It’s accompanied by the claim that Facebook is banning Christians from sharing pictures like this and so we should all protest by sharing the image.

Firstly, please pause to note the irony that you read the information and saw the picture via the medium which is supposed to have banned it!

But secondly, I wonder that more Christians don’t check their outrage longer in order to fact-check the reliability of the info.

As it happens this meme has been circulating the internet since 2012 – i.e. for at least two Christmases prior to this one! A quick check of the Snopes or Hoax Slayer websites would have de-bunked it.

Given Facebook permits all sorts of rot from both extreme and silly viewpoints, is this allegation of censorship of Christians really plausible? Or does it just make us seems unduly sensitive and gullible?

Proverbs 23:23 says:

Buy the truth and do not sell it; get wisdom, discipline and understanding.

Lets save our energies for genuine and serious cases of censorship and persecution. Once again the advice to ignore it seems worth considering.

[P.S. To all my dear friends I have already ‘chipped’ for passing this meme on, I am not mad at you. I’m not trying to embarrass you personally. The fact so many committed and thoughtful Christians have passed it on shows that it’s an easy mis-step to make in the social media space. (I’ve made a few of my own!) I’d just like to help us avoid similar mistakes more often in the future.]

Photo: istockphoto.com

I’m not marketer, but I’ve heard more than once there’s no such thing as bad publicity. I guess there’s exceptions to the rule, but not too often when you are trying to get your product onto people’s radar.

In recent times, my digital friends, mostly Christian but also others with a moral compass, have protested against:

• a computer game which apparently involves running women over with cars;
• the screening on TV of an American football variant which involves women wearing skimpy underwear as the competition uniform;
• the visit of some sort of dating coach to Australia with offensive views about women.

In each case, the suggested protest involves sharing the link to a blog critique or petition site. And this almost always involves Facebook picking up as its preview the picture of the very person or practice you are protesting against!

In each case, until then I had been barely aware of the product, if not completely unaware, so I’m sorry if I got a detail wrong.

But as the protest spread in that viral digital way, I kept getting the image shoved in my face through my Facebook feed. Ironically it was by my friends, who don’t want this sort of thing being promoted!

Counter-productively, this can lead your friends into temptations we might not otherwise have faced. (“I might just click on that link to find out how bad it is…”) At the very least, it can become an unwelcome distraction.

Here’s a couple of alternatives.

1. Ignore it. Don’t give it any air. Don’t give it any extra publicity. Being ignored is a promoter’s nightmare, so help make it a flop and ignore the offensive product.

I wonder if the wisdom of Proverbs 26:20 could sometimes be applicable here.

Without wood a fire goes out; without gossip a quarrel dies down.

2. Keep the image out of it. If you must share a protest, then encourage the protest in a way that does not keep bringing the offensive image to everyone’s attention. Risk that you won’t get the visual hook. Or use a different image that does not serve to highlight the product or person you are protesting.

Trust that the merits of the case you outline without a sensational image will persuade people to join you.

Naïve, I know.

I guess I am struggling with how to apply Ephesians 5:11-12 –

Have nothing to do with the fruitless deeds of darkness, but rather expose them. For it is shameful even to mention what the disobedient do in secret.

Some of these things need to be exposed. But the Apostle says that sometimes the details should not be mentioned, let alone inadvertently promoted.

And context suggests that most of all, it’s the gospel light of Jesus that should do the exposing.

Of course, our basic assumption is that your children’s ministry team members love Jesus, and are there to teach others about the love of Jesus as well. We believe and teach that this happens only in and through his propitiating death and resurrection for our sins.

Children’s ministry, as we’ve said in previous articles, can sometimes be based on the desperate need for peace and quiet for adults while the church gathering is happening. Along with this, it is a ministry that tends to attract enthusiastic volunteers, who burn brightly and briefly before burning out.

Now it has to be said that this is not necessarily disastrous. As long as the volunteers concerned love Jesus and love children, many great things can be accomplished for the kingdom of God. But Bruce Linton and those like me who have trained with Bruce are convinced that there is a more excellent way. So here are four ways ahead for people who believe that burning brightly and briefly is good, but burning brightly and longer is better.

First, under God, you must have a plan. Second, you must choose leaders who are not obvious choices. Third, you must be prepared not to teach your leaders too much. Fourth, you must get some theological training to help you to do the first thing (that is, to plan).

Have a plan

The basic plan is to tell the story of Jesus, and when you are told—as some are told—“Here’s your lesson for today and there’s your class of 25 children just over there, off you go” then this is the best plan that you can have, along with two songs. (The two songs are ‘Jesus loves me this I know, for the Bible tells me so’ and ‘The best book to read is the Bible’. Google them, and ask for volunteers from the class to help you teach them while you read the rest of this article.)

But eventually you will need to carve time out of your week, each week, to prayerfully develop a plan that tells the story of Jesus from every part of the Bible, from beginning to end, over the period of a 4-6 year syllabus. This is not straightforward. It is, however, essential. One of the greatest sins of Bible teaching is to make the Bible boring, and nothing is more boring for children than the sense that this lesson is identical, in every single respect except that the teacher is a year older, to the one we did 12 months ago. Even if they don’t remember, the children will over time pick up that you are slightly older, slightly more burned out, and slightly less excited about the glorious gospel of salvation from sin and the judgement of God. That’s bad.

So making a plan means thinking carefully, prayerfully, broadly and deeply about how and what you would like to say to children about Jesus over the course of a term, a year, and three to four years. Three to four years is enough, because at the end of that time they will no longer be the children that they were, and in the grace of God, you will have begun to invite them to help you improve your program and to help you teach it.

Choose unobvious leaders

The obvious choices fall into two categories: people from the education sector who already have teaching skills, and enthusiastic volunteers.

It hardly needs to be said that the obvious choices are also good choices, with all the usual qualifications about whether they are actually Christians or not. My first Sunday School teaching gig was through a friend when I was in Year 11 of high school. Let us say, given that no-one stands ready to witness to the opposite, I was brilliant. But it’s only in retrospect that I’m able to say that I was definitely a Christian, and I’m still praying that the friend who extended the invitation actually is.

Yet those with teaching skills are often admired not so much for their ability to teach as for their ability to bring calm control and discipline to a large group of children. It is a thing of beauty indeed to see a group of generally out-of-control individuals sitting politely and ready for the next instruction. Often they will be doing it not out of fear, but out of love and respect for the teacher, alongside a number of brilliant psycho-social tactics that have been taught for just this purpose. (“There will be a prize for the quietest child in the room at the end of 60 seconds”. Brilliant!)

But what if, as well as valuing teachers with the ability to bring calm, we valued the somewhat SloppyTeenager who can befriend NaughtyBoy in a way that no-one else has been able to?

CalmTeacher gives children the task of cutting out or drawing figures to represent the family tree of Abraham. NaughtyBoy has picked up something, which is that we are all children of Abraham if we trust in Jesus. Or, as the song puts it, “Father Abraham had many sons”.

NaughtyBoy does a family tree with not just two sons for Abraham (Ishmael and Isaac), or eight sons (the correct number, see Gen 25:1-2) but as many as he can fit in before CalmTeacher notices. Why has he done it? Well, because SloppyTeenager was talking to him while CalmTeacher was doing other things, and SloppyTeenager and NaughtyBoy were able to work out together that yes, anyone who puts their trust in Jesus is a son of Abraham.

CalmTeacher loves SloppyTeenager because he has volunteered to help, and because he’s the only helper who really seems to ‘get’ NaughtyBoy. But at times like this she is confused and bemused because SloppyTeenager seems to be mucking up the lesson plan that everyone had worked out ahead of time.

Because love covers over a multitude of sins, lesson derailments like this happen all the time in the life of our churches, and we just get on with teaching the gospel of Christ. But even better would be for you, as the children’s worker or Sunday School superintendent, to recognize SloppyTeenager for the gospel servant that he is, and actively look for many more like him, difficult though he is to accommodate within the system.

Don’t teach leaders too much

In the world of teaching the Bible to children, there is enormous demand for (and enormous output of) good teaching resources for little people. There is no doubt that some are brilliant, and especially worth checking out is the material that Sandy Galea¹ and Stephanie Carmichael² have produced. Mark Barry also has some excellent free online resources at Visual Unit.³ Use them! Find others.

But if your aim is to expand and grow a children’s ministry, then long term you will want not only to use these resources, but to develop a team of people who will come up with such ideas on their very own. There is no Bible verse that specifically teaches this, but it is a good application of the wise proverb, “Give a man a fish and you will feed him for a day; teach a man to fish and you will lose a husband for the weekend”. (Or something like that.)

Here, there is no substitute for gathering your group of leaders on a regular and time-consuming basis, preferably weekly, in order to read the Bible and prepare for your lessons together. This is demanding and difficult, not only for the leaders, but also for the leader of the leaders, and possibly also for others in the church who would like to see those leaders involved in other worthwhile projects. Yet when these leaders are gathered together around the word of God, together with a group leader who really understands and loves both the gospel and children, it is a time of joy and fellowship in the gospel that will have consequences for eternity.

Not only will those weekly Bible/preparation times have consequences for eternity, they will result in programs for children that are the envy of churches for kilometres around, and actually result in children coming under the sound of the gospel and becoming disciples of Jesus.

Examples of good ideas abound. But as just one possibility to consider, why not organize a leader’s excursion? Ask them to think for a while about the subject of sin, and then get them to bring $10 for a trip to the local magic shop. Do it as an excursion, or if that’s impossible just get them to visit the shop by themselves. Then get together, show each other magic tricks, and get each leader to explain how their magic trick illustrates some aspect of sin. Don’t just collect magic tricks for the sake of entertainment—they should no more be pointless fun than the games at youth group are pointless fun. Work out how to link them to the idea that you are teaching. The only thing better than pointless fun is purpose-filled fun—a deep lesson that you and your leaders will discover through experience.

Get theologically trained

Fourth and finally, avail yourself of theological training to help you to do the first thing (that is, to plan), and to sustain yourself through a lifetime of ministry.

Enthusiasm and a knowledge of God’s saving gospel will take you a long way—indeed it will take you to heaven. What it will not do, unless you are one of God’s gifted freaks, is equip you for the long haul in children’s ministry—or any other ministry for that matter.

For long-term ministry, you will need the sort of input that theological training, and very little else, will give. What is the big story of the Bible, and how can we see that every promise it makes finds its ‘yes’ in Christ Jesus? How are we rightly to understand the meaning of David and Goliath, or Gideon and his fleece, or Josiah the boy king, or Elisha’s floating of the axe-head, or the healing of the man born blind? Brilliant Sunday school stories; frequently misread and misrepresented.

Prayerful re-reading of the Bible will, under God, provide the answer that the Bible itself gives, for the Bible is its own best commentary. A genuinely useful theological education will do this as well, only faster. That’s because you will put more time in due to the course requirements, and the teachers that you have will have put their own time in as well. Not all theological educations are equal, so make sure that you choose a theological institution where Jesus is honoured and the Bible is accepted as his inerrant word. But Bruce and I both recommend Moore Theological College in Sydney, and we pray that you will be wise in finding your own local equivalent.

~

Not everyone can or will aspire to be a full-time children’s worker, but even if not, the work of discipling children begins with the parents but extends to the whole church of Jesus. For those of us who are involved in this joyful ministry, we will (under God) be continually looking for ways to strengthen and increase this ministry by growing as Christians ourselves, and looking for ways to involve everyone in the church who are in themselves readers of God’s word, students of his Holy Spirit, and people desiring to live in accordance with his will.

Let me explain—first about the article, and second, my deep thankfulness for The Briefing.

