Category Archives: Spirituality

The Gift of Reality

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I don’t know how many books I’ve read or conferences I’ve been to that have inspired me as to the potential of the church to be an amazing and dynamic community.

I have read so many books that tell stories of amazing transformations and offer insights into ‘how to’, but invariably when you go back and try to implement them either others haven’t read the books or been to the conference, or its just not as easy as it sounds in the books.

Maybe you’ve had that experience of ingesting an idea, feeling that rush of hope and vision only to try and make it work and discover that either you’re all thumbs, or people are too busy, or just plain disinterested – or the ideas were never meant to be transferred! After a while you don’t believe the books or the conference speakers… Or you may lose faith in your own leadership, or in your church community.

Or maybe reality is that life, faith and mission are pretty much a case of ‘keeping going’, of living in the mundane, often uninspiring and seeing the moments of beauty when they are present, while other times just walking on.

Much of what we read in books is what I’d call ‘highlight reel’ stuff – the kinda stuff that makes good stories to tell other church leaders, but reality is that most of life is ‘steady as she goes’. Its that constant quest for ‘more’ that can make us inappropriately dissatisfied with the beauty of what we have and can then undermine what God is actually doing in our midst.

Perhaps reality disturbs us because it doesn’t seem all that exciting, yet ‘reality’ is the ground from which all hope filled stories come. If we accept that, then we won’t miss the moments when they do come around.

Over the last few weeks we have been helping a young Iranian guy find his feet in Perth. I always smile at how helping ‘asylum seekers’ can be made to sound like cutting edge / sexy work, when in reality it can just be hard work because language is difficult and everything is slow and clumsy.

This morning our friend bought us lunch after church – a quarter of his weekly income went in one hit. It was a beautiful expression of thanks and one we couldn’t refuse. Then as we chatted in our home I heard Sam tell him that he had been praying for him. My 9 year old son wanted him to know that God cares for him as he struggles with loneliness and anxiety.

These are small things and probably not the stuff that most people get excited about, but in the ebb and flow of ‘real life’ they are God moments and they really are worth cheering for.

Maybe one day I’ll write my own book that will tell stories of the very real and ordinary stuff that really ought to be celebrated a bit more. Rather than being disappointed that 2000 people didn’t get saved last week if we begin to savour the golden moments of God at work we might find that hope that so often seems illusive.

Just a thought at the end of another ordinary – yet often inspiring week…

Fun… Ministry… Work?

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It starts as fun and ends in ministry… or maybe even work…

A couple of conversations over the weekend sparked my thinking about how things can start as spontaneous fun, develop into some form of ministry and then maybe even shift into being ‘work’ or a chore.

I was out surfing with my friend Stuart and our sons Sam and Micah and we got talking about how much fun it was – dad’s and kids doing what they love to do and having a blast. Stuart mentioned that he has come across some other parents who also enjoy surfing with their kids and is in the process of establishing a Christian Surfers group in his local area for that particular niche.

They would get together fortnightly on a Saturday to surf, be able to have some competitions, instruction and some Bible study. It would be ‘under’ Christian Surfers and would be a project that at least a few people would need to commit to being part of and present at.

Its a significant shift from just getting together when it suits and enjoying the spontaneity.

Then there are the guys from QBC who get together to fight each Saturday morning. A group of 5 guys meet in another blokes garage to spar, hang out and enjoy offloading some testosterone. One of those blokes suggested this morning that it could become an outreach – a ‘ministry’ of QBC.

It began some interesting conversation around what that would mean and how it may change the feel and focus of the group.

Now both of these activities are great and currently they meet the needs of the people involved and they are proving to be a heap of fun.

So my pondering is whether it is a help or a hindrance to formalise either.

I see benefits and drawbacks to both approaches. What was once just fun now becomes more purposeful. It requires some commitment on the part of the key players. In the case of Fight Club it probably needs some special insurance. In the case of surfing, it means showing up on days when you might otherwise choose not to hit the surf. It means a level of organisation on the part of some to make it happen for others.

There are advantages too.

