Back to the Shack

The Shack, by William P. Young, has been one of the amazing hits of the last year or so, not only in the Christian book scene, but also across the bookselling board.

I've read a number of reviews of the book since it first came out, both positive and negative. I haven't actually read the book itself as yet - although it's sitting looking at me on the shelves above the computer desk. I began it, but found the expository first chapter not quite my cup of tea. It obviously improves as it goes on.

However, I've just come across another review - it was written back in July by Ben Witherington. While understanding that the book is primarily a novel, and not a theological treatise, Ben still takes a fairly rigorous theological look at it. I think this is valuable, as it sorts out some of the issues that arise theologically in the book. Characters in a (Christian) book should be able to say what they like, since they're not the mouthpieces of the author (if the thing is well written), but 'people' in their own right. The problem that Witherington points up is that some of the characters in this particular book are God - if that makes grammatical sense. And being God, they need to speak in tune with our generally recognised understanding of God's revelation. Young's characters don't always do this.

Check out the review, and see what you think about Witherington's comments.

Posters

On the spurgeon.org site there's a section with a heap of posters.
Yup, so what?
Well, they take a number of issues in contemporary Christianity, issues that are in many cases divisive, and put an ironic/sardonic/sarcastic/witty spin on them. You have to check out the posters themselves, because the captions on their own, while clever, work best in tandem with the pictures. I've included one below (and hope the producers of these (Emergent-See Po-Motivators) will forgive me. (I'm doing it to advertise them, after all!)



Off the top of my head, I'm not sure how you'd use these posters - or whether you need to get permission to use them if it comes to that - but they're certainly worth checking out as thought-provokers, conversation-starters and the like.

Advent Conspiracy

Regrettably, it's a bit late for this video - for this year. (I've only just discovered it.) And though it makes part of its point by relating to the US, it's certainly something that Kiwis could do with seeing (we being almost as consumerism-minded as the US).




Check it out!

Who needs God when we've got ideas like these?

And since we're on the subject of top ten lists, here's another. This time it's looking at the top ten ways to grow your church without God.
I suspect that anyone reading the list will recognise virtually every item on it as being something they've done or tried at some time. That's the scary part.
The good thing might be that most of us have begun to realise these aren't the ways that God necessarily grows the church: He seems to have other ideas, and fortunately, is far more creative!

Todd Rhoades comments on the list (and adds ten ways to slowly kill your church WITH God while he's at it) which was originally produced by Ray Baumann.

Todd Rhoades (who calls himself a Christ-follower) has an interesting list of ten theological issues that he feels the church will still be facing for at least another decade. Soteriology (the doctrine of salvation) heads the list, but I'm not sure that the list is in any particular order. Homosexuality is there, of course; what sort of churches we'll be looking at in the future is there; social justice - and Christian consumerism. It's a good list, though no doubt others could add to it.
The comments make interesting reading. A couple of people think the list is pretty ho-hum, because it covers ground that the church has been looking at for some time, but others make some worthwhile points, including the man who defends Open Theism.

Perseverance

Perseverance is not an issue of talent. It is not an issue of time. It is about finishing. Talent provides hope for accomplishment, but perseverance guarantees it. John Maxwell.

Christmas probably doesn't seem like the time to be talking about perseverance, though perhaps for a number of people, persevering through what is for them a difficult time may be all they can achieve.

Maxwell has a story about Vonetta Flowers, the first African-American woman to win a gold medal in the Winter Olympics. It may make a useful story for a sermon of persevering - if not at Christmas, at least at some other time of the year (!)

Perseverance means succeeding because you are determined to, not destined to.

And another brief post:

The satan, it seems, is a nonhuman being, a type of angel, perhaps in some accounts an ex-angel or fallen angel, and he or it (somehow feminists never campaign that the satan should be referred to as 'she') comes to be opposed to humankind, and then to Israel, and hence, not surprisingly, to Jesus.

From Evil and the Justice of God, chapter 4 (pg 108 of the hardcover edition), by N T Wright.

But wait, there's more!

WISHING YOU A POLITICALLY CORRECT CHRISTMAS GREETING...

Best wishes to you for an environmentally conscious, socially responsible, politically correct, low stress, non-addictive, gender neutral, celebration of the summer holidays....

Family First has produced a wonderful piece of PC nonsense, just in time for Christmas (whoops! did I use that word?).

