Preaching Survey – The results are in!

Many thanks to all who responded to my two questions:

1.  Who is your most favorite living preacher(s) to listen to?

 2.  Can you name what it is that they do that makes you listen?

I polled students and those on my email address book; I also received a number of results via my Facebook page.  So far, over 200 people have replied.  I do not intend to produce a “most favorite preacher” list (which would be unedifying).  Moreover, my survey was intended to give a “gut” reaction rather than a scientific survey.

The purpose of the survey is twofold

• It assists me in writing the book “Things which 12 popular preachers do well”;
•  The observations made about preaching and preachers will end up becoming part of a soon-to-be launched website on preaching and preachers.

I shared the following comments with my students recently:-

1.  Good preachers manifest Humanity (vulnerability, empathy, warmth), Humour (Story-telling, insight); Holiness (Spirit’s presence, unction, awe, Christ-centered); Heartiness (anointing, urgent, passion). As Jonathan Edwards put it: there is Heat & Light.  This is not the totality of things which good preachers do well, but they certainly feature highly in the congregations sense that the preacher has enabled them to meet with the living God through their sermon.

2. Whilst some of the top preachers include, in no particular order (although I now feel like one of X Factor judges!): John Piper, Simon Ponsonby, Mark Driscoll, Rico Tice, Christopher Ash, John Stott, Tim Keller, Dick Lucas (and there were many more!) – I agree with the comment that someone made:  “I would put down (…) as my favorite ‘big name’ preacher, but in fact, the faithful week-in-week out preaching of my local Vicar is what nourishes me as a Christian.”  I am not interested in starting a guru mentality or personality cult, but rather, I would like us to learn from those who preach well and understand why they connect with us.

3.  Finally, I think Tim Keller is spot on when he says to preachers:

If you put in too much time in your study on your sermon you put in too little time being out with people as a shepherd and a leader. Ironically, this will make you a poorer preacher. It is only through doing people-work that you become the preacher you need to be–someone who knows sin, how the heart works, what people’s struggles are, and so on. Pastoral care and leadership (along with private prayer) are to a great degree sermon preparation. More accurately, it is preparing the preacher, not just the sermon. Through pastoral care and leadership you grow from being a Bible commentator into a flesh and blood preacher.

I have much more to say in this topic, so watch this space!

Make a house a home

Make a house a home

 Some thoughts on preaching which hits home

We are preparing to move house again soon (2 miles across the other side of Oxford).  As we prepare for the process of transporting all our possessions from one house to another my thoughts turned to what makes a house a home?  The bare structure and location of a property only becomes home when it feels lived in and starts to reflect the personality of its inhabitants.

The same could be said to be true of preaching.  Many sermons which I listen to show evidence of structure, design and effort.  But they often don’t feel lived in.  They lack the warmth and personality which only comes when the preacher has inhabited the text for themselves and taken it home.

What are some of the errors which sermons make?  You can probably think of more, but these few thoughts came to mind.

Pegs

When you first move into your new house boxes get emptied and mounds of clothing, books etc. await proper ‘filing away’.  Should someone come to visit the chances are their coat will need to be draped over a chair or put on the bed.  Hopefully, in time, pegs will appear upon which you may hang your coat.

In a similar way, many sermons which I hear offer nowhere to ‘hang your hat’ so to speak.  There is content, but it lacks pegs.  Without this attention to structure, the hearer can struggle to navigate their way through the sermon.  Without pegs it is unlikely that hearers will be able remember salient points of the sermon for the week ahead.

Rhetoric gets a bad name today. But the later Greek sophists (Isocrates. Cicero etc.) believed Rhetoric to be the ability to speak with such clarity that the audience would be persuaded.  Philosophers think clearly.  Rhetoricians think clearly out loud.  Preachers should be doing the same.  This will in part be reflected by careful attention to the structure and form of the sermon.

Personality

It takes time for a house to become a home.  Over time the inhabitants will begin to stamp their own personality on their property – hanging curtains, arranging flowers, decorating to taste etc. 

