From the Minister’s Study

Harvest of Gratitude
A legend is told about a person who discovered the barn where Satan kept his seeds ready to be sown in human hearts. On examining the different types of sees, he found the seeds of discouragement were more numerous than others. He also learned that those seeds could be made to grow almost anywhere. When he questioned Satan about them, Satan reluctantly admitted that there was one place in which he could never get the seeds to thrive. "And where is that?" asked the person. Satan replied sadly, "In the heart of a grateful person"!

This is the time of the year when harvesting takes place for those who have planted seeds in their land (farms, allotments or back gardens). I recall three years ago in York, at the back of the manse, which I had converted into a vegetable garden, when by the second week of July, the early varieties of cauliflowers, cabbage, carrots and potatoes were ready for harvesting, something I greatly miss in my new manse. It is the time of the year when people express gratitude to God for His kindness and goodness in providing all we need in our lives with special focus on land produce. the season is marked by various Harvest Festivals when people offer some of their land produce through the Church in thanksgiving. This should not be a hollow tradition, for the truth is that we all owe to God a harvest of gratitude for His immeasurable mercies to each one of us. This truth is expressed in the following story. A man was watching his eighty-year-old neighbour planting a small peach tree. He inquired of him as follows: "You don’t expect to eat peaches from that tree, do you?" The old man rested on his spade, and said, "No, at my age I know I won’t. But all my life I have enjoyed peaches - never from a tree I planted myself. I am just trying to pay the other fellows who planted the trees for me". The old man could not have given a truer reply. There is always something to thank God for.

But the greatest expression of gratitude to God is to offer Him our lives. The Prophet Samuel from the Old Testament said "Which does the Lord prefer: obedience or offerings and sacrifices? It is better to obey Him than to sacrifice the best sheep to Him"(1 Samuel 15:22). the apostle Paul seems to echo this truth when he exhorts us with these words: "So then, my brothers, because of God’s great mercy to us, I appeal to you: offer yourselves as a living sacrifice to God, dedicated to His service and pleasing to Him" (Romans 12:1). May I exhort each one of us to give the best (agricultural produce, plants or animals or even money) to God in appreciation and response to His generous mercies in our lives during this harvest time, but let us bear in mind, the best offering to God is our lives. For those who may feel that we have nothing to be thankful for, let us take counsel from the words of Marty Radcliffe who once said: "If you haven’t all the things you want, be grateful for all you don’t have that you don’t want!"

I invite you all to support the various Harvest Festivals in our Circuit.

Sincerely, Daniel

P.S. Talking of gratitude, I wish to thank all of you for your warm welcome to the Mwailu clan: we are feeling a deep sense of love and welcome for which we are very grateful. Thank you for all your welcome cards, so far received and still coming. Margaret and I wish to say a VERY BIG THANK YOU for your warmth and friendship so far! I am tempted to say the red rose seems to have the upper hand from the white rose when it comes to warmth, but is early days yet!!

Good-bye Grumbling
Do you tell yourself that you are not a grumbler? That you cope calmly in all situations, and have a permanently smiling face? This is what Merlin Carothers says in his book, Power in Praise:

"For years, I had proudly told myself that I rarely grumbled, that is, I rarely grumbled out loud. I had cultivated and maintained a smiling façade, but I was a habitual grumbler inside. Of course, as long as I didn’t I think I was guilty of grumbling, I never improved.

I thought that my kinds of complaints were legitimate. I grumbled when I didn’t get enough sleep and had to get out of bed in the morning without feeling rested. I grumbled under my breath if the bathroom was messed up by another member of the family; and I grumbled when things went wrong at the office, and when people didn’t do what I expected of them. I grumbled over bills, and when my car wouldn’t start, or when I hit a red light on my way to anywhere. I grumbled when I had to work late at the office and I didn’t go to bed on time; and the next morning I started all over again.

When finally the Holy Spirit began to show me what the Bible had to say about thanking God in everything, I began to realise that I’d been doing the opposite for years and never thought a thing about it.

The first step toward rehabilitation was to admit to myself that I was a habitual grumbler.

I believe that the most effective way to deal with our sins is to be specific about them. We admit them, confess them, ask God’s forgiveness, and make a clear-cut decision not to fall into that sin again. We then ask God to remove the sin from us and to give us increased faith and strength to withstand the temptation. At last, we thank Him for it and proceed in faith, knowing that it has been done.

