The church must be reminded that it is not the master or the servant of the state, but rather the conscience of the state. It must
be the guide and the critic of the state, and never its tool. If the church does not recapture its prophetic zeal, it will become an
irrelevant social club without moral or spiritual authority.

Martin Luther King, Jr., Strength to Love, 1963.

We are susceptible to heretical teachings because, in one form or another, they nurture and reflect the way that we would have it be, rather than the way God has provided, which is infinitely better for us. As they lead us into the blind alleys of self-indulgence and escape from life, heresies pander to the most unworthy tendencies of the human heart.

Bishop C. FitzSimmons Allison

"Sunday's Coming" Movie Trailer from North Point Media on Vimeo.

Phil Yancey wrote a final column for Christianity Today that has been resonating with my pondering of late.

Those who know me well know that I spend a good deal of my time on the issues of form and structure of church. Not something I write on much because to be honest, it's quite boring most of the time.

The tradition of church I am involved with and ordained into is part of the "Stone-Campbell" movement. The movement was originally about church unity and finding form and expression of church in New Testament principals and experience. It's a worthy goal however we can easily get caught up in silly questions like "Should we have musical instruments in church?" and it really starts to miss the point.

Getting back to my pondering...

Like I said, I research a lot of form and structure questions because I believe that context is important to the shape of a local congregation and can not be externally imposed by either a church governing body or by society and culture at large and the latter does seem to be playing a leading role in how we structure our churches.

So my thoughts are, what if everything we do in church is counter-productive to the gospel? How often do we sit down and ask the hard questions like this? Is having a building productive or counter-productive? Is music productive or counter-productive? Is prayer time productive or counter-productive? Is meeting productive or counter-productive? Are small groups productive or counter-productive? Is feeding the local homeless productive or counter-productive? Is not feeding the local homeless productive or counter-productive? And so on.

There are two questions that come out of this. 1. What would happen if we just did the opposite of everything we are currently doing? 2. Are there some elements of our practice (in our particular contexts) that should just be rid of?

In one church I worked with they took the first approach uncritically and without thought. They saw the decline in their church and said to themselves "what we are doing isn't working so let's do the opposite", but it all ended up being superficial. They changed the music, painted the hall, even changed the communion plates but it was at it's core the same place.

When we set about to change things do we ever really deeply examine ourselves and our church community to see beyond the superficial? I'm not saying you should stop feeding the homeless if that's what your church does, but there may well come a time where doing so is counter-productive to the mission of the gospel in your church. Hard to believe, but it's true. Just because you can do something does not mean that it is the right thing to do.

(This is a bit of hyperbole but I really want to make the point clear that just because something is good, that does not necessarily make it the mission of your local church, all of these things need to be approached with prayer and discernment.)

Simply cutting programs is not the answer to indiscriminate change. Just because the visitation program has been running for 50 years does not make it an antiquated or useless endeavor.

Getting back to the point once more...

Have you had an honest assessment of the health of your church and it's activities in sharing the gospel?

Let me suggest these questions to gauge the health of your church:

 * Is it growing? Growth is not the best indicator of health but an unhealthy body doesn't grow.
 * Are your programs understaffed? Are you just spreading a congregation too thin?
 * Are you scared of asking somebody outside your church to evaluate it's health?
 * Pastor are you scared of your congregation?
 * Congregation, do you look for an excuse to not be involved in the life of your church, be it Sunday or any other day?
 * Are you spreading the gospel?
 

I could have been a contender...

I've never seen that movie, but I love that line. Sometimes we willfully throw away an opportunity to make a mark on the world. Sometimes we don't even realize we've missed it. Sometimes still we have been great and let it all slide away while we think about that past glory.

Comeback Churches is a book for pastors who front up a church each Sunday and see a little less each week. Less people. Less enthusiasm. Less life and vitality.

Ed Stetzer and Mike Dodson provide a vital analysis of 324 American churches who have had pastors in the pulpit that have said "Enough!" it's time to turn this around, it's time not keep glorifying the past, it's time to glorify God with his church. These 324 churches have turned from steady decline (often over decades) into steady growth of healthy churches.

The book isn't prescriptive. I picked it up looking for some pointers on how to address a specific church in decline (they are reaching out to me to take a pastoral role) but it's not an ABC of turning your church around in 30 days kind of book.

What you will get out of it is a little carrot and stick. The carrot is the success stories and a great deal of motivation to be a better, more tuned in pastor. The stick is giving you a big whack to stand up and be the leader of the church God has called you to be.

There is practical advice from the ho-hum of moving from "traditional" to contemorary and blended worship, to how to journey people into recognizing that they need to change and setting the vision for a comeback.

