Mini Mega Church?

‘The trouble with the UK is that it tries to be a mini United States’. This was a comment (or words to that effect) spoken by Michael Portillo, former Secretary of State for Defence, on ‘This Week’ a few years back. He was talking about defence cuts and the relentless squeeze on military spending – his point being that the UK had the mentality that it should do everything the US did (a throwback to the time it was a super-power). So despite being much smaller numerically and economically, the UK feels it ought to have everything from Aircraft Carriers to Tank Divisions to a Nuclear capability, with everything in between. According to Portillo this meant that at the outer edges all these things tended to run on a ‘shoe string’. In other words because the ‘jam’ had to be so ‘thinly spread’ no bit of Britain’s defence network was particularly well looked after or resourced.

It was an observation that stuck in my mind as relevant to many churches. The problem can start with the deluge of church blueprint books, conferences and on-line resources – very often emanating from a few very large churches. By dint of their size these churches (the ones we all tend to know about and rightly admire) can run a vast array of ministries – publishing, conferences, training programmes, international ministries, media ministries etc etc. It’s all brilliant stuff, it can provide some great resources, ideas and examples for the wider church – but it can create an unreality especially for smaller churches.

The danger is that Pastors feel the pressure that their 50/100/150 member church should be a ‘mini mega-church’ –i.e. 'we should be doing all these things!' A pressure often stoked by well-meaning members who too have read the books or been to the conferences. The result can be small or medium sized churches swamped with ministries – church programmes stuffed with every imaginable type of activity. All worthy, but the smaller resources overall mean they have to run on a ‘shoe-string’, either involving the same, increasingly worn out, faithful few or just running at the bare minimum of resources and people. 

Is your small/medium church constantly starting new ministries (or feeling it should be) only to be constantly bemoaning the lack of support? If that’s the case maybe the need is to accept that you're not the ‘United States of Church’ – and while trying to do everything is a noble ambition, it probably means doing a lot of things poorly. Better to accept that we can’t fight every battle or meet every need – but in the areas we can, we will do it really well.  

The modern State of Israel, knew its enemies and they weren’t out at sea. It single-mindedly focussed its resources and developed one of the most effective small armies in the world. The UK will soon have two prestige aircraft carriers but its infantry (despite their heroism and sacrifice) couldn’t hold Basra or Helmand. 

What must we do and what can we do best? These are the strategic questions churches need to ask themselves – and resist the pressure (or indeed pride) to do more than the Lord has equipped them for. 

Big Mother is watching you...

Copy of letter to my Member of the Scottish Parliament on some concerning proposals. 

Dear XXX MSP

Children and Young People (Scotland) Bill – State Guardian Proposal

I am writing to you as a concerned parent and citizen regarding the above - the proposal by which the Scottish Government would appoint a named State Guardian for every child in Scotland, the Guardian being a third party employee of the State. You will doubtless be aware of the many voices already expressing deep concern about this representing a wide spectrum of society including local authorities, legal experts (The Law Society and the Faculty of Advocates), sociologists, faith groups, and Holyrood’s own Finance Committee. Indeed it seems that such proposals may well run contrary to the European Convention on Human Rights which specifically enshrines the right to a private family life.

This would seem to be a classic example of ‘a sledge-hammer being used to crack a nut’. Is it really proportionate and indeed realistic to subject every family in Scotland to this kind of monitoring. If there are genuine and demonstrable reasons to believe a child is at risk then, as already happens, appropriate guardians and monitors (such as Social Workers) should be appointed. In the same way that the Police need reasons to scrutinize the private affairs of citizens so should Child Protection agencies – a carte blanche right for the State to monitor the private life of families would be a massive (and I think rather sinister) move away from the liberties we rightly prize in a democratic and free society.

The problems with the detail of how such Guardians would operate are many: What are the restrictions and limitations on Guardians in monitoring children? What are the safeguards on this role being abused? Will parents get the right to object to the appointment of a particular person as their child’s guardian? What will qualify as an area of concern for a Guardian – e.g. a family’s approach to study, discipline, politics, religion, morality, diet, fashion…? Will a Guardian be open to prosecution or other court action if they are negligent and a child is not protected? What would negligence consist of?

We are constantly told by political parties of their desire to empower parents and yet this proposed legislation will almost inevitably leave parents feeling vulnerable and disempowered. How else are parents to feel when told by their government that, regardless of any actual concerns, an employee of the State will be checking their parenting is up 'to scratch’?

