"The church as an alternative community can make a powerful witness when it chooses to live differently from the dominant society at just a few key points. An important task of the church is to discern what are those key points at which to be different from the world."
- Lois Barrett, quoted in "Everyday Church," by Tim Chester and Steve Timmis
Tuesday 29 November 2011
Sunday 27 November 2011
The Other Nine
This makes it pretty clear...
"Sunday morning in church is the one place where evangelism cannot take place in our generation because the lost are not there..." - from "Everyday Church," by Tim Chester and Steve Timmis
If you're in a church, what's your church's strategy for evangelism?
Most churches work on the evangelism strategy of "bringing people to us." But the fact is, this may only work for 1 out of 10 Aussies. The other nine won't set foot in a church building no matter how passionate the preaching, how inspiring the music, or how enjoyable the youth or children's program.
If this is something that troubles you as much as it does me, PLEASE start thinking about ways to be a church for the other nine. This is what we're trying to do in our local area.
Maybe you could start some experiments of your own. Maybe you could help your church start trying new ways to connect with the other nine - and not by trying to get them to your Sunday service. Or at the very least, start brainstorming ideas and send anything to me!
We're not going to be amazing at it at the start, but we need to start trying! Please join us if you think 90% of our country is worth it.
"Sunday morning in church is the one place where evangelism cannot take place in our generation because the lost are not there..." - from "Everyday Church," by Tim Chester and Steve Timmis
If you're in a church, what's your church's strategy for evangelism?
Most churches work on the evangelism strategy of "bringing people to us." But the fact is, this may only work for 1 out of 10 Aussies. The other nine won't set foot in a church building no matter how passionate the preaching, how inspiring the music, or how enjoyable the youth or children's program.
If this is something that troubles you as much as it does me, PLEASE start thinking about ways to be a church for the other nine. This is what we're trying to do in our local area.
Maybe you could start some experiments of your own. Maybe you could help your church start trying new ways to connect with the other nine - and not by trying to get them to your Sunday service. Or at the very least, start brainstorming ideas and send anything to me!
We're not going to be amazing at it at the start, but we need to start trying! Please join us if you think 90% of our country is worth it.
Friday 25 November 2011
What is it all about?
There's one verse in the Bible that's always made me a little worried when I've read it. Well, one particular verse, that is. If I thought about it there would be probably be quite a few worrying moments, but let's not do that now.
The verse is this one...
"And if someone asks about your Christian hope, always be ready to explain it." (1 Peter 3:15 NLT)
What is Christianity all about? It's kind of hard to explain for many people, even Christians. What is the gospel? I actually wonder if many Christians might be secretly hoping that nobody ever asks them this question. Maybe they've got some vague ideas - love, peace, something about Jesus? - and maybe they've picked up some other ones that somehow don't quite seem to fit, but if someone asked them to give an explanation...
I think on some level it shouldn't be an easy explanation, because the story and the person we're trying to describe is far more complex and wondrous for feeble human words (one of the reasons one of those 2-minute, 5-step gospel presentations will lead you down the wrong track)... It's like trying to describe a Mozart concert to a friend who didn't make the show ("Well, first the violins played an F, then dropped to an E, then did that again, then I think the clarinets might have done something - Oh it was magic!).
But that certainly doesn't mean there is nothing we can say. It just means we need to stop being lazy and trying to spit out other people's pithy descriptions. If you don't know what to say, put the work in and figure it out.
If you need some help, the best book I've read on the topic is Simply Christian, by Tom Wright. Or find a group of people and discuss it - see if you can come up with something together. Maybe read through one of the gospels together..
If you need somewhere I start, have a look into Jesus' phrase "The Kingdom of Heaven." That's what Jesus himself preached about whenever he spoke. What was he talking about? Or take Peter's verse and figure out what our hope is.
One final clue, just to clear away the most common misdirection: the answer is not "to go to heaven when I die."
The verse is this one...
