In Pursuit of Excellence

Meeting with the leadership mentoring group of the ABC has provided interesting insights. The overall philosophy of this denominational region, much the same size as the Scottish Baptist Union, emphasises missionality. This stress, under the leadership of the executive pastor, Charles Rees, has helped serve in transforming this area of Christian witness from one of decline into one of growth. There is a critical self-analysis among the pastors, as they seek to focus together in Lifelong Learning Groups and hold each other accountable. The question, ‘what is the best way to do this’ is constantly before them.

I’m impressed by this drive to be mission centred is giving focus and energy here. May it be so also in Scotland and elsewhere in Europe.

Sifted like Wheat

I have spent the last 2 days, coming as a guest speaker, at a conference here for the pastors and lay leaders in this region of the American Baptist Church, historically separated from the Southern Baptist at the time of the Civil War tragedy of the Americas in the 19th century.

There has been an ‘uncommon grace’ present in these meetings. The people are lovely Christians, but the sense of oneness and the favour of God present here has been special. It appears that it has not always been so. Some 7 years ago there was a real sense of crisis here, ‘dark days’, that threatened to pull apart the very fabric of denominational life.

In conversation, one leader reflected that Jesus spoke to Peter saying, Simon, Simon, Satan has asked to sift you as wheat. But I have prayed for you, Simon, that your faith may not fail. And when you have turned back, strengthen your brothers (Luke 22.31-32).

We should not imagine that each of us will not, at times, disappoint the Lord and succumb to the temptations and attacks of the evil one at times. Times of testing will surely come.

But the Lord intercedes, holding us in union with Himself and lifting us in the power of His resurrection. This transformation of those who are crushed and are lifted into the reality of renewal is what has come among Baptists here. And the promise is for us all.

One, Holy, Catholic & Apostolic

After a wonderful and blessed first day at the ABC conference here in the heart of the Rockies at Ross Point in Idaho, I'm reflecting on the way that, wherever you are in the world, the essence of real Christian, confessional community remains the same. Here I am, 5,000 miles from home and 10 time zones away from Jennifer, yet the pastors and leaders here are the same gracious, humble and Christ-centring people that I know in Scotland and Bulgaria. And it causes my heart to rejoice with praise to God, for I see yet again the indellible stamp of the Spirit of God on the lives of people, imprinting on them (and me!), imperfect and fallible people all, the present reality and presence of the risen Christ. This is a real joy.

And it's not just the people who you expect to agree with. I'm reading a book for review, which I didn't expect to enjoy, by an English Calvinist. It's excellent and has challenged and corrected me in quite unexpected ways. What joy! There really is, despite all the fleshly difference, one church of Jesus Christ in the world, carved out by the Spirit of God - one, holy, catholic and apostolic. A taste of heaven indeed.

Elk burgers, buffalo steaks and guns

Greetings from Great Falls, Montana in USA. Great to be here as guest of IBTS research student Patti Duckworth and her husband John, pastor of the baptist church here. Great hospitality, Christian love and fellowship and yet also another experience of how the context and culture we have to express our faith in Jesus varies so much. Never eaten elk or buffalo before, but both were great! John and Patti also took me to the local county fairground yesterday, and an exhibition of stalls selling hunting gear and so many tpes of weapons and guns! People here are strong on their right to hold weapons and hunt in the wide open country of northwest USA, and are very suspicious of government control and legislation.

Many Christians here will have weapns in their homes. And this is the context for John, Patti and their people in which the Christian life of transformation and change has to be rooted and come to find expression. In a way that engages with the culture and context that is real for people here. No place for sweeping judgments on weapons control or unrelenting vegetarianism. But, as everywhere, a need to find the voice of Christ's call speaking to people where they are and draqwing them into the life of God's transformational love. God help us all to realise this and to be slow to judge and quick to love.

