JT's Captaincy of England

Delighted with the news on Friday that Fabio Capello (England's International Football Team Manager) has decided to strip John Terry of his captaincy of the national team. For those of you reading from another nation and not caught up in this headline catching story, our national team captain and a powerful symbol in English life has not been such a good boy in recent times. Over 2 weeks ago it was revealed that he had attempted to have a 'media silence' order placed over the revelations of some infidelity in his life. This was not granted and naturally the backlash of trying to silence these blood-sucking tabloid papers is that they have gone all out revealing his sexual frivolities (yes he is married) with the girlfriend of (believe this if you can) another member of the England national team! Oooh, yes I know what you're thinking.

Story aside (you can do further research if you choose) the revealing thing to me in these past weeks is the modern/postmodern anomaly that a man's immoral, totally unworthy-of-respect-lifestyle decisions can somehow be made to live apart from, or to one side of, his role as a national leader in the arena of sports. Again and again, pundits and others seem to say that what he has chosen to do in crushing his wife, lying to her and to others, taking the girlfriend of another man and having sex outside of marriage and choosing to violate your relationship with a fellow team mate can be totally disconnected from his role as captain of the national Football team.

This is quite absurd and sad testimony to the moral vacuum that we have somehow created in the West.
Our 'heroes' are able to lead without any character whatsoever, and we are to point a new generation (for example my son Malachi) to these men and women as role models for their life. We need to learn the vast distinction between celebrity and hero and we need to come to grips with the reality you cannot divide a person saying he/she is a great leader while placing infidelity, immorality and relational destruction to one side of him/her as if devoid of him/her in 'reality.'

Well done Capello.

Simon

Serious Clash

Sorry for not blogging last week, bit of a hectic one.

Reading through the book of Proverbs, yes again, I know I was there late last year it is just a book that is wonderful to return to again and again. I commend you do the same. Anyway this morning I read chapter 19 and was struck by this short but provocative phrase:

"better to be poor than to be a liar."

Now it may not be too provocative to you, but let me explain why it is so to me.
Our culture has become one which cherishes image over substance. This extends into simply every area of life. Where it is most noticeable is our worship of celebrity. Celebrities, those who possess fame, wealth, and image are seen to be role-models and those whom we would seek to be like almost always because of their money (and the lifestyle that apparently comes with that) not their morality.

Morality, in fact, is an increasing hinderance to celebrity it seems so why would you cherish integrity and honesty (which is what this verse is trying to highlight) if it appears to distract from the lifestyle so idolized in our society. Those that are followers of Jesus have to cut radically across the grain in this. We have to be different. We have to believe the promises of God, even when we will get no support from secular-materialist culture, that being poor is not as damaging, not as 'inwardly' destructive as being a liar.

Better to be without money than without morality. That's not what I say, it's what He says!

Simon

PS. I know there are rich, honest people, please do not hear what I am not saying

A Bridge for the Good News

It was sort of our re-launch Sunday as a church this past week. We had used Sunday May 10th as a run through of how it would all go and then asked people to bring friends and guests to VUE for this week.
I have said to a few people already that it was a morning where I felt we could really use the word 'BUZZ' in relation to us as a church. There was energy and enthusiasm oozing from everywhere which is brilliant because it is very attractive for anyone looking in. People got to the tasks of setting up, welcoming, serving refreshments leading the worship and all sorts of other essential bits with fervor and vigor.

I felt it strongly on my heart to preach about moving to VUE out of a real desire to bridge the gap between church and culture. It was a fantastic opportunity and I finished off explaining how I hoped we would go about doing that. Here is the gist of it:

This is the mission we think we must proclaim and embody, we will certainly give it our best shot at least.
We must overcome that which has made the church invisible in culture, we must:

NO LONGER FLEE FROM CULTURE OR HAVE A 'BOMB SHELTER' CHURCH MENTALITY
NO LONGER IMPOSE OUTDATED CULTURE BUT ADAPT TO CULTURE TO GIVE OUR MESSAGE
OFFER DIVINE COMMUNITY TO A FRACTURED CULTURE
LOVE AND NOT JUDGE (DON'T ASK SOMEONE TO CHANGE BEFORE THEY HAVE ENCOUNTERED THE AGENT OF CHANGE- GOD)
'SHOW' THAT FOLLOWING CHRIST IS THE GREATEST THING AND NOT JUST 'TELL' PEOPLE IT IS!

