My Adventures with God: 49, Light & Darkness

49: Light & Darkness

A friend from Zimbabwe once told me this illustration of Jesus' words “Light has come into the world but people preferred darkness”.

He said: Back home in Zimbabwe I would sometimes go to the kitchen in the darkness to get a midnight snack. When I reached out in the dark for the light switch and flicked it on there was an instant flurry of activity. Two sorts of activity. From the floor came the sounds and sight of furious scuttling as the cockroaches raced across the floor to find dark crevices to hide in. In the air moths fluttered frantically as they headed towards the light bulb and crowded around it.

My “meat and three vegetable” sermons were shining the light of the scriptures into the congregation at St. Luke's. Of course they had heard sermons before, probably more polished ones at that. But my early diagnosis of this church had been as the spiritual equivalent of kids on a perpetual sugar high. Hence the nutritious if unexciting diet of biblical exposition. And it was working.

One could see that the bulk of the congregation, from the very mature Christians through to the “attenders” were growing real spiritual muscle.

But … the self-styled leadership group who thought that they were more spiritual than every one else began to hate my sermons with a passion.

My early diagnosis of them had been as fake “Charismatics”. They wanted spiritual power, they wanted spiritual “show” but they did not want the real Holy Spirit to train and transform them into people who lived like Jesus and lived for Jesus. As I said earlier, they had fallen for a false gospel:

Real Gospel: Jesus loves me so much that he died for me: so He must be the most wonderful person and I want to die to sin and live for him.

False Gospel: Jesus loves me so much that he died for me: so I must be the most wonderful person and I want to go on living for me.

So near and yet so far!

Once one has spotted their false gospel and its logical flaw (and yes it did take me a long time to spot!) then the behaviour of this group all becomes explicable. Wrong, but explicable!

Let me give you some examples of the effects of preaching.

I said earlier that God offered me a really wonderful gift where my preaching could be like speaking in tongues in English. I have heard of some preachers who had the same experience but it seems to be a very rare gift. But just to set the record straight: No, it is not in-errant! I have been painfully aware of times when I put my own spin on things! But it is a million percent better than anything I could do on my own.

As with all God's gifts, it goes hand in hand with sanctification. Before I got to preach on an aspect of Christian living The Holy Spirit made me deal with it in my own life! Sometimes we had sorted it out in the past. Other times I had only given in to the convicting voice of the Holy Spirit, confessed my own sins in this area and handed that aspect of my life over to the Lordship of the Spirit a day or two before the sermon!

One great advantage of this gift was that while God only took the things I said from the database I had acquired through study or experience, he did control (when I let him!) the selection and presentation. So I could preach on problems in proper innocence – I did not know if a particular member of the congregation had exactly that problem, or if my illustration exactly fitted their case. Obviously if any human knew those things they could not honestly preach. Yet looking around the congregation as I preached I frequently saw on people's faces that the Holy Spirit had got me to say words, and applied them to bring conviction to that person. It was scary, and to use a hackneyed word, humbling! But to be used in any degree by God in his work of carrying out his saving purposes is an immense satisfaction and joy.

One time I was walking across from the vicarage to the church for the second morning service. I said in a playful sort of way “well Lord, what are we going to preach on today.” I believe God answered in my mind: “You don't want to know!”. I thought that was strange, but carried on. I was sitting listening to one of the set Bible readings being read out by the person rostered for that service when one one verse hit me like a sledgehammer – I suddenly realised the implications if I expounded that verse. I said to God: “Oh no! I'm not preaching on that!” Again I truly believe God answered in my mind: “It's that or nothing. Take your pick.”. I preached on that verse!

Going back to the light and darkness theme, here is an example.

I think I only preached once in all my time at St. Luke's on the topic of abortion. Since I took the historic Christian line rather than the “Progressive” line of modern society so enthusiastically endorsed by many church leaders, this resulted in many letters of complaint to the Archbishop!

