In my Carson posts I mentioned Sivin Kit

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, a Malaysian blogger who is also exploring mission and church, but in his own context.

We don’t hear much from ’emerging church’ Asian bloggers so it’ll be good to stay in touch and hear what those guys learn. I’m sure their take on things will add to a much healthier, fuller picture!

I am reading this book now and thinking I will make some comments as I go rather than trying to synthesize it all at the end. That way I can jot thoughts down as they occur.

So this is from pp1-50 where Spencer Burke intros his ideas and seems to lay the groundwork for where he hopes to go.

Some gut reactions and immediate responses:

– Burke seems to be very set on declaring himself a heretic! He argues quite strongly that he fall in this camp and cites others who at the time (eg Luther) were considered heretics, who we now consider mainstream. Will Burke’s ideas be mainstream ina few hundred years time?…

– He makes a distinction between religion and spirituality. In his view people are ‘over’ religion, but into spirituality. If we can move beyond religion to spirituality then we have a better shake of representing what Jesus was on about and of connecting with this generation. I agree that people aren’t all that enamoured with rule bound religion and all that goes with it. Spirituality is sounding a little nebulous though for me…

– It is an intriging question he poses as to when we are no longer covered by our innocence (‘age of accountability’ idea) and are responsible for our own choices and sins. I will read on before making any comment on this.

– Burke is right in asserting that we contextualise the faith to our own time/location/cultural context so it is at times difficult to know what is constant. I am yet to see if he subscribes to the apostles creed or similar, something of a baseline in my own thinking.

– p.19 ‘nowhere does Jesus call his disciples to start a religion’ Yes – true! It seems to be human nature to systematise things.

– p. 29 Question – is God’s grace the centrepoint of faith or has religion become our focal point (idol) I wonder if grace is supposed to be the centrepoint?

– p.36 “throughout history religions have attempted to unify the world by seeking converts to their particular visions of the relationship between human and divine… but more often than not these efforts have been perceived as attempts at dominance, making for an uneasy relationship with the world.” Sounds like a pretty fair take on what we do once we have institutionalised something!

– Burke says religion divides but spirituality seeks common ground. (p.37) Hmmm… kind of a loose description for me…

So far I am interested to see where it goes. Burke suggests he goes beyond universalism in his arguments so I”m curious to see what he has to say.

Is it provocative for the sake of provocation?

Is it actually something we need to hear or is it something we need to reject?

I will confess to reading it with my heresy detector on ‘alert’. When someone announces themselves as a heretic I find myself wanting to know if its a bit of hyperbole or if he is actually charting a new course away from orthodoxy.

I am trying not to read other reviews so that I get a chance to digest it and reflect on it with my own brain. (There are plenty out there much smarter than me who will be making comments!)

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I have to confess that this is true. I’ve been holding onto it for a long time. But now its out.

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My friend & ex co-pastor, Steve Smith is the man I affectionately refer to as the ‘pope’, our denominational leader who is retiring at the end of the year.

Today the news is out that after a long search the new man recommended for the job is Mark Wilson of Whitford Church of Christ.

In true Baptist form we need to vote on this (Aug 26th) before its a goer, but it seems all the lights are green for this to happen.

Mark and I go way back to when we were 18 years old and both volunteer leaders at Scarborough High School YFC Campus Life Club. Since then we have travelled very similar paths in that we both transitioned from youth pastors to team leaders in the same churches, but Mark seemed better suited to that kind of gig than me and he has continued at Whitford while I moved on to work in an experimental mission project.

Mark is very well suited to this kind of role and I’m sure will do a great job.

From my notes at the recent Anglican minister’s retreat:

“I am convinced that our job is not to get the community into the church, but to get the church into the community”.

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Phil Bryant from our denomination sent thru an article from yesterday’s Yorkshire Post that questions whether young people are even concerned about the spiritual. Here is the whole article (couldn’t find it online) with some relevant parts highlighted.

What do you reckon?

Is this a fair take on Gen Ys?

———————————————

YOUNG ‘HAPPY WITH A LIFE WITHOUT GOD’

Maggie Stratton

Young people are quite happy with a life without God or spirituality, according to new research for the Church of England.

Authors of the Making Sense of Generation Y were shocked to find not only did under 25’s think the church “corrupt”, “traditionalist” and all “socks and sandal” but also had no desire to find a transcendent alternative in their favoured pursuits. Clubbing, for example, was not a way of ” transcending oneself to a deeper reality”, but was simply a good night out.

The Archbishop of York, Dr John Sentamu said the report must be seen as a wake-up call. “This book stresses the need for investment in relationships with young people and for ‘patient sowing’ of the Gospel story into our culture. There are no ‘instant solutions’, but there are things we, empowered by the Holy Spirit, can – and must – do,” the Archbishop says in the book’s foreword.

