Distinct Reflections

Building a ministry team

We are searching for an Associate Minister, a more stressful task than I anticipated. I’ve been through the Baptist settlement process twice as a candidate and once as a church moderator but looking for someone to join the team here brings out different questions. Some while ago I came across Bill Hybel’s 3 C’s for building a staff team: Character, Competence, Chemistry. I’ve modified this to create my own 5 C's grid: 

• Character: anyone in ministry needs to have integrity and a desire to be Christ-like in attitude and behaviour. They also need a certain resilience to survive, enjoy hard work and have the emotional stability and energy to sustain this over the long haul.  
  
• Competence: ministerial life requires a range of competences in order to function in a wide variety of situations. In a team situation they need gifts and skills in particular areas to fit the role.  
  
• Chemistry: we need to get on well and trust each other. They need to bring a positive atmosphere to the team. Given the number of churches where team dynamics have gone wrong this is worth paying attention to.  
  
• Conviction: whoever joins the team needs to be on the same page in terms of vision. They need their own thoughts and ideas but their core convictions about church and the future trajectory of church life need to match.  
  
• Congregation: they need to feel called to serve this local church, the church needs to warm to them and for us, as the gathered people of God, to discern that this is right before God.

IBS-STL an opportunity?

I’m saddened to see the financial problems of IBS-STL who run Wesley Owen, Authentic Media and others. The temptation is to view financial difficulty as a wholly bad thing but it is an opportunity to take a fresh approach and I hope there is a positive outcome.  

Finding a buyer for the Wesley Owen chain of stores will not be easy. Running bookshops in an Amazon age requires imagination and I suspect the store locations and layouts would make it hard to copy the Borders/Starbucks style retail environment. There is perhaps a future in a form of ‘franchise’ venture with local churches looking to create or maintain a high street presence.  

I very much hope the book publishing continues. I’m convinced there is a market for quality Christian publishing in the UK and Paternoster has a good track record here. Personally I would look to create a company, like Traidcraft, where the shareholders provide capital for public benefit rather than a financial return.  

This also creates an opportunity to move away from the growing comodification of Christian media in the UK. Whilst the causes of this are complex, and not STL’s fault, it seems to me that having media production, distribution and marketing in the hands of a small number of organisations isn’t a good thing.  Perhaps a greater diversity reflecting the breadth of the church in the UK, higher quality which moves away from 'how God healed my hamster' publishing towards resources which equip every disciple and an ability to invest in creativity giving a platform to emerging artists. The realities of commercial life will not make it easy but maybe it is possible something positive arises from the ashes.

Watching Christian TV makes me grumpy!

Twice in recent weeks I’ve wasted some free time watching Christian Satellite TV; on both occasions someone speaking at well known evangelical Christian events in the UK. The first programme made my heart sink. The speaker, who I hadn’t heard before, talked complete rubbish making comments that are contrary to the Biblical text (how is this allowed to happen?). The second was better but a misrepresentation of the description of God in the OT in an attempt to make a valid point about God’s grace.  

It seems to me the problem is threefold.

-      We confuse clarity and simplicity. Clarity is desirable but you don’t need to over simply things to achieve it.

-      We value entertainment more highly than transformation. It is good to be engaging but the value of a message should not be measured by how amusing the anecdotes are.

-      We allow relevance to be an excuse for sloppiness. God speaks in conformity to God’s character and prophetic speech will resonate with God’s.

Apart from reading Glen’s excellent article (here) I suggest every conference speaker should:

1. Speak from a single text not a string of Bible verses. What matters is the proclamation of the word of God not your attempts at systematic theology.

2. Make sure you understand what textual / theological issues arise from the text you use; if you don’t know, and have no idea how the passage has shaped Christian thought, read a couple of commentaries on the passage.

3. Take care how you use argument, anecdotes, jokes and emotion: remember a holy God is listening. Ethos, pathos, logos!

A radical idea for BUGB?

This week I’m at Baptist Union Council which has, so far, been a positive experience. As I listen to the various reports and discussions I find myself wondering whether we need to create a new role for someone to help the Union move things on. A kind of development officer who would help the Union to move forward with vision and direction, facilitating conversations and taking pro-active initiative to help process agreed pieces of work.  

