Forty Years of Ministry - An Appreciation

On Saturday evening past, Suzanne the family and I had the great joy of being present at a retirement function for Suzanne's dad as he retired from pastoral ministry. Gareth had served for exactly forty years and had most recently served in the Stranmillis congregation of the Evangelical Presbyterian Church, a denomination to which I owe my own training for the ministry. I first met Gareth when I had applied for the post of student worker within the Stranmillis Congregation, having met and married his daughter (a risky strategy ill admit) I have got to know him better over the past number of years. As I reflected on his ministry I have much to be thankful to him for,  Paul instructed the believers in Corinth to be imitators of him as he was of God and over the course of my ministry I have tried my best to imitate Gareth in so many ways as he was a faithful, caring shepherd of the congregations that he served as their under shepherd.

1. His love for the LORD, most of all what impressed me about Gareth was his love for the LORD, in the forty years of gospel ministry Gareth kept his love for the LORD fresh, to hear him pray was to listen to someone whose relationship with God was fresh. The danger for pastors is the professionalisation of ministry, being a minister becomes something we are, something that defines us and our relationship with the LORD. For me listening to Gareth that never felt like the case, he loved the God who saved him, he served the God who saved him faithfully and it never felt to me like his passion and love for the LORD waned.

2. His love for God's word, Gareth loved preaching, he loved teaching people God's word, he loved showing people how the truth of God's word shaped and moulded them. He would think nothing of jumping in the car, driving for two hours to go and share God's word with a group of young people, with a group of older people anyone who asked him to come and share God's word if Gareth could do it he would. His application of God's word to society was also very refreshing, his wider minister on Radio Ulster's thought for the day and his monthly column in the Belfast Telegraph showed that society at large valued what Gareth had to say and his application of the bible to society.

3. His love for God's people, there is a running joke in our house that whenever the phone rings, or there is a difficult pastoral situation to deal with we ask ourselves the question WWGNBD, what would Gareth Norman Burke do? Invariably what Gareth would do would be the caring compassionate thing. To spend time with people, to listen, to try and help. I can't think of a single pastoral situation that I have faced where trying to think what would Gareth do has led to poorer outcomes. His love for God's people is what I have tried to copy most. Gareth thought nothing of spending time with people investing in people but in all that trying to lead them down the road of righteousness.

4. His love for the mission of the church, Gareth has a passion for the worldwide ministry of the church, heading to Kenya, to South Sudan, to Nigeria in an attempt to train pastors, in support of missionaries and to see the church of God expand. Ministers are so busy these days that it can be hard to lift our eyes beyond our immediate parish. For Gareth the parish of Stranmillis was never the be all and end all his vision was for the world wide church.

5. His durability Gareth served for forty years and he had in that time two Sunday's off sick, I have been involved in ministry in one shape or another now for 17 years, in that time I have been blessed by God with relative good health. However there have been times when I have been tempted to give in, to give up, to stop doing ministry to go and do something else. Its at those times that the internal sense of call sustains you but Gareth served faithfully for forty years, he stuck at it, he plugged away and he did what the LORD called him to do.

I know its uncommon for son in laws to speak well of their father in law but I hope I am a better minister today for meeting Gareth, for seeing how he works up close. Every minister I have worked with or under I have tried to learn something from them, to take their good points to imitate them as they imitated God. These are just some of the ways that Gareth has impressed me over the years, he is an encourager, a source of wisdom but most of all a faithful servant who is worthy of imitation as he modelled God to his congregation.

The Man He Sees In Me

I stumbled across this song after a podcast by Shane Todd in which he talked about the album "Fathers and Sons" by Luke Combs. I have to confess that I had heard about Luke Combs somewhere in the ether but I never really got him, until I listened to this song and it nearly broke me. I have to confess that whilst listening to it I did have a little cry.

The basic premise of the song, as I understood it anyway, is trying to be the man that your son sees in you, the man who scares the monsters out of the closet in his room, the man who hung the moon but there is a sense of sadness in it because of the realisation that we will never be the man he sees in me.

As the father of five boys this is the question that sometimes crosses my mind, who is the man they see in me? Sometimes the man they see in me is kind, generous, loving, caring but more often than I would care to admit the man they see in me is proud, arrogant, angry, selfish and lives for my own comfort and good.

The bible talks about "the fathers have eaten sour grapes and the children's teeth are set on edge" and there are times in my life when I like the taste of sour grapes, times in my life when sin reigns and the consequence of that can easily be passed on to my children, thats the man that they see in me, the sinner, the lover of self.

Yet in isolation this would drive us to despair wouldn't it? If the salvation of our children depended on my example as a father then all would be lost because I could never cope with that pressure and I could never set an example that would save them. Rather what I hope for my boys (and girl) is that they learn to look beyond their earthly father, look beyond his flaws and instead they look to their heavenly father.

Their heavenly father who will never let them down, their heavenly father who sent his only son to die for their sin, their heavenly father who loves them and cares for them. The song finishes with the author looking at his grandson riding on his sons knee and his prayer that his son would be the man he saw in him for all those years. I don't want my children to grow up to be like me, I want them to be better, to be more Godly, I don't want them to grow up to be the man they see in me I want them to grow up to be the man they see in Jesus.

