This is a workshop given by Jenny Andison and John Bowen at the Vital Church Planting Conference 2011.
Length: 1h:15m
Every Church an Evangelizing Community!
by Ryan Sim.
This is a workshop given by Jenny Andison and John Bowen at the Vital Church Planting Conference 2011.
Length: 1h:15m
by John Bowen.
This summer, my wife and I spent some time in the UK. One day, we checked online for churches to visit that Sunday, and found one that seemed very lively. I clicked on the “staff” page. There I found an impressive number of staff, both full and part-time, but I confess I was baffled by the list of their qualifications. Some were “OLM,” others “LLM,” some were “with PTO.” One was “retired NSM with PTO,” and another “LLM (formerly Reader) with PTO.” We did in fact worship at that church on the Sunday, and found it a wonderfully energetic and faith-full community. But my experience with the website was a sobering reminder that the first contact many people will have with our churches is online. We need to design our websites with “outsiders” in mind so that the first impression is not off-putting, and in fact, invites visitors not only to our church but to our faith.
In particular, I believe we need an explanation of the Gospel upfront on our websites. Many church websites describe their community as “family-oriented,” “inclusive,” “kid-friendly,” “a welcoming community,” and so on. Most go further and say something about faith: “knowing Christ and making him known” is popular; “followers of Jesus” and “a faith-filled family” are phrases that crop up. Smart websites have a “Frequently asked questions” section, anticipating visitors’ questions like “What’s the dress code?” and “Do I have to belong to your denomination?” But I haven’t found many church websites with a section explicitly called, “Becoming a Christian.”
The church of which I am a member, St John the Evangelist in Hamilton (see www.rockonlocke.ca), recently added a section called just that, under the tab “New here?” (OK, I confess, it’s not a coincidence: I had something to do with it.) What follows is the text of that part of the website. Naturally, you don’t have to agree with every word of it. There is not enough about some things and probably too much about others. It’s intended as a taster, a teaser, meant to intrigue and attract. It is not a systematic theology. If you don’t like it, hopefully it will inspire you to write something better. But if you do like it, you are welcome to copy it or adapt it for your own church’s website.
Becoming a Christian
The simplest way to define a Christian is as “a follower of Jesus.” That means, someone who tries to learn from Jesus Christ what he has to teach about God, about life and how to live it, and about death and how to deal with it. In a sense, a Christian is a student of Jesus the Teacher.
If that is a Christian, then what is the church? Again, at its simplest, church is when followers of Jesus get together. Why do they get together? To learn more about how to follow Jesus, to pray together, and to encourage one another in their faith. In a sense, the church is the school of Jesus. And, in most churches, they also break bread and drink wine together (variously called the Mass, Communion, Eucharist, or Lord’s Supper) as Jesus told his followers to do. They also get together because one of the things Jesus taught was that God is interested not just in individuals living good lives, but in people learning to live as a diverse and harmonious community.
Another way to think of a Christian is as someone who has responded to the Good News—or Gospel—that Jesus taught. What is that Good News? It is about something he called “the Kingdom of God”—the state of affairs where things are done in the way the Creator intended. Jesus said that this Kingdom came into the world in a special way when God sent him into the world—in effect, that he was the King of this Kingdom
So what is the Good News of “the Kingdom”? That God in love has not given up on our world, with all its hurt and folly and wars. Rather, in spite of all appearances to the contrary, God is at work to put things to rights, to shape a world where all pain and self-centeredness is done away with. And God invites human beings everywhere to be part of this new thing he is doing in the world.
How do you become part of God’s work, part of God’s “kingdom”? That’s where becoming a follower of Jesus comes in. Why? Because it’s from Jesus that we learn most clearly what it means to work with God in this project of restoring the world. Jesus demonstrated the Kingdom himself—by the way he lived, but also by his brutal execution for our sins and by his miraculous coming back to life three days later—and he taught others how to walk that same road. And that’s why, if we want to work with the Creator in this amazing global restoration project, the best way to do it is in the school of Jesus.
