Great warnings to bloggers and blogophiles alike can be found at Bernard and Katie Cane's blog:

A Reflexive Post: On Blogging your reflections

Also check out Katie's thoughtful post on being a Bible College student's wife:

'The Wife'

Quote from a friend:

"I am listening to a serious, but often funny, program right now on radio national about how christinatiy has become a dirty word. The show profiles various people - authors, priests, everyday christians - who discuss the often extreme reactions people have in the wider secular world when they mention their faith. It's about the blemishing of language, the 'polluted stream of language' and the baggage that gets attached to these concepts, "god" being a dirty word etc. Anyway, this one woman has started a thing called the Canadian Centre for Progressive Christianity which has been developed in contrast to institutional christianity. She considers herself to be an active and proud christian and i think she works as a priest or something like that. But occassionally she will be in a social situation where she is meeting new people but she doesn't want to have to deal with the shock and repulsion that a lot of people have when she mentions that she works for jesus. SO instead she often tells them that she is employed as a public relations consultant for a middle eastern organisation."

From 1st December 2003:
1. Don’t forget about cold-contact evangelism. It doesn’t seem to work but it is so good for getting to the gospel, taking risks for the gospel, getting to know people who are outside the church. It’s also a great way to bond with Christians, cause you then feel like you’ve been in ‘Nam together.

2. If you ask people to read out a passage for you during a sermon, make sure you thank them before you carry on blasting away (Nikki rebuked me for not doing this!

3. If you won’t to have some input in people in your church’s life but have no idea what to “do” with them to stretch them in some way, get them to do sermon reviews. This is great: the preacher benefits, they listen carefully, they have a say in how teaching is done, they learn a little of how to preach and its easy to organise.

4. In Presidential election debates (so someone told me) you can tell who is the more insecure speaker by the way he modulates his voice to follow the patterns and rhythms of the more secure speaker…. Does this have any relevance to anything? I dunno.

5. If you are invited to speak or lead at a camp or church as a visitor try the following:

• Set “ministry of the pew” goals: eg, I will speak to 3 people and one of those I will aim to have a spiritual conversation with
• Look out for people to have long-distance ministry to: maybe I could put someone on my newly born “christian reflections” mail out?
• Look out for someone to give something to: e.g. at the end of the conversation say, I have a great book on that topic, give me your address, I’ll buy and send you a copy…

6. In this book “Christ our righteousness” by M Seifrid he deals with James 2 – works and faith. He says that the difference between what James says and Roman Catholicism is this: Roman Catholicism says faith makes you a bit righteous and works adds the rest. James doesn’t say works adds a little. He says works adds the lot: we are justified by works alone. That is, from the perspective of conversion, we are justified only by faith in Christ and made 100% righteous; while from the perspective of the second coming we are justified only by works that have been produced by that faith and by the spirit of Christ working through us which will make us able to stand on the last day 100%. Sound alright?

1. I sat under a great sermon last week. It has motivated me again to work hard at preaching. When you are reminded of how powerful and encouraging and rebuking listening to preaching is, it motivates you again to work hard at preaching.

2. So I hae gone back to one of my favourite books on preaching: expositional preaching by Haddon Robinson. Should I call my next child Haddon (regardless of gender)?

3. Haddon reminded again of the big thing: the Scriptures must govern my sermon. My sermons shouldn't just be biblical or jumping off a Bible.

4. Haddon urged me to try to find the big idea with crispness and clarity. A big idea is a subject (What I'm talking about) and the complement(s) (What I'm saying about what I'm talking about).

5. On top of that I should know what functional question I'm answering: is it a truth question? A relevance question? A practicality question?

1. A thought came to my while I was attending a 'Ten Days on the Island' forum thingo. I looked around and saw that the room was 'filled' with middle-aged arty women. And I thought:

'I wonder how well the church is going at reaching this group'

And then I tried to do some (no doubt flawed) assessment of how this audience would respond to the average church: male leadership, famiy focused, not very high brow...

And I thought that you would need a sort of specialist women-minsitry to reach them.

And I thought: It's hard to balance the rightness of building and healthy biblical model of Christian community, and yet also encouraging the church to have a form that is accessible for outsiders, whose cultural structures are vastly different.

And I thought of the teenager emo's who were turning up for the next forum, no doubt because they were on an excursion with their art class. And I thought: yet again, the form of community they are used to is the absolute opposite of Sunday morning church with lots of kids and mums and old people.

On the one hand, the countercultural nature of the church community is ultimately appealing, that's true. But in the first place? I wonder...

2. At the church planting conference that I have referred to in previous posts, Martin Robinson talked about how to church plant in regional areas. He suggested that perhaps 'cluster planting' was a good option, so that from the word go, you have a network of churches that can support one another.

This is an interesting idea. I wonder what other contexts might suit this strategy?

1. Is it working? Are people reading it? How many? How do you download those 'hit counters' to tell?
2. Is it worth the time? Should I give more time to it?
3. Is the text too small? Is the blogger template ugly? How do I change it?
4. Does it still serve its original function? When Xn Reflections started in 2003 as an email, I did it:

• to keep contact with people I don't see so often and share some of my thoughts about theology and ministry
• give another type of input to those Christians I see everyday
• have a way to record those random reflections that come to you that you don't know where else to file them

5. How many people have I lost now that it's not an email? Do less internet savvy people just see the hypertext in my occasional reminder emails and swoon?
6. How many people I don't know read this?
7. Would I get more hits if I wrote about my internet girlfriend? (blogger in-joke referring to this blog)
8. Should I do something else with the material that goes up here?
9. Should be active in getting more of the local church crew reading it?
10. Did the guy who left a comment and recommended I visit his casino site *really* like Xn Reflections, or was it just spam?

