Scathing remarks

This is a copy of a post I put on my own blog, this morning, but it's mention of 'missional' makes it relevant for this blog as well. 

A friend of mine, Lynne Baab, has recently brought out a new book entitled, Joy Together: Spiritual Practices for Your Congregation.  The focus is on ways to use the well-known spiritual disciplines or practices of the Christian church in groups, or even with full congregations.

This is an interesting take on the disciplines, which have certainly been used communally at many times in their history, and it's good that Lynne has brought them back into focus in this way again.  I haven't finished the book yet, though I'm getting close, but I just wanted to make a comment on the section I was reading this morning, which is about Hospitality.  Some might not regard hospitality as a Christian discipline, any more than they might consider the first item on Lynne's list, Gratitude, to be one.   Be that as it may, both are in the book, and both need discussing in terms of our Christian lives.  (This is not to say that people of other religions, or those who don't believe in any god at all, are never grateful or hospitable.  The focus of the book is on these things from a Christian point of view.)

One thing struck me this morning in the section on hospitality.  It came out of this passage on pages 124-5.

Holding a coffee hour before or after a worship service provides perhaps the most basic opportunity for hospitality.  Recently my students engaged in a spirited online discussion about the role of coffee hour in a missional focus for a congregation.  They had scathing remarks for the poor-quality coffee and cookies that are so often offered at coffee hour.  Several of them said that we talk in Christian circles about Jesus' abundant welcome, and then we provide mediocre food and drink at coffee hour, a cognitive dissonance that does not exactly welcome the stranger. 

I stopped reading at this point.  Now, Jesus certainly talks about abundance, but while he was on earth I don't think there was any point in the many meals he shared with other people when he stopped and said, Look, I can't drink this coffee, or eat these cookies (biscuits, depending on the translation).  It's substandard.  I'm the King of Kings, for goodness' sake.  Are you seriously giving me coffee that tastes like dishwater and cookies that look as though one of the kids threw them together while they were playing on their iPhone?

My sense is that Jesus wouldn't have fussed about it.  Like Paul, he would have said, I don't speak from want, because I've learned to be content in all sorts of circumstances.  I know how to drink mediocre coffee and crummy biscuits, and I also know how to drink my skim cappuccino freddo and eat my caramel crunch slice; in any and every circumstance I have learned the secret of being filled and going hungry, both of having abundance and suffering need.

I think it was the mention of 'scathing remarks' that really struck me in the students discussion.  There's an element of arrogance here, a middle-class tone that says that proper coffee is more important than hospitality.  For me the cognitive dissonance comes between the students' attitude and the apparent lack of humility.  Surely the coffee and biscuits are merely a means to an end, and that is to relate to the people who might come to the coffee hour.  Perhaps you can agree together that the coffee isn't anything to write home about, and then get onto the more important topic of who that person is that's decided to grace your coffee hour by drinking your mediocre coffee and tired biscuits.  

Update from Christchurch

An update from Martin Stewart on some of the ongoing mission work in ChCh, post-earthquake...

It is a real pain all this shaking – I really feel for those poor people out east with any hope they might have had of something being closer to normal being erased this week. While the quakes themselves weren’t as bad insofar as the devastating trampoline effect in February (esp the lives lost) in other ways they are more demoralising, especially with winter upon us. There is widespread anger now – wanting some resolution over what will happen with their land and property, but anger at the sense that there may not be any end to this in the medium term. It is scary, hard on the nerves, massively inconvenient, and hugely disheartening.

I do a bit of chaplaincy at a university hostel (well I try – it is hard to get there these days) – I was talking to some students last night who are quite fed up. They have missed crucial parts of their semester but also they are in exam mode with exams postponed and squeezed into a very tight timeframe but also their ability to concentrate in any extended way is very difficult. Some are seriously contemplating transferring elsewhere for next year. I cannot blame them, but it will have devastating consequences for ChCh and the University of Canterbury who are quite worried about their ability to attract new students for 2012 as it is.

The Presbyterians have had fewer problems in this week’s round of shocks – a disused church to be demolished is now demolished (quite convenient as it had historic places issues), another two congregations that were uncertain about whether their buildings could be repaired are clearer now about having to move on from them, and one minister is probably going to have to move from his damaged house.

My little project of having people from St Stephen’s, St Giles, and St Mark’s delivering $200 supermarket vouchers to the homes of people in the Avonside/Dallington area is chugging along nicely. My target of raising $50,000 is now up to $33,000 thanks to two large donations from a Wellington trust and an Auckland parish, along with quite a few $1000 donations from supportive folk. Once I get the $50,000 I will be approaching several supermarkets on this side of the city to buy the vouchers and invite them to match us dollar for dollar.

