It's time once again to review another year's worth of blogging here at my place. I have made it something of a tradition to look back and reflect on the year that has passed. I have done this previously in December 2006, 2005, and 2004. The format is simple: I highlight some of the posts that I remember most, or enjoyed writing the most over the year. This time I will break it down into a series of posts.

This year I began January's blogging—after extending my customary Christmas break slightly longer than previously—by taking up my autobiographical story with a post entitled My Story Part Five—Learning to Value Being, Not Doing. I did not return to my story again this year, so this remains surely the longest running, as yet unfinished, series on my blog. I am sure that I will eventually return to this and catch up to the current day. In that post I talked about the value of silence and reflection.

In one of the shortest, but most personally challenging posts of the year, in the second post of 2007 I shared some Reflections of a Returning Blogger, citing Scripture that said few words were wiser than many. I suspect this contributed to a trend this year on my blog to shorter posts and, hopefully, to more careful consideration of what I say.

I also spent a few days in January on an interview with Wendy Alsup, a deacon in the Mars Hill Church—Seattle, where Mark Driscoll is pastor.

In February I began what would be an extended series on preaching with two posts that quoted the Together for the Gospel Statement Article 4, John Piper, and Martyn Lloyd-Jones on Expository Preaching.

I also mentioned that I had just heard a new book on the atonement would soon be released—Pierced for Our Transgressions. Little did I know then just how much I would be focused on that subject this year. I shared the audio of a talk I had given late in 2006 for Jubilee entitled What is the Bible?

I remember being stirred to ask Should We be Optimistic or Pessimistic About the Future? and challenging my readers to find a quote I was sure I had once read from Spurgeon. That readers' challenge remains open and can be answered via e-mail on reading Spurgeon's Prediction of a Future Revival. I did manage to find one quote where Spurgeon asks the question Will More Be Saved Than Lost?

It was also great to publish the news that I was able to play a small part in restoring the works of Charles Simeon to a larger audience.

I seem to have been somewhat distracted from my posts about preaching, and only quoted C. S. Lewis on the Need for Plain English Preaching all month. I did quote one of my greatest living hero's impressions of one of my greatest preaching heroes of the past—I am speaking, of course, about John Piper on Martyn Lloyd-Jones.

In March I returned to the subject of preaching, and there were a significant number of posts which culminated in Ten Conclusions About Expository Preaching. In the middle of this I wrote about The Risks and Rewards of Using Technology in Sermon Preparation.

I posted about the T4G Articles 5-6—The Attributes of God and the Trinity, which included the audio of another talk I had given at Jubilee late in 2006.

One of the traditions of this blog is that every now and then I engage in a gloves-off debate with the Pyromaniacs. In March, one of these was summarized in a post I entitled Am I a Thrill Seeker?

If I remember correctly, that debate with the Pyros was, at least in part, sparked by possibly the most controversial post of the year anywhere in the Christian blogosphere. It was published over on Desiring God, and my reflections on it were entitled John Piper Hears The Voice Of God. I also remember the call that went out that month for Prayer for an Exhausted Mark Driscoll.

March was a hectic blogging month, but nothing would prepare me for what was to come in April, especially as I had written many of my forthcoming posts on atonement in a single sitting and thought I would have a quiet time as my editor faithfully published them all for me. That, however, must wait for the next installment of this year in review series.

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.

You can help choose nine topics for Mark Driscoll to preach on in January. In a novel idea, he is allowing the whole Internet to vote on a set of questions he will answer in a series of sermons. You have until the 14th to vote and you have ten votes a day. Voting is surprisingly close, though it does drop off after about the tenth question, so I suspect the final list will look similar to what is there now.

Regular readers of my blog will remember that, together with my pastor, Tope Koleoso, we had the joy of being able to chat with Mark Driscoll when we went to Edinburgh to hear him preach live. We were deeply impressed with his graciousness and kindness to us. In this, he reminded me of a man who is one of my other living Christian heroes—Terry Virgo.

I know that many people were disappointed not to be able to make it to Scotland to hear Mark. So I am delighted to relay an announcement from Terry Virgo's blog today. Mark Driscoll has agreed to speak next July at the Newfrontiers Leaders Conference in Brighton, UK. Here is how Terry begins his post:

"The last time I checked, the Pope was still a Catholic, the death rate was still hovering at around 100%, and the chances of getting Mark Driscoll to speak at a conference in the UK in 2008 were averaging at zero.

It is therefore with great delight that I can announce that we have, with the aid of certain friends (for an inspired guess see Adrian Warnock’s blog), arranged for him to be our main visiting speaker at Together on a Mission in Brighton next year, 8-11 July 2008.

In recent months I have found myself listening to downloads of Mark Driscoll’s preaching, probably more than anybody else’s. I find him completely arresting, relevant, Biblical, funny, aggressive, and packing a real punch. I believe he will do us a lot of good.

I love his value system and I am impressed by what has been accomplished by God through his ministry based in Seattle, where a church of several thousand has been built in a few years, starting from almost nothing and largely not through church swapping, but conversion.

