Church – Journeys of Heart and Mind

Life will find a way

All that is required to restore native woodland in Scotland is to remove or significantly reduce the presence of Red Deer and sheep … Where deer-fencing is erected to protect an area the tree seedlings survive and soon grow too high for sheep (or even deer) to reach. Birch, rowan, willow, Scots pine and juniper rapidly recolonise in fenced areas.

Reflections on Barton Mill Pond

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Image of the day – 197

What’s in an image? Sometimes quite a lot, more than meets the eye. I’m posting an image whenever I can.

This is one of my favourite places in Cirencester; on a calm, sunny day wind doesn’t ruffle the surface of the old mill pond and the reflections are correspondingly bright and still. A bridge crosses the water here and crouching down it’s difficult to take a bad photo, or easy to take a good one. (Depends on your mode of thinking.)

The mill burned down in an unfortunate fire in 1926 and was never rebuilt. Watermills (and windmills) were going out of business at that time as most industries were running on steam power generated by burning coal, or by electrical energy, also usually from coal-fired power stations. Water power and wind power, now seen as green and therefore desirable, were seen in 1926 as ineffective and unable to compete with the more efficient alternatives. This was long before the downsides of fossil fuels were understood.

A place for wildlife

100 years after the fire, in 2026, the mill pond still exists, fed by a sluice gate taking water from the River Churn. The part of the pond in the photo is usually in water all year round, though other parts dry up in many summers, partly because of some silting up near the sluice and partly because the bed of the pond has silted up too, so now the water is shallow enough for yellow flag Iris and other plants to flourish.

There are many birds to be seen in this area too. Mallard ducks breed every spring, there are minnows and probably stickleback in the water and from time to time a kingfisher hunts along the water channels and the pond. Often all you see of the kingfisher is a darting flash of vivid blue. There used to be (and may still be) a pike. A single but very shy little egret hunted around here for the last few years, but this year I’ve seen two of them, probably a breeding pair. And their larger cousin, the grey heron also puts in an appearance now and then.

All life needs is an opportunity

Take any piece of ground, anywhere on Earth, and just leave it alone, life will move in, even if you choose a patch in the Sahara or Antarctica. If you clear a piece of ground somewhere with a reasonable climate and leave it alone, in just a human lifetime you’ll have thriving woodland with a full selection of insects, birds and mammals, and probably reptiles and amphibians too. The experiment has been made many times, sometimes deliberately, sometimes accidentally. If you choose the Sahara or Antarctica you might have to wait a bit longer, but the life forms that are adapted to those extreme conditions will move in eventually. Let’s look at some examples.

Broadbalk wilderness (UK)

A wheat field was deliberately left to revert to a natural state at Rothamsted Research Station in 1882. The land was left unmanaged where before it would have been ploughed and harrowed after harvesting the wheat in late summer and drilled with seed again in the autumn. This field had produced winter wheat every year since 1843, but now the scientists wanted to see what would happen if it was left uncultivated; for the first four years volunteer wheat grew, sparser and weaker year on year and after four years completely choked by weeds.

In 1900 the site was divided into three. One part was left deliberately untouched and gradually reverted to natural woodland; another third was mown annually and maintained as grassland; while the third section had all woody plants removed annually so the land became a natural, open mix of herbaceous plants.

The results have been very interesting and the experiment continues today. Levels of captured carbon are still rising in the soils of the site, nitrogen levels have risen as well. The samples and data are available for study and reanalysis.

Chornobyl (Ukraine)

The Chornobyl nuclear power station accident in 1986 rendered the city and a large area around it unusable. People were evacuated and the most contaminated areas became a restricted zone. Since the accident, time and rainfall have reduced the surface radioactivity considerably and it’s now possible to visit the area. In fact, wildlife has moved into the area from the very beginning and the changing conditions and environment have been studied in depth.

Almost 120 000 people were evacuated following the accident, so activities like farming, hunting, logging, and development ceased over an area of 4,200 km². Forests, wetlands and grasslands have reclaimed abandoned farms and villages; and vegetation grows freely through derelict buildings and former settlements. The pine woodland killed outright by the initial high-dose fallout remains one of the most nuclear-contaminated places on Earth, but even there substantial regrowth has happened. The loss of managed agriculture actually increased habitat diversity, reconnecting landscapes previously fragmented by farmland.

Large mammals rebounded strongly. Long-term census data show abundances of deer, elk, roe deer and wild boar comparable to those in uncontaminated regional nature reserves. Wolves are notably abundant, roughly seven times as common as in comparable reserves. Reintroductions have taken hold including endangered Przewalski’s horses, released in the late 1990s and now ranging freely and breeding. European bison have also been established, while beavers have recolonised rivers, canals and the cooling ponds, in places reversing Soviet-era drainage systems. Lynx, foxes and hundreds of bird species are present too.

However, there’s a mixed message – the abundant populations are due to the absence of humans, yet there remains clear evidence of radiation-induced harm to individuals. Some species are adapting and changing, showing signs of radiation resistance, for example.

Returning woodland (Scotland)

It seems that all that is required to restore native woodland in Scotland is to remove or significantly reduce the presence of Red Deer and sheep. Grazing species eat the young seedlings of trees and strip leaves from saplings. Where deer-fencing is erected to protect an area the tree seedlings survive and soon grow too high for sheep (or even deer) to reach. Birch, rowan, willow, Scots pine and juniper rapidly recolonise in fenced areas.

Other cases are numerous

Similar cases of large scale change include:

The reintroduction of wolves to Yellowstone Park in 1995 suppressed the elk population, allowing willow and aspen to return to riverbanks bringing back beavers and many other species including fish, moose and songbirds.
Oostvaardersplassen in the Netherlands where introducing large grazing animals brought back white-tailed eagles and other species.
Marine protected zones where closing areas to commercial fishing have seen biomass rebound. Examples include cod recovery on the Grand Banks off the east coast of Canada.
Whale recovery following moratoria on whaling.
The gradual recovery of birds of prey since the banning of DDT in the 1970s.
Beavers reintroduced in the UK have resulted in wetland improvements and flooding reduction.
Reintroducing pine martens in parts of England shows promise in allowing native red squirrel populations to recover as the introduced grey squirrel population is suppressed.

Identifying common factors

A rule to cover all these examples will be useful. If the limiting, interfering factor(s) can be identified and removed life will usually return naturally – in any situation. Identifying the limiting factor(s) is the key to success. Reintroduction of missing species can also be a helpful part of the process but is often not necessary.

Growth and regeneration in church life

We can (and I suggest we should) think about abundance and limiting factors in church growth as well, what are the main interfering and limiting factors preventing abundant life returning like the ecosystems discussed above?

In the book of Acts, we see church life in its natural state, like a healthy ecosystem. Everything was in balance, there were no dedicated church buildings as we see in our villages, towns and cities today, and there was no hierarchy of management. People followed Jesus’ teachings because they understood the practical, social, and personal benefits. They met together as close friends, almost like family, eating together, working together, helping one another and doing so effortlessly and comfortably. I’m sure there were some difficulties and disagreements, and rough spots here and there, but they were all overcome informally.

Am I claiming there’s no life in church today? No, I’m not saying that. What I am saying (and I want you to hear this clearly) is that there’s a curtailed, limited kind of life in church as usually experienced in the 21st century. Church life is short of something essential; if we are to have fullness the parts that are missing need to be identified and restored. Just as an ecology lacking an important species cannot function as it should, so church culture lacking an important kind of leader cannot function as it should. And just as introducing the grey squirrels from North America unhinged UK woodland ecology, so introducing the wrong kind of leader unhinges church culture.

