Circuit Lent Sermon Series 5: Corporate Disciplines, James 5:13-20

Rule Of Life. From rawpixel.com. Public Domain.

We come to the fifth and final sermon in our Circuit Lent Sermon Series. It began by asking what the purpose of Lent was and answered by saying it was about reorienting ourselves towards Jesus. It continued in the second week by examining our relationship with God, something I looked at in terms of friendship with Jesus.

But to grow and maintain that relationship requires we adopt virtuous habits – or ‘spiritual disciplines’ – that help us tune into God better. And so over the last two weeks the series has been about inward and outward disciplines. Those are often disciplines (or habits) that we practise on our own. In this final week, we look at habits we exercise together – corporate disciplines.

Today, we are going to explore four corporate disciplines that help us draw closer to God in Christ.

Firstly, guidance:

Are any among you suffering? They should pray. (Verse 13a)

Perhaps we think of guidance as an individual discipline, and it certainly is that as well. If we are serious about following Jesus, we shall want to know his direction for our own lives.

But it is also something we need to do together. Not only are our brother and sister Christians involved in discerning our individual guidance (as we shall see), we also need to seek guidance together for our life as the church. Is that not what this church did under my predecessor’s leadership when you went through the process that Methodism calls Our Church’s Future Story?

And just because this church did that a few years ago doesn’t mean we can now not worry about God’s continued guidance. We always need to be like ancient Israel in the wilderness, who followed God’s presence as seen in a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night. It is a continuous process.

So what are helpful ways of discerning God’s guidance together? One author described it like this. He spoke of a harbour that was treacherous for boats to navigate safely, due to rocks. However, the harbour authorities had cleverly erected three lights. If the three lights were lined up as seen from a boat, then that boat was on the right course to make harbour safely.

He then suggested that Christian guidance is like that. For major decisions, we need three ‘lights’ to line up. They are the teaching of Scripture, the counsel of wise friends, and circumstances. It is the Enemy who wants us to rush our decisions. In contrast, the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ is full of grace, mercy, and love, and he is happy for us to test out things to be confident of his guidance.

An old acquaintance of mine used to say that any time she thought God was asking her to do something, she would reply ‘No.’ Why? Because she knew that if it truly were God, he would ask her again.

Let’s be serious about seeking God’s guidance together, but let’s also take the time to line up our harbour lights.

Secondly, worship:

Vibrant worship experience with raised hands by Caleb Oquendo at pexels.com. Public Domain.

Are any cheerful? They should sing songs of praise. (Verse 13b)

God is always worthy of our songs of praise. (I shall say something separate but related about cheerfulness in the next point.) Whether we are cheerful or sad, we can know his faithfulness in his goodness in creation and his love for us in Jesus. We may have our doubts and our questions, but God continues to be faithful, even when we don’t understand him. We may only understand later, but as an act of faith we continue to praise and worship him.

Worship can also be individual, but it is powerful when we gather together and worship as a corporate body. We bring our differing gifts and use them to worship, because we share in common the truth that God has redeemed us in Christ and his saving death on the Cross.

Therefore, let worship be a commitment and a priority in our lives. Let us not make feeble excuses to avoid assembling together as the Body of Christ in worship. None of that ‘It’s raining so I won’t bother coming to church’ talk. That doesn’t honour God. How much is he worth? What about those in other countries who travel many miles over poor roads and possibly in dilapidated vehicles to come together as God’s people and praise his holy Name?

God is worthy of our worship. It is our sign of allegiance. I am fond of pointing out that the Greek word most commonly translated ‘worship’ in the New Testament is one which literally means, ‘To move towards and kiss.’ But this is not a romantic kiss. It is the kiss of allegiance. Think in our culture of a new Prime Minister or a new bishop being appointed. Each of them has to go and see the King and ‘kiss hands’ as a sign of loyalty to the monarch.

