Author: Phil Lowe

I'm a writer who finds the only way to make sense of the 'big stuff' is to get it out through my keyboard. I mostly blog about my recent journey to Christianity - and busting stereotypes around the same - because, hey, that was 'big' thing to do at 43 years of age.

Selling, losing and finding Jesus

Phil Lowe

Recently I attended my first Christian conference. It was in a work capacity, as ‘exhibitor’ mission spot. There was my first error. Trying to put God into my ‘working life’ box.

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Interesting signage on building in Tasmania. Thanks to sparklingadventures.com

From media conferences, to trade shows that span 42,000 square metres, 500 exhibitors and 50,000 attendees, I was riding high on event management muscle memory. Comparatively, this was a weekend of 1500 attendees with eight other mission exhibitors in attendance. How hard could it be? There was my second error. Pride.

It ought not have been hard at all. Yet I forgot God doesn’t fit in any box. Plus as soon as you get complacent, the Horned Mother Trucker (HMT) likes to come out and have some tempting fun.

My mistake was treating it commercially. Whilst I have a ‘sell ice to eskimos’ capacity, there was something I shuddered over in regards to selling Jesus.

You see, it wasn’t any old corporate, secular conference. It was Christian. With great preachers speaking to youth from all over Australia, who would take the opportunity to either reaffirm their faith in G&J or embrace them for the first time. The weekend was set to be a powerful display of light overcoming darkness. Of course the HMT was going to object.

But I was in work mode. Too busy getting stuff done. So that sneaky HMT tried the back door. Whilst I was focused on work, he pressed buttons to do with my pre-Christian, personal walk. And, boy, didn’t he do it well.

As I’ve blogged before, I spent a great deal of time in the new-age, motivational space. The thought-creation, positive thinking, rune-reading, angel-card dealing, crystal-gazing, alien-channelling, reiki-healing, sage-burning space.

I failed dismally at new-age. I could never thought-create perfectly enough and got sick of all the self it encouraged me to aspire to. Oh, the courses I attended. You can go broke fixing yourself. Then I added some eastern philosophies on non-attachment. Big mistake. We are joyful, relational beings and trying so hard not to feel left me depressed and sick.

The joy of G&J is how they accepted me, exhausted by all by new-age and yogic wanderings, and replaced it with a lighter yoke. It doesn’t mean I don’t have a new-age hangover though. Which is what the HMT so cleverly exploited.

Today, put me in a stadium with anyone on stage and I will deconstruct the timing, the tone of voice, the music and language used. If the speaker says x, if the band plays y, then z will happen. I will doubt, question and push-back against anything and anyone trying to manipulate my limbic brain.

The first morning of the conference I awoke with two lines of a song on repeat in my head: Calvary covers it all. My sin and shame, don’t count anymore. “What are You sending me that for?” I wondered. “I know that about you and Jesus already!”

God was throwing me something to hold onto. He knew what was coming up.

That night, in a packed venue of 1500 people, 100+ youth re-affirmed or made their choice for G&J, just as I had done 18 months before during my own personal response to His call.

Yet rather than joy, it shoved me straight back to memories of new-age/motivation/ change your thoughts, change your life stadium messaging. Recall, I’ve not done ‘big stage’ church before. To date my G&J experiences have been small to medium venues and personal. Intensely personal.

So in the horned mother trucker surfed on a doubting vitriol of lava. “Is this real? Or just mood music, good lighting and a clever call to action that’s messing with their limbics? Maybe it isn’t God and Jesus at all,” the HMT whispered.

HMT is always going to get us through pride. My prideful weak spot is my communications skills and PR abilities. “You can deconstruct what you’re hearing,” the HMT continued. “Go on. I’m sure you can pick this apart as an engagement exercise. Spot the smoke and mirrors that are being employed to encourage people to think and feel a certain way.”

At a time when I ought to have been sharing in the joy of all these people getting to know G&J – after all, haven’t I experienced the truth and beauty of that new relationship? – I was irrationally pissed.

I have listened to plenty of sermons in the past without wanting to analyse and deconstruct them for hidden manipulation and agendas. Yet put me in far larger venue with screens, music and lighting and there I was, ready to bundle G, J and scripture in with my new-age hangover and scorn the experience.

The Smart-Alec Pastor (SAP) was also in attendance. In my blackness I suggested he could get a gig as a studio audience warm-up pastor channelling Anthony Robbins. I’m amazed he didn’t pin me down, start some sort of exorcism prayer and submerge me in holy water there and then.

I went to bed that night still black. And G&J awoke me again with the same lyrics. Calvary covers it all. My sin and shame, don’t count anymore.

I wish I could write that the lightbulb went on immediately. But the black lifted to grey as I reached out and G&J filtered back through my morning prayer. “I’m being gnarly and ungracious and I don’t know why,” I told them. “I don’t understand why You are pushing that lyric at me. So I’ll do my best to sit with this and pay attention. I’d appreciate Your help.”

It is no God-incidence that I sat in two sessions that day where the first preacher reminded me how songs and lyrics deliver us a two-way vertical moment with God. Calvary covers it all. My sin and shame, don’t count anymore.

My shame at being seduced into thinking new-age was a way to God. Faced now with what I know to be true in His gift to me in His son, it is a poor and awful comparison.

Then the second preacher cut though the stage show, musicians and videos to talk about the small church at Colossae that grew with faith and purpose without the need for fancy stagecraft and mod cons.

And my grey heart cleared.

I sat in awe-full tears through the rest of his sermon.

G&J don’t need mood lighting. They simply need our ears to listen and our hearts to open. For me to stay faithful. Even when – especially when – the HMT is pushing my buttons.

FIGJAM, FIGJAG & Humility

FIGJAM, FIGJAG & Humility

Phil Lowe

My first flatmate when I moved to Australia gave me a mug with the letters FIGJAM on it. My English upbringing hadn’t come across the acronym before. “I actually prefer orange marmalade,” I told her. fig_jam_mug.jpg

“No, it stands for ‘F*&K I’m good, just ask me’, ” she replied, rolling her eyes. It was my first insight into the odd Australian character mix that embraces earthy joy in success (‘You little ripper! Go you good thing!’) with a taking of the urea (‘You’ve got tickets on yourself there, mate. Steady on’)

If you begin to actually believe the FIGJAM? Then, in Aussie-slang, you’re a bit of a tosser. You’ve drunk your own Kool-Aid and you need to get over yourself.

