Radio One chat shows in the UK are not exactly known for being pro Christian. But this video has commentary from Chris Moyles for six minutes with his team talking about his very positive reaction to watching a televised service that was a bit different to your average church (HT Peter O):

Its way past time I announced the winners of the Vintage Church competition. I had a lot of entries and its only now that I have managed to squeeze in some time to judge them. Ten copies will be given away free, provided the people involved all get me their addresses.

Facebook
There are two winners from the facebook group: Joseph and
Biblical Servanthood. There were other entries which can be found in friends of adrianwarnock.com

Blog Entries

Winners - The Gospel Church - The Success Story Of History and
Dave Bish

Other enteries included
Why I love the Church...
Thoughts on the Church (part 1): Order of Service
Come and Worship Together

Twitter
Winners -
mitchmajeski "I'm Pastor Mitch and I Love My Church" http://is.gd/hWrU
thegreatrescue http://tinyurl.com/ahdryx = My Blog About The Church
billy_johnson here is why I love my church: http://tinyurl.com/cxrqmd
NickStapleton The church is not a hall for saints, but a hospital for sinners.

Other enteries
scott_welch Jesus is building His church! and I'd love a free book!!!

nate_downey The church is a bunch of weak/foolish/lowly people who have nothing to boast in save the cross around which we gather

jacobpaulbreeze I just spent a week with about 40 pastors fr the Dominican Republic. Jesus truly is OUR Chief Shepherd.

chrisbowers i love the church cuz its closest thing 2 home this side o heaven, you just cant stay inside always cuz you need new friends!

corechurchtroy I already have a copy, great stuff! Driscoll has caught my attention.

christcentred@adrianwarnock The church: Loved by Jesus; loves Jesus; loves those who love Jesus. All Christians should love it too! I'll try blog more.

terirn The church provides me a way 2 connect w/fellow believers 2 unwind & rev up 4 the next wk. It is the vitamins in my diet.

TrueConvert I love the Church b/c without Her, I couldn't be saved. The Church is who Christ came to die for to provide life to His elect

DSeidelman The power went out in Louisville, KY. My community group at church (crossinglouisville.com) gladly offered me a couch!

kyleheine The Church is a whore, but she's my mother.

GregAtkinson when congregants get up to leave, it's not people leaving the church - it's the Church leaving a building.

ianjukes The universe is the stage upon which the story of two lovers is played out; Jesus and his church. All else are bit players.

acts29 I long to see the church following Jesus' mission and not its own mission. Vintage Church by @pastormark

MitchSchellinge@adrianwarnock I believe we are ALL called to be heroes in this age, at this place. Heroes don't save, they serve.

jclaytor@adrianwarnock i love The Church!

texasaggie1@adrianwarnock I like the church :)


ben_meredith@adrianwarnock here's why I love my church. http://tinyurl.com/bfwu84

michael_simpson@adrianwarnock religion sucks, but Jesus is cool. His bride is made perfect, washed pure by His blood. We are liberated by his perfect love.


stevebrown67@adrianwarnock i love the church because it demonstrates all the wisdom of God to all the universe. The Ch. shows how wise God is (Eph 3:10)

theugfm@adrianwarnock the church has been, is now, and always will be the only hope in a dying world.... Jesus is that hope....

allenmickle@adrianwarnock - See my post about the local church here: http://tinyurl.com/atj4gm


dsecrest@adrianwarnock I love the church because it has equipped my wife and I to teach our children about Jesus.

geoffpfeil@adrianwarnock The church is the bride of Christ. Although flawed I choose to honor her.

johntmeche3@adrianwarnock Mark Driscoll stole our church's name! I go to Vintage Church in New Orleans. Our members are instructed to be the church.

Forehand@adrianwarnock One reason I love the church is because it has been the comforting arms of my Heavenly Father in the midst of my tragedy.

youthmaster@adrianwarnock the church was always meant to serve one another in love, being a place of community and belonging. We need that again!

SaintLewis@adrianwarnock Not being raised in the church, I loved the diversity of style I discovered within various bodies - I could be ME.

jvmoore1@adrianwarnock "you cannot care for me with no regard for her. If you love me you will love the church."

paper_boy@adrianwarnock I love the local church because it is our opportunity to exhibit the "one anothers". We also get to minister to one another.

stankey@adrianwarnock I love the Church because she, despite our best attempts to the contrary, is becoming more and more beautiful every day.

tneale73 the only hope for the world!

govsocgradessex@adrianwarnock the church is bigger than the boxes the churches put themselves in (with regard to flocks)

VIDEO:

Tim Keller - Cultural Transformation from Newfrontiers on Vimeo.

In his final session with Newfrontiers Keller highlighted that we find relating to the culture to be an increasing problem in the West. We now have a post-Christian culture. The Anglo-saxons struggled with Christianity because it believed in forgiveness and compassion for the weak. They felt that culture couldn't survive without respect and fear. Northern European paganism was bloodthirsty and power hungry. Christianity changed the attitudes to the poor and weak. Society now says we don't need Christianity because we care for the weak, and we forgive.

They have robbed christianity of all their assets but thrown out God. The claim is that we dont need God to have a society. Lets be Christian for 2000 years then throw it out, and maybe it works. We have a new situation. Secular societies in Europe are living off the plundered capital of Christianity. But we have earned the scorn of the unbelievers.

The old problem of paganism is the idea of individual power which is creeping back in. At the street level increasingly as Christianity recedes life will be based on individual power and exploitation. Europe almost needs to get really non-Christian to get Christian again. It has many of the benefits and refinements of a Christian civilization but has lost the heart.

Have to reflect more and more about how to relate. Three wrong ways to go and one right.

1. Defensive against
- triumphalism, Marked by the Christian right. Attitude is that largely through politics we need to take back the culture by taking Christian values and making sure the law upholds them. No distinction between private and public. Get back into corridors of power. Get legislation.

2. Purity from
They say that Christians shouldn't try and purify society at all. Neo-Anabaptist - form counter cultures but don't salt society. Just win souls. Stay away.

3. Relevant To
Christians are so out of it we need to change. Make our music and message are culturally relevant. Hip. Get updated.

4. Faithful presence within
We are not trying to take over nor trying to be absent. We need to be willing and able to take our people into the financial world, the arts, the academic world, movies and TV. Be in all those places. Going to them to serve. We have to help people integrate their faith with their work. Churches tend to pull people out of their world into the church. "I want to teach you how to run a bible study and eventually become an elder". We need to help people to know what kind of roles can I accept as a Christian actor. What I am doing is important.

You are salt of the earth. This is about being a preservative, medicine and seasoning. Serve people changing people, leavening. If you are not salt you are sand. It's tough not to suck up to the culture and compromise. We must be faithful.

I love the local church. More specifically I love our local church, Jubilee. It acts as a channel of God's blessings to me. I feel his presence in our meetings. I enjoy worshipping God there. I learn more about him, and his gospel, and how to live in the light of that wondrous news. I have many many great friends, and I and my family feel truly at home. I have my own part to play, and it provides the main outlet outside of my family for me to serve my saviour. But most of all its a place that is truly all about Jesus, and our church reveals his glory to me in a myriad different ways. I love our church, but Jesus loves every local expression of his bride even more.

Because I am thrilled by what Jesus is doing in the world through his church, I was delighted to hear that Mark Driscoll and Gary Breshears have continued their ubiquitous writing career with Vintage Church. Thanks to the generosity of the folks at The Resurgence, I can offer a number of free copies to readers of my blog.

To have a chance of winning a copy, all you need to do is write a post about any aspect of the Church. If you have a blog, simply write anything you like on the subject of church, and link back to this post so that I can easily track the entries. If you don't have a blog, then get over to facebook and post your entry on the friends of adrianwarnock.com group. If you are on twitter, tweet me about the church @adrianwarnock for a chance to win.

I will hopefully be able to link to each of the blog posts from this blog and quote from the best tweets and facebook messages. My favorite comments will also receive from the Resurgence a free copy of Vintage Jesus. So there you have it, a challenge to write about the church.

Terry Virgo has been blogging a series entitled Remember the Poor. He begins by talking about the extraordinary sense of togetherness that was experienced by the early church. I suppose I would characterize it as a sense of "brothers in arms." There was a missional purpose that was accompanied by a relational togetherness. Sadly, we often miss one or the other of these aspects in our churches, or even both of them. The family of the church is meant to be a family fighting alongside each other in the trenches, not sipping tea together in front of a roaring fire in a cozy house. Here is an extract from Terry's post:

The birth of the church was associated with an extraordinary splurge of generosity and freedom from possessiveness; being together seemed more important. Their needs became common. If you need it and I’ve got it, I guess you should have it. Amazing!

This has not got much to do with giving 10% to a weekly offering to uphold the minister and his needs and pay for the building not to fall down. This was radical common life. They were in fellowship, which did not mean they shared a cup of coffee after the meeting for a few minutes.

Koinonia is a fascinating Greek word. Among other things, it means partnership. It’s not strictly a religious word, but the church flooded it with fresh life and colour. Before they ever met Jesus, Peter, Andrew, James, and John were in koinonia. They were partners in a fishing firm. They owned it together. If one was in problems with breaking nets, the others would rush to help. This was not a religious response, it was a partnership reality.

That partnership or common ownership lifestyle gripped the early believers."

Read more . . .

Spurgeon's book, The Soul Winner, is the kind of book you really need to read several times over the course of your life. I decided to dip into it once more over the summer, and read just the first chapter. It's a book I have recommended previously. I found the following quote which is interesting. He is speaking about how church growth statistics are indicative of something. I wonder how many Spurgeon lovers today would agree with his assessment of churches which are not growing by conversion?

"I am not among those who decry statistics, nor do I consider that they are productive of all manner of evil; for they do much good if they are accurate, and if men use them lawfully. It is a good thing for people to see the nakedness of the land through statistics of decrease, that they may be driven on their knees before the Lord to seek prosperity; and, on the other hand, it is by no means an evil thing for workers to be encouraged by having some account of results set before them. I should be very sorry if the practice of adding up, and deducting, and giving in the net result were to be abandoned, for it must be right to know our numerical condition. It has been noticed that those who object to the process are often brethren whose unsatisfactory reports should somewhat humiliate them: this is not always so, but it is suspiciously frequent.

I heard of the report of a church, the other day, in which the minister, who was well known to have reduced his congregation to nothing, somewhat cleverly wrote, "Our church is looking up." When he was questioned with regard to this statement, he replied, "Everybody knows that the church is on its back, and it cannot do anything else but look up." When churches are looking up in that way, their pastors generally say that statistics are very delusive things, and that you cannot tabulate the work of the Spirit, and calculate the prosperity of a church by figures.

The fact is, you can reckon very correctly if the figures are honest, and if all circumstances are taken into consideration if there is no increase, you may calculate with considerable accuracy that there is not much being done; and if there is a clear decrease among a growing population, you may reckon that the prayers of the people and the preaching of the minister are not of the most powerful kind."

— C. H.Spurgeon

UPDATE An friend of mine just emailed me the following, which we both agreed to keep anonymous.

On Spurgeon, firstly he was a man of his times. In those days active churches grew - churchgoing was a national habit, not a bizarre minority practice - that is one reason why CHS wanted to see conversions, not endless transfers to sit under his ministry.

I do believe that we can say today with confidence, however, that active churches don't decline unless something is wrong. We might struggle to grow - but note that he says that the keys are good preaching and good prayer, and if a church declines then something is deficient. He doesn't say that a church has to grow hugely - of course that is what we seek because we want to see people saved. My own small church has maintained and even gained a little in the last two years I have been there.

In my constituency (reformed evangelical (cessationist although I hate the term)) some churches grow. Prime example being Spurgeon's own Met Tab. Why? I say CHS's formula is correct - sound and inspiring ministry with strong evangelistic content, and prayer - those Tabernacle church prayer meetings are what I miss the most. People falling over themselves to call upon the name of the Lord, it was like a seige on the Throne of heaven. If I am ever in London on a monday night and free, that is where I'll be! Other churches grow too, and again the formula holds.

You might be interested to know that Spurgeon also preached that it was a glorious thing to hold to a losing cause. He cited Noah as an example. A minority of one. That is in an unpublished sermon due out from Day One in January 09. . . As a friend of my quipped recently 'How many converts did Jeremiah have?'

And all this said it is DOUBTLESS true that those of a high calvinist (hyper) tendency will always decry any numbers game as unspiritual. I count my congregations every week and keep records. I may become aware of personal spiritual declines but I must be aware of trends in the numbers. If they fall, even more prayer is needed!

Ultimately I have never visited a shrinking church . . .where I could not SEE why the church was diminishing. It may be hard for those 'faithful' ones there to accept that they need to change things - but facts don't lie. One of the greatest scourges of our independent churches today is a crying failure to raise up godly men, for ministers to spot and train more ministers, so that pulpits are not empty. It is so chronic one might almost call it a judgement.

Terry began by recommending the outstanding biography of John Newton written by Jonathan Aitkin. I have listened to the CD version and enjoyed it immensely. I join Terry in commending it strongly to you. Terry also recommended two books by Christopher Wright on being missional.

Mark Driscoll began by returning to the marks of a spirit-filled church. He again explained to us that he believes we have been faithful in the mission. He feels, however, that perhaps we could see more fruitfulness. He is convinced that we can grow more quickly and be more effective at reaching people for Christ.

More posts from this conference can be found on my TOAM08 label page. You can download the mp3 of Mark's talk or listen to it right here:


As he began, I was very impressed that, as he prayed, he asked the Holy Spirit to guard his words, his attitude, and his tone.

Here, then, is Driscoll’s eight-point definition of the Church. Some of these constitute the being, and others the well-being of the Church.

1. Regenerated Church Membership

Qualified Church Leadership

This is, he believes, THE strength of Newfrontiers based on what he has seen. In particular, Driscoll said it is very important to hold the line on male eldership. To oppose this position is very popular among those who are not successful. You have to approach the Scriptures differently to come to the opposite position. One of the reasons Newfrontiers is strong, argues Driscoll, is because of our commitment to male elders. If we ever compromise on that issue, we will find our blessing will diminish. Continue to hold that line. To change it changes everything—how families are organized, etc. Church life sets the pattern for home life. We need pastor-dads who are shepherds to their own flock at home. Keep holding that line!!

Gathering Regularly for Preaching and Worship.

He feels he is learning a lot from us on worship. (See also what he said on his blog about Newfrontiers.)

