Flippin’ Size Matters

Earlier I said that the average church in the UK was about 24 active adults. I have also mentioned that Croydon with a population of well over 360,000 people has over 240 churches which is one church for every 1,500 people. However, most of our churches are so small that they overwhelmed by trying to keep going. There is no way that Christians in Croydon, or anywhere else for that matter, can be the ekklesia Jesus founded if we continue to build this way. Some churches have reasoned that the way to go is to build very large congregations which draw their people from far afield, but having large central churches or congregations hampers the living stones being built up in their local area, using their gifts in the part of the community where they live. 

These mega churches are few and far between and even then don’t release city wide elders or apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastor and teachers. What’s more, the large churches are less likely to engage in genuine unity because they feel that they can just forge ahead and are fully occupied in the life of their own fellowship. The philosophy of some of these churches seems to be that of the market place, build big and destroy the opposition. I have heard it said that “Its not our fault people join us from smaller churches, we don’t poach, we just grow greener grass”, come to think of it it was me that said it ... ouch!

Allow me to hypothesise about the church in Ephesus at the time Paul wrote to Timothy there in his first letter to him. As I said earlier the church was possibly one third of the city ie 100,000 believers. We are pretty sure that no church buildings were built for at least another 150 years. So where did the church meet? Well, of course the answer is simple, it didn't, or at least it didn't as we understand it today. The people congregated all over the place in all kinds of ways obviously the size being governed by the available location. Perhaps 30 met in a large room or 60 in a garden, may be a civic open air place could see a gathering of 200, but gathering anymore people would mean that hearing the leaders would be very difficult. Perhaps the only reason that we have mega churches today is because we have mega rooms with mega PA systems!

Nevertheless, the church in Ephesus had apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers and clearly elders too, and from the New Testament we can see that they endeavoured to employ the servanthood model of Christ in these ministries as the whole church ministered with its various gifts and callings as a priesthood of all believers and living stones. 

The other thing which is so obvious that we can miss it, is that it was one church in a clearly defined city and that church very definitely challenged and changed the culture of that city. It would have been impossible for the other two thirds of the city’s population to miss the church. It was the single biggest thing in Ephesus by miles. The church was by no means perfect or else Paul would not have written his letter to them or his later letters to Timothy, and Jesus would not have had to single them out in the third chapter of the book of Revelation. Nevertheless its the closest we have to a model of what could be.

Every Flippin’ Effort

I have walked you though the last few blogs on our history of unity because, in this last blog on the subject of unity I want to show you that it has to start where we are, the reformation of the church has to begin somewhere and Paul’s plea to the Ephesians gives us no opt out clause for it not beginning with us now:

Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace. 

Eph 4:3

“Every Effort” is just two words but a massive two words and two words which have largely been ignored by most Christians for the last two thousand years. Actually the two words are only one Greek word, “Spoudazo” which literally means ‘to use speed’. A modern day rendering might be, ‘put your foot on the gas pedal’ or ‘pull your flippin’ finger out!’ 

My question is "Have we?"

A consequence of the 16th century reformation was that protestant Christians had Roman Catholic Christians hung, drawn and quartered and Catholic Christians had Protestants burned at the stake. Men and women were killed on the slightest pretext, some only differed on bible translations or minor points of doctrine or churchmanship. Now I know that there was politically more going on than a reformation of the church, but nevertheless they do seem to have missed the implication of Ephesians 4:3.

One of the phrases I use with church leaders is:

"relationship matters more than doctrine". 

In a way, it’s my paraphrase of Ephesians 4:3. Don’t get me wrong, I love doctrine and spend a great deal of my time trying to get to grips with it, but if I allow my understanding of theology to cause me to disrespect another human being, especially a fellow Christian, I am stamping on the brake and not putting my foot on the gas pedal.

One of my deepest sadnesses about the church today is that most church leaders are so occupied with keeping their small fellowships going that they have no time for the city/borough/town wide church. It is very difficult to get church leaders to come to a weekly meeting, let alone begin to look at our responsibility to be elders at the city gate. Many denominations move their clergy far too frequently leaving a startling statistic that the average tenure in the UK is 4 years. Some premiership football managers last longer than that!

If the church today is to become the one that Jesus is building then we must face up to a reformation. Not a reformation that will blow the church apart, but one that will take seriously Jesus' prayer in John 17 and Paul’s plea in Ephesians 4 and become a church for a city, an ekklesia that the gates of Hades will not withstand.

Flippin’ Ecumenism.

After World War Two the ecumenical movement in Europe began to take steps towards more church unity, but it was a top down movement involving Arch Bishops and senior theologians across nations and denominations. Whilst we need that level of interface, the real unity needs to be grounded in a city where elders sit at the gate, where apostles lead ekklesia to change the culture of that city, and where a house of God can be built for that city. This is a huge task, but could it be that God is already at work bringing this about in our day?

The old ecumenical instruments of church councils in cities or churches together movements in towns are really struggling. Many are too consumed with their lengthy constitutions, layered committees and shortage of willing officers to even keep going. I have been to meeting after meeting of ecumenical groups at all kinds of levels over the last 15 years and found that they are all in their last days. However, something else seems to happening. 

