Switching Off

Last night I got into the bath at about 1am with a nice glass of The Balvenie 12 year old single malt after a long day. The combination of hot water, strong alcohol and reading really helps me switch off. I decided to peruse my bookshelf for an interesting read for the bath. I'm pretty good at starting Christian books but by the time I get to the last 100 pages I can never be bothered to finish them. So I decided to start yet another book. My mate (who I respect philosophically) had recommended me The Reason for God by Tim Keller a while ago so I bought it and never started it. So I sat in the bath and started to read. The introduction is really good.

One thing he said particularly stuck with me: "I urge sceptics to wrestle with the unexamined 'blind faith' on which scepticism is based, and to see how hard it is to justify those beliefs to those who do not share them. I also urge believers to wrestle with their personal and culture's objections to the faith. At the end of each process, even if you remain the sceptic or believer you have been, you will hold you position with both greater clarity and greater humility."

That's really a challenge that I think we need to take to heart if we want to do 'mission', if we want to share faith with those who have doubts. All too often we take a dogmatic line to faith; I have the right answer & anyone's objections must be wrong on these grounds. Or sometimes we don't really engage with people- we construct a straw man opponent; all atheists must be as aggressive and closed minded as Richard Dawkins. In my experience most atheists are well thought out, intelligent people who would love to believe in God if he existed. They just don't think he does.

I think it is easy to be dismissive of doubt and of genuinely well thought out sceptical arguments. But unless we really engage with doubt, unless we understand the perspective of the sceptic and identify with why they believe what they do we can't expect them to really listen to us.

And after all I'm not a blind follower of Jesus Christ- I'm a seeker of truth. I just believe that Jesus Christ offers me a true fulfilment of truth. If something I believe isn't true, I want to root it out. I think it's a real challenge for how we do mission.

Do we believe the truth? And on what grounds? Unless we're prepared to properly engage and understand scepticism and disbelief I think we are in danger of alienating a whole generation of people who just can't believe.

Takeover

I was sat in a Merleau-Ponty lecture this morning and my mind wandered from the topic of an phenomenological approach to the problem of other minds (as it does...) and I started thinking about this weekend. I went away with a bunch of blokes from our Church and I was really challenged that we need to step up, we need to reignite the sleeping Church, to start reaching men and showing them what it means to be followers of Jesus. But I'm not entirely sure how much of a 'follower of Jesus' I really am. I need to figure this out before I can model it properly to other people. And so I wrote this prayer on my notes: Jesus, be part of my study, be part of my imagination, be part of my concentration, my reading, my lectures, Amen.

I am starting to realise how important it is to make following Jesus not just about praying more, reading more of the Bible more, going to Church more but starting to let Jesus transform the mundane. Being part of Crunchy nut cornflakes and belgium beers. Being a part of 15minute showers and 2hour lectures on consciousness. It's easy to write prayers like that, it's not easy to see what that looks like in actuality.

I have a mate who told me that he had a conversation with some friends the other day who said to him "you always bring Jesus into every conversation don't you" to which he replied "that's kind of the point isn't it?". The point of being a follower of Jesus is not that we live enhanced, that we live 'better' like we're living on a kind of upgraded life to everyone else. Jesus says (matt 16:25): "For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will find it."

Living a life focused on following Jesus is about living every part of our lives for him. The exciting, the mundane, the Churchy, the cheeky kiss with the girlfriend, the coffee with your friend, the phonecall with your mum, the bank account, the DVD collection, the degree. God is interested in all of it. And unless we learn to know what making God a part of all of that, unless we learn how to 'lose our lives' for Christ, we won't ever find our real lives, our Christ centred lives.

We can reinvent Church a million times over, have a preach in a pub, preach in a coffee shop, sing coldplay instead of matt redman, have interesting table discussions, we can pioneer all the forms of fresh expressions we like, grow as many cell groups and clusters as we can. But unless we start modelling real discipleship, real following in every aspect of our lives, we won't grow.

We might have more people in meetings, more 'converts'. But I think there's a definite difference between converts and disciples. I'm not satisfied being a person who turns up to Church every Sunday and cell group every Thursday just to go on living and acting like everyone else. I want Christ and the kingdom movement to infest every aspect of my life. Otherwise I will lose my life.

I don't know entirely what it looks like to be honest, but I think it starts with realising that we cannot segment our spiritual and normal lives. If we've given up our entire live to follow Jesus- the pint in the pub with my mate is just as much living a life focused on Jesus as the two hour sermon on Sunday. The reading a great novel, listening to a great album is just as much worshipful (or at least should be) as singing Tim Hughes songs on a Sunday. We need to start seeing God in more things rather than less things. Otherwise it's going to be impossible to live devoted, Christ centred lives. I'm not suggesting that we all stop meeting in Church meetings, that we stop preaching sermons, stop writing crap worship songs (ok maybe I am suggesting we should stop this...) But rather that it just isn't enough. It's not enough for a Christ centred life to just do these things more.

We need to stop the attitude which says the only things that are of value, the only things that are worshipful and the only things which are focused on Christ are the things of organised 'Church'. I'm challenged to rethink what 'Church' is, what following Jesus means and how I can make that prayer I wrote on my lecture notes an outworking in my life. That's what I'm striving for.