A slightly wandering train of thought on a plane

I was flying back to England after a wonderful time on Paros, and loving reading this book. 

It’s going slowly. First, I left it in Athens when we went to England. 

Second, I kept trying to read it but found that I was with great people to talk to so did that instead - thank you Team Paros and JJ Wyatt, Ellie Maffett and Will Woolnough in particular.

Third, I found it necessary to have the occasional siesta to keep me going through the late-night card games, the beach evangelism and the volleyball-for-the-gospel. 

It is however quite brilliant. Thank you Tim Vickers for giving it to me.

I’ve just read this section, which comes as part of a chapter exposing the myth that the ancient pagan world was joyous and vigorous, at one with the cosmos and at peace with itself, whilst Christianity was essentially a great big kill-joy, diseased with ‘bloodless antisensualism’, exerting an ‘icy and withering embrace’ on a vibrant pagan culture.

During the Paros beach mission we enjoyed a brilliant series of Bible studies in Mark. This means that fresh in my mind are lots of Markian gospel emphasies. 

So the gospel is good news? The main reason why it is good news of course is that the gospel tells of God’s free gift of life and forgiveness for sinful people - people whose hearts are desperately sick and beyond cure, apart from the Christ who came for such sick people. People who know they are dogs, worthy only of the crumbs under the table. (One of the highlights of studying Mark is having the eye-opening moment that the disciples only experienced after the resurrection, but we are privy to rather earlier: have you still not understood about the bread? Have a read of chapters 5-8 if you’ve no idea what I’m on about). 

The free gift is a cure for the sinfully sick, it’s food for the hungry-for-God, it’s forgiveness for the helplessly sinful rebel; sight for the blind-to-the-Christ is guaranteed, proved and inaugurated by the actually-resurrected King who had suffered and died in our place, drinking for us the cup of wrath that was rightly ours to drink, making possible the ripping of the excluding curtain and opening the way directly into the Holy of Holies.

As I write this I’ve got Chris Martin singing in my ears (thank you Ted & Rachel Watts) of how ‘life goes on, it gets so heavy...in the night the stormy night she closed her eyes, in the night the stormy night away she flies, and dreamed of para- para- paradise’.

The good news that Chris Martin probably hasn’t accepted (he’s definitely heard it) is just so good. We don’t have to dream of it. We don’t have to run away from the storms. We don’t have to escape a world of disappointment and shattered hopes. Jesus came into exactly that world bringing good news, which is ours by repenting of our rebellion and believing the True King. 

No need for fake saints to stand for us. 

No need for the false hope of impressing God with our virtuous lives - who can honestly kid themselves that they are such?

No need to invent rules to make us clean.

No need to fear that following Jesus makes us miss out on the good things - there is nothing we could give up or miss out on in this life that will not be far-outweighed by the glory to come.

All the time there’s this free offer of direct friendship, sonship and blessing, all tied up in the simple act of listening to Jesus, the Son who is loved by the Father and who has all authority to forgive, welcome and bless. And all the time people go on with their self-delusion that they’ll be ok on their own, or that there’s no possibility of any other way to be ok, or that the good news is so ridiculously good and free that it can’t be something for them. And so they turn to the beach to satisfy, or to the saints to mediate grace, or to science to explain their otherwise meaningless existence - though it’s still ultimately meaningless - or to a discredited communism to build the impossible utopia so cruelly promised. 

We’ve been told good news, we’ve believed the doctor’s diagnosis, we know we’re terminally ill, facing wrath and hell, but that the doctor is good and infallibly cures all who come to him knowing they need him, and we’ve begun a life that is anchored in the first resurrection, knowing that no amount of suffering and dying between now and the second resurrection - a resurrection that will be made visible by the Father’s glory and all his holy angels - is too great to make it not worth enduring.

So it’s good news. Not mere information or a mere worldview, but a cosmic declaration of and from and about an eternally good and glorious and gracious and great King, Jesus the Son of Man who suffered and died and rose again.

We live in a world where, like in those early pagan centuries, the vast majority of people are trapped in a dark, joyless, despondency. The gospel of Jesus doesn't stifle light and goodness and freedom and creativity: it reveals all of that. Atheist Delusions was such a brilliant read because it reminded me that the goodness of the good news is good indeed: better than this pagan world thinks, and better even than most Christians know - and that despite protestations to the contrary, modern secularism offers nothing good in its place. 

