Now before you switch off, let me quickly point out, that this blog is not dedicated to sour grapes at that dubious refereeing decision.

So Warren Gatland appeared after the game, master of his temper, but once again FUMING within.

And it’s a ref that’s done this to him … again!

Why was he ‘holding it in’?

Because a referree had …

• (two French parents and two French names?)
• made a set of harsh decisions
• then sent the Welsh captain off
• after the first twenty minutes
• for a yellow card offence
• that made it impossible to beat
• a lesser French team
• to the rugby world cup final.

( Out here in the heart of Welsh Wales, the sense of being cheated is palpable … but Warren was handling himself well!)

So this blog is about Warren’s little lesson in life, which seems to be so hard to swallow across our entire experience for us … the people of rugby-mad Wales.

We simply won’t have it,

we simply can’t bear it,

for the game not to be in our hands.

It’s the fruit of being control freaks who have no control … and what we do WITH that can have life wrecking consequences.

Simply: life isn’t fair, and refs make tough calls, and there’s 200,000 jobs in the public sector in Wales that are due to be lost which they say won’t be left there by March … and we expect a harsh winter for us all.

(And that’s not going to seem too fair either, now, is it?)

So how about we just lie down and cry?!

Despair can look SUCH a good option! I mean, really, what’s the POINT any more? (See my drift?)

Most people would say there ARE things we can do when life seems to be taken right out of our hands ….

• We can give a good account of ourselves, throughout all of our life.
• We can ‘commit to the tackle’, and try to ‘close down the chaos’, showing ourselves to be ‘gutsy’ (losers)
• We can construct good defence and show great ingenuity and run the ball wide in counter- attack (only to get turned over after 23 phases of play and have our life’s little ball kicked to touch?)

This gives us human dignity (eh?)

This brings us satisfaction, and maybe even some honour (yes, but, really?)

This wins respect and it mentors our juniors (but mentors them in doing what, and going WHERE?)

You see, those are common ‘high ideals’ and we all want to cheer. It sounds noble and lofty and brave.

But the big aim in all of this, is to create some impression that the game is … that our destiny is … still somehow held in OUR hands …

We simply won’t trust

Anyone else …

We just can’t bear the thought that our life should not be in our hands, and the stark truth of our existence is that it ISN’T.

What we need’s a game changer we can trust!

So the wisdom of the wise when it’s all taken from you has always sounded something like this:

“Trust in the LORD with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding;

     ⁶ in all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make your paths straight.” (That’s the Bible, Proverbs 3:5-6)

But are you prepared for that ‘play’?

Faith gladly trusts its life to the hands of the Ref. (right up to the whistle) by making its play to His call …

(I didn’t start out by saying this would look comfy … but I AM really sure this is right.)

at … https://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/Grace-Christian-Community-Llandeilo/255276200423

There are two new video shorts (7 minutes and c. 15 minutes) from a (31 minute) Hebrews 13:4 sermon on  ‘acceptable sacrifice’ and ‘What does FAITH look like?’

They are both over on the Grace Christian Community Llandeilo FB page …

Let us know what you think?

Thanks!

I completely understand the PASSION for

I’m just going through the unpleasant process of working through a shipping container standing on the farmyard that has held our precious stuff for the last seven years.

When we moved here there wasn’t a proper house and we’ve been converting a barn to live in ever since.

So now there’s a container full of memories in this container on the yard, toys and clothes our growing kids once loved, old birthday cards to married and grown up kids from people who were close to them when they were two years old … and furniture that was cherished in my parents, grandparents’ and great grandparents’ homes.

This stuff has got people, situations and big memories inscribed on it … people dearly loved and now long gone.

self-storage!

According to a recent Tom de Castella & Kate Dailey BBC Magazine article, the mania for storage centres began in the US in the 1960s and the country now has over 50,000 such facilities.

Apparently they arrived in London in the 1990s but didn’t take off across the UK until 2000 and certainly I didn’t become aware of them until we were preparing to move house in 2004, when we decided against a storage facility and opted for a shipping container on the farm yard … which had no temperature or environmental control, and the consequences of that are what I’m now having to sort out.

