recently I wrote an article for the local newspaper on 'What's right with the Church'
www.stuff.co.nz/the-press/opinion/3584017/whats-right-with-thechurch
It was good to have the opportunity to offer something that celebrates those who find themselves in the middle of the extremes for whom their practical expression of faith is valuable and valued
Showing posts with label church. Show all posts
Showing posts with label church. Show all posts
30 June 2010
10 June 2009
The Church's Primary Task
I receive a daily email from http://www.inwardoutward.org/
Today's quote from John Howard Yoder's The Politics of Jesus on the church seems pertinent in a season where everyone seems to be running around trying to make the church bigger when the primary task is that it lives unfettered by consumerist notions of what is successful.
"The very existence of the church is her primary task. It is in itself a proclamation of the Lordship of Christ to the powers from whose dominion the church has begun to be liberated. The church does not attack the powers; this Christ has done. The church concentrates upon not being seduced by them."
05 June 2009
soundings: sunday coming
This week we are celebrating Pentecost (a week late!) with worship at 10am and morning tea at 11am, that will link with a children & families celebration event that our children & family worker and children's leader have organised.
I’m doing some thinking about how the Spirit works in relation to two stories from early in John’s Gospel – Jesus & Nicodemus, and Jesus & the Samaritan woman at the well. There are a number of interesting conclusions to be drawn along the theme of ‘generous welcome’ that are pivotal in our life together as a serving church. Eugene Peterson's excellent chapter Clearing the Playing Field in his book Christ Plays In Ten Thousand Places has proved to be a great resource.
I’m doing some thinking about how the Spirit works in relation to two stories from early in John’s Gospel – Jesus & Nicodemus, and Jesus & the Samaritan woman at the well. There are a number of interesting conclusions to be drawn along the theme of ‘generous welcome’ that are pivotal in our life together as a serving church. Eugene Peterson's excellent chapter Clearing the Playing Field in his book Christ Plays In Ten Thousand Places has proved to be a great resource.
a quote from Jean Vanier about community
Everything will resolve itself through love.
Stop wasting time running after the perfect community.
Live your life fully in your community today.
Stop seeing the flaws – and thank God there are some!
Look rather at your own defects and know that you are forgiven
and can, in your turn, forgive others
and today enter into the conversion of love, and remember, pray always.
Jean Vanier in Community and Growth
13 September 2007
fridge magnets
And while I'm at it here at St Stephen's we have a little mission to a village in Ethiopia where we help care for 60 elderly people with a modest amount of money, as well as helping the odd village with their water supply. This year as part of the mission report in our Annual Report we are including a fridge magnet for people to stick on their... fridges...
U2 communion thingee
In Christchurch we're working towards a kiwi version of the U2-charist worship service containing music by U2...
A group of us Presbyterians are holding it on 7 October (World Communion Sunday) at 5-45pm in the Hornby Community Presbyterian Church. I've tried to reproduce the poster for the blog...
11 September 2007
Emerging from the wilderness
Not only have I not blogged since my return from Vanuatu, but I have been without the internet. Five weeks off-line has been ok actually.
The Vanuatu experience was fantastic - the highlight was the week at Talua Ministry College and the warmth of the people, their generosity and their searching questions. I also enjoyed the snorkelling opportunities.
The night-time dogs and early-morning roosters incited murderous thoughts, and the stolen passport was a bit of a problem but otherwise... it was great!
I am currently reading Chris Crump's story of her 18 years on Nguna Island near Efate where her husband Ken was a minister, doctor, dentist, farmer, mechanic, and whatever else, in the late 1930's to 50's. I knew Chris and Ken and know some of their family as well - the story is all the more interesting because of my trip.
My ten days have nothing on those years of commitment and at times great sacrifice, but it was good to be there and remember them and the many others who have served over the years in that lovely country, as well as make friends with the Meier's and Parkes who are serving over there at the moment.
26 July 2007
Dolphins fail crucial intelligence tests thus are not suitable candidates for baptism
I found the following remarkable article as I have been preparing for my visit to Vanuatu.
