Supportive advice for leaders

Are you in leadership?

After many years as both the pastor of a medium-sized church in Guildford and editor of en, John Benton worked for the Pastor’s Academy at London Seminary providing one-to-one advice and help for pastors.

Through this work he gained great insight into the practical challenges that pastors face, and he has written over 50 booklets and blogs to help them. A new website has been set up to make some of these booklets available for free download at www.pastapastor.org.uk

Here are reviews of two samples to whet your appetite.

RETHINKING EVANGELISM

John Benton’s main thesis in his booklet is that the church’s outreach best comes out of a loving community that doesn’t hide away trials and suffering from unbelievers.

The gospel is commended as outsiders see Christians love each other within the church and see how those going through difficulties wrestle with affirming God’s love for them amid their pain. Evangelism that starts from the perception that the person sharing the gospel is sorted and has all the answers needs to be replaced with honest, heart-level engagement with unbelievers in the context of the church community and the reality of suffering and weakness.

Benton arrives at this conclusion by noting in the first chapter that our society has gone through a transformation away from community and towards individualism and the love of self. Among other works cited, Carl Truman’s The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self documents this change and provides the foundation for Benton’s argument that the church’s evangelism strategy must emphasise community.

In the second chapter, Benton argues for outreach that is humane, relational and attractive. Confrontational evangelism, according to him, does not work in our individualistic society, and those not gifted in evangelism shouldn’t feel that they need to be evangelists. Using Colossians 4, he highlights the importance of prayer for every Christian, and the way that we can commend the gospel through how we live and how we speak.

Benton concludes the booklet by suggesting that the gospel is best shared in the context of our weakness, that the appeal of the gospel is greater if presented in the context of suffering rather than by someone who appears to have everything sorted.

Benton demonstrates this both from personal experience and from the New Testament – God’s power is made perfect in weakness.

Overall, the booklet is a helpful corrective to unhelpful and unbiblical ways to think about and practice evangelism within the church. However, Benton is essentially making two separate arguments, one about community and one about weakness/ suffering. The booklet combines the two together, and perhaps there could have been two booklets to allow him to develop these ideas even further.

Greg Tarr
Associate Pastor, Emmanuel Baptist Church, Exeter

KIDS AND SMARTPHONES

Here is a great resource designed for busy pastors concerned about the effect of smartphones on the younger generation.

As many pastors do not have time to read all that’s available on the subject, Benton has done the reading and distilled the thinking. In just 20 pages you get to the nub of what is causing this worrying epidemic of smartphone addiction with its resulting harms.

Benton writes as an experienced pastor with the concern that many churches seem to be ignoring this growing phenomenon, perhaps out of feeling too busy already, or not knowing where to begin. Parents need help to see how their young people’s minds are being affected adversely. This booklet is primarily written for pastors, but parents and anyone else who shares concern for young people would also benefit.

A book that many should read is social psychologist Jonathan Haidt’s The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness (reviewed in en May 2024), but it is almost 300 pages long and many just don’t have time to read it.

Benton distils Haidt’s observations and conclusions about this great rewiring, and explores how addiction to devices enslaves the user – which is just what they’ve been designed to do. This exposes users to harmful content – extremism, radicalisation, bullying and porn, which is damaging the respect and right relationships God has designed us for.

Yes, it is depressing, but Benton ends with guidance about what churches and parents can do. Pastors need to support families and help them understand what is going on with their young people. Churches are great places for providing group activities and real relationships, something Haidt points out as being vital for good mental health.

Parents – Benton gives some of Haidt’s practical suggestions to help counter the damaging effects listed above. The booklet ends with a focus on the vital part that a spiritual life must play in rescuing from this tech mastery.

Julia Jones
Director of the Flourish Course for women at London Seminary, and member of Abbey Baptist Church, Abingdon