Simon's Blog

Comments and thoughts from our senior minister, Simon Harris

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Pastors’ Conference, Bucharest

It was such a privilege to share with experienced church leaders in Bucharest some of the lessons I have been learning on missional church. They face the same challenges as we do. They, like us, scored much higher on their UP and IN.  Their OUT, personally and corporately, was much lower (see more on UP-IN-OUT here). That said, the attractional model was still proving more fruitful for them. Several of the churches talked of 8-10 people coming to faith in Christ for the first time in 2011. Praise God.

Their cultural challenge however is different to ours with a huge nominal Christian Orthodox population. Thinking this through reminded me of the continual need for the church to adapt itself to its cultural context. They need missional communities for sure. But they will look different ours. And so they should.

1 Corinthians 9:19-23 (NIV)
19 Though I am free and belong to no man, I make myself a slave to everyone, to win as many as possible.
20 To the Jews I became like a Jew, to win the Jews. To those under the law I became like one under the law (though I myself am not under the law), so as to win those under the law.
21 To those not having the law I became like one not having the law (though I am not free from God’s law but am under Christ’s law), so as to win those not having the law.
22 To the weak I became weak, to win the weak. I have become all things to all men so that by all possible means I might save some.
23 I do all this for the sake of the gospel, that I may share in its blessings.

And the best bit, Dominos Pizza for lunch!

Posted Sun, 05 Feb 2012 06:54:05 +0000 - View in WordPress

Baptist Seminary Bucharest

I had a great time a few days ago teaching on Missional Church at the Baptist Seminary, Bucharest.  I was there at the invitation of Oti Bunaciu, the president of the Romanian Baptist Union.

I was impressed with the students engagement and eagerness to embrace new ideas for the sake of the gospel. There were great questions and discussion as they sought to apply key principles to their own cultural context.

Posted Sat, 04 Feb 2012 20:13:09 +0000 - View in WordPress

Pray for your preacher this Sunday

At Burlington this Sunday Julie Kite, our Head of Evangelism, will be preaching as part of our series Following Jesus. Don’t miss it! And don’t forget to pray for her.

In fact wherever you are in the world this Sunday make sure, before then, that you stop to pray for the person who will bring God’s Word.

As an encouragement, please read this Word for Today post from a few weeks ago.

17 Jan 2012

Pray for Your Pastor

Pray…that…words may be given me… Ephesians 6:19

Paul wrote to the believers in Ephesus: ‘Pray…that whenever I open my mouth, words may be given me…that I will fearlessly make known…the gospel.’ Do you pray for your pastor? You should! After Wilbur Chapman’s first sermon at Bethany Presbyterian Church in Philadelphia, a man said, ‘You’re pretty young to be pastor of this great church. We’ve always had older men. I’m afraid you won’t succeed, but since you preach the gospel I’m going to help you all I can.’ Chapman thought, ‘What a crank.’ But the man continued, ‘I’m going to pray for you, and a few others have covenanted to join me.’ Later, Chapman wrote, ‘I didn’t feel so bad when I learned that they were going to pray for me. Soon the three became fifty, and the fifty became two hundred who met before every service to pray for me. In another room eighteen elders knelt so closely around me that I could put out my hand and touch them. I always went into my pulpit confident that I would have God’s anointing in answer to the prayers of those people. It was easy to preach, a real joy. And what was the result? Eleven hundred people were saved and joined the church in the next three years, and six hundred of them were men. It was the fruit of the Holy Spirit in answer to prayer. Church members have much more to do than go to church as curious, idle spectators to be amused and entertained. It is their business to pray mightily that the Holy Spirit will clothe the preacher with power and make his words like dynamite.’

Posted Fri, 03 Feb 2012 20:45:07 +0000 - View in WordPress

Reflecting on a new season of prayer as our next 24/7 prayer space gets underway

This weekend of prayer at Burlington is so important.

In various places, including our main celebration, I have been sharing the season that I believe God has been calling me into. I believe it to be a season for Burlington too. The best way I can describe it is this: do less, achieve more.

