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Beyond everything else, the worst thing I’ve ever been told is ’these days, a normal evangelical church congregation can only handle 30 minutes expository preaching’. Without a shadow of a doubt, this is the most crippling sentence in my memory.

The guy who told me this had a theory - Television programmes are broken down mainly into 30 minute episodes. As most of a congregation will watch the television (though one of prognosis’ bloggers doesn’t. Can you tell which one? I’ll give you a clue - he’s the one that still thinks that Anthea Turner is a welcomed new addition to the Blue Peter team), they’re trained to only take thirty minutes of information at a time. Preachers that go on for any longer will find that the congregation will develope a sudden bout of piles and start moving their butts around on the seat - officially to get comfortable, actually to make clear to the preacher ‘Look! Are you going to get to the point or what?! I’ve got a chicken in the oven, you know!’

Or at least that’s how I’ve been interrpreting the bumshuffle ever since I was given the 30 minute golden rule. I don’t think there’s been a week in church where I haven’t been slightly paranoid about causing Mrs. ****’s chicken to chargrill.

So last Sunday night a tough one. I popped down to Ammanford Church to preach at their Welsh language meeting. It’s a big encouragement to ‘go west’ and preach. People from that part of the world are ‘my people’ - we talk the same, dress the same, support the same rugby team - so many of the cultural issues that you’d normally have to deal with are sorted. I felt like Paul going to preach at a Benjaminite home group.

Because of this, I was relaxed and that may have played a part in me hitting 50minutes. It wasn’t like it was an upbeat 50 either - 50 minutes on Psalm 22, the horrors of the cross. I was gutted. I’d broken the golden rule. ‘How could God bless if I’ve gone on for 20minutes too long?’.

Sunday night came and went, I pouted til Monday afternoon, but continued to feel pretty annoyed about it until about Wednesday when I listened to an mp3 of Tim Keller giving a lecture about what an evangelical ministry should look like.

He started explaining that one day, he was reading a translation of Romans 1 that had verse 17 not as the usual ‘the righteous shall live by faith’, but ’he who by faith is righteous shall live’. He said that the moment that he read that, he heard a voice adding ‘and he who by preaching is righteous shall die every Sunday’.

This was a watershed moment, as it was for me, hearing him say it all in light of preaching for so long the Sunday before. Keller explained how for so long during his ministry, though he confessed Christ as his righteouness, his ‘functional righteousness’ was in fact his preaching. So, when he preached well, he would think that God must be for him, and that when he preached badly, he would think that God was against him.

This was a real eureka moment for me. I saw that my functional saviour had become ‘the 30 minute rule’. Stick to it and God will bless, break it and God cannot. Totally against the truth. Totally against grace. It’s all of grace, whether God blesses or not. I want to live (and sleep like a Calvinist), I want Jesus as my rightousness, not my preaching.

It’s been a little while since I’ve been able to write a blog. I may not have dropped to the infrequency of Jon or Tom, but my initial burst from the bloggingblocks has slowed to a hobble over recent weeks, at this point a quick recap over one of Sam’s entries might give you an insight into why. Life in the Church game can be busy, hours can be long, and those ‘just one more hour’ add up. I thank God for Jenny who occasionally functions as a type of time management conscience.

The reason for the hiatus then was a burst of mega tiredness, and as stupid as this is going to sound, it’s something that I’ve honestly never felt before. From Monday through to Thursday it felt like my legs were cement, and I couldn’t wait for bed to come round. It was a million miles away from anything near the christian workers’ gold medal (sic.) ‘burnout’ , but it was a stark reminder that I have only one body, and it’s one that I must use in a godly and wise way. Forty years of ministry with bed wanting legs that feel like cement does not sound like fun.

Anyway, now for the confessional.

This week, I made a BIG mistake, and learnt yet another lesson. I shall explain it with the aid of a map.

