Thoughts & opinion: 2007 archive

When things work out different...

by Matt Hyam on 10th Dec 2007

Well, I had it all beginning to take shape. I was beginning to see why I had come on sabbatical. I even had an outline for a book...

Then our human torpedo son came flying down a waterslide that was MUCH steeper than any of us realised and hit Di so hard that he broke her wrist. Proper broke it too!

So, now she is incapacitated. She can't change a nappy, pick up Sam or even take a shower on her own. So much for my contemplative time of reading and prayer and meditation and enjoying nature.

I cannot help feeling that God was not taken by surprise by all this and so he must have some kind of plan in all this. Whatever it is, it means we will be dependent on others for help. It means we are not going to be wondering around the wilds of New Zealand as a family and it probably means that Di will not be diving with Dolphins.

Yesterday I was speaking at the Vineyard West Auckland. The director of Tear Fund New Zealand was there and he showed a short video about Darfur.

When you think about it that way, we're not suffering at all. Not even a little bit.

So, how do we respond when things work out different from the way we thought? Have they gone wrong or does God have something else..?

I wonder...

by Kay Bowen on 28 Nov 2007

After a long break, I was back at the Godly Play classroom in Abingdon.

It felt good to walk into the room. Calm and peaceful, after a frenetic early morning start shipping girls off to school and nursery and sitting in a traffic jam to Winchester. There were 12 of us, which is a good number for Godly play to function well. We were all seasoned 'players' as this was a development course, studying some of the new stories which have been written and trialled to 'fill the gaps' in the old testament 'Great Story'. The godly play we do in the Autumn term covers Creation to the Exile, in a very broad brush approach - and these new stories provide some details. The life of Joseph, Abraham, Sarai, Moses, Ruth, Elijah, and Ezekial (who doesn't often get much of a mention in anything, poor guy).  

When training on Godly play with adults who know the stuff, you can get beyond the talking about the process and how/why it works, to actually wondering together. Lots of my conversations about godly play focus on the first, but it is in wondering  together, in being different and seeing something which at first appears opposite to someone else in the circle, which is where the wonder works on everyone. Someone's thought is offered and it is ok to offer another which follows on, which seems directly contradicting, or is on another tack. There is a respect in the community and a trust in the story which work together. They produce community. A community where people can ask, where no one assumes they know more than another, where people support each other and agree to disagree without that coming to conflict. Where the teacher is as much a learner, genuinely, as the others in the room.  

At the end, one of the circle asked if we could all hug before we left.  We all hugged each other and gave each other some encouragement as we went back to our different church families, schools or other settings to use godly play. That is the amazing power of godly play, you can end a day with strangers being friends, with divides being crossed, with difference being made complete.

Baby boom!

by Matt Hyam on 12 Nov 2007

I have literally lost count of the number of children we now have in our church. I do know that we will have had FIFTEEN born this year!

This is an amazing time. Fruitful, to be sure!

Here's my current struggle, as a parent of two amazing boys.

I can't make it to as much stuff as I used to; and this means that I am not able to get to prayer meetings, or help with support work for CAP or get to help people move so easily or serve others or help them decorate or drop everything to help someone.

I don't turn up on people's doorsteps like I used to; and this means that I don't see anything like as much of my friends as I used to and so I can feel more isolated or unloved or they can feel more isolated and unloved.

Now, I absolutely adore my children and my wife. I think that I have learned more about how much God loves me through them than anything else, so please do not misunderstand me. But here is the thing - we have a church FULL, and I do mean full of people in a similar situation to us.

And that means that most people cannot make it to as much stuff as they used to, and so it is hard to get prayer meetings to happen or get a team of support workers for CAP or get a load of people together to decorate someone's flat or, or, or... Its not that people's spirit's are not willing; its not that the flesh is weak, its just time .

That also means that most people do not turn up on one another's doorsteps any more. Community has always been what we have done best and yet, let's be honest, its not how it used to be! I miss my friends who used to turn up and flop round here or whose house we'd just rock up at for a cuppa. I see single people feeling unloved because the onus is always on them to visit and I see families feeling unloved because their friends are in the same situation that they are in and so no one comes round anymore.

What a depressing picture I have just painted. Actually, its a amazing and exciting and fun to be in the middle of but these couple of things keep nagging at me.

How do we still reach out together and serve together and be an outward facing church, when we have a church full of small children? There are many here who do it really well and the children have been releasing in this. If we are honest, most of them are women and most of it happens in the daytime (and there is NOTHING wrong with that) but what about the men and the stuff that needs to be in the evening?

How do we really, honestly maintain genuine community with our lives in common, when we have a church full of small children? Some of the guys here do it really well, but honestly - most don't (and that includes me) and people are not being loved the way they should.

