Doing ministry in PNG

After 20 years people were happy to once again use their old cultural practices in church. It took them this long to stop associating them with their previous pagan context and feeling guilty/uncomfortable.

At the Bible college they taught 3 subjects: Old Testament, New Testament and Questions. In Questions the students could ask the lecturer about anything and he could also ask them about anything (a good way to introduce accountability).

H/T Frank

Pastor Mark in Ossy //3

Pastor Mark:

• watches everything on TV, not just the stuff he likes. He's noticed that the world has gotten very small for Australians - we focus on the things in life we can control because the rest of the world is scary.
• talks to the people who talk to the people. No one will be honest with Christian leaders - so talk to hairdressers, baristas, counsellors etc.
  
• is inquisitive and talks to everyone he comes across, asking stax of questions.
• changes his routine so he learns new stuff

Pastor Mark in Ossy //2

The purpose and heart of contextualisation is for people's lives to be regenerated. Pastor Mark commented that he doesn't see Australian Christians having a sense of expectation of much success, nor a sense of urgency.

Pastor Mark* in Ossy //1

Preachers should assume that their listeners are suppressing the truth and raising objections in their minds. So they should not only proclaim but also defend what they are speaking about.

*Mark Driscoll

Why don't prophecies always come true?

Old Testament prophecy is more about God's plan than about the fulfillment (of the details) of that plan. Sometimes the plan is fulfilled - eg Cyrus - and sometimes it's not - eg the destruction of Ninevah. As I see it, sometimes God lets people in on his thinking, but without revealing the factors that he knows will arise and cause him to change the outworking of his plan.

So the most helpful way to look at Old Testament prophecy is to consider the message of the prophecy rather than its fulfillment. I would argue though that sometimes the message is necessarily bound up in its fulfillment - eg messianic prophecies - but I guess considering the message is the best first step.

This is mainly from a first year Old Testament lecture by Jansen Condren, but with a bit of embellishment from me. I like it, but I worry that it's a bit too neat - maybe it provides a logical resolution where the biblical facts should simply be stated and allowed to sit as a paradox. I dunno, I just feel like there's been times when I've thought that this explanation hasn't been borne out biblically . . . Any comments?

Happy exiles

I have been told that of all missionaries, single women are the most content, then married men, single men and finally, married women. My friend thought it was probably because single women are adaptable and are being productive, as well as being proactive in seeking out whatever support they need.

H/T Meaghan

A million things about Latin America

Another dose of missionary medicine:

• Latin America is full of first generation Christians who have never lived in a Christian culture or seen any models of how to live as a Christian.
• The missionaries who have been to Latin America converted people and modelled converting people, so that's what the locals know to do - they just go out and convert people. They don't know what to do once people are converted and have only ever had bad methods of interpreting the Bible modelled.
• Pastors have no more than 1 year theological training, if any. Some can't read or write.
  
• Christian women will get together in a women's group or get children together, but often they don't know what to do in the group, so they just do cross-stitch or give the kids colouring in to do.
• People on the ball are keen to be taught how to read the Bible sensibly and apply it to their lives. But these things are new concepts.
• Because they're new concepts, as a missionary you need to propose something to the bishop or whoever. If you wait for them to come up with some ministry idea for you to do, you'll be waiting forever. There's every chance they will be totally keen for whatever you propose.
• There are two denominations that are evangelical (ie Bible focused) in Latin America - Baptist and Anglican. The Presbyterians and Methodists tend to be liberal because they come from the liberal US branches. The pentecostal churches are socially conservative - no dancing, smoking, drinking etc.
  
• The pentecostal churches have church FOR THREE HOURS EVERY SINGLE EVENING AND TWO SERVICES ON SUNDAY!!!!!! It stems from a culture where men would go out every night and spend their earnings getting drunk and come home and beat their wives. Once they become Christian, they go with their family to church each evening instead, give a tenth of their income to the church (they have to), then have money left over the next day to feed and clothe their family.

