Young Anglican Thoughts

The End of Church Planting?

2011-07-17T16:22:00.002+09:30

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?

2011-04-26T10:05:00.000+09:30

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

2010-05-03T07:30:00.000+09:30

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

2010-05-01T07:30:00.001+09:30

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

2010-05-01T07:30:00.000+09:30

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

2010-03-29T07:30:00.001+10:30

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

2010-03-28T07:30:00.000+10:30

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?

The Older Brother?

2010-03-15T07:30:00.001+10:30

Our Gospel reading this morning almost needs no introduction. This parable of the prodigal son has inspired artists and writers alike. And yet, it is very easy for us to assume that the story is simply about the wonderful love and forgiving grace of God, ready to welcome back sinners at the first sign of repentance. That is indeed its greatest theme, which is to be enjoyed and celebrated. But the story itself goes deeper than we often assume.

We need to start by understanding how families like this work. When the father divided the property between the two sons, and the younger son turned his share into cash, this must have meant that the land the father owned had been split into two, with the younger boy selling off his share to someone else. The shame that this would bring on the family would be added to the shame the son had already brought on the father by asking for his share before the father’s death; it was the equivalent of saying ‘I wish you were dead’. The father bears these two blows without recrimination.

In traditional Cultures, like that of Jesus’ day, people find the story quite incredible. Fathers just don’t behave like that; he should (they think) have beaten him, or thrown him out. There is a depth of mystery already built in to the story before the son even leaves home. It is also shameful for the son to have left for the big city abandoning his obligation to care for his father in his old age. And of course the story continues further into shame when this son runs out of money and ends up feeding pigs and considering sharing food with them.

The most remarkable thing of course in our story is the father himself. In the culture Jesus was in senior figures are far too dignified to run anywhere, by running to his son that has return he is throwing all caution to the wind. This of course brings us to the party where all the action is.

There is nothing at all that commends the young man to his father; the young man has done everything wrong. And yet, the Father sums up the reason for the party in “For this son of mine was dead and is alive again.” The father uses the words of resurrection that from death something has become alive again. This will not be the only time Jesus uses these words in this story.

Now we would love to just end the story at this point, it is a great story about the sinner returning to God in repentance. This parable is not though just about the sinner repenting. The story continues with the older brother outside the party, saying to his Father, “Listen! For all these years I have been working like a slave for you, and I have never disobeyed your command; yet you have never given me even a young goat so that I might celebrate with my friends.” I have never disobeyed your command, is the claim of the Pharisees, it is the claim they are making against Jesus for his involvement with the Tax collectors and the prostitutes.

I know we often see the Father in this story as God the Father, but the Father is better view as Jesus. Jesus is the one who is very conscious of there being two groups to whom his ministry is to. Those whom have disobeyed God’s commandments and when they see Jesus suddenly realise their own mistakes and seek repentance. And then there are those who like the Older Son who have been faithful to God’s commandments, faithful in serving God.

This parable of Jesus finishes with the Older Son, whom it seems has become bitter and twisted by seeing the younger son welcomed back to the home and his inheritance used on throwing him a party. The Older Son is told by the Father, ‘Son, you are always with me, and all that is mine is yours. But we had to celebrate and rejoice, because this brother of yours was dead and come to life; he was lost and has been found.’ Again we are confronted with the language of resurrection what was dead has come to life.

The Challenge for us as Christians in this Gospel is not how do we repent and be like the younger son. The challenge of the younger son is for those who have not yet come to faith, it is a challenge calling those who have not yet come to believe to repent and come to faith. This is good news for those outside. However, the challenge for us as Christians is actually in the fact that we not those outside but we are the ones inside the faith, we are the Older Brother.

This is where it becomes hard, the fact that we might have to share our resources our inheritance with those to whom from our point of view have just squandered it, with those whom we consider completely undeserving, this is hard.

The story finishes with us not knowing how the older brother reacts to what the Father has to say. However, if we pay attention to it we will see some things of great importance to us.

The Father in the Story, we should read Jesus says to us as we are like the older brother, “You are always with me, and all that is mine is yours” what a fantastic promise. No matter what happens we are with Jesus and that we share in what is his. This of course means that we share with him in his resurrection and all that this means. What comes with that promise though is a big ‘But’, ‘But we had to celebrate and rejoice, because this brother of yours was dead and has come to life; he was lost and has been found.’ Now at one level, we of course go well that does make sense those that were lost have been found what was dead is now alive. However, it isn’t that easy for us, for we need to remember that this celebration comes at a cost to us, the older brother loses out on the fatted calf in his inheritance and we have no idea what more might be asked for him in the future from his father for his younger brother. This is the challenge for us, Jesus promises that we will always be with him and what is his is ours but that what we have right now we might have to give up; in order to celebrate and see the lost found. This is the hard underlying reality of this Parable for us as Christians. Amen.

Who is smarter, the chicken or the fox?

2010-03-08T07:30:00.000+10:30

I want to start this morning by asking the age old question of who is smarter, the chicken or the fox? So often in English literature we have characters that are Foxes and characters that are Chickens.
The Chickens are normally stereotyped as being “bird-brained” of lacking any depth of understanding, simple creatures that simply want to get on with their lives without being disturbed by having to think too much.
The Fox on the other hand is stereotyped as wily, devious, always willing on seize on any chance good or bad to improve his lot.
These images of the chickens and the Fox are the exact same images that Jesus in our Gospel wants us to be drawing on.
We are invited to see Herod as a Fox, we are invited to see him as devious, as looking for any opportunity that he can take that might advantage his lot, to see him as a tyrant. We are invited to see Herod as this stereotype simply because people will always rise up to be tyrants. There are always those in authority that are in power for their own gain, their own glory, their own financial wellbeing. Jesus simply says to tell Herod what is going to happen to Jesus, that Herod is not the one to lay hands on Jesus and to seize him but Jesus will end up being arrested and killed, like the prophets, in Jerusalem.
Jerusalem is of course the city of peace. It is amazing to think about the difference between what Jerusalem means the city of peace and the reality that so often has confronted the city throughout its history. It is almost as if no one was ever given the memo that Jerusalem was to be the city of peace. As Jesus points out the citizens of Jerusalem, the city itself does not seem to know that it is meant to be for peace. “Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it!” The violence of such a city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it, I think is lost on us in such a quick little phrase. However, Jesus is so very aware that Jerusalem has killed in its hundreds those that God has sent to it.
And so, Jesus calls himself a chicken, well actually he uses the image of a mother hen. “I desired to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings.” What a fantastic image of motherly love, this sense of drawing all people together under the wing.
However, before I continue talking about Jesus as a chicken, I wanted to go back to the question of which is smarter the chicken or the Fox.
During the week, I came across this fascinating article from a Local paper in England called the Echo. The article was called “Outfoxed...chickens turn table on predator”
Let me read for you some of the article
“FOUR plucky chickens, led by a crafty cockerel called Dude, got their own back on a preying fox...by killing it.
Michelle Cordell, 43, said she was dumbfounded when she found the dead fox in the coup in her garden, off Dry Street, Langdon Hills, when she went to collect eggs.
She described how her family had suffered the repeated heartbreak of a prowling fox sneaking in and killing chickens, and even a cockerel.
But now the chickens are revelling in revenge... and Michelle suspects foul play.
She said: “I was so shocked. When I went to the chicken coup they were all fine, but when I went to the other side, the fox was lying there, dead.
“I’ve never heard of anything like this before. It’s like revenge of the chicken.”
In a scene reminiscent from the film Chicken Run, it appears they hatched their own plan to get rid of the fox... quite literally turning the tables on their pesky foe.
Michelle explained: “The little table, in the corner of the coup, which the chickens perch on, had been kicked over and was lying next to the fox’s head.
“It seems they kicked over the table and knocked the fox out, then pecked it to death.”
Michelle had no doubt about who the prime suspect was.
She said: “I reared Dude from a tiny little chick and he has become very protective over the others. He thinks he’s human and chases our dogs around the garden, pecking them.
“Now he’s a murderer.”
It is believed the chickens are now under armed guard, while forensic officers carry out an eggsamination of the murder scene.
All four expect to do some bird.”

