Mission

I think missionaries are great. Really, I do. We know quite a few of them, we know quite a few who are on their way to BECOMING missionaries. My reasons for saying this will become clear shortly.

I was speaking to a friend recently about the ‘celebrity’ status associated with overseas mission work. People in churches recognize you from the card on their fridge, or the ‘wall’ up at church. They feel like you’re a ‘super Christian’ because you’re doing things they can’t imagine in leaving behind everything that’s ‘home’ and working overseas. While ‘celebrity’ is perhaps going too far, this is all well and good – praise God that so many people are willing and able to proclaim his gospel the world over.

Was it a good song? I can only remember the chorus. And it was the '80s, so probably not. I think my dad liked the Eurythmics, though.

What struck me is how different that’s been to my experience as a person in full time ministry. Being involved in a ‘non-church’ ministry, that’s even more pronounced. When I explain what I do (University ministry, for those who don’t know), most people are either confused, or they assume that I’m in training for a ‘real’ ministry position, that is, to become the pastor of a church. It’s like there are three tiers of ministry – ‘super-Christians’ who do overseas work, ‘Mature Christian’ ministers who look after churches, and then ‘training’ Christians who are involved in parachurch work – chaplains and the like.

I suspect that this is unhealthy, and not just because I find myself at the bottom of the triangle! Rather, I think it reflects the way that we subconsciously think about the gospel mission. We think ‘mission’ happens overseas. That’s why missionaries go there – they’re reaching out to primitive people in grass skirts with bones through their noses. Doctor Livingstone eat your heart out.

Dolph Lundgren - Missionary Man. This is what I think of when I think 'Missionary'.

We then think of our pastors as the church maintainers. They hold the place together and make sure that we get what we want out of church. At the Bay, we had a policy that if you were on a roster and couldn’t fulfil your duty, you would organize another person to help out – I vividly remember one man coming up to our head pastor and saying ‘I can’t do it – you have your secretary or whatever you have sort it out.’ The assumption – the pastor is the manager of this club I’ve signed up for, and is there to run the ‘Christianity show’ that I come to once a week, but don’t necessarily participate in during my ‘real’ life.

Finally, there’s those who are involved in ministry outside the church. Because of the way we understand ‘church’ and ‘ministry’ above, those who fit into this category… well, just don’t fit in. They’re not overseas, so they can’t be missionaries, and they’re not CEO’s of a church club, so they can’t be pastors. Therefore, they must be training, or, or… well, or something. Best just to change the subject.

My job is to proclaim the gospel in a pagan environment, and to encourage those other Christians on campus to do the same. We do that in a secularised culture that is either apathetic to Jesus, or openly hostile, and most of both camps wish that we would just shut up about him already so that they can get to the UniBar. It’s mission work.

And the truth is, this isn’t something limited to ES on campus. This is the same mission that we all share, wherever we are. We all SHOULD have a mission mentality. We’re going to be looking at the book of Titus at Commencement Camp this year, and as I prepare the talks, I’m being struck with the magnitude of this task. Paul writes to Titus, lumped into the ‘young’ category, and tells him how to establish and run the churches on the isle of Crete, in the face of a hostile pagan environment. As he lays out the role – to preach and live the gospel in everyday life, and the consequences or that gospel mission, you can’t help but feel that he’s dressing up a little kid in battle armour to face an army. But the church is not to pull up the drawbridge and defend, it’s to get out there and proclaim the word. And so, he instructs each group on how to live in the world around them, such that their gospel proclamation may be supported and in fact furthered in their lives. We’re all missionaries, and it’s not more ‘important’ to God’s plan whether you’re preaching to those in Equatorian Guinea or those next door.

And let’s face it – you can’t get much more ‘ends of the earth’ than Adelaide.