H/T Andrew and Paulina

Vinoth Ramachandra

Vinoth Ramachandra is an IFES worker in Asia. He came to speak at SMBC last year and we all read this excellent paper of his before he came. I think that "integrity" would capture what he's about. One of his big things is that in the West we don't read the Bible with integrity, but from a rich, Western perspective - so we overlook the myriad places where justice and looking after the poor is commanded. People reading the Bible who live in places where there is great poverty and violence do not overlook these things - so we need to listen to them to remove our blind spots.

He also said that the way we live and think lacks integrity because of its inconsistency. We spend the bulk of our lives expecting that our families will be physically well cared for, have a good education etc and working for these things, but the moment someone talks about providing the same things for people in poor countries we throw our hands up and say it's the social gospel.

He also said that our Christian lives lack integrity in that we only do Christian stuff on Sundays and fail to consider how our faith should change the rest of our life. One of Vinoth's ministries is to mentor secular workers and to get them together in support groups to discuss how they can live as a Christian in their working lives.

The order of things

Start Bible studies with finding out where everyone's at, what going on and praying about it. Then do the Bible study. This is what my Bible study group does and it makes me feel really valued as my stuff isn't just squashed in somewhere, and it also means that you get personal stuff out of the way so you can focus on what the Bible says. I can see benefits to not doing it this way, but it just seems to work better.

What do Catholics believe?

The Catholic World Youth Day was held in Sydney last year. I was keen to find out what Catholics say they believe in. Unfortunately the WYD website had nothing about their beliefs (!), but I eventually found these excellent, introductory articles from the Catholic Enquiry Centre. They have a great structure and a warm tone. Maybe we should write Protestant articles in a similar style to these.

Criminal behaviour

People join gangs 'cos the gang says they love you. People reoffend so they can come back to prison 'cos prison's the only place they've got anyone.

People also reoffend because they are creatures of habit.

To understand why someone committed a crime, you first have to be able to start to think what they did was okay.

- from some prison doco

Sydney Writer's Festival 2008: Junot Diaz

America is about liking/not liking people and being cool.

History can be cool and interesting when it's presented by someone young, with a contemporary (vs an educated, upper class English) voice.

People/countries create simplistic, iconic historical memories to make things safe.

He gave an example of one man acting as the representative of a group/nation - when something bad happens and you are in another country suddenly you find yourself representing your whole country.

Sydney Writer's Festival 2008: Don Watson on America

Don Watson included these facts as "strange things Americans believe in": 70% believe in literal heaven and hell; 70% in constant presence of Satan; 45% in aliens.

Freedom is American's preeminent value - which means you get a country full of autonomous competing individuals.


Americans "live in religion". They constantly debate prophecies from the OT, the book of Revelation and the parables of Jesus.


Americans are more motivated by ideas than other cultures are. They are also fundamentally pragmatist - though this is a means and, as such, doesn't conflict with their idealism.

Nonfiction in the bag

I love these writers. They write with such elegance and clarity. Reading their work is a true pleasure.

Noel Pearson
D.A. Carson
My Dad
Stanley Fish
Don Watson

Feedback

Rule of thumb:

Say good things as well as bad things.

I've just got to remember to do this and so do you. Criticisms can be a great blessing and a powerful force for change, but too many of them can crush the spirit. Don't forget to encourage and build up! Please.

The Langham Partnership

The Langham Partnership looks like an awesome organisation from what I can tell.

Asking for your wage

Some mission organisations get their missionaries to ask for money directly and others do not. Some of the reasons I've heard for not asking are because: God has promised to provide; he has told us not to worry about this; asking for money is never included in the duties of a pastor and his focus should be elsewhere; and Paul only ever asks for money for other people. So rather than being asked, congregations should be taught from the Bible that they should give.

However, it seems to me that if a worker has a right to wages and if it is good for people to give, then there can be nothing wrong with asking. Not asking looks a bit like adding extra laws to me - if all that has been prohibited is not worrying and if all that has been commanded is teaching and shepherding the flock, then why add an extra rule (do not ask for money) - why not just ask for money while being obedient to these things?

