Pastor's blog

Dine løfter er mange din nåde er stor!

2012-02-28T02:43:00.000-08:00

Do you recognise the title to this? For anyone who doesn't speak norwegian roughly translated it means "Your have made many promises and your grace is great", it is the opening line of a song that has been in my head for the last couple of days. God has made so many promises to us his children and he is so gracious towards us. In our evening quiet time we are looking at John's gospel chapterby chapter to see which prommises we can find in it.

This song is not by any means a new and modern one but the words are hugely powerful, there are two lines that have really spoken to me recently "Herre led du meg frem, la meg bli til hjelp for dem som du viser meg trenger en hånd". It roughly translated means" Lord lead me on and let me help those who you show me need a helping hand". I pray that the Lord will show me who he wants me to help and at the same time I try not to use any lack of clear divine leading as a reason not to help people who need it.

I am adding to my daily prayer list during lent that God will show me who he has in mind for me to help. This is partly inspired by the course we have done recently in our house church called "The power of a whisper" by Bill Hybles. The course encourages us to hear God whisper to us in our everday lives and then to act on those whispers.

So what has this led to so far... small things, everyday things really but it is interesting that I am seeing everything differently. I am consciously looking for God in everything and I am finding him there too! I challenge you to do the same, look for God and what he wants you to do in all the everyday situations, family, work, hobbies, even a trip shopping can become exciting. It is a bit easier to get out of bed when you can say to yourself "I wonder what plans God has for me today?"

A walk with a difference

2012-02-16T00:42:00.000-08:00

On Tuesday we had our annual celebration in church where we focus on the vokunteers in the congregation who give freely of their time and energy throughout the year. A red carpet was rolled out for people's arrival and everyone was greeted by hand. We had tried to create an atmosphere that was welcoming and smart with linen tablecloths, candlelight, good atmosphere and an interesting program. Two Caleb prizes were handed out. I think the fifty or so people who came had a good evening.

The two course meal of Chinese food followed by ice cream cake seemed to go down very well. There was some Chinese left at the end of the evening and in the light of my trying to focus my life more on Jesus I thought as it is such a very cold night I would take the Chinese food and some coffee out into town and see if there were any homeless people who could use a good meal. I am not sure that Jesus would have given the leftovers to the poor; I suspect he would have invited them in to the party!

As the evening ended and people headed for home I gathered the remains up. A few people noticed and were interested in what I was doing; two of them said immediately that they too would come. At just after 10pm four of us set off on foot to see if we could find anyone who might be glad of a meal and some hot coffee. The evening was very cold and there was an icy wind whipping our hands and faces. We went to all the likely places we could think of and looked for anyone in need.

The reflective vests which church bought in last year with "I have time" written in Norwegian on them were very useful as conversation openers. The vests gave us some form of authority. As we walked along the main street we were cheered by someone! There were a number of people in town, having been out celebrating Valentine’s day and there were several who wanted to talk to us about what we were doing, all thought it was a great and much needed thing to do but none of them were hungry. In fact we didn't find anyone to give a meal to. It was so cold that it wasn't possible to find anyone sleeping rough.

By the time we had been all over town and it was after 11pm we decided to go to the police station and see if they could use the food. It is better than throwing it away we reasoned. They were very pleased with it and said that they would enjoy it very much!

The four of us, one man and three ladies (one of whom is over 70!) felt that it was time well spent and we shall be doing it again next time there is something to give away. We were in fact surprised that nobody had thought of doing it sooner. There were a couple of jokes made that next time they go to a party with Tracy they better bring their snow suits just in case!

What will it take?

2012-02-14T02:38:00.000-08:00

How good must my life be and how awful does someone else’s have to be before I am prepared to do something about it? This is a question someone raised at a prayer meeting last week. She and her husband had been asking themselves that question. It has stayed with me as I have gone about my comfortable everyday routine. What will it take to cause me do something?

I struggle to accept my own apathy and inability to really live like Jesus in every way. The trouble is that I make excuses to myself. I have become quite adept at it too; after all I have had a life-time of practice. It is easy to promise myself I will do something when the children are bigger or when I know what I ought to do or when I have more time or money or energy or… What will it take to make me do something, I call myself a Christian, a disciple of Jesus and yet I do not always live it.