Complaints? There is way too much prefacing to anything the authors might think is slightly controversial. I know why they do it but I wish they wouldn't. It's just annoying. Apart from that, it would have been good if they published the raw data in an appendix. Some of us are nerds and like to dig into the numbers even if it isn't really all that important.

Density

I worked through it in about a week of train travel to work. The writing is relate-able. The only thing that slows you down is the constant reflection on what your reading and the excitement you get over a new concept or idea that you know will boost your ministry.

Who should read it?

Anyone in church leadership that is experiencing decline. No, make that everyone not anyone. Although not all of it is relevant to non-pastors, it will kick you in the pants to do the work of Jesus in your community.

What impact did it have on me?

No other book has energized my thinking so much in the last 3 years. I kept reading it, getting excited, and texting my ministry team about an exciting idea that will help us love people better and slow the amount of people who might slip through the cracks.

Buy it :)

Summary

The book begins: "It is indeed unfortunate that of all the New Testament writings, the words and sayings of Jesus himself are the most difficult to understand." This difficultly, the author contents stems from the willful and deliberate de-judification of Jesus from his historical context and a great lack of understanding of Hebrew culture and idioms.

The authors make this point quite well arguing that the synoptic gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke) make greater sense when looking for the original Hebrew language that would have underpinned them and not the Greek texts that we have surviving today. This follows a growing minority of scholars who consider the present Greek gospels are translations and in some cases poor transliterations of Hebrew and Aramaic originals.

A serious amount of research and scholarship underpin this assertion and fully fills the first half of the book. However unless you have a hard time with the concept that Jesus was in fact Jewish and thought like a Jew, or are engaging with some serious textual analysis for research you might as well rip the book in twain along the spine and skip straight to the "Appendix" which absorbs the second part of the book. The foundational chapters do become quite repetitive like micro-essays with start with a proposition, detail the proposition then conclude by restating the original proposition, all of this builds to an anti-climax of technical analysis which is both important state but simply boring to read.

The appendix addresses the implications of misunderstanding Jesus in two cases. The first, the times we think we understand Jesus but screw it up and the second, the times we just plain don't get what he was on about.

To the former the book examines topics such as: Jesus was not a pacifist despite "turn the other cheek" and Jesus was not an advocate indiscriminate charity despite "give to him who asks of you."
To the latter the book examines topics such as: what did Jesus mean by 'I came not to abolish the Law but to fulfill it?' Christians aren't required to follw the Law, are they? If that doesn't 'abolish' it, then what would?

Density

As I said, the first portion of the book is often dense scholarship. You wont miss anything by skipping over it but will find some gems for preaching and expanding your critical thinking.

Who should read it?

This one isn't just for the pastors bookshelf! It provides an thought provoking examination of the world in which Jesus lived and ministered and is challenging to the both your thoughts and actions providing at times ideas and angles on Scripture that are completely orthogonal to Western thinking.

What impact did it have on me?

At not much over 160 pages this book really wets your appetite to dive into the Hebrew culture and challenge you to 'get' what Jesus was really saying. It has certainly had this affect on me.

Woah! It's been over a two months since I've posted anything. I don't want to be another blogging drop out statistic so lets kick-start this puppy :)

I've been focusing a lot recently on my company Vine Media. We have been building the company slowly and have added around 30 websites in the past two months. It's a bit cliche', but it feels great to help God's church grow by providing some low cost options to support ministries.

Church work has been great. We are building the ministry to young adults in the area slowly and surely. I feel that we are at a tipping point where the ministry is either going to grow or falter and I am praying for grow. I will concentrate the blog on this soon, about the steps we are taking towards growth and commitment in the ministry.

What I thought I would do in the mean time however is something a bit different. The thought popped into my head "30 book reviews in 30 days" but I dont think I have enough free time or stamina to commit to that, so instead I am going to do 30 book reviews in 10 weeks, that is 3 a week for the next 2 1/2 months. Sounds like a good plan right?

I'm just going to stack up the last 30 books I've read on the topic of faith/theology and evaluate them on the following criteria:

• Summary. What was it about, all the usual book review stuff.
• How dense was it? Was it a struggle to pick up and read each day.
• Who should read it. It it for everyone or a pretty narrow audience.

And most importantly...

• What impact did it have on me? Did it change my thinking or my actions?

There will be some clusters of books from the same author, Arch Hart comes to mind as somebody I read a lot of in a small space of time, but overall I think there will be quite a variety of books and topics. And hopefully a lot of fun to do.

Here's what I'm reading at the moment, they will make it onto the review pile soon I hope :)

Like most people, Christian or not, my wife and I have been deeply impacted by the tragedy that is unfolding in Haiti. Not many years ago a tragedy of a different sort happened on the doorstep of my nation. The boxing day tsunami brought untold suffering to so many with it's most redeeming feature being that we all might fulfill the words of Jesus Scripture:

"Then the righteous will answer him, 'Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?'