Makes me wonder with G&J though. God made us fearfully and wonderfully, knowing His works are wonderful, so perhaps it’s more JAG not JAM. God’s opinion of us (Just Ask God) rather than our own opinion that sometimes gets pompous with pride or devalued by doubt.

As Proverbs 11:2 tells us: “When pride comes, then comes disgrace, but with humility comes wisdom.” Or ‭‭Proverbs‬ ‭26:12‬: “Do you see a person wise in their own eyes? There is more hope for a fool than for them.”

In Christianity, pride is one of the Seven Deadly Sins the Roman Catholic Church will point to. When viewed as a virtue, pride in one’s appearance and abilities is known as virtuous pride, greatness of soul or magnanimity, but when viewed as a vice it is often termed vanity or vain glory.

The trick then is remembering – being wonderfully made, bestowed with His gifts – is that anything I do with such wonderfulness is in glory to God not glory to me.

Now this is all very well in thought, but what about application? There are times when something brilliant will happen in a work situation (let’s say a staggering response rate to a direct marketing campaign) and a client will express delight in my knowledge, skills and expertise that contributed to that.

Now, I can modestly and humbly say, “No, no, it’s all God,” and my client will think I’m full of it. Especially if they don’t believe in God.

“Umm, God didn’t come up with the creative, did He? Or what about that cracking headline? I’m sure God doesn’t use words like that, Phil. Actually, if you are a Christian should you be using words like that in a headline?”

Umm, no, Possibly not. But, well, grace. And, my, look at the response rate!

It’s a personal minefield. Christian humility in a body that God blessed with a million mile an hour brain that just likes to GET STUFF DONE. Which is interesting when trying to assimilate the ‘other-focused’ approach that Jesus taught.

I’ve sat in meetings with other Christians and observed no-one willing to take ownership of a quick decision for fear of offending someone else in the room. “I can do that. Oh, but does someone else want to? I won’t do it if you’d prefer to.” And that’s just deciding on who is making the coffee…

In my secular-drawn landscape there’s no time for false-modesty if a decision needs to be made. Got the skills to make it happen? Yep. Then, let’s rock and roll. Time’s a wastin’.

Speed to action doesn’t mean an over-inflated sense of self importance. It simply means having confidence in your gifts, having seen them work before and trusting them to work again.

The secret to keeping it FIGJAG not FIGJAM is never quite believing you are as good as people may tell you and choosing to improve each day.  Staying humble so you can see opportunities for growth. But not so humble that you sit there unwilling to pipe up and use those gifts He blessed you with. In secular speak, that’s called imposter syndrome: “Who am I to do that?” As Marianne Williamson would answer (below), “Who are you not… you are a child of God…”

But as soon as you drink the Kool-Aid, believe the FIGJAM, then you’re a goner. I love that. God wants us to use our gifts – fearfully and wonderfully just as He made – but to always remember who gave the gifts.

“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, ‘Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?’ Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It’s not just in some of us; it’s in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”

Marianne Williamson – A Return To Love

This third Easter is a charm

This third Easter is a charm

Phil Lowe

Many of my childhood Easter memories revolve around chocolate eggs and holidaying with my surrogate family in a lovely english coastal town called Beer. A single-parent, my Mum arranged for us to get away in the school holidays with neighbours. It worked out well for all: as the eldest I was able to keep an eye on their younger offspring and my Mum got some much needed adult time.

It was an annual tradition. Waking up early on Easter morning to discover chocolate eggs at the end of the bed. My neighbour’s youngest son devouring a Yorkie Trucker’s Egg before 8am. Me tracing my fingers over the correctly-spelt Philippa on the hand-made Thornton’s egg.

I don’t recall us attending church on Easter day. Then as I grew up and away from C of E schooling into agnostic new-ageism, Easter simply signified an handy long weekend. I’d roll my eyes at Big T wanting to only eat fish on Good Friday, but for me it simply was about the chance to drink wine with friends, maybe get away camping, and chocolate.

Nowadays I’d categorise my most recent Easters as akin to ‘Grumpy’ ‘Weepy’ and ‘Smiley’

Grumpy Easter

This was the ‘wake me up at 3am with song lyrics and shove bibles at me’ Easter. I was not impressed. I couldn’t take a step on the beach without a sailboat thrusting Christian logos at me. What? Are you talking to me? For goodness sake, leave me alone.

Weepy Easter

A year down the track and I’d done plenty of cage-fights with God by the time my second Easter rolled around. It was a pensive, reflective time. I’d moth-dived towards the light, spent some time in the gospels and had got stuck in the Groundhog Day nature of how humanity had crucified an undeserving man. Reflecting back, the enormity of the suffering outweighed my joy in the resurrection.

I spent Weepy Easter uncertain that I could do it again the following year because, not only was I in sorrow due to the enormity of what Jesus sacrificed, I was weighed down by how little humanity has learnt since. I found myself wishing that something would change. That, somehow, there would be a different ending. That we’d learn.

grass_egg_smiley_smile_humor_macro_54212_300x300.jpgSmiley Easter

I write this at the start of my third, Smiley Easter. And I cannot wait. Whether it’s because I prayed earlier this week for God to show me how to embrace the Holy Spirit within, or because – miracle of miracles – Big T and I have almost managed a week of daily ‘his n her’ prayer, but I am behaving in a decidedly unAnglican manner.

The poor check-out chick who wished me a dour happy easter at the shopping centre earlier is now probably shaking her head over the nutbag happy-clappy Christian who jumped behind the counter, washed her feet and tried to anoint her head with oil. Luckily the SAP was willing to take the call when I asked for bail to be posted…

But you know what? Deal with it.  As Brussels shudders in shock, we need something more substantial to put our hope in than ourselves. Our selves are the problem. And anyone who honestly thinks we’re doing OK as a DIY society is delusional.

Easter is a chance to reflect on what we could all learn from Jesus, his crucifixion and resurrection: “This is my commandment: Love each other in the same way I have loved you. There is no greater love than to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.” (John 15:12).

Easter reminds us that Jesus offered the selfless laying down of his life for our eternal gift. Compare that to the selfish blowing up of life we saw in Brussels two days ago. If you haven’t yet thought about what Jesus offers in comparison to such worldly horror, there’s no better time than Easter to do it. 

Over achievers don’t need Jesus. They’ve got DIY.

Over achievers don’t need Jesus. They’ve got DIY.

Phil Lowe

It’s easier to take Jesus to the starving in the slums than it is to the over-achiever.images-4

The handful of pastors I’ve polled on this agree. Yet while they all agreed ministering in less well to do suburbs is easier, it isn’t for the reasons one might assume.

