Author Archives: James Petticrew

Waiting and Working for Peace by James Petticrew

My wife and I currently live in Switzerland, very close to the French border, so we regularly travel between the two countries. Despite French being spoken in our Swiss canton, there are lots of differences between France and Switzerland. (The Swiss – rather sniffily – would claim the standard of driving and condition of the roads are among the most obvious.) But the difference I personally notice the most is in the war memorials. In France, just about every village has a memorial to those killed in the two world wars. In contrast, in Swiss towns and villages, they are conspicuous only by their absence. Switzerland has guarded its peace; it hasn’t been involved in a major war for hundreds of years, and the people here have no memory of family members lost in war.

The prophet Isaiah wrote what to us is one of the most familiar Advent scriptures. The people to whom his words were addressed were more like the French than the Swiss, in the sense that they knew war deeply, and death; tyrants, and their violence. Like Switzerland in WWII, the people of Judah in Isaiah’s day were surrounded by more powerful warring nations; but unlike the Swiss, Judah had been involved in conflict for centuries. That’s the background to this passage Handel made so familiar through his Messiah.

“Nevertheless, there will be no more gloom for those who were in distress. In the past, he humbled the land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali, but in the future, he will honour Galilee of the nations, by the Way of the Sea, beyond the Jordan—The people walking in darkness have seen a great light; on those living in the land of deep darkness, a light has dawned. You have enlarged the nation and increased their joy; they rejoice before you as people rejoice at the harvest, as warriors rejoice when dividing the plunder. For as in the day of Midian’s defeat, you have shattered the yoke that burdens them, the bar across their shoulders, the rod of their oppressor. Every warrior’s boot used in battle and every garment rolled in blood will be destined for burning, will be fuel for the fire. For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders. And he will be called Wonderful Counsellor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.” (Isaiah 9:1-6, NIV)

It’s easy to jump to verse 6 – “For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders. And he will be called Wonderful Counsellor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace,” and skim over or ignore the earlier verses. Somehow, talk of yokes of oppression and blood-stained uniforms doesn’t seem to fit with the jolly atmosphere people expect at Christmas. But I wonder if those verses are crucial to appreciating Advent?

In a sermon on this passage, scholar N.T. Wright points out that these often-ignored earlier verses contain two promises that resolve two of the great problems that have plagued humanity: violence and tyranny. The promised child who will be the Prince of Peace will shatter the tyrant’s oppressive power and consign the results of violence – the wounded soldier’s blood-stained clothing – to history.    

Wright goes on to say, “What is promised through the Prince of Peace is justice attained without violence; peace attained without accompanying tyranny.  My friends, the world today is still wondering how to get to that result. And Isaiah says: ‘The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; for to us a Son is given, the Prince of Peace.’  And we who live between the death and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth and the final establishment of the kingdom he came to bring, the kingdom in which justice and peace shall be knit together at last and forever – we are entrusted with a mission. Not simply to save a few souls from the wreck of this world since God so loved the world and has promised to redeem it.  Nor simply to tinker with the world’s own systems, merely to do things a bit differently here or there.  No: rather, by prayer and courage, and holiness and hard work – and it will be hard work – we are called to discover the practical ways in today’s and tomorrow’s world of seeking justice without violence, of making and maintaining peace without tyranny.”

Often, talk about Advent focuses on a time of waiting; and this great prophecy of Isaiah’s should encourage us to wait – but to wait with a certain impatience and longing for the Prince of Peace to return and fully establish his Kingdom of Peace. We’re to long for the time when the Prince of Peace will reign over the world in a Kingdom characterized by justice without violence, peace without tyranny. A kingdom where, as in my little Swiss village, there will be no more need for memorials to war.

I say this tentatively, but recently I’ve been wondering if we as evangelical Christians in the West remember war too nostalgically and long for its consignment to history too little? Acts of remembrance so easily tip over the edge into celebrating a nation’s victories in war rather than reminding of the horrors of war.

Maybe Wright pointed us to the answer when he said that we who claim to live in the Kingdom of the Prince of Peace have been given a mission. We are to do more than remember the tragedy of war until peace is established. Our mission as the people of the Prince of Peace is more than simply passively longing for peace. Our mission, Tom Wright reminds us, is to work for peace, “by prayer and courage, and holiness and hard work – and it will be hard work… we are called to discover the practical ways in today’s and tomorrow’s world of seeking justice without violence, of making and maintaining peace without tyranny.”

I dare to suggest that Advent will have a great significance for our lives and our world if it motivates us to a commitment to do everything we can to seek justice without violence and make and maintain peace without tyranny.

Featured image courtesy Nicolas Hoizey via Unsplash.

Leading like Ananias: Prominence vs Significance in Pastoral Ministry by James Petticrew

“Prominence does not equal significance in the Kingdom of God.” I am not sure who said that first, but whenever I hear it my mind always goes to the book of Acts and Ananias. No, not Ananias who with his wife Sapphira lied to the Apostles and tried to defraud God and met an unfortunate end, but the simple believer we only hear of in a couple of verses in Acts 9. My fellow Scottish minister William Barclay called him one of the great forgotten heroes of the Bible and I want to do a little bit to help us remember his significance for our leadership.  

You know the background; Saul has been on a violent crusade to stamp out the fledgling Church. He is now on his way to Damascus to carry out the next stage of this literally murderous campaign. Then he meets Jesus and everything changes.  Saul is told to go to Damascus. Luke tells us this is what happens next.

“In Damascus there was a disciple named Ananias. The Lord called to him in a vision, ‘Ananias!’ ‘Yes, Lord,’ he answered. The Lord told him, ‘Go to the house of Judas on Straight Street and ask for a man from Tarsus named Saul, for he is praying. In a vision he has seen a man named Ananias come and place his hands on him to restore his sight.’

 ‘Lord,’ Ananias answered, ‘I have heard many reports about this man and all the harm he has done to your holy people in Jerusalem. And he has come here with authority from the chief priests to arrest all who call on your name.’ But the Lord said to Ananias, ‘Go! This man is my chosen instrument to proclaim my name to the Gentiles and their kings and to the people of Israel. I will show him how much he must suffer for my name.’

Then Ananias went to the house and entered it. Placing his hands on Saul, he said, ‘Brother Saul, the Lord – Jesus, who appeared to you on the road as you were coming here – has sent me so that you may see again and be filled with the Holy Spirit.’ Immediately, something like scales fell from Saul’s eyes, and he could see again. He got up and was baptised, and after taking some food, he regained his strength.” (Acts 9:10-19)

Tom Wright makes this comment about our unsung hero: “We know nothing about him except this passage, and it’s enough: that he was a believer, that he knew how to listen for the voice of Jesus, that he was prepared to obey it even though it seemed ridiculously dangerous.” (N.T. Wright, Acts For Everyone) Wright’s words capture why Ananias is my unsung hero. Although we have few recorded words from his lips, his life speaks loud and clear about what it means to follow Jesus. He reminds us that being a disciple is about openness and obedience to Jesus. Ananias was a simple believer who was open to hearing the voice of Jesus and then was prepared to obey it wherever it led and whatever it cost. His life is a reminder to us that openness and obedience to Jesus are the essence of following Jesus.

We see this willingness to hear and obey Jesus in his encounter with Saul. To understand the full significance of what happened on Straight Street, remember that Saul had been carrying out a terror campaign against Christians. There is every chance that Ananias knew people whose death Saul had been responsible for. In all likelihood, Ananias himself was on Saul’s hit list for Damascus. Jesus tells Ananias to go and meet the man responsible for the death and torture of some of his friends and fellow believers and who was out to harm him personally.

 I wonder what I would have done in that situation?

I wonder what my first words would have been to Saul?

The first thing Ananias did was to go to where Saul was. He obeyed Jesus. He obeyed despite the fact he seems to have had worries that it might be a suicide mission. Once he heard Jesus’ words, Ananias was willing to obey whatever the personal cost to himself. Now there is an example that the contemporary church could do with embracing.

I never fail to be deeply moved by what Ananias does and says when he finally encounters Saul. “Placing his hands on Saul, he said, ‘Brother Saul…’” I find that nothing short of incredible.  Ananias embraced Saul, the arch-enemy of believers. The first words that Saul heard from a fellow believer following his conversion was not “killer,” but “brother.”

The only explanation I have for what happened in Judas’ house is that at some point, Ananias had heard Jesus say that his disciples had to love their enemies, so that is what he did. No questions asked. Saul couldn’t see Ananias but, in his words and embrace, I suspect he felt the grace and acceptance of Jesus through his fellow believer’s hands.

As a leader, I wonder whether Ananias’ example suggests I have been guilty of making being a disciple way more complicated than it is? This last year I’ve been caught up in theologizing and strategizing about discipleship, as our church tries to get serious about being and making disciples. But Ananias reminds me that fundamentally, I need to challenge people (and myself) to simply make time to hear Jesus’ voice and then do what he says. (I said it was simple, not easy.)

We are a congregation of ex-pats here in Switzerland; many of our people have stressful jobs that consume time voraciously. It’s a familiar challenge – I think our enemy successfully pulls us into a cycle of busyness which leaves us with little room to be open to hearing Jesus. I have been contemplating whether or not we are obeying Jesus – not because of stubborn disobedience, but because we are not making the time to hear what he is saying. After the Covid restrictions are rolled back and church life goes back to “normal” will that “normal” have enough space built in to allow us time discerning the voice of Jesus?

Does your life? Have you regularly cut out a chunk of time to be open to Jesus? Recently, a powerful revival has broken out at Longhollow Baptist Church in Tennessee. Its pastor, Robbie Galatay, has spoken about how this revival can be traced back to him finally scheduling time to simply be with and be open to Jesus. There is a lesson there for all of us in leadership.

I am in the final phase of my ministry now. In all likelihood, I am never going to be a megachurch pastor whose sermons attract millions of views on YouTube.  Nothing I write will knock My Utmost for His Highest or The Purpose Driven Life off the Christian bestsellers list. A few years after my retirement, I doubt if many people will remember my second name. But as I contemplate that, I come back to my original thought: prominence doesn’t equal significance in the Kingdom of God.

Was Ananias prominent in the early Church? No. But did his ministry have significance? Of course it did! Ananias’ ministry of love and prayer to Saul unleashed into the world a spiritual tornado whose impact is still very much with us. I wonder if Ananias lived to see the impact that Saul-turned-Paul would have? I wonder how many other people Ananias loved, embraced, forgave, and prayed for in his ministry? I wonder what impact they made? His ministry reminds me that my ministry may not have prominence, but in the Kingdom of God it can have a significance I cannot even begin to imagine.

Can I remind you? That’s true for you too, wherever and whomever you minister to.

Featured image courtesy Jon Tyson via Unsplash.

Where Is Our Leadership Leading? by James Petticrew

Do you ever think about where your leadership is leading? Winston Churchill once commented that, “we shape our buildings; thereafter they shape us.” Having been the pastor of a congregation which met in a barn of an Art Nouveau Gothic church building, I really understand what he meant. Yet something else also shapes how we function as the church: our understanding and resulting practice of leadership.

I entered ministry in the early 90s, so I lived through the rise of the “leadership movement” within the evangelical church. My bookshelves are now packed with books on leadership. Over the years, I attended numerous conferences on leadership and took undergraduate and postgraduate courses on leadership. Like most pastors, my email inbox is daily bombarded by invitations to read blogs about leadership and listen to podcasts about leadership. With providential predictability and irony, as I type these words, I have an email notification beginning, “Seven Signs Your Leadership…”.

I confess that I have not been just a passive witness of this rise of leadership thought in the church but also an active consumer and even promoter of it. The books, conferences, blogs – and in the early 90s, even cassette tapes – churned out by leadership writers and consumed by me have shaped my self-understanding as one called to ministry in the church.  If I am honest, as a result, I came to understand my primary calling as being a leader. And my understanding of what it means to be a leader has in turn been shaped largely by models of leadership drawn from business and even the military.

