1. Christ centring
To state that we are ‘Christ centred’ can sound a bit presumptuous. A safer and more humble tack may be to affirm that we, amidst all our sinful struggles, we are really trying to keep our eye on Jesus and to focus on Him. Remember Peter walking on the water? It’s really easy, amidst all the splashes, spray and waves we make in our declarations and defences, to sink theologically. A claim to be aspiringly Christ centring, rather than already Christ centred, may prove firmer ground!
Our forbearers had a stroke of genius when, back in 1869 when the Scottish Baptist Union was founded, they swallowed their parochial pride and followed the example of their neighbours the English Baptists by affirming that Jesus Christ is the sole and absolute authority in all matters relating to faith and practice. Now, it would be daft to suggest that the Bible was not critically important for them as it is for us now. So they rightly joined on the affirmation, ‘as revealed in the Holy Scriptures’. This wasn’t an ‘add on’ or a slip of focus. It kept things in perspective. You see, it’s a question of where our emphasis lies. Lots of folk can and do misuse the Bible. From the very start of church, it was therefore acknowledged and affirmed that the fullness of God’s revelation to us is in and through Jesus Christ. That’s in the Bible. And it affects the way that we read and look at the Bible. This emphasis on reading the Scriptures with Jesus as the key to what they’re about is what they had in mind. When we search the Scriptures, it has always to be in our minds that the key to reading, understanding and applying the Scriptures to our life today is Jesus Christ. He is alive and by the Holy Spirit mediates His mind to us: Who He is, What He does and How He does it. The measuring rod, or canon of this, is recognised as being in the Scriptures. Lose sight of that and we lose our way with Scripture. Lose sight of this and Conservatives become legalists just as Charismatics become phenomenalists.
It’s so easy to get carried away with theological theories and succinct summaries. But the truth is, we need to keep coming back to test it all in the light of Jesus Christ and what’s said about Him in Scripture. This is the reason why early Baptists, right back in their central European Anabaptist beginnings, struggled with forming ‘Statements of Faith’. Because they realised that anything we say is conditioned by the power-plays of people and the politics of a place. And people, politics and places change. So with a Bible in our hands and history in our heads, we need to keep going back to reading the Old, Old story again in a fresh way for our time, working out its implications for our context and contemporary culture. What was said yesterday was for yesterday. The Bible sets a standard for measuring and assessing the faith of every succeeding generation. We have to learn how to say ‘it’s all about Jesus!’ in a way that’s both socially relevant and Biblically accurate today.
Of course, to say that we are Christ centring is also to affirm that every person can and needs to have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. ‘You need to invite Jesus into your life!’ and ‘There’s a difference between being Christian and being religious.’ These convictions we share with all evangelicals. And they’re absolutely basic for us. Christian faith involves coming into relationship with a person, Jesus Christ. Until that relationship is there for someone, then they haven’t entered into Christian faith.
One more thing. By stressing that we’re ‘Christ centring’, we’re emphasising that the folk others see us to be are neither the finished product nor people who have arrived at their final destination. We’re on a journey. A journey of change and transformation. A journey where we’ve heard about Jesus, are trying to share our lives with Jesus and are focussed on becoming more like Jesus. It’s not just a matter of sticking our hands up in a meeting, saying a wee prayer and then that’s it all – done and dusted. We delight in acknowledging that we’ve not got it all tied up and neatly explained. We’re following a route plan. Jesus is our guide. The Bible is our map. And we’re on the journey. We’re Christ centring.
2. Community discovering
Community first, individuals second. Too much to handle? Why? Because, of course, we live in a culture where we’re constantly told that ‘me matters!’ We are bombarded through media with the affirmation that discovering who we truly are, finding out what our potential is, seeking our own destiny and having the right to be the people we choose to be is what matters. Good, secular values. But such emphases have more to do with the ‘I’m worth it’ affirmations of contemporary, cosmetic consumerism than with Christ-centring Christianity. And mark this well: it’s so dangerous and potentially destructive when such selfishness is repackage and rebranded for Christian congregations, all in the name of ‘seeker friendliness’.
Make no mistake. Jesus called people into relationship with Himself and others. He stressed that what matters the most is that we root our identity and self-worth in following this way. Not in who we are in ourselves, but in who we are in our relationships. With Jesus and with others. Learning to lose ourselves in order to find ourselves. Discovering and maturing our Christian identity not by looking inwards into ourselves, but looking to Christ and others who follow Him.
Now, if it’s true we are to highlight community, we might question whether is it right to have more than one congregation in the world! What’s the answer? Well, there is an obvious limit to the number of people we can gather in one place and meaningfully relate to. If meaningful relationships define church, then there is a point when a group becomes so big it ceases to be a church and then becomes a crowd. It is not by accident that we refer to local churches as ‘congregations’: gatherings of people congregated together. It’s good and natural that there is diversity in styles and structures among and within different denominations. There are going to be factors, such as shared culture and context or language and lifestyle that will bring people together. We just have to make sure that Jesus – Who He is, What He does and How He does it – remains the key catalyst for our own group.