It is easier to compare myself with others around me and to say well, I am better than him or not as good as her. Doing that is fundamentally flawed because I should not be interested in comparing myself with my peers but I should be concerned with comparing myself to Jesus and his call on my life. The idea of waiting, holding back is not one that I find when I read the bible. I John 2.6 says, ”Whoever says “I abide in him,” ought to walk as he walked.” Jesus did not hold back. At the service on Sunday night we sang the song Brother, Sister, let me serve you, let me be as Christ to you. This is a powerful song with challenging words and if I mean what I say to God in song then I need to see Jesus in all the people I meet. I need to look at other people no matter who they are and love them like Jesus loves them.

It is easy to love people you like and get along with. It is harder to love the unlovely, the difficult, the weak and the vulnerable. It is difficult to love those who are different to us but that is what being a disciple of Jesus calls us to do.

I don’t want these words to be empty words thrown thoughtlessly out into cyberspace. I have to start somewhere so I am going to sign up to take part in the Godhets festival this year. I am also going to take a walk around town when the good people of Sandnes are safely in their homes and I am going to attempt to look with Jesus’ eyes.

God is all-knowing

2012-02-08T09:34:00.000-08:00

If I stop and think for a moment about the fact that God is all-knowing, it can be both scary and reassuring at the same time. All of us put on some sort of mask sometimes. We do not reveal our true selves to everyone we meet. God is all-knowing and he knows me better than I know myself. Do I find that just a little bit scary? Yes I do. It means that I cannot fool him or hide from him or keep something from him. I can't fake it. There is nothing that I can say or do that is going to be a surprise to him and on top of all that HE STILL LOVES ME!

Hebrews 4.13 "

Nothing in all creation is hidden from God’s sight. Everything is uncovered and laid bare before the eyes of him to whom we must give account. "

I have to ask myself whether I really take what I have just shared with you seriously. Does it permeate the way I think about God? Does it show in the way I talk to him and about him? If not, why not! When I pray I can be totally honest because God knows me so well. As I walk with him I need to learn to trust him more and more because he knows me so well and loves me so deeply. There is nothing that will happen today that he and I can't tackle together. However, it is aurprisingly easy to forget that and to get caught up in and focussed on all the wrong things.

"Father God, Dad, You know me and you love me as I am. Show me how to get really serious about loving you deeply with every part of my life. Amen.

Are you afraid to use the F word?

2012-01-28T07:29:00.000-08:00

Are you looking for the perfect church? Well, I've got news for you. It doesn't exist, at least not this side of heaven. If you think you have found the "perfect" one then perhaps none of us, not even you, better join because it will then cease to be perfect.

The church is the body of Christ here on earth - Yes!
The church is the people of God together worshipping and serving Him - Yes!
The church is full of people trying and sometimes failing to be like Jesus - Yes!

Did you react to the F word? As Christians we don't like to admit that we fail and yet of all the places in this world, the church should be the place where we can fail, learn, move on and try again. The place where we can fall flat on our faces either literally or metaphorically and there will be others there to pick us up, dust us off and help us to get going again.

The church is not the building or what we do when we gather together; the church is the hands, feet, heart and love of Jesus in this world. There is a song that was very popular in one of my previous churches which I think sums up well what I am trying to say:

Brother, sister let me serve you,
Let me be as Christ to you;
Pray that I might have the grace
To let you be my servant too.
We are pilgrims on a journey
We are travellers on the road
We are here to help each other
Walk the mile and bear the load.

Yet we do not walk alone. The church, which is made up of those who love Jesus and try to be his disciples, is given the Holy Spirit to amongst other things lead, guide, comfort and strengthen us. Living life as a disciple of Jesus is full of high points and low points but we are never alone. No, we are not perfect and yet we are! Listen to what Paul says to the Church in Corinth "To the church of God in Corinth, to those sanctified in Christ Jesus and called to be his holy people, together with all those everywhere who call on the name of our Lord Jesus Christ—their Lord and ours" (1Cor 1:2) All who call on the name of Jesus are sanctified (made holy) through Jesus! Let's not forget that but instead give thanks for it!

God called loosers to be his people and through Christ he has made them holy! The F word should not be a "No, no!" in our churches, the F word should be a "love and go!" word because of the one we know.

