YELLOW PACK CHRISTIANS

The Pope has just issued a declaration that the Roman Catholic Church is the "One True church". All other churches, such as Anglican, Presbyterian, Methodist, Non-Denominational, even Russian Orthodox, are not real churches at all. In fact all non-Catholic Trinitarian Christian churches are just "ecclesiastical communities". It's never really bothered me at all what the Pope thinks, but when I heard this statement coming out over the airwaves it sent a chill through my soul.

I vividly remember a time when young Irish men and women came into Christian Fellowship meetings with black eyes or smashed car windscreens or having been thrown out of home, and all because they had made a decision of conscience to stop going to Mass. Ireland in the early 1980's was a very difficult place to live as an ex-Catholic. The Catholic Church operated what amounted to an Islamic type policy on the ground when dealing with those who choose to convert to a different faith. It was a lot worse in the fifties and sixties when you had no choice but to emigrate if you converted.

Thankfully today in Ireland most Catholics are a lot more tolerant of religious minorities here, and some, including the Christian Brothers, have become a joy to deal with. Courteous, respectful and tolerant are the words I would use of my experience over the last few years in Cork. However, only last week we also had an encounter with one of the "old guard" of Catholics, an unknown lay person who came in to tell us exactly what he thought of Christian Fellowships (the words were hissed at us). He happened to be in the vicinity of one of our meetings and came over to us uninvited and offered us his opinions, free of charge! To say he was hostile would be an understatement, and I was left thinking that if he were an Islamic extremist, he would be first in the queue for a suicide bombing. Probably aimed at us, or some other "ecclesiastical community" that doesn't quite fit into the current Pipe Dream, or should that be Pope Dream?

You see what the Pope says influences people like him a lot. And if a member of his family starts attending a non-Catholic church with all the One True Church stuff going on in the background, then we're not too far away from black eyes and smashed windscreens again. This superior, proud, arrogant attitude is saying to the hundreds of millions of non-Catholic Christians that we are only yellow pack Christians, just like the really cheap brand of groceries sold in bargain supermarkets here.

There's a time to keep your opinions to yourself, but there's also a time to speak out. I have to speak out against this arrogant and dangerous statement from Pope Benedict. It's wrong and untrue, in every sense. If I as a church leader were to announce that Grace Christian Fellowship is the one true church I would immediately be written off as some kind of cult leader, and rightly so. But the Pope can say it, and it's accepted?

Thank God, that for the most part, the real people of Ireland are not so easily led anymore, even if it is the Pope who says it. Besides, I always preferred yellow pack toothpaste anyway.......

POLITICO

During the recent general election campaign here in Ireland, the political party representatives canvassed people going in and out of church on Sunday mornings. In essence, that meant people going to Mass. It has traditionally been a very important part of wooing voters, and this time around it has remained an important focal point for all parties. In fact, on a number of occasions, rival party leaders have turned up at the same church gate at the same time, giving much amusement to both locals and to the onlooking press alike.

On the last Sunday before the election, I was driving to our own church, Grace, and passing the Catholic Church nearest to Deerpark School Hall, where we as a church meet. Turners Cross Catholic Church is a beautiful edifice built in the Art Deco style of the 1930's. I'm not sure how many attend the Mass each Sunday at Turners Cross, but it would hardly be more than 100, mainly elderly people. I know the parish church nearest to Turners Cross, known as "The Lough" very well. It was the church I attended as a child and teenager in the 60's and 70's. Back then there would have been 6 weekend masses in The Lough with an attendance of about 2500 to 3000 overall. A well known and very committed member of The Lough Church recently told me that they were now down to just 2 masses each Sunday with a total attendance of just 50 or so each week. The attendance at churches like Grace back then was of course zero, as no church of it's sort existed, and we only started 10 years ago.

Anyway, as I drove past Turners Cross, I noticed the Minister for Industry & Commerce, Micheál Martin of Fianna Fáil, outside the church looking for votes. He's often known as the third man in the Government and is a local T.D. (MP). When I saw him so near to Deerpark, I felt like stopping the car and asking him why would he spend hours on a Sunday morning canvassing the votes of a small group of people while at the same time, just around the corner there were up to 500 people attending Grace, most of whom take their civic duty to vote fairly seriously. And yet neither he, nor the local politicians ever come anywhere near us.

But.....is that their fault or our fault? And, do we really want them coming near us anyway?

