Very much in line with my talk for tomorrow morning where I will talk about what happened when Matthew threw a great party ‘with Jesus as the guest of honour,’ this fabulous talk by a hero of mine will blow your mind about what Christianity is really about.
If you’re a preacher, this is a masterclass in how passion persuades.
It’s hard not to grow a church that reaches people far from God and helps them find their way back when you have someone like my mate Andy Hawthorne in it. In fact – there is nobody like Andy!
I get to have breakfast with him most weeks and he’s one of the people who inspires me to GO FOR IT, by the way, he’s speaking at Ivy Kingsway this Sunday am.
I don’t want you to miss out on connecting to this passionate, uncompromising and gifted man whose charity The Message does so much great stuff he’s been honoured with an OBE.
Watch this video, you probably won’t need to turn the volume up. Below it is what I take from this PASSIONATE talk he gave to a national Youth Workers a couple of weeks ago– watch it here:
http://www.message.org.uk/2014/05/20/restoring-hope-andy-hawthorne-at-yws14/
So…
Keep Mission central. Not only mission – EVANGELISM! PREACH! Preach the cross! To bear MUCH fruit. Not just loving people, of course we do that but we have to tell people the way TO heaven and out of hell.
And that’s COSTLY! But if we are red letter Christians we have to say what he said about now and eternity.
Do we believe this any more? The only thing that counts, the only thing TO count, is disciples!
If we don’t proclaim the gospel – who will?!
The Holy Spirit will come and bring CONVICTION. Don’t we want righteous young disciples?!
Step out! If they don’t hear it, they won’t have hope restored.
John Wesley: social reformer AND he said ‘You have nothing to do but save souls!’
William Booth: ‘Not called to evangelism? Put your ear down to the Bible and hear him call you – to go….’
Let us build rescue shops within a yard of hell!
The Sorted May-Jun bumper magazine is now available. This special World Cup edition is just perfect for football related outreach, men’s breakfasts, Fathers Day events – in fact anytime you need a non-cringey Gospel friendly resource for blokes.
And at just £50 for a box of 40 copies it won’t break the bank either. Starring Mark Wahlberg, Bear Grylls, Kaka, Falcao, Dan Walker and Carl Beech and me – stocks are limited so order before it’s too late.
I believe that this Saturday, God is going to do something supernatural in the lives of the men who come to the Diamond Geezers Day here in Manchester, releasing our potential for supernatural greatness.
If you’ll come along to the Message building and connect to God’s presence there, hearing His Word and doing what He says, I believe that God is going to raise up from the day some spiritual leaders to make a massive difference in this world. And the reality is that this is so important because there’s a huge shortage of godly men in our nation. In the church men too many men have relegated themselves into passivity, or fallen to compromise and shame.
One of the most tragic verses in the Bible is Ezekiel 22:30:
I looked for a man among them who would build up the wall and stand before me in the gap on behalf of the land so I would not have to destroy it…
God said:
I looked for a man like that…
How many did He find? The Bible tells us:
...but I found none.
NONE. Zilch. Not one; not one man who’d stand in the gap! Perhaps if God were speaking that verse today, He’d say:
‘I’m looking for a man with guts, integrity and commitment. I’m looking for a man who will use the strength I give him to stand up for those who cannot stand up for themselves; I’m looking for a man to impart spiritual truth to the next generation. I’m looking for a man who would stand in the gap.’
If that’s you (or you want it to be) please book in now and join us at the Diamond Geezers Day on Saturday. It’s not too late there are still spaces. There are various great speakers and activities, lunch thrown in with the very low price, the very first opportunity to buy my Diamond Geezers audio book (at a special price) and various freebies to equip you to make a difference where you are, standing in the gap!
Book in here http://www.message.org.uk/shop/diamond-geezers-mens-day/
Occasionally I’d have a bit of an energy burst and do some journalling (ever done that?). Some of the conferences I went to had experts saying if you didn’t journal every day you had to doubt your salvation. I got a journal. The ‘MAN’ type, leather, with a cross on the front, not the girls one with flowers. Some time later I got another one because I’d hardly written in the first one. It had ‘MY PRAYER JOURNAL’ written on the front.
