Honest Worship Music

The YouTube title is wrong worship. Maybe it's just honest worship. I can remember seeing a church service where the band was at the back if the congregation, something about it felt very right. More like the congregation was worshiping God and not watching a concert. As I always say to fellow nervous church musicians. "Don't worry were only the backing band, the congregation is the lead singer."

Podcasts

Sometime ago I started doing 101 things to do as a churchless Xn. One of the most consistently important things for me has been listening to Podcasts. These are my favourites...

• Homebrewed Christianity
• Nick and Josh
• Father Bob
• Sunday night Safran
• Praxis
• Iconocast
• Emergent Village
• Tom Wright page (not a podcast but links to loads of Tom Wright talks)
• CCDA

You should be able to find them straight through iTunes too.

I'm Sorry I'm A Christian

Some great slam poetry.

Moonlighting At The Transit Lounge

I was asked to do a post at the Uniting Church's Transit Lounge site about the tension between faith and church. You can see it here or just read it below.

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Like most Christian people I know who are under 40, none of us really like the idea of going to church. Sentiments like I’m spiritual or I’m a Christian just not religious are more common than not. My friends and I did not slowly drift from church as we drifted from our faith. On the contrary, it was as we took our faith more seriously we found it harder to continue going to church

Ask those friends of mine what they don't like about church and they might mutter something about a disdain for institutions and how Christianity went down hill after Constantine. For many of them it's really hard to articulate exactly what they dislike about church because the answer is, 'pretty much everything.'

They have been disenfranchised for so long that they are no longer thinking, 'what would I like to change about church' but rather, 'why would I go in the first place?'

It's easy to point the finger at how church is done. Sermons rarely lack the academic rigour and insight of interviews with theologians you can download for free off the net. Communal singing, be that contemporary worship music or hymns, can just seem strange to those of us who grew up on a diet of alternative rock. And, social outreach programs rarely reach the quality or effectiveness of those run by larger NGOs (non-government organisations).

But there is far more to it than just the “how” of church.

I once heard of church youth group leader asking their youth group…

(a) what are the biggest issues facing the church at the moment?

They wrote all the answers in a list.

Then they asked…

(b) what are the biggest issues facing the world at the moment?

They wrote these answers in a list.

Then they looked at the two lists. There was no overlapping issues on either list.

Despite all this, after years of not being part of a 'proper church', my wife and I started the painful process of looking for a church. Partly driven by us working for Christian organisations where we were supposed to be 'actively involved' in a local church.

As we searched from happy clappy mega church to small liberal church I felt a common vibe amongst all of them. A sense that this is the way we do things here and we were welcome to join in or, if we didn’t like it, not.

Eventually I decided I didn’t want to get anything out of church. I was looking for a church were I could give something.

After all, like many of my peers, I had been a Christian for a long time and I had loads of experience. It was only when my now minister said he’d be up for me trialling a few different ideas I had floating around in my head, that I thought this might be the place.

Now I am proud to be a member of my church and it's not my ideal church, far from it. What's more I hope never is my ideal church.

There far too few people who would want to be part of a church designed to pander to the wants and desires of a middle aged man who has been a Christian almost all of his life and likes to do church one particular way.

Jesus All About What?

Last month The Spirit of Things discussed the Jesus All About Life campaign. It's something I have to admit I've completely missed. Apart from a few friends who changed their logo on Facebook to a logo I could only just read if I squinted I haven't seen anything. None the less I got to hear all about it on this interview. What really struck me in the interview was this passage.

Rachael Kohn: Daniel, to be serious though, I mean isn't it a Christian imperative to change the world for the better? That is, being there for the people who live in very degraded circumstances?

Daniel Willis: Sure. And the thing about that is that in order to present that, or to go down that track, people actually need to be in a relationship with Jesus. So if they aren't already in a relationship with Jesus, then how are they going to bring that Christian value, that Christian ethic, that Christian morality to bear on the situations in another country? Just this morning, I was listening to a news broadcast about adoption, where they're adopting children from foreign countries, from Third World countries, and the devastation that that is causing, the wrong way that that's being approached.

