A place for everyone

I can't believe its been two months since I put something on the blog. My apologies to those who were hoping for something more regularly. Since writing the last entry I have been on the go with some great experiences in great churches, attending the BUGB council, our own Assembly and just yesterday the Scottish Baptist Council meeting. But I want to reflect back on my weekend's visit to Abbeyhill Baptist Church, just off Easter Road in Edinburgh.

If you judge a book by it's cover then you might simply walk past this place and not even notice that it is a church. It's building appears to sit on the corner of a street as part of a tenement block.

But if you get inside, a whole new world opens up, a counter-cultural, unique world that is the local church. All that excites me about the local church as the hope of the world is on view in this eclectic group of Jesus followers.

The first thing that I saw on entering the building was the age range of the congregation. This was a congregation that welcomed all ages and the way the service was conducted proved that they were all welcome. Accessible worship for children without being childish. Kids were alert, involved, senior members of the congregation were fully supporting their involvement and engaging with them. The way worship was led and entered into allowed all people, without discrimination, to express their praise and thanksgiving.

Then there was the diversity in education. I spoke with adults with no qualifications, those who were hoping to achieve new academic targets of standard grades and at the same time to Phd students, all delighted to engage with the living word of God together.

Within this church family was a wide range of ethnic diversity. It looked just like the streets of Edinburgh. A variety of languages spoken, a variety accents, skin colours, and integrated into the worship a compassion for the peoples of this world.

As I left this church on Sunday evening I was rejoicing in what I had seen. There is no other place on earth where this diverese group of people would gather. There is a sense of love, welcome and belonging experienced and expressed by all, it is what the local church is all about.

In Christ, there is a place of welcome for everyone: when His body the church demonstrates it so clearly and it is experienced by so many it can only serve to strengthen the faithful witness of the Church to the transforming power of the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ.

The power of invitation

Over the last month I've been thinking a lot about the Samaritan woman and how she invites people to come and meet Jesus. I don't imagine for one minute that extending that invitation was an easy thing for her to do. In fact I can think of a lot of reasons why she might have avoided making that invitation. (She didn't know much, not many friends, unresolved morality issues in life, no Holy Spirit to gift her in evangelism.)
She is contrasted in the story with the disciples who go to the same village and fail to appreciate that the harvest fields are ripe. They go into the village and return to Jesus without anyone coming with them to see the one they had witnessed healing the sick and turning water into wine.
Last year Dumfries Baptist Church got involved in the Back To Church initiative, an invitation-based church growth strategy run by Michael Harvey.
I was overwhelmed by the difference it made. The church spent time looking at how they welcomed people, reflected on their weekly practises and changed some of them. They considered issues of hospitality, children's ministry and what should be part of our services. They also took up the challenge to invite people to a church service that they believed would be an encouragement to their friends and colleagues.
In many cases these invitations led to friends and colleagues attending a church service. For others it opened up conversations about the importance of faith in their life. The local press were also captivated by the idea of a "Back to Church Sunday" and were happy to run stories, adverts and follow up articles.
Here is the big question: when was the last time you invited someone to come and experience your church? There may be many reasons for it being a while ago. As I reflect on my own reasons, I am afraid that I am discovering my reasons are only excuses. I have fallen into the disciples' trap, or devil's lie, of believing there is not a ripe harvest in Scotland.
Tear Fund conducted some research that suggested 6% of the nation are ready to be invited back to Church. That's getting on for as many as attend.
I think we could do with a good few models of people who, like the Samaritan women, are ready to invite others in and trust in the power of the Spirit to have softened hearts to receive the invitation.
Michael Harvey has some great resources available on line including 12 videos on the 12 steps to fruitful invitations.
http://www.mjhassociates.org.uk/?m=201008

Shetland connections

A one and a half hour flight out of Glasgow found me landing on the southern most tip of the Shetland mainland. It's the area served by the Dunrossness Baptist Church. A good 30 minute drive and you are in the area served by the Lerwick Baptist Church, keep going north for a further 30 minutes and you are at the area served by Brae Baptist Church and there is still a longer drive to reach the top of the main island. Head west out of Lerwick and you find yourself crossing a couple of bridges onto Burra Isle where the 4th Baptist Church is situated. The geography was staggering, I had little knowledge of these islands, of how big and indeed how remote they are. Sitting in the home of Ian and Morag who minister in Dunrossness, looking out onto a wild Atlantic Ocean, it is staggering to think that the next piece of land due west is Greenland!

It was a great visit, made special by the people I met and the opportunity to lay the foundation stone of the new Lerwick Baptist Church. But it was also a time of great learning and inspiration.

