CloudofSteam

Carl Trueman interviews J.I. Packer on his conversion, the Puritans and Martyn Lloyd-Jones. He concludes with advice for young ministers of the Gospel: Dig deep and dwell deep.

Session 12
David Jones

I don’t have much time for all the books and conferences on church planting these days.

Our church planting came out of a congregational prayer meeting. People were playing individually and in small groups, but I believe in an Acts 2 prayer meeting [with all the people together]. About 40 young people were converted when they were just underm university age. We appointed a person to work at the uni and 70 people were coming along to he meetings. Om Sundays at St John’s, the building was full in the morning 300, with about 200 in the evening.

It was an new wine in old wineskins situation. This is one incident which illustrates the situation: st John’s is a historic church. There were locks on the pew doors which you had to unlock before you could go in and sit down. The young guys wanted to remove a barrier for their friends who were noted to an evangelistic event, somthey went around unlockng and opening the doors, but a elder came along after them and shut the doors again. If we were in independent church, there would have been a split. The elders didn’t agree and I didn’t agree with my associate pastor, but the Presbytery got involved and gave me permission to plant a church.

Eventually, we formed our own Presbytery. The Pressies have planted 4 churches and the Reformed have planted 4. Theyre all viable. That means they have financial viability, indigenous leaders and a church planting focus. I go to the new plant, then a young guy or a few young guys come along behind me. The average age of ministers in Hobart is really young. They’re all young (except Steve’s father who is also there at Rokeby).

We talk about church planting at Presbytery, and we also meet together to pray every Tuesday morning. But Presbyteries don’t plant churches, denominations don’t plant churches and committees don’t plant churches. Churches plant churches.

4 Reasons Not to Plant Churches
1. We have enough already.
The Titanic never had enough lifeboats, but even those that they had were not properly manned. Some churches aren’t safe to go in to.

The Anglican Archdiocese of Sydney aims to reach 10% of the people of Sydney. When you have 10%, you have a significant proportion of e population. (The gay lobby says they are 10% of the population, but they aren’t. They’re far less than that.) What would it look like for 10% of Hobart to be in Bible-believing churches? Taking into account the existing faithful churches, we need 100 new churches for the 200,000 people in the city. That’s why we call ourselves Vision100.

When you look outside the church, you see how many people need the Gospel. There are suburbs where there are no churches and segments of the community with no Gospel witness.

24 people have been raised up to minister from within this movement and most of them have been trained and returned to us for the work.

2. Strengthening existing churches
Should a young couple look after this elderly parents or have children of their own? Both.

The skills are different for revitalising an old church compared to building a new church. New work can provoke a Godly jealousy in the old church. Both works need prayer and the ministry of the word.

A plant needs people with entrepreneurial gifts. We had people who were prepared to take risks. In the end, you get supported by the people you are ministering to. They have to be evangelistic and read the culture.

I’ve tried the church revitalisation thing. I think it’s very difficult. You have to be able to cast vision and preach and be patient. You have to carry the people with you and manage change well. St John’s (Hobart) had a conservative evangelical witness. That’s what I’ve always worked in. What wasn’t there was we didn’t have a prayer meeting. We started one. It became the hub of the congregation. If you want to know what is going on at St John’s, go to the hub.

Don’t just fit prayer in; make it a priority. When there was a prayer meeting on, there was nothing else on. If the appointed time doesn’t suit, you should have to change your plans. Ironically, some of the people who were praying those kingdom-centred prayers had the most difficulty with the converts who were the answers to their prayers.

3. We’re not big enough to plant churches
It doesn’t matter how good our meetings are or how comfortable the pews are, 70% of people are never, ever going to come in.

In Hobart, we had no funds, but we had people. This bunch of 70, then 150 university students were supporting me. For the second plant at Cornerstone, some of those uni students went with us and the Reformed church at Kingston gave us some of their families to plant a Presbyterian church. That’s Gospel generosity. At Mount Stuart, we took 45 people out of Cornerstone. It was painful for the congregation, but they were replaced almost immediately and Cornerstone has grown faster than Mount Stuart.

You don’t need 45 people to plant a church. That’s the easiest way to do it. Really, that’s a transplant.

