The End of Church Planting?

Worth While article over at Christianity Today on The End of Church Planting?

I think Ministry Teams in my current context go a long way to achieving exactly this.

Some of my response to a post on a An Easter Quandary?

Original blog can be found here.

I feel sorry that is the only message you've heard about the cross, I haven't heard a sermon like that for years. And most good modern Christian theology doesn't talk like that either. You should read some Jurgen Moltman or Mirslav Volf, the fact that on the Cross Jesus experiences our Sin not the divine placing sin upon Jesus, but human beings sinning against Jesus. That Jesus suffers, that God suffers.

Also to answer you other questions the first Century theology Irenaus has some fantastic answers.

The problem is that Jesus didn't die in our place. (That in my view is bad theology)
Jesus died and rose again to overcome, sin and death, so that those enemies are defeated. You can not defeat an enemy without engaging with it, Jesus engages with both Sin and Death upon the Cross. Easter though is about Jesus overcoming it.

The Meaning of Life

This morning I don’t want to be too serious, so I want to start with a very small theme indeed. Simply this…. The meaning of life.

Now the first thing I should say getting up here and picking such a topic to speak to you about; is that I do not believe that I have learnt everything there is know about the meaning of life, but let me share with you what I do think I’ve worked out.

I want to begin with what is the goal of life? Where is life destined to take us? This was the point of the Book of Revelation in its sometimes very strange language, it sets about telling us who is in control of the universe, who the universes’ true King is and the objective of that King.
The obvious answer to who is in charge of everything is of course God. But the vision of writer of Revelation is bigger than just telling us who is in charge. Revelation ends in chapters 21 and 22 telling us about a new heaven and a new earth and a New Jerusalem. This is the vision of the end The New Jerusalem coming down out of heaven like a bride adorned for her husband. It is so different to many would-be Christian scenarios in which the end of the story is the Christian going off to heaven as a soul, naked and unadorned, to meet its maker in fear and trembling. This ending is almost the complete opposite, this end is not that we go off to something that is just spiritual but here is God’s New Creation out of the old Creation here is something completely physical. It is a City not for us humans to go to dwell with God, like the vision of souls going up to heaven but it is a vision of God coming and dwelling with us human beings.
This is the completion of the incarnation of God with us. This is not a vision of all the children of heaven being rescued from this wicked earth, it is actually saying something quite radically different, that the earth was always created for this purpose, that there will be a union like that of a wedding between God and the world. This isn’t God wiping the slate clean and starting again, there is a continuation. For if it was God wiping the slate clean there would be no celebration, no conquest of death, no long preparation coming to a completion in this vision. This is God using as you would; what we have done with our very lives what we have created and done with the world, it is God using those very things as the building blocks of this New Creation there is a continuation. This is the city where Human beings will finally fulfil our God given vocations, where we will be doing what we were originally created to be doing.
So you may well be saying to me, that is all very well and Good, you have a ending but how does that change our lives now, if that is the Goal of Life, and the meaning of Life, what are we supposed to be doing now while we wait to get there? And I’d say that is a very good question because I had hoped you would be asking that!

And so you bring me to the Gospel reading for today, what we are called to do, now, in this life, is to learn the language if you would for the life in that city our true vocations.

In the same way if any one of us was going to move and live in say China in a couple of years’ time, we’d begin to research China, her culture and of course her language. We’d probably even begin to learn Chinese so we could speak to people there. It is the same for our preparation in this life.

And so our Gospel, in which Jesus is telling the disciples of a time when he will not be with them, gives them a commandment, “To love one another, just as I have loved you.” Now at one level what Jesus is saying sounds all nice, innocent and touchy feely. And I guess at one level it is. However, at another level it is deeply radical, what is this language, what is this love that Jesus speaks of.

