Sorted Magazine

Category: Comment & Columnists

  • Comment: The abandoned car

    A building project I was working on involved a long journey by road. Once a week I would drive across the Pennines to visit a construction site in Harrogate, Yorkshire. Towards the end of the project it became a twice-weekly visit. One day I drove past a remote lay-by up on the moors, and there was an old Citroen BX parked up, with a flat rear tyre.

    I thought nothing of it until a few days later I went past the same spot and all the tyres on the car were flat, windscreen wipers were missing and the headlights removed. By the next visit the windows were smashed and the doors open. It was no longer secure and was open to the elements.

    Over the next few trips I noticed other bits of the car gradually went missing; wing mirrors, bumpers, seats, dash board, and eventually the whole car was overturned on the grass verge. It was just an empty shell. What once had been someone’s pride and joy now lay abandoned to its fate, unable to function. It was incapable of righting itself, an ugly sight, reflecting an ugly scavenging process over a relatively short period of time.

    Maybe the owner had driven it too hard and the engine just seized up. Maybe it was down to a lack of maintenance, constant failure or inadequate resources to keep it going. Maybe the owner just got fed up with the constant failures and disappointments and eventually abandoned the car.

    I’ll be honest, I know relatively little about car maintenance. What little I thought I knew has been superseded by electronic components which, when faulty, either must be thrown away or need a specialist to repair them. What I do know is that if you don’t look after the heart of the car, the engine, eventually it will cease to function. It might look ok on the outside, but it’s the condition of the inside that determines how long it will keep going.

    The abandoned car served as a visual reminder for me. I remembered that when I’m struggling and falling apart, when I’m angry and frustrated, when I feel a failure or have been let down, I don’t have to park up in a lay-by somewhere, or give up, or accept defeat, and abandon myself to an unknown future. There’s another choice I can make.

    A couple of weeks later I went past the lay-by again, wondering what else might have happened to the car. Instead the car had gone completely, removed, no doubt, to that great scrapyard in the sky.

    Don’t lose heart. Choose to believe that God has a plan and a purpose for you. He will never let you down. He never abandons us. He doesn’t consign us to the scrapyard, but instead offers us a hope and a future.

    Main Photo Credit: Matheus Ferrero via Unsplash

  • Review: Home by Jo Swinney

    Digital Editor’s Note: I’m excited and proud to welcome Rob Allwright as a Guest Writer here at the Sorted Magazine website. Rob brings a wealth of experience and is one of the most respected Christian reviewers in the UK. The energy Rob devotes to supporting and encouraging Christian creatives is staggering. His review show One Man In The Middle is broadcast by Branch FM, Heartsong Live and Hope FM. And I’m just a teensy bit excited that he will soon be joining the wonderful peeps at the Manchester based broadcaster Konnect Radio!

    Rob writes: Jo Swinney was a new name to me, but this is her third book, she has also written God Hunting and Through The Dark Woods but this book sounds a little different. Simply called Home – The Quest To Belong. This is not a tie-in with the Dreamworks animation but instead looks at our yearning for somewhere to call home, even for those who don’t actually base themselves in something permanent and solid.

    Part of this book is relating the author’s own experiences finding what makes ‘home’ for her. From what she explains here, she is quite qualified to expand on the understanding of home. For some of us home is just the place we find ourselves living, we’ve lived with parents, maybe had some college experiences, travelled but settled in to the work/home life which we currently enjoy. For Jo it was a little different, born in England, but moving to Portugal early in life, moving around through a few homes before her parents settled somewhere, but due to the nature of their job there was a constant community of people coming and going through the property. Then being sent back to boarding school in England, before going to university and then moving to Canada, via a gap-year in Zimbabwe. Then moving back to England with her new husband and moving into houses tied to his job role. It sounds exhausting just thinking about it. In among all that transience, Swinney lost her sense of what home was, before eventually rediscovering it. Through this she has realised that it’s not just the homeless who don’t really know where home is.

    At the beginning of the book Swinney seems a little bit apologetic that she is going to look at this subject, not just from her own experience, but also from a faith perspective. Having said that she explains that it is the worldview she holds so it makes sense to write from that. She explains that although the ultimate ‘home’ maybe in a relationship with God, she is not necessarily expecting her readers to agree with her, but it makes up part of how she sees the world.

