Who's church for?

Many people I know have some idea that church isn't for them - or at least, that church-going folk would think that church isn't for them. And in a document of the 16th century, I came across a helpful summary of who the Lord's Supper (and therefore church) is really for - and who would be best staying away! Which are you? 

Who are to come to the Lord's table [in church]?
Those who are displeased with themselves because of their sins, but who nevertheless trust that their sins are pardoned and that their continuing weakness is covered by the suffering and death of Christ, and who also desire more and more to strengthen their faith and to lead a better life. Hypocrites and those who are unrepentant, however, eat and drink judgement on themselves. [Heidelberg Catechism Q&A 81]

So, sinners welcome; hypocrites keep away. Will you come? 

As Christ said, 'Come to me, all who labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.'

Power, cool and decline

A Brit in America reflects on what the church can learn from The Iron Lady - resisting the temptation to stir in the polarised American political scene, Trueman highlights the portrayal of the loss of glory in old age.

I was slightly surprised to hear from African brothers and sisters at Cape Town 2010, that they often felt ignored in the church while still 'young', pre-Forty-and-married, say. In the UK, probably some churches have that dynamic. But we are more in danger of despising age than despising youth. 

'Ageing brings whispers of mortality, of weakness, of limitations; and such whispers bring an ever-increasing sympathy with others. Only the one who has felt the slow creep of weakness can truly sympathise with the weak. ... The church does not need leaders who feel strong; she needs leaders who know weakness.'

Not like Santa's grotto

A God like Santa? Church like Santa's grotto, then - full of hardworking slaves who keep themselves to themselves and dish out the rewards or punishments? Au contraire:

To follow a God who came down to a village, and into a womb, to draw our stinking selves to himself... leads to practices such as Eddie Arthur describes in the Guardian. Nice one, Eddie!

Go with the flow

Komezuka, (c) William Cho

God's overflowing kindness reaches us as if the world is an inverted bowl. 

[Stop: stretchy metaphor alert - no need to call the flat earth society.] We tend to try desperately to stay in a shallow pool of gracieness at the top (wondering why it keeps spilling over the sides) - because it's nicer at the top, right? We'd prefer to call those from the rim and plains up to join us on the top basking in the view. Or at least, let's make sure our position's secure: hammer in a few pins to hold on to our supreme comforts and values, and then make some trips abseiling down the side to drag up a few. 

While God's grace flows unceasingly down to the edges.

Trouble is, God likes to show his love through his people. So if we resist rolling with his abundant flow of grace downhill where we may not feel so comfortable, how's it going to get there? 

Roger Carswell reflects on this dynamic applied to less reached people in the UK, in Not listening to God?

And I'm looking forward to the videos of the recent Reaching The Unreached conference; for now, Neil Robbie has posted his notes from the sessions.

[Repost]

'Please do not join our church'

'Please do not smile at strangers' - a sign posted by artists in the same style as the standard instructional signage on the subway - from the original blog. [HT: 22 Words]

So with points mostly from theResurgence.com, this is my whimsical take [not official from my church, of course] -

(If, however, you are re-born into the church, need to 'come home' to church, were born to someone in the church, or move to join our mission in Bournville with the blessing of your current church, then, welcome!)

[HT: Sammy Davies]

Healthy Parachurch

(Or 'You can be my wingman any time.')

A fine article by Mack Stiles: 9 Marks of a Healthy Parachurch Ministry. I've heard many disparaging things of parachurch ministries. I've read articles and blog posts which sounded more like they belonged on Animal Farm than in Church: 'church Good; parachurch Bad.' And in honesty, I've heard many disappointing attitudes to church in some parachurch organisations, and seen bad practice. So Mack writes,

The standard cliché for parachurch is that it’s not the church, but an arm of the church. Yet historically, that arm has shown a tendency to develop a mind of its own and crawl away from the body, which creates a mess. Given the grand scope and size of many parachurch ministries, those which go wayward can propagate error for years: missionary organizations become gyms, heretical seminaries pump out heretical pastors, and service organizations produce long-term confusion between the gospel and social action.

So what should mark a healthy parachurch?

Mack goes on to give 9 marks of a healthy parachurch ministry. The article's part of a 9 Marks e-journal considering various aspects of parachurch ministries - Are they evil? How do they go off the rails? How can you pray for them? [Read more.]

