Distinct Reflections

Mission agencies: do we need them?

Rattling around in my mind for the last few months have been the questions, “what are mission agencies for” and “do we really need them”?

I have some nagging worries.

• The first is theological. Mission is about us (the church) joining in with the mission of God. Going and sending so that others might become disciples of Jesus and be gathered in church communities. There are many dimensions to this but ecclesiology matters and is an integral part of this. My concern is that pan evangelical agencies downplay ecclesiology (because it divides evangelicals) which ultimately harms the mission of God.
• The second is the viability of organisations with decreasing numbers of long (5 years plus) and mid-term (1-5 years) term missionaries, an ageing supporter base and a financial reliance on legacies.
• The third is whether mission agencies are able to help us face the challenges of tomorrow rather than give us the solutions of yesterday.

The backdrop to this is the world and church are changing.

• Globalisation and the rapid spread of technology have transformed life on every continent. In Europe we are seeing huge migrations of people, as the result of war, poverty and instability in the Middle East and Africa; with millions now living as refugees. The threat of terrorism grows, particularly connected with ISIS, Al Qaeda, Boko Haram and others. And the centre of Christianity has shifted from the north to the ‘global south’ changing the church landscape as well.
• Increasingly it is the northern countries, particularly in Europe which need re-evangelising. Yet as the number of Christians declines (with consequences for the financial health of churches and Christian organisations) the churches which are growing understand themselves to be part of a missional movement. Denominational structures are becoming more flexible and new networks are emerging to encourage mission and discipleship.
• So what of the mission agency? Are they to be consigned to history; relics from the 19^th century whose role of taking the gospel from Europe to foreign lands is now over; well-meaning societies from the 20^th Century who either never quite got to grips with the rise of Pentecostalism and impact of charismatic renewal or whose roots in youth ministry valued excitement over transformation?

The positive thing is there is good work being done. I’ve seen first-hand some excellent mission activity and I’ve met people, on the field and in organisational leadership, who are godly women and men with a commitment to the cause of Christ and the kingdom of God. I’ve benefited from their wisdom, experience and advice. Nevertheless there are issues of mobilisation, funding and reciprocal mission which need to be addressed. From the perspective of local church ministry, I think there are three questions which need to be considered if we are to build strong links between churches and mission agencies.

1. With whom and for whom does the agency work? I expect almost everyone to answer, we work for the kingdom of God, but my point is more about the people the agencies work with, both in the UK and overseas, and what they are seeking to do by working with them. The answer reveals the ethos and culture of the agency as well as how they handle issues of privilege, power and paternalism (either yours or theirs). Churches need agencies who embody best practice, who connect Churches into world mission in its myriad forms and who enable us to see with a global perspective not just a western one.
2. What does the agency do for / with those people who go with them? As a church we’ve had a policy for a decade or so that we only support people who go with a mission agency, because we believe that those going overseas need a structure of support and accountability, they need to be part of a network of people with skills and experience in similar situations to those they face. But my experience is that while some are really good at all this, there are others where, frankly, we would have done a better job overseeing the missionaries ourselves.

• How does the agency work with the local church? Do they form partnerships or are they just fishing to build links with keen individuals who might become regular givers? Do they want to help churches engage in global mission or do they want the churches to support the agency in the work it does? In my experience partnering with churches overseas, working with the mission agency adds a layer of complexity and, for all the benefits, can be hard work: it is much easier to default to a ‘let’s support the agency to do mission on our behalf’ mode or engage in mission without using a mission agency.

At the risk of being a bit provocative (and filling the comments which show up gaps in my knowledge and understanding) I think the mission agencies of the future will be:

• Facilitators not organisers. That is to say they help the global church engage in mission which is ‘from everywhere to everywhere’, but where the agency acts as networker rather than organiser: connecting churches, people and openings.
• Mobilisers not recruiters. Working with churches to help them engage in mission (which might mean helping bring missionaries to UK to help here) where the emphasis is on engaging God’s people in God’s mission and not recruiting people to our agency.
• Prophetic visionaries and advocates. Who open people’s eyes to what God is doing, to the needs around the world and who call us to respond to the challenges; avoiding the temptation to focus their communications on ‘good news stories’ to encourage their core supporters. Sometimes this will require a wide view of justice, environment and poverty; at other times it will be the challenge to focus on those areas least reached, to be strategic and committed to the long haul.
• Specialist advisors and supporters. Using their experience and expertise to help churches and missionary partnerships to flourish; to equip UK churches to respond to the opportunities here and work with missionaries to the UK. There will also be a role for some specialist agencies who provide support to world missions and who bring together people with technical skills to benefit long term opportunities (for example Bible Translation).