Patterson’s single-page article appeared in the mid-90s, in Leadership Journal. My copy has been framed on an office wall ever since! It’s titled ‘The inadequacy of “yes” theology’. In it, Patterson argued that every yes contains a no, and “if you can’t learn to say one, you won’t learn to say the other”.

He illustrates this, firstly from marriage. If you say yes to one woman, you are saying no to every other woman. Obvious, but essential. And sadly, not always appreciated.

Theologically, Patterson observed that it was insufficient for the Council at Nicea to say Christ was begotten of the Father—otherwise those modern-day Arians, the Jehovah’s Witnesses, would affirm it today. Instead it had to say “begotten, not made”. The ‘no’ spells out what we did and did not mean by ‘begotten’.

Patterson wrote:

Learning to say the yes and the no:
Few issues portend so much for the future of the church, because none carries so much potential to fly in the face of the spirit of the age. I speak of the infatuation with pluralism and inclusivism and certain brands of multiculturalism; the belief in the egalitarianism of opinions and feelings—that it is not only wrong, but rude and bigoted to think that some people’s ideas and feelings may not be as good or as valid as others.

But Patterson wasn’t the first person I’d heard this observation from. Although I never sat under his ministry, I’d heard Phillip Jensen teach at conferences—perhaps with a little more subtlety than I report—that when he preached specifically against Catholicism, everyone else got uncomfortable but Catholics got converted. Whereas when he simply preached a positive message of grace and justification by faith alone, the Catholics often felt good but remained untouched by the gospel.

And the senior pastor who trained me, John Gray, explained that you need to be specific in explaining not just that Jesus is the way, the truth and the life, but that other religious leaders like Mohammed or Buddha are not. No-one comes to the Father, except through Jesus.

Of course, bluntness can turn into insensitivity and even sometimes inaccuracy. But I thank God for The Briefing because it was willing, again and again, to say the no as well as the yes: on the charismatic movement; on women’s ordination and other gender battles; on re-visionings of justification; on slippery theological liberalism.

I’d arrived at Moore College as a naive 21-year-old uneducated evangelical (who thought that word just meant ‘keen on evangelism’). I’d sort of worked out the sufficiency of Scripture, but I was also a ‘Gamaliel charismatic’—that is, I felt you ought to be open to pretty much anything spiritual, if it was kindly Christian people pushing the barrows (especially if they talked warmly about Jesus a lot).

Pretty much the last book I’d read prior to arriving at Moore College was by John Wimber. And the next thing I knew, in 1990, he arrived in person in my city. And so began one of the most famous episodes in Sydney evangelicalism in the past generation, and with it, one of the most well-known editions of The Briefing (#45-46). In a devastating way—though I thought it clear, courteous, and biblical—I was convinced by Phillip Jensen (with John Woodhouse and David Cook), by Andrew Shead, by Mark Thompson, by Dr Philip Selden, and others. Along with the most memorable chapel sermon I ever heard, from Ray Galea on Mark 8, they helped me to change my mind. I realized that if Christians marginalize the cross of Christ in God’s gospel, even in a well-meaning way as they seek to minimize suffering or find more power for evangelism, then such an approach is deeply un-Christian and must be resisted.

Other times, it’s just been fascinating and sometimes radical thinking in The Briefing: about the sacraments; about life and work and family and rest; about Sunday worship services, oops, I mean ‘assemblies for gospel edification’!

I wasn’t quite reading from the start, only from edition #40 or so onwards. But who will forget titles like ‘No laughing matter’ (the Toronto Blessing), ‘Ministry of the pew’ (Col Marshall just warming up!), ‘The risks a preacher takes’ (Phillip Jensen on the necessity of unbalanced preaching), and yes, what is now proverbial and a Matthias Media bestseller title, ‘The trellis and the vine’.

Clearly you don’t want someone always saying no, even over secondary matters of relative indifference, let alone the negativity of only saying no. And sometimes you’d argue The Briefing got it wrong in part, either in tone or in some detail. Occasionally some will think it was wholly wrong on an issue. But the standard has always been what Paul says: test all things; hold on to the good; so test The Briefing too.

To take one example: I was fairly critical of The Briefing’s quickness to jump on the ESV bandwagon with such unqualified support. Maybe that tells you more of my problems than theirs! More to the point, it’s a sign of The Briefing editors’ maturity that they still took me on as an author, and even let me loose on the board of the parent company, Matthias Media (and later published my favourable recommendations about how to think through the new 2011 version of the NIV).

But The Briefing has never been just negative. The publishers, the editors, the authors, the support staff have always been pushing a Bible-driven, doctrinally deep gospel agenda, centred on proclaiming Jesus and his atoning death and resurrection, and helping us to help others live out discipleship to Jesus in his lordship and saviourhood.

For example, we have The Briefing to thank for a whole series of daily Bible reading notes—something like 1200 days’ worth from all over the Bible, along with some excellent topical work.

For me, I am incredibly grateful to Andrew Alexander, my fellow student in first year at Moore College, who recommended I begin subscribing to The Briefing.

Sure, The Briefing has been challenging, contentious, uncompromising, and perhaps even militant at times. And maybe that appeals to some more than others. But it has also been warm-hearted, funny, generous, mind-stretching, clear, godly and encouraging. And always it has sounded the clear note of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

In regular, reliable, digestible magazine format, it has preached the Word, in season and out, correcting, rebuking and encouraging, with patience and careful instruction. And it has been unafraid to point out false teaching that merely scratches itching ears.

Ben Patterson spoke of how narrowness is often criticized. “But”, he says, “its narrowness is the narrowness of the birth canal, or of a path between two precipices—or of a lifetime spent loving one woman”.

So if saying no makes The Briefing narrow, so be it.

As it closes its doors and its time is done, thank God for it, for I am certain our heavenly Father has used The Briefing to achieve much and mighty good for many people in the cause of discipleship with Jesus.

~

And when [Paul] had said these things, he knelt down and prayed with them all. And there was much weeping on the part of all; they embraced Paul and kissed him, being sorrowful most of all because of the word he had spoken, that they would not see his face again. And they accompanied him to the ship. (Acts 20:36-38)

As Paul prepared to leave the church elders in Ephesus, his love for the church, anxiety about what would come, and sorrow at his departure brought forth tears. Presumably he was leaving a tiny group of people behind, a small boat afloat in a sea of paganism.

Paul obviously believed that God was doing a great work there, but that’s not what it may have looked like. In this group of people, God’s great work in gospelling the world and bringing them to salvation was going ahead—but if you were to look at the actual people and what actually occurred, it must have seemed like a balsa wood boat adrift on a sea that was threatening to swallow it up.

If you ever get the chance to do ‘last words’, you generally choose significant ones. The last words of the apostle to the eldership of the Ephesian church are no different. They are addressed to a fragile church—and to us now. Humanly speaking, it’s never been any different. We’re the same as that fragile church today. Western Christianity is in disarray. The old mainstream denominations are collapsing, not only numerically and in terms of influence, but also theologically; they’re in retreat and despair. The situation in the UK is grim; the situation in the USA is nowhere near as good as it may look to the outsider; in New Zealand, Australia, and elsewhere in the Western world, we see the mainstream denominations that have carried the gospel hitherto in retreat and despair. In my own lifetime, the ‘honoured profession’ of being a minister of the gospel has become despised and reviled. So too has the attitude of people to Christians and to ‘the church’ changed—whatever they understand ‘the church’ to be.

Recently Ross Douthat, a Roman Catholic employed by The New York Times, has written a book on American Christianity, called Bad Religion. As you know, when America sneezes, the whole world catches cold. In a chapter entitled ‘The God Within’, he describes how many people who call themselves Christians really worship an inner god. They’ve been overtaken by the characteristic Pelagianism of American thinking:

The result is a nation where gurus and therapists have filled the roles once occupied by spouses and friends, and where professional caregivers minister, like seraphim around the throne, to the needs of people taught from infancy to look inside themselves for God. Therapeutic religion promises contentment, but in many cases it seems to deliver a sort of isolation that’s at once comfortable and terrible—leaving us alone with the universe, alone with the God Within.¹

The main attack on Christianity at this stage is not the deployment of scientific materialists; the main attack is superstition. I guess, after a fashion, materialism gives a form of permission for people to invent their own religion, which is inevitably the god within.

We must remember that we’re in a world where these things are happening, because we can’t minister effectively in that world or in the churches unless we understand the culture in which we live. Whatever world we’re living in, however, the apostle takes us in these last words to foundational truths we must not forget. These are worth reading and re-reading in order to be reminded, refreshed and reassured, and to refocus our ministry of the word of God and prayer around the essentials.

“I”

I’ve been struck by how often the first person singular pronoun occurs in this speech. As he’s giving his final address to the elders, it’s all about Paul! He even starts out by declaring how humble he is:

“You yourselves know how I lived among you the whole time from the first day that I set foot in Asia, serving the Lord with all humility and with tears and with trials that happened to me through the plots of the Jews; how I did not shrink from declaring to you anything that was profitable, and teaching you in public and from house to house, testifying both to Jews and to Greeks of repentance toward God and of faith in our Lord Jesus Christ.” (Acts 20:18-21)

Has it never struck you before how self-centered this passage is? That’s because it isn’t; it’s an observation that turns out not to disclose the truth. What the apostle is doing is to use the enormous power of the model. He doesn’t want them simply to remember his teaching; he wants them to remember him. He modeled to them both in speech and behaviour because he wanted them to do the same.

Does it work for you? You bet. One of the great gifts that the late John ‘Chappo’ Chapman gave to us here in Sydney was the model of what it is to be a Christian minister. I can see him now: he’d come to a meeting and eagerly engage with what was happening (even if it was not so good from the front). He’d be strengthening us, admonishing us, testifying to us, and witnessing to us. When he came into the room your heart lifted—because if Chappo could keep going, why couldn’t you? Don’t ever underestimate the importance of the model.

On a practical note for pastoral ministry: theological colleges and seminaries can do what they like in preparing ministers of the gospel, but it’s really the senior minister with whom they work first—if that’s the way your life works out—who has the greatest impact. So if you occupy that senior minister role, then recognize that your model is incredibly important to your colleagues (even if it doesn’t work as effectively as it should).

What we see here in Paul could be summarized as, “Look, here I am, watch who I am, watch what I’ve done, hear what I’ve said, and do likewise”. In other words, it’s those three famous things: character, commitment, conviction.

Character

We see Paul’s character as a Christian minister: he’s not a guru or a fraud; he speaks the truth. The integrity of his whole life is on display:

You yourselves know how I lived among you the whole time from the first day that I set foot in Asia, serving the Lord with all humility and with tears… (Acts 20:18-19)

One thing you could indisputably say about Paul was that he was a servant of the Lord Jesus Christ. I trust the same could be said about you. Whatever role you occupy, I trust you are a servant of the Lord, and everybody knows that.

This is the key to humility. Paul serves the Lord with humility because the heart of service is faith, dependence. He can say he serves the Lord with humility, because he trusts the Lord in his ministry. If the opposite statement is more true of you—“I serve in my own strength; I serve with my wonderful character; I serve with the gifts I’ve been given”—there’s something wrong. First and foremost you serve the Lord in trusting in him.

This is a lesson I learned again in Nairobi last year, at the GAFCON meeting concerning the future of Anglicanism around the world. There were times where, not in an irresponsible way, we simply had to trust the Lord in the processes and meetings we were having. I testify before you that the Lord blessed us in our confidence in him. It was not misplaced.

