A New Commandment 

What a change, what an adjustment who ever you are.   

The last few months has been turmoil for the UK on many levels, that turmoil is not over yet, new challenges arrive daily.   31st January we will face the challenge of addressing our departure from Europe with its implications which are so far reaching, now the negotiations begin.     As the world changes around us, a virus threat infecting the world from one city in China, following invasion through the interconnected airways, every country in search mode and cities in China in lockdown.   What can we learn in the meantime, what can we hold on to, what can we take from the tumultuous times we live in that will school us for world impact.   I am so surprised that a small nation as Britain has such far reaching effects economically with markets and currencies being affected in far places world wide.   We are learning, I suggest that a little country can have an impact in far places not just locally, London or UK in this case.   We are learning about power, whether right or wrong as a president is going through an impeachment process.   We are learning who are servant leaders and who are power dominant.   South Africa was once an influence in Africa, today South African Airways is  in melt down and cancelling flights as it cannot meet its budget, the airline is collapsing and the counties banking institutions may follow this week into junk status.   What are we learning, what am I learning through it all.     Knife crime is at its highest ever, in a spiralling down trend in British cities, more gun deaths than ever and shootings in schools, gang violence and murders what am I learning, how should I respond?

Perhaps we can learn the sacrifice of true Leadsrhip in finding men and women who are sacrificial and will demonstrate Chirsts’ servant Leadsrhip, willing to pour out self for the sake of another.   Rather than feeding ego on power, or amassing wealth which is on the obscene level while countries are broke.   Living preferring one another, cultivating a love society, I wonder what that looks like.

in John 13:34–35 Jesus gives us a New Commandmentbut it is not really new, as at least in Deuteronomy and Leviticus we are told to love one another and to love God, are we not?    

So whats NEW about it?

I would suggest it is much more about outlining a distinctive mark of a community, it is much more about a NEW way to live together.     I have noticedsome bible interpreters pass comment that the verse is out of sink with the flow of the passage, with Jesus talking about his departure.   A time of turmoil about to arrive for the followers, the disciples.

34       “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another, even as I have loved you, that you also love one another.

35       “By this all men will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another

The verse is really highly important and is focused in the turmoil to come on the community that Jesus will establish as a result of his departure.

The community in its distinctive quality was to be marked by a new commandment.   

Turmoil needs some marks on it, needs some signposts that anchors life and prevents spinning.    In the establishment of communities, one of the principle factors of success is the establishing of boundaries for action.   These are based on community or national covenants, whether stated or unstated.    Behind every way forward there must be covenants that hold, direct us, this is absolutely crucial.

When societies go through transitions by a change of direction nationally, the influx of people, or changes in economic or social structures, the underlying covenants are often disregarded and the society is thrown into confusion. 

John’s writings (1 John) we are introduced to a confusing state of affairs for people affecting that community at large, it outlines the departure for a covenant made and oath taking towards new theologies, so called, it only goes to enforce the need of understanding underlying covenants that have been made long ago, words spoken, hearts committed towards establishing a healthy life, words outlining conduct for the better of all peoples, these are crucial to perceiving the significance of the order of life.

John 13 indicates a covenant that undergirds community building, its formation and establishment “love one another“, but it goes beyond that to indicate that to love one another is to display, to be an example of God, love as foundation to every distrusted moment, to all turbulent times is an indication of where and to who we belong.    

So Brexit – market runaways – change of political structure – Love one another – be and form community.   

Return to covenant that undergirds us all, and of course continue in this way of Love and Covenant do not depart from it.

Love one another – that all men will know you are my disciples 

To make this “love one another” impactive it must have content as we cannot make people love one another can we?  

The context that enables this love is the realisation that the “I have loved you” of Christ.    

Christ has loved us fully unrestrained, unreserved, it transforms you?   People have the right to ask “why should I love others” for with out a realisation of their loved condition it is challenging, firstly seeing that I/WE are loved is essential.

We can try and legalise the need of loving one another, we can even achieve a legalising of mutual respect but we will not make people love one another without realisation and accepting the self-giving love of God for the World, the covenant love displayed in and through Christ.      The acceptance of God’s self-giving love for the people of the world, including each one of us as recipients of that love (3:16), and the obedient response in a derivative love enables “all people”  to recognise the accepter as a disciple of Jesus. This way of loving one another is not to be interpreted exclusively as my little in-group instead, it was to be understood as breathtakingly explosive of old relationships and old patterns of obedience in the way it was pointedly presented in the Sermon on the Mount.

Where we began our journey captures an arrival of of the new era and the new community.     

This new community, is the continuing intention in the Old Testament, God calling out a people who are to be recognised by their love for God (Deut. 6:4–5) and their love of neighbour (Lev 19:18) just as Jesus spelled out his model in the Sermon on the Mount. 