 "The King will reply, 'I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.'

I have read some sickening replies to this tragedy, replies from contemptable men who have the nerve to prefix their name with Reverend, replies to contemptable men whose vision is so tunneled that every word they speak is like venom, men who if they stopped for a single second to consider their words and thoughts and motivations would shrivel up in horror at the people they have become.

To those voices and for all of our edification I commend this article; may we never forget the human toll nor that where there is grieving, there is also our God who grieves with us.

“I don’t know if all things happen for a reason,” Arends said on Friday. “I do know that when things happen, God is there. I know that God is on top of a high hill in Haiti, weeping in pain. I know that God is on an airplane with a widow, weeping in pain. I know that God is in Duluth with a couple parents, weeping in pain, and yet promising to hold and keep and give whatever they need.”

By examination of the historical views of prayer and prayerfulness we discover a dynamic intimacy with the heart of God through expressions and thoughts that are lost to us or diluted by time.

As we have examined the historical views of prayer and prayerfulness we have seen a dynamic intimacy develop between the heart of God and the prayer. Some of these dynamics are confronting.

Julian of Norwich for example prayed to experience all sufferings that a person on the brink of death would experience and to then be restored to health in order to better understand the depth of her salvation. Such experience goes much deeper than a cerebral understanding of the mission of Christ "For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life." (John 3:16) To a partnership with Christ "For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him."(John 3:17)

Martin Luther offers us a systematic approach to prayer that does not constrain the prayer but liberates their prayer life by asking the believer to look back on the faithfulness of God in the past both to help inform us of His will in our lives, and to strengthen and encourage us by seeing how God has answered our prayers in the past.

John of the Cross develops an understanding of prayer as a technique of growing spiritual maturity that is closely associated with the concept of the ‘dark night of the soul’. This dark night marks a transition point that necessitates a deliberate action on behalf of the believer to seek God although they feel anhedonic with their current relationship with God. To use contemporary parlance they need to ‘push through’ the boundaries that define their spiritual relationship and when they do they will find a deeper and more rewarding relationship with the heart of God.

Guyon introduces two patterns for reading Scripture that move us past simply seeking advice in the written word to moving us to an encounter with the living Word.

Douglas Steere brings us a fresh understanding of the life of the intercessory prayer. Though his insight we begin to understand that when we seek the heart of God to intercede in the life of another, we are firstly seeking to align ourselves with the will of God. Intercessory prayer then allows us to work in cooperation with God, it removes the barriers of selfishness and individualism and asks us to put the life and considerations of others first.

It is not suggested that all of these practices must be followed, however they provide a breadth of expression that will no doubt will catch many people within it’s wide net. These practices from the past not only inform our contemporary spiritual practice they may very well enhance it and bring us all deeper into the heart of God.

Douglas Steere is a well regarded academic and scholar. Called a brilliant thinker by some he studied at both Harvard and Oxford and in his early life was a Rhodes scholar. Steere was a Quaker who skilfully authored many devotional books and is part of a small circle of people who have managed to combine their academic integrity with their spiritual authenticity. As a missionary with his with Dorothy Steere is credited with well balancing the contemplative, or inner life with action, or the outer life.  His work Prayer and Worship engages the reader to take up the highly important work of prayer, particularly intercessory prayer while keeping in mind the need to respond to the call of God with actions.

Steere contends that,"Prayer for others is a form of petitional prayer that makes deep demands on the faith of an individualistic generation that has so largely lost its sense of inner community."  If the spirit of our age is, as it is widely reported, consumerist and individual, then prayer that is centred on the other must draw us deeply into a place that is unnatural to us.

When we are holding up the life of another person before God we are putting their needs before our own. We may be praying for their release from destructive behaviour, for the restoration of health or perhaps the strength to resist temptations in the world. When we engage in this prayer for the other "only then do we sense what it means to share in God’s work… only then do the walls that separate us from others go down and we sense that we are at bottom all knot together in a great and intimate family"

In prayer we begin to experience the community of God and the community of the Church. In intercession we are agreeing with God that the needs of others are important and acknowledging that it is outside of our power to bring change to some situations. It is to say that with God all things are possible so to God we ask for the impossible to be done. This is not to say that we can change God’s mind on matters, "Such prayer is only cooperation with God’s active love in besieging the life or new areas of the life of another."

In prayer Steerecontends that it is an active force not only for what we pray but for changing the heart of the prayer. "In all petitional prayer, the one who really prays must be ready to yield."  We may start with clear intention of who we are praying for and what we believe needs to change in their life to see the breakthrough that we desire, but it is God’s active love that will be the final determiner of what needs praying for.