These are my assumptions:

• Children are not a burden and so they are not a barrier stopping us from being who we should! The kingdom of God is centred around such as these!
• We are called, first, to our family and so we shouldn't be dumping the kids so that we can do "the Lord's" work.
• We have to pray together, we have to reach out together, we have to work together, we have to serve together.
• We have to love one another and live in genuine community.

So how do we do it?

I know that we need to change but that is as far as I have got.

As the deer pants for the water...

by Matt Hyam on 2 Nov 2007

...so my soul longs after you.

But does it? Honestly? Really, truly, hand on heart, no word of a lie?

I am reading the psalms at the moment. Now I like poetry as much as the next man, but I must confess that I'd rather be reading narrative. Anyway, I digress. I read that psalm - and I should be able to quote the reference straight of really. Hang on, I'll o and look it up in order to be holy about it!

Psalm 42.

Rest assured, I know my bible references. That is what is important, you know. They'll be a test when Jesus comes back! aha.

Anyway. I read psalm 42 and I thought,"hmmm, I don't think that I feel like that at the moment." There have been incredible times when I have felt that way but right now, I don't think that I do. And I want to.

I read through some more psalms. I have got to say (well, I haven't but I will, anyway) I am not a big fan of David's psalms. AARRRRGH. You can't say that!

Well, I'm just being honest! I think he's got his head up his backside a bit. Always whinging and complaining and expecting God to get him out of trouble. Its all "me, me, me". If you don't see me again, you'll know that I was struck down by a lightning bolt!

Having said that, what comes up time and time again in his psalms is that he is putting all of his trust in God. That he knows that God will be the one to protect him and get him through.

And then it struck me that I just do not do that. Is prayer my first option? Is Jesus where I go to whinge and moan and kick off - or is it someone else?

Its funny, when we were all praying for Charlie, we knew that there was no other option. We knew that if God didn't do it, then it was not going to happen.

Why oh why oh why, do we need to be brought to the place that we have run out of options before we turn to God. Maybe it is not "we". May be it is just "me"

I keep remembering a song that we used to sing in our early, early days. The first line went:

Give us back our first love, like the love when we first knew

So,thats me right now. I don't want to be so busy doing "God's work" that I miss God. I don't want to be so wrapped up in stuff that I cannot see Jesus. I don't want to find my strength from TV or videos or books or even sleep.

I want to be like a panting deer again!

Keeping safe

by Matt Hyam on 04 October 2007

Please excuse me not having written for a while. I've been on holiday.

Yes thank you, a lovely time, since you ask. The weather was not as good as it could have been but was still nice but I did not get as much water skiing (I say, "water skiing, as opposed to just "skiing" because, apparently, there's another kind) as I'd have liked.

Still, its a bonus to get back and find the water flat and the sun still shining. I may be perusaded to put on a wetsuit for my next ski though!

Anyway, enough about my leisure activities.

I am still reading "The Irresistible Revolution" STILL!? 'Fraid so. Two small children, you see. The younger is still not sleeping through the night and so reading has become a luxury! I'm trying to listen to lots of stuff though when I'm in the car. Anyway. I'm still reading it and it is still really messing me up. In a good way. Not a comfortable way or a way that I can say I am enjoying even at all but more like when you put TCP on a spot and it really hurts but you know its doing you good!

Boy, I am rabbiting this morning!

Anyway. Here's some more quotes to think about today.

"I had a college professor who said, 'All around you, people will be tiptoeing through life, just to arrive at death safely. But dear children, do not tiptoe. Run, hop, skip, or dance, just don't tiptoe.' In my youth group days, I had seen too many wild would-be Jesus radicals fall by the wayside because they had never been trusted with the adventure of revolutionary living"

"...recently [my mother] told me,'I have come to see that we Christians are not called to safety, but we are promised that God will be with us when we are in danger, and there is no better place to be than in the hands of God.' Perhaps the most dangerous place for a Christian to be is in safety and comfort"

It made me think. What can I say, they have a volvo. Last yearI remember a conversation in which she was involved with some waterskiing friends. We were discussing just how many things you need to be thinking about whilst you're skiing - weight on the front foot, back arm straight, ski wide round the buoy, slow turn, wait for the ski to turn etc etc. My mother-in-law then chipped in, "and staying safe".

It always stuck with me because, actually, when you are concerned with staying safe, you automatically adopt a defensive body position - you bend in the middle and put weight on your back foot, which actually, leaves you extremely vulnerable to injury and very likely to fall. I can vouch for this having twice broken ribs skiing.

Actually, much of teaching waterkskiing is about teaching people to overcome their natural inclination to stay safe. That is why it is so unnatural (as if be dragged across the water at 60mph on a stick wasn't unnatural enough anyway!) If you concentrate on trusting what you are told and skiing properly and do not worry about staying safe - then that is the safest way to ski.

