Christ and the Tui ads

Most New Zealanders will know of the Tui ads, those clever billboards that have a short statement followed by the ironical/sarcastic, 'Yeah, right.' 'Yeah, right' is a Kiwi being typically laconic.

In the pre-Christmas period, Tui put up one of their latest signs: Let us take a moment this Christmas to think about Christ. Yeah, right. As you might expect it upset a few people around the country (most of them probably weren't Tui drinkers). But Richard Gray, the minister at the First Presbyterian Church in Invercargill (the billboard appeared across the road from his church), said people need to get a sense of humour.

Perhaps some people were upset because the statement is too close to the truth (as most of the Tui ads are). Many around the country won't be thinking twice about Christ at Christmas. In fact there'll be a few who'd be offended at the idea that they should.

Richard, for instance, has come up with a Tui sign of his own. It reads: Drinking Tui in 4008! Yeah right. JC.
Rather than taking this as an offensive statement, wouldn't it be better for Christians to use it as a starting point to talk about Christ and Christmas?

Wanna own your own slave?

The Chicago Sun-Times columnist, Cathleen Falsani, points out that it's more than 165 years since slavery was made illegal in the USA.

It's sixty years since the United Nationas declared, in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, that: "No one shall be held in slavery or servitude; slavery and the slave trade shall be prohibited in all their forms."

Yet in 2008 there are more slaves in the world than were taken during 400 years of the trans-Atlantic slave trade, according to the documentary film, Call + Response. This film is a combination of music focusing on slavery, and images of people who are suffering in slavery around the world.

Of the 27 million slaves worldwide, half are children and 80 percent are female.
Some more stats:

• • Slave traders made $32 billion last year.

• • The average cost of a slave is $90.

• • More than one-third of all prostitutes in South and East Asia are children.

• • More than 17,500 people are trafficked as slaves to the U.S. each year.

• • Fifty percent of slaves in the U.S. work in agriculture, manufacturing or domestic work.

For more information go to the Call and Response website. A question worth asking: how many slaves are there in New Zealand?

Pastors and dying churches

Regarding pastors being called to dying churches.

Some of us believe pretty strongly that churches in the inner city and the rural areas also deserve good pastors. We also affirm that many churches in some of the dying denominations deserve to have good pastors. Not every pastor is going to have the privilege of pastoring a thriving church, and not every church is going to thrive no matter who the pastor is! Pastors are primarily called to shepherd the flock. I believe that people at every stage of life deserve to have good pastoral care. Many of us are going to spend most of our pastoral careers in small- to medium-sized churches. Hopefully we can teach the Word of God and nurture the believers who happen to be part of that community.

There are plenty of churches that are going to hold on to some traditional ways of doing things. This doesn't mean that God can't use some of those old ways to nurture and protect His children. There are a number of us pastors who probably secretly, sometimes openly, admit that we yearn for simpler times and methods. We wish that we didn't have to keep up with all the new ways to reach people and grow churches. There are many people who wish that church was still a place of dignity and traditions because that is the way they learned to worship God. So much of our culture is changing so rapidly that many older people in the church wish that the church could be a shelter from all that change and that they could have some of those traditions to hang on to.

I do believe that God may call some of us to minister among people who don't want to change styles and we may be there to help them prepare for their dying. Sometimes, in dying churches, there is also the possibility of a resurrection as people return to a traditional church after being disillusioned with the trends of the contemporary church. My prayer is that we can be the shepherds who truly minister to the people whom God has given us at this time.

from the Pastors' Weekly Briefing newsletter, Dec 5th, 2008

from Dave Brown's blog

In Dave Brown's blog, JC's helper, he writes of throwing the baby out with the bathwater - or not. Is Christianity full of rubbish that needs to be ditched? The answer is pretty much, Yes, but Dave has some other things to add as well. The post begins thus:

I have read Cathleen Falsani's book, "The God Factor" in which she interviews 32 public figures about their spirituality. I recently read a similar one by an Australian journalist. I found them both interesting and exciting. There were so many times when I found myself saying, "Yeah! Great! Amen to that!" and that was often in response to people who would not be seen dead in a church. In both books there was criticism, hurt and sometimes anger expressed toward the Church and/or Christianity. Many had "outgrown" the religion of their youth. I mix with fire fighters, ambulance personnel and other workers who share similar positions. To them, organised religion has had its day at best, or is a destructive, judgemental and limiting force at worse.

