big church

The last couple of nights I've been away. Hence the absence of any posts here.

I was away at an annual conference, attended (despite the weather) by most of the 240 folk who had registered in advance. That shows, I guess, the weight of importance attached to the time by those who made it there.

It's a full and concentrated 46 hours which we spend with one another.

5 full sessions of rich and enriching instruction (4 of them by Ted Donnelly, pictured): 2 evenings filled with the chance to catch a flavour of all that the Lord is doing up and down the land and throughout the world and then to join together in prayer and bring all these matters before the Lord: and odd little pockets of 'free time' in between. Snatches at best.

I thought I'd have had the chance to catch up on some much needed sleep. But it didn't work out like that. One of the constant benefits of these days apart is the chance to talk. And that went on, for myself, in virtually every waking moment and on both of the evenings it went on well on into the night.

It crossed my mind that this is really what big church actually is. Brothers and sisters, from all different parts of the land - and far beyond as well (there was a young Scottish woman who's now serving the Lord in Australia, for instance) - dwelling together in unity.

All sorts of different backgrounds. All sorts of different settings. All sorts of different perspectives and insights and views on things. All sorts of different denominational traits.

But a common mind. A common heart. A common purpose. A common delight in the Lord Jesus Christ. A common recourse to the Bible. A common commitment to see his kingdom come. A common resolve to be teaching his Word and expounding the truths of Scripture. A common awareness that prayer is our primary work.

Anyone who knows me at all knows that I'm earthed day by day in the life of wee church here. For good reasons. The local church is the hope of the world.

It's Bill Hybels, I think, who speaks in those terms. And he's right. I'm persuaded of that.

And as a result I've not had all that much time (in any sense) for big church. Partly because the big church dimension within the denomination is often a very real struggle.

I sit in these big church meetings (in the denominational sense), and I often think - I think I must live on a totally different planet from you guys!

And as a result there's all the more encouragement to slip back into an exclusively wee church mode. Immersing myself in the life of the local church.

But these last few days have been big church stuff. Big church as it's surely meant to be. Big church as perhaps it will be more and more in days to come.

And I know that that's important. Crucial. (In its literal sense: it's the stuff of the cross).

I've failed my brothers and sisters in days gone by my absenting myself from such times and such gatherings as these. I've repented of that. Confessed that sin. And taken steps to remedy it as well.

I believe that this is where the big church future lies, and what, in days to come, big church will be like.

I believe there needs to be a thorough re-configuration of God's church. I believe there will be such a major re-configuration of God's church.

It's something only he can do.

But I believe that sooner than later he'll do it.

What do I mean by that re-configuration?

I mean something like the Lord's simply taking up all the different bits of his church, which has got itself so set in a denominational grid, sort of throwing it all up into the air, and seeing it re-configured in a very different way.

Throw the different letters of the word episcopal into the air and they can land as pepsi-cola. Same letters. Different configuration.

I believe something like that's got to happen in our land, so that big church is reconfigured and emerges looking much more like the sort of thing the past two days have been.

Scripture suggests that the Lord's pretty good at accomplishing things like that. Getting his people configured the way he wants them.

The early church didn't sit down and hold some high level meetings and figure out a careful 'exit strategy' in relation to the Judaism within which they worked. God did it for them.

They were scattered. Persecution scattered them.

Major storms - in their case persecution - did the reconfiguration.

Jonah only got to heathen Nineveh because ... well, because the Lord, we're told, 'threw a storm' at him.

That is one of those things about which we have to say - please, please don't try this at home! Don't start throwing storms. Only the Lord can be trusted to get it right when it comes to throwing storms.

Sometimes he has to.

Jonah would never have got there himself.

And neither will we probably.

I believe there may well be some storms that the Lord will be throwing at us in these coming days. Financial storms (in the shape of impending bankruptcy), political storms (in the form of secular legislation outlawing basic Christian convictions), and spiritual storms (in the rise of a vibrant and increasingly aggressive Islam).

These three (and more perhaps) may well combine to form the 'perfect storm' through which there'll be that thorough reconfiguration of God's church throughout our lands.

Wee church is where the hope of the world always lies. But big church, too, is vital. Big church in the sort of form I've known it these past days.

The Lord alone can bring that all to pass.

I'm not exactly looking forward to it. It's not going to be a comfortable ride. Ask Jonah.

But if it gets us where he means us all to be, then bring it on!