Ten years ago when we were gathering churches together to pray for Croydon we were told about a couple of other London Boroughs (Harringay and Newham) who were doing similar things. When we went to Manchester to meet with Debra Green at Redeeming Our Communities we heard of lots going on which was similar up there, but we still felt that in Croydon we were unusual. About four years ago I was even indulging in the sin of pride (What you? Well I say that in all modestly of course) in believing that we were uniquely pioneering something. Then I had a call from a wonderful man of God, and not even a church leader, called Matt Bird. Matt invited me to a small meeting over coffee with other leaders of church unity in four London Boroughs. The stories these men told were amazing and spookily similar to ours. We agreed to try to find a unity network leader from every London Borough and bring the 30 or so people together for a lunch. Matt served that team brilliantly and it wasn't very long afterwards that 23 leaders of borough wide networks turned up for our first lunch and guess what, their stories were all staggeringly unoriginal. It became apparent that, independently of one another, we had all begun to take unity seriously and brought the church together for relationship, prayer and action in our towns. This network of networks, as it has been called, continues to meet 3 or 4 time a year just to stay in touch, pray and see what God is doing in London.

You would be forgiven for thinking that although this is good news it isn’t really a sign of a reformation, but who in 1521 thought that Martin Luther nailing his thesis to a tree in Worms was an epoch? 

However, I am not bold enough to declare a reformation has begun on the strength of the London network of networks alone. In February 2011 I heard of another new initiative called ‘Gather’. A Manchester church leader and Evangelical Alliance ambassador, Roger Sutton, began to link up unity networks across the UK which resulted in a three day conference in February 2012. Around sixty town and city wide unity movements were represented at that conference at Swanwick in Derbyshire and yet again, their stories were amazingly alike. Churches in these towns were beginning to come together to serve the local people and to pray and regard themselves as the church for the city. No way could this be because we had all read the same book or been to a stimulating conference, this must be a move of God’s Spirit across our nation. But that isn’t the end of my observation. Later that year Roger Sutton asked me to go with him and another unity leader from York (Graham Hutchinson) to an international conference on unity in New York, USA. Over a week in September 2012 we met with nearly 100 unity movements from the US, Canada and New Zealand and their stories were just the same as ours and all of us were amazed that there were so many other places doing these things when we thought we were the only ones. Jehovah Sneaky didn’t get his name for no reason. I fully expect to be invited to the intergalactic church unity conference any time soon.

So God has begun the reformation in our life time and it is thrilling but what do we need to do in response?

Flippin Croydon Church

During the days of ‘Prayer in the City’ Heather Dean looked at the historic census taken by William the Conqueror in 1086, the Doomsday Book. The entry for Croydon began with “In Croydon there is a church”. 

Few statements have impacted me as much as these six words. It was true in 1086 and I was absolutely sure it was true today. That church wasn't Jubilee or any other local expression, it was the whole church. In 2005 we began our new Croydon wide prayer meeting modelled on Manchester’s but reaching out to all parts of the church, and called it “In Croydon There Is A Church” or as we quickly began to refer to it “ICTIAC”. We came together three times a year for an evening and prayed for many aspects of the life in Croydon. The first issue we tackled was crime. The Borough Commander of the Metropolitan Police Force was interviewed as well as local Borough Counsellors responsible for law enforcement and also the then fresh initiative of “Street Pastors” and others involved in the criminal justice system. It was a huge success and saw 450 Christians praying together in various styles for the request of our guests. At few months later we heard that crime in the centre of town had dramatically dropped!

One of the many wonderful things about ICTIAC is the team who plan it. Although it was a 133 initiative, we then had Anglican, Roman Catholic, Methodist, Pentecostal, Black Pentecostal, Independent Church and Baptist representatives. One Church.

When we prayed for homelessness and street life we saw an increase in churches taking part in our ‘Floating Night Shelter’ such that we now have 70 churches involved in opening up our buildings every night from the beginning of November to the end of March each year for people who find themselves without a home, to have free bed, evening meal and breakfast. Every time ICTIAC meet we see amazing answers to prayer and often new initiatives coming from across the church in Croydon.

There was just one problem. The 133 group were running the leaders breakfasts and overseeing ICTIAC meetings. However, the Borough Deans and CTBC were struggling and if anything were not looking favourably on what 133 was up to.

Two other mission initiatives had been going on too. We had about 20 churches joining together every summer to run a week of BBQs in the town centre giving away food and worshipping in the shopping centre. A local evangelist, Steve Mullins, led the team and after a few years turned the event into a longer Borough wide initiative called ‘Love Croydon’ where 30 or more churches put on events over a two week period culminating in a one day festival in our local theatre, The Fairfield Halls. The 133 churches were central in all of these missions, but CTBC seemed disconnected.

