BOOK REVIEW: TOTAL CHURCH

Total Church by Tim Chester & Steve Timmis

I picked this up when I was in Seattle recently. (Steve Timmis was also at the Acts 29 conference and staying at the same hotel as me, although I didn’t get to talk with him.)

Tim & Steve lead a church/church planting network called Crowded House. I first became aware of them a couple of years back and had been somewhat perplexed by their growing connection with Acts 29. Their “thing” is house churches, whereas Acts 29 comes out of the Mars Hill megachurch – I couldn’t really see how they connected.

However, having chatted with people in Seattle and having read the book I can now see the connection: Mission.

Chester & Timmis do argue fairly strongly for the house church model, and I do not quite share their enthusiasm for this. My observation over the years would be that leading a house church – if anything – requires a higher level of leadership gift than leading a ‘conventional’ church, and so is actually much harder to replicate. I think of the family who left my previous church to go and start a house church in a tough part of town with another family, only to find after a couple of years that they had seen no-one saved and added, hadn’t grown at all, and were just killing themselves with the effort. That said, the authors do acknowledge that there is no single model that every church should adopt in terms of size, but they are arguing for particular values regardless of size. I think this is the right approach, and in the reorganisation and relaunch of small groups we are planning for Gateway this autumn I would encourage prospective small group leaders to read this book.

So what values are they arguing for?

The guts of the book is that everything we do in church should be built around gospel and community. This is then to be worked out in:
• Evangelism
• Social involvement
• Church planting
• World mission
• Discipleship and training
• Pastoral care
• Spirituality
• Theology
• Apologetics
• Children and young people
• How success is defined

As you would expect, I found some of these sections more convincing than others. At a couple of points I thought the authors were actually being a little silly – overstressing their argument in order to make their point. They so want to stress the importance of community that they could be read as saying that any activity that does not happen with other people is invalid, which is clearly silly. They are right in their diagnosis of the weakness of western individualism, and I am with them in my preference for noisy prayer meetings, and so on. But this does not mean we should throw out the biblical baby of the spiritual disciplines of rest and solitary time with God with the water of solo Christianity. A true appreciation of community means that even when we are alone we are aware of the presence of the body of Christ. They are also a bit arbitrarily dismissive of the place of spiritual gifts, and that too is silly.

Those criticisms apart, there is much here that is worth thought and should be challenging to the average Christian. The call to be true to the gospel word and the gospel community is a compelling one. If we are true to these two expressions of the gospel there will be profound implications for how we work out our faith. We will do evangelism by building relationships and calling people into the story of what Jesus is doing in and through his people. We will do pastoral care not by professional counselling but by the body applying the word to one another and believing in the sufficiency of that word as worked out in community. We will do children’s and youth ministry not as entertainment but as a family together learning how to apply the gospel to our lives.

Fidelity to the gospel word and to the gospel community will make us missionaries. “Missional” is an increasingly trendy word, which generates a lot of discussion. The heat sometimes produced by this discussion can hide the simple truth that followers of Jesus are called to be missionaries to the people around them. We are to do this confident in the truth of the word of God, and we are to do it alongside others who share this confidence. Our faith is not meant to be introspective or private. It is not meant to be compartmentalized into a ‘God box’. Instead it should be total.

As Chester and Timmis put it:

The prevailing view of life today is that of an individual standing on his or her own, heroically juggling various responsibilities – family, friendships, leisure, chores, decisions, and money. We could also add social responsibilities like political activities, campaigning organizations, community groups, and school associations.

From time to time the pressures overwhelm us, and we drop one or more of the balls. All too often church becomes one of the balls. We juggle our responsibilities for church (measured predominantly by attendance at meetings) just as we juggle our responsibilities for work or leisure.

An alternative model is to view our various activities and responsibilities as spokes of a wheel. At the center or hub of life is not me as an individual but us as members of the Christian community. Church is not another ball for me to juggle but that which defines who I am and gives Christlike shape to my life.

Amen! Read this book – it will do you good.

LOVE ZIM

On Friday I had the delight of spending some time with my friend Scott Marques who was over from Zimbabwe for a few days. Then on Saturday I went with him to a Zim day in Swindon, running as part of the Love Zim campaign.

Scott is a remarkable man, and is about to relocate with his wife and two young children to Mozambique in order to start a church and build a business in that terribly impoverished nation. He will be pioneering in a place where there is hardly anything that we would take for granted as part of normal life, and where no-one speaks English. From the ground up Scott is looking to see something of substance built that can provide for people spiritually and materially and serve as a model for the rest of Africa.

For most people an attempt at something this audacious would be laughable, but Scott has an established track record of building thriving businesses in Africa, and overseas the Newfrontiers churches in Zimbabwe, so he is no fool. One of the key programs that Scott and his team have been pioneering in Zim is Farming God's Way. This is a method of agriculture that sees huge increases in yield. The average yield in Zim is 250kg of grain per hectare, but those doing Farming God's Way are now harvesting up to 12 tons per hectare, and Brian Oldrieve who runs the project is getting 16 tons. (By way of comparison the average grain yield in the UK is 7 tons/hectare).

Those are remarkable figures.

