How On Earth Did We End Up Here? Understanding Why the Twenty-First Century Church Looks the Way it Does By Nick Park Featuring the Poetry of Louis Hemmings Imposition Studio 4.8.5 Cyan Magenta Yellow Black How On Earth Did We End Up Here? Copyright © 2017 Nick Park ISBN 978-1-9999177-0-8 All rights reserved No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means - electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or any other - except for brief quotations in printed reviews, without prior permission of the publisher. Scripture taken from The Holy Bible, New International Version® (Anglicised), NIV® . Copyright © 1979, 1984, 2011 Biblica, Inc. Used by permission of Hodder & Stoughton Limited, a division of Hachette UK. All rights reserved worldwide. “New International Version” and “NIV” are registered trademarks of Biblica, Inc. Used by permission. Printed in Ireland by SPRINT-print Ltd Artwork & Front Cover Design by Holly Scoggins www.hollyannscoggins.com Back Cover & Spine Design by Kirsty Park Published by Success Services Ireland Whitethorn House, Ballymakenny Road Drogheda. County Louth Ireland www.nickpark.ie Imposition Studio 4.8.5 Cyan Magenta Yellow Black ABOUT THE AUTHOR Nick Park was raised in Belfast, Northern Ireland. He was a homeless alcoholic, but was won to Christ through the ministry of the Salvation Army. After graduation and ordination from the William Booth Memorial Training College in London, he and his wife, Janice, served as Salvation Army Officers in Leicester, and then in pastoral ministry with an Assemblies of God congregation in Lancashire. In 1994 they started the Solid Rock Church – known as ‘Ireland’s Multicultural Church.’ They also founded the ministry of the Church of God in Ireland. Nick still serves as Senior Pastor of the Solid Rock Church, while Janice serves as Worship and Prayer Pastor. Nick is National Bishop of the Church of God in Ireland, Executive Director of Evangelical Alliance Ireland and holds an MTh in Applied Theology from the University of Chester. He has written or edited ten previous books. Nick has been elected on four occasions to the International Executive Council of the Church of God. He also serves on the Presidium of the Pentecostal European Fellowship and the Global Council of Empowered21 (a worldwide alliance of Pentecostal and Charismatic ministries). Nick and Janice Park have a daughter, Kirsty, and live in Dromin village in County Louth. Imposition Studio 4.8.5 Cyan Magenta Yellow Black CONTENTS Introduction …………………………… ……….. 1 Book 1: Seeds That Would Shatter Concrete 7 Chapter 1: That’s the Spirit! ……………………. 9 Chapter 2: What in the World? ………………… 15 Chapter 3: The Book of Books ……....................... 29 Chapter 4: The Faith …………………………… 43 Review of Book 1 55 Book 2: Concrete That Would Smother Growth 59 Chapter 5: From a Persecuted Minority ………… 61 Chapter 6: The Twisting of Christianity ………… 71 Chapter 7: The Descent into Darkness …………. 85 Review of Book 2 99 Book 3: Clawing Their Way Back to the Surface 103 Imposition Studio 4.8.5 Cyan Magenta Yellow Black CONTENTS Chapter 8: Renaissance and Reformation ……….. 105 Chapter 9: God Save the King! ………………….. 119 Chapter 10: The Son Also Rises in the West ...……. 129 Chapter 11: The Lord Raises Up Standards ………. 143 Review of Book 3 159 Book 4: The Saviour of the Whole World 163 Chapter 12: When Creeds Became Cancers ….......... 167 Chapter 13: The Cross and the Crescent …………. 177 Chapter 14: For God So Loved the World ................ 193 Chapter 15: A Century of Rapid Change …............... 205 Review of Book 4 217 Chapter 16: So Where Do We Go From Here? …... 221 Imposition Studio 4.8.5 Cyan Magenta Yellow Black Imposition Studio 4.8.5 Cyan Magenta Yellow Black FOREWORD Up the winding mountain roads outside Quito, Ecuador, is a large plateau overlooking the city and surrounding countryside. On any given day, tourists from across the region and around the world converge upon an expansive plaza surrounded by cafes and tourist shops. In the centre of the plaza is a museum with a tall pedestal supporting a huge model world globe. The gathering point, however, for the whole attraction is a line painted across the middle of the plaza. There, tourists pose for photos while straddling the line, with one foot in the northern hemisphere and the other in the southern. It is an imaginary line, called ‘the Equator’ by geographers and cartographers, that stretches around the centre of the earth. If the painted line outside Quito were to continue, the tourists could follow it east to Nairobi or west to Singapore. At least, for the moment, they can post their travel photos to their Facebook friends with the claim, “Look, I’m standing at the