What you think matters is the blog of the Newfrontiers Theology Forum and I’ve been consistently impressed by the wit and sharpness of the writing and the helpfulness of the content. Here are some examples that stood out for me:
So whether you agree with what they say or not, I’d urge you to subscribe to and engage with this blog for the building up of your theological faculties.
This got me thinking, is there a space for micro-finance for mission and church planting? This is how I imagine it working. Let’s use an example of a family church planting in, say randomly, Sweden. They need £20k per year to live on for 3 years while starting a new church. You give to the church planting version of Kiva and then when the new church is up and running, over a few years the money is repaid recycling the funding back into the world of church planting.
Because this works mostly in the developed world where incomes and giving are high, these could attract a premium of say 10% or something that is then channelled off to cover repayments made to churches being planted in low income developing countries where church income may never get high enough to repay a loan.
Now the sum I presented isn’t micro but neither is it astronomical, and it’s a way in which mission agencies and churches which may be struggling to raise finance the traditional ways can find fresh and new partners to support mission work throughout the world.
Of course the obvious weakness is that it requires investment into rich countries in order to invest into poorer nations. Anyway it was a passing thought and the only way to get it improved is for brighter minds than mine to give it some thought! So over to you.
Ed Stetzer reviewed it in Themelios and was less than positive as ”they plod through the biblical text in workmanlike fashion.’ Liam Thatcher read it and felt that too often ‘precision gave way to pedantry’. Trevin Wax read it and was left with five nagging questions which received a friendly response from the authors. Andrew Wilson then weighed in with his thoughts on why the two sides were talking past each other.
For what it’s worth, I’m more with Frost on this one.
I think it may have started with these posts by Krish Kandiah when he posted on women, men, church and twitter part 1 and part 2
An earlier post by Krish led Mark Heath to ask ‘do complementarian churches hinder women from reaching their full potential in teaching?’
Steve Holmes wonders if the evangelical debate can be depolarised and then does a fairly good job of polarising in his review of of Scott McKnights Junia is not alone- For the opposite view of McKnight’s book try this review by Denny Burk
Tim Challies argues that the public reading of Scripture is a teaching ministry and is therefore something that only men should do
On a related but separate issue was the whole issue of submission. Andrew Wilson looks at mutual submission; Mary Kassian deals with seven misconceptions about submission and Russell Moore says, ‘women stop submitting to men‘
Mark Meynell links to a sermon series by Hugh Palmer from All Souls, Langham Place on when Christians disagree and this very issue is an obvious test case. Worth a listen, me thinks.
Good use of social media, design, content, what makes that church website stand out from all the others that look the same? I’d be grateful for comments and links if you’d be so kind.
In his original invitation (no longer on the site), organiser James Macdonald said,
“I am also excited to hear him state his views on money, which may be closer to Scripture than the monasticism currently touring the Reformed world.”
In the first Elephant Room, Macdonald went toe to toe with David Platt on the issue of money. For what it’s worth I thought they were both wrong. What’s interesting here is that Platt (not involved in the second one) is known for challenging the American church on their wealth. TD Jakes on the other hand is a millionaire and an extremely wealthy man. He teaches prosperity.
That strikes me as interesting. Macdonald disagrees with Platt and then invites TD Jakes whose views on money he thinks is closer to Scripture. Which really is sad. So it was interesting to think through some of the issues raised yesterday talking about the pay of megachurch pastors (some more thoughts to come on that by the way). TD Jakes would have raised that average quite considerably all on his own.
Money is a big deal, a really big deal. Love it too much and you can’t serve God. Put too much trust in it and it will reward you but God won’t. What we do with money, what we think about money, what we say and teach about money matters. It matters a lot. So let me be clear, on the issue of money TD Jakes is wrong and unbiblical and if James Macdonald thinks his views are closer to scripture then he’s wrong too. End of story, although not of debate. Thoughts?
So, what did you think? About right, too little, too much? Let me make a few observations, and this is from the perspective of someone who has only ever been the leader of a church of less than 100 adults.
First of all, the average income of the average American is approx $46,000. So the average mega-church pastor earns more than THREE times the average American wage. I don’t think that’s right.
