I joined a church today

I joined a church today[1]

My wife and I joined a new church today.

There was nothing wrong with the old one – we just happened to move 200klm away. There’s lots of bad reasons to change churches but moving away is a good one.

So, why join this particular church?

There are many churches in our new place, so why chose this one?

The new church passed our core criteria. The Bible is well-taught. The gospel is on lips and in lives. The church has an outward-looking heart with a desire to see people become Christians. It is sensitive and responsive to what is happening in the wider community. There’s plenty of people with whom we can expect to have good fellowship. There’s good opportunity for us to serve according to our gifts and circumstances. It is well led.

These are all important boxes to tick.

The church also passes some other tests. Its local to our home which makes it easy for us to get there and to invite friends and neighbours to come with us. We have family and friends there, so there is an easy entry. It’s belongs to our background tradition, so we should have a good fit in terms of the teaching, style and tone.

So, how are we joining this church?

We turned up on our first Sunday after moving and will do so every week that we are in town. Heb 10:25!

We stayed after the service to talk with people and start making new friends.

We signed up to contribute to the regular funds of the church as well as to a particular ministry project.

We registered for the church’s newsfeed and directory.

We volunteered to host some members of a visiting mission team to lunch in a few weeks’ time.

We will wait to see where we can be useful longer term and then commit to ongoing service.

There’s nothing special in any of this. We are just doing the normal things that are part of being with the people of God.

We did all this because we have learned over the years that people who only dip their toes in a church tend to stay on the margins and then drift on. We don’t want to be spiritual butterflies who flit between churches with the greatest of ease. We want to belong.

A perfect church?

Right now we are enamoured with the new church and it’s a breath of fresh air in our lives.

However, we know that we will soon discover its imperfections and contribute to them. We know the imperfections are there, because they are in every church mentioned in the NT and throughout history. These imperfections come from people like us who are somewhere on the journey between conversion and glorification – we are not there yet.

We know there will be annoying and difficult people whose behaviours may be challenging. They are our opportunity to serve the body and to grow in our discipleship – for growth invariably occurs at points of discomfort and challenge. These have been called sandpaper Christians – they irritate and may hurt, but they help strip back our faults and make us better people.

Annoying and difficult those these people may be, they are part of the body of Christ. The Father chose them in eternity and sent the Son for their salvation. The Son died so they could be forgiven and adopted in his family. The Spirit brought them to life, has kept them in Christ and enables the unique service to each. They have the same destiny as us in eternal life. If that how the Lord sees and treats them, who are we to see or treat them less than he does? How can we gather worthily at the table to remember the body of the crucified Christ if we do not also discern and honour his earthly body in the church (1 Cor 11:29; Matt 5:23-24)?

We know the leaders of our new church will disappoint us at times. Their imperfections will be writ large because they visibly impact the whole body. They will lack wisdom, make mistakes, become wearied and all the rest. But we will still honour our leaders because the Bible tells us so (Heb 13:7) and because they serve the flawless chief shepherd (2 Pet 2:25; 5:1-4). We will honour them by praying for them, respecting their decisions and cooperating with their plans. None of this puts them above disagreement, scrutiny or accountability, but it is a respectful rather than rebellious disagreement, scrutiny and accountability. 

A big call

It’s a big call to leave jobs, relocate, make a new home and entrust our earthly affairs to new professionals.

It’s bigger call to entrust our soul to a new church.

We are careful in choosing the new professionals to care for our earthly affairs and are at least equally careful in choosing those who will care for our souls.

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[1] Written on Sunday 22 Dec 2019

Re-framing retirement

Re-framing retirement[1]

Sidney worked hard all his life. He was well-regarded by his employers, cared well for his family and was active in his church. The day Sidney qualified for the aged pension was retirement day. He quit his job, left his church roles, said goodbye to his wider family and was last seen hitting the highway for a 12-month 4WD trip with his wife.

Sidney’s retirement fits a common pattern in the western world. The years after employment are seen as a time for self-indulgence in the dreams of a lifetime and for spending freely on your heart’s desire.

Such a frame on retirement is uncommon globally and historically. Most people in most places at most times continue in some form of work until they are incapable or until they die.

What is a Christian frame on retirement?

First some foundations:

1.     We are made for work. Work was part of human identity before sin disrupted God’s creational design (Gen 2:15). After the fall, work continues, but is now part of the fallen human condition (Gen 3:17-19). We can expect to work again, with pleasure, in the new creation (someone needs to pick the delicious fruits and harvest the healing herbs – Rev 22:2).

2.     Work is more than paid employment. The world of employment contracts, wages and salaries is a comparatively recent one and is unknown in the majority of the world even today. Even in the west, the unpaid activities of childminding, care of the aged or disabled, community service, church volunteering and such like deserve to be included within the word ‘work’.

3.     The Bible speaks against idleness. Various texts teach those who could work, but choose not to, will suffer for it and don’t deserve sympathy or help from God’s people (eg, Pvb 19:15; 31:27; 2 Thess 3:6-12). All who can work, should have something that they can call ‘work’.

4.     We are made for rest. God provided for a weekly rest day which is a recognition of our creaturely limitations and a reminder to trust his provision for us (Ex 16:1-5; 20:8). Yet awaiting is his eternal rest (Heb 4:9-10).