place called Mitad del Mundo (the ‘Middle of the World’).” Separated by time and space, Elijah the prophet - another man from another time - was also on a mountain. He wasn’t there as a tourist but as a tired and disillusioned servant of God, who confronted him with the question, “What are you doing here, Elijah?” With the discerning dialogue that followed, God commissioned the complaining prophet, “Go back the way you came” in order to anoint political leadership and a spiritual successor [Elisha] for the future (1 Kings 19:9, 15). In this fascinating panorama of the development of the Christian movement, Nick Park ‘takes us to the line’ at the top of Imposition Studio 4.8.5 Cyan Magenta Yellow Black the plateau where we can simultaneously look to our past in order to interpret our future. His studied but very readable narrative is both reflection and projection, at the same time providing description and prescription (see Chapter 16, ‘So Where Do We Go from Here?’). Many in the emerging generation may echo the impatience of the first-year seminary student who, after glancing over the required course in ‘Church History,’ was overheard to complain, “I didn’t come here to study church history; I came here to make church history!” He, and all of us – both younger and older – would be well reminded of the insight of historian E.H. Carr who said, “You cannot look forward intelligently into the future unless you are also prepared to look back attentively into the past.” Park’s overview looks back to our past attentively without getting lost in a mere listing of dates, persons, and events. It is an honest remembrance of our sometimes painful, regretful and embarrassing Christian family story. Thankfully, it is also a prophetic call for today’s Christ followers to recover their original, Biblical purpose in order to make a new, revisioned ‘His- story’ for our generation and those who will follow. This important book takes us, like Elijah, ‘back the way we came.’ It is my hope that the book could be read and discussed together by the senior and younger generations – for they need each other. Elijah had to go back to find the younger successor in order for the prophetic ministry and story to go forward. Elisha needed a mentor who had lived the past story in order to find his own way with a prophetic voice into an uncertain future. In his Introduction, Park is convinced, “…that we can only move forward to a better future if we understand where we are right now. And we can’t understand where we are right now Imposition Studio 4.8.5 Cyan Magenta Yellow Black without figuring out how on earth we ended up here.” In his final chapter, he concludes that, “The question of how on earth we ended up here is important. But only inasmuch as it helps us decide where we go next.” The provocative chapters in-between are as equally compelling as these incisive observations framing the story. The book reflects the perceptive mind of a well-read researcher of the past and keen observer of the present. We can also be thankful that this book comes from the passionate heart of a pastor and church planter who connects people in real life to their past while introducing them to a preferred future. It is the commentary of a refugee from Christendom who has found true Christianity, and a call for authentic Christ-life in the context of a hostile, post-modern context. My own missional journey has been enriched by working as a colleague ‘on the ground’ in Europe with Nick, his family, and the family of congregations he leads. In addition, we have walked together in the context of international leadership for a global church fellowship. In every place we have walked together - local and global - I have seen a pilgrim with a heart for Christ and His kingdom. It is my prayer that his perceptive book will bring to the Christian community an informed inspection of our past, an intelligent interpretation of our present, and an intense intercession for a great new move of God for our future. Dr. Grant McClung, a veteran world missions leader and author, is President of Missions Resource Group (www.MissionsResourceGroup.org) and Missiological Advisor to the World Missions Commission of the Pentecostal World Fellowship. Imposition Studio 4.8.5 Cyan Magenta Yellow Black Imposition Studio 4.8.5 Cyan Magenta Yellow Black Introduction INTRODUCTION This is the bit where I’m supposed to sugar-coat Church History to make it seem like fun. In the Park household we used to have a pet border collie named Jack. Jack was an excitable sort of dog and, for some reason known only to himself and the veterinarian, this made him scratch all the time. So we had to give him a rather expensive tablet at various intervals.