FIEC Conference - Evangelism

(This first appeared in the November edition of our church magazine called the Grapevine)

At the start of November I was at the FIEC (Fellowship of Independent Evangelical Churches) Leader’s conference. It was a million miles from anything, or at least is felt that way, in Hemsby in Norfolk!

The theme of the conference was evangelism. Yes, the “e” word that often makes Christians shudder.

I can’t recount the whole conference to you, although I’d love to, so I thought I’d share some memorable and helpful quotes with you to give you a flavour of the things I heard.

We heard from Ed Stetzer on Luke 5 where Jesus calls Levi and one of Ed’s points was that we live in a world with less and less personal contact. There is much less face to face interaction. And so he challenged us that:

“We need to be people of the neighbourhood if we are going to be people of mission”

We need to get out and about where people are and build relationships if we are going to do mission well, if we are going to evangelize a world that so desperately needs Jesus.

He went on to say that we need to be “culturally relevant and biblically sound” as churches.

Later in the week Ed took us through Matthew 9:35-38. There Jesus tells the disciples to pray to the Lord of the harvest and that the harvest is plentiful but the workers are few. And yet, in a few verses time, it is the disciples themselves who are the workers sent out by Jesus into the harvest field.

We need to realise that. Hardwick is a harvest field. We pray to the Lord of the harvest for more workers, but do we see that we are those workers?

Another huge challenge to me from the same sermon was with regard to prayer. Ed pointed out that the logical biblical progression is this: the more I pray for people, the more compassion I have for them and that will lead me to action.

We should pray for a burden from the Lord to reach our neighbours and to reach the people who live in Hardwick. Maybe a specific group of people or a specific street, but we should pray for a burden, a deep desire, to see those people saved.

In the final session Ed led, he began by summing up the Great Commission in Matthew 28 and its counterparts in the other gospels like this: “We are sent to all kinds of people with a message empowered by the Spirit.”

One of my favourite sound-bites from that sermon was this:

“Don’t let your church become a cul-de-sac on the Great Commission highway.”

We need to be going out and moving forward with the good news of Jesus and “news needs a herald and herald proclaims.”

Finally he used this quote from C H Spurgeon on a few occasions, and as with is Spurgeon’s style, he pulls no punches. I’ll leave it with you to mull over:

“Every Christian is either a missionary or an imposter.”

Should we plant churches in the UK? (Part 1)

This is essay number 3 (see post on essays).

Should we plant churches?

Missiologist, C. PeterWagner says “Planting new churches is the most effective evangelistic methodology known under heaven.” Why might he say that?

The great commission gives us the founding of mission and the globalchurch as the command is to go and “make disciples of all nations” (Matt 28). Inherent in that is taking the good newsof Jesus to those who need to hear it, which is everyone who has breath intheir lungs. But, that could leave us to think that we should all just be outthere as lone-ranger evangelists, each reaching a new place or new group ofpeople with the gospel. Or going on evangelistic crusades and seeking decisionsfor Jesus. Fortunately, that isn’t the trajectory of the NT or even within thegospels, as Jesus sent out the 72, they at least go in pairs (Luke 10).

In Matthew 18 Jesus speaks of resolving conflict between brothersand in many ways pre-supposes church. I think this is different to the OTpeople of Israel as they were a theocracy. I don’t think we should be seekingto set up a “Christian State” but we should be seeking to see the Kingdom comeacross the world.

The trajectory of the NT is the formation of churches, often meetingin homes, in towns and cities across the then known world. Paul and Barnabas inparticular are commissioned and sent (Acts 13) togo and preach the good news, establishing churches in the places God led themto.

Not only that, but the number of “one another” commands in the NTmake it clear that believers are to be united, regularly meeting, spending timetogether and ‘doing life’ together. On top of this, very briefly, Jesus saidthe love believers had for one another would be a witness to the world. It isthe distinctive, diverse, community that shows the world the goodness of theTriune God of love. Churches are the way forward. Churches are the mode bywhich God’s plan, to save a lost world through Jesus, is presented.

