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African connections and momentum

phil | 3 September, 2010 4:48 pm


Nothing quite prepares you for Africa! ‘We will show you the real Africa’ Edward Buria told us. They did: the bits the tourists do not see. The poverty, the daily struggle to live, the filth, lack of health care and education, the smog, the basic living conditions encountered by the majority of people, the injustice around. It is all quite overwhelming. Yet in the worship times these people who have next to nothing sing like they have everything.

Together On A Mission
Geoff, Carl, Ellie and I arrived in Nairobi and then went on to the New Frontiers TOAM conference in Meru. Around 3500 leaders were booked in but a last minute change of venue meant only 1500 could attend. This was still an impressive group of leaders. The influence of the conference however goes even further beyond the immediate context, they broadcast weekly on Saturday morning breakfast TV to a regular audience of 20 million and even the sessions I did will be broadcast!

We also had chance to see some of the projects we as a church helped start through our Christmas offering. This was moving as our money is making a real difference, the fish farming and grain stores in particular were really exciting projects. There are plans to multiply these projects and I hope we can continue to help such things to happen.

Creating relationships
The churches overseen by Edward and his apostolic team are robust, growing and impacting the communities around them, we can learn so much from them.
In this season of transition within New Frontiers, joining hands with other spheres and ministries across the nations is going to be more and more important for the future of New Frontiers, we need to create relationships on mission together.

300 Praying Kenyans!
I was moved to find out that 300 Kenyans have been praying for us here in the East of England and our work into Northern Europe for over a year now, following the conference many more expressed a commitment to increasing this prayer on our behalf. The way Edward feels we can help them is that we can supply teaching ministries to help train the considerable number of young people coming through into church leadership.

It was also encouraging to know that as a team we were a blessing to the folk in Kenya. Carl and Ellie were in Africa exploring various options to see if God may be leading them eventually to Africa. Geoff also was a huge support to me and blessing to the conference. Edward spoke so highly of all of our team, it was encouraging to me to think our DNA of relationships and serving was able to communicate cross culturally.

As we start an autumn season let us learn from our friends in Kenya. They pray, they work hard, they do not know the meaning of giving up and they have seen fruit from this mind set. Edward and Frieda will be with us for our October ‘together@eastofengland’ conference. Please do book in for this as I am sure we will look back on this conference as a key point of increased momentum for us in church planting, mission and community impact.

I believe God wants us to see more people saved, more people healed, more released from bondages by the liberating power of the gospel. We are God’s ambassadors and our prayer as leaders is that God will equip and empower us more and more.

Categories: Mike Betts
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04/12/08. Fascination with God

phil | 5 August, 2010 11:38 am

Post 4th December 2008

I often wonder about what love for God means? What does it mean when I hear someone say, ‘I love Jesus’? I have come to the conclusion that a good way to describe this love in a way that as a man I can more readily relate to and quantify is to say that I am fascinated with God. I find Jesus fascinating. What is he doing? , what is he like in his character and attitude towards this situation of this person? How will he solve this, what does he think about this?

In fact much like a small child awestruck at a superhero or a football player. I find myself constantly engrossed in watching Jesus every move. I am always amazed at how kind, loving, strong, powerful, holy, clear, compassionate, honest, strong or brave he is. How he takes times to talk to those in need of counsel, heals those who are sick, encourages those who are weary, has clear goals and purposes that nothing can dissuade him from achieving.

I am just glad that I get to hang around him. I cannot think of ever wanting not to know him or be around him. It is a bit like finding that you are the object of the bullies’ attention in the playground, then just before the bully lands his first punch. I can turn to him and say pointing behind me ‘I’m with him’. One sight of Jesus on my side will deter any unwanted attention from enemies.

I owe a lot in my early Christian life to ‘the navigators’. This organisation produced many helpful tools to help learn how to meditate on Scripture. I owe a lot to a book by Campbell Mcalpine called ‘how to meditate on Scripture’. These tools helped me access scripture making it to me like reading a super hero comic book or reading rather than watching an adventure about an amazing person who always does the right thing. I would learn to chew over aspects of God’s character until I had got them so into my conception of how he is. My relationship with him was based on truth and not on my previous misconceptions. Just as a young child would then imitate his hero. I found myself wanting to be like my hero.

