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I'm going to be unashamedly simple in this blog.

Towards the end of his life, the Apostle Peter wrote a letter to a group of churches 'scattered' throughout Turkey and Greece. In it he wrote words that are familar to me, though ones that have developed a new found sense of depth through reading 'Pierced for our Transressions' by Jeffery, Ovey and Sachs (does anyone else think that that would be a great name for a band - maybe a jazz trio - 'Jeffery, Ovey and Sax').

That's easily the worst joke I've ever made.

Starting in 1 Peter2: 21, Peter recalls Isaiah, telling these churches that in the face of suffering, they should endure like Jesus; '"He committed no sin, and no deceit was found in his mouth." When they hurled insults at him, he did not retaliate; when he suffered, he made no threats. Instead, he entrusted himself to him who judges justly. He himself bore our sins on the tree, so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness; by his wounds you have been healed. For you were like sheep going astray, but now you have been returned to the Shepherd and Overseer of your souls.'

How is Jesus referred to here? As the Great Shepherd, who is willing to become like an innocent lamb and die for lost sheep. Though he designed the mouths that swore at him 'he did not retaliate'; though he made the tree that they hung him from, 'he made no threats'.

And as I read these words this afternoon, it dawned on me how crazy that must have been for Peter to stand there and witness it all. Peter afterall, is a doer - 'why stop and think, when you can 'do'? A man that had never stayed silent in all his life, and yet I'll bet he was stunned into silence by what he was watching. Why didn't Jesus do something?

This is Peter's God! This is his King - to whom he said "You are the Christ!" - What must Peter have been thinking? He knew how powerful Jesus was - why don't you do something?! He witnessed him tell a storm to stop - He saw him raise the paralysed - he saw him raise the dead! - 'Why don't you do something?'; 'Why don't you say something?'

He opened not his mouth.

The whole thing would've shut Peter's mouth.

And it shuts mine now.

Praise Him.

It seems to me that every where you turn at the moment there is talk about the 'theology of the city.' Everyone is speaking about it*, Don Carson, Tim Kellar, Steve Chalke, Queen Elizebeth, hey if Mark Driscoll says the word city one more time he's going to find out what sort of manly man he's bred. Everyone is just now figuring out the whys and hows of reaching and using cities for Christ.

Great isn't it. Only thing is, I live in a little 'hick' town. My experience in my whole life has been pretty anti-city. I grew up on a hill, choose a university to stay rural and have come back, settled and plan to live in the wilds when I get married in 3 months. What the heck can I learn about mission when all everyone is talking about is the city? I'm scared of the city, it's too bright!

As I showered this morning, thinking about this city obsessed Christian age, I wondered, 'Do I have to move to the city to be a good christian?' Is there any point in rural folk reaching other rural folk or should we all go beef up city churches and send a monthly food package to our closely bred cousins in the valley?'

The answer I guess has got to be no, emphatically no. But here's thing, I'm not quite sure why. As I'm bombarded with city talk I think my mind is slowly being eroded. I could give you a hundred and one reasons why we need to reach the cities, but I can only think of one reason to reach the rural. May I at this point reference our very own JTizzles sermon from this Sunday gone, a first in a 3part series on 'The art of Contextualisation' (part two by our very own Sammy Davies). Point two was this, "Go to where people are."

See, this is my conclusion. As long as people live in the rurals, we have to reach the rurals. As long as people live in the city, we have to reach the city. The only difference is volume. If we have a passion to see lost people come to know Christ (price check on that passion, I'm sure that's to wishy washy for prognosis, please replace with something more suitable such as 'to see Christ glorified as filthy sinners bath in the redeeming blood of the cross') then we have to reach people, WHERE EVER THEY ARE. That's the key to contextualisation. We reach them where they are at, be that location, language or level of understanding.

Theology of the Rural - Simple, Christ came to save the lost. Lost people live in the country. Let's be part of what HE'S doing.

*not all of these people are necessarily talking about the theology of the city.

