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Vision 1.2 -
Gospel-centred : Worship-hearted : God-dependent
We are…
Over the last 6 months at Hockliffe Street Baptist Church we have been considering and praying about where God is leading us as a church, who He is calling us to be and what He is asking us to focus on. Over three Sunday mornings; 2 weeks ago, today and next week, we are working our way through the culmination of that process, the vision and vision document.
The cultural context in which this process has been done is really important. In the UK, Church attendance in 1998 was at 7.5% of the population. Today it is 6.3%. Interestingly, midweek attendance has risen although not in the younger age bracket. In 1990, 57% of people attending church were under 45. Today it is 37%, a large drop. What has caused this?
Well, it is no doubt multifactorial, but Dr Peter Brierley, the author of the study titled ‘21 concerns for 21st Century Christians’ (featured in the April 8th 2011 Baptist Times) points to a couple of things.
‘Another element is leadership – do they know where they are going? If they don’t, they can’t get there. There is often a lack of church growth because people won’t take risks.’
‘There is a lack of teaching. We no longer know the scriptures. We are, as a group, less theologically articulate.’
As churches in the UK we can either read doom into the stats, roll over and die, or we can believe that God will indeed build his church and the gates of hell will not prevail against it. And so, we at HSBC must respond by standing, by seeking to be the kind of people God wants us to be and be willing to take risks and trust God’s word in order to do that. We must!
2 weeks ago we thought in some depth about the vision statement; ‘Knowing and Sharing Jesus’. We also thought about the expanded statements which are seen on the front page of the vision document –
We are a community learning to know and follow Jesus Christ. We are being transformed by his grace through the Holy Spirit and aim to be passionate in our worship of God. We are seeking to be generous and caring for others as we faithfully share the message of Jesus and serve him in the wider community.
Of course, it is easy to be driven by what we can do for God. We are created as God’s workmanship, created ‘in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do’ (Ephesians 2v10) But before that it is so important that we think about who He has called and made us to be. God is more interested in who we are than what we do. He is more interested in who we are than where we are going. You may remember the story of the children of Israel in the wilderness who have been rescued from Egypt. God took them on a journey that took 40 years when it could have lasted just 8 days. Why? They needed to learn to trust God. God is more concerned with who we are than with what we do.
And that is why, on pages 2-3 of the vision document (to see the vision document look here) you will see our 5 ‘We are…’ statements. Again they are not rocket science, but they are a good summary of who God is calling us to be.
Today we are going to look at the first three. We are gospel-centred, we are worship-hearted and we are God-dependent. But before we jump in to consider these, we must remember that we are, of course, a work in progress. These statement are both who we are and who we are becoming which is why on pages 4-5 we then have some priorities; statements of intent that will enable us to increasingly be the people God intends us and has created us to be.
Firstly, we are gospel centred.
We are Gospel Centred
Just look the first statement under ‘Gospel-centred’ and then read Philippians 1v12-21.
Without the gospel we are nothing, still lost in our sin and rebellion. For Paul, who wrote Philippians, the gospel and its advance was paramount in his life and ministry. In v12 we see him in chains, but still adamant that the gospel must go forwards. Indeed his chains are advancing the gospel. For Paul, the gospel is more important than his own dreams and aspirations. Even if his comfort and security are affected in the most extreme way it is OK so long as the gospel is centre stage.
Throughout Philippians 1v12-21, Paul changes his terminology but refers to the same thing. In v12 he speaks of the ‘gospel’, literally the ‘good news’. It is from this word that we get our words evangelism and evangelical. This gospel is advanced (v12), defended (v16), or preached (v19). Paul also speaks of the ‘word of God’ (v14) and preaching Christ (v15, 17, 18). Paul preaches the gospel, he preaches the word of God and he preaches Christ because Jesus Christ is the gospel! Jesus Christ is the word of God; Jesus Christ, the good news for all mankind! This is what and who Paul is centred on, and we are to be too.
Look in v15-18, not only is Paul prepared to suffer, but at the moment his reputation is being dragged through the dirt by his rivals. There are people preaching the gospel in Paul’s day ‘out of selfish ambition, not sincerely, supposing that they can stir up trouble for me’ (v17). But, so long as Christ is preached, so long as the gospel remains centre stage it doesn’t matter to Paul (v18).
