September 2023 and it looks like the worst of the pandemic is behind us. What’s not behind us is the flow on effects. Sunday worship is back, but in most places numbers are reduced, and in some cases, significantly so. Pastors and leaders are working with depleted teams. In many places there’s desire to do something new to engage the local community, but there’s often uncertainty about how to make that happen. Sustainability and resilience may be buzzwords of the day, but in many churches they are either in short supply or an impossible dream.

These aren’t the only complications facing many Australian churches today. Consider:

The church’s lost standing. In Australia, the Royal Commission into Institutional Abuse exposed the shocking incidence of abuse and its horrific impact on innocent and vulnerable people. While not all churches have been party to such abhorrent criminal acts, and while not all churches have unjustly protected perpetrators, the number and gravity of cases has seriously eroded the standing of the church in the general community. Where churches or church leaders have committed such acts the demands of justice must be satisfied. Further, if the church as a whole has suffered reputational damage that is in some corporate sense understandable. It is not only those who are found guilty who need to repent, there is wisdom for Australian churches to express sorrow for what has transpired, and to commit to building and rebuilding churches as places of safety and wholeness. I doubt God would ask any less of us.

Militant secularism. While not necessarily a result of the above, strident opposition to the presence of the church seems to be increasing. While these militant voices sometimes seem random and episodic, it is also true that more deliberate and organised opposition to the church seems to growing.

The lure of self. No surprises here – selfism has been with us since the Garden. But given the harm done to the church’s reputation, the sense of growing opposition toward the Christian faith, and post pandemic fatigue, it’s hardly surprising that a proportion of Christians find they have better things to do than go to church on Sunday. An additional complication is that where churches make the needs of people their primarily focus, one outcome is that people start to believe the church is there for them. Sure, God intends his church to be a place where people are blessed with new community and inspiring ministry, but this is always a by product and should not be the primary focus. When our needs become the focus, we’ve already lost the focus God wants us to have. And what is the primary focus God wants us to have? It is himself, his mission through Jesus his son, and the astonishing reality that through Jesus he is putting broken people and their broken world back together.

Aim at heaven and you will get earth ‘thrown in’: aim at earth and you will get neither.”

C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity

Is it possible to turn a flagging church around? God can do this, of course. Nothing is impossible for him. But he’ll typically use us to do it. No doubt, there are numerous strategies to having us aiming more at what C.S. Lewis calls ‘heaven’, or what Paul might call ‘the things above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God’ (Col 3:1-2). We are talking about embodying and bringing to expression a church and culture which reflects – as best we can this side of heaven – the character of Jesus and his kingdom. When Christ and his kingdom are our core focus, everything else will assume its correct emphasis. This is what Jesus promised us in Matt 6:33.

Biblical justice needs to inform and influence every aspect of Church ministry and mission

Here’s my point: embodying heaven, seeking the things above, having Christ and his kingdom as the church’s core focus is more than having biblical teaching, inspiring worship, a wonderful culture of discipleship, healthy Gospel outreach, etc. Biblical justice needs to inform and influence every aspect of Church ministry and mission.

How do we make that happen? We follow Lewis’ advice and seek ‘heaven’ in every context. There’s no tension between biblical justice and ‘seeking heaven’ or ‘the things above’ because seeking justice is simply doing all we’re called to do to repair and restore what is broken around us.

How will biblical justice impact every area of mission and ministry? We’ll need to seriously question what we are trying to do at every level.

In all church ministries we must ask How does God want this ministry to be a better reflection of his true intention for the church and for people?

In every relationship we ask How does God want me to change my behaviour and attitudes so this relationship is a better expression of what God would want to see?

In every community focused mission effort we need to ask How would God want this aspect of our community to change so people would see he’s a loving God who brings a new beginning and new hope through Jesus?

I know some will question this, and wonder whether ‘justice’ ministries might take us away from the core of the Gospel. I’ll address that in coming posts, but just let me say now that where the church embodies the kind of justice God envisages in his word, it will not take us away from Jesus, it will take us deeper into Him because through Jesus God will reconcile to himself all things (Col 1:19).

The Church that has justice at the heart of everything it does will more and more reflect the fullness of the Gospel and God’s true intention for his people. It will show not only that God has saved people through the atoning work of Christ, but that he changes people’s behaviour, and through them, over time, he begins to change the world around them for the better.

God has always intended his people to have this role in his world. Outlining that Scriptural narrative is what I’ll be focusing on in coming weeks.