So obviously the answer to our question of which is smarter the Fox or the chickens it is that we need to be more worried of murdering chickens in our world than devious Foxes.
This perhaps is one of the most amazing things in my point of view. I grew up with the term “Chicken” being used by bullies and young men as a term to get someone to do something outrageous. The term for me, when used for a person has the connotation of someone who is weak, of someone who is most likely to run away from the challenges that are confronting them. It then becomes strange to think that Jesus is the one who uses this concept of the mother hen as a image for himself in relationship of fronting the challenges that confront him.
“For my thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways my ways, says the Lord.” Being chickens seems counter-intuitive to us, why we would be the simple creatures just trying to get on with life.
However, here we are called to follow the biggest chicken of them all. As we know the story of being a chicken changes everything. Jesus by going to Jerusalem ends up, as that other horrible phrase that, bullies like to use when the “Chicken” they are trying to force into submission is not listening, Jesus ends up as “Dead Meat”. This loving “Mother Hen” ends up dying for not submitting to the authorities and their tyranny.
We, however, know that the story of Jesus does not end up with him just being dead, the story of Jesus is about the resurrection on the third day after he died. That Jesus was brought back to life, that his message did not die but actually gained new strength and that the church was formed on the knowledge that the game had now changed that the tyrants of the world could now not even use death to stop the message of love, the message of God. It actually meant that the tyrants lost their power. If they cannot kill and keep the message that they are resisting dead, then they have lost.
The thing is today is that we are called to remember what I’m going to call the “Testimony of the Chicken”. That as clever as a Fox may think it is and how ever devious its fowl play might be. That the love of the chicken for those it loves, is so strong, that, it will do whatever it takes to rescue them. That not even death stops the love of God for those whom God loves in Christ Jesus. Amen.

Magic Vs. Faith

2010-03-02T07:30:00.000+10:30

In recent years, I’m certain that you will have all at least heard the name Harry Potter. You may have even read one of the books about him or seen one of the movies.
The one thing that everyone knows about Harry Potter, even if they have not read the books or seen the movies, is that, Harry Potter is a Wizard. Well he is at wizard school.
Now we all know that the thing wizards are meant to be able to do is magic; doing the incredible things that make for great stories and movies. This morning though, I want to talk about the difference between magic and the Christian faith. Strange topic; I know, however, a very important one for our faith.
However, before we get too far I think I need to give a good definition of what Magic actually is and not just the fantasy of Harry Potter. Magic is by its definition doing or saying something in a particular way to cause something to happen, to have control over something, or to appease something. It is about the person that is doing or saying the words being in control or gaining some type of power. And of course this leads into people having secret knowledge that other people do not have etc. etc. And so the result is having power simply by having knowledge. At the end of the day it is about having power over other people and things.
Now the Christian faith is not magic, it is in fact in many ways the opposite of magic. The Christian faith is about holiness, obedience to God, love and of course worship. What the Christian faith is not about is saying certain words in a certain way to have control over something. It is not about having secret knowledge that other people do not have. It is not about behaving in a certain way and saying certain things to appease some power. The Christian faith is about a right relationship with God. It is not about controlling God to make God do what we want God to do by using words or actions. It is not about controlling other people or things to make them do or be what we want them to be using words or actions.
Now I am certain that you are tempted to point out to me that we say very similar words each week and perform very similar actions each week in our worship. And you would be very correct at pointing this out. And what we do in worship often runs the risk of being for us magic and not worship.
The reason we celebrate Holy Communion each week using similar words is because of obedience to God, Jesus commanded us to do this with bread and wine whenever we eat and drink it as a community of faith. So, we tell the story of salvation in the Eucharist prayers and of course what Jesus did that night he gave the command. However, doing this out of obedience to God is an act of worship and not magic.
If however, our attitude is that of appeasing God or somehow trying to win God’s favour so that God will do something for us, then we are actually trying to do magic and not worshiping God.
Let me use our Gospel for today as a quick example of what I’m trying to say. Simon, having fished all night and having caught nothing obeys what Jesus commanded him to do. The result for Simon and the other fishermen was a catch of fish that was sinking their boats. Now if Simon was someone who thought what Jesus had done was magic, what he would have done, was noted what had happened. They had caught nothing, they went to wash their nets, they picked up a travelling teacher, he spoke for a while and then they dropped their nets in a strange spot and pulled out lots of fish. Simple equation just need to repeat it every time they had a bad night fishing. Now we all know that if Simon had gone and done this the grand result of the next time he did this would have been… nothing! Why? Simple, because Jesus was not magic nor was he using magic, he gave a command to Simon and Simon followed it.
It is interesting to note this attitude of worship, this obedience to God, to Jesus for time and time again when we read the stories of Jesus when the people have this attitude of faith and not of trying to do magic do we see miracles happening all over the place. They happen out of faith and God’s grace and not magic.
It is perhaps interesting to note that in our Gospel, Simon, gets given the name Simon Peter, Simon the Rock, only at one point in this passage. It is neither when Jesus is addressing him nor when Simon is saying that they caught nothing the night before. It is at the point when Simon Peter, saw what had happened and fell down at Jesus’ knees, saying “Go away from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man!” It is at the point when Simon confesses his sin, it is at the point where he saw what his obedience to Jesus had resulted in, it is at the point where he falls to his knees in worship. It is at this point that Simon becomes the rock on which Jesus will build his church. It is at the point of faith not at the point of performing magic or trying to have control or power over something or someone.
It is important for us to see this example of faith by Peter and see how it is different to magic. Our faith is not magic, it is faith! We must ensure our attitude is of worship of God and not of trying to control or appease God. However, when we worship God we do find that it is an awe inspiring experience one which we will find ourselves feeling not worthy of. We to will find ourselves telling God, telling Jesus to Go away from us. And yet Jesus response to us, “Do not be afraid.”
So may we worship God. Amen.

My third Funeral Sermon

2010-03-01T07:30:00.000+10:30

H’s parents were the ones who endowed her with her Christian upbringing. And I am certain that her Christian upbringing would have helped her survive so many of the things she did and helped her press on towards the things she wanted to do in life. A life that obviously brought her with her family from England to Australia, that took her, to many parts of this country and the world and in turn meant that she met so many marvellous people.
I am convinced that a Christian upbringing helps anyone in life. The Christian faith can guide us in our life on how to treat each other; it teaches us that we should love our neighbours as ourselves. The Christian faith also gives us perspective on life it teaches us that the world does not begin and end with us but actually with God. Yes, God loves us but we are not the centre of the universe.
However, one of the biggest things I believe that the Christian faith helps us with though is knowledge of what happens to us when we die. When we are confronted with death we find ourselves confronted by own mortality and find ourselves asking some of the deeper questions of life; the type of questions that we do not allow ourselves to ask in normal situations.
The Christian faith teaches that in the passage that we had read from John’s Gospel that Jesus is saying to us that when we die that we will be where he is, that he has prepared a place for us and that we will be resurrected on the last day and join with the saints in living on the new earth in full relationship with God. That for those that believe in Jesus even though they die they do not perish but have eternal life. It is something quite amazing really if you are willing to accept it and let it seep in. For those who believe and have accepted Jesus as their Saviour find that when they die they find themselves with Jesus.
The other thing with the Christian faith that we have for us while we are living apart from the knowledge that those we love are safe in death, is the opportunity for us to have a relationship with God. If we are willing to accept Jesus we find ourselves forgiven of those things that leave us feeling guilty those things that we wish we had not done. Faith in Jesus offers to the true peace that so many of us find ourselves wanting.
The Christian faith, H’s faith offers to, everyone of us, Hope for the future and internal peace for the present. I would encourage you all to think about your faith and to consider if it should be an important part of your life as well.

