Light of the World, a City on A Hill
…thinking out loud about living missionally in the city of Sydney so that the city will come to know Jesus…Archive for culture
Festivities, Fireworks and Pumpkin Soup
Well the Annual Stanhope Fireworks festival happened last night (postponed from orginal timing because of rain).
It was a really great night…but let me start from the beginning:
We (Stanhope Anglican) had the opportunity to participate in the Festival in some capacity and after some strategising we decided we needed to do something that a) blessed the community and b) gave us opportunities to meet and talk to people.
From these objectives the idea of a soup stall came together and this is what we did.
We set up a big marquee with a serving table for dispensing soup and selling glow sticks. We also provided an area of tables and chairs where people could sit, relax and enjoy their soup. This was warmed by a couple of outdoor gas heaters to provide maximum comfort. To top it off, kids colouring activities were provided free of charge to help out the parents. The whole area was heavily branded with our logos, so there was no doubt as to who we were.
Aside form the glow sticks, Pumpkin soup was our sole product…and it was a winner. By the end of the night, we had sold over 170 cups of steaming soup. I can pin the success down to 2 factors: 1) the soup was really, really good (in fact a number of people told us it was the best they had ever tasted!) and 2) at $1 a cup, it was outstanding value on a cold night.
Now at $1 a cup we weren’t in it to make money (though I’m pretty sure we covered our costs). Our objective was community connection and to this end I believe God blessed our endeavours. 170 cups meant at least 100 connections with different people. Some of these were short (20 seconds) and some were longer (I had a few 5-10 min conversations). In all cases we were able to serve with a smile and a heart to bless.
If anyone is looking for a way to meet people and connect with their communites, getting involved in events like the Stanhope Festival is a great way to do it.
Reflections on Total Church
Here are some hits from the Total Church conference that I managed to capture:
Total Church is all about Christians living out their lives in community that is shaped in every way by the Gospel. (this was hammered throughout…made sense to me)
The gospel is the air we need to breath every single day – it’s not just something we pull out for evangelistic purposes. (I had already come to this conviction recently…the need to preach the gospel to believers not just un-believers)
The life of the believer is one of joyful repentance (Luther). It’s like we are continually saved, continually responding to the gospel. (Same as above)
We model to a watching world our covenantal life together. (It seems to me we don’t show the watching world anything much better/different than what they already experience…tough call)
Mission is the central purpose of the church in the world – central, not peripheral. (Pretty standard, missional thinking here)
More often than not the gospel and mission becomes the last bolt-on element to our lives.
So decision making goes: Job -> Location -> House -> School -> Church -> Gospel/Mission.
Instead it should be: Gospel/Mission -> Church -> Location/School/House/Job
(The above observations are so so true…The Crowded House guys really challenge their people to think very counterculturally on this)
When you use the word church, you are immediately mis-communicating as the word has so much baggage and misperception. (I have sympathy for this view, though I am in two minds about what to do about it)
The bedrock of gospel ministry - Long Term, Low Key, Relational (this was foundational…as an approach this seems so much more authentic than hit ‘em hard, confrontational evangelism)
Living with gospel intentionality in the everyday ordinary things of life. (gospel intentionality was a phrase that permeated the whole day. It very much underpinned the above ministry approach)
A commitment to building relationships and living out the gospel and talking about it as part of normal conversation. May require the introverted people to become relational. (Yep…fire up introverts)
I am reading the Total Church book at the moment which is helping to round out the concept. One key outtake, which others have also noted, is the concept of Evangelism in community, which really exhorts outside relationships being built in the context of the gospel community living out it’s life in all it’s dimensions. I really like the concept, but doing it in practice requires a huge shift in praxis, and it’s foreign to our fiercely individualistic culture.
Connect 09 is taking shape
I posted some time back some commentary/criticism levelled at the Sydney Anglican Diocese, which I felt had merit.
What particularly concerned me was the suggestion that the demographic of people typically in Anglican churches in Sydney was overwhelming either white or of Chinese heritage, middle-class, university educated and professional.
AB Jensen, who I have great respect for, has been doing a series of short video presentations in conjunction with the Connect 09program, which is the Syd Ang push for reconnecting with the Sydney community. In the most recent one (here) the Archbishop openly states that ” Anglican Churches have become very ‘Professional’ and that we need to break out of that ghetto”.
