Towards a 'Unified Field' Theology

The ‘holy grail’ of physics has long been the ‘Unified-Field Theory’ — a description that would encompass all the basic physical phenomena of the observable world and explain why they are as they are.

Recently I have been thinking that we could do with something of the same in Christianity — a ‘unifying theology’ that both draws together different aspects of the faith and explains why they are as they are.

Quite apart from anything else, it would surely help us face and respond to new challenges, whether individually or collectively. I remember some years ago being asked by someone studying elementary theology what should be our attitude to ‘the Sabbath’ and thinking to myself, ‘You ought to be able to work this out for yourself, given where you’re up to in your studies.’

Somehow, although this person had a tolerably good grasp overall of the Bible and its message, and was learning to preach and teach, they were stumped by a question which is answered by biblical theology itself (see Col 2:16-17).

It was as if their theological ‘framework’ was not so much a framework as a loose collection of bits — atonement over here, law over there, Christ’s nature in a drawer in the kitchen, and so on.

But then this person was no different from many of the rest of us. Take, for example, the ‘five marks of mission’, on which the Anglican Communion has drawn for so many years as a summary of what we should be about.

•          To proclaim the Good News of the Kingdom

•          To teach, baptise and nurture new believers

•          To respond to human need by loving service

•          To seek to transform unjust structures of society, to challenge violence of every kind and to pursue peace and reconciliation

•          To strive to safeguard the integrity of creation and sustain and renew the life of the earth

They look comprehensive — and I suspect the reason for that is precisely that they were drawn up to include ‘something for everyone’. But what is the underlying rationale? What holds them together? What decides that there shouldn’t be six marks, or fourteen? What is the connection between responding to human need with loving service and baptizing people?

Recently it has been suggested that the five marks are really one mark — to proclaim the Good News of the Kingdom — and four other ‘manifestations’ of that mark. This may be disputed, but at least it has the merit of ‘unifying’ the marks.

Yet of course the theological task is far more complicated than that. At my 7am men’s Bible study group this week, we actually got onto the question of why we are here, and why did God make the world this way and not some other way, including the propensity for sin.

To some people, such questions will seem childish, because they suggest there might be ‘answers’ we could comprehend. But though they may be posed ‘naively’, they are asked justifiably. Why should we not seek to understand all we can of the ways of God and the nature of the world?

Furthermore, if there is a ‘unified’ theological ‘field’ available somewhere, the answers to these big questions will be related to the answers to much smaller questions, like ‘What about the Sabbath?’

I think, therefore, that the task is well worth attempting and that though we may ultimately be as (un) successful as physicists have been in their area so far, we might make some progress which would stand us in very good stead, given the problems facing the church both from without and within.

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Ministry and the 18:26 Principle

I have recently experienced a revolution in my ministry. I’m calling it ‘the 18:26 principle’, and whilst I’m glad to have discovered it, I can’t help wishing I’d been doing it for the last twenty years rather than the last four months.

In June this year I went to the Evangelical Ministry Assembly at the Barbican, where I heard Rico Tice and Vaughan Roberts both extolling the virtues of ‘one to one’ Bible study.

Like many clergy, I suppose, I’ve been leading and encouraging group Bible study for most of my ministry. You know the thing — gather a group, appoint a leader, read a passage, discuss what it means. They vary in quality, but they have been the staple of the church’s life for decades, not just for evangelicals (as perhaps used to be the case) but across the spectrum.

About ‘one to one’ work, however, I knew nothing. I’d never experienced it, I’d never seen it done and I’d never trained in it. For me (and I guess for many others) the ‘secret’ of ministry lay in pulpit preaching. Study the passage hard with all the resources available, work out what it was saying, prepare your material and ‘preach the word’. Do that, I thought, and they would come — except they didn’t, and when they came they didn’t stick.

Recently, however, I’ve had time for personal reflection (let the reader understand) and on the principle that God works everything for good, it gave me the opportunity to talk with a colleague about the practicalities of ministry. Amongst other things, he expressed the view that the conservative evangelical constituency (of which we are both members) is over-reliant on pulpit work and insufficiently engaged in working with individuals.

The same thought, incidentally, was voiced by the 17^th century Puritan Richard Baxter in his The Reformed Pastor:

It is too common for men to think that the work of the ministry is nothing but to preach, and to baptize, and to administer the Lord’s supper, and to visit the sick. [...] It hath oft grieved my heart to observe some eminent able preachers, how little they do for the saving of souls, save only in the pulpit; and to how little purpose much of their labour is, by this neglect.

And Baxter, too, recommended focussing on individuals — not just in meeting their needs but in teaching the faith.

With all this in mind, and having recovered somewhat from my period of reflection, I began looking and praying for opportunities to read the Bible with people ‘one to one’. And soon they began to come in. At present, I am working with seven people on a weekly basis (one individual and three couples) as well as leading two larger groups, and fascinating it has been.

This is not, however, your typical Bible study. I am there as a teacher, and so I teach. The result is much more of a ‘tutorial’, much less of a seminar. But judging by the response it is hitting the spot.

When I say it is a ‘tutorial’, I mean I don’t just look for a sharing of opinions. These are people without a theological education, without training, whose desire for God is strong, but whose knowledge of the Scriptures is piecemeal. So we will look at a passage, and I will explain it to them. The ultimate model for this, of course, is Jesus himself. When he met with the disciples on the Emmaus road,

He said to them, “How foolish you are, and how slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken! Did not the Christ have to suffer these things and then enter his glory?” And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he explained to them what was said in all the Scriptures concerning himself. (Luke 24:25-27, NIV84)

Or again, in the Upper Room:

He said to them, “This is what I told you while I was still with you: Everything must be fulfilled that is written about me in the Law of Moses, the Prophets and the Psalms.” Then he opened their minds so they could understand the Scriptures. (Luke 24:44–45 (NIV84))

Perhaps we should read these accounts not just as descriptions but as methodology. But note (a) the group is small and (b) opinions count for nothing — the teacher is there to teach.

Another example is found in Acts, and this is what gave me the ‘18:26 principle’:

[Apollos] began to speak boldly in the synagogue. When Priscilla and Aquila heard him, they invited him to their home and explained to him the way of God more adequately. (Acts 18:26, NIV)

What I have found is that those with whom I have been doing this have said they are getting into the text more deeply, that they are getting a new grasp of things, and so on. So the more I can do, the better.

It does, however, require a number of qualifications. First, you’ve got to be able to do the textual thing yourself. And you need a breadth of knowledge of the Bible and biblical theology. Often the best bits in these studies are when we ‘digress’ — when we go off on a side track — and this requires being able to think on your feet theologically. Finally, perhaps most importantly at first, it requires a willingness to buck the cultural trend of being uneasy with the idea of ‘authority’.

It is a feature of our culture (and of our church as a result) that there aren’t ‘answers’, there are just ‘questions’. By contrast, this sort of study is based on the principle that I know more than the people I’m teaching and that I have the authority to teach them. Like Priscilla and Aquilla, I must work on the principle that there are better understandings of these things that some people need to hear.