He is theologically reformed, Biblically orthodox, and culturally relevant, and particularly addresses the post-modern world with remarkable insight. I have just read his chapter in the Crossway publication, The Supremacy of Christ in a Post-Modern World. I found myself underlining sentence after sentence, and simply wrote ‘Wow!’ in the margin at the conclusion of the chapter. I am deeply grateful to God that he will be with us." Read more . . .

This is a fantastic piece of news. Terry and Mark are both pastors of pastors. Church planting is a major need of our world today. Leaders themselves need to be trained.

As an example of Terry's gifting in operation, he has recently finished a series of posts on the vital role of the pastor in the life of a church. He re-examines the biblical teaching. I will finish this post by giving you a taste of each post in the series, but do go and read them all; they are worthy of careful study.

Church Leaders

As a movement, Newfrontiers has tended to emphasise the role of apostles and prophets. The church was originally built on the foundation of apostles and prophets (Ephesians 2:20) so they gave the people of God their fundamental identity. I have argued that we were not built on a pastoral foundation.

My argument has often been expressed by noting that pastors are called to care for and feed the flock and meet the flock’s needs. An over-emphasis, therefore, on the pastoral role can result in pre-occupation with needs. We could become need-centred instead of apostolic and prophetic, thereby missing God’s intention and forgetting the bigger picture, building churches that gradually become foreign to the atmosphere of the New Testament.

I have been alarmed at the possible danger of a church becoming introverted, developing a culture where personal preference dominates and shepherds major on discerning and serving people’s so-called ‘felt needs’. However, in taking this stance, we may have failed to bring adequate positive Biblical teaching about the vital role of pastors and teachers. They are, of course, the most visible ministers in the local church. They have the most ‘hands on’ role among the flock. Read more . . .

Shepherds of the Flock

Jesus didn’t say, ‘I am the good apostle,’ or ‘the good prophet,’ or even ‘the good evangelist,’ but happily claimed to be the Good Shepherd. . .

Although the Lord was their ultimate shepherd, it is clear that God actually enlisted men to fulfil the shepherding role on His behalf. . .

As the apostles go, their intuitive strategy in obeying the command was to plant churches, establish flocks and appoint shepherds to care for them. Read more . . .

Other Sheep I Must Bring

When Billy Graham came to the UK in the 1950's and ‘60s, the call to return to God would have been generally comprehended by that generation. Today we live in a different era and though people can be born again through encountering the simplest message, we must not assume that initial conversion will result in inevitable Christian maturity, or even basic understanding of Christian living.

Deconstructing people’s world view
The role of the modern shepherd includes a call to deconstruct people’s previous world view. Nothing can be taken for granted. Lives need to be re-formed. Coming from a fragmented and aimless society devoid of any trace of Christian values, people need to be re-socialised and taught how to relate in godly ways.

Raised on self-indulgence, consumerism and rampant individualism, the new convert won’t automatically be transformed into a mature Christian who knows how to conduct himself in the household of God (1 Timothy 3:15).

God has promised to give His people shepherds after His own heart who will feed them with knowledge and understanding (Jeremiah 3:15). This feeding requires a radical approach. We are not called to build on a false foundation with teachings that imply merely personal fulfilment or the grasping of the individual’s full potential, or how to love oneself. The shelves of many a Christian bookshop are filled with titles which appeal to personal fulfilment as the goal of the Christian life. Coming from a culture where demanding your personal rights seems to be the bottom line, new Christians hardly need that diet. Read more . . .

Spirit-inspired Preaching

. . . Holy Spirit-inspired preaching brings about an encounter with God that demands a verdict and produces a changed life based on revelation, faith and love, not cold obedience to external rules.

God’s flock will intuitively hear His voice and respond as truth is fed to them by called and anointed pastor/teachers. Gradually a culture of God-centredness will emerge characterised by worship, faith, grace, mercy, respect, service and the awareness of being an alien people whose fundamental citizenship lies elsewhere (Philippians 3:20) . . .

The shepherd’s ability to feed and be a channel of God’s grace will result in the gathering of a flock. The sheep gather to the gifted anointing of shepherding and thus a flock forms.

The responsibility of the shepherds is not simply to expound truth but to develop relationships of love and trust, and in some cases to ‘parent’ a flock often made up of those who have never been parented before. Read more . . .

A few months ago it was my privilege to interview Rob Rufus. The audio version of that interview is available online, but thanks to two readers (Dan Bowden and a friend of Andrew Fountain) who both sent me transcripts of the MP3 lately, I am now able to publish the text version. It has only been lightly edited, so please do forgive us any grammatical errors that come from this being a conversation rather than careful writing. If you want to listen to the interview, the MP3 is available to download on the original post.

Adrian
The Together on a Mission conference has just ended, but I’m here, together with my pastor, Tope, and we’re here with Rob Rufus. Rob is going to talk to us a little bit about how the conference has been for him, and tell us a little bit more about his own church and his own family of churches, and just really share with us about that. So he’s kindly agreed to sit down—he’s probably a bit tired—but we’re going to have a good time, hopefully, this afternoon. So, Rob, first of all, how has this conference been for you?