I love what Scott and Co. are doing in Zim - it is genuinely the kingdom in action - and I am excited to see what develops in Moz.

While with us Scott handed round a 100 trillion dollar Zim note, the largest denomination ever produced. Getting that kind of inflation under control is going to take some miracles - please pray for one, and sign up to Love Zim for regular updates.

BAPTIZING BELIEVERS (updated)

We have a baptism service at Gateway, the Sunday after this one. I love baptisms - for me they are the highlight of all that we do. I love the declaration of belief they represent. So I enjoyed this article by Mark Dever explaining why he regards paedo-baptists as following a sinful practice. Here is a snippet:

As I understand the words of Christ in Matt. 28:18-20 Christians are commanded to baptize and to be baptized, and the practice of infant baptism inhibits the obedience of what I take to be a quite straightforward command. I understand explanations that have been given about the practice of infant baptism (Orthodox/Roman, Lutheran and Reformed) but am sincerely persuaded that none of them line up with God's own Word. This does not cause me to doubt the sincerity of my reformed paedobaptist brethren, nor even their judgment in general. It is simply that on this point they've got it wrong, and their error, involving as it does a requiring of something Scripture does not require (infant baptism), and the consequence of a denying of an action Scripture does require (believers baptism) is sinful (though unintentionally so).

This is an excellent example of speaking uncompromisingly, yet graciously. For more resources by Mark Dever check out the 9 Marks website.

Update: this is generating more comments than my little blog normally gets... My whole point was that Dever was being true to his beliefs (which is good) but doing so in a way which reaches out to those he disagrees with (which is also good) - so I really don't think there is much space for taking offense, on either side. (For a committed paedobaptist who agrees with me on this, visit here.) Baptism is an important issue, so what we think about it and how we practice it is important. The demand for Christian unity doesn't mean we refuse to talk about important issues on which we disagree, and we should be consistent in the implications of our beliefs - so long as we do so in a gracious way, which Dever does.

BOOK REVIEW: GOD & GOVERNMENT

God & Government, by Charles Colson

I regularly teach on political ethics on the Newfrontiers Leadership Training course, having done an MA on the relationship between church and state. However, anything I know about the subject is through observation more than participation – it is theory more than practice. By contrast, everything Charles Colson writes on the subject comes from long practical experience of the political realm. He really knows his stuff, from the inside out.

The points where this fairly long book really come to life are when Colson is recounting his own experiences as a senior aide in the Nixon White House, and when he retells historical events where church and state have rubbed up against one another. The book opens with a fictional account of an Israeli terrorist threat to blow up the Dome of the Rock mosque in Jerusalem, which is gripping, as well as terrifying in its depiction of how certain American Christians do biblical interpretation. The account of the failures and successes of the church in Germany under the Nazis at the centre of the book is compelling. And the stories of Christian heroism in Poland and the Philippines and Northern Ireland are very faith stirring.

Colson takes a similar line to the one I have adopted in regards to how church and state should function. He follows a positive view of government, while being brutally open-eyed about the evil that so easily corrupts human systems (the sections on the power of power to corrupt are striking, especially when illustrated from Colson’s own experience). He calls for the church to truly be church – not to distance herself from politics, but neither to seek to become the state herself. He is critical of those who try to ride the two horses of holding ecclesiastical authority and secular authority, and categorically states that, “Any priest or minister who feels called to seek public office should, as a citizen, be free to undertake that vocation. But doing so means that he must leave the pulpit, resigning all ecclesiastical functions. He must make it clear that he is acting as a private citizen seeking office to fulfil civic, not spiritual goals.”

Those of a more left-leaning persuasion will probably struggle with some of Colson’s statements and emphasis. He is still clearly a conservative, and at one point takes a rather stinging swipe at the more liberal Jim Wallis, of Sojourners fame. Also, many of the illustrations and applications concern the US, which will doubtless upset some European readers with their culturally programmed antipathy to America.

Stylistically there were a few irritants. This is a reworked version of Colson’s book, Kingdoms in Conflict, which was published 20 years earlier, and a number of times it felt as if the cutting and pasting were not quite up to scratch. I kept reading lines I was sure I had already read.

All in all though, a very helpful work, which I will be recommending next time I teach on political ethics. For any preacher looking for stories of how the gospel can bring peace, overcome evil and bring reconciliation this will be a rich resource.

One of the most telling lines in the book is, “People in power use power to keep themselves in power.” This made me think of Christ, who now reigns with all power precisely because he freely surrendered his power (Philippians 2:1-11). It is this message that Christians need to be taking into the corridors of power.

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PREACHING SIN

There has been a lot of blogging going on in response to Time magazines claim that the “New Calvinists” are changing the world (see here for a roundup). Whether or not it is new and whether or not it is changing the world, the doctrines that were at the heart of the Reformation are essential for preaching the gospel right. I liked this recent post from the Calvin Blog (check out, especially, the last paragraph):

One key Reformation teaching which both Lutherans and Reformed held in common was the pervasive and inherited corruption of human corruption. In this, Calvin was no different. He notes that the Bible "painted a picture of human nature that showed us corrupt and perverted in every part"; "the whole race of Adam's children" is characterized by "the unvarying corruption of our nature"; and "because of the bondage of sin by which the will is held bound, it cannot move toward good".

