Letters to Peter, 7

(My friend Peter has set me a challenge for 2024: each month he is going to ask me a question for me to answer. I want my answer to come from the heart, so I will try not use books, except the Bible. And I will try keep it to around 500 words. Thanks for the challenge Peter. I hope others find it helpful too.)

In a time of busyness with increased family, community break down and loneliness etc what is the model for a loving, supportive local church exhibiting authentic and meaningful fellowship? It appears in the NT that people lived and shared together more closely than we do today, is this just a cultural difference that we accept or do we challenge the norms of today, and if so how?

In the OT, the Israelite nation was supposed to be like a loving family, God’s people, worshipping him and living communally under his lordship. They were meant to be a light to the surrounding nations so that the nations would be attracted to the worship of the true God.

In the NT, there is a marked change: As a result of Pentecost, the people of God no longer constitute a political entity.

They are a minority within a hegemonic political entity – the Roman Empire.

Luke gives us two fascinating glimpses into the communal life of the early church (Acts 2:42-47 and 4:32:37).

There is a high level of unity of heart and mind, and a strong inner compulsion to share possessions with each other.

Over the centuries some have taken that as evidence that Christians should not own personal possessions. That is a false position, for two reasons: 

1.        It is clear that possession in themselves are not considered a problem (Acts 5:4);

2.        As with the whole book of Acts, these passages are an account of what happened, not a prescription for what should happen. So they need to be interpret carefully, not unthinkingly used as ammo for a particular lifestyle choice.

Nevertheless, it would be wrong to dismiss what those lovely early believers did as having no relevance for us today.

Paul, I think, lays down a principle in his letter to the Galatians that is surely relevant to all believers at all times:

Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up. Therefore, as we have opportunity, let us do good to all people, especially to those who belong to the family of believers. (Gal 6:9-10)

We are to do good. And we are to watch out for weariness in the doing, and resist the temptation to give up.

And those good works are to be particularly oriented towards fellow believers. Why? Because we are family.

Paul also says that if we don’t give up, there will be a harvest. I think that is what was happening in the early church there in Jerusalem:

And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved. (Acts 2:47)

A loving community is God’s plan for attracting people to Christ. In that way, the people of God after Pentecost are to function no differently to the people of God who lived before it.

 

 

Letter to Peter, 6

Considering current trends of how people receive information and access media, changes in levels of concentration, literacy, etc., how should the teachings of the Bible be best communicated in a local church setting, especially during a weekly Sunday service? Is the 30-40min sermon at all relevant today, effective or of value, and if not what should take its place (maybe more an 8 minute TED talk)?

I saw recently that the Pope has instructed priests to preach no longer than 8 minutes, which is uncannily the same length of time you quote for a TED talk. The reason, he said, is that you cannot hold people’s attention for any longer and they fall asleep. 

Does the Pope have a point? Should we limit our preaching to short talks? Are our congregations unable to concentrate for longer periods?

Here are some thoughts that I hope will be helpful:

Attention Deficit

The internet in general, and especially mediated through smart phones, clearly is having an impact on the way people think. Although there are nay-sayers, it seems to me to be incontrovertible. (See this article outlining the recent book by American psychologist Jonathan Haidt –, and a related article here.

While being devastating to children it is also, surely, changing the way the population at large thinks. I, for one, find my attention span seems so much shorter than it used to be, although that might be age!

This phenomenon demands that we work hard to help our people to develop healthy habits of reading and listening. We need ourselves to push back against the algorithms that demand we move on to the next thing without thinking.

Literacy

As a response to the increasing hold smart phones have on the wealthy (thinking globally), it has been observed that there has been an emergence of what people are calling a post-literate culture.

Clearly, if people do not read much, they will find it more difficult to follow a text in their Bible or on the screen. (This is compounded if they are reading on their phone, and a notification suddenly pops up, but that is a different problem really.)

Lack of literacy, however, is not a new problem for the church. This blog post by Michael Kruger suggests that literacy rates in the early church were never more than 10-15%.

This is surely a big driver of Paul’s instruction to Timothy: “Until I come, give yourself to the public reading of Scripture, to preaching and to teaching” (1 Tim 4:13).

I have been in church gatherings in which there was very little reading of Scripture. An unhealthy church culture is the inevitable result.

Why We Gather

Something very significant happens when we gather. I found this article helpful.

And preaching, in my mind, is the high point of the gathering of God’s people. We have been singing the Lord’s praises, listened to the public reading of the Scriptures, prayed together for the life of the church, and for the extension of the gospel to those who are outside of God’s grace.

