Example Given
No. 37 June 2014
Fruitfulness Through the Bible Antony Billington
The Mum & the Memo-Writer Sarah-Jane Marshall & Mark Greene report
No Unwanted Children Rachel Gardner
Here And so here we are again, At the door. And you wait, gracious as you always are, to be invited in. It’s your place really. And these your people too, These people that you’ve given me, Whose hearts I cannot see, Whose thoughts I cannot read, Whose pain I can only surmise Whose lives from sunset to sunrise Are hidden from my eyes. No point really to go in without you. How easily I forget. Father, ripen in me your gifts of grace To do all I do as for you, To speak in truth and purity, And greet every face With love and generosity, That they may taste and see The wonder of your merciful majesty. Lord, for your glory, Here, be glorifıed in me. “Come child”, I hear you say, “Let’s get on with our day.”
About the London Institute for Contemporary Christianity The vast majority of Christians (around 98%) spend the vast majority of their waking time (around 95%), in non-church related activities. So just imagine what the impact might be on our neighbourhoods, on our schools and clubs and workplaces, on our whole nation if all of us were really able to help one another to make a difference for Christ right where we are, out on our daily frontlines? That’s LICC’s focus: empowering Christians to make a difference in God’s world, and envisioning and equipping church leaders to help them do it.
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Fruitfulness on the Frontline The book… the DVD course… and more… These are exciting times for us at them and through them, and sparks LICC. On March 25 we celebrated the imagination for how God might be the launch of two great new resources pleased to work in and through them over time. from Mark Greene – Fruitfulness on the If you’ve recognised ‘A RICH FEAST Frontline, a book and that your daily context OF GOD-HONOURING, DVD-course. really is significant CULTURE-CHANGING,LIFEto God, and perhaps These resources ENHANCING POSSIBILITIES are based around a you’ve already used IN WHICH THE ORDINARY missional framework Neil Hudson’s Life on CAN BECOME IMPORTANT exploring six the Frontline course, AND THE MUNDANE expressions of fruitful then Fruitfulness on MAGNIFICENT’ d iscipleship. How the Frontline will help His Honour Judge might we… you dig deeper to David Turner QC discover what fruitful, Model godly Spirit-fuelled living character? for God might look like. Check out the new resources Make good work? at www.licc.org. uk /fruitfulness, Minister grace & love? explore the taster material and watch Mould culture? the course trailer and session teaser. Be a Mouthpiece for
truth & justice?
Be a Messenger of the gospel? The resources will, we trust, give many people fresh eyes for their daily contexts and a confidence that fruitfulness is possible for them in Christ, in the world, and in a whole variety of ways. After all, if having evangelistic conversations and leading someone to Christ are the only marks of fruitfulness, then on most days, most Christians will believe themselves to be unfruitful and that’s disempowering. So a bigger biblical understanding of fruitful mission helps people become aware of how God might have already been working in
But there’s much more available to supp or t you a nd your church on a journey of growing fruitfulness on the frontline. Ma ny chu rches coordinate their Sunday preaching programme with their small group activities during the week. It prov ides oppor t u n it ies for teaching to be reinforced and for the whole community to
join the journey, including those not in a small group. If you’d like to use the Fruitfulness on the Frontline material this way, Antony Billington and Neil Hudson have provided an outline and some notes for three possible sermon series to accompany t he cou rse: Fr u it f u lness on t he Frontline (the central texts in the course); Fruitfulness in Colossae; and Fruitfulness in the Bible. Or you might think about inviting an LICC speaker to launch the series in your church, run a workshop or lead a church weekend around the themes of whole-life discipleship and fruitfulness on the frontline. We have a wonderful cadre of Associates available to do just that. Between them there’s a vast pool of expertise across a whole variety of frontlines and church leadership. Go to www.licc. org.uk/speakers to discover who they are. And once you’ve completed the course, there’s a 40-day Fruitfulness Prayer Journey to help you support one another in your lives on the frontline through the weeks to come. For these supporting materials and for information about our great value bundles do please visit www.licc.org.uk/ fruitfulness. Tracy Cotterell is LICC’s Managing Director.