(1 John 3:1-18) We are expected to love one another as we have been loved, adopted, accepted as the family of God – Community to form and build based on love.

LOVE ONE ANOTHER 

I wonder what kind of thoughts to go through our minds as influencers in various spheres. An influencer of an individual, within the home as a parent or as a spouse, an influencer in your work sphere as a manager, or a leader. What would be your primary thinking, to get the job done or even to leave a good ethic for people to follow?

Influencers at every level  ask ourselves, what our greatest joys as well our greatest challenges are. I Once worked with a man who often used to ask for five positives gleaned from the day, or the meeting. Try it, sometimes it is quite a challenge. The deeper question that makes you think quite often is not only what is your greatest challenge but what are your greatest disappointments. Recently I was asked what regrets do I have? I answered honestly saying I do not have any regrets, at least  I don’t believe so or perhaps I am just plainly  deluded. However I may have disappointments, you may now say ah that’s regret, however I don’t believe so.

There are things that I hope to accomplish, things that I trust will happen, and the major one is that I do not want to just be a blessing machine, but rather someone who builds and establishes, someone who can say at the end of the day that my work will having a lasting impact.   Trusting what I have done will have a lasting effect in people’s lives. Not building for the immediate but building towards the culmination of all things with Christ being found in all things.

Being in the position I am, I realise that many hear me speak from all walks of life and many cultures. Whether it be in Asia, Africa, America or Europe, many listen and say how inspired they are however many do not follow through on the concepts and use them consistently in their day-to-day work. 

People seem to be content to merely talk about practices, rather than to actually implement them.   I have realised we are  trying to change people’s behaviour only from the outside. Lasting change starts on the inside and moves out.

I often say that I’m not interested in affecting the frontal lobe of the persons mind, with immediate reactions but I really do want to change the perspective of a person that will change their life forever.     I have noted without this kind of change things will just continue in the same old same old way.

The scriptures, the coming of the Holy Spirit has come to transform the mind that we will have the mind of Christ, thinking the thoughts of God a perceptional change.

I know this to be right, it seems that all we have been focusing on in the church were methods and behaviour, for 2000 years and still maturity, corporate maturity eludes us. We have not focused much on what was inside people’s heads or hearts.

Armed with this insight, I want to change and I want to change people by closing the learning-doing gap.

Retaining – not just at exam time

Reading and imbibing understanding is fine, new skills can be taken on however we need strategies to retain and apply all the helpful information we take in. 

When we see something new or sit and hear something new, by the way these are good practices and experience.   What we hear will lose its effectiveness when we don’t stop,  building it into life, integrate in order that its become part of life style

Try this, rather than reading and reading, listening and listening, devouring new information, why not just concentrate on a few things, decide and explore.   Study and enquire on the few things.   Hearing once we we will not get anything.   Then repeat, chew the cud…what, you may say to this old English phrase, well let me explain to ‘chew the cud’, in a literal sense, is for ruminant animals to masticate, that is regurgitated food. In a metaphorical sense it is, for humans, to chat in an aimless manner.    Alternative versions of this are ‘chew the fat’, ‘chew the rag’ etc. Cud is the part digested food that ruminant animals, notably cows, bring back into their mouths from their first stomach, to chew at leisure. The image is of slow and aimless mastication and the allusive use of the phrase refers to that. In its literal sense there are references to chewing the cud’ going back to Aelfric, ‘De veteri et de novo testamento’, circa 1000.

Enough of that rabbit warren, my aim is to get you to see and regurgitate,  chew it over and over again until every last bit is taken out of the statement, concept, information. 

By thinking over and repeating the new knowledge becomes firmly fixed in your mind and you become a master in those areas.

There’s nothing wrong with thinking critically; in fact, it’s essential for survival.

I am Listening, BUT HOW 

Research now indicates that probably we did not receive unconditional love and support when we were young, which has produced a way of dealing with language, people and circumstances.    Very few of us have.

Through this it has produced in us a way of dealing with life and people by undermining and doubting ourselves and others. Self-doubt causes us to filter all information through what ever medium we receive it, it invades our lives through our indecisive, closed-minded, judgmental, fear-ridden mindset, which leads to negative thinking.

Due to this pattern we only use a fraction of what we see and hear, which means we will achieve a small percentage of what we could achieve. 

We accept too little too soon.

However the opposite is to have a positive mindset, it means changing my stance as an open mind ignites creativity, ingenuity, and resourcefulness. 

Try this change rather that trying to find what’s wrong with new information, start from a trusting position, actively seek out what’s right.   Try looking for the value, knowing that value exists here.

