Saturday 6 March 2010

Encouragement in all the Darkness

We are in times so huge...it hasn't hit us yet.

This is a Facebook conversation with Paul who had announced that he was going to be on Premier Christian radio last week. Below this is a transcript of Hitchhiker's Guide to Christianity III.

Chris Welch :fancy living in a historically Christian nation, where the only way we can ever get to hear Christian radio is by being near a computer or living within a sneeze of London.And all enshrined by British Law too, drawn up in 1990.You Americans have no idea! And actually we have no idea how it is in China! For more on Christian media in UK read http://080808onnowto.blogspot.com/2008/11/life-in-order-of-melchizedek-ii-chris.html
Thurs at 12:05 · Paul Anderson-Walsh I know it's a scandal. You'll have to get DAB my friend, that they tell me is the future. Hope you're well. I've been reading some very dark news articles about Post-Christian Britain lately. Disturbing times.
2 hours agoChris Welch Paul, honestly I think we are in huge times.While the media is scrutinising church figures and much of the fruit of a nation that without a shepherd has largely been doing their "own" thing.... these things are NOT being taken into account
1. Dylan and Lennon were heralding a complete fracturing of the old "patriarchal" frozen Tree of Knowledge Order...in order that people had some freedom at least to find out stuff for themselves
2. The last 10 years PETscans etc have put paid to us ever going back to a "black and white" Enlightenment existence powered by a slender oh so slender bit of step by step thinking on one tiny corner of our head....leaving the playing field wide open for us to explain, that while spirit doesn't exactly match physical brain attributes....we now know enough by evidence to explain more of the regions that are opened up by being born again and moving in faith.
3. Quantum mechanics is so weird and so connected to "believing in our heart and speaking the word of faith with our mouths"....the scientists are a bit behind and just simplify refer to it as a "mind and matter" link.But either way, the British and Dawkins linear view of living and thinking as sons of the Enlightenment is seriously on skid row!!!
4. People in the epicentre of a big change generally cannot see it. The change is just so huge. For 400 years no prophet had spoken in Israel. Everyone was used to nothing happening. But Spirit filled Anna and Simeon knew different as they held a baby in their arms. It didn't look much!!!... See more
(Luke 2)
5.Because "there is no independent self" and "Christ coming to live His life in me as me" are such huge concepts...it may be it bypasses much of church altogether. It could be that the wineskin of church just isn't big enough for it, nor wide enough....which is why there is Facebook, the internet...other media for linking huge numbers with huge numbers. In the 90s I'd got involved with MLM (multi level marketing) and as early as then enterpreneurs had prefigured the message with the words" you are either moving from contribution or survival" which translates as self for others or self for self. But the use of the word "survival" was very telling as it also encompasses the parable of the talents and hiding your one talent in the ground. Now all this was being talked about freely and without a church in sight!!!! I found that very interesting! And possibly "prefiguring".
6. Having heard your last Premier blurb where you talk of your background I find it super encouraging that you have been led in such a similar way to address the growth stages of 1 John 2. The links on my blog are to my 1990 Hitchhiker's Guide To Christianity 1 and 2 which are similar....but you'll be interested in the "destroyed" section 3 because I was not given permission by U2. This features a meeting led by equal brothers in a large arcade/shopping mall arranged at super short notice. Malls of this size did not exist in theUK. The only arcade rock was Petra, Delirious did not exist. The type of meeting was like a Toronto meeting which only occurred in 94. The short notice idea can happen now by mobile "flash meetings". We didn't even have personal mobiles. Just bricks.
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The original script to
HITCHHIKER'S GUIDE TO CHRISTIANITY III featuring me and Harry, the mystic Road Digger.
See the blog side links for the recorded versions of Part One and Two in the section entitled The Stages of Growth.

PART THREE: C. Flippin eck! You said a meeting. There must be 10,000 squashed in
here. / H. Yeah. This is one of the only shopping malls in the country that's large and safe
enough to hold such a gathering. / C. But where do they all come from? / H. From all over the
country. We meet every three months or so. We use the old acid-house party technique of
the early 90's where the venue is a secret until 24 hours before the event. / C. But there's so
many! / H. Well we followed the multiplication principle of The Book of Acts. Jesus discipled
12, who discipled 120, who discipled 3,000, who went all over Judea doing the same. The
problem in previous centuries was nobody knew what discipling was. Now we see it's just
getting Jesus into folk so they become 'little Christs' who go off and do the same.... / C. I
recognise them .... that's U2 isn't it? / H. Yeah... that's right. They pop over sometimes.
Tonight's a bit of a celebration really because the last meeting we had, the Spirit was moving
upon us in repentance. Most of us spent 5 hours flat on the floor crying. Well, we washed
the floor anyway. / C. Are you responsible for all this? I thought you were just a road-digger.
/ H. It's true that at the beginning Christ was building this through me. Now though, the Spirit
is doing more through about 15 others. The Spirit has got me on the initial stages of a foreign
project at the moment. / C. You could get these people to support you. You don't need to dig
roads. / H. I'm happy with my headphones on, digging away. I can meditate. The road-firm's
paying me to meditate. END.

©No Name Ltd. 1991

INCLUDES "40" (Psalm 40) by U2 from the live album "Under a Blood Red Sky" 1983 Island
Records Ltd. Used by permission. Actually U2 Management Disallowed this and the recording of Part Three was destroyed .Irony: At the time U2 were disassociating themselves from UK Christianity and Greenbelt Festival which up until then they had taken part in. This track got caught in the cross fire.But the irony is this....if you attend any of their concerts you get caught up in the great heart of a God whose love is for people...so actually the message of Hitchhiker's here is closer to what they stand for than the rest of UK Christianity was at the time, all caught up in little denominational boxes.

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