We’re going church planting!

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For the past couple of years Anna and I have been on a journey which has led us to the current state of affairs: we’re leaving the lovely local church we’ve been a part of for the past nine years (Crown), and we’ve joined a radical church-planting team in the London Borough of Ealing! We’re massively excited about it and I thought it could be useful to explain how we know this is the right thing for us (even if it’s only useful for my own sanity).

The Bible told us to go

Above everything else the reason we love the idea of church planting is because the Bible does! Simply put, I reckon you should obey the Bible, simple as that. The primary model of evangelism in the New Testament is that of planting local churches. We’re completely sold out on the fact that it’s a great idea!

The Holy Spirit told us to go

But simply knowing something’s a good idea isn’t the same as saying that we have to do that particular action. Why church planting and not building an orphanage in a third world country? Well, we’ve received prophetic words  which really helped to shape our vision. For example, summer 2009 a really close friend of ours saw a prophetic picture: we’d been given a burden which had been put on the mantelpiece, but now was the time to put it out in the front garden where people could see it – it might get knocked around and a bit dirty, and some people might judge us for it, but in the end people would be made to feel accepted into the Kingdom of God through it – this was really the catalyst!

Random acts told us to go

So after that summer we decided to take the next step towards church planting. In January 2010, we applied for a church planters’ training weekend called Base Camp, and on our application form said we wanted to plant a church in Ealing. It’s a highly populated area, really multicultural, influential in terms of media and political figures living there, and it’s right down the road from where we were living at the time – it seemed a no-brainer.

But we still weren’t sure, so we decided to ask God to give us a really specific location. We opened up a map of the UK, and right there, in a big circle, sat the word: Perth. Now this was significant because the people who had planted Crown (Pete & Nicky Cornford) had recently announced they were going to plant a church over there, as in, Perth, Australia! Oh dear. That’s a long way to go, but that sign was pretty hard to argue against without simply denying it, which seemed sort of disobedient.

Christian leaders told us to go

So we went to Base Camp with two provisional ideas in our mind: Ealing, and Perth. And David Stroud, who leads the Newfrontiers UK team and ChristChurch London, said to me that he felt that Pete was my spiritual father and that I shouldn’t write off the idea of moving to Australia just because it’s a long way away. We still wanted some convincing so we met up with Simon and Kiralie Leigh-Jones, of X1 Watford, who suggested that as Timothy had simply followed Paul to his various church planting locations that actually this whole following the Cornfords thing might be the right thing to do. Tope Koleoso, of Jubilee Church London, said that he agreed and that following the Cornfords was the right thing to do.

Common sense told us to go

We did visit Perth, but it was pretty clear that it wasn’t church planting. Things simply weren’t as they should have been, and the Cornfords were considering returning to the UK. It seemed that all our thoughts so far had been wrong: we’d thought Ealing but were wrong and had been sent to Perth. We’d gone to Perth but now it turns out that was wrong as well! We returned to the UK thoroughly confused about the future – we loved Ealing, some of our best friends lived there, and it was still waiting for a church to be planted, but we wanted to follow the Cornfords and they seemed to be out of the picture…

So as I’m sure you appreciate, when we found out that the Cornfords were going to plant in Ealing we instantly knew we had to be a part of it! Sometimes when someone asks if you’d like to be a part of something you have to answer: ‘I’ll pray about it.’ Sometimes you simply know that the answer has to be: ‘Yes!’

…

Perhaps you’d like to be a part of it too?

I have evidence that Neptune does not exist

Image by The Doctr via Flickr

Are you ready? This is Science speaking:

1. To prove that Neptune exists, it must be observed through a telescope.
2. I do not have access to a telescope.
3. Neptune, therefore, does not exist.

Of course, this is ridiculous, but it’s a style of arguing used by many (all?) Dawkins-following New Atheists.

Here’s an example:

1. If Jesus of Nazareth was raised from death, people would have seen him.
2. I have never seen him.
3. Jesus of Nazareth, therefore,  didn’t rise again.

