Family Worship
Andy Beard
Luke 5:1-11 Family Worship Ideas

St. Crispin's Day (25th Oct)

We probably have only heard of it because of Henry V’s famous speech on the morning of Agincourt in Shakespeare’s play. In fact, 25th October is renowned for several famous battles that have been fought on it, including Agincourt (1415), and the Battle of Balaclava (of ‘Charge of the Light Brigade’ fame) during the Crimean War in 1854.

But who was St. Crispin and why do we remember him, and mark his life and death? Crispin and his twin-brother Crispinian were two Christians brought before the Roman co-Emperor Maximianus in 286, during the infamous persecution instigated by Diocletian. The fact that their case was dealt with at such a high level gives us some indication of their influence. In fact they were effective missionaries in Gaul, spending their days preaching the Gospel, and their nights working as cobblers to support themselves.

After various incentives and promies failed to lure them from their devotion to Christ, Maximianus turned to threats. “Your threats do not terrify us, for Christ is our life and death is our gain. Your rank and possesssions mean nothing to us, for we have long since sacrificed all this and its like for the sake of Christ and rejoice that we have done so. If only you would acknowledge Christ and love Him, you also would give up not only all the treasures of this life, but even the glory of the crown itself, in order through the exercise of compassion, to win eternal life’.

Not the St. Crispin’s Day speech we’re used to!

Maximianus was incensed that they sought to convert him, and handed the twins over to the governor Rictovarus, known for his cruelty in persecuting Christians. The story goes that Crispin and Crispinian were subjected to various tortures, included being stretched on the rack, and - in an act of studied irony - being thrown into a river with a millstone tied round their necks. Incredibly (miraculously?) they survived, and Rictovarius, under conviction, committed suicide, rather than bow to Christ.

Maximianus ordered the brothers to be beheaded, which was duly done.

and it's also worth asking...

At first glance the Kristie Higgs case may not appear that important. "Christian Teacher sacked over Facebook posts loses discrimination case" is the kind of headline that some just skip with a shrug of the shoulders. "O look, another unwise Christian mouthing off unnecessarily, gets her comeuppance – what do you expect?" Others are all set to man the online barricades and retweet endless outrage to those who already agree with them. Can I suggest … that we read beyond the headlines, avoid the judgementalism and instead consider the significance of this judgement.

Doubtless there are lots of things that can and will be said about Kristie – personally I admire her courage and share the concern that she has lost her job for sharing an opinion which I and millions of others share. But I want to focus on one particular aspect of the judgement, which has profound implications for the future of the Church in the UK – and perhaps elsewhere.The tribunal decided that Kristie was not sacked for her Christian beliefs. They also accepted that her beliefs were not transphobic or homophobic. The tribunal also rejected the view of a previous decision regarding Dr David Mackereth that "a lack of belief in transgenderism and conscientious objection to transgenderism are incompatible with human dignity and conflict with the fundamental rights of others and are not worthy of respect in a democratic society".So why did they still find against Kristie? Why did they agree that she had committed such 'gross misconduct' that she deserved to lose her job? Let's go back to the original post which Kristie shared. In October two years ago, Kristie shared a petition on her private Facebook page using her maiden name and not mentioning her employer.

She was concerned about her nine-year-old son being taught that gender is just a social construct and you can change your gender if you wish. She objected to the mandatory Religious and Sex Education, which the government had determined was to be taught to children as young as four. She argued, correctly, that it was brainwashing.

She was concerned about the impact of transgender ideology being taught to young children – a concern which is more than justified by the evidence becoming available which describes the harm that is being caused to children.

But an anonymous complainant went to the headteacher and described her posts as "homophobic and prejudiced to the LGBT community". The headteacher is then reported to have asked the complainant to find more offensive posts. Kristie was subsequently investigated, suspended and fired. The panel which investigated her, said her views were "pro-Nazi" and she was told to "keep your religion out of it" when she tried to defend herself.

According to the tribunal, her dismissal "was the result of a genuine belief on the part of the school that she had committed gross misconduct". Kristie was not dismissed for her beliefs but rather because of the beliefs of the school. I have a genuine belief that the tribunal was being irrational, discriminatory and prejudiced by the criteria the tribunal uses, so that means they should find themselves guilty! Unless my belief is irrelevant, that is, and only some beliefs count.

It gets worse. The tribunal states that Mrs Higgs was found guilty of posting items on Facebook that "might reasonably lead people who read her posts to conclude that she was homophobic and transphobic". Yet that same tribunal admitted that Mrs Higgs was not transphobic or homophobic, nor did they state that the posts themselves were transphobic or homophobic – just that some people might think they were, and thus they would cause upset.

That is why this ruling is so important. If this judgement is allowed to stand, it will mean two things. Firstly, the whole standard of law will now be changed. Guilt is now determined not upon evidence but simply upon the faith and feelings of the prosecuting party! Based on an anonymous complaint, a tribunal decided that a private post (which was not available to the public) was sufficient grounds for an employee to be fired. This means that anyone who finds what someone says to be potentially upsetting or offensive, now has the ability to get them fired. Objective evidence is irrelevant.

Except it does not mean that. It does not mean that ANYONE who finds something offensive can get someone else fired. It just means that only certain approved and protected groups have the ability to use the law to enforce their views. I suspect that the school would not have fired a teacher who posted a message that I would find offensive about Christianity. If this judgement stands, we will have lost the principle of 'all are equal before the law'.

