Technology and our battle with sin

I love technology.  Whilst not an early adopter, I'm often not that far behind depending on cost.  Technology is good, it is part of God's good gift of creation to us.  Human ingenuity and creativity is part of what it means for us to be made in the image of the imaginative and creative God.  But like everything this side of the fall our relationship with technology is marred by sin.

That is increasingly seen in the way technology is propelling us further and further apart as a society, as individuals, families and churches.  We crave community and connection with one another but are also terrified of it as a result of the fall and sin and the shame, mistrust and fear it injects into the world and our relationships.  And this is exactly where technology promises to help us but fails to deliver on its promise.  Just think for a minute about the way technology is depriving us of human interaction.

We go shopping and can avoid human interaction via hand held scanners or fast lane self service tills.  We can browse, shop, purchase, provide feedback and even specify deliveries so that we avoid human interaction.  We message or interact on line with no face to face contact or even voice connection.  It even changes the way we watch TV as families.  I used to love Saturday evenings sat as a family watching Doctor Who or the A-Team or the Dukes of Hazard.  The whole family would gather round to watch, united in their enjoyment, and talking about, and often reenacting, what they had seen.  But not now.  Now one or two may be watching Netflix with headphones in, whilst another browses the internet and another plays a game on a console.  I'm sure you can think of a load of other examples too, and those things are changing us and our society and not for the better.

In the last 15 years we've learnt a whole new range of subtle cues about whether someone wants to interact with us or not.  If someone has their headphones in they are sending clear message - don't you dare interrupt me.  If someone is on their phone talking animatedly we know not to butt in, we definitely know that if they have a hands free in-ear device.  If someone is walking and scrolling or texting we know not to speak or say hello.  Even if someone is in church but on their phone before or after the service we are reticent to go and interrupt.  Our phones are increasingly a shield from human interaction.

And all of this is effecting our families and our churches as well as our communities.  If interaction is increasingly mediated via technology then it ought not to surprise us when people opt to listen to a podcast rather than come along to church on Sunday and apply the challenging one another's with real people.  If interaction is crisp and on my terms and tailored to my consumer wants in everyday life then we ought not to be surprised that people relate how they want when they want rather than being there for others when they need even though that isn't really convenient.

So what?  We need to ask some challenging questions of our use of or master by technology because so much of this creeps up on us gradually.  How much are we being effected by the negatives of our technology?  What impact is it having on your family and your church and your community?  Technology is a wonderful tool but an abusive, enslaving, isolating and rapacious master.  It separates marriages, keeps children from their parents and divides churches.  Maybe we need to stop and take stock of where we are in terms of our master servant relationship with technology with the help of others?  It might be worth carrying out an audit of our use of technology.

We also need to think about putting some boundaries in place.  It might be that a period of time without devices is helpful, certainly limits will be necessary for many of us.  Let me share a few I'm going to try to enact as a result of thinking about these things, as well as some we already do as a family.

1. Create space and time for relationship.  We have a rule that we don't have phones at the table (and even an annoying song that the boys sing if one is seen) during meals.  Shared meal times have always been vital to building relationships, just read the gospels, but the presence of a phone - even just face down on a table changes the way we interact.
2. Being present and committed means using the off button.  Yes your phone has a silent button or switch but it also has an off button you can press and totally liberate yourself from unwanted distractions, fully giving yourself to those around you.  I am always amazed at our failure to fully commit to others.  I have sat in meetings of church leaders to sharpen up one another's sermon prep that have been repeatedly interrupted by the chirrups of texts, or phone calls.  Turn it off, encouragement begins with physical presence, it is multiplied by uninterrupted presence that says this is, you are, a priority to me.  In church unless you are a brain surgeon on-call be honest who really needs to get hold of you RIGHT NOW?
3. Digital detox.  How about going for one hour a day, one day week without your phone for the next month or two?
4. Prioritise presence.  I've always walked the dog with headphones in listening to sermons and that isn't bad.  But it does signal something to my community about what I value and how present I am.  So I want to change that.  I often use the self service till in shops but I want to commit to interact with a shop assistant instead.

I'm not sure how I'll go with those.  Maybe I'll blog further on it.  Technology is a good gift of God, but like all of God's good gifts Satan can't wait to subvert and pervert it.  The challenge for us as God's people it to think through how we make it a conduit of grace to a lost world and our embodied brothers and sisters and then put it into practice.

A non-conformist parish?

How do we engage our communities?  That is a huge question all churches, but especially church plants, need to answer.  How do we ensure we are known?  How do we reach out to the community?  How do we meet people, invite people, disciple people?

The default from a previous generation is to hold evangelistic events, good quality events at which the gospel is spoken or which function as bridge building barrier breakers.  Except this makes an assumption I'm just not sure we can make anymore; that our people are plugged into their communities.  I'm not sure this is the case.  Certainly in my experience it is the minority of church members that bring a guest.  Many simply don't know anyone to bring, or their work is so distant a commute from their home and church that it is too far for people to consider coming, many of our churches contain a considerable number of commuters which makes inviting their friends harder because they are less likely to come (or we simply believe they are).