I’m sure many of us are aware of Tim Keller’s book The Reason For God. It’s an excellent book – not perfect, but excellent nonetheless. In it, Keller does two things: (1) shows that arguments against God hold no weight, and (2) shows that evidence does exist for God.

Some guy has posted his detailed review of this book online, and entitled it The Reason Against God.

The Newfrontiers Theology Forum blog has gone through his response, and have basically concluded that his arguments are formed in the same way as those above.

In essence, here are this guy’s conclusions:

1. Keller is pretty much correct when it comes to showing that the arguments against God are rubbish.

2. The evidence for God isn’t strong enough to prove beyond any doubt that He actually exists.

The first statement is a good one, and I want to congratulate that guy on having the guts as an atheist to admit what everyone thinks deep down: the existence of suffering (for example) doesn’t disprove God, it’s circular logic.

I’d want to say fair enough to the second statement, but unfortunately this is where his response falls a bit flat. Here’s a quote from the review, in which he says why he can’t become a Christian:

Keller goes on to talk about the “final clue”, namely, that believing in God explains all of the previous clues. Perhaps, but only if you’re prepared to regard God as basic enough to be the place where the buck stops in these explanations, without requiring an explanation for God. There are people who find that sort of explanation satisfying, but there are others, like me, who regard it as giving up.

Doesn’t it sound clever and scientific? Here’s the rebuttal:

Translation: theism does explain all the clues, but there is still a problem, in that if the origin of God cannot be explained, then theism is ‘giving up’. Or more bluntly: a necessary, eternal being is philosophically incoherent, and should be rejected no matter what the evidence. Which will be a great surprise to philosophers from Aristotle and Thomas Aquinas right through to Antony Flew and Keith Ward. With respect all round, I think a proposal like that requires more than three sentences to substantiate.

So anyway, here’s the conclusion: The Reason For God is a great book; read it. Don’t dismiss Christianity just because you don’t understand it, or because you think it’s an easy way out.

Oh yes, and check out the response to the response (part one, part two).

Blogs I follow

Every so often someone will ask me which blogs I recommend, so I thought I might stick up here a list of some of the blogs I’m following right now.

Disclaimer: I’m not sure I’d actually say that I unconditionally like all of these, they’re just the top ones I’ve picked out. They’ve all had challenging bits in them which I’ve liked, and most of them are a bit too self-promotional for me, but check them out if you’re looking for something inspirational!

Church/leadership

9 Marks

Adrian Warnock

C.J. Mahaney’s view from the cheap seats and other stuff

Challies

Confluence

Desiring God

Ed Stetzer

GodFirst

Head Heart Hand

Josh Harris

Justin Taylor

Kevin DeYoung

Kingdom People

Leading From The Sandbox

Lex Loizides

Matt Hosier

Newfrontiers Theology Forum

Practical Shepherding

Pure Church

Ray Ortlund

Terry Virgo

That Theology Student

The Resurgence

Transforming Sermons

Worship leading

Cardiphonia

Enjoy the Show

Sound Doxology

Worship Matters

Worthily Magnify

Just for fun

22 Words

AppVita

Stuff Christians Like

Tummy aches disprove God

Andrew Wilson over at the excellent Newfrontiers theology forum blog linked to an excellent article about tummy aches, and the existence of God.

Joe Carter, the linked guy, does a better job than I would do, so I’ll just pick out some choice quotes of his – he begins by explaining his theory, that his tummy ache disproves God:

1. Tummy aches are a form of harm being done to the physical and/or psychological well-being of a sentient creature.
2. Harm is evil.
3. God—an omniscient, wholly good being—would prevent evil.
4. God did not prevent my tummy ache.
5. Ergo, there is no god.

He links this then to a theory made popular in William Rowe’s paper, ‘The Problem of Evil and Some Varieties of Atheism’:

1. There exist instances of intense suffering which an omnipotent, omniscient being could have prevented without thereby losing some greater good or permitting some evil equally bad or worse.

