French Etiquette

If you want to know how to hold your fork and avoid having the air of a "plouc", Marie de Tilly (right) can instruct you on French étiquette.

If you have been living in France for any length of time you naturally want to "dine" with your French friends and neighbours. That is "diner" or "déjeurner" with, not "manger" with. "Manger" is ugly, cela ne se dit pas. You "mange une pomme", but you dine with your friends. Ah yes thats how it is.

And if you want to dine with your friends you do need to know some of the basic rules of the table, so as not to offend or make faux pas and feel socially awkward, which is after all so easy in a country where the language is quasiment inprononçable before you even start.

So, I am intensely grateful that Marie de Tilly comes to the rescue on France Culture Radio, as you might expect on France's equivilent of Radio 4, and delightfully instructs fluent speaking foreigners in matters of taste and elegance at the French dinner table. And, "élégance" is what it is all about it apparently. What is elegant or isn't is the deciding factor in matters related to French étiquette.

So here are some basic rules:

1) Do not turn up on time. No, no, no! It is somewat rude to do so, and if you do you will probably find your host still getting dressed. Turn up between 15 - 30 minutes late. If they say come at 7.00 they mean come after 7.00.

2) Be clean and dress elegantly and smartly. Make a good first impression, have a firm handshake, not a bone crusher or a limp fish. Yes you can bring a gift also, sometimes even the day before apparently.

3) You don't say "enchanté" - you add a little phrase such as "je suis enchanté de vous faire connaissance", or something else in a sentence that makes a link with that person.

4) When introduced to a couple, always greet the woman first. You also stand up to meet a woman if you are a man, but a woman does not need to stand to greet a man.

5) At meals always wait for the maitresse, the woman of the house, decide where you sit, and when to start the meal. In fact she is your guide to almost everything.

6) The maitress will put the woman the most honoured to her right and the woman the most aged to her left. However these days it is indiscrete to identify the woman who is the oldest so this isn't really done except in very bourgeois households, or where there is an older woman who would expect this.

7) You do not say "bon appétit". No, no no, this is not élégant. You would only say that with very informal gatherings and maybe in the south. Don't say it in a soirée in Paris. It is said still in restaurants however.

8)Keep your hands on the table. French people never let their hands stray into their laps. Its not done.

9) You can talk about politics etc but obviously avoid doing so if you are seated with extremists.

10) Do not get up to go to the toilet during the meal. This doesn't happen. If you need to go, wait until the maitresse is changing courses and ask to go and "laver les mains", wash you hands.

11) The cheese is only served once, it does not come back round, so take what you want the first time around.

12) Do not help yourself to wine. Your host will take care of that for you generally.

13) When your host brings out fruit juices at the end of the repas you know that it is time to go. She is tired and wants you to finish up.

14) You can send a card to remercier your host afterwards.


If you want to hear more here is the podcast itself:

http://www.franceculture.fr/emission-les-bonnes-mani%C3%A8res-5-la-french-etiquette-2007-01-12.html

Empowering Leadership

If your stated aim is to build an apostolic church that transforms the world around it (see previous article on the Apostolic Reformation) then what would the leadership culture of such a church look like? And more to the point, what would it not look like?

Reading Kris Vallotan's book Heavy Rain recently a particular paragraph stood out to me and struck home. Its like when someone puts their finger on something that you had been experiencing but had never quite realised before, and you suddenly go "oh yeah! That's it".

He was talking about building a leadership culture in churches that helps people to become great. In other words, he encourages leaders to not just aim to make people "good" but great. By great he means fulfilling their potential for greatness that people have in God. Each of us are called to significance, to be great, to achieve something awesome with our lives in Him, and that brings Him glory. David had a hero culture - his mighty men, whose exploits were recorded.

So if your aim is to create a culture where people become great and do amazing things, then you would need a culture that releases this in people, that empowers people, and doesn't dis-empower them.

This is what he said:

"Empowering leaders make decisions with people, not just for people. When we withhold information from our people or tell them just what they need to know to get their job done, we produce slave camps in which one person does all the thinking. This is religion on steroids."