First it strikes me that the model for determining a pay structure has come from the world of business. The more you grow (i.e the more ‘success’) you have, the more you should be paid. Has no one ever questioned whether that is an appropriate model for church pay? They must have done somewhere but I’d be interested in reading the thinking and justification. Another way in which business seems to have influenced the model is that with size comes an expectation of quality and to ensure quality you need to hire the best and to hire the best you need to pay; and if I pay my new worship leader $75,000 dollars a year well the senior pastor should get a raise too.
However, it’s often said that the bigger the church the more the senior pastor moves away from being a leader of the people to a leader of a team and the average size of a mega-church staff team is 60, so perhaps they should be paid appropriate to leading 60 and not 6000?
I can’t for the life of me, find justification for paying a pastor $150,000 dollars a year so that by serving the church for 10 years of more he could be a millionaire. Well, they have their reward. I guess my hope is that they will realise they can live on about 1/2 of what they earn (and still earn 50% more than the average American) and give away the rest. Somehow though I doubt it.
So how should a church determine the pay of it’s leaders and staff? Thoughts please.
“What you practice at home is the show you take on the road. What you grow in your fields is what you load on the trucks. Compassing sea and land doesn’t generate a new message. The way you live when you get on the plane is going to be the single best indicator of how you live when you get off the plane. In short, don’t expect geographical location to fix anything.”
He then gave the following example,
“Say that someone says he has a real burden “for the lost” in Wango Bango. Say that the person at church he is speaking to suggests they spend that afternoon going door-to-door at student housing for the local university. There are lost people here too. Suppose further that the evangelistic ardor of the prospective missionary suddenly wanes. This is a bad sign, and it is a bad sign of what I am talking about…The first step in foreign missions is domestic mission. The first step toward Africa is right across the street.”
Now I agree that if we’re concerned about the lost abroad we should be concerned about the lost at home. But Wilson is wrong when he says, ‘don’t expect geographical location to fix anything.’ Or at least he will sometimes be wrong. Let me make a few assumptions about Wango Bango, the two big ones being that is a poor country with vast numbers living on $1 a day and that it is largely pagan. If I go there, happy in my mildly affluent Western lifestyle the chances are the encounter with grinding, merciless, heartless, child killing poverty might shock me out of my comfort zone. The generosity of my hosts will be a refrain I retell on countless occasions back home. I become less self-centred and more generous. More of what I get in goes out to supporting the needs of churches or ministries in these poor countries. In short seeing and encountering the poverty could and sometimes does change everything.
But what about the pagan bit? I might know and appreciate that most of my neighbours are lost but somehow seeing lostness in a whole new way drives the point home. Perhaps in Wango Bango I see thousands kneel and sacrifice to idols and spend their precious savings on witchdoctors and suddenly the idea of ‘lostness’ strikes home. Perhaps, seeing lostness in its clearest form helps me appreciate lostness in its vague proximity at home and suddenly the urgency of telling these lost people about the coming of a King becomes a lot more, well, urgent. So going to Wango Bango might not be such a wasted trip.
First of all a few points to set the scene. Right now the only language I’m fluent in is English. I have appalling French and improving Swedish. I knew some words and phrases before moving here but our learning began in earnest in July (well August really). At present I have a basic level of conversation and I make frequent grammatical errors in everyday speech (much like my English). But I have enough of a grasp of the general feel for the language to have a go. That, plus I was challenged too and well I don’t like to back down from those. The preach itself while not perfectly delivered wasn’t too bad and mostly didn’t detract from the content, which was a big worry.
“Kingdom people seek first the Kingdom of God and its justice; church people often put the church work above concerns of justice, mercy and truth. Church people think about how to get people into the church; Kingdom people think about how to get the church into the world. Church people worry that the world might change the church, Kingdom people work to see the church change the world.”
Quoted in The Road to Missional by Michael Frost (p80)
Not so long ago Trevin Wax reviewed Erasing Hell by Francis Chan and Preston Sprinkle, a response to Rob Bell’s Love Wins. In his comments Wax complains that, ‘No one is discarding hell because of the convincing nature of Bell’s eisegesis. No… people are following Bell because of the compelling way he has made his case…The power of Love Wins is not in Bell’s exegesis or in his thoughtfulness. The power of Bell’s book is in its aesthetic qualities. Bell is appealing to the sentiments and emotions in a way that proves effective for many disaffected evangelicals today…We grasp the issues, but others grasp the medium.’
