Christian perspective on the struggle of Life on Estates

Life on council estates is a Kingdom of STRUGGLE, but there is an alternative for you!

If you live on a council estate, the fact is, you are among the 13.5 million poorest and exploited of our unjust society. Your job prospects are rubbish, minimum wage, short term contracts if any at all, no rights whatsoever, no holiday pay, long hours, benefits that are complicated and meagre, it's almost impossible to build a descent life for yourself and your children - It's relentless and wrong and I hate it!

People should know, a lack of motivation to work is not necessarily a sign of laziness. The fact is, no-one really wants to do the jobs that are on offer because they are exploitative. People  are treated like spongers, not because they don't wanna work, but because they understanably don't want to be exploited. It's not the work in itself, it's the abusive nature of the work. Pressure to work through breaks, eyes on you all the time, worked like a dog for a pittance, basically, people are treated like crap. Why should anyone have to put up with it!

All this is bad enough, and although few may be able to get out of the poverty trap and exploitation, for most on estates, perhaps for you, life is marked by a big STRUGGLE on every front.

Raising children with no money - struggle.

Work - struggle

Paying bills - struggle

Poor food and clothes budget - struggle

Doing the shopping - struggle

Juggling work and child care - struggle

Unemployed? - struggle

Getting rubbish to the tip - struggle without a car

Running a car - struggle!

All this struggle is a result of sin. It ravages lives. Much of it is the sin of the selfish rich in exploiting the poor. 

Another Way

But this world we live in is not all there is! There is another community you can be part of, another 'Kingdom' that Jesus is establishing. You can be part of that. And as I once read somewhere, His Kingdom is not just pie in the sky when you die, but meat on your plate while you wait! Jesus' Kingdom is not just a promise for the future, but He makes a substantial difference now too.

Jesus alternative Kingdom began 2000 years ago, you can become part of it now. It is a kingdom of righteousness and justice, goodness, fairness, hope and grace. Most of all, entering that Kingdom means all your own guilt gets dealt with.

Yes, you are a victim of the system and you have been sinned against. But the truth is, you are not just a victim, others have been your victim. You have also 'sinned', think of all the people you have hurt in life - that's sin and you, like me and everyone else, need a new, fresh start, free of guilt. You may not feel like that but one day you will know it's true - because we will all give an account to God.

On that day, it would be the worst of tragedies if you - having been exploited by the rich in this life, then find you are shut out from God's kingdom for eternity because you never dealt with your own sin in this life.

That is why I live here in Moulsecoomb. I want the exploited of this world to at least know the hope, joy and promise of God's coming Kingdom and to begin entering now. No matter what your situation, and despite your very real STRUGGLE, you can know genuine peace, hope, strength, stability, purpose and meaning, forgiveness and freedom from guilt. These are what the Christian faith offer. Don't dismiss it out of hand. If you wanna know more - ask me! jrebera.nlc@gmail.com or 07534987583

Christian perspective on the struggle of 'Life on Estates'

Life on council estates is a Kingdom of STRUGGLE, but there is an alternative for you!

If you live on a council estate, the fact is, you are among the 13.5 million poorest and exploited of our unjust society. Your job prospects are rubbish, minimum wage, short term contracts if any at all, no rights whatsoever, no holiday pay, long hours, benefits that are complicated and meagre, it's almost impossible to build a descent life for yourself and your children - It's relentless and wrong and I hate it!

People should know, a lack of motivation to work is not necessarily a sign of laziness. The fact is, no-one really wants to do the jobs that are on offer because they are exploitative. People  are treated like spongers, not because they don't wanna work, but because they understanably don't want to be exploited. It's not the work in itself, it's the abusive nature of the work. Pressure to work through breaks, eyes on you all the time, worked like a dog for a pittance, basically, people are treated like crap. Why should anyone have to put up with it!

All this is bad enough, and although few may be able to get out of the poverty trap and exploitation, for most on estates, perhaps for you, life is marked by a big STRUGGLE on every front.

Raising children with no money - struggle.

Work - struggle

Paying bills - struggle

Poor food and clothes budget - struggle

Doing the shopping - struggle

Juggling work and child care - struggle

Unemployed? - struggle

Getting rubbish to the tip - struggle without a car

Running a car - struggle!

All this struggle is a result of sin. It ravages lives. Much of it is the sin of the selfish rich in exploiting the poor. 

Another Way

But this world we live in is not all there is! There is another community you can be part of, another 'Kingdom' that Jesus is establishing. You can be part of that. And as I once read somewhere, His Kingdom is not just pie in the sky when you die, but meat on your plate while you wait! Jesus' Kingdom is not just a promise for the future, but He makes a substantial difference now too.

