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For many Christians, the goal of the transformative work they understand God wants to do in their lives is to be increasingly like Jesus.  This worthy ambition is not, however, without its challenges.  In particular, it requires us to apply ‘hermeneutics’ (the principles and practice of interpretation) to the biblical materials, for we have a chasm to cross in how to apply what we learn (or think we learn) about Jesus from the biblical text to our present day situation.  For one thing, Jesus was God,[1] and we are not – how does this affect our reading, and our aspiration?  For another, we in our modern world and culture are separated from the ancient world and its culture by some 2,000 years of human history.  The world we inhabit is not that of the biblical writers.  How they saw “the way things are and are meant to be” is not necessarily how we would see them today.[2] So, statements, ideas and perspectives on life that they would take as ‘obvious’, and would be shared without question by their community, may be far from obvious to us and our community.  And vice versa.  So, in reading the Bible we must be careful that we are not reading into it meanings that would not have been considered by the original authors.  No writing can be timeless, either in terms of the words used to express ideas (for the meaning of words changes) or in terms of the ideas themselves.  What a certain concept, or phrase, or story, meant to the writer – or the way it would have been heard and understood by its original audience – may well not be what we would think, reading it today through the lenses of the 21^st century Western world and in light of our own experiences.

This is not to suggest that the Bible is inaccessible, or that only theologians can read it and tell us ‘what it means.’  But it should caution us to hold lightly ‘what we think it means’ and to try to be conscious of the influences on how we read something.  In particular, to beware developing grand interpretive schemes on isolated individual texts or collections of texts that appear at face value to support a theme; our goal is exegesis (reading what’s in the Bible out of it) not eisegesis (reading what’s in our thinking into it).  Preachers, of course, are especially prone to this danger.

Getting this right is not altogether easy,[3] but one rule of thumb is that, to the extent we are reading the Bible devotionally, to inspire ourselves, we are more likely to be on safe ground.  Where, though, we are reading the Bible directively, to teach or instruct others, we need to be more cautious.   In other words, I am distinguishing between what I find meaningful in this passage for me and what this passage means, for others.  In both cases, the bigger or grander the theological schema we are seeking to build from the materials, the more cautious we should be that we are interpreting it rightly, and the more lightly and provisionally we should hold what we think we are finding.

Anyway, back to the base question: what it means for us today to ‘be like Jesus’, in ways that reflect the biblical portrait.  I want to focus on just two aspects, which seem to me to be timeless, and transferrable across the cultural and temporal divide.  One is the way Jesus related to those who were inside the church and the other how he related to those outside the church.[4]

Firstly, in contrast to the approach sometimes adopted by Christian Ministers today, Jesus did not shy away from friendship.  He thought of those in his church as friends and treated them as friends, not just as ‘flock’.  He was willing to take the risk of being close.  He was vulnerable with them, and ‘was himself’, rather than keeping his distance as part of his ‘office.’  Although he ‘set an example’ (indeed, our supreme example) this was not through artificial patterns of behaviour, it was in and through ‘being himself.’

He did not think of those in his church as simply co-workers, having individual personal relationships with God, yet solely functional working arrangements with him and with one other.[5] There is no evidence that he felt he needed to treat everyone the same, or to shy away from being real friends with people in the church.[6] We read, for example, of the disciple whom Jesus loved (the ‘one’), the inner circle of Peter, James and John (the ‘three’) and of course, the Apostles (the ‘twelve’).  Furthermore, there were close personal relationships with the many women who were part of his immediate friendship group, as well as a wider group who knew him well (e.g. the ‘72’, the ‘120’, and so on).

If we are seeking to model God and his ways, as revealed to us in Jesus how can we – whether ordinary church members or Christian Ministers – shy away from engaging whole-heartedly in real, enjoyable, genuine, life-sharing, mutually-vulnerable friendship?  Should Ministers not relate to people in their church as an everyday, just-like-you, person, rather than as a ministry?  Or do we want our ‘priests’ to keep a healthy distance away from (one might say, above) the ordinary world that ordinary people inhabit?

Secondly, Jesus had active involvement – which he seemed genuinely to relish – with those who were outside the church.  What was the nature of that involvement?  We find two things, in particular, said about him in the Gospels.  One, that he was a friend of sinners.  Two, that he was a drunkard and a glutton.  Neither was intended as a compliment!  Where did these criticisms come from?  Not from thin air.  The evidence of what he did could certainly lead to that conclusion, if that was the way you looked at it.  Avoiding both those criticisms is a major preoccupation with many Christians today, and, particularly, with Ministers.  But, might it be that ‘risking’ such criticism is a necessary part of ‘being like Jesus’?  Jesus encouraged us to be ‘in’ the world, at the same time as not being ‘of’ it, but does fear of the latter sometimes overwhelm achieving the former?  Should we perhaps ‘lighten up’ and realise that just as the Gospel’s good news is all about relationship, so too is the route to people receiving that good news?  Or has ‘working on my Sunday morning message’ taken priority over ‘having dinner with un-churched people’ in the priorities of Christian ministry?  Has ‘come to my church and listen to my wonderful preaching’ – which of course it might be – replaced Jesus’ way of ‘let’s chat over dinner and a few glasses of wine’, in bringing people closer to the kingdom?  How is it that we have allowed the presentational to take over from the relational in our so-called evangelism?  NB – it seems unlikely that Jesus would have been widely criticised for being a ‘drunkard’ (widely enough for the story to be passed down and recorded in the written Gospels) if he had abstained from wine in the company of the un-churched.  Clearly, being seen to be ‘setting an example’ in front of the un-churched – i.e. a ginger beer publicly, but a bottle of wine privately – was not part of his strategy.[7] Nor do we get the impression that he treated such meals as another ‘meeting’ (the Wednesday night Bible Study, the Thursday night Meal for the Unsaved).  No … it was natural, not stilted, it was organic, not institutionalised, and he thoroughly enjoyed it – it wasn’t part of the job.