You can listen to the song here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yNRW8en2pp8
 

The Spirit Of The Game

I have to confess that I am a cricket addict, it doesn't matter who is on I'll be watching. So you can imagine my excitement at this time of the summer as the Ashes rolls around. I suspect that even if you aren't that into cricket it has invaded your consciousness over the past few days due to the incident involving England wicketkeeper Jonny Bairstow.

For those of you who haven't heard, there was controversy when Jonny Bairstow, assuming the ball to not be in play anymore wondered from his crease and was promptly stumped by the Australian wicketkeeper Alex Carey. The controversy doesn't surround if Bairstow was in or out everyone agrees that he was out, according to the laws of the game, the controversy surrounds if what Carey and the Australian team did was within the "spirit of the game".

Cricket has always considered itself a gentleman's game, where if you nick the ball to the wicketkeeper you walk, if the ball goes for a boundary you signal it and somehow what the Australians did it was felt went against this "spirit of the game."

What has transpired in the past few days has been nothing short of astounding. The Prime Minister of the United Kingdom Rishi Sunak weighed in declaring that what Australia had done was against the spirit of the game, a few of the quotes from the England players have stood out to me though.

Stuart Broad, the England bowler in a column for the Daily Mail said this:

I was angered by Australia’s decision, particularly having heard their lines about creating a new legacy as a team, and how they have changed since the tour of South Africa in 2018.

Fair enough you might be tempted to think, here is an England player seeking to uphold the spirit of the game, that is until you remember that Stuart wasn't so keen to uphold the spirit of the game when he refused to walk after nicking the ball to slip twice. Or there was the reaction of England head coach Brendon McCullum who said that England would have chosen not to uphold their appeal and therefore Bairstow would have been declared not out. That again sounds good and very sporting but yet again when we consider McCullum's history when he controversially ran out a Sri Lankan player celebrating a team mates hundred it begins to ring a bit hollow. Perhaps the England team itself can be held up to be bastions of the so called spirit of the game...or perhaps not, consider the world cup final when Stokes deflected the ball over the boundary for four crucial runs from a throw. Surely the spirit of the game would have said well next ball we won't play a shot but of course with the game on the line that couldn't be done.

Perhaps we should consider the run out of Colin DeGrandhomme in similar circumstances last year again the appeal was not withdrawn again similarly in a one day international v New Zealand when Ryan Sidebottom an England bowler ran into the New Zealand batsman who was subsequently run out the appeal was not withdrawn.

Now what is the point in all this? Well quite simply this is how we often try and deal with God isn't it? Like the England cricket team we might say we have done some bad things but we aren't as bad as the person down the road, we aren't as bad as the worst of the worst and therefore actually because we aren't as bad as them then God will tolerate our sin.

The problem comes though when we realise that God's standard isn't the Australian cricket team, it isn't our friend down the road, but God's standard is perfection and if we are honest we all know that we have fallen far short of that standard of perfection. We all know that we have done things that aren't right, we all know that we have said things that are hurtful and we all know in our heart of hearts that we fail to meet that standard.

Yet thats the good news of the gospel, that there is one who is perfect, there is one who has always done what is right, there is one who was good and kind and true. Jesus came and laid down his life so that through faith in Him, His perfection could be our perfection, his obedience could be our obedience. Dont settle for comparing yourself to someone else but rather come to know Jesus as your saviour and know His perfect obedience for yourself today.

Book Review: Devoted To God's Church Sinclair B. Ferguson

 

I bought this book just after Christmas with some gift vouchers someone in the congregation had kindly given me and it is quite simply a superb little book. Sinclair Ferguson authored a book a few years ago entitled "Devoted to God" which was essentially a manual on discipleship, this volume with a similar name instead focuses on how as Christians we are called to be devoted to God's church. It is a very timely book given the current situation we find ourselves in with churches being largely online, with very little accountability on attendance or not, but also in an age where church attendance in general is declining this book is a helpful counter to that.

There are 11 chapters in the book each focusing on slightly different aspects of the life of the gathered church, ranging from mission to preaching to prayer. I have to say the chapter i found most helpful was the first chapter and the simple focus Ferguson had on just showing up to church. The contrast he draws out with the Rotary club membership is fascinating. If you are a member of the Rotary club the constitution states that you have to be there, you have to make up missed meetings somewhere else or face the consequences. If that is true of something as insignificant as the Rotary club then surely how much more seriously should we take church attendance and participation? This was a tremendous tonic to the current climate in which people struggle to commit or if they do commit it will only be to a very limited amount of time and energy.

This book isn't a long read, only 180 odd pages and it is interwoven with some very helpful, very down to earth illustrations which bring home the truths to the reader in a very relatable way. The call to be devoted to God's church is one that as followers of Jesus we all need to take seriously and this book will help us along the road to that devotion.

The book can be purchased here

How Long O LORD?

 How long? A question we have found ourselves asking a lot of late isn't it? How much longer will I have to homeschool for? How much longer before I can get back to work? How much longer will this lockdown last? How much longer will I have to wait until I can get the vaccine? How long until everything is back to normal? 

