Finding Our Way

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As we have been working our way through the book of 1 Corinthians I found myself intrigued by that little phrase in Ch 2 ‘but we have the mind of Christ’…

What’s that mean and how does that shape us?

We dug into this a bit at QBC last week. This phrase is set in a chapter where Paul contrasts ‘worldly wisdom’ and ‘spiritual wisdom’, suggesting that we can view the world from two very different angles and that will obviously shape how we live.

So we began to talk about worldviews and the consequent journey to (or from) Christlikeness. My suggestion was that while we may think we work from a Christian worldview occasionally tainted by the world, it is more commonly the case that we work from a western worldview which only becomes ‘Christian’ if we intentionally challenge and dismantle ‘common wisdom’. We are primarily discipled by our culture and unless we are able to first recognise then and then challenge it we will always struggle to live lives that are aligned with Jesus.

We’re not that unlike ole mate Tony Abbott in that we say we subscribe to the Bible as our authority, but only when it suits our lifestyle. When the biblical worldview clashes with what we want to do we can give it the shove and do what we want anyway.

So – how do we live more Christlike lives? How do we intentionally work at shifting our worldview from secular western to biblical (albeit a ‘western’ expression)?

Last Sunday I offered 3 keys to that move. They aren’t intended to be exhaustive by any means, but more ‘simple and memorable’. As we embrace them we move towards Christ and the life he offers and as we choose not to practice these things we also move away from Christlikeness and back to pragmatic self serving.

So my suggestions for living more Christlike lives and shaping a more biblical worldview begins with:

1.Recognising our source of authority – realising that when we bow the knee to Jesus and call him Lord we are then allowing him to call the shots in our lives.

We can so easily become our own source of authority and in that we make what Paul would call ‘worldly wise’ decisions. Paul says if the world ‘got’ the type of wisdom we are speaking of then they wouldn’t have crucified Jesus, but when pragmatic self interest is at the root of our decision making then we end up doing what is expedient and self serving.

We’d probably wack him on a cross too because that works for us and makes our life easier. So the first step is acknowledging that there is such a thing as Godly/spiritual wisdom – that’s it found in the pages of the ‘book’ and that this is where our source of authority is derived from.

Take that block out of place and the rest doesn’t matter. Seriously – get authority wrong and nothing else is worth considering.

2. We become like Christ in Community – and when we are out of community we struggle. We are not intended to live the life of faith alone and our hope of becoming like Jesus only gains traction as we do it with other people. As Paul finishes this chapter he says ‘But we have the mind of Christ’.

And there are two ways to read that statement. You can read it like this – ‘we’ have the mind of Christ – every single one of us – we have the ability as individuals to discern what the spirit says to us – and there is truth in that.

Obviously we do that…

But I’d suggest there is more truth and stronger truth in saying ‘WE have the mind of Christ’ we – us – together – will discern the voice of the spirit and we will do that better together than me on my own.

If we believe what the Bible says about the heart being deceptively wicked and deceitful above all things then we know that we can fool ourselves into ‘hearing God’ approve of all sorts of things that we would like him to sign off on.

But try doing that around some people who really want to follow Jesus together and see what happens. This week I had a serious conflict with a tradesman who owes me money and today sent me 18 abusive texts. Internally I feel like going round there with a baseball bat… but if I put that as a serious suggestion to my close circle of friends in church they would probably help me return to my roots and consider a more Jesus like response…

When we follow Jesus together we offer our lives up for challenge and for response. We should expect push back at times. We don’t make fait accompli statements about what we will do contrary to what the scriptures teach and expect not to be challenged.

But if we are out of community then we put ourselves in a space where we have little by way of accountability and challenge.

We have the mind of Christ together.

3. Practicing Christian living – as we live more like Christ our worldview gets changed. As we accept a greater authority than ourselves and as we live in community we begin to behave differently. And as we actually do the stuff Jesus speaks of our worldview changes again.

Today as the abusive texts rolled in, I didn’t respond. (I thought of many clever things to say…) Part of that is because over the years I have learnt and practiced a more peaceful response to conflict. There was a day when I would have been ‘punching back’, but I guess a lot of practice over a long time has had an effect.

