Hideous Hogmanay!

Every family I suppose must have its own traditions. Some of these are mundane and unsurprising while others are the special peculiarities which make you realise that you are in the right house when you get home. Over the last few years a family tradition has emerged in the Hideous house which has become an established fixture in the Hogmanay celebrations. The particular ritual to which I am about to draw your attention I suspect may well fit into the latter (special) catagory described above.

As anyone who has ever taken up the opportunity to 'see the New Year in' with us will know, there comes a point in the proceedings, usually after dinner, when in a moment of great solemnity the Hocus Pocus Singalong is announced. Thereupon the song is selected, the stereo is cranked up, and the family spring into action.

The line up this year was something along the lines of, Mrs Hideous on lead and backing yodelling, and occasional head banging; Boris (9) on lead guitar (air) and backing screaming; Norris (6) on backing yodelling, lead screaming and manic dancing. While little Doris, lead the chair dancing, arm waving and looking bewildered. I was happy to add, backing yodels, real ale, and air drums. Guest artists this year included his venerableness my father (on jovial bemeusement), my mother (in horror and photography) and my little sister 'Potts' on tentative particpation.

It may be the case that you have lived a life of cultural deprivation, cut off from the airy refinement of higher learning, and so you are mystified by the mention of "Hocus Pocus, by Focus". Happily your misery is at an end, for here it is below in all its glory. Even better some ingenious person has added a Wallace and Grommit film sequence to it. (Don't mention Wallace And Grommit to my kids though, unless you want them to gleefully remind you that in our house it is always referred to as Grimace and Vommit).

The following is really rather lovely......

Skyline

Book Notes: And Now Let's Move into a Time of Nonsense by Nick Page

"And now let's move into a time of nonsense" is Nick Page's witty, funny, tragic and telling critique of Christian worship music produced over the last twenty years, which is the staple diet of many congregations. It was also an excellent and unexpected Christmas present this year!

Page uses the cringe-makingly delightful device of a mythical Christian worship leader, called "Kevin", who embodies all the very worst of the errors in the contemporary scene. His crass acceptance of some social/musical norms, his shoddy workmanship justified on the basis of his staggering egotism and overdeveloped sense of calling, his bewildering shallowness and lack of broader perspective - are all things we have encountered (in ourselves and others), but not usually in as concentrated a form as we get with 'Kevin'!

Page's aim is to to chart the recent trends in popular Christian culture, which in his view have eroded the value of much of what is sung in churches, by an uncritical acceptance of the 'singer-songwriter' model. He argues that while the pop-song format might be contemporary and relevant in some ways, it is also problematic in terms of being a helpful vehicle in which to understand, give voice to, and really feel biblical truths. On page 30 he puts the boot into the superficiality of much of what he has been asked to sing in church:

Examples of the kind of laziness that irritate Page are the unthinking recycling of tired, cliched images, which have the aura of sounding spiritual, but are anything of the sort if they do not contain truth expressed understandably. Songwriters who cut and paste lyrics from their PC Bibles do not escape Page's censure either, pointing out that this is rarely done with any respect for the context from which the words were lifted. Amazing Grace, on the other hand he notes, is a thoroughly biblical song - which despite its many, many verses has only one direct Bible quote. Yet no-one could question that Newton effectively created a vehicle for the expression of worship within the language of his time.

I think that Page is pretty much spot-on with his analysis of much contemporary 'worship'. He, of course, generalises and wrote his book before some of the more recent songwriters sought to actively avoid the pitfalls that he describes. Within the remit he has set himself, his analysis of the church music worship is disturbingly accurate though.

The problems with this book are two-fold, and do not lie in what it contains, but in what it excludes. These might be described as problems of omission and problems of perspective.