Please let me encourage you to stand against this particular proposal and to vote for its amendment or removal. There are surely far better ways to protect vulnerable children rather than subjecting every family in the country (at doubtless huge bureaucratic expense) to this kind of inspection and potential intrusion.

Yours sincerely, 

No Dissent Allowed

THE SCOTTISH CHURCH – PART ONE

Overseas friends, take note - Scotland and England are not the same – that’s not a political point just a statement of the obvious. Scotland has a distinct legal system, education system, sporting identity, its own banknotes, and of course its own parliament – and this year even the possibility of complete independence.

The Scottish church too has a separate identity. There was no ‘British Reformation’ – rather there was an English Reformation and a Scottish Reformation – two events distinct in their timings, personalities, causes, and consequences. Indeed that the Reformation took hold in both England and Scotland was not inevitable – during the English Reformation Scotland was a separate independent country and remained Catholic – a position it might have retained to the present day, as Ireland did for example.

As we know, however, it didn’t and its Reformation proved to be one of the most thorough experienced by any country – going significantly beyond England in its reform of national church practise and structures. Indeed there was a vigour and intensity to the Scottish Reformation that made it much more an issue of conscience than of the politics that often drove the movement elsewhere. So while, to some extent (and of course this generalises) the English Reformation focused on the emancipation of the State from Papal jurisdictions, the Scottish Reformation was not content until the church was emancipated from the State.

From a human perspective it is somewhat surprising that Scotland became such a hotspot of the Protestant Reformation. Geographically Scotland is on the edge of Europe and in the 15^th and 16^th centuries was not greatly prominent among its nations. Christianity had had little opportunity to infiltrate Scotland under the Romans – their Empire stopped at Hadrian’s Wall. Only in the 6^th century did Christianity become established through the missionary work of St Columba. In the following centuries Scotland gradually became a unified nation (the clans recognising ‘one crown’ in the 9^th century) and securing political independence in the wars with England under Wallace and Bruce in the 13^th and 14^th centuries.

Religiously, it was in the 12^th century that Scottish Christianity became institutionally Catholic. The previous indigenous Christian communities (the Culdees) were overtaken by the establishment of formal church structures from abroad. Scotland became a nation of Bishops, Abbots, Monasteries and Church courts – all under the jurisdiction of Rome. The Catholic Church prevailed and indeed no other church would have been tolerated. As elsewhere in Europe the church of the day became hugely powerful and wealthy extending its reach into every area of civic and political life. Thus was the religious order in Scotland for about 400 years.

However, by the 16^th Century, as across Europe, it was a church unrecognisable from its New Testament beginnings. Centuries of doctrinal additions, the priest-craft that had turned Christian worship into magical ceremonies, the refusal to allow ordinary people access to the Bible, and the inevitable corruption brought by wealth and power – had made it ripe for reform or rejection.

For the ordinary person Scotland was a nation controlled by an establishment elite, convinced of their superior worldview, whose ultimate aim was the retention of their power and the benefits it brought them. If you fitted in, said the ‘right things’ and ‘doffed your cap’ to the approved belief structures then you would get by – even get on. It was a ‘one party state’ in which to live peacefully you had to ‘toe the party line’ – dissent would bring accusations, scrutiny, hostility, perhaps the loss of employment or reputation, even imprisonment or worse – unless your unacceptable ideas were quickly and publicly recanted.

It was the 'ideological straight-jacket' that always seems to accompany one group having all the power. A few years ago I sat with a Bulgarian Pastor; he told me that as a youth in 1970s Bulgaria he was not allowed to go to university because of his Christian beliefs. The response of the Communist authorities to any view that challenged their ideology was to punish it – to exclude and suppress those who differed.

For Evangelicals today the above scenarios are no longer unimaginable – Scotland is governed by a tight political and media elite. An elite who decree the acceptable beliefs of the day – viewpoints on morality, religious practise, education... that are shibboleths on which any hope of public advancement depend. Even today a petition signed by 54,000 Scottish citizens has had their addresses redacted before being submitted to the Scottish Parliament, such is the fear of potential reprisals by public bodies. Dissenters can be isolated and subject to sanction - unless, of course, they quickly admit their foolishness and seek re-acceptance into the ‘club’. 

