Older people at work

The graph above comes from the Department of Labour's fact sheet on older workers in the NZ labour market. Apart from the fact that the first box should read working-age population 55 years and older (and not 15 years and older) this is an interesting graph to ponder on when you're thinking about church and older people. (As I always seem to be doing - must be something to do with now being a superannuitant!)

Notice that there's a good percentage of people in the work force compared to those out of it, but that within those who are employable or wanting to be employed, only 2.8% are out of work. By contrast, have a look at the youth graph.


There are about three times as many youth in the 15-19 age bracket, yet there are ten times as many unemployed. This presumably isn't counting those who are studying or at school - it's those who want to be employed and are not.

What questions does this raise in terms of church? Does it say that older workers won't be as readily available to do volunteer work? Does it say there's a big need for youth programmes that assist them into employment. How can the church help? What other questions does it ask?

Countering leadership assumptions

In a review of the book, Switch: How to Change Things When Change is Hard by Chip Heath and Dan Heath, Angie Ward notes that : the authors discovered three surprises about change that run counter to common ministry leadership assumptions.

Surprise #1: What looks like a people problem is often a situation problem. Perhaps the problem is not with the people in your congregation, but with the systems that reinforce their behaviours. What are you doing to enable the very behavior you are trying to change?

Surprise #2: What looks like laziness is often exhaustion. If new behaviours are too taxing, they stand little chance of developing into habits. Are you asking too much at once?

Surprise #3: What looks like resistance is often lack of clarity. Often change doesn't happen because people aren't given crystal-clear direction. Do you really know where you're going, and do the people in your ministry know the next personal step to get there?

Essential reading from Richard Floyd

There's a superb blog post on Richard Floyd's blog, A Retired Pastor Ruminates, called, The Ministry and its Discontents: pastors in peril.

I've mentioned 'bullying, abusive congregations' on this blog before; Floyd has these in mind, but only partly. What his main concern is that where a church conducts a review of a pastor and doesn't conduct a review of itself, it's heading down a dangerous track. Early in the piece he writes:

...pastors in peril are nothing new, but I have been noticing a discouraging pattern in my newsletter reading lately. And I must interject here that I have known lazy and incompetent ministers, and others who were just in over their heads, but that is not what I am talking about here. Several of my friends who are smart, wise, bright, hard-working and faithful have suddenly found themselves in peril.

Typically it starts with some sort of a parish self-study or pastoral assessment. That should be harmless enough, right? Who can be against transparency and accountability? But my heart sinks when I read in the newsletter about the formation of such a group, because sure enough, when the results come in there are “concerns” about the pastor, and a special committee is created to “address the concerns.” The newsletters typically report such grave findings in a kind of code, but you don’t have to be a genius to read between the lines.

Floyd is a man of considerable experience, and he's obviously been through the tough times (as some of his other blog posts have noted). Here he writes in an almost elder statesman style, as one who views the difficulties from the vantage point of acquired wisdom.

This blog post is essential reading.

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!

Theology of self-care

Roy Oswald's book, Clergy Self-Care, begins by looking at the theology of health/wellness. A colleague provided the following notes in relation to this section of the book:

• God is omnipotent and omnipresent, ministers are not!

• God in Christ has done all that is necessary to redeem the world. Ministers do not need to save the world again.

• Mission and ministry belong to whole Body of Christ; a communal activity. Ministry does not belong solely to the Minister.

• Ministry should be a response to an experience of the grace of God. However motives can become distorted and ministry can flow from guilt or the seeking of personal fulfillment.

• Ministers are created beings, and with all humanity have limitations and weaknesses.

• Human beings are responsible for the stewardship of God’s world and themselves.

• God has given a model of self-care in observing the sacred rhythm of work and rest, the Sabbath. Jesus provides a model of doing ministry and taking care of himself; a balance of work and rest.

• Ministers need to learn that to be a person of compassion; we must not to be strung out with every human need that comes along.

• The biblical view of human beings is that the body, heart, soul and mind are all interconnected, parts of our whole being.

Missional approach, and on not 'going' to Church

Brad Brisco offers nine points on Moving in a Missional Direction in the latest Next-Wave ezine.

1. Start with spiritual formation
2. Cultivate a missional leadership approach
3. Emphasize the priesthood of all believers
4. Focus attention on the local community
5. Don’t do it alone
6. Create new means of measuring success
7. Search for third places
8. Tap into the power of stories
9. Promote patience

The details relating to these headings can be found in Brisco’s article, and is worth reading alongside Wayne Jacobsen’s Why I Don’t Go To Church Anymore. That article lays out Jacobsen’s reasons for not going to church, but for being Church. Interesting arguments that are worth reflecting on.

You will never see revival in the West until you are willing to use your women

When I attended a Pentecostal church, one of things that struck me most was that they took a 'Scriptural' point of view in relation to women preaching in the church, but a very non-Scriptural point of view when it came to women being missionaries overseas - on their own, without support. In other words, out of sight.

In the latest Next-Wave ezine, there's an article by Felicity Dale entitled Rethinking the Challenging Scriptures. The challenging scriptures in question concern the role(s) of women in the church. The thing that most struck me about this article are the words she quotes from Yonggi Cho, who, in 1983 (when Dale visited him) ran a church of some 350,000 members.

Yonggi Cho said: You will never see revival in the West until you are willing to use your women.

That was 1983. A good number of women in NZ have since managed - often with considerable difficulty - to become priests and ordained ministers in mainline churches. But as a colleague said to me yesterday: the average number of women in a Presbyterian Church congregation is around 70%. The average number of men in the leadership (that is, as ministers or elders) is around 80%.

Don't these figures clash just a little in your mind? Perhaps Yonggi Cho's words say more than we think.

Felicity Dale writes a blog called Simply Church which (among other things) has a focus on women in ministry and the need they have for the support and encouragement of men to achieve their goals.

Digital Rivers Newtown - a short story

The Internet Evangelism Day website has given permission for the following 'short story' to be republished.