Maybe you have been asking some spiritual questions of a similar nature? How long before we are back together as a church? How much longer before we can sing together? Its been a year of deep frustration for many of us and a year I dont think many of us could have imagined living through and at the heart of it has been this frustration with that question of how long?

The Psalmist has a fairly similar experience in Psalm 13 in fact he asks exactly the same question how long O LORD? How long will you forget me? How long will you hide your face from me? It is easy in the situation we are in at the moment to feel that way isn't it? To feel like the LORD has forgotten us, to feel helpless and hopeless.

We get a sense of the Psalmists problem in v.2 where he asks the question how long shall my enemy be exalted over me? Yet what solution does the Psalmist offer? Well we see that in v.5 he trusts in the steadfast love of the LORD, the covenant love that the LORD has for his people and because of that his heart can rejoice in the salvation of the LORD, he can sing to the LORD because he has dealt bountifully with me.

As he looks around the Psalmist sees reasons for despair, he sees foes prospering, he sees his own weakness, he sees the sorrow in his heart, he sees his enemies prevailing over him. As we look around it is easy to see reasons for despair, the mounting deaths associated directly or indirectly with COVID 19, we see the wicked prospering, we can see and sense our own weakness.

The solution to the question of how long isn't to look around but its to look up, to remind ourselves of the covenant love of the LORD which never fails, to see the steadfast love of the LORD displayed on the cross through his son Jesus Christ, truly in the midst of asking how long will it be until we can say I will sing to the LORD because despite what I can see around me at the moment he has dealt bountifully with me.

There is an excellent modern rendition of this Psalm which can be found at:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WaMPbjkprQ0

Book Review "Therefore The Truth I Speak" Donald MacLeod

I posted an extract from Donald MacLeod's new book the other day in a blog trying to explain why the government couldn't unilaterally force churches to close but now that I have finished the book I thought it might be a good idea to post a fuller review of the whole book.

This book is a gem of a book, people today deride history newer is better there are no lessons to be learned from the people of the past, but MacLeod in this volume illustrates why that is so foolish. The characters in this book may be from 1500-1700 but the lessons the issues they are facing could well be taken from 21st Century church history, what role does the state have in the church? When is it right to listen to the king and when is it right to disobey him?

The book is a relatively straightforward read, Donald MacLeod writes in a way that is academic but it is accessible for the interested, this volume isn't as scholarly as say MacLeod's "The Person Of Christ" but it does not lack scholarly rigour.

Each chapter takes a person from the period of time and works through the lessons that they taught the church at the time and what those lessons might mean for us in the church today. Figures covered include Patrick Hamilton and George Wishart, John Knox, Andrew Melville, Robert Bruce, Alexander Henderson, Samuel Rutherford, David Dickson and Robert Leighton. Interspersed with historical sketches other more topical chapters are written including on Federal Theology, the impact of Rutherford's Lex Rex and the Second Book of Discipline. 

This book is no hagiography the charachters dealt with are dealt with fairly their good points are emphasised but by no means are there flaws hidden. What you come away from this book with is a sense of the importance of Scottish Theology on the whole presbyterian church worldwide, with a sense of the deep peity of the men and women involved and the cost associated with being a presbyterian in Scotland in 1500-1700, most of the characters studied ended up deposed, in prison, or killed for their faith.

If you would like to buy a copy of the book you can find it here:

Evangelical Bookshop

Is Online Church Really Church?

  Your Facebook feed, like mine has probably been inundated recently with images like this, ministers recording sermons for Youtube having the most embarrassing thumbnails created. It has been amazing to see the way that the church has responded to the Covid19 crisis and things that seemed impossible or unthinkable six months ago are now commonplace. Yet with the restrictions on worship being lifted in the U.K. at least it got me thinking about the issue of what church is.

Fundamentally the church is a gathering...its a group of people, however big or small coming together to praise and worship God and to encourage one another in our walk with God. The classic proof text of this is of course Hebrews 10:25,

    "not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near." (E.S.V.)

Now we should be clear here and say that this verse in context was written to a group of Christians who were tempted to turn their back on Jesus and go back to the Old Covenant way of doing things, the letter is written to encourage them to cling to Christ and not to go back. So we cant just take this verse and say you see every church should be meeting this Sunday because its a clear command of God. Yet this verse does help us because its clear that meeting together should be the norm for Christian people, why? So that we can encourage one another, so that we can spur one another on towards love and good deeds. The Christian life lived in isolation is a difficult life, the Christian life in isolation will be a struggle, will be a Christian life where we remain blind to our own sins and difficulties.

Yet this isn't the only text in the bible that speaks about Churches, yet I cant find a reference to church in my bible where it is to an individual, there may be small churches, there may be house churches but an individual, one person church, is an oxymoron.

Which brings us back to online church and the question if it is really church or not? This is where I am struggling because i am not sure that it is, it is impossible to gather online in any meaningful way, we can watch the same sermon, we can listen to the same songs at roughly the same time but thats not the same as church in my opinion. We can zoom afterwards to our hearts content but that isn't the same as looking someone in the eye, as seeing their movements and their body language.

