Seth Godin shoots down the use of bullet points

Seth Godin shoots down the use of bullet points

Bullets do not save time. Memos save time. Presentations aren’t about the most concise exposition of facts, they are about changing minds.

God doesn't do encores

Some really wise advice from CS Lewis on wanting to re-live the blessings of your earlier Christian experience:

Many religious people lament that the first fervours of their conversion have died away. They think - sometimes rightly, but not, I believe, always - that their sins account for this. They may even try by pitiful efforts of will to revive what now seem to have been the golden days. But were those fervours - the operative word is those - ever intended to last?

It would be rash to say that there is any prayer which God never grants. But the strongest candidate is the prayer we might express in the single word encore. And how should the Infinite repeat Himself? All space and time are too little for Him to utter Himself in them once.

And the joke, or tragedy, of it all is that these golden moments in the past, which are so tormenting if we erect them into a norm, are entirely nourishing, wholesome, and enchanting if we are content to accept them for what they are, for memories. Properly bedded down in a past which we do not miserably try to conjure back, they will send up exquisite growths. Leave the bulbs alone, and the new flowers will come up. Grub them up and hope, by fondling and sniffing, to get last year’s blooms, and you will get nothing. “Unless a seed die…”

(Letters to Malcolm - Chiefly on Prayer; p.26f)

Protect Your Church in One Simple Step

Protect Your Church in One Simple Step

What is progress? (CS Lewis)

What is progress? (CS Lewis)

What is genuine progress? CS Lewis offers an answer…

Taking Notes by Hand Benefits Recall

Taking Notes by Hand Benefits Recall

Dust off your notebooks and pens. A new study finds laptops make note-taking so easy it’s actually ineffective.

Is your church embarrassing?

My parents and younger sister were coming to visit me during my first term at college. A friend asked if I would be taking them into lunch with me. When I said ‘no’ he asked me, with a grin, “What’s the matter? Are you ashamed of your family?”

Maybe I was, a little. And perhaps I was slightly defensive of them. Either way, my friend had a point. And I still remember it all these years later (over 32 years later, to be exact).

Tony Morgan suggests in his article, 10 symptoms of an inwardly-focussed Church, that one reason Christians might not invite others to church is that, "your services and ministries are not designed to reach people outside the church". Allow me to be a little more blunt than Tony: some of us probably feel somewhat embarrassed by the church. After all, the singing is often flat, the music group sometimes malfunctions, the sermons don’t always hit the spot, some of our ways seem quaint, the building is old and, not to put too fine a point on it, some of our folks are ever so slightly …. odd. The pastor included.

And, so, we maintain that we’d be much more likely to invite our friends and colleagues along if we could be confident that, every week, the sermon would be powerful and engaging, the singing inspiring and the whole atmosphere welcoming and affirming. Since we don’t have that confidence, we’re reluctant to invite others. We would - honest - if the church was different.

Out of our family context, I probably was rather embarrassed by my family. After all, Dad could be over-friendly and Mam could (in her insecurity) say the most alarming things. But in their own home, their idiosyncrasies were lessened, simply because my friends would know without a shadow of a doubt that Dad was warm and funny and that Mam was caring and deeply interested in them. We didn’t live in a fashionable house; Mam aspired to more but had to make do with what we had. But what we had, and what friends discovered, was a caring home, in which Mam would gladly feed them - her cooking wan’t cordon bleu but we were well-fed all the same. And that’s what they remembered longest; the idiosyncrasies faded, the warmth remained.

The ever-helpful Emma Scrivener wrote recently of the church, encouraging us to ‘love the one you’re with’. Her article concluded with these challenging words:

If Jesus wasn’t too good for ‘local church’ then we’re not either. Of course there are things that can be improved: and it’s good to talk these through. But there’s a big difference between running something down and strengthening it from within. Our churches don’t need our wishlists, they need our willingness to plug in and serve.

The church will always have a slightly odd feel to it - how could it be otherwise when it is make-up of such a disparate group of needy people? It will struggle to feel cutting-edge. But what we can offer is genuine warmth for others and the steady, if unspectacular, ministry of God’s Word - the Word that can nourish and bring to salvation.

At the end of the day, there’s nothing embarrassing in that.

ready to forgive?

The perspective of Joseph on his sufferings at the hands of his brothers is quite stunning. When he reveals himself to them they are (to paraphrase slightly) gobsmacked. And terrified. But Joseph immediately says to them,

"Do not be distressed and do not be angry with yourselves for selling me here, because it was to save lives that God sent me ahead of you." (Gen. 45:5)

And, again, a moment or two later, he affirms,

"God sent me ahead of you to preserve a remnant on earth and to save your lives by a great deliverance. So, then, it was not you who sent me here, but God." (Gen. 45:7-8)

Long years of suffering had the power to foster a bitterness that would make his heart an acrid, barren place, Instead, Joseph displays a breathtaking grasp of God’s sovereign ways and demonstrates a humble willingness to embrace God’s purposes through his suffering and, so, to embrace his brothers in forgiving grace. It is his readiness to forgive that carves out for his brothers an opportunity to demonstrate repentance and so to receive that forgiveness.

