Just Start Talking

But in your hearts set apart Christ as Lord. Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect.
1Peter 3:15

But it is a rare day that someone does actually ask the question, "Can you tell me about the hope you have?"  Even so I've been encouraged recently to think that this doesn't need to be a rare event.  Some of us at church have just done a three week course called Just Start Talking and it's a gem.  It's about how to just start talking - about Jesus.

Just Start Talking is full of reminders and encouragements...
That it is God's work to save people. 
That we just need to be people who are, not people who do - that is, we're not about doing anything special or particular but simply living out our lives as children of God.
That it can be scary to talk about Jesus - but we don't need to have a theological degree under our belts before we do.  We just need to talk about our own experience of living life as one of God's children. 

And there's good equipping...
Ideas on how to introduce our faith into all sorts of conversations.
Ideas on how to encourage conversation rather than kill it.
Ideas on how to build in an opportunity to meet again to continue on the conversation.

Just Start Talking is very much about sharing Jesus within the context of relationships in a way that honours and brings life to those relationships.

One of the exercises across the weeks is to write your own story without any jargon in about 100 words.  The Just Start Talking schema is to say why you are a Christian, give a brief explanation and then finish with a question.  It's not about writing down your whole story and finishing it off with a summary of the key points of the gospel.  That would be a monologue - a very long one in some cases - met with yawning, eye rolling and maybe the end of the friendship. 

You can't say much in 100 words at all.  But that's the point.  It's meant to be the beginning of a conversation.  It's about a minute's worth.  Finishing with a question opens up the conversation.  Or it may be that something you have said - because you can't go into much detail at all in 100 words - triggers a question.  You know, something like, "What did you mean by...?"

There is much to love about this course.  It's fun (Colin Buchanan is one of the presenters on the DVD), it's not at all scary (I did it with a couple of quite timid people who are completely pumped), it can be done in three weeks and it's immensely encouraging.  Just Start Talking is an encouragement to live a life that reflects a relationship with God, to pray for those who don't know Him and to just start talking about the things that are so very important. 

And the thing that encouraged me the most was the idea that if I become known as someone who tries to introduce Jesus into my conversations on a regular basis then at some stage someone probably will  ask the question..."Can you tell me the reason for the hope that you have?"

Status Report: October

Reading:  the last bits of Isaiah and the Pauline epistles, the 70s Psalms and Proverbs 24 in my Bible reading.  At the beginning of September I was falling badly behind on my reading plan (which may or may not have something to do with Ms Austen...) so I gave September over to double and sometimes triple readings and got myself caught up again.  That included reading Job in fairly large chunks.  I have to say that for the first time in my life I started to get Job.  Maybe it was because I have been thinking a lot about the godly response to suffering in recent years.  Whatever it was, this year instead of enduring this part of the Bible I was completely swept away by Job and his godly response to his suffering at least.  Not sure I have nailed his friends yet.  Maybe next year. 

Also reading: Church History in Plain Language by Bruce L. Shelley.  I was up to "The Age of the Christian Roman Empire" - roughly 300 to 600AD.  But this last week I have zoomed to the last three centuries in order to brush up on the rise and fall and rise and fall and so on of evangelicalism, liberalism and fundamentalism in order to help a friend with Church History assignment.  This is a great book.  No doubt I shall tell you all about it in time to come.

Came upon: Isaiah 57:1 once again a couple of days ago.
"The righteous perish, and no one ponders it in his heart;
devout men are taken away, and no one understands
that the righteous are taken away to be spared from evil."
So often we don't understand this.  It is a thought worth pondering awhile.

Weeding: my garden.  It rained and rained and rained and rained some more for most of September.  And I dare not complain (although I have just a tiny bit) because we need the rain.  But it did make for zippo opportunities for gardening because it was either raining or too wet from the rain.  But the sun came out over the last couple of days and so I got to work on this...

