Thursday 23 November 2017

Called to Wrestle

Wrestling
For many people in the UK ”wrestling” is not a concept they would automatically associate with their Christian experience.  For some, the only kind of wrestling in which they engage is wrestling to stay awake during a boring sermon, or wrestling to stay gracious through a hymn or song which is not blessing them.  In his letters to the churches, and in his pastoral letters, the apostle Paul occasionally surprises me by the verbs he employs, such as describing a man who “labours” in prayer (Colossians 4:12).

There is only one reference to wrestling in the New Testament.(NT Greek word: palÄ“).  It comes in Paul’s letter to the church at Ephesus and chapter 6.  In that city today you can sit in the splendid historic amphitheatre where, no doubt, the citizens were familiar with wrestling tournaments.  Rules for Greco-Roman wrestling differ from the freestyle wrestling which is more common today.  The aim was to win against your opponent either by managing to pin his shoulders down for a prescribed time, or by accumulating more points than your opponent, gained by throws.  Either win is based upon the ability to throw your opponent off balance.

The word palÄ“ is translated in some Bible versions as “struggle”, but it has the sense of a contest, and I prefer the word “wrestle” as, for me, it describes the situation better.  Paul is stating that we are caught up in a situation, not against human enemies but a range of spiritual forces.  While on the surface it may seem as if, at times, we are in a battle with human forces, behind this there is something dark that is contrary to the holiness of God.  In the same passage, Paul speaks about the wiles or schemes of the devil. We have an enemy who craftily plots against us.

It is all too easy to become obsessive about spiritual warfare, but we do need to remain alert to the fact that we have an enemy who intelligently schemes to throw us off balance or to pin us down.  But if we draw on the strength of God, and use the armour he provides (faith, righteousness, our hope in salvation, truth, scripture, and our readiness to share the good news), we are well able to keep standing through the battle.

Personally, it is that sense in which the wrestler seeks to throw his opponent off balance, that has been speaking to me recently.  I originally thought that I would write something about the importance of keeping our focus in mission.  I even began writing about this.  It is all too easy to become distracted, so that the main thing ceases to be the main thing.  We find that other aspects of our Christian and church life take up our resources, so that we are no longer missional with a clear vision of what God is calling us to do.

In our most recent webinar, Gordon Banks and I suggested that perhaps the winter months after Christmas would be a good time to gather the members of our churches and reflect on who we are, how we got here, what we should be doing and where we are going.  Almost certainly the church where you fellowship and worship was established through evangelism.  Those who started the church had a concern that others should hear the good news of Jesus, and have passed on to succeeding generations that same task.  As indeed Jesus did. (How well are we doing with the one thing he asked us to do for him?)  I think it was Donald McGavran who said that the trouble with most Christians and churches is that we are busy doing things we should do but at the expense of the one thing we must do.

There have not been many occasions when I have consciously felt myself “under attack” spiritually.  One such occasion happened when, as a young man, I was in training as an evangelist and earning a living in a small government office.  I had taken ten days holiday from work in order to take part in a mission.  While I was away, some vital documents were found to be missing.  They were urgently needed for a tribunal hearing.  On the day I returned, I was summoned to the bosses office where I was falsely accused of failing in my duties by using the time for which I was employed to do Christian work.  I was only a temporary clerical assistant, and was warned to expect to be made redundant that afternoon when the Area Staff Officer visited.

Paralysed with fear, I made my way back to the General Office, where several colleagues worked.  On my way I felt God was telling me to look at the text at the top of the personal advertisements column in the Daily Telegraph.  I asked a friend if I could look it up in his paper.  When I read it I laughed out loud.  I read, “They will fight against you, but will not prevail against you, for I am with you to deliver you, says the Lord”.  That afternoon when the Staff Officer came to my office, I was offered a permanent position in the Civil Service and an opportunity of significant advancement!