Some Christians worry that if they engage too closely with the un-churched, their ‘sinfulness’ will rub off on them, or their own distinctiveness as Christians will be compromised.[8] Jesus might well have responded to this worry by pointing out that such things come from the inside of a person, not from the outside.  Jesus seemed to think that who he was would rub off on them, rather than the other way around.  There are, of course, ways in which Christians should be distinct, and ways in which we should not.  What falls within each category should be the subject of reflection and conversation amongst us.  Genuine enjoyment of the company of ‘sinners’, building real and genuine relationships (and not solely with the short-term goal – dare we call this a hidden agenda? – of converting them, within a timescale of our choosing) and listening as well as telling, all seem to have been integral to Jesus’ praxis.

How often have we reflected on the significance of Jesus’ habitual table fellowship with the un-churched?  Do we read Jesus’ sayings as if they were always delivered as monologue sermons, in meetings, or read out from a heavenly auto-cue?  Might some of them have been shared over the meal table in the homes of those outside the church?  Maybe some of it came out of conversations.  Perhaps Jesus shared similarly, on some of his favourite themes, quite often, and shaped and sharpened his thoughts through dialogue and questioning from his hosts and fellow guests.

Where do we get the idea that the principal and best means of reaching people who are ‘outside’ the faith with the truth is by getting them to come and listen to our Sunday sermons?  I am tempted to wonder if it is only preachers who think that - bless! - but their congregations are too polite to tell them so!  How much do we allow what Jesus did to influence our church plans and priorities?

Being like Jesus may not be quite what we have thought it is.  If we look more closely at how he lived, how he related to people and how he went about introducing people to God the Father, we may find that ‘being like Jesus’ amounts to something more than privately modelling our inner character on his and drawing lessons from his sayings to inform our personal ethics.

And certainly amounts to more than organising church services – on our terms – and expecting people to show up to them and make life-changing decisions through listening to a didactic, one-way lecture.  However much the Minister enjoys it!

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[1] Even what we mean by this phrase requires some interpretation, for Jesus was both God and man.  Christians often struggle to balance these aspects of the biblical portrait.  This in turn is complicated by the Bible being both the ‘word of God’ and the work of the human writers.  In both cases, humanity was not bypassed or marginalised by divinity, but seamlessly integrated – “fully God, and fully man”, indivisibly.  How we understand this subject is a very significant feature of how we approach the Bible ‘hermeneutically’ and what we find in it about Jesus.

[2] This is not a case of ‘right’ and ‘wrong’, biblical view versus secular view, but simply how people see “the way things are”, their reference points in the understanding of life and society that they inhabit.

[3] The sheer volume of biblical materials makes it easy to find in it virtually whatever we want to (and many do exactly that).

[4] Clearly, use of the term ‘church’ in this context is somewhat anachronistic.  By it, I mean the contemporary community of believers.  Starkly put, those who were ‘in’, contrasted with those who were ‘out’, although the edges of these categories are always far fuzzier than we tend to suppose (and hence the reason I much prefer a centred-set approach to a bounded-set approach).  An open question for another time is whether there was really that much difference in the way Jesus treated those in each category, with the sole exception of when he encountered – in those who claimed to represent God – rank hypocrisy, oppression of the poor, or distortion of the nature and character of the Father.  The reason for choosing to use the word ‘church’ of Jesus’ situation is to assist us in seeing the applicability of what he did to what we do.

[5] The church is not just a factory for producing individual Christians, where the pastor operates the machine.

[6] It appears both these ideas originate in pastoral-training seminaries, but they simply add to the impression that – however much they may protest that it’s a ‘calling’, not a ‘job’ – pastoral ministers are performing a role, adopting a professional posture, rather than just living life alongside fellow believers.  In contrast, the biblical picture suggests that Jesus’ strategy deliberately included developing closer personal relationships with a limited number and, through what he taught and ‘modelled’ to them, through relationships and friendship rather than just meetings, reaching the wider community.

[7] I am not suggesting the accusation was correct as such, nor that it should be true of us!  Rather, that his enthusiastic participation in table fellowship with the un-churched, engaging them in their homes over meals and conversation he thoroughly enjoyed, meant there was some underlying ‘grain of truth’ in it, for critics who sought to (mis)characterise it that way.  It was a risk he was entirely happy to run.

[8] We should reflect, with some concern, that this was precisely the understanding of the Pharisees.

In the October edition of Christianity Magazine (to which I have just subscribed and, on the evidence so far, I would recommend to others) there is an excellent article by the venerable RT Kendall (formerly minister of Westminster Chapel) entitled “God Told Me” – Really? 

It’s aimed at the charismatic tendency to use (if not massively over-use) on a day-to-day basis, “The Lord told me …” terminology.  Do we really need to ‘name drop’ like this, RT asks?  Whose credibility are we trying to enhance – the Lord’s, or ours?

As you might imagine, I am firmly in the RT camp on this subject. 

Can we really point to a biblically-based expectation that the average Christian should get more “words from the Lord” in a week than Billy Graham has had in his entire lifetime?  Would someone like to present a biblical case for it? 

I won’t say too much about RT’s article – here’s a link (I hope the publishers won’t mind me advertising their excellent magazine in this way, at no cost to them …).

 http://www.faithandstuff.org/web_documents/christianity_article.pdf  

This isn’t a criticism of ordinary believers simply seeking to enjoy a personal, intimate and interactive two-way relationship with God.  Not at all, so please don’t take it that way.  The fault lies with pastors and preachers, who are probably the most prone to such language misues themselves, and who ’set the tone’ for their congregations. 

