Flippin’ conviction.

Lets go back to my friend who loves Roman Catholics so much that we feels he needs to tell them they are all wrong. Or another brother who came to me a few years ago wanting me to arrange for Christians in Croydon to picket our local theatre because the European Witch Fest was held there each year or another Christian who encouraged me to stop the Gay Pride marches by handing out tracts saying that 'gays were an abomination to God'. All three: 

a. were totally sure that they were right, 

b. felt a divine calling to tell the others that they were wrong,

c. believed that this was love in action. 

Each of these guys wanted to convict others of their sin, and hereby is the problem in a nut shell. Human beings have somehow fallen for a lie that we are convictors. That it is somehow our job to convict others of them being wrong and us being right. But I don’t find that principle in the Bible, what I do find is this:

And when he (the Holy Spirit) comes, he will convict the world concerning sin and righteousness and judgment

Jn 16:8

It has been a huge release to me to find that I am not meant to convict anyone of their sin. But I am meant to love them and I am called to judge actions, to use my knowledge and wisdom to help others who are caught up in sin and wrong understanding, even to bring discipline if necessary. But in all of this, it is the Holy Spirit who brings conviction of sin. 

God is the only one who knows a situation fully, who knows everyones thoughts and motives and who loves everyone perfectly with and everlasting wonderful love. 

On the other hand, I am sinful, a frail clay jar and nothing good lives in my flesh. (This isn't a confession of my personal habits just scriptural truth of every believer). I get things wrong and I don’t know my own motives and thoughts fully, let alone those of the person I believe to be wrong. And my love for others is at best flimsy and fickle. So who is going to be the best person to convict someone of their wrong? God alone.

Let me walk you through a typical attempt by me to try to convict another person. Lets say that I believe that my wife, Ruth, doesn't read her bible enough. Shock, horror, put her out of the church immediately.

How do I convict her of her sin?

Well I could try all kinds of styles. I could do the straight out “You aren't reading your bible enough” That ones sure to bless my marriage and demonstrate my love! But if that doesn't get the desired result I could go to plan B and wait till friends come round and drop into the conversation “Oh Ruth’s not reading her Bible enough” surely a bit of embarrassment will convict her. No? Of well I’ll go for the nagging constantly, always a way of keeping the home happy. I hope you are starting to get the picture that my attempts will always fail. Why, because I’m not the Holy Spirit. What's more, I will have done damage to my relationship.

You see, Jesus is Lord and his Spirit is the one who brings conviction. If I decide that I am going to be the one who convicts, then I am saying “I am lord of this situation - move over Holy Spirit”. Guess what, the Holy Spirit moves over. This is beautifully demonstrated in the film Bruce Almighty when God lets Bruce Nolan hear some of the prayers he hears. Bruce begins to write them on Post-It notes but rapidly become overwhelmed. 

Bruce discovers that he isn’t equipped to be God. The last thing we need is for God to move over and let us be lord. But it gets worse because when we do this, the devil realises that we are being lord of the situation and he moves in faster than Usain Bolt can run 100 metres. We have gone from a place where the Holy Spirit with all of his knowledge, wisdom and love was in charge, and where I was an ally of God and my wife, and where the devil was the enemy, to a place where pathetic me is lord and the devil is on the inside of the fight and where now I am my wife’s opposition. The whole things has rapidly unravelled from win, win, win to lose, lose, lose.

I’m not sure how the writers of Bruce Almighty nailed the subject so accurately or with such amazing humour, but they so got it right.

So what am I meant to do when I see something wrong in someone else's life?

Thank God that he is lord and start acting like it.

God knows the situation perfectly. He has the power and love to do do what is exactly right. He cannot be successfully opposed by the devil. What does that leave for me to do? I need to talk with the Father. In my example above I would say:

“Father, you know that I think that Ruth doesn’t study her bible as much as I’d like her to, but maybe I’m wrong here. Maybe she does, but I don’t see it or maybe my expectations are wrong, or maybe you are working on something in our lives way more important right now. Whatever it is, will you send your Holy Spirit to bring conviction on me and on Ruth as to what is right here. Where I am wrong please show me, and where Ruth is wrong please convict her. I’m going to leave it with you and ask for your strength not to take over.

I know that this is a very simple illustration but the process is always that simple in all situations. Most of what we get so wrong in the world could be sorted out if we dealt with things this way. Most of the things we argue about and fall out over in church can certainly be sorted out when we allow the Holy Spirit to do his flippin job and we stick to ours.

