tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-48177801818588377352024-03-13T05:43:01.199-07:00God Gold and GeneralsBook reviews and comments by Jeremy Marshall on Christian, historical and business themesJeremy Marshallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15495729193128994132noreply@blogger.comBlogger419125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4817780181858837735.post-11657952047123056742023-06-09T07:01:00.005-07:002023-06-09T07:01:39.310-07:00Guest Blog: Johannesburg Bible College by Nat Schluter<p> <img height="401" src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/LIguX4zPPBN9k6OdDtrQN3eiMyJE-704odh1NAkwk9rRKsa2xZN2nERCTmb3PBTZdNJ6DnGKfXoS2Y9J2e8aOTKtNy1O_Z_twqhvWdZGy2ku43L1f6Gm0g7OYTqXlPLpj6eC8cYWbec4fq0Xu4O21v0" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; margin-left: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-align: center; white-space: pre-wrap;" width="601" /></p><span id="docs-internal-guid-1d5aa2d4-7fff-6505-0caf-7d69a75b4130"><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0.03311920166015625pt; margin-right: 1.322509765625pt; margin-top: 0pt; margin: 0pt 1.32251pt 0pt 0.0331192pt;"><span style="font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Africa is the future of the church. Of course, the Lord Jesus said, ‘I will build my church and the gates of hell will not prevail against it’, so the future of the church lies in his heart and hands. Humanly speaking, though, population growth in Africa is faster than any other continent, and it has a vibrant Christian church. It is estimated that Sub-Saharan Africa will be home to 20% of the world’s population in 2050. Almost 40% of the world’s Christians will live in sub-Saharan Africa in just twenty-seven years’ time! </span></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0.1545562744140625pt; margin-right: 0.7337646484375pt; margin-top: 14.280609130859375pt; margin: 14.2806pt 0.733765pt 0pt 0.154556pt; text-indent: 0.496803pt;"><span style="font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Imagine then, as that decade approaches, men and women from Africa travelling all over the world as missionaries. Some will go in the traditional sense to evangelise, plant churches, and train leaders. Most will go as professionals in education, health care, banking, finance, industry, agriculture, government, and sports. African Initiated Churches are already planting branches in Europe. Many mainline churches already have the African diaspora among their congregation. If these men, women, and their families travel and settle as grounded, godly, committed, well taught evangelical Christians the impact will be significant. They will not only be an encouragement to local churches, but a witness to the light of Christ in cultures that seem to be losing it. </span></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0.03311920166015625pt; margin-right: 4.54302978515625pt; margin-top: 14.290618896484375pt; margin: 14.2906pt 4.54303pt 0pt 0.0331192pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.165604pt; text-indent: -0.165604pt;"><span style="font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: arial;">At present, in Sub-Saharan Africa, although the majority of teachers, nurses, police and accountants are trained and professionally qualified, some estimate that over 90% of pastors are not. The majority of churches, therefore, are led by men and women with little grounding in the Word of God. They have little training and engagement with the priorities and scope of ministry as set out in the New Testament. One of the sad consequences of this is little accountability and significant financial and pastoral abuse. Although there are some with theological objections to training (‘I have the Holy Spirit, why do I need the teaching of others’), our experience is the majority are keen for training, and experience a growing joy in Jesus and confidence as they study and train. </span></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="border: none; display: inline-block; height: 401px; overflow: hidden; width: 601px;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><img height="401" src="https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/JRCIe7EoUaZdwnVZRW7c7Xm4JaC_D6zg6XjiWi-soeU77AIhCaLOUoqNSW619JNdTFdoOahUiwxp4QTu18qe8tTJ96joo3jcnsuZ5IlZI8cMFi3GEH6oKVRXm1RAKwsLs_79FXuH6Snl372s4t1qhfg" style="margin-left: 0px; margin-top: 0px;" width="601" /></span></span></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0.0331192pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: arial;">According to the Association of Christian Religious Practitioners (ACRP) in South Africa, the main reasons given for lack of training are threefold. First, there is the lack of prior education, meaning that many pastors never completed school, and so are denied access to further education. Second, there is a lack of availability of training facilities in geographical proximity. Although pastors are willing to travel long distances, even daily, to receive training, there are not the colleges available to them. Third is a lack of finances. Even if the training itself is free, the cost of transport can be prohibitive. To tackle this the ACRP in partnership with the church, Bible Colleges and the Quality Council for Trades and Occupations, put together an occupational and professional qualification, which is now recognised by the South African Qualifications Authority. The Johannesburg Bible College was a part of this journey from its inception. </span></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0.35327911376953125pt; margin-right: 8.1485595703125pt; margin-top: 14.285064697265625pt; margin: 14.2851pt 8.14856pt 0pt 0.353279pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.0993576pt; text-indent: -0.0993576pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The vision of Johannesburg Bible College (JBC) is </span><span style="font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">to equip and inspire men and women for Bible teaching ministries</span><span style="font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. Our aim is to establish Bible colleges in the African high-density urban spaces, that provide a Christ centred, Spirit filled, God glorifying training that will lead to a radical Gospel transformation of local churches in Africa, their communities and the world. We desire to make this training accessible to all who need it. JBC started when a group of local church leaders, who were aware of the need for accessible and practical Bible training, invited Nat Schluter to establish the College. It opened its doors with ten students in February 2005. Since then the College has grown. </span></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0.11038970947265625pt; margin-right: 1.140380859375pt; margin-top: 14.2977294921875pt; margin: 14.2977pt 1.14038pt 0pt 0.11039pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.0441666pt; text-indent: -0.0441666pt;"><span style="font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: arial;">JBC is interdenominational and now serves over 300 students on a weekly basis in face to face classroom based training. It has three main campuses, one in Johannesburg, one in the Soweto township, and one in the Alexandra township. The College is now accredited to offer the new professional qualification, and is the largest college in this space, according to the professional body (ACRP). There are sister colleges in KwaZulu Natal, and in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe. There are plans for one in Maputo, Mozambique in 2024 in partnership with local churches. A team of five is currently studying at JBC and translating the course into Portuguese. </span></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0.12143707275390625pt; margin-right: 9.28594970703125pt; margin-top: 0pt; margin: 0pt 9.28595pt 0pt 0.121437pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.220802pt; text-indent: -0.220802pt;"><span style="font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: arial;">We have also had wonderful opportunities to train pastors further afield in partnership with over 20 other organizations, through our Training the Trainers program. This program serves ministries and churches in 12 sub-Saharan nations and is leading to many more opportunities. This year we have an additional seven international students who have travelled from Kenya, Tanzania and Malawi to train at JBC in order to capacitate training in their own countries. We have also been invited to train the pastors of the Free Pentecostal Church of Tanzania (FPCT), </span></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0.2539215087890625pt; margin-right: 10.17291259765625pt; margin-top: 0pt; margin: 0pt 10.1729pt 0pt 0.253922pt; text-indent: 0.176636pt;"><span style="font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: arial;">and help their five Bible colleges develop their curriculum. The FPCT has over 3,000 branches, and an estimated third of a million members. Their recent training conference in March was attended by over 400 bishops, pastors and leaders in Sumbawanga, close to the Zambian border. It was the second of an initial five conferences planned. </span></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0.1545562744140625pt; margin-right: 5.1378173828125pt; margin-top: 14.30731201171875pt; margin: 14.3073pt 5.13782pt 0pt 0.154556pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.29808pt; text-indent: -0.29808pt;"><span style="font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Johannesburg Bible college has grown significantly, and the opportunities are growing exponentially. We have over 290 students from South Africa, and over 30 from other countries including Nigeria, DRC, Malawi, Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia, Mozambique, Zimbabwe and Lesotho. We would love to double this in the coming years. </span></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0.3422393798828125pt; margin-right: 9.34979248046875pt; margin-top: 14.30731201171875pt; margin: 14.3073pt 9.34979pt 0pt 0.342239pt; text-indent: 0.29808pt;"><span style="font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Our prayer is that the Lord may lay this opportunity on the hearts of his Church in our generation before it is too late. Please join with us in praying to the Lord of the harvest to send out workers into this harvest field. Please pray too that the Lord will provide for this work to continue to grow. </span></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0.3422393798828125pt; margin-right: 9.34979248046875pt; margin-top: 14.30731201171875pt; margin: 14.3073pt 9.34979pt 0pt 0.342239pt; text-indent: 0.29808pt;"><span style="font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0.3422393798828125pt; margin-right: 9.34979248046875pt; margin-top: 14.30731201171875pt; margin: 14.3073pt 9.34979pt 0pt 0.342239pt; text-indent: 0.29808pt;"><span style="font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: arial;">JM note: I support JBC I think its a great cause and if youd like to join me you can do that here https://friendsofjbc.org/supporting-jbc</span></span></p><div><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 11.04pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></div></span>Jeremy Marshallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15495729193128994132noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4817780181858837735.post-38339129517323898882023-01-02T09:54:00.000-08:002023-01-02T09:54:00.376-08:00Book Review: Rembrandt is in the wind by Russ Ramsey Zondervan March 2022<div style="text-align: left;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjIx7950qMeCEdX9DYG1ix8IKu9gSJgubwHO-CFW-N1l8sH5WL4W-kp_JFHWjAGJ_mloxpShpucXtfFSRl51EytP7-PPbNTbo8FpzN8_4dKz-6GZUzlUDl40bHnI60iDd8ZKYSjnXlhtOdvRKuVjtSwCMEFJ62LWQ2aDp6L7TsPxuaJNO9mczyk6V9o/s500/rembrandt.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="500" data-original-width="328" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjIx7950qMeCEdX9DYG1ix8IKu9gSJgubwHO-CFW-N1l8sH5WL4W-kp_JFHWjAGJ_mloxpShpucXtfFSRl51EytP7-PPbNTbo8FpzN8_4dKz-6GZUzlUDl40bHnI60iDd8ZKYSjnXlhtOdvRKuVjtSwCMEFJ62LWQ2aDp6L7TsPxuaJNO9mczyk6V9o/s320/rembrandt.jpg" width="210" /></a></div><br /><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;">More and more Christians are rediscovering the wonders of art. Both for its own sake as an object of beauty and as a way of reaching nonbelievers, for the history of Western art is really the history of the Bible. </span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Not everyone works in a classic left brain logical scientific fashion, many people think left brain and emotions and art (or literature or music) often work for such people to help them on the path to God, in a way that a well-structured three-point talk, for example, might not. </span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><div style="background-color: white; color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: arial;">This excellent new book tells the story of various artists who either were Christians or were very influenced by Christianity. Some stories have been told before elsewhere like Rembrandt or Michelangelo or Caravaggio but there are also some much less well-known artists such as Henry Tanner or Lilias Trotter. The latter was a very brilliant woman artist in the nineteenth century. The notable Victorian art critic Ruskin was so impressed by her burgeoning talent he invited her to study with him. She turned all this down in favour of being a missionary in Algeria. The stories of the more famous artists are also fascinating and well told, not least as many of them were not your classic orderly followers of Christ. Van Gogh of course tragically committed suicide and Caravaggio murdered people in drunken brawls, but both were wrestling with faith even amidst their struggles. Ramsey brings this all out very thoughtfully and skillfully. </span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: arial;">In addition to these well-told stories of artists and faith, the book also has some helpful insights into how Christians should think about art and why pursuing art and beauty should matter to Christians. </span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: arial;">An excellent read. </span></div></div><div><br /></div>Jeremy Marshallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15495729193128994132noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4817780181858837735.post-34607452529367039072022-06-17T22:53:00.002-07:002022-06-17T22:53:34.664-07:00Book Review: The escape artist by Jonathan Freedland June 2022 John Murray Publishers<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEguhuPC7nDDc21ggrQV-o_5IrVG5lyZ7qS95o6ueURgmm2NHa5xUhXkRsCZB5k_j9caxWe3jIMF7g4UHzyOiGyT45PYrK0bmp30pICjATWyGHMtrJilSG1ZfqJnXQ1kvjfS8LwmjmgpCy8HxHHv9ainESvZ_Vsc7HU2gw_xyVY_L0YjeiISXsqQ4wYv/s499/vrba.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="499" data-original-width="325" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEguhuPC7nDDc21ggrQV-o_5IrVG5lyZ7qS95o6ueURgmm2NHa5xUhXkRsCZB5k_j9caxWe3jIMF7g4UHzyOiGyT45PYrK0bmp30pICjATWyGHMtrJilSG1ZfqJnXQ1kvjfS8LwmjmgpCy8HxHHv9ainESvZ_Vsc7HU2gw_xyVY_L0YjeiISXsqQ4wYv/s320/vrba.jpg" width="208" /></a></div><br /><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p> <span face="MetricWeb, sans-serif" style="color: #14171a; font-family: arial; font-size: 16px;">This is the story of Rudolf Vrba who with a friend was the first Jew to escape successfully from Auschwitz and try and warn the whole world and especially the remaining Jews what awaited them. He spent years in Auschwitz surviving by being young, tough, and lucky and almost uniquely worked almost everywhere and saw almost every aspect of the death machine and gas chambers. He calculated and memorised the number of Jews daily being gassed. The escape attempt itself Is the centre piece of the book and is absolutely gripping. </span></p><div style="color: #14171a; font-size: 16px;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div style="color: #14171a; font-size: 16px;"><span style="font-family: arial;">The tragedy is in a way worse when he is free. He and his friend dictate quickly the first detailed scientific report of what was happening in Auschwitz. It was eventually widely disseminated even after some while reaching Churchill and Roosevelt but no action was taken to bomb Auschwitz or delay the wagons. Some of this was based on pure anti-Semitism in the allies “moaning Jews” being scribbled on he memo. Churchill in despair said, “what can we do?”. Either way nothing happened. <br /></span></div><div style="color: #14171a; font-size: 16px;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div style="color: #14171a; font-size: 16px;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Even worse the remaining Jews of Europe in Hungary simply refused to believe the report. It simply could not be true. In the end, thankfully at least some of the 200000 Budapest Jews were saved when the pro-nazi Hungarian government stopped the cattle wagons from leaving after reading in the report what awaited them. But some of the Jewish community leaders had murky relationships with people like Eichmann and Rudolf eventually felt had covered it up to save their own families. <br /></span></div><div style="color: #14171a; font-size: 16px;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div style="color: #14171a; font-size: 16px;"><span style="font-family: arial;">This isn’t a book about Auschwitz rather it’s a very moving biography about Rudolf the man including his (entirely understandably) tempestuous and troubled life after the war. He died amongst forgotten and Freedland's brilliant research and writing rightly resurrects him. It’s a human story of someone who achieved something of amazing courage only for nearly nobody to believe the truth. We simply cannot conceive of our own death and the depths of evil were so much as to simply be rejected. Rudolf realised above all the Auschwitz worked so efficiently because it was a con trick. Only with the victims thinking to the very last seconds they were being resettled could thousands of men women and children walk freely into the gas chambers. <br /></span></div><div style="color: #14171a; font-size: 16px;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div style="color: #14171a; font-size: 16px;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Rudolf with superhuman courage exposed that trick but tragically the truth was so awful that it was ignored. His story must be told and read: a brave man who did his best to warn a world that wouldn’t listen. </span></div>Jeremy Marshallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15495729193128994132noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4817780181858837735.post-81965787107346285842022-06-14T00:25:00.008-07:002022-06-16T23:09:58.678-07:00Book Review: In the shadow of the Rock by Geoff Thomas RHB March 2022<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEilnQ5UcaPsfuqqrjLzMNaksh9D3eiCfrq1Wmk40kbbAKgQkK_ptys_X5rXVghBs__6JJ1OA28MWKU62hbv74LMS1cq4SbmDECnKQXX9AtlnpWAdEjddLJ3Tgg2UbQWFed9jWG_y97Mgvwkyj57cMlxgeFbzQo8nzUrgXfkqinEMv89oFX8uupWyE6n/s499/thomas.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="499" data-original-width="333" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEilnQ5UcaPsfuqqrjLzMNaksh9D3eiCfrq1Wmk40kbbAKgQkK_ptys_X5rXVghBs__6JJ1OA28MWKU62hbv74LMS1cq4SbmDECnKQXX9AtlnpWAdEjddLJ3Tgg2UbQWFed9jWG_y97Mgvwkyj57cMlxgeFbzQo8nzUrgXfkqinEMv89oFX8uupWyE6n/s320/thomas.jpg" width="214" /></a></div><br /><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p> Geoff Thomas (or even just “Geoff” to his many friends ) will be very well known to some of my readers from the free church/Celtic nations /Banner of Truth background but I suspect much less well known to my Anglican English friends. His new autobiography is thus a great opportunity to present Geoff's story, which is fascinating to a wider audience as well as filling in many gaps for those of us like me who have known him for many years </p><div dir="ltr"><br /></div><div dir="ltr">I particularly hope that it’s helpful to improve English understanding of Welsh Christianity and Welsh evangelicalism. Far too often English ignorance and at times even a condescending approach means we miss out on how much Wales has blessed England (notably but not only Martyn Lloyd Jones, I also think of many other Welsh friends crossing the border and blessing us, not least Geoff who now lives in London) <br /><div><br /></div><div>The whole book is very readable and I loved the personal angle and Geoff's stories of a Welsh childhood and the backstory of his parents and how the whole of Wales was still heavily influenced by the 1904 revival. Geoff looks at how many individuals were saved through that but that the movement lacked preaching and teaching with the result that then Welsh Christianity either became very rational and focused only on good works, effectively indistinguishable from socialism or highly emotional. Thankfully there was a remnant of faithful Bible-teaching churches who also did good (Geoff's church for example founded a pioneering charity for people with disabilities). </div><div><br />What is so interesting is the very different paths and characteristics of Welsh and English evangelicalism. Both have strengths and weaknesses and we can benefit greatly from working together. We need to know each other better and this is a great window into the wonderful world of Welsh evangelicalism which has a lot to teach its English friends. And even occasionally vice versa! <br /><br />And then the time Geoff spent at Westminster Seminary in the 60s was equally fascinating. I had no idea about that at all and he brings out so well the incredible quality of the lecturers and their human characteristics. There is a star-studded range of characters - John Murray, Cornelius van Til, EJ Young, Ed Clowney, and many others. Geoff enters a delightfully naive Welsh greenhorn and learns so much. Books also play a large part in shaping Geoff's life, and he is right in at the beginning of the Banner. My favourite story in the book is of Geoff meeting Jim Packer for the first time when Packer, who had only just learned to drive, scrapes his car into Geoff's car on a narrow country lane. Both were only children of railwaymen and although Packer's writings are world-famous, Geoff's are not too shabby either - try his splendid recent biography of the c19th evangelist Brownlow North, for example. </div><div><br /></div><div>The second half of the book deals with Geoff's ministry which began in Alfred Place Baptist church in Aberystwyth in 1965 and continued there for over 50 years with his faithful and biblical preaching greatly used to God's glory was also very interesting and what jumped out for me there was the number of men who went into the ministry from the church. I knew there were quite a few but not that many. Geoff is delightfully self-effacing and I’m sure his contribution to so many entering the ministry was much larger than he allows. God gets the glory throughout the book and it’s under the shadow of the Rock that Geoff takes his shelter. </div><div><br /></div><div>He writes movingly about the death of his first wife, his remarriage, and his family. He is also honest about his failings and above all, I think I enjoyed the personal and open touch that pervades the book. Of course, it helps if you know him and respect him as many do but even if you’ve never heard of him it’s a very good read especially to understand and appreciate our dear Welsh brothers and sisters. Mwynhewch!</div></div>Jeremy Marshallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15495729193128994132noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4817780181858837735.post-20779929635550586602022-06-12T13:49:00.007-07:002022-06-12T13:49:57.009-07:00Thoughts from hospital: how to share our faith<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjAXCzbTY_BFOJUVtSgjE7GwtYYCVG8QVKxeL0e8yu5S73ZDY59k9WUfX9kdm1KH-zBTcCXXtQx6g08Q3Ujd4vWHxAtBYGbxPoKmpqZ7fJlK-F4wnPnueSnosD1CiUfNWmPOm5lhh4mAcX8fOzLVq76-i5S0cm4mn2yRocwn0ZrqOMyQZS4gQJYJniv/s264/marsden.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="191" data-original-width="264" height="191" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjAXCzbTY_BFOJUVtSgjE7GwtYYCVG8QVKxeL0e8yu5S73ZDY59k9WUfX9kdm1KH-zBTcCXXtQx6g08Q3Ujd4vWHxAtBYGbxPoKmpqZ7fJlK-F4wnPnueSnosD1CiUfNWmPOm5lhh4mAcX8fOzLVq76-i5S0cm4mn2yRocwn0ZrqOMyQZS4gQJYJniv/s1600/marsden.jpg" width="264" /></a></div><br /><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p> <span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">I was sitting in my room at the Marsden reading when an unexpected visitor arrived. He was a doctor at the Marsden and explained he was a Christian and would love to get my advice on how to share his faith at work. He knew who I was and would like my advice. I was delighted!! I obviously didn’t take notes so my apologies to him if anything below was not what I said.</span></p><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">Like any good doctor, I started with some questions. How did he feel he was doing at the moment? What has his experience been? He told me he was afraid of two things: that people would be offended by him even raising the topic and that if they did discuss Christianity they would reject his invitation. We then got into more detail about what he was saying and inviting people to and I concluded the following</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">Nobody in my work was ever offended (it helped to be senior but also earlier in my career it was similar ) if you raise the topic in the right way which is with a friendly non-threatening approach eg</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">“What did you do at the weekend?” “Oh, our church had a great BBQ”. You’ve flagged that you go to church than simply leave it at that and see how people react</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">“How did you get on in covid?”</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">“It was very rough but I found my church or faith (ideally “Christ” ) so helpful</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">Again pause to assess their reaction. Some people are interested in exploring this further, others are not. It’s simply gently trying a door and seeing which ones open and which don’t. But many more are open than we think and then the ones that aren’t locked we gently knock and enter</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">The Holy Spirit unlocks doors from the inside but we can’t tell which ones! Time and time again it’s the people I think are very unlikely to be interested who are.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">We might say a little very little more so for me with cancer I might say “I love this verse” “yes though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death yet will I fear no evil for you are with me “</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">At some point I would now be coming to my all time favourite question “how about you do have any particular beliefs?”</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">My friend the doctor seemed to like my approach as very non threatening and low-key. He doubted anyone could be offended by such a friendly question. I was glad to hear that. Keep it very simple, low-key and non-threatening and allow lots of opportunities for our friends to change the subject if they want.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">We are building a bridge to Christ (a feeder lane as he is the bridge I guess) and by far the most common mistake is to drive too heavy traffic before it’s ready. We are launching into a discussion of the atonement while our friend along with 50% of the U.K. population doesn’t even think Jesus was a real person.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">Take it very slowly and gently. The next question “did you ever look at the Bible?”. Most people absolutely not. Have no clue whatsoever. Know zero. Nada.