We HAVE to help our children have compassion for refugees

How do you think your children feel about the current refugee crisis?  Have you thought about it?  Have you spoken to them about it?  Have you helped them to understand what the Bible calls for us to do as a result of it?

I was shocked to hear of some of the responses from some in our community to the current crisis.  Whilst many are filled with compassion and are desperate for a way to share their care and concern.  Others are hard hearted and strongly opposed to any efforts to support any of the refugees.  There are lots of reasons for this which I don't want to get into.  But in conversation with my own children it is obvious they are aware of these competing views, they have friends who hold them and so they tend to keep quiet when the issue comes up.  But we need to be equipping and enabling our young people and children to stand and be compassionate, to be advocates against the misinformation and misunderstandings of children who unthinkingly have adopted what mum and/or dad say, or what their friends has parroted to them.

As the church we cannot assume children or adults know what the Biblical response is, we need to teach on this and now, not when it next come up in our preaching series.  As churches we need to be rational in explaining what the need is and how it has come about.  We need to be clear what a refugee is and why they are fleeing from their homeland.  We need to be theologically robust in showing how our Father feels about the refugee and how as his beloved rescued and redeemed children grace compels us to feel and act.  We also need to be practically providing ways to respond to the crisis, getting involved on the ground as we can (see Home for Good's website where you can sign up to temporarily foster an unaccompanied minor refugee, contact your local authority and encourage them to take refugees) and fund raising for those we cannot reach to touch but can support in other ways (Open Doors have a great project).

In terms of involving children Project Paddington, which you can find on Facebook, is another way of doing so.  It helps provide children with a tangible way they can show their care and do their bit to help.  It also helps them see that compassion is not inactive but practically reaches out to meet needs.

Feeding the Feeders

As a leadership team we are working through Marcus Honeysett's helpful book 'Fruitful Leaders' one of the questions it posed us as a leadership was how do those who feed us get fed?  How do we as a church ensure that our pastors are not drained and exhausted by feeding us every week?  It is a brilliant question.  Pastors are privileged to be set aside to devote themselves to studying the bible, praying and preaching but we also need to recognise that can be drained especially at certain times.

We concluded that actually it wasn't something we thought about very much as a church, or as pastors.  We all know that we can feel low and tired and a bit spiritually run down but we do little to address those needs in pastors who are expected to teach us and pastor us.  It is hard as a pastor, especially when you are ministering on your own in a small church to be fed, it is also hard not to cast envious glances (or lingering long looks) at those in team ministry or those working for organisations like UCCF who are brilliant at this sort of feeding, stretching and equipping of its leaders.

Here are some reflections on things that have helped keep me going and fed me as I look to feed others:

1. Gospel Partnership
There are various gospel partnerships which churches can join and which have benefits for pastors.  Last week we had the Yorkshire Evangelical Ministry Assembly which was brilliant.  (Talks are available as MP3's here: http://www.ygp.org.uk/audio.asp .  It is a chance for pastors to get taught, to stand back, to think, to encourage one another and get fresh perspectives and is vital.

But that is only once a year, a new innovation for us in YGP South is our twice yearly training.  Last summer we had a day looking at teaching Deuteronomy, next month we have a day with someone teaching us on 'Preaching to the Heart'.  These times of refreshing and fresh teaching on bible handling and pastoral ministry are vital and refreshing

2. Preaching Group
About every 6 weeks a group of us get together and preach our upcoming sermon and then help one another deconstruct and reconstruct our sermons.  Again we spend time sharing and praying and support one another.  A great reminder, support and chance to be taught God's word afresh.

3. Reading
I'm a voracious reader, I love it and it is vital for my ministry.  It is another opportunity to hear fresh ideas, be stimulated, be reminded, and sometimes when you read something heretical to engage in and sharpen your understanding of God's word.

4. Other Ministry Opportunities
One of the things I have valued most over the last few years has been the chance to preach in CU's.  It is brilliant to be among young keen Christians, especially from a church where our students leave us to go to uni.  It is refreshing to step out of my normal ministry context and see something else entirely, and often be ministered to by the students themselves.  The missions I have been involved in have been a particular blessing to me in refreshing spiritually even whilst tiring physically.

I am incredibly grateful to God for his graciousness in keeping me, in teaching me, in giving me the resources and loving people around me to sustain ministry.  But as I look long term and across the church in the UK I think this is question we need to ask ourselves and our elders and pastors, who is feeding the feeders?

The challenge of parenting

In studying Deuteronomy last week for Sunday morning I was struck by its emphasis on parents teaching children. In chapter 11 there were a number of references to children(v2, 5, 19-21). Stress is placed by Moses on the fact that the Israelites children haven’t seen the things the parents have so the parents are to teach them about the character and saving work of God as part of everyday life. Parents are to teach their children by action and words how to worship God.

As someone who has three boys I was very struck by this challenge, if you have children do you hear the challenge, if you have grandchildren, or are an Aunt or Uncle do you see the challenge? As a member of the congregation of a church (Deuteronomy is addressed to Israel as a nation so some corporate application is in mind) - the children will learn how to worship God from you.

But this is a charge to parents first and foremost. Don’t abdicate your responsibility. Our children will learn most about whether God is worth worshipping and how he is to be worshipped from us, by what we teach them and also how much they see of our fearing, walking, loving, serving and observing God and his word.

Parents your actions and words are crucial in teaching your children that God matters. Do they see he matters? Is it seen in the way we prioritise our week? Do they ever catch us reading the Bible or praying? Do we teach them God's word from a young age? Is it seen in our characters, in our desire to change?

Dads in particular as those who God calls to the role of head of the marriage do we lead in this area? Or have we abdicated here to our wives? Boys in particular need men, they need to understand what it means to be a man of God.

The consequences of abdicating that role are disastrous – we see it in Judges 2:10 “After that whole generation had been gathered to their ancestors, another generation grew up who knew neither the LORD nor what he had done for Israel.”

We must take seriously God's call to teach our children about our great, awesome God of grace.

Teaching Acts

In preparing tonight's home group where we are starting a new series looking at Acts I have found David's Cook's book Teaching Acts to be immensely helpful. It isn't a commentary but more an overview book to help those who teach the Bible in structuring a series.

I have found many of the questions he poses to be of great help and valued the first session introducing Acts using Luke as it was particularly helpful. His break down of the book into 3 parts is also useful for gaining an overview of the book in line with Acts 1:8 "and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth."

Failure to learn from history

Tomorrow I'm sitting an exam on Early Church History. And to my shame have to admit to not really having worked that hard towards the exam until the last twenty four hours, since when I have tried to read everything I can get my eyes on about Irenaeus, Athanasius, Augustine Constantine and the like. As I have done so one thing has struck me; we really don't know our history.

Why is the church like it is? How have we arrived at the doctrine of the Trinity that we hold? How do we come to have the Bible as it is and why? How do we face up to questions that we face about penal substitutionary atonement and the character of God?

The answer is all there in Church History. Its just that we don't know it. But that poses a question how do we teach church history to people in a way that is engaging. Most of us want to know about what affects us in the now, how do I deal with this or how should I live in the light of that? Yet many of the questions we face are exactly those we would see the answers to if we looked back at those who have been there before us.

But how do we do so in a way that engages? Is it through short 2 minute slots on Sundays? Is it through interested people sharing there info? Is it through mentioning it when relevant in sermons and Bible studies?