Christian mission and the church

There are so many good things we might do. In fact, far too many for us to actually do them all or for us to do many of them well. 

So we ought to be really clear about the core and primary mission of the church. Scripture and tradition allow us this kind of clarity. But many are, or appear to be, confused on the subject. There is a real danger of drift and distraction - that we fail to keep the main thing the main thing. We may end up in a sad state if we major on the minors. Missional wisdom seems to be that churches should try to do a few things well. But what should those things be or seek to do?

Perhaps we know of churches where almost everything and anything is seen as "mission". What place for social action? Is carbon neutrality part of the mission of the church? 

What is the church for? What should she be about?

The church exists for the worship of Almighty God and to call all people (indeed the whole of creation) to that worship. She ministers word and sacrament. She gathers each week to receive God's Fatherly instruction and to be nourished by Christ in the power of the Holy Spirit. This churchly special worship equips her members for the every day ordinary worship of life in the world. The church is about the great commission: making disciples of the nations, baptising them and teaching them to obey Christ's commands. She gives herself to the prayerful preaching and teaching of the good news of the Bible, baptism and Holy Communion.

But church is not all of life. There is also the family and the civil government. There are individuals and associations, businesses, clubs, societies. 

There are some things the church as church must do. There are some things it might do. There are other things that are perhaps best left to individuals and coalitions of the willing, rather than the institutional church and her officers.

A simpler, humbler bolder church would do well to know what the church should be about.

If everything is the mission of the church, maybe in the end nothing is. And, it seems in practice, evangelism (the verbal sharing of the good news of Jesus) is in danger of being neglected. We would do well to distinguish pre-evangelism, evangelism, discipleship, mission and other good and worthy stuff. 

Go and do good and many blessings upon you. May a thousand good flowers bloom. May the church be the church for the sake of God, church, world and cosmos. And may all things be done by grace, through faith, to the glory of God.  

Judges 5 outline / handout

 

JUDGES 5 (p246)

 

A SONG OF SALVATION (vv1-3)

 

CONTRASTS

 

The LORD’s salvation (vv4-5) and the people’s disobedience & distress (vv6-8)

 

The willingness of some and the timidity of others (vv9-23)

 

A curse on Meroz (v23) and a blessing on Jael (vv24-28)

 

Jael and Sisera’s mother (vv28-30)

 

CONCLUSIONS & CONSEQUENCES

 

Praise the LORD for his great salvation! (v2, v9)

 

v31:                    For God’s enemies…

 

                             For God’s willing people…

Why bother with the Christian faith?

 

From the Rectory

 

Why bother with the Christian faith?

 

Well, I’m convinced that the Christian faith is, you know, true: that Jesus was and is God come in the flesh, that he died for our sins, that he rose again, that he will come again to judge the living and the dead. And if there is any chance that is so, nothing matters more. It is literally, according to the Bible, a matter of eternal life or death. You really should drop everything now (more or less) and weigh this up before it's too late!

 

But even if you were not convinced of that, or if it turned out not to be so, I think the Christian faith deserves your serious attention.

 

Most people in the UK have not thought long and hard about the Christian faith and worked out why they reject it. Many think of themselves as “Christians” without a very clear idea of what that means and entails. Growing numbers think of themselves as “Atheists”, “Don’t knows”, “Not religious” or “None of the above”, but very often not for a well-articulated set of reasons. For many that is just how they feel. Biblical Christianity no longer seems plausible in the way in which it was the almost automatic default setting for most people in Europe for most of the last two thousand years. I would dare to suggest that this seismic change merits your sustained adult scrutiny.

 

I once knew a Baptist minister who was coming up to retirement age. He had dedicated himself to his work in a rather rough part of Cardiff for a lifetime. His wife had died. His congregation wasn’t large and the finances were challenged. He said to me that he wouldn’t change a thing, even if it turned out Christianity wasn’t true.

 

I find that a remarkable statement. And it is rather difficult to square with what the Apostle Paul says in 1 Corinthians chapter 15. He says that if Jesus has not been raised from the dead then we are to be pitied above all people.

 

If Christianity is not true, there is a case for eat, drink and be merry for tomorrow we die.

 

But what in fact is your best life now? Is it really possible to eat, drink and be merry? Can we ever drink enough to make us merry enough? And what about the hangover and the debt?