There are real lessons here for all who have suffered at the hands of others (and who hasn’t?). Lessons learned not in a moment but forged over long years in the crucible.

And this whole scene leads us, of course and with great power, to see afresh the glory of the submission and humility of our Lord Jesus on the cross. How deeply and joyously glad we can be for his words, "Father, forgive them, they don’t know what they’re doing." And then to pray, ‘Make me, too, O Lord, a channel of your peace.’

Good design & Christian character

Yves Béhar (he of the Jawbone headset) makes a very powerful and, as it turns out, biblically-suggestive point in this talk. It opens with a graphic that tellingly says, "Don’t put your ideas on a pedestal; put them into action." He then asserts during his talk that "Good design accelerates the adoption of new ideas." That seems to be essentially the same thing that Paul said in his letter to Titus way back when, as he urges him to

in every way…make the teaching about God our Saviour attractive (Titus 2:10)

The Christian faith was then - and is today - a ‘new idea’ to most people. What would compel them to take it seriously, to see its merits and, perhaps, to personally embrace it? Hearing its claims and, crucially, seeing it put into action.

Preachers: Behar also goes on to say that "If you want to prove that an idea has merit, don’t write a book about it - go out and test it." Writing about or preaching the truth has to be in concert with genuinely (albeit imperfectly) living the truth or it will lack any real power. Now there’s a sobering thought.

Letter To A Stranger

Letter To A Stranger

Emma Scrivener shares a letter she received. It’s one that all pastors and church members ought to read and reflect on.

a review of Driven to Despair - Perfectionism and Ministry

a review of Driven to Despair - Perfectionism and Ministry

There are several fallacies that attend book-buying and reading. Among them are the suggestions that the best books to read are written by the most well-known authors (often, Christian scholars and pastors) and that the most helpful books are not short in length (that is, they’re pretty lengthy, which makes them exhaustive and, too often, exhausting). This short book by Alan E. Craddock (nope, I don’t know him either - no offence, Alan) explodes those myths.

Not only that, this is a book on a vital, overlooked aspect of pastoral ministry, in its fullest sense. It deserves to have a wide readership. It will help many more people than simply those who read it.

So what’s it about and how does it set-out to deal with its topic? Craddock’s aim is “to provide a psychologically and theologically grounded basis for thinking deeply about perfectionism and for practical recommendations to be founded on this.” (p.14) He identifies what could be “loosely called unhealthy and healthy perfectionism” and brings to bear on the subject his familiarity and fluency in both psychology and theology. He also has his feet firmly tied to the ground. You’ll find much in here that can be applied into a variety of pastoral situations, not least raising children.

This book is such a helpful blend of psychological insight, theological wisdom and practical common-sense. It will help a wide range of people, not only those engaged in ministry (its target readership). It would help those who aren’t dealing with perfectionism in their own life, both in terms of helping others but also for insights it will still yield about themselves. Unlike some books, this one does not trade in dramatic claims; it doesn’t overplay its significance, nor is it a vehicle from promoting its author. It simply wants to be helpful to others - and it is.

Are there any flies in its ointment? Of course there are gaps - I might have appreciated more on the importance of positional sanctification, for example; no book is perfect after all. But I’m still giving it a five-star rating.

(My copy of the book was kindly provided for review purposes by Alban Books, who did not ask for a positive review in return)

Brief review of J I Packer's 'Finishing Our Course with Joy'

Brief review of J I Packer's 'Finishing Our Course with Joy'

Residents of Poor Nations Have a Greater Sense of Meaning in Life Than Residents of Wealthy Nations

Residents of Poor Nations Have a Greater Sense of Meaning in Life Than Residents of Wealthy Nations

And the reason given is: religion. Although just an abstract of a fuller report, this nevertheless makes for interesting reading.

Reality & change

The Holy Spirit’s ministry is to take truths about Jesus and make them clear to our minds and real to our hearts - so real that they console and empower and change us at our very centre.

Tim Keller, The Meaning of Marriage, p.51

The proper significance of 'seventy' in Luke 10

Luke tells of Jesus sending out the 72 on mission (Lk. 10:1ff). Or maybe he sends out 70 - there are variations in the manuscript evidence. So which is it? And does is it have any importance anyway?