Sometimes, I have sensed that a church or an aspect of church life has been the object of spiritual hostility.  Such an occasion came when members of the church, where I was at that time the minister, found that an employee in the College they had founded was acting against them.  Business skills were not their strong point and they felt helpless at the mercy of this woman.  At the church prayer meeting that evening I took a reel of cotton and asked people to securely bind my hands with many threads.  I had never done anything like this before.  We then prayed for some time that God would bind the hands of all that opposed the work they had set up as a mission.  I then asked people to cut the threads, which they did.  We prayed that God would set our friends and their ministry free.  Very soon after this. our friends nightmare ended as the woman resigned and immediately left.

The power of prayer is awesome.

At present there are two situations that affect me in which, it feels as if spiritual forces are at work.  I am not at liberty to describe these situations.  Neither immediately relate to our ministry, but they are certainly distracting.  If I am not careful I could be thrown off balance.  One involves a stubborn woman fighting against steps that could make her life easier; the other a man who has assumed unconstitutional authority in a church, causing disruptions.  In both of these separate situations, attempts have been made at the human level to resolve the problems, but the problems persist.

I am not implying that there is something implicitly wrong with the people concerned.  But I wonder if there is some power at work behind these situations.  We should not be surprised to find ourselves in difficult situations occasionally.  Sometimes these are of our own making!  But sometimes they are the result of spiritual schemes intended to throw us off balance or pin us down.

As we stand, will you please stand with us, and pray as you feel led.

Thank you.

Barry
23rd November 2017

From the Diary
It was good to be able to take a few days break last week.  Doreen was able to spend time with her sister  in Kent, while I visited another member of the family in Sussex.

Sunday 26th - Family Service, Goodwood Evangelical Church, Leicester.  Please pray too for the minister and members of Harborough Congregational Church (where I am a member) as they will be on retreat (hopefully advancing!)

Monday 27th -  School Assembly. Give thanks for a good session earlier this week as we considered ‘reconciliation’. The theme for 27th is learning to be wise.

Tuesday 28th  - Please pray for a consultation about rural resource churches.  I am not able to attend but think this is significant.  It is almost entirely Anglican.  I will be working at HMP Gartree.

Thursday 30th - Please pray for a meeting I will be involved in which will call for both wisdom and grace.

Friday 1st December - I will be sharing in a meeting considering the future of a Methodist village church that has seriously declined in members.  Again, pray for wisdom.

Please also give thanks for two donations received recently for Rural Mission Solutions from churches where I have ministered in the past.  Please pray that as our accounts close on 31st December, all costs will be covered so we can start 2018 with an adequate balance in the funds.

Saturday 11 November 2017

Slitting Up?


Sorry if I alarmed you!
The splitting only refers to the content of this issue.  However, if it grabbed your attention, perhaps that was no bad thing.  There are four matters to which I wish to draw your attention.

Making Time to Chat
Some of these men were strangers when they sat down. But clearly, they were all enjoying a
good chat.  If you walk around Market Harborough most days, you will find a scene like this.  Some people choose to sit down on a bench simply because they long for company to cure their loneliness or to break the boredom

Last Sunday I made an excuse to eat a satsuma while leading the morning service.  As I peeled it I reminded people of a regular article that used to appear in Readers Digest about unforgettable people.  I asked them to think of one person who has been significant in their life (from school, work, neighbours, etc).  By the time I has finished speaking, I had one of the pieces of the satsuma in my mouth, and told them it was too delicious to keep to myself.

Soon people were enjoying sharing the fruit, but many others had missed out.  Fortunately, I had
another 14 satsumas tucked under the lectern.  So, I passed them out encouraging people to peel and share them.  When the bag was empty I encouraged people to cluster in two or threes and for one in the cluster to talk about the person they had thought of.  The conversations buzzed for two minutes.

No one found what had happened embarrassing and all who had shred a satsuma or spoken about someone they knew, said they enjoyed doing so. Knowing Jesus is a wonderful thing and,

while we might not feel we could answer every question someone might ask, we could chat about Jesus.  It might not be as scary as we fear.  We concluded the service with a prayer that God would give each member of the congregation an opportunity to say something to someone the following week.

Why not pray that too? In fact, you could pray for at least one short chat a day.  But please don't preach or start quoting the Bible.  Just tell someone what Jesus means to you in your everyday life.