It’s not often that a completely new town is built on unused open land. But that’s where Digital Rivers Newtown was constructed, in a previously undiscovered valley. People soon came flooding in to live, moving from surrounding settlements such as Printville and TVtown.

A new ethos of communication quickly developed, with its own dialect. The immigrants took a little time to learn it, but for their children born in Digital Rivers, it was as natural as breathing.

Alongside the new housing came shops. Quite soon, the Broogle store developed into the biggest and most popular on main street. Its biggest competitor, the BingHoo mall, had a smaller share of the market.

Broogle had little interest in selling food and drink, and allocated no space in their building to such a frivolous pursuit. So everyone was pleased when a student started selling coffee and fruit drinks from a coffee cart on the other side of the road. Mike Zuckerbook’s Coffee became wildly popular and he was soon able to rent a new cafe opposite Broogle’s. His unique selling point was the layout of the tables, enabling customers to talk to a wide range of friends over their drinks. Mike was continually extending the cafe floor area to cater for the growth.

Then came developments that shocked Broogle’s owners. Mike started to sell some of the same products that they did, as well as others they had never thought of. No longer did residents merely drop in to Zuckerbook’s for a quick coffee after shopping at Broogle’s. People could often be seen walking down the street towards Broogle’s, notice their friends popping into Zuckerbook’s – or smell the coffee – and quickly cross the road. After an hour or so, they might emerge from Zuckerbook’s and perhaps cross over into Broogle’s for five minutes, if at all.

Digital Rivers was changing fast. Its residents were finding their own new incarnation of the interactive grapevine that has existed within communities for millennia.

This story, of course, references Google and Facebook (Google’s founders were Brin and Page; Mark Zuckerberg started Facebook). The phenomenal rise and rise of Facebook seems set to continue. Perhaps half of all web users will have Facebook profiles within a year, certainly the figure is already near 100% for younger ‘digital’ people.

Increasingly, Facebook is becoming a ‘web within the Web’ – a one-stop resource creating less need to go into the wider web world so frequently. (This is a reflection, in some ways, of the proprietary content that AOL and Compuserve used to offer to their subscribers in the early days of the Web.)

Recent developments by Facebook are enabling more types of third-party content to be integrated into Facebook profiles and fan pages. Expect to see further dramatic developments in this area, making Facebook even more of a one-stop universal resource. The opportunities for FB fan, community pages and groups will continue to expand.

Despite its various quirks, Facebook is now a powerful yet easy opportunity for any web user to share faith online: read how.

Wake-up call in mission

Engagement 21 - A Wake-up Call to the 21st Century Church in Mission, by Bishop Richard Randerson

Engagement 21 challenges the Church to radically review its mission strategy if it seeks to gain traction in today’s world. A mission-focused theology, a deeper understanding of modern society and more effective skills in ministry are central to the task. Based on a survey of 96 clergy and laity in New Zealand and Australia, Engagement 21 reports a widespread grass-roots desire for change. But it also documents 126 creative ministry projects that are signs of a new mission paradigm. Designed for individual or group reading, the book is priced to facilitate local study and mission planning.

Topics include:
• Statistics of church participation rates 1945-2006
• Results of the mission survey with 16 graphs documenting the extent of theological and ministry training, perceptions of parish ministries, chaplaincies and lay vocation, and attitudes re the need for new models of ministry and less institutional focus
• A three-part Biblical study on mission based on the redemption of all Creation
• 126 innovative ministry projects that span the range from spirituality, worship and theological education to community outreach, social justice and environmental stewardship
• Foreword by Bishop Philip Richardson.
Bishop Tom writes:
I warmly commend Bishop Richard Randerson’s book - “Engagement 21”, which is a newly published research work looking at our mission in the community across the country. A number of projects from this diocese feature but taken as a whole it is a comprehensive review of where we are at and is a resource we will all benefit from.

Available either: resource@wn.ang.org.nz or telephone 0800 833 477, or direct from the author: randersonjr@paradise.net.nz – 064 4 976 6050, or from Epworth Books. [These are all New Zealand telephone numbers.]
Prices vary slightly depending on where you order it from.

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

Fatherlessness

From George Barna's research: One out of every three children born in the United States each year is born to an unmarried woman.

In a report entitled, How Externally Focused Churches Minister to Children, there's a section about Omar Reyes (pictured), Community Development Director at NorthWood Church, Keller, TX ;

Omar believes a majority of children aren’t dancing because they lack an important part of God’s design for families: fathers. “Statistics show that most social ills can be traced back to fatherlessness,” says Omar. According to the National Center for Fathering, when fathers are absent, children suffer. Fatherlessness is linked to poverty, high school dropout rates, crime, adolescent drug use and teenage pregnancy. These problems have become systemic as one generation experiences and then passes on the legacy of fatherlessness.

Armed with that information and through studying the Bible, Omar says he began to understand the problem of fatherlessness as a spiritual need as well as a social problem. He learned part of this lesson while preaching in a Belize prison to young black men. “I was preaching to them about the father God and the love of the father. God just stopped me there in the middle of my talk and helped me realize that they did not understand what I was saying about fathers. They did not connect with the message because they did not understand what a father is.” Instead of continuing to preach, Omar asked the young men how many of them knew their fathers and how many had bad experiences with their fathers? “Ninety-five percent raised their hands to bad experiences,” he says.

Omar began to wonder how God can reveal himself when children aren’t exposed to positive
fathering. “What God showed me is that he wants us (Christians) to express the heart of the father to kids.” How can the church take on that kind of role and responsibility? Omar believes it begins very simply. “How do my own kids know that I am their dad? I feed them; I clothe them; I take care of them. The physical aspect of this is very important. I realized that as we provide for the physical need of children, they understand God as father. That will impact them forever,” he says.

Barna agrees. He writes, “Fostering spiritual transformation demands that we do our best to eliminate some of the emotional and behavioral obstacles to growth. If children are consumed by fears and worries regarding safety and capacity, little growth can occur.”