Paros 2013

It looks like our team for Paros is just about full, and it's far bigger than in previous years so we'll have more options for what we get up to I think. We'll make sure news makes its way off the island while we're there so you can follow progress. I think it will be a combination of twitter (@clarksinathens), this blog and the facebook page (https://www.facebook.com/ParosSummerTeam) so if you want to be connected there's plenty of choice.

For some (limited) visual interest the screenshot below shows the place we camp (the northern shore of the eastern bay, just outside the main town - follow the bay around from the port [A] to the broadest sandy beach), plus the even nicer beach where we meet people on the beach volley court and in the bar etc. 

If the picture doesn't show up completely you can click it to enlarge, I hope.

The open tabs show what's going on at my desk at the moment.

Spot the difference

I don't know the ins and outs of this set up, so these photos could be misleading (a picture can tell a thousand wrong words) but I think they're indicative of a shocking and frustrating thing.

Greek bureaucracy is infamous, and this snapshot is from the police station that deals with immigrants, which I had to visit today to renew my residency permit to complete the ownership documents for a car we've just bought (proper family car that we can all fit into  - woohoo and thank you for your support in that project).

This is the room that deals with the EU applicants. There were two people in the room waiting and one official serving them. I have to return tomorrow at 6.30am to complete my process. It will cost 23 cents, if it's the same as last time. A lady will sell me that stamp from a separate window. The official barely gave me the time of day and I had to beg his attention three times simply to find out where I need to be tomorrow morning. (I'm still not totally sure where exactly the 'back door' is.


This is the rooms that seemed to be dealing with the rest of the Balkans (including the wife of our local kiosk owner, a friend of ours, who is to the left of the second picture with a dark cardigan over her shoulders) judging by facial features and accents.



This group outside seemed to be mostly Africans. I'm not sure why they weren't inside the building - could be a totally different process, but probably isn't. You can't see but the line stretches a long way behind the barrier, and the official in the white shirt was pretty agitated. I was expecting to see lots of Asians (from Iran across to Bangladesh) but perhaps today wasn't their day, or they're being dealt with at another station.

It is indescribably chaotic and hopeless for those from non-EU countries. And I probably shouldn't have been taking photos at a police station but I didn't see any signs...

What we've been learning about typical Greek students

Between Christmas and Easter I was on two campuses regularly with small groups of our students, getting on with evangelism to strangers, hoping for two things: first, to sow the seed of the word to whomever we could and, second, to grow confidence and skill among the members of IFES Greece.

We anticipated this being a small beginning, and it has been, but here's a couple of observations.

This conversation lasted an hour

Typical Greek unbelievers fall into three broad categories. The largest group could be described as apathetic atheists. This means that the vast majority of our approaches to people are rebuffed immediately with total indifference and unwillingness to engage. It's not surprising: we don't resent them for it. They have no reason whatsoever to engage with us. Apart from the fact that there is an inherent level of suspicion about anyone who wants to talk religion or spirituality of Jesus, it is not in the Greek social make-up to profer interest in strangers. Greeks are warm and close to those with whom they are warm and close, and aren't like the English, with their sense of obligation to be friendly to total strangers. (That's an observation, not a value judgement - there and pros and cons of both types of relationality!)


Another group are the crusading atheists - the communists. They sincerely believe that the USSR is the utopia we should all be aiming for. It was the happiest, most free society that there has ever been - and it's capitalist propaganda that tells otherwise - and Greece needs to become a Marxist state. They are therefore committed - in a friendly, non-violent way - to the removal of God from society. 

This is the entrance to the Law school. Not hard to see what the most visible ideology is.

I have found them to be the easiest to talk with, but they are dedicated to their cause and are reluctant to discuss Jesus specifically. Some of them are still Orthodox, but atheist ones! (Yes, I know, that ought to be oxymoronic. But it seems frequently possible to be vociferously communist and retain a sense of loyalty to Orthodox roots. I think the pattern is that they remain actively communist through their youth, then revert to more 'practicing' Orthodox when they get married and have children, because the baptism of their children becomes a pressing issue. Having said that, it may be that we are at a watershed, and the current generation of Greek young people may be ones to buck that trend and reject Orthodox roots even into their family life).