Notice too that Paul mentions humility with tears. We go through phases sometimes in thinking of ministry in terms of a detached role, like a client-lawyer or patient-doctor relationship, where we don’t ourselves become too attached to the people with whom God has blessed us. I don’t think that is the picture we see in the New Testament. We see a picture of a man who laboured over the congregation and the people he was seeking to win for Christ. His emotions were fully engaged. His love drove him to tears, along with his concern for them in the midst of their trials.

Any ministry that’s worth doing generates opposition like that in Ephesus, and trials for the church. So too there will be rejection of your ministry. I’m sure you know how hard it is to say, “Christ is the only way”. That feeling you have is the result of the world pushing in on us. You may know how hard it is to say, even from the pulpit, “Jesus is the only way; all other gods are nonsense”. It feels impolite, even amongst believers. Whatever you do in commending Christ, you will find opposition and antagonism both from inside and out.

One point of opposition is the general milieu in which we find ourselves, encouraging us to believe we have a whole list of rights. This current sense of entitlement is extraordinary. Several doctors have told me the same story: people come into the surgery expecting to be cured. They believe in science, and they believe they have a right to be healed. They don’t recognize the limitations of the body, the limitations of science, or the limitations of life itself. If they aren’t cured, they get angry with the medical practitioner and they go off looking for gurus in superstition or, worse, Dr Google.

This revolt against expertise and flight into superstition is occurring all around us. One tempting remedy can be for us to believe that because of the training, knowledge, and expertise ministers possess, they can arrest this using something they themselves offer. Look at how differently Paul speaks:

I do not account my life of any value nor as precious to myself, if only I may finish my course and the ministry that I received from the Lord Jesus, to testify to the gospel of the grace of God. (Acts 20:24)

Paul isn’t just saying this just to butter them up. His extraordinary selflessness is an invitation to them and us to say the same words and live the same life. We’re not professionals. We’re maniacs. We’re fools for Christ. That’s who we are. Then he raises a matter of very great relevance to all:

I coveted no-one’s silver or gold or apparel. You yourselves know that these hands ministered to my necessities and to those who were with me. (Acts 20:33-34)

His character was such that in recognizing that his life was totally Jesus Christ’s and nothing to him, he had no covetousness towards the wealth of others. I raise this because money is a very great temptation to us. I take it you deal with this in yourself, and recognize your temptations and faults in this area. You and the apostle Paul should share the same attitude—namely, your life counts as nothing to you. You do not covet. Indeed, he worked with his own hands so that he would not burden others.

Notice too how he finishes: “In all things I have shown you that by working hard in this way we must help the weak and remember the words of the Lord Jesus, how he himself said, ‘It is more blessed to give than to receive’” (v. 35). The ministers of the gospel are those to whom the poor of this world come when they need something. I’ve been living in a rectory for the last few weeks looking after my grandchildren, and the people who greet me in the area are the needy people. They seem to know instinctively that I’m connected to the church: “Hello minister. Hello Reverend.” This is because of the reputation the ministry has even now of looking after the weak, the poor and the sick. That’s the reputation, but should it not be a reality? Are we not for the poor? Is that not the care of our hearts?

Commitment

I’ve already touched upon Paul’s commitment. He was clearly not a professional—by which I mean a member of a guild with certain standards—he was an ideologue. He was possessed with the gospel, and his life was utterly committed in all of its parts to that gospel and the sharing of that gospel. Workers clock in and clock out, but we have been set free to be missionaries, just as Paul was.

Exactly what he was so committed to he describes in verses 26-27: “Therefore I testify to you this day that I am innocent of the blood of all, for I did not shrink from declaring to you the whole counsel of God”.

I once heard a man notoriously liberal in his Christian beliefs interviewed on television. I was very pleased to hear him talk engagingly about Jesus. But then I noticed what it wasn’t about: it wasn’t about sin, judgement, death or hell. But that wasn’t Paul’s preaching: Paul proclaimed all the purposes (counsel) of God, the whole Scriptures with Christ at the centre. He declared, taught, testified, proclaimed, admonished. Because of this proclamation of the plans and purposes of God from the beginning of creation, focused on Christ, he can say that he is innocent of their blood. That is, he is cleared of any guilt that those to whom he spoke wouldn’t have heard the truth. Again I challenge you with Paul’s challenge: in your ministry have you delivered the truth of God, not your own insights, clearing yourself of guilt? Do those who have heard you know the truth? Wouldn’t it be awful if those around you were to say “But you never told me that”, because something crucial had been omitted from your teaching?

Admonition is a good word for us to think about. Many of our sermons have an exegetical section, and then we think, “What’s the application here?” Can you imagine the apostle Paul preaching a sermon and thinking this? His sermon was application. He didn’t give a lecture with a segment tacked on. He was bringing the word of God home with admonition, rebuke, and encouragement to the hearts and lives of those over whom he was weeping. Now that’s preaching.

Conviction

Paul called the message he preached “the gospel of the grace of God” (v. 24), which was a declaration of the whole counsel of God. I take it he preached sin. He preached that evil desire can grab us from the depths of sin; that we are hopelessly badly off. I take it he preached the law, because I don’t understand how you can preach sin without the law. He preached the cross as the only way of salvation, the only possible way that people can be forgiven. He preached justification by faith alone. He preached the sovereignty of God, which provided the way of justification. He preached the holiness of life that flows out of faith in Christ. He preached the sufficiency of Scripture as the whole counsel of God. This was what you may call ‘application’—although it’s such a pallid word! He preached the whole counsel of God; he preached the gospel of the grace of God, in all its parts. You can’t preach the gospel of the grace of God without preaching sin, justification, the cross, faith and election. You can’t be a coward and preach the gospel—you simply won’t be able to do it.

Interestingly, as he models what they are to do, he does not mention the way in which his ministry is accompanied by miracles (David Cook makes this point).² That’s not on the agenda. What’s on the agenda is for the elders to preach, testify, admonish and witness to the gospel of the grace of God, and to do so in a way in which they themselves are no longer important but rather are extolling and exhorting others to put their trust in the Lord Jesus.

Now, how about us? Ought we be modelling ourselves on Paul? Or is there someone else?

If you look at what he says, you’ll see he models himself on Christ. This passage is deeply Christological. We follow Paul because he followed Christ. That is why he can use ‘I’ so frequently, because what you see here is Christ. He followed Christ in his foot-washing humility, Christ who lived amongst them, Christ who wept over Jerusalem, Christ who preached repentance and faith (Mark 1:15), Christ who was also the victim of plots by the Jews and others against him, Christ who also counted his life of no value, Christ who also cared for the flock of God and spoke of the wolves in sheep’s clothing who were to come, Christ who also had a certain attitude towards money (quoted here by Paul), and Christ who also makes the promise of inheritance. The Lord Jesus is in almost every statement of this passage by Paul, and unless you understand that you won’t get to its heart. The convictions of the apostle Paul, demonstrated in his life and teaching, are all about Christ.

“You”

Pay careful attention to yourselves… (Acts 20:28)

This comment is a bit of a shocker: with such self-forgetfulness you wouldn’t have thought Paul would say something like this. But he does: pay attention to your character, your convictions, your commitment, so that you will be a worthy gospel messenger of the Lord Jesus Christ.

It’s not only to themselves that they must pay careful attention. It is also to the flock, over which the Holy Spirit has made these elders overseers. Please notice that the overseer—the word ‘shepherd’ comes to mind instantly because of the ‘flock’ of God—is the pastor-shepherd. The pastor is not someone remote, detached, but one who weeps, who has given himself, who labours night and day over the flock. You can’t draw a distinction between the teaching of the pastor and his life. He is the one God gives to the flock and through whom God ministers to the flock. For God cares deeply and bestows infinite dignity on this flock, the church he obtained with the blood of his own Son.

I sometimes regret ever having been a minister of the gospel. I say to myself, “What an awesome responsibility”. How many have I damaged and broken and hurt in the exercise of my sinful human ministry? Some of you reading this, no doubt. What a responsibility we have as ministers of the gospel to care for the church for which Christ gave himself in his atoning sacrifice on the cross. With great pain the pastor must protect the flock. We have the task of protecting the church from the wolves who come from without: bad and worldly religion, and those who speak horrible, twisted things to draw away disciples after them. This is the mark of this twisted message: the (false) pastor will try to make disciples for himself. Here we’re not seeing differences of opinion that sometimes occur between the brethren on this subject or that, so much as the attempt to create a guru status and draw people after them with false teaching.

One of our dangers is the danger of disunity. I see it internationally with my GAFCON work; I see it more locally as well. The Lord tells us to maintain the unity of the Spirit with the bond of peace. Sometimes, in a world where we can get to know each others’ thoughts instantly (or Facebook statuses, at least), there is a grave danger of gospel ministers being disunited. When this happens the world looks on with wonder, and the evil one looks on with pleasure. Love and cherish unity. Maintain unity with the bond of peace.

That being said, it is not unity at all costs. There are moments where we must take a stand for the gospel on the doctrine of sin, on the cross, on justification by faith, on holiness of life, and on the sufficiency of Scripture. There are moments where we must guard the sheep by speaking the truth.

We live in an age of personal entitlement where even Christians are prone to insist upon their way. It is an awkward age to live in, but it is one where we are called as part of our suffering for Christ to love one another, to maintain unity, to stand for the truth of the gospel.

“Him”

…for three years I did not cease night or day to admonish every one with tears. And now I commend you to God and to the word of his grace, which is able to build you up and to give you the inheritance among all those who are sanctified. (Acts 20:31-32)

This is a prayer, isn’t it? If I were Paul, I would be desperately worried about this frail little boat of a church. Instead, he casts his burdens on the Lord and commends them to God and (a point made by David Peterson)4 to the word of his grace. It’s not as if there are two things here: it’s God working through the word of his grace. As he does this he works to build you up and give you an inheritance amongst those who are saved. In other words, the world is full of dangers, and at times it makes you wonder just how this movement can go on. But it’s a world in which we have the word of God’s grace, the gospel, and that gospel is the power of God.

Our business is to preach the awesomeness of the grace of God. We need to proclaim the awfulness and pervasiveness of sin (it’s the lack of that doctrine in itself that has created the bad religion referred to by Ross Douthat), the cross of Christ, the sovereignty of God, the sufficiency of Scripture, and the great old doctrines of the word of God focused on the cross of Christ. It’s our business so to preach the gospel of God’s grace that we will build up the church and build up ourselves, so that in the end we have the assurance from God that we will and do indeed have an inheritance among the saints. Don’t despair: if God took what was such a little beginning in the early church and created what has happened in the history of the world, he is certainly able to care for you.

What God calls on you to do is to preach the true gospel and the grace of God. Especially those of you who have people entrusted to your care: you are to defend it and defend those people, with tears. May God do that through your life and ministry, and may we see God keeping all of us in the grace of the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. 

In a month or two I will be giving my first conference talk.¹

I feel a bit like Paul, if you will allow me to rip a verse out of context: “I came to you in weakness with great fear and trembling” (1 Cor 2:3 NIV).

Except in my case the fear and trembling come from less godly motivations. I want to succeed. I want this event to succeed. I want to impress people. I want them to like, respect, admire me. I could go on – I’m a type A person! My ambitions are boundless! – but I’d embarrass myself (like I haven’t already) and you, too.

My gut clenches; my mind hazes over. People say, “You’ll be great!” – my mother, who’s not at all biased, plus a few faithful friends who have far more respect for me than I deserve – and all I can think is, “Now there’s further to fall!”. I remind myself that it’s a small conference among friends;² but it doesn’t really help.

There’s just one thing that helps. It’s one of my favourite Bible passages, Philippians 2:1-11. It keeps coming into my head, driven by the Spirit. When I feel the fear welling up, I repeat to myself (and yes, this is pretty much the 1984 version of the NIV, because my brain is stuck there):

Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit …

Selfish ambition. Vain conceit. Sums up the worst of my motivations quite nicely.

