Two pictures of East End Islam

The best way to get to know a community is to spend time experiencing it.  Living it.  Breathing it.  Enjoying it.  Dreaming the best for it.  At City to City last year in New York they called these experiences “cultural moments”.  A cultural moment is any time you spend getting to know and understand the community you are hoping to church plant in.  They told us to try to have thousands of those moments, by meeting people, going to shows, walking the streets, before you try plant a church that you hope will be relevant for the area.  I would just like to share two of my moments this past week in Newham, London. Both specifically about Islam.

Open but very closed!

The building right next to where our church plant meets is a community centre called the Flanders Centre.  Every Friday lunchtime as I am nipping out for a bite, the Flanders centre is flooded with hundreds of Muslim men for prayers.  It’s always a  fun experience walking past, having the occasional brief chat with them as they go in or are handing out leaflets.  This week though was a little different.

In London at the moment we are experiencing fantastically hot weather.  So as I left last Friday to go home the fire escape doors were open to the Flanders Centre to let fresh air in.  So I could see what was going on in the hall.  More than just see, I could hear.  I could hear a man singing.  Well I soon realised he wasn't just  singing.  He was actually preaching.  His singing was interspersed with talking, in what I assume was Arabic.  You see, the singing was him actually quoting the Quran.  I stood there and watched for a few minutes not understand a word of what was spoken but at the same time learning plenty about this culture on my doorstep.

I was amazed by the level of Quran knowledge the preacher had (he could probably recite the whole book).  I was impressed by the number of men in the congregation.  Yes, I know women are not allowed but still how many churches do I know in Newham with more than 50 men? The Islam this guy was preaching was obviously attractive to them.  However, I think the overwhelming feeling I came away with was how closed this meeting was, even with open doors. 

I couldn't understand what was being taught.  I have never been invited in.  Never even greeted with a smile I walk by.  For a faith that is supposed to reach outsiders it didn't seem that interested in anyone who isn’t like them.

As I started to walk away I thought, “They may not be interested in stepping closer to me to share Islam  but I need to take steps closer to them in order to share Jesus.”

"To the Jews I became as a Jew, in order to win Jews. To those under the law I became as one under the law (though not being myself under the law) that I might win those under the law." 1Corinthians 9:20 

Closed but very open!

Yesterday we dedicated a little boy into our church family and afterwards we went to the park for a picnic.  I had to take my son home for a quick nap before we went to the park.  When he and I finally got there, none of the people were where we said we would meet.  I knew they would still be around but because it was so hot I decided to take a break in the shade before I started looking for them.  So I sat down with Gabriel.

About 20 meters away was a group of young Muslim girls aged around twentyish.  All but one of them ran off to look at the fountain.  To my surprise the last one walked right up to me dressed in a full hijab.  Covering everything but her face.  She had a very warm smile. The first thing she said to me was, “Hello, you have a really cute son.  Do you mind if I sit with you both for a while?” 

You have to pause and understand the enormity of this question.  Muslim women usually are not allowed to talk to men, especially one their own, even in a public park.  What was I going to say? “No at all, please do” I replied.

She sat down and glowing with smiles at my son, who was looking grumpy but cute as ever.  It didn’t take long for her to break him down and eventually her smile caused him to beam back.  She openly talked about her new found interest in babies.  She is getting married in a month and was fascinated by marriage and children.  We talked about the joys of marriage, parenthood and in laws.  Waiting to have children or having them straight away. 

I congratulated her on the coming marriage and said “Marriage and children are a wonderful blessing from God!”  So that started her asking about my faith.  We must have talked for about 10 minutes before her friends and mine both turned up around the same time.  So we said goodbye. 

As I was walking away she shouted back.  “Don’t forget you sons football!”  As I turned around she had pulled up her hijab to even cover her smile.  But I could still see that she was smiling.

A very different experience from the first.  The face of Islam we often see in the west is closed and distant but that doesn't mean all Muslims are cold and distant.  This girl was born and grew up in the Newham.  She is a second generation British Muslim.  She grew up without fear of British people or Christians.  If the first experience left me feeling pushed away this one was the exact opposite.  

It was a helpful reminder to me not to judge a person by their hijab.  In many ways we were exact opposites.  She a Muslim girl, me a western Christian man.  But behind that veil was a person who was interested in similar things to me, who was scared of the same things as me, we may be different... but maybe not as much as first appears. 

As I walked away I thought, “I can relate to Muslims for Jesus.  Because behind every hijab there is a person not too different to me.” 

Final thought

"Now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. For he himself is our peace, who has made us both one and has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility!" Ephesians 2:13-14  

Remember as Christians we do not need to be afraid of other cultures no matter how different they seem.  We have a perfect Saviour who stepped into our fallen human world.  No matter how far away any culture any appear from your own it is no comparison to how different Jesus was to this world.

Jesus didn't worry about being effected by us...


Jesus loved us and sacrificed the comforts of His home in Heaven to step into our shoes to bring us a Gospel of reconciliation... 