Suburbs that suffer from generational unemployment, poor job opportunities, low education — low hope, you might say — are more honest, gritty and real about their issues. Which makes ministering easier because people living in that world can’t help but look at the issues, experience the pain, and, for the most part, let it all hang out:

“I need another drink because that no-hoper boyfriend of mine just smacked me around again and my dickhead boss cut my shifts.” There is no glitz and gloss. Life is harsh, cruel and there’s no shame in letting everyone know. Which makes opening up the Jesus conversation a little easier.

“Your mate Jesus wants to come in and take a look and help? He wants to show me I’ve got more worth than the next no-hoper boyfriend? I’d like to see him try. But, hell, Ok then, I’ll have a listen.”

It’s harder amongst the demographics where do it yourself (DIY) has displaced Jesus. Where resilience has shifted into papering over the cracks. There are still issues – domestic violence, gambling, drinking, financial insecurity, adultery, pornography addiction and over-stretching – but heaven forbid anyone talks about it. Stepford suffering. Pastors have a harder gig breaking through the facades.

Yet what if you’re not suffering, are meeting your mortgage payments with ease, can afford a nice holiday once or twice a year, you’ve got a good good group of friends you can call on in a moment for help, are building up your self-managed super fund and life is sweet?

You don’t perceive you have any lack. You’re confident, with a great job, with well-rounded kids attending a well-rounded school for which you pay well-rounded fees.  So what does Jesus offer you? Aside from eternal life…which you possibly think is a crock anyway.

The ‘surrender to Jesus’ message doesn’t gain traction here. Not only has DIY displaced Jesus,  DIY is done so well it’s easy to say, “Sorry, God and Jesus, you don’t fit in with our decor.” Hell is imaginary. God being in charge, with talk of hell at the end of your unbelieving life, is to be scoffed at.

I write from first-hand experience. To all intents and purposes my BC life was sweet. I wasn’t filling up any gaping psyche wounds with alcohol or trinkets. But I was always a ‘seeker’. I have always been drawn to the mysteries of life, not because I was filling a gap but because I wanted to understand more. This odd siren call in my heart that would have me look around at the world and know – quite fiercely – that it was all a facade. That there was much, much more hiding in the heights and depths.

So why do some seek out the mysteries while others sit firmly in reality? If God writes all our names on His palm, when He drops eternity in all our hearts, how come some of us recall the watermark echo and others don’t?

It can’t simply be upbringing – I have friends who grew up in God-loving homes who are atheists, and others, like myself, who have come to Christ despite the lack of presence of anything Godly or spiritual in childhood.

It isn’t always suffering – but I suspect that has a great deal to do with it. It was really only when my Mum passed away that I paid more attention to what God was trying to tell me. It’s like I say about the year Big T and I split up early in our relationship: sometimes you have to hurt a bit; and then go back and scrabble around in the mess, dust and coal to realise there’s a diamond right under your nose.

My largest frustration is how to describe exactly what has changed since G&J rocked in. Sure, I record what’s lost in translation between what I thought I knew and what actually is in these posts – but it’s a poor facsimile of what has occurred in my brain, heart, soul and cells.

Before he became a Christian, Sydney’s new Dean, Kanishka Raffel, recalls asking his friend, now Moore College lecturer, Andrew Shead, what the big deal was. What being a Christian actually meant. Shead replied, “It means I’ve lost control of my life to Christ.”

That’s it. My life is no longer my own. Which is desperately hard to explain to the ‘DIY, in control of my life’ demographic. Why on earth would I give away control of my life?

Simply, I had no choice. Approaching my second Easter on this Christian journey, I am reminded of how I kept expecting ‘it’ to wear off. That the joyful, fizzing feeling that invaded my soul would fade away. That my sensible, educated, degree-holding, rational brain would argue Jesus away.

Neither happened. Instead, Jesus delivered evidence to my head and miracles to my heart. God forged His relationship with me in such an intensely personal, bespoke way, I was a goner.

I mean, what are the odds? A straight-talking ex-journo with a dry sense of humour calls a church. She gets a straight-talking, smart-alec pastor (SAP) with a similar sense of humour on the other end. Who – when I made my first visit to church – turned out to be an excellent type of preacher that didn’t annoy or aggravate this communications professional with monotone delivery, verbal ticks, squeaky voice and boring content.

I mean, let’s be honest, on the scale of probabilities the odds were higher of me getting someone, ahem, less likely to engage and entertain. I’d experienced plenty of snoozy sermons at school.

Of course it wasn’t odds. It was God. His tailor-made, bespoke, personal call for engagement. He knows me so well. That he would give his son at Easter so I may be in a closer relationship with Him is amazing enough. But to think He would take the time, care and attention to understand my impatient, judgemental heart.

To know, that first day back at church, the likelihood of my rolling my eyes at a poorly-executed sermon was high. That I was looking for excuses not to be engaged. That when I first called the church, I would have run rough-shod over some more polite, diplomatic pastor whilst making awful judgements about boring Anglican Revs who were out of touch with the real world.

And all because He wanted me back. That’s personal. And it doesn’t wear off.

No dry spells or struggles? Don’t believe you.

No dry spells or struggles? Don’t believe you.

Phil Lowe

Anyone look around their church and think they’re the only one doing it tough in their faith walk? Watched a charismatic preacher ‘in the groove’ and haven’t left inspired but flat because, dear God, it feels like tumbleweed in my soul at the moment?images-3.jpg

The hymns start and everyone around is doing the clap, the sway, the hands in the air downloading the holy spirit like it’s on super-speed broadband and me….me? Well, God, my faith has got so much lactic acid pressing down right now I can barely lift a finger to turn a bible page.

The SAP calls it time in the desert. A testing drought. When you’re going through a dry spell, turning up to church is more than necessary, it’s essential. Trouble is, unless you are really clear about the space you are in, it can be more isolating than uplifting. It’s like a depressive being told to cheer up and get over it.

I’m naturally a fairly optimistic person. I have been hugely blessed with a fast faith metabolism. I sort of dive in, try some freestyle, get bored with the synchronised stuff, throw myself at a few big waves, and then attempt to float in the shallows with God at the end of it all. Recently, a new Christian friend prayed for me quite beautifully, during which she thanked God for my amazing faith. Was she nuts? My faith isn’t amazing. It’s quirky, a little off-kilter, and beset and bedevilled just like anyone else’s.

Take the other day. I was done. Slanging at God that I was ready to get my Sundays back. I was muttering around the house like I was pursuing my own, personal Spanish Inquisition.

