Staff blogs
(Christian Reflections (new))
Ugh.
Whenever we hope and pray that God might save 10% of Australia - we
need to be prepared for the new kinds of problems and mess it would
create. We would have to deal with all sorts of Right Wing Christian
groups and wide-scale press/business/politics scandals and hype. I
want God to save 10% of Australia. But I know it would bring with it a
whole swag of new ugly problems.
So here’s a round up of media
surrounding the ‘Elephant Room 2’. Worth a read because:
- It highlights the importance of trinitarian theology
- It highlights the need for careful, probing questions about doctrinal beliefs and changes in doctrinal beliefs, rather than asking broad questions and giving someone the benefit of the doubt
- It challenges us to think through carefully what centred-set networks like The Gospel Coalition look like. I think there is a place for organisations that aren’t as tight as churches or denominations (if you can call denominations tight!). But do all Christian networks need to be like that?
- It demonstrates the risks of Chritsians being led be theological untrained or under-trained celebrity preachers who may not provide enough theological rigour to their leadership
- It shows us the unique challenges American Christians face in such a big Christian community. Imagine having to live in a world we get a glimpse of in this roundup? - indeed even ‘the race card’ gets played in the controversy.
Thanks to Craig for linking this this on Facebook.
(Christian Reflections (new))
I’m really looking forward to going to and speaking at the
Xpose Preaching Conference
in a few weeks - 17th-18th February in Melbourne.
I like Melbourne heaps. And it’s great that this year the conference
is right in the centre of Melbourne, at
Melbourne City Conference Centre.
I heart that.
I’ve been speaking at Xpose since 2007 when Murray and Stu started it.
The whole point was to provide a rallying point for listening to,
thinking about and training young preachers. They’ve tried to make the
kind of conference they’d like to go to. And they’ve always worked on
the assumption that the best way to learn how to preach is to listen
to preachers.
It’s kind of through Xpose that I got involved in Geneva. One year at
Xpose I shared the platform with
Pete Ko. Who then introduced me to
Steve Chong, who then
invited me to join the Aussie trip to Seattle back in 2009 out of
which Geneva was born.
Xpose 2012: Preaching to be heard
Anyway. This year Xpose I will be preaching on 1Corinthians 2:1-5 -
‘Preaching Knowing Nothing’. It’s been fun preparing for that,
thinking about how sometimes cultural relevance is being sensitive
enough to know when to be different to the culture in our
communication.
The other speak is Ed Stetzer, who
is the church planting guru of the Southern Baptists and who wrote the
great book ‘Planting Missional Churches’. It will be nice to meet Ed,
after reading his blogs and books for many years.
Come to Xpose
So why not come and join us? If you don’t live in Melbourne, that’s
sad. Come to Melbourne. It’s a lovely city. We can go drink coffee in
some weird Dark Knight sort of alleyway and then eat duck in
Chinatown.
If you are in Melbourne, I assume you’re coming - aren’t you? Should
be a great time. And make sure you clock in for the duration. It’s not
a super-long conference, but you will benefit and the other delegates
will benefit from you sticking around for the whole thing.
PS Both ‘Xpose’ and ‘missional’ make my spellchecker angry.
(Christian Reflections (new))
Do you listen to This American Life? You really should. If you are a
preacher you really really must.
This episodetold the story of Mike
Daisey’s investigation into working conditions in Foxconn - the
notorious factory in China where parts are made for many Western
electronic companies - including Apple.
The descriptions of the awful working conditions were really moving,
shocking and confronting. We should grieve about this.
One chilling comments was:
” In a place where the monetary cost of labor is effectively zero…
anything can be made by hand.” And so when we in the West always talk
about how we want things that are hand-made and not mass produced…
well actually, in these factories more things are made by hand than
ever before!
Another amazing thing about this radio show, however, was the fact
that they took time to explain the other side of the story. It can be
easy as the left-leaning, outraged idealist to poke a finger at
horrible abuses, without seeing the big picture. It can be easy to
just assume the multinationals are run by simple eeeeevil bad
corporate guys with moustaches. and double-breasted suits, rather than
try to understand what difficulties they may face.
So I was impressed that they generously explained what Apple tries to
do to audit and improve the situation (while saying that Apple really
should do more). This was no passing disclaimer, but an
acknowledgement that they were doing something.
Moreover, they spelled out the economic arguments in favour of bearing
with the horrible reality of sweatshops. In particular, the fact that
Chinese people living in abject poverty and working in the cruel
conditions of the rice paddies were worse off.
They spoke to the author of this
article from the New York Times for that argument.
(Christian Reflections (new))
“[P]roverbs reminds us that godly thought and action do not have to be
continually pinned down with ‘God-talk’. It serves as a rebuke to the
artificial piety which feels that the Lord must be referred to in
every second phrase we utter. Not only is this not necessary, but it
can actually distort reality in a very serious way…. Proverbs
reminds us that being human means making human decisions for human
acts and then wearing the consequences.”
