Names and roles

We need use only two words for those who take serving responsibility in a congregation, "minister"  (noting that the government 'minister' in UK and Australia, etc. is a minister, or servant, of the Crown.) and "deacon".

But neither as a rank.

Elders is also OK as it has biblical warrant.

So no more youth leaders, Sunday school leaders, Bible study leaders, etc.

Rather, I'd reserve 'minister' for a more general role and deacon for subsidiary ministry work.

So, with the senior minister, who is appointed by the elders to work full-time in equipping the church and developing people's skills, gifts and knowledge, there might be a youth/children's minister, and a minister for discipling (or coordinating minister), who would handle the training/equipping weekends (we call them 'Recharge' at our church) and maybe the Bible study and Christian training/pastoral activities.

All the subsidiary contributors, engaged in direct ministry and perhaps being developed for future ministry roles would be deacons. Youth deacons, Children's deacons or teachers, religious education (in public schools) deacons, or teachers,, etc.

Those serving in non-direct ministry or 'sustaining' roles, e.g. looking after property, catering, congregational enterprises etc. could be termed stewards. A large operation might have a 'senior steward', or 'steward-in-charge' to organize stewards and assistant stewards  for the various sustaining functions.

This gets us right away from a worldly conception of how we structure our congregational life.

The New Pastor (sic)

A recent podcast dealt with a question about "the new pastor"

I have a few thoughts on some topics raised

Altar calls: there are no altars in Christianity. We do not operate temples, nor do we have sacrifices, except Romans 12:1. We have gathering places: hall, shed, auditorium, churchery, eclesiasicum, etc.

For those interested in exploring Christian faith a choice of: discuss with someone (have this organized), a short series of meetings, say 3, or like Alpha course. Greg's approach also has merit, except I'm not aware of Jesus "paying" for our sins. NT words are, in my translation: died for, gave himself, purged, suffered for, put away, bore, propitiation, sacrificed, took away, washed us from, forgives.

Note our gatherings are of Christians and for Christians. The only teaching of the gospel per se would be to train people to tell others.

Sunday School is a must. Needs different branding. One congregation I knew had "team training". It could be called "Focus", for example. Coupled with small groups, this would be the heart of congregational life. The big gathering could be for a meal, song, prayer breakouts and a couple of shorter addresses.

BTW, song is not "worship". Worship terms are never used of Christian gatherings in the NT. Songs are for teaching and praise. The danger with making our gatherings or just songs "worship" implies that we've done our weekly duty and are off the hook for the rest of the week. Again Romans 12:1(-2).

Now, if I was taking up the paid teacher/serving role ("pastor" is a post reformation invention that is alien to the  NT and merely parrots the Roman priesthood, itself combining Jewish and pagan practices) here is my program:

1. A day convocation with church board members, and all who volunteer in teaching, pastoral and other direct ministry roles. We would discuss how we grow each other to Christian maturity; the teaching/training approach; the plan for Sunday Focus groups and how our gatherings are going to follow Paul's program for 'one-anothering' in 1 Cor. 11-14.

2. Do direct coaching/mentoring with 5-8 stewarding volunteers each year: those who conduct ministry functions in youth, small groups and training. Also regular meetings for coaching and support of all in direct ministry, such as small group conveners, youth, elderly and children's work.

3. Draw up a roster to have a meal with every family in the congregation...and small groups of single and solo members.

4. Develop community outreach: that is, going out into the community with gospel, care and support, with related training in faith conversations (Tactics and Street Smarts the texts).

5. Make sure everyone encouraged questions.

Encourage Bible reading.

One of the hired help that serves our church commented to me that the church encourages Bible reading.

I asked how it does this.

He replied: by encouraging it!

I think he meant that he would say to people "best to read your Bible day by day" or some such.

That's not 'encouragement' that's mere urging.

Here's how one encourages Bible-reading: by making it easy, attractive, and purposeful.

The best way that springs to mind is to make the Bible accessible.

Perhaps two or three times a year, a short seminar might be held to introduce people to the Bible.

Let's call it 'Open Bible', or ''Bible made Simple'...name is up to you.

It need only be an hour or so long but it would cover the structure, message and history of the Bible.

To most new readers, the Bible is an intimidatingly large, incomprehensibly complex and diverse collection of books of unknown antiquity and relevance. Typically, none of it makes sense; particularly when they might be advised to start with a gospel. Usually the word 'gospel' would be unexplained and the point of starting in the middle-ish of the volume would not be self-evident.

This sounds crazy from the get-go.

A simple introductory session, appropriately illustrated with diagrams and timelines  would possibly make it far more interesting and make sense of the Bible as an anthology that traced the works of God in history to restore us to fellowship with him, and the creation to its true purpose as the place where God and mankind come together.

So, just three segments:

What the Bible is

How the Bible is

and

Why the Bible is

At the end of the course a little booklet (yes, I still believe in booklets) with a short introduction to each book would be given, with a suggested reading plan that has a low bar: "take it at your own pace".