Its been said that ‘we are what we habitually do’, that our most regular practices give shape to our lives. That’s both encouraging and worrying… It means we can reshape our lives as we engage in the practice of new habits and as we choose to leave our old ways behind.

But it begins with a different vision of the world – a different sense of what is really going on and what matters.

I’m concerned that we see Christians getting ‘better’ at actually being the kind of people we claim to be, not in a legalistic way, but in an acceptance that the life we are called to live is going to be lived in a counter-cultural way, that we will not simply follow the script and do what’s expected.

But that will take a source of authority, a community of people to discern the ‘mind of Christ’ with and a resolve to practice new ways of being.

 

 

Finding Light on the Dark Side

On Friday I took the day off work and headed to the Willow Creek Leadership Summit to spend some time being challenged, inspired and refreshed. One of the things I have come to realise is that if I’m going to stay energised then I need to do the things to make that happen. I’ve found it difficult over the last 5 years to carve out the time and have often run on the smell of an oily rag. That eventually takes its toll. If you don’t keep yourself energised its hard to keep rolling.

I realise that to some the ‘Leadership Summit’ is the ‘dark side’, because it leans towards working with business principles and of course the church is not a business… So – yeah – I know that, but it’d be foolish to think we couldn’t learn or receive challenge from some of the best minds in the world.

So I went with the intention of savouring everything I could and spitting out any ‘bones’ as appropriate. These days I tend to think that if you can leave a conference with just one significant question, learning, or moment of inspiration then that’s enough. Let’s face it, there isn’t much that’s new in Christian leadership after 27 years, so its more about listening for the nudge of the spirit rather than picking up brand new ideas. (Are there any even?…)

The conference began with Hybels in full swing teaching about the ‘intangibles of leadership’. His basic idea was that for many years he has been teaching that there are 8 or 9 critical components to good leadership (vision casting, strategic planning, problem solving etc – all the usual stuff) but he had observed that there were plenty of people with these skills highly developed who were actually not doing well as leaders. What was the problem?… He stumbled on a book titled ‘The Intangibles of Leadership‘ that gave him a fresh perspective on the ‘below the surface’ stuff that makes a good leader. To be fair none of it is rocket science, but that isn’t the point.

He spoke about:

  • Grit – passion and perseverance over the long haul
  • Self Awareness – becoming aware of our blind spots by walking with people who are willing to tell us the truth
  • Resourcefulness – which he defines as ‘learning agility’
  • Self sacrificing love – the willingness to give of ourselves to those we lead at whatever cost.
  • Creating a sense of meaning – Referring to Simon Sinek’s Ted Talk, Hybels spoke of knowing clearly what your ‘white hot why’ is and letting that shape your life.

The two points that I found myself pondering were the idea of ‘grit’ (tenacity / resolve and the refusal to quit) and that of ‘meaning’. During the Forge/Upstream years I had a super clear sense of calling and had no trouble articulating my ‘white hot why’. As a result I was able to grind on thru some pretty difficult times.

In that period the missionary calling was burning deeply in me – the ‘why’ was as white hot as I have ever known. But for the last few years my ‘why’ has been less ‘laser focused’ and I sense it has impacted on my passion and my ability to persevere. I reckon my ‘grittiness’ is pretty high when I have a cause to give my heart and soul to, but in the absence of this its hard to take hits and keep going. Disappointment and discouragement has definitely been a factor over the last few years and with a less gripping ‘why’ to sustain me I’ve found myself often pondering whether I should keep leading a church.

Add to that, I’ve also been travelling thru the ‘mid life tunnel’ and feeling a more general sense of demotivation and disorientation. It was really disturbing for a long time until I was able to accept that it was like a middle aged version of puberty – a change period and it was ok and normal, even if it made me feel awkward. Richard Rohr’s book ‘Falling Upwards‘ was really helpful for bringing clarity to my confusion even if it didn’t re-ignite my sense of purpose.

So how does this all relate?

I came back from holidays two months ago still somewhat ambivalent about my role as a pastor. I could keep going and ‘doing the job’ but I wasn’t feeling the deep burn that I know is needed to sustain you and give focus to ministry. James words in Chapter 1 about the ‘double minded man’ were resonating with me and not in a good way. I was aware that I was looking simultaneously down two different paths and that I wasn’t going to do anything well in that state.