Jesus alternative Kingdom began 2000 years ago, you can become part of it now. It is a kingdom of righteousness and justice, goodness, fairness, hope and grace. Most of all, entering that Kingdom means all your own guilt gets dealt with.

Yes, you are a victim of the system and you have been sinned against. But the truth is, you are not just a victim, others have been your victim. You have also 'sinned', think of all the people you have hurt in life - that's sin and you, like me and everyone else, need a new, fresh start, free of guilt. You may not feel like that but one day you will know it's true - because we will all give an account to God.

On that day, it would be the worst of tragedies if you - having been exploited by the rich in this life, then find you are shut out from God's kingdom for eternity because you never dealt with your own sin in this life.

That is why I live here in Moulsecoomb. I want the exploited of this world to at least know the hope, joy and promise of God's coming Kingdom and to begin entering now. No matter what your situation, and despite your very real STRUGGLE, you can know genuine peace, hope, strength, stability, purpose and meaning, forgiveness and freedom from guilt. These are what the Christian faith offer. Don't dismiss it out of hand. If you wanna know more - ask me! jrebera.nlc@gmail.com or 07534987583

Boko Haram chants "Allahu Akbar" [God is great], a Christian response

Rather than follow on from my last post, I felt I should comment on Boko Haram. This is a long post, but it is a big subject.

I am quite public about my faith in God. So it surprises me that people don't ask and challenge me ... "Julian, where is your God?" I wish they would ask me. Atrocities such as Boko Haram's should cause people to ask questions of people like me. Perhaps people are too polite so I thought I'd answer the questions anyway.

Boko Haram (BH) is a fundamental islamist group operating lout of North East Nigeria. BH has recently emerged from obscurity to become an international household name. Not fame but infamy. Their crime, the kidnapping of girls from a school in Nigeria three weeks ago.

Less known is the fact that, just last Monday BH unleashed hell on a busy market in North East Nigeria, indiscriminately spraying bullets in all directions. Those not killed ran for cover by locking themselves in shops. BH's response? Burn the shops! The death toll is at 310 civillians shot or burned to death.

During the massacre the BH shouted and chanted the words "Allahu Akbar" which means  "God is great".

This massacre, like the recent abduction was in God's name. 

As Christians we maintain that God is essentially Love, and is all powerful, All wise, All seeing, Sovereign (meaning nothing at all, past, present and future is hidden from Him. Nothing can surprise Him or scupper His plans, nothing is outside of His control). 

So how can an all powerful God of love sit back idly in heaven, watching BH commit his atrocities in God's name? How can God see where these poor girls are being held, yet do nothing? What kind of a God is He? Surely the fact that this happened proves that either there is no God, or if there is he doesn't care, or if he does he isn't powerful and so can't help. My answer to that is, such a God would be useless and not worth spitting on.

BH is right about one thing, God is Great, but BH knows nothing of God.

God is great, He is Love, all power belongs to Him. God can totally obliterate Boko Haram and set free those girls. God could easily have intervened and prevented BH slaughtering 310 on Monday. 

So why hasn't God intervened? Why doesn't He intervene? These are the questions I want to answer.

1) GOD IS GREAT! My starting point is to underline what the Bible teaches. God is Great! All powerful, All seeing, All wise, unstoppable, indestructible, pure, righteous and good in every conceivable way.

2) SOMETHING IS WRONG: BH and their atrocities (and a million other examples can be given) show us our world is seriously, very, very seriously corrupt, screwed up and that SOMETHING IS VERY WRONG.

3) NO-ONE CAN FIX IT. Even if those girls are all rescued unharmed, and I pray they are, they have been seriously traumatised. They are already damaged. Insecurity has already devastated their lives. They may learn to live again but damage has been done and nothing can undo it. This world is full of the walking wounded. Full of devastated lives.

4) IT WILL NOT STOP. Even if BH is stamped out, and I pray it is, others will rise up in their place. Apart from that, a million other permeations of total evil are rife from the trafficking of little girls and boys as sex slaves to so-called legitimate wars and regime change with the terrible wickedness and suffering that all brings.

Why then does God allow it?

God allows it because we, you and I, all of us, that is this world, have, on the whole chosen to reject God. That is the truth.  We reject God as God but we would have Him as our Servant. Those are our terms. We all would like a God more like a Genie, who will grant unlimited wishes. We do not want a God who rules over us. We want to rule our own lives, our own families, our own destinies. True? Therefore we reject God.

