Issuu

WHY WE MUST FIX OUR EYES ON JESUS Faith demands more than a glance PLUS BIG SOCIETY AT WORK IN BARKING

How one church is helping rebuild the community

FIND OUT WHAT GOD IS DOING...

Then get involved, says Evangelical Alliance boss

THE ROOTS OF SPIRITUAL DECLINE GENTLEMEN ARE LEAGUES AHEAD

RTC students get serious about being polite

REACHING OUT AT EASTER

Ten great ideas to help you stay fresh

I c FR ut OM six my SEL ye self F H ar fo AR s’ r M

Are we making authentic Christ followers, asks Colin Dye

FR EE ‘ D

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APRIL 2012 Issue 127 £1.70

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CONTENTS 5

EDITORIAL John Glass on status, power and influence

BIG SOCIETY AT WORK IN BARKING How an East London church is taking the Big Society plea seriously to help people in debt

CHURCH VISIT CHANGED MY LIFE Paula Jones put a life of self harm behind her after visiting church

10 NEWS from Elim and the wider church 12 OUT AND ABOUT WITH THE GS John Glass opens his diary 14 WE MUST FIX OUR EYES ON JESUS Faith demands more than a glance 18 GEARING UP FOR THE GOSPEL Congregations that are stepping up their efforts this month as they get set for Easter 20 FIND OUT WHAT GOD IS DOING! Evangelical Alliance General Director Steve Clifford explains how he approaches faith 25 COFFEE MORNINGS ARE A SUCCESS Aspire’s coffee morning initiative proved to be a real blessing right around the country 26 TEN BRILLIANT IDEAS FOR EASTER Great ideas to help you spread Good News 28 GENTLEMEN ARE LEAGUES AHEAD You’d better mind your manners at RTC

30 THE ROOTS OF SPIRITUAL DECLINE Turning up for church on Sunday isn’t what Christian duty is about, says Colin Dye 35 DRIVEN BY THE LOVE OF CHRIST Buying a couple of new tyres led Mark Pugh to see the Church in a new light 36 STILL GIVING HOPE AFTER 10 YEARS St Helens Christian Life Centre is still helping people beat drugs and alcohol 37 BOOKSHELF with Richard Dodge 38 HELPING THE LADY IN YOUR LIFE Dr Sharon Kane looks at PMS 40 SUCCESS OF DISCIPLESHIP CULTURE Paul Maconochie and Rich Robinson and an initiative that’s seeing explosive growth 41 A GOOD MAN OR A GOD MAN? Steve Harris looks at who Jesus is 42 MIDFIELD GIANT IS BIG ON JESUS Miles Addison talks about his faith 44 ALWAYS GIVE IT YOUR BEST SHOT! Nigel Tween continues his brilliant series on making life work 45 MUSIC REVIEWS with Ian Yates 49 ANSWERS with Rajinder Buxton 50 AND FINALLY with John Lancaster

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Direction Magazine is the official publication of the Elim Pentecostal Church @elimpentecostal www.elim.org.uk 0845 302 6750

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Editor-in-Chief: John Glass, General Superintendent Publishers: Elim Pentecostal Church Elim International Centre, De Walden Road, West Malvern, Worcestershire, WR14 4DF Charity no. 251549 (England)

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Disclaimer: Views expressed in articles and news reports do not necessarily reflect the view of the Editor or the official position of the Elim Pentecostal Church. The acceptance and publication of advertising does not indicate editorial endorsement. All submitted articles are subject to editing due to space restrictions. By submitting articles, writers accept their articles may be edited.

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F I R S T WO R D S

Status, power and influence Everyone reading this column will, I am sure, have reason to be grateful for the positive influences that others have had upon their life – be it family, friends, teachers or mentors. Looking back to the earliest points in my ministry I can think of people such as the late Ray Hughes and Ron Williams, young pastors themselves at the time, who risked their pulpits to a teenage boy who was just beginning to preach. I became a pastor myself at just 20 years of age and when, five years later, I was inducted to the Elim church in West Bromwich, I discovered that there was an Assemblies of God church – three times the size of my own – only half a mile away. The minister was David Skelton and, though it was 38 years ago, I remember with gratitude the coffees that we had together that were always accompanied by the encouragement of someone older and wiser. Today his son, Jonathan, is the senior minister in one of the finest churches in our own Movement. When I try and bring to mind those who played a formative part in my earliest years it quickly becomes clear that not all of them had status or power within the life of the local church. Yet their influence was immeasurable. I think of godly people who would never be seen on a platform or behind a microphone but who left an impression that became indelible. It was rarely the ‘pithy words of wisdom’ but the potent example of a life transformed by the power of God. It was seldom the spiritual sounding statement but the gentle humility born out of a Christlike kindness. It was usually the whisper, and

