Today on the Evangelist Podcast, surprising gospel strategy number one.
SPEAKER_00The Evangelists Podcast. Encouragement to speak life to a needy world. With Glenn Scrivener and Andy Brinkley.
SPEAKER_01Welcome back to the Evangelist Podcast. This is the show where we uh seek to encourage you in sharing your your faith. This is uh we've been going for now over four years. Over four years. Goodness me. Four years. Three months, something like that.
SPEAKER_02Four years, three months. So this is episode 164. Four. Goodness me. I wonder how long it would be to string them all together. They're probably probably average about half an hour each, don't they? So that's like eighty hours. Yeah. What's eighty hours?
SPEAKER_01Half a week nonstop.
SPEAKER_02Wow. Yeah. It's like Monday to Thursday, I wasn't. Goodness me. You'd be insane at the end of that. How how on fire for Jesus would you be? And then just man, the gospel opportunities that would flock to you, and you'd be overflowing with joy and zeal and the grace of Christ. Amazing.
SPEAKER_01Do you reckon there are people that have listened to all of them?
SPEAKER_02Is there, yeah.
SPEAKER_01Do you reckon?
SPEAKER_02Right in. If you've listened to all of them. I can think of a couple of people who might claim that.
SPEAKER_01I've listened to all the podcasts.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. I bet they remember them better than we do to be honest.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, that's true. But anyway, we're we're looking at a surprising gospel strategy. Yes.
SPEAKER_02We're gonna look we're gonna look at a whole series of surprising gospel strategies. A whole series. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay.
SPEAKER_01Well just two early. It's very Yeah.
SPEAKER_02It's the first of many. The first of many. I'll think of some more as we go, but two will do for now.
SPEAKER_01So the very first of our surprising gospel strategy. What what what what is it today then?
SPEAKER_02Number one is shut your church doors. Shut 'em. Just shut them. Lock the door. That's it. Are you sure? That's I am sure. That's that's surprising strategy number one. I told you that was surprising. But we'll we'll get into why that's a good gospel strategy in a minute. Yes. Okay.
SPEAKER_01Trust me on this. Please, please, yeah. Yeah. Don't get into it. Uh before we do, um, we've just got to mention um also that w I mean on the podcast sometimes we we mention uh activities that speak life, uh, one of which is the studying of union, um, which is uh something that people have done here as a day release um studying with you.
SPEAKER_02But they're not in prison, Andy. They they release from from their churches to our tagged and then they uh they get to study theology with the likes of Mike Reeves and Robert Letham and Lee Gatus and Peter Mead and myself. So yeah.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and the deadline is coming up, isn't it? If folks wanted to study like it perhaps they couldn't get to a Bible college, perhaps you know they they were looking to go into full-time Christian work, but they just realised that they can't move or something. Yeah. Um this is kind of the equivalent, but they don't have to move, they can just come here. Yeah, exactly. Um but the deadline's coming up for the end of June.
SPEAKER_02End of June, if you want to study this September. Uh 2017, yes. Earlier Andy thought it was the year twenty fifteen, but you know, it's it's hot. It's yeah, it's a wearying, wearying time right now. But yes, so if you want to study um with us or there are plenty of other learning communities around England and around the world, um, then uh yeah, do get in touch with us or with union at ust.ac.uk and uh you can apply to start the graduate diploma this September.
SPEAKER_01So this will be pretty much your final thinking of it. Good. And just before uh we go into uh to looking at uh surprising gospel strategy number one.
SPEAKER_02Shut your church doors, lock 'em.
SPEAKER_01Tell us about your activities.
SPEAKER_02My activities. Tonight I'm going up to St. Mary's Wootton, which is a church in Bedfordshire. Uh John Bunyan Country, Bedfordshire. Yes. So he was a tinker in Bedfordshire. Um and uh yeah, but this church is running uh a series of events. I mean, they've got me speaking from about nine in the morning till about nine thirty at night every day, up until the Sunday services. And uh yeah, so they're keeping me busy, which is good, because when I when I go away somewhere, I don't want to be twiddling my thumbs, but got lots of stuff to do speaking at uh primary schools and high schools and to elderly groups and to toddler groups and uh to men's groups and to women's groups, and uh a series of evening uh meetings as well where I interview people with an interesting Christian testimony and I then preach the gospel off the back of that. So yeah, lots of opportunities to scatter the seed and uh looking forward to it.
SPEAKER_01Good. Okay then, Glenn. Well uh we're we're looking at uh a gospel strategy. What is a surprising thing by a gospel strategy?