What do you think? If you work for a mission agency do you think I’m being unfair about what you do now, or what I think the future will be?

Mission as blessing

 “Whether you think you can, or think you can’t, you are right” is attributed to Henry Ford. But whatever its origins it captures something of the challenge of sharing our faith and engaging in mission; too often we think we can’t do anything so we do nothing.

In many areas of life it is not speed of progress which makes the biggest difference but direction travelled and mission is no exception. And in order to establish a direction I’ve found the acronym BLESS useful; it fits well with the mantra that we are blessed to be a blessing (as was Abram in Genesis 12:2-3), is easy to explain and helps people to see how they can take small steps to engage in mission.

• Begin with Prayer – We discover our mission and begin to go about our mission with prayer, asking “God, who and how would you like to bless someone today?”
Prayer is vital because:
- it tunes us into God and his heart of compassion for people
- it opens us to responding to his Spirit’s prompting: perhaps with prophetic words and symbols
- it invites God to give us divine appointments.
- it gives space for God to recreate his dream for creation in us.

• Listen – We live in a culture where listening seems to be a dying art – lots of noise, lots of people wanting to shout for attention, lots of people wanting to speak. Sometimes it can seem that people aren’t listening so much as waiting for their turn to speak.

If we are to be a blessing to people we need to pause and to listen.
Listen to God ~ where is he at work; and listen to people.

There are several instances in the gospels where Jesus asks someone “what do you want me to do for you” Before doing anything, Jesus listened.

• Eat – Jesus did a lot of eating; and his eating habits got him into a lot of trouble; not because of his table manners but the manner of people he shared the table with: Sinners, tax collectors, prostitutes and so on.

In the culture of the time eating with someone was an affirmation of a person’s worth and value; it was a way of associating with them and an expression of love, care and concern.

So when Jesus ate with people it wasn’t because he needed the first century equivalent of a big Mac but because he was giving people a glimpse of the kingdom of God. He was a missional eater.

Perhaps you’d not thought of eating as a central activity of being a missionary. And maybe in UK culture the nearest equivalent is a coffee shop.

If Jesus were here he’d spend a lot of time in coffee shops; costa, starbucks, independents: a way of giving time and attention to people.

It’s the way we form relationships with people; it’s how we develop beyond small talk and occasional conversation. It’s a way of building friendships and opening up possibilities for the kingdom ~ often it creates space where folk can be real.

It’s something that we can do in lots of areas of life, in church, at work, socially…. Building relationships with people.

• Serve – After praying listening, and even eating together, we serve, knowing that in serving we receive much more than we could ever give. Noble prize for loving their neighbours, but serving people is the Jesus way. Jesus loved people and got up close to them; he laid hands on them when they were sick. He loved them and gave them space to be themselves.

If we are to serve people, we need to get alongside them, to share their hurts and pain.

But we also need to follow Jesus’ example and serve powerfully – because he had the power of God.

Whether our acts of serving a big or small – if people have needs we can pray and ask God to intervene.
If people are trapped we can ask God to free them.
If people are crushed, we can ask God to restore and reconcile them.

We can be those who serve and act as channels of God’s blessing and love.

• Story – When the opportunity arises, we tell our story – the story of how we found our way back to God in Jesus.

There’s a famous quote that is trotted out from time to time “Preach the gospel at all times and if necessary, use words”. There are two problems with this. First the quote should be ‘when necessary, use words’ rather than if necessary. Second, whilst it is attributed to St Francis of Assisi, it’s not his quote. Francis was clear that people’s deeds needed to match their words: to love in deed and tongue, word and truth. But he was also clear that the gospel needs to be taught and preached so that it might be understood. In fact the miss quote comes from the 1990’s

The truth is that the kingdom of God needs words; the gospel needs to be spoken otherwise it isn’t really the gospel and without words people will not understand the good news. If we are to bless people we need to share with them the story of God; and the story of how we found our way back to God through Jesus.