In 2006 a wonderful Methodist man of God took over as chair of CTBC. In terms of theology and churchmanship Harvey Richards was miles away from me and the rest of 133, but he loved Jesus and his Church. Harvey had heard about 133 and asked if he and I could meet in his office. Harvey was as disappointed in CTBC and the Borough Deans as I was. We chatted for hours and agreed that we wanted the same thing. I suggested that I would go away and write a short paper on what was wrong and what we might do about it, having absolutely no idea what to write. I came up with three typed sides of A4 paper suggesting a way forward. A meeting was called for all of those involved in CTBC and unity. We met in the offices of the C of E Bishop of Croydon, Nick Baines. Nick spent some time taking my paper to pieces at every level. Obviously as a man of great grace, I was cool with this, well about 700 degrees Celsius to be precise. But suddenly Nick concluded that my points on the way forward were the way we should go. We agreed a working group of Nick, Harvey, myself and two others who we felt we should ask. Damian Luke, who was the Borough Dean for Black Led churches and Bishop Paul Hendricks from the Roman Catholic Church. Over some months we met with CTBC people, local area group committees, Borough Deans and just about anyone who wanted to talk about unity.

During this time I was listening to a radio programme about the founding of the London parks. The narrator said that the first parks were laid including the walkways and paths and then opened to the public, who proceeded to walk where they wanted and not necessarily on the paths, inevitably leaving worn areas of lawn. Learning from this, the next parks were opened for a year before the paths were then laid where the people had walked. 

At the next Annual General Meeting of CTBC we agreed to close the organisation for one year and see where people ‘walked’. For that year the 5 man working group would function as the executive and would draw up a constitution. We would look for where the energy and enthusiasm was and find ways of communicating this around the church. 133/ICTIAC gave their web site to the churches as a tool to help this and the CTBC secretary worked directly to the 5 of us. One year later we published our one side of A4 constitution, the introduction of which stated:

Croydon Churches Forum (CCF) will be a light-touch communication and facilitation forum to serve the following purposes:

Encouraging local ecumenical collaboration, building on where there is vision and energy.

Encouraging the sharing of resources between churches in mission, evangelism and community care.

Keeping before the churches the bigger picture of Christian initiatives and developments in the borough and beyond.

Provide a route through which the Borough Council and others can be directed to member churches.

Bring churches together for wider mission, and outreach and worship.

The working group became the convenors of CCF and the Borough Deans became the interface between CCF and the local authorities as well as the council of reference for all that we did together. No more terrible and boring duplication. 133 gave over ICTIAC and the breakfasts to CCF and pretty soon the police, hospitals, local council, businesses and charities knew that they could speak with and get answers from a representative body for the Church in Croydon.

In the next blog I want to pull the theme of the last few together and make my real point on unity.

Flippin city prayer

When I first went to the 133 church leaders monthly breakfast it was led by the senior pastor of Folly’s End Church in Croydon. Folly’s were connected to ‘Partners in Harvest’ which was the movement headed up by John and Carol Arnott who led the Church in Canada where the phenomenon of the Toronto Blessing came from. 133 held celebrations at the Folly’s building and we were always invited to the many conferences held there which had people like the Arnotts and other US leaders as guest speakers. I was excited that this could be the way that unity would come to Croydon, but our relationships weren't very deep. In 1999 I suggested that instead of a monthly breakfast, we commit to meeting for a couple of hours every week and so we deepened our commitment to one another. Meanwhile there were some major struggles in Croydon, one being the proposed opening of our first lap dancing club. No one wanted the club, but no one seemed to be able to stop it happening. So the 133 leaders got a group of praying people together from several churches and they led a successful Croydon wide prayer campaign against the opening of a club. Flushed with success we decided that we would hold a monthly prayer meeting called ‘Prayer in the City’. Our group of 7 intercessory prayer warriors led and planned the meetings and ran them for a few years under the leadership of the Folly’s prayer co-ordinator, Heather Dean (Now Heather Andrew). Heather is an excellent woman of prayer and an inventive leader and motivator of others in prayer. However there was fault line in the way we had built the prayer meetings. There was no real way of reporting back to the 133 group as a whole and no church leaders were involved in the prayer meeting planning team. Over the next few years it pains me to remember that the prayer nights became less inclusive and those on the planning group took a beating in health and well being. It was then that I was asked by the 133 group to oversee the prayer team. Now let me confess something to you, I am no prayer warrior. I know that you are shocked by this confession, you thought that someone writing with this depth of spiritual insight was a cross between Mahatma Gandhi and Mother Theresa, but sadly no. 

But, yet again, God had other plans. One of my first encounters with the folk at Follys’ End was at one of their conferences in 1998. I was unknown by most people there, but a strange bearded man (Martin Richards) wondered around the auditorium playing a baritone saxophone. He stopped playing and came up to me and said “I see you with a Field Marshall’s baton in in your hand and you are conducting intercessors. God is calling you to be a Field Marshall of Intercessors”. Within 18 months of being in Croydon, I was overseeing these amazing people of prayer. Sadly one of the things I had to do was draw this monthly prayer meeting to a close. We ended ‘Prayer in the City’ very reluctantly, but knowing that we weren't where God wanted us to be. Thus, confused, I felt that the Ed Silvozo book and the Transformations videos were really calling us to city wide prayer and church unity, but we had a fractured church with 133 and the formal ecumenical body not getting along and no more city wide prayer.

