Inspired by Fox Mulder's "I Want To Believe" poster and a recent viewing of the film Ghandi.
Monday, July 20, 2009
Sunday, July 19, 2009
What Has God Been Doing To My Life?
If you've read any of this blog you'll know that I'm not the kind of person who believes in God having some kind of direct hand guiding and directing my life. Now as I look back over my life I’m not so sure. As I mentioned in my previous post I believe I am being called to full time ministry within the Uniting Church. People often talk of God opening doors, in my case I feel like god has closed doors in order to make this one path even more obvious. This something that I have been reflecting back on over the last few days. Below I have listed some of those closed doors.
Door 1: Mathematics Teaching
Because of some unhelpful Austudy and Centrelink rules I was not able to finish maths education degree despite having done 3.5 years out of 4 and despite a chronic lack of mathematics teachers. Living in Newcastle at the time with one of the highest unemployment rates in Australia work was very hard to come by and I ended up with a part time job in at a semi rural Anglican church as a children and youth worker. An appoint that happened only because the arch bishop was on holiday – he told me that there was no way he would of let someone with my evangelical background through if he was not on holiday.
Door 2: Working with AFES
I still remember meeting with an AFES head cheese who I’m sure seemed a little worried that two women were basically running the group with the full time worker having left. As we chatted and I was asked questions that only had one right answer (I was given that answer if I didn’t get it right). I could sense that my version of evangelicalism (learnt from someone who was going from Moore Theological College to live in Byron Bay) was not really going to gel with the expected AFES line.
Door 3: Newcastle
I lived in Newcastle after I moved out of home. I loved Newcastle and I still have a soft spot for the city, but I just couldn’t get permanent work or finish my study so I had to move somewhere Perth was it.
Door 4: Studying somewhere other than Murdoch
When I applied to work with the Anglican Church in Perth I needed someone either with a theological qualification or studying theology. There are a huge range of theological colleges in Perth but with no money behind him or not a big enough ongoing income to pay for fees it turned all those choices to just one Murdoch Uni. Don’t get me wrong I loved my time at Murdoch, it has no only really dawned on me that if I study to be a minister I would find it incredibly hard to take off 4 years to study but now I only have one year left to go.
Door 5: Working with the Anglican Church
I loved my time with the Anglican Church I felt like I learnt a lot and really came to appreciate the Anglican ways of doing things. Maybe I could have stayed with the church in some capacity but the roles I had just didn’t have enough hours and although many people were keen to get me some other work to supplement it I had to stop the role. At the time I was gutted that I had to stop but there was no way I’d be priest in the Anglican church I just couldn’t honestly do the liturgy honestly as if it was the way that I best connected with God.
Door 6: A “Real” / “Decent” Job
I am a reasonably intelligent hard working honest person. Most people I meet think I could easily get a job in almost any field I feel like. The reality is I’ve been unemployed and underemployed a lot. Even in my current job I’ve been encouraged by people to find new work as they all think I can “do better”. I once took a careers course with a woman who had helped a lot of UK miners (made famous in the film Brassed Off) get new jobs. In a group of about 10 off everyone felt that they had major break throughs and clarifications about where they should be working. She apologised to me as she had no suggestions for me and admitted I was the only person she met that she couldn’t work out anything to suggest. Skills of Public speaking, teaching, pastoral care, a passion for social justice, experience working with and coordinating volunteers and the ability to work by myself just brought up blanks all the time.
Door 7: Climbing The Ladder
The normal thing to do in most companies is to climb the ladder to some comfortable middle management position. I haven’t been able to do this. The organization I work for is small there is no professional development and as the organization expands any position above mine is always looking for experience and qualifications above mine in fact I’m sure if my current role was re advertised it would ask for qualifications I don’t have. So I continue to the same role I have done for the last 5 years adding extra things to what I do as continue to become more efficient at what I do.
Any way that’s just a few things I could think of off the top of my head. This is probably not good blogging to blurt out all of this. But I’ve always blogged more as a public diary rather than trying to get a crowd of followers I could maybe one day sell advertising to.
Door 1: Mathematics Teaching
Because of some unhelpful Austudy and Centrelink rules I was not able to finish maths education degree despite having done 3.5 years out of 4 and despite a chronic lack of mathematics teachers. Living in Newcastle at the time with one of the highest unemployment rates in Australia work was very hard to come by and I ended up with a part time job in at a semi rural Anglican church as a children and youth worker. An appoint that happened only because the arch bishop was on holiday – he told me that there was no way he would of let someone with my evangelical background through if he was not on holiday.
Door 2: Working with AFES
I still remember meeting with an AFES head cheese who I’m sure seemed a little worried that two women were basically running the group with the full time worker having left. As we chatted and I was asked questions that only had one right answer (I was given that answer if I didn’t get it right). I could sense that my version of evangelicalism (learnt from someone who was going from Moore Theological College to live in Byron Bay) was not really going to gel with the expected AFES line.
Door 3: Newcastle
I lived in Newcastle after I moved out of home. I loved Newcastle and I still have a soft spot for the city, but I just couldn’t get permanent work or finish my study so I had to move somewhere Perth was it.
Door 4: Studying somewhere other than Murdoch
When I applied to work with the Anglican Church in Perth I needed someone either with a theological qualification or studying theology. There are a huge range of theological colleges in Perth but with no money behind him or not a big enough ongoing income to pay for fees it turned all those choices to just one Murdoch Uni. Don’t get me wrong I loved my time at Murdoch, it has no only really dawned on me that if I study to be a minister I would find it incredibly hard to take off 4 years to study but now I only have one year left to go.
Door 5: Working with the Anglican Church
I loved my time with the Anglican Church I felt like I learnt a lot and really came to appreciate the Anglican ways of doing things. Maybe I could have stayed with the church in some capacity but the roles I had just didn’t have enough hours and although many people were keen to get me some other work to supplement it I had to stop the role. At the time I was gutted that I had to stop but there was no way I’d be priest in the Anglican church I just couldn’t honestly do the liturgy honestly as if it was the way that I best connected with God.
Door 6: A “Real” / “Decent” Job
I am a reasonably intelligent hard working honest person. Most people I meet think I could easily get a job in almost any field I feel like. The reality is I’ve been unemployed and underemployed a lot. Even in my current job I’ve been encouraged by people to find new work as they all think I can “do better”. I once took a careers course with a woman who had helped a lot of UK miners (made famous in the film Brassed Off) get new jobs. In a group of about 10 off everyone felt that they had major break throughs and clarifications about where they should be working. She apologised to me as she had no suggestions for me and admitted I was the only person she met that she couldn’t work out anything to suggest. Skills of Public speaking, teaching, pastoral care, a passion for social justice, experience working with and coordinating volunteers and the ability to work by myself just brought up blanks all the time.
Door 7: Climbing The Ladder
The normal thing to do in most companies is to climb the ladder to some comfortable middle management position. I haven’t been able to do this. The organization I work for is small there is no professional development and as the organization expands any position above mine is always looking for experience and qualifications above mine in fact I’m sure if my current role was re advertised it would ask for qualifications I don’t have. So I continue to the same role I have done for the last 5 years adding extra things to what I do as continue to become more efficient at what I do.
Any way that’s just a few things I could think of off the top of my head. This is probably not good blogging to blurt out all of this. But I’ve always blogged more as a public diary rather than trying to get a crowd of followers I could maybe one day sell advertising to.
Friday, July 17, 2009
I'm Taking The Plunge
Well I've decided to plunge in to Ministry. The first step will be to see if the Uniting Church denomination will have me. I'm still very open to this being a very real possibility. For the last little while I have been doing a Period of Discernment with the Uniting Church, as a part of this I have written out what I believe my call is. I've posted it below so you can have a read if you like and give me any thoughts.
During the Period of Discernment I have had the time not so much to hear God's voice afresh but to get clarity on where I believe God has been calling me for some time.
I didn’t grow up in a Church going family, but at the age of ten inspired by what I heard in school scripture lessons started walking myself to the local Anglican Church and asked for a Bible for Christmas. This is something that only seems unusual only in hindsight. Since initially inciting me away from playing Lego in front of Sunday morning cartoons I feel like God has been calling me towards ministry.
Having grown up in a mainline Anglican church in Sydney I spent my early 20s away from home studying at Newcastle University and involved with an Evangelical Christian group on campus. It was a time where I developed in my faith and could try my hand at preaching, leading several small groups and other committees. I learnt a lot and first started seriously considering whether I was being called to ministry. One group leader told me "if you don't become a minister we've done something wrong" and another said that “even before any training you’d better than most ministers”. I felt I could not just ignore these comments, laced as they might have been with unhelpful judgments about those already working in ministry. After these two leaders had left the group I started to investigate the possibility of taking up an official leadership role within the group. After a couple of conversations with some of the hierarchy I sensed that I would not be the kind of person they were looking for. I was just not theologically conservative enough. Instead I took up a position as a youth worker with an local Anglican Church.
In my mid 20s I moved to Fremantle and developed good friendships with the local non Christians but struggled to break into any Church community. I did get involved para-church organisations like Scripture Union. I felt like I connected spiritually with my non Christian friends more than the Christian people I was meeting, I wondered if I found it hard to break in to a church community what it would be like for them. On one occasion a non Christian couple said to me “If you ran a church I'd go to it” I felt like I was listening to Balaam’s Donkey. These were people who I thought were at best ambivalent to Christianity and here they were telling me they'd go to a church if I ran it. I felt God was telling me this is what you should be doing.
Having made good friends with a liberal Anglican man, through Scripture Union we formed a School based ministry group called “Exposure”. The group did various presentations to school students. One favorite was titled “Burn your Plastic Jesus” where at one point we would compare things Jesus said to some quotes of both modern musicians and fundamentalist moral crusaders. What to me seemed obvious to others seemed a rare ability to reframe the gospel in a way that students could connect with it often for the first time. On one occasion after doing a church service as the last part of a regional music festival a young non Christian year ten student told us "I wish church was always like that". We knew that his local churches were not like this. Both my friend and I could feel God calling us to return to some kind of church based ministry.
In my late 20s I took up a couple of roles with the Anglican Church first as Youth minister for the Northern Region (working with 6 churches and 2 schools) and then as Children and Youth Ministry Consultant for the Southern Region. My role as youth minister was both challenging and rewarding I enjoyed nothing more that journeying with both children as they wrestled with faith and adults as they wrested with how to make that faith connect with young people in their lives. The role was disbanded after involved parties realised that what they were unofficially promised could be done by one person spread over 8 places working only 3 days a week. As a Children and Youth Ministry Consultant (2 days a week) I continued to work with adults as they wrestled with the question “How can I do ministry in my context”. Working with the Anglican church I gained a deep respect and appreciation for their traditions and liturgies but it was still did not feel that it was me. In fact at the time I was part of small home church made up of mix of people with different levels of faith none of whom attended church.
Concurrently I studied Theology at Murdoch University achieving a Bachelor of Arts with a major in Theology where I achieved a distinction average. My wife particularly noticed how invigorated I was when I was actively wrestling with theology and how much I missed it when I completed my study.
I my 30s I found full time work with Drug and Alcohol agency as their Youth Outreach coordinator. In the role I lead teams of part time staff and volunteers to reach out to marginalised people in a range of contexts. I have long had a passion for social justice and those on the margins and felt lucky to find a job with this as it's focus. As much as I had always had the highest respect for those involved practical social justice, I have never felt completely comfortable in my role and have felt God calling me not so much to be doing but to involved in nurturing the hearts and mind of people so that they would desire to do this kind of work. I had also begun to see the limits of what a professional organistaion can do the possibilities a community of people can offer.
At this time I also started attending the Billabong Uniting Church and found a denomination that believed it was “able to live and endure through the changes of history only because it's Lord comes, addressed, and speaks with people in and though the news of his completed work” and “desired to work together and seek union with other churches”. A denomination where I felt more at home than anywhere I had been before. I had the opportunity to be a mentor, a small group leader, run an alternative evening service and on occasion preach. The last time I got to preach one person told me that "when I listen to you I move on" she felt like she had learnt something concrete and could move onto other challenges and issues in her life. I could sense God again asking me “so why are you doing this only occasionally?” I wrestled with this and spoke to my wife who had always been nervous about the idea of being married to a minister and for the first time she was not only content with the idea but felt that I should pursue it. This is when I started the Period of Discernment.
As I reflect on my life I feel that God has slowly developed in me a range of skills and passions uniquely suited to being a minister of the word. I I feel that God has had a direct hand in guiding the kind of work and experience that I have had over my life. I have spent much of my life either working part time or unemployed and despite my best efforts to secure work in other fields, doors have continued to open in fields of ministry. I feel I might be betraying God's efforts if I were not to pursue this possibility of becoming a Minister of the Word in the Uniting Church.
---
During the Period of Discernment I have had the time not so much to hear God's voice afresh but to get clarity on where I believe God has been calling me for some time.
I didn’t grow up in a Church going family, but at the age of ten inspired by what I heard in school scripture lessons started walking myself to the local Anglican Church and asked for a Bible for Christmas. This is something that only seems unusual only in hindsight. Since initially inciting me away from playing Lego in front of Sunday morning cartoons I feel like God has been calling me towards ministry.
Having grown up in a mainline Anglican church in Sydney I spent my early 20s away from home studying at Newcastle University and involved with an Evangelical Christian group on campus. It was a time where I developed in my faith and could try my hand at preaching, leading several small groups and other committees. I learnt a lot and first started seriously considering whether I was being called to ministry. One group leader told me "if you don't become a minister we've done something wrong" and another said that “even before any training you’d better than most ministers”. I felt I could not just ignore these comments, laced as they might have been with unhelpful judgments about those already working in ministry. After these two leaders had left the group I started to investigate the possibility of taking up an official leadership role within the group. After a couple of conversations with some of the hierarchy I sensed that I would not be the kind of person they were looking for. I was just not theologically conservative enough. Instead I took up a position as a youth worker with an local Anglican Church.
In my mid 20s I moved to Fremantle and developed good friendships with the local non Christians but struggled to break into any Church community. I did get involved para-church organisations like Scripture Union. I felt like I connected spiritually with my non Christian friends more than the Christian people I was meeting, I wondered if I found it hard to break in to a church community what it would be like for them. On one occasion a non Christian couple said to me “If you ran a church I'd go to it” I felt like I was listening to Balaam’s Donkey. These were people who I thought were at best ambivalent to Christianity and here they were telling me they'd go to a church if I ran it. I felt God was telling me this is what you should be doing.
Having made good friends with a liberal Anglican man, through Scripture Union we formed a School based ministry group called “Exposure”. The group did various presentations to school students. One favorite was titled “Burn your Plastic Jesus” where at one point we would compare things Jesus said to some quotes of both modern musicians and fundamentalist moral crusaders. What to me seemed obvious to others seemed a rare ability to reframe the gospel in a way that students could connect with it often for the first time. On one occasion after doing a church service as the last part of a regional music festival a young non Christian year ten student told us "I wish church was always like that". We knew that his local churches were not like this. Both my friend and I could feel God calling us to return to some kind of church based ministry.
In my late 20s I took up a couple of roles with the Anglican Church first as Youth minister for the Northern Region (working with 6 churches and 2 schools) and then as Children and Youth Ministry Consultant for the Southern Region. My role as youth minister was both challenging and rewarding I enjoyed nothing more that journeying with both children as they wrestled with faith and adults as they wrested with how to make that faith connect with young people in their lives. The role was disbanded after involved parties realised that what they were unofficially promised could be done by one person spread over 8 places working only 3 days a week. As a Children and Youth Ministry Consultant (2 days a week) I continued to work with adults as they wrestled with the question “How can I do ministry in my context”. Working with the Anglican church I gained a deep respect and appreciation for their traditions and liturgies but it was still did not feel that it was me. In fact at the time I was part of small home church made up of mix of people with different levels of faith none of whom attended church.
Concurrently I studied Theology at Murdoch University achieving a Bachelor of Arts with a major in Theology where I achieved a distinction average. My wife particularly noticed how invigorated I was when I was actively wrestling with theology and how much I missed it when I completed my study.
I my 30s I found full time work with Drug and Alcohol agency as their Youth Outreach coordinator. In the role I lead teams of part time staff and volunteers to reach out to marginalised people in a range of contexts. I have long had a passion for social justice and those on the margins and felt lucky to find a job with this as it's focus. As much as I had always had the highest respect for those involved practical social justice, I have never felt completely comfortable in my role and have felt God calling me not so much to be doing but to involved in nurturing the hearts and mind of people so that they would desire to do this kind of work. I had also begun to see the limits of what a professional organistaion can do the possibilities a community of people can offer.
At this time I also started attending the Billabong Uniting Church and found a denomination that believed it was “able to live and endure through the changes of history only because it's Lord comes, addressed, and speaks with people in and though the news of his completed work” and “desired to work together and seek union with other churches”. A denomination where I felt more at home than anywhere I had been before. I had the opportunity to be a mentor, a small group leader, run an alternative evening service and on occasion preach. The last time I got to preach one person told me that "when I listen to you I move on" she felt like she had learnt something concrete and could move onto other challenges and issues in her life. I could sense God again asking me “so why are you doing this only occasionally?” I wrestled with this and spoke to my wife who had always been nervous about the idea of being married to a minister and for the first time she was not only content with the idea but felt that I should pursue it. This is when I started the Period of Discernment.
As I reflect on my life I feel that God has slowly developed in me a range of skills and passions uniquely suited to being a minister of the word. I I feel that God has had a direct hand in guiding the kind of work and experience that I have had over my life. I have spent much of my life either working part time or unemployed and despite my best efforts to secure work in other fields, doors have continued to open in fields of ministry. I feel I might be betraying God's efforts if I were not to pursue this possibility of becoming a Minister of the Word in the Uniting Church.
Wednesday, July 08, 2009
Word Image
I've just discovered Wordle. It's a tool for creating word images of text or websites. This is the image created for this blog. Pretty cool huh.
Thursday, July 02, 2009
The Weakness of God
When I was younger I used to sing “My God is so big so strong and so mighty there’s nothing my God cannot do.” Now I’m older I’m not so sure. This is a post that I have been mulling over for a while and have finally decided to buckle down and write, short as it is. Recently I was reflecting on my life as a Father and how my view of the concept of “Father” has changed. I grew up with an image of God as Father. When I was young, God as father meant a God who was powerful, in control and can do anything. Now that I am a father I don’t feel like I am powerful or control. It is almost impossible to convince my children (all under four) that I am the boss and in control. I can’t make my daughter her eat all her dinner, I can’t make my son fall asleep on time. I can sit her at the table or keep him in his room at bed time but that’s not the same thing.
I am now thinking that God has created a world were his influence and power are quite limited, like me as a father. When God intervenes it is often subtle, God is not in the storm but that still small voice. The big intervention that Xns celebrate is when God came to the world as an obscure Jewish man with no great political power. A man who we would describe as servant rather than ruler.
If we are to believe that “My God is so big so strong and so mighty there’s nothing my God cannot do.” It means that every time some kind of evil happens that God (who can do anything) is just sitting passively by letting it all happen. This just does not concur with my understanding of what God is like. In the story of Noah when evil things are happening God doesn’t tweak things at the edges to make things a little better instead God anguishes over having created humans, something where he is can’t just do anything to change the situation. He finally resorts to flooding the world – itself something so horrific he chooses never to do again. I think an explanation of why God doesn’t just come in and do something dramatic.
I believe that God still intervenes in the world but that intervention tends to be through people, God changing and empowering people to do great things. I can get my daughter to bed by giving her a horsey ride, fairly little effort on her behalf but she has to want to get on that horse.
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