Many sermons I hear lack personality.  Phillip Brooks’ now famous comment that preaching is “communication of truth through personality” is exactly right.  Obviously we don’t want the sermon to be littered with personal anecdotes and stories.  It is not supposed to be a talk about them.  However, congregations listen when they can see that for the preacher the message has hit home personally.

They have been moved by the message they are preaching.  They have made the connections as to how it applies to their own life.

Punch

Sermons which hit home are those which apply pertinently and pointedly to today’s world.  They are illustrated in real life.

Too many sermons I hear leave me only in the world of the text.  Now, of course, this is not the worst problem, there are equally many messages that never take me to the world of the text and only start in the world of today.  I guess the former may be the weakness of evangelical expository preaching; the latter is the weakness of liberal preaching.

John Stott has regularly repeated the need to engage in “double listening” – Hearing the voice of the text; hearing the voice of the world. 

When you move into a new house you are inclined to think: however did they live with that wallpaper?  How come they didn’t modernise the bathroom suite etc.  But of course, it is very difficult to see your environment and culture from the fresh perspective of an outsider. 

As preachers we need to retain the fresh “eyes” of an outsider, someone who has not spent the whole week labouring over the text, and who can see the difficult punchy questions which might need addressing.

At home in the sermon

By this expression I don’t at all mean that preaching should be psychologically therapeutic, only comforting and devotional.  What I think I mean is that I expect preaching to give me pegs (to help me recall and apply the bible to my life in the week ahead); personality (so I feel that the preacher has met with God in his preparation); punch (I see the issue with a freshness and pertinence for the week ahead).

Feeding your soul and weeding out sin

I was preaching on Matthew 5:27-30 today and used an extended illustration of the health of the lawn being analogous to the health of the human heart.

 

I know it is hard to imagine this at the moment but try to think back to the hot summer months in sultry heat (!), enjoying the lushness of the garden, with a gentle hum of electric fly mowers in the background.

 

It can be quite irritating to have the peace and quiet of summer shattered by lawn mowers, but I suspect that many people mow their lawn frequently as a fairly fool proof way of making the garden look nice and well tended.

 

At the heart of the growing season, if you leave your lawn for little more than a week tell-tale signs of its true nature will be revealed.  This is certainly true in my case.  If I fail to mow regularly, the apparently lush, well tended lawn shows its true nature – dandelions begin to sprout yellow and eventually shower umbrella seed replicating themselves all over the lawn.  Big green dock leaves shade the delicate grass.  Untendered weeds spoil what initially appeared to be a lush lawn.

 

You see the problem with only cutting the grass is that it deals superficially with the weeds.  It doesn’t deal with root causes.  Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount tells me that I must not live the Christian life at the level of superficial appearances.  I can fool other people most of the time; I can fool myself some of the time; but I can never fool God

 

There are two more fundamental care issues related to my lawn which need attending to if I am going to have a healthy lawn – they involve feeding the soil and weeding out the roots of the intruder!

 

Feeding your spiritual lawn means tending your heart.  Psalm 119:9-11 this:

How can a young man keep his way pure? By living according to your word.  I seek you with all my heart; do not let me stray from your commands.  I have hidden your word in my heart that I might not sin against you. (NIV)

 

Tending to the state of the heart needs to happen in order for the Christian to be healthy and pure and not controlled by lust.

 

Weeding your spiritual lawn requires pulling out sin at its source

Behind adultery lies lust (And behind murder lies anger).  In order to deal with  lust radical action is required – metaphorically gouging out eyes and chopping of wayward hands.  Controlling what we watch and controlling what we do with our hands is necessary for a godly Christian life.  If I make myself blind, deaf, mute and paraplegic, yet retain my soul then I am of greater value than if I have a beautiful body and prefect facilities yet corrupt my soul…

 

As ever, Jesus’ words challenge and provoke.  But a godly life is a healthy life and, moreover is the only way to avoid hell!

 

See www.simonvibert.com for full sermon.

