We had our last Alpha course meeting last night. This is the first time we have run Alpha at Brixworth Christian Fellowship, & it appears to have been successful. Last night’s session was about church: what it is, what it is not & the benefits of attending. During the discussion after Nicky Gumbel’s DVD presentation one of the participants made a very interesting observation. She said that years ago vicars & pastors used to visit members of their congregations regularly, to see who they were doing, to offer prayer & support. Then this lady observed that this seems to go on less & less now.
I’ve been thinking about that today: the apparent decline in pastoral visitation. It may be that some church leaders still regularly visit their congregations, to “touch base” with them & shepherd them. But it seems to me that many pastors don’t seem to have time for this activity today. They are probably busy with sermon preparation, being on various committee’s & serving in a whole variety of very valuable ways...
... but...
... One of THE most important ways to really show that you care & love people is to make the time to go round to their house & be with them. “Love” is actually spelt T-I-M-E. The offer of irreplaceable life-time to someone in need does not go unnoticed. Nor does the LACK of that offer, if you think about it.
One of the terrible symptoms of today’s world & western society is busyness. We all complain about not having sufficient time to do the things we want to do. The church (by that I mean the people who ARE the church, not the building) also suffers from overload in this way. Our vicars, pastors & pastoral care teams also suffer from overload & terribly busy schedules. So visiting people may seem rather a waste of time, especially when we are so apparently accountable for the time we do spend on our jobs...
... but ...
... have we “forgotten” the intangible, hard-to-define benefits to other people of offering our time to them, which is really offering our love to them? Have our vicars, pastors, etc actually become so busy (with undoubtedly good works) that they are now TOO BUSY to go visiting? Add to that the seemingly incalculable but hard-to-see-&-define benefits of regular pastoral visitation, & you can see why it is difficult to justify pastoral visitation; why it is apparently in decline - to the impoverishment of us all.
I’m not “knocking” the great work our church leaders do. There’s is a terribly demanding job - I couldn’t do it, that’s for sure! But I think the benefits of regular pastoral visitation is being grossly overlooked by our “professional” Christian leaders.
Benefits of visiting the flock.
In the past, vicars went to meet their congregations regularly, hence the “more tea, Vicar?” joke! Is it just “wasting time” on drinking endless cups of tea... or is there something far more valuable deep within that seemingly pointless action? Is the REAL BENEFIT of visiting someone rather hidden, rather less-than-obvious, rather hard to define... & so rather easy to overlook, dismiss & avoid in this age of “every second counts”?
In the past the simple reality was that vicars MADE TIME to visit. In this way (as well as in sermons at church) they actually shepherded their flocks - leading them to “good pastures”, providing insights & opinions, support & a “shoulder to cry on” when necessary. It is probably very difficult to “put your finger” on the exact usefulness of a visit. Rather hard to clearly define SMART goals, as our modern business guru’s would insist we have to do in order to justify our time usage! It could be seen as a waste of time, or else as “simply” a visit, with no real benefit to either party...
...but...
...I rather think that there are less-than-obvious benefits (to both the visitee & visitor) that we are too busy to think about or acknowledge. There are probably a whole host of “hidden”, subtle, mysterious benefits both to the person being visited AND to the vicar visiting, if we care to think about it. In fact, there are probably benefits to the wider church congregation &, indeed, to the whole community. Perhaps there is a positive, regulating influence in a vicars visit which we automatically loose by not visiting at all, or else rather infrequently.
Perhaps there is a sense of belonging & community spirit & cohesion which is fostered & enlarged by such visitation? Then there is the sense of friendship, camaraderie & belonging which is fostered & nurtured by visitation. The vicar can leave a home knowing he has made a real, vital difference to a needy person, which helps him/her to feel useful, integral & valued.
When you stop to think about it, I believe there are many benefits to pastoral visitation which we have lost by not involving ourselves in this simple activity.
Perhaps our forefather’s were on to something... & something that we have lost: the art of simply “being there” for others. LOVE is spelt T-I-M-E, after all.
Having something amazing to show a needy world.
I think we have by & large lost that amazing pastoral support due to today’s ultra busy schedules. And the terrible truth of that is that we have thereby lost a AMAZING OPPORTUNITY TO SHOW LOVE IN ACTION. I fear people outside the church are looking in & seeing very littler difference between their lives & our (Christian) lives, even though we are meant to be showing a better way. One of the spectacularly “different” & BETTER WAYS we (the Christian church) CAN be different, is in our response to people’s suffering. Not only the “big” sufferings of bereavement or redundancy, but the “smaller” sufferings of simply living life in the 21st century. Similarly, if pastoral visitation where to be re-kindled, perhaps people outside the church would look in, see a very real, very different & VERY ATTRACTIVE church-based community, & that in itself would be the “difference” we are trying to show them: caring & love-in-action, which is our reflection of Jesus’ love for us.
