A God Shaped Hole

So off the back of my last blog ‘Hooked on Religion’ I pick up my copy of Christianity magazine and read the interview with Micheal Nazir-Ali, Bishop of Rochester and it’s not long before my suspicions are confirmed; yes everyone is hooked on religion. The interviewer, John Buckeridge asks him a final question: ‘What is the biggest opportunity that the church faces, and the biggest threat?’ His answer? ‘The biggest opportunity is the sensitivity among people to spiritual truth.’ Gotcha!

That’s it, life has changed. We buy, possess and live with so much stuff, yet we are still empty, still moping around trying to make sense of it all and yet floundering in our pursuit. The gateway opens and spirituality drifts in. Our perception of life has changed.

Of course, Billy Graham, that old statesman of the Evangelical world had it right all along.  In his well crafted and articulate sermons he would often conclude with, ‘There is a God shaped hole inside of every person that only He can fill’.  What more can I say?

Well, to conclude, Bishop Nazir-Ali gave this response to the biggest threat faced by the Church. ‘The biggest threat is from the secularisers who want to marginalise all belief but have nothing else to put in its place.’ I guess what he means is its a bit like losing the Crown Jewels and replacing them with case load of bling. The bling might shine but we all know it’s not the real thing. No worries there then. I still know a proper carat when I see one, don’t you?

Hooked on Religion?

Is it my imagination, or is everyone getting hooked on religion?

I guess it could be that we’ve just celebrated Easter but it appears wherever you turn everyone is talking about faith. I bought a copy of Newsweek recently only to find a long interview between Pastor Rick Warren and atheist Sam Harris filling the centre pages. It made for fascinating reading. Then there were main articles in two broadsheets I picked up and from one of them read this ….

‘Religion is back,’ says BBC head of department Adam Kemp. ‘A few years ago it was a Cinderella genre that to some extent had slipped behind subjects like science and history. But what we have seen recently is a really dynamic recovery that has still a long way to play out.’

Well, back it may be in the mind of the media, but has it ever gone away? Religion points to those issues that are closest to us all whether we recognise it or not; religion is to faith what politics is to government: the vehicle through which matters are discussed. It’s not that religion itself is the new to have genre rather that the issues religion raises never date. At its best religion allows us to form, validate and practice our values. Its when it fails to achieve this goal that it’s reduced to something it was never designed to be and becomes the turn off most of us have sadly experienced.

What programmes like The Monastery, The Convent and more recently The Retreat have achieved is to open up the world of religion to those who’d previously closed the door. They remind us of the truth that there is something more important to life than a choice between McDonald’s or Burger King for our next fast food meal or who to vote for in the latest reality TV show. The programmes also show us that the issues they raise are best discussed in community, pointing to an equally valid and important truth: we are not designed to live alone.

What Christianity must do is to wake up to what such broadcasting teaches. For too long we have lived in our small corners guarding a Faith that’s quite capable of looking after its self, and be brave enough to go main stream. People may be tired of meetings offered by the bucket load, but take the issues that matter, and add them to life and we bring the seasoning that still has the power to change the world.

Amazing Grace

Friday 23 March saw the UK release of the film Amazing Grace. A movie that traces the attempt of Christian visionary and politician William Wilberforce and a group known as the Clapham sect to bring an end to the Transatlantic Slave Trade. The film has been released to mark the 200th Anniversary of the Abolition of slavery across the British Empire, and to all accounts has opened to some great reviews.

The issue is important for different reasons. Firstly, we all need to be aware of our history and how it has shaped and fashioned life and culture. Secondly, we need to consider how a relatively small group of people can bring about change for the positive. Thirdly, we need examples from which we draw inspiration in our generation to stand on the side of the poor and marginalised in society. And finally, we need to allow it to fuel our passion to not just leave things to others but to get up and make a difference ourselves.

At Charis this past Sunday, we joined in with Amazing Grace Sunday, and after a time of information and reflection sang John Newton’s hymn. His is a truly amazing story of turning from his slave master roots, finding faith in Christ and eventually joining the Church as a clergyman. It was his experience of conversion from that dark past which inspired him to write, what is the most well known hymn of all time.

Sadly, today the issue of contemporary slavery continues. It is estimated that there are between 12 and 27 million modern day slaves in the world. Most of them without a voice: no-one to stand up and defend them. But this is where we can make a difference. Each one of us has the opportunity to get involved, to show we do care.

