Work in Progress

Tipping points for revival?

2009-10-15T17:42:00.004+01:00

I recently read Malcolm Gladwell’s book “Tipping Point” on holiday. Gladwell sets out to explore (very entertainingly) the factors that trigger the emergence of epidemics (i.e. ideas, trends or diseases that rapidly emerge in a population to massive effect).

As a Christian, it immediately had me thinking about revivals. By Gladwell’s definition, revivals could be thought of as a ‘gospel epidemic’ - a sudden and dramatic response to a message that had been prevalent in the population before. It got me thinking “What (humanly speaking) might contribute to the “tipping point” for a revival?” Was there anything to be learned from the mechanics of how epidemics spread that might raise useful questions for our approach to evangelism and church planting?

Gladwell describes an epidemic as having three characteristics:

At heart there is something contagious (a disease, an idea, a fashion, or a funny youtube clip,…).
A small change in inputs causes a massive change in results (out of all proportion with the apparent change)
Epidemics are marked by sudden and dramatic rises and falls.

So far so good! This framework would fit many revivals. Gladwell goes on to discuss three factors that he sees as contributing to the tipping point. I was struck by their obvious parallels in mission and church planting:

You need a powerful message: For a social epidemic you need a message or idea that is sticky (memorable, personally impacting) and which leads to transformed living. We have that in the gospel! The power of God for the salvation of all who believe! (Rom 1v16). Perhaps in Gladwell’s writing there is a challenge to contextualise our proclamation of the gospel more memorable and impacting (“sticky”). But in the timeless gospel God has given us a powerful and transforming message!

You need a supportive context: “Tipping Point” spends plenty of time talking about how the even the smallest details of our contextcan affect our receptiveness to learning. It highlights the need to be deliberate in our community life. I found it encouraging to remember that in the life of the church, God has given us the perfect context. A community loving one another as Christ loved them (John 13v34) and living out the wisdom of life in the Kingdom (Deut 4v6-7) is surely intended by God to be just that (a plausibility structure for the gospel if you like). Again, perhaps there is a challenge to commend the gospel through the relational quality of life in our churches, and to engage with defeater beliefs as part of preparing the soil for the gospel seed.

Motivated messengers: Gladwell gives examples of where a tiny fraction of the population can have a disproportionate impact in introducing trends and ideas that go on to have a massive and far-reaching effect.

In connection with my post on being missional and relational, I was particularly struck by this last group. The opening chapters of the book describe three different types of messenger:

People experts: These are people who establish friendships easily, have a vast number of social acquaintances and are well known. They are the “glue” that holds together their social circle.
Knowledge experts (“Mavens”): These are people who introduce new ideas to their social circles. Gladwell talks about guys who research where to buy a cheap TV, or what car to drive and then delight in sharing that knowledge with you. Knowledge experts aren’t just information geeks, they are socially motivated – looking to serve others by sharing their knowledge.
Persuasion experts (“Salesmen”): These are folks who establish rapport quickly and impress upon others the need to act in response to a social trend, idea…

A church planting team is typically heavy on types (2) and (3). Pastor-teachers fit the mould of the “knowledge expert” (2). He explores the riches of God’s word with a strong social motivation – to bless others by sharing with them his newfound knowledge - to show them the riches and splendour of the gospel. The evangelists on the team are the persuasion experts (3)– they are the guys who most readily impress on people the need for a personal response to the gospel.

But what about the people experts?

My guess is we think of them as less core to a church planting team. Even if we have a number of extroverts on the team (“people people” who are extremely relationally connected in their present context) those connections are often developed over years. It takes time to develop the same roots and network in a new church planting context. Gladwell talks about a particular kind of people who rapidly (almost effortlessly) develop and go on to maintain weak social connections with loads of people. These are the people who know everyone, but who everyone would like to know better than they do.

What is the challenge here? Perhaps to think more strategically about recruiting “people experts” to a church planting team. An alternative approach might be to intentionally build relationships with the “people experts” who act as social hubs connecting the community we are looking to reach. Who is “the person everybody knows”? Is it worth deliberating devoting time and prayer to getting to know that person and gospelling them?

Gladwell’s writing is entertaining and raises some challenges (to revisit Biblical wisdom rather than to simply adopt his empirical views!). That said, his description of the anatomy of social epidemics simply describes what a deliberate church-planting based approach to mission likely does already. It’s always encouraging to read something that basically says “keep doing what you are doing”!

Nurturing church plants to have BOTH a mission mindset and strong relationships with the local community (Part 2)

2009-10-15T17:39:00.003+01:00

This post was originall ywritten for Radstock ministries and appears on their blog here.

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The challenge we are faced with is to build a mission-minded Christian community with deep and wide-ranging relational connections. We want everyone to end up in area C. In discipling the church, we want to create a steady movement up and to the right on the graph.

But how to do that?...

Two brief suggestions:

1) Get locals and planters engaged in mission in the community alongside one another: Our experience suggests that deliberate bringing together of folks from each cluster accelerates the process. Locals are able to act as “door openers” into a wide range of subcultures and groups that would otherwise be closed to the new arrivals. They help them to build friendships more quickly than would otherwise be possible. Meanwhile, planters help model missional priorities and gospel the “locals” as they seek to gently and appropriately evangelise their (now common) friends.

2) Build relationships of trust between locals and planters: The above necessitates strong relationships of trust within the church. The planters will need to learn from the locals about what is culturally appropriate. Trust will be required as locals in “opening doors” have a great deal more relational capital at risk (they risk offending friends they’ve known for years with the gospel rather than acquaintances they’ve known for weeks). The locals may need to be challenged about their responsibility for mission and what it means to truly love their friends.

For us it’s early days! That we start with these two clusters is I think inevitable to they way our church has come about. We continue to pray that we’ll increasingly move together towards the missional “sweet spot” - a mission-minded Christian community with deep and wide-ranging relational connections.

Nurturing church plants to have BOTH a mission mindset and strong relationships with the local community (Part 1)

2009-10-15T17:32:00.006+01:00

This blog was done for Radstock ministries and appears on their blog here.

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Since planting 3 years ago, by God’s grace, we have grown in two ways. Firstly, a small but growing group of mission-minded Christians have moved into the area from outside to play a part in reaching the local community for Christ. And secondly, local people have joined the church community through a variety of means (Sunday meetings, midweek meals and Bible studies, socials… In time we hope young men will join us through the free weights sessions we run for them, but that is a longer term goal).

As I reflect back on recent years, we have experienced a twofold challenge:

· For church planters build relational connections in the community and
· For local Christians to capture a vision for mission to their friends and neighbours

Here’s why…

In these early days, the church community is clustered into two main groups:

1) Planters - mission-minded, but relationally unconnected:

These guys are Christians who have moved into the area for the sake of mission through our local church. They have born the cost of leaving prior church families, and intentionally made mission a priority in making work, financial and housing decisions! They are highly committed to mission.

However, in almost every case, (having moved in for the purposes of the plant) they have no prior friendships or connections to the community we seek to reach. These guys are “starting from square one” relationally (and inevitably take some time to understand and adapt to the local culture). (These guys are Cluster A on the graph).

2) Locals - relationally connected, but often less mission-minded:

These are members of the local community who have joined us. In many cases they are longstanding residents with strong connections to the area through extended family, friends they have grown up with. They have years of shared history having lived through the defining highs and lows of their neighbours’ lives. They instinctively “get” the local culture.

However, generally these guys are less mission-minded, either because they have taken on some of the culture's pluralism, or because they lack a clear grasp of the gospel (many in our church community would rightly not identify as Christians). (These guys are Cluster B on the graph below).

(Continued...)

Evangelism in the early Church

2009-10-10T16:15:00.003+01:00

Here are a few sentences from a great book I’ve been reading (“Evangelism in the early church” by Michael Green). In them he’s observing what it was about the church in the early church that led to the explosion of the Gospel. It’s a really exciting picture of what the church can be!

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One of the most striking features in evangelism in the early church was the people who engaged in it… Evangelism was the prerogative and duty of every church member… The spontaneous outreach of the total Christian community gave immense impetus to the movement from the very outset.

What is more, this infectious enthusiasm on the part of such diverse people of differing ages, backgrounds, sex and cultures was backed up by the quality of their lives. Their love, their joy, their changed habits and progressively transformed characters gave great weight to what they had to say… Paganism saw in early Christianity a quality of living, and supremely of dying, which could not be found elsewhere.

…

Together with this enthusiasm on the part of the ordinary members of the church as well as its ordained ministers to share the good tidings with those who had never heard them, went a deep sense of the seriousness of the issues involved. They really believed that those without Christ might suffer eternal and irreparable loss, and this thought drove them to unremitting labours to reach them with the gospel. (p.380-382).

Should the meeting or the community take priority at the outset? (Part 3 – Understanding “the culture gap”)

2009-10-10T11:42:00.005+01:00

This post is one of a number I'm doing for Radstock Minstries blog which can be found here.

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I’ve asked the question whether establishing a church meeting is always the best strategy for building church community, or whether there are contexts where other approaches are more appropriate.

To make the point I’ve suggested two “extremes” of church planting strategies: A meeting-led plant (whose immediate focus is to establish a public meeting) and a community-led plant (whose immediate focus is to build relationships with the local community).

The two extremes are somewhat artificial - for a church plant in practice, these twin foci will always be present to a greater or lesser extent. (A Christian community seeking to be a local church will inevitably meet. Meetings will create community). But the early days of a church plant are hard - time and other resources are short - so I think it’s worth asking the question: Where should a particular church plant sit between these two extremes?

Here are some brief thoughts as to when each might be more appropriate. For me, the defining question is: how wide is the cultural gap between the planting team and each of (i) the local churched culture, and (ii) the local unchurched culture.

a) Where the context favours a community-led plant

The cultural gap is significant. The watching world is largely unchurched and it will take time to address their misunderstandings and stereotypes through the sharing of lives (1 Thess 2v8-9). Public church meetings are not initially a fruitful pathway into church community. Time is required to contextualise the communication of the gospel and the church’s practices, which will then shape the public meetings when they are established.

b) Where the context favours a meeting-led plant

The cultural gap to either the local churched or unchurched cultures is not great. Church is an appropriate pathway for some in the wider community, allowing the church plant to expand quickly (initially through isolated Christians joining the church or through some transfer).

Where the wider cultural gap is significant, the church will need to listen to the local joiners and be critiqued by them. The perennial question will be: “What differences are gospel and what are not?”. (The challenge is not to conform local people to the likeness of the church planters, but that both groups would be conformed to the likeness of Christ!).

Where the cultural gap between the planted community and the wider community is not great, it may be appropriate to duplicate many of the practices of the planting church. I would suggest these practices need to be held with an open hand, and intentionally reviewed to overcome cultural inertia.

(Aside: The benefits of “rent-a-crowd”

There may be contexts where a public church meeting is appropriate, but where the size of the planting team makes such a meeting practically difficult or simply odd. (e.g. if the pastor is preaching to his wife and two others, the atmosphere is somewhat intense/intimate for anyone joining off the street and expecting a “service”!).

We faced this difficulty on a central London social housing development. The issue was addressed through the support of the network of churches of which we are a part. Our sending congregation encouraged it’s members to attend our public meeting (which ran at a different time) and to support aspects of it’s practical running. These volunteers were essentially “rent-a-crowd”. The meeting became less intense (because it was 12-15 people not 3!) and local people joining experienced something more like “church” as they were used to it. The outside support meant the church planters who had moved to the area were freed up (from practical aspects) to chat to visitors and build relationships.

