All posts tagged Church

Why I Love Pentecostals

by Hugh on September 3, 2011 in Faith, Life with No comments

There are a number of reasons for this. Since I came to Uni, back in 2005, and ever since I’ve met Pentecostal Christians. Some have challenged my prejudices and have taught me lots, others have confirmed my worst stereotypes. However, this is not a general comment, but rather the 2nd part of my reflections of being part of a church in Malawi.

The second church we experienced in Malawi was a more modern, independent church with a Pentecostal feel, where our hosts and a number of other ex-pats were members. Sadly we couldn’t join them on the Sunday, but were pleased to accept an invitation to a home group meeting.

In contrast to Area 50 Baptist Church, the ex-pat community have more than they need – so it was great to see the Christians being so generous with what they had. The South African family I stayed with were part of this church, they taught me 3 key lessons about the Christian faith:

Firstly, they live out their faith, their faith moves them to action, not just to principles for life, or a theory, what they believe they actually do, and really seek to put into practise. To me, the God Channel, which they often had on sounds just like “how to live the good life”… but if you actually live out some of these principles it is powerful!

Secondly, and this is an outworking of the first, they showed me what generosity and hospitality look like in practise. They put up 3 strangers for 10 days, they welcomed us into their home, they said “Don’t feel at home. Be at home.” The reason they welcomed us so well was because though they didn’t know the details, they knew it was gospel work that had brought us there. Their generosity could be seen in lots of practical ways: tithing, adoption, hospitality, offering employment, serving their church, taking in extended family, supporting their workers and those in need around. Theirs is a faith very practically lived out.

Thirdly, they have a strong sense of Spiritual Warfare. While I would be cautious about attributing events “to the devil” they very much embraced this idea, not in an unhelpful way, but in a way which sought to do good to others and to serve the gospel as a way of “fighting back”. While not all their beliefs I’d agree with, you couldn’t fault the way they actually put them into action!

Jesus in Malawi

by Hugh on September 2, 2011 in Faith, Life with No comments

I’m off to Malawi soon. Going back again with a colleague to support some Christian ministries there. Are work is largely focused on training and equipping Christians to handle the Bible.

Last time I went, I penned some thoughts about the Christian scene in Malawi, here they are:

In my time in Malawi I was able to experience 2 very different types of Christianity. Firstly was the Baptist Church of Area 50, the place where we had come to minister, what seemed like quite a traditional church by Malawian standards, made up from local people.

When we joined the Baptist church on Sunday morning there were some very unusual things I was not used to – for a start the service was in Chichewa, the local language. The time together began with Sunday school (for everyone), children’s groups, and Bible study for young adults and new Christians, alongside a teaching session for everyone else. As I sat and listened to one of the elders teach I realised that there was certainly some truth in the saying that Christianity in Africa is a mile wide, but only an inch deep – great passion to teach and be taught, but little understanding of how to teach and rightly handle the Bible.

There was a certain relaxedness about the meeting, people would arrive ‘late’, walk in and out to look after children. There was no printed service order, and apparently no structure. There seemed to be a slightly odd mix between old and new – the church would sing a few hymns from the Baptist hymn book, which seemed to be poorly translated and a little dirge-like. In contrast there were times of spontaneous worship, 2 or 3 would leap to the front and lead us in a song, the women’s choir would perform – no instruments, just voices singing and hands clapping were more than enough to raise the roof!

“Up, up Jesus… down, down Satan”

One of the key aspects of Malawian Christianity which was evident was their contentfulness. Malawi is one of the poorest countries in the world, and the members of the Baptist church were not well off, their church building is basic, the homes in the area are pretty rustic, and the jobs of most are not well regarded. But there is a basic contentfulness. While the lure of money and power is a temptation in every culture, and clear also in Malawi, among the Christians there does seem to be a genuine feel of being content: the church building is basic, work is hard, in fact life generally in Malawi is very tough (just look at the mortality rates), but in spite of these things the Christians seem very content, even joyful. How Christians in the West could learn, as the ones with so little seem to have all they need!

The Model Church

by Hugh on January 26, 2011 in Faith, Talks with No comments

Recently we’ve been studying 1 Thessalonians, I was able to look a 2:1-16… seeing something of Paul’s model ministry, and the model church which the Thessalonians had become. Below are a few quotes that I found helpful… particularly helpful was a book called Body Beautiful by Melvin Tinker and Nathan Buttery, seeking to recover a Biblical view of the Church. It’s a great little book, so surprising to see it now seems to be out of print – although copies available here.

“Pay attention to the example of Paul. His evident love for those he ministered to and the honesty with which he lived before people gave his entire ministry of the Word integrity and persuasive force.”

Paul David Tripp – Instruments in the Redeemers Hands

“I did nothing. The Word did everything”

Martin Luther

The church best serves the world when it is most distinctively and unapologetically the church… when the church dares to be different, it models for the world what God calls the world to become. The church models what it means to be a community of caring and a community of character.

