Howard's Blog : Ethos
“The distinctive spirit, character or fundamental values of a person, people, or movement”
THURSDAY, MAY 27
Life on the Edge
The emperor penguins secret is huddling as an extension of the "be big" method of reducing surface area to survive the extreme cold. Emperor penguins have developed a social behaviour that when it gets cold, they huddle together in groups that may comprise several thousand penguins. In this way for most of the group, where their feathers end, instead of all of them having to face the biting wind and relentless cold of being on the outside, most of them have another warm penguin blanket to shield them instead. Of course it's not quite so great for the individuals who are on the outside of the huddle. So for emperor penguins there is a continual movement from the centre of the group to the outside as the warmer and more protected penguins move to the outside where they will take their turn in the worst places against the wind and raw cold.
We love those penguin pictures perhaps because they demonstrate a togetherness too often missing in our communities. We work our way to the middle of our social group, our workplace, our club, our church and then aim to stay there! We believe in "be big" organisations where we enjoy the warmth and influence that go with being on the inside, all too easily forgetting what it's like on the outside. The truth is when you have felt the warmth of belonging it's easy to ignore the cold winds of feeling that tug at those that are excluded. So often our social groups and sadly our churches don't show the dynamic movement of the emperor penguins with those in the centre moving to the fringes to draw into the warmth of community those that don't yet belong.
As I sat in the staff room of the school where I work part time, struggling to attach myself to conversations between teachers who had worked at the school for years, I reflected on how vulnerable it feels to be on the edge.
If I were to use "inside and outside" language to frame the last ten months church planting in Cheltenham, then it has mostly been an "outside" year.
Yes the church we currently attend as a family have been big hearted, serving our 11, 12 and 14 year olds really well, and the leader in particular has been warm and supportive, but knowing we are planning to launch a new church this September has meant that Naomi and I have deliberately stood on the edge, against our instincts to commit and serve whole heartedly, so denying ourselves the warmth that comes from belonging. At times as the cold wind of being outside tugs at me I can understand why it seems so much easier to huddle in Cheltenham's "be big" church.
As any church planter knows, particularly if like me you plant in contexts were you start with a family sized group, there is no warm core in which to sit and huddle, and the cold reality is that to survive long term you need a bigger huddle. But in those early years whilst "be big" is someway off you are reminded what it feels like to being on the edge. But why church plants like Godfirst have a part to play alongside bigger established churches is statistically new churches grow quicker as a result of a determined ethos to create that dynamic movement that draws the outsider quickly into the heart of a Jesus focused community.
My hope is that everyone in the Godfirst launch team feels the warm of real community but also as we grow, continually feels the mission to gather in those on the outside. It was great when Kath, our 80 year radical joined us saying "it's wonderful to get to know everyone and feel you belong so quickly".
I see Jesus' mission as drawing those outside into the community of God's love. He left the warmth of heaven laying aside his glory to come to earth to gather those living outside his Father's love. "I longed to gather you" he says. He gathered a close community of friends that shared their lives together but also constantly challenging his followers to move to the outside, to gather in tax collectors and prostitutes, unclean lepers and foreigners so that they would find forgiveness, love, healing and acceptance. Even on the cross, crucified outside the city wall, Jesus drew a thief crucified next to him inside the eternal loving community that is Almighty God.
So as Godfirst grows I am determined to never let us become a turned in huddle of insiders existing for our own warmth. Building Godfirst is never about comfort but about the faith to constantly live on the edge, in order to bring people into the warmth of God the Father's embrace.
Howard
FRIDAY, APRIL 30
"The earth is the Lord's and everything in it"
"The earth is the Lord's, and everything in it,
the world, and all who live in it." Psalm 24:1
It was good to attend a packed hustings at Trinity Cheltenham during the election campaign. It was not an experience enhanced by the lack of inspiration and over cautiousness of the candidates offered up by the party political system; rather what made it positive was to see hundreds of Christians involving themselves in the political process.
This engagement made a refreshing change from the "don't mix religion and politics" or "come out from them and be separate" approach that characterised the church of my youth. In fact my mum would often suggest any church that preached a "social gospel" was less biblical than those that preached an "evangelical gospel".
Thirty years later society has become increasingly secular and Christian influence has been increasingly marginalised. It is not the church that is now reluctant to mix faith and politics but every political party and commentator appears to agree with Alistair Campbell's advice to Tony Blair "we don't do God".
The problem, in the view of many political thinkers (if that isn't an oxymoron) is that religious considerations are matters of faith, where "faith" in their minds means a kind of irrational, groundless commitment, a desire to believe that for which there is no objective evidence. This means people of faith are by definition slightly odd and not to be trusted.
