Strangers & Aliens

492 years ago today, a young professor Martin nailed his objections to one particular Catholic practice to the church notice board. The rest, as they say, is history. Praise God for the Reformation!

Luther's hymn still stands as one of the best (and ground breaking) of the entire Christian tradition. It is also, by the way, still one of the best ever written on spiritual warfare. Pity the church who never sing this any more....

Our God stands like a fortress rock,
With walls that will not fail us;
He helps us brace against the shock
Of fears which now assail us.
The enemy of old in wickedness is bold;
This seems his victory hour,
He fears no earthly power
And arms himself with cunning.

We win no battles through our might,
We fall at once, dejected;
The righteous one will lead the fight,
By God himself directed.
You ask ‘Who can this be?’
Christ Jesus, it is he,
Eternal King and Lord,
God’s true and living Word,
No one can stand against him.

And though the world seems full of ill,
With hungry demons prowling,
Christ’s victory is with us still,
We need not fear their howling.
The tyrants of this age strut briefly on the stage;
Their sentence has been passed,
We stand unharmed at last,
A word from God destroys them.

God’s word and plan, which they pretend
Is subject to their pleasure,
Will bind their wills to serve God’s end,
Which we, who love him, treasure.
Then let them take our lives,
Goods, children, husbands, wives,
And carry all away;
Theirs is a short lived day,
Ours is the lasting kingdom.

..by which I mean ministry to those in the autumn of life - I'm talking post retireds and elderly here. I've been thinking this through for some time now, and the more I think about it, the more convinced I become that:

• some churches' neglect of this area of ministry is bordering on the sinful
• most churches are obsessed with youth ministry to the exclusion of other ministries
• there is little teaching and material about conducting an effective autumn ministry
• I'm aware of very few churches that appoint autumn ministers, yet the ad pages are full of ads for youth workers
  

Just returned from a week's break in Cambridge which allowed Mrs R to visit all her old haunts. But we also discovered a few new ones, including Rock Baptist Church, Cambridge. We joined them last Sunday for their focus on the elderly. Most stirring to think about these things. I'm not sure what a well thought out autumn ministry might look like (though I am sure it would be more than a coffee drop in), but think of the benefits:

• it would ensure we place a biblical emphasis on the value of those with wider and longer experience - the grey hairs of our congregations
• it would ensure a biblical balance in our churches which too often are segregated along age lines - segregations that we have unwittingly (or knowingly?) created and sustained
  
• it would be strategic - we often kid ourselves that (only) youth work is this - building the church of the future - so we pour all our energies into it. But what if we're wrong and autumn ministry is the strategic work? There's plenty of evidence to show that a converted family head has more impact on the conversion of his family than one of the children
• In a 21st Century "both-at-work" family-based church, newly retireds are the backbone of church work - reaching them staffs the church
• older folk have often not the arrogance of the young and are willing to consider the gospel in a more measured way. Moreover they have a residual knowledge to build upon that a younger generation don't have
• statistically, the elderly are nearer the Day of Judgement

Yet there's no "elderly" track at Oak Hill. No teach-in day about newly retireds ministry run by our local gospel partnership. No separate shelf in the Christian Bookshop (no books, for goodness sake, in the Christian bookshop).

Perhaps it's high time we started thinking seriously about autumn ministry....?

I have spent a long time in Ezekiel. I had rather hoped to be further ahead than now, and will have to speed up if I am to be ready for teaching some key parts of the later chapters early in the new year. But I just can't help it. The text is so rich, but also so alarming - and the combination of the two is slowing me down and making me think. How we need the Old Testament! The book of Ezekiel portrays so clearly that sin is a BIG problem. Because it also graphically depicts judgement it does not allow sin to be dismissed in a kind of "it'll be all right on the night" way. More significantly even it is the only way to understand the cross. If you have a poor view of the stench of sin to a holy God and the absolute and terrible judgement it deserves, then you rob the cross (where sin was atoned for) of all its meaning and depth.

I've spent a few days reading and thinking about the Sovereign Grace annotation to their basis of faith. You can read the basis of faith here. The annotation (available here, well worth the time) describes the context and rationale for changing the statement's paragraph on the Holy Spirit - downclassing it from a classic pentecostal one to a more broad emphasis. As such I think it is extremely well written and allows for differing views on which, to the Sovereign Grace team, is a secondary matter. It's a good way to spend half an hour, particularly because the annotation is written by Jeff Purswell, who, whilst a continuationist (i.e. not a cessationist) does not believe in a second blessing; something that he acknowledges is a minority view within Sovereign Grace.

For Thabiti Anyabwile, this is not a good question to be asking! Listen here for a good 60 minute treatment of what preaching is. He also tackles old fashioned Welsh preaching of the kind that Martyn Lloyd-Jones fought against when he first went to Aberavon - so not all about black/white. Some real nuggets here, rooted in Nehemiah 8. If you've not got 60 minutes, download it for later listening. Oh, and by the way, Thabiti wants you to know he is really suffering for the gospel in Grand Cayman....!

Now settled at ELT Baptist Church in the wonderfully diverse and rich East London. In particular I am enjoying being under the ministry (and assisting in it) of Ken Brownell. Ken is a Bostonian pastor who has been in the East End for 16 years. He is a great theologian and church historian and I love him to bits. As one other distinguished retired pastor told me last week, "If Ken was in the States he would have a church of thousands. He is clearly a humble and dedicated servant to be doing what he is doing." Amen to that!

There are many reasons to love your local library - but here is one of the best. Join your local library (for free) and receive free online access to:

• Britannica online
• CANS
• Credo reference
• FunderFinder
• Kompass
• Lawtel
• Know UK
• Oxford Art Online
• Oxford English Dictionary (Full)
• Oxford Dictionary of National Biography
• Times Digital Archive
• Who's Who

Collectively, these would cost you something in the region of £5,000. Go enjoy.

Seventeen years ain't a lot of time. Really. But that's what it took for the reforms of Josiah (who reigned from 641-609BC) to be trounced. This is what Ezekiel saw in 592 BC (Ezekiel 8.1):

Can you tick all of these boxes...?

Timothy, the Man of God (a very OT title) is at risk! You cannot read the pastoral epistles through without coming to the conclusion that this energetic, gifted, well-taught and trained pastor is at risk. And any pastor - any man of God for that reason - who thinks he might not fall from grace is in serious danger.

Spent an enjoyable afternoon on the phone yesterday, first with an FIEC pastor from the Midlands and then with a BU elder from Kent. It was a treasure to speak to each and develop links and friendships. It also made me realise that this is what we were made for....to interact. Ultimately of course, our interaction is with Christ. Like all other created things we were made "by him and for him" - not just as objects for him to gaze upon longingly, like a gardener tends his prize roses, but for us to interact with him - to adore him, to speak to him words of exaltation.

Yay! Become a Christian on your iPhone.

That's the question Joanna asks Huck in Huckleberry Finn: "Oh, nothing much. Loll around, pass the plate, one thing and another. But mainly they don't do nothing."

The two wheel systematics course just keeps rolling and rolling...

Twice in twenty-four hours I have been struck freshly by the corporate nature of the gospel.