More on TheLowdown.co.nz

The New Zealand Ministry of Health won a gold EFFIE in the SOCIAL MARKETING / PUBLIC SERVICE category for TheLowdown.co.nz website, which is part of its National Depression Initiative created to help young New Zealanders understand and recover from depression.

The aim of the website is to reduce the impact of depression on youth by encouraging them to seek help. Young people are notorious for not going to GPs or using other support services. They are difficult to engage, even with issues that interest them, let alone with an issue that they don’t understand and that still carries a social stigma.

One in seven young Kiwis will experience serious depression over the next 12 months, a condition closely linked to suicidal behaviour.

TheLowdown.co.nz is a leading edge multimedia website where musicians and celebrities shared their experiences of depression. A place where youth can learn about depression, take a self-test, listen to NZ music, talk to their peers via a message board and receive professional support via free text messaging and email support services.

Brian van den Hurk, DraftFCB General Manager, says, “With the sobering statistics for youth depression and suicide it is crucial that we help young people to deal with and recover from depression. TheLowdown.co.nz has been created for them to get help as quickly as possible. If they can develop their skills in coping with what life throws at them, they can have more control over their future."

Details from a Scoop report

The idea that we have an obligation to society beyond the demands we ourselves wish to make of it is
becoming unfashionable. Utilitarianism – the greatest happiness (or welfare or benefit) for the greatest
number – is a philosophy now held in severe disrepute.
Individual endeavour is adulated, as is personal autonomy. Utilitarianism might deter the huge efforts, for
huge gains, of the talented entrepreneur. Thus society looks less at the welfare of the whole, and more at the welfare of the individual. And the intervention of the state is seen as less than desirable, and often less than benevolent to boot.
Meanwhile, the old sense of mutual obligation, somewhat fostered by war-time, has taken a battering. We are into understanding ourselves, into selfimprovement: improving our homes, our looks and our minds. And our view of faith is also increasingly individualistic. We choose the elements of faith that suit us – we may go to church, synagogue or mosque. Individual salvation is part of the appeal of the evangelicals. Personal salvation is the carrot held out. But the requirements our faiths put on us to consider and care for others may get less than their fair attention.
We look at ourselves, not beyond. And despite all the surveys demonstrating widespread belief in God,
despite the huge readership of religious books and the increasing attendance at evangelical churches, our
views about social solidarity, evening up the inequalities and making a difference to groups or individuals who suffer, have taken a battering.

From Unkind, risk averse and untrusting – if this is today’s society,can we change it? - the latest (Sept 2008) report from the Joseph Rowntree Foundation's series on social evils.

Jim Wallis

As I speak and listen to large and diverse audiences in every part of the nation, I find a deep hunger, especially among members of the younger generation, for something worth committing one's life to.... The two great hungers of our time are the hunger for spirituality and the hunger for social justice--and the connection between the two has great power to motivate people to action. The world is especially waiting for a new social and political agenda drawn not from bickering partisan loyalties, blatant ideological bias, or corrupting special interests, but rather from our deepest moral values.

Jim Wallis
The Great Awakening

The Value of Family

Family First in NZ (which is not a political party, but an organisation focused on strengthening the state of families in NZ) has just brought out a report: The Value of Family - Fiscal Benefits of Marriage and Reducing Family Breakdown in New Zealand.

The following is quoted from the Executive Summary:

Measuring the costs of family breakdown and decreasing marriage rates raises many challenges (partly due to the paucity of empirical research on influences on family form in New Zealand). Failing to consider and debate these costs would, however, mean that we would have little chance of understanding some of the most important issues facing New Zealand’s most vulnerable families.

While divorce may on occasion help avoid negative family outcomes (such as in high confl ict situations), international research suggests that the private costs of divorce and unmarried childbearing include increased risks of poverty, mental illness, infant mortality, physical illness, juvenile delinquency and adult criminality, sexual abuse and other forms of family violence, economic hardship, substance abuse, and educational failure.

