The Simple Pastor
By Phil Whittall, church planter, blogger & book reviewer
RT @lukedvd: Hope his resignation from the England manager job will allow @JoelVirgo to focus on his church duties #nomorehairdye 1 day ago
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.
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.
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…
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…
Fortunately, in this case there was complete agreement. Our churches exist to serve God in the north of Shrewsbury, to make disciples and to proclaim Jesus Christ as risen Lord & Saviour, calling people to follow Him. The church exists to be a blessing to the community by demonstrating the love of God to the people in practical ways. The church exists to continue the mission of the church of Jesus.
There are around 20,000 people in this part of the town and there are less than 300 Christians worshipping in the area. The area comprises of 2 of the 3 neediest areas in the town yet opportunities for the Gospel remain significant. We have a clear and united commitment to bring the good news of Jesus to this generation. We just have to figure out how!
The reality is that deciding to walk down a particular path is a far cry from making the journey a successful and there’s a lot of hard work ahead. However we’re excited by this and believe this vote is just further confirmation that this is God’s intention for our churches at this time.
So what next? Well, we need to be thorough and we need to remember that there’s no great rush. We need to work through as many issues and discussions as we can and build real unity, we need to discover the depth of the differences and the depth of the relationship. In order to do that as a leadership we’re working through a series of questions. As we deal with them, subsequently I’ll write about them. So the next post in this ad hoc series will be on vision.
His question was essentially ‘why?’ with the following queries.
The honest but somewhat painful answer is that it’s mostly in response to the first issue. The Grange Free Church has been serving in the community for more than 50 years, while NSCC is a mere 6 years old. Over those six years NSCC has seen some encouraging growth over that time, and while seeing many good things happen the congregation at the Grange has also aged with the church and now the spirits are willing but the flesh is frail. It has now reached a critical point, as founder members are gradually receiving their promotion to glory the future of that church was questionable. They are bravely and wisely acting now while the choice is still theirs to make.
Peter then wondered about the following if this was case;
“If so, in practice that one would in effect have to die – following John Wimber’s dictum. Or an alternative might be an agreed transfer of resources (people and financial) from the viable church to the unviable one to make two viable churches. Or you make a building sharing agreement without any kind of formal merger.”
So why merge? It’s a practical response to a spiritual issue. The Grange leadership’s primary (and right) concern is the evangelical Gospel witness and Kingdom advancement on the housing estate of Harlescott Grange. They’ve done what few churches have done and more churches should do, and taken a long hard look at this and concluded they need help in the present and in the future. We share their concern and we honour their years of service and witness, but everyone agrees change is necessary not in our message but in our methods.
Merger, while difficult, seems to us be the best way to manage the resources (buildings & finances), pastor the people and continue the mission.
There is also a close geographical element – we are already using their buildings for some of our key initiatives and the school we meet in is just 1.5 miles away (closer if you’re a crow), but at the same time we serve two distinct communities, each of around 10,000 people. There are fewer 300 Christians worshipping and witnessing in that area. There’s work to be done.
Doubtless there are more issues and as we go along, I’ll fill in some details. For those of you who pray, any prayers for us as we step along this journey would be much appreciated.
So it was a huge encouragement to learn that one of our Life Groups have taken it upon themselves to regularly discuss an ‘ethical living’ issue amongst other things and tonight was their first on the issue of food. Sounded interesting and fun.
As a church we’ve a long way to go on so many of these issues, but even having people who are willing to talk and discuss and encourage each other to make good life choices for their family, for the earth, for their community is really encouraging.
Mark lists, as he sees it, four key currents that are shaping our movement – church growth, reformissional, neo-pentecostal and emerging – with the strongest current being reformissional. I get an honourable mention under emerging, the weakest influence.
Mark writes,
“Emerging churches are passionate about the environment, social justice and the poor, and downplay the importance of many things that conservative evangelicals would consider central.”
I’m mentioned because,
“It would be nice to think that we adopt some of the positive aspects of the emerging movement without needing to compromise theologically. I have written about how I think that can be done here. Phil Whittall is the best example I can think of as a newfrontiers pastor who has taken on board some of the emerging church concerns of the environment, living simply and social justice.”
Which is interesting. If there are any NSCCers reading this, let me know what you think about this. Mark posted quite a bit on the emerging church as he was getting his head around it and listed six key areas, have a read.
