Paul Benger

A conversation for pastors, leaders, creators, entrepreneurs, cultural architects

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Pastor, Creator, Leader, Author, Entrepreneur, Cultural Architect, Leadership Coach

  • Leadership Summit Day One Eve Mtg – Phil Pringle

    Four Things That Are The Essence of Leadership

    1. You Have A Vision:
    2. You Are A Team Builder:
    3. You Are A Decision Maker: make a decision to start something new when you get home from this conference. Your ceiling is the level of your ability to make difficult decisions. This is including confrontation with people.
    Phil’s script for confronting people.
    – Is what you are doing helpful?
    – Well I’m concerned, I don’t think it’s helpful?
    – You are out of order.
    4. You Are A Problem Solver: take a moment for the miraculous.

    VISION

    Habbakkuk 2:1-4 The anatomy of a dream, the journey of a vision.

    A good idea is very different to a God idea
    – my vision is my obedience

    The first thing Habakkuk does is position himself to hear from God. Solitude and silence. No tree struggles to bear fruit, the trees struggle is to find moisture. Your struggle as a person called by God is to get your roots into God’s Word and into Fellowship.

    1. Positioning is a Physical positioning:
    2. Positioning is a Relational positioning:
    3. Positioning is a Theological positioning: Grace not Law. In Christ, his righteousness not ours.
    4. Positioning is a Linguistic position: We speak God’s truth into our own lives. Thankfulness is the language of Big people. Praise is the language of Victory.

    In that place…alone with God…relationship not religion…grace/his righteousness…and speaking out praise…in that place you start to see things. Vision.

    When I see a vision, I meditate on it, I keep recalling it and I put scripture on it, Ephesians 3:20 – Phil Pringle

    You need to write a vision down, make it simple and keep communicating it all the time…weekly! If you are the leader you are the visionary.

    The journey of a dream It tarries…but though it tarry it will come to pass. The trying of your faith develops patience. Disappointment and discouragement happen to all of us.

    Just because you’ve got a vision it doesn’t mean that its guaranteed to come to pass.

  • Leadership Summit Day One Session 3 Paul Scanlon

    Leadership Elective Paul Scanlon

    Building A Solution Oriented Leadership

    John 6:5-13
    Jesus greatest legacy and ours too is the teaching that produces the ability to renew your mind.

    • Moving in the Supernatural requires faith but not necessarily thought.
    • Lasting change is a thinking issue not a faith issue.
    • Every revolution is a thinking revolution before it is anything else.

    Peter had a thought bias against non Jews. Peter would have, if he’d had it his way, built a Jewish sect called Christianity not a universal movement.

    Peter had all inclusive language but an exclusive mind and culture.

    We can all find ourselves singing things that we’re not living.
    In 3 years of being with Jesus, this didn’t get fixed in Peter, even though the opportunity was presented many times.

    God can use you powerful even whilst you carry a huge implicit bias.

    3 THINGS

    1. Solution Happen In Compassion Driven Environments: Not clarity, sympathy, duty, guilt etc. Compassion involves you in something your head hasn’t figured out yet. Compassion involves you first, gets you involved before it tells you what to do about it.
    2. Solution Oriented People Have an Advance Problem Solving Self Talk: oral speech = 300words a minute, self talk = 1200words a minute, 4X. Peter’s self talk kept him in prison to his bias. If you are a how person but that isn’t rooted in a solution oriented mindset you end up saying why it can’t be done. (Philip in this story…8 months wages wouldn’t feed these people.)
    3. Solution Oriented People See The Solution in its Unassembled Form: Andrew…there’s a kid here 5 loaves 2 fish. Leaders don’t arrive in assembled for they arrive in kit form. E.G.Chef is trained to see things in ingredient form, we have to se it in the form of a meal, the chef sees 3 possibilities from same ingredients.

  • Leadership Summit Day 1 Session 2 – Dr Dave Martin

    Dr Dave Martin is one of America’s Best Known Success Coaches.

    Making The Rest of Your Life The Best of Your Life

    I’m excited to be here, more excited than a worship leader at a skinny jeans sale. Dave Martin

    • The difference between where you are and where you want to go is what you know. Wisdom, the Bible says, is the principle things.
    • Only person who can motive you is you.
    • Our personal development is vital.
    • It doesn’t take a lot of keys, you don’t need a lot of keys to start your car just the right key.
    • Heaven’s currency is faith, earth’s currency is time. Everything you have today you traded your time for. Everyone has 24 hours.
    • I have 3 types of days. Result days, Prep days and Rest days.
    • Result Days: 80% time spent on developing.
    • Prep Days: plan for result days.
    • Rest Days: “Tired eyes rarely see a bright future”

    I never make important decisions when I’m tired. Donald Trump

    4 Questions Leaders Should Ask In Life

    1. Why?:
    2. Why Not?:
    3. Why Not You?:
    4. Why Not Now?:

    The greatest value in life is not what you get it’s what you become.

    1. Growth is not guaranteed:
    2. Growth today brings access tomorrow: Think about new ideas, stretch your thinking. Once your heart desires a destination your mind designs a route for you to get there.
    3. Growth is your responsibility: Our real fear should be not changing. Be teachable. You always invest in what you find valuable. (Three ways you can see yourself: you can see yourself how other people see you, you can see yourself how you see yourself, you can see yourself how God sees you.)
      Never stay satisfied with your current accomplishments:
      Wins just like losses are temporary:
      Become a continual learner. (study in America found that current physicians are two years behind current learning because they are two busy working)
      Find ways to apply what you learn: Act like the person you want to be.
      The most important think to know is what to do next: James 1:22, Joshua 1:8

    Principles of Jesus prepare us for life on earth.

    1. Responsibility: People who change the world start by changing themselves.

  • Lead Summit Day 1 Session 1 – Paul Scanlon

    leadsummit15The Lead Summit Kicked off today hosted by Pastor Dave Gilpin and Hope City Church in Sheffield. It is one of my favourite conferences and each year we take a small team from our Church. Over the years these conferences have proved usually beneficial. Here are my notes from day one session one, be sure to come back for my notes from other sessions and day two.

    Faith licks its lips at impossibility – Dave Gilpin

    Session 1 Paul Scanlon – Meaning is not found it is forged

    The local church is the best idea God had.

    • The best thing heaven has is Jesus
    • There is no other move, we are the move of God
    • The best way to live is if this is it
    • We can fail to grow Big People whilst at the same time trying to grow big things.

    Genesis 35:1-8
    Joseph is reflecting on his life in his mid-life.

    • You are not the same person throughout the whole of your life
    • We have not been good at understanding the seasons of life
    • Meaning is not found it is forged. Anything you can find already exists. We struggle when are are in the midst of things and you can’t understand. In the midst of the grey, there is meaning that will forge the next season of your life.
    • Do not let the meaning committee put a meaning on you whilst you are forging your own.
    • People want to impose meaning on things they can’t tidy up. Sometimes there is no meaning, it doesn’t exist, it has to be forged. It is yet to be created by you.

    Luke 13 (Tower of Siloam – I spoke on this Sunday Night in a message called Fruitful)

    • You have to make peace with the fact Bad things can happen to good people…they just can…
    • Destiny and meaning are two different things. Destiny is decided by God but meaning is decided by you, therefore meaning is more important.
    • The meaning you give to your life and circumstances determines your destiny. It determines our destiny, our identity, our strategy.
    • The meaning Joseph forges from his experience was the bigger picture that God had. “You didn’t send me here, God sent me ahead.” “Yes, you meant it for bad, but God meant it for good.” “God put me here for you!”
    • This is your opportunity to forge a legacy that will set up the next generation, that will create the next you.
    • Paul personally had to forge a meaning in the “Crossing Over” season at Abundant life Church (now Life Church) Bradford. He chose to see himself as a Joshua. That choice was what determined what came next. Had he forged the meaning, “I’m a bad leader, I can’t keep good people. I’ve failed etc. etc.”
    • When there are found meanings that sound brilliant whilst you are forging your meaning that sounds pitiful it is tempting to grab the offered meaning.
    • You have to listen to your heart! We have grown a culture of external confirmation and the last place we look is often inside. (Dot to Dot illustration: God spoke about the pressure to just join another Apostolic stream but God had spoken to Paul about a cross cultural, international connectivity that would happen if he didn’t fight God).
    • What is the meaning you are attaching to your current season?
    • Are you satisfied with the meaning you are giving to your life?
    • Forging meaning does not make what was bad good but it can make what was wrong precious.
    • Forging meaning gives you a vocabulary. A vocabulary that explains you and there’s nothing like having a language that explains you.

    Genesis 48: Joseph introduces his kids to their Grandad Jacob

    The first born to the right hand and second born to the left hand but Jacob crosses his hands. Joseph had named his kids as a result of what he was experiencing.

    • Manasseh 1st – God delivered me from trouble, Ephraim 2nd God made me fruitful…this was the meaning Joseph had forged
    • God will edit the meaning we forge of it fundamentally forged. “I do not need to deliver you to make you fruitful. You were always fruitful, fruitful when you were in jail.”
    • You in the midst of your nightmare are meant to be fruitful and that fruitfulness is what will deliver you.
    • God would much prefer to edit your flow than have to create it…

  • Margin, How Successful People Work Less and Achieve More

    As part of my research for the current sermon series at Christian Life Church I read the following article which I thought you would find very insightful and helpful.

    C1E63EDD-D542-4BBE-9C84-47865CF7D306As co-founder of Hotwire.com and CEO of Zillow for the last seven years, 39-year-old Spencer Rascoff fits most people’s definition of success. As a father of three young children, Spencer is a busy guy at home and at work.

    What’s the one thing that Spencer refuses to do on the weekend? Work—at least, in the traditional sense. Rascoff says:

    I never go into the office on weekends, but I do check e-mail at night. My weekends are an important time to unplug from the day-to-day and get a chance to think more deeply about my company and my industry. Weekends are a great chance to reflect and be more introspective about bigger issues.

    A new study from Stanford shows that Rascoff is on to something

    The study found that productivity per hour declines sharply when the workweek exceeds 50 hours, and productivity drops off so much after 55 hours that there’s no point in working any more. That’s right, people who work as much as 70 hours (or more) per week actually get the same amount done as people who work 55 hours.

    Successful people know the importance of shifting gears on the weekend to relaxing and rejuvenating activities. Like Spencer, they use their weekends to create a better week ahead.

    This is easier said than done, so here’s some help. The following list contains 10 things that successful people do to find balance on the weekend and to come into work at 110% on Monday morning.

    1. They disconnect

    Disconnecting is the most important weekend strategy on this list, because if you can’t find a way to remove yourself electronically from your work Friday evening through Monday morning, then you’ve never really left work.

    Making yourself available to your work 24/7 exposes you to a constant barrage of stressors that prevent you from refocusing and recharging. If taking the entire weekend off handling work e-mails and calls isn’t realistic, try designating specific times on Saturday and Sunday for checking e-mails and responding to voicemails. For example, check your messages on Saturday afternoon while your kids are getting a haircut and on Sunday evenings after dinner. Scheduling short blocks of time will alleviate stress without sacrificing availability.

    2. They minimize chores

    Chores have a funny habit of completely taking over your weekends. When this happens, you lose the opportunity to relax and reflect. What’s worse is that a lot of chores feel like work, and if you spend all weekend doing them, you just put in a seven-day workweek. To keep this from happening, you need to schedule your chores like you would anything else during the week, and if you don’t complete them during the allotted time, you move on and finish them the following weekend.

    3. They reflect

    Weekly reflection is a powerful tool for improvement. Use the weekend to contemplate the larger forces that are shaping your industry, your organization, and your job. Without the distractions of Monday to Friday busy work, you should be able to see things in a whole new light. Use this insight to alter your approach to the coming week, improving the efficiency and efficacy of your work.

    4. They exercise

    No time to exercise during the week? You have 48 hours every weekend to make it happen. Getting your body moving for as little as 10 minutes releases GABA, a soothing neurotransmitter that reduces stress. Exercise is also a great way to come up with new ideas. Innovators and other successful people know that being outdoors often sparks creativity.

    I know that a lot of my best ideas come to me while I’m surfing. While you’re out in the ocean, the combination of invigorating activity and beautiful scenery creates the perfect environment for an influx of creativity. Whether you’re running, cycling, or gardening, exercise leads to endorphin-fueled introspection. The key is to find a physical activity that does this for you and then to make it an important part of your weekend routine.

    5. They pursue a passion

    You might be surprised what happens when you pursue something you’re passionate about on weekends. Indulging your passions is a great way to escape stress and to open your mind to new ways of thinking. Things like playing music, reading, writing, painting, or even playing catch with your kids can help stimulate different modes of thought that can reap huge dividends over the coming week.

    6. They spend quality time with family

    Spending quality time with your family on the weekend is essential if you want to recharge and relax. Family time on the weekend is so important to Spencer Rascoff that he flies home for the weekend, no matter how far away he is, even if he has to be in the same city the following week. Weekdays are so hectic that the entire week can fly by with little quality family time. Don’t let this bleed into your weekends. Take your kids to the park, take your spouse to his or her favorite restaurant, and go visit your parents. You’ll be glad you did.

    7. They schedule micro-adventures

    Buy tickets to a concert or play, or get reservations for that cool new hotel that just opened downtown. Instead of running on a treadmill, plan a hike. Try something you haven’t done before or perhaps something you haven’t done in a long time. Studies show that anticipating something good to come is a significant part of what makes the activity pleasurable. Knowing that you have something interesting planned for Saturday will not only be fun come Saturday, but it will significantly improve your mood throughout the week.

    8. They wake up at the same time

    It’s tempting to sleep in on the weekend to catch up on your sleep. Though it feels good temporarily, having an inconsistent wake-up time disturbs your circadian rhythm. Your body cycles through an elaborate series of sleep phases in order for you to wake up rested and refreshed. One of these phases involves preparing your mind to be awake and alert, which is why people often wake up just before their alarm clock goes off (the brain is trained and ready). When you sleep past your regular wake-up time on the weekend, you end up feeling groggy and tired. This isn’t just disruptive to your day off, it also makes you less productive on Monday because your brain isn’t ready to wake up at your regular time. If you need to catch up on sleep, just go to bed earlier.

    9. They designate mornings as “me time”

    It can be difficult to get time to yourself on the weekends, especially if you have family. Finding a way to engage in an activity you’re passionate about first thing in the morning can pay massive dividends in happiness and cleanliness of mind. It’s also a great way to perfect your circadian rhythm by forcing yourself to wake up at the same time you do on weekdays. Your mind achieves peak performance two-to-four hours after you wake up, so get up early to do something physical, and then sit down and engage in something mental while your mind is at its peak.

    10. They prepare for the upcoming week

    The weekend is a great time to spend a few moments planning your upcoming week. As little as 30 minutes of planning can yield significant gains in productivity and reduced stress. The week feels a lot more manageable when you go into it with a plan because all you have to focus on is execution.

  • THE BEST LEADERS

    “Saw this post from William Vanderbloemen. Thought it was worth posting.

    “Leaders of successful churches are tempted to stop working on themselves, but when the pastor doesn’t grow, the people don’t grow.” –Dr. John Maxwell

    Leadership is hard and often ugly. It has its growing pains, and church leadership is no exception. In our service at Vanderbloemen Search Grouphelping church leaders build and maximize their teams, we have found that the best church leaders are always looking for ways they can develop as a leader and follower of Christ. Staying stagnant is easy. Great church leaders don’t choose what is easy; they choose what is best for their team.

    If you’re reading this article, you likely care about developing yourself as a leader. While this list isn’t comprehensive, here are six characteristics we see in the best church leaders.

    1. The best church leaders are life-long learners.

    The best church leaders possess an insatiable curiosity. They are in-tune with the fact that they don’t know everything and consistently seek out ways to improve and expand their skill set.

    They ask questions like:

    • “What are the best church leaders out there doing?”
    • “How can we do this better?”
    • “How can we solve this problem?”
    • “Is my staff fully equipped to achieve the goals we have set for our ministry?”
    • “Is our church’s mission and vision being communicated in all things?”

    At our company, great leaders ask us every day, “What are the best church leaders out there doing?” At Vanderbloemen, we’re passionate about helping church leaders become life-long learners, so we’ve created a video training series for church leaders who want to build, retain, and maximize their entire team. If you’re interested in this tool, let us know here.

    2. The best church leaders listen intentionally.

    As Tim Stevens explains in chapter 32 of his book Fairness Is Overrated:And 51 Other Leadership Principles To Revolutionize Your Workplace, the best leaders listen first. Tim says, “There is nothing that will empower and encourage your team more than to know you listen to them.” Great leaders listen intentionally, and listening is more than just being present. Being present in a meeting but still checking your phone every five minutes isn’t listening.

    3. The best leaders have a mentor.

    The best leaders understand that there is much to learn from leaders who have gone before them. If you don’t have a mentor, ask yourself, “Who is someone that is where I want to be in 10-20 years?” and ask them to coffee. Pick their brain and ask them how they got where they are. Ask your mentor to meet with you on a regular basis. That might mean on a monthly basis or a few times a year.

    4. The best leaders live on the solution-side of life.

    Do you have a victim mentality or a solution mentality? Victim mentality includes blame shifting and the thought process that every challenge is due to someone else’s doing. Solution mentality is realizing that life is full of hardships and challenges, but that it’s our responsibility to ask the question, “How can I make this better?”

    When faced with a problem, great leaders are collaborative and ask their team for input into how to solve problems that the team is facing. In fact, we believe that “solution-side living” is vital to a healthy team, so we have made it a Vanderbloemen Search Group company value.

    5. The best leaders are open to being wrong.

    Have you ever worked for someone who had to be the smartest person in the room? These leaders hire “yes men and women” who always respond with “yes” and are too afraid to disagree with the leader or express their opinions.

    Great leaders don’t have all the answers, and they know that. They are humble and willing to admit when they are wrong or when they need help. Great leaders staff for their weaknesses, meaning that they bring people onto their team who have strengths that supplement their weaknesses as a leader. Great leaders also ask their team for feedback. This makes the entire team and organization as a whole stronger.

    6. The best leaders are emotionally healthy.

    Everyone has their ups and downs, but the best leaders have a NAP each day. And I’m not talking about sleep. The best leaders have a Non Anxious Presence (NAP). They understand that they will face challenges and roadblocks, but approach each one with truth and grace.

    Emotionally healthy people have balance in their life. They know when to say yes and when to say no. They know when they are about to burnout and how to slow down. They have people in their life who tell them when they are out of balance and help them focus on what is important.

    We believe emotional health in leadership is so important that we wrote a downloadable white paper on the topic: 8 Ways To Spot Emotionally Elite Candidates.

    The best leaders understand that becoming a great leader takes time and a lot of work. Those that are willing to put in the effort to continually grow will take themselves, their team, and their entire ministry to the next level.

  • The High Price of Constantly Checking Your Email

    Ron Friedman writing on the Harvard Business Review blog has a beef with people who constantly check their email. And you know what? He’s got a point. Friedman says, “Shifting our attention from one task to another, as we do when we’re monitoring email while trying to read a report or craft a presentation, disrupts our concentration and saps our focus.” And all these distractions take their toll on your productivity. He cites a University of California-Irvine study that indicates trying to get back to your original momentum after these interruptions can take more than 20 minutes. So how many of these interruptions does it take to completely ruin your day?

    Plus, as I’ve said many times, other studies show that multitasking is a total myth. As Friedman says, “A more accurate account of what happens when we tell ourselves we’re multitasking is that we’re rapidly switching between activities, degrading our clarity and depleting our mental energy. And the consequences can be surprisingly serious. An experiment conducted at the University of London found that we lose as many as 10 IQ points when we allow our work to be interrupted by seemingly benign distractions like emails and text messages.”