How Do We Flip The Flippin’ Church?

Thankfully the answer to how do we flip the church isn’t really relevant because we don’t flip it, Jesus does. He is building his church, his way. Perhaps a better question would be:

"what must we stop doing,

that we call building the church,

to enable Jesus to build his church today?"

If we were to talk to the famous Martian who beams down to earth and ask him to give his impression of this thing called church what would he say?

I’m not even going to attempt to answer that because it would probably entail sweeping statements and assessments which would not only be depressing, but would also fail to achieve what I want us to understand. My point is that when we start to wonder what the Martian would say, we immediately begin to think of all the things we think are wrong with the church, especially the other parts of it that we are personally not involved in. For instance a Roman Catholic Christian might well say that the Martian would be amazed at the stupidity of protestants who keep falling out and starting yet another denomination. And lets face it, that brother's comment would have huge credibility. Just ask yourself, ‘how many times has the Roman Catholic Church split?’ The answer is debatably three times. How many times has the protestant church split? Well, too many to count unless we look at just this year! What about a protestant evangelical what would he think a Martian’s findings might be? Well for a start, some in this group won’t be reading this at the moment anyway. Why? Because they haven’t got past the three words a few lines above “Roman Catholic Christian”. Figure it out for yourself.

A Martian who knows his bible might just conclude that the church is noisy gongs and clanging cymbals. If we look at our major debates over the last 100 years we can see that we have not had love.

Biblical interpretation conservative/liberal

Sexuality (or more to the point - homosexuality)

Abortion

The role of women in the church

Gifts of the Holy Spirit

Hell

The list could go on and on. But the relevance is that these debates end up polarised and separate Christians who so often take combative stances to those who oppose their particular view. If an evangelical leader dares to entertain a line of discussion from a liberal scholar he is accused of going over to the ‘other side’. Marty the Martian wouldn’t see any difference to these debates from any other issue in the rest of the world. 

I once put this observation to an evangelical friend of mine who was denying that Roman Catholics were Christians and spoke of them in threatening terms. I asked him where the love was. His answer was that of course he loved these poor misguided fools. It was out of his love for them that he needed to correct them. Aaaaargh!

I’m really not sure how to end this blog. I have left several months between writing the first 30 episodes and beginning this final section. I love Jesus, I love his church and I love people. However, I rebel against Jesus, I can be extremely frustrated by his church and often people get on my nerves. I don’t think that I have all, or even most of the answers, but I am a seeker and God has placed in me a vision which sees a church in unity with all kinds of disagreements but huge love on display to the world which knows not love.

In the next blog I have two final thoughts which I want to touch on which I believe will help us let go of our church and let Jesus flippin’ well restores and revive his church.

No business would be run this flippin’ way

How many times have I heard those outside the church look at us and say “No business would be run this flippin’ way”? (Actually never. They always use much stronger language) And yet when the very same people become Christians they join this terrible organisation and get fed the church response of “Ah but we aren't a business we are the church” as though that excused us all of our shortcomings and our stubborn refusal to obey John 17 and Ephesians 4. 

Please hear me rightly, I am not suggesting that we should become a business, but that, where appropriate, we should be business like in the way we work. For those who dislike this analogy I will give you a nice biblical phrase: 

'We have to be good stewards of the gifts God has given us'. 

It could be very simple things like the action we took as a church three years ago when we closed down our offices and rented space in an office block run by a black pentecostal church. This meant that we shared phone, photocopying, heating, lighting, tea and coffee, and computer broadband costs etc. But it also meant that we grew to know, understand and love each other much much more and began to do more together too. 

I don’t know if anyone has ever tried to do a survey of the duplication of effort of the churches in any city. I doubt it, but just imagine what might be flagged up when we reflect on youth work, children’s work, homelessness, the elderly and in-firmed, church staff, the list goes on and on. A year ago I was approached by three different church leaders in the same week asking if I knew anyone who could be their treasurer. None of the churches had huge accounts or massive outgoings or income and their books could have been done with a hour or so of work a week. I suggested to one book keeper I know thats she could start a business keeping the books for a dozen or so small churches. Then there is the legal knowledge required to run a church today, employment law, planning permission, health and safety, food hygiene, charity law, performance and copyright laws, child safety, vulnerable adult policy, tax and national insurance and on and on. Small businesses struggle with this stuff, the church can often try to ignore it because we don’t have the time or expertise. A city wide church can not only do these things, but help other faith groups and charities with their knowledge.