Pauline Stewart on creative kids

The following is extracted from the latest Love Your Neighbour ezine,
Pauline Stewart, minister at St Heliers Bay Presbyterian Church and Community Centre said this in an interview some months ago: “Most of childhood should be joyful preparation for adulthood, but instead we entertain them to the point where they are almost throwing up. Kids really just want to be a part of making something significant happen. Jesus never entertained anyone.”

By giving children opportunities to serve others and through modeling it ourselves, we ensure that others-focused ministry will not just be a wave that passes, but a sustainable movement. When we fail to do so, in the words of George Barna “each generation feels it is re-inventing Christianity”.

Checking back on the interview mentioned above, it's worth quoting a couple of other things Stewart said.

“Lots of programmes let you be creative, but our aim is to help kids produce something of value. Rather than encourage creativity in a vacuum, Stan and I say 'let your ideas explode; but we will help you turn those ideas into something.'

and:

My philosophy is, the church should empty itself in preparing people for the world. We should be preparing people to be the best politicians and the best leaders of this country. Sometimes we think 'I've got to run these programmes so that I can fill up the church' – but you actually have to run these programmes to fill up the world, and then the church looks after itself. I'm totally committed to that journey. I am constantly looking at children to see what they are good at, and I will say to the parent 'he is good at that, you should encourage him'. “

Your Church is Too Small

Your Church Is Too Small: Why Unity in Christ's Mission Is Vital to the Future of the Church, by John H Armstrong.

In Your Church Is Too Small, John Armstrong presents a vision of the unity possible for Christians across social, cultural, racial, and denominational lines. When Jesus' followers seek unity through participation in the kingdom of God and the mission of Christ, they demonstrate God's character to a watching world.

'With attention to his own pilgrimage and growth in ecclesial awareness, John Armstrong explores here the evangelical heart and ecumenical breadth of churchly Christianity. I am encouraged by his explorations and commend this study to all believers who pray and labour for the unity for which our Saviour prayed.' -- Timothy George.

For more detailed reviews, check out the Amazon.com entry for this book.
Published March 2010, Zondervan.

Stepping out of the Shadows

I've realised that lately I've been missing adding books to this blog - they've been going in the monthly ezine (contact me on missionadmin@maxnet.co.nz to opt into this ezine) but not always here. So I'm making amends.

Stepping out of the shadows: Insight into self-stigma and madness, Edited by Dr Debbie Peterson and Sarah Gordon.
Contributors: Dr Debbie Peterson, Mary O'Hagan, Sarah Gordon, Dr Lynne Pere, Anne Helm, Vito Nonumalo, Dr Dean Manley, Ivan Yeo, Sarah O'Connor, Dennis Duerr, Niki Smith, Ruth Jackson and Alex Barnes.

This is a book of articles, essays and personal accounts about the effects of the self-stigma associated with mental illness. It is a moving collection of personal viewpoints and insights interspersed with research findings and linkages on the topic of self-stigma and madness. Of particular note is the Discrimination Intervention Model as presented by Dr Debbie Peterson and Alex Barnes for the first time on a world stage.

Sometimes it is difficult to read - not in being too wordy or academic, but in the way that some of the stories reflect very personal instances of tremendous physical, mental, psychological and spiritual anguish associated with self-stigma and madness. The articles written by Dr Lynne Pere, Vito Nonumalo and Ivan Yeo, offer for the first time material from tangata whaiora/ people with lived experience who are not from the dominant culture in this country. There is also highlighted focus on cultural realities, constructs and perspectives on this kaupapa of the indigenous people of Aotearoa, Pacific/ Samoan and Chinese/ Malaysian people in an in-depth way.

Published by CASE Consulting Ltd 2009. Available direct from Mental Health Organisation NZ (doesn’t appear to be available in general NZ bookshops).

Deep Church

Deep Church: a third way beyond emerging and traditional, by Jim Belcher.

Passionately, articulately and with sometimes winsome self-confidence, Belcher seeks to chart a third way between the often divided factions within the traditional and emerging wings of American evangelicalism. The author, founding pastor of Redeemer Presbyterian Church in Newport Beach, Calif., asserts that it is possible to forge a new ecumenism and unity based in creedal orthodoxy, while also respecting the particularities of denominations and faith communities.

After defining what impels the emerging church movement, he analyzes the seven protests levelled by the movement against traditional churches within the evangelical movement, from being too caught up in the rationalism of the Enlightenment, to overemphasizing doctrinal purity and an unwillingness to engage modern culture. Following that, he responds to each critique with an alternative solution that blends both reform and tradition to create a new body of Christian gospel–centred believers. A caveat: readers who think that mainline Protestantism has anything to contribute to this dialogue will not find any encouragement.

Focused on the internal struggle within the American Christian evangelical wing, Belcher barely mentions this other flank of Christianity. [This last comment – the review is from Publishers’ Weekly - doesn’t necessarily seem to be borne out by those who provide reviews on the Amazon.com page for this book. ]
Published by IVP Sept 2009

Out of the blue

I can't resist passing on this video that Bosco Peters posted on his site. It's worth reading his pseudo-serious commentary on this 'liturgical form' as well.



What's intriguing about this is that the church seems perfectly 'normal' one minute - blokes in suits and ties and jackets - and then goes into explosion mode the next. What brings on that sudden move of the Spirit? It'd be great to see this in some churches in New Zealand - none of the Pentecostal meetings I've ever been to were quite this hilarious (hilarious in the best sense of the word).

And I love the way the singer carries on singing, with laughter in his voice - and the bloke dives into the baptismal pool.

Congregational Websites

A website...is an increasingly strategic tool for congregational communication. One of my sons, who is 30, calls websites “our new front door,” and he says most people in his generation would never consider visiting a place they haven’t read about online. Money spent on website design and maintenance is well spent.