 

The good thing about it getting to this appalling state is that weeds this large are easily pulled out.  Three or four hours work and it was done.  If you look along the back near the fence there are five standard roses.  There between the two roses on the left is a five foot thistle.  Quite impressive really.  It all looks so much better now but I'll post the "after" photo once the roses are out.  That is, provided I keep the weeds down...

 

Looking forward: to taking our kids to the Royal Show for the first time in their lives later this week.  I haven't been since I was a teenager.  Fun fun fun.

 

Also looking forward: to a trip to the symphony next week with a dear friend. 

MENDELSSOHN A Midsummer Night’s Dream: Overture

BERLIOZ Les nuits d’été [Summer Nights]
BEETHOVEN Symphony No.6 Pastoral

Very excited.

 

Stepping down: from a committee I have served on for the last ten years later this month.  I have a few bits and pieces that need finishing up but that will taper off some time into next year.  I don't leave this committee lightly or easily but current life circumstances have made it a necessity.

 

Thankful: to all who do their Book Depository shopping via this blog.  Thank you, thank you, thank you.  Through the commissions I have received I've nearly saved enough to buy the women I read and study the Bible with during the week a Jerry Bridges book for Christmas...but shhhhh...don't tell them...  Keep buying those books.

 

Enjoying: a bit of conversation with fellow bloggers via email lately.  Nice to chat a bit deeper than comments on a blog post allows.

 

Signing off: because it is time to head out with the boys and a couple of their friends for today's school holiday adventure.  Have a good day everyone.

 



Greetings in the digital age

I've been interested to watch the progress of birthday greetings these last ten years.  Cards and phone calls gave way to text messages which gave way to the Facebook greeting.  Not exclusively.  I am talking in trends.  All different and all good in their way.

Last week I had cause to think about a different form of greeting and how the digital age has brought about change - how we communicate our sympathy when someone has died.  Brought to mind because last week a dear saint of long, faithful and loving ministry went Home to be with Lord.  We heard about his death via a beautiful message that his son left on Facebook.  What followed were more than 150 comments of condolence and remembrance.   And it was an absolute blessing to read through the comments - to see so many others blessed in the same way we had been by this dear man and his equally dear wife, to be reminded of some of the little but wonderful things (and thanks here to my friend who mentioned the twinkling eyes...you are so right) and to realise the great reach of this man's pastoral ministry. 

There was one comment that caught my attention, and I was struck by the gentle irony of reading it on Facebook.  It was a comment about one of the hallmarks of this couple's ministry - the gift of short and specific handwritten letters.  Letters of thanks for hospitality, letters of sympathy, letters of specific encouragement, letters to say they had prayed for the letter recipient. Short letters that don't take long to write. Letters that take about as long to write as it takes to find the current TO DO list and put "Write a letter to..." on it.  They were in the practice of writing short notes and were equipped with a stack of A5 white paper, pens, envelopes and stamps on their desks so that they were ready to go. I think they must have written thousands of letters. I know we received several and we don't even live in the same state.  I remember them talking to us about letter writing at one stage and taking note, because, well, they were speaking to a letter writer and their words struck a chord.

Please don't hear me bagging Facebook.  Last week it was used for great good.  It was such a blessing to read through all those comments, to remember all those good things and to have so much for which to thank God.  In the past these sorts of comments would have been consigned to the private and personal card or letter of sympathy, seen only by the bereaved.   Now in this digital age we get to share in the blessing of one another's sympathies and remembrances.  It made me wonder if this is the new sympathy card of the digital age.

I too left my comment.  And then I got my A5 paper out and wrote two letters - one to his widow and one to his son and wife.  Because Facebook is good.  But there was more to say.  And there is always something special about holding a letter written out of love and gratitude in your hands.

Feel free to call me old fashioned.  I don't mind.  And I am guessing the one who wrote the comment about letter writing also penned a note.  Probably on white A5 paper.

