We read this in chapter 2 verse 2-3. And then the king asks Nehemiah that fateful question - verse 4 - ‘What do you want?’

This was Nehemiah’s moment of truth - the moment to choose between his human responsibility - and his God-ordained passion. When you think about it Nehemiah wasn’t the obvious choice to rebuild the walls of Jerusalem. He wasn’t an architect, or a builder - he was a humble cupbearer. So far as we know he’d never even been to Jerusalem. Yes, he was severely unqualified for the job. Nehemiah could have come up with any number of good reasons not to do the job. Why didn’t Hanani go and do it - at least he’d been to Jerusalem? Besides Nehemiah already had a steady job and a settled life in Babylon

But when it comes to doing the will of God, calling is more important than any human qualification. And what Nehemiah had was a God-ordained calling and passion. Somewhere deep within his soul, Nehemiah had heard the voice of God. You would have to say it was the prompting of the Holy Spirit He could so easily have quenched it - but he allowed to take root and grow - a flickering ember became a raging fire. Nehemiah had a passion to be more the a cupbearer. He had a desire to do great things for God. The psalmist writes ‘Delight yourself in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart’ (37.4)

Think about the Rich Young Ruler in Mark 10.17ff. On paper, the rich young ruler had it all - wealth, youth, popularity, power. Yet he came to Jesus and asked ‘What do I lack?’ Despite everything he had, he knew that something was missing. What was missing? I’ll tell you - a God-ordained passion
His life was too easy, too predictable, too comfortable. There was a longing in him to do more than just not do anything wrong. He kept all the commandments, but instead of finding fulfillment, it felt like a cage

I’m told that people who have visited Africa and seen wildlife in the wild have a very threshold of boredom when visiting zoos. Watching a caged animal is boring when you’ve seen it grazing in its natural habitat

A lot of Christians are like that. We’re like animals living in a zoo cage. Everything is very nice and cosy, but deep down we know that’s not how it was meant to be. We’re like the rich young ruler
We try really hard to keep God’s commandments - and for the most part - we do. But there a gnawing feeling within us that we were meant to do more

There are lots of reasons we don’t come out of our cages, even Jesus has opened them for us. For the rich young ruler it was obvious that the reason was money. That’s why Jesus said ‘go and sell all you have, give it to the poor - THEN come and follow me’. For us it might be money - but it probably isn’t. There are lots of reasons we - and I include me - don’t follow Jesus in a spirit of wild adventure
But this morning I just want to touch on two

The first is ASSUMPTIONS. I’m too old, I’m too young. It’s too late, It’s too soon. I haven’t been in the church long enough, I’ve been in the church to long. I’m under qualified, I’m over qualified We place so many barriers in between ourselves and God’s will, that doing anything at all for God gets crowded out in a sea of negative assumptions...

Like Nehemiah assuming that he was too far away to do anything about Jerusalem
Like Noah assuming he was too old to build a boat for God
Like David assuming he was too weak to fight Goliath
Like Jeremiah assuming he was too young to speak up for God

Let me say this - and there are numerous biblical examples that I could quote - you will NEVER be good enough, or smart enough, or qualified enough - to follow a holy passion. And I believe it is Satan whispering in our ear that keeps us in the cage

But your qualifications aren’t the issue. When you follow God the best you can do is no longer the best you can do, but the best God can do. And God is able to do immeasurably more than all you can ask or imagine

The second reason I want touch on as to why we don’t follow God is ROUTINE. Somewhere along the way following God stopped being an adventure and started being a chore. Now don’t get me wrong - there’s nothing fundamentally wrong with routine. In fact spiritual growth is rooted in healthy and regular spiritual routine. But when routines becomes routine they become empty rituals that keep us caged. And then we need to break out of those routines - both in the church, and in our lives..

