Calling

We had a timely lecture on 'the missionary call' the other day. Turns out that the call to tell people of all nations about Jesus and to teach them and help them mature is a call made to the whole church. We must all be involved; we have only to work out what our individual role should be. On the whole the Bible does not record people receiving an extra supernatural call - rather, they are appointed and commissioned by the church. This is been good for me to see as I haven't had any sort of supernatural calling - and yet, because he is in control of the details of our everyday lives, I have seen God ordering small and bigger things so that I might go.

Learning a language the non-overwhelming way

The Oxford Take Off in Latin American Spanish kit rocks! It's a kindly, patient and encouraging teacher. Each group of lessons is focused on a theme (eg shopping) and the vocabulary keeps repeating. You listen to an easy dialogue, answer comprehension questions, repeat some phrases, read over a little bit of relevant grammar, then participate in a 'conversation' yourself. It's like being a little baby and having people speak simply to you about concrete things. Maybe it came from this method which I'm told is excellent.

Demons

So far as I can tell, the supernatural beings that the Bible speaks about are GOD, angels, Satan and demons. I can't exactly remember what it says about angels, except that they're fearful beings and they praise God and help people.

So it seems to me that the supernatural beings recognised by people (jinn, ghosts, ancestors etc) are probably demons. Realising this may be happy news for some who feel trapped and oppressed by these beings, but it may be shocking and horrifying news for others.

Don't take my word for it

Sometimes people misunderstand the Bible because they're unable to read or they don't own one - and their preacher misunderstands it. We need to help those guys to read, and get Bibles to them in written/audio form.

Sometimes people misunderstand the Bible because no-one's told them that not every bit is immediately applicable to their life. We need to show them that the Bible speaks about the historical nation of Israel and later, the new Palestinian church.

Above and below

When us Westerners think of God, we think first of what he is like in his person, and what he has been like for all eternity ('from above'). When Africans grapple with the Bible they look first at God's work in the world, and at what he is like when he relates to us men ('from below'). It's all good.1


1 ibid, 107-08.

Christ as Ancestor?

In Africa, Jesus is sometimes seen as the ultimate Ancestor1. When I first read of this it seemed massively dodgy, like he was being reduced to the important-but-not-divine status of a Catholic saint. But hang on a minute, what do I know about the African conception of ancestors . . . Those with better knowledge than I say that this label has some legitimacy - for, like (but better than) the traditional ancestors, the Son is the Mediator between man and God. He is the head of humanity/the church and in him we who are alive now are connected with the rest of the Christian family who have died. And it may help to explain Christ's humanity and divinity. Yet, it has its problems, and not all Africans are happy with it.


1 TC Tennent, Theology in the Context of World Christianity (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2007), 122-31.

Reconciliation after genocide

A man from African Enterprise spoke the other day about their Rwandan Reconciliation project, which is being financially supported by the Bible Society NSW.This project is run in every Rwandan school and is part literacy training, part reconciliation/Bible teaching. The genocide happened 14 years ago, before these primary school kids were born, but many have family members who murdered or who were killed. Their readers are full of Bible stories of reconciliation. At lunchtimes there are Reconciliation Clubs for those who want to join where they role play the Bible stories and sing, dance and debate reconciliation. Then they go home and tell their Mums and Dads.

Useless Beauty

Useless Beauty is an awesome book looking at films that came out in '99 I think (American Beauty, Magnolia, Election, Run Lola Run etc). The author comments thoughtfully and knowledgeably on their themes (etc) and also mentions points of similarity and divergence with the biblical book of Ecclesiastes. A great read for Christians and for non-Christians who don't mind some Christian jargon and concepts.


PS Not sure what happened with the style of this post. I mean, it reads like a proper, considered, sober book review - not my usual exuberant style . . . Oh hang about, it does have "awesome" and "I think" in the first sentence . . .

Adult Ed churchy style

A church in Sydney runs an Adult Ed style program for a couple of weeks each Jan. People in the congregation who have skills in different areas each run a little course and they invite people from the community. Neat idea huh.