"If we are going to become a house of heros, we need fresh ideas, untried solutions, innovation and bold, courageous thoughts delivered by risk takers, not zoo keepers"

The aim of parenthood is to bring our kids to the point of being able to make good decisions for themselves and manage themselves without ongoing direction and control from you. If after 20 years your offspring still need you to run their lives for them then you have completely failed as a parent.

No child can grow up without being allowed some degree of autonomy, taking some risks and making their own mistakes, learning the hard way. Indeed child development psychologist Erickson tells us that at certain stages of a child's life, it is essential for healthy psychological development that children experience some degree of autonomy. If they are not allowed to do this then they will never come to maturity under your tutelage. Sometimes I think that's why God lets us make so many mistakes!

Last week I was in a meeting with a social worker and one of my team carrying out an exercise in consultation about a new Quality Assurance regime we were trying to bring into the Council where I work. I asked them to start by identifying the outcomes that they wanted to achieve in their work with children and the social worker said something that completely surprised me.

He said that he wanted social workers to have"autonomy".

My first reaction was that of hearing alarm bells ring. The thought of letting social workers loose with autonomy frankly scared me. I don't have enough confidence in the majority of our social workers to let them have "autonomy" in a publicly run service working with vulnerable children at significant risk, at times to the point of life or death. There is a legitimate need for management to control the work that is taking place.

On further discussion with him, where we got to was to re-frame what he meant. Whilst he used the word autonomy what he was saying was that as an intelligent, thoughtful, reflective professional what he wanted was his own professional judgement to be respected and listened to in supervision. He wanted to be given more responsibility and control over his case loads in the context of careful supervision.

To put it another way - he wanted managers to stop treating him and his colleagues like children who had to be directed and controlled all the time. And there he had a point. A very good point as well.

The last government in the UK had in its wisdom invented and imposed a tight strait jacket of rules, regulations, procedures and timescales to micro manage social workers. They have set timescales for their visits, a set IT template to complete that was invented by someone who has never had to do a social worker's job before, and is measured by performance indicators that skew the work towards fulfilling bureaucratic processes instead of concentrating on the outcomes for the children they are working for. It has been a recipe for disaster.

Social workers feel demoralised, disempowered and demotivated by this approach. They feel part of a machine more interested in meeting government targets than making a difference to children. And they know that meeting the demands of the bureaucracy is getting in the way of meeting the needs of the children.

These aren't just my impressions - they are also the findings of a government funded report into children's social care by Eileen Munro, published in May 2011.

So whats my point?

Well, its very simple - we can't build an empowering culture by operating a top down, directive, and controlling style of leadership. If we want to release the potential in people to achieve great things we have to empower them. We have to give them responsibility, to take some risks, and stop trying to do all the thinking for them.

I think that starts by taking decisions with people and not making decisions for people. Now, there is a thought.

The Apostolic Reform

Bob Jones (right) said several years ago that 2012 would be the year of the restoration of apostolic government.

"Apostolic government?" "Restoration?" Now, thats interesting, I have always been taught that we already had the restoration of apostolic government. We've had Terry Virgo, Keri Jones, his brother Bryn Jones, and then we have Gerald Coates, Alan Scotland, Arthur Wallis and Tony Morton, to name but a few. So what is he talking about?

And some of you may be wondering who is Bob Jones anyway?

Well, Bob Jones is a prophet. And no he isn't particularly recognised by any of these guys named above, at least I have never heard Terry Virgo or any of the others quoting Bob Jones.

Bob Jones was one of the Kansas City Prophets back in the eighties. He was also closely linked with Todd Bentley and reputedly has frequent visitations from angels and visions and various stuff. In fact to listen to him teach its really like nothing I have ever heard before.

A number of years ago his testimony was that he died and went to heaven where Jesus met him and sent him back down to "prepare the end time generation", and he has been a point of reference to the new generation that has been rising up ever since.

So, what on earth does he mean by the restoration of apostolic government? And why haven't we already got that if we have apostles, right?

Well let me start by saying we do not have authentic new testament apostolic government. We have men with apostolic gifting, but none of the aforementioned men are carrying the fullness of apostolic government or authority, or even building authentic apostolic churches.

