Recently a couple of kids from our church attended the Heineken cup semi-final with their Dad's.  It was an exciting day.  On the way into the stadium the kids suddenly broke from their parents and accosted a couple of other fans. 'Can we pray for you?'  The men didn't know what to say.  They let the kids pray and suddenly heaven landed at the Heineken Cup through the lives of two unprompted 9 year olds.  After prayer the men gave the kids their team wigs and the kids continued as though it was normal to wear wigs and pray for others at rugby matches. They also went on to celebrate a wonderful victory for the Ulster Rugby team with equal passion.  

  Those same kids along with a group of others voluntarily sacrifice one Saturday a month to bring life to our community. They pray for people on the streets of our town, prophesy over them and heal the sick. Its normal for them. Its normal because they have been intentional. They have deliberately and consistently positioned their life to bring blessing and to ensure they take risks. They are still kids. They do all the normal stuff kids do; yet their lives are immersed in God-reality, God-initiatives, God-provisions.

They are 'naturally supernatural'. 

  'Naturally supernatural' is a core value in our community of faith.  At its best it implies a community who routinely and consistently live out/ demonstrate the words and works of Christ in the empowering of the Spirit.  They do so in a way that gathers hope and avoids hype.  It is a value I hope will be treasured and flourish among us for years to come. 

  However when 'naturally supernatural' implies laid back faith, a failure to intentionally pursue more, coupled with an expectation that the supernatural just breaks in irrespective of pursuit or character it does more damage than good. In the spiritual life growth is rarely automatic - it always involves pursuit and cultivation if it is to be sustained. 

  The  language of 'naturally supernatural' remains helpful only as it reminds us that every environment is sacred, we don't have to work things up or indeed hype them.  It becomes unhelpful when it operates as a 'it doesn't matter how I live God can still use me'.  Naturally He can and does. Yet without intentionaI discipline and cultivation we are destined to live a life of sporadic intervention rather than sustained interaction with the person, presence and power of God.

  This week at our service Phil told a story of praying for a lady in another church who had suffered a stroke.  As he prayed the lady was lifted off her feet, fell on the floor and got up several minutes later completely healed of the lingering effects of the stroke.  It was a wonderful healing. Yet it was entirely predictable.  You see for months Phil has been secretly praying for the sick.  He wants to position his life so that intervention is normal.  With that in mind, during his time off he travels to Sainsbury's car park, makes himself vulnerable, and offers to pray for people. Its not uncommon for him to pray for 8 people in an hour.  He also prays for people at A & E, bus stops and every other environment he enters.  Its normal for him to see the kingdom. Its normal because he has been intentional.  He is 'naturally supernatural'.

  As a nineteen year old he could use that phrase to explain why he prefers party times to ministry times. He could use that phrase to explain inadequacy in the face of need. He could use that phrase to avoid a lifestyle of disciplined passion.  Instead he uses it to explain why every party has ministry and every ministry is a party. Let's intentionally become 'naturally supernatural' avoiding using the phrase to cover weakness, laziness, indifference or apathy. 'Naturally supernatural' should mean that irrespective of my environment I anticipate intervention.  Whether shopping or preaching; in ministry times or family times; concerts and conferences; parties and churches.  In Sainsbury's car park and at the Aviva Stadium.

  According to Isaiah 61:4 one impact of the ministry of Jesus is that life returns to the city.  Jesus delivers the poor and marginalised and releases them to dream over the city.

"They will rebuild the ancient ruins and restore the places long devastated."

Moving the city from deterioration to restoration is what the King's people do...

"They will renew the ruined cities."

Moving the city from decline to original design is what the King's people do.

   Since renewing ruined cities has rarely occurred within Christendom, we struggle to conceive that it is possible. But what if this text was designed to hook our hearts? What if we pursued its promise towards fulfilment? What if the text wasn't simply destined to be history, but somehow was meant to draw us into our future?

  There would undoubtedly be different metrics for effectiveness.  The report card of the church is not the quality and power in our services but the quality of life in our cities.  We would do whatever it takes to bring life. We would raise up trusted rulers for every area of life. We would move from our myopic focus on spiritual formation to city formation.