Aesthetics and worship

I'm perpetually (perennially?) interested in the relationship between beauty/aesthetic and truth. I'm seriously considered doing next year's Project on the topic. This article is very interesting and thought-provoking. I'm not convinced by some of his theology however. I'd like to be convinced but I think he's reached his points far too quickly and assumed too much along the way. Still, it all sounds so good.

Dangers in trying to properly apply the Bible

1. You can be so concerned to make the Christian faith accessible for the local culture, that you become too radical for the rest of the church to follow you.
2. You can be so concerned with the look of things that you neglect their feel. The same form can carry different meanings for different (sub)cultural groups. You need to respect people's intuition as to whether something is fine or problematic.
3. You can be so concerned to make things accessible that you forgot that it's God doing the work, and that he can make powerful use of half-baked, culturally alien efforts.

H/T John and Richard

Theology for different cultures

Contextualising theology is about properly applying theology. Behind it is the assumption that while there are fundamental biblical truths essential to the Christian faith everywhere, the emphasis and understanding of certain of those truths will vary across cultures, as will their expression. So it is to some extent necessary - and unavoidable - to read and systematise the Bible with the mindset, questions and needs of the specific culture in view. The validity of this approach can be found in the apostle Paul's example and command, as well as being assumed from the diversity of content and potential application of biblical material. Paul used the language, understanding and questions of the Athenian culture when speaking about the gospel (Acts 17). He also addresses more peripheral issues that are relevant to a specific cultural context (eg 1 Cor 10). And it can be inferred that in his example of adapting to different cultures to save some he also adapts his thinking (1 Cor 9:19-23).

The danger with contextualising theology is twofold. Firstly, the Bible's emphases and the questions that it asks of the culture can be overlooked. No culture asks all the questions that God would have it ask or emphasises the things that God would have it emphasise. The second issue is related to this – even if the right questions are asked, the answers can be misunderstood (and misapplied) if the values of the culture are too much in view. The Bible must be allowed to give its own answers even – or perhaps especially – when they are counter-cultural.

This is not a wise adage

The writer Richard Price rewrote one manuscript from page one to the end three times through. It took him and his editor 18 months. And while he was writing the first draft (that's the very first draft, not the final draft that then got edited three times), his editor allowed him to ring up at the end of each day and read out what he had written, while the editor said affirming things. That went on for a year. Richard comments, "It was like wrestling a zeppelin." (Paris Review Interviews, p385)

Goodness.

I like Godot but still . . .

"Characters paralyzed by the meaninglessness of modern life still have to drink water from time to time."

Kurt Vonnegut in Paris Review Interviews, vol 1, p195

He's talking about the necessity of plot.

A remedy against dumbness

If you haven't read Exegetical Fallacies by Dirty Don, you should - it's really good. Need to have your thinking cap on though.

Morbid/Realism

Make all of your important life decisions in a cemetery.

H/T Derek's pastor . . . and Luke (well he said that's where old skool Crossroads elders meetings should be held)

From WA to Tas

One of the churches in the (evangelical) North West Australia Anglican diocese (ie most of WA) has started holding 'Messy Church' once a month because they "wanted to reach whole families and that wasn't happening through the kid's club we were running". Together the adults and kids make something, sing, have a short talk, eat, play games . . . And in Hobartown.

Why not!

World Team holds a 'Prayer conference' in France each year. People travel from other places and countries to attend, just as they would a regular conference - except at this conference it's all praying. Radical and (sadly) unsettling, but very probably a very good idea, don't you think.

In spring

A friend laughed at me yesterday when I told him I loved spring because it has the promise of summer. He said, why don't you just love summer? Well I do, but I prefer its anticipation. I think it's partly because spring carries a hope never realised in this life. It makes me feel that all things are possible. It makes me want to travel everywhere that's exotic and fragrant and brimming with life. Summer can never live up to all that. Ah, but the heavenly summer, that's another thing . . .

The Australia God sees

This keeps happening to me . . . My pastor talks about Matthew 5, saying that though no-one here has murdered anyone, being angry is murder's evil beginning. I go to the Jewish Museum and am unable to comprehend a time and place where all those little children were killed. I write a jokey post about funny ideas people have of the West. And then, a while later I realise we are those people. We live in a country where, every day, many small babies are killed. We tell their Mums there's no other option. We tell them they need to have a life before they are a Mum.

