Prince Caspian - Leadership Under the Lion

Narnia returns to the big screen this week as Prince Caspian opens in cinemas nationwide, a week after hitting the very, very big screen of the O2 arena at its UK premiere. The new film sees the Pevensie children - Peter, Susan, Edmund and Lucy - summoned back to Narnia by the eponymous hero, who is rightful heir to its throne. But it is an occupied and embattled Narnia to which they return. True Narnians are now a persecuted minority, and the murderous usurper, Miraz, rules by fear, division and violence. Cue lots of CGI, fantastical violence, elaborate sets and beautiful scenery; together with some subtle details that will please die-hard fans of the book.

And, of course, Aslan.

The story is, in many ways, about leadership.

Caspian, much like the biblical David, is being hunted by a former father figure (see 1 Samuel 18-26). His desire to avenge his true father is partly responsible for the devastating defeat at Miraz's castle. Peter, as High King, is called to release Caspian into kingship. Instead, he commandeers the army and pulls rank on Caspian. He quickly loses faith that Aslan will save them; attacking the castle, defensively digging in, and calling up the ghost of the White Witch are all pursued as alternatives to waiting for, as Edmund remarks, the one who 'really defeated the White Witch'.

Yet the most significant kind of leadership is demonstrated by the youngest, Lucy, who, after a few false starts, heads out alone to find Aslan. When she finds him, she discovers that if she had followed the lion to begin with, even in the face of the others' opposition and doubt, the tragedy at Miraz's castle might have been averted.

That even the most insignificant person has a responsibility to seek the true King, regardless of their official status, or whether anyone else believes them, is a key theme in the original Prince Caspian novel. Lucy does seek him and, as a result, Narnia is restored and Caspian completes the transition from sheltered Telmarine prince to King of Narnia, under the favour and protection of Aslan. Even Peter completes his task and hands Caspian his beloved sword, 'Rhindon'. All this makes for a surprisingly satisfying and engaging film which, while its Christian symbolism is more understated than that of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, still carries a refreshing fragrance of truth about life - and leadership - under King Jesus.

Christina Winn (LICC)

Hope and Faith against the odds

"Expect great things from God. Attempt great things for God."~William Carey

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Thanks to Av for giving me the transcript of this BBC Sunday Worship the other day.

Here's the Link to the transcript: here
Listen to the whole service here: audio

There is real honesty. The future presents massive challenges, and yet the hope and faith and confidence in God shines out. Take time to read it (or even more time to listen!), especially the sermon by Peter Hullah, who is the Headteacher, and the bit by Tracey Barford.

Be inspired!

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Revival and Healing

< Todd Bentley in action.

You may have heard of Todd Bentley and the 'Florida Outpouring'. Roger Johnson, Evangelism Enabler for the Nottingham and Derby Methodist District takes a look:

From time to time we hear of places where revival and associated healing miracles break out in profusion. A few years ago we had the Toronto Blessing, a manifestation which surrounded the Toronto Airport Christian Fellowship. Church leaders debated long and hard about its authenticity and reflected upon the division caused within the Vineyard movement as a result of this. Peculiar stories emerged about how people were given gold fillings, experienced unusually bodily actions (shaking, laughter, quaking and so forth) and this naturally put some Christians on their guard about the whole thing. However, Toronto Blessing hotspots broke out in this country too.

Well this isn’t going away. Only recently, God TV (not a channel I have access to) have been featuring the most recent phenomena – the Dudley Revival. Inspired by the ministry of the Canadian healing evangelist, Todd Bentley (who ministers regularly to crowds in excess of 10,000 in Florida), the church in Dudley is packing hundreds into their meetings and experiencing Toronto-like manifestations along with dramatic healings.

Now, I don’t know where you stand on all of this, but it has always perplexed me why God should choose Toronto rather than East Midlands or Stanstead and why certain people have an overdose of spiritual gifts while other equally faithful ministers and evangelists struggle on in relative obscurity bearing little fruit in comparison.

