Some reflections on the last four months. This is in a report and reflection form and just picks up a whole range of subjects and thoughts.
1. As I visited and
engaged with larger Churches and larger events a key characteristic which
occurred repeatedly was confidence,
first in the good news of Jesus and second that the life of their church or
event would be vibrant and that there would be engagement with new people. Although it would be true to say that some of
the growth in a number of the larger churches I visited was transfer growth
virtually all of them also saw people coming into a relationship with Jesus
which meant that there really was new growth.
It seems to me that this confidence in the gospel is very important and
although it is not confined to larger churches it is not something that I have
seen real evidence of in many smaller church congregations. Such a confidence does not appear to be a
general flavour for many churches in my own denomination within the Methodist
Church. Perhaps it is easy to believe
and speak the language of death and decline and maybe we need to learn a new
language. There was also a passion for
the gospel and for Jesus in these larger churches which was readily and easily
expressed. Perhaps in some churches
there is a fear of passion just as “enthusiasm” was warned against in John
Wesley’s time.
2. Church Planting was a major theme of what I saw and what I
read. There have been previous attempts
at Church Planting, often organised by denominations. The sense I had though was that this was more
organic. Growing churches that I visited
seemed to be those who committed to church planting. Church Planting should not be seen as setting
up large congregations and big buildings but should be viewed much more
flexibly ranging from small groups and cells meeting in homes through to
mega-churches setting up new churches with a couple of hundred people as the
core start up group with a fixed budget.
Because this has been a constant theme across many different churches I
discern that there is a movement of the Holy Spirit here. Of particular interest was the challenge to
look at Church growth as multiplication rather than addition (Exponential,
Ferguson & Ferguson, p11) as part of a new missional paradigm. The same authors suggest that we need to
teach people to “Go and not just Bring” and that in developing people for
mission they need to be both Incarnational and Apostolic (Exponential, Ferguson
& Ferguson, p112/3). In all of this
it is important that we do not get into a numbers game (although the
alternative does not look too healthy and appears to be the way that Methodism
in the UK is going at the moment). I was
challenged by the book “not a fan” by Kyle Idleman who uses the book to argue
that some who are connected with Jesus are fans rather than followers. He develops this argument throughout the book
and challenges people to become true followers with all the sacrifice that
entails. At one point he says “it wasn’t
the size of the crowd Jesus cared about; it was their level of commitment”
(p13).
It was encouraging to have these words
appear by email on 28th August from Revd Dr Martyn Atkins, General
Secretary of the Methodist Church, in his Pastoral Letter to Ministers and in
response to the decline of numbers within the Methodist Church:
“One response - and one that the Conference
endorsed - is a renewed emphasis on apt and appropriate evangelism as “the main
thing.” To be sure we don’t engage in evangelism because of falling numbers of
Methodists, less still to replenish pew fillers, rather we do so because God’s
love, the Gospel and Christ’s command and continuing presence in our lives urge
us to do so. Yet there is a connection between our health and our passion to
share Good News, and flourish or perish we should refocus on and reimagine
evangelism for our time: as one person put it recently, put the ‘E’ back in
mission!”
Now to see whether we can rise to that
challenge or whether it becomes a debate about what is meant by mission and
evangelism and how we must be careful not to offend people!
3. Mission in the
context of Worship was one theme I pursued through questions I asked of
leaders of churches I visited. A number
felt they tried to ensure that the worship they offered was accessible and
provided information about how to connect with the church in a deeper way. Most provided ways of investigating the Christian
faith in a fuller way (eg ALPHA) outside Sunday services. I did find that there was still a lack of
information in many churches about what was happening during services of
worship, why it was happening, and what it meant.
4. Partly as a result
of reading Idleman’s book I feel strongly that an important emphasis in
ministry in these coming weeks is to encourage people to become followers
of Jesus, not just fans. This is
a challenge that may come hard where we have developed a comfortable
Christianity. Idleman talks about “a culture
of consumers in our churches” (p148) and encourages his readers to “Define the
Relationship” (p22) much like those in human romantic relationships at some
stage have to define their relationship, what it really means and where it is
going. Having a little bit of religion
is not enough. In fact it can be
positively dangerous. A friend of mine
used to say that a little bit of religion is like a vaccination – it stops you
getting the real thing. This emphasis on
a committed relationship with Jesus grounded in self-giving, sacrificial love,
where we do not treat our Christian faith like another hobby fitted in around
our personal diary commitments will be one that I intend to visit frequently. I have already suggested that members of the
churches I serve buy and read Idleman’s book.