Furthermore, pastors often seem pathologically disinclined to ‘correct’ their  flock in this area, presumably to avoid discouraging people in their fledgling “experiential faith.”   The idea seems to be that less harm is done by a bit of ‘over-claiming’, than would be the case if someone is corrected and as a result put off trying to ‘hear from God’ in their personal life.  But this is a poor excuse.  Don’t we have a responsibility to train people?  And are we sure that less harm is done? 

What is ‘wrong’ here is not “experiential faith”, not at all.  At the very heart of the gospel is restored relationship.     

But might we charismatics not learn to be a little more humble, a little more communal (and less individualistic) about our ideas of ‘God speaking to us’  and a little less grandiose in our claims?

Have you ever heard someone pray that they might love others “with the love of Christ”?

Have you ever heard a Christian saying to someone “I love you with the love of Christ”.

Sounds very spiritual, but is it biblical?

Do people want to be “loved with the love of Christ”?  Or just … loved?

There are several problems here with both the language and the underlying idea.

Firstly (tell me if you think I’m wrong), do we find, anywhere in the New Testament, talk of the “love of Christ” as something external to us, that comes upon us in some way, that we in turn appropriate, so that we “love others” with this “love of Christ”?  I can’t find it.

Where there’s reference to the love of Christ, it’s in the sense of his love for us (in other words, love expressed to us, by Christ, with him as the giver and us as the recipient).  Not as some external empowering that comes upon us for the benefit of others.  To speak in those terms makes the “love of Christ” out to be a gift of the Spirit of some kind.  But love is not a gift of the Spirit (i.e. something given as a tool), it’s part of the fruit of the Spirit (i.e. a changed-life characteristic of the Spirit’s abiding presence in us).

Love – of the quality of Christ’s love for us – is one of the changes in character, in priorities and in behaviour that surrendering to the Spirit will bring about naturally in our lives.  Permanent – and ongoing – change, wrought in our character by the Spirit’s presence.

So that, when we love people, we love them truly, genuinely and from the heart, not thanks to some external ‘anointing’ that’s independent of us and bypasses our will along the way.

By and large, people don’t want “to be loved” (indeed, outside the Christian ghetto, where such language is commonplace, that kind of talk sounds a bit spooky – but then, some Christians are a bit spooky, aren’t they?).

People don’t want to be the object of something that sounds rather patronising and especially if it’s said to originate somewhere other than the person themselves.

Actually, what most people want is not to be ‘loved’, especially with something called “the love of Christ”, but just to be ‘liked’.

They want someone to be their friend, and to do so because they genuinely like them, not because they are “being loved with the love of Christ” which begs the obvious question – “What about just loving me with your love?”

Now, charismatic Christians will have an immediate answer to this.  It’s right in the “I’m so glad you asked that” category.  “Ah, well, you see, my natural love is only human love, imperfect love.  But Christ’s love enables me to love the unlovely … People I wouldn’t naturally like … who I would naturally have nothing in common with …”

Compelling, isn’t it?  Don’t you just yearn to be ‘loved’ like that …?

So if it’s not biblical language, and it’s a theologically flawed concept, why is that?

It’s because the whole point of being continually filled with the Spirit and surrendered to Christ is that he might bring about genuine change in us, so that we become transformed people (not the same people, just ‘putting on’ “Christ’s love”, coming upon us like some external garment).

The point of Christ’s love to us, received by us, is that we become changed, so that we love differently.  It’s our love, as it were, but revolutionised by Christ.  It’s not some anointing; it’s a change in the kind of person we are.

So, when we love people (or as I prefer to say, when we show them how much we genuinely like them, enjoy them, care for them, and have time for them), we’re doing so for real, from the heart.

We shouldn’t say “it’s Christ’s love”, because it isn’t – it’s our love.  The love of a person transformed by Christ’s love, yes.  The love of someone surrendered to Christ, yes.  The love of someone who constantly desires to become more like Christ, yes, and for whom to love others (sacrificially at times) is increasingly the norm.  But still, our love.

Aside from being a fundamental misunderstanding of the nature of Christ’s love (i.e. it’s not a gift of the Spirit), this kind of thinking is what we call dualistic.

Dualism – the idea that there are two (dual) realms of reality, an earthly, physical (and inherently inferior) one ‘down here’ and an ethereal, spiritual (inherently superior) heavenly one ‘up there’ – and that ‘living in the Spirit’ means trying to live within the latter, is plain wrong.  When charismatics start talking about “in the natural …” i.e. bad (as opposed to “in the Spirit …” i.e. good) they are falling into the dualism trap.

The idea of these different realms, and that we should be striving to spend our time in the ‘spiritual realm’ above (good) rather than being firmly located in the ‘earthly realm’ below (bad), is a Greek philosophical idea, not a Judeo-Christian biblical one.  Biblical life is spiritually natural, and naturally spiritual.  One realm.  The only issue is whether something is (or is not) aligned to the will of God.

Sorry about that.

Biblical spirituality is completely integrated with being really and genuinely and fully and completely human.  It’s about being more human, not about being less human.

Transformed human, yes, but not “slightly off with the fairies”, “semi-detached from the real world”, “this earth is not my home” -type human.

So, please don’t love me “with the love of Christ”.  Do it because you like me, or don’t do it at all.

Derek Tidball, previously the Principal of London School of Theology (and, more importantly, a former Baptist pastor and currently Visiting Scholar at Spurgeon’s College), has just written a book about church ministry, particularly aimed at ‘full-time’ or ‘professional’ ministry (pastors, vicars, et al).  Here’s an extract from the back cover summary of the book:

“The New Testament writers set before us a number of models of ministry, each of which is shaped by the particular needs of the churches they were serving.  Their own backgrounds, ambitions and passions also contribute to what they have to say about ministry.  The contours of New Testament pastoral leadership, inspired by the Holy Spirit, exhibit a genuine diversity … Tidball provides a comprehensive survey of these models and patterns.