Yet Calvin affirmed this view of human beings not because he was a gloomy pessimist but because he wanted to highlight the amazing graciousness of God and his powerful love for his chosen ones. In the midst of this description of human sinfulness, there are notes of hopefulness and pointers toward the remedy: "the grace of Christ is the sole remedy to free us from that blindness and from the evils consequent upon it"; the Bible teaches that this "unavoidable calamity" of sin which overwhelms us can only be met by "God's mercy"; and that "the beginning of conversion to God" is "ascribed entirely to God's grace".

One lesson to take from this: only as a church has a thorough and experienced sense of human depravity will she preach the fullness and exclusivity of God's grace. Returning again to "total depravity" will cause us to long for God's mercy and will enliven our praise of God's steadfast love.

Total depravity hasn’t been a message the evangelical church in the West has preached much over the past century. But we should preach it now. As Tim Keller puts it in The Reason For God, “The Christian doctrine of sin, properly understood, can be a great resource for human hope.”

I have just preached at a funeral, and without the doctrine of sin – of total depravity – there wouldn’t have been a message of hope to preach. Understanding our sin means we understand just how lost we are. It is only when we realize we are lost that we are ready for someone else to take charge of our lives. It is recognizing our sin that enables us to recognize the Savior.

SHIFTING ROCKS

A few weeks back I felt God gave me a picture for Gateway Church out of what is currently happening at our nearest beach.

We are fortunate to live on a seven mile long bay of golden sand and fantastic views – the Isle of Wight on the East and the Isle of Purbeck to the West – and Branksome Chine beach is where my family often heads in our free moments. It’s a beautiful spot.


Over the winter though, Branksome Chine has been turned into a building site. In order to prevent all that golden sand being washed away, rock piers are being built out into the sea, that will stabilize the beach and keep it where it is meant to be.

At the moment, far from looking beautiful the beach looks a mess. There are diggers and heavy plant all over the place. Great holes have been dug and filled with concrete. There are piles of massive rocks lying around.


The picture I had was that Gateway is in some ways like Branksome Chine. The heavy plant has been going to work, and things are no longer looking like they used to. All that some people can see is a mess! But there is a plan. Just as the engineers and planners know what they are trying to achieve at the beach, God knows what he is looking to achieve at Gateway. Once the work is done the beach will look good again. It will also be preserved for the future – if it had been left as it was it would have continued to look good but it would slowly have been washed away. Also, as part of the picture I felt God speaking to me of the new life that the rock piers would support. They will supply a habitat for plants and animals that didn’t used to have a home at Branksome Chine. Diversity will increase, and the beach will be made richer for it.

Yesterday Grace and I were down at the beach and I was amazed to see that the rock piers (which have only been in place a few weeks) are already being colonized by algae and weed. New life is already forming.

On Sunday I preached about vision for giving. In this time of economic uncertainty the temptation is to sit back and do nothing – to say “It looks alright to me” and to enjoy the view while all the time the ground is being washed from under us. Getting our giving right is like building a rock pier at the beach. Its going to take some mess and disruption, but its necessary for the future and for new life.

I’m looking forward to the summer, when the diggers have gone, and I can sit on the end of a pier, looking for fish.

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Seattle: Final Thoughts

Tuesday I missed one session of the Boot Camp, as I was able to go with some other guys to visit the office where The City is being worked on. The City is the most amazing social networking and communication tool that was developed by Zack Hubert, once one of Amazon's top guys and now pastor for technology at Mars Hill. It has now been bought by Zondervan and will soon be paying its way in churches around the world. Its kinda difficult to explain without being able to show you a demo (demo here!), but (to come over all Seattle for a moment) its awesome man! Mars Hill has really cracked the nut of how to make technology serve the church rather than constrain it, and I would love to get The City running at Gateway. Even at a little church like ours I think it would have a significant impact. (As an aside, pretty much everyone here, whatever their nationality or church affiliation, was using a Mac – clearly the weapon of choice for all discerning church planters!)


Yesterdays church planting summit was a joy to be part of. I was just sorry that (because of my flight) I had to leave before it was done – including missing out on a visit to Driscoll’s house – I would have liked a nose around his library... By way of compensation though I was taken to the airport by Mike Gunn, who has been alongside Driscoll since before Mars Hill was started, and it was fascinating to pick his brain.

It was great to meet with some men from around the world who I would not otherwise have got to meet, because they are not in my normal Newfrontiers circle. It is encouraging to see how the church is advancing around the world. I have a stack of new email addresses of guys I want to follow up with.

I’m going to need a few days to process the past few days, but some concluding thoughts…

Leadership: They have produced big men. I was impressed again and again by the calibre of leader. Driscoll obviously stands out, but so many of the other men I met were in their own way equally as impressive. They are the kind of men you’d want to take into battle with you.

The gospel: I was impressed by how they really believe the gospel here. So often we say, “We believe” but then look for other fixes for our problems. Here they really look to apply the power of the cross in every situation. They are honest about sin, and teach how to repent well. They have a well worked through theology of suffering. They believe in redemption in Christ Jesus.