In fairness to them, we have kept a very low profile as a community. Not having a full time traditional building probably doesn't help them in identifying us, and we haven't exactly been beating down the political party doors. However, even a casual Google search on Christianity or Spirituality in Cork should lead them to our web site, which you as a reader have found without too much fuss. And we do have a full time office with a large sign outside the door on a fairly busy street. Is part of the solution that we as Christians have to start to get involved in politics?

I'm not sure I fully agree with Christians throwing their time and energies into the things of time such as politics. It's the heart of man that needs to change far more than any particular government. However, we are called to pray for the Government, and to be good citizens, and as the evangelical community in Ireland grows, sooner or later we will have Christian politicians who could do a whole lot of good. Whether we like it or not we are affected by decisions government makes. "Pray for the prosperity of this city" Jeremiah told the Israelites in Babylon. "If this city prospers you too will prosper"

Because our community has always been a tiny minority in Ireland, we kept our heads down and hoped we would be left to get on with building up our churches. But the recent census figures show that across the various categories, evangelical Christians now constitute almost 2% of the population. That's a huge increase! So whether it comes to our children's education, government funding for church charities, abortion, etc. etc. our voice should be heard. I mean, we live in Ireland too, don't we? We pay our taxes too, don't we? Our children are growing up here too, aren't they?

The election is over and gone now and you won't see any politician outside a church gate on a Sunday morning for a long time to come. But maybe, the next time round, we should raise our heads above the trench, and tell Micheál Martin et al that we're here too. And I think we have a message that's worth listening to. Don't You?

THE MYSTERY OF IT ALL

Mystery! I love it and I hate it, all at the same time. I love the adventure and the romance of it, but I hate the fact that I can neither control it or fully understand it. It weaves it's way into our personal lives and relationships and also into the life of our churches. As a leader it's hard to understand what you did wrong when nothing seems to be happening spiritually, and you wonder what you're doing right when things are going well. Over the last few weeks in the church meetings here we've sensed the presence of God among us in an almost tangible way. The worship has probably been the best I've ever experienced, the gifts of the Spirit have been unusually accurate, people have been getting saved at almost every meeting, many others have come forward for water baptism, passionate times of Bible study, genuine love & fellowship between us all. My problem is, I don't understand why it's happening now, and I do like to be able to understand what's going on around me.

I'd love to be able to say that we've been doing deep battle in prayer recently, or that we've started to do a lot of fasting, or tried out new forms of evangelism. The truth is, we've been praying the way we've always been praying, no more no less, no extra fasting or evangelism or anything like that. And, when I remember the times that we did do a lot of prayer & fasting, or extra evangelism and so on, nothing seemed to happen.

So....either there's some kind of delayed reaction thing going on, or the Lord is overriding our time schedules, or maybe it's all to do with seasons. Seasons that are covered by the Grace & Mercy of God, far above our human thinking and endeavors. Seasons of salvation, and of testing. Seasons of trials and of blessing. Times when God speaks and times when it seems He's silent. Times of healing and times of pain. Just like the Book says.

It's great to see this happening all around us, and part of me loves the Mystery of not really knowing why. But the control freak in me just has no hope at all of having anything to do with this. "Let Go and Let God" used to be a very cheesy slogan used a lot in the 80's, but I think I'm finally beginning to see just how true the cheesy slogan is.

THE CELTIC DISEASE

 

 

There's a blood disorder called Haemocromatosis, which means the sufferer has too much iron in their blood.  It's usually not all that serious, but can be if it's not treated over time.  And the treatment is indeed strange, no medication, no physiotherapy, just bloodletting..... literally bleeding the person of a pint or two of blood so that their iron level goes down.  This genetic fluke or disorder is only found in a tiny minority of people throughout the world, except for the Celtic nations along the Atlantic fringe of Europe, most particularly Ireland.  Estimates are that somewhere between 11% to 25% of the Irish have this mutation.  Many think it goes back to the Irish Potato Famine of the 1840's when only those with this genetic mutation survived, because they had the energy to survive, with so much iron in their system.

 

Two years ago my brother was diagnosed as having haemocromatosis and has had to go for regular sessions of bloodletting every 3 months.  As a family we were all tested for it as well, and we all turned out to have all this iron in our systems.  Thankfully I don't have so much iron that I need bloodletting but I get the iron levels checked once a year.  One of the side benefits of this is, if your levels are within safe limits, you tend to have lots of energy.

