GodFirst Blog

Receiving Apostolic Men into Your Church

by PJ Smyth

I thought I would share some New Testament principles on how to receive apostolic ministry into a church.

1. Welcome them warmly. Acts 15:4 says, “When Paul and Barnabas came to Jerusalem, they were welcomed by the church…” Acts 21:17 says, “When we arrived at Jerusalem the brothers received us warmly”. And, Acts 28:15 says, “The brothers there had heard that we were coming, and they travelled as far as 3 Taverns to meet us. At the sight of these men Paul thanked God and was encouraged.”  Brotherly warmth, honour and gratitude for incoming apostolic guys is good and proper, and encourages and strengthens them.
2. Be expectant for a great download. Mt 10:41 says, “Anyone who receives a prophet as a prophet will receive a prophet’s reward”. I guess the same goes for apostles! The principle is if we receive them as God-given apostolic ministry, then that is the deposit we will get. They will reproduce after their kind amongst you, so expect impartation from them. Acts 10:33 says, “Now we are all here in the presence of God to listen to everything the Lord has commanded you to tell us”. Expect to hear from God! And, in Acts 13:1 we read that in the young church at Antioch there were prophets and teachers, which was surely a result of prophets and teachers visiting their church earlier in Acts 11:25 and Acts 11:27.
3. Listen carefully to what they say. Acts 2:14 says, “Listen carefully to what I say”. Ask lots of questions. Listen with your inner ears. Draw them out.
4. Try to expose them to homes as well as big meetings. 1 Thess 2:8 says, “We loved you so much that we were delighted to share with you not only the gospel of God but our lives as well.” Beware the hotel-room-to-pulpit-to-hotel-room track.
5. Anticipate being a blessing and encouragement to them as well. Rom 1:11 says, “I long to see you so that I may impart to you some spiritual gift to make you strong; that is, that you and I may be mutually encouraged by each other’s faith”. You have things in God to give to them, and be an example to them in. Go for it.
6. Sending them on with love and prayer. Acts 15:34 says, “After spending some time there, they were sent off by the brothers with the blessing of peace to return to those who had sent them”. Apply your faith to sending them on their way with gratitude, gifts, love and prayer.

Citiology Part 4: The Energy & Benefits of Cities

by PJ Smyth

This is the fourth of a series of blogs on citiology. (Part 1 / Part 2 / Part 3). Thinking right about cities enables us to be on mission in the city with confidence and joy.

Take a look at a few of the benefits of living in cities:

1. Cities Breed Robust Christ-followers

Generally speaking, Christianity is more vital in the city. Christianity is challenged in the city because the cities are more intellectual, humanistic and materialistic. This forces Christ-followers to be more thoughtful, convinced and robust. A little while ago my three sons (aged 11, 9 and 6) were in a friend’s car and (by mistake!) they drove straight into the middle of a gay march. They saw it all… Debriefing them back at home later was brilliant – now we have three little men who fully get God’s plan for sexuality. Robust, humble and understanding. You don’t get that by hiding them away in some monastery. I am convinced that our family’s faith will thrive in Jo’burg like nowhere else. I suspect we need this great city more than it needs us. I am deeply grateful to live in Jo’burg!

2. Cities Breed Go-Getters

Frank Sinatra said “if you can make it in New York you can make it anywhere”. The entrepreneurial spirit and competition of a city provokes us to up our game and fulfil our potential.

3. Cities Provoke Obedience to God

It’s not always easy living in city, which is great because it forces us to move there and live there with a sense of obedience to God. My eldest son Jack was chatting to stranger on a plane (with me listening in, pretending to be asleep). The stranger asked him why he lived in Jo’burg and Jack replied “because God told us to move there”. Then he asked the stranger, “Has God ever told you to do anything exciting like move to a city and start a church?” Brilliant! Jack has got in his heart that we live where we live because of obedience to God, which is exciting stuff. Don’t tell yourself or your kids that you live where you live “because of Daddy’s job” or else you will find that you are they live in that place ultimately for Daddy’s job, rather than to help win more people to Jesus.

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Photo © Gary Van Lieshout (Link)

Citiology Part 3: The Strategic Power of Cities

by PJ Smyth

This is the third of a series of blogs on citiology (see part 1 here and part 2 here). Thinking right about cities enables us to be on mission in the city with confidence and joy.

1. Jesus viewed cities as strategic and chose to minister in a densely populated area

John Stott says, ‘Jesus made a decisive break with Nazareth and came to live and work in the area of the Sea of Galilee. The province of Galilee although not large, was supported the densest population in the Middle East. Josephus, who was once its governor, tells us that there were no fewer than 204 villages in the province, none of them with under 15, 000 inhabitants. Galileans were tough and courageous and always up for sedition, and thus formed a marvellous seedbed for the gospel. Nowhere could Jesus have had such a chance of gaining a large following as in Galilee’.