I witnessed an interdependency on the island seldom seen on the mainland. The ministers fraternal was relational, deeply relational. These 4 ministers really knew one another, cared for one another and supported one another. They shared a passion to reach out to the islanders and encouraged and enabled one another to serve.

During the vacancy in Brae the other 3 churches sent a visiting preacher each month covering 3 out of the 4 Sundays. Members of the congregation were familiar with the other church's members and as a result of Andrew's "Better together tour" they are talking of having annual joint deacons' meetings.

These structures are in essence the dry bones of what I actually felt. There was something life-giving, a supportive, encouraging, trusting, upbuilding and deeply caring attitude towards each other expreseed minister to minister, congregation to congregation. Competiveness, insecurity and suspicion appeared absent.

These, our most northern congregations who face the most demanding of climates, demonstrate for us a relational climate that we would do well to imitate.

Holiday Clubs - What Value?

I'm back from holiday and think I have caught up with everything else I needed to do on my return. So it's time to blog again. And immediately I want to return to the topic of my last blog Children and mission. In case you haven't read earlier blogs I guess I better say at the outset that I am absolutely committed to children's ministry and outreach. I long to see children serving in our churches and reaching out to their peers. I have been committed to primary school chaplaincy work through my years of ministry and spent several years working as a children's evangelist.

Yet today I am asking the question what is the real value of a children's holiday club? In the adult world we gave up on week-long missions a long time ago in place of things like Alpha or Christianity Explored courses. We have in the adult world primarily moved to a model of evangelism as a journey experienced over many weeks, months or years as opposed to an event. Yet this summer all around the country churches will hold holiday clubs and declare them a successful outreach. But are they?

Yesterday I visited two holiday clubs in the town of Kirkintilloch. Our Step Out team are working with the Harestanes Church in the local community centre made up of three portacabins. The children drawn from the local community looked delighted to be there, parents who were not church members on the whole looked delighted to leave them.

At Kirkintilloch Baptist Church a similar picture of happy children, happy parents and happy leaders. Both clubs were full of life, energy and creativity. There was an excitement in the room, and the children were feeding off it.

However looking back over 20 years of running several clubs a year I cannot think of many non-churched children who have come to faith and grown in discipleship through this work and are still following Christ today. Yes, there are many children who said during the week that they wanted to follow Jesus, conversion statistics would be high but to my knowledge they do not follow today, probably something to do with the fact that we expected kids to be discipled in Sunday school each week and a regular Sunday commitment was not on their parents' radar.

So why would I still choose to do a holiday club today? Why do I still support what the Step Out teams are doing?

1. Church kids find themselves presented with a clear gospel presentation and an opportunity to commit themselves to Christ.


2. It brings an opportunity to train Church children's leaders and introduce fresh communication methods, modern music and creative energy into the life of the Sunday School.


3. Teenagers in the church find a place of fulfilling service where their ideas and creativity are needed, valued and seen to work.


4. It demonstrates to the church it's ability to work together, across the ages, on a short term mission project bringing lots of people into service, and gives others something to pray for and get excited about. It's an encouragement.


5. Childcare provision in the holidays is a great blessing to working families in the community.
   
6. Saturday/Sunday events following a holiday club and pick up/drop off times give an opportunity for church members to get to know the parents of these children and to offer friendship to them and to introduce them to other services provided by the church.


7. Local Press will gladly run with your story and communicate to the community that the church is alive and is active in the town.


8. Who knows what the church will do to follow up a holiday club? In my experience in one church it was used to plant a new congregation, launch a weekly after school club, start a monthly kids club.

So I'm all for holiday clubs and you can maybe add other valuable reasons for them. But I am also concerned that we find a working model for presenting a clear gospel message to non-churched children that has lifelong discipleship at its core. Ideas on a postcard, or even replies to this blog would be greatly received.

Step Out Now

Last night I visited Coatbridge Baptist Church where our first children's mission of the year is under way. The step out team complete with orange t-shirts were dancing, speaking, gaming and answering question about faith, conversion and prayer, in what could only be described as a warm and winsome way. No threats, no severe stares, no raised voices, just smiles and conversations about their own walk with God which were clearly being listened to intently.
As I go off to enjoy some holiday sunshine for a few weeks this orange team will sprerad around the country. They will give up some, if not all of their summer season to build missional relationships with local baptist churches, with fellow step outers, with not yet believing children, young people and their families.


I find myself challenged in two ways and if you are up for it I would want to extend the challenge to you.

