West View Baptist Church, Hartlepool

A family friendly church in the town of Hartlepool

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Are you running alongside Jonah?

Jonny led today’s worship, assisted by Tim and Amanda. Tim brought  the Word. He continued the theme of the highlights of the Old Testament turned to the story of Jonah. Jonah gets called by God to go to Nineveh. Jonah ran away to Joppa, running as far as he could go in the opposite direction  to Tarshish.

Jonah’s on the boat asleep and a big storm comes. Jonah tells them to throw him overboard. The sailors don’t want to do it but he insists.

Tim wants to tell us of a slightly less well known part. Jonah is inside the fish imagine the smell the rotting fish.

Tim read from Chapter 2 of Jonah ending with God commanding the fish to vomit Jonah on to dry land.

You might be tempted to skip over this little prayer or song from Jonah in the whale. A bit like the lists of genealogy elsewhere in the Old Testament . Yet it’s pivotal, it showed Jonah’s point of view. How many of us in Jonah’s position would have gone to Nineveh an awful place. Jonah tried to run away from the task and ends up sinking down and down.

The sailor asks Jonah to pray to his God yet Jonah ignores this. Jonah’s prayer shows his experience, seaweed around his head sinking to the roots of the mountain. This is a real scientific understanding of where mountains start. He moves from calling God He to the more personal You. Jonah sees the painful hand of God in this. He knows it wasn’t the sailors but God who casts him into the sea. I am driven from your sight yet will I look upon your holy temple. He turns to God, in the same way the people in Exodus were called to turn and look upon the bronze fish .

In Chapter 1, the fish is male. Start of Chapter 2 it is female and then turns to male again. Echoes poetically for the words used for birth. Jonah’s rebirth here is alluded to here. Jonah reached rock bottom and is now reborn. He is thankful, grateful as he finds himself alive inside the fish. He’s still praying, God hasn’t said anything yet. Maybe Jonah is wondering how he’s going to get out of here.

Despite his own disobedience he’s still pointing the finger of blame at others, making vows but not being repentant.. he hadn’t been able to shake the idea that saving the Ninevites is not God’s greatest idea. Chapter 4 reinforces this. Amazing fact is God accepts this prayer, Jonah has looked towards God. God answered those who calls put in times of trouble. He accepts Jonah’s protests not as sin but as an ongoing conversation.

The picture is swallowing and vomiting is used elsewhere as judgement in the Old Testament. Jonah’s song whilst not full of repentance is accepted as a necessary first step in his journey. He can’t yet find compassion for outsiders. Maybe this is for us as well. Maybe God needs to work with us in our imperfect attitudes, it’s enough to turn towards God and believe. God will deal with all of the other stuff. Maybe we’ve been in the dark place Jonah’s been in.

Jesus descended into death clearly leaving no place where he can’t find us. God doesn’t expect everyone to suddenly understand, to not have doubts, to not have questions. Jonah is utterly wrong and prejudiced. Yet God’s going to use him. And when he finally goes to Nineveh and preaches people respond.

We’ll never understand everything. This is the life of faith. We carry the queries, the doubts and the questions and yet God will never leave us. We can have the conversation with God, Jonah continues to protest but as God continues to work with him Jonah cannot run. Jonah gives us a glimpse of real faith , a faith that struggles. Jonah gives thanks when he knows he did not deserve to be saved. Like Jonah we have lots of unresolved issues, yet God continues to be with us in dark difficult places.

Nothing separates us from God’s love. Our faith does not depend on us having all the answers. God has them.

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A Child of Christ: The view of the World that we want.

It’s been an amazing weekend that has seen God move in many amazing ways. Over the last couple of weeks I’ve been blessed in taking out new people on Town Pastors. Last week I took out someone who had travelled the drug and alcohol addiction road and was coming out of the other side with a real determination to live life for God in a very different way to what had gone before. He shared his story with some of our regular homeless and vulnerable people and then through the week he also had chance to share his story with one of our young vulnerable friends on the street.

She met the team whilst we were out this weekend and shared that he had touched and moved her with his story of his journey. She realised that, contrary to what she thought, she wasn’t a lost cause. He’d been on harder drugs, taken more and done worse and had sank even further into the darkness and despair than she was currently and yet God had made the difference in his life. He’d fought for his sobriety and been reborn to a new life as a Child of Christ. He now wanted to join with those Christian brothers and sisters who were determined to make this world a safer better place for those living, working studying and partying in the town. Pray for her that she finds the courage to put the first steps on the road to recovery and a better life. Amazingly whilst Street Angels were helping her,  our friends in the Hartlepool CCTV centre also contacted the team to say they were watching over her and offering sources of help and advice.

