We’ve launched a lifeboat

It was fantastic this morning to launch our first lifeboat (more here).

The Sidegate Family Community, led by Matt & Jo Holmes, was formally commissioned today as part our main celebration. Their vision is

to share with friends and neighbours, in the Sidegate area, how Jesus makes a difference in family life.

Please remember to pray for them. Here are a few specific things they have asked us to join with them in prayer about:

• That our 3 families continue to grow together and form strong bonds.
• God’s Holy Spirit will soften the hearts of people we are in contact with.
• That we can truly become vessels poured out, so our friends and neighbours will want to know more about Jesus.

On October 2nd we had a special church conference entitled: Launch the Lifeboats. You can find more information at www.burlingtonbaptist.org.uk/launchthelifeboats. More of my blogs associated with this can also be found here

New SIGN UP ONLINE for 24/7 Prayer Room

Our next 24/7 Prayer Room will be from the 2nd – 5th February 2012.  You can sign up for your slot here.  If you are wondering what it is all about there is more info here.

SIGN UP!

Talitha Koum

We were delighted to receive an update on the progress of Talitha Koum at our main celebration earlier this month.  If you missed it you can catch up with news of the project here and watch (below) a recent East Anglia news report.

Information, imitation & immersion

As part of our series Follow Jesus we are inviting people to ask questions.  Out first question was a great one:

How can I discipline myself to study my Bible more, put other things to one side and learn to know, really know, God’s voice which I find hard even though I have been a Christian for a long time

It’s a great question because at its heart the question expresses the desire to hear God speak.  Brilliant – a great desire

In beginning to offer a way forward, I want to gently challenge the assumption though, made in the question, that if you study harder you will hear God speak more.  I think that’s unlikely, and I think you have probably tried that already. Most Christians have.

So let’s go for a different approach.

When we are learning anything new we need three things. Jesus thought so and he used all three in raising up his disciples. It’s the same for us.

Information

Firstly we need information. We need good solid biblical teaching. In this example we need to understand from the Bible some really important questions:  Is it reasonable to expect to hear God speak? How might I hear God speak? and so on.

If you haven’t been taught that God wants to speak then you are not going to get any further.  I suspect though that most people who have been Christians for a long time have that information. If you haven’t, then the first few sermons that I preached in The Story series is a good place to start. Most Christians have that basic understanding though that God wants to speak and that they should expect to hear him.

Immersion

The issue is not with the theory. That though is also the trouble. In order to learn something new we need more than theory. Every apprentice knows this. There needs to be imitation. We need the ability to watch, to experience, to learn by being alongside others so that we can begin to imitate, to copy those who have themselves learnt what we are seeking to learn.

That’s the model of discipleship that Jesus gave. To learn by being alongside someone else (“Come follow me”). It’s no different for us. It is apprenticeship.

So if you want to learn to hear God speak then find someone who hears God speak. I don’t mean someone who knows a lot about the Bible that’s not necessarily the same thing. Find someone who has learnt to hear God speak and start reading the Bible with them.

Watch them, listen to them, hear what God is saying to them and, by imitation, begin to hear God speak for yourself. It will be worth every effort. Doing SOAP together would be a great way to go about this. See more info here and especially the last comments about reading with others.

Like learning to drive, becoming a plumber or a surgeon theory will never be enough. Get close and practical with someone who is already doing it and you will begin to hear God speak.

Immersion

Finally, if we want something to becoming normal and natural then we need to immerse ourselves in it. Surround yourself with others who are hearing God speak, listen to them, share your experiences with them, immerse yourself in a learning-to-hear-God-speak environment. That’s how you learn.

All of this is just what Jesus did with his disciples. I explore this more here.

A book I found helpful on learning to listen to God is called Walking with God by John Eldredge.  The Book alone will not do it.  On its own it will just provide more information. But alongside getting close with someone it will be useful. I urge you to avoid the temptation of ignoring all the stuff about imitation and immersion above and simply order the book!

Discipling relationships

Yesterday in our series following Jesus I explored how rabbi’s in the time of Jesus called and developed their disciples.  It sheds huge light on our understanding of discipleship.  We saw how discipleship is so much more than the transfer of information.  At a much deeper level it is the transfer of a way of life.  This cannot be learnt in a classroom.  It is the product of example and imitation.  You can listen to it here.