It’s an important factor we have largely failed to recognise. We need the full range of species Jesus put in place, and we need to remove the ones we introduced. Once you start to see the parallels between church culture and thriving ecosystem ecology, it all becomes very clear and is impossible to unsee. I’ve written a whole series elsewhere about church leadership.

Popes, priests, bishops, paid professionals, structures and hierarchies are not necessary (see Other church leaders 1 and Other church leaders 2). Nor did Jesus teach (or even suggest) that such functions and positions were required or helpful. Over the decades and centuries (two whole millenia now) church has grown more complex, more structured, less flexible and more traditional. It has also branched into many independent subsets. We’ll examine all that in a later article, referring back to earlier posts here on JHM as well.

But for now I’d suggest human management and leadership might be some of the limiting factors in the church environment, and that these have adversely affected the natural life and ecology of church as we know it today. We should consider removing these factors to see what will happen. And if necessary we might try reintroducing the leadership modelled by Jesus, going back to first principles.

Church life, too, will find a way. All it needs is the opportunity!

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Developing faith – INDEX

Index – Activating the church, APEST

JDMC extracts – INDEX

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Whys and wherefores

A good start would be to state that church is defined by everything that Jesus is and does and teaches and by nothing beyond that.

Community life in Peckham (Wikimedia)

Church constitution – 2

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Paul’s letter to the Ephesians has sometimes been described as the constitution of the church, but that’s not strictly correct. Paul didn’t write Ephesians to define what church is and is not, so it contains much more than the bare bones of a definition. Constitutions are (relatively) brief but very clearly lay out the essence and limits of something, be it an organisation like a business, a charity, or indeed a nation. They also spell out definitions of terms as well as the concept being defined, as clearly as possible. So if we want a constitution for the church, we must think in terms of something succinct, crystal clear, and complete but not providing unnecessary additional detail.

Why have a constitution?

The church has never truly had a constitution, some might argue it doesn’t need one. But recently I’ve begun to feel it does. Almost every denomination imposes customs and requirements on their adherents, over and above anything that Jesus taught. There are paid leaders and managers, forms of infant baptism, doctrine, so much encrusted over the basics. So much that can be seen as unnecessary when we compare it to the earliest forms of church as we find it in the New Testament.

Some form of declarative constitution might bring clarity to all this muddled confusion. Over the centuries there have been repeated reforms and corrections, but generally these have resulted in yet more varieties of belief and practice. A constitution might help us simplify and see some patterns in the prevailing mess; we should at least make an attempt to form one.

There are probably as many definitions as there are denominations, and that’s quite a large number; a constitution provides a reference point. The Bible, and even just the New Testament is far too detailed to be a definition; yet it contains everything we need to know and does not support the additions and concretions of the last two millenia.

The essentials, but no more

What else can we say about constitutions in general? The key point, I think, is that a constitution should contain everything essential but nothing beyond that, to bring clarity and focus. Constitutions are usually amendable both for corrections and for additions or deletions. There is normally an agreed process for amending a constitution.

So where would we begin for the church? As always, we must begin with our source – Jesus himself.

Jesus’ claims

Jesus made some pretty fundamental claims; the constitution will need to say whether we accept these claims or reject them.

He said that his father is the God of his ancestors and that he was there with his Father when the universe was conceived and created. He claims to have come into this created world like one of us, as an ambassador for and from his father, to reveal the father to us and to make it possible for us to communicate with the father again. So continuing with the results of part 1 of this series, we can add an additional clause about Jesus. Let’s put that new clause at the beginning, where it belongs.

The Constitution of church so far

1 – Jesus was sent by his Father to be present in the world to reveal the nature and the loving heart of the Father. He returned to his Father and deposited their Spirit to remain in his followers as a perpetual gift.

The Spirit lives within us, giving us the potential to continue the work Jesus began in this world – loving, reconciling, transforming, encouraging, guiding.

2 – Church is not a particular place or building. It is, instead, a particular people.

Church consists of every person following Jesus, but the term also applies to local church where it’s limited in time and place to a particular group or gathering meeting and working together more or less regularly.

3 – A named place is not required, people can meet anywhere convenient to them.

An informal name may be helpful to explain where and when meetings take place, but names are not intended (and should not be interpreted) to indicate any sort of hierarchy within, or separation from, any other part of church, even if those other parts regard themselves as different or separate.

We’ll continue adding and editing clauses of our Constitution next time, rearranging them as seems necessary and appropriate.

Useful? Interesting?

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Upside-down?

I will build my church

Church as a network – INDEX

Making a start

[Why do] we have and use the term ‘church’ at all? It’s come to mean those buildings in most towns and cities in the world where Christians gather on Sundays (and often at other times, too) to read Bible passages, listen to sermons, take communion, and in some denominations have one or more leaders at the front.

Clear or unclear, the church building

Church constitution – 1

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I made a start on a stand-alone article on this topic as one of my ‘Ad hoc’ articles, but thinking about it again more recently I felt it would make a good, stand-alone series that I could develop over time.

But something I didn’t consider was why we have and use the term ‘church’ at all. It’s come to mean those buildings in most towns and cities in the world where Christians gather on Sundays (and often at other times, too) to read Bible passages, listen to sermons, take communion, and in some denominations have one or more leaders at the front wearing funny clothes (or ordinary ones). That’s a sort of caricature of course. Churches and church members often do much more than that. They may run a food bank, hold evening meetings to study the Bible more deeply, visit local hospitals to visit patients, and a whole lot more besides. But these activities are not church; in a sense they are add-ons, though they are certainly good things to be doing in the communities where we live.

Places or people?

But why are they called ‘churches’ in the first place? This is something we need to consider; over time, people have used both place-words and people-words for gatherings. Church is a place-word and we could also mention a series of other place-words used in different times and languages to express the same concept. For example kyriakón / Kirche / kirk, as well as basilica, cathedral, and chapel.

All of these in one way or another are used to signify places of gathering.

Kyriakón is from Kyrios, the Greek word for lord or master. Kirche is German, kirk is Scots, and church is of course English. However derived they all speak of a place but significantly also of kingship, rule and authority.

In a Roman city the Basilica had the appearance of a traditional European church building. Two rows of large columns supporting arches and a high roof, with a semi-circular and sightly raised area at one end. So architecturally it was church-like but was not a place of worship. It was the Roman law court and the judges sat on the raised area in the apse (the semi circular end section). The idea of authority hovers there in the background again.

The Greek word cathedra simply means a chair, a cathedral is the ‘seat’ of a bishop. The word chapel is Latin, from cappa, a mantle or cloak. It entered English in the 13th century from old French.

Going back to Hebrew and Aramaic brings in other aspects. Hebrew was used in the Jerusalem Temple and to read the Old Testament scrolls in the synagogues. Jesus and his followers spoke Aramaic in everyday life. Synagogue is a Greek word and means an assembly or gathering, literally a bringing together (the New Testament was written in Greek and there were well-established Greek versions of the Old Testament as well). The Greek term packages up two Hebrew words, edah (congregation or community – a people word), and qahal (summoned or called together – a people/action/place word). After the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 AD, the Greek term synagogue was used to bundle up the senses of gathering, learning and intercession.

