Whilst it is true and powerful that children are our future, the problem is that society doesn’t quite know what to do.

We look at the current problems of our world and then look to the next generation to solve them… problems like violence, alcohol, crime, poverty and the environment.

The cause of each of these problems, so the reasoning goes, is a lack of information about the impacts that each of these problems may result in.

So to help our children overcome the issues we introduce educational programs at the earliest appropriate age to arm the next generation with the knowledge and skills to overcome them.

Now all this is well intentioned and not without benefit, but this strategy has always and will aways ultimately fail.

This is obvious when you realise that some of these programs have been going on for generations.

Issues to do with alcohol are a tragic example: we are now trying to teach our kids the very same things that we were taught but have ignored.

And the reason why these educational reforms have failed is that the problem is misdiagnosed.

The problem is not lack of information: the problem is sin, and so our children carry within them the problem itself.

Our children need saving.

While this is profoundly politically incorrect to say unless we understand the problem we will never be able to offer children the answer.

Jesus said “Let the children come to me; do not hinder them,  or the kingdom of God belongs to such as these.”  And he took the children in his arms, placed his hands on them and blessed them. Mark 10:14,16

Jesus is the answer because Jesus came to save us from our sins: he came to save children from their sins.

Simon Chaplin

When we think of support for missionaries, we most naturally think about finances.

After all, when we and our partner missionary organisation send someone to a distant location to preach Christ, we know that there are many costs that need to be met.

Our church loves to financially support missionaries, and we do so by allocating a proportion of your regular financial gifts. Yet, we must never forget that our support for missionaries extends also to our prayers.

When I sit down for my morning prayers, I use an app called ‘PrayerMate’, which helps me remember to pray for CMS, the Church Missionary Society. Alternatively, you might just like the paper version, which works just as well!

But the main point is that we need to keep remembering that God uses our prayers to do his will to share the saving message of Jesus to all the nations.

When we pray for our missionaries on our own each day, or together each weekend in church, we are providing critical support for those who work with us to share the great news of Jesus with the world.

This weekend, as we celebrate CMS Sunday, let’s make a commitment to personally pray for our mission partners, and for CMS as well, who encourage us to use these words:

God of love, whose will it is that everyone should be saved, bless the Church Missionary Society and all who have gone out in its fellowship to preach, to teach and to heal. Guard, guide and use them; raise up more people in your world wide church to pray and to work, to care and to understand, to give to you and to go for you, that your church may grow, you will be done, your kingdom come and your glory be revealed through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Jodie

Flower tributes to terror attack (CREDIT: Matt Brown via Flickr)

It’s hard to imagine the pain of the parents of those Australian girls killed in the attack in London, from the terrible silence when they no longer answered their phones till that final awful moment when the news is confirmed.

There was a father named Jacob who knew of this terrible moment when his children return home with a coat stained with blood belonging to one of their brothers. They told him the news that Joseph, their brother was dead.

However after 20 inconsolable years he discovers that this was a lie and that his son was alive.

As for Joseph the good news for him was that he wasn’t dead, but there were times over the next 20 years that he may have wished he was. He had been sold by his brothers into slavery, falsely accused, thrown into jail and without hope. And yet he trusts in God, and as the story unfolds he rises from a prisoner to a decorated governor leading Egypt though a terrible famine, securing an abundant food supply.

Reunited with his brothers he has this to say

“You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives”

What does it mean that God can take evil and use it for good? It doesn’t mean that God simply re-labels something bad as good. It doesn’t mean that given enough time we can look back on a tragedy in a new light, as if all that is needed is time.

Evil remains evil.

But God’s goodness is so good that even through evil he can work. It’s terribly hard to see that in our experiences, and I can’t imagine the pain of a father losing a child. But God can because this is his story. What humanity meant as evil in the killing of his son, God planned for our good (Acts 2:23). 

The way through the evil in our lives, is not to minimise or redefine it away but to know the good which comes in Jesus – the good that came through evil to bring peace into our world and peace into our hearts.

Simon Chaplin

If I were asked that question my first answer would be this: justification by faith.

And in the year of the 500th anniversary of the Reformation my answer would come all the more readily. But I’d be wrong.

I can still remember first reading Knowing God by the famous theologian J.I Packer where I discovered my mistake.

There he explains the greatest blessing we have as Christians is this: adoption as sons.

“Adoption is the highest privilege that the gospel offers, even higher than justification. Justification is the primary blessing of the Gospel because it meets our primary spiritual need. We all stand condemned under God’s judgment. So we need forgiveness of sins and assurance of a restored relationship with God before we need anything else in the world.

But this is not to say that justification is the highest blessing of the Gospel. Adoption is higher, because of the closer relationship with God that it involves.

Justification is a forensic idea conceiving God as judge. Adoption is a family idea conceived in terms of love and viewing God as father. In adoption God takes us into his family and fellowship and establishes us as his children and heirs. 

To be right with God as judge is a great thing. But to be loved and cared for by God the Father is a greater.” (p187)

Packer immediately goes on to cite Galatians where justification leads to the greater blessing of adoption:

“But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons. And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, “Abba! Father!”  Galatians 4:4-6.

And so next time you are thinking of what the greatest blessing we have as Christians is, remember that we are adopted as children of God and we are able to call him our Father.

Simon Chaplin

It’s hard to imagine, but it’s only a relatively new concept to have a separate demographic called ‘youth.’

It started after the Industrial Revolution had driven young people from their rural villages to assemble in the urban factories.

No longer was the whole family living, working and worshipping together, as they had for thousands of years.

What’s more, the efficiency of the assembly line found its way into the church, with a series of different cradle-to-the-grave ministries that focus on age-specific groups.

This specialisation has many benefits, especially as a way of ensuring that children and youth are taught in a way that recognises that they learn and relate differently than adults do.

It has also been a good way to help reach people who are not yet part of the church, as our focused ministries to seniors, men, women, parents, singles, youth, and children, help ‘like attract like’ in our community.

Yet, maybe we will have a bigger impact on those inside and outside the church if we focus more on intergenerational ministry?

This is the message that Simon and I heard this week at Youthworks’ House Conference, where we heard visiting speaker Timothy Paul-Jones, Professor at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary.

In his conference talk, he challenged us to keep developing a church culture, “in which segmentation and specialisation become exceptional instead of assumed,” and where these ministries and activities, “occur on particular occasions for clearly-defined purposes, but the typical pattern of ministry is multi-generational.”

For, he is convinced that “a generationally, ethnically, and socioeconomically diverse church will exemplify a more powerful witness, a more resilient faith, and a greater reliance on gifts that the Holy Spirit alone can give.”

Let’s keep working together to explore ways we can minister together across the ages, as we seek to build Christ’s church as we await his return.

Jodie