5.     We are mortal. This life ends in death, unless the Lord returns first, or we are taken up like Elijah (2 Kings 2:1-12). Whether our years are 70, 80 or more we are frail creatures who will return to the dust from which we were made (Gen 2:7; Ps 90:9-10, 103:14-15). We are to be wise about our mortality (Ps 90:12) and especially to remember our creator before it is too late (Eccles 12:1,6-7).

6.     We decline with age. Most of us will have declining capacity and strength as our years pass and death’s shadow looms (Eccles 12:2-5).

What does all this imply?

There is a time to leave paid employment or at least step back. This creates employment opportunities for younger workers and helps refresh workplaces, including in ministry employment. It also avoids the sad picture of the workers who just won’t let go. However, retirement from employment is not the same as retirement from work.

Consider these samples of people who retired from employment but kept working:

·       A widowed librarian left employment in her early 60s and served as a volunteer to establish libraries and train local librarians in an overseas theological college and then two small Australian colleges;

·       A couple sold their computer business, down-sized their home, upskilled as ESL teachers and gave themselves to serve through language teaching outreach to refugees through their local church and on the mission field;

·       An accountant left paid employment aged 57 and, with his wife, became a self-funded missionary using his professional skills in a difficult location and is still serving in his 70s.

·       A finance industry worker left employment in her early 50s for an intentional ‘next chapter’ of serving family, church ministry, some part-time lower level employment, along with hobbies and travel.

·       Two women retired from mental health employment and developed resources in a Christian approach to church-based first aid in mental health.

These people retired from employment but did not retire from work. They are like Moses who served until his death at 120 (Ex 34:7) or Paul who spoke of pressing forward rather than resting on his past (Phil 3:7-14). This is retirement reframed as an opportunity to continue serving.

To balance that it needs to be said that there may be seasons of life when withdrawal from activity for a period of contemplation, refreshment and renewal is apt. Hence early church figures like Augustine and Chrysostom who withdrew for contemplation after their conversions. Or the person who uses long service leave, or the space between employment, or after their last employment to give themselves to rest and to personal improvement of some kind. But then the time comes to again fulfil the creational mandate and work while there are hours in our days (Jn 9:4; 11:9). And so, Chrysostom and Augustine each soon left their temporary retreats to give unwearied work in the Lord’s service as great church leaders.

By all means let’s retire from employment, slow down, and take time to enjoy the life that God gives. But let’s keep fulfilling our garden identity by working in God’s world and serving according to our capacity and circumstances. That enduring work of ours is a thank offering for Christ’s work for us and in expectation of the eternal rest to come when he returns.

There is a time to recognise that the time has come to lay down our labours and surrender to rest (2 Tim 4:6-8). However, many in the western world seem to confuse retirement from employment with retirement from work and seek to enter that rest too early.

The last word is John Piper’s. At the end of a book on retirement he says: Here is my prayer for retirement – Lord, spare me this curse!”.

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[1] By David Burke whose non-retirement dinner as a lecturer at Christ College was recently held.

Re-posted with permission from Australian Presbyterian: https://ap.org.au/2019/12/13/reframing-retirement/

Christmas - all about Jesus?

Christmas - all about Jesus?

At first glance, Christmas is all about Jesus. It’s his birth into our world – a birth that forever ends any sacred / secular dualism. It’s the start of a story that tells how he grew and matured in perfectly obedient humanity. It’s the backdrop to his kingdom ministry which culminated in the cross, resurrection and ascension and which will yet finalise in his return. 

And so, and rightly, there will be Christmas songs and Bible talks about Jesus and prayers centred on him. This is one of those seasons when he is at centre stage. What someone clumsily calls “Jesusology” seems right.

That clumsy word captures a trend in contemporary evangelical church life. To quote a church slogan, for many, “it’s all about Jesus”. At first glance that seems apt, for Jesus is the pivot point in the great plan to unite all things in heaven and on earth (Eph 1:9-10). Without him there is no Christmas, no Easter and no gospel.

However, not so fast!

After a great struggle for shared understanding, the early church carefully defined our Lord as one God in the three distinct persons of Father, Son and Holy Spirit. That teaching is known as the Trinity and gives a key Christian distinctive against the other Abrahamic faiths of Judaism and Islam. “Trinity” is not a word found in the Bible, but is a word coined to try and make sense of the Bible’s teaching about the nature of God.

The whole Bible has a trinitarian focus starting with the work of the Father and Son in creation, over which the Spirit hovered. (Gen 1:1-2; Jn 1:2-3). Even the last chapter of the Bible mentions each person of the Trinity (Rev 22:1; 17). It’s a trinitarian Bible and faith from start to finish.

Christmas is strongly trinitarian. The Son came by the Father’s sending, to glorify him by doing his kingdom will (Jn 17:2). He was conceived by the Spirit and that same Spirit ministered to him when tempted, came upon him at his baptism and was then to empower his preaching (Lke 26-35; 4:1; 14-19). So, while the Son is centrepiece at Christmas he is not exclusively so - his coming is a work of the trinity acting with common purpose.

Our understanding, worship, prayers, Christian life and service are impoverished and unbalanced if it’s all about Jesus to the practical exclusion of the Father and Spirit. No evangelical worthy of the name denies the trinity as an article of faith, but we may inadvertently do so with a near-exclusive emphasis on Jesus.

This Christmas let us join exuberant Mary to whom the angels announced that the child she conceived through the Spirit would be called the Son of the Most High and would be given David’s throne by the Lord God (Lke 1:26-35). There’s her trinity.

Let’s join Mary and have a trinitarian Christmas!