Joining in with the local church

It's always a delight to see new Christians moving into the town and engaging with and committing to the WBC church family. Last year was a bumper year for baptisms and new church members, this year is presenting in a different way - that's so often how it goes! I'd be dishonest and fraudulent if I said that I do not carry the weight of the decision by those who choose to move on. These are painful moments which I carry deeply and lament over, especially when I've taken time to listen and build trust and friendship.

And it's often quite extraordinary how the Holy Spirit can send the church new people with specific gifting and ministries, not least in response to the church family praying together about what the practical needs of the church are. And so often that's what God does. Conversley, when the church doesn't do this, then the opposite is true. And guess what, nothing then happens!

And yet, as a Baptist Church, we specifically seek together what the vision and direction of the church is, and this is not always easy. Yet when we do find God's leading, and the people of God (church members) say "yes", then agreement unlocks the blessing of the Lord, and the Holy Spirit adds his blessing. Sometimes churches don't get this right, but more often than not they do. But pushing against that unity of the Holy Spirit is never going to end well.

It remains a challenge as to how long a person/people need to "season" (after arrival) in a church before conscious invitation to share in ministry is given. More often than not, particularly with demanding rotas, the hands of any new volunteers are snatched off not long after they have started to attend the church consistently, and that too requires wisdom, trust and pastoral insight. This is always an area of finely balanced sensitivity, especially when a ministry is desperate for help, yet wisdom would suggest "summering and wintering" is a sensible choice for all. In some churches, involvement in any ministry would not be permitted unless a person commits themselves to the church in membership. Though that may appear neat and tidy - even sensible, it isn't the case in WBC.

So for those coming into the church family, this can prove quite daunting. What is this church like? What is its vision? What are the ministries in which we might get involved? What small groups can we engage with? What is the Sunday teaching like? Did I get a good welcome? What is the worship like? What are children's and youth groups like? And probably a host of other questions too, not least "do they serve good coffee?" And as often stated, "if you find the perfect church, please don't join it, because you'll probably mess it up!"

What doesn't generally go down well is when someone arrives and starts telling you where the church is going wrong and how the church should be doing things, and seeking to implement their vision and direction, rather than walking in unity with the new Christian family "the church" that they have become a part of. That's always going to grate and cause tension, though I'd be the first to say that we should never close our ears to new ways of doing things, especially where and when churches can so often get themselves into a rut and forget what its core mission is. Pushing against the flow so often causes tension and disunity.

Change so often comes from within and is led by the discernment of the Church Members to the guidance of the Holy Spirit. That's not to say that sometimes the Holy Spirit doesn't disrupt things (scripture is full of such events), but it is indeed the Holy Spirit, not the hands of humans, in strong contrast to human efforts that more often than not can cause human tension and division. And yes, scripture even have these scenarios in its pages too.

The Baptist way of being the church is unique, and I would argue biblical. This isn't necessarily the model within other churches, though some have tried to cherry-pick Baptist ecclesiology. Some churches have no congregational input, and decisions come downwards from the top, sometimes from a board of Elders, or from a PCC, or by one single authoritarian person - "an Apostle." Other churches seem unable to do anything at all unless they vote on absolutey everything. We'd be waiting a long time if we had to vote on the colour of the paint or whether we use green or blue milk in the coffee! Perhaps that's a touch tongue-in-cheek!

So Baptist Churches have the opportunity to weigh together what the Spirit is saying, and then to decide together, often guided by it's leadership team and it's Pastor and then together moving forward.

Blessed be the discernment of the Spirit, and the unity of the Spirit!

The Big Christian Moments

The Christian seasons are often fronted by big key moments. Granted, we are not - in a Baptist Church, held in any shape by liturgical colours, but we mark the seasons rightly: Advent, Christmas, Lent, Easter,  Ascension, Pentecost, Harvest, and then back again. Churches with a more detailed liturgical calendar have a lot more to fill in between my list. And it was certainly the charge of my college Principal, who lectured us in worship, to make sure we marked the key seasonal moments. These are not "just another service", but significant moments to be experienced and journeyed through, not just by the minority, but by all in the church family.

It might be a struggle for you to put them in to an order of importance. Which would be top of your list? Would you put at the top the one beginning with "C" or would it be the one beginning with "E"? Would Pentecost feature highly because without the power of the Holy Spirit we are doomed in today's church? I actually love Advent and especially the whole season of it, and it really grates with me that in the secular world, Advent has been dropped and "C" seems to begin at best in late October and at worst it's already been enticed to you in a retail outlet that you regularly use. Or would you, plain and simply come down and say, "it's got to be Easter at the top, because without Easter, Jesus is still dead in the tomb!"

I'll leave you to argue and decide which is your order.