A short while later I was asked to take over leading the 133 group. I had also taken up the role of chair of the Ecumenical Borough Deans for Croydon. The Deans were set up to have a representative from each denomination to meet with the local authority leaders on a regular basis to discuss social and economic issues in our town. In truth we just seemed to meet as church leaders to go over the same things as the CTBC committee, and most of the members were the same people. Wading through treacle comes to mind when I think of those times!

I suggested to the 133 leaders that we hold a breakfast in a hotel and invite every church leader in Croydon. The meeting to discuss this breakfast brought to light part of the problem. Twelve 133 church leaders chatted about who we should invite. One counselled that we shouldn't invite Catholics as they didn't agree with our doctrine, another was dubious about theologically liberal ministers, another didn't want a Quaker there, and so on. After a couple of hours we concluded that the only people we all agreed we could invite were the twelve of us in the room! Did I mention that we were men seeking unity!! The guys graciously allowed me overrule and we invited about 140 ministers to our first breakfast. On the morning, amazingly over 60 leaders turned up. I carefully introduced a Brethren church representative to a table, where I sat him between a Roman Catholic Priest and a Black Pentecostal Minister. In my head I reckoned that in his mind he sat between a representative of the Anti-Christ and someone demon possessed. Nevertheless, after the breakfast, this dear brother thanked me for introducing him to two wonderful men of God. I believe that that was the first day in Croydon when we began to see the answer to Jesus prayer in John 17. It wasn't unity of those who could agree on most scripture and doctrine, but of all who loved Jesus. A huge fire had been lit. 

One of the original ‘Prayer in the City’ team members (Judi Lane from Purley Baptist Church) had been living abroad for a year and had returned to Croydon asking God what he wanted her to do next. We bumped into each other and quickly agreed that we needed a city wide prayer meeting again, but this time with oversight from a team which had church leaders in it from the outset, with the Borough Deans as a council of reference and submitted to the oversight of the 133 group. Three of us went up to Manchester to meet with Deborah Green from ‘Redeeming Our Communities’ to look at their prayer network and were impressed that they prayed for aspects of their city by inviting leaders in the community to come to be interviewed and give three of four areas where they wanted to see change. They also had a city wide church website. My only concern was that the unity in Manchester seemed to be mainly amongst the evangelical churches.

We now had the church in Croydon coming together three times a  year to pray for the needs of our town as revealed by civic leaders. 

Flippin unity in Croydon

At Stoneleigh Bible week in 1997 we met the church in Croydon we now belong to and began the process of testing to see if this was the place for us. At the prayer evening held after I preached at the church to see if God was calling me to Croydon, one of the prophetic guys came up to me and said that he saw 7 horses tethered together thrashing at each other and pulling in all directions trying to go their own way. They were in a lather and were achieving nothing, only wearing themselves out. Along came a man in an RAF uniform, he took the reigns and the horses ran purposefully together. He took this to mean that a number of churches would come together in some kind of unity as a result of my leadership. Thanks a lot! Actually, when I arrived in Croydon I tried to ignore the prophesy, but I did decide that I should visit the ministers of the churches which were in our local area and say hello.  Within a couple of weeks I received two invitations. The first was from the 133 group of Croydon Church Leaders who met once a month for a prayer breakfast. They turned out to be about 15 evangelical, charismatic church leaders who generally agreed on the way church should be. The second invitation came from the very local Selsdon and Addington Church Council, asking me to join them at their next committee meeting to represent our church.

The 133 breakfast was pleasant and I met a lot of guys who wanted to do mission together, several of whom were working on a youth project with OASIS Trust to open a hostel for homeless youth. I could cope with this kind of unity and it was largely a joy to be involved. 

The Church Council meeting was an entirely different animal. 

If 133 was a chimpanzee, the Church Council was a sloth - a dead one. 

To be fair to all there, they knew this too and the meeting voted to bring the council to an end and begin a new venture called ‘Churches Together in Selsdon and Addington’ and they voted me to be the first year’s chair person (Which actually lasted 3 years). How on earth I got into that place I’ll never know, but suddenly I was mister unity in Selsdon. As Chair I was also invited to be on the new Churches Together in the Borough of Croydon (CTBC) executive which gave a central committee to all of the smaller area groups like Selsdon’s. The total number of churches in Croydon was over 240 but only about half were part of CTBC. The parts of the church that seemed to do a lot didn't want to be part of CTBC (some even mused that most of the members weren't Christians) and the part that loved CTBC seemed to be what I came to call ‘ecumaniacs’ - people who loved the processes, committees, minutes and reports, but were largely not engaged in local church life. I really didn't want to be part of any unity, but I couldn't ignore four things - first the prophesy, second the scriptures like Jesus’ prayer in John 17 and Ephesians 4:3, third the circumstances around me and fourth that niggling feeling that ‘Sneaky’ had got me again and that unity was hot on his agenda. 

