The Simple Pastor
Simplicity & Generosity
Bibliophilia (09.09.10): An abundance of reviews this week – which means lots of choice and recommendations and sh... http://bit.ly/9Kpslp 3 hrs ago
I’m reading Henry Chadwick’s history The Early Church and there are some absolute gems which I’ll post for your reflection, edification and application.
Why did the early church grow and succeed? It’s a fascinating question. Chadwick gives some support to those that love cities but also says,
“Nevertheless, the Christian mission was not directed merely at centres of power. It was consciously aimed at the common people, and the ideals of simplicity and humility were never far from the minds of those who had to propagate their faith.” (p72)
Emphasis mine. I’m not sure that those ideals are anyway close to the minds of most church leaders in the western church. Maybe there’s a connection there.
This is from his foreword to Dave Stroud’s Planting Churches, Changing Communities
“Church planting is not simply a matter of getting a number of individuals saved; it is about the advance of God’s community in the earth. He wants a community, his city, his family in which he could dwell. Church planting is an extension of the community, not simply an exercise in multiplying the head count. Part of God’s purpose in saving us is to overcome our intense selfishness and isolation.” (bold added)
Amen.
Church planting is not an easy thing to do, there’s a tonne of things to learn and to think about. Good reasons to have some good books on the subject and I’d recommend from the outset adding David Stroud’s Planting Churches, Changing Communities: A hands on guide to successful church planting.
It comes from the Newfrontiers family of churches and draws much of its material from within that network, however much of the advice would be useful or helpful no matter what your denomination or church movement.
It doesn’t particularly deal with theory or theology but very much concerns itself with the practical and personal side to church planting. What’s your vision? What qualities do you need? How do you manage your time and gather people? How do you build community and maintain momentum? What do you need to be ready to launch publicly? As a result of it being broken down into its various parts and with regular quotes and anecdotes from church planters you can motor through this book quite quickly. However if you’ve never planted a church before, you want to be making extensive notes and refer back to it regularly.
I guess I have one slight reservation, one that was flagged up by Howard Kellett not too long ago, when he said,
“In truth “you only launch once” is very much the language of the big company product launch, reaching the self focused consumer. So the more I reflect on the term the more I don’t feel comfortable with Godfirst Church Cheltenham as a Sunday morning product and even less at ease with the idea of Jesus followers as consumers.”
And there is the underlying idea that what you need to make your church fly are good musicians, good teaching, good kids work and a comfortable venue. My some what jaded reaction was ‘Perfect if you want the middle classes’. But if you’re planting into the inner city, or a rural area, or even just your average working class neighbourhood then you may not have any of those things and still be a great church.
Now I know Dave and I know he knows that. So now you know that I know that he knows or whatever. But the point is, in the book there’s this edge to consumer values that made me a bit uncomfortable and I know it’s not just me because one of the contributors to the book has said so.
None of that stops this book though from being on the shelf of every church planter and every church leader who hopes one day to help a church plant or send leaders. This is hands on, down to earth helpful stuff.
I use the Daily Telegraph Book of Hymns as part of my regular devotions and it’s a real treasure trove. I came across this version of Psalm 42 and a few of the 12 verses really stood out for me:
As pants the hart for cooling streams/ When heated in the chase;/ S0 longs my soul, O God for thee/And thy refreshing grace
For thee, my God, the living God,/ My thirsty soul doth pine;/ O when shall I behold thy face,/ Thou Majesty divine?
My thirsty soul doth pine. Really? I’m not sure that’s always how I’d describe my soul. Sometimes Pre-occupied, tired and distracted suit it better. Sometimes self-sufficient, prideful or lazy would be better matches.
Perhaps the worst of all tragedies is to die of thirst but never realise that readily available water would save you. My soul dies for lack of water, for lack of the presence of God. Yet sometimes I don’t realise this is happening. Which is why regular time with God is so crucial and a battle that I must engage in.
Lord save me, wake me up to the state of my soul and then quench my thirst with your streams of living water.
The church merger continues to progress. Legal documents have been signed and in the coming few days all assets, liabilities and so on will be transferred from two charities into one new one Hope Church Shrewsbury.