Humility: There is a significant degree of humility throughout Mars Hill and Acts29. Driscoll’s critics portray him as an arrogant SOB, but he is in reality a humble guy, and has produced other humble men. There are men here who would be superstars if they were in a UK church, but here are almost invisible because of the scale of operation – yet there was no sense of ego kicking against this. There is also a real openness to learn from others, with an appreciation that no-one has all the answers.

Generosity: I think Americans are more generous than Brits anyway. (I was embarrassed to discover that a standard tip is 15% and a generous one 20-30% when I had been offering a typically British 10%.) We have been treated unbelievably generously by Scott Thomas and his team.

All in all a really positive trip then. Very glad I was able to come (thanks PJ!). It was also fantastic to be here with all the Newfrontiers guys. I am incredibly blessed to be part of this thing.

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Well, the Boot Camp finished today. A couple of clips for you...

The worship isn't all Nirvana style! For the Boot Camp Tim Smith led with just acoustic guitar, fiddle and piano - pretty folksy, simple and beautiful...


Our boy done good! PJ Smyth went down an absolute storm. Here he is introducing himself to the Acts 29 crowd...


Tomorrow we are into an International Church Planting Summit, which is for just a small number of us. I then fly out in the evening. If I don't manage to live blog tomorrow I'll get some concluding reports and observations posted once I'm back in the UK.

I'm looking forward to being home with Grace and the girls - I'm missing them!

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Mark Driscoll: The Call to Endure

In the final session of the Boot Camp Pastor Mark Driscoll makes an impassioned plea for church leaders to endure...

1. Endure spiritually
The pressure is to be busy all the time and to be plugged in all the time (phone, laptop, ipod). You need to get away with Jesus! Silence and solitude are essential to hear Jesus. Other people will try to control your agenda – you need to pursue Jesus. You cannot endure without this kind of relationship with Jesus.

Natural introverts need silence and solitude or you will get grumpy and die.

Natural extroverts need to discipline themselves to experience silence and solitude.

Ministry must not be your life or your idol. Ministry is the one idol that will be blessed by your church – the leader has to make the decision to be refreshed and grow spiritually and not to make an idol of the ministry. You need to be spiritually grounded with Jesus.

Love Jesus, don’t use him. Worship Jesus, don’t abuse him. Shepherd your own soul as well as others.

2. Endure physically
Church planters tend to put on lots of weight (except the skinny worriers who forget to eat).

We can confuse being driven by stress with being led by the Holy Spirit.

You have to take your Sabbath or endure involuntary Sabbath. Sabbath is fun; involuntary Sabbath is not…

Take your day off. Take your vacation. Watch what you eat. Exercise.

Most pastors are fat! Gluttony is the one acceptable ministry sin.

The role of a pastors wife is to pastor him – your wife knows whether you are reading your Bible, getting your sleep, enjoying fellowship with God… Your wife needs to be the one you trust, who helps you, who watches out for you. Don’t nag your husband, love him.

3. Endure maritally
Your first priority is to be a Christian. Your second priority is to love your wife. Your third priority is to pastor your kids. Your fourth priority is to be a pastor.

People are meant to imitate us – this means there needs to be something worth imitating.

You can’t destroy your life in order to fix other destroyed lives. You cannot be permanently available to anyone other than your wife.

Define your wifes role and guard it carefully. There is no definition of “Pastors wife” in the Bible, so you get to define it. She should do only what you and she determine as appropriate. There should be no demands upon her to fulfil certain roles.

Sync up your schedules. You need to know what one another are doing.

Your wife is to be your helper, not the church’s helper. Everything else in the church can be delegated except being the pastors wife.

4. Endure parentally
Sometimes pastors kids sin because the only time they get their dads time is when they screw up.

Your goal for your kids needs to be that they be mature Christians. That’s it. There should be no other role or expectation for them.

When you get home turn your phone off; don’t check your email; don’t ignore your children.

Date your daughters. Keep them safe. Keep them close. Don’t cause them to be lacking male affection.

Protect your home – be careful who you let through the door. When you read verses on hospitality also read verses on discernment.

5. Endure theologically
Don’t cave in to the liberals or the fundamentalists – they are both wrong. Both sinners and religious people will cause you problems, but the religious people will cause more trouble because they won’t leave! You need to call both to repent.

You need to contend for the faith and contextualise the faith.

6. Endure financially
Men are meant to provide for their families. Pastors wives with young children should not have to work. Acts 29 will not allow someone to plant with them if his kids are in daycare because his wife is working.

7. Endure emotionally
The hardest thing is always dealing with your critics. If you do not have critics you are not preaching faithfully!

Learn from what your critics say, but never engage them on their own terms. Sometimes you need to respond to your critics, sometimes you need a mediator, sometimes you need to ignore them.

Know the size of your plate and fill it. Don’t add more to your plate than you are capable of handling. Be content with the size of your plate.

8. Endure relationally
You will have lots of fans, lots of foes, and few friends.

As soon as you hire someone the relationship with them changes. It is hard to do performance reviews with your friends…

Most leaders don’t get a mentor. Most people don’t get a Paul. What you need to do is build a team of peers who you can call on when you need them.

