Howard's Blog : Ethos

“The distinctive spirit, character or fundamental values of a person, people, or movement”

THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 23

Which God?

 

It seems that for years I have been falling into a simple mistake in my conversions about God.Apart from the fact that I would like to have more such conversations, I have assumed that everybody in the conversion knew what or who we are talking about. Statements like ‘I do / don't believe in God' have begged an enormous question that too often I haven't thought to ask ‘Which God do / don't you believe in?' and so rather than a cascade of interactions about ‘What is God like?' we moved on to seemingly more controversial questions about ‘Who will win the Premier League?' or "Is the Voice better than the X factor?"

The death of anti -theist Christopher Hitchens in December 2012 brought glowing media tributes for the incisiveness of his ideas but as I read some of his thoughts it seemed to me that it would have been helpful to ask him ‘Which God Is Not Great?' because from my perspective he has made the simple error of lumping all religions and faiths together because he believe all gods are the same, be that Allah, Vishnu, Ra, or the force.

The God he describes ‘I think it would be rather awful if the existence of God were true, if there was a permanent total round the clock divine supervision and invigilation of everything you did, you would never have a waking or sleeping moment where you weren't being watched or controlled and supervised by some celestial entity from the moment you were conceived to the moment you die. It would be like living in North Korea' of course will produce a Religion that Poisons Everything. Hitchens loathsome ‘speed camera' god will produce legalistic secret police like followers just ready to point a judgemental finger, odious followers ever eager to dangerously control and manipulate people emotions and actions. But this is not our God! 

Hitchens perhaps has been able to arrive at his unattractive god because Christians have been unclear about ‘which God and what is he like?' because we have not been clear on God as Trinity. The Trinity tells us who our God is. This affects everything we believe in. Therefore, it is lamentable that Christians present the Trinity as a dry, abstract doctrine. How can abstraction be a good description of the living God.

God as Trinity has felt like an embarrassing, confusing sideline of a truth that eggs; yolks, whites and shells, or water; ice, liquid and steam haven't helped us. Try telling you work colleagues that the God I believe in is a bit like an egg and see if Gods eggishness makes them eager to abandon secularism and follow Jesus.

No God is the "God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ" 1 Corinthians 2 1:3. We must begin by describing God as Trinity. The most foundational thing about God is not some quality like Creator or Judge or Sovereign that might be true of any god, but the fact that he is Father. To understand ‘which God and what is he like?' we need to understand ‘what he was doing before universe existed?' That is the subject of my next post.

For more on this topic visit our Audio section or grab a copy of Mike Reeves' brilliant book The Good God.

 

FRIDAY, JANUARY 13

A Community of Grace or Community of Performance?

A Community of Grace or Community of Performance?

The network of churches to which Godfirst belongs is noted for the coherence of its message of grace. However I believe that we have not been immune from the drift towards a hidden ethos of performance that seems to have impacted the wider church. Whether this is because too much about church has always been about performance, or due to the growth of mega churches that have pushed Sunday meetings towards excellence and entertainment, is hard to ascertain.

I had been trying to articulate the difference between a Community of Grace and a Community of Performance when I came across this blog post from Tim Chester from November 2008. It is reproduced below.

Is your community a community of performance or a community of grace?

Try these diagnostic tests ...

Communities of Performance
• the leaders appear sorted
• the community appears respectable
• meetings must be a polished performance
• identity is found in ministry
• failure is devastating
• actions are driven by duty
• conflict is suppressed or ignored
• the focus is on orthodoxy and behaviour (allowing people to think they're sorted)

Communities of Grace
• the leaders are vulnerable
• the community is messy
• meetings are just one part of community life
• identity is found in Christ
• failure is disappointing, but not devastating
• actions are driven by joy
• conflict is addressed in the open
• the focus is on the affections of the heart (with a strong view of sin and grace)

How do communities of performance impede mission?