For the past seven years or so North Shrewsbury Community Church has been nomadic, of no permanent abode. We’ve been mostly using this school as our home but have used at least five other buildings in that time and have used two different office units. The Grange Free Church owns two buildings and it’s easy to think ‘yippee’ because we’re no longer nomadic. But we should always be careful that having a fixed address doesn’t lead to the church becoming static and motionless. We mustn’t forget that the people of God are intended to be a nomadic people (1 Pet 2:11).
But buildings are not always a total blessing. Both of the two buildings we are now responsible for have their limitations and need some investment. We’re converting one into our new offices (saving money and moving us into the heart of one of the communities) and that comes at a cost. There are access, storage, heating, security issues to deal with.
Over the past few months getting to grips with and resolving these issues have taken up considerable time and energy and if you’re not careful dominate the landscape. A greater goal needs to be kept in sight. We must increase not simply the buildings number capacity but it’s missional capacity. The buildings must become a servant to the mission of the church and not a drain.
Soon builders will begin their work and the lawyers will hopefully have finished theirs but for us the work of increasing the mission by more effective use of the buildings is just beginning.
Back in June I talked about the church merger and the process we used to choose a new name for the church. I deliberately didn’t mention the name. But it’s about time I did. Hope Church.
So there you go. It’s not original but that wasn’t one of the criteria so I’m not bothered about that. There are plenty of Hope Churches in the nation but none in our town. It’s unique where it matters most, in our local area.
Hope more than adequately expresses the call of God on us as a local church. Through our Kids Club we bring hope to children, through our youth work hope to teenagers, through our social enterprises hope to the unemployed, through events like Soul Purpose we bring hope to the community, through beach trips we bring hope to families. Most importantly through initiatives like Alpha and our Sunday services we seek to bring hope for forgiveness of sins, freedom from guilt and shame, hope for the present and hope for eternal life to all who will listen.
Hope not only says something about what we’re about but it’s a word that makes sense to people even if they live (as many do in our area) without it. Hope Church gives expression to our expanding vision and growing church over the coming years.
It’s also a lot shorter than North Shrewsbury Community Church.
To go along with such things a new website is being constructed, and events are being planned and all that sort of thing to launch Hope Church. In the meantime we’ve had a play with some logo ideas. These aren’t final and I’m not telling you yet which one we’ve chosen, but I’d be interested to know which one you like or not.
Just recently I had a disagreement with a friend about the Anglican Church. Following the latest round of public bitterness about the way forward for the CofE, I was struggling to see why evangelicals are fighting so hard to remain locked within in it alongside so many people that they disagree with so violently. In the disagreement between Lloyd-Jones and Stott, I’m with Lloyd-Jones.
First my friend said every move of God in the UK has come from within the Church of England. I think that’s hard to prove, history is never as clear cut as that. Influences flow in and out of churches from a variety of streams and places.
Secondly he accused me of a doctrine of ecclesiastical purity, whereas the Anglicans let the wheat and the chaff grow together (Mt 13:24-30). I’m not sure the parable has the church in mind as the context for the wheat and weeds but never mind. The New Testament is clear that there will be leaders that will come into the church that are not Gospel ministers (both Paul and John fight hard against these false leaders in their letters). They are amongst us and they have become leaders. But their response is not to partner with them (3 John 1:9 is one example).
On reflection though, I think one of the issues I have (aside from theological issues like baptism, priesthood, ecclesiology and several others) is that I see it as an institution, and what I want is to be a part of a movement. Tim Keller has an excellent article on the differences.
He writes,
“A movement is marked by an attractive, clear, unifying vision for the future together with a strong set of values or beliefs. The content of the vision must be compelling and clear so that others can grasp it readily….By contrast, “institutionalized” organizations are held together by rules, regulations, and procedures, not by a shared vision.”
When you see the fight over women bishops in the Church of England, you see an institution trying to hold itself together by rules and regulations.
Despite my admiration for many leaders and churches that have come from the Church of England (we run an Alpha course, I’ve been hugely blessed by Soul Survivor and some of my closest local mission partners are Church of England), I still don’t ‘get’ how this institution is a help not a hindrance to gospel mission and the witness to Christ in our country. I’m open to being enlightened.
For me, I love being part of a movement while the politics of the institution makes my skin crawl. I am motivated by the passion, prayer, generosity and sacrifice of a movement. As Keller says,
“This unifying vision is so compelling that it takes pride of place. First, the vision leads to sacrificial commitment. Individuals put the vision ahead of their own interests and comfort. They are willing to work without high compensation, power, or perks.”