Rightly Administered Sacraments

Unity and Affection, which is evidence of the Holy Spirit

Discipline for Holiness

Church discipline is critical. Church discipline is correction, not retribution, just the same as in the family. Not to destroy someone, but to persuade them not to continue in sin. Don't preach one thing and fail to enforce it.

Obey the Great Commandment to Love—Church and Neighbor

Obey the Great Commission to Evangelize and Make Disciples

If definitions 1 through 7 are not present, you cannot do mission because unity isn't there. Prayer and worship and fellowship can be so much loved that we somehow just trust that the work will get done. Since we also believe God is sovereign, we tend to let him figure it out. Because we are charismatics, we tend to think the Spirit will figure it out. Truth is, we need a plan, and a more intentional one. We will see some growth without an intentional plan because we’re healthy, but if we are intentional about it we will grow faster.

God will be glorified by making disciples. Don't have a branch of church called the “Mission Department.” We have to have ALL branches of our churches being missional. So kids work is about discipleship of kids, etc. We want our children to be on a mission with us, too.

There was a missionary in India, and he discovered upon his return that London had become just as pagan as India was. He realized that the churches didn't think they needed to be missional themselves. If you are a Christian, you tend to become assimilated into the subculture of the church. Take all our missional thinking and be missionaries in the West.

Some people think of church as a bomb-shelter. You can identify this by lots of “we and them” language. Here you will find lots of preaching against the culture, not engagement with it. You will find people who share your values and protect your kids. There is no attempt to evangelize. This is classic fundamentalism.

Other people see church as a mirror. This is classic liberalism. Gender issues is a classic current example. If the culture is for an issue, the church then compromises and mirrors what is in the culture. No attempt is made to redeem the culture. They may be more aware, but in the end they are less helpful.

Some see church as a parasite. They enter the culture to take out of it for themselves. There is no real giving. They want to benefit from what happens, but not do for them. Ask non-Christians what they think of the church. Their answer will be—no serving the poor, no helping, no doing good, and taking, not contributing.

Some see church as a city within a city—a city on a hill. The Church is the city of God within the city of the world. Here the Church loves Jesus, believes the Bible, practices grace, and the power of God is made known. The people live differently within the culture. They are not antagonistic or negative, but live an alternative life style. They invite others to join in this life style.

Driscoll then began to identify the twelve aspects of a missional church.

First, a missional church sees the church as a missional outpost—with a view for growth. We have a weakness in Newfrontiers, in Driscoll's view, which is a fear of multiple services. More options means more people can be reached. Multiple services should become a goal. People can tend to define the church by the number of people in a room at one time. But it should be defined by the number of people on a mission, even if they are never in a room together. Can have multiple campuses. Can have one church in more than one location as a second form of church planting. A missional church does church plant. We should set aside money specifically for church planting. At least 10 per cent of church funds at Acts 29 churches go to church planting.

Second, a missional church sees every Christian as a missionary. Cares for those with whom they come in contact. Pays attention to getting out and reaching out. Needs their people to be good theologians and good apologists. Sets things up so people naturally bring their non-Christian friends to church. Shares the gospel every single Sunday. If you think that they are all Christians, they are not! If, for example, you want men, preach to men, even if there are none there because their wives will get them to come. It can’t be a goofy presentation of the gospel, it must be a relevant one. Every week train them to recognize how everything relates to Jesus, e.g. marriage, parenting, etc. Mark shared an example of a couple in the church who couldn't understand why they shouldn't sleep together outside of marriage. He told them, “You are preaching a false gospel.” He asked them if their friends knew that they were Christians and were doing this. If so, he explained, they were saying the wrong thing with their lives. Jesus has a bride, not a girlfriend.

If people know that there will be preaching about Jesus and the gospel every week, they will bring their friends. It won’t matter what week they come. Mars Hill has a group that discusses what he has preached. Those who come don't have to be Christians and can ask questions. Most people will allow you to pray for them, even if they are atheists. As soon as you get cancer, your become an agnostic. “Would you mind if I pray for you right now?”

Bring converts on stage. Let them tell their story. Tell them to share their stories before you baptize them. Stories drive us to being missional. A church is cursed when there are no converts or babies.

Daniel and his contemporaries weren’t just in Babylon to be punished, but to be a missionary to share the knowledge of God to all those kings. Driscoll again said that in watching Newfrontiers, it was his observation that we are devoted to the Lord. But we must be more of a witness to those around us.

Third, a missional church is keenly aware of the local culture. (Acts 17—He SAW that the city was full of idols.) We must be greatly troubled. We are too submerged in our Christian subculture. We need to ask ourselves, “What is going on in the world? What is popular? Which shows are women watching? Which are men watching?” He watches teenage girl shows because he wants to know what they are thinking! He wants to get ahead of his daughter. Fast-forward them. Ultimate fighting is the fastest growing sport in the USA, for example. TV shows the different gods, whether sports, fame, sex, money, etc. Look for the idols. Watch it missiologically. Don't be naïve. Stop the movie and discuss it with them. Where is the Dad? Dad is an idiot, but the dog is smart. What are they trying to tell us? That if you can’t trust Dad, you should do it yourself. TV shows are sermons. Watch Extreme Makeover. Ask yourself, “What is missing? Why does this family need this house?” None of the families have a Dad! Where’s the Dad? Use the examples that are out there. Work illustrations into the preaching. They know who Posh Spice is, or whoever! I pay attention to your world; now let me tell you about the culture of the Bible. Listen to radio/drive time TV. Know what people are talking about. See who are the teams and tribes. Find your kids My Space page! Find the teens in your church. Facebook and My Space are like a Catholic confessional. Pay attention to the students lives in the church. What are your people reading in blogs?

Magazines have on their cover someone's definition of heaven. Car heaven, six-pack heaven, stereo heaven, photography heaven, etc. Visions of heaven. If you buy the magazine can be delivered from your hell and give you your heaven. Do these things and you will get there. It’s evangelism. How does this work with the Bible? Is that view of heaven they are offering false? Why? What is the underlying need the magazine is trying to address?

People are devoted religiously to hobbies, sports, etc. Go to the mall before the kids do! If shopkeepers are working in the middle of the afternoon they are bored. See what they are selling and buying. Ask questions of the bored store workers. He walked into a teenage girls’ clothing store. He said, “Do you have anything in my size?” He told her the truth, that he is a pastor always looking to learn, who has a daughter who is almost a teenager. “Who shops here? What do they buy?” He walked out understanding more of why girls feel pressured to look a certain way.

Grocery store. Go with the intent of looking at everything. What’s there? What does it tell you? Big organic section means there are more green people. They believe in justification by recycling so you need to have recycling bins at church! Good to learn.

First place—where do they live? Second place—where do they work? Third place—where do they play? Go to where they play. Where they would live if they could afford it! Where do they really want to be?

Do you have a total routine? Repent and stop doing it. Leave early and use it to look around. There are multiple ways to do church work—see what is happening in your neighborhood. His wife asks, “Where are we going?” He says, “Don't worry, we will get there. I’m not lost I am missiological. Interesting! There's new businesses going in here, young families moving in. Pull over and start asking people questions.

This is not British, but that is why the UK is so non-Christian.

Building works asked the foreman, “What’s going on?” Oh, couples leaving, so we’re tearing down some homes and building condos. That’s more people. Start a new community group there and welcome them into the neighborhood. What is happening?

Speak to parents. What is happening to the kids? Talk to the people who talk to the people. Ask the cashier questions. Who comes in here? Who’s the weirdest person who ever comes in here? Talk to the people in service economy. They see hundreds of thousands of people all week. They see the real deal!

What’s going on lately at the bank? Was told people are freaking out. Checks bouncing. Well, maybe we should do seminars on money then! Always look for new opportunities.

Start an evening service for new people. They had five services where he preached live, but that felt like being hit by a truck. So they went down to four services, which now feels like being hit by a car! Services at 8:30 at night are packed and people even show up late! People who are out last night won’t get up for a 9 a.m. service. He pastors people publicly by text message, i.e. asks questions anonymously. Someone once asked, “I have been raped, can I get an abortion?”

Consider everybody in your church. It’s okay to be family friendly, have a great kids program, help your marriage. But if you’re not careful, singles may get the impression that you don't want them, don't need them, don't like them. Now there are more unmarried than married people! These days being married to a woman and having children is countercultural. If someone who is the product of an abused home walks in, etc., it’s not about trying to maintain a good family.

When preaching through the book of Ruth, Mars Hill showed great growth at that time. They had to turn 300 people away from one of their services! Is your church welcoming, friendly, a hospital to those people? Or is it all married couples and families?

Missional church contends and contextualizes. Jude says “Contend for the faith.” What are we going to fight over? What’s in the closed hand? You guys love the Bible, Jesus, the cross, the resurrection, the ministry of the Holy Spirit, the poor, the lost, church planting. Keep that! Fight for them! But also contextualize. By ALL MEANS save as MANY people as possible. Do it for the sake of the gospel. Open the door to your church as broadly as you can without compromising. Use technology, etc.

We are NOT trying to make Christianity relevant, but rather are showing that it IS ALREADY relevant.

If a teenage girl tells you she lost her virginity to her father, the gospel IS relevant to her, but she needs to be shown HOW it is. So said I need to speak to you about expiation. “I’ve no idea about what that means!” Took some time, showed her that what was done to her the Bible calls a sin, a horrific evil. Fathers are privileged to carry the name father and carry it with nobility and honor. What has happened to you is shocking. What did you do afterwards? Took a shower because I felt dirty. You were defiled. The Bible says there is sin that is done by us and against us. And sin does make us dirty. “I will always feel dirty.” Jesus is God. He came to earth, was abused and beaten and tormented and shamed. He was humiliated and tortured. He can sympathize with you. God was sinned against. Jesus went to the cross and they killed him. But he forgives our sin AND cleanses us from all unrighteousness (1 John 1). She said, “I feel totally ashamed.” Jesus endured the cross and scorned its shame. Jesus died not only to forgive you, but to cleanse you from the sins against you. That shower was an effort for you to cleanse yourself, but it can’t cleanse your soul, your identity, your femininity. The gospel was relevant to her! She responded immediately. Driscoll said to her, “Choose to see yourself as Jesus does. You need Jesus so you can be cleansed, pure, and wear white!”

We don't MAKE Jesus relevant; we show how he already IS relevant.

Today we turn to look at why some churches are successful and what we can learn from them. Ed also mentions an old post of mine called "I Want It All" and said he agreed with at least some of that sentiment.

In the second part of this interview with Ed Stetzer we turned our attention to discussing church planting.

Al Mohler has hinted at it, saying he wants to put Southern Baptist Theological Seminary out of business. I have long thought it, but not dared to say it on the blog. Piper has quietly come out with it in what, at first glance, seems to be just another ministry newsletter, but in it—although he doesn't use the following exact words—it is clear that what he means is this:

Leadership training in the 21st century Church simply HAS to change!
With rising debts associated with pastoral training and the desperate need for true "on the job" training, what seems to be needed is, in Mohler's words, "a seminary in every church." Piper's announcement seems to take that call very literally with its opportunity to obtain a degree while being a part of this unique congregation. He also speaks about a different financial approach designed to avoid the heavy debt produced by a typical theological education. If I was in the market for a theological degree right now, I think I know just where I would be sending my application!

Here is Piper's announcement about the expansion of their vision.

Dear friends of TBI,

With trembling gratefulness in my heart, I look at the remarkable cluster of visionary ministries growing like fruit on the tree of Bethlehem Baptist Church.

• We are a kind of mission-sending agency with 85 foreign missionary units (families or singles) who count Bethlehem as their main sending base.
  
  
• Campus Outreach has exploded in its four-plus years at Bethlehem, with 25 staff on four campuses.
  
  
• Desiring God has been spreading resources and holding conferences for over a decade, and nourishes people around the world with its Internet presence.
  
  
• Children Desiring God is transforming the way children are nurtured in over two thousand churches in the US and overseas.
  
  
• Bethlehem Urban Initiatives pushes truth and love into the inner city.
  
  
• Treasuring Christ Together plants churches and channels Christ-exalting relief and reformation to the poorest of the poor.
  
  
• The Bethlehem Institute has graduated nine classes of pastoral and missionary-destined men for Bible-saturated, God-centered ministry.

I mention these as a testimony to God’s sovereign grace working through a remarkably unified, Christ-exalting, Bible-cherishing, Spirit-filled, doctrinally Reformed, people-loving, hard-thinking, deep-feeling, justice-advancing, globally aware, eldership at Bethlehem over the last two decades. In other words, the fruit of such a ministry has not only been souls saved and saints edified, but new structures of multiplication created.

One of the most explosive of these new structures is The Bethlehem Institute. I am writing this letter to express my amazement and joy over what God appears to be doing with this ministry.

Nothing here has been precipitous. It has been in the making for over ten years. I would say it goes back twenty-five years to Tom Steller’s earliest mentoring of apprentices and teaching hundreds of our people what used to be called LTTTR (Leadership Training Through Theological Reflection).

Now a flash point has been reached for moving to new levels of training and a new place of ministry.

The new levels of education include moving toward becoming an accredited college and seminary. That means offering, as soon as is feasible, an accredited BA in Biblical Studies and an accredited MA and MDiv at the seminary level.

What moves me most deeply about this plan is that it is all built around a solid, biblical, Reformed affirmation of faith—The Bethlehem Baptist Church Elder Affirmation of Faith. The longer I have thought about it, the more it has seemed wise to me that the educational enterprise I would love to give my remaining life to is one that is robustly Reformed with all the vital signs connected with Christian Hedonism:

• A vision that stresses the sovereignty of God,
  
  
• the truth that God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in him,
  
  
• the inerrancy of Scripture,
  
  
• rigorous thought with disciplined habits of mind,
  
  
• intense affections awakened by a true vision of God,
  
  
• cultural awareness and discerning engagement,
  
  
• creative and compelling expressions of great old truth in fresh ways,
  
  
• global concern, especially for the unreached peoples of the earth,
  
  
• courageous, risk-taking readiness to suffer and die for Christ,
  
  
• a wartime lifestyle that prefers simplicity over luxury and generosity over riches,
  
  
• serious friendships that last a lifetime,
  
  
• corporate life and worship in the local church,
  
  
• and a respect for history and what we can learn from it.

Add to this that the dreamers at this stage in TBI include those who have long experience in higher education. They see the paralyzing effects of massive debt incurred by college students. We believe there is a way to re-conceive higher education to avoid this kind of debt so that students are free for radical mission. We do not aim at just being another school. It will have, we believe, a unique combination of theological, intellectual, affectional, communal, and financial commitments.

