I have a rather simplistic [...]]]> I’ve been meaning to write something else on “leavers” for a while.  David Finch got me thinking about the positives: Even with leavers we are building the Kingdom. Turnover is to be expected, but it should not be dismissed. It’s the opportunity to be used to build God’s Kingdom:  http://behindthewillowtrees.org.uk/what-ive-read-recently/cultivating-the-kingdom/

I have a rather simplistic model of local church growth.  It is to gain and hold onto more people than are being lost.  That means stemming the flow of people going out the backdoor, whilst engaging in some effective mission.  People leave for many reasons, but not always for those that one might expect. And the problem doesn’t always lie with the leavers. Dr Alan Jamieson in A Churchless Faith argues from his research that leavers: 

• Struggle with their decision over a prolonged period of time, often years.
• Speak of no longer ‘fitting in’ at church
• Have major faith, theology or church-based questions which church had not satisfied
• Recall a dysfunctional, dictator-like leadership
• Feel marginalised or mentally abused.
• Identify a ‘final straw’ that cemented their decision
• Are rarely asked why they left. Most are not phoned or visited.

Jamieson says he is “dazed” by leavers’ continued passion, both for their faith – and against the Church.

But how can we respond? Jamieson argues the core skill needed by church leaders is the ability to listen. It could mean the difference between a leaver’s faith flourishing or failing.  ‘As individuals begin to pull back, church leaders need to step toward them and hear their struggles, questions, suffering and doubts, because these are the building blocks of their emerging faith journey.’

Contrary to the myth, time does not heal all wounds well. Certainly not if the original problem was never fixed. Leavers go for a reason. And if that reason still exists, if the church has never even addressed it, they’re unlikely to return.

Michael Fanstone in The Sheep that Got Away, proposed ways to woo people back. For most former churchgoers, the issue is not coming back to faith, but a return to church – a church that was unable to meet their needs, and an place where some say left them ‘dying inside’. This view is supported by a newer book, Gone for Good? where Leslie Francis and Philip Richter concur that generally people are rejecting the institution rather than faith.

Jamieson says that when people ask him, "What can I do to help my husband, wife, son, daughter, neighbour, parent to come back to church?", he replies, "Don’t talk about church and don’t invite them to church."

‘Be honest about what you are experiencing – not believing, but experiencing – in your own faith, and listen to their experiences. Don’t try and change them, correct them or make them come back to church.  Talk with those on the margins of the church and those who have left. Listen to their faith realities. Listen. Don’t hurry to give answers but hear what it would be like to walk in their shoes.’

‘What you hear might change your understanding, and your response.’

Another challenge comes from John Drane.  He says:

‘There’s been a lot of messing around with new styles of music and shifting furniture. That’s not going to solve the issues. These people are leaving because of the Church we now have. So they’re not going to come back to the Church we now have. People need to feel valued. [Otherwise] they begin to think, "Why am I spending my life doing this?

Connect – Have good social relations

Be Active – Ensure physical well being

Take Notice – Engage with the world, be mindful of yourself and your own needs

Keep learning – not necessarily academically, but be curious…learn an instrument or learn [...]]]> The New Economic Foundation identifies five factors that keep us happy.  Here they are:

Connect – Have good social relations

Be Active – Ensure physical well being

Take Notice – Engage with the world, be mindful of yourself and your own needs

Keep learning – not necessarily academically, but be curious…learn an instrument or learn how to cook a new dish

Give - Give away that which you have.

Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. [...]]]> Mission cannot just be about living a good life and doing good deeds.  It has to be that; but it also has to be about taking the initiative to explain the gospel. 

Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect, keeping a clear conscience, so that those who speak maliciously against your good behaviour in Christ may be ashamed of their slander.1 Peter 3:15-16

Penn Jillette (Penn from Penn and Teller, the magicians who show you how they do their tricks) is a well known atheist who not only advocates his beliefs but does so unapologetically (see this atheistblogger.com post).

