Make Jesus Famous

Andy Warhol said we could all be famous for 15 minutes, but what could you do to help make Jesus better known? A new website Make Jesus Famous launches tomorrow Tuesday – 30th June. It would be brilliant if everyone who read this blogchecked it out and registered  their ‘idea’ for sharing faith in their neighbourhood. All you need to do is briefly describe your everyday work … easy! You can then upload your photo or a suitable image, and make it part of the homepage ‘image wall’.

You can pre-register at www.makejesusfamous.org.uk right now, and you will be sent a reminder email on the launch day.

Hopefully,  Christians who will inspire each other withtheir ideas, achievements and comments to spread the Good News . This in turn will build an ever-growing evangelism resource, harnessing the Christian creativity at work throughout the nation.  If you ask why does Jesus need making famous?- the answer was given in a piece of research published only a couple of days ago when it was reported that a fifth of the population  have no idea about the death and resurrection stories of Jesus.

Give it a try! Please help us Make Jesus Famous by pre-registering today. Many thanks – you will make a huge difference if you take part.

Time to leave Jerusalem

In the opening  chapter of Acts the resurrected Jesus tells his followers not to leave Jerusalem but to wait there for the promises of the father- The Holy Spirit. The disciples are excited at the prospect of the restoration of the Kingdom to Israel- they still don’t get it! Only a few verses later Christ tells them to be his witnesses on Jerusalem, all Judea, and Samaria and the ends of the earth and then he disappears! As my friend George Lings would say, the message may have reached the ends of the earth but the church has set up a number of mini-Jerusalems. How many Christians effectively reach out beyond church walls other than through blitz events like Hope and Soul in the City and specific ministries like Street Pastors?

Some would say that the church is obsessed with Jerusalem and making it look better, bigger, slicker and brighter- when the real need is to set up camp in Samaria or even venture to the ends of the earth. As a church we tend to focus on people who are like us- Churched- those comfortable to be our people. What about the de-churched on the fringes of Samaria who are at least 3 times bigger than we are and many of whom don’t like who we are? What about the non-churched where we could come into contact we a group amongst the under 45s who are 6 times greater than that age profile in our churches? There is some excellent news and stories around the Back to Church Sunday initiative for which we should praise God, but we can’t ignore the facts that around 40% of the populations have had some experience of church yet have not returned- was it really their fault. My friend George suggests that the complex DNA have the church has  dominant Anglican genes called worship and pastoral care and that evangelism and mission genes are recessive. For a national church, the Church of England, the number of people who appear to be deeply alienated from us is disturbing. It’s time to leave Jerusalem.

Cutting the Good News

In today’s Church Times Peter Graystone, who works for Church Army developing  pioneering evangelism projects, writes about  the Business Committee of General Synod cutting  an entire day of debates at its next meeting. Peter says that; “the true cost of this decision is the loss of the reports that would have filled this summer’s group of sessions with hope and inspiration.  In particular….. the absence of the report…. painstakingly  to mark the fifth anniversary of the occasion when Synod debated and commended Mission Shaped Church: church planting and fresh expressions of church in a changing context. Ironically, that report challenged the entire Church, including General Synod, to make mission initiatives to the non-churched a priority – the very thing that has not happened in its exclusion from next month’s agenda.”

 Peter adds,  “The saddest aspect of this decision is that the narrative of five years of pioneering mission is one of hope and encouragement.  Synod members will now not hear of the parts of the Church of England where, as a direct result of the principles advocated by Mission Shaped Church, the Kingdom of God is growing in ways that are beautiful and life-enhancing.”

Too often we moan and wring our hands about the decline of our churches and yet, on this occasion, those responsible responsible for organising the business of the Anglican Churches’ policy making  body have  missed an opportunity to hear stories of hope and encouragement.  I know I’m an unfinished Christian but this really does sound like unfinished business-  why  can’t the Business Committee  make space for General Synod to hear great news, God knows they need to?

 

Come on get the vote out…please

Hi, I’ve only had seven votes from you on how easy you find it to share faith. If you haven’t voted yet, please let me have your view see https://unfinishedchristian.wordpress.com/2009/05/07/your-views-please/

On the street where I live

I recently discovered that my spouse and children have  Facebook conversations with there friend living only a few  doors away in our street. Over the coming weeks I will be knocking on every door of my street and inviting them to join a Facebook group of well, their street. For those who I am unable to talk to I will leave a short letter explaining what the idea is. You see ,what I got out of the recent talk from J John and follow up prayer was just how much we are losing touch with our neighbours in a world that is becoming more complex and interconnected electronically.

More then ever before we have the potential to twitter and blog as part of a vast international conversation, and yet know very little about those closest to us in our own street So, I have set up a Facebook group with the name of my street and have invited everybody living in the street to join it and let’s see where the discussion takes us. Hopefully what people will bring to and share in this form on online community will extend into the everyday character of living more in tune with a sense of improved face-to-face neighbourhood conversations. Could it begin with a street and end in a Kingdom?