 

 

Why learning to preach might not be so different to learning to play golf

Can you teach preaching?  I am often asked that question.  After all, is not preaching spiritual gifting from God; a spiritual exercise dependent on the Holy Spirit’s enabling?  Older preachers used to speak of divine ‘unction’ to refer to the anointing which God gives when preaching is razor sharp and penetrating the soul.

 

So, can you teach it?  Well, I am banking on some teaching being required, or otherwise I am out of a job as ‘Director of the School of Preaching” at Wycliffe Hall!

 

As I often remind my students, no illustration is perfect and the parameters of the illustration need to be understood.  However, it seems to me that there is some parallel between learning a sport or musical instrument and learning to preach.  After all, we all recognise that Alfred Brendel (who recently gave his last ever piano recital in England) or Tiger Woods are exceptionally gifted.  At the same time, we recognise that their giftedness has only flourished as a result of hard practice and rigorous labour.

 

The Apostle Paul encourages Timothy to: Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a workman who does not need to be ashamed and who correctly handles the word of truth. (2 Tim 2:15)

 

When I moved to London about 10 years ago I missed my walking in the beautiful Derbyshire Peak District.  So, I decided that the next best thing was to take up a game that I realise is often called “a good walk spoiled”!  How do you go about learning to play golf?  I wonder, leaving aside the necessary prayerful pleading that comes alongside preaching preparation (although I did try that too with my golf!), whether there are not some parallels in how one learns to preach.

 

Books – before starting out on the course I read quite a number of books.  These were useful for learning what a “Birdie” “Fore” “9 Iron” etc. are.  But there is still quite a big disconnect between what one reads and what one experiences when wielding a club.  Indeed it is possible to play golf without ever reading what others have said about how the game should be played.  And of course the same is true for preaching.

 

Driving Range – Ah, now we are getting somewhere.  Having bought my first second hand pair of golf clubs I was ready to have a crack at hitting a ball.  Despite the slices and mis-fires it felt good to be taking out one’s pent up energy on that little white ball.  And, to my surprise, with a bit of practice, shots went a bit straighter and a bit further.  As a 17 year old, a relatively new Christian, I was grateful for the trust which my Vicar put in me to let me loose on his unsuspecting congregation and to preach my first sermon.  And I certainly know that I, for one, was reasonably edified by the experience!

 

On the Course – the first 9 hole game at a public course.  Well, there were flashes of genius!  But most of the time was spent looking for the miscued ball in the shrub land and the heather.

But at least I was playing and I got through my first complete game.  There is no substitute for preaching in front of a real audience.  Of course, they are not there as your practice ground.  Preaching has to be a real, spiritual experience for it to be preaching at all.  It is more important that preachers are godly and prayerful than they fill their heads reading books.  But of course, it is not either/or.  We learn as we go, and particularly for preachers, the maxim “lifelong learner” should be true.

 

Back to the Driving Range – with an Instructor! – Now I had got serious.  I had the bug.  I found moments of exhilaration in the game, but I was very conscious of my inadequacies.  Hitting the balls down the driving range with an Instructor present was a combination of learning and unlearning.  As well as working on stance and swing, he worked on the range of skills I needed in order to play the whole game.  It is no use rocketing 50 balls 200yard down the driving range and yet be unable to chip it 10 yards or putt it home.  This is where mentoring and modelling comes into the preaching experience.  Peer critique, preaching classes and ongoing feedback from carefully selected critiques really helps this process.

 

A Walking Lesson – best of all have been the couple of lessons I have had in a real game with a golf instructor walking me through it, coaching me as I go. .  Preaching is caught and taught.  I think I learned more from sitting under Dick Lucas’ preaching and listening to Dr Martyn Lloyd Jones’ tapes than anything else.  Hearing gifted people do it inspires me and enthuses me to learn from them and do it better.