In our local area

The NSW director of Prison Fellowship came to talk to us at college the other day. Among other things he said that the families of people in jail often don't tell anyone about it because it's so shameful. This means there could be people living in our local area who aren't getting much support.

He said that a really good way in is to get involved in Prison Fellowship's 'Angel Tree' program, which is a program where you buy Christmas presents on behalf of a person in jail and take it to their house personally. Often the wife/husband/mum/dad will invite you in for a cup of tea and you'll be the first sympathetic ear they've come across . . .

. . . which got me thinking about who our target audience should be. Aiming demographically is good because that's how people live their lives. But we also want to be counter-cultural and make church accessible to people not in our demographic. Aiming geographically is a reasonably good way of doing this.

A little charismatic

Friends of mine were telling me about their new church service. It has a more charismatic feel than the other services - because a) instead of having the 5 songs interspersed throughout the service, they have them all in a block at the start, b) the preacher wears a 'Kylie mic' when he preaches, so he's free to stride around the place, and c) the song leader interupts his song intros by strumming a bit. That's all it takes! How cool is that!

H/T Des and Suze

God's two wills

At the back of John Piper's Pleasures of God is a brilliant appendix presenting what the Bible says about God willing that all people be saved and also willing that only some be saved. It's very clear, very based on the Bible and draws it all together without (IMHO) distorting its scope.

Self satisfied

This contributer to the Sydney Morning Herald astutely pointed out a danger in our national rhetoric.

H/T David Cook

Willstown folk

The people who came to meet the aeroplane in trucks were bronzed, healthy,
and humorous; the men were mostly great big tanned, competent people; the
women candid, uncomplaining housewives.

Nevil Shute, A Town Like Alice (London:Pan Books, 1961), 308.

This description has the ring of truth about it, don't you think. Even if you'd not met any country folk, you'd feel you knew them.

What's going on with that map?

It might be hard to care for the world if all we know is our local area. Worldmapper might be just the tool we need to make world facts hit home. Chose a category from the far left column and then one from the centre column and an unusual looking map will appear.

H/T Kate and Danny

Find my family

Find My Family might just be the most important show on TV. We should give thanks for and make use of shows like these because . . .

1. they show forgiveness and reconciliation of broken relationships
2. they show that things can turn out okay for messed up, broken families. Kids adopted out can be joyfully reunited with their parents and siblings. There is hope for children born into bad situations.
   

If you haven't seen these shows, you should. They are profoundly moving, especially if you have experienced some sort of brokenness in your own family.

Christ centred preaching

Bryan Chapell's Christ Centred Preaching (2nd ed) is a superb introductory book. He's the sort of author who scatters nuggety gold amidst his more basic points. And he's got great footnotes pointing you to other books on various topics.

Contextualising theology

Unlike other major world religions like Islam, Christianity has looked very different over the centuries, and looks very different in different countries today. This is just as it should be because while the Bible demands adherence to some basic truths, it allows different cultural expression of these truths. One author* has had a go at condensing the fundamentals of Christianity, and in such a way that even the truths themselves (and their application) could then be differently expressed in different contexts. This is his proposal:

(1) The worship of the God of Israel. This not only defines the nature of God; the One, the Creator and the Judge, the One who does right and before whom humanity falls down; it marks the historical particularity of Christian faith. And it links Christians - usually Gentiles - with the history of a people quite different from their own. It gives them a point of reference outside themselves and their society.
(2) The ultimate significance of Jesus of Nazareth. This is perhaps the test which above all marks out historic Christianity from the various movements along its fringes, as well as from other world faiths which accord recognition to the Christ. Once again, it would be pointless to try to encapsulate this ultimacy forever in any one credal formula. . . . Each culture has its ultimate, and Christ is the ultimate in everyone's vocabulary.
(3) That God is active where believers are.
(4) That believers constitute a people of God transending time and space.

He also adds "a small body of institutions which have continued from century to century. The most obvious of these have been the reading of a common body of scriptures and the special use of bread and wine and water."