I would like to be a part of this vision for the remainder of my life. I believe the church and the world need leaders shaped by this vision of God. I pray that you will find it compelling.

Please, send inquiries to info@thebethleheminstitute.org.

Spreading a passion for the supremacy of God in all things,

John Piper
Pastor for Preaching and Vision
Bethlehem Baptist Church


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UPDATE
The written transcript of this interview is now available and can be read here.

In the second part of my interview with Don Carson we spoke about how to prepare people to serve as leaders and preachers in the Church. We spoke about the place of seminary, and about those who, like Martyn Lloyd-Jones, serve without spending time there. We also spoke about conferences, and the importance of recognizing that most of us are just going to be ordinary Christians. You can view part 1 here.

My video interview with John Piper will begin on Monday.

UPDATE
The written text of this interview is now available. You can access it here.

The following video was filmed at New Word Alive in April of this year, when I had the opportunity to speak with Don Carson. We spoke about his reasons for coming to the UK, about how he chose to leave the field of chemistry to become a pastor and then left pastoral ministry to train ministers in a seminary, the crucial importance of the local church, and his relationship with his father.

My interview will conclude tomorrow with part 2.




Jonathan Leeman has kindly transcribed some of the key points about seminaries and churches:

• "The front line is the local church, and there's a sense in which the seminary is a back up slot."
  
  
• "The first impetus toward ministry and toward stamping people for what ministry ought to be ought to be within the context of the local church."
  
  
• "A good seminary, a good theological college, helps to provide the kind of training, and further exposure, more technical knowledge, grasp of the language, this sort of thing, that virtually no local church can produce."
  
  
• "Yet it's really important for those who teach in such places, nevertheless, to be pastors first, because if they think of themselves as teachers and scholars first, then they tend to produce teachers and scholars. So there's a stamping not simply from the course materials, but from your own values, what you think about, what you dream about."
  
  
• "So at our seminary, we always hire a certain percentage of faculty who wish they were in the pastoral ministry or else, quite frankly, we don't want them. Now, they have to be academically competent and all the rest. But we don't want people who just want to be in a seminary.We want people who, in many ways, would prefer to be in the local church."

I have just been listening to a message by my pastor, Tope Koleoso, who was recorded at a recent conference on building a multicultural church. I have become so used to what God has been doing these past couple of years at Jubilee that I sometimes need to remind myself that genuinely racially integrated churches are actually far from common. We truly have a lot to be grateful for. I really think you may well enjoy listening to Tope on this subject. The message can be downloaded or you can listen to it right here:



Other talks from the same conference are also available, as is a series of talks on 'gracism' preached at another multicultural church in South London.

Tope is a dynamic speaker, and most of the time does not focus on racial issues, preferring to simply get on with preaching the Bible to a church which happens to have different nationalities attending. If you want to hear more of him, you can visit the website of the church I attend where you will also find sermons by others, including myself. Tope has also preached at a number of other churches, and some of them have put his messages online:

• Tope Koleoso at City Hope Church, Bermondsey—"Celebrating Diversity: Move on From Integrating Multiculture to Love and Acceptance," 10th February 2008.
  
  
• Tope Koleoso at Christ Church, London—"Regaining Refreshing (Acts 3)," 15th April 2007.
  
  
• Tope Koleoso at Church of Christ the King, Brighton—"Godliness is Profitable For All Time" and "Pursuing the Wonderful God," December 2006.

It was a real delight to read Tim Challies' post several days ago in which he described his growing love for and commitment to his local body of believers. It is a post that has been on my mind for the past few days, and I would strongly encourage you to go and read that post, and perhaps listen to Tim's sermon, which led to his post. I feel that I would like to add my own thoughts here to those he expressed.

I am sad to say that the kind of love Tim feels for a specific local church is going out of fashion among Christians today. Many see their current church home as something to be tolerated rather than delighted in. They see themselves as strangers passing through who never really put down roots. In the trends towards a transient population who move their home and/or change churches frequently, it's easy to understand the emotional disconnection many feel. Even the desire to serve God in ministry by church planting can translate into a part of a person's heart not truly being given over to the group of people with whom they currently meet on Sunday. "If I will only be able to attend a particular church for a short time," the argument goes, "why get too involved emotionally?" Many church members, often including those involved in some type of leadership, are best considered part of a "floating community." An unwritten contract even exists between some churches and their pastors which strongly suggests that neither party expects or desires the relationship between the leader and the led to be a long-term one. When a church becomes merely a stepping-stone in some kind of ministerial career, I fear we have drifted away from the concept of a shepherd loving the sheep.

What is still more tragic than the floating populations of many churches are those who claim a Christian faith without attending a church. The truth is that without being part of a church, any Christian is like a fish out of water. They might flap around enthusiastically for awhile, but they won't make any real progress, and eventually even the flapping will cease. In the vast majority of cases, their faith will simply die.

I am so glad that a number of years ago I discovered that my own church is truly home for me. I love the fact that many of our visitors say something like, "I feel as if I have come home," even after only their first or second visit. What is interesting is that despite the fact that I first walked into the congregation of which I am now a member back in 1995, it took several years before I began to understand that this church really IS my home. It's not that I didn't enjoy it in the early years. It's not that I even realized early-on that anything was lacking in my sense of belonging. I think that a deep-seated sense of truly belonging to a people that you can call your own requires two things: first, a clear decision of commitment to the church, and following that decision, the passing of a significant portion of time.

There are, of course, times when God will call us to move on. Certainly it is vital that more churches are planted. But, as in so many other things, I fear we sometimes swing from one extreme to the other. I once wrote a post entitled, "Are You Too Loyal?" in which I addressed those who know they are in a church that is not right for them. There is much that can be said on that front, and indeed, for some the notion of truly being committed to their local church brings such anxieties and mental conflicts to the fore that the question demands to be answered: "Am I in the right church?" But for many others I fear the more compelling question is, "Why am I not more attached to my church?"

Has God placed you in a church that is led by godly men whom you trust, and who teach you God's Word with integrity and in such a way that you can follow them with good conscience? If so, may I encourage you to allow God to stir a greater love in your heart for this church he has given you? I loved the way Tim highlighted a phrase from a literal translation of Acts 4—they went to their own. I pray that many of you will become increasingly convinced that your local church community truly is "your own people" and the place where God would have you put down deep relational roots. The church is the place where discipleship happens. It is where the one anothers of the Bible are fulfilled. It is where the lost are reached. It is where God's glory is revealed in all its richness.

If you are not a member of a church and want to live as a Christian, find one! Find the best one you can, but don't be so choosy that you only see problems everywhere you go. It's easy to be contrary and say something like this:

• "This church has too much loud modern music for my taste, but that church sings too many of the old hymns."
  
  
• "This church has too many old people, but that church has too many young people."
  
  
• "This church has sermons that last an hour, but in that church the sermons are far too short and not to my taste."
  
  
• "This church was not friendly to me, but in that church they were overly familiar with me on my first visit and made me feel hounded!"

You get the message, but I suspect that underlying all such petty reasons not to join a church lies, more often than not, a simple fear. It is the same sort of fear that is felt by a single guy who likes to date woman after woman, but never takes the plunge into marriage. It can also be the fear of allowing a stranger into your life, and the worry about what the people will think of you if you begin to open up. It is also sometimes like the fear of the woman who has been married before and was abused by her husband before he abandoned her, a shell of her former self. Maybe you have loved a church before and do not dare to love again. Jesus will never let you down, while churches will. But Jesus wants to lovingly place you in a community of his people where you will experience his love manifested towards you by others, where you will have leaders who you can ask to speak into your life and advise and train you, where God's Word is taught and revered.

If you feel that you just cannot find a suitable church within a reasonable drive of your house, then it seems to me there can only be three possible reasons for this. Either

1. You have a call from God to help in some way to plant a new church in your neighborhood.
   
   
2. You are living in the wrong area and it is time to move to a different home.
   
   
3. You have been far too fussy in your criteria for church choice.

I suspect that for the vast majority of people in such a position, the third option is the correct one. Church choice should be a strong influence on our decision about where to live, whereas it often is the last thing people consider when, for example, offered a new job. I am so glad God helped me not to succumb to the temptation once offered me by a generous relocation package. It was definitely right for me at the time to, instead, commute a significant distance to work so I could remain in my church. In our current era of job mobility this is, of course, not always quite so straightforward.

I think that the biggest temptation when it comes to church is to be overly critical. Yes, I do want it all in a church, and it is true that my current church doesn't have it all. In fact, there is a big difference between our vision for what Jubilee could be and the reality of where we are today. But it is a delight to me that my brothers and sisters are not frustrated by this difference, but rather are stirred to move ever closer to that biblical vision of what our congregation can be. We are a church on the move, and I am convinced that we are closer to that vision this year than we were last. I am very willing to be patient, and to watch this dear family of mine grow. I am part of the family, so I try, as much as possible, not to look to "them" to provide for me, and instead ask what can I do to help my church fulfill the purposes God has for it. Of course, along the way I do also gain much from my church, and especially its leaders. If many people are all seeking to help each other in whatever way they are gifted, we all benefit massively!

My prayer is that I will always be a part of the solution in my local church, and never a part of the problem. I am determined to remain here for however long God wants me to. I genuinely hope and believe this is very likely to be a rather long time. However long I am here, I trust that God will continue to give me a growing love for the dear people of Jubilee. For me personally, it is the best church in the world—as C. J. would say, "the dearest place on earth!" And while I know I am rather biased, I am convinced that is no bad thing.

As I write this, I am praying that in the coming months God will bring all of you to a position of truly loving a local church despite all its imperfections and recognizing it as the best church in the world for you.

Let us not give up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but let us encourage one another, and all the more as you see the Day approaching. Hebrews 10:25 (NIV)

Thankfully, many people today seem to have moved on from the ideas of the "homogenous church growth principle." I never could see how that whole idea wasn't just a thinly veiled form of racism, or at the very least, an accommodation with the racism of others. I think I would prefer to be a part of a church aiming to be multicultural, even if that means it might not grow as quickly as one where people's eager desire to flock together with others like themselves is not challenged.

Having said that, it's not easy to build that kind of church. For a start, one has to live in a multicultural area, which is simply not true of every town—certainly not in the UK anyway. Even if you are in such an area, there are many hurdles to overcome.

The desire does seem to be growing for multicultural churches to be formed. There are even a few such churches springing up. It was great today, therefore, to attend a day conference at King's Church Catford aimed at stirring churches to rise to this challenge.

For once I decided not to live-blog the event, but I am told mp3s will be available online. It was great to greet one or two of my readers at the event also. Thanks for coming up and saying "Hi." It always means a lot to know that there are real people reading.

It's vital to remember when blogging that behind every page impression lies a human person with real emotions. It's because so many bloggers forget that, not only am I glad I banned comments here, but for now at least, I'm keeping away from the comment boxes elsewhere, too. Somehow forcing people to send me an e-mail if they want to contact me seems to have driven away the negative comments that I used to have to wade through.

I guess that little outburst was probably prompted by an illustration used earlier today:

From a distance I thought you were a monster. Then, when you got closer, I thought you were an animal. When you got closer still, I realized you were a human. Closer still, I realized I liked you. When you were right next to me, I recognized you were my brother.

A quick shout-out about a couple of books on the subject, neither of which I have had time to read completely, but I like what I have seen. First, Gracism by David Anderson (one of the speakers) and secondly, Dynamic Diversity by Bruce Milne.

In one of those God-incidences, just as I am exploring the Holy Spirit more deeply here on the blog, Newfrontiers USA have redesigned their website and made the audio of the Newfrontiers USA Church Leadership Conference available even before it has finished. There are also a number of older messages there which include a whole series on the Holy Spirit. This is a great site for you if you are intrigued and want to find out more about the Holy Spirit and/or leadership in Reformed Charismatic churches.

Other helpful websites from Newfrontiers include Terry Virgo's other messages, and the Brighton Conference Audio, all of which give you ample opportunities to listen online or download some talks and burn a few CDs. Technology is a wonderful thing.

PRESS RELEASE

6 March 2008

One of the UK's most senior Christian leaders, the Reverend Joel Edwards, will be leaving his post as General Director of the Evangelical Alliance UK after more than a decade of valued service.

Mr. Edwards completed two five-year terms as General Director for the Alliance last year, but wanted to stay on until he had finished work on a new vision for evangelicalism, outlined in his new book An Agenda for Change.

Due to depart in September, he will spend his final six months as General Director presenting this vision to the church on a tour of the UK and America.

Mr. Edwards announced his resignation to staff at a celebration of his twenty years working for the Evangelical Alliance and its sister organization, the African and Caribbean Evangelical Alliance.

He said:

"These twenty years have been absolutely magnificent and have provided lots of exciting opportunities for me and the Alliance.

But I believe God is saying that now is the right time for me to hand on the baton to someone new, who can lead the next generation of evangelicals to implement our renewed vision for society.

The vision I and the Alliance have worked on together is clear: our future as evangelicals is to be at the heart of spiritual and social transformation for our society."

Mr. Edwards, who was the Alliance's first black General Director, has progressed and deepened the diversity of the Alliance while bringing credibility and attention to evangelicals in the ecumenical and secular spheres. In the UK he strengthened the voice of evangelicals in the media and in Parliament, while on an international level he was fundamental to the formation of Micah Challenge, a movement calling governments to account for justice for the poor.

Katei Kirby, Chief Executive Officer of the African and Caribbean Evangelical Alliance (ACEA) said: "Joel has played a significant part in uniting and engaging the diversity of evangelicals in the UK. He leaves a living legacy of gracious and consistent Christian leadership that is both exemplary and inspiring."

Derek Tidball, Chair of the Alliance council, said: "Joel is a greatly valued friend and ambassador for the Alliance, and has worked tirelessly in the name of Christ during his time as General Director.

We are very thankful for his contribution to the evangelical world and are already exploring ways in which we can continue to work together."

Mike Talbot, Chair of the Alliance board, said: "Joel is an evangelical statesman who has made a significant contribution to the witness of the church in this land. He is respected across the Christian community, and beyond, and loved for his graciousness and his passion for the good news of Christ.

We will be very sad to see him go, but we are excited about the opportunities that will open up for him in the future."

