Musical battle in urban sunshine

Someone wrote an engaging little piece of philosophical musing in the Northampton Chronicle and Echo this week. Thought I'd paste in a link here, since it mentions the Jesus Army.

Noel Stanton (2)

See the Facebook tribute to Noel Stanton here.

Noel Stanton

Noel Stanton, founder and former apostolic team leader of the Jesus Army, died yesterday afternoon.

Many people will want to mark his passing. For those of us who live out the vision of the Jesus Army – a vision largely initiated and propelled forward by Noel Stanton himself – it feels like the end of our founding era. Challenges lie ahead. But we’re in it together.

In this blog, as a rule, I don’t mention people by name. “Washing one’s clean linen in public” (as Oscar Wilde put it) is one thing. Even washing my own dirty linen in public seems fair enough, if odd. But to air someone else’s linen, soiled or spotless, seems wrong to me, and I’ve avoided it.

It is ironic to break my self-imposed anonymity rule today for Noel Stanton, particularly as Noel himself avoided the limelight. Indeed, it is one of the marks of his humility that today the Jesus Army is far, far better known than Noel is. That is how he wanted it. For Noel, it was all about Jesus Christ, not about Noel Stanton. We are not called “Noel Stanton ministries” but Jesus Army, or Jesus Fellowship.

But Noel’s forty years of faithful leadership deserve some celebration and here’s my small part.

Noel Stanton was an inspiring leader. He was wilful, single-minded – at times maddeningly so! – yet compassionate. He could roar at what he perceived as compromise or hypocrisy, and yet he won the hearts of many, many people through his self-evident commitment and care. Many will miss him as a father and a grandad, particularly those who lived with him in Christian Community at New Creation Farm.

Indeed, it is a mark of the integrity of Noel’s lifestyle that he lived simply in community with his brothers and sisters. His was no life of privilege. He exemplified simplicity. For all Noel’s fire and tenacity, he never sought to feather his own nest. Quite the opposite: the second-hand, iron bedstead that was his throughout his years in community says it all.

One of the things I particularly valued about Noel was his unwavering commitment to those that few others would believe in. He was determined to see some of “the worst” becoming the best that they could be. At times, my hair stood on end as I watched Noel invest trust in young people who (quite obviously in my sensible eyes) were not worthy of it. (And sometimes I was “right”: Noel was hurt more than once by those who let him down.) But, of course, in every way that mattered, it was Noel who was right all along. He was determined that a generation of youth who had been written off as “Generation X”, the “lost generation” should be believed in and championed. He took risks to see it happen.

And happen it did. Some of those young men and women are leading movers and shakers in the Jesus Army today.

This belief in those with few of the natural advantages of wealth or education was a trait he shared with another holy army’s founder. William Booth, founder of the Salvation Army, declared, “Go for souls and go for the worst.”

Noel lived a similar dream. And he would have heartily concurred with some other famous words spoken by Booth:

“While women weep, as they do now, I'll fight; while children go hungry, as they do now I'll fight; while men go to prison, in and out, in and out, as they do now, I'll fight; while there is a drunkard left, while there is a poor lost girl upon the streets, while there remains one dark soul without the light of God, I'll fight, I'll fight to the very end!”

Noel Stanton fought till the very end. Now we fight on.

And Noel – we salute you.

Root cause

Words can change their meanings. I wants to rescue this one: "radical".

“A radical preacher...” Guess the rest of the headline. “Gives all his money to the poor”? “Speaks out against hypocrisy?” No: “A radical preacher jailed for inciting terrorism” (BBC, today).

In many minds today, the word “radical” throws up images of fuming imams or plotters in Afghan caves. It’s an angry word, a violent word.

But being radical shouldn’t be about hatred and fear. A true radical is passionate for good; prepared to live for love, 100 per cent.

Radical means “from the root” (from radix, Latin for root). A true radical goes back to the roots – the most important things, the things that really matter – and lives for those things.

Jesus Christ is the best and truest radical that ever lived. He radically sided with the outcasts, welcoming them into His circle. He radically challenged the proud rich and the religious bigots. He radically called people into the new society that He was forming – people who would live to love and serve.

He still calls people today, to give up everything else and follow Him, to join His love revolution – to be true radicals.

Same old story? A preacherman's dilemma

It's my turn to speak at our monthly celebration, a lively knees-up which very often involves new Christians being baptised and lots of visitors coming along. My job: preach the gospel.

'Preach the gospel'. The phrase itself indicates something of my dilemma. It sounds, well – religious. Rather last century. Heck, it sounds rather last millennium. With the exception of the definite article, old faithful the (sorry, lapsing into churchy phraseology again there), the expression preach the gospel smells of musty religiosity...

Read on...

Preach. In today’s parlance, this word is generally used to connote walloping someone over the bonce with a moralistic diatribe. ('Don’t preach at me, man!’) Then again, at least it has a use in today’s language. What about gospel? Just what does that mean, apart from being a religious word with something to do with Billy Graham?

Of course, some people know that the word gospel means ‘good news’. (For any word freaks out there, it’s from the Old English godspell – god, good, and spell, message). But knowing the etymology doesn’t really help. Because most people in the UK assume that there’s nothing very newsy about Christianity. ‘News? What news? What’s news about something that’s been public domain for two thousand years? Everyone knows what Christianity’s all about, don’t they?’

And here lies my real dilemma. Because people think they know what the Christian message is. After all, on Sunday night I probably won't stand up and say ‘Now I’m going to preach the gospel’ (cue reaching for your crash helmet and switching off because you know what’s coming). But, even stepping foot into ‘a church’, people will think they know what they’re going to get.

