My Wheaton Story

When I arrived at the airport, all the "aliens" were greeted with a good old fashioned American welcome of over two hours in a passport control queue of around 600 people, being tackled by 3 surly customs guards, while watching 6 empty booths for the trickle of Americans passing straight through. So I apologised profusely to Tony, my host, who was very gracious when I finally emerged.
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Just then he had a chance encounter with two other good friends of his plus wives, who had also just arrived. One was Michael Quicke, one-time Principal of Spurgeon's College and author of a ground-breaking book on preaching called, "360 Degree Preaching"; and the other was Bob Wiseheart, a retired pastor of various American Baptist Churches. It seemed a good opportunity for everyone and a personal privilege for me to meet the man behind a book I had studied during my training for ministry and we decided to meet for lunch the following day.

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On the way back Tony was really buzzing about this felicitous meeting and we chatted about how the Lord leads and talked about how in Acts the Holy Spirit led Philip to even witness to an Ethiopian Government Official. We were both very encouraged about our encounter at the airport.

The following day was very precious. I got on really well with Bob who had just the loveliest spirit and was so gracious towards me. He decided to take me around Chicago and poured his life & wisdom into me during my trip. We talked about every single aspect of pastoral ministry you could imagine and he gently mentored me with a real father's heart. I thank the Lord for his kindness and ministry to me. I will NEVER forget it.

While I was at Wheaton, I spent quite a bit of time in the library. One day I returned to my computer and there was a guy sat at the next station to mine who was just leaving. We got chatting briefly and he asked what I was doing in Wheaton. Then he said, "You know, I just feel I should invite you to a banquet at the Hilton I am organising. It is usually $75 for a ticket, but I want you to come as my guest. It's an Ethiopian-American banquet." I thought this a bit unusual and fobbed him off. Later at Tony and Marion's I asked them if it was normal for a total stranger to invite you to a banquet at a top hotel. They counselled caution.

The next morning though I was lying in bed and remembered that passage in Acts where Philip went to witness to the Ethiopian Eunuch and I started to read...

Ac 8:26 Now an angel of the Lord said to Philip, "Go south to the road—the desert road—that goes down from Jerusalem to Gaza." 27 So he started out, and on his way he met an Ethiopian eunuch, an important official in charge of all the treasury of Candace, queen of the Ethiopians...

That was all I needed to read. Ethiopian Official. Ethiopian Banquet! Maybe the Lord was directing me to go to this thing! So that's how I ended up being at the Hilton in my jeans and hoodie at a banquet of 500 very well-dressed people, sitting next to one of the four organisers (the friend in the library) and finding out about Christians who had been granted the most amazing open door into Ethiopia: a country, incidentally, called the Gateway to Africa.

The Ethiopian Ambassador to the United Nations, His Excellency Kassahun Ayele

But here's the craziest part. What I didn't know was that the honoured guest at this event was the Ethiopian Ambassador to the United Nations, His Excellency Kassahun Ayele, an important government official. As I sat there, I felt the Lord telling me I was to go pray for him and give him a prophetic word. After the banquet I had opportunity to meet him and he listened intently as I shared the word I sensed the Lord had given me; he then graciously allowed me to pray for him and asked if I would keep in touch by email.

I used to preach about the verse where Philip is told to go to the chariot. 'The Spirit told Philip, "Go to that chariot and stay near it." Then Philip ran...' as a beautiful illustration of a willingness to be led by the Spirit. I thank the Lord for the encounter he gave me and the way he arranged for me to end up in that special place. I am always praying that I will keep in step with the Spirit, that the Lord would open doors and give me divine appointments; that I will move and operate in the gifts and anointing of the Holy Spirit. And I am so grateful that the Lord is still teaching me.

And I am learning.

Back. Up. Your. Data.

In my first year at LST I got to know a dissertation student who was running her bibliography off a floppy disk and had no copy on a hard disk anywhere. I didn't feel I ought to keep nagging this particular acquaintance, so I didn't labour the point about always having multiple copies in different places.

A few days later, the inevitable happened. The floppy corrupted. She lost every single reference of the hundreds she had, and had to go through the entire library making up her bibliography all over again. It took her days and she was as MISERABLE as sin. I empathised passionately. I wrung my hands in concert with hers. But what could I do?

Now read the story below, digest and learn. And the moral of the tale is, if you don't want to find yourself screaming in a massive trash dumper in the back of beyond, then back up your data in multiple places.

Now I've told you. And if you are doing a dissertation I wish you well. Happy New Year.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/21/AR2005122102311.html

Narnia books. Christian?

Well, as I have been taught for many years, when looking for the author's intent, you should always go to the author and see what they intended. (I love my expensive education. You can get a degree in it.)

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Here is C S Lewis' view (straight from the horse's mouth, so to speak) set out in a letter recently discovered in an archive, written in 1961 from Magdalen College, Oxford to a child fan.

