Latest News and What Next?
OK the website has not been updated for six months, and we are back in the UK.
I am now 40 which is shocking, and we are making our second set of adjustments with a change of job for me, a house move coming and a new baby due in October. So we can’t say we have steeled down yet.
For those of you who dont know the New Life Church situation didn’t resolve itself well, with some of the elders being forced out or feeling they needed to leave, and a considerable number of people leaving the church as a result. I will not say anything critical of those who felt the need to leave, but we were confused in the situation and decided not to act in haste.
Since that point we have focused our ministry efforts on running a cell/life/small/house group have had considerable fun with it and have alos felt fruitful in this.
However we feel a heart a church plant in the coming months and years and are seeking Gods will in this. Please pray for us in this and as we try to negotiate this vision in the context of a difficult church split.
Issues at New Life
It is with some pain that I have heard about the difficulties back at New Life at the moment. Troubles in churches are always difficult, trouble in your home church, when you are a long way away, are very difficult to deal with.
I have no way of knowing what the issues are or to form any firm opinion on them, but what I do wish to see is normal business resumed as quickly as possible and issues dealt with in the right way, by the proper authorities.
However we do care about our church, we have opinions, church is something that matters deeply to us? We want to fix things, make everything alright, understand everything that is going on, sometimes that is just not possible.
As we look at how we react and interact around this time, we need to be careful in how we interact with each other, what we say and how we say it- so that we do not create new problems, nor damage the chances of resolution being brought to existing problems. A few useful scriptures spring to mind:
Submit to one another out of reverence to Christ – Ephesians 5:21
Our goal ought not to be to fight our corner, but actually to submit to one another. Does this mean that we should never hold a contrary position or give an opinion? I don’t think so, but it does mean that if we do so it is for the good of others as much as for the good of ourselves. If your concern is for your agenda, your rights, your way, put it down and examine what you can do or say that would bring most benefit to the people round you.
Bear with each other – Colossians 3:13
I love the practical nature of this scripture, it assumes we are imperfect and need bearing with. None of us are perfect and we all do things that cause others to struggle with us at times, even me , and the scripture encourages us at times just to ‘suck it up’ and love each other despite our grievances.
Some offences are not even worth mentioning- you just need to let them go, and hope that other people do the same with yours. In other instances, issues are important enough to mention, but then the issue is the issue not the person. We should have the grace to hold a differing opinion and treat other parties with love and respect- believing that even though our views may differ, the other person is doing their best to hear God in the situation, is acting in good faith and working things through as they know best. It is too easy to demonise both people and their motives when they hold differing opinions and give offence to us.
Forgive whatever grievances you may have against one another– Colossians 3:13
When it does get too much and we do take offence, stop and forgive. This doesn’t mean forgive and seek reconciliation when you are only in the wrong. It means forgive even when you feel yourself to be in the right and have ground to stand. Often being right in the wrong way does more damage than being wrong in the right way. Attitude counts for an awful lot.
How does this translate to how we conduct ourselves at this time?
I would suggest the following practical steps:
Listen More
God gave us two ears and one mouth. It is our tendency to want to tell the world what we think, or what we think we think, or what we don’t know but want to say anyway. We need to stop and listen to God, listen to our brothers and sister, submit to them and put their preferences and needs above our own.
Listen to Peoples hearts.
So often we are caught up in issues, opinions and facts when we really need to be listening to peoples’ emotions, desires and aspirations. I do not know the facts of this situation- I may never do. But I do know the heart of the trustees and the elders is to serve the church to the best of their ability and knowledge. In absence of other things we need to listen to peoples’ hearts.
Talk Less
I will freely admit I am preaching to myself here. In the war, the phrase was used ‘careless talk costs lives’, I don’t think the issue is as serious here, but the principle remains: talking about things we don’t know about, or things that we half know about can cause discontent, undue arguments, stir people up and cause grief- leading to discord and unsubstantiated allegations being thrown.
In politics the phrase is used, ‘Those who know don’t talk, and those who talk don’t know.’ There is much truth to it. We all like to speak and be heard even when we have little that is constructive to say. Restraint here is hard, but I believe it is invaluable to helping people get this resolved.
Please don’t attack people, insinuate motives, send fiery emails or other ways inflame the situation.
Be Patient with the Process
We are an instant generation; we wish to see things fixed yesterday. A process is underway and showing the Christian virtue of patience is the best way forward to seeing the right solution come.
