We have moved to www.theprognosis.org

I’ve found that boys and girls have very different tastes, every orange wednesday this becomes clearer to me. It was my choice to watch Blades of Glory, it was Jenny’s to watch Freedom Writers. Next week, we’ll go and see the U2 film (that’s my choice), this week it was Jenny’s with Juno (and secretly, I was very pleased, because it would have been mine too).
It’s a film about a teenage pregnancy. Here’s the trailer.

As far as the film goes, you sort of see it coming. Girl gets pregnant / girl tells boy / girl (thankfully) bottles out of an abortion / girl decides to give the baby up / girl wrecks a marriage / girl has baby / girl gives away baby / girl sings a song with baby’s dad. And even though what I’ve just typed looks more like a particularly dark episode of Byker Grove, it is really funny. All of it. Her telling him having warmed him up by complimenting his mum’s detergent? Funny. Her telling her best friend that she’s ‘for shiz prego’? funny. Her parents admitting that they’d rather she be on hard drugs? (Dark, but) funny. It made me laugh. So as far as a comedy goes, it’s job well done Juno.

Go and see it. It’s funny. But, maybe there’s a lesson or two to learn from it. They could have disowned her, but Juno’s parents’ reaction to her being pregnant calms and they stand by her - that’s a lesson. And as the 9 months tick by, you see Juno becoming more and more leperised by her classmates, and the reaction of those that walk with her is inspiringly counter-cultural. As I watched it, I thought of how I might react if a sixteen year old I knew got ‘caught out’. Which one of her classmates would I be most like? “For shame Juno, how could you..?”

And the thing is, it would be so easy to now make this blog about guilt. ‘Teenage pregnancy happens in churches, so be more like Juno’s good friends, and less like the bullies that give her a hard time.’ And that would look like a good thing. Externally, that’d be the right thing to do. But internally, that’s another matter. It may look like the right thing to do, but it’s not the gospel. It’s just moralising.

It has got faults, of course it does. The biggest one being that it downplays the reality of the situation it describes. It glamorises a child having a child. And at the end of the film, I was left thinking ‘that was one hairy year in the life of Juno McGuff, thank goodness it’s all over now, and she can get back to playing the guitar with her boyfriend’; that’s not a good thing. But I stilll don’t think that that’s no reason to not go and see it. Don’t get all reformed and precious about making light of sin. Take your friends, and use it. This film will be seen by millions, lets make the most of it.

Anyway, back to the point in hand. This year’s mission was branded, “Priceless” to see the website with all the info go here (it really was well put together). The buzz phrase they were banding around in advertising it was, “It may be free but it wasn’t cheap” (a big golden star whoever lets me know where they stole that from, it’s far too clever for the Oxbridge rejects that congregate at Warwick).

Something different happened this year, we got payed to be A.M’s. Payed? It was after all only a token amount, but why on earth should we get payed? (For the record I didn’t raise this at the time, I took the money and ran). After my very first conversation with someone about the gospel I thought to myself, “I should be paying them to allow me this opportunity to obey and serve God!”

Pile on top of this Lewis’ reasonably inspiring story of the girl on the bus, it got me thinking, could we ever put a price on sharing the gospel with someone? How about a price on getting along side and already christian whose struggling at Uni and encouraging them to fight the fight and stand up for Jesus? How about getting along side a fired up Christian and spurring them on to not just a Uni life with Jesus, but the rest of their lives serving Him, becoming increasingly satisfied in him?

The week really was priceless, for me, for the CU, for the people who heard the gospel for the first, second, hundredth time! And why? Because the gospel is priceless!!! And any work done in that framework must be priceless too!

So here’s a diary of all that I’ve got up to this week. Again, if you need clarification as to what anything is then do ask in the comments, and if you don’t know what Crowded House is nor what I’m doing here for three weeks then have a look at my first post by clicking here and my second post by clicking here.

First off, if you don’t know what Crowded House is or why I’m here for three weeks then scroll down to my post last week and you’ll understand!

Second, I’m going to explain the ’structure’ as it stands at the present (though keep in mind that the nature of Crowded House is such that it changes quite frequently). There are two main networks at the moment, the 215 network and the Sharrow network. The 215 network, of which Steve Timmis is a leader, is the one I’m predominantly involved in and is the largest. They have four churches: Sharrow Vale, HuB, Broom Springs and Loughborough. Sharrow Vale meets in a typical (though of course modernised) church building and has two teams seeking to reach out to particular people. So you have the Manor team and the South View team. The hope at the moment is that eventually these teams may become church plants in and of themselves. The other three (HuB, Broom Springs and Loughborough) all meet in homes and Loughborough is expected to plant in the coming months and perhaps will become its own network. The Sharrow network, of which Tim Chester is a leader, is a lot simpler. They have two churches: Abbey and Sharrow. Both meet in homes. I don’t know what their plans and intentions are for the near future, as I haven’t spent as much time with them!