Pancakes and Tennis

I was amazed, yesterday, in a bad way. De and I took my grandmother to the tennis. Yes, I know that’s not particularly amazing, but bear with me. De, as you may or may not know, is 34 weeks pregnant. My grandmother is 88 years old (very auspicious, if you follow such things). The part that I was amazed by was the difficulty getting someone to let either of them sit down in the food area… people lounged around, not eating, with kids and bags occupying every available seat and table, and conveniently failing to make eye contact as we walked slowly up and down. I was somewhat disappointed, but not all that surprised given that it’s a long way from the first time. My favourite (if I can put it that way) was the woman who encouraged her teenage son to duck in front of De and grab the last table at a cafe in Hahndorf a few weeks back. That’s the way to instil values! Maybe she can start a boy scout troop that pushes down old ladies trying to cross the road. Just a thought.

Anyway, that’s my rant off my chest.

By way of reparation, here’s my breakfast from the other day.

Banana choc-chip pancakes.

Pan

Throw in about 150g of Self Raising flour and an equivalent amount of milk.

Mush in a couple of older bananas – ones that have had a good life and are content to make way for fresher fruit.

Squish it all up good, add a bit of milk to make it runnier if necessary.

Throw in a teaspoon or so of baking powder, two eggs, and some sugar if you’re a sweet tooth. Castor sugar works best. Just the inside of the egg – the shells are crunchy and unpleasant to the teeth. The

Cake. I still don't get it.

baking powder will compensate for the stodginess of the bananananananas.

Smash up some dark chocolate. This can come from anywhere – we used two squares of cooking chocolate (honestly, who put that back in the fridge?), the base of my leftover Lindt bunny, and some other bits and bobs. Drop ‘em in the mix and stir it.

Cook it all up in a non stick pan!

20 minutes from idea conception through to belly satisfaction. Marvellous. And may your pregnant wife and elderly grandmother always be seated at the tennis.

Wee Free Churches

On the weekend, De and I headed back out to her home town of Meadows, in what I affectionately think of as ‘hillbilly country’ in Adelaide’s South East. The reason for the visit – aside from family catch ups – was to run the last week of the Meadows Uniting Church’s youth group programs for the year, on ‘Making the most of the rest of your life’.

This is _A_ meadow, but not _THE_ Meadows.

Over the course of the weekend, we talked a bit with De’s mum about the church and its struggles. Meadows Uniting, like so many Uniting churches in the country, is a part of the legacy of the Methodist Church in South Australia and their plethora of horse-riding preachers in the second half 19^th Century. The upshot is that they’ve been plugging away for a long, long time. And it’s hard work. They’ve been without a regular minister for 3 years – and that’s taken its toll. They’ve managed to fill the gap with visiting, retired clergy and by using lay-people from theirs and other surrounding rural churches. Oh, and the occasional visiting AFES staffworker. But it’s hard – these people have usually put themselves through a preaching course part time in the city while working full time. One lady is in the process of moving to the far side of Mt Barker – but still intends on driving 45 minutes each way on back roads to get there.

 

Daniel Meadows. He plays baseball. I don't know all the details.

Meadows is a town of about 1700 people. It’s actually growing – what with these new fangled freeway tunnels and the like, people are finding that it’s not really that far from the city, or Mount Barker, or wherever you need to be. As aconsequence, housing developments are springing up here and there, and they even have a boutique winery. Or at least, a sign that claims to point to a winery, I assume it’s there. The housing developments are filling with essentially urban types, usually in the young family stage – the local Primary School is doing well out of it! And the church is trying to connect to the community. That was the one thing that I heard over and over again (and it helped that we came on whatever the equivalent of a Vestry meeting is) – a strong desire to reach out with the gospel while having a positive impact on those around them.

 

Home of the US Open. God bless America!

On the couple of times I’ve been to church there, they’ve had around 40 people, which I suppose is a pretty decent turnout. And there’s a (relatively) high number of kids – the High School youth group has 7 kids in it, and there were another 7 or 8 primary and below floating around the joint. As part of our youth group study, we asked them what they wanted most in life – what their ‘dream’ job, house, family, and whatever else would be. I was struck by the fact that the majority of them wanted to live near their home town, and near their families.  Sure they wanted big houses, big jobs, and often big families, but they wanted to stay local while they did it. They love their community, and their church, too, for the most part, just as much as their parents.

