More Answers

I recently wrote a blog considering the wrong questions.  I nearly entitled these mutterings as ‘the wrong answers’.  But that would not be true!  I refuse to be a pioneer who church bashes all the time.  The reason for this is I love the traditional church.  I have spent the last umpteen years training to lead or leading established churches.  For many it does offer some answers.  I have seen people come to faith, find who they are and love church in its more traditional guise.  So, I cannot call this the wrong answer because for some it might just be the place they find a living relationship with Jesus.  So, I entitled this blog, ‘more answers’.

I have always listened at the beginning of my ministries.  At Canford Heath I listened for six months to the church and to God before doing anything significant.  At Westbury, I listened with the church for a whole year using added time for the different style and culture that was significantly different to Canford Heath and my own spirituality.  In many ways listening is not a new thing to me as I embark on the missional listening project.  What has become quite a powerful reflection over the last few weeks in Dorset is that both those ministries I was listening to church and not as much to the community.  In fact, if I am brutally honest, nearly 90% of my time was spent with Christ’s church.  My evenings made up of elders, deacons, missional, pastoral, cell or fabric meetings.  My lunch times made up of Baptist cluster, churches together or new wine lunches.  I would spend the mornings most often in my office planning for preaching or other tasks such as writing for magazines, assemblies, funerals or weddings.  Afternoons and the odd free evening would be visiting members of the church pastorally.  Sundays would involve morning and evening services often with a lunch or tea with church members.  I listened, but primarily I listened to the church, to Christians.  I learnt how to run the church well and how to love and disciple the members.

I have now been living in rural Dorset for a couple of months.  With no established church, my evenings now look like going down the local pub and spending time with people or playing cricket for the local team.  My days are spent meeting people and getting to know the community.  My word this has been a different learning experience!  The most frightening reflection is how churched I have become.   I came into the ministry for two reasons, to reach those with little or no faith and to encourage those who don’t get church.  Because of my hedonistic life style and years away from God I was ideally equipped.  But now!  I admit to being shocked with the conversations, life choices and brokenness I hear on a day to day basis.  But I am even more shocked at my reaction to them.  I have spent 14 years pretty much entirely in my safe Christian bubble and I have moved a long way from being able to communicate the gospel to those I was first called to reach. 

Traditional church may be the answer to one or two of the people I meet.  Particularly those who have deep friendships with those who attend and love church.  It may be the answer to the odd prodigal I meet.  But most the people I meet, Church is a long way away from being the answer they need.  I can’t imagine inviting some of my new cricket friends to the local church to sing songs about how lovely Jesus is, listen to a 20-30-minute sermon and then have polite conversation over a cup of tea!  So, what could the answers be?  Not sure!  It’s too early days.  But when I dream, I think of things like going to the cinema and watching a film and then reflecting – where was God in this?  How might we live differently because we watched the film?  What does the bible say about it?  One of many possible answers?

I was recently at fat camp!  It’s actually a group of people called large leaders, or leaders of larger churches.  The last one I attended I very nearly didn’t go as I was finding transitioning from large church to pioneering difficult enough without hearing that large established church is the way, the truth and the life! But in prayer I sensed the whisper of the Spirit say go and be encouraged.  Encouraged I was!  It was led by the leader of the beacon church in Stafford.  A church that has grown by about 400 over the last few years.  It has done so by offering more answers.  They have seen growth in their more traditional congregations on the Sunday morning and Sunday evening but also by offering more answers.  They have a congregation meeting in the pub, in the local army barracks, two houses have been bought in estates and house churches begun, café church and so much more!  Read more about them here: http://www.beaconinternationalcentre.org/ They are growing because they are offering creatively more answers. 

I do not have all the answers (if any) for rural Dorset but I do know that God will lead us to form communities where the bible is being used to grow people deeper in God’s love, closer to one another and further in our joining in with His mission to see His love spread across His world.  It maybe that at some time we are called to a more traditional understanding of Church, great, but we are aware that their also will need to be creative ways offering more answers to the different people that live in the communities we are called to serve. 

One final reflection.  I was very interested in the survey conducted by the Evangelical Alliance called Talking Jesus.   A survey looking at evangelistic behaviour of Christians and how it might be received by those around them.[1]  There was a fascinating statistical anomaly.  The percentage was far higher for Christians who said that they told their friends about Jesus than the percentage of friends who had heard their friends talk about Jesus!  As I prayed and discerned the statistical analysis I wonder if the anomaly is that Christians think they are talking about Jesus when in fact they are talking about church and that their friends are wanting to hear about Jesus and not about established church? Church is great and as discussed is sometimes the answer but Jesus is amazing and is always the answer.  The most exciting statistic to come from the survey was that 1 in 5 of our non-Christian friends are waiting for us to tell them about Jesus. 

