Author Archives: James Petticrew

James Petticrew ~ Holy Tenacity

Note from the Editor: This week at Wesleyan Accent, as we scan, with grief, ongoing news from seeker-sensitive Protestant megachurches and Roman Catholic dioceses, we are reaching into our treasure trove of archives to reexamine different aspects of leadership. Our contributors over the years have written thoughtful, challenging reflections on leadership from a variety of perspectives.

After a great deal of rooting around in boxes in the garage, I found Eugene Peterson’s little book of reflections on Jeremiah called Run with the Horses: The Quest for Life at Its Best. In this wonderful wee tome Peterson talks about this word which had struck me so forcefully. It’s the word persistently.

“For twenty-three years, from the thirteenth year of Josiah the son of Amon, king of Judah, to this day, the word of the LORD has come to me, and I have spoken persistently to you, but you have not listened.” (Jeremiah 25:3) With those words Jeremiah describes his ministry as a prophet to the people of God. It’s been 23 years ….“persistently.”

For 23 years he met with God and listened to God and then shared God’s message with God’s people. If you know anything about Jeremiah you’ll know that it wasn’t 23 years of unmitigated success – anything but. Much of the time he was ridiculed, abused and imprisoned. Yet day after day, week after week, month after month, year after year, and decade after decade, Jeremiah persistently did what God had called him to do. He didn’t give up, he didn’t move to a city where people were more responsive, he didn’t modify his message. He persistently carried on doing what God had called on him to do. Peterson remarks, “the mark of certain kind of genius is the ability and energy to keep returning to the same task relentlessly, imaginatively, curiously, for a life time. To never give up and go on to something else; never get distracted and be diverted into something else”

I have been thinking a lot about Jeremiah and his persistency the last couple of days. It’s reminded me that what God calls us to do often calls for something we don’t regard as very glamorous; it’s what I would call holy tenacity.

Peterson defines it as the ability to return to our God-given calling “relentlessly, imaginatively, curiously, for a life time. To never give up and go on to something else; never get distracted and be diverted into something else.” I have to be honest and say holy tenacity doesn’t come easy to me. I belong to the Pot Noodle (Cup o’ Noodles or Ramen) generation, where we expect instant results. The stories we tend to celebrate in church life are the leaders and churches who achieve success quickly – 500 new people in five years impresses us. It probably should too. We should celebrate God’s blessings. However, we seldom celebrate those who minister “twenty three years…persistently,” who, like Jeremiah, approach what God has called them to do with a holy tenacity over an extended period.

I suspect that for all of us, whatever God calls us to do and to be, there will be a need at some point for this self same holy tenacity. It takes holy tenacity to be a teacher, to return to the classroom day after day when often there are more problems to be solved than successes to be celebrated. It takes holy tenacity to be a parent at times, to keep on loving and being firm when it would be easy just to be apathetic and give in. It takes holy tenacity to build a business that reflects the values of the kingdom of God rather than one that simply generates cash. It takes holy tenacity to represent God in an office year after year. I wonder if God led you to read this because he wants to remind you of the need for holy tenacity in doing what he has called you to do?

What we are talking about here is more than dogged determination and drudgery. Peterson comments, “don’t feel sorry for Jeremiah. He was not stuck in a rut, he was committed to a purpose. Jeremiah shows no evidence of bored drudgery. Everything we know of him shows that after 23 years his imagination is even more alive and his spirit even more resilient than it was in his youth. He wasn’t putting in his time. Every day was a new adventure of living the prophetic life. The days added up to a life of incredible tenacity, of amazing stamina.” Those words excite and inspire me; that’s the kind of holy tenacity I want to develop. I want to be more alive, more imaginative, more resilient as I grow older and I serve longer in my calling. Which made we wonder, how was Jeremiah able to develop and sustain this holy tenacity?

A read-through of the book of Jeremiah soon reveals the source of Jeremiah’s holy tenacity. Just look at these verses.

Jeremiah 7:13: “And now, because you have done all these things, declares the LORD, and when I spoke to you persistently you did not listen, and when I called you, you did not answer…”

Jeremiah 7:25: “From the day that your fathers came out of the land of Egypt to this day, I have persistently sent all my servants the prophets to them, day after day.”

Jeremiah 29:19: “Because they did not pay attention to my words, declares the LORD, that I persistently sent to you by my servants the prophets, but you would not listen, declares the LORD.”

Jeremiah 11:7: “For I solemnly warned your fathers when I brought them up out of the land of Egypt, warning them persistently, even to this day, saying, Obey my voice.”

Jeremiah 32:33: “They have turned to me their back and not their face. And though I have taught them persistently, they have not listened to receive instruction.”

Jeremiah 35:14: “The command that Jonadab the son of Rechab gave to his sons, to drink no wine, has been kept, and they drink none to this day, for they have obeyed their father’s command. I have spoken to you persistently, but you have not listened to me.”

Jeremiah 35:15: “I have sent to you all my servants the prophets, sending them persistently, saying, ‘Turn now every one of you from his evil way, and amend your deeds.’”

Jeremiah 44:4: “Yet I persistently sent to you all my servants the prophets, saying, ‘Oh, do not do this abomination that I hate!’”