 

Maybe the Christian faith actually represents the wisdom of the ages (at least as it has been understood in the West). As I say, I think it is all literally true. But even if it were not, I would say that it is psychologically true. It tells us a human story and meets our human needs as not just watery machines or higher apes but broken gods. This world is not enough because we were made for eternity, for friendship with our Maker. Our hearts are restless until they find their rest in Him. This seems to me to fit our human condition and is a kind of evidence for Christianity.

 

To put this another way, the Christian faith is not only true but good and beautiful. It is so good and beautiful that even if it were not true, we would do well to live as if it were.

 

What in fact are the alternatives? No one can really say. We muddle on. We make the best of it. We grab what pleasures we can. We try not to think too hard and to do no harm. But what is harm? Who knows? And who cares? Or why should I care? Is morality only taste and expediency?

 

These are big ideas and broad brushstrokes, but I hope this makes some sense.

 

Anyway, for what it’s worth, that’s how it seems to me. The Christian faith: true, good and beautiful. And well worth bothering with. See you on Sunday!

  

The Revd Marc Lloyd

Work with a Machiavellian?

 Should I hire someone Machiavellian?

Probably not. 

You might want this ruthless political genius on your side. 

But the thing is that he is never really on your side. He is only on his own side. 

When it becomes necessary, he will not hesitate to stab you in the back. 

The Machiavellian is actually unfit as a superior, a subordinate or even a self. 

In contrast to Plato, Machiavelli has divorced politics from ethics. 

It is not actually obvious, if you are a strict Materialist, why Machiavelli was wrong. 

In fact, we all are and ought to be metaphysical believers. 

Machiavelli cannot offer us a secular salvation. 

Theories of development

 One problem with some theories of development is that they have to posit themselves as the necessary and omniscient end point. 

Maybe Darwin, Hegel, Marx, Comte etc. are not in fact the last word. Maybe there is a kind of insane grandiosity here in need of restraint and further reform. 

Jordan Peterson's Message to the Christian Churches

 Dr Jordan Peterson does not say it all. He does not even say what is most important. But he does have something useful to say in his ten minute message to the Christian churches especially in the West and with respect to young men. 

Peterson argues that original sin has been weaponised by unhelpful ideas which have led to a total demoralisation. Society wants to make us docile, harmless, obedient. But three particular ideas are deadly:

(1) It's The Patriarchy

(2) Human beings are a threat to the planet

(3) Male ambition is selfish power. It is virtually rape. 

Of course there is some truth in all of these ideas, but they can be abused. 

Peterson is on to something when he says that we must call men to be who they are meant to be. To attend to their souls. To aim up. To sacrifice themselves. To kill the dragon and get the girl. 

We must say: You are not all you could be. We are not all we could be. Let us fix you up and you can help fix us up.

Now, there is much more to say. Mainly the grace of God and the power of the Spirit. But there is a kind of echo of the gospel here. There is much to learn from this urgent and passionate sermon. 

Structures of the Soul

 Dr Michael Surgue suggests it is fruitful to connect:

Plato's Gold, Silver and Bronze people

Christianity's God, Man and the Devil 

Freud's Id, Ego and Super-ego 

Critical Reflection on Practice

 Or stating the obvious. 

For almost any activity there will be some form of:

Plan 

Execute

Evaluate

Refine

Repeat

How do do each stage could of course be discussed at length and matters. 

To keep doing the same thing and expect different results is a definition of madness. 

Things change. 

We want to improve. 

Critical Reflection on Practice does not mean critical. It means forming some kind of justifiable judgement. And so this presumes some kind of criteria or body of knowledge against which an activity or outcome can be judged. 

For example, this cycle could be used to improve your preaching. But you would need to think about what preaching is, what a sermon is, what it is aiming to do, what makes a good sermon, how its effects might be judged, etc. 

Against a one person ministry

 There are certain buzz-words and fashions in ministry speak. "Collaborative ministry" is very much The Right Answer when it comes to ministry style. But, even if it is a truism, it is surely true. 

Yet most clergy are sole pastors, like the old single practice GPs. And we know this is not ideal. 

So, you should try to mitigate against the weaknesses of this. 

If you are C of E, you share the cure of souls with the Bishop. There is an Archdeacon and a Rural Dean. And clergy chapter. And all sorts of help and advice potentially available if you seek it and are willing. Discuss all this at your Ministry Development Review. 

But you almost certainly need to do something informal for yourself. You want some friends in ministry. You want to keep in touch and pray for one another. Think about what would really help you and try to make something like it happen sometime. 

