Starting Gospel Planting Movements on Campus: Make Disciples

Starting Gospel Planting Movements on Campus: Make Disciples:

"A mindset that focuses on the expansion of any religious system will force you to ignore and reject opportunities and partnerships to reach people that will not join the system."

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Why is church so dull? A psychotherapist diagnoses the Sunday ritual. - By Stephen W. Simpson - Patrol Magazine

Why is church so dull? A psychotherapist diagnoses the Sunday ritual. - By Stephen W. Simpson - Patrol Magazine

Painful honesty with a glimmer of hope for the future.

"As much as postmodern evangelicals bandy about the word “community,” our gatherings have changed very little. Stylistic alterations might add some hipster flair, but the focal point of the liturgical week remains theater. A dozen or so people perform for a few hundred that sit, stand, kneel, pray, and sing on command. We squeeze real community into the gaps, between events with a hierarchical structure."

"In the first century there was still teaching, prayer, and worship, but the early church was about community. Paul’s letters paint a picture of people living together and collectively figuring out what it meant to follow Christ. The authority of the leaders and teachers wasn’t a forgone conclusion. They were in dialogue with their congregations. Paul himself often had to defend his position of authority and many of his letters are part of an ongoing doctrinal debate. You get the sense, however, that even theological issues were somewhat secondary. The focus was a meal, not a class or a worship service. Some early Christians enjoyed the community meal so much that Paul had to tell them to tone it down because they were partying a little too hard."

"How can we expect our leaders to be authentic when theater is the center of our religious week? No one is drawn to such a job unless they enjoy power and attention."

"In my fifteen years as a psychotherapist, I have encountered few human systems so consistently dysfunctional as church staffs....When we rely on the talents and titillating vision of one man instead of the slow, silent life of community, it’s easy for people to get hurt."

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God Breaks Those He Wants To Make Great

adrianwarnock.com: God Breaks Those He Wants To Make Great

Great quote from Spurgeon over on Adrian Warnock's site just now.



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Emil Brunner on the Nature of the Church

“In the last 50 or 100 years New Testament research has unremittingly and successfully addressed itself to the task of elucidating for us what was known as the „Ecclesia‟ in primitive Christianity—so very
different from what is to-day called the church both in Roman and Protestant camps. . . . This insight—which an unprejudiced study of the New Testament and the crying need of the church have helped us to reach—may be expressed as follows: the New Testament „Ecclesia,‟ the fellowship of Jesus Christ, is a pure communion of persons and has nothing to do with the character of an institution about it; it is therefore misleading to identify any single one of the historically developed churches, which are all marked by an institutional character, with the true Christian communion.”

Emil Brunner

Doing Church Differently

In my opinion the time has come to do church differently. I am convinced that we must shift our focus from highly programmed ministry to developing Missional/Transformational Communities that are formed as a seamless organic whole. These types of communities are rare and difficult to visualize because we have moved so forcefully to programmatic ministry in the last half of the previous century.

Alan Andrews, recently retired President of the Navigators, U.S.

source

Ten Reasons Why Men Should Not Be Ordained for Ministry

Apologies if you've read it already. It was new to me and made me chuckle.

I found it on Eugene Cho's blog here and traced it back to the original author on the Serving Bread site here.

Ten Reasons Why Men Should Not Be Ordained for Ministry

10. A man’s place is in the army.

9. The pastoral duties of men who have children might distract them from the responsibility of being a parent.

8. The physique of men indicates that they are more suited to such tasks as chopping down trees and wrestling mountain lions. It would be “unnatural” for them to do ministerial tasks.

7. Man was created before woman, obviously as a prototype. Thus, they represent an experiment rather than the crowning achievement of creation.

6. Men are too emotional to be priests or pastors. Their conduct at football and basketball games demonstrates this.

5. Some men are handsome, and this will distract women worshipers.

4. Pastors need to nurture their congregations. But this is not a traditional male role. Throughout history, women have been recognized as not only more skilled than men at nurturing, but also more fervently attracted to it. This makes them the obvious choice for ordination.

3. Men are prone to violence. No really masculine man wants to settle disputes except by fighting about them. Thus they would be poor role models as well as dangerously unstable in positions of leadership.

2. The New Testament tells us that Jesus was betrayed by a man. His lack of faith and ensuing punishment remind us of the subordinated position that all men should take.

1. Men can still be involved in church activities, even without being ordained. They can sweep sidewalks, repair the church roof, and perhaps even lead the song service on Father’s Day. By confining themselves to such traditional male roles, they can still be vitally important in the life of the church.

Boom, boom.

What Divides Us?

Came across this quote from S. Michael Craven from the Center for Christ and Culture. The quote is from his recent blog post Love Believes All Things. I agree with the content and the tone of the piece and made some similar comments on a previous post myself.

