Thinking about Acts 20

I’ve been thinking recently about Paul’s farewell speech to the Ephesian elders in Acts 20.  It is such a great Word for small group leaders!  Do read the whole chapter, but here are a few reflections:

From Miletus, Paul sent to Ephesus for the elders of the church.  When they arrived, he said to them: “You know how I lived the whole time I was with you, from the first day I came into the province of Asia.  I served the Lord with great humility and with tears and in the midst of severe testing by the plots of the Jews.  You know that I have not hesitated to preach anything that would be helpful to you but have taught you publicly and from house to house.  I have declared to both Jews and Greeks that they must turn to God in repentance and have faith in our Lord Jesus.  Acts 20:17-21

‘You know how I lived the whole time…’  Please notice that there was no escaping the examination of a life lived among his people.  So many of our conversations and interactions on Sundays can be fleeting, but not so in a small group meeting regularly in a home.  What a privilege to know our people and to be known by them.  What a great opportunity to live ‘real’ lives in community, with each other, as we really are and encourage each other along in our Christian walk.

‘I served the Lord with great humility and with tears…’  Please notice Paul’s passionate engagement with the Ephesians.  He serves God, but with tears as he serves them, amidst hardship and persecution.  Sometimes small group leadership can be challenging, but we remember Jesus who came not to be served, but to serve and give his life as a ransom for many (Mark 10:45).  So, like Jesus and like Paul, we serve with humility and a servant’s heart, through the joyous times and the times when tears are involved. 

‘You know that I have not hesitated to preach anything that would be helpful to you…’  Please notice the absolute priority of teaching and declaring the truth of the Scriptures – especially here the Gospel message of repentance and forgiveness of sins.  Christian small groups are not the same as other social or common interest small groups.  The Pharisees complained that Jesus partied too much, but Jesus’ first act of public ministry was to say ‘The time has come.  The Kingdom of God is near.  Repent and believe the good news!’ (Mark 1:15).  The rest of the chapter speaks about how easy it is to slide away from this absolute priority.  It was easy then, and it is easy now to have as our focus something other than our deep need to keep repenting of our sins and turning to Jesus for forgiveness and the Spirit’s power to change us and mature us in Christ.

My prayer is that we might grow more and more into that sort of small group leader for the people of God.  

Top Three Things

I can't remember where I first read this - I think it was a Phil Yancey book - but it came up in conversation again tonight with friends.  It goes like this:
In a large sample US survey of elderly retired persons with nothing to lose from being completely honest and frank, the question was asked, 'Now that you're close to the end of your lives, looking back, what would you have changed?'
The Top Three Things were:
1. I would have made more time for relationships.
2. I would have taken more risks in life. 
3. I would have done more things that lived on after I died. 
My summary of these is:
1. Relationships
2. Passions
3. Significance
It seems to me that these mirror closely the biblical perspective on the meaning and purpose of existence.
We have been created by a relational God for relationships.  And lives that prioritise career over family, or ambition over friendship, end up in a lonely bitter regretful place.  No one has ever said to me at their deathbed, 'I wish I spent more time at the office'. 
Lives that stick to 'safe' and 'secure' paths - the career trajectory, the expected and traditional route of financial security or job opportunity - can often be not just unadventurous, but ultimately a poor reflection of the person that God has gifted you to be.  What are the specific gifts, talents and passions the Lord has given you?  What decisions will you take to prioritise good stewardship of those?  Those decisions will often be contrary to the received wisdom of what a decent or safe career looks like.  No great adventurer, inventor or pioneer in their field was characterised by doing the non-risky career-advancing thing at the time. 
Ultimately, we each have the average three score years and ten.  But at the close, our thoughts turn to the matter of significance.  What has been the meaning of my life?  What achievement or legacy am I leaving behind?  What will live on, after my death?  Is the world a better place for my having passed through it?  
The remarkable thing about the Christian God is that He chooses to use us to achieve His eternal purposes.  So our lives can make a difference for eternal things.  Actually, it's the first two Things, Relationships and Passions, that make up the key components of any Significance that we might hope to have.  See the Parable of the Shrewd Manager in Luke 16 for example!  
Relationships.  Passions.  Significance.  I hope you know what your's are in your allotted three score years and ten.  

