YouTube - Faithworks_Election 2010.mp4
Great video interview from Faithworks and Steve Chalke interviewing main party leaders regarding churches in society and their plans to encourage this further.
April 15, 2010
April 13, 2010
December 23, 2009
December 13, 2009
Breathe on me Breath of God
As winter approaches and we begin to see the response of the
warm air within us reacting to the cold outside of us, my mind has been
thinking about the Breath of God. The Breath which speaks Words of life. In the
beginning there was the nothing, until the Breath of God, His Spirit, (The
Hebrew word for spirit is Ruach –
literally breath) hovers and begins life.
That same Spirit, that same Breath, came to Moses and the prophets as they spoke the words of God.
That same Spirit, that same Breath, which hovered over the waters of creation, hovered over Mary, to bring to birth the Living Word, the word made flesh. Just as that same Breath breathed the image of God into humaniy in the beginning, so that same Breath brought the fullness of the image of God into being. That Word which brings to life a new hope and a new beginning.
That same Breath brings the Word to a world that longs for a new creation. That same Breath brings the possibility of a new order, a new reign, a new creation – hovering, breathing, speaking, That Word made flesh, comes into the reality of our world, the hopes and fears, the joys and disappointments, the challenges and opportunities to speak and breathe life.
That same Breath comes to us, fills us, moves us, empowers us and makes us his children again.
This Christmas, catch your own breath. Breathe with the breath of God. Be filled with the Breath of God and begin to see what He has for His world.
December 10, 2009
This is the air I breathe
A couple of posts up to Christmas about breathing. We all do it. We take it for granted. Just thought I would think about it a bit.
Pop into an old church
or dusty room and the smell hits you. A mixed emotive response might come to
haunt you as you breathe in the air. Contrasting words like ‘stale’ or
‘ancient’, ‘well used’ or ‘forgotten’ might come to mind. What’s the air like with you?
Pop into an attic and
you can smell the mustiness and heaviness. The air is thick with dust and
history – not much movement in the atmosphere, seldom receiving fresh air.
Climb a high mountain
and you find the air purer an thinner – deeper gulps are needed to survive
here. It makes us dizzy, tired more easily, can restrict our movement. It may
cause sickness or even death if the ascent is made too quickly.
Go into a sewer – the
air is repugnant and foul. You want to get out as soon as possible – here the
air brings nausea, disgust, suspicion – where do I stand? What is clean?
I can give many other
examples of the kind of air we breath. You can give some more. But what is
fresh, breathable adequate and sufficient air like?
The Attic
Here is the past. Here
the past remains – untouched. Provoking, reminding, pointing. It can be a place
of oldness, and stagnation, museum pieces and broken memories. Yet it can also
be a place of rootedness and treasures. We discover who we were and who we are
– what made us, us.
The Mountain
The thin air here is
adventurous and brave. A search for something new, a quest to push limits – a
single mindedness to reach the top. On and on we must go. Yet this can be
dangerous too. We can get damaged, lose our way. This air is only for the few,
it seems.
The Sewer
We want to disengage
from reality here. We wish for the sweet smelling air so we need not face the
brutal honesty of life. We seek to ignore the grotty and protect ourselves from
contamination. We wish to preserve our purity at the expense of our real
humanity.
This is the air I
breathe – Ruach – breathing God come to me and fill me.
Transform the air we
breathe of breath of God. Wherever I stand whatever breath I breathe with, meet
me and breathe. Bring new discoveries out of the old, bring energy and
direction to things that are new; bring freshness to a world that is stale, and
though is bountiful and beautiful, in places still stinks of poverty, greed and
injustice.
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