1) Please pray at all times with all kinds of prayers for the step out missions. They are engaging in a spiritual battle and they need the spiritual defence that prayer can bring. They also need our prayers to break down defences so that many would come to know and love our Saviour.

2) Please step out now! If they are coming to your church, support them in the mission by getting involved. If they are not visiting you but your church is engaging in an overtly missional activity this summer get involved in that. Or why not step out now, wherever you are reading this, and have a gentle warm conversation with someone who does not yet believe.

I'm being serious. Why not go and build a missional relationship now.

Switch to face book and reconnect with someone.
Pick up the phone and talk to an old friend.
Walk across the office with a coffee and have a chat.

Step out Now
PS Let me know how God uses you!

"Le Tour"

The tour has begun: 5 days in 5 cities being introduced to the Baptist family and speaking of a future vision as we travel together on this thing we call the BUS.

Dalkeith Baptist Church hosted our evening together with great style and a beautiful sense of welcome. The hall was filled with Baptists from Edinburgh, West Lothian and the Borders. And what a night! A great encouragement for me and if the response of those who gathered is anything to go by, an evening of fun, laughter, challenge and hope, all of which were absent from the England football match we clashed with.

The loudest "amen" of the night was to the suggestion that Baptist musicians should form a Jazz group and there was quite a lot of talk about what type of road cycle team we could put together to participate in a "real tour".

Of course there were also stories of God's faithfulness and my own journey of faith was explored by David Currie, my travelling companion, interviewer and worship leader for the tour.

As I drove home along the M8 to Gartcosh I was overwhelmed by a sense of encouragement. I am so glad that I belong to a family of Baptists in Scotland such as these. I sensed among them a passion to serve Christ, a desire to be led into what that means in the 21st century and an openness to doing it together.

1 down, 4 to go. It's going to be a busy week!

Wednesday 23rd June 7.30pm, Dundee Central

Friday 25th June 7.30pm, Bearsden Baptist

Saturday 26th June 12 Noon, Culduthel Christian Centre

Sunday 27th June 3.30pm, Sheddocksley Baptist Church

"Vive le tour"

Fresh Expression

Saturday night, and I found myself in the Royal Concert Hall Glasgow, for a concert with the Royal Scottish National Orchestra. Not an unusual occurence for our family as we attend at least 12 classical concerts a year. Yet this was one was very different.



Scenery had appeared behind the orchestra to replace the usual wooden back drop. Lighting had been installed and was used throughout the night to interpret the mood of the music, more like a pop concert. Instrumentalists stood to play their solos and were picked out by spotlights, the audience clapped between movements and even clapped once in the middle of a piece, more reminiscent of a Jazz club. By now I was questioning was this really the RSNO? The conductor had changed, not the usual French Stephane Deneve but the New Yorker Jeff Tyzik, complete with cornet on the conductor's podium. Had the world gone mad? Oh I forgot to mention that they had rearranged the audience chairs at the front and put them around tables.

Less than a month ago I heard this same orchestra play Elgar's Cello Concerto in the quiet and austere surroundings of the Usher Hall. I had left there discussing Natalie Clien's interpretation of the music with my daughter and how it compared with the late Jacqueline du Pre. To be honest most of the discussion was on how bad the acoustics of the Usher Hall are for a cello solo.

But not on Saturday. On Saturday I left filled with excitement. I wanted to talk to anyone who would listen about what I had just experienced. It was not what I expected, it was unpredictable, it was joyful, it had life and charisma. The Rochester Democrat and Chronicle wrote of the conductor "His concert is the kind of thing that's likely to give classical music a good name!"

You only need to look at a classical concert audience these days to know that they are in the same position as many of our churches. Yet it seems that they are not afraid to challenge some of their traditional conventions and taboos to woo a new audience, to explode some old myths and to present the brilliance of what they do in a way that is accesible to many more people than they engage at present.

Therein lies the challenge. We have a message that is life giving, energising, hopeful, joy bringing, love enhancing and totally transformational and yet so often it fails to be delivered in a context that is negatively representative of the message. The medium which contains the message of new life is not engaging, and the sound of good news is not lifting from the platform and grabbing those who are searching. In fact the audience that most needs to hear doesn't come along because they do not imagine they will find life in our churches. Would the Rochester Demorcrat and Chronicle write of us "This worship service is the kind of thing that is likely to give Jesus a good name!"

What will it take for us to challenge the medium we use to communicate the gospel message? Can a classical concert inspire us to look afresh at our conventions and traditions, challenge them and find a fresh approach for our life giving message?