And the alternative:

…but in humility consider others better than yourselves. Each of you should look not only to your own interests but also to the interests of others. Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus:

Putting others’ interests above my own. Valuing them more than myself. Doing this for their sake, not mine.

And then the model, Jesus Christ:

Who, being in very nature God,
did not consider equality with God something to be grasped,
but made himself nothing,
taking the very nature of a servant,
being made in human likeness.
And being found in appearance as a man,
he humbled himself
and became obedient to death—
even death on a cross!
Therefore God exalted him to the highest place
and gave him the name that is above every name …

This isn’t about me. It never was. It’s about me laying down my life for the sake of others. And if, in the process, I get cold toes and a wriggly tummy, well, that’s a small price to pay.

I just pray I can forget myself and serve others for the sake of Christ. Not for my own glory, but for his:

… that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow,
in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord,
to the glory of God the Father.

For his glory.

As far as I understand it, there are two significant things about DNA for our purposes here. Firstly, there’s a family likeness—you can see how much like other members of a family a person is by comparing their DNA to each other’s. In thinking through a DNA of ministry we ought therefore to ask what must be included in our belief and practice—and what must be excluded—in order to be family. This is the most common discussion. Secondly, there’s an aspect that I think is more significant and I suspect we don’t think enough about: replication. That is, DNA is so remarkably made by God that it reproduces exact copies of itself so that the next generation can come in to being without mutation. This sounds an awful lot like 2 Timothy 2:2—Paul commands Timothy to pass on to the next generation what he has been taught in an uncorrupted, unpolluted way.

Why are we bothering with this topic?

There are several reasons why we ought to bother investigating this topic. The primary reason is that there is no other topic of such significance as the gospel itself: understanding it, dwelling upon it, applying it to ourselves and unleashing it to shape our practice. It is worthwhile to be encouraged, reminded, buttressed in our assurance and challenged in our failures.

There is another reason why it is worth wrestling with these ideas: we have the responsibility of ensuring, as far as humanly possible, that we are clear on what we proclaim and that we ensure that the gospel is not corrupted.

But there are factions amongst us, even within the family. As we wage war against the devil, in the same trenches there are those, on either side of the family, who think the man next to them is the enemy, with a different DNA. We must be clear about who is a fellow soldier (even with different opinions on some things) and who is actually an enemy.

This past week I admit to being challenged in my reading of 1 Corinthians 1. In a letter in which the apostle Paul on every page spells out the errors, factions, self-superiority, rejection of the apostle, sexual immorality, lack of care for the community, over confidence, and over-realized eschatology of the Corinthian church, he still says something unexpected and something I don’t think I could have said:

I give thanks to my God always for you because of the grace of God that was given you in Christ Jesus, that in every way you were enriched in him in all speech and all knowledge—even as the testimony about Christ was confirmed among you—so that you are not lacking in any gift, as you wait for the revealing of our Lord Jesus Christ, who will sustain you to the end, guiltless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. (1 Corinthians 1:4-8)

It suggested to me that we shouldn’t stop talking about the differences or errors that we see, or dismiss differences by saying that both (or neither) ‘side’ is right. Paul is clear in his correction of error, but does it all with unity in Christ and praise to God. It is good to be on our guard, especially for those of us who are called to be watchmen and those who warn (cf. Ezekiel 3), but we must be aware of the basis on which we make our decisions so as to make them wisely. So often we make these decisions based on our own particular definition of what it is to be evangelical, or the tribe that we belong to. With that in mind, let’s try to get to the bottom of what it is that defines an evangelical: what is our DNA?

Defining evangelicals

I think it’s a reasonable assumption that if you are reading this, you would likely label yourself unashamedly as an evangelical. We live for and promote the gospel. But in defining carefully what ‘evangelical’ and ‘gospel’ mean, lets us think about what makes up our family likeness (our shared DNA) and how we ensure it reproduces without error (our DNA replication).

Incomplete definitions

There are a few incomplete or unhelpful definitions of what it is to be evangelical. Firstly, a rather common tendency currently is self-identification as an evangelical—you call yourself evangelical and therefore you are. This is a clearly circular definition, rather devoid of content, and cannot be sufficient. Closely related to this is a sociological definition whereby you identify with a group or ‘tribe’ that is clearly evangelical, or ‘more evangelical’ than other groups. This too is common, and quite dangerous, because the substance of evangelicalism is then tied to the group membership rather than the gospel DNA of that group.

There’s a historical definition gained by looking at evangelicalism as a movement from the 17th–18th century, its leaders, and its progression. That’s an interesting enough study, but it falls short of a proper definition of what it means to be an evangelical now. It is more about history than the work of the gospel and its content.

In terms of description, there are a few different approaches. Among the more helpful is David Bebbington’s description, referred to as the Bebbington Quadrilateral. He argued that four main qualities define evangelical convictions and attitudes:

1. the Bible as the final authority in all matters of faith and life
2. the centrality of the atoning work of Christ
3. the great need of every human to be converted
4. gospel proclamation as the responsibility of the believer.¹

That we must hold these four truths is certain, but the quadrilateral gives no order, sequence or priority.

In Evangelical Truth, John Stott, following JI Packer, identifies the content of evangelicalism. He gives a list of beliefs that must be held:

1. the supremacy of Holy Scripture
2. the majesty of Jesus Christ (the God-man who died as a sacrifice for sin)
3. the lordship of the Holy Spirit (who exercises a variety of vital ministries)
4. the necessity of conversion (a direct encounter with God effected by God alone)
5. the priority of evangelism
6. the importance of fellowship (the church being essentially a living community of believers)²

He then summarizes them as: “the authority of God in and through Scripture, the majesty of Jesus Christ in and through the cross, and the lordship of the Holy Spirit in and through his manifold ministries”.³

Stott and Packer have done us a great service in placing the gospel at the centre of evangelical DNA, but even with this content it is still unclear how the DNA is reproduced without error. We could easily spend the next several pages discussing our DNA in terms of the ideas we must hold as central, the ways of living, thinking, and theology that we must hold. That would be by no means a waste of time, but I want to propose something different that I think captures better the New Testament DNA of ministry.

Focus on evangelical reproduction

To be an evangelical—that is, to be a gospel person—is to be an evangel-man or evangel-woman. A gospel person is someone who has themselves been transformed and takes that transforming message to the world. Bebbington’s quadrilateral is too flat: he identified conversion as part of the puzzle, but didn’t go far enough. Evangelical, New Testament DNA has conversion—that is, repentance and faith that lead to salvation—not just as part of it, but as the central bullseye. Conversion is what the family has in common. That is what gets passed on from generation to generation, and that shape is the basis of ethics and church and everything.

When we examine the last words of the risen Lord Jesus before his ascension—in the Great Commission of Matthew 28:18-20 and to the disciples in Luke 24:44-49—we see that they are marching orders. Jesus commands his disciples to make disciples, and to preach repentance and forgiveness to all nations. While we await the Lord’s return from on high, this is what it is to be an evangelical—the making of converts through the proclamation of the gospel.

This gospel proclamation does have clear content. It is about Jesus Christ, the fulfilment of the promises of God, who rescues us from the coming wrath (1 Thess 1:9-10). In his magnificent plenary address at GAFCON, Nairobi, Mike Ovey warned of false gospel proclamation and cheap conversion: one that is repentance-less and one that is self-bestowed.⁴ True conversion is never that. As Jesus puts it to his disciples in Luke 24, forgiveness is only found in his name, which prevents any sense of self-bestowal of salvation. It is only possible in the completed, accomplished work of Christ:

[Jesus] said to them, “Thus it is written, that the Christ should suffer and on the third day rise from the dead, and that repentance and forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem. (Luke 24:46-47)

Sometimes true conversion is expressed as a catchphrase: “Jesus is Lord”, or “Remember Jesus Christ, raised from the dead, descended from David”. Sometimes it is expressed as a response: the assurance of salvation. Sometimes it is captured by the appropriation of a theological truth: justification by faith alone. But for all, the core of being a gospel person is being converted from what we were to what we are now in Christ.

This isn’t just rejuvenation, or simply a matter of changing thoughts. Conversion is re-creation. Throughout the Scriptures God is clear about his intent to glorify his Son by transforming people from mortality to immortality, from perishable to imperishable, from death to life.

Conversion, viewed in this way, has many necessary implications. There’s a conviction of the total lostness of every human being without Christ (Rom 8:7-8; Eph 2:12), that nothing other than the substitionary death of God’s Son on our behalf can solve that problem. If these are lost there is no true conversion and no benefit from repentance. Because this is so important, it is therefore not surprising that clear dividing lines in the New Testament that cannot be crossed are the incarnate deity of Christ (1 John 2:22), and that this salvation is only possible by trusting God’s revelation (Gal 1:8; 1 John 4:6).

And as we call people to true repentance, we work alongside God in his clearly declared plan: the conversion of souls. What a magnificent, world-shattering, impossible thing this ministry is—but how could we do this activity in any way other than joyfully!

The shape of the evangelical call to repentance

Now at this point there’s an obvious objection: surely conversionism alone is prone to theological error. After all, the Mormons, Sydney Church of Christ, and all manner of other groups believe that you need to be converted!

Of course the call to salvation must be to trust the risen Christ, but hear what I am saying. Unless we have at the heart of our DNA the lostness of every human, the offer of solution, and that God in his kindness calls us to proclaim these truths, the DNA will be lost. To lose this centre cannot but cause malfunctioning DNA—if not in this generation, then certainly in future generations.

The heart of New Testament DNA is calling people to repentance. That said, true conversion only makes sense when it is cradled in the character of God. Conversely, you won’t see the character of God clearly unless you’re committed to the eternity-transforming reality of conversion. So what is the character of God? What is God like?

There are lots of ways to describe the character of God, but I picked this description up from Broughton Knox and the more I read the Bible, the more I think he has nailed it: God is sovereign, good, and wise.

God is sovereign, over all things. He organizes even the minutest of details to bring about his purposes. And his purposes are the glorifying of his Son, through the salvation of his elect. In our conversion-centric DNA, we must remember that it is only by God’s choice and only through his means that people will be saved. We ourselves are not responsible for the conversion of people; we trust the Spirit to do what is humanly impossible. We trust that he will do the work even when we are absent—so we can trust God to reproduce his work down through the generations.

God is good. Nothing he chooses or elects, and none of his means, will (when all is known) ever be questionable. The very worst anyone will get from God is justice (which is better than any human judicial system). In his goodness, some get many more blessings. So in our conversion-centric DNA, we call on people to be saved to the one who has done everything: not just the creator and sustainer (God is sovereign), but the redeemer (God is good).

God is wise. All God’s ways, choices and acts display the depth of his wisdom. In the closing words of the great epistle to the Romans, which is all about the universal salvific act of God that no one would have conceived, Paul concludes:

Now to him who is able to strengthen you according to my gospel and the preaching of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery that was kept secret for long ages but has now been disclosed and through the prophetic writings has been made known to all nations, according to the command of the eternal God, to bring about the obedience of faith—to the only wise God be glory forevermore through Jesus Christ! Amen. (Romans 16:25-27)

God’s wise way is to use frail, weak people to proclaim his word, by having them believe his Word, so they that others would be gathered to him from the four corners of the globe, century after century after century. So we will speak foolish words (to the world) of wrath, judgement, and true, whole-hearted repentance that results in humiliating, costly, sacrificial service.

