If you are a Christian I am guessing that you are embroiled in a battle with sin. You wake up as I do most mornings with that resolution that today will be better, today I won't lose it with the kids, today I won't think those unkind thoughts about the people in the shop, today will be better than yesterday.
That is a good thing, we do well to remember the words of John Owen that we should be sure to be putting sin to death or else it will be putting us to death. My question isn't are you fighting sin so much as why? Why are you bothering?
Its a question I have been thinking about for a little while now and a passage I read in a book today really struck a chord with me. The book is entitled "Your future self will thank you" by Drew Dyck.
Dyck draws inspiration from two classic tails, firstly Homer's Iliad where Odysseus embarks on a journey home form the Trojan war. One of the gravest dangers he will meet on his journey are the sirens who sing sweet songs enticing sailors closer to the shore only eventually leading to the death of the sailors.
He knows the risks so in order to counter this risk he decides to lash himself to the mast of the ship and instructs his crew that no matter how strong his pleading he is not to be loosed from the mast. To protect the crew Odysseus puts beeswax in their ears. Sure enough they sail past the sirens and their song draws Odysseus in and he pleads with the crew to untie him. Odysseus sees the danger coming and prepares.
The second story comes from the Argonautica, in which the Argonauts must sail past the same sirens faced with the same dangers but they choose to escape with a very different method. They sail past they hear the singing but instead of self restraint they opt for the approach of having Orpheus on board, a legendary poet and musician. As they sail past the sirens he brings out his lyre and plays a sweeter song to them and they are saved.
If I am honest my approach to fighting sin all too often falls into the first category, my approach to fighting sin falls into the if I do this thing then God might get me, if I do this then God will be displeased with me. And of course this is a fine strategy for fighting sin.
However how much better to have our ears filled with the sweeter song, when confronted with sin to think not if I do this God will punish me but rather to think this thing has no lasting value, I am loved by the God of heaven in his son Jesus Christ, I am an adopted child of heaven.
Next time the siren song of sin fills your ears fill them with the sweeter song of Christ.
Wednesday, 12 September 2018
Monday, 3 September 2018
Five Reasons Church Plants should support Established Churches
This blog comes off the back of an excellent blog written by Ed Stetzer which can be found here. My point in writing this article is to no way detract from church planting, I have nothing but admiration and respect for my brothers in the Free Church who are planting churches across the nation of Scotland. They have faith and courage which I often find lacking in myself, my point in writing this is to merely highlight that what many perceive to be a one way street (established churches supporting church plants) should actually be a two way street of mutual support and encouragement.
So allow me to borrow from Mr Stetzer and highlight how his five points can be equally applied in both directions:
1. Established churches reach lost people.
As I look around my congregation on a Sunday morning and evening there are people that I know who are not Christians which is something I would say that would be common across most churches. Established churches can be more effective at reaching an older generation with the gospel because the established church comes with comfortable baggage and labels that many church plants are keen to avoid (on the balance of probability rightly so).
However it is a mistake to assume that only something new, something fresh will reach people with the gospel and will reach lost people with the gospel established churches are as capable of doing that as church plants.
2. Revitalising established churches follows a biblical pattern.
I will admit that I am perhaps on more of a loose footing with this point but it remains valid I think. As we consider the letters to the seven churches in Revelation, which I take to be written to a literal seven churches but with lessons that are applicable throughout the ages, what do we see?
We see churches that are in danger of falling away from their first love, we see churches that are in danger of having their lamp stand removed, in danger if you like of being de churched and the solution is never well just close the door.
The solution isn't shut down and start again the solution is to go back to our first love, the solution is to go back to doing the things that the Christians in these places did at first. If that was the solution that Jesus provided to the churches in Asia would it not seem wise to follow that solution today?
Often the solution today seems to be that we are happy to close this one place and plant somewhere else or else replant the church in the same location.
3. Church revitalisation is necessary for survival.
The figures quoted by Ed Stetzer in his article are that if a denomination wants to break even then churches have to be planted at a three per cent level. All well and good great if we are planting churches at a three per cent level.
Yet the question that leads to is what is the point of planting churches at a three per cent level if in the meantime we close churches at a five per cent level, if local churches which are struggling are closed to make way for new churches then we haven't actually gained any new churches at all, we could plant at a three or five per cent level and still end up worse off than when we started.
4. Church revitalisation benefits the planted church.
When the planted church is full of new Christians who have all been reached with the gospel what greater benefit could there be to that church than to go and help a church along the way which is struggling?