Tidball’s survey offers ‘models of permission’ that enable a freer approach to ministry and the way it is conducted, challenges the stunted understanding of ministry that can often characterize our churches today, and gives encouragement to those who do not fit a ‘ministry by numbers’ approach.”

I have ordered the book but it hasn’t yet arrived.  Consciously or not – I don’t know ‘til I’ve read it – Tidball is drawing attention to one of the strangest anomalies of today’s Christian churches.  Why, particularly for Christians who have grown up in the Reformed tradition of Sola Scriptura, which provides that all our beliefs and practices are guided by Scripture alone, do we practice a model of church minister that bear scant resemblance to the biblical pattern?

Is it because of tradition, in the sense of “that’s just how it is”, or, “that’s how we’ve done it, for hundreds of years now, so we’re not changing now”?

Or is it for expediency? – we recognise it’s not biblically-based, but we have no practical alternative.

Or is it because we didn’t know it wasn’t biblical (and those who do know decided not to share that with us)?

Or is it because we are contented with the way it is, biblical or not, and don’t want to rock the apple cart?

What, then, is this “model of church minister” that our churches currently practice, that Tidball describes as a “stunted understanding of ministry”, a “ministry by numbers approach” and that lacks “genuine diversity”?

And what would a “freer approach to ministry” look like?

It would be no surprise for the reader to say “I don’t know”, because if you’ve never known any other model, why wouldn’t you suppose what you see happening must be the ‘right’ way of doing ministry already?  After all, a fish doesn’t know what water is, because it’s never lived in any other environment.

The model is, of course, the One Man Band.  A model where one man (usually a man, but not always) is what we call the Pastor or the Minister (emphasis on the word ‘the’).  He is the CEO, who leads all ministry, does all ministry, and is the single spiritual head of what goes on.  Irrespective of the sphere of ministry activity, he (as the full-time professional) is in charge.  He doesn’t necessarily do everything, but he does do all the important bits – at least, whenever he possibly can.

If this seems somewhat strange, you are probably not from a church background.

There are three pieces of logic supporting it (maybe unspoken, but there in the background).  One, he’s the professional, so surely he’s best at everything?  You don’t have Jonny Wilkinson in your rugby club and leave him on the bench.  Two, as he will tell you, especially if challenged about it, he’s “got a calling” to it.  “It”, in this context, we then assume, must be to the current model, so “it” embraces everything (even the stuff he’s not very good at – but whisper it quietly).  Three, we’ve got to do it that way, because we only have one “qualified” person.

The one piece of logic missing, which you would think might be quite important (were it not for a variety of vested interests that keep the status quo as it is), is the fact it’s not biblical.

Briefly, NT biblical leadership is characterised by plurality (meaning, more than one).  For example, in Ephesians 4:11-12, we read that Christ gave as “gifts” to the church “some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, and some pastors and teachers, for the equipping of the saints for the work of ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ.”  This doesn’t mean that the pastors run the churches and the others run para-church organisations (there weren’t any then).  No, there is a variety of gifts and ministries God has given to the church and located them in the church, not one hierarchical, triangular-shaped model with one man’s strengths and weaknesses dominating at the top.  One professional, leading a church of amateurs.  One following a gifting and calling, the others not.

The same ‘pluralistic’, several-persons ministry model is evident in Romans 12, the book that is Paul’s nearest thing to a systematic theology.  In the church, he writes, “we have different gifts, according to the grace given us.”  So, he continues, if you will forgive the chauvinistic language for a moment, “if a man’s gift is prophesying, let him use it in proportion to his faith.  If it is serving, let him serve; if it is teaching, let him teach; if it is encouraging, let him encourage; if it is contributing to the needs of others, let him give generously; if it is leadership, let him govern diligently; if it is showing mercy, let him do it cheerfully.”

This makes sense, because, “the members [of the body of Christ] do not all have the same function.”  Nor, then, does any one member have all the functions!  Indeed, Paul is careful to warn his audience it’s important that any individual “not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgment, in accordance with the measure of faith God has given you.”  One might say that a ‘measure of faith’ big enough to do everything yourself is not ‘sober judgment’ …

So from where did we get the idea of a ‘one man professional ministry who runs everything and does everything’?  Pragmatism, probably.  There simply weren’t enough supposedly ‘qualified’ people around, so we all defer to the trained professional, the one with the calling.

Why else might this be?  What vested interests might be at work?

• Human nature is to like to be in charge, and ministers are no less likely to suffer from this than anyone else.  It’s easier if, for all practical purposes, you get the final say on everything (you can always claim spiritual seniority if challenged).  Congregational churches may, in theory, have a democratic system, but if the pastor doesn’t get his way on things he really want to, then there is always the implicit underlying threat of resignation – if he’s not getting the ‘support’ or ‘respect for his leadership’.  Most congregations don’t want to have to find a new pastor, so ‘easy life’ thinking cuts in.
• Most congregation members don’t really want to have to deal with the challenge of doing ministry themselves, so they unwittingly conspire to let the professional get on and do it all for them, even though the biblical models (e.g. look also at 1 Corinthians 12) tell us that that’s what the church should be doing and that we will be weaker and less effective if we don’t.
• The idea that we have to maintain a certain ‘quality’ or ‘orthodoxy’ (fear of missing either being a major concern to most churches) makes us more inclined to step aside and let the expert do it, rather than do something ourselves that might be inferior or flawed.  It is unlikely that these risks concerned Paul and the other NT writers, of course.  Indeed, one might say that in the upside down logic of Christianity, weakness and strength are not as they may first appear … again, consider what 1 Corinthians 12 is saying, if we take it at face value.
• It’s an assumption of the system that anyone who has a ‘calling’ must go through a denominational selection panel process, to have it ‘confirmed’, and must then outwork it through a ‘pastoral sausage machine’ with the goal of ending up as the One Man Ministry of some other congregation.  Wherever did these ideas come from?  Should not every Christian, in every church, be ‘called’, and outworking that ‘calling’ (whether in secular employment or otherwise)?  And on what logic is it assumed that someone who has been through this machinery is sufficiently gifted to do all the main areas of ministry, and someone who has not is insufficiently gifted for any?  Well, except very occasionally.  Propagating the implications of the ‘professional-amateur’ divide in the local church works very well to keep the One Man in charge and (in the words of the Oasis song) “free to do whatever I want to do”, but it is disingenuous.  It suits, but it’s not biblical.

