How many theologians does it take to turn the light on?

During the morning I read up on some philosophical/theological/moral puzzles. I like to be ahead of the game on apologetics (for which read – arguing with others).\r\n\r\nEvolution. Creation. Global Disasters.Sexuality and Gender. Truth. Evil and A Good God.\r\n\r\nWith these high thoughts in mind and a sudden realisation of a meeting looming I popped out to my local shopping high street to buy a printer ink cartridge for a last minute printing of a recent document (another Great Puzzle: why do cartridges and staplers run out at critical times?)\r\n\r\nIt was an emergency. I was in a desperate rush.\r\n\r\nBut even so, when I had parked the car and run to the high street, I stopped in my tracks.\r\n\r\nLiterally.\r\n\r\nStanding still in the middle of the pedestrianised shopping area.\r\n\r\nI stood and looked at the generally old and generally poor people passing by me who live and shop in my part of the city.\r\n\r\nAnd I couldn’t image that any one of the great puzzles that filled my mind today were of any concern to any of these people. And certainly not in the terms I was thinking of them.\r\n\r\nWhy have we lost the means to communicate the gospel effectively to the ordinary person?\r\n\r\nBased on this experience alone I would have to suggest it’s because we are misguidedly preparing to answer imaginary questions from an (equally, for most of us) imaginary well educated, chattering class of people; imaginary people whose images are formed in our heads I suspect by the voices on radios and televisions which have become the models for erudite religious argument. No wonder we can’t measure up!\r\n\r\nWilliam Temple put it this way: …\r\n

“if you do not want to trust God or to find a God to trust, then no amount of argument will lead you to it. The desire must be kindled in some other way than argument.”

\r\nA fuller extract of Archbishop Temple’s quote is worth reading …here..

Conversations you never hear (1) – with a small church that wants a vicar

Here’s an opening line to a conversation you never hear.\r\n\r\n“You can have your church buildings, or you can have a vicar, but you can’t have both”\r\n\r\nWe’re in a strange world where it’s easier to remove clergy than sell buildings. Two reasons for this immediately come to mind. First, there’s a belief that keeping the buildings (up)together keeps the congregation together, and this combination of buildings and people IS the church. Second, it’s simply easier for a diocese to reorganise to reduce staff than to sell assets. Presumably this is done in the hope that one day effective leadership will grow the church back to full occupancy and full staff numbers.\r\n\r\nBut as my bishop says, the first task of leadership is to define reality.\r\n\r\nIf there’s a small church, getting smaller, where no-one has come to faith for a decade, and without the income to support the buildings let alone a full time member of the clergy, then something has to give.\r\n\r\nIt’s reality.\r\n\r\nBut of course a small church, like any church, wants it all. It’s had it in the past, and in it’s own collective conciousness the past is the model for the future.\r\n\r\nBut wouldn’t it be a great conversation starter, in answer to the demand for a new vicar, to offer one or the other, the buildings or the staff?\r\n\r\nIt’ll never happen of course, but if it did I suspect the conversation on its own might start to radically redefine a church.

Five-fold Puzzle

Over the weekend I heard yet another sermon on the five-fold ministries of Ephesians 4.

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Apostle. Prophet. Evangelist. Pastor. Teacher.

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That’s four, five times this year?

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It seems to be common currency in the church at the moment, like the theme of ‘discipleship’. And like the theme of discipleship, preachers and teachers aren’t going deeper and either asking difficult questions or explaining in detail what they mean.

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For example, here’s something I’ve never heard preachers discuss.

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  • How are these five gifts to be distributed within the church?
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There’s plenty of talk about what these gifts are for, or how they work, but no sense of whether everyone should expect to use one or more of these gifts in the church.

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For example, while it’s possible that everyone may be gifted in one or more of these five-fold ministries, it’s by no means obvious from scripture that that is the case. But if these gifts aren’t for everyone – why not?

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So what is the premise of the sermon? Is it really a sermon about about church organisation?

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Again, that is an angle I’ve never heard expounded in detail. Why isn’t the church isn’t organised to allow these gifts to be used appropriately? In fact, some churches are organised specifically to exclude some people from certain gifts because of their gender. Some are excluded by their age. Some by their education. Some by common sense (how many Apostles can one church take!)

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Anyway, while this puzzles me every time I hear the sermon it troubles hardly any of the churches in my chosen denomination. As long we have a warden, a treasurer, a secretary and hopefully at least a part of a vicar, we’ll be OK.

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Although that’s getting harder too.

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Parable of the Bowls … or ‘What it’s like going to church for the first time’

My neighbour Bill (it’s appropriate to change his name) was on my case. He wanted me to play bowls at the local club in the park. He’d been once with his wife Jackie (not her real name, of course) and loved it.