If you want to take some these issues further then there are some great sites you can check out. I’ve listed them here for you information and interest.

www.free-at-last.org – this site provides information about the salve trade and highlights an exhibition being held in London which will also tour the country.

www.amazinggracesunday.com – a interesting site with some good clips and mini documentaries.

www.stopthetraffik.org – a campaigning site who are working in many different ways to bring justice to the poor and oppressed in the world.

www.amazinggracemovie.com – the official website for the movie.

If you feel passionate about this issue and feel we should be doing more then do let me know, I’d be interested in talking to you about it.

Elton John at 60

Elton John has just celebrated his 60th birthday. His has been a wild and crazy life with years given over to drink, drugs and rock and roll. But today he finds himself as confidante to many of the celebrities in the world he helped to create. However, this hasn’t always been the case. ‘It took me 16 years of stubbornness and craziness to ask for help because I thought it was sign of weakness’, he recently commented. Sixteen years locked inside the torment of addiction, unable to escape for fear of the rejection that can go along with revealing the real you.There is a time when its right to come out, when you can step out of the shadows and show the real you. And actually it is both important and therapeutic to do so. It is a courageous person who dares to step out of the pretence and reveal a previously hidden side. It’s also true that you need to be wise who you turn to for help since not everyone will handle your concerns in an appropriate way. So how do we go about choosing the right type of person when we need a little help? Well, there are several options. We can turn and get professional help and sometimes this is simply the best, quickest and most appropriate form of support a person can receive. You know why you are going, what the parameters are and how your confidences will be handled. There are times when this is a key decision to make.

Other times, what we need is not so much professional help as it is emotional and practical support and for this type of help we look to family and friends. So what type of friend are we looking for? Well let me suggest how I choose such support.

• I go to someone I can trust. This is the most important decision to make and comes after a season of building a friendship that you can see is not going to easily let you down.
• I go to someone who doesn’t gossip. I don’t want my private affairs being discussed at the next Starbucks coffee morning, thank you very much.
• I go to someone who has and is seeking to handle their own lives appropriately. They don’t need to be perfect, but in order to help me I need to see they have made some good decisions themselves when dealing with their own issues.
• I go to someone who will listen without judging me.
• I go to someone who can help me find a way forward through my problem by helping me plan the way ahead.
• I go to someone who will be honest with me – even when I might not like it.

It took Elton John 16 years to get to that place of being honest with himself and others about his problems. I pray it doesn’t take us that long – life is simply too short to delay changing.

You Hypocrite!

Think about it. Could there be anything worse than being called a hypocrite? To be labelled amongst those people of double standards whose mouths speak one thing but whose lives demonstrate something different?

Well, yes, of course there is. Not be called a hypocrite would be much worse, simply because it means you have yet to be found out! As one Pastor commented to the guy who declined his invitation to Church. ‘I’m not going there, the place is full of hypocrites,’ he argued. ‘Then one more won’t make any difference’, was his swift and accurate response.

Anyhow, enough about others, lets take a look at me and get one thing sorted: I am a hypocrite. You see I don’t always keep my word. I don’t always follow through on a promise. I don’t always have good or pure thoughts. I don’t always practice what I teach. I don’t’ always love my wife as she deserves. I can be jealous, and at times have leanings towards arrogance and usually live with a good measure of envy, lust and pride. My life is far from sorted – I am truly a work in progress.

Now of course, I hope there is less hypocrisy about me today than, say two years ago. But I can’t always be sure. You see, sometimes I stumble over my own expectations. Whilst at other times I disappoint people who look to me for direction and leadership. Sometimes I seek out an air of authority and composure that masks the inner fears or anxieties that grip my own humanness. I like to think of myself as smart, articulate, composed and together, but there are days when I’d be better known as Legion.

Hypocrisy is at its worst in denial. The value of recognising ones own hypocrisy is the potential it creates to change. To live outside of its scope is to walk through the murky waters of falsehood when we can see the fault in others but only perfection in ourselves and it appears to me that the Church can be a breeding ground for such dross. Bernard Manning wrote, “Hypocrisy is not the prerogative of people in high places. The most impoverished amongst us is capable of it. ‘Hypocrisy is the natural expression of what is meanest in us all.’” There is a risk to us in the Church that we could simply become the great pretenders.

Personally, I would hate to be in a Church without hypocrites. I couldn’t compete with the standard for one thing. I don’t come to Jesus because I’m healthy – I come to him because I’m sick. Now I hope my sickness is improving, but I still desperately need his medicine. So perhaps next time I am labelled a hypocrite, I will take it as a complement, for only then will I know that I am known for who I am rather than what I sometimes pretend to be.