"How many times have you heard the phrase “doctrine divides?” In response, I would say it isn’t doctrine that divides us but rather epistemology. In other words, it’s what we think we know with certainty that divides us. Such certitude is presumptuous and arrogant, the height of hubris when measured against the humility of Paul, who in the same chapter on love conceded the presence of mystery when he wrote, “Now I know in part” (1 Corinthians 13:12). If the apostle Paul did not know the truth completely, then neither do you or I. The consequence of this fact should be a more humble epistemology that is more inclined to listen, to process and ponder, rather than critique and attack."

You can read the rest of Michael's blog post here.

Transition Culture, Community and the Local Church

This article should be read by everyone concerned with communicating the gospel and planting churches in Britain.

Although written to explain the phenomenon of the Transition Movement (the grass roots environmental network that seeks to explore ways of enabling local communities to adapt to a post-oil environment) , author Jay Griffiths also provides an insightful description of urban life in C21 Britain - the culture many of us are called to minister into.

The article provides insight into one of the crucial "felt needs" (not to mention actual needs!) of modern society: the need for community.

Whatever else we think of the nature and practice of the local church, I'm sure that most of us would feel that fellowship ought to be one of its key components. My own view is that fellowship is also at the heart of how we communicate the good news: the medium becomes the message. We model what we speak - of God's redeeming love and the creation of a new humanity in Christ.

Invaluable reading as a discussion starter for those committed to seeing the local church engage effectively with the un-churched majority around it.

Among the many quotable insights from jay Griffith's article:

• Many people feel that individual action [on climate change] is too trivial to be effective but that they are unable to influence anything at a national, governmental level. They find themselves paralyzed between the apparent futility of the small-scale and impotence in the large-scale.

• At a government level, I find I’ve shrunk, smaller than the X on my ballot paper.

• We speak of economies of scale, and I would suggest that there are also moralities of scale.

• Community morality involves a sense of fellow-feeling, is attuned to the common good, far steadier than individual morality, far kinder than the State.

• The fact that they were trying out an idea without being able to predict the results has a vitality to it, an intellectually energetic quality, a profound liveliness.

• William Morris spoke of the gentle social-ism that he called fellowship: “Fellowship is life, and lack of fellowship is death.”

• Many people today experience a strange hollow in the psyche, a hole the size of a village.

• In this extreme isolation, we don’t interact except with the television and the computer. We’ve lost something, and we don’t know what it is, and we try to fill it with food and alcohol and shopping but it’s never filled—what we’ve lost is our connection to our community, our place, and nature.

• The colonial powers practiced the policy of “divide and rule” ... but in contemporary society there is a more insidious policy of “atomize and rule.” The world of mass media fragments real societies into solitary individuals, passive recipients of information.
  

• Although the French Revolution announced that it stood for three things, only two of these (Liberty and Equality) have survived in political parlance while the third, Fraternity, has been made to sound both quaint and unnecessary.

• We are ineluctably and gloriously social animals. We want fellowship.

• Celebrity culture is an opposite of community, informing us that these few nonsense-heads matter but that the rest of us do not. Insidiously, the television tells me I am no one. If I was Someone, I’d be on telly.

• Celebrity culture is both a cause and a consequence of the low self-esteem that mars so many people’s lives. So, the unacknowledged individual is manipulated into a jealousy of acknowledgment, which is why it is so telling that huge numbers of young people insist that when they grow up they want to be a celebrity.
  

• We all need acknowledgment (but not fame). We all need recognition (but not to be “spotted” out shopping). We all need to be known, we need our selves confirmed by others, fluidly, naturally. A sense of community has always provided these familiar, unshowy acts of ordinary recognition.

Comments, please.

How Long Should a Local Church Last?

I've only heard it stated publicly twice.

The first time was by the late John Wimber when he said (on his church planting tapes, if I remember rightly) that, in his view, a local church should probably see itself lasting about 20 years before it either closes or undergoes such substantial and fundamental change that it, in effect, becomes a new church.

The second time I heard it was today when Steve Timmis, leader of the Porterbook Network and Western Europe director (or something equally impressive) of the Acts 29 Network, made the following statement on his twitter profile:

"Every church is 'designed' for a specific culture & generation. It has a 'sell-by' date which, if ignored, leads into institutionalism."

I must confess, I have not thought a great deal about this issue so I will throw it out to the blogosphere in the hope that someone has done some Biblical thinking on it and can provide some guidance on where to begin in responding to this concept of the alleged time-sensitive nature of a specific local church.

Meanwhile, I'll try and get some further clarification from Steve Timmis about why he believes this.

Should We Use Twitter in Church? A Response to Josh Harris

Although not really the main focus of this blog, I was stimulated by Josh Harris's post on the use of Twitter in church.

His conclusion is to leave the tweeting out during the church meetings and his reasons are as follows:

1. Doing so will be likely to distract me from the word of God (as I am likely to be tempted to check emails, etc.)

2. Tweeting, even in response to the sermon, is time spent not actively listening to the sermon.

3. Tweeting focuses on me broadcasting rather than listening and, thus, is a different activity to that needed to benefit from the word.

