Aliens and Strangers

It was inspiring to listen to the FIEC national director, John Stevens, at the Leaders’ Conference recently. The theme of the conference was “Aliens and Strangers”, chosen because Christians in today’s Britain feel increasingly marginalised. We mourn the passing of a Christian society. We sometimes wonder whether God has abandoned His people, or is punishing them for their sins, or even whether He has failed.

Using the book of Daniel, Stevens assured us that this marginalisation is actually not unusual but normal, because Christians are always aliens and strangers in this world. Nostalgia is pointless. We need to learn how to serve God in exile, to know how far we should conform with the prevailing society and how far we should resist. It is thought-provoking to study where Daniel and his three friends drew the line. They didn’t resist being drafted into the Babylonian civil service. They didn’t even resist when forced to ditch their names and assume Babylonian ones. They drew the line somewhere else: eating forbidden food and praying to pagan gods. Are we equally careful to pick the right battles at the right times?

The book of Daniel affirms that nothing happens outside of God’s control. Under His direction, His faithful people in exile have a massive and unexpected impact on their oppressors.

Pagan kings seemed to have humiliated the God of Israel, totally defeating His people and destroying His temple. But in fact the proud king Nebuchadnezzar ended up being humbled by God; the defiant king Belshazzar ended up being slain at a word from God; the sympathetic Persian king Darius was used by God for His own purposes.

Our day has this difference from the time of Daniel: because we live after Jesus’ resurrection, we experience both the kingdom of the world and the kingdom of Christ. We are in exile, but we know that God has already won the definitive victory in Jesus. His kingdom has broken in to our time. This is the tension that we must live through, but we are right to feel triumphant hope.

Hope is the defining characteristic of God’s people. Energised by hope, we enter into the culture in which we find ourselves, but keep pure and speak truth to power, knowing that God will glorify Himself over the long haul.

Who might be the Daniels in your church, the ordinary men and women through whom God will get honour for Himself in the midst of an alien world?

Watch yourself

The temptations faced by high-profile Christian evangelists are enormous. Those who have not made themselves sufficiently accountable have at times brought the church into disrepute. No doubt even those who lived in the past must have gone through the mill of temptation.

I admire Charles Haddon Spurgeon, the foremost evangelistic Baptist preacher of the 19th century, for his clear and courageous stand against moral compromise. As an exercise, I have taken one of his meditations on the subject and turned it into the English of today. While his original words are easy enough to understand, people express themselves in a completely different way nowadays!

Spurgeon's text for the passage which follows is Psalm 5:8. In the King James Version with which Spurgeon would have been familiar, this goes, "Lead me, O Lord, in Thy righteousness because of mine enemies."

Here is my rendering of what he has to say about it:

The hostility of the world against the people of Christ is bitter indeed. People will forgive a thousand faults in unbelievers, but they will exaggerate the slightest moral lapse by Christians. Instead of fretting about this, let us turn it to advantage. Since so many are watching for us to slip up, let the knowledge of this spur us to behave extra carefully in the presence of God. If we live without watching our conduct, the eagle-eyed world will soon spot it. With its hundred tongues, it will spread the story in all directions, exaggerated and embellished by those who enjoy putting others down. They will shout triumphantly, "Aha! Just as we always thought! Look how these Christians behave! They are hypocrites, every last one of them." Great damage will be done to the cause of Christ in this way, and great insult heaped on His name. The cross of Christ is already offensive to the world without our help; let us not do anything to make it more so. To the Jews it is "an obstacle to trip over": let us take care not to put any more obstacles where there are enough already. "To the Greeks it is foolishness": let us not add foolery of our own. This would simply give more of an edge to the scorn which the worldly-wise heap on the gospel. How watchful we should be about ourselves! How unbendable we should make our consciences! Our enemies will misrepresent even the best of our deeds. If they cannot condemn our actions, they will question our motives instead. Faced with that, how circumspect we need to be! When pilgrims travel through Vanity Fair in John Bunyan's "Pilgrim's Progress", they are marked people. Not only are we under surveillance, but there are more spies than we could ever imagine. This espionage is everywhere, both at home and when we are out and about. If we fall into the hands of our enemies, we would be more likely to receive generous treatment from a wolf, or mercy from a malicious demon, than from them. The last thing they will show is patience with our weaknesses. After all, they spice their insipid unbelief in God with scandals against His people. Lord, lead us every moment, for fear our enemies will trip us up!

Man, Movement, Machine, Monument

Preacher and writer Dr Vance Havner once said that most religious movements begin with a man, then the movement becomes a machine, and finally it turns into a monument.

It’s sadly a very true statement. Thinking of my own background in the Methodist denomination, John Wesley in the 18th century was a whirlwind of a man, a great organiser who set in train the mighty movement known as Methodism. Marshalled into Conference, districts, circuits, preaching places, classes, bands, its following soared. There was even talk of the country being on the verge of going Methodist.

