Landlords who care

Homelessness is an issue I face on an almost weekly (sometimes daily) basis. Around 10% of my young charges are homeless at some point during their time with me in Kick Start. I also meet a large number of people of all ages who face the struggles of homelessness on a regular basis.

One of the big issues in my region is a chronic shortage of housing - market rent is at a phenomenal high with the promise of another 5% increase in the next month making it even harder for many first time renters to get into the rental market. Minimum rent is now around the $220/week mark with youth benefits sitting at around $300/fortnight.

Most strugglers, particularly those under 25, don't often even get as far as the application. I visited real estate agents with an 18 year old client late last year and witnessed him being laughed at by property managers who were happy to take his application fee while telling him it was unlikely he would be successful in any application because of his age and lack of "rental history".

As a result quite a significant number of young people are couch surfing - putting a strain on friendships. Others, including whole families, are living in cars, sheds, or just sleeping rough. Emergency accommodation is at breaking point. Services which offer clients accommodation for a strict time period of 3 months are finding they are seeing clients remain in their accommodation for more than 6 months because there is simply nowhere for them to go. Real estate agents have pages of names of waitinglists, making it easy for landlords to simply pick the most desirable tentants every time.

Hostels and back-packers are refusing to take clients from local community service providers because of the large numbers needing a room and the "undesirability" of the clientele. A problem which can be gotten round by lying (something I have done several times now when booking short term accommodation for clients) - simply answering "no, the booking is for me" when asked if it is an agency booking (begs the question "when is it ok to lie?").

Around 6 months ago I was approached by a couple who own an investment property and had heard me talk about the housing shortage. They have a duplex they would like to see used as affordable housing - helping at least a few people to get a roof over their heads. Last week a second couple with an investment property approached me with the same offer.

Over the weekend I was thinking about this. The first couple asked me if I would manage the property for them. I really didn't think this was something I wanted to take on, but it got me thinking about a way of making this work.

I decided to go see a good friend of mine who also happens to be a real estate agent and property manager. He is sympathetic to the cause and has helped me to find accommodation in the past for what would otherwise have been some pretty hopeless cases - sticking his neck on the line in the process.

He was really receptive to the idea of managing properties for landlords who are prepared to be flexible in their lease agreements and are willing to take a less-than-market rent in order to put a roof over someones head. He is also prepared to take on these kind of properties at cost price. While we still have to work out the finer details, I think that we might actually be on to something here.

I am looking at running this through our missional community plant - we have a range of community service workers who are a part of what we are doing - including a guy who works with State Housing tenants who are falling behind in their rent or upkeep of homes (I was going to get around to talking to you about it Shane!!!).

While we might not be able to help everyone, it at least it looks like we might be able to relieve the pressure for some. If you are reading this and have an investment property in the Bunbury area and would like to join in, please let me know. Let your investor friends know also.

Thank God for landlords who care!

Discipleship in a post-literate culture? Part 1

In looking at this issue I want to start with a couple of important disclaimers.

Firstly, what follows are observations based on personal experience. With this in mind I am perfectly willing to admit they may be peculiar to my mission context - however, as they say, "if the cap fits ..."- if you find something that resonates or rings bells with your context/experience, then please, jump in with some observations of your own.

Secondly, this whole topic is one that I see as being increasingly relevent for the church as a whole as we move into the 21st century and away from the ideals of modernism that were once entrenched in our ecclesiology and culture but which are now quickly falling into irrelevance (again, my opinion - feel free to disagree). Having said this, I want to make it clear that what I am really interested in is the method or practice of discipleship - it is the appraoch the church takes in making and growing disciples that I am calling into question not neccessarily the message we are seeking to impart through the process of discipleship.

I suggested this topic as it is one that I find both interesting and infuriating. Interesting because it represents a challenge I face almost daily and infuriating because of the apparent lack of clarity or open discussion about post-literate, post-christendom, post-modern discipleship in practice in the real world. And the overall lack of available resources dealing with this topic.

I'll start off with a table reproduced by Michael Frost in his article, "Preaching in a post-literate age" as I think it helps shed light on the contrast between the "old" and the "new" in our present culture.

MODERN	POSTMODERN
Things may be proved	Things may be probed
Uses science to remove mystery	Welcomes & celebrates mystery
Truth by reasoning (cognitive)	Truth by experiencing (emotional)
Go from truth to life	Go from life to truth
Deals in facts, dogma, concepts	Deals in interpretations, opinions
Uses exact language	Uses approximate language
Communicates via technical terms	Communicates via myths, symbols
Sees universe as closed, predictable	Sees universe open, unpredictable
Values independence	Values Interdependence
Individualised dreams	Corporate dreams
World view determined by what we see	What we see is determined by our world view
Objectivity possible: Observer & observed are separated	Everyone is subjective: Observer is part of observation
Beliefs held dogmatically	Beliefs are open for discussion
Life viewed analytically	Life viewed holistically
Concerned with what things are (Truth is absolute)	Concerned with how things relate (Truth is relative)
There is one way to live	There are many ways to live

The modern, evangelical church, at least in part because of a shift in culture, has become increasingly irrelevant as a vehicle of the gospel because, while it has been good at the business of theory, it hasn't been great at linking this with practice.

While it may be a generalisation, I think it is an accurate one; the practice of the faith in the majority of modern, evangelical/pentecostal churches can be equated with attending a service on a Sunday, attending an "academic" bible study on a weeknight (or day) and engaging in various church-run social activities at other different times.

You could also throw into this no small amount of pressure put on individuals within churches to "evangelise" their friends by bringing them along to church run or sponsored events where they will have an opportunity to hear a special, evangelistic message.

Now what I have been talking about is the practice of faith within the Christian church. It is the focus or point of the practice of the faith that I believe holds the key in understanding discipleship in the post-literate context and the increasing ineffectualism (did they ever really work?) of the "old" ways of practicising the faith.

I guess none of this is really new. We've debated it for ages, been accused of focussing on negatives, church bashing, or throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

But ...

... I think, if they are completely honest with themselves, most churches know:

1) That their efforts are not as effective in bringing new individuals into the (catholic) church community as they once were and in many cases, actual community engagement beyond the four walls of the church is non-existent.

2) That transferance is the real cause of growth in the churches whose numbers are increasing.

3) That it seems to be increasingly difficult to get any substantial percentage of those attending on a Sunday involved in a more meaningful way, than simply attending the Sunday service or church run social events.

4) That the gulf between the church and community outside its wall's is big - even if this is only acknowledged in the frustration felt from not seeing "new" growth (as opposed to transfered growth).