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From Eden to the New Jerusalem Antony Billington tracks the flow of fruitfulness through the Bible. If you were asked what cultivation provides the basis for the located, well planted, and well watered. the Bible says about organisation of society and includes, by Because of that, it thrives, bears fruit in fruitfulness, some extension, the development of culture season and does not wither. key passages might and civilization. As we build houses, Alas, however, the repeated complaint w e l l s p r i n g t o design clothes, and write poetry, even of the prophets is that Israel, whether mind. Galatians 5, as we play chess – we represent God’s as vine or vineyard, seems unable to surely – the fruit of rule over every activity. In relationship bear fruit. ‘The song of the vineyard’ the Spirit? John 15 – vine and with others we ref lect God’s own in Isaiah 5:1-7 is particularly poignant, branches? Yes, and yes. As it happens, creative hand. recording God’s deep sadness that his though, the theme of fruitfulness is Sadly, the desire that Adam and Eve chosen people who had been planted far from incidental, these references would spread God’s blessing from to bear fruit, ultimately for the blessing to ‘bearing fruit’, tap into a rich seam E den to t he whole of the nations, had produced only sour which runs through the world is shattered when grapes. The consequence in the Old Bible from beginning to they disobey God and Testament story is that they suffer end. We find fruit on GOD’S DESIRE FOR are expelled from the judgment and dispersal in exile. the first and last pages FRUITFULNESS IS AS garden. What will God Even so, the language of fruitfulness of Scripture – in the EXTENSIVE AS do now? But, as Genesis is picked up again in the promises garden of Eden and the THE GOSPEL. c o n t i n u e s , s o t h e of restoration back to the land, and new Jerusalem – and promise of fruitfulness are sometimes associated with the almost everywhere in is reiterated – to Noah giving of God’s Spirit (as in Isaiah between. after the flood, and to Abraham and 32:15-17). Isaiah 27:1-6, in particular, Look more closely, and it becomes clear his family, where numerical growth provides a moving counterpart to that God’s desire for fruitfulness is as of the people is bound up with God’s 5:1-7, using the same language. In spite extensive as the gospel – with what covenant with them, for of their fruitlessness, God has done in Christ in bringing the sake of blessing all God remains lovingly men and women back to himself and nations. Then, after the commit ted to his in setting in motion his plan to restore covenant at Sinai, the people, and will THE GOSPEL IS the whole of creation. promises are linked to assume responsibility CREATING A PEOPLE the people’s obedience for t he ca re of t he WHO NOW FULFIL THE Created for Fruitfulness to God in the promised v ine, watching over PURPOSE OF So it is that fruitfulness begins with land, as God ’s ‘vine’ it, water ing it, and THE CREATION God himself, who creates land with planted there (Psalm protecting it against MANDATE. the capacity to produce plants and 80:8-11). enemies. This is because trees which bear fruit, who blesses he has large-scale plans animals to be fruitful and multiply, Through all this, as we and who ca l ls on human beings see in Psalm 1 and elsewhere, bearing for his vineyard – nothing less than to created in his image to ‘be fruitful and fruit becomes an archetypal image of ‘fill all the world with fruit’ (27:6)! increase in number’ (Genesis 1:26- godly living. The righteous, those in Fruitfulness in Christ 28). That original mandate has to do covenant relationship with God, who Given t h is r ich Old Testa ment with building families, growing crops constantly meditate on his law, are like background, it’s perhaps no surprise and breeding animals – essentially a tree planted by a stream that produces that Jesus uses images related to c u lt iv at i ng c re at ion. Yet , suc h fruit (Psalm 1:3). The tree is well fruit and fruitfulness, sowing and 4
harvesting, fig trees and vineyards. Especially evocative is his statement ‘I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener’ (John 15:1). Jesus is then taking up the role God had assigned for Israel. And so it is that union with Jesus in the vine means his disciples become members of the restored end-time people of God who are called to bear fruit to God’s glory (John 15:8).
of the creation mandate, a people who are being remade in the image of the Creator (see Colossians 3:9-10). Amazingly, Paul sees God’s originally intended design for humanity finally being completed through the power of the gospel bearing fruit in the lives of men and women!
