Incarnational Discipleship

An interesting few days. After some 'outrageous grace' at our Scottish Baptist Assembly, here I am with friends and colleagues at IBTS. This is such a great place to gather internationally, with baptistic scholars from throughout Europe and beyond.

And not just scholars, but scholars who are intent on contextual mission and integrity of witness. One of the senior adjunct faculty, Professor Glen Stassen, is presenting lectures on 'Incarnational discipleship'. What does it mean? For me the quest is epitomised in the life and ministry of one friend and a research student here, Mike Pears (in photo). Mike and his wife intentionally moved their home from pastoring an established baptistelse  church, feeling called to pattern something in obedience. So now he is in one of the most deprived areas of Bristol, living in a large, deprived 'white sink' estate.

Mike, for me, is a true prophet. His convictions and his practices are integrated in a very convincing way. He really believes in Christian witness not from the place of power, but from the place of weakness. The Philippian hymn lies at the heart of his life. And his missional theology, as he continues critital appraisal of his own life and ministry.

Mike always causes me to feel challenged in my attitudes and goals; in the way I live and how I long to live. Thank you, Mike.

Leadership that might just about be 'OK'

I confess, if you didn't know already: I have a particular dislike for the word, 'leadership'. It evokes too many painful memories of self promotion, egotism and insecurity. And I'm not just talking about myself!

However, there may be hope for me yet. I've just been reading more of Eddie Gibbs' Churchmorph and am really liking this (pp 53-54):

“Under the constraints of modernity, leadership tended to be an eletist concept, exercised through hierarchy and control. For churches to be effectively missional in a postmodern information age, leadership has to be devolved and expressed by different individuals according to the situational demands. Leadership consists of connecting people to one another. Missional churches encourage creative freedom and initiative taking, while at the same time providing the possibility of failing with dignity. But freedom also requires accountability as a safeguard and to ensure a learning environment in which leaders mature through wise mentoring.

“A learning system is one in which everyone is made aware of what is going on around them. It recognizes that no individual can know all that needs to be known, given the complexities of the world in which we live. It is a system that draws on the collective wisdom of the entire body. It constantly asks, "What do we need to know?" and "Who is most likely to know?" The role of the overall leader is to serve as a catalyst in this process by identifying issues, making connections, and articulating and reiterating the vision so that the church has a sense of common mission that is linked to a multiplicity of callings, giftings, and tasks.”

OK. If we can agree about this, then I can agree that there might be a valid place for talking about leadership and not just about servanthood. Can we agree?

Real mission

Churches often play at mission. Eddie Gibbs, in his book Churchmorph, observes that new attempts in mission and outreach,

"will only gain significance as they reach out to the de-churched and never-churched segments of the population, rather than providing the latest attraction for bored, frustrated, or angry current churchgoers. They also need to be strongly in evidence in urban contexts, recognizing that our culture is driven by urban values and images, with suburbia increasingly becoming culturally marginalized".

Groups of Christians must find fresh identity. We have to shed the garments of ecclesial baggage and traditions that smell more of worldly culture than of Christ. We need to reinvent ourselves in Jesus' name. It's not enough to be nice people in community. As Gibbs also observes,

"The most vigorous forms of community are those that come together in the context of a shared ordeal or those that define themselves as a group with a mission that lies beyond themselves—thus initiating a risky journey". 

We really need to see 'the mission of God' as standing at the heart of our reason for being. Otherwise we are not simply irrelevant for our neighbour. Worse, we become irrelevant for God.

Transition

Today, Judy White preached an inspirational message and I shared the following with my congregation:

"Dear Family,

Within the last year, we have seen significant changes in the leadership structure of the Baptist Union of Scotland. Both the national Mission & Ministry Advisors were called back into pastoral ministry, and the Union’s Council agreed that a new post be created, with responsibility for oversight and advising in the development of a unified understanding of Mission and Ministry within our Baptist Union of Churches.