The “rent-a-crowd” joined on the understanding that they remained committed to another congregation as “their church” (i.e. barriers to commitment were much lower than the core planting team). As the church grew, they were able to reduce their time commitment. After three years, some of the original “crowd” have made the plant “their church”, the majority no longer join us on a Sunday. We are however massively thankful to God for all they did to help us establish a public meeting early on which proved to be a suitable pathway into Christian community for many in the local area).

Should the “church meeting” or the “church community” take priority at the outset? (Part 2 – A “community led” model)

2009-10-10T11:39:00.005+01:00

This post is part of a number I'm doing for the Radstock Ministries blog, which can be found here.

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COMMUNITY-LED CHURCH PLANTS:

Under this approach, the church planting team focus on community formation through strengthening relationships within the team, and building new connections with the community they seek to reach. Their concern is to commend the depth and quality of Christian relationships to the watching world, and to listen to the new culture before establishing a public meeting (if ever).

Again, this approach has a number of immediate positives:

Creates a strong & immediate emphasis on relationship building: The church plant is established with a culture that is all about mission through relationship building (as opposed to a “hold a meeting and they will come” approach). The business of mission is more likely to be understood as a deliberate pattern of life rather than a something limited to times in the week.
Energies are devoted to relationships which then act as a pathway into Christian community. In the early days (when resources are limited) energies can be given over to spending time with other Christians (e.g. house church, team bible study and prayer,…).
Builds a strong awareness of local culture before committing to forms/styles of public meeting and teaching. Delaying setting up a meeting, delays the first impression until it can be more tailored to the context.

However, this approach also has potential limitations:

Delays creating a potentially important pathway into Christian community: In many (sub)cultures, a church meeting remains an normal/acceptable thing to do, and an easy way, low commitment way to “check out” a new church plant. Likewise, it delays “flushing out” Christians in the community the planters seek to reach.
The danger of intensity: A small group of people who know each other well, and share important common features (e.g. a lifestyle shaped by the gospel, middle class accents, everyone in work…) can be intimidating for newcomers. A public meeting provides a degree of distance and freedom to opt in or opt out. A private gathering does not.

These portraits of meeting-led and community-led plants are simplistic (even caricatured) to emphasise the contrasts. They do I hope serve to highlight some of the strengths and weaknesses of the two extremes.

The question then is: How do you establish a right balance in a particular context?

Should the “church meeting” or the “church community” take priority at the outset? (Part 1 – A “meeting led” model)

2009-10-10T11:33:00.005+01:00

This post is on the Radstock ministries blog here.

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What should be the focus in planting a new local church? Is establishing a church meeting the best strategy? Or are there contexts where a church planting team would be wise to focus on to building the church community in other ways?

In a way, it’s a “chicken and egg” kind of question. A meeting helps establish community (as people gather together). A community will inevitably meet (to sit together under God’s word and share lives). So it might seem strange to ask “what should a church plant focus on?”. But at a time when resources are often stretched, the team’s focus needs to be clear and deliberate. Where is prayer and energy best devoted?

I would suggest that the “culture gap” between the church planters and the community into which they plant is the key determinant of whether to focus on a meeting or community building.

To help make the point, here are two (intentionally polar and slightly caricatured) examples:

MEETING-LED CHURCH PLANTS:

With an undergirding of prayer, this church plant’s immediate focus is to establish a church meeting (which then gives the scope of the church community). In all likelihood the “sent church” closely resembles it’s sending church in the way that it meets.

This approach has a number of immediate positives…

The public meeting creates an immediate pathway into the new Christian community. Local people familiar with the new churches meeting (or with an independently awakened spiritual interest) can simply walk into the meeting and encounter Christian community from day one!
The public meeting may bring in relationally connected Christians. Advertising may bring in like-minded Christians from the area who were unknown to the team, and who might join the church! Local Christians bring deeper more longstanding relationships with the locals than any of the planting team possess.
A public meeting can be quick to establish: Since new meetings are often based upon the forms and practices of the sending church, they are often quick to establish, and the “sent” planting team is immediately familiar with what’s going on.

However, meeting-led church plants are not without potential limitations…

The danger of focussing on the meeting to the exclusion of other priorities: The planting team typically lack the resources that the larger sending church. Valuable time and energy can be drawn away from friendships and (pre)evangelism to meet the practical requirements of a public meeting.
The difficulty of contextualising the meeting: You only get one chance to make a first impression. Setting up a meeting after little contact with local community means it can be hard to contextualise to the new setting. Subsequent review and change by the team has to do battle with inertia and habit (on the part of the church planters). In the worst case, the first locals to experience the new meeting may go away thinking the church doesn’t “get people like them”, share that impression with others putting them off, and may be slow to give the church a second chance 6 months later when the church has changed to be better contextualised.
The risk of being job-led rather than gift-led: The desire to reflect the sending churches practices can mean that less attention is paid to team members’ God-given gifts and more “we think this job needs to be done, someone will have to do it”.

(Continued...)

Is there anything wrong with short-selling? - Stewardship and the importance of capital being both productive & risk-bearing (2)

2009-03-02T19:12:00.014Z

Following on from a previous post, I want to quickly look at how the Bible addresses the ethics of short selling for investment purposes. What is the Christian response to short selling? Amidst all the commentary on the credit crunch, I'm yet to read a thought-through biblical discussion of the subject. Hopefully this will raise some fruitful questions...

Stewardship – ordering creation for the glory of God

The Bible doesn’t talk explicitly about short-selling, and there are few analogies for borrowing and selling what you do not own! Generally investment and the deployment of capital (of whatever kind) would come under the wider priority of stewardship – mankind is tasked by God to “work and take care of” creation (Gen 2v15), to order the world around us such that - by our efforts – God is glorified. It is clear from the parable of the talents and elsewhere that the reference point for assessing the success of this work of stewardship is the return of Christ.

Without wanting to press the individual statements of the parable too hard, the concept of “reaping what you did not sow” is clearly viewed negatively. Within stewardship there would seem to be a connection between "sowing" (i.e. the productive deployment of capital whether relational, financial, labour,…) and the reaping of it’s fruits (i.e. investment returns of whatever kind).

Is short-selling stewardship?

I want to suggest that short-selling is effectively “selling other investors a dummy”. Other market participants who would otherwise deploy productive risk-bearing capital unwittingly have that capital diverted into simply risk-bearing capital (without the accompanying productivity).

What goes on if I short sell shares in a company? Let’s trace it through...:

Short-seller borrows 10% of ShoeCo from Investor A (who is a long term investor in the company. They have intentionally deployed their capital for the production of high quality shoes that will be a blessing to their wearers, provide a valuable outlet for the skills and giftings of leather workers and designers,…).
Our short-seller sells the borrowed shares “short” to Investor B (who wants to buy the shares in order to deploy their capital into ShoeCo for the same reason).

What has really happened?

Investors across the market now think they own 110% of ShoeCo (we might think of investors A and B both owning "the same" 10%). That is only possibly because Short seller economically owns “minus 10%” and has created a corresponding synthetic long position in the market.

Effectively, our short-seller has replicated the economic risks and rewards of deploying risk-bearing capital productively into ShoeCo, but without any of the accompanying productive benefits (more shoes being made, talents being put to work,…).

Investors have been sold a dummy! Instead of deploying productive, risk-bearing capital, some of them merely think they have! They are arguably “reaping what they did not sow” (because there has been no sowing thanks to the facilitating actions of the short-seller). Capital has been diverted away from being productively put to work. (The two parties might just as well be spread-betting on the football, except the information they are acting on is financial/commercial rather than sport-based).

To make the point, let’s (simplistically) think about what would have happened if the short-seller hadn’t been a market participant:

Alternative 1:

Suppose investor A isn’t willing to sell to Investor B at a price they both like (let’s ignore other market participants to make life easier). Investor B has capital to deploy, and (let’s say) he likes Shoes…

Maybe he buys shares in SneakerCo (thereby releasing an existing investor in SneakerCo to deploy their capital productively elsewhere).
Maybe Investor B likes the supply chain that includes ShoeCo and so (unable to invest in ShoeCo at the right price) he buys shares in LeatherCo instead (ShoeCo’s main supplier).
Maybe Investor B puts his capital to risk productively by investing in a shoe start-up with a talented young entrepreneur.

Whichever the outcome, Investor B’s capital is deployed in a way that is both risk-bearing and productive. There is some “sowing” of capital going on.

Alternative 2:

Investors A and B are able to agree on a price for 10% of ShoeCo’s shares. Investor A takes the proceeds and puts them to work in much the same way as Investor B in the previous alternative.

Without the presence of the short-seller, whatever the outcome, capital is deployed in a way that is both risk-bearing and productive. Man’s God-given mandate to fill and subdue, work and take care of creation is being furthered.

So the diverting of risk-bearing capital away from fulfilling the creation mandate would seem to be the Biblical grounds for objecting to short-selling. (I put my hand-up and recognise this a crude first pass at the question!).

Is short-selling facilitating stewardship?

Advocates of a free-market economy may argue that short-sellers grease the wheels. They help make the market more efficient by increasing liquidity, and enabling the views of more market participants to be reflected in the market price. Having the ability to short-sell allows an investor who sees a share as over-priced to actively express that view and thereby depress the price (by increasing supply of the shares). Otherwise, the same investor is obliged to sit on the side lines, and assume financial risk in some other way (hopefully productively).

To put that defence, it seems to me you would need to be able to show that:

short-selling activity results in a more effective allocation of risk-bearing and productive capital than would otherwise be the case. (That may be true)

And

that the benefits of heightened efficiency more than outweigh the “phantom capital” created in the economy by “selling dummies” to other potential investors. (I think that’s probably a tough case to make).

So on that basis, I would raise questions about naked short selling. Not because is bank-robbery. Not because the people who do it are necessarily immoral (although those who combine short-selling with rumour-mongering may act that way - see my previous post). In isolation, short-selling is a distraction from the creation mandate. It does not serve to bless, order or create.

(Aside:

I’m talking here purely about outright short positions.

I think it’s possible to put an argument that option-based hedging is OK (to the extent that general limited liability investment in shares and insurance are both OK). I would make that case because productive economic risk taking is being passed between market participants in a zero-sum game (i.e. there is no outcome where synthetic capital is being created and capital is put to work without being economically productive).

I think on this basis relative value trading is a grey area – you could put a case for it being a re-allocation of capital within the system (from the shorted asset to the long asset)… But it doesn't feel like a great case. Something to think more about…)

Is there anything wrong with short selling? - Clarifying the issue (1)

2009-02-18T17:18:00.010Z

It’s a while ago now that short-sellers were accused of being “bank robbers” by the Church of England. Embarrassingly, it came the same week that the think-tank ekklesia flagged the C of E’s many and varied investments in hedge funds (many of whom are active short sellers), and their willingness to be paid to lend their own shares (the borrowed shares being overwhelmingly used to “sell short”!). The moral high-ground proved to be so much sinking sand, and needless to say, it wasn’t the easiest week to be a Christian in financial services.

Six months on, I’m still to see anything coherent on the ethics of short-selling, so here the beginnings of a few quick thoughts based on something I etched on my commute home that week:

Ethically, separate practice of misleading information and market rumour from the mechanical activity of short-selling.

Some market participants have reputedly done the following known as "short and distort":

Short sold shares in COMPANY A (borrowing shares they didn’t themselves own and selling them). Let’s say they sold them for 100p/share
Disseminated a false rumour about COMPANY A – that it was struggling to find working capital or had just lost a major contract or whatever…
Watched the share price of COMPANY A fall – as other third party investors acted on this untrue market rumour as other shareholders lowered the price at which they were willing to sell it.
Bought back shares in COMPANY A at the newly depressed level, (say 70p) and closed out their short position at a profit (of 30p per share in this example).