Part of my job is preaching away. That means that for one Sunday every month, I preach at another church. Sometimes this is local, sometimes not so much. This is part of the reason that I dislike anything north of Brecon in Wales . It’s not that the people are not nice, or that it’s smelly or anything like that - it’s just that so much of Wales is so difficult to get to. The fact that the simplest way to travel to North Wales is via Spaghetti Junction should prove my point. This incidentally, is why I think that there’s such a divide between gogs and us posh southerners. It’s not that we’re that different to each other, we just can’t be bothered to visit.

This coming Sunday though, I was lucky. In my diary in fat read pen was ‘Ebeneser, Charles Street x2′. It really isn’t too long a journey, as you can see from the map below.

Nothing to worry about there then. According to Google Maps, that’s a journey of 1.4 Miles.

All was well. Until I got a phonecall at 7:20 last night.

“Lewis Roderick, Mr. Thomas here - I believe you know my son…”

This was true, though at the time, it meant nothing to me. I didn’t know who Mr. Thomas was, or know which one of my friends was his son.

“Er, yes…” says I.

“Good good. Matthew says that you know him through Iwan…”

Ah, yeah! This is Matt Thomas’ dad.

“…Looking forward to seeing you this Sunday. Half past ten start.”

- By this point I’m sorted. I know who the guy is. Matt Thomas’ dad must be the guy who books the speakers for Ebeneser.

“Yes, I’m looking forward to…” - I go cold.

Matt Thomas isn’t from Cardiff . How is his dad booking the speakers for Ebeneser? Matt’s from Dolgellau or somewhere.

“Mr. Thomas, where is the Church building?”

“Not far from the station really…”

“Which one, exactly?” Please say Queen Street, please say Queen Street…

“Um, the one in the middle of Penrhyndeudraeth. The only station is the town - not that big a place. It’s not Cardiff you know!”

He wasn’t kidding. Check it out on the map. This is a double booking of gargantuan proportions. A 280 mile round trip.

I praise God for a lesson learnt with time to fix a problem. I praise God for forgiving Elders who are willing to drop everything and help me out by preaching when they didn’t know they were going to. I praise God for an understanding church in Cardiff that said they’d ‘still like me to come in the future’. I praise you Father that you have, and will continue in the future to use doughnuts like me to make Christ known through the foolishness of preaching.

About a decade ago I met a female Christian worker who had a favourite, stock phrase. Whenever a question was raised, a problem posed or a discussion held she would always come in with the same phrase. And that really annoyed me. I just thought she was avoiding the topic. It’s rather funny as I look back to some discussions where I tried to disagree with her and just ended up looking like a complete Balaam’s donkey. Why? What was the ‘stock’ phrase that she kept using? Here goes: ‘It’s all about the gospel’. Ah! It really annoyed me. Let me illustrate:

• I know a girl struggling with self image issues. Answer? ‘It’s all about the gospel’
• I’m chatting to a student who’s having a hard time believing God loves him. Answer? ‘It’s all about the gospel’
• I’ve got bad athlete’s foot. Answer? ‘It’s all about the gospel’ (that’s not true. But I did wonder what she would say)

Wouldn’t that annoy you?

But over the last 10 years I have had to admit that I was wrong and she was right (Don’t you hate it when that happens? It get’s really bad when you are married!). You see, I completely misunderstood what she meant by the term ‘gospel’. I was taught that the gospel was as simple as ABC. ADMIT you have sinned. BELIEVE that Jesus died on the cross for your sins. COMMIT yourself to living for Him.

To me the gospel was just a process you went through to become a Christian. If you wanted to go to heaven not hell - then you needed the gospel. If you wanted to be forgiven for your sins - then you needed the gospel. But that was it. As soon as you had become a Christian the gospel had done its job. Jesus died to pay the price for our sins. Once you accept that and are born again - job done.

I had nearly missed the point of the gospel. You see, the gospel is not merely a set of truth propositions that give you a 3 step guide to becoming a member of God’s family. Rather, according to Mark 1:1, Jesus is the gospel. He is the good news. And when you study Ephesians 2:1-10 you see that He has saved us from death to life, and it was through grace, but he has saved us for a new life - a life of good works. So the gospel is not just about becoming a Christian, it is about BEING a Christian.