Rob Rufus
I think it’s been very staggering and astonishing in a delightful way because what I experienced here was almost like the reward of the fruit of a number of years of New Frontiers preparing themselves, building a good wineskin. And by “wineskin” I mean the kind of authority structures we build the church with—biblical values and biblical vision. We are now positioned to really see God come in an amazing way. So I felt there was such a liberty and an openness to God’s visitation, to the supernatural of God, and I think a lot of that’s got to do with the understanding that the churches have on the theology of grace—the understanding of grace—and the security that we have in Christ. So, it’s been an incredibly enlarging time here; just the spirit of faith among the people, the sense of a global vision, and yet doing it together as a team, doing it together in a sense of partnership. So, for me, the overall sense of the ethos and the atmosphere was one of a group of people very zealous, very passionate, full of vision, yet who haven’t kissed their brains goodbye, well-grounded in good theology, sound doctrine, open to the power of the Holy Spirit, and real people who are really friendly with one another and enjoy one another’s company, and that’s been a delight.

Adrian
Excellent! Yeah, and it’s been great. Obviously, one of the features of this conference has been your own preaching, Rob. I just wonder for those who have not been at the conference, and perhaps have been following the blogs—how would you summarize your key message, just in a couple of sentences, of this conference—what you’d like people to take away, because, to be honest, taking notes hasn’t been that easy! (Loud laughter) Well, you could say that!

Rob Rufus
Yes, absolutely! I mean, I’m the worst person for writing notes myself, and then, of course, for people to be able to pick up notes, because I tend to be more spontaneous and impromptu. Probably what I’d like people to primarily take away in a few sentences is that, of course, God is turning up the supernatural—the volume of the demonstration of his power—not just for the sake of sensationalism for us to find ourselves popular or famous because of that, but because he wants to be glorified in the world, he wants to get the world’s attention. The primary essence I would like people to take away is that we don’t seek primarily the power of God, but we seek the person of God. We seek who he is, his glory. Because his power is what he does, but his glory and his presence is who he is, and that’s the only thing that will fulfill people—to know him personally. That sense of intimacy is such a delight; it gives us that fulfillment. Out of that he hides his power within his presence so you can live a supernatural life in a natural way because you’re not having to fast forty days to get the power—you can just walk with the person of God in intimacy and he releases his power out of that relationship with himself.

Adrian
Yes. I guess that some Christians sitting at home listening to this—I mean, I get readers on my blog from all kinds of different backgrounds—they’re going to listen to that and think, “What is this guy talking about? A relationship with God? I thought we just had a relationship with a Book!” What would you say to those kinds of people?

Rob Rufus
Well, it’s like—when I met my wife for the first time I was at university so I couldn’t spend time with her because the university was in a different city. So during the first six months, I could only see her every second or third weekend. We corresponded in those days—it was a long enough time ago it was by letters, not e-mails!—(loud laughter) and although her letters were perfumed and I loved reading her letters, I didn’t have a love relationship primarily with her letters, but with the author of the letters. So I longed to get to see the person who was writing the letter and meet her. So the Bible is, in a sense, perfumed with the presence of God—it’s God-breathed; it’s really his love letter to us. It’s an introduction for us to get to know the Author of the Book. That’s the delight!

Adrian
Yes, very good! So you are not one of those “charismaniacs” who want to throw out the Bible then, Rob?

Rob Rufus
Absolutely not, Adrian! That, I think, is the tragedy. Sadly the charismatics or Pentecostals (to some degree, not all!) have been known as a people who are kind of going on a binge of subjectivity. It’s all self-indulgent. You have got to have theological references to make sure that the supernatural experiences you are having are authentic because we do have the counterfeit in the world today; we do have deception in the world today. The Bible is the foundation that authenticates that we are having legitimate miraculous encounters with God.

Continued in part 2 . . .

The Urban Reformation shares this great quote from the 20th century's greatest English-speaking preacher. We need to listen to this as he explains what is wrong with so much of our preaching. It reminds me of some of my ten conclusions on preaching, and some of the posts in the series of which that post was the summary.

Page 93 from the book “Preaching & Preachers” states—

“. . . Modern sophisticated man may laugh at this, but it is only when we begin to know something of this melting quality that we shall be real preachers. Of course a man who tries to produce an effect becomes an actor, and is an abominable impostor. But the fact is that when ‘the love of God is shed abroad’ in a man’s heart as it was in Whitefield’s pathos is inevitable.

This element of pathos and of emotion is, to me, a very vital one. It has been so seriously lacking in the present century, and perhaps especially among Reformed people. We tend to lose our balance and to become over-intellectual, indeed almost to despise the element of feeling and emotion. We are such learned men, we have such a great grasp of the truth, that we tend to despise feeling. The common herd, we feel, are emotional and sentimental, but they have no understanding!

Is not this the danger, is not this the tendency, to despise feeling which is an essential part of man put there by God? We do not know what it is to be carried away, we no longer know what it is to be moved profoundly. . . .”

