Idealistic

I’ve been at the best University in the country to understand this group - Sussex is renowned for it’s socialism, activism, and most other isms. The SU gives I think around £10k to fund campaigning - they ban Coca Cola, ban the Daily Mail, charge you for a plastic carrier bag and will support all the latest campaigns. It’s a pro-choice campus, feminist, and the minority groups always have the loudest voice! In reality most of the ‘hippies’, the campaigners, are middle-class, from Surrey and like to campaign because it’s a bit of excitement and rebellion!

This group is strange, their interests and group characteristics make it the easiest group to relate the gospel to and to hold a serious conversation with, although many students in this group that I have spoken to are hung up on the problem of evil and suffering, and the negative role of the church in history and in the present. Maybe around 50% (a guess) of this group have had some kind of pseudo-christian upbringing, some experience of church and/or religion usually from their school or parents. Many seem to have been presented with a little bit of the gospel in the past, this bit usually comes with bad religious connotations, or unhelpful figures of authority, and it kindof inoculates them against the true gospel - they think they get the gospel because they heard a little bit, so they don’t want to hear any more.

These people are radical or at least they think they are, but they need to be challenged by someone more radical. Can we show them that Jesus is more radical? And can we as Christians, those who testify about Jesus, can we show that we are more radical?

How we live:

• Be a Biblical activist - speak up for those with no voice (Proverbs 31:8)
• Practise true religion - look after widows and orphans (James 1:27)
• Take part in student campaigning - don’t dismiss these guys as hippies but join them in causes worth fighting for - focus on the people as opposed to the cause, politics etc.
• Be radical in supporting the unpopular causes - Pro-Life, Persecuted Church and the many causes of people around the world who aren’t noticed in big campaigns
• Be as passionate and vocal in promoting the gospel as these guys are about promoting their causes. Talk more about Jesus than you do about [insert cause here].
• Make clear the reasons why we campaign - we want justice because our God is just, we show compassion to people because they are created in the image of God and loved by Him.
• Don’t make a distinction between the ’social gospel’ and the Gospel - it’s not one or the other, the Gospel should give us a heart for the lost, compassion for the poor, and a burden for justice.

How we speak:

• These guys often have issues with religion and institutions - Jesus saves his harshest words for the religious establishment. Not only do we need to call these guys to come to Jesus and repent, but they need to know that likewise we call the religious, the hypocrites, those who have faith but no deeds, we call them to come to Jesus and repent in just the same way… Think about the Parable of the Good Samaritan, it’s often just seen as an example of compassion, but it’s also a rebuke to the religious who do nothing!
• Acknowledge the weakness and failure of the church and Christians both now and in history - a good way to explain Sin. Speak of Jesus’ perfection (point people away from us and instead to Jesus), Grace that is a gift and undeserved, and Sin that is forgiven, not dealt with ourselves.
• Campaigners are troubled by a lack of justice. If they are an atheist then it’s even more troubling, those who commit injustice are rarely held to account. it’s worth pointing out that belief in God and in the One he has appointed to judge will result in justice (Acts 17:31).
• Activists don’t get grace because they think it contradicts justice, and they don’t get God’s justice because it involves a violent death. Can we show them that the way they see and hate the injustice of the world is a parallel to how God sees our lives and hates what we do when in rebellion against Him. So then, doesn’t a substitute, someone else enduring a violent death look glorious when he’s standing there instead of us - what an example compassion and grace!
• These guys need to know that God cares! That God hates injustice more than them, and they need to be shown that God is not passive or unable to act - can we show them God working positively through his church now and can we show that God ultimately defeated evil and the sin of man at the Cross.
• Those who campaign for charities understand the problem of earthly poverty - can we show them that Spiritually poverty is worse? Both now in terms of Knowing God, and eternally in terms of Heaven and Hell…
• Can we as Christians show that we have more compassion for those who suffer, give more to the poor, look out for those who need help regardless of who they are, be indiscriminate about speaking up for those with no voice, campaign with more passion, make greater sacrifices… and can we do all this not to make ourselves look altruistic, but to make Jesus look great!

