Thank you for your prayers

Friends and those who have been so good to me over the last few days, 

Thanks so much for your prayers and your love! 

Over the internet, not everything can be, or should be communicated. 

Some will know that I’ve been in Ukraine these last few days, and yes Ternopil Oblast, when the attacks came last Wednesday. A week on, my heart is profoundly moved by the way God is using the churches, our partners and projects at such a critical time. I know I am a stuck record, but what we are called to and our new start projects are never about projects, always about people. God is blessing these profoundly. 

Friends who have been widowed, ophaned,  processing trauma and grieving need relationship, true faithful long term friendship and they need Jesus Christ. This is why we do everything through local churches and long term partners who have been and are dug in for the long haul. In the process of helping them on that journey many friends in this situation also have great practical need, for todays’ food, bed, and a plan of where next they will live and start again from zero. I was with countless folks in their 70’s and 80’s who having lost their homes, families and everything in the East are now starting again, afresh. I am so encouraged by both our longstanding and new younger partners who are being so used of God. Their compassion, resillience, practical adaptability and truth filled witness of integrity under great pressure is a great commendation of the gospel. When people encounter the love of Christ in His church (John 13:35) it makes a profound radical difference in our world. Many have lost so much but found Jesus Christ, certain eternal hope. 

I had the privilege of being with those grieving and working on the ground.  I am not unfamiliar  to chaplain ministry amidst such a stark backdrop of tragedy and trauma, but this was utterly unique. My heart grieved in so many dimensions for those without hope. 

A new generation out of the ashes ?

 Sincere apologies for the delay in update. The Last 24 hours have been non-stop. Sunday morning was such a tonic. The church much fuller than last time was bursting with life, and a real sense of the presence of God. Sometimes things just seem orchestrated like a symphony. Present were those there for the first time, military from the frontline in recovery from injury after exceptional bravery, families in need of a word from the Lord and representatives of a nation who undoubtedly ask big questions with earnest seriousness. The word of God has all these things prepared. As we looked at Hannah and the big picture view of a God who hears our cry, we saw Christ the one who makes sense of all suffering, and has a bigger plan for us in his grace. In such a context the holiness and justice of God is a joy to preach. It is a great comfort to those who have been suffering at the hands of a tyrant to know that he will face God. 

So Good to be back even though times are hard.

 Thank you each and all for praying for us to arrive safely. We sensed God's protection and His going before us. In fact as we travelled one main road, a car (containing 5 adults) hit a big lorry just in front of us. The car was obviously very smashed, and hurtled into a ditch some 6 foot lower than the road. Amazingly all adults, some very elderly got out seemingly relatively unscathed other than a few cuts and bruises, We don't always know what chaos the enemy causes around us, but we do know for sure that He protects His people. Psalm 91:11-12

On arrival, I was offered to rest.  I guess I had been in travelling mode for 36 hours. Something better was on offer than rest... 14 brothers in arms having a leadership gathering to encourage each other and plan the future of youth and camp ministry. I was so privileged to be included, I jumped back in the car with enthusiasm and it didn't disappoint. 

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 have been interrogated. The tactic of imposing fear, opponents pouring 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 ones who 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, particularly 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."