He goes on to say on page 95—

“. . . Can a man see himself as a damned sinner without emotion? Can a man look into hell without emotion? Can a man listen to the thunderings of the Law and feel nothing? Or conversely, can a man really contemplate the love of God in Christ Jesus and feel no emotion? The whole position is utterly ridiculous. I fear that many people today in their reaction against excesses and emotionalism put themselves into a position in which, in the end, they are virtually denying the Truth. The Gospel of Jesus Christ takes up the whole man, and if what purports to be the Gospel does not do so it is not the Gospel. The Gospel is meant to do that, and it does that. The whole man is involved because the Gospel leads to regeneration; and so I say that this element of pathos and emotion, this element of being moved, should always be prominent in preaching.”

In the context of my ongoing debate with the fire-lovers about the best way to critique those from other churches, the following clip is most illuminating. Mark Driscoll is not known for being a weak feminist man. In this video he gives us a fantastic example of how to call out the errors of the "health, wealth, and prosperity" movement, and specifically Joel Osteen. He does so with clarity, and is very firm. But he does so with grace.

I am willing to bet that this is a recent clip from Driscoll, and am very impressed at the way God seems to be working on his heart. He drips humility, graciousness, and yet a passionate love for the truth. What irony that I should find myself pointing to the man who has often been called the 'cussing pastor' as a model of gracious rebuke. I love the look on Driscoll's face when he says, "Just so you know . . . that's not right!" Watch this clip in its entirety—it includes a section of a sermon from Joel Osteen, along with Driscoll's response to it. He then goes on to speak about that culturally irrelevant word 'sin.' (HT: Reformation Nation)



For more information, see my interview with Mark Driscoll, his blog, the Acts 29 network and Mars Hill Church.

Over at Unashamed Workmen, there are a number of great quotes on the vital place of prayer in preaching. The one that really stood out was in the comments section. I think this quote expresses perfectly why we need to plead with the resurrected Jesus to pour out his Spirit on us before we dare think of preaching:

“This divine unction is the one distinguishing feature that separates true gospel preaching from all other methods of presenting truth. It backs and interpenetrates the revealed truth with all the force of God. It illumines the Word and broadens and enrichens [sic] the intellect and empowers it to grasp and apprehend the Word. It qualifies the preacher’s heart, and brings it to that condition of tenderness, of purity, of force and light that are necessary to secure the highest results. This unction gives to the preacher liberty and enlargement of thought and soul—a freedom, fullness, and directness of utterance that can be secured by no other process.”

—Power Through Prayer by E. M. Bounds

I want to mention today a man who both John Owen and Charles Spurgeon held in high regard. Most know of John Bunyan as a writer, but he was also one of the most famous preachers of his era. Here is what one of the Pyromaniacs said of Bunyan, his preaching, and and his book, Pilgrim's Progress:

"It may be the most popular book ever written in English. It was a favorite of Charles Spurgeon's, who read it at least once-a-year, and said before he died that he had probably read it more than a hundred times.

Spurgeon wasn't the only important admirer of Bunyan. John Owen, probably the most prominent and respected academic leader of Bunyan's own era, once went to hear Bunyan preach. Charles II, hearing of it, asked the learned doctor of divinity why someone as thoroughly educated as he would want to hear a mere tinker preach. Owen replied, "May it please your Majesty, if I could possess the tinker's abilities to grip men's hearts, I would gladly give in exchange all my learning."

Today I continue with part three of my interview with Greg Haslam. In part one, Greg told us a little about himself, and in part two he discussed his relationship to Newfrontiers and his move to Westminster Chapel.

Adrian
If Westminster Chapel has stood for anything over the years it is surely the primacy of preaching. Can you tell us a bit more about your own view of preaching and its importance?

Greg
I've said it all in the collection of fifty-two addresses from our Preachers' Conference, now published as Preach the Word! (Sovereign World 2006). Preaching is primary because, along with dependence on the work of the Holy Spirit, just about everything else that's good in the Church and in individual lives flows from it. Done well, through accurate explanation and application of the Scriptures in Spirit-empowered preaching, God's voice is heard, God's people obey him, and incredible life in the Spirit is the certain result. We live at a time of increasing Biblical illiteracy among even lively evangelical Christians. Sick churches are all too numerous. Christians are ignorant of their faith and often too cowardly to defend and share it with others. Preaching goes a long way to remedy these things.

I believe we need to see restored to the Church every “flavor” of word-ministry listed in Ephesians 4:11ff—apostolic, prophetic, evangelistic, pastoral, and didactic—so that our people are theologically well-informed, compassionate, skilled, missional, cutting edge, and truly well-grounded. When we pray for revival we are primarily praying for preachers and a new visitation of the Holy Spirit. Preaching should disturb the comfortable and comfort the disturbed! It's not “any old style of preaching” we need; it is the living voice of Christ speaking his “now word” to his Church. This is why the prophetic dimension to good preaching is essential, whether the preacher is an evangelist, a pastor, a teacher, an apostle, or a prophet, and I believe in the present-day ministry of all five (see my chapter “Ephesians 4 ministries and Church Unity” in Preach the Word!).

