God have mercy

Today I sat by the bed of a friend in hospital. He too has lung cancer. On the outside he looked weathered and aged. He was frail and broken. And yet he radiated an inner contentment. He wasn’t looking for distractions. The television was off. There were no games or books or magazines or electronic toys. He preferred to reflect and to pray. Life had a potency for my friend. He meditated on life and death. He’d spent many hours contemplating these words by Jesus:

Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life.  (John 3:36)

Now this is eternal life: that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent.  (John 17:3)

My friend knows eternal life—now. He knows God, because he knows the one whom God has sent, Jesus Christ. He spoke joyfully to me about Jesus. His eyes were filled with tears of wonder and thankfulness as we spoke.

Looking at my friend reminded me of the unrelenting surge of disease, decay, and death. But listening to my friend pointed me to the one who has overcome it all. He knows that the hope he holds is real. Death holds no fear for my friend. He’s facing life’s harshest moments with a contentment that can only come from God.

And there’s nothing presumptive about my friend. He understands that God doesn’t owe him anything. He has no rights before God. He’s not claiming any religious or moral superiority. My friend simply knows that God is a merciful God.

We prayed together. We asked God for many things. And I was humbled to hear my friend say these words:

God, have mercy on me, a sinner.

Years ago Jesus told a story about two people with very different outlooks on God and themselves. I was reminded of this story today, as my friend and I prayed together.

⁹ To some who were confident of their own righteousness and looked down on everyone else, Jesus told this parable: ¹⁰ ‘Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. ¹¹ The Pharisee stood by himself and prayed: “God, I thank you that I am not like other people – robbers, evildoers, adulterers – or even like this tax collector. ¹² I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get.”

¹³ ‘But the tax collector stood at a distance. He would not even look up to heaven, but beat his breast and said, “God, have mercy on me, a sinner.”

¹⁴ ‘I tell you that this man, rather than the other, went home justified before God. For all those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.’  (Luke 18:9-14)

 

Sharpening the tools of the trade

You may have heard the story of two woodcutters working hard to fell trees. One woodcutter worked non-stop for eight hours and managed to fell twenty trees. The other took a break for fifteen minutes every hour and managed to fell forty trees in the same period. How do you explain the difference? You would think that the one who kept on working would have achieved more.

There are two reasons why the second woodcutter managed to fell more trees. Firstly, he spent ten minutes every hour getting some food and drink, resting, and stretching his muscles. Secondly, he spent five minutes every hour sharpening his saw. The former guy ended up dehydrated, exhausted, sore, and struggling to fell trees using a blunt saw. The second guy was regularly refreshed and at the end of the day his saw was just as sharp as when he began.

There are lessons here for growth group leaders. Too many people ‘used’ to be growth group leaders. They’re now tired, discouraged, burnt out, and disinterested in taking any more leadership responsibility. It’s hard enough getting some ex-leaders to agree to even be in a group, let alone to lead one. This is not good and it should be avoidable. How awesome would it be for Christian men and women to be just as keen in leading growth groups in their seventies as they were in their twenties. If we’re going to achieve this, then we need to help people through their thirties and forties!

Refreshment

God knows that we need refreshment. We’ve not been designed for perpetual motion. God made us to have activity and rest each day. God has made our week so we work six days and rest on the seventh. The sabbath reminds us to trust in our creative and redeeming God. The world won’t stop if we do! God knows we need regular refreshment and we need to discover this too.

Please read the paper on Rhythm in Growth Groups if you haven’t done so already.

Leaders should plan to take regular breaks from their leadership responsibilities. If the groups naturally break for school holidays, then take the opportunity to do something different. Take time off over the Christmas period before starting up in the new year. Share the leadership among suitable people in the group, so that you’re not left doing everything. If you just need time-out for a week now and again because everything has become too much, then ask someone to cover for you and take some time off.

I remember one week, years back when I was very stressed with ministry. I couldn’t face my group that night, so I rang my co-leader explained the situation, and went to the movies instead. The group understood!

