Witnesses

Andrew Bale's blog on soulwinning caught my eye because it resonated with what I was trying to share in my sermon on Sunday based on Acts 1:8.

The promise Jesus gave to the apostles was that when the Holy Spirit came on them they would recieve power. Jesus went on to say what the promise of power was for. It was to be his witnesses.

Now, I think that there are a lot of people in churches who are actually a little disappointed with what Jesus said. In their honest moments some people hear this promise and wish that they could disconnect the promise of power from witnessing.

They hoped that the power would be given for some other reason than promoting and defending Jesus and his gospel.
They are comfortable with the idea of power to overcome their bad habits which they can see damages themselves and others. They are keen on the idea of power to heal people who are sick. Who doesn't want power to solve political problems and address social injustice in the world? Power to turn worship into an exciting spiritual experience is the desire of anyone who has had to sit through a mind and bottom numbing Sunday morning service.

But when Jesus was actually making the promise about power, the only promise he made was that we would be his witnesses. This is true in Matthew 28 when authority/power is given to go and make disciples. Mark 16 speaks of powerful signs following those who believe on the power of Christ's name but only after he has instructed the disciples to go into all the world and preach the good news. Luke ends his gospel with the prophecy that the good news will be preached in all nations. In other words the only thing that the Spirit’s power seems to be be given for is to testify to the good news about Jesus Christ.

Now in actual fact the coming of the Holy Spirit’s power does often see people overcome their sinful habits, healing takes place, people are stirred to act against injustice and do good in the world. But when they do they point to the fact that they are only possible because of Jesus life, death, resurrection and ascension. They are to point men and women to the Saviour.

Some want the results of the power, the warmth the life and the heat but the mention of the gospel of Christ makes them nervous because whilst stories of lives turned around are news, whilst alternative methods of healing are popular, whilst campaigning against injustice raises your street cred and having supernatural spiritual experiences are intriguing in our post modern world, the cross of Christ is not politically correct and is still the offence it always was.

However to those who have received salvation the promise of power to witness is music to their ears. More than anything they want to share the good news that there is a Saviour. I believe if you are truly born again then you would want to share the gospel. If we haven’t that desire then we must forget celebrating Pentecost and get back to Good Friday and realise again how lost the world is and how lost we are without the work of Christ on the cross.


God bless

Carol

Covenants, officers and prayers

Andrew Clark writes on his blog about it being two years since he signed his officer covenant and I realised as I read it that it is 24 years today since Alan and I signed ours.

I was called to be a Salvation Army officer at the age of 11 as I witnessed the Commissioning of the Victorious Session. God whispered to me that one day I would stand on that same platform as an officer. He kept his word and a couple of weeks before my 22nd birthday I was commissioned.

It has been an adventure, sometimes frustrating but never boring. It has been fulfilling, demanding, heartbreaking and wonderful. I continue to be amazed that God has given me such a privilege. God has been faithful in helping us to keep our covenant with him.

If there is one thing that causes my hackles to rise it is officers moaning about their lot, what the Army won't let them do and I cannot for the life of me understand what this retiring when you have done 25 years is all about. But then when I get all self-righteous and pompous the Holy Spirit always brings me to task. He reminds me that I have been very fortunate that the Army has allowed me to follow the dream of planting new congregations, that I have been blessed with excellent support networks and that my husband and I can work together well. Others have had to face frustrations and difficulties I can only imagine.

About 12 years ago I was in the middle of a rant to God about officers who had left the work, for what in my opinion were not good enough reasons. He listened until I had finished and then said, very clearly, "And where were you? When this officer's marriage was in trouble where were you? Were you praying for them? When that officer couldn't take any more isolation and the hardness of his people, where were you? When another fell into error or sin, where were you? Were you sitting in judgment or on your knees praying?"

The episode humbled me and shocked me into action. I knew that from then on Alan and I had a commission from God to pray regularly and in particular for our session. We have managed to trace most of them and pray for them as often as we can. This is not because we are particularly noble but simply becasue the Holy Spirit just doesn't let us off the hook with this and we have found that the blessing has far outweighed the committment. So often the people we sought to support have ministered to us and helped to keep us on the right track.

I've rambled on but I suppose I'm just hoping that maybe others might take up the challenge to pray.

God bless

Carol

Officership

I have been sorting through old Officer magazines lately and this little snippet jumped out at me today from an article entitled "Ten things I learned about officership" by Allen Satterlee (USA SOuthern Territory)

4. The Salvation Army has made only one promise to me

When cadets are commissioned you will not hear it said, "You will be a territorial commander....divisinal youth secretary....training college officer." The only promise the Army makes an officer is that he or she will have the opportunity to serve. Despite having some ideas of what I should or should not do, I have to remind myself that no promises were ever made except that I would be allowed to serve. The Army has kept its promise.