Now we get to sit under the proclamation of the Word of God.

And God speaks to us! This never ceases to amaze me. And it never ceases to weigh on me when I am asked to preach. It is a burden, so I need to plead to the Holy Spirit for his help to enable me to preach in such a way that lives are changed. This recent article by Craig Thompson says it well.

Preaching was never meant to be the simple transmission of information to a congregation. To treat it as such is to demean the event hugely. If it were this, then we might want to communicate that information in another way.

But the Lord Jesus himself said, “He who has ears to hear, let him hear.” Everyone was listening, but only those who had ears to hear really heard. And that depended on the operation of the Holy Spirit in and through the preaching.

So let us not dumb down the preaching of God’s Word. Let us seek the Lord, that he would meet with us in a tangible way. And let us pray for our preachers to be given a double portion of the Spirit to equip them for this vital work. 

Letter to Peter, 5

(My friend Peter has set me a challenge for 2024: each month he is going to ask me a question. I want my answer to come from the heart, so I will try not use books, except the Bible. And I will try keep it to around 500 words. Thanks for the challenge Peter. I hope others find it helpful too.)    

May 2024

5. How should 'team' leadership and the pastor's role in practice work itself out in the local church and what is the biblical basis for this? Is there one pattern or does it depend on the leadership style of the minister?

Plurality in leadership was established by the Lord Jesus himself, when he appointed 12 men to be apostles. That surely became a model for the apostles as they began to establish new churches (Acts 11:19-26), and once Paul and Barnabas had led people to the Lord in Lystra, Iconium and Pisidian Antioch, they returned to those cities, and "appointed elders for them in each church" (Acts 14:22-23). 

Paul later spells us the requirements and roles of local church leaders in his letters to co-workers, Timothy and Titus (1 Tim 3:1-7; Titus 1:5-9). The elders had overall care of the local congregations. They were all to be men of godly character, and had to be able to teach. 

Paul tells us that the ascended Christ "gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists and the pastors and teachers, to equip his people for works of service" (Eph 4:11-12). I take it that the apostles and prophets were foundational (Eph 2:20), and that their work is continued today by evangelists and pastor/teachers (the Greek construction here suggests that the pastor-teacher is one gift). The goal is "that the body of Christ might 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 fulness of Christ" (4:12-13). That is a huge responsibility. It is the people who do works of service and the pastor who equips them to do it. But he can only carry out that work effectively if there are other church members willing to serve. In our church, we recognise such church members as 'deacons' (1 Tim 3:8-13), though in actuality there are plenty of members who do not hold office but do, nevertheless, carry out diaconal work in many forms.

I take it that a full time pastor is an elder who is paid in order to release them from the additional pressure of having to do another job for a living. It is not always possible for a local church to pay their pastor, so he may have to take an additional job in order not to be a burden to the flock (Acts 18:1-4). I don’t see that as being held up as anything more than a practical necessity for a limited time (5).

I am uncomfortable with the idea that a pastor might operate according to his 'leadership style'. My concern is that this might be used as a smokescreen for ungodly behaviour. Take, for instance, the pastor who is highly directive. He may have adopted his style from the corporate world, priding himself that he is decisive and runs a tight ship. The fall out will mount up over time as church members are sidelined for not measuring up or because they voiced an objection to his overbearing leadership. He might justify his actions as necessary for the church to 'move forward'. I heard of a pastor who said, "You can't make an omelette without cracking eggs", which of course is a tell-tale sign of an abusive situation.

The word 'minister' means one who serves, as Jesus did (Luke 22:27). So there is no place for heavy-handed leadership. That is not to deny that sometimes a minister or other elder might need to have a difficult conversation with a church member. But a minister's primary task is to teach; it is the task of the church as a body to enact discipline (Matt 18:15-20). If this distinction is observed, it should go a long way to prevent the minister from becoming a tyrant.

Letters to Peter, 4

(My friend Peter has set me a challenge for 2024: each month he is going to ask me a question for me to answer. I want my answer to come from the heart, so I will try not use books, except the Bible. And I will try keep it to around 500 words. Thanks for the challenge Peter. I hope others find it helpful too.)

                             

                                    April 2024

4. How does the impact of family breakdown in our society today negatively impact our church life and how should the church respond as the body of Christ?

There is no doubt that family breakdown has greatly affected the church in the UK, as it has in other countries, particularly in the West, where divorce is at such high levels.

