Retrospect: Mission Week

Themes: Moore College, Personal

Mission week is over. They gave us a couple of days off at the start of this week to recover.
Last year I led a team of student to mission at Laurieton, now I’m a first year student again and back on training wheels. It’s a strange experience. I didn’t mind not having much of a work load. Mission is a stressful time for the team leaders. It is hard to coordinate with the Church and make sure that everyone is in the right place at the right time. My perception was that this mission was no different.
It was a quiet mission week, the Church in West Lindfield is small and we had a large team. There were a number of very effective activities, and some that were just hard work and only God knows what impact we had. I was encouraged by how willing members of the Church were to invite their non-christian friends and neighbours along to events. We didn’t see all out revival in the suburb but some people are thinking further through the claims of Jesus over their life.
The highlight for me was the friendships that I’ve built with other people on the team. I’ve struggled a bit with feeling lost in all the people at College. It was nice to have a smaller group of people and get to know them well. On Thursday morning we went out for Brunch together, and there was lots of time in the afternoon for louging round the Parish Hall chatting.
Here are some photos from the Friday ‘Monster Games’ – two hours of kids club that we ran on Thursday and Friday afternoons.
The week has made me realise again how much I miss the hands-on ministry from FOCUS. There is something infinitely rich about spending time reading the Word with people and sharing lives in prayer. It’s something that is difficult to do at College when everyone is on a similar level in understanding and overly conscious of ‘ministering’ to each other. It worthwhile being here to get the skills for future ministry, but it’s definitely not the end of the road.

Comment and Share

Live from West Lindfield

Themes: Moore College, Personal

This week is Moore College mission. The students from the College head out to work with local Churches around Sydney (and further afield) in reaching out to people to share our hope. I’ve been packed off to the jungles of West Lindfield. A suburb on Sydney’s North Shore. It’s about a 20min drive up the road from our house. The mission week is supposed to be residential, but the decision was made to let us stay at home. It would be a bit weird to go away for a week, not see Emma, and be only a couple of minutes drive away.
West Lindfield is part of the little fortress which Anglo-Australia has erected on the North Shore against the tough realities of the Big World. Everything is beautiful, the houses are huge, the suburb is full of trees and beautiful gardens. All the kids are polite and well brought up. It seems like a different planet to Newtown.
Mostly it just seems to vaccinate people against real Christianity. It reinforces belief in Australian folk-religion:
“Sure, I believe in a Higher Power, God if you will. I’m a decent person, everything will be alright. If I live in Lindfield, I must be a decent person.”
You hear it from every door you knock on…

Don’t get me wrong, the people are really decent folk – which makes rejecting God’s goodness to them even more inexcusable and tragic.

Today started with handing out CDs at the main bus stops to people commuting into work. The CDs have short talks giving Christian perspectives on ethical issues and a clear gospel presentation. In the mid-morning we went to Roseville College, and Anglican girls school in a neighbouring suburb. It is a great school. They have a very committed Chaplain and a strong group of Christian girls in the school. The Chapel service was very encouraging, the students were engaged in the singing and listened really well to the talk. I spoke from Acts 17, Paul’s speech to the Athenians.
I never feel like I do a very good job with Evangelistic preaching. I had 5 minutes for this talk, and it is so tempting to try to do too much. You can’t cram in all the intricacies of creation, fall, redemption, kingdom, and make sure that you’ve properly spelled out penal substitutionary atonement. I’ve got a lot to learn about how to make it short, simple, and still thoroughly gospel.

This afternoon we went out doorknocking around the area. I really don’t like doorknocking, I’m overly sensitive to the invasion of people’s privacy. However, this time I enjoyed it. The Church had sent out letters to the whole area on two occasions in the weeks before we went around. The letters let people know we were coming and invited them to ring the Rector if they would object. It meant that when we knocked on the door people knew who we were and they appreciated the warning. We had some great conversations with people. I like the mental challenge of starting with whatever small opening people give into their attitude toward God, and moving the conversation into a place where we can consider the implications of Jesus’ life – while making sure that every comment is sensitive and not confrontational. It’s a workout

One of the other teams told us about knocking on the door of a house, someone answering the door, and the team-person saying, ‘are your parents home?’ – thinking that the person was a child. On a closer inspection the lady turned out to be at least 50 years old.
There was quite a lot of confusion and embarrassment.

