David Robertson tells Evangelicals Now readers that he likes to try and take a helicopter view of the UK church scene. He explains that he tried to do this whilst in Scotland and continues to do so now that he lives and works in Australia. He goes on to say that he doesn’t like what he sees.
Now there are some concerns that he expresses in his article which I would share. I’ve written frequently about the wrongheadedness of the strategy that attempts to reach an elite in the hope that the Gospel will trickle down from them to everyone else. Certainly there have been times when such a strategy seems to have been followed and that’s where resources have gone. Whether that is still the strategy of senior leaders and whether it was ever the thought out strategy of the church as a whole are different questions and not questions that I’m in a position to answer. Nor do I think that David is in apposition to do it either.
You see, what all of us need to remember, especially those of us who provide comment pieces whether via blogs like this or as guest articles in journals, newspapers and magazines, is that none of us have a helicopter. We may be able to visit a lot of churches, we may be able to talk to people who are in touch with different churches and organisations, we may even have contact with network leaders but that’s not the same as having a helicopter picture of the whole scene. Incidentally, I don’t think that distance helps either. Whilst you want to see the wood, remember that the wood is made up of the trees and if you are so far off that you don’t actually know what the trees are doing, then you don’t have the full picture of the wood. In fact, the only person who truly has a helicopter view, who can see both the big picture and the detail at the same time is God. He is the one who sees the full picture, not just what is happening in the UK in 2024 but what is happening, has happened and will happen across the whole world over the whole of history. We need to get God’s view of the church.
Now, like I said, there are things we can get a sense of in terms of what is happening around us. Like David, there are things that I see which concern me. I know of churches that are struggling, I still don’t think that there is enough attention on reaching deprived, working class, inner city and estate contexts. I believe that we were caught napping by the assisted dying bill and there is still too much complacency about this. I’m distressed by the state of the Church of England, the most visible form of Christianity in the UK and I’m frustrated at the response of Evangelical both inside and outside of the CofE. And to be honest, part of the “bad news picture” is what I see in terms of Christian publishing whether books, blogs or newspapers. I am tired of reading grumps and grumbles.
However, that is one part of the picture. David is confident that he is seeing the whole of the moon but is he? Or is what I’ve described above just as comparable to seeing “the crescent?” What if the bigger picture is about what is happening with all those individual trees in the wood. What if the tall trees are not representative of everything? To repeat, I don’t have a helicopter, I can’t claim to offer the whole picture. However, I can talk about some things that I’m seeing.
First, I’m seeing churches growing. This includes what we are seeing in our own situation, what I’m seeing when I visit other churches and what I’m hearing from others. Some of this growth, post COVID has been a kind of reconfiguration as people have moved church. Now transfer growth isn’t the main thing we are seeking but it isn’t always unhealthy. This is especially so if people have moved church because the Gospel wasn’t being preached, God’s Word wasn’t being taught or there were other issues with poor health. It’s alsoso when you see people proactively wanting to be part of churches that are more culturally diverse to reflect the society around them. That’s one thing I’ve seen where we are and am hearing about in other places.
More than that, some of the growth is coming from people turning up in church who had become disillusioned and drifted off from church some time back. We are seeing prodigals returning. Then there are people turning up, who weren’t Christians and saying that they just felt that they had to come to church. I am enjoying hearing reports of baptisms and we are hoping to see a few ourselves in the New Year having had the joy of baptising a guy who had been coming to church from a non-Christian background for some time.
I’ve written before about the impact of COVID. I’ve seen a lot of doom and gloom articles about how COVID brought judgement and how the church failed to hear God and was exposed as weak and compromised. Yet, as I’ve observed before, one of the things we saw in COVID was a Christians using lockdown to engage more with God’s Word and in prayer. We found that we were able to communicate the Gospel with neighbours who had never been to church. I’ve heard many stories of others
One observation I would make is that there tends to be an overlap of perspectives with many of those perceiving what happened to the church and what the church did in COVID negatively also holding strong political opinions leaning sceptical about the extent of the pandemic, the necessity of lockdowns and the role of vaccines. You see, there is another challenge when it comes to seeing clearly. Just as when we read God’s Word and seek to interpret it, so too when we try to read ourselves, people, society, we are looking through a lens, we have a hermeneutic. Our perspective on how things are going are shaped by our political views or eschatology and to a significant extent our own personalities too.
I’m writing this article, partly to push back against some of the pessimism I’m hearing and reading (not just in this article) but also to challenge those of us who write and speak on contemporary issues affecting the wider church.
Most of us don’t have the same audience reach as the likes of the Wee Flea, however we can think about what we write on our Facebook pages, X and our blogs. If we find ourselves pronouncing a correction that everyone needs to make them that should be a prompt to pause. I might want to admit to a change I need to make or to respond to the specific example but be cautious about pronouncing more generally.
I am not arguing that we shouldn’t attempt to engage on bigger issues. However I would be cautious about attempting to make general assessments. Deal with specific issues, challenge error with God’s Word, encourage joyful godliness. Report honestly on both good news and bad stories alike. Relax about trying to see the whole wood, tend to the trees because the wood will grow, one tree at a time.
Faithroots 
2 comments
Comments are closed.