Third, here’s what I’ve been up to this week. If anything doesn’t make sense then do ask in the comments bit and I’ll clarify. 

Fourth and finally I want to reflect on how the evangelism is done here. If like me you don’t think that street preaching is the best form of communicating the gospel and that door knocking is not the best way to get into a relationship in order to share the gospel, then you’ve got to ask the question how can I do evangelism? One answer is to hold ‘events’ as a church and tag on a token gospel talk at the end. Another answer is to rely on individuals in the church to go out, build relationships and share the gospel themselves and then when their non-Christian friends become Christians they can be brought into the church. I would have said that the best means of evangelism was the last one, that is until I read Total Church and saw how it worked out here at Crowded House.

“The Crowded House is a group of church planting networks in Sheffield and Loughborough.” Well that’s what their website helpfully explains. What they’re known for is their emphasis on community as well as being gospel centred. They talk more about planting churches not just growing churches and do so using a ‘house church’ model. Everyone is involved in ministry and church is not an event that happens one day a week, it is their lives lived with gospel intentions. If you want to understand more of where they’re coming from, check out their values and doctrine or if you want a more in depth understanding then read Total Church written by two of its leaders, Steve Timmis and Tim Chester.

Whilst in Bible college we are expected to go for three weeks on a placement with a church or Christian organisation or something. In my interview with my lecturer to decide where I’d be going this year, I said, “I want to go somewhere different.” Then paused, then said, “I want to go somewhere small, traditional and denominational.” Because I’ve never been in that situation. My lecturer said that he had thought I’d meant something like Crowded House when I said that I wanted to do something different. Not knowing what Crowded House was, I asked and he explained and it sounded a lot more appealing than something smal, traditional and denominational! So now I’m here and I’ve just done my first week. First, here’s what I’ve done then below I’ll give a reflection. I have two more weeks left so you can expect two more posts.

So here are some reflections. The first thing to say is that it’s not all that different to how any other church I’ve been in. I suppose it wouldn’t be though since fundementally we all believe the same things. And I’ve only been to the church meeting that meets in a typical church building not any of the house churches meetings. So we sung, we read the Bible, we prayed and had a sermon. They then had a meal together, but that’s not all that uncommon in the churches I’ve been to. Then during the week they do do a lot of seeing each other, hanging out and spending time together, which people will do in other churches though not necessarily as often as the Crowded House people do. I even did a hospital visit! But whatever background or tradition we’re in (unless you’re dodgy) fundementally we all believe the same things so it’s not going to look all that different really is it.

So now some reflections on what did strike me. There really is a real buzz about the gospel amongst the people. It’s obvious that it is what they are passionate about. It’s obviously in part down to good and consistent biblical teaching, but I wonder if this buzz is heightened by their emphasis on communities, their emphasis on keeping it smaller and planting rather than growing a mega church and because of their willingness to change as situations change all for the good of the gospel.

One other thing that struck me is that these people really are all involved with one another not just on a social level but also on a spiritual level. It’s what I’ve decided to call the allelous element (since allelous is the word for ‘one another’) because it sounds cool. This allelous thing is Biblical. We’re told many times to be loving one another, teaching one another, encouraging and admonishing one another, in short being devoted to one another. And as I’ve been amongst the people here, they have very naturally opened up the Bible together, prayed together and got onto spiritual conversations together, and I don’t think it is just because they have the Bible College student around who they’ve got to impress, that’s just what they do. Again, I’d say it’s because of the community emphasis and the size.

Well, I want to have something to say next week, so I’ll leave it there.

It’s wonderful isn’t it, 2008 offers us all a clean slate and a chance to really focus the mind on making the changes in our lives we’ve been to afraid to make in 2007. But how should the Christian view it?

Well I think that New Years is a bit like the Gospel. Gasp, what could I mean? People, in general, view it as a chance to start afresh, the Gospel tells us that we have fresh lives in Christ. People view it as a chance to persue their dreams with renewed vigor, the Gospel tells us to turn around and run toward Jesus.

CJ Mahany’s “Cross Centred Life” (a great quick read) remined me that the gospel is for every day, not just for Sundays, not just for Easter or Christmas or New Years, every single day.

My thoughts, for what they’re worth, are that every day for the Christian should be a very merry little ‘new year.’ Every day should start with the knowledge that we have a ‘clean slate’ a renewal in our minds that God’s Grace and Christ’s Sacrifice are sufficent to cover yesterdays transgressions. Every day should start with a new resolve to love God with all our heart and to love our neighbours in the same way we love ourselves. Jesus IS for Christmas, Jesus IS for New Year, but much better than that is that Jesus IS for everyday, we’d be fools to leave Him be!

