Sunday, April 19, 2009

The Un-Gracious Assumption

JC Ryle put forward that when it came to the fellowship of believers, the church, and the administration of the sacraments (baptism and Lord’s supper), it was up to the minister to explain the reality of the act, then allow the person who was willing, to partake of the act, despite any personal reservations the minister may have – he called it the gracious assumption.

Now there is a lot more to it than just that, but it seems to me that there is great wisdom in that idea, (given that none of us are the judge of all men, nor do we see anyone’s hearts, ultimately it is an issue between God and the person) when it comes to a person’s standing before God.

But on the other hand when it comes to leadership in the church (any leadership or up front role) I think we really need to make an Un-gracious assumption, that people need to show real evidence of conversion before we let them run anything – finances, music the lot – much less teach!!

Anyway, I’ll probably tweak this view a few times, but I think what I mean is Leaders need to be, in order;

1. Converted -Evidence of genuine conversion
2. Committed - Actively participate in the life of the church ie. At church at least once a week and involved in mid week Bible study (not on the fringe)
3. Serving - Actively pursuing ministry – Bible study leading, youth group, evangelism (not a consumer Christian!)
4. Leading - Then you can talk about them being involved in the leadership of the church.

The 20 min shibboleth!

In our part of the world, people are carved in stone behind the idea that preaching should only go for 20m. How you expect to grow a congregation in maturity at that length of time is beyond me.

Now I realize that it is important to get to the point and be crisp with the message, but 20 min works if you are an itinerant preacher who does a gospel presentation each week, I don’t think it is so effective if you really do need to preach ‘the whole counsel of God’.

How can you plumb the depths of a decent passage of scripture, linking the message of this particular passage into the themes of the book and then into the wider Bible, picking up the Systematic theology themes, the ethical implications for the Christian life, and then the apologetic necessities for the Christian’s world view in the face of a secular and atheistic society, while making it engaging to listen to in 20m?

It would have to be at least 25m ;)

And for some reason this 20m marker is hard to shake, but when you know you need to chop the sermon, you always chop the illustrations and other ‘fluff’, which I think tends to make the whole thing a poorer experience for the listener and more like a lecture. The ‘faithful’ but uninspiring sermon.

As I mentioned before Einstein proved time was relative, 10secs on a hotplate was a lifetime!! I suspect the length of preaching is not the issue, but the quality of the preaching is.

Sure you don’t have to, nor really can you do, ALL the things listed above every week, but our preaching would be of a better quality if we did, even if it meant 40m and the notices, and one song had to get chopped, for the sake of being faithful with time for our people over the whole service.

The integrated and ethical Christian life of worship is going to need more than 20m a week to explain and encourage in engaging ways. I suspect the predictable 20m 3 point effort, while it may be faithful, reflects ultimately a lack of confidence in the act of communication that is preaching, and panders to a dumbing down of Christianity in both the hearers and the preachers as well.