The problem of omission is that as an analysis of contemporary praise/singing it does not address the fundamental issue of imbalance in contemporary output. In his devastating essay, "What do miserable Christians sing?" the reformed polemicist Carl Trueman laments the decline of Psalm singing in churches. The reason for his lament however is not an antiquarian desire to resurrect derelict cultural practices, nor is it a snobbish denunciation of modern people or their culture; rather his lament is over the loss of our opportunity to truly lament! The Biblical Psalmists job was to take all of the people's experiences of life and to provide a musical vehicle for these to be brought to God in worship. So the Psalms of Ascent are joyful, enthusiastic and rousing celebrations of the goodness of God. These are of the same genre as the vast bulk of our contemporary Christian songs, an emotional and spiritual homogeneity which Page does not challenge sufficiently. The Psalms on the other hand also contain things such as deep laments, and even complaint! Today such lyrics are almost entirely absent from our song books, and so no voice is given for pain, suffering, bereavement, disappointment or depression to be brought before God. As such, worship services can be exclusively aimed at the joyful or, offered as a form of escapism to the troubled. All this is blaringly and shockingly unbiblical. One great example of a songwriter getting this right is "How Long?" by Stuart Townend where he invites the congregation to join in the prayerful words:

How long , before You drench the barren land?
How long before we see Your righteous hand? How long
before Your name is lifted high? How long before the weeping turns to songs of joy?

The problem of 'perspective' on sung worship in Page's book is that although he is excellent on detail, he doesn't take a step back and seek to examine the place of singing in worship at all. He seems to accept the assumptions of those he critiques, that singing is the central activity that Christians will do when they meet together. This perhaps shows that this book is a little dated, in that in the decade since Page wrote the book the so-called emergent churches have severely criticised the relevance of sung worship, and in some cases actually abandoned it. My contention, as I have blogged before, is that the NT churches were more focused on eating together (being) whereas we have become more focused on singing together (doing). Page set himself the narrow target of examining the church music of today. His book would have greatly benefited from a broader analysis of the place of singing in worship altogether.

Despite those caveats, this book remains an intelligent, provocative read which would be usefully read by anyone involved in leading worship services, as well as anyone who wants to write truly worshipful songs. As a person who not infrequently looks at our worship songs and thinks.... "what?!?" it was a joy to know that I am not alone in my sense of alienation. We need books like this.

Old Stairs, New Stairs

Not much progress with the attic over Chrustmas, happily the joiner managed to build the new set of steps up to it before he went off for the break.

Perth from Kinnoull's Slopes

With all my family in the house over the last week or so, time for such things as blogging has been impossible. This is not least the case because when they are here, they sleep in the room where the computer lives - and so sneaking a few moments on-line while the rest of the house sleeps is not possible!

I think that generally when we have people staying in the house we don't do too badly in terms of the quality of the food that is on offer (in fact Mrs Hideous has done wonders this year). Our problem is more estimating quantities accurately when catering for larger numbers with unpredictable appetites! Constantly fearing producing measly pigeon-portions which leave everyone hungry and disappointed, we tend to over-compensate and then over-consume.

So, several mince-pies heavier than a fortnight ago we were invited to go for a walk up Kinnoull Hill with some of our neighbours yesterday. It was great to be in the bracing outdoors again, stretching flabby legs, feeling out-of-breath and cursing ever seeing the Nigella Cookbook, and all its lardy, cholesterol-sodden delights. Still, we had a great time with the neighbours and their kids (who are similar ages to ours) and were inevitably well-fed at their house afterwards, although quite what Mrs Hideous thought she was doing with that banoffie-pie I still cannot quite imagine!

Kinnoull Hill was really, really cold - but the views through the crisp winter air were stunning, with the Paps of Fife, Ochils, Ben Vorlich, Beinn a Ghlo, and the Angus Glens all in view, and of those everything to the North and West of us beautifully frosted white. In the photo above, the town-centre snuggles into the valley floor for warmth, taken from the Barnhill side of Kinnoull Hill.

Book Notes: Delighting in the Trinity by Tim Chester

I initially picked up this book because the author, Tim Chester, mentioned on his blog that it was soon to go out of print, and so I grabbed one while they are still available. I'm very glad I did too because it was a very enjoyable, educational, humbling and worshipful experience to think long and hard about the unique understanding of God that is Christian Trinitarianism.