One of the questions I have put to church leaders from
different churches is whether they have a way of gauging or tracking the
spiritual growth of their members. This
seems difficult and indeed no leader I spoke to had any formalised way of doing
this. This underlined to me the
importance of doing some work on developing a kind of Spiritual MOT or Health Check.
I have started putting together some plans for this. It would have to be something that people
opted into on a voluntary basis, but could be interesting to try.
Linked with this is the concept of “whole life discipleship” which is
explored in “Imagine Church” by Hudson. This book is devoted to encouraging the
resources of disciples so they can find their front line and be resourced to be
witnesses to the Gospel and to mission there.
I intend to spend more time finding spiritual resources
which might be offered to resource people for daily life. One area that I have
been reflecting on is the potential value of joining religious communities that
might give a devotional framework for everyday life helping to resource us as
we go through each day. Iona and the
Northumbria Community are just two ways of finding such resources. Within the Methodist Church in our Worship
Book we have a Morning and Evening Office and following a structure such as
this might provide such resourcing. To
place this alongside the spiritual MOT or health check above might be an appropriate
method to offer people ways of intentionally responding in terms of identifying
opportunities for growth and deeper discipleship. One might term this “moving up a level”. So, starting daily devotions, going to an
additional service, giving more financially or in time, joining a community of
faith, attending mid-week Bible or Fellowship meetings, for instance, could all
be ways of both growing as a follower and being better equipped in the world to
represent Christ at the front line.
5. One phrase which I
picked up from a book (I think) was that in some places the Church is “over governed and under led”. How I agree!
It appears to me that we seem to trust people less and less and control
them more and more. Often I hear that
church “rules” are very flexible, but in reality the flexibility has to be
agreed at the centre with those who by position have power and control
otherwise woe betide anyone that steps out of line. We need Godly leaders, with passion for and
confidence in the good news of Jesus (see above), who are willing to take
risks. “Everything rises and falls on
leadership” is an interesting quote to reflect on (Exponential, Ferguson &
Ferguson, p60).
6. Within the
Methodist Church, and within other churches I believe there has been a tendency
to narrow down what we look for within ordained Christian ministry. We too often focus on the Pastor and Teaching
gifts and those testing the call of others, having been trained and appointed
on the basis of focussing on pastor/teaching gifts then help to perpetuate this
as the main characteristics of ministry. “Training systems are designed to help people
become better pastors and teachers. Has any theological or Bible college
developed training to help people become better apostles, prophets and
evangelists?” (Invading Secular Space, Robinson & Smith, p85) There
needs to be a widening so that Apostle, Evangelist and Prophet are placed
alongside these as equally important.
This is a picture of missional leadership as in Ephesians Chapter 4. It is my view that where these gifts are
acknowledged then they are usually side-lined into specialist ministries
(within the Methodist Church this would be in areas such as Venture FX and
Pioneer Ministry). However, we now live
in a mission context where simply nurturing the faithful will mean in not too
many years there may not be many of the faithful left to nurture. I believe it would be right and courageous
for churches to completely redefine who they look for in terms of ordained ministry,
who actually discerns those with a call, and acknowledges that what we need
today in ministers is completely different to what we may have needed fifty
years ago. Side-lining evangelism is not
the answer. Another area which might do
with some reflection and action is to acknowledge the riches that evangelical,
Pentecostal and Charismatic churches can bring to ministry and mission. Martin Robinson touches on this in his book
“Invading Secular Space”, but quotes others as well. Smith enlarged on this during a Methodist
Superintendents’ Retreat in the Southampton District of the Methodist Church
earlier in 2014.
Relevant to this was “We are in need of a
missiological agenda for theology rather than just a theological agenda for
mission; for theology, rightly understood, has no reason to exist other than
critically to accompany the missio Dei”
( Transforming Mission: Paradigm Shifts in Theology of Mission, David J Bosch,
p494 quoted in Total Church, Chester & Timmis, p152.
7. Consistent, Visible Leadership seemed to be a
constant in virtually all the churches I visited that seemed to be
growing. The Leadership Team in most of
these consisted of a number of people per church. There was very little concept of the kind of
preacher merry-go-round that is visible in most Methodist Circuits. Given the way that a number of Methodist
Presbyters often have several churches it may be one way to consider
consistency of approach and visibility of leadership each week is to go back to
the idea of a “Pastor in every church”.
