June 1, 2008

Perspectives on the Florida revival

Posted by mhjones under Christianity, Revival
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If you look back over the centuries, the Christian church as witnessed many great periods of revival and growth. They’ve also been called “awakenings.”

As I understand it, the cycle goes something like this:

  1. The church endures a period of “decline” which is characterised by secular philosophies dominating a nation’s agenda.
  2. A series of events (eg. big church meetings and crusades) spark a burst of excitement and frenzy within the church – hope is renewed!
  3. This leads into a lengthy period of sustained growth as church growth accelerates.
  4. Enthusiasm tapers off, leading back to point 1.

There’s a decent overview of revivals and previous examples at Wikipedia.

The prospect of a Christian revival in Australia has been on my mind for something like two years, and I blogged about it in November last year on this blog.

But what’s really prompted me to write about it again is because the subject keeps coming up spontaneously in lectures at Tabor College. Part of the reason is that there is a massive revival under way in Florida, known variously as the Great Florida Healing Revival, the Lakeland Revival or the Florida Outpouring. Watch it here on ustreamtv, on Todd Bentley’s site, his YouTube channel, TV report which is a pretty good overview or the Ignited videos. Any way you look at it, this revival is massive!

To anyone not familiar with what can happen during revivals it could all seem really weird, if not freaky. I’ve gone through a whole range of emotions myself. And I’ve now come to the view that if this revival is coming to Australia (if it’s not already here!) then it’s useful to understand the bigger picture. So here’s what I’m thinking at the moment. Please don’t take this as gospel, but my reflections:

  1. The Holy Spirit brings about revivals according to His will, not ours. There’s nothing we can do, or should do, to “manufacture” revival.
  2. The purpose of revival is to build up and encourage the church, bring new people into the Christian faith, heal people and glorify God. It’s not about glorifying the revival’s leaders.
  3. The same “rules” apply to preaching and healing – preach from the Scriptures, not “another Gospel.”
  4. Revivals don’t normally fit into our view of what’s “normal” – hence all the “strange” behaviour you will see on YouTube. Try and look beyond the methods and look at what’s happening to people. You judge revivals by outcomes – what are the real, true-life testimonies of healings, for example?
  5. Don’t set people up for disappointment, or worse, harm. If you believe you’ve been healed make sure you get medical verification and advice before changing medication etc.
  6. Various people associated with the Florida revival have prophesied that this will come to Australia soon. If that’s the case, bring it on!
  7. The media around the world has started to pick up on this revival and report on the healings & miracles. This should be encouraged – independent verification of healings is always good for the integrity of the revival. Here’s one blog report, a local news report here and this one from msnbc.
  8. Finally, I’ve always believed Geoff Bullocks song “Great South Land of the Holy Spirit” was a prophecy. But does that mean Australia will be caught up in this revival? That question’s been rattling around my brain for some time. I really don’t know, but God does.

So, that’s what I’m thinking. You?

 

April 10, 2008

God’s presence

Posted by mhjones under Christianity, God, Holy Spirit, Jesus, Tabor College | Tags: , , , , |
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This semester at Tabor College I’m taking a preaching and public speaking class. And guess what!? We have to preach!

Preaching to your classmates (ie. “preaching to the converted”.. heh..) is at once nerve-wracking, and also a great joy.

Here’s how it works: Everyone in class listens to your 10 minute mini-message and writes a few things they liked plus a few areas you could improve. I suspect most pastors out there rarely get that level of detailed feedback from so many people all at once. And thankfully everyone has been encouraging and constructive.

This is my second message prepared for this class, simply titled “God’s presence.” We spend so much time thinking about what we need to do in order to reach out to God. The incredible thing to consider is that God Himself is actually reaching out to us. It’s such an awesome thing to realise.

A few notes on the audio – you’ll hear the whirring of the fans in the background, and that little buzz you hear a couple of times is a little handheld gadget that buzzes to let you know you’re nearly out of time! Yes, I’m a bit geeky…

Click here to listen: Mark Jones – Gods presence

 

November 13, 2007

Why it’s called revival

Posted by mhjones under Christianity, Holy Spirit
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Every now and then you stumble across a quote or sentence that instantly clarifies and gives shape and meaning to something that’s been ticking over in the back of your mind.