So I've been directed to a Philosophy Now article that tells me that postmodernism has been replaced by pseudomodernism. I'm not sure what to make of this yet, nor what implications, if true, it may have on Christianity, preaching and church.

But it got me thinking about complaints that are starting to be made more and more of the pseudo-modern, Gen Y sort of crew. And I would like to soften these criticisms and try to offer some words in their defence.

The Gen Y crowd are apparently individualistic, self-absorbed, naively optmistic, incompetent with basic life skills and non-committal. They are the STABO generation (Subject To A Better Offer). They can be berated for letting church down by not commiting to ministries, not signing up to conferences soon enough.

There's plenty of truth to this no doubt. At the very least, these sins are to a certain extent common to all people. But what might be said to balance things out? Well I've just got two things to get the ball rolling:

1. If they *are* more individualistic and uncommitted, this is at least in part because of the failure of the Baby Boomer and Gen X parents and church leaders who failed to teach and train them in these areas. This rebuke is also a call for us to be more dilligent in our leading of those under our care.
2. We don't want to judge what commitment and competence looks like by yesterday's standards. Punctuality looks different in Africa than it does in Germany. Restraint looks different in Britain than it does in Australia. The Gen Y has grown up in a world of multiple commitments, vast amounts of information and networks of powerful relationship technology. They may be less reliable in certain relationships, but in others they are far more realiable than a Baby Boomer technophobe, or a Gen X internet pragmatist.

What does this mean to me as a church leader? I think I need to see future generations less as 'normal' people. Everyone is a manager now with a mobile centre of operations (PDA, iPod, mobile phone). Everyone is connected to a vast network of information and relationships.

I can't just expect reliability and commitment from people as if all they have to juggle is their A5 2007 diary with a TODO list in the margin. Now, everyone is a manager of a department: their life. I need to treat every under-30 in my church the way I would only treat the CEO of earlier generations.

If all someone has is a diary, then they are only disorganised in one place. Now, people are disorganised across several galaxies of technology. As a leader, if I want to promote reliability and commitment, I need to be committed to serving people with providing a user-friendly interface that will help them.

1. My friend Matt recognises that busy, educated, affluent people often have plenty of friends and feel they don't need to me Christian friends on top of it all.

*But* such people are often too busy and spread themselves too thin... they have lots of relatoinships but none are very deep. When they get a taste of that in the church, perhaps they will see the appeal.

That presupposes we are any different in the church...

2. At a recent conference the speaker suggested this definition of a worldview: 'What you think when you are not thinking"

3. I am about to preach on Luke 8. In verses 16-18 we find these familiar words:

16"No one lights a lamp and hides it in a jar or puts it under a bed. Instead, he puts it on a stand, so that those who come in can see the light. 17For there is nothing hidden that will not be disclosed, and nothing concealed that will not be known or brought out into the open. 18Therefore consider carefully how you listen. Whoever has will be given more; whoever does not have, even what he thinks he has will be taken from him."

Now Jesus often uses very similar phrases and ideas in different contexts. He can even mean different things by the same parable or phrase. I think this is the case here. I was reading this passage in the light of Matthew 5 (you are the light of the world... let your light shine before men) and Matthew 10 (proclaiming from the rooftops). As a result I took the things that are revealed and brought into the open (Luke 8:17) to be the truths of the gospel.

But on reflection, and carefully re-reading, I don't think so. I think this whole passage us about the light of God's word shining into our lives, exposing the secrets of our hearts. That explains the 'therefore' at the start of verse 18 too.

4. At this churchplanting conference by Martin Robinson, when he spoke on gathering and training a core group/launch team, I was expecting lots of hints and tips and practicals about skill-sets and group dynamics. Instead he spent most of an hour talking about godliness, spiritual discipline and so on. It wasn't generalised, superspiritual stuff, but really good quality, practical application.

It was a good reminder: a core group has its greatest potential in the way it establishes the spiritual DNA of the church, its values, culture, conversation and mindset.

A few years ago my wife and I were invited to duntrune to give a Shakespeare recital for teh young officers of ADFA. before the recital I asked the commandant why he had invited us. he said 'tomorrow's soldiers are a new breed. they're going to be sent to all sorts of trouble spots. they can't just jump out of a plane and start shooting at people. they're going to have to learn immediately to assess the situation, empathise with the locals, and exercise diplomacy. they can learn a lot from actors. and especially from Shakespeare, noone has understood better what makes people tick."
- The artist's chief tool is imagination and as Einstein pointed out, imagination is the basis of all science. artists teach us to see life not just as it is, but as it could be. they teach us about innovation, creative speculation, selfknowledge and resiliance. the stifling of the imagination results in drudgery, dullness and the lack of inspiration, inertia. as individuals, art has to power to transform us, to expand our horizons, and give us deeper insights into the human condition. it can teach us to empathise, to put ourselve in other people's shoes, to see things from their point of view.
- I regard it as an enormous privilege that i've been able to spend the best part of the last 16 years working day by day in the company of William Shakespeare, to share something of his vision of the world, his joy, his despair, his indignation and healthy scepticism. i it weren't for him, I don't know if I wouldh ave devoted my life to the theatre. but through his work I have been able to conduct a fascinating and neverneding investigation of life, of peopel and of myself. his plkays empower actors and give them an unrivalled range of self-expression in tackling roles of such magnitude, such passion, such truthful insight. through Shakespeare's characters, actors can feel their innermost selves. Shakespeare challenges directors to bring his stories to life with clarity, with emotional prevcision and with simplicity.
- All of us within the theatre industry regard ourselves as fortunate that we're able to exercise wahtever talent we have in order to make a living in a profession that gives so much variety, excitement and satisfaction.

