Every local church should be unique, wherever it is.

 One of the things I hear regularly travelling is the moan that people have come in from outside and tried to make the local church a copy and paste expression of a church somewhere else. No doubt when well meaning Western Missionaries went to Africa and taught them the British hymnal they were thinking about truth and discipleship, but not contextually. No doubt when some well meaning Americans bought a white piano and pulpit for a rural church in Eastern Europe they were generously thinking about others enjoying what they enjoyed in church, but to the older sister who played the mandolin every week, the goats and chickens who looked on,  it seemed a bit incongruous, an alien conjunction. 

When we think through the nature of international and local churches biblically, how God has worked (throughout biblical redemption and in missional history), some basic things jump out at us. 

1. No local church can reach the world on its own. The gospel imperative demands that we work with people who are not like us, to reach people who are not like us. God has ordained a way in which we cannot impose our ideas (cultures) or rule (mini-kingdoms) over and above what He has put in place for the furtherance of His. This is awesome and brings glory to Christ. "All one in Christ" means diversity in unity not monochrome homogeneity. 

2. Every local church is to be an appropriate expression of grace and Christ to that culture. This means leadership needs nuanced training. Music and worship needs locally appropriate expression. Preaching needs locally appropriate application. Resources for reading and discipleship need to attend to the way of life and application appropriate for the challenges (opposition and persecution)  and people in that place. God is so good. In scripture He makes provision for all the above and gives so overflowingly to make it a joy. In fact He gives and gives again. Openhandedness and the gospel go together. When we open our lens to the wideness of His, we realise that His plans and purposes are higher than ours, more colourful, more diverse, more glorious. 

I say this out of respect for so many well meaning Westerners who love Christ, love the local church and have served long and hard. In truth, I think we are very, very slow to be flexible for God in these things. We are not the only ones of course, Asian believers can want the world to be Asian, Eastern Europeans want the world to be like them etc. I guess though, our consideration is what we are responsible to steward. 

When I have small moments of flexibility to fit in with the cross cultural opportunities that God so graciously gives me, other church  leaders and believers deride me as "a disrupter", an unruly unaccountable rebel because I do not necessarily go with the status quo from our sending context. My boxes and semantics are a bit more flexible, my openness to what God might be doing. Different is not always ungodly. In fact I've discovered different expressions of church community in their relational richness often do it better than my sending country, more authentic, biblical, real, more full of Him and His grace. 

 In reality, this has become a great encouragement to me when others spot that I am not sticking to my sending culture.

 I believe the Lord Jesus was and is the missionary, field worker, pastor, evangelist, discipler we copy. In every sense cross cultural, all nations ministry means that there will be disruption and flexibility according to The Spirit's direction. By definition of the one we follow we are to leave the glory we have known, the home, the comfort the safety and we go to lost sheep in broken culture to see it redeemed. My concern are those who limit the gospel and His kingdom to their own domain and culture, and what this says about God's presence, spiritual liberty and freedom.  Going nowhere in inflexibility is often hand in hand with reaching out to no-one. I've seen it play out so sadly, that the narrowing of a church (according to one culture or leader's preferences) brings the death of a local church within one or two generations. You cannot be a "gospel" church, local or international, without a wide angled lens disrupting your comfort and self built kingdom. Serve His, there is nothing better, and heaven will display it in perfection. 

Moldova 3 Moscow 0. A new unity in Europe as the wagons start to circle in Moscow, European intellegence is strategically on the front foot.

 It's been a busy week in Eastern European news,  but significant events have gone the way of democracy and freedom. Undoubtedly things are ramping up and the admittance that we are at defacto war with Russia (even if that war is a collective fusion of sabotages and cyber threats or a "hybrid" war) by the ex chief of MI5  shows the significance of all events in this arena. Of most note I think are two events. Both show that European intellegence is on the front foot.

1. Modova votes for democracy. 

Pray for those who have gone "underground" and our own debate on freedom of religion in the UK.

 Following on from yesterday's post about believers facing persecution because of their faithfulness, I received another friend's prayer request this morning. In their situation the church has been prohibited from meeting and those connected interrogated. The tactic of imposing fear, opponents pooring abuse and anger on the church is often followed by  a season of growth within the church. The issue is not whether the church meets in public or underground, the issue is the authentic presence of God proven to be in operation keeping His people in resurection power. The reasons for persecution in such instances are so illogical. If authorities were honest they would say they want to control society, to keep people from free thought, and control social and fianncial influence for themselves or the religious/ social structure they defend which is inherently abusive. In reality, many folks see through this. This is especially so in women who are often the most abused in such a structural system. 

 The clarity this brings, that God lives amongst his people, that women and any downtrodden are treasured by God,  and that human governance leads to hopelessness and selfishness is doing the church's work for them as the ground is prepared for the good news of Christ and God's word. I have seen this pattern countless times. However the immediate cost is paid by those who have laid aside their lives, reputation and comfort for the gospel to go forward. Pray particularly for women in this situation who are not only abused culturally regardless of religion, but especially intimidated if they belong to Christ. They are the one's often to pay the highest price for the growth of the church. 

Pray for those women who lead such women and are showing great faithfulness particulalrly in this specific situation. In this context the church is relatively young in an unreached / frontier region. However, the maturity being shown is nothing other than superaturally inconquerable. Leadership is influence. Many of these women have never had social status, but their influence for the kingdom is parabolic. 

