Woo Hoo a little baby!!!

I'll put the minute by minute story on here another day ;) (cause I know you all want to hear it.) Main this is Mel did a heaps good job, she's doing really well, Chay is doing wicked, he was feeding alright last night when I left.
So here's to the future.
:)

Plagiarism.

Ah I've been lifting things from others blogs again. Sorry to whoever I stole this from, (I can't even remember your name!!!) But I felt it something worth sharing.

“God would have us know that we must live as men who manage our lives without him. The God who is with us is the God who forsakes us (Mark 15:34). The God who lets us live in the world without the working hypothesis of God is the God before whom we stand continually. Before God and with God we live without God. God lets himself be pushed out of the world on to the cross. He is weak and powerless in the world, and that is precisely the way, the only way, in which he is with us and helps us. Matt 8:17 makes it quite clear that Christ helps us, not by virtue of his omnipotence, but by virtue of his weakness and suffering.”
("Letter to Eberhard Bethge", 16 July 1944, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Letters and Papers from Prison, pp.360-361

The God that is my God is crazy. I don't know how to make sense of him. Just when I think I've got it kind of figured out he's out of my box and gone, and I'm left holding a box thinking I've got God in it. Maybe thats how we often get so lost?... I looked at the stars last night and thought wow, I think the night sky is a bit like God, it's just too big to figure out and order and count, then I read Supermarket Monkeys latest addition and thought wow God is like those flowers you see growing in crazy places, then I read this quote and think wow, I'm back to square one with my understanding. It's kinda nice actually, slightly frustrating, but thats ok. It's nice to be confused.

Dollars

I was trying to find something to make me laugh this morning, so I thought I’d check out the brick testament. I know it’s nothing amazing, or profoundly biblical but at least funny. Here are my two favourite pictures from two different stories today

Stephen


Can you get a camel through the eye of a needle?


I have been chatting with a mate lately about the way Launceston City Council (I only highlight them because I see the result of their choices) and Launceston Churches alike spend their dollars.

Three things in the last month:
- Public Art work: $100 000 (I like art as much as the next person and appreciate that it is a good thing to invest money in, but I think that we have more pressing issues to face.)
- A proposed prayer Tower: (cost unknown but she’s not going to be cheap: I estimate $200 000
- Jesus, All About Life Ad campaign: $250 000

Now I know that each of these comes with a reason and a hope. I pray that I’m wrong and that the last two are a blessing to people.
However I don’t seem to link how any of these things are helping the drastically high rate of suicide, or the amount of people waiting for a house, or the increased rates of youth detention rates, or the downsizing of the public sector, or the increase of mental health issues.
What frustrates me about the council is that they know the issues, yet seemingly do nothing. (For instance the state Government promised a small $400 000 (I think, correct me if I’m wrong) for Public Housing and instead decided that the money would be better off being spent on the naming rights for the Hawks AFL team).
I would not imagine that keeping a community afloat that has many different people and sub-cultures within it an easy feat; but (it may just be me) the $’s seem to be spent on things that will only protect/enhance the lives of the wealthy.

Now on a similar vein to the Council the Launceston; Christian Community (Generally speaking) seem only interested in the enhancement of their own names/churches.
I stole this from Supermarket Monkey, who stole it from Jon, but I thought it would be worth adding to the mix again.

"When the Church takes on and espouses the values of the mainstream culture it loses its ability to be the bearer of Good News. All it can then become is the “bearer of Good Advice” (Frances McNutt)."

For too long I think that the Church has been just the bearer of Good Advice.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau, said that:

“A true follower of Jesus wouldn’t make a good citizen!”

At the time, this landed Jean in hot water. I wonder what it means for us as disciples of Jesus. I don’t want to sanitise him, or confuse him with our culture.

Now on a personal note I wonder about the path that Jesus expects us to walk. On Sunday night at our team meeting, I made a comment about wanting to learn what it means to give others all that I have, and trust Jesus in the giving. Like Jesus asked of us. Not thinking too much of it, I get a phone call last night by a friend that I’ve only recently met asking if I could go guarantor for him so that he and his partner and 3 month old son can move into their own house. Mel and I were the last straw and he had to let the real estate know by the next day otherwise they would miss out. We spent a good whack of time talking and praying about what to do. (almost) Everything in us said that is a stupid investment, you could lose precious $’s you are not rich yourself, what if it falls apart… I thank God for a woman like Mel in my life that can help me connect with God and his will, instead of being a victim to the ‘sensible thing to do’. It turned out that someone else actually came to the party and went guarantor for him; but I wonder about how many things start out with the best intentions like my comment, but when the rubber hits the road, everything gets skewed. I wonder if it is about the fear of losing everything invested. I don’t know I’m just thinking out loud now, I’ll leave this behemoth here… Maybe I’m too cynical.

I would love to hear thoughts, on the above.

Yusuke

Bro if/when you read this I just want to say thanks man. You will be missed mate. Thanks for all the laughs, it was so great to meet you dude, and to share life for the last 7 months. The pleasure was all ours.
I hope the rest of the journey winds on man, and that you can find hope and God everywhere you look.
Oh hope you enjoy the Aussie Hip Hop.
Josh, Mel and all the other boys/Jessie.

The last 'last one'... (prepare for the next! ha)

No stuffing around, I'm going to rip straight into it. (these are my thoughts from the long list of comments)

On the JAAL web site I saw this quote “We need to engage with our culture” I could not agree more. I wonder though which culture we are engaging with when we put on an ad campaign. I also wonder if that is the best way to engage a culture. What about all the sub-cultures? Yes, it is possibly an effective way to get a message out, but I think in our media savvy culture, people come to expect 'fine print' from anything. In addition, (unfortunately) all an ad can present is often a watered done glimpse, possibly why people expect fine print because it’s just about raising some level of excitement/need.