As we read Acts and follow Paul and Barnabas, they go from town totown and city to city speaking of Jesus. At first we aren’t directly told thatchurches are established, although I think it is implicit as you read the text.But, after they split, we read of Paul and Silas in Acts16 and it sheds some light on the matter. There is a church establishedin Lystra and Derbe, because as Paul goes back, there is a group of believershe specifically goes to meet. Then in v5, thereare multiple churches that are strengthened and grow as a result of the visit. Noticethough he does not plant more new churches. This must imply that the area hadenough to meet the needs of the people, or at least that there were greaterareas of priority for Paul and Silas reach first. That has to be a helpful wayto approach church planting; assessing greatest needs and seeking to reach thatplace/group first. One church per town presumably with smaller groups meetingin homes across the town seems to have been enough in those days. The questionis, would it be possible to do that now? Have one church gathering centrally(maybe on a Sunday, but not necessarily) and then smaller localized groupsmeeting during the week, being witnessing gospel communities to theirneighbourhood? It is possible, but I wonder if 3 things make it difficult. Thefirst is that our cities are much bigger than the cities of Paul’s day making acentral gathering almost practically impossible. But even if there was nocentral gathering, we are back to a local church in each area (just beingdescribed as many would describe a home group now). The other problem is peoplehave different personal preferences and many secondary doctrine which they holddearly, even if they would not be divisive over them. Thirdly, we are sinfulhuman beings, we make mistakes, we fail to love God and people well and oftenthis impacts us elevating some of those secondary issues to primary ones.    

As the chapter (Acts 16) progresses,we see that Paul only goes where the Spirit leads (v6-10)and again he plants churches in each city, often going for the most strategicplace first (v12) (Philippi was the main cityin the area).

Through chapters 17, 18 and 19 ofActs we see Paul establishing churches in the major cities of Thessalonica,Corinth, Ephesus and Athens. All of them are places that needed to hear thegospel, all places that were strategic. They were strategic for geographical,cultural or governmental reasons.

But, as well as the restraint of being prevented by the Spirit topreach the gospel in certain places, Paul also seems to have refrained fromgoing to Rome because someone had already planted a church there (Romans 15:20-22). A couple of verses earlier Paulalso seems to imply that He has preached the gospel fully in all of the regionfrom Jerusalem to Illyricum. Presumably this means each city, or area, has achurch established in it.

Paul’s ministry as an apostle is unique. So I don’t think there arepeople now who would travel and begin churches the way Paul did, sometimes onlystaying for a few days or weeks.

Holding these things together, I would argue that this is enough tosay that there is a biblical imperative to plant churches in places where thereare none. Bearing in mind that cities in those days were a lot smaller thanthey are now, and that in some of these places there seems to be more than onechurch gathering together, we must say that we need to look at multiplechurches in a city, maybe one per ‘area’. It could be argued that these wereall house churches, but we also have no real mentions of all of these housegroups gathering together centrally. So, should we totally re-orientate the waywe do church? Should we just meet in homes until we have too many people to fitin and then split to a bigger group? How do would these groups have oversight? Maybe the model we need to think about ismissional gospel communities meeting in various locations gathering togetherfor mutual encouragement as well as deriving their oversight from somethingbigger.

In an ideal situation, everyone who attended a church would live inthe ‘area’ that church was reaching. Whether this was a gospel communitymeeting in a home or a centralized gathering. This is the most effective way ofwitnessing what Christian community looks like in front of the world.

I think this also means for self-contained villages, they need theirown church. We can’t expect people to travel in to a city for church and wecan’t expect a church based in a city to effectively reach a village. A centralmeeting could be outside of the village, but a missional gospel community mustbe living and breathing in the village.

Furthermore, I would say that a place with no church includes placeswhere there are church buildings and people who gather but the gospel is nottaught, believed or modeled. Within any church community there will be peoplestruggling, not being a good witness or modeling the gospel well. But, the questionis whether the leaders are teaching and promoting that and the trajectory ofthe church is in that direction.

I would want to be as broad as the gospel allows and as narrow as itrequires. Therefore, as long as a church is ‘sound’ on primary issues, onesthat affect the salvation, and is seeking to reach the local area then I wouldsay a new church or gospel community does not need to go to that place.