You need the right guy. You can try to parachute someone in. We tried that in Warrane and it was hard. We had to pull the plug. Now we’ve got a guy in the northern suburbs who has adopted a block. He knocks on the same doors every week. At first, doors were slammed in his face and he was called all sorts of things. Now, people are asking him when he is going to start his church.

How do you choose the 45 people? It’s been part of the culture from the start. I went through studies from The Gospel-Centred Church, which came before Total Church, to show what we were planning to do. After Mount Stuart started, some went back to Cornerstone and some joined us from there later.

4. Someone Else Will Do It.
If we think this, either no one else will do it or the wrong people will do it. You’ll find Mormons and Jehovah’s Witnesses in all sorts of out-of-the-way places.

4 Reasons to a build Churches
1. Heaven commands it.
The Great Commission is in all four Gospels and again in Acts. We don’t plant because we choose to or we would like to, but because we are commanded to. As William Carey told his opponents, you can’t have the promise of Matthew 28:20 without obeying the command of Matthew 28:19. As Dick Lucas says, “It’s ‘Go’, then ‘Lo’, not ‘Lo’, then ‘Go’.” We can’t wait until revival comes.

Every Monday morning our people are going; they just have to go with a Gospel intentionality. It is our job as pastor-teachers to teach them how to do this.

Conversion isn’t finished until they join a church. “The Lord added to their number those who were being saved” Acts 2:47. I tell people, “If you’re not being saved, you can’t join this church. If you are being saved, you need to be in a church.” If you’re discipling people, you’re beginning to gather a church.

2. Hell demands it.
People are very much alone in hell. Some say they’ll have a great time because all their friends will be there too, there won’t be any friendship in hell. C.S. Lewis brings it out in The Great Divorce, how it is an unsubstantial existence.

In Luke 16:19-30, the rich man is alone in torment and Lazarus is in Abraham’s bosom. The rich man wants his brothers to be saved from this. Yet, he is told that even if someone is raised from the dead, they would not believe it. They have Moses and the Prophets.

People are being swept into hell every day by the decisions they make. As Lewis says, the grumbler becomes a grumble.

“It begins with a grumbling mood, and yourself still distinct from it: perhaps criticising it.  And yourself, in a dark hour, may will that mood, embrace it.  Ye can repent and come out of it again.  But there may come a day when you can do that no longer.  Then there will be no you left to criticise the mood, nor even to enjoy it, but just the grumble itself going on forever like a machine…”

- C. S. Lewis, The Great Divorce, p74-75

The man who uses pornography starts separate from the filth, but in the end he becomes filth.

People are on their way to a lost eternity.

3. Love constrains us.
Paul says that Jesus’ love hems him in, pins him down, 2 Corinthians 5:14. We should no longer live for ourselves. On the Mount of Olives, Jesus cried out that he longed to gather Jerusalem as a hen gathers her chicks under his wing. Isn’t that what the love of God does? He went to the cross for us.

A.W. Tozer said, “I resolve that I will love everybody, even if it kills me.”

4. The World is Crying Out For It.
In Acts 16:6-10, Luke records what happened when Paul and his team decided to take the Gospel into Europe. A man from Macedonia cried out for help. He was from the land which was the product of the greatest civilisations, Greece and Rome. Luke says the group concluded that these people needed to hear the Gospel. The best help that can be given to any people, anywhere is the Gospel.

John Stott says that at the start of the day, the head of the Jewish household prayed, “I thank God that I am not a woman, a slave or a Gentile.” Look into Lydia’s house and what do you find? A woman, a slave and a Gentile. It was a house of refuge, and as John Wilson said yesterday, we should be houses of refuge too. That’s a BHAG (Big Hairy Audacious Goal)!

Peter Hastie: It’s not worldly success which is important. Faithfulness means taking initiative, but we must trust God. As David has spoken to us, he has set us an example in his life, speech and purity. You have held up for us the pastoral ideal and rightly divided the word of truth. David, you will always be welcome here.

We thank Ben Pfahlert for speaking to us about copying the private ministry of Jesus.

John Wilson spoke about the black-and-white realities as well as some helpful thoughts about proceeding forward by prayer.

Nello Barbieri talked about the nuts and bolts of one-on-one and small group ministry contexts and encouraging individuals in their pursuit of spiritual maturity.

David, we realise the great demands on you in all you work, especially in Hobart. We will pray for you, your wife and your family.

I sincerely thank the music team for enriching our time together in real ways.

We thank Alicia Nobel for making sure this all came together. Good administration makes fellowship sweet.

PTC Ministry Conference 2012
Session 11
David Jones

Zechariah 3:1-5
Jude 1-2, 20-25

In 1914, a British WWI corporal, Thomas Hughes, dropped a ginger beer bottlein the British Channel with a letter for his wife. He was killed two days later. The letter was dragged up in the River Thames in 1998 and given to his 90 year old daughter in New Zealand the next year.

We have received a letter from the step brother of Jesus, kept for us for 2,000 years. The letter isn’t address to anyone in particular. He doesn’t locate them for us geographically, but he does spiritually. They are those who are beloved in God and kept in Christ. And that’s all Christians, isn’t it?

The Final Countdown

4 Things to do for Yourself
1. Keep on building yourselves up in the faith, v20. We’re not looking for people who work on their own. We’re not looking for people who work with others. We’re looking for people who work as a team. We must be built up in the faith that has been entrusted to us.

The worst advice I was given as a theological student was, “Keep a professional distance from your people.” Who pastors the pastor? Does he pastor himself? Who really does that? The administers fellowship? They’re pi parties. The Presbytery? I don’t know any that do that. The congregation must pastor the pastor.

If I ever write a book, it’ll be called The Penny’s Dropped, Eventually and be on Ephesians 3:18. You can’t take in the full dimensions of how much Christ has loved us on your own.

2. Pray in the Holy Spirit, v20.
Calvin says, “Prayer is the chief exercise of faith.” If your prayer life is flagging, build yourself up in your faith. Maybe it’s because you’ve stopped listening. Faith comes by hearing, and hearing the word of God.

He’s not talking about two tiers of Christians. Everyone who has embraced Christ has the Holy Spirit. Spurgeon: “I looked at Christ and the dove flew into my heart.  Looked at the dove and it flew away.” The Spirit helps us in our weakness.

Luther wrote to Melancthon in 1521, “Your estimation of my spiritual vitality shames and tortures me. I sit here like a fool and hardened in leisure, pray little, do not sigh for the church of God, yet burn in a big fire of my untamed body. In short I should be ardent in spirit, but I am ardent in the flesh, in lust, in laziness, leisure, and sleepiness. … Already eight days have passed in which I have written nothing, in which I have not prayed or studied.”

My people are sick of me saying, “We don’t pray for the work. Prayer is the work.”

When the disciples who rejoiced at their return from ministry, Jesus praised God, full of the joy of the Holy Spirit, Luke 10: 1-24, especially v:21f.

The Spirit is the spirit of adoption, Romans 8. We have the Son of God in heaven interceding for us, who knows our weakness. We give in first round, but he stood. We have the Holy Spirit in our hearts interceding for us. “And he who searches hearts knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.”

Spurgeon said, “I’m so glad my prayers go to heaven in the revised version.” That’s your defence.

As the old hymn-writer wrote, Satan trembles when he finds the weakest saint on his knees. The more he huffs and puffs to bring our house down, the stronger we get.

Bunyan said, “You can do more than pray after you have prayed, but you cannot do more than pray until you have prayed.”

3. Keep yourselves in God’s love, v21
In school, I came down with pleurisy. When I went back to school, the doctor told me to walk on the sunny side of the street. God loves you, not because you’re lovable, but because 

You can only know God’s love together with the saints, Ephesians 3:18.

Keller loves quoting C.S. Lewis, so here is quoting Lewis:

“In each of my friends there is something that only some other friend can fully bring out. By myself I am not large enough to call the whole man into activity; I want other lights than my own to show all his facets. Now that Charles [Williams] is dead, I shall never again see Ronald’s [Tolkien's] reaction to a specifically Charles joke. Far from having more of Ronald, having him “to myself” now that Charles is away, I have less of Ronald…In this, Friendship exhibits a glorious “nearness by resemblance” to heaven itself where the very multitude of the blessed (which no man can number) increases the fruition which each of us has of God. For every soul, seeing Him in her own way, doubtless communicates that unique vision to all the rest. That, says an old author, is why the Seraphim in Issiah’s vision are crying “Holy, Holy, Holy” to one another (Isaiah 6:3). The more we thus share the Heavenly Bread between us, the more we shall have.”