In this report emphasis is given to the effect of family breakdown and decreasing marriage rates on poverty among families with children. Family breakdown and decreasing marriage rates also lead to social costs by increasing the fiscal costs to taxpayers through increasing take-up of government programmes (e.g., the number of children and adults in need of income assistance) and through infl uencing the social problems facing communities – such as crime and poor health outcomes. Both of these
categories of taxpayer cost are considered in this report.

My God

Apparently there's been a series on NZ television called My God now for three seasons. I haven't manged to see any of them. Series one and two are now available on DVD and the third – having just finished on TVNZ - will be available from the end of October. The cost is $30 per series, with 10 programmes of 29 minutes in each DVD. Copyright has cleared so they can be used in group viewing situations if you choose.

The series covers a mix of New Zealanders and a mix of faiths. Christians get a fair look in, with Eteuati Ete and Tofiga Fepulea'l (comedians), Joy Cowley and Inky Tulloch in the first series, Bull Allen, Jo Randerson and Andrew Becroft in the second series, Llew Summers, Manuka Henare, Joanne Harvey, Bronwyn McFarlane and Andrew Johnston in the third. Tulloch and Johnston are both listed as Presbyterians. (I don't think I've missed out any other Christians participants.)

To get a copy of any of the three DVDs, you can post a $30 (NZ) cheque to
Pacific Crews Limited,
143 Dixon Street
Wellington
or contact Amanda Evans for bank account details to pay direct.

Seth Godin on Power Points

As someone who's recently had to come to terms with how to put together power points, I was interested to see what Seth Godin, that guru of business and marketing and pretty much everything else, had to say on the subject. Probably as you'd expect, he isn't happy with most power point presentations, and obviously feels they've replaced ordinary everyday contact with the audience. His first 'step' is:

Don't use Powerpoint at all. Most of the time, it's not necessary. It's underkill. Powerpoint distracts you from what you really need to do... look people in the eye, tell a story, tell the truth. Do it in your own words, without artifice and with clarity. There are times Powerpoint is helpful, but choose them carefully.

He presents nine steps (I'd say bullet points, except that for him bullet points are very short) and throws out a lot of our current ideas about power pointing. Check him out.

God escapes....again!

A judge has thrown out a Nebraska politician's lawsuit against God, saying the Almighty could not be served because his home address was unlisted.
State senator, Ernie Chambers, filed the lawsuit, stating God had caused “widespread death, destruction and terrorisation of millions up millions of the Earth’s inhabitants.”

However, Judge Marion Polk said “given that…there can never be service effectuated on the name defendant, this action will be dismissed.”

Clearly some people/politicians don't have much to do. For a fictional comedy on similar lines, check out Billy Connelly in The Man Who Sued God.

Church in Decline? Think again!

One key exception, is Samuel P Huntington's book, The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order, one of the most widely read analyses of current global trends, which does pay serious attention to changing religious patterns. Even Huntington, though, understates the rising force of Christianity. He believes that the relative Christian share of global population will fall steeply in the new century, and that this religion will be supplanted by Islam: "In the long run...Muhammad wins out."
But far from Islam being the world's largest religion by 2020 or so, as Huntington suggests, Christianity will still have a massive lead, and will maintain its position into the foreseeable future. By 2050, there should still be about three Christians for every two Muslims worldwide. Some 34% of the world's people will then be Christian, roughly what the figure was at the height of European world hegemony in 1900.
Huntington's analysis of the evidnece is misguided in one crucial respect. While he rightly notes the phenomenal rates of population growth in Muslim countries, he ignores the fact that similar or even higher rates are also found in already populous Christian countries, above all in Africa. Alongside the Muslim efflorescence he rightly foresees, there will also be a Christian population explosion, often in the same or adjacent countries. If we look at the nations with the fastest popoulation growth and the youngest populations, they are evenly distributed between Christian and Muslim dominated societies.

From The Next Christendom; the coming of Global Christianity, by Philip Jenkins. age 5. Jenkins has written several books along similar lines, showing that Christianity is in anything but decline, even in Europe, where supposedly it's at death's door.