The need for women

It is not the intelligent woman vs. the ignorant woman; nor the white woman vs. the black, the brown, and the red - it is not even the cause of woman vs. man. Nay, it is woman's strongest vindication for speaking that the world needs to hear her voice. It would be subversive of every human interest that the cry of one half of the human family be stifled.
Woman ... daring to think and move and speak - to undertake to help shape, mold and direct the thought of her age, is merely completing the circle of the world's vision. Hers is every interest that has lacked an interpreter and a defender. Her cause is linked with that of every agony that has been dumb - every wrong that needs a voice....
The world has had to limp along with the wobbling gait and one-sided hesitancy of a man with one eye. Suddenly the bandage is removed from the other eye and the whole body is filled with light. It sees a circle where before it saw a segment. The darkened eye restored, every member rejoices with it.

Anna Julia Cooper
A Voice from the South (1892)

It's interesting to note the date on this, and how long it took for such an idea to be accepted.

God as Father/Mother

At the one extreme there are those whose unfortunate relationship with fathers and other men makes it impossible to draw close to God imaged as father and male. And alternatively there are others whose unfortunate relationship with mothers and other women makes it impossible to draw close to God imaged as mother and female. Both images are needed so that believers may draw near to God as they are able and given opportunity to recognize and withdraw their projections upon God, letting God be God--a Mystery of Love ultimately beyond all language and comprehension.

Marchienne Vroon Rienstra
Swallow's Nest: A Feminine Reading of the Psalms

Charles Slagle

If the promises I whispered to your heart were, as you have feared, merely the wishful thoughts of your mind, then why the fruit? Do you not see that even today you are in the midst of the fulfilment of My words? Rejoice! All promises are, at this very moment, in process.

Charles Slagle, From the Father's Heart, page 43.

Slagle's book is a little gem. We often use it in the National Mission Office as a starter for our team prayer times. It consists of a series of encouraging letters from God, and though the language and approach is down-to-earth, there are some great insights into the relationship God has with us. Though published in 1989, the book appears to be still in print, and a new edition was announced for this year.

Missional Church

Len Hjalmarson, who runs the Next Reformation blog (and writes for various other places, such as Allelon and Next Wave online magazine) beings his latest post, Missional Church, in this way:

Over the past two years, two convictions have been growing for me. First, that apart from a Trinitarian mooring, our attempt to rebuild a whole gospel and a foundation for mission will go astray. Second, the church is an alternative (kingdom) culture, founded on a new covenant. Frankly, these points have become so critical in my understanding of God’s kingdom purpose as storied in the Old and New Testaments that I can’t imagine a new reformation unless we take them seriously.

I admit that “Trinity” is not an easy theological concept, and also that the particular formulation rising from Chalcedon in 451 needs reinterpretation — but Triune is the nature of God and is reflected in our humanity. A right vision of God roots a right vision of humanity, and apart from that right vision we won’t get mission right either. The heart of God’s mission is in creating a new humanity.

Innovative Church x 3

One church discovered that meeting in the Y (the YMCA) wasn't going to be just a temporary move, but would become the base for a mission operation amongst all those who visited the Y day in and day out.

Another church found itself scattered into small groups after its church was destroyed by arson. The people formed into 'smaller, organic expressions' of church, led by lay-people with the minister still keeping an overview of the total organism. "Mustard Seed is not so much a program as an attitude," pastor Eileen Hanson clarifies. "It's an effort to put into practice the biblical principle of the priesthood of all believers."

A third church was given twenty-four hours to shift out of its building. On its last Sunday, the minister divided the congregation into six neighbourhood groups, and announced, "Welcome to your new church." Initially the plan was to reconstitute the church at a later date, but this never happened. The six new 'churches' became The Church in six different areas.

You can read more details about these three churches on the pdf file, Missional to the Max.