Conclusion
To endure is to be an ongoing, sanctified version of yourself. Don’t try to be someone else – its miserable! Grow in your understanding of who God has called you and made you to be.

Don’t just preach the gospel, live the gospel. Preach repentance and practice repentance.

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PJ Smyth: The Call to Proclaim the Gospel

PJ’s dynamic preaching style made this a difficult one to note down! So here are some outline notes of his main points to whet your appetite for the podcast.

Paul’s proclamation of the gospel:
• I am not ashamed of the gospel (Rom 1:16)
• I am put here for the defense of the gospel (Phil 1:16)
• All over the world this gospel is bearing fruit (Col 1:6)
• Pray also for me, that…I will fearlessly make known the mystery of the gospel (Eph 6:19)
• If only I may finish the race and complete the task of testifying to the gospel of God's grace (Acts 20:24)

1. Definition of the Gospel
Rms 1:1-2: Paul, a servant of Christ Jesus, called to be an apostle and set apart for the gospel of God – the gospel…regarding his Son…
(Mk 1:1, 2 Cor 2:12, 2 Cor 10:14, 1 Thess 3:2, 2 Thess 1:8, Rms 1:9, 2 Cor 4:4, Rms 15:20)

Jesus is the Gospel!
• The gospel is the Cross (1 Cor 1:17)
• The gospel is Grace (Acts 20:24, Gal 1:6, Col 1:6)
• The gospel is peace (Eph 6:15)
• The gospel is hope (Col 1:23)
• The gospel is the death of death and gift of immortality (2 Tim 1:10)

Mark Driscoll: drawing from 1 Cor 15:1-4 defines the gospel as ‘continual, proclamational, personal, salvational, essential, central, Christological, penal, substitutional, and eschatological’

• The gospel is saying and doing (Acts 1:1) with signs, wonders and miracles (Lk 9:6; Rms 15:19)
• The gospel is Kingdom expression because he brings his kingdom (Matt 24:14, Mk 1:14-15, Acts 20:25)

Tim Keller: ‘The gospel is to be applied to every area of thinking, feeling, relating. Working and behaving’.

This is a very full gospel!
D.A. Carson: structures his talk entitled ‘What is the Gospel’ at The Gospel Coalition around ‘eight summarizing words, five clarifying sentences and one evocative summary’!

How could I ever proclaim and demonstrate it all as a preacher? Not supposed to….
Eph 3:7-12: I became a servant of the gospel…to preach to the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ…His intent was that now, through the church, the manifold wisdom of God should be made known…according to his eternal purpose which he accomplished in Christ Jesus our Lord. In him, through faith we may approach God…

2. The Results of the Gospel
1 Pet 2:9 But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light. 10 Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy. 11 Dear friends, I urge you, as aliens and strangers in the world, to abstain from sinful desires, which war against your soul. 12 Live such good lives among the pagans that, though they accuse you of doing wrong, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day he visits us.

A. A new people – churches planted (V9-10)
• In Acts, the result of the preaching of the gospel was always the formation of a gospel community – a local church.
• God has always wanted a people!

B. Changed lives through a thorough process (V11-12)

A process
• We receive then continue in the gospel (1 Cor 15:1)
• In the same way you have received him you walk in him (Col 1:6)
• The gospel includes sanctification by the Holy Spirit (Rms 15:16)
• Once received, we must hold firmly to the gospel (1 Cor 15:2)
• We grow in grace and knowledge (2 Peter 3:18)
• The gospel establishes us (Rms 16:25)

Resulting in changed lives
• The gospel is also a lifestyle (Gal 2:14; Phil 1:27)
• Obedience and good works must accompany the gospel (2 Cor 9:13)
• The gospel changed Zacchaeus behaviour (Luke 19:8)
• They forsook their idols when they turned to God (1 Thess 1:9)

3. Enemies of the Gospel
Don’t be naïve - the battle rages
• We must defend and confirm the gospel (Phil 1:7)
• Paul rebuked Peter for defiling the gospel (Gal 2:14)
• There are counterfeit gospels (2 Cor 11:4; Gal 1:6f)
• The gospel can be perverted (Gal 1:7f)
• We must defend the gospel, and contend for it (Phil 1:16; Phil 1:27)
• The gospel will be opposed (1 Thess 2:2)
• In chains for the gospel (Phil 1:13)
• Many warnings about false teachers and our calling to defend (Titus 1:10-16; 2 Peter 2)

Enemy #1: Idolatry
Rms 1:25 They worshipped and served created things rather than the Creator.
1 Thess 1:9 They tell how you turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God.

Idolatry is putting anything else as a God other than Jesus.
• Food (Phil 3:19). Sex (Rms 1:24, 26). Self-promotion (Jer 45:5). Money (Mat 6:24).
• How do you know what your idol is? Where do your thoughts tend to drift? This could be your idol, even if these things are good things.
• They make promises to satisfy on which they can’t deliver.

Enemy #2: Religion
Eph 3:8 For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— 9 not by works, so that no one can boast. 10 For we are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.

Religion: Get righteous through doing stuff – from self
Gospel: Get righteousness through free gift from God
• How do we build churches that get grace? By getting it ourselves.
• Grace is outrageous and incredible.