But the example I want to give is about two women:

Mrs A came to me for prayer after the service (we offered prayer after the services and had a prayer-counselling team with members on a roster) She wanted me to pray with her. She told me that as a young woman she had got pregnant but for economic reasons she had an abortion. My sermon had convicted her that she had killed her baby and she sought confession and absolution. That day she found a peace with God that had eluded her for decades. Mrs A continued as a committed member of the congregation, and as an example of faithfulness to Christ all the time we were there.

Mrs. X assailed me at a church meeting during the week. She was furious that I had dared to preach on abortion. She, as she loudly proclaimed, had in her youth (she was an older woman) been forced to have an abortion to save her life! I pointed out to her that I had very carefully and clearly spelt out in my sermon that an abortion to save the mother's life was a case of “justifiable homicide” and no guild whatsoever attached to it. Her rage was undiminished. Although she had previously been at odds with both Shirley and Nick, from that moment she joined them in lobbying to have me sacked. Interestingly I met her again some years after my time at Vermont. In place of the strident powerful and implacable figure of the past was a hollow deflated old woman actually trying to be friendly! It struck me forcefully then how if we let the devil use us, the power and passion with which he infuses us is both destructive and transient. When we are of no further use we are discarded like an old snakeskin! So different from the results of serving God in the power of the Holy Spirit!

My Adventures with God Ch 48: "The Empire Strikes Back"

Ch 48 “The Empire Strikes Back”

Retribution for my very mild attempt to restrict Shirley's power was swift.

At the next meeting of the church council there were bitter recriminations that I had “left off” Shirley from these two ministry areas as she had a large and devoted following.

Looking back I suppose this was meant to be my opportunity to apologize and put her back into these positions. I didn't.

Then from about March (1992) there was s sudden (clearly orchestrated) and substantial decrease in church contributions from the congregation.

Next two of Shirley's followers offered parley. Sue and I went and met with these emissaries. Shirley herself had refused my offer that she meet with me so that we could talk and pray about whether she should be reinstated to leading services and assisting with the Communion chalice.

At the meeting “their” terms were uncompromising, also surprising. For Shirley to receive an apology and be reinstated came as no surprise, but the other demand did. Rodger was to be dismissed from being a church Warden! They assured me “If you get rid of Rodger everything will be all right!”

During the meeting it had become clear that the emissaries, and I believe they were voicing the opinion of their entire group, thought I was a weakling who could not possibly take any action except as someone else's puppet. It says a lot about their own relationships with God that it clearly never entered their minds that I might actually pray about things, and that I might – as indeed I had done in this instance – have taken action because I believed it was the right and godly thing to do. By contrast, Sue, in talking about why she married me said I made her feel safe because while she knew she could do things which would make me upset and angry, nothing she could do would make me do something I believed was morally wrong. 

So Shirley's people had taken it into their heads that simce I had acted to slightly reduce Shirley's scope of ministry in the church, Rodger or his wife Helen must have put me up to it. They were wrong, quite wrong! But even if they had been right, to publicly sack Rodger from being one of the three church wardens would have been a humiliation and “punishment” far out of proportion to Shirley being quietly dropped from service leading and administering the chalice. Far more than “an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth” let alone following Jesus' commandments!

I refused to sack Rodger. No other “peace” terms were offered to us.

The shortfall in church income remained at a constant rate which would amount to about $30,000 in a year.

About July the Wardens and church committee decided to issue a questionnaire to the congregation ostensibly to find out the reason(s) for this decrease. This action was put forward by supporters of Shirley, and they wrote the text of the questionnaire, which invited negative comments.

There were only replies from a third of the congregation, however these were tabulated and reported back to the three church wardens and myself.

But the data from replies that did come in was very interesting.

Some said they did not realise there was a problem and would try to give more.

Some said they had cut their giving because they had lost their job, or had reduced incomes. Some of these were very touching in the selfless and generous spirit the writers displayed.

Many said they had not altered their giving.

A group boasted that they had reduced or ceased giving and they accompanied that statement with really nasty comments about me. Amazingly the total number who voiced dissatisfaction only amounted to 11% of the morning congregation. And one did not have to look far beyond Shirley's home group to find that number. Also as I said, Shirley's home group included many of the wealthier people in the church.