    In addition to her own story, Swinney explores the quest to belong which she has encountered while reading her Bible. She looks at one of the most well-known characters, David the Shepherd, Giant Killer, Refugee and King. As Jo relates his story in relation to her subject she brings new life to this story, and she definitely doesn’t gloss over his mistakes and pitfalls, but reminds us that David was very human in his thoughts and attitudes. She writes about his story in a very clear and, at times, amusing fashion, outlining the relative parts of the story. Needless to say she struggles to say much positive about David when looking at home in relation to marriage, but instead uses his bad example and restlessness to hold up a mirror to our own relationships.

    Each chapter looks at a different aspect of what people call home. The feeling that somewhere else is home, through to home in family, culture, country, community and many other things before getting to home in things that are closer to home, your actual property, your job and your past. With a gentle humour the author relates the aspects from her life, from her friends and others while gently nudging the reader to consider what aspects of life would make them feel at home. It’s not just any one thing, at least not in this life, there is a little discussion about the idea of Heaven as our home, but she rejects the notion that we cannot feel at home here on earth.

    In the back of this book there is a series of ten questions to get you thinking further about the notion of home if you have a book group or study group which chooses to read this together. I have quite enjoyed this trek through the idea of home, it’s not a question that I have really thought about until now. Although having shaken up my ‘home’ life somewhat this year it’s perhaps become more important to consider this idea. What makes home, home? This book may well be able to give you the gentle guidance that you need to begin to feel at home in yourself and your circumstances, or to know what to head towards so that you feel truly at home.

    Main Photo Credit: Jan Tinneberg via Unsplash

  • Comment: Why pray for the media?

    Digital Editor’s Note: I’m so pleased to welcome Rev Peter Crumpler as our Guest Writer here at the Sorted Magazine website. I first met Peter at a training event in London when I was a Communications Officer and he was the Communications Director with the Church of England. He was so knowledgeable, yet so kind and humble! Peter has been working in and with the media for more than 50 years. He is the author of ‘Responding to Post-truth’ and a keen advocate for Christians engaging with the media.

    Peter writes: Where do you get your news? And what’s your favourite TV series, podcast or social media platform? How do you keep up to date with the football team you support, or get the latest update from international sporting events?

    We rely on the media, in all its forms, to tell us about our world, from our doorstep to events on distant continents. We take it for granted that we can glance at our smartphones or tablets and be up-to-date with news that affects us, and videos that make us laugh.

    Media matters. The media shapes our worldview and impacts how we respond to events and developments around us.

    That’s why I and other members of Christians in Media, a community of Christians working in and with the media, are encouraging all churches and Christians to join in a National Day of Prayer for the Media on Sunday October 29th.

    We are urging people to pray for everyone and anyone who works within media. From broadcasters, journalists, social media managers, church communicators, influencers, podcasters, radio hosts, camera operators, photographers, creatives, and so many more.

    The National Day of Prayer for the Media is for the people behind each post, each news item, each story that we see on our online phones and other devices.

    What might we be praying for? How about:

    • Giving thanks for all those called to serve God in the media.
    • For opportunities to build positive relationships with your local media including sharing stories of how your church is serving the community.
    • For wisdom and creativity for those in your church who manage their social media platforms, that through their content they may engage people.
    • That Christians who serve in the media may flourish in their faith and be channels of God’s love, grace and compassion.
    • That they may stand up for, and demonstrate, integrity, kindness and generosity of spirit.
    • That they may be messengers of hope, not fear, be light in the darkness, call out injustice, hold those in power to account and be a voice for those on the margins of life.
    • For strength and wisdom for journalists who face persecution in many parts of the world, as they seek to bring truthful facts and information.
    • For a young generation of Christians called to enter and lead this industry, through their passion, innovation and unique giftings.

    Christians who work in the media have been submitting prayers for the National Day of Prayer for the Media. ITV News journalist and presenter Julie Etchingham, wrote:

    Lord Jesus You are the word made flesh
    You are both the great communicator and the great communication.

    Lord, we thank you for all those you have called to serve in the world of media.
    We recognise the strategic and important role that media has in our world.

    Lord grant to each one:

    Discernment to hear your voice
    Wisdom in what to share,
    Integrity in how to share,
    Creativity in their sharing
    Courage to stand for truth
    Grace in serving you and others

    May your peace, presence, light their way.
    In the amazing name of Jesus.