Eight times God says that he has persistently reached out to his people. Do you see the implications of these verses for understanding Jeremiah’s holy tenacity? Jeremiah developed and sustained his holy tenacity through being in relationship with a holy tenacious God, a God who persistently, repeatedly, constantly and urgently reached out to his people and to the whole of humanity.

I think I am beginning to understand how holy tenacity is developed now. Its not an end in itself; rather, it’s the overflow of our relationship with God. Jeremiah had holy tenacity because he was so close to God that his life reflected God’s character. I should have known that holy tenacity wouldn’t come easily or instantly.

After all my reflection I have come to the conclusion that just like Jeremiah I, and you too, will only develop this holy tenacity which is so vital to our callings by spending time with and listening to the God who is tenacious in his love and mission to all of humanity and to us as individuals. Jeremiah says that during the 23 years he ministered persistently, the word of the Lord came to him. In other words, he persistently spent time in God’s presence, listening to God’s Word. I can draw only one conclusion: a lifetime of holy tenacity ministering for God will take a lifetime of holy tenacity being with and listening to God.

Read more from James here.

Christian Community: Why I Can’t Give Up on Church

There are certain parts of Christianity where I find it difficult to bring my head and heart into agreement. There are some things that I know I should believe with my head, but I struggle because I don’t experience them in my heart. What I am trying to describe is the gap that exists sometimes between my theology and my experience.

If I am honest, the biggest gap that exists for me between my head and heart, theology and experience, relates to the church. I was taken to church from when I was a few weeks old and apart from a couple of teenage years have attended all my life and attended lots of churches of different “flavors” – Pentecostal, Presbyterian, Baptist and Wesleyan. I have served in the Church of the Nazarene as a lay leader, a pastor and denominational leader for 24 years. (I ain’t no bunny Christian, who hops from church to church.) My experience of church has been wide and deep. For academic work I have read widely and thought deeply about the church.

The result is that I am convinced now more than ever about the importance of the church, of Christian community and its aberration: privatized and individualized Christianity (which is in fact no Christianity). The scriptures are clear: God exists in a communal way; the Trinity is a loving “commune.” When God created humanity in his image, it was created in and for community. In biblical terms, to be human is to be connected to others in authentic loving relationships that echo the Trinity.

The stories of Abraham, Moses, David and the others are not stories about individual heroes of the faith but the story of God’s love, grace and power in creating a community, a people through which he could restore his intention for creation. Jesus came to create a new people, a Kingdom people; he died not so much for individuals as for “all.” Pentecost wasn’t about people having individual spiritual experience, it was God keeping his promise to pour out his Spirit on all people. It was a community that was baptized with the Spirit and it was a community that was commissioned and empowered as a result. The whole point of Jesus’ statement about there being “many mansions” in his Father’s house has been totally misunderstood. It should be translated “rooms.” The point is not that in heaven we all live the life of the rich and famous, but that there is enough room for everyone; heaven – the Kingdom of God – is a communal experience. The New Testament ends on the note that Jesus is coming back for his people.

I really believe in the importance of the church. I am convinced that there can be no spiritual maturity out with it. I believe the church is indispensable to every believer and every believer is indispensable to the church. I believe that the church is a God-created, God-directed and God-empowered revolution of love before which the gates of hell cannot stand. I believe that the church has the power to change and transform us so that collectively we grow to be more like Christ. I believe that as we look at the problems of the world – violence, poverty, hunger, injustice and meaninglessness – that the Church in the power of the Spirit could help change the world.

I believe all of that. My problem is that I so rarely experience it. My experience of church has all too often been one of pettiness and politics. Pettiness can be found in making small issues hugely important and what should be big issues unimportant. I have encountered people in church leadership with strong opinions about architecture, about singing from hymn books, about whether you wear a tie at worship, about sitting in pews rather than seats. The point is that the Bible is absolutely silent on all of those matters. Yet all too often those selfsame people were not involved in any sort of authentic fellowship, ministry or mission and were rarely if ever seen praying, things which seem fairly important to God. In all honesty I was involved in a church where changing the color of the carpet in the ladies’ loo stirred up more passion than God’s call for the church to change the world. I hate the pettiness of the Church; why can’t we make what is important to God important to the Church?

And the politics, the power plays, and even the bullying. I know personally of a church where a woman with dementia who was house-bound was brought to the annual general meeting of the church to make sure that her vote was made to ensure the family’s seat on the church board remained in their hands. Why does the Church have to be more like a human-controlled political institution than like a God-inspired radical revolution so much of the time?

I really understand why people leave the church but still believe in Jesus. I have experienced the same temptation. But I have always resisted the temptation to abandon the church as a hopeless cause for a couple of reasons.

Here’s why.

I know that Scripture says that Jesus loved the church and gave himself for her. If Jesus can accept the pain of the cross because of his love for the church, I think I can work on liking it a bit more and enduring the times of frustration.

I have read enough of the New Testament and church history to know that there was no real golden era when the church was consistently all it should be and could be. The Corinthians were immoral and cliquish, the Galatians were legalistic, the Ephesians were devoid of passion, and the Laodicians were so spiritually apathetic and ineffectual they made God nauseous. Augustine’s church had other believers persecuted, the Catholics thought up the Spanish Inquisition, Luther encouraged anti-Semitism in his part of the church and Calvin, far from loving his enemies, had one burnt alive for disagreeing with the theology of his church. I could go on and on. We are worse than some eras in church history and not as bad as others. But if believers in those eras could stick with the church, then so can I. I sometimes feel like someone holding on to a cliff by the tips of my fingers, but if others could hold, so can I.