How do you become a follower of Jesus, then? Jesus used two old-fashioned-sounding words to describe it: “repent” and “believe.” “Repent” means to turn away from one thing, and “believe” means to turn towards something else: a 180 degree change, as if we set off walking west and then turned right around and start heading east. Another word for turning around like this is conversion. For some people, that turning around is sudden, but for others it takes a long time.
So what does that journey in a new direction look like? As you might expect, it means a complete change of view. (After all, if you were heading west, you would have been walking towards the sunset; now, facing east, you’re heading towards the sunrise.) Before, it meant living my life as though it belonged to me. Now I realise that it is a gift from the Creator. Before, it meant setting the priorities of my life according to what I thought was important. Now it means learning what God’s priorities for my life are. Before, I could be as selfish as I wanted to be. Now I am learning to serve God and others. The changes are huge.
Does that sound difficult? Well, yes, Jesus never said it would be easy: he was very clear that in some ways it would feel like a death, and any experienced Christian will tell you that following him is often difficult. But the good news is that in following Jesus, you are actually learning to follow the Creator’s way, which means you’re learning to live your life with the grain of the universe, not against it. And in the end that means experiencing what Jesus called “life in all its fullness”—becoming the person that you were created to be, and doing what you were made to do—and in the company of the God who made you and who loves you.
If this sounds intriguing, come check us out one of these Sundays. As you can tell, becoming a Christian is a big thing—in fact, the biggest decision you could ever make—and nobody wants you to rush into it. Come see what church (this followers-of-Jesus-getting-together event) is like. How do they experience Christian faith? How do they handle the difficulties? What are the joys? How do they keep going? How do they experience the love of God? Listen in on their praying, their singing, their teaching, their conversation. They will welcome your eavesdropping!
And if, after a time, you decide that this is indeed what you want, talk to the minister about baptism. If being a Christian is being a student in the school of Jesus, getting baptized is the way you register in the school. It’s a public ceremony (you can’t be a private Christian) and involves you stating your desire to be a follower of Jesus. And the whole Christian community (your fellow students) is there to cheer you on, promising to support and encourage you in your new life.
Perhaps you were baptized as a baby, but have never really done anything about it. In that case, if you decide you want to be a follower of Jesus, there is something called “Re-affirmation of Baptismal Vows,” where you are not baptized again (that’s not necessary), but you take the promises that were made on your behalf as a baby and make them your own as a thoughtful adult choice. And that can be just as meaningful as baptism itself.
Do email us or phone if you would like more information. And, wherever you are at in your spiritual journey, we look forward to meeting you one of these Sundays.
***
The first step to revising your own church’s website just might be to check out the sites of other churches. What works? What doesn’t? Learn from the mistakes of others and be inspired by the ingenuity of those who do it well. And, in particular, let’s take the opportunity of this first contact with new people to say something about the Gospel
by Bruce Enns.
Learn how one Saskatoon congregation put missional into writing
Joining God in his mission is a great adventure with so many blessings. But it’s also a lot of hard work. As a church leader, I’m continually amazed at how easily and quickly I can get pulled back into complacency and comfort. It’s true for me personally and it’s true for the Church. It’s that human nature thing that Paul talks about in Romans 7: it’s hard to keep doing the things we know that God has called us to do.
Missional partnerships have been an important part of helping us stay focused as a church. Here, I’m defining missional as simply the posture and intentionality to be the sent Church, joining God in his desire to bring His blessing to the families and nations of the earth.
At Forest Grove Community Church in Saskatoon, we are involved in missions work in a variety of ways. We’ve found that taking the time to clearly articulate the parameters of a missional partnership (in writing) has reaped tremendous benefits. We’ve currently established two in this way, and we are discerning a third one. One is locally with an inner city ministry in Saskatoon called The Bridge (you can read about this in the book, Going Missional: Conversations with 13 Canadian Churches who Have Embraced Missional Life). The other is with a ministry to the indigenous people of the jungles of Panama. We’ve had over 70 members of our congregation participate in this second one, in seven years of sending teams down to Panama.