I wonder if we are so reluctant to return to church services because online church is so much easier? Its nice to sit in our pyjamas with a cup of tea and watch, its nice to be able to pause and rewind as a child screams about something insignificant but friends we are missing out on so much by not being able to meet together. 

Two Kings In Two Kingdoms

I have recently been reading and enjoying Donald MacLeod's latest book on the theology and theologians of Scotland. Like yours my social media newsfeed has been full in recent days of the discussion of churches closing during the latest wave of the Covid19 pandemic. This follows on from the Scottish Government's unilateral decision that churches on mainland Scotland would close, with very little consultation with the churches involved. It also follows on from the Northern Ireland executive decision to discuss with churches today (Wednesday 6th January) the possibility of moving church services back online again.




This is where MacLeod's book helps us understand what is going on and especially his discussion on Andrew Melville, in it we are reminded that when Melville speaking to king James said this,




"Sir, we will always humbly reverence your majesty in public; but since we have this occasion to be with your majesty in private, and since you are brought in extreme danger both of your life and crown, and along with you the country and the church of God or like to go to wreck, for not telling you the truth and giving you faithful counsel, we must discharge our duty, or else be traitors both to Christ and you. Therefore, Sir, as diverse times before I have told you so now again I must tell you, there are two kings and two kingdoms in Scotland: there is King James the head of this commonwealth, and there is Christ Jesus the King of the church, whose subject James the sixth is, and of whose kingdom he is not a king, nor a lord, nor a head, but a member. Sir, those whom Christ has called and commanded to watch over his church, have power and authority from him to govern his spiritual kingdom both jointly and severally; the which no Christian king or prince should control and discharge, but fortify and assist; otherwise they are not faithful subjects of Christ and members of his church. We will yield to you your place, and give you all due obedience; but again I say, you are not the head of the church: you cannot give us that eternal life which we seek for even in this world, you cannot deprive us of it.'




The bit in bold is the famous bit and the bit that helps us understand the current situation but I thought it was worth quoting in a fuller way. The legacy that Melville and Melvillian Presbyterianism has left us is what has become known as the two kingdoms. There is a legitimate kingdom over which the civil magistrate, in this case the king, in our case parliament has a rule but that kingdom is not the church of Christ. We as citizens of that kingdom owe allegiance to the rules and powers and authorities of that kingdom so far as its reach extends. Yet this civil power does not rule over the church, therefore the government cannot tell churches to close, they cannot compel churches to close, they can ask, they can advise, they can make it difficult for us to meet, they can even make it illegal for us to meet but as the church we must make the final decision. Will we meet as Christians or not? Will we gather as the church or not? Will we choose as the Covenanters did to meet in fields, in barns and risk persecution, fines, arrest and imprisonment?

This is where the fundamental difference between Northern Irish and Scottish governments arises, I think both will end at the same place with churches offering only online worship, but the Northern Irish government didn't impose this restriction, they talked to the church, and no doubt threatened that if compliance wasn't forthcoming then it would be compulsory. Yet the Scottish government acted unilaterally reaching beyond their powers over the church of Christ.

Now I fully accept that different Christians will come to different answers over this, some seeing the severity of the current situation will gladly move online for a season to help us get over this hump, others will say that if the church cannot preach Christ, eternity and the good news of the gospel in the midst of a global pandemic when will they preach it?




Friends let us deal with one another in charity and love, let us speak well of one another and let us look to the day when we will all worship the Lamb together around the throne of grace.

Book Review: Finding The Right Hills To Die On

I am grateful to crossway and Netgalley.com for an advance review copy of this book. This is a short little book but it is an excellent book in every way. Ortlund sets out the premise that we need theological triage in our day, just as a doctor arriving at an accident would prioritise which patient to treat so we too in days of decline in the Western Church need to know what doctrines should and shouldn't stop us from working with other Christians.



Ortlund does this helpfully by setting out three categories of doctrine, those which every Christian should hold to and which are essential to the Christian faith, the examples of this that he sights are the Virgin Birth and justification through faith alone, helpfully he reminds us that not being able to articulate justification through faith alone at the moment of conversion is a very different category from a believer who knows and denies the doctrine. We should be gentle with the one and perhaps less gentle with the other.



The second category that Ortlund identifies are important doctrines over which Christians may legitimately disagree but which are not essential to the faith. The most common example he cites for this is the practice of baptism either creedobaptism or peadobaptism. Christians throughout history have disagreed on this subject have disagreed on the method and mode of baptism. This is a cause Ortlund argues to divide the church because to not do so would be disingenuous. To be united using a doctrinal minimalism would be confusing both for the ledership and the congregation. However helpfully he calls us back to remember that separation from each other doesn't mean that we are called to throw rocks at one another rather we are called to love one another and look out for one another good even in the midst of difference.





The third category that Ortlund cites are things which have traditionally been called things indifferent, things that are important because they are revealed to us in God's word but things on which salvation doesn't hinge. The examples cited for this are the seven days of Genesis 1 and the thousand years of Revelation 20.