John Bell (Bell Shakespeare Theatre Company)
Radio National 'Summer Talks' from http://www.abc.net.au/rn/summer/2006/talk/lectures.htm accessed 28th Feb 2007

As well as an actor and adirector I am also the artistic director of the Bell Shapespeare Company. So what does that entail?
- All of the above, plus determining the policy and repetoire of the company. what plays to do and why, who should direct them and what's expected of them asethetically.
- I'm also expected to be the frontman or spokesman for the company on occasion. not so much in the business sense, I leave that to my excellent management team, my generla manager, my deputy, and other heads of department: finance, education, sponsorship, fundraising, marketing etc. but, in constantly defining the vision and mission statement and selling it to sponsors, owners and the media.
- I also see it as my duty to seek out and encourage new talent. actors, directors, designers, composers etc. i like working with young people. i hope that they keep me young and keep surprising me with their fresheness and their different outlook on life.
- It's part of my job as artistic director to keep an overview with all that's happening with our vast education program and to make sure all out touring shows are keepign up to scratch and to collaborate with all the various departments within the organisation to make sure we're all singing to the same tune.
- I have an number of associate artists both actors and directors of the company whose careers I wish to foster and whose input I welcome in the creative process.
- As an actor-director myself I belive that it's good for teh artistic director to maintain a public profile and to lead from the front occasionally as do Robert Nevan, Graham Murphy and Richard Tornetti in their various organisations. So how succesful is it, this juggling act, this wearing of two hats as artist and business person? Well for a start it's nothing new, in fact it's a time-honoured practice. William Shakespeare was an actor as well as a playwright. he acted in all his own plays as well as directing them. he also had shares in the theatre and proved to be a shrewd businessman and an aggressive litigant. he was highly succesful in attracting patronage, first from a series of wealthy noblemen, then the Lord Chamberlain and finally, the king himself - sponsorship doesn't get much better than that! His near contemporary, Moliere was another artist who had his own company and that tradition ahs continued to the present day, reaching its zenith in the 19th century... today many theatre companies, dance companies, orchestras and pop groups are headed, or at least fronted, by practising artists.
- Are there tensions? of course there are. the ideal businessperson is expected to be pragmatic, predictable, steady and strategic. Many artists on the other hand, thrive on chaos, risk, instability and emotional impulses. they can be at their most thrilling when they are erratic. but a lot of corporate people are a bit more open minded than they used to be in this area and they are looking at the values of flexibility, risk taking adn thinking outside the sqaure.

John Bell (Bell Shakespeare Theatre Company)
Radio National 'Summer Talks' from http://www.abc.net.au/rn/summer/2006/talk/lectures.htm accessed 28th Feb 2007

Artistic side of running theatre company. Many people are unsure of what a play director actually does, so let me tell you.
-Director is the person responsible for the overall production. He/she has to first of all come up with the concept: what does the play mean? why does it matter? how to communicate that to the audience? how should it look? who should play the various roles? what sort of music and lighting? what other areas of expertise? acrobatics, choreography, martial arts, etc.
In all of those areas she can play it safe or take risks. a radical design concept can stimulate an audience or send them away in droves. should she go for obvious casting or cast against type and surprise the audience with a brand new interpretation - an unlikely choice of actor? and what will the impact be on box office? how much should you strive for star names and how much should you honour your obligation to the next generation by giving newcomers a chance? (in this area I'm afraid I tend to be a bit of a softy and love pushing new talent to the fore)
- I try to give myself 12 months to prepare a production, to do the necessary research, to find my designer and conduct auditions. Once I've cast the roles I call the actors in to collaborate on the costumes. the actor has to feel that this entire costume is in harmony with his/her concept for the character. the only catch is the actor saying 'But I don't know who I am until I start rehearsing with the other actors". so one has to leave as much room as possible for late decision for peopel changing their minds, while keeping happy the costume makers who are working to tight deadlines.
- When the set, costumes, props, sound, lighting equipment and area is finalised, I submit the whole lot to eh production manager for costing. my most recent experience of this was with Romeo and Juliet. My production manager looked at the designs approvingly and said "they're lovely. now go away and cut $140000." so you spend the next few months scaling down, paring back to the bone. that's all pre-production,.
- And then comes the intense five-week rehearsal period, to get the whole lot together and put the show on. one of my priorities is to create a team spirit, to make everybody feel included, to make everybody feel that they own the show, to create an emotionally safe environment so that people can take risks and reveal their innermost, private selves without embarrassment. everybody should feel empowered, so that those actors playing the smallest roles I will say, 'show us some exercise or skill we can use in rehearsal, either as a warm up or as part of the show." and when debate gets heated I pass around the director's hat. everybody's entitled to wear it to express an opinion, every suggestion should be listened to, and nobody can be shouted down while wearing the director's hat.
- Say you have to devise a battle sequence, a frequent challenge in Shakespeare. I have two options, I can either call in a fight director to devise it, teach it to the cast, or I can approach it more organically. you can split the cast into groups of 3 or 4 and say "each show me six ways of falling off a horse, each show me six ways of killing someone with an axe." and when they;'ve all had time to work out their routines, we have a show and tell. everybody gets a go and we videotape the whole lot so that nothing gets forgotten. then the fight director and i will sit down and watch the videos, we choose the best dozen or so routines and work out a sequence, with the creators of each routine teaching it to the rest of the cast. What this achieves is a feeling of spoteneity, lots of different ideas and actors feeling empowered, even those whose routines aren't used are happy to have the opportunity to the whole cast and the cast are proud of the sequence that they had a hand in creating, rather than simply learning something by rote.
- The director has to play the benign autocrat, he can't appear indecisive, because that will make for insecurity in the cast. he mustn't appear flustered and impatient. and he mustn't, above all, play favourites.
- One of his hardest jobs is to pace the rehearsal process, with everybody working towards the same goal and being fully prepared by the opening night. he has to learn who to push, and when to just let things coast along. it's like baking bread. he mustn't overdirect, but leave the actors room for sponteneity and ownership of the role. and he must be both a diplomat and a psychologist, learning how to read the signs. at times aggression, defensiveness and even laziness are a cover for insecurity. what the actor needs is encouragement rather than reprimand. the director has to mindful of every individual actor, his needs and his private process, and yet maintain an overview of the whole show.
- Some directors get emotionally need or impatient and this makes the cast distrustful. some directors actually encoruage friction and disharmony in the rehearsing room because they feed off the tension, they feel that it creates drama. I find the reverse and regard all negativity energy as destructive. I feel that I'm not doing this for the money or the fame, so why be miserable as well? in my epxerience it's only a happy and supported team that makes the effort worthwhile. rehearsing room dramas may provide a quick fix, but the long term results of a six month tour can be poisonous.
- But a director can't be too soft either. for the sake of the play he has to keep raising the stakes, encouraging full emotional commitment, pushing the actors to taking greater risks, acting like a drill sergeant when necessary, to keep the show crisp and tight and having the courage to knock back inappropriate ideas.
- Once the show is opened, that's not the end of it. the director has to keep an eye on the play when it's on the road, dropping in once or twice a week to make sure it's still on track, themorale is high and not too many little 'improvements' have crept in.

