On opening church buildings for private prayer

We should open our buildings for private prayer as soon as we can. Not for the members, but as a mission opportunity. This week it seems likely that the First Minister will announce that Scotland is moving to Phase 2 of our lifting of lockdown, which includes the opening of places of worship for private prayer—a move made this past weekend in the rather less orderly English system. I suspect that for most Baptists, the instinctive response will be to shrug; our spirituality does not have that sense of sacred space, or at least not of ecclesially-authorised sacred space. We might have our own ‘thin places’, where for us ‘prayer has been valid’, but they are probably not significantly connected to local church buildings. I think this response would be a mistake. There are a few Baptist churches around the UK that, before lockdown, were in the habit of keeping their buildings open for private prayer—I think of Bloomsbury Central B.C. in London as the example I perhaps know best; the doors are generally open, and a small room to the right of the front of the sanctuary—presumably once a vestry—is set aside as a space to pray. I’ve known the ministers of Bloomsbury over the past 20 years or so—Brian Haymes; Ruth Gouldbourne; Simon Woodman—and although I’ve never particularly discussed this aspect of their ministry with any of them, every passing reference they made suggested that it was not a facility offered for, or used by, the church members, but rather for passers by, seeking a quiet reflective space in the energy and noise of central London. Our buildings should be open, if they can be, not for members, but for non-members. I think of a friend, around my age, who recently rediscovered a faith she had walked away from as a child. She started to come to our church, but, having outgrown our building, we meet in a local school hall. Her searching spirit wanted a space that looked, felt sacred—the P.E. charts that we cheerfully ignore (and long to cheerfully ignore again…) were an impediment, a stumbling block, to her. Another church, lacking a building of their own, was borrowing our church building of a Sunday morning; she joined there. I think now if they moved out she would be happy enough; she has been well discipled into a broadly evangelical spirituality that emphasises the holiness of the community that meets, rather than that of the room it meets in. If someone wanted to narrate her recent story in Pauline terms of valuing the indifferent things that seem important to those of weak/immature faith, I suspect she would not be offended. Paul’s point in Rom. 14 is that we should in fact value these things, because nurturing nascent faith matters. Equally, although slightly differently, it matters that we provide seekers with comfortable ways to discover the truth of the gospel and the glory of our King Jesus. I suspect her spiritual sensibilities are not unusual: there are a significant number of people in the UK who, if moved to search for a genuine encounter with God, would look to a church building as the right place to begin that search. Some may have cultural memories of what church ‘should’ be; some may be coming from other religious traditions, and bringing those traditions’ assumptions about sacred space with them; some may just need to do something kinaesthetic to demonstrate to themselves that they are serious. Of course, as they find the truth, and as we have the privilege of discipling them into maturity, we will want to insist that being close to Jesus is what matters, and that being close to Jesus comes from being in covenant community, not from being in ecclesiastical buildings. But if stepping into the building is going to be the first step on that journey to Life for some, perhaps for many, we ought to do what we can to have the door of the building open, particularly if, as is being regularly suggested at the moment, there are significant signs of spiritual awakening across the U.K. just now. For some of us it will of course be impossible to open the building. Perhaps other urgent mission opportunities—running the local foodbank, e.g.—are taking all our efforts; perhaps we cannot, with the resources we have, open the building safely; perhaps, like the apostles, we have no building to open. But if we can open the building, I suggest that we should—for missional, not pastoral,...

Read More

Improvising in the key of gospel

My friend Wesley Hill (who blogs, with others, wonderfully here, incidentally) shared a story about Pope John Paul II on Twitter today – do read the link, but the essence is that the Holy Father encountered a priest who had deserted his vocation and had been reduced to begging, and then restored him by asking the fallen priest to hear his – the Pope’s – confession. (There seems to be some evidence that the story is factual, not hagiographic, incidentally.) The story grabbed me: I added it to a small group of tales I know, only some of which I can tell (the most personal I can’t, online, because of the people involved. But ask me why I just love baby showers one day when we’re alone). Tony Campolo’s famous tale that ends ‘I belong to the sort of church that throws birthday parties for prostitutes at three o’clock in the morning’ is on the list too. Another of these stories involves two other friends, Brenda and Andrew Marin (whilst I’m doing the linklove, Brenda blogs here and Andrew blogs here), and concerns a bunch of Christians in and around Boystown, Chicago, who became seriously upset that the only Christian voice at the annual Pride march was people shouting ‘SIN’ loudly through megaphones from behind barricades. So they printed up some T-shirts and handwrote some signage saying ‘I’m sorry – if you’ve been judged or dehumanised by a church … for Bible-banging homophobes … for how the church has treated you …’ Buzzfeed had their mere existence as #1 of ’21 pictures that will restore your faith in humanity’; but the real story came when a guy named Tristan, who was a semi-naked dancer on one of the Pride floats, saw it and got it, and ran and threw his arms around one of them, Nathan, who blogged about it, memorably beginning, ‘I hugged a man in his underwear. I think Jesus would have too.’ What are these stories for me? I have a talk I give from time to time, which begins riffing (with Callum Brown) about ‘the death of Christian Britain’ and moves on to responses. I make the move to exile (the title of the talk is often ‘We’re not in Kansas anymore…’), and look at the responses of God’s people to being exiled. There is a surrender to despair in Ps. 137; if you reach as far as Maccabees, but only then, there is a vision of culture war (not in our Bibles anywhere, churches of the Reformation; we might think on that and learn from it…); there is, in the birth of Pharisaism, a rigid adherence to the old rules; and then there is vegetarianism and hospitality. The vegetarianism, of course, comes in Daniel 1; the hospitality in Esther 5-7. Two great OT saints, Esther and Daniel, respond to a changed cultural context by creatively re-imagining what faithfulness to God might look like. They both improvise (as does Nehemiah – see ch. 2 – and, well, everyone else who gets it right); they re-envisage the old laws in a new context, and invent creative ways forward that are utterly faithful to God’s covenant and at the same time completely responsive to the culture. In the new context of exile, careful adherence to the old laws won’t work (and now you need to make a daily sacrifice in Jerusal… Oh.); we can surrender to despair (Ps. 137); we can fight some rearguard action (Maccabees); we can choose a set of rules that still apply and be slavish in following them (Pharisaism) – or we can improvise. In music – these days, particularly in jazz, but the cadenza of a concerto used to work the same way – improvisation is a fascinating art. Good improvisation is profoundly responsive to what has come before, and in certain ways obedient to the key and to the rhythmic structure of the piece, but at the same time it is deeply inventive. Improvisation is also instinctive: jazz musicians say regularly that your fingers go the right places; the moment you have to think about it, you’ve blown it completely. To improvise instinctively, of course, you have to practice endlessly, playing and playing and playing, till your fingers know where to go without being told. Put another way, you start to indwell the music, knowing instinctively, without thought, what can or must come next, even when there are no notes printed on a score. For me, living faithfully after Christendom is an exercise in improvising in the key of gospel. We face – daily; hourly – previously-unimagined challenges and situations; a set of rules is too solid, too...

Read More

‘Has the world gone mad, or is it me?’ Reflections on still believing in conversion

I was talking to a group of friends recently about a project I hope you will hear a lot more of soon. One, who is a very successful evangelist, said in passing, ‘I met with another evangelist recently, and he started the conversation asking me if I still believed in conversion, because too many don’t!’

Read More

The bare minimum gospel?

I’ve been involved in a discussion recently, connected to the excellent Evangelical Alliance Confidence in the Gospel campaign, which raised, amongst other issues, the question ‘what is essential to a gospel presentation?’ I understood the reason the question was on the table – are their certain things that, if they are not included, make an account of the Christian gospel simply inadequate – a ‘bare minimum gospel’? – and I sympathise with the concern: of course there are ways of calling people to faith that are so misleading, or just so anaemic, that they need to be criticised. That said, this way of presenting the question was one I struggled with. The good news of what God has done in Jesus Christ His Son, the gospel, changes absolutely everything, or so I believe. There is no human possibility left untransformed, no human story that does not now have different possible endings. Sometimes we will not be able to see immediately how the gospel is transformative of this or that reality; sometimes we will honestly disagree about the nature of transformation brought by the gospel, but I cannot begin to conceive of an adequately Christian presentation of the gospel that does not hold out such far-reaching consequences, at least potentially. Now of course, some of these consequences will be more central than others. We might disagree on how the gospel transforms our diet (Rom. 14:13-21) without that being a major problem; disagreeing, however, on how the gospel transforms our attitude to the ancient covenant practice of circumcision is, or at least once was, extremely serious (Gal. 5:2-6). There are some truths of the gospel that are more central, some truths indeed that are absolutely central: the triunity of God; the true humanity and true deity – and the true Lordship – of our Lord Jesus Christ; the sinfulness of humanity; salvation available only by God’s grace, through Christ’s sacrifice; the sanctifying work of the Holy Spirit; the privilege and responsibility of adoption into God’s family; … In a proper process of Christian initiation, one would want to insist that each of these points is covered, and also that other points, perhaps less central to the gospel, but important for Christian initiation, are dealt with – I am here thinking of local practices of discipleship and being church: homegroups are not central to the gospel, for example, but if they are the primary mode of caring for and discipling believers in the particular church fellowship that a new convert is joining, they become a matter of importance; equally, for someone joining a Baptist (or other congregationalist) fellowship, explaining the practice of church meeting is very important, but hardly central to the gospel. This, however, is an account of what must be covered in a process of Christian initiation; a gospel presentation is not, of itself, a process of Christian initiation, or at least not necessarily. A gospel presentation can be an invitation to a journey to find out more; as such its content needs to be true and worthwhile, but can be really very partial, and certainly does not have any required content. I can see three possible rejoinders to this. The first I will call the ‘elevator pitch‘ question: ‘But if you only had 30 seconds to explain the gospel to someone, what would you say? – that’s the essential truth of the gospel, the “bare minimum”!’ The second we can call the ‘moment of conversion’ question: ‘Yes, you might interest people in all sorts of ways, and there is much truth you want them to believe – but what makes the difference between death and rebirth? What is the one thing that must be believed for someone to be truly converted –  that’s the essential truth of the gospel, the “bare minimum”!’ The third might be described as the ‘power of the Spirit’ issue: ‘The Holy Spirit empowers true gospel preaching; what is the thing that must be said to be confident that the Holy Spirit will be at work? that’s the essential truth of the gospel, the “bare minimum”!’ It seems to me the ‘elevator pitch’ is a non-question, except in a very particular circumstance (described later). If you only have a minute or two to speak to someone about following Jesus you should do exactly what you would do if you had an hour or a day: find how the promises of Jesus relate to the most pressing felt need in her life, and press that so that she will want to find out more. There is no ‘bare minimum gospel’ on this telling, just a responsibility to be wise (and to seek...