From Lynne Baab - in an article called Electronic Communication and Congregations in the Presbyterian Candour magazine (unfortunately I can't link to it!) Lynne recently finished writing a book on friendship in the Facebook age.

Working harder, faster

The following paragraphs are from an article by Tony Schwartz, entitled, The Productivity Myth

Americans already put in more hours than workers in any country in the world - and that doesn't include the uncounted shadow work that technology makes possible after the regular workday ends.
Here's the bigger point. Just as you'll eventually go broke if you make constant withdrawals from your bank account without offsetting deposits, you will also ultimately burn yourself out if you spend too much energy too continuously at work without sufficient renewal.
Getting more tasks accomplished — say writing and responding to scores of emails in between other activities — may technically represent higher productivity, but it doesn't necessarily mean adding greater value.
Instead, the ethic of more, bigger, faster ultimately generates value that is narrow, shallow and short-term.
When you're running as fast as you can, what you sacrifice is attention to detail, and time to step back, reflect on the big picture, and truly think strategically and long-term.

A lot of what he says applies to.....ministers (!) Yes, there is a need to be available to your congregation, but if you're tired out, lacking concentration and in general working well under par, you may not be much good to them.

It's interesting to read some of the comments to this article - the work ethic is so strong in the American psyche that a number of the commenters find it difficult to agree with much of what Schwartz says.

Daniel Chung

It takes quite a few paragraphs of the Stuff.co.nz story to find this out, but Daniel Chung, who hands out food every Sunday in Latimer Square, Christchurch, , is a Christian. 13 years ago he came to NZ from South Korea, and has worked as a taxi driver for a good deal of that time, not being able to get work here in his field of chemical engineering.

He doesn't make a lot of money, but still spends between $100 and $300 a week on providing food for homeless people in the area. "It is a struggle financially to keep doing it. If possible, if God permitted me, I would do this to the end of my days. It's an eternal job I will do until I leave this world."

His desire to help people came from his mother, who was a pastor in Pusan, South Korea, where he was born. She dedicated her life to helping people with leprosy, and that had a big impact on him, he said.

After feeding the people, he and his family head off to a church service. Seems to me they may have already 'done' church before they leave.

Facing change

When internal and external alignment is lost, the organization faces a choice: either adapt or take the road to slow death. Usually the organization can be renewed, energized, or made effective only if some leader is willing to take some big risks by stepping outside the well-defined boundaries. When this happens, the organization is lured, pushed, or pulled into unknown territory The resulting journey through the unknown is a terrifying experience, with the possibility of failure or death a reality rather than a metaphor.

From the opening chapter of Deep Change: discovering the leader within, by Robert E Quinn.

Does this sound like a church you know?

Sunday Morning

For those who just aren't quite sure how worship should be 'done' on a Sunday morning....

"Sunday's Coming" Movie Trailer from North Point Media on Vimeo.

Bit of a problem.

Just seen on Facebook:

Mark Broadbent: Ok... So here is our problem. We have so many unchurched people currently coming to City Life , that our ratio of MATURE CHRISTIANS to UNCHURCHED is becoming a little hard to handle. Great problem to have. Not easy to solve. Pls pray for our community. Also - If you've been a Christian for any longer than a year, and ur at City Life, please realize that ur now a leader in our community :)

Some denominations may be in 'decline' - Christianity certainly ain't.

Fear.Less

In a recent post Seth Godin points to a new online magazine called Fear.Less. It's well written, has half a dozen interesting contributors from a variety of fields, and can be downloaded, or read on your browser, or printed out. All for free.

The magazine promotes itself this way: fear.less is a free online magazine that empowers people through unique stories of overcoming fear. From entrepreneurs, business leaders, artists and scientists to survivors of extreme experiences, these stories demonstrate the hidden potential we have to confront our fears and come out victorious. Fear.less is our answer to an emergency.

Okay, so why am I mentioning it here, since there's no particular Christian connection in it? Well, firstly in each case the contributors discuss overcoming a fear or failure in their life that could easily have debilitated them for the future. Secondly, it's a biblical principle that fear is something to be overcome, or it will be your master.

Thirdly, it's a prime example of what magazines might look like in the future. I don't think that future is here yet; not quite. Paper magazines are still rampant, even though large numbers of them are losing money, and increasingly they have more ads than content. (fear.less has more content than ads.) Depending on the state of the Internet in the next ten/twenty years, this could be the way magazines go. Far more economical to produce, environmentally more friendly (I think!) and accessible to larger numbers of people - or just to a small group that wants to read about those particular issues.

Check it out. You can read it online in your browser, or download it or.... And it's just as classy-looking as anything you'll find on your newsstands.

Quotes to Remember

David Fitch has written a post of quotes - ones he wants to remember. I've just included the quotes here. For his comments on them you'll have to check out the original post.

David Coffey: “They say the difference between a Hollywood actor and a British actor is – the Hollywood actor will ask, “how will this script be modified to suit my strengths/personality? The British actor will ask, how can I do justice to what the author intended in this script?”

Dallas Willard: “Prayer is a power sharing arrangement for a world of recovering sinners. I’m talking to God about what we’re doing together.” … “in regard to Peter’s denial of Jesus, Jesus is working through a larger system of reality with Peter. He could have stopped him right there – instead he goes and prays for Him.”

N T Wright: “When we de-eschatologize the kingdom – we make it purely about a social ethic: Jesus’ message becomes – go out and hug a peasant now.” [Love that one!]

N T Wright again: “There are many Kingdom churches that don’t know what the cross is about and there are many cross churches which don’t know what the Kingdom is about … the Kingdom and the cross go inextricably together. They cannot be separated from each other.”

A comedian whose name Fitch has forgotten: “Every morning you need to get up, go to the mirror and look at yourself and say three times ‘It’s NOT about me, It’s NOT about me, It’s NOT about me.’ You need to repeat this again and again until you get it thoroughly into your soul. Only at that point then do you need to go back to the same mirror and say ‘It’s about me, It’s about me, It’s about me.’”