4. We may set the wrong example to other people - they may think we're merely checking our emails and this may lead them to do likewise.

5. Popularity in the culture does not make an activity appropriate in the church.

6. Nothing will be lost by tweeting after the Sunday meeting.


Judging by the number of comments on Josh's blog, this seems a pretty live issue, with John Piper even entering the debate. So here goes with a response, point by point:

1. If it is true that tweeting distracts you from the word of God, then it is certainly an activity to be avoided.

My difficulty with Josh's first point, however, is that, having been honest about his own struggles in this area and sharing the effect that tweeting during the sermon has on him ( I assume he has tried it), he moves from that to a general claim that the action must have the same effect on every human being.

A superficial consideration of this premise, or a familiarity with the varieties of human experiences, will reveal it to be unsustainable. Everyone is different and one man's meat is another man's poison. The Lord Jesus only required us to cut off our hands if they were causing us to sin. If they were not, we are permitted to keep them attached to our arms.


2. Tweeting is not time spent listening. This is surely being righteous over-much. The act of listening (to God's word) is far more multi-faceted than the mere act of sitting still and hearing. It involves, for instance, thinking about what is heard, engaging our will and emotions in response to it; applying it to our lives as we hear; praying while we listen, etc. Actively listening to the word of God may also involve us weeping or trembling at it (a response that God says he "esteems") .

Any or all of these excellent actions may involve us, temporarily, "not listening" in the narrow sense that Josh suggests. But, surely, they are all very much at the heart of how a godly congregation should listen. If an individual finds that they can use a tool of some kind to focus their response and enrich their capacity to engage with the message, that is surely a valid act for them, subject to it being done unto the Lord and with due regard to the needs of the weaker brother. I note that, annecdotally, several of those commenting on Josh's post do in fact state this to be the reason they use twitter during the sermon.

Furthermore, Josh's assumption that the act of tweeting cannot be done while actively listening is, presumably, a statement which he himself has found to be the case in his experience. To make a rule based on this experience, however, appears unwise and a possible case of imposing one' s own freedom (or lack of it) on another.

I would disagree with those who compare tweeting with note taking. I compare it more with saying "amen" to a particular point in the sermon. I don't know if he still does it, but CJ Mahaney was one of the first Christian leaders I observed giving verbal feedback during Bible teaching - often of a vigorous kind. Are we to prohibit this activity because it is "not time spent listening"? Please see my concluding comments for more on this point.

3. I agree that tweeting is broadcasting, but this action does not have to be seen as incompatible with listening. My definition (above) of what is involved in active listening is, I think, relevant to this point as well as to the previous one. I am not qualified to comment on listening from a neurological or educational perspective, but there may be more to discover from those fields of knowledge and common grace about what it is exactly that is involved in effective listening.

A subsidiary point could be made here that, by sharing the individual's response to the sermon, the effect of it is being spread in real time and in a natural, relational way.

4. Example. Oh! The great argument that has stifled innovation in God's church for centuries! Exactly the same argument has been used repeatedly in connection with a hundred and one developments in church that are now uncontroversial, including (in no particular order):

• using TV monitors in the meetings (people will think they've come to a cinema, etc)
• using guitars (people will think that it's OK to listen to rock music)
• wearing suits (people will think they've come to a business convention)
• not wearing suits (people will think they've come to a hippy festival, etc)

This argument is really a dead end for two reasons. Firstly, because it focuses so much on externals at the expense of heart attitude that it is difficult to see how such an argument will tend towards producing anything other than ....... well, externalism!

Secondly, it suggests that Christian adults who are often handling major responsibility in the world of work all week, are incapable of dealing emotionally or intellectually with another individual who is accessing a palmtop or other device during a public meeting. Do such people actually exist in our churches? If so, I would want to ask the question, "Where did they learn to be so uptight?" My concern is that they might have learned such unseemly traits in church itself.


5. Josh's analysis of the relationship between church life and the surrounding culture is, to my mind, the weakest element in his article. To say that we do not need to incorporate a thing into church life just because it is popular is at one level, a mere truism.

At another level, however, it reads a little bit like the age-old line, "We don't want change just for the sake of change" to which I reply, "Why not? We're quite happy with predictability for the sake of predictability."

Anyone who argues that we should "start doing something" in church because "they do it in the world" is clearly a sad person who needs befriending and taking out more. The fact is, people are using twitter increasingly in public conferences and other presentational settings and it is a trend that is naturally finding expression in some churches. The issue, therefore, is a pastoral one - should leaders encourage or discourage this practice for the good of the body - not one based on making the meetings more culturally relevant to the outsider.