God, in all His love wants to be in relationship with us, he wants to rule over our lives and this world because He loves us and because He can make all things good. But He will not force himself on the world or anyone in it. He accepts our choice to live without Him.

The story of the Prodigal Son in the Bible is helpful. (Click this link to read it) in this story the son takes his inheritance from his father, blows it, gets into severe trouble and hardship, then comes to his senses and returns to his father.

God wants us to come to our senses. He wants us to realise we cannot rule the world without Him without severe consequences for humanity. Of course, God could intervene whenever bad stuff is going to happen. We would love that. We would live our godless lives, getting all the benefits of God whilst rejecting Him. We would happily use God when we want him and discard Him like a worthless piece of rubbish when we're done with Him, until of course we want Him again. 

If God did stuff on our terms He would cease to be God. He would be pathetic. But God is Great! And He will not compromise His greatness.

So he does grant mankind's main wish, that we be in charge of this world. This is the world you and I have chosen. A godless world full of godless people living godless lives doing godless things, sometimes, like BH, in the name of God.

Most of us would have God intervene, deal with BH and then He can "piss off" again so that we can do whatever we want.

My question is this. How bad, evil, wicked and cruel do things have to get before the world turns to Jesus? How bad has it got to get before the world realises it is in desperate need of God? I think the answer is this: The world, as a whole will never turn back to God. As long as the majority have enough of what they want out of this life - the world will not turn to God - despite the fact our neighbours pay a terrible price of suffering - as long as it's not me. That is the problem, we are all very selfish. The Bible calls this SIN.


Apart from the wickedness of mankind, there are other powerful spiritual forces of evil at work too - demonic spirits.

I realise this sounds ridiculous. But there are such spirit creatures, limited in number, invisible, but their effects are clearly visible. Boko Haram, far from representing God is doubtless demonically driven. Ordinary people don't do the stuff they are doing. There is an evil force behind them and they don't even know it. It is the same evil force at work in men who abuse children, it is the same demonic evil influence that fills people to want to eat other people, torture them and be unspeakably wicked.

We have rejected God and so live in a world at the mercy of demonic spirits at work in both our world system and in individuals, and we are at the mercy of basically selfish people - that's all of us.

SO WHAT THEN? But this is God's world. He created it and He will not allow it to go on forever as it is. He has set a time when He will return and put an end to all evil and suffering and will establish His Kingdom over which He Himself will rule with love and Justic forever. He will rid the world or all evil once for all.

WHAT HAS GOD DONE? When we see the evil in the world we respond by posting protest posters on Face Book, perhaps you send the odd £20 to alleviate suffering, maybe you give £2 per month to sponsor a child in poverty. While we respond in our way, we wonder, "Why doesn't this so-called God do something?". But He has. When God saw the human misery that exists as a result of our SIN and evil, He sent His Son into the world, to demonstrate the goodness of God and His power and His Kingdom, and then to take upon Himself all our SIN, to pay the price for it so that we can know full healing, full forgiveness, and be united with God.

WHAT IS GOD DOING RIGHT NOW? Right now God is recruiting people into His Kingdom. Through the message of the gospel we get to come back to God, be totally forgiven so that in this world we can begin to live under His rule. Then when He returns, we will have a place in His new world.

All who continue to reject, will continue to get what they want - a world without God - but then (when He returns) it will not be this world. God will have taken back everything that is His, that is everything that is good. What will be left, Bible calls hell. Hell is the inheritance of all who reject God because Hell is all there is without Him.

If God intervenes now, the question is, are you in His Kingdom, or outside of it?

Wanna know more, message any questions.

What is truly worth dying for?

A great Christian man called DL Moody reportedly said, "If you have nothing worth dying for, then you have nothing worth living for". Actually, that makes a lot of sense. Surely we all want things in life that are so good, so precious they are worth dying for. Those are things really worth living for.

We humans, despite being wonderfully endowed with massive brain power and ability to think carefully in a way unmatched by any other creature known to us in the universe, too often act and even think instinctively as though we are just like all the lower animals not having the power of thought we posses.

So, most commonly we answer DL Moody's words instinctively (not thoughtfully) by saying things like, "my children are what is most precious, they are worth dying for so they are worth living for".

There is no doubt that all human life is precious, and it is natural and right to feel strongly about our children. But that is an animalistic response, it is instinctive and emotional, and very powerful. But it does not use our highest faculty - thought.

What if we think about it rather than react instinctively? Then I think rational reasoning would go like this...

D L Moody "If you've got nothing worth dying for then you've got nothing worth living for"

Us "I do have something worth dying for, that is my children, so I do have something worth living for, that is, my children".

