Colin: Heavenly Partnership

There are two contrasting errors we can fall into when we think about how God’s kingdom of love, joy and peace might come. The first is to think it all depends upon us, and that if we work hard enough, smart enough and for long enough, then we’re sure to see revival. The other is to think that it has nothing to do with us, that God has already planned when the next revival will take place and there’s nothing for us to do but wait patiently for Him to work out His plans and purposes, which are mysterious and beyond our understanding.

Within the River Churches, the openness of God is a cherished belief. We have a growing revelation of the freedom that is at the heart of our Father’s will for all His creatures. Therefore we have made openness one of our values, the ‘O’ in GOLD (Goodness, Openness, Love & Dynamic power). We value our own freedom and choose to exercise it in working for good together with our God (Romans 8:28). He’s working for good in all things and we love to join in as we long to be more like Him. Consequently, we work to bless our communities, helping people find freedom through following Jesus. Valuing freedom for all, we serve, refusing to dictate or manipulate to get our own way. We believe that God has given humanity the earth to rule over in order to fill it, make it fruitful and bring out its fullness (Genesis 1:26-28). Therefore He won’t work on the earth without us! At least, that’s what the prophet Amos tells us (Amos 3:7). Indeed, 2 Chronicles 16:9 tells us He is continually looking for men or women through whom He can work signs and wonders on the earth, people who are loyal to Him and trust Him.

On the other hand, Jesus taught us to depend on Him, saying, “Without Me you can do nothing” (John 15:5). Not meaning we can literally do nothing, but that we can’t produce the fruit the Father is looking for. He also taught us to pray, “Your kingdom come. Your will be done” (Matthew 6:10), asking Father to work His will on the earth. It’s a mysterious truth that more of His will gets done on the earth when we pray and ask for it to be done.

Now I would like us to work hard and use all our strength to see the church grow, but I know that, “Unless the Lord builds the house, they labour in vain who build it”, Psalm 127:1. To believe it all depends on us, is to choose independence and to fall into pride. When we think like that, we find God standing in our way because He opposes the proud, but shows favour to the humble.

I feel the Holy Spirit calling us to prayer. I hear 2 Chronicles 7:14, “If My people who are called by My name will humble themselves and pray and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land.”

In 1746, Jonathan Edwards wrote “A humble Attempt to Promote Explicit Agreement and Visible Union of All God’s People in Extraordinary Prayer for the Revival of Religion and Advancement of Christ’s Kingdom.” Some say this book sparked a prayer movement that ignited the world in revival. Today, we see prayer movements such as 24/7 Prayer making similar ‘humble attempts’ to unite us in intercession for the world. Surely, revival cannot be far behind!

God seeks partners who will work with Him for good in all things and pray for His kingdom to come on the earth. Let’s give ourselves to work and to pray in His name, trusting that Jesus is building His church and that of the increase of His government and peace there will be no end.

Ceri Francis: Encounter – being intentional about the unexpected

It's fascinating to me that Moses was the first person in the Bible to press in for a deep, one to one encounter with God. And it wasn't just another encounter for Moses – it was the first time God revealed His true nature – His overwhelmingly glorious goodness.

Moses had seen so much leading up to this point that it is all the more interesting to get a glimpse of his hunger for more revelation. Born a Levite, raised a prince of Egypt, he flees Egypt a murderer as a young adult. Then after his burning bush experience he reluctantly returns to Egypt to free the enslaved Israelites.

Ten plagues later he leads two million or so Israelites in a miraculous escape at night straight through the middle of the sea. His story continues with miracle after miracle – water production, manna, quail, healing, God's presence visible as fire and smoke and His voice audible as thunder. It was as if God used all five human senses and more to make Himself known. Moses had enough stories to give awe-inspiring talks and testimonies for a lifetime!

But after all the signs, wonders and miracles he begs God “let me know Your ways that I may know You” and “I pray You, show me Your glory.” Without the fire and thunder of his previous mountain encounter, the Lord calls him up Mount Sinai and allows His goodness, the fullness of His glory, to pass before Moses. It is then that God reveals His true nature and describes himself for the first time as “the Lord God, compassionate and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in loving kindness and truth.”

Moses was described as the man God would speak with “face to face, just as a man speaks to his friend.” Yet what was revealed to Moses was just a foretaste of what has now been given to us in full. We don't have to beg God to reveal His glory or send His presence to be with us and stay with us.

