Church Dinner

At CCB, we start every church year with our annual church dinner. We really must come up with a more exciting name than that! Was it the Corinthians who called their meals a ‘love feast’? That could work…

Every year it’s a battle to get people there, usually because I’ve been too late in sending out the date! Not this year. This year’s calendar gives the game away!  I’ve not booked a venue or thought about what we’ll do. But at least everyone now has teh date in their diary! But every year it proves to be crucial in establishing our priorties and ambitions for the year. We run the year from September to August in three terms. August is deliberately quiet. The only things that happen are Sunday meetings and the prayer meeting. The idea is that everyone gets some rest. September is mopping up time when we gather people back into church and welcome the hordes of newcomers that the Lord brings to us.

The church dinner provides a wonderful opportunity to do three things

1. It’s a wonderful opportunity to strengthen relationships. In one sense the evening is nothing more than a chance to spend some time together enjoying one another’s company. That’s the reason it was moved from a Sunday to a Saturday night.  We don’t want people thinking about going back to work and rushing off to get a good night’s sleep. We wanted people to relax, enjoy the meal and have a great time! One of the strengths of local churches like ours is the quality community life that we can offer. Central commuter London churches have to work hard to replicate that. It’s especially a time to welcome newcomers and others who are unfamiliar to us. With two congregations they’re not always the same people!

2. It’s a wonderful opportunity to clarify our priorities. The evening allows us to reflect on what sort of Christians and what sort of church we’re trying to be. And so we spend a few minutes looking at a Bible passage and thinking through its implications for ourselves and our church life. We provide an opportunity to recommit ourselves to the Lord and His concerns. This year we thought about developing an all encompassing vision for life in which we seek the glory of God in whatever we do (1 Corinthians 10:31).

3. It’s a wonderful opportunity to describe the programme. We hand round the church calendars for the year ahead. This usually runs from September to August and highlights all the unusual things that we’ve planned. This year it dawned on me that it was pointless having September because by the time of the dinner it’s already happened! So we started the church calendar in October. But then we need to give people notice of the events in September the following year. And so we now run it from October to September even though the year runs September to August. You with me? Everything clear? Losing the will to live? The reason we concentrate on the various events is not because they’re the most important thing about church. They’re not. But those events express our core commitments. You can tell what a church values by what it commits its resources, time and energy to.

We had a terrific church dinner. It’s just a shame they’re annual!

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Choosing A Church

Yesterday was ‘Back to Church Sunday’. God brought us a thrilling number of visitors, especially in the evening.  I love my job when that happens! And it’s not because I’m fed up of the old crowd, just in case any of them are reading this!  But we seem to be on our inviting game at the moment!

In the evening a did a ‘thinking about an issue’ slot, as per usual. And as per usual I had insufficient time to think about what to say and do anything more than an adequate job! But, for what it’s worth, here are my four questions to ask of any church.

1. Is this a church which honours and exalts Jesus Christ as Lord and Saviour? In other words, is it a church that’s infatuated with the incarnate, crucified, exalted and returning Christ? Does it point me to him and encourage me to grow in faith in him? If not, it’s a bad church and I wouldn’t go there.

2. Is this a church that shapes its life and doctrine by the Bible and encourages me to do the same? Every church claims to teach the Bible but when it comes to the reality of what we believe, what we do and what we say is the church actually biblical? If not, it’s a bad church and I wouldn’t go there.

3. Is this a church in whch I can exercise the gifts God has given me for the encouragement of others? In other words, is this a church in which my name will appear on a rota so that I don’t sit around enjoying great music, entertaining preaching and an exciting social life without actually serving anyone? If not, it’s a bad church and I wouldn’t go there.

4. Is this a church to which I can invite my friends so that they can come and hear the gospel without unnecessary barriers? If not, it’s a bad church and I wouldn’t go there.

But if you find a church that fulfils all those criteria then go for your life and get involved.

And then I had an e-mail from John Lumgair this morning who reminded that I’d blogged on the same issue a while ago. It was back in 2007. Get that! I wasn’t sure that John remembered what happened last week! But here it is, word for word. It’s the blog equivalent of listening to an oldie!

I received an interesting response from a handful of people at a recent evening meeting when, as an aside, I said the following, ‘you could always come to church, it doesn’t have to be ours, but make sure it’s a good one’.