    Amen

    In a world of post-truth and disinformation, the role of reliable, trusted media is vitally important. Christians have a key role to play by being involved in and with media; by encouraging and challenging the media; and by praying for its flourishing.

    The National Day of Prayer for the Media on October 29th is an important opportunity for churches and Christians to get involved. Christians can also join in an online Prayer Breakfast for the Media at 8am on Thursday October 12th with Christians in senior media roles leading the prayers.

    There’s more information about the National Day of Prayer for the Media, including prayer resources and ideas, at Christians in Media

    Main Photo Credit: Camilo Jimenez via Unsplash

  • Music Review: Parables

    Digital Editor’s Note: I’m excited and proud to welcome Rob Allwright as our Guest Writer here at the Sorted Magazine website. Rob brings a wealth of experience and is one of the most respected Christian reviewers in the UK. The energy Rob devotes to supporting and encouraging Christian creatives is staggering. His review show One Man In The Middle is broadcast by Branch FM, Heartsong Live and Hope FM. And I’m just a teensy bit excited that he will soon be joining the wonderful peeps at the Manchester based broadcaster Konnect Radio!

    Rob writes: Those who have been immersed in the UK Independent Christian scene for a while might be familiar with the name Olwen Ringrose. In 2004 she recorded Live at the Chapel Royal, an album of the songs that she had been writing across the previous decade or more. She followed this in 2006 with an album called Daughter of the King and this release caught the attention of music lovers and critics alike and then in 2009 she released an EP called Hardly A Day. It’s been 13 years since her last release but in that time she has made time to raise her family, but also to lead worship in her local church. In 2018 she returned to writing and now she has rolled out this new recording called Parables which is a little bit different to much of what is on the market at the moment. You can find this album on streaming services and it features five tracks inspired by some of the parables of Jesus. What marks this out as properly different is that there is a version of this available through Bandcamp, which allows you to buy a version with ten tracks, the other five tracks are spoken word poems which set the scene for the song and parable that is to be visited next on the album.

    The first spoken word poem opens the album, setting the scene reminding us of the oral histories of culture and how Jesus came with new original stories about the Kingdom of Heaven described as Nuggets of Wisdom. These parables are not just stories, they point us to God. It is the Kingdom of Heaven that is the subject of the first track as Olwen skips through some of these well known illustrations from Jesus about what the Kingdom is like, a mustard seed, yeast, great treasure. There is no real desire here to give any theology, but more a reminder of the parables as pictures of something we won’t ever really understand. In the middle of this we are treated to an extended musical interlude that capitalises on the folk music aspects of this release.

    Coming Home is a nice introduction from the Son’s perspective in the parable known as The Prodigal Son. As the rather upbeat folk music intro starts for The Prodigal’s Return we find that the perspective has been flipped to the Father waiting and looking constantly for his Son to return. These familiar stories continue with one of the best known of all the parables, The Good Samaritan. Interestingly the spoken-word that accompanies this talks about tribes and sticking within our social, cultural or theological bubbles, and it very much sounds like our world today.

    The Two Sons is a simple introduction retelling the parable of the same name. The song Actions Speak Louder uses its piano and cello backing to emphasise that we need to really turn up. In this song there is a lovely bit of saxophone which interacts with the brushed drums and cello which is a pleasure to listen to. The album then moves onto it’s final parable of The Pharisee and the Tax Collector, the opening poem reminds us that God is “unimpressed” with empty noise. The last song is simply entitled The Pharisee and the Tax Collector and looks at the differences in the types of prayer as Jesus outlines in the story.

    After 13 years Olwen has something to say, and a lot of it is actually in the unsaid between the spoken word and the songs. As a project this is a little different, and I always like different, particularly when it is as well executed as this is here. I would say as a listener taking this project from beginning to end it was sparking thoughts about how we treat people, how we look at love and failure, as well as how we approach prayer and worship. While these parables are 2000 years old there are still fresh applications for our lives and the clever language used in both spoken word and song subconsciously brings those thoughts to the surface. 

