From naivety to complexity...and back to naivety again

I was able to attend the "Big IF" day conference hosted by Alpha Scotland. Made some new friends and had the chance to listen to Peter Greig for the first time. He said a lot of very helpful things about prayer.

One of the challenges from the day was to become naive again. Let me explain. PG said that we begin the Christian life being naive about God. We just expect Him to answer prayer. We expect Him to make things work for us. Often He does! And life can seem a breeze. Then it gets complicated. We get tired - perhaps even confused. The challenge was to allow God to lead us out of complexity and attendant pain, disappointment, confusion, etc., and back into a second naivety.

There's a challenge for you!

The Prayer Art

I've just read this book on prayer by my good friend Dan Chesney. Some really inspirational stuff undergirded by sound biblical teaching on our union with Christ. What's so special about this book is not just that it is written by a serious practitioner of the prayer art, but that Dan allows us into his own prayer world.

You can purchase it at Dan's website.

Rebuilding the Family Altar

My sister attends St. Aldates Church in Oxford. Before our summer holidays she gave me a book called The Discipline of Intimacy written by the Rector, Charlie Cleverly.

Somehow this book touched my heart. It is very informative, very biblical in its approach, but it has what I can only describe as drawing power. It drew me. It made we want to read. More than that, it made me want to pray. It made me want to seek God.

However, it went even further. One chapter in particular might prove to be the most important chapter that I've read in any book for a long, long time.

You see the chapter in question, chapter 9, is about rebuilding the family altar. The author was challenged about the importance of this by an African pastor. This pastor, John Mulinde, told him that he was surprised that having visited many Christian homes in the West, prayer was not part of the warp and woof of the lives of these families. He then went on to explain that in Uganda Christian families prayed together for about an hour daily.

The author told of his own experience of rebuilding the family altar in his home and gave ten practical steps for anyone who wanted to set out on this journey.

Can you imagine how it would affect the prayer life of the church if every Christian family was committed to family prayer? Can you imagine the potential for impacting the world?

You can find out more about the church Charlie Cleverly leads here

Getting desperate with God in Starbucks

I was having a discussion recently about the future of the church, and, inevitably cafe church came into the conversation.

As I reflected on the discussion, I thought about some of the people who I've met "in church" with really desperate needs. I asked myself this question, "When life gets really desperate, and you need to get desperate with God, how do you get desperate in cafe church?"

What does "desperation" look like in that context?

Duty, discipline and legalism

The Between Two Worlds blogsite has a very thoughtful post on duty and legalism by John Piper.

There is a tendency in the church today to dismiss duty as some sort of manifestation of legalism. The result is sometimes, perhaps often, that we ditch disciplined Bible reading and prayer as "legalistic". Unfortunately in our desire to avoid what we mistakenly think to be a legalistic approach to prayer and Bible reading, we don't get around to doing much of either. Devotional practice becomes spasmodic rather than habitual.

You can read what Piper has to say here

"You really were my dad"

Tony Hart, who died recently, will be remembered by a generation for the BBC children's tv classics Vision On and Take Hart. The BBC website reported on his funeral.

His daughter's tribute included the following recollection:

"I remember begging you to collect me from school, so that the other children could see that you really were my dad, and you did."

Those words are profound and touching. Profound that a little girl should live with the consciousness that her father was so special. Touching in that she should want everyone to know that he really was her dad.

Sometimes, I think, that is the heart behind our prayers; we want people to know that He really is our Father. It's not just about having our needs met or a prayer obviously answered with a divine "Yes", it's also about us wanting to "show off" our Father. And He loves to show us and others that He is our Father.