There were other words for the buildings themselves. Beit ha-knesset is the house of assembly, Beit ha-midrash is house of study/interpretation, Beit ha-tefillah is house of prayer.

No need for a name

Taking all of this together we can see that when we meet, wherever that might be, it’s a place, a gathered people, and has senses of assembling, study/interpretation, and prayer, as well as Lordship. So where can we gather to achieve all of that? Anywhere we like! We have only to agree a time and place to turn up together to pay attention to Jesus. Anywhere will do. It could be the temple courts, the upper room, my house, your house, a garden, a woodland clearing, a supermarket car park, or it could be somewhere we call a baptist church or a house church. The place itself is of no significance, all of the significance rests in the fact that Jesus is here and we are with him, that he is teaching us and we are learning ever more from him. Have you ever been in a place like that? Does it need a name? I’m going to provisionally call it a House of Presence or a House of the Spirit.

But the constitution of the Church doesn’t need to name things. So we won’t define a name in our constitution at all. We should include a note to say that a name is not required, it’s important to state that; because the name doesn’t help to define church. Why did the 1st Century believers talk about Lydia’s House. or the gathering at Corinth? Because they knew what we have often forgotten – it’s no more than a matter of convenience. We can (and should) meet anywhere; a river bank is enough, or a market place, someone’s home or a hired room.

It’s not the place that matters, it’s the people and the purpose that are significant, the presence of the Spirit of Jesus in his gathered people is what really matters. However, it’s worth mentioning that big spaces with hundreds of people are usually too large for very practical reasons. There’s a need to sit around with no more than one to ten other people. Everyone needs to know one another, like a family, everyone needs to be able to share freely what they’re reading or hearing from the Spirit. If it’s big and impersonal many opportunities will be missed. We can come together in larger numbers with a band of musicians to celebrate and sing our hearts out. That’s good too, but it’s a different kind of meeting. But it’s still an expression of church and life together.

Why have a constitution?

Over the centuries there have been repeated reforms and corrections, but generally these have resulted in yet more varieties of belief and practice. A constitution might help, I think we should at least make an attempt to form one.

So first of all, why would we even want a church constitution? There are probably as many definitions as there are denominations, and that’s quite a large number; a constitution provides clarity and a reference point. The Bible, and even just the New Testament is far too detailed to be a definition; yet it contains everything we need to know and does not support the additions and concretions of the last two millenia.

The essentials, but no more

What else can we say about constitutions in general? The key point, I think, is that a constitution should contain everything essential but nothing beyond that. Constitutions are usually amendable both for corrections and for additions or deletions. There is normally an agreed process for amending a constitution.

So where would we begin for the church? As always, we must begin with our source – Jesus himself.

A good start would be to state that church is defined by everything that Jesus is and does and teaches and by nothing beyond that. Having leaders of a particular flavour or style and how we name those leaders are not fundamental. Whether you have a priest, a vicar, a pastor, elders or deacons, those are all secondary features of church life and practice. They cannot form part of the definition.

Let’s begin by saying church is a group of people striving to follow Jesus. I don’t think we can start in any better way.

So we’ll make that our primary clause.

The Constitution of church so far

1 – Church is not a particular place or building. It is, instead, a particular people

2 – A named place is not required, people can meet anywhere convenient to them.

We’ll take those as the first two clauses of our Constitution for now

Useful? Interesting?

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Upside-down?

Church as we know it

I will build my church

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The higher you look, the less you see

The Governor gives way

Such lofty characters were dangerous and had unexpected powers over ordinary mortals. You did not want to mess with them. The moment he hears that Yahshua might be the son of the Jewish god he becomes seriously scared.

Greek commentary on John’s gospel dated 1190-1200 (Bodleian Library)

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Cruising the gospel – John 19:1-24

Bible text – Read it yourself (opens in a new tab)

Arresting Jesus

19:1-7 – The Roman Governor, Pontius Pilatus (Pontius Pilate) perhaps thinking he could get away with a lesser punishment than crucifixion, decided to turn Yahshua (Jesus) over to the Roman troops to be ridiculed and severely beaten. In this he was seriously mistaken, the Jewish authorities were not going to accept anything less than the death penalty. Pilatus twice told them that he could find no cause for any legal charge against Yahshua. There was no breach of Roman law here, but the Jewish religious leaders saw a huge and unsufferable offence against their religious traditions. What was a Roman Governor to do in the face of this? His job was to maintain Roman rule, to put down rebellions, make sure taxes were paid and that peace prevailed in his province.

It’s worth mentioning here that Rome had no problem with local kings and kingdoms. Herod was a king, client tribes and kingdoms throughout the empire were tolerated, even officially encouraged. A claim to be ‘King of the Jews’ or ‘King of Judea’ was not in and of itself an offence against Roman law or government. At the time of Yahshua’s trial and official innocence under Roman law, local kings were widespread in Gaul, in Spain, in Germany and in North Africa and the entirety of what is now Turkey. The Roman Emperor ruled over kings and kingdoms, peace (the Pax Romana) was required everywhere and a Roman Governor in each province was held responsible for keeping that peace. Herod Antipas ruled Samaria, but Judea had no king at this moment. Archelaus had ruled Judea, Samaria, and Idumaea but he’d been deposed by Roman direct rule due to poor government and mismanagement. We can, I think, be sympathetic towards Pilatus, who had to prevent violence and uprisings in his Provinces of Judaea and Samaria. If his verdict of Yahshua’s innocence was going to cause a riot or some kind of violence he would have to make a difficult choice, either calm the protest by crucifying this innocent man who claimed to be the Jewish King, or forcefully put down the growing crowds calling for the death penalty. The Bible passages about these events make his dilemma very clear.

Verse 7 is notable. Romans were religious people with gods of their own and temples in every city. Like the Greeks they had traditions and stories about super powerful men being sons of this or that god. Such lofty characters were dangerous and had unexpected powers over ordinary mortals. You did not want to mess with them. The moment he hears that Yahshua might be the son of the Jewish god he becomes seriously scared. He’s just had the man beaten and mocked.

19:8-16 – In verse 8 he goes back to check, and in verse 12 we’re told he wanted to set Yahshua free. So now Pilatus is afraid of an angry crowd that includes senior Jewish religious leaders, and also terrified that he’s dealing with the son of a powerful god. If he allows a riot to develop he’ll be in trouble with the Emperor, if he executes this man he’ll be in trouble with a god! The only way out is to transfer the responsibility to others; and that’s exactly what he sets out to do.

In the end, the Jewish leaders lie to Pilatus to force him to act. They tell him to his face that he is no friend of Caesar if he allows Yahshua to live since anyone claiming kingship opposes Caesar. As I explained above, this is patently incorrect; there are kings in many if not most Roman provinces, ruling with the local Roman governor on Caesar’s behalf. But the direct threat to Pilatus is being spoken openly and he acts in the clearest way possible. He sits on the judgement seat and tells the Jews plainly, ‘Here’s your King‘. He speaks the truth. Their reply is brutal and final, ‘Take him away. Crucify him‘.

And Pilatus hands him over to the Roman troops.

19:17-24– The Roman troops took charge and Yahshua carried his cross to the nearby Golgotha (Skull Place) where he and two others were crucified, one either side of him.

Pilatus’ notice attached to Yahshua’s cross stated the truth – ‘Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews’. The chief priests grumbled about these words, telling Pilatus, ‘Don’t write “The King of the Jews”, but “he claimed to be King of the Jews”. Responding grumpily, Pilatus told them, ‘I wrote what I wrote’. Pilatus understood who Yahshua was better than the senior Jewish clerics!

The soldiers took Yahshua’s clothes, sharing them out amongst the four of them. It would be a pity to waste them, perks of the job. They drew lots for his undergarment as it was woven as a single piece and they didn’t want to tear it. He hung naked on the cross until he died.

Useful? Interesting?

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John 14:22-31 – Not to the world?

Guests and another move

We talked with Matt and learned a bit about him, but left him there in the bus station. At home I discussed the situation with Donna and we decided to drive over to the bus station in the morning and bring him home. Matt was not as easy as Emily or Ash, but much less of a problem than either of the Davids.

Moving from a large house to a small house!

6 – Developing Faith

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Yatton

Twice while we were living in Yatton, Judy and I had invited people to come and live with us, coincidentally they were both called David.

One David (Davey) was trapped in a bad relationship with another man in Bristol. He was also a drug addict, but he was mild mannered. I don’t recall how we met him, I think he might have phoned our number as we had a second entry in the phone book as the contact number for Horsecastle Chapel. Davey was hoping a church in a village outside the city of Bristol might help him break free of his difficulties and move on from his past. He was at least looking in the right direction (church) and I took him several times to meetings at a house nearby where some of our old friends were meeting regularly. It didn’t end well for Davey, although he was with us for a number of weeks, perhaps even a month or two, and although he was interested in hearing about Jesus and trying to follow him, in the end his past life had a stronger call on him and one day he just disappeared, we thought to return to the bad situation in Bristol that he’d wanted to break free from. There was nobody in our little circle of friends in Yatton who had the experience or knowledge to really help him.

The second David (Dave) was from Newcastle, he was an unkind, mocking kind of person, very demanding and uncompromising. After a short stay with us, he made it very clear that in his opinion we were rather deficient by comparison with the church in Newcastle that he had left. In the end he began an affair with one of our friends. She and Dave left the area, her husband ended up having to work full time as well as looking after the children and the family home. This was a disastrous failure for which Judy and I felt at least partly to blame. I phoned the pastor of the Newcastle Church (which turned out to be Pentecostal); he was sympathetic but told me that Dave was a very difficult challenge and had left under a bit of a cloud. After these two experiences I was not inclined to invite people to come and stay again for some years, though aware that as followers of Jesus we are supposed to be willing to help people who are lost, hungry or without shelter. But Papa had other plans and found ways of easing me into inviting people to stay.

St Neots

After Judy’s death, marrying Donna, and beginning a new job in a different part of the country, when a New Zealand friend (another David) decided to return to New Zealand earlier than planned, Donna and I were happy to give a room to his daughter Emily. She needed to live in the UK just a few more weeks to finish her A levels and qualify for UK citizenship and this in turn would allow her to work later anywhere in the EU. Emily got her citizenship so has that dual nationality – British and New Zealand. But her hopes to return for work in Europe were later shattered by Brexit. Emily was an absolute delight as a house guest; she is now married, has a medical degree, and is living and working in New Zealand.

The next house guest was Ash and later his three children from time to time for short visits. Ash’s marriage had fallen apart and he was in a difficult and stressful situation. He met one of our Small Group members through an on-line dating site and when we heard he was looking for somewhere to stay and had to leave his flat near the Welsh border at short notice, Donna and I offered to help. I met Ash and his Dad who had also driven up to provide more car space and between us, we got everything into the three cars. Ash proved to be resourceful, he quickly found temporary work that he could do from home to cover his costs and soon enough found a full time job. He moved into our Small Group friend’s flat and they later married, but things went very pear-shaped in the end. Ash had a very tough time but he never lost his willingness to work hard and do whatever was necessary to win through in every situation. Ash was another success story and a pleasure to share our home with. Emily and then Ash were two people used by Papa to draw me back into a willingness to invite others. Donna also enjoyed their presence in our home so she was also ready and willing to consider more.

The next house guest was Matt. On 5th January 2014, my friend Sean and I had taken hot soup and bread rolls into Huntingdon and found Matt in the bus station there, it was a popular haunt for the homeless as it was well heated and out of the rain. We talked with Matt and learned a bit about him, but left him there in the bus station (along with a flask of soup and the remaining bread rolls). At home I discussed the situation with Donna and we decided to drive over to the bus station in the morning and bring him home. Matt was not as easy as Emily or Ash, but much less of a problem than either of the Davids. At this time I was learning about the APEST gifts to the church and was involved in some of the Newforms meetings organised by Peter Farmer in Nottingham. I had begun writing JDMC as an APEST primer text and I took Matt and another friend, Kevin, to one of the Newforms meetings. After some difficulties Matt eventually left us, but continued to be involved in the coffee shop meetings I’d started. He brought us a mix of difficulties with some hopeful and helpful aspects from time to time.

On 21st August 2015, Peter and Dadka came to stay with us, using our spare bedroom. Donna and I already knew Dadka from the Open Door Small Group we were part of, sometimes meeting at our house. Peter and Dadka were Slovakians and Dadka’s mother also lived in St Neots. They were still with us when we sold our house in order to move across the country to Cirencester in the Cotswolds. In the end we pretty much had to throw them out in order to redecorate their bedroom, they were very reluctant to leave but push really had come to shove. They’d known for a long time that we needed to empty the house, but were not good at dealing with deadlines. Dadka had been a heroin addict but very much to her credit decided to give up the habit and was determined enough to succeed. We helped by providing all the necessary aids, and we also managed to get them an offer to stay at a nearby Emmaeus Community facility in Carlton, not far from St Neots. However, they turned the offer down at the last moment. In the end they returned to Slovakia and we’ve lost touch with them.

We learned a lot through making these attempts of welcoming strangers with a variety of needs into our home. Donna and I are wiser now (it comes through experience) and I understand that welcoming people with difficulties will always work better for a community of, say, ten or more people than it will for a single household. The early church held everything in common and supported one another socially, financially, and in dealing with difficulties. That depth of support was something we lacked and I do believe the community aspect is something we need to recover if we’re to be truly successful in following Jesus. We need to demonstrate and model community in a world that is largely forgetting what that looks like.

Making a start with APEST

This was an important time in my church journey during which I began to understand much more about the patterns of life and ministry within church. The practical aspects were being lived by Peter and Marsha Farmer and their friends in Nottingham and around the UK, much of the background theory was being understood and taught by Alan Hirsch and others in the USA and elsewhere. I’d already learned a great deal from people like Alan, Michael Frost, Tony and Felicity Dale, an online email community called the Koinonia Life Discussion Forum, Paul Young (author of ‘The Shack’), Peter and Marsha Farmer (Newforms) and many other people trying their best to live church community life more fully including the Community of Celebration and the Fisherfolk. Taking all of this together along with what I was experiencing in St Neots and previously in Yatton was illuminating, very encouraging, and frankly character-building.

After reading a number of books about the topic and trying some things out in practical ways, I felt the need for an accessible, lightweight and introductory study guide to help people work through the basic ideas together in small communities. I called it Jesus, Disciple, Mission, Church or JDMC. It’s a free download from Journeys of heart and mind. It’s still being downloaded regularly, perhaps 10 or 12 times a week on average. Visit the article JDMC in the See also: section below if you’d like to read it or use it in a study group. The title is the pattern followed in the early church, though today we often change the sequence. We tend to begin with a church that is already established, send out missions, usually in other parts of the world, and feel we should ‘disciple’ the church members (even though disciple is not a verb, but a noun) and all too often we forget to include Jesus. The correct sequence is to share the great news about who Jesus is and what he does among the many people in our society who do not yet know him, show them how to join us in following him (becoming disciples), help them to fulfil the same mission (going out into the world telling people about Jesus and helping them make more disciples), and then get the new believers meeting and living as communities of Jesus followers. It begins with Jesus, and it ends with church. The free use of spiritual gifts (and the APEST gifts in particular) is essential for this process to succeed.