Have you played the wooden block balancing game Jenga? If so, you know what happens: one by one, the wooden blocks are removed until the whole tower becomes shaky and eventually collapses. That’s what has happened to my confidence in the leadership movement  over the past few years: scandal after scandal has made my confidence in it wobble; now it feels to me like it’s collapsing around my ears.

For those of us who are called to serve the church, being a leader (as spelled out in the flood of resources aimed at us) was never meant to be our primary way of approaching that calling. For his PhD work, David W. Bennett looked at the metaphors for ministry in the New Testament. One of his main conclusions was, “Jesus focused more of his attention on teaching the disciples to follow rather than giving them instructions on how to lead. The single most important lesson for leaders to learn is that they are first sheep, not shepherds, first children, not fathers, first imitators, not models.” (Leadership Images from the New Testament) This is consistent with a quick approximation that in the New Testament the words “lead” or “leader” are found about seven times but the word “disciple” appears 260 times and the phrase “follow me” appears 23 times.

Despite what we’ve heard from the leadership gurus in the Kingdom of God, everything does not rise and fall on leadership but on discipleship. We can only lead in the Body of Christ through following Christ. In fact, what makes Christian leadership Christian is that it is expressed in and through Christian discipleship. In the church, following is leading, which is why Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 11:1, “Follow me as I follow Christ.” The problem is that a whole industry predominantly focused attention on “follow me” while virtually ignoring, “as I follow Christ.” After all, have you ever been invited to a global followership summit?

To be clear, I am not questioning the need for leadership in the church. What I am questioning is from where we draw our models and our mentors for leadership in the church, and the impact that has on church culture.

In The Strength Of Weakness, Roy Clements asked three questions that go to the very heart of the issue. “Let me ask you, what is your image of a great leader? Let me ask you another question, what is your image of a great Christian leader? Now, let me ask you a third question. Did the insertion of the word ‘Christian’ into the second question materially change your answer?”

Clements forces us to think about the sources we draw on for our definition of greatness in leadership in the church. Surely, only Christ gets to define that for his Body. In his clearest statement on leadership, Jesus said to his disciples,

“You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their high officials exercise authority over them. Not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant,  and whoever wants to be first must be your slave— just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.” (Matthew 20: 25-28)

Those words are a clear call for us as Jesus’ disciples to reject the leadership values and practices of the dominant culture rather than be inspired by them. Instead, we are to follow his example of sacrificial servanthood in how we exert influence within the Kingdom of God. Pecking orders and power plays are ruled out among his disciples. Author Lance Ford writes of these verses in Unleader, “His [Jesus] requirement is that we lay down the crown and spectre of leadership and pick up the towel and basin of servantship.” Yet I can’t shake the feeling that the leadership movement effectively encouraged me to do the opposite.

Rather than focusing our primary attention on Jesus when it comes to leadership, our focus has been elsewhere. For about two decades, Christian leaders have been encouraged to draw inspiration for their leadership from the leaders in the worlds of business and the military. As a result, many have come to approach leadership in the church as a position of power rather than a spiritual gift and an opportunity to serve. Recently, the evangelical movement has thrown its hands up in horror as a whole crop of its leaders has been revealed to have abused their power. There has been a litany of stories: leaders who have created toxic, unaccountable macho cultures, who have exploited and abused people and acted in narcissistic ways that served themselves rather than Jesus or others. In retrospect, where else should we have expected the version of leadership we popularized to lead? 

It is time to admit that the power-abusing, narcissistic church leaders of recent scandals are not aberrations but the all-too-predictable Frankenstein creation of the evangelical industry’s own leadership movement. As for me, I’m turning my back on importing the leadership modes of Fortune 500 CEOs, victorious generals, and leadership gurus. Here are the voices I am choosing to listen to; here are some of their leadership maxims, when it comes to my calling:

“Follow me.” – Jesus Christ

“He must become greater; I must become less.” – John the Baptist

“Follow me as I follow Christ.” – Apostle Paul

“If anyone comes to me, I want to lead them to Him.” – Teresa Benedicta of the Cross

“The bible is a book about followers, written by followers, for followers. I am always a follower first.” – Rusty Ricketson

When it comes to leadership, which voices are you currently listening to? Where do you think they will lead you and your church?

Subversion: Christ the King Sunday by James Petticrew

While today is Christ the King Sunday, next Sunday is the start of Advent. It always seems to me like a starting pistol signaling the frantic dash towards Christmas. No doubt it will be a very different Christmas this year, which perhaps will allow us as God’s people to reflect more deeply on what Christmas is about. To do just that, I reread the Christmas story; one very familiar passage sticks out.

“And there were shepherds living out in the fields nearby, keeping watch over their flocks at night. An angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. But the angel said to them, ‘Do not be afraid. I bring you good news that will cause great joy for all the people. Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is the Messiah, the Lord.This will be a sign to you: You will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger.’” (Luke 2:8-12)

I once went for some tests to become an officer in the Intelligence Corps in the British army. (Who said military intelligence was an oxymoron?)  During that weekend, we were given a lecture on subversion. One of the roles of the Intelligence Corps, we were told, was to keep an eye on foreign governments and domestic groups who were trying to subvert, or undermine, British democracy and values. They posed a threat, we were told. I don’t think the Roman Army had an Intelligence Corps, but if they had, those verses from Luke would have definitely interested and worried them. For us, the angels’ words to these poor shepherds seem familiar and safe. The whole scene appears Christmas card cosy and innocuous, but to the Romans, those words were the language of dangerous subversion. To the Romans, those words that described Jesus to the shepherds would have seemed more appropriate on an indictment for treason than on a greeting card.

Here is the significant thing: three things ascribed to Jesus by the angels were already used to describe the Roman Emperor. Written in letters and inscribed on monuments throughout the Roman Empire was that it was good news (“gospel”) that Caesar was Lord and Saviour and that he brought peace to the world (incidentally it was also often said that Caesar was a divine son of the gods).