"We've got to watch the river to check that it doesn't stop"

2012-01-18T00:22:00.000-08:00

Do you remember the song from the film "Snow white and the seven dwarfs"? It goes something like this: We're busy going nowhere, working the whole day through, trying to find lots of things not to do...we've got to watch the river, to check that it doesn't stop... and on the song goes. There is something very easy about being busy. If I am busy I do not have to meet myself, look at myself. I don't have to think because I am too busy. Not only am I too busy but I am so very busy going about God's work!

It is important to stop, to make space and find time to be still. In our busy world many people have discoverd the value of being still and being quiet. They have built meditation into their lives as a way of finding the quiet and stillness that every human needs to stay healthy. As people we need to just be quiet, be still. This is not news for Christians, God said thousands of years ago in the psalms "be still and know that I am God" (46.10). In being still Christians do not only meditate on ourselves in an inward looking self-centred way but we can find God there, as He always is, waiting for us to come to him, waiting.

When we take time to be quiet with God it is easier to hear what he is saying to us. We can meditate in silence or we can meditate on a verse or passage from the bible or we can meditate with worship music. Meditation with music is sometimes called soaking which is a great description really, we soak ourselves in the presence and worship of God.

To my mind, meditating in the presence of God, being open to Him and listening, has to be superior to meditating on ourselves or on emptyness. There are so many things that make us busy but are not really important and they crowd out the really important things like time to be still and soak in the presence of God. The bible tells us that when we come to Him we will find refreshment so why is it so difficult to come. There is so much in favour of it but it takes a real act of will to lay aside the things that demand our attention. Sometimes I need help to lay down the immediate in favour of the important and sometimes I just need a good "shove" to get on with it!

Being and doing!

2012-01-03T02:21:00.000-08:00

Happy new year!

A friend and church member sent me a message this morning with a link to Rick Warren's pastor blog. Rick raises 10 points that are good for church leaders to remember but I think they are good for all Christians to remember and so here is the link to his site:
http://blog.pastors.com/blogs/pcom/ten-key-points-to-remember-in-2012/

We are running a marathon and not a sprint. At new year we look back at what has been in 2011 as well as looking forward to what is to come in 2012 and beyond. That seems like a long time but by God's timescale it is nothing more than a moment, He has the perspective of eternity! It is easy to look at others and compare ourselves to them even though we are all unike and made for different things.

Have you made a new years resolution? I have and I want to share it with you, not to be pious but because I know I will struggle to make progress in it, I want to aim to be what God has called me to be that way I am sure I will accomplish what God has called me to do.

I wish you a blessed and God-centred new year being and doing for Him!

Christmas is coming

2011-12-12T08:19:00.000-08:00

As sure as December brings Christmas it also brings our annual carol and activity service. It was last night and there were lots of people of all ages. After the service was over we had the opportunity to join hands and make rings then walk round the Christmas tree singing Christmas carols. After that there was a great spread of treats to eat and drink.

As three elderly ladies were preparing to leave after the refreshments they commented how nice it had been to be all together and to see so many children. I couldn't agree with her more!! One time when I was chatting to one of these ladies I asked how long she had been coming to this church. This caused her to think hard and you could amost hear her working it out in her head. I don't know how long I had expected her to say but her answer took me totally by surprise, in fact it left me momentarily speechless. (Leaving me speechless as many people know is quite a difficult thing to do!) The lady replied that she knows for certain she was attending weekly in 1936 and she probably started here the year before when she moved to the area for her first job! That is 75 years this year, amazing!

Being and doing

2011-12-09T01:44:00.000-08:00

As I finished reading the parish magazine from my former church I sighed as I laid it to one side, somethings don't change I thought. It can be both a good thing and a bad thing that nothing changes. Change should not be something we bring about for it's own sake. When we make changes in a church, in business or in our lives it is a good thing to spend some time thinking about what the motives for that change are.

Some change is both necessary and desirable, it moves us forwards towards our goal. We do however need to be clear over as many of the consequences of change as possible. Bill Hybels has said for many years that the local church is the hope of the world and I agree with him. The church and the Christ followers who belong to it are called to be different. We are called to be salt and light in the world. We are in the world but not of the world as Jesus says in John 15:19. We are en-route to eternity but we have a job to do as we journey. The English Archbishop Temple said "the church is the only organization that exists for the benefit of its non- members."

