Inter-Varsity Press

Contents

Foreword

Introduction

Potential

1. The double vision of Jesus

2. Called to make disciples

3. Feed my sheep

Keeping focus

4. Help! I’m too busy!

5. Listen to him . . . focus on him

6. What is that to you?

Handling failure

7. The breaking can be the making

8. Forgiven and forgiving

Forward into God’s future

9. Do you love me?

10. Pride and prejudice

11. The priority of obedience

12. The 3G leader

13. Peter’s ABC . . . humility, not celebrity

Postscript

Introduction (Extract)

We all meet people in life who make an enormous impact upon us. We can identify with them. We see something of ourselves in them and we also see what we aspire to be. They influence us. They challenge us. They motivate and inspire us. They are people of hope. They show us a better way. They are like rainbows in human form, for they are pictures of potential realized and compelling transformation. In my life, the Apostle Peter is one such person. For years he has intrigued me and enthused me. I see in him a model for twenty-first-century disciples and leaders.

Growth is one of the buzzwords in the church today. Growing churches, growing leaders and growing Christians are familiar terms. Yet real sustainable growth is impossible without growth in integrity and Christ-likeness. This is a growth which is not about celebrity but about depth of character. It is about the kind of people we are and can become. This book is all about observing that kind of quality growth in Peter. It is about learning vital lessons from him.

Peter’s story is a reality check to those who make false promises of a trouble-free life for all who follow Jesus. His life dispels a superficial and shallow understanding of Christian discipleship. His experiences are a reminder that growth involves growing pains. He knew about disappointment and unwise choices. He tasted the bitter pain of personal failure and foolishness. We see that failure does not have to be final and that brokenness can be the springboard to usefulness. Out of the seedbeds of deep devastation, we witness Christ-initiated restoration and Peter’s incredible transformation. His story is one of hope for all, not least for those who feel a failure. The church today needs to rediscover a Christ who restores, and needs to be more like him.

However, Peter’s story is much more than that. It goes far beyond the personal. The Peter story brings hope to divided communities and struggling churches. In Peter we see someone compelled to confront prejudices in his own life. Issues of racism, sectarianism and religious bigotry are part of his story. Having grown up in a divided community in Northern Ireland, and conscious of divisions in countries and communities across the world, I find Peter a model for courageous Christian leadership in our twenty-first-century world. He is compellingly contemporary. His experience gives hope to all.

This book has been a long time in the making. Sometimes I have said that preparing a sermon is comparable to a pregnancy, but writing this book has been even more like a pregnancy. I freely acknowledge that only a man would say that – more specifically, a man who is willing for martyrdom!

However, the comparisons are that it doesn’t happen instantly, it takes time, pain is involved and one changes during the experience. The delivery of this book is after a very long ‘pregnancy’! Its conception was in 2002. I had the privilege of giving the Bible readings at an International Scripture Union Conference in Nottingham University. Some of this material has grown out of those Bible readings on Peter. New Horizon is the largest annual Christian event in Northern Ireland and completely unexpectedly in 2007, because of sudden bereavement in a speaker’s family, I was drafted in and led Bible readings on Peter. At both events, people encouraged me to consider publication. Some of these themes were explored when the Bishops of the Church of Ireland invited me to give a short series of devotional talks at one of our residential meetings. Their subsequent comments were a great encouragement. …