Mr. Edwards plans to continue his active involvement with Micah Challenge International, which he chairs. He also remains passionate about issues of human rights and freedom of conscience, and will continue to champion these through his role as a commissioner for the Equality and Human Rights Commission.

NOTE
Mr. Edwards, a British immigrant from Jamaica, is an honorary Canon of St Paul's Cathedral. He was a probation officer for fourteen years and the senior pastor of Mile End New Testament Church of God for ten years.

Mr. Edwards was offered the post of General Secretary of the African and Caribbean Evangelical Alliance in 1988, becoming UK director for the Evangelical Alliance UK four years later and General Director of the Evangelical Alliance UK in 1997. He received a medal of appreciation for services to Jamaica in 2003, an honorary doctorate from St. Andrews University last year, and is a published author.

More about his book and tour can be found at An Agenda For Change.

We have now arrived at the countdown of the top ten most popular posts of all time with readers of this blog. No. 10 appeared on July 19, 2007, and of all the posts I have written, this one is probably my own personal favorite. It is a rallying call to a kind of Christianity that is not ashamed to embrace the best from many different backgrounds.

The last four words of the above title are not new to me, but they are certainly resonating with me at the moment — "I Want It All!" Why should I have to choose, for example, between being enthusiastic about theology and being charismatic?

I know what some of you are thinking as you've been reading my posts on the Together On a Mission conference. You're wondering why it is that someone who is so enthusiastic about what was obviously a very charismatic conference can also be deeply committed to defending and understanding biblical doctrine. I know it's hard for some of you to believe, but it really is the same me who wrote all those posts on the atonement who also was so deeply touched by this latest conference. For those of you who have never met one, I am indeed that rare breed — a Reformed Charismatic.

Too often, however, the temptation for me is to downplay one side of that equation or the other in order to appear "balanced." When I am with the charismatics, my reformed doctrine often appears alien to them, although in the UK, Newfrontiers offers a major exception to that with over 200 churches that are broadly reformed and charismatic. When I'm with the reformed, I'm tempted to soften my charismatic viewpoint and not speak too much of the things I have seen and experienced. Why is it that on this issue, as on so many others, the Church seems to be split in half? Why can't we be both radically reformed and radically charismatic? Why do we see a conflict and therefore try to play down both in order to be "balanced?" I don't want to be balanced, I want it all!

On the one hand there are those who care about theology enough to study God's Word in detail, weigh scripture against scripture, study great theological minds, and preach intellectually stimulating messages that would stretch even a PhD in Theology — which, incidentally, I am certainly not! Why is it that for the majority of us, if we want such a feast for our minds, we must sacrifice certain other things? Why are some leaders in the Church committed to theology almost exclusively? Is even great theology so captivating that it is the only need of the Church? I don't believe it can be, or God would have given us a Bible that was a systematic theology and not the one we have, which is essentially a collection of lots of stories with a few doctrinal portions.

Read more . . . I Don't Want Balance! I Want It All!

I just received the following announcement in my e-mail about a blogging tour that Tim Challies will be taking next week. I have previously highlighted Tim's book here on my sidebar, and in my review of it, in which I said:

"Tim Challies takes us from the turbulent marketplace of ideas that is the modern western church back into the world of the Scriptures. Sadly, today many people fall into the trap of being naively blown from one wind of teaching to another. Others become so expert at straining out the gnats of what they believe to be error that they are unable to learn from anybody. Instead they believe themselves to be the guardians of "true" doctrine. Tim shows us from the Bible itself how to avoid both errors. Tim's reliance on the Bible is refreshing in an age when doctrinal pillars of our faith are being challenged by prominent preachers, and there is a constant search for novelty in parts of the Church. This book, like no other I have seen, aims to give ordinary Christians like you and me the tools we need to learn how to discern truth from error. I wholeheartedly urge you to get yourself a copy and read it, and then buy one for a friend."

RELEASE FROM CROSSWAY

Most Christians are a little fuzzy on the topic of discernment. We know that someone should apply discernment to the media, to teachings, and to important decisions. We've heard of discernment ministries, and we may have even used the phrase "the gift of discernment." The general tenor of our conversations could lead us to conclude that discernment is best left to the professionals.

Perhaps this conversation needs to be re-opened. Leading evangelical blogger Tim Challies initiates the dialogue with his new book, The Discipline of Spiritual Discernment, which contends that discernment is the call of every believer. In conjunction with the book's release, Challies is taking his message to the blogosphere. His two-week blog tour will start on Monday, January 7th and will run until Friday, January 18th. Watch for Challies on the following sites, and submit your comments to participate:

Jan 7: Evangelical Outpost

Jan 8: Tall Skinny Kiwi

Jan 9: A-Team

Jan 10: Adrian Warnock

Jan 11: Gender Blog

Jan 14: Jollyblogger

Jan 15: Between Two Worlds

Jan 16: Team Pyro

Jan 17: Internet Monk

Jan 18: Church Matters

Tim has written more about his tour and some foolish comment controversy some have been stirring up about his book. All I want to say for now is that a team of professionals built the Titanic. A single amatuer built the ark.

In my interview with Wayne Grudem he said something pertinent to this latest controversy over "professionalism" in the church:

". . . it is always wise to have a governing structure where the highest governing offices in the church and the highest positions of influence are open to lay people as well as ordained people. The denominations where only clergy have the highest of authority seem to be the ones that are never able to be brought back once they drift into liberalism because the ordinary lay people who have common sense and are reading their Bibles every day don’t have any way to regain control of a denomination that has gone astray if it has that kind of structure."

—Wayne Grudem

For me, once I have prioritized my own personal inner life and relationship with God, then my dear family, a clear third place in my affections is given without a moment's doubt to my local church. Family does come before the church, but of course our church is like an extension of my family and we all love being a part of it. It is hard to believe that it was as long ago as 1995 that we first joined our current church.

This past year has been another amazing one for all of us at Jubilee London. Serving as part of the core team and a regular preacher in this vibrant, multicultural, growing church is one of the biggest privileges of my life. It is no wonder that so many of our leaders and people are saying things like, "I have no intention of leaving." I know, for us as a family, we currently believe that we will be here for at least twenty more years, and are thrilled at the prospect. Why would we want to go anywhere else?

Who could forget our international giving day or the day we turned our main service into church in the park, or for that matter, the day the whole church got an invitation to a wedding? (Sadly I missed both the last two of these events, with the latter happening while George was being born.) The memorable events went on—Alpha, new small groups, clusters of small groups meeting together, men's and women's days, and of course, lots of different kinds of food from all over the world. People becoming Christians, getting healed, and yes, a couple of them dying very well, still full of faith in the Jesus that has now welcomed them into heaven. These wonderful memories will go on and on, but they just keep growing as more keep getting added!

Over the course of the last year we were also thrilled to have a number of well-known preachers visit us. I am humbled that I am still asked to share God's Word with the congregation. I preached ten times this past year, and all the audio and notes are available on the pages of this blog as follows:

• How to Define Revival and be Revived Personally


• Reviving Prayer (1 Kings 17:1 to 2 Kings 2:14)


• The Reviving Power of God's Word (Psalm 119)


• Resurrection Hope—An Easter Sermon (1 Corinthians 15)


• Missional Bible Study (Psalm 119)


• Abraham—The First Missional Believer


• Jacob—The Missional Rebel


• Alive Together With Christ (Ephesians 2:1-10)


• The Christian's Warfare (Ephesians 6)


• The Risen Jesus (Revelation 1)

Many of you will never get to visit our church, although, of course, we would be happy to welcome any of you! But you can visit with us by listening to our messages available as a podcast or at Jubilee Church's website.

Today I am publishing the fifth and final segment of my interview with Rob Rufus. The following links represent the posts which make up the first four parts of this interview:

• Preacher Rob Rufus
  
  
• Rob Rufus on Word and Spirit
  
  
• Rob Rufus on How To Explore the Charismatic
  
  
• Rob Rufus on apostles Today

In the last segment of my interview with Rob we spoke about his belief in apostles today and a bit about the family of churches of which he is a part. Today we will explore more about how this works in practice.

Adrian
So how does this all work? How do you hold such a vast movement like that together? How do you control it, or don’t you even try to control it?

Rob Rufus
I haven’t got a clue! (Laughter) We’ve never tried to plan—we've never said, "We’re going to invade this nation—we’re going to go there!"—everything we learned we stumbled on. We’ve learned as we’ve gone along. As doors have opened, we’ve gone through the doors. We do believe in the organic, not the organizational. The organic is something that just evolves. I mean, the Spirit blows where he wills, so as he evolves things, we just try to follow the leading and guiding of the Holy Spirit. And then, of course, once you’re in a nation you do have to organize. We’re not anti-organization. But you don’t organize and expect God to come. God comes, you follow him, and then you organize. So, how we work with all these churches, the challenge is that as the number of churches is growing, the danger is that you can end up looking for a denominational or headquarters type—that’s the danger you have to avoid all the time. Because good people who are put in charge of churches can end up becoming dictatorial and think “these churches are mine” to fire or hire or whatever.

Adrian
How does that work with apostles? Do you have an apostle for each country?

Rob Rufus
We have tried very strongly to avoid doing that because we don’t want regional apostles; we want international apostles because in the book of Acts they were in the dynamic power of God. They were turning the world upside down as a primitive church—simple, clean wineskins. But about 300 AD they started ordaining regional bishops, and that was the beginning of the end and the slide into the Dark Ages. So we try to avoid having regional apostles. But to qualify that, that’s not to say that some apostolic ministries won’t tend to have more influence in their region. Some, like Paul, are called primarily to the Gentiles, and others, like Peter, primarily to the Jews. So there is that “setting apart” that God may give certain apostles more influence in Africa or America or Australia, but they must never get territorial and say, “This is my territory. You guys from Africa, even though we are on the same team, don’t you come in here!” What we’ve said to all the churches that relate to our international team is, “You can invite anyone on the international team to come to you. You don’t have to be exclusively in an arbitrary way restricted to just the apostolic ministry resident in your country. You can invite the apostolic ministry from outside the nation so there is no regional control. And, of course, invite other people from other streams as well because we don’t want to be exclusive. It becomes a little bit incestuous when all you do is feed off your own lives and ministries.

Tope
The way you’re describing it, it’s far more fluid. There is structure to it, but it is sufficiently loose to allow relationships to continue to happen, and everything is forced through relationships. That’s amazing. How do you manage to keep the distinctives or the values that you have? How do you insure they don’t get diluted out?

Rob Rufus
That’s a very good question, and when I get the answer I’ll tell you! That’s a real delicate tension because you don’t want to become a movement that becomes so uniform that when someone comes into a church they say, “You guys are all the same—talk the same, look the same, dress the same"—so you get all stereotyped. We don’t want that, but yet at the same time we do want clear distinctives because that’s the strength in distinctives and clear DNA. You can’t have part of the body with certain DNA in one part and a different DNA in another part. We’ve been very strong, like Newfrontiers, on presenting our biblical values and our biblical vision. Our biblical vision is to fulfil the Great Commission by planting churches in every town, every city, and every village in the world. Our biblical values are how we do that vision—which is with integrity, team humility, embracing the power of the Holy Spirit, honoring one another. So we preach and teach those biblical values and authority structures and vision very strongly. Those values are similar to you guys—liberty, freedom, no manipulation, not using guilt manipulation. We don’t want to stereotype people. Does that answer your question?

Tope
Yes.

Adrian
Basically how do you see the future for these kinds of movements—do you think all these movements will somehow kind of merge into one super denomination? Or is that the last thing you want? Or do you think there will be lots of little families of churches like this growing up and working alongside each other maybe a bit, and partnering along the way? How do you see it?

Rob Rufus
I think Newfrontiers, New Covenant Ministries International (NCMI), and other streams like that—to some degree I think they have been in a fair amount of obscurity for the last twenty years. I think God has hidden us on purpose and prepared us in obscurity. But I think he is going to give profile to these kinds of streams, these apostolic teams, in the world today. Because there are many people who know something’s happening in the earth, that something exciting is happening, and God is restoring his Church to be something powerful in the earth. So people are asking questions and they want to belong to something that is flexible and free, yet with sound doctrine and theology, accountability, and freedom. I believe that God is wanting these streams to keep their distinctives, and yet work with each other and "cross pollinate." It seems Paul’s team honored Peter’s team, and so there was a real honoring, and I think that’s going to happen more and more. I think the fathers of these teams, and the apostolic leaders of these teams, are going to spend more time together and stir up each other’s faith and inspire one another.

Adrian
So it’s not about forming some big organization?

Rob Rufus
No, because then it becomes so top heavy in logistics. Then you are forced back into an organizational model where you just govern by principles. You govern by constitution rather than by the dynamic freedom of the Spirit. When it says in Acts 15 that God will restore David’s fallen tabernacle—that is an incredible prophecy out of Amos, and James himself quotes that, you know, as an answer to “Are we going to put the law on the Gentiles?” No, we’re not, and we’re going to give them freedom, and the nations are going to come into the restored tent of David. Many people think David’s fallen tent is just about praise and worship, but it is much more than that. It is a very dynamic tent, but it’s a cohesive whole. He talks, I mean there were 3, yet we’re part of the 30. But they were not the 30, and then there was another 3, but they were not part of that 3. They all were teams within teams! I think the fluidness of these streams is going to grow in profile and work alongside each other more in partnerships in the streams. I think God is going to have small-acting units as well. And God is going to not only relate people to movements, but to men as well. There are going to be men that within a movement connect better with certain men. I’m looking for men within our own NCMI movement with whom I’m connecting well to help me in China.

Adrian
I’ve taken quite a lot of your time and I guess we should draw this to an end. But I’m just wondering—Are there any final things you would like to say in closing to the people listening, who come, really, from all over the world—all kinds of different backgrounds. What would you say to them in closing, Rob?

Rob Rufus
I would say that these are amazing days, and Jesus is so wonderful, and don’t be robbed of your inheritance. You are alive on the planet now, not by coming to him, but because you have been hand-picked, selected by God to be alive at the climax of the consummation of the ages. So don’t be hijacked or seduced or hurt through bitterness or disappointment, because there is all of that happening. We have all been hurt. We’ve all been disappointed. We’ve all been there, but we must keep our eyes on the prize. And he is Jesus. He is so wonderful, and he’s so glorious, and he’s building his Church in such a wonderful way—he hasn’t finished yet, so don’t be disappointed with the Church! He has not finished yet. He is preparing us for great things in these days! God bless you guys!

Adrian
Amen. Thank you very much!