Some things about Generation Y

2010-02-20T07:30:00.000+10:30

From eXaminer article:

1. Generation Y likes freedom and spontaneity. Many Millennials are completely comfortable picking up and moving across the country at the drop of the hat. Many purposely take freelance or contract jobs so they can travel and move as they desire. It is not uncommon for them to pick a place they want to live, pack up and move and THEN find a job.
2. Generation Y defines success differently. This is not to say Millennials do not value material things, but rather success they don’t necessarily equated success to the big home or the fancy car. To Millennials, success is more about living the life you desire and maintaining a good work/life balance.
3. Generation Y views community differently. The homeownership dream was more than just possessing four walls and some grass. It was about being a part of a community and choosing to be surrounded by similar people. However, Generation Y doesn’t need a tangible setting to enjoy a sense of community. Generation Y finds it online and seeks to create it everywhere they live.

McIlwain [John K. McIlwain, senior resident fellow of ULI] also predicts the definition of urban and suburban is going to change because of Generation Y’s thoughts on homeownership, as well as characteristics of other generations. More and more people will want to live in more pedestrian-friendly, transit-oriented and auto-independent environments. (eXaminer, Feb 16, 2010)

The Point of 1 Corinthians 13

2010-02-12T07:30:00.001+10:30

“The point of 1 Corinthians 13 is that love is not our duty; it is our destiny. It is the language that Jesus spoke, and we are called to speak it so that we can converse with him. It is the food they eat in God’s new world, and we must acquire the taste for it here and now. It is the music God has written for all his creatures to sing, and we are called to learn it and practice it now so as to be ready when the conductor brings down his baton. It is the resurrection life, and the resurrected Jesus calls us to begin living it with him and for him right now. Love is at the very heart of the surprise of hope: people who truly hope as the resurrection encourages us to hope will be people enabled to love in a new way. Conversely, people who are living by this rule of love will be people who are learning more deeply how to hope.” – N.T.Wright Surprised by Hope

The end of Christian mission

2010-02-11T07:30:00.001+10:30

Fantastic Article over on Fulcrum about Christian Mission.

For too long, many Christians – and I certainly include myself – seemed convinced that Christianity was somehow a tiered religion: that full-time ministers were somewhere near the top of the pile, missionaries (particularly ones working in places with unpronouncable names) were close to them, ordinary churchgoers were somewhere in the middle (the poorer ones, of course, being significantly superior to those who had the misfortune to possess wealth), and propping up the bottom of the pile were the barely-Christian wretches who worked full-time in secular jobs. I remember being astonished when I heard a sermon on how everyone could (and should) serve God in everything they do, whether they worked as a vicar or a vet. How could a vet be serving God? What a bizarre concept! Surely he or she was just saving up for a plane ticket to somewhere far away so they could work as a missionary. Essentially, this daft belief that I held was based on the notion that Christians worshipped on Sunday, and worked from Monday to Friday, and the two were so mutually exclusive that there was no possibility of crossover.