I think the beauty of this book is that it doesn't give any answers, in fact it causes more questions as I read the book I began almost doing my own theological triage, well is the role of women in the church a first order thing or a second order thing as he argues? Do the seven days of Genesis 1 belong in category three or category two? As you read these are the questions you ask and this causes you to question and engage with your own theology that little bit more.



In short, given the days we are living in, given the smallness of many churches certainly in the UK our doctrinal distinctive are becoming less important, we are going to have perform this theological triage more and more often. We are going to have to think well is planting a church of our denomination in a town that has four other gospel churches important or should we go to the area that has no gospel witness at all? You might think the answer to that is straightforward but until we perform this theological triage, until we keep the main thing the main thing sadly the answer may not be as striaght forward as you might hope.



This book serves as the antidote to that thinking, this book calls us to keep the main things the main things and to rejoice in gospel difference when we see it. Every Christian should read this book.

Church Growth V Kingdom Growth

Picture taken from unsplash.com credit Stanislav Kondratiev

I have been having the same conversation recently with a lot of people it seems. The conversation goes something like this:

Q: How are you getting on?

A: Yeah not too bad thanks, we are seeing some growth and the church is numerically as strong as it has been for a little while.

OP: Wow that's great.

All that I said in answer to this question is true in Dumfries Free Church we seeing some growth, we are numerically stronger than we have been for a few years now. All of this is good but the thing that really nags away at me, the thing which frustrates me is that we are seeing congregational growth but are we seeing kingdom growth?

What do I mean by that? Our congregation is growing numerically but is the kingdom of God growing numerically? Are people being brought from darkness to light or are Christians coming to our church because they like it? Or more realistically are people coming to our church because they were dissatisfied somewhere else.

Before you get on to my theology I know the kingdom grows in more ways than just people coming to faith, I know that people can grow in their faith and I have no doubt that some of the people who come are growing. Sometimes however I fear that we hide behind this as an excuse for poor evangelism, or a poor mission strategy, we comfort ourselves with the thought, well the church is growing it just isn't growing numerically.

Yet what is the point in shuffling the deckchairs on a sinking Titanic? What is the point in shuffling the Christians around churches in Dumfries when 96% of the population don't go to a church of any stripe at all.

I love seeing our church grow, I love seeing people come in and find a home amongst us, I love seeing new people being integrated and serving within the fellowship, but what I long to see is people being made new with the gospel, is people being transformed by the grace of God and His son Jesus Christ.

I love seeing church growth but I also love seeing Kingdom growth, seeing the kingdom of darkness rolled back and the kingdom of light expanding. Lets strive for both because as the kingdom grows the church grows.

Why are you fighting sin?

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.

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.

The most foolish sage in Christendom

The following words form the Apostle Paul have been on my mind in recent times and they come from 1st Corinthians:

 For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.  For it is written:


“I will destroy the wisdom of the wise;
the intelligence of the intelligent I will frustrate.”

 Where is the wise person? Where is the teacher of the law? Where is the philosopher of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not know him, God was pleased through the foolishness of what was preached to save those who believe.  Jews demand signs and Greeks look for wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified: a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, but to those whom God has called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.  For the foolishness of God is wiser than human wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than human strength.

Brothers and sisters, think of what you were when you were called. Not many of you were wise by human standards; not many were influential; not many were of noble birth. But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong.  God chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things—and the things that are not—to nullify the things that are,  so that no one may boast before him.  It is because of him that you are in Christ Jesus, who has become for us wisdom from God—that is, our righteousness, holiness and redemption. Therefore, as it is written: “Let the one who boasts boast in the Lord.”

There have been no shortage of people in recent days, highly intelligent people lining up to tell us what Jesus would say about this or that topic. Sadly however much of it disagrees with what Jesus himself tells us in the Bible.

The very danger is that we buy into the world's view of wisdom, the world lauds us for our intelligence, our understanding and our progressive outlook. When we are tempted by this it is good to come back to the words of Paul.

The message of the cross will never be acceptable to the intellectual elite, it is after all the message of murdered saviour, the wise things in the world have been shamed by the things that are not. This is not to say that Christianity is a religion that will not bear scrutiny and test. However it is not a religion that will be proved by our own understanding alone.

I am happy to be considered an intellectual Pygmy and to preach the message of the cross which I do because I know that in preaching that message truly I am standing on the shoulders of giants. 

One Year On

Tomorrow marks the day when I will have been ordained into the position of minister of Dumfries Free Church of Scotland. I have had cause to reflect over the past weeks about the past year and some of the things that I have learned:

i) I am a great sinner who needs the grace of Jesus Christ every day. People assume that the ministers have it together and sometimes we do however most of the time we dont. Most of the time we are sinners who are doing their best to minister to other sinners. I still get it wrong I still have those wrong thoughts and still get angry and still...fill in every sin that is in your life because it probably is in mine as well.

This is designed to constantly throw me back on the grace of Jesus Christ because without him I can do nothing, without the working of the Holy Spirit we will achieve nothing. The day that I forget this the day when I think I have it all together is probably the day when it is time when I am in greatest danger.

ii) Not every sermon will change the world. If we are honest when we are at college we imagine preaching sermons that will change the world, that will draw thousands in, the sermons that in 50 years time people will still be listening to.