    Olwen has a pleasant vocal and between her and the producer they know how to put together a moving track. Not all of these are the standard definition of folk music, there are elements of other styles sprinkled throughout. There is a brilliant smattering of different instruments through these songs, the piano leads on many of these but the addition of saxophones, cello and others into the mix really make this an album worth listening to. Olwen has come back with something new and different, we may have to make room for it in the market because it deserves some space. If you can, buy this directly from There Is Hope | Olwen Ringrose (bandcamp.com).

    Main Photo Credit: Courtesy of Olwen Ringrose

  • Review: Taming of a Villain

    Digital Editor’s Note: I’m excited and proud to welcome Rob Allwright as our Guest Writer here at the Sorted Magazine website. Rob brings a wealth of experience and is one of the most respected Christian reviewers in the UK. The energy Rob devotes to supporting and encouraging Christian creatives is staggering. His review show One Man In The Middle is broadcast by Branch FM, Heartsong Live and Hope FM. And I’m just a teensy bit excited that he will soon be joining the wonderful peeps at the Manchester based broadcaster Konnect Radio!

    Rob writes: As a young Christian, I loved to read inspirational stories and autobiographies like Run Baby Run and The Cross and the Switchblade and many others. Having matured, I now realise how encouraging it was to have strong Christian parents and a Church that taught me the Bible. Taming of a Villain by Allen Langham is a story of the remarkable change that happens when someone searches and finds the truth of Jesus through their brokenness.

    The story of Allen Langham is one of trouble from an early age. His Father and Mother were not married and his Dad left when he was just 18 months old. Life was tough and Allen was regularly disciplined to ‘toughen him up’ with a stick and then at just fourteen years old his Mum died of a cerebral haemorrhage. This is something that haunted Allen through much of his adult life. From this point on Allen struggled with anger and rage which he would use sometimes to stand up for women and sometimes to pick on those weaker than himself.

    Some things were going well for him and his natural sports talent were starting to show, initially in football but then this developed into a love and skill in Rugby League. This turned into a small job before he signed a contract with the Sheffield Eagles for £3000. While life seemed to be taking an upwards turn Allen found his comfort clubbing, fighting, selling and taking recreational drugs. It wasn’t long before his gangster life caught up with his professional life and at the age of 18, he was sent to prison for the first time for a few months for Actual Bodily Harm after attacking four police officers on a night out. This was the end of his time with the Eagles and the beginning of his descent into Heroin addiction and 15 years in and out of prison for escalating charges to do with violence.

    As with many of these stories, there is quite a bit of time spent describing what life was like. Some of these books can be guilty of making that past, and that life attractive and glamorous, that is not the case for this story. It is a very slippery slope that Allen gets onto and his life swirls out of control. At no point in reading this did I wish that I was living this lifestyle of drugs and violence, it seems to be told and shown that there was a lot of despair in his life. At times Allen does throw something about his life now into the mix that is relevant. He also signposts some of those things that were clear pointers towards what God was going to do with his life, long before it happened. Most times that Allen went to prison he finds himself gravitating towards the chaplaincy and reading and learning about different religious traditions, clearly, he was seeking for something to help him change.

    It is no secret that in a book like this there is an experience with God of some kind when someone reaches out with the message of hope. I don’t want to ruin this story by giving too much away. What I do like about this story is that Allen’s life didn’t suddenly become perfect straight away. For Allen, there was a sudden change, a change in the desires that he found within himself, but it didn’t change the situation that he had left himself in overnight. Suddenly though Allen was open to the love of Jesus, he lessened his need for other things to support him, but he still had to deal with his habits and even those habits that some would describe as good, such as his zeal in telling other people about Jesus, which got him into trouble with some people in the churches he had been attending.

    There were other things that also had to be resolved in his life. Some issues surrounding his childhood, his mother’s death, his family and the damaged relationships there, all these things needed to be dealt with and you can’t just say “I’ve changed” and expect everyone to see it and understand it straight away. As we get to the end of the book, we can see there is a growing maturity to his faith, as he has through the years dealt with the issues, and even in the writing of this book has discovered new things that had to be dealt with.


    This is an inspiring story which God is using, as Allen is given a platform to share it personally. It isn’t the most eloquent book, it feels like it is Allen himself talking to you about his life for much of it and that conveys his personality. I also noticed that there are some issues of typesetting which were a little odd for a book like this, with punctuation dropping down to the next line and even at one point the final line of a chapter being printed above the next chapter heading. All in all, this is a captivating story and for me, it shows that no one is too far gone to be reached with the good news of Jesus Christ, and sometimes, like the Prodigal Son, we have to get to our very lowest point before we see the Father’s overwhelming love and grace for us.