Why might God have designed a plural leadership ministry?  It certainly wasn’t because he was ignorant of the ‘benefits’ of professional One Man leadership.  Maybe it’s because he knows the weaknesses of it?

Maybe it’s because God is aware of how much human beings like to be in charge.

Maybe because God sees the need to have to get on with each other and agree with one another in team leadership, respectfully and co-operatively working through differences in gift, perspective and personality, as a real benefit to the church.  Hard for us to do, but a real blessing to the church when we do it.

Maybe because no single one of us ever has a full grasp of the faith, and to only ever hear and experience one person’s (especially one man’s) version, style and content is to severely limit the growth and development of his church.

Christ’s church, I mean – it is his church after all, so shouldn’t we go about doing it his way?

PS  I am not for a moment saying someone ardently practicing ‘One Man Ministry’ is insincere (in fact, I’m sure the opposite is the case, certainly in most churches).   But we really must stop equating ’sincerity’ with being ‘right’!

So what is ‘church’?  There are a number of ways we could look at the question.  I can already hear the responses waiting to pounce … “Ah yes, but what about …?” Let’s at least kick things off, even if it will take a long time to cover all the aspects of what it means to be and to do ‘church’.    

It’s sometimes said that church is all about ‘people, not steeple’, which sounds good in that it points us to relationships rather than to buildings or to structure, but as with any catchphrase, it require definition or interpretation – much depends on what one means by the words.  And of course, it’s incomplete, giving us only one small glimpse – like describing an entire book by reference only to one page or chapter.    

It’s also been said that the church should be ‘an organism, not an organisation.’  The idea is similar.  In neither case are the phrases suggesting that ‘church’ can get by without places to meet, or without some level of organising, but perhaps we can draw one truth from them both: fundamentally, church is something we do.  It’s about life and practice.  The ‘organising’ bit is separate, and subsequent.  One could even say, something to be minimised in its significance, lest it starts to take over, even if some element is practicably unavoidable.   

Biblically, this idea appears in Ephesians 4:15-16: “… speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in all aspects into Him who is the head, even Christ, from whom the whole body, being fitted and held together by what every joint supplies, according to the proper working of each individual part, causes the growth of the body for the building up of itself in love.”

‘What every joint supplies’ is the relationships.  The thinking is linked to that of Paul’s ‘body’ metaphor in 1 Corinthians 12 (of which more later).  Critical, in both passages, is proper connected-ness to Christ, as both source and head, proper connected-ness to one another, and the vital significance of each individual. 

Practicing all this will naturally lead to organic growth arising from within (‘the building up of itself’), rather than from any minister’s efforts alone, and defined not statistically by numbers but qualitatively by love. 

It’s the same vision statement for demonstrating what the Kingdom is all about that John quotes of Jesus: “A new command I give you: Love one another.  As I have loved you, so you must love one another.  By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.” (John 13:34-35). 

And this is not love as a set of feelings, but love as a practice, a way of living life.  “My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you.  Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends.  You are my friends if you do what I command.” (John 15:12-14). 

The key here is “as I have loved you” – how Jesus loved is how he wants us to love – “the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many” (Matthew 20:28).

Society generally follows the alternative of ‘laying down our friends for our lives.’  The church, though, ought to be characterised by people who feel compelled through Christ’s love bursting within them to gladly practice self-sacrificial love for one another.  It’s difficult, other than purely intellectually, to love God who we can’t see, but we can love people who we can see.             

In practice, then, let’s – to start with – forget questions like “are we a proper church?”, and “do we need a name?” (and perhaps, today, “do we need a website …?”) and let’s focus on church as a verb rather than a noun. 

And where better to look for our first guidance in what it means to be and to do ‘church’ than the command – and, not least, the example – of Jesus himself.

I was chatting to some people who have decided they need to leave their current church.  They don’t feel there’s another church they can join instead, in the area they live, and so are thinking about ‘starting something’ themselves.  A few other couples from their home group have said they would like to join in.

The motivation here isn’t egotistical (although clearly it can be, in these kinds of situations).  Indeed, they’re not ruling out becoming part of something else in the course of the next year or so.  For the moment, they’re thinking of  running an ‘extended home group’ for themselves and their friends and seeing what develops.  It won’t be damaging to their current church because they are in an urban situation, living some way away (indeed, distance from the church is one of the main issues).

This all made me think: should I encourage it, discourage it, or be studiously neutral? 

Is there any such thing as normative advice in such situations, or does it all depend on the circumstances, the people and the motives? 

History is littered with Christian initiatives that ended up leading to some kind of expression of a ‘new church’, sometimes in circumstances where the pioneers had no strong desire to leave the established church, but found themselves with no practical alternative.  This was true of the Reformers, at the very birth of modern Protestantism, and also of Wesley.  Many early pioneers of the so-called ‘house church movement’ in the 60s and 70s found themselves compelled to leave the existing structures (or strictures) either by their own volition or at the instigation of others.  The same is true in some situations today.