Study: Dolphins Not So Intelligent On Land
This article is helpful in confirming among other things that dolphins are not human. This may be a shock to some people, but it is better that this is stated for the public record. Humans are able to perform their tricks on both land and in the sea.
I have had an ongoing discussion with a friend and colleague over whether our dogs should be baptised or not. [My friend is the most reluctant host of a dog - so reluctant, in fact, that the word host is stated here in the sense of the relationship between parasite and host, rather than in the sense of hospitality that might exist between guest and host.]
My friend has argued that being made in the image of God and able to worship God, freely respond, etc are the essential preconditions for baptism into the church. He has stated firmly that our dogs are not of such a precondition... I haven't had the opportunity to ask him whether dolphins would have a better chance of being suitable for baptism. But I was about to until I read the attached article.
Until today, my argument would have been that dolphins are as intelligent as humans, or possibly, more intelligent... this was to be backed by studies of:
the size of dolphin brains,
their ability to communicate,
their dexterous fins,
their ability to ward off sharks and avoid warfare (a quality clearly superior to humans and an obvious living out of the 'blessed be the peacemakers' teaching of Jesus,
their concern for global warming and other global issues,
their ability to laugh at themselves (and us)
and, of course, their interest in theology albeit some difficulty in the communication thereof beyond their own species...
But now they have proved to have failed in some crucial intelligence tests... maybe the baptism question has to be suspended until they can pass the crucial out-of-water intelligence tests.
11 May 2007
New Thing in the Presbyterian Church
Sally Carter a colleague, alerted me to the relevance of a quote another colleague used in a presentation to Christchurch Presbytery this last week… it comes from Albert Einstein and seems pertinent to what New Thing (an emerging group in the PCANZ) is trying to be about.
“The significant problems we face cannot be solved at the same level of thinking we were at when we created them’ - Einstein
I think that our church especially how it goes about its life together in these days of diversity needs a new way of thinking – a stepping back. I think that this is what New Thing is attempting to explore… but it isn’t easy. Already some of the ways we address one another’s point of view in our discussion forums reflects the old skins we have grown up in.
How do we enable new ways of being the church in these diverse times that don’t diminish people and their way of seeing things, yet still hold to the integrity of the Christian faith?
I find it stupid that a modest majority from a gathering of 300 or so people can or should be determining what happens in the church where I minister in terms of who they can call into any form of leadership etc (The PCANZ General Assembly made a ruling in 2006). I’m with Albert in that I believe we aren’t going to sort this stupidity out by using the same systems that created the initial stupidity – what a deep hole we will end up with then!
“The significant problems we face cannot be solved at the same level of thinking we were at when we created them’ - Einstein
I think that our church especially how it goes about its life together in these days of diversity needs a new way of thinking – a stepping back. I think that this is what New Thing is attempting to explore… but it isn’t easy. Already some of the ways we address one another’s point of view in our discussion forums reflects the old skins we have grown up in.
How do we enable new ways of being the church in these diverse times that don’t diminish people and their way of seeing things, yet still hold to the integrity of the Christian faith?
I find it stupid that a modest majority from a gathering of 300 or so people can or should be determining what happens in the church where I minister in terms of who they can call into any form of leadership etc (The PCANZ General Assembly made a ruling in 2006). I’m with Albert in that I believe we aren’t going to sort this stupidity out by using the same systems that created the initial stupidity – what a deep hole we will end up with then!
10 May 2007
Most of the time it is person to person
Here's some of what I'm working up for Sunday...
We have been focusing the last few weeks on the changes in the early church where they discovered that the Spirit was calling them across some of the divides in their culture. Peter finds himself meeting a disciple of Jesus who is female, he accepts an invitation to stay at the home of Simon the Tanner (who touches the carcasses of dead animals and is therefore unclean) and then in a dream he is challenged to cross the greater divide – to go to the home of a Gentile – a Roman Officer, and there discover that God has been at work – and it is OK. All through these accounts is the common thread that the followers of Jesus were being called out – called out to go to where God was working. I have been arguing that these stories are important for our time in that it is no longer enough to expect people to have to come to us and fit in with us – we too are being called to be the ones who go to where others are – to cross the lines and cut across the boarders and boundaries that we have so often constructed and hidden behind.