John Bell (Bell Shakespeare Theatre Company)
Radio National 'Summer Talks' from http://www.abc.net.au/rn/summer/2006/talk/lectures.htm accessed 28th Feb 2007

1. Why do overseas ministry with a mission organisation?
- some countries are more likely to recognise you and grant entry if you are with a track-record organisation
- local minsitry may be more open to you through missionary organisation networks
- pastoral care from within your culture and understanding your needs is made available to you
- you have help filtering good churches from bad... before you have the language skills to understand what a church teaches!

2. Who should do short-term mission before planning to be a career missionary?
- Definitely someone who is young, unqualified, never traveled out of their country, only lived at home and had no ministry experience
- Possibly, someone who finds doors opening for them to go - providential contacts, generous supports.

3. Advantages of short-term mission even if you are already experienced?
- builds concrete experiences to prepare for and pray about as you plan for long-term
- gives some concrete reality to your supporters... they know you have tried it out, you have photos of yourself in the region
- build some tentative relationships and networks for the future, and to keep you eyes on the goal as you prepare


4. Thomas Brooks, back by popular request:

"To repay good for evil is divine.
To repay good for good is human.
To repay evil for evil is bestial.
To repay evil for good is devilish."

1. Thomas Brooks in 'Precious remedies against Satan's devices' says: 'The soul of man is a triangle that the circle of the world can't fill'

2. Meditating on 1Corinthians 12: When a part of the body says 'i'm not needed', is it possible that sometimes what we are saying is 'I'm not unique'? 'There are others who can do this, I'm not unqiuely needed, therefore I won't serve'.

The illustration of five fingers needed for a fully functional hand may be an encouragement to serve.

3. A nifty way to begin a testimony is with the present day, and then flashback into the past.

4. Stanley Grenz, quoting someone else I think, suggests that the four (Nicene) creedal marks of the church may be seen as adverbs: unifying (one), sanctifying (Holy), reconciling (Catholic) and proclaiming (apostolic).

This formulation presupposes that 'apostolic' should be taken as a dynamic thing 'a sent church' rather than a static thing 'built on the apostle's foundation'.

There are some nice ideas there, and a clever play on the Creed even if it is not an accurate expostition of the creed.

5. Thomas Brooks again: One sin is all sins because it spills out of the heart of sin, that is our disobedience to God.

6. Thomas Brooks yet again: Satan tells us that repentance will be easy as we consider sinning and then tells us it is impossible once we have fallen.

7. I attended a conference by a UK church planter named Martin Robinson. In it, two goals jumped out at me:
a) Aim to have 80% mobilisation in your church (80% of the church active in ministry)
b) Aim to have 120% of your church in small groups (ie always non-Chrsitians attending)

Karl Barth on John Calvin:

Calvin is a cataract, a primeval forest, a demonic power, something directly down from Himalaya, absolutely Chinese, strange, mythological; I lack completely the means, the suction cups, even to assimilate this phenomenon, not to speak of presenting it adequately. What I receive is only a thin little stream and what I can then give out again is only a yet thinner extract of this little stream. I could gladly and profitably set myself down and spend all the rest of my life just with Calvin.^[1]

---

[1] Karl Barth, Letter to Eduard Thurneysen, 8 June 1922, in Karl Barth Gesamtausgabe V: Karl Barth - Eduard Thurneysen Briefwechsel II 1921-1930 (Zurich: Theologisches Verlag, 1974), p. 80.