So, stay safe!

humbled, amazed

by Matt Hyam on 05 September 2007

I don’t want to tell too much of the story because, in a sense, it is not mine to tell – I shall let Duncan tell it.

However, I will tell a little.  The last few days has been one of incredible grace, amazing miracles and community in unity. 

Charlie and Daisy were born on Tuesday, 28th August.  Charlie had a traumatic birth which left him with very little chance of survival and if he did, he was certain to be severely brain damaged to the degree that he may well have been on life-support for his entire life.  This is my understanding – excuse me if the facts are slightly wrong here.

I have never known our church to gather round and pray like they have done this week.  Friends and family were contacted and people all over the world were praying a fasting for this little baby and a miracle.  I spoke to Pastor Sam – our dear friend in India – and he told me that all of his orphanages were praying and fasting for Charlie.  We had two days as a church praying and fasting.

I’ll be honest, I really did not expect what happened.

Basically, this little boy looks like he’s going to make it.  Its going to be a long road and he could still be disabled to some degree or another.  But, in the words of the consultant, “this is nothing short of a miracle”! (I am actually wondering whether the fact that the consultant admitted this or Charlie’s healing is the biggest miracle!)

I am left humbled and amazed at God and at our church.  We’ve learned a lot about prayer this week. 

I really hope so, anyway!

uncomfortable

by Matt Hyam on 28 August 2007

I'm still reading "The Irresistible Revolution". I have to say that this is the most uncomfortale book I have read in a loooooong time!

Here's some quotes that spring out to me:

"When we are trying to teach kids not to hit each other and they see a government use voilence to bring about change, we start to consider what it means to give witness to a peace that is not like the world gives (John 14:27)"

"I heard that Gandhi, when people asked him if he was a Christian, would often reply, ''Ask the poor. They will tell you who the Christians are'"

"When we truly discover love, capitalism will not be possible and Marxism will not be necessary"

"The early Christians taught that charity is merely returning what we have stolen...

"The early Christians used to write that when they did not have enough food for the hungry people at their door, the entire community would fast until everyone could share a meal together...[they] said that if a child starves while a Christian has extra food, then the Christian is guilty of murder"

I told you it was uncomfortable. easy to brush aside, though - if we are so disposed! Hmmm.

post modernity, post christendom, post a letter

by Matt Hyam on 6 Aug 2007

I've just finished Brian MacLaren's book - "A New Kind of Christian" last week. I've been listening to it on audio CD on account of not seeming to have any time to sit down and read - see item on 13 July (running on empty).

Its pretty good. If I had read it five years ago, I'd probably be saying that it was amazing. Its just that I have read many books saying similar things.

I have just had this "thing" buzzing round my head since I finished it, especially in the llight of reading "The Irresistible Revolution". I have been thinking about how much time iis spent nowadays discussing how we "do" church (whether in the light of post-modernity, or post-Christendom or whatever)

I just cannot help thinking that God is not that interested in how we do church. I think that he is completely obsessed with what church is actually for! I wonder whether if we focussed on what we are actually here for - Matt 28 - making disicples; Luke 4:18,19 - releasing the oppressed etc, then "church" will shape itself.

I think that I don't like the term "doing" church very much. I prefer being church. So, how we are church should be the inevitable result of "the Spirit of the Sovereign Lord" being on us and us being ambassadors of Christ. I guess that this is the same as what Steve Chalke says in "Intelligent church" - our understanding of Christ shaping our mission, which in turn shapes our church (and not the other way round, as in most cases).

What am I babbling on about? Well, I have just been thinking about people like the Church of the Saviour, Shane Claiborne, Mother Teresa, Pastor Sam (our friend in Tamil Nadu), India, Kathy and Keith (our friends in Zimbabwe) and Paul of Tarsus, and, while we're on it, Jesus!

How do/did any of these people do church? I have no idea! Who cares? We know almost nothing about how Jesus did meetings. We have one record of him singing a hymn. Paul gives us some clues on doing meetings, but it is mainly about being considerate and letting everyone contribute (1 Cor 12-14).

The thing is that church is meant to be body of Christ in action. Its like we have got so focussed on body building that this has become our goal. I spend a lot of the winter trying to do some weights and stay fit (ish) so that I can waterski better. The training is for a purpose and not for its own sake.

Maybe, we should build the body for a purpose? If we lose sight of the purpose then what are we doing? I wonder whether the problem starts when we are only building the body for vanity's sake!

Surely, God will judge us by who we were in Christ and this, according to James, will be shown by what we did in the name of Christ. Not how we met or structured things in the name of Christ.