Rms 1:17 For in the gospel a righteousness from God is revealed, a righteousness that is by faith from first to last.
Rms 3:20-22 Now righteousness from God apart from the law has been made known…it comes from God through faith in Christ Jesus.

Religion: Works result in identity
Gospel: Identity results in works
• The gospel of grace gives us a brand new identity as Righteous Sons.
• God loves us and accepts us!

But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace to me was not without effect. No, I worked harder than all of them – yet not I, but the grace of God in me. (1 Cor 15v10)
I labour, struggling with all his energy, which so powerfully works in me (Col 1v29)
Work out your salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you to will and to act according to his good purpose (Phil 2v12-13)

Religion: Provokes sin
Gospel: Provokes holiness
• How does religion provoke me to sin?
• The law provokes sin: But sin, seizing the opportunity afforded by the commandment, produced in me every kind of covetous desire. For apart from the law, sin is dead (Rms 7:8)
• The law is impotent to produce righteousness: If a law had been given that could impart life, then righteousness would certainly have come by the law (Gal 3:21). Therefore no one will be declared righteous in his sight by observing the law (Rms 3:20)
• The law is only for use on the unsaved: We also know that law is made not for the righteous but for lawbreakers and rebels, the ungodly and sinful (1 Tim 1v8). The law was our schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ, that we might be justified by faith. But after that faith is come, we are no longer under a schoolmaster (Gal 3:24-25 KJV)

How does the gospel provoke righteousness?
• By abiding in Jesus we produce much fruit (John 15)
• Jesus would ask us: “Do you love me?” If we love him, nothing he asks us will be too much

4. Defenders of the Gospel (That’s us – preachers, church leaders, church planters, saints)

Get convinced of the gospel yourself
• My gospel (Rms 2:16; Rms 16:25; 2 Tim 2:8)
• Our gospel (1 Thess 1:5; 2 Thess 2:14)
• Entrusted with the gospel (1 Thess 2:4; 1 Tim 1:11; Gal 2:7)

Get set apart and called to it (Rms 1:1-2)
• Have a sense of destiny in the gospel
• You have been set aside for higher things – the defence of the gospel

Get accountable in the gospel (Gal 2:6)
• Check your message
• Check your calling

Get unashamed of the gospel
• Unashamed as you march on a city (Acts 17:26-27)
• Unashamed at getting yourself a hill, a stand (Mt 5:14-16)
• Unashamed because the good guys win in the end (Hab 2:14)
• Unashamed of calling people to repentance (Mt 4:17; Acts 2:38)

Become a slave of the gospel (Rms 1:1; Eph 3:7)

Now let us ask ourselves some very plain questions. Does God come first in my life or does business hold the supreme place? Is it God first or pleasure? God first or money? What about my family, my loved ones? Do they come first or does God?" "What then, are the terms of discipleship? Let me give the answer in just two words: "GOD FIRST." And if I could, I would put them on a banner in the sight every congregation in the world - GOD FIRST." (Oswald Smith; The Man God Uses).

MARS HILL CHURCH PLANTING CONFERENCE (5)

Matt Chandler: The Call to Preach

When God wants to do something profound he always finds a herald.

John 1:1-9 This is a strange construction – Jesus is introduced, but then John is introduced before the introduction of Jesus continues. Normally you do not interrupt your introduction of the main character in order to introduce someone else. What is going on?

Exodus 3:4-8 Yahweh says to Moses what he is going to do – so why does he bother to tell Moses?!

Isaiah 6:8-10 and Jeremiah 1:4-10 Again, God says what he is going to say, but he says he is going to say it through the prophets. God doesn’t need to do this – he could just say it himself, but normally God works through a man.

When Jesus appears there has been 400 years of prophetic silence, but he doesn’t appear until John has announced his appearing.

This pattern of God speaking through men continues with the giving of the Great Commission. Jesus tells the disciples what to do (Matthew 28:18-20) but it doesn’t actually begin to happen until Peter begins to preach it (Acts 2).

The rest of the book of Acts is then all preaching! Preaching is the means by which the gospel went forth. God’s means of spreading his word has always been the proclamation of that word by preaching.

The Preachers Call
2 Timothy 3:10-4:6

Timothy has seen Paul’s hardships, and all the nonsense he had to endure. But it is through preaching the scripture that salvation comes.

Those who preach suffer! Moses, Isaiah, Jeremiah and John all suffered. When John is in prison and sends a messenger to ask who Jesus is (Luke 7:19-23), Jesus quotes Isaiah’s promise of deliverance but misses out “the prisoners go free.” How encouraging must that have been?!

The pressure on the preacher will always be to give into the temptation to sell out. No culture likes to hear “You’re a sinner and going to hell.” It doesn’t matter how you contextualise this message – its never going to go down well. Sin has to be called sin and pointed out – the preacher can’t fail to do this out of cowardice. Where there is immaturity in a congregation it is always because of inadequate teaching of scripture.

We don’t like to preach when people don’t like what’s being preached! We would all rather preach to the choir and be popular. But we cannot do this – which is why Paul charges Timothy by the presence of God to be faithful in his preaching. The fear of God should be greater than our fear of man.