Here are a few of the benefits — and power — of a clearly articulated missional partnership:
It sharpens your focus. As churches and pastors we can feel pulled in so many different directions. Partnerships help us keep focused and make a true difference in a few areas, rather than feeling frustrated and ineffective in many. It also helps define who exactly the partnership is with and what is the overall purpose we’re trying to accomplish.
It reveals our perspectives, biases and blind spots. North American churches have lots to offer, but we have so much more to learn. When I first went to Linda (director at the Bridge), I said that people in our church truly have a heart and desire to help those in our city who are vulnerable, marginalized and struggling with the many faces of poverty — but we don’t know how. I told her that we needed The Bridge’s help to know how to live our faith. Their ministry (and clients) have helped us so much to see Jesus. Written and wrestled into each of our partnership agreements is a commitment to bless each other — and what this two-way partnership will look like.
It helps our people engage. When we take the time to clearly define the partnership and our mutual commitments to each other, we become family and we get to truly know each other. This helps people see how to live out their faith and where their gifts might be used. Some people will finally step out and try it because so many others have paved the way first.
It makes us evaluate effectiveness. In our written agreements, we’ve defined effectiveness and also put a term-limit on our agreement. Each of our partnerships is up for review every three years. That makes us evaluate (together with our partners) what’s working, what’s not, and whether or not it makes sense to continue. Churches can be great at starting ministries; we’re not so great at evaluating and at times stopping them.
Jesus seemed to wonderfully combine spontaneous ministry — so much happened “as he walked along,” see John 9 — together with great intentionality, whether sending out “the 12” or “the 72.” We will always need both. Being missional requires a posture of spontaneity and an intentionality to truly be effective. Missional partnerships allow for both in a powerful way.
Bruce Enns is lead pastor of Forest Grove Community Church in Saskatoon, Sask.
by Connie denBok.
We need to revise the rules of a game which seems to be played out with one active pulpit, before an audience of passive pews. Here’s one way forward
As Canadians wrestle with a shrinking Church and a growing recognition that the God of all ages is not limited to high ceilings, wooden pews, or even Sunday morning, we are beginning to grasp the magnitude of the task ahead. It is huge, and will require more than young priests and ministers eager to enter traditional parishes. We face a revolution in how we do ministry, plant churches, communicate a message, and create community.
Mission Shaped Ministry (MSM) was developed as an advanced training course for teams of lay people planting Fresh Expressions of Church in Great Britain. I wish I could say MSM is a magic formula, creating new churches to replace those that have reached the end of their lifespan.
Instead, it challenges the Church to rethink itself on at least three levels.
How we lead: We have come to think of the Church in terms of pastor and laity — one doing the skilled work and the other supporting in many ways. But Fresh Expressions of Church are as much the formation of ministry teams as the reformation of professional leaders. Thinking back to the Acts of the Apostles or the Pauline Epistles, new ministries were always the work of what I think of as the apostolic AND: Paul and Silas and Barnabbas and Titus and Phoebe and Priscilla and Aquila and Epaphras and Mary and Andronicus and Junia and many more cited by name. The next generation of church leaders will have complementary ands in every leadership team.
How we finance ministry: As much as I appreciate collecting a salary for doing the things I love – and would likely continue doing even if I won the lottery tomorrow — my income comes from the accumulated wealth of generations. People older than myself, for the most part, have paid the mortgage on buildings we could no longer afford to purchase. In the future, I suspect much ministry will be conducted by teams of lay persons; supported, encouraged and blessed by clergy but not restricted by the availability of the ordained and salaried. We can no more afford to launch only churches build by professional church workers than could the early church — or any of the other church planting movements of history. Unless we are willing to send out mendicants with bowls to beg for their supper, Fresh Expressions of Church will often be the work of those who earn their salary and mingle with the working population as others do. Instead of numbing themselves in front of the computer, console, or TV, dedicated Christ-followers will create new Christian communities through networks of relationships inaccessible to parish focused ministers.