The theme of children and families continues to be played out at West View Baptist Church. We’ve been blessed to be joined recently by two new couples, Charlotte and Joe and Terry and Carolyn. They have thrown themselves into the life of the church and already appear as if they’ve always been part and parcel of the  West View family.  Expect to see more of these names in future weeks as God has led, and is leading them on an amazing adventure as they relocate to this area. We prayed for workers and God sent us people who were trained in working in the kitchen, worked with children and were good at practical stuff like maintenance and repairs.  I wanted a bible verse about workers and went on my online bible to be greeted with the Verse of the Day from Joshua 24:15 that ends “But as for me and my household, we will serve the Lord”. Amazing to have the verse served to me straight away.

Amazing is a word I seem to have written a lot this week. Today in church we were over run with children. They came in as a constant stream, the first came with their church families, then 3 young lads from the estate, then a family from Filling Station, then the family from across the road carrying babes in arms. All arriving at different times, but with the net result that when our Young Church gathered for their separate part of our morning worship they had 23 children. Some of these children don’t even cope well in school yet they chose to come to us. One of the highlights from the day was overhearing the Dad from the Filling Station family say to his young boys, “Go into the kids room, Daddy’s going to stay here because I’ve come to worship”.

Ian,  Amanda and Jonny led worship today. The song choices were spot on and never has the words to “No Longer Slaves” been more appropriate. “I’ve been born again into a family, Your blood flows through my veins. I’m no longer a Slave to Fear, I am a Child of God”.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f8TkUMJtK5k

Mark brought the word today. It was Peacekeeping Sunday today and Mark was supposed to preach on the theme of arguments. However Mark was led instead to talk about the different viewpoints in life, looking at heavenly views as opposed to earthly views.

He read from Mark 9 30:37. This was a passage that spoke of the disciples arguing yet finished “Whoever welcomes one of these little children in my name welcomes me; and whoever welcomes me does not welcome me but the one who sent me.” Did I mention we welcome 23 children into church this morning?

He asked us to consider what a heavenly view might look like.  He  suggested that this should look like we have both good morals and good morale, liking everyone as God’s children and accepting people for who they are and not who we think they should be.

He also urged us all to be positive in our outlook. He posed the question “If we’re not positive as a Child of God, what does this look like to others? He reminded us about the way children behave before they learn about earthly fears. Think about how children just walk up to people and treat them as friends without fear. Think about the way we deal with earthly issues , family abuse, depression, unhappiness, negativity, how and did this change occur in our own lives. Mark shared how his life changed and his outlook changed. He admitted to not being open about his feelings and struggling with depression. Then he says he met his wife Sarah and his future in-laws . Through them he found God and learned to forgive.

He reminded us that it is the earthly values that make us negative and judging of others. He asked “How do we change this?” The best way is to turn to God, pray, share your problems with others, don’t be afraid to ask for help and guidance from friends in church.

Mark shared how he thought that a good principle in life was to think before you act or speak. He recalled the fashion at one point for people in church to wear wrist bands with “What would Jesus do” It’s a good thought habit to get into.It’s true, be polite, say hello to the people you meet in your daily journey, the fellow cyclist, the dog walkers. It leads to a conversation. 2 minute talk to a stranger can change their day. Our new arrival Terry had shared how he met his wife when he was pushing a street sweeper’s barrow and he used to stop and chat. Children do this all the time. Somehow we as adults we lose this ability, yet it can change our lives. Help us overcome negative thoughts, concentrate on the heavenly views. Did I mention West View Baptist Church is seeing amazing things? Help us to show this earth our heavenly views. Join us on the journey.

 

 

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Words matter, use them well for positive things

Ian and Amanda led the service today and chose some powerful songs to demonstrate the power of words, whether it be eagles soaring, unending praise or standing firm on a Rock.

It was a great service made all the more relevant for me having finished the previous night’s Street Angels patrol simply talking to people and being given the right words to deal with a variety of people. The correct reassurance for worried Mancunian, the sharing of faith with the person who hadn’t been to church since they were little, the sharing of comfort and a hug for a homeless person, the words of shared background and understanding with the once atheist, now Buddhist but Christian living seeker of knowledge. We had a new volunteer with us and he asked what he should say if people asked him about his faith and his life journey. My answer was simply to say that it was up to him, we didn’t have a script,  we simply ask people to answer from their own heart and experience why they choose to be a street angel.  That honesty and openness is what people respond so positively to. Not sure he believed this at the beginning of the night but he was convinced by the end.

Esther brought the Word today. She spoke about the power of words. She hoped we’d all been offered words of welcome when we arrived and hoped we were glad to be here. We had opened our service with the broadcast words of Shadrach Meshach Lockridge who was the preacher at Calvary Baptist Church from 1953 to 1993.His words on “That’s my King” come at the end of an hour long sermon he delivered and are amazing to listen to. The rythmn and the musicality of his words reach out across the 4 decades since he preached them. Esther pointed out that God has given her a lot of words (her husband David agreed!)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bA86JLichyY

Mark 8:27 offers some important words here. They are central to our understanding of Jesus, Central pivotal . Says it all. They mark a place 2 and a half years into the ministry of Jesus.

