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Candid conversations for the church. Host is Ardin Beech of Windsor District Baptist Church, Sydney, Australia. Co-hosted by Jonathan Hoffman.
Welcome. Welcome. Welcome, regular listeners of This Week at Windsor. Arden Beach, your host joined once again by doctor j.
Jonathan:Good evening.
Ardin:Good evening.
Jonathan:How have you been?
Ardin:Not too bad. Not too bad at all.
Jonathan:Well, Ardin, I am absolutely thrilled today to have with us Tim Burns. Welcome, Tim.
Tim:Thank you, Jonathan.
Jonathan:Great to have you here. Now people may be wondering who is Tim Burns. I know you, Tim, as the head of the church health team. Is that the official title, or what's your
Tim:Team leader.
Jonathan:Team leader.
Tim:Team leader. Gen one k church health.
Ardin:Okay. I thought you were gonna say head of the church. I was like, wow. We've made it.
Tim:It's a lot to get on a business account.
Jonathan:Team leader. I feel like superior leaders. This not too far. Gives me Star Wars vibes. But, anyway, we're so glad that you're, here with us, Tim.
Jonathan:I personally have been blown away by the work that your team does, and, it's been so helpful to me as a pastor as well as to the people that I get to speak with and and encourage. I wonder if you can tell us in a maybe a little more than a business card. What is Church Health, and what's your team responsible for?
Tim:Yeah. Sure. So Baptist Churches of New South Wales and the ACT have a goal of a thousand healthy churches by 02/1950. We don't just want a thousand churches. Thousand churches would be good, but a thousand healthy churches would be great.
Tim:My team supports churches in improving their health. Where churches are suffering ill health, can go in, get alongside them, try and identify what might be the causes of that and work with them on strategies for improving their health. So really the team reacts increasingly is looking to be proactive in encouraging churches to reflect on how they can be healthier.
Ardin:If the goal is a thousand healthy churches, and I assume this is kind of influx all over the place every each and every day, what would you say is the number of healthy churches today?
Tim:Well, I think there are about 370 churches at the moment. Probably a third of those are really healthy. A third of them are are are kind of working towards being healthy, and a third are really unhealthy. So, you know, we we think of it in in terms of those those thirds.
Jonathan:Now I detect a bit of an accent. Can you tell us a bit about where you're from?
Tim:Yes. I'm from The UK originally. I was born in Edinburgh in Bonny, Scotland, but I spent the first four years of my life in West Africa. My my father was a medical doctor. He worked for Unilever and we spent part of that time in Ghana and part of it in Nigeria.
Tim:And then we returned to The UK for me to start school. And my father left Unilever and joined what was the National Coal Board. It became British Coal. We spent about a year in Doncaster and then moved up to Edinburgh for six years and then to Sheffield for three years and then eventually settled in London.
Ardin:Scotland always looks so beautiful and green, but everyone from there tells me it's just wet and miserable.
Tim:Well, it's green because it's wet. But if you get the sunny day of the year, it's spectacular. So my my wife and I were in The UK recently. We enjoyed five weeks overseas, and we spent one of those weeks in Scotland and we got a great week and we went back to the place where I used to be a pastor, St Andrews, which is on the East Coast Of Scotland and it was an absolutely spectacular day. So we got it just right.
Jonathan:Do people like ring each other on the phone the night before and say, hey, hey, tomorrow. Tomorrow's the day. Like, it's gonna be great. Or
Tim:Well, noticed when we went back that people don't seem to notice the rain. So it would start raining and we would hurry to the car or we'd hurry to a shop, but the Scottish people would just continue standing in the street talking and just put their hoods up.
Jonathan:Okay. Just
Ardin:used to it. Just part of life.
Tim:Tough. Yeah. Tough. We've become soft since we left there.
Jonathan:How did you come to know the Lord? I'd love to hear about your journey to faith.
Tim:Well, was one of those people who benefited from being born into a Christian household. My grandparents and my parents were keen Christians. And so I can't remember a time when I didn't believe in God. I've got vivid memories of my, mother or my father saying bedtime prayers with me and me praying on a number of occasions asking God to forgive my sins. I'm not sure I really understood what it meant at that point.
Tim:It was when I was about, 13 years of age that I went on a scripture union camp and it was there for the first time really that the cross, Christ's death on the cross, the sacrifice that he made for my sins really made sense. So I had that great grounding, growing up in a Christian home, but it was that scripture union camp when I was 13 years of age that prompted me to to make a commitment to the Lord.