There were some for whom it was a revelation that there were bad churches. The idea that some churches don’t do what they’re supposed to do was clearly a new idea.

But it dawned on me how essential it is to point this out. The theological breadth within our own denomination is so vast that it must be utterly bewildering to the casual observer. Presumably it completely escapes them what churches at different ends of the theological spectrum have in common. The truth is, very little. But in using the term Anglican [and allowing others who’ve departed from its theological foundations to use it] we allow people to think that we’re all the same. We’re not. People need to know that there are very serious doctrinal differences between a liberal catholic church and an evangelical church. Visitors don’t need to know what all those differences are immediately. But they need to know that what you’re offered in each will be very different. The politicians among the denomination may try and paper over the cracks. But we’re not politicians, we’re pastors and either side of those deep fissures are life giving truth and poisonous false teaching. We wouldn’t let a parent inadvertently give a child poison to drink when they thought it was milk. Why do we think it’s unwise or unwelcome to do the same with doctrine? No one likes drawing attention to division, any more than we enjoy the fact of division. But in light of the fact that those church leaders guilty of reinventing the faith seem unwilling to repent and teach the Bible we have to warn those who are yet to describe themselves as followers of Jesus Christ.

But what surprised me most was that there were some who were delighted to hear a church leader describe churches as bad. Their experience of church had been awful. But they assumed that this was normal and that Christians hadn’t noticed just how bad it was! Perhaps they’d thought that when we become Christians our powers of differentiation are removed along with our brains! They assumed that we could no longer tell the difference between a good church and a bad church. They hadn’t figured out what the differences were but they knew they were there alright. So, for the sake of the confused visitor I’ve resolved to keep on using that phrase for a while.

It begs the question, ‘what is a good church?’ Here’s what I suggest.

1. Find a church that’ll teach you the Bible

The first priority in choosing a church is to find one that will help you mature in the Christian faith. God matures disciples of Jesus Christ by teaching them from His word. And so we’re looking for a church not only that models Bible teaching from the pulpit but a church that handles the Bible well in small groups and equips its members to read and study the Bible for themselves.

If a church doesn’t teach the Bible we’ll remain undernourished and stunted in our growth. The church has far too many spiritual pygmies and we don’t need any more. So do the kingdom a favour and find somewhere that’ll equip you to live faithfully for Christ.

2. Find a church that’ll encourage you to use your gifts

Secondly, find a church that will help identify the gifts that God has given you and nurture them in serving others. God equips us differently so that in combination with the other members of his body we can get to work and build the church. So we’re looking for a church that won’t allow you to pew sit for too long. Even those churches with a training remit ought not to just fill you with knowledge but encourage you to do some actual ministry.

If a church doesn’t encourage you to use your gifts you’ll become spiritually obese! We need to exercise and participate in church life. Every church has jobs that need doing. Find out what they are and volunteer!

3. Find a church that’ll help your evangelism

Thirdly, find a church that will help you reach your friends, family and colleagues with the gospel. You need to find a church that talks about evangelism and one that does evangelism. Take a look at the term card and preaching programme. Find out what events the church provides to help you in reaching others. So we’re looking for a church that won’t let you off the hook and encourage our evangelistic complacency.

If a church doesn’t encourage you to engage in evangelism our concern for the lost won’t mirror that of Jesus Christ. The world is full of people who’ve never heard the gospel expressed in language that they can understand. Jesus never neglected them, neither should we.

Conclusion

So this is what I advise people who are ‘church shopping’. It may well be the case that you have to compromise on one of those things. But i’m not convinced that in London we have to. It ought to be obvious that Christ Church Balham [www.christchurchbalham.org.uk] matches up fairly well under all the categories. But you’d have to pay us a visit to see whether that’s true or not!

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Naked Church!

I’m having a good time thinking where this will turn up in the search engines. But naked church is really nothing more risque than church stripped to the bare essentials. We did it on Sunday. We didn’t choose to. We had to. It was ‘forced’ upon us by circumstances.

When Rufus and I got to the school shortly after 0900 to set up, we were greeted by an open but empty and unlit building. That was unusual. None of the lights were working, plunging the school hall into darkness. We found the caretaker who explained the situation. A small electrical fire had started in the school’s substation so we would be without power.