Fitch himself: “Because our pastors have been so trained to understand the ministry in terms of their own success, we have thousands of them who are either manic-depressive or egomaniacs.”

And himself again: “If you’re not careful (with the attractional ministry approach), you’ll end up looking back after 30 years of ministry realizing the high point of your ministry was that one moment in time when you finally got all 300 people to come to your church and be happy at the same time.”

Facebook growth

Thanks for Bosco Peters for the following information. (Bosco is a great user of the Internet - his Liturgy page recently reached the million-reader mark - which goes to show that it doesn't matter where in the world you live, you can make an impact. Bosco's in Christchurch, and has been Chaplain at Christ's College for as long as I've known him.)

[A fortnight ago] there were 1,248,360 people on Facebook in New Zealand (population about 4,268,900 – ie about 30% of all Kiwis are on Facebook). The proportion is not much different to other first world nations.

Checking a couple of weeks later, there are now 1,375,560 Kiwis on Facebook (32%): 127,200 have joined within the last fortnight! In New Zealand! 10% increase in a fortnight!

You may not think this is as exciting as Bosco does - I'm in agreement with him that it's significant at least - but it does show that Facebook has enormous value for a large number of Kiwis. Yes, many of those who join don't go on to do much with Facebook, but their name and the links they've made to others remains until they finally decide to close down their membership.

God and Suicide

Chris Erdman preached a sermon on the Second Sunday of Lent this year, which focused to a great extent on the suicide of a close friend, Jamie Evans [photo] three days earlier.

The sermon needs to be read in full, but in this post I'd like just to quote three extracts relating to the way in which we continue to regard those who have a mental illness, by which I mean, and Erdman means, not necessarily those who wander the streets talking to themselves, or those who inhabit psychiatric hospitals sometimes for years on end, but those who live amongst us in the community and are suffering daily from the difficulties of (often severe) depression.

First, we must work to remove the stigma of mental illness, a stigma that keeps mental illness secret and hidden and dangerous.
Look, there’s no more shame in mental struggle, mental anguish, and mental illness than there is in high cholesterol or high blood pressure. We readily recognize our need for help in other areas of our lives. For God’s sake, why then do we consign people whose minds are troubled to the secret and lonely life of walking the road of clinical depression alone? We must end this secrecy! We must throw open the windows of our lives to the fact that to one degree or another we are all troubled, some of us more than others. In fact, there are more reasons to be struggling mentally, emotionally, and spiritually today than there are reasons not to. Let’s get that into our heads and learn to live more honestly and compassionately toward others as well as toward ourselves.

Second, self-care is not an option. We all need to learn to practice some kind of vulnerability, some kind of internal awareness of what's going on on the inside of our lives. There are many ways to do this.

Third, those who are in great mental and emotional pain need community.

We must become more educated about the signs of mental illness, and more able to recognize those signs in those around us, as well as in ourselves. Let’s face it; we’re not very aware of what’s going inside the skin of others, let alone ourselves. Our faces are buried in our cell phones; we’re glued to computer and TV screens. Our minds are fixated on the thought parade that never ceases to march through our brains. The noise of this modern world drowns out true awareness. We look but cannot see; we hear but do not listen; we walk the paths of daily life but aren’t very aware of what’s really going on around us.

When you’re aware, truly aware, you slow down. You listen. You see things others, in their busyness and distraction, do not see. You sense what others cannot sense. Awareness is the ability to see beneath the surface, to detect the subtle changes in the emotional climate within you and within those around you. You see it in their eyes. You hear it in the tone of voice. You sense it in their touch.

Awareness is a particularly Christian virtue—a way to be fully here, to be completely in this present moment because you know God holds all things, you know God loves this world, and you know God is at work to bring about the goodness we all seek. Awareness is necessary for community. You cannot build a community when you’re distracted.

Erdman discusses the way in which he believes God looks after those who've committed suicide. For decades the church labelled them as people who'd committed an unforgivable sin. Erdman, (and I suspect, Jesus Christ) doesn't think that's the case.

Leaving Bebo

On his Liturgy blog the other day, Bosco Peter pointed out an article from his local newspaper which described the probable closing down of Bebo. He quoted the following from the article:

The site has lost members to Facebook, MySpace and Twitter.

Kaila Colbin, of Christchurch social media consultant Missing Link, compared Bebo to a party that people wanted to leave.

“You go to a party, everyone’s having a good time, but suddenly the momentum changes and someone says, `Let’s go to the pub’,” Colbin said. “And people start flowing out. And when people flow out, there is no way to recover that energy.

“The more you try, the more desperate you look and the more people want to leave.”

Bosco comments: Now reread the above, and instead of Bebo think “church” – your parish, diocese, whatever. Any echoes?

Check out the rest of what he has to say....it's quite thought-provoking!

What the church is...

I posted these two quotes in the Daily Writer blog but I think they're worth repeating here too, since they relate so much to our mission.

Christ summons the Church, as she goes her pilgrim way, to that continual reformation of which she always had need.

Coming forth from the eternal Father's love, founded in time by Christ the Redeemer, and made one in the Holy Spirit, the Church has a saving and an eschatological purpose which can be fully attained only in the future world. But she is already present in this world, and is composed of men [and women], that is, members of the earthly city who have a call to form the family of God's children during the present history of the human race, and to keep increasing it until the Lord returns.
This she does most of all by her healing and elevating impact on the dignity of the person, by the way in which she strengthens the seams of human society and imbues the everyday activities of men [and women] with a deeper meaning and importance. Thus, through her individual members and her whole community, the Church believes she can contribute greatly toward making the family of man and its history more human.

The two quotes above come from the documents of the Vatican II Council. They're quoted on page 72 of Robert Warren's [photo] On the Anvil.

ROBERT WARREN was Team Rector of one of the largest and fastest growing churches in England, St Thomas', Crookes in Sheffield. He succeeded John Finney as the Church of England's National Officer for Evangelism and then was a full-time member of the Springboard Team for five years. He retired in 2004. His popular publication The Healthy Churches' Handbook underlines the vital role in a healthy church of people being helped both on the journey to faith and on the subsequent lifetime journey of faith.