Worship is how we do that, and particularly at the sacraments. Remember that we get that word ‘sacrament’ from the Latin ‘sacramentum’, which was the oath of allegiance that a Roman soldier took to the emperor. At the sacrament this morning, we pledge again our allegiance to Christ. That is what worship is for us, and it is at its most powerful when we do so together.

Thirdly, celebration:

Aftermath of a festive celebration scene at freerangestock.com. Public Domain.

Are any cheerful? They should sing songs of praise.

Those words again, but this time I want to major on the words ‘Are any cheerful?’ Just because we believe in the majesty and the holiness of God, we do not need to excise joy from our common life as the church.

And just because we rightly weep with those who weep, it does not mean we should not also rejoice with those who are rejoicing. And that is what celebration is about.

Is it not wonderful to hear how God is working in our lives? Is it not a cause of great joy to know that God has answered a prayer, that he has provided for a need, that someone has cause to know that he has come near to them?

But do we give opportunity for that? One of my past churches did, in a very specific way. They designated one Sunday a month as ‘Testimony Sunday’, and there was a part of that service on that day where anyone who had a testimony of God having been at work in their lives could come to the front and share that briefly with the congregation. We laughed, clapped, and sang together in response. It built up our sense that God was very much alive and active. Therefore, it built a heightened atmosphere of faith in the church.

Would it not be good to do something like that here? Maybe we too could do it in the morning service. At the very least, let me encourage you to write up accounts of what Jesus has done recently for you and send them in to be published in the church magazine. Perhaps that could be part of the appeal for articles every time we are putting together the next newsletter. Please tell the church family how God has blessed you lately.

Doing things like this encourages people. It lifts a sense of gloom and replaces it with light. It builds up the church. Don’t you think we’ve had enough discouragement in the church in recent years and decades? Don’t you think that God is still in the business of being God and of transforming lives for the better?

Then let us tell our stories. And therefore, let us celebrate together.

Fourthly and finally, confession:

Reconciliation, Coventry Cathedral at geograph.org.uk. © Copyright David Dixon and licensed for reuse under this Creative Commons Licence.

Therefore confess your sins to one another, and pray for one another, so that you may be healed. The prayer of the righteous is powerful and effective. (Verse 16)

You might think that after all the talk of guidance, worship, and celebration, it’s a bit of a downer to conclude with confession. Dave, if you want joy in the church, why do you now end on a note of misery?

But actually, this is not about doom and gloom, even though we are sorrowful for our sins. Look at the context. This confession is in the context of seeking healing. And while I am not for one moment saying that all sickness is caused by sin, what I do see here is that confession removes barriers to blessing. Unconfessed sin gets in the way of God’s work. It is a blockage. We confess our sins at least in part so that God’s grace may flow with less hindrance among us. Living with unconfessed sin is a sure way to block the blessing of God in our lives, so let us confess as a way of removing the blockage.

Here’s another thing, though: I’m listing confession as a corporate discipline. Isn’t that a bit alien for Protestant Christians?

No, not at all. For one thing, it’s by no means accidental that we include the confession of our sins and the assurance of our forgiveness in our corporate acts of worship. Not only will each of us individually have failed Jesus in the seven days since we previously met, we also sin together and therefore jointly need confession and forgiveness.

Moreover, there are biblical examples of God’s people confessing their sins together, not least when they as a body have gone seriously astray from their Lord.

But it is also helpful sometimes for an individual to confess to another Christian. I am not advocating Catholic-style confession, because I have serious reservations about what is prescribed in that form in response to confession. Nor do I think there is something priestly about ordination, because all Christians are priests before God: we all have access to him through Jesus Christ.

Yet it can be healing to say in confidence to someone we trust – and yes, this can be someone who is in a pastoral relationship with us – I have messed up badly, and I need to know the forgiveness of God. Without giving concrete examples that would betray confidentiality, I can assure you that as a minister I have had people come to me and confess the darkest of sins, some of which they have lived with for many decades. To let them know that they are forgiven is to see a burden fall from them and to release them into new freedom in Christ.

Now perhaps I hope you see why I say confession is not in the final analysis about doom and gloom: it leads to the joy of the Gospel.