Not many people on the streets of the UK would say they have no idea what Christianity is all about. ‘It’s belief in God, innit?’ ‘It’s do unto others – something’. Or, more sophisticated, ‘Jesus died for us so we can be forgiven and go to heaven when we die. (Not sure quite how that works, but it’s a nice idea, so I’ll dust it off every Christmas and Easter and put it back in storage in between)’.

You might think I’m being simplistic; surely people have got more idea what Christianity is about than that. But the truth of the matter is that very often people haven’t even got that far. When I talk to people on the streets about ‘the gospel’, the standard view seems to be that Christians believe in a god that’s a bit like a cross between Zeus and Father Christmas and that he has a nice but slightly wet son called Jesus who said some nice things, but that it’s all a bit irrelevant because science has disproved it anyway. Or something like that.

Sadly, even the more sophisticated approach (‘Jesus died for me’ and so on) – usually indicating some church in the upbringing – is very often pretty limited. At its worst it will have more than a dash of something like ‘God was angry but Jesus changed his mind’. This is a development of the Zeus- Father Christmas thing: God was like Zeus, then Jesus calmed him down and now he’s like Father Christmas. (Then science disproved him.)

I have to say, I think we Christians have to shoulder some of the blame for this muddle. All too often, the Christian presentation of the gospel has been a rather two-dimensional afterlife insurance policy: ‘believe in Jesus and you’ll go to heaven when you die.’

There’s a very great problem here. If ‘the gospel’ is just about something ‘up there’ (whether Zeus mythology or ‘going to heaven’), then the gospel is automatically made irrelevant to just about everyone. Unless you’re on your deathbed or unusually introspective and morbid – forget it. (This is where atheist bus posters come in: ‘There's probably no God. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life’. Quite frankly, applied to this emaciated version of the gospel, they have a point.)

So my dilemma is not just how to find upbeat, funky language in order to ‘preach the gospel’ (i.e. the same old thing). The challenge I face is to get beyond the stereotypes that so many people assume is the message of Christianity and to actually communicate some life-arresting, stop-dead-in-your-tracks, what-was-that-you-said news.

It’s simply not just about ‘pie in the sky when you die’. Tom Wright, the bishop of Durham put it like this recently:

I don't see the [life after death] as the primary thing to talk about in evangelism. The primary thing is Jesus himself, and the vision of the loving, rescuing creator God we get when we focus on him. However, the vision of new heavens and new earth, and of God's project, already begun in Jesus, to flood the whole creation with his restorative justice, does indeed generate a powerful evangelistic message: not just 'you're sinful, here's how to escape the consequences', but 'your sinful life means you're failing to be a genuine human being, contributing to God's project of justice and beauty – here's how the project got back on track, and here's how you can be part of it, both in your own life being set right and made 'something beautiful for God' and in what you do through your life, bringing justice, hope, joy and beauty to God's world as we look forward to the final day'.

Right on, right reverend! The gospel is a call. ‘Come and be transformed and get on board an awesome project – renewing and healing a tired, sick world. Come to Jesus – he’s got a job for you to do. God’s kingdom is coming – get on board!’

So, I won’t stand up on Sunday night and say ‘Now I will vouchsafe to preach the gospel unto you’. But I will preach the gospel. And it won’t be any tired message about going to heaven when you die. It’ll be the revolutionary call we find in the pages of the New Testament. Jesus shows us God. Jesus announces God’s kingdom. Jesus dies to take away our crimes so that we can be included. Jesus rises from the dead to initiate the project. Come and join in.

Lord of the things

What does the word “fellowship” bring to mind? If you’re a Lord of the Rings fan, it probably has something to do with hobbits. And, if you’re a Christian, it may mean – er – having a cuppa after the service?

In fact, the Greek New Testament word which many bible versions translate, rather weakly, as “fellowship” has a lot more to it: koinonia. It’s about shared life, common unity or community; in fact, “everything in common.” (Imagine – “after tonight’s service, we’ll have an informal time of – everything in common”.)

Koinonia is displayed in all its glory in the early chapters of Acts: the first Christians “devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to koinonia… all the believers were together and had everything in common.” (Acts 2:42, 44)

So what were those crazy, proto-communist, apostles teaching? Well, in fact, “all that Jesus had commanded them” (Matthew 28:20). The radical sharing in Acts is the direct result of Jesus’ teaching:

“Sell everything you have… and come follow me… Truly, no-one who has left home or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or fields for me and for the gospel will fail to receive a hundred times as much in this present age (homes, brothers, sisters, mothers, children and fields – and with them persecutions) and in the age to come, eternal life.” (Mark 10:21, 29-30)

When someone like Barnabas threw his money at the apostles’ feet (Acts 4:36-37), personal ownership was over. But he gained “a hundred times as much”. He gained koinonia, the big spiritual family and all that it shared together (including persecutions; it’s not like the world doesn’t protest at its economy of death being so thoroughly challenged).

Jesus shared His money with His brothers (John 12:6); shouldn’t we? Jesus laid down His life for His friends (1 John 3:16-17); shouldn’t we?

Jesus taught, lived and died for koinonia. Shouldn’t we?

“This is my command: love one another as I have loved you.” (John 15:12)

In the teeth of a dilemma

From time to time I edit our Jesus Army national news sheet, Together. People send news stories about what the Jesus Army is up to up and down the country. And just occasionally some the entries are - unintentionally - hilarious.

I thought this delightfully surreal entry deserved sharing:

One of our friends could not find her false teeth and thought they may have gone into the dustbin (which had just been emptied) by mistake. She agreed to pray about it and shortly afterwards they were found in a bag of underwear.

So there you are. Perhaps this wonderfully bizarre anecdote raises more questions than it answers, but it does at least encourage the faithful to prayer.