2. An omniscient, wholly good being would prevent the occurrence of any intense suffering it could, unless it could not do so without thereby losing some greater good or permitting some evil equally bad or worse.

3. (Therefore) There does not exist an omnipotent, omniscient, wholly good being. (Rowe 1979: 336)

The only difference between these two arguments is that Rowe includes the word ‘intense’ – clearly there is a subjective element to suffering; what is the limit at which we must define ‘intense’?

I’d head over there and read the whole thing.

#TOAM Can you believe in evolution AND the Bible?

One of the books we looked at as part of the training track I attended at Together on a Mission was The Reason for God by Tim Keller, who asks the whole creation/evolution question. Keller’s main point is correct, that a lot of Christians appear to be naïve and blind with no care for any scientific evidence.

Historically the church called some scientists heretics for believing that the earth orbited the sun because some verses had been taken out of context. Interestingly enough it was the church that supported Darwin’s theory of evolution rather than the atheists – why has there been a sudden swing in opposition to it?

Well, I’m not going to go into all the details here but Keller’s main point is this: if Genesis 1 can be read as poetry (and it most certainly can), then it may not be a literal description of six days of creation and could very easily not conflict with a belief in evolution. The creation of man in Genesis 2 still stands alone, so biblically speaking you can’t say that humans are related to orang-utans etc.

Two problems can easily be solved, and one still remains unanswered:

1. ‘Six days of creation are claimed by other teachers in the Bible including Moses and Jesus.’ This is actually ok because if Genesis 1 is poetry then it still establishes the image, without it needing necessarily to be literally true.
2. ‘In evolution, death comes before sin and that’s not biblical.’ This is also ok, so long as you’re happy to accept that death for plants and animals is different, and that death for humans and animals is different. So I can uproot a tree and replant it – it’s dead, but still alive…animals bodies are only temporary…humans, however, are eternal.
3. ‘Surely there are still problems with a literal Garden of Eden, creation of a woman from a man’s rib and a talking snake just for starters?’ Yes there are. Keller is able to fully believe in evolution yet still fully believe in a literal interpretation of Genesis 2, 3, and onward – exactly how has not been fully explained but looking forward to that!

There’s still a conversation to be had here, and I still very much believe in a literal six-day creation, but the point still stands that you can believe in evolution and the Bible.

If you’re interested in hearing this full session it’s located here.

#TOAM audio now available

Last week I was at the Newfrontiers Together on a Mission conference. If you have any time, I’d really recommend you have a listen to some of the talks which are now online – I’d particularly recommend Terry Virgo’s series on the Armour of God, and Stephen van Rhyn’s message on transition.

By all accounts the training tracks and seminars were also excellent, I’ll be making sure to have a listen to some of them! I was on the Tracking Theological Trajectories track, which was very good indeed.

#TOAM In heaven forever? I don’t think so.

It’s become a bit of a cliché: ‘you’re either going to heaven or hell’. At the Together on a Mission conference last week my training track looked at Tom Wright’s book, Surprised by Hope, to discuss whether this is even true or not.

Quite simply, heaven is God’s dwelling place. The Bible doesn’t talk about us ‘going to’ heaven in the same way as hell. We’re told that the thief on the cross immediately went to ‘Paradise’ when he died, but that’s really only a holding place before eternity.

In the same way that Jesus’ resurrection is a model for our new life in him, Wright suggests that the new heavens being united with the new earth as described in Revelation is Jesus’ resurrection model when applied to creation.

In other words, our idea of ‘heaven’ is not biblical. Eternity will be lived out on this creation, albeit a perfect, redeemed creation. In the same way that our Christian lives are simultaneously completely new and a continuation of our old lives, the new creation will retain all positive aspects of this creation (but they’ll still be infinitely better), and every bad bit will be forever gone.

That sounds a bit better than harps on clouds to me, and it’s way more biblical too.