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">Then the final question “would you like to have a chat about it with me?” At which point most people will decline (3 out of 4) but some will say “ok”</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">We then discussed how this adjusts to a hospital context in which people are so busy and on rotas and you are never in the same group of people. All the more reason to keep it low key and open. Someone will pick up the topic at some point and if they don’t that’s down to God</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">We are simply to be scattering the seed and the ground where it lands is wholly up to God. Some land will be good and receptive but most will either be concrete or have the birds or the thorns kill the seed That’s God's job not ours. Ours is simply distributing.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">Seed is incredibly small “that’s why I find Jesus amazing” but powerful. The seed is Christ and the Bible the Word and the word.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">The seed must be literally scattered indiscriminately and in as large handfuls as we can.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">In a hospital context that will mean lots of three-minute very brief chats over coffee. That’s ok, we do what we can where we can. Each workplace is different adjust your approach to your context and friends</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">Finally invitations. My friend, I advised him, was asking people to church much too early. Which risks destroying the bridge. Especially in a context where people are exhausted from work and often live in London miles away from an event. Events are convenient for us but not for them. Instead, I’d suggest a coffee and a quick look at the word 121 together. Or just a coffee and let them ask you anything they like about the Christian faith. Personal bridge-building means eventually asking people is just so obvious they are almost asking for it. Don’t run before you can walk.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">So in summary</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">Pray</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">Scatter the seed as indiscriminately as you can</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">Try the door gently</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">If it opens build a bridge but be patient</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">If we scatter the seed and nothing APPEARS to happen that’s up to God we’ve done our job.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">Adjust your style to your personality and your workplace</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">We prayed and I wished him every blessing what an amazing encouragement for me. I absolutely love talking to non-Christian friends and the next best thing is talking about that! </span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;" />Jeremy Marshallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15495729193128994132noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4817780181858837735.post-13758623681285779862022-06-12T13:44:00.001-07:002022-06-12T13:44:17.525-07:00Thoughts from hospital: sick people need a doctor.<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg40Cy1Jq_jxjZqw2pmrP2eFhksQ5Njxoeuu7NDUFNVon72SimY6aRDtfsgGJdp5lDOQZUVkvgIheZ1aWgSF9bgKjYRVBqvnG-P9adu8UOkwWG2CbV6xCdo-EFjBAar9C5FrjW9URP0EZ9N5tFANAcCt7feZB58l5l7L-l8mpyWWlkDHWU9VZimk-lW/s264/marsden.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="191" data-original-width="264" height="191" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg40Cy1Jq_jxjZqw2pmrP2eFhksQ5Njxoeuu7NDUFNVon72SimY6aRDtfsgGJdp5lDOQZUVkvgIheZ1aWgSF9bgKjYRVBqvnG-P9adu8UOkwWG2CbV6xCdo-EFjBAar9C5FrjW9URP0EZ9N5tFANAcCt7feZB58l5l7L-l8mpyWWlkDHWU9VZimk-lW/s1600/marsden.jpg" width="264" /></a></div><br /><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p> I’ve just been in hospital for a while being treated for lung inflammation and here are some thoughts on what I’ve learned </p><div>I’m so convinced that hospitals and doctors and nurses are a great metaphor for Jesus and indeed the Lord used it himself “<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "Chronicle SSm A","Chronicle SSm B",serif; font-size: 16px;">Healthy people don't need a doctor–sick people do. I have come to call not those who think they are righteous, but those who know they are sinners and need to repent'" (</span><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=http://nlt.to/Luke.5.31-32&source=gmail&ust=1655152658499000&usg=AOvVaw1t63ANwfsHN5LpX7ov-I4_" href="http://nlt.to/Luke.5.31-32" style="color: #299eb3; font-family: "Chronicle SSm A", "Chronicle SSm B", serif; font-size: 16px;" target="_blank">Luke 5:31-32</a><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "Chronicle SSm A","Chronicle SSm B",serif; font-size: 16px;">).</span></div><div><span style="font-family: Chronicle SSm A, Chronicle SSm B, serif; font-size: small;"><span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span></span></div><div>I come here because I think it will do me good. And indeed I am hopefully leaving tomorrow feeling so different from when I came in when I could hardly walk the few hundred yards from South Kensington tube to the Marsden. I will be bouncing down the steps like a young kangaroo! </div><div><br /></div><div> But I was determined to do it because I knew what a difference it would make. My friend Chris helped me greatly by carrying my bag and helping me along. I couldn’t have done it without him. </div><div><br /></div><div>Such is Christ to me. I go to him because I am convinced that he will do for me what is good. In fact that if I don’t do it I will die. </div><div><br /></div><div> Because based on a very long lifetime of experience Jesus has never done me any harm and has done me so so so much good. He has shown me such kindness and compassion and dealt with both my symptoms and most importantly my underlying issue which is that my relationship with the universe creating God which is my whole purpose in existing has been broken. By me, by my own fault. He alone can repair that lifeline that umbilical cord and that’s why I am asking him for help. </div><div><br /></div><div>When I feel well even as a cancer patient the last place I would come is the Marsden as I spend enough time at my second home anyway! To find Christ we must realise we need him to fix us and only he can do that. The good religious people of Jesus' day didn’t see the point of his existence and his teaching. In fact the good religious leaders killed him it was the bad people the prostitutes and collaborators who flocked to him. Because they realised they had a problem. </div><div><br /></div><div>How about you? </div><div><br /></div><div>Next, meeting Christ is personal. I enter the hospital but there is only one person I want to see which is Prof Robin Jones my long-time oncologist whom I trust 100%. I would trust him with my life. When he turns up I’m thrilled to see him. What a sight for sore eyes: he’s been thinking about me and tells me what the underlying issue is (lung inflammation) and how we will treat it. He is so kind and caring nothing is too much trouble. </div><div><br /></div><div>Robin to me is Christ though of course, Christ is far more than even the world's greatest doctor (which is obviously Robin). Because doctors don't die for their patients. Yet Christ when I hated him died for me. And he died for you </div><div><br /></div><div>Finally, what should I do after I meet Robin? Do what he tells me because he knows how to fix me and I don’t. It would be madness to come all this way and ignore the way to get better. So I do I take the antibiotics steroids and other medicines and yes hallelujah within a few hours start to feel much better! Who’d have thought it! The medicine works!!</div><div><br /></div><div>What does Christ tell you to do? What’s the medicine- which is free</div><div><br /></div><div>“Come to me meet me, trust in me, follow me, obey my commands . “</div><div><br /></div><div>It’s really that easy. And how do I know what those commands are? The Bible. Now maybe your heart sinks at this point. “I’ve dipped into it and it’s so long and so hard to understand. “</div><div><br /></div><div>You need a Chris my dear friend who helped me limp along to the Marsden. Ask for help! Find a chris who can carry your luggage and show you the way. There is a very good set of little pamphlets containing one of the eyewitness accounts written by Jesus' closest friend a man called John. Each little section has explanatory notes written by a friend of mine who is a vicar in London. Try them with your “Chris” and if you haven’t got a Chris (every home should have one) please ask me</div><div><br /></div><div>Friend, you will never be well without Jesus the Messiah (aka Christ). His treatment is completely free he is waiting for you. If you don’t go you will die away from him and experience the second death - eternal separation from God. But what you can have for free is eternal life - eternal Union with God. And it makes a huge transformative difference to this life too. For me I find the experience I have of Jesus amazing and life-giving and he can be the same for you </div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div></div>Jeremy Marshallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15495729193128994132noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4817780181858837735.post-82572311923986878792022-04-18T02:46:00.002-07:002022-04-18T03:02:06.046-07:00What helps churches evangelise ? <div style="text-align: left;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhsURZXUImBqGT9VJIuXyUwBUFM3Ciy0HjVwXK-7bXtOdwJKdgBh-B94H8X55zp5OBn6pRW8Wi7Cn8W9us9IXB9ju_oq_c7AzjgaB8Hi0sS7vtvXmp5V6-BZMmixWx2FJZicihmIEOEMI56tZ1_Vme10AK3ges2_XA21RJqIoFcYGEjhpski2oQtDf2" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="640" data-original-width="480" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhsURZXUImBqGT9VJIuXyUwBUFM3Ciy0HjVwXK-7bXtOdwJKdgBh-B94H8X55zp5OBn6pRW8Wi7Cn8W9us9IXB9ju_oq_c7AzjgaB8Hi0sS7vtvXmp5V6-BZMmixWx2FJZicihmIEOEMI56tZ1_Vme10AK3ges2_XA21RJqIoFcYGEjhpski2oQtDf2" width="180" /></a></div><br /><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"> <span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Over the last few months, I have done many evangelistic talks throughout the country as part of “a passion for life”. Over 800 churches participated in this nationwide effort (including the Republic of Ireland) in the run-up to Easter and I was so encouraged to find churches in all places and of all sizes stepping out in faith. (Above is the church I spoke at in Derby last week, wonderful to see a church packed with children and young people). </span></span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Previously the talks I gave were online but now in person in the last few months, I had the perfect chance to talk to the pastor or vicar about what’s happening in their church.</span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> Here are a few personal observations about actions that help churches evangelise as well as things that should I believe encourage us about the general environment we live in. </span><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span><div><span style="font-family: arial;">So here are the things that I believe churches find useful in encouraging evangelism. . </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><b>The common link is to start small and to start by encouraging</b>. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">1. Personal evangelism is the starting point. Churches draw people to events if some people in the church have already been having initial conversations about Christ with their friends - planting the seed. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">2. If this hasn’t been happening (and admitting this openly is a good beginning!) then churches can simply start by training and encouraging people to start seed planting. Anything difficult (think learning to drive) takes training and encouraging: training and encouraging takes time. Start very small. The first time you were behind the wheel of a car you drove very slowly in an empty car park. You didn’t start in the fast lane of the motorway. And slowly slowly you kept improving your driving until after many years it’s entirely natural. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">Start by asking your friends simple questions such as “I find my faith so helpful: how about you, do you have any particular beliefs?” The passion for life training which you can find here <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.apassionforlife.org.uk/train-in-evangelism/&source=gmail&ust=1650360284036000&usg=AOvVaw1QjYfJLsQLLjxz-d7grEWp" href="https://www.apassionforlife.org.uk/train-in-evangelism/" style="color: #1155cc;" target="_blank">https://www.<wbr></wbr>apassionforlife.org.uk/train-<wbr></wbr>in-evangelism/ </a>has been used by so many churches and I’ve been overwhelmed by the positive feedback, especially from churches that have never really done anything before. Don’t know where to start? Start here! </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">3. Many Christians are discouraged (see below) so the antidote we need is encouragement. We are nearly all cowards and afraid of what people think of us. Isaiah 41:10 promises us the presence of the Living God when we are afraid. Encouragement means confessing our weaknesses and fears, being honest with one another. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">4. Churches do best where their leaders model personal evangelism. This is hard because leaders are so busy and also many discouraged and tired after covid. Dear leaders: do what you can. Find one friend and Invite them after a while to read the Bible with you and even if they decline (as they may well do!) you have started to be a model to your congregation. Tell your church about your failures. When you are teaching your children to drive and they keep stalling you don’t tell them “why did you do that ? I never stalled “ rather you say “you should have seen your grandfather teaching me to drive!”. Leaders can encourage their flocks by sharing their stories of personal evangelism and especially their failures! </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">5. Like learning to drive “little and often” is the way. Rather than one big evangelistic push after which we collapse, the best route churches have found I observed is to organise regularly small events. Bottom-up is good. Unleash the creative energies in your church. Sometimes the best ideas are the simplest ones. Having a bookstall in the local high street for example. Try things and if they don’t work try something else. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">6. I find that everyone who comes further towards Christ almost always has a Christian friend to walk with them and help them, to make them feel welcome in the church and part of the community of believers. This is perhaps the flip side of the comment above about pastors modelling evangelism: the members of the congregation equally need to disciple one another, especially seekers and inquirers, not outsource discipleship to the professionals. We need to genuinely care about the people in the community around us. Quite a few people I have spoken to outside the church have been struck by the local church's response in their area to sheltering Ukrainian refugees for example.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">7. Realise that none of us can talk about Christ without the help of the Holy Spirit. Realising our weakness and utter dependence on him is essential. “Oh Lord I just can’t do this, I’m afraid, please help me “ is the evangelism prayer we all need </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><b>Encouragement from the general environment </b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">8. Many Christians are discouraged because they think that everyone is against us and fear that if they start a conversation people will be aggressively hostile. This is simply not true: most people don’t think about the church or the Christian faith from one month's end to the next. They are not hostile they are indifferent. Yes, there is a tiny tiny minority of people who are hostile - and God may reach them too. Look at Saul of Tarsus! </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">9. Most people don’t have the slightest clue about the Bible or the Christian faith. I can’t tell you how many people came up to me after I have spoken and say something like “oh I didn’t realise Jesus was a real person I thought it was just a fairy story” or “that’s a great story about Jesus did it really happen?” or "I'd like to explore it further how do I do that?"</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">If they have a vague idea about Christianity they think it’s about being good and doing your best. Most people also know zero about the Bible and I mean zero! Nada nothing, rien.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">Both of the above can be viewed as tremendous opportunities. It’s not that our friends have considered Christ and rejected him they simply don’t know anything much about him. The obvious place to start is to look at one of the gospels with a friend. The Word 121 booklet I have found amazingly easy to use. People because they know nothing about it , find the gospel story and especially Jesus as a person so powerful and so fascinating </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">10. Covid and Ukraine have shaken many people and many people are much more open to something new (not necessarily Christi</span><span style="font-family: arial;"><span face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">ani</span><span face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">ty per se, it can be anything) than pre 2020. </span></span></div></div></div>Jeremy Marshallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15495729193128994132noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4817780181858837735.post-20329214663554160952022-03-09T14:54:00.007-08:002022-03-10T01:55:49.829-08:00Sheep R Us the Oldham tapes <p><span style="font-family: arial;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgQreOUN2mMwEfM8KhDgCMSqx8lzRIn2fKG0qn5psZFEVk1HgLcf8gA_EXZPnXWZOzsCvb2VIb4sn-RdsZn9CXsIjUh3k413fzjMK6wPeg5adX0-QWrkRFdeBiwvvyh6KxB3H2XbJ0DqicabCLeH36j9_eP1vlRm2wB6auoZTFGOsoYruosFcyXnQo2=s800" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="450" data-original-width="800" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgQreOUN2mMwEfM8KhDgCMSqx8lzRIn2fKG0qn5psZFEVk1HgLcf8gA_EXZPnXWZOzsCvb2VIb4sn-RdsZn9CXsIjUh3k413fzjMK6wPeg5adX0-QWrkRFdeBiwvvyh6KxB3H2XbJ0DqicabCLeH36j9_eP1vlRm2wB6auoZTFGOsoYruosFcyXnQo2=s320" width="320" /></a></span></div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /> </span><p></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #303030;"><br /></span></span></p><p><span style="color: #303030; font-family: arial;"><span style="background-color: white;">I wrote about how to get people to come back to church here <a href="https://jsjmarshall.blogspot.com/2022/03/how-can-we-persuade-people-to-come-back.html" target="_blank">https://jsjmarshall.blogspot.com/2022/03/how-can-we-persuade-people-to-come-back.html</a></span></span></p><p><span style="color: #303030; font-family: arial;"><span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span></span></p><p><span style="color: #303030; font-family: arial;"><span style="background-color: white;">The estimable Steve Kneale wrote a thoughtful reply which you can read here <a href="https://buildingjerusalem.blog/2022/03/09/if-they-havent-been-moved-by-jesus-hassling-obscures-the-issue/" target="_blank">https://buildingjerusalem.blog/2022/03/09/if-they-havent-been-moved-by-jesus-hassling-obscures-the-issue/</a></span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #303030;">I have found a recording...</span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #303030;"><br /></span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #303030;">--------- </span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #303030;">Phone rings </span></span></p><div><span style="background-color: white; color: #303030;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span style="background-color: white; color: #303030;"><span style="font-family: arial;">“Sheep R Us Oldham how can I help you?”</span></span></div><div><span style="background-color: white; color: #303030;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span style="background-color: white; color: #303030;"><span style="font-family: arial;">“Good morning it’s Head Office here”</span></span></div><div><span style="background-color: white; color: #303030;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span style="background-color: white; color: #303030;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Oldham “Excellent, I assume you are calling to give me a promotion? ”</span></span></div><div><span style="background-color: white; color: #303030;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span style="background-color: white; color: #303030;"><span style="font-family: arial;">HO “ Well not exactly no, though we are delighted by your efforts in reaching sheep from flocks that we find difficult to reach, by the amazing work you do in one of our toughest markets, by your prodigious writing appetite, by your wonderful influence even with those dreadful bankers, you are a shining star...”</span></span></div><div><span style="background-color: white; color: #303030;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span style="background-color: white; color: #303030;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Oldham (interrupting) “So you <u>are</u> calling to give me a promotion?”</span></span></div><div><span style="background-color: white; color: #303030;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span style="background-color: white; color: #303030;"><span style="font-family: arial;">HO (firmly) “No. I’m calling about your latest article in “shepherding now”: or it might have been in "shepherding times" or “building sheepfolds”? Hard to keep up with all your excellent articles.”</span></span></div><div><span style="background-color: white; color: #303030;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span style="background-color: white; color: #303030;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Oldham “Look it’s just not my fault” </span></span></div><div><span style="background-color: white; color: #303030;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span style="background-color: white; color: #303030;"><span style="font-family: arial;">HO (puzzled) “Sorry what’s not your fault?”</span></span></div><div><span style="background-color: white; color: #303030;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span style="background-color: white; color: #303030;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Oldham: “That these pesky sheep have wandered off. It’s not my fault it’s their fault. they need to take responsibility for their actions” </span></span></div><div><span style="background-color: white; color: #303030;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span style="background-color: white; color: #303030;"><span style="font-family: arial;">HO: “But nobody’s saying it’s your fault. You work like a Trojan. You are doing a really great job as our our other Branch managers. But equally, how do you know it’s their fault? It might be but it might not be. Have you met with all the straying sheep of Oldham? Some may have stopped coming for valid reasons after all? ”</span></span></div><div><span style="background-color: white; color: #303030;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #303030;">Oldham “</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #303030;">The sheep who have not returned haven’t come back because the sheepfold was never that big a priority for them. It was very much a habit they never kicked. The enforced break during the pandemic meant that the habit was kicked and there was no great desire to pick it up again. Which begs a question: how keen should we to be to woo such sheep back?”</span></span></div><div><span style="background-color: white; color: #303030;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span style="background-color: white; color: #303030;"><span style="font-family: arial;">HO: “I would say very keen! You see that’s my point: some may have stopped coming because of all sorts of things some valid some not, but surely we need to meet them and try and listen to them and gently persuade them to come back?. Even if they have no particular reason or a bad reason let’s go and seek them to come back” </span></span></div><div><span style="color: #303030; font-family: arial; font-size: small;"><span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #303030;">Oldham: “At the end of the day, if sheep know you are open and meeting yet choose to stay away…we are only really learning something about the state of that sheep's heart. </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #303030;">and we have to be clear that winning such sheep back may get sheep on seats, but it won’t of itself make them healthy sheep or change their ultimate priorities.”</span></span></div><div><span style="background-color: white; color: #303030;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span style="background-color: white; color: #303030;"><span style="font-family: arial;">HO: “No of course it won’t but isn’t that why we love evangelism and discipleship? All of us were once like that with bad sheep hearts and someone persuaded us that Sheep R Us was the answer. They helped us and persuaded us. Shouldn’t we be patient and welcoming and pursuing foolish sheep? “</span></span></div><div><span style="background-color: white; color: #303030;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #303030;">Oldham “the issue is that they have bad hearts. And </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #303030;">what a shame it would be if we poured our time and energy into chasing the uninterested and uninvested sheep at the expense of those sheep who want to be there.”</span></span></div><div><span style="color: #303030; font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="color: #303030;">HO: “ But our founder the Great Shepherd gave us very very clear instructions on this exact issue. In fact, if you look at our operating manual you will see this “</span><span style="background-color: white;">What do you think? If a man owns a hundred sheep, and one of them wanders away, will he not leave the ninety-nine on the hills and go to look for the one that wandered off?” </span></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="background-color: white;">Yes, they are wandering sheep but shouldn’t we make every effort to go and look for that sheep and try and persuade it to come home? Surely we shouldn’t just shrug our shoulders and say “foolish sheep with bad hearts ” but try as hard as we can make every effort to persuade the lost sheep to come home? And surely that means not just a cursory phone call but a coffee and a meeting and a friendly invitation to come back? You make a valid point that there may be a time when we say “I’ve done all I can” but if we don’t even meet them we don’t even know why they stopped”</span></span></div><div><span style="color: #303030; font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="color: #303030; font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="background-color: white; color: #303030;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Oldham “We don’t want those who will come because they’re worried about being hassled by shepherds, but because they love the Great Shepherd and Sheep R Us. We can obscure this in our desperation to chase those who haven’t really been moved by this, and that strikes me as less than ideal.”