There is a desperate mission need on our doorstep outside of many of our university towns and cities. The scenario I painted in the first post may be a little on the short side in terms of time scale, but eventually that seems to be the trajectory in many places. And yet if you combine the population of the North East and Yorkshire there are approximately 8.1 million people. Yet only 3.6 million of them live in university towns or cities. Strategically, missionally, we need to think about and grow vibrant gospel churches outside these towns and cities. I'm not saying there aren't any, thank God there are, but we desperately need more because they aren't the norm and often they are located in a particular quadrant of the town leaving vast neighbourhoods without a gospel witness.
Those churches that exist in those areas need leaders and congregants who are on mission and committed to the mission for the long term. Many of those small churches need an injection of young men and women who have been discipled and who are committed to discipling others. Strategically we need people who will go and forsake the comfortable in order to grow the gospel. But it’s hard. So what lesson have we learnt? How can we encourage people to think about joining and serving in churches outside of university towns and cities? We need to begin by recognising that there are costs to doing so. It costs, but then didn't Jesus say that was the nature of discipleship?
Loneliness has never been good. (Gen 2)What’s the one problem God sees as he looks at the garden? Adam is alone. He needs others, man is created for community. Throughout the Bible we see patterns of community, of more than one. Moses and Joshua, Elijah and Elisha, Deborah and Barak, Zerubbabel and Joshua. In the New Testament Jesus and the 12, Peter and John, Paul and Timothy, Titus, Luke, Barnabas and Mark and so on.
Many students want to stay at their university church and I can see why. They have peers, people who know you and whom you know, friendships where you provoke one another in godliness. Great. But what about transplanting that small group to a church elsewhere?
My wife and I were students in Leicester. We went to Knighton, were well taught and cared for, then served there, led the youth work there, took early steps in preaching and leadership there. But then felt God call us to go back to my parents church where there was no-one within 10 years either side of us. But that’s why we felt called. It was a wrench to leave good friends and peers, but the gospel need was greater at Chorley than at Knighton. But looking back we’d have been far better to encourage 4 or 5 of our friends to come with us, not as the great white hope of the church, Jesus is the Saviour not us, but as support, as a network.
That’s been our experience too as some graduates have returned or come to faith having returned to Grace. That’s in part why we’re looking for 3 ministry trainees this year. It’s a huge stretch for a small church financially, to fund three. But I think it gives our trainees the best chance of getting the most possible out of the one or two years they are with us. It is hard to be the only twenty something in a church so why not move with friends?
Church can be hard because it's messy. Open doors and open lives matter. Discipleship isn’t just taught it’s caught; observed, heard and watched. I asked our last ministry trainee to evaluate our old ministry trainee program for us. What its strengths and weaknesses were. What do you think he said was best? I thought it’d be my teaching, or the chance to really deal with and discuss some deep theological issues. He said the best thing was seeing the mess of our family. Watching how we got on, fell out and applied grace to resolve issues. Clearly seeing that we were far from perfect and constantly got things wrong but sought forgiveness, tried to make things right and always fought to apply grace even if it took some time.
That’s helpful because one of the most common struggles for students who leave the student bubble is that they don’t really get to do life with people any more. There isn’t that same intensity of relationship, the same time spent together, the same realism to their relationships, the same depth. We need to open our lives up to others, that’s what Paul does, that’s his model of discipleship, he learnt it from Jesus, and it ought to be ours too.
We also need to ensure that discipleship is happening for all those in our churches so that all are investing and growing in the gospel. Leaving the greenhouse of university doesn’t mean the end of growth. It can be hard after the greenhouse of student life as a Christian where they’ve grown rapidly to adjust to the slower pace of church life. So it’s vital that those who’ve been students are invested in not just seen as a resource to suck dry, or a low-maintenance short cut to a healthier budget.
The pace of change in church is so much slower than in CU, partly because life gets in the way. I realised just over a year ago that I was getting quite discouraged about the slow pace of change. So as leaders every time we meet we give one agenda item over to talking about where we see signs of growth and change in the congregation, and it’s been encouraging. But life in church can’t mimic the intensity of the university greenhouse for growth, but it can continue to build on that. Though we also have to be realistic and help students recognise the uniqueness of the university/CU environment.
I’ve always had a few people I meet with 1-2-1, some are regular and planned others are less so and more sporadic. One way I’ve started trying to drip feed people a bit more and a bit more widely is by giving away books to people in church. Sometimes its related to an issue – for example last year I bought ten copies of Enjoy your prayer life and gave them away. Recently it's Ray Ortland's 'The Gospel' and a group of us will be meeting to discuss a couple of chapters and pray together. And that constant learning and growing never stops, I want to develop our leadership team, so from time to time we’ll read a book together and discuss and apply it to Grace. Investing in disciples never stops if we want disciples who make disciples. Churches need to intentionally develop those within it.
Applying the gospel to relationships. There is a sharedness to university life, similar ages, outlooks, and experience that just isn’t there outside of a university church. How does a 23 year fresh out of uni relate to a 77 year old lady? A 4 year old boy? A stressed out young mum? An exhausted hospital surgeon? Or a single mum diagnosed with cancer? Very often we don’t, we avoid that by staying with those who are like us. But in a small church that’s not an option and that is hard. It forces us to work the gospel more deeply into our lives. To work out what are non-negotiable gospel issues, what are debatable issues and what are just matters of conscience and we can flex over and unite round the gospel rather than fall out about. To work out what loving one another, rejoicing and mourning together looks like.
Resource poor opportunity rich. Smaller churches tend to be resource poor. Smaller budgets, few musicians – if any – one of the unseen factors in university migration. Fewer groups running midweek. All those things make it hard for students who have been very used to lots going on. But Grace, for example, is opportunity rich. A 1200 place sixth form college has just opened, the Primary school where we meet has literally thrown open the doors to us and we can’t meet the need. And evangelistically we have loads of families positive towards church and willing to come along. But the need is people to meet, teach, build friendships, make connections.
Smaller churches also provide greater freedom to try things. There are greater opportunities, to lead, to teach, preach, and study.
Why would we wait? If strategically we'd send teams off to plant churches in towns bereft of gospel witness in key areas why not do so now, before we reach that point when churches close and we lose the real estate that can make such a difference to a church. We need to open our eyes and look beyond our university towns and cities, to see the need, share the need, and encourage people to move to serve, and disciples and lead.
No comments:
Post a Comment