Rebuilding Evangelical Ministry

2010-02-10T07:30:00.000+10:30

From Sydney Anglicans

Rebuilding Evangelical Ministry

Introduction
The abandoning of Anglican tradition throughout the diocese of Sydney and its replacement with a form of semi-charismatic celebration and people management, is unique to the Anglican communion. Even in the mission dioceses of Africa, English reformed catholic traditions are practiced to this day. Many mission dioceses still use the Book of Common Prayer as the basis of worship and pastoral ministry. Yet in Australia, in the diocese of Sydney, robes have gone, Prayer Books are gathering dust and occasional services are frowned on. In their place is power-point presentations, song leaders, bands, general informality and a strange mix of marketing and exclusion. So is traditional Evangelical ministry dead?
Did we really have to destroy liturgical worship?
Jesus said "my Kingdom is not of this world." In the eternal scheme of things, how we do church doesn't even rate a mention. There is nothing eternal in the liturgy of the Anglican church, nor is there anything eternal in some other newly adopted form of worship. Christ realizes the Kingdom of God irrespective of the shape of Anglican worship. He does this through his Spirit-inspired Word. The preaching and teaching of God's Word is the crucial ingredient for growing the Kingdom. A church that focuses on a ministry of the Word, may not grow numerically, but it will certainly grow spiritually and in turn, will grow the Kingdom. Style, shape, form.... plays no part in this spiritual exercise. The Spirit is neither limited nor advanced by worship form; all that matters is truth proclaimed.
So the imposition of relevance on Anglican form to expedite nurture and evangelism is a rather foolish exercise. Not only does the light-touch lessen gospel impact, it may well serve to promote pseudo belief. Of course, it could be argued, from a pragmatic viewpoint, that a "dumbed-down" attractive pop-culture worship-form will build numbers and so help with institutional survival. Yet even this argument is questionable. The adoption of an informal semi-charismatic pop-culture worship-form inevitably erodes product identification and therefore, consumer loyalty. Having weened the tea drinkers off tea and moved them onto a generic cola drink, they inevitably move onto the "real thing."
The truth is there was really no need to move from a weighty worship form. Liturgy must always be contextualized, adjusting to Australian culture, but we didn't have to abandon it and join the cluttered market of the semi-charismatic pop culture entertainment crew. There will always be Australians wanting a gentle, intelligent, reflective, substantial worship model. We should have stayed with what we were good at and what was uniquely ours. Some say it no longer had a place in the new multicultural Australia, but we forget that anglo-celts are in the majority and it is really not foolish offering a worship model that fits with the psyche of the majority of Australians. Others suggest that liturgy and color in worship is somehow offensive, less than holy. There is of course, no scriptural warrant to such a claim. Others suggest that liturgical worship actually interferes with gospel ministry. In the Australian context, where some 4% attend church, all the "relevance" in the world has done nothing to reach the 96% who don't attend church. In our heart of hearts we know that the gospel is really not something we should confine between four walls on Sunday, but rather proclaim in the "highways and byways" of our broken world.
Although we can argue back and forth over the damage or otherwise of abandoning Anglican ritual and order, there is one demonstrable damage which cannot be denied. Evangelicals once played a prophetic role in the Australian Anglican church. We constantly called our brothers and sisters back to the fundamentals of our faith preserved in the Articles. Given our disregard for the ritual and order of our church, we have greatly weakened the authority of this call.
Did we really have to destroy pastoral ministry?
Evangelical ministry in the Anglican church respected the ritual and order of the church, while using it as a platform from which to present the gospel. This loyalty to form enabled Evangelicals to minister in both Low and High Church dioceses. Bishops put up with our "Methodist" leanings, knowing that the ritual and order of the church would not be compromised. In fact, up till some 30 years ago, Evangelicals from Sydney were often invited to minister in difficult High Church parishes throughout Australia. Some went on to become highly regarded in their Anglo catholic dioceses.
Traditional Evangelicals happily sat with Cranmer's principles of reform. They willingly accepted "catholic" traditions that were not opposed to Biblical teaching, using them for both nurture and evangelism. The Parish system served as an excellent framework within which to nurture believers and reach out to the lost. Size was never the issue. The smaller the congregation the more time there was to interact with the local community and to bring to bear on that community the good news of Jesus Christ. Rather than trying to get people along to church so that they can "come under the sound of the gospel", time was spent scratching where it actually itched. It was all about maintaining a presence in the local community, visiting the sick, school scripture, occasional services, church fete and clubs...... The Anglican church, as a community based church with a wide open front door, maximized interaction with the local community and so provided opportunities for the gospel. Yet today Evangelical churches tend to be "congregational" and therefore isolated and preachy. Although "accessing" is the buzzword, the church doors are closed, not open.
The new wave of Evangelical ministry, whether it be accessing, purity or that strange mixture of both, has dislocated the Anglican church from the local community. Not only do normal Australians find foreign a minister in an open shirt, projector screens hanging over the cross and holy table, unsingable choruses .........., but they cannot fathom why they are now refused Baptism, fobbed off as if there is something wrong with them.
The new wave may uncover an untapped resource in the Australian community, although it is probably a resource well worked over by the Charismatics and their imitators. The truth is, all we have really succeeded in doing is alienating nominal Anglophiles who, as it turns out, are a majority in the community.
How bad is the bad news?
As congregations grow smaller, some see hope in amalgamating parishes and branch churches. Most branch churches have already been closed in the Sydney diocese in an attempt to bolster finances and attenders at the mother church. It is believed that when a congregation reaches 200 attenders it can accelerate growth. Such moves often fail, as most of the branch church members join the "churched out" crew or link with another local church. While we struggle to adapt to a "club" model, regional protestant churches, better suited to the club cabaret format, grow stronger. Are parish amalgamations the next step as congregation numbers continue to decline? Centralization is a doubtful experiment given that the local corner shop approach survived, through ups and downs, for hundreds of years.
For the majority of Evangelical churches in the Sydney diocese, the existing pattern of ministry seems set to continue. When it comes to the services, the evening youth service will inevitably have to face societal change even now affecting Australian youth. It could easily go the same way as Sunday School. The mid-morning family service will increasingly have to struggle against the big family orientated regional churches with their Tenpin bowling allies etc. The simple fact is that churches which come out of a Charismatic/Pentecostal tradition do the "immanence" thing better than we do, given that our tradition was the "transcendence" thing. At least we once had the jump on them in our "thinking man's" approach to our church services and Bible teaching, but the easy-listening format has seen an end to that. As for the early morning traditional Anglican service, it is tending to wane because the younger clergy no longer understand the art of taking a liturgical service. Older members are not being replaced and this because of the lack of enthusiasm to maintain liturgical worship. "I will keep it going until they die out" said one minister. Many clergy, particularly in the Sydney diocese, don't even favour, let alone can handle a liturgical service. Many have never been trained in the art of reading liturgy, functioning by the church year, using symbols, or even the proper way to consecrate the elements. For many, the art-form is lost and this only frustrates those who attend the early morning traditional service. The "great to see you here this morning, say g'day to the person next to you", usually destroys the attention of the liturgically inclined for the rest of the service. Their response is to muse to themselves, "why am I here?"
When it comes to pastoral ministry our dislocation from the wider society is all but complete. Increasing irrelevance is the inevitable consequence of our "holier than thou" tack. Too many people have been refused baptisms, weddings and funerals for us to be seen as having any place in the life of normal Australian families. We work hard at cultural relevance through media releases, Anglicare, etc., but the personal insult of a refused christening undoes it all.
What can we do?
The Evangelical Anglican clergy who came out of the "Great Awakening", used the Anglican church as both a sheep fold and a fishing boat, and did so retaining the given form of the church. Their ministry was focused on the sovereign grace of God, but shaped by the framework of the church. They were neither puritans nor pragmatists, rather they were loyal to the gospel of God's grace in Christ, and loyal to the ritual and order of the Anglican church.
A minister today, wanting to step out as an Evangelical, should accept the given and accept the lost. In the Sydney diocese most Anglican churches now have three separate congregations: Anglican, Baptist/Presbyterian and semi-Charismatic. The majority of Sydney Anglicans are trained in free-form worship and to return to liturgy would empty our churches. An Evangelical accepts the given, for the actual shape of worship does not impact upon the Kingdom of God. Also, most Anglican churches still have some credibility with their local community and this can be strengthened if we open our doors again. An Evangelical accepts the lost, for of such is the Kingdom of God.
Evangelical ministry is a word-centered ministry and focuses on nurture and evangelism. Substance in worship and acceptance of the lost are two areas we need to do some homework on. There are two specific projects worth pursuing, and these are the revitalizing of the early morning traditional Holy Communion service and a willingness to perform pastoral services for the "unwashed".
i] The "Trad." 8am Service
Worship (in the sense of congregational adoration) can be either vertical or horizontal; it can focus on the transcendence of God or the immanence of God. Pentecostal worship focuses on the immanence of the Spirit of Christ and it was the influence of the Charismatic movement, along with the congregational influence of Broughton Knox, that shaped the new horizontal nature of the main morning and evening services in most Sydney Anglican churches, while the trend to "dumb-down" these services was due to the influence of the Church Growth movement. Interestingly, Sunday School was the initiator of this change. In the 1950's we took the children out of church and churched them as "Baptists". Today, the structure of the Sunday School assembly is easily recognizable in our "accessing" service forms. We wind it up with a few songs and off we go.
Of course, God is both transcendent and immanent and so both styles of worship are valid (although banality is never valid!), with advantages and disadvantages. For example, transcendence easily leads to ritualism, while immanence to manipulation. The issue that concerns us here is that in moving from a vertical form of worship to a horizontal form, and a shallow version at that, we have abandoned, not only those who relate to an English liturgical form that focuses on the transcendent, but those many believers and seekers who are looking for something more substantial than "toe tapping times." We should not forget that as believers mature they often move toward quality, nor should we forget that many seekers are more at home with devotion than celebration, also that "what goes round comes round", and nor should we forget that generation X + Y are into magic and mystery.
So there is real value in providing a niche for those believers who appreciate substantial liturgy. They make a loyal supportive congregation able to assist in the maintenance of parish ministry. Rebuilding the liturgical strength of our early morning Holy Communion service needs to be a ministry priority.
ii] Pastoral ministry
For centuries Anglican practice required the minister to seek out the unbaptized and baptize them (a practice quickly shaped into a gospel initiative by Evangelical clergy). It is hard to believe that in a single generation the majority of Sydney Anglican clergy have withdrawn from this open-door policy and adopted a policy more in keeping with the Presbyterian Reformed church. As it has become a "holiness" issue, the hatches, matches, dispatches, the fete worse than death, the gossipy Parish Paper, and all the other threads of a once established church, are not easily stitched back into the old ladies gown.
Sharing in the life stages of the wider community, interacting, participating,... may rebuild some of the links we have so carelessly thrown away. Rebuilding our place in the village community needs to be a ministry priority.
Rebuilding our liturgical niche
Reclaiming a liturgical niche for Sydney Anglicans is by no means easy, particularly for those clergy who have never really experienced beautiful liturgical worship, let alone been trained in the art. Still, rebuilding the liturgy of our early morning communion is not beyond any of us, and doing it does not impact in any way on the main morning and evening services. The art of liturgical worship can be learned. and when applied, is greatly appreciated by many Australians. Get a feel for the transcendence of The Holy Communion, visit with good liturgists and head toward "The Lord be with you" rather than "G'day crew".
Although many who attend an Anglican liturgical service feel comfortable with a Book of Common Prayer service or a conservative revision (AAPB 1st Order), there is more to be gained in using the modern and widely used revised services (2nd Order). These services combine Holy Communion and Morning Prayer and therefore have greater depth. In Australia, the 2nd Order Holy Communion (AAPB, but especially APBA) is commonly used in every diocese outside of Sydney and is similar in form to the majority of revised services used throughout the Anglican communion. There is a wide variety of resources available for this service form, particularly with music. It is the obvious service form to use other than in Lent when the 1st Order is better suited. The Sydney "Sunday Services" "dumb down" worship resource book is next to useless in that its 2nd Order is shallow to say the least and the 1st Order has altered such classics of liturgical worship as the Prayer of Preparation and the Prayer of Humble Access. Sadly our Sydney liturgists have failed to give weight to familiarity. If it's not broken, don't fix it!
There are many books available which explain the props and stage directions necessary for leading a liturgical version of the Lord's Supper. For the Australian setting "When We Meet for Worship" by Gilbert Sinden is still a useful manual for leading a worship service from AAPB (and it still works for APBA). The book is no longer in print, but second hand copies are plentiful. Such manuals rarely reflect Low Church Evangelical traditions, eg. Celebrating at the Northward position; cassock, surplice and scarf rather than vestments; bread rather than wafers, pure wine rather than intinctured with water; refraining from crossing, bowing or genuflecting; etc. The preservation of such traditions are appropriate for Sydney Evangelicals, although it must be remembered that Evangelicals have tended not to make such matters of form an issue when working in a more "catholic" diocese.
Don't forget the basics. Robes and collar should be worn, hymns rather than choruses, proper manual acts, minimum interference with the liturgy, notices at the end of the service (before last hymn and blessing), follow the lectionary readings, days and colours, sermons 15 minutes, lay assistants robed, ...... and above all prayerful preparation and performance. Remember, "a dance without spirit is a dead thing." Dead liturgy is just as vile as banal entertainment.
Rebuilding the liturgical strength of our early morning traditional communion service not only demonstrates a loyalty to a church handed on to us by a previous generation, but it has both spiritual and practical benefits that can only enrich the life of our parish.
Rebuilding the village
The sense of church as a corner shop in the local village still has a place in our urban society. We just have to be willing to stand with the community in its journey though life. Such interaction does not really interfere with inhouse activities like Bible Studies, Life Works, Emmaus Walk, etc. Take christenings for example. Our Evangelical forebears would baptize believers/regular attenders during Morning Prayer, while nominal members / non-attenders, were baptized after the morning service or on a Sunday afternoon. The unchurched actually love their own individual family christening. It doesn't impact on the church family and provides a wonderful opportunity to explain the gospel and interact with the wider community at a very intimate level.
It's actually quite easy to become an open-house church again. First, declare yourself on the notice board. "Pastoral services happily performed: Ring the Rector/Office for Christenings, Weddings, Counseling, Funerals......." Produce a Parish Paper and letterbox it to every house in the Parish. Make it open, friendly and evangelistic. Of course, don't forget "the fete worse than death."
So, rebuilding pastoral contact with the wider community is at least partly achievable and is worth the minimal compromise we have to make. Remember, it is only this present generation of Evangelical clergy who have felt occasional services somehow undermine holiness.
Conclusion
Religious form neither gathers nor nurtures God's remnant people. Only truth saves and edifies. When believers gather under the Word they respond to Christ's presence in adoration - in confession, praise, prayer, thanksgiving and listening. Adoration can take many forms, from silence to celebration. The Sydney Anglican move from weighty liturgical devotion to a "dumbed-down" semi-charismatic celebration is anything but honouring to God. It may better access middle-class young people, but it may also breed a generation of psychologically dependent pseudo Christians.
The lost are always unwashed and yet our Lord had no problem mixing it with them in the face of the "righteous" of his day who felt these "sinners" somehow polluted pure religion. While we are busy protecting the purity of our religious form we easily forget the line "suffer little children to come unto me." The sad truth is, the parents we reject most probably know the line.