</span></span></div><div><span style="color: #303030; font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="color: #303030; font-family: arial;">HO “But that’s exactly my point! When the Great Shepherd found us he didn’t give us one invitation he was incredibly patient with us. He came after us and sought us relentlessly. Look at the story in the operating manual about how he treated two of the founding sheep who were running away. He spent hours and hours with them! Look at how even though their women had told them the truth and they still didn’t believe he still went after them. Yes he called them foolish and they and we are foolish by nature but what did he do? He didn’t say “it’s your fault” he didn’t say “the sheep are meeting your problem if you run away”. No, he spent hours and hours with them explaining to them the operating manual and by doing this he warmed up their frozen hearts.</span></div><div><span style="color: #303030; font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="color: #303030; font-family: arial;"> Surely so must we be as we see sheep wandering off, we must get alongside them and see if we can get them looking at the operating manual with us. Then with God's help, their hearts will be warmed and changed and they will come running back. That’s our job isn’t it?”</span></div>Jeremy Marshallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15495729193128994132noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4817780181858837735.post-73030486701504469712022-03-07T14:51:00.012-08:002022-03-08T08:22:21.339-08:00Memories of Ukraine: thoughts for today <p><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEibdH4qM-FYq5-d7kjsOZbawNTa7wQTm8g2x1uXAmFwhGqbzBv5ppxUTmJZAtqHfd639gNz6q1sotJPeLQm1k-UdvJTrhfUu6xfmWBdcqH45yUQwZ6SJ-70T9I4qpFidsfKHukbEkuLIN9sTGOL6ylDbLYlDnYiU0ihJa5Vp8IyndxmMR4ArFVWk7wV=s2048" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1152" data-original-width="2048" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEibdH4qM-FYq5-d7kjsOZbawNTa7wQTm8g2x1uXAmFwhGqbzBv5ppxUTmJZAtqHfd639gNz6q1sotJPeLQm1k-UdvJTrhfUu6xfmWBdcqH45yUQwZ6SJ-70T9I4qpFidsfKHukbEkuLIN9sTGOL6ylDbLYlDnYiU0ihJa5Vp8IyndxmMR4ArFVWk7wV=s320" width="320" /></a></span></div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span><p></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;"><br /></span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">All the places on TV like Lviv, Kyiv and Kharkiv*? I’ve been to all of them a long long time ago. A very different world but some things remain the same.</span></span></p><span style="font-family: arial;"><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">It was the long hot summer of 1976. Previously we’d been to Yugoslavia and to Romania and now it was time for the big one - the USSR. Dad loaded his wife, 4 children aged 13 (me) to 3, huge quantities of tinned food (no question of eating the local food of course, although as you will see that was probably wise in the USSR! ). Oh, and significant (50) quantities of Russian language Bibles tucked away here and there. Although as I explain below Dad's main purpose was to encourage the Ukrainian Christians by showing someone in the West cared about them. </span></span><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;"> At the campsite in Hungary, before we entered what is now Ukraine, I tried (for once) to be helpful and unload the camping chairs on the roof rack only to be hit by a mini avalanche of Russian Bibles tucked into the folds of the chair. We went Hungary - Lviv - Kyiv - Kharkiv and there in Kharkiv we stopped as Dad's plan to reach the Caucasus proved rather over-ambitious. Each day's journey was a wearingly long 10-12 hours and then having to erect the tent and then dismantling it in the morning. Faced with a somewhat mutinous crew Dad kindly agreed that 3 “one night stops” to the Caucasus and three back was too much so we spent extra time in Ukraine instead. In Kharkiv, we even (wonder of wonders) stayed in cosy little wooden huts when the car broke down and had to be repaired. </span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">Some themes that resonate today</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">1. The friendly people. Everywhere we went people were incredibly friendly and curious. Remember we in the west were the enemy yet without exception people were welcoming and wanted to try out their broken English. My father had taught himself basic Russian using lingua phone records from the local library (amazing to think the council provided a complete set of teach yourself Russian for free!). I remember being left alone in the car in the centre of Lviv. I of course was reading a book! It was a hot hot summers day and the windows were down and there was a constant stream of people (including army officers) popping their heads through the windows to take a look at this strange western car (Volvo 144 ) and especially at the right-hand drive which caused all kind of amusement and curiosity. Also in Lviv, we got into conversation with many locals who quickly corrected us when we said they were Russians “no no we are not Russian we are Ukrainian!” Lviv was and is a beautiful city (see the train station which I remember passing). Pre 1914 it was Lemberg a civilised metropolis of the Austro Hungarian empire where well-dressed gentlefolk including many Jews promenaded down broad tree-lined boulevards. If you want to know the terrible aftermath read “east-west street” by Philippe Sands.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">2. Suppressing the truth. Then as now the masters in Moscow wanted to control what was happening. At the border, every single book has to be placed on a large wooden table and carefully examined by guards (some of whom we suspected couldn’t read English very well). Suspect books were not confiscated but the border guard would say “we propose to exchange these for the collected speeches of Stalin”. Sometimes the reason why a particular book was confiscated would be rather hard to understand. Antonia Fraser’s “Cromwell our chief of men” would surely as a biography of a noted regicide be viewed favourably? Au contraire into the forbidden pile it went. Once through the border at every main junction there would be a police post and we would be waved down and often asked “is this a British Volvo ?” So they were looking for us. At most of the campsites there was a separate section for westerners (so as not to infect the locals ) and 24x7 there would be a little main in a little hut watching us. You would get up in the middle of the night to go to the toilet (Soviet toilets were worthy of their own blog) and there he was watching you. There were also Alsatian police dogs sniffing around. . We met an American Ukrainian family trying to meet their family whom they hadn’t seen since they fled to the west in 1944. The authorities forbade them to go to the village (you had to stick to the main roads only and if you wandered off you would be stopped by the police) so they had to have a picnic by the side of the main road with their grandmother whom they hadn’t seen for over 30 years. Everywhere there were secret police: when we went walking to visit some Christians in a flat in Kyiv Dad deliberately stopped to tie up his shoelace and as he told us afterwards about 30 yards behind a rather embarrassed middle-aged man also abruptly stopped.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">This was a regime that feared the west but even more feared its own people. It only survived by repression violence and intimidation. No wonder the people of Ukraine value their freedom and democracy so highly that they are willing to die for it</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">3. Logistical challenges. Ukraine is very very big. It’s twice the size of Italy nearly five times the size of England. West to the east is enormous- if imposed in Western Europe Ukraine would stretch from London to Prague. Almost all of it is a vast almost featureless plain rich in agriculture (see photos above). The roads which I assume have improved noticeably were atrocious. You would be driving along the equivalent of an English “A” road when suddenly without warning you were diverted into literally a field. Bouncing over the ruts you went the car shaking and rattling. Not surprisingly the car kept going wrong the exhaust ended up strapped to the roof and as a result, the engine sounded rather pleasingly like a sports car! Dad was often breaking down and again what was striking was the friendliness of the Ukrainian people who poured over to help and have a look at these strange westerners. We were always getting lost because everything looked the same. Vast fields of sunflowers stretching as far as the eye could see You can see the logistical challenges. We were given nothing but help but lost and bogged down Russian soldiers will be greeted in a different way.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">The same was true for food. The Soviet system was unbelievably incompetent and corrupt. No doubt some things have improved but even delivering the basic foodstuffs was a challenge. The “supermarkets “ has hardly anything just bread potatoes and cabbage and maybe some tinned cans of fish. This was one of the richest agricultural countries in the world. If you wanted a good choice you went to the elite stores where a doorman kept you out unless you were a member of the elite or a westerner with the highly craved hard currency. No change there in Russian logistic systems. </span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">4. Willingness to suffer for what was right. The reason that we went was that we wanted to support the persecuted Christians of Ukraine. Standing up for what you believed in has a huge cost as now. Very often the pastor would be in a Siberian gulag. Outside every church (which was a house ) was a police car noted who was attending. If you were an old grannie a “babushka” they didn’t mind so much (“religion is dying out”) but the authorities cracked down on young people especially as this went against the whole atheistic creed. If you were a believer you couldn’t get a job or go to university. Yet these ordinary people were willing to stand up and suffer because they believed in God.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">At the same time, they were incredibly indeed embarrassingly generous. When we arrived (unexpectedly, nobody knew who we were and Dad was always low key</span></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial;">) we were often treated like kings and queens. We would be invited to “tea” (the American Ukrainians above were at the same church in Kharkiv and said amusedly “the British have been invited to tea”! ) we had to eat and eat until we could eat no more (which as a growing teenager trust me was a lot of food!) and as we left people would be stuffing sweets into our pockets. What amazing generosity that they from their little gave us all that they had. Their willingness to suffer and in some cases die for their beliefs was striking. To me, one of the most compelling arguments for the truthfulness of the Christian faith is that willingness to suffer for something that bought no human advantages, only disadvantages. The only reason for doing that was that it was both true and life-transforming. </span><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">That generosity, desire for freedom and above all a willingness to stand up and be counted and suffer for what they believed in was amazing then and it’s amazing now</span></span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;" /><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial;"><span style="background-color: white;">And what of us in the West? Many people said to my father he was wasting his time or taking unnecessary risks with his family. It wasn't much we could do, but what we did was to show these persecuted Ukrainians that we in the West cared. To encourage them by showing up. And if enough people do that it makes a huge difference, for 13 years later the whole corrupt evil Soviet system came crashing down. </span></span></div><div><span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial;"><span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial;"><span style="background-color: white;">*Ukrainian spellings in those days they were known by the Russian variants </span></span></div></div></div>Jeremy Marshallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15495729193128994132noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4817780181858837735.post-60247317207634065702022-03-06T06:34:00.002-08:002022-03-06T06:34:51.865-08:00How can we persuade people to come back to church? <div style="text-align: left;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEg86aWfwA8bnd7ou50VUoP7KTTVgqjKdb8fA55q8SXJ_Kc9w3R88f_f13QjnCO04qEutpqKv3_0I-YIGYmdYKT9EBSFoS-HOoutOoAGPpDk_doyDPPjV6UNgJ_a07i3yH9iX3up7DqwkrVOs-pF49OFyerIDNJ7c6OoP5uFepPIkHTFkhSBO7VYbCpg=s275" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="183" data-original-width="275" height="183" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEg86aWfwA8bnd7ou50VUoP7KTTVgqjKdb8fA55q8SXJ_Kc9w3R88f_f13QjnCO04qEutpqKv3_0I-YIGYmdYKT9EBSFoS-HOoutOoAGPpDk_doyDPPjV6UNgJ_a07i3yH9iX3up7DqwkrVOs-pF49OFyerIDNJ7c6OoP5uFepPIkHTFkhSBO7VYbCpg" width="275" /></a></div><br /> </div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Several churches report a steep drop in people attending (either in person or electronically). A good friend in a large city centre church reported his church was 40% down in attendance pre-Covid. </span></span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Let me take an example of how I have reacted to that in a business situation. </span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Now “ Oh no” I can hear you saying “don’t bring business into church!”. The church is not a business but that doesn’t mean that we can’t learn from business for as Jesus said “<span style="color: #001320;">And his master commended the unjust manager [not for his misdeeds, but] because he had acted shrewdly [by preparing for his future unemployment]; for the sons of this age [the non-believers] are shrewder in relation to their own kind [that is, to the ways of the secular world] than are the sons of light [the believers].” (Amplified Bible)</span></span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; text-align: left;"><span style="color: #001320; font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; text-align: left;"><span style="color: #001320; font-family: arial;">So how can we be shrewd or wise? I’ve been in situations like this at work where we have lost a large number of customers to the competition following a big problem. This is what we did </span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; text-align: left;"><span style="color: #001320; font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; text-align: left;"><span style="color: #001320; font-family: arial;">Get a list of everyone we’ve lost.</span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; text-align: left;"><span style="color: #001320;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="color: #001320;">Divide the list up according to who knows them. </span></span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="color: #001320;"><br /></span></span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="color: #001320;">If there are people nobody knows the most senior caller should take them </span></span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; text-align: left;"><span style="color: #001320;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; text-align: left;"><span style="color: #001320; font-family: arial;">Call them up one by one (not an email) and ask for a coffee </span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; text-align: left;"><span style="color: #001320; font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; text-align: left;"><span style="color: #001320; font-family: arial;">If they agree to meet, listen to them and try and understand why we’ve lost them, and see what can be done. Thank them for their input. </span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; text-align: left;"><span style="color: #001320; font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; text-align: left;"><span style="color: #001320; font-family: arial;">Have a plan to follow them up in say six months and then a year</span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; text-align: left;"><span style="color: #001320; font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; text-align: left;"><span style="color: #001320; font-family: arial;">I found that typically you recover well more than half and even the minority who wouldn't come back greatly appreciated the call and in some cases it contributed to helping them come back years later. </span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; text-align: left;"><span style="color: #001320; font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; text-align: left;"><span style="color: #001320; font-family: arial;">Churches should try and do the same thing. </span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; text-align: left;"><span style="color: #001320; font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; text-align: left;"><span style="color: #001320; font-family: arial;">The key is firstly the personal contact. Emails are 100 times easier to reject than personal contact. A friendly phone call "hi Jeremy here from St Muggletons wonder if you'd be free for a coffee"?</span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; text-align: left;"><span style="color: #001320; font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; text-align: left;"><span style="color: #001320; font-family: arial;">Secondly, that when you meet the person you are not here to lecture but to listen and they are not to be chided (“why have you stopped coming?”) but wooed (“we miss you!” ). </span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; text-align: left;"><span style="color: #001320; font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; text-align: left;"><span style="color: #001320; font-family: arial;">It may be that some people have stopped because they are going elsewhere to another church. That’s fine. Others may come back. Others may say “I’ve decided not to attend anywhere”. All of those choices should be respected. We mustn’t be cultish and if people have decided to leave that’s their free decision which we should respect. </span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; text-align: left;"><span style="color: #001320; font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; text-align: left;"><span style="color: #001320; font-family: arial;">But I would bet (were I a betting man!) that a lot, indeed most, are somewhere in the middle. People stop going to church for all kinds of reasons. They may well feel guilty and the answer is not to reinforce that guilt but to help them. Too often Christians are driving along the road of life and we see fellow Christians crashed into the ditch. “Tut-tut,” we say “they should have driven more carefully.“ We pass by on the other side shaking our head </span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; text-align: left;"><span style="color: #001320; font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; text-align: left;"><span style="color: #001320; font-family: arial;">No! Stop and help them out of the ditch. </span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; text-align: left;"><span style="color: #001320; font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; text-align: left;"><span style="color: #001320; font-family: arial;">How can we help people who have stopped attending church? I have found discipleship through one-to-one Bible reading using Word121 one of the best ways. Get people back in the Bible and soon they will be back in the church </span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; text-align: left;"><span style="color: #001320; font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; text-align: left;"><span style="color: #001320; font-family: arial;"> I have a friend who (somewhat understandably) stopped going to church because of some terrible behaviour in his family by a professing Christian. Quite a few people in the church were disappointed and openly disapproving. They cut him off. No business would ever do that! The people you pour the most attention and love into in business are the people who leave because you want them back! You hate to see them go and you woo them back. </span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; text-align: left;"><span style="color: #001320; font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; text-align: left;"><span style="color: #001320; font-family: arial;">So a friend invited my friend to read the Bible with him and over some years he was able through reading the Bible to come back to faith and to church. </span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; text-align: left;"><span style="color: #001320; font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; text-align: left;"><span style="color: #001320; font-family: arial;">An army doesn’t shoot its wounded it rehabilitates them in good hospitals. So must the church be for many people are wounded and they need rehab to get back into the church. Personal discipleship is I suggest the way to go. And the lack of such discipleship may be the main reason why our evangelical “preaching station” churches lost people in the first place. We preach wonderful sermons which are good but not enough. We need this network of personal friendship and discipleship to help the wounded of this world get back on their feet. </span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; text-align: left;"><span style="color: #001320; font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; text-align: left;"><span style="color: #001320; font-family: arial;">Let's get calling. </span></div>Jeremy Marshallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15495729193128994132noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4817780181858837735.post-41063849829422054312022-02-27T06:27:00.004-08:002022-02-27T06:27:27.086-08:00Books for seekers and new Christians <div style="text-align: left;"><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjJT3xLkOW56enpQx1FFTMP-T_ZTbTikvQs2aCDXtuVe1QirjJ_Jk_6pi9bHfwDWwsL5VFuskoE2664unmU1Eu57O3kFumm9W4xjKl2zw7FfPxqPHPcq5iDoHcj0nMBYoBjV_nUEj4hL2uakyiKJtbKxYX-3Ty2g7POfCE0IIY_OYKhxfnFbrgdbppa=s373" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="135" data-original-width="373" height="116" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjJT3xLkOW56enpQx1FFTMP-T_ZTbTikvQs2aCDXtuVe1QirjJ_Jk_6pi9bHfwDWwsL5VFuskoE2664unmU1Eu57O3kFumm9W4xjKl2zw7FfPxqPHPcq5iDoHcj0nMBYoBjV_nUEj4hL2uakyiKJtbKxYX-3Ty2g7POfCE0IIY_OYKhxfnFbrgdbppa=s320" width="320" /></a></div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /><span><br /></span></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">These books are ones I suggest are helpful for new Christians or people close to faith or inquiring. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">They of course reflect my views! I would like to thank my good friend Gary Gillespie for his help compiling this </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><div><font face="arial"><u><b>A. Introductory series </b></u></font></div><div><font face="arial"><br /></font></div><div><font face="arial">1. Mez McConnell and others on his 20 schemes team in Scotland have a very good short series called "First steps" published by 9 Marks designed for the new Christian.</font></div><div><font face="arial"><a href="https://www.10ofthose.com/uk/products/26218/first-steps-box-set">https://www.10ofthose.com/uk/products/26218/first-steps-box-set</a><br /></font></div><div><font face="arial"><br /></font></div><div><font face="arial">2. 10 of those have a series with Union Theological Seminary written by people such as Mike Reeves covering many of the basics of the Christian life, such as living with fear and prayer. <a href="https://www.10ofthose.com/uk/news-events/2021/06/discover-the-union-series">https://www.10ofthose.com/uk/news-events/2021/06/discover-the-union-series</a></font></div><div><font face="arial"><br /></font></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">3. Good Book Company have a series on "Questions Christians ask", covering many issues Christians find tough. Some specifically are recommended below. </span></div></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://www.thegoodbook.co.uk/series/questions-christians-ask/">https://www.thegoodbook.co.uk/series/questions-christians-ask/</a><br /></span></div></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><b><u>B. Books on what Christianity is</u></b></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Mere Christianity by CS Lewis </span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;">a timeless classic on the essentials of being a Christian <span style="font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span></span><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span><span style="font-size: 12pt;">A Peculiar Glory by John Piper <br /></span><span face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-size: small;">The Bible and why we can rely on it</span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span><span style="color: #222222;"><br /></span></span><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Maturity (Growing Up And Going On In The Christian Life) by Sinclair B. Ferguson </span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;">How the NT writers help us grow in maturity as Christians. </span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;">The Good God by Mike Reeves</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;">The Trinity and how understanding it draws us into a closer relationship with God </span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Gentle and Lowly by Dane Ortlund</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Christ's compassionate and loving character</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Who On Earth Is The Holy Spirit? by Tim Chester and Christopher de la Hoyde (part of an excellent series “questions Christians ask”)</span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Who the Holy Spirit is and how he helps us </span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span></span></div></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">The Ten Greatest Struggles Of Your Life by Colin S. Smith</span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;">The Ten Commandments applied for today </span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 12pt;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 12pt;">The Cross Of Christ by John Stott </span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 12pt;">why Jesus came to die and what that means for us<br /></span></div><p style="text-align: left;"></p><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Encounters With Jesus (Unexpected Answers To Life's Biggest Questions) by Tim Keller </span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">How Jesus changed the lives of the people he met.