The challenge is how to remain a strong movement and not become an institution as growth happens:
“A strong movement, then, occupies the difficult space between being a free-wheeling organism and a disciplined organization. A movement that refuses to take on some organizational characteristics – authority, tradition, unity of belief, and quality control — will fragment and dissipate. A movement that does not also resist the inevitable tendency toward complete institutionalization will lose its vitality and effectiveness as well.”
The thing is not the labels (although theology matters) but if there’s vision and movement in the good old Church of England for the advance of Kingdom of God, like say the New Wine Network, then praise God!
Today and tomorrow I’m in Brighton at the Newfrontiers leadership conference ‘Together on a Mission’. For the last couple of years this is my annual foot in mouth season as I get a bit too honest. I’m going to try hard this year to be more diplomatic, Lord help me.
In this short video Terry Virgo is interviewed about what it means to be a reformed charismatic. A few minutes in he talks about church and uses this phrase that just thrills me that church is a spirit-filled community ‘gathering to the presence of Jesus’. That’s exciting
Terry Virgo: Being Reformed and Charismatic from Jubilee Church on Vimeo.
I haven’t written anything in a while about the church merger we’re working on so I thought it was about time I said something about that. Sooner or later the issue of names crops up, ‘what are we going to be called?’
We decided early on that a new name was important, that way we would all be caught up into something new rather than some feeling they’ve lost their identity and others not seeing the change. But how do you choose a name? I’ve been through one pretty tortuous church naming process and was keen to avoid a second.
So this was our process:
Here are the principles I was looking for in a name
And so we have a new name, with one or two things on the design side still to be worked out…
I’ve spent the last few days in the hills of mid-Wales at Cefn Lea. The sun shone and it was beautiful. More inspiring than the surroundings was the opportunity to bask in the grace of God to His people. Just great.
We gathered with hundreds of our brothers and sisters from churches in Whitchurch, Wrexham, Telford, Rugeley, Stafford and Shrewsbury. We were superbly led in worship by Phatfish (and at the time of writing, the very pregnant Lou Fellingham) and in the leadership from Jeremy & Anne Simpkins and Julian Adams from Christcentral, Manchester.
The guys from church played their part, Matt Pattison did a superb job in getting so many people there, Lis Davies and Rob Smith had major roles in leading the children, Ray Green in doing the finances for the event and even better was seeing the contributions of spiritual gifts from our guys. Keep going with that, seeing heartfelt, Spirit-led, grace filled, truth imparted in worship. Great stuff.
It really felt like we made a step in faith towards a new level of mission together in our region too, that God was bringing us into a new chapter. It won’t be easy but it will be worth it. Let’s press on together…
It was I think inevitable. When Philippa Stroud decided to step into the political arena sooner or later our secular media would turn its gaze her way and now just a few days before a general election they have. Philippa issued a fairly robust response. And although it may not seem like it, some feel she’s getting off lightly. Likewise because the leader of Newfrontiers UK is her husband, Newfrontiers is also come under the spotlight. Expect to see more like this if she is elected. So do pray for her, this won’t be easy.
So what to make of it? Well to begin with we shouldn’t be surprised, firstly Philippa is director of the Centre for Social Justice that has been highly influential in forming Conservative party policy on many home affairs issues, the nearer the Conservatives get to office, the more intense the scrutiny (fair and otherwise). Secondly Philippa is a candidate for parliament in Sutton and Cheam and has been tipped for office, and she is fighting against the resurgent Liberal Democrats. This brings attention your way.
It should remind us of several important facts about our society. (more…)
You may be wondering who the heck is Gina Welch? Let me explain, Gina Welch is an atheist who faked a conversion experience, got baptised, and spent two years at Thomas Road Baptist Church in America and then wrote a book about her experiences, which is both disturbing and gutsy (you can read more information and a review of the book here).
It seems like she makes some good points, especially about conversion versus discipleship,
“How can you know if you’ve saved someone if there’s never follow-up, never counselling, never a progress report? How can you be sure the person hasn’t instantly reverted to his old ways? In other words, aren’t you simply counting the people who prayed the prayer in that instant rather than counting new Christians?… If you’re a sincere Christian you believe all it takes is that instant, as long as you’re sincere. Once you’ve prayed the sinner’s prayer, you’re good to go. God is supposed to abide in you and guide you, but really your ‘ways’ don’t matter. Your name is written forever in the Lamb’s book of life.’ It seemed evident that evangelicals were padding their rosters.”
