EMA 2009

I’ve been up for the first two days of the EMA, Evangelical Ministry Assembly, held at St. Helen’s Bishopsgate, in London. Won’t be there tomorrow sadly. I shall post notes / thoughts tomorrow.

In the mean time, why not go and read someone more interesting than I…

Mike Kendall –   Pastor, St. Neots Evangelical Church

Adrian Renyolds –   Directory of Ministry, Proclaimation Trust

Dan Green –   Assistant Pastor, Banstead Community Church

Follow the Twitter updates – #ema09 (Michael Jackson seems to have caused Twitter to crash!)

Maintaining Hope through Suffering

‘Maintaining Hope through Suffering‘ is the title of a paper written by my Dad (David Bourne) for the Fellowship of Word and Spirit.

My mum experienced a great deal of personal suffering throughout her life, largely through a series of illnesses. Dad was obviously very much a part of this suffering. In this talk he outlines the situations we faced as a family and how we have been able to maintain a right view of both God and the suffering, how we have maintained hope when all seems lost, when suffering seems pointless, and when God seems far. We do indeed have a great hope in Jesus!

You can download the talk script.

Also, he also gave a talk, based on similar thinking called – “Suffering and a God of love – no way!” – much of this thinking has been influenced of course by personal circumstances as well as the writings of John Piper, Alec Motyer and others. If you want to know a little more about my family, my mum & dad, as well as I trust, some encouragement through suffering, then listen to this talk!

Two books which have personally helped me through difficult times are:

God in the Storm, by Marc Maillefer

This is a book which seeks to find a Biblical perspective on suffering while at the same time offering pastoral encouragement in light of the author’s own experience of suffering.

Spectacular Sins, by John Piper

Although not specifically about suffering, John Piper draws on the themes of evil, Sin and suffering, to show that even through the dark times in life, God is very much at work. Not simply allowing suffering, but ordaining and using suffering for his glory and our growth.

Pastor Dad

Pastor Dad is a new short book released by The Resurgence, written by Mark Driscoll. It’s subtitled “Scriptual Thoughts on Fatherhoods” and is based on a sermon originally preached in 2001. I haven’t read it… I’m not a Dad… one day maybe… If you are, go check it out… it’s available freely as an e-book from the Resurgence website

2 Jobs at Cornhill

I’m going to be going on the Cornhill course (Mondays and Tuesdays) from September. I’m quite excited to be starting that…

You could join me… there’s two jobs available starting in September:

• Full-time Administrator
• Part-time IT Administrator (could be combined with the training course)

Two good opportunities. Check out more details on the Proctrust website.

An audience with Alistair Begg

On Wednesday of this week I had the priviledge to spend an hour or so with Alistair Begg….

Alistair Begg has been in pastoral ministry for 32 years. Following graduation from The London School of Theology he served eight years in Scotland at both Charlotte Chapel in Edinburgh and Hamilton Baptist Church. Since 1983, he has been the senior pastor at Parkside Church near Cleveland, Ohio.  He has written several books and is heard daily and weekly on the radio program, Truth For Life.  The teaching on Truth For Life stems from the week by week Bible teaching at Parkside Church. He and his wife, Susan, have been married 32 years and they have three grown children.

Me and my dad went to chat with him about Bible by the Beach… he’ll be doing the Bible readings in 2010. But we also got to chat about a number of issues…

We spoke about the Emerging Church and the effect that’s having in the States, and related to that, the lacking of good, solid Bible teaching that promotes Christians to grow in many churches either side of the Pond.

Two things really surprised me though… Alistair has never heard of ‘Federal Vision’, and has never heard Mark Driscoll preach… He also dislikes blogging – I kept quiet at that point!

In speaking one thing was very aparent… Alistair is a pastor at heart, despite being in another country, speaking at a conference, his clear desire is to be with his congregation, to be preaching to them, encouraging and pastoring them. Good times – he also has a very dry sense of humour, and supports Glasgow Rangers!

Alistair Begg – BBTB 2010

Alistair Begg is coming to speak at BBTB 2010. The theme of the conference is ‘The Glory of Christ in the Cross’ – so we don’t know exactly what yet, but his Bible readings will be based on some aspect of the Cross. Make sure you book in!

iPhone 3.0 aint all that

So the 17th June came… no iPhone update… they didn’t specify you’d have to wait till 6pm GMT to be able to get it! So we waited. 8pm I’m downloading the update. Apple activation servers are unavailable. Fortunately you can get by it by turning off your internet connection for the update.