Jesus’ acceptance Speech to our acceptance Speech (Luke 4.14-21)

2010-02-09T07:30:00.000+10:30

Many times in the history of the world have we seen Messiah figures, come and go. They are people who we believe that if we trust them they might be able to make the world a better place.

In recent years, the most significant person who has fulfilled this roll has been Obama. If you spoke to people from the United States over the past two years, you often would have found that they would speak about Obama in an almost fanatical way. Many believed that he could and would change the world, in fact change their world. The reason I say believed is because Obama has slipped a long way in the polls since winning office, he like many politicians struggle to live up to expectations and promises. However, I am certain people for years to come will remember his speech the night he won the election. I remember being at a friend’s house who here in Australia had been caught up in following and supporting Obama, as Obama gave his speech a phrase spoke out that of ‘Yes, we can’. Obama’s acceptance speech was ‘Yes, we can’ and then he began to talk about the dreams that people had and how they could fulfil them.

Well, Obama was not the first person to give an acceptance speech after accepting such a huge challenge.

Jesus, after he was baptised and after he spent forty days in the wilderness being tempted, filled with the power of the Spirit, returned to Galilee and to the synagogue in his home town of Nazareth. Jesus’ acceptance speech though was different to the acceptance speeches that we are familiar with from politicians. Jesus only says two things, the first is that he quotes from the prophet Isaiah ‘The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour’ and then Jesus simply states that ‘Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing’.

It is perhaps, not the most eloquent acceptance speech that we will ever hear, however, it is the most powerful speech we will ever hear. It is the speech that says not only that the world could be a different place, that perhaps dreams might be fulfilled like Obama, what Jesus’ speech says is that the world is now a different place.

It is a powerful message, good news for the poor, release to the captive, sight to the blind and the oppressed go free.

Jesus’ ministry for the three years following demonstrates that this new reality that he is proclaiming, is the true reality, that the world is different. Of course Jesus has to go further to make this reality not just true for where he is, but for the whole world. So the Cross- Easter story has to occur. And it occurs with the promise, that the new life, we see in the resurrected Jesus, is not just for Jesus but for all represented by him.

As baptised believers in Christ Jesus we have chosen and accepted that Jesus represents us, so that when he speaks he speaks on behalf of us, so when he dies he dies on behalf of us and when he is raised to new life he also does that on behalf of us.

The thing is it is sometimes very difficult to have someone else speak on your behalf. In a democracy when the elected leader is from the other party than your own allegiance, to have them speak to the world is sometimes difficult. For that person represents you as the elected leader and yet may not represent your own personal views. In America some struggle with being represented by a man with black skin.

Now unlike those who struggle with that in America, our allegiance and us being represented by Jesus is by our own free choice. We choose to have Jesus represent us, we choose to be called and to call ourselves Christians. This does at one level make us feel that we have more control in the situation and yet we have to accept Jesus and all he stands for.

In fact I think we often find that as Christians we must make our own acceptance speech to Jesus; to God. That is, if we want to be part of Jesus’s proclamation then we have to accept him.

The thing though, with acceptance speeches, is that they are not just accepting a position, they always carry with them a mission. An acceptance speech never sets out being passive but it sets out being active in the future.

Many Christians when they start the process of accepting Jesus, find themselves accepting a challenge to see the world a different place.