In this type of behaviour, the short seller profits from because of their lie, while other shareholders lose out because of it. They have sold shares at a depressed price on the basis of misleading information, reducing their profits or incurring a loss. They have shorted a security and then distorted the market in that security.

At some point, the company has the opportunity to correct the untrue rumour and the share price corrects. Or potentially worse - the rumour becomes a self-fulfilling prophesy (market participants refuse to provide capital) and the business is permanently damaged.

There is a clear ethical issue here arising out of the deception that pushes the share price down, and is unconnected to short selling activity that enables someone to profit from it. (The lie is equivalent to buying shares in an oil exploration company, and then concocting a rumour that it has struck oil. Watching the share price soar. And then cutting and running before anyone discovers the lie).

But that is rarely the issue that is discussed by commentators. The general tone of debate would suggest that normal short-selling activity based on a reasonable investment view of the underlying share derived from publicly available information is immoral and corrupt.

So what (if any) is the problem with short-selling in and of itself? There are scarcely any ethical analogies in everyday life. (We aren't in the habit of borrowing and selling what we don't have!). So how can we peel apart the issue Biblically? How does what the Bible says about stewardship, investing capital, gambling and the question of efficient markets come to bare on the issue of short selling?

I'll come back to that...

We all have faith (according to the Onion)

2008-09-18T09:15:00.006+01:00

Link to the Onion on Darwinism

It's easy to talk within Christian circles about there always being faith behind doubt... How you have to believe one thing to doubt something else. Smarter men than me have spent time showing that the process by which we arrive at so-called "values" and so-called "facts" are essentially the same (Newbiggin does it well in "The Gospel in a Pluralist Society"). That the supposed divide between public indisputable "facts" and private whatever-works-for-you-as-long-as-you-don't-push-them-on-the-public-square "values" is a false one.

The trouble is, these kinds of arguments are tough to distill into soundbites, or to write on the back of a beer mat down the pub! Most casual conversations don't provide the opportunity to lay out the framework and assumptions, and then start to highlight the inconsistencies or over-reaching often done in the name of science.

Speaking for myself, I'm not as good as I'd like to be at chipping away at this particular "defeater belief". So it's nice that the Onion are gently poking fun...

Downplay the failing & remove the need for forgiveness...

2008-09-05T11:09:00.007+01:00

I was doing the PA on Sunday afternoon as a congregation we are part of gathered together. It’s not a tricky job – basically hitting the down arrow when you want the powerpoint slide to change.

With one particular song, the first verse and chorus (i.e. first two slides) repeated twice before the final verse (i.e. the third slide). So the order went 1-2-1-2-3. But being a bit slow, I just kept hitting the down arrow.

The problem is clear: When we got the repeated bit, the congregation saw slide 3 when the musicians were playing a tune that coincided with slide 1. Everyone knew this. And everyone knew that I was responsible for the slides - hence the looked at me instead of the screen waiting for the problem to be fixed.

OK. It's not the biggest mistake of my week, but my response was revealing...

My response in the instant of the mistake? To shrug my shoulders and smile as if to downplay the mistake. My instinctive response to my mistake was to imply to the congregation “it’s not a big deal and doesn’t really matter”.

My priority in that instant? That the folks in the room not think any less of me. ("Mark isn't such a bad guy. It's not much of a mistake. It could have happened to anyone. It didn't really matter. I don't have to revise my assessment of Mark's competency...")

It struck me afterwards how revealing that is of the state of my heart. The effect of my lack of diligence was to break the focus of the congregation upon the Biblical truths that they were singing to encourage each other and to praise God. If I really thought that was important (which it surely is) I'd have taken 60 seconds to check the slides beforehand.

The right response once the gaff was made would surely have been first to recognise that we were engaged in something significant which I had in a sense spoiled, and second to signal my apology to them, and to ask God’s forgiveness for having too small a concern for His reputation.

Instead - without pausing to think - I acted to protect my own reputation.

How often to I downplay my failures in order to remove the need to seek forgiveness? How often is my primary concern my reputation before others rather than the reputation of God?

For the response to be instinctive, the answer is probably not one I like...

Human equality (1) - It isn't rooted in what we can do...

2008-09-03T13:54:00.006+01:00

I was chatting with a colleague the other day about the intrinsic value we have as human beings. That we do have dignity as people... Most people would agree that we have value. That their being human carries a certain (possibly inherent) dignity, but where does it come from?

Here's a survey of possible explanations that don't work...

a) Is human equality about our physical value?

The raw materials that make us up are mainly water, carbon, nitrogen, calcium, some iron, some phosphorous... But even though commodity prices have shot up recently, our raw materials probably aren't worth more than a few quid. But we understand that value is not determined by raw materials. A BMW 7-series is worth more as an arrangement of molecules than the raw materials it comprises - value is more than that. It has to do with benefit that can be enjoyed - the utility that can be gained!

How does that apply to individuals? (because surely we are a pretty impressive and complicated arrangement of molecules!). Is it about what can be done with us as an arrangement of molecules? (That's the reason why a BMW is more valuable than it's component parts, which in turn are more valuable than the same BMW written off and crushed.)

b) Human equality isn't about our economic potential

Is value linked to potential to do work?... To produce things?... Entertain people?... Serve others?... What does it mean to say that?

To make it concrete, how would we rank the following individuals?:

John is 30 years old at the height of his physical power. He has a wealth of accumulated skills, knowledge and experience. He has plenty of energy to work and thrives on pressure. Economically, he has begun to be highly successful, and the future augers well.
Gene is 70 years old. She has raised a family, and worked part and full-time for decades. However, she is getting frail, and is starting to forget things. Under pressure she tends to get flustered and confused.
Grace is 4. She is full of life, very inquisitive, and chatty for her age. However, she's only 2'6" tall. She's no good for physical work, and - if her drawings at nursery is anything to go by - can't yet do much productive work! When put under pressure, she tends to hide behind her mother's legs. Realistically, Grace will require at least another 10 if not 20 years before she is able to produce more than she consumes (i.e. provide a net economic gain to her community). It will take decades of investment for her to acquire the wealth of skills and knowledge John already has, and that will help her to be more economically productive.

These thumbnails suggest that - based on economic potential - Gene and Grace are less valuable than John. We might argue between Gene and Grace (based on economic potential), but with a bit of upfront investment you would probably reap a good return from Grace. So perhaps she is more valuable...?

In which case, would we be happy to say "John is more valuable than Grace, who in turn is more valuable than Gene"?

John > Grace > Gene ?

To even speak in those terms is pretty unsavoury.

And where does this kind of rampant age-ism leave you? An EU official was quoted a while back as saying that long term, (with an aging unproductive population consuming increasing amounts of resources), euthanasia would be an important tool in maintaining the economic competitiveness of the EU compared to other parts of the globe. If that's the logical conclusion of deriving value from economic potential, can we stomach it? (And if we can now, will we stomach it as easily in 30 years when we are no longer economically productive?!)

And what if I introduce fictional Gordon who empties John's bins at work, (and who conveniently shares John's birthday)?

Gordon doesn't have John's skills, knowledge or experience. The confluence of his genetic material, family upbringing, nature, nurture etc... mean that Gordon will almost certainly never be as economically productive as John. Does that mean Gordon is less valuable as a human being than John? And how would we reflect that in the running of society?

And how would Gordon compare to four year old Grace - with her promising IQ tests and pushy middle-class "nurturing" parents. Arguably Gordon is less valuable then Grace.

Ought we to think seriously about giving Gordon less of a vote than John? in fact, should we confine the vote to people like John and Grace's parents?

Historically, people who talk in this way have oppressed minority groups, denied the vote to non-landowners, worn jackboots...

Our value as human beings can't be based on economic potential...

That's good news if you lose your job and your economic potential is diminished. It's good news if you are old like Gene, or dependent like Grace or not gifted in the way the world economically recognises like Gordon). It "feels" right to rule that out as the measure. But it doesn't offer an alternative answer where our value comes from.

Here's something else that it isn't:

c) Human equality can't be based on what the market is willing to pay...

That is usually the golden rule for valuing things. If you are lucky enough to be a homeowner, then your house isn't worth the price-tag you (or your commission hungry estate agent) put on it. A house is worth what people are willing to pay for it. (Which might mean your having to reassess the economic value of your home at the moment with mortgage acceptances at record lows...).

But we obviously can't apply that to people! I don't know anyone who would countenance the buying and selling of human beings. Whatever people think of Wilberforce's evangelical convictions, we look back and celebrate the abolition of human slavery in the British Empire. (We want to see the enslaved and exploited around the world freed - even if we can't yet explain why). We accept that slavery is demeaning, and that for one human being to own another doesn't sit well with the human dignity we want to uphold.

You can't put a value on human life using the slave market...

Economic potential can't be the measure. It's too unsavoury and the logical outworkings are sufficiently unpleasant that I'm willing to rule out the assumptions that point to them. (Besides there is more to life than money!).

What if we change tack slightly and make it about a different kind of potential. Say, the ability to participate generally in society, to enjoy life to the full and generally to experience life...

Where does that lead?

d) Human equality isn't based on our potential to experience life...

Based on potential to experience life, we would have to re-order our fictional trio:

4-year old Grace has her whole life ahead of her.
John is in his prime, but has been round the block a few times already.
Gene has so many miles on the clock that it's started back at the beginning.

So by this alternative measure - potential to experience life - Grace is more valuable than John who is more valuable than Gene.

Grace > John > Gene ?

Gene is still not coming out of this very well! And with each Birthday that passes, I feel less comfortable with sidelining Gene!

But even if we can live with that statement. What about Grace's fictional identical twin - Hope?

Hope, through an accident early in life, is blind. She has less "potential to experience life" as she can't see. Is she less valuable than her sister for being blind? Were back in jackboot territory again!

Or what about Grace's fictional unborn brother Joshua? He is 20 weeks old. He would probably survive outside of the womb (in a Western hospital), so he has the "potential to experience life". And he is younger than Grace... Is Joshua more valuable than his older sister? Would that have been different 4 weeks ago when, at 16 weeks gestation, he would have been much less likely to survive outside of the womb? Was he less valuable then, but has suddenly stepped up a notch now that he could survive in an ICU incubator? (It was this argument about the potential for life that raged in the House of Commons a while back. Should the abortion limit be reduced to allow for advances in medical science? Should we ratchet it down with every medical innovation?)

But here's the thing: Does the value of human life change with medical science? If that is the case, then it is not something intrinsic to ourselves. It must be linked to our ability or potential to do things once medicine has fixed us up to do them (whether that be "do" economic work, or "do" life experience or whatever). To assert that abortion limits should change based upon the ability of the (medically supported) foetus to survive outside of the womb, then we are asserting value based on potential.

If my value as a human can't be linked to what I do, then that rules out my ability or potential as the measure (whatever measure I might choose). The basis for human equality must be something to do with what I am... Something intrinsic to my humanity, and therefore common to all. Otherwise, we can cannot claim universal equality.

But what could that inate quality of our humanity be?

Why sin is like a big mac...

2008-08-28T18:30:00.004+01:00

It looks so appealing. So tender… so juicey… so satisfying…. In the advert it looks like everything a hamburger should be. Succulent. Flavoursome. Filling.

The advert whispers all kinds of promises. They sound so reasonable. So enticing. The picture is convincing. My mouth begins to water.