What do you think?

*A Walls, The missionary movement in Christian history: Studies in the transmission of faith (NY: Orbis, 1996), 23-24.

Seeing the light //2

Churches that promote a liberal form of Christianity* haven't taken off in the new globalised world. Quite the opposite.

* where the Bible is seen as less than wholly accurate and authoritative, and where more culturally acceptable interpretations of the Bible are embraced

Seeing the light //1

The growth of globalisation hasn't led to worldwide secularisation, as some predicted. Quite the opposite.

A genuinely good evening

Here's an idea. Have people over for dinner. Then have two people read the first 8 chapters of Mark (like a play reading), have dessert, discuss it, then read the rest. I really like this idea.

Not born yet

This is a heart-warming, positive, sensitively worded site.

Out of character

I never thought I'd say this but you can use liturgy! prayer books! and hymn books! to help you pray.

H/T David Cook

Immaturity

We say that churches in Third World countries are "a mile wide and an inch deep" - because of various spiritual immaturities. But they say the same of us - because of our materialism and consumerism. This is the problem that characterises the Western church. It's a very big issue and we do not deal well with it. I was really convicted about this myself last year.

Arrogance

David Cook says that Australians believe in "justification by death" - once you die everything's alright between you and God.

Apologies Mikey for double-dipping.

Moleskins

David Cook, the principal of my Bible college, takes an alphabetical moleskin everywhere with him and jots down various things he observes under whatever letter it goes under. I don't think I could do this, but it's a nifty idea.

What persecution looks like in the West

In the West, adults may not experience persecution for our religious beliefs. But our kids do. Assuming things are the same as they were when I was at school, the merciless teasing and ostracism that Christian kids and teenagers experience is certainly persecution. Maybe one thing parents and Sunday School teachers need to be doing is teaching kids from the parts of the Bible that talk about persecution and helping them to stand firm.

However it's possible that kids today are a lot more tolerant - so perhaps blantant teasing only happens if a Christian kid tries to actively evangelise their peers. This situation would be confusing for a Christian kid - all their classmates saying that it's okay to be a Christian, and yet they're not interested in being one and they think that other religions are okay too. We need to help our kids deal with this too.

How do you know if you can hack being a missionary?

I asked a single female missionary of 10 years this. Her reply was perhaps all I need to know:

• You can't - but by God's strength.
• You can't - unless you want to and are called to. Then you should take the step and God will make it possible. It won't be easy, but it will be possible.
• You need to go with a missionary organisation that:
• understands what it's like to be a missionary
• has good financial support (the last thing you need is to be stressing about getting by)
• has good prayer support
• something else I can't remember
• in the first 3 years, supports you to do no more than learn language and culture and get a feel for possible ministry options
• You need another Western woman around who you have enough connection with to be able to pray together and offload onto. Someone to provide spiritual support (and of course, friendship will also be an offshoot of that).
  

Vertical partnerships

This is where two churches, organisations etc each work out what they are about and then identify the things/values they have in common. They then agree to partner on those things only. Then they work out how that will look and write a contract for 2 years (3 years max). Not sure why they're vertical.

H/T Bruce Dipple

The horse's mouth

An interview with a Cuban pastor.

Get lost and die

Also in Paris Review, Peter Carey (who reminds me of Dan Shepheard) talks about our national heroes - Ned Kelly, Burke and Wills, Phar Lap, Gallipoli. He says:

These are all about loss. Landscape forms character, of course, and ours is a killer. In America the narrative is, Go west. You might eat a few people on the way, but basically it will be wealth and success. We just get lost and we die.

INTERVIEWER

You go into the bush and then-

CAREY

You're fucked. It's a hostile place, with droughts and fires. There's no frontier that trumphs over space in Australia. Also we have a big Irish component, a folkloric culture, about being robbed, tortured, and oppressed. And then we have the convict narrative, which is certainly about loss. And under all of this lies the knowledge that the land we love is also stolen. The horror of the destruction of aboriginal society is there every day. In Australian stories we trust loss and we are very suspicious of success. We have an affection for outcasts and oddballs.