The candidates at the Trinity hustings who probably hadn't spoken to a larger crowd during the campaign must have been acutely aware that Christians represent a significant minority in the Cheltenham Con - Lib Dem marginal and so they buried any prejudices they might hold about evangelicals and did their very best to avoid offending us. However we also seemed to do our best to avoid challenging them.
The names God and Jesus were mentioned just once and the bible was not quoted or even eluded to. Has love for Jesus now replaced homosexuality, in the words of Oscar Wilde, as "a love that dare not speak its name"? Even as I asked a question, about a person's right to express Christian views without being politically vilified, I felt real pressure to appear moderate and reasonable rather than lose the argument by coming across as a stereotypical evangelical bible thumper.
However the turnout at Trinity confirmed to me that during the last thirty years the church has gradually realised that whilst "Christ crucified" remains its central message, the mandate of the gospel is to bring everything in heaven and earth under the kingdom rule of Jesus. 1 Cor 15:26
Suddenly this great quote from Abraham Kuyper (theologian and Prime Minister of the Netherlands between 1901 and 1905) is everywhere, even on the Conservative candidate literature at the Cheltenham hustings! "In the total expanse of human life there is not a single square inch of which the Christ, who alone is sovereign, does not declare,' That is mine!'"
If politics is about all human life, where in the life of our society does the gospel's light most need to shine?
Can we engage in politics without expressing ourselves like the American moral majority that seems narrowly focused on the "moral righteousness" issues of abortion and homosexuality? Yes it matters that on those issues we hold to a biblically orthodox view but we must not become stone wielding Pharisees. God's grace means we are not against the young girl who finds herself pregnant or the young person struggling with their sexual orientation any more than Jesus was against the women caught in the act of adultery in John 8. We, as Jesus' followers, are not in the world to condemn the world but to save it. John 3:17.
But also the church needs to reclaim the social leadership that Wilberforce, Shaftesbury and more recently (my political hero) Martin Luthur King Jr demonstrated by teaching and living a gospel of social justice and transformation. Christians who are rightly behind campaigns like Jubilee 2000, and Stop the Traffick, should also be animated when declining social mobility and growing executive pay creates ever steeper social gradients.
I still feel the emotion that Simon Pettit stirred amongst 3000 leaders at the Newfrontiers conference in 1998 as he motivated a network of 500 plus churches "to remember the poor." Gal 2:10. Having worked with The Message Trust on one of Manchester's toughest estates or seen Trinity Cheltenham mobilise to serve with Cheltenham's poor this Bank Holiday weekend, or visited award winning social action projects in loads of newfrontiers churches, it no longer surprises me that evangelicals everywhere are beginning to show what we are for, rather than what we are against. The issues of poverty, inequality and injustice aren't left / right political issues but right / wrong gospel imperatives.
I do believe that it is time once again for religion and politics to mix! In the words of C H Spurgeon in his sermon on Psalm 2:
"I long for the day when the precepts of the Christian religion shall be the rule among all classes of men, in all transactions. I often hear it said, ‘Do not bring religion into politics.' This is precisely where it ought to be brought, and set there in the face of all men as on a candlestick."
"Let your light shine before men that they may see your good deeds and praise my father in heaven!" Matt 5:16
TUESDAY, MARCH 16
Getting out of the Bubble.
Getting out of the Bubble.
I sat in a pub in South Bristol last week whilst staying with my friends Dave and Ali. It was about the third question, the one that follows after "what's your name?", when one of Dave's church friends asked me "what do you do?" Now normally I love that question because saying you start churches from scratch usually opens up a real flow of God talk, but this time my answer prompted the honest response "so you're not a real minister then!"
I was tempted to answer "I'm not a vicar, as there is only one vicar (Latin: vicarious - someone who acts in the place of another) the man Christ Jesus" (see 1 Timothy 2:5), but I resisted and said "I'm not a full time minister". I hoped that Dave's friend was commenting on the fact I was doing a three week return to teaching placement in a central Bristol comprehensive (yes that was the answer to the second question) rather than a comment on the validity of planting a church that wasn't Anglican, Baptist or some other "official" type of church.
Assuming Dave's friend did agree it was OK to plant a new church in Cheltenham under any label apart from the established denominations, and that might be a bold assumption, then the idea that to be a real minister or church leader you need to be full time is an interesting one.
I delivered two days training a few months back with a great bunch of twenty somethings that were doing Frontier Impact training. It seemed to me that they had got hold of the idea that the aspirational aim of any young radical Christian was to be full time church staff regardless of the nature of the role. I told them that they were mistaken that they should not accept vaguely defined full time church staff positions that bore no relation to their gift mix or calling. I told them they should get the jobs they were trained to do and use the skills they had learnt at university and live for Jesus as doctors, teachers, engineers, social workers, accountants and especially live for Jesus as bankers.
