MPs' Expenses

Reading about the latest revelations of MPs' expenses I was wondering if the Bible had anything to say on the matter.

I thought about Douglas Hogg having work done on the waterway round his house and John Prentice having mock Tudor beams added to his house, and then I remembered - Jesus talked about motes and beams ...

I overheard on the radio recently it has been suggested the new speaker ought to be someone from a Picasso painting - 'ayes' to the right and 'noes' to the left.

Growing in faith

One of the hot topics in Christian circles is 'discipleship' or 'spiritual formation' . There are also others terms used, but the basic point is how we grow in our faith, rather than stagnate. Books have been written, and no doubt more will come! A friend of mine, a fellow Baptist minister, is studying this during his sabbatical.

In a recent sermon I preached about "transformation", the word used in Romans 12:1, where St Paul says, Do not conform yourselves any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds. As I was preparing this it seemed to me that there were three 'dimensions' to spiritual growth - an inward dimension, an upward dimension and an outward dimension.

The inward dimension is studying our faith in God. It's the renewing of the mind that Paul speaks of. It draws us closer to God as we study Him. St Paul also wrote, Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things. So we fill our minds with God's Word, because our minds influence our behaviour!

Maybe you can think of a time when you have been studying God's Word and He has spoken to you and helped your faith - that is the inward dimension at work.

The upward dimension is releasing our worship to God - worship from the heart. Although the whole of our lives should be an act of worship pleasing to God, we need to spend time specifically in worship to Him. This can be on our own, it should also be with others, so corporate worship times are important.

Maybe you can think of a time when you have been worshipping God and something has lifted your faith - that is the upward dimension at work.

Then there is the outward dimension, which is using our energies for God. He gives us spiritual gifts which he intends us to use for the benefit of others! Whether it is helping, serving or witnessing to others. However you can, reach out and get involved.

If possible go and visit Christians in another country and another culture. Especially if that is in the Third World. We have had the privilege of helping to run two Bible camps for young people in Poland - the first when both the iron curtain and the Berlin wall were still firmly in place! We have also made trips to India to see the work of Oasis India over there. We also spent a long weekend with the pastor of a church in Belgium.

These have been times when our faith is stretched and we're (as they say) out of our comfort zones! But these have been times when our faith has also been strengthened - the outward dimension at work.

All these three dimensions together help us progress in our Christian faith - all are needed. To summarise:

The inward dimension - with our minds - studying our faith in God
The upward dimension - with our hearts - releasing our worship to God
The outward dimension - with our bodies - using our energies for God

All of these dimensions must, of course, be surrounded by prayer - that goes without saying, although I've said it now, anyway! And I must tell my Baptist minister colleague I've blogged this - just in case it's useful in his sabbatical!

Should you want to,listen to the sermon, you can go to: www.laindonbaptistchurch.org/html/service2.html and right click on "Transformation".

Pastor News

To all of those who know me, but haven't yet heard - I have been invited to be the pastor of a not-too-far-away Baptist Church and I have accepted. No more news yet about when I'll start as it's still early stages.

Also Sawyers have appointed a new Lead Pastor, who will be coming about the beginning of September.

As bad as St Paul?

I was reading the following verse from the Bible. It is St Paul writing to his colleague Timothy:

Here is a trustworthy saying that deserves full acceptance: Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners—of whom I am the worst. But for that very reason I was shown mercy so that in me, the worst of sinners, Christ Jesus might display his unlimited patience as an example for those who would believe on him and receive eternal life. 1 Timothy 1:15-16 (NIV)

Sometimes people don't feel 'good' enough to be a Christian. If you know someone like that, remind them of this verse! St Paul says he was the worst of sinners. He knows that before he was dramatically converted on the Damascus road, he persecuted the Christians, having them thrown into prison and approving of their deaths.

But Jesus had other ideas, and St Paul became one of the great Christian thinkers and missionaries. If God can do that with him, he can certainly work in other people's lives! As St Paul said of himself, he is an example of God's "unlimited patience", and illustrates that faith is open to all who will accept Christ as the one who forgives and transforms lives.

What a win!

There was a "good news story" on the front of our local paper last week. A local man had scooped £77,000 in an online poker tournament. In order to win the prize he managed to beat the other 297 other players Sounds great, doesn't it?

Then I read that the entry fee was £1,000!! That means, I assume, 297 others lost £1,000. So the good news story for one turns out to be a pretty bad news story for 297 others! If I'm right and all the players had to stump up £1,000, then there is still £221,000 unaccounted for ...

Standing Room Only?

On the way back from the Baptist Assembly, being a bank holiday there were, of course, engineering works on the railway. So we had to get a bus for part of the journey. I must say it worked very well and (believe it or not!) we got to Brentwood station the same time we would have, had we caught the train all the way.