The self storage industry is a growing business … so important that the Office for National Statistics (ONS) now includes a measure of  self storage prices in both its Retail Price Index (RPI) and Consumer Prices Index (CPI).

Apparently this is a particularly American and British phenomenon … it’s the fastest growing real-estate sector in the U.S. and Britain has 800 major self-storage units, the same as the rest of Europe put together.

The UK is now home to as many self storage facilities as it is McDonald’s restaurants, according to research undertaken by comparison website Storage.co.uk

It’s the ideal stopgap while you get organised and there are knockdown three-month offers to entice you in.

But out of sight is out of mind.

Recent statistics show that people are leaving their junk in storage units for longer and longer.

Data from the UK Self Storage Association suggests that the average length of stay has risen from 22 weeks in 2007 to 38 weeks in 2010.

And newspapers have found horror stories where people have forked out thousands of pounds to keep their possessions in storage for years on end, despite never visiting the warehouse to take them out.

Not just a testament to an acquisitive society.

In a survey of UK households by Access Self Storage, 90% of respondents reported
an inability to part with treasured possessions.

But this is only part of the story, says Brian Knutson, an associate professor of psychology at Stanford University. The “endowment effect” is just as important.

This is the economic theory in which – by the mere fact of owning something
we endow a possession with more value than its market price.

It might explain why people spend a huge sum putting an old sofa in storage
for a year rather than using that money to buy a new one.

The Endowment Effect

“Almost everyone wants more for something once they own it, than they will
pay to get it,” says Knutson.

Confusing who we are with what we’ve got

Oliver James, psychologist and author of Affluenza, says that the
self-storage phenomenon can be explained by consumerism’s effect on how we view
ourselves.

Our identity has increasingly become associated with products, he argues, and
not just the mortgage and the car, but smaller items.

“We’ve confused who we are with what we have,” he says.

Now, Jesus had a really clear line on the things that make us worth something.

He had no time for all this impact consumerism’s had on the way we view ourselves, and he even had a story about ‘self-storage’ to make His point!

” … He said to them,

Watch out! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; a man’s life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions.

¹⁶And he told them this parable:

The ground of a certain rich man produced a good crop.

¹⁷He thought to himself, ‘What shall I do? I have no place to store my crops.’

     ¹⁸Then he said, ‘This is what I’ll do. I will tear down my barns and build bigger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods.

¹⁹And I’ll say to myself, You have plenty of good things laid up for many years. Take life easy; eat, drink and be merry.’

²⁰But God said to him, ‘You fool! This very night your life will be demanded from you. Then who will get what you have prepared for yourself?’

     ²¹ This is how it will be with anyone who stores up things for himself but is not rich towards God.”

(Luke chapter 12)

The painful part – making the decisions …

When it comes to a closet full of clutter, “people don’t want to make the decisions,” so put it off for another day, says Cory Cooke, a professional organiser based in London.

“It’s taxing, and a lot of people find it easier to box it up and deal with it later.”

Hmm.

That sounds true.

Mebbe it’s time I got some of my junk to the tip, and gave thanks to God for the memories this kicks up and the people whose love has made my life this rich

… and give some more thought to how I can be rich towards God?

Public celebrations, with or without rugby football, are typically noisy.

Welshmen are not slow to celebrate.

It happens here.

I’ve seen it done.

After all, I was at the Millennium Stadium three weeks ago to see a famous victory over ‘the old enemy’ on the rugby field, and I have to say that certain Cardiff streets seemed to be  running with ale several hours after the final whistle … and like most public celebrations, it was pretty NOISY.

We clap, cheer, and chant.
We beat drums and stamp our feet.
We blare our music and honk our car horns.

Of course, individual celebration can be quieter … but group celebrations almost uniformly are not, so when we have things to celebrate TOGETHER, expect NOISE!

Noise, and a certain wilful abandonment to … quite destructive tendencies.

Oh yes.

Welshmen can PARTY!

But, I mean to say … who in Wales would EVER fire a gun straight up?