Change in the church should be driven by the need for us who belong to it to be better followers of Jesus and therefore to be able to reach out as salt and light into the world with the intention of bringing new people into a relationship with the Lord Jesus. Change in the church is often a heated subject and I feel relatively safe as I write this as we are not planning any big changes in the near future.

I believe the church is about bringing people to Jesus and then helping them to know Him better and live closer to Him. It is good for us all occasionally to spend some time reflecting over what we do and why we do it, as well as how it enables or hinders us in living out what Jesus has called us to be and to do.

Coming ready or not!

2011-12-07T02:20:00.000-08:00

Advent is a time of preparation, preparing for an event and the event is remembering that Jesus came into the world. The king of the universe became a tiny helpless human baby whilst at the same time still being God. It is hard to get our heads round the incarnation, fully God and fully human at the same time and on top of that a baby! We do not understand it, I am not sure we are supposed to fully understand it. God incarnate, God amongst us. Not only that it happened 2000 years ago but it is still happening now. Christians when they turn to Christ receive the Holy Spirit as a seal of belonging. Part of God, the third part of the Trinity lives within us. God is still in the world in us. This is heady stuff that we can spend time thinking about, meditating on it and as has occasionally happened through history arguing about.

Advent is a time of preparation. A time to prepare our hearts and minds to once again be ready. Jesus in his teaching also promised that he would come back, we do not know any of the facts around is return, not the date or time, Jesus himself says he does not know when but that it will happen. Only the Father knows when. The words of Isaiah, so often read in church during advent, are as relevant today as they ever have been:

Prepare the way for the LORD;
make straight in the desert
a highway for our God.
Every valley shall be raised up,
every mountain and hill made low;
the rough ground shall become level,
the rugged places a plain.
And the glory of the LORD will be revealed,
and all people will see it together.
For the mouth of the LORD has spoken.”

This text is quoted in the New Testament by Matthew in chapter 3 about John the Baptist but it is also relevant to us today. Are we ready for the glory of the Lord to be revealed both in our lives and in or world?

Christmas is coming whether we are ready or not. Christ has come and is coming again, are we ready...or not?

Uncomfortable thinking

2011-11-28T09:42:00.000-08:00

This evening we are going to hold our bi-monthly church board meeting. I am to lead the opening thought for the evening and discussion. I intend to use this film from the Lousanne conference in Capetown last year. I do not intend to provoke a guilty conscience which this film clip could easily do but rather to spur us on into further action. Take a look at it and then think your own reaction to it.

http://conversation.lausanne.org/en/conversations/detail/11432

The bibelt text I will also use is from Matthew 9:35-38. You are welcome to join our board this evening in thinking about mission and praying that the Father will "send out workers to gather in His harvest".

Rather embarassing!

2011-11-24T06:16:00.000-08:00

If I was ever in danger of taking myself too seriously Sunday morning would have brought me back down to the ground with a bump. As you will have read in the previous spot, we have had a weekend of meetings in Norkirken. Jørn Strand spoke to a packed church on Sunday evening, the main meeting room was full, we opened the doors to the cafe and that was full in no time, we had to also seat people on the balcony!

That is not what I am going to focus on today. On Sunday morning we had our usual communion service and Jørn preached. There were a number of visitors in church too. It was a great service and all went swimmingly until the final hymn. I announced it and as I did so, the two year old I was sitting next to took off her trainers one by one and handed them to me. She did this easily as they have Velcro fastenings. I placed them down on the seat along with some papers I had in my hand and the bible I had been using. I then perched on what was left of the seat for the hymn (fact for my non-Norwegian readers: Norwegians sit to sing hymns). As I stood for the final bessing I thought "Oh bother my microphone box has slipped of my waistband again!" It was only afterwards I realized that it was the trainers which had attached themselves to my bottom! What can you do but laugh!

How to stress a pastor in four easy steps

2011-11-19T03:03:00.000-08:00

1 Arrange a series of meetings with a high profile and excellent speaker who regularly appears on TV.
2 Speaker does not arrive by the time the meeting is due to begin.
3 Tecky who will run the whole of the computer system / sound system / a lot of the lighting / hymn and song words is delayed on a long distance bus travelling on a busy Friday and in bad weather.
4 Say 5 minutes before the service that Erik cannot lead the opening as arranged in case the speaker cannot find the church: "you'll be OK to open the meeting, won't you Tracy?"