But you must also avoid a one person ministry in the parish. You might be tempted to it. And your people might quite like it is some ways too. 

We all know that it can be easier and quicker sometimes to do everything oneself. And then of course it will be done your way, in your time, for good or ill. 

So:

(1) The minister must encourage an every member ministry. He is only one person. He has weaknesses of skill and personality. He has much to learn from others. 

(2) The people must embrace their ministries and use their gifts. 

Father does not always know best. Likely there are those who are more skilled in law, education, finance, buildings, publicity, gardening etc. than the Vicar. But the people must also embrace, you know, God! The Bible, prayer, evangelism and discipleship is their work too. It must not and cannot all be left to the Vicar. One Vicar told his PCC: "My liturgy; you gutters". That is too simplistic. We must all seek to live and speak for Jesus. The Vicar should try to help and encourage the spiritual gifts of others and see that the body builds itself up and shares its like. 

One error, in a C of E context, it seems to me is to treat those who are not Deacons or Presbyters as if they were. The C of E already has these roles. And there are roles for OLMs and ALMs and Readers and Churchwardens and PCC members and all that. We should understand and stick to our legal roles. The Vicar is the ordained Elder. Almost anyone could be elected as Churchwarden next year. But the Vicar is a fool if he does not listen to others, consult and collaborate with them.  

Parish Magazine Item for August

From The Rectory

 

On 11^th July each year, the Church of England remembers St Benedict of Nursia, the Abbot of Monte Casino and Father of Western Monasticism, who died around the year 550. Having a relatively quiet week, I decided to read his Rule in full. Its only about 9000 words so even if you are a slow reader, you could get through it in an hour or two with a bit of skimming. It (and indeed audio versions of it) are readily available online. It is one of the great masterpieces of spirituality and would repay your time. It is remarkable that this How To Be A Monk / Abbot Guide Book can still speak to us in surprising ways more than a millennium later. We feel we can get to know and admire Benedict, even though he seems to come from a different world.

 

Now, I have to confess that the Rule is perhaps not exactly what I would have written. I have my quibbles with the idea of monasticism. Like many after Luther, I fear that it might involve too much withdrawal from the world. And then we get on to sex and marriage and children and all that. The grace and mercy of God are clearly here, but I would want to stress the necessity of saving faith in the Lord Jesus Christ rather more than Benedict finds it necessary to do.

 

To our twenty-first century years, some of the Rule is weird, some wonderful.

 

It remains good advice, for example, not to sleep too close to a knife, in case you accidently injure yourself in the night. And, Benedict says, remember not to have too many baths!  

 

I don’t know if you fancy a Benedictine menu? The rule is practical as well as spiritual and remarkably accommodating and pastoral at times. Basically there are going to be two hot main dishes as some won’t be able to eat one and might prefer the other. Then there is bread. And any apples or young vegetables that are available. And a pint of wine. But you can have more if it is a hot summer. And if you have lots of manual work to do, you could expect extra food too.

 

Of course following the Rule in every detail today is hardly practical or relevant, even for monks. And it was never intended for the parochial clergy or lay people.

 

But there is something to be said for the three main elements of the monastic day: prayer, study and work.

 

The rule has much to say about ordinary daily life. The iron tools of the monastery are to be looked after with the same reverence as the Communion vessels. Sacred and secular both matter.

 

And how we welcome ordinary guests is of paramount importance, because nobody, however poor or mean is really ordinary. In welcoming others, we welcome Christ.

 

But prayer is the centre of it all. Much of the Rule is given over to liturgical instructions and details of lectionary readings, though Benedict does sometimes say you might do it otherwise if you keep to the principles.

 

One thing that really struck me is the amount of Bible there would have been in a monk’s life. They would say or sing the whole of the Book of Psalms (all 150) every week. I don’t expect most of us can do that. But how about reading or listening to a psalm, or part of a psalm, most mornings and evenings? That would only take ten minutes or so. And we might then get the divinely inspired prayers and songs of the Bible into our hearts and minds. They might change how we think and live even more radically than any man-made Rule.

 

Whatever combination of prayer, work and study your August involves, I hope you have a blessed summer with some opportunity for rest and recreation too.

 

The Revd Marc Lloyd

The Way of St Benedict

 There is extraordinary wisdom, and a certain amount of weirdness, in the Rule of St Benedict. Although it was written in the year 500 or there abouts, it is strikingly relevant to today in some of the details and principles. Benedict was a brilliant organiser, an inspirational leader and a thoughtful pastor-theologian. 