24 years since commissioning I too remain humbled by the privilege and thankful for the oppporutnity I have been given to serve.

God bless

Carol

Prison Update

Thank you to everyone who has prayed for Scott and the lads in prison in Northallerton.

Due to the enthusiasm shown at our groups over the last few weeks and numerous significant encounters with individuals we planned that this morning we would give opportunity for the lads to take a step of faith and act on what we have been talking about.

On other fronts here things have been difficult and as you might expect in the battle for souls everything on the planet from lack of radios to sleepy inmates seemed to conspire against this morning's group happening. However we managed to collect 6 lads. Scott who some of you have prayed for has had some disappointments concerning transfer and a job so is a bit down. The atmosphere was really flat and getting answers to any questions like getting blood out of a stone.

Yet I just felt the Holy Spirit prompting me to just keep going and afterwards Becky my fellow chaplain said afterwards she felt the same. So despite the distractions and the negativity we did have our response time. We read scripture, invited the lads to give their burdens to Jesus, which they all did symbolically by writing them down and putting the papers in a dustbin, and we prayed for the Holy Spirit to work among us. Each lad except one allowed us to pray for them individually in front of the others.

Does this mean they all got saved today? No, I don't think it does but there was not one of them that didn't sense that there was a powerful presence in the chapel and they are now more open than ever to want God wants to do in their lives. They have all returned to their cells with the Alpha booklet "Why Jesus" and a copy of the sinners prayer. Please continue to pray for Holy Spirit conviction and protection from the evil one.

Still believing

Carol

Discovery


I was sorting through some old Officer magazines and found the following piece of writing that appeared originally in the War Cry March 2004, Hong Kong Command. Author unknown.

"The CHURCH has many organisers, but few agonisers
Many who pay, but few who pray; Many resters but few wrestlers;
Many who are enterprising but few who are interceding.
People who are not praying are playing.

Two prerequisites of dynamic Christian living are vision and passion and both of these are generated in the prayer closet. The ministry of preaching is open to a few. The ministry of praying is open to every child of God.

Don't mistake action for unction, commotion for creation and rattles for revivals.

The secret of praying is praying in secret.
A worldly Christian will stop praying and a praying Christian will stop worldliness.

When we pray, God listens to our heartbeat. Hannah's lips moved but her voice was not heard (1 Samuel:12,13) When we pray in the Spirit, there are groanings which cannot be uttered (Romans 8:26)

Tithes may build a church, but tears will give it life. That is the difference between the modern Church and the early Church.
Our emphasis is on paying, theirs was on praying. When we have paid, the place is taken. When they prayed the place was shaken (Acts 4:31)

In the matter of effective praying, never have so many left so much to so few. Brothers and sisters in Christ let us pray."

Normal Christianity

On Saturday I attended the Sound the Trumpet prayer event at the NEC in Birmingham.
There were a lot of good things in the day and what I am about to say is not really about the event because the idea being put forward is one that is constantly reworked in one form or another in various contexts.

During the afternoon session reference was made to an initiative being launched in 2008, which seeks to mobilise churches across the UK to engage in acts of kindness to neighbours, to get out on the streets and to get involved and do something in our communities in the way of witness and service. The speakers were passionate and sincere but I was overwhelmed with a sense of sadness.

Why?

Because what they were suggesting should be a special campaign is surely what should be normal everyday Christianity. On a DVD that I received on the day, mention was made of a wonderful move of God that took place in one of the large cities in the UK when the kind of thing they were suggesting was done there. This move of God was that young people drafted into an area spent a whole ten days serving the community. I am not doubting that what they did had an impact but I was reminded of some words of Catherine Booth when talking about missionary work in 1890,

"I can remember a sort of inward pity for what I thought then the small expectation of the church.....I can remember how disappointed I felt at the comparatively small results which seem to give satisfaction."

Isn't serving our community what every Christian should do normally if they have the Spirit of God in them every day, in every town and city?

Watchman Nee wrote a whole book on the subject. He says, "What is the normal Christian life? It is something very different from the life of the average Christian.......... The apostle Paul gives us his own definition of the Christian life in Galatians 2:20 "It is no longer I, but Christ." Here he is not stating something special or peculiar- a high level of Christianity. He is, we believe, presenting God's normal for a Christian, which can be summarized in the words, "I live no longer, but Christ live his life in me."

My prayer tonight is, "O God make me a normal Christian not an average one."

God bless

Carol

Questions

I have had a real opportnity to share the gospel this week. My previous blog was about the prison, where we are seeking to reach 18-21 year old male offenders. Following prison I was invited along with some other ministers to the CU at the High School, our audience was 14-16 year old students. Earlier this week I was leading an Alpha course with five senior citizens.