Making the heart sing

Every so often a concert or musical performance seems to lift off the earth and touch heaven. That's what happened on Sept 19th, 2008 at a concert. Mark Gavreau Judge was there; the following paragraphs are extracts from his longer article.

On Friday, September 19, I witnessed one of the most miraculous things I've ever seen on a stage. I use that adjective with purpose; the only way to describe what happened is with the language of religion.

After almost three hours, it was time for a curtain call—one last bow to end the evening. As Spitzer reintroduced everyone, White's jazz band played "When the Saints Go Marching In." That's when something happened.

The audience at the Strathmore rose to its feet to acknowledge the fellowship winners—it seemed at the time like one last blast of applause before the exit. But as they—we—clapped in time to "When the Saints Go Marching In," the performers onstage began to dance. Together. It started when Jelon Vieira's dancers did cartwheels in front of the jazz band. Suddenly the Oneida Hymn Singers, a group of mostly elderly men and women, were dancing with the capoeiras. Then Sue Parks' backing drummers appeared, dancing with anyone they saw. Mac Wiseman's band played along, as did the Ethiopian choir. The jazz band, sensing something in the air, got louder, and kept playing. And playing. And playing. Onstage, the performers formed a conga line, led by one of the jazz musicians, then a circle, each person taking his or her turn in the center. The invisible line between performers and audience evaporated. It had turned into one big party—or revival meeting.

Read the rest here.

Presbyopia

Presbyopia is a noun, and means the inability of the eye to focus sharply on nearby objects, resulting from loss of elasticity of the crystalline lens with advancing age.
[New Latin : Greek presbus, old man; + -opia.]

What has this got to do with the Presbyterian Mission Resource site? It just struck us as amusing that the word relates to a lessening of our eyesight (insight?) as we get older. It's common to all people, not just those who have trouble with their eyes.

However, Presbyterian as a word doesn't have the same roots. The 'Presby' bit of it isn't derived from 'old man' (as is Presbyopia) but from a Greek word, presbyterion, which was used by the church to mean elders long before the Presbyterians themselves took it up.

In a pamphlet on the subject of Presbyopia put out by the NZ Association of Optometrists, we're told that normal healthy young eyes have a wide range of focus, and the lens are very flexible. As we get older, the lens of the eye thickens and slowly loses its flexibility.

Does this have any connection with Christians (not just Presbyterians) as they get older? Do they lose their focus and their flexibility? It's a question we older Christians need to keep asking: have I lost my focus on Jesus and his mission to the world? Am I no longer as flexible as I was when it comes to doing what He asks?

Photo courtesy of Bex Shaw from her Eyesight series.

The State of the Art

Technorati was one of the early birds in the blogging scene, and they've managed to outstay many other competitors. Their status is such, now, that they were able to produce a major report on blogging globally, based on a substantial survey amongst bloggers in the US, Europe and Asia. If you have time to read the stats, there are some interesting points. Here's the introduction.

Welcome to Technorati’s State of the Blogosphere 2008 report, which will be released in five consecutive daily segments. Since 2004, our annual study has unearthed and analyzed the trends and themes of blogging, but for the 2008 study, we resolved to go beyond the numbers of the Technorati Index to deliver even deeper insights into the blogging mind. For the first time, we surveyed bloggers directly about the role of blogging in their lives, the tools, time, and resources used to produce their blogs, and how blogging has impacted them personally, professionally, and financially. Our bloggers were generous with their thoughts and insights. Thanks to all of the bloggers who took the time to respond to our survey.

Just a few of the many intriguing stats:

Who are the global bloggers?

• Two-thirds are male
• 50% are 18-34 (so 50% are over 34 - in fact, age isn't necessarily a restriction in the blogging world)
  
• More affluent and educated than the general population
  • 70% have college degrees
  • Four in ten have an annual household income of $75K+
  • One in four have an annual household income of $100K+
• 44% are parents
• The survey was only administered in English, but Technorati heard from bloggers on six continents (although they're sure someone is blogging from Antarctica). They had respondents from 66 countries, who publish blogs in 20 different languages.
• 43% of blogger respondents live in the U.S.
• 72% publish their blog in English (the survey was only provided in English, so it may have excluded a large number of Asian bloggers)

How do YOU read the Bible?