Adrian
What do you feel about the state of preaching in the Church as a whole today? Are you encouraged or discouraged?

Greg
Mostly discouraged. Sermons seem to represent some form or expression of “Christianity Lite.” They are short, trendy, adrift from the serious handling of Scripture, apologetic, flirting with post-modernism, fearful of any note of authority, caught up with the “spirit of the age,” often “politically correct,” and mostly ineffective. We tend to sound like the “Court prophets” of Israel in the pay of the king, rather than those who have “been in the counsel of the Most High” and then dare to speak what we have seen and heard! Preaching should convey a sense of awe and fear in the presence of a transcendent God — not just God all-matey but God Almighty!

It was due to my growing perception of the perilous state of preaching in the UK that I gathered nineteen of the best preachers this country has to offer in order to speak at the eight-month conference Preach the Word! in 2003-2004. The result more than met my expectations, and the 650 delegates who enthusiastically attended seemed to share my opinion!

I took less than an hour to plan the contents. I wrote over fifty themes we should address and then picked about twenty top guys to address them. All but two accepted, and what a brilliant job they did! We had outstanding pastors, evangelists, prophets, teachers, and apostles. I basically urged them not to go to their graves along with all of their best secrets! They came up with the goods and shared brilliantly their best insights into preaching and how to do it well. The speakers included many personal heroes like John Stott, Terry Virgo, David Pawson, and Jeff Lucas. In fact, most of them are my much admired friends. I receive testimonies regularly, from home and overseas, as to just how effective this material has proved to be. The event was a true Word and Spirit gathering, and all of our lives were changed by it.

Adrian
How did you manage to bring together such a wide variety of preachers for this conference and book? Did you find that you all agreed about preaching, or did you have a wide range of differing perspectives to discuss?

Greg
They were nearly all extremely enthusiastic and willing to do this. They ranged from fairly conservative evangelicals, through radical charismatics. There were Anglicans, Free Churches, Charismatics, and Restorationists. Some were Arminian, others Calvinistic in theology, and all points in-between. Between them all, there was an accumulation of hundreds of years of experience in leading and preaching ministry (perhaps thousands of years!). They all got on well together, and the atmosphere of each day was terrific. They had differing emphases, but all honored God and the Bible, and all were convinced about the importance and centrality of preaching. The wide range of perspectives present was what made this conference somewhat unique and so invaluable. It fostered the kind of unity I believe in. And some people changed their prejudices, and their minds, on some controversial issues as a result.

Adrian
Can you tell us a bit more about the main message of your book and why my readers should go out and buy it?

Greg
The main message is this: “We need better preaching, biblical preaching, Holy Spirit anointed preaching, effective preaching, with signs following. And here are some big clues as to how this can happen.” What more could you ask?

Continued in part four, "Greg Haslam On Unity Versus Doctrinal Integrity."

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

It is a pleasure to welcome to my blog, Greg Haslam, who is the current successor to Martyn Lloyd-Jones at Westminster Chapel in London.

Adrian
To begin with Greg, can you tell us a bit about yourself?

Greg
I am a 'scouser,' born in Liverpool in 1953, who lived in a rough area of the city called Bootle (where the kids played 'tic' with hatchets). I came from a broken home, with much sadness due to my parents' marital breakdown and eventual divorce when we children were still very young. It was persistent school friends who later told me fully about Christ. I attended a Billy Graham big-screen Gospel crusade relay to Liverpool on June 30, 1967, and after a big emotional struggle with doubt and many fears that Christ would not have me (the scars of rejection were still there from the break-up of my parents’ marriage and the lack of a father's love), I came to faith in Christ that night. That was 40 years ago! My whole world and life-direction dramatically changed, and interest in theology was stirred soon after with input from my new Baptist church radical youth leaders. Two years later, at the Keswick Convention, listening to a fairly young John Stott on II Timothy (four hours of amazing teaching), I felt the call to become a preacher. This started, remarkably, within twelve months of that Keswick convention in that I was invited to preach at an independent Methodist church and became a regular on their circuit as a ‘the boy preacher’ on a Honda 50!

Not long after, I met and married my wife, Ruth, and we now have three amazing adult sons who are all serving Christ. The eldest two, James and Andrew, are marred (a doctor and a pastor) and the third, Joshua, is studying Philosophy at UCL. We have one gorgeous granddaughter from James and Emily. Andrew has just started work at the Chapel leading our 18’s to 30's ministry.

I studied Theology and History at Durham and the London Theological Seminary (Dr. Lloyd-Jones' new venture in ministerial training), and I became pastor of Winchester Family Church (later to be part of Newfrontiers) at age 27. I stayed there for twenty-one years until my move to Westminster Chapel in 2002. My interests include all kinds of books (of course!), movies (especially gritty westerns, war movies, and thrillers), good food, good music, philosophy and culture, apologetics, writing, speaking, and motorcycling.

Adrian
How did you come to be preaching in one of the world’s most famous pulpits? What was the journey like? What is it like to be the successor to men like Dr. Martyn Lloyd Jones and Dr. R. T. Kendall?

