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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During the past 25 years, numerous medical studies have been conducted to try to measure whether prayer has any beneficial effects on patient recovery. The experiments usually involve two randomly assigned groups of patients, and a group of ‘pray-ers’. The ‘pray-ers’ are asked to pray for the recovery of one group of patients, but not for the other. Neither staff nor patients are told whether they are being prayed for, so that any effects are attributed to the power of prayer, rather than the power of suggestion.

What is the result of such experiments? In study after study, no statistically significant difference can be discerned between the recovery of patients who are prayed for and those who aren't. For example, Randolph Byrd conducted such an experiment on 393 coronary care patients at San Francisco General Hospital in 1988. While six prayed-for patients had better results than the others, when it came to length of stay in hospital and mortality rates, Byrd reported no difference between the two groups.

Strangely enough, these results should come as a relief to Christians, for Christians don't actually believe in the ‘power of prayer’. Of course we believe that prayer is important—indeed, it is vital and central to what it means to be Christian. The Apostle Paul begins so many of his letters with sincere and fervent prayer—prayer for his recipients to grow in love and knowledge, and prayer for the spread of the gospel in the world (e.g. Phil 1:3-11, Col 1:9-14, Rom 1:9-10, Eph 1:15-18). He clearly believes that prayer is foundational, and he is confident that his prayers will make a profound difference.

But Paul doesn't believe in the ‘power of prayer’. Paul prays—not because he believes in the power of prayer, but because he believes in the power (and also the wisdom and goodness) of God. Witness Philippians 1:3-11: where is Paul's confidence in his prayer? His confidence lies in God's ability to finish the good work that he began in the Philippians, not in the power of the prayer itself. So Paul doesn't pray like the prophets of Baal in 1 Kings 18 who lacerated themselves and cried aloud to manipulate their god into waking up and doing what they want despite himself. Nor does he pray like the pagans whom Jesus mentions in Matthew 6:7 and who think that the power of prayer is in the repetition of their words. No, Paul's prayer is a confident and joyous request to his loving heavenly King—a child coming before his good Father and asking him to graciously grant his requests.

Why did the medical studies mentioned above fail? Perhaps they failed because they treated God like a machine—a ‘supreme thing’ that may or may not respond to our scientific experimentation. But that is not at all how God asks us to pray. Prayer is all about a relationship with God. It is a request to a loving heavenly Father who loves to grant requests to his children who ask in faith (e.g. Matt 6:8, Luke 18:1-8). If my children tried to manipulate me like this, setting up conditions to see where and when I would answer their requests, I probably wouldn't be too impressed either!

We must pray. We must pray deeply, fervently and sincerely. We must pray for the the glory of God, for the spread of the good news about Jesus Christ in our world (e.g. Matt 9:38) and, of course, we should continue to pray for those who are suffering in this broken and divided world. And as we pray, we should be confident that it will make a difference. But we must always remember that our confidence in prayer is not in our own ability to pray; rather, it is in our loving Father's power and willingness to do what is best for his dear children as they speak to him, trusting in his wonderful grace through the Lord Jesus. What a great reason to keep praying!

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The word ‘blog’, I gather, is a contraction of ‘web log’. I've been reading blogs on and off for a couple of years now, and it seems to me that ‘blog’ isn't the only new word we need to describe what goes on in the ‘blogosphere’. Other handy words might be ‘binane’, ‘brudeness’ and ‘bwaste of beveryone's time’.

But amidst the dross, flecks of gold shine out and gather grateful readers. For Christians, blogging has provided a valuable platform (‘blatform’?) for biblical teaching and encouragement. (See the sidebar for some of our favourites.) As I thought about the blogs and websites I return to most often, and pondered starting my own, it occurred to me that the kind of blog I'd really like to read (and write) would be:

• thoughtful (offering a considered, crafted piece of writing rather than a dashed-off and/or rabid paragraph in reaction to the latest thing)
• non-trivial (wouldn't feature pictures of the dog, or what the author saw at the movies last night)
• Bible-driven (in other words, it kept “What does the Bible say?” as the foundational question)
• unashamedly Reformed and Evangelical (didn't apologize for or seek to move on from classic Reformed Evangelical theology)
• ministry-hearted (focused me back on evangelism, people and the daily work of ministering God's word to others)
• proactive (didn't just react to the latest controversy, fad or someone else's blog, but drew me back to what was important)
• godly (in the way it dealt with issues, and in the way discussion and comments were handled)
• of a consistently high standard in all of the above!

As I looked around, I realized not only that such blogs were relatively rare, but that I had no hope of starting or maintaining anything like that on my own. So I approached some mates to see if they felt the same. The response was enthusiastic, and the idea of the Sola Panel was born: a bunch of Reformed Evangelical friends who love the five ‘solas’ of the Reformation, and who want to work together to promote a Bible-driven passion for theology, holiness and gospel ministry.

We share a great deal as friends; in particular we share a biblical theology that has been shaped by our various connections to Moore Theological College. But the Sola Panel won't have a particular party line, or any censorship. The Panellists all get to say what they like, and if we disagree with each other (which we inevitably will from time to time), we'll discuss it in the comments or in the next post.

Speaking of comments, please feel free to add some! We're hoping that the Sola Panel comments will be a fruitful place for interaction and discussion. There are only three rules for commenters:

1. use your full name (your real name, not an alias)
2. stay on topic
3. be godly

Stick to these and you'll have no problems. Transgress these, and your comments are likely to be quietly deleted.

We're planning to post just one new piece each day, which we think is enough for us to handle, and enough for you to read. Sometimes we'll stay on a particular topic for a while and knock it around between the Panellists. At other times (probably most of the time), we'll just do our own thing and post on different topics.

The Sola Panel is new and exciting, and an experiment. We look forward to your feedback and suggestions as it evolves.

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