Pilgrim Soldier

One of the problems with college life is that it raises questions that make you ponder but then another question crops up in the next lecture and you forget what you were pondering as you ponder anew! Sometimes though a thought breaks through the morass of ponderings and takes up residence in the forefront of your mind. On those occasions it suddenly seems that everything points to that same thought and its just that you are seeing it from different angles! This is one such thought!

It’s a couple of years ago now that I suddenly realised that Jesus passed the mantle of being the “Light of the World” to us, his followers. It seems like quite a ‘thick’ thing to say because I’m sure everyone else had already grasped this. However, I wasn’t quite as quick on the uptake as others. I knew it but had never made the link to the same phrase being used about him. This isn’t the thought though, its just background!

What has come to me over the last few weeks and is something that I am desperately trying to work out in my own mind is what us being the “Light of the world” actually means. And what I’ve realised is that all too often we don’t use it correctly!

What happens when you turn the light on in a dark room? It illuminates the room of course and you see things as they really are. Of course there are shadows and we can see the dust on surfaces, but the light doesn’t point it out, it simply lightens the darkness! All too often we, and I include myself in this, go into dark places and start pointing out all the dirt in those places. Instead of simply lighting up the room we take it upon ourselves to show how dirty and dusty and shadow-filled that room is!

But if we look at what Jesus does in the Gospels we see a man who simply goes into the dark places of the world and sheds the light of his presence. He doesn’t point out the sin in the lives of those people he encounters, well he does but normally only when they are supposed to already be living in the light and are the religious people. Instead he simply allows people to see the dirt themselves and allows them to decide what to do about it themselves.

I’m beginning to realise that this is what we’re supposed to do as well. It’s about us taking God’s light out in the world’s ever increasing dark places and lighting up the room. We don’t need to point out the dirt because if our light is being truly effective, people will see it anyway. All we have to do is spread God’s light and give people the chance to see their lives in the light of God!

Yesterday, Bank Holiday Monday, I went on to Strangers into Citizens service and rally, which was something of a first for me. Despite having been involved politically with a number of projects over the years this was the first real chance I had to actually go on a march.

Strangers into Citizens march

For those that don’t know anything it about the campaign pay a visit to their site (link above) and read a little about it. Basically though its about giving an opportunity for those undocumented migrants who want to contribute to UK society, who want to work and live here, a chance to do so. I’ve heard quite a bit of negative feedback, people saying that it won’t make any sort of significant difference to the problem of at least 750,000 people in this country, but it’ll make a difference to those who take up the opportunity if the government were to give it too them. Jesus said that we will be judged according to how we respond to people including the stranger, so if you’re in the UK why not write to your MP to see if they support the campaign!?

As you can see from the picture The Salvation Army were represented on the march and in the Free Church service before it. There were around 80 people connected to The Salvation Army marching amongst the marchers and several people spoke to those around me saying how good it was to see the Army supporting them in this campaign. This is, of course, part of our heritage that we’ve forgotten so it’s great to see the Army out there where it really matters supporting some of the most marginalised people in our society! Let’s hope we keep it up and if anything increase our support for this and other campaigns that are about lifting the mantle of oppression from the lives of individuals and communities.

Below is also a link to the YouTube campaign video if you want to find out more!

In my post about ‘the uprising’ I included the quote:

“unless the Bride of Christ is holy, no one else in the world will meet the Lord. Without our holiness, they won’t see the Lord.”

I’ve found myself coming back to that quote a few times because I found I needed to give the thought more consideration.

The first thought I found myself having was about the make-up of the Bride of Christ. My understanding is that it is actually the Church universal, rather than the individuals that make up the Church.

However, this was followed quickly by the reality that unless the individuals are holy, then surely the Church universal can’t be! At the very least there would be implications for the local expression of the Church should the members of the congregation not be pursuing holiness. This for me is where the crunch comes!

I believe passionately that the only way to reach the lost and to fulfil the Church’s mission in the world is at the local level. And by local I don’t mean at the level of the town, but at the level of the street!

In a paper to the Incarnate conference earlier this year Geoff Ryan said that he believes:

that God cannot – or will not – present himself in a neighbourhood or a community or amongst a people, unless his people, The Church, are themselves physically present and sharing life with the community.”

This is a difficult statement and whilst on one level I agree, I disagree on another level. However, if we accept that at some level this is correct it makes sense of Olivia Munn’s quote from the book. If the Church is not fulfilling its divine appointment and mission within a particular location then how will God be seen in that place? The only way for the Church to fulfil its mission is through the actions of its individual members working both individually and co-operatively. Therefore if the people of God, both as individuals and as a community of believers are not holy then how can the light of God reach the communities they live and serve in?

When thought of like this it makes absolute sense that our individual and corporate holiness is the key to fulfilling the mission!

Here is the start of a Mission Statement that I saw recently in a church:

As a Christian Church and an integral part of the [denominational name] we offer…

I won’t go on to say the 3 things they offered because these in themselves are of significant difficulty to me. The real reason I raise the statement is to explore our attitudes towards mission.

Personally, I’m not sure whether I am comfortable with the word ‘offer’ being included in a mission statement for a church. It suggests a passive attitude in terms of the gospel. It suggests a come and see attitude towards church, rather than a get out into the world and live the life type attitude.

