Paid Pastoral Staff? A Calling to the Ministry?

Andrew Hamilton has an interesting post, something I haven’t thought very hard or long about. In it he asks this question:

“Can anyone provide a compelling biblical argument for the existence of paid pastoral staff within a local congregation?“

It’s an interesting question. He concedes that you could probably make more than one good pragmatic argument for paid pastoral staff he then also mentions his own experience of calling to ministry as perhaps a compelling argument. That got me thinking even more. If I re-phrased his question then we have another question that is often taken for granted or thought very little about:

“Can anyone provided a compelling biblical argument for the existence of a subjective call to the ministry of a local congregation?“

Life is becoming more and more complicated the more I study the Bible – the questions just keep on coming, and often they’re questions that impinge upon me directly – like questions about paid pastoral ministry. Anyone got any thoughts on these questions?

Total Church, Community, Maturity and Patience

After making a biblical case for the necessity of living breathing community as the best context for the gospel and the work of the gospel, Steve Timmis and Tim Chester put forward the following caution:

‘If you warm to this vision of Christian community then start where you are. Sell the vision by modelling the vision. Don’t become a pain to your existing congregation, telling them everything they are doing is wrong. Become a blessing by offering hospitality, showing practical care, dropping in on people. Create around you a group of Christians who will share their lives and encourage one another in the faith. You might start with your home group. Often home groups are little more than a meeting. Make yours a community by acting like a community. You don’t have to mount a campaign for change – just get on with it and make community infectious. Create something that oter people want to be part of. And think about whether you could establish a context in which people in your church can hang out together and invite unbelieving friends: something like a regular cafe night, an open home or football practice‘ (Total Church, p.48)

What I appreciate about Steve and Tim is that they somehow manage to be radical, challenging, mature, sensitive and patient all at the same time. My temptation is to err on one of those at the exclusion of the others. Its easy to be radical and just forge ahead disregarding all the genuine people of God around you who might not be ready to go where you lead. Its easy to make a lot of noise about your newly found convictions and not worry about whether or not you are alienating others. Having read much of Steve and Tim’s literature, following Tim’s blog and listening to all their talks from the recent Total Church conference in San Diego, I’m convinced that these guys know how to bring balance and sanity to the missional conversation which is, by nature, a very radical conversation. I’m greatly encouraged and rebuked not to simply go out and tell everyone that they’ve got it wrong but rather simply to get out there to love and live in God’s new community.

Tim Keller Preaching to the Heart

You can now get hold of two lectures that Tim Keller gave recently at Oak Hill on the subject of ‘Preaching to the Heart’. (HT – Reformissionary)

Thoughts on Being Single

Ros Clarke has some very insightful, mature, sometimes hard, biblical thoughts on living the single life as we all wait for our big wedding date with Jesus. Even us ‘temporarily married’ can benefit from her thoughts.

Page 56

Time for a little blog/book game (for people with nothing worth posting on their blog at the present moment, like yours truly):

Rules:
* Grab the book nearest you. Right now.
* Turn to page 56.
* Find the fifth sentence.
* Post that sentence along with these instructions in a note to your Facebook wall/blog post
* Don’t dig for your favorite book, the coolest, the most intellectual. Use the CLOSEST.

“Societies that have rid themselves of all religion have been just as oppressive as those steeped in it.” Timothy Keller, ‘The Reason for God‘

(HT – Gordon)

Too much talk of Culture?

Thabiti Anyabwile and Carl Trueman think that there’s too much fascination with ‘culture’ and ‘engaging culture’ in Christian circles today. I must confess that I’m not completely convinced that they’re on the money, or (if I may be so bold) that the school of thought, ministry and theology that these gentlemen speak out of has taken culture seriously enough yet and what it means to engage culture in a way that is congruent with the gospel. But then maybe I’m just a naive, young, little upstart – ok so I know I am, but anyway… I really get the feeling, looking at the average reformed and evangelical church around me that culture, and real engagement with it is still something a bit mysterious and off the agenda at present even despite the large amount of press available about engaging the culture. (HT – Jason)

What if Jesus were Emergent?

This is absolutely hilarious – Jesus, the emergent, engages in a ‘conversation’ with the Samaritan woman at the well (HT – Cobus).

Acts29 Conference in Cape Town

If you are planning on attending the Acts29 church planting conference in Cape Town from 2-4 February 2009 then please send a confirmation email with your basic details to stephenjmurray@yahoo.com

We need to get an idea of how many people are coming. More details will follow shortly…

What do we actually do with the poor?

In a time where mercy ministry has gone glam and churches are increasingly talking more and more about the need to engage the socially marginalized, Michael Jensen asks a question that potentially points out that there’s a rather large white elephant in the room. As a young prospective planter and pastor I’d certainly like an answer to his question.

Commencement Letter

Today I received my commencement/placement letter for 2009 officially accepting me to serve as a curate (that’s Anglican speak for apprentice minister) under the supervision of St Stephen’s Bible Church. So looks like I’m finally the real deal – well almost. For those of you confused who thought I was going to be involved in a church plant next year, don’t worry – I still am – St Stephen’s is just one of our sending churches and the church that Robin and I currently serve with.

Church Planting and a Messiah Complex

The pre-planting and planning phase of a church plant can almost be an incubator in the mind for an idolatrous messiah complex. Spending too much time playing over the future of what a plant might look like 5 years down the line can really begin to make you think that you’re going to save the world – or at least your suburb. It’s actually a deadly time, as I’m discovering, where visions of grandeur can build tons of little corrosive idols that can whip the carpet out from under the church plant. Maybe a little prayer is needed:

Dear Lord,

I can’t save the world – Jesus already did that. Please help me to put him up in the bright lights and not myself.

Amen.

Hebrew Concepts of the Afterlife – An Open Forum

Time for another open forum. This time I want us to tackle an issue I’ve been researching for fun a little bit in the last few days based upon the discussion that came up as a result of an old post on ‘hell’. Here’s the question I want to pose for you to play around with: What concept, if any, of the afterlife did the ancient Hebrew’s have? What did they envision happening to the person after death? It would be great if we could interact with a few Old Testament texts and maybe even one or two apocryphal texts from the inter-testamental period. Again, try not make your comments too long so that discussion keeps flowing. So there you go, who wants to put their thoughts down first?

Arsenal beat Manchester United…

…it doesn’t get much sweeter than that and about time after all the grief we’ve had to endure.

Politics Clouds the Issue of Abortion

In the midst of Obamamania I’ve been reflecting on the one area I differ most with the new president-elect: the issue of abortion. It’s quite clear to me that particularly in America, but here in South Africa too, mainly as the result of American politics abortion has become so entangled with conservative political ideals that Christians fail to really take in or adequately respond to the horror of the murder of unborn children. I think its a desperate tragedy that we’ve allowed politics to numb us toward this massive issue.

I think this is causing a lot of younger evangelicals who are far more liberal politically than a previous generation (like myself) to not take the issue of abortion seriously. A new emerging church in the west needs to correct the abuses and incorrect emphases of the past but it must never stop being the advocate of justice for the unborn. Throw your politics out the window and vest your energy into caring about the people because they are created in God’s image and are his.

Narrative-Realism or Preterism? Help Me

Can anyone help me out with a bit of theological jargon and terminology that I’m trying to get my head around? I’ve been reading a fair bit of the articles on Open Source Theology and I keep coming up against, what many of their authors call the ‘narrative-historical argument’ or the ‘narrative-realist’ approach. Andrew Perriman, one of the authors, even describes himself as doing ‘biblical theology after Christendom in a narrative-realist mode’. In reading the various articles however this narrative-realism seems to sound a whole lot like classic preterism. My question for all the budding theologians out there is what is the difference between the two (preterism and the narrative-realist approach)? Or are they pretty much the same thing – in which case this narrative-realist approach is not really all that new. Help me please…

So You want to Know what ‘Missional’ is…

Well JR Woodward has prepared an amazingly comprehensive list of resources that cover the concept of ‘missional’ from top to bottom from a great diverse group of commentators unified by their desire to ask hard missiological questions about what the church should be doing in the world today.

What does Obama’s Victory Mean for Me?

Precious little at the moment to be honest. I woke up to quite a bit of euphoria this morning in the media over Obama’s victory. Tim Modise was raving about it on SAFM, my Kenyan friend was so overjoyed he blew his internet cap watching and re-watching Obama’s victory speech, and my Angolan friend has been carrying around this smirk on his face all day long because a black man occupies the most powerful position on the planet. So what does it mean for me? Well I’ve written before about the fact that I’m rather distressed by the man’s views on abortion and the murder of unborn children is rather a big issue for me, but let’s not be a party pooper.

I think his election has the potential to do wonders for race relations the world over and that excites me. I’m also quite keen to see how his foreign policy will play out – on paper it looks a whole lot more friendly than the previous regime – that’s a plus. At the end of the equation however I’m reminded that he is just a man and so just like any other man he is incapable of bringing about true lasting heart transformation which lies behind all of the issues and ills we see on the global landscape today. Will his victory be a positive one for me a white South African living hundreds of miles on the other side of the planet? I hope so. But as I wait to see how his term pans out I must consume myself with the victory that has made all the difference to this life and millions of others. I must consume myself with Christ and be an agent of blessing and transformation – that’s what means the most to me, and ultimately it will mean the most for all of us, Barack included. So to my Stateside readers – I hope this one works out for you – in the meantime keep living in light of the ultimate victory.

Lessons from ‘Failing’ in Church Planting

Mike Edwards has a superb post full of lessons he’s learned in his experience of attempting to plant a church and ultimately never seeing it come to fruition. (HT – Michael Foster)

Am I an Emerging Threat?

Well there’s a new blog doing the rounds in South Africa entitled, “The Emerging Threat of the ‘Emerging Church’ in South Africa“. Wow that’s quite a name. The stated purpose of the blog is the following:

‘This blog exposes the problems with the ‘Emerging Church’ Movement – an attempt to merge Christianity with the philosophy of Post-modernism: particularly in South Africa, but is also relevant to the rest of the world.’

Then I glanced down the sidebar and low and behold I found links to posts I’ve recently written under the heading of ‘Blogs on the Emerging Church in South Africa’- now does that make me an emerging threat or is it just because I’ve written about the EC on occasion (both positively and negatively). Not sure. Although the author does seem to be taking quite a number of pot shots at some of the EC guys I’ve interacted with here in South Africa. I’m not sure if his efforts are all that helpful – I’m also not sure all of the people he’s having a go at actually see themselves as part of the EC. Besides that I just think peeps like Roger Saner and Graeme Codrington need a break, they must be a bit tired of opening their inbox every morning to find out that some new blog or Facebook group has been created having a go at them for being heretics. I’ve met Roger and I’ve interacted with Graeme a bit online and I’m just not that sure that they really are heretics – but then maybe I’m an emerging threat too so my two-cents wouldn’t mean to much.

It’s quite strange that there seems to be a little bit of an upsurge of interest in the EC here in South Africa – even google is taking note. I guess that makes sense because South Africa has always tended to be half a pace behind the rest of the western world when it comes to church trends and most other things. I’m also guessing that the fairly large churchy culture that still exists here in South Africa is quite fertile ground for post-everythings to emerge out of. So its not really that much of a surprise. It will be interesting to see what tangible difference actually emerges in the church landscape over the next few years as a result. Till then be on your guard for those threats:)

Total Church Conference Audio

I know this is half a month late, but given recent developments you can forgive me for my tardiness:

Drew Goodmanson has posted all the audio from the Total Church Conference that took place in San Diego earlier this year. Go and listen.