D L Moody "What's so great about your children that their lives are of more value than yours? If your child goes on to find the cure for Malaria or cancer, or if your child is going to end wars, or if your child is going to eradicate pornography and human trafficking, yeah, that is a really important and significant life worth dying for. But if your child is going to be mostly selfish, bum around, be a bit of a bully, spend his best time playing X Box, perhaps doing an ordinary job that earns his living, is that really a life worth dying for? 

If we say our children are worth dying for and so worth living for, then, rationally speaking, either we place a huge burden upon them to do something great with their lives, or if they live trivial lives, we have wasted and trivialised our own precious lives living for their trivial lives.

As much as I love my wife and four beautiful daughters, I am not persuaded that they are living lives that are particularly better than anyone else's, and neither do I want to shoulder them with a burden of feeling they must achieve greatness. But neither do I want to trivialise my own precious life.

There has got to be a 'reason' for living. A rational purpose that makes life worthwhile. And it has got to be more than just my children. After all, they will probably live for their children, who will live for their children, and so on until humanity and eventually all life dies out. Then what? Then it will be that we all lived for something that came to nothing.

A great man in the Bible reflected on this and wrote ...

"Man who is born of a woman, flowers and then fads away, like a shadow that flees at the sunset, in a lifetime that's just like a day". (Job)

And Shakespeare sums up most of our lives well, 

"Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player that struts and frets his hour upon the stage, and then is heard no more; it is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing"

In other words, ultimately, life is absurd and meaningless. There's surely more to life than this!

In my next blog I will explain how Jesus rationally, emotionally, mentally and spiritually can give ultimate meaning to all our lives.

Working for the Gospel

This Easter, we at New Life Church are putting on a community 3 day Easter Event. We are a small church and so for us, this is a big deal. A small number of people will be working really hard over those three days to make the event the best event we have ever done. An even smaller group have been doing a lot of work behind the scenes.

Why do this stuff? That is an important question since we usually have mixed motives and sometimes, mainly wrong motives. An example would be - 

"We are doing it because we feel, we suppose we ought to. It is an obligation as part of the church."

That motive has nothing good about it in God's eyes because there is no heart or pleasure in it. It is like a burden that we reluctantly take on and look forward to unloading so that we have got it out of the way and done our part.

Another motive which seems better - certainly sounds good, but in the end is potentially no good at all is ... 

"We are doing it for the sake of the gospel, we want people to know about Jesus". 

How can that be a wrong motive? I can hear you say, "Julian, don't you often say things like, "this is for the sake of the gospel"?

The problem is, we intellectually agree the gospel is primary, but a lot of the time our hearts prefer other things. So we know in our heads we should do this or that for the gospel, but our hearts are not in it. We do it just because we know we "ought" to do it.

When we talk about doing something for the sake of the gospel, it becomes a right motive when our hearts are in it, when we mean something like,

"I have been captivated by Jesus, He is wonderful in my eyes. My heart is thrilled by Him. When I consider what He has done for me I just want to give myself to Him completely. And when I realise most people do not know anything about this wonderful treasure - Jesus and what He has done and what He is like, I will do anything to help them see what I see that they too may share with me in this joy."

In that situation a person is filled with the gospel, compelled by it, joyfully given to it and motivated by it, for it, they cannot think of anything better than the gospel, it makes their hearts fill up and overflow.

That is what you might call a gospel person. That is what every Christian should be. But to be a gospel person, we must fight battles and discipline ourselves to keep ourselves in the conscious love and joy of Jesus. That is what is meant by 'for the sake of the gospel'.

A gospel person with an overflowing heart sees the kind of events we are doing as an opportunity to do something with the overflow of their hearts. For a gospel person, doing something for the sake of the gospel is not even a sacrifice because it is where their hearts are at. It is a sacrifice when our hearts prefer other things to Jesus, because then we are sacrificing what we really love for something we feel obliged to do - that feels like a cost. But when the gospel person works hard for the sake of the gospel he says like Hudson Taylor, "I never made a sacrifice".

So as we engage in gospel work, check your own heart. if you're heart's not in it, what is the answer? We'll answer that tomo.

The Maddest Gamble ever!

I understand and respect the fact that different people have different beliefs from Atheism to Breatharianism - that's fine (actually Breatharianim is not fine - it's downright dangerous!) but you know what I mean.

So I get all that - and I respect an individual's right to choose what they believe. But there is something I really cannot get my mind around. That is this ...

How is it, so many people - probably you the current reader included, are so confident about what you believe you are comfortable gambling that Christianity and Islam are wrong?

