Making church say what you want it to say

My friend (and workmate) Nick is starting up a church in the working class suburb of Glenorchy. He's starting to think through what a church service should look like and asked for my thoughts.

There are things that work for anyone, irrespective of social class. Preaching that is biblically faithful, sincere and passionate. Leaders of authenticity, integrity and compassion. Then there's the other stuff. I think that everyone needs to see a) the Sunday service playing out in the rest of the week, b) the festive, life-well-lived side of Christianity, and c) the caring Christian community.

Middle class people need to be shown the relevance of the Christian message for everyday life (think a pointed, concrete conclusion to a sermon). We need to see that you can be a Christian and still embrace creativity and aesthetic (think creative branding and experimental service structure). We love things like meeting together each week, sharing a meal, playing barefoot bowls, going to someone's shack.

Working class people don't need to be shown the relevance of the Christian message - they need to see ordinary people talking about their actual life (think a public time of sharing what God has been doing in the past week). They need to see that you can be a Christian and still have fun (think sport, video games, fairground attractions, food - but don't fuss over aesthetics and don't mess with the traditional church service). They love things like have a barbie and getting stuck into a project or helping out someone in need.

Am I right? I'm very much middle class, so the working class stuff is just based on observation. Also, I think my middle class comments are more for the 'younger generation'.

Seventy percent

I'm delighted to say that, as of last week, I've reached 70% of the ongoing financial support that I need. When I get to 80% I can book my plane ticket! I'm anticipating hitting that mark in the next fortnight or so and heading off at the start of February. This will give me time to do a good job of finishing up my work for Crossroads and to have a decent holiday/prep time.

I'm very aware that it is because of people's generosity that it is all coming together for me. My supporters are absolutely serving and caring for me, yet at the same time they are serving God as they fulfill the role that he has for them. Indeed, people's generosity is "a sacrificial offering to their God as part of their obedient worship. Their giving is to be just as thoughtful as when the Israelite of the Old Testament went and chose the lamb without blemish from his flock. It is intentional. It costs. But it is an act of spiritual worship that pleases God because it is in tune with his desire that Christ be known" (see Philippians 4:14-19). How lovely.



Quote taken from B Dipple, Becoming Global: Integrating Global Mission and your Local Church: a Practical Approach (Sydney: Sydney Missionary & Bible College, 2011), 73-74.

Homebrand

I always buy homebrand if the quality's going to be okay (so no asparagus or tuna). I've gathered that there are reasons not to, but preferred to wallow in my ignorance than take the confused path to knowledge. Happily The Weekend Australian explained it to me (they've gone digital, so no reading this article unless you pay).

The problem with homebrand is that anyone could be behind it. This means that the supermarkets can switch suppliers at whim (does it really? don't they have contracts or something?), which isn't very nice. It also means that it has the potential to reduce competition over time, as the supermarkets reduce the number of other brands - which means that the price of homebrand products could actually rise over time. While there may be truth to this, it does seem a little silly to buy a more expensive product in the hope of keeping prices down longterm. Then there's the argument about how homebrand undermines 'buying Australian', but I've always been just as much a fan of supporting producers overseas as I am of supporting locals - though then you get into the craziness of transporting food hundreds of miles when it could be locally produced or you could just do without until something's in season . . . yet I still care about supporting those overseas guys.

So I think I'll keep buying homebrand for now, unless I find out that it really does mean that they stuff round their suppliers.

He has shown kindness

On a couple of occasions the book of Acts sees Paul presenting the Gospel message to Gentiles who had no knowledge of either Jewish religion or Jesus himself. Early on in both addresses he spoke of the Creator God:

We are bringing you good news, telling you to turn from these worthless things to the living God, who made the heavens and the earth and the sea and everything in them. In the past he let all nations go their own way. Yet he has not left himself without testimony: He has shown kindness by giving you rain from heaven and crops in their seasons; he provides you with plenty of food and fills your hearts with joy." (Acts 14:15-17)

And later in Athens:

The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by human hands. And he is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything. Rather, he himself gives everyone life and breath and everything else. From one man he made all the nations, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he marked out their appointed times in history and the boundaries of their lands. God did this so that they would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from any one of us." (Acts 17:24-27)

We find it harder to begin our appeals like this today. Even if we don't think that science has in any way dethroned God, then my guess is that we're not very good at arguing for this and we don't want to spend our time there. But maybe folks are more on our page than we imagine - afterall, a fair whack of people think that there is (or could be) "something beyond this life that makes sense of it all" (from here), and the Bible tells us that at some point God's eternal power and divine nature are "clearly seen, being understood from what has been made" (Romans 1:20).