Communities of Performance
• talk about grace, but communicate legalism
• unbelievers can't imagine themselves as Christians
• don't attract broken people
• the world is seen as threatening and ‘other'
• conversion is superficial (people are called to respectable behaviour)
• people are secretly hurting
• people see faith and repentance as actions that took place at conversion
• the gospel is for unbelievers

Communities of Grace
• people can see grace in action
• unbelievers feel like they can belong
• attract broken people
• people are loved as fellow-sinners in need of grace
• conversion is radical (people are called to transformed affections)
• people are open about their problems
• people see faith and repentance as daily activities
• the gospel is for both unbelievers and believers

In performance-oriented churches people pretend to be okay because their standing within the church depends on it. A ‘sorted' person is seen as the standard or the norm, and anyone who is struggling is seen as sub-standard or sub-Christian. In this kind of environment to acknowledge that you're struggling with sin is difficult and distressing.

But this is the opposite of grace. Grace acknowledges that we are all sinners, we are all messed up people, all struggling, all doubting at a functional level. But grace also affirms that in Christ we all belong, all make the grade, all are welcome, all are Christians (there are no lesser Christians).

It is going to be interesting to ask Godfirsters and our mission community leaders how we are doing? Are we practising as well as preaching radical grace?

Howard

 

FRIDAY, DECEMBER 9

The Gospel of Grace

If you asked Newfrontiers church planters , or those whose gift is helping to establish the foundation of local churches , what is one of the vital truths that a church plant must grasp if it is to be a Jesus centred, healthy gospel community ? Then right up they would answer "The Gospel of Grace".

I know this because in starting new churches you find people at all stages on their spiritual journey, who want to join you but have been led to believe that they will be acceptable to Jesus and the church based on their performance. They suggest that they will "get involved when they have sorted themselves out", because they have got the impression from Christians that actually belonging is about trying your best to be good. Somehow trying to keep the rules of the Christian club, be they the written biblical ones or unwritten church subcultural ones, has subtly been substituted for the radical grace of Jesus.

When we try to explain "What is a Christian?" we just can't help, unconsciously, suggesting like the Galatians that we are saved by grace but transformed by keeping the rules. We just dare not say that trying to keep the Ten Commandments, or striving to achieve spiritual transformation by aiming to fulfil God's moral law, has no part in the Gospel. Paul makes it clear in Galatians 2:21 ... do not nullify the grace of God, for if righteousness were through the law, then Christ died for no purpose. The law has no place in producing godliness! The law is unable to transform human beings!

I remember feeling a surge of excitement when I saw this for the first time, almost 25 years ago as I listened to a cassette tape (remember them?) of Terry Virgo unpacking Romans 7:2-5 . He declared that we used to be married to this finger pointing, unforgiving legalist of a husband Mr Law, who never lifted finger to help us, and was impotent to bring life. But now we have died to Mr Law to be married to Jesus (Mr Grace) whose love transforms us.
Christ is the new husband that lifts the veil of the law so that "we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into his glory from one degree of glory to another."

Then with wonderful insight Terry Virgo added, having died to Mr Law and being married to Mr Grace there is very little to be achieved by delighting in our old husband and being intimate with him to please our new husband.
But so often in our churches we have subtly suggested just the reverse and created communities of performance rather than communities of grace.

(For full notes and audio check out my recent sermons on grace or Terry Virgo's here)

WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 30

Top 10 Reasons to Join a Church Plant

 

When people read my blog thoughts the top post they mention is one of three that I didn't write... the post was, Top 10 Reasons Not to Join a Church Plant, which received a lot of traffic. So when it's author Justin Buzzard posted on Top 10 Reasons to Join a Church Plant I felt that the least I could do is re-post it. Maybe you might agree with the 50 people that have joined us in the last 2 years and get involved before we become a "church".