Sorry I haven't posted for so long. Been a busy few months sandwiching a relaxing month off. That is to say, I don't prioritise blogging, nor do I do it for fun :-)

1. The hardest passage to preach on for me is the big picture passage. Am about to preach on Luke 4:18-19 - Jesus' Nazareth Manifesto. Because it's so big... the point of it all... it's so hard to find an 'angle'.

I know all biblical teaching is inter-related. But these central passages, they can be applied to anything. Makes it all the harder to decide what to focus on.

2. I worry about Christians being intimidated to 'go soft' on Islam because of the prevailing postmodern culture.

But I am equally worried about evangelicals slipping into an equally horrible judgemental us-them mentality. When emotions run high and a preacher preaches against Islam, we must beware reinforcing the desires of the sinful nature to make all Muslims a big, indistinguishable unified Other.

3. I read 'Promoting the Gospel' by John Dickson and really liked it. Ever since reading it and raving about it, I have picked up awkward vibes from some people.

I understand that on face value 'not every Christian has to evangelise' is a controversial thing to say in some circles. But in the context of the book, why does it get such a lukewarm reception from some folk? Can any of my readers enlighten me? Point me to some critical reviews?

4. Romans 12:1-2, Colossians 3:16-17 calls on us to worship the Lord with all our being and doing. Surely this is a justification to pursue excellence amongst other things. But is there a better word than 'excellence'? It sounds a little high-brow/elitist. It also may bring echoes of a big emphasis on 'excellence' in Hillsong teaching during the 1990s, which some hcurhc members may find distracting.

I was playing with the idea of 'wholhearted simplicity'. It just sounds kinda nice.

December 2004

Because of the nature of these reflections they have also been sent

to people not normally on the list so that you can get some thoughts

on 'Introducing God'.

The Christian Reflections for this month are on the 'Introducing God'

seminar that was run in Hobart on Wednesday 17.11.04. Dominic Steele,

the author of the course walked us through the course and here's what

I have thought about it:

1. The way he ran the seminar was superb. because:

a) He didn't do a Moore College one hour intro about the Bible being

the word of god and the gospel being the centre of the Bible and the

Bible's storyline is..... he just gave a punchy sermon (very good

sermon) on: 'the son of man came to seek and save the lost'

b) he went through the whole 'this is a postmodern society' stuff and

showed how to respond as evangelistic christians to these issues. it

was a real 'the making of' semianr that could be applied to all sorts

of things, not jsut introducting God

c) he prefaced his broad comments on postmodernism with a statement

that this was 'slip slap slop' philosophy... 'that way you know that

i know that this is very broad and general'. this is much better than

christians pretending or seeming to claim that they are being

academic when they are really being overgeneral (like 'Does God

Believe in Atheists?' etc)

2. Thoughts on Introducing God (IG) and what's already happening

at Crossroads/Hobart Central:

a) A lot of the comments about how to run evangelistic meetings and

how to evangelise postmoderns are things that happen already in our

weekly Sunday meeting. That is good to see how sensitive we are to

philosphical climate, and therefore an encouragement to us

b) A lot of specifics about IG we are already doing with

'Island Gospel Lounge/Beer and Bibles' and the SUS courses on a

Monday night - going

through the Bible's storyline, allowing people to ask questions etc

c) In fact, an advantage of our Island Gospel Lounge model over 'IG'

is that because it is not multi-media heavy our studies do not take

over the whole venue. We can run several studies for non-Christians,

and a follow-up course for those who have done the original studies

and a evangelism training course for Christians all at the one place.

d) Dominic encouraged leaders to run the plug for IG at the venue and

in the same style as it will actually be run when the course begins.

We follow a similar approach at Island Gospel Lounge - inviting

Christians from the various Growth Groups to come along to 'shout'

food and coffee for the evening, and running evanelistic training

courses at the same venue. This gives the Christians a 'feel' for the

night so they know what they would be inviting their friends to.

e) Good food and drinks at the meeting is clearly so much better than

just weak church cordial.

f) Following the Bible's storyline is being done. Scripture under

Scrutiny definately does that through following Romans 1-5 (FYI this

is one of Don Carson's suggestions in Gagging of God [p. 504]), the

Ethics course does this in a more circuitous way by looking at

christian ethical issues and the foundations for them.

3. Some more negative thoughts about IG:

a) Some of the graphics of IG are a little daggy, but you can never

totally win with that.

b) i like the fact that there are quite a lot of passages in Luke's

gospel over the eight weeks and weekend away. Still, i think that the

selection of passages feels a little haphazard to my neat mind. that

is more meaning liking things tidy rather than anything else :-)

c) As it is, the 'large venue' approach to IG i don't like the feel

of. Of course for many churches it would be totally unrealistic for

them to do anything else but in an ideal world, i think there would

be a better way to manage things.

As it is, the 'large venue' IG seems to be the same as the 'seeker

service', with many of the same criticisms levelled at seeker

services applying across. in fact it is worse in some ways since it

is also repetitive and distant (since the preacher is always

preaching the same message on the video).