We want leaders to be in this ministry for the long haul. For this reason we recommend a sabbatical from leadership about every six years. Take a year off and refresh. Don’t pile yourself up with more and more different things. Recharge so you can get back into it for another six years.

Some groups can be very stressful. Perhaps there’s a difficult member causing problems for everyone. Maybe tensions or broken relationships are taking their toll. These situations increase the need for leaders to be refreshed. We might need to ‘rescue’ leaders from such groups, help them work through issues, debrief, and take time out before starting up again.

Sharpening the leadership tools

There are a number of tools involved in leading growth groups. You can get an indication of the diversity by reading the different topics in this toolkit. You will benefit from regularly sharpening each one of them.

Refresher courses:
If you haven’t participated in a training course for leaders, then we recommend you do. Much of what we do in life and ministry we make up as we go along. It can be enormously helpful to engage with some theory, learn from experienced leaders, put what we are trying to do into some kind of plan or framework, and develop appropriate skills for leading others in Bible study, prayer, and ministry together.

If you can identify areas where you are lacking, then seek out courses that will help you focus on these areas. Instead of doing an entire course, you may benefit from joining in one or two modules, or meeting with a trainer to focus on a particular area.

Reading good books:
The world is full of books and not that many are worth reading. However, we recommend sharpening your saw by reading some good Christian books. You might like to consider books in three different areas:

1. Small group leadership
2. Biblical theology
3. Christian living

You will find a list of helpful books related to leadership and leading Bible studies in the Growth Group Leaders Bibliography. Talk with your mentor or pastor for further ideas about books and other helpful resources.

Feedback:
Receiving feedback is a gift. It will help you to know more about how others are receiving your leadership. Then you can respond with more of the good and less of the not-so-good. You can attract feedback from a variety of sources:

1. Your co-leader
2. Apprentice leaders
3. Members of the group
4. Your peers or mentor

The most natural place for feedback is from your co-leader. As you meet to review and plan your meetings, you can discuss what’s working and what’s not. They can give you feedback on your studies, how you handle people and difficult situations, group dynamics, leadership style and more. Ideally, this feedback is regular, friendly, and mutual.

You can invite apprentice leaders into the same conversations. This has the advantage of helping them tune into the strengths and weaknesses of your leadership, as they prepare for their own. Don’t be threatened—they can learn from your humility. They can suggest ideas and learn from yours.

You can also invite members of the group to provide feedback on different aspects of group life and your leadership. Consider, once a term, asking the members of your group to fill out a survey. If you catch up with people on-to-one you might invite them to share a couple of positives and a couple of areas they think the group could improve. Just be careful not to breed a critiquing spirit within the group. The first thing we should always challenge is the attitude of our own hearts.

You can also invite feedback from your mentor or other leaders. The weakness of this feedback is that people are not ‘seeing you in action’. The strength is that they will be better informed about what to comment on. If someone visits the group from time to time, the dynamic invariably changes because of the ‘outsider’, but it can still help people to offer valuable insights to your leadership. If you meet with a mentor or other leaders on a regular basis, it’s worthwhile sharing your reflections on how you are going, for their advice and comment.

Prayer and reflection:
Set aside time on a regular basis to pray about your leadership. God is the one who gifts you for this work and he will equip, sustain, and grow you. Ask God to make you more like Jesus, to give you a heart to serve, and a willingness to listen and learn. Don’t forget to thank God for the changes he brings in your heart and mind.

Focus your prayers on the group and on the lives of the people in the group. As you prioritise others in your prayers, so you will grow as a servant leader.

As you read Scripture and helpful Christian books on leading groups, take the time to jot some notes, discuss the points with your co-leader and others, and commit to praying about these matters.

Meeting with pastoral staff, mentors, and other leaders:
Many people struggle with isolation as leaders, so make the most of the opportunities available to meet with others.

As iron sharpens iron,
so one person sharpens another.  (Proverbs 27:17)

If your church offers a structure of supervision, mentoring, or coaching, don’t let the opportunities pass you by. Commit to meeting together regularly. Make a priority of participating in leaders meetings, team training, or whatever is happening to encourage leaders. If you feel like you’ve heard it all before, then share this with your overseers. They will appreciate the feedback. Maybe you don’t think you will learn anything from another meeting, but perhaps you can encourage other leaders in their ministry. As you do, so you will become a better leader.