At such times, his ‘n’ her prayer is a massive blessing. Big T and I are new to praying together as a couple. We stall like learners at the lights most often, with good intentions sliding away in the busyness of life. Yet when we are praying together, life reflects a better order. Putting God and time for prayer first delivers a better order? Well, duh.

So with me slanging and stumbling around the desert, barely able to vocalise to my husband my own arid confusion, it was a great blessing to have Big T pray for us as a family and for me as his wife.  I couldn’t gather the mental wherewithal to even stutter the Lord’s Prayer. So Big T especially prayed to God for me to receive clarity. As he closed, I added a feeble ‘Amen’ and fell asleep. Bah humbug.

Once again, God has to be glorified and thanked because, let’s be frank, if someone treated me the way I’d ranted at God last week? I’d likely have punched them. Or, at the very least, turned my back, deleted them from my phone, and dismissed them as a whiny so and so who was being incredibly ungrateful.

Yet He doesn’t. Nor does Jesus. Nor the Holy Spirit that resides within and prods me with prevenient grace whenever I spit the dummy.

The following day, God delivered me a series of beautiful, bespoke gifts. The totally humbling part was I hadn’t even said, “I’m sorry.”

I would have done – eventually. Yet He still sweetly answered Big T’s prayers for clarity on my behalf and reminded me – again – just how patient He is, how much love He is willing to pour out, how much He glories in me – all of us – being back in the fold. There was I behaving like a tough, gnarly bit of mutton and He’s ensuring I remember the lamb.

I can’t ever get over those times when I’m sooo frustrated and stomping off ready to be all secular and independent…. and God slings an arm around me and says, “Hang on, look what I’ve got here for you.”

So I walked up the main street of a busy Sydney suburb in grateful tears getting odd looks. Thank you, God. I’m so sorry I was slanging and petulantly stomping yesterday saying I couldn’t be bothered to pray or read the bible. I’ll return to trusting whatever You are up to and slug down the grace like an irishman on Guinness… Just wow.

The SAP, of course, in his supportive pastoral way had a good laugh at my antics. “Did that whole, ‘I freaked out a day too early’ thing, didn’t you?” he chortled. Smart alec.

Yet something even funnier and humbling happened, that shows how ridiculously we can behave in our relationship with God. As soon as the SAP suggested I’d freaked out a day too early, my immediate response was this:

Blame God. He wired me for a million miles an hour. What does He expect? Oops. Sorry God, I will try harder to slow my processing speed at such future junctures.

Which then left me giggling at my imagination of Jesus shaking his head at me saying, “No, Phil, no, no. You don’t get to tell God to keep up.”

Yet the beautiful thing is, God gets me. He knows I know, deep down, that I can never keep up. And that my mostly optimistic, cheeky, quirky and somewhat off-kilter faith is my way of trying to keep Him entertained. Most days I begin with praying, “So, God, what can I do today to make you smile?”

Sometimes it is slapstick. Other times I may even take a step closer to emulating a Jesus moment.

Either way, at speed or faltering, forward is forward. Whether it is through a lush field strewn with wildflowers or across dry desert, God tells me He’s there, He’s got me, and to just keep aiming forward.

Prayer. It’s allowed. Aloud.

Prayer. It’s allowed. Aloud.

Phil Lowe

Prayer was always something I was happy doing on my own. My isolated quiet time with G&J. Or the ‘led’ prayer in church, where I’d listen in, add my own prayers into any allocated ‘fill in the blanks yourself’ pauses, and add my “Amen” along with the congregation. images-2.jpg

Then, just over a year ago, I joined an existing growth group in the church. A mix of different-aged Christians, most of whom I’d term UHT (at this Christian thing a long, longer life than I) who meet weekly to do a more intensive unpacking of the Bible. If I wanted to grow my relationship with G&J, this was a natural progression.

I had sat myself next to an older women in church one Sunday, who’d helped hugely in my getting to grips with the histrocity of Jesus (being a history teacher herself), when the pastor on stage mentioned extra bible study. I whispered I thought I may need some of that, but with other commitments only one evening worked, and TA DA, she said: “That’s when my group meets, would you like to come along?”

Perhaps I was naive. Maybe G&J were ROTFL in heaven, hooting. God knows me well enough to know that my first step in learning is literal (read, research) then experiential (ponder, write about it, apply it, then return to ponder and write as I grow). God TOTALLY knew my literal understanding of a Bible Study group was just that. And that I also  assumed that ‘growth group’ was some sexy, marketing-derived name to make it sound more appealing out in the congregation target market than bible study.

Of course, growth group is a perfect descriptor. Yes, I unpacked more about God’s word as I attended each week. But you do more than study the bible in a growth group. You connect. You share. You pray. Out loud.

Out loud. In front of people. They are all fantastically lovely people but let me write it again: out loud. In a sort of free form manner based on notes you have taken as people share prayer points. My inner introvert was sweating.

Now, my UHT Christian readers may wonder what the big deal is. But when you are a newbie, the out loud thing is fairly confronting. In a small group, I was uncomfortably aware that it was really noticeable if I didn’t join in. Then my brain starting ticking with daft questions: what if two of you start up at the same time? Is there some prayer etiquette when that happens, do you give way to the left or something? Plus if we miss prayer points off the list, does the last person do some massive wrap-up just to make sure everyone is covered?

I love praying, I do. It’s an intimate opportunity to open up your heart, hopes, worries, sorrows. What I had to learn was the power of group prayer. That as Matthew 18:20 tells me, where two or three gather in my name, there am I with them and there is something beautiful in that, no matter how it tested my introverted heart.

So I grew. Rather than letting my naturally introverted, ‘don’t let anything come out my mouth before it’s fully formed in my brain,’ inclination takeover, I had to lean in. It gave me more insights into how the holy spirit whispers into my heart. It doesn’t matter that it is stumbling and ineloquent (a challenge for this writer who likes to craft and polish). I simply have to breath out, listen and hear the words that I’m gifted with.

As Jesus reminded me the other day: “I never said to make the light. Just to be the light.”

If only you could see yourself as I do

If only you could see yourself as I do

Phil Lowe

Her Mummy clicked on the bedroom light and burst crying through the doorway. The little girl sat up groggily in bed, rubbing her eyes against the brightness, squinting.

bing-2
Photographs of Sunsets Through Broken Glass by Bing Wright

Dragged out of sleep, she stared bewildered. She had gone to bed early the night before after vomiting all afternoon. It wasn’t – as all assumed – the odd banana flavoured chocolate she’d eaten at the six-year old birthday party she had attended. It was something in the air of their home yesterday afternoon. Her Daddy had gotten really upset at the lunch table about the lid being left off the toothpaste. Why was he so angry over toothpaste? And the invisible crows had come back, pecking at her, flying in currents of the adults’ wake that she could feel but couldn’t see to navigate.