Colin Greene

“…I firmly believe God is raising up a new generation of prophets and visionaries who are what I call ‘brokers of a new reality’. In other words they really want to know what is going on in our world on all kinds of levels, politically, economically, spiritually and culturally. They want to know what are the contours of the cultural space we presently inhabit and they want to be able to celebrate what is good about that process of rapid globalization, as well as critique what is dangerous and reckless about it. As an Anglican I want the Anglican church in the West to stop re-arranging the deck chairs on the Titanic and accept that the Christendom ship is now sinking very quickly and will soon be gone below the waves of rapid fundamental change and innovation. The Anglican Church requires a new missional imagination and to do that it must re-engage with the biblical narrative in such a way that it can discover new ways of being church among the cultural refugee’s and spiritual seekers of our generation…”

Colin Greene, author of Metavista: Bible, Church and Mission in an Age of Imagination (Faith in an Emerging Culture Series)

Alan Hirsch calls this book: Well written, theologically stimulating, meticulously researched, and will no doubt be an authoritative text in its genre. But the best thing about Metavista is that it is simply great missiology in the Newbigin tradition.

Newbigin on the Net

Via a blog leading to another blog leading to a link, I came across the Newbigin.net site this morning. Lesslie Newbigin is one of the best-known mission thinkers of the 20th century and we can boast a direct connection to him through one of the people working in this office. (What's that about six degrees of separation?)

Here's the information about the site:

Newbigin.Net is a dynamic searchable database concerned with the writings and life of Bishop J.E. Lesslie Newbigin. It includes both a comprehensive bibliography of his writings and a wide-ranging collection of texts written by him - over two hundred in all. It also contains some significant interactions with his thought.

Newbigin.Net provides researchers with extensive tools for the in-depth study of Newbigin's thought, including such areas as the theology of mission, ecumenism, and "Gospel and Culture".The website contains the full text of many hard-to-find or previously unpublished items.

A DVD titled "Bishop Newbigin in India" is now available. Containing 72 slides, it includes commentary by Lesslie Newbigin describing mission and ministry in the Church of South India. Produced and mastered at World Mission, Church of Scotland, from feature material assembled by Time Life Magazine about 1958. May be ordered by email from: Rev’d Murdoch Mackenzie or by snail mail from: "Torridon", 4 Ferryfield Road, Connel-by-Oban, Argyll PA37 1SR, UK.

Miroslav Volf

One can learn from God the Father no more about what it means to be a human father than one can learn about what it means to be a human mother; inversely, one can learn from God the Mother no more about what it means to be a human mother than on can learn about what it means to be a human father. Whether we use masculine or feminine metaphors for God, God models our common humanity, not our gender specificity.

Miroslav Volf
Exclusion & Embrace

While this makes sense, I'm inclined to disagree with it in some way. Knowing God as Father has definitely affected how I behave as father. I'd be interested to hear what other people think.

What if Starbucks ran its business like the church?

This can only be described as scary....because it's too close to the truth.



By the time you get to the end of this, you'll either be screaming (because of the overdose of coffee slogans) or because you wonder where Jesus might have gone on this particular morning...?

Evil and Postmodernity

Postmodernism, in recognising that we are all deeply flawed, avoids any return to a classic doctrine of original sin by claiming that humans have no fixed 'identity' and hence no fixed responsibility. You can't escape evil within postmodernity, but you can't find anybody else to take the blame either.
We should not be surprised that one of the socio-cultural phenomena which characterize postmodernity is that of major disasters for which nobody takes the blame, such as when a horrific train crash is traced to faults in the line which were well-known and not repaired months in advance but for which no single company executive, nor even a board, can be held responsible.
Postmodernity encourages a cynical approach: nothing will get better and ther'es nothing you can do about it. Hardly surprisingly, this has produced a steady rise in the suicide rate, not least among young people who (one might have thought) had so much to look forward to, but who had imbibed postmodernity through every pore. not that this is new. Epictetus, that hard-bitten first-century philosopher, would have understood, even though he would have scoffed at the intellectual posturing underneath it all.

N T Wright, page 33 of Evil and the Justice of God (hardcover edition, IVP 2006).