So back to the right questions.  What’s going on with our friends and community?  What has the biblical imagination got to say to them?  What might an indigenous church look like as we journey this together?  May we have more and more answers as we seek to go on a faith journey with those around us. 

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[1] http://www.talkingjesus.org/

Empty hands

It’s a battle for me to give God control of my life. Amazing really when you think of what a mess I made of it before committing to follow him and incredible when you think of the bad decisions or too quick decisions I still make now when I do not involve him. 

I had the privilege of marrying lovely people recently.  I was struck during the service by some of the consistent themes that flowed through the service.  I welcomed people to ‘worship the God from whom all love derives’.  When I was introducing the wedding, I said ‘all who trust their lives to one another are relying on the power of love and faithfulness of God, so we shall ask God to send his blessing on …. and …. that their new life together may be filled with joy, may bring them ever closer to one another, and may make them ever more open to God, whose love gives meaning to theirs’.  I then prayed and included these words ‘and since we know without you nothing is strong, nothing is holy, we pray that as they now make their vows, you will sustain them and surround them’.  I prayed before the giving and receiving of rings ‘by your grace, help them to be faithful to each other in unbroken love’.  I finished the vow part of the service with a traditional blessing ‘May the Lord bless you and keep you, the Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you:  The Lord lift his countenance before you, and give you peace.  Amen.’  I went on to preach a sermon on being God chasers!  Chasing after Gods presence so that they can be so filled with His love it will overflow to the families, friends and communities they live and serve.  There was a consistent theme and that was if their marriage was going to be good and unbroken they needed to come humbly to God and not just rely on any human promise or effort. 

At the beginning of the missional listening project I am having a constant battle of control.  You see I have more ideas before breakfast than most people have in a week.  I think I know how to be successful!  I have had two fruitful ministries in the churches I have served, congregations have grown, people have come to faith and both churches have been left loving God and people more than when I started.  I know what to do now surely!  I know what sort of church I want to create, I know how to draw a crowd, I know what to do here in rural Dorset because of the things that have worked elsewhere.   I come with gifts and talents, a bucket load of sermons, leadership techniques, ways to create vision and solutions to problems.    Let’s get on with it!  But, just like a marriage, nothing will be fruitful here because of human endeavour, only if God blesses.  In fact, all the historic success I may have known has come from God despite my best efforts to get in the way!  I truly believe that God is in control, and he will lead us to the people to serve, will show us how to open the bible with them and then create an indigenous church from this, but why do I have so much difficulty humbling myself to living this out?  One of the questions I keep getting asked by Christians is ‘what would success look like to you in 5 years’ and ‘what would failure look like?’ Deep down I am thinking ‘when we have a church in the village of 50 members including 50% converts and loads of children running around, and seeing other villages buying into acoustic84 so we can begin to have congregations in there. And I would love to see Alpha’s running, cell groups that are both intentional and fun, people meeting in 3 and 4’s to do the hard one anothering together’!  That’s what’s deep down, that’s what I have done before, that’s what’s been successful, that’s what I wanted to say.  But instead I simply answer, ‘if I am loving God more and others more in 5 years it would have been a success’!  It would have been an even better statement if I believed it to my very being. 

Too often I come to God with full hands.  I come to listen, to pray, to serve with all the solutions and all the answers.  I wonder how different life would be if we came to Him with empty hands? 

Recently I went to the southern counties Baptist annual meeting where we called the Reverend Colin Norris to the position of Senior regional minister.  When giving a brief response to the calling he said humbly ‘I come with empty hands’.  Now I know Colin a little (he was my predecessor at my previous church) and he has tonnes of gifts, but unlike me, I think Colin believes to his very being, that he comes with empty hands.  He signposted us to the wonderful scene at the end of the gospel of John where the boat was in the right place, the fishermen were in the right place, and Jesus said, ‘have you caught anything’?  The disciples said simply ‘no, or ‘we have empty (nets) hands’!  They needed to state this so that Jesus could then direct them to try the other side to which they did and the result was a wonderful catch.  We as a family know we are in the right place but we come with empty hands waiting for Jesus to direct us and trusting that if we can find the courage to follow Him, our ministry will be fruitful here in rural Dorset.  Now we just need to believe this to our very being.  When people ask us, what can we pray for you I simply say this; ‘please pray that I will follow Jesus’ lead rather than go ahead and then ask for blessing, please pray that I will decrease so He can increase, please pray that Jesus will be Lord of our lives, please pray that we come to this project knowing we are called but with empty hands’.  Do please pray for us!  We need it!  With your prayers and our aspiration perhaps we can truly make Jesus lord of our lives. 

