Mission of God - Part One

I'm about a quarter of the way through the book and I'm enjoying it. It's really well written. I've heard Chris Wright speak a couple of times so I can hear his voice in the print - friendly, engaging, fair, serious, but with a twinkle! This is just a few thoughts on part one of the book, 'The Bible and Mission'.

Wright's stated aim for the book is on page 17:
'My major concern has to been to develop an approach to Biblical hermeneutics that sees the mission of God (and the participation in it of God's people) as a framework within which we can read the whole Bible.'

This might not sound very exciting but it's very useful! Any framework that helps one to read the whole Bible well, or even (trigger warning!) correctly, can't be a bad thing! Further, as people involved in full-time, cross-cultural mission (whatever one assumes that to mean) the central purpose of the book is right up our street.

Why read this book now?

Well, over the past few years I've had enough contact with various streams of thought about and approaches to mission (however defined) that make me wonder what people really mean by mission. There seem to be lots and lots of different activities that people sacrifice lots of time and money and emotion for, all described as mission, but really lots of them are at best tenuously linked to (what I assume to be - and maybe I'm wrong) the mission of God.

If Chris Wright can help me think better about this whole enterprise, I'll be glad.

But there's something else as well. I think - and this is what I'm waiting to discover as I read on - that some elements of the framework this book is constructing are themselves linked to the proliferation of 'mission' activities, for better or for worse.

I'm not sure it's possible for me to write this without sounding a bit...judgemental? Narrow? But I can't ignore what I've come across in speech and print that seems to me to be veering off the Bible's consistent teaching about God's plans for his world as revealed in his Word. If we agree that Scripture is authoritative, and that we are constrained to live and think and act and do and plan in line with it, then it's no small thing to be clear on what God wants of his people in his world. None of us want to be wasting time and money and prayer and resources on something that isn't important. Also, if there are important things being neglected because we've been too narrow and blinkered, that needs correcting.

So, I'm going to read, try and be clear on what the framework is, and then be clear on what the implications of that framework are. It will certainly have a bearing on what we do here in Athens, but I suspect on what churches do full stop.

The Mission of God

For part of my sabbatical I'm reading (with a view to reviewing) this excellent book:

The reason for this is that while excellent (so far at least - I'm about a quarter through) I've been wondering in recent years whether some of the issues we observe in mission work broadly, and student ministry specifically, is quite directly influenced by some of the conclusions that Chris Wright points to, implicitly if not explicitly. We'll see. It's at least for my own thinking and learning, but I'm gently hoping it might prove useful in our wider organisation.

I've decided to post the occasional bit of the review here rather than only putting it all down in one larger article. This is partly for my benefit but some people might be curious.

Athens Polytechnic

Zografou, the suburb in which we live, is hemmed in to the east and south by Athens University (where we took our Greek lessons in the early years of being here) and to the north by Athens Polytechnic. To the west lies the city centre, a 10 minute bike ride downhill.

Athens - city centre, Zografou, University and Polytechnic

It's always been a puzzle to me why we have never, ever had contact with students and events at the Polytechnic. We have a small group at the University, we've done a couple of evangelistic outreaches there, we run Coffee & Cookies there periodically. But at the Poly - nothing. 

Ever.

Until yesterday.

Panorama of the Engineering Faculty at Athens Polytechnic

At our October conference I met a 2nd year engineering student and we've kept in touch, trying to find time to meet, encouraging him to come along to stuff. Yesterday after all these months of trying we met for a 1-2-1, starting in our new series in John's gospel. Good little Bible study, relaxed connection. 

I've also been trying for a couple of weeks to make contact with a Christian professor, and he messaged before my 1-2-1 saying we could meet at 5. So, from 4-5 I sat in a classroom with the student and then he waited with me to meet the professor - who it turns out teaches him! He didn't know he was a Christian, but told me that he'd noticed there was something different about this professor - happier, kinder, better.

It was a useful conversation (to do with a big project for the autumn - you'll hear about it soon) but it explained a little why perhaps we've never previously had contacts at the Poly. He said that the atmosphere and the mood there is deeply hostile to anything not leftwing politically, and anything religious is excluded and opposed. He also said that the levels of corruption are alarming. The same people who are dishonestly connected to industry for personal gain are the ones who are shouting about speaking against corruption in government and the banks.