Success Driven Students

Some success driven students are particularly hard to reach as they often fail to engage in the culture of University themselves. Some can be so focused on academia that they give little time to think about much else. It is important then to make the most of the time that is spent in the study environment - how can we live and act in a way which commends the gospel to these students? I should point out that most of these things are things which I should have done, I didn’t do most of them!!

How we live for Jesus:

• Work hard - we’re made for work (Gen 2:15), work as though working for God (Col 3:23)
• Be part of your course - go to lectures, sit next to people (and talk), go to the socials
• Make the most of collaborative working tasks - a great chance to meet and chat with coursemates, keep up those conversations.
• Be indiscriminate about who you speak with, sit next to, hang out with on course - be the friend to the loner, the exchange student, the hippy
• Be the Christian - not in a clichéd way, but let people know why you work hard, maybe if people have questions/issues they will come to you knowing that you are ‘the Christian’
• Find other Christians on the course, not to be a holy huddle, but to pray for your coursemates and to encourage one another
• If God has given you gifts and calling, then work towards further study or well-paid careers - it’s not a bad thing to be successful in the eyes of the world if that is where God has called you.
• Be humble in your successes. Acknowledge where success, knowledge and all good gifts come from.

Why do students work hard, why do they want to be successful? I guess there’s lots of reasons; perhaps for money, maybe in order to pursue a specific career, a sense of personal pride, or what about the pressure of parents? Ultimately the answer to these questions is that we are all looking for ‘treasures’ (Piper) and ’saviours’ (Driscoll).

How we speak about Jesus:

• There’s no point in talking about rich, successful people who aren’t happy, most people I know with money are fairly content… rather, we need to show that Jesus is infinitely more valuable than the treasures of this world - he is Saviour, Creator, King, Joy-giver
• Why not challenge the pride of the person who seeks success and the praise of men with the humility and sacrificial love of Christ?
• The prosperity gospel would present Jesus as King (throne, wealth, victorious), while that is true it’s not helpful for this audience. Can we not challenge these students with the Jesus who was humble, poor, and gave himself for others - the weakness of God is stronger than man’s strength (1 Corinthians 1:25)
• Grace, Grace, Grace. Grace challenges the religious mindset of the success driven student - their attitude is surely I must do something, achieve something, be successful in order to merit salvation.
• God has set eternity in the hearts of men, but most ignore it, we need to show people that we’re dealing in eternity and earthly success has little value in the light of eternity - Mark 8:36, What good is it to gain the world, but forfeit your soul?? - I dare you to ask that question!
• For those who have pressures from parents, we can present our Father who does not demand perfection, but gives it freely

…just some thoughts - what would you add? How would you explain the gospel to the student who thinks in this way…? Next two groups coming soon!

First off, I think we have to acknowledge that it’s very hard to define a culture, because actually we’re talking about individuals - but I’m sure there must be some general traits that can help us. I want to think, based on my experiences of UK University life, the kind of cultures that are present there and how we can show those cultures that the gospel is relevant. I’ve been part of a mission team working at Sussex University for the last 3 years, perhaps my Uni was unique, but I think it will be similar in most places.

I reckon there’s 3 general types of people you’ll meet at University:

1. Success Driven - they want to get a first, looking for a career/well paid job
2. Idealistic - they want to change the world, there’s always a new cause to follow
3. Hedonist - they want to make the most of 3 years of freedom, live life with limits or rules

These categories are very broad, but I think most students to one degree or another will fall into one or several of these categories - nearly everyone will fit into category 3! So the question then is, how can we relate the gospel to these groups, these cultures? There’s two areas I want to think about doing this; how can we live in a way which models the gospel, and how can we speak about Jesus in a way which helps that culture to understand him clearly?

Bish is having a DISCO, and enjoying making up fun acronyms. There’s lots of reasons why we don’t do evangelism, here are Bish’s 5…

Delusion - convincing ourselves it’s unnecessary

Inability - don’t know what to say, or how to say it

Sin - plain disobedience

Courage - we need boldness

Opportunities - stuck in a Christian bubble

“The basic problem in these is my heart. My heart needs the gospel. And by the gospel and for the sake of the gospel change is possible.”

