As I read ‘The Heavenly Man’ I was intrigued at how Yun would memorise long passages of scripture while in prison – whole books even – but I was also challenged that this was something I ought to attempt also.

I have found it really difficult to engage with the Bible while we have been travelling and while I don’t beat myself up over that, I want to find a way to re-focus. Surfing mags are fun, but they don’t do a lot for the soul… junk food really…

I have always had a reasonably good knack for memorizing stuff and as a teenager I used to remember large sections of scripture because I found it helpful. Much of it has stuck, but lately I haven’t done a lot. It hasn’t seemed necessary what with internet access and the availability of Bibles on iphones etc.

So I thought that if Yun could memorise 8 or 9 books while in prison then I could at least have a crack at one while on holidays. My favourite gospel is John, so I thought I would try and memorise it.

Its harder than it looks…

I am up to Ch 1 v 18, but that has taken me two weeks…

However while the actual memorization is difficult what has been incredibly valuable has been the constant meditation on the passage that this exercise necessitates. I think I have read and recited John 1 several hundred times in the last two weeks and its amazing what you observe and what you reflect on as you do it.

I won’t bore you with the details, but suffice to say it has been stirring me.

And at this rate I reckon I will have the book of John fully memorized by 2015…

No I’m not referring to the location of your building, although if you’ve got to have one then you could do worse than this Catholic Pizza Hut lookalike on the beachfront at Eden NSW!

I am thinking specifically of how we function as Christian communities. If we genuinely believe that the relational nature of the triune God is to be reflected in the way we live out discipleship, then we will accept that it is only in community that the life of faith is lived fully and truly. (I hesitate to say that it’s ‘impossible’ to live the life of faith outside of community, but I am very close to that conviction.) 

But what happens when the unique and sometimes rigid culture of the faith community just doesn’t resonate with the people who are seeking to follow Jesus? In the past our response has been ‘well this is church and that’s all there is to it’, but thankfully I get the sense that we are progressing beyond this rather selfish and short sighted club mentality.

This week I caught up with Fred, a church leader in Woolongong and was inspired again by a brilliant bloke who has been able to see things differently and as a result create christian community for those who would never do the ‘normal’ Sunday thing.

Fred is a pastor of a church that has 3 congregations, one that meets on a Sunday in a community centre (under his leadership) one that meets in a home on a weeknight and a third that meets on the beach on a Saturday morning.

He tells the story of one of his church’s best evangelists being perpetually frustrated because every time his surfer/footy mates showed an interest in faith he would take them to church and that was the deal breaker. These guys were open to exploring faith but the culture of the existing Sunday morning expression was foreign and unhelpful to their journey.

Rather than simply saying ‘suck it up’, or feeling threatened, Fred discussed the challenge with his ‘evangelist’ and decided to ‘take church to them’ and create Christian community in a way that would help them continue the faith journey in a way that made sense to them.

So now this group of blokes meet on the Warilla beach each Saturday morning for breakfast, a game of footy or some surfing and a time of confession, encouragement and teaching. As I discussed the nature of the group with Fred he was clear that some of the guys are still early in the faith journey, some are still pretty rough and ready, but they have found a community where there is love, acceptance and discipleship and where they don’t need to morph into mild mannered middle class folks to be welcomed.

I remember running Campus Life groups with YFC about 27 years ago now and seeing another young surfer bloke called Troy come to a place of genuine faith and try to fit into the local church of the time. He gave it a real good shot, but it was clear that he didn’t belong there and eventually he drifted off. I often lamented this as a youth worker but didn’t know what to do. I didn’t know you could mess with this thing called church and not finish up losing your way or becoming a heretic.

One of my dreams has been to see a multiplicity of expressions of Christian community developed so that we do connect with the Troys and the Warilla boys in ways that help them follow Jesus – and not just them but every other person who simply doesn’t fit the conservative middle class culture that seems to typify so much of the Australian church.

I thank God for the ‘Freds’ who didn’t get their nose out of joint at being resisted, but saw an opportunity to think creatively and innovatively about how to make disciples.

The lingering question is always ”how do we help those in smaller culture specific groups experience the breadth of humanity that makes up the Christian church?’ But I’m intrigued that thus question is only ever asked of them… While I think it is a consideration, it’s also true that many Sunday congregations are highly monocultural also and could easily face the same question…  

For some reason I was born as a kid who loved to ask ‘why?’

 I remember regularly annoying my maths teacher with questions about the relevance of quadratic equations to everyday life, (and she never did deliver satisfactory answers so I was perpetually undermotivated in maths…)

But seriously I am convinced the ability to ask ‘why?’ or to see things from a completely different perspective is vastly undervalued by a world that just wants you to shut up and tow the line. I don’t know too many dissenting thinkers who are loved by the society / communities they are a part of because those dissenting voices cause discomfort for others or discomfort for the ‘system’ they are a part of. They challenge the status quo and seem to enjoy exploring an imagination that is different to the norm.

Obviously I have done a lot of thinking about church and mission in this regard but it’s defintely not confined to that subject. I was chatting with a good mate last week and we realized we share some similar ‘divergent’ views when it comes to life.

On the issue of ‘retirement’ neither of us have any desire to stop doing what we love when we turn 55 or 60. Who really wants to spend the last 20 or 30 years in self indulgent living away from the things of life that give us the most energy. And where is the biblical framing of that idea? The whole notion of retirement is part of a specific worldview that we don’t need to buy into if we don’t want to.

Then there’s superannuation… Most super plans assume that when you retire you will need (or want) to live on the same amount of money as you are currently earning. I don’t know about you but I reckon that if the house is paid off and the kids are gone then we can live very simply and comfortably. An income (in today terms) of $30k would probably be quite livable – but the dominant thinking is that we need to be able to live it up in the retirement years… Really? And at what cost to the life we live today?

Then there’s how we live day to day. No surprises that we all have been convinced of our need for many apparent necessities, that in reality are very unessential. For the last few days we have been living in a caravan park in Warilla (I reckon it has the highest bogans’ population in Oz!) where there is a high resident population and we found ourselves saying ‘what a mission field!’ We live in a comfortable 4 x 2 in suburbia but there is no reason why we couldn’t buy into a caravan park and live there. In fact there is much to be said for that kind of life, but it isn’t promoted as an option in our western worldview where home ownership is our salvation. Why not? And why don’t Christians see the opportunity for instant community?

Even taking this holiday was a result of saying ‘why not?’ So many people we meet say ‘we’d love to do that but it’s just too hard…’ and part of the reason it’s too hard is simply because the imagination is stuck in a groove that doesn’t give permission. I was playing scrabble on facebook the other day (and getting my butt seriously kicked) with a woman who had dreamt of doing a similar trip but had given it up as too tricky. We ‘chatted’ as we played and I explained how we were doing it. I’m not sure all of what transpired for her, but today her status read ‘ WOO HOO! we’re going!’ fantastic I reckon… And why not?…

I could go on, but you get the idea. I am a complete believer that just because something ‘is’ doesn’t mean it ‘has to be’. In fact if we apply this kind of thinking to all of life then chances are we will live richer more invigorating lives, and might even inspire others to do similar.

Of course you can’t bring that kind of thnking into the church and not expect some heat. When our much loved cultural practices  (erroneously given theological foundations) are questioned or critiqued then we discover that questioning comes at a price.

Of course the pay-off in seeing people freed to live outside of man made rules is worth every cent in my humble opinion!