doing things well

It's been another busy day today.

People to see and all sorts of tasks to be done. But progress being made in preparing for Thursday when all of the P7 children will descend upon us here.

Most of the work that needs to be done is complete. Preparation is everything.

My Dad was full of all sorts of memorable sayings. One of the things he impressed upon our hearts was simply this - "If a job's worth doing, it's worth doing well."

Nothing earth-shatteringly new about that, of course. But he taught us well, and that sort of view and perspective was ingrained upon our souls.

I can't do a thing in a half-hearted way. I can't give it less than my best. If it's going to be done, it's got to be good.

And that takes time. A lot of time on this visit from the school. Because the thing is well worth doing.

And I want them to see that the Lord does things well: he doesn't cut corners or do things in anything other than what we can see is the best.

I aspire to be doing the same. Always.

christmas is coming

Christmas is coming.

The weekend just past, seemingly, is the high point in terms of Christmas shopping.

Which leads me to think there must be a lot of very organised people out there who've got their Christmas acts together as early as that.

Next weekend, they say, is when the panic buying sets in - and the weekend after ... well, it shows how out of touch with these things I am because not even then am I starting to panic - I mean, there's still another five days to go before Christmas itself. And does it really matter that much if I'm late?

Nonetheless, the harsh fact of life is that Christmas is coming. And the pace of a lot of things begins to step up.

There's a lot of extra involvement in the local schools for one thing. The P1 and 2 nativity along at the primary school on Wednesday morning, for instance. Which is always a super occasion.

Though if you want to see something which'll mean you never see your child's nativity in the same light again then try 'The Corstorphine Road Nativity'. I'm told it's brilliant. Absolutely hilarious. If you get the chance to go and see it, don't miss the opportunity!

We've got the whole of the P7s coming along here on Thursday, as well, when we'll be putting on a 90-minute Christmas presentation. There's a lot of work involved in prerparing for that and a large part of today's been spent on that.

Scripture Union have done the groundwork, of course. But there's a fair bit we have to do to get things ready here. Printing materials, preparing powerpoint presentations, that sort of thing.

It's an exciting time, and the chance to speak with the children about the meaning of Christmas is a real privilege.

The first Christmas was a busy time. It was easy back then, amidst all the noise and activity, to miss the most remarkable thing of all. The birth of the child who had come to be king.

It's as easy now to miss the heart of it all. We work hard to ensure that Jesus is really central to it all. Delighting in his presence, discerning what he's doing, and daring to do great things.

We showed a clip from Youtube at the start of our worship on Sunday. A clip prepared by 'Advent Conspiracy'. If you haven't seen it, it's worth a look.

'This is the new tradition. This is your new tradition.'

Telling the story of Christmas.

Which seems quite novel for a lot of people. But in fact, of course, is fact.

Something happened a long time ago which changed the course of history.

A child was born. And he's changed our world as well.

advent calendar

Getting hold of an advent calendar seems to be a tough job for some these days.

Especially one that has any sort of connection with what the season of advent is meant to be about.

So if you've been having your problems this way, IVP may be just what you need! I came across this little advent calendar the other day. It'll maybe bring some focus to your celebration of the birth of Jesus.

Click on the picture and use it yourself.

danger - God at work!

Strange. Very strange!

You know how in yesterday's post, I expanded a bit on Psalm 130?

I'd been speaking on that psalm, you may recall, at the lunch-time service yesterday. And at night that psalm was on my mind again as I wrote the post.

Today I was at a funeral. A sort of slightly distant second or third cousin (I'm never sure exactly which), and probably at least 'once removed'. Well, completely removed from us all, I suppose, in the light of her having died!

And it was from this psalm once again that the minister leading the service read.

Strange, as I say. It felt like the Lord was laying this psalm very carefully on my heart.

And then at night as I went to our halls for the last of the Alpha course we've been running here, I chanced to meet a person who is well and truly in 'the depths': to use the phrase the psalmist used.

I know her situation and I know the huge great burdens that she bears. Things have only got worse, I suspect, since I saw her last.

We chatted for quite a while and then I simply told her that I thought the Lord had given me a word for her. Psalm 130.

What to do when you're in the depths. Pray. Wait. Hope.

Sometimes it's like that. The Lord lays a word on our hearts. So that we can give it to another.

Life as the people of God is far from dull!

Which is pretty much what I was trying to say when I spoke in the last of the 'Alpha' talks tonight.

The last session aired the question "What is the church?" which is not the most scintillating title for the climax to the course!

But it was a good time and I think they got the message annd found themselves enthused. So many people have got the wrong impression about the church. They think it's a great institution, but - as they invariably go on to indicate - who wants to live in an institution?