If we work on an ‘area’ being either a very distinct geographicaland/or social patch, and/or being around about 10000 people, then we can startto work out where new church plants are needed in the UK. The and/or clausesare purposely there as some ‘areas’ could be a lot less than 10000 people forexample. 

It could be that different ‘areas’ could be reached by a gospelcommunity that is part of a larger church gathering. But I wonder if this wouldneed to be discerned individually by area.

That would take plenty of research and pooling of knowledge andresources. Planting could also take place as partnerships between churcheswhere neither is able to commit enough people or resources to a plant of theirown, but together they could. Although, again, the practicalities would needsignificant thought, and there would need to be real gospel-heartedness insetting aside secondary preferences for the sake of the Kingdom.

Our motive for planting churches should surely always be thefurthering of the Kingdom to the glory of God. Out of love for God and love forpeople we should want to see more and more churches reaching more and morepeople. A natural outflow of knowing and modeling Trinitarian love will beseeing more churches planted and stagnant churches becoming missional churches.This could be planting new gospel communities, or entire new central churchgatherings with smaller gospel communites as well. But I don’t think thecurrent number of churches in the UK can reach the entirety of the country asthere will be places too far away from and current gospel community or centralgathering to be effectively reached.

If the principle for planting a church is making sure it issomewhere where there is no faithful gospel ministry currently then I thinkthere is still a need to plant churches in the UK. There are plenty of places thatdo not have a faithful gospel church.

There are things that need to be taken into account when planning achurch plant. Here a couple of big ones:

1. Will this endeavor ultimately (as far as it is humanly possible to tell) multiplygospel ministry and further the Kingdom? I think this includes those who havedrifted coming back as well as new converts. Overall, more people in church andmore outreach happening than before the plant was started.
2. Are there churches in the area which would be faithful and fruitful if only theyhad some more man-power and direction in leadership?
3. Is there a specific set of needs in this area that the church would need to seekto meet (these could be social, economic etc)

The first sounds obvious. The answer could quite easily be ‘no’ ifthe conception of the church is going to severely weaken other churches nearbyby taking most of their ‘keen’ people away on this exciting new venture. If onthe other hand the answer is ‘yes’; there will be more gospel ministry takingplace and as a result of a sending church or group of churches beingnumerically weakened some of their members will have to ‘step up to the plate’and take on some responsibility, then I’d say, “go for it!”

The second one is a little less clear. If there is such a churchexistence then maybe the answer is to take people and effectively re-plant it.Using what is already in existence, and expanding, adapting and developing it.Some would argue though that older churches tend only to reach certain groupsof people and it needs something dynamic and new to reach a differentgeneration or a different social group who were not in that area at the timethe original church was founded (see appendix 1).I wonder if that is because it is harder work to change something from theinside and easier to start something new from scratch without any baggage.

The final one is more practical in that it’s more to do with whatyou might actually do once you’ve decided to plant. But briefly, that would affectthe time, style and possibly length of gathering, how much you prioritizedsmall groups, the number of community based activities and events you tried toorganize and run. It gives you a chance to start with a clean slate, gleaningthe best of ideas and practices experienced and trying out new ones, knowingthat there is a grace enough to fail. 

I guess the question we are left with is, where in the UK is thereneed for a church plant? Most cities have multiple churches and even morechurch buildings, sometimes only a street apart or even next door to oneanother. Most small towns will have multiple church denominations representedand even our villages may have 3 or 4 churches (e.g. Anglican, Methodist, Baptist and Catholic).

In many of these places though, there will be newer housing estateswhere no churches are represented because they have developed in the last fewdecades and a new church building was not part of the planning application.Whether it is a social housing scheme or a development of predominantly 3 and 4bedroom homes, someone needs to reach them. There will be other areas in citiesin particular where there are empty buildings, or liberal churches, which willmean no one is taking the gospel out there. These places need reaching too, andoften they need something that is culturally relevant to them, different formthe usual, traditional model of church they have become immune, or even hostile,to. It is true that these could be reached by current churches seeking to starta gospel community there, but that also relies on their being a missionalchurch within range of the estate.