As we were sitting on the bus, I was idly reading the notice saying how many people the bus can carry. Well, you've got to do something on you way to Romford Station! It said something like this (I might not have it exactly correct):

Upper deck seated 37

Lower deck seated 29

Standing 10

Or 1 wheelchair and 25 seated

It took most of the journey to work out what it was saying. It should have been written:

Upper deck seated 37
Lower deck seated 29

or 1 wheelchair and 25 seated
Standing 10

In other words the wheelchair took up 4 seats (which flipped up).

This has now become a kind of hobby. The number 73 bus I was on recently mentioned "Standees"!

Now if an employer employs people and an employee is employed, then clearly a standee is stood! But then that fits in well with the new common parlance where people say they were "sat sitting". If you're a "standee" you are obviously "stood standing"!

If there are people standing on your next bus , go up to one and tell them they are a standee! On second thoughts you probably ought not, as one of the others who are stood standing will probably nick your seat!

This whole business of bus capacity is a complicated science! Take, for instance, this excerpt from a paper on the whole subject of school buses in America:

School buses transport passengers in a wide range sizes (height and weight). Accordingly, it is not possible to define the absolute capacity of a school bus under all conditions. The typical school bus seat is 39 inches wide and generally is considered to have a maximum seating capacity of three. This capacity rating is not meant to be a measure of the absolute capacity of the school bus seat for all sizes of passengers. Rather, it is the “rated maximum capacity” as determined by the school bus body manufacturer and specified on the vehicle. This rated capacity is determined by dividing the width of the seat by the number “13,” which represents the 12.8-inch hip breadth of a 5th percentile adult female test dummy as specified in Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standard 208, “Occupant Crash Protection.”

[A 5th percentile adult female dummy is approximately 4-feet 11-inches tall and weighs 102
pounds.]

So there you are, now you know! But with childhood obesity on the increase maybe the number 13 will have to go up!

More Baptist Assembly

I forgot to tell you in my last blog about the saga of the morning coffee. Some time before the assembly, I read that we would have to pay for coffee this year. So I made a prophecy - or perhaps it was just a prediction - that they wouldn't cope with dishing out coffee AND having to take the money and long queues will form.

My prediction turned out to be spot on! But we were prepared. First thing we did was to do a 'recce' to find where the coffee was being served. Then in the morning we sat as near to the door that was nearest the refreshments. It worked a treat! The first day I was a few from the front but the second day I was second and the third day I was first!

I shouldn't really be telling you this, as next year you'll all be doing it! Or maybe not. Even though people were still queuing after we'd finished our coffee, they seemed quite happy chatting. After all queuing is what we Brits do, isn't it?

(By the way, the coffee was pretty grim and NOT worth the £1.90 charged, in my humble opinion!)

Baptist Assembly

We spent the weekend in Bournemouth. Not for a holiday - but to attend the Baptist Assembly held at the Bournemouth International Centre (BIC ) there. My wife got chatting to a man on Waterloo Station as we waited for the train. She said what we were going to and he asked where it was being held. When she told him, he expressed surprise and said, "I didn't know there were so many Baptists!" Well, he was an Anglican ...

It was, as usual, an inspiring time. The band who led the sung worship were brilliant. I was struck by the girl singer with dark hair, as her hair alternated between straight and curly each day. I really don't know why I notice these things, is it a gift?

Kingsley Appiagyei is the new president and in his address he quoted Marcus Antonius who said, "The true worth of a man is to be measured by the objects he pursues." That reminds me, I mustn't spend too much time blogging.

Nigel Wright led a seminar on what makes a Baptist Church Baptist. He started off by discussing what were the minimum requirements for a church to be a church. These he called the ecclesial minimum, a useful phrase to pop into a conversation when you want to impress. As we split into small groups for discussion, our ecclesial minimum was "a community gathered for trinitarian worship" I thought it sounded good. Nigel's basic definition was based on Matthew 18:20 where Jesus said, "Where two or three are gathered in my name, there I am with them." I was a little shocked to find at this point we were using bigger words than Nigel!

His 'Baptist' minimum was believers' baptism plus congregational government plus religious freedom. The 'congregational government' bit implied the church meeting, which he described as a "high risk zone"! But we're trying to create a spiritual unity there, he continued, "We know how to winge, we need to learn how to love."

Pat Took's Bible study was, as ever, helpful and inspiring. We were looking at Matthew chapter ten where the disciples were sent out with direction from Jesus. They were to go as mendicants (I had to look that word up when we got back!). This was radical. She asked, how can we be 'radical' when we are homeowners? It's a tension, she admitted!

We were all given a jute bag to carry around our papers, made by Freeset, a company from Calcutta which provides hope and employment to women who had been trafficked into prostitution. A brilliant way to help others.

We were also able to calculate our carbon footprint caused by our journey to the Assembly, and offset that by giving an amount of money to a scheme which plants trees. As we travelled by train, our offset amounted to 10p! Not many trees for that, but we did give more than that!

So a great weekend, only spoilt by our hotel fiasco ... which I'll tell you all about another time.