It made her confused. Her head ached and the paracetamol tablet her mummy gave her sat dizzily in her tummy. She had run out of the ‘Pass the Parcel’ game at the party, vomiting into the bowl of the downstairs toilet. She had felt miserable and alone but hadn’t told the mother of the birthday girl because she didn’t want to go home yet. She dreaded stepping back into those unseen currents that bit and buffeted her invisibly; she worried they would again flare into rapids of angry, bitter words between her parents that made her head hurt and clogged up the words in her own throat. Staying quiet might mean the currents would stay quiet too.

“He’s leaving us,” her mother sobbed. The child stared up from her bed. Her mother added: “Daddy has met another woman and he’s leaving us for her.”

—–

The child sat in front of the TV eating her supper from a small table in front of her. The lounge room door was shoved open suddenly and her mother appeared, in nightdress and dressing gown, Daddy just behind. Her mother’s clothes fluttered behind her as she half ran, half stumbled across the room. She thrust a buff A6 envelope onto the little girl’s lap, where it caught between the underside of the table and her knees. “This is for you, don’t read it yet,” her mother said, sounding angry.

Her Daddy left the room, saying he was calling an ambulance. Her mother chased after him, sobbing hysterically. Small egg-shaped, yellow tablets scattered on the floor. The child stood to follow them out, the envelope falling onto the carpet. She waited in the lounge doorway, staring up the hall. Her Daddy was on the phone, trying to call, but her Mummy kept slapping her hand over the cradle so it disconnected. He ran out the front door saying something about the public telephone box. The child didn’t want him to leave her alone with this strange version of her mother,  collapsed at an odd angle up the stairs. Nor did she want to get any closer. So she stood at a distance, watching her through the slats of the wooden bannisters, feeling a little scared but mostly removed.

The ambulance man with dark hair wore a dark navy jumper with patches at the elbows. Proper patches, not ones to cover holes. He helped stretcher her mother into the ambulance. “She bit my hand,” said her Daddy, over and over. “I tried to get my fingers in her mouth to get the tablets out, and she bit my hand.”

——-

“He didn’t even bring me clothes to the hospital,” her mother  told her bitterly. “The nurses thought it was awful of him. I had to come home in a hospital blanket over my nightdress.”

——–

“Wake-up, get up, you have to get up,” her mother cried, snapping on the bedroom light. The child woke up quickly, a pit of dread in her stomach, clamping her muscles against the panic drops of urine that wanted to escape as she sat up. “You have to call him, come on, get up. I’ve got her phone number. Call her. Tell her he has to come home.”

But I can’t, thought the little girl. I’m too scared to call her. You’ve told me how awful she is. How nasty. She is dark-haired and so much bigger than me, you’ve told me. You told me she works opposite my school and is watching me. You told me she might steal me. I’m too scared to call her. 

But then the little girl remembers the small, egg-shaped yellow tablets. The ones she had quietly picked up from the floor. The ones with the tiny black writing that matched the title on the paper sheet she had found in her mother’s bedside drawer. She was a very good reader for her age. Everyone told her.

If she didn’t make the phone calls, then her Mummy might take more of those yellow tablets. And if she didn’t wake up this time, if they didn’t pump her stomach the way her Mummy had told her they’d done in the hospital, then she’d have to live with her Daddy and the big, dark-haired lady who was waiting to steal her.

She sat on the stairs and dialled the number her Mummy told her. But Mummy hadn’t given her a chance to do her morning bathroom pee. It was wet and uncomfortable, her nightdress sticking to her bottom. Her mother stood at the top of the stairs, making sure she called, listening to her cry and sob and ask for her Daddy to come home. The next morning was the same. And the next. And the next…

——————

When she was 11-years old, her mum went out to an evening meeting. The man who had moved in, who would eventually marry her mother, jovial, tall, always smiling and clapping his hands, told her to climb into bed for a bedtime cuddle. “I’ll keep my hands clasped under my chin,” he whispered. “No need to worry. No need to tell anyone.” He kept his hands clasped but the 11-year old never quite relaxed around him again. If there was nothing to worry about, why did it have to be kept a secret?

——————

Before she was fourteen, she had defended herself with a knife against the same man who now liked to use his fists in places it didn’t show.  He wasn’t so jovial now. She had watched a tea-tray thrown from the top of a three-storey house because his cup was not placed on it – and it wasn’t a leap of her imagination to suppose he would push her mother out too. His son, who lived with them, watched with empty eyes. She watched where he put his hands too.

—————–

That girl today is 44-years old. She has written about domestic violence, but never about the personal damage of divorce, emotional blackmail and abuse. Never. It was locked away.

She is me. And, finally, she is happy to own her story.

I can only thank God, Jesus and Holy Spirit for the work they have activated in the past two weeks. For a SAP, with whom I became irrationally angry for prompting me to read Psalm 139.

Why was I angry? Anger is a secondary emotion. The real response was fear. Psalm 139 was calling me to look at something beautiful about myself and all I wanted was to run away as fast as I could.

Because, oh my God, hadn’t I already done this? Hadn’t I built something of myself? All that history, it had built me.  It gave me the guts and resilience to move on and through. In a fiery, fiesty, flicking-the-bird, sort of way, I had overcome. With so many benefits, not least knowing myself intensely as a result. I know:

  • I can over-read and internally over-react to emotional cues. Not externally. Externally I am poker-face solid
  • Silent tension in a house is my absolute undoing because of what it heralded 
  • I hate confrontation – when your childhood is soaked with echoes of suicide and violence, keeping quiet is a great thing
  • I will go a long way to avoid asking anyone to meet my needs. I’ll meet them all myself, thanks, way safer.
  • I don’t do vulnerable easily. Emotional independence is, literally, in my make-up. S*&t happens when you  are emotionally dependent
  • Deep down struggling with being deserving of love, no matter how many achievements I could list, how much value I could attach to my life because if your mum attempts suicide the childish synapse locks onto her not loving you enough to want to live and be your mother; and then your dad has left…and then the next husband liked to use his fists…

So I know why I have certain behaviours.  I acknowledge them and have checks and strategies to manage them all healthily. I had therapied myself to self-awareness – which brought forgiveness and insight. You may read the above and judge my Mum. How could she do that to a child? Why didn’t she leave her second husband? But take a step in her shoes. Imagine how lost, how raw, how broken her internal life must have been. So I can forgive her all of it because of how she had been taught to love and be in relationship. My lesson has been not to repeat hers.