As we pray and work to see fruit in the spread of the gospel, and as FRUITFULNESS, Paul too picks up the we abide in the vine THEN, IS BOUND UP lang uage of fruit at bearing fruit to the WITH THE LARGER various points in his glory of God, and as BIBLICAL DRAMA letters, where the we seek to walk in step OF CREATION AND original mandate of with the Spirit who REDEMPTION, fruitfulness given at does his new creation creation finds fulfilment work in and through PROMISE AND in the worldwide the church, we look FULFILMENT. transformation of a for ward to the new people. As Paul says Jerusalem where trees in Galatians 5, those who walk by the will bear fruit for the healing of the Spirit (5:16) and are led by the Spirit nations. Echoing Ezekiel’s vision of (5:18), who live by the Spirit and keep in the restored temple (Ezekiel 47:1-12), step with the Spirit (5:25) are no longer John too sees an Eden-like ‘river of under the authority of the law. Nor are the water of life’ proceeding from they bound to ‘gratify the desires of the the throne of God and of the Lamb flesh’ (5:16), that way of life marked by (Revelation 22:1), with the tree of alienation from God and each other. life on both sides ‘bearing twelve Instead, the death and resurrection of crops of fruit, yielding its Christ and the giving of the Spirit fruit every month’ (22:3). have ushered in a new era – a new Where humans were creation no less (6:15) – in which the formerly denied access Spirit animates our relationship with to the tree of life, now God, just as he promised through John’s vision includes his prophets. it a nd de sc r ibe s how it produces Then, when writing to the Colossians, fruit every month, Paul says that the gospel is ‘bearing which renews those fruit and growing throughout the who eat it. whole world’, just as it has been doing among the Colossians themselves (1:6). T h e p i c t u r e J o h n And as part of his prayer in 1:9-14, paints – of free access to Paul prays that they will be those who life and vitality – is hugely are ‘bearing fruit in every good work, significant in a world where people growing in the knowledge of God’ struggle to overcome death and disease. (1:10). Those references to ‘bearing Here the natural order is wonderfully fruit’ and ‘growing’ are remarkably transformed, with God’s promises similar to the phraseology and thought of restoration finding their ultimate of Genesis 1:28. Paul appears to be fulfilment in the renewal of the cosmos suggesting that the gospel is creating as a context where God and people can a people who now fulfil the purpose truly dwell together. Here too, citizens
of the new earth are drawn from all nations in fulfilment of the promise to Abraham, itself reflecting the original blessing of fruitfulness on humanity right back at creation. Fruitfulness, then, is bound up with the larger biblical drama of creation and redemption, promise and fulfilment, God’s relationship with his people and his plan for the nations. And it’s our privilege as disciples of Christ to take our place in his grand scheme. We work out the implications of the gospel on our frontlines, our lives reflect the scope of his reign, our relationships display the arrival of the kingdom, and we anticipate its f ut ure completion. And all the while, we bear fruit to the glory of God. Antony Billington is LICC’s Head of Theology This article is part of the wider resources that support LICC’s new book and DVD Fruitfulness on the Frontline.
