Those of you who indulge in social media on the internet will know that it can be amusing, exciting, annoying and above all else, a huge eater of time. Occasionally there will be something that is so incredibly useful that it makes the many hours looking at pictures of grumpy cats worthwhile.

I came across just one of those things recently.

Alongside the web pages encouraging the reader to give up cheese for Lent, or stop drinking, or take up running, was a blog suggesting a far more satisfying and ultimately helpful idea. Titled ’40 bags in 40 days’, the idea is that over a forty day period in the spring (coinciding with the 40 days of Lent) you focus on cleaning one area of your home per day. In this one area you challenge yourself to declutter, simplify, and get rid of things you simply don’t need. The aim is one bag a day but you can have more or less.

And what happens to all the bags of stuff? It can get organised, donated, given to a family member or friend, put on Freecycle, get sold on Ebay, or go into the rubbish. Just get it out of your house.

Making space is not just something for the place where we live. In the weeks leading up to Easter, we can also make room for God. The busyness of life fills our time in the same way that possessions can take over our homes, and when there is space there is an opportunity to reawaken our relationship with Jesus.

As we approach the high point of the Christian year, I’ll be making an effort to fill up 40 bags in 40 days from around my home. I’ll also be looking to make these 40 days a time of renewed focus on Jesus and what I know that he’s done for each and every one of us. Why not join me?

(March 2015)

Some 85 miles away from the Taj Mahal lies the small Indian town of Kaser Kalan. It is here that 79 year old Faizul Hasan Qadri is building a monument in memory of his wife. The building has a rounded ceiling and archways has four tower’s on its perimeter and one day this will be his wife’s tomb.

Qadri married his wife when they were teenagers, and they were together for 58 years before her death three years ago. The couple never had children, and one day Qadri’s wife asked him who would remember them once they were gone. “I will build a tomb that everybody will remember,” he told her. It was for her, he says, though one day he will also be laid inside it.

After she died, he sold her small pieces of jewellery and some family farmland. He added everything he’d saved over the years and started building. His wife lies inside the main building in a small tomb, but almost three years later the project still unfinished. Qadri doesn’t have much money, and only hires workers when he can afford it.
People have offered to help, but he says no.

“It is a proof of love. I have to do it on my own,” he says.

How can you prove your love?

Author Dr Gary Chapman suggests there are five ways or ‘languages’ in which we show and receive love. Words of affirmation; quality time; gifts; acts of service; physical touch. Each of us has a preference for one more than the others – and it’s only when we learn to speak someone else’s love language that they will know that they are loved.

In a month where Valentine’s Day marks a central point, expressions of love will be flying back and forth, in the post, by text, by email – maybe even by carrier pigeon. It’s a chance to tell someone how much they are loved. But it shouldn’t be restricted to a significant other.

It’s also another opportunity to once again give the message of God’s unfathomable love for each and every one of us.

(February 2015)

On the 25th of May, 1961, President Kennedy stood in front of the US Congress and made a hugely significant announcement. He proposed the Apollo Program, a national goal of landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to earth by the end of the 1960s. This aim wasn’t realised until July 1969, many years after President Kennedy himself had died. There were problems and setbacks, including the loss of the entire crew of Apollo 1 following a cabin fire during a pre-launch test. When Neil Armstrong eventually took the first step of a human being on the surface of another world, an estimated five hundred million people were watching on TV 384,000 miles away.

This Mission began as just a big dream. At the time, only one American had even flown into space, and NASA had not yet sent an astronaut to orbit the earth. Even some NASA employees doubted that the ambitious goal could be met. But nevertheless, plans were made, strategies formulated, and schemes drawn up. New technologies not dreamt of when Kennedy made his original announcement had to be brought into existence before success could happen.

Even dreams that might seem impossible can inspire. When they capture the imagination of a group of people there is a common purpose that not only draws them together, but also drives them on.

As the church, as the people of God, we often don’t think big enough. The Church of England has as its strap-line ‘A Christian Presence in every community’. It’s a great phrase, but can sometimes seem a little static. Yes, it is about being Christians in the places we live and work, but there’s more to it than that. If we are going to see our towns and villages, our cities counties and our country challenged by God, then we need to be a people of action as well.

It may need fresh ways of being church and new ways telling our friends and families the good news of Jesus Christ, but I believe that God encourages us to think big. To dream his dreams. As we move into 2015, my prayer for us is that we would see big dreams realised and a nation won for Christ our Saviour.

(January 2015)