TOGETHER ON A MISSION 09 - HIGHLIGHTS

It was a truly great week at The Newfrontiers Together On A Mission Conference. To give you a flavour I have posted the highlights video that was shown during the last session.

Enjoy!

Together On a Mission Conference, Brighton Highlights from Newfrontiers on Vimeo.

Church on Radio 1

Back on Sunday May 31st Kingsgate Community Church in Peterborough were given a Sunday morning slot on BBC1. They showed vibrant worship and Pastor Dave Smith was able to speak for 20 minutes about The Holy Spirit. It seems it made an impression on Radio 1's Chris Moyles.

Evangelism - Part 1

There is nothing that can strike fear into the heart of Christians more so than when somebody mentions the word "evangelism". There's something about this word which makes the hairs on our neck stand on end and brings us out in a cold sweat. Perhaps it's the thought of being made to stand on the street corner hassling people as they go past with the questions that they don't think they need answers for. Or maybe (and possibly more likely) it's the fear of not knowing what to say to people, how to say it, and even losing friendships.

Don't get me wrong, there is definitely a place for street vandalism. I have fond memories standing outside McDonald's around lunchtime in Bury St. Edmunds with a good friend singing worship songs and preaching the gospel. We had some good conversations and experienced the presence of God at times when we worshipped.

The reality is however, that this is not everyone's cup of tea. Not everyone feels comfortable standing in the street talking about Jesus to strangers or going around knocking on doors. I remember one occasion when the whole church that I was a member of was encouraged to meet in the market square one Sunday afternoon. We have a couple of guitars and about 15 or 16 members of the congregation. You have never seen such a miserable bunch in all your life! There was no questioning their desire to see people saved but what we were asking them to do just didn't feel natural enough for them.

So what's the answer? How do we get the majority of Christians involved in evangelism in a way that doesn't feel foreign to them?

Start Where You Are

Right at the beginning of the book of Acts we find Jesus telling his disciples that the Holy Spirit would come upon them and would empower them to proclaim the gospel " in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth." (Acts 1: 8). Jerusalem was where they were, it made sense to start witnessing where they were most comfortable, i.e. In their own culture or environment. As individuals we are probably most comfortable with our friends, relatives, work colleagues, and neighbours. These people are our Jerusalem! We start with those we have something in common with. Put simply this means we make friends with people and look for opportunities to share our faith as we get to know them better (I'm talking about genuine friendship rather than seeing people as projects that we ditch if they don't respond quick enough).

We must make sure we have non-Christian friends

Since moving into full-time Christian leadership and away from established friendships that had been built up over time I found that all my new friends were members of the church and I had no non-Christian friendships. How could I expect my church to witness to non-Christians if their leader wasn't prepared to do likewise? So I started playing football once a week with a group of total strangers with the aim of getting some much needed exercise as well as developing new friendships with non-Christians. For many of you, you will already be part of clubs and societies where you rub shoulders with non-Christians all the time. Your workplace will no doubt be mostly non-Christian. Why not start praying for God to help you develop two or three close friendships within those environments?

Next time I will share my thoughts on how we create opportunities to share our faith with our friends.

A Daily Treat

Fans of Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones can now read extracts from his excellent writings here. The writings have been presented in "bite size" format so as to take the form of daily readings. For those who only have a few minutes to spare these readings will certainly do you a lot of good.

New Testament Worship In The 21st Century (Part 3)

What implications do the format of the early church have on church life today? John Piper argues that compared to the complicated system of the Old Covenant the early church’s worship was simple and inward, with life and liturgy expressing itself outwardly in a variety of ways. The emphasis being focused more on the heart attitude of the believer rather than the particular method of worship. ‘What we find in the New Testament is an utterly stunning degree of indifference to worship as an outward form and an utterly radical intensification of worship as an inward experience of the heart.’ This would imply a more flexible approach is needed in our meetings, one which allows the overflow of the heart to be the emphasis of worship to God and less importance given to the method.

I don’t believe that John Piper is advocating that we can do anything, anytime, anyplace, anywhere in our meetings, rather that there is no sense of exactness about what we do. The New Testament is not explicit about how we should gather to worship but the examples of the book of Acts and the way in which the wrong things are challenged elsewhere lead us to important principles for gathering together.

