Highlights
It is a joy to continue seeing our music teams grow at St John’s, as our band leaders (Adrian, Alex, and Jason) regularly meet with and grow the musicians in their care as they glorify God. I’ve been encouraged to meet with them individually to help them reflect on their leadership of others; and last week the 4 of us gathered together for our termly catch-up and to prep our remaining all-in training sessions for the year. Jason has taken great initiative to prepare materials for “Aural Skills” training which will equip our musicians to grow in musicality and sonic cohesion as we serve together in our bands, within the context of leading our congregations in heartfelt singing to “teach and admonish one another with all wisdom…with thankfulness in [our] hearts to God” (Colossians 3:16, ESV).
In addition, our church has entered a partnership with Emu Music (Christian songwriters, publishers, and music team trainers) who will equip and resource us with their ongoing expertise as we do music ministry. They will join us later in the year for our last quarterly workshop, as well as providing a HymnBook resource comprising a database of songs grouped by themes, music sheets and stems to aid practice, and other goodies. Pray to thank God for our music team leaders and members who glorify God by their love and service, and pray that our music will continue to enable heartfelt worship in response to God’s word within our congregations. Pray that Jason will faithfully prepare and lead our next music workshop, and that our Emu Music partnership will benefit the growth in conviction and competency of all our musicians.
Learnings
The past few weeks of ministry have slowed down a little leading into school holidays, providing some opportunity for reflection and rest. At the halfway point of the year, we MTS trainees will be reviewing our ministries to date with our trainer and setting some further training goals for the year. Pray that I would utilise the time well to be refreshed for the coming term, and that my 6-month MTS review will be beneficial for refocussing my training.
Book Review! 📖
As a component of ministry training, I’m able to set aside time to grow in conviction by spending time in the Bible and reading widely from other Christian authors. I recently finished the book Jesus and the Eyewitnesses by Richard Bauckham, which examines evidence for the canonical Gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John) as reliable sources of eyewitness testimony.
In particular, the book is a response to the theory of “form criticism”, which posits that the Gospel texts were derived from series of uncontrolled oral transmission through unknown sources. This apparently altered the historical facts of Jesus’ life, teachings, death, and resurrection as fanatics “adapted” the truth to fit in with their religious teachings. At its core, the theory of “form criticism” suggests that the Gospels are unreliable tales that have mis-represented who Jesus really is and come from an indiscernible mix of sources.
However, Bauckham shows that features in the Gospels themselves, various 2nd-century secondary sources, and surveys of known contemporary historical data (catalogues of Jewish names, other eyewitness sources etc.) confirm beyond reasonable doubt that the Gospels were written by eyewitnesses (e.g. John) or those who had direct access to eyewitnesses (e.g. Mark, who wrote down Peter’s testimony). The Gospels were compiled and organised in an orderly way. Names in Gospels were ostensibly censored as it was written within living memory of the events, and “conspirators” of Jesus (e.g. one who cut off the ear of the high priest’s servant, named as Peter in John 18:10) could have been identified by readers. And because they were written within living memory, with numerous eyewitnesses named within the texts, the Gospels could have been further ratified for the contemporary sceptic by those who saw the events happen.
A challenging and dense read, this book is a great resource for an in-depth examination of evidence for the Gospels as eyewitness sources, and how eyewitness sources should be treated. Bauckham convincingly shows that the Gospels can be trusted as true and reliable as they relate the good news of Jesus Christ so hearers can believe in him.
The Marsden Fund 