Distinct Reflections

Speed Missioning

Mission is an extreme sport. And to help me get in shape I'm spending this week at the BMS World Mission training centre in Birmingham (UK) doing the course they run to prepare people for going overseas as short / mid term volunteers.

It's a strange experience being a student, these days I spend lots of time in front of people teaching and preaching so it is good to explore the feelings that come with being the learner not the facilitator. We are a mixed group of ages, the youngest is 18, most are in their 20's and the oldest is 60. Everyone (I think) has some experience of short term overseas mission (even if only a couple of weeks). Two of us are involved in repeated short term trips, several are going overseas for a year or two and the remainder for shorter term trips. The majority are headed to India and Nepal, a couple to France, two to countries in Africa, me to Peru and one somewhere else. 

 Mission is about loving, giving and sending but in order to be effective we need to be aware of how we view the world and who we are working with. So the main elements of the course speed through sessions to help us think about mission, the gospel our worldview and so on. There are also sessions on practical topics, so today we have had one on bribery (don't!) and communication (writing prayer letters, funky blog posts etc) - as part of the communication session this afternoon we had to write a short engaging blog post with a catchy title and engaging opening paragraph. As you can see I used these at the start of this but then returned to normal. The course is intensive from 8:30 in the morning to 8pm ish at night, with opportunities for extra reading / homework.

Over the next couple of days I'll try and write a bit about each day... so from day 1 here are some questions to ponder:

• Is our view of mission, something we do or which God does? (And are holistic understanding of mission predecated on the assumption that it is something we do?)
• How can we be tools in God's mission?
• Do we think of mission as encounter or expansion?
• What filters do we use to see & understand the world?
• What cultural presumptions are in your invisible backpack?

 

 

Preparing Christmas Services

It’s that time of year when preparing Christmas services comes to an end. Or, if you’re not into planning, starts with increasing levels of panic as the deadlines loom. Finding fresh ways of working familiar themes is always a challenge but also needs care as, for most UK churches, Christmas is a season where many services have visitors who anticipate carols and familiar stories.

So where might we find inspiration?

In recent years I’ve tried to focus on a different gospel each year. It’s given me something particular to focus on, and while most services have a range of readings, means that the talks I do have some interaction with a specific text and that my preparation includes work on Scripture as well as juggling service formats. I may be deluding myself of course but I’d like to think that even in the midst of tinsel, carols and trinkets, as pastors and preachers we are seeking to connect people with the Bible and the importance of the incarnation.

I’ve tended to use a fair number of videos (Worship House Media is a good source and I also like Dan Stevers stuff). As always with video and multimedia, it is worth asking why you are using it and what you are hoping to achieve. I think they often make good introductions to services, particularly where visitors come on time but regulars don't; allowing you to start promptly and then do a formal welcome a few minutes later. They also help create space in services, particularly with visitors and families, to allow for prayerful reflection without being silent.

My favourite of recent years is this by the Skit Guys, who do some good drama things as well. We used some of them in carol services.

 

But this looks a great option for a service where it might be hard to have a sustained time of prayer. (As do some of the other resources from www.rethinkworship.com

 

Our Church is collecting money for Boaz Trust (who work with destitute asylum seekers) but this is another good cause.

In the Bleak Midwinter (All I Can Do) - featuring Cathy Burton from Home for Good on Vimeo.

 

As well as videos, I have found these two websites have a range of useful resource material and ideas.

Engage Worship

Wordsout by Godfrey Rust

I quite like this video, though it doesn't have the dark side which makes the original work so well.

"A Hallelujah Christmas" by Cloverton from Ross Wooten on Vimeo.

Some years our Christmas programme has also included a 'blue' Christmas event. I blogged about this before here.

If you have any other good resources or ideas please let me know in the comments below.

BUGB recuiting ministries team leader

The Baptist Union (Baptists Together) is looking to recruit a new team leader for the Ministries team based in Didcot. Someone who will be one of the new specialist team leaders involved in leading the Union.

Details of the post are here

Noteworthy in the details is that the person is likely to be someone with experience as a Regional Minister or Team Leader, rather than someone with a college background in ministerial formation.