Scotland in 1514 and Scotland in 2014 are not a million miles apart - the Evangelical faith is hardly on the radar, establishment beliefs seem dominant and secure, and there is no great sense of how things might change. But change came and Scotland became a bastion of evangelical faith – a shining light for the Gospel.

However, the change didn’t just happen – a range of factors and great sacrifices were required to bring it about. It's those factors subsequent blogs will seek to unpack.

Notes

1.       Source Material: Much of the historical material I’m drawing on is from ‘Protestantism in Scotland’ (Copyright – 2013 Jawbone Digital), first published in 1878. Being from the Victorian era it is somewhat flowery and romanticised in places and I’m also conscious of the kind of embellishments that a book written very much as a defence of the Reformation can contain. Thus I’ve used it largely as a resource for names, dates and key events rather than for its commentary on them.

2.       Sectarianism: The story of the Reformation is by definition the story of conflict between the Roman Catholic Church in Scotland and those who sought to reform or replace it. The concern/interest of these pieces however, is not so much in the theological faults of Catholicism but in the story of the Reformed Evangelical faith – how it fared and took hold in the face of a prevailing ideology and establishment that was deeply hostile to it. The latter points being the lessons of most relevance to Evangelicals today - who again are a tiny minority in Scotland and finding their beliefs increasingly in conflict with the dominant worldview. So although there are inevitably many references to Catholicism this is not a polemic against it – but a larger reflection on the lessons evangelical Christians might learn from Scottish history. 

Catch the Vision....

An opportunity for church leaders in the West of Scotland to hear from Mez McConnell (Niddrie Community Church) and Andy Paterson (FIEC Mission Director) on a new generation of Church Planting and Revitalisation in Scotland and across the UK.

Get in touch if you'd like to come along and hear about these exciting developments.

Workers arise and put your armour on...

FIEC Hub Conference - January 2014
160 men & women in training or considering training options for vocational Gospel work.

Just over a hundred years ago Christian leaders met in Edinburgh to consider how to reach the nations for Christ. The following century was to witness a huge expansion of Missionary endeavour that took the Gospel to more of the world's population than ever before. The 1910 Edinburgh World Missionary Conference met in a city and in a nation that was a bastion of evangelical witness and activity. One hundred years later things could hardly be more different - the 'dark continent' spiritually speaking is no longer Asia or Africa - but Europe. While the gospel is flourishing in many parts of that once unreached world - it is now in 'Christian Europe' where the population is largely ignorant of Gospel truth and claims of Jesus Christ. The prayer for the Lord to 'raise up workers for the harvest field' - is no longer a third party plea for far off heathens - but for those on our own doorstep.

It is this context that makes the FIEC Hub conference both so encouraging and so vital. The Biblical template for Mission need is clear - people need to hear the gospel in order to be saved; in order for that to happen someone needs to tell them; and those who will tell others need to be sent (Rom 10). Simple! But of course drawing the lines between the dots needs initiative and planning. The Hub helps bridge the gap between potential workers, their churches and trainers - giving pathways for the various bits to be connected.

For a start how do churches identify the right people to send; how do individuals know if they should go - and can those 'going out' be supported and best equipped for that task? In response to those many questions the Hub provided a host of seminars including: 'The Call'; 'Will my family survive?'; 'Buy One Get One Free' (i.e. couples in ministry); 'The Small Print'; 'Mapping the Journey'; 'Working without Boundaries' (managing self and time).

For those ready to make a step into vocational Gospel service the Hub brings together a range of training providers (e.g. Cornhill, Porterbrook, LTS, Oak Hill, CMTC, PTS+). Along with this each delegate has a 'one to one' chat scheduled into the weekend with an experienced church leader to discuss their particular situation.

The main theme of the conference was 'Watch your life and doctrine closely'. The teaching from Mike Tindall was that while Gospel Work has at its heart the ministry of the Word - the context for that ministry is always the life of the worker - that is, underpinning any Gospel Work must always and indispensably be Christ-like character.

John Stevens and Andy Paterson both highlighted the vision of FIEC to lead from the front in the evangelisation of the nation through a network of healthy, growing and Mission focused churches - a call to the new generation of church leaders not simply to preserve the church but to seek the lost.
Yes, the task is gargantuan but workers are being raised up and crucially being well prepared for the great challenge of reaching the United Kingdom and beyond for Christ.