6. Several things will be lost by tweeting after the Sunday meeting instead of during it. Most significantly, I would suggest, is the sense of immediacy. Preaching, if I have understood correctly, is meant to cause a response now. Of course, such a response cannot only be expressed through tweeting! But, if the point of preaching is that it is meant to have an effect in the moment, we should be careful that we do not confuse this aim with the ability to form a considered evaluation of a sermon at a later point.

Some final thoughts:

Listening (to paraphrase Jonathan Edwards in his Dissertation Concerning the End for Which God Created the World) is a subordinate end not an ultimate end when we gather to hear God's word. The ultimate end of listening to preaching is, of course, to glorify God, but between the subordinate end of listening and the ultimate end of God being glorified, other subordinate ends exist. In particular, we should expect the preaching of the word to effect change in us, conforming us in greater measure to the will of God and the character of Jesus Christ.

If this is happening, we should rejoice whether or not tweeting is happening. If it is not, tweeting or sitting still is a non-issue.

The Next Evangelicalism?

Interview: Soong Chan Rah from Eugene Cho on Vimeo.

Seeker Friendly, New Testament Style (Part 1)

Debates about the extent to which church meetings are or should be accessible to the uncommitted or casual visitor have occupied a great deal of attention in Christian circles in recent years.

It is interesting to note within the context of this debate how little space has been given over to analysing how the new testament church actually understood the issue. Instead, an assumption is often made that a desire to be accessible to the un-churched outsider is an entirely new preoccupation, unknown to the early church. The reality however is quite different.

Paul's Corinthian correspondence, while focusing on the life of the church itself, also has an eye on those outside, as we shall see in a series of forthcoming posts on the subject.

Seeker Friendly, New Testament Style (Part 2)

A common assertion made in debates about church meetings being seeker-friendly is that the use of charismatic gifts is off-putting to outsiders.

If that is the case (and I'm not sure that it is) perhaps it is because we do not really see many expressions of local church life which involve the active participation of all members in the use of the gifts they have been given for the common good. Instead, we may see at best a platform-dominated use of prophecy or healing and the occasional use of tongues sung or spoken corporately.

Perhaps it is this latter use of spiritual gifts that is reportedly off-putting to the outsider rather than the usage that Paul envisaged when he wrote to the believers in Corinth about the administration of spiritual gifts.

Paul's guidance for regulating the use of spiritual gifts in church meetings is twofold: their use should be both intelligible and edifying. The manifestations of the Spirit must be understood by those present so that they can be built up by them. For this reason, Paul gives some practical guidance in 1 Corinthians 14 on how the gifts should to be exercised in an intelligible and edifying way:

• tongues should be interpreted (13-17) and spoken one after another (27)
• prophecy should be delivered one after another rather than blurted out at the same time (29-31)
• prophecy should be weighed (29)
• women should not disrupt the meeting by chatting out of turn (34)

It is in this context that Paul applies the same principle of intelligibility to the needs of the non-believer who might be present in the meeting:

The key passage - and one that often proves difficult to understand - is 1 Corinthians 14: 20-25:

Brothers, stop thinking like children. In regard to evil be infants, but in your thinking be adults. In the Law it is written: "Through men of strange tongues and through the lips of foreigners I will speak to this people, but even then they will not listen to me,"^f]"> says the Lord.

Tongues, then, are a sign, not for believers but for unbelievers; prophecy, however, is for believers, not for unbelievers. So if the whole church comes together and everyone speaks in tongues, and some who do not understand or some unbelievers come in, will they not say that you are out of your mind? But if an unbeliever or someone who does not understand comes in while everybody is prophesying, he will be convinced by all that he is a sinner and will be judged by all, and the secrets of his heart will be laid bare. So he will fall down and worship God, exclaiming, "God is really among you!"

At first glance, the passage appears to contradict itself in several places. In v. 22, firstly, Paul says that tongues are a sign for unbelievers but in v 23 he says that when unbelievers hear the gift of tongues in the meeting, they will think the church is mad. Hardly a convincing sign, we might think.

In v. 22 and 24, Paul appears to make another contradiction. On the one hand, he asserts that prophecy is for believers but in 24, its use appears to be instrumental in convincing unbelievers of God's presence and their own guilt.

How do we resolve these apparent contradictions?

What is a Sign?

Firstly, we should understand what Paul means by "sign" in this passage. It is often assumed that the apostle is asserting that the gift of tongues is an evidence of the truth of the gospel that will lead unbelievers to faith in Christ.

Actually, the context of the passage requires us to see the use of the word sign in quite a different way. The quotation from the Old Testament is taken from the book of Isaiah. In that passage (Isaiah 28: 11-12) the prophet is predicting the impending invasion of the Assyrian army as a judgment on Judah and Jerusalem, an event which subsequently took place c. 700 BC. The "strange tongues" described by Isaiah are therefore the voices of Assyrian soldiers as they lay siege to Jerusalem and their presence indicates God's judgment on the nation.