Growing a YouTube Audience
This is topic number two.  During the past week, my friend and colleague, Capt Gordon Banks, and I repeated the webinar on Mission Ideas and Resources for Christmas and the Winter Months.  It is full of super manageable ideas, plus plenty of links to free or low-cost resources that could add much to your Christmas and winter programme.  Of course, it can be seen on our website.

We have also been quietly building a YouTube Channel, where you will find other helpful
videos. In addition to the Webinar videos, we plan to add a series of short videos to help rural Christians and churches to share in God's mission in rural UK.  Increasingly, when people wish to learn something, they look online.

If you click the picture on the left, it will take you to the
YouTube channel. Once you get to the YouTube channel, please click 'subscribe.'  There is nothing to pay, but in this way you will receive notification each time we add another video.  If you watch a video and find it helpful, remember to 'Like' it.

Topic number three
is a hymn that I suddenly found myself singing while walking down a road this week.  It is many years since I last sang this, and I have been pondering the words carefully.  The theme is thankfulness. both in times of blessing and suffering.  The author, Adelaide Anne Procter was a friend of Charles Dicken, Arthur Sullivan, and many other notable people.  She was Queen Victoria's favourite poet.  As a committed Christian, much of her life was spent helping many of the most vulnerable in society.  She died aged 38.  Dickens was convinced it was her selfless and tireless Christian work that broke her health.  At one time she suffered deep emotional pain.

The hymn is, "My God, I thank Thee".  There is insufficient room here to include all the verses,
but I
will put them on my Facebook Page.  One verse goes, "I thank Thee more, that all my joy, is touched with pain; that shadows fall on brightest hours, that thorns remain; so that earth's bliss may be my guide, and not my chain.". The last verse reads, "I thank Thee Lord, that here our souls, though amply blest, can never find, although they seek, a perfect rest.  Nor ever shall, until they lean, on Jesus' breast".  The hymn goes beautifully to the tune, Wentworth.

I feared that this profound hymn might have been lost when more contemporary hymnbooks were published.  But I am delighted to see that it is 471 in Mission Praise!  It should be sung slowly and thoughtfully.  I hope it blesses you.

Barry
10th October 2017


Sunday 12th - HMP Gartree, leading the Remembrance Service
Monday 13th - School Assembly, Lubenham, Leics.
Tuesday 14th - HMP Gartree, preparing for Christmas
Wednesday to Sunday 19th - in Kent and Sussex for a short break

Saturday 4 November 2017

What's the point of Forgiving?

In the immediate previous posting I shared something of my experience of abuse in a Christian context.  I am grateful for the messages of appreciation and encouragement.  It is indeed never easy to write or talk about such things, but we make our churches safer and better by facing the dangers and minimising the risks.

When someone finds the courage to speak out about an experience of sexual abuse (and there are significant numbers who have suffered), if they do this in a Christian context, the most common response from the person hearing what is, for them, a difficult story, is to ask if the abused person has forgiven their abuser.  This contrasts with the response in a secular context, which usually focuses more on holding the abuser to account.    But asking if the abused has forgiven the abuser is just about the worst thing anyone could do.

Of course, forgiving is an important aspect of Christianity, but far too often the topic is broached with significant misunderstanding of what it is and how it works.  It has become perceived as a good thing to do, or the right thing to do, but without theological and biblical reflection.  The consequence of this where they have not completely forgiven, is to have an additional and false sense of guilt laid upon themselves.  What they need is to be listened to, understood, loved and supported.

It is common for sexual abusers (and other kinds of abusers) to apportion responsibility or blame on the person who has been abused.  “It was your fault for wearing that skirt or that top” etc.  Indeed, people who have been abused typically carry some uncertainty as to whether, at least to some extent, they carry some responsibility.  In some situations of abuse, the victim might experience an orgasm, leaving the victim confused.  It is vital to be clear that in any such situation, where fear, force, favours, or false information is used, it is not consensual.  Of course, there are other factors that determine sexual abuse, such as the age or competence of the victim.  In my experience in talking with people who have been abused I have always found the abusers to be manipulative.  They must accept total responsibility.