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"The whole Narnian story is about Christ . . . Supposing there really was a world like Narnia . . . and supposing Christ wanted to go into that world and save it (as He did ours) what might have happened?

“The stories are my answer. Since Narnia is a world of talking beasts, I thought he would become a talking beast there as he became a man here. I pictured him becoming a lion there because a) the lion is supposed to be the king of beasts; b) Christ is called ‘the lion of Judah’ in the Bible.”

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So that settles it? Probably not.

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But as for C S Lewis's intention? It would dishonour him not to allow him to speak for himself. Here we are, Jack. Here's your moment.

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"The whole Narnian story is about Christ."

Creative Justice. Brilliant.

The Times December 08, 2005

Who says the law is an ass?
From David Charter in Painesville, Ohio
A maverick judge is making the punishment fit the crime

MICHELLE MURRAY anticipated a short jail term for abandoning 35 kittens in a forest. She never expected to be sentenced to spend a night in the woods.

In the event it was so cold that she spent just three hours in the open before being taken back to a warm prison cell, but Judge Mike Cicconetti had made his point. He wanted the 26-year-old Ohio housewife to feel the same pain as the animals she dumped, many of which later died.

“You don’t do that. You don’t leave these poor little animals out and, yes, I wanted to set an example for her future conduct or anybody else who was contemplating doing such a thing,” the plain-speaking 54-year-old judge said.

Judge Cicconetti’s unusual ruling was just the latest example of his unique brand of “creative justice” which has won him national acclaim. He was elected unopposed to serve another six years on the bench in Lake County, Ohio, last month, and this year won the presidency of the American Judges Association.

He sent a man caught with a loaded gun to the mortuary to view dead bodies, and ordered teenagers who let down tyres on school buses to throw a picnic for primary school children.

He has ordered noisy neighbours to spend a day of silence in the woods, or to listen to classical music instead of rock.

After heavy snowfall across northern Ohio this week he handed out sentences involving clearing snow instead of jail. “People will say that it is cruel and unusual punishment — I hear that all the time,” the judge told The Times yesterday. “But what is cruel and unusual punishment? Is it a little bit of embarrassment and humiliation? The old ducking chair they used to use in England, that’s cruel and unusual.

“But when you have people out there fulfilling these sentences, you are doing it for them and the victims and the community.”

The offenders have a choice: jail or a creative sentence. He said: “What could be better than shovelling snow for senior citizens? Do we serve the community better like that or by putting someone in jail at a cost of $70 (£45) a day?” He attributes his unusual approach to his tough background. He was the oldest of nine siblings who had to work part-time collecting rubbish to fund himself through college and studied law at night school.

“I didn’t go to a prestigious law firm. I had to gut it out. It makes you understand what the working man goes through,” he said. He admitted that not all of his creative sentences worked. He gave a drink-driver who tried to run away from police the chance to shorten his sentence if he completed a real running race. The finishing position would determine the time he would remain in jail. The man trained hard, came fifth and was let out five days later, only to use his new athletic skills to snatch a woman’s purse. He was sent to prison by another court.

A drawer in his cramped office in the Painesville Municipal Courthouse is full of thank-you letters from both victims and criminals. The other day he met the uncle of a teenager he ordered to sit outside a pornographic video store. “Part of the sentence, a condition of his probation, was that he finished high school and got a job. He did both and his uncle said he was doing great now.

“When you engage people and praise them for their good behaviour, not unlike children, it helps their self-esteem. My judicial philosophy is really not that much different from a parental philosophy,” he said.

“I have five children. You can paddle them or spank them but what do you gain? Most people want to be good but for little obstacles or habits. We have to change the habits and remove the obstacles. That’s our job.”

JUDGE CICCONETTI'S CREATIVE JUSTICE

A man who called a police officer a pig was sentenced to spend two hours standing in a pen with a hog in central Painesville with a sign saying: “This is not a police officer”

An 18-year-old who stole pornographic videos was ordered by Judge Cicconetti, below right, to sit outside the shop wearing a blindfold and a sign saying “See no evil”

A woman who dumped 35 kittens in the woods was told to spend the night in the same place in freezing conditions

Two teenagers who defaced a nativity statue of Jesus with the number 666 had to lead a donkey through the streets wearing a sign saying “Sorry for the jackass offence”

A couple caught having sex on the beach of Lake Erie were told to apologise in local newspapers

Copyright 2005 Times Newspapers Ltd.

I must say...

I think Marie looked particularly pretty today...

A Fitting Tribute to Rosa Parks

Rosa Parks, whose act of civil disobedience sparked off major civil rights changes in the United States of America, recently passed away. The story of the bus where she made her stand - by staying seated - is a beautiful piece of history from a unique angle.