The book comes in three main sections, biblical, historical and practical. After a brief introduction which argues powerfully that Trinitarianism is not some optional appendix at the end of Christian theology, but its beating-heart, and its point of departure - Chester provides the best biblical explanation of it at a popular level that I have read. I have struggled my way through some fairly dense and impenetrable works on the Trinty, along with lectures and secondary literature to help me, but been little wiser for the toil. Chester's book boils a lot of such material down to its essential elements and provides a really useful introduction.

The historical section of the book is the most comprehensive of its sections, dealing in some depth with the way that the doctrine emerged, was developed, defended and explained over the centuries. It provides a useful way into such matters as the Arian controversy, Nicene Creeds, key terminology, the Catholic/Orthodox division, development through the middle ages, Reformation, Barth and Moltmann. Chester's view is that the Reformation lead to the best of both Catholic (western) and Orthodox (eastern) theology being brought to bear on early Protestant worship of God. The historical section is comparatively hard going compared with the other two sections, and if I have a complaint about the book it is that section two is pitched at a considerably higher academic level than sections one and three. It should be stressed though that parts one and three could be very profitably read without the historical excurcus in between.

Section three looks at the way that a Trinitarian view of God affects our view of practical theological matters such as revelation, mission, and the atonement. It fascinatingly engages with the recent atonement debates, (Chalkegate) compelling arguing recent attempts to re-draw the nature of the atonement in purely Christus Victor models fail in that they are insufficiently Trinitarian. Certainly Chalke's dismissal of Penal Subsitutionary Atonement is based on a non-Trinitarian caricature of the model which both Chester here (and Miroslav Wolf elsewhere) have convincingly demolished.

Its a real shame that this book is going out of print - when there seems to be such a deluge of shallow and silly 'Christian' books around. Chester's book is a demanding read, not just because it requires us Christians to think through the 'deep-end' of the faith; but also because the human mind which truly contemplates God, not as a projection of our highest ideals or most noble aspirations - but as He has declared Himself to be, is humbled before the greatness, glory, love, wonder, beauty, warmth and sheer overwhelming significance of Almighty God! When Christian books start with us, our lives, cares, desires etc, they reduce the Bible to being a self-help manual. How much more profound, satisfying and worshipful it is to read a book like this which asks us firstly to gaze upon, and delight in God!

Icy Greeting

Book Notes: Comrades by Robert Service

Robert Service has attempted an almost impossible feat - that of summarising the history of world communism in five hundred pages. The results are fascinating, and despite one or two disappointing elements, his broad brush approach makes for a fascinating read. Beginning with various levelling movements in Europe, Ricardo's Economics and Hegel's philosophy, Service traces the development of communist thought to Marx and Engels. He drives the narrative forward through 19thC protest and revolutionary movements, until 1917, when the story changes as for the first time self-proclaimed communists held the reins of power. He then traces developments (both in political theory and practice) from Lenin, Trotsky to Stalin within the USSR and through Eastern Europe, Soviet Central Asia, China, Cuba, Vietnam, Korea and further afield. The book concludes with a description of the end of the Soviet era, Gorbachev's reforms and the continued existence of the Chinese one-party state.

Service has sought to write in a reasonably popular style, not much technical language and without a bombardment of footnotes either - this has led to some scorn from reviewers who have called it newspaper journalism history. And it's true that Service indulges in an overabundance of excessively florid metaphors. That is not the reason that Service has received most criticism however - left-wing critics have savaged him for his lack of balance in his discussion of an ideology for which he makes it plain he has no sympathy. His contention, is that the dictatorship of the proletariat, the totalitarian phase of communism that was meant to fade into the Utopian stuff of Marx is the inevitable terminus of the application of this philosophy. Those who wish to rehabilitate Marx's legacy by detaching it from Lenin and Stalin's practice are never going to appreciate a history written from such a perspective. Those who enjoy Richard Pipes' history of the Bolshevik Revolution would find Service to be a kindred spirit.

I'm not sure that Service's book is as unbalanced as his left-wing critics would insist, however. Whilst on one hand he dismisses Communism's failures, he also tries to account for its attraction for so many people in the twentieth century. This, he asserts, is a reaction to the injustices, failures, instabilities and flaws of capitalism. In a final telling aside he says that what made communism appealing in Tsarist Russia is exactly what makes Al Quaeda attractive to communities who feel threatened by capitalist hegemony today.

