For those interested I’ve been invited to be the Christian speaker at the Freo Palm Sunday Peace Rally. Here’s the details:
16 Mar 2008 – 12:00pm
“Troops out of Iraq and Afganistan, No more war on terror – defend civil liberties, renewables not wars for oil.”
Kings Square, Adelaide St, Fremantle (outside town hall). igor dvd
Come and say G’day if you’re there. ANd please pray yhtat I might share the gospel faithfully and that God might move in power.
Grace and peace,
jarrod
G’day!!!!
Hamo has invited me [Jarrod] be back this year and have some great stuff coming on the witness of the early Christians with my friend Ali and what it means for seeking lives of grace today!!!! More of that latter.
But first hear is some stuff EPYC is partnering with to “Empower Peacemakers” bring the witness of “Radical Christianity” to the mainstream:
1. John Jensen:
former cage fighter, bull fighter, and jiu-jitsu expert whose in Perth cause God is calling him to now be a preacher of the Way of Christ: nonviolence love. He is looking to start EPYC back in the States
He’s preaching Sunday night 6pm at Riverview: 1 Thorogood St Burswood
2. Donna Mulhearn:
Donna you may have seen on “Australian Story”. See was a human shield in Iraq, has done humanitarian work in Palestine, teaches ‘the prayer of the heart’ or what is often called Christian meditation and was one of the history making Pine Gap 4. Donna is in Perth wanting to be a part of EPYC nationally.
She’s speaking at Newbigin group meeting Monday, March 10 (7.30 -9.30) at the Hills, 8 Kirby Way, Samson. The first part of the evening will be an introductory discussion of our program for the year: the theme of which will be to explore and reflect on the activities of admirable, controversial and inspiring Christians who are examples of what it means to live out the gospel as public truth. The second part of the evening will involve a conversation with Ms Donna Mulhearn, a former political advisor in the Carr Labor government in NSW, who has spent time in Iraq. Hearing about her journey as an activist and a Christian will provide an interesting and challenging start to our discussion of living out the gospel as public truth. Ms Mulhearn is in Perth has a guest of Jarrod McKenna.
Donna has been featured on the ABC’s Australian story. If you would like to find out a bit about her go to:
http://www.abc.net.au/austory/content/2005/s1404292.htm (or just google her name!)
Hope to see ya there.
Grace and peace,
Jarrod
Today I spoke at the induction of Ryan Harding, the youth pastor at Quinns Baptist Church. Over the week I spent a fair bit of time reflecting on what I would say to a youth pastor, as one who has been there done that and who has spent a lot of time around youth pastors.
I am convinced the challenge of youth ministry to keep ‘making disciples’ as the main game. Its easy to get into event mode & ‘pumped’ mode, but the stuff that lasts is the stuff that matters. Its not to say there is no place for fun stuff – not at all – we need to have fun – but sometimes the priorities in youth ministry get misplaced.
In the last few years of life Mike Yaconelli wrote his ‘Dangerous Wonder’ column in youthworker journal. In it Yac would often cut loose and speak vehemently about the failure of so much of what has been passed off as youth ministry. If it was anyone else writing they probably would have been axed – but when you own the company you can pretty much say what you like!
Here is an excerpt from one of his pieces. Remember, this man devoted his life to providing training and resources for youth pastors and developed the biggest youth training/resource organisation on the planet. Youth Speciaties are still huge.
When viewed thru this lens these are chilling words.
Youth ministry doesn’t have any staying power.
Young people flock to Christian concerts, cheer Jesus at large events, and work on service projects. Unfortunately, it’s not because of Jesus; it’s because they’re young!
The success of youth ministry in this country is an illusion.
Very little youth ministry has a lasting impact on students.
I believe we’re no more effective today reaching young people with the gospel than we’ve ever been. In spite of all the dazzling super stars of youth ministry, the amazing array of YS products, the thousands of youth ministry training events, nothing much has changed.
Following Jesus is hard.
Faith is difficult.
Discipleship requires a huge investment of time. Most of us don’t have the time. Or we chose not to take the time. Or our current models of ministry don’t allow us the time.
So let’s be honest.
Youth ministry as an experiment has failed. If we want to see the church survive, we need to rethink youth ministry.
What does that mean? I don’t have a clue. But my hunch is that if we want to see young people have a faith that lasts, then we have to completely change the way we do youth ministry in America.
I wonder if any of us has the courage to try.
I think I used to be an evangelist… but even then I’m not so sure…
You see when you are a youth pastor, especially one with significant influence there is a very strong ‘power’ relationship with the young people in your care and their desire to emulate you can make them quite easy to influence towards the gospel. I know that in my time as a youth pastor I intentionally guided many young people into faith. They seemed to want to go there, but I am also aware that because of my position I was able to exert an influence that few others had. I never sought to use that influence in an inappropriate way, but in hindsight I am aware that it was there.
Even as a senior pastor I had influence with those in the church sphere when it came to issues of spirituality. People would listen to me, sometimes defer to me and again I was able to influence some towards faith. I was the bloke who ‘knew stuff’.
However in recent years I haven’t been able to do that. Minus the position and status accorded to me as a pastor, I don’t seem to have the same influence among my friends who are not Christians. To my friends I am… a friend… Hamo… just that.
They tend not to be ‘impressed’ with me nor want to be like me. Nor are they likely to defer to my superior knowledge of all things spiritual, because they have their own view on these issues, some of them strong and well constructed and my view is not considered at all ‘superior’.
I really thought I was an evangelist, but these days I am not so sure. Without the leverage of some kind of position I have found it hard to influence people towards Jesus and I haven’t been able to help anyone experience ‘new birth’ or whatever term you choose to use.
For a ‘missionary’ its been pretty disappointing and it often causes me to consider giving it away. I wrote a post a few weeks back that in the end I chose not to go public with – a lament of sorts about where I find myself. It was a little too raw for the public environment! (This is a mellow reflective version of it)
This issue has caused me a fair few questions, questions I am still mulling over.
As we live as missionaries here in Brighton are we just ‘not very good’ at what we are doing?… That’s not a self pity question. Perhaps we are just shitty missionaries. Perhaps we would fail missionary endeavours 101… Although to be honest, without blowing my own trumpet, I don’t think this is it.
Am I who I once thought I was?… Interestingly much of my ‘evangelism’ has been oriented around intellectual discussions and rational argument for faith. This was in vogue 20 years ago, but now people care less for the coherence of an argument and more for the experience of a faith. “If it works we will consider it.” Interestingly, I have also become more aware of the difficulty of arguing logically and coherently for the truth of the gospel! While there is much that makes sense there is also much that is simply taken by faith – even if we would prefer not to admit it. I have a much more humble take on my grasp of faith than I did as a 20 year old. In the last 20 years evangelism has also become much less confrontational / propositional and much more relational / experiential. This does not play to my strengths at all. Perhaps I was an evangelist in that more cognitive, combative world?
Then I wonder if this really is just a tough place to be missionaries. A middle class environment in boom town Perth isn’t easy, but honestly I don’t think anywhere is easy. I am told that the people who churches are ‘reaching’ are usually the down and out, the poor and needy. I think this is great, but I am concerned for how we connect with the middle class who make up the vast bulk of Australia. And I am concerned to see real disciples formed, not just church attenders.
I wonder if we should just pull up stumps here and move on… I wonder if there are easier places – better places – more open places?… We do sometimes consider overseas missionary work and I wouldn’t write it off (Tasmania is a nice place), but my own sense of desire to somehow connect the gospel with middle class westerners is very very strong. In fact it could almost be seen as masochistic I reckon. For a results oriented person to be a backyard missionary is just a bad mismatch…
I really don’t know what the future holds. Some days I would like ‘out’ of what I feel called to. Some days I wonder if I made a big mistake just setting out in this direction. I usually have a meltdown once or twice a year, but this is not a meltdown, its more a question of how I best invest my life.
As our Upstream team shrinks, and we seem to find it impossible to recruit missionaries (most people are ‘seeking good worship, a kids program and good teaching…’ ) I sometimes consider going back to leading a larger church where there are some people to inspire to action. But I’m not sure if I could slot back in again… I may have gone beyond the point of no return.
Then again maybe those goal posts would shift as well!
Anyway, I realise this may sound somewhat depressive. It is a tad. But that’s life sometimes isn’t it. I have a wonderful family, my life is pretty rosy in many ways, but I live with an ongoing sense of disappointment that I haven’t been able to accomplish what I had hoped and I am not sure if I ever will.
A few people have suggested that my struggles have not allowed me to enjoy the journey – partially true. There have been times when I have missed out on the enjoyment of our experience because I am results oriented. Then again I tend to be someone who climbs mountains to reach the summit. If its an endless scenic tour then I’d rather just buy the postcard.
Jarrod McKenna’s Wednesday’s with Gandhi :
***Thanks to all who have contacted us Peace Tree crew with support and encouragement and your prayers regarding what’s been dubbed in the press as the “Lockridge riots” on the street behind our houses. This is incredibly heartbreaking and we’re asking for prayers for all involved, particularly the families and friends of the eighteen year old kid who died, the two other young men in hospital (one of which is still fighting for his life) and all that were involved. As you can imagine, lots going on here but if I get time will blog a little later. Please join us in praying for an end to the violence, that their will be no reprisals and Christ’s peace would be a reality on our streets.
–__________________________________–
In the mean time, this is a brilliant article from my mates Wess Daniels who’s studying at Fuller on one of my biggest influences (if not the biggest) John H. Yoder on “Jesus the Missionary”. So today it might be Wednesday’s with Wess and Yoder… we’ll see. Wess writes:
In our previous discussion we looked at how relevancy is often the guiding question for church and mission. If we think of the question in terms of being an axel on a Ferris wheel, it might look something like this.
But I’ll argue a more theological and biblical starting point for understanding the church’s relationship to culture is to begin with the incarnation as a paradigm for the role of church in mission. In this way Jesus is the missionary par excellence, he is our model for missions more so than even Paul. Switching out the axel on our Ferris wheel for a “Jesus Axel” we might have something more like this.
With this in mind let’s look at what it was like for Jesus to interact with his culture as a missionary. John Howard Yoder names four options Jesus had for engaging with his cultural surroundings: realism, revolutionary violence, withdrawal, and establishment religion.
to read the article in full: http://gatheringinlight.com/2007/11/05/church-in-mission-culture-and-jesus-the-missionary-pt-2/
This event is coming up soon and will be valuable for all those who want to discuss the nuts and bolts of what is actually involved in developing and sustaining a new missional incarnational community.
Here’s a bit of an outline of the program:
For more info give me a call or an email or call Kent at SUWA 94435055
The Nuts & Bolts of Starting a Missional Incarnational Community
9.30-9.45 Arrive & coffee
9.45-10.30 Session 1: Andrew Hamilton – Why Are We Doing This Again?! – Clarifying Purpose & Identity in A Missional Venture
This session will provoke you to consider and clarify the core reasons you are engaging in this project. It will help explore your sense of calling, founding charism and your core DNA. These are foundational elements for any new community about to be birthed. It will look at the importance of getting off on a missionary footing rather than simply being a holding pen for grumpy disenchanted misfits
10.30-10.45 Coffee
10.45-11.30 Session 2: Geoff Westlake – The Vital Importance of Forming a Learning Community
This session will explore the place of action / reflection learning in a missional incarnational community. So simple examples of how to identify what God’s already doing in your specific context, and how he wants you to join in. Critical for getting started, as well as continuing.
11.30-11.40 Break
11.40-12.30 Session 3: Scott Vawser – First Things First
This session will look at the core tasks involved in actually getting a missional community up and running. It will help you consider how you choose your core team, how you function in the local community, and how to establish your own community rhythm.
12.30-1.30 Lunch
1.30-2.15 Session 4: Panel of Forge WA crew – Q & A –If I Could Start Over…
2.15-2.30 Break
2.30-3.15 Session 5: Kent Morgan – The Stuff Nobody Wants to Think About
Most missional leaders rarely gets very excited by talk of insurance, money managing, constitutions and other logistical concerns but they are realities in the world we are a part of and someone needs to attend to them. Kent will offer some very helpful insights into how a missional community can get on with the job of mission and not be bogged down by the administrative challenges that do confront us.
3.15-3.20 Break
3.20-4.00 Session 6: Steve McKinnon – Going the Distance
In this session Steve will look at the core elements of a healthy sustainable missional community. He will help you consider how to out into place practices that will enable you to last beyond the first 12 months and allow you to grow as a person and not finish up as a burnt out, beaten up, emotionally wrecked cynical fruitcake!
Sherry and Geoff discussed this idea of ‘pioneering plants’ with us while they were in Perth and today Sherry described it on their blog. She writes about permaculture and a book she has been reading on the subject, then goes on:
apparently, as other species are planted after these first inhabitants the stability of the ecosystem is strengthened. so the ability of an ecosystem to survive is based to a significant degree on the first type of species planted, a pioneering species. these initial species must be able to weather the compromised conditions of “degraded soil” in order to make the surrounding area more inhabitable for future plants.
I wonder if some of us in missionary ventures can learn from this analogy. Maybe a key quality of the pioneer is the ability to survive in difficult soil and to enable it to be more fertile for those who come after…
Thanks Sherry!