A good friend challenged me early on after we had returned to just get on with it, lead and enjoy it. I don’t think she meant it to have the quite the catalytic effect on me that it did, but in one short sharp moment I sensed the spirit poke me in the chest and say ‘This is it. Do it!’

I’ve had 2 or 3 similar landmark moments before where the only response possible is ‘ok… I’m in!’ So I made that commitment – to give this next season of church leadership absolutely everything I’ve got and to make sure that I am faithful with what talent I’ve been given. I told Danelle. I told our leaders. I told my friends. Because when you tell people you can’t weasel out. I was intentionally shutting down one of the roads my mind had been venturing down (the one of running a business full time)

That was the first step.

I have been doing some work over the last month to give better leadership to the church in the coming years and I know part of that involves operating with a greater sense of intentionality and purpose. That stuff flows from the ‘white hot why’. (I like Hybels way of articulating that). We aren’t motivated simply by information and facts, but instead by the things that captivate our hearts and that stir our deepest emotions. The missional purpose that gave such strong shape to my identity 10 years ago has faded. That’s not a bad thing. I still see its importance, but I think God had burned that message in my heart for a time and now it has mellowed – maybe come back into better balance with the other priorities of the church.

In the last few days as I have reflected on this ‘white hot why’, and what it is now, I have come to a different place. I left the conference on Friday disturbed because I couldn’t articulate it and I know that if I can’t give words to it then I don’t know what it is clearly enough. I began talking around it, writing, reflecting and puzzling. I knew something was there, but with so many distractions and competing agendas in life at the moment I was struggling to simply focus. But I pushed on because I sensed I was near – I was having a ‘tip of the tongue’ experience.

Then it struck me – like a sledgehammer out of the blue. Over the last two years the idea that has been inspiring, disturbing and captivating me is Paul’s statement in Philippians ‘For me to live is Christ and to die is gain.’ I’ve preached on this, blogged on it here and here, done a talk for Sonshine radio around this exact idea and it still bubbles away in me as a significant centring statement.

Its the place I find myself coming back to when I want to sum up the life of faith in a nutshell. Its my lens for viewing life. I dunno how it speaks to you, but for me its a strong statement – a call to a very different kind of life both here and now and also with a vision for beyond this world.

I think you see things differently at different points in life and for me this has taken centre stage in my understanding of discipleship – and because of that I see that this will give rise to how I lead a church community and how we organise what we do. Last week I did some work on ‘vision’ and priorities for the coming year and I couldn’t generate the kind of energy I know is needed to lead and engage others. You can write all the right words on a page, but if it doesn’t start a fire in you then its just leadership-babble and worse than no direction at all.

But… ‘to live is Christ… to die is gain…’

I can start from there. I can lead with that… because it evokes something deep and visceral in me. It is a raw and untrammelled description of life under Jesus. You might say ‘Hamo – that’s just discipleship in different words…’ and yes… you’d be right… but those words matter because they create a mental picture in my mind – they spark my imagination and inspire me. They burn me.

I want to look back in 10 years time and see a church of people for whom those words have become the guiding motif to their lives. If that happens – if we can create that kind of a community then it will have been worthwhile.

We v Me

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Lately my thoughts are that the greatest challenge to the church reaching its potential and being the visible evidence of the kingdom of God on earth is our often unconscious but tenacious commitment to individualism – to our personal autonomy.

A statement I have been repeating to our crew at QBC, almost in the form of a mantra is ‘we always takes precedence over me in the kingdom of God’.

In the life of faith our communal identity is always of greater priority than who we are individually. It’s one of those truths we ‘know’ from scripture but that sits completed at odds with our western way of life, which of course means we don’t know it at all. We are just aware of the theory and even the theory sounds odd.

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If ‘we matters more me’ then we actually choose to surrender our own wants to the needs of the community. We choose to forgo what may ‘suit me’ to ensure the community is better placed… And seriously – who does that?

Even just to say it sounds weird. No one does that… And maybe that’s why we lack distinctiveness. Maybe that’s why we so often look like s religious version of middle class suburban life… If ‘we matters more than me’ then it rips apart our whole world view and takes away our autonomy.

I don’t like anyone messing with my autonomy.

What would it look like though if we gave it a shot?