I also stay with the church because I have had glimpses of what the church can be. Glimpses of what God intends it to be. I have seen glimpses in church history, as the early church spread around the Roman Empire by the power of love. I have seen glimpses in the Methodists as they transformed a nation on the brink of violent revolution. I have seen glimpses in Anglicans who fought the vested interests of the rich and powerful and so killed Atlantic slavery. I have seen glimpses in the German confessing church that refused to bow to Hitler when everyone else did, even when it cost them everything. I have seen glimpses in contemporary churches in my country and around the world which are being transformed by the love of God and helping bring the Kingdom of God in here and now. I can’t give up on the Church because I have had glimpses.

Lastly, I can’t give up on the Church because I looked in the mirror this morning and saw that I am not perfect either, yet despite all my imperfections (of which there are many), my parents, wife, children, friends, and my church haven’t given up on me.

What about you?

Have you given up on the church?

Why?

Have you had “glimpses” of what the church can be?

What were they?

Photo by Hans-Peter Gauster on Unsplash

James Petticrew ~ Passion for Pentecost

On Sunday June 4th the Church of the Nazarene British Isles North District met at three locations across the U.K. to conclude its participation in “Thy Kingdom Come” and to celebrate Pentecost together. Rev. James Petticrew preached this sermon in Perth, Scotland as a part of that. Follow this link for more of Rev. Petticrew’s contributions to Wesleyan Accent.

James Petticrew ~ Kodak, Hirsch, and the Future of the Church

Over a shop on the little island of Gozo in the Mediterranean where we often go on holiday is a faded yellow sign which is a monument to one of the biggest and most unexpected bankruptcies in recent corporate history. It reads KODAK. Kodak, remember them? Up until the end of the last century most of us would have owned a Kodak camera at some time in our lives and probably, whatever camera we had ,the likelihood is that it would have Kodak film inside and would be printed onto Kodak photographic paper. Kodak was a corporate giant that dominated its industry. Now just about all that remains are faded signs in out of the way places. So what went wrong?

Futurist Dr. Bob Goldman describes the demise of Kodak like this ….

In 1998, Kodak had 170,000 employees and sold 85% of all photo paper worldwide. Within just a few years, their business model disappeared and they went bankrupt. What happened to Kodak will happen in a lot of industries in the next 10 years – and most people don’t see it coming. Did you think in 1998 that three years later you would never take pictures on paper film again? Yet digital cameras were invented in 1975. The first ones only had 10,000 pixels, but followed Moore’s law. So as with all exponential technologies, it was a disappointment for a long time, before it became way superior and got mainstream in only a few short years.

The demise of Kodak, when you think about it, happened because its leadership kept carrying out its mission in the ways that had been successful in the past and realized too late that digital photography was going to take over the market and their film and photographic paper was appealing to an ever-shrinking section of the population, those really serious photographers who wanted the look it created and those older people who didn’t want the newfangled digital stuff and would stick to the their box brownie.

I remember at least 10 years ago Alan Hirsch passionately warning church leaders, as he still does, that they were making the same mistake as the directors of Kodak. What I mean by that is they were persevering with a form of mission which, whilst it had been successful in the past, was destined to appeal to an ever-shrinking section of the population. Here’s how I think the Kodak catastrophe is being played out in the church in the West right now.

Basically, the church in “Christendom mode,” the church that had operated in a culture which had some sort of Christian “home field advantage” carried out its mission predominately by reaching out to the so-called “fringe” around the congregation. As a newly minted pastor in the 1990s I followed my training and the advice I got from church growth books of the time and made my prime focus in mission those who came for my church for “hatches, matches and dispatches” – people who approached us for religious “services” and so were at least open to coming to church.

Around the turn of the century I attended a Purpose Driven Church conference in sunny California and was urged by Rick Warren to focus my efforts in evangelism on moving people from the crowd (the fringe) into the congregation. That strategy worked in the U.S. and to an extent in the UK; the problem is that its success was like the corporate success in 1998 for the Kodak corporation: it hid the upcoming technological tsunami that would all but wipe out Kodak’s business model.

If you Google (who uses Yellow Pages these days? It was another company that didn’t see the technology tsunami coming) “civil celebrants” you’ll see numerous people offering to do secular versions of “hatches, matches and dispatches.” Ask any undertaker and they will tell you that the number of humanistic funerals are surpassing the number of religious funerals. This year in Scotland more people have been married in places as diverse as hotels and on the top of mountains than church buildings. As for “christenings,” for those who aren’t church members they are now rarer than a Scotland appearance in international football competition.

The problem as I see it is that in the face of this cultural tsunami, which is often described as “post-Christendom,” most church leaders are still acting like the directors of Kodak at the end of the 20th century. Fundamentally most established churches I know of are still committed to mission in the way that has been successful in the past, attracting the fringe of the church to attend events in the church building. The church now, like Kodak should have done over a decade ago, needs to face up to the fact we live in a changed and changing world. The stark truth is that the number of people seeking religious services from the church is becoming on a par with those who still prefer to use film and photographic paper rather than digital cameras on smart phones, that is, shrinking and probably soon all but gone.