The final main group are the sincere Orthodox. This is the smallest group by far, and it's also hard to talk with such folks about Jesus because the veil of institutional religiosity is heavy. It may be that some have real, saving faith. It's hard to discern, and it's not our responsibility to do so, but it seems highly unlikely that significant numbers know and trust Christ. It seems theologically tricky to be a 'good Orthodox' and be a real believer, because to be so one needs to accept and trust things that make the gospel an entirely other gospel. (This isn't the place to go into detail on that).

Sorry for the quality. On the left are two lads reading a New Testament we gave them, and on the right one of our members is chatting to the students in the first picture. ALL of the posters and banners are urging a Marxist uprising.

Scattered among these main types are those who have a real hunger for truth. Not many people are offering truth. Our challenges are to keep proclaiming it, to learn the skills to engage with each person we meet, unique and precious as they are, and to gather and mobilise more believers to be active in proclamation and public in good works.

Summer team on Paros (which is a very lovely Greek island)

You can find details about what we'll be doing on this facebook page and on this blog.

Back to the blog

Hello all,

Yet again we've not been blogging, but both Dawn and I have various things in mind to blog about - some weighty, others less so. To try and help restart things here's a photo from today which illustrates three things (at least):

1. It's warm and sunny in Athens. Winter sort of set in, and we had the heating on for a while, but it seems to have fizzled out somewhat. This is a good thing because the oil for the heating has rocketed in price.

2. Building work has re-started on the kids' new school building. There has been no progress since before Christmas, which I guess is down to cash flow.

3. There are owls on the perspex fencing, because the owl is the symbol of Athina, the patron goddess of Athens. 

We really hope they finish soon as we want Joel to have at least his final year of primary school in a shiny new building.



Watch out for updates (on the blog, not the building).

… as we forgive others who sin against us …

I have recently been at Kalamos. Being at a kids’ camp for 17 days provided plenty of opportunities to talk about confession and forgiveness. My first opportunity was in English (phew!) with a couple of English-as-primary-language boys. They had been bickering and being mean to each other for about a day and I had innocently asked one of them how they were doing. He tearfully explained the situation and how it was making him miserable but he didn't really know how to stop. We talked about the fact that these things escalate when we treat others the way we think we've been treated rather than the way we want to be treated; when we justify our behaviour by our twisted perception of other people’s actions. What he needed was to seek the forgiveness of the other boy and to forgive him. We talked about how that kind of conversation couldn’t start with him pointing the finger but with him confessing his own part in the problems. For a 10 year-old he was impressively mature and willing to do this. So we went to the other boy, I explained that I was just there to witness the conversation. He confessed his part (his guilt, his sin) and asked for forgiveness, which he was given willingly. The other boy, without prompting, apologised for his part and asked for forgiveness and received it. I then congratulated them both and prayed for their friendship. It was a heart-warming experience! 

It happened again the next day with a couple of smaller girls, again in English, and then again later in the week in Greek with other girls. There was one occasion where, due to a fight between two boys from different tents, the boys from each tent were plotting revenge against the offending boy from the other tent. The leader of the camp called the tents together and talked about vengeance vs forgiveness, and opened a floodgate of apologies and forgiveness given. This was all very encouraging and right for a Christian camp: opportunities to remind the children of the gospel that they know about but don’t necessarily trust in for themselves yet; a reminder about how much we should be prepared to forgive others even if we are ‘innocent’ because of how much God has forgiven us. Little did I know that in our final week I was going to have to put this into practice in a way I hadn’t anticipated.

On the final Monday of the camp we had a πανηγύρι (panigiri – fête). Over the course of the camp we had been earning camp money through chores and exceptional behaviour which we could spend at the πανηγύρι. There were stalls with games, a popcorn/candy floss stand and little ‘basket stalls’ with goods to buy: mostly second hand bits and pieces, various stationery goods with Bible verses, etc. I found a very cute little metal blond boy carrying a rake that would make a good little present for the absent Jonathan. He actually had two brothers that I also wanted to buy, but a couple of girls expressed an interest in them, so I let them buy them. At the end of the evening I decided not to put him in the suitcase for fear he’d get damaged and elected to put him on the shelf in the bungalow instead.