    Taming of a Villain by Allen Langham | Free Delivery at Eden

    Main Photo Credit: Courtesy of Lion Hudson

  • Faith: Planks and splinters

    Faith: Planks and splinters

    Too much self-criticism is unhealthy, but being completely blinkered where our own actions are concerned won’t win us any friends.

    The restaurant was a welcome oasis; we sat down at the outside table with a sigh of relief. Jerusalem’s suk, the bazaar, was a bustling mass of humanity. Shoppers scurried around like ants, hunting for a bargain one of them uselessly haggling about items that cost less than a pound. Street traders hurried through the labyrinth of cobbled streets, huge trays of fresh bread and bagels impossibly balanced atop their heads. The exotic smell of spices hung fragrant in the air.

    But there was an added element to the atmosphere – religion. A wailing summons to worship blared out from a speaker atop a mosque, an insistent cry to the faithful. And, as a group of Christian pilgrims, we had found inspiration in seeing the old, old story come to life. We had been moved by the old olive trees in the Garden of Gethsemane, their twisted limbs a prophetic picture of the agony and struggle that Jesus experienced there. Galilee’s rural simplicity had been a tonic, and the beach at Tabgha is always a joy. It was there that Jesus cooked breakfast for His weary friends, an unusual act after beating the powers of death and hell in His resurrection but a beautiful example of His relentless care.

    We were hungry for our lunch and a smiling waiter had welcomed us and offered menus. Suddenly, a group of Christians plonked themselves down at the table next to us. Their t-shirts loudly announced that they were believers: “I follow a Jewish carpenter” said one. Another had “Faithbook: Add Jesus as a friend”, which either suggested that the wearer was (a) into social media or (b) wrestling with a lisp, or both. Incredibly, a third proclaimed that: “The world is a battlefield, God is my weapon. The Bible is my ammo.” What? God is my weapon? The Bible is ammo? Ammunition is used to kill people. Apparently, this group had all shopped at hideousreligioustshirts.com for their attire.

    But their fashion choices were just the beginning of sorrows. Seemingly oblivious to the fact that sitting in a food establishment usually means ordering from the menu they opened their bags and tucked into the sandwiches that they’d brought with them. One of them eve produced a Thermos flask with hot drinks. And of course, no eating began before a lengthy prayer of grace was shared, asking the Lord to bless the food. The restaurant owner was probably not greatly blessed himself, but smiled patiently. I wondered how many times he, an orthodox Jew, witnessed this kind of thing. I shot him a look, but there was no hint of frustration. This must have been a regular event that he’d grown used to: Christians behaving badly.

    Something similar happened when Kay and I attended a large national prayer event. A hug queue of people lined up patiently to get in. The presence of the President of the the United Sates meant that security was high, and creating a secure environment takes time. Suddenly a leader and his entourage rudely pushed their way to the front. I informed the queue-jumpers that they should take their place at the back of the line: “That’s where we were just now” one of them glowered, somewhat menacingly, “And now we’re here.” And there they stood, bustling for first place, into a prayer meeting. I contemplated further action, but a punch-up prior to a period of intercession would be quite unseemly. The incongruity of pushing in to pray apparently didn’t occur. Christians behaving badly.

    Jesus warns us against allowing a dab of piety to blind us to obvious realities. Being picky about gnats but swallowing camels whole is a dangerous tendency among those who are spiritually keen. The Pharisees were white-hot on rules for eating, but equally fervent about whipping up a conspiracy to condemn an innocent man to death. Faith should bring focus to our lives, offering a faithful reflection in a mirror-mirror-on-the-wall, who’s-the-fairest-of-them-all culture. But sometimes a bit of religious devotion can blind us to the reality of us. We ignore what is obviously wrong in our lives, justifying ourselves by what is ‘right’ in our lives. Able to spot the faults of others from a great distance, we’re keen to help them remove the tiniest specks from their eyes, while ignoring the great logs that protrude from our own.

    I recently chatted with a man whose work ethic is shocking. (If there was a Guinness World Record for low productivity and taking time off, he’d win by a country mile.)