I look at some of the great people throughout history who just got on with it. They are the ones we need to listen to. It is an interesting observation how many of them historically and currently are catholics. How funny that the oldest, least post-modern, post-Christendom denomination seems to include the most radical saints (obviously this is not true of all catholics and also it is not true that all non-catholics are not radical). They just get on with it.

I have found Shane Claiborne's book hard to read because it is not just interesting theory - he's living it. It makes me uncomfortable. I think that I need to spend less time having interesting intellectual conversations and be made even more uncomfortable.

Nice.

I'll look forward to that then.

where are these children now?

by Kay Bowen on 27th July 2007

Recently I read a piece on nurturing children's spirituality – which I think is what we are trying to do in our kids work ways. Nothing new, just reminded me that for children, God is as real and normal as mum or dad. That whether a being is visible or invisible is not as much of a big deal for children as it is for adults, and that our task is to protect and preserve that position, and give children a vocabulary to share their experiences and questions, rather than to give them answers.

When I did my Godly play training course, the question I asked was ' Where are these children now?' Surely, my brain said, children brought up on a diet of open dialogue, big questions, creative and personal reflection  and so on, should be living in a different world to the rest of us as adults by now? Surely they would all be calm, reflective, godly adults who are like I want to be – like Jesus. I was told that lots of people asked that question, and Jerome Berryman (Godly Play founder) answers: 'Well I married 4 of them'. Not as in, he is married to 4 people, but in that they came back to him as adults to ask him to officiate at their weddings. I don't think that was really enough for me. I wanted to hear that they were changing the world! That those children who had grown up on GP were out there making it a better place in up front and newsworthy ways. But that is just where I and Godly play, and indeed I and Jesus, slip apart.

Jesus tells the leper to show himself to the priest, present the offering needed and then go home quietly. A life changing moment, a meeting with Jesus, a childhood rich with meetings with Jesus in the calm of a godly play classroom – and Jesus just says to go home? 'My ways are not like your ways', Isaiah 55.. is my reading this week. How unlike God's ways are my ways. I want people to be upfront, noisy and out there forging ahead with making a massive difference for the poor and the oppressed. But Jesus says to keep quiet and go home. That first godly play cohort of children, now adults... just getting on with the everyday stuff of getting married, living, working, probably nit combing their children's hair every night like I am right now. But we are all changed, in turning to go home, in embracing the ordinary mess of everyday life, in little ways that no one else sees, that is where 'a seed grows into a tree so big that all the birds come and make their homes in its branches'.

The irresistible revolution

by Matt Hyam on 26 July 2007

My dear friend the doctor (Eric Sandras - see below) has been banging on at me for sometime to read this book - The Irresistible Revolution - by Shane Claiborne.

So I bought it. Wow. What a great book. It is messing me up and making me feel sad and more than a little guilty. You have to read it.

Here's some great bits that have stuck out at me:

"Another World is not only possible, she is on her way. On a quiet day, I can hear her breathing" - this is a quote from Arundhati Roy.

"I am still passionately pro-life. I just have a more holistic sense of what it means to be for life, knowing that life does not jyst begin at conception and end at birth, and that if I am going to discourage abortion, I had better be redy to adopt some babies and care for some mothers"

"Two guys are talking to each other, and one of them says he has a question for God. He wants to know why God allows all this poverty and war and suffering to exist in the world. And his friend says, 'Well, why don't you ask?' The fellow shakes his head and says he is scared. When his friend asks why, he mutters, 'I'm scared God will ask me the same question"

These are just from the first two chapters! I have a feeling that there may be more to come.

It is much easier reading a book about God's heart for the poor written by someone who thinks its really important (theorectically) or by someone who is actually doing it, but lives in India or Africa where the culture is so different, or someone who did actualy do it but died fifty years ago when the world was different, than it is reading a book written by someone today, living it out and being genuinely radical and genuinely counter-cultural in a western society.

It got me thinking. Recently I spoke at the Vineyard Prayer Network weekend at Swanwick. It was weird for me because I'd been there before - 12 years ago - speaking at a conference for 17-25year olds. I remember it so clearly. I spoke about Daniel and how the way that the Babylonians defeated the young princes and leaders of Israel was not to kill them or imprison them but to smother them with comfort and luxury and wealth and turn them into Babylonians. Only Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael and Azariah refused.

I remember saying how now, while we have nothing, and this nothing to lose, we have the real chance to set up a radical lifestyle that will go on for ever before we get weighed down with the "stuff" the world throws at us and with mortgages and payments and responsibilities and ikea furniture and nice cars and two holidays a year and respectibility and we suddenly turn round and realise (or maybe we never will) we have been turned into Babylonians.