The life of monks could be divided in to three main areas: (1) The work of God (prayer and Bible reading) (2) Study and (3) work. 

It is obviously impractical for the average lay person to follow the Rule all the time in detail. Indeed, nor could the secular clergy. Even for monks today there might need to be some adaptation. 

I am not, as it happens, overly keen on all sorts of monasticism. I have some typically Reformed concerns about withdrawal from the world or too much celibacy and so on. But I am in favour of prayer and the Bible. And I think it is really striking how much Bible there was in the life of a reasonably faithful Benedictine monk. Benedict goes into some detail about this. Make sure you say or sing the whole Psalter at least once a week, folks! Now, even that might be a bit much for most of us, but we could manage to say, sing or listen to Psalm say most mornings and evenings. We might then get the prayers and songs of the Bible into our head and live and think and sing and pray rather more scripturally than we typically do.

On Church Discipline

 Church discipline is very far from what it ought to be in the UK. 

But churches ought to have some respect for one another's discipline. 

Without this, excommunication is much less weighty than it ought to be as the one put out of fellowship can find so many other churches delighted to receive them as if they were in good standing. 

But this is also clearly a matter of Our Lord's command who said: "Do to others as you would have them do to you." This surely means, at least, a friendly email or phone call to the person's former pastor even if it does not mean slavishly following every decision of every other church. 

Is God male?

 

How would you begin to respond to this question? Maybe some things to consider are:

What do you mean by “male”?

God doesn’t have a body.

God has revealed himself as a “he” rather than a “her” or an “it”.

God is Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Father and Son are clearly “male”.

The Bible sometimes uses male, female and neuter metaphors to refer to God.

All language is analogical not univocal. And this is especially so of God who is Being Itself / Himself. God is his attributes. He has all his attributes in a uniquely God-like manner.

God is always incomprehensible to us. We can never know God fully and perfectly as God knows God-self.

God is the Creator and prototype. Creation reflects the Creator. It may be argued that all things in creation including male and femaleness reflect something in God.

We must not idolatrously project maleness or things we think of as male on to God.

See further: https://www.churchsociety.org/resource/is-the-holy-spirit-to-be-referred-to-as-she/

Judges chapter 3 - a handout

 

Judges 3 (p244)

 

The People’s Sin and The LORD’s Salvation

 

Recall the big picture / cycle / spiral from Judges chapter 2

 

OTHNIEL:

A textbook example of the Judges cycle:

Disobedience                               / Rebellion       (3v7)

Defeat                                            / Retribution   (3v8)

Distress                                          / Repentance (3v9)

Deliverance                                  / Rescue           (3vv10-11)

 

Surprising Salvation:

 

EHUD:

Disobedience                               / Rebellion       (3v12)

Defeat                                            / Retribution   (3v12-14)

Distress                                          / Repentance (3v15)

Deliverance                                 / Rescue           (3vv15-30)

 

SHAMGAR:

The one verse version: (3v31)

 

So…?

 

In our sin, disobedience, defeat and distress…

 

Repent!

 

And look for the LORD’s salvation – textbook or surprising, long or short

 

Jesus!

Judges Chapter 2 - a handout

 

Judges 2:6-3:6 (p243)

 

The big picture of the Book of Judges:

 

 

After Joshua (2v6)…

 

 

A cycle / downward spiral:

 

(1)   Disobedience / Rebellion        (vv10-13, 17, v19)

 

(2)   Defeat               / Retribution   (vv14-15, v20-23)

 

(3)   Distress             / Repentance (v15b, v18b)

 

(4)   Deliverance     / Rescue           (v16, v18)

 

 

The need for a better Rescuer (21v25)

 

 

Why did God leave the nations in the land?

 

(1)   A test of loyalty to the LORD (2v22; 3v1, 4)

 

(2)   Training in warfare (3v2)

 

 

So what? What now?

Some terms and topics in Philosophy

Philosophy

Physics

Metaphysics

Ontology

Logic

Epistemology

Aesthetics

Ethics

Politics

We might ask what is true and good and beautiful and then how we shall live together.

These topics and terms are actually remarkably few when we consider how many of the thoughts of the last 3000 years in the West which they can subsume. 

On the issue of ontology, thinkers will admit to physics or physics and metaphysics, and much else will follow from this. 