Jonathan:And when did things start to kinda change for you? I mean, I know it's this camp was instrumental, but what things did you notice, I guess, is my question. How how did things begin to seem to change, or why why does this time stick particular?
Tim:Yeah. I think it was the power of the sermon that was preached and my my emotional reaction to it and me saying to the the the Lord I understood and I recognized that through repentance and faith in Christ, I was saved forever. I have to say though, that at that point in my life, I was a coward, and I went back to my state comprehensive school and lived as a secret disciple for three years. Mhmm. So while I was at home, I was a goody two shoes.
Tim:And when I was at church, I was a goody two shoes. But when I was at school, I went with the flow. I hung around with the sporty crowd. I didn't own up to my faith. And it wasn't until I was about 16 years of age.
Tim:And I went on a conference and doctor Helen Roseveer, a former missionary was speaking and spoke so powerfully that the Lord broke me. And I remember leaving that hall saying to God that I would go anywhere for him. I would do anything for him and on returning to school at the start of the the new term, I came out to my friends and said look there's something you have to understand about me, this is it and interestingly they said oh we always thought there was something different about you, We just couldn't work out what it was. And from that point on, I really doubled down on my faith. I accepted God was calling me into preaching pastoral ministry.
Ardin:And so how long after that did you did you take on like a full time role?
Tim:So my my father was from the the brethren tradition. And so when I told my parents that I felt God was calling me into full time pastoral ministry, he wasn't terribly impressed because in brethren churches, they don't usually have pastors who are full time who are who are paid. But I I was adamant this was what God was calling me to. I finished my school education and then decided to take three years out before going to bible college. I I recognized the importance of just getting out into the world and understanding what it was to have a a job.
Tim:Didn't feel that I was mature enough to go straight to bible college. So what what I did was I planned to have three different jobs in over three years. So the first job I had was just a warehouse man in the local supermarket. I just rocked up at the local supermarket, said to the manager, I'm looking for a job for a year. Do you have anything?
Tim:And she said, oh, well, it just so happens that we've got a vacancy in our warehouse. Would you be interested? I said, yeah. I'll do it for a year. And I did.
Tim:Towards the end of that year, I I wrote to the civil service in The UK and said, look, I'm planning on going to Bible College, but I'd love to have an experience of an office job for a year. Do you have anything that you can offer me? And my dad thought I was nuts, but I got a reply. I was invited for interview. And at the interview, I said, I can only promise you a year, but in that year, I promised to work really hard at anything you give me to do.
Tim:And they gave me a job for a year. And then in the third year, I joined a gap year. Six young people. We were all 19, 20 years of age working with an inner city London Baptist Church, West Palm Park Baptist Church, which is in the Paddington area of London, quite a a rough and tumble part of London. One of the other team members is now my wife.
Jonathan:Oh. There you go.
Tim:So there were two rules at the start of the year. One was that you couldn't drink alcohol because we were dealing with a lot of people who had problems with alcohol. The second was that you couldn't date anybody else on the team. So fifty percent success rate. We we did get permission from the from the team leader to date.
Jonathan:How does that conversation go? Does it hey, I know this is the rule, but
Tim:Yeah. So we went to the team leader and I offered to step off the team. I said, look, we reckon that this is this is right for us, but we don't want to cause you any trouble. I'm happy to step off the team. He said, oh, well, no.
Tim:You can date, but we'll just put in in place some real lines of accountability, which which we were happy with.
Ardin:They make movies about this kind of stuff.
Tim:We've been married now for thirty six, going on thirty seven years.
Jonathan:Bro. That's exciting. Children?
Tim:Yeah. Three boys. Okay. Wouldn't know what to do if I had a daughter. Sons, I, yeah, I I can handle.
Tim:So three sons and expecting my first grandchild. So my eldest son and his wife are expecting their first baby at the November. So very excited for that.
Jonathan:So you come over did you start pastoring first in The UK or did you did you start Yeah.
Tim:So my my first church at a Bible college was it was called Vernon Baptist Church and is located in King's Cross in Central London. Since I left there, they've changed the name to King's Cross Baptist Church to reflect where it's located, but also, you know, the King's Cross is a great name for a church.
Ardin:Wides itself.
Tim:Yes. So I was there for five years. Before I went there, church had had a long period without a pastor and had become very, very small and was struggling to survive. Only a handful of people left, and nobody seemed to want to go there until a retired Baptist pastor. He had been the kind of Steve Bartlett equivalent in London, what they called the Metropolitan Super intendent Mhmm.