In the Brave New Britain, some are now more equal than others and a society is emerging where pluralism is disappearing and along with it, freedom of religion, freedom of speech and freedom of thought. State approved indoctrination within the schools is now going to be backed up by the law, which in effect bans all other points of view.

It is ironic that Mrs Higgs was accused of holding Nazi-like beliefs by a school which is using Nazi-like authoritarian methods (kangaroo courts, anonymous complainants, transgression of state ideology) to impose its own exclusive ideology.

Just think about this. In Britain, we now have state-authorised indoctrination, which is now being enforced by a legal system which punishes you for daring to express a different point of view – even in private. Think and then pray that we would be delivered from this evil. Then act (write in support of Mrs Higgs to your MP, help her legal fund, ask your church leadership to speak up) – before it becomes illegal even to do that.

The church needs to be united on this and I realise how difficult that is when so many churches have sold out to progressive ideology.  It speaks volumes that Steve Chalke, in light of this case, not only warned that churches who do not accept this ideology face prosecution, but also suggested that even expressing pastoral concern or praying for people with gender confusion or unwanted same-sex attraction was "psychologically abusive". In these times of moral confusion, those of us who love the Lord and want to stand on his word need to stick together.

Article published in Christianity Today, and written by: David Robertson, director of Third Space in Sydney and blogs at www.theweeflea.com

Standing Strong online

Did you miss this last weekend? Watch out particulatly for the section on the Church in China, in which we are told that the levels of persecution are worse than at any time since the Cultural Revolution. How is the Church responding to the worsening situation? There is also a particular focus on the Church in Syria, and the chance to find out a bit about what’s going on in the Church in Nigeria and how they are responding in the midst of persecution, poverty and a pandemic… as well as the politicisation of Food Aid. What can we learn from our brothers and sisters from around the world, especially in a context of Lockdown. Along with ideas for prayer and fundraising, this is well worth a watch!

Quote of the evening: ‘Wong Ming Dao, when he went into jail at aged 60 found that all the great things he had lived for as a Christian leader were taken away from him, and all he to do was get to know Christ in this jail cell. That’s what persecution does, it strips everything away until its just you and Christ and the focus is on the knowing and the receiving of the love of Christ … that’s the benefit of persecution, because it brings you closer to the pereson of Christ and it puts the focus not on serving Christ, though that’s important, but on knowing Him’.

OK - one more then: ‘Chinese Christians really say you’ve got to get together physically because something happens in a group with Christ that cannot happen any other way … if your Zoom service is the same as your service in the Church, don’t go back tot hat Church, because something ought to happen in a Church when you gather round and meet Christ that cannot happen in any other context or in any other way. They are back at Church, and they are astonished that in Britain many Churches still haven’t opened their doors yet’.

It's always worth asking...

…what would we do in the circumstances?

https://christianconcern.com/news/tribunal-rules-christian-could-be-fired-for-facebook-post-raising-rse-concerns/

https://www.msn.com/en-au/news/world/christian-school-worker-loses-tribunal-case-against-sacking/ar-BB19MZZG

https://www.personneltoday.com/hr/christian-kristie-hicks-loses-discrimination-claim-in-lgbt-teaching-case/

…and where is the Church of England?

https://archbishopcranmer.com/kristie-higgs-schoolworker-sacked-transgener-ideology-church-england/

Vision 2020, Bible Study 6, Spiritual Leadership

The Question of Leadership

[Moses] chose capable men from all Israel and made them leaders of the people, officials over thousands, hundreds, fifties and tens.

                       (Exod.18:25)

For you have been born again, not of perishable seed, but of imperishable, through the living and enduring word of God. For, “All people are like grass, and all their glory is like the flowers of the field; the grass withers and the flowers fall, but the word of the Lord endures forever.”  And this is the word that was preached to you. Like newborn babies, crave pure spiritual milk, so that by it you may grow up in your salvation, now that you have tasted that the Lord is good.

(I Pet.1:23-2:3)

We started this series reflecting together on the question of authority in the life of the church.   One of the questions I raised was about how our appreciation of the role of leadership would affect how we selected and prayed for our leaders.  But there is a further aspect to this – the question of how we support, encourage, inspire and invest in those leaders. 

We need to be thinking of leadership in its fullest sense.  We’re not simply focussing on the vicar, or the PCC, or the ministry team.  Leadership cascades throughout our congregations: Fellowship Group leaders, those leading our young people’s, or children’s and family’s ministries.  Sunday Group leaders, worship leaders, leaders in mission and outreach, in pastoral care and support…  and beyond the ‘institutional’ life of the congregation into family life with the role of parents.  It’s actually quite a long list when you start thinking about it.

But whatever arena we are exercising leadership, the goal is always the same.  We are leading people to Jesus by the Spirit, and in Jesus we are reconciled to the Father, and restored to His vision for our life as His people.  Whether we are talking about evangelism, discipleship, or worship, always the focus is on leading people to Jesus, on knowing Him more fully, enjoying Him more deeply, responding to Him more authentically.  Leadership is invested in the Church by Christ, so that we may ‘all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ’ (Eph.4:11-13).  