Liam Thatcher picked up on this and pleaded for some truthful beauty and beautiful truth saying, “Ultimately, whilst I may favour the Reformed perspective, I am drawn to beauty. And I wish beyond wish that there were more people from the orthodox perspective writing with the same level of creative engagement as some of the emergent guys. Because frankly, some of the Reformed guys make me want to switch sides… Call it petulance, but I have artistic tendencies that are often unfulfilled by many of the guys I read or listen to.”
So it seems that ‘arid logic-chopping’ remains a weaknesses in the Calvinist armour some several centuries later.
Let me give you two examples in videos. First up The Gospel Coalition and Erwin Lutzer on the resurrection.
What Are The Implications Of The Resurrection For Christians Life And Thought? from The Gospel Coalition on Vimeo.
Now Rob Bell.
Can you spot the difference? Now I’m probably not being entirely fair to Mr Lutzer. But frankly nothing on The Gospel Coalition is as compelling as what Rob Bell offers here. Not even close. It isn’t simply about the facts, it’s about how the facts are told. Bell is a story-teller and a superb one at that.
By comparison he makes most people sound like this:
Those who would complain at the content must realise that the medium is the message and the new reformed haven’t quite got that yet.
We need the ‘eternal verities and consolations’ of the faith told in ways that draw the heart, capture the imagination, set the mind racing with ideas and most importantly catch our gaze at the beauty, mystery and majesty of God. We need words and we need to use them better, but we need to realise we live in a visual age, we must capture the eye as well as the ear.
I’m guilty of that and most preachers will shrink at the thought of more visual props, but if we’re communicating via the internet what I see can matter as much if not more than what I hear. But we need words, wonderful words, beautiful sentences and masters of the language that know how to tell a better story and not just the sound of an axe or even scalpel being brought to logic.
I wanted to highlight and bring to your attention a new website recently launched by Newfrontiers, Jubilee+. It brings back to the centre of our attention care and compassion for the needy and the vulnerable and I hope it will be a significant resource for our churches. Here’s the introduction from my friend and leader of the social justice team, Martin Charlesworth.
“What we are aiming to do is to provide you with the help you need to encourage and support you and your church in your social action agenda. We are aware that many churches are in need of resources, ideas, contacts and encouragement as they pursue their own projects and work in their communities. We hope this site provides something of what you need.
This site is dedicated to social and community action within the Newfrontiers family of churches in the UK. However, if you are from another Church grouping we hope you find the information useful.
Whilst the site is strongly focused on Newfrontiers, we will also feature partner organizations and important information about what is happening in other churches across the UK so you can see the wider context within which we are working.”
“For if our preaching were a matter of display and ambition, it would have been right to jump from one subject to another and change about continually, taking no thought for you but only for your applauses. But since we have not devoted our zeal to this, but our labours are all for your profit, we shall not cease discoursing to you on the same subjects, till you succeed in learning them.”
John Chrysostom On the epistle to the Hebrews quoted in the Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture : Hebrews
Brave man.
“Our eighth value is that excellence honours God and inspires people. That’s a value for us for two reasons. The first and foremost is because it’s the only way to live a life that honours God. God deserves our best. Mediocrity does not honour God, nor does it reflect his character.
But there’s a second reason, one that we shouldn’t forget. Excellence sends a message. When somebody comes in and sees typos in the program, sloppy printing or mailing, messy floors or grounds, a poorly performed or rehearsed music or drama, a talk that sounds like it was pulled together the night before, they make a value judgement: ‘This God you talk about must not be that big of a deal. If he was, you wouldn’t do things this way.’
So we’re passionate about excellence not only because we want to honour God with our lives but also because we know that mediocrity could invalidate everything we want to try to communicate to those around us about Christ.”
There are so many things wrong with those three paragraphs, it’s hard to know where to start. But let’s start by being nice. At a cursory glance you’d think what’s to disagree with, we want to honour God, which leader of a church doesn’t? So you have to applaud the sentiment that honouring God is a good thing. Secondly it’s worth noting that not setting out to be completely rubbish is also a good thing. And that I think is about all I could find to agree with here.
The list of disagreements from three short paragraphs is substantially longer.