Is it simply just the love of a servant that we see in Jesus when he was washing the disciples feet? We all need to serve each other and those around us. And I think Jesus would say, yes it is that, but it is more than that too.
So is it the love that Jesus has that takes him to the Cross, that Jesus takes on our Sins and our death and dies for us? And I think again, Jesus would say yes, that we need to be willing to give our whole lives to see the world transformed for others. But I think Jesus would still say to us, yes it is that, but it is more than that too.

I think that at the deepest level, the Love that Jesus is speaking about, is the love that Jesus shows us in his very incarnation, that of God coming and being with us. Jesus in this love for us, gives up all power, authority, glory that he had by being the second person of the Trinity and as St.Paul says in Philippians humbled himself and took on the very form of a Servant. That he then humbled himself further to became obedient unto death. This love of Jesus for us, is about humility about giving everything up for the other. This is the language of Love that we in this life are trying to learn. How it looks for each of us is part of the challenge. It is the love that the city of Revelation is about.

For St.Peter in our reading from Acts and some of the other believers it was giving up the rigorous food laws and to see that God accepted the Gentiles too. For other disciples in the Book of Acts it was selling their homes and giving the money to the Church. I don’t know how God is challenging you or teaching you at this moment of the Language of the New Creation this language of Love, but I do know that each of us needs to be open to hear and see and act out of that language that we are called to learn. Amen.

The reason for the three stories

During the week, the media have been pulling apart the Crows, all because they lost three matches.

So I thought given we are at Church, it would be a fantastic idea to do the same.

The Crows’ first loss could be put down to a whole lot of different factors, perhaps the players were just ill prepared, they hadn’t learnt their tactics properly, Fremantle is just a better side, etc. etc.. Whatever the excuses were for the first loss, it of course no fan would be saying that Adelaide couldn’t win the premiership

Round two, high hopes that this week the Team would prove that last week something just went wrong. And so those who went to the game faithfully cheered on the Crows, only to see them defeated by Sydney. At this stage some fans started to say well obviously this season isn’t going to go well, the true fans of course were still saying nothing was wrong.

And then Round Three came, and low and behold the unthinkable happened; the Crows lost to Melbourne. And so the media this week has been writing off the Crows for the Season. Now the die-hard fans are the only ones probably still believing that the Crows will win the Premiership this year, the rest of us are facing the facts that the best hope this season for a South Australian team to win the Premiership is with the Power.

Now you may be wondering what the Crows loosing has with our faith as Christians. It all has to do with three; three losses for the Crows and three Resurrection stories in John’s Gospel to help us to Believe in the Physical Resurrection of Jesus. Each of the Resurrection stories helps us to realise the facts of the Resurrection that John is telling us about. The same as the three losses of the Crows have helped many of us realise the season isn’t going to be a successful one. Though there are always those who refused to face the facts of the reality that is presented to them!

The three Resurrection Stories each tell us something more about the resurrected Jesus. The first thing I should say is that when John talks about Jesus being resurrected he is not talking about ‘believing that Jesus had gone to heaven’, though many people still think that is what Christians mean when they say Jesus was raised from the dead, John is talking about resurrection that someone had been physically raised from the dead.

That being said, everybody in the ancient world knew that resurrection didn't happen. More: they knew it couldn't happen. They spoke of it, in the classical world of Greece and Rome, as something one might imagine but which never actually occurred, and never could or would. The Jews, though, began to believe that it would. Not all of them, mind; the Sadducees resolutely stuck out against it. And the Jews weren't all clear exactly what it would mean, what it would be like. But they believed, that when resurrection happened it would happen to all God's people all at once. Perhaps, even, to all people everywhere. Not - this is the point - to one person in the middle of time. That would be an odd, outlandish event, unimagined, unheard-of.

And yet, this is what John says is what happened to Jesus and that it changed the world, that the Romans could not contain Jesus by killing him, that sin could not contain Jesus by killing him. That in the Resurrection, Jesus defeats death itself and shows that those who are baptised in him will be made like him as St.Paul so often told those whom he was writing to.

