Hard Butter and Church Services

A recent experience of Bed and Breakfast caused me to think about how those of us who lead or preach at church services prepare. Not for the first time, I found myself struggling to spread butter, apparently fresh from the fridge, onto toast. It refused to spread. What was worse was that my effort resulted in the toast being spoiled. While there was good reason for keeping the butter in the fridge, it was of little use to me at the table. Of course, melted butter would have been of little use also , but if only it had been softened a little by the time I wanted to spread it.

I began to wonder what thought processes had taken place in the kitchen. Did they, I pondered, want me to be impressed with the fact that they kept the butter in the fridge, or that they kept the fridge temperature extra low? Had they considered whether it would be fit for purpose when it arrived on the table? Might they not have thought about it at all? After all, the butter is always kept in the fridge! Was there a ‘Chef knows best’ attitude?

So, let’s compare the church service to breakfast and the sermon to the butter. We might have carefully prepared each item ‘on the plate’ to our own satisfaction. The contents may have been freshly prepared (not as an old friend used to describe second-hand sermons as ‘cold meat with warm gravy!’). We may have arranged the different items carefully and attractively on the plate. We may have cooked them just the way we like them. But, have we carefully considered whether the members of our congregations will find them enjoyable, easy to digest, not too much but just sufficient.

It is all too easy for the chef to know best what makes a good breakfast, and to impose the set menu on the guests. At least I was able to swap black pudding and fried tomatoes for some baked beans. But I would so have liked to have been able to spread that butter on my granary bread.

A few days after my B & B experience I attended a men’s breakfast where my fried egg was not quite fried. Again, it made me think about how much effort we put into preparing a meal for the congregation. Could the hymns have been selected better? Might our prayer have been better if we had shortened it by two minutes? Might the sermon have been improved with a relevant illustration?

The sad fact is that some of us enjoy leading worship and preaching, but risk not thinking through whether what we are serving is what is wanted as well as what is needed. Far too often over my 50 plus years of sitting in churches I have come away uncertain as to the point of the whole service. Was there actually a purpose behind it all or was it merely an exercise to give the minister something to do!

I quite like the advice given to public speakers: “Say what you are going to say, then say it, and then say what you have said”. In other words, have a clear purpose behind what you are doing, and be clear about what outcome you expect.

So, if you are preparing the meal for next Sunday, please make sure that everything is properly cooked, chewable, and digestible. Make sure the butter will actually spread!

I suppose I could have sent the butter or the half-cooked egg back to the kitchen with a polite request that they do something about it. After all it should have been prepared with the customer in mind. Send it back to the kitchen?!! How would I feel if members of the congregation provided some honest feedback? What if someone said, “I learned nothing new today”, or “I got lost halfway through your sermon”, or “I missed the purpose of this morning’s meeting?”!

It is always helpful to get feedback on the reflections in these Prayer & Praise News. The last few have been quite challenging. I probably enjoyed writing them, and I hope they have not left a bitter taste. Writing for an invisible audience is rather different from taking a service or preaching a sermon, but I hope that some found the butter spreadable. Dolet me know please.

Barry - 9 November 2018.

What is Discipleship?

At a recent meeting of the Churches Group for Evangelization the subject of discipleship was frequently mentioned.  It became clear that how discipleship is understood varies from denomination to denomination. I think that many of us have been using the word with little thought as to how it might be defined and described in different contexts.

A few years ago I was invited to speak on Discipleship in a Rural Context and carefully prepared my talk and the slides that illustrated it.  Since then I have given it more thought and I am sure that were i to give the same talk today it would be slightly different.

Discipleship has been a common topic across the Churches for several years and, it seems, it still is an issue of concern.  Does this reflect, I wonder that we focused on making believers rather than making disciples?  It also seems to me that we have often understood that discipleship is something that develops after people have believed.  The Great Commission is expressed by the gospel writers variously as proclamation of the gospel, bearing witness to Jesus Christ, and making disciples.  But nowhere is it described as making believers.

