There are a few collects that stick in my mind for a number of reasons. Some because of the poetry, others because of their succinct assessment or proclamation, some because of the association ie. Time Lords - "both our hearts" and 'Bill and Ted':
Lord, you have taught us
that all our doings without love are nothing worth:
send your Holy Spirit and pour into our hearts that most excellent gift of love,
the true bond of peace and of all virtues,
without which whoever lives is counted dead before you.
Grant this for your only Son Jesus Christ's sake,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.
Amen.
That 'most excellent' gift of love, the Holy Spirit and the reality that without love, we have nothing. God's love, as shown by Christ and the Cross. The love which enables us and binds us together.
May love be our hope, enabler and guide this day and always and may we live within it and share it with others.
Pax
Tuesday, 5 July 2011
Monday, 4 July 2011
The "I'm Ordained Conundrum"
Picking up on a point RevSimmy made on a previous post.
When I was first ordained I went off in the morning to morning prayer (that's how I knew it wasn't evening!) and from there did a school assembly and some hospital visiting. I then had some lunch (in town with the wife) and then went off to do some home visits. I finally got back and went into my study concerned that I hadn't done anything and needed to get some work done. Mrs. Vicarage came into the study and informed me that I'd been working all day because that was what I was supposed to do!
My problem was that what I'd done as a matter of course as a non-ordained person was now what I was supposed to do as one who received a stipend. This made me realise how very privileged I was to be able to do what I would have done anyway as part of my daily working life.
One of the things I ask people seeking ordination is the question, "What will ordination allow you to do that you cannot do now?" The answers are amazingly diverse (won't go into them now) but one of them that rings my bells is the one that says, "Engage pastorally at times when I might not otherwise be able to in a role which draws others to me." (I liked the person who said that!)
Discuss!
:)
When I was first ordained I went off in the morning to morning prayer (that's how I knew it wasn't evening!) and from there did a school assembly and some hospital visiting. I then had some lunch (in town with the wife) and then went off to do some home visits. I finally got back and went into my study concerned that I hadn't done anything and needed to get some work done. Mrs. Vicarage came into the study and informed me that I'd been working all day because that was what I was supposed to do!
My problem was that what I'd done as a matter of course as a non-ordained person was now what I was supposed to do as one who received a stipend. This made me realise how very privileged I was to be able to do what I would have done anyway as part of my daily working life.
One of the things I ask people seeking ordination is the question, "What will ordination allow you to do that you cannot do now?" The answers are amazingly diverse (won't go into them now) but one of them that rings my bells is the one that says, "Engage pastorally at times when I might not otherwise be able to in a role which draws others to me." (I liked the person who said that!)
Discuss!
:)
It's OK for stipendiaries, but we have to work!
Thus said one of the wonderful cohort of NSM/OLM types when the topic of an evening Chapter (gathering of the clergy in an area) meeting was raised with them. They appeared to think that their response was some sort of adequate defence of their (non-stipendiaries, all of them) persistent non-attendance over something like eight years. I think it says that they have made a choice rather than been subjected to a contraint when you look back at the period in question!
Still, taking to heart the fact that the non-stipendiary sorts feel unloved and undervalued, where I am we have decided to offer an evening meeting for them anyway! Mind you, taking a look at the other side of the coin, some of the stipendiary sorts felt that this was yet another evening meeting to add to the many that already cram our diaries.
I would like to make what I consider to be a very valid point in that those who are stipendiary do actually work during the day as well. Not only that but some of us are very much fully engaged during the day and then again during the evening (when I assume those non-stipendiary sorts choose not to do meetings). To assume that one group has to work and then come to meetings is to function under a false pretext in the same wat that some I have engaged with saw themselves as nobly serving the church they loved because they took no money from it whilst the others (stipendiaries) were mercenaries and took the little money the church had to pay for their services.
Let's cut to the chase here people. If you are a priest, then you are a priest - full stop. This should mean that you have a calling upon your life which has been tried, tested and you are a person who is approved. This should also mean that you have an adequate training which has equipped you for the rigours of ministry in intellectual terms as well as mental, psychological (ie. you are somewhat stable) and physical aspects as well (and you have to be careful here that we don't discriminate).