This is post is starting to get long. I'm going to split it in two (or more bits if I need to). So now I've kinda nutted through the problem (in a very general way), in part 2, I'll try and focus more on my experience with specifics.

This is a synchroblog - If you would like to join in, please let me know and I will link to it and get you to link to other participants.

Synchrobloggers so far -
Glenn Hager - Re-dreaming the Dream
Mmmm, That's Good Coffee

Hermeneutics Quiz

Rick Meigs posted on this neat little quiz designed by Scot McKnight.

I scored a 59 making me a moderate - kinda where I thought I would have fit.

The main sway in the questions seemed to be between a "fundamentalist" literal understanding of scripture, a contextualised approach that takes into account the historical setting of the original author and recipients and a "liberal" stand that assumes little relevance in the text for modern readers.

My answers swung between all three depending on the questions.

Here's what Scot had to say about the "moderate" score:

---

The moderate hermeneutic might be seen as the voice of reason and open-mindedness. Moderates generally score between 53 to 65. Many are conservative on some issues and progressive on others. It intrigues that conservatives tend to be progressive on the same issues, while progressives tend to be conservative on the same issues. Nonetheless, moderates have a flexible hermeneutic that gives them the freedom to pick and choose on which issues they will be progressive or conservative. For that reason, moderates are more open to the charge of inconsistency. What impresses me most about moderates are the struggles they endure to render judgments on hermeneutical issues.

---

What did you score?

Discipleship in a Post-Literate Culture - Synchroblog

One of the most critical challenges facing Western Christianity today, particularly within evangelical/pentecostal circles, is the growing irrelevance of modernist (primarily acedemic) approaches to discipleship.

In a lot of ways the Missional Church is at the coalface when it comes to these issues - its willingness to critique, experiment and adjust are important attributes in facing the problem of making and growing disciples in a world where the absolutes of the church's former modernist approaches to Bible study and discipleship are fast losing relevance. Particularly when it comes to taking the gospel beyond the safe streets of the middleclasses.

So the critical question is, "how do you see discipleship taking place in the increasingly visceral world of the 21st century?"

What approaches have you used? How successful have they been or are we still so much in a state of flux that it's really not possible to say? How can we help each other as pioneers (within or without established churches) in coming to terms with and moving beyond the confines of our modernist past in the area of discipleship?

If you would like to join in this synchroblog please drop me a line or a comment and I will make sure to link back to you.

Here's something from Michael Frost to whet your appetite (Preaching in a Post-Literate Age):

---

• The Bible is not a textbook (contrary to much evangelical dogma). It is an account of God's self-disclosure, the drama of a developing relationship between God and humankind;

• Biblical truth is often best discovered and applied in Christian community in a spirit of mutuality;

• Christ's truth cannot be fully grasped by mere cognitive processes. It must be discovered spiritually, experientially, emotionally, as well as cognitively;

• People cannot be compartmentalised. They must be viewed holistically in relationship with one another;

• God's starting point with us is our present need. In Scripture, we see God moving from life to truth, as his people discover more and more about him depending upon their life circumstances.

---

Propserity Doctrine - Part 2 (finally)

(c) Andrew Rigg 2007 - Rwandese farm boys

Way back in October 2006 I wrote part 1 of a post on this topic. I intended to follow it up but guess I just never got around to it. Til now at least.

I was confronted with the pure studpidity of this theology while in Africa again last May. Benny Hinn was following hot on my heels in Uganda, and as a result the locals were doing a lot of talking about him and his fellow prosperity preachers and the effect their way of doing things is having on Africa.

I have been bothered for a long time by the possible side effects of this theology on the poverty inflicted people of Africa - its a doctrine that basically says, if you are not receiving material blessings your faith is somehow difficient.

You don't need to be a Rhodes Scholar to guess at the kind of damage this take on things could do among incredibly poor communities.

I heard stories of large pentecostal churches where poor parishners were giving their homes, cars and money to pastors who were getting increasingly wealthier as a result - "obviously" a sign that God is on their side - while their church members just got poorer, and I don't doubt, very disillusioned with God because of his apparent lack of interest in their situation.

A South African friend of mine, Reggie, has posted on current investigations taking place in the US into the properity clan - Kenneth Copeland, Creflo ollar, Joyce Myers etc. He also calls for similar action to be taken against Africa's prosperity clones.

While we have plenty who espouse this asinine, toxic, aberration, I am not aware of anyone of the calibre of the American prosperity-posse actually active in Australia. But if there is, I hope that similar action will be taken against them as well.

A community called atonement

The new Scot McKnight book, A community called atonement, which I've had on order for a couple of weeks has finally arrived today.

I've been hanging out to read it.

I heard Tony Jones speaking about the atonement and the complexity of views (other than simply that of penal substitution) that exit around this momentus, historical act of Jesus and was facinated by this new (to me) perspective on the subject. Until very recently the penal substitionary view was the only view I was aware of.

I know it has been a little controversial with several names going to town on the "emerging/emergent" commentary on the topic - D.A. Carson to name one, John McArthur another. From what I have read and heard since first coming across the Carson/McArthur criticisms, I think they are probably rather narrow and their recounting of the view of the emerging church on this topic not truely representative.

I heard another Tony Jones interview on this (and other topics) with a very conservative talk radio host a couple of months ago and was really disturbed by the way the host refused to hear what Jones was trying to say, and then, in a live interview with a critic of Emergent proceeded to further twist his words. Really bad form. I can't find the link to the podcast but if anyone would like to listen to it I can send it to you - my email address is in my profile.

Anyway, I've digressed. I'm hanging out to start the book and will try and post some of my thoughts as I read it.

New Nooma video on Facebook

There's a new Rob Bell Nooma video posted on Facebook - it's called "Open" and is viewable for 48 hours only! After that you'll have to buy it if you want to see it.

Good stuff.

Oh, and you have to be a member of Facebook to see it - make sure you add me as a "Friend" when you sign up - Look for Andrew Rigg in Australia.

Jim Wallis on the origin of the alter call ...

... and other things.

Helen over at Conversations at the Edge posted some notes from a Jim Wallis (from Sojourners community) talk she attended last night.

Wallis is a fairly prominent American Christian social activist, author and promoter of interfaith dialogue.

According to Helen, Wallis talked about the declining dominance of the "religous right" in the American political scene; the involvement of Christian's in all major (if not exclusively) social reform movements; the alter call originating in the anti-slavery movement as a way of signing people up for the cause; and, my favourite - a retelling of a time Tony Campolo, Michael Lerner (a Jew) and he were arrested at a protest and ended up in jail together where Campolo and Lerner began a very ernest discussion of christology. Wallis commented that "I think that’s the way to discuss theology - join together in social justice, get arrested and then talk about it in jail".

