God revealed in us.

So this week our news and social media is crowded with images that assault our senses. Pictures of children lying dead on a beach. My mind wants to rush passed them, not to ignore the issue but to lessen the trauma. I have three children and like most parents we picture our own kids there.

There has been a debate raging on how we define the people that this involves. Are they migrants or are they refugees. I do understand that language is powerful and we have to be careful how we describe groups but whatever name we use to describe them is yet another way of making them less like us. That wasn’t a refugee or a migrant lying on the beach, it was a child, somebody’s son or daughter. Someone’s brother or sister. The people fleeing are first and foremost PEOPLE. 
Like you and I.

They were neighbours, they were school children, shopkeepers, builders, plumbers, entrepreneurs, grandmothers, unemployed. They were Arsenal, Man United, Newcastle, Man City fans. They loved to cook, eat McDonalds, feel the sun on their face, splash about in puddles. 
They were like you and I.

As a follower of Christ I have prayed and sung “God break my heart for what breaks yours.” This breaks God’s heart. Therefore my heart, your heart, our hearts should be broken.

Don’t get lost in the political arguments and counter-arguments. Don’t succumb to the headlines about the very small minority who may be playing the system. These are people who are in need. Jesus was asked the question “Who is my neighbour” He answered with a story of two men who were least like each other yet one went out of his way to meet the other’s need. 
It cost him. 
It inconvenienced him.

If it were us, how would we want to be treated by people. The Bible is clear on how we treat and welcome the stranger. A stranger isn’t someone who is not like us, they are just someone we haven’t met and become friends with yet. That person is made in the image of God, the same as you and I. 
That means we are alike.

Jesus also tells us in Luke 14 that we should invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind in and we ourselves will be blessed because of that. This will inconvenience us and possibly cost us financially as individuals and maybe as a country. But we should be prepared to pay the cost, its what makes us human. 

It’s the God nature being revealed in us.

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

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

Why I am not Glyn Barrett.

A few weeks ago we had Pastor Glyn Barrett with us at NCLC. I have to say that I believe Pastor Glyn is one of the most phenomenal pastors in the UK at the moment. He not only has an amazing teaching capacity but also is a real strategic thinker and church builder. So we had a fantastic weekend with Pastor Glyn and I feel that we grew because of his visit to us.

I feel we grew as a church but I also feel that God challenged me in a very specific way. As Glyn told the story of where they had come from and where God had brought them to, I began to slip into an old way of thinking. I was surprised that it was still there as it hadn't shown it's ugly head for quite some time. I began to compare myself with Pastor Glyn and compare our churches.

WOW! Where did that come from? 

Unfortunately that wasn't the worst of it. I then began to give reasons why I am not Glyn Barrett and why we can't have a similar influence and ministry as a church. In my head at the time they were reasonable. The problem was none of them held any weight or credence. They were not reasons, they were EXCUSES!

I haven't had the training he has had.

He has got more money coming in.

I could go on but the last thing you need to read is my whining in your head.

I hear people making the same excuses when they compare themselves to our church. We all have our insecurities and need to rely on God deal with them. Its not always a painless process. I was reminded of the Voyage of the Dawn Treader where Eustace had become the dragon and Aslan had to rip his skin off to make him human again. An extremely painful process. 

When God chooses to put his finger on parts of our life that we have not fully dealt with, it sometimes involves Him stripping away areas of our life that are so ingrained that it becomes extremely painful to remove them.

Comparison is one of those deeply entrenched ways of thinking in my life and God is not satisfied that it is still there. I am thankful that God's love for me extends to bringing discipline into my life, even if it does come through a Man City supporter. 

The process of becoming more Christ-like involves becoming less like ourselves. I am thankful that God has placed Pastor Glyn Barrett in my life and that I will continue to learn from him but Christ wants me to be like Him not make excuses why I am not Glyn Barrett.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Enemies with faces

This week has been a busy week for us. We have been attending lots of meetings and using time to prepare for the move to our new venue in two weeks. So to be called into a meeting at 24 hours notice with the venue management was not something we were expecting or had scheduled into our already busy diaries.

There was a sense of "What's wrong?" that we were carrying before the meeting. As much as I tried to remain positive, my thinking continually went down the worst case scenario. As we entered the meeting I felt I knew WHAT the problem was, WHY it had come up, and WHO it had come from. Unfortunately I was right on all three counts.