Belonging and significance

'Citizenship in the Roman empire, as in others of the sort, depends on lineage, power and financial means, and it classes people into first, second, third categories. Belonging, in Jewish cultural religion, also rested on family line and social status. In contrast, membership in the household of God is a gift: gentile and Jew, slave and free, women and men, old and young, people from South and North, East and West, people without all their limbs and wits and people with them, all belong, thanks to God's reconciling work in Christ.

'This new household, the Church, is built not on money, or power, charismatic leaders or individual saints, but on the foundation of the apostles and prophets: on the whole recorded history of God's work in God's world through God's people. When Rome claims that it's imperial power that holds everything together, and temples become symbols of dominion; and when today we are tempted to place our confidence in nations' military or economic power, big church budgets, or successive business ventures, and when denominational and institutional preoccupations easily become more important than people, then, with Paul, we must counter-culturally claim that Christ is the peace without which the entire construction would crumble apart. He is the cornerstone, in whom the whole structure, being joined together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord.

'Where, we asked at the beginning, does God live? Paul closes with this amazing and humbling affirmation: in Christ, you are also being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit. We, the Church, with all our imperfections, petty concerns, pride and prejudice, are God's holy temple, God's earthly home. Yes, by God's grace it is here: in the immensely diverse, transnational, transethnic, transcultural community, that God chooses to live. God lives in the new humanity, created by God, reconciled by Christ and indwelled and gifted by the Holy Spirit.'

- Ruth Padilla De Borst, at Cape Town 2010. Hear more here.

Leading in mission

'Let me say without any fear or favour, that any church leader who is not leading in mission loses his apostolicity - simple. The apostles were church leaders because they were leaders in mission. Anytime you get to the point where you’re a church leader and you’re not leading your people in mission, you’ve lost the leadership. You can own the title, drive the cars, own the houses, but you’ve lost it - as far as heaven is concerned.

And I think church leaders need to know that so that they can really be the leaders in mission and create the enthusiasm. Let me tell you: if you are a church leader and you got out on witnessing, and the bank manager sees you and the people see you, it will not be long before your diocese or your circuit or your presbytery begins to say, 'Hey guys, we’d better join this man.' That’s why you’re put there in leadership!'

- Archbishop Ben Kwashi, of Jos, Nigeria

Who's out & who's in?

How much change are we willing to make as different people come in to our churches? Do we really want them to grow, as it means change? Ruth Padilla DeBorst, evidently shaped by a strong sense of cultural and linguistic justice, spoke of this in relation to the Ephesian church. It's not directly in the passage (Eph 2), but came across as she 'set the scene'. I wonder if she doesn't read back today's experience into the first century a bit, but it's helpful to hear her perspective and consider its application to our churches and plants.

So, an imagined description of what might have been the reaction of 1st century Jewish believers in Christ, hearing Ephesians 2: [NB there's a certain poignancy about this, that she was having to address the Congress in English in order to be translated into the other Congress languages - rather than Spanish]

'And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience' Ah, this is about them: the Jewish Christians might have sighed in relief. ... They might have rested assured of their belonging, and believed they owned the right to determine who was in and who was out of the new community being forged by the apostles' teaching. Become like us - the true believers: look at the world through our lenses, and organise your experience into our categories; otherwise, you will only ever be second class. We can tolerate a little colour here and there, a token representative of minority groups, but they must be willing to blend in, to accommodate to our standards and expectations, our jargon, our styles. Yet Paul leaves no room for such smug self-righteousness. He continues: 'We ALL once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath like the rest of humankind.'

Everyone likes to control who's out and who's in - it's scarily uncomfortable otherwise. So how will we set about obeying: 'Welcome one another as Christ has welcomed you, for the glory of God', with all the discomfort, culture shock, and change involved?

Frustrating, inefficient & ... fulfilling?

Church: 
Encouraging, polished & fulfilling?
Frustrating, inefficient & messy?

Ministry:
Uses your gifts? 
Wears you out?



This is the way the Master went; should not his servants tread it still?


Ajith Fernando, of Sri Lanka, has a marvellous article in the Lausanne Global Conversation - short form in Evangelicals Now: Suffering Service. 