Now do you see how subversive what Luke is telling us really is?

He is presenting Jesus, not Caesar Augustus, as the true divine King, who had come to bring peace and true salvation to the whole world. What we think of as a quaint nativity scene is in fact a gauntlet laid down to Rome and its claim to absolute power. It is a direct challenge to the so-called “gospel” of Rome and its peace which was enforced through brutality, and which did not provide any actual salvation.

This understanding of Jesus and self-understanding of Jesus which it expresses set the first generations of Christ followers on a collision course with Rome. This is the political reason for Jesus’ execution.  Pilate had Jesus crucified because he believed Jesus was usurping the power that alone belonged to Caesar. Pilate rightly realised that there couldn’t be two people in the Roman Empire claiming to be Lord of all.

The early Christians faced death for saying the fundamental creed of Christianity that flowed from the birth, life, death, resurrection and ascension of Christ,  that “Jesus is Lord.” Whenever they said Jesus is Lord, they were saying simultaneously that Caesar was not Lord, a statement treasonously subversive to Rome.

I wonder if perhaps we have forgotten that to say Jesus is Lord and mean it, is to dethrone every other claim to ultimate authority over our lives? That other royal figure in the nativity story, King Herod, was many things: cruel, despotic, vain; but he was not a fool. Herod understood the implications of what the angels said to the shepherds. He realised Jesus had come to depose and dethrone him; that’s why he tried to kill him and didn’t mind how many innocent lives were lost in the process.

This Sunday, the last Sunday before Advent, has come to be known in the Church as Christ The King Sunday. It was designed to be a reminder that Jesus alone is Lord. Maybe more than ever as his disciples we need the reminder that Jesus and Jesus alone has the rightful claim to reign over our lives and world. Christ the King Sunday is a much-needed reminder that ultimate authority in our lives lies not with Caesar, not with politicians or governments, not allegiance to a nation, flag or philosophy, not to another human being or even with ourselves, but with our Lord Jesus Christ. 

And in case you are looking for some small print – a get-out clause when it comes to Jesus claim to lordship over your life – I want to remind you of that well-worn but nevertheless true Christian cliché: “If he is not Lord of all, he is not Lord at all.”There is no area of our lives that Jesus does not claim the right to reign over, which of course means that many of us need to do some dethroning of usurpers.

Perhaps this is the real significance of Christ the King Sunday. It is an opportunity to look at what has been ruling over us in every aspect of our lives. It is an opportunity to dethrone the Caesars of today, allowing Christ the King to reign in their stead.

Dr. Ellsworth Kalas was my Dean when I spent a year at Asbury Theological Seminary.  He was a master with words. I want to leave you with some of his words as we approach the celebration of the birth of our rightful ruler, from Preaching the Calendar.

“We’re all people who want to be king or queen. Some of us don’t get a very large throne, but we make the most of it. We start in our crib, from which we scream out our orders, and we generally keep at it, as much as society and good taste will allow, until we’re on our deathbed. We like being king or queen….Here, then, is a Christmas word for you and for me. If your name is Herod or Caesar (and everyone’s name is) then be afraid. Because the King has come, and He is going to win. This little babe, in swaddling clothes, is going to win. Brothers and sister, boys and girls, it’s time to get off the throne, and to give the throne to the only one who is eternally qualified to reign.” (p.144)

Praying for Compassion Collisions by James Petticrew

As a Scot, I am sort of unique.  I don’t drink whiskey and have never played a round of golf. However, my golf-obsessed friends tell me that there is such a thing as a mulligan: the chance to take a shot again because you didn’t like the first one. So I wonder: who do we ask for a mulligan for 2020? I don’t know about you, but I would really like a do-over of this year.

Here in Switzerland, over the last few months of our COVID lockdown, I’ve found myself constantly saying things to myself like, “I wasn’t trained for this,” “I have never ministered like this before,” “people have never had to handle stuff like this before,” “how will they cope?” and “how on earth can I respond to that?”   

As if COVID hasn’t been difficult enough for our churches to handle and navigate, the death of George Floyd exposed racism to still be a malignant and yet callously mundane force in many cultures worldwide. Social media exploded with reactions, from righteous indignation, to a great deal of malicious misinformation, to some not-so-righteous responses from people who feel under attack (or let’s face it, who are just unrepentant racists in denial). A couple of U.S. pastors told me privately that they were glad that their churches have been on lockdown and not meeting face to face – because the face to face interaction most likely to happen between some congregants was angry confrontation. Months of lockdown anxiety and politically potent issues have made some of our congregations powder kegs of pent-up frustration and barely concealed anger.

So how do we respond to all that we have gone through and all we are facing right now in our churches and cultures?

How should we respond to all the hurts, anxiety, and anger with which people are emerging from lockdown?  

What should be our response as disciples of Jesus? Because if we are not responding first and foremost as disciples, we are in trouble, and heading for more.

Now I know we can be too eisegetical when it comes to Jesus’ culture – reading our contemporary situation back into his. Nevertheless, it is not an exaggeration to say that the culture in which Jesus ministered was riven with sectarian divisiveness and filled with enormous amounts of real and pressing human need. It struck me recently while reading the Gospels that Jesus was often confronted by angry people and needy people. What Jesus faced in Judea 2,000 years ago must have felt somewhat like 2020 does to us in many ways. (Though I am sure Jesus is happy to be spared “Zoom fatigue” and the frustrations of low bandwidth.)

All of this fills my mind and prayers as lockdown in Switzerland eases and people begin to meet again, with appropriate masks and social distance.  Recently, a song and a text came together in Holy Spirit serendipity, giving my answer on how I should respond as a disciple, and how we as a church should respond as a community. As I hit play on a video incorporated in our online service, I heard the voice of the Spirit through the words of the song: “everyone needs compassion.”

Those who are struggling with the physical, emotional, and relational impact of COVID need compassion. The victims of racism need compassion – and justice. Even racists need our compassion, if we are serious about that enemy-loving stuff that Jesus seems to have been serious about. People with whom I differ on politics need compassion. I need compassion. The politicians who frustrate me and have a talent for pushing my buttons need compassion.

