Exploring Streams

 Exploring Streams

II was fortunate to grow up close to woodland and a large Park in Hastings and St Leonard-on-Sea.  In those days it was relatively safe to allow your children to go out to play for hours.  It was an excellent playground and we had all kinds of adventures, built camps, climbed trees, and fought off attacks from rival gangs.  One of my happier memories was exploring rivers and streams.

Donning wellington boots, I used to wade through the waterways, exploring every aspect until I reached the source.  One stream flowed from the overflow of a large reservoir.  Tracing that further back took me up Old Roar Gill, a stream that passed through a deeply wooded high banked area, where a rival gang was based.  Exploring this provided hours of fun as I sought to find out where the stream started

Many years later I explored the River Manifold.  This Derbyshire waterway is particularly interesting as it flows from Axe Edge, near Buxton but mysteriously disappears along the way, only to reappear further along its route.  This phenomenon only occurs in the summer when there isn’t so much water running.  The river, of course, passes through underground caves.

This is not unlike theological streams that flow through the Hebrew scriptures (Old Testament).  During a series of Bible Studies I held at HMP Gartree, I asked the men who attended the sessions how many theological themes they could spot in Genesis.  We filled up two sheets of flipchart paper!  Like the River Manifold, the streams follow an intriguing course as they flow on to the life of Jesus Christ, sometimes clearly visible, but occasionally disappearing for a while.

This Sunday, 17th January, we have mixed the metaphor as we look for some “Gospel Gems in Genesis”.  Do please join s if you can.  The link is below.

Another stream I have enjoyed exploring is my personal stream of faith.  It may have risen in my home where my father and mother both had roots within the Salvation Army, though they were not Salvationists at that time.  As the stream flowed on through Sunday School from a very early age, the flow became more obvious.  Then in my teens it seemed to disappear for a while, but even when not visible, it was being swelled from tributaries such as my RE teacher who used archaeology and science based films to help build faith.

The stream surfaced again, later in my teenage years, but its flow seemed fairly feeble until suddenly it burst out in full flow after I surrendered my life to God and was baptised at the age of 17. Since then it has flowed steadily and, I hope has helpfully overflowed its banks to water the surrounding parched land.  I find the stream of faith to be a helpful image, and I commend it to you.  Why not try mapping your own experience.  Do you know where it started?  Can you map the tributaries?

The river through the park, in which I used to wade, flowed on through various ponds, disappearing into concrete conduits through the town as it eventually flowed the short distance to join the English Channel.  On its journey from Old Roar Gill it gave life to trees and flowers, and satisfied the thirst of countless birds, animals, and helped supply the needs of  local inhabitants and helped to keep them clean.  The river of our faith is meant to do likewise as we journey on to our destination.  Jesus said, “The water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” (John 4:14)   Let’s pray for a flood!

Love is flowing like a river,
Flowing out through you and me.
Flowing out into the desert
Setting all the people free.
Let it flow through m, let it flow through me,
Let the mighty love of God flow out through me.

Response: 

• Pause and thank God for each person and situation that fed into your personal faith stream 
• Express your thanks to anyone who is still alive. 
• Reflect on the impact your faith stream is having on others at this time.

Barry - 14th January 2021
Rev Barry Osborne
CEO Rural Mission Solutions
4 Clarence Street, Market Harborough,LE16 7NE
barry@ruralmissions.org.uk
01858 414930

Who are you? (Part 1)

There must be little on earth as exciting as being part of a church that has a clear and shared understanding of why it exists and its part in God’s mission for the times in which it is living.  

It has been my privilege, during my many years of ministry, to be in such a church on three occasions.  The first was in an urban context, where I was part of a shared ministry and leadership team, and the others two occasions were in rural contexts, where I served as an ordained minister.  In all three churches I witnessed numerical and spiritual growth, and felt that I was on an exciting journey with God.  Sometimes we stumbled on that journey; at other times it felt as if we were running.

At the individual level, most Christians seem to have a sense that God has a particular purpose in calling us to become followers of Jesus Christ and part of his Church.  The apostle Paul’s teaching in 1Corinthians about the Body of Christ provides us with an excellent model for understanding what churches are, and what they are for.  Each person in the Church has a particular role that serves the whole.  Paul describes them as the various members of a body; some apparently more significant than others but actually, all are essential for the wellbeing of the whole.

What I have found exciting is what happens when we start to translate the purpose of God for individuals into what is God’s calling and purpose for a local church or congregation.  The individual parts of a body are not intended to be disparate and unrelated to the others but complementary, contributing to the nature and actions of their combined existence.  The failure to make that connection between the individual and the local church is one of the most disappointing characteristics of western Christianity today.  It is also, potentially, one of the exciting prospects, and not that difficult to discover.