But there’s still not much written in it.
Actually though, Jesus didn’t journal. It really wasn’t me. I love writing, I hate journaling. I’m not even sure journalling is a word. How many ls should it have if it is? Spellchecker doesn’t like either. I read somewhere that CS Lewis STOPPED journaling when he became a Christian, because he’d done it for years before, and found it made him too self centred.
I was doing really badly from the outset at how I thought you were supposed to be growing spiritually. It never got better. It’s not like when you’re a kid and you get to see how you grow by marking it on the wall near the fridge. As a spiritual child of God, what’s the best marker?
I started to wonder whether the best way to measure people’s devotion to God is how long they pray. Is it about their ‘devotional life,‘? Or their WHOLE life? Maybe it’s not about getting heavenly flying hours or ticking off a list of spiritual activities. Could there be some better gauges? In Jesus’ day the people who’d score highest on spiritual practices were the Pharisees! First there for morning prayer- first to throw stones.
I’ve had so many people try to be travel agents for guilt trips for me over prayer, personal and corporate over the years. Here’s a good one, ‘You can tell how popular the Pastor is by how many come to Church on Sunday, but you can tell how popular JESUS is by how many come to the midweek prayer meeting.’
Well we don’t have a specific midweek prayer meeting. But I think Jesus is really popular around here, anyway. Maybe the measure of whether Ivy’s a praying church is not necessarily how many people can we get to this or that prayer meeting? Prayer meetings are great of course – but if that’s the measure, if you gauge spirituality by ‘spiritual’ activities, the Pharisees will win again.
This week hundreds of us have been galvanised as a church community to pray for little baby Cole – who died at birth and had to be resuscitated and even now struggles for life; and for dear Denise at the other end of her journey here on earth. Facebook and text messages and personal visits etc have carried these people and their situations to God.
And I think I’ve prayed everywhere, while I’ve queued, walked or shopped or drove or parked or prepared for sermons (it counts!). I’ve prayed when I woke up, went to bed and couldn’t sleep. I’ve prayed on the phone, in the church, on the loo, at the gym. How long for? I don’t know. I wasn’t counting it. But I think it all counts.
I don’t think I was storming heaven, interceding like the great men of old, being a watchman, having heaven touch earth – or any of the other ways we can subtly make it an esoteric technique. It was heart to heart not pen to paper (though if that helps you – crack on!).
I just talked with my friend – who happens to be King of the Universe, about everything that mattered to me, everywhere I was. And listened as best I could. One day I hope to learn how to pray properly – but until then I’ll keep on doing that.
(If you haven’t been too offended and would like to hear the rest of the talk I did here, you’ll find it on the website in the next couple of days for free download at http://www.ivymanchester.org/podcasts)
Then if you live within striking distance of Manchester book in here NOW for the Diamond Geezers Men’s Day on Saturday April 13th before it’s too late.
(If you have any trouble watching the video here, go to http://www.desiringgod.org/blog/posts/lecrae-explains-true-manhood)
I had a great time at St Mary’s Upton last week, for their ‘Sundays At Seven’ event.
Very professional, they pull in all kinds of people who’d not usually go near a church with this format.
Check out the interview at
http://stm-upton.org.uk/stmu-info.php?info=nb-121007sa7delaney
Well I’m far too stiff today to manage the celebratory forward roll which has become traditional in the office whenever there is something wonderful for us to celebrate as a church, in fact I couldn’t even put my own socks on this morning, but I did do a careful standing spin when I worked out the final total to date raised for the marathon run.
Yesterday was to be honest really pretty awful at times, the first 5 miles my back was still sore. You may know I pulled it running on a treadmill on Thursday, and by Saturday morning I couldn’t even weight bear, so it really was thanks to prayer and a (Christian) osteopath that I even got to the start line. I’d decided if my back didn’t get better I would just have to run it on my own sometime soon but really didn’t want to do that.