As you may have guessed we got off to a bit of a shaky start last night but I don't think the church full of people noticed. I disappeared to my office for a minute or two and sent up one of those "now I really need you to come through for me God" prayers that we have all prayed occasionally and asked God how He wanted me to open the meeting. I opened with Isaiah 60, the first 4 verses. Later in the meeting I had the wonderful experience of the opening tying straight into one of the speaker's points, God didn't let me down that time either!

The Techy arrived looking somewhat frazzled one minute after the meeting should have started. I said I would stretch out the opening until he gave me the nod that he was ready and I could hand over to the worship leader. He was ready very quickly and we had a wonderful time worshiping God.

The speaker arrived during the worship and had time to draw breath and focus before he was due up at the front.

It was a fantastic meeting! Jørn Strand spoke powerfully on 2 Corinthians 4:7 "But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us." He asked us to think when we read this text "we have this treasure in jars of clay". Where in the sentence do we put the emphasis? It is so easy to put it on the "jars of clay" - us - and to forget that it is God's treasure we are filled with. The focus is on us and not on what God has given us or done for us. He continued the point by saying that all of us who know Jesus as our Lord have been given treasure in our lives by God and if we don't put it in a savings account but use it then God gives us more, we get filled up. His point was that it is in using what God has given us of his grace, gifts and goodness in our lives that we receive more of it! Like in the story of Elijah and the widow in 1 Kings 17.10-16 our pots of clay do not run out - God just keeps on filling us up. I often say God cannot fill up a pot which is already full, we need to use some of what we have to make room for a refill!

Last night was the first of four meetings this weekend at Norkirken and it was excellent. I am really looking forward to the next three! If you are local, come along this evening at 7pm, if not then I have a question for you to ponder: "Are you using what God has given you or have you hidden it away in a savings account for a rainy day?"

Looking forward

2011-11-17T09:47:00.000-08:00

In many ways today has been all about looking forward. I have spent the day preparing for the coming weekend. We are having a series of meetings led by the well-known Norwegian preacher Jørn Strand. We are working with the regional office of Normisjon and are expecting a lot of people each day. There will be meetings on Friday, Saturday and two on Sunday.

I am looking forward to it but there is a lot to get organised, lots to put in place and countless potential problems to think of and deal with before they arise. I am juggling a lot of different things and am in slight danger of dropping one! Never mind, I love it really.

There has been a lot of prayer in the run-up to this weekend and I hope and pray that the meetings will revive people, blowing the flames of the Spirit into a great fire in people's lives. We all need to be on fire for God. Let me give you a question to ponder: what are you on fire for? Why? What are you doing about it?

A first!

2011-11-16T07:38:00.000-08:00

For me this is a first! I am writing my first ever blog.Not only that but I have created this all by myself. Those of you who know me will know that I am not good at this sort of thing, I tend to ask one of my teenagers to do it for me.

The idea behind this blog is to write little and often about what is going on in the life of the church I pastor, Norkirken in Sandnes on the west coast of Norway. I am now in my third year here, before that I was working as an Anglican priest in the UK Diocese of Bradford.

So what has been going on this week? Well, on Monday we held our Alpha course which started with asparagus soup and home made bread rolls and the room was filled with a wonderful smell of fresh-baked bread as people arrived. This week we were thinking about how God leads us in our life.

On Tuesday there was the prayer meeting in the morning. This meeting seems to be growing as we now need to rearrange the furniture in the prayer room to fit everybody in! What a nice problem to have. The hour in prayer seemed to whizz by and after that we enjoyed coffee and cake. To round off the day yesterday there was a craft evening. There were 12 of us who were shown how to make candles by one of the Mums in our Little Stars group. I then showed everyone how to make soaps. We all had a great time with lots of chatting and laughing as well as making new friends.This is something we will definitely do again!

Today I have spent some time preparing suggestions for the children's session on Sunday morning. We will be continuing the theme we had in our family service which was based on Max Lucado's book "You are special". On Sunday the children will be thinking more about what it means to be uniquely and wonderfully created by God; they will be using bubbles, song, film, drawing, play doh and prayer. This evening is our House Church meeting and we are up to session three of the course by Bill Hybels' "The power of a whisper". The material is very good and we are all learning a lot from it. Do you hear God whisper to you? What do you do when you hear him?