On a mission...

My diocese is on a mission. Since 2002, our prayer has been to see 10% of the population of Sydney, Wollongong, Shoal Haven, Southern Highlands and Blue Mountains in 'Bible-believing churches' by 2012. So how are we doing? According to one estimate at Synod last year (and repeated at a talk I heard on Thursday night), in the first six years of the mission some 300 people have become Christians. Just 300 - despite all the prayer and planning and strategy. That amounts to about 1.5 people per church in the diocese. In fact, according to the figures we have, more people became Christians in the six years prior to the mission than in the first six years of the actual mission!

As a diocese, we are often proud of our strength. Our local tool of propaganda shamelessly boasts a readership of 70,000. Some of our churches are big. Not Hillsong big, or American mega-church big. But compared to many of mainline protestant churches in Australia, the Sydney Diocese is quite strong. Actually, comparing ourselves to the other Anglican dioceses throughout the country is one of our favourite games to play in Sydney. It shows how good we are - which is quite pathetic really, given that many of these dioceses are breathing their last gasps of air.

Why haven't we grown? Why aren't our churches full? Maybe Sydney is just too hard - we scatter the seed and it gets eaten up straight away. Maybe. That certainly makes it easier to spiritualize our lack of growth. 'God isn't working here for some reason, so we'll keep on doing the same thing we've always done and wait for things to change'. As a diocese we really only have one strategy for growth - church planting. Multiplying congregations is one of the goals of the mission, and scores upon scores of new churches have been started since 2002. The problem is that we spend all our time and energy producing church services that are essentially the same as the church up the road or in the morning. Even more so, constant church planting is a tiresome and exhaustive business that wears down our church members so much that they have no time to do anything else - even "connecting" to their neighbours.

According to a rector of a large church that I was talking to on Friday night, maybe the problem is that we have grieved the Holy Spirit. In our local evangelical culture we are quite wary of the Holy Spirit. Our foci's lies in completely different places, so much so that during the Connect 09 Big Day In the prayer before the sermon was for the archbishop to enlighten our hearts as to the meaning of Jonah. I have great respect and admiration for our archbishop, but the last time I checked, this was meant to be the work of the Spirit (working through Peter) and not the Archbishop himself.

Maybe we're scared of the Holy Spirit, not just because of pentecostals, but because our lives reflect to closely the lives of the city around us (I see this in my own life). We're proud and arrogant, we love stirring up controversy and arguments. Our tongues are full of bitterness and slander, and we like to gossip. We like promoting ourselves at the expense of others, and we enjoy our comforts so much that any sacrifice we might need to make, no matter how small, is to big a deal for us to cope with.

Instead, following Paul:

"(H)aving put away falsehood, let each one of you speak the truth with his neighbor, for we are members one of another. Be angry and do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger, and give no opportunity to the devil. Let the thief no longer steal, but rather let him labor, doing honest work with his own hands, so that he may have something to share with anyone in need. Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for building up, as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear. And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice. Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you."

Ephesians 4.25-32

The Lord have mercy on us.

Baptizing Them...

“’Go…and make disciples…baptizing them into the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.’ The narrative of the risen Jesus commissioning appearance presumes that the disciples know what ‘baptizing is, as indeed they did. Beyond reasonable doubt, the primal church adapted baptism from the repentance-ritual of John the Baptist, which at least some of the first disciples had themselves undergone. Those whom John’s preaching brought to repentance he washed; the meaning of the gesture is obvious...

Those washed by John, while they turned from their disobedient aspects of their previous behavior, did not turn into a new community. Whereas those from whom the preaching of the apostles brought to repentance did thereby enter a new community, the missionary church; in the Matthean passage baptism is to ‘make disciples.’ Thus we may summarize the canonical mandate of baptism so: initiate into the church those whom your preaching calls to repentance, by washing them in the Triune Name.” - Robert Jenson