Of course we need our words to match our deeds. But can you really imagine anyone one saying “Feed the hungry, if necessary use food”. Preach the gospel – tell people about what God has done in Jesus. Share with people what God has done in your life. What your life was like before you were committed to following Jesus. How you come to make that commitment and what you did. And how your life has been since you made that commitment?

All of use are called to share in Jesus’ mission – reaching out to those far from God.

We all have a mission to be part of and a mission to do – and the Lord wants us to get stuck into it.

The thing about Blessing people is it is something we can all do.
Fundamentally it is about living life with Jesus and sharing our lives with others.
But we do all need to do it and we need to practice living like this all the time.

When Jesus sent out the disciples for the first time – they were not ready. They had not fully understood Jesus message. The Holy Spirit had not come on them in the way he would in Acts. Some key elements of Jesus salvation mission were still to be accomplished. They were not ready – but they went anyway – and told people about the kingdom of God.

We will never feel that we are ready – but we should go anyway.
We should go and share how the kingdom of God is near.

Mission: seeking a person of peace

In Luke 10 Jesus doesn’t just send the 72 out – he gives them a strategy to follow.
It’s the same strategy he gave the apostles when he sent them in chapter 9; it’s a strategy Jesus uses in his own ministry and which Paul and others copy. The difference is that here in chapter 10 he is gives it a name he talks about finding a ‘person of peace’

When you go into a new situation – find a person of peace, and if there isn’t one move on.

So what is a person of peace? It is someone (or even potentially a group of people) who don’t know Jesus but who welcome you and who receive you.

This person may be from any walk of life, but he or she will welcome you, listen to your message, help you with your livelihood, and allow you to stay in the home, and influence his or her family and the community for the sake of the Gospel.

A person of peace
Welcomes you
Receives you (and thus, probably unknowingly at first, receives Jesus in you)
Serves you
You intentionally invest in
Operates as a gatekeeper, opening relational doorways into their network of relationships

So, we calibrate our radar, and commit to investing ourselves where we have an opening, and work with the willing, we will be following God’s plan. Only the Holy Spirit can open a heart to hear the Gospel. When those opportunities arise, we are to be His witness, to tell our story of God’s movement in our lives

Ultimately mission isn’t about learning to push ropes or heard cats; it is about finding where God is working and joining in.

It is about finding those who are willing and investing in them.
It’s about relationships.

 

So who are you called to love intentionally?
Unsure who the people of peace are around you? Pray and ask God to show you the harvest?
Pray and ask God who you are called to love intentionally?
Who is your heart best shaped to reach for Jesus? Who around you is responding positively?

Coupled to finding a person of peace, Jesus moves on to talk about food and hospitality. Hospitality was an important part of the culture of the time – being welcomed and eating what was set before you. For the disciples it was linked to faith in God’s provision and dedication to the gospel – but it was part of how society functioned. As Jesus recognised, it wouldn’t always go well and there would be rejection – but hospitality was a key part of sharing the good news of the gospel.

Our culture is different – someone visits Poynton we don’t expect to feed them.
But when we are with people, when we are building relationships, hospitality remains important. Hospitality that’s as likely to be seen in Starbucks as it is in cooking.

Nevertheless – mission is about hospitality. Both receiving and giving. Because mission is about nurturing relationships. Hanging out with people and loving them.
Mission is about making space for others and sharing with them. Community, conversations, circles of friendship

Hospitality becomes important because it is a way we develop missional practices; it’s how we do the life of discipleship. Ultimately, it’s not just about coffee and cake; food and fun. It’s about having a life and sharing it with others.

Investing in relationships and building community where we do life with other people.
It isn’t a technique for explaining the gospel, but how people see Christians life and start to want the life they see. Investing in the people and community around us – knowing that God is there and at work; we seek to join in and be part of the community.

We are called to have a life and to invite others into it.

And for me this is a challenge and something which needs to change.
I need to have a life and invite others into it.

For me – I’m the sort of person who fills my life with activity. I work, from the moment I get up in the morning till when I go to sleep my mind is focused on stuff connected to being a minister.

I fill my time to the tipping point where I would burn out if I did much more.
- Sure I watch TV and things ~ but I rarely switch off, I still check emails / facebook etc whilst doing that.

My life is full, I do productive things etc etc etc – but I don’t do life in a way which makes it possible to invite others into it.