On a tangential note, I am enjoying reading again (post degree!). The differences I have noticed in the way I read when I am not studying are two-fold. Firstly I read what is going cheap - (and Comrades was an outstanding bargain!) rather than what's on a prescribed reading list. Secondly I now can read whole books! What I mean is that studying so often involves raiding twenty books to compare perspectives on one particular area, but reading a book (especially a tome) from cover-to-cover is not possible. So reading this was educational, and stimulating - but also really enjoyable. Reading for fun, is a re-discovered pleasure!

Icy Window

It's been a trifle chilly, of late.... this is one of our windows, glistening in the winter sunshine!

Windows in!

Venting

Air-vents have to be inserted through the slates to ensure that there is no build-up of condensation between them and the newly installed insulation beneath. How warm the room will actually be with that amount of air-flow around it, remains to be seen.

A critic or a worshipper?

In the course of three weeks I have met with other Christians for worship, in three different cities, in three different styles, in three different denominations, with three different emphases. There is one sense in which this is hugely enriching, enjoyable, and positive - and not just in an educational sense either. The down-side is that it's hard to be a worshipper when you are in a new context, because we all (rightly) like to evaluate before we participate. This presents though the danger of becoming a worship-critic, rather than a worship-er!

In one church service I went to the preacher made an absolutely howling theological gaffe, which made my hair stand on end! In another, I was disturbed by some of the claims made and practices that flowed from them. But what is the correct reaction? Like someone long ago more qualified than myself so to do, I had not come to judge! I had set aside those hours those Sunday mornings to focus on God, to honour Him, to bring my (frequently reluctant) heart before God for refreshment, cleansing and blessing, to learn from Him and to gain knowledge, encouragement and wisdom. The greatest barrier to doing that was simply my tendency to act in church as if I was a theatre critic judging a performance. So I resisted the temptation to either question the leader whose ministry model I found so disappointing, or take to task the preacher with the woeful inconsistencies in his message; and instead to try and pray.

Perhaps the word performance I used earlier is a key thing. In Tim Chester's recent series on his blog about "Communities of Grace vs Communities of Performance", he points out the damage that can be caused when performance replaces relationship in our worship. My experience over the last three weeks has been an extreme example of this. Because I have been travelling I have worshipped largely with strangers and so their 'performance' is all I have encountered of them! This is interesting, but far from normal or satisfying, because we are so much more naturally forgiving of people we know, understand and empathise with. Perhaps the inconsistent preacher is ill, or tired, or has unwell family members who consume his energies, and when tired doesn't express things well. Perhaps if challenged the leader with the questionable ministry model would accept that he misused a biblical text to justify is practices, or have an explanation for it. ... .. . .

Knowing me so well my (ever wise) wife pointed me to 1 Thessalonians 5:21 which says, "Test everything, hold onto the good". Like the apostle who first penned those words, she was right, and it was this that helped me to cease being a critic and start being a worshipper. The stress of Paul's instruction is not to test in order to judge what you find lacking, but to gather-in what you find good, true, pure, and wonderful! The truth is that in all three radically contrasting worship experiences there was SO MUCH that was good, so much that was, encouraging, biblical, helpful and real - that I have been given plenty of fuel for the flames of worship to consume!

I hope that now I am settling back into life in my home church after these weekends away that I will be able to use the truth of this verse so to become a little of what the Bible teacher Louis Giglio describes as, "not a consumer of worship services, but someone consumed in worship of God". I have a long way to go, but I am sure that this is a first-step.

Getting Plastered

We're not completely plastered yet. The taping and filing is well underway, but there's some sanding to do before the final layer goes on. Let their be lights! The sparky has finished his bit today. As well as lights we now have 'proper' integrated mains-powered smoke alarms in the house. These are something we should really have had a long time ago.

Did you hear the one about.........

Q: Why did the hedgehog cross the road?
A: To see his flat-mate!