The cross must be an essential element in our definition of vocational fulfilment.

Young Christian workers who return to Sri Lanka after studying in the West struggle with this. They cannot use their qualifications fully because we cannot afford pure specialists. Some leave the country after a few years. Some start their own organisations so that they can fulfil their ‘vision’. Others pay the price of identifying with our people and ultimately have a deep impact on the nation.

Paul placed importance on the need to endure frustration patiently, groaning with creation as we await its redemption (Romans 8.18-25). Not including this in our understanding of vocational fulfilment today leads to a shallow church, failing to challenge the world’s standards of success and fulfilment. 

I have a great fear for the church. The West is fast becoming an unreached region. The Bible and history show that suffering is an essential ingredient in reaching unreached people. As the church in the West has lost a theology of suffering, will it be ineffective in its evangelism? [Read more.]

To all music-lovers

To all lovers of the liberal art of music Dr.Martin Luther wishes grace and peace from God the Father and our Lord Jesus Christ.

With all my heart I would extol the precious gift of God in the noble art of music, but I scarcely know where to begin or end. There is nothing on earth which has not its tone. Even the air invisible sings when smitten with a staff. Among the beasts and the birds, song is still more marvelous. David, himself a musician, testified with amazement and joy to the song of the birds. What then shall I say of the voice of man, to which nothing else may be compared? The heathen philosophers have strived in vain to explain how the tongue of man can express the thoughts of the heart in speech and song, through laughter and lamentation. 

Music is to be praised as second only to the Word of God because by her are all the emotions swayed. Nothing on earth is more mighty to make the sad happy and the happy sad, to hearten the downcast, mellow the overweening, temper the exuberant, or mollify the vengeful. The Holy Spirit himself pays tribute to music when he records that the evil spirit of Saul was exorcised as David played upon his harp. 

The fathers desired that music should always abide in the Church. That is why there are so many songs and psalms. This precious gift has been bestowed on mankind alone to remind them that they are created to praise and magnify the Lord. 

But when natural music is sharpened and polished  by art, then one begins to see with amazement the great and perfect wisdom of God in his wonderful work of music, where one voice takes a simple part and around it sing three, four, or five other voices, leaping, springing round about, marvelously gracing the simple part, like a square dance in heaven with friendly bows, embracings and hearty swinging of the partners. He who does not find this an inexpressible miracle of the Lord is truly a clod and is not worthy to be considered a man.

Martin Luther, 1538, trans. in 'Here I stand', Bainton, paragraphs mine.

[Listening to: J.S.Bach, of course - Itzhak Perlman playing the unaccompanied partitas & sonatas (Here if you have Spotify). 'A German historian has said that in the course of 300 years, only one German ever really understood Luther, and that one was Johann Sebastian Bach.']

Don't look inside!

Amazon advises that we may 'look inside' a book before purchase. Wise advice, in the case of a book. But if you seek good news, or to see something of worth, don't 'look inside' yourself. Doctor Martin (no, not the clumpy shoes one) inspired a little ditty on the subject, a while ago:

Luther teaches that we all

Are involved in Adam's fall.

If we look ourselves within,

Feel the bite and curse of sin.

When dread, despair and terror seize, 

Contrite we fall upon our knees.

Then breaks for us the light of day;

Then the gospel may have sway. 

Then we see Christ: of God, the Son,

Who for us all things has done:

The law fulfilled, the debt is paid,

Death overcome, the curse allayed,

Hell destroyed, the devil bound,

Grace for us with God has found.

Christ, the Lamb, removes all sin:

By faith alone in Christ we win.

Translation of 'The Wittenberg Nightingale', by Hans Sachs, Nurnberg. From Here I Stand, Bainton, modernised slightly.

Urban planting

On 22 May, 2020 Birmingham was launched. I was able to attend half of the day conference, and felt a tremendous privilege and thankfulness to God as I looked round the room at such gospel-hearted pastors and church workers from across the city, most of whom I knew from my time serving the churches through UCCF: The Christian Unions. 

Not wanting to miss the second half, I've just caught up on the talks from the conference.