Full Atonement

In these days of prayer and reflection, I’ve been challenged to summarise in a very concise way what the Atonement is all about. In other words, what it is that Jesus Christ has really done that makes Him so important. It struck me that there are three distinct but complementary dimensions that can be summed up: the propitiatory, the palliative and the paradigmatic aspects. Yes, I know they are big words, but they fit well. And the alliteration can be helpful.

Propitiatory comes from the translation of a Greek word used in Romans 3.25, but also summarises that aspect of the cross that is about punishment and penal retribution as well as propitiatory sacrifice. It’s an important – crucial – aspect of what Jesus Christ has done for us. God punishes sin but Jesus took our punishment. It’s the triumph of mercy over judgment for those who will receive Christ. It is something to be proclaimed now by us, in the power of the Holy Spirit.

Palliative refers to the healing aspect of what Jesus was doing, bringing healing and restoration to people. It is interwoven with the first aspect but is distinguishable in itself. God heals. It’s a critical mark of his ministry in Galilee, as it is now. He delivers us from the devil. He brings us His peace and tasters of healing, when we are willing to receive it. All this flows out of Christ’s atoning work. It is something to be manifested and ministered now in Christ’s name by us, in the power of the Spirit.

Paradigmatic is the life lived by Christ as a man and vindicated by God. He gives us a pattern of human life, acting as the paradigm for humanity – the second, unsinning Adam. He gets crucified because of it, but God does not allow that to be the end of the story. God raises Him up from the death and equips Him with the new body that we all now long for, when Jesus ushers in the new heaven and the new earth. A life to be demonstrated through outworking what it means to live for the Kingdom of God today.

The full atoning power of Christ has to be proclaimed, manifested and demonstrated. All of these aspects of telling, ministering and behaving are involved. This is the power of the three dimensional understanding of the atonement Jesus Christ brings. It is all of propitiatory, palliative and paradigmatic. It removes the risk of simply being about ideas alone, power alone or deeds alone. Anything less runs the risk of reducing the truth to but a fairy tale, fantasy or social fashionability.

Cruciform and contemporary?

I’m feeling challenged over being more missional. The question arises, ‘is it possible to be both missional and cruciform’? At one level of analysis, being missional is about being relevant to the society that we’re rooted in. Communicating with people in ways that they can understand. But I’m left with the question, ‘communicating what?’ The Gospel of the Kingdsom of God, come in Jesus Christ?

If the Gospel is essentially cruciform (entering the Kingdom of God by conforming to the call of the Christ whose path leads to and through the Cross), can we focus in phrasing the Gospel in a way that is readily attractive? Or is it not first necessary to express that message in the way and manner in which we live and form and express our agendas for life and living? What’s our focus? Being relevant or radical?

I can’t get away from the conviction that the greatest need of relevancy is to focus on church life that prioritises the Nazareth Manifesto. Where Jesus is found amidst our pusuit of care for those who suffer because of societal values that are fashionable yet unrighteous and unjust, merciless and unfaithful.

Seems to me that being radically cruciform is the meat in the meal of missionality, with everything else a side salad.

What names are really needed?

I have come to something of a watershed in my attitude towards identifying ‘ministries’ or ‘giftings’ in a way that allows us to tag individuals. I decisively dislike it. A fashionable preoccupation with blandly referring to the importance of the ‘fivefold ministry’ of Ephesians 4.11-13 as if such demarcation or identification were easy or even possible in our contemporary church is, I believe, at best facile and at worst dangerous. Too easily it encourages a secret agenda that is about status and power.

What really matters, says Paul later in that Epistle, is the pursuit of the imitation of Christ (Ephesians 5.1). I suspect this is better served today by speaking of fivefold ‘voices’, voices that reverbate with Christ centring, Scriptural emphases and practices. Be wary of stressing personal ‘ministries’ that we are to identify. Rather, let us listen for voices that carry the resonance of the voice and implement the message of our master, Jesus Christ.

I am guarded against any mindset that produces such questions as, ‘What is your ministry?’ I am far happier with a stress on relationality and servanthood, prizing the work of those who faithfully seeks to serve in whatever way they are released into within the body of Christ and in His name. It seems to me that God will take a man or woman with such an attitude and use them in any number of different ‘ministries’, in different places and at different times, as the needs of the occasion demand.