Its funny, but a year ago I preached and led the service at a local Methodist church and we sang a chorus I haven't sung for nearly 20 years, ‘An army of ordinary people’. As we sang it, a line hit me much like Mohammed Ali used to hit his opponents. It went “A truth long neglected, but the time has now come, when the children of promise shall flow together as one”. I think I managed to hide my tears as I tried to sing that song.

The main reason that I got involved in church unity as a chaplain in the RAF was reading Ed Silvoso’s book “That None Should Perish”. 

After reading the book I got hold of George Otis Junior’s ‘Transformation” videos. These gave me a sense of the possibility of unity of the church in a city where Christians of all kinds come together to pray for their area to see the Kingdom of God come in their location. And both confirmed in me that the church needed leadership so that it could take the lead in the world. I was ready to rally behind a leader who would gather other leaders in unity and spent some time looking at movements and their leaders like Colin Urqhuart, Gerald Coates, and Terry Virgo. 

When, a few years later, I became part of a church belonging to New Frontiers International (NFI), at one level I felt that I had found this kind of leadership. Although I didn't really know him, Terry Virgo seemed to me to be that kind of leader. What was more, locally, we followed Ray Lowe’s apostolic leadership and he knew Terry very well as a friend and so we felt connected. Many of the other Church leaders in our region also knew Terry well, so we all felt that we were following a true servant hearted man of vision. The problem for me was that our NFI region wasn't just Croydon it was much wider. In my gut I knew that we needed an ekklesia for our city.

Not a Flippin Methodist

Well I knew I wasn't a Methodist and after my primary school experience of the Church of England, I knew I wasn't an Anglican so I was eventually accepted by the United Reformed Church as an ordinand. In 1987 at the age of 30, I was sent to train at Westminster College, Cambridge. 

I had no formal education after GCE ‘O’ levels, but since becoming a Christian had gorged on all kinds of theology, church history and biblical studies. However, nothing had prepared me for the academic environment. We trained amongst the students of 3 other colleges, Wesley (Methodist) Ridley (Low evangelical Anglicans) and Westcott (High Anglican). The staff of the colleges and wider university lecturers were amazing. But most of the work seemed to contradict all I had hither to learned. Although I was reading stacks of books and enjoying it all, I was beginning to develop a twitch in my right eye. I was surrounded by lecturers who seemed to be very liberal in their theology and my reading list grew to be more and more challenging. I remember studying lots of writers who seemed to be universalist in their approach to salvation. One of my life lines was to get hold of my next reading list, sort out what the tutor was looking for and then shoot down to the local Christian bookshop to find a book by an evangelical writer on the subject. I would read that book, work out a framework for my argument and then read the more challenging writers. This method of study has stood me in good stead for the rest of my life. I was also very indebted to my New Testament professor, John Proctor who pointed me to good books and gave superb lectures which sustained me in those days.

Another odd occurrence came about in my 3rd year. It was meant to be the year when we spent 4 days a week as student ministers working alongside an experienced URC pastor. I was told that I must go to a typical URC as I had very little experience of my denomination. Bizarrely I then ended up spending that year in a Local Ecumenical Project in Bury St Edmunds. OK it was technically URC, Baptist and Anglican. But the minister was Baptist and there were no URC members. The Church was brilliant and the pastor, Jonathan Edwards was a superb thinker and preacher and his ministry began to make me wonder whether I wasn’t really a Baptist. Jonathan's ministry was soon recognised and he later became the General Secretary of the Baptist Union in the UK. I am hugely indebted to Jonathan and his wife Sue for their love and support during that year. They took 3 years of study and made it real. Preaching at church members funerals and weddings, caring for folk and reaching out to the community all had deep and lasting effects on me.

In 1990 I was called back to the RAF to be a Chaplain and was thrilled. I felt that I was going as a missionary. I knew the culture and the language, I was one of them, but I had the gospel. My plan was to see people saved and to build churches on RAF bases where the servicemen and their families would be discipled and equipped to see the Kingdom of God come on the base.

I asked Roger Bayliss to preach at my Ordination at RAF Cranwell. For a reason I never asked him about, he preached that there would be dessert experiences in my ministry. More prophetic than he knew, I was soon in Bahrain and then Saudi Arabia and Iraq as the first Gulf War took hold and advanced. Three and half months at war, which nothing had prepared me for and where my quick answers didn't really help anyone. Whilst on the surface I probably did a good job, I was personally miles from God and struggling.

As a chaplain in the RAF I had been required to be part of ecumenical teams with Roman Catholic and Anglican Chaplains. Whilst I understood that this kind of team was the only way to function and I was at the forefront of developing them at the grass roots level, by the time I left the RAF I was very battered and vowed that I would never get involved in church unity again. I told friends that I would keep my head down and build our local fellowship and ignore the rest of the church in the city. Well as usual, I hadn’t actually spoken with God about my plans. Jehovah Sneaky had other thoughts.

