Author: gaiustrust

David Cox

during my time at Dubbo Christian Family Church I have had a deliberate teaching ministry to lay out as plainly as possible the key doctrines dealing with God, Christ, and salvation. The doctrines of grace are taught and applied from the pulpit and pastorally

William Gurnall, in his book, The Christian in Complete Armour, makes the point that sheep are susceptible to many various ailments. The Shepherd may spend most of his time patching up the symptoms that appear, or he can make moves to ensure the diet is right. This will help enormously with clearing up many of the problems. I read that while still in rural employment before entering the ministry. I knew firsthand the truth of that statement. Of course, Gurnall was using a metaphor to relate a spiritual truth that many people suffer ailments in their Christian walk, many of which can be put down to a poor ‘diet’, lack of proper understanding of the gospel.

When speaking with Protestant Indigenous Christians this truth becomes apparent. Across Indigenous Churches there is a wide variety of doctrine giving rise to a wide variety of practices, and also giving rise to a variety of ‘ailments’ that might be cured if the ‘diet’ was right. Sadly, for many Indigenous Brethren, the diet is not right.

In elements of the Indigenous church syncretism exists, taking and adopting traditional practices and giving them a Christian twist, with Christian names and explanations to justify their adoption. Some of these traditional practices include the Welcome to Country ceremonies, smoking ceremonies and more rarely, corroborees. This syncretism perverts key elements of the Gospel and biblical truths are side-lined or modified to fit the new thinking.

A common ailment is the habit of “re-committing” one’s life to Christ. People will tell of outreach events with the news of X number of re-commitments. Parallel to this is the number of people claiming to have been a Christian once, but not anymore. This is the direct result of Arminian teaching which has a firm foothold within Indigenous churches to the point of most being suspicious or altogether hostile to the doctrines of grace. Those under such teaching experience a lack of assurance and fear that they may finally fall away or die with some sin unconfessed. Miserable indeed. At times such thinking has been abused by church leaders to keep people in line and behaving themselves. They know no freedom in Christ.

Pentecostal teachings also trouble people who feel they are not favoured as others with gifts, faith to do or receive the miraculous, signs to confirm direction in life, or having God “speaking”. They begin to feel unworthy, doubting their own faith, not realising the beautiful simplicity of a child-like faith in the finished work of Christ bring reconciliation and communion with the Father through the Spirit. Others who seem to make ‘progress’ in this system feel superior and self-righteous. 

In spite of these aberrations, there is a professed, at least, high view of Scripture. This has been helpful when seeking to address some of these errors with these people. My experience has been that mostly if people are shown their error from the bible there is a good hope of reformation in thinking and therefore practice, but not always.

For this reason, during my time at Dubbo Christian Family Church I have had a deliberate teaching ministry to lay out as plainly as possible the key doctrines dealing with God, Christ, and salvation. The doctrines of grace are taught and applied from the pulpit and pastorally. For example, one who struggled with a lack of assurance, who understood something of the atonement and consequent forgiveness of sins, nevertheless continued to struggle. Hearing and grasping the wonderful truth of imputed righteousness was transformational in someone who is now a shining light amongst us.

This sort of ministry needs to continue. One great need is for another generation to be able to articulate the doctrines. The young men are there but getting them to rise to the challenge is difficult. Pray that the Lord of the Harvest would raise these men up and call them to their labours for his glory.

The Gaius Trust has been of tremendous help in placing resources into the hands of some of the young men we hope to see go on. Financial help for lecturers to travel and teach at our Saturday Bible Training is also freely given. The presence of these men as lecturers goes beyond the value of their teaching in lessons, their conversations and encouragements and even corrections are invaluable. Their attendance at the training days is investing in the future of these young men.

So I end with a note of thanks to the Trust, the trustees and the supporters who labour with us in this worthy effort. May our Lord be pleased to use our labours in order that the diet of many would be improved and that we might see these ailments fading. Pray this might happen as we labour together for the good of his Church and the glory of his name.