Just been watching the 1pm BBC News… Sophie Rayworth asks – “What makes you happy?”, she then suggests some options, “Money, Good Health, Friends and Family, or maybe it’s where you live”…

Enter roaming reporter in Hay-on-Wye, apparently the happiest place to live in the UK – supprisingly Edinburgh is the worst. The environment, air quality and crime rate are all factors in making the place we live a happy place… The people of Hay-on-Wye love the beautiful countryside and friendly community, but are worried by economic uncertainty. The kids there are happy because they have new toys!

It says something about our culture doesn’t it, just in the question that Rayworth asks and her top 3 suggested answers… do you see then why prosperity preachers are popular, why they’re ‘good’ to have on Christian TV – change the message to suit the audience!

Let’s take a look at our own hearts, where do our ambitions lie, what are our hopes and dreams, where is our treasure?

Tim Chilvers is associate minister at Christ Church Surbiton. Like me, he’s from an Anglican church, like me, he went to the Brighton New Frontiers conference, and like me he’s just been interviewed about his experiences of the conference by David Capener.

Good interview. Sounds like we both had a similar overwhelmingly positive experience there (with a few little niggles).

Idealistic

I’ve been at the best University in the country to understand this group – Sussex is renowned for it’s socialism, activism, and most other isms. The SU gives I think around £10k to fund campaigning – they ban Coca Cola, ban the Daily Mail, charge you for a plastic carrier bag and will support all the latest campaigns. It’s a pro-choice campus, feminist, and the minority groups always have the loudest voice! In reality most of the ‘hippies’, the campaigners, are middle-class, from Surrey and like to campaign because it’s a bit of excitement and rebellion!

This group is strange, their interests and group characteristics make it the easiest group to relate the gospel to and to hold a serious conversation with, although many students in this group that I have spoken to are hung up on the problem of evil and suffering, and the negative role of the church in history and in the present. Maybe around 50% (a guess) of this group have had some kind of pseudo-christian upbringing, some experience of church and/or religion usually from their school or parents. Many seem to have been presented with a little bit of the gospel in the past, this bit usually comes with bad religious connotations, or unhelpful figures of authority, and it kindof inoculates them against the true gospel – they think they get the gospel because they heard a little bit, so they don’t want to hear any more.

These people are radical or at least they think they are, but they need to be challenged by someone more radical. Can we show them that Jesus is more radical? And can we as Christians, those who testify about Jesus, can we show that we are more radical?

How we live:

• Be a Biblical activist – speak up for those with no voice (Proverbs 31:8)
• Practise true religion – look after widows and orphans (James 1:27)
• Take part in student campaigning – don’t dismiss these guys as hippies but join them in causes worth fighting for – focus on the people as opposed to the cause, politics etc.
• Be radical in supporting the unpopular causes – Pro-Life, Persecuted Church and the many causes of people around the world who aren’t noticed in big campaigns
• Be as passionate and vocal in promoting the gospel as these guys are about promoting their causes. Talk more about Jesus than you do about [insert cause here].
• Make clear the reasons why we campaign – we want justice because our God is just, we show compassion to people because they are created in the image of God and loved by Him.
• Don’t make a distinction between the ‘social gospel’ and the Gospel – it’s not one or the other, the Gospel should give us a heart for the lost, compassion for the poor, and a burden for justice.

How we speak:

• These guys often have issues with religion and institutions – Jesus saves his harshest words for the religious establishment. Not only do we need to call these guys to come to Jesus and repent, but they need to know that likewise we call the religious, the hypocrites, those who have faith but no deeds, we call them to come to Jesus and repent in just the same way… Think about the Parable of the Good Samaritan, it’s often just seen as an example of compassion, but it’s also a rebuke to the religious who do nothing!
• Acknowledge the weakness and failure of the church and Christians both now and in history – a good way to explain Sin. Speak of Jesus’ perfection (point people away from us and instead to Jesus), Grace that is a gift and undeserved, and Sin that is forgiven, not dealt with ourselves.
• Campaigners are troubled by a lack of justice. If they are an atheist then it’s even more troubling, those who commit injustice are rarely held to account. it’s worth pointing out that belief in God and in the One he has appointed to judge will result in justice (Acts 17:31).
• Activists don’t get grace because they think it contradicts justice, and they don’t get God’s justice because it involves a violent death. Can we show them that the way they see and hate the injustice of the world is a parallel to how God sees our lives and hates what we do when in rebellion against Him. So then, doesn’t a substitute, someone else enduring a violent death look glorious when he’s standing there instead of us – what an example compassion and grace!
• These guys need to know that God cares! That God hates injustice more than them, and they need to be shown that God is not passive or unable to act – can we show them God working positively through his church now and can we show that God ultimately defeated evil and the sin of man at the Cross.
• Those who campaign for charities understand the problem of earthly poverty – can we show them that Spiritually poverty is worse? Both now in terms of Knowing God, and eternally in terms of Heaven and Hell…
• Can we as Christians show that we have more compassion for those who suffer, give more to the poor, look out for those who need help regardless of who they are, be indiscriminate about speaking up for those with no voice, campaign with more passion, make greater sacrifices… and can we do all this not to make ourselves look altruistic, but to make Jesus look great!