And yet - if I think back - I know the truth. I know how the story ends:

The burger is never as big, nor as juicey, nor as satisfying as it promises. It always seems small after the money is handed over. And it never fills me up for long. Last time, I felt hungry again only an hour afterwards. What’s more, I felt slightly queasy,… slightly “greasy” after I’d eaten it – the fat in the air seemed to stick to me. I wasn’t satisfied, I was merely distracted from my genuine hunger. I still needed a proper meal.

So why am I tempted to go inside?... Why do I entertain the empty promises of the advert?

Because time has passed, and eventually I forget the truth. I forget that the all too plausible promises are empty. I forget what happened last time. And what's more, I forget to speak truth to myself - to remind myself of the satisfying meal that awaits me at home at no cost.

How sad - how foolish - that often my relationship with sin and temptation is like my experience with Big Macs. Time passes, and I fail to see them for what they are. Too often I listen to the lies.

Prince Caspian - the honour & shame of being an image-bearer

2008-08-28T18:11:00.006+01:00

[On Caspian being told by Aslan that he is descended from human pirates who entered the world of Narnia from "our world" generations before...]

“Do you mark all this well, King Caspian?”

“I do indeed, Sir,” said Caspian. “I was wishing that I came from a more honourable lineage”.

“You come from the Lord Adam and the Lady Eve,” said Aslan. “And that is both honour enough to erect the head of the poorest beggar, and shame enough to bow the shoulders of the greatest emperor on earth. Be content.”

Caspian bowed.

(Prince Caspian, C.S. Lewis)

How good is your heaven?

2008-08-24T21:40:00.009+01:00

Lots of people believe in some a heaven or after life of some kind. Not usually in a very thought through way - or with much evidence to back it up - but its easy to see how folks could derive some kind of comfort from a vague conviction that death isn’t the end.

A lot of folks go further than that and suggest what comes after death is an improvement on now. They’re thinking of more than an eternal supply of cream cheese. Hence comments like “He’s gone to a better place”... “She’s gone to meet her maker” “He’ll be smiling as he looks down on us”…

In fact – without knowing it - a lot of people hope for part of the Bible’s description of heaven – a place where there is “no more death or mourning, or crying or pain” (Rev 21v4).

a) This imagined heaven fails to recognise what people are like!

I wonder about this secular, God-free, ‘analgesic’ heaven - the “better place” that wishful thinking invents. Stop and think about it for too long and this heaven falls apart. It disappoints, not only because its promises are without foundation, but because this view fails to recognise what people are like. It suffers from a massive dollop of wishful thinking!

Don’t get me wrong, I want a heaven where there is “no more death or mourning, or crying or pain”. (I don’t think that’s coincidence, I think that’s written on all our hearts by the God who made us. It’s written on our souls, and consequently its what we yearn for when death strips away the distractions and trappings of day-to-day life). But here’s the thing: If this imagined heaven goes on forever then there will be all of those things! Crying, pain and the rest! At least there will be if I am there! In my selfishness I cause people pain. Give me long enough, and I’ll make people cry. Give me forever, and sooner or later I’ll kill people.

If I’m allowed into heaven unchanged, then it won’t be heaven any more! I would spoil it. And so would you, and your nice kind Grandpa Joe, sweet old Aunt Lucy and anyone else you care to think of.

b) This imagined heaven is no heaven at all!

If you think of this your idea of heaven – God-free & without any mechanism for personal change, then let me say: it’s rubbish! All you’ve done is daydream death away. And you’re left with something which is pretty unappealing. At best it’s just life now, but it goes on forever.

But “wait!” you say, “the really bad people won’t be there, so it will be better than life now!” Without getting side-tracked clarifying God’s true entry criteria, I think that fails to recognise what I’m like underneath, and equally what you are like. Given long enough we’ll spoil your made-up heaven for each other. I’ll cause you pain. You’ll make me cry. As eternity unfolds, feuds will develop. I’ll get more and more stuck in my ways. And so will you. (That’s generally what old people do! Why will we be different in eternity).

There is nothing in human history which gives me any grounds for hoping that if you get rid of death, that people will relate to each other any better – even the “nice” ones. It’ll end up being just as messy and painful, and hopeless and unresolvable as life is now, but there will be no end and no escape!

We need heart change. The question is who would we trust to perform that operation? And who has the power to do it?

c) We don’t just need God to forgive us, we need him to change our hearts

“I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean... I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit in you, and move you to follow my decrees and keep my laws… you will be my people and I will be your God.” (Ezekiel 36v26-28)

The Bible’s promises for the future are far more glorious than most people realise! Christians talk lots about Jesus’ death on the cross absorbing God’s justice, and for good reason. Without forgiveness, heaven would be empty. The way we treat God and one another, no one can approach God with any confidence. If God is just and takes wrong-doing seriously, then – absent forgiveness - heaven would have a population of one: Jesus.

But the Christian faith provides for more than just an “entry ticket” to heaven. That wouldn’t be enough. The Bible promises God’s power to transform lives made possible because of Jesus’ life, death and resurrection. Jesus’ resurrection is the guarantee of what’s to come. It’s the guarantee that those who trust him, will be made like him – that is: perfect! Morally… Physically… Spiritually…

Not that Christians already are. Far from it. But we will be. Not because of our deserving it, but because God chooses to showcase his generosity and mercy by transforming the lives of people who had previously hated him. He brings them to love him perfectly and to love what he loves, to be faithful as he is faithful, to hate evil as he hates it, to seek justice and show mercy just as he does. He undoes the effects of our sin, and restores them so that they can live with him forever.

The Bible’s promise of heaven is realistic and comprehensive. Its better than we dare admit, because it recognises what we are like.

Here’s what God said after he promised a world with no more crying, mourning, death or pain:

“These words are trustworthy and true…”

That sounds a lot better and more certain than a made-up heaven, with or without Philadelphia.

Baxter – On balancing monologue preaching and dialogue-based teaching

2008-07-26T22:49:00.010+01:00

Here are two quotes from Richard Baxter’s “Reformed Pastor” which are interesting viewed side by side. In one he raises the bar for preaching through the roof, in the next he clearly identifies the importance of dialogue-based teaching with individuals (and families and groups by implication from the rest of the book).

What skill doth every part of our work require! – and of how much moment is every part! To preach a sermon, I think, is not the hardest part; and yet what skill is necessary to make the truth plain; to convince the hearers, to let irresistible light in to their consciences, and to keep it there, and drive all home; to screw the truth into their minds, and work Christ into their affections; to meet every objection, and clearly to resolve it; to drive sinners to a stand, and make them see that there is no hope, but that they must unavoidably either be converted or condemned – and to do all this, as regards language and manner, as beseems our work, and yet as is most suitable to the capacities of our hearers. This, and a great deal more that should be done in every sermon, must surely require a great deal of holy skill. So great a God, whose message we deliver, should be honored by our delivery of it.

Chapter 1, The Reformed Pastor

It’s tough to criticise Baxter for not taking the act of preaching seriously! His list of what a sermon preached should do is extensive and exciting (if a little daunting!). Amazingly, he finishes with “this and a great deal more should be done in every sermon”!

And yet he goes on to speak of the limitations of monologue preaching (for want of a better term), even of the type which he aspires to (and arguably achieved to a considerable extent for his congregation).

For my part, I study to speak as plainly and movingly as I can, (and next to my study to speak truly, these are my chief studies,) and yet I frequently meet with those that have been my hearers eight or ten years, who know not whether Christ be God or man, and wonder when I tell them the history of his birth and life and death, as if they had never heard it before. And of those who know the history of the gospel, how few are there who know the nature of that faith, repentance, and holiness which it requireth, or, at least, who know their own hearts? But most of them have an ungrounded trust in Christ, hoping that he will pardon, justify, and save them, while the world hath their hearts, and they live to the flesh. And this trust they take for justifying faith. I have found by experience, that some ignorant persons, who have been so long unprofitable hearers, have got more knowledge and remorse of conscience in half an hour’s close discourse, than they did from ten years’ public preaching.

I know that preaching the gospel publicly is the most excellent means, because we speak to many at once. But it is usually far more effectual to preach it privately to a particular sinner, as to himself: for the plainest man that is, can scarcely speak plain enough in public for them to understand; but in private we may do it much more…

Chapter 3, Motives from the Necessity of Work

Now I’m loathe to argue purely from someone's experience or from pragmatism. But here is a man whose evangelical convictions of word ministry I find hard to question, much less dismiss.

It raises for me an important question:what ought the right balance to be between monologue preaching and catechizing individuals/families/groups in private in what is surely a more dialogue form, as the rest of the paragraph makes clear:

…In public our speeches are long, and we quite over-run their understandings and memories, and they are confounded and at a loss, and not able to follow us, and one thing drives out another, and so they know not what we said. But in private we can take our work gradatim, and take our hearers along with us; and, by our questions, and their answers, we can see how far they understand us, and what we have next to do. In public, by length and speaking alone we lose their attention; but when they are interlocutors, we can easily cause them to attend. Besides, we can better answer their objections, and engage them by promises before we leave them, which in public we cannot do.

And next he drops the bombshell. It appears that public preaching serves in Baxter's mind evangelistically, but even then (and especially for discipleship) more is required. You need dialogue...

I conclude, therefore, that public preaching will not be sufficient: for though it may be an effectual means to convert many, yet not so many, as experience, and God’s appointment of further means, may assure us. Long may you study and preach to little purpose, if you neglect this duty.

Food for thought...

Baxter is now public domain (having died in 1691!) I cut and pasted from here.

Proverbs – Taking advice

2008-07-18T11:12:00.007+01:00

Another survey of Biblical wisdom from the Bible's proverbs. This time looking at taking advice and dealing with correction, instruction or rebuke. (Again vaguely grouped).

The benefits of heeding discipline & advice
He who heeds discipline shows the way to life,
but whoever ignores correction leads others astray. (10v17)
He who ignores discipline comes to poverty and shame,
but whoever heeds correction is honored. (13v18)
Plans fail for lack of counsel,
but with many advisers they succeed. (15v22)
He who listens to a life-giving rebuke
will be at home among the wise.
He who ignores discipline despises himself,
but whoever heeds correction gains understanding. (15v31-32)
Whoever gives heed to instruction prospers,
and blessed is he who trusts in the LORD. (16v20)
Stop listening to instruction, my son,
and you will stray from the words of knowledge. (19v27)

Wisdom in taking rebukes & advice
Whoever loves discipline loves knowledge,
but he who hates correction is stupid. (12v1)
The way of a fool seems right to him,
but a wise man listens to advice. (12v15)
A wise son heeds his father's instruction,
but a mocker does not listen to rebuke. (13v1)
Pride only breeds quarrels,
but wisdom is found in those who take advice. (13v10)
A fool spurns his father's discipline,
but whoever heeds correction shows prudence. (15v5)
A rebuke impresses a man of discernment
more than a hundred lashes a fool. (17v10)
Flog a mocker, and the simple will learn prudence;
rebuke a discerning man, and he will gain knowledge. (19v25)
A man who remains stiff-necked after many rebukes
will suddenly be destroyed—without remedy. (29v1)

Wisdom in giving rebukes & advice
Better is open rebuke
than hidden love.
Wounds from a friend can be trusted,
but an enemy multiplies kisses. (27v5-6)
He who rebukes a man will in the end gain more favor
than he who has a flattering tongue. (28v23)
As iron sharpens iron,
so one man sharpens another. (27v17)

Wisdom in seeking guidance & instruction
Listen to advice and accept instruction,
and in the end you will be wise. (19v20)
Make plans by seeking advice;
if you wage war, obtain guidance. (20v18)
Apply your heart to instruction
and your ears to words of knowledge. (23v12)

Wisdom in accepting praise
The crucible for silver and the furnace for gold,
but man is tested by the praise he receives. (27v21)

Proverbs - Well chosen words...