Then the pioneer movement somehow became solidified into one of the big denominations of the 19th century. It gave birth to a multitude of organisations and programmes. Everything meshed together and ticked over like a well-oiled mechanism. It had become a machine.

As the 20th century wore on, the sense grew that Methodism could no longer meet the needs and fire the imaginations of the people. Its movers and shakers began to hark back to the past. Places where Wesley did this or that were turned into stops on a heritage trail. A musical – “Ride! Ride!” – was written to celebrate the memory of the great man’s prodigious evangelistic travels. The machine was slowly but surely turning into a monument.

I moved into independency in 1998 and am hopeful that Evangelical independency remains a dynamic movement. Churches co-operating, but each standing free under God – that has ongoing appeal to me as a good way of doing and being church. But the same danger lurks.

It may be hard to identify the point where movement turns into machine and then monument. Yet it should be clear to those with discernment. When a church’s programme simply perpetuates itself year after year without question, or fond memories of the glorious past loom larger than hopes for the future, watch out.

A church may need to take a critical magnifying glass to much of what it has become, which is a painful process. Yet if the ideal of the movement is recovered, if Jesus Christ becomes real for people again, if people are once again helped and blessed, it is worth while.

John the Revelation-writer had to warn even the great church at Ephesus, “Yet I hold this against you: you have forsaken the love you had at first. Consider how far you have fallen! Repent and do the things you did at first. If you do not repent, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place” (Revelation 2:4-5 NIV).

Getting into the community

Oddly, despite episodes in hospital and other distractions, I have become more involved in my local community here in the Leigh area than anywhere else I have lived.

It has long been my aim to contribute to my local community. There is great value in meeting people outside of church circles and interacting with them.

This is distinct from the duty Christians feel to introduce outsiders to Christ. True, we would not wish to deny to others the great benefits the Lord Jesus Christ has given to us. If only those others knew it, it is a matter of eternal life and death for them. I frequently accuse myself of not guiding more people into conversation about their spiritual state. My excuse is that it is counter-productive to foist such discussions on people uninvited. When the Bible says, “Preach the word; be ready in season and out of season” (2 Timothy 4:2), that means be ready whether it is convenient to you or not – not the other person! We are not to harass people. But that can be an easy get-out, and there are all too many times when I could have shared the gospel without offence or inconvenience and didn’t.

But whether I get to talk to non-churchgoers about their souls or not, it seems good for a pastor to be an active citizen in his community. This was near impossible when I was minister of multiple churches scattered around different communities. I shared myself around seven churches in Cornwall, where I began my ministry, and as many as eleven in Banbury, with a hospital chaplaincy on top. But towards the end of my time in Aylesbury (only six churches there!) I became impressed with the work of the local CRUSE branch which offered counselling support to those locally who were bereaved. When I moved into independency in 1998, with only church to look after, I contacted a bereavement support organisation local to the Kidderminster area and became a volunteer worker with them. In Worcester I trained to do budget coaching for those who had financial problems.

In my current neck of the woods, things have taken a different turn again. I have joined up with my local Lowton East Neighbourhood Development Forum (www.lendf.co.uk) which meets monthly to discuss matters of concern to local residents. It has been an education and a joy. I’ve met lots more people through it, received their support in time of illness and hopefully given a little back. This must never be allowed to encroach on my duties at church, but it adds depth to my connection with the place where I live.

Some churches have little or no interaction with their local community. Others have been so bound up with it for many generations past that they have almost lost their distinctive Christian character. Our task is to be in the world, but in such a way that the world wants to ask, “What makes you so special?”

Shouting something about forgiveness

As I look back on our church's week of outreach early last month, I feel it was well worth doing. Simply viewed from our standpoint, it was a blessing to have something to aim for during those rather empty summer weeks when most of the church's regular midweek activities come to a standstill. It was also encouraging to see how many from the church got actively involved. Not everybody could come along, of course; some could do no more than support us with their prayers. But many used their gifts of hospitality as we opened the church for different events, and a surprising number even willingly engaged in the scary activity of meeting the great unchurched public in the centre of town.

Where possible, in street outreach, you get people to talk. Some might think that all the talking is meant to be done by Christians who have something to tell everybody else. We know all the answers, you might think, and nobody else can tell us anything. But in fact it is a rare privilege to stand and listen to what others outside the church are saying and thinking.

One one occasion, as we stood out on the street in Leigh trying to engage people in conversation, a lady passed by who shouted something about forgiveness. We may never know what prompted her to do that. Within a few seconds she had passed by, and the contact was gone. It led me to think about an incident that happened some years ago which showed how little people understand about forgiveness.