Were these people ‘right’ to do so?  Tough question.  Protestantism’s prioritisation of the individual tends to support people doing what is right in their own eyes.  Do Christians need to be part of a ‘church’ and if so, what by definition is a ‘church’, exactly?  Is there any difference between a dozen people meeting in a Methodist church (within an existing denomination) and a dozen people meeting in someone’s flat (outside any denomination)?  Is one a ‘church’ and another not?  As Protestants, we certainly can’t say as a starting point “there’s only one official church”, so on that basis, does it mean there can be as many as we like?  Or should I say, as many as God likes?  Which would be how many, would you say – more or less than we have in the world already?  Is it all a question of leading and calling … “I felt led to start a church …”?

I suggest there are two interesting passages in scripture, that can help guide us. 

To these, I would add the overriding importance of having a great attitude.  If the pioneers’ attitude is characterised by humility, modesty, teachability, openness, inclusivity towards other Christians and other churches, welcoming of outside input and a willingness to be accountable, then no harm is likely to occur and good things will ultimately come out of it, however its future shape develops.

What are these interesting passages?  Firstly, Matthew 9, and ‘wineskins’. 

^“17 Neither do men pour new wine into old wineskins.  If they do, the skins will burst, the wine will run out and the wineskins will be ruined.  No, they pour new wine into new wineskins, and both are preserved.”

Sometimes, an existing church wineskin is just too rigid and inflexible to accommodate ‘new wine’.  It works extremely well for old wine, though.  Older wine may, of course, be ‘better’ wine, where it has come from a great producer and can be truly said to be ‘vintage’.  That’s not true of the vast majority of wine production, though, which loses its freshness very quickly and needs to be consumed quite soon and ultimately put to one side in favour of the new harvest.  Look at wine guidebooks and they’ll often say of a wine ‘DYA – drink youngest available’.  I suspect that the first century Palestine wine known to Jesus and his followers was often in the latter category and that this is how we should read the saying in Matthew 9.  Where we have something truly ‘vintage’ (Sacraments?  Scripture?  The early Creeds?) we should keep it, for it will only get better.  As for the rest though, especially anything which is culturally-situated (like ‘last year’s wine’) then perhaps we should expect ‘new’ to be the norm?

Note what happens, though, in Jesus’ saying, if wine and wineskin are mismatched.  The old wineskin is harmed, and the new wine is harmed too.  Preserving both seems to be the right thing to do.  This necessitates different wines in different wineskins.           

Is the imagery of ‘an old wineskin’ fair to apply to an existing church?  Possibly.  It is certainly the case that some are led in a controlling fashion, by a minister in charge who has rigid and fixed ways.  Who has an unshakeable conviction that he is right, is doing things right, and that no other ways or views can contribute anything, since his/her ‘package of understanding’ – of church, faith, etc. - is complete already, at least in terms of all the fundamentals (if the person has tendencies towards insecurities, of course, this will complicate the mix still further).   

They won’t say that, of course, or at least not in those words, but that’s the correct reading between the lines.  It will be presented in much more spiritual language, obviously.   

This fits with Modernity’s worldview, that there can only be, in relation to anything (whether it’s a mathematics sum or a spiritual truth) one ‘right’ answer.  If you’ve already got it, then why would you want to listen to anything else?  If God has already put it on your heart, then that’s that.  If you went into ministry following a clear and strong ‘calling’, then you must be right.  Other people’s views (indeed, other people) that don’t fit in, subserviently within your own views, must be resisted or squeezed out.  In contrast, people who enthusiastically endorse you and your own approach are obviously the wise and gifted people qualified for leadership roles. 

Only if we see that all our grasps of  God, church, faith, spirituality and so on are only partial and that we all have much to learn from one another (especially, from those who have a different angle) will we be able to accommodate multiple ‘right answers’.  To the staunch Modern worldview, though, multiple right answers sounds like the slippery slope towards religious pluralism and liberal beliefs.      

Secondly, what Hebrews 11 says about Abraham’s search. 

^“8 By faith Abraham, when called to go to a place he would later receive as his inheritance, obeyed and went, even though he did not know where he was going.  ⁹ By faith he made his home in the promised land like a stranger in a foreign country; he lived in tents, as did Isaac and Jacob, who were heirs with him of the same promise.  10 For he was looking forward to the city with foundations, whose architect and builder is God.”

Some people have this burning feeling within them that, in U2’s words, “I still haven’t found what I’m looking for.”  They are still looking for that contemporary expression of Kingdom in this world – which we call being and doing church – that, in the delightful words of Hebrews, is a ‘city with foundations, whose architect and builder is God’.  They just can’t match up enough of what is going on under current categories of church with enough of what they see in Scripture.      

Note that Abraham knew what he was looking for, but started off not knowing where he was going.  That’s often true of the church pioneer. 

Note, too, that he was nomadic against his personal preferences.  He didn’t want to be living in tents, he just couldn’t get comfortable living in the existing cities.  Not because he was difficult, but because his heart was set on a vision for a different kind of city that God had placed in his heart.  It was like being a stranger in a foreign country, even though he should have felt at home.

This has all set me off on the question, “what is church?” 

Further blogs will follow …

“Every Christian is a theologian of sorts.  Whether consciously or unconsciously, every follower of Jesus Christ is either a good or bad theologian, as all disciples of Christ have some sort of belief system and do some reflection on those beliefs and their importance for the Christian life.  That is what theology is.  Theology is the discipline that involves reflection on faith and the articulation of those beliefs.”  Berten Waggoner, National Director, Vineyard USA.

On first reading of some of the stuff on this site, or some of the blog topics, you may feel “good grief, it’s very theological stuff …”  But, as the above quote indicates, we can’t escape being theologians.  All Christians ‘do’ theology, whether they realise it or not and whether they do it well or badly.

For example, we all read the Bible and find meaning in it.  And we all quote it to others, or share it in small groups, and apply what it says to situations.  That’s what we call hermeneutics – the theological discipline of biblical interpretation.

Now you may say, “I don’t need academics to tell me what it means.  I just read it and the Holy Spirit shows me.”  There’s some truth in this, of course.  We certainly don’t need a Bible in one hand and a commentary in the other to read devotionally, for example, and texts like John 3:16 can be reliably taken to “be saying what they say”. 

However, it’s theology’s task  to help people get the most and the best from their Bible reading and to guide them towards solutions in the questions which arise in their faith.  Not everything can simply be read off the page and ‘taken at face value’.  Or at least, there are many potential pitfalls in that, and a richer understanding is to be had (and the avoidance of simple errors) with a little learning thrown into the mix. 

Evangelicalism has something of a history of treating what it sees as intellectualism, and academic study, with suspicion.  This probably goes back to Luther’s assertion that even the plowboy should be able to read and understand scripture for himself, without having to have it interpreted for him by the Catholic theologians.  Luther’s was a particular battle of his day, of course, in particular circumstances, but the shadow lingers. 

Ministers who have not been formally trained, or who studied in a “pastoral training camp” college environment, designed more to teach them ‘how to do be a good pastor’ than to broaden their theological horizons (beyond what’s necessary to do the job), can be particularly harsh towards what they see as ‘purely academic’ or ‘just intellectual’ expressions of the Christian faith.  And one can well see their point, if by those phrases one means a dry, uninspiring, even faith-undermining, version of Christian belief centred in the head rather than the heart and ignorant of real people and real-life issues. 

But it’s an awfully simplistic, exaggerated and jaundiced view. 

To implicitly polarise the Christianity faith so that at one end of a scale lies ‘intellectual, academic theology’ whilst, at the other, is to be found ‘Spirit-filled, Bible-believing, living faith in a personal Jesus’, is both wrong and unfair.  There is no necessary conflict between the two categories.

Intellectuals and academics are not inherently superior Christians, of course (God forbid anyone should ever think so), but nor is an uninformed approach to the faith inherently superior either.  Intellectuals and academics should meet the same ‘character tests’ as anyone else operating in a leadership capacity, but let’s not expect them to necessarily look the same or conform to using the same Christian sound bites as some others do.  We should be trying to shape and form people as stand-alone Christians, not clone others in our own spiritual image.        

The best theologians (from the church at large’s point of view) are those who can make understanding the Bible, and the Christian faith, and the person of Jesus, and the nature, character and purposes of God, come alive to ordinary Christians in a real and meaningful way.  Good theology can lead to great teaching.  And by great teaching, we mean practical, helpful insight which brings us closer to God and really helps us in our day-to-day Christian walk. 

One of the very best things about theological training is that it teaches people to think, and to question.  Theology wrestles with big questions, and seeks to find biblically-sourced solutions.  But that’s somewhat contrary to the way most Christians are taught to approach the faith.  In fact, you’re usually taught not to question but to ‘just accept’ and ‘just believe’.  Having child-like faith, for example, and not being a doubter like Thomas, are taught as prized qualities.  Whereas, ‘trying to over-intellectualize the faith’ – aka ‘having questions to which the stock Christian answers aren’t necessarily convincing’ – can meet with pastoral disapproval.   

For many of us though, all that leaves us feeling a bit uncomfortable.  For many unchurched people, for example, especially more educated ones, it simply doesn’t work, because it sounds like a ‘cop out’.  Which, frankly, it is – a simple “I don’t know” would go down better. 

Pastors who want to do so can often get away with it with a loyal, trusting, accepting, core congregation, of course, especially those coming from a churched background.   The impression given is that they don’t want their flock to think about things too much, in case it puts them off the faith.  Just focus on simple teaching, and experiencing Jesus personally.     

There is no question whatsoever that theology which is purely a self-indulgent exercise in intellectual elitism that makes no sense to ordinary people is a waste of time and deserves no place.  But let’s remember that everyone does theology – even the most ‘let’s keep it simple’ pastor – so the only question is whether it’s working for people, and the gifting, heart and character of the theologian, or pastor, concerned.  Pitching ‘intellectual’ against ‘practical and pastoral’ – or even ‘academically trained’ against ‘called and anointed’ for that matter – is not making a distinction that tells you anything at all about the individual or their teaching.  It just tells you something about the prejudices at work. 

The crucial point is this: “Do people get helped further along the road on their personal journey of faith?”  Different styles, different ways of expressing and teaching the faith, and different types of theology (all properly within the bounds of biblical Christian orthodoxy, of course), will help different people.

God save us from dry academic theories offered in place of a living, transforming personal relationship with the Saviour of the world.  But God save us, too, from denying a contribution from the theologians, or asking people to leave their intellectual capacities at the door of the church as a condition of being allowed to come in (or stay in).

Many Christians are not clear on the difference between being tempted and sinning.  Does it matter?  Yes!  It matters because it’s easy to get discouraged and self-condemning even without having succumbed to the temptation.  Part of the deception of temptation is “well you’ve thought it now so you might as well do it”.

But this is a wrong way of thinking.  The first point of reference here is Jesus.  The Bible tells us that he was tempted in every way as we are but without sin (Hebrews 4:15).  So, it’s important to know the difference.

The first encouragement is to note that he was tempted in every way as we are.  There is no temptation you’ve had that he didn’t have.  No thoughts have crossed your mind that didn’t cross his mind.

The Wilderness Temptations reported in the gospels (Matthew 4, Luke 4) were not Jesus’ only ever temptations.  They tell us something about temptation, but they weren’t the extent of it.  Temptation was with him for the whole of his life, because it is for us.  Jesus had to be made like us in every way, otherwise he wouldn’t have been authentically human (he would have been ‘Clark Kent’, aka Superman; someone who just looked human, but really wasn’t).  His mission necessitated it (Hebrews 2:17).

