This is an invitation to take part in the 2012 Lent Consumer Detox.
The Detox is attached and available here. It includes:
Would you be willing to help others know about this?
If yes, please forward this email to any churches near you, or to any small group leaders you know. Help us spread the word about the Detox, and join us on the journey this Lent if you can.
“Consumer Detox tackles one of the most important challenges facing Christian discipleship in the west today. If the church took this agenda seriously, it could make a big difference.”
Dr Graham Tomlin, Dean of St Mellitus College, author of The Provocative Church
We hope you can join in. It’s the journey through the wilderness that makes freedom possible. Or, if you like, ‘less stuff more life’.
“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.
Let me make my case. In reading some of the multitude of posts about Rob Bell in recent days, I discovered the following.
I came across Tom Batterson who as a bookseller has read an advance copy of Love Wins and quotes from it. Let me share those quotes.
“Could God say to someone truly humbled broken and desperate ‘sorry too late?’ Many have refused to accept the scenario in which somebody is pounding on the door apologizing, repenting, and asking God to be let in only to hear God say through the key hole ‘Doors locked, sorry If only you had been here earlier, I could have done something but now its too late.”
Now let me quote Tim Keller from The Reason for God (p76).
“Modern people inevitably think that hell works like this: God gives us time, but if we haven’t made the right choices by the end of our lives, he casts our souls into hell for all eternity. As the poor souls fall through space, they cry out for mercy, but God says, ‘Too late! You had your chance! Now you will suffer!’”
Can you spot the difference? Not sure I can. Batterson then quotes what he sees as the final position Rob Bell comes to.
“… In speaking of the expansive, extraordinary, infinite love of God there is always the danger of neglecting the very real consequences of God’s love. Namely God’s desire and intention to see things become everything they were intended to be. For this to unfold, God must say about a number of acts and to those who would continue to do them ‘Not here you won’t.’ Love demands freedom. We are free to resist, reject, and rebel against God’s ways for us. We can have all the hell we want.”
“The people on the bus from hell in Lewis’ parable would rather have their ‘freedom’, as they define it, than salvation. Their delusion is that, if they glorified God, they would somehow lose power and freedom, but in a supreme and tragic irony, their choice has ruined their own potential for greatness. Hell is, as Lewis says, ‘the greatest monument to human freedom.’ As Romans 1:24 says, God ‘gave them up to…their desires’. All God does in the end with people is give them what they most want, including freedom from himself. What could be more fair than that?” (p79)
“There are only two kinds of people – those who say to God, ‘thy will be done’ to God or those to whom God in the end says, ‘Thy will be done.’ All that are in Hell choose it. Without that self-choice it wouldn’t be Hell. No soul that seriously and constantly desires joy will ever miss it.” (The Problem of Pain)
It’s fine to disagree with them all, but perhaps things would have been different had he an endorsement from Keller instead of Brian McLaren! We shall see.
“It has always been the vision for our church that it would be a church that plants churches and makes disciples of all nations, that we would be involved in the mission of God in the world. The steps we have taken to form Hope Church are testimony of our commitment to do that.
However over the past nine months or so, Emma and I, have become convinced that God is calling us to once again step out in faith and be involved in the planting of a new church. Our new destination could not be any more different to our present situation but we go where the call is, and that call is to Stockholm, Sweden.
God has a habit of not letting experiences in our past go to waste and while I was a theology student at the University of Nottingham, I spent 6 months as an exchange student in Uppsala, Sweden. Now it’s time to go back.
Over the past couple of years I’ve had a number of approaches about leading other churches or planting into new towns and although none of those were right, the experience of talking through these opportunities helped us clarify in our hearts what we were looking for and what would need to happen in order for us to be able to move, if that was indeed what the Lord had for us.
At the beginning of this year (2010) I believed that the Lord wanted us as a church to make a few more international connections in addition to our support of churches in Ukraine and I made a few enquiries. One of those enquiries related to Sweden as I retained a soft spot for the country after having lived there.
Then in the spring I read in the Newfrontiers Connect magazine this prophetic word about ‘starbursts over Scandinavia‘ that for the first time to my knowledge mentioned the idea of a church plant in Stockholm. I knew that God was speaking to me but I still hadn’t said much to Emma. Partly because I have a lot of crazy ideas and I needed to know that this idea was hanging around because it was God speaking to me.
