Life – Page 3 – Journeys of Heart and Mind

Paying attention like Jesus

We need to have challenging conversations with one another, Holy Spirit-led conversations like those Jesus had with his disciples and with those he met as he travelled with them in Galilee and in Israel.

Lung tissue (Wikimedia)

13 – Activating Church

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Lung tissue (Wikimedia) – Click images to enlarge

I read an article on Run with patience recently; it’s a site I particularly like and value, because the author, Sandy, very often provokes my own thinking in good and helpful directions. Please read her article and see what you think, then below I’ll share what it sparked off for me.

In her excellent and deeply probing article, Sandy writes that it’s always easier to pay attention to what others do than to pay attention to what we ourselves do. It’s far easier to judge others than it is to judge ourselves. Jesus was not like that, and we’re supposed to be on a path in which we become more and more like him.

As I read through the Gospels, I find Jesus continually drawing people’s attention somewhere else. Again and again, conversations that begin with outward behavior somehow find their way back to the heart. Someone asks about washing hands, and He speaks about what comes out of a person’s heart. Someone wants to debate the law, and He begins talking about love.

Please read Sandy’s article in full. It’s challenging, and it’s good.

How healthy is church?

Early believers were sometimes referred to by their pagan neighbours as Christians, a term that means ‘little Christs’. Meant in a sneering, derogatory way, this might instead be taken as a great compliment. We are supposed to be on a journey (not just a ‘spiritual journey’, but more particularly a very practical journey) to think and behave more and more like Christ.

This series is about ‘activating the church’ and here we get a glimpse of one way in which we need to become individually more active. Turning up on Sundays to listen to a sermon will not be nearly enough, nor will daily Bible reading. We will need to get our hands dirtier than that. We need to practice. We need to notice when we mess up and learn from our failures. We need to make an effort to stop making the same mistakes. We need to have challenging conversations with one another, Holy Spirit-led conversations like those Jesus had with his disciples and with those he met as he travelled with them in Galilee and in Israel. We need to tell one another, kindly, ‘What you did or said there didn’t meet the standard required of a disciple’. Perhaps not in those judgemental words, but gently turning the subject back to the heart.

How much church life needs this! There are people out there facing judgement and unkindness who desperately need to hear truths they may think they cannot live, people within the body and those beyond. Just read Paul’s letters, see how over and over and over again he urges people to follow the way of Christ, to hear the quiet voice of the Spirit, to reach out to one another and to those beyond with healing, grace, gentleness and truth. It’s always possible to find a kind way to share a truth and people will love you for it, both those within and those beyond the church family.

If we’re to grow, reach those around us, and encourage one another, we will only succeed by being both wise and gentle. The more practice we get the better. Paul was good at this, and Jesus of course was the expert he was trying to follow. Read the gospels with this in mind, see how Jesus managed it and allow yourself to grow to be more like him.

Cells in the body

Every person is a collection of cells and the cells are not randomly arranged but are connected as parts of various specialised structures, a heart, two lungs, a brain and many nerves and blood vessels – a full list would be very long indeed. These parts of the body interact and if any part fails to function the body will exhibit medical symptoms and might even die.

Think of yourself as a cell in the body of Christ, the church. For that is what you are! You have a function and you have connections with other cells. Usually you will have very local and strong connections, perhaps as part of an organ, and/or you may have less local connections as nerve cells and blood cells do. But you all play a part, a small but important part in the health of Christ’s body as a whole. The church in this generation is sick, ill at ease and not always (perhaps even rarely) functioning as designed. It’s sick purely because the cells are not working together as intended. Jesus wants to heal his body, and inevitably that means he wants to get all the cells (you, me and millions of others) working together as we were designed to do. Red blood cells must collect oxygen in the lungs and carry it to every part of the body. There they must hand off the oxygen and pick up carbon dioxide. In the lungs they must hand off the carbon dioxide to be breathed out and pick up more oxygen.

What must the cells in the body of Christ (the church) be doing? Prophetic cells must hear spiritual truth and share it widely with the rest of the body. They must also feel anguish about injustice in the world and share that widely too. They are vocal chord cells, if you will. Shepherding (pastoral) cells must notice friction and difficulties between other cells and step in to comfort, encourage and move us on from any harmful disagreement. What about the many cells that come in on Sundays to sit and listen? They must be helped to see what they are gifted for, what their active task should be, and encouraged to begin working in appropriate ways to build the body. Not a single one of of us has been given sitting and listening as a task to do in the body! There are no audience cells in your body, every cell is too busy for that, doing an essential, designated task.

Who are we?

Take church as a whole, whether locally in a village or part of a town, or even world-wide. If it is functioning as it should, that body of individuals will look and act like a person – Jesus! More often, it looks like an unfortunate mess. Local church, if it was a body, would usually be mindlessly hobbling about, suffering from both insanity and damaged bones and muscles. It’s still Jesus, but in a form we’d find hard to recognise. It’s Jesus crucified, not Jesus risen.

What to do about it?

Begin with prayer – Ask the Holy Spirit to open your ears, eyes and mind to reveal the way forward. You can ask this for yourself, for a small group, for an entire local church, or for the universal church – why not pray for all four? Pray particularly for the circumstances around you right now. Be prepared to see these prayers answered, perhaps in ways you can’t anticipate.
Start to read about the topic of waking and activating church. There are links to some of my other articles here. Activating church is the series you’re reading right now. Another series you might find helpful is Developing faith. the story of my own journey and formation. The series on JDMC (Jesus, Disciple, Mission, Church) explains more about helping a smallish group grow into a Jesus-focused family, it comes with more reading suggestions, practical exercises, and links to more resources. There’s even a free book with questions for groups to discuss together as they move forward.
Keep notes – jot down the things you ask in prayer, note down in your own words the ideas you come across as you read the Bible, other books on topics that interest you, as well as anything that grabs your attention in online material.
Consider sharing this article, the series, and the other material with the people you are meeting with.

You might also like:

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The city on the hill

Pear-shaped

Useful? Interesting?

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The Way, the Truth, and the Life

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

12 – activating church

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Jesus said many astonishing things, though if we hear them often enough the astonishing nature of them can come to seem quite ordinary. There’s an old English saying, that ‘familiarity breeds contempt’. Few of us would claim ‘I am the Way, the Truth and the Life’ (John 14:6) has become so ordinary to us that we’d call it contemptible, but it’s certainly lost the incisive edge it must have had the day it was first heard. Let’s see if we can recapture some of that edgy significance.

Barton 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!