The concept I’ve been wrestling with is “revival.” Revival is, in my view, what happens when the church gets its act together and comes before God, desperately seeking to know His will and praying for a greater outpouring of the Holy Spirit to convict people of their need to discover Jesus as their Saviour. But the thing is that the Bible doesn’t appear to specifically talk about revivals as we know it. Jesus instead empowers the disciples to go out into the world, powered by the Holy Spirit, and preach the good news, heal the sick, raise the dead and “make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.” (Matt 28:19, ESV). In that context, you get the feeling that revival is meant to be the ongoing, constant work of the church.

So here are some words of wisdom on revival that I came across while researching an essay on speaking in tongues (a subject for another day), from Clarence Finsaas, a Lutheran pastor:

Revivals among Christian people usually center around the recovery of lost truths. In the Old Testament it was the recovery of the lost book, the Bible, which brought about revival under King Josiah. In Martin Luther’s time it was the recovery of that great basic truth, justification by faith. In John Wesley’s day it was the truth of sanctification. In 1900 it was the discovery of the spiritual gifts that God gave to His Church which were lying dormant. This movement was called the Pentecostal movement.”

If you’ve been to Africa, or read the stories of the Pentecostal church’s explosive growth across the continent, then it’s not hard to think of it as revival. I’m still processing the fact that when we visited Uganda’s Kampala Pentecostal Church in October they had 2,000 people in each of their four services on a Sunday. And KPC had 5 churches across the city. Of course, there are big churches in plenty of Western countries too.

But to apply all this to my own journey, discovering the reality of the person of the Holy Spirit, and his manifest power through gifts such as tongues, healing, prophecy and words of knowledge, sparked a revival in my life that led to my decision to begin theological studies at Tabor College. I’m just one guy at College, and there are plenty of other people there who have had their own faith revivals. Call it what you will – the Pentecostal revival, the Charismatic Renewal – but it’s awe inspiring to me that God has poured out his Spirit on this generation. I reckon God’s making good on his promise in Job 8:7 that the church will keep growing stronger and those who seek Him will be restored:

And though your beginning was small, your latter days will be very great.

Kampala Pentecostal Chruch

(Kampala Pentecostal Church in full flight…pic: Diane Clucas, Northside Community Church)

 

November 11, 2007

Beyond Northside to Watoto

Posted by mhjones under Christianity, Missions | Tags: , , , , |
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In late September and October 2007, 41 members and friends of Northside Community Church flew to Kampala, Uganda from our homes in Sydney, Australia.

Our hosts were the amazing people at Kampala Pentecostal Church, the home of Watoto. We were one of 85 teams expected to visit Watoto this year, but our story was unique.

We’d raised $100,000 as a church to build homes for Uganda’s orphans and widows, an expression of our belief in what I call the social gospel. As it turned out, Watoto was able to use that money to fund a large kitchen to feed the children, teachers and staff at Watoto’s Suubi Village, where some of Watoto’s 1,600+ kids live and go to school.

This is our story, as distilled in video by yours truly, my wife, and photos from team members. Enjoy!

 

June 12, 2007

Unity and revival

Posted by mhjones under Christianity, Tabor College
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Sydney Harbour at dawn

“Are we there yet?” My three year old daughter is already following in the footsteps of generations of kids stuck in the back seat on long car trips. It’s an impatient question, and one that can be applied to lots of situations.

Speaking personally, I’ve spent much of my life in a state of impatience. I couldn’t wait to turn 16 so I could undergo my learner driver’s test. I couldn’t wait to turn 17 to get my provisional license. I couldn’t wait to finish school and start university. I couldn’t wait to finish university and start work. When Heather and I were engaged, I couldn’t wait to get married. I’ve not been very good at waiting.

When it comes to Christian life, we’re all on a relationship journey – we’re getting to know more about God, understand Jesus’ impact in our lives, and respond to the leading, prompting and comforting of the Holy Spirit each day. There are times when I can’t wait to know what God’s got in mind for the next day or chapter of my life. There are also times when I’m trying to escape from what I believe He has in mind for me, but that’s another story.