Tim:Kind of director of ministries for the London Baptist Association. He retired and went to preach at Vernon Baptist, saw that they didn't have a pastor, so just told them that he was gonna come and be their pastor. And they were delighted. And he said, what we'll do is we've got extensive premises, we'll rent out part of the building, we'll get an income, and then we'll find a young fellow from Bible College, and I'll mentor him. And I was that young fellow from Bible College.
Tim:And I'd completed my undergraduate studies. I'd spent three years gaining my bachelor of arts in theology. But the five years I spent with the senior pastor with Arthur taught me much more than I'd ever learned at Bible College. It was a phenomenal experience. It was a great relationship.
Tim:He was a a superb mentor, supervisor, coach, and I owe him a tremendous amount. He really helped me to develop my philosophy for ministry, and it was a very positive experience for me. So I was five years in Kings Cross, and then God called me to St Andrews in Scotland, which was like going from the ridiculous to the sublime. I mean, King's Cross was a busy urban area. It was a notable red light district, high crime, big drugs problem.
Tim:When we first moved into the manse, which was attached to the church, had a little garden at the back, and there was a tramp sleeping in the garden.
Jonathan:Oh, wow.
Tim:And he stayed there for for several months. We we found him alternative accommodation, but he didn't want to go. He didn't want to sleep inside, wanted to sleep outside, said he felt called by God to sleep in the Baptist church garden.
Jonathan:There you go.
Tim:When he eventually did move out, the prostitutes and the drug addicts began to move in. And it was quite common to find syringes, used condoms in the garden and the little car park with attached to it. So that was King's Cross. And we moved from there to St Andrews, which is a kind of jewel in the the crown of of Scotland. It boasts the oldest university in Scotland.
Tim:It's the home of world golf, where the royal and ancient clubhouse is and just a just a lovely golfers paradise tourist hotspot historic place. So it was quite a contrast.
Ardin:Yeah. That's a huge change. Was there a big difference between the actual churchgoers, like the churchgoing populace and
Tim:Yes. Very much so. The way I used to describe it was in King's Cross, you called a spade a spade. In Saint Andrews, it was an implement with which one extracted material from ground. And because I'd spent five years in King's Cross, and I can be quite blunt by virtue of my personality, it was a steep learning curve for the Saint Andrews congregation in the in the first year, and I had to temper my my ways somewhat.
Tim:You need to ask them whether I I succeeded in doing that or not. So it was very different. King's Cross was a rich mixture, actually. There were working class people, but there were also very wealthy people. St Andrews, when we started there, was predominantly an academic congregation.
Tim:Historically, in St Andrews, there was a tension between town and gown, between locals and university types. So a lot of the local people resented the students who came in, many of them from England, and that pushed up the rents and the house prices, and it made it difficult for locals to buy or to rent in town. So there was significant tension between town and and gown. And I inherited a primarily gown congregation. But together with that congregation, we cast a vision for a much broader church.
Tim:By the time I concluded my ministry there seven years later, the church was a much richer mixture. We moved out of the church building, which was in the center of town to a community use high school in one of the main residential areas, and we held our main Sunday morning service there. We developed charitable trust, Families First St. Andrews, that aim to provide for families with children primary school age. And just pre COVID, that won the Queen's Award
Jonathan:Wow.
Tim:Which is quite prestigious award that's given to to charities in The UK and is still going very strong today. So, yes, two very different congregations.
Jonathan:Then you come over here to Australia. I think this is helpful for people because if you stay in one place a lot of your life, you tend to confuse what which truth travels and what stays behind where you are. So I'm curious for you moving to a new place, having already done it before, but all the way to the other side of the world, what's in your tool bag? What what are you what what do you know? I know this is gonna work.
Jonathan:Yeah. What are the things that you're like, I have to wait and see.
Tim:Yeah. We first visited Australia in 1999 on a sabbatical exchange with the pastor who was leading Mortdale Oakley Baptist Church at that time. It was Mortdale Oakley Baptist Church that called us out in 02/2002. So we already had experience of the church, and we already knew people in the congregation. So that made the transition much easier.
Tim:We knew what we were coming to, and we knew some of the people that we would be fellowship and serving with. We didn't find the the transition too difficult at all, and we didn't find the differences between Mort Del Oatley and St. Andrews to be as as great as we imagined they might be. So for us, it was a a really good transition. Kinda sadly, the pastor I exchanged with lost his faith.