In a talk at this year's 'Catalyst' Scot McKnight outlined five flawed ways many people read the Bible. I'll only include the headings and a brief note; the fuller version can be read here.

The Morsels of Law Approach: searching the Bible for all the commandments, and then only obeying those that suit.
The Morsels of Blessings Approach: doing the same thing with the blessings - although probably tending to believe more of the blessings than the commandments.
The Rorschach Approach: reading the book from your own political/psychological/whatever perspective.
The Systematic Theology Approach: pulling all the relevant bits together into an organised whole, but leaving out all the 'other' bits.
The Maestro Approach: in which one 'master' book of the Bible is taken as the focus for all other books.

McKnight's says: These five approaches are all very common, and all very flawed. We must read the Bible as a story. But it’s not just a story that we read, it is a story that we live. “We must let the Bible’s story become our story,” he said, “so that it becomes us, and we become it.”

Couple of quotes

Show me a dreamer and I’ll show you one of God’s heartbeats for the human race.

- Joan Chittister

Teaching a child to care for a goldfish — learning about its needs, respecting its otherness, delighting in its shimmering colors and swimming skills — is a better education in caring than is a lecture on global warming.

Sallie McFague
Super, Natural Christians

Randall Prior

The keynote speaker at this year's Presbyterian General Assembly (in Wellington, New Zealand) was Randall Prior. Randall focuses a good deal on Gospel and Culture, on Church and the Future. In his addresses to the PCANZ, he spoke specifically about the Future of the Church. Although his talk had some Australian focuses, it was very applicable to the New Zealand scene (and in fact, to a much wider scene). You can download the talks here, or obtain them as audio files.

In one of the footnotes to his second talk, he notes: In my view there is still some considerable ‘dying’ of the present form of the church yet to take place. It is not a simple matter to anticipate a future shape of the church but the indications are that the church’s place in Australian [for Australian read, New Zealand, USA, UK - anywhere else where institutional churches are struggling] society will be:
as one faith group in a society of several faiths and religions;
the church will be marginal to the main interests and activities of our society;
there will be a diversity of forms and styles of church life;
congregations may be increasingly dependent on lay leadership;
there may be little interest among church people in denominational loyalty; there will be fewer resources to maintain the structures and activities and buildings which we have known in the past; for some church communities, there may be only a loose connection with buildings.

It would probably be unwise to takes these notes alone, without reading the rest of the talk, particularly because Prior is talking of the Future of the Church, not its death.

More Commandments for Bloggers

Everyone's getting in on the act, it seems. Tall Skinny Kiwi points to an older set of Ten Commandments for Bloggers - they were posted in 2005 - that were written by Phil on A Thinkhammer Blog. These have a less 'religious' approach, though they're still based on blogging with integrity.

Ben at Faith and Theology offers his own set of Commandments. These ones tend to focus on not seeing yourself as more important than you are (you're only a blogger, you know, not God, the Pope, a church service or a variety of authoritative other voices).

The Commandments have made some news: The Times (of London)' religious editor wrote a piece on them, as did The Telegraph.

All these posts seem to be saying: if you're a blogger, be humble!

Afraid of the Holy Spirit?

Mark Driscoll (looking slightly worn out in the photo) spoke to a bunch of Anglicans in Australia recently. He listed 18 obstacles to evangelism in Australia - as he saw it. One of them stood out to me:

8. Many of you are afraid of the Holy Spirit. You don't know what to do with Him, so the trinity is Father, Son and Holy Bible. You are so reactionary to pentecostalism that you do not have a robust theology of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit calls people into ministry. He also empowers people for ministry. You don't have to be charismatic but you should be a little charismatic, enough at least to worship God with more than just all of your mind. The word charismatic here means prosperity, excessive, bizarre. In London, it means you're not a liberal. Don't get hung up on all the terminology. Do you love the Holy Spirit? Jesus says the Holy Spirit is a ‘He' and not an ‘it'." Ministry cannot be done apart from the Holy Spirit - I think that is in part leading to the lack of entrepreneurialism and innovation, because if it's not already done and written down, you're suspicious of it.

