Don't Put the Bibles Away

I've noticed something. People in our churches are used to opening their Bibles during the sermon. I assume that many of them are reading their Bibles during the week at home. But, except for during the sermon, and maybe small groups and Bible studies, Bibles remain closed.

This means that Bibles stay closed most of the time. They stay closed as elders meet to give oversight to the ministry of the church. They stay closed as deacons administer the the church. They stay closed as pastors meet one-on-one with members of the church. They stay closed as committees meet.

The Bible is good for Bible study, we seem to be saying. But we seem to be saying something by putting the Bibles away the rest of the time. And what we're saying scares me.

I am wondering what church would look like if we didn't put the Bibles away so quickly.

Maybe when our churches grew, we could say that "the Word of God increased" (Acts 12:24).

Maybe we could say that the Bible reverberates throughout our entire church. Read Reverberation: How God's Word Brings Light, Freedom, and Action to His People if you want to know more.

Maybe we wouldn't need books like David Helm's, because we already know what to do.

Maybe we could have what The Trellis and the Vine describes:

We are really talking about a Bible reading movement - in families, in churches, in neighborhoods, in workplaces, everywhere. Imagine if all Christians, as a normal part of their discipleship, were caught up in a web of regular Bible reading - not only digging into the word privately, but reading it with children before bed, with their spouse over breakfast, with a non-Christian colleague at work once a week over lunch, with a new Christian for follow-up once a fortnight for mutual encouragement, and with a mature Christian friend once a month for mutual encouragement.

It would be a chaotic web of personal relationships, prayer, and Bible reading - more of a movement than a program - but at another level it would be profoundly simple and within reach of all.

What would this look like? I don't know, but I'm dreaming. Hope you'll join me.

Signs of Life

My latest column at Christian Week:

People like me have been writing about the challenges facing the Church in Canada. The problem is that some churches obviously haven't been reading my column, and they seem to be doing just fine.

We just got back from a weekend in Ottawa, where we visited a church we'd heard about. We arrived, and the church was packed even on a long weekend. The pastor was off sick, so a former intern spoke instead. He's one of many former interns who have entered vocational ministry and are serving in cities all over the map.

He spoke with appreciation for how that church had built into his life at a critical time. Balloons decorated the stage, each representing a life that had been reached for Christ through the ministry of that church. The church is doing well, even on a long weekend, and even with the pastor off with a serious illness. Not only that, but it's a pipeline for leaders who are serving in other ministries as well.

I know another church located in downtown Toronto, where churches aren't supposed to grow. It's part of a denomination that's withering. And yet it's flourishing, full of the people that are statistically hard to reach. They have recently launched a ministry to reach those who would never dream of coming to a traditional church. This is a church with all of the odds stacked against it, and yet it's beating those odds.

Signs of life

Everywhere I look I see signs of life. I was in a meeting of pastors recently when I realized that four out of the five pastors serve in growing churches that didn't exist 10 years ago. I keep meeting young people who are solidly committed to Christ and eager to pay the price of serving Him.

I don't want to pretend that everything is rosy. I also see a lot of struggling churches too. I just took a call about a church near us that's on the verge of closing its doors. The same day I received an e-mail from a friend who needs prayer for his languishing church. The challenges facing the Church are huge, and we can't wish harsh realities away.

But here's the thing: these harsh realities aren't stopping God from working. The people I meet in these thriving churches are very aware of the challenges, but they seem to be more attuned to the possibilities than all the reasons that the Church can't flourish. They're keeping their heads down and doing the hard work of ministry, and it's paying off, even though all the books and experts say it shouldn't.

It's time to stop reading the death notices for the Church in Canada. It's most decidedly not dead yet. God is very much at work. I don't know why this surprises me, because it lines up nicely with what I claim to believe about God. Maybe it's my lack of faith. I constantly need to remind myself that God often shows up at the precise moment that He's been written off.

Intentional Doing

We also need to be wise in how we invest our energies. I've noticed that the people I've met in flourishing churches are very intentional in what they're doing. They've thought about the issues and decided where they're going to focus. It's not enough to just hang on; we need to take a look at what we're doing and sometimes decide to move on. This isn't easy, and it takes lots of prayer and discernment. But gritting our teeth and hoping for better isn't enough. We also need to be wise.

But we also need to remember that it's not extraordinary people and churches that God is using. Angelique Arnauld said, "Perfection consists not in doing extraordinary things, but in doing ordinary things extraordinarily well." I usually bristle when I read inspirational quotes like this, but it's true. God seems to be using pretty average people and churches in extraordinary ways because they're covering the basics: preaching, praying, investing in relationships and serving. All this sowing seems to be followed by a good bit of reaping.

