Adventures in missing the point

I went to the local Catholic Church the other day and prayed the last time I did that was about 10 years ago. Man do the Catholics know how to make you want to pray the chapel was beautiful…..

It was most liberating.

I have been one to think that my local Catholic friends live some type of shady life saying Hail Mary’s and not having any true theology of anything like my true self. While I disagree with them on some things (the small matter of say faith and works 😛 for example) my local parish opened my eyes. Their parish magazine was choca block full of things they had been up to in the last couple of months and included articles on

•  their evangelism plan and how they had been practicing this and ways to get involved, 
•  missions,
• Servant leadership 
•  an article on the women’s ministry – and how they were doing a remit on child abuse to a national organisation,
•  young adults ministry 
•   (hold your breath here folks) an article by a priest or monk (couldn’t tell which) on how the Catholic Church owed a lot to the Protestant tradition for their Biblical Scholarship in the 20^th Century and how  when we separate the Word and the sacraments we become disjointed.

 Michael Spencer, Internet Monk said some interesting things in his latest podcast about being a Post Evangelical and the fact that as one no one church is your ‘home’ and that one of the advantages of being a Post Evangelical is being able to take the best of all different Church Traditions and not boxing yourself into a corner. I pondered this after my experience with my Catholic Sisters and Brothers.  Unfortunately nowadays I think many in the modern Church  are prone to a huge dose of the ‘Corinth’ 1-4 Syndrome (see 1^st Corinthians 1-4) where we think our  brand of church is the Church by which all truth should be judged by at the loss of everything else our brothers and sisters in other traditions have to offer .  

It came to light the other day that often the way we judge other churches comes not from any great theological outworkings or biblical scholarship but merely from a parochial ‘my church is better than their church’  line often with little thought into our views.

How do you view other Churches? Is your view on other Churches influenced by first hand experience/scholarship or by something else?  Do you worship in other denominations with ease? What have other church traditions offered your faith journey?   

Share below:

 

Paul, Christianity and Brian Tamaki

A combination of factors have had me thinking about Christianity and leadership lately.

For one the recent debacle over the Christian Party or the lack of one and a rather interesting sermon that I listened to on Sunday that I disagreed with! However a conversation I had with a very good friend made me think that maybe the issue of where we go wrong as Christians and leadership actually goes back to the fact that many Christians are just down right (hold your breath here) idiotic.

This particular friend told me that at his church the previous youth pastor had a policy that youth leaders were not allowed to be in leadership unless they were from a Christian home. Yes folks you heard right. Evidently they ‘made the best leaders’ Goodness help us if the apostle Paul had wanted to be a leader at his church. I really have no idea what exegesis of what Biblical passage this particular belief is held on. It obviously wasn’t anything from Galatians anyway.

Anyway I think Paul is actually a good example of a leader for Christians in a secular environment in anytype of ministry or mission (hence all of us) to emanate.

* Paul constantly reflected back to Jesus and that true wisdom came from here (1 Corinthians 1-4)
*Paul took risks for the sake of the gospel
* Paul persevered through incredible trials
* Paul invested in future leaders and in christian communities
* Paul was not afraid to pull people up (Galatians, 2 Thess, Colossians) or conversely answer criticism in a loving way (2 Corinthians)
* Paul invested in those who others thought could not be leaders (Gentiles, those with mixed heritage, women) and conversely understood the liberating principle that regardless of our cultural standing or past we are all one in Christ Jesus.
* Where Paul was under attack or made a mistake he went back and sort to rectify it (Corinthians)
* Paul was knowledgeable about the cultures he was in ( cf Speech at Athenian Areopagus Acts 17 to Acts 28 where he is speaking to Jews)
* Paul was willing to invest time into his charges – note the amount of time he spent with his churches – 3 years in Ephesus on one of his Journeys.
* Paul was not a user of people (skills /talents) but was genuinely interested in the person and people, see the extended greetings in the letters and his heart felt pleas .
* Paul was open about his feelings, this was not seen as a sign of weakness but was genuinely appreciated in the Christian communities in which he worked (see Corinthians)

 

Stop the traffik

Sam and Lily get out of the busy traffic and escape into the quiet of a cafe and reflect on the latest movie – it made them good to feel a Christian. Wasn’t it good to know that slavery was all over?

