Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse those who have leprosy, drive out demons. Freely you have received, freely give. Mat 10:8
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Peripatetic preachers live a double life. I am guilty, as I guess others are, of wanting news from the dust-and-sweat-in-the-eyes coal-face. With the smell of Africa or India (quite different!) leaping from the pages like the miraculee in Acts 3, and having us too jumping and leaping and praising God.
But when ministry newsletters arrive all tidy from the office, or from furlough, I mentally relegate them to second division. Silly really, because the ‘that there’ doesn’t happen without the ‘this here’.
At Life Leadership College (for so we are called), I have been teaching a series on the gifts of the Spirit. It’s fun getting the students to prophesy, and even funner watching their glee when God speaks through them for the first time. But we soon learn that the body of Christ is an astonishing web of interdependent fragility, propping each other up like a frame for runner-beans. One ‘prophesies in part’, and another takes up the tune and we have a word-picture that is God speaking to us and through us. Humbling.
For some time I have known that our lives follow seasons of similar interdependence. We have Mary seasons and Martha seasons. (Now don’t get me wrong, I know Jesus rebuked Martha’s ‘distraction’, but someone still had to get dinner!) Even the story of creation shows us that God is into cycles. The Lord himself was often too busy to eat, while at other more
pastoral times we picture thirteen men tossing pebbles into Galilee, and chewing straws. Just ‘hanging’. A whisper-still evening, low-light slanting scarlet across the lake. Jesus throws a rock into the water. Eyes follow the ripples painting the dusk’s rays onto the surface in thin streaks of maroon and mauve, rolling to the horizon. ‘So will your lives be,’ He smiles. They look at him, then at each other. And file away the like-so-many-others thought, unfathomed, for future brooding. No one says a word. For the Word is there, and that is enough.
The secret of these seasons is not to champ to get back to the kitchen, but to ‘Mary’ the days at His feet. Where else? It is the better part. Out of the spring flows the river.
I am now officially on staff! A salary no less. Job-description is harder to anchor, but ‘be a father around the place’ was my uncluttered brief. Wouldn’t look too cool on a CV, but I suspect I am past needing one of those. Nevertheless, it involves teaching which is challenging but fun. We continue to receive far greater honour in the church than we deserve. We so appreciate it, but are concerned that one day
everyone will wake up and realise we are just ordinary like everyone else.
I returned home from Rwanda and UK to find a favourite tree felled by a freak storm. Though it takes longer, the dismembering is no less grief-filled than had it been a favourite cow. Naked it now lies, the growing pile of logs testimony to the snarly chainsaw’s butchery. We take comfort from the knowledge that it fell, avoiding all, exactly where we plan to build a shed next year.
It was wonderful to meet so many of you while I was in UK last month, and especially to see how God is still using Streams in the City. It was also good to spend time with our generous trustees, who are confident of the growth of this ministry. Thank you for your faith and grace.
Schools of Healing
We are delighted to be able to announce a School of Healing in Auckland to be held in our own church at 110 Montgomerie Road, Manukau (near Auckland airport) on 2nd & 3rd November. Feel free to print and circulate the flyers. It would be awesome if you were able to join us. I will also be teaching a week on healing at Hillsong College in October, another wonderful opportunity and privilege.
Meanwhile the urge to write gnaws daily. I began the year well-disciplined with research for my current book on authority, but Martha seems to have stolen my time since! I do know that I will travel less next year, and that as and when I do, I should take others with me. A season closes; another begins. God is good!