So how do we change this?  We need to readopt the parish mentality, that the area around our church is our mission field.  That ought to be reflected in a number of things:

1. Get people to live in the area where your church meets and work within a 15 minute drive.  This creates a sense of shared mission.  Put simply people will disengage from reaching the community if they don't live in it.  (Evangelism is already hard to get people to do, I wonder if living like that is a short cut to not having to invite anyone without a guilty conscience?)

2. As pastors we must see the area as our parish and connect with it.  I guess for some of us this is easier than others.  Geography will define the limits of our patch naturally, but even where this isn't the case I wonder if it'd help to have an area we view as ours.

3. Pray for people in your parish by name.  This is only possible if we've done the above.

4. Preach addressing the issues the parish faces.  Not in terms of what passage or series we pick but in terms of some of the issues we address.  What are the local fears?  Where do people falsely turn for their security?  What are the things they rely on?  What are their hopes and dreams?  And how does the gospel as revealed in the passage we are preaching confront, challenge and address those?

5. Connect your church to your parish.  That is one of our challenges, for those who live out of area I need to be thinking through how I get them to connect with individuals in it.  Because once they get to know and care about individuals they will pray for them and naturally want them to come to know Jesus.

Our area is naturally defined by geography, though that is changing as it grows through housing development. But I know my parish.  I walk it everyday with the dog.  I do everything I can in that parish, play football twice a week, send my kids to school, and so on.  That means I am getting to know people and am getting known by people.  At the school gates every morning and afternoon there is the chance to speak to the same people, to listen, to care, to break down some barriers.  We've even had some parents approach us to ask out of the blue for pastoral help because they just need someone to talk to.  Those people we meet are the natural people for me to invite to any and every evangelistic event we run.  For some people these events have become a yearly staple, they put them in their calendar before they are invited, often asking about it before I've even done the invites.

And it gives me a wealth of people to pray for.  As a leader I need to lead in evangelism.  If I haven't got out of the office and gone fishing for men why would anyone else?  If I haven't prioritised meeting those who desperately need Jesus why would anyone else?  And if I'm not meeting these people and listening to them I won't preach in such a way that their deepest need and pressing issues are addressed in the gospel, and that won't encourage anyone to invite their friends.

The dangers of disconnection

We're working our way through Esther on Sunday morning's and as I prepared for last Sunday I couldn't help but notice how isolated and disconnected from the people of God she has become.  As all the rest of God's people mourn in sackcloth and ashes Esther is not.  And when Esther hears of Mordecai's actions she doesn't join him in mourning instead she sends him clothes to put on.  On the surface it sounds callous.  But the real problem is that Esther doesn't know what is going on.  She knows nothing about the threat to God's people posed by Haman's decree.  Keeping her nationality hidden means no-one knows that this concerns her and Esther's compromise with the world leads to isolation which in turn leads to disconnection from the people of God.  In fact so disconnected is Esther that she seems to feel she'll be OK, shielded by her position and palace life - hence Mordecai's rebuke.  It takes the encouragements and challenges of Mordecai to make her stand as one of God's people.

As I studied the chapter it occurred to me that this pattern is a recurring one in the bible.  In Genesis 38 Judah isolates himself from his brothers and goes to stay with Hiram and basically lives as he likes, sleeping with what he assumes is a shrine prostitute.  David, isolated from his men because he stays at home in the palace, sees, pursues, and commits adultery with Bathsheba and then murders Uriah.  Peter finds himself isolated by the courtyard fire and ends up denying he knows Jesus.

Isolation and disconnection for the people of God is dangerous.  It is hard to live in the world but not be of the world on our own.  Which is why we are not on our own.  Esther needs Mordecai to challenge and encourage her.  Judah needs Tamar's actions which act as rebuke to make him realise how far he has fallen.  David needs Nathan's prophetic challenge.  Peter needs Jesus' loving restoration into the church.

Why would we be any different?  We need one another and God knowing that gifted us the church.  So invest in the relationships you have there.  Connect don't just attend.  Be discipled and disciple others don't settle for being a consumer because disconnection is dangerous for the people of God.

Praying for us to obeying our calling in our community

On Sunday we responded to God's word to us as a church by praying this prayer together, it is borrowed from the Redeemer New York service I was at 9 months ago.  

Minister: In a world filled with brokenness, confusion, darkness, mourning and loneliness, God has called His people to bring the healing light of the gospel into every sector of our town through every profession, institution and calling.  There is no inch of this town where his gospel cannot redeem.

All:           We repent of how we have overlooked this great calling we have been given.  The Spirit is waking us to see this mission in God’s world.

                 We surrender all that we are to serve you, O Lord, our Rock, and King.

                 We pray for your power, renouncing our selfish pride, to serve our town with excellence in our respective roles, jobs and professions.

                 We rest in your unfailing love, which dissolves all bitterness, fear, anxiety, and resentment, so that this world will know we belong to you.

                 We ask that you would open our eyes to see how the gospel is powerfully at work to transform hearts, communities, and the world.

Minister: And I heard the voice of the Lord saying: “Whom shall I send, who will go for us?”

All:           Then I said, “Here I am! Send me.”

Minister: Go into all the world: work, build, design, write, dance, laugh, sing, create and care.