It ends up saying that there is one big church meeting for

non-Christians and then our normal worship service for the

christians. that's clearly not a good road to go down. once it gets

to big church size, i think we need to own up and say that's what it

is - its a church. a seeker service church meeting. what i think

would be better if you are going to run it for the entire church,

evne move the whole church to a resaturant for the 8 weeks if need

be. Then there should just be separate tables for all the churchgoers

who haven't brought friends along. granted this would not work so

well for churches who need to cater for kids and so on. also it would

be spending extra resources on getting the other people along.

nevertheless i think that when things get so large-scale it is better

to put them in the 'church' category than the 'para-church' category.

if it is uunrealistic to shut down the main public meeting, then

perhaps all the growth groups could shut down, or whatever. i just

like the idea of keeping such a big group meeting as a church

activity.

d) I can imagine once Christinas have been through the course a few

times that maybe the 'vibe' of the meetings might suffer a little as

Chrsitians glaze over during the talk. Maybe the high of seeing new

people coming along and worrying about what they think would offset

this, but still it would feel a little funny I think, having say 40%

of the group knowing the talks word-for-word.

I suspect it would be better to run the official IG video on a

on-again off-again cycle. first time you play the video, second time

the preacher prepares some sermons that do a similar sort of thing.

This would be particularly good if the 'whole church' idea in point

(c) were applied. Once series of sermons a year the preacher would

plan to be IG/postmodern/firstdate/Biblcestoryline talks.

3. Here are the things which were challenging and helpful and which I

hope to take on board more at Crossroads/Hobart Central:

a) Dominic told us that he works hard to move people in IG from being

'customers' to being 'owners'. This includes things like being open

to the idea of them brining food, helping with the washing up, being

involved in a joke telling competition (wasn't so keen on this one

but hey?) or helping choose dinner music for the following week. This

is a thought that we ought to apply more to both Island Gospel Lounge

and Sunday night church (of course not inviting non-christians to

preach or whatever!)

b) The weekend away. i was definately not keen on this idea before i

came to the seminar. Now I am open to the idea, provided that a lot

of work is done to make the paricular group/table discussion group

develop over the whole time and do stuff outside of the set course

time as well. I think provided that is all done well and it is only

people who have gotten to know each other, it would work great.

c) The idea of the 'first date' approach rather than the 'proposal' i

quite liked. We don't want to propose to people the first time they

come along, rather we want them to come on another date. Very good

idea for people, particular when they want to invite best

friends/family etc. This idea of not coming on 'heavy' at first but

rather just listening and discussing makes a lot of sense. Of course

I think there is still a time and a place for a gospel blast too!

d) The idea of the DVD meaning that people can do peer-to-peer or

even subordinate-to-elder evangelism is cool. The fact that this

also allows for free discussion since the speaker is not actually

present is good too.

e) A long-term course is definately cool if you can get people to

come. The idea of always mentioning the length of the course as you

go along and making a real effort to make it something people want to

come back to is good. Having a calendar of all the dates is a good

idea.

f) The planning which means that the IG discussion tables can move

seamlessly into Growth Groups I really like. rather than chanelling

young christinas into our existing growth groups, instead start a

whole new Growth Group and make the christian who invited their mate

change Growth Groups in the process too! This seems to be an organic

way of re-shuffling Bible studies groups so they don't get stale, let

the gospel re-shuffle them.

g) The introductory night is a very good idea, rather than launching

straight into the whole course

h) Running an evening where the welcome, the study and the

after-teaching discussion are all 'items' in the evening is great

since it turns the whole evening into an 'event'. At the moment, I

think the Island Gospel Lounge can sometimes be a bit like an

adult-ed course where people turn up and do the course and although

the Christians work hard at discussino afterwards it is not clearly

seen as a whole

'event'. consequently people stop coming after the 5-week course

because they have done their course. They don't own the entire event.

i) the division of different types of evangelists was good: the rock

star (Billy Graham) the cowboy (invited by a christians to come and

chat with his non-christian mate and then rides off) and the everyday

(as it sounds). Little ideas like these are good to use when talking

and thinking about evangelism

j) the division of 'evangelees' (ugly word) was also good: the back

packer (talk once and drive for a gospel challenge once-off. this can

work, trust god!) the speech pathologist (one-dimensional

relationship, for a short term, try to get to the gospel, and get

multi-dimensional quickly) the work mate (longer term but one

dimensional, take time but otherwise same as speech pathologist)

brother (slower slower slower). 'Most confusion and angst comes from

treating everyday evangelists as if they were rock stars and treating

brothers like backpackers'

k) The whole concept, already referred to, of moving people from

being 'one dimensional' relationships into multi-dimensional

relationships is a great way of putting a very good principle. That

we should both 'enfolding into the community then...' and 'become

convinced of the gospel then...'

l) A passing comment: it is better to give non-Christians a new word

- 'autonomy' - than to try to redefine a word they have so many

misconceptions about 'sin'

4. Some thoughts about the practical application of these things for

Crossroads/Hobart Central for 2005:

a) Run IG for whole church once a year, during normal meeting time,

since our venues and style are suitable for guests. Maybe not full

dinner, but we'll see. Then the following year, write our own series

and then the year after that use IG or something of that sort

b) Run the Island Gospel Lounge evenings more as 'events' with a big

group welcome and a short 'item' and other bits and pieces of that

sort. Make it clear that there are several parts of the evening, that

the study is the central and longest part but that the discussion

time is also a segment of the evening.

c) Publish little calendars of the dates of the course, showing the

follow-up courses and the weekend away date as well, so that the

follow-up courses aren't introduced for the first time at the end of

the course

d) Make a much higher priority of doing social things with the group

outside of Island Gospel Lounge times, press this on the leaders

e) Use a non-multimedia version of IG as one of the courses available

at the Island Gospel Lounge.

f) Think about ways to make the move from 'customers' to 'owners'

both with people at Island Gospel Lounge and with church.

g) Try to slide the Bible Study groups into Growth Groups and be more

mindful of that strategy and goal.