Nothing I say here should be taken as a criticism of any particular person who has been through divorce: you can rarely make an informed judgment on how much someone is a victim rather than a perpetrator. And no one whose parents divorced should feel any shame for the failure of their parents' marriage. 

But, from memory, studies have shown an alarming similarity between family breakdown in the church and in wider society.

I suppose it should not surprise us: the church is a subset of that wider society. We live in the world and are subject to all the same pressures that are faced by our acquaintances outside the church. The same was true of the early church: Paul says of the Corinthians that, among them, some were sexually immoral, others idolaters, adulterers, men who have sex with men, thieves, greedy, drunkards, slanderers and swindlers (1 Cor 6:9-11). 

And divorce was a feature too. After all, our Lord himself made it clear that divorce was allowed under the Mosaic law as a concession because hearts were hard (Matt 19:1-9). It was bound to affect the NT church too. So it should not surprise us that broken families would be present in the local church. 

How does family breakdown impact the church?

1. The emotional toll it takes is bound to hamper the ability of the family members affected to benefit from involvement in church. I'm talking about benefitting from the means of grace: Bible study, preaching, close fellowship with God's people, etc. Children might become withdrawn due to the trauma that they have gone through, making it harder to engage them in spiritual conversation.

2. It will also take an economic toll: legal fees; dividing into two parts, each with a need for accommodation; the cost of getting children from one parent to the other each weekend, especially if one partner moves away. Believing divorcees will have less money to contribute to the work of the Lord in the church and elsewhere.

3. It will take a social toll: how many broken families will be able to host a church house group or offer hospitality to needy people? Even if the will is there, shifting to a smaller house may make hospitality very difficult.

4. And there is often a spiritual toll: In some cases children are absent from church week after week because they are with an unbelieving parent on weekends. So children with a believing parent are denied spiritual nurture from the church. It is a wonder if they do not drift away from the faith altogether.

And how should the church respond?

1. Teaching: Prevention is better than cure. It is vital that the church recognises the pressures that families are under and seeks to strengthen families so that they have the resources to resist the influence of the world. That means, surely, that biblical ethics are taught from the front, on Sundays, and at home groups and other small groups. (See my last letter.)

2. Warning: Church members must be warned of the pervasive influence of the world through technology, particularly social media - surely the most pressing face of the world in the church today. Pornography, I read somewhere, makes up 40% of internet traffic! It devastates marriages and devastates children - I think I read that 70% of children have seen pornography by the age of ten.

3. Prayer. We must pray for our families in the midst of such pressures. We need to pray that marriages will  be preserved in the face of conflict and the inevitable influence of the world. The devil is always prowling around seeking whom he may devour (1 Pet 5:8-9). We need to pray that husbands and wives will resist him, standing firm in the faith.

4. Community: The church is the family of God. We need to encourage our people to open their homes to others in the church, listen to their troubles, pray with them, help them out, play with their children. And we who are given responsibility as leaders must lead by example: The quality of being hospitable is a requirement of elders (1 Tim 3:2). Broken families must be welcomed into the community (and encouraged to stay in the community). It will speak volumes to the wider society if we are serious about this.

5. Confidence: As I wrote above, the Corinthian church was made up of people with very broken histories. But the wonderful thing was, God was still at work: they were washed, sanctified, justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of God (1 Cor 6:11). That's the beauty of the gospel. We have all these resources to build up the body of Christ to be the bride that she is meant to be.

Letters to Peter, 3

(My friend Peter has set me a challenge for 2024: each month he is going to ask me a question for me to answer. I want my answer to come from the heart, so I will try not use books, except the Bible. And I will try keep it to 500 words. Thanks for the challenge Peter. I hope others find it helpful too.)

3. At the moment our church membership does not reflect the age profile of the surrounding area. It means we are failing to reach the needs of the younger people, from young families, thru teenagers and children. I am sure this is a common problem but as well as praying how do we tackle this and see a 'sea change' (we run activities like a food bank, parent toddler group, lunch club etc) in people of all ages coming to faith?

 

March 2024

Dear Peter,

I am going to be a bit controversial this month. 

I believe that a significant reason for many churches losing the younger generation is that too much emphasis has been given to children and young people.

I say that as someone who runs a youth Bible study. That may sound paradoxical but I don’t think it is.