Ands finally in all things love. Look forward to seeing you all very soon.
Jon
A cool illustration
By no means mine, but I came across this and had to share …
I was always perplexed by Psalm 126 until I went to the Sahel, that vast stretch of savanna more than four thousand miles wide just under the Sahara Desert. In the Sahel, all the moisture comes in a four month period: May, June, July, and August. After that, not a drop of rain falls for eight months. The ground cracks from dryness, and so do your hands and feet. The winds of the Sahara pick up the dust and throw it thousands of feet into the air. It then comes slowly drifting across West Africa as a fine grit. It gets inside your mouth. It gets inside your watch and stops it. The year’s food, of course, must all be grown in those four months. People grow sorghum or milo in small fields.
October and November…these are beautiful months. The granaries are full — the harvest has come. People sing and dance. They eat two meals a day. The sorghum is ground between two stones to make flour and then a mush with the consistency of yesterday’s Cream of Wheat. The sticky mush is eaten hot; they roll it into little balls between their fingers, drop it into a bit of sauce and then pop it into their mouths. The meal lies heavy on their stomachs so they can sleep.
December comes, and the granaries start to recede. Many families omit the morning meal.
Certainly by January not one family in fifty is still eating two meals a day.
By February, the evening meal diminishes.
The meal shrinks even more during March and children succumb to sickness. You don’t stay well on half a meal a day.
April is the month that haunts my memory. In it you hear the babies crying in the twilight. Most of the days are passed with only an evening cup of gruel.
Then, inevitably, it happens. A six-or seven-year-old boy comes running to his father one day with sudden excitement. “Daddy! Daddy! We’ve got grain!” he shouts. “Son, you know we haven’t had grain for weeks.” “Yes, we have!” the boy insists. “Out in the hut where we keep the goats — there’s a leather sack hanging up on the wall — I reached up and put my hand down in there — Daddy, there’s grain in there! Give it to Mommy so she can make flour, and tonight our tummies can sleep!”
The father stands motionless. “Son, we can’t do that,” he softly explains. “That’s next year’s seed grain. It’s the only thing between us and starvation. We’re waiting for the rains, and then we must use it.” The rains finally arrive in May, and when they do the young boy watches as his father takes the sack from the wall and does the most unreasonable thing imaginable. Instead of feeding his desperately weakened family, he goes to the field and with tears streaming down his face, he takes the precious seed and throws it away. He scatters it in the dirt! Why? Because he believes in the harvest (Italics added).
The seed is his; he owns it. He can do anything with it he wants. The act of sowing it hurts so much that he cries. But as the African pastors say when they preach on Psalm 126, “Brother and sisters, this is God’s law of the harvest. Don’t expect to rejoice later on unless you have been willing to sow in tears.” And I want to ask you: How much would it cost you to sow in tears? I don’t mean just giving God something from your abundance, but finding a way to say, “I believe in the harvest, and therefore I will give what makes no sense. The world would call me unreasonable to do this — but I must sow regardless, in order that I may someday celebrate with songs of joy.”
Wind Steals Local Beach!
It was Monday when I got back form HDC when April said “We need to go down to Sards the waves are apparently amazing!”, anyway so we go to drive down to Sards our local beach and as we turn out of our road, and look down the hill we can see the size if the waves from 3 miles away! Usually on a rough day the sea still looks flat, but Monday we could see the waves of epic proportions!
Anyway we arrive at the beach to find a good number of other people watching awestruck by the strength, ferocity and location of the waves. The combination of a high spring tide and 2 days of strong gales out at Sea, had brought the sea 200 yards further up the beach than before, and in such strength as they had collapsed the balcony of the life guard station( a brick building 100 yards from the usual tideline), up rooted the picnic tables next to the car park (even though they had been anchored in place with substantial concrete and steel foundations), and removed a substantial portion of the beaches Sand Dunes ( we estimate 40 meters deep by 10 meters high across a ½ mile stretch !).
This of course led to frenzied photo taking, and I do have a video of it. However I did get too close to the waves whilst on top of dunes, leading to me getting soaked by the large wave I was trying to photograph, and this scaring the life out of Iona who immediately wanted to be taken as far away from the sea as possible. Cries of “Noo noo noo noo noo!” continued till we took her to the car. Maybe children are actually brighter than adults. Oh yes the photo I got soaked for is just a wall of dirty brown water.