Certainly, give me someone to work with who seeks to be known as a ‘servant’ rather than recognised in their ‘ministry’ any day. Egos that accompany ‘ministries’ are hard not to trip over. I have to confess, I have become both wary and wearied by claims to charismatic anointing from individuals, sometimes meriting serious consideration but often, sadly, simply spurious. The floating of fanciful notions accompanied by proof texting, masquerading as Scriptural teaching, is neither honouring to God nor proves itself fit for equipping the saints.

If there are, as I believe there should be, differing and complementary ministries within the body of Christ that are to be recognised and affirmed, it should be on the basis of them being offered with servant hearts and in sincerity; but they should be properly assessed and where appropriate affirmed.

Within our Baptist Union, we specifically assess and affirm, through a thorough process, those recognised and accredited for a teaching, pastoral and oversight ministry. This process of identification has proven fit in affirming recognised ministries that serves both the local and wider church. We talk, in our Board of Ministry, of looking for indicators that bespeak ‘call, character, competency, conviction and conduct’. If these are fit criteria in assessing candidates for the church office of pastor, then they might happily be applied to any other offices that the local church feels it appropriate to identify and affirm for the pursuit and execution of its corporate ministry. Otherwise, let people be happy to be know and function as servants of the Lord. Is there a better title?

Ecstasy

Meeting with God in prayer. And ecstasy. Because without some sense of being caught up, embraced, confronted and met with by the God of Glory and Goodness; well, it can all seem a bit dreary, can it not? So for me, prayer and excitement in engaging with it always has this sense of expectation, and the need for moments of tasted fulfilment and consummation. But that by itself can seem a little too self indulgent.

I’m so aware of two things. Firstly, ecstasy is not the end we seek. Many approaches, religious and otherwise – even now, a tablet – can bring experience of ecstasy. Which has to bring doubt as to whether this is the summit of Christian meaningfulness. Secondly, ecstasy in the Bible always finds context in another, bigger picture. Whether we look at Exodus 34, Jeremiah 31, Joel 2 or Ezekiel 36; Acts 2 or 4 or the baptism of Jesus, the mount of transfiguration or the Ascension, all of these and related passages are set in the context of being taken up and involved in the plans and purposes of God: the mission of God.

And this makes sense. The profoundest moments of communion with God come, not when we seek it for our own gratification, but when as willing servants of God we focus on the hope of the Resurrection Kingdom of Jesus Christ. Relationships, mending with forgiveness and reconciliation. And give our creativity and imagination to pursuing this and sharing the vision with others.

What a relief.

Sabbatical begins

I have been reading a book newly written and published by a colleague at IBTS, Rollin Grams. It is a tribute and a biography of his parents’ ministry in South Africa, as independent Pentecostal missionaries. Their story is interesting, but what I especially value are the reflective comments of their godly and scholarly son, himself a New Testament theologian and missionary teacher.

As I enter further into my sabbatical in prayer, reading and reflection, I am especially arrested by his reflective ‘capsules’, and especially one on ‘prayer and healing’, where he notes, relating to serious and answered prayer in their mission activity,

‘The prayers were spoken in a pleading voice, perhaps different from the prayers one sometimes hears in certain Pentecostal and Charismatic circles today, where the vold voice of prayer has a certain air about it, as though one can demand healing because some Scripture or other is thought to hold a divine promise to heal in every instance. But the prayers of former times often meant wet faces: they were an emotional seeking and beseeching of our miracle-working and all compassionate God’.
(Rollin Grams, Stewards of Grace, Wipf & Stock, 2010, pp 89-90)

I’m not sure why, but I find this really helpful. Maybe I’ve become too mechanical in prayer, or unwittingly ‘name it and claim it’ orientated. But this reminder, to cast myself before God in His sovereign compassion, I find really helpful. It reminds me and calls me back to the excitement of meeting God in prayer.