SPEAKER_02A surprising gospel as uh first of all, a gospel strategy is well we all we all want to share Jesus. Um from the overflow of the heart, the mouth speaks, and we want to be able to speak of the one who saved us and loved us. Um but you know, how do we get better at that? Uh how do we get better at that as churches? How do we get better at that as individuals? And uh we're gonna go through a series of surprising gospel strategies, uh, because they're not initially what you might think. Number one is gonna be lock your church doors.
SPEAKER_01Right. Bolt them.
SPEAKER_02So don't invite people to church or not quite that, not quite that. What when you should lock them, I think, is after your Sunday services. Right. Bolt the door. Okay. Um and uh you know, I mean, one if you if you want to think of some scriptures, we'll think of a couple of different scriptures for the for this surprising strategy. One is in Acts chapter one, so there is Jesus, and he's given people their marching orders, there are the disciples around him. In chapter one, verse eight, Jesus says, You will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria and to the ends of the earth. And Jesus ascends to the right hand to pour out the Holy Spirit so that they can do that. Uh and then it's it's fascinating that you know verse ten of Acts 1 says, They were looking intently up into the sky as he was going, when suddenly two men dressed in white stood beside them, men of Galilee, they said, Why do you stand here looking into the sky? This same Jesus who's been taken from you into heaven will come back in the same way that you've seen him go into heaven. And it's almost a sense of you've been given your marching orders. Why why spend all your time? Yeah, why spend all your time looking up to the heavens? Um you've got a gospel to proclaim to the ends of the earth. And I wonder whether in church life um we can be guilty of spending too long looking up into the sky when actually we've been given our marching orders, and part of our worship is actually to uh to leave the church building behind and to go as the church scattered out into the world, out to the very ends of the earth. Uh and one thing that really got me thinking about this was uh a book by Vishal Mangalwadi, um, who uh is a uh uh Indian uh and he was a philosopher and he was not a Christian to begin with, but he was thinking about why is it that the West um seems to have figured out some stuff about how the economy works, about how politics works, about how society functions, about education, healthcare, um in so many different areas of life, the West seems to be ahead. Now, no one should look at the West's uh and its development in the world and consider okay, the West is superior because of anything inherent to Europeans, right? I mean to think that way is to be utterly racist. Um and and no one thinks that way. But but if it's not if it's not that somehow Caucasians are uh you know are smarter, actually they're not, you know, East Asians are uh, you know, in IQ wise, uh uh are are much smarter than you know on average than than your average Caucasian. So what is it? Why why has this advanced kind of civilization developed from the West? I I I think, unless you want to be racist, and let's not be racist, unless you want to be racist, let's have a look at the ideas that actually released the West into being uh so very fruitful in the world. And Vishal Mangalwadi looked and said, Well, look, come on, let's let's not ignore the fact that the West has been shaped by Christianity. Let's not ignore the fact that the West West has been shaped by the Bible. The Bible has made the world. That's his claim in uh in his wonderful book, The Book That Made the World. And uh let me just quote from a couple of paragraphs that he he writes about the effect that the Reformation had on Europe because i he's talking about how how do we get this this sense of of industry, this sense of this sense of the Protestant work ethic and all that sort of stuff. He w he was looking particularly at at Reformation churches in Holland, and he wrote this before the Reformation, Roman Catholic churches were open seven days a week in Holland. The devout went to the church whenever they wanted to meet with God. They would light their candles, kneel, and pray. After the Reformation, the church leaders decided to lock their churches on Sunday nights. Not because they became less religious, but because they became more religious, religious in a positive sense. Reformers learned from the Bible that the church was not the only place to meet with God. If God has called you to be a woodcutter, then on Monday morning you ought to meet with God in the forest. If he has called you to be a shoemaker, then on Monday morning he expected you to meet with him on the workbench. If he had called you to be a homemaker, you needed to serve God while taking care of your window plants. Which is a lovely way of putting it. So here here's the great mission strategy of the Reformation. Lock your church doors. Right. Lock 'em on Sunday nights. Because what you don't want is people continually just orbiting around the you know the gravital gravitational pull of the church as though they constantly need to light their candles and do their religious bit day by day by day by day. What kind of mission can happen if the church doors are always open and if all God's people always think that they need to be around the church in order to be godly? The great gospel strategy from the Reformation onwards was let's lock our church doors. Having said to them on a Sunday, go in peace to love and serve the Lord, as they say in the Anglican service. You know, that that sort of liturgy of of okay, we've fed you, we've given you the word of Christ, we've fed you with the bread and wine, you've you've you've been fed up. You should be fed up with church. Now, out you go into the world. And I think I think that might be a surprising gospel strategy we need to relearn today.