Blessed is the one… whose delight is in the law of the Lord… that person is like a tree planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in season… Extracts from Psalm 1:1-3 5
Of Dolphins, Justice & HIV It seemed nothing at the time but 20 years on Neil is amazed by Christ at work. Mark Greene explores. It happened over twenty years ago, but, until about a month ago, he never thought about it as really having much to do with being a follower of Jesus. It happened. He did what he did. Life went on. It is often the way, isn’t it? Sometimes we do things, we don’t think much about it at the time, and perhaps don’t remember it even when someone else points it out later. It’s who we are, we did it. It’s not so much that the left hand doesn’t know what the right hand is doing, it’s more that the left
hand doesn’t even know what the left One day, his boss sends a memo asking hand is doing. We are as oblivious to its him to redraft the terms of medical distinctiveness as a dolphin is to how cover for the company’s employees. splendid it looks as it Specifically, he asks him bursts out of the ocean, to withdraw cover for “A GENTLE ANSWER sleek and glistening HIV/AIDS medication TURNS AWAY WRATH” against an azure sky, and related sicknesses – (PROVERBS 15:1). AND and 16 feet in the air… due to rocketing costs. A GRACIOUS MEMO At the time in the US, New York in the early PREVENTS ANGER. as in the UK, HIV was 90s, crime down, seen as a disease that confidence up and the primarily affected homosexuals. And HIV/AIDS epidemic in full f low. Neil felt considerable disquiet about Neil (names have been changed) was a what his boss had asked him to do. year out of college and in his first job This was complicated by the fact that in the HR department of a property his boss was an elder in his church, and development company. though he was pretty sure his boss didn’t share the judgementalism towards those living with HIV/AIDS that was prevalent in some quarters, something in him stirred – nothing as defined as the consciousness of a particular principle being f louted, an instinct really… it just didn’t seem right. How often do we listen to such stirrings? How much easier to just suppress them and move on. Neil, however, didn’t suppress it. Still, he was left with a challenge: what do you do when you are one year out of college, in your first job, and your boss, a man you admire and respect, who is senior in corporate rank, ecclesiastical status and biological age, asks you to do something that will save your company a great deal of money but that you believe is wrong? Neil wrote a memo. And the memo went something like this: “I will do whatever you tell me to do but I am concerned about the decision to withhold care for HIV/AIDS-related
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sickness. Wes, in our team, volunteers as an ambulance driver and he’s around a lot of needles. What happens if he contracts HIV? And if we apply the principle of contributory responsibility, will we stop helping people who are overweight and get heart attacks? Or people who smoke who get lung cancer? I will do whatever you ask me to do, but I will not do anything unless I receive further instruction from you.”
Who says you can’t make a difference get in the way of serving the company’s when you are at the bottom of an employees. organisation? Neil, fresh out of college But that wasn’t quite the end of the and in his first year in work, and only story. just over a year a Christian, had made A year or so later Neil volunteered to a brave stand for justice on behalf of a help out in a summer camp for poor minority who were, at that time, the kids. A number of the lepers of the Western kids told the volunteers world, isolated by WHAT DO YOU DO that they had asthma. misunderstanding and WHEN YOU ARE ONE But the volunteers could fear, and condemned by YEAR OUT OF COLLEGE tell that the medication a merciless moralism. IN YOUR FIRST JOB It’s a courageous memo and also a w a sn’t for a s t h m a , Still, until a couple of AND YOUR BOSS, A gracious one. Neil wasn’t trying to though that was what months ago, he hadn’t MAN YOU ADMIRE AND accuse his boss of anything or embarrass the kids thought they seen it as part of his RESPECT, WHO IS him or turn the incident into a civil h a d . I t w a s H I V/ Christian discipleship. SENIOR IN CORPORATE rights issue. In fact, Neil intentionally A I D S m e d ic at ion . Back in the early 90s RANK, ECCLESIASTICAL crafted it so that his boss would not And presumably their being a mouthpiece for STATUS AND have to respond to him, in writing parents were tr y ing truth and justice wasn’t or in person, and so would not have BIOLOGICAL AGE, ASKS to protect them from one of the ways the to explain either why he’d made the YOU TO DO SOMETHING stigma and