Our reading (Heb.5:11-6:3) seems to be working on the assumption that a normal aspect of spiritual growth and maturing is becoming people who are able to ‘be teachers’.  It’s anticipated that as we grow in our understanding of ‘the truths of God’s Word’, that we will become those who are able to teach others.  We will become those who are able to lead Fellowship Groups, Youth Groups, Sunday Groups; those who are able to sit down over a coffee or a beer or a glass of wine and teach others what the Bible has to say – either in a context of evangelism or discipleship making. 

The fact those who receive this letter can’t teach others yet is a problem.  It’s a problem for them because it’s symptomatic of the fact they aren’t growing; it’s a problem for the Church who don’t have people in it who can teach well and so struggle for Fellowship Group leaders, Alpha / CE table leaders, youth / children’s groups leaders etc; and it’s a problem for other Christians, who aren’t benefitting from having great teachers around them at every level of Church life.  That means they, in turn aren’t growing… 

Leading into spiritual growth – the aim of all leadership in Church life – is a leading into a mature understanding Christian belief.  And this not in some merely intellectual sense, as if Bible knowledge were an end in itself.  Rather truth that is believed, and lived.  Not just assented to by the intellect, but desired by the heart and accepted by the will so that it shapes who we are and how we live.  It is, after all, ‘teaching about righteousness’.  And that can’t be merely theoretical.  It is to be ‘used’, and by constant use such understanding teaches and trains us to ‘distinguish good from evil’ (5:14).  Once we have learned how to so live, we are able to teach, to lead, others.

This interplay between teaching and righteousness is a critical one to appreciate in the quest for spiritual maturity.  When we don’t understand the Bible we tend to assume it is an intellectual problem.  In fact, it might be a moral one.  If we aren’t putting the truth we already know into practise, the Spirit is not likely to reveal more truth to us.  His Word is precious, and the question of Truth is relational.  Our capacity to understand the Word of God is less about IQ and theological degrees, and more about holiness.

Questions

Do you agree that the main point of spiritual leadership is leading others to Christ, and teaching people how to live in relationship with Him? 

What other skills or qualifications would you expect in Church leaders?  Can you think of passages from the Bible to back up your answer?

Do you think we can learn about leadership from ‘secular’ models of leadership?  …or are they too different?

Read Heb.5:11-6:3

Why do you think Christians would get to the point of no longer trying to understand what the Bible teaches (v.11)? (you might find Heb.2:1, 3:7-8; 3:12; 4:11; 4:14 helpful background passages)

Do you think it is reasonable to expect all Christians to be able to teach (v.12)?   Should we cultivate a similar expectation at MIE?  How would feel about it?

Read the list of ‘elementary teachings’ in 6:1-2.  Would this be the list you would come up with if you had been asked to list out the elementary teachings of ‘righteousness / repentance’?  What are the discrepancies?  Are there any teachings in Heb.6:1-2 you’d struggle to explain to others?

What do you think would constitute ‘solid food’ (5:12)?  What is the link between this and ‘maturity’ (6:1)?  What expectations does this put on preachers, teachers and congregations?

Paul & Peter both use the milk / solid food analogy (I Cor.3:2; I Pet.2:2-3).  Do you think they mean the same thing?  How would you explain this analogy to others?

How does our understanding of the Bible affect our ability to live righteously?  If we don’t understand the Bible / Christian belief, how is our ability to live as Christ calls us to compromised? … or is it?

Memory Passage:

Brothers and sisters, I could not address you as people who live by the Spirit but as people who are still worldly – mere infants in Christ. I gave you milk, not solid food, for you were not yet ready for it. Indeed, you are still not ready. You are still worldly. For since there is jealousy and quarrelling among you, are you not worldly? Are you not acting like mere humans?

I Cor3:1-3

For further reflection:

This series could easily have felt like an anti-climax.  There has been no fanfare, no flashing light, no radically new ideas, no revolutionary concepts, no massive reconfiguration of the Church’s mission.  Quite the opposite.  We’ve been quietly and unspectacularly revisiting what the prophet Jeremiah spoke of as ‘the ancient paths’. ‘[A]sk where the good way is, and walk in it, and you will find rest for your souls’ (6:16).  I’ve been suggesting that we pursue God’s heart.  I we can (re-)capture His heart for the lost, that will revolutionise us far more than running a training course and launch a new evangelistic project.  If we can (re-)capture His heart for our growing to be like His Son, our hunger and thirst for righteousness will intensify.  If we can (re-)capture His heart that will invest our worship and prayer with a sense of reality and encounter with God that can at times seem so elusive.  As one scholar puts it: We won’t find excellent worship until we stop pursuing excellent worship and start pursuing God.  In a way, that has been the burden of our series, pursuing God, and growing in Him. 

It’s a harder vision to speak about, to envisage, to grasp hold of.  We can’t measure it in terms of finance, or progress against a project map.  There is no glossy vision document with boxes to tick off, and teams to commission, and fundraising targets to hit.  There is simply us and God.  In some ways that is re-assuring, in some ways destabilising.  It demands a humility.  It’s easy, and all too common, to allow our experience of what God has done to eclipse our sense of what God might yet do.  We can, and must celebrate and give thanks for all God has done in us and for us and through us.  But we cannot and must not allow that to limit our sense of what God will do in the future.  We have tasted of God and it has left us hungering for more.

Jesus, Incarnation & Cultural Relevance..?