The idea of example and imitation fills the New Testament.  Here are a few verses to reflect upon.  As you do you may like to ask the two questions I posed:

• Who are you discipling?
• Who is discipling you

Matthew 28:19-20 (NIV)

19 Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,20 and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”

1 Thessalonians 1:4-6 (NIV)

4 For we know, brothers loved by God, that he has chosen you,

5 because our gospel came to you not simply with words (INFORMATION), but also with power (EXAMPLE), with the Holy Spirit and with deep conviction. You know how we lived among you for your sake (IMITATION)

6 You became imitators of us and of the Lord; in spite of severe suffering, you welcomed the message with the joy given by the Holy Spirit.

1 Corinthians 4:16-17 (NIV)

16 Therefore I urge you to imitate me.

17 For this reason I am sending to you Timothy, my son whom I love, who is faithful in the Lord. He will remind you of my way of life in Christ Jesus, which agrees with what I teach everywhere in every church.

1 Corinthians 11:1 (NIV)

1 Follow my example, as I follow the example of Christ.

2 Thessalonians 3:7-9 (NIV)

7 For you yourselves know how you ought to follow our example. We were not idle when we were with you,

8 nor did we eat anyone’s food without paying for it. On the contrary, we worked night and day, laboring and toiling so that we would not be a burden to any of you.

9 We did this, not because we do not have the right to such help, but in order to make ourselves a model for you to follow.

Philippians 4:9 (NIV)

9 Whatever you have learned or received or heard from me, or seen in me–put it into practice. And the God of peace will be with you.

2 Timothy 3:10 (NIV)

10 You, however, know all about my teaching, my way of life, my purpose, faith, patience, love, endurance,

1 Timothy 4:12 (NIV)

12 Don’t let anyone look down on you because you are young, but set an example for the believers in speech, in life, in love, in faith and in purity.

Taking up the Challenge

I spoke last night at the Crown Him with Many Crowns event organised by Heart for Ipswich.  The theme was Taking Up The Challenge and I had been asked to speak as part of the section Challenge to Change.  Here is my outline.

Any impetus to change requires a challenge.  Jesus provides that challenge:  Go make disciples.  That is, go and make disciples who will become disciple-making disciples themselves.  Disciples that bear fruit is not a ‘nice to have’ but an essential requirement.  On the night before he died, Jesus talked about his Father being the vineyard owner (John 15).  A vineyard owner needs fruit to survive.  Being faithful is not enough.

Last year, 2011, in our churches, how much fruit?  How many people came to faith in Christ for the first time?  The numbers are perilously small.

However beautiful the strategy you should occasionally look at the results.

Winston Churchill

Our strategies are beautiful (great Services, creative teaching, vibrate worship, powerful preaching).  Are we brave enough, however, to look at the results?

This creates the challenge to change.  We long for different results.

Insanity is doing the same thing and expecting different results.

Apart from cosmetic changes (music style, dress code etc), churches have been fundamentally doing the same thing for years.  The times we are in though have completely changed.  Yet Jesus said (Matthew 16:18):

I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overcome it.

Maybe it’s time for us to stop trying to build the church (that is Jesus’s job anyway) and start making disciples (which has been our job all along).  This will require churches to return to an approach much closer to Jesus.

People, not just programmes

Jesus’s strategy for transforming the world was to gather twelve people and pour his life into them.  Typical church concentrates on running programmes and events that often get in the way of building meaningful relationships with those we are trying to reach.

Imitation, not just information

Sunday by Sunday we bombard Christians with information telling them what they must do.  It’s not enough.  If it produces any change it is very slow.  It’s like teaching someone to drive a car by only giving them the theory and then expecting them to go off and drive by themselves.  Jesus taught not with loads of information but with lots of opportunity for imitation.

Out there, not just in here

We focus the overwhelming emphasis on inside the church. Jesus in stark contrast did almost everything ‘outside.’ He crossed all the barriers (social, cultural, etc) to meet people where they were.

If we want to reach those that no-one else is reaching we will have to do what no-one else is doing.

Craig Groeschel

Jesus will build His church in 2012.  Will we join Him?

Jesus’s disciple-making culture: High Challenge and High Support

What kind of environment do we want to create for our church?  Naturally we want to create a place that is welcoming and safe.  We want our church to be loving and caring.  For people to feel nurtured and supported.  All this is good.  But it’s not the whole story.  Did Jesus offer a welcome to his disciples?  Did he create a community of love and support?  Of course.  But that’s not all Jesus did.  He also created an environment of huge challenge.  Huge support and huge challenge were the hallmarks of his disciple-making community.

• Huge support:  ”Come follow me!” (i.e. I choose you!).
• Huge challenge: “I will make you fishers of me”

• Huge support:  ”He called the twelve to be with Him.”
• Huge challenge: “He sent them out to preach and to drive out demons.”