Temptation is always attractive.  It’s funny how we never get tempted by things that are unappealing, isn’t it?  Scripture talks of ‘the pleasures of sin’ (Hebrews 11:25) because sin is, generally speaking, pleasurable.  Otherwise it wouldn’t be a problem to us, would it?  Resisting the temptation to do something that has no appeal is no great problem.  But temptation is not, never ever, the same thing as sin.  Even long and lingering thoughts.  Even if it really appeals  to you.  It’s what you actually do with the thought at the end of the day.  

Read Luke 4.  For Jesus in the wilderness, the idea of ruling the world without sacrifice, the idea of sidestepping the cost of his prophetic calling, must have been very attractive.  When he was about to be faced with massive rejection from the established religious authorities who would brand him a fraud and in league with Satan, the idea of doing something spectacular, in some big public display, to prove that God was with him and backing his message must have been very tempting.  And the idea of using his ministry for his own benefit, as well as that of others, must have seemed very reasonable (after all, aren’t ministers entitled to reap some of the rewards of a successful, anointed ministry …?).

Ultimately, though, the issue was not what he thought, not what ran through his mind, as he weighed up the attractions and mulled over whether there was scope before God to go with those thoughts or not.  The issue was not the thoughts themselves, but what he did about them.  Did he act on them or not? 

What he did was to stick to what he believed God had said.  To resist the temptation to short-cuts in his ministry, to go for quick and easy public acclaim, rather than quietly getting on with what he knew he was called to be doing.

The second encouragement is this.  There is someone today ’in heaven’, at the right hand of God, who understands exactly what it’s like when we are tempted.  A resurrected human.  Someone who has, in contemporary terms, “been there, done that, got the T-shirt”.  Not a far away God ready to judge us and condemn us when we fail, one who has written up the rules for us, but a God who knows exactly what it’s like.  Hebrews 2:18 tells us “Because he himself suffered when he was tempted, he is able to help those who are being tempted.”             

And he doesn’t just offer us ‘good advice’ to be getting on with (even ‘good biblical advice’).  No, God has sent his Spirit to be with us, to offer some of that same power that was at work in Jesus.  Compare what Luke 4:14 says about Jesus (“Jesus returned to Galilee in the power of the Spirit”) to the promise Jesus gives in Acts 1:8 (“you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you”).   Ephesians 1:19-23 tells us it’s “ incomparably great power for us who believe”.

Temptation can be tough.  Look at the pressure it put Jesus under in the Garden of Gethsemane (Mark 14:32-39).  It wasn’t easy for him, it’s not easy for us.  Sometimes it’s so bad it feels like God has abandoned us (Matthew 27:46).  But he never does.  He’s always there, with us, and he completely understands. 

Don’t let the oldest trick in the book get you.  Temptation, however powerful, however much it appeals (remember - it will have appeal, otherwise it would’t be tempting) is not the same as sin.  If it was, then Jesus would have been a sinner, because he has been tempted in every way as we are. 

I can think of no better way to end the blog than the last few verses of Hebrews 4:

¹⁵ For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are — yet was without sin. ¹⁶ Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.

” … no one pours new wine into old wineskins.  If he does, the wine will burst the skins, and both the wine and the wineskins will be ruined.  No, he pours new wine into new wineskins” (Mark 2:22) (Jesus’ quoted words).

Radical Christians have often cited this verse to argue why ‘how we do church’ needs to change, to accommodate ‘new wine’ (which is a metaphor for ‘the current move of the Holy Spirit’).

Convenient and simplistic though such an argument may be, and with due disrespect to the habit of ‘proof-texting’, there is probably some truth in their argument.

But why might ‘church’ need to change?  And what aspects of ‘what we do and how we do it’ should be kept, as part of our Christian heritage and tradition of the faith?

The answer, I suggest, lies in splitting ‘what we do and how we do it’ into two categories.  That which is principally scriptural and that which is principally cultural.

The Reformers (Luther, Calvin, etc.) insisted on one guiding principle for all their beliefs and practices: sola Scriptura, meaning: the Bible alone should be our guide in matters to do with the faith.  They were extremely wary of allowing church tradition to be an operating ‘rule’ because of human and cultural influences.

So, where there is a clear scriptural imperative for something we do and how we do it, that may well be part of the tradition of faith that we need faithfully to cling to, so we should be very wary of changing.  We’ll call these ‘traditions based in Scripture’.

But, where there isn’t a clear scriptural imperative for something we do, or where that scriptural imperative is clearly capable of being put into practice in different ways (depending e.g. on personal preferences, styles and cultures) then we should be very wary of not changing.   We’ll call these ‘traditions based in culture’.

How do we adjudicate on the difference?  One test is, if we’ve only been doing something (or only doing it a certain way) for the last 50 years, or the last 150 years, or even the last 300 years, then it’s quite likely a tradition based in culture.

Let’s not confuse what can’t be changed in what we do and how we do it, with what we simply don’t want to change. 

Truth may be unchanging forever, but the garb in which it comes is culturally and temporally situated.  For better – or for worse – in terms of making that truth real to today’s world.

Have you ever wondered why, at what we call the Last Supper, when Jesus instituted a memorial meal in remembrance of himself, he used the bread to refer to “his body, broken for you”?

The Last Supper took place in Passover week, when Israel remembered God’s miraculous deliverance from the land of Egypt.  The centre point in the Passover meal was sharing a lamb together, in remembrance of the lambs slain that night in Egypt, when death struck the Egyptians because of their persistent refusal to release the nation they were holding in abusive slavery, but ’passed over’ Israel’s firstborn.

Wouldn’t it have been more natural for the Lamb of God to have used the Passover lamb as the central point of reference for this newly-instituted remembrance meal?  ”This lamb is my body … take, eat, in remembrance of me”?

Come to think of it, wouldn’t the Day of Atonement (in October) – the once-a-year ceremony given by God to deal with the problem of the worst sins of the people –  have been a more obvious Jewish occasion for Jesus to choose to relate to his death?