Through Jesus, His glory is fully revealed and He is with us all the time, dwelling in us, changing us to be more like Him and revealing His nature through us wherever we go. His presence doesn't fade as it did for Moses, who had to put a veil over his shining face so the people wouldn't see the effects of being in God's presence diminishing. Paul writes that we have unveiled faces and see His glory as if we are looking in a mirror and being transformed into the same image. The fruits of the spirit are love, joy peace, patience, kindness, goodness etc – us becoming like Him.

This isn't about us striving to get God's attention; it's about how we position ourselves. He is speaking to us all the time, longing to reveal more to us than we could ever desire, and wanting us to make choices that enable us to see, hear and know Him more. The dictionary defines encounter as something unexpected – a chance meeting or something we stumble across. For me the challenge is to make time for Him so I don't miss the encounters He wants me to have, whether in meetings or when I'm alone.

Interestingly, the Israelites heard God speak audibly for themselves but incredibly they opted to hear Him instead through a man's voice. We too can learn so much from others but this can't replace having our own relationship with God.

Let's be intentional about how we invest in our relationship with the Lord, trusting and believing in His goodness whatever our circumstances or feelings and making time to hear Him for ourselves. I hope and pray we see miracles, healing and more as we focus on the one who is “able to do far more abundantly beyond all that we ask or think”!

Colin: A Journey With a Purpose

We are often told that ‘Life is a journey’ and in many ways it is an apt description. The two things that mark out a follower of Jesus are the reason for the journey and the destination, the place we are headed.

For Hindus and Buddhists, the journey has begun because of an unfortunate separation of our spirits from the great and universal spirit, so their purpose is to lose themselves by reabsorption. In a way, that is not dissimilar to atheists who see themselves as an accident of evolution from the dust of the ground, returning to dust after a brief walk on the earth.

The Christian view is very different to this: creation being planned by a loving God who made us in His image, though not yet mature, and gave us the mission of filling the world with His glory - that is, a world filled with people who carry his mature image, as seen in Jesus, by truly loving one another. Jews who believe their scriptures and who were entrusted with the first part of God’s mission, have a similar outlook to us. Where they diverge is around Jesus - they don’t recognise Him as their Saviour and as God’s ultimate destination for all men and women to be like Him. It may come as a surprise to some, given recent events in the Middle East, but Muslims have a similar view to the Jews; indeed Mohammed borrowed most of his worldview from Jews and Christians. Again they don’t recognise Jesus as the Godman Saviour, and seek to bring in the kingdom of heaven through other means – some tragically so.

Therefore, as followers of Jesus, we are all on a mission, a journey with a purpose. That makes us all missionaries! Whatever else we do with our lives, what career we choose, where we choose to live, whom we choose to marry and share life with, our goal is always to be fulfilling our mission to become more and more like Jesus and to help others to follow Him.

In River, we have three treasured practices that we are convinced will help us do this. The first is to ‘Look on the face of Christ’, to look at Jesus, to meditate on what He said and did, so that we learn how to walk like Him. He is the Beginning and the End, the source of our life and our destination! We could make following Jesus very religious (and some have!), but our second practice prevents us from doing that: ‘Love everyone we meet’. Love fulfils every law and commandment, it does no harm and always seeks to bless the other person. Only when we love from the heart do we truly carry the image of the God who is love.Our third practice is to ‘Live like heaven is near’. That’s the Good News Jesus came declaring, but it’s easy to lose sight of when we hear such awful news much of the time.

When we live like heaven is near, we take Jesus’ announcement seriously and choose to believe that the kingdom ‘is at hand’, that we can grab hold of heavenly things and bring them into our lives here and now. That’s what Jesus modelled and taught His first disciples to do: heal the sick, care for orphans and widows, raise the dead, treat foreigners well, drive out demons and help the poor.

If our churches are filled with people practising these things, there’ll be a heavenly transformation going on through the Spirit! We’ll be transformed as we look at Jesus, we’ll help transform one another through loving discipleship and we’ll be transforming our communities through being missionminded in bringing heaven to earth! He’s calling us out upon the waters; so I beg everyone, let’s be as filled up with Jesus as we possibly can be, let’s devote ourselves to loving those around us, especially our families and small groups, and let’s give ourselves to the mission of bringing heaven to earth in whatever ways we feel the breeze of the Holy Spirit inspiring us!

Colin: Delight Yourself

A few weeks ago I was chatting with Richard in the office about walking in the hills. He mentioned a time when he’d seen a cloud inversion (when the clouds are below you as a blanket with just the peaks of the hills poking through like islands). I said I’d been walking for 25 years and never seen one, but would love to. A week later I was climbing Pavey Ark with my family in the Lake District. It’s one of our favourite hills and we’ve climbed it many times. We always enjoy the climb, but this time was special because we experienced a cloud inversion for the first time! Psalm 37:4 says, “Delight yourself in the Lord and He will give you the desires of your heart.” I never asked the Lord to see a cloud inversion, He’d just overheard me telling a friend about it and made it happen for me!

I’ve experienced this kind of favour many times and it always blesses me to know how much our Father loves to give us our hearts’ desires. There’s a confidence that comes from knowing we don’t have to pray for everything, that we’re not in danger of missing out if we don’t remember to pray specifically for all we desire. Of course, praying and talking to God about what we’re hoping for is a good habit to form, but it’s good to know it’s not a legal thing with Him. Like any good friend, He notices what delights us and loves to see us joyfilled.

Sometimes we have to wait years to see our desires fulfilled, like when Sadie & I wanted children. We prayed, waited and were prayed for over a number of years. Then one Sunday morning in Marlow, three ladies came up to us at separate times and gave us the same message, “The Lord is giving you your hearts’ desire”. Within two weeks Sadie fell pregnant and Rachel was born in due time.

When they were with us this week, Shampa & Jonathan Rice (Iris Ministries India) told us of the time they were launching their ministry in India and seeking to build a school. They had quotes of £12,000 to build a high wall around a plot of land to keep the children safe. They wondered how they would ever afford it, but at that time a visitor from England came through and had a sum of money to give to a building project… £12,000!

We could twist this into a self-serving ‘name it and claim it’ gospel, but in reality it’s quite different. The motivation of the latter is self-fulfillment and the focus on what we will get. Whereas our motivation must be ‘Kingdom come’ and our focus on delighting ourselves in Him. That’s what Jesus meant when He said, “Seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.” Matthew 6:33.

So how do we know if we’re delighting ourselves in the Lord, and how can we grow in that? Well, trusting our feelings can be dangerous as our hearts can be deceptive. The fruits of delighting in God are seen in how we spend our time, our energy and our money. Do we spend our time in gratitude or complaining? Do we exhaust ourselves with work or do we always have enough energy to love those around us? Do we have good intentions to give once we’re financially more stable and if the gift is deserved, or do we give freely & generously from what we receive each month? All these things flow from our perception of God. The greater the revelation we have of His goodness and kindness, the more our hearts will be motivated to seek Him and delight ourselves in Him. That’s one of the reasons the Ignite course is so good, it’s designed to help us know our Father God better.

If you’re hungry to grow, I recommend you consider signing up to either the daytime or the evening Ignite course starting September (see www.riverchurch.org.uk/ignite for details).

Colin: Relying upon Grace

What do you rely upon? Where does your trust ultimately lay?

If we’re honest, most of us trust in a wide variety of things. Some of us trust in our bank accounts and feel safe because we can buy what we need. Some rely upon our position or title to help us feel secure. Some trust in intellect, believing we will always be able to think our way out of trouble. Others of us trust in our friendships or families, feeling surrounded by folk willing to help us when needed. None of these things are bad. It’s good to aspire to wealth, wisdom and favour with men, but even if we have them all, we are foolish to trust or rely upon them.

The Bible encourages us to trust in God. As David said, “Some trust in chariots and some in horses, but we trust in the name of the LORD our God.” (Psalm 20:7) and his son, Solomon, said, “Unless the LORD builds the house, the builders labour in vain. Unless the LORD watches over the city, the guards stand watch in vain.” (Psalm 127:1). That’s why David didn’t take the kingdom from Saul when he had the chance. Even after he’d been anointed and promised the kingdom, he trusted God to make him king.

So what dreams has the Lord placed in your heart, what prophetic words has He spoken over you and what hopes has He given you? Prepare for them, position yourself to be able to step into them when the time comes, but don’t rely on your own efforts to get you there. Trust Him.

