Archive for the ‘Featured’ Category

Posted on August 12, 2010 - by Stephen Murray

Honest Evangelism for a Suspicious City

I stumbled upon Sivin Kit’s blog post, ‘An Affirmation on Christian Witness‘ which deals with the Malaysian Christian Federation’s  affirming of what is really just honest evangelism – evangelism with integrity.

Perhaps there are no places more in need of honest evangelism than our highly suspicious urban centers. Besides the simple fact that a carrot and stick approach to evangelism is morally and ethically questionable it’s probably also the quickest way to sink the reputation of a new urban ministry or church within their community. Here are 2 things to avoid and 2 things to consider doing if you are part of an urban ministry or church:

2 Things to Avoid:

1. Don’t organize and run events where the primary purpose of the event, in your own conception, is to publicly proclaim the gospel but the public (advertised) purpose of event is something else. A colleague of mine recently told me of how a Jazz evening he organised, that included a 10 minute gospel presentation at the end, painted a horrible blemish on their church’s reputation in the community. People in our urban centers will never give you an ear if you’re not straight with them.

2. Don’t get involved in a mercy ministry if your primary intention is to grow your church numerically. Don’t hear me wrong – I want people to roll up their sleeves and get stuck into mercy ministry – but do it for the right reasons. Go back, read your Bible, see God’s concern for the poor and marginalized and go out and serve. Does God want the poor and marginalized to repent and believe in the gospel? Of course he does – but you can’t just interact with them on that premise alone, which is what you’re functionally doing if your church only ever gets involved in mercy ministry for evangelistic purposes. I remember reading Tim Chester (I think – might have been Steve Timmis – sorry if I mixed it up) saying that evangelism is the most loving thing we, as Christians, can do – but its not the only loving thing we can do. The way some ministries and churches engage in mercy ministry, social justice and cultural renewal makes it clear that they believe evangelism is the only loving thing we can do. That’s not biblical and it will result in evangelism that lacks integrity.

2 Things to Do:

1. Be clear about the intention of your meetings and events. If the aim of the evening is to introduce people to the claims of Jesus then say so. People are putting their ideologies out there all day, everyday. We shouldn’t be shy or embarrassed to be clear about what we’re on about.

2. Bless your city. I’ve spoken about this already but I really believe that if we honestly and genuinely love and care for our city (no strings attached) it will put a whole lot of integrity behind us when we do share the core of our faith. I’m fairly convinced that’s what 1 Peter 2:9-3:16 is all about. Honest living allows for honest evangelism.

Posted on July 14, 2010 - by Stephen Murray

On the Move for Support Raising

On Friday Robin and I head off to Johannesburg and Durban for two weeks. The first purpose of our trip is to get a bit of rest time in. Church planting is busy work and its been full steam ahead since the beginning of the year. The second purpose is to continue raising the profile of what we’re doing in Cape Town and trying to secure financial support for the next two years. If our work here in Cape Town is something you feel you could be investing in then please consider supporting us in this venture in seeing God’s kingdom being advanced in the important city of Cape Town.

Posted on June 29, 2010 - by Stephen Murray

Bless Your City

How do you bless your city on a personal level. Many might have read Tim Keller’s advance paper for Cape Town 2010 and been really convicted by the approach to urban ministry he sets out, but you’re left wondering how you live consistently with those principles on an individual level. Here are some thoughts, and things I’ve tried out in my city, Cape Town:

1. Be Regular

I made a point at some stage to make sure I frequented the same establishments with some sort of regularity building relationships with the staff and the regular customers. So have coffee at the same coffee shop often, use the same restaurants often, shop for groceries in the same place. In Cape Town there is so much choice in terms of restaurants, coffee shops and supermarkets that it would be (and is) really easy to not be a regular and to simply dip into hundreds of different establishments never building any lasting relationships where you can be a blessing. To make any sort of difference you need to choose to be regular.

2. Use Public Transport

Okay so not all cities have the same type of transport setup so you’ll have to figure this one out for your own city. In saying that, there are many cities that have more of a car culture than a public transport culture. Often in car culture cities poorer folk are encountered on public transport whilst the wealthy use their cars. Cape Town, with the exception of the down town area, is definitely a car culture city amongst the middle-class and the wealthy(although things are slowly changing in this area – for the better I think). Shortly after my wife and I moved into the central city I made a commitment to travelling the way the majority of our city travels. I’m happy to say that my car sees very little daylight nowadays. We have a  minibus taxi system that I utilize most days for going to work. The benefit? I rub shoulders with the city, hear their stories, again build relationships and contribute to the livelihood of the industry. It beats sitting in traffic.

