Still Learning

The Last 4 Months of 2020

Yesterday was the 1st September and we are in the last 4 months of 2020. Summer is now over and autumn has started. The temperatures will start to become cooler and the days will continue to get shorter.

Normally at this time of year there is the expectation of new beginnings as the new academic year starts. Young people will be changing school years, joining new schools and going onto further and higher education.

In our churches September usually sees the reopening of the various groups that have had a break during the summer holidays.

However, this year has been very different due to the coronavirus pandemic. This year as we face the last 4 months of 2020 there are many concerns including:

Will there be a second wave of coronavirus?

Will the schools be able to return successfully?

Will unemployment increase when the government furlough scheme finishes?

Will there be cuts in government expenditure or increases in taxation to pay for the cost of the lockdown?

When will people be able to go on foreign holidays again without worrying about having to quarantine on their return to the UK?

When will churches be allowed to meet and worship without restricted numbers? When will we be allowed to sing in churches again?

In the midst of all these concerns it is very easy to be discouraged. However the following words that Paul wrote to the church in Philippi are ones that I personally find very encouraging. The amazing thing is that Paul wrote these incredible words whilst in prison!

Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice! Let your gentleness be evident to all. The Lord is near. Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things. Whatever you have learned or received or heard from me, or seen in me—put it into practice. And the God of peace will be with you. (Philippians 4:4-9)

Yes things may not be great at the moment, but let us focus on these words and ask God to renew our hope in the truth of what Paul wrote here.

Lessons from the Church’s Responses to the Spanish Flu of 1918-1919

Whilst reading the numerous media articles on the coronavirus pandemic one thing I have come across is a comparison of it with the Spanish Flu outbreak between 1918-20. I must confess that I did not really know anything about Spanish Flu previously. According to Wikipedia the dead toll was estimated to be between 17 million and 50 million, a staggering number.

A good question to ask ourselves in 2020 is: are there any lessons that the church can learn from their response to the Spanish Flu outbreak that would be useful for the current situation we face with coronavirus?

Well according to the Think Theology blog the answer to that question is yes! In a very interesting article written by Kristine Nethers entitled: We’ve Been Here Before: Lessons from the Church’s Responses to the Spanish Flu of 1918-19, she lists 12 similarities and 5 things we can learn from the church’s response 100 years ago.

This is a very good article which I recommend.

Remote Work The new normal

Many of us have been working from home for the last few months and I expect that some are now considering this as a permanent option. If this is you, then Gren Gale’s latest book: “Remote Work The new normal” will interest you.

The author has worked remotely for several years and has a great deal of experience in this area. Interestingly, he was writing this book at the beginning of 2020 and completed it in the middle of the coronavirus epidemic. Thus making this a very topical book for 2020.

Remote Work The new normal has seven chapters. The first chapter is the introduction and looks at why you might need the book. Chapter two addresses the important issue of whether you can handle working remotely. The author draws out the plus and minus points of remote working and how one might find remote work. In chapter three he looks at how to build successful remote teams, which managers will find helpful. Chapter four is about technology and tools that are important for communication, project management and knowledge bases. One thing that must never be overlooked with remote working is security and this is covered in chapter five. The next chapter is about legal points and the author speaks about publishing a home working policy. The final chapter is the conclusion in which Gren Gale describes briefly some advantages of remote working. Remote Work The new normal is approximately 170 pages and can be read through in under 2 hours.

If you are someone who is interested in working from home then it is important to research the matter thoroughly. Due to his vast experience of remote working, the author will raise issues for you to ponder which you may not have previously considered. Most would agree that it is sensible to take advice from such a person. This book will prove to be a very helpful tool for you to use and I highly recommend it.

The Pure in Heart

The Pure in Heart is a short book which has been taken from a larger book called The Beatitudes that was written by the Puritan preacher Thomas Watson in 1660. This book explores Matthew 5:8: “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.”

The book is divided into two sections: “Heart Purity” and “Seeing God”.

In the first section Thomas Watson covers: The reasons for purity, why purity must be chiefly in the heart, signs of an impure heart, the signs of a pure heart, arguments or motives to persuade to heart purity and but how shall we attain to heart purity.

In the second section he covers: when we shall all see God, what seeing God shall be like and applications.