All:           We go with the assurance of God’s great commission.

Minister: Go into all the world: risk, explore, discover, and love.

All:           We go with the assurance of God’s abundant grace.

Minister: Go into all the world: believe, hope, struggle, persevere, and remember

All:       We go with the assurance of God’s unfailing love.  Amen

Frustrated and grateful

Anyone who follows this blog or occasionally drops by, or hears of anything, Grace Church related will know that we are currently looking for a permanent home from which we can serve the community and reach out with the gospel more effectively.  Having exhausted current buildings, such as office and retail spaces, as regards a new home and been told 'No' at every stage we had contacted Peel Holdings who own much of the land around Hayfield.  However, last week we heard back from them that they had no suitable spaces available for us to use.  This was immensely frustrating as they pretty much seem to own Hayfield.

So where now?  Firstly, we have contacted our local MP who has written to both Peel and the local authority about our need of premises from which to serve the community.  She has promised to be in contact once she hears back.  We are very grateful to God for her advocacy on our behalf and will continue to pray for her as she serves our community.

Secondly we are going to put some feelers out and enquire about the price of land that is for sale around about us just to gauge prices, though we fear it will be exorbitant due to the airport.  We do all of this grateful to God for the security we enjoy at the school where we meet and aware that we need to seek his will and trust his purposes and timing.  As a church we covet the prayers of God's people for our situation and our future.

The search for a new home

As a church Grace is looking for a new home.  We've been renting the school hall we meet in for a few years and we have a very good relationship with the school, there is certainly no pressure from them for us to move on.  But there are a number of push and pull factors that are propelling us to look for somewhere new; our Sunday school really needs a bigger space, our opportunities to serve the community are limited by hiring space, especially a school where mid week opportunities are curtailed, and we currently have someone in our extended church family who is effectively excluded from church because of the building we use.  All of that has led us for the last few months to be praying for and searching for a new building.

However, the area we are in throws up a number of extra complexities.  There are no other community spaces in Hayfield and renting another school wouldn't solve the problem of a base to serve the community from the rest of the week.  We've contacted various offices that are for let and have been told they would not let or sell us any space as they don't want to go through the change of use process.  So we have been in contact with Peel Holdings who own most of the land round here to ask if there is some land available they could gift or help us build a building on which we could use for the community outreach we want to do.  As of yet we have heard little back and so we keep on praying.  We have asked the local MP to use any contacts or influence she has, and again we keep on praying.

What can you pray for us, here's some pointers:

1. Pray that as a church we stay united and prayerful as we look to God to provide 
2. Pray that we don't take our eyes off our mission of reaching the area with the gospel even while  we wait.
3. Pray that our God would move those at Peel to provide a piece of land or a building
4. Pray that God would provide the finance we need to build that building and that he would be glorified through his people.
5. Pray for us as leaders to keep people not projects the main focus.

When your community changes

Change is inevitable, often we don't enjoy it, often we'd rather it didn't happen.  How do we as churches deal with it when our communities change?  It's interesting mapping churches on data shine (brilliant census website) and looking at the area in which they are and whether they can or do reach those areas.  Many churches in city or town centres have seen the areas around them change and as a result their members move out to the suburbs and they become commuter churches. They have few or no one living in the area around the church instead their members move in and their mission field becomes their networks.

That's fine if you are happy to reach those who work alongside members, though I can't help but notice that often these same people work a further car trip away from their homes and therefore encouraging colleagues to come to church becomes even more difficult because of the double disconnect and distance involved.  The commuter church often struggles to reach the area in which it has it's church building because it is not connected to the community.  It may drop off fliers and even do door knocking but primarily relational connections are few and far between so few, if any, come from the surrounding area.  Over time the needs of the church differ even more from those unknown in the area around the church and the disconnect grows.  Which is why many churches cannot reach their neighbourhoods.

We planted into Hayfield because we wanted to reach the community here with the gospel and there were those who would only be reached by us being in the community.  Datashine shows significant pockets of the community that have no access to a car, work in manual occupations and are higher than normal on the deprivation index.  But in the two and half years we have been here we have seen the area change.  An new estate of 4 and 5 bed houses is going up fast, when it is finished with over 300 houses the area will have changed markedly in its socio-economic make up.  Datashine won't pick this up until after the 2021 census, but it is very real on the ground now and growing as more houses are built every day.  The challenge for us as a church is to think about how does this shifting changing community affect us and our mission.  We want to be grace in the community to the glory of God.  How do we do that?  Do we do it differently?

Churches cannot just afford to be network churches.  Andy Paterson shared the statistic that 156 people will die without Christ in Yorkshire each day, death doesn't see class distinctions neither does the gospel, neither must we.

Is there a problem with the way we think of helping the poor?

I'm in the middle of reading Robert Lupton's 'Toxic Charity' and as read it I've found it full of challenges to my thinking and instinctive reactions but also lots of things which chime with our experience here at Grace Church.  The area we serve is mixed, there are some affluent parts, but there are larger parts that are deprived (though that mix is changing thanks (?!?) to some new developments).  As we've engaged in serving in this community it is striking how getting to know people challenges our preconceived notions of what such help will look like.