What I need is people who will fulfil the calling before them and come as partners to the task of making disciples and building Church, touching the broken, comforting those who mourn and serving all before us. Those who give their time for free are no more noble or special that those who engage in a stipendiary ministry - they are just another facet of the gem that is Christian Ministry.
So, if you read this and you are self-supporting (like stocking? much prefer non-stipendiary!) or Ordained Local Ministers or whatever titles is used, first and foremost 'Thank You' for being a fellow-worker in the vineyard, together we celebrate the ministry of the laity (who often appear to do even more than the clergy - now that's a recipé for a fight!!) and encourage them to fulfil their (and our) baptismal calling.
Let's stop the 'them and us' and look at how we can just become us - one calling, one Church and meetings that are subscribed to because this is what Church is - a bunch of people who understand and live within their priestly formation to serve the body of Christ.
And if you can't, so be it, but don't you dare tell me it's because you work (unless you're on nights that is, I'm not totally cruel).
Pax
ps. It wasn't that long ago that a group of NSM's I met were applauding the emergence of OLM's because they were at the bottom of the pile and so, by default, raised the NSM status - sad isn't it?
pps. I have recently met some who have a cat's lick and a promise in terms of training and ability who have slid in via odd means who have then, magically, emerged as stipendiaries through means nepharious, foul and otherwise without the wit or calling (it appears) to fulfil the needs of the task before them. Could this be a reason for the dumbing down and weakening of the Church's diminishing ability to teach, train, equip and release? (another invitation for a punch-up here I reckon :) ).
Pax
Still, taking to heart the fact that the non-stipendiary sorts feel unloved and undervalued, where I am we have decided to offer an evening meeting for them anyway! Mind you, taking a look at the other side of the coin, some of the stipendiary sorts felt that this was yet another evening meeting to add to the many that already cram our diaries.
I would like to make what I consider to be a very valid point in that those who are stipendiary do actually work during the day as well. Not only that but some of us are very much fully engaged during the day and then again during the evening (when I assume those non-stipendiary sorts choose not to do meetings). To assume that one group has to work and then come to meetings is to function under a false pretext in the same wat that some I have engaged with saw themselves as nobly serving the church they loved because they took no money from it whilst the others (stipendiaries) were mercenaries and took the little money the church had to pay for their services.
Let's cut to the chase here people. If you are a priest, then you are a priest - full stop. This should mean that you have a calling upon your life which has been tried, tested and you are a person who is approved. This should also mean that you have an adequate training which has equipped you for the rigours of ministry in intellectual terms as well as mental, psychological (ie. you are somewhat stable) and physical aspects as well (and you have to be careful here that we don't discriminate).
What I need is people who will fulfil the calling before them and come as partners to the task of making disciples and building Church, touching the broken, comforting those who mourn and serving all before us. Those who give their time for free are no more noble or special that those who engage in a stipendiary ministry - they are just another facet of the gem that is Christian Ministry.
So, if you read this and you are self-supporting (like stocking? much prefer non-stipendiary!) or Ordained Local Ministers or whatever titles is used, first and foremost 'Thank You' for being a fellow-worker in the vineyard, together we celebrate the ministry of the laity (who often appear to do even more than the clergy - now that's a recipé for a fight!!) and encourage them to fulfil their (and our) baptismal calling.
Let's stop the 'them and us' and look at how we can just become us - one calling, one Church and meetings that are subscribed to because this is what Church is - a bunch of people who understand and live within their priestly formation to serve the body of Christ.
And if you can't, so be it, but don't you dare tell me it's because you work (unless you're on nights that is, I'm not totally cruel).
Pax
ps. It wasn't that long ago that a group of NSM's I met were applauding the emergence of OLM's because they were at the bottom of the pile and so, by default, raised the NSM status - sad isn't it?
pps. I have recently met some who have a cat's lick and a promise in terms of training and ability who have slid in via odd means who have then, magically, emerged as stipendiaries through means nepharious, foul and otherwise without the wit or calling (it appears) to fulfil the needs of the task before them. Could this be a reason for the dumbing down and weakening of the Church's diminishing ability to teach, train, equip and release? (another invitation for a punch-up here I reckon :) ).
Pax
Healing -The Wimber legacy?
Thinking about healing, my mind was drawn back to the ministry and methodology of healing as outlined by John Wimber, the bloke who started Vineyard.
Interestingly, I first met John when David Pytches brought him to the basement of a church in London to have a meeting with various bishops and other senior Anglican types and sat enthralled as he spoke about his journey to faith, the shock he had when he turned up at church to find that they didn't do the stuff in the Bible (like healing) but just talked about it (is that where we are now?).
He spoke of his first attempts in the healing ministry following what he was certain God was calling him to do and seeing those he prayed for get worse and die! Then, after about three years he suddenly found that people were getting healed! Then came the bit that made me realise this bloke had something to pass on over and above the healing bit, for he told his audience (I was doing the PA/Sound by the way) that there was 'other stuff' and said that rather than explain he'd let God do it.
He started praying and as he did this wave of anointing swept the place and many of the bishops fell of their chairs, some were weeping, others were laughing and the place was in uproar. I'd never seen anything quite like it and I heard later that the bishops had (politely) told John that neither had they and it wasn't for the CofE! (sad or what?)
So the man came and went and the next time I heard of him he was doing stuff at St Andrew's, Chorleywood, teaching people about relationship with Christ and healing. At one of these, at what John called a 'healing 101' session, he was getting people to pray for healing with what he called the easy stuff - legs. He'd ask if anyone had one leg longer then the other and then get people to gather round any who had and pray for them to be the same length - and they were (I saw it on a number of occasions).
John would always ask the people to find out if they wanted a leg lengthened or shortened (make it longer and you need a new wardrobe, make it shorter and you can take the trousers up - funny, but also very practical).
Whenever I saw him he would be calling upon people to 'do what we saw the Father doing'! I was impressed by the fact that he taught people to have a methodology in the area of healing rather than just ask what was wrong and get stuck in with the praying. The process was simple: Ask what was wrong and find out the history of the person and a little of who they were, find out what they wanted and then pray (always asking permission beforehand), listening to God and praying accordingly for healing (or whatever). This was revolutionary for many who had been praying for healing for years in the Nike model of ministry ('Just do it).
What happened during those sessions was obviously physical (as well as mental, emotional and spiritual) healing and many people took part in the various training events. So where is healing in our churches now ('healing on the streets' included) and what are they seeing? Surely there must be some robust evidence out there somewhere?
Healing is more than just 'caring' (but of course 'healing' is part of 'caring' and vv) and, in my experiences has been real, tangible and robust - so why don't we (I) see it? Why don't we (I) go for it?
The whole issue of 'robust evidence' is now troubling me because to date I have heard of none coming back in support of the fact that God can, and does, heal. I can turn on my TV and see 'healing' from some of the circus performance Televangelists and watch the please for money to keep the ministry on the road, but froth apart, where is the substance? For me healing is not a spectator sport, we are all called to engage in it but in saying that, surely it is a proclamation of God's power, mights, grace and love for all to see the who He is.
Pax
Interestingly, I first met John when David Pytches brought him to the basement of a church in London to have a meeting with various bishops and other senior Anglican types and sat enthralled as he spoke about his journey to faith, the shock he had when he turned up at church to find that they didn't do the stuff in the Bible (like healing) but just talked about it (is that where we are now?).
He spoke of his first attempts in the healing ministry following what he was certain God was calling him to do and seeing those he prayed for get worse and die! Then, after about three years he suddenly found that people were getting healed! Then came the bit that made me realise this bloke had something to pass on over and above the healing bit, for he told his audience (I was doing the PA/Sound by the way) that there was 'other stuff' and said that rather than explain he'd let God do it.
He started praying and as he did this wave of anointing swept the place and many of the bishops fell of their chairs, some were weeping, others were laughing and the place was in uproar. I'd never seen anything quite like it and I heard later that the bishops had (politely) told John that neither had they and it wasn't for the CofE! (sad or what?)
So the man came and went and the next time I heard of him he was doing stuff at St Andrew's, Chorleywood, teaching people about relationship with Christ and healing. At one of these, at what John called a 'healing 101' session, he was getting people to pray for healing with what he called the easy stuff - legs. He'd ask if anyone had one leg longer then the other and then get people to gather round any who had and pray for them to be the same length - and they were (I saw it on a number of occasions).
John would always ask the people to find out if they wanted a leg lengthened or shortened (make it longer and you need a new wardrobe, make it shorter and you can take the trousers up - funny, but also very practical).