I love the picture that Psalm 139 indicates when it concludes with “seek me o Lord and it you find anything unwholesome”, in other words God look at me, is not seek and find the negative but pull out the positive that is in me, as you put it there first hand and if you find anything negative just deal with it on the way.  But revel in the positive you have found.   Seek, knowing something of value will be found.

Use a Follow-Up Plan

Doing what I have read, what I have discovered and learned cannot be left to ad hoc ways, not making a plan on how to deal with the new found insight or way.   To ensure I gain what I have read, heard and learned I need to plan, giving it positive actions in order to keep and apply the knowledge gained.   A process that carries it through providing a  structure, support, and accountability will ensure I have gained it, what ever it may be.

For example, at Christmas I bought a Road bike with the aim of getting fitter, it began well,  3 to 5 miles every other day, and I felt better.   More energy, felt fitter in body it was great, I was feeling the lasting effect after 6 weeks it was really, really good.  Then I began to travel away through the country, overseas and it was difficult to keep the rhythm.   What do you think has happened, the “I must get back to it thinking” has entered into life as I have reverted to the old way.   I did not settle on a follow up plan and I think it seems harder to get back to it than when I first began it.

Now follow-up plans can take many forms, but the best ones include someone who can tell you, show you, observe you, and praise your progress or redirect you as you practice the new skill. 

Neither don’t skip the praise part of that sequence, because accentuating the positive motivates learners. 

The best way of keeping this up is to put the knowledge you’ve gained into action by reviewing passing it on and helping others if they let you, Go on share it on!

Would you answer some questions for me?     

Questions from our lives, the challenge is not to become questioning certainly not cynical but to carry relevant questions.   To be people always learning though enquiry, being challenged educationally as young child, with dyslexia and all it brings in being different, trying to survive in an education system that was developed to demand regurgitated answers when requested.   Although there is still the requirement of this mode of learning today,  I wonder how many get a cold shiver when we her the word invigilator, followed by visiting in your mind to the place of  the sound of loan footsteps in a hall or gym given over to examination when the invigilator walked between the desks.   Thousands of 16 and 18 year olds have just began a season of examinations in the UK and are listening to the haunting foot steps of the lone invigilator meandering through their exam hall.

I am thrilled to see some changes in education that make much of enquiry rather than the regurgitation of information at set times.   I trust it will be a world of people who know how to ask questions not beach questing.   Cynics love questing and undermining, learners ask questions for understanding.

Let us get back to questions, here is one,  ‘why is the body of Christ so separated?’    Do you not think something scandalous has happened when the aim of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit is UNION.   To bring humanity into the experience, realisation and enjoyment of UNION with Father, Son and Holy Spirit.    Everything I read and see through the narrative of scripture declares union for me.  

Union is the background to every word, action and deed of God toward creation,  heaven and earth, creation and creator.  I would even suggest its the backstory of all God does.

We have been reconciled with God though Christ to be a community, a family demonstrating reconciliation.    The community of God, the ecclesia is to be a reconciling people, is it not?   

If union, reconciliation is a foundation nature of the body of Christ is it not scandal that in Christianity doe snots Eem to find it which these separations and division have become a great scandal, has it not?

We find so many reasons to justify separation whether it is due to practice difference, style preference, theology difference, eschatology differences, all giving reasons to separate rather than having an overarching guide to all the differences union and reconciliation.   Perhaps we have not fallen out but we are still separate.

The challenge is that we might first begin with thinking, theological differences however it never remains there but journeys into the personal lives of groups of people.   I would suggest the worst divide is produced when insecurity is threatened and causes people to break with each other.    When some one is threatened and becomes defensive in causing others never to have anything to do with certain other people.    These are explained and justified but are we not to be in union with God and with each other.   Love your brother and sister, loving God is expressed in loving them even those that are different even our enemies are given to bring us to love union.  Challenging or what?

I would suggest the division produced is an effective way of disabling and silencing our effectiveness by taking our voice away.   We have a message of reconciliation, yet we break relationships.  

Today more than ever we are realising God is a relational God and we are to demonstrate this, yet we still need  the breath of God to enable union with each other.    

I am challenged with Jesus’ desire to express our union to each other though the “communion”, “breaking of bread” the scripture tells us it was Jesus “fervent desire” to sit and eat together.    A fervent desire in traumatic times, a covenant meal before and in the middle of challenging events.   This meal will change history.   A Covenant extended to all not just a few revealing Gods love as the Son looked through the immediate, for the “joy set before him”.    He said do this in remembrance of me, it was not a little wafer or piece of cubed bread, neither a thimble full of wine, but it was in the face of eating, sharing table together, do this be together be as one, even if one would deny me, another betray me be together in my remembrance just as I am making my self one with you, be one together see beyond the issues, be the love of God that people may see and taste that God is good (Luke 22:7-39; Matt 26:17-30; Mark 14:12-16, John 13”:1-17; 1 Cor 11:17-34).