The Union is not simply one large church with a church staff, leadership team and members meeting but is a complex web of relationships between churches, ministers, associations and others including colleges so the person will need both intuition and the interpersonal skills to work with Council, Trustee board, Executive Committees, Team Leaders, Senior Management Team and others.  

This person would not simply be someone who services committees but someone who is released to encourage, enthuse and enable the whole Union. Clearly this person would need to be familiar with the history of reports to Council and other pieces of work that have been done, and have a good grasp of the theological and detail issues that inform our common life. They would need to understand the key strategic questions that face the BUGB: the central resource, associations, churches and ministers.  

Currently we have a General Secretary, who spends large amounts of time being the face of the BUGB to churches and the wider society, and a General Manager who focuses on managing the Union’s resource centre in Didcot. But perhaps we would make more expeditious progress with someone who had the time to develop Baptist life, building consensus and helping us grapple with detail as well as the big picture who wasn't directly responsible to the Trustees but an extention of the work of council.

Perhaps I'm still a charismatic after all.

Years ago I would happily have owned the labels ‘evangelical’ and ‘charismatic’ but these days I’m more suspicious and when asked if I identify myself as either generally want to squirm out of the implied constriction. Nevertheless I continue to believe that God speaks today; I still believe in prophecy (in the charismatic sense of God speaking to/through me today).  

Now I’ve have heard some very bizarre things claimed as prophecy so I hope I’m not being totally naïve, but I can also think of times when people have shared thoughts and ideas which seem to have something of God about them (sometimes inexplicably so).  

It seems to me that a healthy understanding of prophecy is reliant on four things:  

• Total depravity: we need to recognise that we are fallen humanity and that every aspect of our being is affected including our reason, our intuition, our emotions and our sense of hearing from God. If nothing else this ensures modesty on our part.
  
• Incarnation: God speaks through humanity, any impression I have that God is speaking to me is therefore filtered and affected by my humanity and any ‘word’ spoken by someone else is similarly incarnated, it is never unmediated.  
  
• Pneumatology: the Spirit of God continues to sustain us, sanctify us and draw us into kononia with the Father through the Son. This is a dynamic process in which the Spirit continues to reveal God to us in thought, word, image and imagination. We may only perceive in part but the Spirit continues to stir us towards a God purposed future.  
• Church: it is as we meet together in the name of Jesus that we discern what Christ, via the Spirit is saying to us. Gathering to discern the mind of Christ is a particular Baptist distinctive but it is an important component in the weighing of what people say and in giving voice to those on the margins who may be the ones who are truly prophetic. Meeting in the name of Jesus suggests gathering round Scripture, expecting that it will shape our thoughts and actions and that God will be present as the Word of God is preached.  
  

Anyway, off to BU Council tomorrow, let’s hope the deliberations of Council have something prophetic about them.

Challenges facing baptists: some random thoughts

ABP in the US are running a series of essays about Baptists asking hard questions (here), thinking particularly about the challenges facing Baptists today. Understandably they have a US focus which got me thinking what are the top challenges facing UK Baptists? So here are some thoughts…..  

1. Change. Leaving aside questions about the nature of late (post) modernity we live in a time of cultural change. This is a huge opportunity for us to rethink what we believe, what is core to our faith and how to articulate this to others. For a denomination which has sought to keep Scripture central to its life and to wear tradition lightly we should welcome the chance to re-imagine church. The challenge is two fold. First there is the need to be able to explain our faith and show how it impacts on life today. Second is to rework how we gather as the body of Christ.  

2. Diversity. Being a denomination that seeks to be welcoming and inclusive has a number of challenges. In particular, church congregations whose cultural origins lie outside the UK (eg: some Black led churches) brings a welcome richness to our life but also the need to work through different assumptions (eg: the role of denominational figures). At what point does diversity become a gulf that cannot easily be bridged or the relational strain intolerable? I hope it doesn’t happen but I can imagine scenarios in which groups of churches might seek to form their own grouping despite the fact that issues such as ‘downgrade’ suggest that this is in no ones long term interest.  

3. Sexuality. As a denomination the BUGB has so far avoided this debate becoming acrimonious and a source of division; long may this continue. However, if you consider issues where a bust up is possible this must be high on the list.  

