Preach Magazine Issue 5 - Preaching to the unconverted | Page 40

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FEATURE

RIPPING UP THE ROTA
Until recently there had been a
rota for all the jobs at St Mark’s –
sidesperson, server, intercessions,
coffee making and so on. However,
it tended to be only the more
established members of the
congregation who could commit.
So they put jobs such as ‘light the
candles’, ‘reader’, ‘take collection’
and ‘tidy up after service’ on
laminated card. Many are suitable
for children. Then each Sunday
there is a ‘host’ who can commit
to a Sunday and they bring the
biscuits, open the church and
put out the box with the jobs
in. As people come in they help
themselves to a card, if they wish to.
The second main criticism assumes
that the gospel is being watered
down or made more palatable to get
people through the door. Rev’d Oxley
believes both criticisms are based on
misunderstandings. ‘I think if Jesus
was still teaching on the earth today
he’d get slammed for his teaching.
He did things like hold up a seed he’d
borrowed from a farmer and said –
hey look at this: the Kingdom of God is
like this mustard seed – and then sat
down and didn’t give any answers or
explanation and he let the listeners do
the legwork.
‘It’s not weak teaching, it’s just really
simple teaching. I mean, there is
nothing complicated about the gospel.
Jesus loves you, go and worship him
and love your neighbour. There’s no
excuse for lazy teaching; you want to
give people meat and I don’t think a
good way to attract a new seeker is to

always give milk. I think it’s possible
to give meat – just in a language that
anyone can understand – I don’t think
you have to do either/or. There still
should be challenge if you’ve been a
Christian for 60 years. I think it was
Rob Bell who said you don’t just jump
from A to F, you jump from A to B to C.
The goal is always to move people on
and we all learn from each other.’
In Farnham Rev’d Crawley says
people still accept the traditional
gospel – there is no need to make it
‘more’ attractive than it already is.
‘I personally think the gospel is good
enough without me having to stress
about the difficult bits,’ she says. ‘The
person of Jesus that’s presented in
the gospels is a compelling person
and the