We would seek the good of the community before we seek our own good. We would put our own desires in the context of what is happening beyond us and we would be willing to let go of our preferences and desires to enhance the life of those around us. Its a serious commitment to unselfish living.

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We would make sacrifices of time and money for others. Rather than seeing church as a religious meeting to attend on a certain preferred frequency we see it as a community we need to engage with, both because we are called to do so, but also because it’s in this space that our life is more complete.

The biggest obstacles we face to living more communally and less individualistically are most likely busy lives. Somehow in the west we have managed to live in a state of perpetual manic busyness which means we don’t have the time to slow down and be with others in meaningful ways. Community is impossible when we are too busy to be with others. As a result the chances of our world seeing a depiction of the kingdom as an alternate reality is significantly limited.

It’s almost an unsolvable puzzle unless we are willing to forgo some of those hours at work, some of the $$ that come from those hours and reinvest the time in building a community that speaks of the distinctiveness of the kingdom of God. And having been here before I know that one of the accompanying challenges is that someone may make the choice to realign their life, but if no one else does then they will find themselves with time to spend and no one to spend it with…

I’m not holding myself up as any model of living in community. I find this stuff really hard and I’m naturally very individualistic. But if we are to have a hope of giving our world an inspiring depiction of life in an alternate reality then we can’t let this beat us.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Complexities and ‘Simplicities’

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I ‘shared’ this quote from my old friend Alan Hirsch on Facebook today but as I’ve pondered some thoughts over the day I’m not so sure the answer is actually a revised ecclesiology more fitting to our time. I think ecclesiology might look past the real problem we face and may provide a superficial fix.

It begs the question ‘what are the 21st C complexities?’ (You might like to elaborate Hirschy?…)

But it was a coffee with a mate this morning that percolated my thinking. So I’ll start to unpack it and you can see what you think.

We don’t live in the 16th century (thank God – or we would probably be burning pro gay advocates at the stake), nor do we live in the 20th century, not even 2014. In his book Kingdom Conspiracy, Scot McKnight describes the latter part of the 20th century as an optimistic era (especially the 80’s)  when we believed we were going to ‘take back ground ‘ and make a significant dent in a secular world. From the contemporary church movement to the missional / emerging church we all had an answer.

But… I’m not convinced that in the west we have taken much ground at all or made much of a dent in culture. l can’t speak for other parts of the developing world where the church seems to be growing, but my experience of church in the secular west is that the influence has been more upon us than by us. I would sense we have conformed to the culture more than we have influenced the culture.

Ouch…

The problem may be that we can’t see it…  because it’s hard to notice an environment you are immersed in. Our sexual ethics have shifted – and I’m not referring to the gay debate. I doubt there would be many young people ‘waiting for marriage’ these days or even keeping themselves to one partner. The last stats I heard were about 15% ‘wait’. Our economics are decidedly similar to the world around us, and our politics are often similar too.  We veer right or left when the kingdom is in fact an alternate reality completely.

One of the oddities we were discussed  this morning was the challenge of church attendance in this time. In the 60s and 70s it was twice on Sunday that everyone attended church. In the 80s it was once but we were committed to the once, the 90s started to become fortnightly and the naughties and the 20teens have seen regular attendance pushed out to 3-4 weekly.

Is it ecclesiology that needs to shift to address the reason people aren’t part of the Sunday gathering?

Before I go on my concern is not with ‘attendance’, per se as you can attend a Sunday gig and not be a disciple, but my question is around how we imagine church for the future if this trend continues.

Is it OK to call yourself part of a church (or even ‘The Church’) if you only go once every 5 weeks?  6?… 8?…

What about twice a year?

That’s absurd you say…  Maybe…  but when does it start to become silly? When do we actually say ‘whoa… time out! ‘?

The conversation we had this morning focussed on the fact that people who were now irregular church attenders were not necessarily floundering disciples.  They may well be godly people for whom life has become increasingly complex and they are trying to balance the scales of work, family, friends, kids sport, the need for rest and so on.

So my point is that it’s not poor church attendance that is the problem – rather this is a symptom of how we have been immersed and inculturated into western values – how we have been secularised rather than the community being evangelised.