Commentators generally affirm that there's a link in Jesus’ sending of 70/72 to the table of the nations in Genesis 10 and that the intent is to show the universal scope of Jesus’ mission. If you follow the Hebrew text, there are 70 nations in Genesis 10; the Septuagint (LXX), the Greek translation of the Old Testament, has 72 nations. So that might account for the difference in the manuscripts of Luke.

But let’s add something else into the mix. When Jacob and sons went down to Egypt at the time of the famine and Joseph’s governorship there, the Hebrew text tells us that 70 people went down; the LXX suggests the number was 75 (you might know that Stephen uses that number in his speech in Acts 7:15, showing his familiarity with the LXX account perhaps).

Is there any connection here? I think there might be. Israel are chosen for the sake of the world - the use of 70 in the Hebrew text of Genesis for both the numbering of the nations AND the numbering of Jacob’s family has a certain resonance, reminding of Israel’s representative role as disclosed to Abram in Genesis 12.

And, for me, that connection becomes significant in choosing which textual variant to opt for in Luke 1. ‘Seventy’ recalls Israel’s travels into Egypt which, in turn, had recalled the nations of Genesis 10.

Which means the point about Jesus’ mission being universal in scope is not simply validated by reference to Genesis 10. He also sums-up and fulfils the role of Israel and embeds that in sending out 70 disciples.

The era of Facebook is an anomaly

The era of Facebook is an anomaly

If you think about technology and how it interfaces with society and its impact then you’ll find this a fascinating interview from The Verge (it’s about more than just Facebook, btw).

So, whose faith failed?

When Israel in the wilderness sent 12 leaders to spy out the promised land, two brought back a favourable report; ten did not. The upshot was that Israel refused to try to enter the land and incurred God’s wrath. So who was to blame? Whose faith had failed?

Clearly, the 10 who talked up the issues involved with entering the land and making it their own:

But the men who had gone up with him said, “We can’t attack those people; they are stronger than we are.” And they spread among the Israelites a bad report about the land they had explored. They said, “The land we explored devours those living in it. All the people we saw there are of great size. We saw the Nephilim there (the descendants of Anak come from the Nephilim). We seemed like grasshoppers in our own eyes, and we looked the same to them. (Numbers 13:31ff)

Leaders within the church have a solemn duty both to exercise faith and to encourage faith in others. It is so easy to discourage, to dampen and to damage. And it is no refuge to say ‘I’m a natural pessimist and it’s just how I am’; unbelief needs to be named for what it is.

But the complementary account in Deuteronomy shows that the people as a whole were also at fault for listening to the bad report and refusing to act on the advice of Joshua and Caleb, for failing to believe God:

But you were unwilling to go up; you rebelled against the command of the LORD your God. You grumbled in your tents and said, “The LORD hates us; so he brought us out of Egypt to deliver us into the hands of the Amorites to destroy us. Where can we go? Our brothers have made our hearts melt in fear. They say, ‘The people are stronger and taller than we are; the cities are large, with walls up to the sky. We even saw the Anakites there.’ " (Deuteronomy 1:26ff)

Interestingly, it had been their idea in the first place to send the spies, a suggestion that Moses recognised as God-given (cf. Dt. 1:22f & Num 13:1). But, sadly, that doesn’t guarantee a faithful response.

The community needs to evaluate what it hears and follow advice that is both wise and faithful. It’s clearly a case of both/and here.

The Four Keys to Being a Trusted Leader (John Dame - Harvard Business Review)

The Four Keys to Being a Trusted Leader (John Dame - Harvard Business Review)

This is fascinating; it so clearly brings to mind the example and character of Jesus - and how that should be seen in those who serve him and his church.

the end of evening fear

In the cool of the day, the LORD God walked in the garden and the man and his wife hid in fear from him (Genesis 3:8-10). Sin had spoiled the world and death would follow in its wake.

In John 20:19ff, it is again evening and again there is fear. This time it’s fear of man, not the Lord. A fear that the same fate will befall the disciples that had consumed Jesus, their beloved Master.

And then he’s there, among them, speaking words of peace. He shows them his hands and his side, the evidence of his slaughter at the hands of his enemies. And their response to such a sight, to the devastating display of the horrors of death and the mauling meted out by sin and evil? They are overjoyed because the one they see, the one whose ruptured side and battered hands are in full view, is the LORD.

Far from denying his lordship, these marks are the crown he wears, the vindication of his reign, the symbols of victory.

And the reason why evening fear - all fear - can be banished forever.

Pastor/Preacher

The preacher needs to be pastor, that he may preach to real men. The pastor must be preacher, that he may keep the dignity of his work alive. The preacher, who is not a pastor, grows remote. The pastor, who is not a preacher, grows petty.

