Proclaimer Blog
Look inside first
I’m greatly enjoying Andrew Cornes speaking on 1 Corinthians 1 at our preachers’ conference. Andrew is an experienced preacher/pastor and is recently retired. What I love about him is his honesty talking about his long experiences of ministry, both in terms of what was going on in his church, but – just as importantly – what was going on in his own heart.
This is useful stuff. For sure, looking back he could see lots of external causes of division and difficulty. And it’s always easy to point the finger at others. But, said Andrew honestly, we have to look inward too. And very often it is our own pride which is the chief issue. Moreover, it is not disconnected to the difficulties in the church. For if our pride is making us awkward or negative or critical, is it any wonder that such attitudes are prevalent in our churches?
In other words, what preachers need to hear time and time again is that we need to look internally before we start blaming externally. I think I read something similar in the Bible somewhere. 1 Timothy 4:16 anyone?
Proclaimer Blog
So what?
I’m enjoying Bryan Chappell at our ministers’ conference teaching on application. This is a contentious issue for some Christians. Too much, too little, and all kinds of practical and spiritual objections. He told the story of how he was himself taught preaching by Dr Robert Rayburn, an ex-army Colonel chaplain who had parachuted into Korea behind enemy lines with the men to whom he ministered. This man stood for no nonsense.
He told his students, ‘Men, I don’t care how famous you get, or how big your churches are, or how good a preacher you are, but I want you to imagine that after every sermon I’m sitting in the back row and you have to walk past me every time you preach. I have my arms folded and I have a frown on my face and one question that needs answering, “So what?”’
‘Stephen saw heaven opened?’ ‘So what?’
‘The Israelites were in the wilderness for forty years.’ ‘So what?’
‘Justification is by faith alone?’ ‘So what?’
For, Chappell argues, we cannot really say we understand a text unless we have understood its significance. Take justification by faith. We might think we understand it, but if we believe that the way to get right with God is by, say, reading our Bibles more, we have not really understood the text. It’s only when we have grasped its significance that we can truly say we’ve understood a text.
In other words, application counts.
Proclaimer Blog
A quick survey…
Dan Steel, a pastor from Oxford, is leading a seminar at this year’s EMA for those starting out in ministry. It is essential, of course, that younger guys start well. Such people have a particular set of pressures and temptations and in order to build ‘Leaders who last’ we wanted a stream for guys in this situation. It would be a great help to us and to Dan if you could complete the survey (here) and a great help to you if you could book into the EMA (here).
Proclaimer Blog
Do not give up the habit
Hebrews is written to Christians. In fact, to be more precise, it’s written to a particular group of Christians, Jewish ones in danger of returning to their Old Testament roots and leaving the gospel behind. The great message they need to hear is that Jesus is better in every way than their incomplete testament. Amen to that.
Along the way, the author gives some moving and practical applications as to how this better new covenant life is to be lived. This set of practical instructions perhaps reaches a climax towards the end of the book. I am particularly fond, however, of Hebrews 10 and I’ve been reflecting this week on the exhortation to not give up meeting together. This is what some have been doing. Presumably, as it becomes more and more difficult to be a Christian, it is more and more tempting to neglect the gathering of God’s people.
The paradox is that the more difficulty increases (I take it that, in part at least, is what it means to see the Day approaching), the more God’s people should meet together. Not less. More. I think some of our people need to hear this don’t they?
And those called into ministry need to hear it too. Now collections of ministers are not churches. Not even close. And we receive our primary encouragement from our churches, not from ministers’ gatherings. Nevertheless, they have a part to play. For ministry is draining, discouraging and potentially damaging. We need the encouragement of stirring one another up.
This is not an idea unknown in the Scriptures. Read some of Paul’s personal comments to see how he needs and craves the fellowship of others to encourage and be encouraged. Many of those in ministry have less of this kind of fellowship as things get tougher. They find it harder and harder to face peers and be honest about life and its struggles.
Maybe not with us, but with someone Mr Preacher. Do not give up the habit of meeting together.
Proclaimer Blog
Disappearing church: an extended review
Mark Sayers’ new book is important. It’s not an easy read. For those used to books padded out with stories about things that happened to the authors, this is remarkably dense. It’s just 175 pages, but that’s 400 pages equivalent for many modern writers. However, the premise of the book – an assessment of where the church is (and why) and where we go now – is essential.