Whenever I saw him he would be calling upon people to 'do what we saw the Father doing'! I was impressed by the fact that he taught people to have a methodology in the area of healing rather than just ask what was wrong and get stuck in with the praying. The process was simple: Ask what was wrong and find out the history of the person and a little of who they were, find out what they wanted and then pray (always asking permission beforehand), listening to God and praying accordingly for healing (or whatever). This was revolutionary for many who had been praying for healing for years in the Nike model of ministry ('Just do it).
What happened during those sessions was obviously physical (as well as mental, emotional and spiritual) healing and many people took part in the various training events. So where is healing in our churches now ('healing on the streets' included) and what are they seeing? Surely there must be some robust evidence out there somewhere?
Healing is more than just 'caring' (but of course 'healing' is part of 'caring' and vv) and, in my experiences has been real, tangible and robust - so why don't we (I) see it? Why don't we (I) go for it?
The whole issue of 'robust evidence' is now troubling me because to date I have heard of none coming back in support of the fact that God can, and does, heal. I can turn on my TV and see 'healing' from some of the circus performance Televangelists and watch the please for money to keep the ministry on the road, but froth apart, where is the substance? For me healing is not a spectator sport, we are all called to engage in it but in saying that, surely it is a proclamation of God's power, mights, grace and love for all to see the who He is.
Pax
Sunday, 3 July 2011
What is Church for?
This is the question someone asked me last week. How would you set about answering it?
Here's my attempt:
It soon became clear that my companion thought that Church was the building. So I had to explain that this was wrong. Romans 16:5 says: “Greet also the church in their house . . “
Church is people, who recognise that Jesus died for them and the come together to worship God, serve others, and be the ‘body of Christ’, that is His hands and feet, the people of speak of Him to others, who come to the aid of others:
“God has placed all things under his (Jesus’) feet and appointed Him to be head over everything for the church, which is his body, the fullness of Him who fills everything in every way.” Ephesians 1: 22 - 23
We discussed how there are other ways and places for people to do good things outside of being Church. Of how you don’t need to go to Church to do good and that being Church didn’t make you good either.
Having first agreed, I decided to explain that being a Christian isn’t about being ‘good’ but how it is about realising that ‘good’ is something we can’t manage on our own. Of how, God realising this sent His Son Jesus, the Christ, to come and break the one thing that stops us from being the way that God intended.
Of how Jesus came and died on a cross for him, and me, and each and every person that has been, is, and will be so, and rose again from the dead. And by doing this, Jesus broke death!
Now death came into the world because people broke the rules (we call this sin) and the power that sin has over us is death. But if Jesus has broken death then where is sin’s power over us?
The answer is that it is gone, broken, powerless. This is why Church comes and is and does – because Jesus is alive and sin in us is broken (Hallelujah?).
“If this is true, why are so many of the Church mean, nasty, spiteful and judgmental?” he asks.
My reply:
“Because we’re human and fallible and because we forget to look to God when the tough bits come along. Jesus came and broke to hold of sin over us, but there are times when, like all children, we go off and do it our way – and that when we’re mean, nasty and judgemental. But think what we’d have been like without Jesus!”
“So if I was a Christian would I have to change?”
What a question!
I explained that a Christian was someone who believed that Christ had died for them and having realised this had said ‘sorry’ to God for all that they had done wrong and for living outside his love and relationship. And had decided to line in a new way, for Him! Doing this and meeting with fellow strugglers against the old life made him Church too!
Have you done this?
Pax
Here's my attempt:
It soon became clear that my companion thought that Church was the building. So I had to explain that this was wrong. Romans 16:5 says: “Greet also the church in their house . . “
Church is people, who recognise that Jesus died for them and the come together to worship God, serve others, and be the ‘body of Christ’, that is His hands and feet, the people of speak of Him to others, who come to the aid of others:
“God has placed all things under his (Jesus’) feet and appointed Him to be head over everything for the church, which is his body, the fullness of Him who fills everything in every way.” Ephesians 1: 22 - 23
We discussed how there are other ways and places for people to do good things outside of being Church. Of how you don’t need to go to Church to do good and that being Church didn’t make you good either.
Having first agreed, I decided to explain that being a Christian isn’t about being ‘good’ but how it is about realising that ‘good’ is something we can’t manage on our own. Of how, God realising this sent His Son Jesus, the Christ, to come and break the one thing that stops us from being the way that God intended.