Conversations between those planting, or sending a plant, and otherswho also work in churches nearby, need to be open and honest. I believe thoseplanting need to have investigated an ‘area’ thoroughly so that they first knowthey are not stepping on anyone’s gospel toes, in which case no plant isneeded, and so that they know the ‘area’ well socially, economically andculturally. Some of those things you can only fully know once you are there andin the mix, so to speak, but there can be plenty of leg work done prior toplanting, such as gathering socio-economic data, contacting local communitygroups, schools, council etc. which could save a lot of heartache and ready youfor some challenges and struggles.

New Life

At the start of this academic year my team leader challenged us as a staff and relay team to try and study Uncover with someone seeking to find out more about Jesus.

I must admit that I was a little skeptical that I'd either a) have time to do it or b) be able to find someone to do it with.
Anyway, in freshers' week my relay worker Emma took the plunge and boldly invite a Macedonian student to look at it with her (see previous post). They began and as a met with Emma for supervision each week it was wonderful see how they were both learning about Jesus and growing in different ways.

A few weeks later, through the CU, I was introduced to Y from Malaysia. We had a bit of a chat and I asked if he wanted to meet up for coffee. He agreed. We met and got to know one another a little and decided to study Uncover together. As we progressed through the studies, straddling the Christmas break (we started in Nov and finished early March), it was clear that he was intellectually ascenting to the truth the Jesus is the Son of God, but he didn't think he had enough faith to step out and become a Christian.

His brother had become a Christian a few years ago and Y himself had been along to church a few times, and since moving to Teesside Uni for study had been attending the local Chinese Methodist Church where he was regularly hearing from the Bible and studying it.

At the end of the Uncover course I asked him where he thought he was in terms of becoming a Christian and he said he believed it all but wasn't ready to commit. So we decided we would keep meeting and as he read the Bible in his own time he would note down any questions and we would them chat about them when we next met up. By this time it was nearing the Easter break. We met a couple of times like this, but due to holidays and assignments for Y as well as holidays and busyness for me, we had a few weeks without meeting.

Just last week we met once again to chat. But this we mainly spoke about his course finishing, his plans between now and heading home to Malaysia, job prospects and the future. I finally asked him where he now thought he was in terms of trusting Jesus. He smiled and began to tell me that he had been challenged to commit to following Jesus a couple of weeks previous at his church and he had prayed with a friend.
I didn't quite catch what he said the first time, but had caught enough that I ask more directly whether he had prayed to trust Jesus and become a Christian. He had!

I was so excited, and told him that I was too!!! God had been working all along, in my weakness, in my skepticism, and while I wasn't even meeting up with Y. God has it all in His hands. New life is a work of the Spirit, not my efforts.

He worries that His parents think he is just trying to be like his elder brother. He believes they will be supportive of his decision, but wonders if they think he has just jumped on a bandwagon, to use a western phrase. He knows what he believes.

Pray for our new brother in Christ. Praise God for new life. Pray for deep roots to be put down into gospel truth and the character of God. Pray for Y to grow in love for Jesus and find a good church to be part of when he gets back to Malaysia.

Planning fun but serious thinking done

A quick post featuring some of the things Sunderland and Teesside got up to on our planning day at the end of April.

Gathering pictures and phrases from newspapers and magazines to build a profile of the type of students they are seeking to reach with the good news of Jesus on their campus. Also at the same time getting a feel for the university culture as a whole. You need to know who you are reaching in order to most effective relate to them.

One of the profiles, along with a map of the university campus with coloured dots indicating where students spend their time studying, hanging out in both the day and the night and also where most students live. The aim of this was to get them to think about where they run events, what time of day they run them as well as practical ways they can really care for those on their campus.

Honesty and humility was required for this section. The CU health-check. Not to make them feel proud or despairing, but in light of the gospel analyse where they feel their CU is doing well and other areas where work is needed. They also spent time praying, thanking God for His work in and through them and for the Spirit to help them change in the areas where they are weakest.

