Kent Rickerby, 26 March 2015

God asks us to go into our closet when we pray… I can’t do that because it’s full of other stuff.
A closet can be a place of private and special stuff. My closet has lots of shelves, full of special boxes with stuff in them like hopes, dreams, love. Boxes full of family, friends, church. Boxes full of adventure, memories, some with worries or fears, others with future stuff, not yet happening.
The shelf spaces in my closet will never be full because there’s always room for more. What is this strange closet? It’s the closet of my heart. The most private closet there is. Even those closest to me have limited access except for God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit. They know every corner and have unlimited access to everything in there. God knows when my prayers are about wanting things for myself, He knows when my prayers are about things that go on in the world and he knows s when I pray a prayer of thanks to Him for the things He has done and the things He will do.
An amazing thing about the closet space, the private space of the heart is that it can be taken wherever we go, we can pray at any time about anything and God hears it. It doesn’t matter if our words are big or small, long or short, God is not “out there” he’s “in here” He wants us to talk to Him like we talk to a trusted friend, about anything, with openness and honesty. He cares about what we think and feel. What is the condition of the closet of your heart right now? Can you hear God in there having a conversation with you?
What shelf, what box are you looking at? Is it the same one He wants you to look at and pray about?
Open the door to the closet of your heart. Let God in, every minute of every day while your heart beats with the rhythm of life that He gave it. Trust Him with the boxes on the shelves, think of each prayer as a jewel for His crown carefully and lovingly crafted by every good word in the prayers that you speak.

Helen Harray, 24 February 2015

Have you ever just stood and declared God’s truth over a situation in your life or the life of a loved one? If you have, then you know the power of declarative prayer.
Declarative prayer is announcing, out loud, something that is true according to the teachings of Scripture and the character of God. It’s about proclaiming truth and destroying lies. This changes the spiritual atmosphere. When we declare God’s truths over ourselves, they stick. They change the atmosphere. They change us. Declarative prayers get me out of my self-pity, anxiety, confusion and self-doubt. They change my mindset and reorient my thinking.
Examples of declarative prayer:
– Declaring our own identity in Christ, for example; “I am a son or daughter of the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords.”
– Declaring God’s sovereignty and love over the people around us, for example; “The God of the universe loves my friend. He has sent His Son, Christ Jesus to seek him.”
– Declaring God’s sovereignty and power over the nations, for example; “The God who is greater than the leader of this nation desires justice, compassion and mercy.”
Declaration of God’s truth is powerful prayer but it’s not a ‘name it, claim it ‘ form of prayer. It comes out of waiting and listening for how to pray and knowing the Word of God which we wield like a sword in the Spirit. There is power in the Word: “the words I have spoken to you are spirit and they are life” (John 6:63). Our words release life and death - “The tongue has the power of life and death, and those who love it will eat its fruit” (Proverbs 18:21). Practicing such prayer purifies our own hearts and the world around us. In praying God’s truth, we find our own faith strengthened and our confidence ever more firmly grounded in him.

Helen Harray, 18 February 2015

As Richard and I talked through the Annual Plan for 2015, we felt a real sense of call to prayer as our first base this year. We recognize our need to know what’s on God’s heart to enable us to ‘go to grow.’ We thoroughly believe that mission, ‘going,’ serving, comes out of a prayer-centred relationship with Jesus. Without this foundational
relationship we so easily fall into busyness and trying harder, and we get tired and discouraged.
So firstly our call to prayer is to be in a relationship. One of friendship and following Jesus. As the prophetic word last Sunday said: You are programmed to be like Me; to replicate Me in every aspect of who I am. You are the image of who I am. We are joined as one. Savour the moment. (there was more but this is the essence of it.) In our call to prayer let’s not try harder to pray longer or for more but to seek the One who we belong to and to savour the time with Him.
Secondly our mission as church begins and ends with prayer. We make progress on our knees. You can never do more than pray until you have prayed. So out of our relationship comes the prayers, the compassion and the words or groans that partner us with God in His kingdom coming.
Let’s keep these two things in mind as we hear and respond to the call to pray.