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Bill would talk to me about joining him at the club, perhaps with our wives to make up a foursome, as we made our way home from the tennis courts, past the bowls club, in the early evenings of the summer. Whenever he raised the prospect I pointed into the club and jeered. Not at any club member in particular. Just jeering in general.

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To be honest, the bowls club gave me the heebie-jeebies. From what I’d seen all the members dress the same, white shoes, white trousers, white shirts, white caps, and – important to someone like me fending off the passing of years – white hair. And imagine being trapped in a small enclosure of hedges and railings with people I didn’t know and had nothing in common with.

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But the pressure was mounting. The summer was ending.

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It was now or never said Bill.

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We finally gave in.

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The evening came several weeks ago when the four us ambled up to the bowls club, my wife and I and our evangelists by our side. My steps were getting slower as we got closer. My whole body was crying out for an emergency to take place in the children’s play area so I would have to stop and administer comfort and solace to the parents of a poor child as we waited for the ambulance. But God didn’t answer that prayer (I knew it! Never when you need it).

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We arrived at the gate. It was not inviting. Because of the eight foot high yew hedge there was no way to see who or what was going on in the club. The gate in the hedge gave a foreboding screech as we entered and there, suddenly, was a startling freeze-frame tableau. About twenty elderly (sorry, sprightly) people immediately turned towards us and froze – some of them in mid-bowling action, one foot forward, bowl ready, but perfectly still. Twenty cap peaks pointing at us as if to accuse us of being … NEW PEOPLE!!

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Suddenly it was all action (albeit at a jolly snails pace). One member took the shopping trolley (yep, they’d stolen one from Asda) past the nice little club house to find sixteen bowls in the portakabin (“sorry they don’t quite match; we don’t have many visitors. Make do and mend …”). We were taken to our allotted place,  slot, or aisle (not sure what it’s called) and off we went.

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I confess, the bowls was fun. It’s not decent to be competitive with neighbours, but that didn’t stop us making up our own scoring system and keeping score. And bowls has an attractive nerdy quality to it.

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During a couple of ends a senior member came and gave us encouraging comments. At one point the club secretary came and suggested we might like to look over the membership forms in the club house. There was lots of cheerful banter from the ‘folk’ next to us.

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We wrapped it up halfway through the evening because Bill and Jackie wanted to get back home to see “The Great British Bake-off” and we wanted to go to the pub first. I refused to share in pushing the trolley back, but from my bench I could hear the cheerful banter as my three competitors said their goodbyes, and resisted the invitations to drink at the nice little bar in the clubhouse (“…it’s cheaper than The Victoria!”).

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Thank goodness that was over.

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Although getting there felt like walking to the dentist, at least we were walking through a park in a truly beautiful summers evening. The event itself was pleasant enough, we escaped without commitment, our friends are still friends, and we pasted the experience into the scrap book of things to talk about in the winter when the nights draw in.

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But for me, and bowls, I won’t be going back.

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A Church Graft of … One

One strategy to re-purpose a church is to ‘graft’ in some new members from a younger/fuller/richer church to add resources and critical mass.

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There seems to be an accepted view that fifty new adults is around the number required to make a graft work.

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But if I were a bishop I think I would hope that every appointment of a new clergy person to a post would be a church graft …

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… of one.

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It should be, shouldn’t it?

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7 Top Tips for growing Messy Church