That is what the leadership of River is attempting to do. The Lord has spoken over us that we are to be a ‘resource church’, to bless the nation and the nations. He has also recently reminded us that we are called to be an apostolic resource centre – a community that sends out its best to bring life to other communities. That happens at a local level as we send folk into the estates within our towns. It happens at an international level through our missionaries & mission teams and it happens nationally through our partnership with Pioneer. Pioneer’s strategy to bless the UK is through partnership and through recognising where God’s grace rests on a church to bless their region. The aim is to build a network of regional networks that overflow with life and River is one such community.

I have been encouraged by the Lord’s grace in recent months: a number of healings in different settings, a regular trickle of people committing their lives to Jesus and prophetic words directing us to continue as we are. I have also been encouraged by the incredible folk in River, your generosity with time and finance, running messy churches and generally serving your communities with projects in partnership with other churches. Thank you!

When Pioneer established a national partnership with the Methodist Church, we agreed to take up the challenge to help revitalise 40 Methodist churches. River has recently been asked to explore partnership locally by three Methodist circuits! It’s early days, but God is building the house. Hallelujah! If we are truly to be a blessing to the Methodist churches that are looking to us, then we will need to send some of our best people to serve them. Some of us may even move for the work. That is costly as we often feel under-resourced ourselves, but as we give of our best, the Lord’s grace will be multiplied to us. Just as the food was multiplied in the hands of the disciples as they followed Jesus’ command to feed the 5000 with a few loaves and fish. If you’re reading this and your heart is stirred by the thought of helping to bring life to other churches, please let me know!

Colin: New Year, New Hope!

I hope you have enjoyed a great Christmas, celebrating the birth of a baby who would save the world! As God promised Abraham 4000 years ago, through Him every family on earth will be blessed, and as Isaiah said, “Of the increase of His government and peace there will be no end”.

When we take a step back and look at history, we can see these precious promises being worked out. Maybe they’re not being fulfilled quite how we’d imagined, but the kingdom of God on earth is growing, as an army of men and women lay down their lives to bless others.

At this time of year we also like to look forward and wonder what 2015 has in store for us. In a recent gathering of Pioneer leaders, we all felt a fresh call to evangelism. The Spirit is clearly encouraging us to continue in His mission to save the world and to proclaim the Good News as loudly as we can. The Church in every generation has to work out the questions that the people of its day are asking. We can’t simply learn and repeat the answers of previous generations as they were spoken into different contexts.

 Thankfully, there are signs for optimism that the Church in the UK has started to find its voice after decades of decline. Independent churches like River have continued to see strong growth, but now mainstream churches are also growing. For example, the Church of England reported increased attendance in 20 out of its 44 dioceses and an increase of 5% in adult baptisms in 2013. Remarkably, the Causeway Coast Vineyard Church in Coleraine has seen over 2600 people respond to Jesus on the streets in the past 10 months! I believe a few key developments in church culture have helped produce this turnaround:

• A refocusing on the Father-heart of God – that He is love
• A rediscovery of the Holy Spirit powerfully at work in and through us
• A new appreciation of our need for all churches to work together
• A recommitment to serving our communities

National events such as Spring Harvest, New Wine and Soul Survivor have helped promote such values. On top of this, there is a fresh approach to Scripture emerging, spearheaded by men like Tom Wright, which brings life rather than dogma. I strongly recommend reading his ‘Surprised by Scripture’ and ‘Scripture and the Authority of God’*. He argues powerfully that we should change our emphasis in evangelism from one largely about personal salvation and escaping this world, to one aimed at saving the whole of creation; that God’s plan has always been to see the whole world redeemed; that Jesus’ resurrection was the beginning of the new creation; that we’re headed for an eternal home on a wonderfully renewed earth; and that this is to be achieved by God and man working together.

River Churches will continue to run Alpha Courses and demonstrate His love by serving our communities, but if we are to see a real breakthrough in evangelism, it means all of us embracing the call to be good news! So how can we best cooperate with Jesus to see His kingdom come and encourage one another to be good news? Well, we could start by asking ourselves and others questions like: When was the last time you prayed for an opportunity to share your faith? When was the last time you took a step requiring faith? When was the last time you offered prayer to someone outside the church? When was the last time you were able to demonstrate your love to someone practically? These types of questions may make us feel uncomfortable, but they will challenge us to change. The answers will also enable us to celebrate the wonderful moments we get to be light in this world. I know that the more steps of faith we take, the more prayers we pray and the more love we show, the more people we will see respond to Jesus and enter a more abundant joyful life. What we have is just too good to keep to ourselves!