It is easy to come breezing in with an attitude that effectively looks to dish out help, advice, money, and support as if from someone who is sorted to someone in need.  But the longer I spend with families in the community, the longer I look into the eyes of those we serve the more wrong our often glib view of what 'help' looks like seems.

As those who have gospel values; who believe that every ones greatest need is their eternal need and that they need to come to know Jesus, who value people as made in God's image, who want to love our neighbour, who believe we have been given much to give lavishly to the world, we want to serve others.  But so often the way we do so is clumsy and can end up doing more harm than good.  Lupton's book has solidified some of the things I've been seeing in and around our community as well as providing the stimulus to sit down and try and draw some conclusions about how we help those in need.  Whilst these are preliminary and blurry around the edges, at best, I thought they'd be worth noting down here.

Too often we seem to switch into charity mode when we see those in need, be it a homeless man begging on the street, or a family in need - we have, they don't, therefore we give.  But whilst the compassion behind it is right often our way of showing it is faulty.  Charity emasculates people, it stripes them of their dignity, it undermines an often already battered self confidence or self esteem, it embarrasses them in front of their families and friends.  What our deprived communities need are friends, people who will commit to knowing, loving, and staying.  Friends who are committed to long term transformation not hit and run help or charity dispensed from a distance.  We need to structure support in such a way that it enables people to change, to learn, to develop, teaching them to do for themselves so that they become thriving families and doing so in ways that reconnect community.

It has got me thinking about a few things and I'm aware I'm about to challenge some cherished ideas.  One of our plans was to establish a food bank but I'm wondering now if that is the best, most grace filled use of resources.  Would it not be better to establish some type of food cooperative where in return for a modest contribution we use the power of group buying to multiply the food we could then buy in bulk?  Food banks are doing an amazing job, and tragically are necessary even in Britain in 2015.  But they are also a symbol of having failed as a parent, of being unable to provide for your children.  How much better if instead we can provide a system that multiplies the value of the little they do have enabling children to see parents providing and the value of community?  Even better if we involve those in need in running such a scheme alongside church volunteers engendering a sense of community and pride.

Along similar lines I've been thinking about trying to establish a community allotment site.  Where families can have an area of land to work to grow fresh fruit and vegetables.  Giving them something to do together as a family project, but also enabling them to provide for their families much more cheaply than they can buy fresh produce.  Again the community nature of such a scheme also has value and would enable us to buy seed, tools etc in bulk.  The issue here for us is a piece of land on which to start such a scheme.

What we must avoid is charity which leaves the recipient unable to look us in the eye, or feeling indebted to us, or somehow lesser than the giver.  That as far as I can see is far short of what the bible calls us to when it calls us to love our neighbour.  There's loads more applications and implications of this and maybe I'll joy others down as thoughts and ideas solidify.

Working for the Good of our Community - Part 2

Make Hayfield, HAYFIELD!  That's the banner headline on the flyer's we are trying to distribute to every home in the area during the next week.  As we've been doing so I've been looking to speak to as many people as possible from the community to encourage them to spread the word about the petition which we hope and pray will trigger the council holding a Community Governance Review and eventually to us becoming a village in our own right rather than an adjunct of another village.  We hope too that we will then get to form our own Hayfield Parish Council which will be more focused on the issues facing this community as it grows and changes.

Even at the council planning meeting the planning officer said that in order to avoid confusion he would refer to the area as Hayfield rather than Auckley because it was a distinct area with differing needs.  Our hope and prayer as we try to initiate this Community Governance Review is that the area will become more united and that a body of local people can be formed which advocates along with Grace Church for the things this area needs; basic children's provision such as a play park, basic young people's provision such as community playing fields, a basket ball court and a youth group, and something everyone needs a community centre which we were promised but which has never materialised.

Our aim is not to earn brownie points but to love the community, to show God's grace as we aim to see the community flourish and that through that relationships are strengthened and built up which meet everyones greatest need - knowing Jesus Christ.

The election, the poor and the church: stop moaning and get loving

I awoke last Friday morning to a shock election result.  No-one had seen it coming.  Though when you look back now the outcome seems, in some ways, to have been inevitable and obvious.  However, I also woke up to a storm of Christians bemoaning the outcome for the poor, marginalise and oppressed in our society.  What would they do?  How would they survive even more cuts?  How could Britain have done this to them?  Wake me up in 5 years because I don't want to watch... and so on.

Grace church works in just such an area, with exactly the types of people who have suffered most from the cuts that lets be honest have been needed.  And yes it's tragic that the cuts have most savagely affected those who are worst off in our society, though I haven't come across too many people advocating for tax rises, or writing to protest that their child does not need the "free" school meal for under 7s available to all and offering that instead that money be redirected to those most in need, or advocating for means tested child benefit.

It is often areas without the voice to loudly protest that lose their services first, that are least well represented, that there is less fuss about because they simple aren't headline/campaign material.  That is wrong but it is the way our society works, and we should be upset at such oppression and unfairness.  But here's my frustration, all the venting and anger about what the election result meant for the poor, marginalised and deprived is not reflected in the churches involvement with those communities in Britain.  The church in the UK is largely a middle class phenomenon, reaching middle class networks at the exclusion of the neighbourhood based poor and marginalised.  So was it just so much arm-chair whingeing?  Was it simply people expecting the government to do what they know should be done but which they lack the will power to do?

