Transforming Grace

It has only just dawned on me why our small groups have struggled to grow much beyond the original members of our congregation. We are trying to do small groups in a big city way in a settled community. We started in 2006 with two “growth groups” led by the clergy and meeting in their houses. We now have four groups, one of which multiplied from the other two and one which started from scratch.

In university towns or where the population is made up of young professionals and people are transient or at least trying to settle a small group is a good place to meet people and make friends quickly. Not so in a settled community. Many people in Blakenhall whom I come into contact with meet with their extended family and a select number of friends they have known since they grew up together. Social lives are settled, people don’t often meet in each other’s homes socially, but pop in for a chat and socialise at the pub or club. Our invitations to people to join our existing small groups meet with resistance because of the disruption this would cause to routine, social networks and meeting in a stranger’s house is just a plain weird idea.

Our direction of invitation must be reversed. We should ask, “may I come with a friend and join you in your home to learn about Christ and how to live for him together with your family and friends?” I have seen the potential for this in a number of situations where people have come to faith and have friends who are interested in Christ. We need to plant groups without trying to take people out of existing settled social circles. Instead, we should add a group leader and one or two members to such circles.

To make this work, some leaders must be “planters” who move from home to home as opportunities arise as in Acts 5:42, “And every day, in the temple and from house to house, they did not cease teaching and preaching Jesus as the Christ.” So group planters must not be hosts, which is the mistake we’ve made by hosting at clergy houses.

I went to the CPAS Growing Leaders course training day on Saturday. The day was very good and, without having run the course yet, I would recommend it to anyone looking for resources to help develop leaders within the local church to have a growing Christ-likeness of character, motivation and priorities for life. The leadership development model is a very helpful summary of the CPAS philosophy.

As a result of attending the course, I’ve been encouraged to start think strategically about growing leaders in an inner city context. I’ve got four books lined up to read:

1. The habits of highly effective churches by George Barna (I read this when I first arrived in Blakenhall and want to re-read it)
2. Advanced Strategic Planning by Aubrey Malphurs (I started reading this when I arrived in Blakenhall but didn’t finish it)
3. Building Leaders by Aubrey Malphurs and Will Mancini (I bought this when I arrived in Blakenhall and I have never opened it)
4. Mentoring Leaders by Carson Pue (which was recommended at the weekend as the ideal companion to Building Leaders)

What makes the CPAS material promising in my mind is that it starts with the premise that leaders exist in every context. There are many young men and women I know in Blakenhall who are natural leaders and who would transform the church and the area if given the motivation, will and opportunity to follow Christ in a culturally appropriate way. The question is: as the church (nationally and locally) has given young male leaders very little to get excited about in the past (cold pews, Victorian hymns, ancient liturgies, men in dresses etc), how do we get over deeply ingrained conceptions of what church is and instead reveal, teach and model Christ in this context so that these young leaders want to follow him and lead others to follow him?

At one level it is as simple as being focused on Christ myself and boldly, lovingly leading individuals one at a time to know, trust, love and obey him so that they lead others to do the same. At another level there’s all sorts of things to think through about how best to do that and how the body will function so that people follow Christ together in the inner city.

I’ll start with George Barna later this week and see what ideas emerge.

I went to the second of three LANA (Local Area and Neighbourhood Arrangement) consultation meetings last night. LANAs are the latest initiative which shows that our government is “listening”, which in effect means the blind are leading the blind. The evenings show that people are not blind to the problems faced in Blakenhall but blind to the solutions.

Here’s how it has worked so far: Various representatives from Blakenhall were invited to attend three meetings of three hours each to prioritise the needs of the area. Amanda went to the first meeting where lists of concerns were drawn up by groups at various tables using a system something like speed-dating (10 minutes at each table) under the following headers:

1. Vision
2. Health
3. Crime and Community Safety
4. Education

Last night we did more speed dating to pick the top three priorities from the lists of over fifty. Here’s a representative list of the options from the first meeting:

Vision
Less petty crimes against property & cars
No tower blocks
More youth facilities
Community Cohesion
Policing to stop drinking on the streets

Health
Healthy eating - veggie / vegan
Drug, smoking and drinking eduction
Too many school pupils taking lunch at chippy (stop kids leaving school)
‘Life skills’ - respect agenda

Crime and Community Safety
Reduce burglaries, muggings
Young people not occupied
Get tough on crime

Education
Encourage respect
Deal with under achievement
Encourage productivity
Extra help at early stage
Role models (mums)

We were asked what we thought of the evening and I said “the meeting was optimistic but without any real sense of how issues of behaviour and community might be addressed”. On my feedback form I was asked three questions:

Q1. What has been the greatest improvement to your area in the past year?
A. Better street furniture and pavements

Q2. What has been most damaging to your area in the past year?
A. Disruption to community caused by repossessions and transient population

Q3. If you could see one thing happen in your area to improve things what would it be?
A. For people to love God with all their heart and love their neighbour as they love themselves (all the law is summarised in these two commands).