We baptize because Jesus said to. We baptize because that’s what we do as Christians. The apostles knew that. At the end of the first Christian sermon in Acts 2, and the audience asked the apostles what to do, Peter said: ‘Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit,’ and so 3000 people repent and are duly baptized. That’s what we do as the people who proclaim the glory of God and the Lordship of Jesus Christ – we baptize those who repent and welcome them into the church (for the rest of their lives). As churches here in Sydney send out their members to connect with the local community, it may be all too easy to forget the baptizing part. We’re very big on making disciples – we’ll sit with someone and lead them through Two Ways to Live or something, and when they become Christians we are ecstatic. And we try to keep discipling them – we’ll do the Just for Starters studies etc. welcome them into the church and set them on a path for life. But the command of Jesus is baptize them. As ambivalent as our churches may be with symbolism or anything that can look slightly ‘magical’, the washing of new Christians is what we are to do. It is a great shame for us if we lose or forget this image of union with the death and resurrection with Jesus. As we seek to connect with our community, lets not forget the canonical symbol of connection with Jesus.

Diabolical Pop-ups

If any can help me annihilate the uninvited pop-ups on hebel, please let me know.

100 Days and Histroy

The New York Times has posted some interesting articles by leading presidential historians on the 20th century's leading presidents and what Obama can learn from during his first 100 days in office.

As Barack Obama readies to take the office of president, which of his predecessors offers the best model for getting off on the right foot?

The historians include Richard Reeves and Robert Dallek, leading historians in the Kennedy and Johnston eras. I found Roger Morris' article on Nixon particularly insightful.

How F.D.R. Made the Presidency Matter by Jean Edward Smith.

Obama, F.D.R. and Taming the Press by Jean Edward Smith.

Kennedy’s Words, Obama’s Challenge by Richard Reeves.

L.B.J., Obama and Reassuring a Worried Nation by Robert Dallek.

The President Behind the Mask by Roger Morris.

Obama’s Reagan Transformation? by Lou Cannon.

Kudos for telling me why the picture is out of place.

Discipleship is Costly

"The disciple simply burns his boats and goes ahead. He is called out, and has to forsake his old life in order that he may 'exist' in the strictest sense of the word. The old life is left behind, and completely surrendered.The disciple is dragged out of his relative security into a life of absolute insecurity (that is, in truth, into the absolute security and safety of the fellowship of Jesus), from a life which is observable and calculable (it is, in fact, quite incalculable) into a life where everything is unobservable and fortuitous (that is, in to one that is necessary and calculable), out of the realm of finite (which is in truth the infinite) into the realm of infinite possibilities (which is the one liberating reality). Again it is no universal law. Rather is is the exact opposite of all legality. It is nothing else than bondage to Jesus Christ alone, completely breaking through every programme, every ideal, every set of laws. No other significance is possible, since Jesus is the only significance. Besides Jesus nothing has any significance. He alone matters." - Deitrich Bonhoeffer, The Cost of Discipleship, p.16. H/T MPJ

John Dickson: Faith no more does little good for society

John Dickson is in today's SMH:

It hardly takes a statistician to tell us that a huge proportion of non-government welfare and aid in this country is organised through agencies with a religious heart, such as World Vision, Salvation Army, Mission Australia, Anglicare and Caritas. Then there is the evidence that the religious are more likely to become teachers, nurses and doctors. The recent Religion And Occupation study by the Christian Research Association says about 25 per cent of people in these "nurturing professions" are regular worshippers of one kind or another - much higher than the national average of 17 per cent. Religious people do not have a monopoly on doing good. Many unbelievers do a great many good things for the poor and marginalised, and there are several excellent welfare and aid agencies with no religious foundation.

Nevertheless, do-gooding remains a particular preoccupation of the faithful. Whether trying to earn their way to heaven or (more likely) trying to embody the love they think God has for the world, believers tend to give more money away, run more soup kitchens, collect more aid for those in poor countries and gravitate more toward "people professions" than those without religion.

You can read the rest of the article here.

Our Lost History

I recently read The Lost History of Christianity - The Thousand-Year Golden Age of the Church in the Middle East, Africa and Asia- and How It Died by Philip Jenkins (2008). It is a magisterial introduction to a rich but largely forgotten history. The lands Jenkins has in mind were well and truly the center of the Christian world for well over a thousand years, even after the Muslim invasion of these lands from the seventh century. To understand the Middle East, Africa and Asia as the center of Christian gravity at any time might now seem as natural today as arguing that the Buddhist homeland was once Buddhist. But Jenkins argues that even in 1200 AD there were 21 million Christians in Asia and the proportion of the world's Christians living in Asia and Africa was 34 per cent. These Christians are different from us, but they had a rich and vibrant church life of academia (far above anything the Western Church approached until at least the 14th century), liturgy (which may be the source of Gregorian Chants) and mission (particularly the Syrians, who quite successfully reached into India, central Asia and China). Before England had an archbishop of Canterbury - possibly even before Canterbury had a church - the Syrian church had established metropolitan sees in Merv and Herat, modern Turkmenistan and Afghanistan. Before Poland was Catholic, before Good King Wenceslas ruled a Christian Bohemia, the church in Bukhara, Samarkand and Patna had all reached metropolitan status. Our mental maps of Christianity are too small, and we can't understand Christian history without Asia - or Asian history without Christianity.

Which makes the decline of these churches all the more tragic. The number of Christians in Asia in 1500 had fallen from 21 million to just 3.4 million. Most of these great churches ceased to exist, whilst the ones that did were small, marginalised and associated ethnic minorities. Churches who's leaders had once commanded the respect and obedience of at least a quarter of the world's Christians (and had prayed for the gospel of Yeshua to transform lives in Tibet and Java) was reduced to scratching out an existence in the hills.

Jenkins tells the stories of the churches and what happened to their survivors in the 20th Century. He also offers advice on what to do when churches die, particularly such large slabs of area where almost all Christian history has been totally eradicated. I recommend this book to anyone who is interested in Church history, particularly for those interested in the meaning of that history for today.

YOU: A Review

YOU: An Introduction by Michael Jensen

Who am I? What does it mean to be human? Is there any purpose or meaning to life? My friends still grapple with these questions of identity, most notably when they ‘reinvent themselves’ every few years. It’s a question they face every day – studying Blade Runner in high school, deciding who to vote for (and which vision of the future they want), or the advertising world subtlety telling them who they should be (i.e. I drink Coke, not Pepsi) – what does it mean for me to be me? And how do I express this to everyone else. This is especially true of people in their teens and twenties. With so many direct and instantaneous ways of communicating – blogs, Facebook, YouTube, mobile phones – who I decide to be for the next 15 minutes can be conveyed to everyone on my friends list. We spend so much time trying to discover ourselves, and yet have never been more confused about who we are.

YOU: an introduction is a timely answer to these questions about who I am. Developed originally developed by Michael Jensen as a series of blog posts, YOU is engaging and a joy to read. In fact, one of the strengths of YOU is that it has retained the character of a blog. The chapters are brief and to the point, but the writing still feels like a conversation - at the end of each chapter are the comments from the YOU blog and you can read Michael respond to comments from bloggers.

I find YOU to be particularly culturally appropriate for people my age. The images and illustrations Michael draws are the ones me and my friends would be familiar with. Michael quotes a variety of contemporary sources as diverse as Russell Crowe and The Red Hot Chilli Peppers to Wikipedia and tattooing. This does run the risk of hastening the book’s use-by-date. However I actually think that it enhances the book, as it fits the headspace of where the reader is at.

What you get with YOU is the authenticity on the behalf of the author. YOU doesn't pretend to be the last word in anthropology. Nor does it dumb down the sometimes difficult issues. Instead, it faces the big issues head on, and invites the reader to explore what scripture has to say on the matter. The book deals with several issues of what it means to be human, such as life itself, death, gender and more. After laying down the ground work for each topic (what actually is the issue? what are some alternative answers?), Michael concludes each chapter with a snapshot of what scripture has to say on the matter.

I heartily recommend this book. YOU focuses on Jesus, the real humanity. He lived a real, en-fleshed life as the true image of what it means to be human. His death paid for the sin and evil that humanity was both involved in and enslaved to. He rose from the dead as a human and now reigns as the lord of all creation under his Father. This is the God Christians worship – the God we are introduced to in YOU.

YOU is available to purchase from Matthias Media.

The Lord Will Come And Not Be Slow

The Lord will come and not be slow,
his footsteps cannot err;
before him righteousness shall go,
his royal harbinger.
Truth from the earth, like to a flower,
shall bud and blossom then;
and justice, from her heavenly bower,
look down on mortal men.