It's an interesting post. You can read the rest HERE!

Thanks to Helen for taking notes and sharing them around. :)

Another resolution

Seems I'm still making New Years resolutions!

I am going through an amazing period of personal growth at the moment. It seems like God keeps on bringing my unhealthy attitudes and ways of operating to light.

The latest is something I've been generally aware of for quite a long time (in fact a very long time) but it came into clear focus the other day.

Alyssa and I were talking about a book my mum gave us. It's called "Freedom from the grip of fear" (I'm not recommending it - I haven't read it yet and don't know that I will). I expressed my disdane - mum is always giving us these "self help" kind of books - and said that there really wasn't anything much I feared - except perhaps sharks while I'm surfing, but even then not enough to keep me out of the water!

Alyssa said she thought I feared rejection.

We talked about this for a while and I came to the conclusion that it wasn't so much that I feared rejection, but that in most situations I expect rejection.

• I enter into many situations expecting that my actions will not be valued.
  
• I enter into relationships expecting not to be liked or accepted and so am reluctant to expose too much of the "real me" to others.
• I often need reassurance from those close to me that I'm "doing ok".
  

Recently I've had a couple of opportunities to work on the "realtionships" side of things. I have been in situations where in the past, I would have taken other people's actions as personal rejection and probably avoided the people concerned from that point on. Instead I've ignored my internal turmoil and made myself continue to engage with the others involved. In each case my "expectations" were unfounded.

Even if they hadn't been, I think going through the motions of trying to restore relationship (reconcilliation) would have been beneficial - at least on a personal level.

I don't know that I will ever find this easy - my background is one of loads of damaged trust and betrayal (I'm sure lots of people can relate to this), but I can see this is definitely an area in which I need to persevere and, hopefully, continue to grow.

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come. All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation; that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation. 2 Cor. 5:17-19

Ahhhhhhh

Six days shall work be done, but the seventh day is a Sabbath of solemn rest, holy to the LORD. Whoever does any work on the Sabbath day shall be put to death. Ex. 31:15

How often does Sunday seem anything but the "day of rest" spoken of in the scritures?

In our household it is most often a day of flat-out action.

a) Church in the morning - getting the kids ready; making sure they are dressed; breakfasted; hair is brushed; teeth are brushed; they have some reading materials; Alyssa getting her children's Sunday School materials and activities together; me loading the car with video projector; laptop; making sure I have my bible; preaching notes.

b) Get to our place of meeting; set everything up; photocopy notes/hand outs/whatever; Alyssa sets up for Sunday School; we find a seat; participate in the service; pack up; try and talk to as many people as possible; keep packing up; have a cuppa; pack up some more; rush home.

c) Make lunch; clean up from breakfast; try and spend some time together as a family.

d) Afternoon meeting time; get the kids ready; get the projector and laptop and whatever else is needed together; final touches to preparation; make sure the kids have activities to keep themselves occupied; load the car; drive half an hour.

e) Get home on dark; get the kids into the shower; eat if we haven't already done so; get the kids to do their afternoon chores; get the kids into bed; exercise for an hour; try and catch up with Alyssa; go to bed; sleep.

That's a typical Sunday in the Rigg household. Unfortunately most other days of the week are the same. Throw in school, work, bible studies, youth group, leadership meetings etc. etc.

For the next 4 weeks things are going to be a little different. We are taking a church fast (my friend Glenn talks about fasting in this post). Actually, what we're really doing is making Sunday our day of rest.

Here's how today looked -

a) Stayed in bed until about 9am. Kids got up when they were ready and played and got breakfast for themselves when they felt like it.

b) Had a shower, checked my emails and then at around 9.45am we all sat down together in the lounge room. The kids lit a candle each and told us all about the symbolism. I told a story illustrating Ephesians 1:3-6 (adoption). The kids talked about the story and asked questions. We prayed and the kids asked if I could play the guitar and we could sing.

c) 10.20am I jumped in the car with the Luke and Ash and we went and checked out the surf. There was a little bit off the boat ramp. Went home and grabbed the rest of the family and my board and hit the beach.

d) Surfed (well actually just kinda bobbed around - there was nothing much by the time we got back as the wind had changed direction and turned everything to chop) and prayed for half an hour, then paddled in and sat on the beach and talked with Alyssa for another half an hour, the kids played and swam, we had a really relaxing time.

e) Jumped back in the car and went home to lunch feeling more relaxed and intune with God than I have on any Sunday (or any other day of the week) for a very long time - Alyssa said she felt the same.

This afternoon we have our Sunday arvo meeting (now only once a fortnight) but, both Alyssa and I agreed, it doesn't feel like a chore, simply because the start of the day hasn't been madness.

Alyssa and I both wondered as we drove home from the beach, whether God really intended us to do Sunday mornings as we have done for so long, or if he intended it to be more like it was for us today? Perhaps we should reintroduce the death penalty for working on the Sabbath! :)

Car smash crap 2 - A little sigh of relief

It seems someone at the insurance company stuffed up when they told me what my excess was going to be. We are actually looking at an excess of $250.00! This is a huge relief.

I am still maintaining my innocence and the claim is now progressing along the path of the insurers "dispute resolutions" procedure.

Stay tuned for more in this ongoing saga!

Car smash crap

Just before Christmas I was involved in a fairly minor car accident. A foreign tourist, driving a friends car, started to make a right hand turn from the middle of the road and, as I was overtaking her on the left hand side, changed her mind and turned straight into me collecting the whole right hand side of my car.

While no one was hurt the damage done to both cars was fairly substantial, at least from a financial perspective. Fortunately mine was still driveable - we live a 70km round trip from town where I work and the kids go to school so the vehicle is essential.

There were two wittnesses to the bingle, both of whom offered me support and reassured me that I was not in the wrong. The driver of the other car also apologised and admitted she had not "signalled" and that she wasn't sure where she was going. All admissions were made in the earshot of at least one of the two wittnesses.

Last week I got a call from my insurance company to say that I had been found innocent of fault and that the full cost of repairs would be covered without excess (I don't know if "excess" is something peculiar to Australia - it's a gap payment between the cost of the repairs and the amount the insurance company will pay out).

This was good news. Our excess is several thousand dollars, and, with a trip to Africa coming up in May, was something we couldn't afford. For once things seemed to be happening in a straightforward way.

That is until this morning.

About 10 minutes after arriving at work I received a call from my insurance company to say they had "changed their assessment" and that now they were saying I was at fault and would have to pay the excess on the claim.