The implications of this is that in the UK there are too many churches fishing in the shrinking pond of people who are still open to be attracted to church for that form of mission to be effective. The result is that congregations are having to become more and more competitive in attracting the diminishing number of people who are open to being attracted to church. I suspect this is why were are seeing growing numbers of “larger churches” if not megachurches in cities in the UK. It may also explain the success of the so called “megachurch franchises” like Hillsong and Saddleback which have sprung up and grown rapidly in London and other major European cities in the last decade. With the high profile, huge resources and training of their parent congregations these “franchises” can put on a better show than local smaller congregations and so are more successful at attracting those open to coming along to church. It seems to me evangelical churches in the UK are becoming increasingly like the fishermen of the North Sea: we are overfishing a diminishing stock, not of haddock, but of church fringe people, and the foreign megachurches and their clones are like the huge foreign factory trawlers; they fish more effectively and so will ultimately diminish the stock more quickly.

I had a conversation with the representative of a UK mission organization recently and he talked about how they were helping churches be more missional. When I questioned him further it was pretty clear what he meant by that was helping churches attract more people to their fringe who would eventually start attending church and hopefully eventually come to faith. To him “missional” meant being more committed to evangelism, being better at attracting unchurched people to church events, and of course we have just described the problem with that.

I doubt there is a more used and less understood word in the contemporary church than “missional.” Missional is not about being better at being Kodak in a digital photograph world. I don’t think anyone has done more to help the church understand what “being missional” is all about and is currently more frustrated by how the word is being used than Mike Frost. He writes in his book The Road to Missional:

My call and the call of many other missional thinkers and practitioners was not for a new way of doing church or a new technique for church growth. I thought I was calling the church to a revolution, to a whole new way of thinking and seeing and being followers of Jesus today. I now find myself in a place where I fear those robust and excited calls for a radical transformation of our ecclesiology have largely fallen on deaf ears. (p 16)

Mike Frost hits the nail bang on the head. Missional is not about new ways of doing church, better techniques for attracting those open to coming to church to actually walk through the church doors – it’s about a fundamentally different way of being church in a culture. I was walking around Motherwell recently, a bit of a down-in-the-heels Scottish town, when I saw a church building boarded up and decaying.

It reminded me of that Kodak sign in Gozo.

My prayer is that the current generation of church leaders would avoid the mistakes of the Kodak directors. That they would recognize that commitment to past successful methods in evangelism may be the biggest danger to effective contemporary mission and instead explore with the Spirit’s guidance what it means to be God’s people shaped by God’s mission in our world today.

James Petticrew ~ Money, Money, Money

I can remember in Bible college getting a book about pastoral ministry which had a chapter entitled, “The Oh So Delicate Subject.” I turned to the chapter assuming it would contain some wisdom on preaching about sex, to find it was actually a chapter about money and asking for money for church. After many years of preaching I think that book was right; I can’t think of a more delicate and difficult subject to preach about than money – especially asking for money.

The difficulty surrounding talking about and asking for money in church probably stems from a couple of factors. Firstly, there are cultural factors at work. In our culture money, how much you have and how you use it are profoundly private matters and talking and asking about them feels like we are invading people’s privacy. Talking about money in the UK makes both the preacher and those listening feel very uncomfortable, so we tend to avoid the subject.

I think the other reason we tend to avoid talking about and asking for money is because we want to avoid guilt by association. We all know the scandals surrounding television evangelists and we recoil when we hear them greedily trying to fleece gullible people in Jesus’ name to fund their luxury lifestyles. In our determination to distance ourselves from these church charlatans all too often we avoid the subject of money at all. So in our attempt not to be seen as greedy money grabbers we end up being silent about money. The problem with our silence on money is that according to Scripture, money and our attitude to it is one of the most important indicators of the condition of people’s hearts. The danger of our silence is that if we ignore the subject of money, both the mission of the Kingdom of God and the spirituality of God’s people will ultimately be impoverished.

Over the decades that I have been a preacher, I have struggled with the subject about how to talk about and ask for money with integrity but clarity. Recently I found a little gem of a book by Catholic theologian and spiritual writer Henri Nouwen called The Spirituality Of Fundraising. It’s only 64 pages long, but this book has given me a better perspective on this subject than anything else I have read. I thought I’d share some quotes from Nouwen’s book to give you an insight into where he is coming from but mostly to encourage you to get a copy for yourself. If you are a preacher or involved in fundraising for the church or missions, you should have this book in your library. Nouwen’s book isn’t a “how to” book but rather a “why” book. It won’t give you strategies when it comes to fundraising and challenging people to give sacrificially, but it will show why you should and will give you more confidence to do so.

So here are some nuggets of inspiration from Nouwen:

“Fundraising is a very rich and beautiful activity. It is a confident, joyful and hope-filled expression of ministry. In ministering to each other, each from the riches that he or she possesses, we work together for the full coming of God’s Kingdom.”

“Fundraising is proclaiming what we believe in such a way that we offer other people an opportunity to participate with us in our vision and mission.”

“We will never be able to ask for money if we do not know how we ourselves relate to money. What is the place of money in our lives?”