fear. Five Christian community decision in the first place or why he had yea rs later Nei l set THAT WILL SAVE YOUR ‘measured’ discipleship. changed his mind. Neil was focused COMPANY A GREAT DEAL up the first Christian A nd if t hey d id, it on trying to ensure that if one of the summer camp in OF MONEY BUT THAT would have been around company’s employees ever contracted America for families YOU BELIEVE the kinds of issues that HIV they would have the health cover living with HIV/AIDS. IS WRONG? were on the political they would need. A nd he recr u ited agenda – global poverty, volunteers who were There’s great wisdom in Neil’s diplomatic political oppression – not the kind of not only willing to help on the camp, approach. And it is refreshingly issues that come up in a mid-sized but agreed to minister to the families restrained. In our increasingly self- property development company. Or at once they were back in New York. righteous, rights-oriented culture, a schoolgate. Or in the gym. Neil’s initiative on behalf of potential how often the instant response to Looking back, Neil isn’t quite sure what HIV/AIDS sufferers in the property any perceived sleight is to froth and made him see the potential injustice in company became the first step in a fulminate and accuse and denounce, the proposed policy. It wasn’t because journey of caring for the disadvantaged. and attribute all kinds anyone he knew had And not just for Neil. The first adult of malign motives to been affected by HIV/ NEIL DIDN’T LET RANK volunteers for that camp were Neil’s someone who maybe AIDS or because he OR AGE OR FEAR OF former boss and his wife. just hadn’t thought k ne w a nu mb e r of LOSING HIS JOB GET IN something through, or homosexual people. It And their daughter. THE WAY OF SERVING hadn’t found quite the might have been because And their son-in-law. THE COMPANY’S right words to say what growing up in New York One good thing leading to a whole host EMPLOYEES. they said. “A gentle he’d met people who’d of good things. a n s w er t u r n s aw ay survived the holocaust wrath” (Proverbs 15:1). And a gracious and so he instinctively recoiled at Looks like fruit, glorious fruit to me, memo prevents anger. anything that diminished anyone just and every bit as spectacular as a dolphin bursting out of the ocean, sleek and Neil never received further instruction because of who they were. It might also have been because he’d been deeply glistening against an from his boss. influenced by his pastor, not primarily azure sky, and 16 feet In fact, his boss never mentioned the through his teaching, but by the way he in the air… subject again, though twenty years on, served others and never let anything get Mark Greene is and quite a few job changes later, they in the way of love. Certainly Neil didn’t LICC’s Executive are still friends. let rank or age or fear of losing his job Director 7
Perfectly Polished? Esther discovers that you don’t have to be ‘sorted’ to minister grace and love. Sarah-Jane Marshall reports. Many of us will have a series of different frontlines through our lifetime. We might leave education, change jobs, relocate, have a baby, experience redundancy or illness, or retire… and each transition will bring its own challenges. As we find our bearings, we might ask, ‘What might fruitful living look like in this new context?’ And, like Esther, we might be surprised by the answer we find. For several years Esther worked for Tearfund both abroad and in the UK, latterly managing their youth and student engagement nationwide. It was a job she adored. She felt privileged to have found a role that allowed her to both visit inspiring projects around the world and feel that she was making a tangible difference to people and to issues that really mattered. For E st her, her ‘ministry’ and ‘mission’ were so closely tied to her work that, when she became a full-time mum, she became utterly disorientated.
low. On one particularly bad morning, Esther really didn’t feel like leaving the flat at all. But as she was praying, Esther felt a strong prompting to go to the local toddler group. So, reluctantly, she got her things together and trundled down the road with the buggy. As she walked, she talked to God and felt him gently say, “Today is not about you, Esther. If you take your eyes off yourself, I might surprise you.”
Esther arrived at the group, grabbed a cup of tea and a biscuit and scanned the room thinking, “Show me why you’ve brought me here Lord.” It was immediately obvious. Sat hunched in the corner of the room was a woman whose spirit looked utterly crushed. Whilst HER ‘MINISTRY’ AND all the other mums were ‘MISSION’ WERE SO chatting in huddles, CLOSELY TIED TO this lady was a lone HER WORK THAT, with her son, staring WHEN SHE BECAME vacantly into her cup A FULL-TIME MUM, of tea.
Within the space of a SHE BECAME UTTERLY few months, she had lost Esther made a bee-line DISORIENTATED. her familiar job title, for her and slumped her clearly defined role, down next to her on and her well-respected status. Some the floor making a light remark about days it felt like when she’d left the job having a bad day too. The two mums she’d also left her identity as well. A got chatting and as their boys played managerial role with a national remit together – better than her son had and speaking engagements around the played with any child before – the country had now been replaced with woman told Esther that, devastatingly, one very small baby, in one very small she had had a miscarriage earlier that flat in London. week. This was why Esther was at the There was a point when her son was toddler group that day, an opportunity about six months old, when Esther had to minister grace and love to a hurting a couple of weeks where she just felt child of God. 8
For the two families this was the beginning of a special friendship that has since, joyfully, seen Esther become godparent to her friend’s new baby. But it was also a very significant day personally for Esther in her own understanding of what fruitful living might look like on her new frontlines as a mum. It was a day in which she learnt that we don’t have to be perfectly polished to lovingly serve God on our frontlines, rather we have to be humbly available, alert to the opportunities. Being able to minister grace and love in a time of need didn’t depend on Esther having everything ‘sorted’ herself. In fact, in this instance, Esther enabled her friend to open up precisely because she was honest and vulnerable about her own struggles first. That day helped Esther to grasp something more of what God might mean when he promises that “his power is made perfect in weakness” (2 Cor 12:9). And now, as Esther has transitioned out of London to a new rural frontline, it’s given her fresh eyes to spot the families on the fringe of her community and – on good days and bad days alike – to see it as her role to be God’s person in that place. Sarah-Jane Marshall is LICC’s Young Adult Project Manager. Read Esther’s book review on page 10.
No Unwanted Children One child is taken into care every 20 minutes Rachel Gardner wonders how we might respond. There were many heart-breaking moments in ‘15,000 kids and counting’, the recent Channel 4 series that followed the hopes and disappointments of children in care, their families and soc ia l workers. One in particular sticks in my mind. We meet Lauren, wondering why she can’t go and knock on some doors, and find someone who might want he r a nd L i a m , her little brother. They’re seven and three years old. When Liam was brought into care, he was, in his foster carer’s words, “A frozen baby. He didn’t move, he didn’t smile, and he would projectile vomit two or three times a day.” Lauren wants a Mummy and Daddy who don’t drink, smoke or f ight. Lauren and Liam, like thousands of other children in the care system, are hard to find families for. And there are some 92,000 children in care. And one is added every twenty minutes. And the adoption rate is far too low to ensure that anything like even 20% of those children will find a home. We live in an era where the Church is responding to an extraordinary range of increasing needs. There are brilliant initiatives to tackle debt, hunger, gang culture, homelessness, loneliness, mental health, self-harm and adolescent sexual health. Right now it seems that the tragedy of unwanted children might
be one that the Lord is stirring his people to respond to.
right time for visitors, but it is the right time for practical support.
There is, after all, a strong concern for widows and orphans running throughout Scripture. It inspires injunctions of the law (Leviticus 22, Deuteronomy 10, 14, 24, 26, 27), the lyrics of the psalms (Psalm 68, 146), the exhortations of the prophets (Isaiah 1, Jeremiah 7, 49, Zechariah 7, M a l a c h i 3), the actions of the early Church (Acts 6), all the way to James’ statement that pure and faultless religion is “to look after orphans and widows in their distress” (James 1:27).
And it’s happening as Home for Good works to help the UK church make adopting and fostering a significant part of their life and ministry.
And, of course, it’s already happening. It happens when church leadership teams consider how their community might provide support for those who foster and adopt. It happens when forty Christian families in Southampton respond to their Local Authority’s urgent need to f ind for t y foster placements for the hardest to place children. It happens when foster carers John (78) and Mary (74) open their home up to yet another child in need of care. And it happens when Mohan and Sarah bring hot dinners round to a family in their church who have just brought their adopted daughter home. They drop the food off and go. They know that, in the first few weeks, it’s not the
Indeed, in an age when families in our society are so often cut off geographically from the support of relatives, one of the ways that adoption may come to feel not only possible, but be much more successful, is when a church community commits itself to supporting the child and its adopted or foster parents for the long haul. As the African proverb goes “it takes a village to raise a child”. Maybe in our society it simply takes a church. Rachel Gardner is the founder of Romance Academy, President of the Girl’s Brigade and Trustee of the Cinnamon Network and Home For Good.