Positives:
It's a great way to give a general wide spread coverage.
Negatives:
The content is often regarded as having 'strings attached'.
The content can often be watered down, just to fit in the choice cuts.
(Does anyone else feel like it is time we start something like a Christian style of GABBA? Because it seems to me that too often, people talk about the crazy provision of God when he just gives good things, but it stops there, few people talk about the God who my prefer us to follow him into poverty to preach his message. It sounds like classic compulsive behaviour to me; we only discuss God when he ‘pays out’. If you think I am wrong then question why the prayer of Jabez (1 Chronicles 4:10) (and similar things) are so heavily pushed, come to God the big pokey machine in the sky, and he will make everything alright.) However, that is a complete side.

I would like to see initiatives that instead of sucking people into our self appointed sacred spaces; actually encourage people getting a little dirty while actively engaging in our culture/sub-cultures, and becoming part of the fabric of that particular culture. Rather than just making more visual noise.

Also another comment and the last I plan to pull directly from the JAAL** website. **(this is intended to just be a general laugh at ourselves, but has anyone else noticed that if a program, church or otherwise has a name, it has to somehow involve an acronym?)
“The statistics from the Australian census has shown that the Christian church is losing membership and is in danger of "slipping off the landscape". As well‚ recent National Church Life Survey (NCLS) results indicate that while in some areas the church is growing‚ in others it is stagnant and aging.

The church has lost numbers‚ influence and presence.”

I worry about statements like the above, just because I’m not sure what the concern is. The ad campaign and the above ‘reason’ for the ad campaign seem to contradict each other. Is it that the Christian Church has lost it’s place within society and that is what we need to re-advertise because the church is the key element in society? Alternatively, is it that Jesus is in danger of slipping off the road map?
I know what the above statement intends. However, it is worrying to me when the church and Jesus are regarded as synonymous. For to long the Church has taken Jesus’ message and taken choice cuts, and turned God into the God of the Jabez prayer, rich business men, and arrogant egotistical people interested in only their own little perfect worlds. Maybe I have gone to far, maybe I haven’t.

And again thanks Martin for having the rocks to try something. I may point out things that do not sit with me (I do not want you to feel like the finger is on you); but regardless of my criticisms, thankyou. Not because I agree, but because you are trying, you are standing by your creation, and you make this discussion have some depth (for lack of a better word). Maybe soon you can do the same to me, and help flesh out some of my blind spots. Thanks for being gracious.
cheers

Possible conclusions: Different to what I first thought.

Here is my dilemma? I have not made my mind up about this "Jesus, All about life." stuff, (I have my inclinations, and I would love to keep asking questions, and stirring the water) but I’m at a point where I almost don’t care anymore. I do not know which is worse; to be apathetic towards it, or to be either for or against.
It is something that zaps my energy; it has made me angry, confused and tired.
I think that it is something that I may continue to think about and debate. I may not ever agree or back it; but here is my conclusion; until it pisses me off again I am going to leave it alone.
I hope for the sake of the dollars being syphoned into the event that God will be glorified. I hope that who ever is organising the event has clear motives and agendas, because more than anything else these will be the only things standing at the end of it all. Like statues constantly reminding them of the day. If the intentions are to put the “Christian Church back on the map” (ie put bums on seats, and to put money back into church budgets, and pastors pockets) and not to put Jesus’ crazy message back on the social map; then God help them.
However, I also will not be the first to throw stones. I honestly hope and pray that people will come to faith through the process, and I hope and pray that people who come to faith will follow Jesus very closely, and follow him out of the nice safe fold into the wide-open world.

So here, I am at the crossroads. I know what I’m against (I think) but that’s easy. I have poured a lot of energy into the things that I am against; and as I stand at the crossroads, I am not sure what I am actually for, the only thing that I do know is that when I first said 'Jesus is Lord' it meant a lot less than what it does now.

In closing, I want to add some quotes from Henri Nouwens’ book “Reaching Out”

“Unless our questions and problems and concerns are tested and matured in solitude it is not realistic to expect answers that are really our own.”

Pre-occupations are our fearful ways of keeping things the same.

“’You think and talk too much; you must stop talking to yourself’… We maintain our world by inner talk. We talk to ourselves until everything is as it should be.”


So heres to a new journey. Heres to discovering what it is that I am for, heres to a Gracious God who allows us to journey.

Another thought...

After reading this article on the Servants to Asia's urban poor, again made me think deeply on my last post. I think there are many truthful words from both sides of the gun, but the durry is still out for me on the "Jesus. All about life" thing. I have the offer of talking more with Judy (who seems lovely and well meaning and an offer, which I intend to take her up on.)
I guess another question for me in light from the above article is this:
Should I base my stance on the topic simply on the fact that other pastors see it as a positive thing? Is it possible to think that there is an agenda attached? As a side comment the "family first" political party take a 'Christian' stand on things, and I am not brave enough to trust them with my vote, or even to speak fairly for ALL Christians.

Maybe I am wrong, maybe I am on the wrong track, but I am sure as hell not just going to bow down and let others (who may be right) make up my mind. I do not want to pretty Jesus up and make his words nice, because frankly, they are words that if looked at honestly are going to cost. Yes, even Jesus said that in him, life will be found, but not the life that we average Joes imagines.

More thoughts, someone help me understand.