</span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Hope in a time of fear: the resurrection by Tim Keller<br /></span></span><span style="font-family: arial;">How the resurrection of Jesus Christ gives us hope</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Prodigal God by Tim Keller</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;">What the story of the Prodigal Son teaches us about God</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;">Kings Cross by Tim Keller</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Jesus's life and death </span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Pilgrim's Progress by John Bunyan <br /></span></span><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 12pt;">a timeless classic: an allegory of the Christian life. The best selling Christian book of all time after the Bible</span></div><p style="text-align: left;"></p><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Unlocking the Bible by Colin Smith </span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Daily Bible Devotions </span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span face="Calibri, Helvetica, sans-serif" style="font-size: 12pt;">God's Big Picture (Tracing The Storyline Of The Bible) by </span><span face="Calibri, Helvetica, sans-serif" style="font-size: 12pt;">Vaughan Roberts </span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 12pt;">what is the overall message and theme of the Bible</span></div><p style="text-align: left;"></p><p style="text-align: left;"></p><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 12pt;">Concise Theology by J.I. Packer </span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 12pt;">An overview of what Christians believe </span></div><p style="text-align: left;"></p><div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; text-align: left;"><blockquote style="color: black; font-size: small; text-align: left;" type="cite"><div><div><div><div><div style="font-size: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 12pt;"></span></div><div style="font-size: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"></span></div></div></div></div></div></blockquote><blockquote style="color: black; font-size: small; text-align: left;" type="cite"><div><div><div><div><div style="font-size: 12pt;"></div></div></div></div></div></blockquote><blockquote style="color: black; font-size: small; text-align: left;" type="cite"><div style="font-size: 12pt; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"></span></span></div><div style="font-size: 12pt; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div style="font-size: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div></blockquote><p style="font-size: small;"><span style="color: black; font-family: arial; font-size: 12pt;"><b><u>C. Apologetics (why Christianity is true)</u></b></span></p><div style="font-size: small; text-align: left;"><span style="color: black; font-family: arial; font-size: 12pt;">Confronting Christianity Rebecca McLaughlin </span></div><div style="font-size: small; text-align: left;"><span style="color: black; font-family: arial; font-size: 12pt;">the best one-volume book for a sceptical friend<br /></span><span style="color: black; font-family: arial; font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span><span style="color: black; font-family: arial; font-size: 12pt;">Know Why You Believe by K. Scott Oliphint</span></div><div style="font-size: small; text-align: left;"><span style="color: black; font-family: arial; font-size: 12pt;">overview of apologetics</span></div><div style="font-size: small; text-align: left;"><span style="color: black; font-family: arial; font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: black; font-family: arial; font-size: 12pt;">Can Science Explain Everything? by John C. Lennox </span><span style="color: black; font-family: arial; font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;">science and the Christian faith </span></div><div style="font-size: small; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div style="font-size: small; text-align: left;"><span style="color: black; font-family: arial; font-size: 12pt;">A Doubter's Guide To Jesus (An Introduction The Man From Nazareth For Believers And Sceptics) by John Dickson</span></div><div style="font-size: small; text-align: left;"><span style="color: black; font-family: arial; font-size: 12pt;">Many beliefs and statements about Jesus are contradictory. How can we reconcile them? </span></div><div style="font-size: small; text-align: left;"><span style="color: black; font-family: arial; font-size: 12pt;">beliefs</span></div><div style="font-size: small; text-align: left;"><span style="color: black; font-family: arial; font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> <span style="color: black;">Either (or both) Amy Orr-Ewing “Why Trust the Bible” and Pete Williams “Can we Trust the Gospels”. </span></span></div><div style="color: black; font-size: medium; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;">This is the central attack today on Christianity and these books explain why it is trustworthy. </span></div><div style="color: black; font-size: medium; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span></div><div style="color: black; font-size: medium; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 12pt;">The Bible: A Story That Makes Sense Of life by Andrew Ollerton </span></div><div style="color: black; font-size: medium; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 12pt;">How the Bible makes sense of us</span></div><div style="color: black; font-size: medium; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span></div><div style="color: black; font-size: medium; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 12pt;">Unbelievable? by Justin Brierley </span></div><div style="color: black; font-size: medium; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 12pt;">The author hosts a well known show where he debates with atheists and this is a summary of 10 years of debate </span></div><div style="color: black; font-size: medium; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span></div><div style="color: black; font-size: medium; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 12pt;">Why there really is a God by Andrew Wilson </span></div><div style="color: black; font-size: medium; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 12pt;">Why does the evidence point towards God </span></div><div style="color: black; font-size: medium; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span></div><div style="color: black; font-size: medium; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 12pt;">The Reason For God (Belief In An Age Of Scepticism) by Tim Keller</span></div><div style="color: black; font-size: medium; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 12pt;">I have given more copies away of this book than any other. Why the Christian faith is rational. </span></div><div style="color: black; font-size: medium; text-align: left;"><font face="arial"><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"> <span style="font-size: 12pt;">Cold-Case Christianity by J Warner Wallace</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">A police detective looks at the evidence for Jesus and the resurrection detective</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span><span style="color: #222222; font-size: small;"> </span><span style="font-size: 12pt;">S</span><span style="font-size: 12pt;">tand Firm - Apologetics And The Brilliance of The Gospel by </span><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Paul M. Gould, Travis Dickenson and R. Keith Loftin </span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Why the Christian faith is not only true but attractive </span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span></div></font></div><p style="font-size: small;"> </p><blockquote style="color: black; font-size: small;" type="cite"><div style="font-size: 12pt; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 12pt;"> </span></div><div style="font-family: Calibri, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;"></span></div><div style="font-family: Calibri, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br /></div><div style="font-family: Calibri, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"></span></div></blockquote><br /><br /><div id="m_8461619148890204322AppleMailSignature" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">Sent from my iPhone</div></div>Jeremy Marshallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15495729193128994132noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4817780181858837735.post-52724509557395430852022-02-27T05:54:00.002-08:002022-02-27T05:54:27.349-08:00How your life can be changed forever by Victor Rivera <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjygdXr84sd7en9Ms7bGnf0qpdQ-V2RfRDwodWuanbPAaz9MyiZfWpKtWGtTVmQTiwWBgN-4sUA0fyoBOGiERxTlRYNYypbM1SUrjMQaLt3hv6XpduqqcqIIi5FoVBMlYTtkjeC6hsgAkxCnziV373gMA9TrpCleSq79BFePPYZdG3Rj87Wsh_wq9ep=s500" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="375" data-original-width="500" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjygdXr84sd7en9Ms7bGnf0qpdQ-V2RfRDwodWuanbPAaz9MyiZfWpKtWGtTVmQTiwWBgN-4sUA0fyoBOGiERxTlRYNYypbM1SUrjMQaLt3hv6XpduqqcqIIi5FoVBMlYTtkjeC6hsgAkxCnziV373gMA9TrpCleSq79BFePPYZdG3Rj87Wsh_wq9ep=s320" width="320" /></a></div><br /><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Victor is a friend and this is his story</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">"One Thursday recently, a cold day in the City of London, I was walking from Monument<br />tube station to the well known City of London Club, a place that has seen many<br />business leaders close international deals and has heard political adversities<br />planned and overcome.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />During that 7 minutes walk, I was having a call with a director of a fintech association<br />from America, who was interested in reaching investors and new companies, an<br />an important matter for most, but for me, I was going to meet someone far more<br />important: Jesus. <br /><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">But let me tell you first how I got to know him.<br /><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">The year prior to the Covid breakdown, I went to meet a head hunter as I wanted to<br />leave my current position and was hoping to get some introductions from this person.<br />Encouragingly enough, the head hunter was keen to keep in touch but he also said<br />something very unusual. "Let’s walk over to this table, there is an interesting<br />person you should meet."<br /><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">While I was walking towards the table on the left-hand side of the restaurant we<br />were at, I thought about many things that concerned me and made me very nervous, </div><div style="text-align: left;">such as what my future could look like in London after leaving my current<br />position.<br /><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Perhaps the uncertainty of supporting my family contributed to what I had going on in<br />my head, but by far, what I was most worried about, was losing my professional<br />career, my status, my self-worth. Not because I was someone important, but<br />because I thought of myself as a person that truly loved working and that was better<br />than most, someone who was driven to succeed. For me it was easy, the harder I<br />worked, the farther I would get.<br /><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">That feeling came from a period of time when my professional career had a great<br />journey, a period where my passions were aligned with my goals and progress and titles<br />followed them as a reward for hard work. Sadly, for the past 5 years, I had lost my<br />heart at some point during that journey and the progress was not as constant as before.<br /><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">When I shook this man’s hand and set down with him, I felt that I was in front of<br />someone peaceful and wise. He heard me talk and asked a couple of questions<br />trying to identify what I was an expert on and what I wanted to do in the future, but<br />very strangely, at the end, he asked me if I would like to have a coffee with him and chat about the<br />Bible.<br /><span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="background-color: white;">The person I was introduced to by the head hunter was the same person hosting the Bible "Word One to One" dinner at the City of London Club. "Word one to one " is simply John's gospel with notes to explain it, this is what we have been looking at for years. </span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">During his speech, he explained what specifically happened during a story from the gospel, of the widow’s son from Nain. He explained how the funeral procession is overwhelmed by the sad event<br />that has happened, the widow’s only son had died, and at that time and in the Middle<br />Eastern culture, that really means that the widow had no source of income or way to<br />live. Her focus in life was to serve her husband, raise her children, and be loved by<br />them, who were then responsible for providing for her.<br /><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">This poor woman was heartbroken, but equally so was the parade that followed her.<br />She didn’t know it, but she was meant to meet Jesus that day, as Jesus was in fact<br />waiting for her. I mean, what else did Jesus have to do standing at that point in the<br />middle of a dusty road between two small villages, other than actually waiting for her?<br /><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">During that time, Jesus was well known, he had done miracles, people knew<br />who he was and he was on a journey to share his teachings with the communities of his day.<br />He had already chosen his disciples and was seeking to make followers as he went<br />along.<br /><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">The speaker’s point was that Jesus (whom I now believe to be God) behaves<br />as a loving father who is always there when his sons and daughters need him, but<br />we, as small children can’t value the love and efforts he does for us until we are<br />facing difficulties and realise we need him. Because only when we face difficulties, we are open to<br />understanding Gods’ points of view and are able to criticise our own behaviour,<br />beliefs, and the things we have done wrong. Leaving room for new teachings, new paths to adopt, a new life in fact. <br /><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">I guess in my case, I also meet Jesus that day when I shook this guy’s hand. Jesus<br />was there waiting for me, sitting alone, in the middle of a regular restaurant, not<br />fancy to be exact. I didn’t know I was going to meet him, but he did, he knew what I was going through<br />and that this was the time that I would finally hear him and understand that his love<br />was for me to enjoy and that I didn’t have to earn his acceptance, as I was his<br />beloved son. I just had to accept the free offer to meet Jesus as I read about him in the Bible. As I read<br />the Bible with my friend |Jesus stepped off the pages of the Bible and into my life. I came to believe<br /> what the gospels said about Jesus.<br /><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">After that day, I started to learn Jesus's teachings and adopted the path of rediscovering<br />what my life should be, as an individual, as a parent, and as a family member.<br /><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Today that I reflect on that emblematic dinner at a famous club, I have no doubt<br />that one should just let it go and open our mind to meet God the Father through Jesus the Son, because<br />he as a Father can help us to feel loved and can help us find forgiveness and peace in him while we enjoy our daily lives."</div>Jeremy Marshallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15495729193128994132noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4817780181858837735.post-69861657302518035322022-02-19T07:46:00.001-08:002022-02-19T07:46:39.678-08:00Open Air Work<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjeQfHxGNHib8Z1oy12QhjQcezLKqQcEbQFFTtHn1__YiiWCec9RFZxZR5pdEv4rTCvwI6E2xa2jmFwZsUdFlxK_RGN2TwhbpVzjeV01pc-lAyulLZPvpv8cvfKxtlwzq6L0V3j95DMESHZZcvPOulsk8oNisIN_hb3nc3xoyu68V6bGEWuIKVlUU2n=s283" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><img border="0" data-original-height="283" data-original-width="178" height="283" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjeQfHxGNHib8Z1oy12QhjQcezLKqQcEbQFFTtHn1__YiiWCec9RFZxZR5pdEv4rTCvwI6E2xa2jmFwZsUdFlxK_RGN2TwhbpVzjeV01pc-lAyulLZPvpv8cvfKxtlwzq6L0V3j95DMESHZZcvPOulsk8oNisIN_hb3nc3xoyu68V6bGEWuIKVlUU2n" width="178" /></span></a></div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span><p><span style="font-family: arial;">There is a large closed FB group called “Hemel Hempstead Remembered” which may not be of mass global appeal, Hemel not being Venice, but it does have a very active membership</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"></span></p><div class="Ar Au Ao" id=":1ao"><div aria-label="Message Body" aria-multiline="true" class="Am Al editable LW-avf tS-tW tS-tY" g_editable="true" hidefocus="true" id=":1ak" role="textbox" spellcheck="false" style="direction: ltr; min-height: 315px;" tabindex="1"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br />So I was intrigued yesterday that there was a thread on the FB group complaining about Christians playing bad and loud music and/ or hectoring and haranguing passers-by. Assuming the stories are true (and they were very specific) this was not general "go away Christian” comments but very wrong behaviour by preachers, some in recent times. Indeed it is shocking how lacking in grace some Christians are: screaming at people even banging on the side of the bus<br /><br />But one man (only) put up a positive thing: a memory of how my late father (he didn’t know it was him of course ) pulled his leg in a kind way about being a traffic warden! And how that warmth and humour stuck in his mind 30 years later.<br /><br />Of course, I couldn’t miss the opportunity to jump in, and here is what I said to the FB group </span></div><div aria-label="Message Body" aria-multiline="true" class="Am Al editable LW-avf tS-tW tS-tY" g_editable="true" hidefocus="true" id=":1ak" role="textbox" spellcheck="false" style="direction: ltr; min-height: 315px;" tabindex="1"><span style="font-family: arial;">“Thanks, everyone and as a Christian, I can only apologise for either people hectoring you or playing terrible music. I’m sorry. </span><span style="font-family: arial;">The person mentioned above by the Salvation Army building (he wasn't connected to the Salvation Army he just liked the spot ) was my dear father! He was minister of a church in Alexandra Road for nearly 50 (!) years and every other Saturday he was on his soapbox by the SA. A few memories</span></div><div aria-label="Message Body" aria-multiline="true" class="Am Al editable LW-avf tS-tW tS-tY" g_editable="true" hidefocus="true" id=":1ak" role="textbox" spellcheck="false" style="direction: ltr; min-height: 315px;" tabindex="1"><span style="font-family: arial;">1. Dad had a great sense of humour and loved to make jokes like the one about the traffic warden above I was so amused to hear that. There was a constant stream of punters going into the betting shop and dad knew them all and would gently pull their leg and they his (“Come on vicar, tell me which horse is going to win the 330 at Sandown Park”)</span></div><div aria-label="Message Body" aria-multiline="true" class="Am Al editable LW-avf tS-tW tS-tY" g_editable="true" hidefocus="true" id=":1ak" role="textbox" spellcheck="false" style="direction: ltr; min-height: 315px;" tabindex="1"><span style="font-family: arial;">2. He was a very gentle and kindly man who did it because he loved Hemel and had something he wanted to offer people (Christians often do that poorly, apologies!). He was sometimes physically attacked and often had things thrown at him or sworn at but he never showed any emotion in response other than forgiveness, love and kindness.</span></div><div aria-label="Message Body" aria-multiline="true" class="Am Al editable LW-avf tS-tW tS-tY" g_editable="true" hidefocus="true" id=":1ak" role="textbox" spellcheck="false" style="direction: ltr; min-height: 315px;" tabindex="1"><span style="font-family: arial;">3. The market stall holders (now so sadly gone) didn’t like him at all when he started and also used to throw things at him. But over many years they changed completely. Why? Because his life reflected his beliefs.</span></div><div aria-label="Message Body" aria-multiline="true" class="Am Al editable LW-avf tS-tW tS-tY" g_editable="true" hidefocus="true" id=":1ak" role="textbox" spellcheck="false" style="direction: ltr; min-height: 315px;" tabindex="1"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br />Dad would go and chat to them buy things and when the most vocal critic was ill in the hospital the guy was absolutely staggered that Dad turned up to visit him. By the end of his life, the stallholders loved him and were fiercely protective of him. They would threaten to beat up any hecklers and Dad would have to Intervene to stop them!<br /><br />4. Dad loved hecklers and questions and arguments. I’m really really sorry if you have been harangued. Christians are looking for truth and we should invite all questions however critical. We have something amazing we’d like to share and we love to hear others' views and questions. (I put in my story and offered my book at this point)<br /><br />5. Dad loved Hemel and spent his whole adult life there, he died 20 years ago and my mother still lives in the town. Yes, he wanted to tell people about Jesus but he also equally cared deeply for everyone, Christian or not. We had a constant stream of down and outs and homeless people coming to our house Dad would help them give them a meal (we complained about the smell with some!) and even had some to stay, we children gave up our bedrooms. Other (not down and out!) people with troubles in their life would come to Dad for advice and growing up our living room was like a GPs waiting room.<br /><br />May God bless each of you whether religious or not and I wish Hemel had more people like my old dear Dad.”<br /><br />I got a nice reaction as you might expect. A few points I’d make in general<br /><br />1. There seems to be a craze of Christians with loud hailers haranguing and threatening people. Of course, there is a place for warning if hell but if our face is twisted with rage that’s unlikely to fit with “come to me all you that labour and are heavy laden “<br /><br />2. Except at Christmas I’m sceptical of the attraction of Christian music in the open air.<br /><br />3 a good example I read about is my friend Josh Williamson in Newquay, who seems very active in open-air work, he seems from reading his reports to do this in a winsome way, they give out literature have a bookstall and start 121 conversations. Josh may wish to expand.<br /><br />4. If preaching you have I suggest to be willing to take questions and engage in arguments. My father always wanted that more than anything. Because it draws a crowd. Jesus was continually being interrupted and we should expect the same<br /><br />5. Yes let’s preach the word but also let’s do good in our neighbourhood for the two reinforce the other. Nobody I’ve ever met had a higher view of preaching than my father, yet he would willingly make the down and outs toast every morning too. We react rightly against the social gospel but we at the reformed end have perhaps thrown the baby out with the bathwater. </span></div><div aria-label="Message Body" aria-multiline="true" class="Am Al editable LW-avf tS-tW tS-tY" g_editable="true" hidefocus="true" id=":1ak" role="textbox" spellcheck="false" style="direction: ltr; min-height: 315px;" tabindex="1"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div aria-label="Message Body" aria-multiline="true" class="Am Al editable LW-avf tS-tW tS-tY" g_editable="true" hidefocus="true" id=":1ak" role="textbox" spellcheck="false" style="direction: ltr; min-height: 315px;" tabindex="1"><span style="font-family: arial;">6. Will people in 30 years remember our clever argument or amazing theological insight? No, they will remember how we said things - the warmth, the enthusiasm, the love. Of course, we must pass on the gospel truthfully but how we do it, our humanity is also very important. </span></div><div aria-label="Message Body" aria-multiline="true" class="Am Al editable LW-avf tS-tW tS-tY" g_editable="true" hidefocus="true" id=":1ak" role="textbox" spellcheck="false" style="direction: ltr; min-height: 315px;" tabindex="1"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div aria-label="Message Body" aria-multiline="true" class="Am Al editable LW-avf tS-tW tS-tY" g_editable="true" hidefocus="true" id=":1ak" role="textbox" spellcheck="false" style="direction: ltr; min-height: 315px;" tabindex="1"><br /></div></div><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></p><p><br /></p>Jeremy Marshallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15495729193128994132noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4817780181858837735.post-77093287675389684552022-02-12T13:45:00.006-08:002022-02-13T00:57:44.955-08:00Three unexpected visitors: reflections on Genesis 18 <p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgCBl4ylHRI0kOlusRl7Jqq0TsIX1cu-2gcwMLwd2upTrtOrkfe38mA3r7vPUjXcvff9l7CUZ5JlZcMGRZ59azhKaNWW4wOiCzukeG6iFWv4gA4rHMNZe274KJhaa4RTS8Qi1U-5jLbZGQgdqbSiL_jCUkXIlavWcS2gqMAZJaNTws36A19bS4rnG66=s259" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="194" data-original-width="259" height="194" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgCBl4ylHRI0kOlusRl7Jqq0TsIX1cu-2gcwMLwd2upTrtOrkfe38mA3r7vPUjXcvff9l7CUZ5JlZcMGRZ59azhKaNWW4wOiCzukeG6iFWv4gA4rHMNZe274KJhaa4RTS8Qi1U-5jLbZGQgdqbSiL_jCUkXIlavWcS2gqMAZJaNTws36A19bS4rnG66" width="259" /></a></div><br /><p></p><p><br /></p><p>Abraham isn’t expecting anyone. There he is in the desert in the heat of the day, perhaps dozing in the shade, perhaps doing his chores or about his work. tending his animals, when totally unexpectedly three visitors appear. The visitors are two angels and a third person. Abraham senses there is something divine about this third person as he bows to him and calls him “Lord.”</p><div><div><br /></div><div>So with us. We are at work or at home, simply doing our daily business not expecting anything or anyone when somebody shows up. That person is the same person - the Son of God. He appears with no invitation and intervenes in our mundane lives. God might appear as fire or wind or as himself which would annihilate us. But instead, he appears, most surprisingly, as one of us, a human being, a relatable person with whom you can converse like two friends having a burger in a bar. </div><div><br /></div><div>Abraham takes his visitors very seriously. He drops everything else he is doing and hurries to prepare a meal using only the very best ingredients. He serves it himself - no slave does this but the man himself - and stands by as they eat. So must we when God appears. Nothing else matters ultimately but knowing God and once the door of communion with the universe making God is open and an invitation to pass through it given, then we must enter it as quickly as we can </div><div><br /></div><div>Again we see the divine will to enter into our world to commune with mortals. God and angels don’t need food but these three beings accept the offering. They come down to our level and commune with us. </div><div><br /></div><div>How does God speak to us? He asks us questions. How does God speak to Adam in the garden? How does Jesus speak to the people of his time? He asks them questions. Why? He knows the answer anyway! The answer is surely that questions open doors to friendship. When we date someone we (if we have any sense) don’t talk about ourselves but about them. We wish to know them. How amazing is God that he wishes to know us! Why? Here is the even more amazing answer: so we can become his friend. Christianity is about becoming a friend of the Universe creating Father through the intervention of the human being assuming Son. </div><div><br /></div><div>Abraham is noted three times in the Bible as God's friend. We who by nature are God's bitter enemies may become his true friend: when the son enters our world this is the possibility he offers. </div><div><br /></div><div>Now we come to Sarah. She has been helping Abraham get the meal ready and is listening to the conversation, eavesdropping one might say. She is hiding from God which is absurd as he sees all. And she hears the promise that Abraham receives. </div><div><br /></div><div>Her reaction is one of complete unbelief, even cynicism. She laughs silently in a derisory way “Me have a baby! Don’t be ridiculous!”