I think the strongest argument for not asking is God's assurance of provision (Mt 6:25-34) - and yet if "seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well" does not rule out working for a living (as in commanded elsewhere in Scripture), then there is no particular reason to think that it also rules out asking for your wage.

Learning to rejoice

After I'd been chewing over with a friend what it means to rejoice in God even in suffering, Peter Brain (the Anglican Bishop of Armidale) preached at college. He spoke about how thankfulness can stand strong through suffering and can diminish sorrow, bitterness and despair. It's hard to go too far along those paths if you are always thankful.

So I got to thinking that thankfulness might be the first step towards praise and rejoicing. It's more concrete and easier to grasp, so even people who haven't begun to comprehend and praise God for his love and mercy can at least be thankful that their sins are forgiven and that he has protected their life today. I don't think you should ever lose thankfulness but I think you might learn to add praise and rejoicing to it. I think I'll write more about this later.

Language

A missionary from France said that it takes:

• 2 1/2 years to get the basics of the language
• 3 or 4 years before people stop commenting on your language proficiency and start commenting on the content of your sermons (those French!)
• 6 or 7 years to understand the church and culture enough to be able to successfully argue your case for changing the ways things are done - and perhaps longer to have it understood as you intended
• 10 years to master the language

He also mentioned something about patience.

The barbaric West

A missionary from the Ukraine came to college and talked about the post-communist mindset. He said that up until 2001 he had people asking him, "Did you really use to sacrifice your children?".

Up and comers

More missionary wisdom: "Select hard and train easy". This ensures a) you get the right men and women for the job and b) that you don't exclude people due to low education or whatever.

Sneaking a look at the Pope's correspondence

This is a fascinating letter from the Pope to the church in China.

Things to pray for

Your church could put out a flier of things people can pray for each day of the week (for the church's ministries, the world around etc etc). Change it every month.

H/T Cowra Presbyterian

Bet you're not up to it

Instead of doing Bible study one evening, just pray. 'Course you can read a bit of Bible first.

Bible colleges in poor countries

Some wisdom gleaned from a missionary lady:

• Often the people best suited to be pastors can't be trained because they can't afford it. The people that end up doing it are those who can - regardless of their appropriateness.
• People who have ongoing low-grade hunger or health problems aren't able to learn as well as people in the West. This includes the longterm effects of malnutrition experienced in infancy.
• It's hard for colleges to subscribe to journals containing cutting edge theology because to do so they have to commit to ongoing financial output. Additionally those journals may not be written in an accessible language.

Change

I've been told that (rapid) change is not appreciated or appropriate in country ministry. One reason is that people are just struggling to survive economically, and the church is the one thing in their life that is predictable and stable, so to change the way things are run is actually unkind. Better to plug on preaching the Word, and leave it up to people to change at God's directing and at their own pace.

Dirty Don Does Cross and Culture

At some Moore College lectures I attended last year, Don Carson mentioned that the Bible's authors had much less opportunity to be involved in government than we do today. I think he was saying that 'praying for the city' and 'respecting the authorities' translate as a responsibility to get politically involved today.

Oral learners

Oral learners learn by hearing a story. I'm told that explaining it only confuses them - they have already understood the story and grasped its message/moral. And I think that literate leaners are to some extent able to glean a story's abstract themes and principles by themselves . . .

So maybe we should stop teaching in a literate way that only caters for the literates, and instead teach in a more story-telling way that caters for both. Perhaps the only explanation needed is of broader application and themes/principles that people mightn't work out on their own. Then again, any explanation will just confuse the oral learners . . . Maybe you do have to be specific afterall . . . ?

Camel Tracks

Camel Tracks is a resource used to present the gospel to Muslims. Apparently, Muslim-background Christian believers would typically sit the person down after they had read through it and give them a whole Gospel sermon. Apparently they go hard.

However I think the booklet presents itself as a complete 'Gospel' presentation, rather than a starting point, which has the potential to be very dangerous. I think that perhaps a good rule of thumb is to be careful of using any material that needs qualification, that you wouldn't be happy to just leave lying around.