So maybe we should kick off as Paul does. Hobart people should certainly be able to identify with the provision of food and joy.

Christian language

I can't seem to find it but I'm pretty sure I wrote something about my desire to speak plainly in front of my non-Christian friends. Praise God I've more or less got there. Now I want to have the courage to use Christian language. I want to be free to use words like "forgiveness", "sin", "reconciliation", "resurrection" and "grace", instead of always avoiding them or translating them into ordinary language.

I find encouragement from the apostles who adapted the content of their preaching to their Gentile audiences, but didn't necessary adapt their language. So for example, Peter spoke simply about "the good news of peace through Jesus Christ, who is Lord of all" and about how Jesus "is the one whom God appointed as judge of the living and the dead . . . . everyone who believes in him receives forgiveness of sins through his name" (Acts 10:36, 42-43).

 I want to be someone who in conversation will sometimes uses phrases like, "the living God", "message of light", and even perhaps, "judge the world with justice" (Acts 14:15; 26:23; 17:31). I wouldn't want it to be very often, but I would like it to be there.

Happy endings in Australia //2

My quest has its own happy ending: The Tree.

When women and SMART goals don't mix

The Crossroads staff is pumped to see our church grow and mature. We're passionate about seeing people take the 'next step'. We don't mind how soon it happens or how rapidly they progress - we'll leave that with God, as any change is his doing - but we want to do all we can to facilitate their growth. Trouble is, this sort of thinking lends itself to a task-oriented approach that doesn't quite match with what I'm doing...

With most of the women I meet, identifying concrete goals and working towards them hasn't seemed the way to go. Instead I've ended up helping them with stuff as it crops up (eg lack of assurance, peer pressure at work), helping them mature in 'incidental' godliness, rather than furthering them along a pre-planned path.

One of my fellow staffworkers has helped my thinking here. While acknowledging that women are less task-oriented than men, he identified that a more planned approach can be helpful for:

• Habitual/learned 'shortcomings' ("not necessarily sins, though! . . . . e.g. a woman who complains, 'I've gotta get more organised!!'").
• Competence ("I find it helpful to think of growth in terms of the MTS categories of ministry suitability [Character, Competence, Conviction]. Regular Bible study will move people forward in character and conviction; I have no doubt about it. But it won't necessarily help them progress in competence.")
• Specific areas of character and conviction ("e.g. 'I've always wanted to understand what the phrase in Christ is on about'--it's possible to set some goals and help them move forward there.")
• And finally, "I wonder if the 'incidental' approach nevertheless benefits from a dose of 'deliberateness' . . . For example, as we discover someone's lack of assurance, rather than *simply* reading John 6, we could set the 'goal' of writing out a prayer based on v37 for them to come back to when they're feeling 'lost'."

This is all a most helpful addition to my more, ahem, organic approach. But I do think that with women there will be times when structure has to be temporarily abandoned. This is because even if they might be interested in progressing in some planned way, they (we!) can find it almost impossible to start on this when there are other issues troubling them. Women seem to get more rocked by/caught up in stuff than men (?) and really do need to work through an issue before they can return to what was planned. [Of course this can become unhealthy and get way out of hand, but I'm more thinking of the average, mature woman here.]

So in these times you have to cut women quite a bit of slack, ditch your plans and address what needs addressing now - while keeping in mind where you are ultimately wanting to go with them (and how this thing you're dealing with right now might fit into that). Of course this calls for a good amount of flexibility and discernment.

Women and men - a bit different. Who'd 've thought!


H/T Bernard