Forty years ago, I set out on a journey to help rural churches become distinctively missional in ways that are particularly appropriate for each individual church within its own unique environment.  Along the way, the vision became clearer and the processes to achieve it became better understood.  One aspect of its embryonic development took place in the urban context.  I was part of a leadership team made up of three key members of an organisation that had been established to carry out rural evangelism in the UK.  

A struggling independent church in the town where the organisation was based believed that what was happening through the mission organisation in rural locations could also help them.  In responding to this call, the new shared leadership and ministry automatically brought a culture of mission.  The church quickly revived and, for many years, played a key part in the life of the town.  

Because the mission team was also committed to its work beyond the local church, and was frequently absent from it when engaged in outreach elsewhere, it was necessary for the other members of the church to take on much of the life and work in the town.  During this time, I was introduced to some church growth research which suggested that one Christian in ten had the gift of being an evangelist.  In order to explore this in our own church I took as the criterion for determining who had such a gift, a person who was always ready and comfortable sharing their testimony and the gospel story with other people.  We had more than ten percent.

Having identified the people who were the evangelists among the congregation, the  challenge was to help them to develop and find different ways of using their gift.  At the same time it raised the question, “So what are the other 90% supposed to do?” Some had already taken on pastoral and other ministries.  Sadly, the church never developed this into a structured concept, but the seed of a concept had been sown and was beginning to take shape.

A chance comment during an outreach, a question raised in a mini-conference on rural mission, and an opportunity to undertake a university course on management were to play their parts in developing the embryo into a fully formed and mature process.  But more of that another time.  There may be enough here to spark your own thinking about how your church might be shaped for mission.  What are the gifts and ministries, actual or still potential, discernable in your local church?  How might these then shape the missional role of your church within the local community?

Stay safe and stay blessed.
Barry
Rev Barry Osborne
CEO,Rural Mission Solutions
26th September 2020

The Father’s Love

This Sunday in the UK and many other countries, Father’s Day will be celebrated. For many it will be an opportunity to express appreciation for a good father, or an opportunity for some men to ponder that perhaps they didn’t do too bad a job.  Sadly for far too many it will not be a good day as their experience of a father was painful.  At times I have been aware of those who stayed away from church on Father's Day because of unhappy memories.

In my own life, Father's Day provides an opportunity for me to reflect on the love and support that our long-term foster son deserved, and still deserves as a middle aged man (we had no children of our own).  Could I have done better?  Wel, there is still a job to be done.  It also calls me to reflect on my own father, who came back from WW2 rather traumatised and finding it difficult to bond with my brother who had grown up without him, having been born just before my father was called up.

The impact of the war on my father’s health made him a rather angry man.  It was not until he experienced the baptism of the Holy Spirit, many years later, that he radically changed, and we developed a very special relationship.  His final words to me, as he lay dying in a hospital bed was, “Barry, commit me to the Lord.”  I took his hand and prayed with tears, giving thanks for all that God had done for him through his life, and praying for a deep sense of God’s presence and peace as he faced what were to be his last few hours.  He spoke once more, this time to my mother as he took her hand and told her all was well.

Most of us move into adult life realising how little we understood of all that our parents have done for us.  Being a parent brings joys but also many challenges.  Jesus understood this, as is evident in the parable of the prodigal son (or should that be the parable of the loving father?).

How hard it must have been for the father to accede to the younger son's persistent badgering to get his hands on that for which he considered he was entitled.  I suspect that, while he may have done some chores, he never really laboured with his father and older brother to grow the family’s wealth.  But he was ready to spend it on ‘having a good time’.  His father must have realised that it would be a terrible waste of hard earned money but, in accordance with the usual practise, one third of all that he had was turned into cash and he bade his sone farewell.

Clearly, he was not happy to see him go as Jesus informs us that the father saw his returning son even when he was some distance away,  I get the feeling that he searched that horizon every day.  But the alternative - forcing his son to stay home - would not have helped either of them.  Love is costly.  So it would have been in the heavens.  Have you ever stopped to think how the heavenly Father felt as he watched over his Son through 33 years of life on earth. How did he feel as his Son pleaded with him to take away that cup of suffering, knowing that he could not do so if we were to be saved.  While Jesus seems to have felt abandoned on the cross, I think that the hymn writer has got it wrong when he penned, “the Father turns his face away”.

