Loving a Challenge

Shackleton's advert is often used in various talks about motivation or challenge, its fascinating to consider how many men signed up to take on such a task.  I've just finished reading Steve Backshall's autobiography and he is one of the type to sign up to just such an undertaking - he loves challenge, the unknown, the risk, pushing himself.

Its interesting to look at the narrative of the Bible and identify just those sorts of characters, characters who were prepared to take a stand, to risk, to push themselves beyond their limits trusting God; Abram, Ruth, Elijah, Jacob, Joseph, Caleb, Joshua, David, Jonathan, Esther, Mary, Peter, Paul and so on...

I wonder if that advert above were reworded and posted in christian magazines how many would respond?

"People wanted for hazardous life, no monetary recompense, life lived as exiles among spiritual darkness, few resources, resentment from the locals, opposition and persecution highly likely, apathy a given.  Honour and recognition in the form of hearing God's well done on that day."

I have to say that there are often times when it seems in talking to people about Doncaster that that is what I am asking people to sign up to.  Yorkshire as a whole is spiritually bleak, there are few sizeable churches, it is so I am told the only county in England never to have experienced revival.  And Doncaster is a typical Yorkshire town with all its great character, friendliness and blunt talking honesty, but also with its suspicion and hardness to the gospel.  It is no different to a Rotherham, a Pontefract, or other Yorkshire towns.  But alongside that God is no different, he is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask, he is a God who patiently waits for the gospel to be proclaimed and people to be won.

I do wonder what has happened to our trust in God, to our taking risks by faith.  It especially makes me wonder when I hear of often young professionals who decide to stay living in their former student city but work in Doncaster because the churches in Doncaster are not like City churches in say Sheffield or Leeds.  No these churches are not like city churches which have a good population of young twenties because those young twenties also commute in.  They are also not like city churches in other ways, they often have small staff teams, often of 1, they do not have lavish resources, and they are often less polished and professional.

Yes, there are struggles with leaving a church you love where many of your friends have stayed after graduation, yes it may mean there is not the same twenties group around you.  But having made that same leap myself  at 25, leaving a church my wife and I loved as students and as a newly married couple, where we were serving in growing ministries to go to a church that was small and where we were the only couple our age, with a gap of about 10 years either way to serve, it is worth it.

How do we decide on where we live?  Is it ease is it comfort it?  What about loving a challenge?  What about looking at the area around where you live with gospel goggles on?  Asking not where am I comfortable but where can I serve?  Not where are there people like me but where can I go which will be accessible to my work colleagues and friends?

The nearer it gets the bigger the risk feels

I'm sure you know the feeling, you have been planning something for ages and you feel fine about it. But then the nearer it gets the more nervous you begin to feel. You find yourself going over and over the plans and ideas and how it supposed to go. Then suddenly you begin doing things for the last time beforehand and it hits how close it is.

Well it is now less than a month until South Doncaster Community Church meets for the first time, September 2nd, it is four weeks on Sunday. Most things are in place which is great but I guess there are some big unknowns, that is what is meant to drive us to prayer.

This week has seen us holding a Holiday Club in the school in which we will meet. It has reinforced how good God has been to us in providing the school and the caretaker, who have been brilliant whenever we have met them or used the premises. The Holiday Club itself has been great with about 70 children everyday, and about 120 children and parents at last nights family fun night. Some friends of ours have been taking their children and one of the mums said to me last night that she has heard more about three days of Holiday Club than about a whole year of school and that he loves it. He has even been asking lots of questions about God.

It has been a great link event, raising the profile, making contacts, sharing the gospel, building relationships. Praise God for his goodness to us.

Is risk right?

We live in a risk averse world, that's why we have insurance for everything, be it travel, contents, buildings, car, health, whatever. Its why we have risk assessments and health and safety training courses and all those are well and good and serve a purpose. But what about when it comes to the gospel?

I've decided that I am risk averse. Yet the Bible in contrast gives me pictures of people who took risks because they trusted God and the gospel was their greatest treasure. Moses leading the people of Israel was a risk, Joshua as he takes on Moses mantles risks, the prophets risk for God's word and his people. Move to the New Testament and you cannot move in the gospel for risk; Jesus risks as he speaks, as he confronts the Pharisees, as he calls the twelve, as he goes to the cross. Then Peter is another who risks as he steps out of the boat onto the water, as he blurts out you are the Christ, as he sneaks into the courtyard after Jesus arrest, as he goes to Cornelius' house.

I've been looking at Acts 13:1-2 today and it is rife with risk. There is Saul/Paul and Barnabas who risk by going to Cyprus and to the Gentiles, leaving a church where they have been teaching the people, presumably well received (c/f 11:19-30), for a whole year. Going to the Gentiles when surely Saul was better suited to go to Jerusalem, but going to where there would be cultural barriers to overcome and difficulties to face because of God's call and the gospels drive.

Then in the same two verses there is the risk of the Church at Antioch, S/Paul and Barnabas are two of the five prophets and teachers of that church and yet when led by God they set them apart and "sent them off." That is risk, sending your best people to evangelise and plant churches.

The challenge as I've looked at it is; do I take risks as the gospel calls me to or am I content to be comfortable? My fear is that if I am comfortable the gospel isn't driving me hard enough out to others. Am I praying for God to show me what he would have me do for his kingdom? Am I ready to risk for the gospel?

Faith or risk?

In the summer I was at the EMA in London and heard John Piper give a couple of talks on the idea that risk is right for the Christian and the church. It was one of those talks that leaves you fired up and ready to seize the next risk.

But the problem is in working out sometimes what is a risk taken in faith and what simply unwise. For example is it a risk taken in faith to plant a church in April with a smaller team and less build up or to wait until October for a larger team to perhaps be involved and for there to be more build up?

In the west we all live very comfortable existences and most of our churches are comfortable too, but comfort doesn't seem to feature too much in Acts or in the Epistles (Acts 2, 4, 8). Are we too wedded to our comfortable risk free church environments?

And when it comes to planting new churches Paul lived by faith, go to a new town preach the gospel see some people believe and start a new church eventually with its own leadership (Acts 14, 16, 17, 18). Paul Barnabas, Timothy and others certainly seemed to have the pioneer risk taking spirit.

Risk is right? The key for Paul is in being where God wants him at the time God wants him there (Acts 16:6-10), risk is right in God's timing. Such examples should drive us to pray to ask God what he would have us risk and when he would have us risk it.