Of course this desire can’t be manufactured. It’s one thing to know that you ought to desire God. It’s another to develop a desire for Him in the midst of a frantic week, with too many hands on your time.

So where does this desire develop? As the season of Lent reminds us, the surprising answer is in the desert. Having been to Israel last year and glimpsed something of the Judean desert, I understand something of David’s longing in Psalm 63, apparently written when he was driven there by the forces of King Saul. Verse 1:

O God, you are my God,
earnestly I seek you;
my soul thirsts for you,
my body longs for you,
in a dry and weary land
where there is no water.

Deserts are empty, remote, still places where you are confronted with bare necessities of life, where it is just you and God. Of course few of us have ever been to a desert, but one of the challenges of Lent is to ask where we can create that place of stillness which allows us to come face to face with God. After all, it is possible to have a few minutes each day not connected to the Internet, or sat in front of a screen. It is possible to turn off the phone, and leave the inbox unchecked.

But maybe at the moment God seems remote. Yes, of course we want to do business with Him. We want to experience His presence. It is just that, for a want of a better expression, He doesn’t seem to have turned up much recently. What then?

David faced a similar issue. But as he expressed his hunger and his thirst for God, he looked back over his previous spiritual experience. Verse 2:

I have seen you in the sanctuary
and beheld your power and your glory.

Now at the precise moment, David was on the run, an outcast. He could not go up to the familiar places of worship or celebrate the festivals with his family. Yet the objective fact remained there were times when he had beholden God’s power, he had glimpsed God’s glory. Even as perhaps wistfully his thoughts turned back to the times when God seemed closer, the truth dawned on him that this God was still the same God. His character had not changed. His mercy and faithfulness remained the same.

And so his spiritual memories turned from nostalgia into a powerful catalyst for praise.

There’s much more to say about this psalm. But for now let me leave you with two questions:

How can you create a place where you come face to face with God?

What spiritual memories do you have that can sustain your walk with God today?

We’ll come back to this psalm again in a while…

We’re in the middle of putting together our Mission Action Plan at the moment. It seems to me that one of the most effective ways we can engage in mission is by developing all these contacts we have. Plus, of course, we mustn’t forget there is a primary school in both parishes, and a technical college coming next year on the site of the old Parkside school. We need to think and pray imaginatively how we can make an impact on the children we serve. They deserve the very best we can give them, because they need to grow up understanding the gospel.

So what practical steps do we need to take? Over to you… Feel free to leave some comments.

That might sound a fairly technical and dry piece of legislation, but it is another step towards the appointment of women bishops, and it will raise passions on all sides. But if I may be controversial for once, let me suggest that all the debate about whether we should have women as bishops or not actually obscures much bigger issues, which for me are far more crucial. If we could get these issues sorted, then I suggest the future of the Church of England would be a lot more healthy.

First of all, what is our source of authority as a church? Anglicans traditionally believe that our faith rests on a combination of reason, tradition and Scripture. How much weight we attach to each of these sources will very much influence your thinking. If your faith rests primarily on reason, then generally you will be guided by what is thought rational and reasonable at any particular stage of society. So women bishops are a no-brainer because we have to keep in step with the world that develops under God’s guidance. If your faith rests primarily on tradition, then women bishops are a no-go because historically bishops have been male. If your faith rests primarily on Scripture – which in my view is the true Anglican tradition  – then we have to operate with much love and charity on the issue because the Bible actually says very little about church government. As evangelicals we may be for or against women bishops, but our arguments have to be based on analogy from other texts which address other issues.

This leads on to a second point: what is actually essential to the gospel? As far as I am concerned, the gospel reveals the good news of Jesus dying in our place for our sins as a propitiation of God’s justified wrath. To this extent there is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.  (Gal 3:28).  This is not say that Jesus abolishes any differentiation between the sexes, but that there is one gospel for all, based on faith and trust in Him. The issue of women bishops is therefore not a gospel issue, despite the impression that some in the debate may give. If we cannot preserve kind of unity around the cross of Christ, then we are in serious danger of schism. And I believe that the Anglican church in this country is in trouble because we have lost our focus on what is really essential – Christ and Him crucified.

Thirdly, then, how do we handle disagreement? There is clear teaching in the Bible which is helpful on this subject. We do not go to courts of law before unbelievers (1 Cor 6:1-6). We do not destroy our brother or sister by our so-called spiritual knowledge (Rom 14:5-8, 1 Cor 10:31-32). Nor do we try to sweep everything under the carpet and continue with our worship without seeking reconciliation (Matt 5:23-24). We have to work together at a solution which preserves gospel unity.

