Lessons in Generosity and Hospitality - Reflection 2 on my Visit to Cambodia

"Lunch in a Rural Cambodian Village" (Taken 2nd February 2013)

So today found me up with the lark and on the road out of Phnom Penh to minister to men and women who live in villages around 3 hours outside of the city. The journey there was full of fun, laughter and genuine fellowship as I shared my story with other pastors travelling with me and they shared their stories with me.

One had been controlled by evil spirits and his life had been blighted by struggle, sickness and poverty. His whole family had been gripped by fear and sadness and loss, then he met Jesus and everything changed! Since then he has been free from fear, and many of his family have come to know Christ. The sickenesses that he was afflicted with have been lifted and he is serving the Lord with great faith and passion. Another lost most of his family in the 'Killing Fields' yet has forgiven the killers and has come to faith in Jesus and is now reaching out to the very people who attacked him years ago. These are amazing trophies of grace.

Generosity embodied.

When we got the village, the whole community had gathered to hear the 'English' (!) preacher. We were met with beautiful fresh coconuts, served a lavish lunch (see picture) and honoured in so many ways. I preached on 2 Corinthians 1:10 and encouraged those present to remember that God had delivered them, was delivering them and would deliver them. They had been set free from the penalty of sin, were given power over sin and would one day be freed from the very presence of sin. We had a wonderful time of fellowship and celebration together.

What has struck me here, as in so many other countries I have visited to minister, is the utter kindness and generosity of the people. They have so very little, yet give so much away. The lunch is just an example. The best chickens prepared for us. Beautiful dressings for more rice than I have ever seen (the Khmer people have rice with everything!). Fish caught and delicately prepared. Noodles, dips, bottles of water, coconut. The table cleaned and set out especially. The room pristine and ready for  respectful hearing of God's word. 

It's more than just food and clean rooms though. The generosity and hospitality of the people here is seen in their welcome, their love, their attitude, their smile. You feel it when they greet you. You sense it when they give you a glass of water. They want you to know you are welcome. They aren't being legalistic, doing something because they have to. They are being generous because they have experienced the generosity of God, because they have a culture of honour that outstrips anything I have ever seen in so called 'Christian' Britain and because they believe that those who teach God's word are worthy of double honour (something deeply biblical about that and often forgotten in our churches in the UK).

They may be poor - but they are rich in their kindness. Maybe it is because they do not see their possessions as symbols of their status? Maybe it is because they are more biblical than us. Maybe they are not as caught up with 'stuff' as we are. Maybe they are just more willing to embrace the reality of being the family of God.  There are many reasons why believers I have encountered in other parts of the world are more generous and hospitable than we Christians in Europe.

To be honest, the church in the UK (by and large) has nothing, absolutely nothing, to teach the church in Asia or Africa and or Australasia, or even the USA, about generosity and hospitality. Every single country I have visited over the years has been better at being generous than the UK church. Don;t get me wrong - I am not having a sideways swipe at any church that I have led or lead in the UK. I happen to think that Gold Hill is a kind, generous and open handed community and there is no other place I would rather be and no other local church I would rather lead (I miss you guys sooooo much when I am away). Yet we still have much to learn.

Real generosity - lavish kindness like you see here - is not a stifling, 'we can't afford to be kind', 'don't give them too much' kind of attitude. Real generosity, the kind that opens your eyes in wonder and leaves you speechless in gratitude springs from the conviction that Christ has been lavishly generous to us and so we should be to others. It springs from a deep understanding that it really is more blessed to give than receive. It flows from the belief that the church should be a kind, open-hearted, loving, giving, authentic community that welcomes strangers, provides food for the hungry, water for the thirsty and a warm, whole-hearted welcome to those whom we meet.

Paul told the early church to 'do good to all, especially to those who are of the household of faith'. I think there is something of the early church's true koinonia, genuine oneness and willingness to be a family that we in the West have lost and are losing.  I also think the early church knew how to honour those who taught it, led it, loved it and prayed for it in a way that many of our churches have lost.

I thank God for the ways in which He is ministering to me through the people of Cambodia. I thank God for the church here. I pray I can be as generous in my time and sharing of my gifts with them and others around the world and in the UK as they have been with me.

And I know this - the church here will never out-give the generous, abundant, lavishing kind God that sent His Son for us.