What a benefit to the church that is needing revitalised to have a group of people come from a church and sacrifice their comfort to help a body of believers better reach out to the community around them. Not by insisting that everything is done the way the church plant does it but by supporting the leadership of the local church through this change.
5. Church Revitalisation is necessary to reach Scotland.
Stetzer uses North America as his example but for me it has to be Scotland, the land of dying decaying churches, the land where church buildings have been turned into nightclubs, into Indian restraunts, into anything you can imagine really.
Imagine if instead of letting those churches wither on the vine we revitalised them, imagine if instead of being allowed to drift to 15, 10, 5 people we said lets work hard and makes these churches hubs of the community again.
Scotland will never be reached without planting more churches, we should give thanks to God for men like Tom Muir, Neil MacMillan, Ali Sewell, Jonathon DeGroot, Andy Robertson, Chris Davidson, Iain Macaskill and all of our other church planters who are stepping out in faith and planting churches throughout our land.
However lets also give thanks for men who are stepping out in faith and revitalising what was dying, seeking to fulfil the great commission in different ways. Church revitalisation and established churches are as nessecary to the churches mission, to reaching the land of Scotland as church plants are. Lets give thanks and celebrate both, lets work together not against one another to see in the grace of God what the LORDs plans are for Scotland.
So allow me to borrow from Mr Stetzer and highlight how his five points can be equally applied in both directions:
1. Established churches reach lost people.
As I look around my congregation on a Sunday morning and evening there are people that I know who are not Christians which is something I would say that would be common across most churches. Established churches can be more effective at reaching an older generation with the gospel because the established church comes with comfortable baggage and labels that many church plants are keen to avoid (on the balance of probability rightly so).
However it is a mistake to assume that only something new, something fresh will reach people with the gospel and will reach lost people with the gospel established churches are as capable of doing that as church plants.
2. Revitalising established churches follows a biblical pattern.
I will admit that I am perhaps on more of a loose footing with this point but it remains valid I think. As we consider the letters to the seven churches in Revelation, which I take to be written to a literal seven churches but with lessons that are applicable throughout the ages, what do we see?
We see churches that are in danger of falling away from their first love, we see churches that are in danger of having their lamp stand removed, in danger if you like of being de churched and the solution is never well just close the door.
The solution isn't shut down and start again the solution is to go back to our first love, the solution is to go back to doing the things that the Christians in these places did at first. If that was the solution that Jesus provided to the churches in Asia would it not seem wise to follow that solution today?
Often the solution today seems to be that we are happy to close this one place and plant somewhere else or else replant the church in the same location.
3. Church revitalisation is necessary for survival.
The figures quoted by Ed Stetzer in his article are that if a denomination wants to break even then churches have to be planted at a three per cent level. All well and good great if we are planting churches at a three per cent level.
Yet the question that leads to is what is the point of planting churches at a three per cent level if in the meantime we close churches at a five per cent level, if local churches which are struggling are closed to make way for new churches then we haven't actually gained any new churches at all, we could plant at a three or five per cent level and still end up worse off than when we started.
4. Church revitalisation benefits the planted church.
When the planted church is full of new Christians who have all been reached with the gospel what greater benefit could there be to that church than to go and help a church along the way which is struggling?
What a benefit to the church that is needing revitalised to have a group of people come from a church and sacrifice their comfort to help a body of believers better reach out to the community around them. Not by insisting that everything is done the way the church plant does it but by supporting the leadership of the local church through this change.
5. Church Revitalisation is necessary to reach Scotland.
Stetzer uses North America as his example but for me it has to be Scotland, the land of dying decaying churches, the land where church buildings have been turned into nightclubs, into Indian restraunts, into anything you can imagine really.
Imagine if instead of letting those churches wither on the vine we revitalised them, imagine if instead of being allowed to drift to 15, 10, 5 people we said lets work hard and makes these churches hubs of the community again.
Scotland will never be reached without planting more churches, we should give thanks to God for men like Tom Muir, Neil MacMillan, Ali Sewell, Jonathon DeGroot, Andy Robertson, Chris Davidson, Iain Macaskill and all of our other church planters who are stepping out in faith and planting churches throughout our land.
However lets also give thanks for men who are stepping out in faith and revitalising what was dying, seeking to fulfil the great commission in different ways. Church revitalisation and established churches are as nessecary to the churches mission, to reaching the land of Scotland as church plants are. Lets give thanks and celebrate both, lets work together not against one another to see in the grace of God what the LORDs plans are for Scotland.
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