It is a godless, perverse place it would seem - as is the whole world, but here perhaps more acutely than in other institutions.

At any rate, it's another institution where we're trying to plant gospel seeds. Three big questions on my mind:
1. What are realistic expectations that we can have for gospel progress when I'm in contact with one student with appetite and one with very little?
2. How do we help our small numbers of believing students to have any confidence that God can save people with no gospel background?
3. With the autumn evangelistic opportunities in mind, is it right to think about trying to do something big and public in such a hostile place?

Pray for Athens Polytechnic!

Στην υγειά μας! (To our health)

For most of the last few months I've forgotten we even have a blog. I read some blogs regularly and find them useful, and have never ever thought that ours could ever be 'useful' in that sense, but as I went to bed last night I thought I'd pop this brief thought down. Our family have all been poorly (sick, for non-Brits) for much of the last three weeks, on and off. There's a virus going round - lots of people have had it - and all of us have missed days of school and work. Dawn went to Berlin feeling ropey and came back worse. Joel and Hannah are currently in bed while I've just taken the two healthiest, Esther and (miraculously) Ruth to school. I'm mostly now better.

Anyway, being laid low (in a very minor way) is a frustration. When we're ill (Dawn and I) it makes taking care of the family harder. We feel our isolation more keenly (no relatives, friends live mostly far away across the city). We don't cook as well, shopping is more subsistence level, we miss work, miss church etc etc. When the kids are ill it throws them out of routine. But it's all minor.

And I was just reminded that (a) we can never take our health for granted - it's a gift of God, and a temporary one at that (b) we know people who have genuinely awful health situations at the moment (c) I'm rather proud and self-sufficient when it comes to keeping going physically.

One obvious application from a few weeks of niggling illness is some more humility and dependence on God. Another is more empathy with people who are actually suffering. Another is daily gratitude for the good things we have when we have them. And finally, persistent prayer to ask for the things we need.

Anyone who wants to live a godly life...

I have no idea what Mr Eich (http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-26868536) thinks about Jesus, but it's a vivid illustration of what John Stevens writes so clearly about in this post: http://www.john-stevens.com/2014/03/the-implications-of-gay-marriage.html

"Mozilla's new CEO, Brendan Eich, is an opponent of equal rights for gay couples. We would therefore prefer that our users not use Mozilla software to access OkCupid."

It is a free country, and people are free to use that freedom to target people with whom they disagree. That means that we must expect to be opposed if we hold to godly convictions, but it also gives us food for thought as to how we treat those with whom we disagree.

Like I said, who knows what Mr Eich thinks about Jesus but if I was the CEO of a high-profile company, I should expect to receive similar flak if my views were known.

What I saw from the car, written on a plane then a train

This is about home, desire and heaven.

I’m starting this on the plane somewhere over the Peloponnese about to descend in to Athens (now home) after a short trip to England for a wedding in Beeston (was home) this past weekend. Between us Dawn and I have made such brief visits back to the motherland a number of times in the last seven years. Let’s see if I can remember all these solo visits (i.e. not the whole family) as a brief exercise to try and hold my mental deterioration at bay a little longer: my grandpa’s funeral, Dawn’s dad’s heart surgery, Tim and Nicky’s wedding (Dawn), UCCF staff conference (me), Beeston Free Mission Sunday (me) and Michael and Rachel’s commissioning service (Dawn). It’s one of the ways in which we are aware of the blessing of being in Athens - to be able to return easily and cheaply for a long weekend would simply not be possible for plenty of overseas-based friends, so we’re grateful to be able to.

This trip was, as almost always, a real pleasure and privilege. 

(As I listen to Doves' 'Kingdom of Rust - "My God, it takes an ocean of trust in the kingdom of rust" - I can feel the descent beginning - ear-drum pressure is increasing - which means the rest of this will be written at home in Athens.)

[Inevitably a good few days passed after landing, but I decided to just publish the blog as it came out without too much editing, so here’s the rest of my piece, now being written on the night train to Athens on my way back from Skopje.]