(HT: Alastair at Paradoxically Speaking.  I had written and deleted this post twice in the last week but then, when I left an entire post as a comment to this post, I realised it was something that wanted to be written here too.)

Thank you Ms Austen

Done.

Delightful.

 

Agapanth-oops

Once, long long ago last summer

 

 

And then there was the before...

 

 

And then there was after...  



 

...the whippersnippering.  Oops...

Just as well there is nothing like a hard prune to encourage growth.

Status Report: September

Reading: Persuasion by Jane Austen

Not reading: Church History in Plain Language by Bruce L. Shelley.  Not because I don't like it.  It turns out that contrary to what I said last month, I can't in fact have two books on the go at once.  Certainly not when one of them is fiction and the other non-fiction.  And although Northanger Abbey was not my favourite, I am really enjoying this jaunt through the Austens and now can't put this big tome down until they are all finished.  So Persuasion it is, followed by her short epistolary novel Lady Susan.  And then I will go back to the church history book.

Amassing: a rather large reading list to follow Ms Austen and Mr Shelley.

Loving: this little book.

Which is full of lovely pictures like this...

Pages and pages of detailed "secret garden" ink drawings filled with hidden ladybirds and hearts and other loveliness ready to be coloured in.  I bought it during August.  I won't be able to use it for Scripture classes because photocopying it will breach copyright, so in lots of ways I am completely unsure why I purchased it. But it is such a nice book, printed on really good quality paper.  Actually, it is the same sort of paper that my Austen tome is printed on...  Perhaps say no more.

Stocked up:  on IKEA meatballs again.  Phew.  The supply was running a little low there for a while.

Never imagined: I would be the type of mum to have five different sorts of cereal open and on the go at once. 

Undecided: whether or not to post a Prompted to Write topic later today or tomorrow.  I've been throwing a couple of ideas around for a week or two but neither are really grabbing me.

Glad: to be honest, that August is done and dusted.  It has felt a lot like trekking through the mud this month.  When I was full time in the classroom I'd often fall into a slump come August - the end of the grey winter months, a long way from the shiny start of the year, a long way until the victorious end, the month leading up to the athletics carnival (agh).  I don't know how relevant all of that is away from the school setting or whether I am just being Pavlovian, but it's been feeling pretty schlumpy around here. 

Glad then: to welcome September and Spring. 

Needing therefore: to get into the yard and excavate the plants from the winter weeds in order to fully enjoy the new season. I've been planning to get into the excavation project a bit lately but when there is a window of energy and opportunity it seems to start raining.  We need the rain.  But I need my weeds to be dry (or at least dry-ish) before I will go trudging through them. 

What a mess!

Somewhere in there are my beloved agapanthus plants...

Better go: and do some gardening.

The year that term three week seven came early

That certain week that happens every year when the shine of being the oldest kids in the school wears off, suddenly a handful of them are taller than their teachers, their compasses are pointed towards high school (for better or for worse depending on whether the prospect fills you with excitement or fear - but both manifest poorly) and they go off the boil...it happened.  In the fourth week of term.  Three weeks early to my way of thinking. 

So what's a Scripture teacher to do?  Four things.

Firstly, thank God for the two and nearly a half terms of great teaching time before it all got hard.  Secondly pray for the children and their class teachers - both need prayer at this point.  Thirdly, pull out that intensely complicated geometric colouring in sheet that has been waiting in the wings all year just for this moment. 



I chose something like this...but FAR more complicated.

The kids went off the boil two weeks ago.  Not good.  Especially as I wasn't expecting it that particular day.  So last week I pulled out my colouring pages. 

"You colour this while I tell you today's story...and no two adjoining spaces are to be the same colour."

Met with shock and horror. 

"That's right.  But if you trust me on this one and do it in this kind of detail the pictures will look absolutely amazing when you are done.  And by the way, there is no rush.  Unlike so many other things I do when I am in your classroom, this isn't a race."