At the May leaders prayer and fasting gathering I spoke with a few people involved in this initiative and as we prayed for the nations increasingly felt that this was a burden God was placing on me. So it was time to talk to Emma. I gave her a call and got her to look by my bed where I had a ‘teach yourself Swedish’ book and basically said ‘I think God is calling us to Stockholm.’
Not too long after that another major change happened in our lives, which is significant to this story. Previously we had always described our involvement in Illuminate as an ‘anchor’ to Shrewsbury. However as it became clear that we could no longer run the shop we were moving into uncharted waters. On the day I told a friend that we either had to find new owners or close the business he shared a prophetic word with me. He saw us in the pouch of an old Roman catapult and the ropes that held the pouch down were the links to the shop, as God cut the ropes to the shop the catapult would be released and we would be flung into the far distance. I knew again that God was speaking.
Emma received some significant confirmations in Scripture as God began to reassure her He was in this. On two separate but not consecutive occasions as we discussed Sweden, the next verses in Emma’s devotional reading were two verses that had previously given her peace about significant moves in her life.
We spoke with our church oversight (a bit like a spiritual director) and told him what we were thinking and he was supportive of is pursuing this development. At the end of June I read something by Terry Virgo that made my heart race it ended with, “The restoration of the church has consumed you, but now a new day is dawning. Whereas the word ‘church’ has stirred you, let the word ‘nations’ burn in your heart – because it’s time to look at the harvest fields and it’s time to go.”
At Together on a Mission conference in Brighton in July I met with some people from the Swedish churches and a Swedish couple who have been living in the UK for the past ten years who have also independently sensed a call to church plant to Stockholm. We were beginning to form relationships and connections. It was in Brighton that I first told my fellow elder Nick what we believed God was speaking to us about and asked him if he was in faith to take on the lead role here.
This was an important moment for me, 10 years ago at the start of the adventure in north Shrewsbury, I said to God I’d give 7 years and if at that time the church had leadership to take it on, was growing and seeing people saved and added I’d ask him where next. A few years ago I did just that but as a church not all the pieces were in place, although I could see and had faith for them to fall into place in time. Right now we see leaders emerging, people being saved, baptised and added, we’re in the best shape we’ve ever been in and I think that God has used this time both to prepare me and the church to be ready. I believe that Nick will do an excellent job and is certainly in a better position for his first lead role than I was 10 years ago. I’m confident that at this time our leaving need not slow up the momentum God has given us and that wasn’t the case a few years ago. What I’m saying is this feels like the right time.
The very next meeting we were in God spoke prophetically about new arrangements as God moved people to the nations. Now prophetic words and sermons at Newfrontiers conferences are neither unexpected nor new, it happens almost every time. But this time instead of thinking, ‘that’s nice’ I was thinking, ‘this is me’. It was a massive difference.
I began to read fresh books on church planting and as I read one by David Stroud I read Gen 12:1 which leapt out to me: Now the LORD said to Abram, “The LORD had said to Abram, “Go from your country, your people and your father’s household to the land I will show you.”
Now I’m no Abram and I’m no genius, but even I couldn’t miss this one and it made even more sense given that I now work in what feels like to me ‘my father’s house’ (we converted an old church building into offices). We continued to work on relationships with those who also felt called to Stockholm and this culminated in out ‘holiday’ to Stockholm in September, a final piece in the puzzle for us. We spoke with both my parents and Emma’s mum and they were all incredibly supportive. Emma’s mother is so supportive that in fact she is planning on moving with us to be involved in this new adventure. Those involved apostolically in our region and in Scandinavia have all supported and encouraged this step for us.
We were clear; God had given us all this and more besides, we had enough. It was time to be obedient, we were going. So it is my intention to hand over leadership of Hope Church by the end of June 2011 and hopefully (if all the practical pieces fall into place) to move to Sweden in July 2011.
For the first nine months we probably won’t be in Stockholm but based elsewhere while we enrol as students and learn Swedish and become familiar with the country from the inside and make clear our plans to move into Stockholm early summer 2012. For at least that year we will need to raise financial support to allow us live there.