This is the way I think it works: a city church attracts a few families, hire a youth worker or children’s worker to cater to the perceived need that their families have, and create more programmes for children and young people. More families are attracted to the church by the high value the church seems to give to children and young people. That is really appreciated by working parents (both have demanding fulltime jobs) who are struggling to bring their children up in the faith.

But this begets two intermediate consequences (admittedly this is anecdotal – I don’t have any research at hand to check):

1.        Other churches in the area see the success that the growing church seems to be having and seek to emulate that success by adopting the same tactics. The problem is that there are only so many families with children who want to go to church. So these other churches struggle and wonder what they are doing wrong.

2.        If you move churches in order to take advantage of the hopping church on the other side of town with its dynamic youth work, what is to stop you upping your ecclesial sticks and moving on when an even hoppier church starts up?

The ultimate consequence is church as mall: you come for the experience, and leave if it doesn’t match up to your expectations. Far from solving the problem of the intergenerational transmission of the faith, it creates a consumerist church culture. (I know that I am generalizing; thankfully there are some exceptions.)

Church in the New Testament, however, was something altogether different. It was a community of Christ followers; people who were committed to each other in their commitment to the Lord Jesus. The idea that you could shop around and find the church that suited you was surely far from their minds.

I think a lot of churches in the West took a wrong turn in the 80s and 90s when they began to take a more pragmatic view. And we are living with the consequences of that today.

Furthermore, it is my observation, corroborated by others, that child-centred churches do no better than those that are not in retaining their youth. I have seen churches lose all their young people when they got too old (or too cool) for their youth programmes. 

So what is the answer? I think the most significant thing you could do would be to think through everything you do through the lens of men, i.e., adult males.

So often churches have programmes for children, young people, and women but nothing explicitly for men. 

But I am not just saying you should start a men’s programme. Rather, everything you do should have men in mind. What hymns and songs do you sing? Do you have men up at the front leading? Do men pray in prayer meetings? Do they even come to prayer meetings? If not, why not?

Men need to be discipled so that they know what they believe and are confident enough to lead the household. And if they are doing it well, the women and children are far more likely to follow in their footsteps. 

In his farewell speech to the Ephesian elders, Paul said this:

You know that I have not hesitated to preach anything that would be helpful to you but have taught you publicly and from house to house. (Acts 20:20)

Qualified men in the church need to take up the challenge of teaching not only in Sunday services, but also ‘from house to house’. In a household gathering (not just with a nuclear family but with others who are attached to them) people can have a more focussed instruction. They can ask questions and discuss issues in the light of Scripture. Children and young people see the adults interacting with interest and do not feel they grow out of church when they become teenagers.

Letters to Peter, 2

(My friend Peter has set me a challenge for 2024: each month he is going to ask me a question for me to answer. I want my answer to come from the heart, so I will try not use books, except the Bible. And I will try keep it to 500 words. Thanks for the challenge Peter. I hope others find it helpful too.)

2. How do you go about seeking leaders for your local church, (within a team leadership model) and what characteristics should they have?

February 2024

Dear Peter,

I thank the Lord for putting me in local churches that have had godly leaders. They weren't perfect, and still aren't - I am one of them now! But when a leader has a close relationship with the Lord, that sweetens even their mistakes.

There is, I think, a lot of bad leadership about. Recent scandals to hit church and agency alike have been very saddening to read. Marcus Honeysett's Powerful Leaders, is compulsory reading for Brits involved in church leadership. Likewise, Not So With You, edited by Mark Sterling and Mark Meynell, looks very helpful too.

When I was a student I was immensely helped by J. Oswald Sanders' little book, Spiritual Leadership, which I picked up from an OM book table in Belgium and devoured while hitch-hiking round Europe after the month of ministry. It is probably out of print now but had lots of helpful biblical wisdom and encouragement.

But your question focusses on leadership in the local church, and that is more specific. You have already narrowed the question further by telling me that your church operates with a 'team leadership model'. 

Leadership in your church will largely be circumscribed by the church's ecclesiological commitments. It seems to me the local church's structure must allow for both respect for authority (1 Tim 5:17) and accountability. 

That having been said, the NT tells us, in my understanding, of two offices that the Lord has given to lead the local church: elder and deacon. I like the way Matt Smethurst distinguishes between the two roles: he says that an elder serves by leading and a deacon leads by serving. When elders and deacons work together, with their respective gifting recognised by the congregation, a church is truly blessed. 

Also with Smethurst, I believe the biblical pattern is for a plurality of elders, rather than a single minister giving pastoral oversight (1 Tim 3; Titus 1).

