When did you first come to Australia, and how many times have you come?

I first came here for the Moore College lectures in 1985. It’s between 45 and 47 times – I just can’t quite remember. A lot of frequent flyer miles.

What changes have you noticed in the Christian community since you’ve been coming here?

I’m really reluctant to pontificate on that in some ways because, inevitably, when I first came I wasn’t reading the situation very deeply. I had a few friends I had met in Britain and elsewhere, whereas now I’ve been here enough times and made enough friends, and know what journals and newspapers to read here, that I think I can understand a lot better. But I’m really reluctant to pontificate as an outsider on things like that.

Moreover, to talk about changes in Australia is a bit impertinent when I’ve spent most of my time when I’ve been here either in Sydney or Melbourne. This country is so diverse. In terms of where evangelical strength is, it varies from state to state and city to city. Here, the Anglicans are the biggest players by far, but you’re not the biggest players in Perth, and so on.

Clearly, there is more advance – as in all western countries – in the domain of secularisation, and despite momentary ups and downs in the economy there is more money around. The current trends, it seems to me, are still prevailing. I don’t see a huge change along those lines.

Whereas church attendance across the whole country has gone down, it has gone up in Sydney. On the other hand – I’ve asked a few people about this, so I don’t think I’m making this up – it has gone up absolutely, but the question to ask is, ‘How much has the population of Sydney gone up in the same time?’ In that sense, you’re probably still falling a little bit behind, actually.

There’s lots of room for expansion, evangelism, growth and outreach. But there are lots of encouraging things too. There are a higher percentage of young people at CMS Summer School than at my first visit, which was in 1990. There are things to be profoundly grateful for.

Why do you keep coming back so often, especially when it’s so far?

“The reasons for coming here are complex. I have some very close friends here, which friendships have been nurtured in part in Britain, where we’ve had common roots or have done common research at Tyndale [College] or the like. Some have spent time at Trinity [Evangelical Divinity School] on sabbaticals or teaching.

In some ways, some of the folk here put up with me very graciously, partly because we have some similar views on what evangelism and Bible teaching should be like, and this sort of thing. In some senses I lock into the Anglican Diocese here because we have some shared commitments. We reinforce each other – they strengthen some of what I do elsewhere, and I strengthen some of what they do here.

There is, worldwide, a growing number of Christian leaders who are trying to read the times right, see what the crucial issues are, see where the church is going, and recognise that there are certain fundamentals that are non-negotiable. Amongst these, above all, is a reverencing for the word of God and the God of the word, and therefore a deep commitment to teaching it well, wisely, prophetically, and in a way that engages this generation – building towards tomorrow and the next day, and not yesterday and the day before, while nevertheless understanding that you need to be rooted in history, and in truth, and in the word.

You look worldwide, and there are not a lot of institutions and leaders that see that clearly. And yet, the ones that do, it seems to me, are increasingly building networks.

Trinity, where I teach, is an international seminary, and we have our graduates in just about every country in the world. Inevitably, those links become more important than denominational links, or even geographical links.

You are an ordained Baptist minister and grew up in a Baptist home. Do you focus much on being part of this denomination?

The ordination vows I took, I take seriously. And the distinctives that are part of my own understanding of what the Scripture teaches, I think are correct. But on the other hand, I have discovered some Anglicans who share them with me. Moreover, there are Baptists, and there are Baptists – just as there are some Anglicans you would not want to be associated with.

But when you come to the core values, the core teachings and the core confessionalisms, the commonalities among those who take Scripture seriously are far, far stronger than the divergencies. There are some divergencies, but you don’t lose a lot of sleep over them. It seems to me, the more you take the Scriptures seriously, the more you can get a fair bit of agreement across denominations. In that sense, there is more of a true ecumenicity that in the ‘ecumenical movement’, where you’re basically agreeing to bury differences. Here it seems that the ecumenicity is bound up, first and foremost, with the truth of Scripture and a deep commitment to trying to understand and do it.

Will that become more important as issues of homosexuality continue to be a focal point?

Inevitably. It’s not the only issue, but it’s going to become one of the dividing issues.

In one sense it’s sad that it should be something like that. But if it helps Christians to come to clarity of thought about whether they are going with Scripture or not, it’s not a bad thing. This has been coming on issue after issue, but in all kinds of denominations we’ve fudged and fudged, and this one has become the trigger that is not going to allow many people to fudge much longer.

There are too many Christians worldwide who are saying on this one, ‘Enough, already!’ It’s possible that there will be some groups who will fudge when they shouldn’t, so there could be some nasty division and really unfortunate breaking up of denominations. But on the other hand, better that than sacrificing the truth of Scripture.