“Are we willing to be converted from our fear of asking, our anxiety about being rejected or feeling humiliated, our depression when someone says, ‘No, I’m not going to get involved in your project’?”

“The Spirit of love says: ‘Don’t be afraid to let go of your need to control your own life. Let me fulfill the true desire of your heart.’”

“Fundraising is also always a call conversion. And this comes to both those who seek funds and those who have funds. Whether we are asking for money or giving money we are drawn together by God, who is about to do a new thing through our collaboration.”

“We must claim the confidence to go to a wealthy person knowing that he or she is just as poor and in need of love as we are.”

“I ask for money standing up, not bowing down because I believe in what I am about. I believe I have something important to offer.”

“We do not need to worry about the money. Rather, we need to worry about whether, through the invitation we offer them (the donor) and the relationship we develop with them, they will come closer to God.”

“When we give ourselves to planting and nurturing love here on earth, our efforts will reach beyond our own chronological existence.”

James Petticrew ~ Don’t Say It Unless You Mean It

“Your kingdom come, Your will be done on earth, as it is in heaven.” I have uttered those words probably hundreds of thousands of times. But a question has been nagging my mind recently about them. This is it: what do we actually mean when we pray those words?

I don’t know of a better explanation of the implications of praying for God’s Kingdom to become a reality in the world around us than how Chris Wright describes it in his book The Mission of God:

The reign of YHWH, when it would finally come, would mean justice for the oppressed and the overthrow of the wicked. It would bring true peace to the nations and the abolition of war, the means of war and training for war. It would put an end to poverty, war and need, and provide everyone with economic viability (under the metaphor “under his own vine and fig tree”). It would mean satisfying and fulfilling life for human families, safety for children, and fulfilment for the elderly, without danger for enemies and all of this within a renewed creation free from harm and threat. It would mean the inversion of the moral values that dominate the current world order, for in the kingdom of God the upside-down priorities of the Beatitudes operate and the Magnificat is not just wishful thinking. (p. 309)

So when we dare to pray those words as a believing community or as an individual believer we are asking for this God-intended future to invade our world here and now through us. We are asking God to use our individual lives and our communal life as the raw materials from which to create in our contemporary culture a multi-media demonstration of his alternative and inevitable future for humanity and creation, that is, his Kingdom. Praying those few simple words should mean that our contemporaries look at our lives and our communities as God’s people and they should see the values of God’s kingdom described by Chris Wright embodied and expressed in who we are and what we do. That makes these famous words not just a prayer of aspiration for God’s Kingdom but one of commitment to God’s mission in this world of seeing his Kingdom grow.

Michael Frost puts it like this in The Road to Missional:

If mission is alerting people to the reign of God in Christ, our mandate is to do whatever is required in the circumstances to both demonstrate and announce this Kingship. We feed the hungry because in the world to come there will be no such thing as starvation. We share Christ because in the world to come there will be no such thing as unbelief. Both are the fashioning of foretastes of that world to come, none more or less important than the other. (p.28)

I love that concept, that whenever we pray, “your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven,” we are committing ourselves as Christ followers and churches to fashioning foretastes of the world to come in the here and now. Whenever we obey Jesus and those words pass our lips in prayer, amongst other things we are committing ourselves to being violence-rejecting, peace-promoting, justice-advocating poverty-alleviators, faith-creating evangelists and social action radicals who make war not on other human beings but on illness, hunger, and meaninglessness.

When I think about all of that and praying those words that Jesus taught I am intimidated and inspired in just about equal measure. One thing I know for sure: I better not pray those words if I don’t mean them.

James Petticrew ~ The 7 Works of Corporal Mercy (or How Jesus Evaluates the Ministry of His Church)

“When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, he will sit on his glorious throne. All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate the people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. He will put the sheep on his right and the goats on his left. “Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’ “Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?’ “The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’ “Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me.’ “They also will answer, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing clothes or sick or in prison, and did not help you?’ “He will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.’ “Then they will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life.” – Matthew 25:31-46 (NIV)

I came across a picture doing some research into the church and healthcare. It illustrates what was known in the Medieval church and the Roman Catholic church today as the “Seven Works of Corporal Mercy.” At first sight I thought it was referring to the responsibilities of junior NCOs in the Army, but “corporal” here refers to “bodily or physical,” not a junior rank in the armed forces. Based on Jesus’ parable of the sheep and goats, the “Seven Works of Corporal Mercy” outlined the different dimensions of the Church’s and individual disciple’s responsibility to take care of other’s physical and practical needs – what we might call today, “social action” or “compassionate ministries.” Here they are in outline form:

To feed the hungry
To give drink to the thirsty
To clothe the naked
To shelter the homeless
To care for the sick
To visit the imprisoned
To bury the dead

The more I read those words and reflected on Jesus’ teaching in Matthew 25 the more it struck me that the Seven Works of Corporal Mercy are not an anachronistic relic of the Medieval church but constitute a very effective evaluation tool for the contemporary church.

Let me ask you a question: if you are a church leader, how many of the programs or ministries of your church could you as note down beside one of the Seven Works as fulfilling and meeting that physical need in your community or in the wider world?

Let me ask you another: are there any gaps? Is the truth that your church doesn’t do anything at all to meet the physical needs described in one of those seven categories?

