Why All The Castrato's In The Choir Visibule?
Where have all the men gone - especially in Church Planting in the UK
I became a Christian in August 1979. For now nearly thirty years, I have pitched my personal tent amongst the people of God in many a varied situation. My Jobs and calling have led me to be involved with quite a few churches on two continents and for the last eight years in particular, I have been an active and avid student of church growth and church planting methodology here in the West.
However, although these opening thoughts throw a few stones at current and most successful church planting methodology, I have attempted to direct my main thrust around the need for churches who are driven by released preaching and released preachers. I really desire to examine what a released Preaching Driven Church might look like. Indeed, a book I am working on at he moment is an examination if two words, those being Control and Release. I believe that our present and seemingly successful models of church planting have become most monstrous machines of our own making, which in turn have a momentum and life within themselves, which control at every level the direction and destiny of local churches. I do not want to throw any babies out with the bathwater but I do want to make sure that we, the people God, are most thoroughly in control of any church growth model which we might utilize in the great commission of our Lord Jesus Christ. At the moment I do believe that we are the dying servants of attractively alluring ‘Stepford Wives,’ all out of control and killing us, not so softly with their satellite love.
I must say right now, that though I have read widely, I undoubtedly have not read widely enough. There is nothing new under the sun that’s for sure and some of which I write about will no doubt have been written somewhere else long before I put fingers to type pad and also, some of the ideas I an trying to express, may well have been expressed and put into practice elsewhere. I have endeavored to give credit where I remember where credit is due, however, where I have failed to do so, then please forgive me. There are lots of methodologies, styles, intents, purposes and practices out there and I have probably stolen from most of them! I have in my life endeavored to be a good Asian man in that I have tried to take that which already works, reproduce and utilize it for myself and my own profit. I am no expert in the matters of church growth either, no, all I am really is a little boy amongst the crowd watching the parade of the local kings and willing to cry out that “They are not wearing any clothes! They are altogether as naked as the day that they were born!”
You know, just using the terms ‘methodology’ and ‘preaching practices’ already has me bored. It sounds like some text book pointers for the elite, or certain studious folks without a real job or a real life. The truth is, that in my experience, there are not many people in those old pews or new padded movable seats, who frankly give a fig about methodology of any kind. The ‘Super Wal -Marting’ of Christianity has done its work in developing such a deep culture of Christian consumerism that it has given birth to plastic spiritual products for religiously plastic people. To quote a current hip word in North America, which, in my opinion, was far better utilized by C.S. Lewis, our Western Christianity and our people are just not [i]‘SOLID’. However, though most Christians do not care about ‘method,’ in church planting ‘method’ never the less, is everything!
These opening paragraphs may already lead some of you to conclude that I am a cynic of present church structure and practices, being both bitter and twisted out of shape about it all and frankly, you would not be totally incorrect. Don’t write me about it, just live with it. We’ve got problems in the church at the beginning of this 21st Century and I am prepared to pick at them and pull them apart. We have to, especially in England or in just a couple of generations, the Church in our country, will be no more.
I believe that we in the West, are the church of the blind Laodicean age and our poor ‘peepers ‘are in great need of a good old poking. The solving of our problems may indeed lie in the salving of our eyes but the truism that ‘there is none so blind as them that will not see’ is a formidable obstacle to overcome, when numbers and materials alone become the measuring stick for seeming success in church growth. Never the less, we must try and rub some scriptural exfoliate on the delicate surface of our eyes , to see if the cataracts of consumerism will be shredded away and we shall be left with yet another hill of cut [ii]skins to stand upon and so be able to rightly peer over the walls of these not so little, alluring and attractive church kingdoms. We need to take a very good look at what is really going on in present church growth.
Unfortunately I do believe that if you were to stand on all the lying hype from the lips of many Christian leaders and then look over the wall of these man-made, man centered and man maintained little kingdoms, then I think that when you have a thorough and honest look at where we are as Christian people (poor, blind and naked) and where we shall no doubt end up this side of heaven as the church militant (destroyed), you too will begin to feel a little worried, and maybe little bitter concerning what we have been robbed of and also maybe not a little twisted out of shape concerning our never realized and unfulfilled dreams. In great part, our leaders are responsible for this increasing defrormity.