G. Goldsworthy, The Tree of Life: Reading Proverbs Today, p. 38
A helpful balance to the splurge of Reformed evangelical books on
counseling, parenting etc that urge us to always in everything get to
the theological root of the matter - always talking about the
underlying sins, heart-idols and grace-motivation. There is a right
place for this biblical worldview thinking. But there are times when
it is manipulative or distorting.
(Christian Reflections (new))
Responding to Mark Driscoll’s UK controversy, Don Carson has written
some reflections on the church in Great
Britain.
This was especially awesome (last sentence = ‘ouch!’):
“We must not equate courage with success, or even youth with success. We must avoid ever leaving the impression that these equations are valid. I have spent too much time in places like Japan, or in parts of the Muslim world, where courage is not measured on the world stage, where a single convert is reckoned a mighty trophy of grace. I am grateful beyond words for the multiplication of churches in Acts 29, but I am no less grateful for Baptist ministers like my Dad, men who labored very hard and saw very little fruit for decades in French Canada, many of whom went to prison (their sentences totaled eight years between 1950 and 1952). I find no ground for concluding that the missionaries in Japan in the 20th century were less godly, less courageous, less faithful, than the missionaries in (what became) South Korea, with its congregations of tens of thousands. At the final Great Assize, God will take into account not only all that was and is, but also what might have been under different circumstances (Matt 11:20ff). Just as the widow who gave her mite may be reckoned to have given more than many multi-millionaires, so, I suspect, some ministers in Japan, or Yorkshire, will receive greater praise on that last day than those who served faithfully in a corner of the world where there was more fruit. Moreover, the measure of faithful service is sometimes explicitly tied in Scripture not to the quantity of fruit, measured in numbers, but to such virtues as self-control, measured by the use of one’s tongue (James 3:1-6).”
(Christian Reflections (new))
No prophet is accepted in his home town. Laura from Kentucky recently
posted this on her Facebook:
“[He] preaches himself. He is nothing unless he is an actor—unless
exhibiting that matchless impudence which is his great characteristic,
indulging in coarse familiarity with holy things, declaiming in a
ranting and colloquial style, strutting up and down the platform…
and boasting of his own intimacy with Heaven with nauseating
frequency.”
A criticism of….
Charles Spurgeon :-)
(Christian Reflections (new))
A reminder not to trust the big and
bold claims of popular level business (and church growth books):
“There are some worthwhile exceptions but, in general, most of these
books show one of two deep flaws.
One is to illustrate a theory that is based on lots of data with
carefully chosen cases, but leave the larger population that justifies
the theory invisible. In other words, we are offered “for instance”
instead of proof. The second is to examine only carefully chosen
outliers, usually high-performing firms. This is especially
problematic since, without showing any connection between the sample
and some larger population, there is no good reason to conclude that
the sample is representative of anything other than itself….
Most business books move from overstated claims of explanation to
entirely unjustified predictions based on the notion that because
something seems to have worked for them over there it will work for
you over here. This belief is based on a flawed assumption that using
ideas that worked out in the past will somehow allow you to shape the
future in a desired way.”
(Christian Reflections (new))
(Christian Reflections (new))
- Steve Kryger has done his homework for us on Privacy issues related to online data storage
- A funny video that captures a half-truth about men and women friendship: It’s worth reading the comments on Simone’s blog.
- Here’s the video from the Exploring Effective Ministry Conference in Sydney in 2011. I haven’t watched any of it yet. Can anyone recommend things worth watching?
(Christian Reflections (new))
It’s a good thing to listen to and read things that differ from the
dominant narrative of your subculture.
This interview at Harvard Business
Review reflecting on how women entering the workforce has change
domestic life and personal happiness. It highlights positive changes
that have come as a result of women entering the workforce alongside
men.
Now I know that every piece like this is ideologically weighted, just
as conservative Christian pieces are. But it’s helpful to realise that
the studies and reports and arguments that we are used to hearing are
not the only way to interpret things. And it allows us to honestly
embrace positive changes, rather than only being prophets of gloom.
Some of the interesting claims in the interview that I can remember:
- After divorce rising in the 60s, 70s and 80s, American divorce rates have actually begun to decline again
- When children are asked about what they most want from working
parents it is primarily:
- That they get more time with their dad
- That their parents be less guilty and stressed
Advice in the 1950s was generally to make the woman responsible
for any problems in the marriage (like infidelity in the home) and to
accuse a husband of mild deviance if he wanted to help with child
rearing and houseworkThe most important thing for healthy, happy children is for their
parents to:- Have sex
- Socialise with other adults
Rather than assuming that that the solution to overwork is always
for the woman to work less, couples should be open to the husband
working less, so that together they can share in domestic life and
responsibilities.
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