When you become a Christian you are made 1 with Jesus. You are united (to learn more about this download Edward Donnelly preaching on ‘Union with Christ’ from the Evangelical Movement of Wales web site -it’ll change your life). So now my identity is tied up in who Jesus is. He not only paid my debt on the cross, He gave me His righteousness too. So now I am literally (although I am not allowed to use that word according to the March 07 edition of the Briefing) clothed in Christ.

So let’s go through those questions again:

• I know a girl struggling with self image issues. Answer?

It’s all about the gospel because Jesus loved you before the creation of the world, before the onslaught of zits and before you read the last edition of cosmopolitan and decided that size 8 is the new size 10. You see, although rubbish Christian boys say they will love you if you look like the porn they sneakily look at - Jesus just simply loves you. Full stop. End of question. He loves you. And what does He do to prove that love? Take you down the bowling alley in his Ford KA and treat you to a Pizza Hut? No. He came to earth to be one of us, giving up all his worship and glory in heaven, and then dies on the cross in cruel physical agony, and more importantly, in separation from the Father as a substitute for your sin. Jesus died for you. That’s how much He loves you. And he wants you to live for Him in the most amazing mission of all history - being light in the darkness. So look to Jesus ‘the gospel’ for your self image, self worth and self respect - not backslidden ‘Christian’ boys who’ll end up breaking your heart anyway (sorry lads…).

• I’m chatting to a student who’s having a hard time believing God loves him.

Answer?

It’s all about the gospel. You see, we live in a world where we have to earn everything. You earn your place on the rugby team, you earn your place in uni and you earn the respect of your mates and work colleagues. Do you want a pay rise? Work hard. Do you want to get into a choir? Practice hard. We have all been brought up on Saving Private Ryan and hear those crippling words ‘earn it, earn it’. So when it comes to our faith, if we are not living a perfect life - we doubt we are a Christian at all. Surely God can’t love me? Not the way I am! But He can. Not because he is a wimp dad in the sky who just laughs at his son as he mocks him publicly. No, because God put His wrath for our sins on Christ. Jesus has paid the price. He has united us to Christ. We have been forgiven and adopted into God’s family because of Jesus. Nothing can change that. Therefore we should not doubt whether God loves us, as a Historical act (the cross) proves He does. And we should not feel as though we have to earn God’s love as it was proved and a relationship achieved through the Cross.

But let me add this. (Here comes an aside. We need to grasp Romans 3-5 (above) as well as Romans 6 (the following) ) Most guy’s I have known doubt because they have given into a repetitive sin. In that instance we must battle the sin with all our energy in the power of the Holy Spirit. Admit it to a mate and be accountable. Why? Because of the gospel! You see, we do not give up certain sins because the Bible lists it as wrong. No. We give up certain sins because we are one in Christ - we are in a relationship with Jesus - and he should be our all in all. He should be enough. He is enough. And when you break these laws, you are unfaithful to Jesus.

Imagine this (I’ve nicked this from a great book called ‘searching for God knows what’ by Don Miller - cheers Tomos J). You are in the church on your wedding day, your all excited and loved up. As the music starts and you turn to see your bride walk down the aisle (I cried like a stupid little girl who lost her Girls aloud CD at this point. Oh well..). Imagine at that point she starts checking out the other guys! Looking at some of the guests and giving them the eye! I would go mad and run for it! You know, we are the bride of Christ (sorry for the girly language - but it’s Ephesians - take it up with Paul…Oh, and I guess the Song of Solomon -Rated 21). And as the bride of Christ, when we live for other things or put repetitive sins as a regular feature of our life - we are unfaithful. The Old Testament calls it being a whore. We kick Him in the teeth. We literally laugh at the Cross. Sin is ugly. Sin is sick. Get rid of it.

(Back to the main point)

She was right. It really is all about the gospel. We must never forget Jesus. We must be suspicious of any sermon that does not end up with the gospel. We must meditate on the gospel year after year after year. We must love the gospel/ Jesus more and more with every communion. We must never forget that ‘it’s all about the gospel’.

Thanks be to God for godly women!

That’s why the girl is always right.