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:

This afternoon I went on the radio to talk about sex, or rather no sex. Following an article that appeared in the Independent last week which stated that the Bush government’s drive to promote sexual abstinence was coming to an end due to it simply not having any effect, the BBC’s Welsh language station Radio Cymru rang asking if I’d be willing to make a comment about it. The column in question said

“Last week came the “shocking” news that President Bush’s $1bn abstinence campaign has failed. Despite its shaming slogans like, “Would you eat a cookie that already had a bite out of it?”, the Department of Health found no evidence that programmes such as the Silver Ring Thing affected rates of sexual abstinence.”

And it isn’t just on the American side of the pond. Another article, also in the Independent, talked about findings in this country on the same topic - “A new report from Ofsted, the education watchdog, concludes: “There is no evidence that abstinence-only programmes as the only education reduce teenage pregnancies or improve sexual health.”

So what have we gathered? That young people like sex - love it. Hardly worth spending a billion finding that one out, was it? No matter how much they try, people just can’t stop wanting sex, and doing it. No matter how intense the campaign to promote abstinence, young people, just can’t do it.

And that’s pretty much what I said on the show. Sex is good and fun and natural - why would people not do it?

Now, of course, as a Christian, I have some pretty clear opinions on the subject - Sex is good, but for the person that you marry. If you don’t have those bits, don’t think about them. Until that person is your spouse, they are your sibling in Christ, and doing stuff with a relative is beyond wrong. So keep all the bits kids play ‘you show me yours and I’ll show you mine’ with covered up until God says that you are one flesh.

‘One flesh’ is the Bible’s way of saying, married. Sex is the reward for promising to love and honour and care for a person from the day you’re married until the day God calls one of you to glory. Between these two (fairly) massive events in your life, sex is to be enjoyed. God’s even dedicated a book in the Bible to the subject of enjoying sex. What I was hoping to get across on the show this afternoon was not that the Bible (and therefore Christians) is anti-sex, God is very much pro-sex, but only when it’s done on his terms.

As a Christian, it doesn’t surprise me to read that the Abstinence programme that Bush’s government implemented and funded didn’t work. What did surprise me is the way that the news was reported. “Success of abstinence in cutting teen pregnancies is a ‘myth’” was one headline that I read (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2006/12/01/nsex01.xml).

Hang on a minute… ‘Success of abstinence in cutting teen pregnancies is a ‘myth” - am I reading that properly? Is the paper honestly telling me that it’s a myth that teenagers can avoid getting pregnant by abstaining from sex? Isn’t the best way to not get pregnant by not doing the sex thing? Whilst we’re on the subject, surely the best way to not catch an STD is to not T the D by S?

Of course, this is not what the paper is saying. The ‘myth’ is that the teenagers are abstaining from sex in the first place. No matter how much money is spent on encouraging them to not do it - why should they not, when they find out how good it is?

You see, it’s a question of motivation. Sex is too powerful to simply give up, too good. When you refrain from sex for no other reason other than ‘your own well being’, you simply ain’t going to be able to do it. Instead what’s needed is a motivation that’s bigger than even the fear of catching a baby or a very nasty itch. And the only thing that’s big enough is God. When He’s your motivation, you can.

As I’ve been writing, I’ve been thinking about why people want sex on their terms. Now the good old fashioned reformed answer would be ‘because we are all depraved sinners’, but I don’t think it’s as simple as that. What is it about sex that makes sinners want it on their terms, and not God’s?

Might it be a longing for the high you get from love, but without all the faff of ‘is this the one?’? I’m sure that for a lot of people it would be - they know that love will satisfy them, and they (rightly) see sex as the physical sign of the love that people desire so much.

And of course, we live in a world where we ‘get’ instantly, and we’re used to taking the short cut if there’s one available. So if you want coffee, but without having to wait to grind the beans - instant coffee. ‘You want credit but without all the form filling? Et viola! Internet instant credit!’

You want love but without the wait? Sex. The only problem is, no matter how much you get, it will never satisfy you. And you know what? The bit that’s really going to get you is that even if you find that one partner that you remain totally monogamous with, you’ll still not be satisfied. Deep down, there’ll be a part of the satisfaction that’ll be missing.

Do you want real love? Even when you’ve been at your most deplorable, God has loved you. Even when you have told him that you make the decision in the life that he gave you, God has loved you, and has given himself for you. No matter how broken or dirty your heart is, Christ died to let you experience love that satisfies. His love is instant, and eternal, sustaining and satisfying.