I have found myself captivated by Jesus afresh. His work seemed so effortless: a quick touch here, a timely word there, the odd humorous story and single-word prayers seemed to comprise the average day. He had time for people, impromptu meals and never missed a social occasion. The result? People were healed, saved and transformed and a global movement began that to this day remains unstoppable. Impressive.

On the other hand, ministry (paid or otherwise) or church work or Christian living (call it what you like) is too often stressful and burdensome and takes its toll on the emotional wellbeing of ourselves and our families. And the result? Perilously few are finding Christ, stories of transformation are infrequent and we feel isolated and marginalized in the world. We appear to be doing more (the average church is not short on activities), and be achieving way way less.

A few verses come to mind that illuminate the contrast between the life of Jesus and our own lives, and that of our churches too. I invite you to reflect upon them:

John 14:10 (NIV) Don’t you believe that I am in the Father, and that the Father is in me? The words I say to you are not just my own. Rather, it is the Father, living in me, who is doing his work.

Matthew 11:28-30 (NIV) ”Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. 29 Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. 30 For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”

Mark 1:35 (NIV) Very early in the morning, while it was still dark, Jesus got up, left the house and went off to a solitary place, where he prayed.

My own response to this is to find the Holy Spirit dragging me kicking and screaming to do less and to pray more. Like an untamed ox, I need my rhythm to be broken that I might wear Christ’s yoke. I need to learn from Him. It’s not comfortable. Doing less is not comfortable, and praying more is a real struggle. With the slightest distraction, or a hint of discouragement, I can so easily scurry back to my old ways of over filling my day with good deeds, essential tasks and urgent matters. To be honest that work, for all its demands, is easier. Sometimes much easier. I am discovering more than ever that prayer is not just to help the work, prayer is the work. And by the grace of God I have had little glimpses of the resulting effortless work of Jesus: the chance encounter that proved so fruitful, the timely word that was prophetic and the ability to see things that the daily rush would have kept me blind to.

Please ask me about this new season. I need you to. I need your encouragement to stick with it. I need your challenge not to settle for a lesser task.

So, as I was saying, this is a really important weekend of prayer. We need it, really need it.

It was a thrill to stand with the Ministry Team yesterday and to pray through the prayer room space – claiming the time, preparing the ground and asking God for everyone who will come to seek Him over these next few days. His response to us was a picture of a gushing river flowing through the prayers that will be offered and going out into the world. The river of life thundering through your prayers and mine.

Will you come?

John 7:37-38 (NIV)  … Jesus stood and said in a loud voice, “If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink. 38 Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, streams of living water will flow from within him.”

Please sign up for your time in the prayer room  here. If there isn’t a slot that works for you then please contact Claire Earl as we might be able to extend our times.

Matthew 26:40 (NIV) Then he returned to his disciples and found them sleeping. “Could you men not keep watch with me for one hour?”

Posted Thu, 02 Feb 2012 23:22:40 +0000 - View in WordPress

We’ve launched a lifeboat

It was fantastic this morning to launch our first lifeboat (more here).

The Sidegate Family Community, led by Matt & Jo Holmes, was formally commissioned today as part our main celebration. Their vision is

to share with friends and neighbours, in the Sidegate area, how Jesus makes a difference in family life.

Please remember to pray for them. Here are a few specific things they have asked us to join with them in prayer about:

• That our 3 families continue to grow together and form strong bonds.
• God’s Holy Spirit will soften the hearts of people we are in contact with.
• That we can truly become vessels poured out, so our friends and neighbours will want to know more about Jesus.

On October 2nd we had a special church conference entitled: Launch the Lifeboats. You can find more information at www.burlingtonbaptist.org.uk/launchthelifeboats. More of my blogs associated with this can also be found here

Posted Sun, 22 Jan 2012 14:01:15 +0000 - View in WordPress

New SIGN UP ONLINE for 24/7 Prayer Room

Our next 24/7 Prayer Room will be from the 2nd – 5th February 2012.  You can sign up for your slot here.  If you are wondering what it is all about there is more info here.