Closing date is 18th January.

Nauta training week

 
I’ve just returned from my latest trip to Peru: teaching at the BMS supported training centre in Nauta. As usual it was a great time. 

The main aim of the first week was teaching at one of the regular training weeks. The idea is that the centre provides basic training for pastors and church leaders who come from Iquitos, Nauta and the river communities. Most have little formal education, no books beyond a copy of the Bible, and lead sm all churches alongside working to support themselves and their families. The weeks work like ‘block weeks’ would at a UK centre, the participants arrive on Monday and leave on Saturday and in the days are filled with talks, group work, discussion and practical activities. Each week is slightly different but includes a significant amount of Biblical study, some doctrine and some practical application to the roles of church leaders; there is also at least one session given over to issues of health, community development or creation care. This last week included me leading the group through Mark’s gospel chapter by chapter and then using passages from the gospel for preaching practice; a couple of sessions looking at ethics and some others looking at the book of Revelation. There were also sessions on primary health issues and one which looked at ‘who is Jesus’ from a more doctrinal perspective.

An unexpected pleasure this time was to be able to baptise 3 couples who had come from one of the river communities. They all have young families and have been Christians for a while but are playing a significant role in the life of their church community. It was a great experience and a real privilege. It was also great to hear of another participant from Nauta, using his experience of the preaching practice to preach in church on the Sunday.

The middle Sunday I preached at a church in Belen, Iquitos “Dios me cambio” and then on the Monday and Tuesday afternoons Lori (my wife) and I led some sessions for women from some of the Iquitos churches.

Whilst we were there Sarah, from BMS’s communications team, was with us taking photos / video of the more general BMS work in Iquitos / Nauta which will no doubt appear in their publicity soon (there might even be a very brief clip of me). This led to some interesting discussions about the need for stories and information in the UK and the way that things are portrayed. To what degree do we do things in particular ways so they create a good impression for supporters in the US / UK? My experience of BMS folk on the ground is that they have a good track record of being focused on the needs of the community they serve, but the need to raise support and communicate with home churches remain.

As always, mission is a two way process not a one way street. I may go to teach but I also go to learn, it is a sharing together of experience, knowledge and God through which all of us can grow. After five years of visiting I’ve been more aware this time of just how big a challenge all of us face (whether from Peru, UK or US) to live Christianly in our particular social context. As part of the ethics sessions we had some interesting conversations about marriage which I’ll try to blog about next week; not least because I wonder if the experience of folk from the river communities might shine a light on how we plot a way through some of these questions in the UK. It’s also a language challenge; I’ve learned a bit of Spanish but this trip showed how much I’ve still got to learn.

I’d forgotten how much I enjoy living in the jungle. I wasn’t able to go last year because of my heart attack so it is nearly two years since I was there, whereas I’d been going twice a year for the previous few years. I’d love to be more involved though that’s not easy with our current family commitments; but maybe there is a mission shaped role for us somewhere in the future. (Yes, I know that being a minister in the UK is a mission shaped role too).

Lessons from UK / NZ baptist life

As I’ve pondered my trip to NZ there are a number of things about Baptist life in our two countries that we might learn from each other. So as a  final post on NZ let me draw some threads together. 

Ministry led or congregational

There is much in the healthy church / ministry led model of church life which is good. When done well it releases people to serve and enables every member to use their gifts whilst freeing the church to respond to opportunities. In the UK we would benefit from the ‘can do’ approach to life that our NZ sisters and brothers have. However, there is something healthy in leaders / ministers having to offer leadership rather than instructing followers which can easily be lost in the ministry led model; not least because it seems (from my limited observation) to become Pastor centric. Congregational unity comes from a commitment to walk together, to contribute together, and to listen together; something that is beyond governance structures but is about how a congregation lives out its shared life. (in the UK notions of covenant try to capture this).