There are all kinds of ways we might then follow these provocative texts up… the temptation is to come up with a list of what we can do now… 10 steps to a more effective church – 5 things that you can do to make a difference tomorrow… I can see the book titles already… I might even get asked to go on a lecture circuit!
But this is not a programme. Church is not a programme. Relating to people is not a formula and it is manipulative of people (and thus diminishing of them) if we just employ a tactic to get them in. Where is God leading us? I think the answer isn’t too difficult… love your neighbours. Be the person in your street who takes an interest in people. Be the one who invites people in for a cuppa. Be the one through whom others see that to be a Christian is ok, that to worship God is a good thing… be hospitable as God is hospitable… One thing I have come to learn is that the Christian faith has almost always been a thing passed on from person to person. Occasionally a big event happens – Pentecost Day, a Billy Graham rally – but most of the time, it is person to person. We don’t need fancy books and super-duper programmes… we just have to cross a few of the lines in our neighbourhoods. A bit of hospitality here and a bit of generosity there… not far behind there will be people’s deep questions and their innate thirst for God awakened… not far behind the loosening up of the defences is the fertile ground for God’s Spirit to speak and be heard.
We have been focusing the last few weeks on the changes in the early church where they discovered that the Spirit was calling them across some of the divides in their culture. Peter finds himself meeting a disciple of Jesus who is female, he accepts an invitation to stay at the home of Simon the Tanner (who touches the carcasses of dead animals and is therefore unclean) and then in a dream he is challenged to cross the greater divide – to go to the home of a Gentile – a Roman Officer, and there discover that God has been at work – and it is OK. All through these accounts is the common thread that the followers of Jesus were being called out – called out to go to where God was working. I have been arguing that these stories are important for our time in that it is no longer enough to expect people to have to come to us and fit in with us – we too are being called to be the ones who go to where others are – to cross the lines and cut across the boarders and boundaries that we have so often constructed and hidden behind.
There are all kinds of ways we might then follow these provocative texts up… the temptation is to come up with a list of what we can do now… 10 steps to a more effective church – 5 things that you can do to make a difference tomorrow… I can see the book titles already… I might even get asked to go on a lecture circuit!
But this is not a programme. Church is not a programme. Relating to people is not a formula and it is manipulative of people (and thus diminishing of them) if we just employ a tactic to get them in. Where is God leading us? I think the answer isn’t too difficult… love your neighbours. Be the person in your street who takes an interest in people. Be the one who invites people in for a cuppa. Be the one through whom others see that to be a Christian is ok, that to worship God is a good thing… be hospitable as God is hospitable… One thing I have come to learn is that the Christian faith has almost always been a thing passed on from person to person. Occasionally a big event happens – Pentecost Day, a Billy Graham rally – but most of the time, it is person to person. We don’t need fancy books and super-duper programmes… we just have to cross a few of the lines in our neighbourhoods. A bit of hospitality here and a bit of generosity there… not far behind there will be people’s deep questions and their innate thirst for God awakened… not far behind the loosening up of the defences is the fertile ground for God’s Spirit to speak and be heard.
29 April 2007
A blessing
A Franciscan Christmas Blessing for Justice and Peace
May God bless you with discomfort... at easy answers, hard hearts, half-truths ,and superficial relationships.
May God bless you with discomfort... at easy answers, hard hearts, half-truths ,and superficial relationships.
May God bless you so that you may live from deep within your heart where God’s Spirit dwells.
May God bless you with anger... at injustice, oppression, and exploitation of people.
May God bless you so that you may work for justice, freedom, and peace.
May God bless you with tears... to shed for those who suffer from pain, rejection, starvation and war.
May God bless you so that you may reach out your hand to comfort them and turn their pain into joy.
And may God bless you with enough foolishness to believe that you can make a difference in this world, in your neighborhood, so that you will courageously try what you don't think you can do, but, in Jesus Christ you'll have all the strength necessary.
May God bless you to fearlessly speak out about injustice, unjust laws, corrupt politicians, unjust and cruel treatment of prisoners, and senseless wars, genocides, starvations, and poverty that is so pervasive.