Once we make an agreement with God not to grumble, and promise instead to thank Him for every little thing that used to make us grumble, we can expect Him to go to work.

We can’t change ourselves from unbelieving grumblers to thankful, cheerful believers. God has to do the changing. We make the decision to stop grumbling and start thanking and praising God, but it is God’s power that works the transformation. Our job is to keep our eyes on Jesus and thank God for what He is able to do.

In practice, we will find that God will bring into our lives the very kinds of circumstances that used to trigger our grumbling. But when we see them coming, we can thank and praise God, because He’s using those very incidents to bring about the change in us. Before, they made us stumble; now they will show us God’s strength. They will merely serve to increase our faith.

Accepting every little thing that happens - with joy and thanksgiving - will release the power of God in and through us. But don’t look for the feeling as a sign. Our praise and thanksgiving must be based on faith in God’s word, not on our feelings."

Jesus in Ibiza, 2000
Breaking hard ground with the Gospel in the Ibiza Club culture

On 2nd–16th September 2000 Barry Woodward’s Proclaim Trust led a team of ten people on an mission to clubbers who flock to the night-clubs on the island of Ibiza. The mission was hosted by the English-speaking Anglican Church, associated with the Intercontinental Church Society, which has wanted to reach the club scene with the Gospel for some time.

The vision for this mission goes right back to 1998, when Barry was studying at Cliff Bible College. ‘God spoke to me very clearly over the period of a month’, says Barry. ‘He said he was sending me back to Egypt . . . And my Egypt was the drugs and dance-music culture I lived in before I became a Christian. But where could I be most effective? The place where the highest concentration of people could be reached in a short space of time was Ibiza. But how you do go about reaching the club culture?’

The mission used dance music, break-dancers, singers, dancers and personal witness to build a bridge between the club culture and the church. Early each evening, Barry did a live DJ set on the streets of West End San Antonio. The clubbers’ attention was drawn by Hard House and Trance music and spectacular break-dancing. A singer sang live worship over the dance music and listeners were told who the mission team were and Who they were there to represent. While all this was going on, the team members were giving out specially designed Gospel flyers and sharing the message of the Gospel. Huge crowds were attracted.

On the first night, a promoter from the pre-club bar Savannah’s situated on the famous Sunset Strip heard the music being played. He asked Barry to play in Savannah’s on Friday night. The opportunity was grasped with both hands, and while Barry played the music the team were able to share their Christian faith with the clubbers.

Barry was also invited to play a live set in Sargent Pepper’s, San Antonio Bay. Again, this was a great opportunity for the team to witness. Some good conversations about Jesus Christ were had with the manager, the doorman, and the resident DJ, and with the young people in the bar, some of whom had sex and drug problems.

Other evenings were spent in the Mirage bar. The DJ and dancers with live vocals made a great focal point for the team to start conversations about Christianity. There were many divine appointments during the time spent in the Mirage bar.

On the second Sunday the team used the same methods to hold a beach service. Again, this aroused a lot of interest and the Gospel was preached over the top of live dance music.

Late on Monday evening the team went to witness outside Manumission at Privilege, the biggest night-club in the world, and the most immoral on the island. They use live sex shows with animals to draw custom. Some of the team spent time outside blending in with the crowd and sharing the Gospel message in a non-directive way. Two of the team members had a long and meaningful conversation with a Manumission doorman and left him a John’s Gospel to read. Others were able to talk with a worker from Extravaganza record, while the rest went out putting Gospel flyers under the windscreen wipers of every car in the massive car park.

Tuesday nights in Ibiza was at God’s Kitchen at Amnesia, another totally immoral club. This year the team heard that they were even using a crucifix in their act! Again the team worked till late, sharing the Gospel with the clubbers outside.

Early one evening, a team member brought back a young woman who had been beaten up by her boyfriend. She was very drunk and on drugs, and very vulnerable. Her boyfriend had been arrested; she didn’t have a key to her hotel and she couldn’t remember where she was staying. Some of the girls on the team stayed with her and took her for a walk, eventually finding her hotel and putting her safely to bed. After she sobered up they were able to share testimonies and the Gospel with her.