never the roar. It is not by accident that David, the slayer of Goliath, was the one who had giant-killers in his army or that his nephew was renowned for defeating towering warriors. The best education is caught rather than taught. We often find God speaking to people in the Scripture not just in terms of their potential, but by reminding them that they have come from a line of those who had made their mark and been victorious when faced with challenges to their faith. When God, at the burning bush, encouraged the octogenarian Moses to lead two million people out of slavery he did not use metaphors of self-help or human potential – he said, “I am the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.” So where does this leave us? Perhaps to recognise three things: The first might be to recall and reconnect with those who played a positive role in our lives and let them hear our gratitude – previous pastors, youth leaders, Sunday school teachers or members of our church. The second might be to pray to be a conduit of affirmation and encouragement in the lives of others. The third would be that, if ever called to make the choice, always to choose influence over status and power. John Glass General Superintendent Elim Pentecostal Church

Steve Clifford is a familiar face to many believers in Britain. He has been involved in some of the most exciting and successful grassroots initiatives in recent years. Mark Wreford caught up with the General Director of the Evangelical Alliance to find out more

Find out what God’s doing and get involved If you can name it, Steve’s probably done it – and convinced a gaggle of churches to do it with him! His rather impressive CV of community engagement involvement includes the March for Jesus Movement, Soul in the City and Hope08. From praying around the rain-soaked streets of London to persuading churches to reach their local communities through paintbrushes as well as preaching, Steve’s approach to the Church has been both passionate and demanding. For him, it’s all about finding God and following him. “One of the prayers I pray is, ‘God, open my eyes to see what you’re doing,’” Steve says. “One of the statements that Jesus makes is that he only does what he sees the Father doing, and if that’s true of Jesus, it had better be true of us! I remember years ago, a wise leader said to me, ‘Find out what God’s doing and get involved in that.’ And I try to live my life like that. “Looking back I feel like I’ve had the privilege of being caught up in initiatives and Movements that were just so much bigger than any of us who were involved in them. Actually, it’s just incredibly humbling. “Whether it’s March for Jesus in the 80s and 90s with 180 countries and 60 million people,

‘Sometimes there’s a danger in the life of church that we can make things too complicated. There’s something about a simple response to what God might be saying’

Opposite Steve Clifford, who is the General Director of the Evangelical Alliance

or Soul in the City in London in 2004 or Hope, whose dream was to touch 500 locations across the UK, but actually just under 1,500 locations were affected with thousands upon thousands of churches involved, I look back and am incredibly humbled that somehow I got a chance to be part of what God was doing.” Steve is currently the director of the Evangelical Alliance and draws on his past experience of pulling churches together and promoting unity on a daily basis as he seeks to see even greater change in the UK. It’s tapping into God’s sovereign action that excites Steve, and which he believes gets the best out of volunteers and churches alike. “It’s all around catching the God moment,” he explains. “It’s somehow connecting with the prayers, the dreams and the aspirations of those you’re looking to mobilise. If you can somehow capture that, and find the words and the images and the metaphors that communicate that vision, you’re on the right track. “Part of vision casting is about painting a picture of what could be. If we can find those words and those stories and connect with the dreams of the people, people are actu-

ally looking for opportunities to make a difference and to be doing things together. “I think there’s also something about finding the simple and easily accessible ways for people to participate. Sometimes there’s a danger in the life of church that we can make things too complicated. There’s something about a simple response to what God might be saying. That becomes a really important part of enabling people to say, ‘Yes! I want to be part of this.’” God breathed It’s all well and good for a leader looking back to speak of recognising what God was doing, but how did Steve recognise the hand of the Lord in the moment? “Oh my goodness!” he exclaims. “Sometimes you don’t recognise it until you’re in it! But there are some moments that have stuck with me. “I remember standing on the platform in Hyde Park and I think there were 70,000 to 80,000 people there and we’d just walked our way through London praying and singing. I looked across this great crowd and I thought, ‘Thank God! This is a God moment. This is God at work.’ It was only a few years ago you wouldn’t have 

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Easter is a time of the year in the Christian calendar when we celebrate Jesus’ death and resurrection. But it can also be quite testing as we try to think of fresh ways to spread the good news. Here are ten ideas that may help:

Quality invites – make sure your congregation has printed invitations to your Easter worship services and encourage them all to pray about who they should ask and hand them out to. Personal invitations are far more effective than mass mail drops.

Instead of a running a normal service, how about doing a drama reconstruction of the death and resurrection of Jesus? If you are feeling really adventurous you could get the children to do it. After all, this would be a sure way of pulling in parents and grandparents who may not normally come to church.

Messy church – why not use Easter-themed crafts and activities to present the resurrection story in a fun, exciting and encouraging way? Another great way of getting families through the doors.

