According to the BBC article (click on the pic to visit it), Nick Hancock is an adventurer. His record breaking achievement required him to sit on a rock for fourth two days.

Now I’m a big fan of all things Scottish, and I am all for the idea of finding extra time for personal reflection, but this is the kind of thing that just leaves me wondering. Have we so little to do with our time, that we have to invent challenges like this to keep ourselves entertained?

Of course, just when I was despairing, I realised nick had a website. On his site he notes that the main reason he is doing this is to raise money for “Help for Heroes,” a charity that supports British Soldiers who are wounded at war.

So… spending up to 60 days on a small piece of rock… the ultimate waste of time, might somehow find redemption if the outcome is that it raises funds for people who can often feel trapped by their disability.

On one side I am a little sorry that I doubted Nick.

On another, I still think there must have been a lot of money that went into this expedition that might have been employed in a more effective way.

But I’m also glad that, with a little bit of ingenuity, even the most obscure and useless things can find some kind of redemption!

After all, isn’t that God’s promise to us?

 

 

 

 

 

These are the two pictures that hang on the wall in my office.

Both were gifts.

To the right is a page from a very old German Bible. It’s from Jeremiah 38 and has a small illustration of him being thrown down a well. My mate Dan gave it to me as a reminder that sometimes ministry comes with a great cost, but the service is God is worth it, and the rewards are far greater than the costs!

The second picture was a gift from my lovely wife. It’s a caricature of Charles Spurgeon. He was known as the “Prince of Preachers.” In the 1850’s he regularly preached to congregations of 10,000 or more, and his sermons were so good, that they were printed after he gave them and you could buy them in the street in little booklets. Yet Spurgeon himself was no stranger to pain. Spurgeon, despite his prodigious talent and enormous success, struggled with illness and depression for much of his life. Additionally, during a service in 1856, someone yelled “fire” causing a panic, a stampede, and the death of several people by trampling. Spurgeon was shattered by this and it remained with him for the rest of his life.

Spurgeon is a reminder to me that no minister, even the famous ones, has an easy ministry. That there are costs and there will be troubles. Yet, Spurgeon, like Jeremiah, knew that his strength lay not in his resolve, in his talent, in his charisma, or anything else, but the fact that God would give him the strength he needed for the task he had been set.

My life in ministry is never quite straightforward either. There can be frustrations and failures that poke their heads up amongst the victories and joys. It helps to know that this is a story that has been told in the lives of every Christian. And whatever God has in store for me in the rest of my days here on earth, I know that my final destination is the same as these two great men.

Today they encourage me on my study wall. One day they’ll encourage me face to face as we sing God’s praises in heaven!

Well I am back and I think I might stay a while. Back to writing about family, about faith and about culture.
Today, Religion vs. Jesus…

This video did the rounds about a year ago & was pretty popular. There is certainly some good elements to it.

The Good

I think the author, Jefferson Bethke, picks up one one of the big biblical themes. What does it mean if you have all of the external trappings of “religion” but fail to have the relationship that is at the heart of it? Jesus himself was hard on the Pharisees who were so committed to religious rules that they tithed the herbs in their garden, but failed when it came to justice, mercy and faithfulness (Matthew 23:23).

I think the church has done a spectacularly bad job when it comes to painting a picture of Christianity as being about a personal relationship between the God of all creation, and us, his creatures. We are wonderful (particularly institutional churches like us Anglicans) at making things about the clothes we wear, the pews, the buildings, and the people we hang out with. It’s helpful to have a corrective that reminds us that, not only is this not at the heart of Christianity, but Jesus spoke against such things!

The Bad

That said, there are many faithful Christians who have a vibrant relationship with Jesus who are also part of the “religious” structures. “Religion” is not inherently dangerous… it is only a danger when the structures that are built to point people to God become a sort of god themselves.

Over my years in full-time ministry, I have met a number of people who are caught up in the pageantry and formality of religion. I met someone who was an ordained minister, yet didn’t believe in the resurrection of Jesus, and said they couldn’t ascribe to the creeds that they led their congregation in week by week. It breaks my heart to think that people might be caught up in the “religion” without a deep and personal relationship with Jesus… But I also knew that there were Christians in that persons congregation who continued to grow, who continued to open up their bible and discover a God who loved them. I also know that the formal structure that is the Anglican Church is still something that members of our culture still feel connected to, that it is a means by which we can reconnect with people who haven’t darkened the door of a church in many years.

I like the point that Jefferson’s trying to make. In the end it is all about Jesus… I want to honour him in everything I do, and when I see “religion” in the right context, it can do just that!