Is it Revival?
For me revival is about the fulfilment of the Lord’s Prayer, “thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as in heaven”. Can we therefore say that what has broken out in Toronto, Florida and Dudley is revival? It may be the first-fruits of it but until society has been transformed in a measurable way, surely it is premature to use such a word.

Unconventional?
For respectable, middle class, British Christians with a fair smattering of the ‘stiff-upper-lip’, this all has an air of unorthodoxy. Todd Bentley is covered in tattoos and body piercing and has engaged in child abuse. I don’t know which theological college he went to or who he reports to. I also have concerns about itinerant evangelists who leave a trail of emotionally hurt people in their wake.

But let’s be honest. All this could have been said about Jesus. He was not part of the religious establishment, had no theological qualification to boast about, went from town to town at will, rarely went back to visit those he had healed and was, by the standards of the day, unconventional (healing on the Sabbath – tut tut!). Much to the disdain of the religious authorities, Jesus attracted the kind of crowds they could only dream of.

Verification
I suppose that the real test of the authenticity of these ministries lies in verification. If statistics show that those who come forward for healing have been verified, by health professionals, as healed and their lives have been changed to become more Christ-like, what can we say against it? If, as a result of these outpourings, churches across the nation become more open to the healing work of the Holy Spirit in the same way as the charismatic movement has touched all denominations and streams over the last few decades, then surely that’s something to welcome.

A Word of Warning
In spite of all this, I can well understand the Christians who look at the stage antics of Todd Bentley which, frankly, fit more comfortably with shamanism (see here) than Methodism, and question whether these manifestations are genuinely God-inspired. We know that Christianity does not hold the monopoly on healings and miracles. I’m reminded of those sobering words of Jesus in Matthew 7:21-23). So, what do you think?

Judge for yourself
Here are a few useful links about the latest phenomena:
Todd Bentley Florida Healing Revival
Dudley Revival Fires
Studio Discussion on the Florida Outpouring Christianity Magazine – July 2008

Thanks to Roger for opening the discussion...

There's a lot of bizzare stuff going on, and we need to be careful.

However, I'd like to quote some Scriptures for reflection:

'John, meanwhile, had been locked up in prison. When he got wind of what Jesus was doing, he sent his own disciples to ask, "Are you the One we've been expecting, or are we still waiting?" Jesus told them, "Go back and tell John what's going on:

The blind see,

The lame walk,

Lepers are cleansed,

The deaf hear,

The dead are raised,

The wretched of the earth learn that God is on their side.

"Is this what you were expecting? Then count yourselves most blessed!"'

Matthew 11 v2-6 The Message

'By their fruit you will know them'. Matt 7 v20 NIV (just before the 'Lord, Lord' bit).

and '...fruit that will last' John 15v16 NIV

Comments back to me here or to mike@mjoyce.co.uk.

Roger Johnson LINK:

http://www.district-evangelism.org.uk/index.php?PHPSESSID=b0597dac649bc84a1d9bd2b2dc1e99da

Courage and Conviction

TOPICAL CHALLENGE FROM LICC:

The reason we talk about having the 'courage of our convictions' is because there are consequences that flow from those convictions - and not all of them happy ones.

This week, in an interview with The Times, George Bush reflected on his presidency and expressed regret that the rhetoric he used in regard to the Iraq war has created a legacy for him as 'a guy really anxious for war.' Had he known back then what he knows now, about the consequences of his language, he would have taken a different tone.

Hindsight, of course, is a wonderful thing. However, it's also, by definition, what's never available to you when you'd value it most. This makes the biblical insistence on counting the cost, and weighing the consequences of our actions at the outset a real pearl of practical wisdom (e.g. Luke 14:25-35).

You may or may not agree with the wisdom of David Davis's decision to stand down as an MP in order to stand up for his convictions in regard to civil liberties, but we can affirm that he does at least appear to have made his decision in full awareness and acceptance of the possible consequences. Having stated his intention to resign and force a by-election he went on to say, 'Now, that may mean I have made my last speech to the House.'