The more I hear from AB Jensen on what Connect 09 means, the more I like the direction the program is taking. What started out (in what was communicated at least) as some sort of bible distribution program, has started to take more of a missional shape. Ministers and Pastors are being encouraged to free up their diaries to focus on connecting with their communities. This is a good thing. And the recognition from the top that we have become way to demographically homogeneous is also a very positive message.
I am now looking forward to seeing Connect 09 come to life.
Reclaim your life…really?
**Begin Rant**
I inadvertantly switched onto Mix FM this morning while station surfing on my way to work.
What an unfortunate accident that was.
Morning radio is terrible at the best of times, but Mix have decided that Todd McKenny, of Dancing with the Stars fame, would make a good morning slot host.
Anyway, McKenny and co-host Sonia Kruger are discussing motherhood and McKenny asks listeners to call in and tell them when and how they “reclaimed” their life after motherhood.
What???? Huh?
Reclaim…like when you become a mother you suddenly don’t have a real life anymore and you have to some how get back to what you were before in order for it to be life again.
I may be swimming against the tide here, but that is just crap. I felt like ringing up just to let him know what I thought of his question (and him).
I mean what if I wanted to “reclaim” my old life pre-kids? I could take up a few sports with training a couple of nights a week and a game for half of Saturday. I could go out with the boys every Saturday night and come in sometime in the wee hours. I could hang around for Friday drinks with my work mates and get home late. Etc Etc.
But I’m not going to do that.
My life is changed, but it’s still my life to live now.
**End Rant**
Counter Cultural Living - Part 4
Andrew Cameron (Social Exec Committee - Syd Anglicans) responds to a recent article in today’s SMH.
The original article is here. In it, the writer seeks to legitimise “middle age” women taking their happiness into their own hands and giving their less-than-perfect husbands the flick.
I really like Andrew’s response, and I think we can learn something from it.
He presents an alternative picture, of what it looks like to work through the trials of tribulations of marriage towards the deep sense of oneness that God intended (and not surprisingly even secular people yearn for). Cameron holds out his own marriage, not to boast, but to show this alternative picture grounded in reality.
I think this is what we must do.
Fan of Nooma?
One of the greatest blessings of the past 400-500 years has been the translation of the hebrew and greek scriptures into all sorts of languages, including our own wacky dialect - English.
The result is, that anyone who can read, can examine the bible for themselves and understand God’s word, and in doing so be able to evaluate the truth of what others say.
I say this as a preface to directing you to this series of critique’s by Greg Gilbert of the popular Nooma video series, presented by Rob Bell.
I have personally watched a number of these short, topic based DVD’s over the years and mostly found them OK. Some were a bit weird, but most had interesting challenges.
If you are a Nooma fan, I would encourage you to have a read through the critique. It will help you to approach these resources with eyes wide open, and like the Bereans in Acts 17, you can examine the scriptures yourself to see if these things are so.
Its Church Jim, but not as we know it
Now I’m not a Trekky by any stretch of the imagination, but the quote came to mind as I reflected on Neil Cole’s most recent book, Organic Church.
I ploughed through the book over the recent Australia Day long weekend, mainly as the content compelled me to keep reading.
In a nutshell Cole, who has previously been a “normal” church pastor as well as a denominational church planting leader, puts forward the view that in this post-modern age, the most effective way of spreading the gospel is via what he calls organic church planting movements.
The book starts with a parallel to the Matrix (which seems like a popular thing to do with Christian writers). Cole suggests that the info that follows is a bit like ‘taking the red pill’, which, if you haven’t seen the movie, is something Neo (Keanu Reeves) does in order to be freed from the blissful ignorance of the matrix and exposed to the stunning truth of the real world.
I don’t know that Cole’s revelations are on the same scale as the revelations about the Matrix were to Neo (that his whole existence was a complete ruse), but in many ways I felt like my eyes were opened to some profound possibilities.
Like many, Cole is not a fan of “Attractional” church, and his alternative very much focuses on taking the gospel to the people. One of the key start points is frequenting places where people gather and and then building relationships. The places he mentions are cafe’s, coffee shops, sporting venues, parks & playgrounds - wherever people congregate. For Cole, the local coffee shop was his venue of choice (to which I say, amen) and he recounts the story of developing a faith community out of the caffeine-addicted regulars, which then went on to start another faith community in the next coffee shop.