Review of Introducing God... the book
(Dominic Steele, Introducing God: meeting the God who loves us, Media Bible Fellowship: Annandale, 2006)

I was sent a copy of this book in order to review it on my blog. I'm afraid it's not the most glowing of reviews. I pray that I am not speaking out of some Aussie tall-poppy thing, nor trying to show off how different I am. I am totally supportive of the Introducing God thing and am sure that this book will be a saving blessing to many. However, here are my comments, for what they are worth:

1. Some general comments about evangelistic books

I don't particularly like them, and have not given them away much either. I read many of them when I first became a Christian back in 1997, some were painful, others were very influential. If My favourites, not counting the Gospels, are:

Mere Christianity, C. S. Lewis
Escape from reason, F. Schaeffer
The Case for Christ, L. Strobel
More than a carpentar, J. McDowell
A Hell of a life, J. Dickson
Basic Christianity, J. Stott
A Fresh start, J. Chapman

It is a special sort of person who would read such a book as one of their first steps in exploring Christianity. They are often pivotal after the person has looked into Christianity a little bit already, and want something to chew over on their own.

This is one reason why I think it is a mistake to write 'evangelistic books' with the absolute outsider too much in mind.

2. Some general comments about Introducing God... the course

These can be found in an ancient version of Xn Reflections when it still just an email thing. I have put them in my blog archive.

3. Some general comments about Introducing God... the book

The book is good. It looks nice. The spiritual bios are really good. I was worried at first that they would all be people who were converted through doing the IG course, but that's not the case. The most heartwarming, and non-formulaic would have to be the charismatic-feeeling bio of Maureen Drummond in chapter 2 and the conversion in later life of Vince Williamson.

It's a straightforward evangelistic book. It would be good to give to non-Christians interested in finding out more on Christianity. In that way, it is a great blessing. But, since there are other great evangelistic books already out there, this one left me fairly underwhelmed. Dominic Steele is a great preacher, and the IG course is pretty cool. I don't think his sermons translate to great reading material. I think that rather than transcribing the sermons, it would have been better to write different material that would really work in print.

The book was deliberately written to pair up with the course. I was therefore struck by how they are almost identical, except for spiritual bios at the end of each chapter. The book refers to the course. I imagine it would be very boring to attend the course after reading the book or reading the book after the course.

I know, I know, it's probably deliberate, to make sure that people really get it. Hearing things in different media, learning styles and so on. But it still feels a little redundant if not patronising.

It would also be nice to have reflected some of the inventiveness of the course. Apart from images matching the text and discussion questions at the end of the chapters, there is little of the multimedia, community, postmodern sort of gimmicks in the book. It's a pretty standard little volume. And by the way, I didn't actually like the photos scattered throughout the book, it felt a little tacky to me.

Appendix: Little fiddly things

Dominic Steele introductory chapter

- The dating metaphor is introducing rather jaggedly on page 9. I think that it is a very helpful metaphor in explaining to Christians how to approach evangelism, but not so helpful when explaining the non-Christians experience of 'seeking'.

- Often there comments in parentheses made sentence read with clumsy informality. An example of this is also found on page 9.

How can we know God? introductory chapter

- Bible verses often appeared in bold. This seems unnecessary.

- I haven't chased this through carefully, but I think there was inconsistency in placing full stops inside or outside quotation marks.

- '15 years' should be written 'fifteen years' on page 16.

- Athens is introduced as city like ours, where there is a massive diversity of religions. We are then shown how, in addition to actual religions, sport and materialism also function as religions for many people. From this point on, all of Paul's critique of human religion is applied only to these metaphorical religions - materialsm, sport and selfishness.

This is inconsistent, unhelpful and even feels a little sneaky. The people of the West do have actual religions beliefs. God speaks against actual religious beliefs in Acts 17. The IG book even recognises that our world is full of religions - Islam, Buddhism and so forth. But when it comes to applying God's criticism of human religion, we retreat to the safer territory of metaphorical religion.

I think this is a common tendency in preaching. We assume that we have to apply the Bible's condemnation of idolatry to materialism and other 'religions'. I think it is a mistake to only go at these metaphorical religions.

- The verse numbers should be removed from sections of Scripture quotes in the book.

Chapter 1

- 'If we came about by accident, then we are purposeless. However, if we are made by a creator, then our creator gives us a purpose, a meaning, a morality, a right and wrong.' (24)

This teleological argument is a very powerful one for the existence of God. However in this common form of expression, it is not fully articulated. As it stands, this argument falls foul of the Eurythro's paradox:

Are things good because God says so, or does God say they are good
because they are?... if the former, good becomes arbitrary. If the latter, God is subject to a higher reality 'goodness'.

Being created by a god gives us relative, subjective purpose. We are meaningful as far as he's concerned. It is because we are created by the God who is good, valuable and meaningful in himself that makes us truly valuable.

- The quote from the Enuma Elish on page 25 is really helpful, but it isn't given the dignity of being quoted in the same format as the other quotations in the book.

Chapter 2

- 'Autonomy' is defined in a footnote on page 37 as 'a self-governing state, community, group or individual'. This is one definition of autonomy, but it is not the definition most often used in the book - including the sentence which has this footnote. It is most often used in its abstract, rather than concrete sense - 'the condition or quality of independence'.

- The illustration of sin on page 38 is quite unhelpful to me. The illustration is about ignoring speed limits and drink-driving legislation and setting my own standards. I think it is a muddy illustration. It seems to imply that the government is necessarily right in the limits it sets. For a somewhat irreverent Australian, comparing godliness to being a sensibile, law-abiding citizen doesn't enhance the horror of rebellion against God.