I know it's been a while since I talked about a series outlining some of the proof we have for an historical resurrection, such a while perhaps you have no idea what I'm talking about. (For those who fall into this category why not revisit my post here). But alas, it is finely here and I'm quite excited. UCCF recently ran a series of lectures/debates featuring a certain William Lane Craig titled, 'Reasonable Faith,' and that's just what we have, reasonable faith. In part 2 of this series I'm going to look at two reasons for that reasonable faith. One from within the Bible and one from without.

Within - Old Testament prophecy, perhaps a point at which those pesky Jehovah's really can stick it to us Christians. The argument goes like this. Jesus said He was God, He also said He'd rise again from the dead. Prophecy inclines us to believe Him on both counts. I've read somewhere that there are over a thousand prophecies which Jesus fulfilled, not sure about them all but a smattering will demonstrate my point. Throughout Genesis and the OT the Messiah was promised to be a descendant of Abraham, not something Jesus could control, but something He was. Place of birth was predicted in Micah 5:2, again not something He could control, but was. Zech.11:12 says how much He will be betrayed for, 30 pieces of silver...yep, they got it right. Psalm 22:18 describes exactly how His clothes would be divided, now this is getting spooky. And that's just 4 . Take a look at Isaiah 53:8-12, it talks about Jesus being born into humble circumstances, dying a brutal death and rising again. Jesus was God made man and sent to rescue. We have no 'reason' to doubt when He said He'd rise again.

Without - Chumps to champs. On a completely different curve we can look at the transformation of the disciples. A bunch of cowardly, timid fisherman who were transformed into bold, even to the point of death, witnesses of a resurrected Christ. They gave up everything they had (most even their lives) and for what? A lie? Lies usually benefit the person telling them, this is clearly not the case with the disciples. The transformation in these men (and women) was nothing short of a miracle. Burden of proof firmly placed in the skeptics court.

I know it's bitty, but allow me over time to build it up. If your not convinced already, you will be, there's loads more to come.

Monday night saw us have our first Prognosis team meeting. We met in a dodgy Indian just outside Porthcawl and ended up in Clewers' very reformed study. I must be honest, it was one of the funniest evenings I have been a part of for a very long time. Lewis and Sammy just wind each other up, and the rest of us just hold on for dear life. I did feel rather old as the four young pups wore their silly t-shirts and had crazy hair styles (well, Lewis hasn't got much... actually, only Jonny has stupid hair...), and all struggled to hold their folks due to the repetitive strain injury caused by playing 12 hours of computer games a day.

We met to discuss the future of Prognosis and have come up with the following plans that will come to life at the end of August:

- Create a great web site

- Have our blog as the home page

- Make our blog's shorter and more regular

- Write more in-depth articles

- Create video interviews

- Post audio sermons

- Have a Welsh language multi media section

Over the summer we will be ‘stock piling' articles, audio, video and Welsh language material and will put it up in time for the new term.

Watch out: the Prognosis website is coming to a computer near you!

I have to be straight up front here, I'm not a fan of Good Charlotte. I've never got over their 2002 album The Young and the Hopeless with songs on there such as Lifestyles of the Rich and the famous, Girls and Boys and Anthem. Being the hardcore punker that I was when that album came out, I couldn't stand their pop lyrics and tunes mixed in with what appeared to be an "I want to be a punk rocker" image, which especially annoyed me when they played up to their mixing with the likes of Rancid (hardcore punk band), and so I put them in the same bracket as Busted, the type of band who pretend to be punk because it was cool at the time but really they're just pop. I have been assured that this album was a low-pop-point for the band and that their other albums are more punk!

Their latest album, Good Morning Revival, was released in March this year and has already had the single, Keep Your Hands Off My Girl, released from it. The album itself is full of songs that are sprinkled with despair. The song, Misery, is rife with it, with lines such as "Yeah I heard, that misery was looking for me; Happiness is a face that don't look good on me". Then there's A Beautiful Place with lines such as "Father, can we start over?...I wanna feel the way I did back then; Before my heart grew cold." And there's Something Else with the lines "We all want something; We all want something we can't have."