The first Resurrection story in John’s Gospel is that of Mary Magdalene in the Garden after the tomb was found to be empty. She see Jesus in the Garden and first mistakes him for the Gardener it is not until he calls her by her name that she recognizes him and goes to grasp him. Of course Jesus tells her not to grasp him but instead to tell the disciples that she has seen him. So the first story tells us that Jesus is graspable that Mary could have held the Resurrected Jesus.

The Second story takes place on two Sunday evenings, with the disciple locking themselves in a room in Jerusalem, in this room Jesus Suddenly appears in this room and wishes Peace on them, he breathes the Holy Spirit on them and sends them out to share the Good News. Thomas who was only present on the Second Sunday even touches the scares on Jesus’ hands, feet and his side where the Spear had gone in.

Then we have this morning’s story where the disciples had gone back to fishing. And yet, Jesus meets them there as well, calling out to them from the shore and helps them with their fishing and then shares a meal with them of fish and bread. And so we have the third story where Jesus even eats with the Disciples.

These three stories are a bit like the Crows first three matches, the first three matches showed us that the Crows will not be winning the Flag this season, each game the Crows lost confirmed to us just a bit more. Though, on Paper the Crows still could win the Premiership.

It is similar with the Resurrection; John wants us to see that Jesus’ Resurrection is the physical resurrection it cannot be put down to hallucinations, ghosts, group hysteria or some plot. John wants us to see that the Resurrection of Jesus, was Physical that death has been defeat that Sin has been defeated and that those who believe in Jesus are now to live out of and to share the Hope that in Jesus at the end of time all things will be recreated. It is fantastic news, that is why we call it Good News and we are simply called to share it and live out of the hope of that Good News. Though like those who say that on Paper the Crows could win the Premiership, there are people who say that no one is raised from the dead and so that these stories are fantasies. So we are faced with our own choice are these stories about Jesus Resurrection true or are they made up. The Disciples though would be persecuted and die for these stories, people don’t die for lies.

N.T. Wright going to St. Andrews Uni

In a surprise move, N.T. Wright will be leaving his position as Bishop of Durham and will be taking up a post as Research Professor of New Testament and Early Christianity at St. Andrews University in Scotland. See the reports at the Diocese of Durham website and St. Andrews Uni website.

Thanks Warren Huffa for letting me know this!

The Anglican Communion as Communion of Churches: on the historic significance of the Anglican Covenant

Great little paper over at Fulcrum for the discussion on the purpose of the Anglican Covenant.

The paper aims to draw out the historic significance of the Anglican Covenant for the Anglican Communion. It begins by examining the nature and reasons of the "ecclesial deficit" of the Anglican Communion. It points out that the ecclesial status of the Anglican Communion has never been clarified. The Anglican Communion arises historically as an accident. It has never been constituted as an ecclesial body. The paper traces the transformations in the Anglican ecclesiastical map amid powerful global undercurrents in the second half of the twentieth century. It reflects on the emergence of the status of the See of Canterbury as "focus of unity" of the Anglican Communion. It proceeds to point out how uncritical adoption of the term "instruments of unity" from Protestant ecumenical dialogues led to confusion and mistrust among Anglican Churches. The paper then explores the potentials of communion-ecclesiology for the Anglican Covenant. It goes on to argue that the Anglican Covenant, grounded in the New Covenant, provides the canonical structure of the Anglican Communion. It constitutes the particular Churches to be a confident Communion of Churches. The inter-Anglican structures of the Anglican Communion should in fact be the ecclesiastical embodiment of the Anglican Covenant.

The self-empyting Love that is the Christian God

I want to ask you for the moment to think of some of the greatest leaders that you can think of. When we think of great leaders we probably think of great sport stars, great business leaders or even great politicians. We might think of people such as Winston Churchill, or Napoleon or maybe Obama. They are all people whom we see as having a vision for themselves and maybe the people around them and then they go and claim that vision and those things.