Last week went supremely well and I figure I have secured two or three more lessons of peace because all of the classes were told, in front of their classroom teachers, that the pictures were only allowed out of their trays for Scripture classes.

After that there are the last few lessons in the book - how the Bible fits together, the Ten Commandments and a lesson on prayer - all of which I LOVE teaching.  And then the Christmas lessons which are all sorts of fun.  I think we should be OK for the year.

And then the fourth thing for a Scripture teacher to do?  Keep praying that the gospel seeds that are being sown in classrooms here and elsewhere will at some point take root, grow and flourish.  This is good work.

Finding the height, depth, length and breadth of God's Word

My blogging buddy Amy put this quote from Spurgeon on Facebook this weekend.

The more you read the Bible, and the more you meditate upon it, the more you will be astonished with it. He who is but a casual reader of the Bible, does not know the height, the depth, the length and breadth of the mighty meanings contained in its pages. There are certain times when I discover a new vein of thought, and I put my hand to my head and say in astonishment, "Oh, it is wonderful. I never saw this before in the Scriptures." You will find the Scriptures enlarge as you enter them; the more you study them the less you will appear to know of them, for they widen out as we approach them.

Charles Spurgeon, in his sermon "Christ our Passover"

Thanks Amy.  A great encouragement.

Treat your time in the Bible like you treat your meal plan.

Yesterday there was a great post on the Desiring God site called Five Back-to-School Basics.  You may have missed it because

1.  maybe you don't live in the northern hemisphere, and
2.  so you aren't going back to school at the moment, or
3.  maybe you're just not at school at all. 

Perhaps I would have missed it too except that I, lover of lists and with a small hint from the title of the post, keenly observed the five point list.  And so I read it. 

The five points are:-

1. Thinking may be the most critical thing you ever do.
2. The most important book you'll read this fall is your Bible.
3. Someone younger than you needs you.
4.  Comparison in the classroom can be the birthplace of pride.
5.  Only the gospel saves anyone, even A-students.

They are great principles and they extend far, far beyond the reach of students in the classroom.

I especially liked point number two (but you already knew that) and most especially this part (emphasis is mine)...

Because of all the assigned pages, you’ll be tempted to sideline your Bible reading until the next test has passed, the next paper is done, or the next break is here. Instead, treat your time in the Bible like you treat your meal plan.

Your time soaking in Scripture will be the most fruitful and shaping time of your education. Nothing can replace the wealth you will find there, and nothing will prepare you better for life, family, vocation, or even your next class.

It is so easy to put off time in God's Word.  I know.  I really, REALLY know.  But I am amazingly diligent with my meal planning.  We eat every day.  What a great aim to be so hungry for God's Word that it receives the same priority as meal planning.

Read the whole post here.  It doesn't matter if you aren't going back to school this August.  The principles still apply.

The grand gesture of encouragement

You may have noticed that I have been thinking about the nature of encouragement lately. 

Last Friday evening we found ourselves with a bit of a situation on our hands.  Not overly serious in the end, but it added a layer of emotion and the need for even greater feats of juggling to an already complicated and oversubscribed weekend. 

Just before my head hit the pillow at the late end of that day I received a text message from a sweet, sweet friend who had become aware of said situation.  She simply said that she, her husband and her mother had prayed for this situation and then she wished us good night.

Perfect timing.  At the end of a long day.  Just prior to sleep before the beginning of what was looking like a near impossible day ahead.  And not with the promise to pray, but passing on the message that the prayer had already been prayed.  Perfect, perfect encouragement.

Stumped as to how to encourage someone?  Too time poor to cook meals for someone or write a carefully worded note?  Too resource poor to provide someone with a few days break away?  Too skills-poor to fix that person's garden, finish their home renovation gone wrong or make their car work again?

Sometimes an act of encouragement might seem very small - but it might end up being the grandest of all gestures.  That short text with the prayer behind it spurred me on all weekend.  And thanks be to God the situation is by and large resolved.