In both groups the people pulling it together do so with a sense of focus and purpose. Its not just a bit of fun – its bringing mission more to the fore in the flow of life. Its building community and helping people connect more significantly. But a decision like this requires people to give up some of their freedom and to make some commitments. With that comes the potential for weariness and maybe even a loss of enjoyment.

Some would say ‘why not join a local fighting group?’ or ‘why not join a local surf club?’

And they are fair questions too – philosophical questions that relate to why a group exists and theological questions about how ministry and mission occur. If we are to be salt and light then are we better off doing that by joining the local crew?…

Maybe…

Perhaps one of the reasons to consider establishing a group with a specific focus is that you then get to set the culture rather than trying to shift the culture in an already established group. At a pragmatic level I think it is much harder to shift an existing culture (especially a surf club or a ‘fight’ club) than to establish one and call people into it.

At a more basic level it seems that we tend to shy away from anything that actually calls us to commitment whether it is Christian based or community based. I would feel the same way about joining the local little athletics club with the kids as I would about joining a Christian surfers crew. So maybe its less about ministry and more about the broader culture of self-centredness, convenience and choice.

I know that being a pastor is sometimes a right pain in arse because it means I am committed to being there 99% of Sundays – and some days I’d rather not be. The challenge for any of us in this space is to accept the responsibilities, appreciate the benefits and keep the joy alive rather than getting frustrated at the aspects that are less exciting.

That’s a bit longer than I intended to post, but I’d be interested in how others perceive this challenge.

The Edge of Inconvenience

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A few weeks back when preparing for some teaching thru the book of Acts I sensed God speaking to me and in turn I believe speaking to our church community.

Acts has always inspired me but as I sat and read I felt like I could have been reading the phone book. Maybe its familiarity with the story, or maybe it’s just the state of my own spiritual health that I was left woefully unmoved. I knew I could bash out a decent sermon, because Acts lends itself to that, but who needs more sermons?…

As I was reflecting on this I sensed that part of the problem is that we teach more than we practice and that if we wanted to meet God in this journey thru Acts then maybe it would come by ‘going there’ – by experiencing some of what those early Christians did. It wasn’t a desire to create the ‘first century church’ all over again, but a sense that we have become way too used to gathering information and that we needed to learn less and engage more.

So out of that I felt that maybe we should be taking some time together to pray and fast and ask God for a fresh encounter with him – to seek God out with a bit more focus and intent than we do currently.

To be honest I felt ambiguous about this. I had a very strong sense that it was a Holy Spirit leading, but I had also had a very strong awareness that to follow it would disrupt my comfortable and relatively easy life. It would bite into my current routines and I’d lose some sleep… I was tempted to ignore the promptings and leadings because I like my comfort.

I sensed we should be gathering each day of the week to pray – most likely mornings around 6am and then choosing to fast, either regular ‘food fasting’ or abstaining from something we enjoy for the next month. I suggested sex was a good biblical fast when it comes to devoting ourselves to prayer, but I’m not sure many were up for that one…

I also felt it wasn’t something we ‘invite’ people to or ‘encourage’ people to participate in as another optional church activity, but rather it wa something we lead strongly with and we ‘call people to pray and fast’. This isn’t a ‘nice thing to do’ if you feel like you have the time or inclination. Its something we feel God is leading us to do and we need to make time for it.

Its always a challenge to lead strongly and yet recognise that for some this will simply be an impossibility. But my gut feel is that for many its not impossible – just very difficult – extremely incovenient. And perhaps that’s ok. Perhaps we need to recognise that our lives have become tangled in things that we never expected they would and we need to choose to break free from that. I have no qualms about challenging people to consider that maybe life’s priorities are all screwed up. In fact I think we are saying that this is where its at for many of us and we aren’t happy about that.

An equal challenge is to lead strongly, call people to step up and recognise that some people will simply choose to say ‘no’. Some will feel the same ambivalence I felt about doing something difficult or inconvenient and will choose to follow the path of least resistance. I believe its very possible to be unequivocal in our message and yet respect and love people who say ‘not for me thanks’. We definitely do not want a caste system in church and to marginalise people who don’t conform or join the crew who are saying ‘yes’.