Let me say that these men are forerunners who have built a foundation in their day. They are like John the Baptist clearing the way of the Lord, preparing the bride for the groom. But let me put it this way - if these guys represented the fullness of apostolic ministry I would be very disappointed. And I mean very.

So whats the problem?

Okay there are several:

1) These men were all focused on building the church. That has been their main ministry for the last 30 years and indeed it was their authentic call at that time. Just look at how well they have done - we have moved out of dead structures, replaced them with vibrant joyful communities of christians who serve others, love others and are built on godly character. Worship is lively, there are gifts of the spirit at work, and most of them are evangelising and growing, even if slowly at times.

Whats wrong with that? Nothing - its an amazing achievement in one generation, and we are all grateful for the race these guys have run. These men all deserve to be highly honoured. But it is not finished.

What is now missing is their focus on the kingdom of God. The kingdom is primordial, it was Jesus primary ministry. He went everywhere announcing the good news of the kingdom and demonstrating it. The kingdom is within us and our mission is to go and release the kingdom in the world around us. By its nature, the kingdom is a supernatural kingdom that does not consist primarily of teachings and word but of power. Our mission is not to go build churches that meet our doctrinal specifications but to transform society with the kingdom of God.

This doesn't mean that we should stop building good churches or throw out all the achievements of the past, but the type of church that apostles build is different to the type of church that these guys have so far built.

2) Kris Vallotan gives a great prophetic picture of the difference between apostolic churches and non apostolic churches, which he calls pastorate based churches. Its the difference between the Pool of Bathesda and Ezekiel's river.

The Pool of Bethesda was a pool where people gathered to wait for the water to stir and then the first one in got healed. That is exactly how our churches run today. If we want to meet God and receive a touch from Him, we have to come to a church meeting, and wait for a moment when something happens - a good outside speaker, a special prophetic moment, or an anointing. They we go forward and get prayer and if you are lucky you might get healed!

Ezekial's river is a picture of a church where the presence and sanctuary of God is seated. And flowing out of this place is a river of living water that runs into the world around it bringing life and healing of the nations. The further away from the temple building the deeper the water becomes. This equates to the church carrying revival out into the world around it, ordinary christians bringing healing into the streets, homes, marriages, businesses, etc.

A truely apostolic work will look more like Ezekial's river than the Pool of Bethsada. But it needs real apostolic government to establish this. It will make christians carriers of revival, not recipients of good meetings.

3) Most of these guys have not built a culture where the saints are equipped to do miracles and bring in the kingdom. Most of them have been quite successful in developing their own gifting and establishing their spiritual authority in the churches they run.

But the whole point of Ephesians Four ministry is to "prepare the saints for works of service". In other words one of their main jobs is to help people like you and me do the things that Jesus did and release the kingdom in the world and transform our world.

I give an example: a well known apostle from one of these movements came to our church in 2011 and spoke on the "supernatural church". He then demonstrated some miracles by praying for eight people or so who had spinal problems. His message was - the NT church is meant to have a supernatural dimension, so now watch me demonstrate some supernatural activity.

Thats all very good and I rejoice in every person healed of a back problem. But the central problem here is that this guy did not do fundamental Ephesians Four ministry which was to equip the saints to do those things, not to show them that he can do it.

This example typifies the approach of apostles I mentioned before. They have missed the fundamental point of their ministry. They have inadvertently sustained a clergy laity split in terms of spiritual gifting. I do the miracles, you come along for prayer or watch.

Now if you take the example of Bill Johnson, for one, he will demonstrate miracles and give testimonies - but with the sole intention of glorifying God and equipping you and me to do the same. And he is carrying enormous favour from heaven for doing so.

The fact is that in the last twenty five years in these churches we have been taught about godly character, serving, commitment, basic christian doctrine, but very, very little on what it is to bring in the kingdom.

4) The third area that troubles me about these "apostolic" ministries is that whilst they have not built denominations, they have built churches with a denominational spirit. Church leaders will often not work with other churches because they did not agree with their doctrines. They will usually only work with people "who shared their vision", and that usually means in almost 100% agreement with their doctrine, way of doing things, views about women, especially with apostolic structures etc. Even the different apostolic teams themselves don't work together.