Where have we got too comfortable as Christ followers?
Where has life got too routine?
Where have we allowed what we do in church to become dull and boring?
That’s where we desperately need the Holy Spirit to jolt us out of routine and fire us into the re-discovery of adventure and sheer passion of following Jesus

Many years ago when I was Vicar of Oakenshaw, a few of us (including then Vicar Paul Ayers) used to beetle off to Parcevall Hall with a few other to talk about evangelism with Robin Gamble who was then the Evangelism Adviser in the Diocese. Those meetings were the very beginnings of what eventually became a course called ‘Leading your church into growth’

Since those days things have moved on a bit. I’m now the Vicar here and the Evangelism Adviser. Robin moved on to Manchester, and more recently to be Vicar of Idle. more importantly, Leading your Church into Growth has developed into a major national teaching program with at least three major courses each year. I’m told that more than one in ten clergy in the whole Church of England have now done the course. Impressive,

Next week, we’re coming full circle with a Diocesan Leading Your Church into Growth course, organised by myself and led by Robin Gamble and the new Diocesan Evangelism Adviser Sue Hope. Most of the clergy in the Diocese including the Bishop, both Archdeacons, the Dean and all the senior staff, will be spending four days at Sneaton Castle taking part in this exciting and challenging course.

Apart from the fact that I’m going to have quite of organising and generally running around sorting stuff out (such is the life of a conference organiser) I am also really looking forward to really being able to think through and strategize for how our own church can really grow.

There’ll be plenty of chance to reflect later on what this might mean for us. I’ll be taking the next two Sundays to give some initial thoughts, plus there will be a follow up day in September that I hope that a group of key leaders from our Church will come with me to.

It’s vital that we engender a culture of growth at St Cuthberts - where evangelism, mission and growth are part of the ‘fabric’ of who we are as a church...

But did you know that nine out of 10 adults say time with their loved one on Valentine’s Day is more important than an indulgent gift – with men valuing quality time more than women.

That is the result of research published by the Church of England, which asked 1,000 people to choose whether they would prefer more time with their Valentine, or an expensive present.

Eighty-nine percent of people currently in a relationship said they preferred quality time together (91 per cent of men, 86 per cent of women), whereas only eight per cent favoured an indulgent gift (six per cent of men, 10 per cent of women).

The website has responded to the findings by featuring a new romantic prayer for couples to pray together on Valentine’s Day, thanking God for quality time, and celebrating togetherness and commitment.

Couples are encouraged to pray: “Loving God, on this Valentine’s Day, we might give gifts like flowers or cards, or look forward to the romance of a meal out, but the joy of sharing in these things is our time together.”

The prayer also offers: “We thank you, Lord, for the time we will spend together today, and every day. And in that precious time, we pray our love will grow stronger and deeper. “

It is released during National Marriage Week, which this year has the theme Celebrating Commitment, “to reflect both the way that many couples see marriage, and the need for society at large to continue to celebrate the stability that married families bring to society”.

Revd Jan Harney, co-author of the new prayer and the resident 'blogging reverend' of the http://www.newlyweds-uk.com/website commented: “Anyone can grab a gift to hand to someone – but giving a person your undivided attention is the ultimate compliment. Love is what matters to people, not expensive presents. These results underline that couples can have a special Valentine’s Day even if they have less money at the moment. After all, the best things in life are free.”

Here's the prayer for couples - why not use it yourself, it doesn't have to just be Valentine's Day that you can share your love together.

Loving God, on this Valentine’s Day,
we might give gifts like flowers or cards,
or look forward to the romance of a meal out,
but the joy of sharing in these things is our time together.

We thank you, Lord, for the time we will spend together today, and every day.
And in that precious time, we pray our love will grow stronger and deeper.
Remind us today to cherish each other,
And to value the way our commitment inspires and supports all those around us.

Forgive us, Lord, when we have hurt one another,
Hurt other people,
Hurt you.

Help us, Lord, in the ups and downs of life,
to be faithful to one another,
and to you.

So with grateful and loving hearts,
we entrust this day
and each other,
into your hands,
through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen

There's a load of great Christian sites here, so why not click through these links and you'll surely find some that you want to bookmark for future reference