However, this preaching needs to be preached with patience. We can’t hate our people. Preaching should be more like surgery than a gang fight.

Note also that Paul tells Timothy that he is to, “fulfil your ministry.” Don’t try to fulfil someone else’s ministry. Don’t try to be someone else. Don’t try to be Driscoll! Do faithfully what God has called you to do and God will be pleased.

Preach it!

MARS HILL CHURCH PLANTING CONFERENCE (4)

Scott Thomas: The Call of the Great Commission

Jesus said, “Love me, love my bride.”

What is the condition of the church?

In the US 3,500 churches close every year. The number of megachurches is increasing, but the total number of people attending church is declining. The church has cut itself off from most of the population. How do we cross the barriers?

The answer is in the Great Commission (Matthew 28:20). The four main verbs in the commission are:
• Go
• Make disciples
• Baptize
• Teach

Of these making disciples is the key – we go in order to make disciples; we baptize people who are going to be disciples; we teach people in order that they might be disciples.

The church too often functions as a big cushion:
• A retreat centre
• Fellowship driven not mission driven
• Worship a la carte
• Preachers without courage
• Mission is for other lands

Rather than being fat cushions we need to be pacesetters. The pacesetter pastor:
• Keeps the mission of Jesus as the focus of the gathered community
• Is focussed on reaching all nations

The only way we can go to all nations is by going with the presence of Jesus. This has always been what is distinctive about the people of God. We need the empowerment of the Holy Spirit – without this we will be defeated in a hurry.

We are called to proclaim the gospel to all nations, in the power of the Spirit. (Luke 24:46-49; John 20:21-23)

Church planting is the inevitable result of going, making disciples, baptizing and teaching. The great commission is a commission to plant churches – going with the gospel will result in churches. We need to get the order right in this though – our motivation shouldn’t be to produce another Mars Hill; our motivation should be to proclaim the gospel.

How does planting a church fulfil the great commission? Every church should be a planting church – there should be a continuing cycle of churches planting churches, and so by reaching all nations.

MARS HILL CHURCH PLANTING CONFERENCE (3)

Boot Camp Session 1
Mark Driscoll: The Call of a Church Planter

The church planter needs to know he is called. A calling means you know God has called you and you need to do it. A call is not a job – it is what you are, not just what you do.

The call then needs to be confirmed, and coached.

13 Characteristics of Church Planters.
(Every church planter has to have the first of these, and at least one other.)

1. Have I responded to the gospel call and received the Holy Spirit? (Acts 1:8)
2. Is the Holy Spirit out ahead of me planting the church? (Acts 2) Planting a church requires money, people and a place. Is the Holy Spirit providing these?
3. Is my church planting call obvious to other godly leaders? (Acts 2:14) Potential church planters need to be assessed by proven church planters.
4. Has God confirmed my church plant by showing up in miraculous power? (Acts 3-4)
5. Am I reaching lost people to start my plant? (Acts 8:5-12) Planters need to be evangelists before they plant.
6. Has Jesus shown up and told me to plant? (Acts 9:15-18). E.g., Paul’s experience – this doesn’t happen often…
7. Has God called me to plant through a vision? (Acts 10:1 – 11:18; 16:9-10)
8. Has God providentially relocated me to plant? (Acts 11:19-21)
9. Is God sending me to plant because my church does not need me? (Acts 13:1-3)
10. Is God calling me to plant because I’m wasting my time in a toxic place? (Acts 14:1-7)
11. Am I called to be a catalytic church planter or to plant a church planting church centre? (Acts 14:23-26) I.e., am I going to stay in one place for life or keep on moving? A big part of this decision will be who your wife is!
12. Has God called me to plant by giving me a deep burden for a city/people? (Acts 17:16) This is the majority call for most Acts 29 planters.
13. Has God called me to plant by giving me a core group? (Acts 18:7-8)

The call then needs to be Confirmed – is the planter:
1. Qualified as an elder?
2. Humble?
3. A good husband and father?
4. Sound in doctrine?
5. Gifted?
6. Courageous?
7. Is the timing right?

The Called and Confirmed planter then needs to be Coached. Every planter needs a coach. Church planting networks that sustain themselves have good coaching.

MARS HILL CHURCH PLANTING CONFERENCE (2)

This morning the entire group of internationals who are here for the Church Planting Summit got together for the first time, before heading for a service at MHC's Ballard Campus. Ballard is the largest of the campuses (or is that 'campi'?) and the one at which Driscoll preaches live - the others then take his sermons as video or by satellite feed. However, today, for the first time in the church's history, Driscoll was sick and unable to preach all the services. He had managed to do the 9am service though, so the video of this was being shown. We actually considered this to be God's providence as a number of the guys are working on mulit-site strategies for their churches and wanted to see how it felt to be in a video venue. The answer? It feels just fine - Driscoll is obviously good in front of the camera, and the production standards are extraordinarily high here, and it didn't seem in any way a lesser experience to be watching video rather than a live preacher.


In the afternoon there was a session with Tim Smith, the worship pastor at Mars Hill, but I took the opportunity to get some time with Rory Dyer, a pastor from South Africa. We then went to Mars Hill's downtown campus. This started just a year ago, and has already grown to three services and a congregation of 700 people. Tim Gaydos, the campus pastor, was very impressive. Here he is with Scott Thomas talking about the venue, which used to be a notorious nightclub...