As the church in our nation has failed to reveal God in such a way that people will love him, fear him, listen to him and obey him, the government is trying to pick up the pieces by “listening” to the people who suffer the fallout. People know what’s wrong with our neighbourhood but without God in the picture the overwhelming sense I was left with last night is that the blind have been left to lead the blind. The educational programs set up with our tax money will fail to address the issues of the heart which lead to anti-social behaviour and cause general misery in Blakenhall.

I can’t make the last of the three meetings and I’m not sure of the value of my being there. I do have increased confidence that there is a will here to sort out the mess created by sin and that by persevering with the gospel the local church will make God known so that people will hate their sin, love God and their neighbours.

We have a gospel to proclaim
Good news for men in all the earth;
The gospel of a Saviour’s name:
We sing His glory, tell His worth.

Tell of His birth at Bethlehem,
Not in a royal house or hall
But in a stable dark and dim:
The Word made flesh, a light for all.

Tell of His death at Calvary,
Hated by those He came to save;
In lonely suffering on the cross
For all He loved His life He gave.

Tell of that glorious Easter morn:
Empty the tomb, for He was free.
He broke the power of death and hell
That we might share His victory.

Tell of His reign at God’s right hand,
By all creation glorified;
He sends His Spirit on His Church
To live for Him, the Lamb who died.

Now we rejoice to name Him King:
Jesus is Lord of all the earth.
This gospel message we proclaim:
We sing His glory, tell His worth.

Music: William Gardiner (1770 - 1853)
Words: Edward Burns (b. 1938 )

As our church here has grown recently, I have been thinking about church body structures. It looks to me like there are broadly three types of church in the world.

1. Some churches are very well ordered, everyone knows what their role is within the body. These churches tend not to grow as new people leave after a short while. These disillusioned newcomers will have discovered both an impenetrable organisation and an established network of friendships with no capacity for anyone new and so, not waiting around until they are asked do to something and finding it hard to fit in, they leave.
2. Other churches grow very quickly through enthusiastic preaching, evangelism and an open social network but when it comes to organisation, they are shambolic and tend to fall apart.
3. Other churches are both ordered and growing.

For a church to grow in an ordered way, it needs two types of structure to exist independently but interdependently. Getting the balance and relationship right between these two structures is very difficult but critical.

The first structure is organisation along the lines of Acts 6:1-7, where word ministry and practical works of service are thought through, roles and tasks are specified and delegated. This sort of top-down order can be represented by an organisation chart like this:

The second structure is an expansive, outward focused, fluid, flexible, bottom-up evangelism, pastoring and teaching (EPT) ministry along the lines of Ephesians 4:11-12. This ministry is based on Christ and the teachings of the prophets and apostles the church grows by multiplying word ministers (EPTs), spreading the word through networks of people. The church structure looks something like this:

For a well ordered growing church, both structures need to be present and the latter structure must precede the former. The church must first grow and then be ordered (Ephesians 4:15-16). I tend naturally to the latter and so must work hard on putting order in place.

I’ve heard it said that the Puritans put too much emphasis on felt faith as the basis of assurance. This may be true and there is certainly evidence in the work of Thomas Watson of a high emphasis on experiential faith, with lines like:

The heart of a man lies under a curse. It brings forth nothing but the thistles and strife of contention. But when grace comes into the heart it makes it peaceable. It infuses a sweet, loving disposition.

It would be a mistake, I believe, to say that assurance was always found in felt faith. There was a place in Puritan thought for what Thomas Watson calls desertion. Here he answers the objection that it is unloving of God to allow his children to come under the “black clouds” of desertion.

First, Watson acknowledges the horror of desertion:

Concerning desertion, I must needs say that this is the saddest condition that can betide God’s children. When the sun is gone, the dew falls. When the sunlight of God’s countenance is removed, then the dew of tears falls from the eyes of the saints. In desertion God rains hell out of heaven (to use Calvin’s expression). ‘The arrows of the Almighty are within me, the poison whereof drinketh up my spirit, (Job 6:4). This is the poisoned arrow that wounds to the heart. …[Yet] There is peace and mercy in it. I shall hold forth a spiritual rainbow wherein the children of God may see the love of their Father in the midst of the clouds of desertion.