The response to the team was overwhelming. By the end of the mission, wherever they went, people knew that there were Christians about. One young man outside Manumission came up to them and said: ‘Are you them Christians with a DJ?’ While the girls were leading the young lady safely to her bed, a big Scottish guy asked if they were with ‘that group of Christians’. The name ‘Christian’ was everywhere.

During one of the outreaches in the West End, a young man staying in the apartments above heard the music and came running down. The team members started to share with him what it was all about, and had the fantastic response, ‘Tell me where I can find a church like that and I’ll join it’! In fact, we heard this more than once.

Barry Johnson, the break-dancer of the team, was able to build up a relationship with Terry from Hull, another ‘breaker’ who later made a commitment to Jesus.

The team felt that they had achieved their aim: they did reach the clubbers of the island with the Gospel. Because most people go to Ibiza for a week, the team was able to reach two lots of holiday-makers during their two-week mission, as well as the people working on the island. Some of the team members came away with an enhanced vision for the need to reach the club culture. The mission gave vision to the Spanish-speaking church in Ibiza, which has been looking for a way to reach out to clubbers. And this is just the beginning: the English-speaking Anglican Church in Ibiza has invited the Proclaim Trust to do two more missions in July and September next year. And, God willing, this will develop and continue into the distant future.

So the mission was a success. But it also raised many questions about the church in the 21st century. How do we build a church that caters for this type of people group? How do we change the out-dated preconceived ideas many of them have of the church? Are we willing to change the way we "do church" to make it more acceptable to the youth of today?

(For further information, contact Barry Woodward, Proclaim Trust, Champness Hall, Drake Street, Rochdale: 01706 638803 or 07867 533247)

Did You Know?
The Bible was not written as biography, so it does not contain ‘pen portraits’ of anyone. Nevertheless, we possess many letters written by people within the early Church, and these contain many snippets which help us picture the apostles in our mind’s eye:

A very old tradition says that St Mark’s nickname was ‘Short Finger’. Although the reason is not completely clear, a tradition had arisen by the fourth century that the tips of Mark’s fingers were sliced off during the brawl which followed when Jesus was arrested in Gethsemane (e.g. see Mark 14:43–51). Also, many think the ‘certain young man’ who ran away in Mk. 14:15 was Mark himself.

We know from the Bible that St Paul was not a good speaker, and was unimpressive to look at (2 Corinthians 10:10): this latter statement probably means that he was physically quite short. The early Church historian Eusebius, writing in about 130 ad, records the witness of an earlier Christian who actually met Paul, and noted how the Apostle had a single, continuous eyebrow running across his forehead.

Of the Gospel writers, Luke ‘the Beloved Physician’ is the most elegant in his prose and most able to capture the personality of his subjects. Tradition suggests that Luke was also a portrait painter in his spare time. In fact, until the third century the Church in Jerusalem boasted that it possessed a portrait of the Virgin Mary painted by Luke.

The Revolution of Love
Many years ago, when the gifts of the Holy Sprit were not talked about as freely as they are now, a friend came to me with stories of wonderful experiences some people had had in the Holy Spirit. I have to admit that I was bit sceptical. I asked her, ‘When the Holy Spirit works in such a mighty way, shouldn’t the people who have had such experiences afterwards be filled with love and joy and peace?

Now I think my friend knew perfectly well that not all the people who had had these 'experiences ‘in the Spirit’ showed the evidence of a ‘revolution of love’ in their lives, and that some Christians who did show this evidence had never had this sort of experience. So she said to me, ‘Sometimes the Holy Spirit comes just to give us joy and a wonderful experience of blessing.’ I said to her, ‘You mean that sometimes the Holy Spirit comes apart from his holiness?’ And she had no answer to that.

I strongly believe that all Christians should seek to be filled with the Holy Spirit. But the Holy Spirit does not come apart from his holiness. The emphasis should not be on ‘Spirit’ but on ‘Holy’ - he cannot divide up his gifts and his character. It is therefore possible to measure people’s true depth of experience with the Spirit (although it would be more correct to say the Spirit’s experience with people) by the way they live day by day.

You cannot separate the word ‘believe’ in its biblical context from the word ‘love’. Don’t even try! How many in our churches - leaders in some of them - speak to a congregation from the word of God, but in their homes know nothing more about loving their wives that the man next door who cannot stand his! And continue to think they are spiritual men with just a ‘besetting sin’ of not being able to really love their wives. I find this absolutely heart-breaking! To me it is completely incompatible to say that you are a spiritual person and then not be able to get on with your family or even your neighbour!