At the moment the question before synod is this: should there be a voluntary code or full legal provision for those who find women bishops unacceptable? I am convinced that the latter should apply. We already have a system in place that has worked well for the past twenty years for those who could not accept the ordination of women to the priesthood. The proposed legislation on bishops would simply sweep that aside, and cause those who have difficulties with the issue simply to rely on the goodwill of others. That will be for many too painful and too exposed a situation to be in.

But whatever the outcome, please pray that the headlines will reflect a debate conducted in Christian love, and witnessing to the gospel. If it all ends in acrimony, our already battered reputation as the national church will be damaged yet further. And while we are arguing who sits on the episcopal throne, there are so many perishing without knowledge of the gospel. I sometimes think we have got our priorities so wrong.

In response, it’s worth making  a few points.

First of all, there is good religion and bad religion. There is a word for religion in the Greek New Testament, which twice occurs negatively – Acts 26:5 and Col 2:18 – and twice positively – James 1:26 and 1:27. (The NIV also uses the word religion in 1 Tim 5:4 but it’s not there in the Greek). If there is a positive use of the word religion in the Bible, so it is argued, we ought not to be so negative about it today. To which, I would respond that words change their meaning over time. For example the word “silly” once meant “blessed”. That’s an extreme example, but it makes the point that once a word gets a negative overtone, then it’s hard to shake it off. If it’s not helpful to talk to folk about religion, then don’t use the term.

Quite understandably there is concern that by separating faith from religion, we are saying it’s OK to believe without joining in fellowship. But we need to understand properly what faith entails. To accept Jesus as Lord and Saviour is to be in Christ. And if you are in Christ then you are in His body, the church. We may cut short our gospel talks by ending on an appeal to accept Jesus as Lord. But if we do not also talk about the need to belong, then we are selling the good news short. Believing and belonging go together. That’s why – although they’re not perfect – I like use to images like being transferred from one team to another, or being adopted into a family. We have to make sure our talk about faith does not pander to the current mood of individualism.

There’s also another really important point to make about faith. The Greek word for faith also means “faithfulness”. In other words, faith in Christ also implies faithfulness to Jesus, not just in the privacy of your own home, or your own church, but being faithful to Christ and bearing witness to Him twenty-four seven. In this respect it’s worth noting that instead of asking believers to adopt a religion the letter writers of the New Testament so often ask them to follow a way of life (e.g. 1 Cor 4:17, Jam 3:13, Heb 13:7, 1 Pet 1:15), learnt by example from leaders and lived out as proof of the change Jesus has wrought in their hearts.

Of course words are difficult, but it is noteworthy that the early believers were called followers of the Way (Acts 9:2). It’s probably too late to rescue this term, but it would be helpful in making clear what the Christian faith is really all about!

I was meeting with a group of local church leaders last Thursday, and this issue came up as we begin to think how together we might reach the people in our patch. We were all agreed that what they needed was to hear the gospel of Christ, rather be offered religion which so often gets in the way of the good news we proclaim. Another minister quoted from A.W.Tozer and although I couldn’t find the quote he used later, I discover this wonderful saying:

“One hundred religious persons knit into a unity by careful organization do not constitute a church any more than eleven dead men make a football team.”

Funnily enough, when I got home, I discovered my daughter had sent me a link to this wonderful Youtube video explaining the difference between Jesus and religion. Watch it and enjoy!

I then have to go through my diary carefully, noting any special occasions, school holidays and particular festivals. For example, we have a tradition of celebrating Mothering Sunday which falls on the fourth Sunday of Lent. How then, do we you provide any kind of fit between a Lent sermon series and the text for that day? At this stage my rough drafts are all on scrappy pieces of paper. It may just me, but I find the computer desk not the place for greatest contemplation and creativity; indeed several preaching progammes have previously found their form on long train journeys. This time I had to make do with a cleared chair on the other side of the study, and a determination not to keep logging onto the Internet.

The other thing I have to do is look through previous preaching programmes and make sure I am not covering old passages and familiar themes. I believe the minister’s work involves offering the whole counsel of God, and not just the parts of Scripture he finds easy or his pet subjects he can hold forth on.

So after much drafting, crossing out and, yes, prayer, we’ve ended up with:

Lent: The I am sayings of Jesus, from chapters 6 to 11, leading up to Palm Sunday and John’s account of the passion and crucifxion of Jesus. I hadn’t realised before taking this route how much the I am interconnect the whole gospel. So Jesus’ claim to be the gate and the shepherd (Ch 10) follow on from His claim to be the light of the world (Ch.9) and the healing of the blind man. John’s account of Jesus’ entry into Jeruslam (Ch.12) is bracketed by reference to Jesus’ raising of Lazarus (Ch.11) where He claimed to be the resurrection and the life. There is clearly much here for us to reflect on in the season of Lent.