In Pursuit of Confidence

“If you study confident people, you’ll quickly see that they come in all shapes and sizes. But they do tend to have one thing in common”, writes Roger Mavity and Stephen Bayley, “they focus on the big issues. Tragically, at work we often see people slaving over long and comprehensive pitches, as if quantity of effort was the deciding issue. It’s not. Quality of thought is the issue”.

Quality of thought is always the issue. You show me someone who is able to think clearly about themselves and the circumstances around them and I will show you someone who is able to make confident, rational and well positioned decisions regarding their life.

Like Mavity and Bayley suggest, focussing on the big issues is a real key. Keeping the main thing the main thing in every situation is the secret to a well planned diary, led meeting and structured life. You miss the big issue in a relational conflict, business venture or life goal and you might as well sing along with the musicians on the Titanic – because over that issue at least, you are going down.

The reason we often fail over the big issue has to be blamed on our propensity towards distraction. I at least have a default mode that allows the smaller issues to obscure my view. The other problem we face is our angst over the beauty of hindsight. But what’s the point of this? None of us can change the past – we can either live as victims to it, bemoaning every failure and moment of bad judgement or we can learn from it and make the most of today. Personally, I think we should abandon this overplay for hindsight and realise the greater potential of foresight. I could list you a half dozen things off the top of my head I would have done with hindsight, but what interests me more is what I might achieve through value of foresight.

Of course, foresight is only available to those people who are prepared to live without burying their head in the sand. It is a gift offered to someone whom, having taken a broad brush stroke over their life is prepared to place the big stones in position before proceeding further. So what might these big stones be? Well, much could be said at this point, but I reckon it would all come down to three simple things: The values we hold, the virtues we keep and the vision we pursue. If you can find someway of bringing these three large stones into the centre of your being, then they will hold you fast, keep you focused and prioritise your decision making. And you will, over time, become that person of confidence you always dreamed of being. So, in the meantime, whatever you do, don’t give up.

Failing Forward – Lessons from a Rabbi

‘Failure is the supreme learning experience, and the best people, the true heroes, are those most willing to fail’. So wrote Rabbi Jonathan Sacks in a recent column in the Times. And so say all of us!

He drew his examples for the lessons of failure from the lives of George Bernard Shaw, who wrote five novels, each of which was turned down by every publisher. From Van Gogh, who sold only one of his 1700 paintings in his life time. And from Thomas Watson, the legendary head of IBM, who, when one of his employees made a bad decision which cost the company $12 million he summoned to see. On arriving at his office, the employee offered his resignation. ‘You are right to fire me, Mr Watson. I made a mistake and it was a bad one.’ ‘Fire you?’ said Watson, ‘We’ve just spent $12 million dollars educating you!’ which just goes to show, there are always at least two perspectives to each situation.

Watson wanted to teach his employee that failure is only failure if you don’t learn from it. A decade ago I set up a shop in a challenging part of town. In fact I was one of a few people, and I was doing it on behalf of a social action project. It all looked good. Stock was well priced, shop nicely presented, we had a great name for it and there were people passing by the door – it should have worked. Well, it didn’t. It failed miserably and we lost £5,000. On reflection, my boss, David Shearman, asked me what I’d learned from the experience and I presented an admirable list of things ‘not to be done’ next time. ‘Then that £5,000 was part of your education, Stephen.’ he said. Indeed it was – and has been. I’ve not repeated the same mistakes since – I learned from failure.

We are all going to fail, but the important thing is to learn from them; to analyse what went wrong and why.

Today, my concern is not the lack of failure, but the lack of aspiration. We seem to live in a world that wants to play it safe all the time. People don’t take the risk in case they fail. ‘What if it goes wrong?’ they say. Well, what if it does go wrong? Surely it is better to risk failure than not to risk at all?

The truth is we all admire people who take risks since it provokes in us a response that’s very real: a desire to go out, to create and to make a difference. We want our lives to count for something – whether a cause, a family, a child, a lover. But to do that we must step out of our comfort zone and ascend the mountain of dreams where the sharp rocks lie and the crevices wait in anticipation of our fall. The Rabbi finished his column with the oft spoken yet never surpassed quote from Theodore Roosevelt. “’…there is no effort without shortcoming.’ Even if such a person fails, he ‘fails while daring greatly, so his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat.’” May God help us to have our share of both, but I trust with a bias towards the former.