Next year's conference is planned for 16-18 January 2015. 

The Last Japanese soldier

Reposting this old piece from 2011 with the news that Hiro Onoda passed away this week.

The Gospel is a message – it’s news, ‘good news’. That is, it is something that needs to be communicated – to be told – to be articulated. This means that despite good works and godly lives being foundational to Christian witness – that witness will be incomplete and indeed ineffective without words. The need for the gospel to be heard, known, understood, comprehended as a message, a proposition – cannot be bypassed.

Carl Trueman describes words as the basic currency of communication - that for all the artistic alternatives cannot be substituted if there is to be concrete and clear transmission of God’s work in Jesus Christ. Serious people dealing with serious business understand this. When you apply for a mortgage the Bank Manager doesn’t power-mime or try to expressively dance out the basis of such an agreement. He doesn’t give you a candle and suggest you sit in the corner for 15 minutes and think about what a mortgage might mean to you. Rather he explains the ‘terms & conditions’ - 'this is what the Bank will do and this is what you need to do'. If you don’t understand he will explain it again – using perhaps different words, but like all serious business only when all the parties are locked into a common understanding expressed in words is there a basis for a meaningful relationship.

So we need to speak – we need to tell the gospel - proclaim, herald, announce, articulate, explain, verbalize it. Back in the 1960s & 70s there were occasional stories about Japanese soldiers discovered on remote Pacific islands. Cut off during the war and isolated they had been unaware that the war was over. They were ‘fighting on’ years, even decades, after peace had been made. The great news that hostilities had ceased, that weapons could be laid down, and that after the long years of conflict people could at last go home – was of no consequence to these men. It made no difference to their lives – because they hadn’t heard the news!

How, then, can they call on the one they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them? (Romans 10:14)

Above: in 1974, Japanese soldier Lieutenant Hiroo Onoda, complete with Samurai sword, was finally discovered on a Pacific island. For 30 years he thought World War Two was still being fought.

Personal Happiness & The Trinity

Why service is more satisfying than soul searching.

Is there a danger of Christians looking in the wrong places for fulfilment in their Christian lives? I don’t mean looking to money, material gain, worldly status and success for satisfaction – some do of course, but we know our Bibles well enough to know they are ultimately blind alleys in that regard.

Rather I’m thinking of much more spiritual activities – Bible studies, discipleship groups, Christian conferences, and the like. The kind of ‘in-house’ Christian activities that we can spend large parts (sometimes almost all) of our church life being involved in. Now of course we need those type of activities – times when we get together with fellow Christians to encourage, teach, admonish, pray for and share with one another. Such fellowship is crucial to our spiritual growth and vitality. But there can be a danger of these types of activities squeezing out more ‘service’ orientated ones.

By ‘service’ I mean activities that are not based around my needs and designed primarily for my benefit. In fact, activities that call me to do things I’d not automatically choose to do and to spend time in situations that I could spend elsewhere more comfortably. For some that might seem a recipe for more dissatisfaction - perhaps a worthy sacrifice of personal preferences but hardly a route to great joy.

So often we feel restless in our Christian lives, we can nurture a sense a disappointment and boredom about our faith. We hoped it would make us feel fulfilled but actually we just feel frustrated. We get together in groups and can become quite introspective and soul searching as we seek answers to those frustrations and that sense of disappointment. But here’s the thing – when we spend time looking inside ourselves we often end up just more depressed - because what’s inside us is often fairly depressing stuff.

Alternatively, when we turn our focus to others – that is, proactively begin to serve others then things often begin to change. We no longer strain for personal fulfillment but become people concerned about the fulfillment of others. And you know what? We start to become liberated from self and find a joy and a satisfaction outside ourselves - in serving others.

Why should this be? Because this is how the universe is designed to work! It is how God works! The Trinity shows us a God who is ‘other person centred’– the Son loves the Father, the Father glorifies the Son, the Spirit directs attention to the Son and so on and so on. The whole orientation of the Trinity is to be concerned about another - and it is in this Trinity that there is purest joy, contentment and satisfaction. Jesus attained joy through giving Himself sacrificially for the Church (Heb 12:2). It is in giving ourselves sacrificially to others, in being ‘other person centered’ – that we find the pathway to greatest joy.

Why is service better than soul searching? – it makes you happier (really).