This sovereign, good, and wise God will bring about his glorious purposes so we and others may live joyfully in the liberation of the gospel. So, as people of the gospel, our DNA is conversion shaped and cradled in the character of our God who welcomes rebellious sinners to share his life.

Keeping the shape

There are various ways that gospel DNA may be corrupted in its replication, and I refer you to some significant suggestions by Richard Chin elsewhere in this issue on that topic. We often fear our DNA may be subject to challenge and alteration through contamination with the environment in which we live. This has too often led us to avoid or ignore our world and to be unresponsive to it. As we live in this world, we share the gospel call so that people might respond in faith and be transformed. How do we engage in the world and not ‘contaminate’ our DNA? What boundaries should we erect to protect our DNA?

The first port of call here is defining what we believe: our creeds, gospel summaries, and theological statements. These are crucial as ‘hard’ delimiters of what the Scriptures teach us about the gospel, and key resources in warding off wrong theology that gets imported from time to time. The language of Galatians and 1 John screams that the holders of some erroneous beliefs are the antichrist (Gal 1:8; 1 John 2:22), and that there are hard boundaries we must not cross.

But boundaries are also present in softer ways, as we make decisions about our strategies, priorities and methodologies. These can support (by promoting conversion) or mutate (by mis-shaping) our DNA.

Strategies

Strategies are good. We need to have a plan of what we will do under God to create gospel lives in others, and how it is to be executed. I am a great advocate of strategy. But make no mistake, here is the easiest place for the DNA to be corrupted. When the strategy becomes what we live for we are in danger of losing our DNA.

Every strategy needs to contribute in some way to that central change of heart so that the believer delights in their transference from the kingdom of darkness, and so strives with all their effort to see it occur in others. We too often, I am afraid, compromise our passion for conversion for short term strategies. Do we spend more time planning the menu at our outreach event than on the message we are sharing? Do we act as though better marketing will be more likely to grow our churches than prayer? Be assured that strategy, over time, always shapes a culture. We must interact with our world, but to mis-focus on our goal will create unproductive DNA in the next generation.

Priorities

There is so much that can be done by individuals and groups who are possessed by God. Countless things clamour for our attention. In the midst of all of this the priority must remain the evangel: the salvation of souls through the wise God-ordained means of proclaiming the saviour and calling to repentance. Compromise on that today and it will be lost tomorrow.

Methodology

Our methodology of how to engage our world with the gospel must be nuanced by the world we live in. The gospel is the same—it calls forth repentance and new life from the dead—but methods change. For example, ‘twittering the gospel’ 20 years ago involved chatting about Jesus. That was a good methodology, but the term (and the practice) means something quite different today. We must challenge and question—and teach everyone to constantly challenge and question—our methodology. Is our method assisting or hindering us rejoicing in working beside our sovereign, good and wise God?

We must challenge methodology as it very quickly becomes the content of our ministry. This is because it is methodology that is visible, and ‘how we do things around here’. It quickly becomes set in stone and we end up living and saluting our practice and not our God who calls people out of darkness to escape the wrath to come. Our methodology must flow from and be constantly explained by our central theology of repentance. This is why these things are soft boundaries: we must have them, and they’re always movable, but unless they point to the centre of who we are they can corrupt what we are about.

Replication and maintenance of evangelical DNA

What we’ve seen so far is that New Testament ministry DNA is not merely a set of propositions, all of which have the same value. The beating heart of New Testament ministry is the glorifying of God through the salvation of souls. The DNA has a clear centre: conversion. But we’re not left just with that. It has a centre, but it also has shape to it. The character of God gives shape to that evangelistic content and method. Finally, we also need to think about our relationship with the world, and we must be aware that how we engage will challenge our DNA.

This leads us on well to the final important part of this discussion: evangelical DNA is not just about who you are and what you believe, but even more importantly it is about passing the gospel on to future generations intact. How do we do that with so many challenges to gospel DNA? This is what blows my mind and convinces me that we have a sovereign, good, and wise God.

Human DNA has a certain shape to it: the double helix. Again, I am no geneticist, but I understand that when connections are missing, protein builders come to its aid to correct the problem by restoring the correct shape. In an analogous way, New Testament DNA is self-correcting, for which we ought to give great praise to our sovereign, good God. As we focus on the call to repentance, shaped by the God we praise—the shape self corrects. That this happens shouldn’t surprise us as it is God who is at work by his Spirit to create true, real, life-giving faith, even in the midst of all our human weaknesses. What a relief that it is God who ensures un-mutated replication! Our task is to faithfully proclaim and call for repentance. Therefore, in our ministry, if it is to be New Testament, gospel DNA ministry, we will mirror the character of God in appropriate ways.

We mirror the wisdom of God: God knows all and directs all. We cannot do that. But the methods, content and activities that he declares give us means of conducting ministry that are thoroughly wise. We therefore conduct our ministry in all holiness, proclaiming fearlessly the Saviour and his call to surrender to him, prayerfully trusting the Spirit of God to take our efforts for his glory. Though we don’t have every answer, and though philosophers will mock our message, our task is nonetheless to tell of the work of God and to call for response. That is God’s wise way for us to maintain the DNA.

We mirror the goodness of God. God’s character brings about deep thankfulness for the amazing gift of our salvation, thankfulness for what he is doing in others, and recognition that his ways are always best (despite our judgements). So we will proclaim the good God who calls people to relationship with him.

We also mirror the sovereign God. We are in no way sovereign, but we do have influence. Depending on who you are and what ministry you are engaged in, this influence will vary, but it is true for each one of us that because of our positions and because the Spirit uses us, we can influence the DNA of this generation and the ones to come. We have—as far as humanly possible—the responsibility to keep refocusing on the evangel: the glorious calling of putting faith in Jesus because of the unbelievably wonderful character of God.

New Testament gospel ministry has a particular shape to it. I’m calling on you to defend that shape. This calls for great care, watchfulness and thoughtfulness.

Defend it against mutation and mis-shaping, defend it by proclaiming it knowing that God will be at work correcting our weaknesses. Declare it boldly so that it may be transmitted intact to future generations who will also be captivated by the glorious news of passing from death to life, into the kingdom of the beloved Son our Lord. Declare it boldly so that future generations will declare it to generations not yet born.

Mr. Graham would preach a mighty sermon, convicting thousands of souls each night, but the singing of the huge mass choir uniting in ‘Almost Persuaded,’ or another Christ-centered appeal, seemed to be the key that finally released them from their seats and the devil. We could not fail to see the marvelous regenerating power of music upon those hardened people as they stood around the platform in Madison Square Garden, tears staining their faces, as the choir sang and more souls came up the aisle and to Christ.^[1]

The notions that singing releases people from the devil and that music has the power of regeneration may seem to you to be a little… well, unbiblical. Conversion and regeneration are the work of the gospel and the Holy Spirit, aren’t they? There’s just so much language of ‘preaching’and ‘proclaiming’ when it comes to evangelism in the New Testament, and almost nothing directly linking ‘singing’or ‘music’ with evangelistic activity. Yet (and to paraphrase a well-worn dictum from my old boss), it usually pays to look for the note of truth in even the most counter-intuitive of claims. Doing so, in this case at least, has led me to believe that singing can rightly be used as a form of evangelism. Understanding the relationship between singing and evangelism could go a long way in helping us discern between good and bad evangelistic practice—and surely that’s better than playing things by ear!

Let’s begin then, with some important background information. Whatever we mean by ‘evangelism’, it cannot be less than ministry of the word and prayer.

1. Ministry of the word and prayer

I suspect that for many readers this will sound like stating the obvious, but it’s important enough to address briefly. The result of the apostles distinguishing “ministry of the word and prayer” from other ministries was that “the word of God continued to increase, and the number of the disciples multiplied greatly in Jerusalem…” (Acts 6:7). This ministry directly related to the increasing of disciples, and therefore it must include the verbal proclamation of the gospel. To put it simply, it can’t help but include evangelism. Paul, in instructing his protégé Timothy, commands him to “do the work of an evangelist” (2 Tim 4:5). When Jesus gave gifts for building his church, all were ‘word-type’ ministries, including evangelism (Eph 4:11-12). This should not come as a surprise, because the same gospel that brings the church into being is the gospel that sustains it; the ministry of word and prayer builds the church from without and within (Titus 2:11-12, Col 2:6-7).

It’s not just evangelism though: in Ephesians 4 we learn that the giving of word-prayer ministries was for the goal of equipping the saints for the work of service, so that, in turn, the church could be built up (4:12). Then, the established church would also speak; it would speak the truth in love in order to continue the work of building itself (4:15-16). The ministry of the word and prayer seems to create a self-sustaining circle designed to build the church in number and maturity. What this means for the various types of word-prayer ministry is (to put it crassly) that the content needs to be the same, but the packaging needs to be different. I mention this because in due course I will argue that singing—primarily, though not exclusively—is part of the ‘packaging’ for insiders, it being concerned more with teaching than converting.

But before I get there, let me show you why I think it’s right to consider singing as a ministry of the word and prayer.

2. Singing as a ministry of the word and prayer

Look at the way Paul describes his evangelistic practice in Colossians 1:28:

Him we proclaim, warning everyone and teaching everyone with all wisdom, that we may present everyone mature in Christ.

Paul’s proclamation consists of warning and teaching, and it’s done with wisdom. It is also done with a goal in mind: bringing everyone to maturity in Christ. What Paul does (and what Epaphras did in the case at hand) resulted in the Colossian church coming into being. In order to continue growing, they are to do precisely the same thing to one another, in song! Look at what Paul writes in Colossians 3:16:

Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God.

Notice that the same three descriptors that Paul used of gospel proclamation (teaching, warning and wisdom) are now used to describe what the Colossians are to do amongst themselves. Just as Paul proclaims Jesus in order to bring all people to Christian maturity, so too these Colossians are to let the word of Christ dwell richly amongst them, such that they continue to grow in maturity. Paul proclaimed Christ to the people in Colossae, and, for those who responded aright and became a church, he then instructed them to do the same thing to one another.

The basic difference is the medium and the recipient. In the first instance, Paul proclaims the gospel, and the recipients are unbelievers.^[2] In the second instance, believers sing in order to let the word of Christ dwell richly amongst believers. In both cases, the word of truth (which I hold to be loosely synonymous with the word of Christ in Colossians) defines the content.

That being said, the difference in medium (proclaiming vs. singing) is of little consequence as far as the primary goal is concerned. In fact, in a parallel passage Paul replaces singing with speaking:

…addressing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs… (Eph 5:19)

Singing and speaking are not identical, but the overlap here indicates that the effect of these two activities is the same. Singing gospel truth to one another is equivalent to speaking the gospel truth to one another. Just as the evangelist speaks the word of truth by proclamation, so the evangelized speak the word of Christ by singing (amongst other means). The medium must therefore be secondary to the message. So as we sing together, which the New Testament simply assumes that we will do, we’re to do so in such a way as to let the word of Christ dwell among us richly—probably the reason we’re to sing psalms, hymns and spiritual songs, rather than the Greco-Roman Top 40.

So why then employ ‘singing speech’ rather than ‘non-singing speech’? Often the way we account for the difference in these mediums (singing and speaking) is by assuming that the self-evident capacity for music to stir emotion is what allows the word of Christ to dwell among us richly. But as I remember some of the best sermons I’ve heard, I’m forced to acknowledge that speaking (rather than singing) can also be just as emotionally stirring. Perhaps the ‘richness’ aspect of the word dwelling among us has more to do with memorization? After all, it’s true that we mostly remember what we sing much more than what we say. But then again, after reciting the Apostle’s Creed without looking at the screen, I’m forced to concede that speaking can be just as helpful an aid to memorization as singing. I therefore think the difference is that singing often, though not exclusively, accomplishes both purposes (emotion-stirring and memorization) with greater ease and potency than speaking. Paul doesn’t give an explanation as to whether the richness achieved by singing is about emotiveness or memorization. But given that an argument drawing upon Old Testament songs could be made for either,^[3] it’s probably safe to assume that both are important.