What Next? – Visit HomeForGood.org.uk for details of the campaign and resources. – Highlight the issue of vulnerable UK children on Mother’s Day or Father’s Day. – Speak to those who have adopted or foster, and find out how the church can support them. – Read Home for Good by Krish & Miriam Kandiah. – Pray for the needs in your area. Visit your council website for further info.
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Ordinary Mum, Extraordinary Mission Esther Stansfield on Sharing God’s Love in Everyday Life ‘Here’s the thing…what happens to dreams, calling and vision when you go from being a single twenty year old, with the world stretching out before you, to a married… sleep deprived mother, with a mountain of washing, a steep mortgage and a puking baby?’ To any mission minded mum (or dad!) who has ever pondered this very question this really is a must read. Written by mums for mums, and peppered with real life stories from UK families, this book solves the conundrum of the seemingly conflicting calls to mission and motherhood. To be honest, as I saw the title, I braced myself for that rising tide of inadequacy which usually hits when reading books by Christian super mums. “Hmm,” thought I, “bet it’s written by not-so-ordinary spiritual giants who will make us mere mortals howl with guilt, hang our heads in shame, and rend our garments for forty days and forty (already a tad) sleep deprived nights!”
feel like you are indulging in a good old heart-warming natter with close mates.
God, in our character, in our marriages, and with our children?
The challenge is that mission is not just what we do, but who we are. It begins by turning the spotlight on the state of our own hearts as the governing factor in terms of the quality of our marriage, our parenting, and ultimately our missional fruit. It moves from the internal world of the individual, posing the questions ‘How am I in my walk with God?’ ‘How is my inner world of character?’ to explore how God works through us as ‘wounded healers’, even in our own pain.
The key challenge Ordinary Mum, Extraordinary Mission presents is to get away from the trap of thinking that mums have to choose between family or mission, and instead to think family on mission. Exploring what having a mission mind-set is, who we are doing mission with, what the life of a missional family might look like, and the challenges and opportunities it presents makes for an incredibly inspiring read! Anna and Joy provide really insightful biblical and practical examples of how to create a family culture which integrates our vision, values and calling into our everyday conte x t. By prov id i ng ta ng ible examples of families stepping out on mission together with their friends and neighbours, with all the hiccups that that entails, it encourages, inspires and challenges mums (and dads!) who may feel daunted by this concept, to simply trust that God can use them and their families in whatever context he has placed them in, and simply have a go.
It speaks to marital relationships, ‘How are we as a couple, really?’ ‘What does a marriage fit for mission look
But nay! Tis not so! Instead of intimidation, liberation! Rather than unveiling a trophy cabinet of missional success stories, this reveals the internal wranglings and external struggles of real life. This book is about grit, not gloss. Mission in the midst of mess. Strength in struggle, not simplistic strategies for ‘success’. Authors Joy and Anna are not armchair experts; they share the good, the bad and the ugly adventures from their own frontline fray of school runs, play dates, toddler groups, and all that goes with this gloriously chaotic season of life. They are so disarmingly honest you 10
The title of this book may make dads less likely to read it. And dads so need to read this book too! It would be ideal if parents could read and be inspired together by this book, so as to begin to create a missional family culture, and step out together to serve their communities.