A mix of patterns

The Open Door Small Group we were in towards the end of our time in St Neots was a real example of this kind of community. We didn’t live together, but we cooperated a lot and not just one day a week, we were all good friends and accepted our differences as mostly positive things, recognising that our different strengths and weaknesses complemented one another so where one had a lack another might fill it. This experience too, added to the mix of discovered and lived patterns that I now believe to be truly essential for a deep and true walk through life in company with Jesus and a group of his followers. It’s something the church has a desperate need for, but rarely understands. It’s really something we have forgotten over the eighty or so generations since Jesus called his first disciples on the shore of Galilee. We need to get it back, and because we live in a time of civilizational churn and change we need to get it back urgently.

How did we lose it? By processes of dilution, encrustation, lack of imagination, a lost sense of purpose, and a grasping after power over simple love, and of position over simple gifting, and trusting ourselves more than we trust Jesus and his Spirit. We haven’t thrown it all away, at least not just yet. But we’ve rejected a lot of precious truth and replaced it with our best attempt to find ways that are less demanding and make it possible for us to swap challenging situations for more comfortable ones, to replace struggle with laziness. And, perhaps most damaging of all, we have accepted easy lives where we don’t even have to think daily about our motives or our willingness to follow Jesus in both attitudes and actions.

We have learned to judge as a form of self-defence because we don’t like being judged, and we’ve learned to run from effort because like lazy schoolchildren we prefer to avoid the work required.

Cirencester

And so the time came to move from St Neots to Cirencester. We packed our stuff, Donna drove over first with our cat, Erin. I saw the final items loaded on the removals van and then drove to the new house in our small, second car. Donna and Erin were already there, and we used the enclosed porch as a catlock: open the front door and enter the porch, check the cat hasn’t snuck in as well; after depositing her back into the house or confirming her absence from the porch, open the door to either the back garden or the street and leave the house. Pretty soon we discovered Cirencester Baptist Church and decided it was the best choice in town. We looked at the Small Group options as well but found our first option was not meeting during the summer and would be unavailable until September. In the meantime I began meeting with another CBC Small Group and became quite friendly with some of the people there, but it was frustrating for me to be so immersed in Bible study and prayer but with little or no opportunity to use spiritual gifts or talk about APEST and other matters. It felt like playing a piano with most of the black keys missing so being able to play in at most two or three keys. Very limiting.

In the autumn we joined the original group we’d had in mind, but Donna dropped out over time and for several years I was involved with both groups as one met on Tuesdays while the other met on Thursdays. More new friends and a bit more freedom in the meetings this time, I felt; so I stuck with the second group and still meet with them most Tuesdays. But I still want to use my gifts more fully and I’m not entirely sure how to move forward. But I know that Jesus knows and will lead me in whatever direction he chooses for me. I must wait to see what that will be.

So, what does Jesus think?

This is where the chickens come home to roost. If we asked Jesus about church today in Britain (or indeed, almost anywhere) what would he say about it? Would he commend us? In most cases, I don’t think so. He might ask us where we think he fits in to all that we are doing. He might re-commend us to pay attention to what he has commanded us. He might re-command us to go out and do everything he commanded the disciples, to teach people everywhere to fulfil everything he commanded us (and them) to do.

Then Jesus came to them and said, ‘All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptise them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teach them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.’ (Matthew 28:16-20)

Where are we failing? Everywhere! We do none of the things he wants us to do. At best we watch while priests, vicars, pastors and elders do these things while the rest of us are spectators. The standard church seating arrangement announces and ensures that; but Jesus is our authority and we are all called by him to go, make, baptise and teach.

When did we lose our way?

Almost at the very beginning. Think about Paul’s letters to the Corinthians, the people there were already a derailment of what Jesus taught and commanded. Paul wrote to try to get them back on track. We, too, are a bit of a train-crash. We need to hear what Paul says, and especially we need to hear what Jesus says. Sometimes it seems almost too late for us. But it’s not too late, despair is not the way forward for us, obedience is. The only part of the train that still stands on the tracks is Jesus himself, all the carriages and trucks lie scattered and broken where they fell. We need to repair and rebuild according to the original design and plan, then get everything properly back onto the track behind Jesus and every part connected to him and to one another. And then, when Jesus moves we will all move in the right direction because the track is firm and ensures that the entire Matthew 28:16-20 train follows him, moving in the right direction.

Signals and points

Railways also need signals and points (switches if you’re North American). Sometimes the train should pause to avoid a collision, and sometimes we need a change of direction. The Holy Spirit, (the Spirit of Christ) provides both control and direction. Once the train’s back on the track and moving we must pay attention to the Holy Spirit for both safety and direction. He will tell us, ‘Wait a moment, I’ll tell you when to start moving again’ or he’ll say, ‘The track divides here, we’re heading left (or right)’. We ignore his guidance at our peril. Having been restored following a train-crash, believe me – you do not want to provoke another one.

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Church constitution – INDEX

What are we doing? – Index

Leadership and the New Testament

Last words from JDMC

Index – Activating the church, APEST

This series takes a closer look at the APEST gifts, everyone has some measure of all these gifts, they form the DNA of church. Without them we would be no more than a scattered, random selection of individuals, but we them all active we become the body of Christ himself.

A street party

How can we be more obedient?

(See indexes on other topics)

This series takes a closer look at the APEST gifts, everyone has some measure of all these gifts, they form the DNA of church. Without them we would be no more than a scattered, random selection of individual, but we them all active we become the body of Christ himself.

1 – What does Jesus mean to me?
2 – Becoming like the foundation
3 – Wrong foundations
4 – Who am I? What do I do?
5 – Travelling with an apostle
6 – See and hear with a prophet
7 – Partying with an evangelist
8 – Leading the sheep
9 – Understand and explain
10 – APEST in Jesus
11 – The Way, the Truth, and the Life (in preparation)

You might also like to read the series on how I came to faith.

Arresting Jesus

John knew Peter well, they’d been around the entire time of Jesus’ teaching of the twelve, and perhaps they’d known one another for years before Jesus came on the scene, both families lived by fishing on Galilee, they were both called by Jesus to follow.

Greek commentary on John’s gospel dated 1190-1200 (Bodleian Library)

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Cruising the gospel – John 18:1-40

Bible text – Read it yourself (opens in a new tab)

Arresting Jesus

18:1-14 – Jesus and his disciples left the upper room and walked out of the city, presumably by a southern gate. They crossed the Kidron Valley and entered the garden of Gethsemene (from ‘gath’ meaning a press, and ‘Shemanim’ meaning oils). It was a place where olive trees grew and where the harvested olives were pressed to release the oil. ‘Garden’ does not imply decorative plants and flowers as we would think of a garden today. It was just the term for an enclosed agricultural space, a ‘garth’ or ‘gard’ with a wall around it to ‘guard’ it. Jesus and his followers often met here, and Judas was well aware of that fact.

