* Ridley Hall, Cambridge and Cranmer Hall, Durham, UK

Both have hired experienced practitioners of fresh expressions of church to head up their pioneer training—Mike Volland (who started FEIG in Gloucester) at Cranmer and Dave Male (who started The Net in Huddersfield—and will be the speaker at VCP in a couple of weeks) at Ridley.

* Trinity College, Bristol UK

This is where I trained a hundred years ago. The present principal, George Kovoor, has turned the traditional model of training on its head. The college bought houses in poorer parts of the city. The students live there in community and serve their local parish. Professors then work with the students in the parish. And, from time to time, they come into the college for classes! But the emphasis is on on-the-job training.

* St Mellitus, London, UK

A fully authenticated seminary that began as an offshoot of Holy Trinity, Brompton (home of Alpha). The whole college has an emphasis on pioneering of different kinds. It was the Principal, Graham Tomlin, who told me, “Pioneers need more theology than pastors of existing churches, not less: pioneers are often the sole bearers of the tradition in their context, so they need to get it straight!”

* Oak Hill College, London, UK

When they began a missionary training program some years ago, they thought it was great that missionaries could be trained alongside clergy. Now they realise it’s equally significant that clergy be trained alongside missionaries! When I took a tour of the college last summer, I met five students, quite separately, who all told me they expected to be involved in church planting at some point in their future. Impressive.

* The Church Missionary Society, Oxford, UK

CMS is not a seminary, but they do know about missions. Their hands-on pioneer training program (in conjunction with Ripon College, Cuddesden) has just been approved by the Church of England bishops as an official route of training for ordination.

* Tyndale Seminary, Toronto

Tyndale offers an In-Ministry M.Div for those currently in ministry. This takes three years, one day a week, and then one year full-time. The program has a strong missional, church planting emphasis. Wycliffe’s own Peter Robinson was one of their faculty until he came to us.

I am interested to know what ideas you might have. What is the best way to equip a new generation of pioneering leaders with the skills they need, without skimping on theology, Bible and history? Does one of the models I have described particularly attract or intrigue you? What would help you most? Let me know, and we’ll feed it into the discussions.

Pishoy is a Coptic Orthodox priest who leads the multicultural congregation of St Maurice and St Verena in north Toronto. (You can read about it here.) The fact that I can use the words “Coptic” and “multicultural” in the same sentence ought to give you a clue as to why this whole thing is unusual, since Coptic is normally a synonym for Egyptian.

A few years back, Pishoy became grieved that when young people from the Coptic Church married outside the Orthodox faith they were automatically excommunicated, even if they were marrying a Christian from another denomination. At the same time, he heard stories of non-Egyptians being made to feel unwelcome at Coptic churches—simply because they were not Egyptians. No wonder Coptic young people were going elsewhere to marry their non-Coptic fiancés and fiancées!

He decided that what was needed was a Coptic Orthodox Church that was intentionally welcoming to people of all ethnicities and nationalities. You won’t be surprised to hear that he ran into opposition. (“We’ve never done it that way before”—the seven last words of many churches.) Then, however, he got a call from the Pope’s office, inviting him to an interview in Alexandria. Yes, that is not a misprint: the Copts have their own Pope, Shenouda III, 117^th Pope of Alexandria (OK, I confess: I googled him), now 88 years old. To Pishoy’s amazement, the Pope was totally supportive of what Pishoy wanted to do, so on his return he took steps to begin a church plant—from the very first both authentically Coptic Orthodox and authentically multi-cultural.

You doubt whether it is possible? Pishoy told me today that the average Sunday attendance is presently 400, most of the congregation is under the age of 35, and 45 nationalities were present at the last count.

Oh, and the unusual defence? Well, about 20 friends, family and well-wishers from the church attended, including three other Coptic Orthodox clergy (their cassocks, long beards, and large pectoral crosses were a subtle clue) and a bishop (his diocese? North America) who just happens to be Pishoy’s brother. When the result was announced—Pishoy was successful in his defence—Bishop David presented him with a new and splendid pectoral to mark the occasion, and made a speech about the importance of Pishoy’s work for the future of the Coptic Orthodox Church in North America.

With many D.Min theses (including mine), you wonder if anyone will read ever read them or do anything about their recommendations. With this one, it is obvious already that it is making a difference, and will continue to do so, not just for the Coptic Orthodox Church but for the Kingdom. You can see why Pishoy is one of my heroes.

The kind of leadership that was required for established, healthy churches in a Christendom setting is radically different from what is needed in a post-Christian, postmodern setting where churches may not even exist. The church now needs not only visionary, mission-minded pastors, but also pioneers, entrepreneurs, and missionaries who can take the Gospel to cultures and subcultures in North America where Christ is not represented, and found new Christian communities.

So far, some fifteen students have been involved in the stream to a greater or lesser extent.

I want to address two questions today. Firstly, a theoretical or theological question: What exactly is a pioneer, and how do pioneers relate to our understanding of church? Is it a concept with any theological traction? And then the second question: what does a pioneer look like in practice? The first part is a kind of preliminary apologia for the idea of pioneering ministry, and the latter a case study.

1.  How does the idea of pioneering ministry relate to our understanding of church?

Many of you will be aware of the 2004 Church of England report to General Synod called Mission Shaped Church, which was unanimously adopted, and which has shaped developments in the Church of England ever since in quite radical ways. One of the innovative recommendations of the report was:

The Ministry Division of the Archbishops’ Council should actively seek to encourage the identification, selection and training of pioneer church planters, for both lay and ordained ministries. . . . Patterns of training should be appropriate to the skills, gifting and experience of those being trained.[1]

Several points are worth noting here: pioneering is equated with church planting, pioneering is an “equal opportunity” ministry for lay and ordained; and there should be specialized training for these pioneers.

So what is this about? Is this just another “flavor of the month” fad which wise leaders will ignore because it will disappear as quickly as it arrived? What I want to attempt is not a theology of pioneering, and not even a Bible study on pioneering: it is more an attempt to stake out a theological field, and say, I think this is the area in which we need to dig in order to figure this out.

So where to begin? We begin with God—of course!—and with the activity of God in the world we have learned to call the missio dei. Here is how Jurgen Moltmann explains the missio dei and the church:

Mission is not primarily an activity of the church, but an attribute of God. God is a missionary God. It is not the church that has a mission of salvation to fulfill in the world; it is the mission of the Son and the Spirit through the Father that includes the church. There is church because there is mission, not vice versa.[2]

So how do pioneer ministries relate to the missio dei? All ministry begins in the ministry of Jesus Christ and flows from the ministry of Jesus Christ, and pioneering is no exception. Let’s begin with scripture. The term pioneer occurs in the NT several times: the Greek word is archegos, which is variously translated originator, author, founder and pioneer[3] and is always applied to Jesus Christ: “God exalted [Jesus] at his right hand as Leader and Savior” (Acts 5:30-31); “you killed the Author of life, whom God raised from the dead” (Acts 3:14-15); “It was fitting that God . . . in bringing many children to glory, should make the pioneer of their salvation perfect through sufferings” (Hebrews 2:10); and (perhaps the best-known):

Since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses . . . let us run with perseverance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus the pioneer and perfecter of our faith. (Hebrews 12:1-2)

There is another related word, however, which is applied to Jesus and to his followers, and that is the term “apostle.” Jesus is only called an “apostle” once (in Hebrews),[4] but in the Gospel of John the idea of being sent (which is the meaning of the Greek word apostello) is central: Jesus is described as being sent by the Father no less than forty times.[5] Then, at the end of the Gospel, Jesus tells his disciples, “As the Father sent me, so I am sending you” (John 20:21): for John, this is the point at which the disciples become “the apostles,” sent by Jesus as he was sent by the Father.

The question has dogged Christian history, however, whether the twelve are the only ones legitimately called “apostles.” Most agree that the twelve have a unique role as apostles: as John Stott puts it, they were “a very small and distinctive group . . . personally chosen and authorized by Jesus, and had to be eyewitnesses of the risen Lord.” He adds, “in this sense there are no apostles today.”[6]

But there are other senses. For example, Stott also says, “The verb apostello means to ‘send,’ and all Christian people are sent into the world as Christ’s ambassadors and witnesses, to share in the apostolic mission of the whole church.”[7] In between these two meanings (the twelve and all Christians) is a third sense. Michael Griffiths cites New Testament scholar John Goldingay as pointing out that the word ‘apostle’ is ‘etymologically equivalent to missionary,’ and that ‘apostles are perhaps the pioneer missionary evangelists through whom Christian communities are founded.’  Griffiths adds, “It does not seem biblically necessary to deny the continuing existence of apostles in this secondary sense of pioneer church-planting missionaries.”[8] It is interesting to note that in both Catholic and Protestant tradition, this is the way the term is popularly used: St Francis Xavier, “apostle of the Indies and Japan,” William Carey, “apostle to India,” and so on.[9]

The term “apostle” in this sense was little used during the centuries of Christendom, and it was not a ministry that was recovered by the mainline Protestant Reformers. Indeed, most scholars agree that the Reformation lacked any significant missionary impulse. [10]  Unfortunately, missiology is not just an optional extra, like heated seats in your car. Ignoring mission is more like leaving the chili powder out of your chili recipe: everything is affected and the chili is just not the same thing.

So, for example, the Reformation’s understanding of ministry is different because of the absence of missiology. Case in point: the Reformers do not consider the possibility of apostles as “pioneer missionary evangelists.” Lutheran theologians, for example, believed that the Great Commission of Matthew 28 had been fulfilled by the Twelve, and was no longer the church’s responsibility. Calvin similarly sees apostolic ministry as having come to an end. In his commentary on Ephesians 4, he writes:

[O]f the offices which Paul enumerates [apostle, prophet, evangelist, pastor and teacher], only the last two [pastor and teacher] are perpetual. For God adorned His Church with apostles, evangelists and prophets, only for a time . . . But without pastors and [teachers] there can be no government of the church.[11]

For him, the main issue is whether pastor and teacher constitute one gift or two.

Newbigin summarizes the effects of this lack of missiology like this:

[T]he period in which our thinking about the Church received its main features [that is, the Protestant Reformation] was the period in which Christianity had practically ceased to be a missionary religion. . . . It was in this period, when the dimension of the ends of the earth had ceased to exist as a practical reality in the minds of [Protestant] Christians, that the main patterns of churchmanship were formed. The congregation was not a staging post for world mission but a gathering place for the faithful of a town or village. The ministry was not understood in terms of mission but in terms of guardianship of those already in the fold.[12]

As a result, whatever the reasons for this blind spot[13], it remains the fact that Reformation ecclesiology does not help us much with thinking about mission or apostolic ministries or pioneer church planting.

