Honesty about guidance 5)

The next big crunch for guidance was obviously going to be which church was God calling me to as I completed my ministerial training.  At the beginning of my three year course I had been placed in a    local Oxford church - John Bunyan Baptist Church, Cowley.  I was to serve alongside its minister Sidney Crowe.  Its striking contemporary building could seat 300 people and average congregations more than half filled it with all ages represented. It was a wonderful opportunity to grow in preaching, lead the youth work and immerse in local church life. However, in my first year the minister, Sidney Crowe, announced that after 31 years serving this church he was shortly to retire.  Supported by another ministerial student I was then invited to care for the church until a new minister was found.

As we approached our final year in college something happened that taught us both important lessons. Out of the blue the John Bunyan Church gave me an invitation to become their next minister.  We were both absolutely thrilled.  The church leadership declared that we could move immediately into the church manse for my last year at college and that they would not expect full ministry until my Final exams were over.  Several commented how this would enable me to keep in touch with the college and some thought doctoral work would be part of the future deal.  Just imagine - a new home with a people we had grown to love and the prospect of developing my academics for wider service.  It seemed just perfect.  Expecting our first baby in July we would be well settled instead of facing a move elsewhere.

We asked for a month to think and pray about this golden opportunity.  We had not a single negative thought and were fairly sure that God was in it all.  How could he not be?   Yet we were concerned about presuming this neat next step was truly God's guidance. That month of prayer and questioning woke us up to the extraordinary dynamics of seeking God's will.
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Honesty about guidance 4)

My home church at Chatsworth, West Norwood, expected me to preach one Sunday as part of the ongoing process.  I was given a summer Sunday when the minister was on holiday.  At the morning service I gave a serviceable message and the only comment received was that it was short! In the evening service, which used to be attended by as many if not more people, something happened which I have since written about. I preached on John 10: 20 'Many of them said that he was mad.'  While I was preaching suddenly there came a moment of intensity and stillness. Even while I was speaking I heard another voice clearly say: 'Michael, I call you to preach.'

Up until then nothing remotely like this had happened to me. As I have described, guidance in the last posts God's direction had come by means of indirect impressions. Here was something unmistakably direct.  A few hearers commented afterwards that they knew something significant had happened and there were several visible responses to the sermon.  I kept that experience private for many years but came to realize how much it grounded my desire to offer my best as a preacher. 

It was an odd focus for preaching had never been a major part of my church experience.  My father's preaching was always carefully prepared and thoughtful but I didn't see it as a particularly vital part of his ministry.  I had occasionally been captured by a visiting preacher whose presence and words conveyed spiritual power.  But very occasionally.  Little had encouraged this focus during my training. Indeed preaching seemed to be regarded as a mere function of ministry. Why a special focus? It was as though God was saying I want to use it transformationally not merely informationally. So this specific word to me was a surprise and set me on a life-long journey of humility and learning.

Honesty about guidance 3)

The process of testing God's guidance continued with some encouraging experiences and interviews. I needed to gain acceptance by one of the Baptist colleges.  The Principal, of the Baptist college in Oxford University - Regent's Park College - was Dr. Henton Davies. He also happened to be the father of one of Carol's best friends who told Carol to pop in and have tea with her parents while I was speaking to the student group in Oxford.  Boldly, Carol had knocked on his front door and was graciously welcomed in, She told him that her husband was considering training for the ministry. Immediately Henton Davies, a theatrical Welshman, leapt into action: 'He must come here',he commanded.  I think my plans for Regents were already in motion by then but it accounted for a startling follow-up encounter.

I was sitting in Room 32, my office at the top of Baptist Church House in Holborn, when there was a knock on the door. Who should enter but Henton Davies. Fixing gimlet eyes on me he quizzed me about my thoughts on ministry.  I had only seen him as at distance at national Council Meetings and suddenly up-front he was distinctly overwhelming.  As I talked he interrupted: 'What's the word? What's the word? he asked urgently.  When I responded by saying that through different nudges I did feel that God was calling me he jumped up. 'That's it. Call. Call. That's the most important thing'. Then he dropped to his knees on the worn carpet and prayed with passion that I might know the Lord's hand upon me for all God's plans ahead.  I admit that I was worried that others would burst into my office which happened all the time.  But I was also moved at this significant moment and his prayer.

This episode sharpened the guidance issue.  Were all these different experiences and the encouragements amounting to a clear call.  Did I need to be challenged to use this word?  Probably, because call has such a definite ring to it as though something specific has happened.  And much of my story was a series of lower order events.  But, he was right - they did amount to something importance.  And what happened next was specific.....

Honesty about guidance 2)

In my Baptist Union work I occasionally visited churches requesting student missions to explain what was involved and inspire their support.  On a visit to Wales I stayed with a minister and his wife overnight in order to address the church on the Sunday morning.  However, just before I reached my moment to speak in the service the minister suddenly let rip. He told the congregation with such bitterness and sadness that it was his fifth anniversary at the church and that not one of them cared to notice - indeed nobody cared for him and his wife.  His anger was palpable.  The congregation was stunned. I have never forgotten it. It was an extraordinary public breakdown.