 

Play, play, play – when all is said and done, playing the game, again and again, is what makes the golfer good.  Yes everything previously mentioned matters.  But golfers improve by doing it again and again.  I notice this in my preaching.  If I am preaching regularly I preach better.  Perhaps it is because I am forced to spend more time with God as I prepare.  Perhaps it is because there are skills which I hone and use more frequently.  Perhaps it is because I get to know my audience and my material more thoroughly.  But I do know that preachers need to preach in order to preach better.

 

Actually, learning to play golf was not a linear process.  All of these things happened (and continue to happen) at the same time, and all are necessary.  The same is true for the godly skills of preaching.

 

So, can you teach preaching?

 

Well, yes.  But teaching preaching (or rather, learning to preach) is a combination of books, lessons, seminars, preaching classes, peer critique, good modelling, practice, and a humble dependence on God for a life time’s ministry.

 

No teacher of preaching thinks that he can do all that is needed to teach preachers!

You can’t learn it in the classroom; you can’t learn it from books …. But they are necessary starting points.

 

For the above reasons training preachers at a place like Wycliffe Hall is the most integrative of the disciplines: bringing together all biblical and theological knowledge; systematising it and clarifying the material; putting it together in a structured and logical way; allowing the message to form, challenge and sanctify the preacher;  learning together in community; putting it into practice in live settings; being enthused to spend a lifetime developing and honing these skills; and under God, prayerfully allowing him to shape and mould the messenger as much as the message in order that congregations hear God’s voice through them.

 

on being salt and light and impacting Christians

I was preaching on a very familiar passage this morning, Matthew 5:13-16, which can be difficult.  Not because it is complex, but rather because it is hard to say something that hasn’t been heard by the congregation many times before.

So this morning, preaching at St Ebbe’s Headington, I reminded the congregation of the hidden, preserving impact that Christians are supposed to make on society by being rubbed into the world as salt is rubbed into meat.  Jesus emphasis is that Christians, and Christians alone are salt and light preventing the world from decaying and shining for God.

If Christians are “the light of the world” one assumes that this is only by way of reflecting Christ as ”THE light of the world”.  If He is the Sun (Son) we are the moon.  Our job is to spotlight Jesus, search out the lost and glow for God’s glory.

So far, so familiar, I guess.  At the end of the sermon I encouraged the congregation to buzz in small groups.  My contention is that none of this is hard to understand, but like so many passages in Scripture, the challenge is to put it into practice.  From the comments I got back from people this was the significant part of the morning as the congregation buzzed with ideas over how individually and congregationally we might be rubbed into Oxford culture and shine for Jesus in this part of the world.

Upon reflection, it made me think that the combination of teaching from the front and small group buzzing, including a subsequent email around to local congregation members to take part in a community social in a couple of weeks by way of application, is a good model for teaching.  Did not Paul encourage the Corinthian congregation: … everyone who prophesies speaks to men for their strengthening, encouragement and comfort.  (1 Corinthians 14:3).  This kind of prophecy is surely the application of the word of God for the building up of the congregation alongside and accompanying the preaching.

And, the “you” of Colossians 3:16 is “plural” implying that the word should dwell, not just in the individual’s heart but more particularly in the corporate gathering of the congregation: Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly as you teach and admonish one another with all wisdom, and as you sing psalms, hymns and spiritual songs with gratitude in your hearts to God.   And whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him. (Col 3:16f.)

Of course, the preaching of the word by a prayerfully prepared preacher is essential.  But it does not go far enough if it is not accompanied by smaller groupings of Christians working out the implications of the word for their lives and communities.  The simple fact of the matter is that we need longer rubbing up against each other if we are going to be effective in also getting rubbed into the world.

The illiberality of a liberal nation is mimicked in the church

I have been criss-crossing the country on Wycliffe business recently.  As I was waiting for my train wandering around one of our fine cities the other day the “illiberality of a liberal nation” struck me forcefully!  All over the city centre there was posted dire warnings of the penalties of dropping your cigarette butt on the ground, or failing to put your litter in the bin.  Lined up outside every public building, in pouring rain I hasten to add, were clusters of smokers having a quick puff before they lurched back inside.  On the train on the way back I read a couple of articles in a magazine which seemed to reinforce this:  One concerned a campaign to ban smoking in the street; the other was from a columnist who appeared to agree with those who were banning children from Church weddings on the grounds that they might cause a disruption.