However, among those who have picked up Newbigin’s challenge to the church has been a group calling itself the Gospel and Our Culture Network.[14] Their most significant contribution to the conversation is a book called Missional Church (1998). In one chapter, the authors tackle this specific issue of the need for a renewal of apostolic ministries as crucial to rediscovering our missional calling:

Pastoral gifts are important, but in the current setting of the North American church, the apostolic gifts need to be called forth and equipped. While Ephesians 4 outlines a series of leadership gifts [apostle, prophet, evangelist, pastor and teacher], the contemporary church focuses most of its energy on identifying, training and credentialing that limited section of those gifts related to the pastor-teacher. This indicates the levels at which the model of the settled parish culture continues to prevail. In the marginalized, missional setting that lies ahead for the church in North America, this pastor-teacher model is insufficient.[15]

All this is what lies behind the decision of the Wycliffe College, following the lead of the Church of England and its theological colleges, to introduce the pioneer stream to the M.Div program, not instead of training leaders for existing congregations, but alongside them. I am happy that we are not trying to introduce the term “apostolic,” because it would sound pretentious and presumptuous, even elitist. But if we understand apostles in this sense to be “pioneer missionary evangelists through whom Christian communities are founded,”[16] then technically it is what we are seeking to do.

That’s the first question. But then we ask what exactly is this unfamiliar animal called the pioneer minister? The second part of this paper addresses this question:

2.     What does a pioneer look like?

Here I want to draw on my work on Vincent Donovan, and particularly his letters.  Donovan lived from 1926 till 2000. For sixteen years, from 1957 till 1973, he was a Roman Catholic missionary in Northern Tanzania, and for two of those years (1966-1968) worked among the Maasai. He belonged to a missionary order, the Order of the Holy Ghost, begun in the 19^th century and more commonly these days called the Spiritans. In 1973, he returned to the US, and in 1978 wrote a book about his experiences called Christianity Rediscovered (Orbis Books, 1978, 2003), which has become something of a classic in missiology,  cited in works as diverse as Adrian Hastings’ A History of African Christianity, 1950-1975 (1979), George Sumner’s The First and the Last (2004), Stephen Bevans and Roger Schroeder’s Constants in Context (2004), the Church of England’s Mission-Shaped Church report (2004), Brian McLaren’s Generous Orthodoxy (2004), and Dorothy Hodgson’s The Church of Women (2005).

Let me suggest six characteristics I see in Donovan which I think may be fairly said to be typical of those with this apostolic charism of pioneering.

(1)  Pioneers are restless at knowing that people have not heard the Gospel

I suspect this is the basic motivation for pioneers. You see it clearly in the Apostle Paul:

I make it my ambition to proclaim the good news, not where Christ has already been named, so that I do not build on someone else’s foundation, but as it is written, “Those who have never been told of him shall see, and those who have never heard of him shall understand.” (Romans 15:20-21)

Most Christians who see themselves as communicators of the Gospel spend their time preaching to those who have already heard the name of Christ, and are content to do so. Paul is different: so is Donovan. In June 1960, he writes:

I personally am responsible for preaching the gospel to seventy-thousand Arusha tribesmen, and further up the line, together with another priest, I am responsible for doing the same to fifty-thousand Meru tribesmen. That’s 120,000 people on the conscience of Reverend Vincent J. Donovan of Winston Street, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. . . . Perhaps you understand that it is not easy to get on a personal first-name relationship with all of my parishioners, especially since some of their names are so difficult, that it develops an extra muscle in your tongue if you pronounce them often. (June 1960)

Notice how he starts: “I personally am responsible for preaching the gospel.” There is already a Catholic church among the Meru with thirty-one members, and some would be satisfied to minister to them—but not a pioneer. Here is one of his clearest statements of why:

For a big group of people in our own diocese [the Meru] whose tribal ground covered an unbelievably large land area, the gospel was an unknown quantity. They had never heard it. . . . How I longed to go to them! (April 1963, emphasis original)

Donovan, like the Apostle Paul, is a pioneer in the sense that he has a deep yearning to go to those who have never heard the gospel. This is the deepest desire of his heart.

This is why, as he looks at the church’s deployment of its resources around the world, it grieves him that:

out of the forty-thousand missionaries of the world . . . less than one thousand of them [are] assigned to evangelize the four-fifths of the world that is pagan. . . . scarcely eighteen percent of the world  . . . has heard of Christ, nearly two thousand years after the Resurrection.  (July 1970)

As a result, the conviction grew on him during his early years in Tanzania that, for him at least, other ministries had to be secondary. Early on, he is proud of the fact that missionaries need to be generalists. He (and the great majority were men) needs to be “pastor, principal of school, architect, mason, carpenter, painter, plumber, mechanic, judge, doctor, cook, employer, administrator, accountant, diplomat, explorer, lawyer, beggar, [and] priest” (August 1959). But by 1965, he is bemoaning the fact that “many of the priests and other missionaries who were working in East Africa were doing everything but teaching religion. And you know, that is actually why they came to Africa—to teach religion—or ‘to preach the Gospel,’ as it says in the Bible.” (April 1965) In December of that year, he writes, “I have been involved in many kinds of work out here, building, transporting, medical, social, educational, and searching out new sections where the church has never entered.” Then he adds a very revealing note: “but it was in catechetical work that I truly felt I was closest to the heart of the matter.” It’s the work of evangelizing those who have never heard the Gospel that engages him most fully.

This impulse leads to a second characteristic of pioneers:

(2)  Pioneers are more centrifugal in their ministry than centripetal

Here’s how he summarized one stage of his work:

Most of my time is not spent around the little mission church, but outside the mission. Most of my work is not with the Christians, but with Pagans and [Muslims]. It is an entirely different atmosphere, and calls for entirely different methods. (June 1960)

Later on, thanks to the influence of Anglican missiologist Roland Allen, he begins to understand the Apostle Paul’s method of missionary work, and contrasts it with what other missionaries have been doing for decades, and you will notice his use of the terms centrifugal and centripetal:

Paul  . . . neither built nor established a mission [meaning a “mission compound”]. He himself was the mission, he and his companions, a mobile mission, a temporary mission in any one place, a team in motion or movement towards the establishment, not of a mission, but of an indigenous church. Paul founded churches. We found missions. . . . In the latter case, it is no longer a centrifugal force reaching out forever as far as it can.  It becomes instead centripetal, attracting everything to itself. Instead of symbolizing movement towards another thing (in this case, church [that is, a new congregation]), it becomes instead, itself, the end of the line. . . . The word missionary is really a misnomer in this context. The command to go out and preach the gospel has become subtly transformed into “Stay here; take care of what you have. Let others come to you.” Missionary movement comes to a dead stop.  (July 1970)

Of course, as soon as you decide to “go” and get involved with “the other,” questions arise. We know how to relate to those who are similar to ourselves. Derek Warlock, former Bishop of Liverpool, once defined culture as “the way we do things round here.” When we meet “the other,” we find they “do things” differently, all the way from a different language to a different understanding of God, and we are faced with the question of how to communicate the Gospel in this different culture. As a result, pioneers by the very nature of their calling are faced immediately and urgently with what we call for short “Gospel and culture” questions—rather more than those of us for whom church is our normal environment.

It is clear that the Apostle Paul wrestled with this question:

Woe to me if I do not proclaim the gospel! . . . [T]hough I am free with respect to all, I have made myself a slave to all, so that I might win more of them. To the Jews I became as a Jew, in order to win Jews. . . . To those outside the law I became as one outside the law . . . so that I might win those outside the law. To the weak I became weak, so that I might win the weak. I have become all things to all people, [why?] that I might by all means save some. I do it all for the sake of the gospel, so that I may share in its blessings. (1 Corinthians 9:16-23)

This leads me to suggest another characteristic of pioneers:

(3)  Pioneers seek to sit light to their own culture

I don’t know if Donovan ever encountered the writings of twentieth century Sri Lankan missiologist D. T. Niles (1908-1970), but he would certainly have sympathized with Niles’ advice:

When the missionaries came to our lands they brought not only the seed of the gospel, but their own plant of Christianity, flowerpot included. So . . . what we have to do is break the flowerpot, take out the seed of the gospel, sow it in our own cultural soil, and let our own version of Christianity grow.[17]

Donovan’s Order was sensitive to this issue from the beginning. Their founder, Francis Libermann (1802–1852), had advised them, for example:

Put off Europe, its customs, its spirit. . . . Become Negroes to the Negroes, in order to form them as they should be, not in the fashion of Europe, but allow them to keep what is peculiar to them.[18]

Having said that, however, Donovan and some of his colleagues were dissatisfied with the way the Order was living out its charism in the late 1950’s. In an early letter, Donovan notes, without comment:

Several [Spiritan missionaries] have built their own houses; one of which could have come out of the pages of “Better Homes and Gardens” at half the professional price. One of them  . . . without any training whatsoever, designed himself a beautiful, magnificent Gothic Cathedral—and has almost completed it.[19] (August 1 1959)

A Western flowerpot was governing the shape of the African plant. Some of the dissatisfaction had to do with the Diocese of Moshi, where Donovan was first placed. Although it was under African leadership by this time[20], the church there had taken on a particularly European coloring, at least in Donovan’s eyes. They were, he reports, “Western in education, western in dress, western in the Christian names they bear, the churches they worship in, and the hymns they sing” (October 1967). Libermann had explicitly warned against imitating “the fashion of Europe,” so no wonder Donovan and his colleagues were dissatisfied. However, in 1963, a new diocese, the Diocese of Arusha, was carved out of the growing Diocese of Moshi, a Spiritan bishop (Dennis Durning) was appointed, and most of the Spiritan missionaries were transferred there. This gave them scope to put into practice their convictions about enculturation.

By 1965, Donovan has begun to use the phrase “naked Christianity”—that is, Christianity without any cultural trappings. He comes close to Niles’ analogy by saying, “I had to plant the seed in the Masai[21] culture, and let it grow wild.”[22] He says the goal of the Spiritans is:

to examine our religion itself, strip it of all the accidentals that have accrued to it throughout the years and centuries; see if we could get back to a kind of naked Christianity. People have a tendency to cling to accidentals and forget essentials. We wouldn’t give our people a chance to cling to accidentals, because we wouldn’t teach any. (June 1965)

Most these days, I think, would agree with David Bosch, who says, “There never was a ‘pure’ message, supracultural and suprahistorical. It [is] impossible to penetrate to a residue of Christian faith that was not, in a sense, already interpretation.”[23] Newbigin suggests that to try and separate what is cultural in our understanding of the faith from what is “authentic” is “like pretending to move a bus while you are sitting on it.”[24] It cannot be done. The closest we can come, he suggests, is through studying scripture with people of other cultures and learning to respect their perspectives and thus question our own—as might happen, for example, at an international conference.

In Christianity Rediscovered, Donovan actually describes how this happened for him: for example, in his work among the Maasai, he assumed that candidates for baptism would be examined and baptized one by one—whereas the Maasai assumed that whole villages would be baptised together as communities. Donovan could have insisted that his way was the right way, but was sensitive enough to realise the Maasai were right and he was wrong: whole villages were baptised.[25]

Even though it is impossible to distinguish “naked Christianity,” yet the awareness that all of us have cultural biases in interpreting the Gospel, and the willingness to accept correction from someone of another culture, is crucial for our spiritual health—and especially for those who are pioneers.