This fascination with God has never left me. It is the only reason when it all boils down to it that I lead a church and seek to plant other new ones. It is out of engagement with this person who still engrosses me. How he has gone through what he has in order to cleanse and forgive me amazes me, why should he do this, what was he thinking whilst he died for you and me?

We often hear the lament ‘where are the men in church life’. Women seem in the majority. Perhaps some of this in our culture might be addressed by encouraging more men to become fascinated by and with God, initially in some ways stirring their hunger as it would be by some piece of engineering or passing comment on a good football match as they watch skilful players. This then can lead to intimacy and close relationship with God himself as a personal relationship which actually is just as much a manly trait as a womanly one.

I trust I will always be fascinated with God and close to him. One of the most fascinating things is of course for some strange reason he is fascinated with me and desire to have a close relationship to me – fascinating?

Categories: Mike Betts
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Breaking through in Alberta!

phil | 9 July, 2010 1:20 pm

Growing in friendship and purpose
Over the last two days I have had the privilege of meeting, praying and fellowshipping with some of the leaders of our New Frontiers churches here in Alberta.

Friday Night was a special night when the leaders of the three churches: Mosaic in Lethbridge, Harvest in Calgary, and Trinity in Red Deer, met in Calgary along with some of their leaders and interns for a time of intensive prayer, teaching and interactive fellowship.

The evening was marked by a real sense of the felt presence of God. Right from the worship through to the time of social interaction at the end of the evening, we had a sense of His purpose to use us in extending the Kingdom in the world.

I was privileged to share with the gathering, using the theme of Nehemiah’s vision, purpose and mode of operation in restoring the city of Jerusalem. We saw that this had such strong application to our works in Alberta of reproduction, renewal, and release of labourers for the harvest internationally.

There was opportunity for interaction with those present and we had many contributions during the evening, adding dimensions to what God was saying to us.
Saturday morning we gathered with the principal leaders for a breakfast meeting. During this time we were encouraged to hear each of the church leaders express their understanding of where their churches are currently focussed and of their overall community involvement. These reports gave great cause for encouragement and the overall feelings of the leaders was positive about our growing impact and the sense of a rising presence of the Holy Spirit in each of the churches.

There was real appreciation of the family atmosphere and relational impact of the previous night’s meeting, and a feeling that there had been a release of relational fellowship that was significant for the future networking between the churches in the Province. This meeting will lay a pattern for others that will happen in the months ahead.

To conclude the morning, we were able to pray and prophesy over each of the leaders and their churches. There was a real sense of God speaking clearly to each of the leaders and bringing confirmation and direction to them and to their churches for future days. There were words from and to all the leaders, and it was good to see the leaders serving one another with their gifts.

Amongst the things God spoke was that we should expect to plant churches in Edmonton, Medicine Hat and the Crowsnest corridor in the province of Alberta. We will be praying into this and seeking to find those who have a vision and desire to be a part of the planting teams as the Lord gives us further direction.
These meetings will carry a long time impact on the work and ministry of New Frontiers and its churches in Alberta and beyond.

Tags: Alberta,Church planting,Lethbridge,Mike Betts
Categories: Keith Hazell
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Have you seen?

phil | 7 July, 2010 11:02 am

Have you seen Bobbie Sanderson this summer?
Standing straight and stretching out her arms
Smiling like a princess on her birthday
Breathing in the beauty, enchanted by each moment.
After years of wheelchair prison
Bobbie never thought life could turn around.

Have you seen little Jim in the orchard:
The boy who’s nerves and muscles wouldn’t grow?
Well he’s not so little now and stronger than an ox
Fresher than a morning stream in winter.

Have you seen the girls who were in the car crash?
Their bodies smashed and blood spilt on the road
But now you wouldn’t know it happened
You wouldn’t even know the sadness
As the music in the air fills their hearts.

The dead in Christ are singing, singing, singing
Rejoicing in the wonders of their God.
A joy beyond description and even imagination fails.
I only know that just to taste it
Fills my soul with wonder
At the wildness of the happiness to come.