Providentially, I was surrounded by several men and women who were clearly good in a crisis. We negotiated the use of the canteen and had a couple of rooms for the children’s work. Claudia had her mobile phone, which illuminated the darkness of the store cupboard and we got to work.

It was actually quite exciting. And so much less hassle than setting up usually is. I admit I was a little worried what newcomers might make of it. But I hoped they’d be impressed by our ‘can do’ attitude! And anyway God intended that this day should happen like it did from before the creation of the world. And he meant it for our good. So I wasn’t unduly troubled. And I wasn’t alone. We all got stuck in, we prayed and God even brought back a few newcomers and a new family. How exciting is that?!

Actually ‘naked church’ was terrific. It was different. But different in a good way. It was no massive hardship to do without the powerpoint, the sound reinforcement or even the electronic keyboard. I missed the coffee though! But not as much as the three people who snoozed in the sermon!

Church without much of the paraphernalia was hugely enjoyable. We prayed as usual. We listened to God’s word as usual. We sang God’s praises as usual. But we did it unaccompanied by anything other than a sax and an acoustic guitar. And we encouraged one another as usual. But we did it without coffee. It seemed like God had given us a timely reminder at the start of a new year of what really matters at church; his word, his people and his glory.

Paraphernalia

15:1 Now the tax collectors and sinners were all drawing near to hear him. 2 And the Pharisees and the scribes grumbled, saying, “This man receives sinners and eats with them.” 3 So he told them this parable: 4 “What man of you, having a hundred sheep, if he has lost one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the open country, and go after the one that is lost, until he finds it? 5 And when he has found it, he lays it on his shoulders, rejoicing. 6 And when he comes home, he calls together his friends and his neighbors, saying to them, ‘Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep that was lost.’ 7 Just so, I tell you, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance. 8 “Or what woman, having ten silver coins, [1] if she loses one coin, does not light a lamp and sweep the house and seek diligently until she finds it? 9 And when she has found it, she calls together her friends and neighbors, saying, ‘Rejoice with me, for I have found the coin that I had lost.’ 10 Just so, I tell you, there is joy before the angels of God over one sinner who repents.”

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Politics

New from Tim Hawkins; a theology of politics!

And this one’s for free.

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Why let women lead Bible studies?

In my own mind I’m clear that the Bible prohibits women from running and preaching in churches (1 Timothy 2). I know not every Christian agrees with me. Not even every evangelical would sign up to that. I think I’m right in saying that my old Theological College Principal allowed women to preach in church. But this post isn’t about that.

This is about the supposed inconsistency that people like me demonstrate when we encourage our women to lead Bible studies. I don’t think that women should exercise authority in a church by preaching; which is why there are no female names on our preaching programme. But we have female co-leaders for our small groups. Why do we do that? If we’re clear that women must not exercise authority over men by teaching them the Bible in the mixed congregation why would we encourage them to do that in a mixed small group? It does look inconsistent, doesn’t it?

These are the four reasons why we let it happen.

1. We do it because we want to train our women

Preparing and leading Bible studies provides a tremendous opportunity to train our women in ministry. Of course, that’s not a sufficiently good reason to overturn a clear biblical command but it does at least highlight the value of helping our women. I suppose we could avoid this by having single sex Bible studies. There’s a place for that. But churches ought to have mixed gender small groups because it’s so good for community life. It’s healthy to have smaller groups where people can feel that they belong. These small groups are supposed to be places where we apply the Bible to life, where we can encourage one another and where we can pray for one another. In those contexts men and women learn from each other.

2. We do it because small groups aren’t the mixed congregation

I guess this is an obvious point. But small groups aren’t church. They’re simply not the same thing. And so 1 Timothy 2 does not apply directly to small groups, which is not to say that it doesn’t have anything to say but it does mean that there’s not a one for one correspondence.They’re discussion groups where the emphasis is more on the application of God’s word to our lives. In that sense the contribution made by participants and leaders is more akin to the prophetic ministry mentioned in 1 Corinthians 14. And in 1 Corinthians 11, Paul permitted women to prophesy.