Why do you think CMS Summer School is important?

This conference has a unique thrust, as far as I can see, in that it has always been a combination of biblical exposition and mission focus. There are lots of other conferences that have biblical exposition – all the Katoomba conferences, for example – but mission per se is not a big deal for them. I’m not criticising those other conferences; they all have their place and they can be very strategic. But there can be a danger with them too, in that you’re not thinking of giving out, and of what the entailments are for world mission.

On the other hand, I’ve also seen a lot of mission conferences that are focusing heavily on mission but they’re not really grounded in Scripture. They’re always thinking about the pragmatics of recruitment or cross-cultural training – all of which is important, but it gets somewhat removed from Scripture. The strategic value of this [conference] is bound up in the fact that you have a marriage between the two.

In recent years, the organisers have given lots more thought to how to pull in whole families. That speaks well for the future. It’s not just supported by 50-year-olds and up. CMS Australia is an amazingly strong and forward-looking chapter of CMS. I’ve been to a lot of CMS’s around the world, and this is a great unit.

What do you see as the impact of spending time face-to-face with missionaries?

There are others [conferences] where that takes place, but again it’s the fact that this takes place within the context of something that is word-based. Meeting [missionaries] is very important, but if that’s all it is, it’s too thin. Everybody is on their best behaviour at these sorts of conferences, telling their best stories. It needs to be done, but the fact that it’s done within a biblically-framed context is very healthy.

What are your thoughts on the Sydney Diocesan Mission, as an approach to ministry?

If you aim for nothing, you’ll almost certainly hit it. The strength of it is precisely that you’re aiming for something.

That does not mean that if you come to year ten and you’ve only attracted three per cent or five per cent, that therefore you must conclude that you are a failure. At the end of the day it’s God who adds to the church; people are converted by God’s grace, through faith.

You can’t guarantee that growth is going to go along the lines that you’ll project. If you only get ten per cent after fifteen years, I’m not going to cry. But if you don’t aim to do anything, inevitably what happens is that churches and denominational leaders begin to think in terms of the immediate crisis, and do not think strategically. What this is doing is helping the entire Diocese think in terms of biblically mandated priorities. That has to be a good thing.

It seems to me, in all fairness to Peter Jensen, he’s also been sensitive enough to those who don’t want to buy into it right away. In effect, his response has been, ‘If you don’t like the way we’re going about it, I’m not going to lose any sleep, so long as you have the mission of Jesus Christ in mind. If you are doing evangelism in your own patch, your own way, God bless you, go in peace.’

In one sense it’s not merely control of manipulation, because it’s fostering a certain kind of entrepreneurial independence. Meanwhile, it still becomes part of a biblically-mandated mission which, I think, will serve to energise the Diocese and give it a certain sense of direction and priorities. I think people are much more willing to give of their time, their money, and all kinds of other things, if there is a sense in which the leaders are committed to what the Bible actually says we should be doing. So I’m all for it.

I remember a very famous story from Dwight L. Moody, one of the great American evangelists of the 19th century. At one point, one of his critics said to him, ‘Sir, I really do not like your methods.’ Moody replied, ‘What methods of evangelism would you prefer?’ ‘Well, I don’t have any methods of evangelism.’ To which Moody replied, ‘I would prefer my methods, which I do have, to your methods, which you don’t have.’ At some point you have to be grateful that there is a vision to move forward.

What advice would you give to parishes on where and how the Mission should start?

In most churches you want to start relatively small. Get a few people who are decently trained in small group evangelism, or one-on-one, or starting Bible studies in their offices at noon – there are dozens of ways of doing things. In most missionary strategies, it seems to me that the wise thing to do is to begin faithfully with those that are willing, rather than trying to impose everything on the unwilling – then eventually the small seed – well sown, well nurtured and well watered – becomes something bigger, rather than trying to begin with a bang.

Spending so much time teaching others and training future Christian leaders, how do you continue to grow and be nurtured in your own Christian life?

There are no formulaic answers, there just aren’t. Any Christian – myself included – has to keep reading the Bible, has to continue thinking, has to keep reading, has to keep praying, has to keep evangelising. How that works out in any particular person’s life varies enormously.

One of the things that I make a point of doing is ensuring that at least a couple of my series of meetings every year are evangelism – usually university evangelism. I could spend all my time teaching Christians, and just lose touch with the broader world. If you are constantly doing university missions, you find out where people are. My last one was at Yale.

None of that do I find comfortable, but for me it’s not only part of obeying the Lord’s commandment to mission for myself, but also keeping myself abreast of what’s going on. There’s no way I could have written The Gagging of God if I weren’t involved in university missions. That book really emerged out of questions that were being asked again and again. You are forced to look at how people are changing.

