Unlike most ministers, when I was ordained on 10 October 1970, I was ordained not as a pastor but as a missionary. At the heart of my ordination service was the Great Commission, when the Lord Jesus said to his disciples:
All authority in heaven and earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always to the end of the age. (Matthew 28.18-10)
After two years with the Baptist Missionary Society in what is now the Democratic Republic of Congo, we returned and within a few months I became the minister of Altrincham Baptist Church, Cheshire. When we arrived, the church was declining and had just around 90 members. However, by God’s grace over during my stay of almost 13 years, the church quadrupled in size. How was this achieved? Simply by the members reaching out to friends and neighbours. One of the first things I did was to get the church involved in a Stephen Oldford ‘crusade’. It was extraordinarily old-fashioned, but even so people came to faith. Later I encouraged the church to get involved in ‘Evangelism Explosion’, an American course training people to share their faith. This evangelistic programme began with two ‘diagnostic’ questions: 1. “Do you know for sure that you are going to be with God in heaven?”; 2. “If God were to ask you, ‘Why should I let you into My heaven?’, what would you say?” I confess that now that I am older and wiser, I would never have adopted this to sharing the Good News of Jesus, yet even so many people came to faith. In today’s secular context, such an approach would undoubtedly see few converts. No, a different form of evangelism is needed today.
After a 6-year stint as Principal of Spurgeon’s College, I became the Senior Minister of Central Baptist Church, Chelmsford. At one stage there were just two hundred members, but by the time I left in 2014 the church had doubled in size and we had a community of 1,000 people who attended our church. How did this growth come about? Again, by a strong focus on sharing our faith. Along with the three Sunday services, I encouraged the church to get involved in the Alpha course. Although Alpha is far from perfect, nonetheless by tweaking the content many people decided to follow Jesus. As a general rule of thumb, it took two years before people were ready to commit themselves to Jesus and in the process be baptized as believers.
Today in the UK it is much harder to win people for Jesus. The vast majority of ‘Brits’ have no idea of the basics of the Christian faith. In spite of this people still come to faith. The winning of people for Jesus is encouraging everybody to develop relationship with friends and neighbours and sharing with them the difference Jesus has made to us. There is no place for preaching at them. Rather we need to listen to them and their views of God, and gently tell them the difference that Jesus has made to us and that he can make a similar difference to them.
Sadly, in the 11 years since I have retired, I am not conscious of having led anybody to Jesus. This does not mean to say that I have not tried. Whenever I spot a visitor in Chelmsford Cathedral who does not appear to be a Christian, I always point them to ‘The Christ in Glory’, a large model of the Ascended Lord Jesus which hangs over the nave, and ask them to notice that this Jesus still bears the marks of the nails in his hands and his feet, and then I go on to say : “Jesus knows what it is like when life is tough. His understanding is combined with love”. Yes, Jesus loves us.
So let me now turn to Hannah Steele, an Evangelical Anglican who is currently Director of St Mellitus College, London. In her book Living His Story: revealing the extraordinary love of God in ordinary ways (SPCK 2020), her sixth chapter is entitled ‘Communicating like Jesus did’ which I have used as the heading for his blog. There she encourages her readers to learn to have “life-transforming conversations”. For although Jesus did preach to over 5,000 people when he fed people with bread, for the most part Jesus spent his time engaging in personal conversations. Jesus was a great listener. He was also a provocative questioner – indeed, the Gospels tell us of 300 occasions when he asked people questions. What is more, the listening and the questioning were both reflective of his love for those whom he met. Jesus is the greatest of models for how to communicate with other people about God’s love for us all.
It’s encouraging to hear of your churches’ growth. If we lose that commitment to mission then indeed, the ‘salt has lost its savour.’ I think this is true for church members as well as leaders! I really like Hannah Steele’s emphasis on ‘life-transforming conversations’ – they feed us as well as the people we are speaking with. Maybe, Paul, you could get involved in some evangelistic course even in your retirement, and have that joy again, while you introduce people to Jesus…
Paul, I think it most unlikely that you have not led people to Jesus in the 11 years since you retired. You have no idea how you may have influenced people simply by listening to people and engaging with them. I believe that we often don’t know whether our encounters with others have borne fruit, but whenever we have asked God to be with us in our meetings, I am sure that He is working in ways that we shall probably never know about – so do not be discouraged !