As tempting as it is to just say “do whatever you want”, we are not serving another person’s good by doing that. If someone is deviating from God’s Word, if someone is moving away from the commands of Christ – whatever they may be – we serve their interests best by calling them back to faithfulness. As tempting as saying nothing may be, that is really just selfishness and cowardice on our part seeking a quiet life. If we really care about the good of others, we will want to call them back to faithfulness in Jesus even in the face of the relational strain that may cause us.

Every now and then, every pastor will feel the temptation to just let people do whatever they want. To teach what they know people want to hear. To setup the church in a way that people can, effectively, do and be affirmed in whatever they want.
These temptations usually roll round in the face of people not getting their way or not hearing something they wanted to hear (or hearing something they didn’t want to hear) and the church soon gets an earful. Perhaps someone said no to something they really wanted to do. Perhaps someone suggested they shouldn’t do something they currently are doing. Maybe it was something in a sermon. Perhaps it was something else altogether that you might not even know about. But what you know is they’re not happy.
The pull of a quiet life is strong under such circumstances. Nobody likes people being upset with them. Nobody likes people’s anger being directed at them. Nobody enjoys people flouncing out the door and insisting they are the problem. Wouldn’t life just be easier if we let people do whatever they want, think whatever they want, function however they want and just leave it with the Lord? As tempting as that is, the truth is it is not the right thing to do for number of reasons.
It is disobedient to Jesus.
The bottom line is, we shouldn’t take this approach because it is not what Jesus demands of his church. When people are in sin, scripture calls us to address it with them. When people want to do things (or won’t do things) that go against the testimony of scripture, we need to address it. Jesus commands us to enact church discipline for the sake of his glory and honour. He is not honoured when we do not approach the church in the way he would have us function as a church. He is not honoured when we allow those who profess to love Jesus to live and act in ways that do not bring honour and glory to him.
It doesn’t serve the individual.
In the end, as tempting as it is to just say ‘do whatever you want’, we are not serving another person’s good by doing that.
Read More
Related Posts:

If only we could move away from this graceless fear of reprisal, we might have more monuments to our wrongness. If we have more of those monuments, we might have more room for growth. Just as I don’t think it is helpful to whitewash our past by destroying our actual monuments, but feel it better to take them down by consent recognizing our problematic past and continuing to grow and learn from it by keeping it on display (potentially in a museum), we grow best when monuments to our own wrongness remain on display so we can learn from them and, where necessary, grow.

Have you ever said something and then changed your mind? Of course you have. We all have. It is part and parcel of saying almost anything. We say things and then, faced with them weeks, months or years later, we may have come to change our mind. We may even say we were wrong.
Someone reminded me of something I said in a podcast from a few months ago. They didn’t so much remind me as quoted me. Fortunately, I was able to stand by what I said then. I still think what I said and stand by it. Phew!
But I got to thinking, what if I hadn’t? Minimally, if someone brings it up, I would say that I didn’t agree with it anymore. That much seems obvious. But would I leave the podcast there, continuing to remain as a reminder of a time I said something that I no longer think? Or, in case someone used it to quote me, would I take it down? After all, it is embarrassing to be quoted on something you don’t think anymore. Worse, you might convince someone else of the thing that you don’t think anymore and wish you hadn’t!
Naturally, it depends what the thing is. I don’t think I’ve said anything racist on this blog before, but if I had done (and rightly apologised for it), I would probably take that down because why continue to upset people with something you don’t even think or mean? That seems a natural case for taking the thing down. If you recognise it was an upsetting thing to say, and you wish you hadn’t said it, and you know it will still upset people if found and read, it is just a clear case for employing the edit button.
Read More
Related Posts:

Those who see their young people becoming believers and staying in the church are those who are clear on the need for young people to convert and who equip parents to take their responsibilities for teaching the gospel to their children seriously. The answer is not raising up godly young people through better youth work, but raising up godly parents who will teach and train their own children.

