Baptisms, burnout and sabbath

This is the fifth episode from our Proximity Conference series. Chris Lane, a church leader from Salford, tells Abi the joys and challenges of planting a church – including, baptisms, burnout and taking the long view! They chew over sustainable mission, friendship, and spiritual practices; especially prayer and Sabbath. Chris understands the vulnerability and fragility of urban ministry, and helps us walk in it thoughtfully and prayerfully.

Books mentioned: Ordinary Miracles and Not Forgotten by Chris Lane

Episode quotes

“I could tell you someone’s story after two years which is amazing and I could stand on that stage and everyone would clap when I tell the story, but then if I told it four years later then it would be a really sad story because they went away from God and their life imploded. But then five years after that, they come back again and one of the beautiful things about long term ministry in one place, so for us now nearly 26 years, you know that when people walk away, that’s also not the end of the story and we’ve had the joy of seeing people return again to the Lord, and we learn that’s not the end of the story either. So we are constantly going ‘what are you doing at the moment Lord?‘ It helps you not to be devastated when the tough things happen and it helps you to not get arrogant when it’s going really well, because you know that there is more to come tomorrow and God’s got stuff for you.”

“In the early days we imagined a growth arc that would happen for us where things would get better and better, stronger, larger and we would be more secure with our money. We have learnt that for us, that’s not what God has wanted for us and that one of the blessings and challenges of this kind of ministry is that you always feel a sense of vulnerability and fragility with it. Learning to live with that and not let is crush you, but I think you can really thrive in that. It’s one of the gifts that people doing this kind of ministry have to give the wider church to say, even when it feels like you’ve got nothing, you’ve got God and he can sustain you.”

“We can try to be some heroic person that tries to fix everyone and acts as a counsellor and this and that and actually counsellors already exist and they are good at their job and we don’t need to do that job and there are other professionals that can help us. Our job is very much to help people to hear the gospel and understand the gospel of Jesus and then also it’s our job to listen back to the gospel being preached back to us. As people encounter Jesus they often come up with the most profound theology.”