In the midst of the sprinkled despair comes the song The River, (out today) a song of despair that is also reaching out in hope. I was working away a few weeks ago in front of the TV with MTV2 on and on came this single, and it really caught my attention. Have a look at this live version below:

Now before you begin to argue that the greatest problem of this world is clearly sin, violence, war, disease or famine, let me assure you that what I wish to say is that Scientology typifies the problem of this world. Scientology typifies objections to biblical Christianity, moreso, it typifies the movements that have fought against the powerful message of God’s forgiveness for a guilty world; Christ’s redemption through his blood.

If you saw the exploding tomato incident with John Sweeney and laughed as hard as I did, you may be thinking ‘sure, they’re a little creepy, sinister even. But this is taking it a bit far’. Have a look at these three prime beliefs of the Scientologists and you’ll see some things for the church to be avoiding, ideas that have been working against Jesus Christ and his church for many years:

1. Man can overcome his problems; reach his potential; find his own happiness.

Clearly the heart of Christianity, the heart of Christ’s teaching is that man is totally helpless. He may overcome some problems, he may achieve much, he may even find great happiness, but he will never achieve perfect results. Jesus taught that it is what comes out of a man that makes him unclean, so even his best efforts will be tainted by greed, selfishness, pride and any number of other problems.

The big lie of this world is progress. Humankind can overcome all of its problems and constantly rise to new levels. That lie has arguably been going for several hundred years and has got us no-where. It has been the lie of secularism and of all world religions to an extent, and it has even featured in Christianity across the years; Pelagianism, some Arminianism, and is even creeping into modern evangelicalism. Because of what lies inside of him man is helpless in the face of his problems. He is particularly helpless when it comes to his spiritual problems; a dead man cannot wake himself up, yet this dangerous idea that man is ‘basically good’ would give him hope that he can wake himself up from his spiritual deadness.

As for scientology promising self-made happiness, Jesus promised a fullness of joy from himself. We’re designed to trust in God and enjoy him, even the greatest pleasures of this world will never measure up to that

2. Faith is irrelevant, knowledge can be discovered.

In Scientology there is no need for faith; what is true or false can simply be determined by a person’s experience, and he believes what he wants. The implication is that this person becomes judge of truth and if the ‘truth’ doesn’t fit in with his experience and understanding, he rejects it. Clearly discernment is good and blind acceptance is bad, but surely there are some things that we will reject based upon our character, background and belief, rather than it’s integrity as truth.

This is dangerous trend within Christianity #2; man is judge over all knowledge of God, he constructs his own understanding of God and if he dislikes it, he removes it. Conversely, you’ll remember Paul writing that it is God who has made known to us the mystery of his will. God is the revealer of eternal truth, God is the one who reveals himself, God is the one who reveals man’s place in all of creation. It is up to man to judge whether something is from God or not, but if by God’s grace he is convinced that it is then all he has left to do is trust it. There are those who would say that the Bible contains some of God’s truth but human reason can do the rest. However if Paul was right then there can be no knowledge of or about God, without the Spirit of God enlightening the heart of a Christian, and speaking through God’s Word.

3. Spiritual release and freedom is achievable.

Mankind have never had the ability to free themselves from their spiritual captivity, spiritual freedom has never, in all the history of this world, been something that man has been able to obtain. He cannot overcome the problem of sin, he cannot find complete happiness, he cannot discover God for himself. Surely the great truth of the Bible is that man is controlled by his sinful nature, he cannot do what he may long to do, yet God brings freedom where there is none. Surely the great message for today’s church is that the freedom this world needs is found purely in the cross. Freedom is achievable, but only by God!

So these are the three prime beliefs of the Scientologists according to their website. I do not blame them for these ideas, they are rife through society and even through the church. Yet doesn’t it all remind you that we live in a world which desperately needs the grace of God. These ideas concerning man’s independence and ability are possibly the greatest enemies of the gospel of Jesus Christ when they begin to seep into our evangelism, ministry and general thinking. Man can do nothing of himself, but God can do everything.