In preparation for some teaching I’m going to be doing here in the corps I’ve been glancing through the excellent SA courses over at armybarmy.com. In the first session of SA201 there is a wonderful comment:

“Mission is to a movement what rice is to Chinese food. Without it, there’s just a bunch of vegetables lying around.”

My immediate reaction was to think of the Army I belong to and ask whether or not this is the experience we have. Thankfully in an increasing number of places mission focus is increasing and the fruit of people’s labour in the Spirit is being seen.

Another quote from the same source is a citing of William Booth which says:

“What is a Salvation Army Corps? – To this I reply that it is a band of people united together to attack and Christianise an entire town or neighbourhood. When an officer receives an appointment from headquarters, it is not contemplated that he shall deal merely with those who are already gathered within the walls of certain buildings, or with those who are already enrolled in our ranks, or with those who may be induced to come inside them; but it is intended that he shall be an apostle of the gospel to all those who live around. When you reach a station assigned to you, if it has not been done already, you should take your stand in that hall, or theatre, or tent, and draw a line around the breadth of population you can hope to reach, and make that your parish, and aim, with tears and prayers, and the trumpet blast of truth, and the power of the Holy Ghost, to convert and sanctify and enlist and disciple every soul within it.“(emphasis mine)

This is our mission and should be the mission of all Christians. Yet the important bit is to recognise the difference between getting people “born again” and Booth’s objectives! It is not enough for us to get people to proclaim Jesus as their personal Saviour and then move onto getting the next ‘convert’. Instead, we must follow the command of Jesus to go and make disciples and lead them to a life of committed discipleship rooted in holiness.

Over the weekend I managed to finish Provocative Church and can honestly say that I have enjoyed it immensely. Not only have I enjoyed it, but it has also given me a real challenge in how to respond, especially in regard to leading my current congregation forward into mission and evangelism.

What’s particularly good is that this book emphasises the need for holy living, both as individuals and as congregations. In this respect Graham Tomlin recognises the need for the church to put the emphasis on discipleship, something that is to me fundamental if we want to see both change socially and within the church. This emphasis on the local congregation becomes even more obvious when the following is taken into account.

God wants to show off his wisdom and craft to the rest of the cosmos. God the divine artist wants to hold an exhibition of such beauty and power and wisdom that anyone who looks on, whether they come from earth or heaven, will be overcome with wonder and awe. It is to be a display of his ‘manifold’ wisdom.

Yesterday, Zoe & I took part in our very first Rogation Sunday procession. This is a traditional part of the church year which is still carried out in many parishes, around the UK at least. We went to support the band who have been processing with the congregation of a tiny Surrey village, called Peper Harow, for the last 40 years. The idea of Rogation processions is that they go round the village and ask for God’s blessing upon it, particularly through the blessing of the land and crops.

What strikes me is that yesterday the procession wasn’t going around the village praying simply that Christians would be blessed, but that the whole community would be regardless of their faith or beliefs. The only agenda was that the earth would blessed and that through this God would be glorified. Surely through this blessing asked for by the church on behalf of its community, the people who were looking on, slightly bemused in many cases, were given the opportunity to see God’s people in Peper Harow reflecting the glory of God. Many in today’s church would probably write off the ritual and ceremony as archaic and irrelevant to our post-modern world, but just for a moment yesterday we were part of God’s manifold wisdom for that small corner of His creation.

When we think about being provocative I would guess that a lot of people would see this as a negative thing. I suppose this is mainly because provocation is one of those words that seems to be a bad thing. We think of people being provoked into an argument or of someone hitting someone else after being provoked. So when a book suggests that the church should be provoking a response from people it could well get assigned to the spiritual dustbin, along with terminology such as ‘getting out of comfort zones’ and ‘taking risks’.

However, a few months ago a book that does exactly that was recommended to me. At that point I didn’t get it, but then as I was browsing the shelves of my local Christian bookshop about a month ago there it was simply begging me to buy it!

On Sunday night I finally got round to starting to read it, and so far I haven’t been disappointed. Its actually a book about evangelism, although I suspect that some reading it might not agree with the methods it suggests. What is refreshing though is that this is not a book that consigns verbal evangelism to the scrap heap, but instead elevates it to its rightful position within the church, front and centre.

By the way the book is Graham Tomlin’s The Provocative Church. The basic premise is that unless an individual, or a congregation, live their lives in such a way as to make people start asking questions about the way they are living no amount of evangelism is ever going to make an impact. One quote that stood out on the first page of Chapter 1 was,

Sometimes Christians assume that people ‘out there’ are eager to listen to what the Church has to say. The only problem is learning how to say it louder and more clearly.”

It immediately made me think of the stereotypical ‘Brit abroad’ picture. We have a reputation for talking to people who don’t speak English ‘loudly, slowly and clearly’ so that they will understand what we are saying. Of course the real problem is that we aren’t speaking their language. The same mentality still exists in some circles of the church, including The Salvation Army. It doesn’t seem to matter that people no longer speak our cultural language. All we have to do is say the same things louder, slower and clearer and everything will be ok.

As someone who has never felt entirely comfortable in traditional evangelistic methods this book is really speaking to me and I’ve been thinking in depth about possible efforts that we could get involved in here in our location. I’m well into chapter 5 and have numerous thoughts coming out of it, so I’ll probably be posting more on this.