Fourthly, if pioneers want to take the Gospel to those who have never heard it, and are sensitized to cultural differences, then a major characteristic will be that:

(4)  Pioneers have a desire to translate the Gospel

Not long after he arrived in Tanzania, Donovan was struck by the fact that many of the hymns the African Catholics sang were Swahili words set to “Alsatian, French and German” tunes. The most Westernized of the tribes, the Chagga, seemed to be satisfied with this, but the Maasai were not: he writes, “They do not like Swahili . . . And they do not understand or like European melodies.” So Donovan began to collect Maasai tunes, and set the words of the Mass (Latin, of course!) to those tunes. The result was dramatic:

After the Mass, the Masai . . . in the blankets and skins came to me with tears in their eyes, to thank me for bringing to them, in a way they understood, the message of God and the worship of God.

The mark of a pioneer is not just that he or she does this, but that they find joy in doing it: “Would you think me strange if I told you that that day there were tears in my eyes, too—if I told you that there is nothing—nothing quite like missionary work?” (Aug 9, 1960) Not surprisingly, he adds, “I became half Masai myself” (July 1960).

It’s an interesting historical footnote that around this time he asked his bishop for permission to do the whole of the high mass in the Maasai language. The bishop, a Chagga by the name of Kilasara, had no choice but to say no but, Donovan comments, “I was told such permission will be granted at the Ecumenical Council soon to be held.” (August 9 1960) That “Ecumenical Council” was what came to be known as the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965), at which the Spiritans and their concerns were well represented.

This passion for translation is actually one way that a pioneer safeguards against imposing his or her own culture. Lamin Sanneh is an African teaching at Yale, who has written extensively on the effect of translation. He puts it this way:

[T]he gospel is potentially capable of transcending the cultural inhibitions of the translator and taking root in fresh soil [the seed image again!], a piece of transplanting that will in time come to challenge the presuppositions of the translator [—precisely what happened with Donovan’s revolution about communal baptisms] . . . When one translates, it is like pulling the trigger of a loaded gun: the translator cannot recall the speeding bullet.[26]

Perhaps it is obvious by now, but the fifth characteristic is worth spelling out:

(5)  Pioneers are willing to take on a challenge

The desire to share the Gospel with those who have never heard it means that pioneers are prepared to make sacrifices. On two occasions, Donovan’s bishop asked him to take on a pioneering challenge. The first was in 1961, when Bishop Kilasara sent a message asking Donovan to leave the Senior Seminary in Kibosho, which he had been directing, and to go to Usa River to begin a mission among the Meru tribe. Donovan writes:

The Meru! They stretched out from the south east corner ofMountMerudown into the plains far below. I remembered hearing back in 1958 that in the whole Meru tribe, there were only eleven Catholics. I asked the vicar general if he knew how many Catholics there were in the tribe now. He said according to the latest statistics there were now thirty-one. Thirty-one Catholics in a tribe of fifty-thousand! They were one of the most stubborn tribes we had ever come in contact with, rejecting every advance we ever made towards them. The vicar general was smiling. (April 1963)

Most of us would not be excited at such a challenge. Donovan is different. His immediate response? “Mission to the Meru! Mission to the Meru! My heart began to sing” (April 1963).

For a pioneer like Donovan, the challenge of a pioneering assignment like this is precisely what gives him joy.

Five years later, his bishop (now the Spiritan Bishop Durning) wanted him to apply the missionary strategy that he had developed among the Maasai to another tribe, the Sonjo, and again Donovan rose to the challenge:

The Sonjo! The Sonjo are a tribe more primitive than the Masai, mysterious in their origins . . . almost completely impervious to any outside influence. . . . Because of [this], they can be an extremely difficult people with which to work. . . . Of course, this is what I had been dreaming of, what I had been saying we not only can do but must do—evangelize one tribe after the other, and move on, never settling down, never letting the word mission be changed from the active, moving, dynamic thing that it is supposed to be into a static, settled down, comfortable, turned-in, institutional, end-of-the-line type thing that it usually becomes. . . . I took the job—and a stiff drink the bishop offered me. (September 1968)

In light of the first five characteristics, I do not think the final one will come as a surprise:

(6)            Pioneers are often considered trouble-makers

Donovan himself does not seem to have been labeled this way, but this is because he was a part of a missionary Order. But the Order itself was often considered a thorn in the flesh by the national church of Tanzania. When the new Diocese of Arusha was created in 1963, for some it was seen as a way to accommodate (and perhaps isolate) the ethos of the Spiritans, who were regarded as uncomfortably radical. Donovan comments on what happened at national church gatherings:

We in Arusha . . . are pretty far out on a limb in many things. . . . Opinions and thoughts from Arusha always caused much commotion, and were inevitably received with much suspicion and fear.

One thorny issue concerned the possibility of ordaining married men. As Donovan worked among the Maasai, he was very struck by how natural leaders emerge from the community—and he would like to have ordained them.[27] But, of course, in the Catholic system, they would first of all had to do seven years theological training, and be committed to celibacy. Even if the churches could wait that long, by the time they came back, how far would they be able to relate to their own people? Donovan describes arguing the case at a national conference:

[T]he hostility from the local clergy of other Dioceses and from Bishops towards the idea of married priests was incredible, we almost thought insurmountable. After a year of meetings, discussions etc., the change in mentality is just as remarkable. I think everyone agrees that something must be done and although everyone is not yet prepared to go as far as we want to go, they are at least willing at last to discuss the problem.  (Dec 30, 1969)

Usually it is an individual pioneer who is a thorn in the flesh for the institutional church. What is amusing here is that it is a whole pioneering diocese (not to mention its bishop) that creates a problem for the national church. One correspondent told me that other Tanzanian bishops tried for twenty years to get Durning to resign: in fact, he lasted 23 years!

Conclusion

You will not be surprised to know that I think we need to do more to nurture pioneers and pioneer ministries. Strangely enough, the two Christian traditions that have taken this kind of ministry seriously are the so-called evangelical denominations on the one hand, and the Roman Catholics on the other. It seems to have been harder for Protestant mainline denominations—Anglican, United and Lutheran, for example—to read the signs of the times and act accordingly. Maybe we had more invested in Christendom than either of the other groups, and are still in denial about its death!

If I am right, then there are three fronts we need to work on: firstly, developing a fuller theology of pioneer ministries and an understanding of how it relates to our missiology and our ecclesiology; secondly, looking for models—starting with the Apostle Paul, but including those like Vincent Donovan, who have exercised the charism of pioneering ministry over the centuries and who have much to teach us; and thirdly, we need to work on finding ways to identify, cultivate and deploy those who have the potential for this kind of ministry.

But let me give the last word to Vincent Donovan:

An inward-turned Christianity is a dangerous counterfeit, an alluring masquerade—is no Christianity at all. . . . Christianity must be a force that moves outwards.  A Christian, in his community or out of it, must, like Christ, be essentially a “man for others.”[28]  Not for himself.  And the Christian community is basically in existence for others.  That is the whole meaning of a Christian community. . . . Christ did not say, “Be good and the world will come to you.” He said, “Go out to all the world.”   (May 1970)

Let us be imitators of Vincent Donovan as he was of the Apostle Paul, as he was of Christ. To the glory of God.

Lecture given on the occasion of John Bowen’s promotion to ful professor

January 11, 2012

This spring, May 1-7, there is an opportunity to encounter Scripture—which is to say to encounter Jesus in Scripture—which will be unique and life-changing.  My friend Dr Al Anderson has for some years taught a one-week intensive course on the Gospel of Mark for IVCF students from across Canada. The more I have heard about it, the more I have coveted (I hope in a good sense) this experience for Wycliffe students. Through this past summer and Fall, Al and Marie and I have been figuring out ways whereby Wycliffe (and other TST) students could take this course and get credit for it. This has now happened, and the course is available—thanks be to God!

So how does the course work?  Here’s how Al describes it:

Over the course of seven days we will study half of the Gospel of Mark. Students will spend over 40 hours in study time, first in individual study, then in small groups and finally as a whole group. An inductive method is used, following a “manuscript” version of the text (that is, printed on 8 x 11 sheets without chapters or verses). The emphasis is on asking questions of the text and wrestling together to come to answers. The process is exhilarating, refreshing, and tends to unlock insights in the passage that have never been seen before. Ultimately it is life changing, as the new understanding of scripture tends to change students’ viewpoints and lifestyles.

I think you can tell from that that this is not like a NT course. Nor is it like a group Bible study, nor is it like listening to a sermon, nor is it like following a study guide.  If it is like anything, it’s most like a week’s immersion course in a foreign language—except that the language is scripture.

So . . . what’s not to like? Well, the price, that’s what. One of the requirements is that you live in community for the week—at Glendon College (on Bayview in Toronto). This costs a further $500 on top of the College’s charge for the course. Oh wow. So I guess that means you can’t do it after all, even though it sounds really good, right? Almost $1,000 for a one week course? Get real!

But wait a minute. Doesn’t God come into this equation somewhere? I love what I’ve heard Peter Patterson, Business Director of the College, say more than once: “If we think God wants us to do this, we’ll find a way to pay for it.” (Not many business managers talk that way, trust me.)

The first question is not, “How would I ever pay for it?” The first question is, “Does God want me to do this?” If the answer to the second is Yes, then the next answer (also a prayer) is, “How on earth are you going to enable me to pay for it?”

It might be one of those occasions when a cheque appears out of the blue. (“I felt the Lord wanted me to give you this. I don’t know why, but maybe you do.”) Such things do happen.  There might also be some “natural” ways to think about this. When people ask you what you want for Christmas, why not say, “Well, as you know, I’m an impoverished student. Money is actually the most helpful thing!” Or what about your church? Many churches have discretionary funds for people in particular need, or for students, or for youth ventures. James warns us, “You have not, because you ask not.” (James 4:2)

I hate to say it but, in the large scale of things, $500 is not that much. You will have greater needs at various points in your life. Not bad to start developing that muscle of faith now with some relatively small exercises, so that it’s strong when the real needs come along.

The way OM worked was simple. We were sent off all over Europe in teams of a dozen or so with several boxes of Bibles and other Christian books, which we then went door to door trying to sell. If we sold enough books, we had money to buy our daily bread. If not, not. So we prayed, and we went door to door (with our halting French—using phrases I still remember), and we sold books. And each day we had enough to buy food and other necessities. So far, so good.

But the exercise got more complicated towards the end of our time, when we needed not only enough food for one day but for three days, since we were heading back to HQ in Belgium, a drive that would take two days, during which time we would not be stopping to sell books. Added to that, two of our team had to leave early, so we needed extra money to pay their train fares—and lost two of our modest sales force. Then, on top of that, on the last day, we only had half a day to go selling before we had to leave. All this meant that, in a shorter time than usual, with fewer team members than usual, we were in need of three times our daily income. Suffice it to say: our prayers were answered. Suddenly everyone wanted to buy Bibles. We were all amazed. And (as you gather), I have never forgotten the experience.