Easter: The resurrection appearances from the end of John’s gospel – not least because people need to realise the very simple truth that Jesus is alive and He still meets with people today.

May to July: We are in the process of forming our Mission Action Plan. What better way of thinking through our identity as the people of God than going through 1 Peter? Written to scattered believers under threat of persecution, some believe it could be based on an actual baptism sermon. Whether that is true or not, the letter certainly challenges us to think through our calling both together and individually to make Christ known in the world.

Summer: I noticed going through past sermons we hadn’t ever looked at Luke 5 and 6, so building on our teaching from 1 Peter, we will be considering what it means to become Christlike, as we look at His authority and the radical challenge His teaching brings us.

I hope you are excited by the programme as I am. The Lord has been so gracious to our two churches in the past year, and I believe that under the authority of His word He has even greater things in store for us!

One of the birds featured was the  snow goose which has to fly 3000 miles north each year to its breeding grounds in the Arctic. It has to cross a whole variety of terrains – including completely arid deserts – and face the constant threat of predators. Sometimes it has to fly 2-3 days without a break, and during this time it can lose 3000 calories and a third of its body fat.

This got me thinking a bit about our own spiritual lives. There are days when it can seem we are almost flying as we dash from one important activity to another. There seems little time to top up our prayer life, and indeed we can be tempted to say that somehow there are better things to do. Yet if we burn up too much of our spiritual reserves we can end up in one sense starved, and our living relationship with our loving Heavenly Father weakens.

In the programme the geese came into land, but found the grass they needed for grazing was covered in snow. They were forced to take off again, but where to go? The experienced mother geese had the answer. That reminds me that we need the help of experienced believers who can help us when times are tough, who can show us where to find the spiritual reserves that we need.

After all, no snow goose migrates alone. It journeys in small families, but those families together build up into a flock of thousands. Without wishing to be too fanciful, that seemed to me to be a kind of parable of how the church ought to operate. Small groups of Christians who belong to each other, but are also part of a wider congregation – hopefully all travelling in the same direction!

So as we come to the end of one year, and look forward to the next, here are some questions:

1. How do you feed yourself spiritually?
2. Do you find your life of prayer and Bible reading enriching at the moment?
3. If not, how might you find more nourishment day by day?
4. How do you build up spiritual reserves to get you through the busy days?
5. Do you feel you are travelling alone or do you have a spiritual family where you belong?
6. Who can you turn to for advice and support when you need wisdom and help?
7. Are there others you in turn can help and advise?
8. Would you say your faith has grown and developed over the past year?
9. How do you see your faith developing in 2012?
10. What practical steps do you need to take?

1. Come, desire of nations, come,
Fix in us Thy humble home;
Rise, the woman’s conquering Seed,
Bruise in us the serpent’s head.
Now display Thy saving power,
Ruined nature now restore;
Now in mystic union join
Thine to ours, and ours to thine!

2. See how the shepherds,
Summoned to His cradle,
Leaving their flocks, draw nigh to gaze;
We too will thither
Bend our joyful footsteps:

3. Sinners, wrung with true repentance,
Doomed for guilt to endless pains,
Justice now revokes the sentence,
Mercy calls you – break the chains;

4. By His word was all created:
He commanded and ’twas done;
Earth and sky and boundless ocean,
Universe of three in one,
All that sees the moon’s soft radiance,
All that breathes beneath the sun;

5. He comes, from thickest films of vice
To clear the mental ray,
And on the eyeballs of the blind
To pour celestial day.

6. And ye, beneath life’s crushing load
Whose forms are bending low,
Who toil along the climbing way,
With painful steps and slow,
Look up! for glad and golden hours
Come swiftly on the wing:
O rest beside the weary road,
And hear the angels sing!

So, match these verses to:

A – Angels from the realms of glory
B - Hark the glad sound
C  - Hark! the herald angels sing
D  - It came upon the midnight clear
E - O come, all ye faithful
F – Of the father’s love begotten.

But some things become less. We don’t hold church meetings – except in case of emergency. For a couple of years now I haven’t done any funerals apart from those in church (there is a cartel of irregular ministers who work full-time for the local firms).  So it would be fairer to say that the rhythm of the Christmas season is quite simply different. It’s more about direct gospel work and presenting the good news to people in and outside the church.  In that sense – although there is so much to do – the Christmas season is one of opportunity, generally unfettered by paperwork and committees (we’ll catch up with all necessary stuff in January). That is at the end of the day the kind of ministry I enjoy. I’ll see whether I still feel that positive once we reach Boxing Day… but I do know seeds will have been sown.

Happy reading!