Can we be neighbours from heaven?

Yesterday I heard the well-known evangelist J John address an annual  consultation from the Group for Evangelism in London on the theme ‘For God’s sake say something!’. Around 70 people responsible for co-ordinating evangelism and mission across a variety of Christian denominations gathered for a discussion on the subject of proclamation evangelism- has it had its day or does it still have a role? J John may not be everyone’s cup of tea, but with great humility and purpose his keynote address provided a real challenge for the audience. He talked about a letter he had sent to 1,500 church asking them if they provided any sort of training programme to their congregation in how to share faith. Out of the 1,017 replies only 36 said they had something in place. Isn’t that just the problem with sharing our faith- it’s always somebody else’s responsibility. J John has developed a programme called Breaking  News to help equip churches with some techniques and guidance on how to share faith: but is training without prayer or a real heart enough?

Jesus said the gospel is based around two prinicples: loving God and loving our neighbour. So how many of us care enough to pray by name for our neighbours ?(in fact how many of us really know our neighbours well enough to tell them that we are doing so?). J John went on to explain how his family are known locally as the ‘neighbours from heaven’ who care enough to help put and infirm neighbours to bed each night; to put out the bins of their elderly neighbours who can’t manage it, and to visit the dying son of a woman in the street who isn’t a Christian. They are ready to respond to need where it is because that’s what Jesus would do- even when they feel inadequate for the task.

I am becoming more convinced that praying, loving, caring and sharing is the best mission strategy we can have. This is how we can live out the gospel; this is how we can make a difference ,and this is how we can introduce Jesus- the saviour who loves- because that is what we’re meant to do. We don’t need a branded week/month of action to do this and then go away- hit and run mission has little legacy. We need to build it into our service for our neighbourhood day-in-day out and pray without ceasing. We then have the credibility to talk about the one in whose name we do this and people start to listen when they see what this love has caused us to do. Could there be a better calling card?

 

For more on breaking news see http://www.philotrust.com/shop/viewproduct/66

Your views please

Hot potatoes

Today a guy called Peter Andrews told me about a great idea for sharing faith called hot potatoes. Peter hosts a regular event at a local pub where he provides a free baked potato meal to punters who call then decide from a menu of ‘hot potato’ issues which  they’d like him to talk about. All the issues on the menu such as debt, relationships, love, honesty provide Peter with the opportunity of introducing a Christian perspective to the issue. He says people go away with full tums and nourished souls. Now I wonder if the local Harvester could add this to their early bird menu?

Living with doubt

Over the past few days I have spending time with some great people. These are people who put God first in their lives and take risks for the Gospel. These are people who have sold property,uprooted families and moved them 100s of miles to new locations; these are people who love those on the margins of society; they given up jobs and taken salary cuts to serve Jesus. At times the work has been tough as they serve God in evangelism and mission- it has not all been plain sailing. Some of the people I have spoken to have been exhausted, let down, disappointed and many have had doubts. I opened my Daily Prayer book from Nick  Fawcett and this was today’s entry and it is my prayer for my friends this week:

“Gracious God, I come today confessing my faith, yet acknowledging also my doubt- the many things I don’t understand, the statements of faith that don’t make sense, the events of life that seem to contradict everything I believe about you. There are times when I am sure what I believe and times when I am uncertain. Give me sufficient trust in you to acknowledge all my questions openly, and sufficient humility to offer each of you honestly in prayer. Save me from taking refuge is hollow words or empty ritual, but teach me rather to face the challenges life brings and to work through my faith in the light of them. Having been tested, may my faith grow stronger, able to face all and still to stand. Through Jesus Christ my Lord. Amen.”

The spirit of revelation

Today I was with a group of Evangelists who were challenged and inspired by some words from Jackie Pullinger. So often we are so locked into our own experience of the Christian faith that we fail to see that others simply do not see Jesus in the way we do. It’s as if when Jesus was on earth they wouldn’t be part of the crowd reaching out to him for healing or inspiration, he would have simply passed them by before they even realised it. Most of our evangelism and mission strategy is trying to persuade people to get to a place where we think they need to be, but it is a place they can’t even envisage. Meeting Jesus can only come from revelation not logic and they need to see the end from the beginning.  He needs to reveal himself to them otherwise it relies on our words and descriptions which are imperfect and flawed. Vision isn’t something we construct, it is something God knows and lets us glimpse. The miracle is that by having the right word or deed for the right person at the right time, God can touch people with a sense of his presence and work his miracle of transformation. We need to be results hopeful not results oriented and we need to keep faithful to God’s spirit of revelation and pray that through the work and power fo the Holy Spirit that more people will catch this revelation. As Jackie said; “People will only learn the good bits of God’s story if they see something in us that is different, or churches often take too long to get to the good bit.” May we help more people get to the good bit before they miss it altogether.

“I pray that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you a spirit of wisdom and revelation as you come to know him.”  Ephesians 1:17