Reconciliation that not only bridges the gap between us and others but bridges the impossible gap between us and God! 

Vision Part 1: "We want to see Jesus..."

Hi guys, sorry it's been a while.  I had a loooot of thinking to do after New York and didn't want to let anything slip about any changes without speaking to key people first.  I've done that now but still have a lot to think about.  One of the first things I am thinking through is our church vision.  

Our awesome vision is this "We want to see JESUS transforming LIVES, changing our COMMUNITY and the WORLD!"  Great isn't it!?  But how does this work out?  What does it mean for us?  Those are a couple of the questions I'm bashing out at the moment.  Over the next couple of weeks I'll be putting up on my blog thoughts as to how this vision fleshes out in my mind.  I'm not wanting to change our vision just want to understand it better in order to share it better.

So here we go...

Vision Part 1: "We want to see JESUS..." 
Colossians 1:15-18, Philippians 2:5-11, 1John 5:20

Everything we do is about Jesus!

Jesus is fully God revealed in person.  Through Jesus everything was created.  Everything was created to shine with Jesus beauty.  Not only is Jesus our amazing creator but He wants us to be in relationship with Him. 

"Christ is exactly like God, who cannot be seen.  He is the first-born Son, superior to all creation.  Everything was created by him, everything in heaven and on earth, everything seen and unseen,  including all forces and powers, and all rulers and authorities.  All things were created by God's Son, and everything was made for him.  God's Son was before all else, and by him everything is held together.  He is the head of his body, which is the church. He is the very beginning, the first to be raised from death, so that he would be above all others." Colossians 1:15-18

That’s why Jesus came to earth 2000 years ago as a person like you and me, so we could really see and understand what He is like.

 

That’s why Jesus grew up and taught us about His Heavenly Father, so we could understand that God wants us to be part of His forever family. 

That’s why Jesus loved, helped and healed all sorts of people that others looked down on, so we could understand that it doesn’t matter what other people think of us, He loves us!

"Christ was truly God. But he did not try to remain equal with God.  Instead he gave up everything and became a slave, when he became like one of us. Christ was humble. He obeyed God and even died on a cross. Then God gave Christ the highest place and honoured his name above all others." Philppians 2:6-9

That’s why Jesus was treated like a criminal and died on a Cross.   Jesus saved us from our selfishness and sin by taking the punishment we deserve. 

That’s why Jesus defeated death when He came back to life, so that death wouldn’t be our end either and we can know Him forever.

"We know that Jesus Christ the Son of God has come and has shown us the true God. And because of Jesus, we now belong to the true God who gives eternal life." 1John 5:20

That is why Jesus now lives in Heaven ruling as King, so we can live to know Him and share His forever love with the world.

As a church we want to know Jesus more and more and share Him with others.

This is a working progress so please let me know what you think.  What is missing?  What you like?

BenAboutLondon 

Answering Darwin's deepest question

One of the biggest questions I face as an evangelist in London is, "How can a good God allow suffering?"  Occasionally it's posed in the more aggressive or emotional way, "Don't even try to talk to me about God's love when people are suffering all over the world!" 

Yesterday I watched the film Creation, about the struggle that Charles Darwin went though as he was about to publish his Origin of the Species.  And indeed his big question was the same.  As he looked around at nature he saw brutality and pain and even more personally he lost his beloved daughter at a very young age.  I actually felt sorry for Darwin. Theology at the time wasn't prepared to answer such questions and so preachers could offer him little hope.

We can all understand Darwin's question.  We've all asked it.  Some of us have come to a place where we feel comfortable (most of the time) with an answer we've found.  Some of us avoid the question because we're afraid we wont find a satisfactory answer.  Still others of us have given up completely on the idea that God can love us because of all the horrible things we have suffered.

Here are three simple thoughts about my faith that have helped me deal with this question through my own struggles.

1) Giving up on God wont solve the problem
Suffering is a problem for those who believe in God but its also a problem for those who don't.  I believe in a loving God that doesn't solve my questions about my pain.  But I put it to you that atheism doesn't solve the deeper questions either.  Atheism says about suffering, that's just the way it is.  But that answer doesn't satisfy either, does it?  Even atheists still say it's not right or fair when a loved one dies.  There is something in us that just wont accept the answer, "That's just the way it is!"

I believe giving up on God wont solve our problems with suffering.  In fact it wont help us at all.

"Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God." 2Corinthians 1:3-4

2) The cross proves that God is on my side
I may not know why suffering happens but I know one thing it cannot mean.  We can often believe that when we suffer God is mad at us for something but the cross screams the opposite.  The cross says that God came to us in Jesus and suffered for us and with us.  Jesus knows what it is like to be abandoned, rejected, lonely, falsely accused and even murdered! The amazing thing is that He went through all that for us.  Jesus suffered the consequences of our sin so we wouldn't have to.

"What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things?" Romans 8:31-32

I don't know what the ultimate reason for my suffering is but I do know it isn't that God hates me.  The cross proves God is for us and not against us.  