Making Sense of Generation Y is based on interviews with 120 young people aged 15 to 25 who have little or no connection with the Christian faith. The number of young people who go to church has halved since 1979, and now less than seven per cent of 15- to 19-year-olds and five per cent of those between 20 and 29 attend church.

The authors set out believing that even if the young had little knowledge of the Christian faith they would have other spiritual or religious yearnings, but found even discussions about the September 11 terror attacks in America failed to prompt mention of religion.

But they did not find the young people interviewed for the book were disenchanted or lost in a meaningless world. Instead the young people found the world meaningful as it was.

“The data indicated that they found meaning and significance in the reality of everyday life, which the popular arts helped them to understand and imbibe,” the book says.

The researchers found young people found happiness primarily through the family and had little sense of sin or fear of death. They were, however, afraid of growing old.

The mission adviser for youth and emerging Church at the Church Mission Society, Jonny Baker, said yesterday: “This book is astonishing. Putting it bluntly, it suggests that many of our assumptions about young people, their world view and the quest for spirituality are wrong. This has implications for the future of mission, youth ministry and the Church.”

Making Sense of Generation Y will be unveiled at the National Christian Resource Exhibition today.

One of the authors of the book, Bob Mayo, said: “The people we talked to were happy with life, they were enjoying themselves but were doing this with an almost complete ignorance of Christianity – a total lack of a working knowledge. “That is the alarming thing for the Church.

“The positive thing is that they are not opposed to what the Church is saying, it is just that they have not been exposed to it. “In many cases they seem interested but no one has ever talked to them about it before.”

—————————————————

I wonder if this is just young people or if it can be applied generally.

I wonder if the stats are reliable?… You can say anything with statistics!

I have sent this to our Baptist youth pastors for their thoughts, but the only valid comparison will be the thoughts of those outside of our youth ministries as those who come to any youth activity have already shown a level of interest.

So… is it all nonsense or does this ring true?

Last night it was standing room only at the Premier Hotel in Albany for the long awaited stoush between Anthony Mundine and Danny Green.

The Premier was the only place in the whole town showing the fight so it was packed to the gills. Standing in a crowded smoky room, full of drunken, sweaty fight fans watching two blokes beat each other senseless on a 51cm TV is a cultural experience I haven’t had and seeing as how it was my birthday I asked Danelle if she’d mind if I spent the night chalking that one up. Permission granted.

The last big fight I made an effort to watch was in year 10 when Muhammad Ali took on Joe Frazier in the ‘Thrilla in Manila’. I was in a metalwork class that ran one period before recess and one period after. During the first period about 30 of us got together and decided we would go to one bloke’s home to watch the fight (which was in the period after recess) and then we’d come back to school at lunch time. The logic was that they couldn’t bust 30 of us for wagging. Sure enough Mr Vaughn’s metalwork class went from 30 to 5 over recess and at lunchtime Ross Munro came to our group and gave us a serve for leaving school premises. We all knew he couldn’t be buggered writing notes home to each of our parents.

So Danelle, the kids and I had dinner in the CBD café, next to the pub (which was top notch) and then at 7.30, having been told by our waiter that the fight had started I baled on them to try and squeeze into the crowd and enjoy the action.

‘Where’s daddy going mum?’

‘To watch some sport”‘

How do you explain boxing to kids?”

Unfortunately it was the lead up fight that the waiter saw and the real deal didn’t kick in for another hour. So I found a spot in the doorway and made it my own for the next two hours. It was a great place to stand because it actually had some ventilation unlike the guts of the bar. The blokes nearby were fun to hang out with and it turned out to be a great night out.

The fight itself was something of an anti-climax. They were two very quick and skilled boxers who found it hard to hit each other so there was a lot of swinging and missing. I would have loved to see Mundine get belted, but Green couldn’t get close enough to lay a glove on him. Mundine reminded me of Ali in his prime – arrogant and evasive but good enough to come good on his boasts.

The pub ran out of beer around 9.00 and I left at 9.30 once the decision had been given and before the fights started.

I’m not sure how it all panned out, but I wouldn’t have wanted to be the hotel staff last night”

What are the chance of you going picking up the white pages and randomly ringing someone for a chat?…

Slim? Non existent? Like, you wouldn’t even dream free hard corps the movie download of doing something like that?

Yeh – I thought so!

Last night as I was reading a few blogs my skype phone rang. It was someone I didn’t know, so I rejected the call… But concerned that it may have been a friend with a nickname I didn’t recognise, I started a chat that went like this:

Me: Do I know you?

Caller: No

Me: Why are you calling me?

Caller: I’m bored

Me: (mystified) I’m not…

End of conversation

Is this what we can expect as ‘skype’ spreads? Complete strangers with nothing to do lobbing into our lounge room at 10pm at night because I happen to be online and they are bored?…

Feels very weird to me!