CELEBRATORY gunfire?!

It’s not simply that ammunition is expensive and times are quite hard.

It’s that we tend in rural Wales to live close enough to firearms to treat them with respect, but not so close that we treat them with familiar contempt.

So when John Simpson stood in a Tripoli hospital two mornings ago reporting on the place being full of casualties due to celebration not to conflict, I have to admit my jaw dropped just a little.

By all accounts, ‘Celebratory Gunfire’ is common.

It has been researched academically and it even has a Wikipedia article on it. I did come across it myself fleetingly in the Balkans as a wedding got celebrated a number of years ago.

It is culturally accepted in the Balkan countries, the Middle East, the South Asian (Northern India, Pakistan and Afghanistan) as well as in some Latin American regions like Puerto Rico and – yes, you guessed? - some areas of the USA.

(But REALLY not in Wales).

Common occasions for celebratory gunfire apparently include New Year’s Day (we just settle for a quiet pint and a few songs around the bar for that in Cwmdu) as well as the religious holidays Christmas (obviously a feast more redolent with themes of armed violence than I’d dreamt!) and Eid. Which is coming up soon …

Here’s how you seem to do it.

First of all, you take a good grip on one of these, or something similar …

… then you point it up into the air, and …

Squeeze.

… it’s a matter for debate what happens next.

• One point of view, buttressed by research evidence, says a bullet fired straight up slows down, stops altogether, and then returns to the ground (because of gravity) at a speed insufficient to penetrate skin. So, falling bullets are not lethal or even harmful.
• Another point of view says a falling bullet delivers a wallop similar to a brick dropped from a height of four feet: That would hurt and indeed could be fatal, whether or not skin is penetrated.
• But according to Wikipedia, firearms expert Julian Hatcher studied falling bullets and found that .30 calibre rounds reach terminal velocities of 300 feet per second (90 m/s) and larger .50 calibre bullets have a terminal velocity of 500 feet per second (150 m/s).

But the academic question is not really the concern …

What does all this careless celebration do to human flesh?

A bullet traveling at only 150 feet per second (46 m/s) to 170 feet per second (52 m/s) can penetrate human skin,and at 200 feet per second (60 m/s) it can penetrate the skull. A bullet that does not penetrate the skull may still result in an intracranial injury.

This does seem to be one of those cases where the consequences of celebratory actions can be a lot more serious than the physics would suggest …the actual casualty stats are pretty shocking in themselves.

High mortality rate

Admittedly, bullets fired into the air usually fall back at speeds much lower than those at which they leave the barrel of a firearm.

But the mortality rate among those struck by falling bullets is about 32%, compared with about 2% to 6% normally associated with gunshot wounds.

The higher mortality rate is related to the higher incidence of head wounds from falling bullets.

So never mind the physics … here’s the sort of thing that HAPPENS …

• July 22, 2003: More than 20 people were reported killed in Iraq from celebratory gunfire following the deaths of Saddam Hussein’s sons Uday and Qusay.
• At the funeral of Yasser Arafat in 2005 when his mourners unleashed a barrage of bullets into the air, Palestinian officials later told us nine people had been hurt by those bullets returning to earth, one critically.
• February 25, 2007: Five people were killed by stray bullets fired at a kite festival in Lahore, Pakistan, including a 6-year-old schoolboy who was struck in the head near his home in the city’s Mazang area.
• July 29, 2007: At least four people were reported killed and 17 others wounded by celebratory gunfire in the capital city of Baghdad, Iraq, following the victory of the national football team in soccer’s Asian Cup. Celebratory gunfire occurred despite warnings issued by Iraqi security forces and the country’s leading Shiite cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, who (fair play to him) forbade the gunfire with a religious fatwā!
• In 2010, the BBC reported, a Turkish bridegroom killed three relatives when he fired an AK-47 at his own wedding

And that’s why three days ago, after the fall of Tripoli and the near-cessation of the battle for the streets, John Simpson stood reporting for the BBC Radio 4 Today programme from a hospital ward full of gunshot casualties where freshly wounded folk lay dying … they weren’t exactly  celebrating the celebratory gunfire,

and CNN’s Sara Sidner was clearly rattled during a recent live report while ecstatic fighters emptied their magazines into the air.