It is very hard to explain why but in that very moment of agonized silence when we heard this man's anguish I sensed another nudge from God as though to say: Yes, this is the reality of pastoral ministry but I am calling you to it.  You can face it with me'.  Was this a genuine divine disclosure?  Of course, I cannot be sure but I do know it was the last thing I was expecting - the very last thing.

I wonder whether the fact of my early resistance because I had witnessed my father's labours and disappointments needed direct confrontation!  Certainly, in the awkwardness and pain of that Welsh chapel I was seeing the worst yet hearing a call.  I remember that I still had to speak a few words about mission to the embarrassed congregation though I knew this was unlikey happen.  On the rail journey home I wondered what it had all been about.

You can imagine why I omitted this when I wrote up my application for ministry!  It was too odd and I didn't want to add to speculation as to which minister this was and which church.  But the more I have seen God at work the more I have taken such moments seriously.

Honesty about guidance 1)

Looking at my 'Weird life' I realize that the problematic issue of 'guidance' emerges at different stages.  I say problematic because in my work with students this was one of the (obvious) hot topics - 'How can we know God is guiding us?'  Good question! I am always careful to say how much God's guidance comes through a complex mixture of internal and external dynamics.

Reflecting on my story I have tried to be honest about God's guidance into ministry itself, and into the churches I served.  Being honest means including some details that never made it into application papers and interviews.  My first appointment after university to teach at Serampore College in India (which I described in an earlier post) seemed to be a God-directed step.  I am pretty sure that in conversation with Christian friends I would have claimed that God had opened up this opportunity. He had guided me. But when the organization collapsed and threw me into confusion I think I began to realize how presumptuous I had been.  How easy it is to presume God is endorsing our next steps?

I think that led to more caution as I approached the next major challenge - about Baptist ministry. The first time anyone mentioned this was on a student mission when a friend asked me whether I had ever considered it.  Without hesitation I answered no - in no way.  I had seen first hand in my father's ministry the personal cost of being open to a congregation's needs and of leading a voluntary organization where division of opinion seemed the norm.  Who could possibly want that?  No, I was emphatic that as a Christian I would serve God in other ways.

However, having lost the Serampore opportunity, my first (surprise) job in the Baptist Union landed me in a very Christian world. Working with students and chaplains inevitably involved me in pastoral work, speaking at conferences, giving a devotional word and sometimes even preaching.  With all this Christian stuff surrounding me the possibility of ministry began to niggle away with more persistence.  I still resisted the idea but a deacon counselled that I should at least do a little serious testing. I became involved with the London Baptist Lay Preachers' Association speaking to mid-week meetings and even doing some lame Sunday preaching. Niggles and nudges were increasing.

Then something happened that in retrospect seems bizarre and which never made it into the more formal explanations of my journey into ministry......

Yippee

That's what friends said a few moments ago when we told them that the hospital had called me with details of the neurological department's reopening.  And, yippee, I have been given the first appointment next Thursday morning for my dystonia injections.  Sadly my consultant is still very unwell so I have a new specialist to see but I am so grateful that the sojourn is coming to an end.

It will have been 33 weeks since my last injection and the experience has been extraordinary - as I have shared in past blogs.  After 16 weeks I should have been markedly deteriorating, not only listing to the right as my head and body turned but also in considerable pain.  In the past this has disabled me almost completely. The co-incidence (God-incidence) that I was put on a Parkinson drug because of an entirely different problem from the Papworth sleep clinic seems to have been part of the remarkable story through all these weeks.  My twisting and pain have been minimal and though I need treatment I believe that prayer and these patches have held me upright and well.

So, gratitude again for all your prayers and support and for the ways that God can work things together for good.  Yes, yippee

Hijacked by a verse 2)

The second way of saying this as Christ's friends to each other.  That because we belong to Jesus together, with the Holy Spirit uniting us in different deeper ways, we experience a deeper spiritual bonding. 'Being present in spirit' means much more because there is a bond that is not just natural but owes everything to the Holy Spirit.  We didn't choose the others! They are given to us because we all belong to Jesus Christ who chooses us to be his family together.  This means all kinds of people with whom we might otherwise have little in common are bound together spiritually.

I remember one occasion receiving three people into church membership in Cambridge.  One was a professor and his academic wife. The other was rarely seen without a grubby yellow Cambridge United scarf and often with his yellow hi-viz jacket.  He was the road sweeper, frequently with his cart along our road. There was real joy on the three faces and afterwards the professor said to me: 'That's what heaven is going to be like, isn't it?  All sorts of people belonging together!' We say the prayer: 'Thy will be done on earth as in heaven' don't we?...we should expect every kind of difference to be within the kingdom now.

In Colossians this bonding is closely connected with prayer for prayer holds us together across distance sometimes so strongly that we can feel the strength of prayers of others at a distance. I'm on your side, right beside you.  Love is also vital because knowing and sharing the love of Jesus is the most powerful uniting force of all.

Like many churches our zoom times continue to emphasize our separateness in our own homes.  But this spiritual bonding through prayer and love holds us together like no other force. When the Holy Spirit is involved the experience of encouragement, empathy and imaginative engagement happen at a deeper level. And that gives such hope about the future for the church.  Unlike some other organizations that wonder if they will survive we have this extraordinary dynamic that holds us together going forward.