Equipping a New Generation for a Confessional, Praxis-Oriented Church in South Africa and Beyond

God’s work of salvation can be construed as creating ‘a liberated and forgiven community, a faithful, loving, and peaceable people empowered by the Spirit to bear witness to the holy character of God, to God’s own faithful love and shalom’…Embarking on community building is to enter a cruciform yet hopeful space.
-Stefan and Paas and Hans Schaeffer in “Reconciled Community: On Finding a Soteriology for Fresh Expressions”

When I sat down to write this post, I intended to publish a short piece on the “Serving in the African Church” course we are planning to host; a course centered around Conrad Mbewe’s book, God’s Design for the Church. However, that isn’t what this post is about. Or at least, it’s about more than just the course. Over this weekend, God led me to reflect a bit more on the church and the outworking of our salvation in community.

On Friday, I read an article in a back-issue of Ecclesiology by missiologists Stefan Paas and Hans Schaeffer that challenged me to consider more deeply the way in which our salvation is worked out in the context of the community in Christ (church). Paas and Schaeffer refer to the practices that make up missional community formation (MCF)–shared meals, hospitality, worship, prayer, protest, celebration, and mourning–as a “social soteriology” that provides an integrated lens on the various dimensions of salvation found in Scripture and Christian theology. To enter into MCF is to step into a cruciform yet eschatologically hopeful space in which God is doing his redemptive, reconciling work to bring about a foretaste of the Kingdom, the goal of history: “a reconciled humanity, living in peace with one another, with God and his creation.”

Through participation in MCF, we work out our salvation with fear and trembling (Phil. 2:12), being led to rediscover the “paradoxes, promises and messages bound up with the cross and resurrection of Jesus,” and being holistically reoriented in thought, word, and deed towards the Kingdom. As a result, the practices of community building become not merely expressions of belief but rather “formative in the sense that they shape our beliefs.”

All of this resonated with the words of Elizabeth Oldfield from a video served up to me on Saturday night by the YouTube algorithm entitled, “PROOF: The God Conversation Has Changed.” The video is a commentary by Glen Scrivener on a recent UnHerd LIVE conversation on the topic of “Christian Revival: Fantasy or Reality?” In it, Oldfield speaks to renewed spiritual interest among people dealing with the cultural existential crisis of the day (as well as the opportunity and struggle the church faces in knowing what to do with such people):

We need collective formation. We need to immerse ourselves in communities of moral formation that call us to be better than we are. If we have any hope of rising to the challenges of this moment, we have to learn how to be becoming more together…Ritualized, communal, emotional, embodied forms of practice literally make it easier for you to see [and know] what is really there. God is really there.
-Elizabeth Oldfield

To be becoming more together. Forms of practice in Christian community so that we can [taste?] see and know the God who is really there and who, in Christ, sets about to redeem, reconcile, and renew our lives and the world. Scrivener ends the video with an equally powerful statement:

You submit yourself into that [Christian] story…and you find yourself being formed in community; being formed existentially; being formed in embodied practices; being formed sacramentally. And your beliefs are not the end result of climbing a ladder of logic, you find yourself believing in the community of faith. You don’t think yourself into a new way of life, you live yourself into a new way of thinking. So come to church.

This is what a social soteriology is about; what missional community formation looks like. It is to enter that cruciform space–a community of other sinful, broken people receiving the means of grace, doing life together, and participating in Christian mission–through which God brings about transformation. In a line that could have come from Oldfield herself, Paas and Schaeffer write:

It is through the cross and the resurrection of Jesus that God heals, forgives, and transforms us so that we are able to love. We can only become ‘persons’ when we grow into the awareness that we are truly loved, that the powers are judged and conquered, that no sin in us is stronger than the kingdom, that nothing on our part is needed to bring about God’s future, and that all evil will work out for the good. All this and more is what the cross communicates–not primarily in words but in a deeply emotional, transforming, heart-rending drama that is meant to draw us in and to move us toward love.