Check out the rest of the message here

Randy Pausch

"I'm constantly finding myself in situations where people are saying, well, it's never been done that way before, and I say, well, that's fine, and I guess that's an instructive piece of knowledge to share with me, but why are you saying that as if it's some sort of design constraint? You know, you said you wanted to accomplish something. And I suggested, well, why don't you do thus-and-such. And then you said, but it's never been done that way before! But I say that's not relevant to whether or not this is a good solution. Of course if you told me it had been done and it failed, that would be really useful data, all right."

Randy Pausch was an American professor of computer science, human-computer interaction and design at Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

He gave his "The Last Lecture" speech on September 18, 2007 at Carnegie Mellon after he learned that his previously known pancreatic cancer was terminal. The talk was modeled after an ongoing series of lectures where top academics are asked to think deeply about what matters to them, and then give a hypothetical "final talk", with a topic such as "what wisdom would you try to impart to the world if you knew it was your last chance?" The talk was later released as a book called The Last Lecture, which became a New York Times best-seller.

Youthwork goes multi-lingual

Youthwork International is a new online youth ministry magazine, with a truly international flavour. (The featured article today is in German, for instance.) It was founded in the UK, but has a consulting editorial team scattered around the globe.
The content is all free and includes ready-to-go youth ministry sessions, articles, teaching resources, book reviews, blogs, news updates from around the world, and a good deal more (including a bunch of you tube videos - most of which I could have done without watching, especially the young black worship leader who can't sing in tune, and doesn't appear to know the words!)
There's a multilingual flavour to the site: at present there are resources in English, Arabic and German. Spanish, Afrikaans and Hindi resources are to follow. So far the site has had hits from people in more than sixty countries. And it's interactive: Youthwork is looking for good youth work material of all kinds. There's a contact page, but it's also possible to write directly to either steve.griffiths@premier.org.uk, or fuzz.kitto@spirited.net.au.

YouthTrain lists Youthwork International as one of its top ten sites of 2008. The others are:

• The Fuller Youth Institute: For excellent research, articles and audio
• Centre for Parent/Youth Understanding: Again, excellent research and articles with a particular emphasis on youth culture
• Youth Specialties: A very good all round site with articles along with resources for sale.
• Simply Youth Ministry Lots of resources, articles and freebies.
• The Journal of Student Ministries: Up to date news, blogs and articles on youth ministry.
• Youthwork: A UK site with articles, resources and audio.
• The Source for Youth Ministry: Plenty of good articles, resources and ideas.
• YouthPastor.com: Containing news, resources and ideas.
• YouthMinistry.com: Articles, resources and freebies from a range of sources.

Older Workers

By 2012/13 New Zealand’s labour force is forecast to rise from 2.25 million to 2.38 million – close to a 6 percent increase.
Within this labour force, the number of workers aged 55 or older will have grown by 25% – an additional 100,000 individuals.
However, those aged 25-54 will have increased by only 2.5% or 28,000 individuals.
That means employers will have to shift their focus from young to old in order to maintain a viable workforce, says Mercer in a recently released report entitled Workplace 2012.

The percentage of workers aged 55+ will increase from 18 percent to 21 percent – more than half a million individuals.

The percentage of workers aged 25-54 will decrease from 65 percent to 62 percent.

The participation rate of workers aged 20-44 will decrease

The participation rate of workers aged 55-59 will increase – from 79.6 percent to 82.4percent

The participation rate of workers aged 60-64 will increase – from 67.1 percent to 75 percent.

What will this mean for the way the church looks at mission, workplace chaplaincy, care of older people in employment? Will youth groups take less focus in the church, and 'older' groups take more?

Simple Church

There is [a] kind of simple church that understands complexity. This kind of church realizes that things are not always what they appear. They know that what appears as an “out” to some may also appear as “safe” to others. They realize there’s two ways to spell grey. This kind of simple church critically embraces cultural change in order to communicate the gospel faithfully within complex cultural shifts. This people understand that the difference between “the world” and “the church” is not black and white. They strive to bring Scripture to bear upon the grey of culture and their relationships. As a result, they are constantly theologizing. They realize that theology is not inspired and neither are they. They struggle to take inspired stories, letters, and gospels and learn how to bring them to life in variously delightful and decadent cultures. This process forces them to deal with the complexity of suffering, human flourishing, common grace, and human indifference and come through the other side with a simple, accessible, thoughtful, and reproducible way of following Jesus.

