Learning to Walk

ladies and gentlemen...mr elton john

Sir Elton John has called for organised religion to be banned as it encourages people to hate homosexuals. 

It is sad if this is the impression that he has drawn, certainly from the Christian faith.  Whilst many Christians recognise the sinful nature of homosexuality and stand firmly against things like civil partnerships, I hope, and believe, that these same people would welcome homosexuals into their churches, showing them the love that Christ would have whilst at the same time standing against the sin.  In other words treating them no differently to how we should be with each other all of the time.

unity

The Sunday just passed I preached at Airdrie Baptist Church.  Some friends came with me for a bit of support; Karen - St Silas, Nick and Jill - Queens Park Baptist and Whitey - Church of Scotland.  I was very moved by the unity that was shown in this act and the welcome that we all received as we came to worship the One God; Father, Son and Holy Spirit, and to hear a sermon on Infectious Evangelism; looking at how we should be attempting to share the good news of Jesus Christ, the way, the truth and the life and in whom alone salvation is to be found.  With the congregation of our host church here were a group of people - with differences in denomination and tradition - united in a common belief and cause.

Unfortunately this is not always the case, far from it.  Within the denomination that I worship there seems to be serious conflict growing.  I won't expand on this as I am nowhere near as well read and do not have the same understanding of it as if you take this link to GadgetVicar.  Please pray for this situation.  One of the things that I said on Sunday was of the passion that we see in Andrew and Philip as they go to Peter and Nathanael.  Their passion for Christ was truly infectious.  It may be that passion for discord, disunity and war rather than peace - which we witness within areas of the world at the moment - is also infectious, even reaching into the 'church'.

Our prayer must be that the voice of those whom stand for what is right and true from the word of God which is living and active today will be the voice that continues to be heard when this horrible mess is finally put to bed.

getting along

We were focussing on Islam in our missions class today.  I was reminded of something I witnessed when I visited Nigeria a couple of summers back, in the capital city Abuja.  In Nigeria it is my understanding that it is almost a 50-50 split Christian-Muslim divide, possibly a slightly higher percentage Christian and a few traditional religions are still around.  With this in mind the government gave money to both the Christians and the Muslims to build a place of worship.  As we drove around Abuja the mosque was visible from all over.  It was a huge, ornate, magnificent building.  The Cathedral on the other hand was a half finished building site - with no building work going on. 

Asked why this was our driver explained that the different denominations fell out over the name and denomination that the finsihed Cathedral would take.  It was a heart breaking example of how, due to our (Christians) inability to get along, Christianity can lose ground in it's attempt to present itself as the one true way.  I know who I would go to if I was a non-religious person in Abuja.  The group, who despite differences in doctrine can still get on well enough to erect their place of worship.  Not the group who fell out halfway through and left the job half done.

This is the challenge I was aware of as I recalled this story;  We are representing the one true God -  let's not leave the work he's called us to do half done because of our petty differences.