Vocations and leavers

Two more items in the occasional posts to this blog...

Jason Goroncy alerted me to a post by Michael Jinkins that asks the question; “What sustains you in your vocation?”

Jinkins begins by noting: 
John Calvin believed that it is the vocation itself, the fact of having been called by God which sustains us. That’s a great response, and I’m sure it is true. But, in the day-to-day slog and grind of living our vocations, beyond the assurance that we are where God called us (which is no small thing!), are there other things that sustain us? Prayer, regular Bible study, worship, the practice of Sabbath?  [I'm currently reading, at long last, Eugene Peterson's Working the Angles - it relates strongly to this question.]

The second item is the third post by Bradley Wright and his research team on the question of why people leave church.  In this post he asks, Does Christians’ bad behavior cause people to leave the faith?
This is a very useful series of posts, asking the right questions, attempting to find some answers - and of course, as always, the comments are as interesting as the posts themselves.

Podcasts now available

I'm back on deck at the National Mission Office, at least until the end of February. The Office is officially closing at the end of January, but John Daniel and I will be continuing to work for another month, clearing up. The blog may continue on, depending on what I do with the next stage of my life....

Meanwhile, thanks to Anne Thomson for letting us know about the following podcasts:

A number of people were interested in Jim Wallis's visit to Dunedin in September last year, but were unable to attend the event, it being so close to Assembly and all.

You can now watch and listen to him, via the University of Otago's podcasts - after clicking on this link scroll down to "Howard Paterson Memorial Lecture 2010" and to "A Conversation with Jim Wallis".

And then if you want to explore further, last year's Thomas Burns Lectures are also available, given by Prof. John Coffey on the theme ‘Let my people go’: Exodus and Deliverance from Calvin to Obama.

Children and their Elders

Kids Friendly Churches is a vision that has been up and running for up to five years now in New Zealand. It aims to make Presbyterian and Co-operative churches more aware of the children in their midst and ways in which they can be incorporated into the overall life of the church. Here's a recent story about Calvin Community Church in Gore which has just been accredited as 'Kids Friendly.'

The story comes from CWM (Christian World Mission) news - CWM has been involved in funding the Kids Friendly movement.

Youth leaders from Calvin Community Church in Gore recently helped children organise and invite church elders to an evening meal where they could sit down and and get to know each other over a roast dinner.
Each church elder was assigned one or two children to greet and take care of them throughout the duration of the meal.
The idea of the event was to get children sharing a bit about themselves with the elder they were taking care of, and to help pave the way for better communication between younger and older members of the church in the wake of their new Kids Friendly status.
Youth worker at Calvin Community Church, Sandra Gow [pictured at right] said the evening was a great success for both the children and the church elders.
“During dinner the children shared a bit about themselves using photos and props. They then asked the elders about their leadership using a number of questions like: What is an elder? Why are you an elder? What do you find hardest about being a Christian?
“We ended our time of serving with one of our favourite action memory verses from Matthew 22.37 'Love the Lord you God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.' The evening was a moving and memorable time for all.”

Listening to the 'right' preacher

One of the interesting points made on more than one occasion at the Calvin Conference held over the last couple of days was that Calvin was reluctant to have his sermons published because he preached them to a specific congregation at a specific time. He felt they were a very focused Word of the Lord.

Elsie McKee spent a good deal of time in one of her talks discussing the way in which Calvin, in 1541, had translated his Latin version of the Institutes from 1539 not just into the French equivalent, but into a French that was explanatory of points that would have been obvious to the Latin academic reader, that changed examples and proverbs to ones more familiar to the unacademic audience, and that removed classical references where there might be difficulties in leaving them in.

There has been some comment made recently on other sites about the way in which people can now listen to the 'best' preachers on their Ipods, perhaps to the detriment of the local minister who preaches in their own church. But what came out of the Calvin lectures was that this is not necessarily the most healthy way to hear preaching. Your own minister should be - will be? - speaking to the needs of his particular congregation, and with the help of the Holy Spirit, will be encouraging his church to grow. The preacher on the MP3 will have been talking to a totally different congregation in totally different circumstances. This isn't to say that his preaching won't be used by the Holy Spirit to speak to you, but there is the possibility that it will speaking along lines that suit you, and not along lines that you need.

Calvin in Dunedin

This year celebrates the 500th Anniversary of John Calvin's birth. Round the world there are people putting on conferences, lectures, celebrations of all sorts to mark the memory of this historic figure in Christian - and world - history.
To some Christians, Calvin's name doesn't evoke good vibes, and certainly there are aspects of Calvin's life and theology that we would no longer find acceptable. However, there is much that's great and good about the man, and it's this side of him we celebrate.
Knox Centre for Ministry and Learning, in conjunction with the Theology and Religious Studies Department of the University of Otago, is presenting a two-day conference offering international and local perspectives on Calvin, with particular reference to his historical and theological influences here in New Zealand, and particularly in Otago.
The keynote speakers will be Prof Randall Zachman and Prof Elsie McKee (pictured at right).
Other speakers are: Alison Clarke, Ivor Davidson, Peter Matheson, Angela McCarthy, Murray Rae and John Stenhouse.
The dates for the Conference are: 24-25 August, 2009. There will also be a son et lumiere presentation at First Church in Dunedin City.
Register - and find out more information here.

Steve Graham at Mosgiel

The South Island Pastors' Conference took place last week in Mosgiel, at the East Taieri Presbyterian Church. The main speaker was Steve Graham, the Dean of the Bible College in Christchurch.
I'll be mentioning other books and articles Steve spoke about, but let's start with one that's available on the Net. It's called Teaching a Calvinist to Dance. A couple of quotes:
It can be a little intimidating in a Reformed context to admit that one is Pentecostal. It's a bit like being at the ballet and letting it slip that you're partial to NASCAR and country music. Both claims tend to clear a room. And yet I happily define myself as a Reformed charismatic, a Pentecostal Calvinist.
I started a master's degree in philosophical theology at the Institute for Christian Studies, a graduate school in the Dutch Reformed tradition at the University of Toronto. So my week looked a bit odd: Monday to Friday I was immersed in the intellectual resources of the Reformed tradition, diving into the works of Calvin, Kuyper, and Dooyeweerd.

Steve talked about brokenness in leadership too, but perhaps more of his focus was on the need for Presbyterians to work more in the middle area of the supernatural-this-worldly, in other words, not being content to live just in the natural, with the supernatural as something for the future next world, but to live with a sense of the supernatural in our everyday lives. (This is sometimes called the Flaw of the Excluded Middle.)

We'll look at these other areas further in other posts.