Curiously, in the last year Dunedin has experienced a similar public example of no one wanting to take the blame. The metal flaps on a goods train container passing under the Railway Station's overbridge hit the bridge and took out the central section of it, nearly killing a person who was on the bridge at the time. Even though, Toll Holdings Ltd admitted its error at the time, for months afterwards no one would take responsibility for paying for the bridge to be restored.

The abuse has to stop

Muriel Newman writes in her weekly NZ Centre for Political Research newsletter:
For years, governments have shied away from getting to the heart of the child abuse crisis because that means tackling the incentives in legislation that is leading to increasingly higher rates of family breakdown - especially amongst Maori families which feature disproportionately in the child abuse statistics. If marriage leads to a safer family environment for children, then the census data on the rates of marriage amongst Maori and non-Maori shows a very worrying trend: in 2001, while 79.5 percent of partnered non-Maori couples were married only 58.8 percent of Maori couples were married. And by 2006 the rates of marriage had fallen to 78.6 percent for non-Maori and 54 percent for Maori.

Unless the incentives in the domestic purposes benefit are changed to stop encouraging single parenting, all the good intentions in the world will not halt the rise in child abuse. And with the problem being an intergenerational one, whereby children raised in fragmented families and abusive homes will tend to repeat that behaviour on their own children, addressing this problem must surely rank at the highest end of the new government’s priority list.

And John Sax adds, in an article called, Redefining Compassion:

Drugs, alcohol and poverty are generally purported to be the breeding ground for child abuse but the statistics also hold another common element. Global social scientists tell us that on average there is a 1400 percent increase in child abuse and a 1600 percent increase in child murder when children are brought up in a relationship other than marriage – live-in boyfriends, stepdads, de facto relationships and so on.
Unfortunately we find ourselves now in a society where social policy - as compassionate and heartfelt as it is - not only discourages the very unions that could provide the safest environment for children, but, by its very nature, encourages a cycle of generational poverty, and drug and alcohol abuse.

On retreat

Mike Crowl will be on retreat until Thursday the 20th, November.

Praying in the Phone Booth

The Pastor's Weekly Briefing e-letter alerted me to Dylan Mortimer's prayer/phone booths in New York.

The two booths could almost be taken for typical phone booths except for a few unusual features:

the side panels depict folded hands;
the word, 'prayer' appears instead of 'telephone;'
there's a flip-down kneeler.

Mortimer, who is a recent graduate of NY’s School of Visual Arts Masters (MFA) program, says, “My goal is to spark dialogue about a topic often avoided, and often treated cynically by the contemporary art world,” says Mortimer. “I employ the visual language of signage and public information systems, using them as a contemporary form of older religious communication systems: stained glass, illuminated manuscripts, church furniture, etc. I balance humor and seriousness, sarcasm and sincerity, in a way that bridges a subject matter that is often presented as heavy or difficult.”

Stats and Stories

As someone who spends a good deal of his working week checking out stats and figures, trying to make sense of what's happening in the world by looking at charts and tables, it was good to have a reminder from the Maxim Institute's newsletter that it's easy to lose track of the real people behind all the numbers. I quote:
We need a medium which will tell us the same truth as research reports, but one which is able to move us, to touch our hearts, and compel us to act. In fact, we need stories. An article in the Journal of Development Studies released earlier this year suggested just that—that the hidden power of the novel is a much undervalued spur to thought and action. Ask most people what they know about life in Afghanistan and they are much more able to summon up images of what they read in The Kite Runner (one of the books referred to in the study) than they are to talk about what they didn't read in Supporting the Development of Children's Groups and Networks in Afghanistan: Reflections on Practice and Possibilities.
and...
The power of a novel differs from that of a report—it comes from its recognition that human beings have stories. Instead of merely words on a page, the story they encompass becomes one we can relate to, one in which we can join. The world is far from simple and there are issues that matter deeply all around us. But amidst the "cacophony of voices" we need to hear the voice of the one—whether it asks for justice or freedom or compassion. And in this lies the power of the writer because it is characters, faces and stories which have the power to connect us individually with the issues of importance, to persuade us that they matter, to bring them in all their force before our shaded eyes.