Role of pastors: There must be a shift from pastor centred mission to multi-faceted team. The British MSM was designed to aid groups of eager lay people in need of seasoned advice, theology, and structure and to temper a spontaneous church planting. Guiding an unruly outbreak of enthusiastic lay ministry does not seem to be a significant problem in the Canadian Church. But we cannot forget that the early Church was largely a movement of lay persons mentored by followers of Jesus, tied to the teaching of the apostles, but not to buildings or methodologies.
The difference between a laity that cares beyond its friendship networks and one that is ingrown appears to lie in one of the eight measureable quality characteristics of Natural Church Development (NCD). Passionate Spirituality is the ability to apply one’s love for God, one’s knowledge of scripture, one’s experience of the transforming power of God to everyday life and relationships at home, in community and at work. It is that extra “something” that pushes past loving fellowship and a crowded agenda of work and leisure to a life that follows in the footsteps of Jesus — and of the 12 — and the 72, and 500 and so on through to those who mentored the ministries of which each of us are a part.
Does the world need another course to learn how to plant a church or fresh expression of Church? If it does, MSM is a pretty good one.
But I think we must strive for more than more than deepened knowledge. We need to recruit young people and active retirees and persons whose circumstances allow them to live simply in order to serve God’s mission in the world. We need priests and pastors ready to rethink tried and steady patterns of ministry that support a passive laity.
We need to revise the rules of a game which can be played out with one active pulpit, before an audience of passive pews. MSM is a team sport. Gather a gang of two or three or ten, and see what you can do. I can safely say that God is on your side.
by John Bowen.
I don’t know if you have ever had the experience of knowing what you should have said — only when the opportunity to say it has long past. It seems to happen to me frequently — and perhaps more often as I get older. On this occasion it was during lunch. My friend and I were talking about the need (as I saw it) for churches to be missional, and what that might mean. Then, my friend waved his fork in my general direction and said, “Of course, you need to remember that some of us are more liturgical than missional.” I instinctively felt there was something wrong with that way of putting things. But on the spur of the moment I couldn’t put my finger on it, and the conversation moved on to other things. My friend paid for lunch, and we went our separate ways.
That evening, his comment came back to me: “More liturgical than missional.” I’d heard that kind of comment before, but the distinction had never been put quite so baldly. Why did it bother me so much? The answer came that Sunday, during Eucharistic Prayer #4 in the Book of Alternative Services, sometimes called the “Star Wars” prayer because of its reference to “the vast expanse of interstellar space, galaxies, suns, the planets in their courses, and this fragile earth, our island home.” Personally I love it, perhaps because it puts the Christian story in such a vast and beautiful context: it is (literally) awesome.
Then comes the reminder of what went wrong in our universe: “We turn against you, and betray your trust, and we turn against one another.” It is our failure to love God and neighbour. And then the comforting words, “Again and again you call us to return.” Thank God, God does not give up on us. “Through the prophets and sages you reveal your righteous law.” God’s rescue began almost as soon as sin entered our world. But then, “In the fullness of time you sent your Son, born of a woman, to be our Saviour.” Jesus, the climax of God’s mission to our world.
What was that word? “Mission!” The fancy term theologians use for it is the missio dei — the mission of God to redeem our sinful and hurting world. And there it was at the heart of the Eucharist!