The reality is that few of us will ever reach those heights, few of us are called to exercise such an influential and far reaching ministry. However we are all called to be faithful in our station to preach to the best of our ability week by week and we leave the rest to the LORD.

iii) Not every sermon is useless, see above. The most discouraging thing in ministry is to think that the word is doing no work, that your sermons are nothing but 30 minute epilogs which have no effect. Yet in reality sometimes the word is working in people's lives in ways we cannot see or appreciate. People who are becoming slowly but surely changed from one degree of glory to the next.

iv) Ministry is hard work we are constantly giving of ourselves, giving of our time and our energy to serve the people of God and of course that is what we are called to do. However many people assume that what they see on Sunday is the result of five minutes work on Saturday night when the reality is that it is the result of study during the week coupled with concern for Mrs. Jones who is in hospital, Mr. Brown who has just been bereaved and a worry about so many things that happen in the church during the week.

I say this not to have some kind of pity party but until you have been there in the coal face of the ministry it is impossible to imagine the emotional burden and weight that your pastor carries round, the stress and anxiety that he is under.

v) Sunday night tea is a terrible idea...by Sunday night I am exhausted I have poured myself into preaching twice emotionally and physically I am drained, you get to the end of the service and people want to talk to you about their bunions. If I have seemed grumpy on a Sunday night this is why not because I dont care but because at that point I have no energy left.

Ministry is a great privilege, it is great to be allowed into people's lives to speak the word of God to them but what we remember above all is that we are all sinners saved by grace until Christ returns none of our churches will be perfect but until he does we strive to love one another better and to live lives worthy of the calling we have received.

Everyday ethics: Exposing The Divide

At the gym this morning I was listening to a BBC Radio Ulster programme entitled "Everyday Ethics" a weekly programme discussing as it suggests the ethics of the modern day world. Last weeks edition focused largely on the decision of the Presbyterian Church in Ireland to ban from membership all of those who did not have a credible profession of faith.


I have to say that I largely enjoyed the programme and the back and forth nature of the debate but it did expose some of the divisions that exist within the P.C.I and to be fair any broad church and that divide focuses on scripture and God's revelation of himself.


One of the contributors Rev. David Latimer made the following statement "that the great commandment of the Christian faith is that we love our neighbour as ourself." This is of course quoting the very words of Jesus himself I mean what could be wrong with that? Well that is the whole problem isn't it? The words of Jesus just quoted above are divorced from their original context.

A teacher of the law has just asked Jesus what is the greatest commandment in the law and Jesus answers you shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind this is the first and greatest commandment and the second is like it: You shall love your neighbour as yourself.

Focusing on the second commandment that Jesus gives here removes the focus from the first our love for our neighbour is an expression of our love for God. By nature we are creatures who seek our own good we are selfish the only way this can be changed is when we love God who reached out to us in His son Jesus Christ.

Rev. Latimer also makes the astonishing claim that the bible did not know anything about homosexuality which is just a staggering claim. The law makes clear that the bible knows about homosexuality:

Leviticus 18:22 states "You shall not lie with a male as with a woman: it is an abomination." Now there are several things to say about this firstly this command comes amidst a long list of sexual sins all of which are condemned. Sometimes as evangelicals we can be focused on same sex marriage and ignore perhaps our own sexual sin or the sexual sin of others.

It should also be stated that this is an Old Testament text and some will say that the New Testament has nothing to say about same sex relationships yet again that is just basically not true. We see Paul is Romans 1:27-27:

"For this reason God gave them up to dishonourable passions. For their woman exchanged natural relations for those that are contrary to nature; and the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another, men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in themselves the due penalty for their error."


Whatever we want to say about this we can say that basically same sex attraction is condemned here it is a symbol of God's judgement, it is a symbol of God giving them over to their passions, it is a symbol of God's judgement on their suppression of truth.


Again we quote Paul in 1st Corinthians 6:

Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. And such were some of you. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.

What does Paul say here? That some in the immoral city of Corinth were men who practiced homosexuality and yet they were washed, they were cleansed in Jesus Christ. Notice Paul doesn't say to them keep on doing what you are doing, keep on living in this sinful lifestyle. Rather he says no now that you have been washed and cleansed now you must live a different life.

Whatever we say it is simply erroneous to say that the bible doesn't mention homosexuality both the New Testament and the Old Testament are clear that homosexuality is something that God condemns. Which brings us to the central problem here.

Is the Bible the word of God or not? Is the Bible the revelation of God or not? If it is then we are bound to live by it however society says the church should respond. If it is then it doesn't really matter what we think it matters what God thinks. If the bible isn't the word of God then we can live any way we want.

However if the bible isn't the word of God then we have no hope of right relationship with God, the bible stands or falls as a whole we cannot say that we want the bits of the bible that talk about Jesus and talk about love of God but not the bits that call us to to repentance. 