The "sign" that Paul is referring to, therefore, in 1 Corinthians 14 is not a sign that confirms the truth of the gospel to the unbeliever, but is rather a sign of judgment upon him. When a non-believer hears the gift of tongues used without interpretation in a church meeting, that event signifies God's judgment on him. He is, to use another Pauline term, an "unspiritual man". The gift of tongues without interpretation highlights this fact and results in the seeker drawing an incorrect conclusion about the phenomenon he is observing.

Paul does not say that the presence of this sign is a good thing! Rather, Paul's point is that it serves no value to the outsider beyond confirming him in his ignorance of spiritual things. Therefore, implies Paul, tongues without interpretation is definitely NOT seeker-friendly!

Who is Prophecy For?

The second apparent contradiction can be resolved in a similar way. Paul does not say that prophecy is a "sign" for believers. Rather, he simply states that it "for believers." In other words, believers (rather than seekers) are the intended recipients of the gift of prophecy.

This being the case, the use of prophecy, unlike the use of uninterpreted tongues, is intelligible to both believers and outsiders. To the former, it serves to build them up. To the latter, its revelatory element serves to highlight their own guilt before God because they can understand it. A message in tongues may well be full of revelation (Paul earlier describes it as "uttering mysteries with your spirit") but, because it is not intelligible, the believers are not edified and the outsiders think you're all mad.

Prophecy, by contrast, which is also full of revelation, is intelligible to both saint and sinner. Its effect, therefore, is to edify the former and convict the latter.

Paul's conclusion should not come as a surprise in verse 39:

Therefore, my brothers, be eager to prophesy, and do not forbid speaking in tongues. But everything should be done in a fitting and orderly way.

Paul saw the use of spiritual gifts as a possitive thing in the life of the local church, both for the sake of the believers and for the benefit of the outsider. The key was that they should be exercised in ways that are understandable to both.

Thomas Aquinas on the Credit Crunch

To take usury for money lent is unjust in itself, because this is to sell what does not exist, and this evidently leads to inequality, which is contrary to justice.

Thomas Aquinas,
Dominican friar and theologian (1225-1274).

source

Struck by Isaiah

Prophets tend to be fairly direct in their style and delivery. Isaiah, I'm reminded as I reread his message, is no exception.

The opening five chapters of the book that bears his name is a stinging indictment against a society that owes its existence to God's gracious calling of them and which now has abandoned God for the pursuit of false gods and material wealth.

Without pulling any punches, the prophet laments the nation of Israel's slide into unfaithfulness and injustice:

"See how the faithful city has become a harlot!"

Particular evils highlighted in these opening chapters include:

• bloodshed (1:15)
• corruption (1:23)
• injustice towards the economically vulnerable (1:23)
• occult practices and pagan religion (2:6)
• the accumulation of wealth (2:7)
• the worship of created things (2:8)
• arrogance (2:17)
• conspicuous displays of wealth (3:16f)
• economic speculation (5:8)
• alcohol abuse (5:11)

In the midst of these opening pages, which for a book written over 2,700 years ago reads with alarming contemporary relevance, the prophet announces a ray of hope.

Firstly, God promises cleansing from sin (4:4). Secondly, he announces a mountain that draws the nations (2:2f), the latter containing imagery resonant with the emergence of the Christian church.

I think I'm going to enjoy becoming reacquainted with "the evangelist of the old testament."

Responding to Adrian Warnock on Measures of Leadership

Adrian Warnock has posted this week on the subject of measures of gifting and knowing your role as a leader. Since the views expressed in the post are widely held among Christians - the passage is a particular favourite of cell churches, for instance - it seemed appropriate to respond to it and invite readers to consider another perspective on the passage and its application for today.

The passage in question is Exodus 18.

Adrian's arguement, if I have understood it correctly, is that the Exodus passage refers to different measures of leadership capacity that different people possess ("leaders of 10's , leaders of 50's, " etc ) and that church leaders today should be aware of their measure of leadership gifting and seek to operate faithfully within that specific sphere or measure.

My problems with this interpretation are several:

1. The men in Exodus 18 were essentially judges not pastors or elders. The words used to describe them in the NIV are "officials" (21) and "judges" (22). They are called "leaders" in verse 25, but this term is immediately qualified in the same verse by again referring to their role as "officials" and "judges". Moses is here setting up a system of law enforcement - more a police force than a church leadership team.

2. The view that the different roles these judges occupied were based on their "differing capacity for leadership" is stated but not proven from the text. The passage itself does not actually tell us what basis was used by Moses for selecting some to be officials over 10 and others to be officials over 1000. It is an assumption that the different roles were based on "capacity" but not a conclusion that arises naturally from the text, which merely states that men were appointed to these roles.

3. It is entirely possible that Moses made these appointments based not on measures of gifting but on age or on family or clan ties. Anyone reasonably familiar with middle eastern cultures in the past or present would not find that sentence as shocking as those of us raised in a modern, urban and western environment. Of course, I am not claiming that this was the basis for Moses' decisions - I am merely illustrating that "gifting" is not a necessary way of understanding the passage as it is not referred to at all within it.