. This is how we often react too to God's offer of intervention. God promises and offers us something supernatural- to be born again and become sons and daughters of the living God. To receive eternal life. </div><div><br /></div><div>But in our Earthbound, fallen, faithless, doubt-riddled mentality this offer seems like total nonsense to us. Me? Be joined to the maker of the universe! That’s absurd! We shake with cynical laughter </div><div><br /></div><div>How does God react to Sarah? He calls out her sin.</div><div><br /></div><div> “Why did you laugh? ” “I didn’t laugh” “Oh yes you did”</div><div><br /></div><div>We want to hide our sin both from God and each other. Abraham is asked why Sarah laughed. Sarah must have been ashamed that her husband knows what she did. Abraham must have been embarrassed. </div><div><br /></div><div>But here comes not judgment but another gift. The mysterious third man doesn’t say “you Sarah have shown your true colours, your terrible unbelief so Ishmael will be the chosen one” let alone “you both keep letting me down Sarah with your unbelief Abraham with taking Hagar. Enough! I’m off to choose someone else! “</div><div><br /></div><div>No! He rather doubles down. “Oh yes, you will have a son - in a year's time at the appointed time”. God overcomes our doubts, fears, and plain unbelief. He loves unfaithful, cynical us. He sees us just as we are cynicism and all and he loves us. His promises stand. And this promise will be at the appointed time. </div><div><br /></div><div>This is very powerful for me. I struggle so often with the many difficulties and trials God has placed on me. Lord take them away! I can’t go on like this! I quit! </div><div><br /></div><div>But God has his plan and we must wait. His plan had another unexpected birth 2000 years later. And now 4000 years later we are promised that all will be well “at the appointed time”. And in the meantime like dear Abraham and Sarah with all our doubts and fears, we too must wait for the appointed time. And how do we live in the meantime? By faith. By trust in the promises of that unexpected visitor, about whom we now know vastly more than Abraham and Sarah, for he has since revealed himself fully. </div><div><br /></div><div> That this unexpected human visitor will if we trust him intervene and make us his friend. If we have God for a friend we can tolerate anything that this sad world or the devil may throw at us. If God is for us who can be against us? Let us like Abraham and Sarah embrace the promise of the unexpected birth and wait with hope for the appointed time. Where do we rest our hope? On our faith? No, because although faith is to be encouraged and commended ours is often like Abraham and Sarah's: weak. We look not in but up. We should consider rather the character and nature and power of God for "is anything too wonderful for God?"</div></div>Jeremy Marshallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15495729193128994132noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4817780181858837735.post-87013524483482266672022-02-06T13:10:00.007-08:002022-02-12T13:46:56.742-08:00Book review: Powerful Leaders? by Marcus Honeysett (IVP Feb 2022)<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEibKgXlCjc9VVTRiXqRac61JIQYEtgxJEiYII2Mz1rK1CmqK1QqDA9eD7pKwMETYTPov3bIdaRafg1p78ox2AoP71zttiGV9Ny-93JIDSXswtOIaOJcoP_CkiRUh6xFBKQPhZajgSOLZ5Fm6PBkFAWHSwaRU-QaXBLN9ApVNabYrXDIJxEH7vXvJMlm=s224" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="224" data-original-width="224" height="224" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEibKgXlCjc9VVTRiXqRac61JIQYEtgxJEiYII2Mz1rK1CmqK1QqDA9eD7pKwMETYTPov3bIdaRafg1p78ox2AoP71zttiGV9Ny-93JIDSXswtOIaOJcoP_CkiRUh6xFBKQPhZajgSOLZ5Fm6PBkFAWHSwaRU-QaXBLN9ApVNabYrXDIJxEH7vXvJMlm" width="224" /></a></div><br /> <p></p><p><br /></p><p>This book, given all the church scandals in recent years, is a very timely and easy to read book about what goes wrong in church leadership and how to avoid it. </p><div>No actual names or case studies are used, probably wisely I think, but plentiful disguised examples are used, all drawn from real life </div><div><br /></div><div>What does the Bible say about leadership? Christian leadership is servanthood, being an under-shepherd. </div><div><br /></div><div>Leadership is meant to build up the church in maturity, love and effectiveness. Christian leaders should boast about their weaknesses, not their strengths and achievements </div><div><br /></div><div>What principles undergird Christian leadership? </div><div><br /></div><div>1. Accountability. If there is a problem to whom are the leaders accountable? Accountability capture is when the only people to whom the leader is accountable are too close to the leader. </div><div><br /></div><div>2. Plurality. The NT teaches of collective plural leadership, not one-man ministry. </div><div><br /></div><div>3. Transparency. Where things go wrong we need to know what they are. </div><div><br /></div><div>4. Embodiment in the church community </div><div><br /></div><div>Leaders have power and that’s right. But this power must be exercised for the benefit of others. Their authority is limited by scripture. </div><div><br /></div><div>There is a slippery slope, argues Marcus, where one slight overreach can sometimes lead over time to a massive failure. Marcus points out that perhaps the biggest risk is where there is one minister and they are doing everything. Also dangerous is a church leadership dominated or heavily influenced by family members. </div><div><br /></div><div> A leader can become convinced that the means justify the ends - for example, they will hide something so they can accomplish a good outcome. </div><div><br /></div><div>Power can be formal or informal - relational authority often from someone’s personality rather than their office. </div><div><br /></div><div>Why do leaders slip down the slippery slope towards abuse? What motivates them to do this? Ambition, inadequate power for our responsibilities, wanting to please people, frustration with people. Warning signs include interpreting questions as a lack of commitment and creating binary choices that demand others fit in “back me or sack me “. </div><div><br /></div><div>Over time these abusive actions can be about protecting power, ensuring advancement and safety. Many leaders are insecure and the more insecure they feel the more attractive the “dark side “ of power becomes. Marcus takes us through the steps whereby the occasional lapse can become a cult-like leader who will brook no challenge. </div><div><br /></div><div>So how should the church respond to the increasing number of cases of abuse? He begins with the victims: starting with survival and safety, then understanding, then healing and finally justice. </div><div><br /></div><div>Next whistleblowers. There are powerful disincentives to doing this: isolation: a natural disposition to forgiveness: theological reasons. But the Bible does not in any way encourage us to tolerate wickedness in the church. Leaders are not exempt from exhortation and rebuke. </div><div><br /></div><div>What next for leaders? A counsellor once said to Marcus that Christian leaders are unusually reluctant to pause and examine themselves. Often this is because they feel they are too busy. “Living unexamined lives is incredibly dangerous because we are fallen people”. No leader is perfect of course and there is a “tall poppy” syndrome where leaders are sometimes routinely taken down. The barometer is not being sin-free but living within the biblical criteria. </div><div><br /></div><div>What then does good leadership look like?</div><div><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>Actively seeking checks and balances </li><li>Be aware of the dangers of power </li><li>Make it easy for people to tell us if we are going wrong </li><li>Have clear personal and organisational accountability </li></ul></div><div><br /></div><div>Finally, there is a helpful chapter on how churches sometimes start this whole process by abusing leaders which then leads them to abuse their position. Leaders today are under tremendous pressure and sometimes churches make it worse by: -</div><div><br /></div><div>A visible result-focused culture </div><div><br /></div><div>A hyper committed culture in which the church dominates all their time. </div><div><br /></div><div>An affection needy culture. </div><div><br /></div><div>On reading the book one might think “who would be a leader?”. The author not only writes books but also runs an organisation that seeks to help and support church leaders to lead in a biblical way. That’s a good model for all of us: not to be hyper suspicious, for most leaders are trying their best in difficult circumstances but being aware of what can go wrong and willing to do something to stop it. And all of us (me included) to be sensitive to when we get it wrong and quick to take feedback and apologise (which is not easy!)</div><div><br /></div><div>This helpful book doesn’t attempt to cover all aspects of Christian leadership but looks specifically at what can go wrong and how to avoid it. As such all leaders and those working with leaders should read it. </div><div></div>Jeremy Marshallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15495729193128994132noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4817780181858837735.post-39704084661252430642022-01-16T03:31:00.002-08:002022-01-16T03:43:58.129-08:00Short story: The Ferryman<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgNjz9-ykXav9KJyQI_RsW8H77Z463YAGTQK6hG4lDrHJNBLP3oUgMp3XB6Y-0_H1hcMjjjStzuUe9X_pox_QuOxjnEE7vkIaMzdXqvGrjObFWgouWYtFBUtJEfEK_r6kQnNiD8q3YHIeRkQAsv1DzaIYD-H88wtOT6MHylfAU8BaVb926haIw4UXcm=s306" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="165" data-original-width="306" height="165" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgNjz9-ykXav9KJyQI_RsW8H77Z463YAGTQK6hG4lDrHJNBLP3oUgMp3XB6Y-0_H1hcMjjjStzuUe9X_pox_QuOxjnEE7vkIaMzdXqvGrjObFWgouWYtFBUtJEfEK_r6kQnNiD8q3YHIeRkQAsv1DzaIYD-H88wtOT6MHylfAU8BaVb926haIw4UXcm" width="306" /></a></div><br /><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p>Finally, when I could go no further, I came on my own and friendless to a little flight of stone steps leading down to a river. </p><div>I could go neither forward nor back and set before me, the river flowed dark, swift, and terrible as death. There was no other way. as for what if anything was on the other side, no man could tell. </div><div><br /></div><div>I looked back but where a few seconds ago I had heard friendly living voices seeking to help now there was silence, perhaps the faintest last murmurings only, and I could see nothing but an evil-looking fog groping its fingers towards me </div><div><br /></div><div>I was terribly, terribly afraid, and utterly alone and my heart was gripped by ice. </div><div><br /></div><div>Was there no one to help me? I must go on but I could not for I dreaded the river as I have never dreaded anything. I could see nothing at all in front and now all was equally dark over my shoulder as the fog rolled over me. It began to rain.</div><div><br /></div><div>I realised then my feet were bare and, although I feared it more than anything I could bear, down into the river I must and did begin to go, propelled by a power far beyond me and as I entered the water it felt to my feet and ankles icy and oily and repugnant and as cold as hell. </div><div><br /></div><div>My strong man began to give way and my ankles bent as I fell facedown towards the waters. I went under. </div><div><br /></div><div>Suddenly a hand grabbed me gently but firmly by the arm. A flat bottom boat shot out of the dark and the ferryman standing on the back with a long pole pulled me up and in and sat me in the bottom of the boat. I couldn’t see his face for the fog and what seemed to be a hood. </div><div><br /></div><div>“Welcome home, my friend,” he said “just a few moments now and we will be there. All is ready. All shall be well and the fare is paid “</div><div><br /></div><div>I shivered with terror but with that, he reached forward and his hand touched me on the shoulder and he threw a robe over my shoulders “Don't be afraid! Be of good cheer, for we are at the very gate of home. We shall have a merry supper in a second. Let me bring you now to the other side, as I promised you all those years ago I would”. </div><div><br /></div><div>With a few skillful strokes he shot the boat into the midstream, defying the current and as we did that I thought I heard far away on the other side a distant song and I remembered as if in a dream from somewhere as a child these words I had read " a pale light behind a grey rain-curtain and growing stronger to turn the veil all to glass and silver"</div><div><br /></div><div>The rain stopped and the dark began to lift a little and the cold to diminish. </div><div><br /></div><div>We came then towards an arched bridge. On either side of the bridge were gracious buildings half-hidden in the dark but now as the light swiftly grew I could see something more, for from every window down streamed a golden light and the noise of what, as we drew nearer, sounded like the greatest party ever held. People waved and beckoned from the windows, singing and smiling. Some of the faces looked so familiar. Surely that wasn’t….</div><div><br /></div><div>We passed under the bridge, for the ferryman knew his craft and the boat turned and crunched gently on the sand of a little beach. </div><div><br /></div><div>Every second now I could see more and more. The buildings were I realised on either side of a river but this must be I thought a very different river, for beyond the buildings were great trees and green lawns. and beyond that a far green country. The wind on my face was soft and welcoming. And the river was now I finally could see was not an enemy but a friend. How strange! How was this possible? But it was not a dream. </div><div><br /></div><div>“Come, “ said the ferryman “we are home at last” and with that he leaped with great agility from the board to the shore, pulling me then gently but firmly with him. The water now to my feet felt warm and inviting, like a Caribbean beach. How could this be? </div><div><br /></div><div>“All is ready, I've prepared everything for you, “ he said, “how do you like your sushi ?” And I saw on the beach a little fire with driftwood and coals was prepared and burning with fish ready to eat on a plate. In the east, the sun was now fully rising, and down from the far hills was a little lane and in this lane coming quickly towards me was a group of people running and cheering and waving and shouting and my spirit leaped within me as if it was going to shoot through my very self. </div><div><br /></div><div>At that I laughed as I had not laughed since I was a child and the ferryman laughed too and his laugh was like mighty thunder and he threw back his hood and I saw for the first time his face. </div><div><br /></div><div>And then I realised it was no ferryman but a fisherman. </div><div></div>Jeremy Marshallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15495729193128994132noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4817780181858837735.post-76274900856460074082022-01-09T04:14:00.002-08:002022-01-10T03:13:51.239-08:00Book Review "The Least the Last the Lost" by Mez McConnell (EP Dec 2021)<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgb6vwakFaWABmx5iKLy-lc1MrDRNt7Su1O2JoleaR7-cwuFVc9SdWKURkYr8prVvC-DaCWm7vXMFPA4QxQMJ4oJlsKo7jwBr1A6MFG-B2AOajR9XqWfEGnCo9faxWteVAAzrl2kp8Q1PTCKmRLjlh5b6ONhTh4uUdr1rmhfwjdPVracXxdWfRCiJ04=s278" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="278" data-original-width="181" height="278" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgb6vwakFaWABmx5iKLy-lc1MrDRNt7Su1O2JoleaR7-cwuFVc9SdWKURkYr8prVvC-DaCWm7vXMFPA4QxQMJ4oJlsKo7jwBr1A6MFG-B2AOajR9XqWfEGnCo9faxWteVAAzrl2kp8Q1PTCKmRLjlh5b6ONhTh4uUdr1rmhfwjdPVracXxdWfRCiJ04" width="181" /></a></div><br /><p></p><br /><span style="font-family: arial;">Who said this?</span><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"> “The impression has gained currency that to be a Christian and more specifically an evangelical means we are traditionalists and advocates of the status quo. I believe that this largely accounts for our failure in this country to make contact with the so called working classes. Christianity in this country has become a middle class movement”<br /><br />Some young firebrand like the author of this book? Some well meaning evangelical bishop ? No it was Dr Martyn Lloyd- Jones more than 40 years ago. Other leaders of the past like Thomas Chalmers and Spurgeon were equally exercised by the same problem.<br /><br />Mez McConnell is the founder and director of 20 schemes which has aimed to address this issue in Scotland (a scheme is a council estate) and increasingly now in the rest of the U.K. This vital, well researched, comprehensive and powerful book addresses MLJ's question. After reading this very important new book nobody I think can suggest other that the evangelical church in the U.K. has a very long lasting and fundamental problem with class. Which is getting worse not better. Our churches and our resources are massively oriented towards middle class people and areas and there is no sign of this changing.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">Lets begin by listening to the people from and serving in those areas.<br /><br />The book begins with a thorough analysis of the current socio economic situation in the U.K. What is poverty? Often it’s described as lack of money or resources but people who are poor tend to talk rather about feelings and experiences. Mez then looks at what the Bible has to say about poverty before covering the current issues around how evangelical churches in the U.K. try and deal with poverty and class. There are a number of interesting insights: people in such areas for example, argues Mez, are more open not less than the average U.K. individual to the gospel, often because they can see they have a problem. But it has to be presented in an accessible and “incarnational” way by Christians (who don’t have to be working class they just have to be willing to live there )<br /><br />Mez says this “My concern is not that the church isn’t trying to help but that the help we are giving (to deprived areas ) isn’t working. How we are doing mercy ministry in the U.K. is often not very merciful at all. I would argue that much of what we do for the poor is to salve middle class guilt consciences, rather than something that is well thought out biblically based and has a ..strategy”.<br /><br />Mez argues that much that is packaged as mercy ministry in the Christian world is little more than malevolent generosity. There is in particular no development of local leadership and the solutions are at best sticking plasters. As he says in capitals “STOP WHAT YOU ARE DOING YOUR MERCY MINISTRIES ARE NOT HELPING US”.<br /><br />Also failing according to Mez is the current system of theological education which is weighted towards the literate, erudite reading classes. They are not accountable to churches in these areas. Training needs to be locally owned and locally undertaken by the churches in those areas and instead of sending people off should be about having people stay in their communities and serve in the church.<br /><br />Church planting networks are also criticised: they tend to concentrate on areas with lots of students and professionals and struggle in poorer areas. If they do try and plant in these areas they will do it sometimes without any reference whatsoever to the Christians actually there and there are some very sad examples of people who have been faithfully working in an area only to have expensive resource churches parachuted in with no reference to them.<br /><br />When we look at resources for evangelical work they are poured into wealthy areas and aimed at wealthy people but hardly any go where the need is the greatest (45% approximately of the U.K. population is working class). A major reason is that as Mez's colleague Sharon Dickens states “middle class Christians have an obsession with their children which borders on idolatry”. Many people come to look at working in a scheme and decide they could never move there because of their children. (I grew up in a blue collar town where my father felt called to pastor and enjoyed it: ultimately our children are Gods not ours)<br /><br />The result of all this is that very very few people (either clergy nor laity) are willing to go and move to working class areas. Nor are churches in deprived areas even able to raise money for their work. It’s very hard to get money when you are living hand to mouth and don’t have the time or skill set or network to even know where to start. Money being deployed in such areas is often controlled by para church organisations who are often not listening to what working class Christians in those areas want. Churches look after their own needs or support missionaries abroad but ignore the burning need in their own doorsteps.<br /><br />So the problem is I suggest obvious buts what's the answer? Mez stresses the centrality of starting with and listening to what we have: the local church in deprived areas . Discipleship is such a key issue in deprived areas but without a strong church who will disciple people who even come to faith? As he points out we struggle in all socio economic areas in the U.K. with discipleship as we evangelicals tend to be heavily focused on doctrinal truths but highly superficial on discussing openly our personal walk with God, our sins and struggles. Christians and especially middle class ones (like me!) are often closed generally when it comes to sharing our lives with other people, we don’t want to admit our struggles and temptations. How do we disciple? By living there, by teaching the Bible and applying it to our situation. And people in these communities are thirsty for the Bible. Teaching it is not only about explaining it but sharing it through sharing our lives. Which is an area where working class people can teach the rest of us a lot.<br /><br />Such biblical discipleship though is costly because schemes and estates people have very complex lives (messed up would be another way of calling it!) and solving mess take time. In fact patience is one of the greatest qualities I believe we need in general in the church in the U.K. If we believe, as we must, that the Bible is still the powerful word of God, then discipling men and women in the local church must be the answer. How to support that discipling in deprived areas and giving the church there the resources they need is the bigger issue<br /><br />The book is very important and timely but there are some editorial improvements that I would suggest. It’s too long and in places quite repetitive. Mez has tremendous abilities and fire in his belly and I believe in what he is saying but there are a number of generalisations (eg the criticisms of mercy ministries) which would have benefited from more evidence and specific examples rather than simply assertions. A number of churches for example in deprived areas that i know do both mercy and gospel work hand in glove and it would be interesting to hear their reflections on what Mez says. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">There are a lot of short chapters and comments including one on finance from me and (apart from mine) I thought these were helpful to give a counter point to Mez who can never be accused of pulling his punches. Someone from a “mercy mission” might have been interesting - Mike Reeves’s thoughtful response to Mezs comments on theological education for example was illuminating<br /><br />But none of this should detract from the main strength of the book: that it systematically analyses what is the nature of this problem and provides a solution, namely building patiently local churches in these areas full of Christians being ready to roll their sleeves up and using the Bible disciple the lost. It’s really not that difficult the rest of us just need behind and resource these brothers and sisters. Will we put out money and our people where our mouth is?<br /><br />If you are not sure where to start you could do a lot worse than call up one of the many pastors in deprived areas writing in the book and say “How can I help?”