Unless we have an understanding of who Jesus is, what he said, and how we should deal with one another, then we can't send people from our country out to deal with situations like that adoption issue because they might go out and do exactly what the other country was doing in exploiting that situation.

So this means that the only people who have a problem with Westerners ripping cute African kids out of their adopted families are Xns? I don't think so.

I find it hard to believe that Xn people are still stuck in a believe then act paradigm. It got me thinking does this person actually know any non Xn people? Personally most non Xn people I know well have strong ethical ideas. What they might not have is a spiritual framework to put those ethics in.

Maybe rather than ads thanking Jesus for V-neck guitars and sleep ins, an add like this might be more appropriate.

I want a cleaner planet,
I want to house the homeless,
I want to stop war,
I want to end injustice.
Jesus prayed "Your Kingdom on earth as it is in Heaven"
Get on board with what God is doing and be part of changing the
world.

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.

I'm Over Facebook

Every time I log on to Facebook my page is flooded by people who take all kinds of ridiculous quizzes. Things like “Which Harry Potter Character are you?”. Because I’m not glued to it 24 7 I probably miss the more important updates from people. I couldn’t work out why would anyone spend the time to do these quizzes so I thought I'd create my own dumb quiz. “which random household object are you” and people did it, about a thousand so far. The Answers are random and completely unrelated to the questions (see below) any way I'm back to my trusty RSS blog feeds and dabbling with quiz free Twitter.

Which Random Household Object are You Questions

1. Which Musical Artist Do You like the best?

• New Kids on the Block
• Vanilla Ice
• Kikki Dee
• Yanni
• Backstreet Boys
• Michael Bolton
• Céline Dion
• David Hasselhoff

2. My Favourite Swearword begins with...

• A
• B
• C
• D
• F
• R
• S

3. You have a recurring nightmare about...

• Chickens
• Zombies
• Losing your clothes
• Driving with no brakes
• Failing exams
• Your Ex
• Flying
• Facebook Quizzes

4. Facebook is...

• Wasting my life away
• A way to keep in touch with friends I can't stand to see in person
• A place to put that glamour photo I spent so much money on
• Wasting everybody else's life a way
• The only way my friends talk to me any more
• A great way of distributing all my personal details to potential identity thieves
• A Social networking Site
• Just Like Twitter only with more Features

5. The Household object I most identify with is…

• Hair Brush
• Cup
• Tea Towel
• Door Handle
• Light Bulb
• Spoon
• Pencil
• Rubbish Bin

Jo Cocker Made Me Cry

I'm not sure how I came across this but it made me laugh so hard my wife thought I was crying.

The Life You Can Save

Peter Singer has a new book: The The Life You Can Save and accompaning website I heard him interviewed on Point of Inquiry and Late Night Live - Phillip Adams. His challenge to the world is to end world poverty and he's done the math to work out how much we need to give away to make it happen. The good news for people stingy like me is that it's hardly anything especiially for people earning a wage like mine. It's just one percent. If you think you can do that why not sign the pledge on the website, I was only the 481st person to do so.

Shardenfreude

It's rare that I post youtube videos on my blog but this one I just couldn't resist. It's a cover of Europe's big 80s hit "The Final Countdown".

Questions from a Brand New Atheist

I came across the Brand New Atheist blog via Cameron Rilley's Blog, initially to a great and moving older post about how he became an atheist. More recently he posted a series of questions he wanted his Xn friends to answer since no one he knew was polite enough to answer I thought I’d give it a go. I'm guessing he's hot asking these questions so someone can convince him to become a Xn or so he can bait them but perhaps rather to answer the question "How can someone believe this stuff?"

These are my somewhat condensed answers. I’m happy to expand on any of them if you want.

Here’s a very small list of items that are wrong in the Bible, I would like you to explain how you deal with them.

1. The Bible refers to the Bat as a bird. (science has proven this to be wrong) Leviticus 11:13-19 and .Deuteronomy 14:11-18

2. The Bible refers to the Earth being flat. (science has proven this to be wrong) There’s too many, here’s an article that lists them all. http://www.goatstar.org/the-bibles-flat-earthsolid-sky-dome-universe/

3. The Bible refers to the Earth as being the center of the solar system. (science has proven this to be wrong) 1 Chronicles 16:30, Job 9:7, there are others but these are the easiest to interpret.