Many English Baptist Churches need to stop worrying about membership, church meetings and Baptist shibboleths and allow new ways of expressing Baptist life to emerge. The NZ model has much to teach us about trusting and releasing people and churches, developing structures that fit our current context rather than a Victorian one and encouraging a mission focused church. However, I'm not sure it isn't too tied to 1990's assumptions of leadership / governance which will date it rapidly over the next decade (it too easily defaults to leader as CEO rather than leader as cultivator) and it is not sufficiently robust theologically. I haven't yet researched this properly but I've not found any theological explanation of how this enables an outworking of a trinitarian understanding of church; whereas in the UK there is a growing body of theological work on baptist ecclesiology which we need to work out in practice.

Regional validation of diversity

What do we want of our regional / national leaders? Regional leadership came up frequently in my conversations about Baptist life and I think both countries share a challenge here in deciding what we want and how we are going to resource it. In particular how we enable regional leaders to be proactive and not simply reactive to stuff going on in churches. Our regional ministers in the North West of England do a good job in being themselves (they are theologically different) and helping the churches to be themselves; a commitment to diversity which is important. In the UK we have a long way to go but we have made a start in ensuring our Union appointments express our diversity, particularly in validating the ministry of women.

The NZ model seems to place an emphasis on recruiting people with strong record of local church leadership, indeed a number of the posts are part time so people continue in some form of local church ministry alongside their wider baptist role. As the UK Union and Associations adjust to smaller budgets we too will need to rethink how we provide national and regional ministry.

Charismatic Baptists

My biggest surprise in NZ was the number of Baptist pastors who described themselves as Pentecostals. Some of this is the product of different church histories but I wonder if we in the UK have something to share about being charismatic and Baptist (those of us who are of course); with expectations of experiencing the presence of God in worship, the place of prophecy and apostolic leadership in church life. NZ Baptist Churches maintain a high regard for Bible centred, expository, preaching which offers plenty of scope for a fresh baptistic charismatic hermeneutic but is also a reminder to those of us in UK that Scripture needs to remain central to a word/spirit network.

Community engagement

The assumption that this is the norm has permeated most, but not all, English Baptist Churches but the NZ folk have something to show us in the range of activities they do which extend beyond preschool, children, youth and older people; starting community cooperatives, language schools etc etc. In the UK we are developing a good track record of working together across churches, and across church streams / denominations to serve and transform communities. I think that Christchurch would be an even better place if churches grasped a vision to work together.

Visiting New Zealand has been a fantastic experience and I loved it there. I joked about emigrating but would love the opportunity to return and perhaps contribute something to church life there some day. There is so much more to discover about life in NZ and learn from the churches there and I'm looking forward to finding a way of doing this.

 

Since returning I've located a few related articles on the web which look at 'ministry led church' and NZ Baptist life in particular. These include:

A masters dissertation on the ecclesiology of some NZ Baptist Churches without buildings

UK dissertation on Church Meetings which examines NZ model

Ministry today article

Book review of John Kaiser's Winning on Purpose

http://hcbc.nz/engage/how-were-governed/

Observing Baptist life in New Zealand

In the last blog I looked at three elements which define Baptist life in Christchurch: activist / community orientated, minister led church structures and in the influence of Pentecostalism. These then flow into some other aspects of life there.

Independence

After the earthquakes churches, like the rest of the community, pulled together to get life back together. This gave the Baptist churches an opportunity to work much more closely together, which many took. But it is interesting to see how, as time passes, churches move back towards the mentality of ‘looking after our own patch’ in a way which is similar to the UK. That said, my experience of meeting ministers was that many of them get on well together and look out for / support each other so opportunities for collaboration still exist. For example, one Sunday evening I attended a joint service by three of the Christchurch Baptist Churches which used the music group from a fourth. Also, by comparison with the UK there seems less ecumenical working together. Yet I can't help feel that, with the Kiwi have a go / we can do it attitude, there is significant potential to forge more interdependency and closer working together; to show baptists in other parts of the English speaking world that it can be done.

Into this mix is a distrust of academic qualifications and (among some) the Baptist training college in Auckland; meaning that some pastors have little or no theological training. This obviously impacts their ministry but also robs people of a shared language and experience framework to work together.

