Friday 14 July 2017

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. 



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

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