On 'just doing something' - risk-taking faith for the kingdom of God

Reading 'Nevertheless', John Kirkby's story of how he started CAP (Christians Against Poverty), an amazing charity that offers free debt counselling and has helped many many people get debt-free and also come to faith in Christ, has massively encouraged me with just its main message of perseverance despite circumstances. John had personal debt, he was in danger of his own home being repossessed, and the charity had few sources of income. He had several discouraging letters from Christians who said they wouldn't support CAP, that the fact the charity was struggling for money meant that they were doing something wrong, and John should seriously rethink what he was doing. Yet looking at the international work that CAP are doing now, and the huge numbers of those who have come to faith through their work, and it is clear that John was totally right to hold on to his belief that this was what God had called him to do.

There is undoubtedly scepticism regarding the notion of a 'call' in many Christian circles today. Instead of looking for specific guidance, many would advocate using the Bible to discern if something is sinful (in which case, don't do it), commanded (in which case, do it), and if it is neither, then use wisdom and try it, and if it's not right, the door will shut. I have to confess I am one of the first to get uncomfortable when people start talking about 'prophecies' and 'words' they have, which have directly impacted their decisions. And yet, when we were praying about moving to Garndiffaith, God did clearly confirm it was the right decision through Scripture for us. Since being here, nothing has really turned out as we expected -- in fact I'm not even sure what our expectations were to begin with anyway-- and yet we know this is the right place to be. If we were judging things on human results and circumstances, we'd have probably put our house on the market again and tried to jump ship!

The key illustration in the book for me is on p57:

'A seed which receives no water will only survive if it sends its root deep underground trying to find the water. The eventual tree that results is strong and fully able to use the rains when they come. God needs to ensure that we will be able to manage what he has for us.'

There are times when, from a human perspective, things don't make sense. They don't look good. It seems as if you are banging your head against a brick wall. But the fact is, God often brings His people to those kind of places in order to grow a deeper trust and faith in His power and provision. Just thinking through the heroes of faith in Scripture: Noah, Abraham, Moses, Joshua... The list goes on! They all went through times of great testing, times where nothing was happening, times where they had nothing else to do except hold on to the promise God had made them. What would it have been like building the ark before the rains came? What about believing that God would give you a son when you were a hundred years old? And how about the burden of leading a people who were continually rebellious, ungrateful and critical of everything you did?

The way God works is not the way we work. He often allows things to happen that we would not, if we were the ones in control. He does let things get bad sometimes, from the uncomfortable to the heart-rending, grief stricken circumstances you just want to get out of as soon as you can. I worry sometimes that the rationalisation of the Christian life (to 'just do something') has eroded the very meaning of faith and what it means to live expecting God to speak and lead your life, even when He takes you into unexpected and not-very-nice places.

The danger is, that if we leave everything up to 'wisdom', then we will never take risks for the kingdom. We can all too easily find excuses why we shouldn't give up our job / move to that estate / give that money away / get more involved with that difficult person... I know my own propensity to kid myself that I am making a decision for the 'right' reasons when actually I'm just justifying staying in a more comfortable situation.

The stuff which inspires me in John Kirkby's story is the same which inspires me about the lives of the great pioneers, missionaries and preachers of the past (Muller, Whitefield, Taylor etc), and ultimately which I see in the men and women of faith in the Old and New Testament. They don't look at their circumstances and then draw their conclusions: this mission has failed, God is not with us, I should give up and go home. No! They look at their God, and they say, "we don't know exactly what's happening, we don't know when things will change, but we know You and we believe and trust that You are good and what You do is right. We will obey You in what You've called us to do." That's the kind of faith I want.

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New Breed Conference - Taking No Man's Land

Yesterday we gathered at Highfields Church, Cardiff for the New Breed conference 2010. Last year, Andy went along, and there were a total of 15 blokes there. This year, there must have been 50 people -mostly in the 20s-30s age bracket- and there were a group of around 10-15 wives, fiancees and single women. New Breed is growing! But I guess you might be asking, 'What is it?'

'Working in partnership with Acts 29, New Breed seeks to strategically plant churches, to assist in the training of individuals who feel called to church planting, and to provide a supportive network for those who have already planted churches.'

(http://newbreed.wordpress.com/introducing-new-breed/)

Set up in 2008 by Dai Hankey (pastor of Hill City Church, Trevethin) and Peyton Jones (Pillar Church, Swansea), New Breed's vision is for a new breed of churches to be planted in Wales, churches that are biblical, missional and radical. New Breed isn't a denomination, it's a network where people who are starting and leading churches in areas of social and economic deprivation can support each other and use each other's experience.

The guest speaker at the conference was Steve Timmis, co-author of 'Total Church' and leader of a network of churches called 'Crowded House', based in Sheffield. Steve gave two talks based on Romans 14-15, and he sought to define church planting and look at what these chapters teach us about being a gospel church.

What is church planting?
Well it's not service starting. You could go to a town, hire a venue, and put on a service, and that isn't necessarily a church plant. Steve defined church planting as 'starting a new community, living for Christ'. As church planters, you go to a needy area and you are there to build a community by the gospel, for the gospel. The gospel was designed to go out, to cross frontiers, to go where it hasn't been before. It has global ambitions, and it is not satisfied until everybody has heard about Christ. The words of Paul in Rom 15:20, 'It has always been my ambition to preach the gospel where Christ was not known', is really at the heart of what church planting is all about.

Why do we need new churches to be planted in Wales?
Perhaps you're thinking, well that's great for obscure tribes of people in Africa or South America, but why do we need new churches to be planted in Wales? Surely our land is full of chapels and church buildings, after the great revival of 1904, and many of these buildings are nowhere near full on a Sunday. Even in our own locality, there are churches with no pastor, and congregations of about 6 people. So why plant a new church?

The answer really lies in two pictures: the lighthouse and the torch. Many of our churches are lighthouses- they shine the gospel out to the rooftops of our towns. But there are many dark nooks and crannies which are untouched by the broad beam. And we need people with torches to scatter out and head for these dark places.

In our society and culture today in Wales, many people do not feel comfortable going into a traditional chapel building for a traditional church service. It's not something they did as a child, it's not even something they did if they got married -they probably went to a hotel or a registry office. The appearance of these old buildings can be very intimidating, and if people have to come inside to hear the gospel, they will probably never hear it.

New Breed's vision is to plant churches very much at a 'grass roots' level- meeting in homes, then moving to a community centre or school when numbers grow.

The New Breed idea of a church plant is that a community is created where the broken outcasts of society can find the love of Christ. In today's society, the 'middle class' is perhaps a much broader group of people than in the early 20th Century. More and more people are going to university, and I think the middle class is in some senses defined by empowerment. A middle class person is empowered -by education, financial resources, confidence- to solve their own problems. If a middle class person wants to find out more about Jesus Christ, they have the means and the resources at their disposal to do so. They can use the internet, they can find someone who knows more, they can find a church. But today's 'underclass' of people who struggle with serious addictions, depression, can't hold down a job, are not empowered to do this. If someone needy lives in Trevethin, and the nearest gospel church is in Pontypool town centre, that's 2 miles too far! They need a gospel church in their own community. And here's the big twist: who is the most responsive to the gospel? Is it the secure, well educated middle class? Generally, they're not interested. They don't feel a need for Christ. It's the alcoholics, the drug addicts, the homeless, the messed up people who do. If you're unsure, read the gospels! The sorted people rejected Jesus. The broken people came to Him and found life and healing.

What are the characteristics of a gospel church?
Steve drew out from Rom 14-15 that a gospel church is a place where outsiders, those who are different, are welcomed in, because in the gospel, that's what God has done with us. We were all once outside God's kingdom, but He made it possible for us to become His children, through the death and resurrection of His Son Jesus Christ. The situation of the church in Rome was that there was serious division between Jews and Gentiles- to do with eating customs. Paul teaches them that their priority needs to be to serve one another, and accept each other.

In a community, it's never about 'ME'. Christ didn't please Himself, or put His comfort and safety first. Passion for God's glory consumed Him. The gospel calls us to have a zeal for God and His church, because in His church, His glory resides.

The passage emphasises the quality of 'endurance'. Community takes endurance. Enthusiasm may take you to 'no man's land', but only the gospel will keep you there. Paul highlights the need for 'hope' (Rom 15:13). Biblical hope is firm confidence in God's ability to keep His promises. Paul could see in the gospel age that God's promise to Abraham, that all nations would be blessed through him, was being fulfilled, as Gentiles from every nation were hearing the gospel and becoming part of God's kingdom. This is a task that is still unfinished and still going on today. Paul prays for this hope, that the gospel will not just save us but grip us and give us missionary hearts. Only those who abound in hope will do the work for Christ.

Our Call to Garndiffaith
Since we moved to Wales for Andy to be trained and equipped, we have been praying for God to lead us to wherever He wants us to go. And it seems that now, the dots are being joined up, and it has become clear that God wants us to go to plant a church in Garndiffaith.

It's been a long journey and there isn't space here to give every single detail, but here are the main 'dots' which make up the picture.

God led us, through various ways and means, to see the need of churches to be planted in the deprived areas of the South Wales valleys.
God led us to Dai Hankey and his team in Trevethin, and we got to know them and built good relationships with them.
God led Dai to the conviction that Hill City needed to send a team to Garndiffaith, and plant a church there.
God led Dai to ask us to be part of that team.

And here's the really crazy part- we'd been praying over several months about the Garn church plant and whether it was right for us to be involved, and then I became really ill in the first trimester of my pregnancy. I was admitted to hospital and Psalm 63 was one which constantly comforted me. In fact, Andy had felt God give him this Psalm for me, and he was the one who had read it to me and marked it out.

At the New Breed Conference, we were prayed for, and a Welsh-speaking guy called Derek came up to us and said that Psalm 63:1 was going round in his head in Welsh and he felt he should share these verses with us. In English, it's 'You, God, are my God, earnestly I seek you; I thirst for you, my whole being longs for you, in a dry and parched land where there is no water.' I chuckle when I remember how I was admitted to hospital because I was dehydrated! But anyway, in Welsh, it's “O Dduw ti yw fy Nuw fe’th geisiaf di – Mae fy enaid yn sychedu amdanat a’m cnawd yn dihoeni o’th eisiau – fel tir sych a DIFFAITH heb ddwr.” Salm 63 Note the emphasised DIFFAITH which I think refers to the 'dry and parched land'. Dai translates 'Garndiffaith' as 'the rock of desolation', so it's a similar theme. We were just blown away because God had given us this Psalm so recently, and it just seemed a wonderful confirmation that this is the place where God wants us to go.

Obviously, there are a lot of things that need to come together in the next couple of months. We are just trusting that if God is in this project, it will work out. Please join with us in praying for this church plant!