One of the most common questions I’ve been asked over the last few weeks relates to the question of Church Services and cultural relevance. And one of the most common thoughts raised by those who are pushing back on it focusses on the exprience of Jesus in the Incarnation. When ‘the Word became flesh and dwelt among us’, He did so in a way that was within a given culture. Put crudely, He dressed and spoke like a 1st Century Jew; He operated in ways that fit with and made sense in 1st Century Middle-Eastern context. Doesn’t the Incarnation then mandate Churches to ‘incarnate’ themselves in a similar way in their cultural context?

Well, Yes and No.

Yes - we are to be culturally … well I prefer to speak of Cultural authenticity rather than relevance. That’s more than semantics as we’ll see. We live in a specific time and place. You’ve heard me say a lot recently that our place in geography and history matter. Culture - though cursed and fallen like everything else in this age - remains nevertheless God’s idea. We are shaped by our culture in ways we can’t even begin to appreciate. At a more obvious level, we dress and speak in ways shaped by our culture, and which would be out of place elsewhere in the world. We can’t escape that, not should we necessarily try (unless those cultural norms violate Scriptural ones).

and No.

To say that Jesus was culturally relevant is at best only partly true. There were also ways in which He transcended His own culture, ways in which He challegned it, and ways in which He remained an enigma to it. If we are going to draw on the Incarnation as our model, then let’s do so consistently. We’ll need to see where Jesus challenged, or rejected His culture and where He refused to be shaped by it, or limited by it as much as where He accomodated it. It seems clear that none of the 1st Century cultures had a category that would allow them to make sense of the Cross. And while there were aspects of Jesus that were distinctively ‘1st Century-Middle-Eastern’, there were aspects of His Incarnation that were trans-cultural, making Him immeditately recognisable and identifiable in every culture. Jesus challenges, condemns, subverts, rejects, redeems, inhabits, celebrates and re-imagines the culture in which He lives.

Which means that the relationship between a Church and the culture(s) in which that Church lives is complex. There are parts of Church life which should be instantly recognisable and identifiable in every Church wherever and whenever they meet. I can read the liturgy of Church services from Jerusalem in the 3rd century, North Africa in the 5th century, Europe in the 16th century, and while the language is different, there is also massive continuity and at times a surprising degree of consistency in what is said and done. We use forms of service and liturgies that were crafted centuries ago, and find they speak to our spiritual need today. I have worshipped in churches all over the world (well, on four continents…). Even when I am sitting in services where I haven’t been able to speak the language, I have still been able to recognise much of what’s going on… sometimes even recognise some of the songs being sung!

It also means that while we inhabit culture, we don’t capitulate to it. Our relationship with culture is one of critical engagement. We are aware that all culture needs to be redeemed. This world is under the control of the evil one (I Jn.5:19). The culture of the nations of this world is created through the synergy of fallen humanity and spiritual forces. Incredibly though, it - like much else - remians redeemable. Indeed, that is arguably part of the role and responsibility of the Church. But - and I think this is key - the Church shapes culture, as much (more?) from without as from within.

And one final thought… the Church is within itself made up of people from different cultures. Few local Churches are completely culturally monochrome. Even a Church like MIE is composed of folk from several different cultures. Some cultural differences are obvious, some much less so. We often don’t appreciate the differences until we trip over them and cause cultural offence. When it comes to the question of being culturally relevant, we are going to struggle - which culture is it we are wanting to be relevant to? Which of our cultures are we wanting to resonate with? This is a much deeper question than may first appear, and it isn’t always clear that we know the answer.

The glory of the Church is supposed to be precisley that it holds together in spiritual unity those from a variety of different and divergent cultures. Whether those are different cultures within a nation’s life, or from beyond a nation’s life. Cultural relevance to one culture is cultural irrelevance to another. This is true in terms of geography as well as history. As one wag put it: the Church that is married to one culture will be widowed to the next.

None of this is to advocate deliberate cultural irrelevance. We are not working for an idiosyncratic or archaic way of being Church; nor are we trying to make it harder than necessary for people to find a spiritual home in the Church. Nor is it to plea for relevance to a culture of 500 years ago.

But just because the Church did something 500 years ago, doesn’t mean that it was being shaped by the culture of its own day, and so should be re-imagined in such a way as to make it culturally relevant in our day. The BCP (for example) was as culturally irrelvant to the various 16th Century English cultures as it is in the many 21st Century English cultures (language and literary style not-withstanding). And where it became more ‘relevant’ it is because the (the doctrine of the) BCP had shaped the culture, not because it had been shaped by it. Archbishop Cranmer consciously modelled (to the point of cutting and pasting at times) the liturgy of the Anglican Church on historic Christian worship dating back to the Early Church Fathers. It is often not appreciated that the Reformation kept significant continuity with the worship of the Church of previous centuries (again, language not-withstanding). Several of the Reformers made the point that they were standing in greater continuity with the Ancient Church than the medieval Catholicism they were reacting against.

When it comes to the culture of our Church (and thus of our worship), some of that (likely the most surface elements) will be generated in conversation with the culture(s) of those who comprise the local congregation. Music styles, language, aesethetics might all be worked out in dialogue with our own cultures. But at the most foundational level of that congregation’s life it will be shaped by a Culture that transcends all culture. All of us will therefore suffer a kind of culture-shock. We will all find ourselves in unfamiliar territory, disoriented and uncertain. But that’s not always a bad thing! Sometimes it is postively good.