I asked why, and they said they had reviewed "the" wittnesses statement and that it seems I had been involved in a "rear end" type of accident. In Australia these kind of accidents are usually deemed to be the fault of the rear car regardless of circumstances. I asked the guy on the other end of the line if they had spoken to the other wittnesses - there were two - to which I didn't get much of an answer. I also reiterated the fact that this was not a "rear ender". The damage to my car was along the entire right hand side and to the other vehicle's front left hand corner.

By this time all kinds of conspiracy theories were rushing around my head. I thought about asking the guy on the other end of the phone if he "knew" I was a church minister (like that would matter!) or that the money he was taking off me for excess was going to be used for an overseas aid and development mission and that he was really taking money away from starving children in Africa.

Thankfully I thought better of it, explained my case again, and put the phone down with the "promise" that the second wittness would be contacted but that I would still have to pay the excess, with it being refunded if the decision was reversed.

I have no intention of paying any excess (we are still waiting for repairs nearly 2 months after the accident) until this whole things is sorted as I know how tightly insurance companies hold onto money, but the whole thing really did leave me rattled.

On top of all this, our power steering pump also decided to give up the ghost today. I have no choice but to continue driving the car with dodgy steering while we wait to see how much the repairs (in time as well as in money) are going to cost us - I aint holding my breath!

CEO style in the church

Hamo again - I great post on the very real problems with the CEO leadership approach in church.

Here's a piece of Hamo's action:

I don’t believe the CEO has any place in the ‘family’ of God. When was the last time your family appointed a CEO to keep it on track? Where does a ‘chief executive officer’ fit into a family? Find me one metaphor or description of the church as business/corporation anywhere in the Bible and I will walk naked up the aisle of your church this Sunday with an annual report in my bumcrack.

While I can't think of any apropriate proof texts - I hope if someone does find one or two, Hamo remembers to post the photos on Backyard Missionary! Read the whole thing here.

Hamo's post is a response to this post by MikeB on Raah.

Christian's have got heaven all wrong

Cape Freycinet, W.A. - January 2008. (c)

Hamo posted a heads-up to this interview on the Time website, with Bishop N.T. Wright on the traditional Christian view of heaven. I think Wright's got it right and I'll be passing this one around our leadership - it's been a bit of a hot potato topic out here in Binningup in recent months.

Here's a bit of what Bishop Wright had to say about the Christian misconception:

... Greek-speaking Christians influenced by Plato saw our cosmos as shabby and misshapen and full of lies, and the idea was not to make it right, but to escape it and leave behind our material bodies. The church at its best has always come back toward the Hebrew view, but there have been times when the Greek view was very influential.

It seems to me, now could be one of those "times"!

Filling everything with His presence

Last night our "Sunday arvo thing" (aka Alternate-Or) moved to Monday afternoon. Things are still very much in a state of flux which is both a little frustrating but also exciting.

We met for a couple of weeks at the community centre but ended up giving this idea away, at least for the time being, as not enough of our original core group were turning up meaning we were having a hard time scraping together the dollars to pay for the room rental. I suggested we meet in a cafe and someone else suggested we try a pub. The end result was our first meeting in the beer garden at Trafalgars hotel in the pub/cafe precinct of the Bunbury CBD.

It was kinda weird, particularly at first. Sitting down, opening Bibles, talking openly about Jesus. I think most of us felt a little uncomfortable - I kept thinking about Jesus' words to the Pharisees about their acts of public prayer and wondered if we came across the same way - but in the end I felt it went well. A couple of drinkers, obviously listening into our discussion, chipped in with comments from time to time, which was pretty cool and added to the feel of the exercise.

I decided that we would read through that great epistle to the Church - Ephesians, and so tackled chapter 1. Without planning for it in my preparation, the last couple of sentences of the chapter really jumped out at us as being so incredibly appropriate to what we were trying to achieve.

The Message renders Paul's words like this:

The church, you see, is not peripheral to the world; the world is peripheral to the church. The church is Christ's body, in which he speaks and acts, by which he fills everything with his presence. (1:23)

Yesterday, sitting in the pub, purposefully gathered to worship and learn about the Master, I got a very real sense of Christ's presence in a place in our city that perhaps, he hasn't been for a very long time.

Saying Sorry

Image knicked from www.abc.net.au website - Sorry!

This morning was an historic occaision for all Australians. New Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, apologised to a group of Australian people for the way previous governments had treated them. This group has become known as the "Stolen Generation".

From the late 1800s until the 1970s, under an act of parliment, more than 50,000 Aboriginal children were forceably removed from the families and placed in the care of state and church run facilities, most never seeing their families again.

The effects of these actions on the people involved are unimaginable. There is no doubt, particularly with the benefit of hindsight, these acts of state sanctioned trauma should never have occured.

For a long time now there has been a call from many segements of Australian society for the government to publically recognise the damage it has done to the Aboriginal people through its actions and to seek reconcilliation.

In recent years churches have apologised for their involvement in the "stolen generation's" case. Most of the children were sent to church run "missions" where they were cared for, and in some cases suffered sexual and physical and psychological abuse.

Our most recent former Prime Minister, John Howard, refused calls for more than a decade to offer an apology to the Aboriginal people, while newly appointed Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd - elected less than 4 months ago - listed a public apology to the "Stolen Generation" on behalf of the Australian government, as one of his key election promises.

You can listen to PM Rudd's speach here or read it here.

So as an Aussie, I have to say that today is one of those historic occaisions that I will probably remember for a lifetime. Kevin Rudds apology is a momentous act of reconcilliation that, in my opinion, eclipses many of the economic and diplomatic acheivements of the previous Liberal government.

Goodonya Kev!

Positive About the Church - Synchroblog

A facebook friend of mine - Sally Coleman - came up with the idea of making February the 2nd a day for posting positive stories about the local church (sorry Sally, I'm a day late!).

As someone who often grumbles about different aspects of the local church, I was challanged to participate in this synchroblog. One of my new years resolutions this year was to learn to express the positive more often and the negative less often in all circumstances and what better place to start than with my very own local expression of the church.

Our fellowship is one that has been through a lot in recent years. Around 5 years ago we experienced a bit of a split when all the young families left to attend a mega-church in nearby Bunbury. This left Alyssa and I as the youngest in the congregation by about 10 years.

There were problems with the leadership at the same time which saw a few more leave along the way. In the end we were left with a shell of about 15 regulars, the majority already well into their senior years, conservative, old fashioned but completely committed to Jesus and to being the only expression of the local church in our community.

Around 3 years ago I took over the pastoral role in the hope that we could take things in a more missional direction, changing from what until then had been a very "believer centred" church and into something that was focussed and committed to the broader community in which it existed.