As some of you know, I have been involved in the work of our Board of Ministry since 1997, and was invited onto the Search Group to find the right person for the new position. The Mission & Ministry Advisor together with the General Director will hold full time, stipendiary office as part of the core leadership of our Union of churches. After the 1^st meeting of the Search Group, I realised that this was a ministry to which I felt strongly drawn. However, I was persuaded that if God was saying this to me, He would also say it to others. I resolved not to apply for this position nor discuss my thoughts with colleagues. My prayer, however, was that if God was in this, another member of the Search group would approach me with this conviction on their heart too.

The Search Group had decided to consider recommendations as well applications. A colleague on the Search Group did unexpectedly come to speak to me, and a commendation was subsequently made by them and their colleague in pastoral ministry. I immediately resigned from the Search Group and took no further part in discussion or proceedings from that moment onwards. The Search group met after the deadline for applications and considered a number of applications together with this commendation. Consequently, the Search Group then invited me to interview: references from the wider church were also obtained and considered. As a consequence the group unanimously recommended my appointment by the Council to the post of Mission and Ministry Advisor. The members of Council then had 2 weeks to prayerfully consider this recommendation, and 2 days ago the result of a secret ballot was an overwhelming confirmation by our Scottish Baptist Union’s Council that I be appointed to the post of Mission and Ministry Advisor.

The long and thorough process of communal discernment, together with the fact that all initiatives in this matter have come from others, persuades me that this is God’s will. Accordingly, at the beginning of 2012, I will be stepping down from the office that I have sought to serve in for 17 years, as pastor of Bristo, and will take up a national leadership position as Mission and Ministry Advisor to the Baptist Union of Scotland. I ask for your prayers. And I would also ask you for your support in this new relationship which I will have with you as a congregation in membership of our Union.

It has been a privilege to be your pastor. But I do believe it is time for the church to move forward with a new pastor. Whilst my new role will be to give you advice, the pastoral oversight of this congregation will need to be entrusted to another. To that end, recommendation for the appointment of an interim moderator will be considered at the next deacons’ meeting, and hopefully by this time next month a congregational meeting will be convened for you to consider a nominee for appointment as interim moderator who, experienced in oversight yet detached from emotional involvement in Bristo, will guide you through due process towards the appointment of the next person to hold the office of pastor of this congregation.

I do believe there are challenging and exciting times ahead for Bristo. And this I say to you: be humble before God, seek His will alone, discern together and submit to what He commands. Do this, and you will be blessed much and also be a blessing to many others in Jesus’ name. I love you and would trust you to pursue the baptistic way in these matters. Be faithful.

In His love,

Jim"

Difficult to face the parting. But exciting to face the future too.

Clusters in Christ

Had a great meeting this evening with the deacons of another church in our local Baptist Union of Scotland Cluster, Stenhouse Baptist Church. This congregation has been hugely courageous in looking to move forward and, as one of their deacons said, 'move out of our comfort zone', into a redevelopment project. The challenges are huge, but so is the sense of hope and engagement in faith.

Moreover, they are encouraged by the arrival of new, younger people in the church. Which itself brings challenges. But this group of deacons are intent on moving forward, serving their church and their Lord in the cause of His Kingdom.

Well done, Stenhouse Baptist Church! You are an inspiration and an example to us all. Moving forward from the place of comfort to the place of challenge - the place where we always find the Lord taking us, as He equips us top be witnesses and calls us to participate in the evangelisation of the world - including the one on our doorstep.

Like the stars above

Abram placed His trust in what the LORD had said,

and the LORD attributed this to Abram as righteousness

In recent weeks the preaching, expounding both Romans in the mornings and Hebrews in the evenings, has brought into focus Abraham as the father of the faithful. And especially the passage, Genesis 15.1-6, where Abram is taken out of his tent by God to gaze up at the stars and told to count them; and then told by Go that this would be as the number of his descendents. It reminds me, when once staying on a kibbutz in the Judaean wilderness, of going outside at night and looking at the amazing night sky, free of light pollution. Never had I seen so many stars!

And it reminds me that faith is always a consequence of hope rediscovered. Of gazing in wonder and seeing afresh what God has done, reading again in the Scriptures and recalling afresh His deeds and His ways. I’m thankful for this. That my faith is not something that starts with me. But is based on the objective reality of God’s glory and goodness, all leading us towards and finding fulfilment in Jesus Christ.