Graffiti on the wall surrounding Bethlehem ( (c) HolyLand-Gifts.com )

An h/t to Phil Groom for bringing Martin Leckebusch’s modern take on the Christmas Carol, O Little Town of Bethlehem to my attention. What I love about this is that it starts as many a “modern Christmas retelling” does: by almost pointing out how the message of Christmas (hope, love and peace etc.) is almost conspicuous by its absence in the town of Christ’s birth.

And yet it still manages to usher in the hope that Christ coming would have all those centuries ago. The world hasn’t changed that much after all. The message of Christmas (the real one without the tinsel) is still valid and still needed.

O West Bank town of Bethlehem,
how still thy victims lie;
the grieving weep, deprived of sleep;
militiamen roam by;
for through thy dark streets rageth
the never-ending fight:
such hopes and fears, such bitter tears
are met in thee tonight.

O morning news, O papers,
report the dreadful dearth
of saints who sing to praise the King,
of peace across the earth;
where Christ was born of Mary
‘midst wondering angels’ love,
in anguish deep, sad mortals keep
few thoughts of things above.

How violently, how violently
the hope of peace is riven;
can God imparts to these torn hearts
the blessings of his heaven?
Who now recalls his coming
to this dark world of sin?
Where harsh words still promote ill-will,
can Christ now enter in?

O Child once born in Bethlehem,
draw near again, we pray;
you died to win this world from sin -
yet sin persists today.
May we, like Christmas angels,
annouce Immanuel,
till all are given a glimpse of heaven
and not a taste of hell.

Martin Leckebusch
Copyright © 2010 Kevin Mayhew Ltd

Reproduced under the terms of Kevin Mayhew’s fair use copyright policy.

Image by Joelk75 - CC:By

In the past couple of days I’ve seen the subject of worship come up on Twitter a bit more than usual. Initially it was a series of joke #machoWorshipSongs and this seemed to evolve into a discussion about the use of masculine/feminine/romantic language in worship songs.

In the first instance I and a few others commented to each other that the “joke” was somewhat lost as so many of the songs we use in worship have a masculine or (as one person put it) pseudo-aggressive tone to them. In the second it emerged from a comment about how men don’t like the “Jesus is my boyfriend” type songs intoa debate about the appropriateness of this language and how it’s not just men who dislike them.

What I find interesting is that both fell into the standard trap of presuming “worship” is a) collective/corporate and b) uses words and language. Yes it’s true we get as many “Worship is more than singing!” declarations as we do “The church is the people not the building” ones and to the most part both are valid statements but what these discussions reminded me of was something I preached about a few years back.

What is worship?

It’s a well known meme that wroship derives from worth-ship, that is when we worship we are giving God worth, telling him what he is worth to us. This is interesting because it makes it easy to extend worship into the rest of our lives. Sometimes I struggle to think of worship in any other context than singing, praying, making, painting, playing etc. in a collective sense. It’s easy for us to say our lives should be worship but how do we do that.

The answer – I believe – is found in the following passage:

“You are the light of the world. A town built on a hill cannot be hidden. Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven. _{Matt 5:14-16 NIV}

When we shine, when we show our best in service to others we are giving God value in our eyes and in theirs (note v16). This is something that I find very important and it’s the inspiration behind #EntertainingAngels (formerly known as Give Up bad Coffee For Lent).

We give God worth.
We worship.

Service is worship, worship is service

Serving others is worship. Putting the needs of others before yourself is worship. Look at how that passage appears in the Message (emphasis mine):

“Here’s another way to put it: You’re here to be light, bringing out the God-colours in the world. God is not a secret to be kept. We’re going public with this, as public as a city on a hill. If I make you light-bearers, you don’t think I’m going to hide you under a bucket, do you? I’m putting you on a light stand. Now that I’ve put you there on a hilltop, on a light stand-shine! Keep open house; be generous with your lives. By opening up to others, you’ll prompt people to open up with God, this generous Father in heaven. _{Matt 5:14-16 The Message}

So let’s stop worrying if Church doesn’t appeal to our particular tastes and start figuring out if we leave a good taste in the mouths of those we meet. Because I have a sneaky feeling that in heaven people will spend a lot more time interacting with each other than they do standing beside each other singing.

