Long-Distance Relationship?

August 2014

Dear Xxxxx

Thank you for contacting us about Christening/Baptism for your son.  I understand how much the strong links that you have with Burton and with St James' Church must mean to you even though you don't live in the area anymore.  Since moving here I have met many people who feel that Burton will always be 'home'.  However, baptism is about belonging to a Christian congregation (as well as a declaration of your trust in the Lord Jesus Christ). When a child is baptised the local church family is publicly welcoming a child who has begun to worship with them each week, and as parents you promise that you will, by your example, draw them into the church family, walk with them in following Christ, and help them to take their place in the life and worship of Christ's Church. This makes no sense if you live too far away to be able to come to church here each week.

I hope that there is a church near you where you could worship each week (if you need help finding one then let me know where you are living and I will do my best to help) and I am sure the minister there would be willing to talk to you about Christening/Baptism for your son. In fact, if you are not already involved in a local church, then I would remind you that your parents promised you to Jesus Christ at your own baptism here in Burton and the congregation all said: "Fight valiantly as a disciple of Christ against sin, the world and the devil, and remain faithful to Christ to the end of your life." As you care for your son and think about his future, don't miss the opportunity to think about who you belong to and what was promised on your behalf.

If you have questions about anything I've said do come back to me.

With very best wishes

Graham Burrows

Favourite Books

July 2014

Thank you to all those who worked so hard to organise the great Burton Sports Day, and especially to those who fixed the weather.   And thank you to whoever chose the theme for the decorated floats: ‘Favourite Books’.  When that was announced it was clear that St James’ Church had to enter, and there was never any question about which book our float would feature.  But why is the Christian church so keen on a rather long, old book? 

We all understand when people are attached to other publications:

• A man who receives a letter from his new fiancée will keep it close to his heart.
• If you go walking on the fells you keep your map to hand not buried at the bottom of your rucksack.
• I get out the bread maker instruction book nearly every evening because I still can’t remember how much water is needed for each recipe.
• Perhaps you have a favourite novel.  You’ve read it already (maybe more than once) but you will read it again and will delight in things you hadn’t fully seen before.
• While junk mail goes straight in the bin, a letter with significant news, whether telling you to visit your doctor urgently or inviting you to a job interview, will be read many times.

The Bible is all of these things and more: the maker’s instruction book, a reliable map for life, a letter from someone who loves us deeply, shockingly dreadful news – and almost unbelievably hopeful news, a book with a single, complex and intriguing plot whose depths and wonder will never be exhausted no matter how many times you read it. 

There was a time when the people of Britain were described as ‘A People of One Book’, when even the thought and speech of atheists was Bible-saturated.  Nowadays much of the Bible is unfamiliar, and we can be astonished to find that it doesn’t endorse our 21^st Century Western thinking.

But as Moses warned his people, “They are not just idle words for you – they are your life” (Deuteronomy 32:47). 

This is a book that still has power to transform people, families, villages, even nations.  

It’s our favourite book.

Sincerely

Graham Burrows

Can they deliver?

June 2014

Many people would say that they don’t pray.  But you do!  You might not pray to God but ‘pray’ doesn’t necessarily mean asking God for something.  It sounds archaic now, but “I pray thee” was once a common way of saying ‘I beg you’ or ‘please’.  To pray was to make an earnest request of someone.  “I pray thee, gentle mortal, sing again.” (Titania to Bottom.)

You and I have things that we long for – health, contentment, success in life, the appreciation of other people, certainty about the future, and to be loved by someone who matters to us. 

And, unless we are in the depths of despair, we all think that we know who or what is likely to give us these things – wife, husband, parent, child, the government, a house improvement, an exam pass or a new club joined.  These are some of the people or things we ‘pray’ to.  We might not speak any word or prayer to them but we have an expectation that they will provide, we pin our hopes on them, we devote ourselves to them and we will be disappointed if they let us down.  Or, if we think we are self-made, we will be angry at ourselves when we can’t answer our own prayers.

Who you pray to, or look to, reveals what you believe about ultimate reality.  When a man prays to God in the name of Jesus, he is denying that any of the things he longs for come ultimately from the government, another person, a comfortable house or anything else in this world.   He is denying that he himself can provide what he most wants.  To pray like this is to reveal your conviction that the Father of our Lord Jesus is the creator and source of every good thing and ultimately the only one who can answer the prayer, and provide what you long for at the deepest level.

The presence of the church of Jesus Christ in the village raises a question – not ‘do you pray?’ but ‘who or what are you praying to, and can they deliver what you are hoping for?’ 

Sincerely

Graham Burrows

Come In or Keep Out?

May 2014

“Can I come to church?” someone once asked me. 

“What do you mean?” I replied. 

“Is it alright for anyone to just turn up?”

I was surprised.  I had not guessed that anyone would think they needed permission to come to their local church.  But I suppose we might wonder if it is alright to ‘just turn up’ at the tennis club, the auction centre or to a Council meeting and perhaps the church seems similar – a club with uncertain entry conditions.

First let me assure you.  If you came to any service in the village church someone would greet you, make sure that you had somewhere to sit and answer any questions you had.  Our services are straightforward and we expect that there will always be some present who are ‘just looking’.  If you brought children they would be welcome too, there are areas in the church that you could use if your child became restless, and at some services there would be a group for them to join.