What church can do for a soul

Very often when I left the place of worship the first impression I had of the 'outside world' was how small it was - how puny its politics, paltry its appetites, squinteyed its interests. I had just spent an hour or so with friends reorienting myself in the realities of the world - the huge sweep of salvation and the minute particularities of holiness - and would blink my eyes in disbelief that so many are willing to live in such reduced and cramped conditions. But after a few hours or days, I found myself getting used to and going along with its assumptions since most of the politicians and journalists, artists and entertainers, stockbrokers and shoppers seem to assume that that was the real world. And then Sunday would come around again, and some pastor would call me back to reality, 'Let us worship God.' And I would get it straight
again, see it whole.

E.H. Peterson, The Wisdom of Each Other

Teenagers

I've got this opinion going where I think teenagers, while not yet adults, should nonetheless be treated like adults wherever possible. I guess this opinion comes from what I remember of adolescence - you just want to be understood by adults and given dignity. I figure lots of bonehead behaviour could be mitigated by this approach. But I have absolutely no idea what I'm talking about. Ask me in 15 years time when I'm hopefully (?) the parent of an adolescent.

Anyhow, our man Peterson suggests that in place of a youth group, teenagers should be invited round to cook a meal once a fortnight.

First, it's something you like to do and are good at. . . . your kitchen opens up a world of care for food and its painstaking preparation will strike them, to use one of their words, as awesome. Second, you will be taking them seriously as persons, without any condescending adaptation to their status as adolescents. You are inviting them into your adult world and making them participants in it . . . Third, you will be working out of a context of hospitality, probably the very best setting in which to develop personal relationships and develop conversations that include Jesus . . . . Every so often you could prepare a huge pot of soup and take it to downtown Moorhead or Fargo and help out with one of the street missions to the hungry and homeless. When a person or family shows up in worship on Sunday, any one of the youth is free to invite them over for supper.

E.H. Peterson, The Wisdom of Each Other

Pov prayers

My 'prayer life' is pretty messy. It could be more regular, fervent, devout and loved. But I try not to feel too bad about it. I mean, momentary chats to God pepper my day and my prayers are said with sincerity. I'd like to get better but I figure it'll stay messy while I'm on this earth and I trust God will use and guard my feeble efforts.

For someone like you, lacking a lifetime of habit and routine in Scripture and
prayer, the best strategy is to start small. What I am saying, I guess, is that
you shouldn't take on the burden of single-handedly going against the whole
culture. Infiltrate brief prayers into the interruptions and noise.

E.H. Peterson, The Wisdom of Each Other

Peterson says not to think of praying in terms of time, but rather to think of it as a thing you do, something that's part of your daily routine.

Other worldly

I'm not big on conferences, partially because of an irrational, peculiar life approach of mine, but also because . . .

Conferences on the spiritual life are wonderful - occasionally. I think very occasionally. They do not provide the substance for a life of obedient faith. They contribute almost nothing, maybe even less than nothing, to a life of spiritual maturity. . . . When you next feel the need for some outside encouragement and refreshment, you would do better to book a three day vacation in Hawaii. Lie on the beach and soak in creation.

The reason is that the Christian life is thoroughly organic - the Holy Spirit grows the spiritual life in you, forms Christ's life in you, in the particular conditions in which you live - Minnesota weather, rural culture, estranged wives, stand-offish children, uncomfortable income, and a still uncomfortable Lutheran liturgy.

E.H. Peterson, The Wisdom of Each Other

Unremarkable words

The conversations that take place in the parking lot after Sunday worship
are as much a part of the formation of Christian character as the preaching
from the sanctuary pulpit. The small talk that accumulates around the ritual
of putting children to sleep for the night is as sacred as the most solemn
of eucharistic liturgies. Most of our lives, after all, are not in crisis.
We also need ways of conversing about our lives in Christ.