Christians should be committed to meeting regularly together in large and small groups. This importance is reinforced in Hebrews where the Christians are told not to, “give up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but let us encourage one another”. Meeting together is for encouragement and it is quite difficult to receive encouragement if you don’t spend any time together. “The bottom line is that we will struggle to live the Christian life if we are starved of regular contact with other believers”. The New Testament does not directly say if larger or smaller groups are more important but seems to place great value them both. Our culture and tradition has given us Sunday as the “day of rest” so I see no reason why the larger church meetings should not be on this day as this is still generally most people’s day off from work.

New Testament Worship In The 21st Century (Part 2)

Singing Together

The early church worshipped God through song. Paul directs the Colossian church to “sing psalms, hymns and spiritual songs with gratitude in your hearts to God” (Eph 3:16) and again in the letter to the Ephesians, “speak to one another with psalms, hymns and spiritual songs.” (Eph 5:19) Even when locked up alone in prison Paul and Silas sang hymns to God (Acts 16:25). There seemed to be a general understanding that worshipping God included singing. So it is clear from scripture that the use of songs, directed toward God was not solely for the purpose of the larger meetings. There is something about singing that unites us, never more so than in the presence of God. We can all do it whatever our ability and make a joyful noise! (Psalm 95:1)

Scripture also indicates that during the early church’s times of worshipping together there would have been prayer, prophesy and an expectation of other spiritual gifts. In 1 Corinthians 11: 4-5 the apostle Paul outlines guidelines for men and women who pray or prophesy in their meetings. Later, in chapter fourteen Paul instructs the Corinthian church to desire the gift of prophesy in order to edify the church (v4) and to encourage one another (v31). The fact that Paul also gives guidelines for the orderly use of Spiritual gifts in chapter fourteen implies that they were considered a usual occurrence. Do we come to our own meetings with that expectation and anticipation of "I wonder what God will do among us today?"

Eating Together

Eating together and the breaking of bread were another important part of their gatherings. Acts 2:46 describes how the believers “ate together with glad and sincere hearts” suggesting it was something they desired to do and considered important. We know that it was a major part of the Corinthian church’s meetings as the apostle Paul rebukes them for reducing eating together and the breaking of bread to times of gluttony and discrimination (1 Corinthians 11: 17 – 22). Paul was obviously happy for them to continue in this practice as long as it was carried out in a respectful way.

We highly value the breaking of bread as a regular part of our worship, including it as part of our monthly Family Celebrations, but I would love to see it happen more in our small group settings and informal gatherings when Christians come together, perhaps even socially for a meal.

Eating together is still a great way to spend time with fellow Christians and unbelievers. The success of the Alpha course surely must owe some credit to the meal element of each meeting. As a family we generaly avoid planning Sunday lunch dates with regular members of the church, choosing instead to keep this time free so we can invite new church visitors home to eat with us. We mustn't underestimate the impact this kind of simple hospitality can have on people who are just looking in.

I would encourage all of you to consider having an "open house" mentality at least twice a month on Sundays.

New Testament Worship In The 21st Century (Part 1)

Many churches today claim to be a twentieth century reflection of the early church, while others claim that we need to be more modern and flexible in our approach to church. Most importantly though we need to look at what the Bible says about church. How did the New Testament Christians meet together and what is the difference between the principles of how church should be and the method to get there. When we have decided that we can address the implications for us today.

Where and When to meet?

Christians in the New Testament usually met together in simple, practical ways. That is, they met privately in houses and where possible, publicly in larger congregational type meetings. Acts 2:1 describes how on the day of Pentecost the disciples were “all together”. After Pentecost they continued to meet together in the temple courts on a daily basis (Acts 2:46 - 47). As new Christians that were “devoted” to each other (Acts 2:42) they would have looked for opportunities to meet up and the temple would have made a practical meeting place for larger numbers of people. We note that in Acts 3:1 Peter and John were continuing to go to the temple “at the time of prayer”.

As well as in larger groups we read that Christians also met with one another in homes, both formally and informally. Paul’s letter to Philemon refers specifically to “the church that meets in your home” (Philemon 1:2). On their release from prison (Acts 16:40) Paul and Silas made their way to Lydia’s house to meet with other Christians. Both the large church meetings and the smaller “house group” meetings were considered important and happened regularly. Immediately after Pentecost the believers began to meet together “daily” in the temple courts (Acts 2:46). It also appears that later on churches began to meet collectively on the first day of the week (Acts 20:7; 1 Corinthians 16:2).

So for us the principle is meet together regularly. The the when and where is as often as you can an in a place that is suitable and practicle for the number gathering!

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