Just in case I hadn’t got the message, God followed up with a verse from the Gospel of Luke. I’ve been preaching a series called “Overflow,” about how God’s character overflows into our lives and then overflows from our lives into the lives of those around us. I chose the texts weeks before, and as I heard the song, that Sunday I was due to preach about overflowing with -compassion. “Show mercy and compassion for others, just as your heavenly Father overflows with mercy and compassion for all.” (Luke 6:36)

In that moment, I could see the message of Luke 6:36. I could see what it meant for myself, for the church I pastor, and may I tentatively suggest, for the whole Church of Jesus Christ at the moment. Faced with everything that is happening to us, in us and around us, we are to be people and communities of indiscriminate, overflowing compassion.

Two words from this verse jump out at me: “just as,” drawing a direct parallel between God’s treatment of me and my posture towards others. Jesus is telling us that God’s compassion needs to be experienced and expressed: experienced by us as his people and expressed to the people around us. Just as our heavenly Father overflows with indiscriminate compassion for all, we are to allow that compassion to overflow without restriction or discrimination to those around us.

 Is there anything that our world needs more right now than people and communities of overflowing, indiscriminate compassion?

I’m now praying for what I’m calling compassion collisions. I am praying that God will fill me, fill us as a church, until we are brimming full of his compassion, and that God would make us bump into people, spilling his compassion all over them through us.

Maybe you would join me in praying for compassion collisions?

What if we pray for Holy Spirit-orchestrated compassion collisions in our families, in our churches, in our workplaces, in our neighborhoods? What if God’s antidote for the anger and need swirling around us right now is his compassion administered through us?

 

Featured image courtesy Vonecia Carswell on Unsplash.

Clearing Out the Hidden Guilt in your Soul by James Petticrew

As a new cop (or probationer as we were called in Scotland), you are always given the worst jobs. Not long after I started my career as a police constable, my sergeant took me to a house where an old woman had been found dead. From the outside, the house looked impressive; it had once been a manager’s house for a huge Victorian mill that dominated the West Scotland town of Paisley. It had the air of Victorian respectability.  I was not prepared for what lay on the other side of the front door: there was rubbish on every part of every inch of every floor over every floor in the house. The smell from the rubbish was overwhelming. We eventually waded through the rubbish to the kitchen. There, in a corner in a tiny bed, lay a little old lady who died in her sleep surrounded by the accumulated rubbish of her life.

I had to carry out an investigation. The neighbours said they rarely saw the lady but when they did, she was always happy and well-presented. She kept the small garden at the front of the house neat and tidy. But it was clear from inside that it had been years since she had thrown anything out. She just kept accumulating more and more rubbish in her house. Incidentally, I had to capture about six cats that lived among the rubbish; it wasn’t quite the glamorous and exciting police work I had anticipated.

Recently, I came across a comment from Canadian pastor Bruxy Cavey. It reminded me of that elderly lady, her house, and the smell of rubbish:

“What are you carrying around from your past? What guilt or garbage haunts you? What habit from your past or habit in your present causes you shame when you think about it? For some of us suppression, repression and denial are the only ways in which we can cope with another day. When we ignore our own sin, we are like people who store garbage in their basement. Sure, “out of sight, out of mind” works for a while but over time the pile builds up. We can try and live as though it doesn’t exist, and eventually we might become used to the rotten smell. But sooner or later someone will notice what we don’t, and our garbage will become known.”

How many people who gather in worship week by week have lives that are the spiritual equivalent of the house of that little old lady from Paisley, full of garbage from their past? People who keep everything respectable on the outside but who, on the inside, have a stinking mess of guilt, shame, and regret over sin in their souls?

This isn’t a new phenomenon. John talks to the church of his generation about it in his first letter.

“If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us.If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.” (1 John 1:8-9)

John says it’s time to kiss the garbage in our lives goodbye: to be honest about its existence, to stop trying to hide the mess of guilt and shame from ourselves and others and do something about it. Back in Paisley, I had to arrange with the local council to bring cleaners to the elderly lady’s house, to literally disinfect and scrub it. John says when we acknowledge and admit our sin, instead of trying hide it away in our souls, Jesus does the same for us. Jesus “will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.”

The amazing thing I discovered about that lady back in Paisley who died in such squalor was that she had a very healthy bank account. She had had a good job, she never married, had no dependants, and didn’t spend very much, so her bank balance grew over the years. She had more than enough money to pay people to come in and do for her what perhaps she couldn’t do for herself: clean out her rubbish.

You probably realize where I am going with this. The promise here in God’s Word is that Jesus will do for us what we can’t do for ourselves: get rid of the garbage of sin from our lives. Jesus is in the cleansing, purifying business.

So why do we so often let the garbage of guilt and shame accumulate in our souls?

John says when we “come clean” about our sin to Jesus, he comes in to clean out our hearts and souls with the purifying disinfectant of forgiveness.

So, is there any garbage in your life that you have hidden from others – but that you can still smell? Jesus says it’s time to say goodbye to that garbage.

Squeezing Jesus Out of the Church by James Petticrew

I’m coming back to the heart of worship
And it’s all about you,
It’s all about you, Jesus
I’m sorry, Lord, for the thing I’ve made it
When it’s all about you,
It’s all about you, Jesus

Some of you may have groaned when you read those words. Many congregations have sung that song to death for over a decade – but perhaps we did it because its words deeply resonated with a fundamental fact of our Christian walk and life as the Church: that the centrality and rule of Christ is something about which we need constant reminding.

