Core magazine

I think I’m beginning to realise that Christianity is not for me.

I say that, not as an atheist or agnostic, nor as someone who has become disheartened or let down by people within the church, but as someone who is struggling to square the institution with values that Jesus seemed to model within his movement.

For 22 years I have trod the well worn path from youth leader to Church minister, but it’s only in the last two years that I’ve begun to follow Jesus and therein lays the problem and also the solution to our ever changing world. It certainly has been a tipping point in my understanding of what this faith, which exploded onto our planet 2000 years ago, is all about.
When you realise that you’ve been a Christian for 20 years and a follower of Jesus for only 2, you begin to wonder how many others have assumed that what they have understood to be authentic faith is actually a cultural adaptation of it and one which at this moment in time is looking inappropriate and inflexible.

My personal tipping point took place over a conversation with my then 3 and a half year old daughter. That one conversation took me on a journey that admittedly has only begun, but nonetheless has transformed my understanding of what it means to be an authentic follower of Jesus in our 21st century world.

Two years ago I stumbled onto a principle as to how God creates and shapes our lives. It started as a request to do a bible study on the first two chapters in Genesis and within minutes of starting it I kind of got ambushed by God. I noticed that the words ‘formless’ (which can also mean shapelessness) and ‘empty’ seemed to lift off the page and I immediately recognised that someone was trying to teach me something here.

I read the first three days of creation and discovered a pattern emerging. On day one God ‘separates’ the ‘light’ from the ‘darkness’, on day two He separated the ‘sea’ from the ‘sky’ and on day three He separated ‘land’ from the sea. I immediately began to see that God has a way of interacting in our world around us and a way of creating and blessing the world. God starts with the ‘formlessness’ first. Then on day’s one, two and three He separates out 5 blank canvasses; light, darkness, sea, sky and land. God in fact creates a space out of the chaos in which He can work.

Now stick with me because it’s what God does next that blew me away. Having created a space, those 5 blank canvasses and having dealt with the formlessness, look at what happens next.

On day 4 God creates, the Sun, the moon and also (in the most amazing thro-away and understated comment of the whole bible) the stars. On day 5 God creates all the ‘birds of the air’ and all the creatures that live in the Sea. On day 6 God creates the animals and finally humanity. Having started with the formlessness on the first 3 days, God now switches his attention to the ‘emptiness’. On day 4 God returns to the space he created on day one and he now fills it, with the Sun, Moon and stars. On day 5 God returns to the space he created on day two and onto the two blank canvasses called ‘Sea’ and ‘Sky’ he now fills them, literally an explosion of life and creativity. On day 6 God returns to the space he created on day 3 and he fills the earth with the animals and the start of the human race.

I knew there was something to learn here, but it wasn’t until I had finished work and driven home that the penny dropped. I walked in to the lounge at my home to be greeted with my little girl, Abigail. She looked as though she had been having an amazing time, because the floor was just covered wall-to-wall with toys, Duplo, dolls, books and her favourite Jigsaws. She came running up to me with her favourite Jigsaw and said, ‘Daddy, daddy will you play this with me.’ I looked at her, then I looked at the floor, then I looked back at Abigail and said, ‘Abi, I’d love to play this with you, BUT there’s just no room for us to do this.’ Abigail left me holding the puzzle as she immediately got onto her hands and knees and began to shovel up the toys, pushing them to the extremities of the room and leaving a space in the centre of the room, ‘Now we can do it daddy,’ she said.

At that moment, God spoke to me, and the course of my journey changed. I believe I heard the Spirit of God whisper in my heart, ‘That’s how you treat me, Jonathan. You desire and long for all my creativity, anointing and blessings, and as a father I would love to pour that out into your life, it’s just that when I look at your life there’s no space for me to work.’

Could it be that God in order to work creates a space first and only then does He fill it with His creativity and energy? I longed for the latter but was unwilling or unable to create the space. Suddenly I had entered a different world, because everywhere I looked at the bible I saw the same principle at work.

Adam was formed out of the dust of the ground, what was that? Space! Then God breathed into him, what was that? The breath of God. Moses tabernacle? Space! Then the glory of God fell. A Widow gathers empty jars? Space! Then the oil flowed. John the Baptists ministry? Space! Then the messiah came. New Wineskins? Space! Then came the New Wine.

God wanted me to discover just exactly what it means to become an authentic follower of Jesus. He wanted me to become like Him but in order to do that life couldn’t carry on as it had been doing. I believe God has so much energy, life and creativity lined up for us, and as a father He desperately wants you and I to succeed and to become like him.

The issue is that the space we create for God is often inappropriate, it’s unable to contain what God has for us. If He poured out his creativity into our crowded, cluttered and chaotic lives, much of it would be wasted, lost even indistinguishable from the clutter of 21st century living.
The outworking of this insight for me is still ongoing. Practically I had to create space to ‘restore’ my soul, to discover I’m loved by God and that I have a unique way of connecting with Him and the world around me. I had to say ‘no’ to the good stuff in order to position myself for the best. Creating space helped me to discover my mission, discovering my mission has enabled me to say no to some good stuff as well as to the bad,

Creating space was also about allowing me to become myself. Sounds strange, but I began to realise that God has made me…well me! He’s given me gifts and a personality that has to be given room to grow and to develop. I had been caught up doing stuff that just wasn’t me and I had to create a space to let my strengths flourish.

Creating space was about areas of my heart that had been cordoned off, made inaccessible to God through unforgiveness and bitterness. When Jesus, talked about the parable of the sower, many, if not all of the audience depended on the land. Many of those knew that most of the ‘good soil’ had been swallowed up by the rich and the powerful and by those in collaboration with the occupying Roman army. When Jesus talked about having to sow on the margins of the land, the pathways, the land chocked with weeds etc the listeners identified with this, because this was their everyday experience.

Why am I saying this? Land condition and heart condition were intertwined in the story of Israel, you can see that all the way through the Old testament. If the physical land was occupied, the people had only the margins to live off. Jesus was saying to his people, your heart is occupied by a foreign enemy and I’m left with only the margins to work on. If unforgiveness and bitterness are occupying your heart, God is left only with the margins and in doing so you are running a high risk strategy of losing whatever God gives to you.

Finally creating space is also about inappropriate structures that are outdated and that need to change. New Wineskins are needed, new flexible and relevant ways to create an authentic, Jesus following community that continues to complete the mission given to it by it’s leader to proclaim in word and deed the good news of the gospel. Have we created church structures that are now inappropriate and inadequate to contain the creativity and blessing of God?

If you want my opinion….well maybe next time.

Jonathan is one of the leaders at The Church @ Junction 10 in Walsall. He is an avid Man Utd fan, a lover of books, a secret trekkie and would love to personally lead Anne Hatheway to the Lord!