If our vicars, pastors & leaders could re-find the benefits of the pastoral visit perhaps we really would have SOMETHING AMAZING to show this needy world once more.
Showing posts with label church. Show all posts
Showing posts with label church. Show all posts
Thursday, 21 November 2013
Wednesday, 9 October 2013
Putting a hot casserole into a cold fridge: a metaphor for church culture
I heard an on-line sermon the other day that grabbed my attention. It was from a UCB (United Christian Broadcasters) Leaders Day Conference. The speaker was Philip Jinadu (PJ) - the pastor of several churches in Bristol, UK.
He used 2 metaphors when talking about modern church 1) a fridge & 2) an escalator.
I want to share what Philip Jinadu said about the fridge metaphor...
The fridge metaphor.
I have typed the metaphor below so you can read it. Note: I have put any explanations or extra words of my own in square brackets [ ], or used bold text to draw your attention to certain parts of the quoted PJ video below.
I would also recommend seeing /hearing the whole Conference by watching the video on-line here:
UCB Leaders Day Conference - July 2012 - Philip Jinadu - Vimeo video
[10:35 minutes into the video]
1) Culture for Christians. The Fridge.
“You cook a casserole. You take it hot from the oven. You then put it in the fridge. Imagine what happens as you close the door of the fridge. What will happen to the fridge the moment you put that hot casserole in? In physics terms, for a small amount of time that fridge will get hotter, because you’ve place within that system something which has intrinsic heat. And that casserole will affect everything around it, it will make the fridge a warmer environment, the cold will start to recede, the milk will start to get warmer, the whole fridge will be effected by that casserole, but [only] for a small amount of time. And then what happens is, the fridge kicks in to doing what fridges do. And fridges are there, their built, their only purpose is to make things cold. You can put a casserole in there, & the casserole will make the fridge warmer, but after time the fridge will kick into action & it will make itself cold. Not only that, but the casserole will get cold as well. You put something within a culture that is cold & even if it [the casserole] is piping hot, it will not prevail against that culture that you put it within. The fridge is a system for making things cold.”
[ 12:37 minutes into the video: application of the fridge metaphor to Church life.]
“When we look at evangelism a lot of the time it is like putting a casserole in a fridge. We come up with programmes, we come up with ideas, we have guest speakers, we have celebrities, we have the latest thing, and we introduce it into a [our church] culture. But, you can not fight the culture just by putting something hot into it. And a lot of church leaders approach the whole issue of evangelism, mission & outreach just like putting casseroles in the fridge. And they think, “Well, we introduced this thing; we’ve got this nice evangelistic package; we did this course; everyone is now motivated.” And they put it within the culture of the church. “
[Initially it works, but then it cools down to the prevailing temperature of the church. - MY]
How many of you have experienced this? You have someone come in, you do a course, you got involved in some national initiative, & for a while things seemed to get more exciting; people were feeling it; they were buzzing with it; you saw some stuff happen, but then you feel disillusioned & disenchanted because 6 months later things are as they have always been.
Why?
Because you’ve introduced something into a culture which is not intrinsically in tune with it. And a lot of the response of Christian leaders in churches is to put bigger & bigger casseroles into the fridge. They think, “Well, now I’ve got this huge mega-meal that I can put into the fridge. This is a much hotter, much better meal... it doesn’t work. Why? Because the fridge does what the fridge is designed to do.” [*1]
[14:15 minutes into the video]
“Our job as leaders is to understand the culture that we have. Do we have a prevailing culture within our churches, of mission, outreach & evangelism? Or are we trying to introduce that piecemeal, through programmes & initiatives, without looking at the underlying nature of what we have? My conviction is this: the job of the church leader is to turn the fridge into an oven. To re-engineer it [the fridge] so that the opposite thing works. So that actually, when someone comes into the church who is [spiritually] ‘cold’, they get [spiritually] ‘warmed up’. And that thing isn’t dependent on how ‘hot’ the individual is, they are [instead] brought along & carried along by a [hotter] culture."
[14:57 minutes into the video]
“Culture is a container for behaviour. If you understand what culture is, it’s very, very simple. Culture is that which we cultivate. The Latin word for culture is Cultura [*1], which means the system, the context within which values & behaviours are nurtured & grown. So we get the English word Agriculture from the same root [word] it’s that which produces behaviour in a particular group of individuals.”