If there is nothing arranged in your church for the support or training of leaders, then I suggest you speak to your pastor about getting this happening. If he is overwhelmed and can’t offer anything currently, then maybe ask if there is the possibility of meeting up with more experienced leaders for the time being. As a last resort, if your church is resistant to offering any support to you as a leader, then perhaps you could seek out support from mature Christians from another church or Christian organisation.

Serving the church in growth groups

Some churches see growth groups as subsets of the whole church. Others view church as the sum of all the growth groups. Whichever direction we’re coming from, it’s helpful to consider the relationship between the groups and the wider church. There are some things that the growth group can do more effectively than the larger congregation and vice versa.

Perhaps the greatest strength of a growth group is the emphasis on relationships and the opportunity to be more personal and specific in ministry to one another. In larger churches people can easily get lost in the crowd. People may not see the need to contribute or the opportunities that exist for them to use their gifts. If things always seem to get done by someone somehow, then we may not feel there is much for us to do.

There are two significant ways that growth groups can work to serve the church. The first is by seeking to encourage and equip each member of the group to use their God-given gifts to serve God by building the church into maturity. The second is by the group collectively seeking out ways to serve the whole church according to its mission and needs.

Before we look at these opportunities, it’s important to stress that Christian service should flow from the gospel. Christ came first to serve us. He brought us into relationship with God through his death, and gave us his Spirit to enable us to serve him out of love. If we overlook, or assume, the gospel then people will end up serving out of guilt, obligation, or some other wrong motive. Such motivation and thinking will destroy the Christian and the church. It’s not about what we have to do for God, it’s about all what God has done for us and others. Let’s seek to keep Biblical perspective.

Encouraging people to grow their gifts in service

Growth groups provide a more intimate environment for people to learn to serve one another. Ministry grows and develops as people look to the needs of others and consider how they can use what God has given them to meet these needs. Leaders should seek to make the most of the opportunities to spur on the members of the group in ministry to each other. Why not set the goal of every member of your group being actively involved in Christian service—this term, or this year? Your group could be just the place to start. Here are a few ideas to get you going:

1. Bible study: Different members of the group may benefit from the opportunity to prepare and lead studies in the group. This can provide a good training opportunity as the leader assists in preparation or provides feedback afterwards.
2. Hospitality: People can learn to exercise hospitality by hosting the group from time to time. They can also be encouraged to have people to meals, invite others out, and create opportunities to share in each other’s lives.
3. Supper or meals: A member of the group can take responsibility for organising this. Everyone can contribute food and drinks as they are able. It helps for this not to fall to the leader to make all the arrangements.
4. Prayer: Each member of the group can be encouraged to share matters for prayer, and to pray for the others. Ask people to keep praying for matters throughout the week. Someone could take on the role of prayer coordinator.
5. One to one: People can be encouraged to meet individually with others in the group for a particular purpose. A new Christian might appreciate doing some basic Bible studies with an older Christian. Someone going through a tough time might enjoy regular support and prayer. A person checking out Christianity might be willing to read through a Gospel with someone.

It’s worthwhile for leaders to take the time to get to know the members of their groups so that they can encourage them into areas of service, and to persevere in their service. Consider these questions: Are people currently serving in an area of church life? Do they have gifts in children’s or youth ministry? What evangelistic opportunities do they have at work? How do they go about reading and applying the Bible for themselves? Do they show initiative in service? What examples have you seen of them sacrificially putting themselves out for others?

If you can’t answer many of these sorts of questions about the members of your group, then arrange to connect with people on a more personal basis. Perhaps, you could spend the next term having a different group member, or couple, over each week before the group meets so as to get to know them and further the ministry conversation.

If your church has a formal process for encouraging people into Christian service, then leaders can help facilitate their members being involved in this. Our church offers ‘serve chats’ which explore issues of gifts, ministry experience, training, and needs and opportunities. Leaders can encourage their group members to engage in these chats or offer to conduct one themselves.

