Cowardly Pastors

Well Mark Driscoll has created a stir again. He has been reported to have said 

“Let’s just say this: right now, name for me the one young, good Bible teacher that is known across Great Britain. You don’t have one – that’s the problem. There are a bunch of cowards who aren’t telling the truth.” 

In another place he takes a swipe at those "pastors" who wear gowns preferring to stir the pot by saying they wear dresses and preach to old women. In response and perhaps after mature reflection he qualifies what he said by claiming aggressive questions which lacked respect and quoted him out of context. There are a few issues raised in my mind-

In response I wonder exactly who Mark Driscoll thinks he is that he should be afforded great respect and make pronouncements about the UK from the safety of 6,000 miles

Then I wonder if he simply misunderstands British culture and fails to contextualise

But I also am willing to question if there is any truth in what he says even if he says it in an unacceptable way.

My first response is think this man is a poser  but then think more constructively.

On the back of this I have a few questions to pose

1.  Who is Mark Driscoll accountable to?

2. Who ordained him? (we have had a minister who was ordained by his father and founded his own denomination.

3. Is his problem with Orthodox, Catholic and Anglicans who all wear cassocks or with evangelicals, few of whom wear gowns? Do many American Baptists not wear choir gowns??

4. Where do we find grace in all of this?

5. Where is the power of the counter-culture, especially in a macho culture such as America and Northern Ireland. We have had preachers who could not be accused of wimping out on hell and damnation who had robbed congregations of people and been, at least partially responsible for the hatred and sectarianism which led us to the verge of destruction

6.  Do people living in difficult conditions where there are drugs and alcohol abuse and child molestation need to be told they are sinners? Most people in this culture know that the church condemns them but have not learnt that God loves them-that doesn't mean we neglect hell just that there is a way out

7. Do we need more celebrity preachers? No. Mark Driscoll makes plain from his blog, which I am told there is no right of reply, that people should not be blogging about Mark Driscoll because it is all about Jesus. Amen to that so why create the controversy? If he does not want to talk about himself then he should stop making stupid statements 

Is there any truth? Have I been a coward at times? I have no doubt that I have wimped out and taken the easy road because I am a weak human being who has been devastated by the reality of sin. Do I need Mark Driscoll to tell me I am a failure? No every morning I wake up knowing I have failed my Lord and that I am not the hero I would like to be. I do not need anyone else to beat me up what I do need is to have people alongside me who can help and encourage me.

What do I need? Well working in the inner city of loyalist/nationalist Belfast I need support, I need encouragement. The congregation needs money to do what we would like to do but I fear no help will come from Marrs Hill. 

It goes without saying that I did not know Gary Speed. In fact I know very little about him apart from the fact that among his different clubs he played for the enemy, Everton (actually unlike the average Liverpool supporter the blues are among my favourite teams after the reds). Despite my ignorance of the man I was shocked that such an apparently strong and balanced individual should take his life. It is just horrendous to imagine his wife finding him in the garage having hung himself and heart breaking that his two sons will grow up without their father. There is no point in asking the question”why?” yet we end up asking it anyway. His personal friends and supporters in the teams he played for and the Welsh national team are all dumbfounded as to why he did this and what he had gone through in private to drive him to the conclusion that everyone would be better off without him. Much has been made of the fact that he was strong and stable, that he had everything to live for in terms of family and success in life and that is what went against him in the end. The way of the world is to say that it is the strong-those who don’t need the support of other people, those who can stand on their own feet-who are the lucky ones. He had made enough money and had been famous and adored by so many football supporters. We have been told that the players loved him and played for him and he didn’t have an enemy and was without a bad bone in his body. The measure of his support was seen in the way his name was called out by the Liverpool supporters –as they sang “You’ll never walk alone” they did it for him. Yet the pressure on the strong individual to keep his problems to himself has to be strong and stifling-how can the strong person admit he has problems and is, in fact, weak? In the famous sermon given by Jesus he releases the strong suggesting that the weak are, in fact, really the strong ones, the poor are really the rich and the meek are to be congratulated. When God sent his son to earth he sent him as a weak human being rather than a mighty monarch. At Christmas we celebrate the arrival of the king of kings as a tiny baby. He comes in weakness not strength, he comes in humble circumstances not with pomp and circumstance. Hopefully when you are sick you go to the doctor so why would you not take the same course of action when your problems are in your head? The strong person is the one who can admit their difficulties and we all have difficulties and problems-maybe this terrible agony experienced by Gary Speed’s family and friends will serve to highlight this scourge which has cost too many lives. Too many people have died “before their time”. Even Christian ministers are guilty of the pretence of being strong and needing no help-don’t walk alone, you have been created by God to live in community so use your community as your support base and talk to those you can trust to help and listen. Christmas is about God coming in weak human flesh-Happy Christmas .