To answer the objection, Watson points to the cross and distinguishes between lack of vision and lack of union:

I answer: God may forsake his children in regard of vision, but not in regard of union. Thus it was with Jesus Christ when he cried out, ‘my God, my God’. There was not a separation of the union between him and his Father, only a suspension of the vision. God’s love through the interposition of our sins may be darkened and eclipsed, but still he is a Father. The sun may be hid in a cloud, but it is not out of the firmament. The promises in time of desertion may be, as it were, sequestered. We do not have the comfort from them as formerly, but still the believer’s title holds good in law.

Watson then brings the matter back to experiential faith arguing that desertion is an act of grace and mercy designed by God to strengthen faith and love:

(ii) I answer, God has a design of mercy in hiding his face from his adopted ones.

First, it is for the trial of grace, and there are two graces brought to trial in time of desertion, faith and love.

Faith: When we can believe against sense and feeling; when we are without experience, yet can trust to a promise; when we do not have the ‘kisses of God’s mouth’, yet can cleave to ‘the word of his mouth’; this is faith indeed. Here is the sparkling of the diamond.

Love: When God smiles upon us, it is not much to love him, but when he seems to put us away in anger (Psalm 27: 9), now to love him and be as the lime – the more water is thrown upon it the hotter it burns – this is love indeed. That love sure is ’strong as death’ (Canticles 8:6) which the waters of desertion cannot quench…

Secondly, it is for the exercise of grace. We are all for comfort… We are loath to be in trials, agonies, desertions, as if God could not love us except he had us in his arms…

(iv) I answer: when God hides his face from his child, his [God's] heart may be towards him…

I’ve noticed a difference between English conservative circles where emotions are held with a degree of suspicion, as if feeling anything too strongly might not be sound, and the Scottish evangelicalism in which I was converted. In England, the shifting sands of emotion are often suppressed because faith should be built upon the rock of the word. But there is a difference between not trusting our emotions and not nurturing them. Watson happily nurtured his affections for Christ through the word by the Spirit whilst recognising that God might withdraw the sense of his presence. When God hides his face he does so for the good of his children, to strengthen resolve, faith and love.

I’ve recently begun blessing my kids last thing at night. I use 24 scriptural blessings written by David Michael. One of the blessings is Numbers 6:24-26, which includes the line:

the LORD make his face to shine upon you

This raises the possibility that the LORD might not make his face shine upon me or my children and we need to be prepared not to confuse desertion with total rejection and abandonment.

I’ve culled the table below from Mark Driscoll’s Radical Reformission and hope he doesn’t mind. It highlights the difference between routine presentation and reformission participation evangelism and has helped me think not only about personal, friendship evangelism but about how we should seek to grow our small groups.

It is obvious as I read the table that both types of evangelism involve some sort of friendship or sharing lives. The question Driscoll seems to raise is: at what stage should Christians begin to invest their time, energy and emotions in a relationship; before or after the conversion of their friend?

.

The difference between the two is not only the much earlier formation of a genuine friendship in the reformission model but the direction of mission. The routine model, I believe, highlights the relatively low investment in friendships outside church as the model seeks to draw people into the church culture before friendships are built. The second model highlights the model of getting out into the surrounding culture and investing real time, energy and emotion in making real friends (1 Thess 2:8). The difference can be shown like this:

This model should influence the way we think about growing our small groups. Rather than draw people into existing circles of friends, we should set up groups within existing friendship networks, meeting where they already meet, which is (in spite of all I have said against it) the essence of the homogenous church growth principle. More on this in a later post.

Last year I read Puritan Reformed Spirituality by Joel Beeke whilst on holiday and was really encouraged and refreshed by it. I want to read something similar this year, but finding edifying books which aren’t heavy is difficult.

I think I’ve found this year’s holiday book. Expository Preaching with Word Pictures by Jack Hughes. It is an examination of the preaching of Thomas Watson and Jack Hughes’ style is just right. Here’s a snippet from the introduction:

Homiletics, which addresses issues related to sermon delivery, is the science and art of preaching. It is the preacher’s job not merely to preach the word, but to preach it in such a way that people hear, understand and remember…

…While in seminary I purchased the book ‘Heaven Taken by Storm’ by a Puritan preacher named Thomas Watson. Every time I read from the book it was like volunteering for open-heart surgery.

…The book was so practical and convicting that I could hardly read more than a couple of pages a day. My heart could not take any more. Watson had a way of getting into my head and heart, exposing my sin and hypocrisy…

…I enjoy giving Watson’s books to people because his writings are like spiritual grenades with the pin pulled.

…I thought to myself, ‘Why merely read him and be convicted? Why not learn to preach like he did?’ I determined in my heart to analyse Thomas Watson as I read his works.

…This book is the fruit of my labors. And it is my prayer that it will be a blessing to you just as researching and writing it has already been a blessing to me.