Some more comfort

Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves receive from God.  For just as we share abundantly in the sufferings of Christ, so also our comfort abounds through Christ.   If we are distressed, it is for your comfort and salvation; if we are comforted, it is for your comfort, which produces in you patient endurance of the same sufferings we suffer.  And our hope for you is firm, because we know that just as you share in our sufferings, so also you share in our comfort.

2 Corinthians 1:3-7

Aramaic, Latin and Greek

"Pilate had a notice prepared and fastened to the cross.  It read: JESUS OF NAZARETH, THE KING OF THE JEWS.  Many of the Jews read this sign, for the place where Jesus was crucified was near the city, and the sign was written in Aramaic, Latin and Greek." 
John 19:19

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"The highly respected German scholar Adolf Harnack calculated that by A.D. 250 no less than 30,000 Christians lived in Rome.  Most of these came from the poorer classes.  We know this because for more than a century Christians in Rome spoke Greek, the language of slaves and poor men.  True Romans of the upper classes used Latin."
From Church History in Plain Language by Bruce L. Shelley p.31

 

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And I have this noted in the margins of my previous Bible at John 19:19...

Pilate's sign:
Aramaic/Hebrew - the language of religion.
Greek- the language of culture and thought.
Latin - the language of government, law and institutions.

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Just in case you ever wondered why Pilate wrote his sign in three languages.

Status Report: August

Reading: Church History in Plain Language by Bruce L. Shelley.  It's good to be reading a church history survey again.  Once again I am reminded of what I wrote here about church history...

The first time I read through an overview of the history of the church (2000 years thus far) my overwhelming thought was, "It is a miracle that the church has survived." As much as the church has been carried along, under God, by faithful men and women, so also have other men and women done their best to see its undoing. Were the church a human construct, it simply wouldn't have survived. The church is truly God's church. To read church history is to see evidence that God is sovereign. And that is a great blessing. Praise be to God.

Also reading: Emma by Jane Austen.  My fourth Austen for the year.  For times when I want something light for a chapter or two.  It's unusual for me to have two books on the go at once.  But it seems to be working at the moment.

And reading: the Bible.  But you already knew that.  (So make that three books on the go at once.)

Convicted: last Sunday during church when I heard this single verse read out:

"The Lord is in his holy temple; let all the earth keep silence before him." Habakkuk 2:20. 

There hasn't been enough keeping silence before the Lord lately.

Loving: this quote that a friend (a real one) put up on Facebook earlier this week.  From Keith Thomas’s The Ends of Life: Roads to Fulfilment in Early Modern England:

"In 1657 the inhabitants of the London parish of St Dunstan’s in the West prosecuted one James Farr ‘for making and selling of a drink called 'coffee', whereby in making the same he annoyeth his neighbours by evil smells".

Discovered: that when Google took away Google Reader (which was actually well before 1st July in my neck of cyberspace) they didn't take away my reading list.  I thought that would go too and that I would lose the links to the blogs I like.  So I put all the links into an old fashioned "Favourites" list, just in case Feedly didn't come through with the goods, and found that the reading list remains.  Good news.

Enjoying:  a new twist on gravy that I learned from Recipes+.  You dice half an onion into absolute tiny-ness and sauté it.  When done add a teaspoon or two of balsamic vinegar.  Then (and the purists should turn away for this next bit) blend in three tablespoons of gravy powder and the required amount of water.  And there you have it.  Very delicious gravy with a tang.

Also enjoying: the season of lemons.  Lots of friends with lots of lemon trees = lots of lemons.  I squeeze them and freeze the juice in individual iceblocks - enough for hot lemon drinks in the winter and cold lemon drinks in the summer.  People keep asking me, "Are you sure you want some more lemons?  Don't take them if you really don't want them."  Truly, there can never be too many lemons.  Enjoying the profits of a friend's grapefruit tree at the moment too.

Off: to squeeze a few more lemons, make a cup of tea and think about what's coming up this month.  How is August looking for you?