Flippin Staff.

Then there is the huge question of church staff. Many very small fellowships today have no full time leadership. 

Often the more traditional denominations have one minister between several churches. An old friend of mine who is an Anglican vicar told me that he had 7 rural parishes to look after and had one curate to help! Other slightly larger churches have a minister who has to live on the breadline because they can’t afford to pay him or her. Perhaps they have never read:

The elders who direct the affairs of the church well are worthy of double honour, especially those whose work is preaching and teaching. 1 Tim 5:17

These ministers usually have to put out the chairs, preach the sermon, arrange the sunday school, visit the sick, and unblock the kitchen sink, and that’s just their day off. 

I met with a pastor of a church which could no longer pay his salary and asked him what he wanted to do next if he had to leave that church. He told me that he wasn’t a pastor he was really an evangelist, but he would have to apply for a post as a pastor if he wanted a paid job in the church. The commercial equivalent would be a local building firm needing a brick layer but hiring a gardener because he was good with a trowel.

IT WOULD NEVER HAPPEN! 

I have met thousands of church leaders from just about every kind of denomination and theological persuasion, I can honestly say that very few were people who would get jobs in senior leadership in industry or commerce. Of course the standard reply is that ‘these are holy men and women set apart for an other worldly job’, which presumably means that they are so heavenly minded that are no earthly use. The church today almost despises leadership. So many churches are ‘democratic’ in their structure, but the bible is very clear:

Having gifts that differ according to the grace given to us, let us use them: if prophecy, in proportion to our faith; if service, in our serving; the one who teaches, in his teaching; the one who exhorts, in his exhortation; the one who contributes, in generosity; the one who leads, with zeal; the one who does acts of mercy, with cheerfulness. Rom 12:6-8

God expects leaders to lead with zeal. Not with one eye on the next elections. No army going to war would hold elections to see who the leader should be. That leader would have to be selected, trained and given responsibility in keeping with their ability. And, as Paul says, we are in a spiritual battle:

For the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh but have divine power to destroy strongholds. 2 Cor 10:4

Put on the whole armour of God, that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil. For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places. Eph 6:11f

However, I don’t doubt that many men and women in full time church based ministry are called to serve with their amazing, God given, gifts and passion. They are just serving in totally the wrong roles. I suggested to the friend I mentioned above whose church couldn't pay him, that taking a post as a pastor when he was an evangelist might well be a reason that his church had declined to the stage that it couldn't pay him anymore! Another friend of mine who works in Canada is a wonderfully gifted prophet, but felt that he should plant a church. Over the last decade or so he has planted a church which grew very quickly to hundreds of adult because prophets attract people who want the 'now' word from God. However, as fast as his church grew it fell apart because prophets are awful digital church leaders. After the church failed, he got very despondent, but after a time he tried again with the same rapid growth and decline and subsequent depression.

Can we not see that if the average minister has burned out in under 7 years we might have got something fundamentally wrong!

A city wide church (whether its where we are today with different things called churches working together in a kind of unity, or where Jesus calls us to be one day, as one church with congregations and small groups across the city) can release men and women into their God given ministries. They might be elders, apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, teachers, miracle workers, administrators, leaders, exhorters, mercy ministries, children's workers, youth workers, cheerful givers, musicians, entrepreneurs, cleaners, preachers, or servers in all kinds of fields. In Croydon today I estimate that in the 240 churches there are about 200 paid workers. My guess would be that 150 are employed as a pastor/minister/priest with various titles from 'Bishop' to 'Oi you'! The rest are mainly children’s or youth workers with a hand full or so of administrators. What could the church be like if we released even these people in their true gifting?

When men and women are functioning in the gifts God has given them in a church which Jesus is building, with true leadership and complementary ministries around them, 

they don’t burn out the burn bright!

Today we have small churches struggling and mega churches not really worried about it, in the spirit of “I’m all right Jack, pull the ladder up” as my Grandmother used to say of smug people. Neither model is the biblical church that Jesus is building. Size does matter. It enables the church to be in the city, for the city, but not of the city. The church can let its light so shine before men that they see our good works. We can be the ekklesia that changes culture and the salt that cleanses society. We will be the army of God that takes spiritual authority in our cities and becomes the thin place where the Kingdom comes on earth as it is in heaven.