But the gospel is even more important to Paul than that. Looking down in v20-21 we see how striking this is.
‘I eagerly expect and hope that I will in no way be ashamed, but will have sufficient courage so that now as always Christ will be exalted in my body, whether by life or by death. For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain.’ v20-21
Even if being centred on the ministry of the gospel brought death to Paul, he prayed, expected and hoped that he would have sufficient courage to do whatever was required in order that the gospel was always centre-stage. And if he did lose EVERYTHING this life has to offer, life itself, then it was still gain for him! Do you have that perspective?
The gospel was paramount. All Paul did was to advance the gospel. He was prepared to be locked up, to be opposed, to get into trouble for, to defend and even die for this gospel; the once for all, sufficient work of Christ on the cross, dying an innocent death to free sinners like you and me and being raised to life defeating death itself. This is the single most important thing we can live and die for because it is Christ and his work. It must be at the heart of who we are as individuals and as a church!
In addition, of course the gospel is not just something we get and then move on from. Elsewhere, in Colossians Paul tells us
‘So then, just as you received Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to live in him, rooted and built up in him, strengthened in the faith as you were taught and overflowing with thankfulness.’ (Colossians 2v6-7)
This is what it means to be gospel-centred!
Which is why this truth shapes our priorities in a number of ways. On the ‘Growing in Spiritual’ maturity section of the priorities pages we read this
- We seek to improve our teaching and ministry of God’s word to all ages.
With the word of God, the gospel being at the heart of our purpose, this means we need to work this out in practice. We must do this, for all people of all ages in a relevant, consistent and thoroughly biblical way through exposing the text and applying it well.
- We plan to review Sunday morning worship and ministry to be effective and accessible for as many as possible.
We are also aware that the configuration of the services may not do enable us to do that as well as we can. Some enjoy having the first session followed by the second. Others feel it creates difficulties of length of the morning, opportunity to invite friends etc. so we are going to review this!
And it is this that motivates us to grow and develop leaders and helpers in order that being gospel-centred, amongst other things, can be at the forefront of what we are about. There is much in our priorities about developing leadership.
- We intend to start the Growing Leaders Course in September 2011 to develop the breadth and depth of leadership in the church, thereby facilitating future church ministry.
For more information on the Growing Leaders course visit their website!
- We intend that roles of service and ministry have a reviewable ‘fixed term’ of 1, 2 or 3 years.
We need round pegs, wherever possible in round holes. This is of course not to say that sometimes we must all do things we don’t particularly want to do, or enjoy. But the rule is, get people into roles they enjoy, find fulfilling and are good at. With that in mind, when recruiting new people to serve in ministries we will do it on a reviewable limited time period so people can opt out (or renew!) at the end of the agreed period, rather than getting stuck in a job forever!
- We intend to actively increase the proportion of the church taking up positions of responsibility, service and leadership
The 80:20 rule (80% of the people doing 20% of the work) is commonplace in churches, but you just end up with ministry being limited and therefore the gospel being less effectively communicated. You also get burnt out people. Than answer: get more people involved!
- We intend to appoint an Assistant Pastor and following this a paid staff member for youth.
This is a work in progress, so watch this space!
We are Worship-hearted
Secondly, we are worship hearted. We are going to tackle this more briefly because we spent some time considering this in Vision 1.1.
Just look at the second statement under ‘Worship-hearted’.
Earlier in Philippians, Paul prays for the church at Philippi, and his prayer clearly delineates the priorities of the Christian experience.
‘And this is my prayer: that your love may abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight, so that you may be able to discern what is best and may be pure and blameless until the day of Christ, filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ – to the glory and praise of God.’ (Phil 1v9-11)
Paul’s prayer is that the Philippians would be so impacted by their knowledge of Christ that they would be changed, transformed and so be to the glory and praise of God. Later in v20, as we saw earlier Paul speaks of his hope that Christ would be ‘exalted’ of ‘honoured’ in his body, just as God ‘exalted’ him to the highest place (v9). Paul longs that the Christ who has brought him life would be greatly lifted up, exalted. His heart is set on worshipping God. That is what we were made for and saved for so, as the ‘we are…’ statement says, we must seek to be devoted to Him and make Him the object of our desires. If our heart is found where our treasure is, then we must increasingly see Jesus Christ as our treasure.