And it all made me reflect on the way public celebration suspends people’s better judgement.

You can be pretty confident as you stand in the street celebrating that if you fire your AK 47 straight up into the air, the bullet isn’t going to land on YOUR head.

But it may well fall on the head of someone so far away they never heard the shot … and kill them.

So in this or any other situation, it’s Cain’s question that arises.

Cain’s question

“Am I my brother’s keeper?” asked guilty Cain in Genesis 4 as his brother’s blood cried out to Heaven.

Of course, we’d rather NOT be, because then we’d be free to please ourselves.

But the trouble is we all live in the same space.

What I do without a second thought can easily, easily hurt.

And if we’re going to be honest, I very often have done …

In the UK at the moment a LOT of young people are getting unjustly stigmatised along with a bunch of young criminals.

London rioters

Riot 'Wombles' - young volunteers clearing up the riot mess

The ranting middle aged media … and not a few very hypocritical politicians who by all accounts ran their own extravagant riots as young Hooray Henrys … are doing something as outrageous to these young people as if WE (in the 40+ age bracket) were getting blamed for bankers misdemeanours, just because we are also middle aged.

Wouldn’t you say that’s unjust?

The Social Contract

Of course, the rioting problem arises where SOME people who are admittedly mainly under 40 do not accept their obligations under the social contract.

(In political thought, the social contract is where broadly speaking you get the benefits of living in civil society in return for alienating your right to certain patterns of lawless behaviour so that civil society can exist and a better life can thrive.)

Fundamentally, people at all levels in society seem unable to say ‘No’ when the selfish sidde of their personality demands instant gratification regardless its impact on the greater benefits they’ll get from serving the common good. Now, I believe I can think of a word for that …

White collar crime

What I really find troubling is the way populist responses to rioting and looting are causing further fragmentation and alienation … but this time of ‘decent’ youngsters tarred with the broad ‘youth culture’ brush.

I’ve come across significant numbers of ‘decent’ young people, who look at white collar crime (another violation of the Social Contract), and are outraged that their enjoyment of life in civil society has been (economically) damaged by bank fraud and what it has done to jobs and the economy.

They are as outraged by that as by being lumped in with a load of rioting youths, or as we oldies would be if we were blamed for the impact of the banking crisis on jobs and economy just because we are ‘middle aged’.

So if we want to attribute blame, let’s stop blanket-blaming ‘the young’, or parents who are actually prevented by statute law in the UK from Biblically disciplining their young children and can face criminal action and the removal of their children if they do so …

Let’s put the blame where GOD might

Fundamentally, crime may have all sorts of contributory factors but at the end of the day, crossing the line into criminality (or simply acquiescing in or condoning it) is a moral choice based on what you believe to be true, satisfying and good for you.

Perhaps the most useful thing that could be done, then, would be for churches to stop being such a bunch of bleeding heart liberal, detached, fancy dress, pontificating woosies and get off their pews to preach and BE the Good News to the poor and alienated (spirtually and financially) people that should always have been their major concern.

Jesus’ priority mission for His church is not to undertake sociological analysis. It goes like this:

“All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptising them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you.

And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”

For the most part, that is simply NOT what is getting done, and society is being let down.

So, to some extent, I think I blame the churches, myself …

I

So there I was, painting around the open window in the upstairs bathroom with nothing to break the monotony but the occasional upward wafting of the septic tank …

and as is often the case in such mental  ’down time’, I got to thinking.

This time it was an extended meditation  on Victorian innovations in sanitation.

There’s absolutely no doubt those guys did absolute wonders for public health and social equity, but my problem with the septic tank, it occurred to me, arises out of a fundamental misconception that they worked with.

Since the Victorian era, it seems that public health policy has revoved around the idea that the solution to pollution is dilution.

The solution to pollution is dilution?