Greg
My journey as a pastor in Winchester (1980—2002) was a hard learning curve which included making the transition from hard-line Reformed theology that either ignored the Holy Spirit to a criminal degree or resisted him; through my own experience of baptism in the Spirit, desperation for change in the church I pastored, a fresh vision of what church can and ought to be; to the embrace of a full-blown Word and Spirit theology and ecclesiology, along with an optimistic post-millennial eschatology and a restorationist/revivalist view of the Gospel of God's kingdom with its total world and life view.

Westminster Chapel's fame worldwide is deservedly based upon its ministers' loyalty to Scripture and faithful declaration of it, an influence that has spanned the world throughout the 20th century. My predecessor, Dr. R. T. Kendall, wrote to me in late 2000. He was looking for a successor who was 'a preacher, Reformed, open to the Spirit, and pastoral in heart' (PROP for short!). He was convinced I was the man. I was very happy where I was in Winchester, but I dared not ignore the 'call' that was coming to me to consider a move. I instantly felt that God's hand was upon this. Unfortunately, key figures in the Chapel were not all convinced! There was resistance to having a Newfrontiers man there. The exploration process took a whole year. That year, God gave me over fifty personal prophecies that made it clear I would be going there, mostly from men who knew nothing about what was afoot. I also experienced some very special days 'preaching with a view' at the Chapel. I guessed God knew that I would need this level of divine affirmation! I was eventually called. This meant that with great sadness for both myself and my wife, we had to leave Newfrontiers to do this as the Lord had told me that this was ‘For the sake of my wider kingdom purposes in London and beyond.' It's been an amazing five or so years since!

I've always worked hard, but this job has taken over my life! I preach more than ever, write, travel significantly, and have faced the challenge of trying to build a New Testament style church in what has historically been known as a 'preaching center'. Building a true Gospel-centered community of Word and Spirit authenticity has never been easy in commuter-congregation, metropolitan churches, but the task is God's will for this church. We have seen many new people join us and great changes in the feel, direction, joy, and sense of Holy Spirit-filled community among us. People have been saved and lives transformed. Many young people have joined us, bringing the average down by perhaps 25-30 years less.

Adrian
Most people still associate the pulpit of your church with men like R. T. Kendall and Martyn Lloyd-Jones, who preceded you. What does it feel like to try and fill their shoes?

Greg
I've never tried! I believe they wore different sized shoes to me! My shoes are the only ones I'm called to wear. I have to avoid imitation and be true to the man God made me to be. The advice of a black preacher to trainee preachers comes to mind: "Be who you is, ‘cos if you ain't who you is, then you is who you ain't!" I abhor artificial imitation of others in their style and content. God doesn't clone preachers, and each of us is a unique creation with a unique voice. So I try to remain secure in the style and approach I take. I am second to none in my love for and admiration of my predecessors, and I am discovering just how great Dr. George Campbell-Morgan was, too! I have read nearly all of Lloyd-Jones and Kendall's books and owe them a huge debt, but I know they would be the first to advise me to 'Just be yourself!'—and that's what I intend to be. I am presently hearing much from God about his vision for the Chapel's future. I think both the Doctor and RT would be very pleased, because I'm convinced that something like it is what they both wanted, but never saw.

Continued in part two, "Greg Haslam On Leaving Newfrontiers for Westminster Chapel."

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

To be quite honest, when reading the publicity, this talk was the one that most inspired me to attend the Theology for All conference. Mark is somewhat of an expert on Church history, and in particular the Puritans. As a pastor, he is concerned not merely with transferring knowledge to his congregation, but also in showing them the lessons to be learned from what has happened in the past.

Mark underlined the old maxim, “What one generation knows and teaches, the second generation assumes, and the third generation loses.” Our study of Church history is to insure that we don't fall into the same trap.

He explained that some people have mocked his interest in the Puritans. He has heard all the old jibes: “The Puritans hated bear bating, not because it gave pain to the bear, but because it caused pleasure to the viewers.” Or, “The Puritans went to America because they were hoping to find more restrictions than were permissible under English law.” They are often characterized as those who were afraid that somebody somewhere might be having a good time! Dever does not believe those descriptions to be accurate.

Dever spent time focusing on Richard Sibbes. He began by explaining that Sibbes argued that the killing sin that many religious people lay under is a dead formality. Sibbes was eager to underline that the Spirit is the one who quickens, not mere words and structure. Spirit-less Christianity is no Christianity at all. He was no mere formalist himself.

Sibbes was a great success. He was able to preach the Gospel faithfully throughout his life. Sadly, many he influenced to become preachers did not find the same ease in the established faith.

Sibbes had a great optimism in the progress of the Gospel. He was even optimistic when godly people endured trials. His view of the Church was typical of the “magisterial reformers” (e.g. Calvin, etc.). The common thread was that the preaching of the Word was the heart of the Church.

Sibbes and his Puritan brethren had an evangelical vision of the Church. They wanted to see freedom in order that the Gospel could be preached. He firmly believed in the centrality of the right sort of preaching for the health of the Church.