Q: What did the policeman say to his belly-button?
A: You're under a vest!

Q: Why didn't the skeleton cross the road?
A: He didn't have the guts!

Q: Why was the Egyptian confused?
A: Because his Daddy was a Mummy!

Yes - Boris and Norris have a joke book, the favourite bits of which are read, re-read, and read again, and the amount of laughter which accompanies each punchline doesn't seem to diminish with each telling. Even better, we have spent a couple of days with the famous Solihull Five, and they too have a joke book, into which they too enjoy repeated forays to the same pages!

Little Doris on the other hand (being only just three) hasn't quite got the hang of jokes yet. This, however, doesn't stop her joining in the peels of laughter - or indeed writing new jokes. "Why did the man cross the road? Because his face was a mountain!" was one we were treated to in the car yesterday. Fortunately this greatly appealed to Norris' somewhat overdeveloped sense of the absurd and he up-ended himself laughing, which was nice because little Doris was very pleased to have been able to join in the big-kids game so successfully.

All I can say is, if you are thinking of buying your kids a joke-book for Christmas, choose very carefully as you will hear its contents, many, many, many times!

I Hate Decorating

"Wives," James the VI and I once declared in a notorious aside, "are a necessary evil". I suspect that His Royal Highness was wrong about wives on at least one count, and so I would like to re-direct his acerbic put-down, away from them, and instead turn its fire towards the loathsome requirement of decorating.

Dirt, pen-marks, hand-prints, flaking paint and the like, mean that this living room is in urgent need of decoration (so I am reliably informed). Re-decorating the room, with all the hassle and expense that this entails, is (apparently) a pre-requisite for a satisfactory existence. Thus sayeth the wife, anyhow!

Needless to say, my view is that a cost/benefit analysis of the situation would indefinitely postpone any such endeavour. Days of misery spent with dust-sheets, polyfiller, sandpaper, paint brushes and rollers cannot be offset by a couple of smart looking walls. The long-term analysis of the matter is hardly more inspiring. If I am blessed with a long life, then heck, what's the rush? If, on the other hand, I am to be given but a few months or years, then frankly I have more important things left to achieve than this!

Which brings us back full-circle to the subject of wives. My one likes the house we share to be tidy and decorated. She finds the state of some parts of our house as irritating as my "motivational issues" as regards addressing them. Likewise she finds interior decorating magazines to be endless sources of inspiration, possibilities and ideas - whereas I find myself loosing consciousness and being summoned towards the bright light, as soon as they are mentioned.

So today, I have wasted my life, invested my time in decorating. Filling, sanding, brushing, rolling, dust-sheeting - the whole sorry caboodle. There is a fine line (yet nevertheless an important one) between saying that this is for my necessary evil, and saying that it is a necessary evil. A distinction the maintenance of which, my life expectancy somewhat depends upon.

Still, desperate times call for desperate measures. .....

Plasterboard

The Ring Story

There lies my severed wedding-ring, its symbolic 'unbroken-circle' of never ending love, in tatters. The Dr in the "Accident and Emergency" department of Edinburgh Royal Infirmary examined it and announced with a grin, that, "We'll either have to cut off the ring, or the finger". Well - better the ring than the finger I thought, and so they set to work, grinding through the only piece of jewellery that I have ever really worn, and which has been on my hand for twelve and a half years!

The trouble all began at the Hon. Percy Cowpat's house in Edinburgh where we were staying. My ring finger was a bit sore around the knuckle, and so I asked my (Dr) wife to look at it. She advised me to take off the ring, which I did. All was well, until I tried using logic. My thought was that if I left it lying around, it would get lost - not what I wanted. If I tried putting it on my little finger, if would fall off - also not what I wanted. Then I came up with what I thought was the perfect answer - to put the ring on the fourth finger of my other hand. It, I reasoned foolishly, wasn't aching, and so would be the same size as the fourth finger on my left hand and so would be the perfect place to keep the ring until the usual finger was better. Well, so I thought..