Given the strong emphasis on the ‘horizontal’ (“one another”) dimension, both in our key texts (Col 3:16; Eph 5:19) and in what we’ve seen of the character and goal of word-prayer ministry, it’s not surprising that Paul saw fit to remind his readers that singing is also directed towards God. Whilst we speak to one another in song, we’re to make melody in our hearts to the Lord (Eph 5:19). Whilst we teach and admonish one another in song, we’re to do so with thankfulness in our hearts to God. Having read the Psalms, this should seem almost self-evident: God is often the one to whom songs are sung. But having understood singing as a word-prayer ministry designed for building the church, this might not be so immediately obvious. God has no need that he should be taught or admonished (it would be rather blasphemous to presume to teach him!), so God ‘receives’ singing differently to the way we do: God is praised and/or petitioned, whilst we are taught and/or warned.

I find it interesting that in my experience it has become increasingly apparent that we seem to gravitate to the emphasis of the ‘vertical’ (that is, the praise of God) almost at the expense of the ‘horizontal’ (teaching and warning one another). I remember thinking it was odd that the quietest period within a Sunday Morning Prayer service was usually during communion. Even though we call it ‘communion’, and remember a shared meal around a table, it seems to be the time when most people have the least amount of interaction with those around them, and, presumably, the most concentrated interaction with God—like what I’d expect during private prayer. In just the same way, I can’t help but wonder if the person with closed eyes and lifted hands during the singing hasn’t understood that part of what’s happening is teaching and warning one another, and whether the right desire to praise God has somehow ended up happening at the expense of serving others. If ever there should be a false dichotomy, separating the two most important commands would be it! And I’m not alone: Carl Trueman recently made a rather cutting statement about the culture of evangelical singing—one that presupposes the importance of viewing congregational singing as a teaching ministry, as is evidenced by his reference to Calvinism. He writes:

As I survey the contemporary church landscape, I am struck at how even the great gospel of sovereign grace is now so often focused on the youth market and consequently packaged with the aesthetics of worldly power, of celebrity, of the kind of superficial approaches to life which mark the childish and the immature. Things that were once (and sadly no more) the exclusive preserve of the proponents of the prosperity gospel now feature in mainstream evangelical circles without comment or criticism. The world has truly been turned upside down when Calvinism has in some quarters become known for its pyrotechnics and its cocksure swagger.^[4]

I mention this because I think there’s wisdom in reflecting soberly on the practices and culture of singing within the church before considering how we’d like singing to be received by those outside it. Nonetheless, it’s now time for the key-change you’ve all (hopefully) been anticipating: singing as evangelism.

3. Singing as evangelism

We’ve seen that the spoken message that brought the Colossian church into being is also to be ‘spoken’ within it. The difference is packaging. In the first instance, the word-prayer ministry that brings the church into being must be nothing less than evangelism—the verbal proclamation of the gospel. In the second instance, the word-prayer ministry that builds the church (speaking the truth in love)—is one in which gospel truth needs to dwell richly among Christians. Singing is a prescribed medium for meeting this goal, and is therefore primarily for the church. But its content, along with its form, makes it applicable to outsiders as well. Congregational singing, therefore, provided it’s being done faithfully to the message, can’t help but be evangelistic from the perspective of an outsider. Singing might well be primarily for the church, but I can’t see that the New Testament gives us sufficient reason to claim it can’t also be used for gospel proclamation to outsiders. Just as I would proclaim the gospel to a non-Christian, so I could speak the gospel to him/her in song. Doing so to an individual might seem a little, well, awkward (unless your life is a musical). But as a choir at a Billy Graham crusade, the medium could be quite fitting, and the message quite faithful. In this sense, we might rightly say that the gospel (which happened to be sung) did indeed release people from the devil.

How might this relate to our evangelistic practice? Well for me, the most obvious place to start would be a Christmas carols night. At least part of what happens should be aimed at being evangelistic, and this should extend to the content and manner of what is sung. So many carols make perfect sense to Christians, but it takes a bit of effort to look for songs with words that are comprehensible to outsiders. But singing can be evangelistic, so it’s worth investing time and effort to this word-prayer ministry (especially the prayer bit when it comes to evangelism!). If your music team is going to perform an ‘item’, which is to be better rehearsed and presented than all the other songs, why not make it simply and transparently evangelistic? Find a song that calls people to repent, and present it in such a way that it’s clear that people are invited to respond! Consider doing it immediately after a sermon, and make sure both have a similar theme. Consider doing it a capella to emphasize that you want the words heard even more clearly than all the others. As novel as all this might sound, be assured you’re in good company. Not only was Billy Graham doing it, but there are many songwriters who have written overtly evangelistic yet congregational songs.

Consider the following verses from John Newton’s hymn ‘Day Of Judgment! Day Of Wonders!’:

At his call the dead awaken,

Rise to life from earth and sea.

All the pow’rs of nature shaken

By his looks prepare to flee:

Careless sinner, what will then become of thee?

 

Horrors, past imagination,

Will surprise your trembling heart,

When you hear your condemnation,

“Hence, accursed wretch, depart!

Thou, with Satan and his angels, have thy part!”

My initial instinct is to wince when thinking of how an outsider might hear such words! However, I can’t help but side with Newton here—it is imperative that people be warned of the consequence of rejecting Jesus as Lord and Saviour; ‘warning’ is a necessary part of evangelism.

Again, consider Rob Smith’s ‘Taste And See’:

Taste and see that the Lord is good

That his mercy is everlasting

Come behold the King of love

Bear our sins upon the tree

He redeemed us by his blood

So that we might find forgiveness full and free

Oh taste and see.^[5]

What a brilliant call to consider the gospel message!

In terms of music, it makes sense to arrange things in such a way that the chords and dynamics reflect the anticipated emotional responses of the words. Therefore it’s a great idea to make sure your musicians and song leaders have read and thought about the words. It sounds simple, but in my experience it’s rare to find people have done this.

Finally, remember the power of God is in the content of what is being spoken (either in song or speech), rather than the medium by which it’s spoken. It was not, in fact, the music that had ‘marvellous regenerating power’ at Billy Graham’s Madison Square rally. It was the proclamation of the gospel (in this case, accompanied by music) and the work of God the Holy Spirit that allowed people to regenerate. Music is a wonderful thing, but like all things, we need to avoid the temptation to worship created things rather than the Creator. Use music as a great servant, but don’t let it become a tyrannical master.

^[1] L Purday, ‘Singing Evangelism’, Ministry, October 1966, pp. 38-40. Available online: https://www.ministrymagazine.org/archive/1966/10/singing-evangelism

^[2] That’s the general principle. In the case at hand, Epaphras was the proclaimer, and the Colossians were the recipients.

^[3] Compare, for instance, Deuteronomy 31:21, 31:30, 32:1-47 with Psalm 100.

^[4] C Trueman, ‘Reflections on “What Can Miserable Christians Sing?”’ 9 Marks Journal. Available online: http://www.9marks.org/journal/reflections-what-can-miserable-christians-sing

^[5] R Smith, ‘Taste and See’, Come Hear the Angels Sing, Emu Music, 2008.

In other words, when we think of ‘technology’ we usually think of the latest electronic or digital technology—the iPhone, the LCD TV, the GPS navigator, and so on—but these are no more ‘technological’ than all the other things that humans devised and made, all of which were new and exciting at some point: the telegraph, the wireless, the printed street directory, and one my favourite pieces of technology, the reclining armchair.

Christians quite rightly use technology all the time as we seek to fulfil our particular part in God’s purpose—that is, to subdue the earth under the dominion of the Son of Man, to proclaim his rule, and to call on everyone everywhere to repent before him, and to put their faith in him. In pursuit of this purpose, we make use of books (and especially The Book), buildings, cars, paper, chairs, sentimental rock ballads, electric lighting, and much else.

In this article, I want to reflect on what is now a very familiar piece of technology in the Christian world, and explore what it can do to help us in the great task Christ has given us. I am referring to a little outline of the gospel called Two Ways to Live, that was originally devised and made more than 30 years ago. (For those who aren’t familiar, Two Ways to Live is a six-point outline of the central message of the Bible, focusing on the momentous news of Jesus’ death and resurrection as the saving, life-giving Lord who deserves our repentance and faith.)

At one level, as a piece of technology Two Ways to Live looks about as thrilling and ground-breaking as a fork. At another level, it conveys a message that is more exciting than a moon landing, and has been used to spread this message very effectively all around the world in a multitude of ways in multiple languages by more people than will ever be known. It is quite extraordinary in God’s providence how such a simple tool (a six-point gospel outline) has proved to be so adaptable and so widely useful for so many aspects of evangelistic ministry.

I want to explore three particular ways in which Two Ways to Live continues to be especially useful—that is, three ways in which this particular piece of ministry ‘technology’ can help you not only in your personal evangelism, but in equipping a whole congregation with an evangelistic culture and practice.

1. It can help you clarify and teach the gospel clearly

The Two Ways to Live training course starts with a very revealing exercise. Without any preparation or notice, participants are asked to have a go at briefly explaining the gospel, as if they were sharing it with a friend.

Everywhere I have seen the course run, the result is the same. Even quite experienced or long-serving Christians struggle to articulate the gospel in a clear, straightforward way:

“It’s got to do with loving God and Jesus. It’s a relationship with Jesus that really matters. And there’s forgiveness of sins and the Holy Spirit, and Jesus is God, although and also God’s Son, and of course we need to live a good life but salvation is by grace not works…”

And so on. It’s rarely outright heresy—just a woolly jumble of ideas and truths that makes it hard for them to bring the message to others with clarity, coherence, and power.

Is it like that where you are? Would many people in your church be able to articulate a simple, clear, compelling explanation of the gospel to a friend?

This lack of clarity is a real challenge to building an evangelistic culture in a church. We can’t encourage and equip our people to be gospel-minded and to be gospel-sharers unless they actually know what the gospel is.

Two Ways to Live is designed to help with this challenge. It is designed to bring crystal clarity to what the gospel actually is, so that this can be thoroughly learned and internalized, and then shared.

Now, achieving this sort of clarity about the gospel is not as easy as it sounds. This is partly because so many barnacles have accumulated on the concept of ‘gospel’ over the centuries, and because (as the Bible itself promises) many false gospels have arisen to pervert or twist the gospel, or to get the emphasis on certain elements so wrong that the whole thing is out of whack.

The other complicating factor is that the Bible has quite a lot to say about what the gospel is, and there is no one Bible verse conveniently marked for us as The One Gospel Definition To Rule Them All. In clarifying and summarizing the gospel, we have to take into account all that the Bible says.