The next afternoon during free time most of the girls from my ‘tent’ – the bungalow – came to me with a bag containing the little boy, now beheaded. Apparently they had all been playing in the bungalow and one of the girls, let’s call her Maria, had taken my boy off the shelf and started mucking about with him. The others had, apparently, told her not to do that and warned her that he was fragile and wasn't a toy. Before she knew it, his head was off and they were all outraged. She begged them not to tell me and ran off to hide/play on the swings. Their sense of injustice was aided by the fact that Maria had been a bit whiny and annoying for most of them most of the camp. They smelt blood and came to me to report this transgression.

I am not very proud of my initial reaction. I was furious and just about managed to contain that fury. I told the girls to not play in the bungalow but to go and do something else and that I would talk to Maria. They didn't know where she was. I went to the bungalow first to put away the bits and see if Maria was there. By the time I found her I had calmed down considerably and had begun to think about how I might approach this. Maria is only five years old and this is her first time away at camp, so I needed to do a good job. It went something like this:

I explained to her that I had found out about the boy and that I had been angry and upset. The fact that it was a present for my husband probably made it more upsetting to me than it would have been otherwise. I didn’t lay it on thick, but I did make sure that she understood that I thought this was serious. As I spoke she wept. I then asked her to explain to me what had happened. She didn’t really want to speak, but I encouraged her to take a deep breath and say what she needed to say. She recounted the ‘incident’ and even admitted to asking the other girls not to tell me. I told her that I had been angry to start with and upset but that I couldn’t stay angry. I told her that I had wondered if there was an appropriate punishment that I could give her. I explained that, by the time I had found her I had realised something. That I needed to forgive her. That it was better if she was sorry and easier for me, but that either way, I needed to forgive her. You see, she’d broken this little boy that had only been mine for a few hours, but that God had broken his own Eternal Son, so that He could forgive us all that we had done against him. That her sin against me was like a tiny speck of dust compared to a whole world of sin that I had committed against God and He had forgiven me in Jesus. I told her that, in forgiving her, I was going to forget about it, not hold it against her, not remind her of it and that we would go and speak to the rest of the tent. So I encouraged her to apologise and I forgave her. We hugged and I prayed for both of us.

Hand-in-hand we went to find the others. In our little tent pow-wow I told the others a bit about our conversation. Some of them struggled a bit more than Maria and I did about the whole business of simply forgiving her and not speaking of it again. Like the natural Pharisees that we are, they wanted to point out again that they were right to tell her not to play with the boy and that she had done a bad thing in ignoring them. I told them that as the wronged party I had forgiven her and that they now needed to leave it. We prayed again, all together and happily carried on with the rest of the week. Because of the upset and the forgiveness, I think Maria and I had a much stronger bond than we had done before.

As I’ve recounted this story, to Jonathan and to others, I’ve been reminded that it’s not rocket science; it’s not that complicated or that exceptional or that unusual, but it is profound because it’s so clearly not the way of the world. I am naturally like Maria, wanting to avoid my sin and deny it, not blatantly (mostly) but passively, wanting to hide it from God and from others.

I am also naturally disinclined to forgive. I want vengeance or justice or payment even! I want to stay angry or upset or both and feel that that’s the right way to respond when someone sins against me. The line in the Lord’s Prayer is a simple concept though and one that I have had some understanding of since I was Maria’s age. It’s not simply “forgive us our sins”, although God does that, in Jesus. The proof of our understanding and our appreciation of the weight and strength and power of that forgiveness is in the second clause: “as we forgive those who sin against us”. How could I stay angry or upset or both with Maria? What could she do, anyway, to repay me for her sin? Even if she could buy me a new boy would that really make it all ok? No, forgiveness was the only appropriate response. And just as I have grown in understanding and appreciation of what that means, I pray that so too would Maria and all the other lovely little girls from my tent. That in years to come they would know the enormity of the forgiveness they have been given in Jesus and freely, willingly (and more quickly than I?!) give that forgiveness to others in the name of Jesus. Amen.