1. Tim Challies 
2. Between Two Worlds / Justin Taylor 
3. Stuff Christians Like / Jon Acuff 
4. Out of Ur 
5. The Resurgence / Mark Driscoll 
6. GetReligion 
7. Swerve / Craig Groeschel & Bobby Gruenewald 
8. Pyromaniacs / Phil Johnson 
9. Ragamuffin Soul / Carlos Whittaker 
10. The Evangelical Outpost / Joe Carter 
11. Church Marketing Sucks / Brad Abare & Kevin Hendricks
12. Internet Monk / Michael Spencer 
13. Desiring God / John Piper
14. Perry Noble 
15. Tall Skinny Kiwi / Andrew Jones 
16. Monday Morning Insight / Todd Rhoades 
17. Church Relevance / Kent Shaffer 
18. FlowerDust / Anne Jackson 
19. Leading Smart / Tim Stevens 
20. Steven Furtick 
21. Emergent Village 
22. Vintage Faith / Dan Kimball 
23. Adrian Warnock 
24. Dr. Albert Mohler 
25. Without Wax / Pete Wilson

There's a wide range and variety of sites here. OK, they are mainly American (only Tall Skinny Kiwi is UK based, and he's a Kiwi in exile!) but there is all sorts of stuff here - sermons, leadership, satire, testimony and lots more.

If anyone has loads of time, then the full list is printed out here - it goes down to number 60, believe it or ont.

Now thats easy enough for the 9.30 am - since almost every song we ever sing is at least a hundred years odl and we are consciously trying to use hymnody that is, to coin the phrase, 'traditional'.

But its an entirely different matter for the 11.00 am, largely because there has been such a change in the music that we use for worship over that relatively (in the context of the whole history of the church) short period of time. It got me thinking about just how far we've come over the past fifty years!

Back in 1959 there really only was 'the hymn book' - largely consisting of tried and trusted stuff from previous centuries. It wasn't until the mid 1960's that we started to see new material emerging. Songbooks like 'Youth Praise' might look a bit dated now, but they were incredibly radical and groundbreaking back then - with songs set out for...shock horror...guitars!!! Most of the songs from that era have long since passed from popular use, and in any case I suspect that few were ever sung at St Cuthberts, but we owe those writer a great debt in that they broke the mould for what followed. And what followed was books like 'Sounds of Living Waters' and 'Fresh Sounds' - gentle folks songs, many from the venerable 'Fisherfolk' group, that gradually started to come into popular use. Many churches - and I hear that this happened at St Cuthberts - produced photocopied booklets of songs for use in home groups, evening services and so on. And so it was that 'Seek ye first', 'Freely Freely', 'We really want to thank you Lord' and many others started to find their way into use.

The next big thing to hit the worship scene was 'Mission Praise', boosted by the Billy Graham missions in the mid 1980's, closely followed by the first 'Songs of Fellowship'. Many churches were now using a blend of hymn book and 'chorus book' in their services, and the trickle of worship songs became a massive torrent with the arrival of worship-producing outfits like Vineyard, Integrity Music, Soul Survivor and Hillsongs through the 1990s, and the explosion of events like Spring Harvest and New Wine provided the focus and showcase for new worship leaders and worship songs.

It's hard to remember just how subversive we felt back in the late 1970's with our badly-produced stapled together booklets of 'choruses', singing in someones front room led by a guitarist who possibly could only manage about three chords!! Ah...those were the days...

We've come a long way...

The (relatively) good news is that we had a very slight rise in our numbers for 2008, as against, 2007. not so much that we want to go shouting from the rooftops, but - hey - its better than the numbers going down the tubes isn't it!!

Numbers and statistics are a bit of an interest of mine, as many will have realised - I will often quote surveys or polls or statistics in Sunday sermons. There's an old adage that 'you can prove anything with statistics' - which although not always strictly true, does have a certain validity. It's precisely for that reason that slight falls or - as in our case - slight rises in numbers don't really mean much. Various factors play into the figures and there is a degree of statistical inaccuracy in how these figures are compiled.

However, there are still many interesting truths that can be derived from these annual surveys, especially when viewed over a period of years. It's pretty hard to deny that a fall from an average attendance of 100 down to an average of 60 is anything other than worrying! But even sharp rises and falls can disguise deeper changes in attendance patterns. For example, most people now come to Church less than they used to - by which I'm meaning so-called 'regulars'. Whereas there was a time when a 'regular member's would come every single Sunday apart from maybe one week per year (Bradford holiday week) when they'd be off to Morecambe or wherever! Nowadays people have far more holidays, take weekends away, miss weeks for family commitments or simply miss a Sunday for no apparent obvious reason. It isn't inaccurate to say that many 'regular' members will only be in Church on, say, 40 Sundays per year.