2008-07-18T10:02:00.012+01:00

A brief survey of the Bible's wisdom on the effects of well chosen speach from Proverbs (loosely grouped).

...Encourage
An anxious heart weighs a man down,
but a kind word cheers him up. (10v25)
A man finds joy in giving an apt reply—
and how good is a timely word! (15v23)
A cheerful look brings joy to the heart,
and good news gives health to the bones. (15v30)

...Bring healing & peace
A gentle answer turns away wrath,
but a harsh word stirs up anger. (15v1)
Reckless words pierce like a sword,
but the tongue of the wise brings healing. (12v18)
The tongue that brings healing is a tree of life,
but a deceitful tongue crushes the spirit. (15v4)
Pleasant words are a honeycomb,
sweet to the soul and healing to the bones. (16v24)

...Bring rescue & life
The mouth of the righteous is a fountain of life,
but violence overwhelms the mouth of the wicked. (10v11)
The words of the wicked lie in wait for blood,
but the speech of the upright rescues them. (12v6)
The tongue has the power of life and death,
and those who love it will eat its fruit. (18v21)

...Bring wisdom & knowledge
The lips of the righteous nourish many,
but fools die for lack of judgment. (10v21)
The mouth of the righteous brings forth wisdom,
but a perverse tongue will be cut out. (10v31)
The tongue of the wise commends knowledge,
but the mouth of the fool gushes folly. (15v2)
The lips of the wise spread knowledge;
not so the hearts of fools. (15v7)
The wise in heart are called discerning,
and pleasant words promote instruction. (16v21)
A wise man's heart guides his mouth,
and his lips promote instruction. (16v23)
Gold there is, and rubies in abundance,
but lips that speak knowledge are a rare jewel. (20v15)

So speak carefully...
A man who lacks judgment derides his neighbor,
but a man of understanding holds his tongue. (11v12)
He who guards his lips guards his life,
but he who speaks rashly will come to ruin. (13v3)
The heart of the righteous weighs its answers,
but the mouth of the wicked gushes evil. (15v28)
A man of knowledge uses words with restraint,
and a man of understanding is even-tempered.
Even a fool is thought wise if he keeps silent,  
and discerning if he holds his tongue. (17v27-28)

Church - Is it in part about image too?

2008-06-16T23:06:00.006+01:00

“Ought I iron my shirts for tomorrow, or meet with a friend in the hope that an evangelistic opportunity might result?” “How do I decide whether to pursue paid gospel ministry, or to continue in my so-called “secular” job?” As a church how can we most appropriately be a blessing to the community are part of? Should Bibles and Barbells

The risk can be that we often set up a false-polarity between different types of work - evangelism and ministries of mercy, “spiritual” activities and “stewardship” activities... However, these false extremes are unhelpful. Few people would advocate evangelism to the exclusion of mercy ministries, or that all Christians ought to enter paid gospel ministry to the exclusion of “secular employ”. The question then becomes how to identify a scriptural balance. I wonder whether that balance is found by reference to God’s revealed character.

Evangelism is a right expression of the character of God, as the LORD who exercises his mighty arm to seek and save the lost. But His character also extends to caring deeply for the Fatherless and the widow, to the point of judging people on the basis of their treatment of the marginalised (Sheep & Goats - Matt 25v31-46). He also displays spectacular creativity in creation... Wonderful order and predictability (and I would argue elegant beauty) in scientific laws... Abundant goodness in his generosity, right down to the rain failing on the wicked and the good... Ought we not to be imaging that as well? Surely our Christian communities in the light of the gospel ought to be doing no less than Israel in drawing the nations through attractive and wise community life (Deut 4v6-7).

I wonder whether in failing to image God’s character and concerns in all its balanced richness, we inadvertently risk caricaturing God for the watching world...

What is a caricature if not taking particular true aspects of an image and over-emphasising to the exclusion/distraction of other aspects. A caricature of Mick Jagger follows a well-trodden pattern: The head is exaggerated to the exclusion of the body. Within the head, his lips are taken as the most prominent feature. The result - a tiny little body supporting a massive head with a huge mouth.

Now I know that no individual or even local church can do everything. Resources are limited. God doesn't gift his church is identical ways in every community. But what do we talk about? What do we prize? What do we aspire to be, to influence and to change? What do we speak out for and against? Whose cause are we defending or prosecuting?

As the world looks on at the collective body of Christ, what distortions might it see of God’s image in the church? Are we inadvertently caricaturing Him? And isn't that a really serious thing?...

(I know there risks a slight mixing of metaphors here between individuals made "in God's image", and the church as "the body of Christ". However, given it is mankind in community you are made in God's image and likeness, I'm not too worried about the gentle slight of hand!).

Work - Its all about image...

2008-06-16T22:34:00.006+01:00

I’ve been struck recently by the connection that the Bible repeatedly makes between the purpose/role of human work and our identity as image bearers.

A few disconnected thoughts...

1) Creation - The human “job description” is rooted in who we are as image bearers

Then God said, "Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground." (Genesis 1v26)

As men and women, we have the awesome privilege of being created to be vice-regents of the King of the universe! He is given delegated authority to rule over the earth in a manner consistent with the will of the King. And to do so in a way that reflects the character the King has already displayed in His creative works… To order and develop creation so that it might remain “very good”, and bring glory to God. Uniquely man can reflect God’s character and represent/enact His will because man is made in God’s likeness to be His image-bearing representatives.

It is as God’s image bearers that humans are called to rule over the created order (a connection reiterated in the next two verses).

So working and taking care of creation (2v15), filling and subduing it (1v28) is not a punishment for sin, but a right expression of man’s identity as image-bearing vice-regent. That role is worked out in a way that is consistent with the working, creator God whose character man images and whose will he is to represent.

2) Fall - Human sin twists the purpose of work and ruins our ability to carry it out.

When man seeks to exchange his vice-regency for autonomous rule, his identity as image bearer is forever distorted. His relationship with God broken, the controlling parameters for his work of filling and subduing become twisted. He proceeds ever eastward, bent on his own autonomy and glory (Cain, Lamech, Babel,...).

The mandate is preserved, but the context is distorted. After the flood, the cultural mandate is repeated (Gen 9v1-2), but the context for its outworking is now distorted. Whereas previously mankind was to “rule over” the other creatures1, now man inspires “fear and dread”. The picture is one of conflict inspired by claims to autonomy.

3) Redemption - Christ restores us as image-bearers to work

In Christ, we are renewed in the image of God: ...you have taken off your old self with its practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge in the image of its Creator (Col 3v9-10, also 2Cor 3v17-18)

Work is to be done for the Lord (as vice regents): And whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him. (Col 3v17).

Work is to be characterised by service (in the image of the servant King): It was he who gave some to be apostles, some to be prophets, some to be evangelists, and some to be pastors and teachers, to prepare God's people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ. (Eph 4v11) (also Matt 20v26-28, Eph 6v7-8, 1Pet2v16...).

4) Consummation - work is glorified

God’s image is perfectly recreated in God’s people: “...we eagerly await a Saviour from there, the Lord Jesus Christ, who, by the power that enables him to bring everything under his control, will transform our lowly bodies so that they will be like his glorious body.” (Phil 3v21).

The cultural mandate will be perfectly enacted through Christ & His people: “You have made them to be a kingdom and priests to serve our God, and they will reign on the earth”. (Rev 5v10)

You can change (link)

2008-06-06T16:22:00.003+01:00

Tim Chester (Total Church, Busy Christians Guide to Business, Good News for the Poor, The Message of Prayer,...) has written a new book for IVP due out on 20th June.

You can find a sample chapter on his blog here entitled "What truths do you need to turn to?" exploring the idea that behind every sin is belief in a lie...

Pre-fab church or cosy coffee table chat? - Walking the line in church planting…

2008-06-05T21:56:00.017+01:00

Let me lay my cards on the table.

I am persuaded that the local Christian community (church) is God’s strategy for mission… That Christians are called to be as a city on a hill shining before men… That we are to live in communities which declare the wisdom of God to the watching world (Deut 4v6-8)… That we are to be communities of light shining like stars as we hold out the word of truth (Phil 2v15-16)… That corporately we are to declare God’s marvellous deeds to the wider community (Psalm 96v3). Church is the appropriate expression of the Christian identity as those made to be a kingdom by Christ’s blood (Rev 1v5-6).

I’m 100% persuaded that church planting is a good thing... Multiplying communities of light… Filling and subduing the world & culture with groups of image-bearers… I’m all for that.

But here’s the thing...

There are ways and ways of church planting. Let me paint two grotesque caricatures to make the point:

Caricature #1: Pre-fab church:

With an undergirding of prayer, this church plant’s priority is to establish a church meeting (which then gives the scope of the church community). Their model is the sending church’s meetings, but they lack the economies of scale that their larger sending church enjoyed. The time and energies of the small planting team are consumed with the practicalities of the main meetings. They set up, take down, mount programmes, do admin, and produce a meeting which mirrors their parent church’s in form, language, right down to the type-face.

The “bringers” within the team struggle to bring because they are pulled into the church rotas at the expense of spending time with non-Christians in the wider community. The meetings and Bible teaching prove inaccessible for a wider community whose cultural defeaters, use of language and forms of worship are very different to the sending church whose model the plant follows.

Caricature #2: Coffee table church:

The church planting team place huge importance on relationship and community formation within the team (Jn 13v33-35). They are concerned to get to know one another well in order to commend the depth and quality of Christian relationships to the watching world. They are anxious not to run before they can walk - taking plenty of time to get a feel for the area they are planting into, in order that they might contextualise the gospel when they go on to meet publicly. For the time being however, their “meetings” are preparatory - focussing on prayer and equipping, and largely invisible to the world around them. Meantime, they work hard to build relationships with members of the local community through which they can share the gospel, and over time introduce people to Christian community.

The team fails to recognise that for many people they encounter, the intensity of their community is a turn-off, whereas a more conventional church service would provide a culturally acceptable pathway into the church community.

Harsh & not fair... but helpful

These are obvious and harsh caricatures. I have never encountered plants that are this extreme or ill-fitting to their context. But polar opposites highlight the issues… They reveal some of the strengths and weaknesses of the two extremes.

More helpful terms would be Community-led Plants and Meeting-led Plants to imply a gentle emphasis or bias in a plant rather than an overwhelming preoccupation. This seems right as both will always be present to a greater or lesser extent. Christian community will inevitably meet… meetings will create community. Ideally a plant will create a wonderful feedback loop between community and meeting with the each being shaped and being challenged by the other. e.g.

The community will critique/challenge the church’s practices where they are cultural imports (or not functionally gospel).
The gospel word proclaimed and applied will critique/challenge both the church subculture and wider culture.

Meetings and community will both provide pathways into Christian community of varying appropriateness... They are both necessary and inevitable.

The question is where to focus energies in the early stages.

As the caricatures highlight, I think it is possible for church planting to be a less good thing than it can be. It is not clear to me that church planting is always a good thing where this tension between meeting and community is not rightly held. However, I think for every situation there is a church planting model (walking the line between the extremes) that is good.

Here are some brief thoughts as to when each might be more appropriate.

