Napier Baptist

This is an old post that I thought I'd repost in light of our renewed discussion on worship. It's from when I ran a weekend retreat on worship at our church:

We have 6 people who are going through the waters of baptism at Napier Baptist this Sunday. I'd like to pretend that this happens all the time - "oh, just another 6 this weekend is it!" But it doesn't happen all the time in my experience of ministry so far. So, I'm very excited. We've stopped all normal operations to come together as a church and celebrate these people being baptised this Sunday. I'm in the throws of considering an appropriate message for this baptismal Sunday and read this in Gathering for Worship: Patterns and Prayers for the Community of Disciples: “Baptism is an action instituted by Jesus Christ in which God, the believer and the Christian community are all involved. In baptism new believers confess faith and share what God has already done in their lives. Here, there is also a ‘letting go’ in which new Christians abandon themselves to the grace of God and the resurrection power of the one who overcomes the chaos of death and sets our feet on the new path of life. The waters of baptism are a meeting-place where human trust and the life giving acts of God come together.
In baptism the Church celebrates the gospel of salvation through the cross and resurrection of Jesus Christ and the life-giving, new-world-creating power of the Holy Spirit. The local church is again invited to follow Jesus Christ, and is reminded that life in the Spirit, from which all true fellowship and mission flows, is an immersion into the life of the triune God and a patterning after the likeness of Christ.
In baptism, God meets us and calls us to obedience and self-offering, as the forgiveness and grace of God are given tangible form. Here, the believer is incorporated into the Church, the body of Christ. Here, God commissions us for service and witness, and promises us the presence of the Holy Spirit – a promise made explicit by the laying on of hands.”

I thought it was quite a good outline of baptism for Baptists.

It's great to have added a few new Napier Baptist contributors. Welcome all. I see Kina's first post has opened up a can of worms in terms of: "can we really sing some of the songs we do with honesty?" What a huge question - thanks Kina! Paul Windsor has posted something about this recently on his blog. Go and check it out here - read the comments too, they're very good (especially the one by Matt).

Edit: Here's the thing we saw at easter camp that I mentioned in the comments below. Hopefully that one works

Paris Hilton has told Barbara Walters from ABC news, in a phone call from prison, that "God has given me this new chance... God has released me."

Let's hope so!

On the one hand I'm thrilled, on the other I'm suspicious. But, I need to be gracious enough to give her the benefit of the doubt that we all deserve.

To celebrate the 100th blog post I've gone about expanding the blog. I've invited 2 more people from Napier Baptist to become contributors. I am waiting for them to sign up and get cracking. Tap Tap Tap (sound of fingers impatiently tapping on desk) - less than subtle hint to those 2! You know who you are...

God's timing is impeccable! Having just finished the below post on John Stott's distinctions between fundamentalism and evangelicalism I received an e-mail about a John Stott's Langham Partnerships extending into NZ. This is very exciting news! My good friend and mentor Paul Windsor has been at the heart of establishing this in NZ. I'm not surprised knowing how much Paul loves and admires John Stott. Here is the guts of the e-mail I received:

LAUNCH OF LANGHAM PARTNERSHIP NEW ZEALAND
Langham Partnership International [LPI], which was founded by Rev Dr John Stott, formerly Rector, All Souls, Langham Place, London, and is currently led by OT scholar and preacher, Dr Chris Wright, is pleased to announce the launch of Langham Partnership New Zealand [LPNZ].
LPNZ will become an affiliate in the worldwide LPI family, which comprises similar ministries in Australia, Canada, East Asia [Hong Kong], UK & Ireland, and the United States [where it is known as John Stott Ministries (JSM)].
LPI’s vision is to see Majority World churches being equipped for mission and growing to maturity through the ministry of Christian leaders and pastors who sincerely believe, diligently study, faithfully expound and relevantly apply the Word of God.

LPI provides scholarships for theological Ph.D. studies to evangelical teachers who will have strategic influence in their home countries. LPI also distributes evangelical books for pastors, theological students and seminary libraries, and facilitates writing, translating and publishing of materials in local and regional languages. Lastly LPI is building movements for biblical preaching in the Majority World.

The launch of LPNZ is a fitting symbol of the passing of the torch, as it comes just after the retirement from public ministry of John Stott after more than sixty years of a local and worldwide preaching, teaching, and writing ministry. In 2005 John Stott was named by TIME magazine as one of the world’s 100 most influential people. John Stott is reported to be delighted at the development of LPNZ.
Chris Wright, Langham Partnership’s International Director says, “I am delighted that, with the formation of LPNZ, not only are John Stott's friends and admirers in New Zealand being given the opportunity to contribute to the fulfilment of his lifetime's vision for the world church, but more importantly, the churches in the majority world will benefit through the continuing growth of these strategic Langham programmes.”