Also while not every one who said that they had decreased or stopped giving gave a figure, when one added up the amounts that were stated, it came near the decrease the church had experienced. It was not rocket science to deduce that while only a third of the congregation as a whole had replied, nearly all those who were “dissatisfied” had taken the opportunity offered them to do so!

I decided to present this (not naming Shirley or her home group of course – just the numbers!) to the congregation. So Sunday 13^th September 1992 I handed out the tabulated numbers – showing that the church's shortfall in income came from just 11% of the morning congregation.

Shirley's people were furious at my disclosure! There seemed no limit or end to their rage.

I had to endure abuse from them about disclosing what should have been “secret” information, I was accused of lying, because the real figures did not suit their agenda. And so on.

Roger and Helen also had to endure abuse and vilification – although I had deliberately not consulted or even informed Roger about presenting the tabulated figures to the congregation. Shirley had even come to see me and demanded that Helen and Roger be expelled from the church!

At the beginning of December Roger came to see me to tell me that he and Helen were crumpling under the hatred that was being directed at them. He said that, after much prayer they both felt that God was releasing them to save their health by leaving the church.

I made no attempt to dissuade him. I understood perfectly how God in his infinite kindness often pulls his servants out of the fray when they are wounded and wearied. God loves us. So different for the devil who comes only “to steal and destroy” and who drives those who serve him on and on until they too are destroyed! 

But I was really sad to lose Roger and Helen. They had met regularly with Sue and me to pray for and about the church. They were good and upright people and faithful servants of Christ.

Roger sent a letter of resignation to the secretary of the Church Committee (and a more explicit one to me). The one the secretary read out included as the reasons: “the rumours and innuendos about us” and the one to me added “the level of criticism directed towards us has gone unabated … I also realise that you and Sue have been criticised for your relationship with us ...”

I announced Roger's resignation in church the next Sunday.

Shirley's husband Peter – a member of the church council – then circulated a letter accusing me of lying in this announcement:

“What right have you (David) then to stand up in front of the congregation and tell us all, the (name deleted)'s are leaving because of a two year “campaign: against them? David this is by no means the first time you have mislead the congregation with extremely inaccurate statements, and I would expect that this matter is put right without delay.”

Always the same call! Obey us! (in this thing for a start but in everything in the long run) and all will be well!

For any Christian minister the only reply is the quote: I am, for Christ's sake, every one's servant: but I obey only one Master!

My Adventures with God Ch 47: Shirley

Ch 47: Shirley

I first met Shirley as I was preparing to come to St. Luke's as locum. I was meeting up with the church wardens and some others and she had asked to see me. My first impression was that she had obviously dressed to impress, which gave me a twinge of sorrow on her behalf that she felt it necessary. She was early fifties (about 10 years older than me) of slight build, immaculately groomed – which she always was – and wearing a fashionable woollen cardigan, tight designer jeans and high heels. She told me that she had organised a variety of things under the previous minister, but that she did this “only as a matter of service”. She said: “I will gladly hand them over if you wish.”

As an incoming “caretaker” minister I did not want to go changing things so I asked her to continue as she had been.

Over the following months I came to the conclusion that Shirley had a finger in every pie! I also saw that she was, for better or worse, making the decisions which aught to have been made by other people who were the elected or appointed office holders, (See the previous chapter for why this was not a good thing) when she was not and had no intention of holding an official capacity such as Church Warden or on the Church Council.

My first confirmation of these misgivings was almost funny. It was October – I had been there about six months and the annual election of office bearers was approaching. I had to appoint one of the three Church Wardens, and in keeping with my aim of not changing much, I invited the Warden appointed by my predecessor to dinner with his wife with the aim of asking him to continue. Roger had been one of the selection committee which had recommended me as the new minister, so we were already well acquainted.

Roger and His wife Helen joined Sue and me for dinner. We talked about many things but he always seemed to come back to probing my relationship with and opinion of … Shirley. Eventually he came clean: “I guessed you were going to ask me to continue as a Warden” he admitted, “But I had decided to refuse unless I was sure you had seen that Shirley's pervasive control was a problem! Now that I see you have, I am prepared to continue.” So it was not just me!