I am a year back into pastoring, a year back into preaching regularly to a congregation, a year back into church leadership, a year back into trying to express God’s love to people. And a year on as I reflect on each of those areas and many others, I’m finding myself recalling Matt Redman’s words not as an expression of worship but all too often as a confession. I have come away from meetings, walked down from the pulpit on several occasions, and finished conversations thinking to myself:

I’m sorry, Lord, for the thing I’ve made it
When it’s all about you,
It’s all about you, Jesus

One the main lessons I’m relearning after being out of formal church leadership for a while is simply that church life so easily becomes about so many other things than Jesus, and as that happens our agendas, priorities, and busyness slowly squeeze Christ from the Body of Christ. When Christ is squeezed from the Body of Christ church becomes “all about” other things: budgets, people and their problems and feelings, my self-esteem as a pastor, the quality of weekly worship music, song choice – just about everything except Jesus. I’m not naive enough to claim that some of these things aren’t important in church life; but I am coming to realize that when church life is all about those things, it ceases to be the Church and doesn’t have much life in it. When Christ is squeezed from the Body of Christ by our own priorities and agenda as a congregation or through our busyness as leaders or disciples, what is left is little more than a corpse masquerading as a church.

While thinking about the way in which Jesus so easily gets sidelined in the church, I read these words from Paul:

“The Son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For in him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things have been created through him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together. And he is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead, so that in everything he might have the supremacy.” (Colossians 1:15-18)

It strikes me that Paul was writing to a church also in danger of squeezing out Jesus, not by the busyness of church life or the disordered priorities of the pastor but likely by some sort of early Gnostic teaching that sought to diminish Jesus. (I’ll leave the exact nature of the Colossian heresy for budding New Testament scholars looking for PHD topics.) Both Paul’s “Christological song” above and Matt Redman’s 90’s worship song both convey the same message in different ways: it’s all about you, Jesus. Paul writes a theological tour de force in Colossians 1, reminding us of Jesus’ divinity, creative power, resurrection, and headship of the Church; then, Paul sums up the implications of all this truth about Jesus by saying, “so that in everything he might have the supremacy.” 

Perhaps it’s the tendency to diminish and demote Jesus from the place he should have that was behind Christ’s complaint against the church at Ephesus in Revelation: “I hold this against you, that you do not love as you did at first.” (Revelation 5:4) This tendency within the Church to make things other than Jesus supreme seems to be in pastor-theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s aim when he wrote, “Christianity without the living Christ is inevitably Christianity without discipleship, and Christianity without discipleship is always Christianity without Christ.”

In their book ReJesus, Michael Frost and Alan Hirschoffer a devastating critique of what Bonhoeffer called “Christianity without Christ,” the Body of Christ with Christ squeezed out:

We do not like gatherings [speaking of church services] of strangers who never meet or know each other outside of Sundays, who sit passively while virtual strangers preach and lead singing, who put up with second-rate pseudo-community under the guise of connection with each other, who live different lives from Monday to Saturday than they do on Sunday, whose sole expression of worship is pop-style praise and worship, who rarely laugh together, fight injustice together, eat together, pray together, raise each other’s children together, serve the poor together, or share Jesus with those who have not been set free.

But they don’t just offer criticism, they offer a journey to a remedy, claiming that the church needs to be “re-Jesused.” Simply put, “re-Jesusing” the Church is making church life and disciple life centered on Jesus again. To use Paul’s language, it means deliberately focusing on Jesus having center stage in our church life, not just giving lip service.  I think it means re-turning to Jesus again and again, making sure Jesus is the focus of our preaching, the model for our discipleship, the source of unity in our community, the inspiration for our worship, and the aim of our hearts. “Re-Jesusing” our Church life will surely mean choosing to live by his Spirit in every way, each day. It will mean being utterly committed to becoming like Christ in the desires of our hearts, in what we think and do.

I remember a significant afternoon during my year of Doctorate of Ministry studies at Asbury Theological Seminary. Dr Dennis Kinlaw came to speak to us, but he did more than speak. He shared his heart. He spoke about his then-new book, Let’s Start With Jesus. He made an impassioned plea that as pastors and disciples, in every facet of our life and ministry, we start with Jesus. As I embark on my second year at Westlake Church Nyon, that is my guiding principle. In whatever I do in the life of the church or my own discipleship, I am asking, “what does it mean to start with Jesus?” I want my life to be “re-Jesused,” I want our church to be “re-Jesused.”

What about you? In your life, in aspects of church life for which you bear responsibility, can you really say with Paul that, “Christ has the supremacy?” Has church life become about other things than Jesus?  Are you absorbed by budgets, people, your self-esteem as a pastor, the quality of weekly worship music, song choice – anything except Jesus? Has Jesus been squeezed out of the Body of Christ? Maybe we could allow “The Heart of Worship” to make a brief reappearance in our services, just to remind us that, “it’s all about you, Jesus.”

Sanctifying Ambition: Leadership and the Pitfalls of Platform by James Petticrew

Being a “fifty-something” (54-year-old, to be accurate) pastor means that I am at an unsettling place in my ministry. I am at that stage where the end is in sight; I probably have just over a decade of good ministry time ahead of me. I have discovered that knowing most of my ministry time is behind me makes me think of my legacy. In fact, it makes me wonder if I will leave any legacy at all. I speculate about when I retire: will anyone notice I am gone, or even care? Will my years in ministry have any lasting impact?

If I am open and honest, I have to admit that this way of thinking has led me to other ways of thinking that frankly I am embarrassed to admit to. I found myself wondering recently “how to raise my profile.” I have spent idle moments wondering what I could do to get more people to notice me, to appreciate what I do. I think marketers call it “building your platform.” I have daydreamed of being invited to speak at conferences that would lead to invitations to speak at more significant events. (I did warn you these admissions were embarrassing!) I have been seduced into thinking that the bigger the events I speak at, the more people who know who I am, the more effective I will be as a pastor and the greater legacy I will leave behind.

I don’t think I am the only church leader who has these thoughts. Both culture and our Christian subculture tempt us and cajole us along this way of thinking as church leaders. We subconsciously or sometimes very consciously compare those following us on social media with the followings that other church leaders have gathered. We find ourselves wondering, “how many times has my sermon quote been retweeted and by whom?” We check our blog stats to see if our latest post has attained the holy grail of social media and gone “viral.” Probably like every pastor, I think somewhere inside of me is a book, but I have been told that the first thing any prospective publisher will look at is not whether or not the content I could provide is good, but rather how big a platform I have. They would be interested in how many people are in my congregation, how many Twitter followers I have, how many hits my blog gets per month. Publishers want potential authors to have made a “name for themselves” before they take a risk on them.