In this, the final segment of my interview with Greg Haslam, Greg discusses being reformed and charismatic, Terry Virgo's spiritual influence on the church in the UK, and the role of the organization Terry heads up, Newfrontiers.

If you missed any of the other four parts of this interview, you can read them here:

1. Greg Haslam on Filling Martyn Lloyd-Jones' Pulpit
   
   
2. Greg Haslam on Leaving Newfrontiers for Westminster Chapel
   
   
3. Greg Haslam on the Primacy of Preaching
   
   
4. Greg Haslam on Unity Versus Doctrinal Integrity

Adrian
You combine an interest in the charismatic and reformed doctrine. I know that many of my US readers still find that combination hard to comprehend. Do you find that people look at you strangely sometimes from both sides, or do you feel that, in the UK at least, the wider Church understands it nowadays?

Greg
I sense that this combination of “Word and Spirit” is no longer the issue it was for many. The heat and dust seems to have settled on the controversies of the 1960's to 1990's, and many have gone back to the Bible, seen good practice in many churches, and agreed, “You were right!” As I said previously, I am convinced many more will come to the same conclusion and we shall reach “unity in the faith” on this matter. People still look at me strangely, but probably for other reasons I need to do something about!

Adrian
It seems to me that Newfrontiers, and Terry Virgo in particular, seem to be a growing force in the UK church scene that seems to, in part, change the perception most people have of the charismatic. So, unlike in the US, if one says the word “charismatic,” people increasingly think of a Newfrontiers church they know. Do you think that is a valid perception?

Greg
Terry Virgo is one of the most important Christian leaders God has raised up in the last thirty years. No wonder amazing doors continue to open for him and his message to the Church! He is wise, humble, full of grace, and a man of astonishing faithfulness and vision. Significantly, he is an outstanding prophetic voice and a remarkable Bible teacher. He combines Word and Spirit in striking ways, teaching truth in depth and seeing miracles accompany it, and he has influenced thousands of people around the world to model the same authentic Christianity we read of in the book of Acts. We're told by Christ to judge teachers “by their fruits” (Matthew 7). I've seen what Terry and his associates have built first-hand. I have been part of it. It is very impressive. It is not marked by the boasting, hype, self-serving, and exploitation that other leaders and movements have floundered on. When I say “Charismatic” he and his movement is what I most think of. It's biblical and dynamic in equal measure. Why divorce what God always meant to be together?

Adrian
As someone with a slightly more detached status these days, how do you see Newfrontiers, or for that matter other similar groups developing in the future?

Greg
I see them interfacing, interlacing, and having an increasingly beneficial influence upon one another, thus fostering greater unity in the wider body of Christ. If that doesn't happen, we might rightly ask, “What was that all about then?”

Adrian
One question no one seems to ask is what will Newfrontiers look like after Terry Virgo—not that he seems likely to go anywhere for some time to come! The Vineyard Movement seemed to struggle a little after the death of John Wimber. Do you think Newfrontiers will have a similar struggle in years to come?

Greg
Possibly. Under God, Terry has been the “father” of the movement in every respect. I don't know if an evident successor has emerged as yet. But Terry has never sought to hold things to himself. He has raised up like-minded leaders of stature. He has released them to “do their stuff” all over the world. He is not possessive. He believes in Church unity. He is a blessing to many outside Newfrontiers. Young leaders are emerging everywhere you look and church plants and adoptions increase by the week, with many Ephesians 4 ministries being released to serve them. I don't see this movement collapsing should Terry retire or be taken home. He has built too well. Only demonic attack, heresy, or some kind of character failure on the part of his followers could jeopardize all he has built, but many safeguards are in place to help prevent this.

Adrian
What do you think the wider Church will look like thirty years from now? Will existing denominations and groups of churches be intact? Will there still be the same arguments that divide us now?

Greg
I am pretty sure that intellectual, religious, social, and political persecution is emerging in our nation right now and will increase in the future. Arrests, imprisonment, and even martyrdoms could occur. Some loose unaffiliated churches and failed denominations will likely go to the wall. As the darkness deepens, it means that there is every possibility the light will become brighter. Christians will find each other, and find Christ more powerful among them, and then will find the courage to do and say the right things in spite of the pressure to panic or compromise. We can, and shall, make great progress in the conversion of dangerous false religionists, and among many who will be disillusioned with the failure of governments and other faiths to “give the goods.” Evolutionism, secularism, atheism, and religious syncretism will all be exposed for their lies. Truth will prevail and error cannot hold out forever.

Adrian
Well, Greg, it has been a pleasure to have you here. But before you go, do you have anything else you would like to say to my readers?

Greg
“Be who you is, ‘cos if you ain’t who you is, you is who you ain’t!”

Adrian
Thanks so much for joining us!

To find out more about Greg Haslam, visit Westminster Chapel’s website, or download mp3s of conference messages by Greg Haslam.

Today we continue with the fourth part of my interview with Greg Haslam, pastor of Westminster Chapel in London (pictured here with his wife, Ruth). The previous three parts of this interview included an introduction to Greg and his ministry, on leaving Newfrontiers for Westminster Chapel, and Haslam on the primacy of preaching.

Adrian
Yesterday we spoke of the remarkable advance for church unity that your preaching conference represented. Despite the unity displayed in your conference and book, there were surely doctrinal differences that divided your collection of speakers, and even more issues that separate the rest of the Church. You obviously decided that you could work with a wide range of people. How do you weigh different issues on which you disagree, and decide which differences are important enough that you would not want to share a platform with someone?

Greg
Having a big heart for the unity God is looking for helps greatly (see John 17 and Ephesians 4:1-16). I suppose that order distinctions are helpful here: first-order truths and second-order truths. We cannot compromise the former, and we can learn to live with the latter. The first category includes the reality of an infinite-personal God, the Trinity, the deity of Christ, and the Holy Spirit, as well as the doctrines of salvation, atonement, regeneration, adoption, justification, sanctification, and glorification. The latter includes denominational differences, ecclesiology, styles of worship, church order, and eschatology. Meldenius' advice is good: “In all things essential, unity. In all things non-essential, liberty. In all things, charity.”

Adrian
What issues are facing the Church today where you feel you have to say you cannot work closely with someone who thinks differently to you?

Greg
Some of the things that most concern me are the ever present realities and influence of liberal theology and the attractions of Roman Catholicism in its worst forms. Recent controversies over penal substitution and the atonement are due to a rehash of 19th century liberalism as if this battle had never been fought before. I can be cordial with such people and make bridges so that the Gospel can be heard, but I wouldn't like to pretend or give the impression that our differences are minor, for they are not. I'm also alarmed by our frequent willingness to bed down with “the spirit of the age” and ignore the fact that this is the “Age of the Spirit.” We are never more relevant than when we obey the Holy Spirit's leadings and declare the Bible in all of its raw power.

Adrian
How should the Christian approach people who take these views?

Greg
In humility that we were once deceived about the truth ourselves, and charity that has a care and compassion for those who are presently misled. We needn't be humble or apologetic about the truth itself, though, nor muted in voicing what we really think. It is nasty and negative polemics we should avoid. But we should be very clear about where we stand on controversial issues.

Adrian
Given the doctrinal disputes and the press coverage about shrinking church attendance, are you depressed about the future of the Church in the UK?

Greg
No, I am not depressed about the future of the Church anywhere. Christ wins! The Church will still be here when everything else has gone. The best days of Church history lie ahead of us. Worldwide revivals will sweep the continents. Many have already happened or begun. This is the “Age of the Spirit,” and “The Holy Spirit will never allow the blasphemy to be voiced against his name that he was unable to convert the world!” (C. H. Spurgeon). I am at heart a great optimist where the Gospel and the work of God is concerned. Setbacks are never permanent, only temporary. Britain is in a state of apostasy at this time, and culpable for her rejection of history, the Bible, and the honor of Christ, and for her contempt for Christ's people. But this is no problem for God to remove and reverse. It's what I'm praying, preaching, and working for. “Of the increase of Christ's government and peace, there shall be no end” (Isaiah 9).

Adrian
I am glad to hear it! What are your hopes and dreams for the UK church in the next decade or so?

Greg
I long for several key things:

1. A recovery of the Gospel.
   
   
2. A renewed faith in the inspiration and authority of Scripture.
   
   
3. An increase in the honor of the Holy Spirit and his work to glorify Christ.
   
   
4. An increase in the number of healthy churches and church plants everywhere.
   
   
5. A respect and reception of Ephesians 4 ministries, increasing unity in the true Body of Christ.
   
   
6. Massive missional emphasis in the churches.
   
   
7. Genuine Holy Spirit reformation, renewal, restoration, and revival in the lives of the people of God . . . all fired by an “eschatology of victory,” not an “eschatology of escapology” which the Left Behind series of novels seems to have generated!

Continued in part five, "Greg Haslam on Being Reformed and Charismatic"

To find out more about Greg Haslam, visit Westminster Chapel’s website, or download mp3s of conference messages by Greg Haslam.

Today I continue the interview with Greg Haslam which began yesterday in a post entitled “Greg Haslam on Filling Martyn Lloyd-Jones' Pulpit.”

Adrian
Yesterday you mentioned your previous church, which is a part of Newfrontiers. You still speak at Newfrontiers conferences, but your current church isn’t listed as a member. What exactly is your relationship with Newfrontiers, both personally and as a church?

Greg
Westminster Chapel has been a fairly unique and decidedly independent kind of place, with a significant influence on the wider church, primarily through the preaching and books of its ministers. It's probably time that this independence became inter-dependence on other streams and ministries. This is on my heart to achieve in the years ahead. These connections are likely to be varied since I've always been keen on unity in the church, and want to live out that conviction. This will mean friendships with all kinds of leaders and people, and openness to receive a wide diversity of ministry from outside as God leads.

Newfrontiers was always primarily about relationships rather than “names on a list” or being part of an organization. My relationships continue whenever time and opportunity permit. I value my dear friends in Newfrontiers, and still attend their Theology Forum, teach some of their leadership training courses, take part in the Brighton Leaders Conference, and preach at Newfrontiers churches whenever I can. The warmth of old friends is always incredible whenever I meet them!

I can't tell you how much I miss Newfrontiers! I relish any contact I have with Terry Virgo and other apostolic and prophetic guys. The Chapel hosts a monthly Newfrontiers London pastors’ gathering, which I attend whenever I can. The Chapel views Newfrontiers very positively indeed now, and we've had many of their leaders preach here. Yet I remain officially outside of that movement, in line with all God told me to do five years ago. This has led to many new and wonderful friendships with top leaders and great movements around the country, as well as opportunities to serve the wider body through church visits and ministry of the Word at major denominational and church-stream conferences. I am convinced that the wider body of Christ, including many evangelicals who ignored or allowed previous moves of the Holy Spirit to bypass them from the 1960's onwards, are going to be caught up in a new visitation of God—soon! I speak to this matter whenever I can, and I have just written two new books to help foster new openness to God in whatever way I can, and to help leaders to make sense of what God is going to do—A Radical Encounter with God (New Wine Press, October 2007) and Moving in the Prophetic (Monarch Publications, April 2008).

Continued in part three, "Greg Haslam On The Primacy of Preaching."

To find out more about Greg Haslam, visit Westminster Chapel’s website, or download mp3s of conference messages by Greg Haslam.

My buddy, Mark Moore, has asked us to pray for a friend of his who is a pastor facing persecution in India. See Mark's blog for the full story:

“One of our international pastors in Acts 29, Pastor Sudhakar in India, is facing tremendous persecution, having been drug out of his church on a Sunday morning and beaten by twenty men. He is now standing trial for "converting Hindus to Christianity."

In news that will shake the blogosphere, Justin Taylor has not only shown that he is with Sam Storms on these issues, he has exclusively revealed that Lig Duncan was not baptized as an infant! Anyone questioning his commitment to the Presbyterian cause would no doubt be told "It wasn't my fault my parents didn't baptize me!" which perhaps to a credobaptist is precisely the point! Anyway here is what Justin said:

Trusted sources tell Between Two Worlds that Ligon Duncan was not baptized as an infant, but was baptized as a believer! This certainly adds a wrinkle to the discussion, doesn't it? So shouldn't Dever accept Duncan both into membership and at the Lord's Table? Inquiring minds want to know!

I'm not sure why anyone would care what my position is, but I agree with old Piper, new Grudem, and unchanging Storms. I agree with Dever about membership and disagree with him regarding the Lord's Supper. And I think we'd all get along if we just followed the happy middlemen, Ted Christman and Vern Poythress!

UPDATE
In January 2008, the following post was identified as the 10th all-time most popular post with readers of this blog. The 11th most-read post was The Atonement—Wright Attacks Both Sides of the Debate.

Of all the posts I have written, this one is probably my own personal favorite. It is a rallying call to a kind of Christianity that is not ashamed to embrace the best from many different backgrounds.

***************

The last four words of the above title are not new to me, but they are certainly resonating with me at the moment — "I Want It All!" Why should I have to choose, for example, between being enthusiastic about theology and being charismatic?

I know what some of you are thinking as you've been reading my posts on the Together On a Mission conference. You're wondering why it is that someone who is so enthusiastic about what was obviously a very charismatic conference can also be deeply committed to defending and understanding biblical doctrine. I know it's hard for some of you to believe, but it really is the same me who wrote all those posts on the atonement who also was so deeply touched by this latest conference. For those of you who have never met one, I am indeed that rare breed — a Reformed Charismatic.

Too often, however, the temptation for me is to downplay one side of that equation or the other in order to appear "balanced." When I am with the charismatics, my reformed doctrine often appears alien to them, although in the UK, Newfrontiers offers a major exception to that with over 200 churches that are broadly reformed and charismatic. When I'm with the reformed, I'm tempted to soften my charismatic viewpoint and not speak too much of the things I have seen and experienced. Why is it that on this issue, as on so many others, the Church seems to be split in half? Why can't we be both radically reformed and radically charismatic? Why do we see a conflict and therefore try to play down both in order to be "balanced?" I don't want to be balanced, I want it all!

On the one hand there are those who care about theology enough to study God's Word in detail, weigh scripture against scripture, study great theological minds, and preach intellectually stimulating messages that would stretch even a PhD in Theology — which, incidentally, I am certainly not! Why is it that for the majority of us, if we want such a feast for our minds, we must sacrifice certain other things? Why are some leaders in the Church committed to theology almost exclusively? Is even great theology so captivating that it is the only need of the Church? I don't believe it can be, or God would have given us a Bible that was a systematic theology and not the one we have, which is essentially a collection of lots of stories with a few doctrinal portions.