Conclusion

And the joy of the Gospel is where all these spiritual disciplines lead us. Whether inward or outward, solo or corporate, the cultivation of virtuous habits that enable us to tune in more to Jesus can only lead us to the abundant life he came to bring.

So let us use these time-honoured practices of the church to set our minds on things above and let our lives be shaped by Jesus.

You know the old adage beloved of computer programmes, ‘Garbage in, garbage out.’ Let’s stop feeding our minds with garbage, feed them instead with the goodness of Jesus, and instead live ‘Goodness in, goodness out.’

March 22, 2026 0

Two Ways of Speaking to Others About Jesus, John 1:29-42 (Epiphany 2, Year A)

John 1:29-42

Teetotalism illustration: Wikimedia Commons, CC Licence 4.0.

If you ask what Methodists are known for, it might be the hymns of Charles Wesley, an expectation that we are teetotal, and regulation green cups and saucers for the compulsory tea and coffee after services and meetings. The more daring Methodists bought blue cups and saucers.

Or there might be the social side of our faith, which leads to our commitment to social action and justice.

But one area where we are less strong today is in talking about our faith to others. It’s strange, isn’t it, that a movement which began with preaching in the open air should lose its ability to speak about Jesus.

And when we don’t share Jesus, the church dies. For how else will people know about their need to follow him and be part of his family? Our actions certainly witness to him, but we then need to explain them.

We need to address this, though, not through guilt trips but encouragement. I’m aware that since I am a ‘professional Christian’, people expect me to speak about Jesus, and that may make it easier for me. However, I think this reading from John’s Gospel gives us a couple of encouragements. Both John the Baptist and Andrew, in different ways, show us a way forward. Let’s look at how they can help us.

Firstly, John talks about who Jesus is:

St John the Baptist. Photographer: Randy Greve on Flickr, CC Licence 2.0.

Everything John says is about who Jesus is. He is the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world (verse 29). This is the One who solves all our needs for forgiveness and a new beginning. Even though Jesus comes after John (which implies the listeners think Jesus is one of John’s disciples) he outranks him because he was before him (that is, John speaks of Jesus’ pre-existence) (verse 30). I came to baptise, says John, but not to draw attention to me: I wanted you to see Jesus, who is the One Israel needs (verse 31). You were used in past times to the Spirit of God alighting on certain people temporarily, but now Jesus is the One on whom the Spirit rests permanently (verses 32-33). The divine mark of approval is on him, and he will bestow the same on his disciples. He is God’s Chosen One (verse 34) – not merely a teacher or even a prophet: there is no human equal to him.

John has gathered the crowds, and his popularity has grown among the ordinary people, to the point where the religious authorities had felt the need to set up a committee to investigate and report on him. But he is not interested in his own legacy. This is not about the setting up of John The Baptist Ministries, Inc. His sole aim is to point not to himself but to Jesus. And now that Jesus is on the scene, he can back out. He really doesn’t mind when two of his own disciples respond to his testimony by leaving him to follow Jesus (verses 35-37). In fact, that’s what he wants. Job done. It’s time to wind down the operation.

As I have been fond of saying over the years, the job of John the Baptist is to be the compère who introduces Jesus. Last weekend, Hollywood held the annual Golden Globes movie awards ceremony. A lot of the anticipatory talk in the media was about how good the jokes would be by the comedian hosting the ceremony, Nikki Glaser. But the job of the compère is not to point to themselves and enhance their reputation. It is to introduce the star of the show. That’s what John does.

Nikki Glaser at the Stress Factory in New Brunswick, NJ, Wikimedia Commons, CC Licence 2.0.

And that’s our task, too. Perhaps we are grateful that it’s not about us. John reminds us to put Jesus front and centre. Maybe that’s particularly important for those of us who witness in a public and formal way, such as preachers. The late American pastor Tim Keller, who developed a remarkable ministry in what was thought to be highly secular New York City among young adults, said in his book on preaching that every time you preach you should include the Gospel. You should hold us to that. Have we focussed on Jesus? Have you heard the good news this morning? Because that’s our priority.