Echoing Hans Rookmaaker, the article ends with the invitation that missional community formation offers our post-christian (and, perhaps more significantly, post-secular) world: not to become more religious but to become more human. Something that our individualistic, shallow, siloed life experiences and our flattened views of the world cannot offer.

Which brings me to Sunday and attending the Uniting Reformed Church in the nearby community of Kylemore, where Nola, the cleaning woman at our office worships. She warmly greeted us when we arrived and, with a gleam in her eye, she led us into the church. We were the only white people in the congregation and the service was in Afrikaans. I could follow the liturgy and sing the songs, but not much beyond that. Restless and struggling her way through the service, my daughter asked why we were there. I responded by telling her that it was a way to honor Nola and show our love for, and unity with, these brothers and sisters in Christ.

As we drove home, it would have been easy to say we “got nothing out of that service” but I knew that this wasn’t true. With that Ecclesiology article and the words of Oldfield and Scrivener still swirling in my heart and mind, I realized that our presence in that space, and participation in–our submission to–their practice of worship (despite the barriers), was itself formative. Christ uses such experiences to further his reconciling and renewing work within us and between peoples within his body.

And then there is the small international church I serve–Stellenbosch International Fellowship (SIF)–and how these various strands come together to form the fabric of our own efforts at community building. As a church with people from across the continent and around the world, from different cultures, classes, and church traditions, I have experienced the struggles, felt the tensions, that can threaten our life together and our united witness before a conflicted, warring world. But it is in the cruciform space of this church that God graciously continues his work in us: reminding us of the surpassing greatness and glorious riches of grace in Christ, reconciling us to one another, reforming us according to God’s Word, and renewing us together so that we might embody something of our own foretaste of the Kingdom.

Which brings me back to this course, “Serving in the African Church,” and what I see as the importance of weaving together a reformed confessionalism with the praxis-oriented, social soteriology found in missional community formation. Something I believe international churches, churches like SIF, are uniquely positioned to accomplish with their incredible diversity, strong emphasis on community, sending potential, and their ability to offer a prophetic witness to the kingdom in their worshipping life.

We need leaders and laypeople alike who know and love Scripture, the rich faith expressed in the reformed confessions, and who can pass this on to the next generation. We need healthy churches that can thread the needle between the moralistic therapeutic deism (MTD) of many charismatic and evangelical churches on the one hand, and the liberalism of the mainline churches on the other, while also offering a robust engagement with traditional religion (ATR) and protecting God’s people from false teachers and “Christian” cults.

But we also need leaders and laypeople who understand that there is another form of catechesis taking places as God forms people in community, through embodied practices, by the means of grace. Churches that can embrace being a witness to the reconciling, unifying power of the gospel as well as being spaces of incredible social, political, cultural, and theological diversity as people live their way into a new way of thinking–through life together under Christ and in the Christian story (with all the tension, messiness, and mistakes that come with it). Strong churches that refuse to exist as silos, peer groups built on existing social categories of class, ethnicity, political views, or language, but instead are willing to sacrifice these for the sake of inviting “the other” into community, formation, and life.

This weekend was a reminder and call to recognize the ways belief and practice inform one another and of the ways God is working through community and practice to bring salvation and give us glimpses of the kingdom even now. As one of my seminary professors once said: Orthodoxy and orthopraxy lead to doxological living. That is my hope for this upcoming course and my hope for the church; to see a new generation of confessional, practice-oriented Christians raised up for South Africa (and beyond) who bring these two together in the community of the church to the glory of God.

Bonhoeffer’s Words Concerning Morning Prayer

Two of the most common questions I hear about prayer, and two of the greatest struggles that I often face with regard to prayer are:

  1. How do I get into a habit or practice of prayer? (Or what is a good practice for praying?)
  2. How do my prayers impact my life and that of others?