Theoretically there is consistent lay leadership each week in Methodist
Churches through the Stewards. I think
the difficulty here is that it is not perceived as such by congregations and
not understood by anyone new without a Methodist background.
8. I was interested to
see the importance of apprenticeships in enabling people
to grow in their gifts. Often in churches people are appointed. We decide they are able to do the job or that
they have the gifts to do the job. What
we need to place alongside this is enabling people to learn and grow in a role
and with responsibilities. Therefore I
feel that the idea of apprentices enabling people to develop before branching
out on their own is a key idea. This may
be particularly relevant and helpful in the context of Church Planting (see
above). This is not the same as
mentoring although there may be elements of mentoring within apprenticeships. To make a connection with Church Planting
above then it could be of very great value to spend time resourcing and building
leaders so that they become reproducing leaders in the life of the Church and
repeat the process with those around them.
9. There is no retirement from being a Christian. I was challenged by hearing this on several
occasions from different sources. Of course
most of us would say that we realise there is no retirement from being a
Christian. However sometimes we act as
if there is. People step back from
active duty because of age, or because they have done their share, or for a
whole host of good reasons. Yet we are
always called to serve. It is just that
the nature of that service sometimes changes.
Retirement is in heaven.
10.
One
particular challenge for larger churches is how to welcome and engage with newcomers.
There were good welcome packs around in churches, people on the doors,
good hospitality in terms of refreshments in many of the churches, and regular
gatherings for new people. However, I
found that once sitting in a congregation both before and after worship it was
highly unusual for anyone to talk to me.
Being a welcoming church is a real challenge for churches of all
sizes. I think the larger congregation
perhaps has a greater challenge as in a large group of people it is genuinely
difficult to spot the stranger. If we
were to have a school report in this area it might well be that many churches
would get “Could do better”.
11.
More than Gold 2014 sought to resource
the Church for the Glasgow 2014 Commonwealth Games. I was deeply privileged to work with More
than Gold. In particular my thanks to
Ish Lennox who was my main contact and who worked so hard to make sure I could
engage with More than Gold and with the Church in Scotland. I am extremely
grateful. I met Ish when she was the
National Olympics Co-ordinator for the Methodist Church.
Having been involved in responding to the opportunities
that London 2012 brought to Weymouth and Portland as host for the Sailing
Events I was curious to analyse the response of the Church and churches to the
opportunities presented by having these major events. In a nutshell it was much as one would
imagine. Even with a major event served
up on a platter such as the Olympics or the Commonwealth Games, it appears to
be very hard work indeed to motivate churches to seize the opportunities. To me this underlines the fact that there is
not really a mission mind-set in most churches.
Personally I feel the Methodist Church demonstrated this lack of mission
mind-set admirably when it chose not to extend the role of our Olympics
Co-ordinator to use gathered expertise and a developed network for the
Commonwealth Games or the Island Games (to be based in the Channel
Islands). It apparently was too
difficult to respond to such a mission opportunity. Budgets and short term projects rule. I am afraid I beg to differ with those at the
centre of Methodism. We need to develop
more of a “Can do” attitude and make mission central to much of our
thinking. We missed an opportunity and
that opportunity will never ever present itself again.
12.
It
was a joy to share in the Keswick
Convention once again as a family in the third week of the Convention. Prior to that though I joined the Stewards’
Team for the first week of the Convention.
This enabled me to get under the skin of the Convention in a different way. Apart from the hard work of the Stewards that
I witnessed I saw at first hand the high degree of discipline and generosity
that goes into making these kinds of events possible. Generosity and Hospitality were key
themes during my Sabbatical and ones which I want to examine more closely in
the areas of ministry that I am engaged in.
They link with the theme of welcome above.
13.
During
my Sabbatical I encountered feelings and emotions of many types
– frustration, anger, excitement, elation, determination, defeat, turmoil,
disappointment, confidence, but always the sense that God was weaving in and
out of all this and I thank him and the Church for this gift, just as I also
specifically thank my family, my churches and circuit, and all those who showed
hospitality.
Glory to God!
One of the things that make me very sad each year is the continuing growth and commercialisation of Halloween. Billed as a fun time by businesses that see a market opportunity to be exploited youngsters (and adults) are encouraged to dress up in inappropriate costumes designed to scare people. One large store for instance is selling chain saws with what purports to be dripping blood. How amusing to open your door to see a 6 year old carrying that. Have we really taken leave of our senses? Others use this as an opportunity to justify vandalism and fear as eggs and flour are thrown at houses and in some places people (and not just old people) are terrorised.
