I am not the Messiah...

For those of you wondering about the strange title of this post, please do not be alarmed, it is for my benefit not a shock announcement to anyone else.

I was recently involved in the staging of an evangelistic event, but that wasn't my intention. No, my intention was to be the sole creator of this event, the man who had made it all possible, the one who had brought the good times to town! I didn't say this out loud; I didn't even realise it myself.

The problem with this plan was that owing to recent eye issues the was always a small chance that I would be unable to attend due to a hospital visit. As the time grew nearer it was more like 50-50 whether I could make it or not and then, thanks to a rearranged operation date, it became clear to everyone that I would be in no condition to organise and run an event. Everyone, that is, except me.

Why am I telling you this you might wonder? Because I feel like I've learned (or relearned) an important lesson. I was that desperate to be the one who was responsible for this happening that in the end I put the whole thing at risk of not happening at all. Then, I was convinced that it would fail. Not because of my failure in planning, but because I wasn't there to make it happen. By wanting to be the one who made it happen, I was engineering a situation whereby I was the only one who could make it happen! 

You aren't the only person who can make it happen.

In the end some very willing, kind and forgiving people stepped in and managed to salvage a good event out of the mess I had created. The thing is, what will stop me doing it again?

This started out as a good idea, from wanting the event to happen, as do lots of things. But we are often all too quick to make ourselves far more vital to proceedings than necessary. I used to joke that as the only person in the church who knew how to pack the storeroom I was making myself invaluable to the church. As it turned out, I was just setting up everyone else with a massive job to try and sort out when I wasn't there to do it. Either that or there was in fact no need for me to be at the centre of it happening every week because actually it's packing a cupboard, how hard can it be?

In short, I hope this post will serve as a warning and a remnder, to both you and myself, that when we make ourselves integral to something, or just think we are, we are going down a dangerous road. The event went perfectly well in my absense. The difficulties there were, were of my own creating. And as Chris Green, one of my lecturers at Oak Hill, often says "There is only one position in the church that it vital for it to function, that role is the messiah and the position is taken".

I am not the messiah, the church will continue perfectly well without me.

P.S. For those of you who know the details of this, I didn't make much attempt to disguise them, but felt they were not necessary. Please ignore them, save for reminding me of this important lesson in the future!

Look at all the busy people this way, that way, everywhere

 

 Review: The Busy Christians guide to busyness by Tim Chester

The first thing you notice about this book is the cover, it’s awful, but if we let that slide it’s a good book. The first thing I thought when I read the title of the book was something like, with great sarcasm, “great, a book that is going to tell me how if I was more organized or even more holy I be able to do all the things that have to get done.” 

My hopes weren’t high, but actually the book turned out to be less about how not to be too busy or deal with being busy than the attitudes that being busy creates and even the attitudes that lead to us becoming so busy in the first place. The first few chapters admittedly are a bit of a social comment on how life has got more and more hectic and how the idea of a work/life balance has also changed with time and then there’s a chapter looking at what I dreaded – How to be time efficient, full of techniques and tips to manage your time and workload, but then the book takes a different tack.

Rather than just assume people who are busy, should be less busy because that easier and more fun the next few chapters explore what it is that makes Christians busy and whether or not that’s a good thing. Chester looks at the things we do and what their purpose is before settling on the helpful definition for life that, whatever we are doing, we should be looking to glorify God all the time. In one chapter he concludes that both Jesus and Paul could say at the end of their lives that they had completed the job. Not because they had done everything that could be done, but because they had worked faithfully in the time they had. They had put the kingdom of God first in their lives, in whatever they were doing.

The second section of the book then looks at 6 “lies” as Chester terms them. The reasons people give for why they are busy. Things such as “I’m busy because I need to prove myself” and “I’m busy because otherwise things get out of control”. As you read the chapters it’s easy to see the different elements we all combine to explain why we do things.

The problem with that for the reader, is that it’s equally easy to see how those reasons translate to our attitude to God, or more often, the attitude we impose on Him and his expectations of us.Chester’s one sentence summary, if he had one, is that the heart of busyness, and the answer to all our reasons and excuses, is that God doesn’t expect us to do more than we can do.

I’d really recommend this book to anyone, whatever stage of life you’re at, whether you are busy or not, because we all face different issues with regards to time and work and busyness, but they all come from wrong thinking about God. I was really challenged when I read this book, that even though I didn’t think I was too busy – It was all too easy to end up doing the things we do, for the wrong reasons. That however much time we spend doing things, whether its too much or even too little, it’s the attitude behind that that is important.

In the conclusion of the book Tim Chester gives what could be an answer to the title of the book when he says “In the end, neither doing more or doing less is ever going to be the answer – the only answer is faith in God”.

Wish I could fly like Superman

Aside from a waste of a couple of hours the most recent (loosely recent, it was 5 years ago) installment of the superman franchise offers this quote from Superman's (Kal-El's) father, Jor-El

"Live as one of them, Kal-El, to discover where your strength and your power are needed. Always hold in your heart the pride of your special heritage. They can be a great people, Kal-El, they wish to be. They only lack the light to show the way. For this reason above all, their capacity for good, I have sent them you... my only son."

At first glance it's a rather cliche voiceover to introduce the concept of a comic book/sci-fi film, but if you look closer you may see something that seems familiar: "I have sent them you... my only son". Could it be that this film is an allegory for Christianity?

To put it bluntly....No!

What it does appear to be though (IMHO) is a rather apt allegory for how people view themselves, and may think this is how they would be described by some far off alien being.

"They can be a great people Kal-El, they wish to be. They only lack the light to show the way" Mankind can be great, we can live up to our potential, and be good. All we lack is someone to go before us and show us how it's done. Give us a role model, someone that will show us how we should act, behave and live and we'll be that great people. We have the capacity to do good, we just sort of need a few hints to get us started and we'll be away.

Sadly, this just doesn't match up with our experience in the real world. We have all followed the example of the first man, Adam, and have the capacity for failure, sin and evil. We are fundamentally bad and no amount of effort, wanting to be good or guiding lights can change the state of our hearts. All have turned away, they have together become worthless; there is no-one who does good, not even one (Romans 3:12).

What we need is a quote of "You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly"... "For this reason above all, I have sent them you... my only son".