At the end of the service, if you have the space and budget, why not have a traditional roast dinner with your church and theme your refreshments accordingly – hot cross buns, Easter eggs, chocolate bunnies etc.

Taming the dragon

Miracle healing for new Christian Tracy Turbitt

Struggling to find the will of God?

You’re not alone, says Daniel Kolenda

TO YO P T U IP W RCST EB H O LIV SIT UR MA E E CH KE

How Elim minister John Berriman prayed for Duncan Bannatyne on the hit TV show

‘My tumour disappeared after prayer’

DECEMBER 2011 Issue 123 £1.70

THE GREATEST GIFT OF ALL PLUS The legacy left by King James 400 years of the Authorised Version

Megan’s passage to India

How an Elim-backed project is rescuing girls from the sex industry

‘Israel and the Church share DNA’ We have a common enemy as well as a joint destiny, says Mervyn Tilley

Church must focus on welfare of others We talk to Archbishop of York Dr John Sentamu

Churches help restore hope to the streets of london london plus Role model for a lost generation

Youth leader Ed Harrap was rescued from drink and drugs and found a cause worth fighting for

I can do all things through Christ

How a blind woman cared for her six children and graduated with a first class degree!

‘I consciously bring God into my decisions’ We talk to top leadership consultant Jill Garrett

Merthyr Tydfil Elim is 100 not out!

small church has a big history and a bright future

ps Ap

t fu yo E ur f l y pH fA it ou on H r E

Giving the gift of childhood to needy kids in war-torn Sierra Leone

A liGH liGHt li GHt GH t in tHE t HE dA d dArknEss Arkn rknE Ess

n tE

PLUS Learning to care for the orphans

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– healing a fatherless generation

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november 2011 Issue 122 £1.70

JANUARY 2012 Issue 124 £1.70

Happy New Year to all our Readers!

TAKING THE TRUTH INTO OUR CITIES PLUS Ministry that’s streets ahead

Why the Street Pastors are looking for you

Making room for prayer in schools

New initiative puts prayer in the classroom

The scandal of Christianity

How will you get into heaven, asks RT Kendall

LE AC

Good news for clubbers

The Christian band that’s big in the clubs

The good, the bad and the ugly

J John takes a look at social networking

MIR e G av LIN g HEA od ew G G n w e a dy Ho m bo

FEBRUARY 2012 Issue 125 £1.70

SERVING GOD IN OUR GENERATION

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PLUS GET READY FOR CHANGE!

Elim Bible Week promises to be better than ever

RESTORING FATHERHOOD

Kids can’t do without their dad, argues Mark Stibbe

RAISING THE BAR FOR OUTREACH

Evangelism gets huge lift from Olympic hopeful

BRING A NATION BACK TO BOOK

It’s time for repentance, says Jonathan Oloyede

ELIM’S UNIQUE MINISTRY

Grace Tween is reaching out to pastors’ kids

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Think you’ve done your Christian duty by turning up at church on Sund ay?

We must analyse the roo We must face reality – we are failing our nation. We cannot cocoon ourselves in spiritual complacency. We must not disengage from society, thinking that at least things in Elim are not so bad, or that, at least our group is growing. We do not want to be like Hezekiah, the ultimate backslidden king of Judah. He was relieved to hear that though disaster was waiting for the nation, there was going to be relative peace and security in his time. A significant reason to fight the battle for the soul of our nation is concern for the spiritual health of our children and grandchildren. But before we act, we urgently need to reflect deeply and develop fresh sensitivity to the Holy Spirit. Under his guidance, we must carefully analyse the roots of spiritual decline, digging deep beneath the surface. Superficial, above-the-surface solutions will not work. Merely stepping up the usual Christian activities will not be effective. The nation needs to see genuine spirituality, not mere activism. There is a hunger for reality and authenticity. The usual truisms we glibly pronounce will not work – more repentance, more prayer, more fasting and more evangelism. We need a fresh examination of what these things actually mean. A root and branch examination looks at the deeper issues

‘Church is not about what you do in your spare time. It’s an entire life of consecration, becoming like Christ in everything’

Above Are we building authentic communities of Christ-followers? asks Colin Dye

of Church spirituality as well as church structure. Our churches may be growing but are we building authentic communities of Christ-followers? Only robust churches, rooted in Christian beliefs and values, can express the authentic lifestyle of Christ. Only this can save our nation from secularism, atheism and insidious false religion. However, it is easy to drift into forms of community that are quasi-Christian, where personal blessing is more important than genuine conformity to Christ. Kenneth Kantzer, formerly of Trinity Evangelical Divinity School in Deerfield, Illinois, said in 1996, “No church can be effective in bringing clarity and commitment to a world when it is as ignorant of its own basic principles as in our Church today. Unless we engage the Church in a mighty programme of re-education, it will be unable to transmit a Christian heritage to its own children or to the society around it.” Since then, society both in the US and the UK has slipped even more drastically further away from its Christian heritage and, as yet, no consistent programme of Christian re-education has been forthcoming. Christian community Christians are the only people on earth capable of demonstrating the genuine life of Christ.