But the burden of this series is that some of the most pressing questions about worship might not ever be resolved at this level of culture…

The 100 years prayer meeting

FACT: The Moravian Community of Herrnhut in Saxony, in 1727, commenced a round-the-clock “prayer watch” that continued nonstop for over a hundred years.

FACT: By 1791, 65 years after commencement of that prayer vigil, the small Moravian community had sent 300 missionaries to the ends of the earth.

Could it be that there is some relationship between those two facts?

Is fervent intercession a basic component in world evangelization?

The answer to both questions is surely an unqualified “yes.” That heroic eighteenth-century evangelization thrust of the Moravians has not received the attention it deserves. But even less heralded than their missionary exploits is that hundred-year prayer meeting that sustained the fires of evangelism. During its first five years of existence the Herrnhut settlement showed few signs of spiritual power. By the beginning of 1727 the community of about three hundred people was wracked by dissension and bickering. An unlikely site for revival!

Zinzendorf and others, however, covenanted to prayer and labor for revival. On May 12 revival came. Christians were aglow with new life and power, dissension vanished and unbelievers were converted. Looking back to that day and the four glorious months that followed, Zinzendorf later recalled: “The whole place represented truly a visible habitation of God among men.” A spirit of prayer was immediately evident in the fellowship and continued throughout that “golden summer of 1727,” as the Moravians came to designate the period.

On August 27 of that year twenty-four men and twenty-four women covenanted to spend one hour each day in scheduled prayer. Some others enlisted in the “hourly intercession.” “For over a hundred years the members of the Moravian Church all shared in the ‘hourly intercession.’ At home and abroad, on land and sea, this prayer watch ascended unceasingly to the Lord,” stated historian A. J. Lewis.

The ‘Memorial Days of the Renewed Church of the Brethren’, published in 1822, ninety-five years after the decision to initiate the prayer watch, quaintly describes the move in one sentence: “The thought struck some brethren and sisters that it might be well to set apart certain hours for the purpose of prayer, at which seasons all might be reminded of its excellency and be induced by the promises annexed to fervent, persevering prayer to pour out their hearts before the Lord … The sacred fire was never permitted to go out on the altar (Leviticus 6:13); so in a congregation is a temple of the living God, wherein he has his altar and fire, the intercession of his saints should incessantly rise up to him.”

That prayer watch was instituted by a community of believers whose average age was probably about thirty. Zinzendorf himself was twenty-seven. The prayer vigil by Zinzendorf and the Moravian community sensitized them to attempt the unheard-of mission to reach others for Christ. Six months after the beginning of the prayer watch the count suggested to his fellow Moravians the challenge of a bold evangelism aimed at the West Indies, Greenland, Turkey and Lapland. Some were skeptical, but Zinzendorf persisted. Twenty-six Moravians stepped forward the next day to volunteer for world missions wherever the Lord led. The exploits that followed are surely to be numbered among the high moments of Christian history. Nothing daunted Zinzendorf or his fellow heralds of Jesus Christ—prison, shipwreck, persecution, ridicule, plague, abject poverty, threats of death. His hymn reflected his conviction:

Ambassador of Christ, Know ye the way ye go?

It leads into the jaws of death, Is strewn with thorns and woe.

Church historians look to the eighteenth century and marvel at the Great Awakening in England and America which swept hundreds of thousands into God’s Kingdom. John Wesley figured largely in that mighty movement and much attention has centered on him. It is not possible that we have overlooked the place which that round-the-clock prayer watch had in reaching Wesley and, through him and his associates, in altering the course of history?

…taken from an article by Leslie K. Tarr, published at https://www.christianitytoday.com/

Open Doors Conference online

Standing Strong, Saturday 3rd October 2020, 7.45-9.30pm

register here: https://www.opendoorsuk.org/news/standing-strong-2020/standing-strong-online/

Open Doors’ annual Standing Strong events can’t take place in person this year – but we’re delighted to host an online evening gathering featuring the interviews, stories, praise and prayer that have made Standing Strong so memorable for many years.

At Standing Strong Online we will bring you the latest news on what’s happening to our brothers and sisters in Syria, Nigeria and China through interviews with church leaders and footage direct from our partners around the world.

So, join us on Saturday 3 October as we pray, learn and worship together with our persecuted family and find out how their courageous faith can strengthen us all.

Do NOT read this book

In yesterday’s sermon I mentioned a book by the mighty Bible commentator Matthew Henry, A Method for Prayer. Quite few folk have expressed interest in it… so I thought I’d both encourage that, but also flag up one or two warnings so that we don’t get discouraged early on. The first thing to remember is that this is a book that was written 300 years ago. The use and style of language has changed a bit over those three centuries, which can make reading a book like this an aquired skill… in other words it can take a bit of time and effort to work out, and at times to ‘translate’ what Matthew Henry is saying. I remember the penny-drop moment when I realised that ‘divers’ equates to the modern word ‘diverse’ (as in: many or varied), and not to sub-aquatic swimmers (which never really made sense)! I think it’s worth the effort, but don’t get discouraged if it takes a bit of time - and if you are struggling, drop me an email…