Simply because I love maps, and it breaks up the text, here’s my journey:

As you see, I didn’t go anywhere spectacular. Gatwick to Horsham at night, Horsham to Oxford on the M25/M40 (yawn - except that there was for once in many years no hold up whatsoever), Oxford to Beeston via Milton Keynes and the M1, Beeston to Bristol via the M42/M5, and Bristol to Gatwick via Tesco Express and the M4. Very prosaic. All these journeys were happily made on days of glorious sunshine and crystal clear horizons, giving me the pleasure of seeing England at her end-of-winter/almost-spring beautiful best. It really was stunning. This is a significant detail, as you’ll see if you read on.

Now Greece is a beautiful country - extremely so - as long as you get out of Athens, and most of Attica. But England is not too shabby either, even in the understated south. I saw ancient Oxford, and the view over Christchurch College from the top floor of the IFES/UCCF office. I had lunch by a log fire in an old Cotswold pub. I saw the agricultural Midlands with its perfect fields and hedges and copses, the lovely Malvern Hills, that great village by the Avon somewhere around Tewkesbury, the long stretch of non-urban M4 corridor. And 99% of this was accompanied by perfectly courteous British driving (the rude Audi by Newport Pagnell being just about the only exception) and a mixture of banal Radio 1 (they have no shame), patchy Radio 2 (new high score of 24 on Popmaster) and fascinating Radio 4 (first car ever without medium wave so no Five Live. Weird.)

Anyway. 

So I was thinking, somewhere along the M40 I think, that here were stretches of countryside and townscape that, as far as the Clarks are concerned, are far more desirable to live in than Athens. We fairly quickly grew fond of Athens. It’s a privilege to live in such a place, despite its chaos and its real difficulties. And in most significant ways we’re genuinely happy to be living there. We have no plans to leave. When we return to Greece after our summer visits to England, we are truly happy to be returning ‘home’. 

But really, if we were to make a plain choice about where we would ‘like’ to live, Athens wouldn’t be top of the list. 

But this is the point. If one was to make a list, what would be top? Even yesterday I was asked where would I most like to live of all the places I’ve ever lived? And I knew immediately where that would be. My semi-longing gazes across the lovely English countryside (I’ve had this idea over the past few years, probably provoked by our removal from it, that the English have a much stronger and more affectionate connection to our green and pleasant land than our cold, detached, joyless exterior might suggest! I do not include our ruined cityscapes in this affection) of course made me think about the many ways in which it would be great live in one of those places. 

The possibility of walks in the woods and fields (largely litter-free), of country pubs with real ale, a connection with our ancestral heritage and history, of living in a town with cycle paths, the possibility of the kids going to a local primary school with school sports teams and a more colourful and varied curriculum and range of clubs and activities, of a local library to make use of, of unlimited access to mature cheddar and Lincolnshire sausages to make our Saturday morning fry-ups that little bit more complete, of straightforward online bill payment and so on (not even one visit to a government ministry to register a new car, let alone the four it took to get our Alhambra properly into our name)…

I’ll stop there. You get the point.

I wasn’t feeling particularly downcast about any of these musings, though perhaps a little melancholy, nor was I feeling a particularly strong lust or desire for those (pretty superficial) things but in his kindness the Holy Spirit brought back to the front of my mind a verse that Dawn and I have treasured many times over the past years:

Abraham was looking forward to the city that has foundations, whose designer and builder is God. (Hebrews 11)

Two things were suddenly really clear. First, the desire I felt for the good things in life was not a bad one. I think in the past I have often thought that the right response to wondering how wonderful it might be to live somewhere ‘better’ is to suppress those desires because they’re superficial, distracting or idolatrous. But the truth is that though they could be all those things, they’re actually a pale reflection of the greater desire we should have, like Abraham did, for the city with foundations. They show that we’re built to have longings. 

A nicer house in a nice part of the world? Access to Sainsbury’s? Green fields? UK libraries and schools? Less administrative hassle? All good things and much to be appreciated. But come on, Jonathan, they’re not exactly brilliant ambitions. You can do better than that.

The second thing was that remembering the verse brought liberation to not worry about the apparent hassle of living in Athens. Wherever I live in the world, without godly contentment I will always long to be somewhere better. Last summer we drove along this road in Cuffley, Hertfordshire. 

It was intimidatingly wealthy. We were chuckling about how one would feel if, after working hard enough to be able to afford to buy a really nice house on The Ridgeway, Cuffley, your heart started lusting after the one next door which also has a pool. Or the other one with a tennis court. Or the one with half a mile of land stretching down to the river. And so on. How much is enough? Just a little bit more, JP Getty is said to have mused. So true, without contentment, and without the longer picture. 

