I got some wheels on Friday – and got stopped by the police last night! You can guess what I was thinking, ‘O don’t tell me this car’s been stolen’! It hadn’t been but clearly they had run a check on the car whilst following me and informed me that I was driving without tax and insurance! Fortunately I was able to prove my innocence to this accusation. I am aware however that if their computer was clever enough to see all the road traffic and highway code laws I had fractured over the years I wouldn’t have been able to prove complete innocence. I’ve been reading Job where, it could be said, Job does a reasonable job of defending himself against his friends but has no chance of defending himself against God. Would I get any grace from my road traffic friends? Unlikely but from God I have known huge amounts of grace and am hopeful for yet a whole lot more. So I just took a little time out to thank God for his mercies and again I realize I have more to be thankful for than I thought!

unbalanced!

I found over the last week or so that I had allowed myself to get a bit unbalanced! It’s a common thing I guess, things happen and we allow them to affect us a little more than we should. For me it was a number of things including my car dying and broadband not working. Silly isn’t but we so often allow this to happen. Quite often it’s financial, more often it’s relational. We allow ourselves to feel offended far too often. The more we dwell on the problem facing us or the hurt we have experienced the bigger these things get. Soon we have lost proportion, our ability to make decisions is affected and relationships further fractured. Jesus tells us not to worry about the stuff of life but to seek his kingdom and righteousness (Mt 6:33). I‘m sure our relationships are implicit in this but he also tells us to love even our enemies (Mt 5:44) and Paul helpfully calls us to consider others better than ourselves (Phil 2:3) and urges us to accept one another in the way that Jesus accepts us (Rom 15:7). All to helpfully enable us to keep a balanced Christ like view on things. Why not pause and check out where anxiety is running unduly high or grudges are beginning to take a hold and offer them to the Lord seeking his peace to reign in your hearts (Col 3:15). It may be a very simple thing but I encourage you to just stop and do it.

Surprise!

Time to grab your sun tan lotions and head off to the beach! You wish! Though I am one of those crazy people that will go for a boxing day swim in the sea. Don’t worry I haven’t gone completely mad, I am still aware its Christmas time. Last week I reminded you of the need to tell the story and be open to the Holy Spirit to bring a freshness into the Christmas Good News. One thing that strikes me about the whole Good News, the whole Gospel is that it is full of the unexpected. Who would have expected God’s Son to come as a poor, illegitimate refugee? Who would have expected the Messiah’s message would have been one of love? Who would have expected that he would have revealed a way into a relationship with the Father by Grace? Who would have believed his preference for the poor and marginalized, his value on women and children? Who would have expected the company he kept or would have second guessed who it would be he would most criticize?

It’s all too easy for us with the benefit of the New Testament and over 2,000 years distance to think we would have been more ready for his coming. And if the truth be known, he still catches us unawares again and again. His spirit blows where he wills and I for one would say that he continues to surprise me but I am so glad he does. Sometimes following the Lord feels like a rollercoaster, but that’s the thrill of it!

I do pray you will be surprised by him this Christmas. I don’t know what next year will bring. For some it will be an amazing year of fruitfulness, for others a year of heartache but I know he will be with you all in equal measure and whatever surprises are there for us, they will be opportunities to discover the Grace of God and the Joy of serving the Master.

In Christ I desire for you a Blessed Christmas and a Joyous New Year.

It's Christmas time, and time is running out

It’s hard for me to think about Christmas time without thinking of a Sketch I did as a teenager that seems imbedded in my mind. I played the Vicar and the particular line that has come back to haunt me is – “This year I’m going to preach a meaningful Christmas sermon, I will not have Darth Vader or Tinky Winky, La La or Po in the pulpit, nor will I ruin my sermon notes with one of those dolls that wets themselves! I will think through everything carefully beforehand, and preach on the relevance of the birth of Christ to the modern world. If only I had time!”

I have a narrator’s part in a production this year, but won’t be preaching and so I don’t even have to face the temptation of going to the file of old material after hours of trying to come up with something original. And so my thoughts are with you because I do know the agony of trying to get it just right each Christmas. Of tying to present the Christmas message in a new and relevant and fresh way.

How do you say anything new? Anything that will so impact your congregation in such a way that will stop them in their tracks and cause them to think WOW! I never thought of it like that! and will have such an effect on them that they live their lives in a whole new way as a result of hearing you.

But it’s about you or me, it’s about Jesus. The Christmas story about Jesus is just so amazing that we want people to see it that way too!

The trouble is it’s near enough impossible to say anything new. It’s all been said! How do you improve on 2,000 years of storytelling? It’s newness depends on its freshness, and it’s freshness depends on openness – an openness on our part to hear God speak.

My advice for what it’s worth – just tell the story - and invest the time you could spend in coming up with something new in prayer for that openness of spirit that will allow God’s Spirit to bring Jesus into lives in a fresh way!

Christmas is coming

I don’t know if you’ve noticed but Christmas is coming! High street lights are being switched on, decorations are going up, cards are being written, and the perfect gift sought! Joy, Peace and Goodwill to all men or Bah Humbug! I don’t know which end of the spectrum better fits you but I do know how we all strive to encourage people towards the real meaning of Christmas, that the perfect gift has already been given! I have no ‘thought for the day’ as such today but just wanted to assure you of my prayers in the run up to Christmas. It is an especially busy time for pastors. I pray that through your ministry people will discover and gladly accept the gift of Jesus.

And by the way, it is unlikely you will hear from me next Monday, I’ll be Christmas Shopping!

God is Love!

My wife, Jackie, is leading a small group tonight on the theme ‘God is Love’. Recognizing my Biblical knowledge and profound teaching experience (well I can dream) she asked me if I had any good material. So I looked through my preaching and teaching files to pull something out for her to have a look at. To my huge surprise I discovered I didn’t have anything! To be sure, the theme was present in all sorts of ways, plenty on God loving us and more than a little on encouraging our love for God. But on the nature of God as Love - very little. Something that I will have to redress.

The last 3 words of 1 John 4v8 form one of the most profound statements of the whole Bible and perhaps for many people today one of the hardest to believe. ‘God is love’. When we think of this 'grubby tennis ball' of a planet, set in the vast infinity of space, our own lives as just moments in the onward surge of time, and our individuality among countless millions, can we really talk meaningfully about God loving us? And when we look at the world with all its evil and suffering, so many damaged and broken lives, how can there be a God who really loves us? Yet, John insists, this is the very nature of God. And if we are not to empty the word 'God' of all its meaning, we must realise that such an infinite yet personal Creator is not too great to be bothered with my tiny life. He is so great that he can be bothered with each of us individually. John is not identifying a quality which God possesses; he is making a statement about the essence of God's being. It is not simply that God loves, but that He is love. Focussing on who he is enables to believe what he does. And so though of course I want to say to you, ‘God Loves you’. But maybe it is even better to say to you ‘God is Love’!

Faith and the Environment

Revd Dr John Weaver, Principal of South Wales Baptist College, was a guest on the BBC Radio programme All Things Considered this Sunday.

"Looking ahead to the Copenhagen UN Climate Change Conference in December, Roy Jenkins is joined by four guests, each from a different faith community, to explore the extent to which religious beliefs shape our relationships with the natural world? How do they influence how we act on an issue like global warming? And what – if any – is the distinctive contribution which people of faith have to make to one of the most crucial issues of our generation?"

You can listen to or download the programme either from the BBC website, or from the College Download Page.