And when the prodigal’s father saw his son coming home he ran to meet him. Words of regret and remorse were cut short by the father’s delight at his son’s return.  He called for shoes, a robe and a ring.  They were not a reward for coming back home; they were tokens of the father’s unconditional love. Doesn’t that make you want to weep and share in the hug that must have lasted a long time.

“This son of yours” was how the older son defined his brother.  Not much love there for the moment!  But there is no hint of anger at his elder son’s shortsightedness. Instead he reminds him that “all I have is yours”.  This father just keeps on giving.  This time giving words of loving assurance and gentle correction.

Our Online Bible Study on Tuesday evenings has been working through Ephesians.  Last week we came to chapter 3: 14-24.  Here, Paul prays for the Christians in Ephesus to experience and engage with God’s love.  The language is extravagant, but he makes his request to a heavenly Father who has great riches of love and extraordinary generosity. Almost as a passing comment Paul states that to understand what family life is meant to be we need to understand the nature of the fatherhood of God. Now, that’s something to celebrate this Father’s Day.

Why not take 5 minutes to listen to this Graham Kendrick song.

Barry

Caring or Careless

No doubt, recent development regarding the Covid-19 pandemic will have left you wondering how long this will go on and whether you could find yourself under further restrictions in the coming weeks.  One of the aspects that has caused me concern is the attitude of some churches, which I find not that much different to that of the teenagers that have been walking around the streets in large boisterous groups.

Someone recently told me of a train journey where all the adults sat quietly wearing face masks to comply with the regulations, while a hoard of teenagers ran up and down the carriages without masks.  The wearing of face masks is both to protect the wearer from infection and also to protect others.  It is possible to have the virus without being aware of it and therefore becoming contagious.  Clearly there are some people who just do not care.

This blase attitude reminds me of the story of the man who fell from a very tall building and who, as he passed successive floors, was heard saying, “So far, so good!”  Covid-19 is highly contagious and its outcome can be fatal.  But the attitude common among teenagers is not very different from that shown by some churches.  Desperate to get back to ‘normal’ churches have been bending the rules and pushing the boundaries as if the virus has nothing to do with us.  There is a “What can we get away with” attitude that I find sad and scary.

When the Rule of Six was introduced I had presumed that would have included places of worship, but we were exempted.  However, it is all too easy to take advantage of this leniency as if it implied that we exist outside the other restrictions. The exemption is for the act of worship, but does not include illegal social gatherings inside or outside the building, before or after the service.  It is tempting to stay and socialise, but if we are more than 6 people in an individual group or the total number in the building  exceeds six, we are pushing the boundary.

‘Now the snake was more crafty than any of the wild animals the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, ‘Did God really say, “You must not eat from any tree in the garden”?’  And we all know where that led!  Many years later, concern for individual welfare and the reputation of the church at Thessalonica,  led Paul to write urging them to steer clear of any kind of evil (1 Thessalonians 5:22)  Now, as then, it is all too easy to flirt with what is contrary to holiness.

We are living in the midst of a pandemic, so the fact that I might be clear of infection (or at least think so) will not justify my being careless and uncaring of others.  Being careless not only puts me at risk, it puts others at risk and creates a care-free culture.  What if I infected a person, who infected another person, who infected a person who died from Covid-19?  The same is true when it comes to sin.  How we live morally puts others at risk.  If we care then let us be careful.

Why Bother to Change?

 Why bother to change?

Like it or not, change is something we all live with.  But sometimes we need to step back and ask the question, “Is it worth it?”.  This issue’s topic was triggered by three items of news in the past 24 hours, each featuring change issues.

The National Trust is currently undergoing some significant change, and there is more on the way.  The changes are largely driven by financial concerns as restrictions because of Covid-19 has had a major impact on the Trust’s income.  That sounds like a good reason to change, and one that many organisations are facing.  But National Trust is also re-thinking who they are, what they do and why they do that.  

In a recent press release Hilary McGrady, the Director General stated “in future, visitors will play a greater part in bringing the places we care for to life, adding: ‘Our nations’ beautiful places are not only for looking at, but for singing and dancing and reading, learning, cooking, crafting and creating in. And they belong to everyone.,”  Having seen the tragedy of change driven solely by financial reasons, I like the fresh thinking the National Trust is showing.  They may well be enhancing their core mission through the process of change.

The second news story is about ‘Question of Sport’, which has reached the age of 50 and recently celebrated this with a programme looking back over those years.  QS is the most popular TV quiz programme attracting a large audience and a queue of sports personalities who consider being on QS almost as great as winning gold in the Olympics!  Looking at the archives, it is clear that the programme has never changed some basic aspects, while it has made regular changes to keep the audience engaged.  One thing that has remained constant is the fun being enjoyed by the panelists and the studio audience.

