Simon van Bruchem, Author at Refcast

Strategic Planning in the Local Church

By Simon van Bruchem — 4 months ago

As churches grow, the need for careful strategic planning becomes more important. Many things just happen in a small church; you notice when people are missing, you know each other well enough to understand the needs, and you can welcome any newcomers well. If God blesses a church with growth, it will become impossible for one person to know everyone well, and more than possible for new people to be missed or pastoral needs to be neglected. Structures are needed to do this well, and structures need planning.

Some people like to plan for the future; others just seem to deal with whatever might happen to them. I am a planner. I like to make lists. I like to know what my diary is likely to look like next week, and what major events are planned next month. I realise that not everyone is wired like I am, and the idea of strategic planning to some people seems as interesting as watching paint dry. Yet hear me out: leaders in the local church need to plan for the future.
The local church is not like a company. It would be foolish to measure the performance of a church by the number of new members, for example, when we know that so much is due to God’s work and unpredictable from our perspective. We always need to take into account the fact that whatever we might plan, God might have other plans for us:
13 Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town and spend a year there and trade and make a profit”- 14 yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes. 15 Instead you ought to say, “If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that.” 16 As it is, you boast in your arrogance. All such boasting is evil.
(James 4:13-16 ESV)
This doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t plan for the future. Traditionally, churches have often added “Lord willing” after their planned events to remind us that nothing we plan is certain; God might have other ideas. We plan to meet together next Sunday, Lord willing, for example. This means that we think we will meet as brothers and sisters next Sunday, but perhaps there will be a riot, a building fire, or maybe Jesus will come back this week.
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Watch Out for Weeds

By Simon van Bruchem — 4 months ago

Life gets in the way. Good intentions don’t always lead to good, godly practices. The things we ideally should be doing don’t get done and we cultivate weeds and not valuable plants. Busyness is not a mark of importance.

Weeds have been dominating my garden lately. I have all kinds of beautiful plants I would like to see flourish, yet the things that are most successful are the weeds. You don’t need to put in any effort for weeds to grow. They just happen. And if you don’t do anything about them, the garden will become dominated by weeds. It takes significant effort to pull weeds out, to spray them, or to mulch to try to slow them down.
This has made me think about the realities of the Christian life. Living a life that trusts Jesus and honours Him requires effort. Yes, the Spirit motivates us and points us to a life of holiness, that is true. But we need to plan and to do things. It is far easier to drift through life like so many do and not think about what we are doing.
Jesus spoke about the wide and narrow paths. Going down the wide path was both easy and popular, but it ended in destruction. While going down the narrow path was complicated and required effort, but it ended in life. Living in the kingdom of God requires effort and cost from us.
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Training in Godliness

By Simon van Bruchem — 4 months ago

All of us need to train for godliness. It doesn’t matter if you are a new Christian or if you have been a believer for fifty years. All of us need to work on building godly habits of Bible reading and prayer. We need to confess our specific sins and actively work on loving God and others in different ways. We need to meet with other believers.

In the past few months, I have become more regular with working on my physical fitness. I have managed to fit a few different exercise sessions in each week as part of my everyday routines. At the start, it didn’t seem like much had changed. Starting something new meant that my muscles that were used to not doing much suddenly had to work, and they were a little sore. Yet, after a while, I could up my intensity and weight levels. I noticed that I had more energy and less sore muscles from everyday living. It’s still a work in progress, but I am slowly becoming fitter and stronger, and the benefits are noticeable.
All of this reminded me of this passage from 1 Timothy:
7 Have nothing to do with irreverent, silly myths. Rather train yourself for godliness; 8 for while bodily training is of some value, godliness is of value in every way, as it holds promise for the present life and also for the life to come. 9 The saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance.
(1 Tim. 4:7-9 ESV)
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Don’t Utilize Extensive Vocabulary when You can Use Simple Words

By Simon van Bruchem — 6 months ago

A little consideration of the hearers will go a long way to making sermons more understandable. Are many of your hearers from a different culture to you? Then keep your vocabulary as simple as possible and try to avoid idioms. Are there likely to be those with little to no Bible knowledge? Then don’t use obscure illustrations from the Bible with no explanation. Is there a difficult word in the Bible text itself? Take time to explain it in simple words.