Functional ministers

In general it seems that for the last twenty years the Baptist Union has opted for a functional
understanding of ministry and church life, so that anyone talking about covenant (or even an ontological view of ministry) is seen as a bit catholic (or plain odd). There are ministers who are theologically engaged, and the breadth of thinking is at least as wide as in the UK, but it seems rare for denominational conversations to be framed by theological questions. This fits well with both the mission focus of the Union and the Pentecostal background of some Christchurch ministers but it will be interesting to see how that enables the union to respond to changing cultures in the future. 

Whether a result of a functional view of ministry or of staff led churches, there seems a larger number of people who are on church staff (whether paid, part-time or voluntary); in the UK we often work in teams and think of the team not the leader whereas in Christchurch there is often a clear leader who is appointed to that role.

Diversity

One of the great things about Baptist life in the UK is the diversity of churches and ministers, and the way that we can exist as a movement together. Baptist life in Christchurch is different, although there are a good number of churches in the city it feels remote from the population centres of the North Island; and everyone is still rebuilding after the quakes. But Baptist life there seems less willing to embrace or celebrate diversity and still celebrate being Baptists together. A number of ministers asked me about how British Baptists were responding to questions of human sexuality; there is a genuine fear that the denomination will tear itself apart. [There is a very real danger that we might do so in the UK as well].

What I didn’t get the chance to explore was whether this apparent limit to diversity was the result of things the Union did regionally rather than being true at local church level; or whether the limits are imaginary, a reflection of who speaks loudest, rather than actual limits on fellowship.

In all three of these elements I may have misjudged the situation. I certainly will not have captured the nuances of life in Christchurch after such a brief visit. But I suspect these three elements will be more important than the three in the previous post for shaping the future of Baptist life in Christchurch ~ not least because questions of interdependency, theology and inclusivity are key issues for British Baptists as well and how we navigate them will shape church life in the decades ahead.

Learning about New Zealand Baptists

One reason for visiting New Zealand was to learn about Baptist life in Christchurch. Rob, my host, is Senior Minister of Opawa Baptist and he organised lots of opportunities for me to interact with other local pastors and people involved in Baptist life. Christchurch is, of course, a particular place with its own history and situation, some of which makes it different to other parts of New Zealand. So what did I learn?

Action

If you ask ‘what defines a Baptist in NZ’ the most common answer is ‘activist’ rather than anything about congregationalism. And from what I have seen Baptists have been structured for activity. In the UK, NZ Baptists are sometimes held up as a model of mission. And it is true that churches here have developed a range of activities with/for the local community. Most churches here have trusts which they use for a wide variety of these activities, but this model isn’t without problems. Creating a trust has some legal and financial benefits but the price is frequently that the activity is disconnected from the core of church life (and if the finance comes, as it often does, from local authority or other source, the stipulation may well be it is not used to evangelise).

That said, Christchurch has been a great model of churches working with the community, particularly in the aftermath of the earthquakes in 2010/11. Opawa run a fruit and veg co-op which is staffed and sorted by volunteers from across the community who work together to buy and distribute fresh market produce at a knock down price

Community engagement also extends to having ‘community chaplains’ on the church staff; volunteers (or sometimes part time paid) people whose ministry is to provide help and support to folk outside the church; I saw examples of helping single parents, older people and others who needed some support or practical assistance to deal with government bodies; and of engaging local young people.

However, this activist mindset runs across more than the community ministries. I think it is part of the Kiwi worldview that says ‘yes we can’ to most challenges and get stuck into it.

Leadership

Compared to most UK Baptist churches, NZ ones are more pastor led. Indeed a bit over 10 years ago the NZBU committed itself to growing healthy churches and embraced and promoted the idea of churches being ‘ministry led’. Broadly this means that the church is led by the Senior Minister who works to appoint a board (or Elders) to focus on leadership issues in the church. The minister then creates ministry team leaders who provide leadership to the main areas of church life. The nominations for Elders are ratified by the Church Meeting and the ministry team leaders by the Elders. Church Meetings are held a couple of times a year.