It certainly was not just me! I want to jump forward five or six years to when some legal sworn depositions were being made and quote from one made by a lady who had been in the music group even before I came.

“I have been a member of St. Luke's for ten years.

When I first came to the church Shirley xxxx had a very high profile role in the services. She did intercessions, Bible readings, music. At times we saw more of Shirley than the vicar or other people. My husband and I did not know her name for some time and we would ask each other; “who is that woman who seems to run the show?”

I joined the music ministry team about 8 years ago. Music practice for those rostered took place each Saturday preceded by a short bible study.

Although Shirley xxxx was not the director of music, she often criticised me and others as if she was in charge.

When she ran the bible study before music practice Shirley was very dogmatic about her views on the meaning of the bible passage and she criticised people who did not agree with her or simply had another way of looking at it.

During the Rev'd Jack xxxx's time Shirley was regarded as Jack's right hand woman. She appeared to have more to say about what happened than the vicar.”

What roles did Shirley play? She planned and made up the running sheet for the main service. Among a large number of others others she was on a roster to lead the pre-Communion part of the service, read the scripture readings, lead intercessions and administer the Chalice at Communion. She sang in the music group and although not the music director seemed the de-facto leader. She was one of a number who led the informal Charismatic style evening service. She led one of the many home groups, though hers contained many of the most wealthy people. She led the parish prayer chain and a women's bible study using the popular “KYB” syllabus.

I decided, at about the same time that I wanted Shirley to do a couple less things, and separately that we should reinstate one of the organisational “safety switches” as I mentioned  last time, by having service leaders and Chalice assistants duly licensed by the Archbishop.

I put the licensing question to the Church Council and they agreed. I spoke to Shirley and told her that I wanted to take over the role of service planning myself and that she would no longer be service leading or administering the Chalice. But I reminded her of the many other roles she would still be playing in the church.

Her reply was interesting in the light of all that followed.

She replied: “Your actions come as no surprise to me, God has told me that I would not be leading services.”

So I took over service planning. I also quietly omitted her name from the list I send to the Archbishop for licences as service leaders and/or Chalice assistants.

Can you guess what happened next?

My Adventures with God Ch.46: Rules, Authority & Safety Switches

Ch 46 – Rules, Authority & Safety Switches

I still remember learning machine design back in engineering school. You always had to build in safety devices and I remember the professor warning us: “You can make a thing foolproof – but you can't protect the persistent fool!

Classic case is the operator of an industrial press who finds it slows him up having to pull down the safety fence before the press will drop. So he jams the safety-switch with a bit of wood. Yes it is faster – until the inevitable day when he forgets to pull his hand out from under the press before he puts his foot down on the 'start' button!

I believe this applies to church organisations as well.

And if you tell me you want religion without some sort of organisation all I can say is: “Get real! In this world communally shared religious belief handed down from one generation to the next simply does not happen without some sort of organisation. Sociology 1.01 !”

Given that “organised religion” just is; what can we say about it?

Like everything else in this world it will always tend to go wrong! Doubly so because of: a) the Second Law of Thermodynamics” b) human fallibility & sin.

If you say “Oh no! REAL Christianity won't go like that” I say: “Try reading your Bible!”

Old testament: just a very few highlights: Exodus 32: the episode of the golden calf. 1 Samuel 2:12 ff – the priests become so wicked that God wipes out his sanctuary at Shiloh where all Israel had been worshipping. Amos 7:10ff Organised religion is so corrupt that God has to recruit a total outsider to carry his message – and then the priest tries to stop him. If you say that was the apostate Northern Kingdom – well God was still trying to save them and anyway the Southern kingdom fared no better - Read Jeremiah. Just one incident here – Jeremiah 20. When Jeremiah is giving a message from God it is the priest in charge of God's temple who punishes him. Try Ezekiel: Ezekiel 8 says of the religious leaders that they were worshipping idols instead of God. Ezekiel 13 tells of the “official” church prophets – that they were prophesying lies in God's name.

