Someone in our congregation passed me this quote from Stott on leadership:

Christian leadership appears to break down into five main ingredients:

• clear vision
• hard work
• dogged perseverance
• humble service
• iron discipline 

 I find it too easy to only write about the spiritual side of leadership. What a good corrective!

Added two recent Bible messages here:

Genesis 40 - the answer to the zeitgeist 

Luke 15 - three ways to live 

PS to my last. If you haven't heard of Jim Packer, WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN?

Go to Amazon, purchase his book "Knowing God" and read it right now! A 20th Century classic up there with the likes of Stott's "The Cross of Christ"

Ruth Gledhill, attending GAFCON in Jerusalem, reports on her blog some comments from Jim Packer (no less), that were he to have 5 minutes with Rowan Williams he might use them to ask him to resign. The reason: inconsistency (and therefore inability to lead within his own communion) on the subject of homosexuality.

In the blog, Gledhill glosses over the immense elder statesman stature of Packer in a way that suggests that - astonishingly - she hasn't come across him. The blog therefore attracted a HUGE postbag of comments and no little heatedness. And some venom. The reaction is around both the nature of the Anglican communion (and how dare anyone disrupt it) and the way that the debate over human sexuality is being handled within it. Or, in Williams case, the avoidance of it being handled, leading to the accusation that his approach is the worst of all worlds.

How I wish that we had more people of whom we could use the word "statesman" (gender-inclusively!). Regardless of their position on a particular issue, it is the presence of statesmen who elevate the discussion. It is statesmen who en-noble national discourse. It is statesmen who, even when they have to disagree, part company (or even anathamatise) do so with tears rather than venom. It is statesmen who represent the other side of the debate as the other would best like to be represented. It is statesmen who decline to sling mud and stop others doing so. It is statesmen who stop others indulging in negative campaigning. Statesmen stop us getting down and dirty.

It seems to me that in contentious times - either in individual churches or in a worldwide communion - it is crucial that the the discourse happens with the utmost seriousness AND the utmost kindness. I have three principles for relating to other Christians - confession (ie doctrine), clarity and kindness. I know too many who are confessional and clear but not kind (and are therefore hard). And too many who are kind but not confessional or clear (and therefore vague). But few who try to do all three.

From the little I have seen of Packer's comments they would seem to all three very well. When we have to separate from other believers or from a Church, when we have to bring words of sharp critique, it should always be with the kindness of God-in-Christ in view.

I agree with Packer's assessment of Williams. I also like the gentleness with which it was expressed. I have several really good friends who are gay and who are Christian. When I have to draw real boundaries on the extent to which I might be able to work with them and other non-heterosexuals, when there are opportunities to have deep discussion with them in which we disagree to a profound degree, I pray there will be ways to do so with winsome kindness. Kindness which neither gives up on biblical Christianity, nor ever lets that Christianity get expressed with venom.

It is always horrid to see communions fragment. But it is more horrid still to see the discourse happen in such a way that people cross the road to avoid each other afterwards. Much prayer is needed for Anglican brothers and sisters at the moment and particularly for statesmen who will neither fudge the debate for the sake of lowest-common-denominator visible organisational unity (over and against unity in the truth), nor allow the international discourse (and likely fragmentation) to be controlled by the unkindest of parties on either side.

Ruth Gledhill's blog page here 

I've just attended the funeral of my nest door neighbour. He was a lovely man and a good neighbour. As far as I could tell he never accepted Christ.

Two things struck me as strange at the funeral.  The first was singing a hymn about the accepting grace of God, as the presiding vicar assured everyone of the departed's eternal welcome with Christ in heaven. I am sure that the vast majority of people present knew almost nothing about what they were singing about, but it seemed to bring them an odd sort of comfort.

The reason that God does everything he does, is the display of the greatness of the glory of his grace. His grace is, literally, the greatest thing in all creation. I found it intriguing that in an environment that is almost completely ignorant of this that, nevertheless, there was some superstitious comfort being felt. Might it be that even at our most godless there is something deep inside that makes people resonate and long for grace, even if they can't articulate it or haven't heard the gospel? Maybe grace is built and threaded that deeply into the fabric of reality. 

The second thing that struck me was that outside the chapel in the garden of remembrance were a set of placards bearing names for funerals later in the day. The bodies hadn't arrived yet. It was almsot as if those cards were waiting for people to depart. I couldn't help but think "one day my name is going to be on one of those. One of those is waiting for me, just like one is waiting for all these named people who have died this week." 

The odd thing was that everyone in the garden looked at them as a indication of who had ceased to be. I saw, rather, a list of those who are alive, for judgement and either resurrection with Christ, or eternal condemnation. I left profoundly grateful that when I die I am not going to cease to be and I am not going to face that condemnation.

The extent of the greatness of the glory of God's grace is scarcely more powerfully visible, for those who have eyes to see, than in a garden of remembrance. Please God may I have the chance to tell as many people as I can to make sure of the resurrection from the dead before they - and I - end up in that box.