SIGN UP!

Posted Sun, 22 Jan 2012 12:30:58 +0000 - View in WordPress

Talitha Koum

We were delighted to receive an update on the progress of Talitha Koum at our main celebration earlier this month.  If you missed it you can catch up with news of the project here and watch (below) a recent East Anglia news report.

Posted Thu, 19 Jan 2012 20:33:58 +0000 - View in WordPress

Information, imitation & immersion

As part of our series Follow Jesus we are inviting people to ask questions.  Out first question was a great one:

How can I discipline myself to study my Bible more, put other things to one side and learn to know, really know, God’s voice which I find hard even though I have been a Christian for a long time

It’s a great question because at its heart the question expresses the desire to hear God speak.  Brilliant – a great desire

In beginning to offer a way forward, I want to gently challenge the assumption though, made in the question, that if you study harder you will hear God speak more.  I think that’s unlikely, and I think you have probably tried that already. Most Christians have.

So let’s go for a different approach.

When we are learning anything new we need three things. Jesus thought so and he used all three in raising up his disciples. It’s the same for us.

Information

Firstly we need information. We need good solid biblical teaching. In this example we need to understand from the Bible some really important questions:  Is it reasonable to expect to hear God speak? How might I hear God speak? and so on.

If you haven’t been taught that God wants to speak then you are not going to get any further.  I suspect though that most people who have been Christians for a long time have that information. If you haven’t, then the first few sermons that I preached in The Story series is a good place to start. Most Christians have that basic understanding though that God wants to speak and that they should expect to hear him.

Immersion

The issue is not with the theory. That though is also the trouble. In order to learn something new we need more than theory. Every apprentice knows this. There needs to be imitation. We need the ability to watch, to experience, to learn by being alongside others so that we can begin to imitate, to copy those who have themselves learnt what we are seeking to learn.

That’s the model of discipleship that Jesus gave. To learn by being alongside someone else (“Come follow me”). It’s no different for us. It is apprenticeship.

So if you want to learn to hear God speak then find someone who hears God speak. I don’t mean someone who knows a lot about the Bible that’s not necessarily the same thing. Find someone who has learnt to hear God speak and start reading the Bible with them.

Watch them, listen to them, hear what God is saying to them and, by imitation, begin to hear God speak for yourself. It will be worth every effort. Doing SOAP together would be a great way to go about this. See more info here and especially the last comments about reading with others.

Like learning to drive, becoming a plumber or a surgeon theory will never be enough. Get close and practical with someone who is already doing it and you will begin to hear God speak.

Immersion

Finally, if we want something to becoming normal and natural then we need to immerse ourselves in it. Surround yourself with others who are hearing God speak, listen to them, share your experiences with them, immerse yourself in a learning-to-hear-God-speak environment. That’s how you learn.

All of this is just what Jesus did with his disciples. I explore this more here.

A book I found helpful on learning to listen to God is called Walking with God by John Eldredge.  The Book alone will not do it.  On its own it will just provide more information. But alongside getting close with someone it will be useful. I urge you to avoid the temptation of ignoring all the stuff about imitation and immersion above and simply order the book!

Posted Tue, 17 Jan 2012 13:16:50 +0000 - View in WordPress

Discipling relationships

Yesterday in our series following Jesus I explored how rabbi’s in the time of Jesus called and developed their disciples.  It sheds huge light on our understanding of discipleship.  We saw how discipleship is so much more than the transfer of information.  At a much deeper level it is the transfer of a way of life.  This cannot be learnt in a classroom.  It is the product of example and imitation.  You can listen to it here.