So why was Psalm 139 so gut-wrenchingly confronting?

Because of what God wanted me desperately to see. He didn’t want me to look at who I had created in response to life’s circumstances. But at who He had created. Who was incredibly different.

Yet I couldn’t see her because it meant I had to look closely at the experiences that forged the current me; to look back past them to who He created.  And I really didn’t want to. It made me sob and hiccup and be vulnerable. To get back to what He created meant I had to walk back through the car-crash.

“No,” I raged. “I’m not looking. Not there. Not when I have to walk back through that. Leave me alone. I’ve done more than ok despite it all. Let me be. I’m going back to my cave.” I may even have pouted that I was ‘magnificent enough’ to the Lord.

The irony? The SAP had done a sermon series on Jonah as irrational prophet just a few weeks before. As I raged, pouted and refused to do what God asked, I couldn’t help but think of Jonah, stinking of fish guts and sulking under his plant.

My surrender took less than 20 hours, with low to no eye-rolling. A record. “Whatever I need to learn, whatever I need to let go, over to You. And if am wading back through that, be ready for my fingernail imprints in Your palm because I’ll be gripping real tight.”

“Like your fingernails bother me,” replied God: “Did you look at Jesus’ hands lately?”

It took less than five minutes for God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit to answer my prayer and do Their business.

Directly with Psalm 139, verse 6, to how intimately God loves and knows me, that is ‘too wonderful for me, too lofty for me to attain.’

“Look,” He kept whispered to me. “Look at how fearfully and wonderfully I made you. Before. Before you had to create yourself on top. Because until you see that, you can’t do what I want you to do next. My works are wonderful. You know that full well. And you are one of my works. Look.”

So I sat in my car, in a Sydney suburban side street, had a purging, fast, howl for the teen and for the child, and came out the other side . That the Holy Spirit is so often referred to as fire does not surprise me. Bushfire regeneration before growth. Cauterising and cleansing. G, J & the HS did in less than 30 minutes what many hours of talking with professionals had not delivered. Integrated peace.

God sees me as He sees His son. Holy without blemish. My job now is to live out who I already am.

———

Footnote/Disclaimer: I am not waving my hands in the air, yelling “Praise the Lord, I am healed, cancel all your therapy appointments and give your life to Jesus.” No.

Keep the therapy. Keep the meds if you take them. Keep loving and being kind to yourself. For me, I have simply found it much easier to love and be kind to myself with God and Jesus as the lens and accepting the gift of grace. For me.

For you, there may be psychologists, psychiatrists, counsellors, medications and help lines. Abuse – whatever its type – leaves a scar. You may have been abused at the hands of the church, for which I am deeply sorry and wish more people who say they are Christians behave like it more often.

All I know from my experience is this: you can’t ever heal by yourself. Tucking the last little remnants away deep inside, whilst congratulating yourself on how well you are doing, rarely works. Those remnants have a pesky way of jabbing to the surface when you least expect it.

Resources

Psalm 139 

www.lifeline.org.au or call 13 11 44. 

https://www.anglicare.org.au/

http://www.salvationarmy.org.au  or call 13 SALVOS

 

 

 

 

Holy fixer-uperer

Holy fixer-uperer

Phil Lowe

Sometimes I take a skim back through the first bogs I wrote about this journey to God through his son Jesus. It is a reminder of not how far I have come, but of how far they have brought me. Radical renovation. The fixer-uperer. I suspect God and Jesus look at all of us and spot potential.

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By Matthew Christopher, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

I came to a heart understanding of G&J long before my head caught up. It is my heart that keeps me in step, or reminds me when I’m out of sync. Whenever my God signal goes on the fritz it’s usually because I’ve been over-thinking.

Which makes it kind of hilarious that have I wound up in one of the most brain-dominant, intellectual denominations. I’ve written enough publicly now to receive some intellectual critiques. Suggestions how I could have better presented doctrine. While I graciously take it aboard, and enjoy the perspectives, I’m happy to say I don’t write in order to defend my head understanding of God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit.

I write to celebrate them. The way they touch my heart and make me cry over the gifts they send me, even when I’ve been spending too much time in my head.

2016 started up with a bang for our household. Challenges and sadness. Lies and egos. Death and more death. A time when the heart stutters and my head sought to butt its way through the obstacles, because if I plough through fast enough that hurt may just be outrun.

I have learnt a few lessons in the past 18 months or so. Rather than ploughing through, I now plough down with a Psalm or two. As I dragged myself out of my head and back into my heart a week ago, spitting plum stones and tears at a scripture passage, all I could say was, “I really need some encouragement right now.”

I know, this is hardly the ACTS approach to prayer (Adoration, Confession, give Thanks,  Supplication). But ACTS is head structure and I needed to take heart. Given my dialogues with G&J are typically like an ongoing conversation, it may feel to them that I have a ACTSTCASASTACTSAAASTT morse code kind of prayer stuttering and beeping away…or even SACT when I’m slanging…

The amazing thing about staying in my heart with God and Jesus is how quickly they respond. It’s almost like when I withdraw into my head they shake their own – not in a negative way, but in a ‘Really? Are you going to try that again? Ok, dear heart, we’ll be here when you’re ready’ and they wait kindly and patiently for me to sort it out.

Within ten minutes of my prayer, I took a call in my office sharing encouragement over some changes taking place on quite a broad level at the Christian charity I am involved with; the next day there was an engagement spike in a campaign we had been testing; and then small yellow post it notes of God’s love started appearing all around, day in, day out. Even just hours ago, battling with an emotional dragon, there popped a perfect article into my inbox. Today? Of all days? Really?

I can’t dismiss them as coincidence because they are too specific, too personal and too bespoke tailored to what my heart seeks when they happen. The lesson – as always – is staying out of my head and simply having faith in what I know in my heart.

God and Jesus don’t want our heads. They want all of us. But especially our hearts. Spitting plum stones and slanging Psalms. Shaking metaphorical fists and then being moved to weep because the amount of love they pour out is simply too overwhelming to pack into this broken human vessel.

Their radical renovation skills work best when I stop rationalising in my head and start allowing in my heart. When I throw everything wide and offer them holy squatters rights. Allow the HS building squad to move in and do the fixer-uppering.

Equal opportunity biblical headship. Apply now.

