Check your eyesight

How is your eyesight?

Last week I went for en eye test to make sure that my glasses

were still fit for purpose. In my right eye I have great vision but with my
left eye I could hardly make out the chart on the wall never mind read the
letters on the third row down. But that same eye is great for reading and over
the years my eyes have adjusted to favouring the eye that sees the best in the
given situation.

My problem comes when I inadvertently favour the wrong eye. So

trying to use my left eye to see over a distance leaves me confused and
misreading situations.

I don't know about you, but so often I have done the same with my

perspective on circumstances that I have been in or with people. I have looked
at them with blurred vision. I am reading them through my own bias or have
listened to the negative that other people have said and not seen the best in
the circumstances or the person.

How often have we looked with the wrong eye and drawn our own

conclusions from what the other person has said?

We look and hear what confirms what our perspective already is,

not necessarily what the truth is.

I watched Pastor Brian & Bobbie Houston give a fantastic

positive interview for Australian television this morning (you can watch it
here- http://au.tv.yahoo.com/the-daily-edition/video/watch/21563204/the-rise-of-hillsong/
) One of the things that Pastor Brian said when asked about difficult times was
that it was really hard when they were misrepresented by people.

I guess what I find difficult is when when people look at our

church and misrepresent her. They have believed what they want to believe.

We are not perfect but we are family. Family can drive you up the

wall but we make a commitment to invest in each other and see the best. Why?
Because Christ did the same for us. He saw past our brokenness and rebellion
and saw family. He showed us grace and that then enables us to see each other
through eyes of grace.

Church is not an organisation, she is the bride of Christ, she is

our community, our home, our family. Speak well of her, bring the best out in
her. The Message says this in Eph 5:26 "Christ's love makes the church whole. His words evoke her beauty. Everything he does and says is designed to bring the best out of her..."

My question to all of us who call NCLC home is will we keep our

eyesight clear and see the best, see and speak with grace, the same grace that
Christ continually extends to us? 

I am committed to creating an environment where your life can

flourish. A place where the crowd becomes a community, where the house becomes
a home and where friends become family.

Lessons from Tough Mudder

 I pray you are having a great start to the week. As most of you will know, on Saturday, a team from NCLC competed in the event aptly named "Tough Mudder." It was tough and there was a LOT of mud. We finished, having completed every obstacle.
It made us all confront the fear in our head whether that was of heights, ice baths, dark holes, long runs or electric shocks (you REALLY should have a fear of electric shocks). Between us we managed to raise about £1500 on behalf of the A21 campaign
against human trafficking.

One of the things that was most evident throughout the event was teamwork. We were in it to complete it. The only way that we wanted to complete it was together. We all needed encouragement at different points of the course. We contended FOR each other not WITH each other in the tough times.
We all made a decision that we start, run and complete the course together.

The Bible in Psalm 84 says:
Blessed are those who dwell in your house;
they are ever praising you.
Selah
Blessed are those whose strength is in you,
who have set their hearts on pilgrimage.
As they pass through the Valley of Baca,
they make it a place of springs;
the autumn rains also cover it with pools.
They go from strength to strength,
till each appears before God in Zion.

We have committed to the journey together as a community. We go through the tough times together. I want as many of us to start, run and complete this journey together. We are encouraged in Hebrews not to step away from meeting together.
The amount of times I talk about leaning into community when times get tough, yet it still breaks my heart to see one or two people step away using weak excuses or some even great sounding reasons but it still comes down to a decision to step out of what God has placed you in.

There is strength in our community.
There is companionship in our community.
There is accountability in our community.
There is discipleship in our community.
There is growth in our community.
There is healing in our community.
There is value placed in our community.
God is found in our community.

Those that are planted in the house of The Lord will flourish (Psalm 92).

I am committed to building a church where lives will flourish.
I have no plan B.

Flourishing is not just about things going well. It is about staying the course when things get tough. It is about being able to withstand the harsher seasons yet still bear fruit.

Let's contend FOR each other in tough times, celebrate WITH each other when times are great and stand ALONGSIDE each other to complete the journey and win the prize. A prize which is much more than a cool T-shirt, a not so cool orange headband and a pint of cider.


Yours
Pastor Jon Cook

The day of reckoning has arrived. Tough Mudder TM 10

So the morning of the event is here. The team are turning up in half an hour.

Where is my commitment?

The past six months have been pretty tough in many ways. This blog is not a "woe is me" moan but I do want to make a few points about what keeps me going. I have probably come closer to giving up and walking away from what I know God has called me to do than ever before. And as I write that last sentence there is a large clue as to why I keep going.