4. Finance. It is not really money but relationships; particularly in a post-denominational context. Nevertheless most denominational activity costs money and is therefore limited by what churches give. Behind the numbers lie questions of the way that local churches relate to each other and the wider union and what place giving has in that. Do we, for example, give to the wider Baptist community out of our surpluses or is it a core element of the local churches budgeting. And what are churches seeking to support through their giving? Do they see the support of a denominational resource centre, or a local association as vitally important or would they rather give money directly to support other local churches? Clearly as a denomination if giving drops some hard questions will need to be answered and even if giving continues to grow the next few years are likely to be challenging financially.

Your ministry age - how old are you?

I came across this in Leadership Journal a few months ago and am pleased to say that an on-line version of the questionnaire is now available (here)

I was thinking of giving a prize for the person who correctly identifies my age (according to this I'm a younger leader) but wouldn't be easy in blogosphere......

Consumer ministry?

A thought crossed my mind in a discussion yesterday: to what degree should a minister resist giving people what they want in favour of giving people what is good for them? Both ends of the spectrum are easy enough to rule out. First because it is patronising to believe that I always know better than other people what is best for them and that they are not in a position to take responsibility for that themselves. Second because someone set aside for a ministry of ‘perfecting the saints’ is always going to find occasions when they feel called to say and do things which are not popular.  

The difficulty is knowing where the balance is particularly in a culture where people are encouraged to pick and choose what meets their particular needs.

Trouble with numbers.

Every year we do a church attendance survey for BUGB, this year done in September. We know that on a typical Sunday in January we have about 60% of the regular Sunday congregation present. The recent survey suggests that in the holiday months this falls to about 50% or less. So what are the factors behind this? I suspect the following all play a part.  

• Holidays. Most ministers recognise that school holidays see a decrease in attendance as families go away, not just in the summer but at half terms as well. But our congregation seems to have nearly as many people away in June and September as those who are not restricted to school holidays go away. On top of this a number in the congregation have holiday homes or caravans (both static and touring) which mean they are often away on Sunday.  
  
• Family. Many people have family who live a distance away so visiting them is often something restricted to weekends. This might involve visiting children and grandchildren or visiting parents. In addition some have children away at University. The really unfortunate have the double whammy effect of children who live away and parents (who are increasingly in need of care) who also live in different parts of the country.  
  
• Work patterns. Changing work patterns have impacted in ways that are not immediately apparent. Some of course work on Sundays but in many families the trend over recent decades has been for both spouses to work. One effect of this is that all the families domestic routine now has to be fitted into evenings and weekends. If families want to have some leisure activity together this often happens on Sunday.  

 Other than the fact that fewer people turn up to Sunday worship what other impact does this have.  

1. It makes sequential teaching on Sunday morning more difficult. Less than half the congregation listening to this mornings sermon will have heard last weeks. Increasingly I find myself structuring Sunday morning preaching round a single main theme each term, but this has implications for how we read and understand Scripture.  

2. Communication. I’m not naïve enough to believe that people pay lots of attention to notices or the newsletter but irregular attendance makes it harder to ensure that people know what is going on.  

3. Community. A sense of community is fostered by shared experiences and opportunities for interaction.  In a medium sized church there are never occasions when everyone shares in something but the lack of attendance makes any sense of community even more fragmented.  

4. Consumerism. The result is that church worship gatherings feel like occasions where people come because it meets a need, teaching and communication become slick event driven performances and church commitment is like brand loyalty.  

Some will of course respond by lamenting the fact that people aren’t as committed as they once were, that they no longer prioritise gathering together in worship. But perhaps it is time to rethink what we mean by gathering for worship?

Is big church good or bad?

Most years I try to watch the main party leaders speeches so this afternoon has seen me watching David Cameron’s speech to the Conservative Party Conference. Leaving aside the contrast from last week, dour liberal Presbyterian to new church leader who hasn’t yet mastered hermeneutics, I found myself wondering…..  

In many church conversations there appears to be a sadness that, ‘we can’t do more’ and that if only we had the resources we could offer so many more community programmes and ways of engaging with our community. What if we said that our role wasn’t to provide big programmes but to encourage, support and release people to be disciples involved in a myriad of activities; enabling them to think and act Christianly wherever they are? And what if we focused our church activity on building a community who love each other, gather together to worship God and be fed through word and sacrament?  

Is there a church equivalent to the big state / small state debate in UK politics?