Chris was neither very poor nor very rich but this did not make him content with his lot in life. Once, long ago, his family had been fabu­lously wealthy and powerful but they had since fallen on hard times. Late at night, Chris’s Nanna would tell him wonderful stories of the glory days. On those nights, his sleep would be filled with images of days gone by.

One day Chris was rummaging among the boxes in the attic and he came upon a small chest. He opened it up and it con­tained nothing but an old bronze lamp, or was it gold? He rubbed it hard and there before his eyes was a genie. “You have three wishes”, said the genie. Chris’ eyes glazed over...

Well, you know how the story will end; Chris will get his first wish, then spend the next two wishes trying to undo the disaster brought about by wish fulfilment!

Chris is in the situation Christianity finds itself — once influential within western culture but now very much the poor cousin, occasionally referred to but increasingly ignored when it comes to the decisions that matter. We remember the times when the lines of church and state were blurred; the halcyon days of Geneva and Scotland, if we are Presbyterians, and Elizabethan England, if we are Anglicans. While we cannot expect a reversal that will bring about a structural power and influence we long for, we dream of de facto power and influence — we want to belong to something successful.

And we are anything but successful according to the world, or even according to our longings. Generally, we are confronted with lower numbers in attendance at our churches. An increasing number of those involved in full-time ministry are resigning due to burnout, disillu­sionment or marriage breakdown. Congregations of all denomina­tions are becom­ing unviable and church buildings are sold only to become craft shops, restaurants or houses.

We are facing a crisis. It is in this crisis we will be offered old brass lamps con­taining genies who will offer us three wishes. In our present situation, it is easy for our desire for significance and influence to betray us.

What are we most likely to be attracted towards? My guess is strategies for growing, getting stronger and developing influence so that as a congregation, minister or denomination we can feel good about ourselves. Now of course there is nothing intrinsically wrong about growth, but neither is there anything intrinsically right. Cancer is remarkable cell growth.

In our longing to grow, it is possible that we will accept any growth and only find out later that it was cancerous because it owed more to the world than to the Word. It is Chris’s first wish gone wrong.

We live in a technological society where the defining criterion is pragmatism. That is: does it work, is it successful? To think that we can live in such a society and not be influenced at a foundational level displays an unhealthy naiveté that can only lead to carelessly adopting tools and pro­grams that are antithetical to what God calls us to be. The tool shapes the hand, and our obsession with strategy is unhealthy. It will shape us, and our final condition will be worse than when we began.

Strategies are normally the fruit of a work of God. The success in one place is analysed. General principles are distilled from the experience as if it were planned, and then a plan, process or strategy is manufactured. Real growth or life is never like that.

The problem with any strategy per se, is that it simplifies complex issues down to the level of an equation. They say, “These are the elements you have to work with, this is how you put it together and if you do it properly it will work!” The only problem is that for the equation to work you must remove all the variables and God would have to be the most difficult variable there is when it comes to strategy.

Strategy, pragmatism or success do not always have to be godless but it will always tend toward that in our culture. In the New Testament, there are examples of strategy, such as Paul’s missionary strategy — going to the main towns and speaking first to the Jews and then the Gentiles — but even this was theologically (God thought) driven.

We are the inhabitants of a culture where making life manageable, and fixing it when it is not, is the substance of our existence and all this is done in the absence of God. Even in our church growth strategies, all too often he is defined out of the dynamic of growth and becomes the silent partner.

Evangelicalism is being confronted with the lamp and three wishes. Is there any way we can avoid the weakness of strategy? Yes, by being weak.

God gives his people a strategy, but it is not a strategy that will give us power or influence, so we can arrive at the magic number of 10 per cent of the population, and finally be a force to be reckoned with. The strategy God calls us to is one that avoids the pitfalls of pride, arrogance and power — it is the strategy of weakness.

To see this strategy being worked out in its most complete form we need only turn to 1 Corinthians 1:18-2:5. Paul’s aim (a strategy) is stated in 1:31; “Therefore, as it is written, ‘Let him who boasts, boast in the Lord’.” and 2:5: “so that your faith might not rest on men’s wisdom but God’s power”.

Paul’s strategy is to honour God and at the same time undermine man’s godless confidence in himself and provide believ­ers with a confidence that is not in man but God.

For Paul the message determined the method and made the man as well as the church.

The message, v23: “but we preach Christ crucified a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to the Gentiles.” The cross is God’s determined strategy to demonstrate the foolishness and weakness of man because what truly saves ­ the death of Jesus — is evaluated as useless.

The method, 2:1-4:

When I came to you, brothers, I did not come with elo­quence or superior wisdom as I pro­claimed to you the testimony about God. For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. I came to you in weakness and fear, and with much trembling. My mes­sage and my preaching were not with wise and persuasive words, but with a demon­stration of the Spirit’s power, so that your faith might not rest on men’s wisdom, but on God’s power.

There was a perfect match between the message and the method — the man who preached the message. There is no doubt that Paul could have used eloquence and wowed them with logic — he is not lacking in these things. However, we see that Paul’s life is a study of weakness, not power, of giving up, not taking — a life modelled on the Saviour.

The Church, 1:26-29:

Brothers, think of what you were when you were called. Not many of you were wise by human standards; not many were influential; not many were of noble birth. But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. He chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things — and the things that are not — to nullify the things that are, so that no one may boast before him.

A principle of fishing is that you catch what you fish for. Whatever bait you put on the line will determine what you catch. So, if you put a cross on the hook don’t expect to catch the big fish! And the church that grows from God’s message through God’s power in God’s man is likewise unimpressive to the world.

As you can see above, Paul models his ministry on Jesus, and it is Jesus whose ministry was a strategy of embracing weakness and undermining the powers of the day, and so brought salvation.

It is Jesus who describes his ministry as the smallest seed that grows into a fair-sized tree. It is Jesus who says the first will be last and the last first. It is Jesus who rebukes his power-hungry disciples by putting a child in their midst and saying they needed to become like this little one. It was Jesus who said that he did not come to be served but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many. It was Jesus who said that in losing our life we gain it. It was Jesus who called his followers to take up their cross and follow him.

If we want to follow Jesus in the message he proclaimed and lived, with the strategy he demands, we need to see that it is the strategy of weakness, of dying to self, and nothing less than that.

I take it that that will mean we will assess the strategies we are tempted to use — the wishes we are tempted to make — by the cross. That means we must not only entrust our sin to the crucified Saviour but follow in his footsteps.

Speaking about temptations, Jesus was confronted with a genie in the desert who offered him three wishes — he didn’t use one of them. He walked all the way to death, and found life at the end of it.