Some of that is personality driven – I’m an introvert: I like to recharge alone.
But some of it is about choices, values and actions.

I invest time in trying to make the church run, in preaching, leadership team and so on. I respond to people but my primary investments are in the organisational, programme things of church life.

But what if I invested my life in building relationships with people who are not yet Christians?
What if I invested in hanging out?

Bottom line – if I’m serious about mission I need to change my life
If you are serious about mission – perhaps you do too.

Motivation for mission

Motivation is important. It is what makes you do things and is made up from a variety of sources. Some of our motivation comes from things outside us, for example seeing the horror of the migrant ‘Jungle’ in Calais, motivates us to do things to reduce suffering. Some of our motivation comes from inside us, for example my desire to remain healthy means I take my medication. But what is our motivation for mission?

Jesus is about to send the 72 out on a mission when he gives them a short pep talk, telling them the fields are ripe for harvest. (Luke 10:2-3) It hasn’t been seen as one of the great motivational speeches of history, and I guess the call to go because we are sent out like lambs in the midst of wolves isn’t the sort of call you’d give a football team before sending them out on the field. However, it is worth pondering.

Too much mission motivation seems based on guilt. We are told that there are billions who have not heard the gospel, 2 billion who have little or no access to the gospel and that the priority is the 10/40 window or that your £5 a month will stop poverty and so on. This may all be true (though I’ve taken a vow not to give any money to a charity that advertises on TV with one of those emotion driven ads) but in essence they are trying to persuade you to do something you don’t feel like doing.

By contrast Jesus doesn’t try to motivate by guilt. He invites his listeners to see from God’s perspective; to perceive that the harvest is ready. He invites his listeners to pray for people to join in with what God wants to do. And only then does he send them to join in. Ultimately we are only motivated to join in if we see the situation from God’s perspective and the insight to see what God is doing / or wanting to do. Furthermore our motivation only survives the struggles of rejection and hardship when we understand that we are not alone we are joining in with something bigger than us.

In a little ebook Sending Capacity not Seating Capacity J D Greear uses the illustration of a balloon to talk about motivation for mission. If you take a normal balloon and blow it up with your breath you need to keep smacking it upward to keep it off the ground. But if you fill the balloon with helium, it will float all on its own. In motivating people for mission we can keep smacking them with needs, statistics, emotional videos and adverts but these things are short lived. The feelings generated wear off unless we smack them again. However an enduring motivation for mission comes from a sense of gratitude for what God has done for you and a bigger vision of what God is up to.

Obviously these things are not neat categories (how to people gain a vision of what God is up to without people sharing stories, examples and data) but the real motivation form mission comes from having a bigger vision of God and what God is doing in the world. From seeing the fields and saying ‘I’ll help’.

 

Foundations for mission

It risks stating the obvious but engagement in mission is part of discipleship. That’s to say that because we are followers of Jesus we will participate actively in his ministry; not least because he calls us to.

Preaching from Luke 5, where Jesus calls the first disciples after their all night fishing trip had caught nothing I was struck by three things which might help us in our mission engagement.

First, Simon and the others had an encounter with Jesus. All missionary endeavour starts with a God encounter, in this case an encounter with the power of God. The gospels suggest that Simon and the others knew who Jesus was before this event, so he was not a total stranger. Nevertheless this encounter was life changing because not only did Jesus instruct them to do something which made no sense to these experienced fishermen, but they responded to Jesus by doing what he said. They put out into deep water and let down the nets for a catch. Mission requires us to be listening to Jesus and responding to what he says; it grows from trust and discipleship. In our situation mission almost certainly involves taking risks, putting out into the deep, and doing things in new (counter intuitive) ways.

 

Second, Peter recognises God’s activity in Jesus and his own sinfulness. In the larger unfolding of Luke’s gospel this helpfully opens up Jesus’ ministry of forgiveness which culminates in the cross, but Peter’s reaction is a reminder that the ways of Jesus are different and so we see Peter moving from just knowing about Jesus and obeying what he says to repenting and believing in Jesus. Peter’s response sets him on a trajectory of holiness, becoming like Jesus.