 

So what’s my point? Well, it’s more of a question – how do we help? I know that a lot of churches in the city face the same problems, but I’ve personally not been part of a gathering under 100 people for a long time. We can spend a lot of time sitting back and letting others do the work for us week in week out, knowing that IT WILL ALWAYS HAPPEN. (And if we’re brutally honest with ourselves, we’re probably all guilty of spending a lot of that time forgetting to be thankful for the riches God has given us, if not openly critiquing them). But as fellow members of the body of Christ, what can we do to help those who are working so hard, but just don’t have the resources to make a difference?

I’m not sure. But I guess prayer is a start, yeah?

Don’t criticize what you can’t understand

I like Bob Dylan, and I really don’t care what you think about me for it. Okay, it’s good to have that out of the way, it’s just going to make everything easier. I’ve just finished four weeks speaking on Proverbs, and by way of celebration I found myself bound for Anglican Formation class on Friday morning. The most important decision on those car rides is the music – and that morning, while sifting through a box of old CDs, I came across a gem – ‘Oh Mercy’ by the man himself.

Go the '80s.

It was recorded in 1989, by which time Dylan had been recording for over 25 years. He’d put behind him the raw, angry hippie-era sentiment of Blowin’ in the Wind, Times They Are a-Changin’ and the like. The thing is, it was easy to sing along (not least of all because I, too, have a rubbish voice) when the lyrics are set against war, against racism, and things like that – it’s a little harder when he turns the blow torch on the self indulgence of modern life. Seems that times haven’t changed that much, at least not since ’89.

But what’s my point in all of this? One thing that Dylan possesses is insight, and the lyrics of the track ‘What good am I?’ in particular describe the outward behaviour that we’ve been looking at in Proverbs. It’s slow and reflective, and ends each verse with the plaintive question – if I fail to live a good life, one that measures up to the values I have, what good am I?

For example, our third talk was on the way that Proverbs addresses how we speak…

“What good am I if I say foolish things
And I laugh in the face of what sorrow brings
And I just turn my back while you silently die,
What good am I?”

Our culture specialises in what Proverbs also calls ‘foolish things’ – gossip, slander, abuse… and as Christians we more often model our culture rather than our God – it made me very aware how those amongst my Christian brothers and sisters spoke in the week that followed – and much to my shame, the way that I often spoke myself.

One of our two main principles for applying Proverbs was that wisdom requires an ability to work out both WHEN a Proverb is true, and HOW that Proverb applies to our situation… and then not just to say it but to do it. It’s the wisdom of James 1: 22 –

“Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says.” (NIV)

“What good am I if I know and don’t do,
If I see and don’t say, if I look right through you,
If I turn a deaf ear to the thunderin’ sky,
What good am I?”

What troubled me the most, I think, is how often we as evangelicals sit in church, nod our heads through the sermons, then wander out into the sun, and within 5 minutes are doing the opposite of the application of the passage we just heard. Jesus called people who did that ‘whitewashed tombs’… Dylan just asks if we can’t be what God has made us to be, what good are we? Of course he misses the spiritual side of the issue completely. This song is really one about works-based worth, if not righteousness -  but the principle is there, and I for one find it scary when it takes the secular media to remind us of the truth that we should be leading in.

Sheer Profundity… Wisdom, Week 1.

This guy looks wise

It’s the final term on campus, a whopping four weeks, and to finish off the Bible Talks year, we’ve been looking at the book of Proverbs. When I started at Bible college one of my fellow students loved Proverbs… he used to spend hours sleeping on a couch, occasionally proclaiming some wise words about the folly of ‘the sluggard’.

Glasses, tie, suspenders - wise man.

That’s the thing about Proverbs. Its not the sort of thing that you hear about much, at least not in the evangelical circles that I move in. Rather, it’s full of ‘Christian one-liners’, things that look great in little embroidered wall hangings, or as email signatures, rather than in our theological mindset.

What Proverbs is – what Proverbs is MEANT to be – is a gateway to wisdom. The book opens with a ‘mission statement’ in its first two verses -

“The proverbs of Solomon son of David, king of Israel:
for attaining wisdom and discipline;
for understanding words of insight;” (Proverbs 1:1-2)

The point being that we read the book to gain wisdom, discipline to live a godly life, and to understand words of insight, that is, words from God.

The problem, I suspect, is that we mistake ‘wisdom’ as presented in Proverbs for characteristics that we’re told belong to successful people. Wisdom, for example, is not the same as intelligence, nor does it have anything to do with a charismatic ability to lead people, or your ability to ’succeed’ in society.

Proverbs tells us that

“The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge,
but fools despise wisdom and discipline.” (Proverbs 1:7)

This speaks not of fear in the sense of blind terror (as our young adults group at church failed to observe on our ‘zombie video night’), but rather of a recognition of a few basic principles – God is greater than we are, God is in authority over us, and God expects us to respond to him appropriately. That is, the beginning of wisdom comes from a right relationship with God, and without that basis, we will never be ‘wise’ in the way God wants us to be.

That’s the ‘key’ to understanding the Proverbs, and indeed, the rest of scripture. Wisdom comes from a heart changed by Christ, willing to take God’s words of insight and apply them to our lives in a way that honours God for who he is, and reflects the living relationship that we have with him through his Spirit.

You know, it was a lot easier just to get a degree…

Singing Psalms to the Lord

I’ve spent the last few days nutting out Review Group materials for our Mid Year Conference this year (starting Monday – you should really send the student in your life along!) But anyway, MYC’s theme this year is ‘Scripture’, and for the review groups we’re looking at Psalms 1, 19 and 119. Despite my much personally attested-to dislike of poetry (I don’t know how I got through High School English, I really don’t), I actually do like the Psalms. It’s like Bible-writing scooped straight out of the heart with a spoon and slopped on the page – raw, and unadulterated worship and praise.

I will say, though, that I was troubled. While the Psalms I was reading were (obviously) theologically sound and rich, and while they were filled with the sort of biblical language I expect, they were also filled with a lot of things that I struggle to throw a hearty ‘amen’ to.

¹⁴ I rejoice in following your statutes
as one rejoices in great riches.

¹⁵ I meditate on your precepts
and consider your ways.

¹⁶ I delight in your decrees;
I will not neglect your word.

Psalm 119:14 – 16

‘Rejoice’ and ‘delight’ imply a great joy and pleasure in reading and obeying God’s word – I’m not sure that I could always claim that. It’s more often hard, and takes discipline. ‘Rejoice’ and ‘delight’ describe my, say, rugby-watching more than Bible-reading. And as for ‘meditate’… ‘squeeze in’  might be more appropriate.

¹ Blessed is the man
who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked
or stand in the way of sinners
or sit in the seat of mockers.

² But his delight is in the law of the LORD,
and on his law he meditates day and night.

Ps 1:1-2

And there’s countless other verses, particularly from the mind bogglingly long Psalm 119. Now there are moments where it’s true, where I can’t get enough of my Bible, and when reading of God at work moves me to tears. But it’s not the standard, and in fact more often I find myself either having to physically jam time into my schedule to fit in Bible reading, or just feeling guilty for not having done it enough. The last usually happens while watching back to back reruns of The Simpsons. Not very pious, I know.

So what should I do with verses like the ones that I’ve listed above? If a person who loves God should love his word, should read it night and day, and should rejoice in its call to obedience, what do I do about the fact that it often is, in the words of someone very close to me, like chewing concrete? The temptation that someone of my nature leans towards is cheap dismissal. You know what I mean – when we take a passage and say that it’s just the writer using over-emphasis of their point. Like Jesus telling us to cut off our hands. He can’t possibly mean that, right? That’s what I could do with these Psalms. I could call them poetry, claiming that the writer just wants to make a point about the importance of reading God’s word, rather that the experience of it. But this doesn’t seem fair to the text. There’s nothing there to suggest that this shouldn’t be how I feel. This, then, leads to the feelings of guilt that come with legalism – obviously I’m not reading my Bible enough, or in the right ways, or, or… perhaps there’s something wrong with me because I don’t rejoice with the Psalmist.

These approaches to Psalms are in many ways the easiest, but I suspect miss the point of what is being said here. Rather, Psalms like these seem to reflect the determination of the psalmist to be like this – Lord, I WILL love your word and love you, even if it kills me. I realise that this robs the words of their sentimentality – as though loving and delighting in the law can only come about when our eyes go all misty and everything seems as though it’s covered in rose petals. But that’s rubbish, and that’s not the way I want to love God’s word – I don’t want to read my Bible only when I’m feeling warm and fuzzy and want a God-hug, I want to also read it when I’m struggling, when life sucks and I actually need to know the love and grace of my creator.

The Psalmist lists with confidence the consequences of loving God’s words, and they’re extensive.

⁷ The law of the LORD is perfect,
reviving the soul.
The statutes of the LORD are trustworthy,
making wise the simple.

⁸ The precepts of the LORD are right,
giving joy to the heart.
The commands of the LORD are radiant,
giving light to the eyes.

⁹ The fear of the LORD is pure,
enduring forever.
The ordinances of the LORD are sure
and altogether righteous.

¹⁰ They are more precious than gold,
than much pure gold;
they are sweeter than honey,
than honey from the comb.

¹¹ By them is your servant warned;
in keeping them there is great reward.

Psalm 19:7 -11

Big words! But I don’t think that we can separate loving God’s word from loving God, as his word both reflects and captures his character. The things that are spoken of here, wisdom, joy and so on; these are the characteristics of a strong relationship with God, here attributed to the one who loves hearing God speak in his word. And I know that I can definitely say that I love God. I may struggle with God,  I may be disobedient at times and hurt him by my actions… my own parents will be able to tell you that at times I’m a pretty crappy son… but the relationship of love is constant. The Psalmist goes on to deal with this, describing God’s law almost like a raft in the middle of the ocean – it’s either that or drown. And so I know that I can come to his word to find him, and it will be hard, and probably involve a lifetime of slog, along with the rest of the process of sanctification. So I can say that I love God’s word, because in it I see the God who made me, is shaping me, and is dragging me to himself. And as I read his word with a desire to hear from him and obey (obedience – that’s a story for another day!), no matter how hard it may be, I know that it is does and will continue to bear fruit on this shonky tree – and those moments where the determination and the emotion line up will come more often.

Book Review – the Radical Reformission

If you plan on writing a book on church, your title is going to say a lot about the school that you belong to. Gone are the days when everything published on the body of Christ was entitled ‘the church’. In a way, I miss those days – at least it was easy to work out what a book was about, although it did tend to make your bibliography look somewhat flat. But time has moved on and we must hop on board the tram. But where have our titles taken us? If you’re conservative, hardline, orthodox… or boring… you’ll probably pick some Biblical jargon title – Miroslav Volf’s ‘After Our Likeness’ fits the bill well. Your average megachurch will pump something out in their franchise-style way, like the man of purpose himself, Rick Warren’s The Purpose Driven Church, for example. But if you have something to prove to the kids, you’ll need something special – it’ll need the prefix ‘Re’ somewhere in the title, and some snappy retro language, as well as some whacked out acid trip of a cover for good measure. Street cred is everything. Here I must say I was impressed by ‘Re-Jesus: A wild Messiah for A Missional Church’ by Hirsch and Frost, but the cake was well and truly taken, rebadged and listed on ebay by Frank Viola’s ‘Reimagining Church: Pursuing the Dream of Organic Christianity’. The environmentalists will be truly impressed, although I’ve never truly understood what makes house churches organic. I always thought that was more a category for bananas, but perhaps that’s just me.

Anyway, I’ve just finished reading ‘the Radical Reformission’ by Mark Driscoll. You know the man, but the title helps you place the book – as if the entire Christian world didn’t know already. I fear that I’m a couple of kicks behind play, and potentially using the wrong ball, but I’m starting to read up on the whole missional church thing, as a sideline of my recent concern with evangelism, and the lack thereof, on campus. But that’s another concern for another day. I’m no experienced reviewer, but I’m taking this opportunity to throw down some of my own thoughts for a later day.

First off, I didn’t find this ‘radical reformission’ that radical. The fundamental principle is ‘barrier crossing’ – the idea that, as believers, we need to be reaching out to those around us with more than just a cold-turkey gospel presentation. Driscoll draws what I felt was a fairly polarised comparison between cold, uncaring, unrelational evangelism on the one hand, and evangelism based on love and relationship on the other. While the points that he made were good, I think that the ‘cold-turkey’ character was a bit of a straw man that suited the purposes of his argument than reality. The door-to-door presentation, followed by an enforced ‘conversion’ to a suit, tie, smoked glass mugs and deviled egg sandwiches church culture is (or should be?) a thing of the sixties rather than a modern practise. That said, a lot of those that I have contact with view evangelism as a thing apart from their everyday life, and see little connection between the gospel courses we teach and the conversations they have each day with their friends. There may be something in that. There is a definite strength in removing cultural ‘baggage’ from the gospel, and finding where it intersects with the world that we live in.

What happens all to often, though, is that we become experts at understanding where others have enforced their culture onto Jesus, but remain blind as to how we may be doing that ourselves. The speck in the eye of others… and I fear that this is what Driscoll does at some points. He picks up on the issues with institutionized denominations, with para-church groups and with the emerging church without breaking a sweat. The thing is, he’s often right about the failings of these groups to make effective and long term connections to the world around them. He neatly dissects the liberal church, and the over-conservative one.

But what about the Seattle, alternative-folk style religion? There were many places in which I baulked. He spoke at length of the importance of love and accepting people regardless of how un-middle class their background. We’re rebuked for our failure to connect to alternative sub-cultures. But he goes on to describe his reaction to a home invader by coming downstairs witha  handgun, praying “that I would not have to kill this person.” (p159). His purpose of this illustration was that in heaven we won’t need guns to protect ourselves. To me, this was a response of someone bound in his own culture where the idea that one needs a gun to shoot people invading our private property is the norm. He spends a couple of pages describing all the people that he ‘used to’ not like until he discovered this need to reach cross-culturally with love (p76-77), and then scores cheap laughs at the expense of Jerry Springer style show fans, and many elements of pop culture. Finally, light beer and using grape juice at communion is revealled as part of a feminist manifesto set to emasculate the church (most of chapter 6). It seems that the culture we are to reach out to is in many places the one that Driscoll has found himself at home in, whereas those elements he has dismissed as mainstream are fair game for critique.

There’s a lot more in this book, but I’ve rattled on long enough. There were good things said about the value of strong, godly leadership within church communities. He has a strong emphasis on finding a healthy balance between the suffering of Christ and the victory of the cross. However, the refrain seems to be that if you’re edgy and alternative enough to get people in your door, the job is done – there’s very little insight as to how to communicate the gospel, just lots of stories about how people came to his church, were loved, and then somehow, mysteriously, become Christian at some point. There’s positives in the broad structures of the approach, but I wondered if the finer, necessary details are lost somewhere.

Ultimately, this book is about culture – our culture and gospel culture. However, I’m not sure whether it’s anti-culture, counter-culture or about redeeming it – he seems to include elements of all three, and it depends where you pick up story as to which version you’ll get. It seems that he’s trying to capture and systematize something that’s worked for Mars Hill, but is in a lot of ways bound to a particular cross-section of Seattle culture. That said, the book is far from useless. What it does do is confront some of our assumptions about what evangelism is and how it should happen. I know that whenever a book starts getting me annoyed, it’s either making claims that are complete rubbish (eg the Da Vinci Code), or it’s poking at the shaky supports around some of my beliefs. I think that in a University context there’s something in the ‘Mars Hill’ mentality. We’re not evangelising people who’ve crossed the cultural barrier and come into our church, we’re there as missionaries to the University culture, such as it is. As such, we need to be prepared to engage with it, and also to make allowances for those we’re working amongst. That said, the warning is valid – to engage with culture is not to submit to it. The difficulty is in walking that line without falling too far to either side.

We have the technology.

As a kid, I used to find it funny watching my grandparents use the phone. I know that sounds terrible, but they treated it like it was some kind of alien technology, which I guess in a lot of ways it was. To the generation that fought World War 2, telephones were these great, unwieldy wire-laden beasts that were new and foreign in the world. As such, my grandparents at best only ever established a working relationship with the humble phone. To me, though, there has never been a time without ‘em. As a result, I see and use the phone in a completely different way.

So where is this going? I’ve been thinking a lot (well, a lot for ME, anyway) about the way that we use technology, particularly in my context, working with an on-campus student group. We’ve had a website for quite some time now, and I have to say that it’s improved a fair bit in the last few years. But I’m not sure that it does all that it can or even should do.

Let’s take a look at it. I come to our site as a complete newcomer. I’m a bit dazzled by the fact that the screen is dominated by a bunch of links and references to things that I don’t recognize the lingo for, but I find a link that says ‘I’m new here’. Sweet. That’s me. And it gets better – it’s a video. Put aside the fact that it’s last years president. The other downside is that it’s obviously something that’s been written for dedicated Christians interested in a Christian group on campus. And that’s about it – there’s a ‘gospel link’ to a couple of offsites. Small wonder that the only times our site has been used this year is by students we’ve sent to particular signup pages, and by church groups wanting to solicit us for one thing or another.

Of course, the assumption that I’ve gone with from above is that I’ve arrived on the site as a genuine searcher looking for explicit information about ES. That’s possible. We whack our web address on every bit of published material that we distribute in the hope that just this will happen. But is that all we can do? I think that the mentality is one that comes from my generation… but to be kind to myself I’ll say it’s those ten years older than I am. We’re all Gen X, I think that makes it OK. My generation approaches the internet like my grandparents approach the telephone. We grudgingly accept its usefulness. We can see that it’s a way of connecting with a much wider audience. But it’s a bit of a mystery to us – we’re not ‘web people’.

The consequence is that we see the web only as an online version of the data sources that we’re used to. SO our websites look like the welcome tables at our churches – there’s a bunch of digitized leaflets and welcome cards designed to provide information about who we are and to drag you into our community. But there’s key problems – first, that nobody ever actually sees the ‘table’ unless they come into the ‘church’, and second that the table stops being useful once they enter community (or get sick of us and leave). After all, who looks at the noticeboard once they have someone to talk to?

My experience, as an old, old man trying to fit into a Facebook world, is that ones online presence is not so much about information as it is relationship and experience (or is that procrastination?) People spend time online to interact with others, and to be entertained. Neither of those things happen on our site. It we want to connect with ‘net culture’ as much as we do with ‘real life’ culture, then we need to meet people where they’re naturally online. But that has to be natural – I think ‘organic’ is the buzzword, n’est-ce pas?

What next? I don’t know, really. We’ll see.

But if it is from God…

Sometimes I consider myself gifted in the fact that I’m not particularly charismatic. There is very little chance that I will ever assemble around myself a personality cult. I’m flattered, if anybody is offering, but based on the evidence it’s probably not a good idea.

Consider the following.

Acts 5:33 – 39 (thanks http://www.biblegateway.com)

When they heard this, they were furious and wanted to put them to death. But a Pharisee named Gamaliel, a teacher of the law, who was honored by all the people, stood up in the Sanhedrin and ordered that the men be put outside for a little while. Then he addressed them: “Men of Israel, consider carefully what you intend to do to these men. Some time ago Theudas appeared, claiming to be somebody, and about four hundred men rallied to him. He was killed, all his followers were dispersed, and it all came to nothing. After him, Judas the Galilean appeared in the days of the census and led a band of people in revolt. He too was killed, and all his followers were scattered. Therefore, in the present case I advise you: Leave these men alone! Let them go! For if their purpose or activity is of human origin, it will fail. But if it is from God, you will not be able to stop these men; you will only find yourselves fighting against God.”

The immediate context is the Apostles and their preaching about Christ. Gamaliel’s argument is pretty much that Jesus is dead, and so what happens next will prove one of two things. Either the movement will fizzle out altogether, in which case it was based on empty promises to start with, or it will thrive, in which case it’s probably from God, and he’s not someone that we want to be messing with. The principle, in its essense, is to let time sort them out.

Now, on the whole that’s not an approach to potentially false teachers that I’m completely comfortable with. I think rather our biblical mandate is to flee false teaching with all our might – if not to just tell them to shut up (eg 1 Timothy 1:3). Fortunately I don’t think Gamaliel’s approach is to be prescriptive for us!

But that’s not what got me thinking. I’ve been reading a bit about church of late, and of course I’ve inevitably picked up Mark Driscoll, as is obligatory to prove that you’re not a traditional conservative, stuck in your ungodly ways. The things I do to prove myself. But it made me wonder about Mars Hill, and from there to the emerging church and all its derivatives, and the whole phenomenon of modern culture engagement (as though we were the first to figure it out). The thing about your average megachurch – not all of them, mind you, but most – is a lack of history. They’re generally a first or second generation event that’s been built around a popular, charismatic leader, who will generally be a public speaker who’s easy listening but still packs a punch. The kind of preacher that people actually want to listen to.

The question that this raised in my mind is, I suppose, the same question that we need to ask of our own ministry – will it last?

In 1 Corinthians 3, Paul describes his ‘building’ ministry amongst the Corinthians.

By the grace God has given me, I laid a foundation as an expert builder, and someone else is building on it. But each one should be careful how he builds. For no one can lay any foundation other than the one already laid, which is Jesus Christ.

Every believer has a ‘foundation’ laid for life – Jesus Christ. That’s a given, whether you’re a new believer or a long term believer. And that’s a common foundation – Jesus is more than a ‘personal savior’, but is the glue that bonds us together as believers, and unites us to God. But we each build on that foundation. Paul goes on to spell out in the following verses all the materials with which we may ‘build’ a life of ministry, from pricy precious metals and jewels through to functional hay and straw. But ultimately what matters is God’s approval, not ours or anyone elses.

So size is not necessarily a measure of success, because the real test is yet to come. But by the same measure, humble circumstances are no guarantee that one has the right to hurl stones at the mega-pastor on the big white horse. I think that what really struck me in all of this is that there is no true ‘gospel heritage’ outside the grace of God. Sure we may belong to a tradition or a movement that values the gospel of Jesus and is proud to proclaim it, but we’re never more than a generation from losing it completely, and there’s no reason why someone else can’t pick it up.

We need to be careful to be discerning and wise, without being judgmental – we cynical Gen-Xers not least of all. We also need to be discerning in our own churches and ministry, to preserve the gospel ministry that’s been entrusted to us.

You, blogging? You’re not fooling anyone.

I feel that I should start with a confession. I’m not a blogger. I don’t have white hot opinions searing through my brain, demanding a world stage. I don’t have a burning desire to reveal my every inane thought to the world. I don’t have raging insecurities driving me to gather online friends around me, and to be honest, I’m more than a few kicks behind the technological play.

Of course, some would argue that my presence a) on Facebook, and b) right here would invalidate most of those comments. (Except perhaps the last… the title says it all on that front).

So what are we (well, me – let’s be honest here) doing here? I’m currently sitting at a little desk in Sydney’s domestic airport, waiting for my flight home from the AFES Senior Staff conference. Now, for someone from insular little Adelaide, this week has been like taking your Learner’s test in an F1 car. It’s been a relentless week of thoughts, ideas, and best of all, the experiences of 50 or 60 odd other people doing pretty much the same job around the country.

Okay, this may be an ordinary experience for some, but I’m new here, all right?

So down to the point. At the moment I have a notebook full of ideas, a place where I can blurt them incoherently somewhere for someone else to tidy up, and a campus foolishly left within my reach.

Oh dear.