I quickly flipped through the other prayers of consecration. There it was again:
When we turned away from you in sin, you did not cease to care for us, but opened a path of salvation for all people. (#1)
Jesus . . . lived and died as one of us, to reconcile us to you, the God and Father of all (#2)
[I]n these last days you sent [Jesus your Son] to be incarnate from the Virgin Mary, to be the Saviour and redeemer of the world (#3)
In Jesus, your Son, you bring healing to our world and gather us into one great family. (#5)
In your mercy you came to our help, so that in seeking you we might find you. Again and again you called us into covenant with you . . . (#6)
At the heart of every one of the prayers of consecration is the same simple message, though phrased in different ways: God in love reaches out to a sinful and hurting world, and as the culmination of that reaching out sends Jesus into the world to redeem humankind. The verbs are revealing: send, give up, open, bring, come, call, reconcile. They are words of movement, change and hope —words of mission.
The Christian God, these prayers remind us, is a missionary. They never tire of telling the story of what this missionary God has done in sending Jesus. Today’s emphasis on “being missional” is not just the latest flavor of the religious month. It is reminder of that mission which begins in the heart of God and which swoops down to redeem a rebellious world. And the Eucharistic liturgy, it seems, is first and foremost a celebration of mission. That’s why we can’t separate the two quite as easily as my friend wished.
But then a second thing hit me: the Church where we celebrate the mission of God in the Eucharist would not exist, were it not for that mission. The story of God’s mission, which we retell at every Eucharist, is not the story of some far-off reality or an alien people; neither is it an abstract theory for theologians to argue over. The story of God’s mission is the story of every church, however remote or ageing or small, where the celebration takes place. The only reason any church exists is because it is the fruit of God’s reaching out in Jesus Christ. This is why the prayers are full of “we,” “us” and “our.” If there had been no missio dei, there would be no Church. If there were no missionary God, there would be no Eucharist. The very word Eucharist — thanksgiving — is precisely because God has reached out to save us. This is the story — the only story — which constitutes the Church and its worship. It is most truly, for the Church, “the greatest story ever told.” This is why it comes at the climax of Christianity’s most distinctive act of worship.
This means that liturgy is in one way centripetal: it is the sacrament which speaks of God’s mission to “to gather us into one great family” at the cross and at the table. God reaches out his hands to us in mission: we are drawn to respond in repentance, faith and thanksgiving.
But this is not the end. Liturgy is also centrifugal. As the Eucharist came to an end, it became clear. We say together:
Gracious God, we thank you for feeding us with the body and blood of your Son Jesus Christ. May we, who share his body, live his risen life; we, who drink his cup, bring life to others; we, whom the Spirit lights, give light to the world.
If worshippers are mysteriously united with Jesus in the bread and wine, there are practical consequences to that unity. If we are one with Christ, we are one with him in his work in the world. And what is that work? To “live his risen life,” “to bring life to others,” and to “give light to the world”: not a bad summary of Christ’s missionary work —which he now shares with those who have eaten and drunk at his table.
The Eucharist is not an escape from the wicked world. It is a drawing apart from the world for a time, in order to be sacramentally reminded that “God so loved the world”— and then sent us out to serve God there.
The downward swoop of God’s grace catches us up into its onward flow. John Stott has said: “People need two conversions: one from the world to Christ, and the other with Christ into the world.” And at the hinge between those two movements stands the Eucharist, to which we are drawn by the mission of God, and from which we are sent for the mission of God.
Liturgy without mission is like the Dead Sea. Rivers run into it, but there is no outlet. No life can survive in it. Mission without liturgy is like a flash flood, powerful but quickly over, not fed by permanent springs — and equally unable to sustain life.
Liturgy and mission together, however, are symbiotic, as God intended, life-giving first to the people of God, and then through them in the power of the Spirit to the world.
I think I need to call my friend and schedule another lunch. This time it will be my turn to pay.
by Karen Stiller.
Years ago, my best friend Janet and I travelled from Halifax to Vancouver and back again on a student Via-Rail pass. For 21 days we sat, slept and snickered in coach seats, eating peanut butter sandwiches and once an entire cream pie. We giggled through northern Ontario and cackled through the prairies, until, to our utter bewilderment, someone finally snapped.
Our fellow passenger shouted “Would you please stop that incessant giggling!” The rest of the car applauded. They weren’t clapping for us. Amazingly, they were clapping for the man who told us to shut up.
We were stunned to discover not everyone — not anyone, actually — thought we were the cat’s meow. And that’s how the church is to some people, in some neighbourhoods. The church has become irrelevant, and maybe even annoying!
This past year, I had the privilege to interview and write the stories of 13 Canadian churches — of various sizes, shapes and denominations — across Canada who have decided to get relevant, big-time. Going Missional: Conversations with 13 Canadian Churches who Have Embraced Missional Life is the book, borne of that research and co-written with Willard Metzger, then World Vision Canada’s director of church relations.
All across Canada, there are churches embracing missional life. They are moving out of their comfort zones into a more intentional local engagement and serving their own communities in remarkably creative ways — not to grow their churches — but to grow their obedience to Jesus’ teachings to deeply love the people and places that surround us. And they are doing it in partnership with all kinds of people and community groups already active in their midst.
Partnerships was a huge part of many of the missional adventures I learned about. Ask, then listen, advised Judy Paulsen of Christ Church, Oshawa, an Anglican congregation profiled in the book. Going out to meet with community groups, asking how the church can serve them, then coming up with creative partnering possibilities is a staple of the missional life.
I shared this idea of partnerships with people in the community, who weren’t necessarily the least bit churchy at all, with our own church’s Mission and Outreach group. Inspired, we formed a team to go visit the local schools and offer our church’s assistance for students in need. The result, after months of talking and re-visiting, is a bursary for social action at the high school, and a sizable donation to another school to build up their literacy program.
We feel certain we are on the right and very new track.
This immediate application of what I was learning happened again and again during the writing of Going Missional. Because our own congregation of the Ascension in Port Perry is well on its way to a renewed incarnation in our community, we were able to apply some of the missional lessons right away, which is the very point of the book.
We fellow travellers on the missional road – and many would argue there is no other road — can learn so much from each other. Simple things like dialoguing with the community to find out how we can help — and not presuming to already know. Realizing that God is already at work in Port Perry and elsewhere, whether we are a part of it yet or not. And knowing that simply being a friend can be the greatest witness to Christ’s love. One church I spoke to built a homeless shelter right down the hall from their sanctuary; another offers fixed-up cars to the poor in their community, yet another asked surprised parishioners to donate their coats and boots (on a cold Saskatoon Sunday) to a homeless shelter downtown. A west-coast church volunteered in droves for an Aboriginal Olympics taking part in their hometown, and did more to build bridges in two weeks than in the decades previously.
I ended this project feeling like it was a good time to be a Christ-follower in Canada — and in my very own community. For the first time in a long time, I am excited about what is to come.
Going Even More Missional
I interviewed 46 people, from 13 diverse church communities from coast to coast, for Going Missional. Here are some more ways these congregations are living out Christ’s call in their communities.
1. Work with other churches: In almost every case, churches who are deeply engaged in their communities are open to collaboration with other — often very different — congregations.
2. Be prepared to help when the community needs you. A large Montreal congregation founds its missional feet during the ice storms of 1998. Their sanctuary became a shelter, and their reputation as a church the community can trust grew exponentially.
3. Know your community. The churches in the book spent time asking questions, hearing from community groups and even just travelling on city buses to hear and absorb what the needs of their communities really were.
4. Encourage lay people. Often, the best ideas for missional outreach come from parishioners who want to share their passion and their gifts. Sometimes, clergy are most effective as cheer leaders.
5. Move from writing cheques to being present. The churches in the book, especially Christ Church, Oshawa, have intentionally moved from mostly financially supporting needs in their communities to actually rolling up their sleeves and getting to work. Parishioners love the switch.
6. Preach and teach boldly. One church in Winnipeg tells members that if they aren’t willing to get to work in the community then they are just taking up a chair someone else could use. Ministry opportunities are presented on their website like job descriptions and everyone has a chance to participate.
7. Open your doors — for free. A large Saint John congregation opens its building (rent-free) for community meetings and events and has gained a reputation, starting with that simple act, as being on the side of the city.
8. Train people how to serve. A St. Catharine’s congregation that houses a homeless shelter makes sure its volunteers are well-trained and comfortable. They present varied “on-ramps” for engaging parishioners in missional activities.
9. Invite the community in — even on Sundays. A church in Duncan, B.C. invites community leaders to join them for a Sunday service and share what they do for their town, then the church offers to pray for their work, right there and then.
10. Do your programs well. A Saskatoon church took a load of their “Sunday best” clothing, in new boxes, to a homeless shelter and the shelter staff were moved to tears. Another church-run homeless shelter washes their visitors’ clothes and offers them fresh pyjamas to sleep in. Offer the world your best.
Going Missional: Conversations with 13 Canadian Churches who Have Embraced Missional Life is available through The Leadership Centre, Willow Creek Canada, at www.growingleadership.com
Karen Stiller
by John Bowen.
Apparently, it’s just one of those long-standing Christmas traditions. More people will come to services this Christmas than at any other time of year. And the majority of those people will not come back for another 12 months. Is this inevitable? Do we simply shrug and accept it as a sad reality? Or is there something we can do to make those people think it might be worthwhile to come back sooner than next Christmas—maybe even next week?
Some of the answers are obvious, though not always easy: a genuinely welcoming community; liturgy that is done well; music that delights the ear and the heart; and quality refreshments afterwards, for a start. All those require the enthusiastic co-operation of the church community. But I want to address another component of the service that is primarily the responsibility of one person: the sermon.
How do we preach this Christmas in such a way that the hearers say, “Wow! That’s amazing. Maybe I need to come back and hear more,”—instead of, “Ah yes, the boring sermon. Another reason I gave up on church 20 years ago. I remember it so well.” Here are some modest suggestions:
1. Name people’s hang-ups—whether or not we share them
Many people outside the Church assume that church folk do not think like them, and certainly don’t understand the doubts and reservations they experience around church stuff. To name those things helps people relax: “Wow, the preacher knows how I think, and seems to think it’s normal!”
What should we name? Here are just a few:
*Difficulties with the historicity of the story: “Many of us have a hard time believing things happened just the way they’re described in the story.”
*Difficulties with adult belief: “We think the Christmas story is OK for kids, but not for adults.”
*Difficulties with church: “Many people have had bad experiences with church, and that’s deeply sad.”
*Difficulties with the incarnation: “To say ‘he came down to earth from heaven’ makes it sound as though Jesus was an alien being visiting from another planet.”
*Difficulties with faith: Mark Twain said, “Faith is believing what you know ain’t true.”
Of course, we can go on to address whatever the problem is, but we need to start by naming it as a legitimate concern. Otherwise the hearers are always thinking, “Ah, but if you knew my particular questions, my doubts, my experience, you’d understand why I’m not here more often.” If we can disarm those reservations, it increases the likelihood that our hearers can hear the good news.
2. Speak from the heart—and take time to find it
John Stott says somewhere that, although he loved to preach the atonement and did so frequently, he was careful not to use clichés in doing do. Each time, he would seek to be personally reminded of the reality of the cross, and to find fresh ways of talking about it that would engage both him and his hearers.
The same is true for the incarnation (and, I suppose, ideally for all Christian truth). I would suggest that our sermon preparation is not complete until we ourselves have been touched afresh by the reality of God become a human being, until we feel the utter goodness of the Good News, and our sermon-in-the-making is more than words. “Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks,” says Jesus. Let’s make sure our hearts are full to overflowing before we speak. People recognise authenticity—and they recognise when we are just saying the words without feeling them.