It’s also helpful for leaders to be aware of the needs and opportunities in the church. Pastors should keep leaders informed of the needs for musicians, Sunday School teachers, people to visit nursing homes, people to pray in church, church welcomers, people to host evangelistic courses, and the like. This will create a dialogue within the life of the group and church. The church makes known its needs and the group identifies who is gifted, interested, suitable and available. Likewise, leaders should stay turned to ministry training opportunities and encourage the right people to participate.

Growth groups have another advantage for encouraging Christian service. Each week people open the Bible, learn of God and his grace, and are moved to change and put their trust in God. Sometimes this has very specific ministry application and the leaders and their groups are able to follow this closely with members of the group. For example, if the application area has to do with giving generously to the gospel, then the group can help people work through what it means to give generously and how specifically to make it happen at church.

The group serving the church

Some churches arrange ministry responsibilities in rosters or teams based around growth groups. Our evening church engages the groups in setting up and packing up church on a rotational basis. It’s too big a job for one or two people, and it gets the growth groups serving together. Similar things have been arranged with hosting newcomers courses, with groups providing refreshments, welcome teams, and other areas. There are all kinds of possibilities.

The danger of the ‘group rostered on’ approach is that it may not account for the particular circumstances or gifts of the group members. It could lead to service out of duty rather than coming from a particular passion to serve. Sometimes there can be resentment simply from being rostered on. If things are arranged this way, then it’s important for good communication with the members of the group.

Another angle on groups serving the church is where the initiative comes from the group itself. We encourage growth groups to discuss together whether there are practical ways that the group can be serving the church. Perhaps the group could enquire of the pastors or church leadership team about the needs and opportunities that they could meet collectively. It might be a one-off project, or an ongoing commitment.

There is a power in collective thinking and action. It helps people to be dependent upon one another, to value each other’s gifts and difference, and to cooperate to achieve something greater than people could do on their own. People get to see one another in ministry and this tends to spur each other on further in our service.

There are many examples of how groups can serve a church. A group could organise a church camp or a social event. They could coordinate an outreach event, or visit a local nursing home. Perhaps, they could offer a baby-sitting service to parents in church who rarely get time off. They could provide specific support for a missionary serving overseas. They could commit to additional prayer for a particular need of the church.

The service doesn’t need to be limited to the church either. We are wanting to see our family, friends, neighbours, workmates and others come to know Jesus personally. The group could decide to coordinate an event to help people understand Jesus better. They might see a need in the local school or community, such as catering for a breakfast club, or buddying with disadvantaged kids, or gardening support for the elderly. They might join together to help provide support and finances for a local chaplain.

We want to encourage our growth groups to be nurseries for Christian service. People can learn to look around and see the needs of others to know Jesus and see the needs of Christians to be loved and grow into maturity together. The growth group provides a wonderful context to match the gifts that God has given to the opportunities for their use. Let’s not take for granted or waste what God has so generously given.

¹⁰ Each of you should use whatever gift you have received to serve others, as faithful stewards of God’s grace in its various forms. ¹¹ If anyone speaks, they should do so as one who speaks the very words of God. If anyone serves, they should do so with the strength God provides, so that in all things God may be praised through Jesus Christ. To him be the glory and the power for ever and ever. Amen.  (1 Peter 4:11-12)

Bursting my self-pity bubble

I didn’t manage to get out of bed until noon yesterday. Today it was 1pm. I’ve been absolutely exhausted, much weaker than I remember being before—but that probably says more about my memory than my strength. Chemo is a nasty experience and it doesn’t get any easier the more often I have it.

The family are off doing their thing. Rugby, soccer, shopping. I’ve been sitting on my bed feeling sorry for myself. I’ve been listening to some music, and it’s a pretty fair indicator of my mood. Sometimes when I’m down I put on the Manic Street Preachers and listen to songs like You’re tender and you’re tired.

You’re tender and you’re tired
You can’t be bothered to decide
Whether you live or die
Or just forget about your life.