But, for generations now, the trend has been away from radical Christian discipleship towards a softer, more flexible approach where the individual is king and the Bible is only a rough guide to belief and practice. In his excellent book, The Connecting Church, Randy Frazee asks the penetrating question: “Does the Christian faith offer a basic set of beliefs, values, practices, and virtues that can be classified as absolutely true and totally essential for a constructive and fruitful life?” Few professing Christians would like to deny that it does but, for many, this is merely a notional nod in the direction of Bible teaching. When it comes down to it, we reserve the right to make our own choices, which are often more influenced by popular opinion than the preaching of the Bible. Do we really believe that the Bible way is both true and essential for fruitful and satisfying living? Highest virtue? It is a deeply disturbing fact, but the people who sit in our pews are not necessarily persuaded by what is preached from the platform. Post-modernism exerts a far greater influence on their belief and behaviour than we realise. It is wrong to assume that the members in our churches are with us because they have embraced our beliefs

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und ay? Big mistake, says Colin Dye, as he looks at the UK’s spiritual climate

oots of spiritual decline

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D I RE C T I O N

A n s w e r s ELIM E X PERTS K EEP YOU POS TED

You ask the questions for Elim experts to answer. This month’s writer: Rajinder Buxton, a member of the pastoral team at Ealing Christian Centre, London.

Why going to church on a Sunday matters My weekends are getting really filled up with family commitments and sport. Does it really matter if I don’t go to church every Sunday? Coming to church on a Sunday reveals our priorities. When other business comes ahead of our worship of God on a Sunday, we are not making him our focus, but ourselves and our desires and wants. God has designed a corporate aspect of worship that can only be fulfilled when we meet together. We are to spur one another on to love and do good deeds and not forsake the assembling of ourselves together, as well as building one another up through spiritual gifts. When we worship together we exhort one another through God’s Word. We cannot do these things if we remain alone. In forsaking coming together we are disregarding the authority of God and the godly accountability to the pastors and elders who are placed in God’s family to shepherd the people. There may be genuine reasons why some cannot make it to church on a Sunday but efforts made to attend the assembling of saints together will bear dividends. Do we seek to be a blessing to others or seek blessing only for ourselves? If we truly love God and others it will be our joy to have that opportunity each Sunday. I don’t give regularly to my church but my friends have told me that I

ought to pay ten per cent of my income. What does the Bible say? In the Old Testament tithing was part of the Law of Moses. God was commanding his people to be generous in order to finance his work. But tithing came with a promise of God’s great blessings on their lives. Some people argue that tithing is an Old Testament principle and therefore no longer applies as we are now under grace, not law. But both Old and New Testaments show God’s will regarding generous giving. Speaking of giving, Jesus said, “For with the measure you use it will be measured back to you.” In other words, God lets us set the measurement of generosity and measures back to us according to how we have individually given. If we choose a measurement of giving to God that is minimal, God measures that standard back to us. The tithe clearly shows God’s mind and his standard with regard to how we are to give, and in giving we experience God’s blessings and favour, not just financially but in every area of our lives. I have a friend who was adopted but she feels ‘second best’ and not like a real daughter. But I read somewhere that all believers are adopted by God. What should I tell her? Parenthood can be experienced through biological birth or through adoption. From Scriptures we can see that we ourselves have been adopted into God’s family. We

were by nature, ‘objects of wrath’ (Ephesians 2:3) but God, by his saving grace, has adopted us as his children. Paul employed the term adoption as used in the Roman legal practice when a family took on a child not their own with the purpose of giving him all the rights and privileges of a natural born son. Just as the adopted child lost all the rights and privileges in his old family and gained all the rights of a legitimate son in his new family, in the same way the Holy Spirit has ‘adopted’ us and placed us in the family of God. We become God’s children with all the rights and privileges of a son. Since we ourselves have been adopted by God, surely God must approve of adoption! Not wanting to boast, but I’m gifted in many different ways. How do I actually operate in God’s strength and not my own? It does not matter what our talents are or how gifted we are, the Bible shows that it is only when we recognise that we are weak that we can truly give ourselves over to God and let him win victories through us. We need the humility to recognise that any talent we have is given through God’s grace. To operate in this grace we must walk in his presence through prayer, include God in everything, read his Word and trust him. Trade in your strength for God’s and you’ll see the blessings flowing into your life in abundance even during the dry times.

If you have a question, email it to: editor@newlife.co.uk Keep your questions coming so that thousands can benefit from the answers! Opinions expressed are those of the writer, and do not necessarily reflect the official position of the Elim Pentecostal Church