I say that not because I feel my thirteen years as a full time church leader were wasted, far from it. I am called to preach and when I do I still feel God's pleasure, and the evidence, dare I say it, also suggests that those listening feel a measure of God's touch when I operate in my main gift. It's fair to say that's also true for my leadership gift. However after I prayed and prepared, preached and led, what about the other three days left over in my week? The sad fact is that too often they got full of shuffling paper and putting out chairs. I am happy to put out chairs, and I can very effectively shuffle paper provided it's interspersed with a coffee with church leaders from down the road, where we can talk about connecting with lost people.
But one of the reasons I like church planting is because if you don't meet some new people then you will find your church plant becomes an exercise of the spiritual discipline of solitude. So although Godfirst is the recipient of a rare newfrontiers church planting grant, which allows me to be full time, my aim is to be part time.
My aim is to have some paid teaching employment outside the Christian bubble; yes I could hang around tennis clubs looking friendly, but actually working and doing church at the same time seems a very biblical idea that seems to have fallen into disrepute with the demise of Paul's tent making business.
For the last three weeks I have been back in the classroom thirteen years after I left teaching to join the full time staff at Kings Church Catford. I have been preparing lessons, marking work and doing geography teacher things like going to the pub on Friday after work. Dan who goes to City Church Bristol is a member of the Geography Department and it was refreshing to talk with him about his call to image Jesus in the school, by being the best geography teacher and work colleague he can be. So after praying each day on the train for a part time geography teacher vacancy in Cheltenham (a very rare occurrence) I applied for a post at a local comprehensive school yesterday. I don't know if I will get the post or what the future holds? If God wants to open other doors in teaching as I lean on them that's great, or even, as seems unlikely, doors open beyond Godfirst so that I could fill every week with preaching and leading then I'm good with that too.
But no, I don't want to be a real minister if that means being a priest or a vicar who conducts spiritual acts on behalf of the people, at a special building, on a special day of the week, for a price. I don't want to talk about sharing my faith with lost people but never encountering any outside Sunday meetings or Alpha courses. I don't want to grow the church because I need enough people to be a real full time minister. I want to be real, and authentic like the apostle Paul who did church not because it was his profession but his passion. That passion for God's church must reach beyond the minister, real or otherwise and reach to every member of Godfirst from mums at home with young kids to those in offices, factories, hospitals and schools; from the retired to students and my teenagers. In that sense we are all full time and real ministers
WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 10
Press Release
This article appeared in the Gloucestershire Echo today. It is a slightly modified version of my press release below. I don't like the headline but it is generally positive. Please do click the link above and comment positively on Godfirst and new churches.
Press Release:
New Church meets in upper room.
Church is so strongly associated with buildings with spires, towers and stain glass windows where churches gather. When we talk of "going to church" we express the idea that the building is the church, but the original word for church literally means "a crowd"
Magnificent church buildings like Gloucester Cathedral were built to express something of the greatness of God, and the historic nature of some of the county's church buildings give Christianity a sense of permanence as part of the fabric of our communities.
So what are we to make of a new church that means in the upper room of the D'Fly Bar and Restaurant in Cheltenham?
Howard Kellett who leads Godfirst Church Cheltenham, which began meeting on Wednesdays at the D'Fly, commented
"It's a perfect place for a church meeting. It takes church back to its roots. An upper room is where Jesus would meet with his followers, long before Christianity built buildings and drew parish boundaries around them"
"The church is not the building. When I was a student in the early 1980's at University of Gloucestershire (when it was still St Paul's College) Holy Trinity was a church of 15 people and was in danger of closing and North Place Church across the car park was a community of almost a 100 members. On returning to Cheltenham the exterior of both buildings remains almost unchanged but Trinity is now a thriving church of around a 1000 people and North Place is now Chapel health Spa."
"Every church community was once a new church. If we want to stop this nation's slide into secularism, we need more growing churches and with churches closing at the rate of one a fortnight in the UK we are going to need many, many more new churches"
"The early followers of Jesus were less concerned with building church buildings than building authentic communities that loved God and gave hope to the despairing, friendship to the stranger, and brought good news to the poor, that's our aim at Godfirst Church".
Godfirst meets every other Wednesday 7:45pm at D'Fly Bar and Restaurant, 1 A Crescent Place Cheltenham GL50 3NX for more details visit www.godfirst.org.uk.
THURSDAY, JANUARY 7
Getting in shape.