Guess what. I was asked the same kind of questions about God, life and faith in each group. Same hunger, same answers, same Jesus, same gospel.

Carol

Is God good or what?

I've had a lot of discussions with various people this week about mission, post modernism, cultural relevance, Roots and the state of the Salvation Army but today I'm just bursting to share how good God is.

On the Wednesday before Roots I decided to go an talk to Scott in his prison cell. He was very depressed and had threatened self-harm so was on a special watch. He had no hope and couldn't imagine how he was going to carry on. You may remember me blogging about this and that the prison's answer to his sleepless nights and episodes of complete despair were to give him large jigsaws to complete to take mind off things. We talked and I told him that the only real answer was to give his burdens to Jesus. He wanted to do this but couldn't believe that all this God stuff was real. However he let me pray for him and I asked the Lord to give him rest.

Being only part-time I had to wait to hear how he was going on but our cell group have been praying for him and maybe a few people who read my original blog. On Monday I was in Tesco's and bumped into one of the prison officers who immediate words to me were, "You'll never guess what Scott done a miraculous turn around and been taken off his self-harm file. We can't understand what's happened!

On Wednesday we had a visit from an old friend of ours called Gram Seed. He is an ex-offender who became a Christian about 10 years ago. Without any flashy props or gimmicks Gram told his story and preached to 14 young offenders about Jesus for an hour and a half. They sat with rapt attention and their mouths open, deeply impressed.

Today I was talking to Scott in the kitchen and he says that he hasn't had a sleepless night since I prayed for him and every time he thinks that this God stuff can't be true he knows he can't deny that something significantly changed through the prayer.
This morning questions about life, faith and how to change poured out of the 7 lads in our group. At some points it was almost as if you could see the light dawning the eyes of some of them. We would have loved more time but it was bang up.

Next Friday the other Chaplain Becky and I are going to do an altar call of some kind for the 7 lads who come to our group. These guys are ready for salvation. Please will you pray for us us. It really feels like we are on the brink of something amazing. But this is a war we are in and there is other stuff happening that is concerning, that I can't share. Please pray for victory.

Northallerton Stinks

I’m not being negative about the place that God has called us to minister in his name but today Northallerton has been extremely smelly. The town is surrounded by farms and some of them must have been muck spreading and with a strong wind today the whole town smells awful.

If we had been having an open air meeting today we could have sung, “May the fragrance of Jesus fill this place.” and Matt Redman’s “Are the prayers of the saints like sweet smelling incense to your heart?”

Northallerton is a good place to live and there are some good things happening here.
I reckon that the generosity of the Methodist Church who is allowing us to use part of their building for worship on Sundays is an act of unity that is a fragrance that drives away the bad odour of competitiveness that has sometimes existed between the churches here.

We are praying and believing that Alan’s witness on the High Street will be like a fresh breeze driving away the cloying scent of materialism and apathy of many towards the gospel.

On Wednesday our friend Gram is coming into the prison to share his testimony with the lads. We are praying that his words and his ministry will drive out the air of defeat and hopelessness that some of them are going through at the moment.

I could go on but at this time of night I can’t think of any more synonyms for smell so I’ll end with Paul,

“But thanks be to God, who always leads us in triumphal procession in Christ and through us spreads everywhere the fragrance of the knowledge of him. For we are to God the aroma of Christ among those who are being saved and those who are perishing.” 2 Corinthians 2:14-15


God bless

Carol

Prayer

I'm having a bit of a discussion with Andrew Bale about prayerlessness among God's people on his blog and have expressed some random thoughts about it. It was getting to be a long comment so hear are some more.

There has been a lot of talk around about people with the gift of intercessorary prayer. Some people seem to have a capacity to pray harder and longer than others. Is that because that is a particular minsitry that they have or is it just that they have practiced more. Is it a gift or a responsibility for everyone? If it is a gift, then does that get us into the same mess we got into with evangelism, i.e we see reaching the lost as the job of only specicalist people?

I think most Christians would agree that personal prayer is important even if they don't do it but there are lots of people who don't see the reason for coming together to pray. I have often heard people say I don't need to go to a prayer meeting I can pray at home. Those of us who have experienced the power of waiting on God in prayer together know that if you stay at home you miss out. We must give testimony to its worth and its blessing.

I'd love to know some answers to all this

God bless

Carol

Winning the war one hill at a time

My thanks to Andrew Clark for sharing his reactions to a debate on mission at Roots and Stephen Court's quote about winning the war one hill at a time.

Here is how we have been trying to win our hill today.

Alan was out early in the High Street, just walking about in his uniform meeting people. He had another chat with the traffic warden and is building a good relationship with this young guy.
We've had a real push from the Holy Spirit that he spends more than just Fridays when he sells the War Cry on the High Street and that one of us will prayer walk the High Street each day before we start anything else. Nothing spectacular has happened yet but it is becoming increasingly difficult to walk down the High Street without stopping a dozen times to speak to people Alan knows.