This is why, in the National Mission Office, we're always looking for stories, about people, about the way mission is being done in a particular church or parish or presbytery, about failures, and successes. About real human beings rather than numbers. We love numbers, and they do tell us things that stories don't, but they're not the be all and end all.

If you have stories to tell, why not drop me a line on my email? You'll find it by clicking on the profile.

Missional Shift or Drift

Leadership Journal conducted a survey in May 2008 asking nearly 700 evangelical pastors how their perceptions of the gospel and mission currently compare with their understanding a decade ago. The results were illuminating, and have been summarised in a report by Helen Lee. What follows here is a brief look at some of the highlights.

Compared to ten years ago, they found

• Pastors are focusing more on the Gospels than on the Epistles.
• More pastors believe the gospel is advanced by demonstration and not simply proclamation.
• More pastors say the goal of evangelism is to grow "the" church rather than to grow "my" church.
• More pastors believe partnering with other local churches is essential to accomplishing their mission.
  

Scot McKnight says, "The shifts have actually been going on for maybe 25 or 30 years. There has, though, been a surge in the last ten years. Evangelicals rediscovered the Gospels, and began to reframe their understanding of the gospel in terms of the Kingdom and not just justification."

Five changes are gaining momentum in congregations all across the country:

* Affirming the whole gospel
* Not looking to a megachurch model
* Focusing on making disciples
* Encouraging a missional mindset as a means of spiritual formation
* Establishing partnerships to advance the gospel

Smaller more adaptable churches are being seen as more viable than mega-churches. David Platt said, "We've learned that we don't have to bring people into a building to accomplish our mission." And Dave Gibbons says, "The pastor is now a subcategory of the church. I am now thinking about how to gear everything so that the laity is leading. It's all about how to make our congregation feel as though they are the leaders of the church as opposed to the pastoral staff."

Larry Grays, pastor of Midtown Bridge Church in Atlanta, whose congregants are mostly urban professionals between 20 and 40 years old, has learned that his people want more opportunities to serve the community around them. As a result, Sunday mornings have become less important as the emphasis shifts to inculcating a mentality that service should be a seven-days-a-week commitment.

Partnerships between churches are increasing, and a humility regarding non-Western churches in growing. Gibbons again: "We tend to be patronizing, thinking that we know more, but often it's the locals who know more, and we need to partner with the government, with educational institutions, or other organizations instead of going alone."

Some cautions are aired: don't move from one extreme to the other, from the seeming severity of the Epistles to the social action of the Gospels, from proclamation to 'demonstration evangelism', from leading your congregation to suddenly expecting them to take the initiative.

The full report is here.

Why not celebrate?

Last month I wrote about an article by Mark Judge on a spontaneous celebration of music at the NEA Heritage Awards. The following letter to Books and Culture magazine affirms the value of such celebration and wonders why the Church doesn't celebrate her own artistic heritage. The letter was written by artist Makoto Fujimura

I was delighted to read the article "A Holy Joy" by Mark Judge about the NEA Heritage Award celebration at the Strathmore Music Center. As a National Council member for the last six years, I have seen these small miracles regularly in the proceedings of the endowment, and the story of the turnaround of the NEA itself is miraculous, made possible by the visionary and faithful leadership of Dana Gioia, a former business executive and a nationally recognized poet.

As Judge noted, the arts can surprise us by giving us a glimpse into the transcendent: This influence into the broader culture is precisely why the church needs to continue to encourage her congregants to preserve, create, and celebrate culture. Instead of merely complaining about or boycotting art, we need to create art that reflects our values and faith, undergirding freedom and commonwealth, the twin engines of democracy. Many times, listening to the grant reports of the NEA's remarkable staff—experts in music, literature, visual arts, media, dance, and education—I have come away with a renewed conviction that the church could very well lead in the conversation on diversity, excellence, and transcendent art. But the reality is that the church seldom celebrates her own heritage, honors her artists, or gives public acknowledgement of her legacy. I hope that this article will encourage all readers to experience the arts in their own local arenas and, most important, recognize and champion the artists in their own congregations. Perhaps we can even go further and celebrate artists outside our faith perspective, to give recognition to the common-grace splendor of our God, who is himself an artist.