4. Adrian assumes the validity of the "number one" leader model for local churches and basis his application of the passage on that assumption. His application includes the following : "Sadly we fail to realise that not every godly Christian leader should aspire to be the so-called "number one" leader of a church." I would respond that it is surely preferable that no godly Christian aspires to such an un-biblical role.

The phrase "number one" is virtually always placed in inverted commas when used in a Christian context, as I have done in this sentence. Such usage highlights the inherent problem with the term. We feel it to be an inappropriate phrase because we claim to believe in servant leadership rather than hierarchy in church life; at the same time, our use of the term reveals that, in fact, we do believe in hierarchy in the local church. Hence the inverted commas, as a way of trying to have our leadership cake and eat it.

Who was the number one among Jesus' apostles after the ascension? The vision caster? The most gifted public speaker? Actually, it was the the one who had always been the greatest - namely, the least of all.

Adrian does, of course, make a valid point, which I agree is implicit indirectly in the passage, that leaders should not assume more of themselves than is realistic. Perhaps Paul had something similar in mind when he exhorts us to "not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgment, in accordance with the measure of faith God has given you." The context of this passage in Romans 12:3 does have to do with gifting in a broader sense - not whether I am a "leader of 50" or not but whether my gifts include teaching, being a mercy-giver, prophesying or leadership, all of which are to be used to serve the body of Christ and build others up.

Don't Forget Mystery

In the church of my dreams, the Bible is central and speaks with "final authority on all matters of faith and practice" (to quote a document from the Baptist church of my youth). Such a valuing of the Scriptures will inevitably lead to teaching from the Bible that is doctrinal in nature. So far so good.

From this can arise the desire for a "systematic" theology that covers all aspects of Biblical revelation and attempts to draw together the different strands of Bible truth into a comprehensive whole. Affirming that Scripture is not internally contradictory and assuming that all strands of Biblical truth can be harmonised, we can then develop a system of belief that attempts to explain all - a kind of Biblical equivalent of the scientist's search for a Grand Theory of Everything.

This desire is, of course, understandable and at one level is to be welcomed. It does, however, have its risks. One problem that can emerge in a church or movement committed to expounding Biblical truth is that its understanding of doctrine can become overly formulaic and can fail to recognise that in the end, all doctrine ends in mystery.

When we say that "God is love", for example, we are saying something that at one level appears reasonably clear and able to be understood (to the mind made alive by the Spirit). But at the same time, we are also staring wide mouthed into the most profound mystery of the universe, a mystery that makes the unraveling of the human genome appear child's play.

Although the words of Scripture are sufficient, they are not exhaustive. They do not tell us all that can be known, only that which we need to know for our salvation and for living a godly life.

Perhaps Paul had something similar in mind when he confessed that "we know in part" and when he portrayed this present life as "looking into a dark mirror" or (as other versions put it) "seeing only dimly". Because so much attention has been spent in recent decades explaining that these verses in 1 Corinthians do not refer to the cessation of spiritual gifts with the closing of the canon of Scripture, we have perhaps not been as careful to explain what they actually do mean.

In context, Paul is saying that all of our current knowledge about the things of God is limited - not incorrect, just limited. It is like the knowledge that a child has about the world around him - simplistic, basic, lacking depth or rigor. "Now", says Paul, "we know in part."

What is Paul's response to the reality of our current childish knowledge compared to our future adult knowledge of spiritual things? Does he abandon doctrine? Not at all. Rather, he emphasises love: And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.

In the church of my dreams, doctrinal teaching is important. But it is to be set forth with a healthy dose of humility and a recognition that at present we're just kids talking about big stuff that we don't really get. This being the case, we adopt humility in our dealings with each other, and we make great efforts to think, speak and act lovingly towards all those who belong to Jesus Christ, even with those who don't agree with our view of the Millenium.

Colin Crouch, Post Democracy and Grass Roots Church Movements

My guess is that when Colin Crouch, Chair of the Department of Social and Political Sciences at the European University Institute in Florence, penned his short but absorbing book Post-democracy he was not anticipating that it would, in part, inspire thought about the nature of the Christian church.

When reading, however, I was struck by one paragraph that seemed to have a direct application to the idea of the church as a movement rather than an organisation.

Against the backdrop of the numerical decline in the manual working classes in Western societies and, as Crouch sees it, the related decline in mass concerted political action emanating from those social groups, he notes one movement that has bucked the trend of growing political passivity in recent years: namely, the rise of the feminist movement. Alongside the green movement, it has, says the author, "constituted the most important new instance of democratic politics at work" in recent decades.