All of that weighed on my mind recently when I read these two verses which are physically very close in the pages of Genesis yet are spiritually worlds apart in the attitudes they represent.

“Then they said, ‘Come, let us build ourselves a city, with a tower that reaches to the heavens, so that we may make a name for ourselves; otherwise we will be scattered over the face of the whole earth.'” – Genesis 11:4 (NIV)

“I will make you into a great nation, and I will bless you; I will make your name great,  and you will be a blessing.” – Genesis 12:2 (NIV)

More than just building a tower, the people of Babel wanted to build a reputation for themselves. They wanted others to recognize their intelligence and skill and to admire them. They wanted to create their own identity as the premier architects and builders of the Ancient Near East. They wanted to be the first people that the organizers of a “Purpose Driven Tower Builders” conference would think of when they wanted keynote speakers. You know how the story ends: in their pursuit of making a name for themselves they became a lesson in arrogance and failure. They certainly did make a name for themselves, but not the one they intended. I saw a reflection of myself in their desire to build a reputation for themselves. What about you?

Abraham, on the other hand, didn’t seem that interested in making a name for himself. He was happy to follow God, to obey God’s calling (with a few hiccups) and to entrust his reputation to God. God took care of Abraham’s reputation and made his name “great.” Abraham was happy to move from one of the “happening places” of the Ancient Near East to the relative obscurity of life in the backwater of Canaan. An unsettling thought crossed my mind: most of us pastors want to move in the opposite direction, from obscurity to a more important place, the church in the bigger town, the move to the congregation with the higher profile in our denomination.

In my more honest and introspective moments I have been contemplating why, when it comes to my reputation as a church leader, I have been more Genesis 11 than 12, more a humanistic Babel Builder than a God-trusting Abrahamic Sojourner.

I think I may have found the answer in some words from Lance Witt: “I’m not sure when, but somewhere along the way, the measuring stick for what it means to be an effective pastor got switched. My concern is that the measuring stick of size alone can fuel a kind of ambition that is destructive.”

Witt issued a warning for all of us who serve the church: “When you’ve been in ministry leadership awhile, you learn how to cloak ambition in kingdom language. You can wrap ambition in God talk and sanctify it.” We so easily fool even ourselves that what we are doing is to glorify God’s name, when in reality the goal is to get our name noticed.

That switch took place in my head and that ambition took root in my heart. I started to measure success primarily by size, the size of my social media following, the size of the congregation I preach to, the size of the events to which I am invited to be a speaker. I was a fully-fledged Babel Builder, and my goal was to make a name for myself. I allowed myself to believe that effectiveness, true greatness in ministry, was given through the approval of people rather than through the grace and approval of God. I subtly and then overtly came to value people’s approval of my ministry more than God’s approval of me as a disciple. I wanted to have a name that people recognized rather than to entrust my reputation to God.

I have this quote on ministry, though I don’t know who said it: “We should take care of the depth, God will take care of the breadth.”  Whoever said it, I am determined to try to live it out consistently. I am going to focus my energy and ambition in following Abraham’s example rather than building a following. I want to make journeying with my God in faith and obedience my priority and leave my reputation in his hands, not mine. Jesus once said, “I am not seeking glory for myself.” (John 8:50) I am now trying to filter everything I do in ministry through those words to honestly analyze my motivation.

So, how about you? Where are you when it comes to reputation, Genesis 11 or Genesis 12? Who are you trying to build a name with? Who do you really trust with your reputation? What’s your priority right now in your ministry, the depth of your relationship with God or the breadth of your influence with people? For me it’s been an awkward journey, but I have come to the place where I am content with obscurity if my name is great in God’s eyes because of my walk with him.

James Petticrew ~ Our Greatest Leadership Challenge of the New Year

In late 2017, I found myself in discussions with an English congregation in Switzerland about their pastoral vacancy; much to my surprise, those discussions were progressing well. After several years of serving parachurch organizations and acting as a consultant, there seemed to be a growing prospect that I would be heading back into local church leadership. It was a daunting prospect. The church near Geneva was full of highly educated people from around the world, including academics, diplomats, business executives, and senior officials in NGOs. There was no doubt in my mind that being their pastor was going to be the biggest challenge of my leadership abilities that perhaps I had ever faced.

Now as 2019 begins, I am the pastor of Westlake Church-Nyon, that English-speaking congregation just outside Geneva. Nyon is situated on the shores of Lake Geneva; it has the Jura Mountains as a backdrop and the majestic Alps dominating the horizon across the lake. It’s a stunningly beautiful place to minister but, as I predicted, I am finding the return to local church leadership a great challenge. However, the biggest challenge any of us face is often ourselves.

I have a book sitting on my desk as I write these words, the title of which now seems either ironic or prophetic. It is called When Leadership and Discipleship Collide and was written by Bill Hybels. In case you have been ministering on Mars for a year, leadership and discipleship did indeed collide in Bill Hybels’ life in a way which has destroyed his reputation, deeply damaged the lives of his victims, terminated the ministries of his successors and shaken to its foundations one of the flagship evangelical congregations in America.   I wish this high-profile pastoral fall from grace was an isolated incident.

Over the last year it feels like high-profile pastors, friends and colleagues in ministry have been falling from their ministries like dominos, one after another. It’s been dispiriting to hear of case after case from the Christian press or through the denominational jungle drums. Their fall has been exclusively the result of sexual misconduct: there’s no other way to put it.

As a pastor, my big question has been how to react beyond the initial moments of unbelief and disappointment when I say to myself, “Who?” “Really?” I haven’t had it in me to join the chorus of condemnation that these things stir up on social media and in hushed conversations at pastors’ get-togethers. Nothing I would say would make most of those involved feel any worse about themselves than they do already and the Holy Spirit does a pretty good job of leading people to repentance without my tuppence’ worth on Facebook. But as all of this has been happening just as I am reentering pastoral ministry in a local church, the whole issue is becoming more personal to me.