Bleak and depressing. I know it’s not helpful, but for some reason I migrate to songs like this when I’m feeling down and overwhelmed. It doesn’t lift my spirits. It just confirms me in my misery.

Having a chronic sickness is a lonely experience. It demands much patience. It does get too much at times. You’d think after my last scan results, that I’d be filled with gratitude and joy. Deep down I am thankful, but the difficult journey continues. The chemo is as harsh as it was. My weariness grows worse. And I don’t see an end in sight.

So, will I just wallow in self-pity? Will I focus on my suffering? Will I become all-consumed with myself and my needs?

Please God, don’t let me! Please burst my self-pity bubble.

I thank God that he has since sent me three reminders this afternoon.

1. I turned on my phone and received this text: Hi David – it’s 6 months to the day since my operation – and I’m so grateful (PTL). How are you doing? Blessings.
2. The phone rang shortly after and a friend from Sydney called, simply to see how I was going? I enjoy getting calls like this, so it was a big encouragement.
3. The music on my laptop moved on from the Manic Street Preachers to Matt Redman performing 10,000 Reasons. These words stood out with a message for me:

The sun comes up, it’s a new day dawning
It’s time to sing Your song again
Whatever may pass, and whatever lies before me
Let me be singing when the evening comes

You’re rich in love, and You’re slow to anger
Your name is great, and Your heart is kind
For all Your goodness I will keep on singing
Ten thousand reasons for my heart to find

And on that day when my strength is failing
The end draws near and my time has come
Still my soul will sing Your praise unending
Ten thousand years and then forevermore

Serving without sinking

Over the past year or so, I’ve read and reread a great many books on Christian leadership and service. This new book is seriously one of the most important books I’ve read. It is deeply, simply, and accurately theological. This makes it rich indeed. It’s not about technique or skill. It’s not about looking after yourself, so you last the distance without burning out. Serving without Sinking by John Hindley is liberating and empowering because it points above all to God’s grace in Jesus. It honours Christ by focusing on him, rather than you and I. It’s a thoroughly Biblical mindset that critiques and reshapes our whole perspective on Christian service. Instead of beginning with our service of Christ, it reminds us of these important words in Mark 10:45 that Jesus came first to serve us:

For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.

If we’re finding Christian service a burden, if we’re miserable and joyless, then Hindley suggests we examine our motives for service.

It could be we have a wrong view of God. If we’re serving Jesus to as to be good enough for him, or to get something from him, or to repay Jesus in some way, then we have forgotten the heart of the good news. Jesus came to serve us. This is his free gift to us. We don’t have to measure up, earn our way, or repay the debt. Relationship with God through Jesus is a free gift to be received joyfully.

We might also have a wrong view of people. Perhaps we’re serving to impress others, to receive their thanks or praise, or so that we feel like we are accepted and belong.

Joyless service could also stem from a wrong view of ourselves. Maybe we feel we are indispensable, that somehow Jesus needs us if he is going to be able to accomplish his purposes. Alternatively, we might be feeling like we don’t need Jesus. We’ve become activists who do things on our own, rather than praying for God to be at work in and through us.

Serving without Sinking shifts the attention away from us and puts it back on Jesus.

The counter-intuitive truth I’ve come to realise—the truth that prompted me to write this book—is that the only way to get our service of Jesus right is to realise that supremely, we don’t serve him. He serves us.  (p45)

The truth that Jesus came to serve us, to give his life to ransom us for God, means we’ve been given free access to God. It doesn’t depend on our performance and because of this we are liberated to serve in joyful response.

The truth that we have been reconciled to Jesus leads us to serve him, not because we have to or need to, but because we are his friends. This is not about duty, or obligation, or simply obedience—it’s about relationship.

The truth that we have been united with Christ as his bride, draws us into the intimacy of relationship with him. He has sacrificed everything for us and is preparing us for eternity. Jesus is working through our service of him to get us ready for that great day when we will be fully joined with him.

The truth that we’ve been adopted into God’s family as sons, with full inheritance rights, to join in the family business, means we have the privilege of working with God. He doesn’t need us to help him, but he loves us doing so.

