Thoughts & opinion from the southampton vineyard team

It’s funny. (well, not funny ha ha)

You think that you can do everything.

You think that you are invincible.

You think that you can go on forever.

Then you realise that you can’t. Not even a little bit.

Maybe it’s just me?

You realise that when Jesus took you on it was not because he needed you but because you needed him. My 3-year old son very nearly drowned last month. Very nearly. I had to rescue him. There was nothing that he could do. He just cannot float. He’s too little. Without me pulling him out, he’d have just sunk.

Same for me. I’m just too little and too weighed down with stuff to float. It was only because Jesus jumped into the water and pulled me out that I am here at all.

Trouble is, when things are good, you start feeling as though you can swim on your own after all.

Then you sink and realise that you can’t.

This February I was diagnosed with “moderate to severe depression”. I’m no doctor, but “moderate to severe” seems like a pretty broad band to me. I don’t really understand what depression is but I just know that life lost its flavour. Nothing tasted good anymore.

The thing is, my human reaction is to try to find as many new flavours as I can to make it taste better again. It’s like floundering around in the water trying to swim when all you can do is sink.

Its only when you finally stop kicking and screaming that you can be rescued.

I didn’t want to write this until I was “through it”, but that has happened yet. I thought it had, then I realised that it hadn’t but I thought that I’d write about it anyway. Sometimes I cannot see the light at the end of the tunnel. Sometimes I can.

The more that I need God to pull me out of the water, the more my human nature tries to find other ways to float. For the record, none of them have worked so far, but I’ll keep you posted.

The bottom line is that I can’t do everything, I’m not invincible, and I can’t go on forever. But he can, is and does. Sometimes it takes times like this for me to realise this. To realise that I need Jesus for every breath. For every step. Or it just ain’t gonna happen.

I never cry but when I saw this I just wept and wept.

This is me.

Maybe it’s you too?

If you have 4 mins and 14 seconds to spare, you should watch this video.

I have been surfing a few times. When I say “surfing”, I obviously use the term in the loosest possible terms. I had a board. It was in the sea. There were waves.

Even for me, the one thing that is clear is that when the wave comes, you just have to be on it.

You wait for it, you swim out to be there ready, you see it coming, you prepare and the most annoying thing is missing it!

It feels like there is a wave right now. It feels as though everything is just that bit more exciting: people are starting to following Jesus all of a sudden – a lot of people; people are prophesying more; people are getting touched by the Spirit in more powerful ways; more people are stepping up to the mark and getting involved in reaching out.

I do not want to miss this wave.

There have been other waves. I look back at times when God moved powerfully and we sat back and enjoyed it and when it was over we were sad and then we looked for the next wave. But once everything had settled, we were still sitting where we were before, only disappointed.

You see, riding the wave is not the same as sitting in the water while the wave lifts you up and puts you back down. That can feel great but once the wave has passed, you’re still where you were to begin with. I don’t want to be in the same spot. I want to get on this wave and ride it all the way to the place where it dumps me.

I am convinced that God is doing something with us right now. So here are my thoughts:

Let’s not have more meetings.

Let’s not stand around and wait for something to happen

Let’s not close our eyes and wait to feel all warm and fuzzy.

Let’s get out there.

Let’s be more generous than ever with our time, energy and money.

Let’s pray for as many people as we can for healing.

Let’s tell as many people as we can about amazing it is to know Jesus.

Let’s pour ourselves out for those who cannot help themselves.

Let’s feed the hungry, love the lonely and set the oppressed free.

Oh Lord, when this wave has finished, please do not let us be in the same spot we are.

Amen.

People.

Wimber, speaking as a church leader used, to say, “people do people stuff”. In other words: people are going to hurt each other: they are going to make mistakes; they are going to make stupid decisions; they are going to be predictably unpredictable; but they are also going to do wonderful things.

He also used to say, ironically, “I love the bridegroom [Jesus], but have you seen the bride [the church]”.

People. Man, we could do a great church without people.

Hmmm. Maybe not.

We’ve just done a series on the “Sermon on the Mount”. If you take out the chapter headings and the nice little “helpful” section titles and just listen to the words of a carpenter-rabbi from Nazareth, you hear the ones of someone who just loves people. He loves the ones who love him. He loves the ones who hate him. He loves the ones who tried to kill him. He loves the ones who tried to use him. He loves the ones who judge others. He loves the ones who are unfairly judged. He loved the ones who are divorced. He loves the ones who are oppressed. He loves the ones who oppress. He loves the ones who mourn; who are poor in spirit; who are without hope; the lonely; the downtrodden; the Pharisees; the zealots; the Romans; and even, most unbelievably, he seems to love Christians (although there were no Christians present at the sermon on the mount, obviously).

Christians who malign him; misrepresent him; do the most abominable things in his name; curse him; hurt him and treat him like a religious set of rules and he even loves the ones who say that he hates people.

God just loves people. Really, really, really, really, really, really loves them.

He just loves them.

He just loves us.

Maybe, just maybe, if we got the tiniest inkling of just how much he loves us then we just would not do half the things that we do.

Maybe, just maybe, if I had the tiniest inkling of how much I am loved by the creator of everything that I will ever know, then I’d be able to begin to love people like he loves them.

Imagine a church which is known for just loving people.

Now that’s a church that I’d want to be part of.

It took EIGHT months to get into the Old Chemist. EIGHT!

The longer it went on the more I prayed and the more dependent on God I became. Even if it was just to bang my fists against his chest and shout at him for not making it happen quicker. But that’s just because I am so godly and patient!

Then it all just happened. Suddenly. One minute it’s not happening, the next I am literally running up and down the high street in Southampton getting documents signed by lawyers and bankers drafts from banks to lawyers and then keys from agents.

It has felt as though I have been pretty much running ever since then. Crazy! Fix the roof; fix the boiler; electricity on; gas on; water on; alarm reset; rubbish cleared out; shelves up; move stuff over; clean the place; cut keys; cut keys again because they were done wrong in the first place; buy stuff etc. etc.

In the midst of it, in the rare moments where I can think, I remember that it was Jesus’ idea in the first place, and that in the middle of the “stuff” it is so easy to lose sight of him. Often, people talk about how busy they are as some kind of badge to say how important they must be. Or maybe that is just me? Honestly, I think this is the opposite of the values of the kingdom. I think that when I feel the most busy, it is when I am least focussed on Jesus.

We have a race to run. Ours (Southampton Vineyard) seems to have taken us (as least for the moment) to a shop front in Bitterne Triangle, but if I fix my eyes on the shop front and not on the author and perfector of my faith then I am seriously going to get lost.

We’re nearly ready now. It can so easily feel as though you’ve reached the end of the race, when all that has happened is that you’ve made it to the starting blocks. The scariest thing now is that we actually have to deliver. We can all talk a good race. I’m great at that – talking – but what about the doing.

So, what am I looking at? The Old Chemist? The jobs that need doing? What we’ve achieved? The exciting ideas? Or Jesus – you know, the one who had the idea (in this case the Old Chemist, but for you, please slot in the appropriate words) in the first place.

Something in me just keeps nagging that if I’d kept my eyes fixed on him throughout this entire process then the whole thing may just have been a LOT more fun and a LOT less stressful. I am sure that my stubbornness will prevent me from learning from this, but it would be good if I did though.

Hmmm.