Three Lessons From Stott

Some quotes from John Stott's 'The Living Church'.  Worth chewing on for a while.

"Christians have no business to be pessimists.  Faith and pessimism are incompatible."

"People are drugged by television, hostile to authority and suspicious of words."

"There is no passivity in the attainment of holiness."

Marriage - We Salute You!

As I write the clouds outside my window have just covered the sun.  It's just past 8.30am, and we've had the first half hour of sun in a good few days now.  But the wind is pushing the clouds at a fair pace, so hopefully the sun will come again.

I say this as an introduction to talking about weddings.

Hopefully the sun will shine on Dave and Abby today.  This is the fifth of six weddings this summer.  Each one has been a joy to attend, a lot of fun to be at.  Each one very different, each one perfectly suited to the couple getting married.

Summer is now over, rain has been flooding the land and the nights have been getting darker earlier.  I'm beginning to prepare for working again.  College is just around the corner.  It's going to be a good year.  It has been a good summer.  Probably my last one with a ridiculously long time off.  And I'm especially glad that it was regularly interrupted by days of celebration.

So; Sam, Emma, Phil, Hannah, Pete, Sarah, James, Sharon, Laurie, Lucy, Simon, Suzy, Dave, Abby, Jon, Hayley - here's to you guys.  May God bless your new adventures.

And the sun is just breaking out...

Interview With John Piper

Mark Driscoll interviews John Piper here.  

Piper talks about his life: his parents, marriage, the adoption of his daughter.  

The Current Race...

So we have an election in November.  It will change the face of international politics.  It'll be Barack Obama or John McCain.

In the four major polls in the U.S. Obama is leading McCain, the margin ranging from 4 to 8%.  What is certain is that history will be made when the winner is announced in November.  In Britain, the media coverage has made it seem like Obama has it in the bag.  Why this seems to be the case is obvious - Obama is making history.  Who would have thought seven years ago that the U.S. public would allow a person with the first name Barack run for President?  Who would have thought that a black man could grab the hearts and minds of Americans far and wide?  The potential of having a female President was quite something, but a young, inexperienced black man?  

(Please note:  I write this in order to try and convey the extraordinary happenings in America.)

But even though this piece of history is hitting the headlines over here in Britain, the race has not been won yet.

This hit the media hard a number of days ago when Sarah Palin was announced as McCain's running mate.  A bold move, and one that has bumped McCain right back up there in the race to become President.  Palin seems confident, able, and certainly up for the fight!  (See this BBC snippet, for example.)  It is yet to be seen whether this bold move will work for McCain.  There has been a lot of talk about Palin's private life, her son with Downes Syndrome and her teenage daughter's pregnancy.  But are these issues enough to spoil it for the McCain/Palin campaign? If we are talking real life, then they shouldn't... but we're talking politics, not everyday life.

McCain's speech at the Republican National Convention wasn't dynamic.  He will clearly lose every oratory battle with Obama who has far superior rhetorical skills.  But for the time being, the McCain/Palin campaign has managed to put some distance between themselves and the Bush administration, and at the same time has stolen the limelight from Obama's Clinton laid red carpet.

On What Happens When Education Finally Comes To An End...

"Man Up!"

My own voice booms hauntingly through my mind.  I've been in education since I was five years old.  When I graduate next June, I will be twenty-two.  A full seventeen years of my life have been in preparation for what I will do next.  

"Oh! My."

The second sentence to go booming through my head.  This is scary. Positively frightening. What do you do when you come to the end of what you've been working towards?

"You man up!"

My head echoes with my own answer, and I know it's the right one.  Now is not the time for pussyfooting around, attempting to keep hold of some sort of youthful innocence and irresponsibility.  No, now is the time to stand up. Now is the time to put the foot onto the water and, looking straight ahead, begin to walk.

"Christ, teach me to have faith."

Amen, I say audibly, repeating the prayer over and over in my mind.

The Certain Realities of Uncertain Change

And so as we all finished eating our home-made Cream Teas, many of us decided it was time for a film.  I consider that decision to be driven by tiredness, and likely a sensible one - as we were all very tired.

But myself and a friend decided to play cards instead.  We played the same game for two plus hours, it was a dull game.  But we talked together, and that is what it was about.