We only need to look at people like Mother Theresa to see someone for whom accepting Jesus meant accepting a mission. Another great person in my mind is William Wilberforce, whom found himself with two missions from God; The first the abolition of Slavery and the Second the reform of manners. And again we see someone who accepted their mission and spent their entire life doing it.

The question, the challenge, I have for you today, is two-fold. It can though, be summed up by me simply asking you, have you made your acceptance speech? ‘Have you accepted Jesus as your Saviour and the Saviour of the world?’ And the second part, is ‘do you know what your mission is from God in the world?’

Many of you, will be able to answer yes to both of these, but how are you going? Are you on your way to being able to celebrate that the world has changed?

To those who are not certain about how to answer the questions I’d encourage you to continue to pray about it. For we are all called by God and we must all make an acceptance speech in one form or another. As St.Paul pointed out to the Corinthians we are not all called to be the same thing, but we are all called.

I pray that you may hear and know your calling. Amen.

Rowan Williams

2010-02-08T07:30:00.000+10:30

“By the time the first texts in the New Testament were being written, Christians were aware of tensions over whether they still shared the same identity as Jews; there were no short answers (there still aren’t in some important respects). There was, they believed, fulfillment; there was also redefinition. And while these texts were being written and developed and responded to, the dramatic events which marked the end of Jewish political independence (the fall of Jerusalem in 70 CE) added a further element in Christian interpretation, with some long and unhappy consequences.
Thus what we read in the New Testament is not a simple record of what happened, but also a hugely creative and innovative attempt to make one story out of a set of memories that covers events of great disruptive force. Jesus brings the earlier history to a climax, yet in such a way that the history is seen quite differently; what mattes in the earlier story will be different depending on the point of view of the telling, and passages and incidents that did not necessarily occupy the foreground now take on fresh significance. This, incidentally, is why Jewish-Christian dialogue can be very complicated: the Christian will read Hebrew Scripture looking for answers to questions that the Jewish reader isn’t asking. But the point is that the New Testament writers know quite well that they have to present a story that is both coherent in essential ways and yet does justice to the novelty of what happens in the life and death of Jesus. They cannot unequivocally say either yes or no to the history of God’s people as the Hebrew Scripture they were reading sets it out.

In this, they are doing nothing that is not already happening in the Old Testament itself, which goes on rewriting its own history. Look, for example, at Hosea 1:4, where the massacre of Jezreel, implicitly celebrated elsewhere as the triumph of orthodox faith over idolatry, is roundly condemned. Because God works in a long and varied historical process, the perspective within the Hebrew Scriptures is necessarily one that is constantly developing and moving; if Jesus is the culmination of that process, his life and death will provoke an unprecedentedly far-reaching shift of perspective, and thus a major essay in historical revision” (Why Study the Past? The Quest for the Historical Church, (pp. 6-7).

Please define resurrection

2010-02-07T07:30:00.000+10:30

THIS is why it’s worth the time to read N.T. Wright’s big books.

On the first 300 pages of his book, defining Resurrection in antiquity:

Many studies of the resurrection have begun by examining the accounts of the Easter experiences in Paul and the gospel, subjecting those accounts to detailed traditio-historical analysis. This puts the cart before the horse. Such analysis is always speculative; until we know what resurrection meant in that world, we are unlikely to get it right. This is not just a matter of seeing the big picture ahead of the little details, though that is important too; it is about knowing what we are talking about before we begin to talk about it.

-N.T. Wright, The Resurrection of the Son of God, p.30

Anger as US army admits 'Biblical' gun sights

2010-02-06T07:30:00.002+10:30

Interesting article on adelaidenow: Anger as US army admits 'Biblical' gun sights

As a Christian I can not find anything more creepy than the knowledge that people are putting Bible references on Weapons!

Jesus is the Lord of Peace not of war!

What part of Jesus is to the sword?

Ask St.Peter he'd let you know what part of Jesus is to the Sword.

Pre-Constantinian Church

2010-02-05T07:30:00.000+10:30

Ben Witherington has a fascinating post (with revealing shots) of a third-century house church.

Some of the distinguishing characteristics he gleans from this pre-Constantinian archaeological dig are:

Baptisms were not always by immersion, even when immersion was easily accessible. Likewise, the baptistry was not a focal point in the main worship space.
Believers were distinguished by groups of leaders and followers.
Similarly, “Christianity had never known a period where its leadership structure was not hierarchical to some degree.”
Early Christians were not against a dedicated space for worship, albeit many/most were on the grounds of a wealthy person’s home.
No requirement for pure acappella music existed.
Only a small number of people were involved (50-70).
“They were not opposed to artistic representations of their God or their saints, or their Biblical heroes, or their martyrs. They believed art could be used in worship and honor God.”
In many respects, Christian worship followed synagogue structure.

The Importance of Worship Without Expectations

2010-02-04T07:30:00.002+10:30

Dr.Huffa wrote a blog last year on The importance of worship with expectations.

I was thinking about this the other day about difficult it is as church to get the balance right, between being relevant to people and not selling out on the Gospel because it is no longer fashionable.

It is one thing for us to say to our people that you should come to worship with no expectations but to worship; to give thanks to God.

However, should people also expect that the Service will be done well and that it will allow us to worship and not hinder us in encountering the Holy?

Difficult balance one where we have to be careful not to throw the baby out with the bath water!

“Defined by the worship of God” N.T. Wright

2010-02-03T07:30:00.000+10:30

“Christians are not defined by skin colour, by gender, by geographical location, or even, shockingly, by their good behaviour. Nor are they defined by the particular type of religious feelings they may have. They are defined in terms of the God they worship.

That’s why we say the Creed at the heart of our regular liturgies: we are defined as the people who believe in this God. All other definitions of the church are open to distortion.

We need theology, we need doctrine, because if we don’t have it something else will come in to take its place. And any other defining marks of the church will move us in the direction of idolatry.”

–N. T. Wright, For All God’s Worth: True Worship and the Calling of the Church (Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 1997), 28.

Wright on Paul's View of the After Life

2010-02-02T07:30:00.003+10:30

"Why then does Paul speak of the new body as being 'in the heaven'? Does this not mean that he thinks of Christians simply 'going to heaven' after their death? No. This is one of the passages which have supplied later tradition with the materials for an unwarranted platonizing of Christian hope. As with Philippians 3.20-21, and indeed 1 Corinthians 15.47-9, the temptation of the tradition has been to drive a steamroller through what Paul actually says, clearing his careful words out of the way to make room for a different worldview in which the aim of Christian faith is 'to go to heaven when you die'. The tradition has always found it difficult to incorporate 'resurrection'... 'Heaven' for Paul, here as elsewhere, is not so much where people go after they die - he remains remarkably silent on that, with the exception of Colossians 3.3-4 - but the place where the divinely intended future for the world is kept safely in store... If I assure my guests that there is champagne for them in the fridge I am not suggesting that we all need to get into the fridge if we are to have a party."
-N.T. Wright, The Resurrection of the Son of God, 367-68

Ministry of the Future

2010-02-01T07:30:00.016+10:30

During my holidays after Christmas, I found myself talking to several very wise clergy whom have been very successful in growing churches.

All of them expressed that the old models no longer work, in fact I'd suggest alot of them might have been getting depressed at not knowing how to do ministry in this new post-Christendom environment.

As I talked to them I began to reflect on the things that I think we need to be focusing on. Hopefully in 2050 I can look back at this post and see where I'm right and wrong.