As a side effect of this, once we also start to think of worship emerging from service it puts our roles in church in a new perspective, particularly if we are “worship” leaders.

Another quality video. Although sometimes these types of productions can become a bit “samey”, I think the presentation here really brings the text to life and in the end it is a cracking text.

( h/t @biblefresh )

The passion in the message here is excellent as is the quality of the video. ( h/t @theeruditefrog )

Thanks to Robb (@changingworship) for highlighting this brilliant and cutting piece by Bill Maher in the US. Be aware that it has swearing in it. Also I feel it will probably make us Christians feel a little uncomfortable – if it’s only the swearing that does that then I applaud you.

The thing is that non-Christians have long been able to better tell how Christians should be behaving than we seem to be. “That’s not a very Christian thing to do”, “I thought you were a Christian?” – that kind of thing. We dismiss it with “I’m not perfect” and “God isn’t finished with me yet” but we need to ask are they right when they make such accusations and also why do they make them in the first place? For some reason they expect more of us than we often expect of ourselves. Maher says: “If you ignore every thing Jesus commanded you to do then you’re not his followers, you’re just fans” and he’s right. Yes we can laugh at the idea of “fundementalist Christians” holding babies under the baptismal water until they talk but let’s be careful not to distance ourselves too far from the message behind it. If the rest of the world has a poor view of Christians and Christianity then there really is only one place to lay the blame: at the feet of the Church – which we keep on telling ourselves is the people and not the building.

Recently I had a conversation with a new Christian (for want of a better term). They expressed a concern that they felt they still weren’t getting it right (after 3 weeks!). After 35 years of being in the same boat all I could say was “join the club”. In the end though we must remember that the message we bring (and should live) is that all fall short of the standard Jesus set and that God loved the entire world so much that he gave his only Son to make up the difference. This does not give us an excuse to stop trying and to live in ways that the person we claim to follow would not have done.

Photo by Slideshow Bruce CC:By

So everybody knows that Harold Camping was wrong, the rapture didn’t happen and I got to watch Doctor Who after all but even so the whole scenario has got me thinking about heaven again. Camping predicted that on Saturday 21 May the process of Heaven coming to earth would begin. He chose to focus on judgement, scaremongering and some kind of divine favouritism (as he has done before) but was he so wrong about Heaven coming to earth?

I think Heaven did come to earth last weekend. It didn’t come with earthquake and rapture but it came. It does every day and we who are aware of it are sometimes guilty of keeping it to ourselves. Allow me to explain.

• Heaven came to earth when people came together in friendship in a world of enemies
• Heaven came to earth when those who were heavy with tears were, for a moment, given a chance to smile without feeling bad about it
• Heaven came to earth when those who are having a rough time were able to share with each other and gain strength from it
• Heaven came to earth when people were able to serve each other without condition or alterior motive
• Heaven came to earth when people sang, prayed, worshipped, laughed, cried, hugged and played together
• Heaven came to earth when candles were lit and memories were shared
• Heaven came to earth when silence was permitted and hands were held
• Heaven came to earth when God was spoken of, remembered and invited
• Heaven came to earth when evil was overcome with good
• Heaven came to earth when doors were open and meals were shared
• Heaven came to earth when generosity overcame selfishness
• Heaven came to earth when the church-stuff was not allowed to interfere with church

Yes I am aware that some of that will have happened outside of church – in fact it has to – but I believe that every good and perfect gift comes from the Father above. Sadly we must also remember that for each of those situations there were times when hell came to earth as well (and too often within churches) but as Christians we have a chance every day to bring Heaven to earth and to bring earth to Heaven.

How about today?

Sometimes I wonder if I understand what trusting in God means.