It was a sordid situation where a man at a church I was minister of at the time began an affair with a woman from a neighbouring church. His wife tried desperately to keep the marriage together. She found it unhelpful that some of us, however lovingly, called a spade a spade. What the man was doing was wrong - it was no good saying anything different. But the wife's constant and reproachful demand to us was, "You must forgive - you must forgive".

For many, forgiveness is cheap, a thing to be handed out like sweets from a slot machine. Regardless of the offence against God and against people, they reckon we should excuse it, shrug our shoulders and carry on.

When Jesus Christ on the cross cried "Father, forgive", God was pouring into that act of forgiveness not only His feelings, but His very flesh and blood. For Him, every human sin is not just "one of those things", but a slap in the face, a whip on the back, a nail through the wrist.

The Sunday after the outreach, I tried to show that God's forgiveness calls forth one of the great exclamation marks in the Bible. In Romans 5:7-9 the apostle Paul exclaims, "Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous man, though for a good man someone might possibly dare to die. But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Since we have now been justified by his blood, how much more shall we be saved from God's wrath through him!"

May there be many more times in the future when as a church we listen carefully to those outside and treasure their stories. May God then give us openings to explain to them the cost and the benefit of God's forgiving love.

One way in, one way out

It seems that nowadays they deliberately design buildings to have just one way in and out. The days when homes sported both a front and a rear entrance are passing into history. Whether it is a single property or blocks of properties, the fashion seems to be one way in, one way out. It reminds me of the Lord Jesus Christ and His description of Himself in John’s gospel chapter 10, as the genuine Shepherd who enters the sheepfold by the appropriate gate. The entrance and the exit are carefully guarded and the gatekeeper makes sure that only authorised staff have access to the sheep. The “thief and … robber” who “comes only to steal and kill and destroy” gives himself away by climbing over a barrier somewhere else and sneaking in.

The news is full of the dark and dishonest dealings of those who try to worm their way into our trust but then take advantage of us. Often this concerns money, but there are spiritual counterfeits too. They offer us ways of looking at life which seem believable but lead only to destruction. The Saviour aims to protect us from those who steal and kill and destroy. We should welcome Him and thank Him for looking after our well-being, because it will benefit us for ever.

We need to be on guard for our own safety. We need at the same time to keep others safe by showing them the one and only way to God that will work for them. As I write this, we are less than a fortnight away from a big week of outreach that our church is running in the town of Leigh. We seek to meet as many of the public as we can, by doing street work in the centre of Leigh and putting on various family events at church. It is certain that during the week we will encounter many people who simply do not know the way - do not know how to walk the world in spiritual safety. It is our privilege to show them that there is a means by which they can be kept safe: putting their trust in the Lord Jesus Christ as Saviour. We can show them the benefit: like sheep who feel secure in a sheepfold, they can safely find pasture to nourish themselves spiritually. Those who are constantly exposed and unsafe are spiritually starved. They do not have the time and the leisure to discover the proper food sources and make the best use of them. So I thank God for just one way in and one way out - one way to be safe, one way to be secure, one way to flourish. I trust and pray that many in these days will find that way, to their own joy and to God’s praise and glory.

Out walking

The day I can go out for a short walk is the day I know I am starting to recover from illness. It is a good feeling, first of all, to progress from being confined to a hospital bed to taking a few lumbering steps, perhaps attached to tubes. Of course there are those who cannot manage even that. You trust there are compensations for them in other ways: appetising food, loving care and attention, the sense that they are still valued members of the community, perhaps the comfort of Christian ministry by the bedside.

But God has blessed and provided me with healing and I have progressed from those first few steps to gradual strengthening, discharge from hospital and the point where I can take the fresh air and walk outside a bit further each day. It may not be much of a walk the way some people see it. I am not one of these fitness fanatics who routinely step out for five miles each day before breakfast. But to know I’ve walked at least some distance is the measure of whether I have been truly alive this day.

In the Bible, the life you live is your walk. In Bible translations that stick close to the original there are some 200 references to “walk”. Often our walk is described as being “before God”. He never fails to observe our daily conduct. In Genesis 17:1 God introduces Himself to Abraham and commands, “Walk before me and be blameless” (ESV). A misguided person may walk the wrong way. In 1 Kings 16 a wicked king walked in the sins of a previous ruler who set a bad example. Some strong-willed people walk in the stubbornness of their hearts. The apostle Paul tackled the problem of work-shy busybodies who walked “disorderly”, 2 Thessalonians 3:11 AV. Many walk “in darkness”.

But back to our real theme: good walking before God. Again, God sees it and notes it down. There are those precious ones of God’s people for whom what counts is faith in Jesus Christ, not ritual. Romans 4 describes them as those who “walk in the footsteps of the faith that our father Abraham had”. You can’t go wrong if you walk by faith! Whose footsteps will you tread in today?