All this meant that when I joined IVCF staff in 1973, and was told that staff were only paid whatever was sent in for their support, that didn’t seem as scary as it might otherwise have seemed.  And, in fact, during 25 years or so of working for IVCF, there was only one month when I received less than I was supposed to receive. (There was a salary scale, but of course it was more of an ideal than a guarantee.)

I told my spiritual director about this a little while back, and his response was interesting: “Oh yes, that kind of thing has always been a part of the training of the Jesuits. They would be given $5 and sent off to find their way to the other side of the country.” As with Operation Mobilisation (in some ways the opposite end of several spectrums from the Jesuits), the intention was that Christians learn in very basic and practical ways what we say we believe: that God takes care of us.

Not everyone is called to live this way in the long term, though undoubtedly some are—I think as a witness and reminder to the rest of us and to the world. But I believe all of us would be more confident in our discipleship, not to mention more joyful in our witness, if we each had at least one notable experience of having God very obviously provide for our needs when there simply was nowhere else to turn.

This would change the way we approach regular congregational life, where there are always financial stresses; and it’s even more important in pioneering ministry where there isn’t (yet) a faithful congregation you can simply appeal to to dig a little deeper.

God loves us. It’s the most basic of Christian claims, isn’t it? But in what concrete (and financial!) ways have we actually experienced the love of God? Something to ponder. And pray about.

Does he have anything to say about pioneer ministries or fresh expressions of church? It would be nice to say yes, but the truthful answer is not really. He lived just as the first cracks in Christendom were beginning to show. He did recognise that Britain could not by any stretch of the imagination be called a “Christian country,” and was actively involved in the (re)-evangelization of Britain through his writings, his lecturing, and his broadcasts.

But as far as the institutional church was concerned, things still seemed pretty stable. Every Oxford and Cambridge College had its chapel as a central part of its life. (One of Lewis’ first deliberate acts of witness to his new faith was to start attending college chapel daily.)

Every village had its Anglican parish church and priest. Lewis and his brother faithfully attended their local church in Headington, on the north side of Oxford, although their involvement was somewhat quirky.  You can still see the pew where they sat—almost hidden behind a pillar. They didn’t hang around at the end of the service either. (Coffee hour had not been invented, but they wouldn’t have gone anyway.)

They were deeply conservative about liturgy. Their favourite time of the church’s year was “Ordinary Time” (between Pentecost and Advent) because the rhythm of worship wasn’t interrupted by annoying festivals like Easter and Christmas. Lewis did acknowledge that liturgical change was necessary (“the ideal of ‘timeless English’ is sheer nonsense”), but recommended that it be at the rate of “one obsolete word replaced in a century.” You get the general idea.

At the same time, he was an active evangelist—a ministry that was really not on his church’s radar. Apart from his broadcasts and writing, he was a popular evangelistic speaker. During the Second World War, he was invited to give lectures at RAF bases around Britain, and learned there the sort of questions that “ordinary” non-church folk were asking; he also learned the art of translating theological truths into the vernacular.

Many of his letters are to people who had written to him to ask for spiritual advice. There he shows himself to be a wise, patient, conversational, and caring evangelist. And he prayed for those he counseled. He wrote to a friend:  “I have two lists of names in my prayers, those for whose conversion I pray, and those for whose conversion I give thanks. The little trickle of transferences from List A to List B is a great comfort.” That’s not a bad model for any Christian, whether in an existing church or a fresh expression of church.

Does he give any indication that there might be changes in the way church is done? In another letter, he makes the distinction between the wine of church and the wineskin of how we do church:

The only rite which we know to have been instituted by Our Lord Himself is the Holy Communion. . . . This is an order and must be obeyed. The other services are, I take it, traditional and might lawfully be altered. But the New Testament does not envisage solitary religion: some kind of regular assembly for worship and instruction is everywhere taken for granted in the epistles. So we must be regular practicing members of the Church. [my italics]

What would he have thought had he been alive today? We can only guess, but my hunch is that he would say something like this: “Well, this fresh expressions business is really not for me. But I can see it’s important for the growing number of unchurched people, and I rejoice if it is going to contribute to the re-evangelization of a nation.”

Happy 113^th birthday, Jack. Farther in and farther up!

In particular, I believe we need an explanation of the Gospel upfront on our websites. Many church websites describe their community as “family-oriented,” “inclusive,” “kid-friendly,” “a welcoming community,” and so on. Most go further and say something about faith: “knowing Christ and making him known” is popular; “followers of Jesus” and “a faith-filled family” are phrases that crop up. Smart websites have a “Frequently asked questions” section, anticipating visitors’ questions like “What’s the dress code?” and “Do I have to belong to your denomination?” But I haven’t found many church websites with a section explicitly called, “Becoming a Christian.”

The church of which I am a member, St John the Evangelist in Hamilton (see              www.rockonlocke.ca), recently added a section called just that, under the tab     “New here?” (OK, I confess, it’s not a coincidence: I had something to do with it.)    What    follows is the text of that part of the website. Naturally, you don’t have to agree  with every word of it. There is not enough about some things and probably too much  about others. It’s intended as a taster, a teaser, meant to intrigue and attract. It is  not a systematic theology. If you don’t like it, hopefully it will inspire you to write  something better. But if you do like it, you are welcome to copy it or adapt it for  your own church’s website.

 Becoming a Christian

 The simplest way to define a Christian is as “a follower of Jesus.” That means, someone who tries to learn from Jesus Christ what he has to teach about God, about life and how to live it, and about death and how to deal with it. In a sense, a Christian is a student of Jesus the Teacher.

If that is a Christian, then what is the church? Again, at its simplest, church is when followers of Jesus get together. Why do they get together? To learn more about how to follow Jesus, to pray together, and to encourage one another in their faith. In a sense, the church is the school of Jesus. And, in most churches, they also break bread and drink wine together (variously called the Mass, Communion, Eucharist, or Lord’s Supper) as Jesus told his followers to do. They also get together because one of the things Jesus taught was that God is interested not just in individuals living good lives, but in people learning to live as a diverse and harmonious community.

 Another way to think of a Christian is as someone who has responded to the Good News—or Gospel—that Jesus taught. What is that Good News? It is about something he called “the Kingdom of God”—the state of affairs where things are done in the way the Creator intended. Jesus said that this Kingdom came into the world in a special way when God sent him into the world—in effect, that he was the King of this Kingdom

So what is the Good News of “the Kingdom”? That God in love has not given up on our world, with all its hurt and folly and wars. Rather, in spite of all appearances to the contrary, God is at work to put things to rights, to shape a world where all pain and self-centeredness is done away with. And God invites human beings everywhere to be part of this new thing he is doing in the world.

How do you become part of God’s work, part of God’s “kingdom”? That’s where becoming a follower of Jesus comes in. Why? Because it’s from Jesus that we learn most clearly what it means to work with God in this project of restoring the world. Jesus demonstrated the Kingdom himself—by the way he lived, but also by his brutal execution for our sins and by his miraculous coming back to life three days later—and he taught others how to walk that same road. And that’s why, if we want to work with the Creator in this amazing global restoration project, the best way to do it is in the school of Jesus.

How do you become a follower of Jesus, then? Jesus used two old-fashioned-sounding words to describe it: “repent” and “believe.” “Repent” means to turn away from one thing, and “believe” means to turn towards something else: a 180 degree change, as if we set off walking west and then turned right around and start heading east. Another word for turning around like this is conversion. For some people, that turning around is sudden, but for others it takes a long time.

So what does that journey in a new direction look like? As you might expect, it means a complete change of view. (After all, if you were heading west, you would have been walking towards the sunset; now, facing east, you’re heading towards the sunrise.) Before, it meant living my life as though it belonged to me. Now I realise that it is a gift from the Creator. Before, it meant setting the priorities of my life according to what I thought was important. Now it means learning what God’s priorities for my life are. Before, I could be as selfish as I wanted to be. Now I am learning to serve God and others. The changes are huge.

Does that sound difficult? Well, yes, Jesus never said it would be easy: he was very clear that in some ways it would feel like a death, and any experienced Christian will tell you that following him is often difficult. But the good news is that in following Jesus, you are actually learning to follow the Creator’s way, which means you’re learning to live your life with the grain of the universe, not against it. And in the end that means experiencing what Jesus called “life in all its fullness”—becoming the person that you were created to be, and doing what you were made to do—and in the company of the God who made you and who loves you.

If this sounds intriguing, come check us out one of these Sundays. As you can tell, becoming a Christian is a big thing—in fact, the biggest decision you could ever make—and nobody wants you to rush into it. Come see what church (this followers-of-Jesus-getting-together event) is like. How do they experience Christian faith? How do they handle the difficulties? What are the joys? How do they keep going? How do they experience the love of God? Listen in on their praying, their singing, their teaching, their conversation. They will welcome your eavesdropping!

And if, after a time, you decide that this is indeed what you want, talk to the minister about baptism. If being a Christian is being a student in the school of Jesus, getting baptized is the way you register in the school. It’s a public ceremony (you can’t be a private Christian) and involves you stating your desire to be a follower of Jesus. And the whole Christian community (your fellow students) is there to cheer you on, promising to support and encourage you in your new life.

Perhaps you were baptized as a baby, but have never really done anything about it. In that case, if you decide you want to be a follower of Jesus, there is something called “Re-affirmation of Baptismal Vows,” where you are not baptized again (that’s not necessary), but you take the promises that were made on your behalf as a baby and make them your own as a thoughtful adult choice. And that can be just as meaningful as baptism itself.

Do email us or phone if you would like more information. And, wherever you are at in your spiritual journey, we look forward to meeting you one of these Sundays.

***

The first step to revising your own church’s website just might be to check out the sites of other churches. What works? What doesn’t? Learn from the mistakes of others and be inspired by the ingenuity of those who do it well. And, in particular, let’s take the opportunity of this first contact with new people to say something about the Gospel

But if we were not a church, what were we? I was greatly helped, as were many of my colleagues, by an article written by Ralph Winter of Fuller Seminary, entitled The Two Structures of God’s Redemptive Mission. (You can read it in many places online such as here.)

His basic argument is that, throughout history, both in Scripture and in the centuries since then, there seem to be, well, two structures to God’s mission. In the Old Testament, they were (a) the priestly (concerned for the weekly life and worship of God’s people) and (b) the prophetic (wild men—usually—often living outside the community, sometimes in bands, and swooping down periodically to announce a Word from the Lord). Both were necessary: the priestly for the maintenance of regular community life, the prophetic to prevent complacency and to recall people to their mission. Winter calls the first the modality, the second the sodality—but don’t worry about it.

In the New Testament there is a parallel structure: the local communities led by elders who pastored and taught; and travelling bands of apostles and prophets. You see the pattern most clearly in Acts.