But it is wonderful work. Like I said, I wish I’d been doing this for decades not months. But better late then never. May I commend it to you as well?

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Baptism and the Gospel

So here's part of what I'm tackling on Sunday morning, just to get the little grey cells working. In Acts 8:26-39, we read of the encounter between Philip and the Ethiopian eunuch, which eventually gets to this point:

"The eunuch asked Philip, “Tell me, please, who* is the prophet talking about, himself or someone else?”

Then Philip began with that very passage of Scripture and told him the good news about Jesus. [ie 'It's someone else'!]

As they travelled along the road, they came to some water and the eunuch said, “Look, here is water. Why shouldn’t I be baptized?”

So here's the thing: how did Philip so present the 'good news about Jesus' that it led to the eunuch asking for baptism?

See if you can come up with a short presentation that would do the same.

* Shouldn't that be in English "about whom is the prophet talking"?

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JAEC 2013: Talks Now Online

In September this year we held the third 'Junior Anglican Evangelical Conference' (aka 'Jake'). The talks from that conference are now online, courtesy of Church Society.

'Talks' were, of course, only part of what went on at the conference, so don't judge the whole by the parts, but you may enjoy listening to them.

JAEC 2014 is now planned for the 8th-10th September at King's Park Conference Centre, Northampton. It is open to first-post incumbents, curates, ordinands and 'enquirers' of an evangelical Anglican persuasion and the theme is 'The Effective Anglican: Seizing the Opportunities in the Church of England's Ministry'.

JAEC is organized by a small group of Conservative Evangelicals, so that theology under-girds what we do, but the Conferences are open to anyone who supports the overall aim of 'the transformation of the Church for the proclamation of the gospel'. On that basis, women are welcome.

If you'd like to register for next year's conference, or enquire, please use the email link to the right.

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Baptism Matters

How important is baptism in your theology? My guess is that most people, looking at this question, will assess it in terms of either the necessity or the effectiveness of baptism. This, after all, is where the debates of the last few hundred years have tended to focus. ‘Should baptism be administered to children not old enough to confess the faith for themselves?’ for example. And if it is, what does it do?

Yet, as anyone who has entered these debates will know, the answers to these questions are not easy to read from Scripture — certainly not from Scripture read in the light of the Church’s tradition, which from early times practised the baptism of infants.

This the lack of a ‘definitive’ biblical answer is revealing in itself, for it must surely mean that questions about the practice and effectiveness of baptism were not much in dispute — unlike, say, circumcision. Outside the gospels there are only a few sprinkled references to baptism. Indeed, at one stage Paul seems almost to disparage the practice, saying, “Christ did not send me to baptize, but to preach the gospel” (1 Cor 1:17, NIV).

And yet a closer reading of Paul, especially in Romans, will show not only that he assumed baptism would take place but that it played a fundamental part in his theological system, for it is through baptism that we are united with Christ and it is through union with Christ that we receive the benefits of his death and resurrection:

[...] don’t you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? ⁴ We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life. (Rom 6:3-4, NIV)

Yet even when we have noted this emphasis, it is easy to miss its wider significance, for in Pauline thought ecclesiology is a sub-set of Christology. That is to say, his understanding of the Church is an understanding of Christ, for the two are ultimately inseparable. For us, what ‘matters’ is, so often, the process of baptism. But for Paul what matters is the outcome — into whom you are baptized rather than in or by whom.

A striking example of this thought is found in 1Corinthians 12, where Paul talks about the Church as a body made up of many parts, each with a different function. Yet in applying this principle he says something quite unexpected:

The body is a unit, though it is made up of many parts; and though all its parts are many, they form one body. So it is with Christ. (1 Corinthians 12:12)

What we should surely expect him to say is, ‘So it is with the Church.’ After all, this is the point he goes on to make:

...in the church God has appointed first of all apostles, second prophets, third teachers, then workers of miracles, also those having gifts of healing, those able to help others, those with gifts of administration, and those speaking in different kinds of tongues. (1 Corinthians 12:28, NIV84)

But, as we have seen, what he says is, ‘So it is with Christ.’ And the reason for this is that me means exactly what he says in v 27 ‘Now you are the body of Christ, and each one of you is a part of it.’ For Paul (unlike for some of us) this is no mere metaphor, but a living reality. Hence in chapter 6 of the same letter, when dealing with the question of resorting to prostitutes, he appeals to the principle of being a part of Christ’s body:

Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ himself? Shall I then take the members of Christ and unite them with a prostitute? Never! (1 Corinthians 6:15, NIV84)

Paul’s answer is based on his Christology. But his Christology is also his ecclesiology. To be a Christian is to be part of the Church, and the Church is Christ’s body, therefore what you do with your body, you do with hiM.

The converse of this, however, is that what he does with his body is done with you:

If [through baptism, vv 2-4] we have been united with him like this in his death, we will certainly also be united with him in his resurrection. For we know that our old self was crucified with him ... (Romans 6:5–6, NIV84)

Indeed some of the outcomes of this principle can be quite surprising:

In him you were also circumcised, in the putting off of the sinful nature, not with a circumcision done by the hands of men but with the circumcision done by Christ, having been buried with him in baptism and raised with him through your faith in the power of God, who raised him from the dead. (Colossians 2:11-12a)

It is not that we have no need of circumcision, but rather that those who are baptized into Christ have also been circumcised, just as they have been crucified and raised with him.

But baptism is often the ‘missing (or misunderstood) ingredient’ in our own understanding. For some it is indeed the mark or means of church membership, but this is conceived institutionally, as belonging to an organization, rather than as being organically joined to Christ. The result, however, is that the institution is sometimes seen as an alter Christus, mediating Christ to the individual and the world. (Talk about other clerical ministry being ‘derived from’ the bishop is, I think, a particular and pernicious example of this error.)

For others, baptism is simply not there at all, or it is just a ‘declaration of my faith’. The problem then is that ‘my faith’ becomes the link — and potentially is the ‘weakest link’ — holding me to God. But baptism is not a declaration of my faith, rather it is a declaration of God’s work and his promises. The baptized person goes through an action of burying, washing and rising, and so experiences symbolically what is true for him or her ‘in Christ’. As Luther put it, “My faith does not make the baptism, but rather receives the baptism” (LW 51:186). And as he says elsewhere,

True, one should add faith to baptism. But we are not to base baptism on faith. There is quite a difference between having faith, on the one hand, and depending on one’s faith and making baptism depend on faith, on the other. Whoever allows himself to be baptized on the strength of his faith, is not only uncertain, but also an idolator who denies Christ. For he trusts in and builds on something of his own, namely, on a gift which he has from God, and not on God’s Word alone. (LW 40:252).

Furthermore, our baptism is not just something done with human hands, for there is one who baptizes us with the Holy Spirit, and that baptism does more than symbolize the truth. When I ‘receive’ my baptism through my faith in Christ — whether at the time or later — I am truly ‘baptized into’ him. He and I become one, and I become one with all those who are similarly ‘in him’, which is to say I become a member of the Church, which is Christ’s own body: “For we were all baptized by one Spirit into one body” (1 Cor 12:13).