I’m enjoying getting to know the team, we are heading off for brunch together tomorrow. Mission is hard work, but the relationship building is great.
Best of all though, we are out on the ground, talking about Jesus with people. That’s what I’ve been missing over the past few months. Theology without much opportunity for practice seems like it might slowly drive me mad sometimes.

Comment and Share

Lest we forget

Themes: Critique, Personal, Society

Going to the Anzac Day Dawn service was an important tradition for my family as I grew up. My grandfather (Dad’s father) fought on the Malayan Peninsula and was one of the many soldiers imprisoned after the fall of Singapore in the notorious Changi prison. He grew vegetables for the other prisoners, and had his back broken (or badly damaged) with the butt of a rifle. That’s all I know. He died when I was about 12 years old. I don’t think he talked much about that time with my father. He always had a stooped back.

Going along to the Anzac ceremony was a time to remember that struggle, the suffering of those men. My father would wear his father’s medals. I think I may have worn them once or twice. It connected us with a man that I didn’t really know.

I remember walking together with Dad and our family to the Canberra Dawn service a couple of years ago.
The air at that time of morning feels like it can lift the skin from your face. The altitude and lack of humidity make the stars dance. Around you everything is dark. There is a great crowd of people walking through this dark. No one talks, except in a whisper. You walk together and join the crowd of thousands standing silently in the dark.
I can’t remember the exact details of the service from year to year.
We hear the same words every year.
The bugler standing above us on the wall of the War Memorial plays the Last Post. We remember our mates who didn’t come home that day. We even remember when we have nothing to remember. Some of us remember that we have no stories – there was nothing that happened in those days that could ever be spoken about.
We hear the ode, the words proclaiming the immortality of those who died, ‘age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.’
We make the pledge, ‘lest we forget’.
The dawn touches the face of the bugler and the Reveille rings out – the call to rise for another day of carnage in which some men will see nobility, and others will see the face of God.

Anzac Day is an observance worth remembering.
As a National observance it skirts twin dangers. On the one hand, from being trivialised into a jingoistic celebration of national identity – talking up ‘Australian Values’ and ignoring the warning in the phrase, ‘Lest we forget’.
And on the other, from being over solemnised – a rosy tint cast over the events which ignores our responsibility to remember, by distorting the memories.

The duty to remember is the one great obligation placed upon us by those who have gone into the past. It’s the final wisdom and warning from those who are no longer with us to speak. There is a moral dimension to memory which is at the heart of any National memorial.

For the Christian, we must remember that our citizenship is in heaven. We seek the welfare of this society, but our national memorial is the breaking of bread and the sharing of a cup.

As Australia has become an increasingly ‘post-Christian’ nation, Anzac has become steadily more ‘sacred’. Although the numbers of the original veterans continually diminish, there has been a steady increase in the number of people attending the dawn services. Australian secular society still experiences an irrepressible desire for experience of ‘feeling the sacred.’ I suppose its an experience of feeling connected to something larger than you are, something transcendant. Secular society cuts people off from any connection with God. Morality is framed in terms of values that will benefit the national or household economy. Human purpose is articulated in purely material terms. For beings created to know God this creates a situation of terrible spiritual hunger.

And so, Anzac Day becomes more and more important as a ‘spiritual’ experience. Increasing numbers of young people are undertaking pilgrimage to Anzac Cove in Turkey. The Anzac Dawn service is a Christian service forced into the service of a humanist religion. The language and even theology of Easter has been transplanted onto Anzac Day – note the language of substitution and sacrifice that has been appropriated to talk about the actions of those soldiers.

Anzac Day needs to be reclaimed for Australians! (How’s that for a jingoistic phrase). It matters because we have an important duty to remember – one that those who fought and suffered during those years bound us to undertake. It matters because remembering the past is the key to understanding the future.

But for Christians, travelling through this country, Anzac Day is not really our Day.

We observe a different memorial in the Kingdom of Heaven.
There was a battle that was fought for our freedom;
There was catastrophic suffering that shaped our identity;
There was victory and vindication.
And Jesus Christ is Lord.