Earlier sanity arrangements … whether pit based or of the ‘bucket and chuck it’ variety … relied on aerobic decomposition of waste at (or close to) site before removal to some land-based location to complete the nitrogen cycle by adding nutrients to soil to grow – food!

The Victorians innovated water-based systems, giving us the opportunity of OUR waste becoming SOMEONE ELSE’s problem and placing it into an anaerobic decomposition situation … with nitrogenous nutrients going to water-courses, or into expensive and relatively energy intensive sewage treatment plants where the first major challenge is to get rid of all that water that’s carried it there and ultimately dumping high nutrient waste into the sea.

Victorian sanitary provision at Cwmdu Inn, Carmarthenshire

Now, the trouble with that is that it takes the oxygen out of the water as it degrades anaerobically and this is bad for fish (which suffocate), causes algal bloom, and kicks off a host of undesirable effects.

I’ve simplified, but that analysis is  ’good enough for agriculture’ … and it’s all because the Victorians worked on  the apparently upright but actually quite destructive premise that the solution  to pollution is dilution.

Not a great theory of life …

And every day I meet people living their lives as if the answer to moral pollution (we call it ‘sin’) was also going to be dilution.

As if good character was some sort of old fashioned beam balance weighing scale where you can ‘balance’ some favourite sin or weakness with an act of human kindness!

If only that were so – we could have a right old time and STILL keep a clear conscience! But sadlyGod’s Word makes it clear that it’s dreamland.

Dreamland

It is dreamland for the phone-hacking tabloids to point to their high profile, media spun, campaigning ‘good works’.

And it is insincere of us when we live our lives doing just as we wish, to the cost of ourselves and others around us, but point to our charitable donations as a fig leaf cover-up excuse.

Filthy rags

Nobody’s going to be duped by this, because the truth will come out … and worst of all, it isn’t going to fool God. His prophet Isaiah put it well: “All of us have become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous acts are like filthy rags; we all shrivel
up like a leaf, and like the wind our sins sweep us away.” (Isaiah 64:6)

As far as God is concerned, the solution to ‘pollution’ clearly isn’t going to be ‘dilution’ … swilling it away on a flush-tide of philanthropy and good works that won’t sort out the problem. We don’t need dilution, we need salvation!

Where have you BEEN?!

Here’s the link to the trailer for next Sunday at Grace. It’s just an ordinary Sunday … nothing out of the ‘ordinary’!

Why don’t you click below and decide for yourself whether it might be worth trying a visit … you’d be very welcome.

 

No computers, no videos, no loud music …

I was being asked to speak at a Gymanfa Ganu for a group of small village schools coming together from a widespread rural area for a singing festival in celebration of singing and of the Welsh language.

There are two main sorts of singing event in Wales. There is the eisteddfod, and the Gymanfa Ganu. The former is open warfare (it’s a competition). The latter is covert warfare (it is a singing festival – but pride is at stake!)

So there I was – due to speak to the gathered children, but WITHOUT any of the technology I would normally  use to aid the greater concentration and achieve more effective communication to those with a limited interest and short attention span …

I was to be deprived of my

technological fig leaf in public.

It got worse.

Sometimes when I’m preparing to speak of preach or make a presentation of any sort, I have a stack of assorted ideas as to where I am going but nothing resembling a set of notes comes together before the event at all … and I know my Boss wants me to trust Him, and get up there and speak extempore.

... this is not a drawing of me - OK?

You’ve guessed it.

This was one of those occasions.

So I did a meeting with Welsh Assembly Government in the morning … not an easy one …  dealt with roadworks and traffic delays on the country roads (always much slower to clear in the back country) and arrived with five minutes to go to ‘kick off’ … to find there was nowhere to park and the small village streets were choked with buses and coaches.

The ancient village chapel, with its balconies and pews, was packed with a writhing, shuffling, chattering mass of humanity … and I had no laptop, no Powerpoint, no music videos and NO NOTES!

So what is faith?

Sometimes it seems to be a matter of living as if God is real and reliable when you really can’t see Him and you don’t have a fig leaf to cover your potential embarassment.