3) I trust God that suffering has a purpose
If atheism says, "that's just the way it is!"  Then Christianity can be summed up with this, "God has a greater purpose (that I can't comprehend) through all suffering and it will be somehow worth it!"

To this someone might say, "How dare you say God loves me!  If he loved me he would have saved me from this pain!"  But I could turn my pain around on an atheist and say, "How dare you say God doesn't love me and that my suffering has no purpose and hope behind it!

"So I ask you not to lose heart over what I am suffering for you, which is your glory." Ephesians 3:13

What offers more hope, the idea that all is meaningless and in the end none of it will matter, or that a loving God -who knows what it is to suffer- says that not one of our tears will be wasted in His perfect plan for the universe?

At the cross Jesus demonstrated that even through the greatest suffering and pain God can bring about new life and hope!

"When I am afraid, I put my trust in you." Psalm 56:3 

Don't abandon God in your suffering, cling to the hope that is offered in Jesus.

"He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away." Revelation 21:4

Don't be a fool, lose your RELIGION!

This Week at the Well (our sending church) I had the privilage of preaching on Matthew 19:16-30.  This is the will known story of the rich young ruler who comes to Jesus to ask, "What good deed must I do to get eternal life?" 

1 - Lose your RELIGION

And behold, a man came up to him, saying, "Teacher, what good deed must I do to have eternal life?" Matthew 19:16

At the heart of this young man's question is a business transaction.  He wants a product "eternal life" there is only one possible vendor "God" and so He sets the price.  In order to buy eternal life you need to pay God lots of good deeds.  If you store up enough credit then eternal life is given to you.

If we see our faith as a business deal it will cause us many problems.  First when things go wrong in our life we might blame God and say, "I kept my end of the bargain God, why aren't you?"  Or we might blame ourselves and say, "If only did more then God wouldn't be punishing me!"  But the biggest problem is that we are not making Jesus our saviour we are making ourselves our saviour.  Jesus may be our dealer or shop keeper but we pay for our salvation with our own efforts.  Notice the man asked "What must I do?"  He's not trusting in God's goodness, grace or love, he's trusting in his own ability to save himself.

This way of approaching God can only lead us to uncertainties.  If we are buying eternal life we will never know if we've paid enough off.  My Dad used to tell me, "It's a good thing you can't buy eternal life because you'd never be able to pay it off!"

2 - Hand over CONTROL

Jesus said to him, "If you would be perfect, go, sell what you possess and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven..." Matthew 19:21

Jesus asks this man to give up everything to follow Him then he will have eternal rewards.  Think about it.  That money doesn't just represent wealth, it also represents his power over his own life and others.  It's his security in life and his comfort.  It's his control over his own happiness and destiny.  Jesus is literally asking him to give everything up!

We all want to be in control over our own happiness and destiny. We may not do it with money but we do try to stay control of our lives in other ways.  Maybe it's family that we are using to guarantee our happiness, "If I can just keep this family together then I'll be happy and worth something!"  Maybe we use our studies, "If I just get that top mark I can be happy and look other people in the eye!"  Maybe our jobs, "If I work hard to get that promotion then I'll be happy and people will look up to me!"

These are all ways we try to be our own saviour.  But the truth is we are not and can not be in control of these things.  They are harsh task masters.  If we do well they only ask us for more and when we fail they crush us!  We can't control our families, they are too complex.  We can't control our job security, as the recent recession taught us.

If we want to find true eternal happiness we need to quit saving ourselves and hand over control of our destinies to Jesus.  That is the cost!  EVERYTHING!

3 - And FOLLOW Jesus

"...and come, follow me." Matthew 19:21  

But it shouldn't be seen as loosing control.  It's handing control over to the only person who can handle it... Jesus!  The big questions though that might stop us are 1) Can he be trusted with my destiny? and 2) Is it worth it?

The answer to both those questions is really the same.  Firstly, he knows what it means to give up everything. The Bible teaches that Jesus is God and that he left the joys and perfection of Heaven to be born in a pugnant stable and to experience absolute poverty in comparison.  In the Gospels we see Him give up his job and family to befriend outcasts and sinners in order to give them hope.  We see Him abandoned by His friends and be left alone and naked.  Then we see the giver of life Himself nailed to a cross and killed!  Jesus knows what it's like to lose control.

But the real amazing thing isn't in what he gave up, it's found in the why he did it.  He did it for you and me!  

Looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God. Hebrews 12:2    

He did it for the joy set before Him.  He had everything except you and me.  We were lost in sin and rebellion and if He didn't step in we would have been lost from relationship with Him forever!  We were Jesus joy and His true treasure, worth more to Him than the riches of Heaven! And because we were Jesus' treasure, He can be ours and can be completely trusted!

Jesus is the only Saviour we can have that accepts us as we are and when we fail Him completely forgives and loves us.  Eternal Life is knowing this Jesus and having a relationship with Him forever and it starts now!

Don't be religious give your control over to Jesus!

“He Is No Fool Who Gives What He Cannot Keep to gain That Which He Cannot Lose!”  Jim Elliot