Judas arrived outside the enclosure, followed by a group of soldiers (presumably Romans) as well as a group of Pharisees and some staff of the High Priest. Jesus left the walled enclosure and asked them who they were looking for, and they answered ‘Jesus of Nazareth’.

Jesus told them, ‘I am he’. And they stepped back and fell to the ground. ‘I am’ in Hebrew and in Aramaic sounds rather like ‘Yahweh’, the Holy Name that nobody was allowed to utter. This would have profoundly shocked the Pharisees and the High Priest’s staff. He asked them again, ‘Who are you looking for?’ Again they answered, ‘Jesus of Nazareth’. And he told them again, ‘I am he, so let these others leave’. Peter had a sword and struck out at Malthus, the High Priest’s servant, cutting off his ear lobe. Jesus told Peter to put the sword away. The Roman soldiers under their commander, and the Jewish officials accompanying them, arrested Jesus and tied his arms, probably behind his back, then took him to Annas, once High Priest, father-in-law of Caiaphas, the current High Priest. Annas asked questions about Jesus’ followers and about doctrinal matters and then sent him on to Caiaphas.

Peter’s denials

18:15-26 – Peter and one other disciple followed Jesus and the group who’d arrested him (bravely under the circumstances). There’s been some debate about the ‘other’ disciple. It might have been John, or Nicodemus, or Joseph of Arimathea, or possibly even the traitor, Judas. (Read some aspects of the debate for yourself.)

This other disciple made it possible for Peter to enter the home of Annas where there were some questions being asked of Jesus. So which of those characters mentioned above would most want Peter to hear that questioning and Jesus’ answers? Think about that for a moment. John knew Peter well, they’d been around the entire time of Jesus’ teaching of the twelve, and perhaps they’d known one another for years before Jesus came on the scene, both families lived by fishing on Galilee, they were both called by Jesus to follow. Peter was a man of action, he’d proved it once again by using his sword that very evening!

Annas questioned Jesus about his disciples and about his teaching (verse 19). Jesus often taught to crowds (you can’t get more public than that) and replied that he always taught in public in synagogues, or even the Temple courts. He didn’t teach in secret. Annas could learn about Jesus’ teaching from any of his many listeners. That remark drew an abusive slap in the face from one of the Jewish officials. Peter and the other disciple heard and saw all this. At this point Annas sent Jesus, still tied up, to Caiaphas.

And Peter denied being one of Jesus’ disciples for the second and third times. How did all this affect Peter? I’d suggest seeing and hearing the interrogation and the angry slap and recognising his own failure in denying he was a disciple all helped to stir Peter up and ready him for action. Frustration, helplessness, anger and guilt are a heady mix for anyone with a habit of activity. And I submit that John, knowing Peter as he did, would have expected that. I think John also understood that a time for action was coming very soon.

With Caiaphas

Although John doesn’t record the interaction between Jesus and Caiaphas, we can fill the gap a little from other sources, read Matthew 26 for example.

After the resurrection of Lazarus, Caiaphas had told the Sanhedrin that it would be better for one man to die for the people, than that the whole nation should perish. He was worried that the Romans would lose patience and intervene militarily.

And during Jesus trial before the Sanhedrin, Caiaphas directly questioned Jesus, demanding a clear answer on his identity: ‘I demand you tell us whether you are the Christ, the Son of God’. Jesus did not give a direct answer, but what he said was regarded as blasphemy and the Sanhedrin condemned him.

The Roman governor, Marcus Pontius Pilatus

Caiaphas and the Sanhedrin wanted the death penalty for Jesus, but only the Roman governor could provide such a sentence, so Caiaphas sent him on for a third hearing.

Pilate was not interested in religion, only in politics, so his first question was about Jesus’ kingship. Jesus explained that he hadn’t come to rule, but to testify to the truth. Pilate’s concern was not truth, either, but still only politics, so he went back outside to the waiting Jewish delegation and told them he didn’t find Jesus guilty of anything. But the custom is that at Passover time I release someone from captivity for you. I can release Jesus for you if you wish. ‘No’, they shouted back, ‘Not Jesus, release the agitator and rebel, Bar Abbas. This Aramaic name means, quite literally, ‘Son of the father’. This is striking indeed as Jesus is the true ‘Son of the Father’. Jesus was known in Galilee as ‘Yeshua bar Yoseph’, Jesus son of Joseph, but he was truly ‘Yeshua bar Abba’, Jesus son of the Father. The Jewish leaders were choosing the wrong man, but also the Wrong Father!

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John 14:22-31 – Not to the world?

Praying for the glory

If Jesus is in John and is glorified, John shares in that glory too! Even if John doesn’t fully grasp what exactly the glory is, he certainly grasps that through Jesus that glory is already in him.

Greek commentary on John’s gospel dated 1190-1200 (Bodleian Library)

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Cruising the gospel – John 17:24-26

Bible text – Read it yourself (opens in a new tab)

Sharing what he wants

17:24-26 – If these verses do not astound you, you need to pay closer attention to what Jesus is saying. Let’s break the material down to consider it carefully. The first thing to note is that Jesus is not conversing with his followers here, he’s speaking with his Father. He’s not asking for strength during his coming ordeal on the cross, instead he’s just telling his heavenly Dad what he wants. And the first thing that comes to mind is that he wants his followers to be with him where he is and to see his glory. Well, they are with him, he’s in the upper room in Jerusalem and so are they.

Seeing the glory

But do they see his glory? No, I don’t think they do – not yet, not fully. Peter, James and John had been with Jesus on the mountain and had seen and heard what happened there. But they didn’t understand what was really going on. Peter, always the practical doer, was going to build three shelters. James might have had more intuition about it, but I imagine John would have got closer than the other two. John was the disciple ‘Jesus loved’, he viewed things from a more spiritual dimension, it was his nature to dwell on spiritual truth and look for hidden depths of meaning.

I think John is already aware that Jesus thinks of himself as Yahweh’s Son, he’s referred to himself as the Son, and he often talks about ‘My Father’. And I suspect John understood that was an eternal relationship. Jesus spells it out again here in the Garden as he prays to his Father. The Father loved him before the world was created and loves him still. And I imagine for John it was not too great a leap to see that this love is eternal and will remain even after the end of time itself. And in verse 26 Jesus says to his Father that he has made his followers aware that the Father has sent him (Jesus), that he’ll continue to show them that so the Father’s love will be in them and so that Jesus himself will be in them too.

Does this take us back to Jesus in glory on the mountain? Yes, I think it does! And John must have understood that if Jesus is in him, that he too must have been gloriously transformed on the mountain, so that he, John, can also talk freely with Moses concerning law and with Elijah concerning prophecy. If Jesus is in John and is glorified, John shares in that glory too! Even if John doesn’t fully grasp what exactly the glory is, he certainly grasps that through Jesus that glory is already in him and raises him to the giddy heights of the law and the prophetic.

And this is where we all stand if Christ is in us. We just need to see, as John did, that the glory arrives when Jesus does, that we share in him and in his glory permanently. So when my body dies (as it must) I continue to live gloriously because Jesus is in me. I’m sure Peter and James came to understand this too, certainly at Pentecost if not before. That was the moment when Jesus’ glory was fully revealed to the entire church, not just in theory but in full experience.

This was a moment they had been told to wait for, but when it came it was far beyond what they had imagined or expected.