Also, why is it that those who are most committed to following the Bible in everything also seem most committed to relegating a book like Acts to mere descriptive stories to tell our children? It's not even just the book of Acts; there are swathes of the New Testament that in some theologies become almost entirely irrelevant to us. That was for then, we are told. When I read passages like those found in the book of Acts, I find myself yearning for something more than I am experiencing currently, yearning for a dynamic sense of the supernatural presence of God, longing for God himself to surprise and astonish me by his dynamic actions. Why is it that so often I am left with the impression that we are being encouraged to merely learn about God rather than get to know him? Would I be satisfied if I had read hundreds of e-mails from my wife, but had never actually met her or seen her do anything?

On the other hand, I could find many so-called men of faith who have stories to tell of miraculous healings or of prophecies that have had a life-changing impact. Listening to them, especially if I suspend my natural British cynicism and reserve, I hear tales of powerful encounters with God. Sadly, however, theological truths don't seem to be emphasized at all by most of those committed to experiencing the supernatural presence of God. It is often even implied that it is all right for people to make glaring errors in their teaching or show little interest in what the Bible actually says.

Why is it that so many men who seem on first appearances to have such intimacy with God, such access to his power, such supernatural giftings, and such powerful prophecies, also have much less interest in the words that the Person they often describe as their best friend, the Holy Spirit, wrote 2000 years ago? Why is it that when listening to some of these men, the greatest miracle is no longer what happens in someone's life when they are saved, but rather the latest supernatural healing or encounter with God? Why do we put up with so much flakiness and even blatant deception from figures claiming to have an anointing of the Spirit? How has it got to the point that even hearing the word "faith" seems to raise antibodies in me and make me feel uncomfortable? Why, though, do I feel in honest moments that some of those people with whose theology I most disagree seem to have something that I haven't got, and that I want? Is it so wrong to want to learn more about faith and experience the supernatural acts of God without becoming flaky or doctrinally suspect? Is it not possible for me to both want and get it all?

This desire to "want it all" and have it all in extreme form rather than just a little of everything so as to become "balanced" is not confined to the issue of the truth of God's Word and the experience of the supernatural. There are so many other stalls in the modern marketplace that is the global Church of Jesus. I can see them all before me selling their wares, each of them sure they have the answer to the ills of the Church. How do I choose which one to follow? Can't I have it all? Can't I learn from each of them? Must I choose only one? Where is the person who will overturn all these market stalls and say, “You need a bit of everything — no, change that — you need A LOT of everything — you need it all!”

Let's consider those in the Church who understand the reason we are here on earth. They understand that we are here to enjoy God and bring glory to him by evangelizing the world and producing more worshippers. These guys have such enthusiasm that it is inspiring. Many are also so creative. They split into different tribes, however, sitting as it were at different stalls in the marketplace. There are those who believe in old-style tent crusades, those who want to fill stadiums again, those who knock on doors, those who tell strangers they are sinners, those who befriend sinners in order to evangelize them, those who run seeker sensitive services, those who speak of being missional and incarnating the Gospel, those who run Alpha, and those who preach a certain kind of evangelical "gospel" message every Sunday morning that has to include penal substitution. The different brands may disagree about the methods, but yet they all thrill me with their determination and commitment to see more people becoming Christians. Isn't there room for us to use some methods from almost all of these brands of evangelism?

What troubles me most about so many of these devoted evangelists and missionaries is that so few of them are also deeply devoted to and thrilled with the Church. Why does there seem to be a dichotomy between being "out there" reaching the world and building the community of God such that we love each other so much the world knows we are Jesus' disciples? Also, why does the message of the evangelist sometimes ring hollow in my ears and fail to inspire me like it should? Is there something wrong with me? Dare I even admit that there have been times in the past when I have felt I don't want to hear another "simple Gospel presentation" ever again? Why do the sermons I read in Acts sound so different to the vast majority of evangelistic messages I have ever heard? For that matter, if the Gospel is a handful of reductionistic propositions that we must preach on every occasion, and those few ideas are all that matters, why does so much of the Bible even exist? Much as I believe in penal substitution, it is not to be found in every verse of the Bible. Why are some evangelicals frightened to preach the whole counsel of God? Is it wrong to want to preach the message of the whole Bible?

Why is it, for that matter, that so many of us feel we lack practical wisdom of how to live our lives? I know I have felt like this many times in my life. How can it be that I can work through the Gospel from A to Z, listen to theologically-sound sermons, read the Bible, pray even, and do all the "right" things they tell me to, but somehow not know how to live? Why is it that the breed of practical living teachers are so rare in the Church that many feel they have to learn by watching programs like Nanny 911 because no Christian leader ever taught them how to raise their children? Why are there so few places in the Church to send someone who is struggling with a breaking marriage or with mounting debt? Why, when we find someone in the Church who is valiantly teaching us practical living tips that we should have learned from our parents do they so often sound no different to someone in the world? Where is the teaching that is biblically rooted, yet shows me how to run my life in the 21st century? Isn't the Bible supposed to teach me how to have a good marriage, hold down a job, be a parent, have friends? It's easy to condemn those preaching "self help" in the name of Jesus, but where are those teaching me how God wants to help me live wisely?

Again, why is it that as churches we are not all stirred to activism to help the poor? Adopting a village in Africa, helping HIV victims, befriending single mothers, housing drug addicts — the list goes on and on. Christians who really care, frankly, put me to shame. Why do I so shamefully neglect this? I know that I do give some money that is channeled to such projects by my church, but why do I feel I should be doing much more? Surely we should be demonstrating God's kingdom on earth for the world to see. And yet, why do some of the people who give themselves to this kind of work which is meant to demonstrate God's kingdom seem more like social workers than Christ's ambassadors? Why do we seem to allow the Gospel to be squeezed out of our attempts to help the poor?

I can go on — what of the worshippers? There are many people who love God, feel his presence, and "waste time" with him. Why do I find it so hard to squeeze contemplation into my busy life? Why should worship become an option that excludes other options? Why is meditation considered to be something for Buddhists when the Bible invented it? What about prayer — shouldn't it be more than merely reciting a shopping list of requests to some heavenly slot machine? Shouldn't it be something other than worrying out loud?

And what about a sense of belonging? Of a Church that loves each other and builds a community in this loveless world? Why are there some small churches that really are a family, and yet find it hard to grow? How can large churches retain the feeling that people are there for me and know me? How can we avoid merely having hundreds of superficial acquaintances and yet still feeling totally alone? How can we learn how to do things well for God without becoming just a commercial entity led only by the world's management techniques?

I guess this all leads to a feeling that there is something wrong with the Church. I suspect many of us feel that way as Christians. But what is it that is wrong? Is it, as some would say, "Well, the danger is an overemphasis on feelings, so here we preach the truth of the Bible — that is what we need most." That sounds so good until you hear someone else say something like, "What the Church really needs to do is to learn to care more — we have to love each other and then learn to love the world — that's the problem with the Church," or someone else says, "Your problem is that you know the Bible, but you don't know God — you people just have a form of godliness, but deny its power."

I don't just want balance, however, and certainly not if it means we end up missing EVERYTHING. I thank God that there are those who are attempting to be balanced and have a bit of all of these things. Yet, I am concerned that in an anxiety to be balanced, we end up being mediocre at all of these things. I suppose as individuals we will always be better at some of them than others, but as a healthy local church can't we have it all?

Social action needn't be the enemy of building a nice community, nor should singing be a chore to get through until the preaching starts. Do we really have to wince every time someone begins to prophesy for fear of what our visitors may think? We shouldn't have to be anxious, when preaching, that our people are being bored or that we are offending visitors. These things are not enemies of each other.

Why shouldn't we have churches that are every bit as concerned about doctrinal accuracy and knowledge as John MacArthur, that love relational intimacy with Jesus as much as John Arnott, see miraculous healings that are every bit as dynamic as the ones the tele-evangelists claim to have seen, are as full of vision and purpose as Rick Warren, as skilled in leadership as Bill Hybels, as humble and committed to spiritual maturity as C. J. Mahaney, as relevant to practical life as the author of any self-help book you can think of, that impact social needs in the model of Shaftsbury, tackle political issues like Wilberforce, preach with both the passion for souls of Spurgeon and the passion for God's glory of John Piper, that hear from God as clearly as any modern prophet, are as aggressively missional as Mark Driscoll, have the apostolic drive of Terry Virgo, and yet somehow still feel as comforting as my wife's homemade apple crumble with custard?

Am I being greedy to say "I want it all, and I wish I could become an extremist for all of these things at once?"

Sam Poe
Sam serves on the Newfrontiers apostolic team in the USA. He and his wife, Marlene, have travelled widely, serving churches in the USA and other nations. In recent years they have been particularly involved in working together with a number of churches in Russia and the Ukraine. Sam and Marlene are presently based in Tacoma, Washington, USA, where they are part of a new church plant. Sam is also serving other churches related to Newfrontiers in that region as part of the apostolic team.

Guy Miller
Guy Miller leads the Bournemouth Family Church, UK and leads apostolic teams that serve the Wessex Region with seventeen churches. He also overseas the work of 21 churches in the North and West of India, and two churches in Portugal. He is a passionate family man, married to Heather, with four children, and loves fishing.

Prophets in the New Testament are not meant to be lonely isolated people who suddenly appear with a message from God. Rather, we are called to live in community, in team life. We are family; we are in a real relationship. Prophets are meant to work together in team with each other, and also with the other ministries.

Biblical Base For Team

• Acts 11:27-28
  “Some prophets” — notice it's a team. Agabus was part of a prophetic team that came from the Jerusalem church.
  
  
• Acts 13:1-3
  Again it says "prophets" (plural) and "teachers" (plural). There was a team of leaders in the church, and when they were together, the Spirit began to speak. Acts 15 — at the Council of Jerusalem, at the conclusion, some key leaders were chosen to go back with Paul and Barnabus. Judas and Silas went and said much to encourage and strengthen the brothers.
  
  
• 1 Timothy 4:14
  The prophecy came amidst the body of elders. Prophetic ministry releases things in people.

The foundational basis for this “team-life” is our triune God. God lives throughout all eternity in wonderful and joyous community. Three magnificent persons, ONE living God. When someone says the word “God,” do you think of him that way? God really is three-in-one. We are called not only to teach trinitarian theology, but to live trinitarian ways. 1 John 1:3-4. We need to be in fellowship with the persons of God and then reach out to others. There is an overflowing joy in the Trinity.

“The being of the church should echo the dynamic of the relations between the three persons who together constitute the Deity.” (Gunton)

This should put an end to all isolated one-man-band ministry.

Some of the Benefits of Prophetic Team Ministry

• The joy of serving together — a relational side. The prophetic can be a bit intense; working in team helps us to avoid getting that way. It helps us to not take ourselves so seriously. There is a rest in it.
  
  
• There is a fuller flow of revelation. No one gets it all. If a team prophesies, the results will be more full-orbed.
  
  
• Immediate accountability. There can be an immediate weighing of words.
  
  
• It can help check eccentricities. Some prophetic guys seem to think the weirder we can get the better. Lone ministries have no one who asks them, “Why are you being so weird?”
  
  
• Avoidance of the “super-star” syndrome. We all need help. We must not get our personal identity wrapped up in our gifting. There is a risk of over-exposure and feeling almost like a prophesying machine. You can begin to feel used.
  
  
• Avoidance of personal control or the manipulation of others. Never prophecy to get someone to do what you want them to do! Often we don't understand what we are saying when we prophesy, rather than trying to get anybody to do anything. (2 Corinthians 4:2 — see the way The Message interprets that.) The word is out there and can be weighed rather than with secret manipulation.
  
  
• Helps create an atmosphere of humility and submission. 1 Corinthians 14:29-33. Sometimes you can get a revelation that you don't share because you have to stop. Wait your turn. Stop and give someone else a chance, i.e. make room for others. If someone works alone, it's easy to overlook the authority and oversight of the local church leadership. Elders are the door of a church and have authority.
  
  
• Helps train up younger prophetic ministries.

The Value of Prophets Being Teamed With Apostles

• In 2004 there was a whole seminar on this topic.
  
  
• These two foundational ministries need to work together. Every single local church needs that foundation laid in it. This is teamwork.
  
  
• 1 Thessalonians was written by Paul, Silas, and Timothy. There is a team at work. Paul leads the team, but Silas is a prophet.
  
  
• Apostolic wisdom, teaching, and strategy, coupled with immediate prophetic revelation bring strength and vibrancy to local churches.

In Conclusion

• Prophetic teamwork is of great value. It's the primary NT model for prophetic ministry.

David Stroud
David Stroud leads ChristChurch, London, and the Newfrontiers UK team. He has been involved in leading churches for over fifteen years, and ChristChurch is the third church that he has planted. He is married to Philippa, who works as an adviser on issues of social justice in Westminster, and they have three children.

See also Andrew Fountain's notes from this talk: Being Sure of Who We Are as a People.

Dave Stroud spoke to us today about the identity markers of Newfrontiers.

We must be very clear on who God is and who he has made us to be. If we forget who we are, then we will not be able to handle the things that happen. Dave wanted to spend his session reminding us what holds us together as a movement. What underlines our confidence? What enables to respond with boldness? Dave took us to the first few verses of Acts 13 and the church of Antioch. At its height, one in three people of Antioch were believers. It was a church that sent people out for a century after these events.

FIVE THINGS THAT TIE US TOGETHER

1. We are a people of the Spirit.
   
   There were prophets in the church at Antioch. This happens when the Spirit is poured out. They know something of the closeness of God. When Paul and Barnabas went, if asked, they would have said, “God said to us!” We have experienced something of the presence of God that has drawn us together. We don't make decisions on the basis of strategic planning as in businesses. Big decisions in the NT church, and in our churches, are made because God spoke. For example, “The Spirit of Jesus wouldn't let them” go somewhere. We as Newfrontiers have always sought to be led by the Spirit of God. For example, a couple were considering moving to Dublin to start a Newfrontiers church. They believed that God was speaking to them and prayed that God would speak to their kids. The next morning their daughter came down and said, “Are we moving?” Their ten-year old daughter had a dream of a sundial in the garden, a porthole, and windows that were not windows in the roof. The parents said nothing, but took their children on a weekend trip to Dublin. They were walking and looked in the window of one estate agent, whereupon their daughter suddenly said, “Thats the house I saw in my dream!” Sure enough, they ended up buying that house, and it was exactly as their daughter described. John Wimber felt God say when he arrived in London, “Give me back MY church!” It doesn't belong to us. When the Spirit speaks, people go and become those they never thought they could be.
   
