Fourth post from Bradley Wright

Bradley Wright's been posting on the subject of why people leave church, and for some reason I managed to miss noting the fourth post in this series.   (Fourth and last, by the looks of it.)

In this one he discusses the relative unimportance of non-Christians' influence in regard to a Christian leaving church.  Very occasionally the influence of a non-Christian will cause a Christian to leave the church and/or faith.   But it's by no means as frequent an occurrence as you might think.  

It's a somewhat different story after the Christian has left the church.   Then there is a stronger tendency for non-Christians to support those who left.  

Which seems reasonable enough.

A pneumatological approach...

J R Woodward presents a useful review of the book, Beyond the Impasse: toward a pneumotological theology of religions, by Amos Young, on his blog (Dream Awakener)

He writes: “In Beyond the Impasse, in light of our globalized context, Amos Yong presents a pneumatological (Holy Spirit) approach to the theology of religions as the preferable way for Christians to meaningful engage in genuine dialogue with other religions with the ability to discern the Spirit’s presence, activity or absence. He develops his approach by tracing some of the biblical, philosophical and theological approaches to date, recognizing contributions that have been made, as well as identifying present deficiencies.

He then addresses the “potential Achilles heal” of this pneumatological approach – the need to develop a theology of discernment which is adept at discerning both the phenomenological and inner workings of all religions, “in ways that enable the religions to be take seriously on their own terms in order to facilitate the emergence of adequate comparative (and therefore discerning) categories” (pg 185).

The review is a good overview not only of the book, but of the theology of other religions.

Japan and Religion

We tend to have our views about countries in terms of how religious they are...or not.

Japan is no different. Kudos, then, to GetReligion.org for picking up on various reports as to the actual state of belief in Japan. Here's CNN.com on when the Japanese bring religion into their lives:

Proud of their secular society, most Japanese aren’t religious in the way Americans are: They tend not to identify with a single tradition nor study religious texts. "The average Japanese person doesn’t consciously turn to Buddhism until there’s a funeral,” says Brian Bocking, an expert in Japanese religions at Ireland’s University College Cork. When there is a funeral, though, Japanese religious engagement tends to be pretty intense. “A very large number of Japanese people believe that what they do for their ancestors after death matters, which might not be what we expect from a secular society,” says Bocking. “There’s widespread belief in the presence of ancestors’ spirits.”

And USA today on religious percentages:

Japan is 90% Buddhist or Shinto or a combination of the two, with young urban Japanese more inclined to have drifted from religious attachments.

The same writer, Cathy Lynn Grossman, begins a blog post on Japanese and religion by writing simply: Everyone prays.

Finally, Religion News Service tells us this:

Churches and Christians in northeastern Japan, the most heavily affected area, are still out of contact days after the disaster. Studies estimate that 2 percent of Japanese are Christian, with the vast majority practicing Buddhism and the indigenous Shinto religion.

The various reports go to confirm yet again, that there is no country in the world that can be simply called, 'secular.'

PS. There is a short news report video on this blog page showing some slightly more positive aspects post-disaster.

Love Wins

This video is likely to cause some ructions.....it's a promo, in a sense, for Rob Bell's latest book, Love Wins: Heaven, Hell, and the Fate of Every Person Who Ever Lived and it's interesting to read some of the comments on You Tube that accompany it. Ructions are already in the making there.

I think one of the most interesting statements he makes in the short 2 and a half minutes is that many Christians believe 'Jesus rescued us from God'....Mr Bell has some issues with this....





PS - just found this wonderful line from Kim Fabricius:

There are Christians who reject universalism not because it is unbiblical but because, were it true, it would disappoint them.

It may seem obvious, but...

Mission is so easy if only....

Len Hjalmarson has written in his latest post about being neighbours....there's more to the post here.

In January of 2009 a group of pastors gathered to think and dream about what it would look like for the churches in their area to come together to serve the community. They asked the mayor to join them and talk about his dream for the city. They also asked him to talk about hindrances to that dream coming true.
He came with a list of pervasive issues and problems: at-risk kids; elderly shut-ins; decaying housing; hunger and homelessness. Before he started speaking he shared this: “it occurred to me that what our city really needs are good neighbours. The majority of the issues we face would be eliminated or drastically reduced if we could just become a community of people who are great neighbours.”
The pastors left convicted. Here they were asking the major what areas of the city were most in need, and he was telling them that the city could be transformed if Christians would simply live out the second half of the Great Commandment.
The plan they forged is simple — a teaching series on the art of neighbouring. They found that people don’t build relationships with their neighbours because,

1) they don’t see the value in it,
2) lack of time, and
3) lack of trust.