Flippin Congregations and Flippin Cells

Flippin’ Congregation

When we begin to see the church in a city as one church then, at that point, we might be at the start of the journey where in reality the church is still made up of lots of local churches with all kinds of different internal structures and beliefs, or we might be a long way down the path where some of those churches have visibly come together and have recognised Ephesians 4 ministries as serving one church which has one vision, one eldership etc, but nevertheless still meet as one congregation in their local part of the city. Wherever we are on the road marked unity, we will be beginning to see that a city church is too large and too general to have any real connection to the people in smaller parts of the community. This is where we need to understand the dynamic of local congregations.

On Sundays congregations look much like any church would look now. They are the local gathering of Christians to worship and do the Sunday stuff. But they are also the expression of Christ in that particular housing estate or shopping centre etc. They would use existing church buildings or school halls or community centres or anywhere they could find to fit into. The difference is that they would be local people who shared a common location with all its needs and opportunities. What’s more the members of that congregation need not stay there if the expression of worship wasn’t accessible for them, because somewhere else within the same church in the city there would be somewhere where they could find a style of Sunday worship which was their cup of tea. 

Nevertheless, they could still serve the immediate community where they live and also be free to follow their calling and passion in ministry around the city if it wasn’t already embedded in that congregation.

The size of a congregation would depend on the density of the local population and available gathering space. However for the church to be represented in every part of the city, a congregation would probably not grow above a couple of hundred adults before it multiplied to another area where some of these folk came from or multiplied to another congregation which met in the same place at another time. 

The further factor we need to think about when it comes to size of congregation is the human need to belong and be known. I mentioned earlier that mega churches have difficulty in getting members motivated to serve and tend to see only 10% of its church active in this way. The other 90% are hardly known by most people. Church growth research shows that 250 adults is the optimum size for everyone to feel known and feel that they know others and therefore decide to invest themselves in serving in that body. Its also the size that can maintain a good youth and children's Sunday work, worship choir etc.

Lets look at this model of congregation from four directions, an individual Christian, the local community, the city authorities and the church.

For the individual Christian a congregation means that they feel they belong and can give and receive in that congregation where possible, but also in the city through the wider church ministries. 

Their family make local friendships in church and are looked after well with the benefits of a much larger team within the city wide church supporting the planning, teaching, financial matters, and legal requirements like health and safety, child protection, employment law, etc, as well as being able to receive Ephesians 4 ministries and have city wide church eldership. They feel that their tithes and offering are being used across the city and can they join in ministries, which they feel called to, without feeling that they are betraying their local church or offending their minister. They don’t have to travel very far to worship and the people around them are also all fairly local. This last point is worth expanding on in terms of environmental issues too. Christians often love to talk about being green, but we travel miles to go to church on Sundays and are back for mid week stuff too. Its not uncommon to find close neighbours of mine travelling for nearly an hour to get to church two or three times a week. A few years ago there was a petrol tanker driver strike which caused severe shortages of fuel. It was amazing to see who turned up at our church over that period. People who usually travelled long distances to worship came to us and liked what they found, but sadly went back to the Christian commute when the strike was over! Its far too easy for individual Christians and families to separate their working life, home life and church life. Often this disjointed pattern frustrates Christians in that they don’t feel that they are able to live out the calling on their lives in all three areas. However, there are also occasions when this divorce leaves a temptation to live three different lifestyles where only the church one is recognisably Christian! Whilst commuting to work is mainly unavoidable for most people, we should be able to help families to at least worship and serve where they live.

The local community around a congregation see a welcoming, vibrant group of Christians who have good lasting relationships with each other and with those in the community. The people are blessed by the local expression of church through the acts of kindness and which appear to have resources beyond the immediate congregation. This ‘church’ they experience knows them and blesses them and is them in many ways, especially when they see the building that is used by the church also being boundary-less for the immediate community. The church on their doorstep are not strangers driving in from miles away and blocking their streets on Sunday mornings, they are folk who they can relate to. 