The book is just over 60 pages and can be easily read through in one sitting. It is both challenging and encouraging. Although some Puritan writings can be a hard read due to their style, this book is certainly not like that. The language used in this book is very clear, readable and practical. I highly recommend that you either seek out a copy of this book or download one of the free online versions of it. You will not be disappointed!

We Are What We Read

Paul told the Galatians that you reap what you sow. Spurgeon in the quote below, taken from the Old Guys website, says something very similar in regard to the books that we read. Basically we are what we read. That’s worth pondering.

“Certain insects assume the colour of the leaves they feed upon; and they are but emblems of a great law of our being: our minds take the hue of the subjects whereon they think. “As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he.” Readers of trash become trashy; lovers of skeptical books become skeptical; and students of the Bible, who are in real earnest, become biblical, and display the qualities of the Bible. If you read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest the word of God, the qualities of that word will be displayed in you. A man fed on Bibline is a man indeed. In the history of heroes, there are none who show so much moral muscle and spiritual sinew as those who make the word of God their necessary food.”

Do We Value the Scriptures?

I recently read a book which contained some biographical sketches of twelve reformers. Many of these men suffered persecution for preaching the truths of the bible. Whilst some of them e.g. William Tyndale paid the ultimate price for wanting to make the scriptures available in ordinary people’s mother tongue.

These men truly valued the scriptures. The question for us today though is: do we value the scriptures?

I’m not sure about you but I have at least six different printed translations at home. Additionally I have access to many more electronically. I am literally spoilt for choice.

I know there are still many people around the world today who do not have access to any scriptures or if so they may have to share it with other people. Yet often they have a love for the bible that I do not.

Psalm 119 contains many verses expressing the psalmist love for the scriptures including:

I delight in your decrees; I will not neglect your word. (v16)
My soul is consumed with longing for your laws at all times. (v20)
How I long for your precepts! (v40)
for I delight in your commands because I love them. (v47)
The law from your mouth is more precious to me than thousands of pieces of silver and gold. (v72)
How sweet are your words to my taste, sweeter than honey to my mouth! (v103)

How we need to ask the Lord to give us a new love for His Word, to value and love it like our brothers and sisters of old did.

Cutting My Own Hair

These last few months have been very unusual and many of us have had to get used to life being very different to normal. There are queues to get into shops, social distancing in pubs, football and cricket matches are being played in empty stadiums. On Friday face masks will need to be worn in England whenever we go into shops. Huge culture changes.

On a personal note instead of driving to work each day my new workplace has been my dining room table. Sunday morning worship is now done online via my laptop rather than in our church building. And additionally I now cut my own hair!

Yes I have become a barber to myself. Near the beginning of lockdown I tried to buy some male hair clippers both online and in the shops. However everywhere was sold out. Whenever I checked Amazon the delivery time was at least four weeks and normally longer. I could have ordered some and waited but did not. One day though I happened to check online and found some that were reasonably priced and were due in stock in about ten days. My hair was beginning to look a mess so I decided to take the plunge and order some male hair clippers. Thankfully they arrived fairly quickly.

I did my first haircut about eight weeks ago and my hair did not look too bad! Well to be honest it was a little shorter than I normally have it but I was so relieved to have a haircut that it was a happy compromise for me. When I attended online church and housegroups I thought that someone would comment on how short it was. But no-one said anything. They either had not noticed or were too polite to comment! Two days ago I cut my hair again. This time I did not cut it quite as short as last time. In my humble opinion it looks ok!

One thing you notice is that it is not easy cutting your own hair. It is challenging when cutting the back of your hair to make sure that you do not miss any of it. Then after you have finished you suddenly realised that you forgot to cut a couple of longer hairs behind your ears. Well actually what happened was my wife noticed that and got some scissors and rectified this for me.

I expect I will at some stage go and visit the hairdresser again and get a professional haircut. However I will continue to cut my own hair for the foreseeable future and see how I get on. Another unexpected change in my life!

In closing it is only fair that I should qualify what I mean by the phrase “cutting my hair.” I do not use scissors I simply just run the clippers over it. But I still count that as cutting my hair!

Praying for Church Administrators

It’s not unusual for us to pray for those involved with spiritual leadership in the church but I wonder how often we pray for those involved in the administration jobs within our fellowships?

There are a number of jobs in the church which I would include in this category including:

Treasurer
Church Administrator / Church Office Secretary
PCC Secretary
GDPR Officer
Safeguarding Officer
Electoral Roll Officer

All of these are very important roles of service within the church and require the right people with particular giftings and abilities to undertake them. Just as some are called to spiritual leadership, others are called to these roles of administration. We all have different gifts that God has given us and we need to encourage those with the gift of administration to serve faithfully in this area.