I look at it a different way.  God is sovereign and this is a God given opportunity for the church to serve the poor and marginalised in our society, to love them as we are called to.  To engage with these communities and help them have a voice, to provide services and relationships and networks through the church that are being lost elsewhere.  In Leviticus the answer to poverty and marginalisation is always community based on the love God.  That answer stands just as much today as it did then.  I think the next 5 years provide an exciting opportunity for churches to connect and create communities of grace as we meet needs and serve those most vulnerable and in need in our society.

How not to love your community

I heard it suggested last week that Britain had become a nation who no longer moaned just about the weather but now moaned about everything.  My initial reaction was to disagree.  But then listening to others and my own conversations I began to wonder if they were right.  And the biggest tragedy is that I didn't detect any significant difference between Christian conversation and worldly conversation.  As the church we have absorbed societies negativity and made it our own.

But that is so dangerous because it subtly undermines the gospel.  We live and work in a community where there are lot of needs.  We live and work in a community where many people do not have the choices that others might; to move, to access different health care, to drive miles to a better play park, or to another toddler group, or school.  In that situation what does moaning about those things say to the community - I don't love this community, I don't value it, and I opt out of it.  And by implication I don't love the people in it, or at the very least I don't want to live through what they have to live through.  I'm not really in it with you, I'll parachute in and out when I feel like it, when it suits me!

The moan about there being nothing to do with the children, or about the local resources, or the local health care seems small but is actually incredibly damaging.  Stop doing it if you want to convey to the community that you love it and those living in it and that you are there for the long haul.  But secondly do something about it.

In order to moan we have spotted a need, a weakness, an area of opportunity, for development and that is incredibly positive.  We have glimpsed how life should be and could be.  So instead of moaning about something (which undermines our gospel witness) why not actively try to obtain a better deal for your community?  As a church how can you bless the community in terms of provision for mums and toddlers?  How can you bless the community and meet a need for youth activities?  How can you pray for the local leaders and the decisions they are making which are isolating your community?  How can you campaign for access for that community especially for those who can't?

Grumbling in the bible is never viewed positively, it is always detrimental to communities and nations.  So among God's people today it has no place, but don't just clamp your mouth shut when you see something you might moan about.  Think of it as an opportunity to bring change, to bless, to show God's love and pray that God would use it to open hearts and eyes to the gospel.

Real community?

I've preached on Acts 2 and the nature of the early church a number of times, I love the picture it gives of devotion to God's word, to God's people, and to God's gospel.  I love how you see the gospel central to everything the early church does as they worship together, break bread together and are in and out of one another's home.  It is a gospel community that we long for, there's no isolation, no family units at the exclusion of others, no isolated singles missing out on the meals shared by young marrieds, children see the gospel modelled by lots of adults of lots of ages.

But here's my question how do we contextualise that?  What will that gospel centred devotion look like in our churches and how will it be different from the church in Jerusalem in the first century?  How will it be different in Yorkshire from Wiltshire?  How will it be different in a working class community than a middle class community?

One of the great encouragements over the last few months is to have had a number of new people come and join us at grace church and comment on how at home they have felt, how there's a sense of family in Grace.  That has come from those who have no church background at all and come from a range of home life situations.  They have felt welcomed and cared for quickly, they have been struck by how willing people are to love those who are different from them.  They have found the bible speaks to their everyday lives and struggles and seen others around them working out what the gospel means for their lives too.

Others have come from churched backgrounds and have found the same, they have quickly felt welcomed and loved and part of God's people.  Again it has simply been God's people acting as family, welcoming, listening, remembering names and conversations and following up on them.  It is not rocket science but it is the gospel at work, the gospel makes us interested in others because we love them no matter who they are.  It has been a joy to see that happening more and more by God's grace and for his glory.

What it looks like will differ from church to church, which means that we mustn't be prescriptive about what exactly it will look like, or what exact background it takes place against.  In one place it might look like a very basic shared lunch which provides opportunity for this to flourish, at another having people into your homes for a meal, at another listening to others over a cup of tea after church.  But at root it will always be God's gospel gripped people loving others expressed in a concern and interest in them.

It takes a church to reach a community

At conferences we often get the pastor of some ministry up to explain how things are going, sometimes even to share their tips for doing that sort of ministry.  Here's my problem with that, it makes it seem as if one man has all the answers, as if it is a one man work, as if it can be replicated.  Or as if one man or family can just drop into an area and do this or that with these tips.  But here's what I have learnt it takes a church to reach a community.

In our situation that is so clear.  The church loving, welcoming, discipling, supporting and caring for the community has opened the doors of the church to the community.  In fact it has taken church outside of the doors in serving the community where they are by means of coffee mornings, painting peoples houses, doing community projects, and so on.   People are not coming to church because of the pastor but because of the people.  They aren't coming because of my ideas or theories but because they have been loved by the church.  They come because they know they will be welcomed and loved by everyone not just by a few people.  That people in church will look after them and their children, speak to them, and more importantly listen to them and care for them.

