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Last weekend, Emmanuel Anglican Church New York City celebrated the 10th Anniversary of its formation and Dr. Jim Salladin’s ministry there. It is a wonderful tribute that the church has not only developed and grown over the years, but that it also testifies to the goodness and loving kindness of the Lord.
If you will pardon a personal note, Emmanuel Church was born out of the Christ Church NYC West Village congregation which we had planted in February 2010. Christ Church itself we had planted in 2001. However, learning of some serious challenges in late 2015 – I had retired at the end of 2013 – by God’s grace we were able to facilitate the resetting of the West Village congregation as Emmanuel Anglican Church in the first six months of 2016.
While setting up a new church is an effective gospel, disciple-making strategy in large cities, it can be fraught with challenges and pitfalls, especially in a city such as New York. In 2016 I wrote that ‘commitment, patience and perseverance are needed. But above all, that prayer is essential. For, as we read in Psalm 127 verse 1, unless the Lord builds the house the workers build in vain. Godly and true Church planting must never be about self-glory but rather God’s glory’.
Paul’s First Letter to the Corinthians, chapter 3, helps us here. Writing to a church that was divided around personalities, Paul says in verse 5: What then is Apollos? What is Paul? Servants through whom you came to believe, as the Lord assigned to each. I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth. So neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is anything, but only God who gives the growth.
Servants. Significantly he says that Apollos and Paul are simply ‘servants ’ or ‘waiters’. Like waiters in a restaurant, they serve food prepared by someone else. In this case they serve the food God has prepared – the food of God’s written self-revelation found in the Bible; the food of God’s truth, God’s gospel, from which we all benefit.
It’s important we understand who ministers are: they include the formally ordained and appointed minsters of God’s Word in a church. But they also include anyone who is involved in teaching God’s Word in Discipleship / Bible Study Groups, one-to-one gospel coffee conversations, Sunday School and Young people’s groups – anyone who engages in the ministry of God’s Word. And we should note what Paul is saying here: none are to be put on a pedestal.
It can be very tempting for ministers who are naturally gifted speakers and whom God uses to gather large churches, to become puffed up, full of pride. Watch out, Paul is saying; we are simply servants.
‘I planted and Apollos watered’, Paul continues, ‘but God gave the growth’. What a significant but that is in verse 6. It was God who brought the church in Corinth into life. Yes, God involved the ministries of Paul and Apollos, but it was he who gave the growth.
Now, while Paul is insistent on the comparative insignificance of Christian ministers he is committed to the significance of Christian ministry. In verse 9 he writes: For we are God’s servants, working together; …
Christian ministry – be it ordained or non-ordained – is not about ministers competing with one another but working together in partnership with God. And for what purpose? In verse 9b he continues: You are God’s field, God’s building… With two different metaphors – one from agriculture, you are God’s field, and one from architecture, you are God’s building – he portrays what church and ministry is.
God doesn’t only give the growth to the church. The church itself is God’s. And Paul continues his architectural metaphor in verse 11: For no one can lay any foundation other than the one that has been laid; that foundation is Jesus Christ.
God’s church is to be built on the foundation that was laid by Jesus Christ when he died and rose again. Back in First Corinthians chapter 1, verses 23 and 24 Paul writes: We proclaim Christ crucified,… Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.
The primary task of ministry is to introduce the world to Christ or Messiah Jesus. Our further task is to teach what it means to turn to Jesus as Lord and Savior.
Churches that are built and developed on this foundation will last forever. Jesus himself promised it when he said, “I will build my church and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it” (Matthew 16:18). Empires will come and go – as the Roman Empire did – but the church of Jesus Christ will last forever.
Effective ministry, our part in the work of building God’s church, demands constant vigilance and constant prayer. If it is God alone who gives the growth to a church should we not be praying more consistently than we are? Perhaps one of the reasons churches in the West today are not having the impact they could have is because of our prayerlessness. Blaise Pascal once commented God instituted prayer in order to lend to His creatures the dignity of causality.
We have a special privilege, not only being partners with God in the building of the church of Jesus Christ, but also in prayer.
Let me use the 10th anniversary of Emmanuel Anglican Church NYC to thank the Lord Jesus Christ for his unique ministry that laid the foundation for gathering and building God’s church across the races and nations throughout time.
Let’s thank the Lord for the countless faithful ministers of God’s Word, praying that God’s people everywhere will persevere in the faith, living under God’s Word and exemplifying what love and loyalty to God means in the transformation of our lives, for the glory God – our rock and our redeemer.
Prayers. Eternal Father, who declared Jesus our Lord to be your beloved Son at his baptism, grant that we and all who have become his people through faith in his name, signified in baptism, may rejoice to be your children and the servants of all people. We ask this through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
Almighty and eternal God, by whose Spirit the whole body of your church is governed and sanctified: receive our prayer for the many different members of your holy church; that every one of them in their vocation and ministry may truly and devoutly serve you; through our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.
© John G. Mason