Secondly - and this is much more significant - don’t try to read it ‘cover-to-cover’. It isn’t that kind of book. There are a few parts of the book you can just read. The opening letter to the Reader; and the sections at the end entitled ‘Directions for Daily Communion with God. But apart from those bits, it works much better as a kind of reference book. So, for example, if I wanted to pray for those who are struggling with mental health issues, I might turn up Chapter 6, section 22, and draw some help and inspiration from there. Or if I wanted to pray for our nation in a time of crisis, I’d start with Ch.5, section C ‘We must pray earnestly for national mercies’. Because this is the nature of the book, you have to use it for a while before you start to get an idea of what’s in there… In that sense it is a book to be prayed through rather than read through…

You might want to use it as part of your own devotional life so that you become familiar with it in this way. It certainly takes off the beaten tracks that our own prayers may have worn over the years. I regularly find myself thinking: I’d never have thought to pray that…

Thirdly, because it was written in a different time, it might not be ‘politically correct’. Whether that is a good thing or a bad thing I’ll leave you to decide for yourself. I’m just alerting you to the possiblity that occasionally you’ll read something that will make you catch your breath and think ‘I’m not praying that!’. Sometimes it might be worth looking up the passages that Henry is basing his prayers on and deciding if you think he is being fair to the Bible’s teaching.

And finally, I’ve found over the years that books like this serve a primers for prayer. The first few lines might be all I need sometimes, before I’ve got a sense of how to pray for something, and I am able to put ‘A Method for Prayer’ down. I doubt Matthew Henry would begrudge me that!

With those qualification in place, I commend this book to you, and would encourage you to allow the Holy SPirit to expand our vision of prayer, and to discipline us to pray more fully and consciously in a way that is shaped by the will of God revelad by the Spirit through the Scriptures. Of course, this isn’t the final word on ‘prayer’, and some might not find it helpful - but I think the idea that shapes the book is one we all need to take on board.

so, don’t read this book, pray it…

And thanks to Graham Bricknell for pointing out to me that there is a free online version available at  https://www.matthewhenry.org

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Vision 2020, Bible Study 5, Prayer

The Question of Prayer

And pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the Lord’s people.

                       (Eph.6:18)

Night and day we pray most earnestly that we may see you again and supply what is lacking in your faith … pray continually.

(I Thess.3:10 & 5:17)

The end of all things is near. Therefore be alert and of sober mind so that you may pray.

(I Pet.4:7)

Nowhere in our life of Christian discipleship are we so exposed as in our life of prayer.  It is possible (though I hesitate to speak in such terms) that nowhere are we less like the Christ we follow than in our experience of prayer, or rather, our lack of…  Many Christians confess to finding prayer a difficult and frankly unfulfilling experience.  This is as true in our personal devotional life as it is in our corporate one.  We easily feel guilty when discussing ‘prayer’.  We are so acutely aware of the credibility gap between what we say we believe, and what we actually do.  There are glorious exceptions, but our experience of prayer is generally that it is unanswered, and makes no discernible difference.  Whilst we can justify it (sometimes God says ‘No’, sometimes ‘Wait’, sometimes ‘Yes’ – so God always answers prayer!), it feels like we’re playing games when we do.  In our better moments we know we are simply papering over a desperately inadequate experience that leaves an aching void no theological pedantry can fill.  We read of older saints getting up off their knees, knowing their prayers are heard and confident they would be answered – and there is little in our own experience that equates with that.

But imagine a Church where our prayer life was courageous, rich, and answered.  Where prayer was genuinely the foundation of all we did…  I’m old school enough to believe that the prayer meeting is the engine house of the Church.  Many of our frustrations, and the questions we try to answer by endlessly tampering with our various ministries would be better resolved through a wholesale return to prayer.  Perhaps our (and those we are seeking to reach with the Gospel) perceived lack of encounter with God isn’t so much about questions of style, or training, or even resources so much as it is about whether or not we gather to pray, and what happens when we do.  Perhaps our lack of effectiveness in evangelism isn’t so much to do with a lack of training, or the fact that we aren’t running the latest ‘trendy’ seeker-course, as it is to do with the fact that we don’t win the battle for souls on our knees. 

It isn’t uncommon at MIE for 1-2% (i.e. 6 or less) of our congregation to turn up to a prayer meeting.  Sometimes, not even that many.  It isn’t uncommon for prayer meetings to not run because no-one shows up.  I suggest there is a simple spiritual law at work here – a people who don’t pray together, don’t meet God when they worship together or when they do mission together.  By contrast, in Scripture and throughout Church history all the evidence suggests that corporate prayer is inseparable from the Church’s spiritual advance and blessing.

One such example is furnished by the last revival on English soil, just up the road in Lowestoft in 1921. ‘Every Sunday morning, from 6.30-9.30 a.m. there was a prayer meeting.  It was held in a net loft above a wash-house close to the sea … Ages ranged from 16 years to 60 years, and the spirit of prayer was tremendous.  One man who was there told of how these folks grasped the horns of the alter…’.  It’s entirely possible that we have little idea, and still less experience, of what a phrase like that means.  Contrary to what we might think is reasonable to expect, we read of incredible movements of prayer in Church history.  Words like ’overwhelmed’, ‘earnest’, ‘strong’, ‘bold’, and phrases like ‘taking hold of God’ are often used - not language we are used to hearing in association with prayer meetings.  We read of prayer meetings lasting through the night, or in some instances, for several days.  Such seasons are inevitably linked to, and often precede, significant moves of God.