Indeed he might. For whilst there have been many voices of support for Mr Davis's 'brave' and 'principled' stand (though note the observation of the BBC's Nick Robinson that 'Courageous is code in Westminster for bonkers'), there's also been no shortage of more cynical responses - 'the stunt of a vain man' being but one example.

David Davis's decision was not a faith-based decision. Christian faith, however, if it is properly engaged with the whole of our lives as per the biblical vision, will inevitably lead us where we do not want to go - into times when we feel duty-bound to 'swim against the tide'. Jesus had warned the apostles that the world would hate them on account of their conviction about him (John 15:18-25). Accordingly, in Jerusalem they were flogged for having the courage of their convictions (Acts 5:40). The nature of the consequences we must embrace in taking a stand for Christ might not be so barbaric, but that doesn't mean the experience of them will be any more pleasant. Nevertheless, Christ invites us to mould our legacy as faithful followers as we live, rather than look back regretfully over a life less extraordinary.

Nigel Hopper LICC

Father and son

Turn on your sound and take a quiet moment and watch this.
Let it speak to you.

'The same gentle hands hold me when I'm broken...'

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Back to the Roots

Thanks to Cell UK for this article.
Do you agree with Bill Beckham?

Dear friend
Renowned British historian Arnold J. Toynbee concluded that civilizations self-destruct when they no longer have a spiritual base for moral actions and ethical decisions. “Civilizations die from suicide, not by murder.”

Many modern day prophets confirm Toynbee’s research: Western civilization is facing the danger of self-inflicted spiritual wounds. The West has aimed the pistol of humanism at its head, has placed the bullet of unbelief in the chamber of the gun and has its finger on the secular trigger.

The only questions are: Will the West actually pull the trigger? If so, when? After pulling the trigger will the death throes be immediate or drawn out? Some of us also wonder if the West can reverse the suicide process and the death wish? Can and will God intervene through the Church one more time?

The god of humanism

The West is suffering consequences in the 21st Century for things that went terribly wrong in the 19th and 20th Centuries. These wrongs attacked the core roots of society. Aleksandr I. Solyhenitsyn recognized the importance of roots: “In order to destroy a people you must first sever their roots.”

The 21st Century West has returned to the roots of ancient familiar gods. These ancient gods were reborn in the vacuum left when 19th Century man rejected God as the absolute for his thinking and 20th Century man rejected God as the absolute for his life and actions. Three of these major gods have grown into a 21st Century pagan unholy trinity: humanism, materialism and hedonism.

Humanism is “any system of thought based on the interests and ideals of man.” Materialism is the doctrine that “everything in the world, including thought, can be explained only in terms of matter.” Lived out to its conclusion, materialism means that Man is a machine with no soul. Hedonism is “the self-indulgent pursuit of pleasure as a way of life.”

Humanism is the root deity of this unholy trinity. All of these gods are expressions of the first sin in the Garden of Humanism: “You will be as God.” During the 20th Century Man in the “Christian” West reverted back to the most primitive sin: Man is the absolute and center of the universe. Solyhenitsyn described this root god as: “Rationalistic humanism or humanistic autonomy; the proclaimed and practiced autonomy of man from any higher force above him.”

Roots

The West will not think its way out of this situation, work its way out, spin its way out, spend its way out or educate its way out. Familiar and trusted social and political structures are now powerless to save the West. The West must return to its Judeo/Christian roots from which it was born and from which it has detached.

The West cannot reconstitute or re-root itself because it has rejected the very soil from which the roots have grown: Christianity. Only the Church can re-root Western Civilization. Therefore, the Church must be the ethical and moral root of Western civilization. The first step to saving the West is not to change civilization but to change the Church within civilization.
If the Church withdraws from society it condemns the West to its slow suicide.

Therefore, the church must engage society but not at the point of law and conflict. The church cannot maintain ethical influence in society because of favorable laws and the cultural pressure of a Christian majority. The church must become the roots of society by its love, truth and justice. The Church must speak the truth in love and must love to live the truth.

Roots are unseen and under appreciated. Roots do not share in the glory of the flower or the fruit. Roots find their place down in the dirt and the darkness of death.
The Church must once again out-live, out-think, out-love and out-die all other philosophies and belief systems down at the roots!