As an aside in the light of this, let me say a word about the UK context and all that is going on regarding our debate of appropraite access for imigrants to make their home here. 

We want to be different, without this clarity the church does not grow.

 Hi Friends,

An encouragement to pray for some persecuted friends and to learn from their distinctiveness in following Christ. 

Two things came together for me this weekend. A clear word in our church plant context from one of the pastors preaching on 1 Sam 8-11 and some much awaited news of persecuted church in a frontier context. Sometimes we can read too much into circumstances colliding, other times we can miss God speak through what He does as well as what He instructs. An over academic approach can sometimes miss the bloomin obvious (theological phrase). God is so patient with us. 

Both are summed up by Romans 12:2, I make no apology for repeating it as it what God seems to be pointing me to so often in this season. 

"Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect."

In 1 Sam the issue is that the people of God wanted a King "like all the other nations". (1 Sam 8:20). Their issue wasn't actually that they wanted a King. Wanting Godly, clear leadership is a univeral passion that comes from the law of creation and our image bearing of God which hungers for fruitfulness (Gen 1:21, 9:1, 17:6) . No, the issue was that they wanted the same life as those who didn't want God. Therefore their cry was a personal rejection of God relationally, all He had done for them, and all of His wisdom to be LORD and protector over them. It was a passion that would do them no good. It was a retrograde step back to the land of slavery, bitterness and hardship (EX 1:13-14) from which He had rescued them, a desire to return to sin (as proverbs 26:11 so graffically states it). 

When the enemy comes to God's people he has a well trodden tactic, to show us what we don't need and does us no good, but to make us think that we are missing out by not having it. "Look what you could've won if you ran your own lives without God." It is a wide path as old as the hills (Gen 3:1) which leads to incomprehensible tragic consequences and destruction.

So back to the persecuted church. Saved from physical slavery, poor families and believers in their early days of faith  pooled their small savings from hard work in street businesses to build a small building for God's people to meet. As they saw God bless both with finances and new believers being added daily (Acts 2:47), a new row of bricks was placed to window level in the baking hot sun. Simultaneously a local mob of persecuters came, angered by this new venture of love, and destroyed what they had built, (well, physically anyway). We have been praying for them. I asked them "how they you doing?"

Their response was... "we want to show that we are different to those around us, that God lives in this community". "We have started to be much more open, and started to meet again together regularly". "We are very bold now, but we know our boldness does not come from us. We are ready to die for Jesus, it is what we agreed to when we accepted Him. Our churches are growing in THE LORD. We know these things come together. " The Pastor said "We are teaching them about strong relationships with our LORD and saviour, we appreciate your concern, love and prayers."

Continue to pray for friends in Odesa and places peppered with reminders that everything is being attempted even if nothing ultimately succeeds.

 Over the last few days there has been a significant increase in activity around the coastal region of Odesa. Rockets and drones of course are sadly not unusual. What seems more brazen is the constant efforts to target civilian targets as a gesture of street bullying by military means. 

The post service office was just one of many targets, which cannot be defined in any way as of military significance. From the beginning of this full scale invasion the objective has been to terrify, kill, torture and intimidate, not so much a milirary exercise as a terrorist plan of chaos and destruction. 

Too good for our world, too good for God ?

When we think we are too good for God, that we are virtuous and good for our world, there is no hope. 

We live in a sick and broken world. 

The response and reaction to the murder of Charlie Kirk was so revealing. There was enough online without me wading in. In schools of several Western countries there were numerous quotes from teenagers, assemblies and R.E. discussion groups saying "he deserved to die". One vox pop speaker in Amsterdam said on the streets,  "I don't know his positions, but i'm glad he is not with us anymore, it is a good thing."  and even a teacher was quoted as saying "we need more assassinations." The Western World has become an asylam run by the lunatics, and what it says makes no sense. Hate is irrational, and the depth and width of it present in our age is not isolated or confined. The Oxford Union President said "some institutions are too broken to be reformed, they should and must be taken down by any means necessary". Any means ? The celebration of a murder is as broken as it gets. To define life by getting rid of people and killing people who don't agree with us (especially when we don't understand what they stand for), is as inhumane as it gets. The value of human life has plummeted to subhuman levels. One spokewoman Lizzy Page became the centre of attention when she said she spoke on behalf of the those who said Charlie deserved to be " a human water fountain". She describes herself as a writer, poet and mental health worker. In these chilling words she describes mental and social health in  terms that can only be described as sick, without the remotest sensitivity to the human condition, with calculating callousness and ruthless grimness. 

A critical step has been taken. It only took 1000 days.

 Over the last 3 and a half years a constant conversation has gone around in circles about what could be done with the frozen Russian financial assets secured from banking sanctions after February 2022's full-scale invasion.

 Numerous complex and protracted discussions have deliberated on what was legally permitted with such frozen assets. What became clear over the last few days is that because Russia has clearly not complied with international law, the way is open to utilise these assets for the protection of Ukraine and European citizens. What still makes us want to scratch our grey matter is why this elementary analysis took so long.

Although the European union can be ponderous with decision making, on many fronts, it appears that when critical action is needed and Europe faces an existential threat or crisis the rubicon is traversed, laws can be changed. Put another way, when Europe is truly going to foot the bill, it sees the wisdom in trying to contain the cost and limit the tab.