"And if someone asks about your Christian hope, always be ready to explain it." (1 Peter 3:15 NLT)
What is Christianity all about? It's kind of hard to explain for many people, even Christians. What is the gospel? I actually wonder if many Christians might be secretly hoping that nobody ever asks them this question. Maybe they've got some vague ideas - love, peace, something about Jesus? - and maybe they've picked up some other ones that somehow don't quite seem to fit, but if someone asked them to give an explanation...
I think on some level it shouldn't be an easy explanation, because the story and the person we're trying to describe is far more complex and wondrous for feeble human words (one of the reasons one of those 2-minute, 5-step gospel presentations will lead you down the wrong track)... It's like trying to describe a Mozart concert to a friend who didn't make the show ("Well, first the violins played an F, then dropped to an E, then did that again, then I think the clarinets might have done something - Oh it was magic!).
But that certainly doesn't mean there is nothing we can say. It just means we need to stop being lazy and trying to spit out other people's pithy descriptions. If you don't know what to say, put the work in and figure it out.
If you need some help, the best book I've read on the topic is Simply Christian, by Tom Wright. Or find a group of people and discuss it - see if you can come up with something together. Maybe read through one of the gospels together..
If you need somewhere I start, have a look into Jesus' phrase "The Kingdom of Heaven." That's what Jesus himself preached about whenever he spoke. What was he talking about? Or take Peter's verse and figure out what our hope is.
One final clue, just to clear away the most common misdirection: the answer is not "to go to heaven when I die."
Thursday 24 November 2011
For All the Artists
A stirring call for all the artists out there!
"The arts are not the pretty but irrelevant bits around the border of reality. They are the highways into the centre of a reality which cannot be glimpsed, let alone grasped, any other way. The present world is good, but broken and in any case incomplete; art of all kinds enables us to understand that paradox in its many dimensions. But the present world is also designed for something which has not yet happened. It is like a violin waiting to be played: beautiful to look at, graceful to hold, yet if you've never heard one before you would not believe the new dimensions of beauty yet to be revealed. Perhaps art can show something of that, can glimpse the future possibilities pregnant within the present time...."
- Tom Wright, Simply Christian
If you're an artist, musician, songwriter, painter, dancer, chef, interior designer, architect, landscaper... read that again. And again. And again. However many times it takes to get it.
And then get on with it! Dream. Paint that future and help others to dream it too.
Even just dreaming it brings it more fully into the present world. From there, who knows where it might end up?
"The arts are not the pretty but irrelevant bits around the border of reality. They are the highways into the centre of a reality which cannot be glimpsed, let alone grasped, any other way. The present world is good, but broken and in any case incomplete; art of all kinds enables us to understand that paradox in its many dimensions. But the present world is also designed for something which has not yet happened. It is like a violin waiting to be played: beautiful to look at, graceful to hold, yet if you've never heard one before you would not believe the new dimensions of beauty yet to be revealed. Perhaps art can show something of that, can glimpse the future possibilities pregnant within the present time...."
- Tom Wright, Simply Christian
If you're an artist, musician, songwriter, painter, dancer, chef, interior designer, architect, landscaper... read that again. And again. And again. However many times it takes to get it.
And then get on with it! Dream. Paint that future and help others to dream it too.
Even just dreaming it brings it more fully into the present world. From there, who knows where it might end up?
Sunday 20 November 2011
The Overlap
"We are called to live at the overlap both of heaven and earth - the earth that has yet to be fully redeemed as one day it will be - and of God's future and this world's present. We are caught on a small island near the point where these tectonic plates, heaven and earth, future and present, are scrunching themselves together. Be ready for earthquakes."- Tom Wright, "Simply Christian"
Sunday 6 November 2011
7 Billion
With the population just clicking over to 7 billion, what does that mean? Interesting little video here - well worth checking out.
Also, if you have an iPad, the National Geographic 7 Billion app is free for a short time. I reckon it'd be pretty amazing.
Tuesday 1 November 2011
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