Flippin’ Church Unity

I'm about to embark on a lengthy section, over several blogs,  on church unity. Actually church unity isn't a particularly helpful title because as Paul writes:

Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace. There is one body and one Spirit—just as you were called to one hope when you were called— one Lord, one faith, one baptism; one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all. Eph 4:3-6

There can’t really be church in a city that isn't one church.

However, before I look at what a city wide church looks like, I want to tell you about our journey into unity at Jubilee in Croydon. And to do this, I need to give you some more back ground on me. (one of my favourite topics of conversation)

When I arrived in Croydon a decade and a half ago, I must have been the most reluctant church unity advocate in the UK. When I was a candidate for ministry in 1984 I wasn’t really sure what denomination I was. I had become a Christian under the wonderful teaching and friendship of a Methodist Chaplain and his lovely wife, Roger and Pauline Bayliss. My early discipleship with Roger was a mixture of things, but the one area which is pertinent to my search for flipping church was the books. Every book Roger lent me gave rise to half a dozen questions. Roger’s way of dealing with those questions was to give me another book, or often a pile of books which would yield answers, but which would also give rise to more questions. One of the books I remember as being significant was J I Packer’s ‘Knowing God’, a hard read for a new Christian but the source of numerous questions and subsequent conversations with the Padre. Others were the then brand new book by R T Kendall ‘Once Saved Always Saved’, and after a conversation on prayer, O Hallesby's book ‘Prayer’.

After a couple of years, whilst at a party at a friend’s house, I heard about a thing called lay preaching. Something just rang bells with me and I knew I had to preach. It was perfect for me, I loved an audience and this would give me a captive one who, I thought, would have to be nice and Christian! I shot round to Roger and Pauline’s and told them that I felt called. Pauline’s reply still gives me the goose bumps when I think about it, she said “we know, we’ve known for months!” Even as a write this tears come to my eyes. God is so gracious and works through idiots like me and wonderful saints like Pauline. I asked Roger when I could start training and how long it would take. The proper answer would be ‘it takes about 2 years of training and you might be able to preach a short sermon in a year or so’. Roger’s answer was “You can preach this Sunday!!” He gave me the Methodist Lectionary and pointed out that the theme was to be ‘The King, The Kingdom and the Transfiguration’. Even though I had certainly read Matthew 17 before, I had no idea what the transfiguration was all about, let alone was I qualified to preach on it in the RAF chapel to all of my friends that weekend. I spent every spare moment of the next few days in Roger’s office, no longer a womb, but now an extensive lending library. I’ve no idea how, but I managed to come up with a 20 minute sermon which in essence, with the exception of the 7 quotations which I began with - as Churchill said, as J F K said, as Alfred Lord Tennyson said; I would still preach today if asked about the transfiguration.

There followed 2 years of training and the forming of a school of 5 young servicemen who became a team going around the local Methodist church's preaching circuit and RAF chapels. At that time, I preached at least twice per month and devoured any and every book I could get my hands on including the syllabus for lay preaching in the Methodist Church. I passed my exams and was brought onto the Downham Market Circuit plan as an accredited Methodist Lay Preacher, but not without many humbling experiences on the way. One of my services had to be assessed by an examiner who would be anonymous until after the service. He came forward after the service and said “Not bad, but the deaf people at the back where I was sitting couldn't hear a word you said”  Again Saint Pauline, who had come with me for moral support, replied “Isn't it funny how all of the deaf people always sit at the back - they should have come to the front where I was, I heard every word!”

One thing I learned in those days was that, despite being christened in a Methodist chapel when I was a few weeks old and now being an accredited Methodist lay preacher, and loving the stories about John and Charles Wesley, I was no Methodist.

So what was I? (Please don't send your answer in yet!)

How does the flippin’ church work?

Well the answer to the above question is “Only by the grace of God”. Not only is this answer true because it’s God’s grace that calls us, equips us and put us where he wants us to be, but its also true because we have made such a mess of church that its a flippin’ miracle that we have worked at all. Few, if any churches have had access to the ministries of apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers and even if they had those ministries available, our understanding of the those roles has been faulty and often confused with the role of elders. If we also add in the necessary legal constraints of trustees or denominational structures and then mix all of that up with our erroneous view of ekklesia and of God’s house, then its no wonder we are in a mess. If you are struggling to see this let me give you a picture.

I might see in a cook book a picture of a lovely cake so I decide to make it. The recipe says take some ‘flour’, but I read that as anything that sounds similar so I take some ‘flower’. It then says add ‘currants’ so I pass electricity through the flower. Of course it then tells me to add nuts, well you know where I am going now, I add a hand full of metal nuts. The recipe then tells me to cook on a low heat for one hour so I find an oven that is near the floor and, well you get the picture. What comes out won’t look or taste anything like the recipe, much like most of my usual attempts at baking cakes!

When I was visiting Bethel in Redding they talked about what the church is like if its led by a single ministry gift like a pastor or a prophet without the influence of the other Ephesians 4 giftings.