I read authors like Shane Claiborne, Rob Bell, Brian McLaren and appreciate their works. I read bloggers like Andrew Jones and Christine Sine. Mark has me right I care deeply about the environment, social justice, simplicity, generosity and the church’s response to consumerism. I think the church should have greater and better political engagement than it does.
I think if as a movement we can allow ourselves to be shaped by the best of all four currents we will continue to be focused on reaching the lost and building the kingdom, preaching the Word and keeping in step with the Spirit, caring for the poor and engaging with culture.
We sent the following letter to them, explaining again our position
“Thank you for your letter asking us again to comply with the proforma. Our response, however is the same as before for the following reasons:
The ASA may have felt we discouraged people from seeking medical advice but the burden of proof is with you to demonstrate that the implication you infer is both correct and unambiguous. As we have said in every response we have made, we neither implied it (directly or indirectly), nor believe the implication is present in the text or present nor in our following actions or policies. We disagree with this view, we do not and have not implied that and as we have made clear members of our congregation do receive medical treatment, however we also believe that God heals people through prayer. It would seem a very strange decision to present a newsletter introduced by a retired medical doctor if our intention was to discourage people from visiting the surgery where he was formerly a partner for 20 years.
You understood correctly the implications of the invitation: that ‘the conditions were treated as a direct result of prayer’ which in this case is precisely what we meant to say, and in all cases mentioned this is what the individuals believe happened. This belief that God can heal today through prayer is what many orthodox Christians believe happens.
As regards the present status of Dr Matthias, the issue is one of semantics, we think the statement we made is both accurate and truthful regarding his qualifications, experience and place of practice. Dr Matthias was a partner in the practice that covers the area in which the invitations were delivered and the majority of the 2000 homes that received would have been a patient in his practice. However, we are more than willing to describe Dr Matthias as ‘a retired medical doctor with over 35 years experience, more than 20 locally’ in the future.
As I understand it from the proforma, the ASA is saying that as a church we can no longer refer to the personal healing that has happened in people’s lives, nor publicly state the belief that people could be healed through prayer and faith in God. That as a matter of conscience we cannot do.
We believe there should be truthfulness in the public sphere and in advertising, we do not think we have been untruthful or irresponsible in anything we have said.
Yours sincerely
Phil Whittall”
We then received the following and probably final (from the ASA anyway) reply (extract):
“Dear Mr Whittall,
Thank you for your email of 5 September 2008. I appreciate you feel that your circular did not discourage people from visiting their doctors. However, we consider that because it makes direct references to the physical healing of serious medical conditions, members of the public who read it may believe that it is not necessary for them to seek qualified medical advice if they attend the church.
CAP considers that advertisers in this particular sector should only make reference to ‘spiritual healing’. It has never accepted even implied references to the physical healing of serious medical conditions. We do understand that this is a delicate area, but I am sure you can appreciate that we must approach all ‘advertisers’ in the same way in order for the regulation of the entire industry to be consistent and fair.
I am disappointed that you are not willing to sign and return the proforma. We have no option left but to refer this issue to Shrewsbury Trading Standards, who may wish to take their own action.”
So there you go, I assume from this that the next we hear of it will be from Trading Standards which will be interesting. But there are a few other interesting points, one as someone pointed out to me, “according to their world view they don’t mind us abusing people’s spiritual health but we aren’t allowed to speak about physical health.”
One also assumes that if someone were to come to church ill and leave ill then they would still consult their doctor. But only if someone came ill and left healthy then they may not go to a doctor, although we would encourage them to go to verify the change. Anyway the saga continues and I can agree with the believers prayer when they said, ‘Now, Lord, consider their threats and enable your servants to speak your word with great boldness. Stretch out your hand to heal and perform miraculous signs and wonders through the name of your holy servant Jesus’ (Acts 4:29-30)
Well things have gone a little bit further since then. The ASA sent us a proforma which goes a bit further than the action they requested here. The proforma of compliance is as follows:
“ASSURANCE OF COMPLIANCE WITH ASA ADJUDICATION
This is an assurance that the advertising that was the subject of ASA investigation reference No. A08-59227 will no longer appear in its original form. The claims investigated and found to breach the British Code of Advertising, Sales Promotion and Direct Marketing, and similar claims that are likely to breach the Code, will not appear in our future marketing communications. We will ensure future circulars do not contain references to the treatment or cure of medical conditions.”
The part we have a particular issue with is in the last two sentences. No future claims about healing, no reference to the cure of medical conditions. Unsurprisingly, this was something we couldn’t agree with.