I finished off stating that if the church has a message that can transform the lives of 21st Century people, if the gospel is true than everyone should get a chance to hear it without having to leave their cultural reality to do it!

We want to make a difference, we must.

Simon

The Enormity of the Task...

Reading a book by Rob Warner based here in the UK. He is an extremely helpful thinker and seems to be caught up in a longing to see the church impact the 'new millennium'. He says some things quite bluntly; here is one of the things he says in relation to the task facing us as the church to 'identify' with current culture

"It is vital that we face the enormity of our task. It is simply not the case that the church merely has to do better what it is already doing or patch up a few minor problems in order to ensure a great advance. We are not in a situation where a little more prayer, a little more spiritual warfare, a little more door to door, or a little more care in the community will do the trick. We have allowed a chasm to open between surrounding culture and the internal church culture.
Today in the West, no less than among unreached people groups in the remotest parts of Africa, we need to learn to be a missionary church. And in order to become effective missionaries, we need to bridge the gap between the gospel and the world of the people around us. If Jesus and the apostles made strenuous efforts to live and communicate the gospel in ways that bridged the gap in their generation, it is simply not good enough today to pray for revival while changing nothing in the church."

Very true, it is our role to impact our generational-cultural-context and fulfill the mandate of Christ.

Simon

Exquisite Breakdown of Anti-Theological Mindset

Christianity is attacked from within and without in one area most certainly. It is the area of Theology. Bring it up and almost everyone has some presupposed reaction to it. It tends to lead to a very airy-fairy faith within the church and a blatant, "This is anti-tolerance" (the God of the Age) response from outside.

Michael Green in the book I am reading (The Empty Cross) gives a fantastic breakdown of this cultural milieu (in the context of Theological Study) and I thought I'd share it

"The modern theologian is not exempt from the pressures of ordinary modern society. There is a great tendency towards universalism in a world that makes God in its own tolerant image. There is a tendency towards syncretism in a world that has shrunk to a global multi-faith village. There is a tendency towards secularism: with both the historic faith and future hope soft-pedaled in so much modern theology, Christianity is frequently presented in terms of love alone. And finally, there is an ever growing tendency towards indifferentism.
Alongside a shrinking world, a shrinking hold on biblical revelation, a growing ecumenism, goes a declining interest in doctrine. It derives, as we have seen, from the philosophical question of the absolute and contradiction. Truth is relative. The black I see and the white you see are no longer contradictory: they are complementary. Heaven and hell are all one, for truth is no longer objective. Doctrine is arrived at, both in politics and religion, largely by head counts: norms have degenerated into what most people of good sense and good will approve."

Simon

Lily Allen- 'The Fear'

I have a personal view that at times our secular friends in the music arena, with a minimal concept of the God we serve, JC that is, say things more creatively and effectively about Our God and this world than us Christian brothers and sisters tend to. I dunno it may be that they just hold nothing back, and they are not trying to spin or give some limited view due to their theological or personal commitment.

The reason that I have shared the above is that a recent track by the extremely gifted Lilly Allen called "The Fear" does just that. She hits the nail on the head in so many respects it is simply brilliant.
The gist of the song is that as a young girl she is gripped by the fear that life has lost its meaning. It is not about jobs or goodness it is about celebrity and money. Why stay clothed when you can get naked and make money. She states that she is not really a saint, and, actually, not really a sinner, in fact all is cool and good 'cause [she's] getting thinner.'

Give it a listen by searching for the Youtube Video of the track on the right (just copy and paste the title of this blog into the search engine and you will find it). You may want to look for the 'clean' version if that type of thing is very important to you. removes some of the raw feel and expressiveness of it, but is better for Christian ears I guess.

Give me your thoughts, I think what she says is alarmingly reflective of how we should feel about the tragedy of consumer-celebrity-culture.

Simon