I am amazed by the number of people who seem to think that youth work and children’s programmes are the key to raising up a new, godly generation of believers. Now, don’t get me wrong, these things can be a wonderful benefit to the church. But I am utterly convinced that if we want a generation of new believers being raised up, we will best achieve it by building up godly parents.
There is often a reflex that assumes teenagers drift away from church because there wasn’t anything on for them. This line of thinking typically ignores the fact that if teenagers are only coming to church because there is a youth work, we haven’t actually won them to Christ. If we haven’t actually won them to Christ, all the time and effort poured into keeping them with youth work seems entirely pointless. Indeed, if they haven’t been won to Christ, we can’t be that surprised that they do not want to stay in the church.
As I noted here, the number one reason youth drift away from the church is because they never actually became believers. The responsibility for teaching and raising our children in the fear and admonition of the Lord lies with families. Youth do not drift off from church because there weren’t enough programmes on for them, they drift off because they never came to trust in Jesus. The responsibility for teaching and training our children lies with the family unit, particularly with fathers.
What this means is that, if we want to see a godly generation of new believers raised up in the church, the answer may not lie in putting on more activities for the youth. The answer lies in building up the parents so that they can better teach their children at home and equip them as those God holds responsible for the spiritual state of the family. As I noted here, ‘It is not good enough to outsource all of our children’s spiritual teaching and then wonder why they never came to faith given we sent them out of the service for half an hour every week. This is neither talking of the scriptures in your house nor the incorporation of them into your everyday life that Deuteronomy expects. It is likewise not fulfilling the imperative of Ephesians 6:4 that fathers are responsible for the spiritual teaching and training of their children.’
Indeed, as I argued here (and I would encourage you to read the full post), the fruit of such thinking was noted back in the 80s by Roy Joslin in Urban Harvest, but his comments continue to go unheeded. He wrote:
For all the dedication of godly Sunday School teachers over many years, it appears that much of that effort was like pouring water into a badly holed bucket or, to be more biblical, like trying to catch fish with some badly torn gospel nets. Why was it that so many children who swam into the gospel nets in their earlier years had on the whole swum out again before adult years had been reached?
Elaborate doctrinal teaching may be inculcated in childhood, but its influence is not likely to last unless maintained by the atmosphere of the home or unless supported by social usage.
Read More
Related Posts:

I am minded to believe that if we really want authenticity, it means certain churches will be authentically extremely messy. They will be very honest, but there will be serious mess. I am equally minded to believe that other churches will appear relatively together because they are. The sins they struggle with will seem like small beer to some or be centred more in their thought life. We also have to accept that authenticity will also be authentically in line with the culture from which we emanate. 

One of the moves in the modern evangelical church is towards an increasing sense of authenticity. It is hard to argue with the desire for authenticity. After all, if one isn’t authentic, then one is fake. And who wants to go to church with a bunch of fakers? Isn’t that the very hypocrisy and Pharisaism the church has historically been accused of and from which it desperately wants to unhitch?
The issue is that the authenticity-hunters are often not enamoured with authenticity when it is actually on display. Churches in hard places may seem full of people being authentic, but people often recoil from the authenticity on display because it is, well, too authentic. The sins on display, that with the church’s help may be repented of, are too much for some to wear. How can professing believers do that? There’s not denying we shouldn’t sin, but let’s not pretend that we don’t, and some of us spectacularly so. We only have to look at some of the things professing believers got up to in scripture to see it is so. But for many, that is a level of authenticity too far.
Some, who find these things too much, prefer churches with more middle-class sensibilities. But the problem rears its head in such churches too. Whilst I have no doubt there are inauthentic fakers in middle-class churches, I am prepared to believe that most of them are not that. They are just what they appear. Broadly together people who happen to have relatively comfortable lives whose problems are broadly managed thanks to their financial setup and social status.
Read More
Related Posts:

If we front and centre anything other than Jesus and the Word of God, we will be winning them to something much less, something deficient. What we communicate about Jesus and his Word matters because, if we front and centre anything else or try to win people by other means, that is what we have to keep them with. Not only that, but that is what they are really coming for. 

The old, oft trotted adage is certainly true: what you win them with you win them to. We have to be clear what we are winning people with because that is ultimately what we have to keep them with. That is to say, we have to be clear what we actually want to win people to and then make sure that is what we front and centre.
In the church, the ever-present temptation is to win people with whatever will win them. It is to take something of a pragmatic approach to church growth. If people are more likely to come in because we do something or other, then let’s do that something or other in order to win them. Aside from being a principle that literally opens the door to any nonsense and ungodly activity so long as it brings them in, it actually doesn’t even work. It may get people in the door, but if they’re only coming for the thing, they ain’t coming because of Jesus.
I am reminded of some of the issues that cropped up in the earlier years of my ministry. The frequent refrain was that we effectively needed less Bible, less of the Word, and more of a bunch of other things that are more likely to bring people in and keep them. Perhaps, I was once told, if the Spirit so moved us we should ditch the sermon altogether and just spend the entire service singing. Maybe, I was told another time, we could limit the sermon to a 5-minute sermonette because 40 minutes of preaching probably isn’t that appealing. You probably should, someone once insisted, stop preaching about sin, Hell and judgement and all that because people don’t like that sort of thing and they may not want to come back.
Read More
Related Posts:

We often think of growth as the magic bullet. More people must equal more money, more ministry power, more outreach, bigger, better, greater. And it may well mean those things on some level, though not always. But equally, more people means more problems, more conflict, more issues to address. Praying for growth is great, but it is most definitely a dangerous thing to pray.