My late wife and I have both been avid fans of QS despite knowing little about sport.  In fact, I can only remember being able to answer two questions over the years.  What has drawn us is seeing experts risk their reputations and still be able to laugh at themselves. It is about people having good clean fun. What QS has achieved is being able to hold onto the “Why” of what they do while making periodic changes to “How” they communicate the answer to that question.

The third news story is very different.  It is that young women in their twenties are paying large sums of money to have unnecessary elective beauty treatments such as facial botox injections.  Apparently, one of the factors driving this trend to change in how young women look, is the amount of time they are spending using Zoom on laptops.  Staring at their faces and those of their friends is causing them to see almost imperceptible signs of aging.  Desperate to stay looking young they are handing over thousands of pounds for treatment that might have only marginal benefits and carry risks.

While the Bible has little to say on the subject of this kind of change (other than the beauty treatment experienced by Esther), these stories have much to say about how we relate our faith to the world around us.  Looking in from the outside, who we are as ‘church’ and how we do church has often remained unchanged over decades.  Some will argue that this is a good thing.  But let’s ask that question again, “Why bother to change?”

Both the National Trust and Question of Sport are concerned about what their ‘customers’ get out of the experience of visiting or watching.  Both are concerned about enjoyment.  But there is nothing more enjoyable than a living relationship with God, whose unchanging nature means that he is always constantly relevant and wonderful to know.  Surely church should be about expressing that wonder and enjoyment.  Why then does it not look like that in many of our churches?  

If church looks and sounds old fashioned, dull and unattractive then our witness for Christ could do with some fresh thinking.  It is not ‘change for change sake’.  This is about change for the sake of Jesus Christ and the sake of those he longs to draw to himself.  We should not change our basic values, but we are not doing God any favours when in church we always do it the same old way that seems to have stopped being attractive around 100 years ago.

The parables of National Trust and Question of Sport are about change that enables the reason for their existence to remain contemporary, just as God remains unchanging yet always contemporary.  The parable of young women using botox is about the foolishness of trying to stop time and change from happening. God is in the business of change and what the world around us (family, friends and neighbours) should see is not an expression of our faith frozen in time as if by botox, but changing from one kind of glory into another that is more glorious (2 Corinthians 4:17,18).  

That is why we should bother.

Barry osborne 22/08/2020

Easier Simple Rules

Easier Simple Rules

I am writing this on Friday morning following the sudden announcement of new regulations for people in the northern parts of the UK.  As people are reeling from the lack of advance notice, and quickly changing their plans to comply with the new regulations, interviews with local people quite often express a wish that the rules could be made more simple.

While that would be desirable, the task of simplifying them is  itself complex.  In this current situation, the latest rule changes are designed both to keep people safe and to avoid a complete lockdown.  They have also been introduced because of apparent failures to comply with social distancing, though this may have been complicated by housing issues in some places.  Where I live it is impressive how most people in the small town respectfully step aside to allow others sufficient safe space.  At the same time, I still see groups of young people carelessly moving around in small mobs.  Would they behave differently, I wonder, if someone in their peer group was struggling to survive or had already lost the battle?

Interestingly, the Bible has something to say on the topic of keeping the rules simple.  In the times of Jesus on earth, the Pharisees had a reputation for creating complexity regarding the Law of Moses and how this was to be interpreted.  Matthew 22:37-40 and Luke 10:25-37 record similar incidents where Jesus was asked to provide clarity in understanding the Law.  On both occasions Jesus points to the simple summary, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind... and love your neighbour as yourself”

In the account in Luke, the answer Jesus provided to his question failed to satisfy the enquirer.  Clearly insufficient detail for a lawyer!  He sought greater clarification, which then led to possibly the best known of all the parables Jesus told.  We know it as the Parable of the Good Samaritan.  In the story, two men who could have been expected to act with compassion towards a badly injured man, especially because of their familiarity with the law, passed by the injured man with no offer of help.  One even came for a closer look, but still passed by.

Then a man who might not have been expected to act with compassion, did so at considerable personal cost.  At last, the lawyer got the point.  We too are expected to get the point, but sometimes sermons develop the allegory beyond usefulness, and we can miss its fundamental purpose.  It is a simple story to illustrate the effectiveness of the shorthand version of the Law of Moses.