When people start to pray they find that things begin to change- in fact what happens is that they begin to change! How could we talk to God, face to face and not be changed? it would seem very natural that having a direct experience of God would prove to be transformational. But who can pray? Do we have to be doctrinally sound before we can p[ray? Does God only hear the prayer of the penitent before conversion? When I tried to get a prayer room established a brother let it be known that he could not take p[art in it because of the possible presence of Roman Catholics. This is not a surprise when it comes from an infant in Christ but when it comes from a mature Christian I begin to wonder. I understand that doctrinal soundness comes with experience but I should not expect all those who pray with me to share the same doctrine with me. is it not possible that God will do the changing within us and without? Lets face it the possibility of anyone knocking down the doors to pray are very slim, at the moment anyway. Pray is only the start. What we need in our city are little colonies of Christians of all denominations gathering to ask God to change them and change the city-praying for the various government departments, hospitals, churches, communities and individuals. While praying for the individual salvation of people we miss the point if that is where we stop-we need to pray for and work for the transformation of the city, for the fulfillment of the words of Isaiah `Tyranny will be far from you; you will have nothing to fear. Terror will be far removed; it will not come near you" With this promise we will have peace in our community. That is something well worth praying for so we should be encouraging those islands of prayer.

It really seems to me that the time has come for us to take the battle to the enemy. Then time for sitting back is over, we neeed to fight with the weapons we have-the full Armour of God. At the end of Ephesians Paul tells the Christians to pray and Jesus calls the temple a House of Prayer. In our congregation we are too weak to do anything else but pray, we are too small and insignificant to do anything else. Over the next few years we will spend our time developing the congregation into a place and space for prayer. In recent days some political and community leaders have called for the walls of Belfast to be dismantled while others have said that it is still too soon for this to happen-the people living close to the walls are not ready, they still feel threatened and need the protection offered by the walls. If the church of Jesus Christ really is the gift of God to the community as St Augustine claimed it to be then we need to fight with God chose gifts and that has to include prayer-prayer for the transformation of the community-the question remains to be "how do we turn the church into a House of Prayer?

Church for Beginners

It's Sunday morning and I arrive for the morning service of worship at the church. It's just gone 10am and the streets around the church are packed with people. Already the cars are parked on the pavement, all round the church and even across the church gateway. I am pretty sure that it is illegal to park a car close to a corner and even surer that parking at the traffic lights is asking for a ticket. The crowds start arriving from the early morning, rain , hail or snow, even on Easter Sunday. From what my mother tells me it must have been like this in the 40s and 50s when people walked to church or to work each day. Is this some kind of spiritual revival? Will we have to consider building a new church to hold all these worshipers? Alas no is the answer, they are not arriving for our church; they are not arriving for any church, as we know it. They have found a new way of worshiping and a new church to attend. This church serves their needs to browse and to shop, to talk with their friends and to do so at their ease. It also allows them to take part as a shopper or as a seller. This is the new Sunday observance. The swings are no longer locked up on the Lord's Day and the traders do not stay at home. In fact this corner of Tennent Street is busy only on this one day.