[Philip Jinadu then goes on, in the rest of the Vimeo video, to explain the second metaphor, the escalator]
MY Notes
[*1]
PJ’s statement “Because the ‘fridge does what the fridge is DESIGNED to do” could sound like he is suggesting that it is God who is responsible for cooling things down within our churches! I don’t think for a minute that is the case at all, nor do I think PJ is suggesting that. I think PJ is saying that it is us (humans) who have designed the church to operate in the way it does: cooling things down spiritually, rather than heating things up. Let’s face it, when Jesus was here on earth there were plenty of instances when he “heated things up”, with his observations & comments about the religious leaders for instance! So I don’t think that God wants our church culture to be cooling things down at all.
PJ goes on to talk about changing the culture of church into an oven, rather than a fridge, & that possibility would exist only if we had a say in what culture prevails in our churches. PJ explains his view that church culture is a product of the leader(s) of the church, & that it is really them who set the “spiritual temperature”: cooling things down or heating things up.
I don’t think it is right to say that we WANT church culture to be cold, like a fridge, but there does seem to be something true about that metaphor. There could be many reasons why a “cooling down church culture” exists: perhaps it is not that we (Christians) want a “cooling down” church culture, but simply that we have INHERITED one from generations past. Perhaps it is more a reflection of our FEAR of the unknown, or reluctance to try something new. Perhaps it is more prevalent in the UK, & a product of our British reserve?!
I must say, I liked the fridge metaphor in relation to church culture, because it seems to fit with my own experiences. PJ asked the audience if they had ever experienced the fridge metaphor & pretty much everyone had!
I don’t really know the CAUSE of the “cooling down” church culture, I can simply identify that it exists, & that I’ve experienced it. For instance, I got really excited about the Freedom in Christ (FIC) programme of discipleship & tried to introduce it into my own church (Brixworth Christian Fellowship) when I was an elder. Although we ran it in my house group, & it was well received there, it didn’t really “take off” throughout the whole church. This seems to be an example of one persons excitement & enthusiasm for a programme (the “hot casserole” in PJ’s metaphor) encountering the fridge of church culture. The outcome was a cooling down of the excitement & conviction that the FIC programme could have brought & wrought. I hoped that it might bring real, life-long positive improvement in the lives of people within the church. But the cooling culture prevailed, just as PJ predicted. I’m not bitter about this example; I simply use it here to illustrate why I believe the fridge metaphor is pretty accurate about church culture. It isn’t anyone’s fault: there is not the need to blame anyone for the fridge effect. I think it is simply a fact of our human-ness.
The solution to HAVING a fridge church culture seems to be a change in leadership style, or desire, in the first instance. At least that’s what I took from PJ’s Leadership Conference video. If he is correct, in that leaders especially set the expectation level within a church, then that would suggest that our church leaders do have a strong influence on the “spiritual temperature” our churches exhibit. But I think we are probably ALL RESPONSIBLE for the prevailing “spiritual temperature” within our church. If we can accept change, & want improvement; if we are willing to try new things; if we are capable of saying “no” to our fears & anxieties, then maybe we can effectively usher in a new “heating up” or “oven culture”, to replace the current “cooling down” or fridge one.
What do you think?
He used 2 metaphors when talking about modern church 1) a fridge & 2) an escalator.
I want to share what Philip Jinadu said about the fridge metaphor...
The fridge metaphor.
I have typed the metaphor below so you can read it. Note: I have put any explanations or extra words of my own in square brackets [ ], or used bold text to draw your attention to certain parts of the quoted PJ video below.
I would also recommend seeing /hearing the whole Conference by watching the video on-line here:
UCB Leaders Day Conference - July 2012 - Philip Jinadu - Vimeo video
[10:35 minutes into the video]
1) Culture for Christians. The Fridge.
“You cook a casserole. You take it hot from the oven. You then put it in the fridge. Imagine what happens as you close the door of the fridge. What will happen to the fridge the moment you put that hot casserole in? In physics terms, for a small amount of time that fridge will get hotter, because you’ve place within that system something which has intrinsic heat. And that casserole will affect everything around it, it will make the fridge a warmer environment, the cold will start to recede, the milk will start to get warmer, the whole fridge will be effected by that casserole, but [only] for a small amount of time. And then what happens is, the fridge kicks in to doing what fridges do. And fridges are there, their built, their only purpose is to make things cold. You can put a casserole in there, & the casserole will make the fridge warmer, but after time the fridge will kick into action & it will make itself cold. Not only that, but the casserole will get cold as well. You put something within a culture that is cold & even if it [the casserole] is piping hot, it will not prevail against that culture that you put it within. The fridge is a system for making things cold.”
