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I got the date wrong for the inaugural planning meet for this new Matthias Media blog.

It was my own silly fault. Tony had booked two successive Wednesdays in our diaries until all participants could confirm which of these dates was preferred (the latter, as it turned out). I forgot to remove the spare date one week earlier. Then when I got his reminder to see you ‘next Wednesday’, it was the old chestnut of whether next Wednesday means this Wednesday, or the one in the following week. I saw the date for this Wednesday and hopped in the car seven days early!

Anyway, there I was at Moore College after a 90-minute drive from Wollongong, wondering why no-one had turned up and getting that sinking feeling! Finally I checked the email from Tony on my laptop. He had been clear on the date: I was one week too early. A muttered word of self-disgust under the breath ... a three-hour round trip for nothing!!!

The strange thing was that I didn't feel worse. This was my first week back after three weeks' annual leave, so I should have felt like I needed every precious minute to clear my messages and get up-to-date on my ministry projects. I'm not a very reflective person, but at that moment, I realized how grateful I am to be a Calvinist. If I'd been an Arminian, all I'd be left with was my stupidity. As a Calvinist, I was still left with my stupidity, but I also knew God was in control. Totally. Despite my choices and mistakes. It was a relief to remember that.

I know the issues of sovereignty are more complex than this, but being a Calvinist was why I wasn't more annoyed at that point.

It's the hardworking farmer who deserves the first share of the crops (2 Tim 2:6). But success in ministry and true gospel growth does not depend on my frantic, hard work, but on God. And his plan to unite all things under Christ continued without me, even though I was lost on three wasted hours of bitumen for no apparent purpose.

Actually, it wasn't totally wasted: at the college bookshop, I managed to purchase a book I'd been wanting which was not otherwise available in Australia. It was their only copy and it could turn out to be one of the books of the year. (Look out for the review.) And I listened to one sermon while I drove in each direction: a senior colleague had given the CDs to me as good examples of evangelical preaching from outside my own local stable. It's always good to listen to God's word that way. And I also picked up a couple of worthwhile sermon illustrations to pinch.

And even though it wasn't really the main point of the passage the preacher was preaching, one of those sermons also warned that haste was the great enemy of spiritual growth. Ouch! I'll read my emails more slowly next time.

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It occurred to me recently that we may need a Luddite revolution in our attitude towards ministry.

Now, if you know who the Luddites were, you've probably already picked up an irony in the fact that I'm blogging about the need to become Christian Luddites. The Luddites were basically a group of tradies in 19th-century England. They saw the threat posed by the spread of industrial technology, and protested against it—even sabotaging local wool and cotton mills.

Now before you take an axe to your latest iMac, let me clarify: the sort of Luddite I have in mind is someone who is not opposed to technology itself, but who feels that the way we are using certain technologies is unhelpful and counter-productive.

Straight away I thought of three ways that I probably need to embrace the Luddite way. Here are some resolutions:

• When I need to communicate with an individual, I will speak to them directly, on the phone or in person. I will not email, text or Facebook them. Email is useful for mass-broadcasting information, but it is not adequate for building relationship or ministering to someone.
• As a paid minister of the Word, I won't spend my day at a computer behind a desk and call that work.
• In public, I will seek to talk to people rather than listening to podcast sermons from Seattle.

In each case, the technology is doing the same thing to me: it is reducing the quality of my relationships. The email sent to 10 members of a Bible study group giving them details for an upcoming social event might seem efficient, and, in one sense, it is. However, the email does not provide an opportunity for the unplanned informal conversations that build relationship or give mutual encouragement.

The podcast sermon is also a far less relational experience than listening to a talk at your local church or fellowship group. The latter is delivered by someone with whom you are in relationship, or at least someone who knows your local context and community.

Of course, the reason why this matters is because ministry is always about relationships with people. As Paul writes to the Thessalonian church, he reminds them that his ministry among them was intensely personal: he was like a mother nursing a child (1 Thess 2:7); he was willing to expend everything he had for them (2:8); he exhorted them like a father (2:11-12); and now that he has been physically wrenched away, he desperately desires to see them again “face to face” in order to further his ministry amongst them (2:17, 3:10).

Ministry is about real relationships with people. So we need to ask ourselves, “Is technology working against that goal?” Any more thoughts as to the ways in which we might need to embrace a Luddite revolution in the way we use technology?

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Matthew 18:15-20 is such a helpful passage when you feel someone has sinned against you. It encourages you to talk to them in private to point out the sin or offence. (Maturity now makes me realize that when you do this, there's the possibility of hearing another side to the story, which makes you reconsider too.) Then, if there's no repentance, you involve a couple of elder-type Christians. Only in the face of continued defiance would it finally become a public matter for discipline in the church.

Notice there's no room for gossip or whinging to others! Churches would enjoy improved relationships if we could follow these principles.

For me personally, it was a revolution to discover the Matthew 18 principle of dealing direct with the person with whom I had a conflict. However, in the way of young men, I then became a bit mechanical in applying the principles. You can end up thinking you must raise every little ‘beef’ or gripe you have with another person.

So it was terrific last year to read Proverbs 12:16 in my ‘quiet times’: “A fool shows his annoyance at once, but a prudent man overlooks an insult”. It put into words what I'd intuitively worked out—that sometimes we just need to let something ‘go through to the keeper’ (to the ‘backstop’ for American readers!) without taking a swing at it.

There are many times now when I can overlook something that annoys or grieves me. But although I may not show my annoyance in words so much, my wife would still tell you I sometimes show it in my facial expressions ... and that can be just as powerful. I need to pray for the Holy Spirit's particular fruit of self-control!

The need often to overlook and forgive an offence is John Macarthur's first point in this helpful little article on when to confront the sinner and when to forgive and forget. One additional issue that Macarthur does not explicitly deal with here is this: if you need to ‘confront’ someone over a sin, the way you do it is very important. We are to do it with gentleness and humility (see Gal 6:1-3), without quarrelsomeness or resentment and with much prayer (see 2 Tim 2:24-26).

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