A Viral Campaign...

Let's start a viral generosity campaign! Give something away this week. Invite some friends for a meal. Give someone a gift of time, or a cup of coffee or a smile. Bless your church leaders by praying for them. Make sure you honour them financially. Be lavish with God's resources that He has entrusted to you. Who knows - we might just change our communities one life at a time. And the world will be changed when our communities are. Let the church of Jesus be known as the most generous, kind, compassionate people on earth!

Beauty in the midst of pain - reflections on my first days in Cambodia

Small Flower at Killing Fields

Beauty in the Midst of Pain (Picture taken at Killing Fields on 31st January 2013)

I arrived in Cambodia on Tuesday 28th January and leave on the 11th February. Until the middle of the first week of February I am serving in and around Phnom Penh then I travel by coach to Siam Reap to serve there with some colleagues.

My first few days have been days when I have seen the beauty and the depth of this land. My first lodgings (I have since moved to the next ones) were just on the corner of Tuol Sleng, the notorious prison of the Paul Pot years where thousands and thousands of people were imprisoned. Most were sent from there to the Killing Fields where they were executed. Yesterday I visited both Tuol Sleng and the Killing Fields and was deeply moved by both. The people of this land have endured much.

They have been occupied, brutalised and butchered, yet they carry a gentle, loving and gracious spirit that is deeply moving. Yet you know there is a deep wound in this land. A wound caused by decades of pain and loss. You cannot meet anyone whose family have not been affected by the history of Cambodia over the last thirty years. Whole generations gone. What for? Some for being able to read, others because they wore glasses. Others because they went to school. Needless, meaningless and indescribable. The pain this nation has had to endure is such that no nation should have to endure it.

A Cambodian Holocaust.

There is only one word for what the people here have endured - a holocaust. Conservative estimates put the deaths over the Paul Pot years at between 2 and 3 million people. I met a man today whose 6 brothers and sisters, mother and father and entire family were butchered. He survived alone. Yesterday I spoke with someone whose relatives were killed in front of them. Next week I will meet someone who was taken to the Killing Fields, hit on the the back of the head with a hoe and thrown into a mass grave, presumed dead. Other bodies were thrown on top of him, then DDT was poured over all the bodies to mask the stench. It ate its way through the bodies too - but did not reach this man. He crawled through the blood and the remains of others and now lives to tell the story of the God who rescued him. The man I met today is training and releasing many people to extend God's Kingdom.

In the midst of the terrible pain, you see, there is hope. A vibrant, red, indestructible hope that blazes out in the midst of the pain. A hope which has been born out of the blood of many, and now seeks to point people to the God who can turn this land around - no, the God is turning this land around.

We do not want to beg.

At the Killing Fields, as I left, there was a sign which read, 'We are Cambodians! We do not want to beg, we want to work!' There is a resolve about the spirit of these people - a determination. They do not want to stay locked in the past. They want to look forward. The people are blighted at the same time with a deep, deep sadness. How could they not be? A whole nation's psyche has been crushed. But if you look closley you see flickers of hope. Tiny hints that suggest the people jere do not want to stay victims.

It may take another twenty years, but I believe the sign outside the Killing Fields. I choose to believe that the people I have met are the future of this nation. Cambodia has fine Christian leaders who are working tirelessly to raise up a generation of people who can go further than they have. Perhaps the men and women of today are still too closely connected to the Pol Pot years? Perhaps they will not be the ones to lead Cambodia's church into its full inheritance - but they are working to raise up a generation who will. I see passion, faith and hope in the people here. I spent time today with young leaders and pastors who have a passion for the Kingdom and want to see Cambodia changed. I listened to them pray and cry out to God for their nation, for their family and for their villages. I saw them weep for those who have gone and cry out for those yet to be. I see faith in their eyes for a brighter future - one where justice and equity and fairness are once again hallmarks of this nation.