A few days ago, Jonny Raine and I ended up in Bridgend, specifically Bryntirion. Jonny had picked up some information about a day conference on ‘The Call’. So off we trotted down the M4 heading WESTwards.

Now I use the word conference rather generously, as when we arrived, there were 6 of us…and 4 of them we’re speaking at the ‘conference’. This was most definitely an intimate gig. But it was great to be there and learn from 4 experienced pastors. We kicked off with a session on the theology of the call, and then moved onto a week in the life of a pastor. After lunch we looked at things they don’t tell you in Bible College and my first year of ministry surprisingly led by a guy who’s just completed his first year of ministry. It was a good day with plenty of opportunity to discuss and ask questions. A shame more didn’t turn up. I was encouraged by the guy who had just completed his first year of ministry and is seeking to reach out to the local community he’s in. He was rightly excited about it.

While we chatted about the difficulties faced in Christian ministry, there was a comment ‘what often keeps me going is a reassurance that I’m called to this work’. This got me thinking about what is our motivation for doing anything. If that’s what keeps some pastor’s going, then what keeps Steve working down at spar going? Surely something bigger than reassurance of our situation we’re called into keeps us going?

It’s the gospel keeps us going in the face of difficulties. Fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith keeps us pressing on. There are many aspects of the gospel that keep us going; here are just a few tasty ones:

Knowing that the gospel has saved me, free of charge, all by grace. And so too, it can save others, and it’s so powerful it can even save the hardest nutcase in the east end.

Knowing that our great high priest has gone before us into heaven. So we can freely and boldly approach a holy God and never be turned away.

Knowing that I’m seen as pure and righteousness because I’m clothed in Jesus’ purity and righteousness, all because of him.

Knowing that God remembers my sins no more, they’re totally forgotten.

Knowing that the message of the gospel is true and is relevant for everyone whether they think that or not.

Knowing that one day I’ll be home with Jesus in heaven and all the struggles I faced in here on planet earth will be nothing compared to the glory that’s coming. It’ll all be worth it.

The gospel is so rich and so deep and yet we so often want to be driven by anything else. But whatever our situation is, whether we’re pastoring a church, or beeping through items on the checkout in spar, it’s the gospel that should keeps us going, shape our actions and our attitudes and its Jesus we need to fix our eyes on. We’re called to be gospel driven people.

By Dave Walker

Week in, week out, I remember plugging from the front the fact that CU was not a church. Oh we had all sorts of reasons why not, most pretty weak, but I was positive that it was not, nor should it be. My opinion hasn’t changed.

You see while I was at university my mission field was the university. I spoke with passion at large CU meetings about how we were a missionary group, that even though we weren’t in China or Montinegro (the vogue places to go do mission in Warwick) we were still missionaries, ’sent’ from our home churches to impact on the campus. It was brilliant, I had CU for witnessing to students and my University church for doing church things.

The greatest thing about CU was its focus on the gospel. By its very nature (multi-denominational) we were obsessed with focusing on Christ, the cross and His ressurection. Possibly our motive was to avoid any disagreement amongst us rather than a St.Paul realisation that that was all that mattered, but still, that was our obsession and is the obsession of CU’s all over Britain. Focusing on the cross made us extremely missionally minded. We used the tag line, “Mission and Maturity” but with our focus on evangelisinig the lost and getting them into local churches (as CU was most definitely not a church) we were actually more realisticly about, “Mission & maturity”.

So, why the title? Well as I’ve returned ‘from the mission field’ to the day by day slog of the local church, one thing has struck me more than anything. That is the need for people to realise that they are missionaries, that they’re place of work, friends, family, these are their mission fields and if they are truely maturing, then they would be witnessing all the more. Unfortunately we have this idea that doing ‘maturity’ is seperate from doing mission. How wrong could we be! The greatest source of maturing is sharing the gospel and anyone who is truely being matured will be driven more to mission and sharing Jesus. That’s a fact. Our churches are far to inward looking, thinking that if we ’send’ some students out, ’send’ some people abroad, then we fill our missional quota and the rest of us can get on with worshiping God and getting to know Jesus better.

If our Churches could steal just a small amount of that passion from our CU’s, well the kingdom of God would be in much better shape here in Wales. A church that is more interested in the style of songs we play, or why there isn’t an evening service any more, or why Mrs. Smith has started coming to our Bible study when we were quite happy as we were, a church that is more interested in this, I’m not sure is a church any more. At the very heart of a church must be the urgency to let people know about Jesus. If that is lost (if it is not over emphasised to the extreme) then we are nothing more than a social club and a very odd one at that.

Hats off to CU’s across the nation, they are more of a church than most of the churches that we’ll ever visit.