Food for thought as we approach the time when we make a significant effort to “celebrate the resurrection”

( h/t Rev’d Lesley & Phil’s treehouse )

The Give Up Bad Coffee For Lent twibbon. (c) Ryan Cartwright CC:By

So if you haven’t heard I seemed to have gotten involved in the start of a movement. Okay that’s probably a little over-dramatic but following a rather frantic twitter conversation the other day there has begun a genuine call for change in the Church (particularly the UK). It’s called ‘Give Up Bad Coffee For Lent’ and is named after a joke I made on Twitter. For more information on the birth of this campaign and a great summary of what we’re all on about you’d be better to go read the excellent blog post by @Twurchsteward. Come back here afterwards though

Following the flurry of tweets and the above blog post I decided — in a sudden burst of unilateralism — to create a Twibbon campaign. For those who don’t know a Twibbon is a way of displaying a small logo on your facebook or twitter avatar/profile picture to show support for a cause. To my surprise it has been taken up by several outside of our initial group and for that I thank you. It did also raise several questions and it struck me that the name alone might need some clarification so here are some FAQs:

What do you mean by “bad coffee”? To be honest it varies from person to person but this is about doing our best in service and hospitality. So it’s about taste and quality but not necessarily at the expense of fairtrade etc. So it’s not about particular brands or even types of coffee so much as it is about the attitude behind the provision of coffee. See the next question for more.

Why coffee? It’s not really about coffee but that is a focal point because it’s an area where many a Church needs improvement.This campaign is really about serving people with our best effort. It’s about combating the idea that while we’re happy to get and do the best we can for our own use, in Churches there can be too often an approach of “that will do – it’s just for Church”. What this campaign says is That will not do. as @Twurchsteward says..

> The Bible is fairly clear on the subject of hospitality – my current bible study plan covers passage after passage in the OT commanding Israel to offer the best of their hospitality, to welcome all comers with the very best they have to offer.

and…

> The bible exhorts us again and again to treat others with the generosity, love and welcome that we would wish to receive – why ? Because when we honour each other we honour our Creator – because “when you do this to the least of these, you do it to me” .

But we already serve good coffee? That’s great but does your Church show it’s best in all matters of hospitality? How’s the cleaning, the flowers, the toilet roll? This is about so much more than coffee. It’s about love. If we show our best then people may stick around but honestly if you go into a shop and get treated in a sub standard way — how often do you go back?

So you’re saying the Church should pander to visitors rather than attend to more important things? If you want to put it that way, yes the Church should “pander” to visitors or as you might rephrase it: make them feel welcome. This is God’s house and we are His family by adoption. When people enter your house do you not expect your family to make them feel welcome? Serving decent coffee/tea/biscuits may seem trivial but it adds to a welcoming atmosphere.

What happens after Lent? The Lent but is just an accident of timing. This is really a rallying cry to the Church. In the words of many of my school reports this campaign simply says “Hospitality: must try harder”. Also don’t think this is the responsibility of Church leaders, the hand and the heart serving the cup is as important (if not more so) here as the liquid inside the cup and the person buying the beans.

To end I just want to go back to @Twurchstewards quote about honouring God as we honour each other. It puts me in mind of Matthew 5:14-16 which speaks of us as being the light of the world and not hiding our light under a bushel. Personally I like the way the Message puts it:

> 14 “Here’s another way to put it: You’re here to be light, bringing out the God-colours in the world. God is not a secret to be kept. We’re going public with this, as public as a city on a hill. 15 If I make you light-bearers, you don’t think I’m going to hide you under a bucket, do you? I’m putting you on a light stand. 16 Now that I’ve put you there on a hilltop, on a light stand – shine! Keep open house; be generous with your lives. By opening up to others, you’ll prompt people to open up with God, this generous Father in heaven Matt.5:14-16 MSG

Isn’t that what we’re talking about here? Let’s be generous with our hospitality. Let’s shine. Let’s give up bad coffee…and not just for lent.

If you want to join in then by all means comment here or alternatively show your support via the Twibbon on your facebook or twitter avatars. You can also use the twitter hashtag of #GUBC4L

(c) Nevine Zaki http://twitter.com/NevineZaki

Dear Christians around the world: this is a photo of Egyptian Christians standing in a human chain around Muslims in order to protect them while they pray. It was taken by Nevine Zeki. If you want to send a message to Muslims around the world, how about more like this rather than threatening to burn the Qu’ran, calling them names or lumping them altogether. We often read of how Jesus associated with those who he was “not supposed to”. It seems the Christians in this picture are following the same pattern and I am proud to think that I am part of their family.