• Bishop Andrew Watson was inspiring with personal stories on Church planting: risk, opportunity & the dynamic of gospel multiplication. 
• Wes Erpen of the Birmingham City Mission gave us anecdotal history of evangelistic efforts in Birmingham's history, in The Gospel and the City of Birmingham.
• I just caught up with Jonathan Bell's presentation from NewFrontiers experience, of The gospel to the city: a church-planting strategy, which included a tour of various models of planting in Acts.
• Neil Powell, of City Church (a humanly unintended church plant?), shared the actual vision of 2020 Birmingham: a church-planting initiative for the city;
• And Al Barth of Redeemer Presbyterian, New York, gave Cities and church-planting: a global perspective.

All very helpful. I just wonder about Al Barth's perspective. I don't doubt his experience, and the number of churches he has supported in planting in various nations is wonderful - praise God. He raises interesting points about the influx of people to cities, globally, the dynamic of cities as cultural and racial melting pots, and how the church in some places largely abandonned the cities for the suburbs. But sometimes I really wondered how 'global' the perspective was. He stated that in cities, people are open to evangelism. His examples were from Manhattan. It reminded me of how I've been told of committed American church-planters who have come to the UK and given up after 5 years, because they expect to have a large church established within three. Our cultures are different, and cities are not the same world-over. Then again, Bournville has always claimed to be a village in a city. We have so much to learn from others, and from what the 2020 Birmingham steering committee indicate, we owe much gratitude to Redeemer City to City and Al Barth in particular. But perhaps it could be recognised as an American perspective rather than a global perspective. I will be fascinated to see what's made of it in Cape Town 2010 in October, when Tim Keller presents his vision.

I was encouraged to hear from all of the speakers, examples of local partnership, consultation and church renewal as well as church planting. The article by Tim Keller, on the 2020 Birmingham website, was rather lacking in this. It can't cover everything, but to me it could have easily given sociological excuses to someone to church plant without reference to other evangelical, actively evangelistic fellowships, ignoring the theology of the church. Pragmatics of reaching new people groups seemed to trump theology of the church - unity and fellowship particularly. 

In terms of the pragmatics / cultural understanding, there just didn't seem to be space in the thinking of Keller's article for a church which was anything between stagnant in structures and self-care without outward movement, and a church plant/planting church. Apparently after 5 years a church loses outward vision (I want to know how this is judged and whether the statistic is American - most surveys are!) How about a 20 year old church which is faithfully reaching out, engaged in the community, continually seeing folk saved in ones and twos, discipling them, seeing some fall away or get choked by the world, seeing others thrive, sending them off as missionaries or into pastoral training, regularly re-evaluating evangelism, dropping what isn't serving the church or outreach, trying new things, preaching the word,... and staying small, and the surrounding area staying remarkably, painfully hard? Perhaps that never happens in America. 

Keller's article would imply that the best thing for such a church would be for a church plant in the same area. Now, no-one would resent more workers in the harvest field, and if the second church grew, the first would rejoice inasmuch as there was partying in heaven. But the nature of the gospel is not that of business. Two balti houses next to each other get more business each than one. Usually true. But the gospel is not curry, and the reason for lack of growth is not one of taste or decor. The nature of church must reflect the nature of the God who plants: the God who invites us into his community, one in him. The non-Christian sees it as hypocrisy: 'So you believe the same things? You're not trying to recruit me for your club? Then why are you separate to the other?' Is Christ divided? 

Understand, I am not suggesting that we never plant where there are already some churches. I'm just suggesting we take care that our pragmatics doesn't undermine the Christ we proclaim.

Note - those concerns were mostly with the Keller article, and don't apply to the vision of 2020 Birmingham. 2020 Birmingham seemed to address these in a very healthy dynamic of partnership. Listen to the mp3s, see what you think, and perhaps take the idea to other cities as well as coming to Birmingham!

Relationships in the new media age

How is facebook changing your relationships?

How has the internet changed you? If you think it hasn't, you're either reading this post printed out and handed to you by a friend, or you're just not thinking, which means you're in danger of being changed for the worse.

As we use new media and technologies, they don't just make things quicker or easier; they change how we do things, and thus shape who we are and how we live. They shape the nature of relationships, of communication, of community.