People who are outside the stream are distrusted and prevented from influencing the flock where possible. The apostles decide who is okay or not and frankly - most of the time they are not okay. Sometimes its the personal style, sometimes its the package it comes in, or one or two doctrines which offend and causes them to throw it all out. As a result there is an entire panoply of new teachings and revelation that God is revealing to parts of His church that are simply not being embraced by these movements. They are at risk of drying up and becoming passé and demodé. There are whole boxes that other ministries get put into, and as such are rejected.

To give an example, Benny Hinn carries one of the greatest anointings in the world today, but these churches would never invite him in because they don't believe in his "one man band" ministry approach. He just doesn't fit. And they don't like his white suit either! Well, okay, personally I don't believe in one man ministries, and I don't like his white coat particularly. But if I could meet God through him and receive a powerful anointing, I would put that aside. If it is good enough for Randy Clark to receive impartation from Benny Hinn then it is surely good enough for you and me!?

The entire attitude of Todd Bentley's ministry up to and following the Florida out pouring and beyond has been to bring a new fresh corporate anointing to the church. Anyone who has spent time listening to Todd will have heard of amazing things that were happening. But his attitude was to give it away freely - there were no preconditions.

I can't help feeling that if God has selected some of these "apostolic" movements to receive the same anointing they would have used it to build their own denominations instead of giving it away freely to all. That's what a denominational spirit leads to.

BTW - all I have said earlier about the lack of focus on the kingdom or lack of teaching and equipping for bringing in the kingdom would actually not be an issue IF these "apostolic" ministries had been willing to receive from outside their streams. No-one has everything, that's okay. But the denominational spirit is blocking their willingness to receive from people who don't line up with their doctrine and style.

Thank God that He is bypassing these guys and doing it anyway - using some unusual candidates, characters. One person He has used is Heidi Baker - a woman - thus putting into doubt a whole lot of chauvinist theology about women in apostolic ministry.

So what does authentic apostolic government actually look like? Well, I have two more articles on the subject which go some way to address this question. I don't believe anyone has the final word on this yet, but some key things have emerged on this journey already, and have become much clearer since this article was originally published just three years ago.

God is indeed reforming His church, for those brave enough to go with Him.

2011 (up dated 2013)

The Drôme

The Drôme is east of the Gard, and part of Provence. It is a largely unspoilt by tourists in the summer, with authentic picturesque villages, beautiful hills, gorges and rivers, vineyards, large open blue skies and warm generous sunshine.

Sovereignty of God

This concept means simply that God is in control of everything. A simple message with massive recupercussions, and frankly the cause of a lot of problems too. If God is in control of everything then He must also be responsible for everything, but a God who does not control everything? How many christians can cope with that idea?

The Calvinists are so attached to this idea that anyone who says the simple words "God is not in control" are seized with indignation and call it heresy. But the simple fact is that God really isn't controlling everything. No, He isn't. He could but He has chosen not to. Just like we as parents could become hyper controlling of our children but choose NOT to, so God does not hyper control every detail of your life or the events of the world.

One of the reasons why God is not in control because He devolved authority and control of the world to us - man.

Adam was God's ruler and steward called to exercise dominion and "rule" if you recall. What happened in the book of Gensis - and read it how you will (literally or symbolically) - is that Adam stepped out of God's devolved authority and handed the keys over to another ruler whose intent was entirely different. That person was the devil.

There is no record of sickness, suffering, pain, evil or famine in the Garden of Eden. That came in when the keys were handed over. There is no record of it in heaven either.

So fast forward to the year 30 AD and Jesus teaches his disciples to pray as he did "our Father in heaven, Hallowed be your name, let your will be done on earth as it is done in heaven".

Stop there. That means that God's will in not being done on the earth right now. It isn't being done on earth yet. Clearly God isn't controlling everything. But God does have a plan. A plan to restore all things under Jesus' feet back to how they were and then some.

Jesus prayed that we should ask God that His kingdom - or rule - comes, and that His will is done on the earth as in heaven. Which means that we can bring in that rule. We can co-operate with God and bring in the rule of heaven on the earth.