From Two Kinds of Simple Church, by Jonathan Dodson

Child stats in NZ

The Otago Daily Times' editorial this morning uses a number of highly emotive words in its discussion of child injury and death in New Zealand. The writer tells us that two children die every week as a result of accidents, and that we are killing our children in their hundreds.

But a look at the Ministry of Health figures, rather than World Health Organisation or Unicef Report Cards (both of which have are flawed because they don't always compare like to like) show that between 1991 and 2005 the unintentional injury death rate for children under five dropped from 23.1% for males under five to 15.1%. The female figure, on the other hand, grew a couple of points from 12.8% to 14.14%.

In the 5-9 age range, both male and female figures dropped, from 12.8 and 9.5 respectively, to 6.7 and 6.3.

10-14 year-olds showed the same downward trend: males down from 20.4 to 8.7 and females down from 6.3 to 3.3.

Part of the issue of using international comparisons is that reporting is inconsistent. Reports may not relate to the same years or the same basic standards, and many countries take time to catch up with reporting on issues. The current reporting on bullying dates back to the early part of this century, not only in NZ, but also abroad.

In the editorial, Jean Simpson, of the Injury Prevention Research Unit, is reported as saying, 'compared with other wealthy nations our statistics are appalling.' Unfortunately, like so much else in this editorial real stats are not actually given, only an emotive statement.

According to my reading of the Ministry of Transport's graph on Road traffic injury and death rate per 100,000 population aged 0–14 and 15–24 years, 1985–2007, deaths from road accidents for the period have dropped, rather than increased.

The Ministry of Social Development report on Children and Young People: Indicators of Wellbeing in 2008 (Safety) states,

In 2006, New Zealand’s road death rate for youth aged 15–24 years (16.9 per 100,000) was just above the OECD median of 15.8 per 100,000 for that year. New Zealand ranked 18th out of 27 OECD countries, a considerable improvement compared to 2005, when New Zealand ranked 25th with a rate of 22.4 per 100,000. New Zealand’s 2006 rate was similar to that of Canada (16.4 per 100,000 in 2005) and Australia (15.8 per 100,000 in 2006), well above that of the United Kingdom (11.2 per 100,000 in 2006), but well below that of the United States (25.5 per 100,000 in 2005).
[This report can be downloaded from the Ministry of Development]

Stats are a useful tool, but always need to be checked, double-checked and possibly triple-checked. In one episode of TV series, The West Wing, Sam Seaborn commands his staff to find the stats on some obscure area, and to get three different lots of stats, so that he can compare what is being reported. Clarity is always an issue.

Equally, stats tell us nothing of the pain and anguish of those involved with the death of a child. The recent Nia Glassie trial was atypical in showing adults expressing little concern over the death of a toddler; most parents and relatives are deeply shocked in such circumstances.

Thus, while any decrease in deaths from unintentional injury is something to be rejoiced about, there are still many people out there who have lost someone precious to them. And that should always be a concern. Guilt trips from anonymous editors do nothing to help.

How applicable is this to mission?

Seth Godin on Selling Ideas

On his blog today, Godin talks in terms of selling ideas to companies (book companies in particular), but what he has to say is interestingly applicable to the job of enabling mission.

Two points he notes:

1. They have to be in the business of buying ideas. Thus a Trust that has money may be interested in ‘buying’ the idea of a particular kind of mission, and then funding it.

2. They have to trust you. Some businesses that appear to be interested in buying ideas won’t necessarily trust you to be the person to present an idea. Entrepreneurial people who will see the big picture, who can grasp the vision, are more likely to be in tune with you.

Godin notes: A company that likes buying ideas has a process. They make it relatively straightforward and they have no upside in stealing from you. A company that isn't in that business puts up barriers. They troll around trade shows looking for ideas to take (and there's nothing legally or morally wrong with that, imho).

And:

if you have an idea for a company that doesn't know how to buy it, move on. And if you want to be in the business of selling ideas, find an industry that has experience buying those ideas.

Substitute your own mission funder, or your Presbytery, or even your congregation for 'business' and 'company', and see how Godin's points apply. The full blog post is here.

Bonhoeffer & Slagle

A prison cell, in which one waits, hopes ... and is completely dependent on the fact that the door of freedom has to be opened from the outside, is not a bad picture of Advent.

- Dietrich Bonhoeffer,
German pastor and philosopher (1906-1945) imprisoned and executed for his attempt to overthrow Adolf Hitler.