In the centuries following, the prophetic and apostolic were replaced by the monastic orders. (Winter notes that most popes have come out of the orders, not from the parish stream.) And since the 19^th century, the second stream has taken the form of missionary societies and what we have come to call “parachurch” (literally alongside-the-church) organisations—like IVCF.

One thing I am seeing today as we realise more and more the missionary challenge that lies before us in the west is groups seeking a revival of the second stream, the sodality.  For some, this means living in intentional community in order to engage in mission; for others, it means a looser association of likeminded but scattered individuals who join a mission Order. St Thomas’ Crookes, a huge and mission-minded church in Sheffield UK, has The Order of Mission (TOM for short—see here). The Church Mission Society has recently turned itself into just such a mission Order and invited others to join. (See here.)

These Orders are voluntary, and include men and women, lay and ordained, “paid” and “volunteer” members. They often include a Rule of Life—not to replace other such, but to supplement them with mutual support and prayer for members and other resources.

If Winter is right in his observation, I would suggest that the church in Canada (across the denominations) has majored on the modality (the parish structure) and neglected the sodality (the mission Order). The strength that comes from such a voluntary association could greatly enhance our efforts to grow a more missional church.

Think about it, and let me know what you think.

You will get a sense from the Wikipedia entry here of why he is an important person in the present international missional church scene. Among other things he is the founder of the Forge Mission Training Network, which is now taking root in Canada, headed up by my friend Cam Roxburgh, a Baptist church planter from Vancouver.

If you would like to come for the day, I will be driving from the college around noon, and coming back after the evening session. The cost is $15 for students. If this is prohibitive, let me know as there may be help stuffed away in an old sock somewhere. The publicity says nothing about supper, so I guess people have to find their own meal. (I would be perfectly content with a Timmy’s.)

Please let me know ASAP, since I only have room for three (or four if they’re skinny) in my car. I suggest you then register individually via the Forge website.

A couple of times recently, people have said to me, “Why don’t you drop the term ‘church planting,’ and just call it ‘the Vital Church conference’ or something like that?” I guess their thinking is that so much about the conference is applicable to any church looking for renewal and revitalization. So why not broaden the appeal by dropping the idea of church planting, or at least moving it to the margins, since so many don’t see it as relevant?

So far we have resisted the idea, and I’ll tell you why. The goal of Fresh Expressions is simple: it is to start new Christian communities which we trust will grow in time into mature churches. Pete Atkins, a medical doctor and a leader of Fresh Expressions in the UK, says, “Fresh Expressions is really just a name for church planting in a post-Christendom world.”

(If we just called it “church planting,” people would assume we meant putting up new buildings in new subdivisions, putting in a priest, beginning services and hoping that, since we have built it, they will recognise their responsibility to come. The term “fresh expressions of church” avoids that danger.)

Of course, the fact that the term “fresh expressions” is not well-known or understood is part of the problem. It has been applied to everything from the introduction of a coffee hour after a service to the replacement of an organ with a music group (“a fresh expression of organs” as Rowan Williams has joked). Although that kind of change may be helpful to the church’s mission, the term is most authentically applied to fresh expressions of CHURCH.

What the VCP conference offers—and which is unique—is the insight that many Canadians (perhaps most?) will never be reached by existing churches, however missional and outward-oriented, and that they will only be reached by new Christian communities which are formed by and within their culture, not ours.  (Those of you who have read Vincent Donovan will understand this, since it is what he was aiming at among the Maasai.)

Rowan Williams affirms this distinction when he says:

“Renewal for the Christian community is never simply a matter of doing the same things better, though that is an essential part of it; it’s also about finding what new shapes for our life together are created under the  pressure of mission. New wines and new wineskins, you might say; the idea is firmly rooted in the Gospel itself.” (My emphasis. See his article in Mixed Economy: the Journal of Fresh Expressions here.)

This is why we have had speakers at VCP who have actually planted new churches, like Beth Fellinger and Pernell Goodyear and Connie denBok, and (this year) Dave Male from Ridley Hall, Cambridge. Because they are experienced practitioners, they are able to hold our feet to the fire on this issue.

If we changed the name—and the focus—of the conference, it would become yet another conference to help churches become renewed, revitalized, and missionally oriented. That is worth a million dollars, of course, but there are ALREADY all sorts of resources for doing that, from the Alban Institute to Al Roxburgh’s Missional Network, and there have been such for over 25 years.

So, for the time being, at least, the conference will remain the Vital Church Planting conference and will encourage and equip people to begin fresh expressions of CHURCH. I hope to see you there!

Some of you know that my wife Deborah is an English professor, and she can be quite evangelistic on behalf of the benefits of reading fiction.  One book she uses as a text-book (Literature through the Eyes of Faith, by Gallagher and Lundin) says things like:

“In and out of literature, stories tell us who we are and what we might become.”
“Reading literature can help us to love others and to construct a world that demonstrates that love, because one of its functions is to increase our knowledge.”
“Encountering new ideas in a text may allow you to understand your neighbour but also may allow you to understand yourself more clearly in juxtaposition.”

When you read a novel, you encounter people and situations in places you will never yourself experience, and your imagination and your heart expand as a result.

The same is true for Christian biography. As I look back, I realise how profoundly I have been shaped by reading the biographies of great Christians, not least pioneers in overseas ministry. When we were undergrads in IVCF at Oxford, we were encouraged to read such things, and I really believe those books shaped—and continue to shape—our understanding of the Christian life and what it means to “live for Jesus,”  even though we were reading about people and places we would never experience directly.

One of the first I read was Shadow of the Almighty, by Elizabeth Elliott, about her husband Jim, who was one of five young missionaries killed by Auca Indians in Ecuador at the age of 29. I still remember his words, “He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain that which he cannot lose.” That book was the first I remember finishing and immediately going back to the beginning to read it again.

The Cambridge Seven by John Pollock was also very influential at that time: the story of seven young men (yes, a lot were about men, even though so many women were missionaries!) who gave up fame and fortune to serve the Gospel in China with Hudson Taylor, pioneer of the Overseas Missionary Fellowship.

Henry Martyn by Constance Padwick was about another Cambridge student (not a lot of Oxford people for some reason)—a brilliant mathematician this time—who gave up his career and the woman he loved to be a missionary in the Middle East. He translated the whole of the New Testament into Urdu, Persian and Judaeo-Persic. Then, like so many of these folk, he died at an early age—31.

My two favourite stories of women missionaries (yes, I have read some) were The Little Woman, by Alan Burgess, about Gladys Aylward, who was refused by Hudson Taylor—but went to China by herself anyway and spent most of her life there; and A Passion for the Impossible, by Miriam Huffman Rockness, about Lilias Trotter, who gave up fame and fortune and a promising career in art to serve the poor of Algeria for forty years.

More recently, I have become interested in Jesuit missionaries at the time of the Protestant Reformation. (Why did it take so long for Protestants to develop such a passionate, dedicated missionary movement?) Ignatius Loyola’s own biography (by Philip Caraman) is fascinating , but so is A Pearl to India by Vincent Cronin (the story of Robert deNobili, whom you may have studied in Foundations). And I have just found second-hand online (for the princely sum of 99 cents) The Memory of Palace of Matteo Ricci (the pioneer Jesuit missionary in China) by Jonathan Spence.

The creativity of these people, and what they were prepared to put up with for the sake of the Gospel!

Being a pioneer is not just a matter of learning strategies and analzying cultures and reading Lesslie Newbigin, good though those things are. It is also a matter of having our hearts strangely warmed by the examples of those who have pioneered before us—often in contexts much tougher than we will ever face.

And those stories can indeed “tell us who we are and what we might become.”

Example: Graham Tomlin, who heads up St Milletus’ College (an offshoot of Holy Trinity, Brompton, home of Alpha, and a fully-accredited seminary, specialising in pioneer training) said to me, “Pioneers need more theology, not less, than regular pastors.” (I told him, “That will make my boss very happy.”)

It makes perfect sense, doesn’t it? If you go into an existing congregation, however dispirited or dysfunctional, there is some theological tradition present: people who know the prayer book and the hymn book, and have at least heard much of the Bible over the years. Theology (even bad theology) is impregnated deep in the woodwork, however unconsciously. And, as pastor, you can draw on that, expand it, deepen it, even (where necessary) correct it.

But in a pioneering situation—perhaps doing missional discernment for a year, perhaps serving needs or building relationships with folk unconnected with a church—you are IT. You are (forgive the pomposity of the phrase) the Sole Bearer of Theological Tradition. You had better know your theology because no-one else will (expect perhaps—hopefully—your team). There is no woodwork for the theology to be deeply impregnated in. Actually, there is no woodwork. So the theology needs to be deeply impregnated somewhere else—to be precise, in your mind and heart.

Well, you get the point.

This post is really about another resource pioneers need, however, though it relates to the first: and that is the resource of spiritual direction. Hopefully in your pioneering situation you will have a coach—a buddy who can walk alongside you, advise you, laugh and cry with you, help you troubleshoot, tell you when you’re doing well and when you’ve blown it. (That’s a subject for another week.) But you also need someone whose concern for you is primarily your relationship with God: a spiritual director.

I have been seeing the same spiritual director for ten years, roughly every five weeks, and it has become an anchor of my spiritual life. Jack does not advise me about my ministry or my relationships, although we talk about those things. What I go to him for is to talk about my relationship with God—where I am seeing God at work, where I wish I were seeing God at work, and how I am responding (or not) to God.

Personally, I think most Christians could use spiritual direction, but pioneers need it more than many—and the reason is the same as the need for strong theology. In a regular parish placement, there are things in the culture that will (hopefully) sustain and nourish your relationship with God—daily and weekly worship in community, the fellowship of at least few mature Christians, perhaps a pastors’ fellowship group, and so on.

But in a pioneering situation, those may be few and far between. And having a reliable spiritual director whose wisdom and insight you trust, can keep you growing in your relationship with God when the actual pioneering situation is tough and not particularly nourishing, when it takes more than it gives.

My suggestion is that you try spiritual direction now, while you are a student, rather than waiting till you graduate and have more time. (A commonly held myth.) Annette has a list of spiritual directors who make themselves available to Wycliffe students, and she would be happy to advise you.

So I would encourage you to be on the lookout for other resources to supplement your Wycliffe Pioneer Stream diet. This may be things like:

* conferences

* peer mentoring groups

* podcasts

* books

* visiting a new church and talking to folks.

Will you get credit for this? No. Will it help you prepare for your ministry? Of course. Will you do it? I certainly hope so, as and when you are able.

And if you need suggestions for any of the above, just ask.

All this is a lead-in to telling you about some upcoming events that may be of interest to you. Some are distant and would require a car and travel time to get there. Nevertheless any or all of them would be highly worthwhile.

* Wednesday November 2nd: Alan Kreider will be speaking at the Wednesday event. He is a Mennonite missional thinker from the UK. Mennonites have not suffered the effects of Christendom in quite the same way that mainline denominations have done, and they have something to offer us. (You will find an outline of his bio on Wikipedia.) This is the easiest: travel time 1 minute or less.