The plan I aspire to: Each morning a psalm, or part, it it is long, and each day 4 chapters, or only two if they are long. Take your time, digest, re-read if you drifted off, look up words you don't understand.

I aim to read the gospels during Advent, Acts between Christmas and New Year, then the rest of the New Testament by Candlemas (the feast of the presentation of Our Lord). I read in a different translation each year. This has been my practice for the past 7 or 8 years. I love it.

Then I work through the Old Testament in the Tanakh order. I aim for 4 chapters a day, but can't keep to it, so, without worrying about it, I just keep going until all read, then I start again.

I keep a journal divided into the pericopes that some editions indicate with sub-titles. I make any jottings under the sub-title I'm reading. If  I've got no bright ideas, I note down the highlight event(s) of the particular section.

NEXT 

A follow-on session or sessions might deal with apparent contradictions or problems in the Bible. 

Another might deal with Biblical archaeology.

BTW, for the really keen: Until a few years ago the church I am part of had a small group that met to read the New Testament in Greek. None were theologians, but just people who had learnt the language. I was not one of them, as it happens. 

I still wonder what is 'church' for!

This morning at the churchery, the MC, a rather bright and amusing chap related the following:

He had attended with some other fathers, their sons' school camp.

It ran for a few days, and the fathers joined in as cooks and bottle-washers.

One evening, after the business had subsided, and all the gun-dogs had been fed they got to chatting.

It got to unusually grave topics of current cultural significance:

Injustice (of the old type), the erosion of 'truth' as a concept, the horrors of the constant  denigration of males and so on, through the culture-wars and the real wars. 

My pal, the MC saw many openings for the gospel, but, he admired, he didn't take them!

Would you, dear reader, have been able to?

I dropped in to see the MC, saw he was fixing his old Aston Martin..but no, just doing some repairs on his son's Bentley.

We chatted briefly as he kept working on the car. I left.

I think I know the problem.

Nothing in church life equips us for introducing a 'faith-vector' into a serious conversation. We have no words to fill the gap between 'society is in dire straits' and 'Jesus Saves'.

No talk given in our gatherings goes near to cultural criticism that might equip people to maneuver a conversation.

And we always use 'church-speak' in our gatherings. This provides no 'tools' for guiding thinking to faith.

Here's what I might have done.

"Trouble is, in a world conceived of as only material, who gets to say anything is good or bad, or right or wrong?"

"It just boils down to power, and the power sits at the moment with a nihilistic destructive media, feckless politicians whose only interest is votes...and more power, and a mad grab for cultural hegemony on the part of left-over Marxists."

Then, I'd see where we went.

I'd seek to bring in the diminishing ranks of the 'New Atheists'...ranks diminished by conversion to Christian faith  And Dawkins, Murray and other's preference for 'cultural-Christianity' over any other cultural configuration.

But I don't think they teach that in 'evangelism' class. 

What is Sunday for?

A letter I sent to a friend:

I note that the article talks about "Sundays are for worship and preaching".

Here, the author misses the point. Paul tells us that 'worship' is the transformation of our lives. He uses the word, in Romans 12:1-2, from memory, for priestly temple service and the 'sacrifice' is living: us! James also weighs in: 1:27; something the modern church seems to have 'outsourced' to government!.

Nor do we gather for preaching. Preaching in the NT is the proclamation of the gospel to those who have not heard or responded. Perhaps Paul is the model here where he discussed the gospel in terms that made sense to his hearers: the Mars Hill address a case in point.

What we do meet together for, on whichever day, is to build up one another (1 Cor 11-14), to teach one another, where each has a prayer, a hymn, a prophesy  (in the Biblical, not the foretelling sense, maybe), etc. We gather in love for each other to edify one another. The post reformation church has failed consistently with its mere remodeling of Roman priest-craft and transformed the gathering of the saints into a pulpit show.

 

How to talk about death

Last week one of my fellow saints died. He was at a 'good' age, but, of course, death is always...always more than sad (John 11:35).

The parish funeral notice told us that he had 'gone home'.

No.

Language is always a challenge, but I think we must oppose the anonymizing neoplatonistic shorthand of 'going home'.

'presence of our Lord' would be a more direct and focused expression rather than the vague ambiguity of 'going home' which is not congruent with the Biblical data. In fact I think it tends to obscure the teaching of scripture and entertains an almost Gnostic deprecation of the created cosmos.

Thus, my quick stab at a substitute expression:

"We trust that our brother/sister having departed this life is in the presence of our Lord, with whom he/she and all the saints departed will come at his return with renewed bodies to his New Creation."

 

Church...churchery?

A place where baked goods are made: bakery.

A place where food stuffs can be purchased: foodery.

A place where vendors offer 'take away' food: eatery.

A place where hard liquor is made: distillery.

A place where fun drinks are brewed: brewery. 

A place where surgeons work: surgery. 

A place where undrinkable liquids are made: refinery 

An office: chancery. 

A place where Christians assembly (the ekklesia, or 'church'): churchery!

Problem solved. We won't conflate gathering of the saints and the hall in which they gather.