It is good news - so tell somebody!

I have had a couple of good conversations this week about the church with a number of questions being thrown at me. ‘So, John, tell me about your church. What are you on about? Why would someone bother with you guys?’ One conversation was with a regular church goer and the other with a religious cynic.

To one of these people – not the Christian – I was able to say, ‘Well you know, I am of the strong opinion that the local church is the hope of the world.’ Now, if you use that as an opening line, there is every possibility of a response and there was, and a great conversation began to flow. You see we have to have a big enough dream for people to even consider us. If the dream isn’t big enough for us then you are hardly going to excite others.

How big is your dream for the local church? I have come to a place of accepting that for many – across a whole bunch of things – mediocre is a good standard to achieve. You ask people how they are going and you will often get a deep sigh, or the rolling of eyeballs, or if words are used it will be along the lines of ‘Oh, I’m hanging in there’ or I’m surviving’, or the classic ‘Don’t ask!’ Then I read the words of Jesus:

‘The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.’ John 10:10

What are our words and actions like? Do they bring life and hope to others, or do they steal, kill and destroy? Are our lives and words of such power and grace that people are lifted up and encouraged, and even perhaps tempted to ‘have what we are having’?

This Sunday morning I am going to be looking at the story of Jesus restoring life, health and hope to two women. You can find it in Mark 5:21-43. No. I am not going to give you the message now to save you coming this week; but I do invite you to read it and get into the story. I love the BIG and POSITIVE words that are used of Jesus’ ministry. ‘Great crowds gathered’ and a ‘large crowd pressed in on him’. People were often described as being full of awe and wonder. John Thornton’s translation might be that people were gob smacked when Jesus was around! Being anywhere Jesus was; was amazing!

One of the most public networking arenas for many of us these days is Facebook. I generally get to it about once a week for a look see and our emotions these days are there for all to see. Someone asked me recently if I had discovered a way to use Facebook as a tool to grow the church and I had to say that I hadn’t. However, my viewing would indicate that we already have in place a very effective tool for not promoting a local church or the Christian faith. I have noted the number of times that we use Facebook as a forum for grizzling.

I like the openness of this kind of communication; so maybe the tool that we do need to give our faith / church a positive chance can be found in the way that we share our stories? Let’s commit to talking things up not down. The old adage of ‘if you have nothing good to say don’t say it’ is probably a good one. Let’s get the good stuff out there! We had a fabulous church lunch last Sunday where over 30 of us had a great afternoon that for some flowed into the evening. Talk that up. We are just weeks away from a new property. Give that some air play. Collingwood beat the Swans last Saturday … sorry, just had to get it in. We have a great new website that is growing by the day. Tell people about it. If something excites you it might just give someone else a lift.

How big is your dream for your local church? Are our words and our lives a good testimony? Is it really possible that the local church might really be the hope of the world?

Cheers - John

Jesus was quite smart you know!

More and more in this strange old world we seem to be majoring on minors. Apparently some foul mouthed English cook has upset one of our lady TV personalities and the world may never be the same again. Call me old fashioned if you must, but I have always been of the mind that if you can’t utter a sentence without swearing, then you don’t really have much to say that is worth listening to.

A few days back a young man was shot and critically injured while his girlfriend also suffered slight wounds. For the last few days we have seen great in-depth reporting by one of our tabloids, who, by my estimation for three days running have shown this young lady in various stages of undress. Clearly this is an important part of the case and gives vital clues to the whereabouts of the perpetrator. Shallow is a word that comes to mind.

It seems to me that many people today disregard the Christian faith because they see it as too shallow, simplistic and even riddled with superstitious nonsense. This thinking does not surprise me – indeed there is a part of me that agrees – but it is conditioned by the shallowness of thought today, both within and outside the church. Working from this shallow basis we then have the temerity to suggest that in the time of Jesus people were much simpler and less sophisticated than we are today and therefore were much more easily swayed by fear and / or superstition. What a load of self righteous clap trap!

Jesus was one smart guy! We have created him in our own image so that he is nowadays just some kind of religious icon that we pull out from time to time when considered useful. The Jesus that the Bible speaks of is someone of great ability and intellect. We are told that even as a young boy he was one who was much admired and who ‘increased in wisdom and in years, and in divine and human favour.’ This was not some holy guru divorced from life and offering occasional religious platitudes! Here was a man who was surely one of the cleverest of his time.