May God bless you that you remember we are all called to continue God’s redemptive work of love and healing in God’s place, in and through God’s name, in God’s Spirit, continually creating and breathing new life and grace into everything and everyone we touch.
Source: "Troubadour: A Missionary Magazine," published by the Franciscan Missionary Society, Liverpool, UK: Spring 2005.
23 March 2007
The empty tomb
Anne and I have moved to Christchurch where I am minister at St Stephen's Presbyterian Church in Bryndwr near the airport.
I'm having a go at getting back into the blogging business...
This time with a quote from material I am accessing on the web... It is based on the ideas of theologian Rene Girard. http://girardianlectionary.net/
The empty tomb is essential for understanding the resurrection, not because it announced the resurrection, but because it deprived those who were later to experience the resurrection of a cathartic religious ritual that might have substituted for it. The discovery of the empty tomb meant that Jesus' corpse and its resting place could not be made into a shrine and become the locus for a new religious cult. Had Jesus' tomb not been empty, the explosive force that scattered the gospel revelation out beyond the culture-world in which it originated and broadcast it to the corners of the earth might have been offset by the gravitation pull of a central shrine. Had the tomb not been empty, what Paul feared might have happened. The Cross might have slowly moved to the margins of Christian awareness and the Christian message. Christianity might have become what some have recently declared it to be: a philosophical affair presided over by a Jeffersonian Jesus full of wise and occasionally ironic sayings.
Given the significance of the empty tomb, nothing symbolizes Christianity's apostasy in history as perfectly as do the Crusades, that cluster of sacrificial convulsions that essentially brought "Europe" as a cultural phenomenon into existence. Pope Urban B launched the First Crusade by passionately imploring European Christendom to arm for the task of reclaiming from the infidel the sepulcher of Christ. This sacred mission remained the supreme rallying cry for all the subsequent Crusades. In other words, Christianity's most notorious revival of sacred violence involved a repudiation of the story of the empty tomb and a more or less spontaneous revival of the structures of sacred violence whose perversities the crucifixion had exposed.
[Excerpt from Gil Bailie's Violence Unveiled: Humanity at the Crossroads (New York: Crossroads, 1995)]
I'm having a go at getting back into the blogging business...
This time with a quote from material I am accessing on the web... It is based on the ideas of theologian Rene Girard. http://girardianlectionary.net/
The empty tomb is essential for understanding the resurrection, not because it announced the resurrection, but because it deprived those who were later to experience the resurrection of a cathartic religious ritual that might have substituted for it. The discovery of the empty tomb meant that Jesus' corpse and its resting place could not be made into a shrine and become the locus for a new religious cult. Had Jesus' tomb not been empty, the explosive force that scattered the gospel revelation out beyond the culture-world in which it originated and broadcast it to the corners of the earth might have been offset by the gravitation pull of a central shrine. Had the tomb not been empty, what Paul feared might have happened. The Cross might have slowly moved to the margins of Christian awareness and the Christian message. Christianity might have become what some have recently declared it to be: a philosophical affair presided over by a Jeffersonian Jesus full of wise and occasionally ironic sayings.
Given the significance of the empty tomb, nothing symbolizes Christianity's apostasy in history as perfectly as do the Crusades, that cluster of sacrificial convulsions that essentially brought "Europe" as a cultural phenomenon into existence. Pope Urban B launched the First Crusade by passionately imploring European Christendom to arm for the task of reclaiming from the infidel the sepulcher of Christ. This sacred mission remained the supreme rallying cry for all the subsequent Crusades. In other words, Christianity's most notorious revival of sacred violence involved a repudiation of the story of the empty tomb and a more or less spontaneous revival of the structures of sacred violence whose perversities the crucifixion had exposed.
[Excerpt from Gil Bailie's Violence Unveiled: Humanity at the Crossroads (New York: Crossroads, 1995)]
07 May 2006
Highgate Mission
We've got our church webpage up and running now with Rory Grant doing the webmaster thing... you can see it here... http://www.highgatemission.info/
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