3. We do it because there’s biblical precedent for cross gender instruction

In Acts 18:26 Luke explains that Priscilla and Aquila took the gifted young preacher evangelist Apollos to one side and put him on the straight and narrow. Aquila is a man, but Priscilla was his wife. In other words a woman taught and man and wasn’t chastised for it. It’s normal for there to be times in Christian discipleship when a woman encourages a man. In Colossians 3:16 Paul expects it.

4. We do it because the women aren’t leading with authority

We encourage our women to lead in a way that’s closer to facilitation than instruction. It’s clear in the way that the groups are established that they lead under authority. They attend a prep session at which one of the male staff takes them through the biblical material, they receive prep notes which provide an understanding of the passage and suggest questions and they lead in such a way that they defer to the male leader. In addition we encourage the women not to lead in a way that could be interpreted as exercising authority. I think they get that right. The male leaders can help in this by leading the group even when they’re not leading the study. If they ‘top and tail’ the study and introduce the female co-leader it all helps her settle into her role and helps the group feel comfortable.

I hope we’re not selling out to the ‘feministas’! I don’t think we are. And so we encourage our fabulous women to co-lead our small group Bible studies. And church life is the better for it.

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Parish Boundaries; Brilliant But Redundant

I’ve believed it for years. But I’m only now going public. I don’t expect it’ll come as a great shock to anyone. But in my opinion parish boundaries are brilliant but redundant.

I’m sure that view probably disqualifies me as an approved member of the Church of England. But I suspect that ship sailed a while ago. I don’t think I’m alone in thinking that parish boundaries, especially in urban contexts, are quaintly irrelevant. But I don’t expect anyone else to voice their approval. This is one of those things that gets you lined up and shot within the Church of England, metaphorically speaking, of course! However, even that most conservative of institutions has in recent years recognised the value of being a little flexible about imaginary lines drawn on the pavement through the Extra Parochial Place (EPP).

The Church of England rightly boasts that it maintains a Christian presence in every community. Quite how Christian that presence is and quite how present that presence is will be a matter of great variety. But in principle every square inch of our land is cared for by the Church of England. If the whole country were full of evangelical parishes I’d be whooping with delight. Parish boundaries divide up the country into areas of responsibility so that a parish church knows that they have a spiritual obligation to everyone in that patch. It means that an incumbent simply isn’t allowed to think solely about the people who come into church. He has to think about those who live in the area who never darken the doors of the church building. That’s a really good thing. In principle then, parish boundaries keep our evangelistic obligations at the forefront of our concerns. I wholeheartedly applaud that.

But parish boundaries are also useless. No one under knows which parish they live in unless they’re one of three things. One, they’re old enough to remember when these things were more widely known. Two, they’re clerical and it’s their job to know these things. Or three, they’re sad and they spend too much time looking at maps provided by the Diocese and they need to get out more.

The only time people are concerned about the Parish is when they’re looking to be matched, hatched or dispatched by the Church of England. If a Parish Church builds its ministry solely around marrying people, baptising their children and then burying them it’s no wonder that so many parishes are declining.

In London, and I expect in other urban centres as well, they don’t really mean anything to those under the age of 40. There are about half a dozen parishes near us in Balham. We have people who come to our church from all of them, I suspect. But these boundaries don’t influence the way the younger generation work, travel, shop or relate. For example, I don’t feel any less attached to a pub just because it’s outside the parish boundary of my own parish. I go there because it’s the pub I like, or it serves the beer I like or its the pub to which my mates go. I’m actually prepared to travel a bit to get to one that I really like. The concept of ‘the local’ doesn’t really work when there are so many bars and pubs to choose from. It’s the same with churches, especially for those without children. If people decide to got to church, they don’t usually attend their parish church. They might if they’ve not really thought about what goes on there, or they’re not fussed. And they might if they have children at the local school and feel a sense of local community. That’s a good thing. But they’re more likely to be influenced by where their friends go, what’s on offer there and how well their children are looked after.

But my biggest beef with parish boundaries is that they’ve gone from being areas of responsibility to exclusion zones. I honestly had an Anglican clergyman tell me that if I was a Free Church Minister, running a Free Church plant that he’d have no objection to any proposal I might have to move a church into his parish. That was nice. I hadn’t realised it was his responsibility to control the spread of the Kingdom of God! But, he said, because I considered myself to be Anglican and the church I run to be Anglican he couldn’t bring himself to support the proposal. That’s bonkers. Surely the fact that we belong to the same denomination should be reason enough to embrace us, support us and encourage us; not banish us! I don’t understand it. That’s like saying ‘if you weren’t a member of my family I’d be more than happy to show you hospitality, but since you’re a member of my family you can’t come and stay in my house’. I know I’m not the sharpest tool in the box, but that doesn’t sound quite right!