‘Prayer’, as Charles Spurgeon said, ‘is the slender nerve that moves the muscle of omnipotence’.  Alas, the converse is also true: prayerlessness is the cause of all spiritual weakness, and ineffectiveness.  To fail here is to fail everywhere.

Questions

Can you share your experience of prayer honestly?  Are you satisfied with your life of prayer?  Assuming not, can you – with equal honesty – share why you don’t pray as you’d like to?  How can your Fellowship Group help you here?

Why do you think Prayer Meetings are often so boring?

Read Heb.4:14-5:10

What is the connection between Jesus’ being our High Priest (4:14), His ascension (4:14), His holiness (4:15) and our being able to approach God’s throne of grace with confidence (4:16)?

What is the ‘time of need’ this passage envisages us being in (4:16)?

Why is it so important to realise that Jesus did not take the honour of being our High Priest on Himself (5:4-5)?

Given Jesus’ deep commitment to prayer (5:7), how would you respond to a disciple of Jesus for whom prayer just isn’t that big a deal?

In Jesus’ experience of effective prayer ‘He was heard because of His reverent submission’ (5:7).  Do you think our experience of being ‘heard’ depends on our likewise being humbly submitted to the Father?   What did that mean for Jesus…  what does it mean for us?   

What do you think it means to speak of Jesus ‘learning obedience’ (5:8) … and being ‘made perfect’ (5:9)?  How do we reconcile this to our belief in the Deity of Christ?  How is such obedience learned through suffering?  How does this connect to Jesus’ life of prayer?  Does this have anything to say to our experiences of suffering?

Does it matter to you that Jesus was ‘designated by God to be High Priest in the order of Melchizedek (5:10)?  What difference would it make if He hadn’t been?  Why do you think Hebrews devotes an entire Chapter to exploring this (see Ch.7)?

Memory Passage:

With this in mind, we constantly pray for you, that our God may make you worthy of his calling, and that by his power he may bring to fruition your every desire for goodness and your every deed prompted by faith.  We pray this so that the name of our Lord Jesus may be glorified in you, and you in him, according to the grace of our God and the Lord Jesus Christ.

II Thess.1:11-12

For further reflection:

We often think of prayer as a something that should be quite a natural thing for Christians to do.  Our spiritual forbears would have considered such an attitude naïve.  They speak of prayer as the most difficult thing a disciple of Jesus has to learn to do.  That in itself should give us pause for thought.  What has changed in our thinking about prayer that puts us so radically out of step with centuries of Christian experience? 

Rather than depressing us, such an observation can re-kindle hope.  Is it possible that a genuine life of prayer is something I could enjoy?  So many have given up hope.  But what if we have actually been barking up the proverbially wrong tree.  That could explain a lot.  It could also open for us the chance for a new direction of travel.  Recognising for example that different kinds of prayer belong in different contexts can bring a good deal of clarity.  How I pray at home (Matt.6:6-7); is different from how I pray for people when in my Fellowship Group; is different from how I pray when I’m leading the Church in prayer in a prayer meeting.  Leading Intercessions in a service is not the same as prayerful meditation on a passage of Scripture.  Prayer is a much richer and varied landscape than we are accustomed to thinking, or experiencing.

My own conviction is that we simply must learn to pray … as a Church.  What we enjoy elsewhere in the ministry and mission of MIE will be merely the outworking of what is achieved in our prayer meetings.  Failure here is failure everywhere.  My longing is that those who lead any aspect of our worship or mission have first lead us in prayer.  My desire is that we would see prayer as so integral and non-negotiable that we would do nothing as a Church until we knew we had secured God’s blessing on it through our prayer.

Vision 2020, Bible Study 4, Public Worship

 (4) The Question of Worship

Ascribe to the Lord the glory due his name; worship the Lord in the splendour of his holiness.

                       (Ps.29:2)

Shout for joy to the Lord, all the earth.  Worship the Lord with gladness; come before him with joyful songs. Know that the Lord is God.  It is he who made us, and we are his; we are his people, the sheep of his pasture.

(Ps.100:1-3)

Who will not fear you, Lord, and bring glory to your name? For you alone are holy. All nations will come and worship before you, for your righteous acts have been revealed.

(Rev.15:4)

We thought briefly in a previous study about the distinctions between worship and evangelism.  In one sense those aren't hard and fast distinctions – worship is intrinsically missional, and evangelism is a form of worship.  But in terms of centre of gravity, it has some traction.  Once evangelism becomes something that we do intentionally and deliberately elsewhere in the life of the Church, we liberate our Services of Divine Worship to be what they are supposed to be. 

Someone once said: there are no right answers to the wrong question.  ‘How do we make our services accessible to people who aren’t Christians?’ is the wrong question.  It can’t be done and shouldn’t be tried, and if you succeeded, it would no longer be Christian worship.  We might feel I Cor.14:24-25 challenges this.  But this passage says precisely nothing about the ‘accessibility’ or otherwise of the service to the unbeliever.  It speaks of the presence of God at work in the context of worship to convict an ‘unbeliever’ or ‘enquirer’ of their sin - perhaps the least culturally relevant thing we could ask for.