It’s a common story. Regular guests at Messy Church are making little or no progress towards becoming more involved in the life of the whole church, and if a growing church is the aim – then Messy Church isn’t working. Many church leaders are now stuck with bacon sandwiches and crafts once a month and are desperately asking: what’s next?\r\n\r\nThere is a key mistake in the way we think of Messy Church.\r\n\r\nTo put it simply, we need to stop seeing Messy Church as an introductory church programme designed to bring people to another, more important programme called ‘Main Church’. And it follows that we need to stop treating guests as attendees in an organization and start treating them as family members in a family.\r\n\r\nWith that in mind, here are my seven top tips for taking Messy Church to the next level.\r\n\r\n1   Appoint a pastor. The pastor will be the focal point for developing a strong community within Messy Church. It may be a member of the clergy or it could be an experienced lay person. It might be a great role for an experienced couple. Whoever it is, the pastor needs lots of time to be the pastor and take responsibility for the welfare and concern of their flock, a flock which may be made up mainly of people who don’t go to church. A word on gender: the pastor could be male or female, but consideration should be given to how to engage the fathers and grandfathers who come with mothers and children and just read the papers. My observation is that fathers are usually much less comfortable at Messy Church.\r\n\r\n2   Localise the goals. As long as the goal is to move ‘attendees’ from one programmed event to another event of some perceived greater importance, then leading Messy Church will tend to be impersonal and remote. Instead, set growth goals local to the group. Are friendships growing across the group, do people know each other better this year than last, do they care for each other?  What is the quality of community we are building? Have we pitched our worship at an appropriate level to move on their discipleship? Focus on growth that is possible within the group this year.\r\n\r\n3   Make it personal. Encourage community growth by creating opportunities for people to really get to know each other. Plan times where families can share BBQs, go for walks on Bank Holidays, babysit for each other, learn the names of each other’s children. We say it but don’t believe it: most people need to belong before they believe. In  patient parish ministry we weave a community together over a long time, and the richness of this work depends on our ability to step outside the church walls. In this work Messy Church is a gift. It gives us an natural, fresh opportunity to deepen the quality of our community, but it only happens when people are in close proximity for extended periods of time.\r\n\r\n4   Be personally vulnerable. If Top Tip 3 is Make it Personal, the next has to be make it personal – to you. This is possibly the hardest thing do. In general church leaders want Messy Church to grow through organization and they really, really don’t want to commit to a new set of deep relationships. There simply isn’t time. But the reality is that the true cost of effective leadership is not in organizing a well run event – that’s easy. The real cost  is in the time it takes to become friends. If you never allow people to cross your own personal thresholds then you can never grow a church of deep and high quality community. It’s tough. It’s not only time consuming, it places demands on the whole family, and it can be the source of personal pain and disappointment. But it is an important key to growing Messy Church. Pick leaders who will make leading Messy Church their sole ministry, and be clear about the sacrifice required – in personal time, friendships and church attendance.\r\n\r\n5   Be clear about identity. Rather than hoping to surreptitiously slide people from Messy Church to Main Church, be clear about the identity and limitations of Messy Church. Say up front that Messy Church is a great opportunity for whole families to take part in a simple act of worship, but that it’s only one small part of what mature Christ-followers do. Promote church events. Talk up teaching programmes being used across the church. Invite people to opportunities for deeper worship, for family ministry, for discipleship. Help people see that they belong (not just attend) to something with a clear identity, but which is part of something bigger and richer.\r\n\r\n6   Challenge personal growth. Also be clear about the call and expectations of every Messy Church member in the light of the gospel. Just as we would encourage every-member ministry in the Main Church, so we should create opportunities for personal growth at Messy Church. Ask people to read out loud, to invite their friends to special events, take part in service planning, even to pray in public. We have to create opportunities for the group to serve each other.\r\n\r\n7   Integrate with the whole church. A strong identity allows Messy Church to stand-alone so that people can belong, but we should then create clear opportunities to join and serve the larger church community. This may mean joining in significant acts of worship or other community events, or taking part in leading some aspect of whole-church life, perhaps helping organize a family day or the Christingle service or the summer fair. Plan integration carefully to make sure it happens.\r\n\r\nAll these tips come down to one main point about dedicated leadership in Messy Church:\r\n

Leading Messy Church should be the most important ministry for those that do it. It cannot be a clip-on ministry playing second fiddle to something more important.

\r\nWill it work? I have grown house groups, Alpha courses, nurture groups, pastorates and churches, and all of the above tips have played a key part in every group that’s grown.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nWritten over two weeks in various places, finished in Neros Clifton

So you are Evangelical?

Following the Evangelical Revival in the 18th century the word Evangelical (with a capital ‘E’) came to represent that part of the Church of England that promoted

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  • A high regard for the truth of the Bible
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  • Focus on the atoning work of Christ 
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  • The need for personal conversion
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  • Faith expressed in action and service
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It was known as an ‘Experimental’ religion (rather than a formulaic one perhaps?) meaning that it was both inwardly and outwardly vibrant.

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After a recent discussion on the purpose and progress of the church (the church in the West, that is, and of England specifically; the church in the East is a different matter all together) I am left wondering how many Evangelicals today can rightly own the name?

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Kill it off?

There are churches that are dying. By their own measures they are no longer viable, and by New Testament measures they are no longer Biblical.

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So what’s the best thing to do? Kill them off … or give them an injection of sustaining attention?

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In business, whole companies and whole departments regularly get culled as part of the shaping and pruning of the company/industry/sector. It’s not unusual, and some people are naturals when it comes to making the difficult decision to close something down. In fact, it’s an essential skill of both leadership and management. Kevin Kelly, guru of the digital age, in his book Out of Control says this:

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“It is generally easier to kill an organisation than change it substantially. Organisations by design are not made to adapt … beyond a certain point. Beyond this point it’s much easier to kill them off and start a new one … than it is to change them”

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(check out Kevin Kelly on his blog, or his discussion on the future of the internet on TED)

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But the church is different.