I might wish I was back in Thorndyke Close, But I could be there, and then wish that a thousand small things could be better, without contentment and the longer picture. I could wish I was back in Zimbabwe with a cold beer by the table football table and the long, slow African hours to enjoy doing nothing. I could wish I had a different job with more satisfaction or better pay. I could wish my nicer house was a bit closer to the Lake District for easier access to Buttermere on that perfect summer’s day or Wastwater when the snows come. I could wish that we lived closer to those particular dear friends who we’d love to be able to visit more easily. There’s no way of being peacefully content and satisfied anywhere, doing anything, without godly contentment and the longer picture.

The hassles are real. The downsides to living anywhere are real (though almost always relative, let’s not forget). So it’s not a case of just having positive thoughts or being stoical when faced with the downsides of wherever we are or whatever we’re doing, and banishing the desires to be somewhere else or someone else. The reality, the deliberately ordained reality, is that life under the sun (or cloud depending on one’s geographical particularity!) is in that one sense meaningless, and to be lived as it was meant to be lived: that is, with our hearts set not on the next best thing we can imagine, which in the end is not as good as the next best thing after that, but on the ultimate good. That’s what Hebrews 11 means. It’s what Paul meant: 

‘…as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal’  (2 Cor 4)

The absence of the good things that I was imagining on my pleasant drive around southern England I can confidently and happily say fall very squarely into what Paul described as ‘slight momentary affliction’. So slight, so momentary, when compared to the far worse afflictions he himself had been suffering, and so many people are suffering elsewhere in the world. But laughably slight and momentary when compared to the eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison. 

Again, it’s not that the hassles are not real. They are. It’s not that the desire to enjoy a better life is not real. It is. But it must be relativised, and put into its proper place, which is as a pointer to something better, something ultimately good, something and somewhere and someone who surpasses all the possible desires we’ve ever had, with the result that we’ll never have another longing, never another regret, never another pang of homesickness, never another ‘I wish that…’ - because we’ll be in the city with foundations whose designer and builder is God. An eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison. Beauty and perfection beyond anything the Cotswolds or the Lake District could offer.

It means we (not just the Clarks) can live fully committed to where we are and what we’re doing without wishing we were somewhere better doing something better as if that was an end in itself, or  some kind of ultimately satisfying thing, because it can’t be. The desire for something nicer, or the wish that we didn’t have the hassles and disappointments we do, should make us remember in a very real, practical, life-altering way, that there’s a greater joy to be desired and a more complete promise of no hassle, than we could possibly attain with our pathetically weak desires for things we can see now. So for the moment, no matter how lovely England might look, or how pleasant a life she might offer, or how many small ambitions I might harbour, there's something more lovely, more pleasant and more worthwhile. It's something we all ought to deliberately wait for all of the time.

Coincidentally, in between starting and ending this piece, I came across this quote, allegedly from St. Patrick:

"Daily I expect to be murdered or betrayed or reduced to slavery if the occasion arises, but I fear nothing, because of the promises of heaven."

People say all sorts of things about heaven these days, but usually they have the effect of downgrading heaven in favour of what goes on here and now. But that's not right, is it. The promises of heaven are so good, and they put our slight momentary afflictions in perspective, and free us to do good in this world, and free us to not desire the very good things of this world more than what the promises of heaven offer. 

Not just idle words

IFES Athens small groups have been studying passages from Mark since late October. I've loved being involved. No matter how many times I take part in a Mark series (and there have been plenty since Beeston Free and UCCF's Identity a decade ago) I've not even gotten close to being bored, not even gotten close to being able to say 'got that one ticked off'. Such a privilege to be given time and opportunity to mine the inexhaustible depths of the the very words of God.

There's another 65 books to mine, however, and we're about to start a series in Malachi with the students in Athens. It won't be the first time here either - thanks to Nottingham CU in 2001 and the students here in 2008. Just begun preparation this morning and it's like seeing an old friend for the first time in a while, and remembering just how good that friendship is for your heart. Just the first five verses are packed with rebuke, encouragement, hard truth, humbling truth, light and life.

It's not rocket science is it.

They are not just idle words for you – they are your life. (Moses, circa 1400BC)