    He spent most of our conversation complaining about his boss who, he says, is lazy and unproductive. There’s that log again.

    So, asking God to show us what we don’t currently see about ourselves is surely a healthy prayer to pray. And this is vital. Some people don’t become followers of Jesus because they don’t know any Christians. And some people don’t turn to Christ precisely because the do know some of His crowd.

    Their meal over the t-shirted snackers moved on, eager for the next epiphany. I hope they didn’t leave their paper bags and soiled cups behind for the server to clear away. But who knows? Perhaps they did. After all, they were in a restaurant.

    This is an extract from Staying in the Boat by Jeff Lucas published by CWR available here.

    Main Photo Credit: Jason Abdilla via Unsplash

  • Sorted Magazine’s Founder and CEO Steve Legg: “They said five months, but I’m praying for more.”

    Sorted Magazine’s Founder and CEO Steve Legg: “They said five months, but I’m praying for more.”

    Curtain Call: Don’t put off until tomorrow what you can do today. We don’t know how many tomorrows we’ve got!

    I wonder what you’d do differently if you knew you only had months to live? It’s a sobering thought that became a reality to me in April this year. I’ve been on a cancer journey for nearly two years since discovering I had acral lentiginous melanoma, an aggressive type of skin cancer, that had started as a small mark on the sole of my foot.

    Hospital visits, various operations and doses of immunotherapy have occupied most of my time since. I’d been doing well since my last surgery, so I was rocked when visiting my oncologist to be told that nothing had really worked. The cancer had spread into my stomach, liver, spine and brain and the likelihood was that I had just five months to live.

    Being given a date for one’s sleep is a wake-up call, to put it mildly. For the first few days, I’m not ashamed to say the tears fell as the reality sank in. They still do sometimes. But I decided I don’t want to spend my last five months crying and being sad. I want to have a summer of joy and to hold my family close.

    Two things have helped me: reprioritising and gratitude.

    This bombshell forced me to reorganise and reprioritise and for that I’m grateful. I’ve laughed and spent time with people who bring me joy. I’ve watched more comedies on TV and less news and current affairs. The Bible says, “A merry heart will do you good, like medicine.” I certainly feel better for it. I’m pretty sure no-one on their death bed ever wishes they’d watched more of the ten o’clock news.

    I’ve realised what matters, and what doesn’t. Maybe we should all live our lives as if we only had five months to live. Life is a daring adventure, so make the most of it.

    Crack on with the project you’ve always wanted to do, the places you’ve dreamed of going, the book you’ve wanted to write. And above all, make sure the people you love know it.

    Life is precious and I’m thankful for every day I wake up. In the end we are all terminal, it’s only I’ve been given a date, which is a bittersweet gift. Gratitude is a key to happiness. I count my blessings each morning and thank God for them. Funny that now, when it would be so easy to focus on all that is wrong, it’s becoming easier to spot what is right.

    So stay alert to the good in your life. Whatever it throws at you, you probably have hundreds of things to be grateful for. At the very least, pick one. It will make you smile.

    PS: They said five months, but I’m praying for more. If you’re reading this and I’m still here, then I’m already beating the odds.

    Digital Editor’s Note: Steve Legg talks about life, terminal cancer and hope with Gareth Cottrell over at Konnect Radio. You can listen to their honest and emotional conversation by clicking here.

    Main Photo Credit: Rose Erkul via Unsplash

  • Comment: How are my studies connected to my faith?

    Comment: How are my studies connected to my faith?

    Digital Editor’s Note: I’m very pleased to welcome today’s Guest Writer, Josh Williams (pictured above), a young man from the UK who is currently living and utilising his engineering degree in Ukraine.

    Josh writes: As final year university students receive their end of year grades, graduate, and begin looking ahead to life after university, I am reminded of my last few months there as well. I chose to study engineering but spent much of my fourth-year despairing about whether I wanted to continue with my degree. Though I was passionate about what I was learning, my faith had deepened over the course of my degree, including being strongly influenced by several mission trips, and I increasingly found myself asking: how can I connect my studies to my faith?

    Like a lot of young Christians in university are undoubtedly doing as I write this, I asked God to show me how He wanted to use my education for His Kingdom. The answer came out of the blue, in a way and at a time I wasn’t expecting. In 2017 I went to Ukraine to serve the summer camp ministry there with Operation Mobilisation (OM). Through conversation with others there, they immediately saw that I had a lot of similarities to the leader of OM’s work in Ukraine, a man called Wayne.

