Inspiration

“But the wisdom that comes from heaven is first of all pure; then peace-loving, considerate, submissive, full of mercy and good fruit, impartial and sincere.”
James 3:17
This is one of my favourite verses about evangelism. On the surface of it, it doesn’t really seem to be about sharing our faith, but surely wisdom is a key quality required as we attempt to communicate God’s message to the world.
The words James uses to describe wisdom here are purity, peacefulness, gentleness, mercy. If you take James 3 verse 17 and apply it to a person, what kind of person do you picture? Is this the brash, arrogant evangelist who proclaims their message, desperately trying to convince you to change your mind? I suspect not.
If wisdom is pure and sincere then our lives must back up the words that come out of our mouths. If wisdom is peace-loving then we cannot be judgemental or brash in our presentation of the truth. If wisdom is impartial, full of mercy and good fruit, we cannot pass judgement on someone else’s situation. If wisdom is considerate, we must allow people the time and space to develop in their journey of faith, without constantly feeling the need to check up on their spiritual progress. If wisdom is submissive, then we must be humble and allow others to help us and realise that we need them too. We need to be the kind of person with whom people might dare to share their innermost doubts and fears.
In truth, James has really defined the nature of God himself in this verse, not just the nature of wisdom and it is with God’s help that we are called to carry out the nature of God into our friendships, family and community.

On a train up to London last week, something happened that made me think about ‘hell’, for the first time in a while. A lady sat beside me, put her tea on the fold-down tray, and lost herself in her book. A jolt from the train made the drink slide down so that it was balancing rather precariously between the edge of the tray and her book. I saw this, and could see the possible impending danger that could result.
What should I do? I could ignore it, or I could warn her? But to warn her would risk me feeling foolish if she chose to ignore the warning, or think I was silly to make a fuss, or… Too late. Another jolt from the train and all hell broke out. Boiling hot tea all over the poor ladies’ legs. Missed me completely – but scalded her quite badly, I imagine. Next stop and she had to exit to return home, another day spoiled and a pair of jeans ruined and sore legs for a long time to come. Poor thing. I felt so sorry for her.
But I hadn’t done anything to prevent it.
I imagine, if she’d known I had foreseen the possible accident was about to happen she would have said ‘Why on earth didn’t you say something?’

Don’t know what you think of when you picture hell.
We don’t hear it preached about often now.
But a place where all trace of God has been removed just doesn’t bear thinking about really.
And whether it’s a stranger on a train, or a neighbour, friend, or dear family member, I think we should warn them, don’t you?

If we really caught even a tiny glimpse of Heaven, we would rejoice when we know someone has gone on there to be with Christ.
And if we really caught even a tiny glimpse of hell, we’d do all we can every day to save people from going there.

I have found it, a way to exercise (run to be precise) and to enjoy it! My secret, podcasts! I have recently been educated in the field of technology, and have discovered that there is a wealth of fantastic Christian podcasts available and best of all they are free.

Podcasts I discovered are in fact recordings of various Churches Sunday morning sermons, or other teaching sessions. Willow Creek, whose Senior Pastor is Bill Hybels, ‘upload’ their sermons for free each week, as do many larger Churches. And so, thanks largely to a technically savvy husband, I have been downloading these onto my i-pod, and while I run, I listen to a sermon. Multi-tasking at its best! I have even been running further as I am caught up in the message I am listening to and don’t want to stop before it finishes.

Even more exciting, Willow Creek have just started a new 3 week series entitled ‘Risk’. The description of the series is this; God asks us to take risks in moving His kingdom forward – to risk starting conversations, building friendships, helping people out. Risk not having all the answers. Are you a risk taker?

How appropriate for Activate, I will definitely be tuning in, and I hope you do too. Whether it is while you exercise, driving to work, or iron, make use of these seemingly dull activities, invest in your spiritual growth.

Recently, I had the pleasure of listening to Steve Hollinghurst from the Church Army, speak about relevant evangelism for today’s people. He quoted a statistic so startling to me that I had to email him and check I’d heard the figures right! So here’s the accurate figures he replied with:
Assume Billy Graham does a mission over several venues attended by 2 million people (this is about the figure for the Haringey Mission of 1954) each year. That’s about 40 nights (mission England was 40 nights long) in football stadiums with 50,000 in attendance. Experience shows that about 10% will come forward ( the mission England stat was 9.8%.) That is 200,000 over the mission and about 15% will still be in churches having come to faith for the first time several years later. Many who go forward are making re-commitments and with those who don’t stay, each mission effectively adds 30,000 people to the church. At this rate, one such mission a year would take about 800 years to convert the adult population of Britain. Actually, the UK population is growing at about 400,000 per year at present so sadly Billy and his successors would take even longer than that.
Alternatively assume the UK’s 3 million adult Christians (measured as regular churchgoers) each brought someone to faith every 5 years and discipled them to bring someone to faith every 5 years. It would then only take 25 years (actually a little less) for all the UK’s adults to be Christian as the church doubles in size every 5 years.
These figures don’t look at births versus deaths with any accurate projection nor child evangelism. The figures are just estimates but they are sensible ones and show the impact of every member evangelism.
Better get started then! Over to me and over to you!