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Living in the presence

A glorious sunset

The city on the hill

A moving experience

Part of a Small Group meeting

5 – developing faith

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Yatton to St Neots

Donna and I were married in 1998 and Tony was my best man; Donna’s best friend, Jane, was her chief bridesmaid. Donna had taken a new job with Unilever Research at their research site a little north of Bedford. She bought a cottage in the village of Tilbrook and when we were married I moved into the cottage with her and Unilever offered me a job on their intranet web team, initially to create a website that could be duplicated for each of their research sites – two in the UK, one in the USA and one in the Netherlands.

Donna was keen to find a church in the nearby town of St Neots, or if necessary in Bedford.

We soon found the cottage was far too small, and moved to a four-bedroom property in Eaton Ford, part of St Neots. The internet had barely hit its stride in the late ’90s, so it wasn’t nearly as easy to find a church (or anything else) as it would be today.

One weekend before we were married, I was visiting Donna , and on the Sunday I said, ‘Come on , let’s drive into St Neots and see what we can find’. She said, ‘No, you’ll never find anything that way’. But we jumped into the car and I prayed very briefly to be shown where to go – and off we went. We drove through the middle of the town and out towards Eynesbury but saw nothing of interest, then I turned right and down a couple of streets and coming to a secondary school we spotted an A-board welcoming people to ‘Open Door Church’. We followed the sign, parked the car, and made our way into ‘Ernulf School’ and there we were – Open Door Church! It turned out to be a lively, welcoming place, just what Donna was looking for. Over the next week or so she got to know some of the people and was invited to join a cell group run by Rob and Jean and a couple from France who were planning to return home in a few weeks time. And that was that! By the time I was working at Unilever and had moved into the cottage full time, Donna was well-established at Open Door, the French couple had moved back to France, and Rob and Jean were running the cell group on their own. They quickly became good friends, we even had a holiday in Scotland with them one year.

A wrong step

How easily we do this! Wanting to support Donna, I was happy to go along to the Sunday meetings at Open Door and, far more to my taste, join in with the weekly cell meetings every Wednesday or Thursday. But there was a fly in the church ointment. It was expected that people taking part regularly would ‘join’ the church and sign the membership book. This also involved promising to give your allegiance to Open Door. That was something I found hard – a step too far, a very big ask. My allegiance was to Jesus and him alone. But I did want to support Donna in her new membership of Open Door and it seemed to be something couples were expected to do together. So I put my doubts to one side and signed up – that was a major wrong step!

Trying to right the wrong

What’s the best thing to do if you take a wrong turning? Usually the best thing is to retrace your steps to the point of the mistake and take a different path. As the weeks went by it became clearer and clearer to me that I was in a bad place. I had agreed to be guided by the leaders of Open Door Church but knew that my only guidance should come through Jesus and his Spirit working in me and in my brothers and sisters.

So I wrote to the elders, explaining my mistake and asking to be released from membership and the promise of allegiance I had made. Nothing like this had happened before and they really had no idea what to do. They invited me to visit the lead elder’s (Tony’s) house, and when I went along he had also invited another elder, Brian. They asked me to explain what I meant. I told them, as gently as I could, that in my view all followers of Jesus should follow him alone. I added that this did not mean I wanted to leave Open Door. The reaction surprised me, almost as if I had decided to follow Islam, Hinduism or Buddhism. They were cold, even a bit frosty, and it was very clear that they felt I was rejecting their authority in some rather dangerous way. It was as if they felt that following Jesus implied following the elders. I was left feeling, ‘Hang on, this is my life in which I can follow anyone I wish, and I’ve chosen Jesus. Do you think he will lead me to cause problems for you?’

They wanted to talk again the following week, and this time told me that they’d heard my point of view and now wanted me to hear the conditions under which I might continue to come to Open Door meetings. The main point was that they wanted to be assured that if I said or did anything in a meeting that they objected to, and they asked me to stop, that I would do so. And so, on those terms, I was allowed to continue to meet with them on Sunday mornings and for weekday cell group meetings.

Meeting again with other friends

Although I continued to meet at Open Door for some time, I felt unable to contribute freely on Sunday mornings. Sometimes I would share something prophetic, or a vision, but I didn’t want to upset Tony or the elders so I was always quite careful. And now and again I’d sing in the Spirit and others would join in, or I’d speak in a tongue and someone would interpret and that always felt safe enough because the interpretation was not through me! Or I’d dance, usually near the back of the room.

Rob and Jean, however, were personal friends and also seemed to have no issues over anything I said or did either on Sundays or at cell group sessions, but rather welcomed the input. Over the years the group leaders were changed repeatedly but I was still allowed the same freedom almost all of the time we lived in St Neots.

Meeting at home

All of this left me feeling that life in St Neots was poorer in some ways than life in Yatton. I missed my friends, but above all I missed the spiritual depth and intensity of meeting completely freely, guided by the Holy Spirit alone and allowing him to speak to each one through the way he was using all the others. I missed the kind of community I’d experienced in Yatton. I knew it didn’t depend on particular people being involved, but instead, what it required was that all those present intended to rely only on Jesus. ‘I can do all things in Christ who strengthens me’ (Philippians 4:13) and ‘Without Christ I can do nothing’ (John 15:5).

Where was I to find these people? I can’t be sure of the details at this point – who was involved first or how we got started. But my sister Rachael was involved very early on, as were various St Neots friends, my friends Jody and Peter from Unilever, and eventually many more from a wide area in Cambridgeshire, Northhamptonshire and Bedfordshire.

For eleven years I kept a list of meetings and now I can refer to that list to pick out the first time we met at each new location, and that will give a feeling for how the meetings spread and grew. There were rarely more than 10 people at a meeting, but I knew how these small gatherings worked (from long experience in Yatton). There were no rules, but we encouraged everyone to feel free to contribute in any way providing they felt it was from the Spirit and aligned with the way Jesus would contribute. So there was usually a sense of openness and freedom. Almost always there would be tongues with interpretation, Bible readings or at least a few quotes, prayer for guidance and for any needs expressed by those present, prophecy, and plenty of peaceful silence for thought and processing of what others had contributed. The meetings were never boring, and more often than not we could identify a theme that had come together little by little as we met. Most times we’d begin with coffee and a chat.

Dec 2002 – Eaton Ford
May 2006 – Rugby
Nov 2006 – Eaton Socon
Mar 2007 – Great Doddington
Feb 2008 – Little Paxton
May 2010 – Brampton
Jun 2010 – Hinchingbrooke
Jul 2010 – Letchworth
Jul 2010 – Eynesbury
Aug 2010 – Cornerstone, St Neots
Sep 2010 – Watton-at-Stone
Oct 2010 – Corby
Feb 2011 – Offord d’Arcy
Apr 2011 – Moggerhanger
Apr 2011 – Costa, St Neots
Nov 2011 – Earls Barton
May 2012 – Oundle

As you can see, things got under way slowly but spread in an accelerating manner. And in addition to these meetings all around the area, some of us were involved in other things, we had larger celebration meetings when we’d invite other friends along and there’d be music, singing, dancing and the praise and worship would be free and enthusisastic. For me these little meetings were encouraging and exciting – just as in Yatton there was a feeling that Father was pouring his nature and character out amongst us. Jesus was with us.

Donna meanwhile continued with Open Door and the cell group meetings (later renamed Small Group). I drifted away from Open Door’s Sunday meetings as I found it difficult to contribute and disagreed with a fair proportion of the teaching on offer. There was far more freedom in the Small Group environment.