I, like John Piper, hate the prosperity gospel. But, I wonder if your reaction to it is dependant on the audience that views it… I guess when I flick on GodTV, TBN etc. (a rare event) and see a bit of TD Jakes, Joel Osteen, Joyce Meyer, Benny Hinn, Todd Bentley, Creflo Dollar or maybe the Copelands…* my general reaction is indifference, I know the teaching is wrong, but part of me thinks, so what, if stupid Americans want to waste their money on a prayer hankerchief (true story) then who am I to stop them!

What makes me hate it more is when you hear people speak from personal experience from the developing world of how via crusades and GodTV, prosperity preachers will extract money from the poorest of the poor – and what if you don’t get financial blessings or you’re not healed – that’s right, you didn’t have enough faith! This exploitation of the world’s poorest people makes me actively hate it, but shouldn’t I have felt this strongly anyway? Hatred that God’s word is twisted? Hatred that people get rich on the name of Jesus? Hated that the faith of many is crushed by the false promises of wolves?

I don’t know if you watch ‘Mock the Week’… anyway one of the rounds on the show is called “Things you wouldn’t hear at…” So here is my list… “Promises of God you wouldn’t hear from a prosperity preacher“… if you like a ‘poverty gospel’, name and claim these promises of God for yourself!

1. Everyone who wants to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted (2 Tim 3:12)
2. The LORD gave and the LORD has taken away (Job 1:21)
3. [God's] power is made perfect in [your] weakness (1 Cor 12:9)
4. There is no one who does good, not even one! (Rom 3:12)
5. Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds. (James 1:2)

Paul has some good quotes on this:

If I must boast, I will boast of the things that show my weakness. (2 Cor 11:30)

I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death. (Phil 3:10)

Let’s name and claim these truths – let us boast only in our weakness and in Christ crucified that He may get all the glory!

* On a side note, I found two books by one of the prosperity preachers named above on my church bookstall. None of my church leaders had heard of this preacher, so were unaware of the heresy contained there in. If you’re a church leader make sure you read up on who’s teaching what – go to Wesley Owen, chances are 50% of the books in the best sellers will be prosperity preaching!

In the summer edition of The Briefing, Nathan Walter gives some tips on listening to sermons (back page)… he starts off with a gentle rebuke to people who say “Mark Driscoll says…”, I don’t know anyone like that, hmm… but that is always a danger isn’t it, that we hold too high an opinion of the words of [insert your favourite preacher here] diminishing both our own pastors and our personal time with God in His word. Here are his tips:

• Vary your diet of preachers, and, sometimes, why not simply listen to an audio Bible?
• Be wary of comparing the online preacher (publicly or privately) to your own God-given pastors.
• Don’t forget your responsibilities as a listener. Test everything. Never listen without your Bible open. Chase up the passages and write notes.
• Keep audio sermons in their place: like good Christian books, they can help us grow enormously, but we mustn’t let them loom too large. Nothing beats the godly discipline of reading your Bible.
• As with all preaching and teaching, don’t just listen to store up knowledge; listen to sermons in order to put the Word into practise. Listen to an iSermon on your iPod, but make sure you also have an iHarvest of righteousness.

Some good advice. The only one I would question is point 3 – while I agree in principle and certainly would do this when listening to a talk while at home, a lot of the time if I’m listening to a sermon on my iPod I’m doing something else; walking around town, travelling, at the gym (rarely but has been known)… it’s on my iPod because I’m not in the position to sit with open Bible and make notes.