The idea of example and imitation fills the New Testament.  Here are a few verses to reflect upon.  As you do you may like to ask the two questions I posed:

• Who are you discipling?
• Who is discipling you

Matthew 28:19-20 (NIV)

19 Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,20 and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”

1 Thessalonians 1:4-6 (NIV)

4 For we know, brothers loved by God, that he has chosen you,

5 because our gospel came to you not simply with words (INFORMATION), but also with power (EXAMPLE), with the Holy Spirit and with deep conviction. You know how we lived among you for your sake (IMITATION)

6 You became imitators of us and of the Lord; in spite of severe suffering, you welcomed the message with the joy given by the Holy Spirit.

1 Corinthians 4:16-17 (NIV)

16 Therefore I urge you to imitate me.

17 For this reason I am sending to you Timothy, my son whom I love, who is faithful in the Lord. He will remind you of my way of life in Christ Jesus, which agrees with what I teach everywhere in every church.

1 Corinthians 11:1 (NIV)

1 Follow my example, as I follow the example of Christ.

2 Thessalonians 3:7-9 (NIV)

7 For you yourselves know how you ought to follow our example. We were not idle when we were with you,

8 nor did we eat anyone’s food without paying for it. On the contrary, we worked night and day, laboring and toiling so that we would not be a burden to any of you.

9 We did this, not because we do not have the right to such help, but in order to make ourselves a model for you to follow.

Philippians 4:9 (NIV)

9 Whatever you have learned or received or heard from me, or seen in me–put it into practice. And the God of peace will be with you.

2 Timothy 3:10 (NIV)

10 You, however, know all about my teaching, my way of life, my purpose, faith, patience, love, endurance,

1 Timothy 4:12 (NIV)

12 Don’t let anyone look down on you because you are young, but set an example for the believers in speech, in life, in love, in faith and in purity.

Posted Mon, 16 Jan 2012 10:10:26 +0000 - View in WordPress

Taking up the Challenge

I spoke last night at the Crown Him with Many Crowns event organised by Heart for Ipswich.  The theme was Taking Up The Challenge and I had been asked to speak as part of the section Challenge to Change.  Here is my outline.

Any impetus to change requires a challenge.  Jesus provides that challenge:  Go make disciples.  That is, go and make disciples who will become disciple-making disciples themselves.  Disciples that bear fruit is not a ‘nice to have’ but an essential requirement.  On the night before he died, Jesus talked about his Father being the vineyard owner (John 15).  A vineyard owner needs fruit to survive.  Being faithful is not enough.

Last year, 2011, in our churches, how much fruit?  How many people came to faith in Christ for the first time?  The numbers are perilously small.

However beautiful the strategy you should occasionally look at the results.

Winston Churchill

Our strategies are beautiful (great Services, creative teaching, vibrate worship, powerful preaching).  Are we brave enough, however, to look at the results?

This creates the challenge to change.  We long for different results.

Insanity is doing the same thing and expecting different results.

Apart from cosmetic changes (music style, dress code etc), churches have been fundamentally doing the same thing for years.  The times we are in though have completely changed.  Yet Jesus said (Matthew 16:18):

I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overcome it.

Maybe it’s time for us to stop trying to build the church (that is Jesus’s job anyway) and start making disciples (which has been our job all along).  This will require churches to return to an approach much closer to Jesus.

People, not just programmes

Jesus’s strategy for transforming the world was to gather twelve people and pour his life into them.  Typical church concentrates on running programmes and events that often get in the way of building meaningful relationships with those we are trying to reach.

Imitation, not just information

Sunday by Sunday we bombard Christians with information telling them what they must do.  It’s not enough.  If it produces any change it is very slow.  It’s like teaching someone to drive a car by only giving them the theory and then expecting them to go off and drive by themselves.  Jesus taught not with loads of information but with lots of opportunity for imitation.

Out there, not just in here

We focus the overwhelming emphasis on inside the church. Jesus in stark contrast did almost everything ‘outside.’ He crossed all the barriers (social, cultural, etc) to meet people where they were.

If we want to reach those that no-one else is reaching we will have to do what no-one else is doing.

Craig Groeschel

Jesus will build His church in 2012.  Will we join Him?

Posted Sun, 15 Jan 2012 09:42:33 +0000 - View in WordPress