The Eatons

Some time in the past, St Neots Evangelical Church had planted an offshoot called ‘The Eatons’ in Eaton Ford and Eaton Socon (once Bedfordshire villages but by this time absorbed as districts of the growing town of St Neots). Over time, the number of people meeting each week had fallen significantly and only a handful remained. I don’t recall how I heard about this situation, but I felt the Holy Spirit nudging me to go along one Sunday morning to meet them, and specifically to encourage them.

So I began to meet with them every Sunday morning and they were encouraged. I explained why I was there, and that encouraged them too. A turning point for me was that some of the members would go into another room to pray with whoever had been chosen to speak that morning. Sometimes there would be a visiting speaker, other times it would be one or two of the group. One day, only one person, Jim, went out to pray so I followed him out and joined in the prayer. He was touched by this I think, and we struck up a friendship which has lasted right up to the present day.

The Eatons reminded me very much of Zetland Road Church and Horsecastle Chapel (see part 2 of this series), they were just the same kind of traditional, independent, evangelical gathering. The Eatons had made a bargain with Jesus, they had ‘laid out a fleece’. They had stated that if two or three new families joined them by the end of the current year they would continue, but if not they would close down the meetings and wrap up the finances and the organisation. They counted my appearance as a step in the right direction, but I explained gently that I was not a permanent feature but had been told to come and encourage them. I was even invited to speak to them one Sunday morning which I did, though I’m not a great public speaker – far from it! I don’t recall what I spoke about but it was politely and kindly received. In due course The Eatons did close down but I had made some new friends. Not just Jim and his wife Pam, but some others too including Sean. Jim and Sean became involved in some of the home meetings mentioned earlier.

A longer perspective

From my longer perspective today at seventy-seven years old I can see that what seemed a minor difference between me and the Open Door elders is in truth a yawning gulf. It’s not just that I took a misstep, but that the entire edifice of following Jesus (Church almost everywhere and throughout history) took an enormous misstep at some point in its past development. Do we follow Jesus and Jesus alone? Or do we follow people who have structured what began as a simple community into a series of organisations that often disagree with one another on the details of what to think, what to believe, and how to behave?

The change may have been kickstarted by the Roman Empire making Christianity the official religion of the Empire in the 300s CE. Or it may go back even before that. But whatever the origins, it’s a misinterpretation and misrepresentation of what Jesus and the early church intended and practised. That all are equal under one head (Jesus), that all are filled with and empowered by his Spirit, and structures of stone or of management are not required or permitted. Church is community, a structure of children, women and men organised and motivated by the Same Holy Spirit and following only one master – Jesus!

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Leadership and the New Testament

Last words from JDMC

Pear-shaped

A book by Graham Pulkingham

4 – developing faith

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Arrival of Alan and Dorothy

A new family moved into the village and began to advise and work with Tony, Faith, Paul, Jenny and some of our friends from the next village, Claverham. During this time Judy and I began to feel that things were going a bit off-track. Judy actually wanted nothing to do with the new situation, I decided to go along to the meetings fairly often to keep in touch with our friends. I should add, right at the outset, that I don’t think there was any intention to derail the work that Father was doing amongst us, but rather to enrich it and bring additional knowledge and experience to the mix. But unintentionally this had the effect of changing track with a new focus on teaching that had not been there before. Teaching had never been a notable part of our meetings, we had always been guided mainly by prophecy, and by what we read in the Bible. We were exposed to teaching when we went to larger meetings (the pre-crusade rallies in Portishead for example and visits to Pip’n’Jay in Bristol or the meetings at Post Green), and from the popular books that were doing the rounds (books by Graham Pulkinhgham, Michael Harper, Colin Urquhart, David Watson and others) and we did a small amount of teaching when we were invited to visit local churches as ‘Fountain’. But in our own weekly and daily meetings there was little to no teaching. We were growing and learning together in our exciting faith journey. It was wonderful and extraordinary while it lasted.

But now Alan and Dorothy provided new songs (some of them truly excellent) and Alan taught regularly about how and when and where the meetings should take place as well as material about Jewish customs, feasts and celebrations. Alan and Dorothy came from a background of small gatherings in a different part of the UK (Blyth). So the Spirit-guided growth we had experienced gradually gave way to ideas and processes managed mainly by Alan. Something similar to this has happened over and over again throughout church history. Personally I learned a good deal by seeing it happen both from the outside (because I wasn’t directly involved in the events) and also from the inside (because I was at many of the meetings and had a ringside seat, so to speak). Sometimes I feel I should have shared my thoughts and feelings clearly, but Alan was experienced in meetings of this kind and I was not. I didn’t feel it was my place to interfere, nor was I part of what was happening. When I went along to a meeting I always felt I was accepted partly because I didn’t stir up trouble, but somehow seen as not quite making the grade. Everyone must have been aware that I had some doubts though I was careful not to express them too often or too forcefully. I was, however, grieving about the loss of the sense of direction we’d had together and the subtle shifts in emphasis.

A bad thing can sometimes spark good outcomes

What a strange heading, but it’s true! A few years later my wife Judy was diagnosed with bowel cancer and everything changed. Your friends are always your friends, through good times and bad, so at some point in late spring or early summer 1995 I think, I approached Tony and Faith with this really bad news and invited them to visit and pray with us. And because your friends are always your friends, they were not slow to respond. This coincided with a time when the meetings with Alan and Dorothy were proving rather difficult though I didn’t know that at the time.

Before long Tony and Faith, and Paul and Jenny were coming round for an evening visit at least once a week, and eventually two or even three times a week as Judy’s illness progressed. But what happened during those meetings was astounding and utterly unexpected. Jesus was palpably present every single time we met, and his Spirit was so active amongst us. We experienced prophecy, interpreted tongues, and deep coincidences between songs we were singing, what we were thinking and Bible readings that popped out in the moment. We knew we were right in Father’s presence every time we met. This was holy ground. None of us had experienced anything like it before. The cancer spread and I, for one, had no expectation of physical healing, but Judy and I were both blessed deeply by the renewed presence of our friends and by the experiences in the meetings. It’s fair to say we were all changed by these times together and I know that all of us who remain will never forget it. Judy died on 28th December 1995 and Paul is now no longer with us either. I’m sure all of us learned a lot through the shared experience of those times. Looking back from the perspective I have now, it seems that the change in the meetings following Alan and Dorothy’s arrival combined with the astounding times and experiences as we met again during Judy’s illness, starkly illuminated the difference between living and meeting in our own human wisdom and strength and the freedom we had in the pure presence of Jesus and his Spirit. There’s something further to say about this.

Teaching is not a bad thing, it’s an essential thing. A well-balanced community living in Jesus’ presence needs to receive truth from apostolic, prophetic, evangelistic, pastoral and teaching gifts. If any are missing or if there is an imbalance, any group, no matter how well-meaning, risks derailment in one form or another.

Winding down

After Judy’s death, the five of us continued to meet for a while, and sometimes we were joined by a couple from Clevedon, members of a new local church, and also by Donna (now my second wife) who was a work colleague from Long Ashton Research Station.

These meetings, too, were good but things were still changing. I remain in touch with Tony and Faith occasionally, though less so with Jenny. Donna and I were married a few years later and left the south-west for the east of England, but that’s another story and I’ll share my personal journey of faith there in the next part of this series. Paul and Jenny moved east as well to be closer to more of her family. Tony and Faith still live in the village of Yatton. Donna and I moved west again ten years ago and now live in Cirencester, Gloucestershire.

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