No one in their right mind. And if that's your view of what the church is, no wonder people run the proverbial mile.

It's been a great course, and the impact on the lives of those who've been along has been huge.

I'm hoping that loads of folk will be out at our worship on Sunday night when we'll all get the chance to hear a bit about all that's been going on, and celebrate together what wonderful things the Lord continues to do.

We've also got the P7 pupils from the local school coming along next week for a 90-minute Christmas presentation which we do for them.

There's a team of seven involved and those who were able met today to prepare and pray. It's a thrill to be involved like this and to have this sort of chance to speak of Christmas and just what it really means.

The word of God is not chained.

How very true that is! We simply let it loose and ... well, the Lord does the rest.

Alpha. The school. This lady with all of her problems.

We simply feed them the Word.

And that's more than enough of a platform for the Spirit of God to start breathing the life of the Lord into so many people's hearts.

Please, Lord, keep on doing just that!

Like Oliver Twist, we're always greedy for more!

abseiling down

"Out of the depths I cry to you, O Lord: O Lord, hear my voice. Let your ears be attentive to my cry for mercy."

So begins the psalm we were looking at today in our lunch-time service.

The Message translates the opening line like this - "Help me God - the bottom has fallen out of my life!"

Which expresses it well. And underlines the honesty with which the Bible speaks.

No hiding away from the fact that even for the Christian bad things happen.

We plumb the depths. Of despair, of sorrow, of pain, of grief. You name it. It's all there, all part of the package we have to learn to cope with in our lives.

The Spirit of God is at work in our lives, for sure, cultivating carefully his fruit. But sometimes life goes pear-shaped.

Most of my pastoral work derives from that fact. There's an element of mid-wifery, as I share with the Lord in the miracle of new life being imparted to folk. But mostly it's the far less dramatic, basic GP stuff that occupies my time.

That's what pastors are for. Time was they were known as 'physicians of the soul'. A slightly antiquated way of putting it. But on the button.

Life is hard. There are all sorts of pitfalls, all sorts of dangers, all sorts of toxic spiritual chemicals in the air of our current, me-first culture, to which we're all exposed.

Pastors are there to help folk through these 'troughs' in the undulating contours of experience.

Like a good old-fashioned doctor in his surgery, listening, observing, discerning, probing. Wisely diagnosing. If need be, carefully prescribing.

Encouraging, re-assuring, comforting, and sometimes, too, rebuking. Kindly, graciously, patiently. 'Bedside manner' counts.

In the 'good old days' your GP knew you well. His work was built round relationship. He was a family friend.

Pastoral work is really little different. And much of the work I'm involved in day by day is really of this sort.

Building those relationships which form the very bedrock of the pastoral work I do.

Jesus was the friend of sinners. He got to know the folk. Diagnosis is always a whole load easier when you've got to know a person first.

Psalm 130 is a useful summary guide to pastoral work.

Bad things happen. We live in that sort of world. People get ill. The bottom falls out of their worlds.

God is as much a reality in this world as any sort of struggles that we have. We forget that at our peril.

And we forget at our peril what sort of God he is. 'Mercy' is his middle name. Everything he does, everything he says, everything about the way he works, is shot through with mercy. Extravagant, generous, over-the-top mercy. Always.

So, given there's this God around, how do you handle the bad things when they come?

Number one, you pray. Not in the sense of saying your prayers. But crying out to God. Crying. Bawling your head off, getting it all off your chest. Letting him know in no uncertain terms where you're at and why it's tough and how you cannot cope.

Pour out your hearts to him, the psalmist elsewhere exhorts.

Number two, you wait. That's hard. We'd like an instant solution. We'd like things sorted now.

God takes his time and won't be rushed. There will be light at the end of the tunnel. Even when the tunnel seems long.

Waiting is a very basic part of the life that we're called on to live in following Jesus.

Pastors don't have a magic want to wave which brings an instant healing. It doesn't work like that.

Number three, you hope. Not hoping for the best, but basing your confidence firmly on what God has said in his word. In his word I put my hope.

Because that word underlines two important things about God: he's loving and strong. Always. Able and willing to meet us in our needs.

You can be sure of that. You can bank on that. You can base your hope on that.

The psalm is a sort of crash course on pastoral work. It gives you an insight into much of what I'm doing each day. Without going into the details!

There was a story today on the news about a man who had fallen some 80 feet on the mountains near Glencoe (I think). He'd fallen into a river - the volume of water cushioning the impact of his falling on all of the boulders a bit. He'd ended up unconscious, head beneath the water.

Deep trouble.

His friend had seen it happen and went abseiling down the cliff to reach him there and pull him out of the water and prevent the man from drowning.