We’re not advocating, of course, deliberate irrelevance, or even cultivated non-relevance, as if idiosyncrasy is a virtue we should pursue.  Neither is it a mandate for traditionalism.  But it is to suggest that while a service of Divine Worship should be genuinely incarnational and therefore culturally authentic, its purpose, expression and (most importantly) content is not primarily shaped by that culture.  We don’t come to worship with a blank sheet of paper, free to design something that ‘fits’ us.  Worship should redeem and shape our culture, not be captivated and shaped by it.   There is ancient wisdom in thousands of years of Christian worship (seen in the Scriptures and since) that it is utter folly to disregard, and even more so in the name of anything as superficial, transitory and unstable as accessibility to our contemporary (unbelieving) culture.

Here is a series of propositions that seem radical to the point of incredulity; but which for centuries were the working assumption of every Church in the world.

  • The LORD’s day should be set aside (as far as possible given that many Christians over the generations have been slaves) for worship, prayer, fellowship, teaching and study of Scriptures and Christian service.  If there was no other time when the saints could gather, they would do so before sunrise and the beginning of the working day.  This gathering was preceded by prayer, teaching and worship on the Saturday evening (even today in the Russian Orthodox Church, if you do not attend Vespers on Saturday evening, you will not be given Communion on Sunday).

  • Liturgy is a powerful restorative and formational tool in our worship, not an inevitable mark of inauthenticity.  It can draw us into a deeper experience of worship than we would fashion left to our own devices. It’s worth bearing in mind that every revival in the history of the British Church took place in the context of liturgical worship - many in fact in Churches who knew only the BCP!!

  • God has revealed what is acceptable worship, and we aren’t free to re-design a worship service according to personal preference.  There are non-negotiable components, and worship is less authentically Christian if they are absent. 

  • The integrity of a worship service isn’t primarily dependent on my ‘really meaning it’, or giving voice to what is in ‘my’ heart (!).  Worship isn’t about me and my story, it is about God and His story.

  • The purpose of a service is not limited to my declaring the glory of God.  It also includes – amongst other dynamics - the Spirit’s work of breaking the power of sin and re-forming me; the renewal of covenant; my hearing and responding to God in word and sacrament; envisioning, training and investing me with the spiritual resources for life and mission as a disciple of Jesus; public confession; establishing Godly ritual as a foundation for personal holiness and devotion…

That all this and more is at stake should make us very careful about disregarding the wisdom of our spiritual forbears, still less, the Scriptures themselves.

Questions:

What would be the impact on the ministry and mission of MIE if we re-captured the Sabbath nature of the LORD’s Day?  Do you think the main act of a Church’s worship can be moved from Sunday?  Why / why not?

What makes an act of worship authentically ‘Christian’? 

What sort of things might mean that a worship service actually does more harm than good (the phrase is taken from I Cor.11:17, but can other things make a worship service damaging apart from what Paul is specifically addressing at Corinth)?  Do you think worship services at MIE do more harm or more good?  Why?

Read Heb.12:18-29

Do you think we should be more or less awe-struck in coming to Mount Zion rather than Mount Sinai?  How would that affect us as we come to an act of corporate worship?  How can we cultivate that?  What difference does it make that we join with the Church triumphant in worship (v.23)?

What does it mean to ‘refuse Him who speaks’ (v.25)?  What does this teach us about God?  What did it look like at Sinai?  What might it look like in our own experience?  Why is it such a serious danger?

What is the shaking spoken of in vv.26-27?  What is the connection between this, and God’s speaking? …and our worship?

What does it mean to ‘worship God acceptably with reverence and awe’ (v.28)?  How could we cultivate these characteristics in our own approach to worship?  What would it mean if they were absent from a service?  How could we tell?

How does the way God is described in this passage shape how we approach Him in worship (the Living God, Judge of all, Him who speaks, a consuming fire)?  Why is the role of Jesus as Mediator so important (v.24)?

Memory Passage:

Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in the Spirit and in truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth.”  The woman said, “I know that Messiah” (called Christ) “is coming. When he comes, he will explain everything to us.”  Then Jesus declared, “I, the one speaking to you—I am he.”

John 4:23-26

For further reflection:

In our cultural context we tend to privatise and individualise the very concept of worship.  We think that the important part of our spiritual life is our ‘personal’ relationship with Jesus. We then struggle at times to know where the corporate worship of the Church fits in, if it does at all.  And even when we are at Church we can easily think of the fact that others are there as simply an accident of geography.  We don’t think of what God is doing in ‘us’; but still in terms of what God is doing in ‘me’ in this room in which there happens to be other people. 

It’s hard to convey how out of step this is with historic Christian thinking, which saw the public and corporate worship of the Church as the fountain head out of which all personal devotion and discipleship flows.  Perhaps the tension can be best exposed by considering a sermon preached by Rev. David Clarkson, a minister in London in 1680s.  One week he took as his text Ps. 87:2, The Lord loves the gates of Zion more than all the other dwellings of Jacob – and he entitled the sermon: ‘Public worship to be preferred before private’.

He argued that public worship is more central to the heart of God – and to our own  spirituality - than private, personal devotions.  It sounds strange, perhaps even incomprehensible to us.  But Clarkson develops 12 arguments from the Scriptures why he thinks this is the case,  including the idea that the LORD is more glorified in public worship than private; that there is more spiritual advantage in the use of public worship; that the Lord works his greatest works in public worship; that public worship is nearest resemblance to the worship of heaven…  After all, you don’t read of people in heaven heading off for their personal devotions!