People: Ministry has always been about people! Amazingly that won't change! However, gone are the days when the Parish Priest just popped over for a cup of tea. No one is home anymore for a cup of tea! We now live in the age of Social networking at the base level of connecting with people, the local cafe I think will become more significant but also holding once again social functions where people can invite both the churched and non-churched to attended. People and relationships are now even more important than they were before in a world where everything else becomes more fluid.

Progams: I think gone are the days when churches are able to have lots of different groups meeting doing different programs, ie. Mothers Union, Friendship groups, etc. they worked in a slower environment where wives for example often did not seek employment. I think we now live in an age where the church can not afford to be this disperse in its focus. I think now if there are programs the whole church must be encouraged to do them and that there is only one or two options available for people. Given this these programs must be of the highest value to the Christians attending. People do not have time to waste in a world where they are bombarded with information if you want to add to this bombardment it must be good and worthwhile.

Worship: This is the one thing that I believe that must become more significant again! Worship is at the end of the day that which makes the Christian different to those just involved in Charitable activities. I mean this in that worship is our response to God's love found in faith in Jesus. I think now is the time for good worship, not entertainment worship but good worship. This would be songs, liturgy, Scripture readings. In many ways this is where Anglicanism when it is not diluted could come into its own.

Just some quick thoughts!

A past decade that leaves us guessing for the future

2010-01-31T07:30:00.007+10:30

Elaine Storkey, Chair of Fulcrum writes a fantastic article reflecting on the past decade about how people failed to predict what would happen and in a world where such radical change is occurring everyday and such a huge amount of communication what the next decade will look like is quite daunting how the Church responds now is the real challenge.

What I personally believe is that the Church needs to keep up with new technology to be there with the world and not to resist the technology. It does mean that the way we do ministry and get our message out to people will change! More on this in tomorrow's post.

Finding the Jesus you thought you'd lost

2010-01-30T07:30:00.001+10:30

I’m not certain if you’ve paid much attention in recent years to anti-smoking campaigns. One of the more successful ones has during the advert a small child. The child starts by being left by his mother in a train station and people are walking all about and after a few seconds the child is crying, feeling lost and rejected in the world. The take home message of the ad of course is, if this is how much your child misses you after a few seconds imagine if it was for the rest of their life.

Now of course, our Gospel reading this morning is also about a lost child. It is about the lost child Jesus.

We get a sense from our reading that the world that Jesus and his parents lived in was different in how and when they worried about safety for their children. Mary and Joseph went a day’s journey out of the city before they realised Jesus was not with their group. They of course start by searching for him amongst their family and friends before starting the trip back to the city, to dangers and uncertainties.

It would be very rare in our society to find ourselves in the predicament that Mary and Joseph found themselves, not that we don’t all know that Teenagers are very good at getting themselves lost when we don’t want them to.

Going back to the smoking ad, the child there is well under five, but it caused a lot of controversy because the child is not acting. The child was filmed reacting in the situation it thought it was in. Though the child was safe, surrounded by actor and safely being watched by all the film crew, the disappearance of his mother causes the most distress. Even in a carefully created world, in which a child is actually safe the absence of a parent causes real pain.

It also causes real pain for the parents as well, even when the child is a teenager. As Mary and Joseph started to walk back to Jerusalem, one wonders what they must have been thinking and saying to each other. They might have had a bit of an argument about who was meant to be keeping their eye on the boy Jesus. They were probably both recalling who and where they last saw him. And of course they would be wondering if something horrible might have happened to him. Why would their Son that they knew so well, do something like disappear, he is such a good lad normally?

It is very easy for us sometimes to feel like we’ve lost Jesus. We start to ask ourselves questions like the ones Mary and Joseph might have been asking. When did I lose sight of Jesus? Or how have I been led astray from Jesus? Or how could I let Jesus get away from me in the businesses of everything else that has been going on in my life?

I guess what I’m trying to say is this, it is very easy I think for us to lose Jesus. It doesn’t matter if it is in the business of life or the fact that we’ve gone down a certain path and suddenly we sense that Jesus isn’t part of where we’ve ended up. The fact of the matter is that we have this deep sense of loss. It is often a sense that takes us a while to actually name because it is something that seems to only slowly occur and it is not until we find that we’ve lost Jesus do we actually notice the pain that has slowly been getting worse because of our growing sense of loss.

If the walk back for Mary and Joseph was not bad enough, it took Mary and Joseph three days of searching the city to find Jesus. Sometimes it takes even longer to find Jesus, especially when we don’t realise it is Jesus we are looking for.

We only just need to look at the society that we live in. It is obvious that the Australia as a nation is no longer Christian, though some argue it never was.

And as we look at our society we see people deeply hurting, especially our young people. They all have a great sense of loss but they do not know what they are missing. So they turn to drugs, to alcohol, to having multiple sexual partners, they try anything that they think might fill the void of their loss. And we will only have to walk the streets of Glenelg or Adelaide on New Years to see the damage that the searching that they are on does. Normally we keep the searching more cleanly hidden in homes and pubs, but on major occasions like new years it is on display for us all to see.

And so this sense of loss, is visible in our society and I’m sure from time to time in our own lives and experiences.

Now Mary and Joseph knew who they were looking for, our society does not. Though Mary and Joseph knew they were looking for Jesus it took them three days to find him. The three days often struck the early church fathers, as of course Jesus spent three days in the tomb. It sometimes takes to see the death of Jesus before we can see Jesus for who he truly is.

And so having taken three days to find Jesus, Mary and Joseph find him in the Temple. And of course there he is sitting among the teachers discussing great points of theology.

Our search and our societies search takes time as well. However, when we do find Jesus, we find him in the most surprising places, perhaps the last place we’d look. We find Jesus, in the church, in the Bread and the Wine of Communion, in our Brothers and Sisters in Christ when they help us out and listen.

And Jesus, at one level says to us, like he said to Mary and Joseph, “Why were you searching for me? Did you not know that I must be in my Father’s house?” Did you not know that I would be in my Church?

The challenge for us, is when we have that sense that we’ve lost Jesus, which is part of what happens as Christians, it is normal, it is part of learning how to follow Jesus. We need to remember where to look!

It is in the most obvious place it is within worship, it is within the community of believers, it is in the Scriptures and in the Sacraments.

The real challenge for us though is not remembering this for ourselves, it is actually making sure that the world out there, that the people of our society hear and find out where they need to look to find what they are looking for.

We all need to find the Jesus that we’ve thought we’d lost. Even though he is never lost. Amen.

What do you worship?

2010-01-29T07:30:00.000+10:30

So how do you know where and what you worship? It’s easy: You simply follow the trail of your time, your affection, your energy, your money, and your allegiance. At the end of that trail you’ll find a throne, and whatever, or whoever, is on that throne is what’s of highest value to you. On that throne is what you worship.

Louie Giglio, The Air I Breathe: Worship As A Way Of Life (Multnomah, 2003), p.11

Who is responsible?

2010-01-28T11:27:00.001+10:30

N.T. Wright, in Evil and the Justice of God, writes:

"We can project evil on to others, generating a culture of blame: it's always somebody else's fault, it's society's fault, it's the government's fault, and I am an innocent victim. Claiming the status of victim has become the new multicultural sport, as people scramble for the moral high ground in which they can emerge as pure and clean, and everybody else is to blame." (29)

The truth is as much as we are all victims we also all commit acts which are evil and hurt other people. Some of these acts we are more aware of committing than others but neverthelesss we still do harm others.

Church Planting in Creative Cities

2010-01-27T07:30:00.003+10:30

Found this fantastic blog article the other day church planting in Creative Cities, the reason I like it is because it is about two subjects I find fascinating the Creative Class and Church planting.