Bands on Bamboo at Killing Fields (1)

Bands of Hope (Taken at the Killing Fields, 31st January 2013)

Bands of Hope

At the Killing Fields, there are thousands of brightly coloured bands tied around bamboo fences which mark mass graves. They have been left by people as memories - markers of a loved one who mattered. The flutter defiantly in the wind, their colours glinting in the sun. They hang on the 'Killing Tree', a terrible spot where infants were lifted by the feet and had their heads bashed against the trunk of a gnarled tree, then their remains tossed into an open mass grave. Each brightly coloured band screams at those who visit - we will not forget them. Paul Pot could not destroy the bands of family. He could not destroy the love that existed and still exists between those who love one another. The bands that now flutter in the wind declare to a watching world that the lives of those who died mattered - the lives of those who died matter. This country has 300 such killing fields - and each is marked by great sadness, but they are also marked by what I describe here as 'Bands of hope'.

There are other bands of hope too - men and women, children and young people who love Christ and love Cambodia. They are bright, beautiful bands of people who declare defiantly to the world that God has a plan for this nation. He will turn the tide of sadness and once again laughter will fill homes, cities and this country.

I am honoured to be here and serve them. I pray that I can continue to do so.

For Peter

For Peter: What victory, death, can you claim over him? A crumpled body all that remains for you to say you 'won' and even that will one day yield a glorious new beginning...

But know this - you did not conquer him. He broke your grip and is more fully alive than he has ever been. He is more beautifully Himself now and forever stands beyond your paltry reach.

His last breathe a cry of 'finished' faith Things once unseen, now seen, Things once imagined now before him, Whilst you remain in dark corners he sings of hope with glinting eye

Looking to the One who made it possible Whilst you, you are nothing more than a distant memory Of a doorway into glory. Who won this battle? I tell you he did, for he stands in the victory of His Victor

Peter Bond

Longing - reflection on advent

Longing eyes

Hi everyone. I have put a YOUTUBE clip at the bottom of this entry that I'd love you to watch - but here's why.

Advent is a season of longing. It's a time of the year for me, as a follower of Jesus, to think about the promises of God and His work in my life - and His assurances to me. It is also a period when I can reflect on all that has gone on in my own journey with God and allow space and time for reflection, repentance and renewal.

This morning, I stood in the midst of the frost and the cold and simply remembered. Beneath the surface of the cold, hard ground around me, life remained strong and hidden. The plants and trees around me have shed their leaves, casting off the garments of last summer and focussing their energies and strength on deepening their roots and sucking up the energy and nutrients they need from the earth. Advent is like that for me, I think. What of last year has to be discarded? What words and actions need to be allowed to whiter and fall away, like leaves falling lifeless from the branches of trees? What can I learn from last year - what nutrients do I need to soak into my life so that I might be more effective in my service of Christ - and perhaps most importantly, I can become more like Him? Old attitudes and assumptions that need to be changed - areas of my theology that need to grow more, reach out more, broaden? I am now convinced that if my theology has not changed then I have not grown.

But advent is also a season of longing - yearning. It's a time for me when, full of hope and expectation of God I allow the deep longing of my spirit to reach out to God in a new way. I am not talking about the kind of longing that we often think of as 'normal'. This isn't like the 'longing' for a holiday or the 'longing' to have something new in my home, or a strong desire to do something for the first time, or visit the theatre or have a meal in a certain restaurant. No - I mean much more than that. I'm talking about the longing, the deep-seated yearning that knows deep within that there is more of God to see and understand and experience. It's like a thirst in the desert, or the desperation for air you feel when you have been swimming under water for too long. A deep, primal ache for more of life, more of reality, more of God to be known and felt and encountered. I have had enough of theologies that box God into cerebral cells or confine him to purely emotional cul-de-sacs. I don't want a relationship with God that looks disdaingly on experience. Nor do I want a theology that is driven by emotion and feelings and treats thinking and reflection like some kind of nasty virus that best belongs in the hankerchief of humanism and philosophy. It is not so much that I simply 'want' God - I think each Advent brings me to a deeper realisation that without Him, I cannot live.