2. Jesus told his followers to start with the City

The instruction to start in Jerusalem and then work out to Judea, Samaria and beyond was a strategic one. Jesus knew that culture flowed from cities. If you get the city you will eventually get the surrounding areas.

3. Paul viewed cities as strategic

Wayne Meeks writes, ‘Paul’s missionary journey’s essentially ignored the countryside. When he entered a new region, he planted churches in the biggest city, and then left’. This is demonstrated by Paul’s letters being mostly to cities, for example Corinth, Collose, Thessolonica, Ephesus and Rome. And, Luke notes that Philippi was the ‘leading city of Macedonia’ (Acts 16). After spending 2 years in Ephesus ‘all of Asia heard the gospel’. Paul was clearly aware of the strategic nature of cities.

4. Think about Los Angeles, Chicago and New York

If you still doubt that culture flows from cities, think of how gangster culture, rap, hip hop was basically confined to a few American cities in the 80’s, but is now popular right around the world across the nations and cultures.

The next blog deals with the energy and benefits of city living…

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Photo © Gary Van Lieshout (Link)

Citiology Part 2: Developing a Calling to your City

by PJ Smyth

This is the second in a series of blogs on citiology. (See part 1 here). Thinking right about cities enables us to be on mission in the city with confidence and joy.

It is essential to gain a sense of call to where you live. Eugene Peterson (in his excellent book, Under the Unpredictable Plant) gives several enemies of calling to where you live:

1. Failing to understand that calling is local. He writes: Serving Christ is geographical as much as it is theological. Now is the time to rediscover the meaning of the local. Our work for Christ takes place geographically. The gospel is emphatically geographical. Place names such as Nazereth, Samaria, Jerusalem are embedded in the gospel.
2. The danger of Gnosticism. He writes: The reason we get restless with where we are and want, as we say, ‘more of a challenge’ or a want a ‘larger field of opportunity’ has nothing to do with prophetic zeal or priestly devotion; it is the product of spiritual sin – the sin of Gnosticism. Gnosticism is contemptuous of place and matter. It thinks of spirituality as ‘ideas’ and the loftier the better. It is impatient with restrictions of time and place and embarrassed by the garbage and disorder to everyday living. So, it constructs a gospel that is largely irrelevant to the place. The gospel, on the other hand, is local intelligence, locally applied, and plunges with zeal into the place. We must cultivate a particularizing love for local things, rising out of local knowledge and local allegiance.
3. Sinful restlessness. Peterson believes that believers today have a sinful restlessness that they disguise as spiritual questing. Just because you can move it doesn’t mean that you should. Shut up, sit tight and knuckle down and serve your community. And, if God wants to relocate you then he will make that crystal clear.
4. Self-Determination. Peterson teaches that our vocation is to live out the implications of the word of God in community, not sailing off into the exotic seas in search of fame and fortune. Without limitations there would be no way of confronting human nature. Limitations challenge our longing to be dramatically and satisfyingly in control of our lives. Thus, the limitation of a calling to one place helps challenge who is really in control of our lives – us or God.

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Photo © Gary Van Lieshout (Link)

Citiology Part 1: God Loves Cities

by PJ Smyth

This is the first of a series of blogs on citiology. Thinking right about cities enables us to be on mission in the city with confidence and joy.

1. God loves cities because he loves people and cities are full of people. Urbanisation is a growing trend: in 1800 only 3% of the world’s population lived in cities; by 2006 50% did, and by 2030 65% will. Roger Greenway writes: City growth is part of God’s providential plan in history. By means of these enormous gatherings of people, God provides the church with one of history’ greatest opportunities for evangelism. In our time, God is moving climatically through a variety of social, political, and economic factors to bring earth’s peoples into closer contact with each other and into earshot of the gospel. Could world-wide migration to cities be setting the stage for Christian mission’s finest hour?

2. God loves cities because heaven is a City. The bible starts in a garden but ends in a city. Abraham looked forward to ‘a city who’s architect and builder was God’ (Heb 11). And Jesus used city as a metaphor for the church saying, ‘You are a city set on a hill’ (Mt 5:14). Yep, it sure seems that God has a thing for cities.

The next blog is about developing your sense of calling to the city…

Photo © Gary Van Lieshout (Link)

My Charge to GodFirst for the Next 6 Months…

by PJ Smyth

Over the two weeks following my diagnosis, I was due to be preaching from The Parable of the Bridesmaids in Matthew 25. If you remember, the five foolish girls didn’t have oil for their lamps to welcome the Bridegroom, and the five wise ones did. I want to “charge” Godfirst with just two things over the next six months from this parable:

1. Live mindful of eternity

We live in a “world without windows”, fixated with youth, beauty and the present. It is easy to kid yourself that the Bridegroom will never return. Death and afterlife is a taboo subject. Don’t be deluded: your future is not a secret. The ultimate statistic is that one out of one people die. Every graveyard you pass is a clue regarding your future. And not to give death serious thought is to deprive yourself of the greatest motivation to really live a life to the full, glorifying Jesus Christ to the max. This is why the writer of Ecclesiastes says writes, ‘It is better to go the house of mourning rather than the house of feasting, because death is the end of every man and the living should take this to heart (Eccl 7:2).