Now, don’t get me wrong.  Smoking is a filthy habit and passive smoking is dangerous to asthmatics like me.  And our filthy streets certainly need a clean up.  And screaming children in the middle of a wedding service can be irritating.  But at what point does a liberal society say to a litigious government and local council: “butt out”!  Because as the government seems to stray further and further into the area of legislating against civil liberties, it at the same time is the most liberal in its attitudes towards church and family life.  Yes, there is the civil partnership act.  But this “liberal” attitude has chipped away at the bedrock of a healthy society by privileging anyone but married couples bringing up children in lifelong monogamy.  And it seems to afford clergy of the Church of England little freedom to do their job in seeking to be the conscience of the nation.

It is a worrying trend that has repeated itself in degrading societies down the ages.  The open minded-ness of liberal thinking knows that it has no real power to change people’s hearts and lives.  The result is that a whole raft of rules and regulations are thrown at the society in a perverse attempt to allow the freedom which they claim.   The street preacher is arrested and forbidden to preach in the town square.  But the thief is no longer put in jail but is fined (not that I think that the latter is necessarily a bad way of dealing with this crime).

It is this cultural drift which has wafted into the Church of England.  We want to exist in the nation; for the nation.  But as DL Moody once pointed out: the place for the ship is in the sea, but woe-betide the ship into which the sea gets!

John Richardson makes a similar point in this regard in his recent blog about  the Church of England (http://ugleyvicar.blogspot.com/2008/07/reasons-to-be-cheerful-maybe.html).    He points out that the Clergy Discipline Measure has produced legislation which is hot on dealing with issues of straying over diocesan boundaries, operating without proper ecclesiastical authority etc.  The result is a document which is giving registrars and diocesan bishops quite a headache up and down the land.  Yet, the CDM never completed its task and produced a Clergy Discipline (Doctrine) Measure presumably because we live in a denomination (infected by the society) which is unable, and probably thinks it is unbecoming, to interfere in private and personal beliefs.  One noticeable trend in recent years is that the General Synod Reports have been rather more robust in their theological thinking than 20 years ago (including Some Issues in Human Sexuality), but this has had little or no impact on what actually happens when it comes to the conduct of some clergy and some bishops on the ground.

John Stott warned (see later blog for this full text) that Conservatives have a tendency to be biblical but not relevant.  Liberals have a tendency to be relevant but not biblical.  The transformation of our culture will surely only happen if we are listening to the Word of God and allowing it to transform our thinking (Hence, Romans 12:1f metamorphe) and allow it to rigorously transform Church and Nation.  The only way to stem the tide of illiberality in the Church and nation is not by increasing litigation, but rather by humbly sitting under God’s word and allowing the full implications to seep into Church and land.

Press Release about Wycliffe Hall School of Preaching

WYCLIFFE HALL LAUNCHES NEW SCHOOL OF PREACHING

 

09 June 2008:  Wycliffe Hall has today announced the launch of a new School of Preaching to strengthen the training of students in contemporary Christian ministry. The School of Preaching will be based at the theological college in Oxford with the aim of providing an ongoing training facility for the preachers of both today and the future.

 

Wycliffe Hall’s Vice Principal, The Revd Dr Simon Vibert, will take on the role of Director at the new school. The school will focus on enabling students to hear good preaching models, establishing the case and role for preaching in the modern church and enabling students to practise the skills of preaching while receiving helpful analysis and feedback.        

 

This strategic project will aid in the effective communication of the word of God and provide students with the necessary tools for a lifetime’s ministry. Students for the school will include existing students training at Wycliffe Hall as well as local, national and international preachers and trainers of preachers who will participate in seminars and workshops run by the school.