Richard Dawson, 3 February 2015

Last week I compared our Christian journey to Cricket and I pointed out that the end colours everything about the game. To some this may have sounded harsh. It may have sounded very performance-oriented and as if God were pretty hard to please. Can I assure you that the opposite is indeed true. God is not nearly as interested in our ‘performance’ as he is in our ‘position.’ A Christian’s position is ‘with Christ’ and if we get out of this position, no amount of ‘performance’ will gain for us what being with Christ can give us. In cricket the position of fielders is absolutely key to winning the game. Fielders in the right position can make an enormous difference to how many runs the batting side makes and, of course, vice versa. Simply being in a certain place makes preventing runs much easier. For a Christian, being ‘with’ Christ is the aim of our game. In many ways nothing else matters because once we attain to this position our lives will begin changing in so many good ways.
In my family of origin Fish and Chips on Fridays was something of a tradition and Fran and I carried this on to a certain extent (we extend the menu slightly these days!) The point is that everyone in the family enjoyed these meals and looked forward to them and no one had to do
anything to earn them. If you were in our house this was what you got on Fridays (so long as you wanted them.) All you had to do was turn up. In many ways the same is true of Christ. When we are ‘with’ Him then all His becomes ours.
Are you in this position today?

Richard Dawson, 27 January 2015

As I write this I'm watching the first one day-er between the Black Caps and Sri Lanka. It's a wonderful day, very much like the rest of summer this year and about 5000 people are watching with me. They too seem to be having fun and so we will continue having fun together... for a while. You see just like life, cricket has an end point even though some claim this isn't the case! In our case that end point will come if Sri Lanka overtake the Black Caps score, or if they're all out, or if by the end of their allotted 50 overs they don't make our score. And then,  for most of us, no matter how delightful the day, this final reckoning will colour all that has happened throughout the day. You see for most Kiwis here a loss will make the whole a lot less enjoyable whereas a win will make the whole day worth it. And, of course, the opposite is the case for those who are supporting the Sri Lanka team. The point, however, of this illustration is simply this: our life mirrors, to a lesser or greater degree, this same dynamic. The Bible makes it clear that there will be an accounting and this will colour everything about our lives as we live them here and now.  There is no escaping this for Christians. What we earned, what we owned, how well we were thought of or how big and powerful we became, will mean nothing at the end of our days. We will have to give an accounting for our life and nothing will be hidden.  It's worth thinking about at this time of year. Far from being like a box of chocolates, life is like cricket; the whole day will be coloured by the ending.

Richard Dawson, 23 December 2014

A Child. I wonder what you think when you read these words? Most of us imagine a little person, full of hope, full of potential, full of innocence. Someone to be protected. Someone to be treasured and nurtured. But it wasn’t always that way. Certainly in the generation I grew up in, something of an earlier view of childhood still persisted where children were perhaps something of a necessity more than a treasure; where their position was described by that rather laconic saying dating from the 15th Century, children should be seen and not heard. And the attitude behind this is also somewhat reflective of the approach to children at the time of Jesus’ birth. Not that they weren’t valued but that they didn’t really count till they reached adult age. Till they became useful they were really little more than nuisance value in most contexts. Note, however, how the Christmas story turns this on its head for it is full of the importance, the incredible value of… a child. Yes a particular child, but my bet is that the valuing highly of this child began a sea-change in how children have been thought of throughout the Christian world. From schools for children, to orphanages, to specialist health care for pregnant mothers and children, we now highly value that which once had no standing and little value in the world. Something about a child reflects the heart of the kingdom of God for God is with children and is concerned that His people are too. That is why we must value and resource our child and youth ministries and we must work to see these grow and develop, for in them… the Christ child is come… and He will change the world.

Richard Dawson, 2 December 2014

The Bible encourages us to develop a healthy sense of ‘self.’ Jesus’ teaching prefigured a much later recognition of the importance of the individual when he took seriously the needs of people who were socially ‘nobodies.’ In other words they were ‘non persons’ as far as most of the rest of society was concerned. But they weren’t ‘non-persons’ to Jesus or to God the Father. He praised the actions of the prostitute who wet His feet with her tears. He lauded the actions of a Samaritan in helping a man beaten by thieves. He raised up simple fishermen as leaders and He recognised the faith of people as diverse as Roman Centurions, women with long standing disease of the womb and Canaanite women. He recognised people despite their social, political and personal standing and He told stories about people who deliberately squandered their personhood such as the prodigal son. Personhood and individuality were important to Him and so they should be important to us. We do this by making space for people in our circle of relationships—by honouring them first as worthy human beings and then as worthy members of our community. And yes there has to be some reciprocal response and effort but always the initiative lies with us. As members of the majority group it is our responsibility to reach out to those who aren't and invite them in. Acknowledging someone else in this way also requires that we listen and get to know another. So many people find Christian society rather shallow because we do not use the time we’re together to really get to know others and yet they need this to feel they are ’somebody.’