Our baptism therefore doesn’t just declare what God has done for us. It declares what God has done with us. We have died, we have been raised because Christ has died and Christ has been raised and we are united with him.

The Church is the company of the baptized. But the baptized are baptized into Christ. And so the church is Christ’s body, of which he is the head and we are the limbs and organs. And that is also why Paul’s theology of marriage is so important to our understanding of baptism. But that will have to wait until later.

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Another Interesting Vacancy

With little time and so much to do at the moment, I'll keep the pot on 'simmer' with another job vacancy someone has asked me to point out.

A post in the Western Lake District has come up, in the delightful village of Gosforth.  It includes a number of surrounding villages, but the ministry would be based in Gosforth, rather than a 'jump in the car' kind of ministry.  There are some evangelicals working together, with a number of vacancies meaning the area can be reshaped in the coming year.  The advert is here  and if you know someone who may wish to apply, please have them be in touch. It would be a suitable incumbency for someone who is finishing a curacy, or for someone more established in the ministry.  They should have a pair of walking boots and a canoe, because Gosforth is in the Lake District National Park...

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Two Interesting Parish Vacancies

One in the current Diocese of Wakefield:

profile as a pdf here.

The other in the Diocese of Chelmsford:

St Michael's, Gidea Park

Let me know if you apply for either - just nice to know.


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The Junior Anglican Evangelical Conference -- forward to 2014!

Anyone following me on Twitter might have been bemused recently by ‘tweets’ referring to JAEC2013.

The initials actually stand for Junior Anglican Evangelical Conference, 2013 being the year — but it could just as easily have been JAEC3 as this is the third such conference we’ve now run.

It all started in early 2011 when a colleague and I, on our way to a Deanery Chapter meeting, were speculating about the lead being given to young evangelical clergy, particularly at the Conservative end of the spectrum. In particular, we were expressing concern about their grasp of, and commitment to, Anglicanism. If they were going to minister effectively within ‘the system’, they needed to be enabled to work within the system, but some of them were coming from churches which were almost ‘independent presbyterian’ in their approach. ‘Something, we decided, had to be done, and JAEC2011 was born.

Actually at that stage it was the Anglican Evangelical Junior Clergy Conference and it took place over three days at St Mark’s College, Audley End. Most of the thirty who attended were actually ordinands, but they seemed really to appreciate a programme with a positive view of Anglicanism.

At the same time, the work of preparing for the ‘keynote’ address led me eventually to write the book A Strategy which Changes the Denomination, which drew extensively on the 1945 report Towards the Conversion of England. In fact this became almost a ‘watchword’ for the longer term.

The first conference ended on a high note of expectation and it was inevitable we would have a second, which subsequently took place at King’s Park Conference Centre in 2012. After that, however, we felt we should get a bit more organized and also reconsider our objectives.

Thus by the time the third conference was being planned, the objective could be summed up as follows: ‘To identify and encourage the next generation of Anglican evangelical denominational leaders prepared to undertake the transformation of the church for the proclamation of the gospel towards the conversion of England.’

It’s a bit of a mouthful, but it means we are trying to do ‘exactly what it says on the tin’.

We also changed the name, from AEJCC to JAEC, not least because it could be pronounced ‘Jake’. And so JAEC2013 (or JAEC3) took place last week, again at King’s Park and again with about thirty ‘delegates’.

One particularly encouraging feature of this year’s conference was that we are now beginning to attract four ‘generations’ — people in the selection or ‘discernment’ process, ordinands, curates and incumbents. It was our hope from the outset that the older, more experienced, attendees would be able to encourage the younger, and so it is beginning to prove.

Undoubtedly some people will be wondering about (or should I say ‘suspicious of’?) the ‘theological tradition’ of JAEC. The answer to that is that it represents an initiative based in the Conservative Evangelical tradition, but open to all evangelicals committed to the overall goal of ‘the conversion of England’. In fact I am pleased to say we had two women presbyters with us this year, one of whom is a ‘returnee’.

The structure is fairly straightforward, including opening ‘Morning Prayer’ (from the BCP, to represent our shared heritage), a Bible Reading (this year from Lee Gatiss, of Church Society) in 2 Timothy, ‘input sessions’ (including one on sexuality and ‘Pilling’ and another one ‘where are we now’) and feedback sessions. We also had a ‘Church of England Pub-Quiz’, which I think I can safely say was unique, not least in not having a pub.

Although the programme was rather packed, the comments show it was generally much-appreciated. And so plans are under way for JAEC2014.

Reflecting on the conference, my own feeling was that in essence it is doing what NEAC was attempting to do — drawing Anglican evangelicals together from across the two provinces to be encouraged by one another and to share wisdom and insights about the ministry of the Church. The difference is that, unlike the last two NEACs, there is a sense of unity, despite a degree of diversity — and of that I am unashamedly proud, not least because it suggests a successful attempt at including such differences.

Next year’s dates are already decided — 8th-10th September, again at King’s Park. The likely price is around £130, so if you’re interested, book it in your diary. You might also like to email me at the address in the side column.

England is a long way, still, from conversion, and indeed the Church of England is probably less united than a year ago. But JAEC represents an attempt at focussing on our proper goal together and subsuming some of our differences under the banner of the Great Commission. My thanks to my fellow organizers, especially Linda Peake who took care of the bookings, and to the staff at King's Park. Soli Deo Gloria!

What they have said about JAEC 2013:

"I found JAEC13 to be brilliant ..."

"'Twas great ... really glad I came ..."
 
"What was most valuable for me was the chance to ask probing questions of you all, at different stages of ministry and process."

"Thank you very much for this year's conference. I found it very helpful indeed. Particularly like the model of its being targeted at four groups (candidates, ordinands, curates and first incumbents) with some of the older, more experienced ministers there for our benefit too. You must keep it going!"

"Thank you to JAEC - such a good thing to be amongst passionate Anglicans who put Jesus in his rightful place and love his work and his Word." (from one of our women attendees)


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Who's Afraid of PSA?

Sorry, but it does rather look like it here and here.

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Penal-Substitutionary Atonement -- it was once so Anglican!

When you get to my age, the initials PSA take on a new significance, but it seems the same is true theologically. Where once 'classical evangelicals' preached that Jesus bore the punishment for our sins on the cross, now it seems the evangelical constituency is not so sure.

As to the rest of the Protestant churches, they gave this one up a long while ago, didn't they? The presenting issue is the increasingly-notorious line in the song 'In Christ Alone', by Stuart Townsend and Keith Getty, 'Till on that cross as Jesus died, The wrath of God was satisfied', but it has been under pressure for years even amongst evangelicals.

Recently I put my toe in the waters of a lengthy debate on the subject with a tutor at my old theological college, St John's Nottingham, who is convinced that not only is the concept of 'satisfaction' wrong but that there was no 'punishment' of Jesus, adding that the disputed phrase in the Townsend-Getty song is nowhere found in the 1662 Book of Common Prayer, to which Anglican clergy must assent.