Church denominations are a bit like this too. As discreet parts of the wider church body, each denomination like the Anglicans, Pentecostals, Baptists, Catholics, Churches of Christ etc are all striving to discover and fulfill their destiny as churches. Some are asking “What part will we play in a revival in the Great South Land of the Holy Spirit?” And when is the revival coming? Again, another story.

I spent a lot of time growing up as a member of the Uniting Church. And one of the things that bugged me about the Uniting Church was this “are we there yet?” question. The denomination was formed by the combination of Methodist, Presbyterian and Congregational churches. It was in the process of “uniting” and by implication felt as though it wasn’t yet “united.”

I’ve just been reading through some of my notes from my first semester at Tabor and there’s a quote I wrote down from college principal Peter Carblis: “We don’t have to achieve unity, we just have to recognise that anything else is not possible.” There’s so much freedom in that statement.

You see, we already are the body of Christ. Jesus, the head of the church, only sees one church (the people, not the buildings). We are unified by our respect and love for each other, inclusive of our differences. Our administrative and theological differences are, to some extent, man-made and largely irrelevant from Christ’s perspective.

So to answer the question, we are already there. We just don’t realise that we’ve already arrived – it’s a question of readjusting our hearts, minds and attitudes to reflect the reality that Christ sees.

 

May 27, 2007

To hang, or not to hang? That is a question…

Posted by mhjones under Jesus, Tabor College
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I went to a Catholic mass a few weeks ago – a first! As a member of the protestant, or evangelical church, I’ve never had a reason to visit a Catholic church except on tourist duty in France, but that’s another story…

The funny thing was that I went to mass for a college assignment (write a report on your visit to a church that’s different to your own church background). And I say funny, because “I’m here on an assignment” was the answer I gave the priest when we shook hands at the end of the service – he asked questions about whether I was new and why I was visiting. I’m sure you’re supposed to make up another answer in such circumstances, but hey, everyone must have noticed me scrawling away in my notebook, failing to say the right thing at the right time, and missing all the cues to bend down on one knee at appropriate times. So I’d already figured the game was up!

Anyway, I took away two lasting impressions. Firstly, I felt much more comfortable than I thought I would – we are, after all, all Christians despite our different perspectives.

Secondly, hung high on the wall at the front of the church was a wooden cross with Jesus affixed, head bowed, and a crown of thorns fastened firmly on his head with little trickles of blood on his forehead.

Back in class the following week, the subject of crosses came up (funny that, given we’re at college…but anyway). Other students remarked on the cross in the Catholic churches the visited too. I wasn’t sure what had intrigued me until our lecturer (& Tabor founder) Barry Chant observed that Catholic churches typically depict Jesus on the cross, while protestant churches depict an empty cross. BINGO!

I’d grown up looked at an empty cross. The significance? The bible says Jesus died on the cross, died, was buried, and rose again. The empty cross symbolises the fact that he did not remain on the cross. The Catholic church has a different perspective in that they choose to focus on Jesus’ suffering – he’s symbolically still on the cross in their eyes.

Now don’t get me wrong here, I’m trying not to make a judgement call either way. But this line of thinking is an extension of an earlier post where I asked about your image of God. Is He the fire and brimstone God, or the loving and kind God? I’m amazed at variety of perspectives that have emerged from a single, incredible, event in history.

 

May 24, 2007

What’s in a blogroll?

Posted by mhjones under Blogs, Christianity
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I’m on the hunt for Christian blogs and other useful resources on the net. If you’ve not already checked out the links on my blogroll (over on the right hand column), go take a look. They’re all sites that inspire and challenge me. 

A new link I added today is “Geeks & God” a blog and podcast that a friend of mine found and forwarded on. It’s good to know there are other geeky types out there talking about God – I’m not the only one! However, I’ve struggled to find many Christians blogging in Australia. The only one I know in person in Darren Rowse, over at the Living Room. Is there anyone else I should know? Write a comment & say hello (don’t get scared off if it says “no comments” underneath the headline – it really should read “no comments yet“).

 

May 22, 2007

Creative living

Posted by mhjones under Life
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A challenging idea I’ve encountered at Tabor is the idea that many Christians fall into the trap of ignoring the opportunity to be creative in the way we live our lives. God is, after all, the Creator who imagined and spoke the world into existence, according to the story of creation in Genesis. The idea of creative living is a passion of my lecturer Barry Chant.