Gardens as Community

In a recent post on her blog, Christine Sine asks Is this a Move of God? What she's discussing is the idea of community gardens, the way in which they help with sustainability, with learning how to feed yourself by the work of your own hands, the way in which many people feel more at home in the garden than in church, and the way in which non-church people get involved - even ask for community gardens to be set up so they can be involved. But most of all the word that stands out is community.

Read the full post for the details, but one particular detail attracted my attention and will be intriguing to older New Zealand readers of this blog. I quote:

Even our good friend Graham Kerr, once known as The Galloping Gourmet, has become involved planting his own garden and working with his church at Mt Vernon on a huge garden project. Graham tells us that he has never before cooked anything he has grown or grown anything he has cooked and it is delightful to watch him enthusiastically discover the delights of this.

If you'd ever wondered what happened to him after he vanished from our TV screens, this tells you. Six degrees - or less - of separation?

What a Mission Consultant Can do for You

Duncan Macleod wrote the following on his blog back in early April. Much of what he says applies to roles of both the National Mission Enabler, and the Regional Mission Advisor.

Consulting is mostly, I believe, about listening and looking. I like Fuzz and Carolyn Kitto’s suggestion that consulting is lending people your ears and eyes, not the other way around. It’s about finding clues about what’s happening behind the scenes, under the surface, in the past, present and future. Effective consulting in my line of work requires me to develop an intuitive and thorough understanding of human dynamics, sociology and emotional systems. I’ve learned where to find clues about community trends, looking for hard data (facts and figures) as well as soft data (human stories).

Consulting needs to be empowering. It is tempting to just tell people what to do. “Follow these instructions and you’ll be right”. However I’d rather be coaching local leaders to develop their capacity to discern direction and lead a community into the future. This is “power with” rather than “power over”. I’ve found this complicated when I’ve had the capacity to say yes or no to funding. I do come across ministers whose strengths are in pastoral care and conscientious living, but struggle with how to develop fresh thinking (creativity) and action (innovation). Often, not always, there are people around with drive and creativity who can share in the process. I say “not always”, as people with “get up and go” tend to “get up and go” elsewhere when they’re not given room to move and make things happen.
Read the rest on Duncan’s Blog, Postkiwi Duncan Macleod

Business or Spirit?

Many churches struggle between two extremes: whether to run a church on a business model, or whether to run it by relying primarily on the Holy Spirit. And there have been some great business model books that have seemed entirely applicable to the church. In an article on Leadership Journal online entitled Good to Great to Godly, Mike Bonem discusses the value of Jim Collin’s classic book, ‘Good to Great’ for churches. He notes that while it was of great value to him in his work in the business world, and still had good things to say when he moved onto a church’s staff, he also had to redefine his thinking in the light of another classic, Jim Cymbala’s Fresh Wind, Fresh Spirit.

This is an excellent article discussing the implications of taking the innumerable business models and adapting them for the church.

Mike Bonem is executive pastor at West University Baptist Church in Houston, author of Leading from the Second Chair and Congregational Change, a Harvard MBA. and a former business consultant.

Challenge of Change (and an apology!)

Just by way of apology: things have been a bit quiet on this blog lately due to a number of other calls on my time at the National Mission Office. Nil desperandum! The blog is not forgotten, and just to prove it, here's a review of a book for you.

The Challenge of Change: a practical guide to shaping change and changing the shape of the church, by Philip Potter.
The following review comes from Amazon.co.uk and is by P E Berry:
I'm an Anglican Vicar with over 15 years of experience in three different parishes/teams and I have to say that Phil Potter's book is probably one of the most important and influential I've read in the whole of that time. Thoroughly grounded on Phil's experience over many years, it is not triumphant about achievements (as so many tend to be) but, rather, incredibly honest and realistic, both about his early days at St. Mark's, Haydock and how he guided this church along the often painful road of change. It's well grounded in a Biblical understanding of what it means to be God's people and also extremely practical in applying those all-important foundational principles on which to help build a healthy approach to change. This book has really 'spoken' into my current situation, so much so that I've bought it for the staff team and will be using it as a basis for a PCC vision day. I don't think I exaggerate when I tell people that it has transformed my ministry. Highly recommended.
(The book comes from an Anglican perspective but can be applied well beyond that. There are challenging exercises at the end of each chapter.)
Published by the Bible Reading Fellowship (BRF) 2009

Prudence

What is today's most undervalued leadership trait? asks John Ortberg. It's prudence.

Ortberg writes: Allen Guelzo has written a wonderful book on Abraham Lincoln, and he devotes an entire chapter to the role prudence played in the life of the man who was arguably the most influential leader in the history of America. Guelzo notes that 2,000 years ago prudence was considered one of the greatest of virtues; a hundred years ago it was part of moral philosophy; today it is the punchline of a joke.

Prudence, says Guelzo, was prized by the ancients because it was linked to shrewdness, to excellence in judgment, to the capacity to discern, to the ability to take in a situation and see it in its wholeness. Prudence is foresight and far-sightedness. It's the ability to make immediate decisions on the basis of their longer-range effects.

Prudence is what makes someone a great commodities trader—the capacity to face reality squarely in the eye without allowing emotion or ego to get in the way. It's what is needed by every quarterback or battlefield general. Thomas Aquinas said it was intelligence about "things to be done."

Using PowerPoint Effectively

Seth Godin doesn't like the way most PowerPoints are used and has been saying so for several years.

Here's his summary of how to use a PowerPoint effectively - it sounds good to me.