We respond in a number of ways: we get angry when our members ( some of them are very elderly)are unable to find a place to park their cars. I have phoned the police very often and they have come and they do give out tickets but this people power has continued regardless. The PSNI cannot control the situation even though, it could be said, that there is "an accident waiting to happen" unless the control is increased. To help alleviate this problem we opened a small space for members to park only to find that the gateway is regularly blocked by parked cars. Secondly, we can, and we do, complain about the inconvenience when forced to drive around the area looking for a space. We understand that the Queens Highway is not ours but we have come to expect to be able to park at the church and not have to go half a mile away.

Another possible way of looking at this is to embrace the situatuion as an opportunity for ministry. We have tried to do this by setting up a prayer ministry in the market each Sunday. Over the weeks dozens of people have come to the person sitting at the table to talk and to bring their prayer requests. Some are looking for general prayers for the welfare of their family but others have really complex and difficult situations that they seek help with.

Its no secret that the church in the UK is on the retreat when compared to the situation 50 years ago. Even in Northern Ireland, where 45% of the population are still making the Sunday journey to worship, that is considerably fewer than it used to be. Against this we have this success story and I wonder how any of these people would feel if they decided to cross the street and come to church one week. Would they feel welcome, strange, included or excluded?

They might feel that they had to dress up before coming and that's not the way of the world today. They would probably feel ill at ease when asked to sing ancient hymns using words in a foreign way and they would probably not have any cash to put into the plate as it came round. How would they know when to stand, and when to sit. Do they need to close their eyes when praying? Can they bring food and drinks with them and can they talk at all?

I wonder if they would come back again the next week. If we are going to expect outsiders to come to our church we will need to have some understanding of the cultural difficulties and be ready to make the changes that are necessary to make. Each week as I turn the corner and see the crowds, just feet away from my church I have the fleeting thought that they could be coming to church and we could be faced with the thought that our building is not big enough but then reality returns and I wonder what we need to do to make contact with some of these people and what would we need to change to make them feel welcome among us. The question form us and all churches has to be how to make then outsiders feel like insiders.

To be completely honest I also wonder how they could be encouraged to give us a little of this space we thought was ours. outsiders feel like insidders

Several years ago I was on a plane going from Belfast to Turino in Northern italy. That meant taking a beautiful flight path over the snow covered Alps. As we approached the mountain range the captain invited anyone us to come to his cabin to see the view that he saw. (This was, quite obviously before 9/11). I don't really know why but I did not take up this offer, I think it was because I had a very good view out of the window where I was sitting but I am sorry that I remained where I was. It would have been great to see what he saw and to fro the front seat but that is all water under the bridge now but I missed an opportunity!

I was reminded of this as I read Eric Swanston and Rick Rusaw ("The Quest")who describe tweo kinds of church: the one best imagined as sitting in the isle seats and the other sitting in thw window seats. In the isle we are totally immersed in the workings of the aircraft, while sitting in the window seat shifts the gaze to the world outside the plane. Church life can take up all ouir thinking and take up all our time. Just keeping the machinery ticking over zaps the energy and restricks the vision. William Temple was right when he described the church as the only organisatiion designed for the benifit of non-members, but all too often it works for the benifit of the members and becomes a closed club.

Which seat do you sit in when you go to church? Some will always go to the back and sit in the seat closest to the door. I know a member of my church who always sits in splendid isolation and another yopu will always go and get another seat even if there is just the right nuyuimber set out open and others-go to church which seat do you sit in? Some always sit in the same seat. Some always sit at the back of the church. I have seen people go into a church which is less then half full and sit in the very last seat in the back row. Others go to church and sit back in a difiant pose, with arms crossed, daring the preacher to amuse or challenge them. Then there are some who take a seat close to the action where they can relate to the speaker.