The term believer had significance for the early church, operating in an almost entirely Jewish context.  The issue was whether people believed that Jesus was the Messiah Therefore the use of the term believer was a useful shorthand.  In a Gentile context we tend to use the term believing as a substitute for the more accurate word, trusting.  We encourage people to put their trust in Jesus Christ and his atoning work for salvation.

It is in Matthew’s Gospel that we find the first disciples of Jesus commissioned to go and make disciples of all nations, teaching them to observe all that Jesus had taught his disciples.  So, if that provides a context, perhaps we need to explore what discipleship meant to Jesus and those first disciples.

At which point did they become disciples, and what did that mean at that point?  Clearly, for some, becoming disciples was something that preceded believing that Jesus was the Messiah.  It began with an invitation to commence a journey with Jesus that was much more than a physical journey. They became pupils in a mobile classroom, watching and listening to this extraordinary person who could heal the sick, deliver the oppressed, raise the dead, still the storm, and feed a multitude with a few loaves and fishes.  For some of them, lesson one was seeing water turned to wine. Impressed by what they saw, they gave attention to what they heard. Along the way, they reached a point in which they had accepted that Jesus had the words of life. Later still, came Peter’s confession, “You are the Christ, the son of the Living God” and Thomas’ confession, “My Lord and my God”.

This leads me to wonder whether, in the cultural context in which I am operating, the call I give to others to become Christians should be more about a call to enter a journey of discovery, rather than taking a leap of faith.  Of course, such a journey needs repentance at its start or near to it. It could also be argued that taking the journey is, in itself, a step of faith.

As an example of what that might look like in the context of evangelism, Elim has adopted a new framework for evangelism which provides the possibility of three different responses.  The gospel is clearly explained, following which the three options are presented. A ‘Big Yes’ is an immediate decision to make a commitment to Christ. A ‘Little Yes’ might be a decision to go on a Christianity Explored Course (or similar).  But a ‘Healthy Maybe’ is a third possibility and asks no more than an expression of a willingness to be open to change views or attitude.

I include this example to illustrate different ways in which a journey start might begin.  When I started out in evangelism, the cultural context in the main was at least nominally Christian with a degree of knowledge of the Christian faith.  We therefore called for a response to make a full commitment there and then. In some ways it was an appeal to an emotional response to follow Jesus. These days, we find it necessary to set out the gospel in more of a teaching mode.  This accords with the way the the gospel was presented in Acts to both Jews looking for the Messiah, and to Gentiles needing to be saved. The New Testament Greek word used implies reasoning. It engages the mind.

One positive aspect of encouraging a response as a start of a journey is that it makes it easier to travel with uncertainty or doubt.  This is not the same as disbelief. Faith gets tested and it is not unusual for even those who have been Christians for many years to have off moments of doubt.  Wrestling with uncertainty on a progressive journey is a more healthy approach than seeing it as a failure of faith.

In my early Christian life discipleship was measured by attendance at four church meetings each week (believers’ meeting, gospel meeting, prayer meeting, and Bible study).  I think that becoming a disciple might also have been described as moving from trusting for salvation to a commitment to go 100% in following Jesus. While I still feel the need to teach and preach for real commitment, I see the wisdom of a less binary approach.  If, as I have suggested here, that discipleship in the gospels began before belief, perhaps it is true in our own time and the UK context. In which case, we need programmes that affirm journeys regardless of how far they have travelled.

When I travel by train or by bus, the vehicle usually stops several times before I reach my destination.  Usually I check where we are and decide whether I intend to travel further.

I would be interested in hearing from you please describing how discipleship is understood and measured in the context of your church.  How does a disciple differ from a mere believer? How do you feel about the idea that discipleship has a beginning before a faith commitment?  Please drop me a shortish line to barry@ruralmissions.org.uk and put ‘Discipleship’ in the subject line.

Barry Osborne - 25th October 2018

Lessons from the Stores

Woolworth, Toys R Us, BHS, MFI and Focus all have one thing in common.  They have disappeared, having once been a prominent presence throughout the country.  Other well known chains have also struggled, closing a number of their stores in order to survive.  Of course it was not always thus. At one time they had been popular outlets, supplying goods that people wanted.  In every case the decision to close and render thousands of people without jobs will have been preceded by a series of Board Meetings at which the directors noted the steady decline.