And that is true, but it is in the Homilies, which the Thirty-Nine Articles commend as containing "godly and wholesome Doctrine". So here are some quotes from the Articles on the subject of Christ's death, God's wrath and the punishment for our sins.

My interlocutor replied that this only showed what some people once believed -- which is also the attitude to the Articles I find outside evangelical Anglican circles. But as I say to them on the latter subject, it happens to be what some of us still believe. The homilies quoted are principally Of the salvation of all mankind and Of the Passion: for Good-Friday, parts One and Two.

God sent his only son our Saviour Christ into this world ... and by shedding of his most precious blood, to make a sacrifice and satisfaction, or (as it may be called) amends to his Father for our sins, to assuage his wrath and indignation conceived against us ...

... whereas all the world was not able of themselves to pay any part towards their ransom, it pleased our heavenly Father of his infinite mercy, without any our desert or deserving, to prepare for us the most precious jewels of Christ’s body and blood, whereby our ransom might be fully paid, the law fulfilled, and his justice fully satisfied.

[God] hath given his own natural Son ... to be incarnated, and to take our mortal nature upon him, with the infirmities of the same, and in the same nature to suffer most shameful and painful death for our offences, to the intent to justify us, and to restore us to life everlasting: so making us also his dear children ...

And yet, I say, did Christ put himself between GOD'S deserved wrath, and our sin, and rent that obligation wherein we were in danger to GOD, and paid our debt (Colossians 2.14).

Let us know for a certainty, that if the most dearly beloved Son of GOD was thus punished and stricken for the sin which he had not done himself: how much more ought we sore to be stricken for our daily and manifold sins which we commit against GOD,

For if GOD (saith Saint Paul) hath not spared his own Son from pain and punishment, but delivered him for us all unto the death: how should he not give us all other things with him (Romans 8.32)?

... even then did Christ the Son of God, by the appointment of his Father, come down from heaven, to be wounded for our sakes, to be reputed with the wicked, to be condemned unto death, to take upon him the reward of our sins, and to give his Body to be broken on the Crosse for our offences.

Was not this a manifest token of God's great wrath and displeasure towards sin, that he could be pacified by no other means, but only by the sweet and precious blood of his dear Son?

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Christ's 'Satisfaction of Wrath' - What's the Anglican Problem?

These are just a few preliminary thoughts regarding the apparently contested line in Stuart Townend's song In Christ Alone, "And on the cross, where Jesus died, the wrath of God was satisfied", but I'm puzzling over what some Anglicans find objectionable here.

In the 1662 BCP service of the Lord's Supper, it says that on the cross Christ made a "full, perfect and sufficient sacrifice, oblation and satisfaction for the sins of the whole world". The same point is reinforced in the Thirty-nine Articles:

XXXI. Of the one Oblation of Christ finished upon the Cross

The Offering of Christ once made is that perfect redemption, propitiation, and satisfaction, for all the sins of the whole world, both original and actual; and there is none other satisfaction for sin, but that alone.

So for Anglicans, Christ's death can certainly be seen as a 'satisfaction for sin'. But what (or who) is 'satisfied', and can we say it was 'God's wrath'? Once again, the articles come to our help:

IX. Of Original or Birth-sin

Original Sin standeth not in the following of Adam, (as the Pelagians do vainly talk;) but it is the fault and corruption of the Nature of every man, that naturally is ingendered of the offspring of Adam; whereby man is very far gone from original righteousness, and is of his own nature inclined to evil, so that the flesh lusteth always contrary to the spirit; and therefore in every person born into this world, it deserveth God's wrath and damnation.

According to this Article, then, in "every person born into this world [the flesh] deserveth God's wrath" because that flesh is the "fault and corruption of the Nature of ... man" - which may properly be called 'sin'.

Now at this point there are always those who want to chip in and say the Articles are no longer applicable or appropriate. But the point is that they, with the Prayer Book itself, are a summary of Anglican beliefs certainly as they once stood and, for some of us, as they still stand. (And remember, all Anglican clergy have to assent to the Articles and the Prayer Book.)

So, for those who are having trouble keeping up, sin (which affects us all) deserves God's wrath. But on the cross Jesus made a 'full satisfaction' for sin. And, as the Articles again tell us:

The Son, which is the Word of the Father ... truly suffered, was crucified, dead, and buried, to reconcile his Father to us ... (II. Of the Word orSon of God, which was made very Man)

The point not to miss here is the comment about the cross reconciling the Father to us. Without the cross, then, we are not reconciled to the Father, neither is He reconciled to us. Rather, as Scripture says and the Articles affirm, we are by nature objects of wrath (Eph 2:3)

Thanks to the cross, we are no longer objects of wrath (on this we are all surely agreed), but if the cross is a 'satisfaction for sin', and sin is the reason for God's wrath against us, then surely God's wrath is one of the things for which the cross 'makes satisfaction'.

That being the case, surely the only criticisms of Townend's words, as far as Anglicans are concerned, have to rest on the fact that he was working with the stylistic constraints of rhyming 'died' with 'satisfied'. Perhaps Anglican purists would have preferred he had taken a leaf out of Mick Jagger and Keith Richards' song book and found an alternative to rhyme with 'satisfaction', but he didn't. Maybe next week. Meanwhile, I suggest Anglicans need to be a bit clearer what exactly the fuss is about.

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‘Flesh’ Beats ‘Sinful Nature’ for Clarity

Last night our PCC did some Bible study. The aim was to clarify our goals as a congregation, and the subject was the ‘two kinds of people’ identified in Romans 8:5-11 as those who live ‘according to the Spirit’ and those who (in the NIV) live ‘according to the sinful nature’.

The only problem was, one of our PCC wasn’t getting it. Her brow furrowed up as she insisted there must be other kinds of people. After all, there are those who, whilst they admittedly aren’t Christians, can hardly be accused of living ‘according to the sinful nature’.

As she was speaking, I had a sudden thought.

“The word Paul uses here,” I said, “is actually ‘flesh’. Now how long does flesh last?”

After a bit of thought, she replied, “Til you die.”

“And how long does spirit last?”

Again a bit of thought produced the answer, “Forever — for eternity.”

“So,” I said, “Those who live ‘according to the flesh’ are thinking on what timescale — this life, or eternity?”

“This life,” she replied.

“And those who live ‘according to the Spirit’ — are they thinking about just this life, or eternity?”

“Eternity,” she replied.

“And where do most people focus their attention — on this life, or eternity?”

“This life,” she replied.

“So they’re living ‘according to the flesh’, aren’t they?” I went on. “Their goals are all about this life, their interests are material things, they don’t think in terms of eternity. They certainly don’t think about facing judgement like we say in the Creeds, do they?”

The penny dropped. Indeed, when we went on to look at v7, ‘the sinful mind is hostile to God’, she got it straight away and a smile broke out when I asked what happened when we tried to talk to most ordinary people about the things of God.

Altogether, a good meeting!

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Some Thoughts on the (In)adequacy of Pulpit Ministry

(More thoughts on 'Pastoring')

One of the greatest changes in church life in the last forty years has been the improvement in sermons. Gone from many of our pulpits are blessed thoughts based loosely on a single verse — sermons that began, ‘My text for this evening is ...’, followed by the preachers’ own views — and in their place we have exegetical preaching, rooted in a careful study of the biblical text.