Later in Ch4, Paul puts it like this –
‘Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: rejoice!’( Phil 4v4)
What does this mean? We don’t use the word rejoice much nowadays, other than in a church context, but we do use the word enjoy. To rejoice in the Lord is to enjoy who He is and all He has done for us. A football fan enjoys winning a football match both when they are actually watching it and when they are talking about it with friends after, or singing in the coach on the way home. And so, rejoicing in the Lord means many things. It will mean enjoying God’s presence as we sing songs of worship together to him. This is one human expression of what he has made us for.
Elsewhere, Paul mentions many things as worship. Here in 4v18 he speaks about giving financially as ‘a fragrant offering, an acceptable sacrifice, pleasing to God.’ That is clear worship-language used of giving. Elsewhere we see the same thing when talking about evangelism, about work, about learning the truth from the Bible and allowing it to shape us. All this and more is worship. Your worship, enjoying God and all He has done for you is as important and meaningful to God when you go to the office tomorrow morning as it is singing in church.
And so, the very first priority says this
- We seek to demonstrate the church’s dependence upon God in corporate prayer meetings and worship’
Then, at the bottom of that page it says -
- We plan to review Sunday morning worship and ministry to be effective and accessible for as many as possible.
We will talk about prayer in a moment, but we need to grow as a worshipping community. As we said earlier we are going to review the way Sundays work to make the experience of worshipping and learning together on a Sunday morning as beneficial as it can be for toddlers, children, youth, adults etc. We are committed to all age worship and helping parents to teach their children to worship Jesus. We are thinking about suggestions of using Sunday evenings for a gathering, various things to facilitate our desire to be a worship hearted community.
Which leads us onto our third ‘we are…’ statement.
We are God Dependent
Just look at the third statement under ‘God dependent’
Prayer is a great indicator of our faith. Now, that is not meant to induce guilt, but it is meant as a challenge. Having thought about worship, already, we must acknowledge that we are completely dependent upon God. Being a typical man, I only ask for help when I really admit I can’t do something which means, if I haven’t asked for help then I really think that I can do it! So it is with prayer. Prayer indicates my dependence upon God and lack of prayer indicates my independence. But I am not independent, I am wholly dependent upon God.
‘Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.’(4v6)
And then in v13 –
‘I can do everything through him who gives me strength.’ (4v13)
For us to meet any of these priorities, we need God’s Spirit to be at work. We know His work in us and we need to know and experience His work through us. We need to rely on Him. Let’s be honest, we are not good at this and this needs to change. But if we think a renewed effort alone is going to change things, it isn’t. We need God to grip our hearts, that we would see our dependence upon him and therefore come before Him, our commander, and ask for His help. Throughout our consultations this has been, without doubt, the single biggest issue raised by people. Therefore -
- We intend that corporate prayer meetings become as well attended as combined fellowship group meetings.
We are being specific about this. We are not saying that as many people should come to prayer meetings as come on a Sunday morning – parents with small children etc. but we intend that this becomes such a priority that it is as well attended as the combined fellowship groups. We might change when it meets, even make it on a FG night and we will think about our agenda for prayer, but this is on our hearts and important. We must have prayer at the heart of our DNA.
- We intend that every member benefits from prayer triplets or other accountable prayer groups.
Many of us are in them; others of us are not yet. Who could you meet with? And if you need help then just ask!
- We seek to encourage the profile and use of formal or informal prayer-ministry.
We need to be a church where praying for others in a sensitive and appropriate way is the norm. I remember going on a conference where the opportunity for prayer was given. Why would anyone not want to be prayed for? Well, I think there are reasons but they are not to do with prayer itself. People don’t want to be made an example of, or be man-handled or a million and one other reasons, but prayer itself is never the issue!
So we will encourage it after Sunday mornings, we will encourage it in homes, in offices or wherever. Talking to the Lord about one another must be the norm, but we all need to work at that for it to happen!
- We plan to communicate non-confidential prayer requests through a church family prayer tree.
We already have an ‘emergency’ prayer tree, but we are talking about a way of getting information around the church family so people can pray. Not the kind of stuff that we only want some people to know, but general stuff.
So we are to be Gospel-centred, Worship-hearted and God-dependent. There is much to be done but by God’s grace, it is who He calls us to be.