In many cases the decline has been linked to changes that happened around.  Sometimes businesses have failed because of online shopping. In other situations they failed to keep their businesses in touch with the changing culture surrounding them, and lost out to competitors.  Some of the big businesses that have survived have done so because they have recognised that the cost of the floorspace was disproportionate to the amount of sales.

Reflecting on this I am aware how the Christian witness in the UK has similar problems, not least in rural areas.  Churches that once saw many more people attending Sunday services, now have relatively few people attending, while the cost of maintaining our premises has become ever more disproportionate.  In many situations where once a building served the purposes of a congregation, now the congregation serves the building.

It is generally understood that 11.00 am services were established as a suitable time to allow the cows to be milked and essential chores to be done before church gathered.  Now, it has become a convenient time that demands little and fits conveniently between a lie in and an extravagant lunch. Consequently, congregations dwindle and those charged with responsibility hope that somehow the decline in footfall will be miraculously reversed.

In my Open University Business Studies we were repeatedly taught that the main thing is that the main thing must remain the main thing.  Jesus left his disciples with one task. They were to proclaim the gospel and make disciples. Clearly, that is the main thing. Of course, having premises where Christians could meet, makes sense, but many of our buildings were erected to impress rather than simply serve a purpose.  In the past they also became places where the gospel was proclaimed and where people came to faith. When was the last time that happened in your church building?

It is not only commerce and churches that have inherited buildings that are no longer ideal for the main purpose.  Hospitals and schools have also had to adapt in order to remain efficient, where efficiency is related to what is the main thing for them.

Simply shutting down stores will not cure an ailing business.  Shutting down church buildings will not cure what ails so many of our churches today.  What is essential is to return to first principles. If our churches (i.e. the believers who meet in the building) do not have a clear sense of purpose - a commitment to the main thing - then messing about with the building is like rearranging the deck chairs on a sinking Titanic.  So the most important thing we can do, if we have buildings that are taking most of our money and energies, is to ensure that everyone in membership or who has a regular commitment to the life of our churches recognises that the main thing is spreading the gospel and making disciples.

Having done that, we can then evaluate whether or not our premises are enabling that purpose or, possibly, hindering it.  Sometimes making some adaptations could make a difference. But not change for change sake; but change that enables or enhances the main thing.

So, here’s the challenge.  Make a list of the resources of your church both in money and people hours.  Calculate how much is being spent on the ‘main thing’ and how much is being spent on your building (maintenance, heating and lighting).  If things have got out of proportion, then consider ways in which a proper balance could be restored.

Now I suspect that some purists may be thinking that this is all ‘business speak’ and seems to have discounted the work of the Holy Spirit and the importance of prayer.  But I have not done so. If Jesus were to turn up in your church next Sunday and ask you all how you are getting on with what he asked you to do, I don’t think he will be very impressed with answers such as we have raised funds to decorate this old building or to instal a better heating system (though they could be useful!),  God has entrusted us with his message to share it with the people he wants to receive it.  How are we doing with what he has asked us to do?

As to prayer: are we sitting around, praying that God will turn up and do for us the very thing he has asked us to do for him?  Some churches do not even have prayer meetings! Imagine that! Faced with serious threats and opposition, the first Christians met for prayer.  The focus of their prayer was greater effectiveness in their witness; not for deliverance from their problems. (See Acts 4: 23-31).  It’s a model we would do well to follow.

I find myself wondering about these mega-businesses that have disappeared from our High Streets.  If they still had products that were needed and which they could supply, could they have re-imagined their businesses to move from what was inherited to what would still be effective.

Almost all our inherited churches need reviving, and probably some need radical action.  Watching the decline and loss of engagement with the surrounding community is not an option if we want a future.  If what I have written here strikes a chord with you then I would love to take this conversation further, if you would appreciate my advice on how to move things forward,  I am only an email or phone call away (07720 322 213).

Yours for a more effective witness in the land,

Barry