The reason I asked you those questions is that it appears from Matthew 25 that those are exactly the kind of questions that Jesus himself will one day ask you about your church’s ministry. Matthew 25 is a hugely controversial and confusing passage but there are a couple of things we can say for definite. Namely, that it’s incredibly important to Jesus that his people are involved in meeting the physical needs of those around them and there will be serious consequences for those who resist doing so or are too apathetic to get their hands dirty with the real physical and practical needs of the world around them. I think we can safely say that a church that simply meets in a building for worship and isn’t involved in the real needs that exist around it is in for a rough time from Jesus on judgment day.

Annually most church leaders get some sort of evaluation form from their denomination which basically boils down to “bums and bucks,” how many people come to services and how much money did they give to the church? Well here in Matthew 25 and through the Seven Works Of Corporal Mercy we are confronted by Jesus with a very different set of criteria through which to evaluate the ministry of our congregations.

So is your church more of “Sheep Church” or a “Goat Church” ?

Featured image courtesy Polly Vn for Creation Swap.

James Petticrew ~ Ordinary Radicals

The New Testament has an extraordinary calling for ordinary people to live a radical lifestyle, a lifestyle that reflects the character of our God in cultures that have rejected God. Scripture uses one word to sum up this radical lifestyle: holiness. Peter in just a couple of verses gives us perhaps the best concise summary of what holiness is all about.

Therefore, with minds that are alert and fully sober, set your hope on the grace to be brought to you when Jesus Christ is revealed at his coming. As obedient children, do not conform to the evil desires you had when you lived in ignorance. But just as he who called you is holy, so be holy in all you do; for it is written: ‘Be holy, because I am holy.’ 1 Peter 1:13-16 New International Version – UK (NIVUK)

So what does Peter tell us about holiness that we need to know?

HOLINESS IS A LIFESTYLE

“So be holy in all you do.”

Holiness is not just a status. When we become disciples we are not simply made holy in God’s sight because of what Jesus has done for us but remain unchanged as people. Neither is holiness just about how well or often we do “Christian” things like going to church, praying, etc. Peter says we are called to be holy in all we do. So holiness is expressed in our behaviour in every part of our everyday lives, holiness is about a entire lifestyle – not an occasional hobby.

A LIFESTYLE SHAPED BY GOD

“But just as he who called you is holy, so be holy in all you do; for it is written: ‘Be holy, because I am holy.'”

God is holy, when we come into a relationship with him his great plan for our lives is to enable us to become like him; and as holy is a one-word summary of God’s essence it’s also a summary of what we are called to become. Our Holy God gives us the Holy Spirit so that our lives and congregations can increasingly be holy as he is holy. God wants to enable us to increasingly reflect his character through our lives.

A LIFESTYLE FOR ALL BELIEVERS

“He who called you is holy.”

I have checked, there are no exemption or get-out clauses: everyone in a relationship with our Holy God is called to be holy. An “unholy Christian” should be as much an oxymoron to our ears as “dry water.” To resist and be uncommitted to allowing God to make us holy and to live as holy people is to defy and disobey God, not to mention grieve him deeply.

A LIFESTYLE THAT IS RADICALLY DIFFERENT

“As obedient children, do not conform to the evil desires you had when you lived in ignorance.”

Holiness, because it’s a lifestyle shaped not by the culture we are surrounded by but by a Holy God, is a radically different lifestyle. When we are empowered and guided by the Holy Spirt to live lives that reflect God’s holiness our lives will often be in marked contrast to the way we used to live and how most people in our culture live. This radical contrast is not just about what we don’t do, but more fundamentally about what we do.

Holiness at times in church history has been preached in a way that it makes it sound like God is teasing us. The message has been God calls us to be holy but actually, this side of heaven, we can’t really be holy in any meaningful or significant way.

But what if God means what he says? What if God not only calls us to be holy but will enable us to be holy? That would mean that people like us could become ordinary radicals, ordinary people who live radically different lifestyles that are shaped by and reflect our God’s character in powerful and attractive ways.

Rev. James Petticrew blogs at abrahamsfootsteps.wordpress.com.

James Petticrew ~ Holy Tenacity

I have been reading Jeremiah over the past couple of weeks – not an easy read in many ways – but certainly for me a thought-provoking one. Something struck me while reading: the recurrence of a word which also reminded me of a chapter in a book by Eugene Peterson. After a great deal of rooting around in boxes in the garage, I found Eugene Peterson’s little book of reflections on Jeremiah called The Quest for Life at Its Best. In this wonderful wee tome Peterson talks about this word which had struck me so forcefully. It’s the word persistently.

With those words Jeremiah describes his ministry as a prophet to the people of God. It’s been 23 years ….“persistently.”

Peterson defines it as the ability to return to our God-given calling “relentlessly, imaginatively, curiously, for a life time. To never give up and go on to something else; never get distracted and be diverted into something else.” I have to be honest and say holy tenacity doesn’t come easy to me. I belong to the Pot Noodle* generation, where we expect instant results. The stories we tend to celebrate in church life are the leaders and churches who achieve success quickly – 500 new people in five years impresses us. It probably should too. We should celebrate God’s blessings. However, we seldom celebrate those who minister “twenty three years…persistently,” who, like Jeremiah, approach what God has called them to do with a holy tenacity over an extended period.