In one sense, as conservatives, I don’t think his conclusions will surprise. At least, they ought not to. Nevertheless, the book is important because he assesses our western culture well and shows how our conservative principles are just what are needed. Along the way he destroys a few shibboleths, notably the insatiable desire for churches to be culturally relevant.
He shows clearly how the church’s desire to evangelise the western (or third culture) in the same way that we evangelise the pagan culture (the first culture) is flawed and ultimately leads to assimilation. This methodology was imbibed by the church in the 1980s and 1990s through those who had worked on the mission field. However, the third culture is not pagan. Rather it is, he argues, an anti-culture – representing everything that our Judea-Christian heritage is not.
What, then, is his answer? It is what he calls “withdraw-return.” Sayers calls for more depth in our Christianity, like a tree that springs up in a gap in the rain forest. Initially, it is the vines and broad leaf plants that occupy such a gap, but eventually the tree breaks through because it has first sent down deep roots. Shallow church, says Sayers, will look good, but do little. It may try to impact in the public sphere but it is doing little in the private sphere, where things really count.
Amen to that. And amen to his argument for institutions! Such an argument is nuanced of course (he is against institutionalisation), but he is pleased to stand up for the church as it ought to be, with deep disciple-making at its heart.
I really appreciated this book. It is thoughtful. It is written by an Australian which means it resonates more with European culture/setting than many US-authored books. It is also deep. Although he makes some of his points scripturally, his argument is more philosophical, but no less compelling for that. Of course, as with any book, it requires a discerning mind. But there is much here to challenge, convict and encourage.
Proclaimer Blog
The ploughboy and the brickie
Every now and again, when I’m not preaching, I listen to the Sunday morning service on Radio 4. I often regret it. This last Sunday I listened carefully to the sermon because I thought the text was pretty ambitious for a Sunday service – the LORD revealing his name to Moses.
So here is the thing: I did not understand a word of what was said. Now, I’m not perhaps the brightest spark, but neither am I a complete idiot. And I couldn’t understand what was being said. It was like someone was reading out a page of John Owen. At least in print form, you have the chance to read the sentence two or three times to make sure you know what it means. Not in a sermon. It is, I’m sure you’ve noticed, an oral communication.
In the previous church where I served, there was a delightful old saint, a Welsh brickie, who once told me that a particularly perplexing visitor was a ‘brilliant preacher, just brilliant.’ I obviously raised an eyebrow, for he followed up with his justification for the preacher’s brilliance: ‘I couldn’t understand a word of it.’ I made it my work after that to make sure I was understood by the brickie – he was my measure, my 21st Century ploughboy.
Our trouble, of course, is that we confuse simplicity with profundity. We think that to be simple is to be simplistic. The best preachers are those who communicate the timeless truths of the Scripture in all their depth and wonder but with a clear simplicity that means even the least educated listener can grasp what is being said.
It’s worth reading JC Ryle’s instructions again. And again. And again.
Proclaimer Blog
Financial probity and the ministry
I’m not sure church ministers should be publishing their tax returns for their congregations, even if government ministers are now doing so. That sort of degree of scrutiny (and ‘ownership’ by the congregation) is surely overkill. Nevertheless, it is striking that amongst the criteria for eldership in 1 Timothy 3 is the need for prospective candidates to not be those who are lovers of money. Such a desire must be tested and evaluated. And for that to happen, there must be some kind of accountability and enquiry. Quite what it is should perhaps be a matter for individual churches.
More immediately, this is not just about entry to ministry, but continuing in it. There is surely an ongoing need for financial probity amongst those who are called to serve God’s people. In other words, the requirements of 1 Timothy 3 do not just work as entry requirements, they operate as descriptions of what an elder or leader is. For example, he must be of good standing in the community, but if that good standing is undermined, then his position is in the church must also be in doubt.
At the end of the day, relationships between ministers and their churches are based on trust and when trust breaks down, the end of the relationship is unavoidable. But trust can break down for a number of often-avoidable reasons; and in today’s pressured world, we must work, plan and pray carefully to make sure that financial probity (or, rather, a lack of it) is not the cause.