• Huge support:  ”I will be with you to the end of the age”
• Huge challenge: “Go into all the world and make disciples”

In contrast our western churches are often high on support but low on challenge. It’s not that the sermons aren’t challenging.  Often they are.  But that alone is not what makes an environment challenging.  Each week people will listen to a challenging message, do nothing about it (or almost nothing) and then come back next week for another challenge.  The net effect is that no-one is challenged at all.  Challenge needs accountability.  Accountability is only possible with people you are in close relationship with.  Is that why Jesus only chose 12?

If we want to create missional disciples like Jesus did we will need to create a more challenging environment.  I know in my own personal life that without the challenge I dumb down to something far less than what a disciple should be.  All too easily inertia sets in.  Personally.  Corporately.  But here’s the trouble: moving to a high challenge environment is not easy.  Even if the same levels support remain, whenever you increase the challenge it feels like support is being taken away.  Rather than a nice straight journey from left to right, churches are faced with a journey more like the lower arrow (below).  It’s messy, painful and disorientating.  Tragically churches can begin the journey only to retrace their steps when the going gets too tough.  For those that push through to the other side much fruit awaits.  And that’s the point.  Our cosy comfortable churches are not producing much fruit.  Their not working.  We can’t settle for that.

On October 2nd we had a special church conference entitled: Launch the Lifeboats. You can find more information at www.burlingtonbaptist.org.uk/launchthelifeboats. More of my blogs associated with this can also be found here

Following Jesus into 2012

At the click of a Twitter button you can follow almost anyone. At least you can be kept up to date with their news in no more than 140 characters. Other people we follow more intently. We go to their concerts. We read their books and blogs. We join their fan club or mailing list.

When Jesus asked those first disciples to “follow him” (Luke 5:27), what did he mean? As those who are his disciples today, what does it mean to follow him now?

For the first disciples, indeed for every first century Jew, the words ‘follow me’ were packed with meaning. Every Jewish boy grew up wanting to be a rabbi. The whole education system was geared to that end. You would be taught and trained right through childhood. This included memorizing the first five books of the Bible before going on to memorize the whole of the Old Testament! A rabbi would choose who followed him. They naturally chose only the best of the best. A rabbi was looking for someone who would learn all that the rabbi taught in order that he might be able to do all that the rabbi himself did. The disciple was to become everything that the rabbi was. That’s what it meant to follow: to become like your rabbi. Most dropped out of the grueling education process, or were never chosen. Typically they would then take up their father’s trade, maybe carpentry or fishing. The words ‘Follow me!” were reserved for the chosen few.

When Jesus called his first disciples to follow him they knew exactly what he meant. He was calling them to learn all that he taught in order that they might do all that he did and so become all that he was. He was calling them to become like him. That’s what it meant to follow. To become like Him. That’s the discipleship to which we too are called.

If not SOAP, what?

As part of our celebration on Sunday 1st January we will encourage one another to commit ourselves afresh to reading God’s Word daily.  We will hear from some of those who have discovered a breakthrough in 2011 and allow their encouragement to spur us on for the year ahead.  I know many at Burlington have appreciated SOAP as a way of helping to engage with what God is saying each day.  Your notebooks full of things you have heard have become very precious.

Doing SOAP is demanding, that’s for sure.  Whilst we have benefited from it and we see the need for it, many of us have been unable to keep up with it as well as the large amount of  reading (especially if you were reading the whole Bible in the year).  For this coming year, why not read a little less in order to SOAP a little more.  Reading less but hearing God speak more would be a gain.  All the reading plans will be available.  Remember there are plans for a whole range of reading amounts.  Don’t forget too if you use YouVersion that the life journal plan is the one to choose.

Others of you have decided that SOAP is not for you.  That’s fine.  So what is for you?  What will be your rhythm to ensure that you hear God speak and then agree with Him concerning what you are going to do about it?

In the end these are the only two questions that matter.  The only two questions that tell me whether my rhythm is working:

• Am I hearing God speak to me?
• Am I agreeing with Him what I am going to do about it?

If your daily answer to both these questions is “yes’ then you’re winning.

Great Queen’s Speech

Although we are capable of great acts of kindness, history teaches us that we sometimes need saving from ourselves – from our recklessness or our greed.

God sent into the world a unique person – neither a philosopher nor a general, important though they are, but a Saviour, with the power to forgive.

Forgiveness lies at the heart of the Christian faith. It can heal broken families, it can restore friendships and it can reconcile divided communities. It is in forgiveness that we feel the power of God’s love.