Gospels: Read John's Gospel! What about the religious leaders in Jesus' time? Were they expecting God to send his Messiah? Yes they were. Did they acknowledge that Jesus claimed to be someone special sent by God? Yes they did. Did they acknowledge that God was working spectacular miracles through Jesus? Yes they did. Did they finally work out that Jesus was claiming to be “Son of God” in a unique way? Yes they did. How did they react? They murdered him.

Rest of New Testament – this is the “early church” people often look longingly back to as some idyllic golden age: it wasn't! Good people there certainly were; but mistaken, false and some just plain bad people also figured in the early church.

Again just a few of the examples you will find in the New testament:

Acts 15: v1ff there were disputes over doctrine. V36ff Even the greats, Paul and Barnabus could disagree so violently that they split their ministry team. But these are both just examples of “good” people being fallible humans. My point here is that the Christian church did not mystically become all perfect.

Then there were the evil ones. Paul described the self-styles Apostles who managed to charm the church in Corinth this way. ((2 Cor.11:13ff) “Such men are false apostles, deceitful workmen masquerading as apostles of Christ, And no wonder, for Satan himself masquerades as an angel of light. It is not surprising then if his servants masquerade as servants of righteousness”

Later Paul warned the Ephesian elders: (Acts 2028ff) “Even from among your own number men will arise and distort the truth to draw away disciples after themselves.”

John had trouble with a church leader (3John9ff) “I wrote to the church but Diotrephes, who loves to be first will have nothing to do with us. … gossiping maliciously about us … he refuses to welcome the brothers. He also stops those who want to do so and puts them out of the church.” He also delivered a message from God warning the church in Thyratira: (Rev. 2:20ff) “You tolerate that woman Jezebel, who calls herself a prophetess. By her teaching she misleads my servants into sexual immorality and eating food sacrificed to idols.”

Jude wrote (v.4ff) “For certain men … have secretly slipped in among you. They are godless men, who change the grace of our God into a licence for immorality and deny Jesus Christ our only Sovereign and Lord. …. these men are blemishes on your love feasts … shepherds who feed only themselves … they follow their own evil desires, they boast about themselves and flatter others for their own advantage”

Whatever church or denomination you belong to, given time it will be assailed by sinful and or corrupt leaders and practices. Again given time it will have men and women sent by God to try to lead it back to him. Over time every denomination and church tradition will find the historical mark of these reformers in rules, modifications to the organisational structure and so forth aimed at inhibiting this process of corruption.

My own denomination (of choice I should add) the Anglican church has a history as black as any. It also has had godly men and women down the centuries. Sometimes they were persecuted, sometimes they were mocked or ignored, but sometimes they led movements of revival and reform. One of their legacies is a tradition of church governance which recognised at least some aspects of human weakness.

Long before it became a slogan these people saw that “power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely” so they acted to spread power around and not let it be concentrated absolutely in one person or group.

So in the time I am writing about, the constitution and rules of my section of the Anglican church gave authority over different areas to different people and groups.

The Archbishop of Canterbury was called “first among equals” and had honour given him, but he had no power at all over other diocesan bishops and archbishops around the world.

In Australia there was an archbishop chosen every few years to also be “Primate of Australia” but he had very strictly limited power over his fellow bishops. There was a synod (parliament, or legislating council) with representatives from all over Australia, which could make certain rules, but only in very limited areas.

In each diocese there was a bishop or archbishop who had certain limited powers – for instance no one could preach in church in their diocese unless the bishop licensed them.

There was a diocesan synod which could make rules in a number of areas, but not for instance about doctrine.

In each parish there was a priest in charge who was responsible for the spiritual well-being of the congregation, and so had certain rights as well as responsibilities – for instance the right to preach, and to dismiss people from ministry in the parish (appointing generally required clearance from other bodies like vestry and the bishop as well as the priest)

There were Church Wardens who controlled the buildings and property.