The conditions were terrible but the back pain kind of eased off a bit as I ran and blended generally as other body parts got sore and in fact I hit 10 miles in quite a good time (1:31).
At about 15 miles I made the mistake of taking my coat off and giving it to Zoe which positively meant people could see my name written on my chest and cheer me on, which was great (Manchester people were wonderful, standing out in freezing and at times torrential rain to encourage us). The least encouraging thing I got was someone saying, ‘Hurry up – there’s a girl beating you’. Negatively, I was more exposed to the horrible cold and wet, Dunham Massey and various roads around it were a quagmire – more like cross country!
The weather was bad enough to have stopped thousands of people who’d paid £50 or so to enter from even turning up so there were far fewer than the 8000 expected. Hundreds of people didn’t finish because of hypothermia and I didn’t stop shivering for about an hour after I finished.
At various points along the way I’d be greeted by lots of various cheering Ivy people too who were amazing – thank you! Quite a few Ivyers were also running the marathon well done to them all. I crossed 23 miles just before 4 hours, but then the last three miles were torture as I kept getting cramp trying to kick in so had to wait it out and stretch, then plod on again.
Various things were happening spiritually…
A lot of prayer to just keep going!
A sense that every step was progressing us forward in God’s purposes
Gratitude and love for the city, its people and of course our church just kept welling up. Quite emotional at times!
Whenever I thought I’d have to give up I thought about the kids in Haiti, all they’ve been through, and told myself to man up.
Realising the importance of self-talk. If I flagged, I would start to tell myself, ‘You can do this! I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me!’
So while the eventual time of 4:40:30 isn’t one to remember, the day itself really was unforgetable.
Oh, one more thing. While the marshalls and stewards were fantastic, the ‘organisers’ Xtra mile have been slated (justifiably) for not organising. The worst example perhaps was the bags with personal belongings which they were supposed to look after just pitched out in the mud outside a tiny tent at the end, without even a system or helpers to retrieve your bag. Thousands of freezing exhausted people getting soaked looking at piles of white plastic bags that all looked the same – having to bend over and look for tiny numbers with frozen fingers. Not good.
My phone was in my bag somewhere and I needed to get to Zoe quick as I was shaking and soaked. At that point I couldn’t even remember my number because of brain freeze then I recalled it was on my chest. 5470. I closed my eyes and prayed, ‘Lord PLEASE help me find my bag.’ Opened them and saw at the bottom of one pile the number 470 sticking out. Walked over to it and straightened the tag – 5470!!! Come on!!
Now at the latest count (unless you know different and want to sponsor me now at … http://www.justgiving.com/ADelaney )
…adding in the money collected yesterday morning at the Vue cinema while I was running
…the total amount raised to help Ivy move back to Didsbury and to help the children at the Wesleyan mission church at Leogane, Haiti through Compassion, with the ridiculous target of £35,000 is…
Drum roll please…
£31,551.57 and with Gift Aid included that is…
£37,349.94
If you can forward or even backward roll for me, please do.
Most people are not ashamed of Christ, but they are ashamed of their church. If you’re begging people to invite their friends, you have to stop and think. If they’re not naturally doing it, why not? We’d better self diagnose.
CONNECTIVITY is the key to church growth.
I’m still detailing some of the learnings from Richard Reisling’s visit here.
He said connectivity is ‘your abililty to connect with me and show me you have something to offer of solutions to what I’m looking for in life.’
Related to the previous post, people will come in and think, ‘What can I learn from them about organising my life and priorities, if they can’t even organise parking?’
The apostle Paul wrote, ‘I became LIKE them, to WIN them.’ What does that mean?