Now I know Islam is not true - but I've done the homework and know why it cannot be true, but I doubt you have down the same.

Most people never bother to find out the first thing about these two great (in terms of size) world faiths - yet these faith systems hold that we live once, then die, then face judgment. All who have not complied will be cast into a lost eternity - hell.

Now I know I am not a genius, I'm not an intellectual or great thinker - but I also know I am not totally stupid. My guess is that I have an average IQ and know how to think things through and be sensible.

Now I also know that Christian beliefs are unpopular today. Most people don't really like them very much anymore. They are considered unsophisticated and primitive.

Now as a common sense man and a Christian I do question my beliefs. Is it really possible that Christianity is the one true faith? Isn't that arrogant, primitive and outmoded thinking? I do wonder from time to time.

The truth is, there are times when I don't even want it to be true - it doesn't fit with society anymore and I just want to be like everyone else. I have times when I doubt it all.

So at those times I re-evaluate all the evidence. That is my own life story and experience, the Christian world view compared to all others and the historical evidence for the resurrection of Jesus Christ. What I find when I check it all out is - it all checks out. I'm not saying it is 100% water-tight - but it is say, 95-97% at the very least.

Then I sometimes think - but there is a slither of possibility that it may all be untrue, that 3-5% chance. And I contemplate the possibility of turning my back on the church and the Christian faith on the basis of that 3-5% slither of doubt.

But do you know what?

The thought of it utterly terrifies me - I am not kidding here - man, it make no sense at all to gamble so much. If Christianity is true - and at the very least it is almost certainly true, then my turning my back on it all is to almost certainly damn myself to hell forever and ever and ever.

That is an insane gamble - only a fool would gamble so much for so little.

Yet this is what most of you do. You are gambling on Jesus never having risen from the grave - you are gambling on the Christian faith being untrue - probably not because it is unbelievable - it is believable and has real credibility - but because you don't want it to be true. You don't want Jesus.

Like a mad-man on a helper-skelter to destruction with eyes closed tight and fingers in ears imagining happy thoughts you are hurtling to what the ancients called 'the day of reckoning'.

My advice and plea?

Stop gambling so much for so little. Find out now what is true and begin to do what is right in the light of that. The decisions you make today effect not only your eternity, but will influence the eternity of those you love most too.

Consider this ...

Christianity is not cool and popular, it is considered unsophisticated and doesn't really fit with our modern society - but does that make it untrue? Of course not. So don't reject it on that basis.

Wanna know how you can find out more? leave a comment, go to our web site, message me - whatever, find out.

FIEC Leaders Conference

I have been involved in FIEC for over 16 years. I have worked for FIEC as a Church Planter and have been on their Outreach Team before the rejig 3 years ago. I have been on the inside of FIEC and on the outside of it. In 2010 my employment by FIEC ceased and the church I lead was not yet affiliated with FIEC.

The years I spent working for FIEC were good years. The staff were always very supportive. It's strength was always the gospel centred people. However, being on the inside track was always, very frustrating. I always felt strongly that FIEC needed to change and was much less than it could be. Strangely, virtually everyone I spoke to, including FIEC staff agreed. But FIEC, for all it's good was unwieldy. No-one seemed to know how to bring about change. I think one reason for this was the way FIEC was structured. It was not structured to be led.

However, change did come! Three years ago FIEC for a New Day launched. John Stevens was installed as FIEC Director, Trevor Archer and Richard Underwood followed his appointment as Director of Training and Director of PCT. Later, Andy Patterson was appointed as the Director of outreach which covered church planting.

I always had my reservations - not about the men - they are all great men, but the structure. I felt the main post should be Director of Outreach with training and PCT sitting underneath. 

The next three years was for me, 'be positive, encouraging and supportive, wait and see'. They were talking the talk but could they walk the walk?

Three years later, I am more than delighted to say that the FIEC Leaders Conference was everything and more than I expected. Any previous reservations I had are gone. FIEC has succeeded in establishing a DNA with a foundation that is Reformed Evangelical (thankfully no change there) and spear-headed by the gospel. 

FIEC has always been Evangelical, it has always been 'gospel centred' (I think), but the subtle difference now is that it is more contemporary Evangelical (demonstrated by its statements on Ecumenism and complimentarity and more recently the timely Statment on homosexuality and gay marriage! but as well as being gospel centred! I would say it is now firmly 'Gospel Up-Front and Centre!' It is unapologetically gospel motivated and gospel led. It seems less defensive and more offensive. 

Right now, for the first time, I really feel FIEC is home - and I love it! 

Great conference!