Creating this culture within the church is the work of the elders who must model it and teach for it as we apply the gospel not just individually but vitally to the faith family as a community taken up with the gospel.  But it is not exclusively the work of the elders, rather they are just the examples and catalysts for it.  It  takes a whole church to reach a community with the gospel.

Fringes are out!

Fringes are never in fashion in the church, in that churches should not have fringes and yet increasingly we find ourselves with churches with significant fringes.  I remember as a young man frustrated with the churches fringe being told that in any organisation 80% of the work is done by 20% of the people and that this naturally applied to the church too.  And I remember being horrified at the thought that 80% of church being uninvolved was the norm.  Because I just don't see it in the New Testament church.  The NT church seems to be fringe-less.  But as I've circled back to this problem again I've been wondering why our churches are so successful at growing a fringe and how we stop doing so.  Here are a few tentative suggestions:

We are conflict averse
For some reason we seem to have developed into a conflict averse church.  This shows itself in lots of ways but in this particular area it has tragically shown itself in people being quick to leave rather than resolve conflict in church.  When someone feels put out or offended rather than raise the issue and work through the painful but gospel process of reconciliation they leave. Except the problem is that if that isn't resolved they will become Evangelical Gypsies who change church every 6 months or more, every time a conflict arises.  It also betrays a shallow understanding of the gospel and of God's church - you simply don't change families when it gets hard (that applies to pastors as well as congregations - and I'm preaching to myself here as much as anyone!).

But being conflict averse is also a problem among church leaders.  We simply aren't keen to challenge people about where they are at.  We don't meet people to challenge them about drift or unwise decisions.  This may be because of bad experiences in the past when either we have done that badly or it has been taken badly, or it may be because we fear seeming judgemental, or because we haven't ever been loved like this ourselves.  Yet from personal experience I remember just such a loving confrontation when I was a teenager drifting and being unwise in the decisions I made and thank God for the godly pastor who took a deep breath and traced out my dangerous trajectory for me, even though it took me months to see he was right.  It was not enjoyable for either of us but it was loving and godly.

I wonder too if we as pastors and church leaders wouldn't rather someone was in attendance on a Sunday physically even if they aren't connected and engaging emotionally or spiritually because we hope God will speak to them and break through.  I'm not saying God can't but I've seen many situations where this lack of loving confrontation has led to a creeping terminal hardness of heart, and I wonder if they had been confronted in love with where they were heading earlier they wouldn't have turned.

Do we need to cut off the fringe?
So here's the question do we need to cut off the fringe?  If so how?  If not why not?  I'm not going to talk about membership because that doesn't automatically preclude fringe membership of the church, though I think exercised in love it is helpful.

I don't think cutting off the fringe is what we need to do.  I do think we need to educate the fringe, challenge the fringe and preach the gospel again and again to the fringe.  Not just from the pulpit but in personal visitation by the churches leaders, in our use of our homes for hospitality, in our spending time together.  But there comes a time when we need to speak to people in loving honesty about the call of the gospel to every member ministry, every member care and discipleship.

We need to raise the bar of discipleship to be in line with the bar Jesus sets rather than allow people to settle for drift.

Call people to count the cost
I wonder often if part of the problem is that we are content to call people to follow Jesus without helping them count the cost, without teaching them that following Jesus means really and actively becoming part of his people.  1 John stresses again and again that from the beginning John taught the church(es) that they were to love one another.  In other words following Jesus meant being committed to and active within the church family.  To follow Jesus without doing that is like being a fish who doesn't like and won't go in water - you won't live long.  Do we teach people that part of counting the cost?

Part of the cost and joy of following Jesus is being in a church, not on the fringe of it.

Make disciples not church goers
Tied in with that need to teach people to count the cost is the need for us to disciple people wisely.  To call people to a life of taking on Jesus joy filled rest full mission to change the world one life at a time by the power of the gospel as we make disciples.  You aren't saved to go to church for an hour and half a week we are saved to know and enjoy life with God Father Son and Spirit and to increasingly align our heart, joys and loves with his.  And part of that is fully playing your part in the church family God has blessed you with and blessed with you.

Buildings - time for a rethink?

I've always been a little bit anti-church buildings, not burn them down anti mind you, just I think our priorities as God's people should be people not places.  I would always rather invest money in people rather than in bricks and mortar.  But I have been having a bit of a rethink recently, because whilst there are cons to having a church building there are also pros.  Whilst I think traditional 'churchy' buildings can have negative connotations I think having a base to work from, a location with which people associate you is helpful.  And many of the other spaces we hire can have negative connotations for people too; school for the person who hated it or was badly bullied, and so on...

We as a church have been meeting for nearly 5 years and we have always met in the same school hall.  But there are times when it is painfully apparent that it is a hired space.  There are other times when we have to make compromises in what we do because of when the space is available and so on.  There is also always the hard work of lugging all the equipment (PA, Creche toys, refreshments paraphernalia etc...) to the school every week and then taking it all down and back again.  As well as just teh sheer expense of hiring space.  Those things have never worried me that much, though it can become wearying for people to have to keep on doing that.