More generally, though, a local church needs leaders for all kinds of works, and they don’t all have to be elders or deacons, although you could say that anyone who serves is a kind of deacon.

Many volumes have been written on this. I hope you will want to read further. But, in answer to your question, I hope the following tips would be helpful:

1. Only people who have a credible profession of saving faith in Christ should be leaders in the local church. You can ensure this (not perfectly but as best you can with the help of the Spirit) by keeping church membership only to those who have such a profession. If among your church membership there are those who have clearly never experienced the grace of God then you need to do something about that. You will need to keep a very careful oversight over the church membership so that decisions that are made by the congregation in regard to leadership are spiritual decisions. 

2. Make sure that you are looking for the right people for the right roles. The qualifications for elder and deacon are clear from the passages above.

3. Take note of who comes to the prayer meetings. If they don’t show up to the prayer meeting they really should not be in leadership. What is the point of appointing a leader for a work in the church if they don’t demonstrate their need of the help of the Lord by coming together with the Lord’s people to pray?

4. Look for who is already serving. The people you want to serve the church in leadership are those who are already looking for ways to serve. Do they serve the teas and coffees or help out on the media desk? Do they have a track record of faithfulness in serving? Do they arrive on time when they are on a rota? This is the sort of thing Paul was getting at when he said that “They must first be tested” (1 Tim 3:10).

5. You are not looking for perfection, but are they quick to accept when they have done something wrong? Are they teachable or stubborn? I would rather have someone who is only barely competent but willing to learn than a whizz-kid who is full of themselves.

6. Likewise, are they quick to forgive when someone wrongs them? I don’t think the Bible requires us to forgive the unrepentant but the lack of forgiveness toward one who has acknowledged their sin is deadly. A church member who harbours bitterness should not be in leadership of any kind.

 

Letters to Peter, 1

My friend Peter has set me a challenge for 2024: each month he is going to ask me a question for me to answer. I want my answer to come from the heart, so I won't use books, except the Bible. And I will try keep it to 500 words. 

Thanks for the challenge Peter. I hope others find it helpful too.

1.      How do you encourage and build the prayer life of your local church fellowship?

Background is that we have been plugging prayer over the last year or more and have a number of prayer meetings and opportunities to pray yet the leadership generally feel that prayer is still a weak area of the church at the moment.

January 2024

Dear Peter,

Thanks for prompting me to think about prayer in the local church. What an vital question! There can be few things about the life of the local church that are more important.

And there can be few things about the life of the local church with which we can feel more of a sense of failure.

The great exhortations of Scripture – “Be…faithful in prayer” (Rom 12:12); “…always keep on praying for all the Lord’s people” (Eph 6:18); “…in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God” (Phil 4:6); “Devote yourselves to prayer, being watchful and thankful” (Col 4:2); “Rejoice always, pray continually, give thanks in all circumstances” (1 Thess 5:17), etc., – these great exhortations are a huge challenge.

And they might be crushing, were it not for the great promises and encouragements that go along with them: “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light” (Matt 11:28-30); “I can do all this through him who gives me strength” (Phil 4:13).

And that same Lord Jesus has sent the Holy Spirit to help us and be with us for ever (John 14:16). And he is the Spirit of truth (17), the one who has inspired the Scriptures to teach us, rebuke us, correct us, and train us in righteousness, so that we may “be thoroughly equipped for every good work” (2 Tim 3:16-17; John 16:13). And that includes the work of prayer.

We are exhorted to “pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests” (Eph 6:18). Prayer is something the Spirit both empowers us for and guides us in: “We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us through wordless groans” (Rom 8:26). 

And what wonderful examples of prayer we have in the Scriptures: the prayer the Lord Jesus taught his disciples (Matt 6:9-13); the prayer of the disciples in those early days after Pentecost (Acts 4:23-31); and Paul’s great prayers in his letters (e.g., Eph 1:15-23 and 3:14-21).

But the greatest motivation to prayer is surely the gospel itself, isn’t it? We can organise prayer meetings, download apps, and sign up for prayer letters from all over the world. We can instruct, exhort, and challenge till we are red in the face. But none of these will fire up a church to pray like the gospel will.

So more than anything else, my prayer for you and your church, Peter, is that you would once again be captivated by the grace of God in the Lord Jesus Christ. That you would be thrilled as you listen again, in the preaching and teaching of the Word of God, to the wonderful reality that, “God was reconciling the world to himself through Christ, not counting people’s sins against them” (2 Cor 5:19).