My observations at the end of today? Mars Hill does things to an unbelievable standard. The quality of production is incredible - the musicians are brilliant, the publicity is spot-on, the buildings are kitted out really well, the audio-visual stuff is stunning. There's no embarrassing pause waiting for the right video clip to come up here, or squawking PA. There is a real cultural appropriateness as well, so while everything is done excellently, it is clearly very Seattle - the Downtown campus especially is pure grunge.

There is a massive emphasis upon the cross and clearly Driscoll's preaching is the big draw. I have asked as many non-leaders as possible why they come, and the first answer is always, "the teaching." The worship is very different from what I am used to though, with not nearly so much congregational participation (let alone contribution) as I would want in my church. In a setting where the whole focus is on reaching the lost you can see why this makes sense - it is easy for people to come in off the street and enjoy the music without feeling pressurized to sing along, which is one of the things I think unbelievers often find weird and uncomfortable about church. As one of the other guys in our group said, "I wouldn't normally choose to listen to worship music, but I'd put this on my CD player." Even so, I feel happier with our approach to worship.

We are being treated incredibly generously and it is a great privilege to get to look so closely into this church. The sense of mission and passion for the city is inspiring, and our minds are all whirring with thoughts about how to apply what we are learning back at home.

Tomorrow the Boot Camp for prospective church planters starts. Await my next update...

MARS HILL CHURCH PLANTING CONFERENCE (1)

Seattle is a beautiful city - situated on the Puget Sound and surrounded by mountains. Most of the time you can't see them because it is raining, but yesterday we were graced with perfect clear skies and went up the Space Needle to savour the view.



Seattle is also a very funky town, and the Pike Place market is an interesting place to hang out. It was here that the first Starbucks was founded, way back in 1971 (which seems to be ancient history in the US). Whether Starbucks global hegemony is now a good thing or not is a matter of opinion, but it was interesting to see where it all began.


Starbucks massive expansion is a goad for church planting - if they can do it, why can't we?

It has been great getting some extended time with Scott Thomas, director of the Acts 29 church planting network.


Today I have been sitting in with him on the Pastors Training Program that Acts 29 runs. Every six weeks a group of planters from around the US fly into Seattle for coaching with Scott and his team, and it was interesting to see how this works. I also got to have a look around the Mars Hill office complex - check out Driscoll's Spurgeon statue (which looks remarkably similar to Scott Thomas!)...


Tomorrow the conference proper starts, and I'll try to get some details up about that.

STARBUCKS CITY

I'm off to Seattle, to a church planting conference at Mars Hill Church, tagging along with my friend PJ Smyth who is one of the headline speakers.

If I can get internet connection (do you think they have the internet in Seattle?) and if there is any space in the schedule I might put some posts up about how its going. Otherwise, I'll be back in a week or so.

Should be fun...

INEVITABLE WORSHIP

I have never been a real football (soccer for the American brethren) fan. I know that this probably disqualifies me as a Genuine British Male, but there it is. I like the game well enough, but it just doesn’t excite me as much as some other things, and I have never had one team that I have shown hyper-fidelity to. However, I do religiously check the results of the teams from the towns where I have lived – Southampton, Bournemouth, Brighton, Newcastle and Charlton.

This season it looks like all five of these teams are going to be relegated from their respective leagues.

I hope I am not the causal factor.

Last night I went to see Elbow in concert. They were terrific.

Last Sunday we had Phatfish leading worship at Gateway, and the week before that Simon Brading. They were memorable times.

All these experiences have got me thinking about the importance of participation and identification. We humans have an innate need to participate in and identify with something bigger than ourselves.

Why does football have such huge popular appeal? Participation (from the stands, vicariously through the team) and identification.

Elbow were great not only because they played well (you would probably get better sound quality in your front room with a CD and reasonable stereo system, and you would certainly be more comfortable), but gigging has appeal because it offers opportunity for participation and identification. Even though there were a couple of thousand people there last night, it was still intimate enough for some banter between the crowd and Guy Garvey – it felt participative.

And as Simon and Lou led worship there was a sense of participation – “We’re in this together, we’re being led somewhere, but we’re important to how the journey goes” – and of identification – “We’re in this because we’re in Christ!”

We are all worshippers.

After last nights concert Grace observed that she hadn’t wanted to raise her hands, because to do so felt too much like worship of the band. There’s nothing wrong with singing from the terraces or getting sweaty at a gig – I like the sense of human contact – but worship is best when it is participating and identifying in Christ. There is nothing bigger than that.

EAT JESUS

A new blog launches today: EatJesus.

This blog is owned and managed by Matt Sweetman, a church planter in Chicago, who desires to create an online resource that has a wide influence in the kingdom of God. Money generated from the sale of related products and advertisements will support his church planting efforts in Chicago and allow the church to finance other movements throughout the city, state, nation and world.

Matt has pulled together a blogging team to author the blog - and I am part of that team. Check out this video to see what its all about.

EatJesus.com from EatJesus on Vimeo.