The disciples are travelling, they’re going up north Just like some couples in this room. Mark is the shortest most chronological Gospel starting at the baptism of Jesus. Jesus is baptised in the Jordan lowest point on the planet. They’re on their way to Caesarea Philippi . We’ve already heard about lots of miracles and parables from Jesus. Mark was the PA or personal assistant to Barnabas Paul and Peter. He was the translator. People wanted Peter’s sermons recorded a bit like this blog. Words are so important.

Thankfully gospel people blogged them and write them down. These events happened 6 months before Jesus went to the cross. The disciples were travelling in a pagan area. The source of the water they find is snow on the mountain flowing through a crack in the water. This has pagan symbolism and there are statues of Caesar and Pan in the rock face where the river emerges. This is where Jesus asks “Who do people say I am? But it’s not out of vanity or ego. It’s not a Donald Trumop incident. Trump needs to know how people see him checking tweets etc.

Not he case for Jesus. His authority comes from God. Children of God is where and what our identity should be. It’s approval from God we’re after. The disciples reply back with the headlines of the day, Herod says the same words in chapter 6. Amongst the people was already the sense that that he was a prophet. Between John the Baptist and the previous prophet there had been a break, a period of silence of 400 years! A long time.

Jesus wanted to know what people were saying simply to lead to the big question “Who do you say I am Peter?” This is the first time Peter speaks. “You are the Christ the messiah”. Was Jesus surprised Peter got it right. Matthew 16:15 to 20 shows this knowledge was from God. Peter didn’t tell Mark this bit. Peter it seems did not want to have the focus about him.  Tough for us not to put the me as the focus. Esther noted that a lot of us preach with ourselves as the focus. It’s difficult not to.  Jesus was affirming Peter here and starting to teach the disciples some tough bad news messages.

Both Christ and messiah mean the annointed one. This is where the teaching of the disciples starts. Only when we answer this question can Jesus move us on. The power of God working in us is shown and the cost of this is revealed. Whatever God call us to do has a cost. Jesus speaks plainly about being the son of man. Daniel 50o years before shares his vision in Daniel 7 13:14. Dwell on this for a minute. What a message! This is our Jesus foretold.

Jesus uses hard words, involving suffering rejection death. Peter rebukes Jesus , yet Jesus takes him aside. He doesn’t embarrass him, he clarifies his message in private. Esther shared that she had always felt for Peter when Jesus refers to Satan. Jesus was seeing Satan at work trying to tempt Jesus through Peter. Jesus needed to go to the cross to fulfil his mission.

Esther and David then shared a dialogue from the Roots material we use for our children and youth teaching.  Again the words were powerful  as Jesus (voiced by David) shared  his views on how blessed are meek those who mourn and so on. Words from the commentator (Esther ) such I serve someone who was born in a stable and died on a cross reinforce the power of words. We also used this dialogue in our visit to our friends at the Sheraton Court care home later in the day.

We can’t just choose the good bits when we become a disciple of Jesus. It’s hard . If we are to save our lives we should be prepared to lose our lives in Jesus. In this world many of the words folks us are to bring people down . Words really, really matter . Use words that matter well. Make a positive effort to use words well. Be positive with our spouses, our children, our parents, our colleagues, take positivity out there Esther concluded with the words of Isiaih 50 4:7.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bA86JLichy

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Step up, stand in the Gap and act for God.

We’ve been following the Old Testament highlights and today we’ve come to Elijah, the Lionel messi of the prophets.

We looked at Elijah 17 1:24 and Tim asked us to consider the questions, Do you have enough? What have you consumed bought stored or thrown away in the last week?

This story is a see saw between nothing and everything. Elijah is introduced as a Tishbite, not a prophet. He is a servant of God and his character builds through the story. We’ve enjoyed hot weather recently  but we didn’t run out of water, we weren’t in a life and death situation. There are places in the world where this is a daily or annual fear. Are there times of drought in our lives, where we struggle to find what we need to survive?

This story here of Elijah is made up of 3 episodes.

Episode 1 finds Elijah camping by the dry cut off ravine, and being looked after well  by God. How many of his contemporaries would have had bread and meat morning and night delivered by “RavenEats”, problematic unclean birds. When he runs out of water Elijah doesn’t go to the nearby river Jordan which never dries up.

Elijah is obedient and stays by the Stream that Dries Up which lives up to it’s name and does just that.

Sometimes things dry up they go flat. What did Elijah do? He didn’t go back, he moved on to a new place, God taught him something new. Even Elijah, this big spiritual superstar found himself in a dry place.