How are your friendships different to your parents' friendships? How are your friendships different now to pre-facebook? If you publically post on someone's wall rather than writing a letter, what difference does it make to your relationship?

So how then should we reflect on and engage with these things as church? Neil Powell of City Evangelical, Birmingham, gave a seminar on this for Avenue Community Church in Leicester - and thanks to him and to them, the recording's available. But this isn't just one to idle away a half hour from curiosity: this is one to gather a group of friends to listen to, discuss, and help each other apply. Relationships in the New Media Age.

The glory of the ordinary

Have you learned to be ordinary? A church-loving, week in, week out, living for Jesus, plodding by the Spirit, sowing the Word, ordinary believer? It's really rather good, rich and free, but first we've got to get over our revolutionary anti-tradition, anti-doctrine, anti-institutional thing.

Until we are content with being one of the million nameless, faceless church members and not the next globe-trotting rock star, we aren’t ready to be a part of the church. In the grand scheme of things, most of us are going to be more of an Ampliatus (Rom. 16:8) or Phlegon (v.14) than an apostle Paul. And maybe that’s why so many Christians are getting tired of the church. We haven’t learned how to be part of the crowd. We haven’t learned to be ordinary. [Read more.]

So what's so glorious about the ordinary? Is this a call to daily boredom? No - but to faithful fire rather than flash in the pan. Excellent post by Kevin DeYoung to our generation: The Glory of Plodding.

Love me, love my church

The man who baptised me thinks that the One into Whom I was baptised would say this: "Love me, love my church."

That's not a general, 'Oh yes, The Church worldwide is grand.' No, that's those people to whom I was joined on believing and meet with locally to encourage each other in the Lord. It's those with whom I sit under God's word and seek to live it out together. It's the local body of which, with all my failings and lovelessness, I'm an inseparable part.

We love because he first loved us. If anyone says, “I love God,” and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen. And this commandment we have from him: whoever loves God must also love his brother. John 4.19-21

'Love me, love my church.'

And the love isn't just a fluffy feeling, either. It's called service. And what a joy!

By this we know love, that he laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers. But if anyone has the world's goods and sees his brother in need, yet closes his heart against him, how does God's love abide in him? Little children, let us not love in word or talk but in deed and in truth. John 3.16-18

Love me, love my church.

Quote of the day: the call on the Church

"The church exists for the kingdom of heaven, and God alone knows the elect, so the meaning of history lies not in the flux of outward events, but in the hidden drama of sin and redemption." - Augustin, The City of God.

Professor Carter, on the model of Christ transforming culture:

"It's often the case that when we set out to transform culture we're actually being transformed by it. But in church history often it's when the church just does what it's supposed to do that it inadvertantly ends up transforming culture as a side-effect." [White Horse Inn 18/01/09]

Quote of the day: to be or not to be

"A Baptist, two Reformed people and a Lutheran..." walk into the White Horse Inn.

"...and we're sitting here talking about what we hold in common. This represents a spectrum which you never would have seen represented in the same room 200-300 years ago. I think that's actually a really good thing, that we're able to talk about the gospel and what we hold in common, and not just talk about it but to share it with people so they can hear: at its best, Evangelicalism has been like that. The people at the table knew that they were Baptists or Presbyterians or Lutherans or Episcopalians. The problem as I see it today is, there are no confessional Presbyterians, confessional Lutherans, confessional Anglicans who either want to be at the table or who are invited to be at the table. Everything has become generic and Evangelicalism has become its own denomination."

"And it's been defined by something other than theology. That's at the heart of it and that's why it's fading. It's always been defined - there was a time when it was far more robust."

I thought I should be clearer on how I am and am not Evangelical, from the previous post - just as our churches and so on should be clearer. And the men at White Horse Inn happened to mention it in today's podcast - above. The Problem is not so much Evangelicalism - that is good. The problem is when evangelicalism becomes all, and not just a partnership between those who know what they and their churches hold to more than the minimal theological ties of Evangelicalism.

A cross-killed rant

I'm fed up with Evangelicalism. That's the cultural / theological trend sort.