Everybody likes growth, don’t they? Most of us seem to want our churches to grow. And by growth, I think we often mean qualitatively in maturity in Christ but typically mean quantitively in number of people. Growth is often what we’re after.
As such, it is not uncommon to hear people praying for growth. Asking the Lord to grow our people. Asking him to grow our church. Asking him to cause our people to know and love him more. Asking him to bring new people in who will come to know him and serve alongside us in the ministry. I doubt there are many churches who are not praying prayers like these, in some way, shape or form.
But few of us realise what dangerous prayers these are to pray. Don’t get me wrong, they’re not sinful prayers. There’s nothing wrong with praying these things at all. Assuming we are praying them because we are concerned about the glory of God being seen in his church, of course we want our people to grow in their knowledge and love of the Lord Jesus, to grow up to spiritual maturity in him and for unbelievers to come, hear the gospel and put their trust in Jesus. These are good things to pray. But they are dangerous things to pray.
What do you think happens when people in your church start to become more godly and Christlike? I mean, practically speaking. What will happen? We often imagine that will make our life easier. They will become more active members of the church. They will engage with the Word on levels we had not seen before from them. All entirely possible.
But just think about what that means for you for a moment. More Christlike, godly people tends to means our deficiencies will be noticed where they previously weren’t. Not in a nasty or malevolent way, but in a way that people who want to glorify God notice when things are not as God-glorifying as they might be. People hungrier to engage the Word in ways they didn’t before means more awkward questions, thorny issues being wrestled with, demands of sermons scratching where they now itch.
Read More
Related Posts:

Things are going well in the church at the moment, and I praise God for the growth he is bringing in people’s lives. I am encouraged by what I see and, I am fairly confident, that growth in maturity is being brought about by the Lord. So long as we remember that, there is nothing to worry about. The work is the Lord’s and he will give the increase (whatever that might mean in practice). The danger is when we subtly shift away from knowing that to be true and begin to believe that the work is ours.

I know I am in danger of making myself look particularly foolish writing this. But here goes nothing: everything at church is going pretty well at the minute. Even saying it immediately makes me wonder whether I am like that cartoon dog, oblivious to what is really going on, in that meme where the house is on fire:
Either that, or not oblivious to what is currently going on, just unaware of what is round the corner. No sooner than you voice these things, the rug is pulled from underneath you as if Satan was just standing there waiting, ‘he’s said it! Quick, do the thing now!’ But, whatever, I’m in it now. Everything seems fine and/or actually pretty good, as far as these things go.
The problem, when everything seems fine, is that it is dangerous. In fact, when everything is going brilliantly, it is even more dangerous still. Satan, I am convinced, has no interest in attacking people who are both ineffective nor making inroads for the kingdom. Why bother targeting them? But when people seem to be growing, unbelievers are being saved, if you hate Jesus, you’re going to want to have a go at stopping that, surely.
Then, without putting too fine a point on it, whatever Satan might decide to get up to, we have to contend with ourselves. When everything hard and difficult, it’s pretty easy to rely on the Lord. If you have no money, ministry is difficult, people don’t seem to be growing, you’ve no idea how anyone is going to be saved, nothing seems to be working – but you’re nevertheless committed to this ministry in this area – what else have you got but prayer? Trusting in the Lord is easy then. If we definitely can’t fix it or make it happen, and there’s no pretending otherwise, trusting in the Lord to build the house is nice and easy.
But when you happen to have the money to buy bricks, and employ builders, it looks a bit different. When the house is going up, apparently through various things you’re doing, and people are even coming along and wanting to make that house their home, the Lord can easily take a back seat. Of course, we know – because we have good theology innit – that all this only really happened because God is sovereign and determined it would be so. But it is hard to shake the feeling that if we weren’t doing what we were doing, it wouldn’t have happened. It is hard to think that it wasn’t really us wot did it. It is easy to begin thinking our work, our personality, our efforts did the building. Of course, we pay lip service to the Lord working through means. But the means are so often the thing that attracts our attention and reliance on the Lord seems less important. As long as we keep doing A, B and C, these results will continue to happen.
Read More

Related Posts:

If every decision in the church, every matter of how things are down to the finest detail is exactly how I would set it up, it suggests that I am making every decision and insisting on the minutiae of how everything will be and, therefore, not relinquishing authority and decision-making capacity where it should be relinquished. 