A read-through of the book of Jeremiah soon reveals the source of Jeremiah’s holy tenacity. Just look at these verses.

Jeremiah 7:13: “And now, because you have done all these things, declares the LORD, and when I spoke to you persistently you did not listen, and when I called you, you did not answer…”

Jeremiah 7:25: “From the day that your fathers came out of the land of Egypt to this day, I have persistently sent all my servants the prophets to them, day after day.”

Jeremiah 29:19: “Because they did not pay attention to my words, declares the LORD, that I persistently sent to you by my servants the prophets, but you would not listen, declares the LORD.”

Jeremiah 11:7: “For I solemnly warned your fathers when I brought them up out of the land of Egypt, warning them persistently, even to this day, saying, Obey my voice.”

Jeremiah 32:33: “They have turned to me their back and not their face. And though I have taught them persistently, they have not listened to receive instruction.”

Jeremiah 35:15: “I have sent to you all my servants the prophets, sending them persistently, saying, ‘Turn now every one of you from his evil way, and amend your deeds.'”

Jeremiah 44:4: “Yet I persistently sent to you all my servants the prophets, saying, ‘Oh, do not do this abomination that I hate!'”

*Great Brit equivalent to Cup o’ Noodles or Ramen.

James Petticrew ~ There Are No Write Off’s with God

As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins, in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient. All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our flesh and following its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were by nature deserving of wrath. But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved. And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus. For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—not by works, so that no one can boast. For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.

I have some big theological books, huge tomes. In these books when the writers want to describe God they tend to use big words, words like “omnipresent” and “omniscient.”

I wonder if you have noticed that in contrast when the Bible wants us to understand what God is really like, it doesn’t use big hard-to-pronounce words more often than not; rather than using words to describe God, it uses pictures.

Perhaps the most famous one is when we are asked to picture God as a shepherd. But we are also asked to picture God as a loving Father and as a skillful potter. These images help us understand God better. When we think of God as Shepherd we see that he is committed to caring, protecting, providing and guiding us.

I wonder if you had to come up with a picture of someone or something to help other people understand God better, what would that picture be?

For me it would be Bill.

I think God is like Bill.

Now I need to explain to you that Bill was a retired neighbor who lived across the road from us in Colinton.

Most days when I was sitting at my desk in our front room I could see Bill working away in his garage.

Bill and I had one thing in common, we both love motorbikes, but different kinds of bikes. To be honest I love shiny modern Italian super bikes; Bill had a different taste. He told me that he was looking for a new bike and then eventually he asked me to come over so he could show me his new bike.

Actually what he showed me was a rusty frame and about five boxes of oily and rusty “bits.”

You see Bill is a classic bike restorer. He doesn’t really care for my newish shiny working motorbikes.

Bills great passion is to take something that’s

broken,

ugly,

dilapidated

and restore it to its original condition.

He wants to take something that other people look at as rubbish and restore it till it’s just as the designer intended it to be.

He has some shining examples of old British bikes he has already restored in his garage. Right now he is working on his new project with great purpose and he will keep doing that for the weeks, months and even years until he has fully restored it.

He cleans,

shapes,

polishes,

recoats,

paints,

refits and

remodels day after day, knowing that despite all the difficulties of finding and creating parts, of making parts fit together again and making old seized parts work that he will eventually restore this bike to the masterpiece its designer meant it to be.

For Bill it’s not buying the best bike he can that gives him pleasure, it’s the challenge and joy of restoration.

I know Bill isn’t a Christ follower but watching him work away on his restoration project he reminds me of God. This connection between God and Bill came to me recently as I read these words from Paul right at the end of that passage we read.

For we are God’s masterpiece. He has created us anew in Christ Jesus, so we can do the good things he planned for us long ago – Ephesians 2:10

The Apostle Paul would never have seen a 1950 BSA Gold Flash, but he thinks of God like Bill. Paul is saying here that God is a great restorer, not of old motorbikes but of broken human lives.

He says that “in Christ,” through what Christ has done for us in his life, death and resurrection, through his empowering Spirit and inspiring example and our relationship with Christ, God is recreating, restoring us to what he originally intended us to be. The Greek word that Paul uses literally means a “masterpiece.”

Now that’s incredible isn’t it? Just think about it for a moment

The moment we are “in Christ”, the moment we come into a real living, relationship with God through Jesus Christ, God gets to work to recreate us as a masterpiece of humanity.

I want you to remember this: God wants to get to work in your life so that when people get to know you they will say what a masterpiece of humanity, not it terms of your figure, or your shape or even your IQ but in terms of your character, your attitudes, your actions, the way you treat other people.

This whole passage in Ephesian 2 is about salvation, how we become a Christian and what it means to be a Christian.

After explaining why we need to be saved and how God has saved us through what he has done for us, not what we do for him, here right at the end of this explanation of salvation Paul says it is about so much more than just avoiding eternal punishment and going to heaven.

Salvation is about so much more than having your sins forgiven and a place in heaven.

Salvation is the short hand word the bible uses to describe God’s restoration work in humanity, restoring his Image in us. Making us more like the human beings he always intended us to be, more like Jesus.

I want us to unpack the implications of what Paul says here for how we understand our lives.

YOUR LIFE HAS POTENTIAL.