Problem is God hasn't stopped devolving His power and authority down to mankind in His people. Remember His call and gifts are irrevokable. Jesus restored the relationship and the kingdom - rule of God on the earth. We just have to start working out how to actually exercise it. (Strangely I have only started to be taught how to do this in the last three years of my christian life...but thats another story.)

And that is where the Calvinists have gone horribly wrong. Most Calvinists have never considered that God wants to partner with them to bring in His kingdom rule on earth. They are too stuck in a rigid idea that God is literally controlling and manipulating everything around them in a deterministic way. Now of course God can and has intervened in His sovereignty in history, but it isn't His usual way of doing stuff.

He expects us to pick up our mantle and responsibility and partner with Him.

Second area that Calvinists have got it wrong is that they fixate on the fact that God sovereignly chooses who will be saved. They love teaching that it is God who decides and chooses, which is right and true, but I have never heard one teach that once saved - the rest of your life is not down to sovereign acts by God - it is down to your partnership with God and the exercise of your obedience and faith. (Sometimes I have even heard defeat and failure in christians has been put down to the mysterious sovereign will of God. No - you/we just didn't get it right)

When bad things happen in churches, relationships, marriages, personal failure etc, using the theology of a sovereign God who somehow controls every detail in your life in a deterministic way is just plain stupid. At what point do people mess up and at what point does God pre-ordain that to happen? I don't believe God pre-ordains His people to mess up.

Bill Johnson puts it well, he says God is in charge, not in control - there is a difference. Or another way - God is in authority, not in control.

Do you want a verse for all this? Christians like verses - well Paul says in Hebrews 2 v 8 that "all things have been put under Jesus' feet" and nothing is not subject to Him, "but now we do not see all things subjected to Him".

Thirdly - Calvinist churches also have a very bad understanding of prophetic promises. Most people with this idea of a sovereign all controlling God think when they get a prophecy from Him, that this is some sort of fixed thing that God is going to bring about in the future if you will just wait long enough and co-operate with Him.

Actually it is much more complicated than that. What God has done in a true prophetic word I believe is to create something in the spirit just for you. You have to then seize it and use that word to break into the reality of that thing. Paul talked about using the prophetic word in the good fight - or fighting with the prophecies - decreeing the prophetic over your circumstances. Those promises won't bear any fruit if you don't combine the word with faith, activate it with action and bring them back to God in prayer. As someone once put it - prophecy is the potential.

For example if God promises to give you a ministry like Katherine Kulman, then go read about her, find out how she sought God for her anointing and press in like she did to get it. If you don't actually start praying for people and believing that word it simply won't happen. What God has given is the potential for you to have such and such, but you get there by stewardship and obediance. It isn't automatic.

Do you see how important it is to understand the sovereignty of God properly?

I would dearly like to see this preached properly in churches, so people would seize their destiny, learn to partner with God, be taught who they are and what they have inside them, and not wait for the sovereign move of God to come "suddenly" out of the blue (as I have heard some senior leaders in Calvist movements teach!)

Last point - if God is not in control how can we have any reassurance for the future? Well, the bible indicates quite clearly that God has ultimate control - i.e. is in charge, in authority - and that He exercises His sovereignty to limit the extent of evil, to restrain it, usually for our protection. Even the devil has to go to God for permission to attack His people. Not even a bird can fall from the sky without His knowing it. It also teaches us that He extends His wings over us and us and knows every detail of our lives. But I come back to the fact that if we don't partner with Him we may miss His best for our lives and His will. It won't do you much good believing that God is in control of your life if He is waiting for you to get up and deal with the storms that come along. Come on, this is bad doctrine that holds you back and stops us growing - which is why I am kicking it so much.

La Cirque de Navacelle

Over hanging a vast geological hole carved out by glaciers some hundred of thousands of years ago. In the centre is a little village. 

Thoughts from the Languedoc

If you get there early enough you can walk up the gorge, wading through the water - there is no other way - before the crowds get there. Very beautiful and remote, apart from fact that someone is around every corner in the summer months.