4. The Bible refers to the Moon as having it’s own light. (science has proven this to be wrong) Genesis 1:16, Isaiah 13:10

I'll deal with these 4 questions in one hit. You can also add that Pi = 3 and technically that the earth is a dome with waters above and below (kind of like an inverted snow dome). All of these are really the same critique, that is that the Bible is not scientifically correct. I would argue that the Bible is trying to answer why the world has been created rather than how the world is created which is why much of the creation story is a re interpretation of already existing creation myths with an emphasis on the world being ordered rather than a random accidental chaos. I've written a bit about this if you want to read more at http://achurchlessfaith.blogspot.com/2006/06/not-so-intelligent-and-definitely-not.html

5. The Bible condones slavery. (written in the text of the Bible) Too many to list, here’s a link to them all http://skepticsannotatedbible.com/interp/slavery.html

I think how you read these texts depends on how you view the Bible. that is whether you view it like a big law book were you can quote random verses from anywhere or whether you see it as an unfolding story or revelation. if you believe the first option then you have to disagree with Paul that you can be Xn without being Jewish as well. to me arguing that slavery is ok is a bit like arguing that neo is still trapped in the matrix by showing selected clips from the matrix.

6. Adam didn’t die the day he ate from the tree of knowledge. (written in the text of the Bible) Genesis 2:17, Genesis 3:6, Genesis 5:5

Personally I think this is very much intentional rather than an overlooked flaw. it is part of an ongoing pattern of God promising to do one thing but then relenting and not doing it, or doing something less severe. This was exactly Jonah's problem with God and why he goes off to sulk in the last chapter of Jonah (the chapter usually left out by Sunday school teachers)

7. The Book of Judas and Book of Jasher are missing. (written about in the text of the Bible) Book stores already have the Gospels of Judas on the shelves http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5327692, Joshua 10:13

Also the book of Jude quotes Enoch (a non canonical book) as well. quoting texts outside the cannon will disturb you depending on your view of the cannon of scripture. If you view it as divine instructions handed down from God kind of 10 commandments style and the only source of any truth then this is going to be a problem (and you'll still be arguing that the world is flat and 6000yrs old). however if you view it as something that people chewed over for a while before they decided what was in and what was out (which is historically what happened) then it might not be so much of a problem. Also, if you are happy to accept that there is wisdom to be found outside of the cannon then it's not so much of a problem either.

8. The virgin Mary was a mistranslation of the maiden Mary. (written in the text of the Bible http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8m8ntlyrXnY

Yep, the passage in the old testament that Luke quotes (Isaiah 7:14) is best translated as a young girl and was interpreted as virgin in Luke (from the slightly off Greek Septuagint rather than original Hebrew). some people might argue that the intent of "young girl" was virgin, it is also possible that Mary was a virgin even if the passage was mistranslated. I know that people make a big thing about the virgin birth but to honest for me it's just one small passage in just one gospel and personally I don't think it makes a big difference to the overall narrative either way.

9. The Bible speaks of the unicorn which has never been proven to have existed. (written about in the text of the Bible) http://www.answersingenesis.org/creation/v14/i2/unicorn.asp

Hey what about the Leviathan (Job 41)? Or has someone found that ;) . See answers to question 1-4.

10. Atheists can’t get into heaven. Does that also mean Jesus didn’t let Peter into Heaven? (written about in the text of the Bible) Matthew 10:33, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dzzORZhnCao

Sure atheists can get into heaven. Any Xn who doesn't believe that hasn't read Matt 25:31-46. in this passage those who didn't describe themselves as Jesus followers (no reason why they couldn't be atheists as well) get into heaven, and those who do don't get in.

I hope these answers explain how at least one person is able to believe even though they know this stuff.

Peace.