“Death came in by the ear . . . so life comes in by the ear.” What happened to Adam? He heard a voice he should not have heard. In the same way, the Gospel is heard.

Sibbes did not worship preaching, however. He argued that “unless the Spirit of Christ quicken them,” preaching and the Word were useless. It is the preaching of the Gospel rightly anointed that will reveal Jesus to us. The Spirit flows with the doctrine that we hear according to Sibbes. Sibbes expressed himself fully, with passionate emotion.

What lessons can we learn for today? Sibbes challenges us with the centrality of preaching. Preaching is more fundamental than Church authority structure. Sibbes had friends who were Congregationalists and Presbyterians. He wanted the Gospel to go forth in all churches. Denominations are secondary pragmatic creations. In fact, denominations are parachurch organizations. It is the local church that is entrusted with the preaching.

Preaching is generative—it creates new life. It is by the Holy Spirit taking the preaching of the Gospel and bringing life that people are saved. The solution to our problem is neither making our churches as 'pure' as possible (i.e. a rigorous application of church discipline). Nor is it making our churches as nonthreatening to visitors as possible. Rather we must allow God's Word to take center place. Preaching is more important than whatever else happens in the church's meetings. The Spirit restores the ability of the soul to appreciate God, and enables man to desire him.

Our social action is not as important as preaching the Gospel! Preaching is more central to the health of your church than anything else you can think of. The great trunk of the Puritan view of the Church is that the Gospel preached is the hope of the Church.

This Piper Friday, I would like to share an extract with you from an old sermon by John Piper. It rightly entwines three themes that were flowing through my head (and hence this blog!) earlier this year: The study of God’s Word, prayer, and the activity of the Holy Spirit. I am increasingly convinced that we need these three things more than anything else! Oh, God . . . make us preachers to be men like this!

“The minister of the Word must not choose between study and prayer. Study without prayer is the work of pride. Prayer without study is presumption. This is what the Proverbs teach: "If you cry out for insight and raise your voice for understanding (that's prayer), and if you seek it like silver and search for it as for hidden treasures (that's study), then you will understand the fear of the Lord and find the knowledge of God" (Proverbs 2:3–5).

Prayer humbles the heart and gives it the tone of Christ and makes it ready and open and sensitive to the truth of Scripture. But it is study that brings in the truth and fills the heart with joy and power.

Meeting the Almighty God
The ministry of the Word is a ministry of prayer because in prayer the minister meets God and has real living dealings with the Almighty so that his preaching and teaching have the aroma of God about them. The ministry of the Word must be a ministry of earnestness and intensity, and where are these to be found if not in our private meetings with God where you learn to know if you are real or just playing games?

One great Baptist pastor, Hezekiah Harvey, put it like this in 1879: "Moral earnestness can never be assumed; it is the attribute only of a soul profoundly feeling the power and reality of divine truth. The man, therefore, who would speak God's Word with the pungency and fervor of a Bunyan, a Baxter, a Flavel, or a Payson must, like them, be constant and fervent in prayer. The springs of spiritual life opened in the closet will pour forth never-failing streams of life in the pulpit."

Without much prayer all the study in the world will leave us shallow and lean. Without prayer there creeps in what Richard Cecil called the "low, managing, contriving, maneuvering temper of mind among us."

E.M. Bounds is right when he says, "What the Church needs today is not more machinery or more novel methods, but men whom the Holy Ghost can use — men of prayer, men mighty in prayer. The Holy Ghost does not flow through methods, but through men. He does not come on machinery, but on men. He does not anoint plans, but men — men of prayer."

Today we draw to a close our series on the attributes of God—which has been inspired by the T4G Statement—by publishing an article which, in an abridged form, has already been published in the online Comment magazine.

The article addresses the nature of God, but focuses on the fact that we need to learn to love this God—which is surely a good way for us to round off this series.

For more posts on the T4G Statement, Articles 1-4 see Ten Conclusions About Expository Preaching, and for more on Articles 5 and 6, see the following posts:

• Book Review on How Much Does God Foreknow?
  

• T4G Articles 5-6 — Martyn Lloyd-Jones on the Trinity and Attributes of God
  

• International Federation of Pentecostal and Charismatic Churches Issue Warning — Do Not Jump in Church This Weekend
  

• T4G Articles 5-6 — The Attributes of God and the Trinity
  

In the light of eternity, we are all beginners in the task of learning to love God. It is the most significant challenge faced by the Christian. When asked what is the greatest commandment, Jesus said, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind” It is a measure of our spiritual weakness that we see this challenge as somehow less critical than the challenge to live morally.

How can I love someone I have never seen? We may experience a form of “love” for a character we read about in a book or see in a movie, but is that anything like the love we feel for someone we actually know? Is our love for God just a form of admiration that we might feel for a hero in a novel or the long-deceased subject of a biography. God is not the long-dead subject of a book. He is a living, breathing Person. How then can we learn to love Him as a real person?

I am convinced that the way we learn how to love God is to think of our relationship with Him in the same way we do with people we can physically see. God wants us to be His friends and to enjoy loving the One who is the most worthy of our love. We grow in our love for God in the same way we grow in our love for anyone else. In this article I will show you ways in which we build our relationships with other people and then apply them to how we can learn to love God Himself.