For me, the question to ask boils down to:

How wide is the cultural gap between the planting team and each of:

(i) the local churched culture, and

(ii) the local unchurched culture.

a) Community-led plants

The cultural gap is significant. The watching world is largely unchurched and requires time to have their misunderstandings and stereotypes addressed through the sharing of lives (1 Thess 2v8-9). In this context, church meetings ("services") are not a fruitful point of contact or a suitable pathway into church community and the proclamation of the gospel. People will not walk in off the street. Time is required to contextualise the communication of the gospel and the church’s practices, which will then shape the public meetings as they emerge.

b) Meeting-led plants

The cultural gap to either the local churched or unchurched cultures is not great. Church is an appropriate pathway for some in the community, allowing the planted community to expand quickly and rapidly spread through the wider culture (initially through transfer).

Where the wider cultural gap is significant the church will need to listen to the local joiners and be critiqued by them. The perennial question will be: “Which differences are "gospel" and which are not?” (i.e. people don't have to become like me in every way to become like Christ. Then certainly don't have to become middle class!).
Where the cultural gap between the planted community and the wider community is not great, it may be appropriate to more closely mirror the practices of the planting church. Some risk of cultural inertia may exist (never questioning forms, language or style) through being blind to the differences which will exist however small.

Under God, a right balance between these two foci will mean a plant can always be a good thing! But it seems to me we only make life harder for ourselves if we are inappropriately wedded to one or the other.

Couldn't it mean anything I want it to? - What are the boundaries on interpretation?

2008-05-27T21:42:00.020+01:00

I was chatting with a colleague the other day at lunch. She made a common suggestion: that a person's understanding of communicated truth is dependent on the subjective interpretation of the individual.

I guess Christians tend to encounter the corollary of this: We can't draw any firm conclusions from (for example) the Bible, because it is open to a host of subjective interpretations all equally valid.

It struck me that we don't live like that(!). We act in all our decisions and relationships as if we have confidence in language to communicate truth with identifiable and limited ambiguity so that interpretation isn't subjective. (That is we can identify potential ambiguities in language and, where they arise, have available to us well understood methods for limiting the scope of meaning to that which the writer intends).

If that weren't true, we couldn't ever say anything or write anything with any confidence in how it would be understood. Then contract law would be a joke, love letters a waste of time, and friendships built on very dodgy ground (how could I know what my friend really meant when they said "such-and-such"? Common experience wouldn’t be common because their subjective interpretation of our conversation could be completely different). I wouldn't be able to write these words with any confidence that you would interpret my words in a way that is consistent with my intentions in writing them!

a) Is interpretation of language really that subjective?

To take a concrete example: We live in a culture that prizes home ownership. I take it generally people are confident that the deeds to their home secure their ownership (given the increasingly crazy amounts of money people are handed over to each other!). Ultimately a buyer’s confidence rests on a document with a particular form which is presumably "open to interpretation". If someone rocks up on your doorstep saying they have a different interpretation of your deed (that it has expired, or actually applies to a different flat or a different person,... that the separate storage room isn't actually yours or whatever...), I take it most of us wouldn't consider their interpretation equally valid alongside our own at that point! They'd probably be more than happy to tell the other person they were wrong - that their interpretation was nonsense! Subjectivity wouldn't enter into it!

The answer must be that, in practice, the way we interpret language cannot be that subjective. Our confidence in language stems from an assumption that in practice ideas, concepts and desires can be communicated with sufficient ambiguity removed so as to be useful... We take it for granted that an asserted truth (or at least a very narrow set of possible truth claims) can be understood from, say, the deed to my flat ("I own it"), the bank contracts I sign ("you owe me") or all sorts of other documents (e.g. "it seemed good also to me to write an orderly account for you, most excellent Theophilus, so that you may know the certainty of the things you have been taught" Luke 1v3-4).

So, in answer to the question: "Isn't it all just subject to interpretation?"...

In a word: "No!"

Or in five words: "No one really believes that".

b) Why is it easy to think that way?

I think in practice, we have a host of intuitive ways in which we rule out certain interpretations as "invalid"... A variety of ways in which we "rule out" potential ambiguities, and narrow the scope of "valid" acceptable interpretations when we dealing with documents, conversations, letters, literature, poetry, history, or whatever... The thing is, in the ast majority of cases, it is instinctive! We are so used to applying rules of interpretation that we don't think about it.

The instinctive nature of these rules for interpretation would explain why its only when we enter the realms of the unfamiliar (e.g. reading the Bible) that we try to assert that the modes of communication we entrust our lives to daily (e.g. "please mind the gap"!) aren't as reliable as our lives say that they are.

c) So how can we be consistent in our approach?

As I pondered it on the bus, I tried to piece together what these instinctive rules for interpretation might include. It seems to me that we follow two steps:

- "Step 1" of interpretation is to identify possible word meanings based on cultural usage. This provides a set of "technically possible" interpretations.

- "Step 2" is to rule them in (as valid) or out (invalid) according to other considerations (cultural setting and references, personal knowledge of the author and his other writings, internal consistency within a document...). This leave a smaller set of "valid" interpretations

"Step 1" is a language thing (the universe of possible word meanings is determined by cultural usage) and is probably less controversial for anyone whose every used a dictionary. "Step 2" I think is more intuitive, but would include:

i) We trust the cultural context to limit the scope of "valid" interpretations within those which are "technically possible".

We do not communicate in a vacuum, we do so against a backdrop of authorial intent, the purpose of the document, the prevailing culture etc...

So when a cheesy poet writes "your eyes are like the stars" it is not written in a vacuum. Knowledge of the author, his intent, and relationship with the recipient allows us to intuitively narrow the scope of any ambiguity. When he says "like the stars" he is unlikely to be referring the recipient's eyes as being similar to enormous natural fission reactors melding elements at mind-boggling temperature and pressure, emitting vast quantities of energy in the process and possessing a gravitational pull sufficient to hold planets and move comets. If you've read cheesey poetry before, you don't even consider the possibility that it might(!). In the same way, when a cosmologist writes about "...acts as sources of the heavier elements like the stars" he's not referring to the experience of seeing a brilliant pinprick of light against black sky. The phrase "like the stars" possesses limited ambiguity within our use of language. You can (linguistically) attribute either interpretation to both these fictitious writers but the two interpretations are not equally "valid" because the context does not permit it.

ii) We demand logical coherence:

Where a given interpretation conflicts with other writings by the same author, how do we handle that? Does coherence narrow the universe of valid interpretations? (e.g. Luke's gospel says it is an eye-witness account, some people claim that later parables told are not the words of Jesus, or that the miracles are symbolic. Has Luke changed his mind/purpose half-way through? Is he a liar? Is the "symbolic" interpretation a valid interpretation giving the internal contradiction required?).

All language is open to interpretation. When anyone is confronted with a variety of interpretations (of the Bible or anything else), the question must be: Are they all equally valid? Is the one being advanced fair? We ought to ask ourselves:

- What rules of interpretation are being applied to reach these various conclusions?

- Are the rules of interpretation appropriate and being applied rightly?

- Does the cultural background, the use of language or the intent of the author allow me to narrow down the universe of "technically possible" interpretations to a smaller set of "valid" interpretations?

Only once done, can we take a view on what the author is saying. But in practice we're not left with a very large set of possiblities, and the scope for subjectivity is small to tiny.

Nobody lives as if interpreting language is as subjective as some people try to suggest. In engaging with the Bible, it seems to me often the claim to subjectivity stems from a combination of intellectual laziness and lack of familiarity with the Bible itself (i.e. applying the same interpretive grid we apply to our house deeds, love letters and everything else).

Having recognised it's not a legitimate objection, the first step is surely to read the material, and to start to interpret...

Osama & Obi-wan

2008-05-24T11:31:00.008+01:00

Star Wars sketch from the BBC's Happy Mondays: The Odd Half Hour

(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m9fPpya1iDQ)

Previously unnoticed parallels are often funny. Not only is this a funny clip (in my view). It raises some interesting questions.

When we watch Star Wars, we side with Luke - he’s the hero. His actions are ‘good’, the empire is ‘evil’ (Darth Vader wears black and has a suitably ominous theme tune). We feel glad as the Death Star is destroyed and Luke and Han fly away into the starry blackness. Yet despite some similarities in the fact pattern (brought out by this joke), no one I know would dream of giving moral equivalence to the perpetrators of 9-11. There is no question either that intellectually or by “listen[ing] to our feelings” we can conclude anything other than that those actions were despicable.

It's popular to claim that our moral ‘take’ on events or actions is purely subjective - it's up to the individual to decide. That no one person has authority or justification for applying their subjective moral framework to others. But when it comes to it, I don’t know anyone who would accept it is legitimate to say that Darth Vader is the good guy. Or that those who flew the planes were Luke Skywalkers. There are areas where subjectivity is unacceptable.

It seems we implicitly assert universal “goodness” and morality more strongly than we would care to admit. A few questions follow I think :

- What entitles us to make these universal assertions?

- Where does this moral authority come from?

- Is Western culture arrogant in seeking to impose this view on others?

Some have suggested you cannot have a moral law without a moral law giver. You cannot have a universal moral law without a universal moral law giver. Who would have the authority to do that? What's the corollary if there isn't one?...

Do we find Jesus scary?

2008-05-15T11:21:00.009+01:00

I wonder why it is we don’t find Jesus scary... A group of us were looking at Mark’s Gospel last night, and it is pretty clear that, faced with his power, the disciples did:

They were terrified and asked each other, "Who is this? Even the wind and the waves obey him!" (Mark 4v41)

The disciples have just been terrified of drowning in a storm. In their fear, they appealed to Jesus who calmly rebuked the wind and the waves, calming the storm. The result? In front of this display of awesome power, the disciples are now terrified of Jesus.

Imagine walking down an alley-way and only to be confronted by a rabid Doberman. It bears its teeth and runs at you. Fear’s icy fingers begin to grip you. The dog leaps for your throat, and you are convinced your time is up. Then, out of nowhere, a lion soars through the air, effortlessly catches the Doberman in its teeth, and tosses it away with disdain. Where once there was a dog, now there is a lion. If you thought you had problems before, this new and greater power would been even scarier!

That is where the disciples are at. They had no control over the storm. They were helpless before its power. But now they realise they stand before a greater power. A power that can still a storm with a few words. A greater power, over which they have no control, and which may prove an even greater threat. Small wonder they are terrified!

And yet too often we consider gentle Jesus meek and mild. Subconsciously, we’re thinking: “How scary can a bearded guy in a white dress and sandals be?” The answer is "Very!" when you understand who he is. Through chapters 4 and 5 (and throughout the gospels) we are confronted with a Jesus who is completely in control – powerful over every threat or power (nature, spirits, sickness, death – you name it). The more we see of him, the more we realise he has absolute power.

That kind of power is generally scary. It seems to me there are only two reasons not to be scared of Jesus:

1) You won’t be scared if you are persuaded that Jesus doesn’t (still) have power.

...Although interestingly, at the time nobody questioned Jesus’ power to do these things! While his opponents questioned the origin and purpose of the power he wielded, they didn't doubt the reality of his power. Rather, they concluded he was evil and tried to stop him by killing him.

It turned out they had badly under-estimated Jesus. his power was demonstrated supremely in overcoming death.

In fact, Jesus has power over everything. As Peter says to the crowds in Jerusalem after Jesus’ resurrection and ascension:

“…God has made this Jesus, whom you crucified, both Lord and Christ.” (Acts 2v36)

But, recognising Jesus' power, there is still a reason not to be scared of him...

2) You won’t be scared if you know that Jesus will use that power for your good.

If Jesus has power over everything as the creator and King of the world, then he is supremely in control of the world, our lives and our futures. We get scared when we feel out of control… powerless! We get especially scared if someone else is in control… if they have power over us, and we don’t think they have our best interests at heart. So what are we to make of Jesus’ control? The million dollar question is: "How will he wield his power towards me?"