Book Review: A Preachers Catechism

I am grateful to netgalley.com and Crossway for an advance review copy of this book. This is a great little book covering some 200 odd pages and sets out for preachers the questions which they ought to be asking themselves week by week as they preach.

This book follows the traditional style of catechism with a question and answer. The questions themselves are largely taken from the Westminster Shorter Catechism with the answers and sometimes the questions slightly altered to reflect that this book is primarily written for preachers.

There are 43 questions in the book split into four sections and each chapter would take maybe five minutes to read but those five minutes do pack quite a punch. I have been preaching now for around 10 years and each of the questions spoke to me and challenged me. Who am I preaching for? Who do I want people to see? Me or God? Do I sometimes use the pulpit? Do I sometimes abuse the pulpit?

The most helpful thing in all of this book was for me the emphasis first and foremost the preacher himself must know God and must remember that he is loved by God regardless of the sermon that he has just preached. He must remember that the sermons he preaches however good or bad make him no less or no more loved in the eyes of God than if he weren't a preacher at all.

One slight issue I did have with the book came towards the end of the book when the author talked about the supper and how often we come to the LORD's table at the end of the service when people are full of the word. Whilst I can see the point that he is making my understanding would be that we come to the sacrament through the word, the sacrament without the word has no meaning and would just be an empty symbol. That however is nit picking in an otherwise excellent book.

Who would benefit from reading this book? Young ministers who are perhaps setting out on the journey to give them a realistic expectation of what ministry will be like. Slightly older ministers who have been preaching for a while and are perhaps becoming weighed down by the day to day of sermon prep. Even ordinary church members in the pew week by week will get something out of reading this book.

Whilst I read this book over one or two sittings I think the book would be better enjoyed perhaps once a week with time to mull over and think about the things the author says.

Lies, Damned Lies and Statistics

So said Mark Twain allegedly quoting Benjamin Disraeli of the three kinds of lies there are, or perhaps if you are less well educated you may prefer the Simpsons version that you can make statistics say anything you want...83% of people know that.

Sunday 13th May was the annual day of Free Church congregational statistics collection and on the surface of it our results look quite encouraging. Our biggest age profile of members is under 35 which given the bigger picture of ageing congregations is quite remarkable. When we consider where the congregation was a few years ago this is all the more remarkable.

How can we explain this rise? What things have we done differently in the past while that we haven't done before? Quite simply nothing we have preached the word, tried to get to know people in the community and share Jesus as best we can.

At the deacons court meeting last night we read this passage and it was such an encouragement to us:

"Our help is in the name of the LORD who made heaven and earth" (Psalm 124:8 ESV) Truly as we look back over the past year we can say the LORD is our help and he has richly provided for us as a congregation.

We have had seven baptisms in the past year which has been another tremendous blessing to us as a congregation and we value each of the six children baptised and the one adult. Whilst this has been a great blessing it does present some challenges as household which were formerly D.I.N.K.Y.'s (double income no kids yet) have been reduced to one salary and therefore understandably their ability to contribute to the church has gone down. As a congregation we face significant financial pressures in the year ahead.


Our next biggest age category is the over 70'  of whom we have 8 it is great to have these faithful saints with us but again looking forward this reliance on older believers is not sustainable. The category of member we are missing are those from 35-60 who perhaps are empty Nester, who have more disposable time and income they could share with us.

On the surface of things our statistics are not impressive, we are a small fellowship in a small denomination but given where we were truly we can say the LORD has been good to us. But are we happy to rest on our laurels? I hope not we haven't begun to scratch the surface yet we are 30/40 people in a town of 30,000 we live in the council area with the joint lowest church attendance in Scotland. So quite simply we cannot afford to rest on our laurels, quite simply we need to keep multiplying and making more disciples.

That is where you come in...how can you help us? 3 ways:

i) Pray intercede on our behalf before the God of the universe the God to whom the cattle on a thousand hills belong. Ask that resources would be found, ask for blessing our work and witness within the town itself. You may not be able to give you may not be able to go but you can certainly pray.

ii) Give as was mentioned our congregational income v expenditure remains a challenge however given the age profile of our congregation I think there is reason to be hopeful for the future. If you feel led then you can give money to our Stewardship account which would be a tremendous encouragement to us.

iii) Come I know its a big ask to move to a new town but don't underestimate the encouragement that one family could be to the congregation, don't underestimate the difference that one or two people in the age category we are missing could make to the life and witness of the congregation. The gospel as we are told in Acts turns the world upside down and our desire is to see Dumfries turned upside down with the gospel, could you consider serving by moving here? By coming and sharing what God is doing with us.

If you would like any more information please don't hesitate to contact me on trevordkane@gmail.com .

Save The 8th

Last week saw the historic vote in Ireland to repeal the 8th Amendment which guaranteed both the live of the mother and the unborn baby that she was carrying. Part of the argument for the repealing of the 8th Amendment was that it would create a more fair, more equal society. A society where women have freedom over their own bodies, a society where the Catholic church doesn't hold sway.

I mention this in passing only to set the context, yesterday's Times newspaper in Scotland carried the headline figures on abortion 12,212 abortions carried out in Scotland last year, 12,212 babies who never had the chance of life, 12,212 boys and girls with untold potential to bring joy and happiness who never got to take their first breath.