I remember a church leader around that time telling me that "you cannot build a church with students because they are too idealistic". I have thought about that lots and lots and lots since then. The only conclusion that I can come to is this. You cannot be too idealistic, you can only be too hypocritical to follow through your ideals!

I'm not even a quarter of the way through it and I am beginning to wonder whether I am too hypocritcal to follow through the ideals that I had twelve years ago standing in front of a load of young potential leaders telling them not to get onto the treadmill. Am I too far down the treadmill to go back?

So, back to the book. You'd better read it. Maybe if you do it quickly then put it away, that "I really ought to be different from this and there really must be more to life than this" feeling will fade away.

Or maybe not. God willing.

Liquorice

by Matt Hyam on 23 July 2007

We had a friend staying with us this week. Eric (sorry Dr Eric) Sandras, the world renowned author of "Buck Naked Faith".

Currently, he is the "teaching pastor" at the Desert Vineyard, Lancaster California. Previously, he led the Olympic Vineyard in Port Angeles, Washington. He is a great guy and I love him very much.He also challenged me and made me think. So now I don't love him quite as much!

When I visited his church in Port Angeles, I remember being struck by the incredible diversity of people living within genuine community in that church. Eric used to describe it as "Cowboys, Indians and addicts". The area has seven Native American reservations surrounding it, it is a a logging town and so has many "rednecks" and is also a bit of a centre for what our American cousins call "Granola heads" (which, to them, means some kind of hippy, eco-warrior, but to us, is just like an average European person). There are also a number of recovering addicts in the area.

What a mixture! And yet, here they are, all living and serving a loving Jesus together. Really together. Not just on the face of it. It is not a big church and so people really know each other and they still get on.

So here was the challenge. If the church is made up of homogenous (Big word of the day) people groups, how does this address the prejudice and dis-unity within our society? He argued that we need churches that incorporate all ethnic groups (and I would add, class groups) in order to model the kingdom of heaven.

I said that I thought that racial issues and oppression are less of an issue here than in the US, which may be true. I argued that in Southampton we need to take a step back and look at the big picture of the whole church made up of several congregations rather than each church separately.

He wasn't convinced. Neither was my wife.

At the back of my mind I kept hearing Steve Chalke, from his Intelligent Church conference in September last year, saying "where is the mystery in a group of people from the same cultural group hanging out with each other?" He argues that the church should be a mystery. People should look at the unity in the church and see such diversity living out community and faith together and literally not be able to work out why these people hang out together. There should be no possible explanation other than Jesus.

Indeed, that is what Jesus seemed to say in John 13:34,35?

It takes allsorts to make the church.

At least, it should.

running on empty

by Matt Hyam on 13 July 2007

Tiredness is a funny thing.

Not that funny, really.

It is amazing that God wired us to need to sleep. Why did he do that? Why not let us just keep going without the need to sleep. Just think how much more we could get done - or more likely, just how much more rubbish we could watch on TV!

You don't really notice it when it is there, but boy, do you notice it when it is not! New Baby. Hmmm. I know why God would wirethem to sleep. I must have blanked it from my mind last time but I do not remember being quite this tired.

The thing is, when you are running on empty, you get to see the real you. The one that you know is there but normally you have shields up so it never really shows. But when you are exhausted you are naked. Exposed. Laid bare.

I am not sure that I like it.

No, I am sure. I really do not like it. I do not like this man who shouts at his son for being a little boy because he really would like him to be a statue for a while. I hate the man who just cannot get enough energy to care about much more than finding a way to prop up his eyes.

What I want is to sit down and be with Jesus for a while and feel alive again. Actually, there are two problems with that. First, if I do I will fall asleep and second, if I do I will fall asleep.

I am as introverted as it is possible to be. I cannot function without solitude and silence. The problem is that solitude and silence are not a good combination when you are running on empty.

So what do you do? You look forward to the time when you'll get more sleep. But that is not living! That is killing time. I have a beautiful 7-week old baby boy. He is not in the way of my life. He is a BIG part of my life. He is a joy to me. He is amazing. My life is just different from how it was. Trying to get back to what it was is a hiding to nothing. Its probably even sin.

Right now, I think that I am trying to just embrace life as it is - however hard that may be - and know that it is living. It may not be arranged in quite the way that I would arrange things but that is part of surrendering, I suppose. You are not the one who calls the shots.

Still. We have just replaced our car and the one we have now has cup holders. So its not all hard.

how did we get to this?!

by Matt Hyam on 01 July 2007

I was going to do a talk today entitled "The things I hate about Christianity". I changed my mind.

Then I got a text from a friend who is on holiday and had visited a world famous church that I shall not name. She was still a bit shaken up by the message which said that the gospel was good news for the rich and that if you were poor and could not afford your tithe, do not worry, just pay by credit card!!!!!! How did we get to this????!