3. Avoid theological jargon
C.S.Lewis says there is a place for in-house technical language in every profession or social group. We can’t manage without it: it can be precise and efficient. Once we step outside that specialised community, however, our language has to change. In particular, explanations tend to take far longer. Lewis suggests that most in-house words require 10 everyday words in order to explain them. He adds that if your job is to communicate with outsiders—especially in the name of Christ—then suck it up (I paraphrase): take that extra time, and don’t grudge it; use those 10 words (unfamiliar though they may be), and don’t look for short cuts. For example:
*Talk about “the author writing himself into the script of the play” rather than “the incarnation”—this is a C.S.Lewis analogy (10 words instead of two)
*Talk about “Matthew’s biography of Jesus” rather than “the Gospel of Matthew”—it’s not obvious to an unchurched person what “a Gospel” is
*Talk about “the story” rather than “the text” or “the narrative.” Avoid academic terms—unless your congregation attracts a lot of university folk, of course.
This kind of translation is actually a good discipline for us. Apart from anything else, it’s what missionaries have always done.
4. Do something surprising—even if it’s outside our comfort zone
We live in a multi-media age. Sadly (for those of us over a certain age at least), words alone seldom stick in the memory. Our sermon is far more likely to be remembered and discussed over Christmas lunch if it is more than words. Why not consider things like:
*Having a roving microphone in the congregation. Ask questions that invite a one- or two-word answer. “What comes to your mind when you think of Christmas?” is simple and sure to get people involved. Don’t ask for stories or you might never get your microphone back.
*Preaching from the aisle rather than the pulpit. People in the Western hemisphere feel (perhaps since the 60s) that informal equals sincere, and formal equals inauthentic. There is really no rational basis for it, but it’s worth remembering.
*Having a new Christian say (briefly) how his or her view of Christmas has changed. A personal story from an “amateur” can carry more weight than the views of the “professional.”
*Including a short dramatic sketch on the subject of the sermon. (As I write this, I remember one such at Trinity Anglican Church in Streetsville (Ontario), over 10 years ago. Even now I find it moving.)
*If you have the technology, showing an appropriate video clip. The website textweek.com has a tab called “movie index,” which offers lots of good ideas.
And if some of these suggestions seem somehow beneath our dignity, let’s remember that this is after all the festival of the humiliation of the Word.
5. Show how the Gospel makes a difference
Postmodern people don’t care whether Christianity is true, but they are interested to know whether it works. It’s a legitimate question. After all, it is “by their fruits”—not by their compelling arguments—that “you will know them.”
So how might it affect our hearers’ lives if they believed that God really became a human being? How might the most amazing event in history cause them to see the world differently? How might they treat their spouse, their colleagues, their in-laws, their neighbours, differently? How might leisure or work or sex seem different? How might life be more joyful? And, to be honest, how might life be more difficult? (There is always a cost to believing).
Of course, it will help if we can say too how the incarnation (forgive the technical term) has changed—and is changing—the way we and our congregation live.
Sacramental preaching
Preaching at Christmas is a challenge, but one worthy of the season. After all, if we believe that “the Word became flesh and dwelt among us,” the sermon can be a sacrament of that same Incarnation—not just talking about God, but by our preaching giving the hearers a taste of the God who enters our world, who participates in our language and our culture, who speaks to us “right where we are,” to affirm us and challenge us at the depths of our being.
Whether our guests actually come back the week after Christmas is their responsibility before God, not ours. Our responsibility is to be faithful in representing the Gospel as best we can—and then to leave the rest to the God who loves them enough to come to earth for them.
by Nick Brotherwood.
Vital Church Planting 2011 West takes place in Edmonton, AB, May 26-28
Vital Church Planting 2011 East takes place in Toronto, ON, May 31-June 2
Watch short promotional video here.
Website for both conferences here
Bishop Steven Croft will be the main speaker at both VCP 2011 East & West .