It means, he was thinking, “How do I get into their mindset to connect with them? People who are feeling weak or strong, those who are rich or poor, Jew, Greek.” He owned the connection issue that it’s my responsibility to get into their HEADS – so the gospel can get into their HEARTS. I have to show I understand people in various life settings. (By the way Frank Green did a great job of this yesterday in his Good Friday 20 talks back to back! I’ll be putting some of the content from my notes on that on the blog soon and the talks themselves will be available from the Ivy iTunes podcast feed).
Interestingly, Paul also categorised people – knowing that people think in similar ways to the groups they’re in. There are common perspectives we hold. And he adapted to meet them, right where they live.
For example – imagine you get invited to watch a football match. (Reisling talked baseball but who knows anything about that?)
You’re not into football. You don’t what to go, but someone asks and eventually you go – initially right up at the back and high up in the cheap seats at the top – to check it out. You’re not going to commit too much (at those prices!). But then by the end of the match you have to admit you kind of liked it enough to go some other time. and you do. Once or twice.
After a while you start to really into it – buy a scarf, and to get a better view and atmosphere you go down a few levels of seats, maybe buy a season ticket. (This is exactly what happened to a friend of mine who ended up joining a cult called Chelsea).
After more time someone notices you’re ‘into football’ and maybe you get invited to play in an amateur football team – because now we like football. We’re committed. We even get on the field!
Church leaders need to ask ourselves, ‘What am I doing today – perhaps especially in the services we put on, to connect to the people out there in the far back seats, just checking this out? What’s going to talk to them? What’s their next step closer to the field of play.’ Don’t talk to everyone like they’re already committed. I was in a device recently where the preacher kept referring to ‘We Christians,’ and I wondered how that would feel to a visitor not yet ready to class themselves as a Christ follower. We don’t connect by having the same message to everyone.
Jesus didn’t preach the ‘eat my flesh and blood’ message to the 5000. He fed THEM bread and fish. Then he sharpened down the challenge, to those who were ready for it. There were messages for the crowd, the core, the committed.
In churches we have to challenge people appropriately to the level they are at. We have to reach and connect to people at their particular level. We have to have a heart for every level. We need to have a shallow end – graded and going to a deep end. Why? So people know, ‘I can bring someone,’ then trust grows. Connectivity creates the easy invite.
We have to be simple enough to understand – and powerful enough to change lives. Then people will want to tell their friends and we won’t have to ‘market.’ The truth is, if you’ve had a life changing experience with Christ you want everyone to know about it.
Most people are not ashamed of Christ, but they are ashamed of their church. If you’re begging people to invite their friends, you have to stop and think. If they’re not naturally doing it, why not? We’d better self diagnose.
Maybe they’re embarrassed of the pink and lavender decor. The yelling mad lady with the flags? The 2 hour sermons. There are reasons!
So ask, ‘What’s the purpose of this service?’
Ask, ‘Who’s going to be there?’ Shape to fit. Be intentional about what we’re doing. Plan for who God’s going to bring! God will order your steps – IF you have a plan.
So – back to the stadium analogy – how do you minister on the different levels?
Upper stands – you INSPIRE them. CHALLENGE them. When you’ve earned the right. They need… a glimpse of hope. (Yeah, I’ll give that church a try, what’s the worst that could happen?).
Lower stands – TEACHING & TRAINING. How to understand. ‘Here’s how we do this.’ It’s about coaching them into being able to PLAY (not just in church settings, the ‘game’ is the world they inhabit).
Playing the game. DEVELOP. Teaching and coaching so players learn to specialise and play to their strengths.
If we do this, people can then have confidence about what they bring their friends to. We can say, ‘If you want this – come to this. if you want this – this is for you to bring a friend…’ And people will bring their friends along.
You CAN do this in one service. Jesus did it to 5000. You just have to be aware that there are people at different levels and you have to engage at all those levels.
Finally – we get the congregation we preach to.
if you preach to only the ‘DEEP’ people, that’s all you’ll get.
if you connect only to the people on the edge – that’s who you’ll get.
Connect!
Anthony Delaney 
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