Ignore the naysayers. Times are tough, but God is at work. Churches are flourishing where experts say they can't. God is good at beating the odds that we give Him.

In Praise of Sabbaticals

A pastor friend of mine recalls meeting with one of his leaders. His leader, a good friend, had noticed that my pastor friend was not operating as well as he could. "Either get back in the game," he said, "or make a change." A few months later, my pastor friend had resigned.

A few months later he found himself refreshed and full of energy again. He didn't need to resign; he only needed a break.

That story's stuck with me. I'm convinced that many pastors get to the same point and don't know what to do. Often they end up withdrawing from ministry, or simply moving to a new church, rather than getting the break they need.

I took a sabbatical last summer. At the time, I wasn't sure what it would do in my life. When I returned in September, to be honest, I couldn't tell the difference. But I've noticed in the past year that I am in a much healthier place. When I've taken time off this summer, I've enjoyed it, but I've also looked forward to getting back to work. That's very different from a year ago.

If you're a leader in a church, please consider giving your pastor a sabbatical, especially if he's been there a long time and has never taken one. If you're a pastor, suck it up and be honest with your leaders about your need for a break. Sabbaticals don't cure every problem, but they may be just what many pastors need.

Pastors: Planning for Next Year?

If you're like me, your planning for next year's ministry schedule is in full swing. Let me encourage you to consider using an excellent resource that I'm really excited about. This is not a paid endorsement; I just really believe that this tool can benefit a lot of churches in the coming year.

I'm talking about Read the Bible for Life. It will take your congregation through all of Scripture in a year. As the website says:

The Read the Bible for Life initiative is a whole-church initiative focused on growth in biblical literacy. The pattern in most churches will be to:

1. Offer the nine-session group study (READ THE BIBLE FOR LIFE: LISTEN. UNDERSTAND. RESPOND) as a foundational experience for the whole church.
2. Then the church will read through the Bible chronologically in a year, as the pastor preaches through the highlights of the Bible's grand story year.
3. READING GOD'S STORY: A CHRONOLOGICAL DAILY BIBLE and/or A READER'S GUIDE TO THE BIBLE can be used day-by-day as members of the church read through the Bible together.

Many of our people have never understood the full story of Scripture, and have never been able to put all the pieces together. Many of them have never read the entire Bible. The benefits of a church doing this together are huge.

In case you missed it, I interviewed the creator of this initiative a while ago. You can check it out here.

I'm planning on using this next year, and I highly recommend it to you as well.

Review: The Gospel Commission

I've been thinking a lot about the purpose of the church. In particular, I've been thinking about what Michael Horton calls mission creep: the expansion of a mission beyond its original goals. Does the church have a specific mission? If so, what is it, and how free are we to add good things to what a church is doing?

Horton's book Gospel Commission, The: Recovering God's Strategy for Making Disciples arrived the day before a meeting of our elders to consider the purpose of the big-c Church. It couldn't have come at a better time. This is not an abstract issue. It's the very issue that we're facing.

Horton argues that we need to return to our central mission, the Great Commission. "I believe that in our passion for relevance," he writes, "we are subordinating the strategies that Christ has promised to bless to our own action plans." Horton believes that the Great Commission provides the church with its message (the announcement of Christ's authority), its mission (to proclaim the gospel and make disciples), and its methods (baptism and Word ministry). We're not free to pick our mission and then choose our own methods, Horton argues. Christ has prescribed how we're to go about carrying out his mission.

Here's where it gets controversial. "Christians are called to do many things that the church is not called to do." In other words, the church is called to focus on its mission of making disciples, but it is not called to do everything that individual Christians are called to do. For instance:

What I am suggesting is that there are myriad causes that are good, bad, and indifferent for which the church has no special competence or commission. Why do we think that if something is worthwhile for a Christian (or group of Christians) to invest in, it has to be done by the church as an official activity?

We cannot, he argues, confuse the Great Commission (to make disciples) with the Great Commandment (to love God and others). I love the way he makes the distinction:

"The Great Commission reflects the holy (saving grace) and is where disciples are made," he writes. "The Great Commandment reflects common grace and is where our discipleship grows."

At a practical level, Horton argues that the church as become lazy and distracted. We've buried "the church's ministry in a heap of programs and strategies of our own making." Scripture provides us with explicit strategies in the Great Commission, and we see the practical outworking of these strategies in Acts and the Epistles.

This was a timely book for me. I found it to be clear and compelling. Horton helped me gain clarity on the church's calling and answered many of my objections.

(I'm also looking forward to reading What Is the Mission of the Church? by Greg Gilbert and Kevin DeYoung, which wrestles with similar issues.)

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