We started an Alpha Course today. There were only four of us, me and three ladies who are shall we say getting on in years. One of them got saved about two years ago and has had her whole life turned around. The other two, are so keen they launched into the problem of suffering and why did Jesus have to did before I'd had a chance to put the video on and listen to the talk. We have been praying like mad for these two in our cell group for weeks and we are seeing God really answer prayer in the way they are so open to the gospel. Watch this space.

I went straight from there to the prison where I and another chaplain are leading a group called Images, which involves looking at spiritual stuff through arts and media as well as teaching the guitar to 7 budding Eric Clapton's! Next week at their request our friend Gram, an ex-prisoner is coming in to share his testimony.

Later I visited one of them in his pad. I don't know about how post modern this is or culturally relevant or politically correct but this lad has a problem with guilt and he can't cope with it. The prison's answer is to keep him occupied to keep his mind off it. I just said what he needed was forgiveness and he could get it from Jesus. He is open to that but can't believe it can happen. I prayed with him and gave him Matthew 11:28-29 to say out loud when he feels bad during bang up. As you read this will you spare just a few minutes to pray for a miracle for him. I see him again on Friday.

At cell group tonight it was actually great to hear how they had managed perfectly well in leading worship without us and to sense their excitement at the way God had led them. Thank you Lord.

May God keep us all faithful.

Carol

Firebrand

Following a fantastic but tiring Roots we decided to take a days furlough today and ended up doing one of my favourite things, visitng the second hand Christian bookshop in York.

One of the books I bought was called Firebrand and it is about a Methodist preacher whom I was once priviledged to meet when I was a child. He was called Herbert Silverwood and was indeed a firebrand, full of a Holy Spirit joy and as interested in us children as in the adults. I was so pleased to find the book about the life and mission of this man who had inspired my Dad as a young Methodist and me too. I was thrilled to also find a picture in it of my Uncle Charles who knew him well and went on mission with him.

Anyway there were some good quotes that I thought were worth repeating.

"Herbert always thought that the open door is the clearest sign of God's will for the Christian."

"When you are not quite sure where you stand, it is not likely that you will- that was Herbert's view."

"An army that remains in the trenches is doomed to defeat."

"God is always the same, only our attitudes and carelessness prevent revival."

"Sometimes the tide goes out so far you think it's never coming back. Well evangelism is like that. Interest goes out to such an extent that you wonder if anything can save the situation. Then the Holy Spirit turns the tide. Hallelujah!

Watch out for more quotes from me. I bought 6 more books at the bookshop, (all for £11.50) so that will keep me quiet for at least a week.

God bless

Carol

Roots

Back home from Roots, feeling quite exhausted but blessed in the following ways:-

Worship
"I love to be in his presence, with his people, singing praises."
It's great to experience worshipping God in our small corps. We often experience his presence powerfully and he draws near. But there is something so uplifting about worshipping the great God of the universe with a 1000 or more people united in praise.

Preaching
Various preachers and speakers left me encouraged, challenged, empowered, puzzled, amused, exasperated, and changed. I'm not telling you who did what except to say that it was Danielle Strickland's message that most engaged by mind and heart.

Fellowship with:-
our family, friends from all over the UK,(we know so many people), those who came with us, mates from the God's Messengers Session, Roman Catholic sisters at our accommodation and fellow bloggers whom I haven't met before. In the words of Geraldine Latte, "Say family."

Prayer
I spoke to God and God spoke to me in the prayer tent. How great is it to be prayed with and how great is it to pray for others? How exciting is it to be used by the Holy Spirit to deliver an instant answer to prayer, by my prayer for someone without even realising it.? I'll tell you it's amazingly great!

I did knee drill every morning in the icon filled prayer room at the St Joseph's Convent. It is a special place because it is soaked in prayer and praise.

Answers to prayer
I prayed that our youngest daughter who was nervous about going to the Parklife Youth programme on her own would nevertheless be inpsired and empowered by it. She was. Thank you Lord!

Special moments
Seeing one of our converts from a previous appointment liberated in praise and worship.

Watching the baby ducks in the garden and seeing a red squirrel

My eldest daughter Katie and I having one of our "deep" spiritual natters while she did my hair.

And of course Andrew Bale grabbing the flag and marching it around the Big Top!

Prayer needs
Healing of burst ear drums having stood next to Andrew shouting hallelujah very very loudly!! Alright I'm joking about the need for healing but not about the loudness of the shouting.

I hope other bloggers who went were also blessed and of course those who didn't go to Southport too. Thank God he doesn't just turn up at big events but in quieter places too.

God bless

Carol