This is what Phillip Jensen and his team did when Two Ways to Live was first written, and what we’ve done repeatedly over the years as we’ve tinkered with and revised it. We’ve tried very hard not to assume that we know what the ‘gospel’ is, but to let the Bible (and particularly the New Testament) instruct and teach us about the message that we’ve been commissioned to preach. And there’s plenty of material to take into account:

You have to look at what the four canonical Gospels themselves reveal about the ‘gospel’. What does their shape and content tell us about the essential truths at the heart of the Christian proclamation? What are we to make of the fact that both Jesus and his disciples preach ‘the gospel’ in the Gospels (e.g. Mark 1:15; Luke 9:6), even though they are doing so in advance of many of the key events of Jesus’ life, particularly his death and resurrection?
You also have to consider what Jesus commissioned his disciples to go out and preach to the world in his name. Just prior to his ascension Jesus opens the mind of his disciples to the Scriptures and then says to them: “Thus it is written, that the Christ should suffer and on the third day rise from the dead, and that repentance and forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem” (Luke 24:48). In view of the death and resurrection of the Christ, the disciples are to proclaim repentance for the forgiveness of sins to all nations. Would it be fair to say that this was their ‘gospel’?
You then have to look carefully at the apostolic evangelism in Acts—at what the apostles themselves actually preached. Looking through all the evangelistic speeches in Acts and seeing what sort of ‘gospel’ they contain is a very interesting exercise. You notice, for example, that although much the same basic content is proclaimed both to Jewish and Gentile audiences it is packaged in quite different ways, presumably because of the different levels of assumed knowledge in the two groups. You also notice a striking emphasis on the resurrection in Acts that is the obverse of most of our gospel preaching today—that is, most gospel presentations we hear today are very heavy on the atoning death of Jesus and the forgiveness that it wins, but very light on the resurrection and lordship of the risen Christ. In the Acts speeches, the emphasis seems to be the other way around.
In Acts 17, Luke describes Paul’s gospel preaching in Athens as simply preaching “Jesus and the resurrection” (Acts 17:18, lit. ‘gospelling’). Would your evangelistic speaking be easily summarizable as “Jesus and the resurrection”? In fact, if you didn’t mention the resurrection in your gospelling, would anyone notice or miss it?
The other major piece of data to take into account is all the summaries and descriptions of the apostolic gospel in the epistles. There are the famous ones, such as 1 Corinthians 2:2: “For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified”. There is Paul’s well-known summary in 1 Corinthians 15:
Now I would remind you, brothers, of the gospel I preached to you, which you received, in which you stand, and by which you are being saved, if you hold fast to the word I preached to you—unless you believed in vain. For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. (1 Cor 15:1-5)
But there are some less well-known ones to be considered as well:
…on that day when, according to my gospel, God judges the secrets of men by Christ Jesus. (Rom 2:16)
Remember Jesus Christ, risen from the dead, the offspring of David, as preached in my gospel… (2 Tim 2:8)
(Would you be able to summarize your gospel, like Paul does, as “Jesus Christ, risen from the dead, the offspring of David”?)

So what do we get, when we pull these different strands together, and integrate them theologically? What is the common core that makes sense of it all?

Firstly, and most basically, we have to conclude that the gospel is a proclamation of certain incredibly significant events and their meaning. It’s an announcement that something of massive significance has happened. In this sense, the word ‘gospel’ means something like ‘big news’ rather than simply ‘good news’.

What is this big news? My attempt at summarizing it is as follows:

• That God sent his own Son into the world to die as an atoning or propitiatory sacrifice to bring forgiveness of sins to the world;
• That God raised this same Jesus to life, vindicating him and enthroning him as lord and Davidic Christ, the ruler of the whole world, the king and judge of the imminent kingdom of God;
• That this risen saving lord, Jesus Christ, now gives forgiveness and eternal life to all who repent and put their trust in him, and that he will return to judge the world at the ‘resurrection’ (or judgement day);
• That in light of these extraordinary events culminating in the present rule of Jesus Christ, all people everywhere have a choice to make. They can continue rebelling against God and his king Jesus, and suffer his judgement; or they can turn back and submit to Jesus Christ, and put their trust in him for forgiveness, salvation and eternal life.

That essentially is the momentous announcement that we call ‘the gospel’. That’s what the apostles went around proclaiming, in numerous ways and in different contexts. And that’s what we must proclaim if we are to be their faithful successors.

One striking feature of this gospel is that it is mostly not about us. It’s not primarily about solving our problems or finding a way for us to be saved or set free. It’s almost entirely a declaration about Jesus. It’s the announcement of him—of who he is, what he has done, what his current status and role and place is in the universe, and what response he requires from us in light of these facts.

This response has two aspects—repentance and faith. Because the crucified and risen Christ is the only one in whose name there can be forgiveness, we must throw all our trust and loyalty and allegiance upon him or be destroyed when he comes to judge. And as we do so, we must repent before him in submission, because it is the lord and ruler of the world that we are putting our trust in. One is impossible without the other. It is no true faith that does not repent, because it is not a trust in or allegiance to who Jesus really is (the crucified and risen lord of all).

My observation is that in many evangelical gospel sermons or presentations, we stop with the death of Jesus and salvation from sin. We preach forgiveness through his blood, by grace not works, through faith alone. But I have lost count of how many gospel presentations I have heard that do not even mention the resurrection and lordship of Jesus, and the need for us to repent before him, let alone giving these truths their due emphasis. My guess is that most people in your church, if you asked them to summarize the gospel, would barely even mention the resurrection and lordship of Jesus.

Downplaying or failing to mention the resurrection and lordship of Jesus is not only unfaithful to the gospel as the New Testament gives it to us, but has a very unfortunate consequence—we effectively bypass repentance as a key response to the gospel announcement. We preach a response of trust in the death of Christ for forgiveness and eternal life, but not repentance before the risen Christ unto the forgiveness of sins (as Jesus puts it in Luke 24).

Leaving out the resurrection and lordship of Jesus leaves us wide open to the kind of therapeutic, man-centred gospel of cheap grace that is so common today. This is the modern ‘gospel’ that preaches Jesus as the answer to my life problems, who helps me to have my best life now along with a free ticket to eternal life in the future, but without any concept of repentance before him as the lord of all.

This is one of the great advantages and uses of Two Ways to Live as a piece of ministry technology: it is designed to give due weight to both the death and resurrection of Jesus. The latter half of Two Ways to Live clearly explains both of these key truths, and the response that they require. In this sense, the Two Ways to Live framework is essentially a catechism, the regular use of which will embed a clear understanding of the full biblical gospel into your people’s heads and lives. That’s a useful technology!

2. It can help you explain this gospel in multiple contexts

Two Ways to Live can help you clarify what the gospel is. But there’s another significant challenge we face, and which Two Ways to Live can help with: How can we explain and proclaim this gospel in a context where people don’t share many of our assumptions?

This is certainly the case in my neck of the woods (in Sydney, Australia). But it is increasingly true in most of the Western world. We live in a post-biblical society—although in Australia’s case one might argue that our society was never particularly biblical in the first place! It’s a society in which Christianity is a small and marginalized presence, and where the average unchurched person has very little knowledge of even the most basic Christian concepts or beliefs (like ‘God’ or ‘sin’ or ‘atonement’ or ‘repentance’ or ‘faith’).

In that sort of context, how do you explain a gospel about Jesus dying for sins and rising to be Lord and Judge, before whom we must repent and have faith?

This was a key factor in the design of Two Ways to Live, largely because we realized that we were seeking to make the great gospel announcement in a world that looked rather like the world of the New Testament. The everyday non-Christian today has a lot in common with the everyday Gentile of the first century—with no appreciation of Israel’s story, or the moral law, or all the categories and background information that the Old Testament brings to the gospel. We realized, in other words, that we are evangelizing today more in Athens than in Jerusalem.

So to proclaim the momentous news of the crucified and risen Christ in the modern West, we needed to help Christians do the kinds of things that the apostles did in Acts when addressing the Gentiles. In particular we needed to provide a way to fill in the necessary background information that helped someone understand the massive earth-shattering significance of Jesus’ saving death and lordly resurrection; and to do so while using as little Christian jargon as possible, because most contemporary Westerners either have no clue about Christian jargon or misunderstand it.

The results of this approach can be seen in the first 3 boxes of Two Ways to Live, which expound:

• God as the loving creator and ruler of the world (which establishes the idea of ruler and lordship, and of God’s claim over us as his creatures);
• Humanity’s rebellion against our creator, whereby we reject his rule and seek to run our lives our own way (in other words ‘sin’ explained not so much as the breaking of rules, but as a defiant rejection of God and his rule)
• Judgement as God’s inevitable and right reaction to this rebellion. You can’t rebel against the ruler of all things and expect that to end well! By the end of box 3 in Two Ways to Live, the listener is left in no doubt as to the dreadful predicament of each one of us before God.

In this sense Two Ways to Live falls into two halves:

• Boxes 1-3 give the background information necessary to understand the gospel; much like the “story so far” montages that begin many TV shows. Boxes 1-3 provide the “Previously in the Bible” information that sets the story up for the crucial episode when Jesus steps onto the stage.
• Boxes 4-6 tell the momentous news of the gospel itself, as outlined above.

Our experience has been that this framework makes it easy to explain the gospel in many different contexts, which is why Two Ways to Live has been used so effectively all over the world in multiple languages to multiple age groups in multiple different cultures.

This is the second way Two Ways to Live can help you with evangelism: by not only giving clarity on what the gospel actually is, but by providing enough of the biblical background and context to make that gospel clearly comprehensible by anyone.

3. It can help you equip your people to evangelize in multiple ways.

The third way Two Ways to Live is such useful ministry technology is that it comes in multiple forms, and can train and equip people for evangelism in multiple ways—both as individuals and as a congregation. Fundamentally this is because Two Ways to Live is an outline rather than a doctrinal statement; it’s a set of hooks on which to hang a gospel presentation, not a prescribed form of words that must be used every time.

People all over the world have put the framework to various and many uses. Let me conclude this article by telling you briefly about one classic way to use Two Ways to Live, and two new ones.

a. Two Ways to Live: know and share the gospel

One of the most common and effective ways to utilize the Two Ways to Live technology is via the classic seven-week training program, used in various editions all over the world for the past 30 years. The course does what the title says:

• It trains people to know the gospel clearly, simply and thoroughly for themselves;
• It then equips them with the basic skills to share that gospel naturally in their own words, using the framework to keep them on track.

Most people’s experience is that this training only works effectively if you devise some way for the participants to open their mouths and actually speak the gospel to someone else. This may be informally with a family member or friend, via some door knocking, in a shopping centre, or on a university campus. The more ‘live’ practice and training takes place, the more it sticks, the more the participants get used to having gospel words on their lips, and the more they keep sharing the gospel informally with their friends in the months and years to come.

The course gives all the resources and ideas you need to pull this off, including video role-plays, examples, audio material and so on.^[1]

b. Introducing God

Introducing God, recently released in a 2nd edition, is an evangelistic course in the genre of Christianity Explored or The Alpha Course. Its author, Dominic Steele, describes Introducing God as “the theology of Two Ways to Live set to the music of relationship”. What this means in practice is that Christians can invite their non-Christians along to a relaxed, relational, six or seven week series of get-togethers (usually over dinner) in which the message of the whole Bible is presented using the basic framework of Two Ways to Live.

With a set of very well-produced videos to convey the content, and excellent training material for your congregation in how to invite their friends and how to participate in the discussion, Introducing God is a simple, effective and proven way to mobilize the whole congregation to work together in evangelism.^[2]

c. You, Me and the Bible

Sometimes a new way to apply an existing technology seems so obvious, you wonder why it wasn’t thought of before. Not long ago, some bright spark in one of Matthias Media’s editorial meetings said: “Why don’t we have a resource where a Christian could sit down with a friend and just read the Bible together over six weeks or so, and work through the framework of Two Ways to Live in the Bible’s own words?”

The answer to this statement of the obvious is You, Me and the Bible: a six-part guide to the central ideas of the Bible. Each of the six sessions contains two shortish Bible passages to read, along with discussion starter questions and a short summary video to draw the ideas together.