St Alfred's Contact post 21 October

Dear St Alfred's family

Often we hear that people are 'busy' or 'tired' or 'stressed'.  The same is true whether you're managing a household and children, in paid full-time work, or a member of the church staff team.  There are seasons of harder work, and seasons of rest.  So Peter is on holidays this week and I'm going on Saturday for my first 'away-from-home' break in 3 years!  (That's what doing doctoral research might do to you...)  I'm trying to repent of my sins! 

Maybe part of the reason I'm bad at holidays is because I have the great privilege of being paid to do something I love and am passionate about: telling people about Jesus and helping them grow in faith, hope and love. So what does a typical week look like for me?  Since Monday, I've:

- run a staff meeting 

- met separately with four great young adult leaders: two for mentoring, one for programme review, and one for discussion of a future Daniel sermon

- written three references of various sorts 

- read and thought more about Luke 15 in preparation for our evangelistic service on 31 Oct

- led our Wednesday morning communion service

- met with three different persons in a pastoral capacity at church

- paid a pastoral visit to a grieving family 

- lunched with a old friend struggling with a spiritual issue

- met with other staff members to catch up on pastoral care and teaching programme matters

- and numerous other phone calls, emails and other bits of work!

Today, I'm writing this email and helping Heather with Contact.  Soon I have to be off to Ridley where I might catch up over lunch with some of our young adults who are studying there today, before teaching my class in the afternoon.  

Who says ministry only happens on Sundays?! 

But ministry also isn't only what I do, or only what paid staff do.  My most important ministry happens whenever I get home.  Typically, as our automatic garage door rolls up and my car rolls in, the door to the house swings open and through the wound-up car windows I hear Alexandra crying out, 'Daddy's home!'  The energy each of us reserves for relationships - especially those closest to us, whether at home or at work or in our other contexts - is perhaps the most significant ministry we can be involved in. 

1 Peter 2:12 says, 'Live such good lives among the pagans that, though they accuse you of doing wrong, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day he visits us'.  

'Good lives' and 'good deeds' include the quality of our relationships - their integrity, love, faithfulness, hope, joy, gentleness, kindness and peaceableness.  God's Word is saying to us that these can have a direct impact on the pagan world, our Christian witness.  After all, if our lives are as chaotic, busy, stressed, 'no time for relationships', and devoid of eternal hope as everyone else's, then why would anyone bother with Jesus?  Our lives, the church's life and relationships must reflect the goodness and grace of the God.  How else are we to be salt and light? 

Well, this is a tremendous challenge to me, but thanks be to our gracious Lord Jesus!  God promises us wisdom for life and ministry, as we pray for it; and also the power to change by his Holy Spirit.  

  

Looking forward to seeing you again soon. 

Being Missional May Hurt Your Church

Here's a re-blog from http://theresurgence.com/2010/10/10/being-missional-may-kill-your-church

I didn't like the 'kill' language - why do people have to be so extreme in their statements?  Can't they trust that we'll pay attention if they have a good idea?  Anyway... enough with the gripe.  Here's the quote that I thought we could think about together:

In Breaking the Missional Code, Ed Stetzer explains how the church has shifted to missional thinking in the following way:

• From programs to processes
• From demographics to discernment
• From models to missions
• From attractional to incarnational
• From uniformity to diversity
• From professional to passionate
• From seating to sending
• From decisions to disciples
• From additional to exponential
• From monuments to movements

Surprising Insights: More on Unchurched-Reaching Pastors

OK, so I’ve been away a long time.  Blogging is a bit like that.  Let me continue my review of Rainer’s research findings.  Chapter Eight is entitled ‘What makes these Leaders Tick?’  What struck me most about this chapter was the clear emphasis on evangelism and theology.  