At this point in time there’s many questions we don’t know the answer to, but we’re confident that God will provide for us and that is the step that the Lord is asking us to take.”
The words ‘remember the poor’ ring loud in the Bible (Gal 2:10) and in recent years have had plenty of resonance in the movement of churches I belong to. The Lausanne Paper: An Evangelical Commitment to Simple Life-style which is stirring me greatly at the moment says,
“We are shocked by the poverty of millions, and disturbed by the injustices which cause it.” One quarter of the world’s population enjoys unparalleled prosperity, while another quarter endures grinding poverty. This gross disparity is an intolerable injustice,—we refuse to acquiesce in it.”
I agree with that but the reason why Christians in the the rich nations of the world should be far more concerned about consumerism than they currently are, is not because of the poor. (more…)
It’s quite a headline really, when you stop to think about it. Pretty much everything these days seems to be about the environment. Climate change was one of the themes of the last decade and will be one for the next ten years too. If you’re sick of hearing about it, talking about it, thinking about it then I have some bad news for you, in all likelihood this train is only just beginning to pull.
There are massive forces at work reshaping the way our world works (and some fairly hefty forces resisting any such change), but governments (and importantly most of the big ones) are slowly changing too. Take recycling waste for example, almost everyone in the UK deals with household waste differently to ten years ago, more is recycled than ever and looking forward you’ll have increasingly less choice in the matter. Recycling will be what we all do, what we have to do.
Laws will make your cars more energy efficient, increasing numbers of electric vehicles will begin to appear, hybrids will change our petrol stations. Already incentives are available for households to generate electricity and grants available to reduce waste through insulation and new boilers. These are just a few of the ways your life is changing because scientists and governments believe our climate is changing (and not really for the better).
Tied to all of this political drive are the cultural battles taking place, those preparing for a brave new world where cars are obsolete, travel is restricted and everything gets local. It’s a back to the future kind of approach, a blending of nostalgia for ages past and a hopeful mix of new technology and thinking. At the same time a sizeable majority are appalled at the idea of not being able to buy strawberries in winter or driving to the shops in a 4×4. Development agencies are lobbying, oil companies are lobbying back. It’s grassroots against big business.
At the heart of much of the campaigning for change is the belief that our current way of living in developed nations is unsustainable, we simply can’t go on like this, goes the thinking. We buy too much, waste too much, need so little. This is mostly true. This is at the heart of consumerism. (more…)
I also get frustrated by the perception that this is not an important issue or worse still it’s an issue of the left, so being against consumerism makes me automatically a communist. That perception (and I am willing to admit that it might be just me) really bugs me.
So here begins a series on why consumerism is an issue all Christians should be concerned about. I’ll cover topics such as ‘It’s not about the environment’, ‘It’s not about the poor’, ‘It’s not about politics’, ‘It is about the Gospel’
Any more?
Firstly, it’s a debate you can’t ignore. A side must be taken because, while the future of the planet is not in jeopardy, the form of human civilisation could drastically alter and as always the poorest will be hit hardest. For some of our brothers and sisters we’re not talking about paying higher energy bills we’re talking about them living or dying. So decide I must. Will the streams of justice roll or will they have dried up in western greed and apathy. I think justice demands I make my mind up.
Having decided to decide, I have to decide who to trust. I respect theologians but I don’t listen or believe all of them, same with most experts really. But I don’t dismiss them out of hand. And while not all scientists agree, the vast majority of climate scientists do. That’s a point worthy of note. Given they know more about this than I do, am I going to choose to listen to their warnings.
This group is not a small group, nor is it a group that obviously has much to profit by championing this cause. They’re not backed by big oil companies. Some may make their name, so ego isn’t to be discounted, but for the majority this argument doesn’t apply. It’s a global group – from many different countries, not just liberal, eco-friendly, tree-hugging, atheist Scandinavians. The scientific panels now have decades long body of evidence, they have been subject to scrutiny by peer review, the media, governments and public opinion.
But there are the nay-sayers. The sceptics and climate-gate has only roused them in their conspiracy theory anger. Are they right? Is this whole thing some excuse to sneak in a one-world government through the back door or worse socialism? Well maybe, so what? Anyway, here’s my conspiracy theory in reply. Doesn’t it seem odd to you that the most vocal opponents of change are the ones accused of being the most guilty? That the ones that might actually have to pay up and change are the ones fighting the hardest against it, how strange is that, how unexpected and inconsistent with human nature; wouldn’t you agree?