Anyone with a high regard for the Bible as ‘God’s Word written’ must rejoice in this development, which in the UK at least owes much to the work of the Proclamation Trust. We are surely right to think that when the Bible is properly expounded, God’s voice is heard. But this renewal of preaching has not been without its dangers — dangers identified in the seventeenth century by Richard Baxter (1615-91) in his The Reformed Pastor:

It is too common for men to think that the work of the ministry is nothing but to preach, and to baptize, and to administer the Lord’s supper, and to visit the sick. [...] It hath oft grieved my heart to observe some eminent able preachers, how little they do for the saving of souls, save only in the pulpit; and to how little purpose much of their labour is, by this neglect.

Proper preparation of a sermon takes time. But the length of time spent preparing a sermon is not necessarily a measure of the effectiveness of one’s ministry. For as Baxter recognized, if the work done in preaching is not matched by efforts elsewhere, then it may ultimately be to little purpose.

The exception to this would be where the congregation is largely composed of literate people, accustomed to learning from ‘lecture’ style input, whether in education or in business. Such a congregation may well thrive on a ‘pulpit centred’ ministry. But we should recognize equally that such a pulpit ministry will tend to attract these people in the first place. Indeed, is this not what we find amongst some of our evangelical churches classed as the most ‘successful’? Often the ministry will be to students or to those who work in our city centres. The congregation may be large, but it will often be ‘eclectic’, drawn from a wide geographical area, and somewhat culturally ‘monochrome’, consisting of a particular type of person.

Now this is not at all to denigrate preaching. On the contrary, preaching must remain a priority, not least because the congregation of God’s people is in part constituted by the act of gathering together under God’s Word. But if we imagine that preaching alone, or even preaching first and foremost, will effectively do the work of pastoring God’s people, we are mistaken.

Think again about the parable of the sower: ‘A sower went out to sow seed ...’. In the parable, the work of the sower certainly depends on the seed, but it is the soils which determine the outcome. The seed is the same in every case, but the results are different depending on where it falls.

Now apply that to pulpit ministry. The preacher may spend eight, twelve, perhaps even twenty hours preparing the Word — the seed. But what of the soil? What of the people to whom he will be preaching? How much time does he spend on preparing them?

Once again, an agricultural image may help. In the book of Isaiah, we read of the Lord preparing a vineyard:

My loved one had a vineyard on a fertile hillside. ² He dug it up and cleared it of stones and planted it with the choicest vines. He built a watchtower in it and cut out a winepress as well. Then he looked for a crop of good grapes, but it yielded only bad fruit. (Isaiah 5:1b-2, NIV)

The point being made here is that the vineyard yielded bad grapes despite the work lavished on it. The failure of the enterprise comes as a surprise precisely because the necessary preparatory work was done. So what about in our pulpit ministry? Clearing the stones and digging the soil are essential parts of the farmer’s work. Should we not also, where possible, work on the soil before we scatter the seed of God’s Word?

Of course the outcome ultimately depends on God. As St Paul famously wrote to the Corinthians, ‘I planted the seed, Apollos watered it, but God made it grow’ (1 Cor 3:6, NIV). Nevertheless, there is both planting and watering, sowing and digging to be done. And after that comes the weeding — the identifying and pulling out of those things which are inhibiting growth and choking the word in the life of the individual.

Let us be clear. Sermons are vital. They are the declaration of God’s Word to the gathered congregation. And therefore the sermon should be carefully prepared and prayerfully delivered. But once again we must consider the outcome in assessing what we do as ‘church’. If the outcome of the ministry of God’s Word is to be maturing Christians, we must recognize that the sermon alone is not enough. The foundation of this ministry is not the pulpit but the person — the one who ministers and the ones who are ministered to.

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CofE Acts on Usury

It's a subject I've posted on in the past, so it's nice to see this news.

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The Centrality of the Church to Mission

As I set out to demonstrate in an earlier post, the careful pastor understands that the gospel is the foundation of pastoral ministry and that therefore a good grasp of the gospel, and especially an awareness of the nature and importance of conversion, is essential to this work.

But what is the next stage? What is built on the foundation of the gospel? If we turn to the Bible, the answer is not — or certainly not just — the individual. Rather, it is the church. As Paul writes,

Consequently, you are no longer foreigners and aliens, but fellow citizens with God’s people and members of God’s household, ²⁰ built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone. ²¹ In him the whole building is joined together and rises to become a holy temple in the Lord. ²² And in him you too are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit. (Ephesians 2:19-22, NIV)

Or again, as Peter says,

As you come to him, the living Stone—rejected by men but chosen by God and precious to him— ⁵ you also, like living stones, are being built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood, offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. (1 Peter 2:4-5, NIV)

Deliberate pastoral ministry therefore centres on the church. People must be ‘built into’ the church — there are no ‘Lone Ranger’ Christians. And people must be ‘built up’ as the church — the relationships between people in the church will be crucial to their growth in Christ.

Once again, we find this set out in Scripture:

[...] speaking the truth in love, we will in all things grow up into him who is the Head, that is, Christ. ¹⁶ From him the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love, as each part does its work. (Ephesians 4:15-16, NIV)

Another version of the above passage refers to the body of Christ being ‘knit together’, so with that in mind, we will address the life of the church in terms of ‘joining’ and ‘knitting’.

What is the Church?

But first we must answer the question, ‘What is the church?’ and this is obviously a potentially fraught subject. What we have said above, however, provides us with the outline of an answer: the church is where people are gathered, under Christ as their head, to be joined and knit together as a body and built up in love so as to do the priestly service of God.

The problem is, of course, that’s not how church is always understood or experienced! Nevertheless, that is the definition with which we are going to work. The key thing to notice, however, is that this definition focuses primarily on outcomes, whereas church is more typically defined in terms of structures or actions.

Thus for some people, the church is identified by its institutions or offices. They insist that any particular church belongs to the ‘right’ body or grouping, which is then seen as conferring historical or doctrinal legitimacy. In the Church of England, for example, it doesn’t seem to matter much precisely what is believed or taught in the local congregation, but being ‘CofE’ confers a certain air of ‘normality’ on things. In the Church of Rome, on the other hand, it matters very much what is believed, but a congregation with virtually the same beliefs (such as amongst some Anglican ‘Catholics’) would still not be accepted as a ‘true’ church, because it does not fully belong to that organizational body.

For others, the important thing is having the rightly-ordained ministers, or the bishops to ordain them. If those are there, then we can be satisfied that we have a true church no matter what else goes on. For yet others, such as in branches of Presbyterianism, the important thing is that the congregation or the minister affirms the established doctrines and does not depart from them.

More frequently, perhaps, (though often in conjunction with the above) church is defined by what is done on the occasions when the congregation meets. Indeed, this is the official approach we find in Anglicanism, where Article XIX of the Thirty-Nine Articles states,

The visible Church of Christ is a congregation of faithful men, in the which the pure Word of God is preached, and the Sacraments be duly ministered according to Christ’s ordinance in all those things that of necessity are requisite to the same.