3. Buy Local

If you’re in a global city you’ve probably got limitless options in terms of buying goods. Depending upon the local industry of your country many of those goods are probably imports. Now this is an area I need to get better at but on occasion I’ve tended to look out for the smaller industries in my city and try and bless them by giving them my business. Again you’ll find that this will open up relationship and will also allow you to add to the economic development of your city.

4. Serve in Local Social Development Projects

Chances are your city has a number of social development projects on the go. Find out what they are, role up your sleeves and get involved. We’re at an early stage of developing relationships with feeding and rehabilitation schemes for the destitute in our city as well as networking with people who work against human trafficking. This is probably the most obvious way to serve and bless the city.

5. Celebrate the Festivals (and invite your friends)

This one’s a little selfish but it is missional and can add, in a small way, to a better ethos. It’s been a whole lot of fun celebrating the Soccer World Cup with the city over the past few months. As I write this people are making their way to the stadium to watch Spain vs. Portugal. I’ll be downtown at kick-off with a bunch of people celebrating this once off sporting festival. I’ll be going to a regular spot, using public transport and buying local and in the process I’ll meet many people, some will know Jesus others won’t. My prayer is to be something of a blessing to those people and to the city in the process.

Posted on June 26, 2010 - by Stephen Murray

Why I can’t Walk Away from the Faith

Here’s a list of reasons why I could never walk away from the Christian faith:

1. I find the historical person of Jesus too compelling. Even with the most skeptical and literary critical reading of the gospels the man that comes forth from those accounts (let me stress again: even when torn apart by literary criticism) still demands more than a mere nod of the head as a moral teacher or visionary or whatever you want to call him.

2. I find the coherence of the reformed, evangelical worldview deeply satisfying in how I understand events and circumstances around me. I think if I fell into another branch of the Christian family I might struggle more with certain issues. I once read an atheist suggest that if he were to become a Christian he’d feel intellectually bound to adopt a reformed understanding of the faith given the way it synthesizes the Scriptures with the existential.

3. I find atheism intellectually unsatisfying. The vast majority of atheists I have encountered seem to me to be on a quest for absolute truth and the ability to be able to empirically attest to absolute truth. I am becoming more and more convinced that such a quest is impossible in this life. I don’t think we can know truth absolutely – in the way that many atheists would demand we must if we are to verify anything. I once heard D.A. Carson say that we cannot know truth absolutely but that does not mean that we cannot know truth truly. There’s a difference between the two and for me its made the world of difference. So in that sense I find atheism to be largely built on a premise that I find intellectually and philosophically unsatisfying. If we acknowledge Carson’s statement the whole ball game changes.  A classic example of this is the debate about the resurrection. The Christian scholar can stack up the historical and sociological evidence for the resurrection in such a way that the evidence is near overwhelming but the atheist will dismiss it on the premise that for a person to rise from the dead would be to defy the laws of nature and therefore be completely unverifiable empirically. So because miracles cannot be empirically verified they cannot happen. That’s essentially saying that unless I can know the truth absolutely I will not go with the rest of the overwhelming evidence that points to me being able to know the truth truly. Who really lives like that on a functional level? We trust in truths truly (not absolutely) on a day to day basis – so why move the goal posts when it comes to faith?

4. The way the Bible expounds the concepts of sin and idolatry line up with my own heart inch perfectly. I’ve been greatly helped by Tim Keller to understand these two concepts with more biblical depth in the last few years and the deeper I search the deeper my conviction grows that the Bible’s estimation of the human heart is spot on. Everybody, atheists included, worships something.

5. Suffering and pain in this life, ironically (or maybe not), help me make sense of the Fall and a holy and just God. C.S. Lewis and John Piper have helped me see that suffering, more than anything, exists to show that things are not okay and that human sin has caused this world to be plunged into a chaotic, dysfunctional existence. We more than ever need a God who allows suffering and evil so that we will wake up to the reality of sin. I know this is controversial, even amongst some Christians, but to me it makes way more sense than any other explanation, faith-based or secular, that I’ve heard.