The first area where I think White gets it wrong is when he argues that excellence is the only way to live a life that honours God. This might be inspiring in White’s can-do world, but what does that say to a single mum of three kids from different fathers who’s struggling to make family work and hold it all together? To me that communicates, you don’t belong here.
Excellence is a cultural value, it doesn’t make any sense in the slums of Bujumbura or the house churches of China. It doesn’t make any sense in the working class neighbourhoods or in the rural parish with 15 members, one of whom is a dog.
Sometimes mediocre is all I can manage. I’d love to be great all the time, I really would. Only sometimes I wake up with a headache and the best I can manage is not being a total disaster. Excellence is great if excellence is what you can achieve but what about the contribution of the deaf kid with poor grades or the elderly who carry with them all the frailties of age or the disabled or the just plain average person who doesn’t really do anything excellently but nothing too badly either, what place and role for them?
So, as you might be able to tell, I have a problem with this and I’m just getting warmed up.
Secondly White argues that God deserves our best. Sure he does, fortunately for me the GOSPEL says ‘He loves me at my worst’, ‘He takes me as I am and sorts me out’, ‘He accepts me when I am everything but excellent’. So what God deserves for loving me when I am the chief of sinners is not my best but my praise, not my excellence but my obedience, not my ability but my faithfulness. This is basic stuff. You don’t preach the gospel and then leave it behind when it comes to writing your values down. If God does love me at my worst and makes me a part of His family, then the church we lead can include all those the world would write off as being not excellent and it be a wonderful, beautiful thing. Paul says this about the church 1 Cor 1:25-31. That sounds more like it to me.
Thirdly, White goes for excellence because mediocrity doesn’t honour God. OK, if you think mediocre is somehow more spiritual then stop being silly. I don’t want to do rubbish, and as long as godly character is in evidence I’d ask my most able and gifted people to make their gifts available and I don’t want tone-deaf singers in front of a microphone or mumblers and grumblers preaching the monotone word of the lord. But there’s a vast chasm between those two extremes.
Sometimes there are mistakes in the news-sheet and sometimes the drama isn’t as good as it could be and sometimes the talk was prepared the night before. I’m not interested in entertaining a crowd, I’m interested in seeing disciples made and the church be faithful to its calling and see people offer their two loaves, or single copper penny and say simple non-excellent prays like ‘God forgive me for I have sinned’.
Fourthly, apparently excellence sends a message and so does not being excellent. Not being excellent reflects badly on God. So here’s what I would say to someone who after attending my non-excellent church service and listening to my non-excellent sermon makes the following judgement: ‘This God you talk about must not be that big of a deal. If he was, you wouldn’t do things this way.’
I would respond with the following: ‘Stop being a shallow consumer that sees the church and its worship as a product for your entertainment and centred around your needs you narcissistic twit.’
OK, maybe I’d be a little more gracious than that. Perhaps I’d say this, ‘I’m sorry you didn’t think our worship service was excellent in every way but we were never going to get there. We are just ordinary people loving an extraordinary God who loved us when we were his enemies and getting it all wrong. And sometimes we still get it wrong but we’ve found a freedom and a love and a grace that means we don’t have to be excellent to be loved, we don’t have to be excellent to be accepted, we don’t have to be excellent to be a success. So there’s no pressure here and instead we just do our best with what we have been given. And everyone here can play a part.’
That sounds a bit better.
In the interests of full disclosure I should say that I count some of the staff and members of Kings as friends and am part of the same family of churches as the author of this book, Steve Tibbert. It’s always a slightly tricky thing when you review a book by someone you know. Being a sycophant isn’t my thing but then I’ve not always got the balance right when making public comments about people who, after all, are on the same team. That makes it sound like I’m about to pan this book, which I’m really not at all.
Good to Grow is the story of Kings Church in south-east London since Steve’s became the leader in the early 90′s. It’s a story of a church that has grown from some 200 to well over a thousand regular attenders, now meeting across multiple sites and pushing ahead at some rate of knots. As such it’s a story to be applauded. There simply aren’t enough stories like this in the UK of churches growing consistently over the years and breaking through significant barriers in terms of numbers and diversity.
Good to Grow also contains the leadership lessons that Steve has learnt along the way and Steve is a very focused leader and there is lots of good stuff here particularly on building a diverse church, building a great marriage and the challenge of regularly retooling your leadership team to be ready for the next season of growth.
The chapters are short and the tone is conversational so you race through the pages quickly and nowhere does it get bogged down in detail. I read it in about three hours and it’s time well spent.
At times the book is a bit uneven and patchy and this is mostly when the story and the leadership lessons get mixed up and the chapter loses focus, this was more evident at the beginning of the book as the story of the early years of Steve’s tenure was recalled. The book became much sharper and found its stride from the middle onwards.
However, any quibbles I have are minor and it certainly doesn’t spoil the book. The big take home lesson for me was the importance of building a great team which undoubtedly Steve has done. So for an encouraging story of church growth, for honest assessment of how to build a diverse multi-racial team and for other useful leadership lessons Good to Grow is a worthwhile book for a leader to read.
I should add that since having children the tears always feel a little closer to the surface not because I’m all weepy over my kids but mostly because my brain is addled, my body is weary, my emotions are all over the place and I’m generally just shattered. As a result I’ve been surprised by how close to the surface the river really is.
Those excuses aside, I think it is a mark of a good relationship between a church and its leaders when there are tears at the parting and hopefully not in the ‘at last we’ve got rid of him and we’re so happy we could cry’ kind of way.
Instead for me there were tears because I wasn’t leaving a job, I wasn’t moving on to a new career opportunity, I wasn’t going to bigger and better things. There were tears because I was leaving friends, I was leaving family, I was leaving my church. Mine, not because I led it but because I was part of it. It was the place I belonged, the place where I found community, where I found faith, laughter, friendship and where I found iron to help bash me into shape.
In this church we went through most of what life has to offer: our wedding, the death of close family members, the birth of our children, the ups and downs of daily life. We gave together, ate together, teased each other, reached out to the community together and now we were leaving but not disappearing being sent and being sent well.
I’d be worried if a leader could deliver a final sermon unmoved by the changing of relationships or the parting of ways, I’d be concerned if someone was there so little time that those friendships were never really formed because this isn’t a profession it’s a calling, it isn’t a job (although I was paid) it was the fruit of a shared vision and goal in life: that together we could do something however small to reach some people in our neighbourhood with the wonderful news that Jesus knows them though they sin, that Jesus died for them though they are sinners and that Jesus can turn them into saints.
So I cried. Knackered, tired but unashamed.
In the past I’ve been a bit critical of our Together on a Mission conferences but there has been a consistent high point every year. Without fail the Thursday night of prayer and giving is extraordinary.
It’s a genuine joy to watch people give exuberantly and generously as year after year close to a million pounds is given on one night. In fact it says something when there’s a slight air of disappointment if the total is only say £950,000!
It’s a thrilling thing to be among 5000 people praying for the nations and I think it’s to Terry Virgo’s enormous credit that prayer so fundamentally shapes our gatherings.
Last year I sat up in the gods watching thousands of arms stretched out in prayer as we earnestly sought God for nation after nation and I thought to myself, next year that will be me on the stage. And this it was!
I was really grateful to have a short chance to tell the thousands that the very next morning our family was flying to Sweden and something of the desire God has given us for this country and to plant a church in Stockholm. It was then profoundly moving to have those same thousands prayer with great passion, vigour and faith and to have people ahead of you in the journey come to you, lay on hands and pray for you as if they were coming with you. It was a remarkable privilege.
I’m not sure what the conferences of other church networks are like, what they focus on, what sense of unity and vision they have. I’ve certainly not come across or even to be honest heard of anything remotely to that. So while I think there are other conferences that will do many other things better I’m not sure I’d trade any of that if it meant missing out on that prayer night.
So it’s not too much of a stretch to say that we feel sent not just by a local church but also by a wider church family together on a mission. I hope as we grow and devolve from the centre to the regions that somehow that sense of together will not be lost.
For some great photos of the event go here
However there were and are other problems with the concept of missionary that I had back then that stands in stark contrast to what we’ve just personally experienced. The missionary, at least as it seemed to me, would leave the local church and go and work for the mission agency. The vision for the mission comes from the mission agency and is caught by the missionary who asks the church to support it both in prayer and finance.
I’ve witnessed from friends of mine working for mission agencies that over time (and not always a long time either) there is a real sense that the vision that caught them and has taken them to another country and that they’ve made significant sacrifices for in the cause of the Gospel is not fully shared by their church. In other words their vision and mission was not seen or owned as the vision of the local church. As a result prayer for the departed, so to speak, becomes peripheral and perhaps over time funding dries up.