Making the Senior Pastor the key leader and writing into the constitution that plans and proposals have to be agreed by him (or her, though all the leaders I met were male) significantly changes the congregational dynamics.  Such that in one publication the regional leader could write to churches that this is “the time of year when leaders generally cast vision for the year ahead”…….”leaders must lead. That is why they have been placed in the position of leadership.” An article which assumed the role of ministers was to hear from God and lead their congregation in the light of this revelation. A far cry from the British perspective which starts from the congregation discerning the mind of Christ together.

Pentecostal

Another significant difference to the UK arises from how churches responded to Charismatic renewal. As in the UK almost every church has been impacted by it, as can be seen from the songs used in worship. In all the services I attended, led by groups from three different churches, it was almost exclusively contemporary songs (from US, Hillsongs, UK). Whilst in the UK you might plot churches along a line from ‘traditional baptist’ through to ‘charismatic baptist’, in NZ the line would be from ‘traditional’ to ‘pentecostal’. This alignment with Pentecostalism, not just charismatic renewal, isn’t just a difference in wording but an alignment with many aspects of Pentecostal ecclesiology and theology (as espoused by Elim and Four Square Gospel rather more than Assemblies of God). Alongside the pastor led church this leads to a strain of Baptist life which sees the minister like a modern day Moses and places considerable emphasis on apostolic leadership.

Alongside this traditional-pentecostal axis there is another element of evangelicalism which is different. Historically at least, there have been more churches which have seen themselves as preaching centres (some of which were more reformed in doctrine and ensured that the charismatic movement passed them by). Overall, Bible preaching remains a key element of Baptist life.

While these three elements (Activist, Leader-centred, Pentecostal) are key to Christchurch Baptist life they are not the only things. In the next blog I’ll look at some more and consider how some thoughts from the UK might resonate there.

 

BUGB / BMS Baptist Assembly 2015

Back in the UK I attended the annual BUGB/BMS Baptist Assembly on Saturday. This year it was a one day event, which worked better than I thought it might. Obviously reducing the events length means that there are lots of things there isn’t space for, such as opportunities for other Baptist Organisations, plenary sessions with speakers, engagement with Scripture, and if we keep having one day events we will be much poorer for it; but this was kept fast moving and engaging.

Most people will have things they wish were done differently, mine include:

1. If, as people who believe in discerning the mind of Christ, we think that doing AGMs as one of a range of 20 minute optional events is right, we need to give ourselves a long hard look in the mirror.
2. Doing ministerial recognition for new ministers and the in memoriam session for ministers who’ve died in a fresh way is fine (personally I happen not to like it) but when we don’t name the people individually we lose something important and honouring.
3. I’m most comfortable with the style of worship used (contemporary band led worship songs), and too much responsive liturgy does my head in (so the absence of it was welcome) but our annual worship gathering needs to be more inclusive. [Actually the need for inclusivity isn’t just about worship].                                                                             

There are lots of things worth celebrating, not least that over 1000 Baptists want to gather from across the country. But I’d also note:

1. Apart from the AGMs, having a series of 20 minute optional sessions worked well; giving people an opportunity to engage with some particular issues.
2. The number of different people contributing from the front was good; it was great to see the Young People involved in this (not least because two of them were my children).
3. Making lunchtime into part of the whole day with the big picnic ensured some great interaction.
4. Each year Assembly needs a multitude of volunteers to make it happen, and many people (especially folk who work for the Union and BMS) put in long hours to pull it together. We should celebrate their commitment!

Assembly is one of the key moments when our vision and values are expressed and the shorter assembly makes it much harder to do this. It provides a good way of gathering people together but is a much weaker tool for enabling a Baptist movement: something that will be vital over the next five to ten years.

New Zealand trip

I’ve just returned from an amazing couple of weeks in New Zealand; most of the time being spent in Christchurch; the largest (only) city on the South Island. I went as part of a sabbatical to see what Baptist Church life looks like in New Zealand; but also because we have built a link with a church there.

