a glimpse of mortality

Waiting for my hospital appointment for an ultrasound scan, on my foot, was the first conscious dwelling on the possibility of it being anything other than an innocent lump. The two GP’s who had seen it already were ‘fairly confident’ is was innocent, but ‘just wanted to make sure’.

How fairly is fairly, I began to wonder? I remembered being fairly confident I’d get an A in my English Literature A level, but came out with a C! I recalled many a football season and even more matches, when I’d been fairly confident of victory, like England v Poland in 1973 and the Liverpool v Wimbledon FA Cup Final in 1988 (especially painful going on a bus load of Wimbledon fans!).

I looked around the waiting room and just hoped I looked a tad healthier than everyone else! Then I began to recall friends who’d been diagnosed following the routine visit, I’d assumed this would be.

‘Here I am, wholly available Lord’ I prayed, thinking (as if the Lord might not notice) I’d prefer my wholly available to include my left foot!

‘How beautiful on the mountains are the feet of those who bring good news’ … yes, Lord, but how much more useful to have two feet! By now, the smile on my face, which brought a strange look from the elderly woman opposite had descended into a thoughtful frown as I began to contemplate a false leg.

What if the Lord had other things in mind than a long life, here on earth? Humour has always been a useful defence mechanism, but facing reality has been a watchword, so this was getting tense.

Thankfully the NHS came up trumps. No long wait. In, at an earlier time, than my allotted appointment. A really speedy diagnosis. An innocent fibroma ‘caused by running a lot’. At this point I resisted asking the Doctor to put that in writing, so simply said, ‘in that case, can I say I’m delighted to meet you’. Thinking – oh how trite this sounds and I bet you get this all the time. A big relief and I’d only been thinking, seriously, about it for half an hour.

Of course, my diagnosis meant it easy to post this. Of course, I’ve preached on how we avoid the death reality clause, built into the fabric of our human being. What I realised is I’ve become too aneathitised against death, which is really unhealthy for anyone, never mind a Christian. So thank you Lord for re-opening my eyes.

What Jesus started with Steve Addison

Faith restored ... in case of need!

Another fairly manic week, which has been great, but doesn't help me catch-up with 'stuff', which, for me, is not unrelated to that word 'maintenance'. I used to join in with polarising 'mission' and 'maintenance', until I realised, just like my car, computer, tools, maintenance, is not altogether a bad thing. 
NB - an additional stress and hassle, this week, comes from, the fact, my laptop has a corrupted, hard disk partition, or something like that. It sounds painful, but worse, the programme, extracting my data, has been running, since Monday and I'm still laptop-less, which is, frankly, totally disorientating.
I'm convinced one of the conversations, which demands, more intentional,  on-going dialogue, is that between the oft polarised pioneers and more established church based ministries. Two very good reasons, although there are more: 
- the pioneers are yet to find all the answers.
- the established ministries have not forgotten everything, concerning mission.

Not that I needed it (honestly), but my faith in what we often describe as bog-standard Baptist Ministry, was restored this week ( well, would have been, of I'd needed it).
Whilst up in London, I stayed with my good friend, Phil Robinson, Pastor at Lewin Road, Streatham. I watched the football (Phil with Sky Sports is proof God has not finished with us yet) whilst Phil went to a prayer meeting. Later, he shared how they'd been praying for forty baptisms this year ( that's the average size of a UK Baptist Church, to put it in perspective). They'd seen 19 and had 13, in the pipeline, so I've just added my prayers for them to see their forty. 

Talk to Phil and you'll realise gathered worship still plays a vital part in our life, larger churches still depend on the reality of being made up of many smaller ones ( groups) and prayer, together, and evangelism are still as relevant, as ever. So, bless you Lewin Road. BC. 

Baptists Together

Congratulations - to the editorial group, of Baptists Together. The first edition arrived, yesterday, but I'd not had a chance to look at it, properly, until today. My instinctive, initial response, is great, well done. Already, the best publication we've come up with, certainly, in my memory and the potential, for it to become a helpful vehicle for our growing vision, together, is rich indeed. 
A big thank you and well done, from me.

Kingdom Culture

Surfacing, again, after time away, reading, odd things, August.

One thing, with all our talk about culture and context, which has struck me, over and over, again, during the summer, is how little we speak about our constant context, which needs to be a biblical/theological/kingdom one.
How good it's been, therefore, to see Woodlands (Bristol), preaching a series:  Kingdom Culture. I've dipped in, mainly because my children are all connected with Woodies and, also, we're exploring how we plant together, in an area of Bristol, but some of their titles:

A Culture of Spiritual Warfare.
A Culture of Servanthood.
A Culture of Spiritual Ambition.
A Culture of Non-Religious Christianity.

All available, to listen, via: https://www.woodlandschurch.net

WE:networks?

We've wondered a few times, whether to change the name of our 'association'? It's always struck me we have a gift - being named 'West of England' spells 'we', which is such a powerful word and gets into the heart of Baptist ecclesiology. We say we are more about networks than organisation, but I'm wondering whether our very name (keeping 'Association' in the public face) is nowadays a barrier to communicating this fact? WE:networks?

So far, we have .....

Pros:

It says on the tin what we claim to be.
It's a word, which makes sense in today's language.

Cons:

We risk upsetting the traditional perceptions.
We risk stepping out on a limb (every other 'association' has kept the word).

Answers on a postcard, or e-mail if the stamps are too much.

Keep calm and deacon

Someone's sent me this and enjoyed, so much, thought I'd post it here: