Dorothy's Story

40 Hour Famine 2013 | You are Dorothy from worldvisionaus on Vimeo.

The word "church"

"Nowhere in the New Testament do we find the word “church” referring to a building."

- "Grow" by Winfield Bevins

Do the 40hr Famine with me!

A Bit About Preaching

Here's a small portion of an interview I found a while back. Mike is a pastor who developed the LifeShapes material for spiritual growth, and it's well worth checking out the ideas if you're a church leader and haven't heard of them before. I was interested in this bit for what it said about preaching and discipleship though.

---

Aidan: I’ve heard you say before not to teach LifeShapes in a sermon series. Why do you feel so strongly about that?

Mike: From my personal experience and watching other pastors, I’ve seen that if you do a sermon series with it or teach it all the time, people naturally categorize it as more information to be forgotten. Unfortunately, people rarely remember what we say in a sermon. I think they say the average person can remember most of the points from one sermon a year. The point is that this isn’t random information from scripture, this is spiritual formation language and is meant to be used, not stored.

I’ve found it much more helpful to introduce it in Huddles, which is a discipling context with 4-10 people. As people are discussing about what God is saying to them and you give them an insight to their specific situation, they respond, “How were you able to apply that particular truth?” As we know, Truth sets us free, but we then want to know how we can set other people free! “Teach me to do that!”

For too long we’ve seen, sometimes foolishly, I think, discipleship as the impartation or reception of information rather than what scripture and the great saints of our history have said it was: Imitation of someone’s life.

So principally, LifeShapes were made to fulfill the principle design of Jesus: Discipleship.

Visiting a Buddhist Temple

We did something a little different for church last Sunday. This month's Big Year theme (check out abigyear.net) is "Reform Yourself, Not Others" and one of the challenges is to go to a different church or religious group to see what you can learn from them. Our church and Big Year crew went to a Buddhist temple. There's an amazing complex on Underwood Rd in Springwood that is a temple and Buddhist school as well. It's already large and will double in size when stage two is complete.

As we waited for others in our group to arrive, we talked with the kids about the need to be quiet and respectful when we go in. One of my mates said, "Ben I think it's probably not appropriate to expose yourself in a Buddhist temple."

"What?"

"Your fly's undone."

"Ah." Good start Ben.

It's definitely worth checking out if you're in Brisbane and haven't been already. They were very welcoming and let us walk around and have a look wherever we wanted. There were beautiful gardens, peaceful prayer spaces, signs everywhere to tell us what was going on and what Buddhism is about, a nice little cafe, an art gallery and some amazing architecture. It was a perfect autumn Sunday morning and there was a chanting service happening and big groups of people doing tai chi on the lawns. Actually there were quite a number of people there - many older, quite a few young people - and even with so many people it was still such a peaceful place. I actually really enjoyed the experience and I can see why people are gravitating to Buddhism (comments like this worry my father-in-law).

Afterwards our group went to Maccas for a coffee and a chat, and to unleash the kids. In order to include the kids a little in the conversation we sat at tables inside the children's play area, and the atmosphere was a fairly big contrast to the serenity of the temple. The key idea that came through at the temple was PEACE - from the attitudes of the people to the layout of the grounds, the simplicity of the art and the... absence of children? We agreed that if you were to walk into most Christian churches, the idea of peace probably wouldn't come out like this. It's generally a lot messier and noisier in churches - especially in our home church. I think that's ok though, because I think the main idea that we want to come across in our own gatherings is LOVE. Does it though? That's a question for every church to ask themselves. If we don't have peace and we also don't have love are we like Jesus at all?

I asked the group what they thought are the key ideas behind western culture and one of them said, "This right here: Maccas. Noise, greed, money spent on ourselves." Accumulation, achievement, success, gain. It's clear we could learn a lot from Buddhists. Even the ability to stop, be still, be quiet, rest and listen is something we desperately need to learn - something that Buddhism does very well. Another is contentment. One of the themes I picked up from the signs around the place was the idea that we should make peace with whatever circumstances we find ourselves in - success or hardship.

Being a school chaplain, I've heard a lot about the debate over whether or not chaplains should be in schools. There's a lot to it, but if the future went in this direction, I'd happily work alongside a Buddhist or Muslim chaplain in my school. I think there's a lot we can learn from each other and a lot we can work on together.

Time

I'm sitting outside reading a book this beautiful afternoon while my young kids play on the swings in front of me, and of course I'm getting calls every thirty seconds of "Daddy watch me! Daddy look at this! Daddy you won't believe this amazing thing!" They're very cute and I've been dutifully looking up every time to see their feats of acrobat brilliance.

Isla (4) just came up with a new one though: "Daddy the time just broke! So now you don't have time to read your book."

I've always been interested to see how Isla will turn out. She thinks outside the box. I love it.

Old Posts

This afternoon I noticed again that on the right hand side there are links to all my old blog entries, and it made me curious to see what I'd written back at the start.

The first posts are over seven years old now, and truthfully a lot of them probably should stay back there. I was tempted to delete some. But it was interesting to see what I was thinking seven years ago. I started the blog before my first child was born, and now I have three beautiful children. I think I was working in stores selling books and appliances at the time, and now I'm a pastor, gardener and high school chaplain.