So they came up with this teaching series for this group of churches:
Week 1. taking Jesus seriously – what if Jesus really meant we should love our neighbors?
Week 2. Time: creating space to build relationships with neighbors
Week 3. Trust – embracing the messiness of relationships
They are then equipping their people to actually enter their neighbourhoods and live in them and build relationships.

Len also mentions an essay written by Todd Hiestand, which has apparently been unavailable for a while (it was written in 2007). It's called The Missional Church in Suburbia, and appears on Todd's site. It looks at mission in the urban society, and takes some similar approaches to those of the Australian, Simon Carey Holt.

The Next Christians

The Next Christians: the Good News about the end of Christian America, by Gabe Lyons (author of Un-Christian)

From a review by Scott Wenig:
Lyons sincerely believes that the church is on the cusp of a remarkable transformation, not unlike the era of the Reformation. But to seize the day he offers a word to the wise: the next Christians must emphasize the whole Gospel and stay committed to keeping it first. Our ongoing temptation is to get sidetracked by secondary issues such as theories of cultural engagement, methodologies of outreach, models of doing church and even environmental stewardship. These are not unimportant but they must be subsumed under the larger and more potent agenda of living out the Gospel by the power of the Spirit. As Lyons so astutely notes, ‘where Christians restore, people get saved.’ (p. 193).

From a review by Charles Erlandson:
[Lyons] presents a lot of good tools for understanding different kinds of Christians...Another excellent analysis he presents is the 7 channels of cultural influence employed by the gay movement very successfully. These 7 channels are: Media, Education, Arts and Entertainment, Business, Government, Social Sector, and Church. Unfortunately, Christians have not acted very much like light in these 7 spheres. Because Christians who want to "restore" the world, instead of blending with it or retreating from it, will often be tempted to become like it. Lyons wisely lists 5 practices that will discipline "Next Christians" in their quest to engage and restore the world:

1. Immersed in Scripture (Instead of Entertainment)
2. Observing the Sabbath (Instead of Being Productive)
3. Fasting for Simplicity (Instead of Consuming)
4. Choosing Embodiment (Instead of Being Divided)
5. Postured by Prayer (Instead of Power)

The Insatiable Moon finally seen

The Insatiable Moon is a film that needs to be seen twice. First time around you're trying to take in the way things work in this particular world, and how the story all fits together. A second viewing gives you more time to reflect.

Arthur (played by Rawiri Paratene) believes he's the 'second son of God.' He lives in a boarding house with a bunch of other people with mental health issues, and is by far the most outgoing and positive of them all. The story explores whether his ability to discern other people's inner turmoils, his belief that God is benevolent to his children, his prophetic words and other insights, are truly charismatic gifts, or merely part of his brain dysfunctions. It challenges us to believe in miracles, in the need for a true belief in God and not just a religious one, and of course, most of all, it challenges us to see people with mental health issues as people loved by God.

The 'villains' of the piece might be a bit too black and white, but they're mostly minor characters: the really interesting people in this movie are those who have a sense of the spiritual and are willing to follow it even if it causes them pain, or requires them to change long-held attitudes.

The scene towards the end, when the suburb of Ponsonby rallies for and against having a boarding house for people with mental health problems in its midst, is the climax, but the more important scene comes earlier, at the funeral of one of the boarding house residents. This is where Arthur comes into his own as a prophetic voice, a man who speaks the words of (first) Son of God.

The other interesting character is the man - Bob - who runs the boarding house: foul-mouthed and short-fused, he nevertheless cares deeply for the men he feeds and cleans up for (seemingly single-handed). This is a vocation for him, rather than a job, although it's unlikely he regards himself as a spiritual man. The 'spiritual' man in the story, the Anglican priest, is at odds with himself and his spiritual life, and seems rather wet by comparison with Bob. It's not that he's meant to represent institutional religion; that would be too simplistic. Rather he's a man in the wrong job, and wisely, by the end of the movie, he's realised it.

Mike Riddell, the author of the original book and the scriptwriter for the movie, doesn't give us all the answers - although he teases us with possible answers at times. His seven years of effort (along with a host of other supporters, including his wife, who directed the movie after the original director had to pull out) in getting this movie off the ground have borne good fruit.

Christians and culture

Marshall Shelley, writing from the most recent Catalyst Conference, sends these notes:

Three forms of interaction with culture:
--Separate from that world. “Fight the enemy.” (Theologically, Christians who take this position focus on Fall and Redemption)
--Become like the culture. “Cultural Christians” blend in, becoming indistinguishable from their surrounding culture. (Theologically, their focus is Creation and doing good deeds.)
--Restoration. Pursue being holy and pure in a fallen world, AND restoring culture. (Theologically, this means Fall, Redemption, AND the Restoration of all things--“all things are become new,” the ministry of reconciliation.) These people are not just critics but creators of a new culture. See a role in the bringing of the kingdom of God to earth.

It would be easy to criticise the first two as being insufficiently Christian. That may not necessarily be the case.

Australian spirituality stats

I flew to Auckland for a day the week before last in order to attend a conference run by the Church Life Survey people. It was valuable both in terms of meeting people and in hearing the plans for the next survey coming up in 2011.

I spend a good deal of my average week working with stats, both church and government (and any other kind I can lay my hands on), so I have some idea of the state of Christianity in New Zealand. The Church Life Survey is one source of such information. It has some connections with a similar group in Australia, and I've just been reading an article by Rowland Croucher which shows that the church/spiritual/Christian stats in Australia are pretty similar to those here in NZ.

Rowland's complete article is here, but those figures are culled from Shaping Australia's Spirituality: a Review of Christian Ministry in the Australian Context, by Philip Hughes and others (2010). This is a 150 page book (with some proof-reading errors, according to Rowland - the result of a publication date not leaving enough room for thoroughness) and, as Rowland says: ...you won’t find more interesting summary-data on modern Australia and its religions, especially Christianity, anywhere else in one small readable volume.

The book was produced by the Christian Research Association in Australia - we used to have a similar body here. You can buy a copy from CRA themselves, or from some Australian bookshops (not Koorong, as far as I could see).

New David Runcorn title

The Road to Growth Less Travelled: Spiritual Paths in a Missionary Church, by David Runcorn.

This is one of a wide-ranging series of booklets (all 27 pg long) from Grove Books. Part of what Runcorn is saying is that we need to be careful to challenge rather than mirror our culture, and that our very ‘irrelevance’ to the society at large may be one of our strengths.

He also explores why so many people are drifting away from churches, while still ostensibly remaining Christian. At one point he quotes Douglas John Hall: ‘the church of Christendom, so often growing in the wake of national, expansionist interests, missed [the sense of loss in the Christian life].’ ‘Christendom tried to be great, large, magnificent. It thought itself the object of God’s expansive grace. It forgot the meaning of its election to worldly responsibility. Today we are constrained by the Spirit to rediscover the possibilities of littleness.’

Paul Fromont has written four brief posts on the Prodigal Kiwi blog discussing some of the book’s points, starting here.

Post-Churched

“It has been said too often that we are now in a post-Christian world. A better phrasing would be a post-churched world. Ironically, that may be what Christ really had in mind when he enunciated what has come to be called The Great Commission. Jesus said “go and make disciples of all nations,” not “go find a good location to start churches.” The difference is not all that subtle. As disciple-making disciples we need to be gearing our theological studies toward becoming makeover artists in redesigning our Father’s house, not plodding toward one day becoming junior partners in the management of his firm.”

Carl Raschke, “From Church to ‘Rhizone‘: Reconfiguring Theological Education for the Postmodern Era”

The full article can be found via the link - along with the explanation for why he coins the word, 'Rhizone'. Check out the discussion in the comments too (thought the last two appear to be very obscure advertising pieces....)

Koreans in NZ

Stuart Vogel gives us some updated information on Koreans in New Zealand.  
 
70% of Koreans in New Zealand identify as Christians, while roughly another 20% claim to follow no religion. Buddhists number only about 5%. One Christian newspaper estimates that 35-40% of all Koreans are "active Christians" who regularly attend worship services, mostly at one of New Zealand's 100 Korean churches. Another recent study has shown that around 90 per cent of the study's participants attended Church regularly.

A weekly Christian newspaper published in the Korean language claims to have a circulation of 3,500 and discusses religious issues as well as issues of common interest to immigrants, such as migration law and property ownership. 20 years ago we had no Korean congregations within the Presbyterian Church of Aotearoa-New Zealand.  Now we have 11 such congregations or groups.  We have Korean ministers graduating from our theological training and serving in a wide variety of positions. We have numerous congregations and ministers wanting to join the PCANZ. We welcome the interest without any hesitation.

Research has shown that Korean Christian churches provide much needed opportunities for support, fellowship and business networking as well as information and general assistance. This includes conversational English classes. One participant in the study said: "I had help from the Korean church in New Zealand. They gave me information about the business. It was hard to get the right information except through the local Korean church. As an immigrant with limited English language, I felt isolated and was not able to get proper information to start up the business."

And some other more general information: 

Almost 70% of New Zealand’s Koreans live in the Auckland area (2001 stats).
16% are in Christchurch with the rest scattered throughout the country, mostly in the larger towns and cities.
The majority of Korean immigrants have tertiary qualifications and are in their thirties and forties, meeting the immigration criteria.
Some chain migration has occurred as arrivals send home favourable reports to friends and relations – including elderly parents – who then came to join them.
Upon arrival most Korean families have sufficient funds to buy homes in relatively affluent suburbs like Auckland’s North Shore which.
By 2001, in North Shore City, Korean was the second most common language after English (4.1% in the 2006 Census).

Koreans attend a variety of NZ churches: the Korean Christian Churches in NZ site  lists Full Gospel, Catholic, Baptist, Methodist and various Pentecostal groups. 

Two views, one subject

As so often happens two different blogs I read came at the same issue from different perspectives: on Prodigal Kiwi(s), Paul Fromont quotes a writer called Amy Hollywood, who begins an essay called Spiritual but Not Religious: The vital interplay between submission and freedom in this way:

“Most of us who write, think, and talk about religion are by now used to hearing people say that they are spiritual, but not religious. With the phrase generally comes the presumption that religion has to do with doctrines, dogmas, and ritual practices, whereas spirituality has to do with the heart, feeling, and experience. The spiritual person has an immediate and spontaneous experience of the divine or of some higher power. She does not subscribe to beliefs handed to her by existing religious traditions, nor does she engage in the ritual life of any particular institution. At the heart of the distinction between religion and spirituality, then, lies the presumption that to think and act within an existing tradition—to practice religion—risks making one less spiritual. To be religious is to bow to the authority of another, to believe in doctrines determined for one in advance, to read ancient texts only as they are handed down through existing interpretative traditions, and blindly to perform formalized rituals. For the spiritual, religion is inert, arid, and dead; the practitioner of religion, whether consciously or not, is at best without feeling, at worst insincere…

On the Out of Ur blog, Gordon MacDonald writes a gentle post about Anne Rice, her denunciation of 'Christianity', and about other people who have left the faith for various reason.   He begins in this way: 

Best selling author Anne Rice has quit Christianity. She is not quitting on Jesus Christ or the Bible, she says, but she is quitting organized Christianity.  Ms. Rice announced her quit-decision not through a resignation letter (where would one send it?) but through her website and TV interviews.

Anne Rice’s decision to go public with her decision is not the only way people quit Christianity. Some do it quietly, gradually dropping out of the programmatic activities of religious institutions and out of personal contact with people whose devotion to the faith seems solid. One day someone notices an empty seat in the sanctuary and says, “I haven’t seen Bob (or Jennifer) around for a while. Wonder what’s happened to him (or her)?”

He goes on to discuss what's behind people leaving the church, the faith, (and sometimes everything else in their lives too).   He seems to be looking at the same question as Amy Hollywood: can you have faith in Christ apart from His Church?  

Martyrs by default?

Karen Woo, 36, a surgeon from London, was with a group of eight foreign nationals working with the Christian charity International Assistance Mission (IAM) when they were ambushed by men carrying assault rifles in a forested area of Badakhshan province. Friends had expressed concern about the dangers Woo faced in Afghanistan, but she had assured them that she would take care of herself as "the world could not afford to lose any more heroes".  

In all ten people were executed.  The Taliban claimed responsibility for the murders, saying the group had been trying to convert Afghans to Christianity, but local police said they believed thieves were to blame.

Woo was due to get married to a soldier she had met in Kabul.  

IAM has worked in Afghanistan since 1966. They have about 500 Afghan colleagues and 50 international colleagues. Until last Thursday, none of their Afghan colleagues had ever been killed while on duty with IAM.  However, in those 44 years, they have lost four international staff members. One woman was shot and killed in 1971 while she and her colleagues were having a picnic at Qarghah Lake.  In the mid 70s, an engineer was killed in a strange car accident.  In 1980, a Finnish couple were brutally murdered during a robbery at their home.

IAM is a Christian organization – they have never hidden this, and are registered as such with the Afghan government.  The  faith of those involved motivates and inspires them, but because they wish to abide by the laws of Afghanistan, they don't proselytize.

An update on this story has been reported by the Guardian. 

Being Christian in the South Pacific....and more!

2010 Conference - Being Christian in the South Pacific: Kiwi Christian Practice
Pastoral/Practical Theology in Aotearoa New Zealand
Monday and Tuesday, November 8 and 9
Monday, 9:30 to 5:00
Tuesday, 9:30 to 3:30

Location: Knox Centre Seminar Room, Hewitson Wing, Knox College
Arden Street, off Opoho Road, Dunedin

Cost: $10 donation to cover morning and afternoon tea/coffee/biscuits
Optional group dinner on Monday night at a local restaurant

Pastoral/practical theology stands at the intersection of Christian ministry and academic research. In pastoral/practical theology, we critically examine the practices of Christian ministry using theological and historical analysis as well as humanities and social science research methods.

Please forward this email to anyone who you think would enjoy this conference. Please consider proposing a paper, and please encourage post-graduate students to think about offering a paper. If you wish to register for the conference, please email Mary Somerville with your contact information: msomer@orcon.net.nz

Looking forward to seeing you in Dunedin,

Lynne Baab, Jacky Sewell, Anne Thomson, Chris Lee, and Mary Somerville -Steering Committee


Call for Papers
Pastoral/Practical Theology in Aotearoa New Zealand, 2010 Conference

We are seeking presentations that address a wide variety of topics related to congregational life in Aotearoa. We hope that graduates and current students of MMin, MTheol, DMin and PhD programs who studied topics related to congregations will consider presenting a summary of their research or one aspect of their research.

We are seeking papers for 20 and 40 minute slots. In a 20 minute slot, please plan on speaking for 15 minutes and allow five minutes for discussion. In a 40 minute slot, please plan on a 30 minute presentation and 10 minutes for discussion.

As a rule of thumb, you talk at about 100 words a minute, so a 15 minute paper (in a 20 minute slot) should equate to roughly 1,500 words, and a 30 minute paper (in a 40 minute slot) to about 3,000 words.

In submitting a proposed paper, please,
• indicate what sort of time slot you are applying for, remembering that most of us suffer from the occupational hazard of nearly always saying more than we think we’re going to.
• include a 50-100 word abstract of the proposed paper.

These should be sent to Lynne Baab at lynne.baab@otago.ac.nz, or if necessary by post to her at the Department of Theology and Religious Studies, University of Otago, PO Box 56, Dunedin, and should be received by July 30.

I Sold My Soul on eBay – viewing faith through an atheist’s eyes

Hemant Mehta became a self-proclaimed atheist at the age of fourteen, after rejecting his family’s belief in Jainism, an ancient Indian religion that prescribes a path of non-violence towards all living beings. Focusing on reason, he decided that he could be just as moral as the next man in spite of having no belief in God, or gods.

Nevertheless, Mehta has remained a man who thinks a good deal about religion and spirituality. Still only in his twenties, he continues to think seriously about truth.

In 2006 he hit upon a novel way of testing out religious belief. He offered himself as a prize on eBay: he would visit any church, temple, mosque or other religious building for an hour each week for every $10 he received in his auction. To his surprise he became something of a celebrity, and his auction finally closed at just over $500.

The person who ‘bought’ Mehta, Jim Henderson, was a Christian minister who suggested that rather than go to the same church every Sunday for the next year, he could go as a kind of ‘secret shopper’ to some 15 churches in the surrounding region. He would fill out a report and write about his visits on Henderson’s website.

Henderson wasn’t out to convert Mehta; in fact, he often paid people to visit his own church to see how, from an outsider’s point of view, things could be improved for those curious enough to attend. Mehta went to small, large and mega churches. He was invited to spend one weekend discussing his point of view with another minister in a large evangelical church. And ultimately he wrote this book which is published by a Christian publishing house.

Unlike many of the ‘new atheists’ who write vitriolic diatribes against Christianity, Mehta is fair: critical where necessary, praising frequently. He puzzles over Christians who come to church late seemingly in order to miss the music; he expresses hurt that many Christians have a them/us mentality; he sees many rituals as pointless mostly because those doing them don’t seem to have any heart for them; he finds it strange that there doesn’t seem to be a way of asking questions after the service in order to clarify issues.

He meets more than a few ministers who impress him greatly with their preaching, or in face-to-face encounters.

Throughout he maintains an evenness of tone, carefully avoiding mention of the darker side of atheism (the Dawkins, Hitchens, Sam Harris school, for example); the innumerable atheist blogs that mock Christianity; the secularist and often amoral attitude that prevails in many countries (perhaps not so much in North America). He’s an atheist with good morals, a sense of social justice, and a concern for those worse off than he is. But by promoting reason and science as his guiding lights, he downplays the possibilities of faith.

The section of the book that I found most interesting is where he discusses in some detail his visits to the various churches. His insight in these chapters is clear and sharp. In other parts of the book there’s an occasional naiveté not so much about what he’s seen, but about life in general. It’s a young man’s book; it would be interesting to see how he viewed some things in another decade or two. He blogs at friendlyatheist.com
Published by Waterbrook Press 2007 NZ price $27.99

Crouch Touch Pause Engage

Crouch Touch Pause Engage?

What in the world is this? The title of some new martial arts movie? Nope, it's the Christian Sports Network (CSN) strategy to help the church in New Zealand take advantage of the World Cup. (I have to admit I wouldn't notice if the World Cup never happened, but I know I'm in the minority here.) I didn't even know there was a Christian Sports Network in New Zealand (or anywhere else for that matter), nor that they have big plans for the people - players and fans alike - who'll be visiting NZ in 2011.

Nor did I know that there were now twelve trained sports chaplains in New Zealand - Australia has 200 and says it could do with 2000. Unfortunately the CSN site is very much out of date: on its home page it's advertising something that was happening in 2008, its news stories all date from 2007, and its one article on a Christian sportsman dates from 2006. Time for a bit of an overhaul, CSN, I think!

It may be that the people running CSN are more interested in getting on with the job at ground level rather than running a website, so it's good that the Vision Network people (who are partnered with them) have done some promoting for them (see the first link above). You'll find more information there.

Photo by digiarnie

Unemployment in NZ

In the latest Vulnerability Report from the NZ Council of Christian Social Services shows that the current unemployment rate is 7.3%.

This is even more alarming when it’s broken down into who is most affected: youth, Maori and Pacific peoples and benefit dependent households are bearing the brunt.

The unemployment rate for youth aged 15-19 years is a staggering 23% and the unemployment rate for Maori aged between 15-24 years is nearly 26%.

Also of concern is the longer term impact of financial deprivation on our youngest citizens. A wealth of research indicates that now is the time to build up investment in our children and young people.

The Report covers a great deal more material in its seven pages, and is well worth reading for anyone who wants to know what's happening to the poor and disadvantaged in our society.

The joys of denominationalism

All the Christian denominations were having a big ecumenical meeting in a church. Suddenly, lightning struck and the church caught on fire!

* The Methodists gathered in a corner and prayed for the fire to go out.
* The Baptists gathered in a different corner and prayed for rain.
* The Quakers gathered for silent meditation on the many benefits of fire.
* The Lutherans nailed a list of the ninety-five evils of fire to the church door.
* The Catholics passed the collection plate a second and third time to pay for the damage.
* The Episcopalians gathered up their incense and formed a dignified processional out the door.
* The Fundamentalists declared that the fire was God’s just wrath on everybody else.
* The Presbyterians elected a chairperson to appoint a committee to study the problem.
* And the United Church people shouted “Everyone for themselves!” and ran for the doors.

Found on Ralph Milton's ezine, Rumours, which has just announced that it's going to be producing its final edition at Easter.

Leaders keeping on learning

In the book, Supervision in the Helping Professions, the authors discuss the need to continue to learn and flourish in your work environment. Since this relates to National Mission's ongoing concern for the health of ministers and leaders in the church, I thought I'd add here a couple of lists they include in their chapter on the topic (notes in brackets are mine).

Firstly, in relation to being effective at work:

1. Be in love with learning. Stay at your learning edge and have a learning project.

2. Be clear about your learning style and keep expanding it. [Knowing your learning style helps you be sure that you're learning at your own pace, not at the pace of others.]

3. Attend to your emotional well-being.

4. Increase your capacity to relate to and engage with others. [They suggest going outside your comfort zone of people you relate to easily.]

5. Attend to your physical well-being - diet, exercise, sleep, breaks. [Days off!]

6. Have a personal or spiritual practice. [For Christian leaders, this means not neglecting those spiritual disciplines - they're often one of the first things to fall off this sort of a list.]

7. Find a group of good co-learners/fellow travellers. [People who encourage you - people who can mentor you.]

The second list will appear in a separate post.