Reaching the UnreachedAn annual conference for churches trying to reach out in the hard places of our land

In September, along with another couple, my wife Sophie and I are hoping, by God’s grace, to plant a church on an unreached estate nearby to where we’re living (more info at http://www.hillcitychurch.org/garn). So I was pretty keen to read Graham Beynon’s new book, ‘Planting for the Gospel: A Hands-on Guide to Church Planting’.

I’ve got admit, as I read the introduction, my heart sank. Graham describes the first Sunday service of a church plant he was involved in: “About fifty adults and twenty children from a nearby church were meeting together” (p9). And my first thought was, “That’s more people than at my current church! I thought this was a book about church planting, not church transplanting!”

But pretty soon, as he examines some Bible basics concerning church planting, it becomes clear that he’s not putting forward a ‘bigger is better’ approach. In fact the book as a whole is very broad, with a good focus on the necessity to plant where there is need, rather than just ease. Like a good game of football, it’s split into two halves of more-or-less equal length – the first outlining church planting principles, and the second providing case studies from a wide variety of church plants (including contributions from RTU bloggers Andy Mason, Dai Hankey, Steve Casey and Tim Chester!)

(continue reading…)

Gospel discipleship over the long haul

Council estates, urban priority areas, low income households: the gospel is powerful to save anyone, from anywhere, but what does making disciples look like in the ‘hard places’ of our country, where progress can seem heartbreakingly slow?

For more details and to book click here, or watch the conference trailer below.

I preached my first town centre open air sermon in Bridgend yesterday, and I felt like when I was dared to dive off the three metre board at the local swimming pool when I was 11: absolutely terrified! But there was a great crew of friends out too praying hard, and picking up conversations with those who looked interested.

Anyway, the main point is, most people didn’t stop to listen, but there was a steady flow of people passing nonetheless. I reckon there was a one-minute envelope from when these people came within ‘firing’ range, to when they were out of earshot.

So the challenge is this: how do you best communicate the good news of Jesus in one minute?

I think you need to be:

• Ear-catching. It has to grab people’s attention whether by being vivid, or controversial, or even a bit odd! Jesus’ ear-catching parables, as well as hardening some hearts, also had the effect of opening others. As Spurgeon put it, like first tickling an oyster, so that you can then slip in the knife – the killer punchline!
• Direct. This can be no simple presentation of facts. The gospel call is not a lecture, it’s a lifeline thrown to the drowning person with a direct instruction to grab hold!
• Uncompromising. Paul preached in different cultures, cities and contexts. And while the manner and style of the presentation varied, the message of ‘Christ crucified’ (1 Cor 1:23) stood rock solid.

To give you some ideas, here’s what I preached today:

Anybody interested in knowing this Saturday’s lottery numbers? Course you are! Everyone wants to be rich right? You can be rich right now. Not rich with money – rich with something better. Jesus Christ was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that you through his poverty might become rich. Jesus was loaded in heaven. But he swapped it for a hard life here, and shameful execution on a cross. Why? So that he might give you his riches in place of your guilt. Trust Jesus with your life – he will give you the riches of knowing God personally.

Phew! It’s hard to be brief! A couple of cheeky uses of dashes, and there we go: 100 words!

But I want your ideas! Post a comment below with your one-minute gospel and I will shamelessly use the best ones on the street! Soli Deo Gloria.

Hi everybody! A few people have been asking when the forum is going to be live. Well, in answer to that… NOW!

Click the button at the top of the page to get to the forum (or just click here) – you’ll have to register if you want to post. There may well be a few issues that need ironing out over the first few weeks – but as with any problem on the site, just head over to the contact page and fill out the form.

Invite your friends, join the conversation, even chuck in a few controversy grenades if you want…!

David Smith was a speaker at the first Reaching the Unreached conference. He is a review of his book, Transforming the World? The Social Impact of British Evangelicalism . The review was originally published in Themelios, Vol. 25, No. 3 (June 2000), 130-131.