“The imagination has too often been neglected in favour of straight-down-the-line, direct theological teaching,” Barry writes in his book Creative Living: How to live the kind of life you’ve always wanted to live.

So in that context, check out the work of a colleague and friend of mine called Peter Riches. He’s a Christian artist who literally thinks in pictures. When he listens to a preacher or reads something inspiring he doesn’t take notes, he sketches. And he’s got a unique passion – he wants to illustrate the entire Bible. How amazing is that! Here’s one of his works below that he’s given me permission to publish here, called “Word become flesh.” I love the outback theme.Word become flesh

Check out Peter’s home page, and other images, here.

 

May 20, 2007

The social gospel

Posted by mhjones under Christianity, Media
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img_1692-medium.jpg

There’s an incredible thing happening in the Australian Christian church. It’s growing.

For anyone who’s followed the annual National Church Life Survey, as I have for years, it’s largely been a depressing affair. Each year the Sydney Morning Herald writes a story about how the mainstream Christian church is declining and become irrelevant. This year was different.

Saturday’s SMH carried this piece by Linda Morris, the paper’s religious affairs writer. It begins: “CHRISTIAN churches are attracting new blood, with up to one-third of all churchgoers recent recruits, but the new messengers of faith are demanding more than passive Sunday worship, a national snapshot of church life shows.”

I believe this is wider recognition of a grassroots revival that’s already taken hold. Christians in this generation in Australia want an authentic faith, not an adopted one. There are two telling paragraphs buried down the bottom of the article:

“More churchgoers say the church experience is one of inspiration, joy, awe and mystery. Higher proportions say they are serving others by visiting the sick and donating to charity.”

“A survey researcher, Dr Ruth Powell, said: “Churches are reclaiming what they said they could always do: to provide meaning and purpose in people’s lives.”

To me, this couldn’t be more encouraging. We’re talking about rediscovering the first principles of the Christian church (as recounted in the Book of Acts). It’s the social gospel. Jesus wasn’t interested in talk for talk’s sake. In arguments about the colour of the church’s carpet. He couldn’t care less about whether we have a Bible reading before or after announcements on a Sunday morning or whether you wore shorts.

A line from the book of James (ch 1:27) springs to mind as I write this (my emphasis): “Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.” That’s the social gospel.

The National Church Life Survey article was packaged on page 3 by a story about Joel Houston, the frontman for Hillsong United, the youth rock band from Hillsong Church. He’s also the son of senior pastor Brian Houston.

Here’s how he articulated what’s happening in the Christian church, and why the youth have flocked to Hillsong: “What they want is living a life of truth – it’s not about throwing the law down their throat, it’s about saying you have one life to live, but it’s all about loving God and loving others.”

There are some Christians who might argue this sort of quote isn’t strong enough – not emphasising the “saving work of Jesus on the Cross” or some equally confusing jargon open to misinterpretation by people outside the church.

But no, Houston’s got it. People want an authentic faith, and an authentic experience of God. A relationship with a God who is alive. How to discover this relationship and authenticity is fodder for another day. But the point here is there are plenty of people discovering God for the first time. For example, the Houston article itself talks about “record levels” of enrollments at the Baptist Church’s Morling College (where I studied one semester a few years ago, coincidentally).

Curiously enough, the counterpoint to these two stories was located in a different section of the paper called Spectrum, and teased from page 1 of the paper. That story was titled “How God’s soldiers poison the well of life.” (The copy is not on the SMH site because it was a book extract.) The essence of author Christopher Hitchens’ argument is not a new idea: that religion is “to blame” for all of the world’s (read: peoples’) problems. Hitchens’ instead places his faith in all sorts of things like literature, our inquiring minds, and French philosopher Blaise Pascal who said “I am so made that I cannot believe.”

Man, you get depressed reading a story like this – there’s an undercurrent of anger and a perspective on life that’s overwhelmingly negative. The world’s problems are too great, the injustices too large, and “religion” will forever be to blame. As a guiding philosophy and approach to life it feels heavy, and I suspect it takes a lot of energy to stay that mad for the duration of your life.

“The mildest criticism of religion is also the most radical and the most devastating one. Religion is man-made,” Hitchens writes.