How incredible to be saturated in beauty!
To live where all that exists is charged with praise
Even rock and wood applaud him
Rivers rise up to greet him
Creatures, angels, people chase him
Emotions gone crazy in their delight.

Intellectualism is irrelevant
Achievement is inappropriate, striving is pointless.
I don’t think anyone really cares about themselves any more
All agendas are gone
Complete satisfaction, boundless happiness
And everlasting contentment.

Yet all I have received is but a deposit!
What the Spirit reveals is only a portion.
The Bible only gives maddening glimpses
Of He who is marvellous.
No one will stand on his day.
Whether lovers or haters, no one will stand.
Consumed with love or terror,
What shall it be?

Categories: Phil Stoddart
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How do I find my way back home?

phil | 18 May, 2010 8:06 pm

Being lost is a frightening thing!
Being lost in the woods is particularly frightening when we are small! The strangest thing is that you can also be lost in a crowd, surrounded on every side by people and no way out.

We live in a day when we have lots of Christians either lost in the woods or have simply disappeared in the crowd and not only are they lost to themselves, but they are also lost to us as friends and to the church as “lively stones”.

Many today find themselves lost without any way of knowing how to find their way “back home”.

Estrangement from those who could help us makes the task even more difficult. To some the way back seems too far so that they settle for simply existing where they are, but are often overwhelmed by a sense of being disconnected and having lost their sense of belonging and of destiny.

Many of those who have become lost got there because of what we call ”church wars” or “church burnout” or because of disillusionment with religion and religious leaders. These folk today find themselves far away from where they want to be and some are even asking the question “How can I get home?”

The Bible has a familiar story, which we refer to as the story of the Prodigal Son, and my thoughts have been turning there as I think about this situation that so many believers are facing in their lives. When we are hurt or otherwise distressed one of the things we do is we actually distance ourselves from the people and things that have hurt us.

Although the prodigal son did not fit this description the Bible tells us “he went off into a far country” He put distance between his family and the community that would normally have given the support and encouragement he needed. The next thing that happens is that when the break has taken place between our immediate past and the pain of it, we seek distraction. In the case of the Prodigal son it simply says “he wasted his money on riotous living”. The thing that so frequently happens to “lost Christians” is that they simply throw away all their values and inheritance in an attempt to block out the pain and distress they have experienced and this in turn leads them to self rejection and self-loathing. The Prodigal son reached the point of such loathing and disgust that he landed up in the worst possible place for a Jew , in the pig pen eating pig food… truly the bottom of the food chain.

There was a moment that came to him of realization and for those believers who have lost their way it is the crucial first moment in finding their way back home. This moment was when he realized, that in spite of all he had been through, in spite of his rebellion, and bitterness, HE WAS STILL A SON.
He finally reached that place, of saying “ I do have a Father” which means he knew and recognized that he had an unbroken relationship that had not depended on him alone to maintain it.

Finding our way back home as Christians, means that we must come to the point of recognizing that our behaviour has not broken the only meaningful relationship in our lives. However many other relationships we have abandoned en route, our relationship with the Father is still intact and can be relied on.

After the first realization comes the first important step of action for anyone who is seeking to “find their way home” The Prodigal said “ I am going to get up and go to my FATHER”.
This was not a decision to return to church, not a decision to forgive those who had hurt or abused him, or even to forgive himself for his own foolishness. He was not thinking about it or wishing he could, he actually began the long journey back to the only one person who could help him……THE FATHER!
Coming home is only accomplished when we begin the journey back by actively and personally pursuing HIM.

What a Father He is! This son found out that His Father had never ceased to look for him expectantly and only wanted his total restoration and acceptance. We cannot comprehend when we are so lost that Father never ceases to look for us and love us.
He needed no one to guide him on his journey to the Father, neither do we! There was no need for a GPS or a road map, the Fathers love was totally the homing point.
Key to finding our way back home is to make a movement, any movement in the direction of Father and we will find him already more than half way to meet us
Finding Father, was the first real step to coming home. Dealing with our problems with our brothers and sisters and our place in Fathers House, are not the prime issues to be considered here. I am going to look at that in my next posting on this subject.