Sometimes it feels like freefall … but I’ve never had a splat landing …

And I’d say that’s because God IS real and reliable.

In front of a couple of hundred kids with a cap and some coins and a little message from Acts 3, He certainly didn’t let me down yesterday

I guess the bottom line is that when we trust Him and jump, then He is our fig leaf … and that’s a great truth to live with!

I’ve spent ages looking AROUND for my next ministry apprentice …

… and then finally today I looked DOWN and realised THAT’s where he’d been all the time, looking up at me. He’d been following Jesus, in his own little way, but looking constantly upwards at me.

(Gulp!)

I guess all of us in Christian leadership have a pretty clear idea where our ministry apprentices or trainees (or whatever) will come from.

They will have done a secular degree at a good university. They will probably have successfully completed a seminary level theological training course of some sort.

And on their part these bright young men will probably be looking for a big church, with a good reputation … and a ‘Senior Pastor’ (what IS one of them? I don’t see that name in the Ephesians 4 list … could it really just mean he’s an old guy?)

… a ‘Senior Pastor’ (anyway) who has preached a few conferences, written a few books with catchy titles and good front covers and who has gained himself something of a ‘name’ with the ecclesiastical ‘in-crowd’.

So what they will learn in their apprenticeship (assuming they are cool enough to get one) from a guy like that is how to do ‘big church with a good reputation’, preach a few conferences, write a few books with catchy titles and good front covers and gain themselves something of a name?

Is that really the biggest need of our hour?

From where I sit at the uncomfortable edge of pioneer mission … it’s a calamity.

It is a calamity not only because not much of that stuff crops up in the Great Commission in Matthew 28:19-20 … which is actually where Jesus tells His followers what they need to get on with to get on with to be serving Him after He’s gone.

It is also a calamity because there aren’t that many big churches about (for them to be learning to Pastor) and they’re not learning the skills that they WILL need.

It is also a calamity because it is statistically true that mega-churches tend not to be at the cutting edge of the forward movement of the Kingdom of God, and there is a danger that the most talented men can get ‘career-pathed’ straight in there and rendered (shall we say?) less productive by the organisation of the corporate super-structure!

There’s why we shouldn’t think that it is the big church Pastors that should be doing loads of apprenticeships!

It’s actually loads of

1. missionally engaged
2. little guys, who
3. know how to lean their lives on Jesus, and who
4. share their spiritual DNA habitually

that we really  need doing the bulk of it!

… and Dads should line up in the front row!

My point here is this: big church pastors are the very ones who should NOT be doing too many apprenticeships because the ’trade’ they’ll be modelling is really so uncommonly needed!

Now, let it be said, none of those well-educated young men that are trying to get recruited for this process will come within a few feet of me … of course not! I am the rocker of boat to their thinking!

We’ve always been church planters (since long before that was thought to be ‘sexy’) and we don’t take time out of the job to do much for our own greater publicity!

Nothing we do here will ever show up in the search engines under: ‘ministry apprentice’!

But, having waved two great sons off into really useful life and ministry (oh I hope they’re not reading this!) I’ve been looking around for a while for the next aspiringly useful ‘apprentice’.

Oddly, you might think, I’m never usually all that much up-front about it.

There’s no big hat with the title on for any apprentice around here … no board-room interviews, no specially printed hoody or name badge to wear.

Prima donnas – truly – need not apply.

I’m not even that conscious about the process, and certainly, neither are they!

No … what I’ve always done is that I’ve just increasingly shared my Christian life - just as it is – with someone or other who seems to love Jesus, and increasingly let them see into my questions, trials and gaffes as I set about what God gives me to do. (And there’s been a lot of Bible and praying in there with it too.)

But having read a book recently that makes a big fuss about formalised ’apprenticeships’, there I was … like a real donkey, down by the seaside, looking around (in my thoughts!) rather self-consciously for my next ‘apprentice’. How wonderfully  PATIENT is God?!

And I guess I’d been subconsciously looking for somebody like me but thirty years younger. (Bad, such a BAD mistake!)