Here are the five rules you need to remember to create amazing Powerpoint presentations:

1. No more than six words on a slide. EVER. There is no presentation so complex that this rule needs to be broken.
2. No cheesy images. Use professional stock photo images.
3. No dissolves, spins or other transitions.
4. Sound effects can be used a few times per presentation, but never use the sound effects that are built in to the program. Instead, rip sounds and music from CDs and leverage the Proustian effect this can have. If people start bouncing up and down to the Grateful Dead, you’ve kept them from falling asleep, and you’ve reminded them that this isn’t a typical meeting you’re running.
5. Don’t hand out print-outs of your slides. They don’t work without you there.

Read his more recent post on the subject: PowerPoint makes us stupid.

Photo by Gareth Saunders

Pink Shirt Day: Stop Bullying Now

Well, I'm not wearing what you'd call a pink shirt today - it's more like a reddy-brown - but be that as it may, today is apparently celebrated as Pink Shirt Day, and that relates to Bullying.

I quote:

Pink Shirt Day aims to show that bullying is not ok and won't be tolerated. By encouraging the people of New Zealand to wear a Pink Shirt on the 28th of April we can help to raise awareness of bullying and show the massive amount of people who support taking a stance against bullying and believe that bullying should not be tolerated anywhere no matter what the reasons or circumstances are.

I say Amen to that. You can read a good deal more about bullying and what's being done about it on the Pink Shirt site, and also catch up with the recent Massey University study on bullying here. The latter deals primarily with workplace bullying; the Pink Shirt site is more focused on bullying in schools.

Life Together

LIFE TOGETHER: A Conversation About the Challenges and Opportunities of Christian Community with Dave Andrews.

SATURDAY 8 MAY, 2010

LIFE TOGETHER FORUM: 9.30-4.00pm, at Spreydon Baptist, with Dave Andrews, and friends from Urban Vision, Servants, and the Addington community. Sliding scale entry ($10-30, incl. morning and afternoon tea).

DINNER WITH DAVE ANDREWS: 6.00-8.00pm, at Addington Coffee Co-op, 297 Lincoln Rd, Chch. ($20)

As capacity in both venues is limited, please email lifetogether@spreydon.org.nz to register, indicating which events you will be attending. Registration closes May 5. For more info, contact Ants (awatt@spreydon.org.nz) or Jono (jono@servantsasia.org).

Proudly hosted by the Addington Coffee Co-op, Spreydon Baptist, and Servants to Asia's Urban Poor.

Dave, his wife Ange, and their family, have lived and worked in intentional communities with marginalised groups of people in Australia, Afghanistan, Pakistan, India and Nepal for more than thirty years. He now lives in a large joint household with his wife, children, grandchildren and others in an inner city community called the Waiters Union in Brisbane, Australia. Dave also works with TEAR Australia, and is a teacher for the Bible College of Queensland and the Brisbane College of Theology.

Connecting

One Plus One is a long-established family relationships counselling service in the UK. It's now on the web and offers resources, information and help to those in this area of need.

However, there's another side to the site, one that's more innovative and which is helping a great number of couples to come to terms with difficulties in the marriage or relationship. This side is called The Couple Connection, and it consists of three primary areas: Check it out, Talk it out and Work it out.

The first area is open to all readers and begins the process of assisting with the relationship by asking a number of basic questions to ascertain where the reader is at. It also warns when the site won't be of help and where professional assistance will be needed.

The second section is for people to write something about their relationship: how they're feeling, what's troubling them, whether their partner is being unfaithful and a good deal more. Other readers can comment on these, and there are always a number of trained counsellors reading through these postings to supply more specific help.

Finally there is the Work it out section. This is a completely private area for each reader, and acts as a place where the writer can post all manner of feelings, rubbish, junk, stuff that's hurting them, that's bugging them and much more. It's a place of catharsis, and many readers say that as they go back and read through this material, they begin to see what the real issues are, and can begin to act on them rather than on the peripheral stuff.

In one way the site is similar to the old 'chat over the fence' approach that probably saved far more marriages than we'll ever know. But by bringing anonymity into the mix, and providing hundreds of other people to offer supportive advice, this makes innovative use of the technology now available.

Good and Evil

Umair Haque has written an article entitled, The Case for Being Disruptively Good.

In it he discusses the way in which businesses who used to get away with bad practice are now far more exposed than they used to be, due to the information age - news travels fast, in other words. Purely from a shareholding viewpoint, he notes: being a good guy pays. The best corporate citizens list, which includes Hewlett-Packard, Intel, General Mills, I.B.M. and Kimberly-Clark, had a total return on shareholder value of 2.37 percent over three years. But the 30 worst had a negative 7.38 percent return".

But this is far more than an article about shareholders. It's about the fact that big businesses that are thriving are doing so more because they have decided to follow 'good' practices more than 'evil' ones. But even those who are doing good vary in the extent to which they're doing good.

He lists a ladder with five steps and shows how various well-known companies are learning the ropes of doing good: Pepsi's on the bottom rung, having done a "marginal bit of good"; Nestle is on the next rung, having got itself a 'black eye' for not being as open and honest as it claimed (thanks for Facebook!).

Google's just got itself back on the third rung by pulling out of China, avoiding the compromises that would have been required of it, if it had stayed. Apple's on the fourth rung - though Haque doesn't seem convinced it'll stay there, and Wal Mart (surprise!) is on the fifth rung due to its Sustainability Index which 'lays down new rules for every single supplier in its vast, globe-spanning ecosystem.'

Haque doesn't see anyone on the top rung as yet, but is waiting.

The ladder image is only part of what he has to say. Check out the rest: the historic viewpoint, the revolutions, the changes.

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

Five approaches to leadership

Alan Roxburgh writes: “I have been involved in developing leaders for over 30 years. The answer is simple! You do not develop leadership by learning ‘about’ leadership. You develop leadership by leading. This sounds like the proverbial ‘chicken and the egg’ dilemma. It’s the perplexing question: “Where do we start?” The answer to that question requires a real paradigm shift in our thinking about leadership.”

Alan goes on to write about five different approaches to training leaders to lead:

the ‘learning about’ model,
the ‘throw them in the deep end’ approach,
the ‘learning the gaps’ method,
mentoring leaders,
leadership action teams.