   
2. We are deeply dependent on Scripture.
   
   It wasn't just prophets, but teachers also. We bow to God's Word. We give ourselves to it and develop a habit. The world tells us to set ourselves free by deciding what is right. In some cultures people treat their neighbours with respect; in others they eat them, and it's all done on the basis of feelings. We cannot just take the Holy Spirit bit. We must let the Word get to us. We must submit to the Word. Teachers lift the Word for us corporately. We can't just make it up. We must keep coming back to being shaped by Scripture. We shape ourselves individually and corporately by The Book. Prophets and teachers work together. Two sides of the same coin. Word and Spirit together.
   
   
3. We believe that these Word and Spirit churches are to be multiplied all over the world.
   
   In Antioch they were living for an outbreak of the Spirit, globally not just locally. We need to take salvation to the ends of the earth. We cannot simply be focused on the nation where we live. We need a heart for the nations. Paul and Barnabas knew that at some point they had to go — there was a timing with God. They built a strong sending base where they were, and then they went and started churches. That is the biblical model for going to the nations. Churches are something that can reach people in decades. It's Spirit people founded on the Word going to the nations with clear annointed leadership.
   
   
4. We believe in the Ephesians 4 ministries.
   
   The terms of Ephesians 4 are not just useful terms; rather they are uniquely fitted to get the mission done. The Church functions well with this leadership. Imagine if a general replaced your head teacher at a primary school and ran it like an army! Imagine the army going into battle and the general is replaced with a conductor. In the same way, it is ridiculous to try and fulfil the biblical vision without apostles and prophets. That is the sort of leadership God has given. What Paul did is needed today. Apostles give to churches a sense of identity. Apostles will aggressively see the big picture and want to see nations filled with churches.
   
   
5. We are full of confidence.
   
   Why were Paul and Barnabus ready to take such a big step? It was because they knew that God would succeed. God will give us all we need so we can go. God will have a bride for himself. Even though that doesn't mean that everything we touch will succeed, knowing the eventual triumph of God's Word will strengthen our resolve, even when things are tough. As someone said, “Expect great things from God. Attempt great things for God.” We have the privilege of cooperating with God.

HOW DO WE RESPOND TO THIS?

• Don't get stuck in one place
  
  The world is too big! Sometimes a promotion from God requires us to physically move. For example, Elijah passed on the call of God to anoint a king to Elisha who himself handed it on. We have to hand on the promises we have for an area and pass them on. The vision is bigger than what we can accomplish. We must be open to the Lord. We must trust him to help those who are left behind.
  
  
• Stay connected to Apostles and Prophets
  
  Following anointed leadership gives benefits to ourselves. Leaders shape us and give us impetus. Apostles and prophets are given by God and have anointing given by him. Apostles create spheres and an anointing goes with it. Word and Spirit churches are not built by one leader. We are a family of Word and Spirit churches going to the nations under anointed leadership and full of confidence that God will fulfil his mission.

At Together On A Mission, we also have a conference within a conference for students and those in their 20's. It was a real pleasure to interview Tom Shaw, a friend of mine, who heads up that conference. You can listen to that message right here or download it to your computer:

Over at Pure Church there is a good article about how we should talk to children about race. It is well worth a read. I have included the headlines here:

1. Talk with your children about ethnicity (the nations) rather than "race."
   
   
2. Talk about ethnicity in a way that magnifies the power and wisdom of God. We should be amazed more often than we are (excuse me for projecting my dullness onto you!) at the sheer power and wisdom of God who can create "difference" and "same" in His creation ...
   
   
3. Talk about the need of all men for the Savior. Not only are we alike in our humanity, but we are therefore alike in our sin, guilt, shame, and need for divine rescue. We are far more alike than we are different ...
   
   
4. Talk about the Gospel and the Church as the plan of God to demonstrate unity across such diversity and to display His wisdom.

It doesn't seem that long ago that Terry Virgo preached at the church I attend, and it blessed us so much — listening to him always seems to do that to me. It was great to be able download and listen to a sermon this evening entitled Becoming a Member of the Body, preached earlier this month by Terry Virgo at Christ Church London, which meets in a central London theatre.

He preached on Ephesians 4, boldly dealing with the controversial issue of the continuation of "Ephesians Four Ministries," but the entire message was packed full of fantastic material that challenged his hearers to play an active role in the church. It is well worth listening to in its entirety. This sermon, along with the one Terry preached for us, makes a great introduction to his teaching. You can download this new sermon from the Christ Church site, or listen to it online here using the following player:


Luke Wood has served us well by sharing the following quotes from Terry Virgo's sermon:

"So the church is vital in God's programme — it should be vital in every Christian's life, [in] our experience of church life."

"It's important for us, too, to realise that [al]though we're meeting in a theatre here, and we're very relaxed, and we don't have clergy and laity, and we don't have 'priest and people,' and we could look as if we're really rather novel — maybe reactionary, maybe just trying to be relevant to our generation and just do[ing] it different[ly] . . . actually, those are none of the motivations that stir us. We're happy to be here, we're happy to be relevant to our generation, we're certainly wanting to be contemporary to this generation, but our endeavour is to be as biblical as is at all possible. We want to really take the Scriptures [seriously] because we believe that's God's way of building [His] church, that's God's way of touching our generation and fulfilling His purpopse amongst us. So yes, we may look rather different in a place like this, but we are building, as far as we know how, seriously from a biblical base. We're trying to get it right because there we believe God will bless."

"Is this church properly founded? That's an apostolic work. Paul said in 2 Corinthians 3, 'When I came to you, as a wise master builder' — the Greek word gives us our word architect, someone who sees the whole plan — 'I laid a foundation.' Now there he's talking about one local church. He did his apostolic work making sure it was properly founded. So that was . . . the role of [the] apostles and that work will continue until Jesus comes — the necessity of churches being properly founded ..."

"Jesus ascended on high: it doesn't say He gave some priests, He gave some clergymen — it doesn't say that, it's not in the Bible. It says He gave some apostles to make sure churches are properly founded on their identity in Christ ... establishing the community, giving them a sense of identity, purpose, and meaning ... establishing bodies of Christ if you like, in town after town after town. Places where Jesus was manifest in phenomenal glory again and again and again. That's part of our calling as a family of churches, from generation to generation. Let's plant church after church where the presence of Christ can be known in that particular place."

"The book of Ephesians probably is the one that most emphasizes the place of the church. It's interesting that Jesus said to His disciples 'Go and make disciples of all the nations,' and the strategy they immediately took on board was to go and plant local churches. That was the way they saw that they were going to fulfil that commission to make disciples. That was the way they chose to do it."

"And so we're very much in line with that biblical arrangement, that you go and plant churches, you go and gather people together. That's the way we fulfil the commission of the Lord Jesus to 'Go and make disciples of all the nations.' It's very important, then, that you're built into a local body and, of course, Ephesians highlights the place of the church in several ways. It talks about a temple, not of concrete or stones, but of living people that are built together as a context for the presence of God. It talks about the church as a bride in Ephesians 5 — that relationship of intimacy ... and then it speaks of the church also, by implication, as an army. It says we're soldiers, we're to put on the armour, we're to fight. And then in this particular chapter in Ephesians 4 it talks of us as a body together."

Terry Virgo's website also has a growing collection of his sermon audios available.

This is going to my last post before the weekend. This is because tonight I have Josh Claybourn and his mates coming to stay, and then tomorrow evening we go on our church weekend away. I will probably have to spend the vast majority of the weekend with my foot up resting my knee. As I am wanting to go back to work sometime next week, I'm hoping that it will go OK from a knee point-of-view, and be a great time. I guess it will be a good test.

Basically that's all folks — until Monday or Tuesday — when we'll get back to the atonement series.

Before I go, I wanted to point you to a post from Luke Wood on how parachurch and church can work together on a university campus. I'm not sure if some of the same flash points exist in the American student scene or not, but I'm glad Luke has addressed some of these things. I'm also glad that in many places the church and Christian unions are beginning to understand each other better and work together.

UPDATE - In April 2009 I filmed a video interview with Liam Goligher

This is the last post in my interview series with Liam Goligher. In previous posts we have addressed our distinctives, things that unite us, the atonement, and now to conclude, we will look at some very interesting comments Liam made about church government and structure.

Towards the end of our time together, I asked Liam what he felt the current crisis in evangelicalism was teaching us about how we define evangelicalism. There is, he said, a fundamental problem at the heart of the current evangelical movement. In the past we wanted to be independent and build a structure that allowed a “free for all.” His own church, he said, is entirely independent. When it comes to the evangelical movement, it seems that no one is in a position to bring some definition — if a person claims they can sign the statement of faith in good conscience, the general perception is that we are powerless to do anything about it. This whole scenario of the last couple of years has made Liam think that we all need to revisit the idea of church polity or church government:

“What is now clear is that independence is not the answer. We need to look at more of a Presbyterian-style model with some outside accountability. I see in newfrontiers, for example, an effective attempt to recreate the balance between the autonomy of the local church and an appropriate, biblical ‘apostolic’ authority. We all need to look at models like that and see what we can learn from them.”

Interestingly, Liam accepts that he himself, in common with many other evangelical leaders, in practice functions in a very similar way to one of the leaders of an apostolic family of churches like newfrontiers. He trains young men, encourages them, helps to place them as pastors, and supports them from a distance in their pastoral work. He provides to those people a sense of identity and support that goes beyond the local church and which is significantly more than what is available by merely owning a denominational title or the label “evangelical.”

I am excited to see that men like Dr Goligher are beginning to understand that pieces of paper and organisational structures do not guarantee orthodoxy. I believe that it is no accident that the New Testament speaks of God giving gifts of specific men with ministries to the whole church to equip us and help us to do works of service. It is these men who are supposed to stop us being blown around by every wind of teaching.

There are not many with the stature and authority of a man like Liam Goligher. As the interviewer, I was struck that there is an urgent need in the Church today for men like Dr Goligher to rise up and use their God-given authority to bring clear definition and leadership to others. That leadership will obviously be primarily directed by each man of such calibre towards churches who share the majority of both the theological and stylistic distinctives that he holds dear. Increasingly such men will, I am sure, be joining hands together across such divides in a very clear way to stand up for the distinctives of the Gospel. The Gospel is far more important than the second-order issues that sometimes stand in our way of working together. I will give Liam the last word in this write-up of our meeting:

“We have not linked arms in the past as much as we should. Provided we can agree that local churches have their own theological identity and style, interaction between us is essential, especially as it seems that at the moment the whole evangelical house is collapsing around us.”

It was a real privilege to speak with Liam Goligher recently, and it is a delight to now bring a report of that conversation here to my blog. Liam is a trustee of the Keswick Convention and a well-known Bible teacher. He leads Duke Street Church, an independent church in Richmond, UK which has approximately 400 members, with many more attending, making it a large church for England.

Liam comes from a very different church background than I do. For example, he is happy to use the identification “cessationist" in a nuanced kind of way, and the style of his church meetings (which includes liturgy and more traditional music) is very different to that with which I am familiar. Yet immediately there was a mutual recognition of brotherhood in the body of Christ. Liam is clearly a man who loves Jesus and is willing to stand up for biblical truth. We spent the majority of our time discussing things about which we both agree, and my respect for him grew by the minute. I will spend this first post of the interview discussing those things where we have differing perspectives, and then move on in subsequent posts to the more vital doctrines — including, of course, the atonement — about which Dr Goligher is clearly very passionate.

Liam was eager to point out that he believes it is vital for those who he describes as “confessing evangelicals” to work together across some of the barriers that have divided them in the past. He does not, however, advocate minimising or removing all such distinctions. We operate in two spheres — the sphere of joining hands to support the Gospel and work together and the sphere of the local church. Liam spoke about the importance of realising what issues have prominence, and in our conversation those did, indeed, have prominence. He clearly believes that what Mohler calls “theological triage” is crucial. There are issues that should not prevent us from working together on a conference platform, but which within a local church may present practical difficulties. Each local church must identify where it is going to stand on these matters, and on which of them it is willing to be flexible. Liam believes, for example, that to have both cessationists and charismatics in the leadership team of a local church congregation would not be practical. On the other hand, in his own local church, considerable flexibility is given to those who differ on the mode and timing of baptism. Not every church will come to the same conclusions about where it stands on these “second-order” issues, which of them will be required for membership, and which will be prerequisites for leaders in that congregation. But, said Liam, every church must have a clear idea of its own theological and stylistic identity, and must not confuse the two. Along with theological distinctives, each congregation will be shaped to some degree by the local culture in which it exists — this will affect the stylistic choices, but obviously should not affect the theological ones. It is vital that we remember that the way we do things is not the only way they can be done — or even necessarily the best way in another context.

In his own local church, Liam felt it was crucial to introduce a firmer commitment to some of the doctrinal creeds, and to demonstrate this by a greater use of catechisms and confessions. He was intentional about defining exactly where the church stood on doctrine and where it allowed variation within its members and leadership team. He also introduced an eldership. He has sought to apply the regulative principle to worship using creeds and some reformed liturgy and confessions as teaching and worship aids, along with the best mixture of traditional and contemporary music. "We love Watts and Wesley, as well as Townend and Kauflin. Our mornings are more classical, and our evenings more jazz and contemporary." Being based in Richmond and having a desire to reach a certain group of people who, historically, their church had not met, he also introduced some changes to their style of worship. In his desire to shape a worship service to help a certain type of person encounter God in a relevant way, Liam arrived in a very different place to others of us. Where many of us have moved to more informal services with drums, keyboards, and guitars, Liam went another way. The changes towards including liturgy in his meetings and maintaining a music style and format that was familiar to many in the area of Richmond, proved successful in encouraging people back to church. Liam is eager to stress that he, personally, can worship God in a variety of settings, and is happy to attend worship services very different to those in his local church congregation.

We discussed the specific issue of the charismatic/cessationist debate. Liam believes that this can often revolve around differences in how certain things are defined. For example, the typical charismatic and cessationist hold to very different definitions of prophecy. To Liam, these differences are often about “sloppy language,” and he is not at all concerned with where people stand on that issue when it comes to uniting with them for the purposes of defending and declaring the Gospel. Liam was anxious to point out, however — something I have begun to realise is clearly the case — that moderate cessationists like Liam are not so very far from us charismatics. As he put it, “We all want to have a dynamic living relationship with God and each other, and to experience something of God in our meetings.”