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. I mean we can have this kind of uh churchianity if you like, where you know all our activities are church based, you know, we've got you know our internet cafe might be at church, and right, you know, we've got the the coffee mornings and you know um so on the one hand our culture can be so church focused, and and perhaps we've moved to doing that to you know to try to get people to church. Um and so we've focused all our activity on there, but uh how can we carefully discern what is wholesome outreach and and what is just you know uh using the church as a devotional conduit to Christ.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, in that sort of medieval sense. You know, in in in in medieval times people go and light a candle on a Monday morning. These days they they come to the church to to run the coffee morning and that's and that sort of thing. Um I think one thing to think about is is this distinction between gathered church and scattered church. I think there is we are meant to have a gathering of church and and I I I'm fairly persuaded that the Lord's Day, Sunday, is the is the best day for that. I think that's that's what's modelled to us in the scriptures that that is the Christian Sabbath, and and you know, I'm I'm I'm not you know wildly Presbyterian on this and and I uh I don't sort of uh campaign for keep Sunday special and that sort of thing, but I do think in the scriptures that there is um a special day um that on the Lord's Day, the first day of the week, we gather together, we hear from our Lord through word and sacrament, we are fed, we are nourished, we are called the people of God, and then we scatter. That then we walk out into the world having been fed by Christ, and and and now we take the blessing out to the nations. I I think that's the sort of the flow that there is a place for the gathered church, but I do think that that place for the gathered church is where we have a Sunday service. Now, interesting, when you think of Sunday service, sometimes we think that's our service that we offer to God. Actually, primarily the divine service, as you know, the the good you know, Scottish Presbyterians will tell you, the divine service is how God serves you through the meeting that that actually Christ meets with you and feeds you and graces you. But then having been served, then we scatter. And I think I think I do want to say, I do want to at least question how m how much of our resources are being put into a lot of coffee mornings that bring people into the building. Uh it might be exactly the right thing to do. There might be no other centre of community in your village, let's say. And the church is the one place where people do gather, and therefore opening the doors is a way of getting out there into the community because your church building just happens to be the community space. I think it's perfectly possible to think that, you know, a c coffee mornings put on in the church building is a way of reaching the community because that building is uh you know, the community space. However, in in more metropolitan environments, I don't think that is the case. And I wonder whether using those resources that you use to keep a coffee morning open might be better used going out and using Cafe Nero or Starbucks or you know other brands are available. Um and and and actually, you know, I mean I I remember our our church years ago um was considering you know refurbishment plans and you know, what if what if we turn the back of church into a cafe and oh okay, well we'd need to employ people like Monday to Friday, nine to five. Um we'd need to, you know, a coffee machine itself is like five, six grand just just to get that in. It's a a major expenditure. And you'd majorly have to get people, you know, coming and volunteering, you'd probably have to have someone um you know that you pay to, you know, look after it and do the books and that sort of stuff. Imagine all those resources that instead of those resources going into sucking people into the church building. What if what if you just did what you already loved and took Jesus with you? Yeah. Wouldn't that be a better use of resources getting out there and you know?
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_02So, you know, I want to start a book club. Oh great. You know, the six other people in church who want to start a book club too. Let's have a church book club.
SPEAKER_03No.
SPEAKER_02Take one other or two others and go start a book club, you know, out in the community. Yeah. Do what you love and take Jesus with you and shut those church doors. Because that's that's how you're actually gonna flow from from that Lord's Day worship service on the Sunday. You're gonna flow out into the world. But I think that's only gonna happen if we if we close our doors and if we don't require people to constantly be orbiting around the gravitational pull of the church Monday to Saturday.