God is not like my insurance company. My insurance company decided my bike wasn’t worth the expense and bother of being restoring.

There are no write-off’s with God ….only restorations. God never writes anyone off.

Sometimes other people write us off. Sometimes we write ourselves off – but God never writes a life off. He always sees the potential in a human life handed over to him to be a masterpiece.

I have to be honest, I would never have bought that pile of parts that Bill did. When he first showed me them I couldn’t see how they could be restored into a working motorbike. The pile of parts looked beyond repair and restoration to me. But Bill, is a master restorer and he saw the potential in those rusty, oily bits of metal.

Thinking about it I am pretty sure that my life looks as unpromising a restoration project to the angels as Bill’s boxes full of old broken bits looked to me but like Bill, God relishes the work of restoration however unpromising the raw materials.

I suspect there might be some people who can’t see any potential in their own lives. When you think about your life you look at it like I looked at Bill’s box of broken bits.

You can’t see any potential. You can’t see how your life can be put back together again. Maybe you have tried yourself and failed time and time again.

If you feel like that I want to tell you one of the implications of what the Bible is telling us in this verse.

Whenever you enter into a living, vibrant relationship with Christ, when you are “in Christ” as Paul describes it, your past failures, your present faults in life don’t determine the future potential of your life.

The restoration project that is taking place across the road from me is happening not because of the state of the parts but the skill of Bill as a restorer.

It’s exactly the same with God, it doesn’t matter how broken your life is, how ruined it feels, what state parts of it are in, what’s important in this human restoration projection is the skill of God as a restorer not how promising or unpromising our lives are.

WHEN YOU THINK ABOUT IT, THIS IS THE OPPOSITE OF WHAT WE ARE TAUGHT IN OUR CULTURE.

In our culture we have songs like “search for the hero inside yourself.” The books in the self-help sections of book shops have the same message. The message is that the solution to our problems comes from inside us, it’s saying that we have the resources to change our life. The message is try harder, think differently.

The Christian message is different, it encourages us to look outside of ourselves for the power to change. It says come into a living relationship with God and rely on him to restore you.

You see as Christians we don’t believe in self-improvement but in God-empowered transformation. I can see Bill’s masterpieces of restoration in his garage and I see God’s masterpieces of restoration around me among his people. You can see them too, just look around and you here and you’ll see them.

SOME OF YOU – look in the mirror! YOUR LIFE HAS PURPOSE.

I live in Edinburgh, and Edinburgh is full of masterpieces, paintings and sculptures but they all just hang there or sit there in art galleries and museums.

The sad thing about Bill my neighbor’s restoration projects is that they sit idly in his garage. He’s too old to ride them now. They go to the occasional classic bike show to be admired but they aren’t ridden. They aren’t used. They don’t do anything useful.

Paul tell us its very different with God, he isn’t interested in restoring us to display us as museum pieces. He doesn’t start this great restoration project just to make us fit for heaven in the future either.

Here is the second implication I want to draw out of what God is saying in his Word here for us. God restores us so he can involve us. So not only does your life has potential it also has purpose.

When we come into a living relationship with Jesus our life doesn’t just have potential, salvation isn’t just about God restoring his Image in us and making us a masterpiece.God also has a purpose for us, “so we can do the good things he planned for us long ago.”

Paul says in essence here in verse 10, God’s doesn’t just want to make a difference in your life, he wants to make a difference through your life. God’s Word says there are good works which God has prepared for you to do.

What are good works? Good in the Bible is a word connected to God’s character. So “good” is anything that embodies or expresses the character of God. Good works are things we do that express God’s character to others

when we care for someone

when we meet a practical need

when we bring peace or reconciliation or justice

when we treat someone with compassion

when we help someone to experience god’s practical love.

Some of you may know that the Church of the Nazarene looks back to John Wesley as our sort of spiritual inspiration and Wesley had something great to say about this.

He said

“Do all the good you can,

By all the means you can,

In all the ways you can,

In all the places you can,

At all the times you can,

To all the people you can,

As long as ever you can.”

If you are “in Christ,” if you have entered into a living relationship with Jesus, your mission, should you choose to accept it is to

“Do all the good you can,

By all the means you can,

In all the ways you can,

In all the places you can,

At all the times you can,

To all the people you can,

As long as ever you can.”

God promises right here in this verse that he is at work in the world, and he is at work orchestrating opportunities for you to do good to others. We hear a lot about living our dreams Well here God is asking us to live for something bigger than our dream, to live for, to be involved in his dream for this world.

Our transformation is one small part of what God is doing in this world and he wants us to be involved in this great project of transformation for the whole of creation.

“PREPARED GOOD WORKS FOR YOU TO DO.”

Have a close look, are there any exemptions there? Any small print saying that it doesn’t apply to you? No, God wants to use everyone of us to start a viral movement of goodness, a movement of people committed to making the use of every opportunity to make God tangible to others by doing good to them.

This week he has opportunities ready for you, in your family, in your street, in your community, work place, school, university, gym, sports team, to do good.

Gerard Kelly comments on this thought that, “the message of the New Testament is an invitation not only to forgiveness and reconciliation, but to purpose and meaning: to usefulness; to beauty. It’s an offer of restoration: an invitation to become a human being who shines like the first day out of the factory.”

That’s an offer I want to take up, how about you?