At the risk of gaudy dramatization, this book carefully sticks dynamite under a number of evangelical myths and then lites the fuse.

I have always thought ‘The Rise and Fall of the Non-Conformist Conscience’ would make a great title for book. In truth, if I was going to be the author, it was always going to be a title in search of a book. Now I think the book has been found.

In the heart of the busy Broadmeads shopping centre in Bristol is the first purpose built Methodist chapel. Sitting in the pews, imagining what it must have been like as people gathered, one is struck by the social impact of the eighteenth century revival. The working people who gathered to hear the gospel were leaving the Church of their masters, rulers and employers and organising themselves in alternative social bodies. It must has felt subversive to all sides.

Smith sets out to argue that the evangelicalism that arose from the Great Awakening of the 18th century was, what he calls, ‘world-transformative Christianity’. This was because so many of the movements leaders including those like John Wesley who rejected other aspects of Calvinism, traced their roots to the Reformation via Puritanism.

He describes how evangelicalism fragmented in the nineteenth century and the world transforming tradition was largely eclipsed, though with significant, if often neglected, dissenting voices.

The eighteenth century revival was largely movement among working people, usually despised by the privileged classes. Victorian evangelicalism, and especially the Clapham sect, sought to extend its appeal to the privileged classes. Simeon made it acceptable within the ecclesiological establishment while Wilberforce made it acceptable with the political establishment. Wilberforce, for all his social reform, argued against any change in the structure of British society. The Clapham Sect ‘were not just concerned to ensure that the form of the message would not be offensive, its content should assure the rich and privileged that they might attain personal salvation in Christ without the slightest hint of a threat to their ‘station’ in life.’ (17) In extending its appeal to the ruling classes evangelicals lost it world transforming vision. An elite do not welcome challenges to the status quo. While it thrived among the poor, evangelicalism, perhaps against its better judgment, was world transforming. When it sort acceptance among the powerful, it lost this vision. (continue reading…)

On the grounds that it never did me any harm, I sometimes force our children round
a stately home. Recently we were in Bodnant Gardens in North Wales. And what is
amazing is the utter confidence of the families who built the place. They laid down parks,
water features and avenues of trees, knowing that they would never live to see the garden
completed. It would take 200 years for the oak trees they planted to reach maturity.
But that didn’t put them off – they knew that their children, or grandchildren or great
grandchildren would still own it and would appreciate their foresight. This long term vision
is only possible when you have utter confidence, not in yourself but in your family, and in
the social structures that surround you. Putting it bluntly, if you are very wealthy and very
powerful you can plan a hundred years ahead.

If you are a little less wealthy and powerful, you can probably look twenty or thirty years
ahead. This is what many people do today. They plan for retirement: pension plans, nest
eggs, cruise money. Maybe some money for the kids, so they can put a deposit on a
house.

In our disadvantaged area people don’t save for pensions or retirement. The financial
horizon is much closer – maybe saving for the Christmas hamper, or a holiday next year.
If the books are balanced, it is week by week or month by month. Some others have an
even closer horizon – today’s fix, the next meal, enough to pay off the debt collector. Hand
to mouth, getting by. It seems to me that the distance to your financial horizon is a good
measure of your confidence, wealth and power.

Where does godliness come in? I’m constantly challenged by the generosity of many in
our area. And I think their financial horizon partly explains it. There is less saving going
on. Less worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will have enough worries of its own. People
who are saving for retirement soon find an infinite number of good reasons to keep more
of their wealth today – economic uncertainty, growing aspirations, more things to leave
for the kids. The wise storing of the ant morphs, unnoticed, into the rich fool’s bigger
and bigger barns. This is the danger of wealth that the Lord Jesus spoke of, frequently.
So what is a godly financial horizon? The short answer is “eternity”. This is what we
are to learn from the shrewd manager in Luke 16: have an eye on eternal dwellings
as you use your money. It’s just that people who have less of it find it easier to do.