What I hadn't bargained for was the fact that my right hand is larger than my left (I have since discovered that in right-handed people this is almost always the case). The ring went on, smoothly enough, but then began to ache, and then began to really ache. My wife (The Dr) noted with concern (not a usual reaction to my many ailments I might add) that the aching finger was swelling and going blue, facts much more pertinent than the crescendo of pain beginning to accelerate into my arm. So with various lubricants they set to work, trying to pull the ring off. Sadly all their attempts came to nothing, the ring got firmly stuck over my knuckle and the finger began to go numb. I was duly dispatched to A&E where the cutters came out.

To be fair to the good doctors of E.R.I. they did give me the option of finger amputation. It would probably have been quicker than the cutters they did have. It took at least ten minutes of grinding to cut through the ring, the worst of which was the heat that the cutting generated.

The question now is whether to be a sentimentalist (melt this ring down and make a new ring from exactly this piece of gold, as put on my finger Aug 3rd, 2006) or a pragmatist (its only a symbol, get a new one). The latter option is by far the cheaper, however there is still a discussion to be had as my wife is more of a pragmatist about such things than I am. I am, no doubt, a tragic sentimentalist!

Better a Ring Than a Finger!

Grateful thanks to the A&E department of Edinburgh Royal Infirmary!

Almost a room

Bring on the Sparky

Watch out, watch out - there's a sparky about! Signs of walls appearing now too!

The 'other' Station

No doubt lovers of canals stare in horror at railway engines, who to the sound of steam whistles and the smell of smoke, steam and hot oil, destroyed the waterways as Britain's industrial arteries. To the canal boat-men, the peaceful, gentle mode of transport was smashed by the snorting efficiencies of railway mania.

Recently I indulged in a fit of eulogising over Perth station and received an e-mail (and a comment) from Vlad, suggesting that I similarly reflect on Perth's 'other' station, that for buses. I was in that part of town yesterday and went for snoop to see what I could find. The results were spectacularly depressing.

While the railway station might be a festival of nostalgia and crumbling glory, the bus station is an orgy of functional ugliness. When William Tite designed the railway station he did so as an act of opulent grandeur, of railway company egotism, in a hierarchical age when wages were low and company and civic ego's were high. The (long forgotten) draughtsman who put sorry pen to sorry paper to design the bus station on the other hand, was given but one brief, to make it cheap. The building, (1960s technology, with Lego aesthetics) is a place devoid of charm or interest, a sorry place that one longs to leave. Recently they found a corpse here in Perth Bus Station - a grizzly sordid tale made worse by the obvious black humour which darkly mumbles in response that this place is quite unsuitable for the living. In fact the living do not spend long here, but rush on their way to a more humane environment, scuttling from buses to shops, or onto buses that depart for Aberdeen, Inverness, Manchester, London and a list of destination that once would have been the pride of the railway station a stone's throw away.

The end wall of the bus station, with its awful lettering - a sight that cannot have failed to not inspire thousands of people over three decades.

Now I am not saying that the Trekkers cafe at the railway station is anything to write home about. Its coffee is OK, its ice-creams for kids in the summer are the bog-standard stuff, but the lamentably punning Bus 'y' bite (geddit!?) at the bus station makes Trekkers look like The Gleneagles Hotel. I was thinking of braving my way into the place in order to make a more informed comment on the culinary offerings, but was beaten back by the smell, and the ghastly sense that grease was congealing in the air all around me. The Gulag Cafe anyone? .. no thanks.

Buses are cheap, buses are efficient, buses represent a lovely egalitarianism, but for all this they are so graceless, so humourless, so without the sense of poetry or romance that oozes from the pores of Perth's grand railway station. Despite the cheap-tickets, the choice of destinations and the reliability of them, I still find no pleasure in the experience. Neither waiting for a bus, nor travelling on one is as consistently satisfying as watching the view as one pulls out of Perth Railway station from a train. I have spent many hours on buses, even long-distance on the celebrated Greyhounds across the States, but still the overriding impression they leave is of dissatisfaction. Now Perth Bus Station is not as bad as New York's Greyhound bus terminal, which is an underground valhalla from the third circle of Dante's nightmares; but it still is a blot on Perth's architectural map. Bus stations are very empty, devoid, without, well anything really.