Having said that I believe this process will spur some interesting conversations and challenges as we go thru it. If nothing else it will cause people to reflect on their lives and their priorities. It places people in a position where they need to make a choice and then consider why that was their choice.

What’s most disturbing for me in all of this is that I sense we consider a month of daily communal prayer and fasting to be a huge commitment / imposition on our lives. I know it felt a stretch to me. We may even think we are really putting in the spiritual ‘big ones’ when in reality we are barely scratching the surface of some communal disciplines. As I watch the Biggest Loser (Ellie’s favourite show…) I see overweight people getting excited at their ability to run non stop for 5 minutes on a treadmill and while I’m happy for them, its only because they are in such terrible shape that this becomes an achievement. I sense this is where we are at with discipleship in many of our churches. Perhaps we are a community of ‘biggest losers’ who take the path of least resistance so often that to move in the opposite direction appears to be a monumental effort. Personally I feel shame at that and I think we ought to feel some level of shame if that is an accurate image of our so called discipleship.

On the up side of the ‘biggest loser’ analogy what develops over time as that community forms and those people learn new disciplines can be incredibly inspiring – so maybe we will see some massive transformations in our own community as we struggle together and get in shape.

So I am looking forward to seeing what develops of this time. We don’t know exactly what God is wanting to do in us, but I believe others have sensed the same need and gathering by the faces present and the energy in the room there is a desire for more and that is encouraging.

Personally I find myself torn – torn between wanting God to turn my life upside down and then wanting him to leave me to be fat and lazy…

In my better moments I dream of a life where I am not driven by my ‘lower self’ and where the stuff that matters to God really matters to me and I long to be with a bunch of people who want to live there.

The lure of comfort and convenience is strong and let’s face it – no one is ever in a position to call someone else on this stuff. But if we are to lead churches then maybe it is our job to reshape our own lives, to intentionally practice something different and then call people to do the same.

But let’s be honest.

Its not really a ‘maybe’ is it?…

Same Story Different Boat

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Ahn Do nearly didn’t make it to Australia. Fleeing communist Vietnam in the 1970’s he and his family crammed onto a small overloaded fishing boat and made the treacherous journey to Malaysia. They were robbed and left for dead on two separate occasions by pirates. Drifting with no motor, food nor water and ready to die, they were miraculously were picked up by a German ship and taken to safety.

From there they made it to Sydney where Ahn’s parent worked long and hard to establish a new life for their children. Ahn has since gone on to finish a law degree and then become a well known comedian while his brother Khoa was named young Australian of the year in 2005.

Around the same time a young Irish family were also fleeing their war torn country and looking for a happier life in Australia. It was common for those kids to lie in bed at night and hear bombs explode nearby, or to see tanks and barbed wire lining the streets. A shopping trip could easily get cut short when the bomb alarms sounded and people would run for their lives just in case the shop was about to explode. So the hope of a new and peaceful land was powerful. In 1974 when religious violence in Belfast was at a peak, their ship left Southampton bound for Fremantle and a fresh start.

Ahn Do’s story is an inspiration because of what he and his family have achieved since their time in Australia and we now own him as ‘one of us’. My own story – yes, I was the Irish kid – really doesn’t sound like a refugee story because we immigrated officially and weren’t forced to spend time in any detention centre, but the privilege we had doesn’t the lessen the truth that I was also a refugee.

Every time I hear people complain about the ‘boat people’ I want to suggest they walk a mile in their shoes. I want to ask ‘why should we be the privileged ones who enjoy safety and prosperity while others watch their families beaten and sometimes killed before their eyes?’

How does that work?…

When Jesus was on earth the thing he spoke about more than anything else was the ‘kingdom of God’ and by that he didn’t mean a physical place, nor did he mean heaven. He was speaking of the world as God intends it to be – where there is love and justice and peace and goodness. Where evil is no more and where people do not have to live in fear of their lives. It’s the world we would all dream of – the world we would love to live in.