Now the outcome was not all doom and gloom, as we are still in the venue for the three months that they had agreed to, but we are not sure what happens after that. The thing for me is that because I know where the objections are coming from I can quite easily put a "face" on the enemy. This is the easy way and unfortunately what many Christians have done down through history. We have become known more for what and in particular WHO we stand against.

That was immediately the direction my thinking took. It was then the words of the Bible came ringing in my ears "For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms." Eph 6:12. Its easy to fight an enemy with a face but much harder to face an enemy that we can't see, protest or blog against.

As I thought about it, I was reminded that we are in a SPIRITUAL battle and we need to fight with SPIRITUAL tactics and SPIRITUAL weapons. Our strength is in God not legal systems.

The Bible is that which we calibrate our life against so what does it say about this situation?

• Enemies without faces are to be fought with the full armour of GOD including the WORD and FAITH, also with PRAYER and with FASTING.

• Those who we think are enemies with faces are to be loved, which means that we don't actually have any enemies with faces.

So over this next week before the management meet to make a decision on our long term future in the venue

1. we will present a good case as to why we should be there, 
2. extend the hand of friendship and offer to meet with those who object to us being there
3. pray and fast against our real enemy.

We need to be clear on who are our enemies are NOT as much as who the enemy IS.

Will you join with us and commit to praying but also maybe fast for a day or two?

Content, Complacent or Helpless

I was asked to speak at University of Newcastle Christian Union, which I did last night. I was given the passage Phil 4:10-23 to speak on. I began to think through what Paul had to say about contentment. I also tried to think about what contentment is not.
It is not-

1. Complacency- This is defined as being self-sufficient, self-reliant and unconcerned. It's an "I'm alright Jack" attitude. I have everything I need & everything I need I got for myself. It is also an attitude of being unconcerned about what is happening around us.
2. Helplessness- There is nothing I can do for myself or for others. I have nothing so I will just accept whatever happens to me.

We are reminded in Rev 3: 15-17 what God thinks of those who think they have everything. We make him feel like vomiting. When we get to that stage we stop trusting in God.

Paul also reminds in Phil 4: 13 that we are not helpless because through His strength we can do all things.

Contentment is not from external circumstances but an internal assurance of our relationship with Christ and what He has done for us.

Contentment is a capacity to be detached & independent from possessions.

Contentment is learned. Paul said that he had learned contentment. This means "disciplined by experience". Paul probably go it wrong, which was how he learned through experience. That definitely gives me hope.

People are more likely look at our lives when things are going wrong to see if we react differently as Christians than when everything is going well.

Do I show contentment in all circumstances? I don't want to be complacent or helpless.

People with difficulties or difficult people?

I love my job, if it wasn't for all those people...

I don't know about you but as a pastor the greatest joys and the greatest frustrations don't come from accounts, structures, a perfectly flowing Sunday service, or even a message that I have felt just hit the spot. The highest highs and the lowest lows come from my one on one interaction with people.

I love looking around and seeing lives that have been transformed by the love of Christ, often shown through His community. Then I see people who just don't seem to understand what we are all about. They are so focused on having their own personal preferences and problems dealt with. They are different from people with problems, I love them; they seem to realise that there is no one else to turn to and Christ is the answer. No, the one's I am talking about are the problem people. There aren't that many of them but they just seem to suck the life out of you and everyone around them. Everything is a drama.
Some of the major issues in their life are-

1. The church music is too loud, I can't hear myself worship. 
2. I want to park closer to the building.
3. I don't like it when you talk about money.
4. You haven't recognised my gifting.
5. I have no friends.
6. I don't like doing what you have asked me to do. 
7. All my problems are someone else's fault, so I don't have to do anything about them. (Great point from Charlie Sullivan)

I could go on but I am starting to depress myself.

When we actually understand what we are called to be in this world then our focus is taken off ourselves and placed firstly on Christ, then our gaze is always directed to where His heart is. We are called to be servants, making disciples everywhere we go. As a servant my priority is to meet the needs of others; as a disciple maker I am here to replicate Christ in me in others.

We all have personal preferences that we have to get over to be part of a Spirit-breathed community. I need to look at my own life regularly and ask myself what preferences are defining me at the moment. When was the last time you checked the personal preferences you are allowing to control your life?