So here are the sceptics and the pretty robust response from the believers. (HT: Jeremy – read this post!).
But even if the climate isn’t changing (and it’s not just about the planet getting warmer) there are good reasons to work with not against this movement. Here are a few:
Not so long ago, there was the brief whiff of debate on the blog about climate change. It seems to me that evangelical Christians (especially in the US) are sceptical about climate change (they don’t have a great record of trusting the scientific establishment) and here in the UK, the more reformed you are the less likely (in general terms) the issues of climate change, the environment, consumerism etc are going to be taken seriously. This is a shame and a cause of sadness. I’m convinced one of my roles is to make a contribution to that debate to bring more of the church round on this one. So I’m convinced, are you?
Got any more?
Here are a few hunches (shot from the hip), let me know what you think. Money becomes tied up with our dreams, in fact they become inseparable. Money is the key to my early retirement, my travel dreams, my home, my family aspirations. It’s not that I begin by wanting money but that I can’t achieve my dreams without it, so begins our search for more cash.
At the other end of the spectrum is a different but related issue. Money is tied up with my survival, without I cannot buy clothes, food, shelter, basic provision for my family. Without money, my options are limited and unlikely to be lawful.
So money feeds my dreams and keeps me alive but it also soothes my fears. When I’m old, I’ll be OK because I’ll have a good pension, because I’ll have bought my home, because essentially I’ll have money. Without those things I become anxious, nervous and fearful of the future, fearful of illness and loneliness.
In the end we invest ourselves into money, it is the road we must journey on to have hope, to live without fear and to survive in our world. Yet Jesus holds out something different – he calls us to have a new hope, one founded on his kingdom, one that stretches into eternity, He calls us to live without fear – trusting that our Father knows what we’ll need and is able to provide. Death has lost its sting so we are freed to live fully in the present moment. More than that we are born into a family that cares and shares its possessions with each other because they are not mine or even ours but His. No widow should fear loneliness or lack, no orphan should worry about a life without love or food, no family should struggle to survive. And our dreams become renewed, of an earth without pollution, a society without sin, a life without guilt, a kingdom of justice, mercy and grace.
When our hopes, dreams, fears and lives are placed in Christ, money can no longer be a master or even a servant but instead another gift given, received and shared. Then we are free.
Simplicity can seem a mile away in the aftermath of the Christmas season when our accumulation of stuff as well as debt has gone steeply up.
Simplicity, first of all though is not the order of our lives but the order of our hearts. It comes from first of all knowing what we are living for, and as a Christian that means primarily following Christ with our eyes firmly fixed on living out the two great commandments to ‘Love God’ and ‘love neighbour’. This is what gives me my primary purpose and calling as a Christian. It is a universal, for whatever else may change the requirement to do these two things does not.
I may worry or wonder about many other things that I might do with my life or time or energy or resources but instead I should give more of all the above to living out these two crystal clear things that Jesus gave us to do. When it comes to following Christ the requirement is simplicity itself for on these two things, everything else hangs.
This simplicity of heart can bring simplicity of thinking and focus if we let it, setting a framework of freedom for our lives and releasing us to fulfil our potential.
It would seem strange then if that simplicity didn’t filter on down to the level of our possessions, if we are indeed giving ourselves to love god and loving people, seeing us building community and sharing in authentic mission as the people of God, taking the opportunity to be generous to our brothers and sisters and to those in need both near and far away that it that it didn’t result in a reduction of stuff and a greater simplicity in our lives.
These aims go hand in hand, if I reduce the amount of things I need and stuff I want my opportunity to be generous increases, if my heart yearns for the opportunity to give more than I am currently I may think about ‘selling what I have and giving to the poor.’ Listening to the God I love with all that I am may well lead to similar things happening.
In the end, I am sated and bloated by possessions, I buy them, insure them, protect them, care for them and repair them, then I throw them away and replace or upgrade them. All around me are hearts and souls alone, waiting for someone to protect, heal, and provide care for them. One will reap rewards into future generations and the other will disappear about roughly the same time I do. So why is something so simple, so hard to do?
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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