Richard Neuhaus – quoted from Body Beautiful

Is Missional Church a False Dichotomy?

by Hugh on January 12, 2011 in Faith with 7 Comments

At church this week we watched the following video, an explanation of what ‘Missional Church’ is…

Here’s my question… Isn’t this a false dichotomy? Isn’t this trying to distinguish two aspects of the nature of church which go hand in hand? My feeling is that the church planting movement in recent years is focusing on trying to be ‘missional’ at the expense of being ‘attractional’.

There is a fair critique here of the ‘established’ church, that tends towards being a bit of a ‘show’, while members take a back seat. That’s an unwanted side-effect, but sadly a reality of church life. Why not keep a model that works – ie. large, attractional church, but within that focus on teaching and training church members to have a missional lifestyle?

Is there a best way to reach the world? Planting lots of small churches / gospel communities, or building a larger church to attract lots and effectively resource it’s members? Is one model better? Does one model work better in certain areas of the country?

Discuss… anyone got any experience of the two models in question as an approach to building God’s Kingdom?

Hope for the Nations

by Hugh on October 7, 2010 in Faith, Talks with No comments

I don’t know why, but for some reason I keep getting the tricky passages to preach at church… this time it was Genesis 10, The Table of Nations.

There’s loads of interesting details here, loads of links to the rest of the Bible… but how to preach it, as opposed to simply giving a potentially interesting lecture, now that I think is the challenge.

Anyway, I think you’ve gotta see this through the lens of Acts 17… and ultimately Revelation 7…

It’s online if you fancy a listen – Genesis 10 Sermon

Reaching 18-30s

by Hugh on September 14, 2010 in Faith with No comments

Want to do some more thinking about generic vs. age-specific ministries… happy to carry on discussion here. But there still remains the question of how do you reach out to those in their 18-30s and particularly thinking about those 3 negative characteristics of 18-30s which make them hard to reach, according to Mike Pilavachi:

Consumerism
Individualism
A Culture of Entitlement

This maybe a bit of a tangent, but I think Derren Brown (an unlikely source) may be able to teach us something… recently he performed a show on Channel 4 called ‘Hero at 30,000 feet‘ – the basic synopsis is that he would take ‘an average Joe’, in this case a depressed 20-something and turn them, through a serious of physiological experiences into a hero.

Brown used experiences to help the man control his fears, to encourage him to take risks, to see the potential of what he could achieve, and the benefits that come from being proactive in life.

Now I’m not suggesting that we use Brown’s methods, but doesn’t the Gospel do all these things anyway?? I wonder whether part of the reason the reason churches are missing 18-30s is that as churches we’re fearful, we shy away from taking risks for the gospel and are fairly passive.

Mike Pilavachi and others highlighted that part of the problem is that the young people of the Soul Survivor generation were told they’d be History Makers… and nothing happened… I think the potential was there, it’s always there… but I fear generally the church isn’t ready or willing to take the risks and opportunities for the Gospel that should make the church the most cutting-edge, most innovative, most exciting group of people to be a part of…

I wonder if too often we choose the safe, easy passage which never generates the excitement and vision to draw followers…?

Advance09

by Hugh on June 5, 2009 in Faith with No comments

Right now there’s a conference happening in the States, in Durham, North Carolina, called Advance 2009.

Piper, Driscoll, Chandler, Stetzer, Chapell and a few others…

I’m guessing that full audio/video will be available at a later date, but the audio is being made available straight away on Desiring God… listening to Chandler ranting, his intro makes me laugh becuase he has “a picture of Dr. Piper on his fridge”.

What do you do when life gets crap?

by Hugh on December 18, 2008 in Faith, Life with No comments

Sin.
Get angry with other people.
Be part of the Church.
Live out Psalm 62.

I’ve found that 1 and 2 are really easy to do, but just make things a whole lot worse.

3 and 4 are harder, but liberating and life-giving. Surrounding yourself with God’s people and trusting him, is the solution to life’s crap… even though it seems easier to do things your own way (1 and 2).

On Church

by Hugh on November 7, 2008 in Faith with No comments

Had the privilege of listening to John Chapman (Chappo) today on personal evangelism for church leaders.

He said this…

“Without good preaching, the wheels fall off a church”

I also picked up my copy of� ‘The Prodigal God‘ today – �10 from GBC. At the end of the first chapter [p16] Tim Keller makes this observation about our churches…

“If our churches aren’t appealing to younger brothers, they must be more full of elder brothers than we’d like to think”

Good Churches in Brighton

by Hugh on August 19, 2008 in Faith with No comments

I’ve spent the last three years in Brighton, during that time I’ve had the privelege of being part of a great church and been able to visit other good churches in the area. Here are some of the good churches in Brighton. They would all be classified as ‘Evangelical’ and all to some degree follow my thoughts on a good church:

Bishop Hannington Memorial Church -� Anglican

Calvary Evangelical Church -� Independent

Christ Church Brighton -� Anglican (fresh expression)

Church of Christ the King -� New Frontiers

Holland Road Baptist Church -

Montpelier Place Baptist Church -� Grace Baptist

St. Lukes -� Anglican (bit Charismatic)