Yours for His Kingdom
Bill Beckham

You in your small corner

Thanks to Margaret Killingray (LICC) for this:

Arise, shine; for your light has come, and the glory of the Lord has risen upon you. Nations shall come to your light, and kings to the brightness of your dawn. The wealth of nations shall come to you. Foreigners shall build up your walls, and their kings shall minister to you. Isaiah 60:1-10 (extracts)

When my neighbour's third child was born, the three year old, watching his new sister in the bath, asked in a puzzled voice, 'But, what's Maisie for?' We all laughed, but it is, actually, a serious philosophical question. What are we for? Purpose gives shape to life; purpose drives us and gives us fulfilment. Even limited purposes can divert us from everyday anxieties - organizing a holiday, packing and planning, for example. Serious loss of purpose can often lead to listlessness and depression, whether it's job loss, children leaving home, or even the end of a purpose that has been a hard grind, the award of a degree, or the achievement of a planned expansion of operations. What are we for?

Isaiah's wake-up call challenges Israel to be what they were meant to be. And this challenge, this call to take up God's purpose is a big biblical theme, often using this metaphor of light, shining in the darkness, bringing the dawn. 'You are the light of the world, the city built on a hill that cannot be hidden, a light shining before others', Jesus told his disciples. We have this purpose, those who belong to the Lord, as individuals, in our families and friendship groups, in our neighbourhoods and at work, but above all, in our fellowships. Peter in his first letter applied all the great Old Testament titles of promise and purpose - a priestly kingdom, a holy nation - to the new Christian fellowships. What Israel was called to be then, we together - the body of Christ - are called to be now.

So even when our limited purposes fail us, the children leave, retirement has come, achievement is not what we thought it would be, then more than ever, our greater purpose, to shine for our Lord in every circumstance, should bear us up and carry us through.

How many of you remember singing, 'Jesus bids us shine with a pure, clear light, like a little candle burning in the night. In this world of darkness, so let us shine, you in your small corner and I in mine'? That's what Maisie's for!

God's perspective?

As we come to the end of Christian Aid Week, here's a challenging (and even controversial) article from the London Institute for Contemporary Christianity:

Disaster Relief

"This report contains images that some viewers may find distressing."
This is a line that our television newscasters have to deliver with alarming regularity. Barely are we coming to terms with pictures of lifeless bodies floating in filthy water in Burma when we are confronted with pictures from China, of bodies buried under tonnes of rubble after the earthquake. Both sets of pictures tell the story of thousands of lives lost and of human misery in epic proportions.

The fact is that, even in a world over which God is sovereign (a theme reiterated throughout the Bible), suffering seems to strike utterly at random. The tension implicit in this statement is one affirmed within Scripture. The 'preacher' of Ecclesiastes, who takes the existence and sovereignty of God for granted in his observations on life, concludes that 'time and chance' happen to everyone (Ecclesiastes 9:11).

It is right that our engagement with, and response to, such events takes the form of generosity and compassion towards those affected. After all, another repeated emphasis within Scripture is the requirement that God's people become neighbours to those in need.

So why, when confronted with the news of the cold-blooded murder of some of his fellow Jews by the Romans, did Jesus' response apparently lack all compassion? Linking the senseless slaughter with the random deaths of 18 people crushed when a tower collapsed at Siloam, he dismissed any attempt at establishing a direct link between suffering and judgement, before shooting the warning to the messengers, '.unless you repent, you too will all perish' (Luke 13:1-5).

Perhaps our inability to discern compassion in this response reflects the ease with which we allow worldviews other than that of Scripture to inform and shape us. According to a biblical worldview, God is in the process of renewing his creation. And whilst Scripture precludes neat equations of human suffering with divine judgement, it nevertheless insists on the reality of the latter as part of the outworking of God's purposes for the cosmos. Viewed from this perspective, doesn't Christ's warning look as much like compassion as do his healings, or foreign aid arriving in Burma, or rescue teams working tirelessly in China?