Tim:Oh, wow. It's quite a a sad story. One Sunday, having conducted the service, he asked people to stay where they were while he read a statement before they went to morning tea. And essentially in that statement, he said, you need to know that I no longer believe the New Testament is the word of God. Wow.
Tim:This was after he conducted the service. You need to know I no longer believe Jesus is the son of God. You need to know that I no longer believe in the doctrine of the Trinity and I'm increasingly being captivated by ethical monotheism, which is Judaism essentially. Really, what he was saying was I'm moving towards becoming a Jew. So he had to finish, of course.
Tim:And the church had been in decline for the ten years that he was there as its pastor. There had been a couple of groups that had broken away in that time. So I inherited a church that had been through a very difficult period, but was excited about what God could do in the future and were very receptive to my leadership and willing to make changes.
Ardin:So leading in then to your role now with Church Health, that sort of thing, I imagine for the most part, you and your team have kind of you're coming in after the fact something happened. There's been a split or there's been some kind of descent, and you you guys come in to to sort of help mop up, but are they are they warning signs? Are there things you see beforehand that can kind of head off this kind of thing?
Tim:Oh, yes. Yeah. So when I first joined the Church Health team, it was as a Church Health facilitator. There was a team leader who persuaded me to join the church health team. He said, look.
Tim:You've been in pastoral ministry for thirty years. Come and join me and the team. We'll have great fun. We'll ride off into the sunset together. It'll be wonderful.
Tim:So I believed him. I joined the team, and then he left. He moved on, and and it was it was then six months after I joined the team that I became the the team leader. And in that initial six months, and I think leading up to that, because I've been doing some consultancy work with the Church Health team, I noticed that almost all of the energy was going into reactive stuff. So churches would phone because there was a significant issue.
Tim:And by the time we were engaged, it was too late. Yeah. And we used to say, well, all we can do is wipe the blood off the the walls, which was sad. So when our director of ministries asked me if I would take on the team leader role, I said I would. I'd be excited to, but I would like more of our resources to be biased towards proactive involvement and initiatives because, yes, there are warning signs.
Tim:There are always warning signs. And when those warning signs appear, that's when the response needs to needs to happen. And if it doesn't, if it's allowed to fester, then it just all blows up and so one of the things that we've done in an effort to be proactive is design a simple qualitative survey church health assessment tool we call it the CHAT we say churches it's time for a chat and we're encouraging churches to invite members their attenders to complete this little qualitative survey 36 statements that relate to the life of the church that help you to measure where people perceive your church is performing strongly or moderately or or weekly. That that's important information. It helps you to to identify where there may be something to be celebrated, but also where there may be some room for for improvement.
Jonathan:What would be one thing you could say just just generally, hey, maybe if we if we start here, we'll get on the path for a healthy church. Yeah. Would you
Tim:Yeah. No. I have this conversation with a number of churches. One of my favorite Old Testament stories and one of the characters I I love the most is the the story of Nehemiah. And you'll know how the story starts.
Tim:There he is in in Persia working as cupbearer to the king, and some visitors from Jerusalem arrive, and they tell him that the city of Jerusalem is in disgrace. And because the city's in disgrace, Nehemiah knows that the name of the Lord is in disgrace. And the scripture says that he weeps and he mourns and he fasts and he prays. It's the first thing he does before he goes to Artaxerxes to ask permission to return to Jerusalem and lead the rebuilding. And I would say that that's where any church needs to start humbling themselves before the law.
Tim:It may be that they need to repent of, things that have happened in the past, things that are still happening. They do that through through sincere and earnest prayer. Maybe that they need to ask for God's help. They do that through sincere and earnest prayer. So that's my big starting point.
Tim:And I think of what it cost God to give us this this privilege of prayer. It cost him his his son, you know. Jesus died to make a way for you and me to enter the very throne room of grace to to ask for help in our our times of of need. So, yeah, pray, pray, pray. That's amazing.
Jonathan:Yeah. Thank you so much, Tim, for for sharing with us and giving us that perspective, and I trust many people will be encouraged.
Tim:Yeah. Thanks for having me.
Ardin:Thanks for coming. Thank you. Well, don't know how she does it, but Katie's managed to get another amazing guest every time.
Jonathan:Every time. And I love how Tim finished with that. What what a great finish to talk about the importance of prayer.
Ardin:And what a great podcast episode. Smashed it once again.
Jonathan:Still waiting for the sponsors.
Ardin:Thank you, doctor Jay, and thanks everyone for listening. We'll be back again next week.