I read Philip Yancey's book, "What's So Amazing About Grace" and his story of his friend iin the gay church having evangelical Christians shouting abuse and spitting at them for being gay. A friend at university told me that if he found out that someone was gay, then he would beat them up. He genuinely believed that this was what God would have him do. How did we get to this?!!

I heard recently that a guy I had known had told my friend that if someone was really a Christian, then God would not allow them to suffer at all. She was shocked and asked what if someone was raped or physically attacked. His response was that they could not really be "saved" then. How to we get to this????!

I love Jesus.

I really love the real Jesus.

I just don't get how someone can read about that Jesus in the Bible. The one who loves the lonely, cares for those for whom no one else cares. The one who challenges the religious people again and again and again. The one who serves and serves. The one who removes burdens from people - and criticises the pharisees for doing the opposite. The one whom, we are told in 1 John, defines love.

Many commentators say that Jesus actually took the word "agape" and used it in a way that it had never been used. He redefined the word. It is not found in the same context iin any other Greek writings. The definition he gave it is shown by how he lived, served and died for us. That is agape.

That is the real Jesus.

I love this Jesus.

This Jesus doesn't shout at people. This Jesus doesn't abuse people. This Jesus doesn't turn people away. This Jesus is good news for the poor. This Jesus does not need your money. This Jesus doesn't beat people up beause they don't agree with him. This Jesus does not point at the oppressed and say, "its your own fault for not trusting me".

This Jesus defines love.

This Jesus is amazing.

So, I ask again, how did we get to this?!

I'll look after them

by Matt Hyam on 22 June 2007

Twice in ONE day!

I was listening to a Rob Bell talk today. He mentioned Mother Teresa. I cannot shake it so I'm going to write it down.

On a visit to the USA she was asked what she thought about the abortion situation in the US. (Bearing in mind that this is THE single issue that means that ALL right-wing, conservative evangelicals vote Republican and is also probably what Christians in the States are most know for.)

Her answer was, "if you do not want your babies, give them to me and I will look after them".

Now that is the response that Jesus would give!

Dogma

by Matt Hyam on 22 June 2007

"You can't really be a Christian if you do not agree with my view"

I heard this opinion expressed this week. Specifically this was, as it often is, about creation. If you do not believe in a "literal" seven-day creation then you are not a Christian!

I have a few problems with this view.

First, nowhere in scripture does it say that you have to agree with everything in scripture to be saved. In fact, that argument means that nearly every gentile saved throughout the New Testament was not really saved at all!

Secondly, lets take the concept of "literal". The Hebrew word for "day" is "yowm". This word is also used for "year", "lifetime" , "days", "period of time" etc. So, our literal understanding of day is actually not literal at all. It is a literal reading of our interpretation of an English translation of a Hebrew word. So to defend this view as the "truth" is actually to defend several people's opinions and not at all what the Hebrew says!

Also, how long is a day? We measure it as 24 hours - the time taken for the earth to rotate. But on Jupiter, as it is so much bigger, a day is around 300 years. and if God was not standing on a rotating planet at all then how can one measure a day?

We also have the problem that the sun was not created until the fourth day!

I remember when I was a very young Christian, our Christian Union ran a "Grill a Christian" event. I remember someone asking a very reasonable question about dinosaurs. I was so flabbergasted by the ridiculous answer given that I spoke up. I said, because I believe it is true, that everything in the Bible is in the right order to substantiate the existence of dinosaurs. If we understand that a "day" could mean millions of years (and this is totally true to the Hebrew), then there is no problem.

The next day, I was take aside by the speaker and given a telling off. It was his view that dinosaurs never existed. I asked him about all the skeletons and fossils al over the world. His reply was, "do you know any of the scientists who claim these things? I know Jesus so I know that he is right!"

And what colour is the sky on your planet?!!!!!!

I think that it is extremely dangerous to try to label something as truth which is actually an intpretation (arguably a misinterpretation) of a narrow translation of another language in which the truth is written. The more that we are dogmatic about this, the more that we fight for our opinion and the less we fight for the truth.

I believe that the Bible is objective truth. I also believe that I have never met anyone in my entire life who has an objective view of it. We are all wrong.

The sooner we accept that, the sooner we can start learning. We are called to be disciples. Disicple means student. The moment we think we have the truth cornered, we are in trouble! The moment that we start burying our heads in the sand and not seeing or hearing then we have become utterly irrelevant.

My faith in Jesus is big enough to be challenged.

My faith in Jesus is big enough that I can re-evaluate my understanding of elements of it.

My faith in Jesus is exactly that. A faith in Jesus. Not faith in an interpretation of a translation of collection of statements written thousands of years ago in a foreign language.