Top 10 Reasons to Join a Church Plant:
1. If you want to see Jesus do something new and are sick of the status quo.
2. If you dream of being part of something bigger than yourself.
3. If you want to get into a fight/enter a battle for the kingdom of Christ.
4. If you feel a constant itch to see people who don't know Jesus come to know Jesus and you believe church planting is the best way for the gospel to advance.
5. If you want to give your time, money, energy, and talents to starting something new and you want to make sacrifices to see a mission to succeed.
6. If you fully support the vision, mission, doctrine, and leadership of a church plant.
7. If you want your faith to grow and you want God to fundamentally meddle with and change your life.
8. If you want to love your city.
9. If you want to watch God move in ways you never imagined and you want an adventure (with all it's discomfort and risk).
10. If you're not afraid to bank your life on Matthew 16:18 ("I [Jesus] will build my church and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it").

 

 

MONDAY, OCTOBER 31

Build Churches or Make Disciples?

As a church planter having started with a blank piece of paper with regards your ethos, strategy and structure, it's really encouraging when you find that somebody with a growing international reputation is endorsing what you feel God has called you to do. So I continued to be encouraged when I read things by Neil Cole. I found this article on The Verge Network I reproduce it here in full:

Hanging Great Weight on Thin Wires: Can Small Groups Become Missional and Make Disciples?
The response, we got from one ‘nationally recognized' pastor when he told us that he hadn't figured out the whole small group thing yet, was something like this:
"Well, that's because they don't work. Small groups are things that trick us into believing we're serious about making disciples. The problem is 90 percent of small groups never produce one single disciple. Ever. They help Christians make shallow friendships, for sure. They're great at helping Christians feel a tenuous connection to their local church, and they do a bang-up job of teaching Christians how to act like other Christians in the Evangelical Christian subculture. But when it comes to creating the kind of holistic disciples Jesus envisioned, the jury's decision came back a long time ago-small groups just aren't working."

It is true that we have been trying to make disciples in small groups for a few decades now and are no closer to seeing the world transformed by missional agents than before we started this experiment.

Groups don't make disciples; disciples make disciples. It is my contention that for far too long we have placed the burden of sanctification on group meetings that were never meant to transform a soul, but to give transformed souls a place to join and interact in a healthy manner.

Your church is only as good as her disciples. A hot band, dynamic preaching, state-of-the-art facilities and wonderful programs do not make a great church if the disciples are simply consumers and unengaged in the grand work of making disciples. But if the disciples in your church are empowered and engaged in mission, than your church is strong and healthy, even if you do not have laser lights or fog machines. We have done things backwards for too long. We must reverse the order. We think that the solution to having good disciples is to make better churches, when in fact the way to have good churches is to make better disciples.

Correctly applying the activity and behaviours of discipleship in the correct grouping can make significant impact on the overall life of the church as well as her impact on society as a whole. The absence of key groupings robs the church of a needed interaction and participation in significant spiritual behaviours.

The Base Unit of Life: 2 to 3 People
Both the Old and New Testaments use the phrase "two or three" repeatedly. At least ten times "two or three" is suggested as an ideal size at which to conduct ministry. The Bible does not say "two or more" or "three or less," but regularly "two or three." The following are all strongest in groups of 2-3:
• Community (Ecclesiastes 4:9-12).
• Accountability (1 Timothy 5:19).
• Confidentiality (Matthew 18:15-17).
• Flexibility (Matthew 18:20).
• Communication (1 Corinthians 14:26-33).
• Direction (2 Corinthians 13:1).
• Leadership (1 Corinthians 14:29).
• Mission (Luke 10:1; Acts 13:2-4)

God has designed all of creation to reproduce at the level of two. If you cannot reproduce disciples at this level you are not likely to reproduce them at all. This grouping is the beginning of all life.

The Family Unit: 12 to 15 People
Groups of 12-15 are a much better size for caring for one another's needs and feeling a part of an intimate family. It is small enough that all parts can intimately know one another, yet large enough to have significant diversity and shared responsibility for one another. It is a natural sized grouping to operate as a spiritual family on mission together.