We’ve also produced some short, fun, sharable videos to send to your friends, as a first step in inviting them to sit down and read the Bible with you.^[3]

I hope these various ways of accessing this evangelistic technology will help you clarify the gospel, explain it in multiple contexts, and equip others to convey this extraordinary message to others.

^[1] See matthiasmedia.com/?sku=2wsub for details.

^[2] See matthiasmedia.com/?sku=igbun

^[3] For more details, see matthiasmedia.com/?sku=ymb.

To bring new readers up to speed, I, together with my wife and three young daughters, have been following Bruce Linton with a notebook and camera for a good number of the 20-odd years that he has been working in children’s ministry. The summary so far: every single church member who loves Jesus is a partner in the work of helping parents help their children to know the Lord Jesus, who loved us and gave his life for our redemption.

To that end, we are always keen to persuade readers that children are not a separate species, but a sub-category of what we term ‘human beings’. It’s easy, in practice, to fall into the trap of viewing them in the same way that we view an appendix or a spleen: a part of who we are, but once they begin to cause us pain we call in the specialist (in this case, a children’s worker) and have them quietly removed.

Our response: No! At the risk of crossing into another discussion, children are human from the moment of conception, and our attitude to them is the same as the Bible’s—they are sinners, in need of grace.

Now in this third principle, our attention turns to those who surround our children—other children, and of course their families.

The focus of children’s ministry—children—can be clearly and easily established, but the grace of the God who desires to bless can’t be so easily limited. Children have parents; they have brothers, they have sisters, they have friends, they have enemies. Like a hospital that is easier to administer if there are no inconvenient patients, it would make our lives considerably simpler to forget those other people. But the gospel itself pushes us to see that the people surrounding these children also need to be forgiven for their rebellion against Jesus.

So how can we reach along these relationships to proclaim God’s glory to the whole world?

For practical purposes, let’s consider such a question by structuring our thinking in terms of a school year. Home schoolers, empty nesters and single people won’t need to structure their thinking in the same way, but such knowledge will be indispensable if you want to serve others (and even if not—it will give you a good sense of when cheap off-season holiday packages will become available!). Every family facing a school year has a daily routine, a weekly routine, a start-of-year routine, and logistical challenges represented by the approach of holidays, the end of the year, and the madness of Christmas.

Daily routines

Grace in families will be expressed daily in reading the Bible, prayer, and—as far as grace specific to children is concerned—keeping up with food and medical needs. In most families sleep can be treated as somewhat optional for about 10-15 years, depending on the number of children, but some things must be constantly noticed. What is not optional is this: thinking prayerfully and practically about how we can use our families, both natural and church, to reach the children of others and their families as well.

This begins with a daily routine of teaching our children, in whatever way we can, to read the Bible and pray for themselves. Christian parents will want to do this for their own children first, but not to the exclusion of others. Those without children in the home will want to work out ways to encourage this for other children. Do you have nephews? Do you have nieces? Do you have godchildren or grandchildren, or others that you are praying for? The process begins with regular daily prayer that God’s Holy Spirit would give these children new birth, followed by daily attention to God’s word and the other aspects of love for our offspring.

Eating together around the dinner table, followed by Bible reading and prayer, is one classic picture of what this might look like—this daily Lord’s Supper can be extended to include honorary aunts and uncles and just about anyone, really, as time and opportunity allow. Admittedly, in the Cheng household this routine is sometimes disrupted by our need to gather not around the Bible and a dinner table but around an episode of Masterchef (“Come on kids, you could cook like that if you tried”). But the principle of daily meeting together to meet with God is the very foundation for outreach to other families and friends.

Weekly routines

Weekly, this daily round compounds, expands and complexifies to include many others, including those people who are part of our children’s lives. The involvement of the wider church family becomes both more obvious and more important.

At a bare minimum it means that those who see ministry as essential (not only to children, but to everyone) will want to turn up to church ready for action Hebrews 10:25-style—not neglectfully, but encouragingly. Those who have children will want to bring their own children to church, and that will mean establishing from about age four onwards that Friday night sport (when youth group or kids’ club is on) or Sunday morning basketball or music is less likely to happen in your household than the freezing over of hell. Don’t neglect church, children’s clubs or camps for the sake of a football game, or more likely (given the way these things are structured) 15 football games over 15 weekends.

Meeting with God’s family comes first. That is true not only in children’s ministry but in all ministry. The application of this principle doesn’t just apply to sport and music. Don’t bother buying a holiday home. You won’t be using it on Sundays, because you will be at church meeting with God’s people. If you’re one of the fortunate many who have managed to save a great deal of money, time and energy by not buying a holiday house, then use them in a better way. As I’ve said before, eschew your mid-life-crisis convertible and buy a people mover—even if you only have two children. They will want to invite their friends along to kids’ club or youth group. If their friends’ parents are not Christian, then the transport of those friends falls to you—hence, the people mover.

Plan early for the future

For ministers and children’s ministry leaders: don’t keep your plans for the year a secret—the church family should be talking amongst themselves about how the work you’re doing with children can be used to reach the community.

For example, if you’re thinking of starting the year with a bang, coinciding with children going back to school, it means that a few months earlier you will have already gone around to a few key individuals and persuaded them not to allow the senior youth group and the Bible study co-ordinator to gobble up all the best volunteers for their programs. Yes, I’m repeating myself. Yes, there will be back-room arm wrestles and possibly blood on the carpet by the time this negotiation is done. But you will have leaders for the children’s program and that is what you need.

Make sure these leaders have had their working with children training and checks, and whatever else is necessary for safe and legal children’s ministry. Then get your parents and leaders together before things get underway for the year, and explain and pray together about what your plans are and what you are asking them to do.

If you’re not the minister or the children’s ministry leader, still get involved in whatever way you can, especially that hard, sweaty work of prayer. Offer to design the programs for the term and special events. Do nerdy things to the church website to make it shiny, happy and, above all, up-to-date, so that when registrations start to roll in for the children’s camp, it can all be done online without fuss. Why not upgrade your driver’s licence so that you can drive a large van or a bus? Then when your church’s children’s ministry has a trip to the beach or to a camp, there you will be too, offering to drive the church van or the local community bus so that more children can come along.

Administrators, paid or otherwise, help your children’s ministry leaders by continually harassing them without mercy for a detailed program of the year’s activities, especially for term 1 and the following holiday period.

If you are thinking there will be a mid-year holiday club, or a camp later in the year, get it into the church program before the year starts, and then go to every single parent and personally show them how to use their calendars or electronic diaries or mobile phones to enter in the dates they need to keep free so that their children can go on these camps. Take their deposits. Offer them early-bird rates. In short, do every single legal thing you can to make sure that their children are yours for certain specified periods of the year. The Bible urges us to pray constantly; Bruce Linton and any children’s worker worth their salt will simply add ‘plan constantly’. You do this so that you can have at least a sketch of a long-term vision of gospel ministry that extends from this week, on to this term, this year, and to the whole of the three to five years that you will have a group of children as part of the pre-school to infants ministry; followed then by a three-year plan for the primary school ministry, which leads in to the high school ministry. The latter is someone else’s problem (unless you’re a parent, then it’s yours too) but these plans are also your joy, for God’s word will do its work and will not return to him void.

By the way, if you are part of a small church where the youth work consists of the three minister’s kids and two of their friends, and this counsel begins to fill you with despair, then in the words of one famous hitchhiker’s guide, Don’t Panic. Every single one of these suggestions begins not with the assumption of massive resources, but with the prayerful desire to see people brought under the sound of the gospel. Start small, do what you can, and start a wish list of things that you might do when the word of God starts to bear fruit in children’s lives. The best and most effective evangelism, in our experience, will not generally happen through special events. It will happen through the daily and weekly flow of relationships, as children hear the word of God from those around them and from the church family over a period of months, even years.

The gospel and fun

What role do the children themselves play? It may be that many seven-year-olds will not read this article. But for their parents and leaders, the point is that they too are disciples of Christ who have been charged with the responsibility of making disciples, baptizing them into the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. How will this happen?

Apart from their own prayers and sharing (and we mustn’t underestimate their capacity for understanding and telling the gospel), they are the ones who will invite their friends. They need to trust the leader who says “If you come to this children’s program, you will hear about Jesus and you will have fun—especially the first, but always the second, and we won’t force you to choose one over the other”. In fact, even the most fun bits will have a reason. Whether it’s a game with lots of running with an egg and spoon that illustrates a passage about running the race carefully rather than in quick fits and starts, or a puppet show where the puppet realizes that their bad school results or over-consumption of chocolate won’t stop them being God’s friend—it doesn’t matter. Careful and prayerful planning means that every single thing you do in your children’s program, from the welcome you give to the game you play to the talk you delegate, advances the gospel generally and the main idea you are promoting that day (more on this important ‘everything has a reason’ concept in articles to come).

If, like Bruce Linton, you have access to an old house that is now being used for meeting rooms, you could (for example) run an evening called ‘In the Dark’ where leaders positioned strategically in a darkened house (for safety as well as to teach the Bible!) assist children in some biblically-themed quest that requires dark clothes, hiding and seeking, and collecting information. You then finish with a well-lit talk that explains (for example) how the darkness plague in Egypt was awful but, along with the other plagues that they learnt about on their way through the house, points to the wonderful rescue of God. The winning team is the team that has collected the most plagues, together with information gleaned from the leaders, in the time allocated for this spooky game.

If that seems a little sketchy, here’s Bruce’s take on the development of this most excellent evening of fun and gospel:

When we asked children for their input on what events they would most like, inevitably their first choice involved the lights out. “Murder in the dark!” they would cry. “How do you play?” we would ask. The answer came back: “Who knows, but you just turn the lights out and make heaps of noise!”

The enthusiasm was there but so also the recipe for a disaster. Was there any way we could combine their enthusiasm with a game that had some structure, and could be both safe and satisfying? Our answer came: ‘In the Dark’ (cue spooky noises). It started out as a simple game… and developed from there. In the end we built mazes (out of plastic sheeting; no hard surfaces) in our church hall and then wrote a story line that involved them making their way repeatedly through our maze and gaining information to solve the puzzle we had set up. The advantages of this were many. It satisfied the desire to play in the dark. It was safe. It was a game that (in its final form) was unique to us. It lasted longer than most games. It was cheap. For all these reasons and more, it quickly gained a reputation as the local kids event to be involved in when it happened. It didn’t hurt that tradesmen in the congregation could help build the maze, and so make it all happen.

So, using nothing more than the regular fun program, you will be evangelizing children, and helping them to evangelize their friends.

Every event that you put on yields similar possibilities for extending relationships to and beyond the regular church children out to their friends and families. Want to meet the parents of the children? Then organize the leaders of the children’s small groups, with suitable but also suitably vague warning, to drop in one evening to the homes of their group members. The children and the parents need to know that it is going to happen at some time, but not the exact moment. The fun bit comes in that the children have to come to the group on Friday night wearing what they were in when the leaders visited—if pyjamas, then pyjamas; if a towel around the head after a shower, then a towel around the head. The functional bit of this exercise is that the leaders get to meet the parents of children in their group personally and in their home—an ideal, brief, friendly, non-threatening activity good for the first term.

Whatever the activity, these broad principles and methods apply to each and every special event that might be associated with the children’s ministry: special pre-school services, Christmas or Easter events, parent evenings for the children’s club.

The main focus of the children’s ministry will always be the children. But the wise church leader or member will have a constant eye out for how these events can be leveraged to reach more and more people with the good news that we can be forgiven for our sins. The conviction that this news is true is worth more than anything a special or regular event can deliver; but once convinced, we will be using all our activities to promote that message as effectively as we can. Bruce and I are busting with similar ideas from the collection, but they will have to wait for future articles.