Here is a conversation Neil had not so long ago with a group of students at a university Christian Union:
Neil: ‘Who is the Lord of all things?’
Students (Without missing a beat): ‘Jesus’
Neil: ‘Who is the Lord of the University?’
Students (Again in unison): ‘The Chancellor.’
Neil (Becoming somewhat more emphatic): ‘Ok, one more time. Who is the Lord of all things?’
Students: ‘Jesus’
Neil: ‘Right, so who is the Lord of the University?’
Students: ‘The Chancellor’
At which point we leave Neil to reflect on the current state of university education and his own teaching techniques…
The point is this: declaring Jesus to be Lord of all is a statement easily made. Recognising Jesus is actually Lord of all is a somewhat more complex reality. For whole-life disciplemaking churches the challenge is to make the Lordship of Christ not an abstract, ethereal matter but a truth real and meaningful in people’s day to day experience. A reality that changes the way I approach my work, my responsibilities as a father and a husband, the way I think about time and money, and can challenge the way I use my power. For this to be the case we need communities that will encourage their members that:
‘…whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.’ (Colossians 4:17)
Whole-life disciplemaking communities must be committed first and foremost to helping their members live in the name of the Lord Jesus, wherever they are, whatever they are doing.
Secondly, declaring the Lordship of Christ is not a cost-free statement. Declaring the Lordship of Christ either explicitly or implicitly challenges the other powers that seek to gain Lordship over us. This is not a super-spiritual statement but a daily reality. In other words, to submit to the Lordship of Jesus is not merely to sing some songs to remind ourselves (He hasn’t forgotten!), it is to live in the opposite spirit of all that appears to fly in the face of the values of the Kingdom of God. As the author David Foster Wallace put it:
In the day-to-day trenches of adult life, there is no such thing as atheism. There is no such thing as not worshipping. Everybody worships. The only choice we get is what to worship.
Whether it is possessions, relationships, money, time, power etc., we recognise that there are other forces that are trying to disciple us. We therefore need the input of a Church community that will attune us to and help us discover the capacity to deal with the other forces that are seeking to claim our attention and worship.
So life in church will not be about merely providing information about God, Jesus, and Christianity. Our aim together will be to form and sustain Christian persons and congregations as disciples, as followers, of Jesus. This is crucial work, for if we don’t take on this task of conversion, the surrounding culture will. And it will convert someone effectively.
So, to embrace this value in our communities means:
1) We celebrate the fact there is no aspect of existence which lies outside the Lordship of Christ and his redemptive work
2) We live lives that acknowledge the Lordship of Christ in the places we are (at home, at work or at play)
3) We seek to identify the other things that would seek to become ‘other lords’
over us in our contemporary culture
4) We affirm the goodness of God at all times in all places
5) We recognise that we accompany God in his mission in the whole of life
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