Here we have the stadium model which helps CUs to see where the balance of their outreach has been. It has 5 sections: 1.Hospitality tents where the aim is to introduce people to Christians to show that we are normal human beings and not weird! 2. Back of the Stands. This type of event is aimed at answering questions people may have which are really far back, may question like "Could thee even be a God?" or "Isn't Christianity totally irrelavant?" 3. Front of the Stands. These are events answering deeper questions which the gospel speaks into: "How could a loving God allow suffering?" "Is Jesus the only way to be saved?" 4. On the Track. At this point people believe the gospel is true, but need to be challenged to respond to Jesus and hear what is means to follow Him. 5. In the Race. Opportunities for people to begin studying the Bible, meeting with other Christians and getting support as they take the first steps in their walk with Jesus.
We don't emphasise events as the only ting to do, we wholeheartedly believe that evangelism is a way of life and that we must live distinctive and integrated lives building real friendships and loving people. But we do also know that events help people along the way and are key for reaching those without any Christian contact.

This is just a bit of fun. Post the planning and dinner together, a couple of the students were testing their logical skills using my daughter's toys! The concentration was etched all over their faces and provide much entertainment for the rest of us as we observed.









Suffice to say it was a very enjoyable and productive day. I pray the Lord will use is for the furthering of His Kingdom and that the Spirit would bring many to know Jesus through the CUs next year.

Saltshaker Day

We recently had the wonderful privilege of hosting Dick and Becky Manley-Pippert in the North East region of UCCF.
On the 10th of March, in Durham, Becky led a group of CU students through one of her Saltshaker training days (aptly named after her excellent book "Out of the Saltshaker" published by IVP).
It was great to hear stories of great boldness and wisdom from her vast experience but also very honest stories of God working in and through her weakness.
She is a gifted speaker and excellent evangelist.
It was also very encouraging and challenging to hear that Dick; seeing her gifting from the Lord as an evangelist, but also her ability to train others in evangelism, sold his business and used the money to enable them to travel around the world and train people.
God has been, and I'm sure will continue, to use them both to further the Kingdom and ignite a passion for Jesus in people's lives.

Here are a few quotes from Becky from the day. I hope they will be encouraging to you.

"It's not about new techniques or methonds, it's about knowing the message better....theology effects methodology"

"Humans are the only ones who resent their form. Why? Because it reminds us we are not God, that we are weak and dependent"

"Your inadequacy is your first qualification in evangelism"

"When you're on fire, people love to come and watch you burn" Wesley via RMP.

"Because God is love, evangelism is then about love....imaging God....God sends us, not tracts"

"Being relevant is important, but to be relevant all the time you have to say things which are eternal" I think this was Pascal via RMP.

"Who is Jesus?"

Yesterday Teesside University Christian Union had a table outside their SU with an A-Frame flip chart asking the question which is the title of the this post.
People were invited to write their answer on a post it note and stick around the question on the board (see picture).

It might not sound like much, but for the CU leaders it was big step, they were quite fearful but still wanted to go ahead with it.
God used them, and Emma and I as we helped, to bring about His purposes. There were many different answers, some quite comical written in jest, some very elaborate, some which you would expect like "A prophet" or "A man who brought people together through belief", and a surprising number who just said "I don't know"!
Here's a flavour of the answers given, some of them make for quite sad reading:

A Jewish, anti-imperialist freedom fighter.

A fictional character who was taken too far.

A top bloke.

A real person, but a judge. Keep an eye out and if you see Him, look busy.

The Dan Brown of 2011 years ago.

There were of course others who gave correct answers such as "Saviour and friend", "The Eternal Son of God", "The person who change my life forever".

But the highlight of the day, the one thing which stood out and made the whole time out trying to engage with people worth it, was this:
Emma (my Relay worker), who was a star all day being really bold and friendly despite being nervous, spoke to one girl who proceeded to write the words "a concept" on a her post-it note. Attempting to find out exactly what the girl meant by this, Emma politely asked her to explain. The girl went on to say Jesus was a concept to her because she had only heard of Him and didn't really know anything about Him. Emma's reply was almost instantaneous and I believe, totally prompted by the Spirit of God, she said "What if I could show you an orderly account of His life, would you be interested in looking at it with me?" The reply from the girl was a "yes" and they plan to meet for the first time on Saturday. What an exciting opportunity! What a testimony to the providence and love of God! The girl in question is from the FYR Macedonia.