Too many sermons are more complicated than they need to be. Like any specialty, the Christian world has its own special vocabulary. Words like holy, justification and glorification do turn up in the Bible, yet they rarely if ever turn up in everyday conversation. On top of this, there are all kinds of theological terms used to describe Biblical concepts that are rich and meaningful if you know what they mean, like Trinity and ordo salutis and transcendence. Yet the majority of people in our churches listening to sermons don’t know or use these words. Anyone whose task it is to explain the word of God to others needs to think carefully about the words they use lest they are misunderstood.
Think about Jesus in his teaching. He used the common language and common illustrations that everyone would understand. Sure, they might not have understood what he meant, but the words were clear. Likewise, when Paul spoke to the Athenians who were educated but not experienced in the Jewish Scriptures, he spoke plainly. He explained God’s sovereignty and aseity without using those words. It is more than possible to explain difficult concepts in simple words.
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You Learn a Great Deal by Going Outside

By Simon van Bruchem — 6 months ago

The lessons drawn from the natural world were helpful both because they were well known as well as because they operated just the way God designed them to. The world does not ‘just happen’; it has been designed and made by God and continues because of His consistent control.

Have you noticed how many Bible passages draw conclusions from looking at the natural world? Here’s only a small sample:
3 When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, 4 what is man that you are mindful of him, and the son of man that you care for him?
(Ps. 8:3-4 ESV)
6 Go to the ant, O sluggard; consider her ways, and be wise. 7 Without having any chief, officer, or ruler, 8 she prepares her bread in summer and gathers her food in harvest. 9 How long will you lie there, O sluggard? When will you arise from your sleep?
(Prov. 6:6-9 ESV)
28 And why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin, 29 yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.
30 But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith?
(Matt. 6:28-30 ESV)
18 For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. 19 For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them.
20 For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse.
(Rom. 1:18-20 ESV)
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Do We Really Believe That Singleness and Marriage Are Equal in God’s Sight?

By Simon van Bruchem — 7 months ago

It is good for us to understand that the modern focus on marriage in the church is not how it has always been. The monastic movement, for all its flaws, was an attempt to take 1 Corinthians 7 seriously and to use your life to wholeheartedly serve Jesus without the divided interests that come from marriage and children.

Those who are not married and those who are married are of equal value in God’s sight. All people are made in the image of God. All Christians are saved only by grace through the blood of Jesus Christ shed on the cross for our sins. In no way does our marital status impact whether we are of value to God.
The apostle Paul famously says this in 1 Corinthians 7. In fact, he holds up singleness as superior for serving God in some ways, for instead of having divided interests you can live for God with all your heart.
This is not controversial theologically, yet do we truly believe this in practice? Christians and churches can teach marriage as such a worthy goal that single people are unintentionally alienated. Christian groups campaign for marriage in the wider culture, which is needed and timely. There are all kinds of ministries in most churches for marriage enrichment or for children. Well-meaning Christians can make unhelpful comments to single Christians in their churches about marriage, even trying to set them up with others they know. While marriage is a good gift from God, we can give the idea that it is the goal in life rather than serving God in whatever state we happen to be in.
And that’s before consider the family pressure many young adults feel to get married. There are many tense moments at family gatherings for the average single adult when their parents imply (or simply say!) that they are in some way less worthy because they have not been married.
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Marriage Is Not the Goal of the Christian Life

By Simon van Bruchem — 8 months ago

Our focus should be on loving God with all our heart, soul, mind and strength. That is true whatever our marital status might be. We should not see marriage as the end goal of our lives; we should instead be asking, “How do I serve and glorify God best through my marriage?” Marriage can be a great platform to serve God and other people rather than a selfish end in itself. While there are many ways to answer this question, let me just give you a few to think about.

When people get married, you often see a familiar pattern emerging. Instead of spending time with their friends as they used to do, all of their time is now devoted to their spouse. They stop going to parties and their previously-large social circle begins to shrink. It is this phenomenon that the Skyhooks sang about in their 1975 song “All my friends are getting married”:
Well all my friends are getting marriedYes they’re all growin’ oldThey’re staying home on weekendsThey’re all doin’ what they’re told.
There is something good about devotion to your spouse, of course. And being married will undoubtedly change the way your social life works. Yet this complete withdrawal into a marriage “bubble” reveals something about our hearts. It is like the goal in life is to be married, and once that goal is achieved, you can just enjoy it and work hard on it. Everything else now becomes a distant second place.
Do you see the problem with this? The goal in life for Christians should not be to get married. Marriage is a good gift from God, sure. But so is singleness, in a different way. Marriage was never supposed to be the ultimate thing. Marriage itself is supposed to point to the love of Christ and the church.
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Our Love Might Be Blind, but Jesus’ Love Is Not

By Simon van Bruchem — 9 months ago

On the spiritual level, we should rejoice in the fact that Jesus sees us as perfect in God’s sight despite our flaws. Yes, we see our own flaws and we feel our sins and limitations and history so deeply. God is also aware of our sin; after all, He sent Jesus to die for us to save us from it! God is not blind to our shortcomings like those newly in love are. Yet our sins are covered by the finished work of Jesus. Once we have trusted in Jesus, we are whiter than snow (Ps 51:7).

When you are early on in a romantic relationship, everything about the one you love is fantastic. You cannot find a flaw. They appear perfect to you in every way. Their laugh, their mannerisms, their jokes, everything is just ideal in your eyes. This is what it meant by the phrase “love is blind”. Driven by love, you only see the good and you cannot see the bad.
Of course, the other person is not entirely good; no-one is even close! They will have physical flaws, particular temptations, personality issues and a history. If you remain together, you will come to see some of these problems. That laugh that was so endearing might come to grate on you; that little mannerism that was written off as cute might be identified as actually being selfish or rude. We only see the reality over time.
We see this in Song of Songs as well. The woman notes in chapter 1 that her skin was darker than most women because she worked outside in the vineyard (1:6). In a culture that valued light skin, she would not be seen by most as conventionally beautiful. Yet when her man looks at her, all he sees is beauty. She is the “most beautiful amongst women” (1:8). He looks at her and sees only the good.
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Don’t Let Passion Drop Off in Your Marriage and Christian Life

By Simon van Bruchem — 9 months ago

People who have been Christians a long time often don’t feel the depth of passion for Jesus they once did. While this in itself is not something we can control, we should be striving to glorify God in all we do, to live out of love for Jesus. That will mean reminding ourselves of God’s goodness often, to make effort in prayer, and to grow in knowledge and service.

Song of Songs is a book that is full of passion. The woman dreams of being with the man, and the man looks at the woman and sees the one who has captivated his heart. They speak to one another in poetry and use colourful metaphors to describe each other’s body parts. When they are apart, they dream of being together.
Maybe you’ve seen a couple who are like this. People usually early on their relationship who cannot get enough of one another. The way they look at each other and their body language screams to you that they have passion for each other.
When a couple has been married for a long time, things change. They settle down. The emotions calm down and things become more comfortable. The compliments become less frequent and the practicalities of life start to dominate instead of the poetry and joy of an early-stage relationship. Sexual activity often drops a lot. And it can happen that, before you know it, the marriage has become more like a flatmate kind of relationship. It works, it is functional, but the passion has gone away.
Why does this happen? Part of it is just a natural progression of life. Emotions change and mature. We don’t always need to manufacture some kind of feeling. The problem becomes when we no longer make the effort and stop to appreciate what we have in the other person.
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Christian Teaching on Sex Should be More than “Don’t do It”

By Simon van Bruchem — 9 months ago

Love and sex are great gifts from God in the right setting. There is joy to be found in marriage and love. And this joy, these great gifts, are a pointer to a greater love, of Christ for his church. When we understand the power of the gifts of love and sex, we will understand that the church teaches a much higher view of sex than the wider culture does.

I fear that many people think that the Christian teaching on sex is “it is bad, don’t do it”. After all, many of the public statements from Christian sources on this topic are to oppose something that doesn’t fit the Biblical ideal. There are many “thou shall nots” when it comes to Christian teaching about sex.
This idea is reinforced by the fact that many churches rarely speak about love and sex from the pulpit. These issues are discussed in marriage counselling and sometimes in training events, but seem to be less prominent in preaching programmes. Many Christian households also avoid speaking about sex to their children due to embarrassment or cultural reasons, leaving the children to then work things out for themselves.
Where do young people get their information about sex from? The school system does teach on this topic, but mainly in terms of biology and how not to get pregnant or catch a disease. The message the school delivers is “you can sleep with whoever you want, just make sure you both agree and are safe about it”. Schools are not the only source of information, however. Many just search on the internet to find answers and unfortunately discover either pornography or other encouragements to do whatever feels good.
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