    Wayne is pioneering a series of innovative projects which design equipment that converts plastic waste into usable fuels through a process called pyrolysis. With this technology, he plans for this new fuel source to support local communities in need, through stable employment and by helping to tackle major ecological issues in the region. At the same time, it would show local non-Christian communities that Christians care about their practical needs, not just their spiritual ones. Furthermore, they want to send portions of the project profits to support the local church, community, and wider Ukrainian church mission so that it may become self-sustaining instead of relying on external funding.

    This was a direct answer to my prayer asking God to use my engineering expertise for His kingdom. After graduating, I jumped at the opportunity to get involved and join OM in Ukraine full-time.

    Just before the war started, I briefly evacuated, and spent many weeks serving Ukrainian refugees at the Polish border before returning to work on the project. As fuel shortages became widespread in the summer of 2022, the need for the initiatives we’re developing became more evident than ever. We would love to already be producing fuel from plastic waste, but for now the team is developing a wood gasifier to produce cheap, sustainable electricity from wood chips. This was a response to the missile strikes on Ukraine’s power generation infrastructure starting in October 2022 and will guarantee our electricity supply in the coming winters.

    Serving in Ukraine has been the biggest learning curve for me. It’s humbling to start from scratch in so many areas, from learning a new language to dabbling in finance, project management and Ukrainian bureaucracy. Spiritually, my approach to sharing the gospel has benefited from my time here. As a mathematical and logical thinker, I used to argue, considering only the points of contention when discussing my faith. Now, I’m more relational in how I speak about God, considering the experiences and background which may have brought the other person to their point of view.

    The whole experience has brought out my character flaws and helped me to grow. More than anything, it has helped me better appreciate God’s sovereignty in new ways. Living in a country at war with so many unknowns, so many uncertainties and so much not going to plan everyday means that we can more easily see that nothing we do or achieve is by our own strength but by God’s enabling.

    There’s a tendency I’ve noticed in myself to separate things which are spiritual from those which are not. The spiritual things being prayer, missional work, and anything to do with church, things that I perceive to be holy, while everything else is often considered non-spiritual and separate from my life under God.

    My experience in Ukraine has helped to snap me out of that subconscious, and incorrect way of thinking. I have come to understand that all the gifts and skills God has given me can be used to bless others, to serve Him and to bring Him glory, and that includes my professional skills.

    God can use your professional skills to serve His Kingdom too, just ask Him to show you where He wants you to apply your talents and be open to being surprised.

    To find out more about how you can combine your degree or your career with your passion for reaching people overseas with the good news of Jesus, visit uk.om.org.

  • From the archive: A ‘mischief maker’ tells all

    From the archive: A ‘mischief maker’ tells all

    Navigating my way through the maze of Manchester’s streets, my mind was filled with intrigue. I was on my way to meet Andrew Graystone, a man who accidentally became something of an urban legend.

    Back in 2019, a gunman walked into two mosques in Christchurch (New Zealand) during Friday prayers and shot 51 people dead – and wounded 49 others.

    Graystone wanted to be near his Muslim neighbours for their own Friday prayers and made a last-minute decision to go and stand outside his local mosque holding a simple handwritten message. It read: “You are my friends. I will keep watch while you pray.”

    Someone photographed him and shared the image on social media asking “Who is this guy?” The photo was shared again. And again. Within hours Graystone had gone viral. He was inundated with over 50,000 messages, millions of likes and retweets, much media attention and a message of thanks from the Prime Minister of New Zealand, Jacinda Ardern. Perhaps, like me, you saw his photo online?

    Graystone was asked to recount the events of that day to a group of people, and eventually, he wrote the story down.

    Bemused

    A friend prompted him to capture the other times in his life when he’d done something a little bit unusual. The gathering up of these seemingly random stories made Graystone aware that he was in the habit of doing things with unpredictable results. He realised these patterns had run deeply throughout his whole life. The stories are told in his playful book Faith Hope and Mischief, which was published in August 2020 and identifies these tiny acts of rebellion with the overarching term ‘everyday activism’.