I am tempted to write something parodying Betjeman (another eulogiser of the train) and say, "Come friendly bombs and fall on Perth, pummel the bus station for all your worth". But even as I do so, I am aware that I sound like the canal-lovers who once so hated the march of the parallel lines across the land, which robbed them of the tranquility of their dreamy canals and brought noise, efficiency and sordid innovations like Greenwich Mean Time into their lives. I know that that is how I sound. However, this is the view from Perth Bus Station, and it is not pleasing, and has few redeeming elements. The difference between the two can be summarised by the place of litter blowing across their respective tarmac aprons. At the train station the litter looks all wrong, the history, the grandeur and the scale of the place all protest that litter should have no place here! Yet at the bus station the litter looks appropriate, entirely in keeping with the tawdry building, the miserable architecture, the rotten materials, the shoe-box lines of both buildings and buses. They couldn't be bothered to build something worth looking at, so litter billowing through it shows that the public value it every bit as much the architect who once wretchedly signed his name to the plans. Sir William Tite, just turns in his grave.

Triso Super Number 10

Rolls of shiny insulation are stapled onto the beams. At £250/roll, this stuff had better work well.
Encasing the insides of the roof, this stuff makes the little room feel more like the space shuttle.

Next, batons are nailed in over the Super Triso Number 10 (which feels like the results of cross-breeding a roll of tin-foil and a duvet).

These batons will have plasterboard screwed to them next - already it's making the room feel a lot smaller.

Taking Shape

Our roof is splaying, the structural engineer says someone has foolishly removed the cross-ties that hold it together. Here's new ones going in that should prevent further cracking.

The old leaky, rusted-through window still in place, in front of it the beginning of a frame for a replacement. Strangely this photo makes the frame look rather squint, it looks fine in real life!

More new window frames awaiting their Velux's, which are still in their boxes.

Dirty Work

Surplus to Requirements

Abandoned Lines

More thoughts from Chester's Grace vs Performance Churches

I have been reminded again this weekend of Tim Chester's post, "Communities of Performance Verses Communities of Grace" . First time I read it, and blogged about it, the thing which stood out for me was the issue of vulnerability of leaders, and the danger of the hypocrisy of projecting an image of being 'sorted' rather than the honesty of revealing that we are sinners saved by grace alone.

As someone else read Chester's criteria to me this morning however, a different part of it jumped out and grabbed my attention - mostly because it was something that resonated with what my wife had been saying during the week. Chester writes:

In the community of performance, identity is found in ministry whereas in the community of grace, identity is found in Christ.

Of course theologically we know this is the case. In practice though, what weight does this truth have in how we view ourselves before God - and (just as importantly) how we view others? One person who grappled with this very issue was the famous Welsh preacher D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones (1899-1981). Arguably the leading non-Conformist preacher of his day, he spent half a century preaching many times a week, to large congregations. When illness and old age curtailed his ministry, he was asked how he coped. He answered by quoting the words which Jesus said to his disciples when they experienced their first ministry success:

“Rejoice not that the spirits are subject unto you; but rather rejoice, because
your names are written in heaven”. (Luke 10:20)

And commented:

Bear in mind.. our greatest danger is to to live upon our activity. The ultimate test of a preacher is what he feels like when he cannot preach. Our relationship to God is to be the supreme cause of joy. To lean upon our sermons or words of testimony from others is a real 'snare of all preachers’”.(Murray, vol 2, p738)

Lloyd-Jones makes the point in relation to preaching but the same principles can be applied to whatever field of Christian service we have been gifted for and called to do. Do we base our identity on what we do for The Lord - or who we are in Him? If we are primarily focused on the 'what', then we are in precarious territory, as our well-being and relationships will be dangerously performance orientated. How will we fare if we fail to perform, or when others fail? On the other hand, if being sinners, loved by God, saved by Christ, indwelt by the Spirit, adopted into his family, made heirs together with Christ and being seated with him in the heavenly realms is how we identify ourselves and others we fellowship with, then the effects are revolutionary.