What we saw in the ensuing 3 years was an amazing period of personal and spiritual growth as a group of older people (and I was always told "you can't teach old dogs new tricks") began to explore what it meant to be a decentralised, disinstitutionalised, community serving expression of faith. To break with long held traditions and even to begin to question core doctrines that had been held to faithfully for decades without question and to allow God to work in us and in our lives and through us through serving the community outside the comfort and safety of our meeting place.

While to the casual observer, looking in from the outside, we probably still look a lot like a conservative, dying church in a growing suburban community, the reality though is something very different.

I am so very proud of the people I call my brothers and sisters (even though most of them are actually old enough to be my parents and grandparents) and the way they have allowed the message of Jesus to challange them and change them and change the corporate and personal foci of their faith.

We are still growing and the journey is far from over, but already I know this community is in a better place because of the presence of the local church within it - as an active part of it - rather than as an enclave on its edge. And for the way in which a bunch of older people have completely challanged the stereotype of stayed, unchanging, evangelical conservatism, becoming instead more and more the salt and light in the difficult missionfield of affluent suburbia.

Happiness - So Simple it's almost stupid!

Throughout history sages have counselled that happiness is not a goal but rather a consequence of how we live and that it comes from being content with what we have. Today, we are sold a different message - that we will be happy only if we have more money and more of the things money buys. Human experience and scientific research does not support this belief.

Hamilton, C. & Denniss, R. Affluenza (2005) p. 218. Allen & Unwin: Sydney

See also The Wellbeing Manifesto

Jesus the Warrior

I was thinking about some comments Glenn made on my last post (Hard Words for the Australian Church) - about the "taking the city" kind of terminology used often in certain Christian circles. Glenn made the point that it kinda reminded him of the terminology of the Crusades.

Jesus ministry and his rejection as the Messiah by the first century Jews ultimately related to his refusal to fullfil the role of the military-type Messiah. Someone who would finish the job of ridding Israel of the Romans once and for all and restoring the theocracy. Jesus simply didn't fit this bill and so people became disillusioned with him and, in the end - one week after they gave him a triumphal entry to Jerusalem - they oversaw his execution.

I wonder if this use of militaristic language betrays a similar form of thinking within the modern church. A crusade kind of mentality that wants Jesus to be a military-type Messiah, demanding allegiance to his cause at the end of a sword (taking the city - by force) rather than the lay-down-your-life and transform-the-world in love (agape) kind of Messiah of the gospels?

Will the "failure" of Jesus to act in these ways lead to the same kind of disillusionement experienced by the first century Jews and if so what effect could this have on the church?

Hard Words for the Australian Church

As part of the "Christianity in Australia" synchroblog, Hamo from Backyard Missionary makes some pretty blunt comments on the state of the Aussie church.

The unfortunate thing is ... I think, for the most part at least, he's on the money.

Here's a snippet of what he has to say;

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I’m so tired of hearing preachers rant about ‘taking our city for God’, or taking the nation’. For one thing I don’t think people like being ‘taken’, and for another I don’t think anyone really wants to do it. Sure you might get a few wild eyed young people fired up and nutso the day after a Planetshakers conference, but talk to them in 6 months about their plans for ‘taking the city’ and chances are (if they are still in church) that they won’t even remember the whole thing.

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Have a read of the rest HERE - then check out the links to the other participants in the same synchroblog.

Kenya - Another story

As is so often the case, the true extent of the violence and suffering is often not the same as that seen on the television news and is often not more fully known or understood until well after the events have taken place - think Rwanda.

Through my work with Day 4 I am involved with a ministry - City Harvest - which works among the slum dwellers of Nairobi, improving living standards, training and providing access to retroviral medication and AIDS/HIV clinics. When the violence broke out in Nairobi at the start of January I knew that Edward Simiyu and his team would be affected and would also be involved at the heart of the relief effort. With this in mind we launched the Day 4 Kenya Appeal to raise funds to send to City Harvest to use in the relief effort.

The reports we have been receiving from Edward paint a picture of disaster that is much more wide spread than that seen in much of the media reports coming out of Kenya in recent weeks. More than half a million men, women and children displaced from their slum communities and left without food, water, clothing, shelter or security. To the north of Nairobi homes, schools and churches have been destroyed and many people killed.

2 weeks ago Edward and a number of other local Christians embarked on a journey through roadblocks manned by armed youth - bent on violent retribution in what many in Kenya have likened to the early days of the Rwandan genocide - in order to supply humanitarian aid to those in remote areas, unaccessible to most other relief organisations.

Edward's report of the convoy's journey paints a picture of corruption, disaster and dispare. The military, sent to help those affected by the indiscriminate violence, were demanding money in exchange for protection, schools churches and homes were looted, ransacked and burnt and bodies left to rot where they lie, providing a source of food for scavenging dogs.

Here are some photos from the road to Eldoret.

Refugees sleeping in the opening with all their belongings in plastic bags

All that remains of Kondoo Shopping Centre

Wrecks of elite forces vehicles, sent in to stop the violence. The troops were repelled and then their vehicles burnt and thrown into the river.

The remains of Kamuyu Primary School - looted and destroyed

All that's left of an AOG church looted and stripped back to the frame

One of many homes completely destroyed - more can be seen in the background

The remains of Eldoret church where many people died after seeking refuge from the violence. The church was torched.

The situation in Kenya is dire. Please continue to pray for this country and its people. Please also consider linking back to this blog post and promoting the Day 4 Kenya Appeal on your blogs. 100% of funds donated will make it to Kenya to be used specifically for the relief effort. Please also consider donating - response to the appeal has been slow, yet even small donations add up and can make a big difference to the suffering in Kenya.

I'll leave you with some words from Edward and thanks again for promoting and praying and donating!

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Please pray for Kenya. The suffering and damage is more than what the media has highlighted. More churches have been destroyed than those counted and reported. More churches are likely to suffer the same fate with the precedence now set should unrest continue. The dead are still unaccounted [for] and we are all likely to die if unrest continues. Prices have shot up and calm that was returning is threatened by uncertainty especially this week as more rallies are planned for Wednesday to Friday. They are never peaceful. Two of our HIV/AIDS support group members had their houses torched and are still in trauma. A number ran out of the life prolonging ARVs and now have to change their line of drugs.

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Am I "Anti Church"?

I had a rather frustrating conversation with a good friend earlier in the week. It arose because of assumptions this person seems to keep making about my opinions on the issues of "church" and "mission".

It's something that has kept cropping up over the past year or so and usually ends with me consistently trying to reassure this person that I think believers meeting together to learn, worship, pray and fellowship and that people travelling overseas for "mission" are really important. As someone both employed by a local church, involved in leading and teaching in a Sunday meeting and also heavily involved in overseas mission in Central Africa I've found the assumption that I am against both these things in some way or another to be incredibly frustrating.