Lewis is saying that it took a community to know an individual. How much more would this be true of Jesus Christ? Christians commonly say they want a relationship with Jesus, that they want to “get to know Jesus better.” You will never be able to do that by yourself. You must be deeply involved in the church, in Christian community, with strong relationships of love and accountability. Only if you are part of a community of believers seeking to resemble, serve, and love Jesus will you ever get to know him and grow into his likeness.”

- Tim Keller in “The Prodigal God.”

You must be deeply involved in the church, in Christian community.

4. Wait for mercy, v21
When the Puritan Thomas Hooker was dying, a friend tried to console him by saying, “Brother, you go to receive your reward.” Hooker said, “No! I go to receive mercy!” Those who know mercy show it to others.

3 Things to do for Others
1. Discernment, v22
Be merciful to those who doubt. We need to know the difference between real doubts and excuses. We need to know when to comfort the afflicted or afflicting the comfortable.

In his book Precious Remedies Against Satan’s Devices, Thomas Brooks writes about 8 kinds of spiritual depression, 8 deceptions Satan uses to keep us from our duty, 8 kinds of doubt and 12 kinds of temptation. Why? He knew his people. He knew his people because he knew his own heart.

Jesus knew what was in a man. We can know what is in our people, because it is in us. We need to discern what is in our people’s lives. It comes from listening too, not jumping to conclusions.

2. Urgency, v23
Snatch others from the fire.

Christopher Ash tells a story in the Priority of Preaching about 3 apprentice devils. Satan has his own MTS program going.

“The story is told of three apprentice devils being trained by Satan. ‘What are you going to try today?’ asks the leader. 

The first apprentice replies, ‘I’m going to tell them there is no God.’ 

‘Well,’ says Satan, ‘you can try. A few fools will believe you. But the universe shouts the existence of God. There is evidence all around and you’ll not do very well. Indeed, even in the secular twenty-first century you may find your self witnessing the slow death of atheism. Any other ideas?’ 

The second apprentice tries this: ‘I’m going to tell them there’s no judgment.’ 

‘That’s a better idea,’ says Satan. ‘You will persuade more people of that, especially some of the clergy. But human beings have a gut sense of accountability, that actions have consequences. They know what it is to feel guilty even when there therapists tell them not to. So I think you’ll find it an uphill struggle. Anyone else have an idea?’ 

The third apprentice pipes up, ‘I’m going to tell them there’s no hurry.’ 

‘Brilliant,’ says Satan. ‘That is just what you want to say. You will have great success. Let them listen to the word of God and whisper in their ears, “This is good stuff. One day you ought to do something about this. But tomorrow will do.”’

- Christopher Ash, The Priority of Preaching, p 65

We need to snatch people as brands from the burning. Preach as dying men to dying men. Paul said to Timothy (literally), “Do all your work as an evangelist.” 2 Timothy 4:5.

3. Caution, v23
We need tender hearts, as Wesley wrote in the hymn Weary of wandering from my God:

Ah! give me, Lord, the tender heart
That trembles at the approach of sin;
A godly fear of sin impart,
Implant, and root it deep within,
That I may dread Thy gracious power,
And never dare to offend Thee more.

We need a Godly fear of sin, like Joseph in Potiphar’s house. As David found, everything he did was in the sight of God, Psalm 53.

Kent Hughes asks in Liberating Ministry from the Success Syndrome:
Is your life growing in holiness, or are you being captive to culture? 
There is a cloud of sensuality which envelopes everyone.

We need purity. Robert Murray McCheyne wrote: It’s not great giftedness that God uses, it is great conformity to Christ.

2 Things God Does For Us

1. He Keeps You From Falling, v24
Because of the control of the rider, the horse goes down the hill calmly. He can keep you sure-footed when you go over hard territory.

2. Present You Faultless, v24
In the end, he will present you faultless with exultant joy. George Fox, the Quaker’s last words were “I’m clear.”

When I am joined to Christ, all that I have is his. All that I have is sin and he takes it. All his spotless righteousness he wraps me in to cover my filth.

1. The Only God our Saviour, v25
J.S. Bach signed most of his manuscripts J.J., which means Jesus help me. At end, he wrote S.D.G.: Soli Deo Gloria.

Jesus help me. To God alone be the glory.