So today as we walked through the sunshine along the shore of Swansea Bay discussing how we can share Jesus with our friends … as you do with your nine-year-old son … I looked down, and (as clear as day) the Lord simply said: ‘there he is’.

Now let’s be absolutely clear about this … I have NO prophetic word from God about what this boy will be doing with his life!

But I am his FATHER.

And like it or not, a large part of what comes OUT of him is likely to be stuff that (for good or for ill) I have put IN to his hands.

And by the sheer grace of God, I am a follower of Jesus Christ.

And as far as he knows, that’s who my son is too.

So whatever sort of follower of Jesus that he sees me being, is the sort of follower of Jesus Christ that he’s going to turn out to be, just because I am his Dad … Heaven help the boy!

So that’s what this rambling blog is about … for all Dads in general, but especially for conscious and intentional followers of the chief Apprentice-Maker, Jesus Christ Himself.

The little person next to you, who looks up to you … well, he looks up to you!

You ARE discipling him.

He IS your apprentice - simply because he DOES always look up to you.

And today my (little) apprentice learned how to have fun with a street dweller, how to treat that person who has a very different life experience with respect. To give respect as he tries to contribute towards their needs, and to talk openly with them not just about their problems, but also very gently about Jesus, too … because Jesus can help them by night or by day, and certainly long after I’ve gone.

(And all the while I could FEEL his little eyes boring into the back of my neck and his little ears pricked to catch my conversation over the breeze … Great! This boy is a LEARNER!What a THRILL!)

So if Christ’s last words to His followers were all about going out to train apprentices in the Christian life (and they were) … then, come ON then guys! Oh, PLEASE!

Let’s be conscious and deliberate and intentional about how we make apprentices of our little ones … for their good, and so that we might be good fathers and followers of Jesus ourselves.

Sadly it seems, if we’re not conscious about it …. well … ‘careless’ is most likely the default position.

Think you can’t do this? You’ve never been trained? Well that’s tough and you need to ‘wise up’, because know it or not you are teaching them SOMETHING already!

So father’s, listen up. Here’s how to take control of what you do … whether you are a reverend or a deacon or nothing like that at all. You are a DAD, and that’s something that is FAR more important!

Here are the principles of how the process we pray through develops - inside the home at first, no doubt, and then increasingly outside it as they grow in their passion and ability to represent Christ … to be His followers ‘out there’, or ‘at school’, or ‘at rugby training’, or on the streets with the homeless … or wherever else they happen to be.

(Now, BEWARE: it is HARD to take little followers of Jesus as seriously as HE does, but Scripture is clear that we must!)

So here’s how it goes … nuts and bolts … here’s the training plan. This is the sequence of what we might do:

1. I do: you watch: we talk. (See ‘homeless above)

2. I do: you help: we talk.

3. You do: I help: we talk.

4. You do: I watch: we talk.

5. You do: someone else watches: and now you talk to them.

6. You do: someone else helps you: you talk to them … because by now I’ve started again at #1. with someone else, and (by the way) you have too, son … do you see?

Was that just a big wall of strange words for you?

You’re going to need to think over it … but here’s an example to get you started that I hope might possibly help. With my newly recognised apprentice, we’re currently at step #1. As soon as I’ve finish this blog he and I will shoot some hoops and have a quiet, gentle chat about the lady we met on the street today to see if he was OK about it all and how he feels about that lady and discuss what we’ll pray for her at bedtime tonight.

Now that won’t be too hard for me, will it?

But that really is all that it takes.

I am conscious and deliberate about it. I make sure it happens even if he isn’t conscious of what’s happening yet. I’m his father. He’s my junior ministry apprentice. I am conscious and deliberate about it, and though he may not even notice, I’m shaping his life in the Lord … do you see?

If you are a Dad, it’s really not a matter of finding the next person to bring along with you as a follower of Jesus Christ.

Honestly, whether you are yourself a conscious Christian or not, you are teaching them something or other (good or bad) about following Christ every day.

I guess today I just got a fresh lesson in that.

And I’m hoping you’ll be happy to share it with me …

(So, thanks for persevering to the end.)