The context of the upper room is some times lost as we fix our thoughts on what happened from there, the departure of Judas, the Garden, along with the betrayal onward to the cross and resurrection.   Let me pull you back a little with a thought, this Covenant meal was set in the context as people around them gathered in families, they re-enact history, the journey that would make them a people from captives.   They would be formed and transformed, this was the context of Jesus taking bread and wine to establish a New Covenant.   As others meet to eat a meal while dressed for a journey the upper room became a journey into union.

From our participation with God we declare Christ is not divided, this gives us space to have differences in understanding and practice yet we are one with Christ which makes us one and takes away divisions, we must live accordingly. 

Unity so often becomes a goal rather than living in the light of the union Christ brought about through the resurrection.     Every thing we received, our healing, our new life, our union with Chirst personally, all happens at the cross and resurrection yet we go on trying to be one, yet we ARE ONE THROUGH CHRIST, the need is to live in the light of being one rather than trying to get there we are in union with God and with each other therefore enough of the scandal of division on a personal, one a church community, on denominational and national levels, we are one.

We can take the instruction of 1 Cor 11 then jump into 1 Cor 12 and be so gifted, or so we think then jump to how to use the gifts but we must go through the “Love is and is not” chapter to realise love is the foundation of every practice and love motivates and is our motive therefore how can we be divided?

Union with God, union with each other, reconcile through Chirst, reconciling our environment….

Crisis is defined as a time of difficulty or danger, our worlds seem to move form crisis to crisis in peoples lives, in political environments Crisis seems to frame our lives.
When crisis comes near we need to be a people who understand what we require to face and address the situation. Gaining an understanding in times of crises is particularly required by influence or leaders. Whether you have been appointed in the good times or appointed and handed a crisis not of your making, given a task with all its challenges, we will have to learn what it is to make difficult decisions, to decide on direction of action, the biggest challenge to every one is to see the decisions through.

I would suggest  that the responses we require to be able to negotiate the terrain that lies before us will really challenge you and see and asking us to be very flexible in thought and action. Asking us to be flexible in maker and leadership avoiding running the real of an old fashioned not willing to adjust of move autocracy. Asking of us to be empowering to all and flexible.

I remember Charles Simpson once outlining that the church should be flexible fluid and digital. I would say that in any circumstance in dealing with young children, teenagers, in our working environment, relationships, and leadership it is the person who can keep principal yet be fluid to negotiate the ups and downs, in and outs of constant change, those who can hold onto the purpose of God while being flexible to the seasons and the winds of change. Realising that God puts everything within us that we require, yet it does not find its fullness until we are connected to others, that the digit finds itself connected into the motherboard. That makes it all possible.

Let me offer some thoughts in the midst of our crisis

Be visible, be calm, be available
do not run into a corner, be seen across the environment you are responsible for,  be the one that inspires hope acknowledging the tough terrain of the road ahead.

Give continual input
find and tap into new resources of information, re-assess who you are and the gifts you have, discover the shape God has made you and be it rather than think you have the answer to everything. Show flexibility that you can move from plan A to B or C knowing that the end goal of what God is after is most important

Be decisive
communicate a sense of urgency however never make decisions in panic, commit to your way forward once you clear. Remember we’ve discovered that without action words mean nothing. Always be ready to develop a change.

Be focused
identify what is the goal of God, what is God after in the light of this what is the call of God on your own life after, what will your contribution be? Asks yourself then given yourself fully to it. Never forget what you’re good at, be ready to establish your priorities

Be a relational builder
we are meant to be in the together, the corporate people of God. Be one that sets their goal to build relationships remember that individuals never win wars. Find new connections while being faithful to those that God has related you to.

Be a motivator
communicate constantly and positively, meet face-to-face with people, explain, gather feedback. Remember a manager tells people what to do, a leader motivates and encourages the best, be the ambassador, live up to the mission, be the example

be empathetic
share in all things with people around you, share in the world God has placed you, the pain, understand the fears. We all may have to work longer and harder for little reward. Work to inspire and produce a people that will say we are all in this and together in this. Remember it starts with you first.

Celebrate every little advance it will build people up as they see their advance. Unfortunately for most it is quite difficult to see any advance and any gain be the Gain Storyteller

just remember crisis is a time of gain, it’s the ‘kairos’ moment of opportunity in danger, it’s the turning point, it brings about change, a crisis will always bring a new wave of people to the forefront.

Kairos (καιρός) is an ancient Greek word meaning the right or opportune moment (the ‘supreme moment’).