Where there is proper preaching and the right administration of the “two Sacraments ordained of Christ our Lord in the Gospel” (Article XXV), there we have the visible church. (The Articles do also require that the preaching and administration of the sacraments be done only by those “lawfully called and sent” to do so [Article XXIII], which in Anglican terms means ordained by a bishop, but that is a matter of church order, not the church’s essence.)

Now we would be the first to agree that the Word of God, administered through preaching and the sacraments, is of primary importance. But it seems curious (to say the least) that most definitions of ‘church’ pay no attention to outcomes, whereas in Scripture this is primary. Indeed I would go further and suggest that this is a fundamental weakness in our theology.

If we define church in terms of what is done in the congregation, for example, we will be satisfied if certain things have taken place, no matter what other outcomes might not have been achieved. Provided we can ‘tick the boxes’ — songs were sung, prayers prayed, the Bible read, the sermon preached — we can dismiss the congregation and go home satisfied in the belief that some good must have been done, even if we’re not sure what it was.

The ‘deliberate’ pastor must set out to address this weakness.

Joining

The first step, naturally enough, is ‘joining’. With new converts, for example, we must make it clear that becoming a Christian means becoming part of the church. You cannot be a Christian and not go to church.

This was probably easier to convey to people in the days when coming to faith and coming to baptism went together. It is interesting that few if any modern presentations of the gospel would naturally lead anyone to ask, as the Ethiopian eunuch asked of Philip, “Here is water. Why shouldn’t I be baptized?” Partly, of course, this is because it is still the case that many people have been baptized as infants. Unfortunately, it is sometimes also the case that people really don’t think it matters that much. We take too far Paul’s words, “Christ did not send me to baptize, but to preach the gospel” (1 Cor 1:17), forgetting that Paul nevertheless did baptize (vv 14-16) and expected every Christian to have received baptism.

The point about baptism is that it is mark of membership (as well as a sign of the gospel to be received by faith). Those being prepared to receive baptism should be made aware they are being baptized into Christ’s body, and therefore into fellowship with others who are members of that same body:

You are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus, ²⁷ for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. ²⁸ There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. (Galatians 3:26-28, NIV)

In the same way, however, everyone who comes to faith, whether baptized already or not, should have it clearly put to them: being joined with Christ means joining the church. (Of course, if they are not baptized, then baptism, and the preparation involved, will also spell this out to them.)

But this should not just be a matter between the new believer and the evangelist or the pastor. On the contrary, it must be spelled out deliberately and clearly to the whole existing congregation that we are in the business of adding new people to the body of Christ, which therefore means adding new people to our assemblies and meetings. And this brings us onto the subject of ‘knitting’.

Knitting

As we have noted already, the Bible’s definition of church includes outcomes, one of which is the body being ‘knit together’ for ‘the building up of itself in love’ (Eph 4:16, ASV). This ‘knitting’ will be a key focus of the time and efforts of the deliberate pastor and the first place to address this is the regular (typically Sunday) meeting of the congregation.

This is where the life of the whole congregation together will generally be expressed. This will also be where the enquirer or fringe member experiments tests out the quality of the congregational life. This will be where new converts are brought to begin their growth towards mature membership of the body. This will also be where all the congregation sit together under the same preaching and teaching of God’s Word, and share the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper with one another.

All this means, however, that the frequency of congregational meetings is fundamentally important.

In some settings, for example in Anglican rural parishes, the ratio of clergy to congregations means that some only meet on a few Sundays of the year. One common approach in the so-called ‘multi-parish benefice’, for example, is for the congregation to ‘rotate’ around villages and buildings. The service may be at the same time, but it is only occasionally in the same place. There are some who swear by this approach as the best way to ensure a gathering of a reasonable size.

My own view, however, is that whilst this may work for the dedicated regulars, it is potentially less accessible to newcomers or enquirers, who will not have the commitment (or perhaps even the information) to be in the right place every week. Establishing a regular and frequent congregational meeting is thus critical, but this also means building up a team of leaders — something which raises its own challenges.

Even when you are holding some kind of ‘service’, however, the thing to remember is that church is not over when the last song is sung or the last prayer prayed. On the contrary, this is only half the work. Indeed, if that is all that happens, then much of the opportunity of meeting together has been wasted. Consider the words of Hebrews:

And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds. ²⁵ Let us not give up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but let us encourage one another—and all the more as you see the Day approaching. (Hebrews 10:24-25, NIV)

Certainly the writer is keen that people should come to church — ‘Let us not give up meeting together,’ he says. But he does not stop there. We are not to give up meeting together because we are to go on encouraging one another, spurring one another on to love and good deeds as we see the Day of the Lord approaching. Yet is that what happens in many of our congregations? People arrive, they watch, listen, sing and pray, and then they go home. But of how many can we be sure they have been effectively spurred on? And how many have taking any part in encouraging the others? The answer, in both cases, will typically be ‘very few’. And a key reason is that so little of what we do is ‘deliberate’ in its approach to these outcomes.

In general, our approach to church is often weak, even where the building might be full or the concept my be highly esteemed. We rarely make full use of church pastorally. Indeed, sometimes the congregation is peripheral in our theology of mission. Yet in the plans and purposes of God, church is central:

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Pastoring and the Importance of Conversion

The basis of the Church is the gospel, and this means that pastoring must always have in mind the call to conversion. People can only move on with God when they stand in a right relationship with him. Thus the Apostle Paul writes,

... the sinful mind is hostile to God. It does not submit to God’s law, nor can it do so. ⁸ Those controlled by the sinful nature cannot please God. ⁹ You, however, are controlled not by the sinful nature but by the Spirit, if the Spirit of God lives in you. And if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Christ. (Romans 8:7-9, NIV)

There is no spiritual progress without spiritual life and there is no spiritual life without the Spirit of God. But the Spirit of God comes only by hearing and believing the gospel message. As Paul writes elsewhere,

You foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you? Before your very eyes Jesus Christ was clearly portrayed as crucified. ² I would like to learn just one thing from you: Did you receive the Spirit by observing the law, or by believing what you heard? (Galatians 3:1-2, NIV)

The churches in the area of Galatia were being infiltrated by people preaching a ‘Gospel-plus’ message — that believing in Jesus was good, but not good enough. Paul’s riposte is that it was enough for them to receive the Holy Spirit! But the lesson we can also take from this is that it is also necessary to receive the Holy Spirit. Without faith in the gospel, there is no Holy Spirit in the life of the individual. And so no matter how dedicated they may be to church or how keen they may be on religion, there is no way they can please God.

So pastoral ministry is a converting ministry. But why is this so important? Why does the very presence of the Holy Spirit depend on it? The answer lies in the way our acceptance of the gospel affects our relationship with God.

The gospel is the proclamation of God to the whole universe that Jesus is the Christ who came into the world with the express purpose of saving us from our sins by dying for us on the cross. Now when God proclaims something, what is the right response? The answer is obvious: you must accept and believe it.