The wrong questions

I have been or training to be a Baptist minister now for the past 13 years.  During this time Sunday has generally been my focus of my working week.  Whether preparing to lead worship, preach a sermon, lead a prayer meeting, preside over communion or just stand on the door, Sunday was the focus.  I did other things of course!  I led evangelistic courses, had the privilege of visiting people pastorally and attended lots (and I mean lots) of meetings but it felt like my whole week was geared towards Sundays.  Though there is nothing wrong with that and there is much blessing being a more traditional pastor of a Baptist church I did want to ask different questions and wanted to achieve other things in my week.  I wanted the focus to change a little. 

We have now moved to Dorset and living in the beautiful village of Charlton Down to begin missional listening.  As we begin this process we want to be a part of an established church for our family to belong too.  So, the strangest journey begins… looking for a church!  Something we have not had to do for years.  And the strangest feeling?  I am not in charge and I do not have a job to do. Weird does not quite cut it!  When we first arrived back in Dorset we went to a church that is important to Ez and I as it is there that Ez became a Christian and I recommitted to our Lord after a decade of living hedonistically.   It was lovely to see people, the worship was wonderful, I even felt the presence of God there, a great preach and the children loved their groups.  What I am about to say has nothing to do with the church but everything to do with me and my asking for years the wrong questions.

I came away from church a little depressed!  I spoke to one of the leaders and shared a little of our plans and he commented that the village we were living in possibly was big enough to cope with a church.  Numbers…  And as I began to judge the comment I became self-aware of my own actions during gathered worship.  During the 2 hours at the church, I asked these questions:

1).  I wonder if I will have as good worship group when we begin a church?

2).  I wonder if the Christians who attend here from our village would attend ours even though we will not have all the established groups etc…?

3).  What techniques can I learn from this church to put into ours that will create a ‘laid back’ feel and an openness to the charismatic?

These are just a couple of the questions I asked!  But they bought up lots of other questions I had asked over the years as a Baptist pastor.  Questions like these:

1).  How do I get the people I am getting to know in the community to come to church?

2).  This person I am visiting pastorally, how do I get them to join us on a Sunday?

3).  The toddler’s groups, senior’s groups, the uniformed organisations, the pre-school parents, those who use the café, how do we transition them to also coming on a Sunday morning?

4).  How can I change our churches structure to be more releasing to mission and more open to change?

5).  What teaching series can I do to make the people who come to church more welcoming and more likely to bring their friends to church? 

I am being harsh on myself but if I scratch deep as I did during worship at that church I think too many of my questions are built around making church successful and if I am deeply honest, how can my ministry be successful?  Forgive me Lord!  And thank you Lord, that even when I have concerned myself with the wrong questions and had very mixed motives you have still used my ministry and our churches to bring life to those who so desperately need it. 

I used the rest of that week to get away to Buckfast Abbey for a four-day retreat.  I have been there every year for the past ten.  However, this was the most wonderful time.  Mainly because I wasn’t planning anything there, or writing anything for Sunday or getting ready for the next season of talks.  I simply prayed, read a little, walked and chased after the presence of God. 

During my time there I repented from my wrong questions and making my ministry about me and the church and not about God.  After a while with the help of a wonderful book by Alan Roxburgh[1] which the Spirit directed me too, I felt God give me the right questions going forward.

1).  What is God up to in our neighbourhood and communities?

2).  What is the nature of an engagement between the biblical imagination and this place that we find ourselves at this time, among these people?

3).  What then will a local church look like when it responds to these questions?[2]

When I look back over my time as pastoral minister of two churches it should be one of joy!  Both have grown considerably, I have had the privilege of baptising loads of people, I have done countless dedications and seen many grow in faith and find freedom.  However, if there is one thing that has been obvious during my ministry it is the lack of joy I have felt.  Probably because I have surrounded myself with the wrong questions and at times the wrong motives.  Trying to be loved, trying to make everybody happy, trying to get churches to grow.  I have been busy (far too busy) asking the wrong questions.

With repentance, and with thanksgiving not only for forgiveness but also for God using me during this time I turn to Him, and ask for help to ask the right questions.  So here in the beginning of this new adventure called missional listening I commit to trying to ask the right questions!

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[1] Alan J. Roxburgh, Missional: Joining God in the neighbourhoods, 2001.  (Baker Books, Grand Rapids, MI).

[2] Pg 44.