like?’, and challenges us to consider how kingdom building in our family life can happen from the ground up. How do we practically invest in strong foundations in our relationship with
Perhaps Ordinary Family, Extraordinary Mission would more accurately convey the book’s heartbeat. But then again maybe that’s a cue for the sequel… Ordinary Mum, Extraordinary Mission is published by IVP - RRP £8.99
Monoculture and the Businessification of the Imagination Mark Greene on Monoculture: How One Story is Changing Everything In every age, in every country the Gospel finds itself in competition with other ways of understanding reality, with other ways of making decisions about what’s important and why. Francis Michaels’s concise, lucid and well-researched Monoculture brilliantly describes the economic story that has now, in his view, become the dominant and domineering shaper of our culture and our imagination. Increasingly, we have come to see the value of pretty much anything and everything in economic terms. Michaels writes from an American perspective, but not much is lost in translation. So, for example, as a society, we in the UK increasingly don’t value education as a way to develop well-rounded, literate, numerate, culturally engaged, caring citizens, rather we value education in terms of its ability to prepare workers to compete in the global marketplace. Similarly, our teenagers are ‘sold’ a degree, not because it will enable them to contribute as citizens to our nation’s holistic flourishing but because it will deliver a lifetime of higher individual income that will offset the debt they take on. As a society, increasingly we don’t make the case for the preservation of the rainforests on the basis that it is an ultimate good to care for the planet and its biodiversity but because it will cost us trillions if we don’t. Now the idea that one sphere of society and its priorities comes to dominate society is not new. The great neoCalvinist Dutch Prime Minister
Abraham Kuyper argued it in the 19th century, Isaiah Berlin in the 20th. Back in the middle ages the dominant sphere was the church, in the 19th century it was government and in our own time it
is business. Now neither Michaels, nor the Gospel, are anti-business – business has its place. However, whichever sphere dominates the principles which drive that sphere will spill out into other spheres – whether or not it’s really appropriate. And so it is that business’ entirely appropriate focus on quantifiable measurement spills out into all kinds of arenas where a focus on quantifiable measurement may not be appropriate. How was it that we came to introduce so many, many exams into our education system? Why do we believe that one can simply transfer the principles of corporate business
management to public sector arenas or the church and assume that the results will be better? Why instinctively do so many pastors focus on numerical growth as the measure of a healthy church rather than the quality of the disciples they are making? And what is the cumulative impact of this economic story on our souls? Well, Michaels, though not writing from a Christian perspective, is under no illusions about the damage a reductive economic view of ‘value’ is doing to us all. The deeper danger for us all is that our minds become conformed to this view of reality, that as a society we instinctively begin to wonder whether it is ‘worth’ keeping the old alive, or bringing the unborn to term, or more dangerous still as Christians, we begin to ‘make the case’ for the value of the Gospel based on the church’s contribution to poverty alleviation and social cohesion – it’s worth hundreds of millions of pounds, after all. And utterly wonderful it all is. But the peace, the shalom, that Jesus comes to bring by his blood shed on the cross is much richer, broader, wider, deeper, higher than that. He didn’t just come to make a difference, he came to make a way to God. At an absurdly high cost that beggars any human calculation of our worth. And Michaels’ book helps us to clarify how easy it might be for us to lose sight of that. And perhaps to see how much we have been given to give away. Monoculture is published by Red Clover Press - RRP £9.99 11
A Church for the Nation “We can build a society that looks healthy, without God. We can create activists and campaigners who change the world, without God. But the change will be temporary and it will not last. But if we give ourselves to forming Christ in those who have surrendered their lives to him, if we make growing disciples our central purpose as a body of Christ. If we help one another to encounter, walk with, and serve Christ in every area of our lives in the fullest sense of the word, then the world around us will feel the impact and we will also feed the hungry, clothe the naked and end the injustices that we confront. But we will do it in his power… not in our own. A Church for the nation must surely seek to enable those who own the name of Christ to live for him, to serve him, to honour him and to obey him in every single area of their lives - even if it means the redefinition of worship, discipleship, teaching and mission.” Malcolm Duncan
This is an excerpt from an address given at LICC to mark the launch of the Fruitfulness on the Frontline resources. The full address can be read and watched at www.licc.org.uk/resources. Friends of LICC have received a copy of this address on CD. Malcolm is Leader of Gold Hill Baptist Church, an author, and Chair of the Spring Harvest Planning Group.