The paragraph that struck me as having something to say (indirectly) about the church was as follows:

"Starting with small groups of intellectuals and extremists, it [feminism] spread to express itself in complex, rich and uncontrollable ways, but all rooted in the fundamental requirement of a great movement: the discovery of an unexpressed identity, leading to the definition of interests and the formation of formal and informal groups to give expression to these. As with all great movements, it took the existing political system by surprise and could not be easily manipulated. ... It is characteristic of a true major social movement that it takes a confusing and sometimes contradictory multiplicity of forms."

Those of us who have a longing to see a mass movement of Christian life which significantly effects the social and cultural landscape of our communities and nations, may wish to reflect on these ideas:

1. Mass Christian movements often start at the fringes and are easily dismissed or ridiculed in their early stages. While we look back with awe at, say, the Wesleyan movement of the C18, we do well to remember that in origin it was quirky and led by a small band of prayerful extremists.

2. A great movement requires the "discovery of an unexpressed identity". While we can rejoice wholeheartedly in the recovery across the Christian church in recent years of an appreciation of the grace of God in regard to the believer's righteous standing in Christ, his freedom from condemnation and law and the power of the new birth to deliver from slavery to sin, there is perhaps yet "more light" to be shed on the implications of this truth for our corporate life together. The discovery that, since I am in Christ, I am one with you if you are in Christ and that, when we meet together, Christ himself is present with us, no matter how few in number we are, is a truth whose power is, perhaps, waiting to be fully realised.

3. This discovery, that we the church have a shared identity and shared life waiting to be fully expressed beyond our current experience of church meetings and organised events could, according to Crouch's model, lead to the "defining of interests." Our interests as Christian believers include encouraging one another to grow in God's grace, caring deeply for one another and sharing our lives together in fellowship. Our interests include living holy lives for the glory of God.and seeking Christ's Kingdom in our lives, our families and in wider society . Our interests include a detachment from worldly priorities and a longing for the "appearing" of Christ at the end of the age when we shall be united with him forever. Our interests also include a desire to make Christ known to others by word and deed and to seek the advance of his kingdom throughout the nations.

4. The discovery of these interests could lead, in turn, to the formation of groups that give expression to them. Groups of believers who meet to pray, to feed on Christ through his word and through the sacrament of the Lord's supper, to share our lives together and to care for, teach and encourage one another. Groups where we learn from God's word and where true discipleship takes place which shapes everything about us. Groups which non-believers attend and in which they witness supernatural occurrences as the Spirit of Christ distributes gifts and manifestations to build up the members. Such groups might vary in size, in time and frequency of gathering and in numerous other secondary matters. I know what you're thinking - it sounds bit like the church we read of in Acts.

5. Such a movement could take existing systems by surprise. A system that has for so long been leader-centric could find that anyone and everyone is hosting and starting groups without asking for permission. We could find that, just as unnamed believers fleeing persecution first took the gospel to Antioch and into the Gentile world (see Acts 11), we could today see ordinary believers who have regular full-time jobs in offices, schools or factories breaking into new people groups with the good news in our multi-cultural cities and that new churches are appearing who sing the praise of Jesus Christ in Somali, Arabic and Polish. Although we may think we would rejoice in these untidy developments, we may in reality find ourselves nervous about these uncontrolled events, in similar ways to the reaction of European Catholicism 500 years ago when the reformers promised to translate the Bible into the common languages and place it in the hands of ploughmen and weavers to read and obey as their conscience taught them.

6. The fact that such a movement cannot be manipulated indicates how different it is from other structures that may exist within a society. In particular, such a mass movement is in nature quite different from a corporation or a firm, particularly as they increasingly exist in the Anglo-American economies. Such firms, which tragically (to my mind) some churches have sought to imitate, have a product or products, streamlined delivery and marketing systems, multiple layers of managers and highly powerful senior executives, the CEO being at the top of the organisation. All of which can make them efficient but also controlling.

Let me speak plainly.

I see a growing movement of believers developing outside of traditional church structures - and even outside of "new church" structures. Some of these believers are discouraged. Others are weak. And some, frankly, have significant gaps in their theology and practice. Most of them love the Lord Jesus but have fallen out of love with their previous experience of doing church. Many are longing for a way of being the church together that is highly relational, flexible and "in life".

I also think that those with gifts of leadership, teaching, pastoral care and apostleship would do well to serve these scattered believers with the word of God and with their gifts.

I'm reminded of the advice that Dr Martyn Lloyd Jones gave to the late Henry Tyler, a founding elder of what is now Church of Christ the King in Brighton. After finishing Bible college, Henry, who I knew personally, was considering taking on the pastorate of a Baptist church. Lloyd Jones urged Henry to "stay among the house churches" that were emerging in the 1970s and to teach them the word of God.

A similar phenomenon is emerging today. I hope that those outside this emerging movement who are leaders have the wisdom of Lloyd Jones as they look on and consider their response.

I have written a review of professor Crouch's book here.

The Gospel, the Church, the Culture and the Mission

As fools yearn to play Hamlet (paraphrasing Packer's introduction to Knowing God), so I have longed to write a post about the gospel and culture.

