Birthday Boy: Martin Bucer (11 November 1491)

When you think of great Reformers, Bucer is unlikely to be the first name that springs to mind. But, despite inevitable imperfections, a great reformer he was! On this his birthday, it’s worth reflecting on his contributions. His 4 profound passions still inspire today:

1. Passion for the Bible

The systematic teaching of Scripture was the bedrock of Bucer’s ministry. He held a deep conviction that every word of the Bible was relevant and, being utterly convinced that all people (even women!) should be given the opportunity to develop their understanding of God, he made it his mission to preach through great swathes of Scripture in ways that were unswervingly accessible.

2. Passion for the Church

His theology stressed that people were created for others not for themselves. His desire was to see authentic Christian community where love leads to service, liturgy leads to obedience and unity leads to Gospel witness.

3. Passion for Justice

When confronted with widespread injustice, Bucer was unable to stand idly by. Scripture compelled him to pursue poor-relief, provision of public education and even the conquest of idleness!

4. Passion for Mentoring

Despite having terrible writing, Bucer was a prolific letter-writer helping to mould and mentor the next generation of reformers, even Calvin noting with thankfulness the influence that Bucer had on his life and ministry.

Not a bad legacy to leave the church! And one that might help encourage us afresh if we let this birthday boy motivate us today ...

Fantastic feedback

Good Book Company youth Editor Martin Cole sits among some of the many thousands of letters he has received and responded to from Discover readers over the last 10 years.

"Helping young people get their heads into God's word is the best job in the world", he says. "The direct contact with readers is a brilliant bonus for me. What a privilege to hear from readers who are growing in their faith, wrestling with tricky questions, and struggling to apply their trust in Jesus in difficult circumstances."

"I reply to every single letter that comes in, and we regularly pray for readers with particular things that they need help with."

Martin is also the Editor of Engage Bible reading notes for teenagers.

Death in Sunday School

The mother was flustered and annoyed as she approached me. "What have you been teaching my boy this morning?!" she demanded, eyes glaring.

I was relaxing over a cup of coffee in the church lounge, enjoying the buzz and chatter, after what I thought had been a particularly excellent session. We had been thinking about the story of Lydia, and how she opened her ears, the Lord opened her heart, and she opened her home to Paul and his companions. The teaching material Click had suggested that I start with a demonstration on how to make purple cloth (you'll remember that Lydia was a seller of Purple in Philippi).

We mixed red and blue food colouring, and one by one the children dipped little squares of torn-up T-shirt into the mixture, and it came out Purple. OK, so it was more a muddy maroon – but you get the picture.

I stood there dumbfounded before Mum, who was on the verge of turning purple herself. "What do you mean?" I asked in my most "let's calm the parent down” voice. "I asked my boy what he had learned in Sunday School this morning," she said. "Dying" the boy replied solemnly. Concerned for the heavyweight subject for her delicate 4-year old, she asked: "Who was dying?" "I was!" replied the boy. Still hoping to rescue the situation, Mum asked the next question expecting the answer: "We go to heaven". "What happens when you die, darling?" "Turn purple!"

Fortunately, Mum roared with laughter when the truth came out. But it was a great lesson for me about language and little ones. Next time, I won't call it dyeing – I'll just say we are going to colour some cloth as Lydia might have done…

For some great training on how not to make more mistakes like this, do join us for the Growing Young Disciples Conference at All Souls, London or in Rugby next year!

Is seeing enough?

This week the National Gallery in London opens a major new exhibition of work by Leonardo da Vinci. It includes nine of his surviving fifteen paintings – a coup for them – and is bound to be a sell-out. Leonardo is famous for much more than painting of course – as a scientist, engineer, inventor, philosopher and writer. He filled umpteen booklets with his notes on anything and everything – all written in his fascinating mirror-image handwriting.

But Leonardo thought words a poor substitute for seeing. He even went so far as to say: “My advice is not to trouble yourself with words unless you are speaking to the blind”. And that got me thinking about another famous figure from history – St Francis of Assisi – when he said: “Preach the gospel at all times; when necessary, use words”.

So, are words really a poor substitute, and only to be used when necessary? It’s certainly true that what we do points people to what we believe. The dad who takes his son to watch Chesterfield every week shows he believes they’re the only team worth supporting. The woman who’s in the gym at 6.00am each morning shows that fitness (and image?) matter more than sleep. And we find this in the Bible too. In Deuteronomy 6 parents are to live in a way that honours God and keep his commands. And when their children see them doing this, they will ask why (verse 20) – wanting to know what the belief is behind their actions.