St Stephen’s is handling this project for the three parishes – we even have a dedicated account:
contact Martin for details of this account: martin@ststephens.co.nz

Bullying and Religion

The GetReligion site is one I've only recently hooked up with; they analyse news reports that have a religious content, and see whether the reporters are really doing their job when it comes to the religious aspect. Their goal is to improve the state of religious reporting, whether it be from secular or religious sources.

Recently there was an article about bullying in schools (American schools, but I suspect some of the issues may be relevant to New Zealand). The analysis is interesting not only in its attempt to get at the facts, but also in terms of just how vast a problem bullying now is, along with it being one of the reasons why a number of students commit suicide.

We've looked at bullying and suicides on a number of occasions in this blog because they impinge on the areas of concern we have as bloggists. The blog post Bobby Ross Jr on the GetReligion site has posted is entitled 'Bullying Gays in God's Name', so it extends the concerns still wider.

At the end of the piece, Ross echoes a question another reporter asks: How do parents and schools protect vulnerable kids without turning schools into a battleground for the culture wars? It's a question we need to keep asking here in New Zealand.

The Way Forward

Aaron Thompson, who works with Student Life at Otago University, has just published an eight-page essay on alcohol and the Gen Y students who are now attending the University. The essay, called The Way Forward, is full of commonsense (something Aaron says most students lack, and which is part of the problem) and offers some well-thought out solutions. Here's a sample from early in the essay.

The day and age has come where old‐fashioned common sense just does not exist en masse, in a self‐evident fashion. Whilst our little country has been buying and trading, sunbathing and fishing, boy racing or tending roses... a gradual but certain paradigm shift has occurred in our youth. The excess of a decade of wealth production combined with the political correctness of our time have resulted in a crop of spoilt brats, who are entitled to what was promised them: whatever they want!

And now who are we to deny them such rights: to dance in the streets, to drink irresponsibly, to throw bottles, to destroy property? After all, it’s everyone’s right‐ the greatest value of Generation Y‐ to have fun. It is hardly surprising that a university that has promoted itself as the place to “get over it” should now find itself in such a predicament.

“Get over it” is the perfect slogan for today’s youth. It meets them where they’re at. Whatever marketing company harnessed the phrase is nothing short of brilliant, because this slogan met a generational desire with 100% accuracy. But there are always two edges to every sword, and in earlier years the slogan earned us student numbers. The now emerging downside is that for such students and such a culture, the same phrase is has conveniently become the stock excuse of a culture out of control. “You don’t like my behaviour – get over it!”

Read the complete essay here. By the way, this essay doesn't just apply to youth drinking in Dunedin; it's relevant way beyond our borders.

What does it all mean?

If you think we post too much about the Internet, Facebook, Twittering and the like on here, then check out this video. It asks at the end, What Does it All Mean?, but unhelpfully doesn't give an answer - of any sort.

It's primarily a batch of stats about the pace of life, the advancement of technology, the way in which the world has changed. The information is varied, and covers things like how many babies were born while the nearly five minutes of video plays through; about the fact that people growing up now are being prepared for jobs that don't even exist yet; that so much technological change happens every year that technology students can never keep up; that the amount of information engendered every day is more than happened over the last 5,000 years...and so on. You get the drift.

Not knowing what it means, or even knowing, it's still an interesting video (!)

Student Debt

Some stats regarding student debt in New Zealand:

As at June 2008, the total student debt is $9.53 billion. (Yup, billion.)

530, 289 people have student loans of varying sizes.

The average student debt is $16,129 - but nearly 1400 people owed over $100,000, and a small number (20) owe over $200,000.

Nearly 20% of debtors are in arrears. That's some $207.1 million that's overdue.

Of these 20% (around 105,000 people) 33,000 are overseas, and their overdue repayments total some $64.4 million. Let's hope they come home!

Māori youth health and wellbeing improves

But there are still concerns.
Results from a 2007 study on youth in NZ, 2007, show that Māori secondary school students are happier and are less likely to drink alcohol, smoke cigarettes and use marijuana compared to Māori students in 2001.
However, Māori students are more likely to experience socio-economic hardship, be exposed to violence and have higher health needs like being overweight and experiencing emotional health concerns than their Pakeha peers.
Māori students have more health issues but are also more likely to experience difficulty accessing health services when they when they need them.
Nevertheless, Māori students report many strengths and assets. Almost all report being proud to be Māori, and over one-third speak and understand te reo Māori. Most Māori students say they want to stay at school till year 13 (form 7), and almost 90% of Māori students said that their parents care about them very much.

These are significant steps forward. If the coming generation of Māori can lift the status of their people in New Zealand, the next twenty years will hopefully be brighter. For the full media release, click here.