Handle with Care – Hot Topics Ahead

I sense that for some time now a few of the regular readers of my blog have been waiting in anticipation for me to enter the cloudy waters of the hot issues that of late have hit the headlines, if for no other reason than it creates a platform for them to air their own thoughts. Well, you’ve all waited patiently for long enough and since the issues of global warming, genetics, sexual orientation regulations, terrorism and the like are not going to go away it might be time to air an opinion or two.

So let’s start with the Sexual Orientation Regulations. What are we to make of the present debate which is about to find it’s way onto the statute book in respect of the rights for same sex couples to access the same privileges of heterosexual couples? Well, it’s always going to be contentious and rightly so. Whenever we break away from societal norms and enter un-chartered water we are going to need to think more broadly than before.

I’ve observed with interest the recent furore surrounding this issue and heard of three potential scenarios (I’m sure there are many more) that such a new law would hope to resolve. They centred round gay adoption, an important and potentially difficult area. Gay publications – that is the right of a Christian publisher to refuse taking on work that promotes gay issues and, most peculiarly the position of a Christian Guest House to refuse the rights of a bedroom to a gay couple. We really do like to pick the meat of the bones in the EU, eh?

Well, to be honest I could never see myself lobbying on the issue outside the Houses of Parliament anymore than I could see my self eating tripe – I’ve just not got the stomach for it. In any case I’m not sure what it achieves apart from to further isolate a community of people who already feel like they’ve been left out in the cold. I’m looking for an alternative position. I need to work hard to embrace a process that continues rather than stifles my dialogue with the Gay community. These people are not my enemies and, like all people, once you get to know a person you stand the chance of becoming a friend. And that, from someone who confesses to many years of quiet homophobia – but life changes us all. Not that I’m any authority on the subject since for years the first image that came into my mind when someone talked about being camp was a cup of coffee.

It seems somewhat harsh to me to suggest that if the Church was to welcome a gay person through the doors of their building how they could then refuse them a room in their Guest House. When you open such an establishment to the public, that’s what it needs to be – open to the public. You can’t then from that position go onto the discriminate against other human beings on the basis of religion, sexual orientation or race. Open for business is open for business and any UK citizen should have the same right of access.

No for me, the complexity of the issue is not over the rights of the individual to pursue their chosen lifestyle, the complexity is over whether that lifestyle should be determined as normative to the point where the couple could then bring up a child in that lifestyle through adoption. And more particularly for those leaders of the Established Church is whether an organisation such as theirs should hand over through one of its adoptive agencies a child in its care to a gay couple.

The debate is somewhat complex but is helped by those who are working with the government to find a way forward. In particular, ‘Faithworks’ is acting as negotiator and spokesperson on these issues. Personally speaking, the way I see it is that on issues of complexity you have to have more than one route upon which to travel – the place of singularity in a diverse society is not an option. If we want to celebrate diversity whilst maintaining community you may need more than one bridge over which people can walk.

Malcolm Duncan, the Leader of Faithworks makes a very valuable point, one which some of my readers may wish to pursue further by reading the full article on their website at http://www.faithworks.info/

He highlights the fact that the rights of both those providing and those receiving a service needs to be recognised.

“One of the key challenges to government in this regard is to recognise the importance of diversity and equality not just for those who receive goods and services, but also for those who deliver goods and services. The idea that every agency must help every person is a rather blunt instrument when it comes to diversity and equality. Surely a better way forward is to ensure that the mosaic of service deliverers covers all the needs of a given community, whilst enabling the service providers themselves to remain true to their own conscience? Whilst this would demand a great deal of hard work, it would protect issues of conscience for all concerned. My one concern in that approach would be the apparent ‘not in my back yard’ attitude that it could communicate, and the inconsistency of such an approach both pragmatically and ideologically.”

For my part any steps to breaking down prejudice that the Church can make in this debate is to be welcomed – but I’m not sure that waving placards outside Big Ben is the best way to achieve that goal.

A Crisis of Faith

Jonathan Edwards, Olympic champion and world record holder for the triple jump is undergoing a crisis of faith. As a result he has graciously stepped out of hosting Songs of Praise for the BBC. So he may have lost his faith – but obviously not his integrity, which suggests to me his faith may be more intact than he realises.

Well someone ought to tell Jonathan its OK, since a crisis of faith is part of faith. A faith that can’t have crisis is surely a faith of convenience and congeniality, a faith for the good times but not much else. It’s like that prosperity nonsense some people espouse to: all glitter, when what we really need is pure gold and that’s not available on the cheap.