SPEAKER_01Uh you had uh another scripture that you were gonna take us to?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I mean Hebrews 13 is amazing, isn't it? That's um you know, you you ask all the way through the book of Hebrews, where is Jesus in the book of Hebrews? Um and pretty much after every chapter the answer is he's at the right hand of the Father. He's the great high priest, he's seated at the right hand of the Father, he's interceding for us, his work is completed, that's why he's sat down, that's where Jesus is. But then you come to the very last chapter of the Book of Hebrews, and it throws a little bit of a curveball. Um so Hebrews 13 verse twelve, and so Jesus also suffered outside the city gate to make the people holy through his own blood. Therefore, uh let us then go to him outside the camp, bearing the disgrace that he bore. So in this verse, where is Jesus? He's outside the camp, you know, he's he's outside the city c city gate. So, you know, outside the camp in an old testament sense is the is the place that is outside where God is. It's the place where God is not known, the place that is unclean, the place that is unsafe. And where is Jesus? Well, once and for all he died outside the camp on that rubbish dump outside Jerusalem. Once and for all he did that. But there's also another sense in which he's still there. And when we go outside the camp, we meet with him. And when we go outside the camp, we go to the place that is unclean, that is unsafe, the place where God is not known, and yet we find there's Jesus with us all along. And so that's a beautiful thing that as you go as church scattered, you actually find a different way of encountering Christ. On Sunday morning or Sunday evening or whatever wherever, when whenever you have your church service, you meet with Christ a little bit like the disciples in Acts chapter one, looking up to heaven. You know, Jesus has ascended, we look up, we receive from him, our faces shine, and then we're told to go in peace. And then I think Monday to Saturday, as we scatter, we meet with Christ in a different way. As Vishhal Mangalwadi said, we meet with Christ. If we're a woodcutter, we meet with Christ in the forest. If we're a homemaker, we meet with Christ as we water the plants. Um we meet with Christ as we go outside the camp. And I j I just think if you're a church leader, what are the ways that we can shut the doors? What are the ways that on Sunday we can actually feed people, give them such good news that they feel happy You know, actually happy to go in peace to love and serve the Lord. So there's the challenge for Sunday to actually give people the grace of Christ in a way that is liberating and makes them think I don't need to come back here on a Monday and light a candle be as though my status with Christ is in jeopardy. I don't need to tread this holiness tightrope between Monday and Saturday and you know I'm not gonna be knocked off my holiness perch between now and Sunday. No, I've actually been given Christ. I'm a I'm assured that I'm safe in Jesus. The only way I can go to hell now is if Jesus does. Great. Now, Monday to Saturday, as I scatter, I take Jesus with me. So on a Sunday, will we give people Jesus in a liberating way? And then Monday to Saturday will we think about how we can free our people up. If you're a church leader, how can you free people up? So that people are are aware that actually going to their book club, um, that they might be the only Christian or there's only one other Christian in that book club. Going to that book club is a very spiritual thing. It's where they're going to meet with Jesus. And maybe it's where they can meet with Jesus in a way that on a Thursday night is better than going to some church activity. You know, could we could we possibly get to to thinking in those terms? And if we can, then we will have locked the doors. And uh maybe this surprising gospel strategy will send us out to the ends of the earth.
SPEAKER_01Okay. Good. So that's surprising gospel strategy number one. Mm-hmm. What's uh surprising gospel strategy number two?
SPEAKER_02Well, I've got number two actually. Don't ask me about number three. I've got number two. The surprising gospel strategy number two, and you'll have to figure out what this is when we come back uh for uh for the next episode. But surprising episode uh surprising strategy number two is move on. Move on.
SPEAKER_01Okay.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_01So don't stay, just don't stay. Don't stay. Move on. Okay. Yeah. Right, well we'll uh on that bombshell. We'll take your advice now. Move on, Andy. Well, if you can't uh uh if you don't want to miss next episode, then uh do subscribe to the Evangelist Podcast. You can do so at uh our podcast page, which is speaklife.org.uk slash tep. And uh you've got a a list to a hundred and sixty plus other episodes there if you're if you can't wait until next the next week or so when uh when the next podcast comes out. If you'd like to leave us a rating and review, we'd be very happy if you could do that for us. Um we've had a review since the last episode. Oh, thank you very much. Who was that? Uh it says From GT Johnny Bravo. Okay. It says fast-paced Australian Tim Keller. Oh it says, I'm reminded of Tim Keller when I hear Glenn speak, a high energy Australian accent accented, evangelism-oriented Tim Keller. In the best possible way, or perhaps Tim Keller isn't a slow-paced American accented Glenn Scrivener. So it's essentially these sermons on how the gospel applies to life, which is perhaps what evangelism really is, preaching to unbelievers. I'm certainly encouraged by their messages as well as challenged and equipped, and the only regret that I'm unable are to attend lectures and be guided through a practicum in person. Oh man. So wow.
SPEAKER_02Next September. Okay, this you've you've got a deadline. I'll give you I'll give you fourteen months to make yourself ready. But uh that's very kind. I think true, but very kind, thank you.
SPEAKER_01Thanks, Johnny Bravo. Um and if uh you'd like to leave a rating review, uh it doesn't have to be as quite as uh Folsome in praise. No. Goodness me.
SPEAKER_02But uh you can do that at uh Tim Keller, you're just a slow Glen scroll.
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SPEAKER_02Yes.
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SPEAKER_02Yeah, maybe so perhaps if you And you know, baby needs shoes. Baby needs shoes. That's all I'm saying.
SPEAKER_01How do I follow that? Okay, that's it for this week. Until next time. See ya.