It isn't those things that are causing me to have a rethink but rather the sense of never being part of the community.  If you have a building that is yours then you have a permanent presence in the area, people drive past and see you, people come in and out of your doors.  Your toddler groups, D of E groups all use that space, your holiday clubs take place there, your quiz nights and so on.  I think as well people just associate you with an area and having a building provides a sense of permanence and commitment.  If you hire a space then the only time you have a visible presence is for those few hours on a Sunday morning or whenever you meet.

I'm not advocating having a traditional church building which is only open for church activities and only used by church members, but a building the church uses to reach the community.  It may be in a shopping or leisure venue, it may even be a house or pub you convert in a local estate, but a base of operations.

I've always been anti-church buildings and I think in some ways I still am, I guess what I am increasingly for is the church as people meeting in a building it owns but which it uses to love and serve the community as it looks to introduce them to Jesus.

Community Costs Part 2

I shared some thoughts in my last post on community on some of the things which we foolishly can believe but which actually rob us of community.  But it also got me thinking about what if we all lived in the same community.  Often when we have studied Acts 2 looking at the nature of the early church one of the questions people raise is how we can do that because they all lived so close to each other that they could be in and out of each others home.  The implication being that we can't be because of distance we live apart or the time pressures of modern life.  I think the time pressure argument is totally bogus - we have leisure time they didn't, we spend how long a week sat in front of TV or other screen literally killing time they didn't.  I'm also not sure about the challenge of distance, after all we have cars and can easily travel distances quickly and easily (albeit increasingly expensively) in the same time which it would have taken them to walk.  I think a lot of our supposed problems with distance are not problems with distance but problems of not valuing community and relationships.

But anyway there is another answer sell your house and move closer to where your church is based, or where other members of your gospel or home group live.  Can you imagine the impact 10 families would have if they all lived in one neighbourhood and all sent their children to the same school, if they all served alongside each other on the schools PTA or governing body, if they intentionally and deliberately avoided being a Christian clique and all got to know people in the school and built an interwoven web of relationships.  Can you imagine the benefits to your children of having friends from church alongside them at school, starting a CU or lunch time club wouldn't be a struggle because there were two or three rather it would be natural and have critical mass from the start.  Think of the way you could care for each other more readily as you dropped off or picked up for each other and think of the impact of that on the neighbourhood as people watched on.  Think of the way you together would be able to support those in the community in their struggles, not as a lone ranger but as a group who share the gospel in common and who live life together.

How would church be transformed if everyone lived within 10 minutes walk of each other?  But we think such a thing is an impossibility, its an 'I have a dream...' scale vision.  But why?  If you rent why not look to rent in an area alongside others in your church or gospel group?  If you are looking to move house why not deliberately narrow your search to that kind of radius?  If moving with work why not choose where you live by proximity to the church you will attend rather than planning to drive 20 or 30 minutes?  Community matters, it enables us to naturally care for one another and to invest in gospel relationships, it facilitates friendship, and it impacts a community with the gospel.  It is not set in stone that you live where you live, such community is not impossible, it just requires us to think gospel and community in choosing where we live.

Community costs

Community is something that is everywhere in Bible; God creates man in community, yes initially only with Adam and Eve but community is part of the programme of creation (go forth and multiply).  Abraham is called to leave one community not to be isolationist but to start a new community, a different community, God's community and his family become that community as they grow and expand.  Before, during and after the exile the promise is of a returned and restored community back in the land once again.

Then in the gospels Jesus gathers people into a community around himself, as he calls disciples to give up and come follow me.  As the church begins in Acts we see community is a natural outworking of the gospel as first in Jerusalem, then in Judea and Samaria, then all over the known world these Jesus communities keep on popping up as people trust in Jesus and are knit together by his grace and love.

And they are not communities marked by monoculture.  Just think about the disciples - a former tax collector, some fishermen, a zealot and a bunch of others.  Think about the early church, think about a church like Philippi; Lydia a well to do business woman, a former possessed slave, and a jailer among others form this church.  Different ages, different backgrounds, different personalities but one Lord and Saviour.

It is such a tragedy that in our day community is missing and not just in society but in church.  What makes community in not sameness in its members it is a unity in purpose, it is grace in action.  The gospel forms community.

I've been thinking about the challenges we face in doing community in our UK culture and society as a church.  Here are a few challenges:

1. Foolishly allowing technology to get in the way of community
There are lots of great thing about technology, I regularly have to fight my inner gadget geek.  But no amount of instant messaging, SMS, tweeting, Direct Messaging, or wall posting will ever replace face to face interaction for building community.  Those things are great for disseminating information and arranging to meet up but they must never replace committed, time rich meeting up.

2. Network not Neighbourhood
Our society functions by network not neighbourhood.  Think of who you work with, who you relax with, who you play sport with, who you go to church with, how many of those people live within 10 minutes walk of you?  That makes it hard to build community because it will mean travel and more commitment than if we lived 10 minutes walk from each other.

What difference would it make to church if we all lived just 10 minutes walk from one another?  If we saw one another at the shops, or all our children went to the same school?  Or what about if everyone in your bible study lived within 10 minutes of each other?  Would it revolutionise your relationships, your sharing of the gospel together and with your community?