 

But...do you get the rich symbolism here.  Hearing my brother talking of his blood flowing out and how that enables him to have life, I just can't help but think of Jesus who shed His blood that we all might have life.  Hallelujah!  Maybe with one in four of us Irish having this condition there's a whole new opportunity to evangelise in a way that's up close and personal....The shedding of blood doesn't just give physical life to us here and now, but His blood gives us abundant life on this earth and eternal life for ever and ever!

 

The "Haemocromatosis School of Evangelism", has a ring to it don't you think?  No, well, maybe we'll call it something else then.

WATER IN MY MOUTH

Sounds like something profound is about to come forth doesn't it, lots of yeah's & verily's. Not really. I was just thinking about a preacher I heard many years ago who used to swim every day for an hour in the sea. Not in the cold wild Atlantic of course, but in the Caribbean....nice if you can get it. And he said back then how he would spend an hour praying in tongues everyday while he swam. When I first heard this I didn't swim regularly, so after a few days I forgot about it but thought he must be a great guy to do all that praying.

Don't know why, but after many years that memory came back to me the other day. I swim 3 or 4 times a week now, so maybe that's why. Anyway I started to pray in tongues as I swam in my local pool in Carrigaline. Try as I might I couldn't get the hang of it. I swallowed so much pool water, and the life guard started giving me strange looks. I decided to make a hasty retreat only to be approached by an older gentleman from the next swimming lane asking if I felt allright today.

Maybe that preacher was a better swimmer than me, or had a different shaped mouth, or more of an anointing, or maybe he was just mouthing off all those years ago. Just as well we're not cynical!

WHY I REMEMBER PATRICK

St. Patrick's Day, or Paddy's Day as most of us now call it, is our National Holiday on March 17th. As children, my siblings and I loved to go into Cork city centre to watch the parade, wearing our St. Patrick's Day Badges as well as the Shamrock. We only got a little sprig of shamrock but my Dad used to wear a huge bush of the stuff (he still does). When our kids were small we used to bring them into the parade too and wave the Tricolour flags with them. Now they're teenagers and far too cool for that.

For most of us Paddy's day is a nice bank holiday, a day off, a time to wear green if you're so inspired. But for me, it goes a little deeper. I really like it that the national saint is someone who both in his Confession and his Epistle (his two authentic documents) clearly point to a man who had a personal relationship with Jesus. I mean, we could have had someone like St. Gobnait as our national saint, who only seemed concerned with turning ordinary water into holy water. Imagine that as a legacy to the Irish nation!

So, here's to Paddy's Day, and to the memory of someone who played no small part in the conversion of the Irish in his generation. May the Lord raise up more Patrick's for our generation. And, sorry if you're into St. Gobnait....but maybe you need to get a life?

CAN WE USE PRAYER BOOKS?

Like many in the church here at Grace I come from a Catholic background. As a child we never opened the Bible but would often read from prayer books both at Mass and at home. To me the prayers seemed distant and cold, addressed to a far off God or Saint. When I came to know the Lord in a personal way I put all such prayer books far behind me. Now I read the Bible, and prayed only from my heart...prayers of thanksgiving, living requests, and pouring out my deep felt needs to the Lord. The thought of using a prayer book was like taking a step backwards from a living relationship to cold formal religion.

But then.....as life became more hectic, I found my prayer life began to take more and more of a back seat. Not good. Not at all good for any Christian, not to mind a church leader. Then one day I was listening to a friend who also leads a church (in the UK) and he mentioned that he uses a Christian Prayer Book to help him in his prayer life. In my 26 years as a Christian I had never heard of a Bible based Christian Prayer Book. At first my old prejudices began to rise up within, but because I respect my friend I listened carefully. What he said made sense. And I decided to check it out for myself.

I ended up buying 2 prayer books by Eugene Peterson called "Praying with Moses" and " Praying with the Early Christians". This has really helped my prayer life. Some days during the week I have the time to pray in my own style, the way I've prayed since I came to know the Lord in 1980. But some days when it's wall to wall, I read out these beautiful prayers from the prayer books during my devotional time. It helps me focus in faster, yet still connect with God. I've found my relationship with God has gone deeper, introducing new thoughts and reflections that otherwise may not have occurred to me.

So to all those who have thrown out "religious" practices, take another look.....You may find a baby or two swimming in the bathwater.