There was a Parish Committee, whose first responsibility was to cooperate with the minister in promoting the work of the church. They also controlled the money.

On some issues the congregation as a whole had to vote.

One example of this checks-and-balances approach was the question of admitting children to Communion before “Confirmation” (people in other traditions may laugh at this but please bear with the illustration) Doctrine Commission gave it the all clear. The Australian General synod OK'd it. It passed. Melbourne Synod adopted it. The Archbishop endorsed it. But before any individual parish could adopt the practice, the minister of the parish had to approve, the Parish Committee had to approve, and the whole congregation had to vote in favour of it.

OK power was spread around as a safety measure.

This brings me back to safety devices on machines. We put them there because we know things go wrong, and also humans make mistakes. In any church tradition there will develop “safety devices” aimed at inhibiting bad things that have happened in the past from recurring.

Sometimes old rules need to be updated or even done away with BUT to simply dis-regard the rules without working out why they were put there and what might happen without them is JUST like the press operator jamming the safety switch – one day someone is going to lose their fingers!

In St. Luke's parish Vermont this was a problem I identified early.

Internally within the parish, as I said last post, control was being exercised by people who were not the legitimate person or body to exercise that control. In particular a lady named Shirley seemed to control most things in the parish, yet was not the minister or on any elected body.

In external relations the parish was almost proud of the fact that it thumbed its nose at the proper authority of the Archbishop, regional bishop, and diocese generally (except when the parish wanted some favour from them!). One consequence was that appointments to lay ministry in the parish which should have been submitted to the bishop had not been – not because he was likely to refuse to license them but just out of a sense of self importance and self sufficiency. This may seem trifling, but trifling actions can become habits that give rise to serious things.

So I started to quietly correct this – because I knew about safety switches!  

My Adventures with God Ch45: Early Diagnosis of Vermont Church

Ch 45 Early Diagnosis of Vermont Church.

Certainly I had been warned in a dream or vision (I don't know exactly what it was) that God was going to send me to Vermont Anglican Church, and that there was going to be a fight with the choir, but I went there determined not to be the cause of any fight!

However I was on the qui vive to determine what was the situation and spiritual health at this church.

My first impression was a purely sociological one. It was that the people in this suburb were predominantly in small business or middle management, and brought those models over into the running of the church. They wanted it organised, with planned growth targets. They also wanted to run everything themselves. In Australia we have a term “D.I.Y” meaning “do-it-yourself” which is applied to everything from home renovations to car repairs. My wife Sue called Vermont a “D.I.Y. Church”.

Now I had worked really hard in my first parish trying to encourage lay involvement in the work of the church. I had read the books and been to the conferences which at that time were all for every member ministry. So I was all for encouraging this, and indeed years later when we were building up again after the “unpleasantness” we achieved a very solid and functional form of having lots of people involved in ministry. So I was genuinely disappointed to find that this church had a dysfunctional sort of lay involvement

This church shared one of the pitfalls of D.I.Y. thinking.

D.I.Y. renovators seldom have the expert knowledge of a master builder – they just think they do! The main doers in this D.I.Y. church considered themselves experts in every field.

My fist brush with this involved the music ministry. Keen both to show my support for the people who sang and played instruments in church, and to familiarise myself with the songs for the coming Sunday I tried to attend music practice. I say tried because the moment I walked up the isle of the church I was challenged with a decidedly unfriendly: “what are you doing here?” from the music leader. When I explained, I was curtly told: “We don't want you here” As they had only electronic organ and acoustic guitars, I said I played the trumpet and would be happy to accompany them sometimes. This evoked an: “We don't need a trumpet, so-and-so is going to learn the French Horn” Of course so-and-so never did learn the French Horn!”

Their arrogant assumption was that as I came from a country parish I could know nothing about music. In reality I was used to both traditional and Charismatic music, people who had genuine expertise in music – for instance our band leader John who could write out arrangements for all the different instruments in the band – his “Onward Christian Soldiers” was brilliant; and people with genuine Spiritual gifting in music like Rosalie and Ross. By contrast this music leader at Vermont could not even read music!