Clearly, if people who used to come 50 Sundays per year might now be coming for 40 Sundays per year, then that is going to result in something like a 20% fall in attendance figures if replicated across the Church - and yet nobody has actually 'left'. All the same people still come, but they just come less often!

So, changing social circumstances, new work patterns, different patterns of family life - these are just some of the reasons that negatively affect our statistics, and show that there is often a more complex pattern than might be seen from just a simple numerical count. And, of course it means that to actually have a (albeit, very small) rise in our numbers when attendance patterns are tending to go in the opposite direction shows that we are actually most likely experiencing some modest church growth. If you think about it, you have to be growing to even stand still, in an age when people are generally coming to church less.

My heads starting to hurt now with the number crunching! Suffice to say, that there are a few encouraging signs that are hidden within our bald statistics. Nothing to get too excited about, and certainly no cause for complacency - but reasons to be encouraged nonetheless...

One thing that I feel needed to be looked at was the whole concept of 'the Vicar's day off'. Now, at this point I'm sure many of you are thinking about the stereotypical line 'Don't Vicar's only work on a Sunday?' - but we don't really believe that, do we? Please tell me that we don't actually believe that old chestnut...hahaha.

Anyway, for anyone who forgot, my day off has always been Friday. I don't know its Friday - it's been Friday since I was ordained, and - to be honest - I think I'd find it odd to have any other day off now. We probably need a reminder that Friday is my day off since I've far too often ended up working some or all of Fridays. It is likely that some church members don't even know that Friday is meant to be my day off. And that's probably as much fault as anyone elses, to be honest...

From now onwards, I'm going to be redoubling my efforts to stick to Fridays off. I had a full day off this past Friday and really felt a lot better for it. So much so that I plan to be very strict about this from now on. That means no sermon prep, no admin, no funerals, no wedding rehearsals, no phone calls, no emailing, no answering the phone or the door. Nothingg. No exceptions.

I'd be really grateful if everyone would help here by not trying to circumnavigate things and get me to do things on Fridays. Being as soft-hearted as I am, I'd probably end up 'giving in' - and that's not good! I'm hoping that taking a regular day off will mean that I'm more effective and do a better job on the other six days - so, in the end, everybody wins out...

Thanks for listening and - don't worry - these weekly blog posts won't always be about me, me, me. Most of the time they'll be looking at wider issues in the Church, but this is just something I wanted to get off my chest.

That said, I’d like to encourage everyone at St Cuthberts to make a very specific New Year Resolution for 2009......I’d like everyone to resolve to be in Church on each and every Sunday that they can possibly make it.

Now, you’re probably thinking, at this point : ‘But I am there every Sunday...’. Actually the statistics show that it isn’t the case. Our numbers dropped in 2008 - not by people leaving or anything, but by those of us who are members coming less often! One of the things that we have to do is to keep accurate numbers for every Sunday to send in to the Diocese, so we actually know exactly how many people were in St Cuthberts on any given Sunday!

The reality is that on every Sunday - quite apart from those who happen to be ill, or away on holiday, or have to work - there are a whole bunch of people who just don't show up. Are you among them? Maybe its time to have a bit of a think about priorities - about what really matters on a Sunday morning. After all, there is plenty of time in the rest of the week for cooking, or reading the papers or going to the shops! Why does this matter? Well, 1 Corinthians 12 makes is clear that when Christians rejoice we all rejoice together - and when we suffer, we suffer together. It’s about being a community that meets together regularly!

I've noticed that on those Sunday when everything falls into place and more or less everyone turns out at the same time, there are LOADS of really positive comments and great feedback. See, the fact is that we all enjoy being part of a large congregation of people worshipping Jesus. And by the same token, it always feels a bit fglat when there are rows of empty chairs. Do you see what I'm saying? If we all make the effort, then everyone benefits...including us!

So the next time your tempted by a car boot sale, a trip to the seaside, a trip to Tesco’s or simply a morning under the duvet, maybe we need to remember that God wants us to come together once each week (Hebrews 10.25) to worship Him and to meet with fellow Christians for encouragement and support.

Let’s resolve to only miss Church in 2009 if we are ill, on holiday or genuinely unable to come for a really, really good reason....