Steve Jeffery, Author at Kuyperian Commentary

On April 6, 2017 By Steve Jeffery In Family and Children 1

Having fun with little children

A guest post by Nicole Jeffery.

I was recently asked by a friend what I filled my days with when my kids were small. Like many other mums, she’s convinced that she’s in the best position to raise her daughter ‘in the discipline and instruction of the Lord’. But being at home all day long with tiny kids can be a bit of a crunch in the gears when you’ve been used to pursuing a career elsewhere. And when all those new mums you’ve been getting to know start cheerily heading back to the office and you’re left all alone in the park with your baby, life can feel pretty directionless. Just a single day can feel long and empty and, if we’re honest, a curious mixture of dull and stressful.

My friend’s question got me thinking, so I started digging back into some of my old notes, books and photos. What follows is a fairly random selection of some of the things I did with our kids in those precious early years. As a family we certainly didn’t get everything right. And even the things that worked out well for us may not all suit you. Some may be impractical where you live or with your particular children. But hopefully they will encourage and inspire you to make the best use of these fleeting early years.

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On March 10, 2017 By Steve Jeffery In Theology, Wisdom Like

Selecting men for ordination

There are a couple of different situations in which a church (and in particular the Minister and Elders of a church) might find themselves needing to train and select men for ordained Eldership. Perhaps there’s an older man in the church who looks (and lives) like the kind of guy who could serve as an Elder. Or perhaps there’s a (younger?) guy in the church who aspires to serve as a Minister, or an evangelist, or a missionary, or some other role in the body of Christ for which ordination is normally required.

In both cases, the initial reaction from the existing Elders and the congregation should of course be great enthusiasm, great encouragement, and so on. For even if the guy is currently not ready for the role, it’s nonetheless a fantastic blessing to have people either growing towards the grey-haired maturity that makes ordained Eldership appropriate or aspiring to the life of Christian service that makes ordination necessary.

However, it needs to be emphasised at the outset that the role is a demanding one, and that (especially in the case of those aspiring to any kind of teaching ministry) a great deal of training is likely to be required.

In order to clarify the nature of the demands upon a man’s lifestyle, understanding, orthodoxy, and so on, it can be helpful to have some questions to think about, both for the man himself and also for discussion among the existing leadership team and the broader congregation.

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On March 6, 2017 By Steve Jeffery In Family and Children Like

A Proverb for Dads…

… whose wives are at home raising babies or chasing toddlers or teaching teenagers, and who sometimes (naively) long to arrive home after a long day at work to a spotless and peaceful home, but are instead greeted by a chaotic riot of squealing kids, paintings drying on the sofa, science experiments spread across the kitchen, cookery splattered all over the walls, and large holes in the lawn where someone thought they’d just check in case there’s gold in these hills too:

Where there are no oxen, the manger is clean, but abundant crops come by the strength of the ox.
(Proverbs 14:4)

On December 26, 2016 By Steve Jeffery In Family and Children, Theology, Wisdom 1

Raising Expectations

A few weeks ago, the young people at Emmanuel Evangelical Church in North London organised a conference to share with the wider church their own aspirations to stop thinking of themselves as overgrown children and instead to grow towards greater maturity in Christ. The conference was called Raising Expectations, with talks on The Myth of Adolescence, Godly Ambition, Motivation, and Taking Risks, and the videos are now online below.

(Click here for audio recordings only.)

On December 20, 2016 By Steve Jeffery In Culture, Theology, Worship 1

Meaningless rituals?

One of the most common misunderstandings about rituals is that it’s necessary to understand them in order for them to be meaningful. In particular, we are told, unless we understand:

(1) what the significance of a given ritual is (what we might call the meaning of the ritual); and perhaps also

(2) why the ritual has the significance it does (what we might call the rationale for the ritual);

then the ritual means nothing.

At least, that’s how the argument runs.

The trouble is, the argument is complete nonsense. It’s very easy to see why.

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On November 29, 2016 By Steve Jeffery In Theology 1

Look away if you’re easily offended…

I recently overheard a conversation between a father and his young daughter at Emmanuel that made me laugh so hard I asked their permission to share it with you.

They kindly agreed.

It was one of those moments that all parents are familiar with, when you suddenly understand the reason why God has ordained praise from the mouths of children and infants – they have a way of getting to the point that most of us adults wouldn’t think of, largely because we’d be worried about offending someone.

(That was your warning, incidentally: if you’re fragile, easily offended, or otherwise in need of theological Safe Spaces, please look away now.)

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On November 26, 2016 By Steve Jeffery In Worship 1

Fasting in Advent

This coming Sunday marks the beginning of Advent. This period of the church year has traditionally been viewed by Christians as a time of waiting, of looking forward, of expectation.

Most obviously, Advent is a time of looking forward to the celebration of our Lord’s birth at Christmas. Advent is also a time when Christians have traditionally looked forward to our Lord’s return in glory on the Last Day.

With these themes in mind, it’s surely no accident that Advent has also been associated in many church traditions with the practice of fasting. Just as Advent is a time of unfulfilled hope, when we’re longing for something that hasn’t yet come; so also fasting is a way of saying with our bodies that things in the world aren’t yet quite right.

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On November 22, 2016 By Steve Jeffery In Worship Like

Help the toddlers come

If you go to a church like the one at which I serve in London, England, where the children are welcomed into the main church service along with the adults, you’ll have the opportunity to train your (and indeed other people’s – see point 5 below) children in the rhythms and habits of worship as they grow up.

This raises some practical challenges, particularly as children grow through the various boundaries that they encounter between infancy and adulthood. One of the most significant boundaries is reached sometime between the ages of 1 and 2, when the children become toddlers, and are old enough to start doing things other than gurgle, feed, vomit, cry, or lie asleep in Mum’s or Dad’s arms.

At this point, children start being able to stand, sit on chairs, kneel, talk, raise their hands, and so on. However, at this tender age they can’t be expected to start participating fully in the service. They can stand, sit and kneel unaided, but they can’t do so unprompted; they can talk and sing, but they can’t read the words of the prayers and songs; and so on.

So then, how can we help children to increase their participation in the service as they grow through the toddler years?

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On November 9, 2016 By Steve Jeffery In Theology, Wisdom Like

101 Things I’ve Learned from David Field

David Field has been an Elder at Emmanuel Evangelical Church in London, England, where I serve as Minister, since we began in March 2009. Before that, he taught at Oak Hill Theological College in North London. It was there that I first met him when I trained there a decade or more ago.

Since that time, David has been everything I could have wished for as a mentor, fellow-Elder, and friend. I think I can say without fear of exaggeration that I have been shaped more by David as a Christian, husband, father, and Minister of the gospel than by anyone else I’ve ever met. Indeed, the whole Field family have been an immeasurable blessing to the whole congregation at Emmanuel ever since we began.

But the Fields have left Emmanuel and moved to Oxford. This will be wonderful for them, as they’ll be able to see a lot more of their second daughter (more…)

On October 21, 2016 By Steve Jeffery In Culture 1