Prayer Points (WE-110122)

It is coming to the close of another week and thanks for your prayers concerning last week’s points.  Here are the ones for this week – keep on praying.

• Danny Flynn

It is a year since I left my job as Christian Spiritual Development Worker (CSDW) at the North Staffordshire YMCA based in Stoke-on-Trent.  I have not forgotten the privilege it was to serve alongside some brilliant people and come across some excellent examples of humanity in the least expected places.

My boss at the time and its CEO is Danny Flynn.  He was more than my boss.  He took the YMCA being a Christian organisation seriously and as such he saw what was going on as mission.  It was a stab at how we could do mission in a relevant manner for the whole North Staffs YMCA community.  As such he reached out to me as a brother and friend, not just a colleague and subordinate.

This man endeavoured to impress upon me the importance that God’s grace has on my life’s outlook and did it by example as well as in word.  I cherish this and his love for me as much as I do for a close family member – this is how much he means to me.

God must love him, because He chose to give Danny such a lot of challenges.  Ones like transforming that YMCA into a significant player in the city and beyond and establishing it as a role model to other YMCA’s in the country of how to do service considerately.  Whilst doing that he is still a family man with what that entails and at heart a man who wants to be pleasing to his Father.

I cannot say enough good words about my admiration for him.  With great responsibility, however, comes a great need for God.  So, specifically, please remember my beloved brother in Christ Danny Flynn in your prayers.

• Sexuality, Righteousness and the Country We Live In

A court ruling earlier this week found a couple who owned a B&B guilty of discriminating against a homosexual couple who wished to stay at their lodgings. (Click here to read another article for a larger analysis of events.) On the surface it’s easy to see why some in the Christian community have got upset over the decision. 

Going beyond the surface will, however, allow believers to engage with the issues at stake.  If it were not clear before, this ruling makes it clear, that Britain as a Christian country is at least questionable.  That’s not necessarily a bad thing.  The place of Christians being marginalised and working outside the centre of influence harks to where the church started and perhaps where it’s most effective.

The legal argument would always favour the homosexual couple, especially considering their claim of active discrimination.  When you take that in line of the debate between which right is more important – right to accommodation in a B&B or right to express your religion fairly – then in this case the latter right would always have to yield.

This is not to say the owners of the B&B were in the wrong completely, and we should heed the warning signs the ruling has for public profession of faith and its consequences.  In responding to the issue, however, it’s crucial that there is a consistent theme in what Kingdom living and discipleship means. 

What the case also highlights is just how faith is not primarily something practiced in private and how, when the rubber hits the road, we may have to make some tough decisions in the light of cultural values.  Please remember our prophetic voice to the country on these issues and our own commitment to living God’s way in the public eye in your prayers.

• Racial Identity and the Church

On Monday this week the folks over the pond celebrated Martin Luther King Day.  It’s an interesting national holiday because it raises all sorts of projections of the man who is said to have been the key figurehead for significant changes in Civil Rights last century.

Reading the Dyson book on him brought home just how difficult it can be to balance pride in your cultural or ethnic heritage and working hard to realise some element of a truly integrated society.  It is easy to fall into the comfort of your cultural background to define you and thus feel that you should keep among those who share that culture.  That taken to various degrees is what brings about the divisions we see in society and the reason why there is still such a thing as a ‘black majority’ church and the white church.

Whilst not painting a picture of a multi-racial idyll in the early church, there are little glimpses of how the gospel allowed people of different cultures to come together and find an overriding identity in being children of God first and foremost.  That brotherhood of man allowed differences to be bridges and not barriers. 

I get the impression that same spirit that allowed people in the early church to experience should still be making bridges and breaking down barriers today.  Yet I accept that so many factors crop up that leave people feeling frustrated and seemingly helpless to do anything but accept the status quo.

So this point is just about seeing those glimpses today in gatherings of the community of Christ – glimpses of church expressions which are not strictly homogenous.  Glimpses that reflect the power of the gospel to bring together peoples into loving family relationships for God’s sake, please remember that in your prayers.

Once more thanks so much for checking these requests out and remembering them in your prayers knowing that at times God is more interested in what we have to say than we are and if we have but the senses to detect we can experience His answers to prayers.  Hoping you sense the answers to your prayers.

Have a great weekend.

For His Name’s Sake

Shalom

dmcd