It all came to a kind of head at the start of the week. Instead of dancing around the whole thing like we usually do, I came out and simply said "I don't know why you think I am against Sunday meetings and overseas mission. In fact I don't see how you could even think that I would be against these things given my involvement in both."

She responded by saying that I kept saying we needed to forget about these areas and focus more on other things so I obviously was anti both. The conversation ended at that point and I was left feeling bewildered.

I was talking about it with Alyssa later on when Alyssa hit on an important detail we had overlooked - something I regularly say when discussing these things is "we need to put Sunday church to the side and focus on the other days of the week" or "we need to put overseas mission to the side and focus on the missionfield at home for a bit".

What Alyssa pointed out was, what I mean when I say these things is, "we need to elevate the other 6 days of the week and things we do on those days to the same level of importance we give Sunday's" and "we need to give mission at home the same level of importance we give mission overseas".

But instead of hearing this, my friend - and quite possibly others also - was hearing, "I don't think Sunday meetings and overseas mission are important and we should just leave them to one side and concentrate on other things".

Another clear example of the confusion which can be caused by not communicating clearly. All I have to do now is work out how widespread these sentiments are so I can hopefully undo any damage I've done and reassure everyone I am not anti church!

Tough Week

This week has been incredibly stressful.

Back at work on Monday, lots of changes and new people in new jobs, lots of uncertainty about things that for the last couple of years have been pretty certain, a new senior role with no real clarity around responsibilities, authority or expectations.

I find it kinda funny how I react to this kind of pressure. The "fight or flight" response kicks in - my initial reaction is usually "fight", and when I don't give into this (becuase past experience - and my wife - tell me it can get pretty messy and ungodly when I do) I quickly end up at "flight".

The reality of this situation is such that neither reactions are really appropriate - instead I've just had to sit tight and endure the ongoing swing between the two extremes.

What I really hate though, is the way the "flight" side of things seems to dominate and flow on into my whole life - or at least significant parts of it.

How does it make me feel?

It makes me want to run and hide and ditch everything!

It makes me feel weak and helpless and useless - like there's no point in being involved in most of things I'm involved in - chucking the job - "the stress isn't worth it", ditching the new EMC plant in Bunbury - "it wasn't going to work anyway - it was just a dream afterall", chucking the Binningup work - "the changes are never going to last, things won't really ever change".

In all of this though I'm reminded of Paul's conversation with Jesus when Paul was facing an issue that was out of his control.

Jesus response ... "my strength is made perfect in weakness"!

It's so often at these times that I'm not-so-subtely reminded of the fact that I really, really, really, need God - that even the things that seem so clear and certain today aren't neccessarily going to look the same tomorrow, but that - at least - one thing is sure. God and his love for me and purpose for my life remain unchanged.

I wish I didn't so often need reminding of this and I hope and pray that the current "trial" will find resolution soon. And in the meantime, I guess I will just (sigh) have to keep sitting tight and let God sort out the stuff that I have absolutely no control over- and for me, that's not an easy thing to do.

Baptism

Coming up for air

Giving God the glory and honouring Pino!

Last Sunday I had the privellage of being involved in the baptism of my good friend Pino. Pino is a guy I hold in pretty high regard. Even though he has been through a fair bit he has an amazing, inspirational faith in God.

Pino isn't involved in any church on a regular basis so he asked if he could be baptised down here at the beach. I invited our regulars from Binningup along, and our youth and the guys from our Bunbury group. The weather was perfect, the ocean glassy and a bottle nosed dolphin even cruised on in to check out the action.

I gotta say, I love baptisms. Unfortunately we don't see too many of them these days - for a whole number of reasons. I see them as a fantastic oportunity to get together and celebrate life and the grace God has shown us. I was incredibly proud of the Binningup guys and they way they showed Pino love and acceptance as a member of the family - even though most of them only met him that morning. A genuine reflection of God's agape - how it should be!

The Gospel According to Judas

When I was in Perth last week I was browsing the book section of a department store when I came across an interesting looking little book, entitled The Gospel According to Judas by Benjamin Iscariot. When I opened it I saw it was laid out a lot like a biblical text. It was broken into chapters and numbered verse and even had "red letter" sections.

My first thought was it must have been a publication of the Gnostic Gospel of Judas which created a bit of a stir in the media last year. I flicked to the back of the book, past the ribbon book mark - another "biblical" addition to the binding - and saw that it was actually a work of fiction by non-other than British lord and onetime jailbird, Jeffrey Archer.

Archer approaches the "gospel" as the work of Benjamin Iscariot, the fictitious son of Judas and heir to the true story of Jesus. The younger Iscariot recording the gospel during a visit to his father at Khirbet Qumran where the now elderly, Judas fled following Jesus death.

The story starts with Benjamin assuring his readers that Judas did not believe Jesus was the Messiah and that Judas himself was the victim of a smear campaign who did not take his own life or do many of the things claimed of him by the traditional gospel writers.

The blurb in the front cover says that Archer wanted to make the "gospel" as authentic as possible (which probably helps explain the leather-look cover, complete with ancient Christian symbolism and the scripture-like layout of the text, including biblical cross references) and so consulted Catholic scholar and major superior of the Salesians of Don Bosco, Prof. Francis J. Moloney. The end result, according the publisher is "... a project as bold as it is simple. Archer would write a story for twenty-first-century readers, while Moloney would ensure that the result would be credible to a first-century Christian or Jew".

The idea is certainly an interesting one which poses a number of questions. However, Archer doesn't appear to have approached the task in a terribly original way. The Gospel According to Judas is really just a retelling of the accounts of Jesus life recorded in the synoptic gospels. The main difference being Archer's/Iscariot's focus on the thesis that Judas was unfairly treated by later Christian authors, that he did not knowingly or willing betray Jesus but ended up becoming a scapegoat and that he did not believe that Jesus was the Messiah.

The "gospel" ends with Judas living among the Essenes in Khirbet Qumran and finally, at the age of 70, being crucified by the Romans, for which "... he gave thanks to YHWH when he learned that he would suffer the same fate as Jesus" (p. 90 or if you prefer Judas 25:59!).

In terms of practical uses for this book, I guess it could be used to stir up discussion on why we accept the Gospel authors accounts of Jesus life, on some of the so-called contradictions within the gospel accounts, and even as the basis of a comparative study of the quotes and parapharases of the synoptic authors used by Archer/Iscariot to support the claim that Jesus did not want people to view him as the Messiah.