So what do you suppose would happen if a Christian tried to share something of the Christian faith with him? This is what he had to say about a recent experience – which is well worth watching:

If we have vision to [1] see our own churches grow and above all to [2] grow in influence as agents of community transformation, then these are the two things which need to become our consuming passions. It’s the [...]]]> I’m challenged by what Ian Parkinson writes about leadership development in the context of transforming communities:

If we have vision to [1] see our own churches grow and above all to [2] grow in influence as agents of community transformation, then these are the two things which need to become our consuming passions. It’s the second one we often find it easiest to neglect, usually because it is time-consuming and costly, because the return on the investment of our time and energies is not immediate and because it gets pushed to one side by more urgent, though less strategic, demands.

On the back of my study door, deliberately printed in very large type so I have to read it as the last thing I do as I leave the room, I have fixed these words from Martin Robinson’s book ‘Invading Secular Space’:

“It is an inviolable rule; you can expand and extend the Gospel only as far as you prepare others to take the responsibility with you.”

Extending the scope of the influence of the Kingdom is largely determined by how serious we are about raising up others. This is exactly what Jesus did of course.

Parkinson goes on to outline four principles from Jesus’ ministry in raising up others:

1. He set before them a vision of what they might become

His initial invitation to the fishermen was not vague nor was it qualified. In language they would instantly understand he sows in their hearts and minds a vision of becoming significant in the purposes of God, of catching not fish but people for God. What’s more, implicit in the invitation is a promise that he would make them more than they could ever be if left to their own devices.

Developing others begins by allowing God to let us see people through his eyes, and thus to discern those whom he is specifically calling. He might well surprise us as he is far better than we are at identifying leadership potential! We should especially be on the lookout for those who instantly respond with excitement when they have imparted to them a vision for the Kingdom of God. We need to pour fuel onto the flame of such enthusiasm and we need always to set before such people the hope of what they might become in the hands of Jesus and in the power of His Spirit.

2. He let them see ministry taking place

For many years, I have always refused to take on any new ministry personally without first identifying someone else who will accompany me in it and who might, in due course, take over responsibility for it from me. I want to expose as many people as possible to the realities of ministry in the power of the Spirit and to whet their own appetite for involvement. From the very beginning, the newly-called disciples of Jesus journey with him and have their minds blown away as they see the realities of the Kingdom of God. It seems to me that we need a very good reason indeed to engage in any ministry responsibility completely on our own; we should always be seeking to take someone along with us and increasingly give away to them responsibility for such ministry.

3. He reflected with them on what they had seen

Jesus is frequently reported in the Gospels as spending time alone with his inner circle, and often is called upon to explain and interpret the things they have seen. One of the most valuable things we can do as leaders is give time to reflect with emerging leaders on what they have witnessed and on what they have done (helping them develop strengths and work through weaknesses).

4. He released them into ministry

… Jesus took [enormous risk] in stepping back and allowing a group of untried, though enthusiastic, novices to go out in his place. I imagine they fouled up from time to time, and they certainly were not the finished article. Nevertheless, overnight Jesus’ ministry was multiplied six fold, and this unpromising band of nobodies went on to kick-start the greatest spiritual revolution the world has ever seen, overwhelming the mighty Roman Empire within the space of a few generations.

He points out how coca-cola was originally invented as a medicine – a nerve tonic, stimulant and [...]]]> I’ve just come across this fascinating illustration about Diet Coke from Slavoj Zizek in The Fragile Absolute. Zizek sees all social reality as ‘empty’ driven by antagonisms and contradictions as opposed to something real that we aspire to.

He points out how coca-cola was originally invented as a medicine – a nerve tonic, stimulant and headache cure. It was eventually sweetened and its strange taste was made more palatable. It became a popular drink during the US prohibition because of its medicinal qualities. It was the perfect “temperance drink”. Later, its sugar was replaced with sweetener, its caffeine extracted, and so today we are left with Caffeine-Free Diet Coke: a drink that does not qualify as a drink. The three reasons why anyone would drink anything: it quenches thirst, provides nutrition, and tastes good, have in Zizek’s words “been suspended.”

Despite not quenching the thirst, not providing any stimulant and tasting strange, nonetheless, it is the most consumed beverage in the world. We drink Coke because “Coke is “it”” not because it satisfies anything material. In essence, all that remains of what was once Coke is an artificial promise. We drink it only when our real needs have already been met.  Zizek says, we ‘drink nothing in the guise of something … It is in effect merely an envelope of a void”.

What a great illustration.

It’s possible to argue that many people’s experience of church is of such an artificial promise, of something which once meant something real. It is a entertainment we enjoy after we have secured all of our immediate needs.  Just as our society drinks Coke as an “it,” as something that makes us feel good but has little substantial value as a drink, so we can practice our Christianity as something we add on to our lives – not as something we need to live. It is something we do as an extra to our already busy lives that makes us feel better.

Perhaps this explains why the number of those in their 20s in church, 230,000, is the smallest percentage (3%) of any age group and fallen by half over the past decade.  Indeed the numbers of 30-44 year olds also continues to decline.  Church for them has become or looks like the “envelope of a void”.  

And that may also explanation in some measure why 30% of the population are described as “de-churched” – people who previously belonged but no longer do. These are the prodigals for whom church must become again a “people for hospitality, inclusion, authenticity, faithfulness and compassion among the lost and hurting”.

It means that we have to work at being good news on two fronts simultaneously.

The first is the obvious one of what we do to reach out and embrace people of all [...]]]> My good friend Simon Jones writes some challenging words on his blog about the need to “bless everyone and save many”:

It means that we have to work at being good news on two fronts simultaneously.

The first is the obvious one of what we do to reach out and embrace people of all kinds, offer to bless them and bring good into their lives. It’s the ministry that Jeremiah urged on the exiles in 29:7: ‘seek the shalom (the well-being, peace, wholeness) of the city where I’ve sent you into exile and pray to the Lord on its behalf, for in its shalom you will find your shalom’. Everything we do should be good news, aiming to bless people regardless of how they respond to us.

The second is less obvious but equally essential: the community we build must be a place of wholeness and acceptance, a place where the barriers between people come down, where there is genuine forgiveness, where past hurts are not allowed to fester or ossify into stumbling blocks to one another. I think this is why Paul spends so much time in his letters talking about our relationships with one another. Time and again I come back to Philippians 2:1-5, 11-18 and see that this is key to being a missional people.

Which I why I found Mark Driscoll’s Confessions of a Reformission Rev. a challenging read.  Mark Driscoll was one of the early leaders in what has come to be known as the emerging or emergent church. He is careful to define both terms, suggesting that he still believes in the principles upon which the emerging church was founded, but deliberately separates himself from the emergent crowd and such as Brian McLaren. He says that “the emergent church is the latest version of liberalism. The only difference is that old liberalism accommodated modernity and the new liberalism accommodates postmodernity.”

Driscoll is typical of the kind of church planter who is so focussed on the vision that God has given him, that he is prepared to make astonishingly hard decisions to fulfil it.  At times, Driscoll places the entire future of the church in jeopardy, dismisses key staff and alienates others to drive forward.  His openheartedness to the twentysomethings of Seattle stands in contrast to his pastoral firmness with those who stand in the way.

I had heretics calling themselves Christians and I had lazy selfish Christians calling themselves mature.  So I started meeting with people one-on-one and calling them everything from sinners who need to repent, to leaders who need to lead, to heretics who need to leave. It was a brutal season… Though our church was brand-new, we has already lost focus of our mission, and people were debating things … that were a waste of time.

One feature of Driscoll’s method is that he is prepared to see off the less committed.  Another is his view that not everyone is even welcome! Only those committed to the core values of the church can join. If people cannot commit, he says, “they are encouraged to leave the church and go elsewhere”, and between a quarter and a half of new people do just that.  In an exceptionally challenging section, Driscoll says:

I wanted a church filled with missionaries, Christians who were learning how to become missionaries, and lost people.

I would not accept a church filled with Christians who did not give, serve, or reach lost people, because they invariably make themselves and their selfish desires the mission of a church and kill innovation and momentum.

Driscoll is a theological beast — his material is filled with such good theology and good practical content. He is conservative, even Reformed, in theology.  Yet, in one of the most liberal and unchurched cities in the US, Mars Hill church has grown to over 4,000 people.  He is not shy about what the Scriptures say, even if it debunks what the culture in Seattle holds to! And his honesty about the trials and tribulations of ministry endear many to his struggles:

I feared that if we did not put our marriage and children above the demands of the church, we would end up with the lukewarm, distant marriage that so many pastors have because they treat their churches as mistresses that they are more passionate about than their brides.

There is much in this book that is very good. Driscoll has some great insights into culture, Scripture and human nature. Sometimes, however, Driscoll’s comments show the sarcasm and vulgarity for which he has something of a reputation. For example, describing some men in the church:  “Every one of them was older than me, a chronic masturbator, a porn addict, and banging weak-willed girls like a screen door in a stiff breeze…”  My guess is that this hardly raises an eyebrow amongst twentysomethings in Seattle or here, but will alienate him somewhat from a wider readership.

A good read!

• One-third of all adults [...]]]> It’s rather to easy to point a finger at American Christianity, without first acknowledging the paucity in the spiritual life of many UK Christians.  However, I was fascinated by this data from the esteemed George Barna about the changing views of Americans.  In a recent survey, his organisation found that:

• One-third of all adults (34%) believe that moral truth is absolute and unaffected by the circumstances. Slightly less than half of the born again adults (46%) believe in absolute moral truth.

• Half of all adults firmly believe that the Bible is accurate in all the principles it teaches. That proportion includes the four-fifths of born again adults (79%) who concur.

• Just one-quarter of adults (27%) are convinced that Satan is a real force. Even a minority of born again adults (40%) adopt that perspective.

• Similarly, only one-quarter of adults (28%) believe that it is impossible for someone to earn their way into Heaven through good behavior. Not quite half of all born again Christians (47%) strongly reject the notion of earning salvation through their deeds.

• A minority of American adults (40%) are persuaded that Jesus Christ lived a sinless life while He was on earth. Slightly less than two-thirds of the born again segment (62%) strongly believes that He was sinless.

• Seven out of ten adults (70%) say that God is the all-powerful, all-knowing creator of the universe who still rules it today. That includes the 93% of born again adults who hold that conviction.

A worldview serves as a person’s decision-making filter, enabling them to make sense of the complex and huge amount of information, experiences, relationships and opportunities they face in life.  So most troubling of all, the research data showed:

1.  That young adults rarely possess a biblical worldview. Less than one-half of one percent of adults of those aged 18 to 23  have a biblical worldview, compared to about one out of every nine older adults.

2.. Although most Americans consider themselves to be Christian and say they know the content of the Bible, less than one out of ten Americans demonstrate such knowledge through their actions.

3. The decline in Christian worldview amongst 18-23s, indicated that parents are not focused on guiding their children to have a biblical worldview. One of the challenges for parents, though, is that you cannot give what you do not have, and most parents do not possess such a perspective on life.

4. This in turn has a impact on the effectiveness of Christian churches, schools and parachurch ministries in Christian education, as there has been no change in the percentage of adults or even born again adults in the past 13 years regarding the possession of a biblical worldview.

[More: http://www.barna.org/barna-update/article/12-faithspirituality/252-barna-survey-examines-changes-in-worldview-among-christians-over-the-past-13-years]

When we had Sky, I rarely watched the religious channels.  Now we have FreeView, I do miss stopping at the God channel and enjoying the passion with which TD Jakes speaks.  Jakes pastors the The Potter’s House, a nondenominational church, in Dallas, Texas. In just over seven years, The Potter’s House grew from [...]]]>

When we had Sky, I rarely watched the religious channels.  Now we have FreeView, I do miss stopping at the God channel and enjoying the passion with which TD Jakes speaks.  Jakes pastors the The Potter’s House, a nondenominational church, in Dallas, Texas. In just over seven years, The Potter’s House grew from 50 families to more than 28,000 members.  The church brings together the down and out – the homeless and released offender – to sit beside the up and coming – the celebrity and community leader. They worship and serve together in one or more of the 59 different ministries within the church. He was named "America’s Best Preacher" in a 2001 Time magazine cover story.

Jakes is quite simply inspirational.His preaching does your heart good.  Writing in Charisma Magazine, Ken Walker explained "He [Jakes] delivers the Word in such a lightening rod fashion that he makes you believe that all things really are possible with God."  

That too is the heart of this book.  Does any runner enter a race without training for it? Does a farmer expect a harvest without preparing a field?  So why do Christians believe they can hit the mark without investing any effort?  If we want to fulfil our destiny in God, we need his inner strength, for the journey will be full of twists and turns and obstacles.