Read More

If you don’t want Tim Tebow, we’ll have him!

OK, the ‘Tebowing’ thing has been on the edge of my consciousness for a while now, mentioned on Twitter feeds and the like every so often. I could see various American friends getting exercised about it, concerned that it promoted ‘slot machine prayer’ theology, in which public intercession by a quarterback could be expected to ensure divine aid for his side in winning the game. Of course this isn’t good theology, but a not-dissimilar belief in the efficacy of prayer in promoting selfish wants is almost universal in Christian piety in my pastoral experience, and this example seemed less awful than some others (unless you happen to be a Steelers fan, I guess…) I confess that I didn’t get why everyone is so excited about it: I follow American football very vaguely, and so wasn’t aware just how much hype and expectation there was around this particular athlete. (I think the last time I watched a Broncos game on TV, some guy named Elway was calling the plays…) Beyond that, sporting competitors kneeling to pray after a success is not new, and was even being recommended as a form of witness twenty years back by the UK organisation Christians in Sport, if my memory serves. Whether we like it or not, sportspeople (and musicians, and TV/film personalities) are hugely interesting to children, and indeed to many others, and a visible indication of Christian faith is possibly of some significance. So I was leaving the Tebowing on the edge of my consciousness quite happily; I was aware that (several of) my American friends were heartily wishing the whole thing would just go away; beyond that, I was rather uninterested. Then John Franke posted this story by Rick Reilly on Facebook. There’s no mention here of Christian faith; instead some uncomfortable echoes of a native American Pelagian gospel of self-reliance (‘I am the captain of my fate…’); I am sure the money involved is almost insignificant in the context of Tebow’s salary, and I suppose most of the practical arrangements are done by his ‘people’. But it’s a story of someone, known for his Christianity, doing good things in a spirit of self-forgetfulness and humility. (The line ‘he’d just played the game of his life, and the first thing he did was find Bailey and ask if she’d got some food…’ speaks very well of the man’s character in this respect.) I know it is just one story – albeit by a writer who commands some respect – and I realise that there might be a lot more to be said, and also that much of it might be less wholesome. As I read Reilly’s piece, however, I thought of the stories I’ve recently read of our own, British, sports stars. Lots, of course, about commitment and dedication to training – Lendl’s comments on Andy Murray; tales of Olympic hopefuls. But beyond that, outside of tales of professionalism – well, recently it’s been alleged assaults on ex-girlfriends, racial abuse, a cricketer taking money to make a spot bet come good (& being such a rubbish cricketer that he failed!), and plenty of the usual diet of greed and petulance. Not much about people who care more about looking after a sick child than celebrating their own performance, even when the rest of the world is praising them to the skies. Now maybe it’s happening, unreported by our press. Maybe Wayne Rooney is doing this every week; it’s not impossible. Assuming, however, that there is no strange press silence, I’d rather our playgrounds and pubs were buzzing about someone like Tebow than, well, any premiership footballer I can presently name. And if the price of that is some slightly mawkish and very public displays of devotion, and some dubious narratives of divine interest in the outcome of sports games then, you know what, I’d live with it. Really, if you don’t want him, send him over here. We could do with a decent role model, someone living his faith in public in genuine and powerful ways, just now. (Of course, it could never happen. He’d have to learn to play a proper sport, one not involving body armour and breaks to catch breath every few...

Read More
get facebook like button