him? Will I come now?”
A vicar was too busy to help a desperate homeless lady needing help. He fobbed her off with a promise to pray for her. She wrote the following poem and gave it to a local Shelter officer:
I was hungry,
And you formed a humanities group to discuss my hunger.
I was imprisoned,
And you crept off quietly to your chapel and prayed for my release.
I was naked,
And in your mind you debated the morality of my appearance.
I was sick,
And you knelt and thanked God for your health.
I was homeless,
And you preached a sermon on the spiritual shelter of the love of God.
I was lonely,
And you left me alone to pray for me.
You seem so holy, so close to God
But I am still very hungry – and lonely – and cold.
We sympathise with the vicar. The challenge is, we are all so very busy. Is it the right kind of busyness…? Have you had a similar experience?
Greetings folks!
The above and below are some of the notes from the questions I wrote up for discussion in home-groups this week, having shared the message yesterday at my local church, Holy Trinity Combe Down.
A little fellow in the ghetto was teased by one of the older street kids who said, “If God loves you, why doesn’t he take care of you? Why doesn’t God tell someone to bring you shoes and a warm coat and better food?” The little lad thought for a moment then with tears starting in his eyes, said, “I guess He does tell somebody, but somebody forgets…”
Let’s not be that person who forgets…
“I was talking to a friend who runs a national youth ministry. He told me about the Scouts in this country. They have a waiting list of over 50,000 kids, which puts paid to the lie that kids don’t want to go to a youth group. Many really do want to. They simply can’t. Why? Because there aren’t enough adults volunteering anymore. Where are they? They’re at home in their living rooms bowing down at the altar of Netflix (or Amazon Prime, etc).”
Discuss.
How would you answer the question: What did you do during lockdown? And, what did you learn during lockdown? And what new habits would you like to take out of lockdown moving forwards?
Evening options instead of just vegging in front of the TV watching lame programs (still on the TV though!):
8 sessions of the Prayer Course, free online:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eO1WIawSAkQ
The Alpha Course videos have likewise been posted for free, I’ve loved doing a refresher, high quality: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hBMMD5C0k-s&t=521s
Or how about Laugh Your Way to a Better Marriage, we really enjoyed this:
Do sign up for praying for Muslims during Ramadhan – prayercast.com They send you a daily 4-min beautiful prayer video.
Ed Walker’s book A House Built on Love is well worth reading. Could any life-group get excited about coming alongside ex-cons/sexually-trafficked ladies/those wrestling with addictions etc in the context of buying a house and loving these precious wounded people to life? Hope into Action have seen stunning fruit, and as a full-on Christian organisation have repeatedly won secular industry awards for their approach. The social capital and potential of the Church is unparalleled in addressing such needs.
In Rocky 3, there’s a scene where he’s going soft, getting cultured. He’s achieved boxing fame, and he loses his fighting fire. Manager Mickey says to him: “The worst thing happened that could happen to any fighter – you got civilized.” I wonder if that is exactly what Jesus would say to us. You got civilized…
Have you been ‘civilised’? Is it wrong to be ‘civilised’? What is the point Simon was making? Do you agree or disagree, and why?
A few years ago, Fenn Chapman, a 16-year-old from Rugby School, flogged some techy gear to raise some money, and then flew to the Bahamas during term-time. Reporters got wind of it and knew it would make a good story. One of them eventually tracked him down on the beach and asked Fenn why he did it. Fenn replied: “I started thinking about the rest of my life: university, a job, buying a car, getting married, a mortgage, and then dying. I thought there had to be something more to life than this. So I had to get away for a while and think things through.”
That’s a question worth asking…
This is a short talk I was asked to do for a network of schools for their chapel/assembly. I tell two quick stories and then ask three questions.
It’s very short. I’d love it to be used in dozens/hundreds of schools, so do pass it to any school teacher/connection who think might use it – teachers are crying out for resources during lockdown right now, for Religious Education classes, assemblies, etc.
Have a great day, grace and peace to you!
One US lady was sharing her testimony in Francophone Africa. She wanted to say in French that her past was divided into two parts. Instead of ‘passé’ she said ‘derrière’ (behind, backside). She went on to say that one part of her butt was black, one part was white, and between the two there was a great chasm!
Greetings to you all in lockdown (or not) wherever in the world.
This is a talk I gave at a missions conference in North Carolina called New Wineskins (https://newwineskins.org) a few months ago.
Grace and peace to you,
Simon
1st talk: One Thing I Ask
2nd talk: One Thing You Lack
3rd talk: One Thing I Know
And finally the 4th talk: One Thing I Do, click on here to be encouraged to ‘forget what is behind, strain towards what is ahead, and to press on towards the goal to win the prize…’
Below are some juicy quotes that I used which are worth cogitating over:
“When God forgives, He forgets. He buries our sins in the sea and puts a sign on the shore saying, ‘No Fishing Allowed’.” (Corrie ten Boom)
During the Truth and Reconciliation hearings in South Africa in the days immediately after the ending of apartheid, there was a hearing involving a policeman named van de Broek. He recounted an incident when he and other officers shot an eighteen-year-old boy and burned the body, turning it on the fire like a piece of barbecue meat in order to destroy the evidence. Eight years later van de Broek returned to the same house and seized the boy’s father. The wife was forced to watch as policemen bound her husband on a woodpile, poured gasoline over his body, and ignited it. The courtroom grew hushed as the elderly woman who had lost first her son and then her husband was given a chance to respond. “What do you want from Mr. van de Broek?” the judge asked.