Some of the discussion that follows is also interesting about how most Church plants are in the most Creative areas in cities in the US. I'm not convinced this is necessarily a good thing though.

It is probably reflective that creative Christians turn into church planters and so where there is creative people there are creative Christians and so church planters.

However, this would not be true in the rest of the world.

If we went to Africa or Asia I would suspect that most church planting is occurring amongst the poor under-classes.

This in turn makes me suspicious of the church plants in the US are they just trying to be hip or are they actually proclaiming the Gospel and building up the Church of Jesus Christ?

Hopefully they are building the Church, however, the real test will be to see if those churches are still bringing people to faith in twenty years time.

I am all for creative ways to tell people about Jesus, however, it still needs to have substance and fruit that lasts.

Just being "Hip" church is like the seed that was thrown into the rocky soil.

The Final Text of the Anglican Communion Covenant: Four Key Questions

2010-01-25T07:30:00.006+10:30

According to Graham Kings, Bishop of Sherborne, four key questions remain to be answered by the latest rounds of the Anglican Communion Covenant development.

Four key questions are now answered:
1.   Can dioceses commit themselves to the Covenant? The Covenant is designed primarily for ‘Provinces of the Anglican Communion’ – these are the ‘Churches of the Anglican Communion’ referred to in the text. However, dioceses are included in the phrase ‘any ecclesial body’ and some dioceses, eg ‘Communion Partner’ dioceses in The Episcopal Church, which may wish to commit themselves to the Covenant if their Provinces do not, will be allowed to do so. The working party quote again the principles of ‘The Lambeth Commentary’ (September 2008):
“If, however, the canons and constitutions of a Province permit, there is no reason why a diocesan synod should not commit itself to the covenant, thus strengthening its commitment to the interdependent life of the Communion.”
2.   Can Churches which are not yet current members of the Anglican Consultative Council affirm the Covenant (eg The Anglican Church of North America)? Yes, but this does not make them members of the ACC and future membership will be with due process (section 4.1.5).

3.   What of Churches which choose not to enter into the Covenant? The text deliberately does not deal with that matter, but the working party states that the Instruments of Communion should determine an appropriate response. This may appear weak, but it seems to me to be appropriate: not being invited to conferences and commissions may be in mind.

4.   Which group will be monitoring the implementation of the Covenant? In this final text, is the ‘Standing Committee of the Anglican Communion’, which recently evolved from the Joint Standing Committee of the Primates’ Meeting and the ACC (Ridley Draft).

Religion is always part of Society

2010-01-24T07:30:00.000+10:30

In Australia the Secularists always get upset that religion still has a role to play in our society! Sometimes I do not always agree with the role it plays but it is part of the Australian social land scape, the most recent attack on religion in politics was this following article found in the Australian.

To the author of that article just because their version of Secular democracy means that people can not express their religion in politics, that is actually not what secular democracy is about! Historically Secular democracy is about allowing everyone to express their opinions.

N.T. Wright on Protestant-Catholic Relations

2010-01-23T07:30:00.003+10:30

Christianity Today published an article on how the current debate on justification is reigniting questions about Roman Catholicism. Francis Beckwith and Taylor Marshall indicated that the New Perspective is a major step toward the Catholic view. N.T. Wright gave a response, only a snippet of which was included in the CT article. Here is the longer version of his remarks.
1. I’m on sabbatical writing Volume IV of my big series, on Paul; so I don’t have time for more than a quick response.
2. “Sacramental, transformational, communal, eschatological”? If you gave me that list and said “Where in the Christian world would you find that?” I could easily and truthfully answer:
(i) in the best of the Reformed tradition — spend a couple of days at Calvin College, or read Jamie Smith’s new book, and you’ll see;
(ii) in much of the best of the charismatic movement, once it’s shed its low-church prejudices and discovered how much God loves bodies;
(iii) in the best of… dare I say it… Anglicanism… ;
(iv) in some bits (not all) of the Emerging Church movement . . .
3. Trent said both much more and much less than this.
Sacramental, yes, but in a muddled way with an unhelpful ontology;
Transformational, yes, but far too dependent on unbiblical techniques and practices;
Communal, yes, but don’t let the laity (or the women) get any fancy ideas about God working new things through them;
Eschatological? Eschatology in the biblical sense didn’t loom large, and indeed that was a key element in the Reformers’ protest: the once-for-allness of the events of Jesus’ death and resurrection as producing, not a new system for doing the same stuff over and over, but a new world.
Trent, and much subsequent RC theology, has had a habit of never spring-cleaning, so you just live in a house with more and more clutter building up, lots of right answers to wrong questions (e.g. transsubstantiation) which then get in the way when you want to get something actually done.
In particular, Trent gave the wrong answer, at a deep level, to the nature/grace question, which is what’s at the root of the Marian dogmas and devotions which, despite contrary claims, are in my view neither sacramental, transformational, communal nor eschatological. Nor biblical.
The best RCs I know (some of whom would strongly disagree with the last point, some would strongly agree) are great conversation partners mainly because they have found ways of pushing the accumulated clutter quietly to one side and creating space for real life. But it’s against the grain of the Tridentine system, in my view. They aren’t allowed to say that but clearly many of them think it. Joining in is just bringing more of your own clutter to an already confused and overcrowded room…
4. I am sorry to think that there are people out there whose Protestantism has been so barren that they never found out about sacraments, transformation, community or eschatology. Clearly this person needed a change. But to jump to Rome for that reason is very odd.
It reminds me of the fine old German NT scholar Heinrich Schlier, who found that the only way to be a Protestant was to be a Bultmannian, so, because he couldn’t take Bultmann, became a Roman Catholic; that was the only other option in his culture. Good luck to him; happily, most of us have plenty of other options.
To say “Wow, I want that stuff, I’d better go to Rome” is like someone suddenly discovering (as I’m told Americans occasionally do — sorry, cheap shot) that there are other countries in the world and so getting the first big boat he finds in New York to take him there . . . when there were plenty of planes lined up and waiting at JFK. Rome is a big, splendid, dusty old ocean liner, with lots of grand cabins, and, at present, quite a fine captain and some excellent officers — but also quite a few rooms in need of repair. Yes, it may take you places, but it’s slow and you might get seasick from time to time. And the navigators have been told that they must never acknowledge when they’ve been going in the wrong direction . . .
5. I spent three very happy weeks as the Anglican observer at the Vatican’s Synod of Bishops last October. They were talking about the Bible: about how for so long they have more or less banned the laity from reading or studying it, and how now they want to change all that, to insist that every Catholic man, woman, child, cat and dog should have the Bible in their own mother tongue and be taught to read it, study it, pray with it, individually and together. Hallelujah! Who knows what might happen!
Question: why did nobody say this in 1525? If they had, we’d have been saved a lot of bother.
Let’s engage cheerfully in as much discussion with our Roman friends as we can. They are among my best ecumenical conversation partners, and some of them are among my dear friends. But let’s not imagine that a renewed biblical theology will mean we find ourselves saying “You guys were right after all” just at the point where, not explicitly but actually, they are saying that to us . . .

My Christmas Eve Sermon 2009: Tonight is a night for dreams

2010-01-22T07:30:00.000+10:30

Tonight is a night for dreams, children all over the world tonight, will go to bed dreaming of what Presents they might receive from Santa and from their friends and families. It is a night when they will struggle to sleep as they imagine all the things they had wished for and that they might receive in the morning. As they imagine what fun it will be they will fall asleep.