If anyone has followed my advice to read Watson’s exposition of the beatitudes and given up, then you are not alone. Here’s what my fellow Watson fan says about several of his friends’ attempts to read Watson:

A fellow pastor was going on a reading holiday. I dared him to see if he could read all of ‘Heaven Taken by Storm’ during that week. When he returned a week later, he had not finished the book. A person can only handle so much spiritual surgery in a week! Another time I gave The Godly Man’s Picture to seven friends for Christmas. Only two of them have made it through the book, and that was five years ago.

Watson seems to appeal to only some people. Call me a glutton, but I’ll probably take Watson’s The doctrine of repentance on holiday too.

Thanks to Hugh Balfour for his honest, helpful and encouraging view of ministry in the inner city which arrived from Reform this week. Here he states the factors which militated against him getting out of Christ Church, Peckham when he wanted to move on to the greener pastures of suburbia but failed:

…as I look back I can see that other factors were at work, which I suspect are more common than we realise.

The first factor concerns why we wanted to move. This was principally because of burn out with the inner-city and fear about our children’s education. In other words our desire to move was not motivated by faith but by fear. Why do you want to move?

Secondly, I knew deep down that I was running away from what God had called me to. I had had a call to the poor since the early days of my Christian life, so whenever I went to look at a parish, I was always asking about the local council estate. I think that sub-consciously I was trying to con God that I could fulfil this call in some green and pleasant place. He wasn’t having any of it! When it came to the job I most wanted and seemed best qualified for, He abandoned me in the interview. Not an experience I would recommend! Since submitting to the Lord’s will and deciding to stay in Peckham, I have experienced a hugely increased sense of joy, peace and fruitfulness in ministry, and the Lord has wonderfully provided great schools for our children.

The lesson of all this is, trust God, and do not imagine that means we have to send our kids to terrible schools. He is our Father, He knows our needs and will give good things to those who ask Him (Matt 7: 7-12). I think this is one of the biggest battles we face, but once we learn to trust our Heavenly Father life becomes much simpler. The second lesson is that we are not professionals. The church is not a career path where we start in a small church, perhaps in the inner-city, before progressing on to a large suburban evangelical church. We are called to preach the gospel of the Kingdom. Nowhere does the New Testament command us to build churches; Jesus will do that. We have to be faithful to the ministry to which He called us, which will lead to suffering and persecution with great joy. Again if we have not got this clear we are likely to make bad choices, experience much heartache, and possibly make a shipwreck of our ministry.

I’ve said before that more must hear the call to inner city ministry, but perhaps that statement falls short of reality. Of course God is calling many ministers to the inner city but we respond by running from God’s call. Britain’s inner cities need more Jonahs of the repentant, obedient and not fearful kind. Thank God for men like Hugh Balfour.

I posted twice last week on children’s bibles and their unhealthy focus on the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. I was also preparing last week to speak at a men’s breakfast on the discipline of work. As I read Genesis 2 again, I was struck by the awkward syntax of Genesis 2:7-9:

Genesis 2:7-9 then the LORD God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature. 8 And the LORD God planted a garden in Eden, in the east, and there he put the man whom he had formed. 9 And out of the ground the LORD God made to spring up every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food. The tree of life was in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

Gordon Wenham states that some have surmised that there may have been only one tree at the centre of the garden in the original Paradiesgeschichte and that the other tree of Gen 3:3 was added at Gen 2:9 later:

This could be corroborated by the awkward way “the tree of the knowledge of good and evil” is tacked on this verse.

Wenham also shows that this is not unusual syntax as it occurs elsewhere in Genesis and the Pentateuch:

Genesis 1:16 And God made the two great lights- the greater light to rule the day and the lesser light to rule the night- and the stars.

Genesis 34:29 All their wealth, all their little ones and their wives, all that was in the houses, they captured and plundered. [I'm not sure which one applies here]

Numbers 13:23 And they came to the Valley of Eshcol and cut down from there a branch with a single cluster of grapes, and they carried it on a pole between two of them; they also brought some pomegranates and figs.

Could it be that the syntax is deliberately awkward in order to highlight the primacy of the the first tree? The equivalent in English being something like “Sandra was at the party, oh yes, and so was Pete”, the story being primarily about Sandra.

If this is the way the Hebrew syntax functions then our accounts of the creation narrative should focus more heavily on the tree of life and how Adam and Eve missed what they were really meant to have; eternal life.

If you have a grasp of Hebrew, I’d be grateful for your comment.

…Christianity Today

I have never posted twice in a day, but it seems that Christianity Today has been using journalistic licence when reporting on Willow Creek, and so here’s a link. In a short interview, Bill Hybels responds to the article I blogged on two days ago.

I’m not sure if the William Still comments or the Mars Hill comparison apply directly to Willow Creek, but the points are important ones.