It is often interesting to me that people frequently assume, because I am the pastor of the church, everything in the church must be exactly as I would have it. I suspect, in part, because of the kind of character I have and the way I communicate, some people assume the church is as it is because I have determined it would be so. Neither is the case.
Don’t get me wrong. I don’t have any particular issues with my church or the things that happen in it. But not everything is the way I would have it. But that is partly because some things are the way they are because they are how others would have it. There are the things I would do differently, but they are evidently not things I have decided to make an issue of. There are then a whole bunch of things that are not how I would have them, but even if I were inclined, I cannot really do anything about because we just aren’t in any position to do so. Then there are the things that all of us would like to be different, but we are unable to do anything about. These things are just the things of any church.
Read More
Related Posts:

Our witness before our neighbours matters. That is not just walking with integrity before them personally (though that surely matters too). But it means walking in such a way that we inevitably do good to them because of the gospel. It means serving our neighbours in real and practical ways so that, when they see the good works we do, we can point them to the gospel and they may give thanks to the true and living God who, because of his Son and in the power of his Spirit, we are compelled to do them.

Let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven. – Matthew 5:16

I have argued before that the current context in which we broadly find ourselves in the Western World means that the church can no longer rely on being seen as an inherently good thing. Time was, people thought the church was inherently good, even if they themselves weren’t overly interested in it. They might send their kids for a bit of good morals, or spiritual formation, because the church was essentially alright, just not of interest to them in particular.
That clearly is not the situation we are in anymore. These days, we are not seen as a basically good thing. Indeed, we are no longer even seen as an essentially harmless thing. Now we are broadly seen as a bad, problematic thing. The world now sees itself as the good and the church as opposing what it stands for. We are, at best, viewed with a large degree of scepticism by many.
I say that not in any sort of despairing way. Just as a point of fact. Most people don’t actively hate us, they broadly nothing us. But what they do know about us, or think they know about us, is often not positive. Which means we are starting from behind with many people. They aren’t chomping at the bit to hear our gospel message of salvation. Some think they’ve heard it all before (but we know they haven’t) or think they know what we’re about already and aren’t that keen.
This matters because, if we are starting from behind and cannot assume people will view us as an unmitigated community good, we have to show them before they engage with us that it is so. I am minded to think many churches who sit in their buildings and do very little in their communities but run the occasional outreach event are rightly viewed as not being much of a community good.
Read More
Related Posts:

Whilst we still sin and thus evidently are still sinners, we are more fundamentally holy and righteous in the sight of God, children adopted into Jesus’ sonship, indwelt and empowered by the Holy Spirit…When we remember and recall that is who we truly are now, I suspect we will be encouraged into living in line with what we are rather than being harangued into avoiding living in line with what we once were.

I wrote the other day (or, rather, re-posted) an article about not being afraid to repeat ourselves. The reason for the need to repeat ourselves—other than that people often haven’t heard us the first time—is that we are so prone to forget. We have been going through Deuteronomy recently and a repeated theme is the need to repeat the covenant because Israel are liable to forget it otherwise. It is a point made again and again—Deuteronomy has no problem repeating itself!
The key to not forgetting is to keep repeating. That is why Israel were told to keep reminding each other of the basic covenant stipulations, particularly the Shema. The most important fact about Israel was that Yahweh was their God and they were his people. This is the truth they were to keep repeating—when they get up and go to bed, in the house and out the house, in the city and out the city, with your family, friends and strangers—remember that you worship Yahweh alone. He is your God and you are his people.
The reason for landing on that so hard, and repeating it ad nauseam, is because Israel will ultimately act in line with what they are. If they remember they belong to God alone and they are his special covenant people, they are more likely to act as though they belong to God and are his covenant people. Knowing who they really are leads to acting like what they really are. Functioning as God’s covenant people was not about trying harder so much as remembering who they already are.
The same principle holds for God’s people today. The key to the Christian life is not trying harder to be better. It is fundamentally about remembering who we are in Christ. We worship God alone and we are his people. We are united to Christ and all that is his now belongs to us by faith.
More often than not, however, people in my tradition—theologically and soteriologically reformed people—land hard on something else. We tend to emphasise that we are sinners. And, of course, we are sinners by nature. The Bible is clear that all people are dead in their trespasses and sins. It is only in and through the person of Jesus Christ we can be forgiven for those sins. When we come to trust in Jesus—as Luther helpfully put it—we are simultaneously justified and yet sinners. Our sin is not eliminated in reality even if it is truly and properly forgiven, making us justified in God’s sight. And so we continue to hear an awful lot about sin.
But as I said, the Christian life is fundamentally about remembering who we are. Whilst we are still sinners, inasmuch as we still sin, when we have put our trust in Jesus that is no longer our core identity. Our fundamental identity is now our righteous standing in Christ. Let’s put it this way: stood before the throne of God, what is going to be the essential assessment of our lives? That we were sinners? Or, that we are united to Christ? Surely the latter. The Father, fundamentally, views us as those who are righteous in Christ, not fundamentally as sinners.

Related Posts: