How to Walk into Church

When friends move and they’re in the serious business of finding themselves a new church I always pray that they will find a church where they will be well ministered to AND where they can minister well, because going to church isn’t just about receiving. It is very much about giving as well. 

If you are someone who wants to do church well – or wants to know how to do church well – can I commend a fantastic little book to you called “How to Walk into Church” by Tony Payne.  It’s 64 pages and it took me about half an hour to read.  Thirty well spent minutes.

This little book is an encouragement to:-

*  Go to church and go regularly.  The very act of turning up every week is an enormous encouragement.

One of the most important acts of love and encouragement we can all engage in is the powerful encouragement of just being there – because every time I walk into church I am wearing a metaphorical t-shirt that says, “God is important to me, and you are important to me.”  And on the back it says, “And that’s why I wouldn’t dream of missing this.”  Similarly, when we stay away for no good reason one week out of three (or more), we send the opposite message. 
Page 37

*  Prepare for church by praying – about who you will sit next to, about a good conversation you might have before church or afterwards over coffee (and there some excellent, God honouring conversation starters mentioned in chapter six) – and also by reading and thinking through the Bible passage to be covered in advance.

*  Determine to participate actively during the service – standing and singing with joy, bringing your own Bible to follow the readings and listening actively to the sermon by taking notes, making good eye contact with the minister, nodding in agreement or giving an encouraging and warm smile at an appropriate moment.

*  Be on the lookout for ways to serve – fill in for someone who’s rostered on for something but didn’t make it, get the person who has a coughing fit a glass of water, open the window if it feels hot and stuffy.  Be the meerkat on guard and look for opportunities to be a blessing.

Our aim at church should be to build up and encourage other people – rather than thinking about how much we’re getting out of it or whether we’ve had a chance to exercise our gifts.  Love does not insist on its own way or press its own claims.  It is not obsessed with its own enjoyment or convenience.  Love does not complain or grumble, or stay home in bed because it couldn’t be bothered.  Love seeks the good of the other – patiently, kindly, truthfully, joyfully, constantly. 
Page 31

Who should read this book?  If you go to church, no matter how well (or otherwise) you walk in that church door, you should read this book.  It is such an encouragement to godliness.  Even better, because going to church is a group activity after all, is to read it with a group from church – maybe your Bible study group – so that you can encourage each other in the ministry of walking into church well. 

And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds, not giving up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day approaching. 
Hebrews 10:24-25

God's Good Design by Claire Smith

I have been having an email conversation with a friend about the roles of men and women in church over the last few months.  It's been a fairly protracted discussion.  Long gaps between the emails while we ponder the questions and frame our answers. 

We all know stuff about these issues - bits of what the Bible has to say - and we know it all to be very emotive.  Especially as we approach those muddied, murky waters that are the two words "headship" and "submission."  But are we able to sufficiently push aside what our emotions are telling us for long enough to really see what the Bible is actually saying about these things?

So my friend and I were glad to discover a new book that has been published this year about this very subject - God's Good Design: What the Bible Really Says About Men and Women by Claire Smith.  I have just finished reading it and loved it.

After an opening chapter providing a brief survey of feminism, the book is divided into two sections covering the role of men and women in the church and within the home.  Claire Smith takes seven of the key Bible passages about the roles of men and women - looking at 1Timothy 2, 1Corinthians 11 and 1Corinthians 14 within the church and then Ephesians 5, 1Peter 3, Genesis 1-3 and Proverbs 31 within the home - and does a thorough study of what each of them has to say about the role of men and women. 

What did I like about this book?

Each of the passages is tackled in detail, one chapter at a time.  Claire Smith presents what she calls a plain reading of the passage - asking, "What does the Bible have to say about this?" rather than "What does my head/heart/need to have my rights met say (with bits but maybe not all of the Bible/passage informing my thoughts) about this issue ?"  (See how messy it gets - and quickly.)  There are a number of specific verses along the way in some of these passages (if not the whole passage in toto) that often stop people women in their tracks.  In tackling fairly large chunks of Scripture she is able to put those traffic stopping verses in their wider context and in light of the whole counsel of God, unpack them with a clear head rather than in an emotive lather.  Claire Smith has done her work.  Her studies are thorough and well founded.  As I was reading along I kept thinking, "Wow, this is a really straight shooting book."

God's Good Design may be straight shooting but it isn't harsh.  Claire Smith writes gently, lovingly, humbly, and generously.  All through the studies she seeks to explain in clear terms what the Bible is saying about things that are pretty challenging - but she also leads us pastorally through all those "What if..." and "What about..." questions.  She knows all the niggling doubts and concerns we have.  She's been there too.  And to demonstrate that,  she tells her own story in the final chapter and shows how she personally applies these passages in her own life.

This is a very encouraging book and a good read for women AND men as we aim to understand one another's roles at home and at church and seek encourage each other to be and do our very best for the sake of unity, harmony, service and living in a way that honours one another and brings all glory to God - the Master of this good design and plan for our lives.

You can get yourself a copy of God's Good Design from Matthias Media. Available in paperback or as an eBook.


Suffering Well and hope

While the world tells us that human beings are just another part of the food chain, God tells us that humanity is the centrepiece of his plan.  By God's grace, we are precious to him.  And throughout human history, God has worked towards the glorious future he has planned for us in spite of the sin that characterises us.  When Adam and Eve sinned, they were expelled from the garden but not destroyed.  When the world was wicked in the days of Noah, God chose to rescue humanity through Noah and his family.  In the face of the tower of Babel, God promised Abraham that through his descendants, every nation would be blessed.  And in spite of the repeated, unrepentant rebellion of Israel that caused them to be cast out of the Promised Land, God continued to promise a future to Israel and, through Israel, a future for the whole world.

From Suffering Well by Paul Grimmond, page144.

Suffering Well and Job

The point of the book of Job is not to explain the reason for every episode of suffering in the lives of innocent people.  It is to remind us that God has reasons beyond our reasons, and to call us to humbly rely on him.  Job suffered deeply.  But God taught him that he didn’t need all of his questions answered; he just needed to know the living God.  

From Suffering Well by Paul Grimmond, page38.

One to One Bible Reading

You may have gathered that I am rather enthusiastic about Bible reading.  I talk about it quite a bit on this blog and as it happens, I talk about it quite a lot in real life too.  And then I get to hear lots of reasons why people don't read the Bible.

I don't have the time.
It's not interesting.
It's too hard.
I'm not a reader.  I don't read anything much.
I've read bits of it but...
It's for Christians.

Hold that thought.

I meet with three small groups of women during the week and together we study the Bible.  Until this year, two groups did Bible studies and the third was a Bible reading group.  I made the third one a Bible reading group because most of its members had small children who tagged along and with  small children rattling around the place, I thought it would be too difficult to attempt a Bible study.  Besides, most of the group didn't have a background in regular Bible reading.  And the phrase "Bible study" sounded too scary.

So the Bible reading group meets for lunch - everyone brings their own - and then after food and chatting we settle down for about an hour of Bible reading.  We pray and then read a chapter of the current book we are working through.  At the end of the chapter I ask the same two questions - 

Did anything stand out?
and
What didn't you get?

Most are usually happy to talk about something that stood out.  Sometimes we tackle something we didn't get.  Lots of the time we just leave the things we didn't get - and that's OK.  It's not that I want to promote a form of laziness in Bible reading.  Trying to nut out the hard stuff is important.  But read on...I'll get back to this.  If there is time, energy and the children are playing well, we do another chapter.  Sometimes we get through three chapters.  Mostly it's one or two.  The discussion eventually finds its way to some points of personal application and then I close with a short prayer.

Last week I picked up One to One Bible Reading by David Helm.  WHAT A GREAT BOOK.  It's all about how to read the Bible with someone else on a regular basis for a mutually fixed amount of time, just as my Bible reading group has been doing for a while. 

In the book he covers:
why reading the Bible with someone else is a good thing,
who you could read the Bible with,
how to get started,
what a typical time together would look like, and
the question of whether or not to prepare before meeting together.

Helm then provides two different frameworks for reading - a simple approach called The Swedish Method which runs a bit along the lines of my two question technique (it adds the third question of personal application up front, whereas I tend to let the application gradually drift out in discussion or through my wrapping up prayer) and a slightly more detailed approach (the COMA method - Context, Observation, Meaning, Application). 

The final part of the book is a resource section with an excellent overview of the different types of books in the Bible and some ways to get into the different genres, including some photocopiable sheets of COMA questions for each of the genres.

One of the things I really love about this book is that it is short and concise.  I read it in an hour.  Now I am thorougly convinced of the benefits of one-to-one Bible reading so what I was reading was all very familiar, but if this idea is new to you and you need some pondering time as you read, I imagine you could still knock it over in a couple of hours.  It gets straight to the point, it's eminently practical and it demonstrates the benefits and joys of tackling some one to one Bible reading.  It is the perfect handbook on this subject.

Feeling worried even so?  Don't think you know your Bible well enough to take this on?

Any committed Christian is capable of initiating a good conversation on a biblical text.  In reality, your fears in this area of personal work betray two Screwtape-like lies that every Christian must resist.  First, that gospel growth depends on us and on our abilities.  This is simply not the case.  Our proficiency in the Bible is not the final arbiter in seeing spiritual growth occur.  The Holy Spirit can and does use timid people just like us.  The second lie we fight against is disbelief - disbelief in the potency of God's Word.  We need to be reminded that God does his work in his way and it is his word that accomplishes whatever he desires in the world.  (Page 24)

Still worried about having a go?  Then go and find someone further along in their Bible reading than you and ask to read with them.  You don't actually have to head the charge here.  The point is to read the Bible with someone.  (By the way, there is a good section addressed to the person "heading the charge" as it were - about resisting the temptation to give a lecture about the passage being read.  Nothing kills one to one Bible reading than one person  dominating the discussion.  I may or may not be guilty of this.)

One of the things I really love about one to one Bible reading is that yes, the Bible is hard in parts - but we need not be scared of it. 

As I said earlier, we often don't tackle the bits we didn't understand with my little lunchtime group .  A recent, glorious example of this was when we read through Joel a few weeks ago.  Three chapters.  I departed from my usual method of one chapter at a time and we read all three chapters at a run.  Then I asked my two usual questions and for once everyone was happy to answer the second question - "What didn't you get?" - and everyone pretty much said they didn't get any of it! 

One brave soul then ventured to say that there were a couple of verses that stood out, that made her heart sing, in the midst of a whole lot of incomprehensible text.  It was a couple of verses about hope.  So we looked at those verses and had a good discussion about hope in Joel and then in ever widening Biblical contexts. 

I wrapped up our discussion by saying that we should all make a mental note of those two verses because in fact they help in part to inform the rest of this book.  The next time we all read Joel (on our own or together) we can do so with those two verses in mind and Joel will be a little more clearer.  And then even clearer the time after...

Because that is what Bible reading is like.  We don't get it all on the first sweep.  And we do get to read it over and over, time and time again.  And each time we will get it a little more than before, as what we understand starts to inform what we don't understand in ever widening circles.

Come back to my lunchtime group.  In the time since we started reading together, all thanks to God, some have put their faith firmly in Jesus and others have started tackling reading the Bible on their own.  They don't understand all of what they are reading, but they are no longer scared to have a go.  They are making it a part of their daily routine and have launched into the lifelong, wondrous pursuit of  Bible reading.  Nutting out the hard stuff (that would be "Bible study") will come later, as a natural progression.

I have seen all the reasons so often given for not reading the Bible dissolve away with this group, all because we have sat down once a week during school term time over two or three years and simply read the Bible together.  And for this reason I made some changes this year.  I now have two Bible reading groups and one study group.

Click here to order a copy of One to One Bible Reading (or here for the eBook version).  It is easy to read and it may just encourage you to get yourself caught up in that beautiful, chaotic web of personal relationships, Bible reading and prayer.  Go for it.  Be encouraged.  It is a rich blessing. 

For the word of God is living and active...

Hebrews 4:12a

Imagine if...

Imagine if all Christians, as a normal part of their discipleship, were caught up in a web of regular Bible reading - not only digging into the Word privately, but reading it with their children before bed, with their spouse over breakfast, with a non-Christian colleague at work once a week over lunch, with a new Christian for follow-up once a fortnight for mutual encouragement, and with a mature Christian friend once a month for mutual encouragement.

It would be a chaotic web of personal relationships, prayer and Bible reading  - more of a movement than a program - but at another level it would be profoundly simple and within reach of all.

It's an exciting thought!

From The Trellis and the Vine (page 57) by Tony Payne and Colin Marshall (Matthias Media) and quoted in One to One Bible Reading (page 12) by David Helm