If he has the kind of power the Bible speaks of, we are helpless before him. He has power over us whether we like it or not. We have no bargaining chips. He doesn’t owe us any favours. How can we be sure that he has our best interests at heart? (After all, how often have we truly shown concern for his interests?!).

This is how Peter’s hearers responded to his warning:

When the people heard this, they were cut to the heart and said to Peter and the other apostles, "Brothers, what shall we do?"

Peter replied, "Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. The promise is for you and your children and for all who are far off—for all whom the Lord our God will call." (Acts 2v37-39)

In Mark 4, the disciples had recognised Jesus’ power, but they still didn’t know how he would wield that power towards them. They were terrified. What reason do we have not to be?

Proverbs – the consequences of poverty

2008-05-09T10:36:00.012+01:00

I'm looking at the Bible's wisdom literature at the moment, in particular the Old Testament book of Proverbs. Nothing fancy! Just skimming through trying to get a sense of what is said on particular topics.

What follows is a sweep that picks out proverbs focusing on the situation of the poor*. It brings out three things (according to which I’ve roughly grouped them below).

Material poverty leads to relational poverty

Material poverty leaves you vulnerable to oppression

God is concerned for the poor

Material poverty leads to relational poverty

The poor are shunned even by their neighbors, but the rich have many friends. (14v20)
Wealth brings many friends, but a poor man's friend deserts him. (19v4)
A poor man is shunned by all his relatives— how much more do his friends avoid him! Though he pursues them with pleading, they are nowhere to be found. (19v7)

Material poverty leaves you vulnerable to oppression

The wealth of the rich is their fortified city, but poverty is the ruin of the poor. (10v15)
A poor man's field may produce abundant food, but injustice sweeps it away. (13v23)
The rich rule over the poor, and the borrower is servant to the lender. (22v7)
A ruler who oppresses the poor is like a driving rain that leaves no crops. (28v3)
Speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves, for the rights of all who are destitute. (31v8)
Do not exploit the poor because they are poor and do not crush the needy in court,
for the LORD will take up their case and will plunder those who plunder them. (22v22-23)

God is concerned for the poor

He who oppresses the poor shows contempt for their Maker, but whoever is kind to the needy honors God. (14v31)
He who mocks the poor shows contempt for their Maker; whoever gloats over disaster will not go unpunished. (17v5)
He who is kind to the poor lends to the LORD, and he will reward him for what he has done. (19v17)
If a man shuts his ears to the cry of the poor, he too will cry out and not be answered. (21v13)
Rich and poor have this in common: The LORD is the Maker of them all. (22v2)
A generous man will himself be blessed, for he shares his food with the poor. (22v9)
He who gives to the poor will lack nothing, but he who closes his eyes to them receives many curses. (28v27)
The righteous care about justice for the poor, but the wicked have no such concern. (29v7)

*Note: I've not included here the (many) proverbs which consider patterns of behaviour and lifestyle that can lead to poverty (the sluggard, the drunkard,...). However, the place of personal responsibility needs to be wisely considered alongside these issues. It does not contradict nor should it lessen any of the above.

Pursuing wisdom to 'live well' in the world (Proverbs)

2008-05-09T10:03:00.011+01:00

I want to 'live well' in the world. I want to understand how the world works... To have incite into the workings of the stock market... To understand the ways and motivations of men's hearts... and many more things besides. Knowledge like that would help me to prosper, and protect myself. It might (in my better moments) help me love other people well.

I want that kind of wisdom, and I want it quickly... easily. Osmosis through my pillow would be fine. Hypnosis or a brain download would be OK. A drip feed even. Failing that listening to a few podcasts on the tube would be bearable. I want wisdom to come to me the way information and entertainment do. Freely, easily, and with no effort.

Well it turns out wisdom like that is available. Wisdom to 'live well' in the world... to prosper, to protect and to love.

But wisdom - according to Proverbs chapter 2 - doesn’t come quickly or without effort. Wisdom requires application and to be pursued with commitment. We need to “accept” truthful words, “store up” right commands, actively “turn our ears” to widsom, “[apply] our hearts”, “call out” for insight, “cry aloud" for understanding, “look for” and “pursue“ understanding as we would the costliest treasure. None of that sounds like a quick and easy exercise. It sounds like something that is pursued with heart and mind, persistently... even avidly. (I've recently seen National Treasure the film. Nicolas Cage's character knew what it was to look for and pursue something as a treasure - I hardly pursue wisdom the same way...).

But there's more to it than our part. For one thing, where would we look for these "truthful words"? To whom could we "cry aloud for understanding"?

Proverbs makes clear, wisdom originates with God and is His to give. Which kind of makes sense! If we connect 'living well in the world' with the purpose of both 'living' and 'the world' (see “I have a hammer…”), we might expect the creator to have something to say on both. In fact, it would be rather odd if the God who gives life and who made the world didn't come into the picture when it came to living life in His world. If he had spoken about it, it would be worth listening to. Worth treasuring even...

Proverbs 2v1-12
[Our bit… (v1-5)]
My son, if you accept my words and store up my commands within you, turning your ear to wisdom and applying your heart to understanding, and if you call out for insight and cry aloud for understanding, and if you look for it as for silver and search for it as for hidden treasure, then you will understand the fear of the LORD and find the knowledge of God.
[God’s bit… (v6-12)]
For the LORD gives wisdom, and from his mouth come knowledge and understanding. He holds victory in store for the upright, he is a shield to those whose walk is blameless, for he guards the course of the just and protects the way of his faithful ones. Then you will understand what is right and just and fair—every good path. For wisdom will enter your heart, and knowledge will be pleasant to your soul. Discretion will protect you, and understanding will guard you. Wisdom will save you from the ways of wicked men, from men whose words are perverse,…

The dangers of pursuing my own approval

2008-05-01T12:38:00.012+01:00

My Bloomberg terminal at work provides me with a “quote of the day” each morning. A bit of fortune cookie wisdom presumably designed to soften the barrage of market data that follows shortly after. Monday’s quote came courtesy of Mark Twain:

"A man cannot be comfortable without his own approval"

Now I like a lot of Twain’s quotes, but this one struck me as rather sad. Sure it sounds good, but to say I can't be comfortable without my own approval is to say that my approval matters more to me than anyone elses. And I guess Twain is saying that is universally true of every man (or woman presumably).

Is that the right way to see things? Or is that just intensely self-centred?...

What happens when my own approval is more important to me than anyone else’s?

What really happens when I set myself up as the subjective authority whose approval I must enjoy above every other? Assuming I'm driven to pursue my own "comfort" (as a core part of my "happiness"), I will quickly become a slave to my own approval. Knowing myself - given the right circumstances - I would expect that to look pretty ugly.

A man made happy by his own approval looks at the world and others around him and says:

• "While I respect you, I hold my own authority above yours (or anyone else’s). So when the chips are down, if we disagree, I will decide what is right for me, and no one can tell me otherwise".

• "While I will listen to you, I believe that I understand the combination of myself and the world better than anyone else. I am best placed to say what will make me happy in the world. So when the chips are down, I'll always take my own advice."

• "While I care about your happiness, I care more about what makes me happy. So I’ll stop making you happy if it stops making me happy. And when the chips are down I'll make you unhappy if I have to".

• "While I love you, I love myself more than anyone else. So when the chips are down, you can always rely on me to love myself".

That seems pretty miserable to me. The world where we all assert our autonomy to judge ourselves - to pursue our own approval set above all else - it’s just miserable!

It leads to:

- friendships that are at heart self-serving...

- human connections that are doomed to fragility (I’m only interested in you for as long as I think you can help me gain my own approval and so attain comfort and happiness)...

- acts of “altruism” done to make me feel good about myself...

- relationships where self-love trumps all...

It’s miserable, and I think there’s something deep down inside of us that reacts against it. That see that as ugly. That wants something better… A society where people exhibit love that is genuinely self-giving… Where we aren’t all twisted in on ourselves.

About 2000 years ago, a man was asked what the most important principles were for governing how we live in the world…

"The most important one," answered Jesus, "is this: 'Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.' The second is this: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.' There is no commandment greater than these." (Mark's Gospel, Chapter 12, verses 29-31).

Jesus spoke of a love that is centred not on the self, but on God and others. What's more, that’s how he himself lived:

- loving God (not asserting his autonomy by putting his own approval first e.g. “Not my will but yours be done…”).

- loving others (to the point of dying to reconcile them to the God whose approval and authority they’d scorned by putting their own approval first)

Small wonder that God the Father looked upon Jesus and said "this is my son, with whom I am well pleased"! God the Father gave his approval to God the Son. And wonderfully He is pleased to call us sons and daughters and give us his approval if we trust in Jesus. By being connected to Jesus, we get the approval that his life deserved.

For all Mark Twain’s wit and wisdom, here is something infinitely better and more satisfying to our souls. Through trusting Jesus, you can enjoy not your own approval, but the approval of the God who made all things.

I have a hammer... (What makes something good?)

2008-05-01T12:05:00.007+01:00

I have a hammer. I am comfortable saying it is a "good" hammer. It has a weighty steel head, feels comfortable in my hand, and delivers considerable pressure to the head of a nail when I swing it. It could function as a paperweight, preventing the papers on my desk from blowing away, but it is slightly ugly and cumbersome for the purpose. It bothers me not at all that my hammer cannot perform complicated calculations. I don't consider that important in a hammer. It is - in my assessment - a "good" hammer.

I have a HP19B calculator. I am comfortable saying it is a "good" calculator. Its plastic keys are easy to press, but not so easy that a slip types by mistake. Its calculations are accurate, and the screen clearly displays the results. It could function as a paperweight to prevent the papers on my desk from blowing away, not while I'm using it, and only if the draft was mild (as its not very heavy). It bothers me not at all that my calculator would fracture into numerous pieces were I to swing it at the head of a nail (and thereafter never perform another calculation!). I don't consider that important in a calculator. The HP19B is - in my assessment - a "good" calculator.

It seems to me that to say that my hammer, my calculator or anything else are "good" it is necessary to connect and measure them in some way against a purpose. With my hammer that's clear enough. Whether the purpose associated with my hammer is an objective fact, or whether we are all expected to subjectively agree (perhaps after experiencing the satisfaction of swinging it at a nail), we can probably agree on its purpose.

For my hammer, calculator (or paperweight for that matter) their purpose is not controversial. But when we enter the realm of people and relationships such assessments becomes more complicated…

I have a friend called Ben. Although he is quite “hard” it would be no good using him to knock in a nail (unless I lent him my hammer!). Ben could serve as a paperweight, but he would likely get bored, plus with Ben sitting on my desk there wouldn’t be much room left to work. Ben’s mental arithmetic is pretty good, but I couldn’t trust it for very complicated calculations.

Is Ben a “good” friend? Or even a “good” human being?! What does it even mean to ask those kinds of questions?

Surely to say anything about Ben (or myself or anyone else) I need be able to say with confidence what life and friendship are for… What the purpose of being human is… That’s tougher to agree on than my hammer.

For an employee,between from nine to five the existence of a job description provides the "purpose" against which we can assess an employee as "good" or not.. But where might we find the "job description" for life? For friendship?

Perhaps we use words like “good” a little too unthinkingly…

Or perhaps we need to think harder about the purpose of things…

Cutting the Judaisers some slack… (Galatians 5)

2008-03-23T22:27:00.008Z

As we come to the end of a series in Galatians in our men’s Bible study, I have a growing sympathy for the false-teachers(!).