So when God proclaims you are a sinner, how do you respond? Being told you’re a sinner is not a nice thing, especially if you’ve got a good opinion of yourself. Your first response is likely to be to deny or downplay the suggestion — unless you’re already well aware of your sinfulness, which is why Jesus observed that the tax-collectors and prostitutes going into the kingdom ahead of the chief priest and elders (cf Matt 21:31). The former knew they had a problem, whereas the latter denied it.

But the person who accepts and believes God’s proclamation that they are a sinner stands in a right relationship with God — the relationship of a sinner with nothing to offer in mitigation. That is why Jesus told this parable:

“Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. ¹¹ The Pharisee stood up and prayed about himself: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other men—robbers, evildoers, adulterers—or even like this tax collector. ¹² I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get.’

¹³ “But the tax collector stood at a distance. He would not even look up to heaven, but beat his breast and said, ‘God, have mercy on me, a sinner.’

¹⁴ “I tell you that this man, rather than the other, went home justified before God. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.” (Luke 18:10-14, NIV)

Notice how Jesus says the tax-collector was ‘justified’. He stood in a right relationship with God, which is a key sense of the word ‘justification’. To be ‘justified’ is to be put ‘rightwise’ with God. By contrast, the Pharisee was not ‘justified’ because, despite all his good works — or actually, because of them — he did not see himself as a sinner before God in need of mercy.

The gospel, however, does not stop at being a sinner. The gospel is salvation from sin. And so the person who hears the gospel and believes it will also believe in their forgiveness. The trouble is, too many people today believe in God’s forgiveness! Like Heinrich Heine (1797-1856) is alleged to have said on his death bed, they take the view, ‘Of course [God] will forgive me. That’s his business.’

But here again, the gospel makes a challenging difference. We are not forgiven simply because it is God’s business to forgive, but because Christ died for our sins. Now for some people (sadly including some in the church), this idea is unacceptable. But it is what God says. It is central to the gospel proclamation: we are sinners, Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures — and ‘according to the Scriptures’ means ‘as a sacrifice to take away sin and bring about reconciliation with God’. As we read in the Law of Moses, God says,

... I will set my face against that person who eats blood and will cut him off from his people. ¹¹ For the life of a creature is in the blood, and I have given it to you to make atonement for yourselves on the altar; it is the blood that makes atonement for one’s life. (Leviticus 17:10-11, NIV)

The law of atonement is ‘life for life’. And it is with this in mind that we read the words of Paul to the Romans:

Since we have now been justified by his blood, how much more shall we be saved from God’s wrath through him! ¹⁰ For if, when we were God’s enemies, we were reconciled to him through the death of his Son, how much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved through his life! (Romans 5:9-10, NIV)

So an essential part of conversion is not just believing that we are sinners, but believing that the death of Jesus is the answer to our sins. Both these beliefs are essential to being put ‘rightwise’ with God. By contrast, if we deny them — if we say we have no sin (cf 1 John 1:10), or reject the need for Jesus’ death in order for us to have eternal life (cf John 6:53) — we make God out to be in the wrong. And we obviously cannot be standing in a right relationship with him, or have a right view of ourselves, when we do that.

The deliberate pastor will therefore always be asking, particularly in a new situation or with new arrivals in the congregation, ‘Am I dealing with the converted?’ And this will mean checking to see whether people have understood things like sin, grace, the cross and so on.

Some people object that this is asking more than is required by the New Testament — that we are thereby erecting ‘hurdles’ for people to jump, or making judgements we are not qualified to impose. They think that the principles of Galatians 2:12, where Peter withdrew from eating with Gentile believers because they were not circumcised, mean we must accept uncritically the genuineness of faith in anyone who is baptized and prepared to say ‘Jesus is Lord’.

But St Paul was really not so sanguine about people’s standing with God. In 1 Corinthians 10, he points out to his hearers that the people of the Old Testament also had their equivalent of baptism and the Lord’s supper:

They were all baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea. ³ They all ate the same spiritual food ⁴ and drank the same spiritual drink; for they drank from the spiritual rock that accompanied them, and that rock was Christ. (1 Corinthians 10:2-4)

Nevertheless, as he points out ‘God was not pleased with most of them; their bodies were scattered over the desert’ (1 Cor 10:5). And he draws this conclusion:

These things happened to them as examples and were written down as warnings for us, on whom the fulfilment of the ages has come. ¹² So, if you think you are standing firm, be careful that you don’t fall! (1 Corinthians 10:11-12, NIV)

It is thus important for the pastor to be on the alert, listening and checking to see that those under his care actually have ‘received Christ Jesus’ (Col 2:6), that they have ‘come to know Christ’ (Eph 4:20), and that they have ‘first believed’ in him (Rom 13:11). This is not to cast aspersions on fellow believers, but to ensure that the sure foundation has been laid on which a suitable building may be constructed.

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Clergy Leadership and Lay Autonomy

(An extract from something I'm working on at the moment.)

Clergy in overall leadership need to retain responsibility for the overall life of the church, even when others are in leadership roles. This is not a matter of adopting a ‘managerial’ approach to ministry, but rather of maintaining a proper approach to pastoral care. Within a given congregation, those who have leadership entrusted to them will often be untrained volunteer members of the laity. It is grossly unfair and irresponsible simply to abandon them once they have taken on this responsibility. Indeed, the work of Malphurs and Mancini would identify it as a form of ‘Abdication’. The overall leader must go on providing pastoral care and support and must maintain an awareness of what is being done, even in areas which have been delegated to others.

All this talk about developing leaders, however, faces one danger, namely that of failing to deploy them. In some situations, people are educated in the faith, they may even go on courses, but they are never really allowed to do anything. Remember how Malphurs and Mancini identify leadership as involving both responsibility and authority. Too often, the local pastor acts like the Anglican bishop, handing over responsibility, but retaining authority. And in some cases they don’t even hand over responsibility.

Sometimes this is out of personal insecurity. Some pastors feel threatened by others taking the initiative, whilst others are not sure they could handle any problems that might develop. More often it is probably because of a failure to think things through. People go on courses because they want to know or do more, but there are no openings created for them in the local setting. Indeed, in many congregations, the opportunities for formal leadership are actually quite few. There may be a scheme of elders or a church council. There may be positions of formal ministry, such as an Anglican Reader. Apart from these roles, and home or Bible study groups, however, most ‘leadership’ is identified with ordination. Anyone who shows serious initiative may find themselves being encouraged in that direction, whether for full-time or part-time ministry. And that being the case, they are often lost to the local congregation.

However, it is the idea of ‘initiative’ that may provide us with a helpful answer to what to do with our leaders.

I [John] have often observed that university Christian Unions provide a model of how church could be, superior in many respects to the way churches often are.. In the CU, there are no ordained clergy, no paid leaders, but there is often a highly effective approach to mission. And much of this is arguably due to the fact that the members are not inhibited from taking initiatives. On the contrary, the average CU member feels they have both the responsibility and the authority to take direction action in the furtherance of the ethos of the institution. And in that sense, they are, of course, acting like leaders even though they are not technically ‘leading’ anything, since authority and responsibility are the essence of leadership.