Categories: Keith Hazell
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8/11/08 The door of healing

phil | 11 May, 2010 8:46 pm

Sat 8 Nov 2008. The door of healing

I cannot help but say it now. My caution in not wanting to speak out too quickly has been overcome. I have to say that over this last little while I am now convinced the ‘trickle’ of occasional healings is becoming a small stream. It is delicate and would be easily stemmed in its flow, but it is here and it is growing without doubt. It is also accompanied usually with responses to the gospel which is how it should be. It is a sign!

In various recent meetings over the last few weeks I have seen sudden immediate and complete healings of clear and tangible issues not vague but clear. Sometimes these are through the laying on of hands in response to a prophetic word, sometimes they are when folk in the congregation standing near the person in pain or with illness place their hands on them and simply command the pain or sickness to go, whilst the person unwell places their hand on the area of pain or illness. I would also observe that sometimes one or two healings might occur. Then rather than stopping at that and celebrating if we press through and go again for the same thing we get even more.

This new thing we are seeing is not about technique, it seems to be about spending time doing it, growing in expectation God will come and simply the fact we are in a season of increase in healing activity. I long to see more healed as we are not seeing the big stuff yet. Why should we pray for the sick regularly? Because we should hate seeing people in pain, unable to enjoy life in some way or another, preoccupied and weighed down, drained by pain, sickness or disability. Jesus hates it, we all must hate it! It is the result of a fallen world not the working of a God of love. He uses it, turning it for good as he is always a redeemer, there is nothing he cannot redeem. ‘All things work together for the good of those that love God’ – Jesus can do that as he is wise and mighty. It does not mean he wants people to be sick.

There is a mystery with healing and always will be. We live in the tension of the kingdom having come but not yet fully come. Some get healed and rejoice, some leave the meeting having to handle another bout of disappointment.

We must entrust our questions to God who is always good and always wants people to be well. I have learnt to live in the tension of unanswered questions. Some things are too big for my tiny brain I entrust them to him.

I want to be part of an atmosphere where we love and care for those in pain and pray for them whenever they want to, rejoice when they are healed, weep and help them when they are disappointed. I want to kick the healing door open now it has swung open just a jar! Let the stream become a river!

Categories: Mike Betts
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Enjoying the journey

phil | 8:34 pm

The future hope of the Christian is not of being in heaven in some disembodied state, floating around devoid of any stimulus or connection with how life was on earth.

That is more akin to Greek mythology and Gnostic heresy than it is to the Bible. No! Our hope is of the resurrection of the body and renewed earth and renewed heavens that somehow merge together so the effects of the fall upon the earth are removed and the beauty and glory of it is restored and magnified even beyond what it originally once was. God started with a garden, he ends the story in Revelation with a city. That in itself, although figurative, shows progress and development of the original into even greater magnification of perfection.

What is my point? It is this. Surely if we are to enjoy the earth in perfection, somehow transformed but still the earth and still recognisable as a transformation from what it once was, surely it is therefore appropriate to stop and enjoy what we see even now ‘through a glass darkly’.

A day of rest?
What I mean is a sunny day, a bright sky, the lapping of water on a beach, a days fishing, pottering in the garden, a BBQ with friends, a fine piece of music. A warm evening sky viewed with a fine glass of red wine, viewing of birds and animals and landscapes, the sights and smells of God’s world.

All of these things are but shadows of perfection but are to be enjoyed and time must surely be taken for this enjoyment if life is to have a right pace. A day of rest principle, not only rest from seeking forgiveness of sins, but rest from physical work to enjoy pleasure provided by God. They should not become in themselves things we worship but they are cause for enjoyment and then thanksgiving to the one who made them and gave us opportunity to enjoy them. God has made all things for us to legitimately enjoy in their right place and season. Do we?

Contentment
We can live as though we are never satisfied! Our flesh which awaits redemption will always seek to assert into our minds its desires and wants. This can often make us jealous for what others have and what we do not have. To learn the secret of contentment as Paul did is a valuable commodity. It must be godly to be able to enjoy and rejoice in the smallest of pleasures, without the pollution of a continual lust for more, bigger, greater, faster, grander. God help us! God help me! I despair sometimes of getting my flesh to line up with my new nature.

No wonder Paul said ‘I beat my body and make it my slave’. Not an advert for self harm, but a description of a man who was determined to see things as they are and not as his flesh saw them at times.

I am trying very hard to reassess rhythms of life and enjoy the journey.

Life is busy, ministry is demanding. We cannot always just sit back and enjoy our surroundings, but surely the building in of a lifestyle that enjoys the pleasures of life in the created world is something God intends. This is partly what should make Christians attractive to others who are searching for satisfaction. After all it is our hope of future pleasure and blessing in a renewed earth in the full unrestricted company of the one who made it that we are looking forward to.

Let us work hard for the glory of the Lord to ‘work the garden’ as Adam did, but let us also enjoy the things God has made for us to enjoy. I like the old Jewish proverb: ‘a man should deny himself no legitimate pleasure’.

Categories: Mike Betts
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Easter reflections

phil | 3 May, 2010 12:49 pm

Easter might seem quite a long way away now but there were times during both the Good Friday evening meeting and the Sunday morning Easter day celebration and baptism service when I was quite aware of the awesome honour of knowing Christ.

To be singing his praise from the reality of knowing him struck me forcibly. To be in the building amongst God’s people was such a privilege, when I could have been anywhere else and not know Jesus, being ‘without God and without hope in the world’ as the Bible describes life without Christ. How much we have to be thankful for when we know the Saviour.

Life has considerable challenges. I can say as well as anyone else that at times you have to dig deep into the grace of God and live a very dependant day to day walk with Jesus. But in the midst of that, what would it be like to live life in this world without Christ? What resources are there for people to draw on in an increasingly mad and bad world?!!

The two natures of Christ
I thought quite a bit this Easter in preparing for the preaching, about the two natures of Christ in one person. The mystery of his humanity and his divinity: never blurred or mixed but always clear and distinct. Never less than God so he is sinful like me and therefore cannot save me. Never more than a man and therefore unlike me, so he cannot represent me and be a second Adam. These things are hard to even find words to convey but we must try. We must not let Christ be ‘warped’ by art, media, popular culture, or 21st century folklore.

There are some challenges in the resurrection story but they must be approached whilst holding these two important truths side by side. Jesus was fully man and fully God.

A physical resurrection
When Jesus rose, it was a physical bodily resurrection of a human being from the dead. He was not living on in their hearts as a memory. Nor was he a ghost or some sort of spiritual non-physical being. He appeared to Thomas as flesh and blood, raised from the dead. That was what he still was and what he still is, the ‘firstborn’ of many brothers. We have a man in heaven today. This man has beaten death and taken humanity into heaven. He truly is the man who conquered death.

The Bible does not say that when he came to ‘doubting’ Thomas that he walked through the wall into the room, like some sort of ghost or non-physical being. It says he ‘appeared’ to them. There is a mystery in how he did this of course and it is to be acknowledged that his resurrection body was not as it was. He was modelling what we will be when we are with him for we shall be like him. But we must not take away from the fact they touched him and ate with him. We must not blur the lines of his humanity and his divinity so as to create some different non-human being.

Our hope of the resurrection of the dead is founded upon the fact a man has done it!! The man Christ Jesus. The man who was and is God himself become flesh and clothed in humanity – becoming what he previously was not, like us in every way except sin. He has risen from the dead and our bodies will likewise be raised physically from the dead at the last day. This is the biblical hope of the Christian message, not going to heaven when you die, but being raised to life bodily in a remade, renewed new heavens and new earth.

I found this helpful quote from the old Chalcedon confession about the two natures in Christ, God and man.

‘We believe that neither in the state of humiliation nor in that of exaltation are the two natures ever confused or blended, so that one partakes of the qualities of the other. We believe that our Lord Jesus Christ is to be acknowledged ‘in two natures inconfusedly and unchangeably, as well as indivisibly and inseperably’ – Chalcedon confession

Easter somehow makes me feel more understood as a man by God who walked in my shoes and knows how I feel. Jesus in Marks gospel died with a ‘why?’ on his lips. We can know what it is to have many questions in life ‘Why?’ it helps me that Jesus knows what that feels like and can walk with me through it.

I felt a ‘sense of occasion’ about our Good Friday refection meeting. It was the first time we have done such a meeting. Encouraging numbers but more than that I felt the reality of the Cross so poignant amongst us. I felt God was showing me that there will come many days of many people in our midst touched by the Cross in the future. I pray with all my heart this is so and that we never loose our utter delight and dependency on Jesus.

Categories: Mike Betts
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Start a business – plant a church!

phil | 29 March, 2010 2:44 pm

A new strategy is coming into view over the horizon. I believe it will be bigger and more significant in its ongoing impact into the next 10-20 years than even those of us who are presently aware of its emergence can imagine. It revolves around the whole issue of business creation and mission, especially church planting.

In the last 10-15 years we have seen steady and methodical church planting amongst the churches we work with. Most of this has been at the same pace for this whole time. Praise God for each new plant that grows healthily and vitally but it is a restrictive pattern. We are at present seeing a multiplication of church planting opportunities especially across Europe. The number of these simply cannot be financed by traditional ways of offerings and ongoing support from local churches or apostolic funds; a new way has to be found.

Linking with Businesses
I believe this new way has much to do with the harnessing of business and church planting. Goff Hope, together with his team at Kings Church in Norwich, recently did a main session at one of our leaders equipping days. His session was strongly provoking of new ideas to explore in this harnessing.

King’s themselves have developed a successful business to help support mission from the use of their own building for conferencing etc. He touched on a number of models for how business creation can help resource church planting and other mission. These broadly included business as mission, business resourcing mission and business enabling mission. Without going into the fine detail of each of these models, I want to raise a flag on this whole issue to encourage you business entrepreneurs to consider whether your God given ability to create wealth could have a wider application than you perhaps thought to bring glory to Jesus.

Many believers gifted in business areas can sometimes feel outside the loop of ‘mission’. They may feel second class as they are ‘just running a business’. This is a concept which in itself denies the holistic nature of the kingdom of God. For everything should be viewed as a vehicle for Jesus glory to be displayed. If you are a gifted business person it is because God has enabled and called you. You are not less in ministry than a church leader!

To church planters …
I also want to encourage church planters to begin dialogue with business folk not just seeing them as asset managers but as friends who might get a heart for the same project and plant and feel relationally connected to what is going on. Many do not want to hold the strings of control in an unhelpful way, they just desire to be a blessing to those who are delivering the church plant and can be a blessing through finances.

For others you might find starting a business with help from a seasoned business person will help you relocate to plant churches and get you financed and connected to the community through this.

I feel there is much to explore and consider in this. Perhaps I need to write more about it as there are of course some pitfalls to avoid and things others have learnt the hard way by trying this. But I am convinced there is a vibrant way through.

Tags: Business,Church planting,funding,Goff Hope,Mike Betts
Categories: Mike Betts
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Old friends – New doors

phil | 22 March, 2010 10:01 am

I have just got back from a weekend with City Church Canterbury. It has been several years since being with the church and I learnt of new opportunities in Finland.

I can remember Tom Shaw who now leads the church when he did FYP! I used to do much of the theological training on the course, how old does that make me feel?

God has his seasons of initiatives and opening doors that bring long standing friends together for fresh purpose in present days. Not only was it a joy to see how much the church has grown and developed but also we now seem to have yet more opportunities brimming in to Europe. In particular I was so pleased to spend time with two couples seriously contemplating relocating from the UK to live in Helsinki, Finland.

I have been going to Finland for perhaps 10 years on and off and have kept knocking on the door seeing if God will open a way to plant a church into that nation and give us an emerging presence there. God has spoken several times about Finland to me and assured me an open door is coming. I believe this could well be in sight. It is exciting to see them work with a church such as Canterbury and be caught up in fresh apostolic mission together. Not only are people spearheading the church plant by going but a church and churches together can create good supply lines to resource and support the work.

I really feel more and more nations and places in Europe will open up like this. To be honest it is difficult to keep up.

It is not at all quiet in home base either as fresh momentum looms for us as we attempt to get a new building to relocate into a more central position in town. Only through the grace of God can we do ‘all things through Christ who gives us strength’. There is so much happening and so much to do. We do have to become very good at watching and following the pillar of cloud by day and the pillar of fire by night. When God moves we move, when he is stationary for a season in his plans, so also are we.

Categories: Mike Betts
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