* Thursday evening, November 3rd and all day Friday November 4th: Alan Kreider is speaking at Tyndale on Worship and Mission after Christendom. See here. (Incidentally Marie Soderlund’s nephew Glen Soderholm, is leading the music!) Thursday night is free; Friday is $20 for students (if that is a hardship, scholarships can be found).  Tyndale is half an hour’s drive away.

* Saturday November 5th: A Learning Party, organised by a group called the Cultivate Network, taking place in London. The organiser, Pernell Goodyear, has spoken at the Vital Church Planting conference, started a Salvation Army church plant in Hamilton some years ago, and is now helping a “formerly Baptist church” in London become missional. He describes a “learning party” this way: “it’s designed to be everything good about a conference without the usual rigmarole… and much more fun and interactive.” I’ve been to one of these, and they are unique, not least as a chance for people at various stages of pioneering to learn from one another. Cost $35 (again, scholarships can be etc.).  London is a two-hour drive.

Diane Walker, United Church of Canada pastor, Niagara

“The MSM course was a great place to renew vision, dream, plan and strategize and refocus what church could look like. I would highly recommend this course for individuals and teams who have a heart for mission and their world.”

Beth Fellinger, Christian Reformed church planter, St. Thomas, Ontario

“Taking the MSM course has given my colleague and me knowledge, confidence and encouragement to start a fresh expression of ministry.”

Jonathon Connell, Anglican priest, Edmonton, Alberta

“In my experience MSM is one of those all too rare spaces where leaders can explore the “How to’s and how not to’s” of birthing fresh expressions of church, develop a renewed sense of their own authentic evangelism in a setting aware of the range of theological traditions in the mainstream church, connect their learning with hands-on-experience, develop supportive networks of the growing company of those responding to this new call and ground all of it in the Trinitarian God who fuels our mission.”

Rob Dalgleish, United Church of Canada, Toronto

“Another student from last year’s class and I started up a fresh expression during last year’s course, and we are continuing it this year, as we are just starting to reach some unchurched and dechurched people. MSM will have been a very central course among my theological degrees in terms of the effect it will have had on my understanding of what ministry is, what the priesthood is, and what being a follower of Jesus of Nazareth really is.”

Jeff Stone, Night Church, Toronto

“The MSM course enabled us to move beyond just being passionate about the possibility of a plant.  We learned of successes and  failures; we met church planters and made connections across denominational lines. It was a blessing to witness all that God is doing in the Church and to the possibilities that lie ahead.”

Beverley and Graham Williams, Anglican priest and layperson, Brooklyn, Ontario

“I found the MSM course incredibly helpful.  It helped me clarify my own role in the church planting process and gave me a range of insights that I was able to adapt to my own context.  It also gave us the tools to evaluate what we were doing in order to iron out those things that would have limited the projects we were involved in.  As somebody who has been involved in church planting in three countries I would suggest that this is a great learning opportunity for those who as seasoned ministers as much as it is for those exploring new forms of ministry and church planting for the first time.”  

Simon Bell, Anglican priest, St George the Martyr, Toronto,

“MSM is a course that both inspires and encourages fresh ways of bringing the Gospel to the world by equipping and encouraging the saints in doing creative Kingdom work. I loved the course.”

Paul Ranson, Anglican priest, St. John, New Brunswick

“I enrolled in the Mission Shaped Ministry course because I am interested in different and creative ways of sharing the Gospel. Taking the MSM course has given me (and my colleague) knowledge, confidence and encouragement to start a fresh expression of ministry.”

Jon Dykeman, Anglican, St. John, New Brunswick

“There are no gimmicks or sexy solutions here only humble and prayerful inquiry into the “sent-ness” of the church and what this means for our life together to the glory of God.  I now feel better equipped and hopeful for the task that lies ahead.” 

Jonathan Turtle, Pentecostal Assemblies of Canada, Toronto

“MSM was an excellent experience. It brought together people who were involved in missional churches to tell us about their experiences. It was real and it was practical.”

Arthur Dyck, Anglican, Edmonton.

“I would highly recommend the MSM course for anyone who wishes to engage with fellow Christians in what God is trying to birth in our Western 21st-century church and society. It provides helpful cultural analysis, solid exploration of our biblical/theological roots, a serious engagement of what mission means today, practical suggestions from church planting practitioners as well as a wonderful opportunity to share and discern together how the Holy Spirit is calling us to embody the gospel today. Regardless of your role in the church – pastor, layperson, church planter – there’s a banquet of material and ideas in this course. I commend Wycliffe College for offering this to the wider church.”

John Lawson, United Church church planter, Guelph

“Toronto Mission Shaped Ministry course is definite must for your fall “to do” list. The dynamic mix of teaching, excellent guest speakers, interesting group conversation, video clips and prayer opened my mind to many new ideas.”

Ann Krueger,  Lutheran pastor, Barrie, Ontario

“I learned strategies about how to deal with the baggage of the dechurched and moreover how to make Church relevant for a world that is essentially unchurched. I found the required readings were also pertinent and thought provoking. Having a team in place to share the work of a new church plant is vital and I wish the rest of the team I belonged to could have shared the course with me and preferably before we had started our project!”

Barbara Jenkins – Anglican layperson, Toronto

For details of this year’s course, including dates and costs, click here.  

I hope you have had a delightful weekend, and are feeling primed for the week ahead.

I am planning to send a weekly “thought for the week” to those interested in pioneering stuff. Sometimes (like today) it will be a thought-provoking quote; other times it may be a book recommendation (well, I have one of those today too); other times it may be to refer you to a useful resource, such as a course, a conference or a blog.

Since we all have more email than we need, if you would prefer not to receive this “thought for the week,” let me know and I won’t send them.

Here’s the quote. It’s from William Temple, Archbishop of Canterbury before the Second World War:

It is clear that the Church only fulfils its function as the Body of Christ if it is constantly thinking how those outside are to be won inside. The preoccupation of the Church should be with those outside; but very few Church people have any conscious sense of responsibility with regard to people who are detached from the Church. As we look round at our brother clergy, or think about the reasons for this, we recognise that we are eagerly absorbed, perhaps inevitably, in maintaining the life of the congregation that is already secure, and not thinking very much about those who are completely detached. We are troubled about those we lose, but unless I am very much mistaken about those with whom I have talked, concern about those outside does not lie heavy on the clergy. We are too much concerned about other things. Perhaps while we are understaffed this is inevitable. Yet the church ought to be concerned with bringing the Gospel of Christ to bear on the lives of other people, and bringing them to accept Him as their Saviour and King. We must change the direction of the thoughts of the Church, and the frame of mind of the clergy and the people. (William Temple, “Evangelism,” March 1936)

The book recommendation is Stephen Neil’s “The History of Christian Missions,” which I see is currently on sale at Crux. Though quite old now (1964), it’s a classic, full of interest and inspiration. You don’t have to read it cover to cover (though that’s good for the flow) but you can dip into it almost at random and find something worthwhile.

Blessings on your week!
John

So how do you begin a new Christian community where none exists at present and where there is little or no “Christian memory” to help it get jump-started in the community?  After all, it is no longer the case that “If you build it, they will come.”

These days, in order to begin a new Christian community these days, you need to start much “further back” than was the case fifty years ago. But what does “further back” mean?

The process often seems to happen like this:

(a)    Try to discern what God is doing in your community: look, listen, pray

(b)   Build relationships, meet whatever needs you can

(c)    Encourage natural, relational evangelism

(d)   Offer discussion groups or Bible studies or Christianity 101 for those who are interested

(e)    As people come to faith and are baptized, start a Eucharistic community.

This is not a formal “system” (these things by their nature resist systematization) and events do not usually unfold as neatly as this implies.

But this outline does show that a process is involved, and that growth from tiny beginnings into a mature church takes time—maybe several years. It’s like human growth: embryos can’t do most of the things that mature adults can do. However, unless a human being goes through the embryo stage, they will never become a mature adult. For that reason, nobody criticizes an embryo for not being on facebook.

But how do we learn in practice to do this new, post-Christendom kind of church planting? This September, Wycliffe College in Toronto is for the second time offering the course, Mission Shaped Ministry. Here’s the basic information:

1.      What is this course?

 Mission Shaped Ministry (MSM) is an eight-month (September to April) ministry-based, practical orientation to church planting and fresh expressions of church. It is adapted for Canada from the materials developed by Fresh Expressions UK.

2.      Who is it for?

MSM is primarily for teams (ideally, lay and ordained together) who are thinking and praying about the possibility of pioneering a fresh expression of church, as well as for those who are already involved in one. Over the eight months, the course will enable you to take practical steps forward towards the realization and growth of that vision.

The course is also suitable for senior church leaders (equippers and encouragers—“permission givers”) who can check it out, and then encourage others to take the course and to become involved in pioneering ministries.

3.      The teaching

Connie denBok

The lead teacher is the Rev Dr. Connie denBok. Connie is a pastor in the United Church of Canada, has herself planted three churches, and is an outstanding teacher who taught Mission-Shaped Ministry last year. Connie has an extensive network of church planting friends in different denominations and of varying ethnicities, who will be helping with the course at different points.

  4.      The dates

The course runs from September till April. The schedule involves nine Thursdays (7.00-9.00) and two Saturdays (9.30-4.30) at Wycliffe College, and a residential weekend to be held at the Mount St Mary retreat centre in Ancaster, outside Hamilton, ON. The exact dates for the coming year are these:

Saturday Sept. 17

Thursday evening Sept. 29

Thursday evening Oct. 13

Thursday evening Nov. 3

Thursday evening Nov. 17

Thursday evening Dec. 1

Thursday evening Jan. 12

Weekend of January 27-29 (not January 20-22, as previously posted)

Thursday evening Feb. 16

Thursday evening Mar. 1

Thursday evening Mar. 15

Saturday Mar. 24

5.      Distance learning

The first time we ran MSM we had groups of distance learners from points as far apart as Edmonton, Fredericton and Barbados! So you will be glad to know it is perfectly possible for a team or group to participate from a distance.

The way it will work is this: Each classroom session will be videoed and (within a couple of days) uploaded to a website. You will then be able to download the session and watch it at a time to suit yourselves at any point during the following week. Then, one week after each classroom session, Connie or another member of the MSM Canada team will be available for live interaction by phone, to discuss the content and to answer questions.

Important proviso: As you will see from the schedule above, a residential weekend is part of the course. If you are within driving distance of Toronto, we will expect you to attend the weekend in person. If distance makes this impossible, we will figure out with you the most worthwhile way for you to access the content of the weekend.

6.      Cost

For those attending the classes live at Wycliffe College, the cost is $295 for the eight months. The cost of the residential weekend is a further $200.

Since MSM works best with teams, we will be offering a special rate of $245 for each person who comes as a member of a team, a saving of almost 20% over the normal rate! (The residential weekend, of course, still costs $200.)

For those watching the classes on video from a distance, the cost for the whole course is $195.