If your ‘besetting sin’ is that you cannot love people, you are in serious trouble. I do not mean to say that it will always be easy to love people, or that you will not have battles about it. In fact, you will find that the devil will fight you tooth and nail in this area, sometimes twenty-four hours a day. But this should not discourage you, for the word of God clearly teaches that we are to love one another.

We cannot have fellowship with God without having fellowship with our brothers and sisters in Christ. We cannot love God without first loving our fellow-Christians. Look at 1 John 4:20:

The popular idea today seems to be that if we love God enough, then we will eventually love our brothers and sisters in Christ. But that is not what the verse says. It states clearly that if there is any brother or any sister who we do not love, actively, operationally, then our relationship with God is seriously wrong.

I am convinced that many of our prayers do not get any higher than the ceiling because of our lack of love and hardness of heart. Fantastic things are asked of God ‘Lord, we claim this country for you. . . ’, ‘Lord, we trust you to bring a hundred new people to the meeting tonight’, yet all the time there are other Christians in the same prayer meeting whom we cannot stand. Oh, not that we don’t love them . . . it’s just that we would rather not sit next to them. Of course we don’t hate them - it is just that a ‘conflict of personalities’! No: it is hypocrisy in the sight of God. God never said in the Bible, ‘Love your brother if he is a keen Christian, well-dressed, a good evangelist . . . and if he gets on with you’. In fact, Jesus told us in the Sermon on the Mount that real love only begins when we love our enemies.

Jesus said, ‘All men will know that you are my disciples if you love one another’. Not if you know all about the Bible and are fired with great enthusiasm. No! They will know it if you love one another. this is the greatest challenge in the word of God - to love people as Christ loved them, to love them as we love ourselves, to care for people as we care for ourselves. Adapted from The Revolution of Love by George Verwer

Whose Hallowe’en?
Hallowe’en occurs at the end of this month (on 31 October). The name is an extremely old one and derives from ‘All Hallows’ Eve’, meaning the day before All Saints Day (1 November) when we remember the saints. ‘Hallow’ here is an old Saxon word for Holy, which incidentally, is why we say ‘Hallowed be your name’ in the Lord’s prayer.

But earlier still, in pre-Christian days, 31 October was called Walpurgis Night, and was thought to be the one night in the year when witches and demons were allowed to roam free. In consequence, it was a time of great fear and it was very dangerous to be out after dark on Walpurgis Night.
It is perhaps because of these ancient demonic associations that the Christian Church also called 31 October ‘All Souls' Day’. In the minds of medieval (pre-Reformation) people, there was a clear distinction between ‘The Saints’ and ‘ordinary’ people who had died in the faith. All Souls’ Day celebrated these ordinary Christians while All Saints’ Day was dedicated to the ‘Super Christians’, the saints. By calling 31 October ‘All Souls’ Day’, the Church sought to give a Christian ‘flavour’ to a day that was otherwise given over (in people’s minds) to the devil.

But to most people today - particularly the young - Hallowe’en now means a celebration of witches and other wicked spirits. Most recently, Hallowe'en has become associated with the American practice of Trick or Treat; and there is no doubt that Trick or Treat celebrates the devil rather than the people of God.

So during this coming Hallowe’en, let’s restore the balance: we have a choice of whether to celebrate the devil or celebrate the people of God - those still alive, and those who have gone before us.

Accordingly, try to set aside some time to pray during Hallowe’en this year: remember to thank God for the example of his Saints who have helped us on our own Christian walk - both ‘super’ Christians but also the ordinary saints, like us.

But it is also important that we should pray for those who do not yet know Jesus. A great many people think of Halloween as a bit of a laugh, and go to parties acting as witches, etc. It is a time when many people play with Ouija boards and associate themselves with other works of the devil. These people do not believe that the power of evil is real and dangerous, which is how so many people are tricked by the devil into becoming interested in the occult and other works of darkness.

So we must pray on 31 October that God will thwart the work of the devil. That way, the day of Halloween will truly be taken back by the people of God.

October Book Review.