…I was trying to think of some more, but that covers most of it… for me the last 3 are definitely the big ones… simply disobeying God’s command, fear of ruining friendships, and a lack of genuine friendships with non-Christians.

Part of the problem is we so often talk about evangelism as something we do, something we must do… that always ends up in a feeling of failure and inadequacy, and ultimately a sinful attitude which doesn’t want to do it! Like Bish says, we need our hearts to be overwhelmed with joy at knowing the gospel - we talk about what we love.

I heard evangelism described in a seminar at camp very simply as “People who know Jesus, talking about him to people who don’t know him”. It’s so easy to talk about things we love, yet it’s so often so hard to talk about the One who has loved us with an everlasting love.

Here is a very short review of the Mark Driscoll’s book, Radical Reformission from when I read it last year. One of my general ‘criticisms’ of the book was that its very American, very Seattle - which is understandable, that’s Driscoll’s situation, that’s where he does Reformission. So my thoughts were drifting to the question of how to apply the insightful observations and helpful practical applications of Matthew 28 that Driscoll makes in our post-Christian culture. What are the traits of our society in say Brighton, or more generally in the UK, and how can we apply Driscoll’s Reformission principles to our situation?

First, for those of you who didn’t get it (the play on words), we’re talking about mission and the reforming of that. Reformission is about changing our views, preconceptions, attitudes, style, and methods in the area of mission.

1. Mission isn’t just something that happens overseas, but primarily happens in our street, our Uni, our workplace…
2. We can, indeed we must continually refresh the styles we use and the methods we adopt when presenting the gospel in order to show the gospel to be relevant and to engage with our culture (1 Cor 9:22) - “it would be a sin to change the message, it would be a sin not to change the method” MD

So we know from reading ‘RR’ that Driscoll is pretty clued up about the culture of Seattle and how to engage with it and communicate the gospel to it. But what about here in the UK, what is our culture like, to what extent should we engage with it and be immersed by it, and how can we best relate the gospel to it? Most recently whilst in London and Brighton Driscoll explained preaching the gospel to a culture really well, he said that we need to show our culture(s) that the gospel is relevant, not make it relevant - a really helpful clarification to those who think Driscoll is selling out!

Hopefully, soon, I’m going to continue these thoughts by trying to apply Reformission principles into situations that I, and many of us know. Watch this space…

In Mark Driscoll’s final main address at the Together on a Mission conference he spoke about ‘Movements’ (or networks of churches, like New Frontiers). In introduction he took us to Acts 1:1-11 to the beginning of the movement, with Jesus as the head and the Spirit at work. He spoke about Paul’s church planting strategy of establishing churches in cities and commented on the strategic significance of cities - they have more people, and culture flows from a city.

Driscoll talked a little about some historic movements and described them by 6 marks of movements:

1. Young people, young leaders
2. Conversions
3. Church Planting
4. Unaware of extending influence
5. Supporting organisations (production of resources)
6. New Technology

Mark then went on to discuss the rather depressing cycle of a movement:

1. Simple Organisation
2. Growth (becomes a movement)
3. Institution - founders and friends are the leaders (young leaders leave), guarding previous innovation, stop listening to outsiders (need humility and discernment)
4. Museum

Driscoll then went on to talk about ‘going off course’, 7 ways that movements can turn into institutions, he credited these points to Larry Osbourne:

1. Theologically off course - either too tight (fundamentalist) or too loose (liberal - used Vineyard as an example)
2. Relationships become too close to accommodate new leaders and members
3. Organisationally not adjusted for growth
4. Pride - “not invented here syndrome”, a willingness to listen to others with humility and discernment is needed
5. Pursuing potential over calling - prayerfully consider what to do
6. Lack Resourcing
7. Honouring the founder and the future

Points 2, 3, 5 and 7 were specifically aimed at the New Frontiers movement, point 7 in particular. Driscoll basically said that soon Terry Virgo will have to hand over New Frontiers to a new leader (he is quite old after all!) and that new leaders need to respect Terry and the founding vision, but also respect the future and new opporunities that open. I understand that people in New Frontiers love and respect Terry, while Driscoll saw this as a great thing I think he also saw it as a danger for growth, changing structure and a clear vision for the future. Mark was very gracious to what is clearly a delicate and emotional subject.