If you attended the course last year, and are returning this year with a team, you can take the course for free! Please indicate this on the registration form.

7.      Registration

The registration form with details of how to pay, can be found here.

8.      What if I am a student at TST?

(TST is the Toronto School of Theology and comprises seven federated seminaries—Wycliffe, Trinity, Emmanuel, Knox, Regis, St Michael’s and St. Augustine’s.)

It is possible to take this course for credit towards your Master’s degree. See information, see the TST website here or contact me, John Bowen, at john.bowen@utoronto.ca for further information.

John Bowen

That evening, his comment came back to me: “More liturgical than missional.” I’d heard that kind of comment before, but the distinction had never been put quite so baldly. Why did it bother me so much? The answer came that Sunday, during Eucharistic Prayer #4 in the Book of Alternative Services, sometimes called the “Star Wars” prayer because of its reference to “the vast expanse of interstellar space, galaxies, suns, the planets in their courses, and this fragile earth, our island home.” Personally I love it, perhaps because it puts the Christian story in such a vast and beautiful context: it is (literally) awesome.

Then comes the reminder of what went wrong in our universe: “We turn against you, and betray your trust, and we turn against one another.” It is our failure to love God and neighbour. And then the comforting words, “Again and again you call us to return.” Thank God, God does not give up on us. “Through the prophets and sages you reveal your righteous law.” God’s rescue began almost as soon as sin entered our world. But then, “In the fullness of time you sent your Son, born of a woman, to be our Saviour.” Jesus, the climax of God’s mission to our world.

What was that word? “Mission!” The fancy term theologians use for it is the missio dei — the mission of God to redeem our sinful and hurting world. And there it was at the heart of the Eucharist!

I quickly flipped through the other prayers of consecration. There it was again:

When we turned away from you in sin, you did not cease to care for us, but opened a path of salvation for all people. (#1)

Jesus . . . lived and died as one of us, to reconcile us to you, the God and Father of all (#2)

[I]n these last days you sent [Jesus your Son] to be incarnate from the Virgin Mary, to be the Saviour and redeemer of the world (#3)

In Jesus, your Son, you bring healing to our world and gather us into one great family. (#5)

In your mercy you came to our help, so that in seeking you we might find you. Again and again you called us into covenant with you . . . (#6)

At the heart of every one of the prayers of consecration is the same simple message, though phrased in different ways: God in love reaches out to a sinful and hurting world, and as the culmination of that reaching out sends Jesus into the world to redeem humankind. The verbs are revealing: send, give up, open, bring, come, call, reconcile. They are words of movement, change and hope —words of mission.

The Christian God, these prayers remind us, is a missionary. They never tire of telling the story of what this missionary God has done in sending Jesus. Today’s emphasis on “being missional” is not just the latest flavor of the religious month. It is reminder of that mission which begins in the heart of God and which swoops down to redeem a rebellious world. And the Eucharistic liturgy, it seems, is first and foremost a celebration of mission. That’s why we can’t separate the two quite as easily as my friend wished.

But then a second thing hit me: the Church where we celebrate the mission of God in the Eucharist would not exist, were it not for that mission. The story of God’s mission, which we retell at every Eucharist, is not the story of some far-off reality or an alien people; neither is it an abstract theory for theologians to argue over. The story of God’s mission is the story of every church, however remote or ageing or small, where the celebration takes place. The only reason any church exists is because it is the fruit of God’s reaching out in Jesus Christ. This is why the prayers are full of “we,” “us” and “our.” If there had been no missio dei, there would be no Church. If there were no missionary God, there would be no Eucharist. The very word Eucharist — thanksgiving — is precisely because God has reached out to save us. This is the story — the only story — which constitutes the Church and its worship. It is most truly, for the Church, “the greatest story ever told.” This is why it comes at the climax of Christianity’s most distinctive act of worship.

This means that liturgy is in one way centripetal: it is the sacrament which speaks of God’s mission to “to gather us into one great family” at the cross and at the table. God reaches out his hands to us in mission: we are drawn to respond in repentance, faith and thanksgiving.

But this is not the end. Liturgy is also centrifugal. As the Eucharist came to an end, it became clear. We say together:

Gracious God, we thank you for feeding us with the body and blood of your Son Jesus Christ. May we, who share his body, live his risen life; we, who drink his cup, bring life to others; we, whom the Spirit lights, give light to the world.

If worshippers are mysteriously united with Jesus in the bread and wine, there are practical consequences to that unity. If we are one with Christ, we are one with him in his work in the world. And what is that work? To “live his risen life,” “to bring life to others,” and to “give light to the world”: not a bad summary of Christ’s missionary work —which he now shares with those who have eaten and drunk at his table.

The Eucharist is not an escape from the wicked world. It is a drawing apart from the world for a time, in order to be sacramentally reminded that “God so loved the world”— and then sent us out to serve God there.

The downward swoop of God’s grace catches us up into its onward flow. John Stott has said: “People need two conversions: one from the world to Christ, and the other with Christ into the world.” And at the hinge between those two movements stands the Eucharist, to which we are drawn by the mission of God, and from which we are sent for the mission of God.

Liturgy without mission is like the Dead Sea. Rivers run into it, but there is no outlet. No life can survive in it. Mission without liturgy is like a flash flood, powerful but quickly over, not fed by permanent springs — and equally unable to sustain life.

Liturgy and mission together, however, are symbiotic, as God intended, life-giving first to the people of God, and then through them in the power of the Spirit to the world.

I think I need to call my friend and schedule another lunch. This time it will be my turn to pay.

Apparently, it’s just one of those long-standing Christmas traditions. More people will come to services this Christmas than at any other time of year. And the majority of those people will not come back for another 12 months. Is this inevitable? Do we simply shrug and accept it as a sad reality? Or is there something we can do to make those people think it might be worthwhile to come back sooner than next Christmas—maybe even next week?

Some of the answers are obvious, though not always easy: a genuinely welcoming community; liturgy that is done well; music that delights the ear and the heart; and quality refreshments afterwards, for a start. All those require the enthusiastic co-operation of the church community. But I want to address another component of the service that is primarily the responsibility of one person: the sermon.

How do we preach this Christmas in such a way that the hearers say, “Wow! That’s amazing. Maybe I need to come back and hear more,”—instead of, “Ah yes, the boring sermon. Another reason I gave up on church 20 years ago. I remember it so well.” Here are some modest suggestions:

1. Name people’s hang-ups—whether or not we share them

Many people outside the Church assume that church folk do not think like them, and certainly don’t understand the doubts and reservations they experience around church stuff. To name those things helps people relax: “Wow, the preacher knows how I think, and seems to think it’s normal!”

What should we name? Here are just a few:

*Difficulties with the historicity of the story: “Many of us have a hard time believing things happened just the way they’re described in the story.”

*Difficulties with adult belief: “We think the Christmas story is OK for kids, but not for adults.”

*Difficulties with church: “Many people have had bad experiences with church, and that’s deeply sad.”

*Difficulties with the incarnation: “To say ‘he came down to earth from heaven’ makes it sound as though Jesus was an alien being visiting from another planet.”

*Difficulties with faith: Mark Twain said, “Faith is believing what you know ain’t true.”

Of course, we can go on to address whatever the problem is, but we need to start by naming it as a legitimate concern. Otherwise the hearers are always thinking, “Ah, but if you knew my particular questions, my doubts, my experience, you’d understand why I’m not here more often.” If we can disarm those reservations, it increases the likelihood that our hearers can hear the good news.

2. Speak from the heart—and take time to find it

John Stott says somewhere that, although he loved to preach the atonement and did so frequently, he was careful not to use clichés in doing do. Each time, he would seek to be personally reminded of the reality of the cross, and to find fresh ways of talking about it that would engage both him and his hearers.

The same is true for the incarnation (and, I suppose, ideally for all Christian truth). I would suggest that our sermon preparation is not complete until we ourselves have been touched afresh by the reality of God become a human being, until we feel the utter goodness of the Good News, and our sermon-in-the-making is more than words. “Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks,” says Jesus. Let’s make sure our hearts are full to overflowing before we speak. People recognise authenticity—and they recognise when we are just saying the words without feeling them.

3. Avoid theological jargon

C.S.Lewis says there is a place for in-house technical language in every profession or social group. We can’t manage without it: it can be precise and efficient. Once we step outside that specialised community, however, our language has to change. In particular, explanations tend to take far longer. Lewis suggests that most in-house words require 10 everyday words in order to explain them. He adds that if your job is to communicate with outsiders—especially in the name of Christ—then suck it up (I paraphrase): take that extra time, and don’t grudge it; use those 10 words (unfamiliar though they may be), and don’t look for short cuts. For example:

*Talk about “the author writing himself into the script of the play” rather than “the incarnation”—this is a C.S.Lewis analogy (10 words instead of two)

*Talk about “Matthew’s biography of Jesus” rather than “the Gospel of Matthew”—it’s not obvious to an unchurched person what “a Gospel” is

*Talk about “the story” rather than “the text” or “the narrative.” Avoid academic terms—unless your congregation attracts a lot of university folk, of course.

This kind of translation is actually a good discipline for us. Apart from anything else, it’s what missionaries have always done.

4. Do something surprising—even if it’s outside our comfort zone

We live in a multi-media age. Sadly (for those of us over a certain age at least), words alone seldom stick in the memory. Our sermon is far more likely to be remembered and discussed over Christmas lunch if it is more than words. Why not consider  things like:

*Having a roving microphone in the congregation. Ask questions that invite a one- or two-word answer. “What comes to your mind when you think of Christmas?” is simple and sure to get people involved. Don’t ask for stories or you might never get your microphone back.

*Preaching from the aisle rather than the pulpit. People in the Western hemisphere feel (perhaps since the 60s) that informal equals sincere, and formal equals inauthentic. There is really no rational basis for it, but it’s worth remembering.

*Having a new Christian say (briefly) how his or her view of Christmas has changed. A personal story from an “amateur” can carry more weight than the views of the “professional.”

*Including a short dramatic sketch on the subject of the sermon. (As I write this, I remember one such at Trinity Anglican Church in Streetsville (Ontario), over 10 years ago. Even now I find it moving.)

*If you have the technology, showing an appropriate video clip. The website textweek.com has a tab called “movie index,” which offers lots of good ideas.

And if some of these suggestions seem somehow beneath our dignity, let’s remember that this is after all the festival of the humiliation of the Word.

5. Show how the Gospel makes a difference

Postmodern people don’t care whether Christianity is true, but they are interested to know whether it works. It’s a legitimate question. After all, it is “by their fruits”—not by their compelling arguments—that “you will know them.”

So how might it affect our hearers’ lives if they believed that God really became a human being? How might the most amazing event in history cause them to see the world differently? How might they treat their spouse, their colleagues, their in-laws, their neighbours, differently? How might leisure or work or sex seem different? How might life be more joyful? And, to be honest, how might life be more difficult? (There is always a cost to believing).