The ASA only allow appeals if there is a flawed procedure or new evidence comes to light, yet they have never asked us to verify the claims of healing which we made and which we are happy to do. The issue has never been whether the healings are true but whether we can tell anyone and invite people to see for themselves. They don’t allow appeals on the grounds that we disagree with their decision and that they might be wrong. So we didn’t appeal. Didn’t seem to be a point.
That leaves only two options compliance or non-compliance. We took the second option. As a result I received an email from their compliance team, asking us again to comply. We refused. We said:
“Thank you for your email, however we are not able to comply with your request at this time for the following reasons. We disagree with the judgement of the ASA with regard to our printed invitation, but the ASA do not allow appeals against their decision on this basis. With its present wording we’re unable to sign the proforma as we feel it restricts both our freedom of speech and freedom of religion, specifically around the possibility of God healing, and have advice that supports this view. We’d be happy to talk with the ASA to jointly work on a proforma that does neither of those things but that upholds high standards in advertising, which we fully support.”
The following day I receive another letter an extract of which says,
“
The ASA council did not accept your argument that the circular was merely an invitation to seek God in prayer for medical problems because the wording of the ad implied that the conditions were treated as a direct result of prayer.
This specific point is covered by Code clauses 2.2 and 50.3 which states:
2.2.1 All marketing communications should be prepared with a sense of responsibility to consumers and to society.
50.3 Marketers should not discourage essential treatment. They should not offer specific advice on, diagnosis of or treatment for serious or prolonged conditions unless it is conducted under the supervision of a doctor or other suitably qualified health professional (e.g. one subject to regulation by a statutory or recognised medical or health professional body). Accurate and responsible general information about such conditions may, however, be offered.”
They asked again for us to comply. I think that is unlikely. The point of contention has been made clearer by the sentence “because the wording of the ad implied that the conditions were treated as a direct result of prayer.” Well, at least they understood what we were saying, that is what we were implying.
So what do you think?
Other bloggers on this issue:
Meanwhile, I’ve received these messages of support:
“I just want to encourage you in your stand about prayer and healing having read the article on the BBC new report. I too am a doctor, though also retired, and gladly endorse healing through Christian prayer. I pray that you will continue to make your stand and see more & more of the Lord’s mightty work in your midst. With blessings in the name of The Great Physician.”
and
“I was just reading the ASA adjudication on your leaflet and am appalled that they would make the assessments as they did and prevent you from talking about the power of God, through prayer to heal. Are you taking this any further? We are praying for you and standing with you in this matter.”
Other listings:
Plenty of other places too, but they mostly just reference the BBC article. While I was at Newday, I missed calls from Premier Radio and the Baptist Times. So they caught news of it too.
I wonder how long this story will run for?
During May, we held a guest service where we preached the life changing message of Jesus Christ and prayed for the sick, with hope and expectation that God would heal. We’ve seen a number of people blessed by God in this way, so we decided to do an invitation/flyer to our community, which we called Beautiful News.
The service came and went, and although no healings occurred on that day, we were glad to step out in faith and pray for those who are unwell, and we thought that was that until we next held a service of that nature.
Two weeks later I receive a letter from the ASA who informed me that they had received a complaint about our flyer. You can read the details of the complaint, the issues the ASA had with our advert, our response to them, their adjudication and the action they’ve requested from their website here.
Following that the local paper picked it up here and on the BBC here. I was also interviewed on the local radio, you can listen to the interview here (it starts 41 minutes in and lasts about 5 minutes). Somewhat bizarrely the story is also reported on the website Bad Homeopathy!
The Evangelical Alliance have been very supportive, and framed this response;
The Evangelical Alliance has noted the adjudication of the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) in relation to the North Shrewsbury Community Church. We affirm the important role of the ASA in maintaining honesty and decency in advertising, but have some serious concerns with regard to the judgement and, in particular, regarding the requirements being laid upon the church in respect of future communications. We shall be taking up these concerns directly with the ASA. We believe that God can and does heal people today and will engage with the ASA to explore ways of expressing the Christian faith within the boundaries of the advertising codes, and without diluting its message and beliefs.