But let’s not pretend for a moment that if any of us were running a church we’d find it easy to welcome another church into our neighbourhood. In all likelihood we’d be worried that they’ll flourish and outgrow us, perhaps even at our expense. But we need to encourage one another in kingdom thinking and away from ‘NIMBY’ thinking.

I suspect the truth is that no church suffers when a new one launches nearby. I suspect it’s like coffee shops. People start drinking more coffee, they don’t leave one coffee shop for another.

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The Times does Camp

Here’s the proof! It really did happen. I didn’t imagine it or dream it. Ruth Gledhill, religious correspondent for The Times, paid us a visit at Woolhampton this year. It was a joy to meet her. She was delightful. She stayed with us for over three hours as Ed and I proudly showed her round the venture. The magnificence of camp was all Ed’s doing, but I was happy to share the credit!

Ruth came to write about a Christain Summer Camp whilst one of her colleagues went to Somerset to report on one of the new Atheist Summer Camp. We were anxious what she’d write. We needn’t have worried. This time she was on our side! In the end it was pretty bland. Her blog entry was much more positive.

But I would take issue with one of the conclusions she drew. At the end of her blog entry she writes, ‘In future, I would quite like my own son to attend both camps and then be in a position to make his own mind up. But this summer, he is at neither. Instead he’s been at rugby camp for brief parts of the day, and then curled up in the comforting warmth of his own home to play his Wii and DS the rest of the time. God or no God, I can’t help wondering how many of these kids at their rain-soaked summer camps in the soggy fields of Britain, especially the boys, wouldn’t secretly rather be doing the same…’

The truth is, none of them. Not a single one. I’d bet my mortgage on it. I’d be amazed if a single one of the lads, if offered a few days at rugby camp or a week at Woolie 1 would prefer the oval ball. They absolutely love camp. What’s not to love? It’s awesome. You can play rugby at school but you can’t surf the plastic, sing ‘Wonderwall’ round a campfire, thrash the leaders at Crocka and ask the big questions that adults can be so hopeless at answering. And they’ll be back next year just to prove me right.

I ought to express my thanks to Ben Gurr of The Times for taking and sending this photo.

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The Upside of Cheating

One of the unexepcted upsides from the recent debacle concerning my beloved Harlequins is that Rufus and I have had some great discussions about winning. He’s fiercely competitive. He gets it from his mother. She was an international sportswoman before children came along! It may also be the case that he gets it from his father as well. I have yet to gain the international recognition that my sporting talents deserve. But that’s OK. I still labour under the delusion that my best years are still ahead of me!

One of the things I’ve been trying to impress upon my competitive sons is that winning is important, but it’s not the most important thing. They hate losing. As do I. I think that’s allowed. I don’t think it’s wicked to be competitive and want to succeed at the expense of an opponent. That’s the rules of the game. Obviously context is all important. And the context for our issues is the sporting arena. I teach them to play to win. That’s important when the games been set up that way. Not to compete against an opponent is to treat them with contempt. Of course, it’s one thing to compete on the rugby pitch but it’s another to compete in a  family fun game of charades [if that's not an oxymoron]. We sometimes struggle to remember that the competitive desire needs to be held in check a little when competing with our siblings in something that’s essentially a recreational pursuit rather than a sporting contest!

You can imagine the conversations that we’ve had after Dean Richards’ face has been plastered all over the back pages of The Times. The boys inevitably ask me what the pictures are about. ‘They’re about cheating’, I reply. ‘Harlequins cheated in the semi final of the Heineken Cup last year’. ‘Why did they do that?’ they ask. ‘Because they thought winning was more important than playing fair? They thought that winning the game was the most important thing and so they decided it was OK to cheat’. ‘That’s wrong’ they point out. ‘That’s right and as a result Dean Richards has been sent to the naughty step for three years’ I reply.

Winning’s something but it’s not everything. It’s just a shame that the boys have had to learn that from Quins.

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