Contact with this local congregation through one door leads to a wealth of other opportunities to be blessed by the ministries the church has to offer. They see the church as united and loving. In fact the church avoids the old cliche of shooting itself in the foot by talking about love and reconciliation, but not talking to the group of Christians in the next street. A recent example of this on a very small scale was the ALPHA course which was run in our local community a while ago. An Anglican church, a Baptist church with two separate congregations and our church’s two congregations got together to run an ALPHA course in 4 different venues and at 4 alternative times. Our evangelist spoke at our combined launch supper with cabaret from the Anglican church which was hosted by the Baptist church. Our evangelist taught at the first 3 weeks at all four venues and I was the speaker at the Holy Spirit day away. Regardless of which church the guest had been invited by they chose a course to attend and joined whichever church they wanted after the course was complete. As far as I know no one from that course joined either of our church’s congregations, but several went to the other churches. Everyone on the course and many observers from other local churches and in the wider community commented that this is the way that the church should be. We know it, but we just don’t get on with it and take it to its God given, and called for, conclusion.

The city authorities see the local congregation as a means to interface with the whole of the local community. They are volunteers, advocates, and neighbourhood glue. However, for the large organisations like local government and the police etc, they have known faces to meet with at a city level through the church who can speak with authority and assurance. Recently the Chief Executive of Croydon Borough Council moved on to another post elsewhere in London. Before he left we asked him to address church leaders on how he perceived them. Even though we are only a short way down the road to unity he said that he had wanted three things from the church in Croydon and was seeing them happening. The first was that we spoke the truth to the local community, second we acted decisively when the council told us of a need, and the third was that we acted without judgement on either those in need or the local authority etc for not meeting that need themselves. Without a doubt, the city not only needs a church but it actually wants one.

The church in the city see the congregations as different expressions of itself in varied community environments. They are the eyes and ears of the church in all areas of the city and are the salt where it needs to be and not stuck in a salt pot. They are gathered groups of the church living and serving the vision with the resources God has given the whole church, without being controlled by a headquarters. Often the congregation is a non Christian's first experience of a church gathering for fun, worship, fellowship or serving. The church knows that the congregations are where the day to day work of the church really happens.

Flippin’ Cells

Whilst a city wide church with congregations of 100-300 people meeting weekly in local communities is a great way to see the church functioning in ways that release it to be the ekklesia, it is well known that people need a few good relationships to feel that they are valued and loved. For years the church has looked for models which help groups of about 12 adults to meet during the week for a combination of worship, prayer, fellowship, serving, evangelism and teaching. But the reality is that the real benefit of these groups is that they give individuals a close group of Christian friends to meet with on a regular basis at a much deeper level. 

If congregations of the church meet in a fairly clear geographical area then cells can be formed of folk who can almost be at street level. I recently counted the families in my street who go to any kind of church. Of the fifty or so houses, I know of seven families who belong to seven different churches! 

In the part of Croydon where I live, the eight local churches use Lent as an opportunity to hold ecumenical study groups. One of the consistent remarks by those who have taken part in the Lent groups is how good it is to meet regularly with other Christians regardless of their denomination. Can you imagine the effect on a local street if seven out of fifty homes came together weekly to pray etc? An added bonus would be the change in that street’s community feel. Pot holes in roads repaired, street parties, gardening for elderly neighbours, shopping for sick friends, watch each others properties when away, all and more become a natural outreach from the local group. 

Of course one of the reasons that many Christians would not want a very local home group might be that its hugely challenging to practice our faith with those who live closest to us, who park across our drive or have noisy parties! But isn’t that where Jesus would want us to be? 

In the UK today we are facing the prospect of many local authorities running out of sufficient finances to do an awful lot of the things that they once did. The welfare state, including the National Health Service, has been a wonderful thing but a negative byproduct has been that we have developed a sense that the local authority should take care of everything. As the state finds it harder to provide, it leaves a wonderful opportunity for the church to step up and be great neighbours. 

Another way small groups can work is around a common interest. Someone with a passion for script writing, photography, or car mechanics taking a servant role in bringing together a few like minded Christians who then, in turn, serve others in the community who hold similar interests. Whether the cells are street fellowships or common interest groups they fulfil our human desire for good close relationships and are very intimate ways of being salt and light. They are also excellent vehicles for communication from the big city wide church to grass routes Christianity and vice versa.

Flippin City and Flippin Church

Flippin City

In the Bible a city, is a metropolis, a large group of people usually defined by a geographic boundary and a local government of some kind. Today we could use the phrase as I have throughout this blog to mean a borough, town, of large village for that matter. The important thing is that everyone living there identifies with that city and its make up. Often in large boroughs or cities there may be several shopping centres or smaller communities within the overall district, but they are all governed by one local authority and would have a headquarters for police, education or housing etc. Cities are also the places where commerce and industry often have their headquarters and are major employers. 