And a few days later I received this email;
I read about your case (vs ASA) on the BBC website. Christians who claim to be able to do miraclous gifts of healing today should be exposed as fakes, since that it all it is. What does it say in Matt 24? "Lord Lord did we not cast out demons in your name"? More should be done to highlight this abomination. I guess you have lady preachers? homosexual ministers? All against what a new testament Church should be. David
I think he meant Mt 7 but never mind. Well, our position is that God does heal, that this is good news to the community and that letting people know about this is not ‘irresponsible’ but in fact good practice for a church! That’s the facts and the places I’ve found it being reported on the web so far, I’ll comment on it as I go along.
As part of our children’s work at NSCC we run a Kids Club and every week we visit local families, most of whom aren’t Christians. My wife is expecting the imminent arrival of child no1. At one of the homes where the family like my wife alot, the father was home and was slightly worse for wear having been on the beer. This put him in a generous frame of mind and he decided to give me a gift for my wife and about to be born child. Very kind.
The present was a pirate copy of the film (just out in the UK), Kung-fu Panda. We want to see the film. So given that pirate copies are bad what should I have done?
a) accept the gift but not watch the film – so not really accepting the gift
b) accept the gift and watch the film
c) refuse the gift and risk alienating a friend who won’t understand why we’ve refused
d) Any other ideas?
Ho-hum.
For those who want application: what does a life of grace look like? What differences would more grace in my life make?
Here’s the audio
Then this week I read this post by Marcus Honeysett (thanks to Dave Bish for the HT)
Jonny Mellor from Church Central, Birmingham visited with us on Sunday and served us well. Although, I’ve not yet heard of anyone reporting healing, we did see 6 respond in different ways, and on guy – a neighbour of mine, respond and clearly give his life to Christ. That’s exciting. Exciting enough for angels to be celebrating.
At the same time we live with the reality of some who long to be free from the pain and suffering they’re in. Their issues are ones not easily solved by the medical profession and yet healing hasn’t come to them. Would it be easier not to pray? Probably. But if our hope truly is in God, then we must keep coming to a loving Father, trusting Him with all our needs and remaining faithful regardless of the outcome.
Sunday was crazy for another reason, with about 55 adults there we also had 35 under the age of 18. That’s nuts. But great fun.
We also experienced God’s presence as we worshipped Him, we were built up as people encouraged one another and worked out what it means to follow Christ in a difficult world. It was a good day. We were challenged and encouraged to be outward looking in our prayers, because if life really is this good with God, how can we keep it to ourselves?
All this is true, and I delight in it. At the same time, I’m stirred to continue to seek to be part of a community that ‘outclasses’ society in the quality of its life. One that respects creation, that lives on what it needs rather than living for its wants. One where relationships are built to last, not last until a better offer comes along (see Matt Hosier’s blog for thoughts on marriage), one where the poor and needy of the world find acceptance, love and compassion – as well as a nice cup of tea! One where we share, care and pray for each other. There is so much more to being the church and every additional angle challenges the poverty of communal life in our nation. I love the fact that I worship a God who changes us from the inside out, but never leaves the outside unchanged. There really is nothing like the church.
Not only that but last night we held a Bingo and Chips night in a local community centre and saw over 100 people come and enjoy themselves, and we raised some money for a charity that supports families with children with long-term illnesses.
So all-in-all an encouraging weekend, where God has again blessed us as we seek to step out and be a blessing to others in our community.
There’s an initiative that is based in the community of the trinity that takes us beyond ourselves to include others and draw them into the love of God for humanity. For us this draws us into the mess of human lives, the joys, the struggles, the trials, the tests and the triumphs. It brings with it the possibility of incarnating the love of Jesus to a broken world but it means our selfish dreams and ambitions may have to be left to the side for another day.
To pick up the dream of God and be a part of the mission of God in the world may mean we need to lay our dreams down, to consider others better than ourselves and to forsake selfish ambition. As I understand it, to have true generosity in our lives involves us in mission in the world, of making disciples and growing in love of God and love of people. The powerpoint from the talk is below or here at Google Docs
Flipping heck, it’s taken me nearly a week to complete this, where does the time go? I’m too busy posting comments on other people’s blogs, that’s my problem.
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| Let’s Go |
This is a bit of a cheat as Day 3 happened a few days ago but ‘better late than never’ according to my mum. Actually being late wasn’t a great idea on that front so I’m not sure she’s saying what she really thinks.
I am exhausted after another amazing day! We began with worship led by Gareth LeLong-McKean, where again we really sensed God’s presence with us. Plus teaching from myself and Terry Hotchkiss on how God could use even a single conversation to change someone’s destiny. Stirring stuff.
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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