Fascination

Here's something I read a few weeks ago that has stuck with me since like a Jack Russell terrier on a postman's trouser leg.

"In many churches today there is a strong emphasis upon evangelism – equipping people to share the good news of Jesus. There are programmes to train people for this, to help them deal with the questions of postmodern people, to help them persuade people of Christian truth so they will want to become Christians.

Five years ago I was doing research into evangelism in the church of the first three centuries. And I was puzzled: the early church was growing rapidly, but in early Christian literature there are no training programmes for evangelism and practically no admonitions to evangelism. Why? I concluded, not least through reading what early Christians themselves said, that the church before the conversion of Constantine was growing because it was living in a way that fascinated people. It spoke to their needs; it addressed their questions; and it didn’t so much persuade as fascinate people into new life. Early Christians believed that, in Christ, God had begun a vast movement of reconciliation that had incorporated them; so they had renounced violence, converted their swords into ploughshares, and stopped studying war. This was something they had experienced, and that had given them a new way of living."

It's from 'Becoming a Peace Church' by Alan and Eleanor Kreider. Available as a pdf download here (scroll to the bottom of the page).

Fascination - Alphabeat (Official Music Video)

Stand on me

I was watching an old episode of 'Minder' the other week (the original and best, on ITV4). At one point when some sort of deal is being done Arthur Daley says: "Stand on me", meaning you can rely on me, one of his many sayings. It got me thinking about reliability. I'm sure this should have featured in one of the lists of gifts in the New Testament, because it is a quality I have come to realise is right up there in the top three of what I look for in people I work with.

This last few weeks we have been working hard to get the next PeaceWeek ready. This involves encouraging everyone and anyone to join in and contribute something, and it has been good once again to see a number of people do just that. But not so good has been a few who have said they would take on a job or use a particular skill or gift to enhance one of the events, but who have then not actually done anything at all. In some cases that job has had to to be picked up by someone else already over-committed, in other cases that thing will just not be happening.

Jesus had something to say about servants who say they will do something, but don't actually do it, and servants who say they won't do it, or winge about it but, at the end of the day Brian, actually do do it. In the case of these few individuals who said the equivalent of "Stand on me" it has ended up causing, to use another Daley phrase: "A right lot of ag."*

Who was it said: "When all is said and done, there is a lot more said than done"?

*Aggravation