Christ's warning is an example to us of cultural engagement of the very best kind - that which broadens human horizons to take in the reality of eternity. But let's be under no illusions; this kind of connecting with culture won't do anything to enhance our street-cred; except, perhaps, in the place where the streets have no name.

Nigel Hopper LICC

Street Pastors

Following a meeting this morning it looks like Street Pastors will be coming to Scunthorpe.

Follow this Link http://www.streetpastors.co.uk/WhatisaStreetPastor/tabid/96/Default.aspx

It's early days yet, but consider whether God may be calling you to this work.

Co-ordinators will also be needed as well as people who will stay up (almost) all night to pray for the Street Pastors when they are out and about.

Watch this space.

Take my Son

A variation on a story you have probably heard before, but it contains a message worth repeating:

A wealthy man and his son loved to collect rare works of art. They had
everything in their collection, from Picasso to Raphael. They would often
sit together and admire the great works of art.

When the Vietnam conflict broke out, the son went to war. He was very
courageous and died in battle while rescuing another soldier. The father was
notified and grieved deeply for his only son.

About a month later, just before Christmas, there was a knock at the door. A
young man stood at the door with a large package in his hands.


He said, 'Sir, you don't know me, but I am the soldier for whom your son
gave his life. He saved many lives that day, and he was carrying me to
safety when a bullet struck him in the heart and he died instantly. He often
talked about you, and your love for art.' The young man held out this
package. 'I know this isn't much. I'm not really a great artist, but I think
your son would have wanted you to have this.'

The father opened the package. It was a portrait of his son, painted by t he
young man. He stared in awe at the way the soldier had captured the
personality of his son in the painting. The father, was so drawn to the eyes
that his own eyes welled up with tears. He thanked the young man and offered
to pay him for the picture. 'Oh, no sir, I could never repay what your son
did for me. It's a gift.'


The father hung the portrait over his mantle. Every time visitors came to
his home he took them to see the portrait of his son before he showed them
any of the other great works he had collected.


The man died a few months later. There was to be a great auction of his
paintings. Many influential people gathered, excited over seeing the great
paintings and having an opportunity to purchase one for their collection.


On the platform sat the painting of the son. The auctioneer pounded his
gavel. 'We will start the bidding with this picture of the son. Who will bid
for this picture?'

There was silence.
Then a voice in the back of the room shouted, 'We want to see the famous
paintings. Skip this one.'
But the auctioneer persisted. 'Will somebody bid for this painting. Who will
start the bidding? $100, $200?'
Another voice angrily, 'We didn't come to see this painting. We came to see
the Van Goghs, the Rembrandts. Get on with the real bids!'

But, still the auctioneer continued 'The son! The son! Who'll take the son?'

Finally, a voice
came from the very back of the room. It was the longtime gardener of the man
and his son. 'I'll give $10 for the painting.' Being a poor man, it was all
he could afford.
'We have $10, who will bid $20?'
'Give it to him for $10. Let's see the masters.'
'$10 is the bid, won't someone bid $20?'
The crowd was becoming angry. They didn't want the picture of the son.
They wanted the more worthy investments for their collections.
The auctioneer pounded the gavel. 'Going once, twice, SOLD for $10!'
A man sitting on the second row shouted,
'Now let's get on with the collection!'
The auctioneer laid down his gavel 'I'm sorry, the auction is over.'
'What ab out the paintings?'
I am sorry. When I was called to conduct this auction, I was told of a
secret stipulation in the will. I, was not allowed to reveal that
stipulation until this time. Only the painting of the son would be auctioned
Who ever bought that painting would inherit the entire estate, including the
paintings.

The man who took the son gets everything!'

God gave His son 2,000 years ago to die on the cross. Much like the
auctioneer, His message today is:
'The Son, the Son, who'll take the Son?'
Because, you see, whoever takes the Son gets everything.

FOR GOD SO LOVED THE WORLD HE GAVE HIS ONLY SON, WHO EVER
BELIEVES IN HIM.... SHALL HAVE ETERNAL LIFE...John 3 v 16

THAT'S LOVE