[ 12:37 minutes into the video: application of the fridge metaphor to Church life.]
“When we look at evangelism a lot of the time it is like putting a casserole in a fridge. We come up with programmes, we come up with ideas, we have guest speakers, we have celebrities, we have the latest thing, and we introduce it into a [our church] culture. But, you can not fight the culture just by putting something hot into it. And a lot of church leaders approach the whole issue of evangelism, mission & outreach just like putting casseroles in the fridge. And they think, “Well, we introduced this thing; we’ve got this nice evangelistic package; we did this course; everyone is now motivated.” And they put it within the culture of the church. “
[Initially it works, but then it cools down to the prevailing temperature of the church. - MY]
How many of you have experienced this? You have someone come in, you do a course, you got involved in some national initiative, & for a while things seemed to get more exciting; people were feeling it; they were buzzing with it; you saw some stuff happen, but then you feel disillusioned & disenchanted because 6 months later things are as they have always been.
Why?
Because you’ve introduced something into a culture which is not intrinsically in tune with it. And a lot of the response of Christian leaders in churches is to put bigger & bigger casseroles into the fridge. They think, “Well, now I’ve got this huge mega-meal that I can put into the fridge. This is a much hotter, much better meal... it doesn’t work. Why? Because the fridge does what the fridge is designed to do.” [*1]
[14:15 minutes into the video]
“Our job as leaders is to understand the culture that we have. Do we have a prevailing culture within our churches, of mission, outreach & evangelism? Or are we trying to introduce that piecemeal, through programmes & initiatives, without looking at the underlying nature of what we have? My conviction is this: the job of the church leader is to turn the fridge into an oven. To re-engineer it [the fridge] so that the opposite thing works. So that actually, when someone comes into the church who is [spiritually] ‘cold’, they get [spiritually] ‘warmed up’. And that thing isn’t dependent on how ‘hot’ the individual is, they are [instead] brought along & carried along by a [hotter] culture."
[14:57 minutes into the video]
“Culture is a container for behaviour. If you understand what culture is, it’s very, very simple. Culture is that which we cultivate. The Latin word for culture is Cultura [*1], which means the system, the context within which values & behaviours are nurtured & grown. So we get the English word Agriculture from the same root [word] it’s that which produces behaviour in a particular group of individuals.”
[Philip Jinadu then goes on, in the rest of the Vimeo video, to explain the second metaphor, the escalator]
MY Notes
[*1]
PJ’s statement “Because the ‘fridge does what the fridge is DESIGNED to do” could sound like he is suggesting that it is God who is responsible for cooling things down within our churches! I don’t think for a minute that is the case at all, nor do I think PJ is suggesting that. I think PJ is saying that it is us (humans) who have designed the church to operate in the way it does: cooling things down spiritually, rather than heating things up. Let’s face it, when Jesus was here on earth there were plenty of instances when he “heated things up”, with his observations & comments about the religious leaders for instance! So I don’t think that God wants our church culture to be cooling things down at all.
PJ goes on to talk about changing the culture of church into an oven, rather than a fridge, & that possibility would exist only if we had a say in what culture prevails in our churches. PJ explains his view that church culture is a product of the leader(s) of the church, & that it is really them who set the “spiritual temperature”: cooling things down or heating things up.
I don’t think it is right to say that we WANT church culture to be cold, like a fridge, but there does seem to be something true about that metaphor. There could be many reasons why a “cooling down church culture” exists: perhaps it is not that we (Christians) want a “cooling down” church culture, but simply that we have INHERITED one from generations past. Perhaps it is more a reflection of our FEAR of the unknown, or reluctance to try something new. Perhaps it is more prevalent in the UK, & a product of our British reserve?!
I must say, I liked the fridge metaphor in relation to church culture, because it seems to fit with my own experiences. PJ asked the audience if they had ever experienced the fridge metaphor & pretty much everyone had!
I don’t really know the CAUSE of the “cooling down” church culture, I can simply identify that it exists, & that I’ve experienced it. For instance, I got really excited about the Freedom in Christ (FIC) programme of discipleship & tried to introduce it into my own church (Brixworth Christian Fellowship) when I was an elder. Although we ran it in my house group, & it was well received there, it didn’t really “take off” throughout the whole church. This seems to be an example of one persons excitement & enthusiasm for a programme (the “hot casserole” in PJ’s metaphor) encountering the fridge of church culture. The outcome was a cooling down of the excitement & conviction that the FIC programme could have brought & wrought. I hoped that it might bring real, life-long positive improvement in the lives of people within the church. But the cooling culture prevailed, just as PJ predicted. I’m not bitter about this example; I simply use it here to illustrate why I believe the fridge metaphor is pretty accurate about church culture. It isn’t anyone’s fault: there is not the need to blame anyone for the fridge effect. I think it is simply a fact of our human-ness.