People didn’t choose to follow Jesus because if they didn’t they were all going to hell! They didn’t devote their lives to him – many to the point of death – because his message was something that they simply HAD to believe. Dallas Willard puts it like this:

The life and words that Jesus brought into the world came in the form of information and reality. He and his early associates overwhelmed the ancient world because they brought into it a stream of life at its deepest, along with the best information possible on the most important matters.
The sights and sounds of this man Jesus were so startling and deep in their impact that people chose to follow because they would have been fools not to. They didn’t describe Jesus as the ‘Prince of Life’, or the ‘Lord of glory’ for a good headline, or for fun and special effect. Jesus was and is the most significant person ever born and the lives of those he touched reflected this.

So for those who are looking for DEEPER truth, stop letting us (Christians or the church) get in the way; go ahead and dig as deep as you like and my bet is that you will not be disappointed. Or can I say, stop using us as your excuse for not digging deeper. You are quite right, the church really is full of hypocrites; but jump right on in because there is always room for more.

Gordon Ramsay, Bikie broads, Desperate Housewives, Swine Flu, Footballers dreary dramas, PM Kev desperately trying to sound like a ‘dinki di’ Aussie, Nathan – red hot go – Rees, economic meltdown, the corporate ladder / rat race or Jesus?

Let me think about that for a moment.

Cheers - John

News Flash - IT'S NOT ABOUT YOU!!

I am catching up on the news after spending yesterday afternoon and evening tied up with a meeting at Uniting Church headquarters in Pitt Street. The news that has had me reeling this morning is in no way connected to the adverse State of Origin result in Melbourne. Surely we have plumbed new depths with the ABC’s showing last night of the latest Chaser’s garbage. Apparently their warped minds think that making fun of sick and dying children is a source of humour.

Author, theologian and Philosopher, G. K. Chesterton once said that when people stop believing in God, they don’t believe in nothing, they believe in anything. Whatever garbage happens to bubble up from the cesspools of depraved brains is okay and is occasionally even lauded as something called art?!

One of the major reasons I keep doing what I am doing is that I still firmly believe that the local church is the hope of the world. Of course I understand that many people – even those within the church – find this statement perhaps naïve, or even presumptuous; but I can cope with that. Frankly, as I look around the world I think that most of the evidence is on my side.

Church confuses me! It seems to me that for so many it is about what the church can provide for ME and those close to me? It is about the music, or the preaching and teaching. It is about correct doctrine and theology. Then I look at Jesus.

I can’t get around the fact that Jesus spent a fair amount of his time getting up the nose of the religious? I still stumble over the unavoidable reality that Jesus enjoyed hanging out with people that many ‘churched’ people don’t enjoy hanging out with? We (the church) can sometimes demonise sinners, while Jesus welcomes them. Jesus went out of his way to be with people on the fringes of society, while we too often seek the safety zone of church buildings and church friends.

As a local congregation we have a little tag line that hopefully defines us. Building communities of care and hope is a mirror of what Jesus appears to be on about. One day Jesus was on his way to help a local dignitary when an outcast woman desperately grabbed at the hem of his robe. People were pushing and shoving as Jesus and his disciples moved along and who could be bothered with a sick woman? Jesus could. Jesus specialised in bringing care and hope to people. What do we specialise in?

I saw a T shirt recently that simply said – ‘It’s not about you’. It seems to me that we have convinced ourselves that actually, it is all about us! When we reach this stage of course anything goes. Hence, we have seen the growth of a selfish lifestyle to go along with the growth of voyeuristic TV shows. If we can’t be famous, at least we can watch people just like us, who can be. We have such enormous capacity to do good and continue to see this in our response to various disasters, and yet we can tap new depths of care-less and hope-less life styles. We can even make fun of dying children.

‘There is nothing like the local church when the local church is working right’, says Pastor Bill Hybels, and I remain convinced of this truth. If we can build enough communities of care and hope, then I would like to believe that we can see a new Pandemic sweeping the world that is far more potent than something called Swine Flu.

The problem of course is that our message is not a popular one today. We have convinced ourselves that it really is all about us and those close to us. With that mindset it becomes an enormous risk to trust ourselves to others and jointly work for something bigger and better than ourselves. Stupidly, I continue to believe in that risk.

Cheers - John