Phillips Brooks, quoted in Stott’s The Preacher’s Portrait, p.72

How to encourage the church

The incident of Peter preaching to the Roman centurion, Cornelius, is a prime example of the gospel being received by Gentiles in the book of Acts (chapters 10-11). But Acts 11:19-26 was probably just as significant for the gospel’s spread to them:

Now those who were scattered after the persecution that arose over Stephen travelled as far as Phoenicia, Cyprus, and Antioch, preaching the Word to no one but the Jews only.

But some of them were men from Cyprus and Cyrene, who, when they had come to Antioch, spoke to the Hellenists, preaching the Lord Jesus.

Then news of these things came to the ears of the church in Jerusalem, and they sent out Barnabas to go as far as Antioch. When he came and had seen the grace of God, he was glad, and encouraged them all that with purpose of heart they should continue with the Lord. For he was a good man, full of the Holy Spirit and of faith. And a great many people were added to the Lord.

Then Barnabas departed for Tarsus to seek Saul. And when he had found him, he brought him to Antioch. So it was that for a whole year they assembled with the church and taught a great many people. And the disciples were first called Christians in Antioch.

(All this may well have begun before Peter’s encounter with Cornelius.)

It is very interesting that this Acts 11 gospel expansion to Gentiles was not an organised mission, but took place naturally as the church scattered following the death of Stephen.

In Acts, missionaries are sent out by churches and often seem to work to a discernible pattern. But that needs to be set alongside what we see here: numbers of believers telling the good news as they were scattered from Jerusalem and looked to settle elsewhere.

The responsibility and privilege of reaching out to others is not the preserve of pastors, evangelists and missionaries; it belongs to the whole church and we each have a responsibility to take it to heart.

These early believers shared the gospel naturally, as they travelled, set up home and worked. And there is nothing in the text to suggest that this was somehow unusual and not the norm.

It is, of course, right and good that churches and mission agencies partner in sending out gospel workers. It would be a betrayal of the Lord’s commission not to do so. But our responsibility is not simply to initiate ministries; it is also to be sensitive to and ‘catch up with’ what the Lord is already doing, in what we might think of as spontaneous, ‘unplanned’ ways. That was the reality faced here by the church in Jerusalem.

But that leads to an interesting question. As the gospel spread among the Gentiles, how would the church in Jerusalem react? When Philip preached in Samaria in Acts 8, Peter and John were sent to authenticate the new work, to give it the apostolic imprimatur.

It seems that the church in Jerusalem and its leaders felt the need to assess and approve this gospel expansion. Given that in Acts 11 fully-fledged Gentiles are now being reached with the gospel, how will they react? Will it be with suspicion and a desire to control what is going on there?

What they did was send Barnabas to them. This time they sent one man, not two. And the man they sent wasn’t an apostle; he was a native of Cyprus, as were many of these new believers. He was a man of exceptional spirit, warm and encouraging. This wasn’t control and suspicion, but contribution and support for this young church.

The contribution made by Barnabas was not to impose forms and structures on this fledgling church, but to encourage them to remain true to the Lord with all their hearts — a deeply pastoral concern that would have significant consequences for gospel witness (it was in Antioch that followers of Jesus were first called ‘Christians’, people of the Messiah).

The church at Jerusalem had the privilege of being the ‘original of the species’; the apostles were the authentic witnesses to the Lord Jesus and his gospel. But that didn’t mean they must thereafter control everything that happens to spread the gospel.

It is the Lord Jesus who directs the mission; we are his co-workers. So instead of sending people to check out this new development, they instead chose to send a man who would cheer on those involved in it.

Sending Barnabas to Antioch was perhaps the greatest thing the church at Jerusalem ever did for their brothers and sisters there. He was an outstanding example of a Christian and what a gospel worker should be.

He wasn’t jealous of their work, nor did he want to take it over. He rejoiced in the work and encouraged them to keep going and remain true to the Lord. His concern was not sectarian (to make them Jews), but to strengthen their Christian life and witness.

And this humble man was ready to acknowledge that he didn’t have all the gifts necessary to help this church. So he went on a long, 200-mile round-trip to bring Saul to join him in the work.

He recognised the Lord’s calling of Saul (Paul) and the gifts he’d been given. What a great encouragement to Saul that must have been! And, in God’s providence, this almost incidental action had immense strategic significance for the whole progress of the gospel — it was from Antioch that Barnabas and Saul were sent out by the church into further mission.

This short account in Acts 11 is long on significance. God is at work, outside and before our (proper) plans for outreach. Fledgling churches need appropriate encouragement more than they need the approval of others. And actions that seem incidental and slight can have the most far-reaching consequences for gospel advance.

(This article first appeared in slightly modified form in Evangelical Times, January 2014)