While not answering these questions exhaustively, Dietrich Bonhoeffer offers some wise, pastoral, and encouraging words to help us in our own practice of prayer and the ways God’s graciously uses it in our lives and the lives of others:

The entire day receives order and discipline when it acquires unity. This unity must be sought and found in morning prayer. It is confirmed in work. The morning prayer determines the day. Squandered time of which we are ashamed, temptations to which we succumb, weaknesses and lack of courage in work, disorganization and lack of discipline in our thoughts and in our conversation with others, all have their origin most often in the neglect of morning prayer.

Order and distribution of our time become more firm where they originate in prayer. Temptations which accompany the working day will be conquered on the basis of the morning breakthrough to God. Decisions, demanded by work, become easier and simpler where they are made not in the fear of other people but only in the sight of God. Colossians 3:23 (ESV) says, “Whatever you do, work heartily, as for the Lord and not for men.” Even mechanical work is done in a more patient way if it arises from the recognition of God and his command. The powers to work take hold, therefore, at the place where we have prayed to God. He wants to give us today the power which we need for our work.

I find these words incredibly helpful for my own prayer life and, pastorally, for encouraging others in their own. Of particular significance is Bonhoeffer’s conclusion: God wants to–and graciously does–“give us today the power which we need for our work” and it comes as we seek it from God in prayer. Thus, prayer becomes not merely a means of fellowship with God (as wondrous as that is), but also for faithfully fulfilling our vocational callings in the world.

I encourage you to join me in taking up the practice of morning prayer, and doing so by praying the Psalms (something Bonhoeffer strongly encouraged his own congregation to do). And if you’re curious to read more on how Bonhoeffer approached praying the Psalms, you can read his short book: Psalms: The Prayer Book of the Bible.

As an appendix of sorts, here is another prayer Bonhoeffer was quite familiar with:

In the morning when you get up, make the sign of the holy cross and say:
In the name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Then, kneeling or standing, repeat the Creed and the Lord’s Prayer. If you choose, you may also say this little prayer:
I thank You, my heavenly Father, through Jesus Christ, Your dear Son, that You have kept me this night from all harm and danger; and I pray that You would keep me this day also from sin and every evil, that all my doings and life may please You. For into Your hands I commend myself, my body and soul, and all things. Let Your holy angel be with me, that the evil foe may have no power over me. Amen.

Then go joyfully to your work, singing a hymn, like that of the Ten Commandments, or whatever your devotion may suggest.

-Luther’s Morning Prayer (from Luther’s Small Catechism)

Spiritual Meat and Drink: Reflections on Scripture for NGK Theology Students (Pt. 2)

[Adapted from a talk given to theology students on 9 April 2024; part 1 can be found here]

In Part One, I introduced the theme of Scripture as “spiritual meat and drink” for the Christian life, looking at the life of the pastor. In this post, I turn our attention to the family and the church.

THE FAMILY TABLE

Each night, after dinner, I ask our children “Are you ready to hear God speak?” Now, sometimes, their answer is “No.” They’d rather run off to their rooms or to play outside. But more often than not, they respond with a “yes’ and pull their chairs up to the table. I open our daughter’s Bible and God speaks to us. And just as the evening meal feeds our bodies, the Scripture readings during family worship serve as that meat and drink for our spiritual lives.

I see it as a part of my responsibility as a father to, as Psalm 78 puts it, “tell the next generation the praiseworthy deeds of the Lord, his power, and the wonders he has done…to teach my children sot that they know God’s will and ways and put their trust in him.” And while our lives serve as an important witness to them, it is important that I feed them God’s Word as well, to invite their questions and feedback, and to create a space for conversation around the stories—the good, the bad, and the ugly—of Scripture, and God’s call for our lives today.