This, however, is not it.

As a fleeting dip of the toe into the water, however, may I refer readers to a recent post by Brother Maynard over at Subversive Influence. His topic is the "men in church" thing, which, if I have time, I hope to write about as well. The theme, however, provides the writer with the opportunity to explore the issues of "contextualisation" of the gospel compared with "incarnation" of the gospel.

It's a bit late in the day and I don't really get it all. But I think he raises some good questions about the dangers of seeing the gospel as a product and the world as our target market. I don't know many people who use that language as such, but I observe quite a lot of actions that show that this kind of thinking is quite influential.

Which, of course, does not mean it is right.

Catholic Wisdom

Don't worry, I'm not about to set up a shrine to Our Lady of North Bristol.

It's just that from time to time I find the odd snippet from the Catholic wing that strikes a chord and which I think is worth repeating.

Third stream Christian groups - which I have written about elsewhere - have historically been happy to learn from the best of the Catholic mystic tradition while retaining a solid adherence to the authority of Scripture and an evangelical understanding of salvation/justification.

It is in that spirit that I offer the following quote from Scott Schaeffer-Duffy who with his wife Claire started the St. Francis and Theresa Worker House in 1986 (inspired by the example of Catholic civil rights activist Dorothy Day) in Worcester, Massachusetts:

"We confess to being fools and wish that we were more so.... We seek an irrational and personalist way of doing things that trusts in the miraculous power of God.... Without government aid, salaries, grants or institutional help from the Church, and often without many volunteers, we feed and house people, deliver aid in war zones, confront local and national injustices, and still manage to have happy personal and family lives. That's pretty miraculous to me."

Although I may not choose to use the word "irrational" and although I would see "help from the church" as a good thing, nonetheless, I share with the writer the desire for a church that is weak, as far as human might is concerned. Such a church consciously rejects the mechanisms of power and influence that govern much human activity in the political, economic and military spheres. This same church is powerful in its adherence to the gospel, its seeking of another Kingdom, its commitment to prayer and its experience and expectation of God's active and supernatural involvement.

I think Paul had something similar in mind when he said: when I am weak,then I am strong.

The Church and Money - a Historical Perspective

Following an occasional series on the issue of money in the church portrayed in the new testament writings, I now take a slight historical detour to look at "Christian attitudes to finance in the first four centuries" - the title of an article by Frances Young of Birmingham University. I am grateful to Early Church for the heads up on this article.

Frances Young highlights three key themes in her essay:

1. The Ban on Lending Money with Interest

Young outlines the growth and consolidation of this teaching from its roots in the Old Testament commands (Exod 22.25; Deut 23.19; Ps 15.5; and Ezek 18.8) to its application to, first church leaders, then all Christians by the ninth century.

Although not opposed to banking as such, the early church did protest against the growing consolidation of wealth in the hands of a powerful few and the use of their economic power to lend money with interest.

2. The Use of Money to Care for the Poor

Young also provides some fascinating statistical data to illustrate the nature of the church's concern for the poor during this period. In the third century, for instance, the church in Rome is recorded as supporting 1,500 widows and other poor persons at an annual cost of between 1/2 and 1 million sesterces.

Just after 400 AD, the church in Antioch was supporting 3,000 virgins and widows, and the Church in Constantinople financed the care of 50,000 poor people.

It was during this period that some of the more well known quotations by outsiders commenting on the church's practice were noted and written down. The pagan satirist Lucian, for instance, notes of the Christians that "their original law-giver taught them that they were all brothers."

Tertullian, meanwhile, describes the varied use of the church common fund:

• feeding poor Christians
• providing for orphans both inside and outside of the church
• paying for the funeral costs of poor Christians
• supporting Christians in prison and those sent to the mines as punishment for their faith

Against this backdrop, Tertullian quotes outsiders as saying of the Christians, "Only look how they love one another!"

At a later date, the Emperor Justin expresses frustration in his attempts to revive the fortunes of the pagan cults. Forming imperial charitable institutions to rival those of the Christians, Justin writes, "It is disgraceful that all men should see our people lack aid from us, when no Jew has ever had to beg and the impious Galileans [i.e. Christians] support not only their own poor but ours as well."

3. The Support of Church Leaders

The church in Rome in the third century is reported as having 150 paid "clergy" exercising a variety of serving/leadership functions.

Many of the church's salaried workers during this period were, in fact, appointed to administer the church's communal charity funds - a development anticipated in the narrative in Acts 6 concerning the appointment of the "seven" to care for the daily distribution of food to widows in the Jerusalem church.

Conspicuous for its absence until the 4th century is any reference to the use of money to buy or maintain buildings. By the fifth century, however, as Christianity became the official religion of the empire and started to receive government allowances, the proportion of the church's finances directed towards the poor dropped to about one-fifth, the rest being spent on the clergy and the upkeep of buildings (pictured).