Fed by unclean ravens and fed well.

Episode 2, despite what God told Elijah the widow doesn’t seem to be aware of the commend of God to feed Elijah. She had absolutely nothing other that the last meal for her and her son that they are going to eat they lie down to die.

Easy for someone else to sayas Elijah does “don’t be afraid”. Elijah isn’t the one running out of food watching their son waste away. What business has the man of God asking her for bread. The language she uses is the language of scarcity. Death is waiting at the door for this family, actively knocking to get in.

Yet Elijah brings good news of Promise, of Abundance.

Jesus does the same feeding the five thousand. This is the Old Testament pre echo . Elijah moves here from being a passive recipient to an active collaborator of God. There are times in our lives when we receive all abundance from God.

But god wants us to be coworkers and collaborators in his work. acting out the words of God, on a Friday at Filling Station or any day of the week.

Episode 3, despite the inexhaustible supplies, the widow’s son dies. Despite the abundance, death visits this scene. The widow blames Elijah, Elijah blames God and then confronts God and asks for the son to be restored. Here Elijah becomes a Man of God for the widow. God listened to Elijah! To listen in Hebrew is usually equivalent to obeying. It’s the opposite way round here. Elijah asked of God.

Joshua chapter 10 was a similar day.

Elijah stands in the gap between those in need and God , God calls us to be people who stand in that gap. Elijah reminds us to move on from meeting our own needs to be those who collaborate and stand beside God to help the wider world.

Elijah steps in in behalf of God and prays and the prayer is answered.

How do we earn the title People of God. We live in material abundance, with more than we need. Will we be the unlikely prophet of God’s Abundance.

When Elijah says “Do not be afraid” he’s not talking to the people of Israel, he’s talking to an outsider, a stranger. Are the ravens the means by which God gets his message here to Elijah.

Will we hide in the  ghetto or will we be the ones to hear and take heart. No need to fear the neighbour, close the border, build the wall. Are you sitting by a dry brook?

Pray, stand in the gap,

Elijah listens to God and acts. Let that be our response as well.

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Need to fight a giant? Look beyond the obvious.

Tim, Amanda and Eleanor provided music . Tim brought us the Word today and even suggested homework of reading the whole of 1 Samuel chapter 17.

Last time we, were looking at Ruth and before that Gideon. Today we are looking at King Saul and the relationship of Samuel and David. Saul was a test of people demanding a king rather than judges. Saul was the obvious choice, and annointed by God. But as Tim eloquently pointed out, Saul was a complete muppet though.

He lost his crown because he wouldn’t follow God;s wishes. Yet despite their conflict it is very clear that Samuel still grieves for his lost friend. Perhaps he feels some responsibility for the mess Saul created. God tells him to get over it and appoint a new king. How far should Christians collaborate with those who do not share their views, when should we confront others?

Samuel had to choose. His choice wasn’t the obvious choice. Tim shared his own family history on this point. Tim’s grandad was only 4’11’ too small for the army yet he ended up with a vital role in keeping the bombers in the air. This was because he was just the right size to fix the inner wings of bombers. A lot of the best footballers are of average height, singers like Susan Boyle teach us not to judge by appearance.

This story shows that we might fail to see potential in others. This is like a traditional joke, three men walked into a camp… the Lord said do not consider the appearance or the height, the intelligence, the attractiveness and wealth, the athlete , the lord rejects and overturns the cultural norms and picks the youngest the weakest. God chooses him over his seven siblings. Bet that made him popular with his brothers . The Lord does not see as mortals see. Isiaih says of him we held him in low esteem.

The story works two ways . Look beyond the obvious, the gifted and apply the David tests.

God chooses the unexpected. The kingdom of God simply needs those people whose heart is turned to God.

David was first introduced to us at the end of the story of Ruth. He had no idea what would happen when he went to check on his brothers on the battlefield.

The job was risky but the reward was great , the eldest couldn’t hide his jealousy. David is not deterred in any way by his brothers reaction.

None wanted to take on Goliath. David counters Goliath’s taunts by telling him he has killed lions to protect his flock.

David was used to insults . David had a simple secret weapon. He believed Goliath was no match for his, David’s god. We often see this an an underdog story. But it’s Goliath who is the underdog. Goliath fails to realise he is up against God,. David finds his confidence in the living God. We probably like this story because we’ve been the underdog, or we face a Goliath challenge. We learn in our ordinary days to face our problems, and it is this protection in our ordinary days that protects us. No giant is too big. Note that, No giant is too big. We are not insignificant and we need to learn confidence in our shepherding in the day to day routine keeping our sheep safe. Tim finished by praying Help us to see people as you see them and when giants come, help us to place our confidence in you, our trust in you and to rely on your protection.