Two great traditions in Western Philosophy are Athens and Jerusalem: Reason and Revelation, Logos and Mythos, Secular and Sacred, Human and Divine, Socrates and the Bible. 

(Jottings from a Michael Sugrue You Tube Lecture) 

What is a Conservative?

 This is a question I would love to hear the candidates to lead said party address thoughtfully. What is the Conservative Party for? What do you want to conserve and why?

We want to hear big ideas in this leadership election. 

But one of the defining features of conservativism is in fact fear of the big idea. That's its big idea! 

It is pragmatic, traditional, conservative! It values what we have. It wants to keep the best, not risk it for the sake of an ideology. It knows that it is hard to build a thing and easy to wreck one. So above all it should be careful and cautious when it comes to the things that matter to us. By all means we must embrace new technologies and industries that can make money, for example. But a real conservative ought to have cared rather more about the mining communities that Thatcherism changed beyond recognition. 

Conservatism is for the common law, not a written constitution.

Its value of tradition thus gives votes to the dead. 

That's why it is monarchist, although strictly speaking its irrational. 

The Conservative Party must certainly be more low tax, small state, free market, pro-business than any of the serious alternatives. It must conserve personal freedom by getting the state out of people's lives as much as possible. But there is far more to life than money. We need to hear about the social as well as the economic. In fact, love and family and all that matters to us most is best kept apart from the need for cash if it all possible. You don't want to buy your sex or sell your children!

A Conservative Party worth the name would be for the little platoons and for place and habit. I'm not sure it would make a great slogan, but in short the Conservative Party ought to be for conserving what Burke might have called virtue and a society which makes it seem more possible. 

The cycles in Judges and so what?

 As Judges 2 lays out, there is a repeated cycle (or sometimes downward spiral) in book of Judges, thus:

Disobedience / Rebellion        (vv10-13, 17, v19)

 

Defeat               / Retribution   (vv14-15, v20-23)

 

Distress             / Repentance (v15b, v18b)

 

Deliverance     / Rescue           (v16, v18)

But so what?

The ultimate message of the book (see the last verse) is surely that we need King Jesus, the new and better judge, to save us. And to save us from this cycle. 

We need to put our trust in him definitively once and for all as we come to him in repentance and faith. 

As New Testament believers, with the outpouring of the Spirit and two thousand years of Christian heritage, the completed Scriptures and the church at a much greater level of maturity, I think we can hope for greater faithfulness than many of the believers in the time of the judges. But do we not also find ourselves in something of a similar cycle? In our own way, are we not still prone to wander? We also need to put our trust in Jesus daily, whenever we see hints of disobedience or rebellion in our own lives to bring our distress to Jesus in repentance and ask him to deliver and rescue us. Otherwise, we can expect defeat and the chastisement of our Father who loves us too much to leave us comfortable in compromise. 

As Judges also points out, we still live in the world (with the nations remaining in the land, if you like) that our loyalty to Yahweh might be tested and that we might be trained for the spiritual warfare of the Christian life. 

The fun of reading the Authorised Version

It can be a good thing to read a Bible translation with which one is less familiar. New things might strike you. And perhaps this is particularly true with the Authorised or King James Version of the Bible, the vibrant language of which has so shaped our mother tongue. 

I don't necessarily defend it as a superior translation but I enjoyed noticing two particular verses today. 

The New International Version's rendering of Acts 1:20's citation of Psalm 109:8, which Peter applies to Judas is a little bland: "May another take his place of leadership." 

The Authorised Version has "his bishopric let another take." The Greek is the word from which we get "episcopal". Now, the New Testament vocabulary for offices (of presbyter / elder and bishop / overseer) in the church is a complicated business, but it is interesting for this evangelical to be provoked to wonder about thinking of the Apostles as the first "bishops".  

* * * 

I have known some Christians who have worried about wishing people a "Merry Christmas". They fear it might encourage drunkenness. I've never thought that likely. And I was interested to see that merriness is spoken of positively in Authorised Version of James 5:13. The NIV has "cheerful". 

But maybe even more interesting is how James answers his question with advice for the merry. "Is anyone merry?" What should he do? Not sober up. But perhaps more surprisingly still for us, "Let him sing psalms [Greek: psallw]". Again, a rather more specific and interesting commandment than the NIV's "sing songs of praise." And maybe something to consider next time you're feeling happy: the hearty, joyful singing of the Bible's own hymnbook of praise, where actually there's something suitable for every emotion and mood.