Your church may have the best preacher or most gifted worship leader in the whole world, however if the treasurer does not pay the bills your fellowship will be in serious trouble! Additionally, if your treasurer does not advise the leadership that the expenditure is exceeding income then potential financial disaster awaits your church. Therefore as you can imagine, a good treasurer is critical to the running of a church.

The running of the church office is very important. For people outside of your church the Church Administrator / Church Office Secretary may well be the first contact they have with a member of your congregation. That is quite a big responsibility and requires the right person in the role. Just as some directors in big organisations cannot function without their secretary I expect that some church leaders would also struggle without a gifted person in this role in their office!

Within the Anglican Church the PCC Secretary has important duties. These include advising PCC members of meetings, keeping minutes of meetings and preparing reports for meetings. Their role ensures the smooth running of the PCC. This role requires someone with good organisational skills and the wrong person doing this could cause chaos!

In May 2018 the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) came into effect which meant more administration tasks for our churches. At my church we have somebody who is responsible for seeing that we abide by the regulations. This requires someone who can understand the legislation and draw up an appropriate church policy.

The Safeguarding Officer is also fulfilling an extremely important role too. Sadly there have been some awful things that have occurred in churches in the past. Churches need to have a strict safeguarding policy and the appropriate trained officers in place to ensure that everyone is protected and safe.

In the Anglican Church the Electoral Roll Officer is responsible each year for ensuring that the Church Electoral Roll is accurate and revised correctly. Every sixth year they have to prepare a completely new one. This is an important role because the roll is used to determine those who can participate at the APCM and stand for election to the PCC. If mistakes are made with the Electoral Roll then ineligible people could get elected which will obviously cause problems.

As the above examples show there are many important and essential administrative functions that are required in our churches. Are these job holders appreciated by the rest of the church? Do we realise their full value to the church? Let us not forget to pray for those who do these roles and support them as they use their gifts of administration to serve both the Lord and His church.

Am I Missing Something?

It can be very easy, for those of us who have been Christians for a while, to forget what life is like as a new believer. Ruth Roberts in her book “Am I Missing Something?” shares her experiences of life as a new Christian.

The author very honestly describes, her ups and downs as she attempts to make sense of what she believes, how she can share her new faith with others and the various emotions she encounters as she grows in her faith. There are some very interesting conversations that the author has with her best friend, who is not a believer, which are retold in the book.

I think the book raises some interesting issues for those of us who have been believers for a few years and are used to what happens in church circles. Churches can indeed seem strange places for those who are new to them. In fact it can be quite a cultural shock and maybe we do not appreciate this fully. I personally remember when I first encountered “sharing the peace” in an Anglican church, and used to spend the time looking at my feet hoping that part of the service would finish quickly!

The book is only 176 pages and can easily be read straight through at one sitting. I would recommend it as a very good read.

I Trust in Your Unfailing Love

Yesterday was the 100th day of lockdown and during the last three months we have all had to get used to various changes to our usual normal way of life.

This weekend sees the easing of some of the lockdown measures in England with bars and restaurants being allowed to open again. Also, social distancing rules are being changed from 2 metres to what is described as “1 metre plus”.

On a personal note, whilst it’s good to see some of the lockdown eased, I am disappointed that there are still restrictions on churches meeting. Churches are allowed to open for private prayer and services. It is possible to hold weddings with up to 30 guests. However, singing is not permitted! Although I understand the reasons why, it is sad that we still do not know when we will be able to gather together for worship in the normal way again. (UPDATE – Since I posted this I have come across further information on the current rules regarding worship including this from the BBC website).

I think the online services have worked very well at my church, but it is not the same as worshipping together in the normal way. I had been a bit discouraged recently, as the end of the church restrictions still seems to be in the distance with no end date in sight. However I was looking at Psalm 13 and found encouragement in the final 2 verses.

“But I trust in your unfailing love.
I will rejoice because you have rescued me.
I will sing to the Lord
because he is good to me.” (v5-6, NLT)

As we move into the second half of 2020 let us keep our eyes on the Lord. Events in the world may discourage us but if we focus on God and trust in his unfailing live, then we will find encouragement and hope. Although circumstances may change in this world the Lord does not.