The last three meet with most approval from him, particularly number five, which he explains in more detail in a post entitled Five Approaches to Leadership.

Failure in Pastors

At the risk of being repetitious in regard to the subject of why pastors burnout, I want to write (yet another) post on the topic, this time based on remarks in a recent Pastors' Weekly Briefing.

H B London Jr notes three things that he's found over and over again have caused pastors to fail:


1. Limited time alone with the Lord
2. Unresolved issues at home
3. Inadequate accountability

I'm not at all surprised that he lists 'limited time alone with the Lord' first. One of the biggest problems with being a 'professional' minister is that you lose that room to have time with the Lord, whether by choice, or by circumstances, or for whatever other reason. Lay people have the same problem, but in a very general sense it may affect them somewhat less.

London adds a 'starter' list of other things that cause problems, particularly in the moral area:

• Carelessness
• Counselling too much
• Fatigue or burnout
• Spiritual defeat
• Unresolved issues from childhood
• Entitlement
• Sin

If these don't sound familiar, I'd be surprised. And if you're suffering in any of these areas, get someone to help. You can't do it on your own.

The complexity of belief

Daniel Dennett and Linda LaScola’s recently released a study called, “Preachers Who Are Not Believers.” LaScola is a social worker and Dennett, a philosopher, is one of the original New Atheists (and the “Four Horsemen”), well-known for his vitriol against religion.

In an article relating to the study, Daniel Silliman writes that Dennett and LaScola have mostly missed the point in relation to the five Protestant ministers who took part in the study. The authors want to see preachers who are secretly atheists; the ministers themselves see their situation are vastly more subtle and complex. These are people who have struggled long and hard with belief and doubt, and who continue the struggle. As one of the men says, “We are not ‘un-believers’ in our own minds.”

Silliman goes on to say:

All of the preachers in the study have struggled, primarily, with denominational dogma that tries to strip down belief much as Dennett does. They have wrestled not with God so much as with particular doctrines, particular understandings of God, and, especially, with the conventions about what can and can’t be discussed openly in church. Three of them insist that, though they have rejected their denominations’ dogma, they still believe in God; they just say it’s complicated. The other two seem to accept that they, in fact, are unbelievers, that the line drawn by fundamentalists and the New Atheists is right, and they fall on the side of not believing.

Wherever they end up in their answers to the question of belief, all five of these men have taken belief seriously. They have not simply accepted or rejected imposed definitions of what faith means. They have struggled and tried to be honest about it.

The de-churched

Skye Jethani has written a second post on the subject of Who are the de-churched? In it he explores a couple of kinds of de-churched people (that is, those who have been churchgoers, but have dropped out for various reasons), in particular those who have left the church because they had received a false gospel, and those who have left because they’ve encountered the true gospel.

The first group have heard a gospel that says if we do the right things everything will go okay - God has to act 'properly.' His second group are people who've found that the institution has become more important than the people (and he quotes a relevant paragraph from a review on the book, The Trellis and the Vine, by Colin Marshall and Tony Payne). These people feel stifled, unloved; they're only 'wanted' because of what they can contribute to the institution.

He offers two ways of dealing with these issues, with the warning: Taking either approach seriously may result in fewer de-churched Christians…or your head on a platter.

Going (or not going) on a retreat

Over the holiday weekend I read an article on Rowland Croucher's site regarding the retreats he does with individuals. I baulked at the price of these - $1000AU - until I noticed that he doesn't take any of this money; it's sent onto a charity that works in both Victoria, Aus. and Thailand. You might still think $1000 is a lot of money for having six hours worth of a listening ear; it may depend on how much your spiritual health requires such an ear.

However, the price isn't really the interesting part of this article, which is divided up into several sections. Firstly, Rowland lays out an FAQ which gives answers to most of the questions you'd be likely to ask initially, and gives you an idea of the way in which the retreat is conducted. "Usually, the retreat lasts from late afternoon (about 4.30 pm, then a couple of hours over dinner) one day, and resumes about 9.30 to about noon the following day. Bring your walking shoes!" So it's not a long period of time, and it's definitely not silent. This is a talking/walking retreat - and you, as the retreatant, will do most of the talking. It's a spiritual health check-up, basically, which is not necessarily the same as having a spiritual advisor.

The second section of the article covers the 19 questions that might be covered during the retreat. Rowland helpfully provides these so that you can think about them yourself without necessarily visiting him. (Though obviously it would help to have someone else to think them through with.) Spending some time over a few weeks reflecting on these questions would help most people's spiritual health, I suspect, as long as they gave themselves some room to think about the 'answers.'

The third section is a moving story written by a woman who did the retreat at some point. She affirms Rowland's earlier comment that: a lot of male problems go back to inadequate fathering or initiation into manhood. A lot of women's problems go back to their non-affirmation by fathers etc. There's a second 'story' on a different link.

The fourth section offers a spiritual audit not necessarily covering the same ground as the 19 questions. This would also be a good thing to use in terms of setting aside some time regularly to reflect on your spiritual health.

Print the 19 questions or the spiritual audit out - and take some time to use one or the other.

The photo by Jessica Charlesworth is entitled Two Men Walking Seriously, a great title in view of the subject matter in this post.

Not so Godly business?

In an article entitled, Good to Great to Godly, Mike Bonem looks at the way in which Jim Collins' business principles have been extensively applied in the church. However, his concern is that the church isn't a business, and running it on business lines rather than God-led lines will ultimately cause it to fail. (He isn't denigrating Collins, by the way, whom he obviously admires.)

At one point in his article he writes:

There are also congregations that make no pretence of seeking God in their decisions. The leadership core may have been selected by virtue of tenure or financial contribution rather than spiritual sensitivity, or the church's culture may simply be "all business."

If you don't read anything else in the article, reflect on this one paragraph alone. It says a huge amount about how many churches are run - and possibly exposes why eventually they fail.