Jesus said, trust me.

We may all be wrong and we may all still be learning but we can do that. Trust Jesus. That's a good starting point. The next step is love. Not dogma.

Food for the stomach

by Matt Hyam on 15 June 2007

I had stupidly thought that as I had not been sleeping well for the last few months, having a baby would be no different.

If I ever think anything like that again, please slap me.

I forgot what tired meant!

Anyway, I have found a thought. It was rattling round there somewhere under layers of exhaustion but I did find it.

I read Rob Bell's book "Sex God" last month (see below) and there is one comment from this that just will not go away.

He mentioned that the Ancient Greeks had a saying, "food for the stomach, the stomach for food".

Profound , ey!?

Possibly I should expand. The context is sex. The Greeks basically believed that sex existed to satiate their sex drive. So, if and when they fancied sex, with whomever they wanted sex, then they just did it. Homosexual, hetrosexual, boys, girls - whatever they felt like at the time. And why shouldn't they, if sex is just for their satisfaction?

But. If we have a sex drive in order that we enjoy sex and procreate and build intimacy iin our marriages like the Bible implies then it is a different story. Sex is for us, we do not exists for sex. If we exist for sex, no matter how much we kid ourselves we are free, we are a slave to it.

That got me thinking. This is so much the thinking of our culture - obviously about sex, but about so much more too!

If I want something, then I get it.

If I want to do something, then I do it.

If I want to eat something, then I eat it.

If I want to watch something on TV, then I watch it.

Etc etc.

We call it freedom.

But it isn't really, is it!?

If I cannot say "no" to my desires then I am a slave to them and I am not free at all.

The more I realise how much my life is governed by my desires, the more I realise how much of a slave I am.

It was for FREEDOM that Christ has set us free!

Curbs

by Kay Bowen on 12 June 2007

On Saturday I went to a training event with one of my heroes of the faith, Kathryn Copsey. Her book, ‘From the Ground up’, is the one of those ‘This is the book I would have written!’ ones – you know, when everything on every page is what you have been thinking and living with, but not been clever enough to articulate?

It was lovely to meet her, as a person. She runs Curbs, which is Children in Urban Situations, a project to resource and train people in churches working with children in urban areas, at low cost.  I use Curbs material with Girls God Gang, and we have also used it with our Sunday group to rave reviews.

Kathryn was teaching on the spirituality of children and it is so good to be reminded of my own thoughts and beliefs about children – that they are made in the image of God, have spirituality bubbling out from every pore at birth, and their setting and relationships either give them a scaffolding to help them express that, or squash it down. But however damaged a child’s spirituality is, it is never gone, that everyone made in God’s image retains something of that image however broken, abused, traumatised they have been.

A tower of Jenga bricks gave a great visual illustration of how damage in early childhood affects a child’s spirituality more than later damage – if you take a brick out near the bottom, the tower is a lot more unstable than if you take a brick from the top.

Kathryn’s work and life is about working with those children who have had bricks pulled out near the bottom of their lives, and the Curbs philosophy is to start where they are, not where you think they should be!  Obviously these children could be in a rural setting as well as in urban areas, but interesting to think about whether the availability of nature and places to wonder can help repair the damage – do children do better in greener places? Don’t know if anyone has researched that yet – Thornhill is very green but has more than fair share of Jenga bricks pulled out near the bottom of the tower. When I was at uni I did my research project on children and woods, and how urban children interpret and use ‘wild spaces’, so this is a fascinating intermeshing for me.

A time to be born, a time to die

by Matt Hyam on 27 May 2007

What a week!

On Sunday 20th May 2007 we had a baby boy! Samuel David Anthony was born two and a half weeks early weighing a colossal 5lb 5oz! He is amazing and his brother thinks he's the business!

Seeing Reuben with his baby brother is one of the most beautiful things I can imagine.

That's the good news.

On Monday 21st May 2007, my father-in-law was rushed into hospital with a serious heart problem. He underwent a nine hour emergency operation but they were not able to save him and he died on Wednesday 23rd.

How do you hold in tension the incredible joy of our new baby with the incredible sadness of Tony's death?

As the song says, "blessed be your name ...when the streams of abundance flow... when I'm found in the desert place". How often do you find yourself in both these places at once?!

Every blessing you pour out we’ll turn back to praise. When the darkness closes in Lord, still we will say. Blessed be the name of the Lord.

Sex god

by Matt Hyam on 15 May 2007

I have just finished Rob Bell’s book – “Sex God”.  What a fantastic book!  Read it.  Especially if you are married, or not married.  Really thought provoking.  I talks about God’s love for us, being created in his image, marriage, Jesus and the church.  I have yet to read or see anything from Rob Bell that is not fantastic!

cLimate Change?

by Matt Hyam on 13 May 2007

Recently I watched Al Gore’s film – “An Inconvenient Truth” and I thought it was fantastic.  I certainly think that the world would be a very different place if he had been the president. But that is another story.