    “My family will confirm that I was bemused by the whole experience,” he writes in the book. “The whole thing was unplanned, unexpected and completely disproportionate. The simple message I had tried to pass on is that friendship overcomes fear. Hatred doesn’t generate itself. It is a by-product of fear; fear of someone who is just slightly different from me.”

    Intrigued by the title of the book I asked him what does mischief mean to a Christian?

    “Faith, Hope and Mischief comes from the phrase which Paul uses in 1 Corinthians 13, where he talks about faith, hope and love,” explains Graystone. “I’m saying that mischief is an expression of love. Mischief, like love is doing things that you don’t have to do that are unexpected and unpredictable and with positive intent, but without necessarily knowing what the outcome’s going to be. That’s true of mischief and that’s true of love. You do things that you don’t have to do that have positive intent, that are unexpected and you don’t know what the outcome’s going to be.

    “Loving someone is risky, it’s making yourself vulnerable. Mischief is having a go, trying it, taking the risk. And what’s the risk? Very often the risk that I’m afraid of is that I’m going to look stupid.”

    Encouraged

    Graystone seems to be a deep-thinking man of faith, clearly saying what he means, with no duplicity of intent about him. Rather shy, but courteous and friendly, occasionally pausing before answering my next question. Rubbing his whiskered chin his eyes would briefly search the red brick wall behind me as if looking for the very truest answer. Twice, with some degree of boyish delight, he glanced skyward and simply answered: “I don’t know,” appearing to relish the opportunity of thinking about something which he hadn’t previously thought about.

    Media attention has mostly settled down since that time when tens of thousands of people got in touch to say that they were encouraged, reassured or given a little bit of hope. But Graystone isn’t concerned about the results, he continued: “I think we can be a little bit obsessive about wanting to know what the outcomes are going to be. I know some people have to measure what they’re doing but outcomes are not our business necessarily.” He added: “I think God sometimes uses the spaces where we sit and ask ‘how does this feel for someone else?’, which is a really good question to be asking.”

    Graystone has lived in a vibrant multicultural area of Manchester for over two decades. Though not a native northerner he describes himself as having become a true ‘manc’ who embraces the city and wouldn’t want to live anywhere else. We drink tea and talk some more about mischief and everyday activism.

    He tells me with heartfelt warmth: “My family, my community and my church community are really important to me. I’m very committed to doing things together. The one person who could stop me from doing something daft would be my wife, unfortunately, she’s more likely to encourage me!”

    To find out more about Andrew Graystone’s book, please click here.

    Main Photo Credit: Guilherme-Stecanella via Unsplash

  • Review: Blue Like Jazz by Donald Miller

    Review: Blue Like Jazz by Donald Miller

    The author Donald Miller writes and speaks on issues relating to Christian spirituality, literature and culture. Brian McLaren writes: “I can think of no better book than Blue Like Jazz to introduce Christian spirituality (a way of life) to people for whom Christianity (a system of beliefs) seems like a bad maths problem or a traffic jam.”

    And that’s the nub of Blue Like Jazz. And I think that Miller’s message is just as interesting today as it was when the book was first published in 2003. In some ways it’s a classic work, which can be revisited time and time again. Miller seems to be exploring a return to authenticity in the way Christians express and live out their faith.

    The thread of thought that starts his exploration comes after watching a busking jazz saxophone player. The musician shuts his eyes and plays endless variations on a simple melody. The sound is smooth. The texture is rich. The passion with which it is played comes from the soul. The passer-by is drawn in, stops to listen, and becomes captivated. Miller writes: “Sometimes you have to watch somebody love something before you can love it yourself. It is as if they are showing you the way.”

    Miller challenges, in a humorous yet honest way, some of the notions which Christians (and I include myself here) seem to have accepted without question. The chapters seem disconnected at first, and the headings create an air of intrigue eg ‘Church: How I Go Without Getting Angry’ and ‘Community: Living with Freaks’.

    Miller draws on his own life stories, and his relationships and conversations with friends, and gradually makes sense of the many unresolved issues in his life, especially those regarding faith in God. This book really helped me to check the relevance of all that I have come to believe, and set a course towards renewed passion and expression for the faith which I committed to in my teenage years.

    Blue Like Jazz by Donald Miller is Published by Thomas Nelson Publishers

    Main Photo Credit: Lukas Rodriguez via Pexels