So is St Francis right? Are actions enough to point people to the gospel?

No. That same chapter in Deuteronomy says this:

“These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up.” (Deuteronomy 6 v 6-7) So it’s not “either/or” – it’s “both/and”. We take every opportunity to speak the truth about the good news, and try to live in a way that points people to the truth of what we say.

I find Leonardo da Vinci fascinating, and will be joining the queues at the National Gallery. He was a brilliant man. But I won’t be following his advice. I’ll keep on “troubling myself with words” as I try to point people to the living Word, Jesus Christ.

Are you singularly attractive?

Are you single? Middle-aged or older? A follower of Jesus? Then there is a great call before you – and me. A call to be singularly attractive!

No, this is not an invitation to invest in some cosmetic surgery. Nor am I giving you a good excuse to purchase some great new clothes, make-up or anything else that makes you look 10 years younger. It’s rather that there is an exciting invitation in the pages of Scripture encouraging us to show others how to live well for Christ as a single person.

You see, the Bible encourages older members of the congregation to be role models to others. Older women to younger women. Older men to younger men (Titus 2:1-8). And just as older married couples have an invaluable role in showing younger people what a privilege it is to be married. So older single people have an enormous role in showing others what a privilege it is to be single. Doing so is an essential part of equipping the next generation to grow up rejoicing in God whether He has given them the gift of marriage or the gift of singleness (1 Corinthians 7).

Now I don’t wish to be glib. There are, of course, challenges associated with being an older single person. It is inevitable that we sometimes think about relationships past and wonder ‘what if …’. There can be pain associated with not having the opportunity to have children. There are moments of loneliness. And in a relationship-obsessed culture it can be hard to refocus our minds on gospel truth rather than conventional wisdom (Romans 12:2). But there are joys and privileges too – not least the extra flexibility to be involved in a whole host of ministries. And if we genuinely believe God is sovereign and loving; if we truly accept that the Bible is correct when it says that singleness is good, then we need to show that in the way we live. And we need to deliberately flee from the temptation to become the next Bridget Jones (full of desperation for a partner), or Miss Havisham (full of the bitterness of relationship lost).

It isn’t an easy call. But it is a clear call. A call to be singularly attractive for Christ in our churches today.

Guess who owns most of Christian publishing?

The Christian publishing world is abuzz with the announcement today that HarperCollins has purchased Thomas Nelson, making it by far the largest Christian publishing organisation in the world. But this piece of business news is of real interest to anyone who buys and reads a Bible (hope that's you!) or Christian books.

HarperCollins already owns Zondervan - the largest US Christian publisher and US publisher of the NIV, and the HarperOne imprint, which publishes material that is much more in the health, religion/spirituality and self-help sections of the bookshop. Thomas Nelson, originally started in Edinburgh, is now based in Nashville. It publishes the New King James Version, and is believed to be the 7th largest Christian publisher in the world.

What may surprise some readers is that the whole conglomerate is owned by Rupert Murdoch's News Corp.

What are we to make of this move?

• Commercial: Christian publishing remains big business - especially in the US. One one level, this is just a commercial deal that recognises this truth.
• Consolidation: but the Christian publishing and supply industry is also undergoing a period of consolidation - high-street bookshops are dying a slow death, and the future of the business as a whole must lie with those organisations that help authors develop the content and control the copyright. In the UK we have seen the start of these tremors and readjustments with the collapse of STL and the closure of many bookshops. It is likely to continue, and the companies that can slim down their organisations and consolidate their operations are most likely to survive in the long term.
• Conspiracy: there is a genuine concern that bringing so much of mainstream Christian publishing under the control of one secular organisation is a dangerous thing. Particularly as some News Corp newspapers has shown itself in recent months to be, allegedly, not averse to employing dirty tricks in its pursuit of a story.

But how much does this really matter?

Publishing companies like this are less ideologically motivated than, for example, newspapers would be. They will publish what sells, because that is the bottom line. So long as Christian authors are happy to publish their Bible-centred gospel-hearted encouraging books in the same stable that publishes self-help drivel, or outright heresy, then that is fine - the publisher will not silence the evangelical voice if it can turn a profit at it. And of course, any attempt to stifle that voice would see an exodus of authors away from them. They have an incentive not to rock the boat, and keep things sweet.

But the alternative for authors would be to get involved with a Christian publishing company that had Ministry not money at its heart. A company where they know the commercial gain was ploughed back into Gospel ministry, not into mere mammon. A company where the central drive is to prayerfully get people engaging with scripture, and hearing the word of the Lord with clarity and power, not just producing what sells.