She said she wanted van de Broek to go to the place where they burned her husband’s body and gather up the dust so she could give him a decent burial. His head down, the policeman nodded agreement.
Then she added a further request, “Mr. van de Broek took all my family away from me, and I still have a lot of love to give. Twice a month, I would like for him to come to the ghetto and spend a day with me so I can be a mother to him. And I would like Mr. van de Broek to know that he is forgiven by God, and that I forgive him too. I would like to embrace him so he can know my forgiveness is real.”
Spontaneously, some in the courtroom began singing “Amazing Grace” as the elderly woman made her way to the witness stand, but van de Broek did not hear the hymn. He had fainted, overwhelmed.
I was driving along one of the most dangerous roads in the world with my team. Many had been killed in ambushes on it. Yet we talked away cheerfully, having total assurance that our mission was worth the risk. Next to me in the front seat, Etienne looked across and said: “Simon, isn’t it exciting? We’re immortal until God calls us home!”
This is the 3rd talk in the ‘One Thing’ series I gave recently at Lee Abbey.
1st talk: One Thing I Ask
2nd talk: One Thing You Lack
And now 3rd talk: One Thing I Know
Do have a listen and be encouraged. Total assurance is your birthright, and nobody can deny your story, because it’s yours – so get sharing!
In 1910, William Borden went to Yale University as an undergraduate and afterwards became a missionary candidate planning to work in China. When he made his decision to invest his life in this service, many of his friends thought him foolish. He had come from a good family. He had wealth and influence. “Why are you going to throw away your life in some foreign country,” they asked, “when you can have such an enjoyable and worthwhile life here?” But William Borden of Yale had heard the call of God. While in Egypt, on the way to China and even before he had much of a chance to do anything, he contracted cerebral meningitis. Soon it was evident to everyone, including himself, that he would die. At this point, Borden could have said to himself, “What a waste. My friends were right. I could have stayed in New Haven.” But Borden did not think this way. As he lay on his deathbed in Egypt in 1913, he scribbled a farewell note to his friends that were in some sense his epitaph. The note said, “No reserve, no retreat, and no regrets.”
Below is the second talk in the series at Lee Abbey from a few weeks ago entitled ‘One Thing’:
The first talk was ‘One Thing I Ask/Is Necessary’
The Gospel according to Hollywood sometimes nails it.
In the film City Slickers, starring Billy Crystal and the late Jack Palance, they are riding slowly across the range on horseback, discussing life and love. Palance plays a wily cowpoke, while Crystal is a tenderfoot from Los Angeles who has paid for a two-week dude ranch vacation. Of course, he gets more than he bargained for, and in the process, Crystal learns something important about himself. Listen carefully to their slightly edited conversation:
PALANCE: You city folk. You worry about a lot of $£%@!, don’t you?
CRYSTAL: $£%@!? My wife basically told me she doesn’t want me around.
PALANCE: How old are you? Thirty-eight?
CRYSTAL: Thirty-nine.
PALANCE: Yeah. You all come out here about the same age. Same problems. Spend fifty weeks a year getting knots in your rope then . . . then you think two weeks up here will untie them for you. None of you get it. (Long pause) Do you know what the secret of life is?
CRYSTAL: No, what?
PALANCE: This. (Holds up his index finger)
CRYSTAL: Your finger?
PALANCE: One thing. Just one thing. You stick to that and everything else don’t mean $£%@!.
CRYSTAL: That’s great, but what’s the one thing?
PALANCE: That’s what you’ve got to figure out…
I recently finished speaking at a family holiday and Bible-teaching week at Lee Abbey in Devon, which we now do every year. It’s a fabulous place if you ever wanted to join us. So over the next few weeks, I’ll put out one talk at a time, if you fancy listening. The theme of the week was ONE THING, and this first talk was ‘One Thing I Ask/One Thing is Necessary’
A few quotes for reflection:
This is me: 17th century, Brother Lawrence 1614-1691 writes of a person who was full of good intentions but ‘wants to go faster than grace allows’.
A.W. Tozer: “We take a convert and immediately make a worker out of him. God never meant it to be so. God meant that a convert should learn to be a worshipper, and after that he can learn to be a worker. The work done by a worshipper will have eternity in it.”
“These are days of much activity in the field of church and mission work, but no amount of activity in the King’s service will make up for neglect of the King Himself. The devil is not greatly concerned about getting between us and work; his great concern is getting between us and God. Many a Christian worker has buried his spirituality in the grave of his activity.” Duncan Campbell during the Hebrides Revival ‘49-53.
Smith Wigglesworth gave this challenge to Christians: “Be filled with the Spirit; that is, be soaked with the Spirit. Be so soaked that every thread in the fabric of your life will have received the requisite rule of the Spirit – then when you are misused and squeezed to the wall, all that will ooze out of you will be the nature of Christ.”