We need to work hard and provide… And provide well
We need ‘family time’… We need ‘me time’…
Then there are the kids activities that have us chaueffering endlessly… There are extended family to see, friends to catch up with, birthday parties, weddings, and then some days you just don’t feel like getting out of bed on a cold Sunday morning…

With all that ‘life’ going on it seems easier and wiser to eliminate church from our lives rather than anything else.  Because ‘church’ won’t complain…  church will ‘understand’…

‘How hard for you being so busy… ‘

‘How tricky for you to get time with the family…

And so on…

Reality is it wasn’t this hard 40 years ago.

So the question that arises for me as a Christian leader is ‘are we trying to run with a 20th century form of church in a 21st century world and do we need to seriously grapple with a strong but more fluid approach to church?

Or…  do we need to start calling it as the secularisation of the church?  Do we need a different expression, or we just need a rocket?

I’d suggest the problem is that we have allowed ourselves to believe that the secularisation we have experienced is just normal life, rather than challenging it and asking how we orient our lives around Jesus call and the community of faith.

The church is no longer central to the life of many Christians as it was 40 years ago. And while there may have been some unhealthy motivations in those days based around guilt and legalism, as well as a very inward focus, now we see a church that is fraying and in danger of either slowly dissolving or re-forming as an anaemic secularised version of itself.

The flip side of this argument is that we must simply adapt to the context we are in and currently the context is that everyone’s life is busy, busy, busy, so we simply can’t expect to do church as we once did.

Perhaps we genuinely have to consider a church that meets sporadically and where the major connections are outside of Sunday? Perhaps we need a shift in imagination that allows us to ‘roll with the punches ‘ in regards to how secular society shapes us and be less concerned with what happens on a Sunday? I don’t see us moving back to the 70s any time soon. So maybe we have to adapt our ecclesiology to suit? I have a pretty low church perspective anyway so that isn’t hard for me. I can meet in homes, I can meet in smaller communities, but…  what if people cant commit to participation in groups oriented and scheduled around their busy lives? Because I suggest we will simply see the same problem replicated in the smaller and more fluid environment…

At it’s core the church in its local expression is a community but if people are never together then it cant be a community and by definition can’t be a church either. In his book I referred to earlier McKnight puts Jesus and church as central to the coming of the kingdom and I sense we have allowed church to be a ‘desired’ focus, but not essential.

I don’t believe the problem is ecclesiology. The problem is that we have lost sight of who we are and who we are called to be. Life is complex today – no question – so more than ever we need to draw a line in the sand and in the words of Hauerwas declare ‘Jesus is Lord and everything else is bullshit’, because right now the bullshit seems to be having its way with us.

That’s a dark post I realise. But I’m close to the end of my rope as a leader wondering just how we lead communities where the shape of lives is more dictated by the culture than by the gospel and the call of Jesus.

Free Ranging or Free Falling… Spirituality on Holidays

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As the years have gone on I have increasingly become a creature of habit, finding myself in a familiar rhythm of life that sustains and nurtures my faith. I’m not a manic early riser, but I am a morning person these days, so my best connections with God tend to be before work in the quiet of my study or on warmer days out on the balcony over breakfast.

I also enjoy a time of examen each evening as I lie in bed – reflecting on how the day has gone, the sense of God’s presence at different moments, the times where I have done well or done badly. The people I have encountered are always a part of that time as I reflect on who is in my life and why.

These days I also find myself much more conscious of God throughout my days, of his work in my work, of his hand in the people I meet and the way I go about by business.

It makes for a robust sense of spiritual health and rootedness, but even with good practices and life in balance I still feel the need for definite holiday times – spaces away from the routines and familiarly of home – time to recharge and live in a different space

Ironically I feel myself often spiritually ‘free-falling’ in these times. The life that is intended to bring renewal and re-energising does so at one level – my body rests from hard physical labour and my mind is diverted from the tasks of business and Christian leadership, but I also inevitably drop any disciplines and my focused connections with God are sporadic and infrequent. It’s a kind of free range’ spirituality where I graze here and there but with no regular pattern.

I remind myself that I need to engage with the basics of scripture and prayer because these are my source of sustenance – my meat and potatoes – but I don’t actually do it. I think about it, feel a little guilty but can’t seem to summon the energy to do much more than a brief skim of a familiar psalm followed by a distracted prayer.

In these moments I fear heading home physically replenished and mentally fresh, but spiritually disoriented.

I wonder what my absence of any regular practice on holidays says of my relationship with God? I wonder if I’m in danger of becoming a professional Christian who reads, prays and ticks the boxes because it keeps the bills paid. I’d like to think I have more integrity than that, but my holidays often leave me questioning. We sometimes go to church on holidays but not always. Those times are too often disappointing. I hesitate to write of our experiences of church in any kind of evaluative way because those comments are unfair to the people in the community we have joined for a brief hour or two. The fact that their music, theology and culture may not have been to my taste is completely irrelevant. They are a bunch of brothers and sisters having a crack at being the people of God as best they know how in some difficult places.

Having written this I should confess that with another month of holiday still to go, I have no great ambitions to change the way things are. I don’t want to bring workaday rhythms into the holiday space. I am not seeking an experience of God thru a church service. It makes me very uneasy to imagine any of those scenarios.

I could probably tell you that I encounter God in the surf, in the vastness of the Aussie outback and in the conversations we have both with friends and others we meet on the road. And that’s true. I often find myself giving thanks for the things we do, the beaches we surf and the people we meet. I know God is ‘not far from any one of us’  and he is accessible if I am willing to ‘tune in’.

But, in spite of the theory of this and even with my attempts to practice it, I find that I lack the sense of connection to God that I hope to have – of hearing from him, feeling inspired by him and of being disturbed by him. I’d like God to poke me, to annoy me even with a renewed vision for life. I’d like to be called to something grander than my life is at the moment and to go home feeling like there is something to be done.

I have listened to sermons online as we have travelled, read Christian books and articles and shared conversation with Danelle and the kids around significant issues of faith, but I feel ‘ho hum’ in my spirit and I’m hoping for more.

At this stage I feel like we will lob back into life in late August and re-enter our regular rhythms with no great ephipany and no overwhelming revelation to spur us on.

Maybe that’s ok.

Maybe that’s just how it is…

Perhaps a holiday of this ilk is simply what we need and my relationship with God isn’t slowly slipping into the toilet at all. It’s hard for me to grasp that (and maybe it’s not the case) but perhaps it is what’s needed for me at this time.

It used to be (in my busy and frenetic youth pastor days) that I would go away on holidays, intentionally ‘look away’ from work but in the rest, fresh ideas and inspiration would form. It’s many years since I’ve experienced that and I’m wondering if it’s no longer a reality. Perhaps in this season of life it is enough just to kick back and enjoy beach, bush and family and to trust that God is still capable of entering my world in dramatic ways if he wants to – or maybe he just wants me to be ok with that not happening too.

Worth a Fight?

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Recently my old mate Scott posted this image on his Facebook page and took some heat for it. We had coffee that afternoon and he mentioned to me that he hadn’t seen the words at the top of the image, just the sentiment on the bottom. Maybe he did lose some friends over it. Certainly the comments on his post suggested his views weren’t welcome and a pastor he should know better.

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Then just last week another friend posted a link on Facebook to this article with the accompanying disclaimer ‘No I’m not a bigot’. It takes the other point of view and she also copped heat from people who declared her narrow minded.

It seems that whichever side of the debate around gay marriage you sit on, you risk losing friends. You have to face the reality that your point of view on this one issue is going to bring conflict and possibly even the end of a relationship.

What an unbelievably stupid response…

I want to say ‘Really?… Seriously?… You would dismiss me as a friend because on a non essential issue I read the Bible differently to you?’

This is another in a long line of boundary marker issues that seem to be used to decide who is ‘in’ and who is ‘out’. In times gone by it was inerrancy, as certain people were demonised and harangued for refusing to subscribe to one particular view of scripture, or perhaps you encountered the same shunning over your views on creation, or women…

These are all issues that can still generate a little heat here in Oz, but let me change your perspective for a minute.

My aunt visited from Ireland a couple of years back and I asked her what was the pressing issue for the church in that part of the world. Do you know what she said?

‘Hats.’

Yep – hats… HATS!

People are fighting one another over whether they keep their heads covered in church… I was speechless, but managed to utter some completely insincere words of concern.

People are losing friends over hats… 

You probably find that sad and absurd. Bizarre even, but in another part of the world that is still more ‘christianised’ than Australia, this is a serious issue.

In 20 years time when the heat has gone out of this debate around gay marriage you will probably view it like you do creation, or inerrancy or gender. Its not that its a storm in a teacup. Its a real question that needs a thoughtful response. We do need to grapple with these issues as Christians, but we don’t need to lose friendships over them.

That is DUMB!

I get the clear sense we would be far more comfortable with a friend suggesting a non-divine Jesus, or many ways to God, than we would be with someone having a divergent view on gay marriage. We could more easily tolerate a compromise to our core convictions than we could someone holding the ‘wrong’ view on a hot topic.

Time to grow up a bit folks.

And – no – I haven’t presented my own view on this issue on here, because I’m not writing for that purpose. I’m more than happy to tell you what I think, but only if you promise not to ‘de-friend’ me…

If that’s too hard it might be time to get a grip of what Jesus said was really important

 

 

 

 

 

Living With Vikings

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This week I watched season 1 of Vikings, a pretty brutal TV series that follows the early Norse invaders of Britain and their way of life. I can’t vouch for the historical authenticity of the narrative, but I did see one element of the story that fascinated me and spoke to some of where I sense we are at today as Christians in this world.

In their first venture west the Vikings looted a monastery and killed almost all of the priests, with Ragnar saving one for his ‘slave’. He takes Athelstan back to his home where he lives with the family as a servant, while Ragnar milks him for more information on the lands to the west. This monk is forced to live as an exile among these violent, pagan people and slowly – very slowly his faith erodes as they accept him and he accepts them.

In time he finds himself so immersed in pagan culture that his previous identity suffocates. He eventually attends the once every nine years, temple visit, a pagan religious ceremony and an orgy of every kind culminating with sacrifice of both animals and humans.

Athelstan discovers he has been brought as the sacrifice, but as he is examined by the pagan priest to see if he has truly renounced Christ he stumbles. He is asked 3 times – ‘do you still follow Jesus?’ Each time he answers ‘no’, but on the final denial he is caught slyly rubbing his wrist and when his sleeve is pulled up a cross is revealed. He is not acceptable as a sacrifice.

It felt like a metaphor of the faith so often observed today. There has been a slow but observable seeping of pagan culture into the lives of western Christians. We have bought western paganism with its consumer Gods and hedonistic life, where new purchases and new experiences are the focus of worship. And in so doing we have lost sight of the call to die to self and follow with a cross…

But when push comes to shove, when life turns to custard, when we lose all hope and our new gods can’t bale us out, there is still a memory… maybe a distant memory of another way, a way that was once reassuring, that once rang true… and we may even be found ‘rubbing the cross’, praying or returning to church to try and recover what has been lost.

I’m still pondering the implications of this as they are disturbing…

Meanwhile for some fuller thoughts on a similar theme see Steve’s two most recent posts on the challenge of the world we live in here and here. Some brilliant thinking here and resonates with what I was feeling myself as I began to write this post.

 

Ritual & Rhythm

coffee

To keep a healthy rhythm of life I find it helpful to have a few defining rituals that mark out the borders of my activity.

One of my favourites is unloading all of reticulation gear from my car every Thursday afternoon. I don’t need to unload necessarily as I don’t need the boot space over the weekend, but the act of unhitching the trailer and taking all of my equipment out says simply ‘this part of the week is over’. When a call comes on Friday morning there isn’t a temptation to squeeze it in because I have everything with me. It simply has to wait until Tuesday when I begin work again. All my gear is stored in boxes so its a 3 minute exercise to unload, but it marks a shift in my psyche. I am now unavailable to do those jobs.

I also put the phone on silent/vibrate for most of Friday to Monday, so instead of that loud ‘old phone’ ring tone (which I need when working outside) but seems to blare ‘ANSWER ME NOW!’ there is a quiet buzz and which actually means I respond differently. I look at the number and decide if I want to answer it, or if it can wait. And when I answer it I can do so calmly. I don’t miss many calls because I am still aware of the buzzing, but it is less intrusive into my world.

Also on either Thursday or Friday afternoon I usually wash and vacuum the car. Again, not a monumental event by any stretch, but I like a clean car – it feels much better to drive – and having it freshly cleaned is another marker of a week of physical work coming to an end. I wash off the sprinkler stains and enjoy seeing the shine of the paintwork. While I’m washing the car I set the coffee roaster going and knock up a fresh batch of beans for the week ahead. I enjoy the smell of the beans and the opportunity to sniff around the shed while I wait from them to finish.

Another ritual I’ve had for as long as I can remember is to make Saturday AM a time to sleep late and then read the paper. Sleeping late these days generally means staying in bed until 7.30… but its still nice to recognise Saturday as the one day of the week when I don’t have to be up and at em. (Try and get me to do anything early on a Saturday and you will be battling…) Reading Saturday’s paper has always been a relaxing thing to do, although this is one ritual I find less rewarding, possibly because so much news reading and general reading is now done online and via a tablet.

In reality I never stop being a Christian leader from Tuesday to Thursday and I am still a retic bloke on the other days of the week, but the rituals help me adjust the dials in regards to focus.

I have other rituals which would probably take the form of spiritual disciplines, (morning prayer / evening examen etc) but they are probably more predictable and expected. What I’ve discovered in the practice of these small things is that give better shape to my identity and they allow me to regulate life more intentionally.

Got any rituals?

What’s your favourite?…

Living by The Well

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We are coming up for 24 years in Christian leadership this year. Almost half of my life I’ve been leading churches or Christian organizations of some sort or other. We started as we got married and apart from a few extended breaks we have been at it non stop for that time.

In the early years I would run like crazy, crashing my way thru whatever I found difficult and cleaning up the mess afterwards (or not). When it came to re-energising and living sustainably I didn’t really think about it. I was young, determined and tireless. But I was also like the sprinter with no form. Lots of body parts flailing wildly, but the actual forward movement was not that exciting.

As time went on and our marriage took some massive hits as a result of my workaholism I started to become quite disciplined with my re-charging. Regular sabbaths, a scheduled and fairly non negotiable day off during the week as well as time to go off in retreats formed the basis of my re-energising. This worked and got some sanity back in our lives but it was a discipline because I still felt compelled to change the world.

In this phase of life I seem to have changed tack yet again. The shift has been  more intuitive than intentional but as I was talking with friends the other day I found myself describing how we recharge these days like this: 

Rather than taking time out to go ‘back to the well’ we now seek to ‘live by the well’. 

We aim to live in such a way and at such a pace that we are close to the source of life and able to draw from him as needed. It inevitably means fewer ‘mountain top’ experiences but it also means fewer times of significant disconnection and wandering into unhealthy places.

When I say ‘living by the well’ I’m simply speaking of a way of approaching life that is more integrated and seamless, rather than segmented into work and rest. It’s not without its challenges because when life does get busy we don’t have strict schedules to protect us, but the reality is that we are much at better at managing our time and being careful with what we say yes to.

I think different approaches to sustainability work for different people – and may be appropriate for different stages of life – but I find where we live now and the way we allow life to flow together has helped us become more whole as people as well as allowing our leadership to be less driven and a whole lot more attractive.

I wish I’d known how to live a more integrated life at 30, but then I think I would have perceived me as lazy then…

Multiplying Effect

ripple_effectOn December 17th we headed off to Bali for what was a mixture of family holiday and church trip connecting with the various orphanages we support.

On the Sunday before we left an older couple in church gave each of our kids $50.00 each. But they gave it to them to give away as they saw fit. They asked them to watch and pray and see what God was doing and to use the money for whatever they felt was appropriate.

I was inspired by their creative initiative. They didn’t just give $100 to someone – they gave our kids the opportunity to reflect, to pray and to manage money wisely. They helped someone out, but they also helped form spiritual awareness in younger people in their community.

As you can imagine it created some interesting conversations and discussions about what would be the best use of the money. And surprisingly, in a country where there is no shortage of poverty, it wasn’t a straightforward decision as to where to give the money.

We spoke with them about discerning need, about wise giving, about how God may be speaking.  It was a valuable exercise in many ways and in the end a need arose that both kids felt was suitable and the $100 was given to one person – a month’s wages for her and a massive help to her family.

The point though is that the choice by this older couple to creatively use their funds meant that they actually achieved far more than they would have just by giving the money to a fund.

Someone in need got the money, our kids got to work thru the process, we got to disciple them in that and of course you are reading about it now and thinking ‘we could do that…’