I am not the first to speak of a religionless Christianity or of being a Christian without being religious but I do believe that the day has come for authentic Christianity to leave religion behind or , at least the bad side of religion. I say the bad side as I am aware that the meaning behind that word 'religion' is to bind people together. In our society 'religion' does the very opposite, it divides. It divides because the religious are prone to the hypocricy that Jesus dispised but also because, in this society, sectarianism has such an endemic stronghold.

It is now vital for us to 'be church' rather than to 'go to church', to look beyond ourselves and to seek ways to strengthen our members that they can 'be church' as they rub shoulders with people wherever they are. Some Christians are content to use the bible in the same way as they would use the car manual or they are happy to seek out the nice promises of scripture like the 'promise box' of an oler age but the bibnle is not a manual, its not even a repository of good things, it is the story of God's covenantal relationship with his people. At the very heart of the bible is the 'missional heart' of God the aFather who sent His son into the world, in the power of His Holy Spirit. It is God's love story so lets stop looking for the verses that prove what we want to prove , lets accept that life is messy and that we do not have all the answers. Lets just sit with God in the seat he has given us and live our lives by faith in Him.

Which Seat Are You Sitting In?

Several years ago I was on a plane going from Belfast to Turino in Northern italy. That meant taking a beautiful flight path over the snow covered Alps. As we approached the mountain range the captain invited anyone us to come to his cabin to see the view that he saw. (This was, quite obviously before 9/11). I don't really know why but I did not take up this offer, I think it was because I had a very good view out of the window where I was sitting but I am sorry that I remained where I was. It would have been great to see what he saw and to fro the front seat but that is all water under the bridge now but I missed an opportunity!

I was reminded of this as I read Eric Swanston and Rick Rusaw ("The Quest")who describe tweo kinds of church: the one best imagined as sitting in the isle seats and the other sitting in thw window seats. In the isle we are totally immersed in the workings of the aircraft, while sitting in the window seat shifts the gaze to the world outside the plane. Church life can take up all ouir thinking and take up all our time. Just keeping the machinery ticking over zaps the energy and restricks the vision. William Temple was right when he described the church as the only organisatiion designed for the benifit of non-members, but all too often it works for the benifit of the members and becomes a closed club.

Which seat do you sit in when you go to church? Some will always go to the back and sit in the seat closest to the door. I know a member of my church who always sits in splendid isolation and another yopu will always go and get another seat even if there is just the right nuyuimber set out open and others-go to church which seat do you sit in? Some always sit in the same seat. Some always sit at the back of the church. I have seen people go into a church which is less then half full and sit in the very last seat in the back row. Others go to church and sit back in a difiant pose, with arms crossed, daring the preacher to amuse or challenge them. Then there are some who take a seat close to the action where they can relate to the speaker.

I am not the first to speak of a religionless Christianity or of being a Christian without being religious but I do believe that the day has come for authentic Christianity to leave religion behind or , at least the bad side of religion. I say the bad side as I am aware that the meaning behind that word 'religion' is to bind people together. In our society 'religion' does the very opposite, it divides. It divides because the religious are prone to the hypocricy that Jesus dispised but also because, in this society, sectarianism has such an endemic stronghold.

It is now vital for us to 'be church' rather than to 'go to church', to look beyond ourselves and to seek ways to strengthen our members that they can 'be church' as they rub shoulders with people wherever they are. Some Christians are content to use the bible in the same way as they would use the car manual or they are happy to seek out the nice promises of scripture like the 'promise box' of an oler age but the bibnle is not a manual, its not even a repository of good things, it is the story of God's covenantal relationship with his people. At the very heart of the bible is the 'missional heart' of God the aFather who sent His son into the world, in the power of His Holy Spirit. It is God's love story so lets stop looking for the verses that prove what we want to prove , lets accept that life is messy and that we do not have all the answers. Lets just sit with God in the seat he has given us and live our lives by faith in Him.