Rainer described four key motivational factors in these effective pastors:

1. a theology of lostness - they are personally and deeply convinced that people without Christ are lost and feel it emotionally too. 
2. passion and enthusiasm - especially for personally modelling evangelism
3. accountability in personal evangelism
4. excellence in all things - as Rainer observes elsewhere, excellence is intrinsically attractive

The chapter also lists 15 other lessons and features, well worth pondering, but I’m still getting over the emphasis on the need to model evangelism personally.  I’ve committed to that over several years, but I guess the question I’m asking now is if I’m doing enough.  Hm.  Any comments? 

Local housing affordability and our church

Blackburn North is in the 'Bible-belt' of Melbourne's eastern suburbs - but there's evidence that the 'belt' is already moving further out. How do we maintain a Christian witness in our area and realise a good long-term return on the substantial investment we've put into our new St Alfred's church buildings? 
Larger Christian congregations have tended to be where young families and affordable housing have been, but church buildings have often lagged behind church growth. This means that by the time funds are raised, and a facility is built, young families have already begun shifting away as the area becomes too expensive. This is part of the reason why there are so many (in their day full and expensive to build) church buildings in the inner east of Melbourne that are largely under-utilised today.  
The same sort of predicament faces government planners who have to decide where to put schools and other public facilities.  
Some time ago I wrote this paper for my local church community: tell me if you found it helpful, or if you disagree!  

Surprising Insights: Profile of Unchurched-Reaching Pastors

Apologies for the long-ish silence!

Chapter Seven takes us in to Part Two of the book.  Having surveyed the recently unchurched and heard the overwhelming importance of the role of the pastor/ minister/ leader, Rainer undertook a second round of interviews.  He surveyed 101 pastors of churches who are reaching the unchurched.  

Those surveyed came from churches across a range of denominations (but no significant percentage (if any) were Episcopalians/ Anglicans), age groups, ethnic backgrounds, social settings, and church ages (ie. local churches from less than 10 to more than 100 years old).  

A number of findings are summarised in this chapter:

1. Interview results from the 101 pastors have a statistically highly consistent degree of correlation with the results of the main survey of recently unchurched. 
2. Their average tenure was 11.8 years, compared to just 3.8 for all pastors.
3. 87% were seminary trained (47% had masters/ seminary training, 40% had doctorates).
4. An unquantifiable passion for reaching the lost and unchurched world was evident through the interviews.
5. Leaders are readers - the top book cited was Rick Warren’s ‘The Purpose Driven Life’ followed by Oswald Chambers’ ‘My Utmost for His Highest’ and J. I. Packer’s ‘Knowing God’.
6. Preaching - biblical preaching - was an absolute priority.  
7. They tended to be theologically conservative: 99% affirmed that salvation is only through Christ, 98% held to the inerrancy (complete or limited) of the Bible.  
8. They desired to be better leaders: through reading books on leadership, undertaking further study, formalising a mentoring relationship with another leader, seeking to upgrade skills in new areas like finance or administration. 
9. Having an intentional plan to reach the unchurched, and executing on it, was critical. 
10. Personal holiness, integrity, leadership by example, a vibrant prayer life, personal Bible study, ability to institute change, ability to cast vision, Bible knowledge, personal evangelism and communication skills were, in order, the top ten personal characteristics as rated in relation to leading their local church.  

That’s quite a list!  And knowing something about how difficult it is for many local churches in Melbourne to find a pastor when they need a new one, this list makes me want to keep praying that the Lord of the harvest raises up more workers for His harvest field. 

If you’re in need of a pastor, I think this list suggests that you either look to a good theological college, or find the most godly and capable person you can to send to one.  It takes a while to cook them properly, so we’d best start sending them now!

If you’re a pastor already or wanting to be one, be encouraged!  Here are some ways forward from this study.  If you haven’t already, start working on your personal holiness; preach the Bible; find a godly leader to be a mentor; start reading; start praying and planning.