Private epiphanies

Mikey quoted this but what the heck let's wheel it out a second time. It's a very interesting comment from Harold Bloom (literary critic) in the most excellent, most heartening Paris Review Interviews (II).

You also learn this from reviews and from things that are cited in other people's book and so on, or from what people say to you - what you pride yourself on, the things that you think are your insight and contribution . . . no one ever even notices them. It's as though they're just for you. What you say in passing or what you expound because you know it too well, because it really bores you, but you feel you have to get through this in order to make your grand point, that's what people pick up on. That's what they underline. That's what they quote. That's what they attack or cite favorably. That's what they can use. What you really think you're doing may or may not be what you're doing, but it cetainly isn't communicated to others . . . . It's a very strange phenomenon. It must have something to do with our capacity for not knowing ourselves. (p354)

Actually . . .

God, Actually looks superb. It's an intellectual apologetic and would, I think, be appropriate for the sort of person who's found Richard Dawkins interesting.

Theology

I love immersing myself in the Bible and coming away with something of an overview of what God says on a particular topic. And I love it that throughout history other, smarter people have done this and I get to read and benefit from their work. So I get cross when people accuse theology of being esoteric and useless for everyday living. Knowing anything more about the reality of the different things that make up life is always going to have practical use. Of course, you can be lazy and not bother to think about the practical implication of some point of theology. Or you can be cowardly and not actually get out there and live in that way. But the blame for those things lies in a different direction to theology.

Right and Left

I like the values of the Left. I support their desire to actively care for the weaker members of society. And yet I often end up being wary of them in practice. I think the Left is often so devoted to its values and strategies, that they fail to see or care when those values are getting in the way of the goal they claim to be working towards. They ignore the plain facts and just repeat their mantra (that their values are achieving their goals) in a louder voice. In contrast, the Right often seems to be more aware of reality and more open to making pragmatically useful decisions. Maybe this is because they set out with more modest aims.


with thanks to Noel Pearson for catalysing my thinking about this (N Pearson, Up From the Mission [Melbourne: Black Inc., 2009], 247.)

Putting your elbows on the table and swearing

I swear in Hobart 'cos no-one seems to have a problem with it. I don't swear in Sydney 'cos I don't want to grieve people who think it's wrong (Romans 14:14-15). I've been challenged to think more about this lately, and to really try and work out if it's right for me to swear at all. I think there are two issues when it comes to swearing.

The first is to do with motive and emotion and conscience. We’ve got to ask why and in what circumstances we swear. Is it in anger or aggression? Does it happen when we lose self-control? Is it against God or belittling him? These things are all very bad and if they are the reason we swear, we should stop swearing and work on the underlying sinful desire (James 3:7-10; Matthew 12:36-37; 15:17-20). Now I know that not everyone reading this will be quite able to believe me here, but I say to you that my conscience is untroubled when I swear. I chose to swear – it doesn’t happen from a loss of self-control. I love using the English language in all its richness, and swear words are one of the things I use to add emphasis and colour to what I say.

The second issue concerns the meaning and social function of the words themselves. This is to do with how the English language currently works. The Bible is clear that we shouldn’t speak in obscene, crude, destructive or impious ways (Ephesians 4:29; 5:4; Colossians 3:8), so if we think that swearing fits any of these we should certainly abstain. In a recent post I said:-

I think that the obscene meaning of these words has been lost, leaving only a useful emphatic function.

With the exception of using the names of God as swear words, I do think this is true. I mean who thinks of blood seeping everywhere when they say “bloody”, or of people having sex when they say “fuck”? The words have lost the meaning they once had. And what’s more, it doesn’t look like all those meanings were even particularly bad or obscene to begin with. What’s so offensive about blood!?

But if these words have lost their meaning, why do some people still think they’re bad? I think it's because they have stayed in a ‘naughty’ category.

So where does this leave me? It leaves me thinking about putting my elbows on the table. I have no idea why my Mum thinks it’s wrong for me to put my elbows on the table. I don’t think she knows why either. Maybe it’s because there was once something genuinely offensive about it, or maybe it’s because her Mum told her not to do it. So, like swearing, putting your elbows on the table is considered rude by some people. This means that for me both things become a question of courtesy. And I really value courtesy.

So I still think it’s okay for me to swear. But I'm going to try to be a whole lot more courteous about it. I'm only going to swear if I'm pretty sure you haven't got a problem with it. And, while I welcome feedback, I ask you not to judge me, just as I will try not to judge you :-) (Rom 14:2-4).

Comments working now

Sorry about that.

Let's have couple's conferences

I’m not sure that separate husbands and wives conferences are helpful. I worry that people will come away with an unbalanced picture and unbalanced demands. In a marriage there is not just a wife doing her thing, or a husband doing his. They are both acting. To tell wives that they must submit to their husbands, and serve, help and provide companionship for them may be too much to ask. It may be more than they can bear. But that is not the way God intended it – rather, at the same time as women are submitting to their husbands, husbands are there, laying down their lives for their wives (Ephesians 5:22-33).

Punjab

In our Global Issues class this morning we were looking at a map with coloured dots indicating how many Christians there are in different parts of the world. We saw a puzzlingly high proportion of Christians in the Punjab province of Pakistan. So I googled it. We need to praise God and pray for our brothers and sisters there.

Power?

I wrote recently about how much power Westerners have, and I still agree . . . but not so much in terms of Christianity. These days Christianity is on the decrease in traditionally Western countries (except for North America where it is holding steady) - and massively on the increase in the non-Western world. Places like Latin America and Africa are littered with Christians. They're doing their thing and it's awesome.

Hard core mentoring

In China if you really admire and respect someone you can ask to tag along with them for a week. How cool is that.

The Mind of God

I skim read The Mind of God by Paul Davies the other day and was very impressed. Davies is a humble atheist who displays courage and integrity by his vigorous and wise thinking. The book is all about what we can know of God, if indeed there is a God. He dismantles so-called proofs for God and comes to the wise conclusion that philosophical reflection and scientific investigation can only tell us about this world. My only complaint with the book (well, aside from not being able to understand the science) was that he occasionally misunderstood Christianity, seeing dichotomies where the Bible presents paradoxes.

Religious education in schools

If you want to know anything about teaching religion/Christianity in NSW schools then the website of the Inter-Church Commission on Religious Education in Schools is the place to go. Big discussions happening right now about Australia's chaplaincy program and about whether religious education should have a place in the proposed National Curriculum.

Respect

A Youthworks guy who spoke to us today confirmed something of what I said in a previous post . . . The key to teaching teenagers without terror is: to take yourself less seriously than normal and take them more seriously.

What are they smoking in Scotland?

The 2008 New College Lectures were brilliant. They were given by Prof. Trevor Hart from the Institute for Theology, Imagination and the Arts (!) at the University of St Andrews, Scotland. The topic was "God and the Artist: Human Creativity in Theological Perspective". Depending on the sort of person you are the topics will either sound thrilling or pretentious and probably in both cases, confusing - "'The lunatic, the lover and the poet': divine copyright and the dangers of 'strong imagination'"; "The 'heart of man' and the 'mind of the maker': Tolkein and Sayers on imagination and human artistry"; "Givenness, grace, and gratitude: creation, artistry and eucharist". But I'm happy to say they were fascinating, stimulating and very clear. Now I'm just waiting for his book to come out - he told me it would be called Creation, Creativity and Artistry but the interweb's giving me nothing.

Street Art

I went on a tour of Newtown street art (read: graffiti) last year. I've always loved graffiti (probably more than I should considering that it's sometimes illegal). Here's some stuff I learned.

Types of street art:

• tagging: people's names; newbies do this as an identity thing and to get their name out there; it's quick to do so is often done illegally
• throw ups: people's names as above, but it's the bubblegum writing
• paste ups & stencils: the younger generation are into these; the older tend to look down on them because they require little skill, effort, expense or risk
  
• pieces: can be people's names or pictures or whatever; a piece is something that a bit of work and skill has gone into; it's usually done legally (ie the owner of the wall has given permission) because it takes a lot of time
• bombing/tagging over people's work: totally accepted except if the person has died or it's a memorial for someone who's died or if it's an Aboriginal or iconic (eg the "I have a dream") piece. Interestingly people don't tag churches.
  

You might be familiar with the "I have a dream" mural on King St, Newtown, near the train station. Well it was done by a couple of guys illegally over a couple of nights with a cherry picker (!). The Aboriginal flag was added later. One of the guys, Andrew is now in England doing life because he murdered a guy in a squat. He then came to Australia, became a Christian, and later confessed his crime to his Christian mentor, who said he should go back to England and turn himself in, which he did. Praise God for this changed man! And praise him that now the people on the street art tour will think of this whenever they see the mural.

Partnership

I wrote recently about how there should be genuine partnership between churches in rich and poor nations. Here's some more ideas for what this might look like:

• Not just relationship between the missionary and the two churches, but relationship between the members of the two congregations.
• Reporting of the missionary's ministry included whenever the home church's ministries are reported (eg church bulletin, notices during the service, weekly email, AGM) - and not in its own special section but lumped in with the other church activities.
• The missionary listed as a staff member and treated as such. When they're back home, they should slot back into their leadership role in their home church.
• Responsibility for mission in the church to be part of the pastor/leadership team's role - rather than the purview of some congregational members.
  
• The missionary to receive the same pastoral care as anyone else (/any other leader) in the church (eg they get put in a small group, prayer triplet etc). The trouble with this is that we don't do this very well for local people who can't make it to the church service because of age or ill-health.
• The missionary to receive the same input in terms of accountability and decision-making as anyone else (/any other leader) in the church.
  
• Send people over to visit the missionary and their church.

H/T one of my missions classes

Interconnectedness

So far as I can see, globalisation can in simplest terms be defined as (increasing) interconnectedness around the world. So it's got a lot in common with interconnectedness around Australia, Hobart, Sydney, or amongst your family and friends. It's complex and multifaceted. It can be done well - lovingly, respectfully, graciously, patiently and wisely. Or it can be done badly. So let's treat those people who live far away as we're like to treat the people who live close by.

Globalisation

Tearfund UK asked people involved in community development work in Africa, Latin America and Asia how globalisation had affected their culture and customs, their churches, as well as some general impressions.1 The thing that struck me most about the results was that now these people are having to deal with the same things as Westerners deal with. Globalisation brings many blessings but it's sad that it also brings challenges of greed and materialism and individualism. It's also sad that we haven't really worked out how to live with these challenges. We're hand-in-hand on this one.

1Wilson, F, "Globalisation from a grassroots, Two-Thirds World perspective: a snapshot" in Tiplady R, One world or many: The impact of globalisation on mission (Pasasena, CA: William Carey Library, 2003), 167-188.

A global view

Another thing we realised in the Global Issues class is how much power we as Westerners have. We don't feel this power; we just feel like ordinary, inconsequential, powerless folk. But we can change the course of our government, we can support or boycott products, we can decide what to do with our lives. This is vast, heady stuff to poor people all over the world.

I guess it makes me think that all the stuff about fair trade or the Millennium Development Goals or whatever shouldn't just be the business and passion of a niche group, but is already the concern of us all whether we acknowledge it or not. So we already have the power - now we just have to use the power for good.

We haven't got it all together and we need prayer

Global Issues in Mission is an awesome subject wildly popular at SMBC . . . not really - I'm one of four students. But it should be popular 'cos it's awesome. We read an article recently which suggested that what looks like partnership between churches in rich and poor countries is actually often an unhealthy co-dependency.1 Rich churches need the poor churches before they can feel good about themselves, and poor churches need the rich ones before they have the confidence to do anything.

The author agreed with those who say that true partnership only happens when both parties recognise their imperfection. Our class suggested one example of this would be if missionaries not only asked their rich, home church to pray for their new, poor church; but if the poor church prayed for the rich church too.

1R Reese, "Globalization and Missions"

Dystopia . . .

The Venezualan President Hugo Chavez has taken 34 broadcasters off air for abusing free speech1 . . . Trouble with this is - you can't!!

1Nina Negron (AFP), 1/8/09 accessed at http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5jRokQ7aAQdK0NIJdmNzbB9GLFZGA 3/8/09