I don't think the Aussie Anglicans are alone in being afraid of the Spirit. Even Pentecostal churches in NZ don't seem to have quite the life they had back in the 70s and 80s, when there seemed to be a real Holy Spirit move.

Give up those extra tax dollars

New Zealand's Government tax cuts came into effect October 1st. Most people will see it as a few more dollars in their pocket. Some will be a bit wiser and bank the extra. Even though for many it's not a lot of money per week, the $12 to $28 a week individuals save on their tax bill can make a real difference - especially for those who can get along without it.

A simple suggestion has come from the Anglican Social Justice Committee: - give those extra dollars up!

By giving them up to those who do need it, and to those working to make a real difference, you can take an active part in changing our nation and our world into more of the kind of place we, and our children, might like.

The Give It Up! site has the look of a newspaper about, but there are plenty of links to check out, and plenty of ideas of ways to put that extra cash to good use. (Furthermore, the more you give away the more the Inland Revenue will give you back next year - it's one big merry-go-round!)

Bloggers' Ten Commandments

Godblogs, a gathering held by the Evangelical Alliance on 23 September, was designed to give Christian bloggers an opportunity to network face-to-face and think through a Christian approach to blogging. The group, aged from 18 to 87, reflected on how to honour God with their blogs and in their relationships online.
One thing some of the group produced was an updated (and not particularly tongue-in-cheek) version of the Ten Commandments for bloggers. You can see the full list here.

More about the meeting, and the making of the Commandments, here.

Programs don't work?

Steve Sjogren writes about his view that outreach programs don't work:

Take, for example, the experiment that has been going on across the American Church landscape for the past 20 years or so—the Seeker Sensitive approach. It basically boils down to being a program approach to doing church. No one who has seriously attempted to be a “Seeker Church” hasn’t taken a trek to one or more of the Seeker Meccas in the U.S. to see how they do what they do. When going to those places, there is no shortage of very well-executed, well-marketed, snappy videos, DVDs and a whole array of books that spell out precisely how to “do” the Seeker Sensitive thing.

The only problem is that after 20 years of doing this program—and it’s fair that we start looking at the fruit of this thing now—it hasn’t produced much fruit.

The rest of this article is on the Outreach site. But is what he's proposing just another program?

Wellness and overwork

I was alerted to the following quote by . It comes from an article on the site called RethinkingMission.org. It was written by Neil Richardson.

"Finally, a more personal comment is about re-connecting with our deepest selves. In the first year of my first circuit appointment I had to take some time off through overwork, and I guess most of us battle with diaries which are too crowded for our own good. The New Testament encourages us to distinguish those pressures we are under which come either from inside ourselves or from other people, and those pressures which simply go with the territory of being a disciple and a presbyter or deacon in the Church of God. About those pressures the New Testament is extraordinarily positive; ‘in all these things, we are more than conquerors’ (Romans 8.37). But we need to distinguish the pressures which are inseparable from our vocation from those which are not. So I end with part of a letter written by Bernard of Clairvaux:

‘How long can you be like a spirit that goes out and never comes home again? How long can you give everyone else your attention – but not give yourself any? Yes, if people treat themselves badly, how can they be good for anyone else? So think on this: give yourself some space. I’m not saying, Do that all the time. I’m not saying, Do it often. But I am saying Keep on doing it, again and again. Be there for yourself, in the same way that you are available to everyone else – or at least be there for yourself when everyone else has gone’. (Quoted in Seeing Christ in Others, ed. Geoffrey Duncan, Canterbury Press 2002, p.184).

Incidentally, this blog has suffered a little from lack of posts over the last couple of weeks due to preparations for the Presbyterian General Assembly, which took place from the 2nd Oct till today (the 6th). For those interested in catching up with what's been happening there, you can read the daily reports on the PCANZ Presbyterian website.