It is this attitude of ‘initiative taking’ which we need to inculcate in the members of our congregations. Too often, leadership is thought of in terms of being ‘in charge’ of something. So we train up leaders to ‘do a job’. But the outworking of the gospel comes in daily life, and daily life is not a ‘job’ you give someone to do. Rather, it is a series of events in which one is involved and to which one must respond. It is here that initiative-taking can be so vital, and so although the people we are pastoring may not technically be ‘leaders’, giving them ‘leadership skills’ — the ability and conviction to act on their own authority and to take local responsibility — will potentially pay dividends.

What people need is to understand and share to overall ethos of the organization — ‘this is who we are and this is what we do’ — and then to be empowered to ‘take the lead’ in putting that into effect as opportunity arises. To use a word employed by the psychologist Abraham Maslow, such people show ‘autonomy’ — they don’t wait to be told or given permission, or rather in the church context, they have already been told and given permission in general terms and are now applying that as situations arise.

The instructions to believers in the New Testament epistles actually presume a very high level of autonomy. People are not expected to wait for their local pastor to order or cajole them into living as they have been instructed, but to act on the basis of what the apostles have said and their own inner capability in the power of the Spirit. Again, Paul’s letters call directly for the exercise of autonomy: He writes to the Romans,

For by the grace given me I say to every one of you: Do 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. ⁴ Just as each of us has one body with many members, and these members do not all have the same function, ⁵ so in Christ we who are many form one body, and each member belongs to all the others. ⁶ We have different gifts, according to the grace given us. If a man’s gift is prophesying, let him use it in proportion to his faith. ⁷ If it is serving, let him serve; if it is teaching, let him teach; ⁸ if it is encouraging, let him encourage; if it is contributing to the needs of others, let him give generously; if it is leadership, let him govern diligently; if it is showing mercy, let him do it cheerfully. (Romans 12:3-8, NIV)

And to the Galatians he writes,

Each one should test his own actions. Then he can take pride in himself, without comparing himself to somebody else, ⁵ for each one should carry his own load. (Galatians 6:4-5, NIV)

Imagine a congregation under effective leadership but with a high degree of autonomy. Instead of having to push people along, the pastor would be responding to the opportunities they created, instead of having to keep the plates spinning, the pastor would be able to devote time to nurturing new believers or exploiting other opportunities.

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Confident and Equipped. The 3rd Junior Anglican Evangelical Conference, 9-11 September 2013

Exploring ordination? Ordinand? Curate? Early years of incumbency? This is for you!


Confident & Equipped

Our task of proclaiming the gospel to our nation faces serious challenges and calls for a renewed Church. This conference will help prepare us to meet those challenges and shape the future of the denomination as confident and equipped Anglican Evangelicals.

In the Programme:
Bible Readings - ‘Do Not Be Ashamed’ from Lee Gatiss
Simon Austen on Staying in the Church of England
Ben Cooper on Positive Complementarianism
Sam Allberry on Human Sexuality

Workshops on Selection, Curacies, Rural Ministry, Non-Evangelical Parishes, Guarding Your Heart, Engaging in Deanery and Diocese, Urban Ministry, Building Ministry Teams

King's Park Conference Centre, Northamptonshire, Monday 9th-Wednesday 11th September 2013. Full cost £130. Day rates available on enquiry.

Bookstall by '10 of Those'.

JAEC began as an initiative in 2010 to encourage the development of a new generation of denominational leaders. That is why it focuses on those exploring full-time ministry or in the early years. It welcomes Anglican Evangelicals who are committed to the principles of the proclamation of the gospel of Christ for the salvation of the nation and the transformation of the Church of England to be an effective vehicle for that proclamation.

For further information please contact emailJAEC@gmail.com

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Kisses for the Kingdom — Vision and Vision Statements

Church vision statements are popular, and not without merit. A church without a vision is going nowhere, no matter how successful it may be at the present time. And a vision should be something that can be expressed succinctly — in a statement, for example.

But I detect two common problems with vision statements. The first is that they are cumbersome. Here are some quotes from some genuine examples:

... to become a Biblically rooted and culturally sensitive church which equips and enables men and women to communicate Christ through significant relationships ...

... to proclaim the Gospel in its fullness beyond the immediate sphere of activity of the local church ...

To see the members of the church be so passionate about God’s heart for the lost that they have become proficient in ministry skills and are pro-actively involved in strategic outreach ministries ...

These are fine thoughts and worthy goals. But imagine Mr Smith and Mrs Jones, if you will, reading them on the notice-sheet and then looking round at empty pews. Are they going to say to themselves, ‘What we need here is to be more pro-actively involved in strategic outreach’? I think not.

I hate to say it, but our own vision statement is a classic example of such verbal overkill — a single sentence of sixty-one words!

The truth about church vision statements, in any case, is that too often they are not the actual ‘vision’ held by the people in the church. What matters ultimately is not a statement on paper, but the ‘ethos’ in the group — the sense of ‘who we are, what we do and what we stand for’ that may be unspoken but is deeply felt. That is the actual ‘vision’.

The ethos can perhaps be measured by asking yourself what it is most easy to make happen in the congregation. Is it social events, is it coffee mornings, is it Bible studies? All these things and more can have their place, but which ones need to be pushed hardest to make them work, which ones do people naturally respond to and support? That will tell you a lot about the vision people actually have in their heads and their hearts.

So we need to do a reality check. Is the vision statement the vision? And if not, why not?

Of course we need the right vision, but again it seems to me this is where churches go wrong. Instead of vision statements, they write creeds, and we’ve already got a couple of them. One popular writer on leadership says this, “if you can’t communicate the vision to someone in five minutes or less and get a reaction that signifies both understanding and interest” you aren’t done with shaping your vision.

And then once the vision has been established, it needs constantly to be repeated and emphasized until everyone we expect to be involved in achieving it (which is surely almost everyone in the church) knows it, understands it and is working towards it.

So here is my sample vision and vision statement which I hope to be applying in the future. Remember the word ‘kisses’. The vision is the bit in bold, the rest is explanatory notes:

K — Knowing God. The knowledge of God is important negatively and positively. The world does not have the knowledge of God (Rom 1:28-32) and its present ills and future judgement are the result. We have the initial knowledge of God and should be constantly growing in that knowledge (Eph 4:13; Phil 1:9, etc).

S — Supporting one another. The congregation is the basis for keeping ourselves in the faith and reaching others. Therefore we need to be committed to it and to one another, strengthening and supporting one another spiritually and practically. (Gal 6:1-2; 1 Jn 3:16-18, etc).

S — Seeking the lost. This was why Jesus came into the world (Mk 10:45), this is the task with which we have been entrusted by God (2 Cor 5:18-20).

S — Serving our neighbours. We are called to love those around us as well as those in the church (Rom 12:17-21). By acts of service we live out the gospel and proclaim the kindness of God.

I reckon that is a good set of goals and I hope it is sufficiently memorable for people to be able to understand it and take it on board — 11 words. Over the next few months we’ll be seeing how we get on with making that not just our vision statement but our collective ethos.

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