Most of us are not preachers, though. For us, it means that when we get an opportunity to commend Jesus to someone, we say something about who he is and how he can help them. There are so many things we can say about Jesus to people, depending on the circumstances of those with whom we are conversing. It’s not necessarily about memorising the Gospel in four easy points, although some find that helpful. It’s more what the late W E Sangster, Superintendent minister at Westminster Central Hall through World War Two, said. He spoke of the Gospel as a many-faceted diamond. We need to find the facet of the diamond that reflects Jesus the Light of the World to the people or the situation where we find ourselves.

Therefore, when we are in a conversation with someone, and we sense it would be good to say something about our hope in Jesus to help them, it pays to pause and think, what aspect of Jesus would it be most helpful for them to consider? Do they need to know about Jesus, the forgiver of sins? Would it help them to know about Jesus the healer? Or do they need to encounter Jesus who is Lord of all? Or Jesus, through Whom God made all things good? Or is it some other element of who Jesus is that would be constructive?

We could make this part of our praying for these people, too. Something like this: ‘Lord, I sense my friend needs to know about Jesus. Please show me what would be most attractive or challenging or relevant to them. And please help me to share that in an appropriate way.’

Secondly, Andrew talks about what Jesus means to him:

Saint Andrew MET DP168806.jpg, Wikimedia Commons, CC Licence 1.0.

Andrew is possibly the most significant example of being a witness to Jesus outside of Paul and Peter in the New Testament. In fact, I once helped on an evangelistic mission where the preparatory training of local Christians was called Operation Andrew. Because Andrew is the character in the Gospels who speaks to friends and relatives and brings them to Jesus. He doesn’t preach, but he introduces people to Jesus by his personal and private conversations.

We see that for the first time in this reading:

⁴¹ The first thing Andrew did was to find his brother Simon and tell him, ‘We have found the Messiah’ (that is, the Christ).

In John 6:8-9, Andrew introduces the boy with the five loaves and two fish to Jesus, even though he doesn’t expect that small quantity to go far. But he still does it.

In John 12:20-22, some Greeks want to meet Jesus. It is Philip and Andrew who tell Jesus about them.

Andrew is that quiet, personal witness. We don’t see him preaching to the crowds, instead we see him in these private interactions that facilitate the possibility of people meeting Jesus.

And within that mode of operation, Andrew speaks about what Jesus means to him. ‘We have found the Messiah.’ Not just, ‘Jesus is the Messiah,’ but ‘We have found him.’ It’s the truth about who Jesus is, as per John the Baptist, but it’s personal. This is who Jesus is, and I’ve found it to be true in my life.

Is that not the essence of Christian witness for most of us? We have discovered that the claims of Jesus are true, but not merely in theory: we have found them to be true in our own lives. That gives us something we can share with others, not by preaching, but in the to-and-fro of respectful conversation.

Again, it is not about bigging up ourselves, it is about promoting Jesus. He is the focus. Many of us will not have dramatic stories to tell, but we shall have that knowledge that Jesus has been at work in our lives, and we can share that. Others of us may have known times when Jesus did indeed work in a remarkable way in our lives, but when we tell it, we don’t emphasise all the gory stuff about ourselves: rather, we put the emphasis on what Jesus did.

Therefore, whether or not we have had the sort of life that can get written up as a dramatic religious paperback, every Christian can reflect on their lives and think of the times when they have known for sure that Jesus was at work by his Spirit, and we can bring that into conversation when the time is right. It won’t be by making a formal, prepared speech, it will be in the way that friends and family tell each other stories about their lives. We do that, and then we let the Holy Spirit do the work of making this real to the people with whom we share. We pray, of course, for the Spirit to do that.

At this point, if this were a seminar rather than a sermon in a church service, I would want you to take a pen and paper, and spend some time thinking over the story of your own life, then writing down those occasions when you have known that Jesus did something particular for you.