The Bible is not only the story of God's interaction and intention for mankind but it also gives great principles for our lives. Right the way through the narrative of God's word is a characteristic that is held in high honour but often given too little credence in our fast paced, easy-come easy-go world. That characteristic or virtue is commitment. The Bible will use the terms perseverance or faithfulness in similar contexts.

I look around and see that commitment is a virtue that is often found lacking. It is a virtue I have found lacking in my own life at times. How many times have I committed to losing weight and getting fitter, starting a project that lies unfinished, or even promising to take the kids somewhere and being too busy or too tired to fulfil my promise.

I don't know about you but a commitment is easy to give at the beginning or when things are going our way. Its when the going gets tough that commitment and perseverance are truly tested and seen. We are told that one of the outworkings of love is that it ALWAYS perseveres (1 Cor 13:7). We know that perseverance actually grows character in our lives (Romans 5:3-4).

Perseverance is actually hardest when we have a choice. If I am halfway home on my bike and the rain has soaked me to the skin, everything about me wants to quit but I know that I have no choice, I have to go on. Its much harder if its raining outside and I have committed myself to riding to work to get fit and save money but my car is sat in the driveway taunting me with how warm and cosy the drive will be compared to riding my bike.

What do we do when things don't go our way? Do we hold to our commitments and persevere in them or walk away?

Making a commitment means

• I can't just walk away from something when it is not going well.
• Its not so much about what I commit to but about it being part of my character.
• That if I persevere in my commitments I am becoming more like Christ (2 Thess 3:5)
• That I am walking in love.
• If I fulfil them and they are in the will of God then I will receive what He has promised (Heb 10:36)

I have seen too many people not persevere in their commitments when things are not to their liking. I don't want to run away. Just because I feel like it, it doesn't mean that I will. Coming close is actually a miss. Coming close to quitting, in the words of Pastor Matthew Barnett is a good thing because it means we have something to quit from. Coming close to quitting is actually completely persevering in our commitments. So be encouraged if you have come close to quitting but haven't, you are on the right road.

So, to finish, what keeps me going in my role as the senior leader in NCLC?

1. I fully believe God called me to start, grow and build this church.
2. Just because things aren't as I want them to be right now, I know they are not what they were but are closer to what they could be.
3. I have committed myself to seeing the lost become found and the found become disciples. Lives growing in God.
4. God has given me so much grace that I have to pass that through to other people.
5. I don't want to be known as a quitter.
6. I fully believe God called me to start, grow and build this church.

I have a choice, I can walk away but I will keeping going. You have a choice, what will yours be?

Hope this helps.


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Unfriendly fire

One of the things that the internet has had the misfortune to perpetuate is the whole area of what is called Online Discernment Ministries. These are Christians who feel it is their duty to pretty much pull everything to pieces that doesn't fit with their own personal views on scripture.
I have been loathe to write this blog for some time as the last thing I want to do is fall into their way of online sniping.
I was going to call the blog "Friendly fire" but then found out that it is defined as "... inadvertent firing towards one's own friendly forces while attempting to engage enemy forces..." What I am talking about is neither inadvertent or an attempt to engage enemy forces. This is an outright attack on a fellow follower of Christ. The excuses given are often that people are in error & the Bible calls us to point out heresy.
A favourite misquoted scripture is Acts 17:11
11 Now the Bereans were of more noble character than the Thessalonians, for they received the message with great eagerness and examined the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true.

I see nothing noble about the often vicious diatribe that is written and spoken. There is also no eagerness to see if the message is true, rather a cruel delight in quoting people out of context and trying to find where they can point out the smallest of errors.

Yes I do believe that we need to search the scriptures to check if what is being spoken or written is sound Biblical doctrine. As a pastor I want to teach people to think, not just what to think. I want to create forums where people can ask questions and explore scripture together. Where we can help each other move forward in our relationship with God and understanding of His word. I don't see that happening with the proliferation of the modern day witch hunters.

The sad thing is, like blood-crazed dogs, they often turn on each other. Somewhere in the lust for heresy hunting, the Great Commission has been lost. People have turned from playground bullying to intellectual & spiritual bullying. A recent example I heard was of a street "preacher" bullying a young teenager because of the church he goes to????

This is not bringing people back to the cross, it is not making disciples or being salt & light to a dying world.
No wonder the world laughs at us. They can't hear the gospel because of the sound of unfriendly fire.
A Christian should be someone who reminds others of the personhood of Jesus Christ. Nothing in this reminds me or points people in my world to Jesus.
Ok rant over. What are your thoughts?



- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad