There is a challenge on each of our door-step, to reach the world of our every day, not the religious world or some other sub culture but the world of the people of my street, the people in my education world, those who turn up at the office of factory every morning world.  

To reach our world with the radical love of God, to adjust Peoples view of God so that they might find a life worth living.   To open people up to a correct View of God.    I am not sure if the following will be your world if you don’t reside in the UK,  but it certainly the world as defined by the UK as a Village of 100.   I will in another blog offer a World Village of 100.

If Britain were a village of 100 people…

17 of the 100 villagers would be under the age of 15, while another 16 would be 65 or over (three of them 80 or over).

There would be 80 adults (aged 16 or over), of whom 40 would be married and 11 would live alone.

There would be 42 households in the village, of which 13 would be home to just one person. (Six of these would belong to lone pensioners, of whom five would be female.

Of the 19 villagers aged between 20 and 34, four would live with their parents.

The village would welcome one new baby this year. The baby would expect to live for 76 years and six months (if it was a boy), or 81 years and seven months (if it was a girl)

One person would die this year.

Ninety-two of the villagers would be white. Two would be black, two Indian, one Pakistani, one of mixed race and two would be of other races.

Ten people would have been born outside the village, three of whom would live in London.

Six people would be gay or lesbian (probably).

84 of them would live in England, eight in Scotland, five in Wales and three in Northern Ireland

Eight people would live in Greater London (one of them in Croydon).

There would be 51 women and girls, and 49 men and boys.

If Britain were a village of 100 people, and its land mass were scaled down by the same proportion as its population, the village would cover an area the size of 99 football pitches.

Fifty-three of these football pitches would be English, 32 Scottish, nine Welsh and five Northern Irish.

Agricultural land would occupy 20 football pitches, on which 54 sheep, 17 cows, eight pigs and 273 chickens would roam. There would be one farmer.

London would cover just over half a football pitch.

All built-up areas and gardens would occupy the equivalent of six football pitches

Seventy-two people would identify themselves as Christian (although only 10 people in the village would go to church regularly). Fifteen people would say that they were not religious, while there would be two Muslims, one Hindu and 10 people who practised other religions.

Each person would generate 495kg of waste every year. The village as a whole would generate 163kg of waste every day, of which just 47kg would be put out for recycling

If Britain were a village of 100 people, 17 of the villagers would smoke, of whom 11 would like to give up.

Nineteen adults and three children would be classified as obese (that is they would have a Body Mass Index of 30 or greater).

Sixteen men and eight women would usually exceed the Government’s daily sensible drinking benchmark (3-4 units per day for men; 2-3 units a day for women).

Eight men and four women would have taken an illicit drug in the past year

Eight people would have asthma.

Eight adults would be suffering from depression today (but as many as 20 would suffer from depression at some point in their lifetime).

One person would have dementia.

The villagers would have 118 mobile phones between them (66 of which would be pay-as-you-go). There would be 55 telephone landlines.

There would be 90 televisions (an average of more than two per household).

Twenty-one villagers would have watched Andy Murray beat Stanislas Wawrinka under floodlights at Wimbledon this year; 32 people would have watched Susan Boyle lose ‘Britain’s Got Talent’.

Of the 42 households in the village, 32 would have satellite, digital or cable television

Twenty-seven households would have access to the internet (24 of those would have a broadband connection).

Thirty people would have a Facebook account.

Sixteen of the villagers would be at school – of whom one would be in private education.

One of the 16 pupils would leave school this year. Twelve of them would, when the time comes, go into higher education. Nine of them would achieve five or more GCSE or equivalent passes at grades A*-C.

One person in the village would be illiterate.

There would be one teacher.

Seven people would be in further education. (In 1990, there were only four.)

Of the 62 villagers of working age, 45 would have jobs; nine of them would be in the public sector.

They would earn an average of £388 a week (including part-time workers).

Of the 13 villagers of working age who weren’t working, four would be unemployed; three would be looking after family and/or home; three would be excluded from the workforce by sickness; two would be students; and one would have taken early retirement.

The 80 adults in the village would share a personal debt of £2.4m (£30,480 each, on average).

Six would be claiming housing benefit; five would own their homes but have negative equity.

The richest 10 people in the village would receive 30 per cent of the total income. Between them, they would earn more than the poorest 50 combined.

The poorest 10 people in the village would receive 2 per cent of total income.

Two adults would not have access to a bank account.

Fifty-six of the 100 villagers would claim to have given to charity within the past four weeks. Overall, the village would donate £17,393 to charity this year.

Twenty people would claim the state pension; 12 would be women.

Five villagers would be employed in the food industry.

Five men and four women would have had multiple sex partners in the previous year.

If Britain were a village of 100 people, there would be 74 voters.

Only 26 of those voters would have gone to the polls at this year’s European elections.

Of the 42 households in the village, 18 would have at least one pet. Between them, those households would have 38 pets (not including fish), including 13 dogs (comprising 10 pedigrees, one cross and two mongrels) and 13 cats (12 of which would be moggies, or non-pedigrees).

Three of the villagers would be vegetarians and a further five would be partly vegetarian.

Between them, the villagers would spend £2,955 a week on food and non-alcoholic drinks. They would spend £1,154 a week on food eaten outside the home, of which £355 would go towards alcohol.

Seventy-eight of the villagers would have a passport.

Fifty-five would have a driving licence.

There would be 56 motor vehicles in the village, including 44 cars and two motorbikes.

Of the 42 households in the village, 18 would have one car, 13 would have two or more cars and 10 would not have a car at all.

In the past year, the people of the village would have made 107 trips abroad, spending £60,055 between them.

Let’s transform our UK village world in order that Christ might be seen.    Let us bring the order of the Kingdom of God to our village!

Here are some interesting insights that might be applicable to the moment you and I are living in, with the placings wherein God has set us.    Take your imagination and visit Samuel’s young life, having been left by his mother in the service of his God and learning what it is to be 1^st given to God whilst being skilled in an environment less than suitable for a young child. Having been trained to hear God amongst a priesthood had forgotten or chosen to forget how to hear God. Young Samuel is experiencing quite a challenging environment as he seeks to faithfully serve God in the twilight zone.

He had to deal with:

• The perplexing paradox of Eli
• Incredible patience of God with the corrupt priesthood
• Everything in Samuel’s Heart responded to Eli’s righteous exhortations, whereas nothing in him corresponded to Hophni or Phinehas’s lifestyle
• The challenge of maintaining sensitivity to the voice of God
• His deepening pain over what he was hearing from God and yet what he saw
• The growing awareness that God would not allow the situation forever
• The inner grief knowing that God would remove Eli as well as his sons
• He did not try to do God’s job for him but held to the function God had given him to do, that is he surveyed, just  like on the Lord in the temple
• There is no reference to Samuel’s involvement in the loss of the Ark of the Lord to the Philistines, nor its return to Israel.    The opening words showed he was ready for the moment; he recognised a signal from heaven to initiate a dramatic change in the nation “…if you are really serious…”  1 Sam. 7:3 (NLB)
• Despite the spiritual darkness of his time, being trained as it was to a failing Eli, yet Samuel’s heart burned with passion and for God.

He kept faith in the covenant promises, the covenant purpose of God for the generation in which he lived and breathed

He was sustained by a continuing prophetic revelation of God which kept the little flame burning in his heart “the Lord appeared again at Shiloh, because the Lord revealed himself…by the word of the Lord. Thus the word of Samuel  came to all” 1 Sam. 3:21-4:1

Now the Lord not had a word for Samuel, if Samuel did not have a word Israel would not have been provide a word.

When the prophetic word comes:

• It provokes change in attitude
• It focuses the purpose of God so that you do not fall victim to forces that would love you to deviate from the Divine Purpose
• It carries with it the wisdom essential to your establishing the gains already made, while propelling you forward to secure new gains, this is wonderfully pictured in Nehemiah when he is urging the people have sword and trowel in hand. A picture that showed to protect themselves what had been accomplished while working out what they were building.
• It comes with passion and conviction as it is known as God speaking

In our day let us cultivate, create and be the sustainers of the prophetic passion, let us be those that work with what God has spoken, let us be those that take up the ultimate purpose and will of the father and make this ours. Let us avoid Christianity deteriorating into a competitive scramble by small-minded people trying to get more and more people to rally to a cause as opposed to working in harmony to the advance of the kingdom, disciplining the people, pursuing being united with God and keeping peace in the community of God, the church in the bonds of peace.

As we read through the scriptures especially the Old Testament we cannot but see that there were men and women such as Samuel and others like him who were before him and his successors were at the forefront of the purpose of God for their moment, they brought to a nation the flaming message of God’s word. They spoke to kings, rulers, governors and decision-makers who in turn attempt to put pressure these men and women to change their tone or to change their message, in essence to change their words, their prophesying.   But these men and women had settled something they were first and foremost servants of the most high, and despite all the pressures they remained so true to their first cause.    Individuals who are there to turn their gathered nations or people groups hearts and intentions towards God, they spoke and brought to all that they could hear God.

We are surrounded today with political electioneering whether it be on a local level, on a national level or even an international level. Electioneering  shows politicians of all shapes and sizes seeking to discover through opinion polls what the people want them to say on single issues. Unfortunately when this is discovered we find opinions changing,  adjustments of emphasis and repositioning all to gain position in accordance to what they discovered, this shows little of a convictional lifestyle. It will not be so with prophets, or the purpose, for they know the heart of God, the will of the Father, Son and Spirit. They are not politicians but prophets.

They themselves are the vehicle, the message they carry moulds and informs their lives, their whole action of life is painted by the message they carry, it is the school of the spirit  in their lives  shaping and forming and moulding them to be prophets.

A prophet has to become secure in their inner self so they find themselves never measuring themselves by people’s response to their word. The fulfilling release they have is knowing that they had been the voice of God in their time. The response to the word is an issue between the people and their God, the prophet is the deliverer, what they know is the word of God, which is living to them.

O God raise in our midst passionate prophets that bring to each of us your living, uncomplicated but  life-giving word.

Have we not been encouraged and taught to raise a shout, or put it moe acceptable to PRAY “… as it is in heaven so shall it be on earth…”, is this not a disciples cry of heaven come to earth? along with heaven’s desire to come to creation, both being kaleidoscope together in words of power, words of purpose and the Will of the Father, words that align life with what God is saying.

I would strongly say that when the cry of heaven meets my cry, when we have the ‘…Spirit and the bride say come…’ one voice of heaven and earth, things are then about to change, heavens will and humanity submitted life.  There are so many colourful stories painted for us throughout the scriptures of human need being supplied by the hand of God.   More than that, the crying, of need and desire on earth often become the vessel of delivering Gods desire and requirement for the moment.

The wonderful story of Hannah, the mother of Samuel, she was willing in her desperate cry to be mistaken as a drunk, but she gave voice to her desire for a son on earth, there was another desire acted out in the courtroom of heaven, for a prophet.  Two worlds merged, two minds have the same answer, a son was born and a prophet arrived.

Hannah had a voice that would change the situation, as a result of the anguish of Hannah interceding for a child great change would come. I wonder how many of us would put these two things together a woman who is desperate for a child and a nation who desperately needed a prophet.   The heart of Hannah is so God centred she sees the will of the Father being greater than the desperation that you see it in her response. She did not become one that received the child and duly forgot God, but said from the beginning, give me my desperate desire and I will make your will O God the highest in my life. So she said “… if I receive this child, I will give him to the Lord…”. It was the heart attitude, my need, I’m pleading for my need, I’m crying with my need, but when my need is met I will give it back to God for God’s highest interest. I will not run away with my child but my child will be yours. In this my fullest satisfaction will be that all I have will be in the service of the will of the Father.

 What change would we bring, what powerful moment would break if we saw and learned that hearts can become the womb of the prayer of God 

Samuel grew in his early days  in the ways of a prophetic hope I’ve outlined it says “… the lamp of God and not yet gone out…”. Of course this was a reference to the little boys’ duties of lighting the lights in the temple and holding  the lights until the small hours of the morning yet as Samuel Grew a deeper dimension of meaning in this context.   The lamp not gone out is a simple picture of God’s onward going commitment to the promises made, of God’s covenant that no testimony would be allowed to disappear before God acted to secure God’s purpose

Let me say now,  a prophetic promise people realise that God will never allow the circumstances and the spiritual state around to deteriorate to the point where the faith or testimony and commitment to the purposes of his will to be lost.   God has heard the prayers and cry’s of fathers and mothers that have gone before us, the sacrifices of generations God will uphold.

Realize now the covenant that God has been laid down, the covenant God made with Abraham and all those who stand in the lien of faith are all covenants of continuity.   This continuity is eternal, it will move through generation upon generation and age if necessary to accomplish itself there is a continuity in all that God is doing.

To every generation is given the time, the life and empowerment to serve God in freshness of its own word and vision,  a vision that has the hallmark of authenticity in its continuation of what has gone before.  Our authenticity is not that we are out there on the edge and different for the sake of difference but that there is a continuity of purpose even in the midst of dawning  a dynamic and ever arriving truth. We are to build upon and not be different to.

Anything that prides itself in building another foundation other than the foundation already laid is a falsehood, we talk about this foundation knowing there is only one foundation, only Christ, we see ourselves going all the way back to and aligning our the faith that goes back to Abraham.

We are to be a people who have an anchor who is Christ and not  just those with a prophetic flavour, but really to play with words what we are to have its prophetic fervour not flavour. To be in the line of Abraham means I need Abrahams fervour, his faith, his zeal, his vision of a city, his progress and his commitment.  The ability to passionately identify with God’s purpose should really be the catalyst this should sum up our generation, to bring out the prophetic fervour of God for the purpose of God.