My longing is for life beyond existence, for depth beyond veneer, for hope beyond circumstances and for a spirituality that goes way beyond superficial platitudes or confessions or liturgies or choruses or tongue-speaking. My yearning is for a fresh revelation of the God in whose hands my very breath is. I want to stand on a cold morning, with the frost carresing the ground and the cold air invading my lungs and I want to be able to put my head back and close my eyes and know beyond knowing that the reality of the presence and power of God is every bit as real as the air I breathe and the ground I stand on. I want my faith to deepen and grow and my intimacy to be more intimate. I want my commitment to good works to extend beyond obligation and my engagement in worship to reach into the darkest recesses of my mind and heart and experience and shed new light on dark corners. I want my prayers to flow out of a heart that yearns to give God more praise and a more central place in my heart. I want to pull down altars that have been built where only God's throne should sit. I want my circumstances to be submitted to my faith that God is real, His presence is here and his commitment to me never changes. I want advent to be a time when the deep-seated cry of desperation inside me is released with emotion and power and intensity and is allowed to break through all the 'stuff' that so often keeps it in its place. I want the cry 'I love you Lord' to be from the very core of my being and I want it to fracture my fortitude, shatter my self-centredness and break my beligerence. I want advent to be a time of risk-taking, dangerous faith when I see again that God can do anything, anywhere with anyone. I want advent to help me see the cloud the size of a man's hand in my life and the lives of my friends that reminds me that God has not finished with me or with them yet.  I want advent to be a fresh dawning of hope, a new and dazzling day for the Kingdom, a pulling down of the powers of darkness and continual firework of faith. I want advent to set the tinsel ablaze with a passion for holiness, I want it to invade unhelpful divides between the 'secular' and 'sacred'. I want it to upset my applecart, to push me into the centre of the will of God and drag me, even if it is kicking and screaming, away from my comfort and into a place of absolute dependence on God. I want to go further, reach deeper, understand more, experience more genuinely, reflect more clearly, the grace and wonder and majesty of God. I want to sing 'O Come, O Come, Emmanue' not just with my voice, but with my whole life and heart and soul and spirit. I want to run into an ocean of God and swim in Him, completely dependent upon His grace and power and love. I don't care what people think. I don't care who mocks me. I want to close my ears to the conservative critics who tell me I to hold things in balance. I don't want to be 'reserved'! I don't want to hold anything back. I don't want to be polite about my love for God. I want to surrender more, to give more, to love more deeply, to rejoice more fully, to praise more passionately, to live more outrageously for Him.

Joel Houston captures it in 'I'll stand' - enjoy

You stood before creation

Forever within Your hand

You spoke all life into motion

My soul now to stand

You stood before my failure

And carried the cross for my shame

My sin weighed upon Your shoulders

My soul now to stand

So what can I say

And what can I do

But offer this heart O God

Completely to You

So I'll walk upon salvation

Your Spirit alive in me

My life to declare Your promise

My soul now to stand

So what can I say

And what can I do

But offer this heart O God

Completely to You

So I'll stand

With arms high and heart abandoned

In awe of the One who gave it all

I'll stand

My soul Lord to You surrendered

All I am is Yours

http://www.youtube-nocookie.com/v/0-YUU-MRjw4&hl=en_GB&fs=1&color1=0x402061&color2=0x9461ca&border=1

Soul nourishing solitiude

Hello everyone! I trust you are all well. I am doing very well and continuing to improve. Now able to speak - although I can't raise my voice in anyway and there is still little or no power in it. I went to a music practise in The Chapel this evening and was able to play my clarinet and saxophone. It was fantastic! A single note can express a thousand words and it was just soo special to be able to lose myself in the music. I may have been limited in the words I spoke - but boy, did I feel a release in playing and praising God.

I think I have overdone it yesterday and today, though. So will be careful tomorrow Feeling tired and drawn tonight, but was really encouraged by a card I received from a friend today - MNB! What a blessing.

I have my appointment for my test results and to discuss what happens next - Thursday 19th November at 10:45. But I have real peace about the outcome, as you know and am looking forward to seeing the consultant and asking when I can start public speaking again. My prayer would be that I can talk using a good mic in December, but I will absolutely follow their advice and guidance.

The wonder of solitude.

Don't you feel a tug, a yearning to sink down into the silence and solitude of God? Don't you long for something more? Doesn't every breath crave a deeper, fuller exposure to His presence? It is the discipline of solitude that will open the door.

Richard Foster, Celebration of Discipline, Page 134.