Firstly with regard to ourselves. The security of our identity in Christ, provides the kind of stability that a performance mindset never could. It does not make us less determined to minister well in our own field, but means that when we fail it will not threaten the core of our identity. Likewise it means that we can be liberated from the need to seek the constant approval of others - knowing that, in Christ, God has freely given us His approval. It means that we do not need to aspire to prominence, control, power or influence in order to prove ourselves - but can quietly and diligently serve in the capacities to which we are called.

Secondly with regard to others, the change from a 'ministry' to a 'Christ-centered' view of identity is also significant. While some might argue that there is a hierarchy of giftings; this bears no relevance to the value we place in people, which remains absolute, regardless of calling, gifting, age etc. The old, hackneyed cliche that the church must value the cleaner as much as the preacher, has become corny due to over-use; but its relevance has not lessened one bit. Someone told me a few months ago that he has only really felt welcomed in the church once he had begun to take part, 'up the front' - as if this ministry role had somehow made him more worth speaking to! This is scandalous, because he was the same person made in the image of God, spoiled by sin and redeemed by Christ, and gifted by the Holy Spirit, both before and after he had led from the front! His ministry might have developed, but his value, and identity had not changed!

Forging our identities in Christ is not easy however. It requires not merely faith, but also a level of humility I have only rarely seen. An identity based on Christ requires deep repentance, not merely the listing of specific faults an failures, but an honesty about our falleness before God and others. It requires that we not only abandon the private attempt to justify ourselves to God, but instead seek His forgiveness; and then the abandonment of the public impression that we are self-made. The truth is that the gospel first demolishes our pride as we see our sinfulness, then remakes us as we discover how utterly loved we are by the God who forgives.

When Jesus selected leaders for his movement, he did not go to the temple, to the established religious orders of scribes, Pharisees and Sadducee's - but instead selected a strange collection of fishermen, tax-collectors, zealots and unremarkables. Yet to these outsiders, these humble men - aware of their own lack of qualification for service in Christ's kingdom, he warned; "Beware of the yeast of the Pharisees". And what is this yeast, this tiny amount that can alter the consistency and taste of the whole batch? Self-righteous certainty, rule-keeping external holiness accompanied by a hard graceless heart, a cruel hierarchical view of people based on human performance, which flows from the heinous and crippling sin of spiritual pride. In fact we might say that the yeast of the Pharisees looks a little like the performance based church!

Like those first disciples, we are nothing much in human terms. We don't have any claim to be worthy servants of The Lord Jesus Christ - far from it! Rather, any and every service (however small it may appear to others) entrusted to us by Him is an unspeakable privilege. We haven't come to Him to offer our money, advice, wisdom or tremendous abilities - rather each of us has come to Him with nothing to offer - seeking only His forgiveness. Yet, if those disciples needed to be warned that they could insidiously be seduced away from a grace to performance mindset; how much more do we need to keep reminding ourselves of these things, and exposing our sins that we find present. And here's the other side of the coin - we do not need to fear such an exposure of our sins - because we are loved by God despite them, our new identity in Christ completely unthreatened by them.

Self-Portrait

Progress

Next, insulation gets packed in between the rafters. This up-to-date stuff should not only keep us a bit warmer (and maybe cut our fuel bills a bit) but isn't a fire risk either. The previous insulation was shredded newpapers, laid over the electrical wiring, some of which was in very poor condition - a huge hazard.

Then the flooring can be added, in nothing more glamorous than 18mm ply, and the verticals added to tie-the roof in and provide the basis for walls.

Signs of the times

Coming soon to a street near you...

Building begins

Once the destruction has finished, the positive work of building something useful can begin!

In order to build, first you must destroy...

In order to build, first you must destroy...
A truth about our attic. Also possibly a parable. Anyone care to interpret and apply?

Night Mail

Church Grace Diagnostic

Tim Chester, (author, church leader, blogger etc) pictured on the left; is a very perceptive critic of the church - as it is usually organised in the UK. His latest post entitled "Communities of Performance Verses Communities of Grace" is as excellent as it is short. If you have three minutes to spare, click here! Highly recommended.

A Graceful Rising