I pitched up back at the beach later to take some pics of the storm and sunset which I hope to get on the website soon. We will be back down to the beach soon to see how much is actually left!
A Childish Prank
One of the largest Pentecostal churches in PE, is the large Word of Faith church and without being nasty about them its not my theology, its not my style and they definitely don’t have the same values as me. But because it is so large and important to the city I thought should visit at some point.
Anyway April points out to me the large advert they have placed in the local paper, and we notice that have a evening meeting with a sermon they are playing on the news item of one boy who in some delusion, took a samurai sword and killed another, after listening to slipknot. The title of the ilk “Satansim how to stop your child going the way of *******. The ****** being the name of this deluded child.
Anyway if they were going to sue the tragedy to further the course of the church I felt a little mischief coming on. So come Sunday afternoon I shave my head completely, put on my dragon t-shirt and knackered black leather jacket and head for the Word of Faith church looking well rather dubious in nature.
The church is a large 1000 seater auditorium and I head in with about 5 mins to go, fond myself an empty pew near the back, sat down waited to see what church experience I would have.
Well no one talked to me, actually no one even made eye contact with me. In a pretty full a auditorium I had a 12 seater pew all to myself, it was strange people just seemed to move round me. I did get the impression however that the senior Pastor and a couple of the ushers may have been disturbed by my presence. Something tells me a few word of faith guys have been praying for/against me and thought they had a Satanist within the meeting. I wonder how they could of come to that conclusion?
The worship wasn’t bad, the rhythm section to the band was awesome but I go the distinct impression from a few of the songs God was the third most important person in them after the singer and the church. But when the guy got up to preach well I had to restrain myself from standing up and shouting bollocks on more than one occasion.
The gist of the sermon was heavy metal is the occult and it will make your child a Satanist and murder you and your friends.
Particular lines that annoyed me were the introduction “Pastor James is a real man of God he casts out 7 or 8 demons a day”, “if you listen to heavy metal music you will become a Satanist” and “if any of your friends listen to heavy metal, you shouldn’t associate with them because they will drag you down.” And “buy my book on how to do deliverance, only 80 rand today with a free vial of anointing oil so you can go home anoint your house and drive all the demons out of it!”
Ok I admit it was childish and I may have a slight critical spirit about the whole thing, but anyone who takes a teenagers death, sensationalises it and then uses to further the financial cause of there ministry deserves everything criticism they get.
A brush(or two) with the law.
Ok this last week has seen me have my two brushes with the law since I have been in South Africa. Niothing serious but enough to make the week interesting.
Last week when having a pupil from a school I am associated with assist me at HDC (it was his detention), the police promptley turned up and arrested him in the middle of a game of football. ( hectic! ). Not quite as hectic as the full story though.
In brief a couple of the guys from the scohol had liberated a scooter from outside a local bar the previous weekend, the bouncers had then picked up on of the two kids from the school gates, police had been called, bouncers and ‘abducted kid’ had been found the full story has come out and subsequentley his partner in crime who was with me was also picked up by the police.
That was my first brush with the law, then next sunday I was implementing the usual feeding program in the township and had arranged to meet someone ( I will not use the name of my wife to hid the guilt of the relevant party.) and Pumazeras home as they didn’t want to stick around.
So I make sure the feeding program is complete, ave the vehicles of all the others off and watch them role inot the distance and walk through the township to Pumeza’s house. Arriving there I find it locked and no sign of car, the unamed person or Pumeza!
This means i’m left on my own in the township, no transport out and nowhere ’safe’ to go, abit of background here townships are not safe places. They are not as dangerous as some would make out, we go into walmer township regularly and have very very rarely seen any hint of trouble, we also have a good reputation round zone Q and are well known white faces. That all said they are still not safe places, I want to go in, do what I have to do and get out again.
I’m also worrried about where the other person and my daughter are, as they are not where they are supposed to be in the township! At this point three police rapid response vehicles drive past, stop roll down there windows and start to question me with questions like “Are you local?, What are you doing here? and do you feel safe?” they get concerned when I mention that I was supposed to be meeting someone here and they haven’t shown up. The other person is contacted by phone says they are on there way and this satisfies the police.