As Baptists, in common with other Christians, we want to emphasise that the main relationship that counts is that key, personal relationship with Jesus. But having established that, we aren’t then to hurry back to look into ourselves or simply to look out for ourselves. Baptists stress that before we come back to ourselves, there’s a second base to visit. And that base is the relationship we share with others.
This is how the church gets formed and how people get truly reborn. It’s not just a collection of individuals who are a local, Jesus fan club. It’s a gathering of people together, constituted by their common owning of the identity of Jesus. Praising together God, the Father of Jesus. Listening to the teachings of Jesus. Exploring the values and convictions of Jesus together. Discovering and working through the implications of these together. Discussing and praying together. It’s this network of people, built together in relationship, that constitutes real church. It’s an organic, local body designed by God. Constituted by Christ. His community.
This is no small thing to get into. It’s huge. It’s really difficult for people today. It involves renouncing the quest of ‘me matters most’ and really turning round our lives to face up to the calling and teachings of Jesus Christ.
What’s fundamental to being a Baptist Christian is this act of gathering to worship God and centring on Jesus. Through praise and prayers. In reading Scripture. Learning from those who have a deeper understanding of the Bible and a longer experience of living the Christian life. And from those who have different experiences of following Jesus from our own. Listening to one another. Learning to empathise and sense the presence of Jesus as part of a group, of something bigger than ourselves. Moving forward together.
There’s a momentum when the convictions and goals of Jesus Christ grips people. We learn to take seriously people beyond ourselves, because the Spirit of God reaches out to them. We begin to look beyond our own identity, towards those who are not yet part of our identity in Christ. Now, people who are focussed on themselves only see the value of others in terms of serving self. But people who are focussed on Christ will see others in a different way. They will start to look at those who are still strangers to Christ with a new yearning. A new longing to develop disciples.
3. Disciple Developing
It may seem startlingly obvious, but it bears saying. Before we talk the talk, we need to walk the walk. Before the disciples were sent out by Jesus, they were called to follow Him. We have to develop disciples. And we have to begin with ourselves. So a Baptist church can never be a static community identified by a sterile building. As long as the people are changing, Christ centring and community discovering, the shape of things will continue to change.
Our message is that God forgives and welcomes failures. But not just that. As people come to realise God’s love, they need to repent and change their ways. They have to learn to take steps to live out lives of submission to God and conformity to Christ. We’ve got to model this in ourselves. We’ve got to have the confidence to say to people, ‘Look, we’re taking Jesus and His way seriously, can’t you see? Come and join us.’ It doesn’t develop people as disciples to tell them we have the best preacher, praise band or biggest gathering around. It just invites them to become corrupt consumers, like ourselves. But it does develop disciples if we ourselves are pursuing a new identity, a reason for living and a way of doing things that is rooted in the life and ministry of Jesus Christ.
No one can develop as a disciple by themselves. Why not? Because the only voice we’ll listen to is our own; or perhaps, in times of praise, prayer and perusing God’s Word, also God’s voice: heavily filtered through our own ambitions, preferences and prejudices! We need other people to develop as disciples.
The Baptist Christian is committed to humility. To listening to others. To saying, in the face of the profoundest of epiphanies, ‘this is what I think God might be saying to me. What do you think?’ The Baptist Christian knows the reality of their own sin well enough to know the power of self delusion. They look for confirmation from those other Christians who are seeking to pursue God’s way with them, especially from recognised leaders within their communities of faith.
We need other people to develop as disciples. Because discipleship is discovered through relationship. Relationship with God and with one another. We are in God’s recruitment business. To set up meetings and outreaches where others simply are led to make decisions for or have experiences of Christ, without being challenged to repentance and nurtured into disciples of Christ, is a parody of evangelism. To develop disciples is to grow organically. To draw others into a community of searching the Scriptures, together seeking to work through how we can conform to God’s will and Christ’s way.
Baptist Christians know that Christian faith will always lead them to expand and grow, personally and dynamically, beyond their comfort zone.
So .... what about mission?
Well, it all depends on whether you’re truly Baptistic. Because mission is simply the expression of who we are. Are we intent on being Christ centring, community discerning and disciple developing? A church caught in this dynamic cannot help itself. It is being missional, without seeking to be. As a baby stands up and learns to walk, so any developing community of Christians will learn to engage in mission.
But beware. To try and shortcut this way, to enter mission for mission’s sake, runs the risk of turning the church into a lecture or concert hall or, at worst, an entertainment centre or freak show. Baptists are not interested in gathering groupies. Our focus in plain and simple. Christ centring. Community discovering. Disciple developing.
