short term mission

Every Friday I get a lecture from diferent mission agencies from the U.K. It's a privilege to hear and see the amazing work that men and women across the U.K. are doing in the name of Jesus. Perhaps one day I'll find myself working for one of these agencies, but (and there always is a but isn't there?) I am failing to see the sense in going out with these organisations to random countries on the short term.

You know what I'm talking about. These 2-4 weeks summer teams that people go on spending from one to three thousand pounds to get there and look after themselves. To be honest, that money would have been far better spent just being sent to the communities we visit, rather than dragging our unskilled butts over there on a glorfied holiday.

Don't get me wrong I am not judging the motives of the people who take part in these trips, for I myself have done them. In fact their heart is good, because they see a need and want to do something about it. However, that desire is not being used to its full potential in the current way it is being exercised. Perhaps it is good to go once, in order to have our hearts and minds opened to the poverty in the world, but to keep doing it simply isn't productive.

I mean what do we really have to offer a remote community in the middle of Africa anyway (sorry to stereotype)? Sure we can go build a school, but there are plenty of people in those countries who have building skills themselves, and we only take the trade away from the locals. It's white colonialism gone wrong all over again. We made the mess in the first place. Now we see the mess and think we've got all the answers to fix it.

Yes indeed however it is the responsibility of the better off to take care of the poor, but we need to be more creative, more sensitive in how we approach it, and we need to act fast. I don't have all the answers and I'm certainly willing to listen to other points of view but here are some of the things I think we can do:

We can pray. We can rally organisations, governments and powers at be into doing the action they should be. We can carefully give of our finances and resources from our vast reserves. There is a scope for churches partnering alongside other churches (the same body of Christ) in different countries for the long term. We could even go and teach for the long term. Although we would need to be careful how we do that, because I don't think that Africa really needs to be 'westernised' in the cultural sense of the word, as I believe it would lose it's own cultural and spiritual richness.

These are all very raw thoughts and feelings from a naive young man, but watch this space as I hope to develop them into something tangible real soon.

To my granny

My granny passed away on November 4th. She bravely battled cancer for a little over a year. When she was first diagnosed, things seemed ominous, but God blessed us with one more year with her. It's hard to believe how fast things happened when only 2 weeks ago she was gardening but in a sense it was a blessing, for she passed without any pain and even got to enjoy a last meal (little did she know it).

I praise God for this and the fact that she is with Him in heaven. For she loved the Lord and it's a great comfort to my family that she's now with her Maker. It's just so hard though seeing the anguish in my mother, uncle and especially my grandfather. There is just no way of understanding the kind of pain that comes with losing a life partner.

I've never really had anyone close to me die before. My grans passing has got me thinking a lot about death recently. It's not so much death that I fear, but rather eternity. The inifite idea of never endingingness scares the daylights out of me. I know as a Christian I have eternal hope but I simply do not have a strong enough grasp of the marvels of heaven and what it will be like to worship God forever. Am I the only one who thinks like this?

Dorothy McCarthy

Back to my granny. I said at her funeral that I think she would appreciate somebody saying something in their own words in memory of her, and my little brother, Adam, chose a wonderful verse - 1 Corinthians 13 (often read at weddings, paraphrased) to aid this.

Dorothy was patient and kind; she did not envy nor boast; she was never arrogant nor rude. She wouldn't insist on her own way; she was not irritable nor resentful; she never rejoiced at wrongdoing, but rejoiced with the truth. Dorothy bore all things, believed in all the things of God, hoped for all things, endured all things, her love will never die in us the people she loved...So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.

If there was one thing to describe my gran it's that she was a loving person. We know from God's word that God is love, and also when we become Christians, God perfects us to become more like Christ - love. So I think the most special thing about Dorothy was that we caught just a glimpse of what the love, God the Father has for us.

My gran taught us all how to love better. We'll miss you Dorothy.

man card

Last weekend 5 men in college completed the 28oz meat challenge at Iford Bridge. This consisted of 2 chicken breasts (or cumberland sausages), 1 gammon steak and 1 80z rump steak with a side of chips and salad (the salad being a non compulsory item of the challenge as it is not manly).

The completion of this challenge was dubbed so worthy that we have decided to award them with the Red Man Card. There are 3 levels of man card and they are listed as follows:

Man Card Red: Completion of the 28oz Steak Challenge or equivalent
Man Card Silver: An overnight stay in the wild or equivalent. Creating fire is mandatory.
Man Card Gold: An outstanding honourary award, that can not be defined any single act of valor. The worthiness of an act for a Gold man card shall be voted upon by fellow man card holders.

Got your eggs in one basket?

The first thing I want to make clear is that this is not a blog comparatively arguing the theologies of some of the greatest Christian minds in history for that would take a dissertation, not a blog! But rather, this an exasperation as to why we put them on such a pedistool.