Those of you who know me well will know that there has always been a very strong contemplative part to my spirituality. I've been committed to spiritual disciplines such as meditation, simplicity and times of solitude for years. Lectio Divina, an ancient form of prayer, has been part of my daily practise for over twenty years and Celtic spirituality and practises are very important to me. I think that is one of the reasons that I have really enjoyed this extended time of silence and prayer and solitude. Rather than being a time I have feared, it has honestly been a time I have enjoyed and cherished. Think of it like getting the chance to spend some quality time with your very best friend, doing the things that you really enjoy, and you will begin to get the sense of how this time has felt for me. Physically painful and in many ways uncertain, yet at the same time intimate and special and wonderful and warm and strong. I've felt like I have been taking a walk in the autumn leaves, kicking them with my father. Again, if you know me, you will understand how powerful that metaphor is.  In the garden and grounds around where I live there are hundreds of trees and at the moment there are literally thousands of leaves on the ground - despite my friend Freda's best efforts to clear them! Almost every day I walk round the grounds here and spend time with God - just kicking leaves. I did it today - and it was great. I felt like a tiny little boy being watched by a very big, very strong, very interested Father. Today I just spent a little while running around the grounds and kicking leaves - literally! If someone had walked in they would have thought I was a bit off the wall (no funny comments please) but I have never really been overly concerned what people think about my relationship with God. At one point, it was so intense that I was convinced that there actually was someone behind me watching me and laughing. I stopped and thought about turning round - but decided not to. The feeling was so intimate, so special, so personal that Ifelt like I didn't need to turn round, like to do so would be to rob this very special moment of faith and intimacy of its faith element by needing to see Someone whom I knew to be there anyway. God watched me kicking leaves today - because He always does. Today wasn't a special day, I was just in the place where I felt Him more today - and we all need those moments.

Mylene Klass.

I don't know if any of you have been watching the Children in Need specials about celebrities travelling round the world in 80 days? Last night's programme featured John Barrowman and Mylene Klass. They stopped off in Arizona and spent some time with people who thought they channelled aliens! One of the things they did was some meditation, to try and 'make contact'. Of course they didn't and both Mylene Klass and Barrowman chatted about it afterwards. But Klass was moved by the fact that these people took time to stop, to listen and to focus their thoughts and centre themselves. She said she had NEVER done that before - she'd never taken time to stop, to be alone with her thoughts and her feelings. She'd never allowed herself the luxury of solitude and stopping. So today I prayed that for each of you - that you would discover some space and power in solitude.

Father,

Thank you for solitude. Help us today to find mini-retreats that last a second, or a minute or an hour. In the midst of commuter trains, at office desks, in busy business meetings and with children screaming for their dinner, help us to discover a different beat and to live in the music of a different melody. Help Your people to avoid the temptation of filling every moment with 'doing' because the fear of 'being' makes them hide from You. Loosen the grip of the demand of the moment, replace the tyranny of the urgent with the beckoning of the important. With threatening letters on their desks, negative voices in their heads and harsh hands reaching to grab their peace, provide a moment of solitude.

Give Your people a glimpse of the warmth of aloneness with You. Help them to remember that the absence of others never equates to Your departure. When spouses have become distant, friends are far away and help seems impossible, remind them that in the silence and the solitude Your Spirit rests. God, in whose hand our very breath is, let solitude become a rod of strength for Your people today. Strip away the props and the facades and the unnecessariness of things and ego and stuff and demands and replace them with a solid, stake-in-the-ground assurance that Your are watching us.

Help us not to try and hide from You. when we stitch clothes together with fig leaves of pride and power and control, call out our names in the heat of the day. Let us hear the words that penetrate beyond our excuses and calendars - call out to us in the moments of our hiddeness - Malcolm, where are you? And give us the grace to respond. Take away the wrong fruit - blackberries included - just for a moment and enable us to bear fruit that will last.

Thank you that there is so much more of You to know, to experience and to discover than we can ever begin to understand. Take Your people on a journey to a new place, a deeper place - where the leaves on the ground become a playground for us. Let leaves of regret become tokens of redemption. Let the autumn colours of unfulfilled hopes become the ochres of a fresh new dawn.

As we stand knee high in leaves, alone with You in the silence, give us the grace to know that in that moment You are standing right behind us, with Your eyes twinkling with love and a smile on Your face because You love us and take joy in us. And give us the faith to stop - and not feel the need to look behind, but instead the complete assurance that You are where you have always been - and we do not need to prove it because we never need to prove You. You have proven Your love for us by an empty tree and an empty grave - we need nothing more.

Amen