That's a good picture of pastoral work. The pastor can't just shout out his instructions from the cliff top. He has to abseil down. Into the depths himself. To be by the side of his friend in danger of drowning.

And help him make it through.

The man who had fallen will be flat on his back for a good six weeks, we were told. No quick fix. No magic wand.

But healing, and help, and hope.

children's children

No posts for the past week means I've been hard at work doing what grandpas do best - spending time with my grand-daughter and generally ... well, doting on her.

A grand-paternal privilege!

It's made me think a good deal about two things.

First, the way the Lord speaks again and again about our "children's children."

This is no theory now. Such a child has arrived!

All of a sudden all the exhortations and all the promised blessings take on an added richness and colour.

And, second, with the Copenhagen summit coming up next week, it makes me all the more aware of just how urgent is the issue that these folk are dealing with.

What sort of world are we leaving for this little girl when she grows up?

On which sombre note - some pictures!

Wide awake, alert to all that's going on: and just a hint of Tintin in the hairstyle that she's sporting!

Gazing into the eyes of her food supply (aka Mum).

Fast asleep in the arms of her Dad: what are fathers for, after all, if not to make a wee girl feel secure?

vision

"Where there is no vision the people perish."

The guy who pulled together the book of Proverbs knew what he was on about. And he had that enviable ability to put in a nutshell what ordinary mortals (and especially preachers) generally take two or three paragraphs to say.

Vision.

Without it, the good man says, you hit a dead end. At best you drift. Mostly you die.

We need vision. No doubt about it. And today's seen me spending a fair amount of time on hammering out a second attempt at articulating our vision.

It's easier said than done.

Vision derives from the Lord. Most of the time in the Scriptures 'vision' involves all sorts of different people catching a sight of God.

The bottom line is always this - vision involves our seeing God.

But, in particular, our seeing what God is doing at any given point in time.

We've tried to make just this our starting point.

Not what we might like to see - our hopes and dreams and finest aspirations.

But what we see him doing. Where we see him heading.

Jesus himself once said that he could only do "what he sees the Father doing." He couldn't (and he certainly wouldn't) do anything else. Only what he sees the Father doing.

So that's what we've been working at. Prayerfully. Together, as a Leadership Team.

Seeking by the help of the Spirit of God to discern what it is that he's doing. Here. And now.

And being able to say, on the back of all that, where it is that we see ourselves heading. Vision.

There's a great story told about Walt Disney, who died some five years before Disney World in Florida was completed. On the day of opening in 1971 someone remarked to one of the top guys in Walt Disney Studios, a man by the name of Mike Vance - "Isn't it too bad that Walt Disney didn't live to see this?"

To which Mike Vance replied - "He did see it. That's why it's here!"

That's what vision is like. We learn to see the future.

Craig Groeschel wrote a book called it not so long ago. (Yes, you read that correctly, that's the title: and I think he says at one point, if you have to ask what it is, you probably haven't got it). In the book he says this -

"Many churches (and organisations) have a vision statement. But in reality they have no vision. Just because you have words on a banner, a website, or a business card doesn't mean your leadership has a God-given vision. ...

"Without a vision, people become comfortable with the status quo. Later they grow to love the status quo. Eventually, they'll give their best to protect what is, never dreaming about what could or should be.

"They need a vision with definition.

"Here are some of the problems of the visionless ministry. Where there is no vision:

• most ideas seem like good ideas: this leads to overprogramming and burnout


• there is nothing compelling to give toward: this leads to a consumer mindset instead of a contributing mindset


• organisations become focussed inward: this leads to a slow and painful death


• instead of working together, people compete for resources

"Many churches today are visionless. They've drifted. ..."

We don't want to drift.

We need that God-given vision: that ability to see what God is doing and then making that what we're committed to doing as well.

So a fair bit of today it's that which I've been working on. Seeking to put into words what we're all aware God is doing among us here. And doing it in such a way that it'll act as a signpost to the future.

And, reflecting back on all that today has involved, I see that much of the rest of my time has been spent in addressing some of the problems that arise from (a) following through on that vision [change is never easy for anyone] and (b) not having clearly articulated the vision to others [and so leaving them in the dark as to why such changes are taking place].

Here's how Craig Groeschel finishes off his book -

"I've shared with you three prayers that are an important part of my life. I'm wondering, should they have a place in your life?

"Stretch me.

"Ruin me.

"Heal me."

And then this as his final prayer for his readers -

"May God bless you with enough foolishness to believe that you can make a difference in this world, so that you can do what others claim cannot be done."

That guy's got it, for sure. When you have it, everyone can tell.

We want it.