Many of us would remember the Lord’s prayer where Jesus prayed ‘your kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven.’ Jesus’ hope is that even in the midst of the brokenness and selfishness that is so evident in this world there would be people who would walk to a different drum and who would choose to love rather than hate and give rather than take., who would put the needs of others above their own needs.

Maybe then we would see those ‘boat people’ differently?

Maybe then we’d see them as fellow human beings desperately seeking to stay alive and care for their families. Maybe we’d welcome them and seek to help them in their plight rather than lock them away and treat them as if they were criminals. Maybe then we could get rid of those obscene and disgusting stickers we see on the back of cars and replace with them words of welcome to those who need our help.

It all starts with a vision of a different world – the world as God intends – and there is one bloke who can point us in that direction.

Oddly enough he was a refugee too…

Hurry Up?

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From John Ortberg via Dick Staub : What did I need to do, I asked a wise friend, to be spiritually healthy? Long pause. “You must ruthlessly eliminate hurry from your life,” he said at last. Another long pause. “Okay, I’ve written that one down,” I told him, a little impatiently. “That’s a good one. Now what else is there?” Another long pause. “There is nothing else,” he said. “You must ruthlessly eliminate hurry from your life.”

Random Reflections on Acts

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This week at QBC we get stuck into the book of Acts so lately I’ve been reading it again and reflecting on it to get my head & heart in the right space to approach it.

I reckon its a grenade just waiting to explode the life of any church that reads it and I’m both genuinely excited and apprehensive about what it could bring.

Of course we could just teach thru it systematically and (re) learn all the same stuff we have done for the last umpteen years or we could lob that grenade in and see what new inspiration come from it… Perhaps ‘grenade’ is the wrong image as its one of destruction and read freshly Acts can be incredibly constructive, but perhaps some deconstruction is required first.

For example as I began reading Acts I found I was placing myself in the disciples shoes and asking ‘so what do we do now?’ Jesus dies, comes back, spends 40 days hanging with us, then ascends and we are left with the commission to ‘go and make disciples of all people groups, baptising and teaching them to obey eveything they had been commanded from Christ.’

‘So how shall we do that?…’ must have been a prime question.

And hopefully they would look back to the time spent with Jesus to see how he went about his mission and how they were involved with that. Hopefully they would immediately be asking questions of establishing the kingdom on earth. Hopefully they would be asking ‘so what really matters?’

What I can’t imagine them doing is immediately figuring out who was responsible for running the weekend gig. What I can’t see them doing is drawing up a roster for music and preaching… Forgive me if I sound cynical, but I am constantly disturbed that the priorities of the church in the 21st C seem so different from those of the first Christians. And I don’t want to stop being disturbed until I see us really grappling with the questions. I understand that we live at a different time in history and I don’t think our goal is to be a first century church. But in the process of reading the book of Acts it seems almost impossible not to read it thru the lens of our 21st C experience.

When we read the classic Acts descriptions of church being both from home to home and in the temple courts its easy to read that as ‘small groups’ and ‘Sunday worship’ because that is our frame of reference. But that wasn’t where they were starting. Jesus didn’t leave them with the church planting manual that explained how to move people from ‘community to core’, in 5 steps.

So when we look at the highly predictable format that the vast majority of 21stC churches take I can’t help but imagine that if Jesus lobbed in, he might say ‘really?… that’s what you thought I wanted you to focus on?…’ I am sure he would be glad that we hold some core DNA, but I think he’d be somewhat mystified that our core DNA had become our denominational / cultural preferences rather than the foundational elements of a church.

I sense that our familiarity with ecclesial processes and procedures of all kinds may have a tendency to stunt our ability to read this book afresh. We may struggle to ‘clear our heads’ and think afresh about what the mission of church is.

As I observe it in the western world the biggest priority for the church is to run the Sunday service and to do that as best we can. Can someone please find that priority for me in the book of Acts?…

Seriously, I’m not for dissing the importance of meeting together, but I can’t help but wonder if our enemy may have created a perfect distraction for us – a seemingly positive distraction – that consumes so much of our time, energy and resources that we find it hard to get on with the other things that matter to the establishment of the kingdom.

Anyway that’s probably incendiary enough to provoke some thinking and to give you a taste of what I see as I start to read this book. I see the danger of both rigid thinking – that reads Acts thru the lens of our own expeirience and lazy thinking that says its all too hard to re-imagine, but I hope to lead us in some creative thinking that will ask questions of ‘what if?’ and see where they lead.

Purposeful Leadership

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When I finished work at one of the churches where I was a pastor one of the members of the congregation who I liked and respected suggested to me that in the future it would be wise for me to consider how to lead people rather than ‘drive’ them. It was a very helpful piece of input that has made more sense with each passing year.

He had observed that when I wanted to move a bunch of people in a direction I would approach the task somewhat forcefully and with minimal room for negotiation. Many would come because they liked me and I could do the ‘visionary’ thing, (or they had no better ideas) but it had the trade off of lower buy in from others and yet another group feeling pushed around or bullied into a place they had no desire to be.

When a youth pastor does this, young people (often/usually) cheer and ‘rah-rah’ because they want someone with rabid conviction to lead them. Many want to be part of something and a strong sense of direction adds to this.

Some would call this ‘strong leadership’ and in one sense I guess it is. It requires significant strength to shove a bunch of people in a direction and keep them there. Some days though it resembles the feeling of pushing a car uphill. You exert a lot of effort to make the gains and if you take yours hands off then the whole thing rolls back the other way (and often over the top of you)

In the next phase of leadership (with Upstream), I took a much gentler more collaborative approach, but because I wasn’t very skilled at it I found it hard – and I think people found it hard. I was trying to learn a different way of leading and it wasn’t coming naturally or easily. I was naturally directive, and they knew me as such, so to invite other people into the process was not easy. I wasn’t at all sure how to genuinely engage other people’s input while still leading with strong personal conviction.

In time I found my balance again and was able to be myself in that different mode. I learnt how to invite participation and yet hold strong opinions where they mattered. (In a smaller forum directive leadership just seems completely odd anyway.)

The last couple of years at QBC have involved re-thinking leadership yet again. We are not a large church, but we are an ‘established church’ with some set protocols and procedures – for better and for worse. So it has been an interesting exercise re-discovering leadership yet again in a different context. Some folks like the strong directive leader – so long as the direction is one that they can agree with. Others like the more consultative approach and need to have their input considered. One of the challenges in leading has been simply to navigate the spectrum of expectations that exist and not to just bow to the loudest voices.

There has been a need for highly collaborative decision making at some points and at other times a need to just ‘draw a line in the sand’. I think that perhaps the last 10 years have helped me to see what things are genuinely ‘line in the sand’ issues and what are of no real consequence.

On reflection I would hope that the leadership I give now would be purposeful, but not driven and that our directions would spring from giving people the opportunities to participate in the process, yet also recognising that sometimes leaders just see stuff and know stuff and need to make decisions. And these days I feel better placed to be able to discern which decisions require which approach.

We have a church leader’s meeting tonight and part of our agenda is to look at what we feel are our priorities for the coming year and then to discuss how we begin to lead people towards these. The ‘priorities’ were agreed on in an open church day of prayer and planning towards the end of last year (an all welcome gig) and now we are looking to help people on the journey of making them more than words on a page – hence the few minutes of personal reflection…

I’d be interested to hear the observations and learnings of others who have been in a range of different leadership roles.

What have you learnt? And what are the bigger priorities that need to be considered?

Keeping Your Virginity is Way Overrated

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In the circles I move in it is traditionally held that a young guy and girl should keep their virginity until marriage and then the wedding night should be the time of ‘giving that gift’ to the other person.

I have long believed that virginity has been way overrated by Christian people.

No – seriously…

I would want to suggest that the Bible more clearly teaches that we are to we keep ourselves pure (and that applies to every area of life) and that is actually a much higher standard than virginity. It’s also a standard that applies after ‘marriage’ as well.

Telling a young person they can’t have intercourse is like telling a P Plate driver not to speed – and by that I mean do not exceed 110 km/hr…

The point is you can get up a lot of speed and not hit 110.

I reckon we set the bar way too low.

I haven’t preached a sex sermon to teenagers for a long time now but if I ever did I’d be saying ‘screw virginity’ (yes a pun…) and shoot for purity. Set the bar high and ask the question what does purity look like rather than ‘how can I drive at 109km/hr and not accidentally tip over the limit?’ (Or just not get caught)

I’m about to go to a wedding this afternoon hence the sudden interest in all things sexual…

I realize many folks who read this wont share my antiquated convictions but I reckon the biblical writers were onto something.

As you were…

New Year’s Confessions

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I have a theory that new year’s resolutions are better called ‘new year’s confessions’. Generally new year’s resolutions are us saying ‘I really suck at XYZ and I want to change something about my life. This is where I am failing.’

Of course most people also know that new year’s resolutions are typically short lived and we tend to fall back into old patterns fairly easily.

Do you ever wonder why that is?

If there was one thing most of us would love to be able to do it is make a decision to change our behaviour and the stick to it.

I am wary of making any ‘resolutions’ these days partly because I know I am setting myself up for failure, but also because I want to make changes regularly – not just at the end of a calendar year. I have noticed that change becomes more difficult with age and that habits become more ingrained. But if we can make ‘change’ and conformity to Christ an ‘ingrained pattern/habit’ then we have hope

Without the grace of God and the camaraderie of others on the road of discipleship I am left with sheer will-power, and often I am not that ‘willing’ to do the things that need to be done.

Slapped

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Last year I read The Slap while on holidays and found it both intriguing and gruelling. The makers of the series on ABC have done well to capture that same car crash sense of ‘This is terrible, but I want to keep watching’.

My friend Andrew Menzies posted this on his facebook wall – a comment he overheard:” ‘The Slap’ should be compulsory reading before refugees leave for Australia… It will certainly make them think twice as all the people are so awful!!”

There certainly isn’t much redemptive or hopeful in the story. There really is’t a single likable character and there are plenty of horribly dislikable ones. The secret of The Slap’s success, I would suggest, is that it is a very raw slice of reality and as we watch we see familiar people, feelings and responses. Tim Winton offers a slice of reality also in his novels but he writes in such a winsome way that the rawness has a beauty about it. In The Slap that rawness is ugly. Dog ugly. And I don’t think its a failure on the part of the author. I think he wants us to see how messed up some of our lives really are.

As Danelle and I watched it last week we saw the tragic story of Aisha and her screwed up life. A messy unhappy marriage held together by kids and convenience, a random affair as a result of pain, a husband (half) wanting to make amends for his infidelity and so it goes on. Maybe its just the world I observe, but it feels affrontingly real – very much like life in the suburbs of this city.

There are a few moments of hope and happiness amidst long periods of struggle and darkness, but they fade quickly and the dominant landscape is bleak, cold and conflict ridden. People have spoken of how harsh and vulgar the language is in the story, but as I observe the world we live in, its pretty much par for the course. Its just that we don’t hear that stuff regularly on TV.

To some degree The Slap evokes a deep sadness in me and on the other hand my response is to want to ‘slap’ the people for being such self centred morons. Perhaps at the core of this sad story is the inability of people to have relationships and resolve conflict in a healthy way, and maybe that is why it is so tragic. Take away relationships in this world and what do you have?

I’ve seen too much of ‘The Slap’ in the world around me to call it a caricature or an aberration. I’ve seen friends cut friends off in a heartbeat rather than resolve conflict. I’ve seen husbands play up, regret it but then do it again because they are miserable in their marriages and feel trapped. I’m sure you’ve seen it too.

The good news?…

There isn’t much in the story. But if you read this blog regularly you’d know there is good news and hope. You’d know there is someone who invites us to follow him and live in a different reality. I don’t think Jesus way is easy – not at all – but I find myself wanting to speak to the people in the story and ask ‘have you considered a different way?…’

And then again I just want to slap them back… And therein lies some of the struggle for us as missionaries in the west. To love those who don’t look very lovable is a challenge. If not for Jesus I don’t think we’d have a hope