Reflecting on these current events, I happened to read Eugene Peterson’s translation of 1 Corinthians 10:11-12. It might have been Peterson’s choice of words, but I heard God’s voice through them:

11-12 These are all warning markers—danger!—in our history books, written down so that we don’t repeat their mistakes. Our positions in the story are parallel—they at the beginning, we at the end—and we are just as capable of messing it up as they were. Don’t be so naive and self-confident. You’re not exempt. You could fall flat on your face as easily as anyone else. Forget about self-confidence; it’s useless. Cultivate God-confidence.

“Don’t be so naive and self-confident. You’re not exempt. You could fall flat on your face as easily as anyone else.”

God, as he so often does, put his finger on my soul and pointed out that my reaction toward those who had fallen, to whom I had looked up in ministry and with whom I’d shared ministry, was naïve. I have often thought when hearing of another nose-dive from ministry, “not him?” but underlying that has been a naive attitude that has assumed that it won’t ever be me. The Lord confronted me with a harsh truth: the biggest threat to my ministry is me. I now see that, to use Peterson’s inspired choice of words, I’m “just as capable of messing it up …”

In his book Charis Preston Sprinkle has a great one-liner about King David and Bathsheba: “Within seconds, a man after God’s own heart turns into a man after the woman next door.”Listen, if it can happen to King David, a man after God’s own heart, if it can happen to ___________(insert name of your fallen ministry hero or mentor), if it can happen to ____________ (insert name of your ministry friend or colleague), then it can happen to James Petticrew and it can happen to ___________ (insert your name). I’m not exempt from sexual temptation. Neither are you, my pastor / church leader friend. No matter how close we are to God right now, how good our marriages are, how careful we are with the opposite sex, let’s not be naive enough to believe it can’t happen to us.  I bet David thought that; I bet ___________thought that.

When I was training to be a police officer, an instructor told us that, “you are never more in danger than when you think there is no danger.” I have realized that that is true for me as much as a pastor as it was for me as a police officer.

As the pastor of Westlake, I am indeed facing some tremendous leadership challenges: learning a new church culture, navigating a congregation where people come from different countries, continents and theological traditions, seeking a way forward for us with our unique gifting and setting. Yet by far the biggest leadership challenge I face is the self-leadership challenge: leading myself well.

A couple of years ago I had the privilege of preaching from the pulpit of one of the most influential Scottish pastors of the 19th Century, Robert Murray M’Cheyne. God used Murray M’Cheyne in extraordinary ways to bring spiritual revival to parts of Scotland. The current minister of the Church had a quote from Murray M’Cheyne on the wall of his vestry that now faces me on the wall of my study in Nyon: “The greatest need of my people is my personal holiness.” The people of Westlake Nyon have many needs for which ultimately I bear some responsibility: the need for a good preacher, for clear leadership, for help in discipleship. But their single greatest need is my greatest leadership challenge, my personal holiness.

Samuel Rima says in Leading From the Inside Out, “The way in which a leader conducts his personal life does, in fact, have a profound impact on his ability to exercise effective public leadership. There is a direct correlation between self-leadership and public leadership.” If we don’t lead ourselves well, we can’t lead others well and will probably end up leading no one at all. This issue of self-leadership, this need for personal holiness, is one I want to suggest needs to be at the top of your priority list as we enter this new year.

Over the years I have gained a bit of a reputation for my phobia of making any sort of marks on my books, but I read something once that made such an impact that I broke my usual practice and highlighted it so I could easily find it when I got home. The book was The Next Generation Leader by Andy Stanley. I highlighted a question that Stanley asked. “What small thing in my life right now has the potential to grow into a big thing?”

Thinking about that question, I wondered what would have happened if all those high-profile megachurch pastors and my ministry colleagues who had pastored in relative obscurity had asked themselves that question? If they had just taken the time to look for small problems before they became the big problem that brought them down? I wondered what might happen to me in the future if I don’t answer that question honestly now?  

Maybe I should put Andy Stanley’s question next to Murray M’Cheyne’s quote on my study wall where I can see it every day. Maybe you should too.

James Petticrew ~ Gaudete

Yesterday was the third Sunday of Advent, called Gaudete Sunday; “gaudete” is Latin for “rejoice.” Even a cursory reading of the Bible reveals that joy and rejoicing are an inevitable overflow in the  lives of people who have understood and experienced God at work in their lives. Paul reminds us that rejoicing has to be a continual and ongoing part of our individual and community life as Christians. “Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice!” (Philippians 4:4) I love how Eugene Peterson captures what Paul is saying here: “Celebrate God all day, every day. I mean, revel in him!”

In that verse, Paul reminds us that joy isn’t just for the third Sunday in Advent. Nevertheless, it’s helpful for us to think about joy purposefully, about what genuine joy is, about whether we are experiencing it and how we promote it in our world which is so often marked by such joylessness.

Some well-known Christians have said a few things about joy and Advent.

The current Pope said that on this “Sunday of joy,” instead of fretting about “all they still haven’t” done to prepare for Christmas, believers should “think of all the good things life and God have given you.” Now you don’t need to be Roman Catholic to see that is good advice.

Mid-twentieth century German pastor and theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer, in prison and knowing that in all likelihood he would be killed by the Nazis, wrote, “The celebration of Advent is possible only to those who are troubled in soul, who know themselves to be poor and imperfect, who look forward to something greater to come. For these, it is enough to wait in humble fear until the Holy One himself comes down to us, God in the child in the manger. God comes. The Lord Jesus comes. Christmas comes. Christians rejoice!” If Bonhoeffer, facing all he faced, could call on us to rejoice, we surely need to find reasons to obey his call.

Henri Nouwen described joy as, “the experience of knowing that you are unconditionally loved and that nothing – sickness, failure, emotional distress, oppression, war, or even death – can take that love away.”

That means that whatever is happening around us and in us, we can know joy despite those circumstances and challenges.