My twelve year old son made a New Year resolution to clean his teeth at night as well as the morning! This is not a place to discuss our parenting skills, such as why has this taken us so long to get him to get to this point or the personal hygiene of boys. But seven days in and he is still reaching for the Aquafresh , he is particular about the brand, Aldi's own will not do! It will take him about 12 weeks to turn this choice into a habit that reduces decay and freshens his breath.
I guess that thousands of Christians who made a New Year decision to read their bibles through in a year are already behind, and most will give up with a "there is always next year" shrug, before the spiritual self feeding habit is developed.
My reflection and experience is how we approach our God given desire to live by his word critically determines the outcome.
If you view reading through the bible in a year as a rule you must keep, expecting the rule to create transformation then you are doomed to fail. Rules don't empower they simply lead to condemnation as they remind you how badly you are performing. Even if you are a highly organised, rigidly scheduled, gold-star-loving early riser, keeping this rule often results only in self - righteous pride.
Perhaps we need a training mentality. Paul encouraged the young Timothy to "train yourself to be Godly." 1 Tim 4:7 Training is deeper than rules; it allows you to do something you couldn't do by just turning up. You may know the rules of the marathon but without training you couldn't run one. Training is about regularly doing what you can now, so that you are able to do what once seemed beyond you.
I have often spoken with people struggling with sin or dark temptations who would say to me "I want to be free but I just can't". Jesus said to his disciples ."watch and prayer so that you will not fall into temptation, for the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak" Mark 14:38. Although I believe Jesus was eager to encourage his disciples to pray with him right there in the agony of Gethsemane, I believe he was expressing the truth that the activities (the watching, praying and bible reading) of spiritual training are vital if we to live God first lives. The truth is watch and pray and you will not fall again for that familiar temptation and live free.
So as you set yourself the spiritual training programme of reading your bible every day or reading through in a year or even two, remember this activity is not a barometer of your holiness or a way to earn reward points with God, as "the goal is not for you to get through the Scriptures. The goal is to get the Scriptures through you". When you meet people who make bible reading their habit you notice they have less spiritual decay and their spirits (breath) are fresher.
Howard
(Click the links above for the plans I use)
TUESDAY, DECEMBER 22
Choice and Commitment
Choice and commitment.
House purchase is an interesting exercise in choice and commitment. When I started to look around at houses I find myself energised by the range of choice of the possible houses in your price range. You imagine yourself living in every house, weighing up the pros and cons: it's near the park but its kitchen is too small; its a great location but has no garden. However, sadly I also found myself enticed by the houses I wished we could afford (there are lot in that category in Cheltenham). But the whole process made me freshly aware that "choice" in our society is a little god that wants us to worship at its altar.
So when we had our offer accepted on a house on the Shurdington Road, [the house is just below the excellently named Kidnappers Lane, down which our kids will boldly cycle on their way to Balcarras School] ,I did feel the exciting possibilities that the new house offered. But almost immediately all other possible houses real or imagined that were unavailable to us and the few downsides of the new property (it doesn't have a pool), took centre stage. Choice had been replaced by commitment.
Choice likes to keep us wishing, constantly choosing, constantly consuming, but never committing. When you choose something like a house, a spouse or even a church, that commitment ends choice but because our society is addicted to consumer choice it has a commitment phobia. We struggle to commit, much to the frustration of many a single twenty somethings and the occasional church leader.
So how does choice and commitment play out when you are church planting? What choice culture has created, is a swathe of the un-committed, who constantly feel the downsides of the church or churches they currently attend. They wish the Hillsong Sydney worship experience was a bus ride away and would definitely choose the preacher from the podcast they heard last week rather than this weeks preacher at their local church. I was told by more than one Cheltenham leader that the town has a number of such people who would value the choice afforded by the arrival of Godfirst. My concern is that these people would exercise their choice and check us out when we launch, but they would soon be disillusioned at the reality of a start up church with few programmes on offer, a less than performance quality worship experience and even though I find it hard to believe that my preaching wouldn't quite be Hybels, Driscoll, or Bailey et al !
So whilst choice might bring Godfirst some visitors to our website, our midweek at the D'fly, or even to our Sunday launch in September, ultimately what Godfirst and every church needs are those who will commit. To commit, in faith, to what Godfirst church will become not what it already offers. To commit, in faith, to give the best of their time, talents and treasure to create something out of nothing, rather than just consume the church experience created by the faith and past efforts of others.
Yes faith chooses to commit, even when it costs, even when the returns are not instant or even guaranteed, because it sees the future. My experience from Manchester is that those that committed to the early stages of the church plant always agree with me that there are few adventures more compelling and challenging than starting a church from scratch. Church plant pioneers all reflect that it drew the brightest and boldest faith from all who chose to commit to its call.
Howard