In conclusion, Mark gave 6 phases of renewal (from Rick Warrren):

1. Personal - Spirit enabled passion for Jesus
2. Relational - love and compassion
3. Missional - overflow of relational love into sharing faith and church planting
4. Cultural - church culture infects the city
5. Structural - more systems, more policies, more churches
6. Institutional - breathe life into dead churches

Afterwards Mark received a standing ovation for his time with us, his honesty and his ability to clearly speak into the New Frontiers situation. Terry Virgo came up briefly afterwards to speak about momentous times at the Brighton Conference (this being one), and to give an emotional thanks to Mark. Exciting times for New Frontiers, for a vision of 1000 churches.

Carrying on from Mark’s first talk on Spirit-Led Missions he went on to speak about what a Missional church is. Firstly he concluded his 8-point definition of a church:

• Regenerated Church membership
• Qualified Leadership (male eldership)
• Gathers regularly for preaching and worship
• Sacraments ministered correctly (Baptism and Communion)
• Unity in Word and Spirit
• Discipline for holiness
• Loves all people
• Evangelises and makes disciples

He went on expanding on point 8 to talk about all of church being on mission, citing Leslie Newbiggin who spoke of being engaged in mission that understands its culture. Driscoll then gave four examples of churches and how they respond to culture:

• Bombshelter - the fundamentalist church that hides from culture, treating church as a safe haven from it. They preach against the culture in an ‘us’ and ‘them’ mentality, they’re not missional.
• Mirror - the liberal church that is simply a reflection of the culture.
• Parasite - the church that takes all the benefits that a culture provides but does not serve, give to, or love that culture.
• City within a City - the church loves Jesus, believes the Bible and lives differently within the culture, it invites others to join in the distinctive living.

Obviously he’s with the fourth church! Driscoll then went through the 12 aspects of a missional church - he got to 4, having spent about half an hour on the 3rd!

• Church is a missional outpost, it exists to grow, to put on more services, set up new campuses and plant new churches.
• Every Christian is a Missionary. The gospel needs to be preached every week (to encourage inviting friends) and members need to be trained in doctrine and apologetics (so they can answer questions).
• Aware of Local Culture. Mark talked through most forms of media (TV, radio, Internet, blogs, social networking) and how he uses them, he spoke of watching TV missionally - seeing the idols displayed in the media, people’s personal heavens. He also chatted about knowing the places where people socialise and speaking to those in the know about what people get up to.
• Contending and Contextualizing the Gospel. Mark spoke first on 1 Corinthians 9:22 - “I have become all things to all men so that by all possible means I might save some”. He spoke of having ‘timeless truths and timely methods’, of being ’seeker-sensible’. In conclusion he gave one of the most clear explanations of contextualization I have heard him give - he said…

“you do not need to make the gospel relevent, but you do need to show that the gospel is relevent”

Afterwards it was good to see a little party from UCCF present and I was able to chat with Scott Thomas about Acts29, church planting and the partnership with Steve Timmis culminating in an event at St. James Clerkenwell on Friday night and the Dwell conference on Saturday. And being a geek, I went and got a picture with Mark - he has a really large head…

Matt Chandler from the Village Church is currently on sabbatical, but I need to let you know about some recent good sermons. He’s got to about chapter 9 of a big series on Luke (20 sermons so far), it’s awesome stuff!

Back in May, Matt finished a 5-part topical series on the church core-values which is well worth a listen to:

What is Truth?

What is Christian Spirituality? -  really good, what true Spirit-filled churches should be like!

What is Community?

What is Foot-Washing?