E.H. Peterson, The Wisdom of Each Other

Fulltime secular ministry

Eugene Peterson writes a letter to a friend advising them what to say to their pastor who wants them to go into ministry:-

. . . I realised that I have also been called into full-time Christian ministry. And I need your help. . . . Two things in particular I need from you. First, I need your blessing on my ministry. . . . [cf Mk 5:18-9] . . . . In the immediate context of my life, 'family' translated into my daily work. . . . it is not easy, for none of my associates at work nor my new Christian friends understand it as ministry. I'm beginning to feel very isolated, even beleaguered. That's why I need your blessing - your blessing and your prayers, validating and strengthening me in my full-time Christian ministry. The second thing I need is your protection. This is demanding work and requires much concentration and energy. The longer I am in this church the more I feel that
people here are distracting and diverting me from my ministry. If I lived out my Christian faith the way they think I should, I would end up simply putting in 'secular' hours at the laboratory and saving up my 'Christian' energies for evening meetings and weekend church projects. . . . the help you need is the word of God preached with imagination and conviction. Tell them you need to be prayed for with passion and faithfulness and listened to without distraction or hurry.

The Wisdom of Each Other by Eugene H. Peterson.

Mentoring

My Sydney church used to run a program where the same two people met ten times throughout the year. The purposes for these meetings were quite defined. The first two were to get to know each other's stories. The mentee (hate that word) then picked three or so areas to work on and together they worked on those things across the rest of the year.

New in Town

Chapter The First: In Which Our Heroine Sends Things To Her Pastor. Sure to be a hoot.

Women doing fulltime church work

I reckon it's a big ask. I reckon women aren't as tough as men. (God reckons so too.) And I reckon an MTS apprenticeship is an awesome way for anyone to find out if it's for them. But while men should just give it a burl, I think women should only sign up if they're pretty sure it could be a goer. Otherwise they might do all sorts of emotional and psychological damage to themselves.

One way to make ministy doable for women is to allow them two rest days a week, instead of the usual one.

Promoting the gospel

Sometimes we encourage people to live ordinary lives loving Jesus and tell them that evangelism will just flow out of that. But I think that when we do so, we also need to remind them that we are aliens and strangers here. We do want to be humble, but it's humble ambassadors or humble aliens we want to be, emeshed in the culture 'cos we love it, but at the same time holding ourselves a bit distant because we love Christ more.

I say that because I find that if I have too high a view of living humbly, quietly and kindly, then I go into conversations and I don't notice opportunities until it's too late and even if I do, I've forgotten how to be counter-cultural. What we're asking people to do is, I think, trickier than what we used to ask, in the days when we were nearer to 'Bible bashing'. We're asking them to settle - but not too much. To work at being a dear friend - but to willingly stomp on that if it's necessary. They have to love God more. Otherwise it'll be stressful and their brains will explode.

Aberrant post

I don't really like this template. I thought you should know that. Also it's late and I'm going to dump some posts so I apologise if they're unclear. I'll edit them when I'm more lively. This isn't going to be the sort of blog that has posts like this.

Don't take notes in sermons

Graeme Sayer, from the Christian Reformed Church in Kingston, Tasmania (not Jamaica sadly, man) told me he'd heard someone say it's bad to take notes during sermons - because the purpose of a sermon isn't for people to remember what was said and reflect on it later.

The purpose of a sermon is for people to listen to what God is saying to them NOW and change their thinking and hearts NOW and change their behaviour WHILE ENJOYING A POST-SERMON COFFEE. Ever since he told me, I've stopped taking notes and it's been good. Makes me appreciate, trust in and marvel at God's transforming power.

Post The First

I'm forever sending ideas and links to my Tassie pastors, Dan Shepheard and Mikey Lynch. Mikey suggested I start a blog so THE WORLD MIGHT BENEFIT. So here y'go world: benefit.

And I should just say that some of these will be halfbaked thoughts and provocative angles. I won't necessarily wholeheartedly support them all. Do feel very welcome to add your thoughts and critiques and experience - and what the Bible says if I've steered off course.