A pen on paper, Wikimedia Commons, CC Licence 4.0.

But since we are not in a seminar environment, I want to suggest that you find half an hour for yourself at home to try that very exercise. Recall and write down the times when Jesus has done something special in your life. And when you have done that, I want you to work on memorising it. Not necessarily in a word-for-word way, because if you just regurgitate that to others, you will sound stilted and unnatural. In fact, they will feel like they are being preached at, and not in a good way.

One approach that some find helpful is to turn that story of Jesus’ work in you into a series of short bullet points that you can remember. What are the essential parts of the story?

What I have in mind here is, I think, in harmony with something the Apostle Peter said in his First Epistle. Writing to a group of Christians who were fearful of a negative response to their faith that would have been far worse than anything we might face, he said this:

But in your hearts revere Christ as Lord. Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect (1 Peter 3:15).

This is a way in which we can have a reason for our hope: by recounting the ways in which Jesus has shown his faithful love to us over the years. I am sure that if I asked you, Christian-to-Christian, whether Jesus has been good to you over the years, you would probably say ‘Yes.’ What comes to your mind is helpful in witness, too. We can avoid flowery, churchy language, and share with people in a simple way what Jesus has done for us.

Conclusion

Let’s go from here and conduct an experiment. Let us meditate on the many things that are true about Jesus, so that we can offer an aspect of him in conversation with others.

And let’s reflect on our own experiences with Jesus, so that we are ready to share them when the Spirit prompts us that to do so would be helpful.

May it be that the Holy Spirit encourages us through this to speak about our faith as well as demonstrate it.

January 18, 2026 0

Sermon: It’s Not The End of the World, Luke 21:5-19 (Ordinary 33 Year C)

Luke 21:5-19

Do you want to predict a date for the end of the world and the Second Coming of Christ? If so, I understand there is a website that logs all the various dates predicted by different people. You can look on that website, pick your own date, and join that happy band of heretics.

Some read Bible passages like today’s reading and assume this is about Jesus prophesying his return. They look beyond the verses we have read to verse 27, where Jesus says,

At that time they will see the Son of Man coming in a cloud with power and great glory.

They then assume this is about the Second Coming.

Having done that, they then get tied up in knots, thinking that Jesus said he was coming soon, but got it wrong.

Not so.

Because this episode is not about the Second Coming. We heard right at the beginning that it’s about the destruction of the Jerusalem Temple, which would happen approximately forty years after Jesus’ death and resurrection. That’s what the disciples asked him about in verses 5 to 7.

And that’s why the heading of this passage in the NIV is misleading. It says, ‘The destruction of the temple and signs of the end times.’ There are no ‘signs of the end times’ here.

But what about all that ‘Son of Man coming in a cloud with power and great glory’? Nope. Jesus is quoting from Daniel 7. In that passage, the Son of Man does indeed come in a cloud with power and great glory – but not to earth. He comes into the presence of Almighty God, the Ancient of Days. It is about his arrival in heaven. In New Testament terms, that’s the Ascension.

It’s not the end of the world.

What our reading today does for us is tell us how to live as Christians during difficult times in history. For sure, the destruction of the Jerusalem Temple would have felt like the end of the world to pious Jews like the disciples, but Jesus says it isn’t. And he tells them how they should live for him in cataclysmic times. Much of what he foretells here is fulfilled in Luke’s second volume, the Acts of the Apostles.

I don’t know whether we are living in cataclysmic times, but we are living in times of great uncertainty and potential peril. Therefore, we too can learn from Jesus here about how to live as his disciples when our world is being upended malicious and unstable world leaders, by economic convulsions, climate change, and more.

How might we live when things are bad, even if it’s not the end of the world? For in such times there will be serious pressures to face. Jesus here refers to opposition to our faith (verse 12), division that even extends to our families (verse 16), and outright hatred (verse 17).