Richard Dawson, 25 November 2014

The current generations have been called the ‘Me’ generations in an allusion to their pre-occupation with themselves. I think this is thoroughly unfair. To my mind the opportunity to be self-absorbed has increased enormously with the increasing growth of time and energy saving technology and what has filled the gap has been a behaviour which is as old as humanity itself—pleasing oneself! But this activity has really only arisen because of the opportunity, not because people are inherently any more selfish today than they were 50 or 100 years ago. Indeed I would add that current generations seem less happy with themselves than ever before and a recently released survey of secondary school pupils showing that 20% of female students and 10% of male students had thought seriously about taking their own lives in the previous year, would seem to support this. Within Christian circles we have often added to the problem by creating a piety which is ‘anti-self’ and ‘anti-identity.’ In other words, we have taught that God wants people who are, in themselves, ‘blank slates’ or ‘table raza’ as the latin has it. And God wants people like this so that He can direct them without the interference of a ‘person’ who might have wants and needs of their own. This, of course, is nonsense. God created us with the ability to have wants and needs and while we are certainly not to ruled by these we are also not persons without them. And if God created us like this God is very able to relate to us with all those things intact. Indeed, in a most glorious way God desires us to become persons, to be the ‘me’ we were made to be!

Richard Dawson, 31 October 2014

How important is Sunday and the rituals which are traditional for Christians on that day? Is it that important to maintain Sunday as a ‘Church Day’ or can we, dare we, allow this to change. I suspect Jesus wouldn’t mind a bit of change. After all it was He who said that the Sabbath was made for people and not people for the Sabbath. But just how far should we go with that? Do we do away with ‘church’ altogether citing the greater importance of serving ‘people’ and their needs? I think this question needs at least two answers. On the one hand if we’re talking about the actual day i.e.Sunday then we can afford to be lenient. Although it’s handy to develop a habit of worship on a particular day I don’t think God really minds what day it’s on. On the other hand if we’re talking about the Sabbath and all that attends it then we can’t so easily dismiss it. Jesus never spoke against the Sabbath. The different rhythm of that day, the fact that it meant rest and a chance to worship is, I believe, vital for the health of our churches and the individuals within those churches. Without a regular weekly rest we simply become too tired to make good decisions. This is to say nothing of the fact that God requires that we take such a rest and so blesses this.
Whatever is not done on this day doesn’t become a penalty for the faith community. God promises to make up for it if not in a material way then in health and vigour and spiritual vitality. Our Sunday routine may not need to be on a Sunday but it needs to be weekly and it needs to include worship and rest.

Richard Dawson, 21 October 2014

Sunday for most Kiwis means something other than church in the morning and empty space in the afternoon. For most Kiwis it means a day when I don’t have to work so I can do something enjoyable or at least important like having a BBQ or going
surfing or even doing the garden. But for we who desire to have a relationship with God we persist in coming at least semi-regularly to church and frankly sometimes it’s not easy. We’d rather be doing something else if we’re honest. So why persist against a cultural tide which is reaching storm proportions? Wouldn’t it be easier and, in some ways, more honest just to join the rest, and bag church? Can’t we still believe in God and not be so tied to a congregation? Well, frankly, no… You see as soon as we start down this line of thinking we are saying something about belief which is not true for our faith. We are saying that belief is largely a personal thing which belongs to me and me only and which does not owe anyone else anything. It’s a personal possession. This is, however, to forget that belief isn’t the result of a simple personal choice. Rather it is the fruit of an interaction with the God of the universe. Belief is the evidence of God at work, not the ticket we produce to get into heaven. You believe because already the Holy Spirit has been at work in your heart helping you to know God and to know that God is totally committed to you and God has shown this through the Cross by which everything that once stood between God and You was removed. That love comes before belief and it’s what leads us to God… to believe!