In the church, we often run into problems because we expect too much from this sized grouping. The Western church is littered with dysfunctional and disgruntled groups of this size. Viewing a group of 12-15 as the only one necessary and capable of doing all God desires of a church is like trying to be able to have the performance of a sports car yet carry the passenger load of a minivan combined with the toughness and luggage capacity of an SUV. You really cannot find such a car, or group of twelve.

If we have strong life growth and accountability in the group of 2-3 then a group of 12-15 can relax and be the family it is meant to be. But when the only group we have for everything is this group of 12 we are expecting way too much. A small group of 12-15 alone will not be able to accomplish the work of missional disciple-making. But if disciple-making groups of 2-3 are already at work transforming souls out in the fields of life, then gathering those disciples into spiritual families will be far more productive. We need to put less weighted expectations on small groups and reorient the responsibility of disciple-making to the right context-a disciple in relation to another disciple. Small groups do not make disciples; disciples do. If your disciples are missional then your spiritual families will be missional, but, as we have all discovered, this will not work the other way around.

NB. At Godfirst we call our Base Unit "Three's" and our Family Unit "Mission Communities"

 

THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 29

Church Life - Turned Inward?

The more I reflected on sin as "Incurvatus in se" "the Blackhole Life" "the life curved in on oneself" the more it seemed to occur to me that this idea not only effectively describes an individual life of Sin, but it could also be something that happens to churches.

Is it sin for a church to be curved in on itself?

We live in a consumer society and it's very hard not to approach church with a "what's in for me attitude?" Now I would love thousands of non Christians to connect with churches across Cheltenham and ask that question. Hopefully we would point them beyond the contemporary worship style, and pithy sermon and say "the best way to meet your needs is to meet Jesus", "that as you lose your life in Jesus you will find it".

I love it when people become Christians in your church and say "this is the best church I have ever been too" often because it's the only one they've been to!! Then you know they haven't come just because you are doing Sundays better than the church down the road. Consumer Christians, curved inward Christians are quickly dissatisfied and critical of your church then somebody else's, then somebody else's after that.

The sad truth seems to be that the longer we are Christians the more we should be turning out the more we turn inwards. Often we can find ourselves talking about the Church (nothing wrong with that - she is the Bride of Christ, the agent of God's Kingdom) but not talking about the uniqueness of church in that way, not theologically or missionally. Perhaps too often, as leaders, we are talking about the human and organisational dynamics of churches in they way that people talk about schools, or sports club, or political parties.

I know we need to turn outwards and talk more about Jesus, delighting in him as the Father and Spirit has loved and delighted in him throughout all eternity, as we go about our everyday lives and have our everyday conversations. Not in a cheesy way, but with the same fervency that a person might talk about their first love. We need to be curved upwards as his disciples rather than, however subtly, turned inwards as followers and cheerleaders of church networks or denominations.

But if Churches find it hard to be turned upwards in discipleship, we find it equally as hard or harder to be turned out to others in mission! We are too busy in our church meetings to share the life of Jesus with others and when we aren't in meetings we are too busy relaxing on Facebook, Xbox or watching TV.

If it is a sin for a church to be turned in on itself, shouldn't we be taking more radical steps to repent of that sin? That repentance, as we explain to our kids, is an 180 turn, we need to repent and turn outwards.

Now don't miss hear me at Godfirst Cheltenham we have a long way to go, but right now we are really trying to do gospel centred community - ordinary everyday life, turned away from events and church programmes. Tim Chester in his book Everyday Church observes "Programmes are what we create when Christians are not doing what they are supposed to do in everyday life"

I am beginning to uncover stories of where Godfirst has turned outwards; shared meals and shared lives with neighbours, friends, work colleagues, pregnant mums and new dads who would never think of coming to a church meeting. Someone from Godfirst said to me yesterday "As a church community, more than any church I have been part of, we are increasingly seeing ourselves as people turned out on a mission".

At Godfirst we would love you to turn up at Pate's Grammar School on Sunday but would prefer you to turn outward, with us, in sharing Jesus with those who would never come to a Sunday meeting.

 

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