A church with just a pastor. If a church is led by a pastor alone then it is focussed on the needs of its own people. They feel safe and cared for and the cry of the church is “We meet your needs”. Of course they don’t meet all of the needs like the need to be taught, challenged, envisioned etc. Usually these churches just grow old together.

A church with just a teacher. Well the good news is the teacher focusses on the Bible, but they are inclined to say “You can be right and agree with me or be deceived”. Because a teacher is occupied with getting it right they can often give off the impression that everyone else is wrong. (Not a great ministry to encourage unity) The final outcome for this kind of church is split after split until nothing is left.

A church with just an evangelist. This anointing understands that the main ministry on earth is about winning the lost. So this church is totally geared up for seeing salvation. It will have an enormous front door and an even bigger back door as people leave because, at best they become cogs in the machine, or at worst they are just notches on the leaders bible. Incidentally I came back from that US trip and recounted these thoughts to a group of full time Christian leaders which included an evangelist. When I said that all five ministry gifts are needed for a balanced team, he immediately argued that seeing the lost saved was the most important ministry of the whole church. Case proved I believe. The outcome for this church is that it will eventually leak people who are worn out or keep people who feel guilty and worn out.

All three of the above interpret church life from the culture around them and so when only these ministries are part of a churches leadership, the church reflects the culture it is in, meaning that you get a natural expression of the supernatural.

A church with just a prophet. Well I gave an illustration of this earlier when I spoke of my friend in Canada. The anointing focusses on the activity of the spiritual realm. They see the supernatural and draw everyones attention to the unseen world. People get stirred up as the prophet puts people into places that he sees God showing him, but these post and opportunities are based on facts that can’t be naturally weighed and so people feel insecure or manipulated and usually remove the prophet or the church doesn’t last.

A church with just an apostle. The apostle is entirely focussed on the blueprint from heaven. As a master builder he knows the way it should be and wants to see it come on earth. If the apostle is the key leader without the other ministries it’s very exciting for a while, but people don’t feel cared for or taught. These kind of churches tend to hold lots of conferences and big events which cause a superficial fizz. People come to these ministries for the events, but go somewhere else for their church.

Today we have pastors, teachers and evangelists in leadership, but we have very few apostles and prophets based in city churches and so we have learned to build church with a focus on earth and not on heaven.

Someone once said that: 

'Ministry is the thing God gives us to do to keep us occupied whilst he gets on with the real work.'

The longer I have been in full time Christian service the more true that seems to be. Even though we have spent two thousand years getting church wrong, God has been wonderfully faithful to his plans and purposes. Perhaps some might think that therefore, all of my ramblings will only cause us to occupy ourselves with something else while God brings about the culmination of his creation. However, I don’t believe that God would give us scriptural designs for his ekklesia and not see it built. I want to be part of the church which Jesus is building, everything else is shifting sand.

The flippin’ Reformation.

Historians tell us that in the 16th century the church went through a reformation and a counter reformation. But did it? Surely if something reforms it re forms. What happened as a result of men like Calvin, Luther, Zwingli and their Catholic counter parts wasn't reformation. It actually began the process of blowing the church apart into tiny pieces which could never function as the ekklesia Jesus is building. Its time for a real reforming of the church. The question is, are we going to be the generation like that of Martin Luther that is prepared to obey scripture and set about a reformation in our life time?

Flippin’ Teachers

Ah at last we have a ministry that we understand, or do we? Surely teachers are those who like to preach and lead small groups for bible study.

Well the Greek word used here is ‘didaskolos’ and is found in 58 occurrences in the Bible. The King James version often translates the word as ‘master’. In an essay, James W Garrett says that the term might be better translated a master of instruction. Didaskalos is found mainly in the gospels, but of the ten times it is used in the rest of the New Testament, eight refer to this ministry of teacher.

Now there were in the church at Antioch prophets and teachers, Barnabas, Simeon who was called Niger, Lucius of Cyrene, Manaen a lifelong friend of Herod the tetrarch, and Saul. Acts 13:1

Apart from our references in 1 Corinthians 12 and Ephesians 4 the other useful occurrences are both where Paul describes his own ministry:

For this I was appointed a preacher and an apostle (I am telling the truth, I am not lying), a teacher of the Gentiles in faith and truth. 1 Tim 2:7

For which I was appointed a preacher and apostle and teacher 2 Tim 1:11

Clearly Paul was a teacher as well as an apostle, but what did he mean by this. In his letter to the church in Rome Paul sheds some light on the role of teacher:

We have different gifts, according to the grace given us. If a man’s gift is prophesying, let him use it in proportion to his faith. If it is serving, let him serve; if it is teaching, let him teach Rom 12:6f

The distinction between someone who can teach and a teacher as defined in Ephesians 4 or Romans 12 or in Paul’s descriptions of himself is that the Ephesians 4 teacher has a gift given by grace from God for that task. Lots of people are able to teach, but there are some who have a particular anointing to teach and equip the church to be teachers. Paul tells Timothy that all overseers should be able to teach as one of their skills. However, this kind of teaching isn't what Ephesians 4 is referring to, how do we know? Well look at James’ warning in his letter:

Not many of you should presume to be teachers, my brothers, because you know that we who teach will be judged more strictly. James 3:1

You have to know that God has called and anointed you to even dare to teach with that kind of warning accompanying the role.