"There can be no complete prayer life that does not return to the point from which we began."  This petitional prayer is an outpouring of love and concern for the life of another of which our expression is a reflection of the heart of God for every soul. This prayer returned onto itself is what Steere refers to as "adoration". "Adoration is ‘loving back’. For in the prayer of adoration we love God for himself, for his very being, for his radiant joy."

When we seek the heart of God to intercede in the life of another we are engaging in an activity that aligns our thoughts with God’s thoughts and our will with His will. We are not so much changing the mind of God but ourselves coming to understand God’s will and acting in cooperation with God’s active force of love.

Born in Montargis, France, Guyon married an invalid man aged over twice her then 15 years. Unhappy in this marriage, Guyon looked for happiness within a devotional life. After living in a convent for a year she was imprisoned for the next 25 because of her religious beliefs. During this time she wrote many books including Experiencing the depths of Jesus Christ from which the following quotes were garnered. Guyon’s spiritual influence was vast.  Watchmen Nee had the book translated into Chinese and recommended it to every new convert. Francois Fenelon, John Wesley and Hudson Taylor all commended this text to the believers of their day.

Concerned with the inner life of the new believer Guyon penned two suggestions for those seeking to know Jesus. The first was to ‘pray the Scriptures’ and the second ‘beholding the Lord’. Both of these methodologies require discipline and a bible in order to encounter God.
Praying the Scripture involves:

"reading and prayer. Turn to the Scripture; choose some passage that is simple and fairly practical. Next, come to the Lord. Come quietly and humbly. There, before him, read a small portion of the passage of Scripture you have opened to... Taste it and digest it as you read."

The objective of this exercise is to slow the reader down in order to focus not on the overall theme of a passage of Scripture, rather to encounter God in the detail. In this method "you do not move from one passage to another, not until you have sensed the very heart of what you have read."  From there you will take that portion of Scripture and turn it into prayer.

This method ensures that at the end of a devotional time very little is read but the essence of what is read is well understood and absorbed.

Beholding the Lord has an altogether different purpose from praying the Scriptures. This methodology moves the reading of Scripture from the centre to the periphery. Its purpose is to provide a springboard into the presence of God. "Once you sense the Lord’s presence, the content of what you have read is no longer important. Scripture has served its purpose; it has quietened your mind; it has brought you to him."

Guyon commends this practice in order to turn our minds from the outwards things to the "deep parts of your being. You are not there to learn or to read, but you are there to experience the presence of your Lord!"

These practices while mutually exclusive in their execution provide a reminder for the use of Scripture to be not simply a conduit of spiritual advice or point of scholarship. No, these exercises of reading the Scriptures are designed to lead us deeply and directly into the heart of God.

Born in Spain, John became a Carmelite monk in 1564. He studied philosophy and theology in one of Europe’s leading universities and was ordained in 1567. That same year his leadership and spirituality was recognised and John was put in charge of the order. During this time he was named "John of the Cross" as a testimony to his suffering and commitment. He spent the remainder of his life in service to Catholic Reform through his leadership and writings. Eventually arrested by those opposing reform, John wrote his most famous work The Dark Night of the Soul in confinement. 

The concept of the "dark night" is now an integral part of understanding the spiritual journey providing a framework in which we might better articulate the movement of God thought the life of a believer from as Paul might term it the "milk" of the new believer and the "meat" of maturity.

"At a certain point in the spiritual journey God will draw a person from the beginning stage to a more advanced stage. At this stage the person will begin to engage in religious exercises and grow deeper in the spiritual life. Such souls are likely to experience what is called ‘the dark night of the soul’... when those persons lose all pleasure that they once experienced in their devotional life. This happens because God wants to purify them and move them on to greater heights"

John’s contemplation strikes at the heart of many pastoral conversations. The question "Why don’t I feel like I used to about God? It feels like he is not there anymore" The contention here is that this experience of the dark night is a deliberate act on the behalf of God in order to develop our spiritual maturity.

This development of spiritual maturity is through the practice of religious exercises. These are practices such as prayer, which deepen the relationship between the believer and God.

In the early spiritual life John says it is as if God is nurturing the soul by the Spirit "like a loving mother, God cares for and comforts the infant soul by feeding it spiritual milk."  During this tender time it is noted that the believer will "begin praying with great urgency and perseverance"

When journeying through the dark night of the soul the life of prayer is also transformed into something more mature. While the prayer life is defined by urgency and perseverance, God purifies because "the devil will often inflame their fervour so that their pride will grow even greater"

The antidote to this spiritual pride is to work in humility, to focus on just how great God is and on how little we can in actual fact do for him. This is born in prayer, developed in prayer and shows its fruit in prayer.

By not avoiding the dark times, the dry times John teaches that we will see God’s will being done in it, growing us to be more Christlike.