Continued in Part Two . . .

The guys at Together for the Gospel are modeling something VITAL:

"Something that is meant to be different about the T4G conference, and what it may inspire in your own ministry, is that it is built on, and attempts to model and provoke relational networks for encouragement and accountability. So inviting Thabiti was no mere decision of the 4 of us to send him a letter. First, we had to work at building in relationships, and introducing Thabiti to the brothers who didn't know him. So the delay in announcing his speaking reflects nothing on our confidence in him, but rather highlights the different kind of conference this is. From the moment the idea was born, time would need to be set aside for fellowship together and co-laboring. That has now largely happened. And we are delighted not simply at Thabiti's agreement to speak, but at Thabiti's growing friendships with the other speakers involved in the conference."

— Mark Dever

Lig Duncan has been part of a committee that has been considering the teachings of the New Perspectives on Paul (NPP), and especially N. T. Wright, for several months on behalf of the Presbyterian Church in America.

They have now made a number of clear declarations as listed below, and the closing paragraphs of the report suggest to me that they have concluded that to hold these views should become inconsistent with continuing as a minister or preacher in a PCA church. They make a number of requests of the General Assembly which meets later this year which include

"That the General Assembly recommends the declarations in this report as a faithful exposition of the Westminster Standards, and further reminds those ruling and teaching elders whose views are out of accord with our Standards of their obligation to make known to their courts any differences in their views.

That the General Assembly reminds the Sessions and Presbyteries of the PCA that it is their duty “to exercise care over those subject to their authority” and “to condemn erroneous opinions which injure the purity or peace of the Church” (BCO 31-2; 13-9f).

I am not qute clear what happens next if this report is adopted — will we eventually see some kind of exclusionary process for those who hold to these ideas? (HT Justin Taylor)

The Declarations of the PCA Committee
"In light of the controversy surrounding the NPP and FV (Ed = Federal Vision), and after many months of careful study, the committee unanimously makes the following declarations:

1. The view that rejects the bi-covenantal structure of Scripture as represented in the Westminster Standards (i.e., views which do not merely take issue with the terminology, but the essence of the first/second covenant framework) is contrary to those Standards.
   
   
2. The view that an individual is “elect” by virtue of his membership in the visible church; and that this “election” includes justification, adoption, and sanctification; but that this individual could lose his “election” if he forsakes the visible church, is contrary to the Westminster Standards.
   
   
3. The view that Christ does not stand as a representative head whose perfect obedience and satisfaction is imputed to individuals who believe in him is contrary to the Westminster Standards.
   
   
4. The view that strikes the language of “merit” from our theological vocabulary so that the claim is made that Christ’s merits are not imputed to his people is contrary to the Westminster Standards.
   
   
5. The view that “union with Christ” renders imputation redundant because it subsumes all of Christ’s benefits (including justification) under this doctrinal heading is contrary to the Westminster Standards.
   
   
6. The view that water baptism effects a “covenantal union” with Christ through which each baptized person receives the saving benefits of Christ’s mediation, including regeneration, justification, and sanctification, thus creating a parallel soteriological system to the decretal system of the Westminster Standards, is contrary to the Westminster Standards.
   
   
7. The view that one can be “united to Christ” and not receive all the benefits of Christ’s mediation, including perseverance, in that effectual union is contrary to the Westminster Standards.
   
   
8. The view that some can receive saving benefits of Christ’s mediation, such as regeneration and justification, and yet not persevere in those benefits is contrary to the Westminster Standards.
   
   
9. The view that justification is in any way based on our works, or that the so-called “final verdict of justification” is based on anything other than the perfect obedience and satisfaction of Christ received through faith alone, is contrary to the Westminster Standards."

The whole article is well worth a read, but I offer the following excerpts as a taste of the way they strongly criticize N. T. Wright in particular:

• NT Wright’s "...version of Paul’s teaching on election and covenant stands in stark contrast to the confessional formulation of these themes. Both cannot be right as faithful presentations of the Pauline teaching on election and covenant."
  
  
• "We often hear proponents and sympathizers of the NPP and FV who are part of confessional Reformed communities say, that while they go beyond the Westminster Standards in what they affirm, they do not contradict the Westminster Standards. But it is evident that the version of covenant and election taught by the NPP and FV is incompatible with the views of the Westminster Standards. In fact, these two approaches to covenant and election are not complementary ways of looking at the biblical data, but irreconcilably contradictory alternative accounts of the biblical data . . ."
  
  
• "The Committee would suggest that the FV proponents have in effect provided an alternative hermeneutic for interpreting Scripture. They have done so 1) by concentrating their efforts on the “objectivity” of the covenant, 2) by stressing the “covenantal” efficacy of baptism, 3) by focusing on the undifferentiated membership of the visible church, 4) by holding the view that the “elect” are covenant members who may one day fall from their elect status, and 5) by highlighting the need for persevering faithfulness in order to secure final election . . ."
  
  
• "To put it briefly, according to Wright, justification is chiefly the status of covenant membership, the status of belonging as a member of God’s people."
  
  
• "While Wright notes that justification (covenant membership) is a declaration that an individual’s sins are already forgiven, it does not mean that there is a transfer of God’s or Christ’s righteousness to sinners. As he argues, 'The righteousness they have will not be God’s own righteousness…God’s righteousness remains, so to speak, God’s own property. It is the reason for his acting to vindicate his people. It is not the status he bestows upon them in so doing.'"
  
  
• ". . .according to Wright, the traditional idea of 'imputed righteousness, whereby sinners are accepted and accounted as righteous in God’s sight because of the righteousness of Jesus, is incorrect: “If we use the language of the law court, it makes no sense whatever to say that the judge imputes, imparts, bequeaths, conveys or otherwise transfers his righteousness to either the plaintiff or the defendant. Righteousness is not an object, a substance or gas which can be passed around the courtroom.'"
  
  
• "Thus, the idea of a “gracious transfer” is simply not found in the biblical texts, according to Wright. In dealing with Romans 4:3-5, Wright understands the “book-keeping metaphor” of “counted” (ESV) as referring to the individual’s “status of being a member of the covenant…according to Wright, the language of Romans 4 does not represent “imputation” of “Christ’s/God’s righteousness” to the ungodly."
  
  
• "The question is then raised, when does this justification occur? For Wright, justification is an eschatological judgment that is applied in the present time “as a proper anticipation of the eventual judgment which will be announced, on the basis of the whole life led, in the future.” This "whole life" includes both the membership badge of “faith” as well as faithful responses by the individual to life among God’s people. The place where Wright argues this most forcefully is in his exposition of Romans 2. There, Wright suggests that the justification of God’s people occurs “on the basis of works” (cf. Romans 2:6). When he describes what this “basis” represents, he suggests that it is not so much the accomplishment of particular works, but rather the “seeking for them”: the godly are “defined in terms of that for which they seek and the means by which that quest is pursued.”"

Mark Driscoll is at the centre of controversy once more. This time it is about a video he shot for a conference that was aimed at stirring men to fight for the church. The video was publicly criticised from the stage of the conference by Bill Hybels. The video was then not given out as planned to the conference delegates. I am impressed with his restraint in his blog post on the subject.

I am praying for Mark right now as I write this because I'm sure this was the last thing he was expecting or wanting. Personally, I love the video and I think he is right on with what he says. Well done, Mark, for standing for God, and more power to your elbow!

Was watching an interview with Terry Virgo on video this evening with my two oldest children and my wife. We were all really caught up with and interested in his story. But there was one line that stuck out for its simplicity, but profoundness. When talking about his early experiences of "boring" church, Terry then defined church as it ought to be as follows:

"What is Church? Church is where the presence of God is." -- Terry Virgo

Was that your experience this Sunday morning? If the presence of God is there, then how can it possibly be boring?

Today I preached a message on Joseph for my UK church. The message is entitled "Joseph - God's Dreamer" and is available as an mp3 file for download. (To download this, simply right click on the mp3 link and save it to your computer. Or, why not subscribe to the podcast either by following the link or seaching inside the iTunes podcasts list for "Jubilee."

It was the first sermon I have preached using only notes written in the margins of my new Bible. If you listen to the audio, you can judge for yourself the effect, if any, on my preaching style.

So whilst this is not the actual set of notes I preached from, it is a summary of those notes and an outline of the thoughts I had as I prepared. As usual, these notes, I am sure, will not convey the sense of exactly what I preached as I have a habit of interjecting material spontaneously. Us charismatics claim that is the immediate assistance of the Holy Spirit — but then so does John MacArthur, so it’s not just us wacky types!

The sermon is based on Genesis 37-50 and is entitled “Joseph—God’s Dreamer.” I wanted to encourage people to make great men of God their friends and disciplers — imagine what they would say to us today. The notion of dreaming big dreams for God is one that should be encouraged. It is not wrong for us to want to be significant for Him — whether in family, work, marriage, or church. We should start by wanting to be significant in some small way, and be willing to allow God to fulfil our dreams if He has given them.


1. The DREAM GIVEN (Genesis 37:3-11)

When God wants to save the world, He always chooses one man to do it. Joseph would find out that allowing God to take your life and inject it with destiny would be an interesting ride! Joseph, no doubt, despite the foolish favouritism of his father, felt fairly useless because of the hatred of his brothers — he just wanted to be appreciated by them! Who doesn’t!

Sharing such a dream with his brothers shows the naïvety of the dreamer.

The dream was rejected, but with shades of Mary’s response to the birth of Jesus, his father kept mulling this whole notion over.


2. The DREAM TESTED — we will all face similar trials!

• The dreamer rejected — sold into Egypt. (Genesis 37:19-22, 26)
• Great promise — Genesis 39:1-6 — success is still testing.
• Great temptation (Genesis 39:7, 10-12)
• Great injustice (Genesis 39:16-23)
• Great opportunity (Genesis 40:1, 8, 13-15)
• Great disappointment (Genesis 40:23-41:1)

3. THE DREAM FULFILLED

• It is such a time for us as a church RIGHT NOW. But when God is blessing corporately, we should also expect times of individual blessing!
• God tests His leaders in the secret place, and isn’t in a hurry.
• But suddenly He quickens the pace!
• Note that Joseph already had experience of dreams! So don’t wait for the dramatic — get on with the ordinary!

THE KEY LESSON — TRUST GOD! (Genesis 45:4-7, 50:15-21)

It is important to note that the churches in Acts were led by teams. This was such a crucial thing to Paul that there was an occassion when he refused to preach when a door was open to him because his team were not with him.

This point is so vital that I intend to dwell on it for several posts, in a sub-series "leadership teamwork that changes the world"

For today suffice it to say that the bible nothing of the modern concept of one man exclusively leading. Teams need a leader for sure, and Paul was the driver, making things happen. He was always focussed on the task before him and eager to move onto the next place. He was also the spokesman, we do not hear of Barnabus preaching.

Barnabus appeared to be focussed on people- and was an encourager- indeed he went to get Paul and draw him into minstry. Both Paul and Barnabus had something to offer. We need different sorts of people in our teams.

One way to think of the differences between people is to think of the answers to two simple questions-
1. Are they focussed on the task like Paul or the people like Barnabus?
2. Are they voccal like Paul or a behind the scenes person like Barnabus?

Of course people can be task focussed and behind the scenes or people focussed and voccal. How these different sorts of people interact and what they can bring to the party is vital for us to consider more fully.

This series continues at Teamwork will change the world

Previous posts on churches that change the world
Churches that change the world- Part 1
Churches that are multicultural change the world
Churches characterised by faithfulness to the Lord and steadfast determination change the world
Churches who's leaders are genuine, spirit filled and full of faith will change the world
This series is based on a sermon I preached entitled "What kind of churches change the world?" the audio of which is now availabl

So what is the point of church? Why is it important? Why does it exist and what can it do for me? Should I actually be asking the question 'What can I do for the church?'

Like the Romans, there is much that has been purely practical that the church has accomplished. Great social movements, charitable care, justice campaigns that have led to changes in the law have all come from church. Not to mention institutions like schools and hospitals many of which were started by churches.

Actually, for a Christian there are some purposes that the church embodies. Things that we cannot do alone. I believe that these purposes are actually best embodied in the people given to the church listed in Ephesians 4.

These people exist to equip the rest of the church to do the job which God left us on the earth to do. They are specialists who enable us all to be generalists. Without the richness of what they represent we could not produce balanced churches. Ideally each church needs either within it, or through input from outside, to have all of these different kinds of ministry inputing into them.

I listed these some while ago explaining that they each love different things I thought it would be wise to elaborate this further.

A Pastor loves Christians his purpose is to care for and develop his flock. He is not a counsellor as he will be directive, showing the way to a godly life. Arguably he cannot simply pastor but must also teach, although surely some will be happier pastoring than teaching.
A Teacher loves books Like a miner he can bring diamonds out of the dust of the earth. Ancient writings, in foreign languages will thrill him. Hopefully he is no mere academic studying greek and hebrew for the sake of it. Rather he seeks insights that will change lives. His pithy statements will bring revelation to anyone who listens. We need such men. We need to hear them preaching regularly. We need our lives to be moulded by the word of God.
An Evangelist loves non-Christians Sometimes happier in the company of non-Christians than Christians, he will act as a bridge. He will constantly remind the rest of us that a world out there is dying. He will encourage us out of our ghettos and into the world. He lives to see people become Christians, and to see Christians sharing the good news.
A Prophet loves God He applys God's unchanging word into todays situation and the lives of his hearers. He will often preach, but in doing so the word becomes like a sword, swathing through the ideas of today. He cares not for what people think of him, being in love with God. Some will so love intamacy with God that their worship draws others into the very courts of God.
An Apostle loves the Church He is constantly checking the blueprint, and training new leaders. He wants to press on to new towns and countries satisfied only when vibrant self-governing churches are established. He will hurt when things go wrong, and somehow manage to pull churches back on track when they stray. He will be full of strategy goal and vision. He expands the minds of those who spend time with him.

Such a dynamic surely portrays the need we all have for each other. Any one of these people without the rest will lead a church into inbalance and error. The social club, the bible school, the mission station, the mountaintop, or the corporate organisation are not the church. I have been in churches like that and I don't like it. I love being in a church where each part of the body is doing its work.

Perhaps it is because I am in such a church that I find it so hard to comprehend those who claim to be Christians but are not interested being in a local church. I pity them for what they are missing.