So about 8.30pm, after much anticipation, and a bit of frustration we have an updated iPhone – hoooray! But it aint all that… not worth the anticipation at least!

Yes there is copy and paste – good! Yes, there is MMS – should have been there anyway! Yes there are ‘voice memos’ – I had an app for that anyway. Yes there is ‘Internet Tethering’ – but I aint paying O2 any more money for that! Improved calendar, shake to shuffle for the iPod… all good, but these things should have been there anyway.

Well, it’s a good update, but not as good as all the hype suggested!

Matthew 21: 18-22

I did a talk at the 8am service at church on this passage… it’s a pretty weird passage… but I don’t think it’s that complicated when you look at it with the theme of faith in your head…

Faith and Fruit

• Leaves on a fig tree are a sign of fruit… but there is none – outwardly looks good, but no fruit!
• Mark says that it wasn’t the right time… but clearly Jesus expected there to be fruit (even if not ripe)
• A miracle of judgement  -  not creation but destruction! Why did Jesus do this? Surely he could of used his power to create fruit??

BUT, he was teaching, making a spiritual point!

Jesus has just cleared the temple… he’s exposed that while the Jews have ‘leaves’ they have no fruit

Jeremiah 8:13 - I will take away their harvest¸ declares the LORD. There will be no grapes on the vine. There will be no figs on the tree, and their leaves will wither. What I have given them will be taken from them.

This is God acting in judgement on his people… Jesus is God! The temple was dead… and ultimately it was ‘withered’ in AD70 when it was sacked by the Romans

• What about us? Are we all leaves and no fruit?
• Do we do the right things externally… without true faith?

READ      John 15                  I am the Vine REMAIN IN JESUS!

Faith and Prayer

• “If you have faith and do not doubt”          -               v.21
• “If you believe”                                                    -               v.22

You can…   Make a fig tree wither, Tell a mountain to jump in the sea, Receive whatever you ask…

Is Jesus talking about the Mount of Olives?    (Zechariah 14:4 – being split in two)… Or about the mountain where the temple stood? Probably not, and it doesn’t matter… just an expression of hyperbole… (Matt 17 [small faith], 1 Cor 13)

Job 9 – It’s God who moves the mountains…

So…         We are not talking about GREAT Faith, but simple faith, in a GREAT God

It’s not that you can do anything, and you will be given everything… BUT, God is great, powerful, able to do amazing things… This is God… it’s God who can do amazing things, like causing a tree to wither!

Paintballing Wounds

Went to a stag do at the weekend, did a bit of paintballing back up near the village. We all got some bruises but I got the best one… 4 paintballs went into my right shoulder on 4 separate ocassions, this is the resulting bruise which I have been showing off to anyone who’s interested!

Check this bad boy out… (apologies for hairy chest also shown in this shot)… it almost looks like a love heart, with a smiley face inside…

Speakers’ Corner

On Sunday I went up to Speakers’ Corner, along with a small group from the Students & 20s group at my church. We were hoping to see Jay Smith debate, but sadly he wasn’t there. But we had some debates with some Atheists, heckled some crazy lady, and then I (and others) had loooooong debates with some Muslims.

We talked about the Trinity… about God’s justice and how He deals with Sin and Forgiveness… these Muslims are quite well practised, they have their proof texts, but they fall on two big counts – they fail when looking at the Bible to use any kind of context, either the context of a verse, passage, or wider Biblical framework. They also miss the point because they don’t get the Trinity… you can’t explain the cross and how God deals with Sin, without grasping the Trinity!

One thing I’ve noticed in debating Muslims is that they know more about the Bible than I know about the Qu’ran, this inevitable means that it’s the Christian on the defensive… but even when you ask them a question… first they’ll turn it back on you, second they’ll side step the question, and third they’ll answer it… but even at step 3, the answers aren’t coming from the Qu’ran, little if any reference is made!

So, my challenge to myself, is to read some more of the Qu’ran, do the research, and next time put the Muslims on the defensive… this is why Jay Smith is so effective… cos he knows his Qu’ran!