Episode Details

I made a bit of a blunder in last week’s Payneful Truth. Yes, I hear you say, you wrote in very short, simplistic fashion about feminism. You should have known. 

But no, that’s not what I mean. I’m talking about the line in my spiel about becoming a ‘partner’ where I said: “from Sept 4 onwards, only partners will get The Payneful Truth every week (every third edition or so will go out free to the whole list.)” 

What I meant to say was “from Aug 4”—which is next week.

For the blessed among you who have already joined up as partners (thank you!), it won’t make any difference of course. You’re all set. But for those who have not gotten around to it yet—it means that it’s time to get organised. If you’d like to get next week’s edition, and to keep reading or listening every week, you have two options:

* click the button below to join as a partner (do it now before you forget);

* or if you’re not in a position to be a partner at this point but would still like to get every edition (every week), just send an email to tonyjpayne@me.com saying simply “Please put me on the free weekly list”. 

And if you’re content to get the occasional free edition every third week or so, no need to do anything. That will be the default outcome. God bless you and I’m delighted to have you on board! 

Thanks, too, to those who got in touch about feminism. I asked you how to improve my little summary, and you’ve helped me to do that in several ways (the version on the website has now been updated with those improvements). Of course the main weakness in my little summary was also its strength—that it was so short. If you’d like to read something on the subject that goes into more detail (and more nuance), I’d suggest these two articles by Katie Stringer and Ruth Baker, both of whom interacted very graciously with me about the article.

Some of you asked for more on the subject, particularly about the other side of the coin—that is, the ways in which men have contributed to the problem, and how men should respond. I’ve started to draft the companion piece—‘Shortest summary of masculism ever’—and if I manage to get over my masculine failings will send it out in the next few weeks.

But onto this week’s post.

What if ministry doesn’t work? 

In my recent ‘Essential Services’ series about the non-negotiables of church and ministry, I argued that our essential task is to be Christ’s fellow-workers in building his heavenly church, and that the nature of our work could be described in simple terms as the apostolic ministry of word and prayer. 

Someone emailed back with a very good question: But what if that doesn’t work?

What if you’ve been labouring away faithfully in the word and prayer—whether as pastor or a keen layperson—and things are pretty stagnant or even going backwards? No-one is getting converted. Disciples are not noticeably growing in maturity. Numbers are steady or declining. What then? 

In a sense, a book or two is required to answer this question—and you can’t say I haven’t tried. The Trellis and the Vine and particularly its sequel,

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