Here are three qualities that stand out from Jesus’ teaching that we would do well to embrace:

Firstly, discernment:

Watch out that you are not deceived. For many will come in my name, claiming, “I am he,” and, “The time is near.” Do not follow them. (Verse 8)

How do we ‘watch out’ to avoid deception? How do we discern between what is of the Spirit of God, what is of the spirit of the age, and what is from a malicious spirit?

Well, Jesus has just spent three years grounding the disciples in his teaching, and that’s where we need to begin. Nothing less than a deep commitment to the Scriptures, remembering that their central focus is Jesus, will do. It is the sheer biblical illiteracy in our congregations that has left us so vulnerable to being blown every which way in recent times.

One of my previous congregations did a survey of everything about the Sunday morning experience, from arriving at the church building to departing. That included the worship, and one of the shocking discoveries was the number of church members who never read the Bible for themselves between Sundays, and only ever hear it once a week in the service.

Is it any wonder with practices like this that people get deceived by the world? An appealing and emotional story will tempt people away from Christian truth. Congregations that just want things kept as simple and unchallenging as possible and then wonder why they lose their young people to the YouTube videos peddled by atheists. The dilution of Christian truth leads people into error.

Only this week the Methodist Church reported about a church in Stoke-on-Trent that celebrated the Hindu Diwali festival, on the basis that Diwali is a festival of light and Christian too believe in the light and hope of God. The similarities, however, are superficial; the differences are significant. It’s honourable wanting to stand against racism. It was diplomatic of them to make it a community event and not a religious service. But it’s misleading to suggest a serious parallel between Christian and Hindu beliefs, and that the Holy Spirit was present when the work of the Spirit is to point to Jesus, not to a multiplicity of Hindu deities.

This is why I now have two of my churches starting to study a Bible Society resource called The Bible Course. It will help them see the overarching story of Scripture and help them to interpret the Bible sensibly.

Let me ask you what you are doing to get your faith rooted in the Scriptures, and focussed on Jesus? It’s something worth doing both on our own and in groups together. It’s critical to our discernment at all times, but it is all the more important in turbulent seasons.

Secondly, testimony:

¹² ‘But before all this, they will seize you and persecute you. They will hand you over to synagogues and put you in prison, and you will be brought before kings and governors, and all on account of my name. ¹³ And so you will bear testimony to me.

Here’s one of the elements of today’s passage that was, as I said earlier, fulfilled in the Acts of the Apostles. Things got sticky for the early Christians on several occasions. They were hauled up before the authorities on trumped-up charges, much as Jesus had been.

And this pattern has continued through history. The Christian message rubs people up the wrong way, especially those who have so much to lose. And when the world is convulsing and people are under pressure, they sometimes look for scapegoats. We can’t rule that out happening to us at some time, even if we have many more freedoms than so many of our Christian brothers and sisters around the world.

Jesus says, when the pressure is on, you will bear testimony to me. Our lives will show how much of Jesus we have. Our willingness to speak for him when there is no advantage in doing so and perhaps even significant disadvantages is a commentary on our faith.

Our testimony comes not only in words in a courtroom, but in our deeds. The world will see whether our words and deeds match up.

And the focus of our testimony will not be ourselves, rather it will be Jesus. A testimony is not the preserve of those with a dramatic conversion story. Our testimony is our account of what Jesus means to us, and what he has done for us. Every Christian, whether their life has been dramatic or mundane, has something to say on that subject.

Thirdly and finally, endurance:

¹⁷ Everyone will hate you because of me. ¹⁸ But not a hair of your head will perish. ¹⁹ Stand firm, and you will win life.

Going back over thirty years to when I was a probationer minister, a report on my progress one year that my Superintendent Minister wrote about me said, ‘David needs to learn that ministry is a marathon, not a sprint.’ I had seen the need for change in the churches, and I saw it as urgent, but I was trying to rush things that would take a long time if they were to be done at a deep level and with substance. Eventually, I came to describe my work as like seeking to change the direction of an ocean liner: a task that takes time to achieve.

Likewise, over the years, I learned that the life of Christian faith itself is a marathon and not a sprint. We are in it for the long haul. ‘Stand firm, and you will win life,’ as Jesus says here.