 

Director of the School of Preaching, The Revd Dr Simon Vibert said:

 

“The launch of the School of Preaching is an exciting new initiative aimed at restoring confidence in the preaching of God’s Word. The creation of a School of Preaching is not only a significant step in the development of Wycliffe Hall, but also in the development of effective preaching within the Anglican Church and beyond.”

 

The launch of the new School of Preaching coincides with Wycliffe Hall’s Preaching and Leadership Integrated Study Week, in which the college will hold a consultation and vision-sharing meeting for friends and partners engaged in training preachers in England. 

 

ENDS

 

For further information please contact Helen Mitchell, College Administrator on 01865 274200

 

Notes to editors

 

For more information on Wycliffe Hall, visit the website www.wycliffehall.org.uk

 

Wycliffe Hall is a theological college within the diverse environment of the University of Oxford. We aim to equip our students for their future ministries, through excellent academic teaching, practical ministry experience and living as part of a vibrant and supportive Christian community.

 

Confidence in the tools of our trade…

Something has bothered me for a while.  I have not quite been able to put my finger on it until now.

 

My unease started when I began my new job teaching preaching at Wycliffe Hall, Oxford.   There are a number of issues which I have been coming to terms with.  For one, you really set yourself up when you are introduced to a congregation as the tutor in preaching.  People expect you to be making comments or observations on another person’s sermon.  And, of course, if you are about to preach, you are supposed to be something of an expert and will invariably disappoint!  (Although my preferred definition of an expert is scientific: X is an unknown quantity, and a spurt is a gush of water!).

 

The second bit of unease is a degree of uncertainty as to whether a spiritual gift can really be taught by an academic institution.  Can I teach someone to preach?  At many levels the answer is ‘no’.   And of course, coming into an adult education environment where many of the students already have higher level degrees, persuading them to submit to being taught – well anything! – is a challenge.

 

But I have finally realised what it is that has been nagging away in the back of my mind.  I think it is this.  If I was a perfect teacher I could fill my students’ heads with all sorts of information and understanding about the content of Scripture, the tools of exegesis, the craft of sermon construction, the ability to communicate engagingly and convincingly etc., but never have taught them to preach.  In fact, it is possible that I could have made them worse preachers if they end up putting their confidence in the tools of the trade rather than in the thing that is most important about preaching.

 

Everything I am trying to teach them is focussed on filling up my student’s tool box in order to be able to prepare sermons throughout the rest of their ministry.  I am sure that this remains the key priority of theological education.

 

But, in order to preach, the preacher’s confidence should be in the God who is keen to communicate with the people he made.  The task of preaching is to let God do the speaking through His word.  I think that might be what the apostle Paul meant when he wrote:

2 Corinthians 5:20 We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ’s behalf: Be reconciled to God.

 

1 Thessalonians 2:13 And we also thank God continually because, when you received the word of God, which you heard from us, you accepted it not as the word of men, but as it actually is, the word of God, which is at work in you who believe.

 

Should my students be confident in the tools of their trade?  Well, they should be able to use them skillfully and creatively in the same way a craftsman or an artist uses his lathe or brush.  But their confidence should be in God.  He is a God who makes and keeps promises.  Who reveals Himself through His Word.  When a preacher is faithful to that word congregations don’t just hear preachers, they hear God speaking through His word.

 

Consequently a congregation will soon become aware whether the preacher has met with the Lord as they have prepared their sermon.  They may be impressed when the preacher cuts and pastes a John Stott, Don Carson, John Piper (or whoever) sermon.  But they will not meet with God if the preacher has not.  The only way in which I can help mould and shape a new generation of preachers is by encouraging them to be deeply immersed in the Scriptures and ravenously seek the presence of God in the preparation and preaching.

 

In the context of an appeal not to harden their hearts towards the Word of the Lord, the writer to the Hebrews says: We have come to share in Christ if we hold firmly till the end the confidence we had at first (Hebrews 3:14).  I am cautious when we are overly dependent on our wit, our gift of illustration, our clever alliteration, our ability to tell a story, our PowerPoint or use of video clips.  A truly confident preacher is one who has confidence in God and allows Him to speak faithfully through his word.  This is a confidence which arises out of time spent labouring over the Scripture in God’s presence.  There are no tools for this task, only time and humility in God’s presence.