5. The hope of th New Creation means I just don’t want to take any chances. I guess this is a little like Pascal’s Wager, but seriously if this whole existence is headed to a restored and renewed creation where every tear is wiped away and unending joy reigns forever don’t you at least want Christianity to be true?

Posted on June 25, 2010 - by Stephen Murray

Multifaceted Mission for a Multifaceted City

One of the great challenges of urban ministry is the versatile and dynamic nature of a global city. On the one hand global cities are becoming more and more like each other in sharing a very broadly defined global culture, but on the other hand as these global cities grow they each become more diverse and multifaceted, in and of themselves, than they were before. As people move from rural areas to cities they each bring a little bit of their background to the melting pot of the city and add it into the mix. So as the city grows the number of different cultures in one geographical location grows, as do all the various components that make up any one given culture. Here’s a list, off the top of my head, of some of the biggest challenges this creates for urban ministry:

1. Economic Inequality
Building authentic gospel-centered community in the city is difficult when people are so comfortable in their own ghetto-like communities. Often these communities are built on economics and so when all of a sudden the gospel gets people in the room from different economic communities it starts to get interesting. A thorough biblical theology of wealth and possessions is necessary for urban ministry.

2. Racial/Ethnic Division
If it’s not economics that makes for interesting community then try racial and ethnic division. It takes a long, careful process to walk through all the mistrust, misunderstanding and other issues that occur when people of different racial and ethnic backgrounds come together. A robust, gospel-centered theology of race and ethnicity is a prerequisite for urban ministry.

3. Multiple Languages
Given that much of Christian ministry is centered upon the proclamation of the gospel this creates a unique challenge in that many sitting in urban congregations today will have the language in which the sermon is preached as their second or third language and not the language they speak at home. This will have far reaching implications for preaching and the development of curriculum.

4. Diverse Tastes in Music and Arts
Whilst I’m very much pro heterogeneous church models that aim to reflect the throne room of Revelation where all nations are gathered together worshipping God I’m also well aware that congregations, or services, will essentially develop their own styles and cultures. Conducting a corporate worship gathering that values heterogeneous ministry whilst at the same time finding a well contextualized ‘style’ for that meeting will be a great challenge.

5. Different Idols
People with different worldviews all converging in one place will mean a number of diverse and different idols being manifest which need correction. In some ways it was easier ministering in a wealthy western suburb where people’s idols revolved around the material, hedonism and family. The city daily brings me into contact with idols I’d never even thought of before. This makes communicating Christ, as the supreme object of worship, rather tricky at times. And if we’re not careful in our study and interaction with our people we can easily end up expending large amounts of energy confronting gods that have little or no hold over our congregations.

Urban ministry really requires multifaceted mission to deal with the multifaceted city.

Posted on June 9, 2010 - by Stephen Murray

Cape Town the Global City

Here’s something you probably didn’t know: According to the Global World Cities Ranking, Cape Town is the 16th (level with 5 other cities) most prominent city in the world where English is the Lingua Franca (English is not necessarily the most widely spoken language in each of these cases but it is the language on which each of these cities run. So for example more people speak Afrikaans as a first language in Cape Town than English). Here’s the top 33:

1st New York, London
3rd Sydney,
4th Toronto, Chicago,
6th Dublin, Los Angeles, Auckland
9th Melbourne, Johannesburg, Atlanta,
12th Dallas, Boston
14th Miami, Houston,
16th Montreal, Brisbane, Denver, Vancouver, Cape Town, Minneapolis, Seattle,
23rd Perth, Philadelphia, Portland, Lagos
27th Detroit, Manchester, Wellington, Edinburgh, Birmingham, Calgary, Columbus

It’s nice knowing you live in a city that stands out on the global stage. It also convinces me more that Cape Town is a thoroughly important place for the task of church planting.

As a side note…I wonder what the World Cup will do to these rankings – if anything.

Posted on May 27, 2010 - by Stephen Murray

VOX Intensive

This is something exciting that I’ll be involved in next week…

VOX Intensive:

One of our key identities at VOX City Church is that of ‘learner’. We aim to be a community that is constantly coming before God and his word and attempting to learn how we might better serve him in our city. In view of this value we’re holding a 3 day intensive where we will, in community, enter into a deliberate time of learning, discussion and experience centered on values that are core to us at VOX: Gospel, Community, Mission and City.