Love Goes Beyond Mere Feelings
The first thing to consider is, what does love actually mean? Many people think that love is simply an emotional feeling — like the way you feel when your knees go weak when you meet that someone of the opposite sex for the first time. Too often songs and sermons tell Christians to relate to God as if He were their heavenly boyfriend. Not surprisingly, that picture is frequently not very appealing to men. As Mark Driscoll says, “It's hard to worship someone you can beat up.” We must learn to love the real Jesus—not a weak imitation.

The contemporary concept of love is far from the biblical one. It is dangerous to think of love in merely emotional terms: Love is a “doing word,” a word full of action. It requires choices—hard choices sometimes. Love is about sacrifice, about faithfulness. It requires commitment. It doesn't always feel so good, and sometimes may even be very painful. As Daniel Bedingfield sings, “Nothing hurts like love, nothing causes your heart so much pain.” Loving God is no different. It, too, will at times be painful.

The first step toward learning to love God is to respond to His love for us. We do this because of what He has done for us: “We love because He first loved us” (1 John 4:19). Like any other covenant relationship, we decide to love irrespective of how we feel or, indeed, how it appears to us another person is treating us. The extent of true love for someone else is not measured by how we feel about him when everything is going well. Satan's words could as easily have read, “Does Job love God for nothing?” (Job 1). Our challenge is to love even when we feel things are not going well — to love from the core of ourselves even when we feel despair attempting to take hold.

What is love? Love is a deep-seated orientation of your life towards someone else. It involves your whole being. It usually involves deciding to put the needs of another person before your own. Just ask any parent. Our relationship with God is no different, except that He doesn't have any needs—we are needy. We come to God determined to centre our lives around Him, and to put ourselves in the position of needy recipients of His grace. He calls us to serve Him and worship Him, but it is not because He is deficient in any way. We come to God as receivers, not givers. We love God as little children love their parents, and serve Him in the same way a good mother will ask her child to help her in the kitchen so the child will learn and so they can be together.


Love Requires Spending Time Together
There are no shortcuts to loving someone. Love demands interaction and communication, and these require an investment of time. Imagine a friend who comes to you complaining about his girlfriend. He explains that their relationship just doesn't seem to be going anywhere. You ask him how long they have been going out, and what their conversations are like. Your friend replies, “Oh, we don't actually go out and talk with each other!” Many Christians spend little or no time with God and then wonder why they are not growing in their relationship with Him.

What does spending time with God look like? Clearly one of the most important ways we spend time with God is in prayer. But how do we pray in such a way that we actually feel that we are in the presence of God — that we are in a real conversation with Him? Prayer must not be merely reciting a shopping list to God. Instead of rushing to ask Him to do things for us, we start by praising Him for who He is and thanking Him for what He has done for us. As we do this and experience clear answers to prayer, just as in any relationship, more of a sense of a shared history with God will emerge and love will deepen. The longer we know Him and the more we remember how He has helped us and answered our prayers, the more we will love Him. But prayer is not only about setting aside special periods of time to be with God. It's that sense of continually communing with Him in our daily routine. It is critical that we also spend time with God in repentance and receiving forgiveness. Jesus said that those who are forgiven much will love much (Luke 7:49).


Love Requires a Deep Knowledge and Understanding of the Other Person
There is no substitute for getting to know and understand God by reading the Bible. We must grow in the biblical knowledge of who God is and what He is like. Many Christians have only a vague idea of the character of God and are unable to identify where the Bible teaches what we assume about Him. To grow in our love for God, the Bible must shape our beliefs about God. I believe it is important that we know why we believe what we do, and that we do not merely parrot theories taught by others.

Do we merely “assume” certain truths about God? Unfortunately, not all of these can be assumed these days. Where C. S. Lewis was able to say, for example, “Everyone who believes in God at all believes that He knows what you and I are going to do tomorrow” (Mere Christianity), we can no longer assert it as something generally understood by our culture. If we compromise on these truths and we end up with a God who doesn't know everything or who isn't all-powerful, our ability to love such a weakened God is severely diminished.

As we learn more about God—His glory, His perfection, and His existence as the Trinity—I believe our love for Him will grow. We can trace throughout the Bible the unique characteristics of God, and see how Jesus shares every one of these. It is said of Jesus that "in Him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily" (Colossians 2:9). He is the revelation of God to us. The more we learn of Him, the more we love Him.

We must understand God in all his transcendence and immanence. As the book of Exodus describes God: “The Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty” (Exodus 34:6-7). Many Christians emphasize one or the other of these aspects. It is only as we understand that God is both loving and holy, near to us yet separate from us, that we will learn to love Him for who He is. The following table will help you to allow the Scriptures to shape your understanding of God and the way that Jesus shares all of His attributes:

GOD EXISTS ETERNALLY
God: Psalm 90:2; Revelation 1:8
Jesus: John 1:1-5; John 17:5; Revelation 22:13

GOD IS LOVE
God: 1 John 4:8