On the issue of loving your neighbours as you love yourself.  I wonder whether the rules for managing the Covid-19 virus could be simplified to respect the needs of others for protection as if you yourself were highly vulnerable and likely to die from this disease if you were to catch it.  I am sure that the majority of teenagers do not understand what it means to be “asymptomatic” and a risk to others.  If they did understand they would surely modify their careless behaviour.  What is clear is that alongside all the work of medical scientists, doctors and nurses, the ‘great British public’ could help enormously if we loved our neighbours as ourselves.  Now that’s a simple rule we should all be capable of understanding.

As is often the case, there is a punchline we need to note in Luke 10:37 “Go and do likewise”!

Items for praise and prayer

We are delighted to tell you that Lowenna, the five year old granddaughter of our Chairman, who a few weeks ago was in a life or death situation resulting from a bleed on her brain, is now making consistent progress.  She is more able to sit and stand unaided for short periods, tried to demonstrate ballet moves to the nurses, is managing some colouring, and there are signs of speech returning. Please keep all the family in your prayers.

We receive many encouraging comments from those who have been attending the online services and Bible studies we run each week.  Some who have been attending are now going back to their church buildings, or following more local online services.  We believe there remains a need, and plan to continue these.  Click here to go to our website where you will find details and links.  You are very welcome to join us and to invite others.

Rural Mission Solutions has a need to grow the core team.  This could be done either by someone exploring a call to Christian ministry or someone with experience but sufficient time to take on at least part time work.  This is so important that I considered suggesting periods of prayer with fasting.  We are looking for someone with a love for Jesus, a sense of a call from God, an interest in rural life, and possibly technical abilities.  Please feel free to pass this information to anyone you think might be interested.  Meanwhile please pray earnestly.

Please give thanks for those who have used the link at the foot of our Praise & Prayer News in order to help us to keep going.  

Please pray for wisdom as we seek to reshape our information and training webinars and videos to fit the new situation as we come out of lockdown.

Please stay safe and stay blessed.

The Power Of a Passing Thought

The Power of a Passing Thought
It’s Saturday morning, and I woke a full hour earlier than I intended and felt that I needed.  But already my head was buzzing with things that had to be done today.  Various jobs had been piling up through the week, and some, like writing Praise & Prayer News, seemed challenging.  Usually, I have a clear sense of what I would write by the middle of the week.  But not this week.  Then, as my mind was juggling with how to plan the day and get important tasks completed on time, two things happened almost simultaneously.

The first was reading the words that a ministry colleague had written as part of a series the Congregational Federation has been publishing entitled”A Secluded Place”.  Various authors contributed to the series, and some I had appreciated more than others.  I sat on the edge of the bed, and without much enthusiasm, scrolled through the short piece that Elaine had written about a worship song in Spanish that another colleague had brought back from one of her trips abroad.  I identified with her comments about the difficulty of learning worship songs in foreign languages and how often they fail to engage and inspire in the way intended.

Clearly Elaine and her husband had not allowed the difficulty to cause the simple song to be cast aside.  She wrote about how she sang the song “to herself” (or did she mean to God as a personal act of worship?).  She had included a YouTube link so, by then intrigued to hear the words in Spanish and English, I clicked the link.  As I listened to the long forgotten tune I found myself singing along in an act of quiet worship, sensing God’s presence, and realising that in a busy day not finding time to spend in worship is foolish.

What might have been no more than a passing thought (and I had certainly not expected to give it much time) had taken hold and claimed its rightful place front and centre. 

My other passing thought was a phrase in one of Paul’s letters to Timothy.  The second letter to Timothy is full of encouragement and exhortation to be faithful in his ministry as time when many had proved unfaithful, and some in Ephesus were actually opposing the gospel Paul had faithfully taught.  While there are some verses in this letter that have found universal application, there is much that seems so specific to Timothy that it only comes to our attention at times such as the induction of a new priest or minister.

Tucked among this list of important things that Timothy was to ‘get on and do’ are the words, “... do the work of an evangelist…”.  It is one of only three references to the ministry of an evangelist that we find in the New Testament.  To me, it seems like a passing thought, a “by the way” comment.  But perhaps among all the other duties and responsibility\s to be borne by the younger man (and also by us), care was needed not to forget something that was essential.

In busy times, when there is much that is needed to be done, some things are too important to be left as passing thoughts.  To press on working through our ‘to do’ list without making time first to be still and consciously spend time enjoying and worshipping God is both wrong and foolish.  Time so spent is an investment in our lives.  At the same time to allow all that we have to do today to squeeze out our responsibility to say something about our faith and who is at its centre, is to treat lightly all that Christ suffered for us and our salvation.  The story is not ours to keep it is God’s and he wants us to share it with others.

Just a thought… but don’t let it pass.