Grasping these truths refocuses our Christian service. It opens the door to rediscovering the joy and freedom that come through the gospel. It takes the heat off us. If the Christian life is reduced to our service of God then we will fail miserably. But if we take hold of God’s promises then we cannot fail. Jesus has done it all.

Moreover, Jesus continues to serve us. He intercedes for us today. Because Jesus prays for us, we don’t have to!

So prayer, like other ways of serving, is not something we need to do—it is something we are able to do; an opportunity to enjoy, not a chore to endure.  (p84)

Jesus has also served us by sending us the Holy Spirit to enable us to serve him. This is the best gift he has to give, and he gives the Spirit to each one of his followers. Through the Spirit he equips us to serve by giving us gifts. Serving is not jobs that have to be done, but gifts to be unwrapped. These gifts are not for our sake, but gifts to be enjoyed by the church body.

The Spirit of God enables us to serve God with love. Loving God is not something I will do naturally, but something God’s Spirit grows in me. We can mistakenly think that if we simply obey God, then we will love him. However, it doesn’t work this way. Love will lead to service, but not the other way round. Love makes service joyful and free. If our service of Christ has become a burden, or stopped happening, we don’t need to try to obey more. We should ask your God to send his Spirit to work in our heart so that we are captured again by his love and service of us.

Serving without Sinking is a breath of fresh air. I pray that it will reignite our desire to love God leading to joyful service of God and others. If you’re feeling despondent, battle weary, or disillusioned in Christian service—take the time to read this book. If you’re worried that your brothers or sisters are becoming like this, then grab them a copy and talk about it together. If you’re a pastor, looking for ways to thank and encourage your leaders, then invest in multiple copies of this book.

One quick word to the author:

You’ve done a good job of helping women to see how they are including in the category of ‘sons’ of God. I think you need to do something similar to help men to appreciate how they can be part of the ‘bride’ of Christ. Maybe in the second edition!

Song of the heart

My good friend, Ben Lattimore, has written this Song for Macca as he reflected on a post I wrote some time back called What caused the cancer? My journey with cancer has been shared since the very beginning by Ben and his wife Beth. They were heading to Darwin with us. We shared shipping containers. [The photo was taken only days before being admitted to hospital - I don't look well!] Our decision not to go became their decision. Ben had been planning to work with me as a ministry apprentice. The ‘Latts’ were planning to be an integral part of our church planting team up in the Northern Territory. 18 months ago we sat in a hospital visitors’ room and talked with the Latts and the Rademakers about undoing our plans.

This song tells of the greater problem within. Not the cancer, but a problem of the heart, a problem we all need to identify, and a problem that God has acted to overcome. Here are the lyrics and you can listen to Ben perform this song, by clicking the attached link: Song for Macca.

Song for Macca
Ben Lattimore

There’s a problem deep inside of me
it’s been there since the start
cancer of the lung is not my greatest ill:
there’s a deeper, greater problem
with my heart.

You won’t find it any book on medicine
there’s no test to prove it’s there
but when you start to take a look around
the symptoms are everywhere.

Oh my heart, my heart of stone
it wants to rule me
and make the world my own
oh my heart, heart of stone
well it severs every chord to the one
who I owe all things
and all things will be taken away.

Before you get to taking pity on me
would you take a look around
and an honest look at your own heart
and tell me what you found?

Oh the heart, the heart of stone
it wants to rule you
and make the world your own
oh the heart, the heart of stone
well it severs every chord to the one
who you owe all things
and all things will be taken away.

What hope is there for the heart of stone?
What hope is there for the heart of stone?
He must come and change, come and change…

Change the heart, the heart of stone
it wants to rule you
and make the world your own
but the heart, the heart of stone
can be remade into a heart of flesh
that he can call his home
and all things will be promised
and given unto you.

As my body fades I’m thankful
for I was always on this line
but now I carry this reminder in my flesh
I can’t forget the problem we all share.

