A test at story telling...

To summarise a couple of weeks of mania; remain teachable and skeptical in order to move forward. When things like your entire basis of the future of the planet is pulled out from under you and replaced with a much more basic structure, or your assumptions of the world in the present are proved wrong in a blink of an eye, or your musings over a man from the past turn out to be quite simplistic and inaccurate at best, you need to keep your sense of humour alive. It should be the best way of responding to a passing comment on your beard growth; a lifter in those 'far-too-heavy' conversation moments; that way of presenting a large group of friends with a provoking speech to get out of a building and do real stuff. Whether you pretend you're in for the long haul of Movember, when really you can't be bothered to shave, or even just trim; a small 4-year-old head butts you so you don't forget it's a good way way of saying goodbye; or you encourage people to enjoy some prophetic brownies, humour is crucial.


Jesus was a funny guy. I think he chose Peter to be his key follower so he could do a lot of set-ups.

"Get those two swords my friends," cried Jesus as they headed up to the hill for an after-meal stroll. And up they went. Jesus had a way of leaving explanations of most of his requests for days or weeks later, so no one questioned his motives. So he kept talking about his death, all his disciples decided he was probably doing one of those other symbolic language games they weren't too sure of.

Up on that hill Jesus kept dropping hints that he wasn't going to be around much longer, and even wanted them to join him in his relationship he had with his father. It was an intense time. He had gone into nature to pray, but to the disciples going away into nature was more of a place to relax, and that meal had made them in the need for a good little kip.

They slept and Jesus wrestled with God.

He came down from his spot after a couple of hours and woke up his closest friends. It wasn't a nice wake up either.

"Guys! What are you playing at. I brought you up here to either join me, or keep watch, and you just lay here digesting some food. Didn't you here everything I said tonight?"

There was some murmuring at the back. After three years of following Jesus they couldn't help but get used to letting him down. "Erm..yeah. Sorry, Jesus. We were just a bit confused by it all." Peter, the honest one, never failed to speak the thoughts of the group. Sometimes he didn't.

There was one time when he did both in the same sentence. It was about 6 months before. They were about 80 miles away from Jerusalem, and, under the mixed idolatry of a town mixed with Roman, Jews and Greek, Peter had blurted out he believed Jesus was the son of God! At which Jesus had commended him utterly.

"Well done, this has been revealed to you by my dad. But I will soon be taken and killed. Only to rise again on the third day."

Peter got a little cocky, most likely, from the excitement of finally getting an insight from a God he was starting to get to know quite well. "Never! You shall never die!"

Jesus suddenly lost his mysterious air, and angrily shouted "Get behind me Satan!"

The disciples had grown to love Peter, if only to make the mistakes they would have. What a funny guy to lead us, though, they continually thought.

Jesus pointed down the hill to some lights surrounding the paths back down. "My hour has come." The disciples started to look a little worried. Who had Jesus invited to join them? Weren't they his elite?

As the group drew closer they realised these weren't a group of followers invited to listen to one of his famous sermonettes. These were some Roman soldiers, and priests. They came nearer and nearer, surrounding the group of men, carrying torches, swords, and spears.

Immediately, from out of small gathering of sleepy followers came Peter brandishing one of the swords. How did he get entrusted with such a weapon? Screaming slightly maniacally he jumped into an average size guard and cut off his ear. He wasn't very well trained in the art of sword play. Jesus pulled Peter away and stepped towards the soldier. He picked up the ear from the floor, blew the dust from it and, with his healing hands, grafted the ear back onto the warriors head.

"Peter, what were you thinking? Those who live by the sword, die by the sword."

"But," Peter protested feebly, "You said bring the swords..."


What a set up from young (33-year-old) Jesus.

The effects the city has on 'country folk'

Tim Keller is a very intelligent man. He has seen his church in New York grow through his insights into the human condition and his cross-centred preaching. He sees things that I would never see, and yet as soon as he says them it all makes sense. The most basic thing I heard was in his sermon on the chapter of Acts where Antioch church is planted and flourishes. In this passage it ends the story saying 'this is place where the disciples were first called Christians.' A simple phrase that, after listening to Keller's insights, carries so much weight. Why? The city of Antioch was a thriving city. The message I have based this on can be downloaded here.

The Roman empire was full of thriving cities. Some were so large they could be easily compared with some of the biggest cities we see today. Antioch contained, probably, about 1 million people. What happened with Antioch, however, is something of an oddity, but not unheard of. It was designed as a multi cultural centre. The architects involved with the building of this populous decided to build walls all the way around to protect it from outsiders. Then, because of it's diversity, the inside of the city had walls surrounding various neighbourhoods. Why? To protect the city people from each other. Withing the city there would have been many conflicting cultures, and what better way to keep a city together but divide it up? There will have been violence breakout when some young man would step on someone else's robe in a market, but they could always find refuge in their own neighbourhood.

Why do I say all this? So a city has lots of different people in it, so what? So does Leeds, or Toronto. Just this: the disciples were first called Christians in Antioch. Why? They were another culture. And this culture was not one that seperated itself from the rest of the city people, but it brought different cultures together. The Holy Spirit unites. They needed a name to label this strange group of people that were changing the workings of the city.

What does this have to do with 'country folk'? I was one once. A little village with a small church that would sing songs about Jesus every Sunday, and be nice to each other. Lovely. A great culture. The early church described in Acts saw many people's lives changed through the amazing story of Jesus. But the first 10 or so chapters has this focus of the Jews. All the evangelists (the people who were gifted in preaching the Gospel, or good news) saw many converts from the people they were most familiar with. The Jews were religious, and they knew the scriptures that pointed to Jesus. It was easy to take the scriptures, show them that they were about Jesus, show them their religiosity would not save them, and see them join the other disciples. What the Gospel touching Antioch showed these evangelists, and all who had come to believe, was that the Gospel wasn't just available to those who knew Jewish history, and who had been involved in Judaism. This Gospel could change anyone's life. But they only found that out by taking it to a great city. A multi cultural, diverse city. A city like Antioch.

Moving to Leeds showed me the power of the Gospel. I was in a church of 30 or 40, everyone had lived in the village since before they were born and had all grown up to know their place. They were in the church and served Jesus wonderfully, but all I saw were these people who had grown up in church joining the church. What I saw in Leeds was a city church, in fact, many city churches touching the people through the good news of Jesus' death and resurrection for the forgiveness of sins to bring us to God. And the people were not the people I had known of church before, but people from all walks of life, from all kinds of histories, whether students or professionals, young or old, locals or international, they were all changed by the work of the Holy Spirit and united to the same churches, through that same Spirit. Each time I see something like this it makes my God even bigger, even more powerful, and I think it's incredible that this big God loves me.