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[God speaks]; And what about your tantrums? I never took them seriously. They certainly never offended Me. As is often the case with My children,, the frustration expressed by your lips had nothing to do with the deeper faith of your heart, expressed by your will. When you told Me you were trusting Me and then willed to walk on with Me, I took you at your word. I admit, you did askyour fair share of hard questions. But consdier My servant Job. Did he not do the same/ my assessment is this: in all your railing and falailing you never sinned, though We both know your patience did wear thin at times. Dangerously thin. But after, all you were being stretched to your very limits, were you not? I think so.

From, From the Father's Heart, by Charles Slagle, pg 47.

Māori youth health and wellbeing improves

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

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

Pastors and their time

I imagine every pastor has been accosted at some point in their career by someone demanding to know how they spend their time. Is the congregation getting 'value for money?' I'll even admit to heckling a young pastor in my church one day many years ago (along with a couple of other equally ignorant members) about what he was doing with his day.

So I was a bit surprised to see Todd Rhoades encouraging people to use Twitter to find out how pastors are using their time. He introduces his brief article in this way: Most church conferences have a time set aside for speaker Q&A, and one of the first questions asked nearly every time is "What does your day look like?" In other words, "How do you schedule your time, and how do you prioritize your tasks?" The answers are always interesting and insightful.

He then goes on to list a bunch of pastors who have offered their Twitter addresses to the concerned public at large. Is it just me who thinks this is crazy? Do pastors really need to account for what they're doing to such a degree?

Rhoades writes: You can find out when their days start, what they're reading, the meetings they're attending, how they balance their family time, and what gets them really pumped (or ticked off).

Good grief. Twitter only allows 140 characters at a time. Is this really going to tell anyone what their pastor is doing, and shouldn't these people be doing something more productive with their lives anyway? As my colleague says, he's a right twitter!

Temporarily 'closed' due to illness

Apologies for the lack of posts on this site over the last week. Mike Crowl has been unwell after a minor hospital procedure.

Changing UK Changing New Zealand

The 'Changing UK' Report, which has just come out this month, looks at five ways in which communities are breaking up. Each of these could be considered in relation to New Zealand, as well.

1) Simple “Geographical Inequalities”, such as population increasing more in someareas, house prices being higher and so on.
2) “Demographic Segregation”, the change from 1971 to 2006 of the population by age between areas becoming more segregated, most quickly from 2001 to 2006. This is where younger people are congregating in areas where there parents/extended families don't live.
3) “Economic Polarisation”, the increase from the situation in 1968 and the 1970s up to the present decade, in rich and poor geographical polarisation in Britain.
4) “Social Fragmentation”, the increase in the degree to which people appear to be socially isolated by area in Britain: data from 1971 up to last measurement in 2001.
5) “Political Disaffection”, the increase in the proportion of the population abstaining in general elections since 1966 and the increased polarisation in this measure most recently (up to 2005 compared with the early 1990s and late 1980s) when abstention rates at general elections are compared between areas over time.

Geography, age, income, loneliness and a lack of interest in where the country is headed. New Zealand needs to consider these issues and work hard to maintain community for the future.

International Volunteer Day

Today, the 5th of December, is International Volunteer Day (as well as National Jandal Day).

The Maxim Institute notes:
New Zealand has been described as a "nation of givers." Yearly New Zealanders give more than $270 million hours of volunteer service to non-profit institutions. At market value this equates to nearly $7 billion (the equivalent of 4.9 percent of New Zealand's GDP).
And tell this story:
Cyndy Hendry is a volunteer at the Auckland Mercy Hospice, which provides in-patient and community care for the terminally ill. Cyndy drives patients to appointments, pushes around the drinks trolley and makes cups of tea. But what is most important is the love and light with which these acts are done; Cyndy says it is about "just being friendly." Volunteering has allowed Cyndy to reach out to her wider community. Talking to her about her experience, Cyndy commented that she was recently humbled by her encounter with a Sikh family of a beautiful and terminally ill Indian woman. Encountering a culture with which she was not familiar, Cyndy described how she "learnt an enormous amount from them." Driving the couple to appointments and being a person who was there for them in a time of vulnerability saw the development of a strong relationship. Although unable to speak English, Cyndy says the dying woman "spoke love with her eyes." Cyndy has been amazed by the dignity of dying patients; she describes it as very moving: "In all honesty, I've received so much more than I've given."