Now I think that’s good news to us when we are seeking to live out our faith when the world is in tumult. How we would love to change things quickly.

I think we are particularly prone to that temptation in our technological society. We expect to be able flick a switch, press a button, click or tap on a link and things will change. O that it were so simple. But it’s not.

I believe that often God’s word to us in difficult seasons can be simply put: ‘Keep on keeping on.’ Remain faithful to Jesus. Obey the Word of God. Continue to do the Christian basics: worship, prayer, fellowship, discipleship, being the salt of the earth and the light of the world, speaking for Jesus, resist being squeezed into the world’s mould, be open to the Holy Spirit. And seek God that he will bring the change that is needed in his time and in his way.

It’s not glamorous, it’s not flashy, it can be mundane rather than exciting. But it’s the right thing to do. And we leave the consequences to God.

Conclusion

One time when I was young, my father said to me that there were times when he wondered what on earth he and my mother had done by bringing my sister and me into this world. There are times when I, as a parent myself, have wondered the same. COVID. A warmongering Russian President and an American President who caves into him. Will my son end up being conscripted one day?

These are the times for me to remember the Christian basics. Be discerning through fidelity to the Word of God. Maintain witness, even under pressure. And just keep on keeping on in the everyday one-foot-in-front-of-the-other tasks of Christian endurance.

May we all stand together in this calling.

Remember: it may not be the end of the world now, but we are Resurrection People. In the end, Jesus wins.

November 16, 2025 0

Born Again Testimonies – Again

In a post last year about the Tony Anthony testimony debacle, I featured (with permission) a scanned copy of Simon Jenkins’ cartoon strip ‘Born Again Testimonies’ from Ship Of Fools when it was a print magazine in the early 1980s. I now discover, thanks to my friend David Parsons, a retired Baptist minister, that Jenkins turned it into a video and posted it on YouTube. Here it is for your viewing pleasure:

July 5, 2014 2

The Beauty Of An Honest Christian Memoir: Ashley Cleveland’s ‘Little Black Sheep’

Back in July, I wrote about the controversy attending the discovery of substantial fictional elements in Tony Anthony’s book ‘Taming the Tiger’. I noted the evangelical obsession with celebrity, and the lust for dramatic conversion stories as drivers in promoting such books, with an attendant risk of pastoral damage for Christians who do not have a spectacular story to tell. I began the piece with reproducing a cartoon from Ship Of Fools when it was a print magazine, not a website. ‘Born Again Testimonies’ asked, ‘You may be, but has your TESTIMONY been born again?’

Now I’ve found an antidote in Ashley Cleveland‘s memoir, ‘Little Black Sheep‘. i have loved her music for a good twenty years. Many say she sounds like Melissa Etheridge: I say she makes Janis Joplin sound like Janet Jackson. A blues-rock singer with notes of soul, she sings with passion and honesty about faith and life. In the book, she writes with the same passion and honesty about faith and life.

Superficially, her story has elements that Christian publishers and readers love. Blaming herself as a young child for the divorce of her gay father and vain mother, she slides into multiple addictions – food, alcohol and drugs. She seeks love in all the wrong places and believes that God only wants to punish her. She has no concept of a personal, loving God – although eventually she is – if I may borrow Brennan Manning‘s word – ‘ambushed’ by God.

But hers is no quick fix fairytale of the ‘When I met Jesus, everything was happy ever after’ variety. She slides back, still fighting alcoholism while winning Grammy awards for her music. She struggles to establish a healthy marriage. The Christian community is locally welcoming, in the non-judgemental members of her church, but the wider Christian constituency is offended when she dares to sing about sex – even as a married woman. But hers is the tale of the God who lifts her up by love every time she falls.

There is much more that I could say about the book, but what I essentially want to say in this post is that all sorts of people would profit from reading this book:

* Music fans should read it;

* Pastors should read it;

* Most of all, broken people should read it.

I’d better end this with some music:

The song which provides the title for the book: