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Diary of a (Maybe) Retired Pastor

Tag: church

  • The Strongest Democracy?

    mayberetiredpastor

    The Strongest Democracy?

    First of all, then, I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings should be made for everyone, for kings and all who are in high positions, so that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and dignity.

    1 Timothy 2:1-2 New Testament, The Bible

    We have been in the US since the beginning of the January on grandparent duties. Consequently, we have had a ringside seat as President Trump began his second term as president. It has been like watching a horror show – deeply disturbing yet fascinating at the same time! He has already done many things that have left us open-mouthed,  but the  most disturbing was the very first thing he did on taking office: the pardoning of those who had been convicted and sentenced for their actions in the January 6th attack on the Capitol building at the beginning of Biden’s presidency.

    I was astonished to realise that an American President apparently has untrammelled powers of pardon. Previously, I had assumed there were strict conditions on who could be pardoned and that this only happened rarely. But President Trump in an unceremonious flaunting of untrammelled power set aside mass convictions and sentences that had been imposed after due process of law. What we see here is the unravelling of the rule of law. The law is not perfect but it ensures that everyone is held equally accountable (in principle) before it. This was severely undermined by the Supreme Court ruling that a president cannot be held legally accountable for actions taken in the capacity of president and now, Trump, by overturning convictions he doesn’t like, has made the law subject to the personal whims of the president and there is nothing that can be done about it.

    This seems to me to be a major turning point in American democracy. Americans have delighted in boasting about the strength of their model of democracy. But now we see that, at its core, it is weak and, perhaps, now is crippled. Unspoken convention has been the thing that has held American democracy together, but now there is a president who pays no heed to unspoken convention and who is supported by a Congress that likewise has abandoned convention. The consequence is the crumbling of democratic rule. In it’s place we have the rule of a dictator – although I suspect Trump would prefer the title “King”. Which is ironic given the history of the US.

    Christians are commanded to pray for kings, governors and governments. This is sometimes read as simply praying for the well-being of the ruler(s). It is, in fact, a holding to account of all human rule. We ask that they be held to account and conformed to the standard of the heavenly court. Certainly, this is a time for prayer for Americans.

  • People Of The New Song

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    People Of The New Song

    And they sang a new song, saying:

    “You are worthy to take the scroll
        and to open its seals,
    because you were slain,
        and with your blood you purchased for God
        persons from every tribe and language and people and nation.
    10 You have made them to be a kingdom and priests to serve our God,
        and they will reign on the earth.

    Revelation 5:9-10, New Testament, The Bible.

    An outraged Daily Telegraph headline sometime in the summer last year demanded to know why a church had decided to drop the word “Church” from its name. At about the same time, one of the congregations I had initiated at my last church had set about renaming itself.  This set me off on a train of thought concerning the significance of names, particularly in relation to churches. Why do people choose the names they do for their churches or congregations? What does it mean for them and why does it matter? I tend to lean towards the functional and utilitarian with a quirky twist, hence, simply using the time at which the new congregation met on a Sunday as the name (7:15!) seemed perfectly adequate to me and when it started meeting at a new time it simply added a little quirkiness and mystery to the congregation! Clearly, this did not sit so well with others who, well, need something more approachable and human? (My wife thinks the Big Bang Theory’s Sheldon and I bear some remarkable affinities, although not, perhaps, in brain power!).

    Names are to do with identity and, so, outraged of Tunbridge Wells above presumably felt some attack on their communal identity when the local church decided to drop the word “Church”. When it comes to groups or organisations, names need to communicate something about what they are, and people need to be able to identify with these groups or organisations. What should a church or congregation seek to communicate as it describes itself? What should Christians seek to communicate about themselves? For good or bad “church” and “Christian” are themselves names deeply embedded in our culture  and loaded with thousands of years of meaning – some of it not very flattering – but once, they were new, freshly minted, communicating something vibrant and fresh and unexpected to the wider culture. The Bible itself testifies to this newness in its very division into the Old Testament and the New Testament. The “New” Testament is the book about the church, about the Christians – something new and unimagined. Is there a way of re-capturing this freshness and newness?

    The book of Revelation – the last book of the Bible – has, as one of its threads, the depiction of worship in heaven. It is about the songs that thread eternity and underpin the fabric of creation. In this sense, it is nothing new in the literature of the Bible. Worship in heaven is timeless and universal, never ending and never changing, but then Revelation introduces something quite remarkable, quite stunning: a new song is heard! The timeless, unchanging worship of heaven is changed! What has brought this about? It is Jesus Christ, His death on the Cross and His resurrection has caused heaven to break into new song, new worship, and the writer of Revelation leaves us in no doubt as to the significance of this as he ends his book with the description of a new heaven and a new earth – a new creation taking the place of the old because a new song is sung.

    In choosing names for themselves, Christians have not, as far as I know, ever chosen the name “People of the New Song” but that is what they are, and it is an identity that perhaps would help them to be as new and as fresh as they were all those centuries ago.  What song will Christians sing going on into the New Year?      

  • Supermarket Communion

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    Supermarket Communion

    When the hour came, Jesus and his apostles reclined at the table. And he said to them, “I have eagerly desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer.” …

    Luke 22:14-15

    In some churches these days, Holy Communion is celebrated using a small disposable plastic pot about the size of a coffee creamer. Opening the pot reveals a small wafer for the communion bread in a top compartment over a small quantity of communion wine in the lower compartment. As I have experienced it, these pots are usually placed on or under the seats to be used by the congregation at the appropriate point in the service. On one occasion, the pots were placed on a table in the reception area for individuals to collect if they intended to participate in communion. Being strangers to the church and unaware that communion was to be celebrated, we completely missed the fact that we were supposed to collect a pot and so were unable to celebrate communion.

    I had heard a few years ago that this practice was spreading amongst mega-churches in Singapore. I was unimpressed at the time although I could see how they might be attractive to churches wishing to speed up the administration of communion, but still, I felt that the use of these “all-in-one” do-it-yourself pots rather missed the point. Experiencing their use in practice only confirms and strengthens my distaste for the concept.

    In the churches where they were used, the celebration of Holy Communion took less than five minutes and there was little if any sense of unity as individuals opened and consumed the contents in their own way at their own pace with little or no explanation or exposition of meaning and significance. The whole point of communion appears to have evaporated as the supermarket has been introduced into this central act of worship!

    Holy Communion, or the Eucharist or Mass in more liturgical churches, is practiced in two basic forms across churches: either as a supper, in which the bread and wine are displayed on a simple table and then served from there by stewards to the congregation, or, as a sacrificial act where the bread and wine are consecrated at the altar of the church to which the congregation approach one-by-one to receive the benefits of the sacrifice. The two forms reflect the different theological emphases placed on the practice of the sacrament. Both are valid and help the congregation to remember the central, unifying tenet of our faith – that is, the Son of God sacrificed His life on the Cross for our sakes and that all who accept His sacrifice enjoy the benefits of forgiveness of sin, and the unity of loving fellowship that results from the indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit.   Hence, the celebration is a communal celebration in which the spiritual truth of our joyful salvation and the presence of the Holy Spirit amongst us is expressed in a physical act.

    All of this is lost in the use of pre-packaged pots. It becomes an individual act of convenience in which the underlying spiritual reality is neither acknowledged nor expressed. It is, to my mind, the ultimate yielding of the gospel of Jesus Christ to consumerist mentality and the ideology of individual convenience.

    A visiting minister commented, after I had once led communion, how much he appreciated the time we took to celebrate the sacrament. As the biblical quotation above reminds us, Jesus anticipated with eagerness that last meal He spent with His closest disciples when He inaugurated what we now celebrate as Holy Communion. It seems to me that we ought to do the same, Holy Communion should be given the time and space in our services for us to savour it, as our Lord did when He shared that last meal with His disciples.

  • Tears in Heaven

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    Tears in Heaven

    As he came near and saw the city, he wept over it, saying, ‘If you, even you, had only recognized on this day the things that make for peace! But now they are hidden from your eyes.

    Luke 19:41-42

    At last week’s Maundy Thursday service we were asked had we ever imagined what heaven would be like? I have often thought about what heaven would be like and those who have regularly listened to me preach may remember how I imagine heaven to be. However, there is one idea of heaven I have that I haven’t shared so much.

    Most of us when thinking about heaven will likely turn to the end of the book of Revelation and recall the promises that there will be no more tears or suffering and so believe that heaven will be a place of unalloyed joy. But for some years now I have felt that that can’t quite be true, at least, not for God. At my best, I sometimes feel great sadness over the fact that billions of human beings will not know eternal life and be lost to eternal damnation (yes, I still believe in that!), but, in all honesty, most of the time it doesn’t bother me that much. But for God, surely it must be so different, the loss of so many for whom His Son suffered so much must be an eternal source of grief?

    As we celebrated Communion on Maundy Thursday I was suddenly filled with another sadness, not for the obvious reason – that our Saviour indeed endured so much suffering for our sakes – but  because I felt Him grieving over His church.  I felt that He grieved over the way we behave towards each other, our harshness, our lack of kindness and generosity, our squabbles over doctrine, not just historically – when we even went to war against each other over our differences – but in the present day as we meet the contentious issues of  our times. Not that these are unimportant, but that the way we handle and express our sometimes deep differences seems little different from the way of the world and exhibits little grace or love.

    Jesus stood looking over Jerusalem and wept. I feel that He must still be weeping as He looks over His church today.

  • The Glory of God

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    The Glory of God

    Then he brought me to the gate, the gate facing east. 2 And there, the glory of the God of Israel was coming from the east; the sound was like the sound of mighty waters; and the earth shone with his glory.

    Ezekiel 43:1-2

    It’s Holy Week. As I was sitting through service on Palm Sunday I was thinking that we don’t seem to give much time in church life to teaching about how Jesus fulfils prophecy, particularly on the occasion of His entry into Jerusalem. This is a great pity because, as recent events demonstrate, properly understanding these matters profoundly affects our view of the Middle East today.

    Many people will know that Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem riding on a donkey on Palm Sunday was a direct reference and fulfilment of Zechariah 9:9 hailing the new king of peace. This was what prompted the cheers and acclamation of the crowds, but fewer of us, perhaps, appreciate the far greater prophecy that was also being fulfilled by Jesus on that day.

    The gospel writers are united in carefully specifying that Jesus started His procession on that day from Bethany. The first readers would have had the advantage of knowing the layout of Jerusalem in Jesus’ time, so, they would have been aware that, starting from Bethany, Jesus’ route would have led Him to enter through the eastern gate of the city.  This was not accidental. A greater prophecy than Zechariah’s is in play here.

    The prophet Ezekiel documents the fall of the first Temple and in chapters 10 and 11 recounts the departure of the Glory of God from the Temple and the city via the eastern gate. But, in chapters 43 and 44 he prophesies the return of the Glory of God to the new, restored Temple, again through the eastern gate.  This is a prophecy not only of restoration but the inauguration of the greater, perfect Temple and city of God. It is this prophecy that Jesus fulfils with His entrance to Jerusalem, riding on a donkey, through the eastern gate. Not only is He the king who brings peace, His entrance is the very Glory of God returning to His city. This is what the Pharisees and Temple authorities perceived which the ordinary people, and probably many of us today, did not. It is the reason why the Pharisees and Temple authorities determined to execute Him as a blasphemer because He made Himself God.

    Ezekiel’s prophecy of the new Temple continues with careful instructions to purify and cleanse the Temple and the people’s sins. Jesus, after His dramatic entrance into Jerusalem famously cleanses the Temple and then, a few days later, is crucified thus cleansing all the people’s sins.

    Ezekiel could only frame his prophecy in Old Testament terms, the reality of its fulfilment demonstrates the limitations of his conception. Jesus offered no sacrifice in the Temple for the atonement of the people’s sin and the cleansing of the Temple itself was a mere symbol of a much greater cleansing to come. The sacrifice Jesus offered for the people’s sin was His very own life, and the true cleansing of the Temple meant its utter destruction and the razing to the ground of Jerusalem itself decades later, just as Jesus Himself had prophesied during Holy Week.

    Understanding how Jesus fulfils Ezekiel’s prophecy gives a very different perspective to our attitudes and judgments concerning the Middle East today. The perfect new Temple and Jerusalem of Ezekiel’s prophecy is not to be found in bricks and mortar this side of the new creation. It comes only with the full return of the Glory of God in Jesus Christ.

  • I’m Glad I’m Not the Archbishop of Canterbury!

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    I’m glad I’m Not the Archbishop of Canterbury!

    The introduction of Living in Love and Faith and its acceptance by the General Synod has rocked the worldwide Anglican Communion. The headline measure, the blessing of same-sex marriages in Church of England churches has, predictably, caused uproar amongst certain sections of the church and outraged the global south. To an observer, such as yours truly, it looks like a classic example of committee’ism(!). It doesn’t allow same-sex marriages to be formed in a Church of England parish church but, once formed elsewhere, a service of blessing over the marriage may be performed. This is the very worst kind of compromise that pleases no side as we have observed in the  months since.

    It seems to me that it is a pastoral impossibility, in a single parish church or congregation, to simultaneously affirm that it is not right (sinful!) to form same-sex marriages but that it is good to formally approve and bless such a marriage once formed. A minister in that church would, in effect, be saying to certain parishioners it is not right for you to marry but, then, to other parishioners, it’s perfectly right and good for you to be married! It does seem to me, that for an individual parish church it has to be one or the other. It can’t be both.

    I do not know if the Anglican Church has the mechanisms or procedures to allow individual parish churches to hold different views on this matter but I would suggest this is the better way forward. It declares that our position on same-sex marriages is not of fundamental importance to our unity as Christians – we will all stand before the judgement throne purely on the basis of what Christ has done for us and on our faith in Him – but, it recognises that we humbly hold very different understandings of what scripture teaches on this matter and that these differences are pastorally incompatible at the local level. Unity does not mean I must agree with my brother on every single matter (if it did, then I would have to seriously question the salvation of Christians claiming to be Tory 😊) but it does mean that, sometimes, it is better to live in separate houses because of these differences while acknowledging we are still family.

    As a Senior Pastor, I led a complex church: multi-congregational, multisite, multi-lingual and multicultural.  Sometimes, the differing expectations, differing outlooks, differing assumptions made life very fraught (ask the wife!). It’s with considerable sympathy, then, that I regard Justin Welby and his unenviable task of leading the Anglican Communion which spans not only hundreds of parish churches in the UK but individual communions across continents. At the best of times, it is a complex task requiring great diligence and care to navigate tricky currents. When times are contentious those tricky currents become treacherous and can explode in raging white water threatening to overturn the boat each moment that passes. I am really glad I am not the Archbishop of Canterbury!

  • Jesus Didn’t Make It To Church!

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    Jesus Didn’t Make It To Church!

    1 Corinthians 14:23 NRSV

    After stepping down from the position of Senior Pastor in a Manchester church, my wife and I visited the churches in our local area. For the first few months, we visited, in rotation, almost every church within walking distance of our home and some within a short driving distance. It was a very interesting time. We placed few, if any, restrictions on the churches to visit so we experienced a wide range of churches representing a broad spectrum of the UK church both in demographic, theology and worship.


    One thing that struck me quite strongly was, no matter what kind of church we visited – and a few were well-established evangelical churches, strong by many usual criteria, the kind of church that would feel that it was strong on “the christian identity” – almost all of them could get through Sunday service with scarcely a mention of the name “Jesus Christ”. I started timing when Jesus’ name would first be mentioned and came-up with 20 mins as the earliest and 30-40 mins on average. One set of leaders (the entire front of house team – minister, worship leader, service leader etc.) managed to get through an entire service without once mentioning the name of Jesus! (It was otherwise a good service).

    What would someone from another faith make of it all? It seemed to me perfectly possible for a devout Muslim or Hindu to sit through almost any of these services and feel perfectly comfortable. God was constantly mentioned, glorified and worshipped, but not named specifically as Jesus. It reminded me very much of the Apostle Paul’s words in 1 Corinthians 14 (referenced above), the difference being that Paul was writing about incomprehension brought about by he use of unknown languages in services, whereas, in these churches, it was not an unknown language that was the problem but an unknown, unspecified God. Our Muslim or Hindu friend might well leave these services feeling that they had a great time worshipping Allah or whichever expression of divinity they personally followed.


    I personally believe that Sunday services are public events to which the world is invited to hear the proclamation of the gospel of Jesus Christ and His worship. This is what makes it Christian worship. A person of any other faith should feel uncomfortable in a Sunday service but, yet, also attracted, and leave challenged rather than comfortable. Jesus and His work should be front, centre and end of Sunday services and not simply implied or understood.

    Two churches stood out from the crowd during this time. They both managed to mention Jesus within the first 5 minutes and went on bringing up His name at every opportunity. We had a ball! A big shout out for Christchurch4U, Chorlton, and Liverpool Chinese Gospel Church 🙂