ARTICLE
FOR LINKS MAGAZINE.
It's
Time To Engage
by
Nicky Gumbel
There
was an article in The Times recently saying that thousands of
churches face closure, demolition or conversion in the next decade,
leading to the demise of some branches of Christianity in Europe.
We
are seeing around us the breakdown of family life. The number
of Britons choosing to marry has fallen to the lowest level in
over 100 years. Then there's the whole breakdown in community
and the crime. The government keep telling us that the crime rate
is coming down. But the question everybody wants to ask is, ‘If
the crime rate is going down, how come the prisons are filling
up?'
You'd
think that all the secular authorities would be welcoming anything
the church could do to help. But, you know what? So often the
secular authorities now are actually opposing faith groups. That's
what I find distressing.
William
Rees-Mogg wrote in The Times recently:
In
19th century England, the revival of Christianity provided the
basis for a century of social reform. The 19th century was an
age of social reform based on the Christian faith. Religion is
not the problem. It is the only possible remedy.
How
is this going to happen? We need not just full churches, but we
need a reformed society. What does that mean? What does it look
like? How do we engage with that?
Engage
with change
It
starts here in my heart. Some years ago, when they were conducting
a correspondence in The Times about what was wrong with the world,
G.K. Chesterton sent them a letter. Of all the correspondents,
his was the shortest letter.
In
answer to the question ‘What's wrong with the world? He wrote
simply this:
‘Dear
Sir, I am. Yours sincerely, G.K. Chesterton.'
And
the answer is personal transformation.
As
Saint Paul put it in 2 Corinthians 3: 18: ‘And we who with unveiled
faces all reflect the Lord's glory are being transformed into
his likeness with ever increasing glory, which comes from the
Lord, who is the Spirit.'
The
vision is Jesus. The answer is the ministry of the Holy Spirit.
One of our staff members here did an Alpha day in a prison and
described some great big tough criminal coming up to him. The
man wasn't a Christian but he had watched the ministry of the
Spirit on the weekend and he said this, ‘I can't buy it. I can't
steal it. I can't hustle it. I can't inject it. But I really want
it.' A life change starts with us. But engaging with life change
means we must help other people.
Engage
in community.
In
Romans 12 verse two, Paul says, “be transformed.” What does a
transformed community look like? Well in Romans 12 we see a picture
of what a transformed community looks like.
First
of all: love for God. He says, ‘present your bodies as living
sacrifices.' That is what it is all about. What we are trying
to build is an alternative society. There is such a difference
between what we experience in church and the world out there.
Ours
is a community of love for God and each other – but also love
for others outside, especially our enemies. Paul says, ‘Bless
those who persecute you. If your enemies are hungry, feed them.'
This is the unique thing about the teaching of Jesus. Nobody else
up to that point in history had ever taught people to love their
enemies except Jesus. And it's a huge challenge.
Engage
as citizens.
Paul
writes in Philippians, ‘Our citizenship is in heaven. And we eagerly
await a saviour from there, the Lord Jesus Christ, who by the
power that enables him to bring everything under his control,
will transform our lowly bodies so that they will be like his
glorious body.' (Philippians 3:21)
This
is not just our future hope. What the kingdom of heaven is about
is the eschatological in-breaking of the future into history.
In
Isaiah 65, we see how we can begin to see what a transformed society
looks like.
•
It will mean purpose in the workplace.
‘My chosen ones will long enjoy the works of their hands. They
will not toil in vain.'
All
these things are huge and it's easy to look at all these things
and think, ‘Oh, I could be doing more.' That's not the point.
We can't all do everything.
But
we can all do something.
Nicky
Gumbel is vicar of
Holy Trinity Brompton, a Church of England church in central London.
He studied law at Trinity College, Cambridge, from 1973-1975 (M.A.
Cantab) and practised as a barrister from 1977-1983.
In
1983, he went to Wycliffe Hall, Oxford, to read theology ( M.A.
Oxon) and to train for ordination in the Church of England. He
joined Holy Trinity Brompton as curate to Sandy Millar in 1986.
He took over the running of Holy Trinity Brompton's Alpha course
- a practical introduction to the Christian faith - in October
1990. The course grew rapidly and attracted wide interest. The
first Alpha conference was held at Holy Trinity in May 1993 and
i n 1996 the Bishop of London appointed Nicky as an 'Alpha Chaplain'
. In 2005 he was appointed vicar of Holy Trinity Brompton in succession
to Sandy Millar.
More
than 200,000 church leaders have been trained to run Alpha courses,
which are now running in 158 countries. There are over 7,000 courses
running in the UK and over 32,000 world-wide. Eighty per cent
of the prisons in the UK are now running Alpha. An estimated 9
million people have completed the course world-wide. In 1998,
Alpha extended an ‘invitation to the nation', inviting the whole
of the UK to attend an Alpha course. Similar national initiatives
took place in 1999-2006 and another is set to take place during
September 2007. Sir David Frost presented a 10-part series on
Alpha for ITV in autumn 2001.
Nicky
Gumbel has written several books. Questions of Life
- the Alpha course in book form - was published in 1993 and is
the Alpha course syllabus in book format. It was declared ‘Christian
Book of the Year 1994' at the Christian Booksellers' Convention
and has sold more than a million copies world-wide. The evangelistic
booklet Why Jesus? and its sister publication Why
Christmas? have sold more than four million copies.
Nicky
speaks regularly at national and international Alpha conferences.
He is married to Pippa. They live in central London and have three
children, Henry, Jonathan and Rebecca.
