Long Live The King?

1 Samuel 8. I love this chapter and could go to town telling you about everything I like about it, but will try and keep this brief.

So here’s the craic: Samuel has been combining the role of judge, priest and leader of the armed forces, and as such has been God’s de facto agent for leading Israel – he’s the voice of authority. As Samuel got older, he started to devolve some power to his sons – Joel and Abijah – but they were “not like their father, for they were greedy for money.” (verse 5). The result was this: Israel asked for a king.

Now this might not sound like a big deal, but it was. Even with leaders such as Moses, Joshua, and the all Judges, Israel was still very much a theocracy – they were ruled by God. And it was this characteristic that marked them out as the Lord’s chosen people. So by asking for a king they were rejecting God and abandoning their allegiance to him in favour of one of their own. Verse 7: “…the Lord replied, “for it is me they are rejecting, not you. They don’t want me to be their king any longer.”“

Here’s the bit of the passage that always strikes me:

1 Samuel 8:19-20:
“But the people refused to listen to Samuel’s warning. “Even so, we still want a king,” they said. “We want to be like the nations around us. Our king will judge us and lead us into battle.”“

The key phrase being “we want to be like the nations around us.” Israel was the most privileged people group on the entire planet, despite their extremely chequered history and lowly standing. But they were prepared to give it up for that most elusive and fragile of things: worldly acceptance. They looked around and saw that they stood out, and rather than embracing that chose to conform to the norm instead of living as a community set apart for God and transformed by his favour. Now read Romans 12.

What about us?

Do we live with God as our commander-in-chief or do we want to be like the nation(s) around us? Have we swapped our authority as sons and daughters of God for submission to ‘worldly’ systems and mind-sets? Are we conformed or transformed? Something to think about…

Twitter!

We’ve noticed a few more of you have finally been getting cool and signing up for twitter, so thought it would be a good time to shout out some of the people we like to follow so you can do the same (twitter ID in brackets).

Reach (@reachmanchester) / Vinelife (@vinelifeMCR)
First things first, get your home team in order!

Bill Johnson (@billjohnsonBJM)
Classic one-liner after classic one-liner. An essential.

Relevant Magazine (@RELEVANTmag)
Lots of interesting articles and links from the popular website.

John Mark McMillan (@johnmarkmc)
Friend of reach John Mark keeps you up-to-date with his comings and goings as well as making some interesting comments on worship music.

International House of Prayer (@IHOPKC)
All the latest from IHOP in Kansas City.

Banning Liebscher (@thebanning)
My new hero Banning recommends books and updates you on all the major happenings with Jesus Culture.

Gary J. Cutlackowitz a.k.a. Sexy Executive (@sexyexecutive)
Not strictly Christian, but his interpretation on mundane, office life is pretty funny.

Then of course there’s always myself (@ralphpedley) and Jon (@jon_hodges) – you probably want to get right on that.

Happy tweeting!

Is there such a thing as emotional pornography?

I stumbled across this article on relevantmagazine.com:

“The Dangers of Emotional Pornography”

I thought it raised some interesting points. What do you reckon?

Let Me See Your Eyes

If you’ve a spare penny or two, you could do a lot worse than sending them in the direction of…

Cory Asbury – Let Me See Your Eyes

I got this album a few weeks ago and just haven’t stopped listening to it. I think it might be my favourite “worship” album ever. It’s funny because part of me thinks it really shouldn’t be. A good 3 or 4 of the tracks have a strong RnB/Hip-Hop influence, which usually spells disaster for many Christian-crossover hopefuls, but for whatever reason it just works. Cory’s voice is astounding and every track is enjoyable to listen to. They’re really good songs! But ultimately I think it’s just such anointed worship that you can’t help but love it – it draws you into deeper intimacy with Jesus. Get involved, you won’t regret it!

The ‘hits’: Jesus, Let Me See Your Eyes and My Beloved (see vids below)

My favourite track: Always Faithful (Prophetic Song)

Free Sample!: You can download Psalm 18 for free right here

Where can I buy it? You can get it from the IHOP bookstore, but the easiest thing to do is just download it. I got it for a fiver off Amazon and it will be on iTunes as well.

Can we be over-efficient?

I’m reading a book at the moment called The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck. It’s about a family from Oklahoma who, like countless others, have been forced off their land and replaced with men in tractors. Traditional farming techniques were no longer producing sufficient profit margins, so the banks that owned the land repossessed it and introduced cheaper, higher-tech methods. Methods that, while producing a greater yield in the short term, would eventually end up killing the land for good.

When reflecting on this change, and the contrast between the family who lived, breathed and worked the land, and the man who just turned up for a few hours to do a shift on it, Steinbeck  wrote the following passage that really struck a chord with me:

But when the motor of a tractor stops, it is as dead as the ore it came from. The heat goes out of it like the living heat that leaves a corpse. Then the corrugated iron doors are closed and the tractor man drives home to town, perhaps twenty miles away, and he need not come back for weeks or months, for the tractor is dead. And this is easy and efficient. So easy that the wonder goes out of work, so efficient that the wonder goes out of land and the working of it, and with the wonder the deep understanding and the relation. And in the tractor man there grows the contempt that comes only to a stranger who has little understanding and no relation.