Of how Jesus came and died on a cross for him, and me, and each and every person that has been, is, and will be so, and rose again from the dead. And by doing this, Jesus broke death!
Now death came into the world because people broke the rules (we call this sin) and the power that sin has over us is death. But if Jesus has broken death then where is sin’s power over us?
The answer is that it is gone, broken, powerless. This is why Church comes and is and does – because Jesus is alive and sin in us is broken (Hallelujah?).
“If this is true, why are so many of the Church mean, nasty, spiteful and judgmental?” he asks.
My reply:
“Because we’re human and fallible and because we forget to look to God when the tough bits come along. Jesus came and broke to hold of sin over us, but there are times when, like all children, we go off and do it our way – and that when we’re mean, nasty and judgemental. But think what we’d have been like without Jesus!”
“So if I was a Christian would I have to change?”
What a question!
I explained that a Christian was someone who believed that Christ had died for them and having realised this had said ‘sorry’ to God for all that they had done wrong and for living outside his love and relationship. And had decided to line in a new way, for Him! Doing this and meeting with fellow strugglers against the old life made him Church too!
Have you done this?
Pax
Saturday, 2 July 2011
Healing - Fact or fiction 3
Another Kenyan escapade, this time in Nyahururu.
When I was there the place was full of stories of a man who terrorised the town. He ran about in a wild sort of terror by day and by night he would sleep under some corrugated iron sheeting (until the kids came in the morning and threw stones and rocks onto the sheeting to wake him up. Think I'd be mad too if that was me!).
Anyway, one day there was a very strong sense that God was saying that the man had a spirit of amnesia and that we needed to grab him and pray for his healing. So off some of the Christians went and grabbed him and brought him back. When they did he was in a most awful state, he was covered in dirt and his matted hair had things living in it and he was like a wild animal (reminded me of the time a feral cat came in to the house and ran amok ripping things and peeing everywhere - just bigger!).
Beginning to pray for the man resulted in his dropping to the floor, motionless, and me thinking, "Whoops, think we've killed him!". There was a smashing anointing knocking around and a few minutes after the praying finished the bloke suddenly sits up and asks (in Swahili) where he is. When he's told (Nyahururu) he explains that he is a butcher and had come to buy some meat when he was attacked. The panga scars on his chest and the fact that his pick up and money had gone all supported the story and when he realised he'd been in the place for a fair time it all got a bit interesting.
We took him off and stripped his clothes off him and he was hosed down and shaved from head to foot (the local barber, not me thank goodness). He was then given new clothes and was taken back to his home where the family and neighbours went absolutely bonkers (whilst he was overjoyed but sane). They thought he'd either gone off or been killed and had given up hope of seeing him again.
I heard a few years later that there were churches formed through this event and that it had been a pivotal moment in the Christian life of the area.
The more I think of what I have seen and been involved in, the more I begin to wonder why I have let healing slip as much as I have.
And then of course there is John Wimber . . . .
Mungu Akubariki
When I was there the place was full of stories of a man who terrorised the town. He ran about in a wild sort of terror by day and by night he would sleep under some corrugated iron sheeting (until the kids came in the morning and threw stones and rocks onto the sheeting to wake him up. Think I'd be mad too if that was me!).
Anyway, one day there was a very strong sense that God was saying that the man had a spirit of amnesia and that we needed to grab him and pray for his healing. So off some of the Christians went and grabbed him and brought him back. When they did he was in a most awful state, he was covered in dirt and his matted hair had things living in it and he was like a wild animal (reminded me of the time a feral cat came in to the house and ran amok ripping things and peeing everywhere - just bigger!).
Beginning to pray for the man resulted in his dropping to the floor, motionless, and me thinking, "Whoops, think we've killed him!". There was a smashing anointing knocking around and a few minutes after the praying finished the bloke suddenly sits up and asks (in Swahili) where he is. When he's told (Nyahururu) he explains that he is a butcher and had come to buy some meat when he was attacked. The panga scars on his chest and the fact that his pick up and money had gone all supported the story and when he realised he'd been in the place for a fair time it all got a bit interesting.
We took him off and stripped his clothes off him and he was hosed down and shaved from head to foot (the local barber, not me thank goodness). He was then given new clothes and was taken back to his home where the family and neighbours went absolutely bonkers (whilst he was overjoyed but sane). They thought he'd either gone off or been killed and had given up hope of seeing him again.
I heard a few years later that there were churches formed through this event and that it had been a pivotal moment in the Christian life of the area.
The more I think of what I have seen and been involved in, the more I begin to wonder why I have let healing slip as much as I have.
And then of course there is John Wimber . . . .
Mungu Akubariki
Healing - Fact or fiction 2
Up in the Rift Valley, Kenya, we'd been engaged in some rural evangelism and after the preaching it was announced that we'd be praying for those who were sick. I was grabbed (literally) and taken to a woman who wanted prayer for healing. "what is wrong with her?" I asked. The response was that she was blind!
I have to be honest and say that I wanted to get out of there. I believed God 'could' heal but that hadn't generally been my experience. I would have been O.K. with a headache or something a bit abstract and lightweight, but blind was a bit over the top!
It was obvious that I wasn't going to get out of it (I remember thinking I'd try and see if I could slip off to get my Bible!) and so I stuck out a hand and prayed two of my favourite prayers, 'oh God' and 'help'. I could feel something was happening as I prayed for those blind eyes to see (heat, tingling electric sort of stuff and the like).
When the feeling sort of stopped I asked the woman (through a translator) how she felt. After a brief conversation the people clapped and cheered and the translator said, "She can see."
To be honest here, my first thoughts were that she could see all along (always the cynic me!) and that what we really had was an error in initial translation which meant that 'she can see' was the starting state as well!
Someone came into the crush and after a quick chat it transpired that there was a lot of blindness in the region (something about volcanic ash was Mentioned) and that she had been blind for some time and now wasn't!
Relieved, shell-shocked and I don't know what I felt, it was all a bit heady, confusing and disorientating, I believed in healing but this was up close and personal in a really big way! I turned, only to find another candidate for prayer and of course she was also blind! Repeat prayers (blind eye see had been added after my favourite two prayers, so I continued with that) and end up with the same response and result (except I was more expectant/believing/less surprised perhaps).
Again the people were buzzing and up came a third person, obviously blind (White eyes are a give away aren't they?) but still I asked and prayed and opened my eyes to look into two brown eyes without a hint of white to be seen anywhere! I didn't bother to ask, but someone else did and the praised God (of course).
After that I managed to get back to the matatu (the bus I was driving) and once inside, my wheels fell off. If God could do what He'd just done using me then I'd got Him very wrong indeed! I understood the 'get away from me God, I'm a sinful man' bit and realised something if His immensity in one experience.
The sad bit was that later, back in the UK, I struggled to understand how we could see what we did (for there was much more) in Africa and yet fail to see the same thing on our shores. We were the same people and God was the same God so what was it? Faith, expectation, mindset (we know so much and see so little whilst they knew God but were less 'sophisticated').
what was it in us that meant we didn't see what we had seen elsewhere and even though my expectations were high, for healing was now a reality not just something I believed yet didn't expect to see in some sort of dispensationalist or rational way, it wasn't the same!
I still don't understand and to be honest, over the intervening years I have stopped asking (but now I'm going to have to start again :( ), but my experience tells me that God does heal even though my 'now' sort of denies it. Chronos and kairos? Just a lucky night? Can't have been for there were so many people and so many nights in so many different places.
Bottom line - healing sure isn't fiction and surely there must be some of the robustness in the evidence out there?
Pax
ps. my scientific and engineering background always calls for empirical proof. That night I got what I hadn't sought and realised that what I'd never thought about in any real way was something that I should expect and was real. Care on the streets - nope, should be healing on the streets, now I have to understand how and why. Also healing is not the gift in the box but it is a gift.
God is not an equation: Sickness + prayer + God = whatsoever God fancies it being.
We cannot manipulate Him by transposition nor apply Him as a constant, and yet he is not hypothesis either. He is a variably constant constant - hallelujah!
I have to be honest and say that I wanted to get out of there. I believed God 'could' heal but that hadn't generally been my experience. I would have been O.K. with a headache or something a bit abstract and lightweight, but blind was a bit over the top!
It was obvious that I wasn't going to get out of it (I remember thinking I'd try and see if I could slip off to get my Bible!) and so I stuck out a hand and prayed two of my favourite prayers, 'oh God' and 'help'. I could feel something was happening as I prayed for those blind eyes to see (heat, tingling electric sort of stuff and the like).