A great Christian scholar called Ravi Zacharias said something I’ll never forget, and it serves as a great rebuttal here: Christianity is the only religion that man could not have made. Why? Because Christians don’t have to do anything! Instead, we believe. We believe that Jesus died in our place for all of the offences we have caused God since the Garden of Eden. That means we don’t have to earn our place in Heaven. All we have to do is tell God that we believe in Him, we’re sorry for causing our maker offence (sin), and that we believe Jesus died in our place (the penalty for sin) and rose from the dead to prove that he is more powerful than even the worst thing most of us could imagine (death). If Jesus can conquer death, surely nothing else is impossible…

In contrast, every other religion I can think of requires some kind of action on the part of a person in order to achieve its goal (elightenment, peace, etc.) - an offering, a pilgrimmage, sticking to a long list of rules, or taking a bath in a sacred river. Ravi argues that given the fact we are all self-centered, why would we create a religion that at its core takes our own efforts out of the picture?

To wrap this up, here’s another cracking quote from James that provides part of the explanation for the church revival we’re witnessing.

“As the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without deeds is dead,” James 2:26.

Put another way, Christian faith is not authentic unless it is expressed in the social context I’ve highlighted above. As people convert faith into deeds, or action, it helps to deepen that faith.

And finally, another big idea that’s at work here. Christianity gives true freedom. Here we have a counterpoint to the false idea that Christianity is oppressive, or a set of rules that inhibits growth or self-expression. Galatians 5:14 in The Message version of the Bible explains how your faith in God can deliver freedom from negativity and the burdens of life because you put other people first:

“For everything we know about God’s Word is summed up in a single sentence: Love others as you love yourself. That’s an act of true freedom.”

Dare I say it again: Hello social gospel!

 

May 16, 2007

Reflections on love

Posted by mhjones under Faith, Life
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Tulips

I’ve been thinking about the concept of love lately. With apologies to Mrs J., it’s not just love in the romantic context.

I’m talking about practical love in the broader relationship sense. How we respond to people and circumstances. The motivations that drive our behaviour in everyday life. How you treat your family, friends, colleagues. Or even your attitude to institutions like the church and politics.

In the book of John (ch 13 vs 34), Jesus is quoted as saying that we are to love each other in the same way that he loved us – or in the context of the narrative, his disciples and the people who were alive when he was on the earth in physical form.

Broadly speaking, Jesus demonstrated love by standing up for injustice, helping those in need (healing the sick), encouraging people to be all that they can be, and ultimately dying on the Cross. Personally, I find that example both inspiring and outright scary. When push came to shove, for example, would I die on behalf of someone? I can confidently say I would do that for my family without hesitation. But others?

To take a step back for a moment, I think it’s probably fair to say that the idea of love is broadly accepted as one of, if not the, highest ideals in society. We all want to be loved, and most of us want to love other people in some fashion.

But let’s face it, as human beings there are times when our actions (regardless of your faith background) betray our commitment to this ideal. And I’ve been reflecting on two reasons why we struggle with the fact that we hurt those that we love, and those we don’t want to love.

The short answer is pride and fear get in the way. There are plenty of examples in the Bible that illustrate this idea: Peter withdrew from his friends because he was afraid of the Jewish Christians (Galatians 2:11-14). The Pharisees in Jesus day set about plotting to kill him because his message undermined their authority and position in the Roman world (John 11: 45-57). They were both proud of their position, and afraid of losing their status.

I can think of many times when I’ve thought myself too important to help someone. Or simply been to afraid of making changes in my life because I could not control the consequences or outcomes. Until fairly recently, I’ve wrestled for years with a fear of what other people might think of me if I said or did the wrong thing.

In both these examples, I’m actually incapable of demonstrating love because either fear or pride either consciously or subconsciously act as inhibitors.

The great irony in all this is the antidote to fear and pride is love itself. If you choose to act in a way that demonstrates love, you actually overcome fear and pride (there’s a reference to this in 1 John 4:18 where “perfect love casts out fear”). It’s easy to write about, but more difficult to put in practice. But for me, it’s been amazing to learn that deciding to love to others in spite of your human instinct to the contrary actually has the positive effect of reducing levels of stress, fear, pride and selfishness that constantly creep into life.

 

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