“But,” you may ask, “Would I be welcome at a deeper level?  Would I feel awkward because I don’t believe the things that you all believe?  Would I not fit in because my marriage was a disaster or because I’ve not bothered with church for years?”

How would Jesus have received you?  He was well known as a friend to all kinds of people. Jesus had meals with the rich and powerful, but he also associated freely with disreputables. He was ready to welcome anyone, but he never left people in any doubt that they had to come on his terms. The well-off were told to stop depending on their wealth. Swindlers realised they had to pay back what they had taken. Adulterers had to change. Strong men were afraid in his presence.

And Jesus still welcomes people into His church in exactly the same way.  His welcome is genuinely and freely extended to all.  You are not disqualified by anything you have thought or done because he can deal with that, but Jesus still insists you must come on his terms.  He must have the right to decide what you will or won’t do from now on.

Welcome!

Graham Burrows

Putting the universe together again

April 2014

Imagine a world where it is possible to win the battle against weeds in the lawn and brambles in the hedge.

Imagine a world where buildings can go up that will never collapse, where engines don’t fail, where plans succeed and crops are healthy; where work is never futile.

Imagine a world where governments always serve, where power is not abused, where the things that “must never happen again” never happen again.

Imagine a world where people no longer give up all hope that justice will be done to those who destroyed their family, stole their land or emptied their bank account.

Imagine a world where the things I have done wrong can be atoned for, and the relationships I have damaged can be restored.

Imagine a world where people never hear devastating news from doctors, where life does not become harder and harder as the years advance, where death is not an invincible enemy.

Of course it’s a fantasy world, isn’t it?  This is so far removed from our experience of life on this planet that we can hardly imagine such a world existing without a major overhaul; a complete strip-down of the universe with all the parts put back together in a very different arrangement, almost a whole new creation.

But what if there had been a time when just such a reversal of the universe had been seen?  What if there had been a man whose whole life work never once had the shadow of futility and despair fall across it?

Imagine if we lived in a world where, even just once, a dead man had lived again, with a new kind of body that would never weaken, age or die. 

Imagine the glimmer of solid hope that might be to us!

Happy Easter!

Graham Burrows

A simple confession

March 2014

“It’s not that I’m against Christian faith, I just like to believe what I believe without a public fuss.”

“Christians are entitled to believe what they like but they shouldn’t expect their views to be taken into account by those who create laws or run our country.”

 “The Christian faith should return to its simple origins when it was about one brilliant teacher and those who chose to listen to him.”

Well, one of the earliest and simple confessions of Christian faith was ‘Jesus is Lord’, but that was never a private belief that didn’t ‘interfere’ in public life.  The resurrection was proof that God had made Jesus Lord, and therefore that the Jewish authorities should not have killed him; that claim didn’t go down well.  Before long the Romans realised that ‘Jesus is Lord’ was a direct challenge to the official line that Caesar was Lord, and the imperial lions were called to deal with the problem.

And in the centuries since, many Christians have discovered that this simple confession has been enough to deprive them of their property, their employment, their family and even their life.

So too today.  Christian faith is a direct challenge to any authority or power that tries to ignore the risen Lord Jesus.  If ‘Jesus is Lord’ over this world then everything is under his command, including the economy and the weather.  If ‘Jesus is Lord’ then his words must determine what my family believes and how we use our time.  Jesus gets to declare what the church must teach and who can be its leaders.  And, in the state, Jesus has the right to say when tax is legitimate, what marriage can be and what constitutes a crime.

That’s the simple and original Christian faith:

“ … if you confess with your mouth, ‘Jesus is Lord,’ and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.”  (Romans 10:9)

Sincerely

Graham Burrows

Why am I still a Christian in 2014?

February 2014

Wasn’t the Christian faith out of date in the last century, let alone in this?  So why am I still a Christian in 2014? 

Well, firstly, because it’s the truth.  I first trusted in Jesus at the age of 12; since then I’ve had many years to consider the Bible’s teaching and the objections to it that are often raised.  My confidence that the Bible speaks truthfully has only grown.  I don’t know of anything else that makes such sense of our bitter-sweet experience of life, that speaks with such disturbing accuracy about my own flawed character and that tells such an unbelievable story (as the account of Jesus seems to be) in such a simple, matter-of-fact, truthful way.  Every century has had its way of hiding this but Christian faith remains true, just as sugar remains sweet and the sky stays blue.

But secondly, I’m a Christian because the message of the Bible gives me hope.  If it wasn’t true then this would just be false hope, but because it is true the hope is of the solid, 24-carat, armour-plated variety.  There is hope for me personally because the great debt that I owed to God for stubbornly resisting his right to tell me how I ought to live has been paid in full and wiped from the slate by Jesus Christ.  There is hope for my family; how can I hope to protect them from all the circumstances that might threaten to overwhelm their lives in the future?  God promises in the Bible that his “love is with those who fear him, and his righteousness with their children's children.”  And there is hope for the whole world because the Bible confidently asserts that the rule of Jesus Christ will increase year by year until there is no town or village outside his just government and no person who does not acknowledge that he is Lord.

Christians often feel pressured to let go of their faith and adopt an easier outlook on life.  But where else could we find such a true hope to live for?

Sincerely

Graham Burrows