Paypal Buyer Protection - does everything but protect the buyer

If you've ever bought anything off eBay you would have seen the adds for eBays payment system, paypal and in particular it's buyer protection scheme - "up to $20,000". Well I had need to use the buyer protection scheme having bought an item that was not sent to me. Paypal's dispute team found in favour of me but having not not read the part of the very long fine print that says "recovery of your payment, whether in whole or in part, is not guaranteed." I was a bit suprised to find that as far as they were concerned that would be the end of the matter. Basically if you pay for an item and the seller takes that money out of their paypal account then the buyer cannot get that money back, even if it is obvious that this is exactly what has happened..

So how much did I loose? $3.99. Not much in the big scheme of things but I certainly won't be shelling out big dollars for anything via eBay.

Trucker Frank

I sometimes forget that not everyone is looking at the same stuff that I am on the web. So, for those of you who have never heard of Tony Jones and his friend Trucker Frank, your in for a treat.

Tony Jones and Trucker Frank Part 1

Tony Jones and Trucker Frank Part 2

Tony Jones and Trucker Frank Part 3

Tony Jones and Trucker Frank Part 4

Tony Jones and Trucker Frank Part 5

Tony Jones and Trucker Frank Part 6

All I want for Christmas is R2D2

Need I say more... It's only US $2900 mum and dad.

Poem by Gary at "Beyond Black and White"

Gary at Beyond Black and White recently published and excellent poem which nicely captures how I am feeling at the moment.

In the absence

I have a yearning for a community, but nothing to fill it.
There is an abundance of churches in this land,
but they are like the mirage in the desert.
And so I wonder, maybe this is what I need right now,
to be in perfect oneness with the Divine,
to need nothing, to want for nothing,
to be at perfect peace with nothing.
Is my highest bliss to be found
in the space of absence?
Am I called to monasticism in the city,
as the hermit in his cave?
I yearn for grace,
and realize you were here all along.

Podcast Junkie

As I look at my iPod I have 27 podcasts to listen to and probably more to download. I am a Podcast junkie. So, I thought I'd share my top ten podcasts, in no particular order.

1. Father Bob Show - everyone needs a liberal free thinking catholic priest with a passion for social justice.
2. Sunday Night Safran - John Safran and Father Bob talk religion, politics & ethics. Always hilarious.
3. Kevin Smith - writer director and all round funny guy, not for kids or grandma.
4. Emergent - great podcasts, mainly talks from various American Emergent types. A lot more wrestling with theology than than your average Australian emergent type who seem to be much more conservative in comparison.
   
5. Point of Inquiry - intelligent, secular and atheist podcast from the center of inquiry - often challenging if your a Xn.
6. Wired Jesus - Infrequent but some great reflections on being a post modern Xn
7. Speaking of Faith - American public media radio on religion and ethics
8. Doug Pagitt - Xn author who likes to think outside the evangelical box
9. The Nick & Josh podcast- an often amusing podcast from the emergent conversation who keep people from taking themselves to seriously.
10. The Religion Report - Stephen Crittenden's excellent half hour of religious news from Australia and the world. Stephen Crittenden really makes this podcast great.

What makes a man a man and why you should read the King James

Last night I showed this fantastic you tube clip to my small group. Hamo had it on his blog a while ago and Tom Lyberg has just put it up to. the second time I saw this I thought it was just a joke but no, this is a real preacher from a real church. So, sit back and prepare to learn the value of the King James Bible and what makes a man a man.

My favorite You Tube comment on the video was...

What if you pee on the wall while sitting down in a chair?

Art by Numbers

Artist Chris Jordan has put together a series of art works titled Running the Numbers: An American Self-Portrait. The full series can be seen here. My favourite two pieces were Barbie Dolls and Prison uniforms. All pieces visually depict different things Americans use, spend, throw away etc.. Which I'm sure is not too different from Australians.