In the first century, cities would have been very cosmopolitan, full of people passing through for trade and other opportunities. The Pax Romana guaranteed safe passage for citizens around the Empire and every city would have had many religions and nationalities represented. This sounds like the majority of European cities today and it is certainly true of Croydon. In the 2011 census it was revealed that 8.1% of the borough are Muslim, 6% Hindu with Jews, Sikhs and Buddhists all having under 1% each and 27% stating no religion as such. Although 56% considered themselves Christian this is certainly not reflected in church attendance across the city. Because of relaxed European Union and British Commonwealth migration laws we also have an amazing variety of nationalities living in our borough. The city today is a very different place to Croydon 100 years ago, but perhaps much more similar to Ephesus in AD60. A city is a huge mixture of statutory agencies like local and national government, the police and health service, made up of people of many different nationalities and religions, working in charities and the third sector institutions, commerce and industry, living in smaller communities with huge economic diversity and all of the social difficulties which this complex situation throws up. In many cities in the UK, local authorities are running out of money and community seems to be very fragile indeed. 

The last point isn’t something new of course. The historian C P Snow said: 

Civilisation is hideously fragile... there's not much between us and the Horrors underneath, just about a coat of varnish.

Just like first century Ephesus, our cities today are crying out for an ekklesia.

Flippin’ Church

In the diagram we saw last time, all Christians in that city belong to one church. As we can deduce from our understanding of Ephesus, that church had its own apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers and was governed by one set of elders. Today we might say that it would also have one fund, one church staff, one set of policies, one vision statement, one membership etc. Thus giving the city an Ephesus experience of a large church with one face to the city and one voice in that city. 

For instance, in Croydon today that church would comprise about 16,000 people which would be by far the largest single group of any kind in the city. Just imagine what kind of influence that church could have. In a sermon on being salt and light by the great preacher David Pawson I remember him saying that it took 5% salt on a dung heap to render the required disinfecting and, therefore odour removing, influence. 

Pawson took this to mean that when a group of Christians comprise 5% of any population we begin to have an affect by just being there. Croydon would have a good 4% salt already.

Now I am not day dreaming of an impossible goal here. I say this for two reasons, firstly its what Jesus prayed for, and secondly its what we are told to spend every effort on. But I am also a realist, I know that reading this isn’t going to suddenly inspire every church in a city to close down and join together as one body. However, if I am correct in what I have written so far, 

isn’t it worth beginning the journey and seeing where it will take us? 

I feel that ecumenism in the past could be likened to a group of diverse people occasionally taking a nice aimless stroll together, with pleasant memories of time spent looking at our differences. What I am proposing is that we actually have a destination in mind and a fairly decent map of where we are going. 

However, unless we begin the trip we will never get there. 

At the start of our journey into oneness we might appear to have two options. The first would be to gather together all of those who have more or less the same mind as us and agree that the others are not the church, or at least will never be what we are until they agree with us. This is what some unity groups seem to be doing today. They are largely evangelical churches who are beginning to realise that their basic beliefs give them more in common than they have with more liberal members of their denominations and so they are putting aside minor differences to do more together. However, these groups are unlikely to accept non evangelical churches into their midst. The problem with this approach is that its not what John 17 or Ephesians 4:3 are about. 

The second route is actually the only one open to us if we are to take scripture seriously, we begin to make relationships with all of those who love Jesus as their Lord and the Son of God who loves them.

Just stop and dream with me for a moment what this church would look like even at the beginning of the journey. The city would see a church that shares resources, welcomes movement between congregations without jealously or fear of sheep stealing, where individual living stones were treated with respect and whenever we talked of another congregation, whether that be Church of England, Roman Catholic or Pentecostal, it was as if we were talking about an honoured friend. 

I don’t think the church in any city would stay the size it is for very long, do you? And lets be frank here, some of the congregations might die and others grow, but the church we all belong to would be the ekklesia of our city. A couple of years ago I spoke at a local fraternal of around 8 different church leaders where one of the larger churches was taking on a large building project. I suggested to the the gathered leaders that it would be a wonderful thing if all of them moved their offices into that one new building. The savings on duplication of office machinery etc, plus the opportunity for the community to find the church in one place when someone needed them would be amazing. I don’t think that all of those churches will take up the offer yet, but it should be possible.

