Hope is here.

Dear friends,

As I travel with SOMA UK around the Anglican World I have made some vital discoveries. Away from the noise of politics and twitter rage, there are millions of stories of faith, love and hope. 

I see that hope everywhere. All around the world I meet people coming alive in Christ. This may be in the slums of Kibere, Nairobi. It may be in Ugandan refugee camps where people have fled the DRC from machetes and machine guns. SOMA teams serving around the globe have seen that hope. Whether a USA/New Zealand team working with the Inuit people in a place a sleigh would struggle to reach, or a SOMA Australia team baking in the South Pacific heat of the Solomon Islands, they have seen that hope. From Halmsted in Sweden to Buenos Aires in Argentina. From Nepal to Nigeria. Hope is everywhere. 

The nervous system of the body of Christ holds us together, amplifying not just the cross-like pain, but the hard-won hallelujahs and resurrection hope. I recently heard Nicky Gumbel say he is neither an optimist nor a pessimist, but a ‘Jesus-Christ-has-died-and-is-risen-again-ist.’

He is right to put his confidence in that story. As part of God’s family we are a resurrection people, serving a God who taught us to renounce self, take up the cross and follow him [Mt 16:24]. Though we were once dead in our sins, we are now seated with him in heavenly places [Eph 2]. We have been chosen, called, made right with God and glorified [Rom 8:30]. 

All this because Jesus ‘The Lamb’ Wins [Rev 5]. Because of undeserved grace the Father lavishes on us. Because of Christ’s sacrifice and victory over death, and sin, and Satan. Freed and forgiven, as resurrection people we serve this Lamb who was slain, who reigns on high, who gives gifts to his people through the Holy Spirit and who will come back to judge the living and the dead. We may be called to walk the path of the cross together, but joy always comes in the morning. 

This gospel journey of life from death emerging somehow echoes up that nervous system of the body of Christ. It cries out to the spiritually sleepy part of the church with a shout, “C’MON!” Rise up from your slumber [Rom 13:11]. Don’t “fall away  in a time of testing’, or ‘get choked by life’s worries, riches and pleasures’ [Luke 8:13-14]. “WAKE UP!”

This little book of letters to the Anglican Churches will try to paint that resurrection picture of hope. It is easy to slip into dissecting everything that is wrong with the Church of England or Communion. I don’t want to spend much time on that. Instead I want to paint a picture of hope that starts from the viewpoint that The Lamb Wins. We are ‘Jesus-Christ-has-died-and-is-risen-again-ists’. Hope is here. 

Nevertheless it is a wonderful gospel truth that resurrection comes after death. After the valley of the shadow of death moments dry bones come to life. But like the seed falling into the ground in Jesus’ parable, death was needed before life could come.  

Over the next few days we’ll look at the seven churches in Revelation. Letters written by Jesus himself to teach, rebuke, correct and give instruction [2 Tim 3:16]. We’ll see the battles they faced and how their lessons may map onto some Anglican churches today.. Because I do want to acknowledge that this is written at a time when outwardly much of our Communion and wider Anglican world could fade away – and that is not just in the West. 

It is true that in places:

  We have fractured relationships that could make the Corinthian Church blush. 

  We have licentiousness (‘I did it my way’) and legalism (‘you do it my way’). 

  We have outright civil war both in the Communion and in the ‘motherchurch’ 

  We have churches under threat from culture, jihad, secularism and sleepiness. 

But we have much more than that in our Anglican heritage and present. We have something worth contending for that I couldn’t fully appreciate until I started travelling around the world and nation with SOMA UK. I want to evoke a longing for the church we should and could be. I want to draw out stories where churches and people have ‘overcome’ in the way that Jesus asks us to. And because the Lamb Wins, I want to say ‘Hope is here, indeed!’

That hope is often best found on the edges. I serve on the board of a mission agency who has ‘To the Edges’ as its motto. We’ve found both in the gospels and in the global story of the church, that it is often flawed people on geographical, religious or social edges, whose passionate zeal to bring renewal ends up having local, regional, national and even international impact. 

I recently heard a retired clergymen discussing some Bishops and Archbishops he knew. He was saying that when people he knew had been appointed Suffragan (Area) Bishops they realised it wasn’t a great job, so they tried to become a Diocesan. When they got to be a Diocesan they realised that wasn’t a great job so they applied to be Archbishop, but when one of them got there they quickly realised it was the worst job of all.

The retired clergyman was trying to make the point that when you step out of leading a local church you have about five years until you become an ‘institutional native’ and the demanding machine of diocesan and national church life snares you up. That is compounded if you’ve misinterpreted the role of Bishop as a ‘focus of unity’ to mean trying to please everyone all the time, committed to maintaining a status quo while the world changes around you, or compromise on what you solemnly swore in your ordination and consecration vows.

The parish priest he was talking to was keen to join in. He exclaimed that the most important role was the parish vicar. And as I am married to a very good parish priest I have to say he has a point. But vital as that role may be, and wonderfully equipping and releasing as the episcopal roles can be, it strikes me that the people truly on the edges are oftentimes the unknown saints.

These are some of the stories I want to celebrate in the coming pages. 

Let me start with the story of Zadock, a Christian brother who joined a SOMA Kenya team to South Sudan. I was serving on the team along with another Kenyan, a Brit, and a German. One night the other Kenyan Revd Capt Mary had preached her heart out to the youths in Jonglei convinced that there was forgiveness they needed to offer. But by the end of the preach there was nowhere near the response she had hoped to see. We kept back a few of the leaders and found out more. One very articulate youth leader told how he had recently been a victim of murderous inter-tribal raids that had stolen cattle, and three members of his family. It was no surprise that forgiveness was so hard. 

The next day, after some considerable prayer and spiritual warfare, Zadock got up to speak. He told his story of serving as a youth leader in KIbere during the 2007 political riots. Standing in the gap to preserve the lives of people from a tribe different to him, against others from his own tribe. They threatened to burn down his house with him in it (which would have set a square kilometer of slum alight). He spoke of how he then had to forgive those who came after him. 

The difference in that tin roofed cathedral church was palpable after Zadock spoke. He had withstood life-threatening violence and chosen to forgive. It wasn’t the same situation as rural cattle rustling and murder, but it showed the same heart-battle to stand up, do the right thing, and to forgive. We had a breakthrough in the room, and maybe 7 out of every 10 young leaders were able to respond that day, in a move that would put them on the side of peace. 

A decade later Zadock was serving as an Anglican priest in that same slum. You can watch his story being told live in Juba here (with arabic translation), or on our Learning Cohort extended interviews here.

The Lamb who was slain, who reigns on high, who gives gifts to his people through the Holy Spirit and who will come back to judge the living and the dead enables us to forgive. He makes breakthroughs possible. He stops the past controlling our present.  Because of his grace. Because of his sacrifice. Because of his victory over death and sin and Satan – The Lamb Wins. And he is doing that today in countless Anglican Churches around the world. 

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Read More in this Series

The Lamb Wins Whole Series Catch Up : Introduction: Chp 1: Hope is Here | Chp 2: First, Love: Ephesus | Chp 3: Fear Not: Smyrna | Chp 4: I Know: Pergamum | Chp 5: Tolerate This: Thyatira | Chp 6: Wake Up: Sardis | Chp 7: Hold On: Philadelphia