Rees Howells: Intercessor, Norman Grubb, Lutterworth Press, 1952
f you only read one book between now and Christmas, this is the one to choose! It is a powerful and moving biography of Rees Howells, who founded the Bible College of Wales.

Rees was born in 1879 into a poor Welsh mining family. Despite their material poverty, they were rich in spiritual matters, with many family members being great saints. Young Rees was not particularly devout, and soon left the country in the early years of the twentieth century in order to make a fortune in America. Instead of money, he found the Lord there through revival meetings, and the aid of a cousin who had emigrated previously.

Rees returned to his roots, and came face to face with the stirring of the Holy Spirit through the revival in his beloved Wales. He soon became a stalwart of a ‘Gospel Tent’ type of ministry. He soon noticed that many - if not most - of his prayers were never answered. ‘Surely’ he reasoned, ‘If Jesus could promise that "If you ask anything in my name, you shall have it" (John 15:7), then my prayers mean that I am not asking in his name? What am I doing wrong?’

The turning point in Rees Howells’ life came when he read John 15:7 in the context of the rest of John 15. In this chapter, Jesus compared himself to a vine, with us and the disciples as the branches. Jesus explained how the only way to maintain a spiritual life is to ‘abide’ in Jesus, the vine. Rees realised at once that the powerlessness of his prayers was a direct consequence of his failure to abide in Jesus. The rest of his life was a glorious and powerful example of how God’s miracles can occur in direct response to a life wholly committed to the Lord.

One simple example of the principle of ‘abiding’ illustrates the point: Rees Howells realised that despite praying for the healing of the sick, he was not himself willing to associate with the sick for fear of catching dread diseases such as consumption. Jesus, by contrast, was willing to touch and even dine with ‘the unclean’. In consequence, Rees found courage to pray for a consumptive friend and lived with him for a few months. The friends was healed at a time when the doctors thought the invalid had only a few weeks to live.

At times, the book almost becomes a catalogue of the adventures in faith of Rees and his friends. Their ‘living in faith’ culminated in starting the Bible College of Wales, near Swansea. They bought a beautiful estate overlooking Swansea Bay, with a large manor house and several acres of land on which student accommodation could be built. At the time Rees signed the purchasing contract, the estate cost about £1 million in today’s money; and Rees had only three shillings to his name! Nevertheless, all the money was found in miraculous ways.

The Lord next instructed him to buy a series of costly estates which were then joined to the first to make a full-scale college with all the facilities needed.

The Second World War was looming by this time. As an intercessor, Rees soon realised that they were not fighting mere ‘flesh and blood’: Hitler’s regime was demonically inspired. It is common knowledge that Hitler made a very few major strategic mistakes - one example being the invasion of Russia. Each of these mistakes Hitler made coincided with a periods of intense prayer and intercession within the Bible College, led by Rees. He and other intercessors were asking for God to release His power and alter the course of human history - and he did!

These are just a few of the gems in this wonderful book. It encourages, entertains, and spurs us to re-assess the extent of our own faith: how far do we believe the promises in Scripture? Do we expect miracles to occur? Do we live in faith, or simply say we have a faith? This book is vital reading for anyone who wants to tackle such questions.

Animals in the Bible
1. Which prophet had an unfortunate experience of fish?

2. Which Old Testament hero became a sailor in his old age, and was a pigeon fancier?

3. Which strongman discovered that some wild beasts could be tasty?

4. Which apostle fell foul of a fowl, late one night?

5. Who rode a donkey to popular applause?

Animals in the Bible: Answers
1. The prophet Jonah was swallowed by a whale (see the book of Jonah, where the whale is actually described as ‘a giant fish’).

2. When Noah wanted to know if the waters of the flood were flowing away, he released doves (i.e. grey pigeons), and then looked out for their return as a sign that they had found dry land (see Genesis 6–8).

3. Samson killed a Lion with his bare hands (see Judges 14:5). He was walking past its body a few days later and found that bees had made a nest in the dead animal’s body - so he helped himself to the honey! (see Judges 14:8,9).

4. While Jesus was being questioned just before his death, Peter denied three times that he knew him. Beforehand, Jesus had predicted that Peter would deny him, "Three times before the cock crows" (see Mark 14:66–72).

5. Jesus rode a donkey through the streets of Jerusalem on the first Palm Sunday (see Luke 19:28–44). Some translations of the Bible call the donkey a ‘colt’.

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