- Double quotations marks appear to be used inconsistently, see for example the double quotations marks around 'good' on page 39.

- The Christian cliche 'anger is not the opposite of love, indifference is' pops up on page 43. This is a sloppy use of language. Anger is the opposite of love. Love is postive concern. Anger is negative concern. Indifference is the opposite of all forms of concern. It's like saying
'death isn't the opposite of life, non-existence is'.

- 'What would happen if Rupert Murdoch was immortal?' page 45 asks. This is a distracting illustration. I am immediately thinking that sooner or later he would be ousted by another.

Chapter 3

- There are a lot of family illustrations. Perhaps too many?

Chapter 8 (did I run out of steam?)

- Hell is described in purely negative terms, as the horror of being cast out of God's presence. Although it feels awful to have to advocate for thinking of hell in stronger terms, it seems that you can't go past much of the active element of hell - God is present in wrath and judgement.

- Further, God's judgement is said to be because he 'respects our decision'. In a sense, of course, this is true. But it is pretty misleading language to use.

Tim Keller cites a book by David Brooks named 'Bobos in paradise':

Over last hundred years there was always a cultural war between the bourgeois and the bohemians.

Now we have a hybrid of the two: 'bobos'. They have the moral relativism of the bohemians with the materialism of the bourgeois.

Tim Keller suggest urbanised Christians need to be the opposite type of hybrid: love of diversity of teh bohemians with the moral seriousness of the bourgeois.

Perhaps they could be called 'obobs' he says...

1. God hasn't just opened his home to us, he has opened up his family to us. For us to be like him is not even just to have peopel in our homes on our terms, at our times, when we're in control. It is to welcome brothers and sisters into the fabric of our lives.

2. Acts 6-8 contains an interesting irony: The apostles appoint deacons to free them up to preach the word, and yet in the end it is these deacons who also turn out to be gospel preachers.

I don't think this is because the apostles weren't doing their job necessarily, but I think it is an encouragement about how things pan out.

3. A preaching book I am currently reading speaks of 'verfremdung' as a preaching technique. The term is German for 'alienation', and was used by Bertolt Brecht, the situations Berline cabaret dude.

The idea is we have become over-familiar with things (eg the gospel). Therefore the artists (preacher) needs to confront peopel with familiar things in unfamiliar ways. This alienates peopel with the familiar so that they acutally hear it afresh.

Verfremdung. Do it.

4. The same preaching book observed that lower class people in West Berlin respond well to highly referential, symbolic language. Perhaps the highly referential nature of hiphop, developed in American slums is another example of the same principal.

It made me reflect on simplicaity, clarity and so forth. I think that for some people when you speak in a clear, precise way, they often react as if you are being technical, confusing, or irrelevant to them. Perhaps over-precision, and even the drive to John-Dickson-liek simplicity are quite bourgois things.

If we want to reach the lower-class or the uneducated, perhaps rather than striving for crisp, simple, precise language, we need to embrace more refernetial and symbolic language. Living cliches, pictorial language etc.

5. Phillip Jensen says: "The symbol of Christianity if not the fish. it is not the cross. It is our love for each other."

1. When you can't figure someone out it's sometimes because you are not seeing a dimension of their character (eg bad temper, extremem defensiveness).

Sometimes you can encourage this by dealing with conflict in a different way to them.

2. This is a reminder that hypcorisy and self-control can sometime be confused. Self-control is actually harnassing the problem. Hypocrisy is only having enough self-control to master it before others. Sometimes it is better to first learn to 'be who you are' before others, and then to deal with it properly.

3. How do local churches relate to the universal church? Are gatherings of Christians to read the Bible and pray equally church: around a dinner table, in a CU, in a Bible study group? If a church has a BBQ is that less church than when a CU meets?

Some would say only the Sunday gathering is really church at all. Some would say that as long as the Bible and prayer is involved, there is no difference between an Growth Group and a Sunday meeting. Some would say that as long as Christians are involved somewhere along the line it's church ('whatever we may mean by that...'). Here's my thoughts:

a) A public gathering of a church is the fullest expression of the universal church. It is a community that has gathered together deliberately as a local church and it is engaged in the activities of the heavenly church: prayer, praise, hearing the word of God, encouraging one another and so on.

b) A gathering of Christians to read the Bible and prayer (eg Growth Group, CU) is engaged in the the activities of the church, but is not intentionally gathered as a church. It has not been ordained as a local church. It is therefore not properly speaking a church in the fullest sense. At the same time it has much of the spiritual significance of a church.

c) A gathering of a local church to have a BBQ is not engaged in the the central activities of the church, but it is still gathered as a church. This activity is an deliberate activity of this group of people who have been ordained as a church. It is therefore not properly speaking
a church in the fullest sense. At the same time it has much of the spiritual significance of a church.

4. Our church recently realised that we were making the whole process of signing people up on rosters a nightmare, because it relied on peopel taking the iniatiative all the time to put their names on the roster. Established churches tend to slot people into the roster, then publish the roster and ask peopel to make changes as needed.

The reason we hadn't approached it that way before, I suppose, is because it is aht result of quite a 'club' mentality. Each member of the club is just assumed to be willing and expected to serve on the rosters. So we'll jsut plug them in!

It got me thinking... sometimes it is appropriate to adopt a club mentality. I wonder, how many other things do new churches make difficult for themselves because we don't adopt a club mentality?