What is Missional Living?

These sermons and others will go into my good sermons database page - it’s just a bit of fun for me but hopefully as I keep updating it, it will be a great resource to find good sermons in one place!

Also, Matt Chandler’s church, The Village are doing a building project and have launched a new website for that including some video testimonies from some members - here’s an example…

Tim Keller has a new book coming out in October called ‘The Prodigal God‘, it’s an exposition of the ‘Parable of the Prodigal Sons’ and I get the impression that like ‘Reason for God’ it will be accessible for both Christians and non-Christians alike. It’s released on the 30th and you can currently pre-order from Amazon for around £9, I’m hoping that the Good Book Company might have it in stock at a similar price nearer the time, I’ll let you know.

Here’s a short interview with Keller about the book, and a response from Keller about the use of the word ‘Prodigal’ in relation to God.

Also, Mark Driscoll has lots of books coming out this year which has prompted the launch of Resurgence Literature publishing (ReLit). The first book was Vintage Jesus, I’ve finally got round to reading that so I’ll review it soon.

The latest books out (released last week) are a series of 4 books - ‘A Book You’ll Actually Read‘ - they’re less than 100 pages on ‘The Old Testament’, ‘The New Testament’, ‘Church Leadership’ and ‘Who is God?’. These are the square shaped ones (left). At the end of July there’s a book called ‘Practical Theology for Women’ coming out by Wendy Alsup, a deacon at Mars Hill. ‘Death by Love‘ (right) is coming out at the end of September, from what I gather it is based on Driscoll’s ‘Christ on the Cross’ series and then put in to a letter format. Finally in January 2009 ‘Vintage Church‘ (middle) is being released, subtitled ‘Timeless Truths and Timely Methods’ - it’s in the style of the Vintage Jesus book and I’m guessing will be similar to the Radical Reformission, probably with more of a focus on some of his sermon series (1 Corinthians, Nehemiah) and some practical suggestions. One more thing, they’re also publishing other non-Mars-Hill books, so far just Total Church by Timmis and Chester.

Last week I picked up some books for myself at EMA - Total Church (Timmis and Chester), Why we’re not Emergent (some American guys), and The Gospel and Personal Evangelism (Dever)… will give some thoughts when I get round to reading.

Today I went to the first day of a 3 day conference called the Evangelical Ministry Assembly, it’s run by the Proclamation Trust at St. Helen’s Bishopsgate in central London. This is the 25th year of the conference and the theme this year is Preaching - “Him We Proclaim”.

Christopher Ash - Why Preaching?

He gave a defence of preaching, stating that preaching works because it transcends cultural differences - although we can add our own constraints to it. He spoke about the authority of the preacher (a borrowed authority) and the ‘prophetic’ nature of preaching.

Simon Austen - Ephesians

This was an expostion of Ephesians 1 and 2 focusing on the themes of identity and what it means to be Church.

Steve Timmis - ‘Getting in touch with God’s global mission’

This was my choice from the seminar stream, ended up sitting next to the Big Moon Man. Steve started with two underlying principles: Theology - Who is God? and Ecclesiology - What is the Church? He took us to Revelation 4 & 5, revealing that God’s mission is all about his Son. Then to Ephesians, seeing that Christ rules his Church (his body) and that it is called to live as “communities of light”.

He then went through ‘10 Top Tips’ answering questions along the way, here are those tips;

1. Be ravished by Christ
2. Preach, teach and gossip Christ
3. Extend your boundaries of application beyond “read Bible, pray more, tell someone about Jesus”
4. Plant churches among unreached people groups around you
5. Get your church involved in another part of the world
6. Work from a realistic, achievable activity to a transforming one
7. Work from realistic giving, to sacrificial giving
8. Give away your best
9. Recognise mutual benefit
10. Keep it about God’s Kingdom, not yours

John Woodhouse - Colossians

Whoever does the last session has a tough job, it’s pretty stuffy, a lot of people are tired from the day plus travelling to get there… I’ll be gracious and say I was too tired to concentrate.