   There would be greater emphasis on collaboration and partnership. Such partnerships would happen inevitably and intentionally beyond the building.

  There would be scope for sons and daughters to emerge. This generation rightly will not give themselves to a system or to the church. They will lay down their lives to bring greater life to others.

  There would be a need for designers and dreamers, innovators and engineers - what Erwin McManus calls 'cultural architects'. There would be a passion for moving the city from decline to design.

If we move the promise from the page to our place...

...there would be hope big enough for the whole city. 

  Despite being Glaswegian (and therefore never afraid of an argument) the discipline of apologetics has never sat well with me.  The idea of adopting a defensive posture with faith seems strange.  Faith at its best is a declaration not a defence.

  We are at our best when our energies are directed at and invested in developing rather than defending the outworking of out faith.  As Karl Barth (speaking of theology) writes, "theology does best when it renounces attempts to convince others and simply acts according to its own being." In the same manner C.S Lewis quipped, "defend the bible I would rather defend an uncaged Lion."

  The posture of faith is expansive recognising that the works of the kingdom speak for themselves.  This is one reason why we don't rush to defend healing in our community.  It simply happens.  We neither need to prove it or document it.  Those being healed need no proof, those administering healing need no documentation.

  As in John 9 the life stories speak for themselves.  (How I have been healed I do not know. Yet this I know I was blind and now I see.)  As believers we have nothing to prove and everything to share.  The Father is more than capable of speaking for Himself and His works!  Again Barth helpfully reminds us, "God's work is not mute and speaks with a loud voice."

  In liturgy we reflect on our shared history and experience. We reflect on common grace. We dare not use liturgy as a vehicle for escaping our reality - as though liturgy were some imaginative excursion. Instead we use liturgy to reframe reality - to stir ourselves by way of reminder - to unleash the encounter of a previous generation afresh.

  Liturgy is not co-opted as postmodernity - some trendy rediscovery - liturgy is the proclamation that births the reality afresh.  We share the ancient scripture and awaken fresh hunger.  We recite the creeds not merely to affirm doctrinal accuracy but to engage our hearts in the pursuit of the only true God.  These rituals or (more accurately) acts of remembrance hold incredible power in the hearts and hands of trusted rulers making shared space sacred space.

And now all glory to him who alone is God... 

  Recently, as we were ministering in Europe, we prayed for a lady who had been involved in a car accident that had almost completely severed her foot. The surgeons had successfully managed to keep it attached using 23 screws, but the result was that the foot remained in pain with limited flexibility.  As we prayed her foot was gradually healed.  The next day we shared this story in the church there and invited people for prayer.  One lady came forward for prayer for her stomach. It was instantly healed and surprisingly her ankle, which she had broken two weeks previously, was also healed.  The team hadn’t even been praying for her ankle. It was a wonderful moment of intervention.

  We have all been there. Those divine moments when heaven draws near and life as we know it is changed.  We can recall times when God has shown up in ways that have changed our destiny, our family, and our community.  The stunning truth is that every believer has a secret history of intervention.  After one such remarkable moment of intervention in the OT, God instructs his people to erect stones so that those without the experience may hear the story (Joshua 4: 1-7).  What God had done was supposed to be a topic of conversation for generations to come.  WHY?  Intervention must be remembered if it is to be repeated.  We must steward the memory of the miraculous if we are to live out our identity as the people of the miraculous. 

God-stories cultivate the memory of the miraculous

  This is behind the biblical admonition to Sabbath in Deuteronomy 5:15. Once a week life would cease and the people of God would call to mind/pay attention to the intervention of God in their community and in their family.  Their shared God-stories created rich memories and nurtured a sense of community, yet the primary purpose was that the people REMEMBER they were unlike other communities.  They were the community of INTERVENTION – the people of YAHWEH.  They were to go no more than seven days without actively staying conscious of the supernatural in their midst.  Every seven days they were to stop and talk about what God had done.  Such storytelling and remembering cleared their focus and their vision so that they could enter each week with confident awareness that YAHWEH reigned over impossibility.  There were no other gods before him.

God-stories bring glory and honour to God

  When we share our God–stories we celebrate God and his activity among us. We begin tracing his movements in our midst and delighting in his ways.  Every story proclaims his goodness and honours his name.  We glory in his holy name when we remember the wonders he has done  (1 Chronicles 16:12).  Conversely, forgetting grieves the heart of God.  Again and again God’s grievance with his people is that they forgot his works, they forgot his power, they forgot that it was Him who made the difference (Psalm 106:7).  We dishonour the name of the Almighty when we don’t talk about Almighty things.

  When we practice the discipline of ‘Remembering’ we stay conscious that the supernatural is still available and accessible.  Little wonder the psalmist says “I will remember the deeds of the Lord, yes I will remember your miracles of long ago.  I will meditate on all your works and consider your mighty deeds. You are the God who performs miracles; you display your power among the peoples" Ps 77:11-14.  Holding in our hearts the goodness of God, and the God who is good, profoundly honours him.  Indeed it more than honours him it welcomes him to intervene again because the previous revelation of God’s power contains the hope of the future manifestation of his presence.

God-stories release hope and help 

  "You come to the help of those who gladly do right who remember you in your ways" Isaiah 64:5 NASB.  Those who hold in their hearts the remembrance of God and his glorious goodness attract even more help.  God finds them irresistible!  They attract the resources of heaven towards them.  We need to share our God-stories because in remembering the story we release the glory. We overcome by the blood of the Lamb and the word of our testimony.  Every story gives the hope and help we need to overcome.  Every story carries the seed of the future.  It contains the promise that God will do the same thing again. When we declare what God has done we decree what he is waiting to do. This is precisely what happened with the woman’s ankle.  Every story is a sign of what God is prepared to do – it releases help and hope in the room. 

God-stories awaken hunger in our hearts 

  God-stories awaken hunger in our hearts.  One man who had heard the stories of  God in previous generations cried out ‘Lord I have heard of your fame and I stand in awe of your deeds. Renew them in our day and in our time make them known.’  When we hear stories of the supernatural they describe the impossible and awaken hunger in us.  They remind us that our current level of experience and our current reality is not all there is.  Stories of intervention hook our hearts reminding us that if it happened before it can happen again.  If it happened to them it can happen to us.  When unbelievers are healed in the streets of our town they share their story and others come to be prayed for because the story of God has awakened hunger in their heart. 

God-stories unleash holy faith

  They move us to apprehend the movement of God for ourselves – in our day and in our time.  This is why Paul writes "I wish to stir you up by way of reminder."   Remembering awakens hunger and activates faith – it stirs the Church.  When you remember what God has brought you out of, you can have faith for what he is releasing you into (1 Samuel 17:36-37).   Retracing and re-telling the story of God moving releases the faith for God to move again.  Every time we hear of something remarkable, every time we open the scriptures, every time someone gives us a glimpse of God’s movements in their lives we need to be thinking 'that could happen to me – God might want to do that for me'.  God stories unleash holy faith.

  Even though you have 10,000 guardians ...you do not have many Fathers.

  The above statement - spoken to a church -could just as easily be referring to our broken communities today.  The absence of Fathers in the city creates chaos in the city.  Where there is Fatherlessness – religion rules, shame rules, violence rules, addiction rules, dishonour rules.  The city reels from a loss of identity, gives herself to trivialities and misses her God-given destiny.  Today our cities are struggling, not because they lack monitors, but because they lack Fathers. 

  As monitors we are powerless and perplexed as the city experiences the influences such as addiction or alcohol.  As monitors we exhibit a desire for protection and correction but carry little wisdom for supplying a solution.  When we operate like this we will always perceive the problem as being the responsibility of someone else, erstwhile adopting the attitude that the mess would not have happened if everyone had simply responded to our rules.  But when our cities are floundering in the sea of broken choices, we do not have the luxury of monitoring.  We have to leave the comfort of our institutions, and find our way to intervention.  We have to start to think like fathers.

  Fathers have a different mindset.  Fathers are not afraid of the city, because they know that they have more to offer than the city could ever take.  Armed with this knowledge, they embrace the city in its pain and look for ways to lead it into life, restoring dignity and releasing peace.  When we live as Fathers we don’t seek to lead our city from a position of moral superiority.  Instead our authority is demonstrated through life-giving connection and compassionate action.  Fathers always choose connection over control.  Fathers remind the city that it has honour at its core, and commit to blessing it, so that it can be transformed.  

  Since, by definition, Fathers are those who have more life in them than one individual can contain, they seek to bring life in every environment; they intentionally gather hope and effectively bring healing as they live lives of radical hospitality and compassionate generosity.  They view the city through the lens of favour rather than that of failure.  It is time for the Fathers to arise in the city, for it is then that the city can come alive.  In the future expect the church to Father the city breathing life and calling out its unique design and ultimate destiny.   In the future expect the church to move from monitoring behaviour to releasing life. 

 The Church of the future will move from recruiting volunteers to releasing trusted rulers.  Volunteers help the Church - trusted rulers shape the city.  Every believer is a trusted ruler, called by God to lead the earth into life.  This is the original mandate that has never been rescinded.  Trusted rulers are those with God given capacity and responsibility for influencing the city towards its God-given destiny.  As trusted rulers we recognise that God wants more for us than simply fulfilling a function in Church.  We have a role to play in cultural and city formation as we live our ordinary everyday lives.  Sadly, many people leave churches because they didn’t get a role.  They fail to recognise that God has called them to shape culture, whilst fighting over what they can control in Church.  As trusted rulers we begin to break free from the mindset that the greatest use of my life is connected to church.  Trusted rulers focus on the earth, not just the Church. 

  In the future expect to see the emergence of trusted rulers led through honour and marked by favour.  Prayerfully pastoral leaders will stop trying to get people to 'buy into their vision' and begin releasing people to run with the vision God has given them.   In the future expect to see less volunteer involvement in projects dreamed up by staff and more involvement of paid staff in everyday activity of believers who are changing the community one life at a time.  In this way the Church will move forward.  Everyone.  Everyday.  Everywhere.  Leading the city into faith, hope and love in a thousand different small ways.  Expect to see believers increasingly operating with the understanding that it is inconceivable things could stay the same when they enter the room.

  In the future expect to see and be part of an eruption of heaven’s dream into our broken lives and our broken cities.  Watch as what God incubates in the hearts of trusted rulers resonates with the dreams and needs of the city.  As a result, the Church will no longer be run as a business, yet paradoxically expect to see the Church more involved in building local business.  Likewise in media and other areas of society.  Expect to see ordination of film-makers and poets, lawyers and teachers.  Expect to see people specifically anointed not only to teach in Church but to teach in schools.  Expect prayers to be offered not simply for the young person heading to bible college but for the young person heading to university to study journalism.  Expect increased recognition that there is more power in the pews than there is on the platform.  In the future the Church will be led by leaders who focus on training and releasing trusted rulers. 

What's the best climate for character change?  

Historically in the Church the unspoken equation has often looked like this:

Community + Accountability = climate for character change 

  As you may have guessed from the title, I am not a huge fan of accountability groups.  I am all for transparency and vulnerability and a firm believer that our relationships are only as strong as they are humble, as deep as they are open.  My difficulty is with believers gathered together primarily for the purpose of ensuring they have safeguarded their lives against temptation.  I am simply not convinced that such a defensive posture is a biblical model, or that accountability is the most effective climate for character change.  My belief is that God uses impossibility more than accountability to create a climate for character change.

Community + Impossibility = climate for character change 

It's his kindness that leads to repentance.  

  I'm not sure that Jesus was ever part of an accountability group.  I am aware prevailing wisdom suggests that Jesus sent the disciples two by two for protection. I am not so sure. The number two in hebraic thinking was synonymous with witness.  It is just as likely that Jesus didn't send the disciples out in twos so that they could hold each other accountable but so that together they could bear witness to the impossible.  What if his perspective wasn't on restraining but on releasing.  What if he was thinking one can chase a hundred and two...well two could change a city!

  Whilst I'm not sure that Jesus was ever part of an accountability group, I am absolutely certain he was part of an impossibility group! 

  Continuous exposure to the coming kingdom is fertile soil for life change. Witnessing the intervention and the inbreaking of the coming kingdom causes disciples to re-think their world in the light of that kingdom.  As a result they begin to change the way they think, humbling themselves and posturing their hearts towards change. 

What would happen if churches started impossibility groups instead of accountability groups? 

The Church of the future will move on from seeking cultural relevance towards releasing culture.

   The Church of the future will neither practice cultural avoidance, or hunger for cultural relevance.  She will no longer be intimidated or impressed by culture.  Instead of harbouring hostility towards the culture she will be anchored to the conviction that every good and perfect gift comes from the Father.  As a result, the Church of the future will recognise and reclaim the good in culture, learning to honour every expression of life.  Cultural avoidance will be seen for what it is - the design of the enemy to separate us from our inheritance.  Similarly, cultural relevance will be considered far too low a goal.   Churches in the future will know that we can’t bring life to the city by avoiding the city, or by becoming the city. 

  In the future, expect the Church to move from trying to be trendy to being authentically innovative.  Expect Her to live with resonance with the culture of heaven.  Resonance with heaven is the eternal task/joy of the Church.  When this happens, we stop looking at the music charts as the source of our inspiration.  We cease reducing creativity to drama or flag waving - depending on our traditions.  We instead practice bold creativity because we are unleashing something into the earth that has never existed before - creative resonance; doing what our father is doing, releasing what he is releasing.  God has not given us his Spirit so that we could be culturally relevant, but so that we could be culture carriers: culture carriers who release captives.

 The saddest aspect of mere cultural relevance is that our cities are not looking for an echo they are listening for a sound.  Our cities need us to be the Church with a distinct sound and voice.  As we respond to the Divine sound we release its frequency in the community.  This will change the way we engage with the Arts for example.  We will no longer see our expression or contribution to the arts as limited to singing in our services, or painting prophetically at the front, but rather we will start to understand our role as releasing writers, sculpters, poets, filmmakers into creative engagement that piques curiosity within the wider culture.  There will be a recognition that art fuels culture and the city needs artists.  In the future the Church will be at the heart of creativity in the city bringing creative solutions to perennial problems.  She will pulsate with innovative and generative ideas bringing fresh life to the city as she re-sounds with wisdom.  In the future the Church will move from its obsession with Church renewal towards cultural renewal in the city at large and surprisingly - in the process - discover church renewal!

 - A disciple is surrendered to the person AND movement of Jesus.  Any claim to be discipled without being outward with our lives is incongruent with the NT pattern of discipleship. 

We know we are becoming increasingly like Jesus when we live beyond ourselves and lay our lives down for His sake and the sake of those who don't know Him.

- The evidence of discipleship is consistent service among the least and the lost. We lay our lives down in generous compassion.  

We know we are becoming increasingly like Jesus when we show up and serve generously and compassionately without expectation of return.

- Changed lives change cities. If there is no evidence of change within the city then our claims to have lives radically and increasingly altered by Jesus are hollow.  It's what happens beyond the building that reveals the quality of discipleship.

We know we are becoming increasingly like Jesus when the city is changing.

- Discipleship isn't measured by information retention.  We are not seeking to grow our intellect but renew our mind so that we can DEMONSTRATE the works and the words of Jesus to a watching world.

We know we are becoming increasingly like Jesus when we are able to routinely and consistently demonstrate the priority and the power of the kingdom. 

- Spiritual formation is about growing the size of our heart to the same size as Christ’s. Therefore, "spiritual formation has a simple and practical measurement: “who do you have room in your heart for this year that you didn’t have room in your heart for last year?” - Eric Swanson.  We measure spiritual growth by the size of our heart.  Is there room in our hearts this year for people who were not in our heart last year?

We know we are becoming increasingly like Jesus when our hearts are enlarged; increasingly engaged with and embracing the marginalised and those who lack influence.