Two trains and a marriage licence

I had to go to Perth today - the hottest day of the past 2 or 3 weeks mind you - for an interview at the Registry of Births, Deaths and Marriages to finalise my registration as a marriage celebrant (anyone wanna get married?).

On the spur of the moment we decided to try out the new Mandurah to Perth rail link, parking our car at the Mandurah station and going all the way through. I gotta say, with the exception of the car park at the Mandurah end of the line, the journey was really easy and comfortable and cheap. The whole trip, there and back, with parking included, cost the five of us just over $10 in total.

The Mandurah car park is a bit of a maze, although, contrary to what we had heard, there was loads of parking. I accidentally pulled into the bus entry when we arrived and ended up copping a few words from a disgruntled bus driver in the process. When I finally managed to find the exit I learnt I couldn't turn back and re-enter the car park without heading all the way back out of the complex again. One set of lights and a U-turn later I was back in the car parking area. By the time I had pulled all this off our train had gone.

For some unknown reason, the park itself is divided into three areas, each totally separate to the other and accessible in each section by only one entry/exit point. Because of a big fence it was also only possible to enter or exit the car park on foot at one point in each section, making it really difficult to get in, park, get your parking ticket and make it to your train before it leaves.

With about 5 seconds to spare (I even gave a young guy at the ticket machine .25c because he ran out of money and began to melt-down and I was sure we were going to miss our second train) we made the train and I arrived only 15 minutes late to my interview. Thankfully the interviewer was 20 minutes late so nothing was lost.

Following an hour spent going over the intricacies of the Marriage Act, we caught another train into the underground station beneath Murray St and spent a few hours wandering around the city - organising a "touch-up" for my tattoo and browsing the shops - before jumping back on the train to Mandurah and the 50 minute drive home.

I'm Back

It's been hard staying away from the blog for so long -nearly 5 months! Over the Christmas break I've found the time to get back into reading blogs on a regular basis and am coming across so many things that I feel I just want to share and comment on that I thought I might give blogging another shot.

Things are also starting to move in the area of "church" in my life. About 3 months ago the leadership here at Binningup made the almighty paradigm shift from attractional thinking to missional/incarnational - it was quite an emotional experience for me, to see the move take place after 3 years (more really) of introducing new ideas and ways of viewing "church" and "ministry". The shift has ended with the leadership, with the exception of Alyssa and I, signing up for a 12 month internship with Forge in the Re-Imagine program.

About 10 weeks ago Lyss and I started a discussion group in Bunbury with the intent of moving towards starting a missional community in the town, based predominantly around the concept of the kingdom gospel and a process of community (lives, environment, culture) transformation. We started off reading McLaren's Secret Message of Jesus. One of the original couples didn't last a week, a few more petered out after a couple of weeks. One week we had more than 20 in attendance. And now we've settled at around 8 or 9 regulars - including a couple of young blokes who have come through the drug program and are searching for meaning in life.

This past Sunday, after a break over Christmas/New Years we decided to move things to the next level and agreed to begin meeting in a central location within the CBD. The space is a community arts centre where numerous and varied community groups meet. Its right next to the town skate park and means mixing it up and sharing space with a number of other groups, including the local Dungeons and Dragons club and a literary group.

The place got bombed by taggers (graffiti artists who spray their nick-name on every flat surface) last week and I offered our services to the manager in cleaning up the place which led to a really interesting conversation and the manager coming back at me with ideas for getting involved with the community engagement stuff they are hoping to do this year. I am really excited by the possibilities this place is going to offer in terms of being missional and a part of the inner city community we want to serve and help transform.

We have embarked on this venture with support from Binningup Beach Christian Fellowship, who are seeing it as a kind of "plant" of their own (which is great and which I have encouraged), from Churches of Christ, and from Forge and Scripture Union.

If you're in Bunbury and want to check us out, we get together at 4pm on Sunday arvos at the Stirling St Art Centre - see you there!

In kicking off my return to the blogosphere I'll leave you with a link to a post I found on the "Gathering in Light" blog on the 4 different arms of the emerging church. I think we probably fit somewhere in number 3 in what we are trying to achieve in Bunbury.

Adieu

The time has come for me to throw in the towel and give blogging up to those who are better able to make a useful contribution to the net-enabled world than I.

The process over the past 10 months has been interesting and, in a sense, worthwhile. For a while the act of blogging was quite cathartic (as an interesting aside - cathartic comes from the Greek word catharsis which can mean to "suck", as in pacify, but I thought it was also applicable to my blogging!!) and I have managed to meet and maintain contact with a couple of really cool people from different places on the globe.

I will definitely still be surfing the blogosphere - I have my favourite blogs locked into Bloglines - and will continue to read and comment.

To those regulars whose visits appear in my webstats - thanks for dropping by and taking an interest!

Cheers and all the best,

Andrew (aka - the Creature)

Discipleship without the Bible - Pt 2

Two and a half years ago something remarkable happened to me. I would even call it miraculous.

It was, without a doubt, the end result of several years of prayer, but to this day I cannot understand why it happened, except to say it was definitely a "God thing". I want to make this really clear. It had nothing to do with me or Lyss, other than, I guess, we were prepared to act when the time came.

The miracle is something I have talked about a few times on this blog. Mostly in trying to find some answers to the many questions I have as someone who has well and truly been thrown in the deep end of something big and amazing and really, really scary.

The miracle was/is a youth group.

3 teenage boys turning up on a Friday night with the specific intent of finding out something about God - whoever (as I am sure they were thinking) "he" was going to turn out to be.

By the end of our first 6 months the group of three had grown into 5. A few left, a few more came and for a good 12 months we settled on 4 regulars turning up each week. None of these kids had a Christian background (although a teenager from a Christian home who had been attending a youth group in another town did start attending after a while) and so our Friday nights were their only experience with God stuff and with Christians.

Now our group has a regular gathering of 7 or 8 on a Wednesday night (we changed the night early last year. I no longer worry about the fact they don't come along on Sunday mornings - sometimes I am actually glad they don't. We often refer to Wednesday nights as our new Sunday morning. We also have our first teenage girl coming along - a new challenge for us.

Bible reading though isn't our strength - hence the title for this post. I have tried setting reading homework, but it rarely gets completed. We have tried doing book studies, but these have flopped and one guys stopped coming because, in his opinion, youth group was too much like school!

I have used the Visual Bibles Gospel of John as an alternative to the Bible, this worked to some degree in engaging them with the Gospel story. Another good resource, particularly in terms of generating discussion, has been the Vancouver Youth for Christ's DVD series Quest. I have just started using this again as we have a number of new attenders who didn't see it the first time round 2 years ago.

But I have found it really difficult to find many resources out there designed for situations like ours. Most assume a group comprised of kids from Christian families and so the suggestions and approaches just don't seem to fit guys like ours. The language and the illustrations are specific to cultural, evangelical Christianity, which makes it really difficult for these post-Christian, non-reading kids to relate to.

As a result - and with the exception of a couple of the resources I mentioned above - we have had to come up with pretty much all our own material and approaches, specifically tailored for post-Christian youth to connect with. And this has been an incredibly difficult process, centred mostly around discussion, story telling and hanging out.

Ancient Egypt and the Afterlife

As we had to visit Perth yesterday for a doctors appointment for one of the kids, I thought we would take the opportunity as a family to check out the Egyptian Antiquities from the Louvre exhibit at the Art Gallery of WA.

The exhibition itself was spectacular with an amazing selection of artefact's dating back thousands of years and in amazing states of preservation.

One of the most interesting aspects of the exhibition was the focus on the religious beliefs of the Egyptians, particularly pertaining to the afterlife. It is almost as if the Egyptians were preoccupied with death and the life beyond the grave.

One of the more interesting exhibits was a beautiful papyrus dating back to c500BC containing what is commonly referred to as the "Book of the Dead" or as it was known by the Egyptians, the Book of going forth by day. This book is essentially a Lonely Planet guide to the afterlife. It contains everything a deceased Egyptian needs to know about traversing the lands beyond the grave, facing the judgment of Osiris and gaining entry into the field of reeds, the Egyptian version of paradise.

As we made our way around the exhibition, I was struck by how knowledgeable the Egyptians wanted to appear about the afterlife. From the way they prepared their mummies and tombs right down to the Book of the Dead and its descriptions of the things the dead would encounter and the spells required to make it through the hall of judgment to paradise on the other side. They seemed to have every base covered and in immaculate detail.

It slowly dawned on me how different this way of looking at the world was to the Judeo-Christian way, and how different the Egyptian equivalent, the Book of the Dead, was to the Bible. Whereas the ancient Egyptians claimed great knowledge of the life that came after death the Judeo-Christian scriptures really don't deal much with it at all.

Where the Book of the Dead covered everything the newly deceased needed to know to traverse the perils of the afterlife, the Bible covers everything its readers need to know to traverse the perils of this life. Very few claims are made about the afterlife by its writers.

I think this caused me to think again about our place in God's plan. The afterlife (or lack of) is a given, one way or another we will all experience it, yet, the biblical text makes it clear, what happens now is of much more concern than what happens afterwards. Whereas the Egyptians were preoccupied with death and the afterlife, we, as followers of Jesus need to be preoccupied with life, and living it to the full! That's the lesson I learned from the Egyptians at the Art Gallery.

Science and the Bible - Part 2

Post moderns face the same problem in rejecting dogmatic proclamations of biblical truth as in accepting modern scientific explanations for the origin and continuation of the universe and all it contains.

If post modern Christians would apply they same level of scepticism to scientific hypotheses, such as the big bang and neo-Darwinian evolution (not to mention pop-sci-fi such as string theory), as they apply to the historical text of the Bible, their arguments would, at the very least, show some consistency. Hopefully enabling them to see more clearly the way in which the cultural ideals which resulted in fundamentalism in Christianity in the first place have also contributed greatly to fundamentalism in cosmological science.

In reality creationist beliefs (even those accepting of a cosmologically young earth) regarding the origin and continuation of the universe and the life which exists within it do not have to pose a problem for post-modern Christians. Rather the focus of their attention should remain on the over emphasis placed on these views as core tenets of the Christian faith and the out-moded approaches to apologetics that seem to be advocated by those who specialise in modernist apologetical models as a whole.

The post-modern Christian therefore must avoid all temptation to play the man and must stick to playing the ball – the ball being the questionable mode of apologetic operation, and not the origin belief of the individuals pursuing it.

Science and the Bible

What's the problem with this quote?

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In our experience, anti-evolution materials that do not use the Bible are overall much less effective. This is because the conflict is not over scientific facts fundamentally, but over the presuppositions that determine how we interpret those facts. The Bible provides the correct presuppositions about the past, enabling us to understand the scientific data correctly. If a person doesn’t accept the Bible as being inerrant revealed truth from God, then, since all beliefs about the past are equally impervious to scientific proof, there is no imperative for them to relinquish their evolutionary beliefs, even though biblical creation explains the bulk of the scientific evidence more plausibly.

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Gary Bates, Creation Ministries International

Hirsch on Consumerism

Speaking to the insecurity of the human situation, it was Jesus who said "So do not worry saying, 'What shall we eat? or 'What shall we drink?' or 'What shall we wear?' For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well" (Matt. 6:31-33, emphasis in original). Consumerism is thoroughly pagan. Pagans run after these things (Gk. epizeteo"seek, desire, want; search for, look for"). Seen in this light, Queer Eye for the Straight Guy, Extreme Makeover, Big Brother, and other lifestyle shows are of the most pagan, and paganizing, shows on TV. Even the perennial favorites about renovating the house paganize us, because they focus on that which so easily enslaves us. In these the banality of consumerism reaches a climax as we are sold the lie that the thing that will complete us is a new kitchen or a house extension, whereas in fact these only add more stress to our mortagages and our families. These shows are far more successful promoters of unbelief than even outright intellectual atheism, because they hit us at that place where we must render our trust and loyalty. Most people are profoundly susceptible to the idolatrous allure of money and things. We do well to remember what our Lord said about serving two masters and about running after things (Matt. 6:24-33)...

...Offered "heaven now", we give up the ultimate quest in puruit of that which can be immediately consumed, be it a service, product or pseudo-religous experience. Consumerism has all the distinguishing traits of outraight paganism - we need to see it for what it really is.

From Hirsch, A. (2006) The Forgotten Ways, pp.110-111.

Discipleship without the Bible - Pt 1

One the biggest challanges and changes in MO I have experienced over the last few years has been the role of the Bible (or more specifically Bible reading) in the discipleship process.

Much of my life is taken up working with young people and, if you haven't worked it out yet, these guys have been born and bred on multi-media entertainment. From sharing movies, sounds and pictures on their mobiles to the latest video games consoles and the internet. They live and breath in a fast-paced, ever changing visceral world. But, unfortunately, books don't seem to have much of a place in this world and hence, the Bible isn't something that many of them are going to be interested in picking up.

This presents a whole range of challenges for those of us whose faith originates in the traditional, evangelical church. After all, the Bible is the word of God, and if we aren't drinking from the source we really aren't drinking at all.

So how can we effectively disciple a generation (or at least a significant segment of a generation) who just isn't into reading?