Of course, it will help if we can say too how the incarnation (forgive the technical term) has changed—and is changing—the way we and our congregation live.

Sacramental preaching

Preaching at Christmas is a challenge, but one worthy of the season. After all, if we believe that “the Word became flesh and dwelt among us,” the sermon can be a sacrament of that same Incarnation—not just talking about God, but by our preaching giving the hearers a taste of the God who enters our world, who participates in our language and our culture, who speaks to us “right where we are,” to affirm us and challenge us at the depths of our being.

Whether our guests actually come back the week after Christmas is their responsibility before God, not ours. Our responsibility is to be faithful in representing the Gospel as best we can—and then to leave the rest to the God who loves them enough to come to earth for them.

I have an actor friend, Joe Abbey-Colborne, who worked with me in campus evangelism nearly twenty years ago. When I first suggested a collaboration to him, he was nervous. He had had too many experiences of doing dramatic sketches, then having a preacher stand up and say, “Now, I hope you understand that this character represents Jesus, and that the lesson the sketch holds for us is the following.” I promised I would never do anything of the sort.

C.S.Lewis had similar worries about The Chronicles of Narnia. He was emphatic that the Narnia stories are not an allegory, like Pilgrim’s Progress, or even his own Pilgrim’s Regress, where a is meant to represent b, and c to represent d. They are rather, he suggested, a “supposal.” Suppose that the God who created our world created life on other planets, and suppose that this God chose to communicate with them, what that communication look like? Naturally, there would be similarities to our experience of God in our world—we might recognise something of the same flavour—the same style if you will—of God as we know God in Jesus Christ. And yet it would be distinctive.

As a result, with the exception of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, the first (and, I would argue, the weakest—he got better as he went along) of the books, while we may recognise Christian themes in Aslan’s dealings with the Narnian world (his loving strength, his demand for trust, his willingness to be intimate with his creatures), there are few one-to-one correspondences with the story of God as we know it.

His goal, he told his friend George Sayer, was “a sort of pre-baptism of the child’s imagination.” Sayer comments, “His hope was that when, at an older age, the child came into contact with the real truths of Christianity, he or she would find these truths easier to accept because of reading with pleasure and accepting stories with similar themes years before.” [1]

In a sense, Lewis is giving his readers the opportunity to follow the course of his own spiritual journey: raised in the Anglican church, but finding it lifeless, and turning instead to atheism; having experiences of “joy” through reading pagan mythology; and finally returning to Christian faith (and Anglicanism) by realising (with the help of his friend Tolkien) that the mythology he had loved was really pointing him beyond itself to a depth in Christianity—the true joy—that he had never known as a child.  The Chronicles seek to circumvent the “watchful dragons”[2] too often associated with “religion.”

Naturally, there are few hints in the Chronicles themselves that this is Lewis’ goal. That would be to subvert his intention—not to say ruin a perfectly good story. But in The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, he gives two very strong hints of what he is about.

One takes place when Lucy is in the magician’s house on the Island of the Voices, reading through the book of spells. She comes across a story “for the refreshment of the spirit,” which takes up three pages and tells “about a cup and a sword and a tree and a green hill.” She says, “That is the loveliest story I’ve read or ever shall read in my whole life.” Yet as soon as the story is done, she cannot recall it, nor can she turn the pages back. She asks Aslan, “Will you tell it to me, Aslan?” And he says, “Indeed, yes. I will tell it to you for years and years.”[3] For the thoughtful reader, it raises the question of where Lucy might find such a story in our world. Christian readers already know.

The other place is right at the end of the book, when the children are about to return to their own world, and Lucy weeps because (she thinks) they will never see Aslan again. Aslan says, “But you shall meet me, dear one.” Edmund doesn’t understand: “Are—are you there too, sir?” To which Aslan replies:

“I am . . . But there I have another name. You must learn to know me by that name. That was the very reason you were brought into Narnia, that by knowing me here for a little, you may know me better there.”[4]

Again, Lewis is putting a grain of sand into the oyster of the reader’s mind: what on earth is Aslan’s “other name” in our world? How can we possibly know the fictional Aslan in our own world? How can there have been a this-worldly “purpose” to our reading about Narnia? Lewis is not going to tell us: but he wants us to think about it, and (with the help of the Spirit) to discover the answer.

Lewis is a good evangelist—clear about The Story but respectful, winsome and imaginative in how he presents it, seeking a response and yet encouraging us to figure it out for ourselves. We could do worse than to follow his example. And maybe the movie—if it as faithful to the book as it is supposed to be—will be helpful to us in our own evangelism.

[2] Lewis, C.S. “Sometimes Fairy Stories May Say Best What’s to be Said”, in Of This and Other Worlds (London: Collins Fount Paperbacks, 1984), 72.

[3] Lewis, C.S. The Voyage of the Dawn Treader (Harmondsworth: Puffin Books, 1965), 134, 137.

[4] Ibid., 209.

You have seen them and so have I: bright, enthusiastic young people leading worship, heading out on short term mission trips, collecting food for the food bank. And we think, “Ah, the future of the church is in good hands.”

But what happens to those young people in the years that follow? Do they fulfill their potential for church leadership. If so, why? And if not, why not?

For many years, my wife and I worked in a Leadership Training Program at Ontario Pioneer Camp, an interdenominational camp in Ontario, Canada. Over that time, we worked with around a total of over 1,200 young people.

In 2003, I had the opportunity of a sabbatical from my teaching, and decided to try and find out what had happened to this particular group of lively, committed Christian teenagers. Where were they now, in terms of faith and church involvement? And what might we learn from them about what keeps them in the faith—or drives them away?

I prepared an online survey, and invited them to fill it out. They were asked to identify where they were at spiritually, and answer appropriate questions. Their main options were:

1. “You still call yourself a Christian and are involved in church.” There were 251 who chose this survey, 75% of the respondents. I refer to these as Loyal Believers.Roughly one third of these (eighty-three), although they are active Christians today, had a time of six months or more when they were away from church and/or faith. This is a distinctive group, so I call them Returned Believers.
2. “You would no longer call yourself a Christian and have dropped out of church life.” There were fourteen who chose this survey, 4% of respondents. I refer to these as Former Believers.
3. “You still consider yourself a Christian but have more or less dropped out of church.” There were fifty-seven who chose this survey, or 17% of respondents. I call these Absent Believers.

All told, I received responses from a total of 333 people, about 28% of the potential pool. As I read through the answers, there were a number of things that jumped out at me. Each one is discussed more fully in the book, but here are some of the highlights:

1. The first surprise was why those who were continuing in faith and church involvement did so. I had assumed that friends would be the primary influence. Well, friends came high on the list, at 80.9%, but two factors were rated higher. Mentors rated fractionally higher, at 82.3%. But topping the list was (can you guess?) “my relationship God” at 89%. It’s obvious, I suppose, as soon as you say it: people continue in their Christian faith because of the reality of God.Not only that, but I was quite startled to find that, in response after response, people spontaneously stated their faith in strong, personal and passionate ways. They testified to their love for God, their dependence on God, their gratitude to God, and so on. These are clearly people who are not involved in church and faith out of a sense of obligation. They are involved because they feel strongly about their faith.
2. I thought that the main factor causing Former Believers to leave faith would be suffering (what I called a “catastrophe,” such as the loss of a child, parent, or partner). Since only fourteen Former Believers responded, I cannot draw sweeping conclusions, but certainly among those fourteen the problem of suffering received hardly a mention.What was surprising however, was the string of stories told by Loyal Believers about their suffering, including the untimely death of children and parents, and chronic debilitating illnesses. For these people, although the suffering was sometimes unbearable, it did not drive them away from faith and church, but instead their faith gave them the resources to cope with it and to survive.
3. It is remarkable how many people have changed denomination since the time they were teenagers. Three-quarters of respondents have left the denomination in which they began life. The book looks in some detail at what these changes are and why they take place, but as a general rule many would sympathize with the Absent Believer who wrote: I don’t subscribe to denominations, but rather, prefer to find a specific church with a pastor and congregation that I relate to.This research confirms what others have found, that changing denominations is a very common thing these days, although, as sociologist Reg Bibby has pointed out, the switching is often within church “families”—that is, from one conservative church to another, or from one mainline church to another. Many, but by no means all, of the changes among my respondents confirm this.
4. Many of the respondents, whichever category they put themselves in, have experienced difficulties with church and with faith: many speak of finding “hypocrisy” in the church, having values that differ from those of their church, encountering intellectual difficulties, and so on. Not only has this driven many (Absent Believers and Returned Believers in particular) away from church: it is also the thing that most often challenges the faith even of Loyal Believers! This theme of what we might call “the disappointing church” crops us frequently in the responses.
5. Largely because of this, fully one third of those presently involved in church were absent from church (less often from faith) for a period of six months or more, the longest “absence” being one of seven years. However, the range of reasons they leave, and the reasons they later return, are varied and (particularly in the reasons they return) often startling. This reinforces the fact that a number of people who are presently Absent Believers will likely return to church at some point. But, equally certain, some of those who are presently Loyal Believers will move away from church at some point. Of those, some, though not all, will return later. And (according to other people’s research), some will leave and return more than once.
6. A lot of people say how difficult moving from one town to another has been for their church involvement. It’s not easy uprooting from a faith community where you feel at home, comfortable, and needed to another where “none of the above” applies—at least, till you’ve been there some time.  As Reginald Bibby says, “every time people move, about half of them will stop attending regularly.”

So what might we learn from all this?

There is much to learn from these respondents. Three preliminary questions come to my mind:

a)      Do our youth groups teach their members what it means to have a meaningful relationship with God which will last and grow over the years? Do we dare to teach them spiritual disciplines, or do we assume these would be beyond the average teenager?

b)      Can we help young people, when they move to another town or city, to find a suitable church? Obviously it is not enough to suggest that Presbyterians (for example) simply look for another Presbyterian church. If they are leaving a family-oriented evangelical church, they are highly unlikely to settle in an ageing, theologically liberal congregation (or vice versa), even if both are Presbyterian. Are we prepared to think “kingdom” more than “denomination”?

c)      What can we learn from their criticisms of church? What these people are looking for in a church is not rocket science, neither is it inappropriate. They specifically ask:

• that followers of Jesus should cultivate a warm and open community
• that they should consider issues of truth, and be open to questions and discussion
• that they should be active in service to their community and the world, and
• that worship (whatever form it takes) should be done with excellence and should include thoughtful preaching.

In some ways, all they are asking is that churches should act like churches. After all, these criteria are pretty basic for any church. It seems as though, if we want young people to find churches credible, the best thing we can do is actually very simple (though deeply challenging): to take seriously our commitment to be a community of followers of Jesus. Is that too much for them to ask?

xxx

Growing up Christian: Why Young People Stay in Church, Leave Church and (Sometimes) Come Back to Church is published by Regent College Publishing (2010), and is available online from Amazon here or (at the end of March) from Chapters/Indigo, or it may be ordered through local bookstores.

.

.