Langham Partnership New Zealand will work along side of, and in active cooperation with Leadership Development International [formerly Overseas Council NZ]. Tony Plews, Executive Director of LeaDev Int’l, will also fill the same role with LPNZ.

This is the culmination of over two years of positive discussions between Chris Wright and LPI and LeaDev. Rev Paul Windsor, Principal, Carey Baptist College [who is now a Board member of both LeaDev Int’l and LPNZ], had met both John Stott and Chris Wright in Australia, and mooted the idea of active cooperation between the two ministries, because their missions are so closely aligned, their theological convictions almost identical, and their values and methods compatible.

Paul Windsor, Principal, Carey Baptist College, Auckland, comments that, “This strategic development brings a NZ-face to the ministry that stewards the legacy of John Stott. In itself that is so exciting. But it also brings together the two ministries that do so much to strengthen leadership development in the Majority World through biblical preaching and theological education. With this opportunity to be involved we Kiwis are brought so much closer to what God is doing in the world where the growth of the church is so great but the resources for the church are so small.”

LPNZ’s first project will be to raise up to NZ$100,000 to purchase two major theological library collections [more than 10,000 volumes], which are available here in New Zealand, for distribution among several theological colleges in Asia.

At the same time LPNZ is very keen to support a new ‘Langham Scholar’ – that is an Asian leader who is accepted into the PhD programme at SAIACS, Bangalore, India, and possibly another who might come to New Zealand for PhD studies through Tyndale-Carey Graduate School, before returning home to teach in their own country.

VERY EXCITING NEWS!! John Stott is one of my heros in Christian faith, an amazing man of God.

A commentor has reminded me of how important I think it is to understand the distinction between fundamentalism and evangelicalism. John Stott has helpfully given 10 helpful distinctions between fundamentalism and evangelicalism in his book Evangelical Truth. I am unashamedly evangelical and I am unashamedly against fundamentalism. His 10 points are below:

"… the evangelical faith is not a synonym for fundamentalism, for the two have a different history and a different connotation. ‘Fundamentalism’, which today is frequently used as a theological smear word, had very respectable origins.
Fundamentalism and evangelicalism
Originally, then, ‘fundamentalist’ was an acceptable synonym for ‘evangelical’. Take as an example Dr Carl Henry’s influential little book The Uneasy Conscience of Modern Fundamentalism, .. In it, while complaining that ‘evangelical Christianity has become increasingly inarticulate about the social reference of the Gospel’, he drew no distinction between fundamentalism and evangelicalism. Gradually, however, fundamentalism became associated in people’s minds with certain extremes and extravagances, so that by the 1950s evangelical North American leaders like Carl Henry himself, Billy Graham and Harold Ockenga were promoting what they called ‘the new evangelicalism’ in order to distinguish it from the old fundamentalism which they had rejected.
Because of this, evangelical Christians are understandably dismayed by such books as Fundamentalism by Professor James Barr and Rescuing the Bible from Fundamentalism by Bishop Jack Spong, which, whether from ignorance, misunderstanding or malice, perpetuate the old identification. They write as if the only choice before the church is between an enlightened liberalism and an obscurantist fundamentalism.
But let it be said here and now, with clarity and conviction, that the great majority of evangelical Christians (at least in Europe) repudiate the ‘fundamentalist’ label, because they disagree with many self-styled fundamentalists at a number of important points.
The difficulty in establishing what these points are is due to the fact that fundamentalism has never clearly defined itself over against evangelicalism or published a broadly acceptable doctrinal basis. In seeking now to do the opposite, namely to distinguish evangelicalism from fundamentalism, I shall no doubt be guilty of generalizing and caricaturing. But I ask my readers to bear in mind that what I am attempting to portray below is not identifiable individuals or groups, but certain contrasting tendencies. I fully recognize that my portrait of fundamentalism may fit an old-style American version, but not some of our contemporaries who retain the label while rejecting some of the substance. Similarly, my portrait of evangelicalism is idealized, for alas! some contemporary evangelicals claim the name but do not live up to the ideal.
There seem to me to be at least ten tendencies to consider.
1. In relation to human thought, fundamentalists of the old school give the impression that they distrust scholarship, including the scientific disciplines; some tend towards a thoroughgoing anti-intellectualism, even obscurantism. Authentic evangelicals, however, acknowledge that all truth is God’s truth, that our minds are God-given, being a vital aspect of the divine image we bear, that we insult God if we refuse to think, and that we honour him when, whether through science or Scripture, we ‘think God’s thoughts after him’ ( Johann Kepler).
2. In relation to the nature of the Bible, fundamentalists are said by the dictionaries to believe that ‘every word of the Bible is literally true’. This is surely a slander, since the adverb ‘literally’ is used here too sweepingly. Yet it cannot be denied that some fundamentalists are characterized by an excessive literalism. Evangelicals, however, while believing that whatever the Bible affirms is true, add that some of what it affirms is figuratively or poetically (rather than literally) true, and is meant to be interpreted thus. Indeed, not even the most extreme fundamentalist believes that God has feathers (Ps. 91:4)!
3. In relation to biblical inspiration, fundamentalists have tended to regard it as having been a somewhat mechanical process, in which the human authors were passive and played no active role. Thus the fundamentalist view of the Bible, as having been dictated by God, resembles the Muslim view of the Qur’an as having been dictated by Allah in Arabic through the angel Gabriel, while Muhammad’s only contribution was to take down the dictation. In this way, the Qur’an is believed to be an exact reproduction of a heavenly original. Evangelicals emphasize, however, the double authorship of Scripture, namely that the divine author spoke through the human authors while they were in full possession of their faculties.
4. In relation to biblical interpretation, fundamentalists seem to suppose that they can apply the text directly to themselves as if it had been written primarily for them. They then ignore the cultural chasm which yawns between the biblical world and the contemporary world. At least in the ideal, however, evangelicals struggle with the task of cultural transposition, in which they seek to identify the essential message of the text, detach it from its original cultural context, and then recontextualize it, that is, apply it to our situation today.
5. In relation to the ecumenical movement, fundamentalists tend to go beyond suspicion (for which indeed there is ample justification) to a blanket, uncritical, even vociferous rejection. The most strident expression of this attitude was seen in the American Council of Christian Churches, which was founded by Carl McIntyre in 1941. Many evangelicals, however, although critical of the liberal agenda and frequently unprincipled methodology of the World Council of Churches, have tried to be discerning, affirming in ecumenism what seems to them to have biblical support, while claiming the freedom to reject what has not.
6. In relation to the church, fundamentalists have tended to hold a separatist ecclesiology, and to withdraw from any community which does not agree in every particular with their own doctrinal position. They forget that Luther and Calvin were very reluctant schismatics, who dreamed of a reformed catholicism. Most evangelicals, however, while believing it right to seek the doctrinal and ethical purity of the church, also believe that perfect purity cannot be attained in this world. The balance between discipline and tolerance is not easy to find.
7. In relation to the world, fundamentalists have tended some-times to assimilate its values and standards uncritically (e.g. in the prosperity gospel) and at other times to stand aloof from it, fearing contamination. By no means all evangelicals escape the charge of worldliness. Nevertheless, at least in theory, they seek to heed the biblical injunction not to conform to this world, and are also anxious to respond to the call of Jesus to penetrate it like salt and light, in order to hinder its decay and illuminate its darkness.
8. In relation to race, fundamentalists have shown a tendency – especially in the United States and in South Africa – to cling to the myth of white supremacy and to defend racial segregation, even in the church. Racism without doubt lingers among evangelicals too. Yet there is a widespread desire to repent of it. Most evangelicals, it can be claimed, proclaim and practise racial equality, originally by creation and supremely in Christ, who broke down the walls of racial, social and sexual separation in order to create a single, united humanity.
9. In relation to the Christian mission, fundamentalists have tended to insist that ‘mission’ and ‘evangelism’ are synonyms, and that the vocation of the church is simply to proclaim the gospel. Evangelicals, however, while continuing to affirm the priority of evangelism, have felt unable to sunder it from social responsibility. As in the ministry of Jesus, so today, words and deeds, proclamation and demonstration, good news and good works supplement and reinforce one another. Their separation, wrote Carl Henry, is ‘Protestantism’s embarrassing divorce’.
10. In relation to the Christian hope, fundamentalists tend to dogmatize about the future, although to be sure they hold no monopoly on dogmatism. But they often go into considerable detail about the fulfilment of prophecy, divide history into rigid dispensations, and also espouse a Christian Zionism which ignores the grave injustices done to the Palestinians. Evangelicals, however, while affirming with eager expectation the personal, visible, glorious and triumphant return of our Lord Jesus Christ, prefer to remain agnostic about the details on which even firmly biblical Christians have differing viewpoints."

As an evangelical I find this very helpful.

The Wittenburg Door is a Christian satire magazine published by youth workers. I love it! It's hilarious and very provokative. Below is an article from their latest issue. The article's called "Jesus was a Homeless Bum". It's available on line at their web site.

By Wendy Noble
May/June 2007
Hi Sis.
Something awful happened in Bible Study yesterday. We were looking at a passage from Luke [9:57-62]. People said they wanted to follow Jesus but they all had reasons why they couldn't do it right then. I think Ali Robinson, our Study Leader, was hoping to inspire us to deeper levels of commitment. I was sitting next to her and I saw where she'd written that across the top of her page. It was underlined three times. As per usual, we went round the group sharing our first response to the passage, and that's when all heck broke out. I said I'd never realized before that Jesus was a homeless bum. Well, it says it right there in the scripture, Sis! "Foxes have holes... but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head." Thelma shouted, "Ali, where do y'all keep the soap? I want to wash her mouth out!" Jeannie Baker put her fingers in her ears and kept moaning, "Blasphemy! Blasphemy!" I tell you, the place erupted. With everyone talking at once, it was hard to hear what was said, but I heard some "in all my born days" and a couple of "never heard such a thing." What hurt was the "she." You know you're in big trouble when they stop using your name and take up with the acid pronoun! When this had gone on for quite a while and Ali still hadn't wrenched back control, I went home. I didn't think anyone had noticed me leave. Ruth Davis, Earl's wife, telephoned this morning. She said she was thinking about me and wanted to say she didn't think I was a heretic. I was so grateful I cried some more. I told her that I was sorry I didn't have the chance to explain, because then I'm sure no one would have said it was blasphemy. You see, Sis, I'd never really thought about that before. It hadn't occurred to me that there was a time when Jesus didn't have anywhere to sleep. I'd never imagined Him sleeping outside, shivering in a park somewhere, living under a bridge. You know? No wonder He really loved Mary, Martha and Lazarus. They welcomed him into their home. When He talked about giving someone a cup of cold water in His name, He knew what it was like to be thirsty and not be able to get a drink from His kitchen. I tell you, Sis, it got me thinking. There were all those people making excuses why they couldn't follow Jesus and He'd already given up everything for them. He gave up His home in heaven and then He gave up His home on earth and they were making excuses. I can't imagine what it would be like not to have a home. What's more, I told Ruth that I had a new appreciation of what Earl did for those homeless men in the park on Friday night. I'm thinking of offering to go with him, next week, if Jim says it's OK. [When I told him all about it last night, he laughed and said the idea of me being a heretic was a hoot. Helpful as always!] You know, I've always been afraid of those men. Now, when I picture them in my mind, I can see Jesus standing there with them, holding His hands over the fire. It changes everything. Ruth said she understood what I was saying. She also said I shouldn't worry about going back to the Study next week as the ladies will have settled down by then. But she thinks I should apologize for using the word "bum" in relation to the Lord even though, technically, it's correct. She says I won't be kicked out of Grace Community. But, I haven't had a visit from the pastor, yet, so would you pray for me just in case?
Love to the kids.
Nelda

Napier Baptist Church

Part time Youth Pastor

Napier Baptist is looking for someone who is called by God to Love, Feed and Lead Napier Baptist Youth in the ways of Jesus Christ. You will be passionate about the Gospel and passionate about Youth. This is a Part Time Ministry of 3 days a week with a view to grow.

Expressions of interest and for more details, contact us:

Youth Search Committee, Napier Baptist Church, 36 Riverbend Rd, Napier, New Zealand.

E-mail: napier.baptist@xtra.co.nz

I see there's a lot of talk at the moment about prayer in parliament and should or shouldn't we recognise the NZ is a Christian nation. Speaking as a Baptist and someone who studied a lot of church history, I would say whenever the church tries to bring about the Kingdom through the State it is a disaster. Sure, wouldn't it be great if NZ was a Christian nation but I think how we do that is very important. The Kingdom is like a mustard seed that grows into a massive tree. My concern with a lot of talk is that it seems to want to legislate Christianity so that it can be a mustrad tree. NZ is not a Christian nation and whilst Christanity has been influential in NZ, it is historically very debatable as to whether we have ever been a Christian nation. But why should that worry us? Any time the church has relied on the state to become a mustard tree it has been a disaster! Think of the Crusades! Baptists only need to know a little of their own heritage to know how many non conformist Christians were murdered because we didn't follow the State sponsored Christianity. I am totally opposed to using the State to legislate Christianity or turn the church into something great. It is only (and I mean only) by the power of Jesus Christ that the mustard seed grows into a mustard tree. Any other way than the way of Jesus Christ is a disaster!

I thought this was quite good. I'm sure Margaret can relate to it!

My friend Melissa is a Pastor at Cession Community in Auckland. They ran a Stations of the Cross installation over the Easter period and Melissa (who is amazingly creative) was part of organising it. She's now put an online gallery on her blog of photos from their Stations of the Cross. It's pretty awesome! Go and check it out here