The police pull off and I arrange to meet the person at the corner of the township, next to the HDC. Walking that way I encounter the same three police rapid response cars, forming a road block US movie style across the exit to the township, and pointing their shotguns vaugley in my direction!
Anyway I have to walk past, so being a brit and having my caution guns in approach the roadblock, the police eye me up and perhaps unwisely I joke “Dont shoot me, I didnt do it”. I got searched for my troubles !!! My lift arrived about 20 minuates later !
A long silence
It has reached my ears that a couple of people have asked for more writing by my goodself. Some people are gluttons for punishment!
Anyway it has not happened for numerous reasons that ill go into below, but I will try to do better in future.
Reason one I cant actually write quickly easily and in proper english, so its really time consuming and hard work for me.
Reason two in academic work i have 10 different 3500 word essays to do over this year so that where my typing time is going to be spent.
Reason three im actually quite busy, I have fingers in numbers of pies, and I do lots of different things.
Reason four the things that im involved in can sometimes either be difficult or personal to someone else, so to blog about things in a public forum may be inappropriate.
Reason five I like to spend my relaxing time on the PC playing computers games !
Ok my excuses made and valid or invalid I will promise to be better from this point onwards, and at least try to post one thing a week on here.
20 Waisted Years?
Ok a little bit of an overstatement, but I am learning I have wasited alot of time waiting for ‘the anointing’ and then aiming to step out in faith, guess what the anionting has not come so I haven’t done an awful lot of the “supernatural stuff” with God!
God’s actual order seems to be more like step out with me and then the anointing comes, I wish i had really learned this lesson a few years back. Im staring to now and starting to see some results to.
Anyway as times short I will dig into this one futher in another post.
busy
I was trying to get my head round what we are doing and how we are using our time here, as its so different from a 9:00 to 5:00 job.
So the average week (if such things exist) for us is close to as follows. It seems hectic actually. Time spent at Fountain Vineyard Office is split between communications, stuffy and assisting with day to day things at the church mainly websites.
Lots of one off events will replace or add to this weekly pattern.
Sunday
9:00 am – 11:00 am Church
11:00 am – 1:00 pm Walmer Zone Q feeding project
1:00 pm – 4:00 pm Hospitality
6:30 pm – 8:30 pm Evening church (one of us will attend)
Monday Official Day Off
12:30am – 1:30pm Jon at Jerusalem Ministries prayer meeting.
2:00 pm – 4:00pm Jon at Human dignity centre for aftercare
6:00 pm – 10:00pm Hospitality and discipleship
Tuesday
8:00 am – 12:00pm April at Human Dignity Centre for crèche
8:00 am – 9:00 am Jon at Fountain Vineyard Office
9:00 am – 12:00 am Touch project or Internet consultancy
2:00 pm – 4:00pm Jon at Human dignity centre for aftercare
7:00 pm – 9:00 pm Care Course – Jon and April
Wednesday
9:00 am – 10:00 am Vineyard Office Staff meeting
10:00am – 1:00pm April at moms group
9:00 am - 2:00 am Jon at Fountain Vineyard Office
2:00 pm – 4:00pm Jon at Human dignity centre for aftercare
Thursday
8:00 am – 12:00pm April at Human Dignity Centre for crèche
8:00 am – 2:00am Jon at Fountain Vineyard Office
2:00 pm – 4:00pm Jon at Human Dignity Centre for aftercare
7:00 pm –10:000 pm House church, we attend/teach in rotation
Friday
8:00 am – 09:00am Jon at School assembly at Tucaway academy
9:00 am – 2:00 am Study time at fountain Vineyard for Jon
4:00 pm – 10:00 pm Hospitality
Saturday
Officially our proper day off, but things keep landing on it.
I’m not sure why this important, maybe its just a response to the person who said we are just off for aholiday.
Mighty Men
Friday saw me heading up to Durban for the mighty mens conference.
That was 60,000 men in a field for a gospel weekend, very exciting , the vibe was like that of the big festivals I have been to, but being all men the sounds and smells were a little different.
Also the afrikaans thing was odd , over 50% of the attendies were afrikaans farmers and the culture was very different to anything I have encountered before. Somethign I struggeled to like actually, God even provoked in me repetance towards my racists attitude towards africans people.
The minsitry was good but what stood out was the size and the scale of the event, the hunger and expectancy, and the sheer desire to be there reminded me very much of glastonbury, but with an added spiritual dimension.