Outreach and the artist

I’m not an artist. I don’t play a musical instrument, my paintings haven’t progressed from primary school, I’m not much into acting, and no one would pay to hear me sing. But the author Con Campbell is an artist. More importantly he loves artists, and that’s what this book is about. Outreach and the artist expresses two of Con’s passions: (1) a desire for Christians to use the arts to reach out to others; and (2) a desire for Christians to engage with artist subcultures largely isolated from Christian faith. Con writes as a practitioner on both fronts. He is a highly acclaimed jazz saxophonist who has uses his craft to help communicate with others about Jesus and he keeps well connected with other artists, seeking to persuade them to take Jesus seriously.

This book is well written and easy to read. I read most of it yesterday while walking into town and back (while trying to avoid the pedestrian casualty list). There are many strengths to this book that I appreciate. Firstly, Con explains very clearly the content of the good news and how people actually become followers of Jesus. There is no watering down of the Christian message to make it more palatable for an edgy post-modern audience. He is clear that one only becomes a Christian by putting their trust in Jesus and that this is a non-negotiable. He doesn’t claim more for his or others’ art forms than they are able to deliver. No one is going to understand the good news of Jesus simply by being amazed by a painting or swept up in a beautiful piece of music. This may be an experience that God uses to stimulate their interest in  the creative God. It might lead them to enquire about the faith of the artist. It may provide a hearing for the artist to explain what they believe. But art, in and of itself, is not going to save people.

Secondly, Con is able to straddle the divide between the church and the arts. He is a highly gifted Bible scholar, teacher, theologian, writer and ministry practitioner. He is also respected as an artistic performer in the field of jazz. He knows how churches think and fail to think, and he understands the world in which the performing artist lives. Con has sought to bridge the divide in a number of ways.

He has performed over 250 jazz gigs with churches and Christian groups, with the aim of creating a relaxed and comfortable context for speaking about Jesus. I’ve witnessed a number of these gigs and love the way Con moves from introducing us to the forms of jazz to sharing his enthusiasm about Jesus. The freedom of the jazz musician to express himself within the groove, leads to Con explaining how Jesus is the groove that gives us real freedom to live.

He also helps churches to consider how their often rigid and judgmental attitudes serve to alienate many alternative types from their midst. The lifestyle of the artist is very different to the 9 to 5 office worker. Days or weeks can be spent just seeking inspiration, or reworking an idea. Productivity may seem non-existent. Thousands of hours can be ‘wasted’ or spent ‘indulging’ in practise, with little to show for it. Con challenges us to see things afresh. If we appreciate the craft of an elite artist, musician, or athlete, then we must also appreciate how many years of effort go into getting there. Most musicians work late nights and weekends. They recover by sleeping in. This doesn’t mean they are lazy. Churches are urged to think more empathetically about connecting with people who have very different lifestyles.

Thirdly, having been one who lived for the god of music, Con understands first hand many of the barriers to artists coming to trust in Jesus. He saw the idolatry in his own heart. He’d taken God’s good gift of creativity and ignored the Creator who gave it to him. Con understands the difficulties for artists whose life and being has been tied up with their craft. There is much for them to lose, but far more to be gained. Con shares how he recognised that he must give up his jazz to worship God instead, but then how God opened more doors than he could ever imagine to enjoy jazz and use it to serve God.

This book also contains a number of interviews with Christian artists. There are musicians, painters, actors. They speak of their appreciation of the arts, what they love, how they’ve struggled as Christians in this subculture, the various ministries they’ve been able to be involved in as artists, and what each believes to be the biggest barriers for artists coming to trust in Jesus.

I really loved this little book. For mine it’s an excellent example of living out the attitude we see in 1 Corinthians 9:19-23.

¹⁹ Though I am free and belong to no one, I have made 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 people 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.

I would highly recommend this book to all Christian artists. I think it will help them to reflect on how they can appreciate the gifts and blessings that God has given them, and encourage them to use their opportunities to honour God.

I would also encourage pastors and leaders in church to read this book. It helps us to think about what’s needed to connect with people we’re just not reaching. It also contains some excellent advice on utilising the arts to make Christ known.

Thanks Con.