By contrast what we’ve experienced so far has been quite different, although time and distance could prove me wrong. What we’ve experienced is a church putting forward significant sums of money, helping us, loving us and seeking God with us because our vision and mission to see churches planted all across the world is the vision of the church we left. It’s not someone else’s vision, it’s theirs, it’s ours. So we’ve not been sent by a church to a mission agency; we’ve been sent by a church to a church for the church.
Here are some of the many excellent things Hope Church did in the way that they sent us. Firstly, they quickly grasped that this is what we were called to both as a church and us as a couple. This is the mission we are on together. Secondly, as a result of that, they sacrificially gave to enable that to happen. They really put up big numbers for us, giving us around 50% of our goal for the first 18 months all on their own. They grasped that God’s mission is an opportunity for God’s people to be generous in their giving. They owned the mission by the way they gave.
Thirdly, they loved us well as we left. We had cards, several leaving parties (all great fun) and we had practical help when we needed it. Lastly and perhaps most importantly of all, they sought God for us. They were told on which Sunday we would be prayed for and they were asked to come ready to pray, ready to being something from God for us and they did. We were overwhelmed by the depth, quality and faith stirring prayers and prophecies that were brought. We freshly and powerfully sensed again God’s hand on us in this move. It made me think this is a little bit what Acts 13:1-5 must have felt like. The Holy Spirit moving the church into wider mission.
Back in March 2009 I got on my pedestal about all this talk about cities and I said things like,
“I’ve already admitted that strategically it’s hard to ignore the influence and impact of cities (however you define them) but that’s very different from creating a Biblical mandate which in effect prioritises cities over anywhere else, which is what I understand men like Tim Keller and Mark Driscoll to be advocating.”
And then along comes Trueman, albeit with a bit more wit and chutzpah, and says,
“One thing Paul and I did discuss was the current nonsense about cities being special which so dominates the popular evangelical imagination. Not that cities are not important: as areas where there are the highest concentrations of human beings, they are inevitably significant as mission fields. Rather, we were thinking of the `from a Garden to a City’ hermeneutic which jumps from scripture to giving modern urban sprawl some kind of special eschatological significance. Was there ever a thinner hermeneutical foundation upon which so much has been built? OK, there probably has been, but this is still a whopper.”
Did you hear that thump? The sound of an eminent theologian landing on a bandwagon! The rest by the way is well worth reading and even though I’m about to head off to plant a church in a city, I still think he’s right.
In our area of 15,000 people there is 1 Catholic church, 1 Elim Church, 1 Anglican church (with 2 congregations) and 1 Newfrontiers church (with 2 congregations). The Methodists closed down years ago and joined with the Anglicans, the FIEC recently joined with Newfrontiers.
Eight years ago the Newfrontiers church did not exist and now regularly gathers 80+ children and adults, many of whom are new believers plus another 20-30 in the former FIEC congregation. To me those facts alone justify church planting. Eight years ago I could have looked and said there are already 4 churches here, we don’t need another one. But there are still 15,000 people to reach with the good news of Jesus.
It’s likely that many of the 70% are living under some false assurance, some false notion of eternal safety not rooted in Christ. There are 15,000 people who need Jesus, there are 300 workers.
I loved having all our church over for cake and then playing down on one knee catch with a basketball afterwards. I loved washing up and playing card games with my chalet friends and watching our children play together. This is the stuff of real community, genuine friendships and centred around something we share in common: the adoration of Jesus.
I loved extended times of praise and worship, loved hearing stirring preaching on how the grace and love of God compels us into mission and we so appreciated being affirmed, prayed for and sent out on mission ourselves.
It also captures something that I find to be, if not exactly unique, but actually quite rare is this banding together of churches to accomplish more together than we can alone. It’s a strong calling on Newfrontiers churches not to be independent even if they are autonomous, to pray and work together even if we’re not a denomination.
It’s not often that something Mark Driscoll says is made to look quite calm and measured, but that’s what James MacDonald has managed with this piece called ‘Congregational government is from Satan’ which ends with,
“Down with congregational government. Not the people who believe in it or appreciate its history, not the good or bad people who try to function well in a bad system—down with the system itself. It’s unbiblical, unhealthy and too often a tool of Satan for the discouragement of good Pastors, godly Elders, and local churches everywhere.”