My friend is recently married, and we rejoiced and reminisced about the day and ensuing days.  And as we spoke, I reflected upon the idea of change.  Change is always there.  At the current time in my life, the certainty of change seems only second to the certainties of God.  Please note the key word in that sentence is seems.  

As I go into my last year at London School of Theology, feeling a call into pastoral ministry - though unsure of how that will manifest itself - I am realising a longing for stability.  And also realising that I am probably putting my hope in the wrong things for that stability.  

I desire to know what I will do once my degree is over, but I desire substantially less to have to put in the work to find out.  I desire to have a wife and family, but desire far less the work that goes in to changing my attitude and priorities.

At the moment, I want all that God has got for me but do not want to be working for his mission.  I've only just realised this.  It is time for more change.  I need to step up, man up.  Not saying that in any way I am the cause of any of this.  It is only by God's grace and mercy that he has even opened my eyes to this.  And it will only be by His grace and mercy that I will change, and I am confident that I will, because my confidence that Christ will finish the work he has started in me far, far outweighs my own laziness and sinfulness.

I am forgiven, I am an heir with Christ, I am saved.  It deserves my all, He shall get my all.

Trials of a fourteen year old Tim.

The other day I found this written in the sleeve of the Manic Street Preachers album, 'This Is My Truth Tell Me Yours'.

"Today is Thursday 22nd November 2001.  Missed 1 paper in round, I'm annoyed.  I don't think I did, I just miscounted.  Doing revision for modular tests.  Doing 2nd Science investigation.  Need to do Food Technology project.  Have peer education lessons to take for year 8 coming up.  Got Maths and History homework tonight as well!  Tim."

Looks like I was pretty busy at 14!  Reading that made me glad that I am here in 2008, seven years later, doing other things and being busy in other ways.  But at the same time, pleased that I was that busy at 14, it was clearly good training.

New Look, Books, and Sounding Like Other People

I decided to update the image of the blog.  I quite like the new look, especially the continuous nature of the lists down the right hand side... subtle but nice.

Listening to snippets from Jon Foreman's E.P.'s - he is the Switchfoot front man, and has released four E.P.'s over the last year.  They are good, chilled out, stripped down tunes.  Check him out here.

I have been attempting to write a number of book reviews, reviewing the numerous books I have recently read.  It has only happened in skeleton form, and already I don't really like what I've written.  I seem to end up sounding like the many, many book reviews I've read - and not sounding like myself.  Which I suppose is bound to happen to some extent, but I'm not a big fan of it.  So for now my reviews will continue to be skeletons - one day I may post them up here.

The books I have read have brought up numerous things to talk and think about.  The most prominent are epistemology and postmodernism.  But those two subjects will take up another post (or indeed posts), once I've come to a decision about them or build up enough courage to air my questions and limited understanding.

The Right Mentality

To quote Francis Schaeffer:

"Do not minimize the fact that in reading the Bible we are living in a mentality that is the right one, opposed to the great wall of this other mentality that is forced upon us on every side - in education, in literature, in the arts, and in the mass media."1

What a truth.  We often don't perceive the massive effect that the "other mentality" has upon us.  Only recently have I realised just how much I was sucked into the education system of the UK - learning to pass exams, not learning to think.  Having come out of it, I find it not at all surprising that the education system is failing so many.  The current trend is to blame the lack of understanding teachers have for different people's 'learning styles' - but that has little effect in a system that teaches us to scrape through, instead of teaching us to think.  

I have great admiration for teachers who teach people to think.  I don't remember much of the politics that David O'Dell taught me during my A-Level politics course.  But I do remember that he began to teach me to think.

On another level, it excites me that I have friends that are passionate about the arts - and are seeking to have an influence upon the world of art.  Sticking true to God and his revealed Word, they are not afraid to make the hard choices over their art, knowing that God will provide.  That is exciting, that is inspiring.

1  Schaeffer, Francis A., He Is There and He Is Not Silent, Illinois, Tyndale, 2001.

Are We Theology Students Losing Focus?

A reminder to those who, like me, can all too easily lose the focus of why we're studying Theology.

How To Waste Your Theological Education

A running theme throughout these reminders is the fact that it is all too easy to love the subject of Theology and all that it entails - the essays, the reading, the arguing and debating, the refuting, the thelogising and philosophising - and forget that at the end of it all, is Christ.  And it is our love for Christ that should shine through, and it is our love for Christ the likely brought us to study Theology in the first place.  

That's a sobering challenge.