Equal opportunity biblical headship. Apply now.

Phil Lowe

So the Smart-Alec Pastor (SAP) didn’t earn the SA part of his nickname for his willingness to act like a wallflower, hanging out at home and doing all the cooking, cleaning, ironing and sewing. Not that he couldn’t. This is a chai-sipping, pastoring epitome of 21st century equality church, after all. Anything Mrs SAP can do, the SAP can do also. But wait..sewing

Recently the Archbishop of the Sydney Anglican diocese found himself under media and student fire. Before delivering a speech to year 12 prefects during the Annual Service for Anglican School Leaders, Archbishop of Sydney Glenn Davies faced a series of robust questions from male and female students about the place of women.

My PR heart feels for the bloke. It really does. In today’s life of equal opportunities, women can have it ALL. On our terms. When he replied scripturally regarding the message of ‘headship’ – that God intended men to be the ‘heads’ of women – many present thought he was saying women should not aspire to the same career heights as men.

It was a media skirmish waiting to happen. Let me remind you of one of the key elements of the news agenda: conflict. In our ‘chicks rule’ landscape, any hint of a parochial, “oh no you can’t dear,” is going to make headlines.

And headline it did. Chatting to the ABC producer who was involved in breaking the story, students and teachers were on the phones to media outlets and onto Facebook etc. within minutes.

I’ve never had the pleasure of meeting Glenn Davies, but from various reliable sources I’m told one of the reasons the ‘old guard’ of Sydney Anglicanism struggle with him is because he has a softer line on women in ministry. So it doesn’t follow that he’d come over all ‘maler than thou’ to school leavers.

Yet, as reported by the ABC, a prefect at one of Sydney’s most prestigious girls’ schools, said she and her friends were “angry” and “confused” that the Church was telling them the opposite message about gender equality to that told to them by their parents, educators and society in general. Another said: “We’re trying as much as we can, and to be told that in the end we’re not going to get there because of our gender? … It was disrespectful to us, as girls.”

Ever played Chinese whispers? What Archbish. Davies actually said probably translated differently when replayed through the brain filters of 18 year old girls. I’ll get onto that later. But firstly I want to address the whole notion of headship being disrespectful to women.

What headship is not

If the 18 year olds in that audience found the headship message disrespectful, try being me, coming to Christianity in my 40s, having built a couple of businesses, won a few scholarships and awards, and a resume that includes working with BRW fast growth entrepreneurs. Now that’s when figuring out the headship message gets fun.

A few Christians (and Big T) have called me ‘scary’ for my skills. I’ve met lovely people who find it easier dealing with job categories of stay-at-home mum, secretary or teacher. Nice, safe, Jane Eyre type roles. So how do I place my own education and achievements in the scriptural framework of headship?

First, you have to stop looking at headship via a narrow, secular, ‘ooh, media conflict’ lens.

Glenn Davies did not mean, nor did God say or The Bible record that headship is about having the upper hand. Headship is not meant to mean that a woman has no rights or is a second-class citizen. That she cannot ‘do as well’ as a male.

On the contrary, God tells the husband some very serious commands. Headship isn’t about giving women fewer rights or lesser standing. It’s about giving women more.

“Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself up for her; 26 that He might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the Word, 27 that He might present to Himself the church in all her glory, having no spot or wrinkle or any such thing; but that she should be holy and blameless,” (Eph. 5:25-27).

Women, wives, girlfriends: when was the last time your man nailed himself to a cross for you? Paid you so much attention that you were noticed, validated and glorified? Made you blameless? Gave himself up for you? Revered you above all else? All else. Above popping along to the pub for a beer with his mates. Above the latest cricket game or footy show. XBox. Close your eyes and imagine what your relationship would look like if that took place. I imagine it’d look and feel pretty good. I think I’d be buying up big at every lingerie store I wandered past…

Second, understand that headship is an issue of order. Not about who is better or more important. Or who makes up all the rules. But scripturally the husband is described as the head of the whole family, and therefore he has the responsibility of guiding his family to a closer relationship with the Lord. And God will require the husband to give an account of that guidance.

It does not mean that whatever my husband Big T says goes. But as a woman with Christian faith, if I believe that my husband will be judged by God for how he guides our family towards a closer relationship with G&J, then of course I want to support him in getting it as close to right as possible. Back to my first point about headship encouraging men to give more to their women… if I was being revered like that – man, Big T would be so supported he’d probably tell me to ease up on the lingerie shopping!

I may also want to dance a saucy ‘getting away with it’ jig…so does headship mean I get to hide behind Big T’s broad, husbandly shoulders when God asks me about some of my off-piste blogs? Abdicate my thinking brain and mind to my husband?

Of course not! I’m just as responsible as Big T is on this journey. But – if it comes to a tie-break – the Bible does tell me that Big T gets the final say.

Big T is now running victory laps around the kitchen, hands clasped above his head. “You’ve just told thousands of readers that I get to win every argument,” he hoots. Ah, no. Settle down, big fella.

Third, headship has nothing to do with the husband having ‘higher status’ or ‘power’. It ought never reach a tie-break because Big T and I grow and work together toward God.

Headship can only be understood when Big T and I both understand that neither of us are ‘in charge’. God is. So as we grow together towards Him, we grow towards each other.

In a world that talks in language of conflict, of ‘winners’ and ‘losers’ that’s a counter-cultural approach. But it is frankly far more fulfilling and relaxing than thinking in terms of ‘who is right?’ all the time. It doesn’t mean our egos don’t rile up, but that’s part of the faith journey. Quietening the ego and growing with grace.

(Yes, I do understand and get riled by inequality of pay, poor female representation on boards, chauvinism, misogyny, unconscious gender bias, domestic violence.. the list goes on. But, for now, I’m simply attempting to unpack what headship does and does not mean.)

In the Bible – and what Glenn Davies would have laboured to get across, but it was doubtless lost in the conflict lens of media agendas and teenage translation – is that women and men are different. Praise God. If Big T and I were the same, our relationship would not work. And I’m not referring to plumbing. But rather how we complement each other from our strengths and weaknesses. Physically, spiritually and mentally.

It’s really OK for Big T to be better suited to a job than me – it’s not that I can’t do the job, but if that job is easier for him to do – and visa-versa – then by all means, he is welcome to do it. Big T is significantly broader and stronger than I. I’m more than capable of starting the mower and whizzing it around the lawn…but for basic efficiency why would I when he gets it done faster and quicker? It doesn’t make me feel ‘less’ at all. My sense of self is firmly intact.