It made me think of church. If our faith is the land, have we become a bit like the tractor man? Have we become so efficient at Christianity – saying the right things, being in the right places – that we have lost the wonder of our faith? And so with it have lost our deep understanding and relation with God? Deep understanding and relation that comes from day-in, day-out intimate interaction with Jesus, our “land”.

I’d like to think not. I think we just have be careful about avoiding the tendency to simply “get the job done”; to tick off our Christian commitments and then get on with the rest of our life. God created us to enjoy him; too see him and savour him. And if we do feel like we’ve lost our wonder of God; our deep, heart-to-heart connection with him, maybe it’s because we’ve sent for the tractors. Maybe we’ve exchanged relationship with God for an effcient Christianity that fits better with our 21st Century lifestyle; an efficiency that may just end up running our faith into the ground.

But thankfully, I’m excited that we seem to be going the other way. Our hunger for intimacy is growing and we seem to be really catching God’s vision for our church and our city. Bring it on!

Christmas Shopping

It seems like every day at the moment that my inbox gets filled with emails about Christmas presents. Pretty much any company I’ve ever bought anything off has got in touch to let me know just what I should be buying my nearest and dearest this year.

Well this got me thinking… what are we going to be buying people this year (if anything)? Will it be stuff they want or just whatever we can get our hands on that’s half-decent and won’t break the bank? Will it improve there lives?

You might have other Christians in your friends and family, or you might not. But how’s this for an idea…what if we were a bit more intentional with our gifts this year? Maybe we could use the opportunity to bless someone with something that will encourage their faith – or maybe even stimulate it for the first time? It could be books, CDs, DVDs whatever. Music’s normally a winner so I thought i’d give you a few suggestions in that area…

John Mark McMillan – The Medicine

Friend of reach and all round awesome guy John Mark McMillan released his third album, The Medicine, last year. It’s ace. Musically it’s great, especially if you like your guitars, but I think his lyrics are just amazing. He’s clever and original and by avoiding all the standard Chrsitian clichés he makes you actually take notice of what he’s saying and process what that might actually mean. It’s a great album and would make an excellent present. You can listen to some tracks here. Do it now!

Kristene Mueller – Those Who Dream.

A gorgeous album from one of the Bethel worship leaders. Even though it’s obviously Christian, it’s not a ‘worship album’ per se and stand on its own two feet musically in terms of being a record that’s both chilled/reflective and uplifting at the same time. And her voice is simply stunning, especially on St. Francis. I’ve got a copy and I’m buying one for my mum! Head to her myspace for a sample.

Mute Math – Reset EP.

Mute Math have just released their 2nd full-length studio album, Armistice, but I can heartily recommend getting your hands on a copy of their debut EP if you can. They are genuinely one of my favourite bands and I think they manage to balance being Christians and making actually good music better than most. Reset is inventive whilst remaining accessible and references Christian themes without being in any way preachy or ‘churchy’ – perfect for non-Christian siblings for example. If you can’t get your hands on Reset then MuteMath or Armistice would make equally great presents. Check out www.mutemath.com for the full story!

Misty Edwards – Relentless.

Now I know even the very thought of “worship music” sends shudders down some people’s spines, but regardless of it’s relatively uncool reputation I have found myself really blessed by worship albums both over the years and still today. This album is great. Misty’s straight out of IHOP so all the songs come out of that place of prayer and intercession – a definite recipe for success in my mind. It’s passionate, gutsy (with some flowery, girly moments sneaking in towards the end) and has some genuinely brilliant worships songs on there including Finally I Surrender and My Soul Longs For You. Have a listen! So if you know someone whose probably been listening to that Matt Redman CD for a little too long then get involved with this – they’ll love it.

Got any better suggestions? Think these are rubbish? Leave a comment and put me in my place!!

Website of the Week – RELEVANT Magazine.

Relevant Magazine: God. Life. Progressive Culture. (as they put it)

This website is ace. In fact I haven’t even had a chance to find out just how good it’s going to be yet because I couldn’t wait to post it on here.

It’s got everything you’d expect from a “relevant” Christian website – there are artciles about Christian living in contemporary society, media content, forums etc etc. But there’s one big difference, the stuff on here is actually good (and consequently “relevant”)! For example, take music. Not only do they have videos and reviews of  “Christian” stuff but to good “non-Christian” stuff too because, you know, it’s what people are actually listening to. But culture doesn’t stop with music so they have film and technology features up there too (among other things). I really like the ‘Life’ section. It’s got articles about issues that, as Christians, we need to be a lot more clued up on – health care, evolution, politics and news in general.  I’m looking forward to reading a few. (But bear in mind it is American so the news and stuff will be American. But hey, they gave us Chuck Norris so we can probably have a bit of grace for them right?)

So make sure you check it out, and let me know if you find anything particularly good – www.relevantmagazine.com

In other news, I think it’s important to make sure that everybody has seen this: