More thoughts from Epic Fail

The following paragraphs were written by one of the participants at the Epic Fail Conference. J R Briggs was given permission to include them in his blog, so I'm hoping that the writer of these words is happy to have them disseminated further on the Net.

Anyone who has ever read through the book of Acts has felt a tension between the words on the biblical pages and the state of the current church. There is a glaring hole between them and us. Miracles, revival, and community were the normative. There is a culture of “God-movement” that defines the early followers of Jesus. As a Jesus follower, the thing that strikes me most is the deep connection that existed among this community. A community that is often described as the Acts 2 church.

I want Acts 2 community, in a bad kind of way. I have read many books, listened to many lectures, taught often, and even written about the pursuit of community – yet it remains slippery and seemingly just out of reach. This past weekend I heard a brother make a profound statement that has reminded me of of a great truth. Ready?. Acts 2 is preceded by Acts 1. Selah.

Simple, yet profound. Acts 1 is about the people of God, longing for the presence of God, waiting on the promise of God. They prayed, and God came in power. Power that manifested itself in witness to the Resurrection of Jesus and the birth of a community. Acts 1 is about impregnation – being filled with life. This naturally leads to Acts 2 lifestyles. Why? Life begets life. The Spirit produces a community that is united, not the other way around. The point – If you want to be an Acts 2 church, you must become an Acts 1 church first.

The opening video to the Conference is here:

How we started the conference from Epic Fail Pastors Conference on Vimeo.

Faithfulness

The Biblical fact is that there are no successful churches. There are, instead, communities of sinners, gathered before God week after week in towns and villages all over the world. The Holy Spirit gathers them and does his work in them. In these communities of sinners, one of the sinners is called pastor and given a designated responsibility in the community. The pastor's responsibility is to keep the community attentive to God. it is this responsibility that is being abandoned in spades.
Eugene Peterson, from Working the Angles.

I found this quote on a site called Epic Fail Pastors Conference. It's one of several quotes sliding past on the front page of the site. This Conference is aimed at those ministers who are sick of the kind of conferences that feature air-brushed guys who've been to the gym a lot and who run mega-churches that don't know the meaning of the word 'failure.' I suspect it could be very 'successful.'

The Out of Ur blog offers some of the thinking behind the Conference:

-What if we offered a space that is gutsy, hopeful, courageously vulnerable for pastors to let go of the burden to be a Super Pastor?

-What if we could hold an event that was free from the thrills and frills of other pastors conferences?

-What if we came together as epic failures and sought not successful models or how-do’s but instead celebrated faithfulness in ministry because of the reality of Jesus?

-What if we were reminded that we’re not responsible for being ‘successful’ in ministry, but we are responsible for being faithful to the calling that God has laid out for us – regardless of the outcome?

-What if we had a conference that was not led not by famous pastors who are household names, but by scandalously ordinary ministers and leaders who are faithfully attempting to join with God – even in the midst of glaring obscurity and anonymity?

Sounds like the type of conference that many Kiwi pastors could do with attending. Note the key word in the 'thinking': faithfulness.

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I have to include one of the comments from the Out of Ur site in relation to this post:

Hi, I'm Jarrod and I'm a failed pastor.

(Everyone: "Hi, Jarrod.")

I'm a recovering megachurch staffer. But it's been 67 days since I attended my last "How you can do what I did" conference, and I've been reading Jean Vanier every day since.

(Applause.)

I can't wait to see what I will learn at the Epic Failure gathering. Maybe I'll find a sponsor.

There are several other equally good comments...check them out!

Poster by Sean MacEntee

Clearing the Air

Clearing the Air - Fri 16-Sat 17 July, 2010.

What does the Church have to say to government, society, and itself – if anything – on the topic of climate change? The failure to reach any agreement at the recent Copenhagen conference is regarded as a triumph by some and a tragedy by others.

This forum – convened by Glyn Carpenter, National Director, NZ Christian Network, visionnetwork, and Associate Professor Jonathan Leaver, Unitec Institute of Technology – will bring together both groups, and look to produce a consensus-based position statement.

Topics will include (a) epistemology, (b) creation mandate, (c) what position can be reasonably supported by the science, and (d) what can and should we do? The forum is designed primarily for church and public issues leaders, but places are available for students and others to hear a great line up of speakers.

The forum is designed primarily for church and public issues leaders, but places are available for students and others to hear a great line up of speakers, including:
• Professor Ralph Sims, Director, Centre for Energy Research, Massey University
• Dr James Renwick, Principal climate scientist, NIWA
• Ian Wishart, Editor, Investigate magazine, Author: "Air Con"
• Prof Jonathan Boston, Director of the Institute of Policy Studies, Victoria University
• Barry Brills, President, NZ Climate Science Coalition
• Dr Andy Reisinger, Senior Research Fellow, NZ Climate Change Research Institute, Victoria University
• Ken Harrison, Chairman National Church Leaders group, National Superintendant Assemblies of God in New Zealand
• Archbishop David Moxon, Anglican Church in Aotearoa, New Zealand, and Polynesia
• Stephen Tollestrup, Executive Director, Tear Fund

Though Matt Flanagan's name isn't in the list above, he's the opening speaker of the conference.

Christ in the Workplace Conference

‘Christ in the Workplace’ is a conference where people from all professions and disciplines, at every career stage, can come together to consider the gospel’s impact upon their work and lives.

It will take place from the 3rd to the 5th Sept, 2010 at Laidlaw College in Auckland. Speakers include Nigel Pollock and Andrew Thorburn, and there will be workshops taken by Peter Shaukat, Ben Carswell, Roshan Allpress and Andrew Shamy.

Nigel Pollock is the current National Director of TSCF. Andrew Thorburn is the CEO of the BNZ.

The workshops will include how to Develop a Mission Orientation in Business, and, Growing our Witness in the Workplace.

Check out the promotional brochure for more information on other speakers and 'tracks.'

• Café Connect—offers a great opportunity to foster the formation of groups and networks within your profession.
• Tracks—put you in direct contact with colleagues gathered from around New Zealand.
• Optional workshops—all are intended to invigorate the broader conversation.

You can Register Now.

Tweeting from Edinburgh

Some tweets from the Edinburgh 2010 Mission Conference, which has been taking place over the last couple of days or so. These are rather randomly listed - I copied the ones that most interested me....

First some stats:
In 1910, 80% of Christians lived in countries of at least 90% Christians. In 2010, 33% of Christians live in 90%-Christian countries – from Edinburgh 2010.

Across all faiths, the world is “less religious” in 2010 than 1910 - and yet, the world in 2010 is more religious than it was in 1970.

In 2010 about 27% of all Christians are "Renewalists": Pentecostal, Charismatic, Neo-Charismatic - Todd Johnson's report is context for...?

In 1910, 66% of all Christians were European, with an additional 15% from N America; in 2010, 25% in Europe, 12.5% in N America.

86% of Muslims, Hindus, & Buddhists do not personally know a Christian. This lack of interfaith *friendship* is a crisis in mission.

These statistics mentioned by Todd Johnson for #th2 are from the Atlas of Global Christianity project.

And some pithy statements, some of which take a bit of unravelling:

Fr. Jan Lenssen: Real, radical "communities of hospitality" make more of a difference than sheer numbers of Christians.

1910’s urgency to conquer diversity has paradigm-shifted into 2010’s reluctance to smother diversity..

In order to reach people in contexts of secularism and pluralism, witness must embrace religious tolerance rather than confront it.

*Understanding* other faiths is a priority, before either dialogue or evangelism: there is a place for the Qur'an in Sunday school...[This one struck me as adding more complications - Sunday School often seems to struggle to teach Christianity, let alone the Qur'an!]

priority: Inter-generational dialogue. Dialogue between "native speakers" of modernity and "native speakers" of postmodernity.

priority: Deepening our understanding of God's mission, rather than inventing and carrying out our own.

The secular world also adds to our discourse – it helps us “discern the spirits”. Indeed, we cannot uncritically affirm religion..

Rev Roderick Hewitt from the United Church of Jamaica talks to participants about child resiliency & building ‘youth friendly’ churches. [This should please NZ's Presbyterians, who have a Kids Friendly programme in place, and running very successfully.]

Our plurality today - diverse cultural, theological, ecclesial flourishing - is a sign of hope and vitality, not lack of direction...

"How can we possibly claim to be a credible witness community if we are still far from practicing equality, charity, etc, in our lives?”

How easy it is to be confused or dismayed when what we see in the world does not match our learned categories of understanding!

Forget the Big Events

In a blog post called No more big events, Seth Godin does one of his provocative statements and says that we should now be able to avoid the following - for example:

• The annual review
• The annual sales conference
• The big product launch
• The grand opening of a new branch
• Drop dead one-shot negotiation events

He says the reason we should now avoid them (perhaps we should always have avoided them) is that they just don't work. They don't work because "big events leave little room for iteration, for trial and error, for earning rapport. And the biggest reason: frequent cheap communication is easier than ever, and if you use it, you'll discover that the process creates far more gains than events ever can."

Hmmm...worth thinking about in terms of anything you attend at the moment?

STAANZ Conference Starts Next Week

We mentioned the STAANZ Conference some while back when it was still in its planning stages. It's now ready to roll and takes place next week on the 19th and 20th (November).

There will be a small charge of between $10 and $15 to cover the cost of the hall (not quite sure why that's still ambiguous) and the venue is the Ponsonby Baptist Church at 43 Jervois Rd in Auckland. There is also morning prayer at All Saints in Ponsonby - this is just around the corner at 284 Ponsonby Rd, and starts at 8 am.

The Conference starts each day at 9.00 am, and will go till around 5.30 in the afternoon. On the Thursday night there will be dinner at various local restaurants.

Here's a list of the participants and their topics:
Day 1 -
“Holy Spirit in the theology of Walter Kasper” – Hugh Bowron
“Backgrounding Walter Kasper’s Early Thought”—John Dunn
“Wandering between two worlds: 19th Century Reflections on Hope and Hell” - Carolyn Kelly
“Completing Barth? Helmut Thielicke in the Spirit” – Martin Sutherland
“The Spirit and Longing” --Judith Brown
"Conscious Awareness of the Spirit in Symeon the New Theologian" –Jim McInnes
“Searching for Embers” –Susan Adams & John Salmon

Day 2 -
“Abortion, Harm and Eschatology” –Matt Flannagan
“Infant Salvation: Is God’s Mercy Enough?” - Myk Habets
“Participatory Glory : The Eschatological Direction of Karl Barth's Theology of the Cross”—Rosalene Bradbury
“Time’s Redemption, a pneumatologically orientated Christology”– Bryden Black
“Filioque, Personhood and Ecclesiology” –Scott Kirkland

It looks as though a couple more speakers are yet to be announced, or maybe some time has been left for questions.

If you'd like any more specific detail, please contact me on missionadmin@maxnet.co.nz

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.

Leading with a Limp

One of the books that Steve Graham focused on in his talks to the South Island Pastors' Conference was Dan Allender's book, Leading with a Limp, which came out in 2006. The book looks at the fact that many leaders have suffered, or need to suffer, brokenness, before they can lead others: 'we achieve leadership by falling off our throne.'
The book deals with five areas: crisis, complexity, betrayal, loneliness and weariness. All of which should sound familiar to most leaders!
The issue is how we deal with these areas, whether with a typically ineffective response or by finding options to bring about an effective solution. In each case Allender shows that a leader can either fall into an ineffective area, or tip over into one that leads to a positive outcome. For example, with the area of crisis, the leader can either drop into cowardice, or into courage. With the latter he can then move on into confidence in God that whatever he or she is doing it no longer needs to impress others.
That last paragraph doesn't by any means do justice to the way Allender treats the topic (or the way Steve re-presented it), but it may just give you a taster.
Here are some comments about the book:
“There are good books on leadership, but this one is profound. It is better than a ‘how to do it’ book; this is a ‘how to be it’ book for leaders. Dan Allender offers serious wisdom rather than simple platitudes.”
–Mark Sanborn
“After reading this book, the first two words out of my mouth were ‘At last!’ Amid a deluge of spiritual gifts inventories, at last there is someone who understands how God’s strength is made perfect in our imperfections. At last someone has brought spiritual strengths and spiritual weaknesses into conversation. For Dan Allender, the limp is a limpid way of walking that leads into the very presence of God.”
–Leonard Sweet
“Leading with a Limp is not your basic, cafeteria-brand manual on how to ‘do’ leadership. It is a call to openly face your shortcomings as a leader. Dan Allender reminds us that our greatest asset as leaders is not our competence but the courage to name and deal with our frailties and imperfections.”
–Dr. Crawford W. Loritts, Jr