‘Good movie that Amazing Grace? ay Lily?’

‘Yeah great Movie?’

‘Wasn’t William Wilberforce wonderful,’

‘Isn’t it great all that slavery stuff is done with now? ‘

‘Yeah less work for us to do Sam, i mean that guy was certainly persistant, it was so annoying that those others wouldn’t help him , I mean how could you not see the injustice in people being held against their will ……’

sips coffee ( where are the coffee beans from?)

‘beats me….. it makes me so so angry …Lily!!’

They pull up a video off Youtube recommended by a friend off their latest whizz gadget phone (totally essential item)

‘I don’t get it! Sam what the frickin heck is the video on about that was a little whack!’
——————
Yes well , it is really!

• At least 12.3 million people are victims of forced labour worldwide. Of these 2.4 million are as a result of human trafficking.
• 600,000-800,000 men, women and children trafficked across international borders each year. Approximately 80 per cent are women and girls. Up to 50% are minors.
• An estimated 1.2 million children trafficked each year.
• The majority of trafficked victims arguably come from the poorest countries and poorest strata of the national population.
• Trafficking is the fastest growing means by which people are caught in the trap of slavery.
• Human trafficking is the third largest source of income for organised crime, exceeded only by arms and drugs trafficking. UN office on drugs and crime
• People are trafficked into prostitution, begging, forced labour, military service, domestic service, forced illegal adoption, forced marriage etc: Types of recruitment; include abduction, false agreement with parents, sold by parents, runaways, travel with family, orphans sold from street or institutions.

http://www.stopthetraffik.org/ – be the difference. What Wilberforce started we have to continue. Its always more than ‘just a movie’

 

The Emerging Church

A lot of you read this blog, and by all accounts many of you hang around for some very long amounts of time, 30 minutes, 20 minutes so this post while long should be okay for you.

I watched one of his video’s on ‘women’ a couple of months ago on a women’s leadership thing ( on christianity today). Despite its tone it didn’t make me angry, but it did make me think and ponder ( about love, truth, the body of christ) – but how exactly would you respond in a loving way .

Anyway this particular clip is on his opinion on the Emerging church and someone’s response to him.

Anyway his opinion on the emerging church…

lucaslabrador
(he has 120 video’s on you tube ranging from Feminisim, to salvation, to why women should wear head scarves (!), you name it he has discussed it… if you want some intellectual stimulation I reccommend it )

THE RESPONSE

(Lisa cheers very loudly!)

 

Practising

Today I have been at a music conference with my staff and a whole bunch of other music educators. I went to a workshop on developing a choir and another on resources. Our keynte speaker a Dr Bob Smith, was eccentric and decided that being the fact it was a music conference he would sing his keynote address. So he did. It was all in a variety of different genres but did communicate his point. Weird.

There was also a drum circle where we got to bang on drums and other percussion for 1.5hours and improvise and compose and sing. We also had a ‘big sing’ where we learnt african action songs and there was also a professional educators forum which I flagged so i could talk with some of my staff. All lots of fun.

Anyway tomorrow at the venue where the conference is it just so happens that Destiny Church are going to be taking over the venue where our conference is and we are going to have to share it with them. This is a slightly nerve wracking thought…….. this was unknown to our conference organisers who thought that Destiny were going to only be in the Hall. but it turns out that they are actually going to be using the majority of the places where we were having our conference for their sunday school and what not. It should be interesting. Why?

1. I want to see my response. I tend to have pre concieved notions about Destinites. After all my ranting and raving about grace its good to know God puts you in real life situations where you have to use it.
2. I wonder what everyone elses response will be?

Peace out –