Proclaimer Blog
Next year is significant
I guess you had realised, hadn’t you, Mr Preacher, that next year is historically significant? It’s 2017 which is of course the 500th anniversary of old Martin putting up his 95 theses next to the church cleaning rota on the notice board at Wittenberg. Perhaps you think that such an anniversary requires little celebration? I disagree.
For one thing, we have much to thank God for in the bravery and wisdom of our spiritual forebears. Indeed, not just in the church but in our society. I think few Christians appreciate just what a difference the Reformation made. Back in 2008, the historian Tristram Hunt (now a Labour MP) made an excellent series about the Reformation with four episodes (I think, on the Reformation and the mind, education, arts and science). It’s sadly unavailable in any format today, though perhaps we should initiate a campaign to have it reshown next year? There’s a great little book too, The Legacy of John Calvin, produced on the 500th anniversary of that reformer’s birth.
But there’s more. We still need to keep learning the lessons of the Reformation and that’s why I’m particularly grateful to Tim Chester and Mike Reeves for their new book Why the Reformation Still Matters. It’s quite superb. A really excellent chapter on preaching, but every chapter is gold dust. They take justification, grace, preaching, the Lord’s Supper, church and daily life and show what the Reformers believed and how the battles are still relevant today.
It’s not a simple read like, say, Kirsty Birkett’s Essence of the Reformation. It would be aimed at the thinking Christian. But it’s one of those books that needs to make it onto your essential list as you lead your church next year and be shaping at least some of what you do as a church.
Proclaimer Blog
Railways
For the record, I’m no train spotter. At least, I don’t think so. (Can it creep up on you?) There are things I do love about railways. I enjoy travelling on them. I used to prefer driving but these days I prefer to work, read and relax all three of which I find increasingly difficult if I’m driving! I also – and perhaps this is the confession of someone who used to work in logistics, amongst other things – appreciate the way they work. I have a functional admiration, in other words. But bogies, 5 car trains and all that stuff leaves me unmoved. Sorry. For me, the mallard is a duck. Period.
All of which is an introduction to say that it is therefore surprising that I’ve just finished reading a very good book indeed. It’s The Railways: Nation, Network and People, by Simon Bradley and was one of my Christmas presents. It’s taken me over four months to read because I’ve had to do some weight training just to lift it and it’s the kind of book you can only read in small doses.
I got it on the basis of a recommendation in the Saturday paper, as I recall. And the endorsement was justified because it tells the fascinating social history of Britain through the railways since the early 19th Century. Pastors should be interested in this topic, because the social developments of the last two hundred years have shaped church enormously.
For example, the removal of classes in British trains (or, rather a reduction) and then re-introduction reveals something about the social make up of Britain where social class has certainly changed over the last two hundred years, but not (despite what we might think) disappeared. There are comments about privatisation: not who owns the railways, but how people travel – individual compartments etc. It is a curious fact that as construction has removed private compartments we have sought other ways to introduce privacy (in modern terms through the ubiquitous headphones).
I found much to learn as a pastor. For example, picking up that last point, the human nature may be sociable but it always fights against community at one level. Pastors who ignore this battle in the hearts of our people are just naïve.
I’m not necessarily saying you should read this particular book. But we need to understand something of the human nature in order to be able to faithfully minister to others. Maybe not this book for you – no. But something, Mr Preacher, something….
Proclaimer Blog
To fly to serve
No, not an advert for a BA campaign (although the more I travel, the more I appreciate the understated professionalism of BA). Rather, this is the title of my new book produced in conjunction with the FIEC. They have commissioned a series of short books to help those starting out in ministry.
Mrs R and I have written one on ministry and marriage (available in the autumn) and I have written another on giving a bible talk. There are lots of good books on the mechanics of preaching and teaching and how we understand the text. I wanted to write a different kind of help guide – something that would assist preachers just starting out (or needing a refresher) in terms of how to put together a sermon or talk.
Without good exegesis a sermon is never going to be a sermon. But it still needs to be delivered and it’s important that we maintain a balance. A good sermon is based on solid, faithful exegesis, appropriately applied. But it is also well constructed and this is what this short book is all about. It will only take you an hour or two to read and I’m praying it will be helpful for those occasional preachers or those just starting out in your congregations.