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The church by design was made to grow – continually. What it’s designer had in mind was more of a family than an organisation, with the inherent growth of reproduction built into it’s design. Kelly’s analysis doesn’t apply to a family. The church was meant to be a family that adapts – continually.

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So how can individual churches be dying?

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Because we turn them from families into organisations made in our own image – and Kelly’s analysis does apply to organisations, “its generally easier to kill an organisation than the change it substantially”. 

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So sometimes we are faced with a choice. We may have to kill off the organisation to rediscover the family. If we don’t, in some places we will guarantee losing both.

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But really, who has the courage for that?

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Growth and … Headroom

Growth isn’t from everywhere. Its from specific places.\r\n\r\nIf your hand-printed silk head scarf  sells at £400, your market consists of all those who haven’t bought the scarf already and are most probably women, glamorous and wealthy … or their partners and friends.\r\n\r\nYour market is not everyone in the world, or even all women in the world, or all wealthy people in the world.\r\n\r\nHeadroom is the gap between those who have already bought the scarf and those who are most likely to do so.\r\n Headroom is not the gap between those who have already bought the scarf and everyone in the world.\r\n\r\nThe market is specific, and knowing this allows you to develop a marketing strategy that reaches probable buyers more often.\r\n\r\nTo put it differently,\r\nHeadroom does not include the market share you will simply never get.\r\n\r\nAnd to put it in other words,\r\nHeadroom  is the room in which to manoeuvre, position and pitch for growth.\r\n\r\nSo to invest well it is important to know, where is the Headroom?\r\n\r\nWhich brings us to churches who write strategies for growth without any concept of Headroom.\r\n\r\nLet’s consider two typical areas – Evangelism and Youth Work.\r\n\r\nIt is right to say that everyone in the world (let’s say parish) should have the opportunity of knowing and responding to the Gospel, which is uniquely designed for everyone in the world. But not everyone wants to hear the Gospel, or wants to respond, or feels they need to hear the Good News, or they simply don’t believe it. Not today, anyway.\r\n\r\nSo although the offer is suitable and appropriate for everyone (in the parish), the reality is that the size of the group who are interested and likely to respond is much less due to the self-determination of members of the group itself.\r\n\r\nIn this case, Headroom is the space between those who have already accepted the Good News and those who have not but are willing to consider it. Growth will come from making sure those who really want and know they need Good News get to share in it.\r\n\r\nYouth Work is different. There is no compelling Biblical description for youth work ministry in church, but we believe it’s a good idea. And others do it, so we think we should too. We believe that the Headroom in this case is the space between those young people already coming on a Friday night and those (in the parish) who don’t come yet.\r\n\r\nBut it’s not. As in the first example, there will be those who opt out because they simply won’t be interested in coming. Growth will come from making sure those who really want to come to a youth club for the benefits it offers.\r\n\r\nBut unlike the first example, youth work is a product not a truth. And unlike expensive scarves, the product is not a finished object but a set of relationships and experiences within a community of particular people. This means that the quality of the ‘product’ is not based on remote manufacturing processes somewhere else, but on the resources and competencies of the people running the ministry there and then.\r\n\r\nSuddenly the idea of Headroom changes. If the resources are inadequate and the competences are poor, the headroom for growth becomes those not already involved, who would be interested in coming, and who can tolerate embarrassing incompetence.\r\n\r\nAnd that’s another truth. Bad products have little Headroom for growth.

Crossing the Aisle

A retail company wanted to kick-start its expansion by trying to tempt people to ‘cross the aisle’ in its stores from food to clothing .\r\n\r\nAfter some low achieving sales figures they commissioned some research into why this wasn’t working. The research showed that people didn’t want to cross the aisle, and it was a wasted effort trying to get people to do what they were never going to do.\r\n\r\nInstead the research discovered that people were happy to buy both food and clothing from the company but they wanted more clarity. The store moved to a different strategy where they separated products into different buildings, a clearly differentiated shopping experience but still the same brand. Growth followed.\r\n\r\nIt turns out that the company had just not understood the buying preferences of their customers. What was convenient for the company (doubling up on existing facilities, maximising resources) was not clear for the customer.\r\n\r\nUp-selling and cross-selling are well tried methods of increasing sales success but we should never loose sight of the need to investigate more radical options and to invest in where the growth really is and not where we hope it will be.\r\n\r\nApplying this to the question of church growth, this might explain why so many ventures started in church simply never take off. They draw too heavily on existing church resources, hoping to give the new clip-on ministry a boost from the momentum of the church as a whole. But along with drawing on resources the new ministry also draws on the culture of the church.\r\n\r\nIf the aim is to attract new people with a different profile – for example, a younger congregation – perhaps its better to put the new ministry at arms length from its parent, with greater independence to form its own identity.