My second brush was at a bible study I had organised for vestry members on ministry. I was expounding the Biblical nature of “The Church”, when one of the younger men openly challenged me. It was not a case of disagreeing with my doctrine – in fact what I was saying, had he known it, was standard teaching of the churchmanship he represented. Hewas simply disbelieving that I could possibly know any more about doctrine than he did!

It was the old D.I.Y. attitude: for renovators “what could a builder possibly know that I don't know” for churchers “what could a priest possibly know about Christianity that I don't know”. The answer in both cases is frequently: “Lots!”.

My third brush came a little later and would have been funny if it had not been so disturbing. At this time I had worked out that that the people who liked to think of themselves as the spiritual elite of the church were more like kids who had been fed high sugar diets. They were all fizzed up, but not in good health. For children the first thing to do is cut the sugar hits and give them a good balanced diet. I have always heard this referred to a “Meat and three veg (vegetable)” meal which was the traditional Australian dinner. So I resolved to give them “Meat and three veg” sermons. I didn't tickle their ears. I didn't preach psychology or other junk. I expounded the Bible reading set for the day and in amongst that taught them how to interpret scripture correctly, and cross reference with other passages. In the process I quoted a lot of scripture – but I quoted it from memory.

Some of the “spiritual elite” came and complained that I didn't quote from the Bible in my sermons! They were used to the preacher stopping, finding the passage in the Bible , and reading it out. When I quoted from memory, I assumed that the congregation had read the Bible enough themselves to at least recognise the quotation! These folk thought they were super Christians when they were actually biblically illiterate!

So that was an important diagnosis. I needed to solidly preach and expound the scriptures because, just as Paul complained to the church in Corinth, for all their pride they had not learned the ABC of the faith. Sadly in many other ways too St Luke's Vermont shared the faults of the ancient Corinthian Church.

I also found talking to some of this group that they were eager for the “gifts” of the Holy Spirit, and wanted to obtain the “power” of the Holy Spirit, but they did not want to be sanctified. That is of course impossible! The power of the Holy Spirit is first and foremost so that under the coaching of the Spirit we can fight sin in our own lives and be re-formed into the image of Christ. The gifts are not for our titillation but so that we can effectively serve others in Jesus' name. They had some very mistaken thinking!

The last thing I will mention which troubled me early was this: The people who occupied official positions of authority in the congregation were not the ones in control.

The shock of this discovery was a bit like seeing a vehicle (some garbage trucks have this) with the driver in the near-curb side of the cab. For a moment you think there is no one actually in control of it!

However this discovery continued to disturb me. Some sort of authority structure is just a sociological necessity in any human enterprise. Even pirates elect a captain! Churches have different doctrines and cultures and so have differing authority structures. But they all have some. So in any church to have the real power wielded by people other than the ones who occupy the position which should wield it should raise red flags!

It was to address this problem that I took my first definite action some six or seven months after arriving in the parish. Next post I'll say what that was and how it went!

During all this time I was not doing nothing! As well as the normal parish duties, and concentrating on “meat and three veg” sermons, I was watching, thinking, and above all praying.

For any ministers going into this sort of situation let me stress: Praying is incredibly important. Praying for wisdom – because both the problems and the solutions are rarely simple or easy to see.
Praying for your congregation individually – well, because that is your job! They are the “flock” which has been entrusted to your care, and God will demand of you an accounting for the spiritual growth and safety of every one of them. If that prospect does not fill you with a godly fear and drive you to prayer then you are in the wrong job! Also to be praying for them individually you have to be among them knowing their needs and their situation.

Praying for protection – because we only see the physical world but there are things we cannot see which can debilitate or even destroy us – so we need to run to God continually for protection, and rest safe under the shadow of his wings.

Praying for God to move mountains, because as the Bible stresses, it is not by our strength but in Gods strength that his purposes are achieved. This includes praying for God to send the human helpers he has equipped and chosen to assist in this situation. You won't be given all the skills and spiritual gifts needed – most of them will come attached to other people – one Biblical image of God's people is a body remember!