“For I received from the Lord what I also passed on to you: on the night when He was betrayed, the Lord Jesus took bread, gave thanks, broke it, and said, “This is My body, which is for you. Do this in remembrance of Me.”
In the same way |He| also |took| the cup, after supper, and said, “This cup is the new covenant in My blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of Me.” For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until He comes.” (1Cor 11:23-26 HCSB)

Lest we forget

Comment and Share

Update

Themes: Personal

Emma’s off to her Tuesday night Diploma of Biblical Studies Course. I’m stuck at college for a couple of hours. It’s usually a great night to get some study out of the way and get ahead for the week.
But not tonight. I’m exhausted.
I only had 3 hours sleep before Church on Sunday – I was preaching and had a lot of trouble getting words on the page. I handed in another assignment today, and was up late last night with that. The good news is that the next few weeks should be relatively plain sailing. I need to keep up with Greek and Hebrew but the reading will drop away for a little while.
The reason is that we are heading off on College mission next week. I’m travelling to the forgotten jungles of West Lindfield. It will be a strange experience being a first-year student on mission again. Our team will have a fairly quiet week. The Church is small and our team is quite large. I’ve got the opportunity to give a talk and a dialogue meeting, it’ll be nice to get back into the hands on ministry side of life. The mission is non-residential so I’ll be travelling back home each night – which makes Emma very happy.
Please pray for us, that we have a good rest, and that mission is a time of growing personally and seeing God’s kingdom extended.

Comment and Share

What's going on…

Themes: Personal

What’s been going on with us?

Emma finished up at her old work place and is having a few days holiday. She starts work at the Anglican Diocesan Secretariat on Monday. It a great blessing for her to be out of that old work place, she was being forced to put in excessive hours and the atmosphere was really unpleasant. We’re hoping that the fact that she has left and been able to express some of her concerns will help to turn it around for the next person in the job.

I’m enjoying my week. I got my essay handed in on Monday and I feel that I’ve been keeping on top of my reading and study ok so far.

I’ve begun working on my next essay, discussing What is the significance of the feeding miracles for Mark’s presentation of the ministry of Jesus?. I’m finding it interesting, although at the beginning there are always so many little rabbit holes to go chasing down. The essay is due in a fortnight from Monday, but I’m hoping to get it done a bit early so I can have a longer break over Easter.

Maybe I’ll post some thoughts on Mark’s Gospel soon…

Comment and Share

See Him Coming

Themes: Personal, preaching, Sermon, St Philip's, Sunday

It’s been a long time since I updated this blog with a post about what I have been doing.
(Emm’s also been updating her blog)

So here goes…

Last week was probably the busiest and most stressful week of College for me so far.

The normal workload for College has been just manageable for me in the past few weeks. But last week I got a true picture of what it will often be like. I had an essay due in at the end of the week (today) and was preaching on Sunday (yesterday). The reality is that there will be plenty of weeks where essays and preaching collide.

It feels sometimes that if you keep pushing yourself for long enough then eventually your brain just says ‘no more!’
Even though I new I had more work to do than usual, I found that I managed to do even less. Everytime I sat down to study or practice my languages, I’d find some way to distract myself.
I think that I just needed a mental rest, the motivation to keep pushing hard at the work just wasn’t there.

Being conscious of preaching on Sunday, and not having completely finished my sermon preparation, also meant that whenever I sat down to read for class I felt that I should be using the time for sermon prep. Rather than being able to stick to a study programme, I didn’t have a clear idea of what I needed to be doing and when.

But that’s life, it’s not neat and tidy – packaged into manageable time units. I’ve got it much easier than people who are studying with families and young kids.

Life at College can be difficult, struggling to meet competing demands is never easy. And, as students, we add significantly to the pressure because we really want to be there, and we really want to work hard. There aren’t any slackers at College, everyone is conscious of the fact that we are for the sake of other Christians, and for the service of God.

The danger, probably the most common danger in any area of Christian life, is letting the work obscure our objective – which is to know God better.

Looking back at the week I can see God’s grace toward me.

The essay I was working on was for a subject called Congregational Ministry. I had to read a book called A Little Exercise for Young Theologians by Helmut Thielicke. I found this reading to be really spiritually refreshing. It is a helpful and pastoral little book, originally presented as a seminar to beginning students of theology. It is all about the dangers faced by Theological Students – dangers of losing contact with the body of Christ, of intellectual elitism, and of having a learning that outstrips spiritual maturity.
Thielicke’s tone of voice is so warm and direct that it feels more like having a Grandfatherly chat. It was a blessing for me to read it, and made me aware of some of the things that I am finding challenging. Particularly the need to keep a real and deep personal relationship with God – reading the Bible and praying – and making sure that my spiritual life doesn’t become merely about teaching other people (what Thielicke calls ‘thinking in the 3rd person).

