Suburban Outreach?

There seems to be a lot of pressure in Emerging Church Circles to reach out to your neighbours, those in your local community for one to incarnate themselves in their community and be a Jesus type figure where all find out about God through you. I wonder if this is a hang up from the Emerging Church’s evangelical roots where you had to reach out to your friends and bring them to a hear guest speaker / alpha course or similar. Well, as someone who is theologically trained, fairly good communicating my faith in a way that non Xns can relate to. I've got to say that for me in my new suburb this is bloody hard work. In a nut shell this is why…

1) I know that I’m not going to try and build a church building with a big PA or stand on a box at the edge of my drive way and preach. But I don’t know what I’m going to do and that is really hard to work it out.

2) The only common meeting place is the traffic lights where we all sit to get out of the suburbs we live in (parks re still yet to be built as are the shops other shops are 10 minute drive away so most people shop near where they work).

3) Most people drive into their driveway shut the door behind them. They live in this suburb because it’s just 20 minutes drive away from where they’d really like to live – so many see this as only temporary and sell up (one next door neighbour and the people across the road) when their house has gone up in value enough.

4) I work funny hours and often away over the weekend or working on a Friday or Saturday night which means I miss many spontaneous street events. A couple of street BBQ’s and game of Street Cricket to name but two.
5) When I do get to talk to my neighbours we have very little in common. They love their sport, cars and work in trades. I love music and art and work in humanities. So when they give me the name of their trade I have to ask what that actually means and when they say I look like (insert famous footy player) I have to ask who that is. Now I don’t mind the difference but I can just feel this cultural wall rise up between us. Especially as often people like myself (tertiary educated etc… have looked down on my hard working trades working neighbours in the past and there is no reason not to expect similar from me)

So where too? Well apart from not feeling bad about it. I’ll just plod along trying work out what means to live a Christ inspired life in the context I am in. What’ll happen? I’ll let you know.

Church Surf 9 - a wobbly bike

In an earlier posts I had mentioned that I was part of a group trying to reconstruct church in some way.

Well, we just had our first get together and in many ways it was completely unremarkable. To the onlooker it might have just looked like a family get together in the park, with some bread and wine and remembering what someone we loved dearly (Jesus) was like as we broke bread and drank wine in remembrance of him. This really felt like we had really started church from scratch even communion (the centre piece of the meeting) felt new and one attendee commented that it was something that should be really easy but it felt like we were first timers wobbling along as we rode the communion bike. The gathering was simple and unremarkable yet I am excited about the potential it has to become a central and important part of my spiritual journey.

Islam, Cartoons, Tom Lyberg

A little while a go I was put onto Tom Lyberg who, in my humble opinion, does some great podcasts. None the less in his last podcast #25 - Christianity, Islam, and Postmodern Faith he seems somewhat resigned that he will not find moderate Muslims and scared of what this means for postmodern religious tolerance. If not everyone deep down is reasonable then surely we've got to start doing a bit of criticizing.

Well for what it's worth I thought I'd my 2 cents into the mix.

In my distant past I played soccer (as a Christian) with an all Muslim (except for me and a friend) Turkish soccer team. They were nice people some strong others not so strong in their faith, none of whom had a problem with me being a Christian and all who enjoyed their time in Australia.

Just last weekend I spoke a man from Iraq who fled his home country as a refugee to come to Australia and when it's safe keen to return. He was a history teacher who loved reading and a bit of an academic. He read English well but spoke it poorly. He earns a living in Australia pushing shopping trolleys around. Anyway, he is Muslim but doesn't like to tell people as they think fundamentalist terrorist (which is kind of like me who doesn't like to tell people I'm Christian because of the preconceptions people may have about me). He tells me that Islam is like Christianity - lots of different expressions of it or denominations only more so. Just when you thought Christianity was bad. He was great to chat to really friendly, accepting of who I was and what I believed.

But so what, that's just one person. Well yes and no. Whilst one group of people calling themselves Muslim blew up and embassy over the cartoons. The Islamic party in Malaysia held a peaceful rally of about 5000 and gave the Danish ambassador a letter. Also, whilst in many countries people may have received death in an interview on Counterpoint Tim Blair pointed out that he had posted the cartoons, got over 250,000 hits and not received any threats. In fact he suggests that by the Australian media not printing the cartoons that the assumption that Australian Muslims would only react violently is further perpetuated.

So, here's my first point. People of one faith have different beliefs, they often have lots of stories or texts in common but as these are open to interpretation and so people have different beliefs. Now even if two people have the same beliefs they may have completely different actions. For example two Christians may not believe in abortion, one might blow up abortion clinics and send death threats to doctors the other might do nothing.

So first and foremost we need to be critical about someone’s actions. It is certainly be the case that their beliefs informed their actions but we need to be mindful that it may be possible that another person may have those beliefs with out acting the way this person did. That doesn’t mean that we should not be critical of those beliefs but it is important not to assume that the two are necessarily connected. Similarly when we are critical of someone's beliefs we need to understand that their beliefs are informed by their faith but we need to be mindful that it may be possible that another person may share that faith but not have those same beliefs. Someone’s beliefs are influenced by there culture, so in the affluent materialistic west it is not uncommon to find a Christian with a prosperity gospel theology. Similarly in the oppressive war torn middle east it would not be uncommon to find some who incorporates acts of violence into their faith.

So are all Christians just as nice as me? No, there are plenty of examples of Christian terrorist type people to refute that. Are all Muslims terrorists or have an agenda to bring down the west? No, I know this because I have met some who aren’t.

From here we get into a dangerous and dodgy game of “well what percentage of X faith are Y or believe Z and what percent don’t and what percent”. I think it is rude to say that all people of one faith act in one voice about a certain issue. What we need to do is critique the actions of people foremost and the beliefs of people secondly, not the faith. Not because it is not politically correct or some such crap but because it is to vague to ethereal and only gets peoples backs up when we attack their faith. When we critique action and belief that’s when we can talk about how our own faith informs that and that will be the most powerful testament of what we believe.

Big Brother meets Hillsong

Big Brother 2006 runner up Tim visits Hillsong... http://www.chaser.com.au/content/view/2988/2/

"So what's wrong with Fred Nile?"

I can remember being asked this after a presentation I once did in the late 90's. I think I may have compared something Jesus said to something Fred Nile said and something Marilyn Manson said, and basically I think Marilyn Mason had paraphrased the Jesus quote and Fred said the opposite. None the less lots of Xns say stupid things and lots of Xns have moral stances on issues which have a pretty flimsy biblical basis and lots of Xns are out of touch with the rest of the world. But for me Fred Nile was and still has something extra and that was illustrated once again to me when I was reading the latest copy of the Big Issue when Helen Razer, in an article where she was talking about rejecting atheism and looking into different spiritualities and faiths including the one she grew up with - Christianity. She said...

"I actually considered embracing the religion of my family origin for a minute. And then - rather fortuitously I think as I tend to go all in with new hobbies and spend lots of money on accessories - I was delivered from faith. Fred Nile came on my radio talking about how Brokeback Mountain was a sinful movie and that the homosexual Agenda, or some such, was poison etc etc."

This is what annoys me about Fred Nile. It's not what he believes or even what he does but it's his ability to turn people away from Xy with more force than anyone I have ever known. Whether Helen Razer was seriously looking into Xy or not is my point as I have known dozens of people who my first step to explain Xy has ended up being to explain that it's not like Fred Nile in fact usually quite the opposite. This article has served to remind me of many of those conversations.

Also I once saw Fred Nile speak at a church (quite by accident) where he read Romans 13:6 For the same reason you also pay taxes, for the authorities are God's servants, busy with this very thing. To which he said what Paul meant to say that the authorities should be God's servants, that is you should be voting in only Xns into parliament.

Impact World Tour

This will be a complete waste of time.

This is my brave prediction for 2007.

In 2007 The Impact World Tour (IWT) will hit Perth. IWT neatly encapsulates everything that I have learned about evangelism that fails. It is completely about entertainment over and above relationship.

IWT is evangelism by entertainment. It attempts to make Xy cool by association. If you had a friend invite you along to see a band who espoused the values of a nudist colony would you then join that nudist colony? Probably not, not even if that band was incredibly good. Cool by association just doesn't work, this is how advertising works and we have become so advertising savvy that even the advertisers don't try this, the latest "It's a Big Ad" Beer campaign is a good example.

A IWT representative admitted that evangelism (which I suspect is really evangelism by entertainment) will not work on people under the age of 18. Not only does it not work but it communicates to regular church goers that when it comes to evangelism the best thing they can do is give money to the experts.

Don't get me wrong I have no problem with Xn Art, but this is something different. This is Art viewed purely as a tool.

Pop Quiz...
When Jesus fed the 4000 did he
A) Tell the crowd it will all happen again next week only this time everyone should bring a friend
or
B) Go to the other side of the Lake and spend time just with his small group of disciples

The basis of evangelism, discipleship and love is relationship. We don't need to spend money we need to spend time. If you spent four years discipling four people, and then they went out and did the same then all of Australia would be Xn in less than 50 years just from your one group. This is why Jesus spent his time with the 12 not the 4000.

I have known people who become Xns at these kind of events. One was a dancer who had a broken tendon and could never dance again. Someone prayed for her tendon was healed. For her the hype of the night lasted about 6 months and so did her faith.

Relationship is more important than Entertainment. I could go on but this post is too much of a rant as it is. Thanks if you have read this far.

Father Bob

Ahh Father Bob is now my new hero.

Here's why...

1. He lives what he believes
2. He puts faith before dogma and the gospel before church teaching
3. He looks at things on a case by case basis, not making sweeping black and white statements
4. He's willing to learn from anyone and listen to what they have to say
5. He's still really passionate about reaching out to people
6. He's still in the church

Father Bob has three podcasts...
Sunday Night Safran
The Father Bob Show
Speaking in Tongues
and one Blog
Father Bob