    Multitasking – as in checking email, listening to music, watching TV, or talking to a friend when you work is a disaster. Sure you tell me – you can handle it. It makes you more creative. Nope. I haven’t found a single study that indicates multitasking helps you do anything positive. It only helps you do many things badly.

    Focus – that’s the word for the week. Turn off the email, Twitter, Facebook, and anything else that keeps you from accomplishing your goal. Try at least a few hours of total concentration and see where it leads.

    My think you’ll be shocked

  • 3 Helpful Steps For Setting Good Targets

    Targets

     

     

     

     

    In the last year our network of churches (Groundlevel) has begun a process of developing, alongside partners in South Africa and the USA, a program for churches which we have together called GHK. GHK stands for: Great Leaders, Healthy Churches, Kingdom Advancement.  The first wave of this program involves an evaluation of where we are today and then a process of target setting for incremental improvement.

    Within this journey I recently did a session for our connection called Setting Good Targets in which I talked about the following 3 steps for target setting and the connection suggested I post it to my blog, so here it is.

    1. Clarify The Win:

    The question to ask is, “What does Success look like?” Having a mission statement or even a vision is no guarantee of success. Direction and not intention is the greatest indicator of future progress. A few thoughts about the win.

    • A Win is Only A Win when it is connected to Mission.
    • Clarifying the Win is about asking the right questions, monitoring the right measurements.
    • Most Church Teams are scrambling to identify the win because no one clarified it for them and they desperately want to win. This is why focus and purpose changes. This is why we experience volunteer burn out.
    • A Win puts everyone on the same page, it creates alignment.
    • A Win prioritises everything.
    • A Win usually means people work harder, trust more, give more.

    Action:

    a) Sum up the Win in a single statement.
    b) Keep the Win as specific as possible.
    c) Keep restating the Win.

    2. Think…What is the Next Step?

    This allows us to make sure that our actions are taking us to where we want to go.

    • Our tendency is to over programme. A programme is not necessarily a path. Don’t add programmes add steps.
    • Programmes are often need focused whereas steps are vision focused.
    • A series of steps can move people/an organisation sequentially towards the win.

    The question here is, “What is the Next Step?” And the follow up question is, “How do we make it obvious what the next step is?”

    Action:

    a) Define where you want people/Organisation/Ministry to be.
    b) Make the next step Easy
    c) Make the next step Obvious
    d) Make the next step Strategic

    3. Narrow The Focus:

    Everything naturally drifts towards complexity and not simplicity. We usually try to do too much and become A.D.D. churches, multi-focused with lots of ministries.

    The key question to ask is, “Where are we headed?”

    • Failure to narrow the focus has the greatest impact upon unbelievers. Unbelievers aren’t clamouring for our attention, unbelievers aren’t saying, “Let’s start this new thing…”
    • Because we do too much it probably means we should stop something.

    Action:

    a) Ask, “What works best.”
    b) Identify what gets in the way.
    c) Stop anything that gets in the way.

  • Why Changing Perception Is Critical

    “Action is not the result of intentional reasoned thought but passion.” – James K A Smith.

    Smith who is a philosopher and theologian is making the point that we are primarily shaped more by the imagination than the intellect. Therefore it is the stories that we inhabit and not the arguments we believe that give our lives purpose. So:

    We do not think our way through to action; much of our action is not the outcome of rational deliberation or conscious choice but our perception of the story we are in.

    This has huge implications for preaching:

    PreacherBanner

     

     

    We act according to our formed character, our actions could be called a gut-based initiative. This character has been formed in us by our emotional take on the world around us and our practices within it, this is our PERCEPTION.

    In order to change action we have to change perception. Saying, “I’m going to change,” and giving it our best effort has power, but nowhere near the power of seeing ourselves in a different story, a changed perception.

    Stories have power,  if we want to change action we have to change perception.

    7 Thoughts For Preaching

    1. Don’t just call people to action paint a picture: Give people a vision of them in the story of God. Show them what this is like, paint a picture of their lives in God’s will with your words.
    2. Tell your stories:
    3. Don’t spin, don’t paint pictures that don’t exist: Real life is not sugar coated. Our lives in God’s story still include trouble, chaos, challenge and disappointment but the power of Jesus within makes the difference and enables us to live lives of honour, impact and glory.
    4. Tell the stories of people known to the congregation you are addressing:
    5. Use words like ‘imagine’ and phrases like ‘what if’:
    6. Tell stories: Jesus did… and people saw how their lives could be built on a rock; produce a crop of fruitfulness 30, 60 or 100 fold; how the key component in a relationship with God is not our love for him but his unconditional and unquenchable love for us.
    7. Remember it’s all about the people: You are focussed on helping them, loving them, lifting their lives, empowering their Monday. You are not stroking your ego.

     

  • Our Need For We

    We are the I Generation. Sociologists call what is happening in our world, ‘The Rampant Individualisation of Society.’ The focus is me. This posture has crept into our Spirituality and today, on my 50th Birthday, I thought I would write about my passion, The Church and specifically OUR NEED FOR WE.

    church attendance

    Aristotle believed that unless we can connect with Divine purpose then nothing has the ability to satisfy us forever. For Aristotle the Divine wasn’t God and his purposes but contemplation, thought.

    I think he was right in his summary although for me the Divine is the Creator of all things and His Son, Jesus. Our pursuit of me becomes a flawed and fruitless exercise unless we can connect our lives with the purposes of God and his greatest purpose is WE.

    The Church of Me

    Within the matrix of modern Christianity the base ingredient is me; the church, then, is simply a collection of individuals. Conceiving of Christian faith as a private affair between the individual and God, a matter of my asking Jesus to “come into my heart”, means that we can find it hard to articulate just how and why the church has any role to play other than providing a place of fellowship with other individuals who themselves have a private relationship with God.

    What becomes lost in this model is the beauty and truth of the church as a living community embodying its head, Jesus. The Church of Me, tends to see the church as a place where individuals come to find answers to their questions or as another place where individuals can satisfy their consumerist ideas. In this state, as James K A Smith says,

    Christianity becomes intellectualised rather than incarnate, commodified rather than genuine community.

    The Holy Catholic Church

    So declares the Apostle’s Creed, “I believe in the Holy Catholic Church.” The creed is not speaking here of Catholicism as we know it but the Whole Church of Jesus Christ. This idea undoes the modern individualism that plagues modern evangelicalism. Christian Philosopher James K A Smith again,

    Indeed we would do well to recover a much maligned formula: “There is no salvation outside the church.”  This does not mean a particular ecclesial body is the dispenser of grace or the arbiter of salvation; rather, there simply is no Christianity apart from the body of Christ, which is the church.

    The Gospel In Surround Sound

    In a recent message I talked about there are three ways the gospel (using the word gospel very loosely here) is proclaimed in the World today.

    1. You are God: Look to light within, you are amazing, wonderful, divine, become one with yourself and your world, just follow the light within. Oprah, it could be said, may be the most well known preacher of this ‘gospel’. This is the gospel in ‘mono’.
    2. You and Jesus: All you need is a personal relationship with Jesus. He came for you, all you need is Jesus. This is the gospel in ‘stereo’. Nothing in what I have just written on this point is wrong other than the word all.  Jesus doesn’t just restore the relationship vertical with himself, his salvation restores the relationship horizontal by recreating community.
    3. You, Me, We and Jesus: This is the gospel in ‘Dolby 10.1 Surround Sound’. Reconciled through faith in Christ to God and planted in the community of faith, the family of God, the Church. The body is the New Testament’s organic model of community that counters the modern evangelical emphasis on the individual.

    The Church exists for more than me, my salvation is not just a matter of intellectual or emotional satisfaction. The church is the place where God renews and transforms us, a place where the practices of being the body of Christ form us into the image of His Son.

    Quotes by James K A Smith from his book, ‘Who’s afraid of Postmodernism’.