Stop being so balanced and come off the fence MacDonald and tell us what you really think! I’ve never had much experience of this form of church, anyone have anything good to say in its defence?
We’re staying on as a family for a week’s break to rest, chill out, walk and play before returning for the last leg of life in the UK. We still haven’t sold our house so if you’re someone who prays we’d be grateful for prayers for that.
So there will be some pre-written posts over the next ten days or so but no links or book stuff until I get back.
In the meantime here are some fun facts about Sweden for you:
* Sweden has the longest life expectancy in Europe, 80.5 years.
* Swedish women has their first child in average at 30 years old , the oldest in Europe along with the Netherlands and Ireland.
* Sweden has the highest percentage of working mothers in the developed world, 76% of all the mothers go back to work.
* 40% of the Swedish women and 32% of the Swedish men aged between 25-64 participate in education or training. The EU average is 10% for women and 9% for men.
* As of 2006, Sweden had received 27 Noble prizes, including 5 peace prizes. This is the highest per capita ratio.
* Sweden has the highest ratio of McDonald’s restaurants per capita in Europe.
* Sweden has the highest number of nuclear plants per capita in Europe, with 10 reactors for 9 million inhabitants.
* Sweden has – along with Denmark and Hungary – the highest VAT in the world: 25%.
* Swedish Inventions include:
– The perfected the design of the zipper (Gideon Sundbäck).
– The marine propeller (John Ericsson).
– The refrigerator (Carl Munters and Baltzar von Platen).
– The computer mouse (Håkan Lans).
– The pace-maker (Rune Elmqvist).
* A popular Swedish souvenir is the road sign for moose-crossing. Every year a huge number of these signs are stolen from Swedish roads.
How you react to that very brief summary will depend largely on where you’re from and what kind of political atmosphere you grew up. Chances are if you grew up in a right-wing American household you’ll feel the rise of China as a challenge and a threat. Certainly that’s the impression you get.
However nations rise and nations fall (a lesson we in the UK have had to adjust to) and that’s a lesson that God seems happy to keep dishing out. But there’s another angle to this from a Christian point of view and I think one excellent reason to pray for the continued economic rise of China.
Actually, let me correct that, I can think of 100 million reasons to pray for the continued economic rise of China. This is a church that has been forged in the face of persecution and opposition and there is an increasing number of churches and Christians in that country. This from the perspective of the church is massive. the potential missionary impact as churches gain the resources and freedom to travel is enormous.
So here are some things to pray for:
What do you think, China threat or ally?
The Elephant Room in theory was supposed to be a round table discussion between seven highly influential leaders about issues on which they don’t necessarily agree. I like the concept because I often learn best by hearing people talking through their differences and not just telling me why what I already I think is the smart thing to believe. It’s one of the reasons why leaders in particular should read Love Wins for example. We need to think and be provoked by those who think differently and not shy away from that sort of engagement.
I thought their discussion points were good and I’m interested to read more about the one on money because I happen to think both the main protagonists are wrong. Trevin Wax has links to live blog notes on all the sessions.
Here’s a little taster from the actual day between Matt Chandler and Steven Furtick.
So last week I was in Stockholm for a church planting conference which was good. It’s encouraging to know that there are churches in the city that are aware of the needs of the city and welcoming new churches. There are partners and friends already there. That’s good. I was encouraged by conversations with John van Dinther of New Life Church Stockholm and Andrew Thompson of Korskyryan Stockholm who made me feel welcome.
The conference itself was interesting, the speakers were John Burke of Gateway Church, Austin, Texas and author of a couple of books. John is a church planter himself and having worked at Willow Creek, laser sharp when it comes to leadership, focused strategy and building a significant and effective church that I guess could be characterised, ‘seeker sensitive’. I’m not sure that’s the most helpful definition but it’s one that is recognised and known. John also loves football/soccer and I can even forgive him for choosing Chelsea as his team. (John then went via a few other countries to speak in Bracknell at Kerith Community Church).
The other speaker was Craig Whitney from Emerging Leadership Initiative (ELI), who again was open friendly engaging and committed to church planting and been involved in multiple church plants.