I charge you to take these things to heart. Death is not the end, it is not the beginning of the end, it is just the end of the beginning. CS Lewis said that this life on earth is merely the cover page in the book of your life that goes on forever and ever. Death is just a change of address. So, live with eternity in mind! Life for Jesus. Love God and love people. Be committed to eternal things. Store up for yourselves treasure in heaven.

2. Live with your own oil

The foolish girls certainly looked the part – dressed to kill and with good-looking lamps. But, scratch below the surface and you find that they lacked substance, lacked depth, lacked oil. They thought they could get by indefinitely by burning off other people’s oil. To be frank, they were parasite “believers” who needed to “get their own oil”, and get their own relationship with Jesus to be viable in and of themselves. Maybe they were overly dependant on their leaders, or their spouse, or the person who led them to the Lord. Don’t get me wrong, healthy inter-dependence and “one-anothering” is good and proper amongst the body of Christ, but nonetheless, you gotta have ya own oil.

I charge you to press into Jesus and deepen your own oil well. Enjoy encountering God through your own bible reading, and through different preachers and leaders. Like the true shepherd in John 10, serve one another out of selfless motives rather than “what’s in it for me”. And, like Titus, check that you have really gone through the own-oil barrier of gaining your “own enthusiasm and initiative” for GodFirst (2 Cor 7:15).

Why PJ Is Taking 6 Months Out from Public Ministry

PJ recently posted over on his blog on why he’s taking 6 months out from public ministry.

To summarise, he lists the following three points:

1. It it good for his body
2. It is good for his soul
3. It is good for GodFirst

Read the full post: here

Mission-Driven Church Part 8: The Missional Grid

by PJ Smyth

This is Part 8 in a series of blogs on becoming a Mission-Driven Church.

Here’s the blog where I press some of your buttons to see if you are actually thinking ghetto or mission:

1. Define a ‘missionary’. Right now. What springs to mind? If you immediately thought of an American in Tibet who’s picture is on your fridge, then you are a ghetto Christian. But if you immediately thought ‘Me. I’m a missionary. Right here. Now…’ then you are a missional Christian

2. When you think about church expansion (a new meeting, site or plant), is your default thought ‘well if it serves to advance the gospel to more people’ then I am game, or do you default to ‘I am not sure it is necessary and it might disrupt my church involvement’?

3. When you think of aspects of the Sunday meeting, such as the time of worship, do you think what helps you to worship God more than what will help the unbeliever become a worshipper?

Here’s the thing: are you really prepared to pull a 1 Corinthians 9v22: I have become all things to all men that by any means I may reach some? Herein lies the missional issue. Are you up for pushing your day-to-day life, and your corporate expression of church, through a missional grid and making adjustments that will help the ‘weak’ might make progress towards God? Or is it really about you, and protecting the ghetto…? Decide. Life’s short. Hell’s hot.

Mission-Driven Church Part 7: Busting the Vibe

by PJ Smyth

This is Part 7 in a series of blogs on becoming a Mission-Driven Church.

From my last five years of being a missionary in Johannesburg, I am totally convinced that the main creator of the ghetto is the vibe that oozes from the lives of believers and their churches. I have spoken to unbelievers about the vibe the church gives off and I have watch the city respond to campaigns that we have done through the press and social media, and the constant expectation is that the church is out to criticise and condemn those outside. The vibe given off is ‘holier-than-thou’, ‘us and them’, and ‘we will set you straight’. Here are three potent ways to sort out the vibe:

1: Really get that you are saved only by grace

When it sinks into your heart that the only difference between your belief and behaviour and their belief and behaviour is the grace of God, then 33.3% of the vibe dissipates. In Ephesians 2 Paul thunders out that we contribute nothing to our salvation – even the belief with which we respond to God’s grace is a gift from God, so we have nothing to boast about or give off a superior vibe about.

2: Really get that you need the gospel as much as the unbeliever

Although the unbeliever needs the gospel to come into salvation, the believer needs the gospel continuously to mature in his salvation. You can check out my previous series of blogs concerning ‘the gospel and thoroughly changed lives’ for more on this, but the point is acknowledging that you are a fellow human also continuously in need of the gospel busts another 33.3% of the vibe.

3: Really get that you are a servant of the city, not the other way around

Deep within the heart of a servant is humility and so the vibe a servant gives off is humility not superiority. If you can get the Christ-like deal of coming not to be served but to serve, then you will be able to discard the remaining 33.3% of the vibe.