ST NICOLAS, NEWBURY
HOME GROUP QUESTIONS
PURPOSE-DRIVEN CHURCH - SESSION 1
INTRODUCTION
Over the next few months, we're going to be exploring in more detail what we need to be concentrating on in order to carry forward our aims as a church. Enthusiasm and commitment stem from a clear sense of purpose and direction.
The PCC as a whole has had some discussions about this which have been fed into a team known as the SPEAR (Strategic Planning, Evaluation And Review) team being convened by Joyce Zealey. The idea is not just to involve the church's formal leadership in these discussions but to broaden it out so that everyone has an opportunity to contribute. So members of the SPEAR team would like to visit as many of the different groups within the church as we can - with the aim of feeding what everyone has to contribute into the process.
The process of reflecting on what the church is for and finding fresh ways of expressing it is really important in helping us to grasp the essentials of what we're about and how each of us fits in. At the annual meeting I offered another way of expressing what God wants for his church. This isn't a replacement for our current ways of expressing this but simply as another way to help us as we think things through: the idea that the church is about 'growing brothers and sisters for Jesus'.
I draw this from something the apostle Paul says in Romans 8:29: 'For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers and sisters'. God's intention is to see himself, all the wonder of who he is, as revealed in the person of his Son Jesus Christ, reflected in human lives. Not, of course, out of some bizarre sense of divine vanity, but because Jesus is the finest example of an effective human life there has ever been. God's intention and over-arching purpose in his world is for Jesus to be 'the firstborn among many brothers and sisters'.
How does he do it? We might wish that he would just bring about the transformation of our lives by a quick click of his divine fingers! But no: he has chosen to work his purposes out through the church. And so, from God's point of view, the job of the church is to transform people so that they reflect the life of Jesus. I've found it helpful to think about this in five areas:
1) helping people connect with God to the point where they are able to say that 'God is my heavenly Father'; it's about helping people to become Christians.
2) helping people to worship - to place God at the centre of their lives and keep him there.
3) helping people to belong - to become a member of the Christian family, able both to give and to receive support as they take on the family likeness.
4) helping people to grow - to put down deep roots and become mature in their faith.
5) helping people to serve - to develop and use all their God-given gifts for the benefit of others so that the life of Jesus is reflected in his world.
These five areas of church life reflect the priorities set out in Rick Warren's 'The Purpose-Driven Church', a book which has proved very effective in helping churches all over the world. One of Rick's key points in all this is that a healthy church includes each of these five features held in balance: "Church growth is the natural result of church health. But church health can only occur when our message is biblical and our mission is balanced. Each of the five New Testament purposes of the church must be in equilibrium with the others for health to occur".
1: HELPING PEOPLE TO CONNECT WITH GOD
This is the first in a series of five studies designed to help us look at each of these purposes of the church in turn.
1. 'Helping people to connect with God' is what we mean when we talk about evangelism. What comes into your mind when you hear the word 'evangelism'? Why?
2. The American author Rebecca Manley Pippert wrote a book on evangelism a few years ago. Chapter one includes the liberating confession that 'There was a part of me that secretly felt evangelism was something you shouldn't do to your dog, let alone a friend'. Do you agree with her? How can this problem be overcome?
3. Here are some definitions of evangelism:
a) 'Evangelism is overflow.'
b) 'Evangelism is one beggar telling another beggar where to get bread' (C H Spurgeon).
c) 'Evangelism is making known by word and deed the love of the crucified and risen Christ in the power of the Holy Spirit, so that people will repent, believe and receive Christ as their Saviour and obediently serve him as their Lord in the fellowship of his church' (1988 Lambeth Conference).
What do you find helpful about these? Why?
4. Read Acts 8:26-40. From what we are told at the beginning and end of this passage, what do you think Philip would have included in what he said about 'the good news of Jesus' (verse 35).
5. If a friend or colleague came up to you and said that they were interested in becoming a Christian, what would you do?
6. Have a look at Romans 10:14-15. What does this tell us about how people become Christians?
7. Think about your own experience of connecting with God. What factors have been important in your own personal journey to Christian faith?
8. Imagine a gifted evangelist who, through his ministry, sees 1000 people become Christians every day. Every time he gets up to speak, large numbers of people become Christians. Even if he was to do this for 7 days a week, 52 weeks a year, it would take him over 10,000 years to win the world for Christ. Now imagine one ordinary Christian, who wins, not 1000 people each day, but just one person to Christ each year, but who also goes on to teach that person to do the same. It would take them ten years, not one day, to reach 1000. But after 20 years there would be over a million and then, sometime during the 32nd year there would be over 4 billion. In other words, just 32 years later, not 10,000, they would have won the whole world for Christ.
What does this scenario have to say to us at St Nicolas?
9. How does what we do at St Nicolas help people to connect with God and become Christians? How effective do you think we are?
10. If you had to pick just a couple of things for us to start doing or seek to do better in this area, what would they be? Please make a note of your suggestions so that they can be passed to the SPEAR team.
11. Spend some time praying for this aspect of our life at St Nicolas and for the decisions we need to take about the future.
David Stone
16 May 2008