Thus, part of spiritual health demands not only what is going in, but what is going out; it demands that you get enough rest, that you have the right relationships. It demands a certain kind of humility which, probably, in the Lord’s providence means that you’re going to get kicked in the teeth a few times, because it’s good for you.

There’s not a formula where, if you do the following six things you will guarantee spiritual vitality. It doesn’t work like that. What is needed for spiritual vitality, it seems to me, is a good grasp of the gospel, worked out in every area of life, which means that there are certain priorities – the priority of the word in your own life and your own ministry, the right kinds of relationships, the right balance between taking in and giving out – all those kinds of things.

How do you keep yourself coming to the Bible with fresh eyes, and allowing yourself to be challenged and taught?

The more you know, the more you find out what you don’t know.

The Bible is not so much a book to be mastered, as a book that should master you. Even at the level of mastering, the more you find out what it says in passage after passage, you begin to see connections you never saw before. As you work through the Bible carefully, you enrich all your previous Bible materials.

The pastoral epistles can say, ‘Watch your life and doctrine closely, and let all see your progress’. In other words, over five years in a local church, the pastoral staff should be seen to be progressing in life and doctrine. Isn’t that interesting? It’s not as if you get to the end of your degree and say, ‘I’ve learned theology’. Rather, both in how you live and what you know, you should be seen to be progressing. And if you’re not, you’re robbing the people.

Did you always see yourself doing the kind of ministry that you’re doing now?

…The one thing that I almost left Trinity for a few years ago was an invitation from a church on the East Coast, right near Harvard, MIT and Boston University. I thought, ‘good grief, how do I say no to this one?’ It was close.

What decided me to say was that Carl Henry and a few other leaders ganged up on me and said, ‘you have to stay where you are because you’re getting more writing done there, and the kind of writing you do needs to be done’.

To this day, I don’t know if they’re right. There is a sense in which a good pastor in a good church, especially near a university, can suddenly tough thousands of people and shovel them towards ministry too. Just ask Phillip Jensen.

On the other hand, that’s the way it’s worked out, and you only have one life. You can’t do everything. Trinity has been very generous with its time. I teach only two years out of three and I do a lot of stuff around the world. It’s pat of Trinity’s vision of reaching people worldwide, not just in its own patch in Illinois.

What’s the hardest thing about being a parent?

The hard things change from period to period in life. If you have two or three children under the age of five, just keeping awake and finding energy [is hard]. It’s not that any particular thing is so hard. There’s a constant demand on your time all the time.

When they’re eight and ten, they are far more likely to be delightful, but on the other hand, there are a lot of violin lessons, and football games, and drama clubs to go to. Sorting through how to have family devotions [is difficult]. Then you get to the teen years and you have a whole other set of challenges. What’s the hardest thing out of all that? Then they become young adults and they’re making decisions.

If you’re the kind of parent that’s very good at structuring kids when they’re young, you may not be the kind of parent that’s very good at letting kids go when they’re in their senior teens. Those are slightly different gifts. What makes for a good parent in one domain does not necessarily make for a good parent in another domain.

Your wife recently went through a serious illness, and some years before you had written a book on suffering. How did going through your wife’s illness change or challenge you in your own understanding of God and of suffering?

It didn’t change anything. I’d release the same book today. The point is that it’s a book on the theology of suffering, and that shouldn’t change too fast.

When I was writing that book, I came down with sarcoidosis. I could have died, and I had no energy for about two-and-a-half years. My wife told me this was the Lord’s way of teaching me the book profoundly, and please would I next time choose to write a book on joy instead!

When my wife’s illness came along a decade later, it didn’t change a single thing. If you are realistic, as a Christian you expect sooner or later to get kicked in the teeth. Just because you’re a Christian doesn’t mean you’re not going to get sacked, or lose a loved one, or get cancer, or whatever.

We’re realistic. Most of the women in her family had cancer and died from it in their 50s. We weren’t surprised when Joy got cancer. In her case it was a pretty vicious kind, and involved radical surgery and treatment that almost killed her. But on the other hand, we’re all terminal cases, aren’t we? It’s just that a lot of us are in denial.

Neither did it affect our marriage negatively in any way. I cancelled all my travel and dropped off all my writing for about a year, and basically looked after her and did whatever lecturing was necessary. My daughter had already left home, but I spent a lot more time with my son because of it, and that’s not bad either.

Who knows, we may live out a normal span, but one of us may go. That’s the way life is – it’s not fair. The sooner you face that, the happier you will be when the time comes. Sooner or later, you have to trust the providence of God.