My sheep were really buzzin’ …

… but not in a good way at all!

And as I rode the quad back down the steep hill to a flat feeding place they all followed me (and the feed bag propped prominently on the front rack) at a quick pace. And the hovering swarm of blow-flies a foot above their backs all came along and followed us too.

The conditions were dangerous for ‘fly strike’, the weather was warm and there’d been rain and it was time now to call in the shearers. This wasn’t any time to just dither …

Shearing at Nant Ganol 2011

Now shearing is a rough-looking business.

It’s noisy, as the bleating of lambs separated from their mothers meets the noise of the equipment and the complaints of ewes grabbed, turned and up-ended then shorn of all their ‘comfy’ but potentially lethal fleece.

It’s physical as those 70-80 kg. ewes fight and kick and have to be pinned down for the source of their problems to be removed. But only when they are shorn of all that extra luxuriance will they be rid of their life-threatening parasites. The other option is maggots in their flesh.

It’s messy, because those sheep are usually now due for worming and have mucky rear ends, and they’ve just been out on the hill in those fleeces picking up dirt here and there but been washed only by the dew and the rain … and then there’s also a load of sheep sweat and lanolin in there. Oh yes … it’s a messy business getting to grips with all that!

… and sometimes they kick or convulse in an ill-thought-out effort to escape, and the chattering, razor-sharp reciprocating blades of the shearers’ hand piece draws blood.

Shearing is not something they will look forward to … but only when they are shorn of all that extraneous growth will they be rid of their life-threatening parasites.

The other option is maggots in their flesh.

Which really isn’t much of an option …

And it’s really the wriggling during shearing that causes the harm …

Now don’t get me wrong – fleece is GREAT … in itself.

But it can get to be too much of a good thing, so that blood sucking parasitic flies make their home in it … and when this luxuriance becomes the habitat of things that destroy life, it really needs to be grappled and got rid of.

And when God tries to shear us of the habitat in our lives of things that would suck the life blood from us, and infect us with life-cheapening and life-threatening disease … how are we going to respond?

When Jesus  called people to follow Him in times gone by there was usually something that needed to be got shot of and left behind to follow Him.

For Peter, James and John it was fishing boats.

For Levi son of Alphaeus it was the takings on his tax collector’s booth (money he should never have extorted).

Often for those guys it was just outright blatant life-cheapening sin that needed leaving.

Other times it was something that was legitimate in and of itself, that was camouflage habitat for something totally disruptive and destructive of life.

But always there was something to be cast off, walked away from, left behind that needed to be peeled away and left to be able to live safely and richly … to live following along behind Jesus.

He’s got a great funny story about camels and needles that He uses to clear up the point …

Matthew 19:24 ... Jesus could be funnier than you'd think ...

That camel is really going to need a good diet plan if he’s ever going to get through that needle!

Now I know there’s a Biblical word for all this – but shearing gives a pretty fair idea of what ’repentance’ is all about.

So that doesn’t sound very appealing?

Sheep aren’t really too keen on shearing to start with, either … and they wriggle and struggle and kick.

I can understand that. They hear all that noise and see all that pinning down and shearing and it looks and sounds like it’s going to be grim.

But when a sheep has been shorn and is released by the shearer, it always jumps, leaps and  scampers away … seeming to bounce with joy over the weight of all that vulnerability that’s been lifted from its back.

… and there’s a lesson in that for me and you.

You see …. when the crowd at the first sermon ever preached for the church heard what Peter had to say about Jesus they realised something fresh. They saw stuff that had got out of hand in their lives and left them with LIFE-threatening areas of vulnerability … so they just cried out aloud there in public: ‘What must we do to be saved?!’

Big question!

So WHAT is the answer to THAT one?

Peter said “Repent and be baptised, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.

³⁹The promise is for you and your children and for all who are far off— for all whom the Lord our God will call.”

Have you got stuff that needs to go before it hurts you any more?

Would it actually be a mercy to get to shearing time at your place?

… you just really can’t afford to hesitate when you hear and you see all that buzzin’