What the teacher teaches is therefore important to consider, clearly its not just passing on information. As 48 of the 58 occurrences of the word didaskalos refer to Jesus, we need to look at what he modelled as a teacher. The first thing to note is that many recent translations of the bible use  ‘teacher’ and not  ‘master’ as the translation for didaskalos. Although this is helpful to get to the real notion of imparting teaching, it loses the weight of the word ‘master’. In our modern society we have stopped calling school teachers ‘school masters’ presumably because its thought that the term implies something too weighty.  But gravitas is exactly what the biblical teacher had. 

We all know the Hebrew word for teacher, which is ‘Rabbi’. Jesus is referred to as a Rabbi 15 times in the New Testament. To be a Rabbi was a highly significant role. When a Rabbi entered a room everyone stood up, even that persons own father. We know from everything else Jesus teaches that this false reverence and titled position wasn't what he wanted us to adopt for teachers today. However, we should not throw the baby out with the bath water, the things taught by Rabbis had real weight. The rabbi taught scripture and interpreted God’s word for life situations. They were masters in their craft and all other teachers only passed on what the rabbi’s concluded.

Without putting teachers on pedestals and giving them authority as elders (unless a particular teacher is an elder), anointed teachers are given to us by God to wrestle with God’s word and bring authoritative interpretation for today. One of the failings of many churches in our generation is that we call people teachers just because they teach in cell groups or preach on sundays. However, for someone to be an Ephesians 4 teacher they should be anointed by God and set apart by the church to study and to reflect on the world around them. Its easy to see how we have got the role of teacher wrong. The only ministry available in paid employment in most church situations is the minister/pastor/priest idea so we don’t set aside funds to employ teachers except in bible colleges where they are taken out of the church and get lumbered with training more ministers/pastors/priests.

Flippin’ Pastors

If there was ever a ministry in the church that was crying out to be flipped it would be pastors today. Come to think about it, some of you reading this may have already thought about flipping your pastor! Nearly everyone in full time ministry in the free churches and the lower end of churchmanship types of fellowship gets to be called pastor. Is that what Paul envisioned in Ephesians 4:11? Actually the Greek word used is ‘poimen’ and everywhere else in the Bible it gets translated ‘shepherd’ as the ESV does here. Its remarkable, and completely wrong, that we have come up with ‘pastor’ as a universal word for church leader. Many churches even interchange elder and pastor so that the role is totally confused with that of those who carry the authority of the church. This has led to a weird kind of idea that church leaders are somehow different to the rest of the church, above the flock as it were. 

How hard it is to be a servant and yet also be somehow above the church! Surely we have given rise to a breed of Christian who is a totally confused, spiritual schizophrenic! Nearly all of the 17 verses which talk about shepherds in the Bible are referring to Jesus the good shepherd with the main exception being Ephesians 4:11. 

Perhaps we need to look at what a shepherd was in the time of Jesus to get hold of what he has called some people to be in the church today. Today a shepherd tends to drive around in a Land-rover and jump out with his sheep dogs who then faithfully respond to his calls as they round up the sheep. The sheep are driven by the dogs to go where the shepherd wants them to be. But not so the shepherds in Jesus time, or for that matter shepherds in the Middle East today. 

I sat for a few hours once and watched a flock in Cyprus. The shepherd walked slowly up to a patch of pasture and right behind him were a few sheep, then after a few minutes more sheep appeared mixed with a few goats, later came more sheep and goats and then last came a few stragglers. After another half an hour the shepherd stood up and walked down to the river a mile away and the same procession followed. I have no doubt that this process carried on all day as the shepherd took the flock of sheep and goats from one feeding ground to a watering hole, to safety for the night and so on. The sheep and goats heard his voice and followed.

I am the good shepherd; I know my sheep and my sheep know me. Jn 10:14

God has given shepherds to the church to lead them to spiritual and material food, water and safety. Its one of the ministry gifts where an analogy is used to describe the role, but because of the limitations of the analogy we lose sight that these shepherds are actually also sheep. The role is one of leading people into a place where they are cared for. In fact pastors lead all people, sheep and goats, they don’t make a distinction, but yet again this leadership isn’t ruling people, it is service. The pastor/shepherd is focussed on the needs of people so that he/she can meet those needs just for the sake of meeting the needs. A pastor is focussed on knowing people and knowing where in the city a need can be met and they help the church to fulfil that role and they release the anointing which a church needs to be a caring people. I would think that a pastor would be the worst possible of the ministry gifts to be the key leader of an ekklesia. Left to their own anointing a pastor would never change a culture, but would be overwhelmed by the needs of a world which would be counter kingdom of God culture entirely. Maybe that is one of the reasons that churches today comprise 24 serving adults worn out trying to keep the machine going led by a pastor who according to recent surveys will only last 7 years in ministry before he/she becomes disillusioned.