But here's my challenge: why are some staying away from these key Sundays when they are surely big moments in the Christian family year? Surely these big festival days are the moments when we should make greater effort to gather and join with our brothers and sisters in Christ and to hear the scriptures, sing the hymns and songs and celebrate together? We certainly live in more transient days and attendance at Sunday worship is perceived by some as more "take it or leave it". I understand that it's not possible to attend absolutely every Sunday, and there's visitors, or events, or recovery, and chores, or exhaustion etc etc, but the big festival days surely require a more intentional and committed approach?

Take Harvest, for a moment. Great harvest hymns to sing and to mark this moment of thankfulness for the Lord's provision, but the turn-out was somewhat measured frankly. Where were you? And Harvest is indeed changing, with less and less being displayed than the traditional harvest spreads of the past, even though ours was wonderful and beautiful - well done! But harvest is becoming harder and tighter. I forsee a time when we might struggle to display a harvest. Do we stop gathering for harvest worship and giving our thanks to God, because "frankly folks, harvest is just no longer viable anymore!"?

And would we do the same for some of the other seasons and "big Sundays" too?

No! Marking and worshipping through the Christian seasons is vital for our spiritual growth. And we send a message to the youth that these are vital and important, not optional.

Loose talk

The talk on the block is of end times! The Vice President of the US - JD himself, was interviewed by an American Christian channel about whether he thought the return of Christ was about to happen, and he essentially said that he thought that was likely, if it hasn't happened already. Certainly, it is reputed that some American Military Leaders were actively encouraged by Peter Hegseth, US Minister for War, to ensure that when in battle against Iran, that they make Armageddon happen, and thus the return of Christ take place. The suggestion that Jesus Christ is somehow under the summoning power of any human government, leaves me shaking my head. Something here about at best, mis-reading scripture, at worst choosing to intentionally manipulate it.

And yet, something else is before us, and is happening and if I'm honest, I'm a tad nervous about it.

The talk in the UK is of climate devastation and food interruption, significant price rises in the next year, and farmer's crops and harvests significantly reduced this summer. The El-nino of this summer is predicted to be repeated in 27, and alongside water shortages, the Iran war causing gas and petrol increases, plus the Russian-Ukanian war now closing in on Putin, some retaliatory action is now not just thought possible, but likely.

There are one or two or more in WBC, as elsewhere, who follow Peter Greig and one of my colleagues posted yesterday a somewhat disconcerting "Word" from him entitled "Prepare for War" from a time in March with 24-7 when he was in South Africa. I don't actually follow him, but it's better to know what is being said - right or wrong, than live in ignorance.

So what do we make of the days in which we live? The scripture calls us to "Be alert!" Actually 3 times in 1 Peter and once in Mark's Gospel. I think we need to hear this summons, and more so rather than sleep walk into future days.

Being alert surely leads to reflection and then to prayer and then action.

The way we are living is, once again, seemingly about to change, and not necessarily for the good. Harder, more challenging economic days are indeed ahead. Speaking personally, our grocery bills have gone vertical, our petrol costs too, our bank balances not what they were.

The Harvest Festival that we will share in a few weeks time, must surely take on board the changes we are facing - not as "out there somewhere" but for us, now! The lack of harvest is now tangible and real and it's right now an issue for us all.

It's simply not possible, let alone wise, to think that this Autumn and Winter is likely to be "normal". Something is happening that, at least for this moment, we're not sure what it's going to look like, or how it's going to affect us.

If this doesn't lead us out of any sleep walking and awaken us to prayer, then what will?

Pastor Sam

From Refuge to Warm Place

 Yesterday afternoon, after many months of looking guiltily at my home desk (it had become a collecting point), I finally sat down and started sorting and throwing out papers. It's because we have visitors coming soon, and ...well, you know how that goes!

And I came across this Wellington Weekly under a pile of papers. I really don't make a habit of keeping WWN copies, but this one I did! And I wondered why? And then I saw it!

From pretty much 4 years ago, an account of the opening of our Warm Place,

It's interesting to consider how we began the Refuge, or as it's now known, "The Warm Place." We prayerfully considered this long and hard at our church meetings. We discussed it, prayed into and sought to understand what God was saying to us.

Warm Place partly came out of the Ukraine Café, partly out of the Utility and Economic Crisis and is a missional response to feed those who cannot afford to do so, hence “Warm Place.”  Since those two big social challenges were experienced, it is accurate to say that their causes have not vanished, WP has matured into broader areas of social and local community connection that give comfort to the lonely and is a safe place for those struggling with mental health. Both of those are real areas of local community need, and as such have placed the church in good standing within the town. Not, predictably as an evangelistic outreach, but as a genuine good news activity of faith. People come because they are welcomed, not judged, nor preached at, but listened to and where possible practically supported.

WP has always existed in our ministries as stretching us, more than a church of our size could ever have considered taking on, let alone sustaining. Probably less than 25% of teams are WBC folk. And yet, WP nonetheless is known as a mInistry of the church. It is an intense, stressful and costly ministry, and it is one where spiritual realities are engaged with.

It is not, and never was intended to be the only outreach of WBC, even if some have perceived it as being so. In the town, others have come after us and developed their own. All of them struggle for volunteers,

WP until 25 was made up of 2 shifts – day and evening, all with their separate teams, which was intentionally designed so that new teams came on site and they were fresh and energised and ready to go. In fact, originally, WP went all through the entire day from morning through to evening, serving lunch and supper. We saw the meal times naturally dominate, so people would come mid-morning and settle in for lunch, then go. Then after lunch it crashed to a mere few sat either asleep, reading or chatting. Then the late afternoon surge for supper took place, with around 25 to 30. In 25 our evening shift numbers crashed out and that made the leadership team make an honest decision to review, and this led to close evenings. Unfortunately, the idea of shifts has in a minority not been heard and some have been present all day and night.

On numerous occasions, some have said “we could be doing this, and that and adding this extra facility and this one too!” I have welcomed such vision but in the end, the overriding reason that these were not moved forward with was that we did not have the people resources. 

At its simplest, it is a response to show the love of Christ to those in the community in response to the call of Jesus to clothe, feed and care for those who cannot, because they are Christ, Matthew 25: 34-40. 

In this context we are not directly evangelistic, but we are entirely missional. The thrust of such mission is therefore to show Christian love through practical care.

In the same way, those who attend Warm Place come from a broad spectrum of largely non-church and faith based background. I know of one distinct Christian attendee, for example. The vast majority are not. We see some homeless, some who are not badly off but lonely, some who struggle with mental health issues, some who are distinctly anti-church and faith.

WP is not a complicated vision, and in fact, the vision is in the Bible! Some suggest that having a more direct evangelistic vision to WP would solve the staffing challenges we have. All the text books say that vision can solve staffing. I suspect that this isn’t the case in this instance. Unless that is, that what is being said here is that “if the vision was one we liked, then we might join in with it.” 

It's good to remember where Refuge/WP came from, and to mark the 4 years we have been carrying out this ministry.

Justice in the community

 Article created for local Wellington Weekly Newspaper Christian Comment:

Justice in our community can be exceptionally challenging in these days of social media. Barely a day goes by without someone posting something that they want justice or resolution over from within the town. Posts are either very specific with photos “to name and shame” or more general with a “yet again” feel about it. Often posts are anonymous for fear of reprisal or online harassment. The way we do justice, mercy, restoration, forgiveness has now changed; not necessarily for the better.

On the other hand, local social media can be advantageous in some circumstances where a missing person needs to be found, or a tragic hit and run where no obvious witnesses saw what happened. Other scenarios too.

Recently I was assaulted in one of our local parks. I was so shocked that I immediately wanted “something to happen” and was sorely tempted to post something. I had to drive myself not to do so, simply because these are not my values.

Irony: the majority of people reading this will be doing so in traditional newspaper form. Not many will therefore be aware of the online tensions being frequently played out. Our local A/S Sarjeant has requested that this doesn’t take place and that statutory procedures, where appropriate are followed.

No part of this is easy to think about and reflect upon, except to ponder whether we have lost the ways of mercy, forgiveness, setting right disagreements and sitting down with others and talking through different opinions and views in a mature but appropriate way. Particularly where we see low key frustration, annoyance and modern-day tension, rather than being specifically criminal.

As a Christian, I find a different model of justice, mercy and reconciliation in the Bible. Scripture tells us to go quietly and seek reconciliation one-to-one. To seek peace and forgiveness, not revenge. To examine my own motives, speech and actions and to see if there was any offense in me. To heal and restore and grow with others rather than create further alienation. To live in peace with others as far as it is possible.

It might be that we need to “unlearn” some of the new ways of communicating, and in such instances make peace face to face.

Revd Sam Griffiths is the Minister of Wellington Baptist Church

COMS in Federation Space

 As an avowed "Trecky" - and by that I mean none of this modern Star Wars stuff (I know, I know - I'm really showing my age) but the proper Star Trek generation, the key breakthrough with alien cultures was when "The Universal Translator" became a feature of all Federation Space Ships. "What the heck are you going on about?" I hear you say. This little chip, attached to the little diamond on their Star Trek shirts, enabled them to communicate easily with all alien cultures, even though they didn't speak the lingo! Whether it was Klingon, Romulan, Borg or Vulcan, everyone could communicate with each other instantly. Not so, however, in a church! We struggle in numerous ways.

For one thing, there are a myriad of desired com-methods: some use only email, others won't go anywhere near anything electronic and are committed paper users. Others rarely go to their emails and use SMS Text. Whilst others still use Whatsapp only, and then still others use Facebook messaging. Then the really steely-hard pioneers still use a face-to-face encounter with their voices and occasionally their eyebrows. Some people claim their method of coms is email, but rarely check them!

Within a church, there has been a general trend away from paper to the e-coms means, because not only does it reduce copying costs (to say nothing about postage costs) but it also does justice to the green-planet-debate. Lower communication costs thererfore are vital.

And some people are never off their mobiles, and some people might occasionally turn them on once a day. Some read an SMS for 3 seconds and then forget it. Some people never reply to emails!

We are sinking in communication methods and yet we are a generation that still struggles to communicate!

It's not possible in a church to use all and every method of communication. Nor is it possible to pander to different methods that individuals require. We do not have lengthy time to go through every means. Ultimately we have to make a choice and then use it and then the church community has to either accept that or - as is becoming clear, choose not to be communicated with. Shrug the shoulders and ignore!

So we have chosen to use Joyned, aka Jovo, which not only complies with safeguarding requirements where say Whatsapp doesn't. Whatsapp shows the phone numbers, Jovo doesn't.

I guess it's possible to groan at how we com, but there is no perfect answer or solution. We have to make the best of it. We can see in Jovo who reads the message and who doesn't. And "ping" "ping" "ping" as yet another responds to the post or message can be annoying. Some people it seems don't want to be communicated with, and that then is a real problem to wrestle with.

Instead of pushing against the grain, might it be worth going with it and trying to make the best of it?

Afterall, in space, no one can hear you scream!

Stretched

Traditionally, summer is (at least in our memories) a time for a slower pace of life. That might have something to do with school holidays. The minute I type that last sentence, the stark truth is that many Grandparents step up, not down in school holidays! So maybe it's a mere myth! Yet I suspect that because we were all young once, we have this instinct that summer days should therefore be slower, more restful and have a more gentle pace of life. And that I think is just not reality. My observation is that many are finding that they are having to work harder, longer and be more productive. And the recovery time is taking longer for some, if not all. In short, there are numerous people, even in our own church family who are stretched more than any other time before. When you are stretched, it can be hard to cope with the ordinary, daily requirements of life. We are all familiar, I'm sure, with the balancing of the mundane aspects of our lives. The cleaning, tidying, washing, dusting (where does it come from), repairing, sweeping, hoovering, admin, financial admin and so forth - absolutely never goes away. It makes me remember Jesus at the home of Mary and Martha in Luke 10: 38-42 and Jesus arrives. You remember it well, I'm sure: Martha is annoyed as her sister, Mary, had left her to do the housework, so that Mary could sit at Jesus' feet. Martha wants Jesus to tell Mary off, and get on and do some house work. So Jesus comes to their house, and it's in chaos and you know what - he doesn't care! Tremendously reassuring. Can I widen it for a moment? He comes to your life, and it's in chaos, and you know what - he doesn't care! So Mary gets the "sister-prize" and just sits at Jesus' feet. Fascinating isn't it? Draw your own conclusions.

We had our holiday for the 3rd year in a row out of school holiday time, and it was delightful, and less expensive, but I found himself suddenly aware of those around us being generally older, and wasn't sure what I felt about that. "Has it come to this?" I heard myself say! But then I went back to reading my book, so it all became okay after that!

The stark truth is that since we came back from a very relaxing holiday, that the same fast pace of life has more than resumed. Which is far from ideal, but I guess not unexpected. 

I've been keeping my eye on local social media, and by that I mean the local facebook community sites I belong to, and off of the back of the local Police Sergeant's appeal for residents to not "name and blame" but report to him, I am increasingly seeing a growing tension on numerous issues. This had made me reflect on several things which I think we need to be aware of and pray into: 1) The means of peace making, mercy and reconcilliation are no longer known or used tools by the current generations. We take these for granted in the church. We may not be very good at them, but we know what should happen. That means that our communities no longer have the skills to reconcile, heal, forgive or be merciful. 2) The process that is becoming common is to now sweep out your camera phone and start filming and then immediately share publicly - "shame" so that public support in the form of "likes" can basically dishonour a person from within the locality. [irony] How clever we are and astute that this new basic form of "going for your phone" allows the truth to be be known. Except that in the brave tidal wave of AI now sweeping into our worlds, be very careful indeed, because the camera now pretty much always lies. What these observations and points say to me is that our "salt has lost its saltiness" in the community. Many simply do not have these key Kingdom values on how to live, forgive, reconcile and restore. And this is not somewhere else in some inner-city, it's right here on our doorsteps and in our community. Just like it's in other communities too. What are we going to do about it?

Pastor Sam