We want to encourage people to join us if they are able to as we cover these key areas in this learning environment. You can join us for either all or part of the intensive. However spaces for the intensive are limited so please RSVP asap.

Programme for the Intensive:

Wed 2nd June:
10am-1pm Urban Force Event at Common Ground Church (need to register separately for this).

2:30pm – 3:30pm Gospel in Three Perspectives (VOX Offices)
3:30pm – 4:30pm The Gospel Grid (VOX Offices)

6:30pm – 9pm Attend one of the VOX Missional Communities (Green Point, Rondebosch, Claremont, Woodstock).

Thurs 3rd June:
9am – 10am Debrief of Day One (VOX Offices)
10am – 11am Context: Overview of Cape Town (VOX Offices)
11:30am – 1pm Engaging with Story (VOX Offices)
2pm – 4pm Context: Getting a Feel for the City (Leave from VOX Offices)

5pm-8:30pm Township Experience (Gugulethu)
9pm-11pm Long Street Night Experience (Long Street)

Friday 4th June:
10:30am-12pm Debrief Day Two (VOX Offices)
1pm – 3pm What is a Missional Community (VOX Offices)
3pm – 4:30pm VOX City Church DNA (VOX Offices)

7:30pm-9:30 VOX City Church Vision Night (Baran’s 36 Burg Street)

Please let us know if you plan to attend any of the sessions by emailing us at info@voxcc.com

Posted on May 6, 2010 - by Stephen Murray

This City

“This City Visual Art Exhibition” puts on display the works of a number of artists from a wide range of disciplines.

The title doesn’t so much refer to a particular subject or topic but rather headlines a collective of artists who have been gathered for this short, eclectic show – artists, who may not normally put their work up side by side, are sharing the same space to show the diversity of this beautiful city and its amazing people.

There will be also be some live music down at &Union.

St Stephen’s Church, 110 Bree Street, Cape Town (map)

Friday: 6pm – 10pm
Saturday: 10am – 2pm
Saturday: 6pm – 10pm

Artists:

Further; Lester Atkinson; Janna Prinsloo; Mike Scott; Steven van Niekerk; Roxi Bredenkamp; Brett Atherstone; Joanna Court; Frank Moodie; Brigitte Spring-Parfitt; Susan Hall; Grethe Bredenkamp; Nick Mills; Viv King; Roxanne Amos; Claire Jones; Andrew Breitenberg; Sam Beningfield; Cyrelda Victor; Leon Oosthuizen; Zeke du Plessis; Maria Schoeman; Leanne van den Heever; Louw van Eeden; Craig Lewis; Lindsey Boucher; Karen Uys; Linka Prosch; Natalie Florentino; Taryn Reynolds; Nicola Davidson; Dayna-Gay Tate; Marko Petrik

Posted on May 3, 2010 - by Stephen Murray

More Joy

More on joy. Some quotes, old and new on the grand theme of joy (emphasis mine):

“Joy, in the full Christian sense of the word, is a supreme contentment, a supreme peace, a supreme concentration on the source of joy, and a supreme happiness at the way things are for one.” – JI Packer

“The main mark of a justified Christians is joy.” – John Stott

“The gospel is not a way to get to heaven; it is a way to get people to God. It’s a way of overcoming every obstacle to everlasting joy in God.” – John Piper

The chief end of man is to glorify God and enjoy him forever – Westminster Catechism

Posted on April 30, 2010 - by Stephen Murray

9 Reasons we Don’t Experience Joy

1. We don’t understand the depth of our sin.

2. We don’t understand the breadth of God’s love.

3. We don’t understand the cost of Christ’s death in our place.

4. We only understand intellectually, not at a heart level.

5. We don’t nurture our affections for Christ through spiritual disciplines.

6. We don’t understand the glory of the hope of the new creation.

7. We don’t understand the now/not yet tension when we try and live consistently with the hope that we have.

8. We spoil our appetite for this hope by pursuing other hopes this side of the new creation.

9. We have not pleaded with Christ in prayer to pour his love into our hearts through the Spirit.