The Bible teaches us that while God loves unconditionally, he does not forgive unconditionally.  Nor does he expect other people to do so.  In responding to Peter’s question about how many times he was expected to forgive a person who sinned against him, Jesus firstly makes clear that a willingness to forgive should always be there, BUT he then tells an interesting parable.  In this story, a man owes an enormous debt.  He asks for time to pay the debt, but the creditor generously cancels the debt entirely.  Sadly, that man then goes to someone who owes him a relatively small amount. This man also asks for time to pay.  But the man who has just been forgiven an enormous debt attacks him physically and has him thrown into a debtors’ jail.

This is one of the most disturbing parables Jesus told.  It continues that the man who was owed the original extremely large amount hears about what has happened and reinstates the debt.  Then Jesus adds, “This is how my heavenly Father will treat each of you unless you forgive your brother or sister from your heart.’  While I don’t think that this is commentary on salvation, it does teach an important lesson about forgiveness that resonates with other passages of scripture including what we call the Lord’s Prayer.  Our indebtedness needs to be humbly acknowledged, and grace should be embraced with deep gratitude, demonstrated through a changed life.  If we know ourselves to have been forgiven, the grace that brought forgiveness to us should overflow towards others.

One of the things I draw from that parable is the two-fold aspect for the transaction of forgiveness.  It is impossible for anyone to be truly forgiven if they have not accepted responsibility for the sin, and then humbly accepted the offer of forgiveness made.  In saying that we forgive someone who has not accepted culpability, we may make ourselves feel better by letting go of any bitterness and resentment.  But we have only offered forgiveness.  The guilty party has not been forgiven because there has been no acknowledgement of need.

1John 1:9 tells us that it is when we confess our sin [to God] that he is faithful and just to forgive our sin.

Jesus also taught about the need for accountability and repentance (i.e. a complete change of attitude).  Verses 15 -17 of the same chapter as the parable, addresses the issue of accountability for sin and the need for judgement by the church.  Holding people to account and issues of justice are just as important as mercy. 

He has shown you, O mortal, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you?
To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.
(Micah 6:8)

Twice I told my abuser that I had forgiven him, but that if I ever found out he had done the same things to another I would blow the whistle.  I only saw what happened to me as “inappropriate”, and it was many years later that I discovered it was a criminal offence.  But this was only after I had learned that he had abused another person.  Did my failure to hold him to account contribute to subsequent abuse?  I did what I could back then.  Now wiser and better informed, I would have gone straight to the police.

When forgiveness is offered by nice people to bad people there are risks.  Firstly, not holding the person to account leaves him (or her) feeling they have got away with it.  Secondly, it leaves other people at risk from repeated wrong actions.  Thirdly, it delays closure for the victim.  Even though they may have found some blessing in offering forgiveness, the transaction and healing is not complete.  The victim needs to hear the words, “I am to blame, and I am sorry.”  If this said with sincerity, the forgiveness loop is closed.

So, what is the point of forgiveness?   It is not to make the forgiver feel better.  It is to release someone from the debt that is owed.  To give away forgiveness like sweeties without holding the guilty party to full account, fails to achieve the purpose of forgiveness.  It might make it possible.  But the offender remains accountable before God, and possibly society.  The purpose of forgiveness is to release someone from their debt.  Psalm 51 reveals David’s remorse for his actions.  In this psalm he acknowledges his sinful nature, his waywardness, and his deliberate transgression.  He casts himself upon the character of a holy God who has standards.  He acknowledges his dependence on God’s covenant love and mercy.  He also acknowledges that mercy cannot be bought with vast offerings, but that God looks for total contrition.  The psalm reveals true repentance as he seeks forgiveness and restoration.  I am sure that he found God’s forgiveness, but things were never the same for David after that.

Similarly, those who commit sexual abuse and seek forgiveness, should find that things are never the same. We best help repentant abusers when we create a healthy circle of accountability and set up a manageable contract of behaviour.  A truly repentant offender will have no problems accepting that.

For my part, I have no anger or bitterness for what happened to me.  I have been able to use what happened to help others and to help create safer churches.  My part of the forgiveness contract is on the table, and I long for the evidence that the offender is ready to receive it.


Barry Osborne
3rd November 2017