No question we can be guilty of that, if you pray a prayer at summer camp and then spend the next year of your life living like anyone else chances are nothing changed when you said the prayer and it was all a bit emotional.
But anyway, in this interview with Trevin Wax she says this about what is attractive about Christianity,
“There are plenty of ideas in evangelical Christianity that appeal to me. It would be nice to know that even the most hideous acts of violence and destruction happen for a reason. It would be nice to know that this short life isn’t the end, that there’s something better on the other side, and that when I lose someone it’s only temporary. It would be nice to know what’s expected of me. It would be nice to know when I have dark thoughts or do something I know I shouldn’t it’s because that’s my natural sinful wiring, that I shouldn’t feel guilty about it. I think that’s why evangelical Christianity is such a popular formula–because it answers our common longings.”
So here’s my question, how could she spend two years in an evangelical church and still miss the point? And would the same thing happen if that happened in our church?
First here’s where she misses the point.
I hope that if someone spends two years in our church they’ll know that life is only lived to the full if we seek first the kingdom in all its ways with all of our heart for all of our days and that the starting point to a life of discipleship is the cross of Christ and the empty tomb of the risen Lord. But I shan’t take that for granted.
Not so long ago I gave warning of a storm gathering steam around Brian McLaren’s new book. Just a couple of updates and reviews for those interested. Justin Taylor links to this excellent and reasonable review by Scot McKnight in Christianity Today. McKnight offers praise and criticism but at the end of it questions how much orthodoxy is left writing, “Unfortunately, this book lacks the “generosity” of genuine orthodoxy and, frankly, I find little space in it for orthodoxy itself.”
At the same time to further evidence of the frustration I felt, McLaren has been in London at the Faithworks conference and has been saying some generally agreeable and sensible things such as, “We are not passive players conforming to the world but with transformed and renewed minds, we are agents of transformation.”
So I spent a couple of good days last week at the Total Church Conference (the conference was well hosted by The Crowded House in an incredibly disabled-unfriendly building – lots of stairs) in Sheffield. 2 days, 6 plenary talks and two breakout sessions, with the main talks split between the authors of the book, Steve Timmis and Tim Chester. I’m hoping that the audio’s of the talks will be soon be made available, so I’m not going to regurgitate the content at this point but give some personal highlights and observations. (more…)
Today and tomorrow I’m at the Total Church conference in Sheffield, with Tim Chester and Steve Timmis. Reports to follow later on
A storm is brewing and it could become a blogosphere Hurricane. The storm is called Brian.
Brian McLaren is a polarizing figure, loved by the left and rejected by the right. First the debate was whether he was evangelical, now it’s whether he’s even Christian. The furore is over his latest book A New Kind of Christianity: 10 Questions that are transforming the faith. I’ve always maintained that he is better at asking the right questions than he is at giving the right answers. That remains mostly the case.
For the strongest possible reaction to this book then read what Tim Challies has to say. For a more measured but no less damning perspective try Kevin DeYoung or Michael Wittmer
Now, I find myself in an awkward position so time for some disclosure. I own some of his books. Four of them to be precise, and I quite liked bits of them. A good friend of mine even spent some time in his church. Who knows, we could be friends. When Brian says things like this about consumerism I find myself in agreement.
So here’s my bind, the orthodox authors and leaders that I increasingly admire, almost never mention consumerism. McLaren who’s evangelicalism is increasingly in question, mentions it a lot. Aaaarrgghhgh. Where are the orthodox evangelicals who give a damn about this issue? Thank God for Tim Keller that’s all I can say.
Too often on these issues, dealing with the culture of the day, Christians only have support from writers like McLaren. Well, OK, but evangelicals MUST do better than that. If anything reading and writing this post has given me a kick up the backside to refocus this blog on providing the resources and the Biblical support to Christians who want to subvert consumerism by leading Christ-like lives that are faithful to scripture and faithful to the one who died, was buried and was raised.
I believe Jesus when he said 'life does not consist in the abundance of our possessions'. I believe he offers something better. This blog is mostly about that search.
I'm also a church pastor, a bookshop owner, a husband, a father, a keen runner, reader, and motorcyclist. These and a few other things make guest appearances from time to time.