I think the polymath Abraham Kuyper put it well in his short work, The Implications of Public Confession, in which he defends catechesis and outlines the role of of “true education, the transmitting of God’s revealed truth from one generation to another.” He writes:

The present generation must reaffirm the confession which the previous generation received from its fathers. Nothing could be more erroneously conceived than to suppose that each new generation should make a new, that is, different confession. True education is just that: a reinterpretation and a reaffirmation…to make the spontaneous voice of the heart identical with those words of the lips. (p. 36)

Through Scripture, God grows our family in the faith we share in Christ. Scripture serves as a formative tool by which the Spirit shapes each of us individually and together as a family. As they hear the stories, the promises, and the admonitions of Scripture, and as they commit the confessions to their hearts and minds, they come to recognize that they are a part of this unfolding story of God, that, in Christ, they have a place in His Kingdom, and their own role to play as ambassadors according to the gifts of grace given to them.

This food fills them with far more than any meal ever could.

CHURCH PULPIT

Which brings us to the church and world. What is it that happens when we step into the pulpit and preach? It is nothing less than the offering of spiritual meat and drink to those with rumbling stomachs and parched mouths. When we preach, we extend the living Word, the Lord Jesus Christ, to others. In preaching through the Scriptures, we unfold the redemptive drama found across the pages of Scripture: one of Creation, Fall, Redemption, and Recreation.

We invite people to hear and enter into a compelling counter-story to those offered by the ideologies of the world; one centered around Christ and the in-breaking Kingdom of God. In the midst of a meaning and identity crisis in our world, Scripture as the Word of God points to a God-given structure and direction for all creation, filling our lives with meaning and purpose, and giving us an identity that goes much deeper than those we might conjure up from within ourselves or those the world might try to force upon us.

Truth. Meaning. Purpose. Life. Hope. This is what rises up from Scripture and begins to move among the congregation by the working of the Spirit. It brings conviction, confession, healing, transformation, and power to persevere. A witness to the world and engagement with the culture build upon, and flow out from, knowing and experiencing the God who creates, sustains, redeems, and renews; a knowing and experiencing that comes through the Word.

This is what enables me to preach week after week, no matter how large or small the congregation. It’s what motivates me to run our One-to-One Bible reading workshops and why I encourage people to read the Bible with one another, and with non-Christains, because I believe, as the author of Hebrews did, that Scripture is “living and active,” and as the prophet, Isaiah, wrote, “that God’s Word never returns to him void, but accomplishes what he intended for it. (Isa. 55:11)”

POINTING TO THE FOUNTAIN OF GRACE

“Therefore, that Word can be and indeed is the meat and drink of our spiritual lives,” writes Bavinck. It’s this analogy that has guided my reflections, but it is followed by an equally important statement in Bavinck’s book. He continues by writing this:

It is the medium, not the fountain of grace. God is and remains the giver and dispenser of all grace.

It is important that we remember that we do not worship the Bible. The Bible is not our God, but God, in his grace, chooses to work through the words of Scripture to affect his work in our lives. What a humbling reminder of the fact that we can busy ourselves with all sorts of ministry, programs, preaching and teaching, but if God is not in it, it amounts to nothing.

And yet, what a tremendous hope for us as well! That Scripture is a medium through which He chooses to call us; to redeem and renew our lives; and to shape and form us into the people He created us to become.

It brings to mind the date: June 11, 2023. That was the day I had the privilege of baptizing Banele, a young man from Mpumalanga, who had been a part of a cult before coming to Stellenbosch to do his undergraduate studies. However, he found his way into our church and was confronted by the Word of God—both the Scriptures and the living Christ. He heard and received the good news of Christ and the Kingdom in faith, breaking from that cult and finding new life in the new community Christ is forming.

CONCLUSION: FED BY THE WORD, FORETASTE OF THE FEAST

Which, finally, brings me to my conclusion. For as much as Scripture serves as spiritual meat and drink, I look forward to the day when the Word will sit at the tables of the kingdom and we will see Him eye-to-eye, face-to-face, enjoying a feast of food and drink unlike any other. Once again, it is something that the Scriptures promise and point to; something for us to hold onto today in the midst of so much fear, anxiety, uncertainty, and turmoil.

There, we will be fed by the Word, the Lord Jesus Christ. But until then, I hope we can receive this Word–the Scriptures–with joy and thankfulness for all the ways God works through it individually, in the life of the pastor, within the family, and for the church and world.