Without any intention on the part of any of the staff at St Philip’s, the passage that I was preaching on at Church was also the subject of our Old Testament Lectures for the week. (Genesis 4-11). This saved me so much time in preparation and John Woodhouse’s lecture even had quite a few hints towards how this section could be applied in a sermon. This was another great blessing from God.
As I prepared for the sermon, I was struck again by the scope of what God is doing in Christ. The world-wide cataclysm in the days of Noah – by which God wiped the earth clean of all the filth with which humanity had stained it – is nothing compared with the act of new creation and cleansing which he accomplished in Christ.

“Therefore if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation; old things have passed away, and look, new things have come.” (2Cor 5:17 HCSB)

I’ve been trying to have a good rest over the weekends. This often comes under pressure when we are busy, and particularly when I have to preach. The reality is that if you are going to work hard, you need to rest well (otherwise you do just sit and stare at the wall when you should be learning Hebrew). I don’t work from Friday night through to Saturday night – a genuine Jewish Sabbath! I should stress that this is not out of some theological belief that Christians shouldn’t work on a Saturday/Sunday. I do have views on that but they are more complex (maybe another post sometime )
I need to have a good rest, it is important as a way to love Emma, and it is a practical way to trust God with the future…
especially when you’re preaching on Sunday.

We went to a Friend’s wedding on Saturday with Naomi and Russell (my sister and brother-in-law). The wedding was in Camden (on the southern outskirts of Sydney) and we headed off early and had some lunch together before the ceremony. It was good to spend time with some of the family.

The wedding didn’t run too late and we were back by about 8pm. Emma and I went to bed pretty much straight away – we dragged the mattress out into the loungeroom and slept in front of the air-conditioner. I woke myself up every hour-or-so to listen to the scores in the cricket (Australia vs South Africa in the World Cup). With the extra hour of sleep from the Day-Light Savings change and the early bed time, I had a really good rest. The Cricket only added to my enjoyment.

Church on Sunday went well, I felt that the sermon came together well and was conscious of God’s word speaking. I’m a stuttering mouthpiece but he chooses to speak. This is no claim for my ability (remember Baalam’s Ass?) but I learn even when I’m preaching.

Sunday afternoon Emma and I both were studying – Emma for her Diploma of Biblical Studies exam, me writing my Essay. We went down to Starbucks and studied together there. It was nice to be working together. I finished the essay by the end of the afternoon and decided to go down to St Andrew’s Cathedral to the evening service there (St Philip’s doesn’t have anything in the evening). I have a close friend doing MTS there and it has been a while since we caught up.

One of the highlights of the weekend was singing together at the service. Sometime I get so used to our songs that my brain stops engaging with the words, worse I stop singing the words as prayers to God.

We were singing See Him Coming and it struck me that we were taking part in the great Heavenly Court from Daniel 7. We were among the crowd singing out our praise as “one like a Son of Man” approached the Ancient of Days to receive glory, and honour, and power over all the kingdoms of the earth. That’s the song we were singing – it is the highest expression of that emotion you experience watching your sporting team win. Cheering them on and thinking ‘they’re our boys!’
We were singing: He’s our Man! There he goes, on the clouds of heaven, to receive the crown from the Ancient of Days, and he’s going for us! as our representative! He’s Ours!

God blesses us with those moments, when the stress and frusterations build up and I’ve thoroughly taken my eye of what really matters. (Incidentally, that’s the essence of what Apocalytic Literature is about, I think)
Suddenly you See Him Coming on the Clouds of Glory.
Ah, that’s what reality really looks like…

“I continued watching in the night visions,
and I saw One like a son of man coming with the clouds of heaven.
He approached the Ancient of Days and was escorted before Him.
He was given authority to rule, and glory, and a kingdom;
so that those of every people, nation, and language should serve Him.
His dominion is an everlasting dominion that will not pass away,
and His kingdom is one that will not be destroyed.”
(Dan 7:13-14 HCSB)

Comment and Share