Hobby Horse Revisited

Sometimes I worry that I come across as a liberal Christian, someone who has abandoned the difficult, absolute biblical truths for less defined, more palatable understandings. I worry because I do afterall, swear and drink and dance and enjoy Bill Bailey. However I categorically believe in: the hopeless sinfulness of all people; Satan's furious work in the world; the coming judgment; Jesus' resurrection from death and faith in him as the only path from hell to a blessed, eternal life. So why am I so free 'n easy in my behaviour and so dogmatic in my beliefs? Am I a hypocrite?

Well I'm hardly the one to answer that question (despite having asked it - how delightfully pomo heh heh) but I try not to be hypocritical. No, the reason I live the way I do is precisely because my faith is all about these really weighty, ultimate things. Weighty, ultimate things do play out in the details of life - it's not that details are unimportant, but rather that Christianity is not about certain conservative cultural practices.

So I swear because I think that the obscene meaning of these words has been lost, leaving only a useful emphatic function. I drink because alcohol is a good gift from God and drunkness, not temperate drinking, is forbidden. I dance because our bodies are important and good, and it is possible for men and women to relate physically without impurity or lust. I enjoy Bill Bailey because he's astute and cheeky, but I hit fastforward when he gets too crass or irreverent.

Being socially conservative doesn't get my knickers in a knot. The sort of things that bother me are lying, thinking lustfully about someone else's husband, abandoning self-control, flaunting my body, jealously, pride, selfishness and unforgiveness. It's my ardent desire not to allow myself any liberality when it comes to these things.

I guess I just hope - and pray - that people don't assume they've got me figured. I hope that, at the very least, I'll puzzle them and get them to think. This Christian faith is not what you might expect. It's a faith in which physical creation is to be celebrated and enjoyed, in which sin is everywhere found but conquered by love, in which the poor in spirit gain the kingdom of heaven.

The Jewish Museum

A canny eighty five year old gentleman showed a couple of ladies and I around the Sydney Jewish Museum. As we passed a photograph of men building a wall to divide a Polish city into Jewish and non-Jewish parts, he mentioned that he had seen it under construction. Another photo showed precise lines of Nazi soldiers marching into Poland: he had seen that too. I asked about his family and he said they'd been gassed. At the children's memorial our guide seemed to have as much difficulty as I grasping that people had killed these little children. (Later I remembered that even in peace the killings go on.) He had escaped from a concentration camp, one of only a handful to do so. I stupidly asked him if in his subsequent employment, he had to pretend to be a Christian . . . I wanted to say sorry to him on behalf of all the Christians who did nothing to stop the genocide of his people.

I went around again later and looked at newspaper accounts of the situation in Germany and the Second World War. Before the outbreak of war there was some quite detailed reporting of violence against Jewish people. After the war began, the newspaper accounts were all about Hitler's demands and the progress of the war. I didn't notice anything about concentration camps or what was happening to the Jews. The style of writing, the layout and the mixture of grave world events and both serious and sensational local news was pretty similar to today's broadsheets. I could imagine myself back then reading the Australian papers, concerned for the Jews, then turning the page and forgetting them. As the war began, I doubt I would even remember they had been mixed up in its beginning. I'd just want the allies to win.

In the section on the Jewish faith there were exhibits about the Hebrew Bible. I was so grateful that on the foundation of these people's faith, salvation came to a Gentile like myself. I felt like saying yes, I agree with all this – this is the true and glorious record of the one God. But then I read of their Zionist hopes and looking for a Messiah. A computer was set up with answers to frequently asked questions on its screen. I clicked on, “Why don't Jews believe that Jesus is the Messiah?”. The answer given was that the Messiah will establish the nation of Israel and bring peace and prosperity to earth. It grieved me to see the mistake and sin of their fathers being repeated 5000 years on. I felt like crying out, “The Messiah has come! There is good news! What you hope for has happened and more gloriously than you ever imagined!”. But they were closing early for Sabbath and I didn't even get to write in the Visitor's Book.