The theologically light, pragmatism-driven, technique, programme and fad-obsessed.
The historically unaware, easy-breakaway / new vision! / church / group at the drop of a hat.
The experience-seeking when over and against faithfulness to the gospel entrusted.
The lack of ecclesiology, that celebrates a lack of demoninations with clear confessions of faith (as 'divisive'), and doesn't see a problem with having 5 different independent churches within a few streets of each other, each with a minimal basis of faith.
The celebration of doctrinal minimalism, as if God's truth is unimportant.

I love the good news of Jesus the Messiah, the Son of God. I love partnership with those who hold to, believe, proclaim and live out that evangel. I am Evangelical in that sense. But in a cultural, theological and trend sense, I am foremost a Protestant. We may mourn the liberalism in some Protestant denominations, but the answer is not Evangelicalism. The answer is the truth of the Gospel, in all its richness proclaimed by the apostles and prophets, church fathers, reformers, puritans: throughout the ages and across the world. It could be called warm-blooded Protestantism - and much as that is ill-defined and open to interpretation, it is better off that way than Evangelicalism. It is better that the 16th century Reformers disagreed on some things, than that they thought theology of word, sacrament and church didn't matter.

Now I try not to rant on this blog, but to relate everything to the gospel. It does no good to simply sound off. So I confess at the cross that where frustration easily leads to self-righteousness, I am not the answer. I believe at the empty tomb that where sadness would lead to despair, I do not doubt that God will be glorified in making a spotless Bride for His Son, and he will not be thwarted either by my sin or our weakness. I proclaim as I look to Jesus' coming again, that by His grace I will not just rant or condemn, but lay down my life in service of all who love His appearing.

The Church’s one foundation
Is Jesus Christ her Lord,
She is His new creation
By water and the Word.
From heaven He came and sought her
To be His holy bride;
With His own blood He bought her
And for her life He died.

Elect from every nation,
Yet one o’er all the earth;
Her charter of salvation,
One Lord, one faith, one birth;
One holy Name she blesses,
Partakes one holy food,
And to one hope she presses,
With every grace endued.

The Church shall never perish!
Her dear Lord to defend,
To guide, sustain, and cherish,
Is with her to the end:
Though there be those who hate her,
And false sons in her pale,
Against or foe or traitor
She ever shall prevail.

Though with a scornful wonder
Men see her sore oppressed,
By schisms rent asunder,
By heresies distressed:
Yet saints their watch are keeping,
Their cry goes up, “How long?”
And soon the night of weeping
Shall be the morn of song!

’Mid toil and tribulation,
And tumult of her war,
She waits the consummation
Of peace forevermore;
Till, with the vision glorious,
Her longing eyes are blest,
And the great Church victorious
Shall be the Church at rest.

Yet she on earth hath union
With God the Three in One,
And mystic sweet communion
With those whose rest is won,
With all her sons and daughters
Who, by the Master’s hand
Led through the deathly waters,
Repose in Eden land.

O happy ones and holy!
Lord, give us grace that we
Like them, the meek and lowly,
On high may dwell with Thee:
There, past the border mountains,
Where in sweet vales the Bride
With Thee by living fountains
Forever shall abide! [Stone, 1866]

Quote of the Day: use your rear-view mirror

Sinclair Ferguson, from the end of a desiringgod panel discussion.

One of the things that just strikes me is how fragile contemporary Christians are because we think that the gospel came somewhere about 10 years ago. I was fascinated in 1999 there was a poll in the UK, as to the two greatest figures of the last millennium. And the Great British public decided the two most significant figures of the whole millennium (AD 1000-2000) - I mean you have some giant human beings there - the result of the poll was that the most significant man was Nelson Mandela, and the most significant woman was Princess Diana. And that really confirmed something that I suspected about the Great British public: that they know almost no history. And there's a parallel in the church. People who purvey an anti-penal substitution doctrine of Christ don't seem to realise that guys did that in the 19th Century, and destroyed the church. They did it in the 18th century and destroyed the church, they did it in the 17th century and destroyed the church, and they did it in the 16th century and destroyed the church. We've really seen it all before, and we know in advance what the fruits will be. It will be the destruction of radical Christianity, it will be the destruction of a radical sense of the forgiveness of sins, it'll be a commensurate destruction of - when you destroy the wrath of God, you destroy the absolute heights of joy and glory that a Christian may experience in this life. And just a little knowledge of the history of the Church would just be such a help to us.