The most shocking statistic for me was the rise of mothers who already have children who have decided not to have any more children who become pregnant and then decide to have an abortion. This was the most heartbreaking paragraph I think I have ever read:

"In Scotland, as in England and Wales, we see that the women choosing to access services are increasingly those who already have children, who tend to be slightly older and who may feel that they have already completed their family. This is not a story of irresponsibility or failure to understand what having a child would mean; this is about women who are making a grown up decisions about the shape and size of their family." (Times Wednesday 30th May 2018)

Here it is in all its reality this is not about creating a more liberal, more tolerant society this is about using abortion as a contraceptive, this is about people who decide that they dont want another baby. To me this breaks my heart, when we move away from God we become not a more caring society we become less caring.

We become a society wherein it is ok to abort an unborn baby because we dont want her, by all means have abortion on tap if you want but lets call it what it is, lets call it a convenience, lets call it a contraceptive but please dont dress it up as a liberalisation, dont dress it up as helping the weak and the vulnerable in society..because it plainly isn't and the BPAS comments above show that the mask is slipping.

Understanding The Times

I took this photo of the River Nith which flows through Dumfries town centre a few months ago at the height of "The Beast From The East". I love walking along by the river bank through the town firstly because it is a beautiful walk and secondly because you never know who you might meet.


On any given day you could meet one of the local people who is struggling with addiction problems, you could meet a young professional who is on her lunch break, you could meet a retired man who has sat on that same bench at the same time for the past 5 years, you could meet the tourist who was pulled up in their motorhome beside the river, you just never know.

Why am I telling you all this? What does it have to do with anything? I was reading a book recently and in the book it contained the story of Henry Frost who was involved in the setting up on the North American component of the China Inland Mission (C.I.M). The book makes this observation about Frost "Despite Frost's long-continued passion for mission to China and to the Chinese, there is not a single sharply focused picture of an individual Chinese in all his memoirs, nor any passage showing critical understanding or culturally sensitive sympathy with Chinese practices and customs." (The Message Of Mission pg.135)

Whilst Frost was deeply concerned with the mission to the Chinese people he didn't take time to get to know a Chinese person they were always at arms length, a project. Whilst Frost was deeply concerned with the mission to the Chinese people he didn't take time to understand or sympathise with what made the nation tick what their preconceived ideas where. The people were just a mass of people waiting to be converted.

How often do we apply the same principle to ourselves? We preach in Dumfries but if you read my diary how many individual people would come accross? How much time am I spending understanding the culture of Dumfries and what makes the people tick? How often are we happy to see the people as a mass needing converting rather than individual people with individual problems.

It is possible to do all this while still having a burning vision and passion for the people, Frost's passion for the Chinese was undeniable, he longed to see them come to Christ but that perhaps didn't come across in the way he went about his work.

If we want to see the gospel spread lets get to know people, lets talk to them as human beings, lets see what makes them tick, understand their presuppositions and then we can answer life's big questions that they will have with the gospel.

If people in years to come were to read our memoirs (or our tweets) what would they find? A passion for the lost? I hope so but more than that men and women who spoke and prayed and laughed and loved individual people.

Walk along the river stop and chat to the people who are there because you never know just who they might be.

Moderator...Ready

So begins every session of the General Assembly of the Free Church Of Scotland...well not quite but it would certainly be entertaining if it did. As a first time commissioner of the General Assembly I thought that I would offer my reflections on the week that has just been.

Firstly what a joy it was, I can honestly say that, to come together with some of the other ministers and elders from the denomination, to sing praise, to pray together and discuss the future of the church together was a real pleasure for me. It was so encouraging to see everyone pulling in the same direction and to have conversations about gospel growth throughout Scotland.

It was good to catch up with some old friends and hear of their encouragements within the work and their problems, to meet new men and find out about places that I had never heard of before such as Plockton, im still not sure where it is but it was a delight to meet their minister Roddie Rankin.

Secondly I learned the importance of speaking when you think something is important, in a strange way I learned this from not saying anything. One of the reports I read I thought about an amendment to it for ages but I lacked the courage to actually propose the amendment only for it to come out that many people had the same idea but didn't propose an amendment.

Thirdly I learned the importance of disagreeing well, over the course of the week there were some disagreements but in all of that time I don't feel that the tone ever turned nasty, the toned never wandered into vindictiveness. This is so important in church gatherings we can disagree but we must disagree well, we must debate well with respect and honesty. I am glad for the wisdom and guidance of our moderator Angus Macrae and I am grateful also for the men with whom I personally disagree. I am not always right and it is good to have those other voices there as a corrective.

Fourthly I learned the depth of feeling there is within the church, when as an assembly we had to deal with difficult circumstances I can honestly say that I felt the sadness of the whole assembly, there was no joy only deep deep sadness which again speaks of a denomination that cares for one another.

The general assembly doesn't always get the best press but I can say with my whole heart I had a great week that I am thankful to God for the assembly and I am thankful to God for the Free Church of Scotland.