When the feeling sort of stopped I asked the woman (through a translator) how she felt. After a brief conversation the people clapped and cheered and the translator said, "She can see."
To be honest here, my first thoughts were that she could see all along (always the cynic me!) and that what we really had was an error in initial translation which meant that 'she can see' was the starting state as well!
Someone came into the crush and after a quick chat it transpired that there was a lot of blindness in the region (something about volcanic ash was Mentioned) and that she had been blind for some time and now wasn't!
Relieved, shell-shocked and I don't know what I felt, it was all a bit heady, confusing and disorientating, I believed in healing but this was up close and personal in a really big way! I turned, only to find another candidate for prayer and of course she was also blind! Repeat prayers (blind eye see had been added after my favourite two prayers, so I continued with that) and end up with the same response and result (except I was more expectant/believing/less surprised perhaps).
Again the people were buzzing and up came a third person, obviously blind (White eyes are a give away aren't they?) but still I asked and prayed and opened my eyes to look into two brown eyes without a hint of white to be seen anywhere! I didn't bother to ask, but someone else did and the praised God (of course).
After that I managed to get back to the matatu (the bus I was driving) and once inside, my wheels fell off. If God could do what He'd just done using me then I'd got Him very wrong indeed! I understood the 'get away from me God, I'm a sinful man' bit and realised something if His immensity in one experience.
The sad bit was that later, back in the UK, I struggled to understand how we could see what we did (for there was much more) in Africa and yet fail to see the same thing on our shores. We were the same people and God was the same God so what was it? Faith, expectation, mindset (we know so much and see so little whilst they knew God but were less 'sophisticated').
what was it in us that meant we didn't see what we had seen elsewhere and even though my expectations were high, for healing was now a reality not just something I believed yet didn't expect to see in some sort of dispensationalist or rational way, it wasn't the same!
I still don't understand and to be honest, over the intervening years I have stopped asking (but now I'm going to have to start again :( ), but my experience tells me that God does heal even though my 'now' sort of denies it. Chronos and kairos? Just a lucky night? Can't have been for there were so many people and so many nights in so many different places.
Bottom line - healing sure isn't fiction and surely there must be some of the robustness in the evidence out there?
Pax
ps. my scientific and engineering background always calls for empirical proof. That night I got what I hadn't sought and realised that what I'd never thought about in any real way was something that I should expect and was real. Care on the streets - nope, should be healing on the streets, now I have to understand how and why. Also healing is not the gift in the box but it is a gift.
God is not an equation: Sickness + prayer + God = whatsoever God fancies it being.
We cannot manipulate Him by transposition nor apply Him as a constant, and yet he is not hypothesis either. He is a variably constant constant - hallelujah!
Friday, 1 July 2011
Healing - fact or fiction?
I can't believe it's actually something like twenty years ago that a reporter from a Sunday broadsheet came to spend a Sunday with the church I was working in. His task was to be present at all the services and write an account of what he saw.
At the evening service we were visited by a wonderful chap who had cone to lead a 'healing service'. During the evening he preached and then called out people who needed healing. The reporter came closer to the platform and his photographer snapped away whilt the preacher prayed for the sick. Up came a blind bloke (only person who sticks in my mind now) and he was asked if there was anything happening. He was told there was a sort of flashing lights going on, and so the chap prayed again and this time the response was that he thought he saw light. Again the chap prayed and by now the photographer was feet away. Upon being asked what was happening the blind person said they could see what looked like a funny face - turned out to be the photographer!
The man was able to read text before the service ended and yet the paper never carried that in their account of a Sunday with us!
Perhaps there was a different agenda?
Pax
At the evening service we were visited by a wonderful chap who had cone to lead a 'healing service'. During the evening he preached and then called out people who needed healing. The reporter came closer to the platform and his photographer snapped away whilt the preacher prayed for the sick. Up came a blind bloke (only person who sticks in my mind now) and he was asked if there was anything happening. He was told there was a sort of flashing lights going on, and so the chap prayed again and this time the response was that he thought he saw light. Again the chap prayed and by now the photographer was feet away. Upon being asked what was happening the blind person said they could see what looked like a funny face - turned out to be the photographer!
The man was able to read text before the service ended and yet the paper never carried that in their account of a Sunday with us!
Perhaps there was a different agenda?
Pax
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