</span></div>Jeremy Marshallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15495729193128994132noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4817780181858837735.post-68884508186687931972021-12-10T13:09:00.001-08:002021-12-10T13:09:11.616-08:00Guest Book Review by Gary Gillespie: The Story of Reality - by Gregory Koukl (Zondervan, 2017)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhoYH6RD6XmCf0gWfEW1ibOSg1iZ3tmvM6J_ZJP61BsBV6r26G1AqZz-uAH8dj05TYHLaT4tJug9AeLyC9mUzt9RfJFbgxFR6cDvQ1ZZ4SFtcKiW6rSF-HHHUeZ2qPt5aqzgMeL5iAndY94KMWKJCG4ibeMo5suaH_R6XTFnEHAp5YIGDlhGWxnnyvw=s405" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="225" data-original-width="405" height="178" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhoYH6RD6XmCf0gWfEW1ibOSg1iZ3tmvM6J_ZJP61BsBV6r26G1AqZz-uAH8dj05TYHLaT4tJug9AeLyC9mUzt9RfJFbgxFR6cDvQ1ZZ4SFtcKiW6rSF-HHHUeZ2qPt5aqzgMeL5iAndY94KMWKJCG4ibeMo5suaH_R6XTFnEHAp5YIGDlhGWxnnyvw=s320" width="320" /></a></div><br /><div style="background-color: white;"><br /></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #222222;"><div dir="ltr"><div style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> <br /></span></div><div style="color: black;"><p style="line-height: 15.6933px; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Some readers of this book might regard its title as presumptuous, while others might see it as a welcome addition to the discussion of a topic that has consistently defied human attempts to define and comprehend it. </span></p><p style="line-height: 15.6933px; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Presumptuous...., because who can say that the description of something as complex as reality, understandably formed as it typically is through inherent bias, personal perception, individual experience and subjectivity, is capable of being sufficiently grasped and articulated via the simplicity of a compelling story? </span></p><p style="line-height: 15.6933px; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Welcome….., because some who acknowledge the elusiveness of finding a viable definition for reality, will be inclined to see any systematic endeavour to address life’s difficult questions as being worthy of exploring further, in the hope that reasonable and compelling answers may be put forward by the author in reply to questions such as: “Why are we here?”, “What’s the purpose of life?”, “What caused the world to begin and human life to originate?” and, as Koukl asks: “Why is anything important or good or beautiful?” </span></p><p style="line-height: 15.6933px; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">In writing this book, Koukl, a professor of Christian apologetics, has set out a highly accessible account of how the Christian worldview seeks to provide answers to the big questions of life, answers that have eluded humans and science. To quote from Nancy Pearcey’s foreword to the book: “(Koukl) calls it a story only because, amazingly, it turns out that reality itself is structured like a great drama: it has a beginning and an end; it features a struggle between good and evil; it reaches a climax and then resolves into a denouement and a finale.” </span></p><p style="line-height: 15.6933px; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">The book provides a fast-track to understanding Christianity, and, supplemented with a good knowledge of the Bible, one could rapidly develop a true understanding of Jesus’s mission on earth, exactly why it was necessary for him to come, what he came to do, and how he achieved it. </span></p><p style="line-height: 15.6933px; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Koukl’s foundational arguments are underpinned by powerful and consistent axiomatic assertions. He begins by alluding to the generally accepted universal consensus that, irrespective of whether one is a Christian believer or an unbeliever, “It is clear to most people that the world is not the way it ought to be. Something has gone terribly wrong, and everybody knows it.” </span></p><p style="line-height: 15.6933px; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Secondly, he submits that both skeptics and many Christians sometimes impulsively think that “If there really were a God, he would fix things or, more likely, would never let them get so bad in the first place.” Koukl suggests that this view is misinformed. The reason for this is that unbelievers invariably have either zero genuine knowledge of the contents of the Bible, or no more than a superficial knowledge of the Bible at best, and few of those who are Christians have ever assembled their ostensibly deeper knowledge of the Bible in “…..an accurate way that makes sense of the whole thing.” </span></p><p style="line-height: 15.6933px; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">I can personally attest to the latter. Born into a Christian home, surrounded life-long by a Christian culture, given an extensive Bible-story Sunday School education and having been a regular church attendee all my life, I’d led the life of a nominal Christian for many decades. However, when I reached a point of intellectual awakening and began asking questions about the deeper meaning of life, questions which were prompted by devastating personal setbacks, I was astonished how little I knew about the Bible. In particular, I was staggered by how ignorant I was of the explanation of the cross in making sense of life. This gave rise to my automatic tendency to ask God why he hadn’t protected me from difficulties and suffering of various kinds. </span></p><p style="line-height: 15.6933px; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">In The Story of Reality, the author points out that far from being foreign to Christianity, the problems of evil and suffering are central to it. He asserts that the entire Christian account is precisely about how firstly the people of the world, seemingly in denial of their obvious fragility and finite existence, have always rebelled against the very Being, necessarily and self-evidently greater than themselves, that created the world and gave them life, and have instead sought to attain their own position of ascendancy and control, despite their full knowledge that their position of self-sufficiency and “mastery over all” can never be more than transitory in the face of life’s trials and their own inescapable mortality. </span></p><p style="line-height: 15.6933px; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">And secondly, he walks readers through the way in which Christianity provides a basis for those who, having interrogated it fully, have found it to be sufficiently evidenced-based so as to be an intellectually-compelling, reasonable view of the promise of salvation for believers to embrace and believe, in the face of competing beliefs. Ultimately the world and all that’s wrong with it will be put right and participation in a new world will be a free gift to all who embrace the promise. </span></p><p style="line-height: 15.6933px; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">A telling inclusion in the book is Koukl’s discussion of the futility of removing God from the landscape in an effort to explain the global tumult that all religious believers, as well as atheists, agree as being a hallmark of the world at large. He writes that if God is removed or his existence disbelieved, nothing will have changed. The world will still be broken. In fact in “…..a Godless, purely physical universe, the idea that things are not as they should be makes little sense. How can something go wrong when there was no right way for it to be in the first place?” </span></p><p style="line-height: 15.6933px; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">I strongly recommend a reading of this book by people in the Christian / other religions / Atheist debate, and all those somewhere in between. The lucidity and open-mindedness of the arguments give the book an underlying integrity, free of dogma or any entrenched positions. </span></p><p style="line-height: 15.6933px; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Koukl provides a canvass for featuring Christianity as a worldview that provides a picture of a reality that we can instinctively relate to, and an account that makes sense of our existence in a transparent way, supported by compelling logic, open to scrutiny, and void of arcane suppositions. </span></p><p style="line-height: 15.6933px; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">He does this by acknowledging Christianity as being a puzzle made of many pieces, which, despite its apparent inscrutability, we are able to accurately view by the clues provided for us to see, and the words that have been spoken and recorded for those who will pay attention to them. </span></p><p style="line-height: 15.6933px; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">One of the most compelling arguments for believing both the clues and the words is ironically the very fact that no human could ever have made up such a story and believed that they would succeed in popularising it. The book serves as a reminder that the clues and the words have spoken for themselves and the fact that they continue to do so after two thousand years is a testament to Christianity being a belief based on substantive reasoning. Other beliefs and faiths may make different claims, but I invite you to read this book and, matched with a concerted effort by you to truly know what the Bible actually says, see where it takes you. </span></p><p style="line-height: 15.6933px; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Written with great clarity and objectively reasoned arguments, which include counter-questions from atheist views, Koukl has produced a comprehensive and lively rendition of the Christian worldview in a highly readable compact 157-page book, that can be easily understood and that provides immense food for thought. </span></p><p style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 15.6933px; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt;"> </p><p align="center" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 15.6933px; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: center;">__________________ o O o ___________________ </p><div style="font-family: Calibri, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br /></div></div></div></div>Jeremy Marshallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15495729193128994132noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4817780181858837735.post-63903373197249310072021-12-10T12:49:00.001-08:002021-12-10T12:49:19.829-08:00Sorry Scrooge youve got it wrong! <p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjV2nSKv8buYXdhC0Ds3DYl-bcIxAW4MXXbBVRiBE73ezq_dLbJOkq3euv3R433HirbpA4IJsmE7LsFCenaIExC9QbT_6FQ78vo4upcs1DXogMA9CthXfdODNt9rgtaT2fN4zHqzX5IvCRezfin1YT0xFS3ogcsuFX3irH8fv5avbh7ihSvCl6ZwqVM=s408" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="225" data-original-width="408" height="176" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjV2nSKv8buYXdhC0Ds3DYl-bcIxAW4MXXbBVRiBE73ezq_dLbJOkq3euv3R433HirbpA4IJsmE7LsFCenaIExC9QbT_6FQ78vo4upcs1DXogMA9CthXfdODNt9rgtaT2fN4zHqzX5IvCRezfin1YT0xFS3ogcsuFX3irH8fv5avbh7ihSvCl6ZwqVM=s320" width="320" /></a></div><br /><p></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjZUAGkLnWw6FuFbF0RULMvP5dxxfKEByjj9FRmB6SheD0PkDmic4P2YhuuVJTUNMx9d6E7rdrlWVrRvrg-_US5bxm8FQoCvp2Xh118adfZsEfNTy3p4TIn9NohIyub0pljTsAt0vojyYz4LTBO4AYKKglVX4Y9H64NTWMSa0NxOEQJG9dor6lN6458=s273" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="273" data-original-width="227" height="273" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjZUAGkLnWw6FuFbF0RULMvP5dxxfKEByjj9FRmB6SheD0PkDmic4P2YhuuVJTUNMx9d6E7rdrlWVrRvrg-_US5bxm8FQoCvp2Xh118adfZsEfNTy3p4TIn9NohIyub0pljTsAt0vojyYz4LTBO4AYKKglVX4Y9H64NTWMSa0NxOEQJG9dor6lN6458" width="227" /></a></div><br /><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span><p></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">What’s Christmas about and what does it show us about what means to be a Christian? </span></p><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">Many people enjoy Charles Dickens “A Christmas Carol”. (My favourite version is undoubtedly Michael Caine, pictured above, in that great classic “The Muppet Christmas Carol”.) </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">“A Christmas Carol” is a wonderfully crafted story telling of Scrooge’s moral reformation. We all know the story. Thanks to the intervention of the three ghosts, Scrooge realises he is a miserable, grasping miser. He changes and becomes instead a generous and kindly benefactor. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">Many people think that this is a picture of the Christian faith. Becoming a Christian they think means like Scrooge turning over a new leaf, being good, going to church. God loves us if we are good (new Scrooge) and hates us if we are bad (old Scrooge). Therefore we need to become like new Scrooge and do good and then God will love us. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">This is wrong. A better guide than Dickens is a man called Athanasius (below Scrooge) writing in the fourth century. He said about Christmas </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><h3 style="font-stretch: normal; font-weight: 400; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-transform: uppercase;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: small;">“CHRIST BECAME WHAT WE ARE SO THAT WE MIGHT BECOME WHAT HE IS”</span></h3><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">Let me explain. “Christ became what we are”. This is Christmas: that the God who made the entire universe became a human being, lying in the manger, tiny, weak and helpless. He became like us, crucially including in our vulnerability to suffering. In fact he was not only vulnerable to suffering, he amazingly actually chose to suffer for us by dying on a Roman cross and this was the reason he was born. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">A great exchange occurred at Christmas. Through Jesus’s birth God “became as we are” - becoming a human, being born and dying - that we may “become as he is.”</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">“We become as he is. “ Not that then we become God but rather that we are adopted into Gods family. Jesus by dying for us enables us to be changed (for unlike Scrooge we cannot change ourselves). We by nature are wrong with God because of what each of has done wrong, but Jesus offers us the opportunity to be forgiven and become right with God. We become as he is - a son or a daughter of the living God. He becomes our brother. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">So Christmas and Christianity are not about trying to be a better Scrooge but about a great exchange. He becomes as we are so we can become as he is.” How do we join the exchange? By belief (trust is maybe a better word) in Christ. You believe what I’ve just said that Jesus is the Son of God and you seek to follow him. Does that mean then we can do as we like ? No! If you like doing good is the “cart” of loving our neighbours of being a good Scrooge. But the cart cannot move itself rather it must be pulled by the “horse” and the horse is Christ. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">Christianity is not like an exam where God tells us “you’ve revised hard, well done, you’ve passed” </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">It’s like a hospital where we say “Doctor, i’m dying I need your help” </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">Jesus told a story that illustrates that. There was once a man who had two sons the youngest of whom came to his father one day and said “Dad I wish you were dead: give me half your money”. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">The father (who is God in the story) gives it to him and he goes far away and blows it in wine, women and song. But when his money is gone a great disaster - maybe like a pandemic - occurs and he is reduced fo penury. The only job he can get, which is utter humiliation for a Jewish boy, is feeding pigs and he is so hungry that he longs to eat pig food</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">Then one day he comes to his senses and thinks “this is madness, I must go back to my father. I’m not worthy to be a son but maybe he will let me be his slave”</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">So he sets off home all covered in pig muck. But when he was a great way off the father (who loves his son and is eagerly looking for him) sees him. He runs to him and throws his arms around him and says “quick, kill the fatted calf, let’s have a fantastic party for my son who was dead has come home” (That’s another way of looking at the great exchange)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">But there’s another brother- the older one. He is furious when he realises what has happened and he refuses to come home. He’s slaved for the father and he feels the father owes him big time. The father comes out to him a second time and pleads with him “come in”. He refuses. And there the story ends. (The original is Luke 15). </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">Being a Christian is about being the younger brother - accepting the gift of the great exchange which is motivated by the love of the father - not about being the older brother - “I’ve earned God’s love”. Christmas is when God offers us a gift - he offers us himself, who “becomes as we are - that we may become as he is. “</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div>Jeremy Marshallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15495729193128994132noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4817780181858837735.post-15210926800908829772021-12-10T12:43:00.001-08:002021-12-10T12:43:11.987-08:00My faith in banking<p><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgTWYgnllyPB5o6UCeSXvC6s9x75yAnHUqo6YKjs6GjEa9PYoRkk72zUx7Wob767D93BtJTG2cp-QAsnkWNts9j5GX2v17H5XYbdUpLW5c-507UsF-bNgs4BX__WQzKqU44DKHxo_2p0oD3v7nU1HzM2yDuA4Lz2Hr2mAd-Wh8zHrHAnGkSnaqCiLdT=s336" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="225" data-original-width="336" height="214" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgTWYgnllyPB5o6UCeSXvC6s9x75yAnHUqo6YKjs6GjEa9PYoRkk72zUx7Wob767D93BtJTG2cp-QAsnkWNts9j5GX2v17H5XYbdUpLW5c-507UsF-bNgs4BX__WQzKqU44DKHxo_2p0oD3v7nU1HzM2yDuA4Lz2Hr2mAd-Wh8zHrHAnGkSnaqCiLdT=s320" width="320" /></a></div><br /><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span><p></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">Good morning and what a pleasure to be back at the bank and see so many familiar faces. </span></p><div dir="ltr"><span style="font-family: arial;"></span><div dir="ltr"><span style="font-family: arial;">I’m going to talk about faith in banking. By way of introduction, I’m not suggesting that people of faith, let alone Christians, are inherently better people (or bankers!) than those who don’t have faith. In fact, as I’m going to try to explain, Christianity is not for people who think they are good, but people who realise they are bad. I’m also not wanting to put down anyone. I want to explain about Christian beliefs and full respect for those of you with other faiths or none </span><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">Six and a half years ago I was diagnosed with incurable cancer. I left the office at Hoares at lunch time on the 13th June 2015 to get the results of my tests and never came back. The doctors told me that lunch time that I had tumours everywhere and probably had 18 months to live and that I had to begin treatment immediately. . Since then I’ve been through intensive medical treatment with 36 chemotherapies, about a dozen operations and treatment covering not only oncology but serious eye (I was blind for a while) and heart issues. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">The thing that has kept me going throughout what has been a terrible time, not least for the effect on my family, is the presence of God in my life. “Yes though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death I will fear no evil” is a verse that means a lot to me. God offers us promises - blank cheques if you like in banking terms. Faith means we trust that cheques won’t bounce and that we write out names in the payee line. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">What’s Christmas about and what does it show us about what means to be a Christian? </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">Many people enjoy Charles Dickens “A Christmas carol”. (My favourite version is undoubtedly Michael Caine in that great classic “The Muppet Christmas Carol”.) </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">“A Christmas carol” is a wonderfully crafted story telling of Scrooge’s moral reformation. We all know the story. Thanks to the intervention of the three ghosts, Scrooge realises he is a miserable, grasping miser. He changes and becomes instead a generous and kindly benefactor. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">Many people think that this is a picture of the Christian faith. Becoming a Christian they think means like Scrooge turning over a new leaf, being good, going to church. God loves us if we are good (new Scrooge) and hates us if we are bad (old Scrooge). Therefore we need to become like new Scrooge and do good and then God will love us. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">This is wrong. A better guide than Dickens is a man called Athanasius writing in the fourth century. He said about Christmas </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><h3 style="font-stretch: normal; font-weight: 400; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-transform: uppercase;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: small;">“CHRIST BECAME WHAT WE ARE SO THAT WE MIGHT BECOME WHAT HE IS”</span></h3><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">Let me explain. “Christ became what we are”. This is Christmas: that the God who made the entire universe became a human being, lying in the manger, tiny, weak and helpless. He became like us, crucially including in our vulnerability to suffering. In fact he was not only vulnerable to suffering, he amazingly actually chose to suffer for us by dying on a Roman cross and this was the reason he was born. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">A great exchange occurred at Christmas. Through Jesus’s birth God “became as we are” - becoming a human, being born and dying - that we may “become as he is.”</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">“We become as he is. “ Not that then we become God but rather that we are adopted into Gods family. Jesus by dying for us enables us to be changed (for unlike Scrooge we cannot change ourselves). We by nature are wrong with God because of what each of has done wrong, but Jesus offers us the opportunity to be forgiven and become right with God. We become as he is - a son or a daughter of the living God. He becomes our brother. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">So Christmas and Christianity are not about trying to be a better Scrooge but about a great exchange. He becomes as we are so we can become as he is.” How do we join the exchange? By belief (trust is maybe a better word) in Christ. You believe what I’ve just said that Jesus is the Son of God and you seek to follow him. Does that mean then we can do as we like ? No, and we will come on to that when we look at banking . If you like doing good is the “cart” of loving our neighbours of being a good Scrooge. But the cart cannot move itself rather it must be pulled by the “horse” and the horse is Christ. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">Christianity is not like an exam where God tells us “you’ve revised hard, well done, you’ve passed” </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">It’s like a hospital where we say “Doctor, i’m dying I need your help” </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">Jesus told a story that illustrates that. There was once a man who had two sons the youngest of whom came to his father one day and said “Dad I wish you were dead: give me half your money”. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">The father (who is God in the story) gives it to him and he goes far away and blows it in wine, women and song. But when his money is gone a great disaster - maybe like a pandemic - occurs and he is reduced fo penury. The only job he can get, which is utter humiliation for a Jewish boy, is feeding pigs and he is so hungry that he longs to eat pig food</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">Then one day he comes to his senses and thinks “this is madness, I must go back to my father. I’m not worthy to be a son but maybe he will let me be his slave”</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">So he sets off home all covered in pig muck. But when he was a great way off the father (who loves his son and is eagerly looking for him) sees him. He runs to him and throws his arms around him and says “quick, kill the fatted calf, let’s have a fantastic party for my son who was dead has come home” (That’s another way of looking at the great exchange)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">But there’s another brother- the older one. He is furious when he realises what has happened and he refuses to come home. He’s slaved for the father and he feels the father owes him big time. The father comes out to him a second time and pleads with him “come in”. He refuses. And there the story ends. (The original is Luke 15). </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">Being a Christian is about being the younger brother - accepting the gift of the great exchange which is motivated by the love of the father - not about being the older brother - “I’ve earned God’s love”. Christmas is when God offers us a gift - he offers us himself, who “becomes as we are - that we may become as he is. “</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">So how should we think about faith in banking? Again I want to stress that I’m not saying that Christians are inherently better people than those of other faiths or none. There are plenty of professed Christians in prison and some highly moral atheists. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">In this country the emergence of banks in the c17th and c18th like C Hoare and Co were heavily influenced by Christian values. Many banks were owned by Quakers. As nonconformists they were barred from university or the professions so banking was one of the few opportunities left. People trusted them at a time where you could easily lose all your savings if your bank defaulted or the owners disappeared with the cash. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">The Quakers became wealthy and they used their wealth for good and were strongly philanthropic. For example Elizabeth Fry led the campaign to reform the notoriously inhumane prison system. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">If we go forward to the c19th banks and bankers were (irony of irony) revered for their good works, many of which were motivated by Christian faith. The editor of “Private eye“ ian hislop made a TV programme a few years ago called “when bankers were good”. For example, he told the story of Angela Burdett Coutts one of the wealthiest women in the world, who gave large donations to my second home, the Royal Marsden. The Hoare family’s record of helping found Westminster Hospital and Trinity Hospice is well known. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">We have lost those values in today’s banking where the mantra has over my career ij banking has become not “treat the customer as you would wish to be treated” but “greed is good”. Greed is not good, it’s wrong and that loss of a moral compass (what the Bible calls a conscience) has had terrible consequences for our industry. </span></div><div><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Regulators are recognising that. A professor at Carnegie Mellon BS has recently done research commissioned by the NY Federal Reserve. </span></span></div><div><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">She found that “Guilt proneness is a personality trait indicative of a predisposition to experience negative feelings about personal wrongdoing, even when the wrongdoing is private. The research has revealed that guilt proneness is an important character trait because knowing a person’s level of guilt proneness helps us to predict the likelihood that person will behave unethically. Studies in the United States have shown that people who score high on measures of guilt proneness make fewer unethical business decisions, commit fewer delinquent behaviors, and behave more honestly when making economic decisions. In the workplace, guilt-prone employees are less likely to engage in counterproductive behaviors that harm their organization.”</span><br /></span><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">Rules are not enough (remember the older brother). We need to have instead have an inner sense of right and wrong and be motivated by Jesus’s command “love the Lord your God with all your heart and soul and mind and love your neighbour as you love yourself.”</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">Our core nature has to change. Rules alone are not enough otherwise we will just end up with enormous compliance departments! The banks most precious asset is not 37 Fleet Street but it’s distinctive culture </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">Hoares motto “treat the customer as you would wish to be treated” is a wonderful one and is and must always be treasured. It’s really Jesus teaching “Love your neighbour as you love yourself “ adapted for banking. It means putting the interest of the customer ahead of our interest in profit maximisation. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">We have to live this mantra and that’s not easy at all because by nature we are all selfish. (Where do we see true selflessness? In the Great exchange at Christmas. Christ became a baby not for his own advantage but because he loves us. )</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">The family’s priority to leave the bank in better shape to the next generation than they found it is also very much in line with the Bibles teaching. We are all of us family and staff like stewards of a great landed estate which ultimately belongs to someone else: Christians believe it all belongs to God. It’s very easy to trash something in a few years which took generations to build up. Look at the building society movement. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">Another core biblical principal is “to those who much is given, much will be required” if we have money (or abilities) that is ultimately a gift from God. It’s not wrong to be rich. John Wesley the founder of Methodism said “earn all you can give all you can”. Giving and getting involved with helping charities I find very rewarding and enjoyable. Jesus said “it’s more blessed to give than receive”. Often the best charities are small. As someone once said to me “small is beautiful “. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">For example I support a lady from our church who lives in Mozambique where she teaches local subsistence farmers how to “farm Gods way”. They learn how to market garden growing fruit and veg which they can take to market, sell and use the cash to improve their farming or educate their children. The banks efforts to promote philanthropy are part of not letting- as sadly has happened elsewhere - profit maximisation be the sole goal. Ironically Hoares shows that if you cherish your customers and put them first people will sense there is something different and better, that they are not just “oranges” to be squeezed of juice to the last drop of profit, and they will flock to you. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">Finally, let me give you an example of a small Christian bank where we try and take some of the same principles as Hoares: Kingdom Bank which some friends and I purchased a few years ago. We seek to do good and serve our customers. It’s a model like a building society: we take in deposits and make loans to churches to buy buildings. Those buildings both tell people of Christ and do good. We offer both carts and horses! Over 50% of independent food banks for example in the U.K. are run by churches. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">In conclusion we have something precious at Hoares which deserves to be treasured. The core value which has guided the bank for many generations “treat the customer as you would wish to be treated “ can I hope work for generations to come, for people of all faiths and none.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">A talk given at C Hoare and Co, 8/12/21 </span></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div>Jeremy Marshallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15495729193128994132noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4817780181858837735.post-28925962135873880852021-10-31T06:28:00.004-07:002021-10-31T06:28:47.687-07:00Book Review: Same words different worlds by Leonardo De Chirico IVP October 2021<p> </p><p><br /></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-Aevps7cSmZk/YX6Y1TwDlkI/AAAAAAAADF0/LLgNmd0VMwwoK6VnBv2hg4RDm7-s2YFTACLcBGAsYHQ/image.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="500" data-original-width="320" height="240" src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-Aevps7cSmZk/YX6Y1TwDlkI/AAAAAAAADF0/LLgNmd0VMwwoK6VnBv2hg4RDm7-s2YFTACLcBGAsYHQ/image.png" width="154" /></a></div><br />This short and easy to read book is very timely in the light of Michael Nazir Ali’s decision to move to Rome. I write a few observations about that at the end. <p></p><div><br /></div><div>The thesis is in the title. Roman Catholic theologians use identical words to evangelicals but sometimes in crucial areas mean very different things. This means that Protestants can assume that Catholics and Protestants believe basically the same thing. There are some differences that are obvious and Protestants would say are wrong such as worship of Mary, papal infallibility. But there are deeper issues where we may think we agree but actually we don’t. </div><div><br /></div><div>He starts with “revelation”. For Catholic theologians the Bible is the word of God but there is also a further word behind the Bible which means the Bible by itself is not enough. Catholic theologians would agree on the uniqueness and centrality of the cross but it’s work is considered definitive but not final. The Eucharist and the cross are inextricably linked as “one single sacrifice”. The church is so involved in the Eucharist that the church offers it in and through Christ. The two are one. </div><div><br /></div><div>At the bottom of this is the sacramental economy of the Christian faith: so for example Catholics may use words like regeneration or justification which sound very biblical but when you look at the sense it’s a sacramental meaning. Grace is always mediated through the sacraments. </div><div><br /></div><div>The same pattern is found in words like “mission” and “unity”. Catholic theologians use these in quite a different way. And the author explains that these fundamental differences are rooted in sacramentalise. “Everything else stems from this essence that makes Christ and the church co inherent and their relationship sacramental”. All the other differences like the role of the papacy and mariology are all ultimately to do with the relationship of Christ and the church. As the famous Catholic theologian Adam mohler said “ the visible church is the son of God himself, everlastingly manifesting himself in a human form”. This merging of Christ and church has the effect, argues De Chirico, of elevating the Roman Catholic church while diminishing the role of Christ. </div><div><br /></div><div>I think the book is very helpful in making it clear that for anyone leaving say Anglicanism for Catholicism that the differences are much bigger than say turning a blind eye to mariology and papal infallibility. A few questions come to my mind whilst acknowledging that this short book inescapably has a relatively narrow focus. </div><div><br /></div><div>First this is a book about major Catholic theologians. To what extent the average catholic priest or layperson shares them I’m not sure. In other words the gap at the local friendship level may be much smaller. Next and related in places (for example the reading of the Bible and Bible study groups) the Catholic practice has shifted towards a Protestant direction. Rather than welcoming this, in places there is a slightly grudging tone where any positive changes seem to be viewed as a cunning Catholic plan to inveigle naive Protestants to swim the Tiber. There has been a markedly friendly tone towards evangelicals from the current Pope. An element of this maybe as De Chirico explains to develop the goal of the pope presiding over the whole Christian world but as he also says an element is also genuine desire to build friendship. I think that the best approach with our Catholic friends is to accept as the book says that major and important theological differences remain and that use of the same word doesn’t necessarily means we mean the same thing but at the same time seek to build bridges. Reading the Bible one to one with my Catholic friends is something I’ve found they and interestingly their priests very much embrace. </div><div><br /></div><div>In fairness the books focus is understandably narrower than this. It makes its case: we don’t necessarily mean the same thing even if we use the same words. </div><div><br /></div><div>Coming back to Michael Nazir Ali a couple of points. The book written before his decision to join the Catholic Church points out the strategy of the church has long been to target rulers and leaders and hope their followers then follow. With my tongue in cheek this may not work with evangelicals who don’t really have “leaders” in the normal sense and have a cellular and fragmented approach. I doubt if 90% of U.K. evangelicals would even know who Michael is. </div><div><br /></div><p></p><div></div><p></p><div>Secondly because Michael is a very capable theologian I assume he must have known much of the above. It’s interesting that having decided to leave the Church of England he clearly didn’t even conceive of even looking at options like Presbyterianism or Congregationalism. He obviously considered and didn’t like AMIE which has bishops . For him as far as I can deduce therefore the centrality of the episcopate trumps everything else. I wonder why? Are bishops so vital that everything else is secondary? In other words can we really accept all kinds of error and join non evangelicals who disagree with us as the above makes clear on many many things, as long as we have bishops while we can’t accept joining fellow evangelicals who agree with us on absolutely everything but don’t have bishops. I find that very very puzzling. Maybe such people are not really evangelicals at all? For when push comes to shove evangelical truth is so far down the order of priority as to be of little significance. </div>Jeremy Marshallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15495729193128994132noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4817780181858837735.post-7526731609353069572021-10-10T12:02:00.002-07:002021-10-10T12:02:33.274-07:00Book Review: Making Faith Magnetic by Dan Strange (The Good Book Company Oct 2021)<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-s5mjtQBhRnE/YWM4v3ax1FI/AAAAAAAADEk/U7RLbAAkA9cGmUVOSiJVk5VFJGPM_NKhwCLcBGAsYHQ/image.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="225" data-original-width="143" height="240" src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-s5mjtQBhRnE/YWM4v3ax1FI/AAAAAAAADEk/U7RLbAAkA9cGmUVOSiJVk5VFJGPM_NKhwCLcBGAsYHQ/image.png" width="153" /></a></div><br /><p></p><p><br /></p><p>Dan Strange’s excellent new book takes 5 “magnetic points” which he has borrowed from the 20C Dutch writer and missionary JH Bavinck. Strange updates these points in his own language calling them </p><div>Totality: a way to connect?</div><div>Norm: a way to live ?</div><div>Deliverance: a new way out ?</div><div>Destiny: a way we control?</div><div>Higher power: a way beyond? </div><div><br /></div><div>These magnetic points or hidden themes, are points where people are very often open to discussion and “attraction”. They are itches where people scratch. They are opportunities for us to draw people out and make them think. </div><div><br /></div><div>Bavinck writes “at the intersection of two lines of thought - destiny and freedom to act and be delivered lies the awareness of being related to a higher power. The higher power is at the same time the deepest meaning of the whole…the intersection of these two is the heart of religious consciousness. Precisely there is where the unfathomable mystery of being human lies. Precisely there we find the essence of all religion.”</div><div><br /></div><div>Now Bavinck was writing from Indonesia about a culture which had different religions not no religions. So do these magnetic points still apply in our atheistic and agnostic culture ? Dan argues persuasively that with some adjustment (which he skilfully makes) they do. My experience and other Christian friends who try and share our faith in an apparently very anti religious culture - the City of London - would tend to confirm this. I find almost none of my friends , even those who would call themselves atheists or agnostics, are really “out and out” Dawkinsite believing “above us only sky” in the words of John Lennon. Many of them can absolutely given the right work of God be “drawn” - using the magnetic analogy - to respond to an offer to look at Christ. </div><div><br /></div><div>Recent research quoted by Dan Strange about unbelief shows the following “ unbelief in God doesn’t necessarily entail unbelief in other supernatural phenomena…only minorities of atheists or agnostics appear to be thorough going naturalists....the common supposition that of the purposeless unbeliever laving anything to ascribe ultimate meaning to the universe doesn’t bear scrutiny.”</div><div><br /></div><div>The book is split into two halves. The first half looks at each one of the 5 points and analyses how in today’s western culture people think about what are, when you think about it, “religious “ points - whether you call them that or not. The second half then goes further considering how Christ is the fulfilment of the “pulls” or the medicine for the “itches”</div><div><br /></div><div>Dan strange quotes Spurgeon who said when he preached on the “marvellous magnet” from John 12:32 “ Jesus Christ is the great attractive magnet and all must begin and end with him..all the growing and the prevailing come from him..so it is that Jesus works first by himself and then by all who are in him. May the Lord make us all magnets for himself”</div><div><br /></div><div>To be a magnet you need to be magnetised yourself and this book also looks at how we do that, how we must know Christ both individually and as a community in order to radiate out the magnetic attraction. </div><div><br /></div><div>I found this book in summary most helpful in encouraging me to realise that most people are far more open than we realised, that their longings are often ones that are “religious “ and that they maybe open to questions and discussion about these 5 points that will with Gods help lead them to the person who “if he is lifted up will draw all Men to him” </div>Jeremy Marshallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15495729193128994132noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4817780181858837735.post-31013798110733358632021-09-28T01:20:00.001-07:002021-09-28T01:20:13.492-07:00Cancer update <p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-e6_IOogwbZU/YVLQM7HDc1I/AAAAAAAADDw/Uzg_KQnYEjA1jGTbLlXp_-ZE9SkMFRyHQCLcBGAsYHQ/image.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="640" data-original-width="481" height="240" src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-e6_IOogwbZU/YVLQM7HDc1I/AAAAAAAADDw/Uzg_KQnYEjA1jGTbLlXp_-ZE9SkMFRyHQCLcBGAsYHQ/image.png" width="180" /></a></div><br /><br /><p></p><p><br /></p><p> <span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">Yesterday I finished my latest chemo cycle that makes 36 (!) chemotherapy treatments. Sadly the Marsden doesn’t give frequent chemo rewards.</span></p><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">A few thoughts</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">I am incredibly blessed to be alive. Six and a half years ago I was told my “sell by date”</span><img alt="😜" aria-label="😜" class="an1" data-emoji="😜" loading="lazy" src="https://fonts.gstatic.com/s/e/notoemoji/13.1.1/1f61c/72.png" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small; height: 1.2em; vertical-align: middle; width: 1.2em;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"> was December 2016. The chemotherapy has kept the metastatic tumours in check. The doctors and staff at the marsden are very surprised at this especially that I keep using the same drugs (carboplatin and etopicide if you are medically interested- I always think the latter sounds like a weed killer! ). It’s down to the superb care of Professor Robin Jones and team and to God that I’m alive. I’m also blessed that my side effects are relatively mild - I just feel so tired so I’m copying my dear mother and indulging in frequent naps!</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">Why am I alive? I don’t know! What I do know is how blessed I am to have such a loving family and so many friends who love me, care for me, pray for me and encourage me. It means a lot. Thank you all.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">One thing that maybe a reason is that I can perhaps help others in a similar fix. To help others in suffering you must I think know something about suffering yourself. I’m privileged to have been able to do that through taking to people (many taxi drivers for example - these poor guys can’t escape me!) and my books and talks.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">What can I offer suffering people like the taxi driver i was talking to recently in tears about his fathers tragic death from cancer? Not me! I’m just an imperfect, flawed and sinful person. Jesus Christ is whom I live to tell people about and how he helps me every single day. Two aspects of who he is and his character particularly appeal to me</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">1. I have no choice about suffering. Jesus on the other hand chose to suffer voluntarily and freely on the cross because he loves me and he loves you and he wants to rescue us.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">2. He is 100% human and 100% God. This means he both knows what it is like to suffer (human) and can rescue us from our suffering (divine). How do we know he can? Because he proves he was God by coming back from the dead.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">“When we were utterly helpless, Christ came at just the right time and died for us sinners. Now, most people would not be willing to die for an upright person, though someone might perhaps be willing to die for a person who is especially good. But God showed his great love for us by sending Christ to die for us while we were still sinners.” Romans 5.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">Sent from my iPhone</span>Jeremy Marshallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15495729193128994132noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4817780181858837735.post-36656221385935668122021-08-17T07:40:00.002-07:002021-08-17T07:40:28.667-07:00Book Review: Going to church in medieval England by Nicholas Orme Yale UP June 2021<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-cS8lUXFfnHw/YRvKRZBeUFI/AAAAAAAADAw/6mZI8oQwtNwtZlut7JUbPgDPchJxkr4pACLcBGAsYHQ/image.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="272" data-original-width="185" height="240" src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-cS8lUXFfnHw/YRvKRZBeUFI/AAAAAAAADAw/6mZI8oQwtNwtZlut7JUbPgDPchJxkr4pACLcBGAsYHQ/image.png" width="163" /></a></div><br /><br /><p></p><p> <span style="font-family: arial;">This splendid book and wonderfully colourful book is well titled: it examines in fascinating detail the experience of people going to church in the medieval period in England, up to and including the reformation. It’s not a theological book (though there is theology in it) but a book looking at what it would have been like to travel back in a time machine and attend church in say 1350. </span></p><div dir="ltr"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div dir="ltr"><span style="font-family: arial;">As well as being well written and packed with great stories it’s also highly topical. “Save the parish” is a recent campaign to save the 12500 parish churches in England. </span></div><div dir="ltr"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div dir="ltr"><span style="font-family: arial;">Speaking at the launch one lady said the parish church “speaks in itself of other values than the mercenary and the utilitarian. ... The church is a kind of guarantor of the holiness of the whole area.”. Quite a few have spoken of the evangelical wing of the church as having an anti parish agenda. </span><p style="line-height: inherit; margin: 1.875rem 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word;"><span style="font-family: arial;">The CofEs director of evangelism and discipleship however argued “Throughout our history, there have always been other forms of churches alongside and within (parishes) — from cathedrals and chapels to fresh expressions and church plants, all of these come from and are part of the parishes. We need them all”</span></p><p style="line-height: inherit; margin: 1.875rem 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word;"><span style="font-family: arial;">So the timing for this book couldn’t be better. What was the parish church like in its “golden age”? What was the typical experience of a parishioner? Were the reformers bent on destroying the parish? Read and learn. </span></p><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">From about 300 onwards people in Britain were going to church. We know there were three bishops at a council in France in 313, one from London and York and probably one from Lincoln. Following the Roman withdrawal, the pagan Saxons were converted until by around 680 the whole of Britain was nominally Christian <br /><br /></span><div dir="ltr" id="m_-5544986912481844933AppleMailSignature"><span style="font-family: arial;">Britain was not urbanised so clergy (some secular ie often married) were sent out as missionaries from “minsters” (an anglicisation of the Latin word monasterium). The minsters taught preached and baptised. Towns grew up around the minsters - some new like Durham, some revivals of Roman towns like Winchester. The interaction of people with the church was intermittent - lengthy journeys were often needed. Landowners wanted to have churches to hand and new smaller churches emerged. Some were independent and even at odds with the Minster church. As time went by many of the minsters became monasteries that were “professionalised” - monks separate from the world. Religion became distinct: that of the clergy (monks, canons) and that of the laity. At larger churches, a chaplain might be employed to take care of the laity and the building was formally separated. </span></div><div dir="ltr" id="m_-5544986912481844933AppleMailSignature"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div dir="ltr" id="m_-5544986912481844933AppleMailSignature"><span style="font-family: arial;">By the twelfth century, the parish system roughly as it is today was in place: boundaries could not be changed save by order of the bishop or even the Pope. There was no central creation: the authorities recognised the existing system. Often the driver was money: who paid for which church? Arguments over the finances of parish churches have a long history and are one of the main themes in the book might be characterised as “he who pays the piper calls the tune”. </span></div><div dir="ltr" id="m_-5544986912481844933AppleMailSignature"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div dir="ltr" id="m_-5544986912481844933AppleMailSignature"><span style="font-family: arial;">Towns also had parishes, often a large number: York Lincoln Winchester and Norwich all had around 50 and London over a hundred. Parish churches were under the control of landowners although by 1215 the church had exerted control: the landowners became patrons with the right to propose a priest but the Bishop admitted him. In practice, though the local magnate had great power. The situation in large cities (particularly London ) was more complex: the parish system was designed for an agrarian rural context and though there were, of course, parishes in London their effectiveness varied. The whole north of England was always problematic: places like Manchester and Doncaster or Cumbria had either vast parishes or huge number of parishioners. Resources were concentrated in the wealthier southern areas. </span></div><div dir="ltr" id="m_-5544986912481844933AppleMailSignature"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div dir="ltr" id="m_-5544986912481844933AppleMailSignature"><span style="font-family: arial;">The services, of course, were in Latin but on Sundays, the priest was expected in theory once in a while to explain the gospel in English. Parishioners were expected to attend church regularly. In the early medieval period the Eucharist was received at Easter and possibly other times, while communion was in both kinds: only later was it restricted. </span></div><div dir="ltr" id="m_-5544986912481844933AppleMailSignature"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div dir="ltr" id="m_-5544986912481844933AppleMailSignature"><span style="font-family: arial;">But the parish church was not at all the most common church building: this was the chapel. (The word comes from the famous relic- the cloak or Capella of St Martin). These were very numerous: in Devon for example there were three times as many chapels as parish churches. There was a strong impetus to supplement parish churches with other places of worship: this tended to cause friction with the parish church as the new chapel drew away revenues and congregations. While these chapels were meant to be subject to and attend the parish church as well, in practice they were often independent especially if backed by local gentry. Chapels were often controlled and run by the laity. Orne writes “such chapels anticipated the free church meeting houses”. In fact, sometimes they were very near to that model: in the 1380s some Lollards near Leicester based themselves in the chapel of St Katherine where two of them showed their disregard for the veneration of Saints by burning her image to cook their cabbage soup! </span></div><div dir="ltr" id="m_-5544986912481844933AppleMailSignature"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div dir="ltr" id="m_-5544986912481844933AppleMailSignature"><span style="font-family: arial;">Clergy had to be at least 25 and in theory educated, though periodic visitation reports indicate this was far from always the case. At the beginning of the medieval period many clergy were married and succeeding your father was common: by the 13th C though clerical marriage was illegal but in practice, many clergy were “married” with their wives or concubines disguised as housekeepers. Socially, clergy were below the gentry (who were often their employer) and some chaplains could be very poor: Chaucer places the parson above only his brother the plowman. </span></div><div dir="ltr" id="m_-5544986912481844933AppleMailSignature"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div dir="ltr" id="m_-5544986912481844933AppleMailSignature"><span style="font-family: arial;">Church buildings are a massive topic but in short, the chancel was in theory reserved for the clergy (often behind a screen which meant the congregation couldn’t easily see what was going on, though they were supposed to be able to see the Mass). In practice, though those of higher rank often ignored this and as we get nearer the reformation more and more laity gained exclusive access to the chancel . The laity would also be increasingly seated: often if rich in elaborate stalls. Seating was by rank and by gender: men and women were by custom normally separated (women on the north men on the south: the north was the side of the saved at the Day of judgment, men, therefore, were better able to stand against the temptations of the lost on the south, which is why in a wedding even today the groom is normally on the right or south side. ) </span></div><div dir="ltr" id="m_-5544986912481844933AppleMailSignature"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div dir="ltr" id="m_-5544986912481844933AppleMailSignature"><span style="font-family: arial;">As time went by it was more common for the wealthy to sit together husband and wife. Services became more static and authorities began to order “none to walk or stand idly about talking”. </span></div><div dir="ltr" id="m_-5544986912481844933AppleMailSignature"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div dir="ltr" id="m_-5544986912481844933AppleMailSignature"><span style="font-family: arial;">In general, church was much less behaved than now. A knight in Kent came to church with his hat on and a hawk on his wrist and when challenged struck the vicar in the mouth. Dogs were also popular with predictable consequences! The milder end of secular practices like teaching, morality plays, courts and “refreshments” were tolerated in church but there were frequent prohibitions of dancing and drinking. </span></div><div dir="ltr" id="m_-5544986912481844933AppleMailSignature"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div dir="ltr" id="m_-5544986912481844933AppleMailSignature"><span style="font-family: arial;">In general there was a perpetual struggle for control of the parish between the church authorities and the laity. The ambitions of the church was to keep the laity out of power and out of the chancel where the mass was celebrated. But “this was never wholly achieved and was perceptibly undermined during the later Middle Ages”. After the high watermark of church control in say 1200, the (wealthy) laity steadily regained power and influence. Money talks. As now!