In St. Paul’s time the world was no different he knew of Alexander the great whom at the age of 20 became King of Macedonia and quickly made himself master of all of Greece, he then set about conquering the rest of the world, he died aged 33 and even within his life time his success meant that people started to consider him divine. It was the same with the Roman Emperors they are seen as people who saw what they could have and have then taken it.

Perhaps today we would be slightly more cynical of people, who take power or things like this, however, the underlying worldview is still very much present in our society.

The underlying worldview is actually all linked to an understanding of LOVE.

I want to give you some background of one of the concepts of Love that was around in the time of Alexander, the Emperors, St. Paul and which still has a very large influence on our society today. It is the understanding of Love that Plato had. The type of Love that Plato talked about was called Eros, it is a love out of desire for that which is greater that which is more perfect, it is in a simplistic way a form of Lust. We see a form of this type of Love all around in our society, we might not call it love we might call it greed or we might call it freedom and doing what we feel is right or any other name but it is the type of love where we desire something which we consider greater and go after it until we have it. Plato argued that those whom completely love what was perfect for example the divine in turn became the object of their love so perhaps they even become divine themselves. For Plato the more pure the object of ones love was the more pure that the lover would become.

It is this type of thinking that lead in part to seeing Alexander and the Roman Emperors as divine, the fact that they had control over so much the fact that they had possessed all that they loved meant that they must have been divine, it was obvious in this worldview from what they had achieved. Now our society wouldn’t call people in these situations now divine we tend to just put the word “Super” in front of whatever their chosen profession is. i.e. Superstar, Super Model etc.

Now the way of Jesus is so different to this the Love that Jesus shows is not this type of love that dominated the surrounding culture. In Jesus the Church has seen,
the divine love that which is not divine,
that which is in crude terms beneath it.
This type of love the love for the lesser is called Agape love. This is what St.Paul is telling us about in his letter to the Philippians that “Jesus though in God’s form, did not regard his equality with God as something he ought to exploit. Instead, he emptied himself.”

St.Paul goes on to speak in his poem about what happens next in the story of the incarnation that Jesus out of his love for us, for his love of all creation became obedient even to death and the most cursed form of death that of the cross. Today we celebrate Palm Sunday and the people cheering Jesus as their King but Jesus love takes him not to stay at this point of being worshipped but to where we’ll end up on Friday being mocked and found dead upon a cross. This is what Agape love is about, giving ones all to that which is undesirable. This is what Jesus was talking about when he said to Love ones enemies, Love the ones that we least desire.
As Christians we are called to Agape love the love of self-emptying , of giving away all, for love for that which is less. It is the love that takes Jesus to completely give himself for us on the cross. The challenge for us is, is our love that of Eros, the one that Plato taught about, the love of self-fulfilment the love that requires us to be right that seeks to be divine that has a desire to get everything that we want or is our love the agape love that Jesus shows us the love which allows us to give our all, to give all that we have and all that we desire to others even to others which we might consider less than ourselves?

During this week we are going to go through the Easter Story, we will move from today’s celebration of Palm Sunday towards Jesus’ love of creation on Friday and his crucifixion and then to the celebration that is Easter next Sunday. The challenge for us as the baptised is that we were baptised into Jesus’ death and resurrection; that this Friday we are to recall our own death so that we might have new life with Christ both in the future and now in the present. And that this new life that we celebrate on Easter day is that of Agape Love this love of self-emptying of giving it all up for those which might otherwise consider less than us. The challenge for us is to have love for those which we do not desire and this love will cause us to make huge sacrifices for those for whom we know are undeserving. However, I’m not just saying this because I think it is something that sounds like a bit of fun. I’m saying this is what we are called to, because, this is what Jesus did for each and every one of us. The question for us is how do we love do we love out of desire or do we love out of self-empyting?