Over the years Jonathan Edwards has presented himself in public admirably. His faith has been at the centre of his decision making and family life. Today he’s struggling. ‘I am going through a difficult period and one deeply personal to myself and my family and I have no wish to comment.’ he recently said. Well that’s just fine – he has no wish and we have no need for him to comment. What he needs is simply to maintain some of the values that have made him into the man he is today. And so what about the rest of us?

Well, when we find ourselves heading towards our crisis of faith this is what we should consider doing:

• Don’t panic. Your faith is not as much dependent on your ability to hold onto it as it is on God’s part to hold onto you.
• Keep walking. The report that spoke of Jonathan’s faith crisis also spoke of the fact that he is still attending Church every Sunday with his family. Well there’s more sense in that than can be spoken about in this blog. He more than most knows the value of personal discipline.
• Trust God to come through for you. Our faith is not about bits and tips but about a relationship with God. He’s either there or he isn’t. There’s no half way house.
• Speak to good friends. Faith is about community more than individuality. Your faith maintains its perspective when lived out in the context of other people’s lives.

And the result? Well this is how Job summed it up when he underwent his crisis of faith: “When he is at work in the north, I do not see him; when he turns to the south, I catch no glimpse of him. But he knows the way that I take; when he has tested me, I will come forth as gold.” Now there’s an appropriate verse for an Olympic medal holder.

Frustration! Frustration! Frustration!

Like most people, there are times when I get frustrated, like today for example. I’ve just returned from a very positive meeting with some great potential outputs for the future, but then sat down to write my blog only to discover the source of material I was going to use has disappeared, so now I’m mad. The problem is I’ve got no one to blame but myself, since I’m the one who lost it. Well, actually its not lost it’s just on a leadership website and I can’t find it. I spent half an hour looking for it, but no joy. The frustration is not so much with the lost article; more the fact that when I read it I knew I would want to use it but didn’t bother to make a note of its location for the future.

From time to time we all get frustrated and because we are different we handle it in different ways. As for me, I’m an internal processor so only those really close to me get the brunt of my frustrations, which is bad news for them, but equally a part of living with me. And when I’m frustrated I’m best left alone in my madness until, in the immortal words of my wife Lesley, ‘he calms down’. Or, as she’ll say to Charlotte: ‘Leave daddy alone until he calms down, he’s a bit mad at the moment’. Dead right I’m mad! Mad at the thought of someone suggesting I need to calm down for one thing!

Of course, like stress not all frustration is bad. If it motivates us to gear up and improve then that’s no bad thing, but when it tips us over into selfishness, ignorance and general unpleasantness its time for change.

I’ve learnt a lot about frustration over the years as I’ve observed it both in my own life and others and one of the key lessons is this: you can’t lead or live out of frustration. If you do it will kill you inside and if it doesn’t it will breed indifference and neglect in those you seek to influence. Frustration is not the best motivational tool, and I’ve seen a few people leading teams and churches that out of their own desperation have resorted to it – and sadly I class myself amongst them.

So what is an appropriate response to frustration? Well, here are a few of my thoughts:

• Manage it. You must learn to manage your life so as to limit the amount of frustration you have to handle. For example, if your frustrations come out of never being able to find that phone number then buy a notebook and write it down. If you can never find your best socks learn to put them in the same place! I think you get the picture. Remember, the busier your life the more organised it must be and as a result the less frustrated you will be.
• Recognise it. The older you get the easier it becomes to read yourself and self analysis is the key to less frustration. If you can begin to read the patterns that bring frustration, you can equally choose to change those patterns before the frustration arises. As they say, prevention is better than cure.
• Use it. Take frustration and turn it into a positive. If you know you are about to enter into conversation that might frustrate you take a right attitude to the issue before you face it and ask what you can learn out of the very thing that could bring the frustration.
• Accept it – Face the fact that in life some things come that you need to change whilst other situations come to change you. Wisdom is discerning the difference between the two, since you will need a different response to them.

And if all that fails! Pray this ancient prayer:

God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change;courage to change the things I can; and the wisdom to know the difference. Living one day at a time, enjoying one moment at a time; accepting hardship as the pathway to peace. Taking, as He did, this sinful world as it is, not as I would have it. Trusting that He will make all things right, if I surrender to His will. That I may be reasonably happy in this life, and supremely happy with Him forever in the next.

Or should I say, pray the prayer before the frustration comes!