After six years of this process of ‘injecting’ the gospel into these normal, everyday places and passing it on from place to place, Cole claims that there are over 600 functioning faith communities comprising over 10,000 people.
Now you may not be impressed by numbers (I keep seeing comments suggesting success is not measured by converts), but how ever you see it, there now seems to be 10,0000 more people who know Jesus thanks to the Holy Spirit and Neil Cole’s approach than before.
I see both strengths and areas for caution in Cole’s discipleship approach.
One key strength is reproducibility. This is an area the “Attractional” church model really struggles with as it requires a lot of energy, money, and talent to run this type of church to a standard that people are used to in the regular world. Anyone who has started a new church plant will know this. The “Organic” approach, on the other hand, requires very little resource, and in fact funnels a large part of the most available resource -time- into relationship building.
Another strength is that those groups of people who would never even consider the Christian Church as a place to meet their spiritual yearnings are within reach. By going to them, tribes like Tradies, Goths & Emo’s, Atheists and hardcore metal fans can all fall into the relationship circles of Christians and therefore the gospel.
The main areas for caution are that of leadership development and maintaining sound doctrine. In reading the book you very much get the sense that new believers become leaders of these new faith communities pretty quickly, raising obvious questions around spiritual maturity and wisdom. I am in two minds about this. On one hand, leadership of a church (regardless of size) in my tribe (Anglicans) is predicated on at least 4 years of full-time theological training. On the other hand, when Paul and Co were starting churches in the new testament they “appointed elders for them in every church, with prayer and fasting they committed them to the Lord” so says Acts 14:23 [ESV]. They didn’t send them off to bible college for 4 years before they were counted worthy to lead. If it was good enough for Paul, should it also be good enough for us?
On balance, if you could ensure sound doctrine underpinned each new faith community being developed, I reckon Cole’s approach has real merit.
How do you tell a women her child needs a good smack?
You may recall a post I did a while ago on “Smacking”.
Well, Miranda Devine (of SMH fame) has come out today with this piece on disciplining children.
She even manages to get a link in to the recent Corey Delaney story (you know the one…kid throws a party while the folks are away and 500 idiots turn up). Craig was concerned here that Corey was being unfairly hammered. It seems Devine would agree and she lays the blame mostly at Corey’s parents describing them as “laissez-faire baby-boomer parents who haven’t learned to say “No”".
Is this harsh? Some think so. Some contend that their parents didn’t really discipline them and they turned out alright.
Perhaps…it would be interesting to see a study on how kids were (or weren’t disciplined) vs how they turned out going into adolescence and adulthood.
Thoughts & Wisdom from South Africa
My company (a big, bad multinational) has, for some reason, a particularly strong relationship with the company’s operations in South Africa. So much so that there are a lot of people swaps that go on, the result being a steady flow of new faces speaking with that Afrikaans twang.
I have come to the conclusion, based on chatting with all these various imports that, that there are many cultural similarities between Aus and SA, certainly more than I would have thought.
Anyway, I came across Stephen Murray’s Blog yesterday and have subsequently added it to my reading list. Stephen is SA based and is all about the missional church, so it will be interesting what I can glean from his thinking.
The seekers are looking, but not in the Church
This article flashed up from the SydAng ‘vaults’ today, and Jodie McNeil proposes cancelling all evangelistic events (craft nights, sporting nights etc) in favour of ploughing the time & money released by doing so into upping the quality of the Sunday church service. The theory is that even the Christians don’t like church (which is probably true), so surely those non-attenders will also not like it, so let’s make it better.
I completely disagree (sorry Jodie).
I contend that most people (yes most, not a few or some) are not all that impressed with super slick church with all the artistic bells and whistles, wonderful cakes and glorious coffee. The result is that a large proportion of the community is not going to step foot into a church (aside from the occasional wedding or funeral) no matter how many times you ask them. Never.
The Kevin Costner approach (build it and they will come) simply will not cut it and is a poor use of resources.
So how do people meet Jesus? By God’s people showing Jesus to them, where they are (not on our ‘home turf’), through a missionally lived life. This will take a massive re-orientation of people’s perspectives and views of being the church (which was never about Sunday if you read the NT), but once you get ‘it’, thinking of the Sunday gathering as the locus of sharing Jesus just does not make sense.