We too are called to holiness, we too are called to be followers. Left to our own devices we become followers of our culture, but Jesus wants us to follow him. The question is are we being disciple by Jesus or disciple by the culture. Our culture seeks to move us from faith to doubt, with its growing distrust for faith and preference for atheism. It moves us from love to insecurity with its focus on performance. It bends us from community to individualism, not least by robbing us of our roots and through the break down of family. It exhorts us to go from contributing to consuming, the emphasis is on what we can get out of life not what we can put in. And ultimately, this lack of a still centre in our lives moves us from rest to exhaustion.

And culture matters. We are all products of our culture and whether in the UK or globally, mission necessitates reaching out to others whose culture is different and being aware of our own biases and how they shape us enables us to be more sensitive to the things that shape other people.

 

Third, Jesus commissions Peter and the others – go and capture others alive. To swap catching dead fish for catching people and giving them freedom. To leave all they have valued and live out this new relationship as followers of Jesus. We can be tempted just to skip straight to the end of this encounter and the call to go fishing for people but it is the encounter with Jesus and the recognition of holiness that really make this a foundation for mission. Going fishing isn’t just to get involved in any activity but is a deliberate change of life and values; it is to join the missional community that Jesus builds around him and share in Jesus’ ministry.

And if you want to know how I turned these thoughts into a sermon – have a listen here....

Living Well: preaching on Emotionally Healthy Spirituality

Last term I did a preaching series based on Peter Scazzero’s book Emotionally Healthy Spirituality.

I read the book whilst on sabbatical and found it personally useful; it gave framework for thinking about and processing some stuff in my own life. I also thought it might give some folk in the church a similar framework for their own situations.

In preparing the sermons I discovered a few people had shared their own sermons on the net. So in the spirit of collaboration here are mine. I originally produced a booklet to accompany the preaching series in church. Subsequently I’ve collated sermon scripts into a longer document. Podcasts of the sermons are on our church website.

We decided to call the series ‘Living Well’ because in addition to the Emotionally Healthy Spirituality material we included some other weeks (including an all age service, Remembrance Sunday) in the preaching programme and these Sundays considered some related ideas such as peace-making and justice. I also tweaked some of the Scriptures used so that we looked at a wider range of Old Testament characters.

Sermon notes
Sermon scripts
Sermon podcasts

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.

Sabbatical reflections

As I return to my role in Poynton after a six week sabbatical I do so with an interesting mix of feelings.

I’ve blogged about my trip to New Zealand before so readers already know that I had a fantastic time, enjoying learning about church life there and having the chance to visit lake Tekapo as well as Christchurch. I remain overwhelmed by the generosity of Rob Petrini and others in New Zealand who did so much to make my visit so great.

I’ve also had the opportunity to read a few books. I’ll post a couple of reviews over the next few weeks (and write one for Regent’s Reviews which will appear in due course).

Both the reading and the travelling give me a fresh perspective on what I do and some thoughts about my ministry in the months ahead.

The thing which surprised me most was the impact of having time out. The real headline of my time is not the travel, reading or conversations but the way that through it all (especially my time in Tekapo) God seemed to use it as a reminder that I’m loved.

I’m also struck by how long it actually took to stand back from my existing church role; indeed it is only in the last 10 days that I’ve really done so. Maybe that is the advantage of longer sabbaticals, but it shows up how integral ‘role’ is to my sense of identity. [There is a danger for all involved in pastoral ministry that our involvement in church life erodes the differentiation between us and the congregation in ways that are unhealthy].

There has been an ongoing cardiac element to my time. Firstly, because I still get nervous travelling alone and being a long way from other people (in the UK when I cycle I always take my mobile with me, just in case of another cardiac event). These fears, however irrational, have been often brought to the surface as I’ve pushed my comfort zones. Second, part of me thinks, post heart attack, that instead of believing I’ve got some life in me yet I should look to find a quiet, relaxed way to use my time and focus on doing stuff I like.

So I return with some mixed emotions. Several people asked me earlier, “am I pleased to be back”? In truth no, I would love to have more time to recharge and refocus on my call. I’m a strange mix of theologian, analyst, prophet, preacher, leader, teacher, administrator and visionary; and how these should play out in the months ahead remains unresolved (at least in my mind) not least in how to distinguish between my own dreams / aspirations and God’s call on my life.

But I’m back to serve and see what God will write in this next section of my chapter at PBC. With thanks to the church here for allowing me the time out.

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.