The film deals with the issue of climate change and how we are affecting our planet – God’s planet, actually – by the way we are living.

Last week, however, I watched some of a channel 4 documentary – “The Great Climate Change Swindle”.  Now, that raised some questions!  Basically the thesis is that we are not affecting climate change but that the – indisputable changing that are taking place are due to the sun and have happened before and will happen again and that it is all part of a cycle.  I would normally ignore documentaries such as this because they often seem to be sponsored by ESSO or the equivalent.  However, the scientists involved in the program had a great deal of credibility – not least the one who was one of the top bods at Friends of the Earth!

But, here is the thing.  How do we respond as followers of Jesus?

According to the theory of climate change affected by human activity, those who will suffer will be the poorest people across the world.  According to those who argue that climate change is caused by the sun, we have to stop using up the world’s resources because those who suffer are the poorest people across the world.

So, what would Jesus do? 

Option 1 – (Climate change option) Should I stop wasting resources and living a lifestyle that will condemn the poorest people to even more poverty and eventually destroy the planet?

or

Option 2 – (Not climate change option) Should I stop wasting resources and living a llifestyle that will condemn the poorest people to poverty but will not eventually destroy the planet?

or

Option 3 –Should I carry on wasting the world’s resources and living a lifestyle that will condemn the poorest people to even more poverty because I really like being comfortable and having everything that I want when I want it and I am fundamentally selfish?

Tough choice. 

Blue Like Jazz

by Matt Hyam on 3 May 2007

Donald Miller.  Who is he?  Never heard of him.  But I have now!  What a great book.  The funniest Christian book I have ever read.  I laughed out loud so many times.  And yet, in the midst of laughing out loud, I got caught out by great profound statements. 

One of them was about asking God for forgiveness.  I have always found it hard to tell someone who does not think that they have done anything wrong, that they need forgiveness.  Its one thing if they come from a church background and so are used to having guilt piled on them and so forgiveness is a release; it’s a whole other thing if they have been spared that! 

But Don Miller talks about the state of the word and how the world is in the mess it is in because of me (and you, so don’t look smug!)  We like cheap clothes, so children in sweat shops make them.  We like cheap chocolate, so children in slave plantations in Cote d’Ivoire have to pick the cocoa, we don’t like walking so we use up the world’s resources in our cars etc etc… you get the picture. 

Don (I don’t think he’d mind me calling him that) says that asking forgiveness from God is holding my hand up and saying, “I have a part in this mess.  I am partly to blame.”

Now that is something I can tell people

roots to happiness

by Kay Bowen on 21 Jan 2007

I read this small article by Brian Draper and thought it was so good that I would post it here for you as well. It puts into words what I have been feeling about my community.

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Recently, I’ve been wondering: Does my ‘community’ work for me any more? I’ve been part of a little gathering of Christian searchers, church refugees, dreamers and mavericks for several years now, but it’s hardly a model of church growth to rival Mars Hill…

We share our beliefs with each other, yet we don’t always know what to do with them. As we’re experimental, it doesn’t seem appropriate to pin our colours to a mast, let alone to commit to a way, a path, a rhythm… And as I’m forever wondering privately if I and my family might move on, it’s hard to feel settled.

This week, I visited a place I mistakenly still call ‘home’. I spent all my growing years in the same small country town I was born in. I could walk to school – no 4x4 jams - and the same faces accompanied me the length of the educational journey. Although there was little to do in the town once the cinema was bulldozed, you felt a part of things, ironically, because you had no choice: you were going nowhere in a hurry. You knew, and were known by, everyone.

In an intriguing new book on community, Utopian Dreams, Tobias Jones laments the ‘uprootedness’ of life today, the worship of choice and the lack of a sense of the sacred in society. As an experiment, he lived with several ‘intentional communities’, most of which are spiritual, the best of which, he believes, are Christian.

Afterwards, enriched by the experience, he decided to stop travelling and put down some roots. He drew a circle two miles across on a map, with his house at the centre, and resolved to find community within it. Commitment to ‘place’ is like a marriage, he argues: by making a lasting decision, you dispense with choice, and gain the freedom to start living with those around you.

So, how long do you give a church, a place or a person before you give up on them? If my community doesn’t work for me, perhaps I should start working, instead, for my community. We can resist being tied down for as long as we choose, but life is short - it was the funeral of one of those schoolfriends that drew me ‘home’ this week - and I’m coming to realise that ultimately I don’t want my epitaph simply to say: ‘He kept his options open.’