These are all relationship lessons that come through wisdom, patience and age. The key issue with the media fallout from Glenn Davies’ school leavers’ Q&A is that the school leavers are possibly not yet mature enough to understand it. How can you understand the give and take required in a Christian relationship between a wife and her husband when you are just 18 years old?

At 18, if you’ve not grown up in a Christian household that models true headship (husbands revering their wives as Christ did the church)  you are not going to be equipped to hear the real freedom of what it means. It simply won’t compute. Lost in translation.

Of course there’s more. Including:

  • Challenging 18 year olds – in fact everyone – to view headship as God’s scriptural framework. Not a competition between genders.
  • If you are a student who struggles with the bible’s teachings and headship, why attend a Christian school?
  • If you attend a Christian school and you don’t understand it and find headship offensive, I’d wonder how well you have really been taught about it in a scriptural context and suggest you take it up with your teaching faculty.
  • Recommending the Archbish not go near headship with a barge pole with 18-year-old students unless the students hold theology degrees.

Now, if Archbishop Davies does come across this blog, I’d urge him, respectfully, to have a serious chat to his media manager. You are never off the record. Ever. It’s a pain, but it’s true.

Instead, find a media manager who will drill you on every possible nuance of every possible media message and allow yourself to master the bridging technique. Try this role-play scenario:

18 yo Anglican school leaver: “Archbishop Davies, how can you explain the gender inequality taught in the Bible in light of what society teaches us about what we, as young women, can achieve?”

Archbish: “Now that’s an excellent question. However I don’t think the issue here is gender inequality, but rather the excellent role models the bible offers you as examples of what you can achieve in a 21st century world after being constantly deluged with messages about pornography, cheap sexuality and music videos that exploit women. For example, there’s Miriam, Deborah or Huldah. These women more than smashed through the ‘glass ceilings’ of the Old Testament times. They re-mapped it. Trail-blazers.

“And it’s not just the female role models. Plenty of young women have told me how frustrated they get by young men who don’t step up and invite them out on dates. So I’d suggest the young men check out Nehemiah – an excellent leader who rocked up to another powerful leader and asked him to help rebuild his home city. That took some cojones. And faith in the successful outcome. Great role model next time you need to learn how to ask someone out. Way better than using an SMS.”

See? Easy. I’d offer my services but I’ve got to go lingerie shopping.

(P.S: That’s me, the writer, going lingerie shopping. Just in case).

 

 

Sounds like God on the radio

Sounds like God on the radio

Phil Lowe

Not only was the weekend Valentine’s Day, it was also world radio day on February 13th. I used to work in both BBC and ABC radio donkey’s years ago and, after producing a three-episode series on divorce over three generations, some lovely souls at Radio National gave me an award. So whilst I love to write, I’m fairly aural – probably why God shoves songs and lyrics at me in the early hours to get my attention. 12107060_537762879709626_4083684520642864060_n

Which He did fairly strongly in June last year regarding a job application, meaning today I write this as operations manager of the Australian arm of Far East Broadcasting Company, a global not-for-profit that uses radio and internet to broadcast the gospel into impossibly hard to reach places.

Not simply broadcasting tracts of scripture. Christ’s love may be captured in the Bible, but it was also seen through his acts, so FEBC’s radio programs cover education, social issues, literacy,  and health. Practical love and help broadcast in the listener’s own language, produced by volunteers who come from the communities they are broadcasting to. This is no ‘fly in, fly out’ mission. It is vine and trellis, tent-spreading mission with longevity, insight and understanding.

In Northern India, rife with sex trafficking, fathers hear FEBC’s radio programs and are educated to understand that their daughter being sold ‘to a better life away from poverty’ is actually a life of brothels and hopelessness. As a direct result of FEBC’s radio programs about legal rights and the importance of each individual, no matter their gender, there has been a drop in young girls trafficked and the number of female foetuses aborted.

As Ebola ravaged Sierra Leone, FEBC’s first response disaster radio programs offered practical health advice on dealing with the virus but also shared Christ’s hope. That there was love in amongst the horror. Last October, in response to Typhoon Koppu, the Philippines First Response Radio, in partnership with FEBC Philippines, used the suitcase radio station (pictured) in partnership with OCHA, The Office of Civil Defence (OCD) and other NGOs to get vital health and infrastructure messages broadcast.

You see, like God, radio gets in. On a loop. It may be the background noise to everyday life, but the message is there. From mobilising Russian Christians to adopt over 50,000 social orphans out of terrible situations in orphanages, to offering the means to educate new pastors via Bible Correspondence courses for effective church planting in Mongolia, I have been slack-jawed by the breadth, depth and width of the work that FEBC does. Which can all start from a tiny, A$30 wind-up or solar radio.

Could I EVER have imagined myself working there? Well, given the first Christian job I applied for knocked me back for having no faith and set me on a path to Christianity, I’ve learnt to be cautious with what God imagines! There’s a danger in praying ‘over to You.’

He has heard me mutter, “what were You thinking?” plenty of times in my short time at FEBC. I bring a default of commercial leadership to this Christian not-for-profit because, dear Lord, I’ve only being doing this G&J biz for not quite two years. The wiring is sometimes off. There can be a tension in that – there have been plenty of meetings when I’m on my knees ahead of time. Only recently I was battling with what I term ‘commercial rigour’ and the SAP gently suggested I used ‘good stewardship’. Ah, yes. Same intent, yet more positive and Christian.

The BC (before Christ) me wants to sprint at speed, get stuff done, and struggles with impatience. Re-wiring to ‘lead like Jesus’ does not happen overnight, no matter how much of the Holy Spirit God is gracious in bestowing.  “Because that would be too easy,” He whispers. Some tests are needed to prove mettle. Thank God for grace.

I’ve also learnt that working in a Christian mission is harder than secular. Harder to get stuff done. Not simply due to lack of funds or skills, as often can be cited in NFPs. It may read as ‘woo-woo’ but when you work in a mission that spreads God’s word across the globe, I’m certain the horned mother-trucker throws extra obstacles. I have learnt I cannot race and get stuff done at all unless I pray for God’s help, blessing, guidance and, yes, protection too, first.

It has proved both my biggest challenge and greatest blessing (discounting coming to G&J in my 40s!). If you want to know more about a cost-effective mission that you or your church could be involved in,  please take some time to learn about FEBC Australia’s work, especially if you didn’t know they turned 50 last year. This month’s story in Eternity is a great place to start. Download is below. Happy World Radio day!
http://issuu.com/biblesocietyau/docs/e66_p1_p20_final/4…