Calvin, Luther, Arminius, Wesley, there are so many to choose from but what really drives me mad is why people insist on defining themselves as one or the other. What is so special about these guys that we feel the need to come under their yolk like they're some kind of Jewish Rabbi.

In methodist circles, there is barely a week that goes by without some kind of trumpeting of the Wesleys. Now that I am in Bible college, people simply just have to make it painfully clear that they are either 5 point Calvanist or 5 point Arminian.

I think it is some very shaky ground to be stood upon if we are putting all our eggs into one theologians basket, because no man is infalliable. Otherwise we create a kind of papacy that the above mentioned reformists were all against! I am not saying either that we should go around creating our own theology willy nilly, but rather that we find the security of our beliefs in Christ Jesus

"But may it never be that I would boast, except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world." ~ Galatians 6:14

A new chapter

Isn't life amazing? It's amazing for a lot of reasons. It's mysterious, it's entropic, it's infinitely diverse, it's full of experience and feelings and depth. I love life, and I love the God who designed it. How amazing is our God who made all of this just for his names sake, and he lavishes this creativity upon us, his prize possesion of all His creation (Ps 8).

I have got to experience so much of that beauty over the last 24 years back home in Northern Ireland. Stuff like StreetReach, Queen's University, High Street Methodist, the Mourne mountains, stuff I will never forget. But it's a funny ol' world isn't it? And God in His grace has begun writing a new chapter for me to play a part in His story.

When I look at my life 5 years ago, and indeed even from just this time last year, it's almost unrecognisable. The people whom I am surrounded by, the things I dedicate my 'nine til five' to have completely changed, but I do not lament this fact. Of course I miss people, but I praise God that he is revealing his will to me in new ways every single day.

After a short flirtation with banking, I have finally decided to go England and train as a youth worker. It is a move surrounded entirely by faith as I have no clue how I am going to pay for it all! So if if any of you reading would like to commit that to prayer, it would be greatly appreciated! I should also give a mention to the East Africa stuff I was involved in over the summer (see previous posts). It seems we have poked the bear, and now God is opening up a whole stream of possibilty there, so watch this space!

This last year for me has definitely been the hardest and most painful of my life, but in my pain God has proven faithful and is rebuilding my heart into something He can use. And for those of you who are suffering, I want you to know that God has seen your pain, and His heart breaks with yours.

The same man that the winds and waves obeyed,
Is the same man who was the first one to know pain
Same man could keep control of everything
Same man knows more than me about suffering

28-30"Are you tired? Worn out? Burned out on religion? Come to me. Get away with me and you'll recover your life. I'll show you how to take a real rest. Walk with me and work with me—watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won't lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you. Keep company with me and you'll learn to live freely and lightly."

Heaven Rejoices

This is a song I came across a long time ago, but I still love the lyrics today. We quite often sing songs about what we feel about God, but this is a song about how the writer thinks God feels about us, and I agree. I particularly like the line

I know my ways are hard to understand
But my plan is greater than you can imagine
Through all the darkness, I've never left your side

working 9 to 5

As I wrap up my time with Northern Bank Ltd, I would like to say some things about the rat race that is the nine to five work culture. First of all I should say I have rather surprisingly enjoyed working for the bank. Beforehand I struggled with the idea of being trapped in a weekly routine commitment. However, I have enjoyed learning how to live in the professional world, and I have seen vast potential for God to work in this arena.

A lot can be said about the office. It's a lot like how my friend Donna puts it - like a "goldfish bowl". The dynamic/politics of it all can be at times complicated and intense. On the other hand, I can find the great beauty God intended for His creation in the diversity of the people I work with.

The common denominator I find with nearly all people is the desire for the weekend to come. Phrases like "I can not believe it's Monday", or "roll on Friday". Even during the day people watch every painstaking movement of the second hand on the clock, and it's this kind of living that moves me to frustration and then sorrow.

WHAT A WASTE

How much of your life do you want to have spent wishing away? Everytime you wish for it to be 5 oclock and then it comes, or wish for the weekend and then it passes, that is time you are never getting back. Oh how I wish people would realise that you can feel as much fulfilment in your life at 9am on a Wednesday morning as you can at 9pm on a Saturday night.

We need to see our daily routines as more than just going through the motions. We need to stop waiting for the weekends. In the end, what really all that special happens at the weekend? We need to stop waiting for something to happen in our lives. We only get to live it once, and we have got to make every second count.

How do we do this? We can work to the best of our abilities. We can purposefully bless those around us. We can be thankful for what we have, when there are plenty in the world who have a lot less. We can be the joy that we want to have in our lives. But more than this, we can make everything we do about our worship to our Creator. Not everyone believes in God, but if they would give it just one chance, to see that God came to give us life and life in its fullest (John 10:10) and not the nine to five monotony that we have become so familiar with in our lives.

He's desperate to give it to us, don't settle for anything less.