Emma is going to go through a series of 6 Bible studies in Luke's gospel written by Rebecca Manley-Pippert called Uncover, check out the promo video here.

Quotes from Forum 2011

Here's a list of really helpful quotes from Forum 2011.
It doesn't do all of the talks justice, but it will give you at least a little taste of the kind of things we were thinking about.
I've noted a little bit of context or passage reference underneath, thought it might be useful!

(Disclaimer: these quotes are as I wrote them down, they may not be word for word what was said, but my aim is that they convey the point of what was being said)

"Glory is all to do with God's essential nature....When God is most clearly seen for who He is. And here we see that it is most clearly seen in Jesus' death."
Tim Rudge showing us that it is at the cross we most clearly God's essential nature, that He is love.

"Come warm yourself at the great fire of my self-giving love"
Tim Rudge telling us that this is what Jesus wants us to do.

"We as Christians need to be radically identified, with the world, in love, but radically different in holiness."
Rebecca Manley Pippert explaining how we really have to be out there loving people, yet distinct in character, set apart, holy.

"The solution to life, ministry and mission lies in Jesus. Jesus is at the very centre of all we are about"
Mike Reeves, pretty self-explanitory stuff from John 15.

"True branches are never cut off....True, living branches are pruned....God wants us to know the pleasure of being fruitful....Because He loves us so much He will go to war on the things that enslave us. He does it for our joy out of love"
Mike again from John 15 helping us to understand the part of discipline in the Christian life as well as showing us the security of being a child of God (He used John 6 and 10 to back up the point that true branches are not cut off)

"Having His word abide in you means having your heart won to Christ"
Once again Mike from John 15, he went of to speak of the fact that we are to feed on the love of Christ and that wins our hearts.

"We must understand that our motivation is God, our model is Jesus and our means is the Spirit"
Becky Pippert on evangelism.

"Be prepared, the world will oppose you as you point people to Jesus"
Jason Clarke warning us that we will face persecution if we live and speak for Jesus. He also spoke of how knowing we are loved by God means we can face being hated by the world.

"If you want to be a messenger of the gospel you need to be in authentic personal relationships with non-Christians"
Danno speaking to us about the gospel and personal evangelism from 2 Tim 4.

"We need to be God's people in God's world cultivating it for His glory"
Once again Danno showing us the need to be in the world using our gifts and abilities to bring glory to Him.

"No-one is qualified for Kingdom work! A bombshell to the proud and a comfort to the despairing"
Mark Meynell helping us to be real about out role in God's mission to the world.

"God does not call the qualified, He qualifies the called"
Mark again, after speaking about Thomas and Peter, clearly telling us we need to seek where God is calling us and trust He will equip us for the job.

"I'm no less than a forgiven sinner saved by grace and given a ministry by mercy"
One of Mark's closing sentences, helpfully summing up the standing of a Christian.

"The centre of the glory in heaven is the Lamb slain, the cross is where the glory is most clearly seen, because it displays His love, mercy and grace"
Richard Cunningham taking us through John 17 on the final morning.

"We are to be distinct from the world....Love what God loves, hate what He hates....It's about transformation of character not isolation"
Really helpful stuff again from Richard about not becoming a holy huddle but being salt and light in the world because we are being transformed to be more and more like Jesus.

"The Word of God is the instrument of the Spirit to transform us....If we love Jesus we will obey His Word"
Again Richard pointing out that we need to obey out of love which is radically different from legalism.

"All wills bowing in the same direction, all affections focussed on the same thing burning with the same flame, all actions heading for the same goal. Unity of heart, mind and will"
This is what Jesus' wants for believers in His High Priestly prayer in John 17 and what Richard encouraged us with as he effectively commissioned us for our ministry on campus as CUs, united to share the love of Jesus.

If or when these talks are available to listen to, I wholeheartedly recommend you download them and work through them.