I’ll post a bit more about the session content in another post but they had some good things to say and quite a few take home points to consider and reflect on.
It’ll be interesting to see exactly what comes out of the conference because no question there is a lot of work to do if they’re going to hit their stated goal of 50 new churches by 2020.
I’ve lived in this house for more than 8 years, it is our first marital home. It is the first home for our children, it has been a place of rest, safety, laughter, prayer, worship, treasured memories. In so many ways it is more than a house.
But it is just a house. And my rootedness and sense of connection to a place and home can become a barrier to mission and we have always determined that that will not be the case for us.
It’s good to feel like you’re living the Bible and the words in Mark 10:29-30 come to mind. We’re leaving friends, family and homes and for one reason above all – the kingdom of God.
The house going up for a sale is the biggest financial step and the biggest potential obstacle to our hopes of moving in the summer but again Acts 17:26 reminds me that God has it all under control.
Moving brings everything into focus – this is happening. Home is where the heart is and we have decided not to put our heart into our home.
*This post was first published here*
Secondly, we hosted two events for the local community and invited a magician, Steve Price, to entertain us. Both events were well intended and it was a low-key friendship based events but where the Christian faith was clearly presented. I found this one of the easiest events to get people along to and would certainly recommend both Steve and the idea of a church hosted magic night.
Thirdly, we delivered 5000 flyers to the local community informing them of our just10 preaching series.
With a little bit of help from some friends we received some press coverage in the local press and the news of a merger/marriage between an FIEC and a Newfrontiers church has begun to spread quite widely.
Lastly, we invited the wider church to come and celebrate with us. Around 150 people came to one of the most diverse (in terms of attendance) church services I’ve ever been to with a wide cross section of the Christian community in our town present. We shared the story, history & vision of the church and were grateful for the prayers and support of those who came.
So another marker in the journey has been laid down and we press into the future with some confidence. There is still much to be done to really transform it into one church in two places with a common identity, vision and goal. For those things to be more than just words from the leaders but an actual grounded reality but that doesn’t happen overnight but through worship, prayer and shared mission together. We think God began this good work so we’re confident he’ll complete it.
And then told me a story that spoke of her concern that the UK is ever drifting from the Gospel. That’s my neat summary of what she told me. Her point was that there was a great need in this country too and therefore I shouldn’t move to Sweden. It’s nice to be wanted. That or it’s a sign of the great desperate need of the UK.
Shortly after that in my next conversation I was asked how I could square the great need for church planting and mission in this country (which I affirm) and my evident enthusiasm for emigration.
My reply was this; ‘the need is not the call.’ On one level we’re not moving to Sweden because of the great need, we’re moving because we believe that’s what obedience looks like for us. What would be an effective measure of the greatness of the need? You could probably make a formula, maybe something like:
Size of population ÷ Number of Christians (or churches) x number of languages ÷ number of scriptures in each language x some poverty index = GREAT NEED
On one level if we were all to respond to need then quite simply tens of thousands of Christians in the UK should move to Karachi, Kabul or Khartoum. Take your pick, the needs are roughly similar.
I have great friends who live in Karachi, Pakistan. It’s a city of maybe 18 million people. That’s twice as many people living in one city than in the entire nation of Sweden with less Christians. How can I compare those two needs?
However the need of a Asif Karachi and Sven Stockholm is the same. Without Jesus both are lost. That fate is equal for both of them. That doesn’t change the simple fact that there ARE many many millions more of such people in places like Karachi. So there is a great need for more Christians to be involved in mission in such places.
But in His wisdom (and I sincerely believe this is God’s plan not ours) He decided that Stockholm was the place for us. The question for each of us as disciples of Jesus is ‘am I following?’ and I mean really following. It’s way too easy to just say ‘yes’ because we go to a small group or something. Usually following requires faith and courage to be obedient, realising that discipleship is an ongoing relationship of trust between the one who knows everything and the one who sometimes thinks he does but clearly doesn’t.
So what does it mean for you to be obedient to Jesus today?
I’m sure there is more, what would you add?
*This post has its tongue in cheek, with a gentle dig in the ribs to anyone who thinks this is what matters – anyone taking this too seriously will be reminded to lighten up*
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 husband, a father, church planter, keen runner, reader, and motorcyclist. These and a few other things make guest appearances from time to time.
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