Spiritual Meat and Drink: Reflections on Scripture for NGK Theology Students (Pt. 1)

[Adapted from a talk given to theology students on 9 April 2024]

In Matthew 4, we find Jesus in the wilderness—tired, weak, and hungry—and it’s there that the evil one tempts him. Motioning enticingly towards a pile of rocks not unlike those we might find in the Karoo, he speaks to Jesus, challenging him: “If you are the Son of God, command these stones to become loaves of bread.” Satiate your hunger; give in to the desire. Compromise your identity and mission.

But Jesus responds with a simple statement. A quotation from Deuteronomy 8: “Man does not live by bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord.” It’s a reference to Israel’s wilderness wanderings, where God intended to teach her that hearing and obeying God’s Word is the most important thing in life—the way to life, and, in fact, life itself as we eventually see in the unfolding of God’s redemptive drama:

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God and the Word was God…and in him was life and that life was the light that shines in the darkness and the darkness has not overcome it.

Whereas Israel demanded bread in the wilderness and died, Jesus—in obedience to His Father’s will—resists the temptation to use his own power to make bread and lives. Life was not found in the bread, but rather, in the word of the Lord, God’s self-revelation to and for His people.

For this reason, Herman Bavinck, in his book, The Sacrifice of Praise, writes:

The cause of this [power and life] lies therein, that it is God’s Word…given by inspiration of God but also continually preserved by God…It is a Word, that continually proceeds out of the mouth of God, that comes unto us in Christ, and that through the Spirit of Christ is declared unto our hearts. Therefore, that Word can be and indeed is the meat and drink of our spiritual lives.

When we consider our lives as a journey in the wilderness, it’s these sorts of reminders that prove incredibly comforting. Our God has not left us to starve but has given us Scripture—the self-revealing word that proceeds from the mouth of God, received by us in faith through the Lord Jesus Christ, and impressed upon our hearts and minds by the Holy Spirit—to be our meat and drink.

And so, tonight, I want to use this image—of Scripture being the meat and drink of our spiritual lives—as a guide in considering the power and significance of God’s Word for the pastor’s life, for the family, and for the church and world. 

PASTOR’S OFFICE

I stood up, went to the pulpit, and looked out at the sparse congregation seated before me. A handful of students here, a family there, and a smattering of older individuals near the back. I proceeded to open my Bible and declare the glory of the Resurrection in my first Easter with my current church.

The next day, I took a seat in my office and my thoughts began to wander back to that Sunday morning. I knew there were a lot of people away on holiday, students back home with their families, and several people who were traveling for work. And yet, there was something disheartening about that Sunday morning. Maybe it was the hours of work crafting a sermon that few would hear; putting together online adverts for the service to no avail; or perhaps it was the weariness that a week of special services and extra pastoral visits brings.

Either way, I knew what I needed: I needed to be refreshed by God. I needed to receive words, as Jesus says in John 6:63, that would be spirit and life to my soul. Words, such as Jeremiah 31:25, in which God promises to replenish and satisfy the weary soul. The words of the Psalmist, who recounts the way His spirit is restored by his good shepherd in Psalm 23, or the words of a king’s wisdom from Proverbs 3 to find healing for my flesh and refreshment for my bones by turning to, and trusting in, the Lord my God.

At a personal level, as a pastor—but the same is true for everyone—I needed to draw near to God; to be reminded of who God is and what God has promised, to be reassured of my calling, and to be refreshed, encouraged, and strengthened for the work ahead of me.

This is what takes place when we open the Scriptures, when we read, meditate, and study them. God meets us in these words, reveals himself to us through them, and invites us to be formed and reformed as his words come to us. Because the reality is, like a master chef, as a pastor, I cannot offer a meal to others that I have not tasted myself. So taste and see, open and receive the word, and know that the Lord is good (Ps. 34:8).

[Part 2 to be published next week]