Barbie Dolls, 2008
which depicts 32,000 Barbies, equal to the number of elective breast augmentation surgeries performed monthly in the US in 2006 (click on picture to see full size)

Partial zoom (click on picture to see full size)

Actual size (click on picture to see full size)

Prison Uniforms, 2007
Depicts 2.3 million folded prison uniforms, equal to the number of Americans incarcerated in 2005. (click on picture to see full size)

Partial zoom (click on picture to see full size)

Actual size (click on picture to see full size)

An inspiring atheist's call to appreciate how lucky we are

Cameron Reilly's a hardcore atheist and a great thinker with a big heart.

Reply on Seesmic.

This is a mantra that we all need to be saying to ourselves everyday, people sometimes shriek at the idea that I support a family on less than 50k a year and live in arguably Perth’s most bogan suburb. It’s so easy to start thinking I need a new car rather than one that’s 10 years old, I need to live in a nicer suburb, I need to regular go on interstate or even overseas holidays. This is all a meaningless chasing of the wind. The reality is I’m living the high life it’s just that I spend my time comparing myself to the people richer than me.

The Future for Christianity in Australia (Synchroblog)

Yesterday I was supposed to be part of a snazzy syncroblog thing happening about Australian's and Xy. Instead of blogging I spent Australia day (and much of today) in the emergency ward (and then cardiology ward) at a hospital with a close friend with a heart condition. So doing a blog post on time was not a high priority.

If you have ever spent time in emergency you'll know it involves lots of nervous waiting. My friend had surgery on his throat the day before so he couldn't talk. This meant that instead of the two of us spending lots of time talking, I spent lots of time thinking. Every so often I tried to think about Xy in Australia.

If ever I did think about it I would tend to think of it in terms of my friend next to me, who is not a Xn. Which is kind of appropriate as when I do think about the future of Xy I tend to think about what non Xns think about Xy. The is because Xy is something that you opt into rather than opt out of so what non Xns think is important. My friend is a non Xn and today I was reflecting in on what he might think about Xy.

One of my favourite expressions of his is "bible thumper". As well as being a hilarious and accurate description of some Xns we both know, it also gives an idea of what his experience of Xy has been. I have said to some our mutual Xn friends that I think he gave up Xy for the right reasons. It seems like to me he gave up a Xy that made sense in Xn circles but just didn't cut it in the real world. Rather than spend a lot of time explaining this I’m going to recommend listening to this Dave Slusher's podcast. Not only is it great in it's own right, this "how I gave up Xy testimony" probably closely matches my friends own journey. I think all Xy offered him was a sheltered ghetto that just seemed ridiculous as soon as you stepped out of it.

My question is what does Xy have to offer people like my friend? Or, Why would any non Xn go to church? When I think of all the non Xn friends I’ve had, none have been the slightest bit attracted to Xy or church. They have often seen me as somewhat of an anomaly, an exception to the Xn norm. And they are definitely probably not ready to sign up to the cult of Chris. I don't think my experience is unique. There are plenty of people like me who just feel like they don't connect with regular church (be that mainline or larger evangelical churches).

I think the big question is "How do we outside the box Xns create a meaningful community?". To me this has to be more than a virtual community as I can't see a virtual community sustaining a new Xn. Maybe some kind of tech geek but not your average moderately tech savvy person. So, the future of Xy in Australia in my mind really hangs on the ability of Xns who don't fit into regular church to create meaningful communities. And not only in the crowded inner cities (where there are more of us) but also in small towns and suburbia. Figuring this out will be really important. Right now I'm feeling like I have no idea.

Happy invasion day.

This post is part of the Christianity In Australia synchroblog which a number of Australian Christians are participating in to celebrate Australia Day. For more on Christianity in Australia see:

• Matt Stone at Journeys In Between
• Ben Thurley at Ben’s Blog
• Rodney Olsen at RodneyOlsen.net
• Geoff Pengilly at The Healing Project
• Andy Porteous at Not Yet Finished
• Paul Robotham at A Christian’s Blog
• Chris Summerfield at A Churchless Faith
• Christina Aitken at Sojourn
• Heather at A Deconstructed Christian
• Geoff Matheson at Amateur Theology
• Andrew Hamilton at Backyard Missionary
• Deborah Taggart at The Bright Side
• Rob Hanks at Pump House
• Mike Carroll aka ‘Grendel’ at Sermons From An Atheist