 

 

 

 

 

Is there hope for Anglicanism?

I have been in three very different Church Services today. 

First, I was listening to a Wycliffe student preach well at a tiny Church, literally in the middle of a field in Wheatfield.  The congregation was just over a dozen people and only meets in the summer months because there is no electricity in the building.  The service was a said 1662 (i.e. traditional language and no music).  But it was nicely done, and it reminded me that Cranmer was a wise old bird in the way that he allowed his Protestant theology shape the flow of the liturgy.  I guess it is a bit demoralising for a Rural vicar who looks after several small congregations over a wide geographical area.  However, I think it should be remembered that the Church of England is the only denomination that has retained a commitment to have a church community in every town and village across the land.  And whilst coverage is no guarantee of theological orthodoxy or effectiveness, I think that we should at least try to live to this ideal.

Secondly, later in the morning, I joined the St Ebbes joint congregations meeting in Oxford Town Hall.  Combining together the seven congregations gave a congregation of 700-800 people.  It was good to be among a large gathering of young adults who are enthusiastic for the Lord and Mission, many of whom will soon be in parishes around the country.  It is also good to remember that the Gospel still is attractive and student churches which clearly proclaim the good news about Jesus buck the national trends and grow.  Vaughan Roberts did a great job reminding people that the Lord’s Prayer invites us to pray.  We need to know to whom we are speaking before we can have a meaningful conversation, and that God, is, unlike any in the world religions, one who we can call Father.

Finally, this evening, I went to hear another student preach in Merton College Chapel in Oxford.  This was a very formal sung Evening Prayer.  The choir was amazing.  The acoustics in the Chapel are very good, and the Chapel is often used by the BBC to record.  There were about 25 in the choir and maybe 40 in the congregation.  It was enjoyable and the music was very high quality.  Personally I enjoyed both the volume and informality of the drums, guitars and singers in the morning as well as the marvellous formal music tradition found in the Chapel tonight.

What are my conclusions about the experience of three very different corporate worship services today?  They are very tentative.  I actually enjoyed all three services and I think that there is a place for the diversity of church which I have been in today.  However I also think I feel that the age profile and numerical attendance at the St Ebbes service does speak volumes as to what young adults need to hear today.  However, I feel challenged that the growing churches seem to be located in University Towns or suburbia in the South East of England with largely ‘yuppie’ congregations.

I think that the vision of the Church of England is sound.  But we do need faithfully to reach the diverse communities and localities in which it is located … which requires us to be outsider-friendly and mission minded up and down the land.  There is a nation which needs to be won for the Gospel of Christ, and that should shape everything we do in the church and in the communities in which they are located.

 

 

the london skyline

I stood for a moment looking out of the marvellous London Skyline from my 4th floor bedroom at the Oxford and Cambridge Club on on the Pall Mall this crisp evening.  I have an unbroken view which takes in three of London’s great landmarks:  St Paul’s Cathedral, The Houses of Parliament and the Millennium Wheel!

As Big Ben chimed 11pm I thought about these three great landmarks.  What a stroke (ha ha!) of genius it was to employ Sir Christopher Wren to have such a great monument to God’s glory, right at the heart of our captital city following the devasating fire of London.

The London Skyline was forever changed by the building of one of the most successful London tourist attractions, the “millennium wheel”.  A great feat of modern design, marking 2000 years since Jesus’ coming into the world.

But of course, the only thing that will pass the test of time – and eternity – is the one whose glory fills the heavens, and for a short time walked this earth.  This is how the Apostle John describes Him: “The word became flesh and made His dwelling among us.  We have seen HIs glory, the glory of the one and only Son who came from the Father, full of grace and truth” (John 1:14).

That glory is worth more than a moment’s thought!