In my dream so far I haven’t actually gone so far as to say that people should close down anything, let alone a denomination, just have godly relationships. Each thing we now call a church would operate in much the same way as it currently does and would share in cross city ministries as it does now, but I fully expect that, as we put our foot on the gas pedal, some churches would move into deeper unity and begin to share more and more in common. Even at the stage we are at Croydon today, we have seen remarkable changes in sharing ministry, resources and friendship. I have preached in Anglican, Methodist, Baptist, Pentecostal and new stream churches in the last couple of years. I have also spoken at other churches discipleship courses, fellowship meetings, outreach events and other gatherings and its only the beginning of the journey.

Whilst we are still separate churches on a journey to unity we have lots to learn. Not least we must learn to be generous. For several years now a really good church in the centre of Croydon, New Life Fellowship, have had the largest church building available in the borough, which can seat about 800 people and they have taken a lead in the generosity stakes in offering their building for city wide prayer meetings and conferences at no cost to the wider church. 

I found another beautiful example of giving a couple of years ago when I heard that one very large church in the USA often give their Sunday offering to other local churches. Now their offerings are massive and can sometimes be more than a few months worth of income to a smaller fellowship! I have heard of churches paying the salary of a minister who lost his job in another church, and of churches who send their musicians to play for other congregation's Sunday services, but the real point of me recalling these instances of generosity is that they are sadly very rare. We are a long way off the possibility of a city church with many congregations, where shared finances means that the giving in a wealthy part of the city is automatically used across the whole metropolis. However, I can already see feet hovering over gas pedals.

So what is the flippin’ answer to size today?

There has been lots written about church size and growth over the last 20 years or more and many models put forward, but many observers use market place strategies and very few seem to begin with the biblical model as though the bible had nothing to offer the church today.

I hope that you agree with me that a group of Christians assembling together for worship on Sunday mornings and maybe trying to keep a building going as well as looking after any children and youth work hardly measures up to the ekklesia we have seen earlier. Even if you add a full time worker to the plot, that person is likely to try to be all things to all men and is hardly likely to be able to minister in his/her gifting and calling. Funds will be insufficient to pay other ministries and so the poor worker will be burned out or will move on in an average of 4 years. An honest conclusion would be that ‘its a good job that Jesus is building his church because we aren’t building anything’.

At the other end of the scale, a mega church of a thousand or more tends to end up with a large staff but a congregation of pew fodder. One friend of mine working in a church of over 1,000 marvelled when I told him that 90% of our adults serve in the community through the work of the church. He reckoned that it was reverse for him in that 10% of the church he served were active members.

Another phenomenon today is that of church planting into cities whereby a movement or large church will release a few families to move to a town or part of a city where that group isn’t represented. Whilst church plant leaders have good hearts and are often very well trained and motivated they are rarely welcomed by the existing churches in that city and are seen as poachers of their flocks. 

Because church plants have energy, often they grow very quickly, but all too often this growth comes through attracting members of other congregations who are tired of belonging to something which is wearing them out. Most church plants don’t grow and so after the energy runs out, they become like all of the other small churches, often with the initial leadership joining the 7 year itch to leave full time church service. Those plants which grow usually have their sights set on becoming the latest mega church and have little time for church unity.

If we look at the problem from that of an individual living stone, a local Christian, he goes to a small local church because he likes the worship and teaching and makes some friends there. Maybe he gets to serve within the church and go to a midweek fellowship group. Cushty! No not really. The chances of that person being able to minister in the gifts and calling on him are very low indeed. If he has been given a passion for those who have alcohol addictions he is highly unlikely to find an outlet in his local fellowship and that group is unlikely to have great trusting relationships with a nearby mega church who may have that ministry, so the guy sacrifices what he is looking for in his weekly church to join the big thing where he can minister. Here he can fulfil his calling, but only if he is confident to put himself forward and now he isn’t worshipping where he lives and hasn’t got a small fellowship around him who know him well. The danger is that his ministry becomes all about his gifting and little is known of his on going character - the very thing which is seen in scripture as the main requirement for ministry.

I want to suggest to you that the Ephesus model worked because it was the church Jesus was building. The model looks like this:

Sorry about the screen shot but I couldn't draw the diagram any other way.

More next time