The first century Galatian church is wrestling with what marks an individual as a true “seed of Abraham”… the inheritors of God’s promise to Abraham. As Gentiles come into the church, the issue of the day is: “How do you rule people in or out?” “What is the boundary marker for God’s people?”

The debate boils down to “faith in Paul’s gospel alone” vs. “faith + legal observance”. False teachers are “throwing [the church] into confusion” by “perverting the gospel” (1v7) by preaching faith plus legal observance (circumcision,…). Paul teaches that the true heirs of the promise to Abraham are those who trust in Christ as the fulfilment of those promises (Gal 5v26,29).

I came to Galatians seeing the Judaisers unsympathetically - they were out and out bad guys. Until that is, I re-read chapter 5v16-26…

Paul is defending the idea that the freedom that comes through the gospel (and the gospel alone) leads inevitably to holiness (v.13), and not to license. I don’t think its stretching interpretation too far to read in between the lines, and see some of the concerns of the Judaisers in Chapter 5. It’s not hard to imagine the scenario: As they see it “Gentile sinners” (2v15) are coming into the fold. They come from a pagan culture that is probably characterised by the “acts of the sinful nature” listed in chapter 5 verses 19 to 21.

In that context, concerns for the purity of the church community and personal holiness are natural. How are these Gentiles - saved by faith - going to be motivated to “be holy because I, the LORD your God, am holy” (Lev 19v2)?

For the Judaisers, the answer is supplementing faith with the Law – Legal observance will provide the appropriate restraints on the Gentiles’ behaviour. Although their concern a right one, their answer stems from a religious bent, and an anaemic gospel.

The answer for Paul is the Holy Spirit that accompanies faith – The fruit of the Spirit is holiness (the Spirit which is given to all those with faith in the gospel; 3v3-5). Having the Spirit is inconsistent with indulging the sinful nature because they are contrary to one another (5v16-17). With wry humour Paul tells us: against the fruit of the Spirit “there is no law”.

The established Biblical pattern is for people to be redeemed by God for freedom exercised in worship (Ex 7v16), and for the LORD himself to make his redeemed people holy (Ex 31v13). That pattern is fulfilled through faith in Paul’s gospel, as Christ sets us free and Holy Spirit makes us holy.

My question is: Are we more like the Judaisers than we care to admit?

Out of a right concern for holiness, do we wrongly create cultural boundary markers for the church? Boundary markers that function as “laws”… For all our words of “faith alone” & “grace alone”, are we in practice reliant on church culture to limit behaviour?... Is functional religiousity is shown where we act on externals? Outward constraints curtail the external expression of our sinful natures – wrong belief concealed behind right behaviour.

Do we have our, unspoken, but silently communicated “laws”? Is it fear of breaking step with a Christian subculture that deters Christians from returning to the patterns of their old lifestyles? Is the young convert pressured not to sleep with his girlfrend for fear of the disapproval of his new Christian peer group? Or is God’s grace in the gospel teaching him to say no to ungodliness and wordly passions? (Titus 2v12).

Are we proclaiming a gospel that “takes the punishment I deserve” (full stop)? Or a gospel that calls people to “the obedience that comes through faith”? (Rom 1v5)… A gospel word through which the Holy Spirit works to transform us into the likeness of Christ?... Paul’s gospel which presents a new identity in Christ and calls believers to live out that identity?

That Paul is so emphatic in condemning those who supplement the Gospel with legal observance makes me more than a little uncomfortable!

Would small States work in a society where social "shame" is not common?

2008-03-16T23:36:00.011Z

I've been reading Jam's post "Imagining the Future" (read about it here) - which raises the question of what the world might look like if we challenged some of our assumptions and shrank the state.

The imagining looks at shifting responsibility for much outside law enforcement and civil defence away from the state. So responsibility for social provision and shared amenities is passed to local communities. These would operate effectively as co-operatives on areas of common interest (refuse collection, street lighting, street maintenance, hospital care,...).

I like the analogy of flat owners who share the freehold. Some will opt out of decisions taken, they'll refuse to pay for the new roof even though they benefit. however, in general most people will go along with the decisions of the group (because otherwise the embarrassment of meeting in the lift would be too much to bear).

While not buying into the imagined picture necessarily it raises some interesting questions. One key question for me is: what (in the small state system) are the driving forces that will lead (self-interest) individuals to behave in "desirable" ways? Why would they ever allocate their resources and relational capital in ways that are preferable to the current state-sponsored arrangements.

The new forces will need to be the "carrot" of (common) self-interest and the "big stick" of shame. The big change that comes with shrinking the state is that the stick changes from legislative enforcement (taxation at source, fines, bailiffs, imprisonment) to the social shame of non-compliance.

For the new stick to work, it requires that a selfish individual finds bumping into their fellow freeholder in the lift so unbearable without having paid for the new roof that they feel compelled to do so.

How can shame be effective to motivate compliance?

What constitutes shame for an person depends upon the cultural and community context of the individual (what is shameful in London and Tokyo are very different). To feel ashamed under the gaze of the community I have "wronged" I need to

- care what they think of me and my actions, and/or

- agree with their assessment.

That requires a degree of relational connectedness (for me to care emotionally what other members of the community thinks, or fear the sanction that comes from wronging the community), and/or a degree of cultural/ethical agreement (I share the view of the community that something is right (or wrong) and therefore do (or don't) do it).

Without those, in a whole variety of cases the rewards for co-operation at the level of the individual will tend to be less than the rewards for taking advantage of the community. In other words, no one would rationally co-operate (e.g. Why would you cough up to fix the roof unless you live on the top floor?).

For co-operative social provision to work in a world of selfish individuals, and for it to be stable long term, then the contraction of the State would need to go hand-in-hand with the creation of communities that are sufficiently relationally, functionally and ethically connected for shame to have power as a "big stick" to enforce acknowledged social goods.

So your culture can no longer be transient, pluralist and individualistic. To change that will take more than legislation.

(Note: Robert Axelrod's "Evolution of Co-operation" is interesting in this area. How ought individuals in community to rationally play repeated games of the Prisoner's Dilemna).

Pensions - am I burying my talents in the ground?

2008-03-12T00:25:00.017Z

“But the man who had received the one talent went off, dug a hole in the ground and hid his master's money” - Matthew 25v18

I was chatting recently with a couple of guys from the States which set me thinking about Christian Venture Capital (all be it via a slightly circuitous route!). (You can read Andy Mason's reflections on the same conversation here). Along with many Acts 29ers, these guys place a much higher priority behind "loving the city" than many UK Christians would culturally. In this case, their church community is active in business. As churches they are establishing businesses which help fund gospel ministry, and whose activities "seek the peace and prosperity of the city" (Jer 29v7). There was an article in EN a while back about a window cleaning business in Oxford serving the unemployed/assylum seekers. But I don't hear much about that sort of thing among British evangelicals. It doesn't tend to have much of a place or priority in the way we "do church" or make career decisions.

It set me thinking about what a Christian response is to Pension investment and Christian Venture capital...

My pension assets (such as they are) are looked after by two well known asset managers. They invest the capital (on my behalf) in the shares of National and International companies. In 30-40 years time - if Jesus hasn't returned - I'll be asking for that money back to keep my wife and I. In the meantime, my pensions savings provide capital to companies that are "well run" (according to my fundmanagers criteria) and are (at best) "ethical" (as the fundmanager defines it). Corporately & publicly, the gospel is wholly absent as a driver for their actions. These companies operate so as to protect and advance the interests of their stakeholders - interests which are not necessarily concerned for the cause of the marginalised, the widow or the orphan. They do not give money more than is necessary to tick the "social responsibility" box, and never without taking their eye off the after-tax bottom line. They are in every case explicitly secular pluralists in the way they dispense that money. They do not seek to "love the city". It should be obvious that they do not connect with local church ministries, nurture the communities within which they sit, place a high price on "relational" capital... In a nutshell, these companies do not operate while continually applying and reapplying the test: "Does this [decision/action] bring glory to Jesus Christ?".

And (as things stand) I'm investing my money in these companies for the next 30+ years... That is how my pension "talents" are being put to work. Partly because I am unthinking, partly because there are scant alternatives. Either way, if Jesus returns before my 65th Birthday (and possibly even if he doesn't), the conversation could be slightly tricky!

So, how might you go about making pension arrangements differently?

Prudence demands you'd need a portfolio of businesses spanning a range of sectors and localities. (Just as my fundmanager hasn't put all his eggs in one basket, I don't want to be relying on the 30 year performance of a single local window cleaning business to keep me in my dotage!). Plus, in order to make it available to Jo Christian to invest in, it would need to comply with all of the regulation/oversight that investment funds do.

In and of itself, the second of those shouldn't be hard. You'd just need to assemble a group of Biblically thought through, prayerful men and women who combined a few defined skills:

- some Venture Capitalists (with experience at kicking the tyres of business plans, valuaing and investing in businesses,...).

- some Asset Managers (who understand that world, and could advise on what to do with capital that was awaiting an investment opportunity)

- some lawyers/accountants/Financial Advisors (to ensure regulatory compliance, and that the whole thing was above reproach

- some (more) Financial Advisors (to look after distribution*).

- some pastor-theologians (to preserve the vision/focus, and connections with local Christian communities)

Together they could establish and operate a Christian venture capital fund! I'm guessing central London churches are awash with such people.

A totally different kind of investment...

How awesome would it be to receive a quarterly investment report that provided both a report of the financial bottom line (valuations, income/ cashflow statements,...) and also a report on the spiritual and social goods being facilitated. Imagine a piece of paper dropping on the doormat that included "The sandwich business you are invested in is making X on turnover of Y, with encouraging new initiative Z still in development. The shop is being used to host an English as a foreign language course for the Kurdish immigrants who work there and the surrounding community. Not only that, but that has led into a simple English evangelistic course being run for employees and customers after hours... Please partner with us in praying that initiative Z will to help grow the business in the coming months, and for spiritul fruitto come from the evangelistic course. " Now - for me - that beats a few pie charts!

Why aren't we doing it already?

However, the operative constraint would be businesses to invest in. To build a portfolio of suitable investments, you'd need a portfolio of entrepreneurial individuals with a vision for business that connects with the city and with the church.** Where are those individuals? Are our churches looking to envision, connect, equip, support and celebrate them?

So were this to be tried (and I'm up for giving it a go!), I suspect you'd end up with a portfolio heavily biased towards real estate investments (new church offices, buildings for church plants, christian training establishments,...). Why? Because we are "entrepreneurial" in the way we do word ministry. So while it would facilitate those enterprises (which might be reason enough to set one up tomorrow!), simply raising capital wouldn't better enable us to "love the city" in the Jeremiah 29 sense. Real estate alone won't create Christian contexts within which the disenfranchised could work, experience community and be empowered... The young woman with learning difficulties still wouldn't find an offer of productive work in an atmosphere where a person's value is separate from their gifted-ness...

Sadly, a Christian Venture Capital fund would probably find it much easier to raise capital than it would to identify suitable projects to invest in. Corporately, Christian community is not furthering businesses of this kind, not because we lack the capital, but because we lack the vision. Still, some capital would be a start... Any volunteers?

*There is already an organisation of Christian financial advisors http://www.christianfinancialadvisers.org.uk who (to judge by the website) look to combine scriptural and professional advice on saving and investments. How great would it be if they had investments to present that used those talents?.

**(There are organisations that do this kind of thing. I was hearing last night about www.spearcourse.org which looks to equip young people for employement, and then potentially plug folks into businesses run by Christians. Why aren’t there more?)