3. Easier is not more beneficial
Some relationships are more natural than others.  Some people have the same outlook as I do, some people take less bearing with than others simply because they see things my way.  Some people are just like me.  But that doesn't make them more beneficial for me, in fact I wonder if the gospel doesn't point us in the opposite direction, that actually those who are unlike me, who think differently, and potentially rub me up the wrong way are actually better for my becoming like Christ.  Only the gospel will enable us to value and commit to a community like that.

4. Bigger is not better
When did you last use your local hardware shop?  (If you are asking what one of those is you need to get out and look for one)  Or do you always drive to B&Q?  Why do you use the big store?  It has everything under one roof (to coin a phrase), there are special offers, everything is on a bigger scale. 

Instead of hardware store insert church and now ask the same question, why do we drive past small faithful bible teaching churches which are alive and seeking to reach out to the community we live in to attend the big church?  Better music?  More people my age?  Better children's work?

But if church is about a community gathered around Jesus and putting Jesus to work in each others lives and in the community then is bigger better?  Better for whom?  Better for the kingdom?  Better for the gospel?  Better for the local community?

But I want to add a caveat to all this.  You can all live within 10 minutes and yet fail to be a gospel centred community, because you are missing intentionality.

I've been really struck by the thought today of what would church be like if we all lived within 10 minutes of each other.  How would that change the way we related, the way we have each other in and out of our homes, the way our children related to one another, our impact on neighbours, friends and family?  An impossible dream, maybe but I don't think so, but there must be ways we can overcome the barrier and build community even in our network churches.  Maybe that's for another post another day?

Building community - the answer!

We awoke yesterday morning to serious snow! In fact so serious that it is over the top of your wellies, no-one was going anywhere. the local roads haven't been cleared or gritted. But what a great opportunity, the boys and I went out with spades and started clearing our drive and the working our way down our road.

It wasn't long until our next door neighbour came out to help, and we had quite a good chat about what I did , the church and how his family was. All in all we spent about 3 hours out clearing the road together.

We've awoken this morning to more snow, so much that I guess we may be clearing the road again later. But what a great opportunity to check in on neighbours and see if we can help them with anything, or if they need anything we can give them, or simply to spend time with them.

It occurs to me that the snow has provided an answer to a prayer I've been praying for a while a chance to spend some time with some of our neighbours, just chatting and getting to know each other better, building community. In our busy lives we are always rushing to work, or the shops, or the gym or to this or that, 50 cms of snow forces people to slow down and stay local.

Now to make the most of that in building relationships, showing people the love of Jesus and taking opportunities to speak of him.

The challenges of Acts

We've been working through Acts 1-6 in home groups this term and last night we were on to the final two threats to the early church. The first in chapter 4 was external persecution before in chapters 5 and 6 we see internal corruption and distraction.

Though we were relatively few in number last night it was an interesting discussion. Seeing Barnabas as a model of New Testament sacrificial giving and discussing the whole issue of money reminded me of something that has come out of this series really strongly. The early church do what they do so well because they do community so well, they are in and out of each others homes regularly they function as a family. My hunch is that is on a totally different level to where most of us function as church where we have friends but wouldn't consider one another family.

But if Acts is the 'norm' for church life then we need to recapture this community. Interestingly at the same time various other things I have been reading or preaching on have reflected on nature of the gospel as a community call rather than a individual call. I am saved by faith in Christ but I am also called into the family of faith. It changes who I am because it calls me to be part of the family of Christ.

We have been advocating small groups and accountability partnerships for a while now as a means of building relationships and beating the gospel into one another's lives. Fascinatingly it seems as if money is the thing we find it hardest to be transparent and accountable with.

I was reminded of my need to continually go back to Calvary and the empty tomb to see there what my real treasure is and what is really of value. It is God's values that we his family are to reflect - people not possessions.

Passion for Life

We spent some time last night discussing what we find difficult about sharing the gospel with people we work with, living alongside and spend our free time with.

So often we kept coming full circle and returning to the importance of relationships. Relationships matter, both our relationships with people and our willingness to help people build other relationships. Too often we operate in different spheres; so there are work colleagues, there are neighbours, there are friends, and there is church. Rarely do any two let alone all of them intersect and when they do it makes us nervous.

We were thinking last night about ways to bridge the gap. Ways to build relationships between friends so that an invitation to church is less awkward so that people see the community of grace at work and marvel at it and want to see more of it.

There was nothing earth shattering about the suggestions we made:

• Meals matter - we need to use these more wisely and get friends to meet each other and enable them to see grace relationships.
• Time matters - we need to make time for friendships and church should facilitate this. Just a couple of examples we are going to look at a men's walking weekend in the lakes or further afield, some of the ladies are going to host a tupperware party.
• Everyday opportunities - we don't need to put on loads of extra things but we do need to get our worlds to colide more often, trusting God to work and the gospel to be visible.
• We need help to talk about our saviour in every day situations.

As I said nothing earth shattering. The gospel is what makes the church unique, we need to get people to see the affect the gospel has one people and on relationships and God has graciously in his wisdom given us our churches to advance his gospel and change lives one at a time.

Having seen it small scale they will be more likely to come to church where every week they will hear the gospel proclaimed and see it animated and at work in our lives.