Mission Week

Naked Christianity: Uncovering the life changing message of Jesus

Warwick CU's mission week starts bright and early tomorrow at 8am with prayer.  It'll be an entire week of extra events aiming to bring the gospel to every student on campus, whether through apologetics over lunch, evening talks on Luke's gospel, text-a-toastie to halls of residence, or Globe café for internationals.

At church today, the question I was most frequently asked was, 'so, are you ready for mission week?'  To which I confidently replied, 'er... well, yes... I think so.'

Ready?  Probably not.  If 'ready' means confident in my ability to share the gospel with other students, then I'm the most unprepared of the lot.  If 'ready' means I have no fear, then I may as well just hide myself in the library and try to forget that mission week is going on.

I'm not ready, neither confident in my ability, nor fearless.  But that actually doesn't matter.  Most of the messengers and prophets sent by God in the OT were quaking in their boots as they spoke and the disciples were intent on hiding from the world like trembling doormice before Pentecost.

But I, like they did, have a mighty God.  He supplies the strength and the courage.

Most of the CU members have had their pictures taken with a board saying, 'Ask me what I'm living for', the aim being to upload them onto Facebook as profile pictures.  Funny then that just the other day I should read in 1 Peter 3 this gem of a passage:

'But sanctify the Lord God in your hearts, and always be ready to give defense to everyone who asks you a reason for the hope that is in you, with meekness and fear; having a good conscience, that when they defame you as evildoers, those who revile your good conduct in Christ may be ashamed.' (vv.15-16)

My prayer for the CU this week is that we would fulfill this verse, speaking humbly and lovingly with students of their need of Jesus.  Interestingly, this verse quite naturally couples telling others about Jesus with persecution.  That's something I haven't heard much of in CU, and which may shock some when it happens.  So please pray with us that this hope would be uncontainable, but also that when some do 'suffer for doing good', (for what's better than sharing the truth in love?) that they wouldn't be discouraged, but instead again look at Christ as their example in all things.

 Embarrassing...! Here's how the FB pictures look, so check it out! 

'For Christ also suffered once for sins, the just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive by the Spirit' (1 Peter 3:18)

The Dawn of Spring

Long, dark, winter months always remind me of C. S. Lewis' winter which covered Narnia, the snows, frost, ice and most of all, the absence of Christmas, being the curse of the wicked white witch.
I love snow.  Even the 3 months of snow I experienced in Göttingen last year were not quite enough to deter me.  Wintry landscapes, particularly those on fresh winter mornings, never cease to take my breath away.  However, there is something quite sad, even tragic about the swift pace at which the sun sets, the curtains are drawn and families retreat into their central-heating warmed homes.  Darkness brings a certain reality to the idyllic. 

We become almost hemmed in and shut up by the perpetual lack of light.  We long, at least to some degree or another, for the coming of sunshine, for Spring, for life and the freedom to leave our homes.  Personally, it is during the winter months that I think more about the realities of life.   For me, summer is always filled with activity.  It is a breath of fresh air, one of freedom to enjoy the air, sun, sea, grass and just life in general, where I freely avoid thinking about harsh realities.  Light and warmth bring a certain kind of freedom which I tend to enjoy and long for during the darkest of months.  In Winter, it sometimes feels like everything is simply decaying and dead.  Even the faintest of birdsong from the either hardy or 'home' birds is sort of bitter-sweet, a relief from the silent landscape yet also a memory of life which has, quite literally, flown away.

It is no wonder then that, for some, depression sets in most easily during Winter when all about us at times seems to be the picture of what we believe our lives to be: fruitless, even pointless.  The trigger for such thinking should not and cannot be trivialised, but I believe that everyone can at least partly sympathise.

No human can function properly in darkness.  It is plain that we need light and warmth, as does every living creature and plant, to live.  But how we also need those darker, wetter, cooler, bleaker months not only to make the comparison clearer, but to actually provide room for hidden growth and a path to a fruitful life.  There is hope just lying under the surface of the frost-hardened ground.  The coming Spring's flowers are benefiting from the cold; Winter is essential for them.

Winter, as well as Spring and Summer months are essential in the Christian life, the former arriving more frequently than the latter.  Yet there is hope during the bleak, long nights.  We have a Saviour who was born to conquer, to drive back the darkness with His right hand and just as He commanded the light to shine forth at the beginning of Creation, so He will pierce the darkness that covers our sinful world with His glory.  Winter can seem hopeless, it can drive us to despair and to morbid thoughts.  Winter remains a God-given reminder of not only His control over creation in providing seasons for the growth of crops, but also of the result of life without Him.  We are reminded of the curse of sin and death because all around us the earth appears to crumble and groan under the weight of darkness and the cold.  Yet, there is hope.  Hope which although formerly invisible, has become visible for anyone who digs a little deeper than the snow-laden surface.

Christmas reminds us that the coming of Jesus is the dawn of Spring.

Hail the heav'n-born Prince of Peace!
Hail the Son of Righteousness!
Light and life to all He brings
Ris'n with healing in His wings
Mild He lays His glory by
Born that man no more may die
Born to raise the sons of earth
Born to give them second birth
Hark! The herald angels sing
"Glory to the newborn King!"

Hark the Herald from: www.carols.org.uk