The solution to HAVING a fridge church culture seems to be a change in leadership style, or desire, in the first instance. At least that’s what I took from PJ’s Leadership Conference video. If he is correct, in that leaders especially set the expectation level within a church, then that would suggest that our church leaders do have a strong influence on the “spiritual temperature” our churches exhibit. But I think we are probably ALL RESPONSIBLE for the prevailing “spiritual temperature” within our church. If we can accept change, & want improvement; if we are willing to try new things; if we are capable of saying “no” to our fears & anxieties, then maybe we can effectively usher in a new “heating up” or “oven culture”, to replace the current “cooling down” or fridge one.
What do you think?
Tuesday, 22 January 2013
Little things that stick in our minds
I was reflecting yesterday (as I coloured up Esther 04 - Mordecai requests Esther’s help - Scene 03 - Hathach) on several times when I have been on the receiving end of wonderful deeds or gifts of kindness. Most probably the people who did them for me don’t even know how much they meant at the time, & still do, to me.
One such time was when I was grieving, a few years ago now. I walked in to church but couldn’t see anywhere to sit. A young lady I only knew a little looked back & saw me, & then patted the seat beside her, to indicate that I could go & sit there. Instantly I felt included; I was so grateful for that gesture, it really did mean the world to me when I was feeling so low, insignificant & vulnerable. I was very shy & quiet & so didn’t take the opportunity to tell the lady just how much that small gesture really meant to me, at that time. That’s a pity, because the incident has come back to my mind many, many times since & it always fills me with gratitude & thankfulness.
This incident reminds me of Jesus’ words in Matthew’s Gospel:
Matthew 10:42 (NLT)
“And if you give even a cup of cold water to one of the least of my followers, you will surely be rewarded.”
For me, that lady’s gesture of inclusion & welcome was much, much more than a cup of cold water. I believe she will be mightily surprised when she gets to heaven & Jesus mentions the incident to her & beams His great big smile at her, for doing such a wonderful, inclusive, kind, loving thing. I expect she will have long forgotten the incident. But I haven’t, & nor has Jesus.
In the same way, the seemingly small, insignificant things we might do for other people, can be monumentally important to them. Since we don’t know what other people are feeling or going through, our small acts of kindness can really make a huge difference to someone who is hurting, feeling lost, lonely, insecure or grieving. It only takes a moment of caring, or loving someone else. And in that moment, brilliant, life-long, life-changing events can occur... without us even knowing it. So be kind to someone today, especially if they seem to need it. You just might be forming a positive, kind memory that will last them a lifetime. You just might be giving them a cup of cold water, for Jesus’ sake.
One such time was when I was grieving, a few years ago now. I walked in to church but couldn’t see anywhere to sit. A young lady I only knew a little looked back & saw me, & then patted the seat beside her, to indicate that I could go & sit there. Instantly I felt included; I was so grateful for that gesture, it really did mean the world to me when I was feeling so low, insignificant & vulnerable. I was very shy & quiet & so didn’t take the opportunity to tell the lady just how much that small gesture really meant to me, at that time. That’s a pity, because the incident has come back to my mind many, many times since & it always fills me with gratitude & thankfulness.
This incident reminds me of Jesus’ words in Matthew’s Gospel:
Matthew 10:42 (NLT)
“And if you give even a cup of cold water to one of the least of my followers, you will surely be rewarded.”
For me, that lady’s gesture of inclusion & welcome was much, much more than a cup of cold water. I believe she will be mightily surprised when she gets to heaven & Jesus mentions the incident to her & beams His great big smile at her, for doing such a wonderful, inclusive, kind, loving thing. I expect she will have long forgotten the incident. But I haven’t, & nor has Jesus.
In the same way, the seemingly small, insignificant things we might do for other people, can be monumentally important to them. Since we don’t know what other people are feeling or going through, our small acts of kindness can really make a huge difference to someone who is hurting, feeling lost, lonely, insecure or grieving. It only takes a moment of caring, or loving someone else. And in that moment, brilliant, life-long, life-changing events can occur... without us even knowing it. So be kind to someone today, especially if they seem to need it. You just might be forming a positive, kind memory that will last them a lifetime. You just might be giving them a cup of cold water, for Jesus’ sake.
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