Praise God that there are many smaller publishers like that around. Pray that we at The Good Book Company would remain true to this vision for the future.

St Paul's, the protestors and the parallel universe

The anti-capitalists-on-the-steps-of-St-Paul’s saga rumbles on. Somewhere, in a parallel universe, a bunch of demonstrators recently turned up on the doorstep of a large church in central London. Here’s what happened next…

The people who worked for the church went out to chat to the protestors. They didn’t preach to them, they talked with them. They didn’t wear strange dresses, they wore normal clothes.

They pointed out to the protestors that other people wanted to get in to the church so that they could meet together and hear from God’s word together. They invited the protestors to join them, but asked if they would move their tents a little, to create a way of access into the building.

The protestors refused, so the church leaders hired a hall nearby to meet in, and closed the main building. The drawback of this was that tourists couldn’t look at the church (it was a famous one), but this didn’t matter much because (a) it wasn’t the main purpose of the building anyway and (b) the church leaders never charged anyone to look in the building anyway.

They continued to talk to the protestors. They made three main points:

• The Lord Jesus was very firm with those who worshipped wealth and lived for money (Luke 16 v 13). He said it would never deliver (Luke 12 v 15). He challenged them to give it all away (Luke 18 v 22-25). He Himself had nothing (Luke 9 v 58).
• The Lord Jesus was clear that the wealthy needed not only to turn away from treating money as a god, but needed to turn to Him as God (Luke 19 v 1-10). And He was clear that everybody needed to do that, too (Luke 13 v 1-5).
• In fact, while the Lord Jesus was pretty tough about wealth, He also said some challenging things about the poor. He claimed that there was something more important than alleviating poverty, and that was treating Him as God, and giving our best to Him (Mark 14 v 3-9). Why? Because He came to die and to rise, not to make us financially rich (or even financially OK), but to make us spiritually rich, in His perfect kingdom beyond death, the only place where poverty really is history.

The church showed its unity. And the church leaders made sure that whenever they spoke to the media, they mentioned in every sentence the name of Jesus, and what He had come to do—to rescue us not from material poverty, but from spiritual poverty.

Mind you, in this parallel universe:

• Evangelical churches continually challenge themselves to find the balance between spreading the gospel, but also being a blessing to their community through acts of sacrificial love to those in need.
• I am personally, practically and regularly involved in helping the poor in ways that I find hard…

Now back to the real world

How to write Christian songs

At Sorted last year, Andrew Cowan from St Helen's, Bishopsgate, gave some great hints on how to write Christian songs. So helpful, in fact, we thought we’d share them on our blog! Andrew writes …

Colossians 3:16-17 tells us that our singing is meant to help the word of Christ dwell in us richly as we sing to each other as well as to God … so how do we write songs to help us do that? Here are four big principles and a few random bonus tips that I am finding helpful at the moment. Songs need to be:

• Biblical: always start with the Bible. Our songs need to teach biblical truth accurately, so that we are actually singing the word of Christ.
• Understandable: the words we sing need to be clear and memorable: not using jargon, confusing language or too many metaphors… but at the same time poetic enough to be interesting and fresh (easy, yeah?). If not the word of Christ will be lost because we won’t understand or remember it!
• Singable: the tune needs to be singable by the average congregation member. This might mean avoiding overly complicated syncopation and keeping the melody somewhere between the A below middle C and the D an octave above.
• Lyrical: the words and tune need to be appropriate for each other... (eg. triumphant words need a triumphant tune), and it should be catchy enough to help us remember the words!

Here are a few more tips in no particular order:

• Don’t try and write the next Christian number one hit. You probably won’t, and anyway you will just be serving yourself. Remember your goal is to serve the church by helping us sing praise to God and encourage one another.
• If you’re struggling for words, try and use what you’ve heard in church recently. Did the sermon have 3 points? See if they can be your 3 verses and write a chorus that sums up the big idea. OR… find an old hymn that no one sings because the tune is awful and come up with a new melody!
• Keep the focus in the words away from us and more about God. Let’s sing more about how awesome God is (because he is) and less about how we feel (because that isn’t the most important thing).
• Don’t try to cram too many ideas into one song. Why not pick one idea, like Jesus as King, or God as Trinity and write about that? A song that expresses one big idea clearly is much more useful to the church than a song that cobbles together lots of ideas badly!
• Let your pastor, youth worker, or Christian friends look at it and give you feedback (and learn how to take constructive criticism well!)
• Hard work pays off. Just give it a go and don’t be afraid to fail.

So let’s get writing, and don’t forget to pray… we need God’s help both to understand his word and express it clearly!