A common thread through the first posts seems to be priorities. I was very concerned with making sure that I spent my life doing the important stuff - growing friendships, giving time to creativity, enjoying my family rather than getting distracted by work, success and accumulation. It's nice to know that I've been able to do that so far. I've changed jobs a few times, had three kids and pastored in three different churches and each change has brought our income down a little. But we've been able to adjust as a family and grow content again with what we have, and I feel that each change has helped us trust God and move us away from material things towards people.

I may have three part-time jobs now - gardener, pastor and chaplain - but I feel that I'm very lucky because they are all jobs that I really enjoy. Although they're not the most lucrative jobs in the world they help me to connect with God and people more than any other work I've done before. I've been in full time ministry in a church before, but strangely enough I feel like I'm living Jesus' way and connecting with his world better now than I was then. My work has gradually integrated with my family and friends and local community more, and this gradually more missional and people-focussed direction has taken away some anxiety and ministry tension in my life too.

I feel really blessed. Looking back I feel so grateful that God has looked after us along the way. I see his inspiration and ideas in the story. I think we have learned to trust God more in the last seven years, even if it's only a very very tiny amount. And I feel very grateful for the friends and family we've been blessed to walk with.

The Other 99 Sheep

Jesus told a parable about a shepherd who has 100 sheep. As he's doing the regular roll call, the shepherd notices that one has gone missing. So out he goes, searching high and low for the lost sheep, until finally he hears the pitiful bleat in the distance. Then he lovingly carries the sheep home on his shoulders and throws a party to celebrate.

It's a story that's been told over and over again in churches, and it's one of my favourite books to read my children (check out "Cecil the Lost Sheep" by Andrew McDonough). It's a simple little story and it's pretty easy to figure out what Jesus was saying through the parable. God looks for the lost people, even the ones that other people overlook. And when a "lost sheep" is found, he celebrates!

Often I've heard a different message preached from this little story though. What happens sometimes is that when pastors preach on the same passage a few times, and when listeners have heard it many times, the preacher tries to find something new to say that hasn't been said before. This is not a bad thing. The Bible is an amazing book and God is a multi-faceted being, and sometimes you can read a passage a hundred times and still find something new to understand.

A few times now - mostly amongst church pastors and leaders - I've heard people point out that in the process of looking for the lost sheep, the shepherd left the other 99 where they were. "Who knows what might have happened to them?" The message being that as leaders we should do everything we can for the lost sheep (non-Christians), even if it hurts the people in our churches, "because the other 99 are already saved, right?"

Of course whether or not this is a good plan all depends on the circumstances. In this post I just want to point out that the parable doesn't read like this at all. The shepherd doesn't leave the 99 sheep in wild country to fend for themselves. An experienced shepherd who cares about even the 100th sheep wouldn't do this. It just doesn't work like that - and remember, shepherding was a common profession among Jesus' listeners. The shepherd would of course make sure the sheep he's got are ok first. He's probably counting them in for the night, and he'd most certainly find someone else to watch them while he's gone.

The lost sheep are more important than the people in your church? I really don't think Jesus would have said anything like this. A good pastor is missional, but not at the expense of the people already in his care.

It's our love for each other that shows we're Jesus' church.

He's pretty arrogant

I was reading this morning in "Solo: An Uncommon Devotional" about the way that God sometimes uses difficult experiences to help us see more of our weaknesses and faults. Not a particularly fun reading, but it did make me think.

Back in high school I played a lot of music. A lot. Many people called me a music geek (my wife still does). I played trumpet (the reason for the loosely connected pic below) before, after and very frequently during school . With all that experience and a little bit of talent added in, I became pretty good, which ended up getting me a ticket to a special camp for "musically outstanding students." It was a big thing for us students, and we got to play music with the best music students and teachers in the state (my wife just giggles and calls it "band camp"). I know it sounds like a Hilary Duff movie, but it was an awesome experience for us, and it's a shame it's been cut from the government budget now.

The week ended in a big show at the QLD Performing Arts Centre, which was brilliant. But strangely enough that's not what I remember from the night. As we were walking back to the green room after the show I overheard the tiniest snippet of a conversation between two of my friends. I'm not even sure if this is what they said, but what I heard was something like,

"Ben did alright didn't he."
"Yeah I guess. He's pretty up himself though."

Looking back I know that hardly makes sense logically - both of these guys were friends of mine all week - but it was such a shock that I didn't question it, and it was too awkward that I'd overheard it. I was a nice guy who didn't rock the boat, tried to please everyone and didn't make any enemies, and I couldn't bear the thought that someone might think me arrogant. This one comment, which possibly never happened in the first place, has stuck in my memory ever since.

It's been 12 years since that comment and I can see in hindsight how it has made me much more aware of pride in my life. It certainly hasn't stopped it altogether (as my wife can assure you) - not by a long way - but that difficult experience has helped to make humility a very desirable thing in my life, and to make me aware of pride as a weakness. I never want anyone to think me arrogant again. That night sucked for me.

I hope that God hasn't had to use many difficult experiences to show you your own weaknesses, but if he has, maybe you should take some time to thank him today. It can feel like harsh treatment, but it has certainly made a big difference to me.