If I am right, in that we the church have indeed churned out more plastic consumables than Woolworths ever did, or even Wal Mart, and Big Lots combined! And all in attempt to make God accessible (I am so sorry Father), then we need to ask ourselves some questions regarding the absence of men in the church and the pitiful presence of men with no bits. So :
“How on earth did we get here and how did we become so rich in materials and such paupers in true spirituality? How did we produce so many ‘kitten like people’ whose matted little eyes have never fully opened?
How did the Lion of the Tribe of Judah, give birth to such worrying little whelps, such crappy little cubs?
How did we produce so many castratos in the well dressed choir?
How did we produce so many needy people who are willing to settle for less, and willing to be satisfied with mere morsels from mere mortals?
Just how did we produce so many Chamberlains shaking that piece of paper, that pitiful pact with the devil pronouncing ‘peace in our time’ whilst Satan himself maliciously masses his forces on the borders of our undefended kingdom and even now rolls heavily on towards all the capitals of our cities set on hills, all dressed with nice neat houses of grey?
The tanks are on the road friends and our houses begin to burn all around us, and it is not Babylon that has fallen, fallen and come crashing down but rather, the city of God that is almost laid waste before the enemies feet. What happened here?” Meanwhile, the major concern of our major denomination is 'what gender can I have sex with? Or, how to happily legitimise perversion.'
This is the beginning of a rant. However, though I will continue do a little ranting and raving, just a little, much more importantly, I will present you with a model for releasing the people of God into their destiny of becoming the powerful disciples of Jesus Christ, instead of the mass production of pew fodder that consumes junk food, whilst sitting on rear ends, and for th privelage of being continually breast fed, still cough up their ten percent on an regular basis to support the dynasties of the so called God blessed lifestyles of the ‘Fortune 500’ fortunate few, Pastor-Preneurs.
To comfort some of you folks, I want to tell you that I am a preacher and believe thoroughly in the primacy of preaching and in the local church in particular. I truly believe that until we get back to a church that is truly Preaching Driven, we shall never turn this ship around and we shall never affect the world for the cause of Christ. I Sincerely desire the thoughts of this opening shot to be something which ignites many fires that will burn the bondage of wrong thinking so that the people of God may be released into their callings and destinies. I might well be swinging an ax at just a few of our most precious trees but I also want to plant a few seeds in giving you some possible answers for a way forward for the church alive on planet earth before just before the return of our Lord Jesus Christ. We are long over due a mixed outpouring of testosterone and repentance.
May I finish by quoting [iii]James Montgomery who was a Scot who lived just down the road from me in England, where I was born and brought up, Rotherham, to be precise. Now whilst acknowledging that Rotherham is a good place to die, James Montgomery did in fact pass into the next life in 1854, just over the Derbyshire border in the city of Sheffield and is buried in a local cemetery there. Montgomery was a writer and a radical and a poet, penning over four hundred hymns before his death. This old hymn of his, “Forever with the Lord” shows him to be a pilgrim and a sojourner in a strange land who was,
Loving the Word,
Living the Word and
Looking to Heaven.
(and by the way - this is the best way to make God accessible)
I am convinced that if we can walk the way expressed by James Montgomery, then both we and the world in which we live, would become better and sweeter places to be. Amen.
" For ever with the Lord!"
Amen; so let it be;
life from the dead is in that word,
'tis immortality.
Here in the body pent,
absent from him I roam,
yet nightly pitch my moving tent
a day's march nearer home.
My Father's house on high,
home of the soul, how near!
At times to faith's foreseeing eye
thy golden gates appear!
Ah! then my spirit faints,
to reach the land I love,
the bright inheritance of saints,
Jerusalem above.
"For ever with the Lord!"
Father, if 'tis thy will,
the promise of that faithful word
even here to me fulfill.
Be thou at my right hand,
then can I never fail;
uphold thou me, and I shall stand,
fight, and I must prevail.
So when my latest breath
shall rend the veil in twain,
by death I shall escape from death,
and life eternal gain.
Knowing as I am known,
how shall I love that word,
and oft repeat before the throne,
"For ever with the Lord!"
Words: James Montgomery, 1835
Music: Moving Tent, Nearer Home, Llanllyfni
Meter: SMD
[i] C.S. Lewis, The Great Divorce, Page 68
[ii] Josh 5:3 So Joshua made flint knives for himself, and circumcised the sons of Israel at the hill of the foreskins .NKJV
[iii] http://www.cyberhymnal.org/bio/m/o/n/montgomery_j.htm
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