</span></div><div dir="ltr" id="m_-5544986912481844933AppleMailSignature"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div dir="ltr" id="m_-5544986912481844933AppleMailSignature"><span style="font-family: arial;">How widespread was church attendance? Certainly, the frequent complaints and clampdowns show a far from uniformly pious society. Most likely to attend would be the gentry (unless they had a private chapel) as this was the place they could receive respect and literally occupy the seats of power. Occasionally quarrels over who sat where ended in violence. The same attendance of the rich was true in towns for wealthy merchants and especially their wives (then as now women outnumbered men in church). An Italian visiting London in 1500 noted gentlewomen attending church every day with books (which were becoming increasingly popular) and rosaries. Children as now sometimes disrupted the services to the annoyance of others. Again the wealthier families would have gone en masse while their servants and their children laboured at home. Sometimes there were inducements to attend: either a condition of receiving alms or as a handout at an obit mass. </span></div><div dir="ltr" id="m_-5544986912481844933AppleMailSignature"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div dir="ltr" id="m_-5544986912481844933AppleMailSignature"><span style="font-family: arial;">Complaints about non-attendance were numerous. Some worried commentators wrote of “the stalls of the tavern stuffed with drinkers while in the church stalls you shall see few or none”. Persistent non-attenders - often the poor or those of the working classes - were singled out and made to do penance, such as in one case a man ceremonially being beaten around the church carrying the shoes he had been selling! Despite that, there was tolerance for people whose work was deemed essential or those like fishermen who faced practical problems attending. There was a strong Sabbatarian belief in keeping Sunday special. A popular painting was of a bleeding Christ surrounded by the instruments of work that wounded him afresh. Teenagers then as now were famously hard to rouse out of bed to attend church. Sport was also a big temptation. A Gloucestershire clergyman found 14 people playing tennis when they should have been in church. </span></div><div dir="ltr" id="m_-5544986912481844933AppleMailSignature"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div dir="ltr" id="m_-5544986912481844933AppleMailSignature"><span style="font-family: arial;">Of course, this led to an awful lot of people in the church who might not have wished to be there. People walked around, chattered, read, and especially sometimes argued. The main flashpoint topic was one of “precedence” - who was the social superior of others. Women were dragged out of their seats by other women who felt that they were of higher rank. Clothes were also important especially for the rich. Interestingly men wore hoods or hats only removing them at the elevation of the host. Kneeling became more common as people were seated which became increasingly the norm - you bought your own seat or had one built. Crossing oneself was also very common: a practice disliked by the reformers. Prayers were focused around the Lord’s Prayer the creed and the Ave Maria: as time went on praying these repeatedly were seen to acquire merit for the person using them. In the 1400s more and more wealthy people acquired what we would call devotional literature- prayer books, stories of the Saints and even the liturgy itself in book form were increasingly used and bought to church and read while the service was ongoing. </span></div><div dir="ltr" id="m_-5544986912481844933AppleMailSignature"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div dir="ltr" id="m_-5544986912481844933AppleMailSignature"><span style="font-family: arial;">The overall level of piety is very hard to assess. Until the 1380s England lacked a pattern of “heresy” as was found in say France. Opposition tended to be around refusing to attend church, pay the church taxes or follow the church’s moral code. The church regarded this as disobedience, not heresy. Sceptics expressed their views through scoffing and ridicule. All this changed with the arrival of the Lollards from 1380 which meant the authorities cracked down on sceptics - many of whose beliefs were not full-blown Lollardy but rather widespread scepticism over disputed doctrines such as the real presence or dislike of the churches power and wealth. </span></div><div dir="ltr" id="m_-5544986912481844933AppleMailSignature"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div dir="ltr" id="m_-5544986912481844933AppleMailSignature"><span style="font-family: arial;">This lay hostility to the church was paralleled by a systematic growth over this period of lay power. Not just through the local gentry but through associations such as guilds, companies and chantries. Services were very frequent - Mass should be celebrated daily and very often as well as specific “chantry priests” saying masses for the souls of the dead. Indeed a parish clergyman was “to a significant extent a chantry priest…his responsibilities complemented not replaced the praying for the departed”. Services were probably about an hour to an hour and a half and on Sundays, the laity was expected to attend matins and evensong and mass (so 4-5 hours in church). However, this expectation was widely ignored notably as, unlike the mass these services were not addressed to them. The congregation didn’t participate in these services: One could pray extempore, meditate or if literate read books such as a psalter. </span></div><div dir="ltr" id="m_-5544986912481844933AppleMailSignature"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div dir="ltr" id="m_-5544986912481844933AppleMailSignature"><span style="font-family: arial;">But the mass was the key service above all on Sundays and festivals. The high point of the service was the moment of consecration, as the ordinary people would rarely take communion, perhaps only at Easter: the wealthy remember would often be near to the altar but the “common folk” would be excluded by the chancel screen, though this was supposed to be pierced to allow visibility. This elevation produced excitement - one reformer wrote of people crying out to the priest “hold up Sir john hold up” while others said, “stoop down thou fellow before that I may see my maker”. When communion was given or the pax circulated (an image in place of kissing each other) it was in the order of precedence and gender - which led to fierce arguments. In Essex in 1522 a gentleman was so irate at being offered the pax after others he smashed it in pieces on the clerk's head. </span></div><div dir="ltr" id="m_-5544986912481844933AppleMailSignature"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div dir="ltr" id="m_-5544986912481844933AppleMailSignature"><span style="font-family: arial;">Prayers were made (often in English) and announcements were made. Pardoners (as vilified but Chaucer) might appeal for money or sell indulgences. This brings us to preaching which was of course one of the main complaints of the reformers - that people didn’t understand their faith. Numerous archbishops issued instructions calling for good preaching and educated priests for “the ignorance of priests casts the people into the pit of error”. Sermons if they occurred would have been in English normally and 10-15 minutes long. </span></div><div dir="ltr" id="m_-5544986912481844933AppleMailSignature"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div dir="ltr" id="m_-5544986912481844933AppleMailSignature"><span style="font-family: arial;">However numerous complaints about non-existent or incomprehensible preaching indicate these instructions were not followed often due to the poor education of the priest himself. In response to this help was made available by the 15th C in the form of model sermons, explaining a Bible passage or the Saints day. A kind of medieval Proclamation Trust! </span></div><div dir="ltr" id="m_-5544986912481844933AppleMailSignature"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div dir="ltr" id="m_-5544986912481844933AppleMailSignature"><span style="font-family: arial;">Many people attended other sermons (normally in the afternoon) and in the cities, there were ample opportunities to hear notable preachers. Friars became increasingly important and friaries focused heavily on sermon preparation. Friars increasingly began to circulate in rural areas and would draw large crowds, often to the annoyance of the parish priest who couldn’t compete with these highly educated itinerants. . Such preachers had their work cut out - if they were judged dull the congregation would up and leave (unlike the mass, attendance was voluntary). Outbursts from the pew could be violent: when the “revivalist preacher” William Swinderby of Leicester attacked women’s adornments the women of Leicester threatened to stone him. But normally the Mass did not emphasise teaching and the communication was through sight and ceremony not instruction. </span></div><div dir="ltr" id="m_-5544986912481844933AppleMailSignature"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div dir="ltr" id="m_-5544986912481844933AppleMailSignature"><span style="font-family: arial;">Finally, we come to the reformation. The reformers were drawing in powerful undercurrents. There is no particular evidence, argues Orme, of increasing anticlericalism, though it was certainly there. The growth in lay influence has been commented on: more specific was growth in the power of the King. Royal emblems in the church begin to appear much more frequently. The clergy were much more strictly controlled by the state which also taxed them much more heavily. Devotion to Christ (as opposed to Mary or the Saints) became much more prevalent, though the cult of the Virgin Mary was still very important. Pulpits became more prominent and the arrival of printing made standardisation and explanation of liturgy much easier. </span></div><div dir="ltr" id="m_-5544986912481844933AppleMailSignature"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div dir="ltr" id="m_-5544986912481844933AppleMailSignature"><span style="font-family: arial;">For the parish church itself, the biggest change of the reformation was the availability of the Bible in both Latin and English - it should be placed in the chancel for “every man that will to look and read their in”. Services were to include the Bible read in English. Images were not necessarily removed but kneeling or offerings to them were forbidden. </span></div><div dir="ltr" id="m_-5544986912481844933AppleMailSignature"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div dir="ltr" id="m_-5544986912481844933AppleMailSignature"><span style="font-family: arial;">Interestingly enough for high church fans of the parish, the reformers were dead against the chapels which they regarded as encouraging superstitious worship of Saints and weakened the authority of the parish church. The reformation was the triumph of the parish church versus other expressions. Preaching was encouraged: a minimum of four times a year was the expected standard (!). The prayer book was introduced: for the first time, there was a standardised national liturgy. </span></div><div dir="ltr" id="m_-5544986912481844933AppleMailSignature"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div dir="ltr" id="m_-5544986912481844933AppleMailSignature"><span style="font-family: arial;">The reformers were keen to encourage communion more frequently but met with little success. Reshaping the nature of worship was more successful “Sunday services became more Instructive partly because they were in English”. Confession became counselling. Many of the changes can be classified as “uniformity”. Every service should be the same and the instrument to achieve this was printing. The multiple non-parish alternatives before the reformation were removed: the injunction of 1559 forbade the practice of worshipping elsewhere. Only two services took place: morning and evening. The priest - or minister as the words were used interchangeably- and congregation were brought much closer together. The parish church services were much more educational and bought a much greater familiarity with the Bible. Saints, images and even the cross as a symbol were jettisoned. </span></div><div dir="ltr" id="m_-5544986912481844933AppleMailSignature"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div dir="ltr" id="m_-5544986912481844933AppleMailSignature"><span style="font-family: arial;">But much in terms of religious practice remained the same and the parish became the arena for much stricter enforcement of religious uniformity. The parishes and vicars and bishops remained just as before. “Churchgoing kept much of its ancient character “ argues Orme. People were required to be in church for a lengthy period of time on Sunday (probably an hour and a half in the morning and less in the evening). The reformers were not particularly bothered about how the congregation reacted during the service and people continued for example to kneel and the men to doff their hats at the name of Jesus. Reformers “remained attached to many aspects of the past: a Christian state and society, parish structures, church patronage, infant baptism, and many more. “ </span></div><div dir="ltr" id="m_-5544986912481844933AppleMailSignature"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div dir="ltr" id="m_-5544986912481844933AppleMailSignature"><span style="font-family: arial;">So for those who wish to “save the parish” often though not always in contrast to “evangelicals” seeking change a few thoughts to conclude </span></div><div dir="ltr" id="m_-5544986912481844933AppleMailSignature"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div dir="ltr" id="m_-5544986912481844933AppleMailSignature"><span style="font-family: arial;">The parish system in medieval England was far from uniform and in fact, most churches were outside the parish system and there has always been tension between the parish church and other churches. </span></div><div dir="ltr" id="m_-5544986912481844933AppleMailSignature"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div dir="ltr" id="m_-5544986912481844933AppleMailSignature"><span style="font-family: arial;">The reformers (“evangelicals “ we might say) far from wanting to undermine the parish worked to achieve the exact reverse. </span></div><div dir="ltr" id="m_-5544986912481844933AppleMailSignature"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div dir="ltr" id="m_-5544986912481844933AppleMailSignature"><span style="font-family: arial;">Money has always been a big issue. Who pays? No taxation without representation - a powerful cry today (the cry “why should I pay for something I totally disagree with” has a long history!) The tensions in the parish were often between the clergy and the laity - with the latter over time gaining increasing power and influence. The parish system was geared for the rich and powerful who enjoyed even in the same church a very different experience of “the local parish church” to the poor in exactly the same service .</span></div><div dir="ltr" id="m_-5544986912481844933AppleMailSignature"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div dir="ltr" id="m_-5544986912481844933AppleMailSignature"><span style="font-family: arial;"> Wealthy parishes also had huge staff and money while poorer parishes especially in the north struggled with few staff and huge congregations. There was no mechanism for helping the north whilst Resources were very unevenly distributed and were controlled by the rich. Cities especially London functioned completely differently and the parish church system was above all one of wealthy southern rural communities. Plus ca change! </span></div><div dir="ltr" id="m_-5544986912481844933AppleMailSignature"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div dir="ltr" id="m_-5544986912481844933AppleMailSignature"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div dir="ltr" id="m_-5544986912481844933AppleMailSignature"><span style="font-family: arial;">The degree of understanding of what was happening for the congregation was low - and that was often true of the priest as well. This worked to some extent (though of course was one of the central complaints of the reformers) as with a few exceptions everyone was to a greater or lesser extent “religious”. </span></div><div dir="ltr" id="m_-5544986912481844933AppleMailSignature"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div dir="ltr" id="m_-5544986912481844933AppleMailSignature"><span style="font-family: arial;">Most obviously the parish system functioned and flourished because everyone had to be in the church whether they liked it or not - at least twice on a Sunday and a minimum of 30 times in addition on various feasts and Saints days. While the reformation abolished most of the latter it reinforced the enforcement of church attendance not least to guard against hidden Catholicism. </span></div><div dir="ltr" id="m_-5544986912481844933AppleMailSignature"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div dir="ltr" id="m_-5544986912481844933AppleMailSignature"><span style="font-family: arial;">The church was central and serious to everyone’s life. Just look at the money poured into church buildings which stand as mute testimony to the massive centrality of God to all aspects of medieval life. That is to state the bleedingly obvious hardly the case today. The situation today i suggest is much more like 600 than 1500 - a pagan nation ignoring God. The minster church seeking to reach the pagan may be a more relevant model than a parish one ministering fo a captive audience. </span></div><div dir="ltr" id="m_-5544986912481844933AppleMailSignature"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div dir="ltr" id="m_-5544986912481844933AppleMailSignature"><span style="font-family: arial;">Having said all that with all its limitations the parish church has endured for 1000 years plus (in some cases longer). It wasn’t in the Middle Ages a monolithic centralised system but was surprisingly diverse and varied. Most churches were not parish churches. Parish churches were geared for and run by the rich. </span></div><div dir="ltr" id="m_-5544986912481844933AppleMailSignature"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div dir="ltr" id="m_-5544986912481844933AppleMailSignature"><span style="font-family: arial;"> The irony of irony is that the modern “standardised” parish and its “standardised” worship was to a large extent the product of the reforming evangelicals. Far from dismantling the parish church, they built it. </span></div></div><div dir="ltr" id="m_-5544986912481844933AppleMailSignature"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div dir="ltr" id="m_-5544986912481844933AppleMailSignature"><span style="font-family: arial;">This is a brilliant book most attractively produced and sold at a very reasonable price. </span></div></div>Jeremy Marshallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15495729193128994132noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4817780181858837735.post-20278763897678546712021-08-15T11:12:00.001-07:002021-08-15T11:12:05.777-07:00Dr Frederik Mulder's analysis of the Church of England<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-Lln_HqAqY6w/YRlYWZcj_pI/AAAAAAAADAQ/f5H-YGs2Wx0dE812csacvN-6ChdaEjuuACLcBGAsYHQ/image.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="94" data-original-width="168" height="179" src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-Lln_HqAqY6w/YRlYWZcj_pI/AAAAAAAADAQ/f5H-YGs2Wx0dE812csacvN-6ChdaEjuuACLcBGAsYHQ/image.png" width="320" /></a></div><br /><br /><p></p><p><br /></p><p> Dr Frederik Mulder has produced a very thorough and incisive analysis of the situation facing the Church of England. </p><div><br /></div><div>You can read his argument or watch his video here </div><div><div><br /></div><div><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.academia.edu/50817451/A_Non_Anglican_View_of_Orthodoxy_and_Unorthodoxy_in_the_Church_of_England&source=gmail&ust=1629136949309000&usg=AFQjCNEzRfzmy6gIyhAPK0pLf4TqCNOwxg" href="https://www.academia.edu/50817451/A_Non_Anglican_View_of_Orthodoxy_and_Unorthodoxy_in_the_Church_of_England" target="_blank">https://www.academia.edu/<wbr></wbr>50817451/A_Non_Anglican_View_<wbr></wbr>of_Orthodoxy_and_Unorthodoxy_<wbr></wbr>in_the_Church_of_England</a></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://youtu.be/RNWTRlDMv6Y&source=gmail&ust=1629136949309000&usg=AFQjCNEunjPrkzghfRuXmdpRGXq8m9ltDg" href="https://youtu.be/RNWTRlDMv6Y" target="_blank">https://youtu.be/RNWTRlDMv6Y</a></div></div><div><br /></div><div>He knows the situation well having undertaken a series of theological studies and has discussed the key issues with some of the people he cites. </div><div><br /></div><div>Let me try and summarise his case. I will start with what I agree with. </div><div><br /></div><div>1. Evangelicals are losing the fight in the Church of England. This to me is indisputable despite vainglorious claims in the past. Lloyd Jones was I believe right and Stott was wrong in 1966. Stott himself indicated at the end of his life, suggests Dr Mulder, a shift in his opinion </div><div><br /></div><div>Mulder chronicles a long and dismal record of retreat beginning with the crucial amendment to the Declaration of Assent to the 39 articles in 1968. One cannot avoid admitting that worthy evangelicals like Jim Packer and Michael Green seem to have been duped into a crucial change where effectively you could deny the articles, whilst rather weaselly saying they were correct at the time they were instituted. From then on a whole series of ordained liberal academics and bishops systematically and openly denied crucial doctrines such as the virgin birth, the resurrection and the atonement. </div><div><br /></div><div>Dr Mulder doesn’t spell this out but others have pointed out since the - in my view disastrous- Keele NEAC meeting of 1967 evangelical Anglicans went from saying they were contending for the reformed faith and truth to accepting evangelicals were but one of the many traditions in the CofE and that crucially come what may they wouldn’t leave. </div><div><br /></div><div>2. The failure of church discipline. What happened when all of this above occurred? Nothing. Lee Gatiss is quoted in 2019 as admitting that there has been a complete collapse in discipline. He is quoted as saying “You can get away with preaching almost anything”. Don Cupitt who denied even a personal God, was supported Mulder points out by the ABC and when the Bishop of Durham denied the resurrection he was backed by 18 bishops and the ABC. </div><div><br /></div><div>3. The failure of evangelical response. What was the evangelical response for example to the new liturgy for transgender people? Moaning and groaning and letter writing but nothing really changed. If there is an evangelical strategy it certainly hasn’t been communicated</div><div><br /></div><div>4. The author gives some interesting and deeply sad personal anecdotes of his recent experience trying Anglican churches in Winchester. He is told even in the evangelical Anglican church that it’s all about “building bridges”. Don’t rock the boat is the watchword. </div><div><br /></div><div>5. Crucially Mulder points out that for some evangelical Anglicans COME WHAT MAY they will never leave. I can recall having this discussion at university 40 years ago. “Would you leave the Church of England, “ I rather provocatively asked my friends “if the Archbishop of Canterbury said we should worship the devil?” Silence and rather embarrassed grins were the answers. Sadly, as Mulder points out for some evangelicals the attachment to the CofE is so strong that “their British Anglican identity trumps orthodox belief”. I can’t help thinking that belonging to a cosy establishment which is respectable and privileged is a major factor for some. </div><div><br /></div><div>He points out how sad and self-defeating it is when evangelical people staying in the church denigrate and criticise friends leaving (say to AMIE) as “abandoning the flock”. This is something I have observed. In fact, Church of England evangelicals should make common cause with those leaving for other Anglican causes such as AMIE and equally other evangelicals outside Anglicanism. This is exactly what Lloyd Jones said - it’s madness when we visibly identify with those who deny basic Christian truth and separate from those who affirm it. </div><div><br /></div><div>Pragmatically this also means I suggest that the stronger the alternative option the better for the evangelical people within the CofE, not the reverse, because there is a credible alternative. If there is no alternative then the outcome is clear. </div><div><br /></div><div>As a layman, I would love to see a closer alignment with AMIE, FIEC etc. The Gospel Partnerships are a good example of what this cooperation can look like. </div><div><br /></div><div>What I don’t agree with </div><div><br /></div><div>Frederik’s conclusion is that evangelicals should leave the Church of England. He quotes a number of passages from 2 Timothy and Ephesians and elsewhere about having nothing to do with false teachers. In particular, he criticises Lee Gatiss and others for advocating getting elected and working in synods as this contradicts these scriptural instructions, given the highly liberal views of some of the other synod members. This he feels violates the scriptural principles on association with false teachers </div><div><br /></div><div>I’m not sure this makes sense. Imagine you have a synod or a church meeting and one person out of say 500 a was advocates false teaching. Do you then boycott the meeting? I suggest not, rather you struggle and try and correct the false teaching. The question is whether the struggle is lost. When it is lost then and only then leave. In the meantime fight for what you believe in. </div><div><br /></div><div>Spurgeon followed this strategy with the Baptist Union in the “ Downgrade Controversy “ only leaving when he was defeated eventually by a vote of 2000-7. (I am not arguing that Spurgeon would have stayed - he would never have been an Anglican full stop - but that if you have a cause you fight for it until it’s lost. I understand Frederik's view that by attending synod you associate with false teachers: my contention is that on the contrary by contending for what’s right and refuting false teaching you are not associating but repudiating such teaching. </div><div><br /></div><div>I don’t believe it is right to leave now for the following reasons. </div><div><br /></div><div>1. The official teaching of the church has not changed - though Frederik argues that the change around the 39 articles amounts to such a change I’m not convinced . </div><div><br /></div><div>2. There are (finally!) some clear red lines. The “Anglicanism trumps everything else” view espoused above is not held by many evangelicals. People will leave in a worst-case. My own rector Angus MacLeay has been very clear about what his red lines are (see 1, you can read his interview on this in the latest EN.) I fully support his stance and am reassured that there are circumstances where he would say “enough”. Interestingly we should consider John Stott who in 1995 said he would have to leave if an alternative to biblical marriage is officially approved. JC Ryle who is often quoted in favour of staying must be spinning in his grave following the 1968 alterations to the Declaration of Assent and the Myth, Jenkins, Cupitt and Liverpool Cathedral Bishop and 2018 official transgender liturgy approved by all the House of Bishops and defended at Synod by an Evangelical! </div><div><br /></div><div>To me, it’s fundamental that there has to be a point where we say “this far and no further”. Having no such red line is a recipe for endless compromise and is tantamount to hoisting a white flag. </div><div><br /></div><div>3. There are ever stronger and better-established alternatives if the “worst comes to the worst” : the “lifeboats” are more seaworthy and numerous. In particular the revitalised CEEC I believe can provide a clear articulation of what the red lines are and what the overall plan is for evangelicals - something that has been I believe lacking in the last decades </div><div><br /></div><div>4. An increasing number of Anglican evangelical leaders have been speaking openly to their congregation about the desperate seriousness of the situation. This “mobilisation” of the laity is vital as this has been a major weakness of the evangelical position. </div><div><br /></div><div>5. Lloyd-Jones instruction to associate with fellow evangelicals and refuse to associate with false teachers - in other words for evangelicals to prioritise truth over denominational loyalty - is increasingly occurring at the local level. I would love to see that this trend increases. The Gospel Partnerships are a great vehicle for such collaboration. </div><div><br /></div><div>It may be that the situation in the Church of England deteriorates, that the red lines above are crossed and evangelicals need to leave. But in the meantime let’s contend for the faith once delivered to the saints. </div><div><br /></div><div>Coming back to Dr Mulder’s video and article I think he makes a very accurate and penetrating diagnosis of the severity of the disease. Especially he skilfully traces out how related failures to stand up and be counted has brought us to the position we are in. We disagree to an extent about the treatment needed but are fully in agreement about the seriousness of the situation. </div>Jeremy Marshallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15495729193128994132noreply@blogger.com1