Spending the first few days looking around the city was a strangely moving experience, coinciding with the Nepal earthquakes. Christchurch was hit by two large earthquakes in September 2010 M7.1 and February 2011 M6.3. Even four years later evidence of the damage and destruction done is still everywhere to be seen; not least in amount of reconstruction work still being done but also in the number of damaged buildings which still remain and large areas which have been cleared of buildings and housing.  As I moved around the city, in a country with good governance, the money for rebuilding and the infrastructure to respond to disasters, it was hard not to feel for those in Nepal; a country which has fewer resources and capacity but which now has to respond to earthquake devastation. I was also aware, though little was said, of how the events in Nepal seemed to bring back memories and unsettle people.

Many will know I’ve had the opportunity to visit Peru on several occasions in recent years so it felt strange to visit a country where people speak English. I flew on Emirates who do their announcements in Arabic and English; via Dubai, Bangkok and Sydney. After all the hours travelling through foreign airports it feels odd to emerge down under where they speak the same language, but are much less reserved than the UK. However, the cultural lesson is important. In Peru I’m always very aware that I live in a different culture and although I’m visiting to teach, I try to be sensitive to the fact that it is hard not to export one’s own culture. In New Zealand it is easy to forget that this is a different culture and that people’s lives have been shaped in another context; particularly since there are so many extranjeros from the UK, US and Australia and the TV carries many UK and US shows.

My reason for visiting as part of my sabbatical was to learn more about Baptist life in New Zealand and Christchurch in particular. NZ Baptists have a reputation for being more mission focused than the UK and I wanted to see if that is true and learn about the vision, values and leadership of churches here. My next two blog posts will detail some of my thoughts on this.

As well as my time in Christchurch I also spent a few days away further inland at Lake Tekapo, an opportunity for retreat, prayer, reading and walking. In theory my reading is mostly connected to church culture and leadership but in practice my time here has been more an opportunity to reflect on God’s love.  More on this in a later blog.

New Zealand is a great country, Christchurch is a lovely city to live in. I can see why so many people emigrate here; indeed if the right opportunity came along I would happily join them.

Thank you to Rob & Monica, Roger & Norma as well as the many local church leaders who made me so welcome.

Fresh Streams 2015 Encouraging, affirming, empowering

I’ve been at Fresh Streams annual conference this week where the theme was ‘Developing leaders, developing leadership’.  Danielle Strickland was booked as the main speaker but had to withdraw and so a different person spoke at each main session. Roy Searle and Chris Duffett are well known in UK Baptist life; Ali Summers is on the staff of Rising Brook Baptist Church, Stafford; Eddie Lyle works for Open Doors and Roy Godwin leads a network of Houses of Prayer. The variety of speakers works well and is something conferences might do more often, rather than bring in ‘names’. Nicole Brown led us in times of worship.

For me the main benefit of going is the opportunity to think about vision in church life, my own growth and be open to fresh direction. It is an affirming and encouraging event rather than somewhere to learn lots of new things; somewhere to be empowered rather than exercised. And, as someone who is a charismatic at heart, I enjoy being in an environment which values this without worrying about incorporating other things or feeling the need to appeal to a broader Baptist constituency. [There are other places, notably the Union’s annual assembly, which rightly do this].

I enjoyed some helpful conversations with other church leaders who have worked to create missional communities. I’ve been attracted to the idea but felt that that the wholesale changes required were not right for us as a church. However, all these church leaders had used the MC’s to create new things, adjusting rather than stopping their existing programmes. This more creative approach is something that could work here and create a flexible framework for us to do some of the things that we would like to develop.

So if it’s a good event what would make it a great one?

1. Tighter Seminars. The best ones include 30 mins of high quality input to get to the heart of issues quickly and ensure that discussion gives people ‘take aways’ even if there are not clear conclusions.

2. Structured interaction around topics of interest. Each year people ask loads of questions about topics which others think of as old hat. Some structured opportunities to share experiences and ask questions might help lots of people think about new ways of doing things in their context.

3. Bible. Having a theology track has been a great addition over the last couple of years. But, while every speaker made use of Scripture in their talk, overall there was little detailed interaction with the Biblical text.

Overall it is a good event but a few tweaks would help give it greater impact in enabling people to take ideas and use them in the local church.