Surely to such as do him fear
salvation is at hand!
And glory shall ere long appear
to dwell within our land.
Rise, God, judge thou the earth in might,
this wicked earth redress;
for thou art he who shalt by right
the nations all possess.

The nations all whom thou hast made
shall come, and all shall frame
to bow them low before thee, Lord,
and glorify thy Name.
For great thou art, and wonders great
by thy strong hand are done:
thou in thy everlasting seat
remainest God alone.

- John Milton, 1648. Based of Psalms 85 and 86. Book of Common Praise (Australian Supplement).

Public Meeting Friday VI

This week hebel brings you 2004's Phillip Jensen:

The Intolerant God - Arts Faculty Based Evangelism

With Christmas and CMS Summer School coming up - this will be the last PM Friday for the next month.

Public Meeting Friday V

The talks this Friday are vintage 2008. Ian Smith, Vice Principal and Academic Dean of the Presbyterian Theological Centre gave three talks of Abraham , the Father of Faiths (an attempt to tie in with WYD). Enjoy:

Abraham, Father of Faiths: The Lord Calls (Genesis 12-13)

Abraham, Father of Faiths: The Lord Justifies (Genesis 15)

Abraham, Father of Faiths: The Lord Provides (Genesis 22)

What Matt Does When He's Bored

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Public Meeting Friday IV

Continuing from last week, today's Public Meeting Friday are the three talks that finished of Think Weeks in the first semester of 2006. Are speakers are Andrew Katay (Christianity and Philosophy), Chris Forbes (Christianity and History) and Gordon Cheng (Christianity and Politics).

Christianity and Philosophy: Synthesis, Antitheses or...

Christianity and History: Does the Historical Jesus Have a Leg to Stand on? Complete with slides.

Christianity and Politics: Turning the World Up-side Down

The Katay and Chris Forbes talks are particularly good - some of my favourites.

Fear Not...But Sanctify Christ in Your Heart

Speaking on 1 Peter 3 (particularly verses 14-15) Andrew Katay read out this quote from John Chrysostom on fear on Sunday:

"The waters have risen and severe storms are upon us, but we do not fear drowning, for we stand firmly upon a rock. Let the sea rage, it cannot break the rock. Let the waves rise, they cannot sink the boat of Jesus. What are we to fear? Death? Life to me means Christ, and death is gain. Exile? ‘The earth and its fullness belong to the Lord. The confiscation of goods? We brought nothing into this world, and we shall surely take nothing from it. I have only contempt for the world’s threats, I find its blessings laughable. I have no fear of poverty, no desire for wealth. I am not afraid of death nor do I long to live, except for your good. I concentrate therefore on the present situation, and I urge you, my friends, to have confidence...If Christ is with me, whom shall I fear? Though the waves and the sea and the anger of princes are roused against me, they are less to me than a spider’s web. Indeed, unless you, my brothers, had detained me, I would have left this very day. For I always say “Lord, your will be done”; not what this fellow or that would have me do, but what you want me to do. That is my strong tower, my immovable rock, my staff that never gives way. If God wants something, let it be done! If he wants me to stay here, I am grateful. But wherever he wants me to be, I am no less grateful."

Fields White For Harvest

Bill Dumbrell has released a new book: Fields white for harvest - An exposition of Mark, Matthew, Luke-Acts.

According to Moore Books: "Veteran Australian biblical scholar Dr William Dumbrell has applied his profound understanding of the Old Testament to the Synoptic Gospels, and the result is a one-volume commentary that gets right to the heart of Jesus' identity and message.

William J. Dumbrell (Th.D., Harvard University) was for many years Vice-Principal of Moore Theological College, Sydney where he also lectured in Old Testament. He also lectured at Regent College in Vancouver, and Trinity Theological College in Singapore. He is the author of many fine books that follow some significant biblical themes from Genesis to Revelation such as Covenant and Creation, The End of the Beginning, The Search for Order, The New Covenant and The Faith of Israel. He has also written commentaries on Galatians, Romans, and the Gospel of John in the New Covenant Commentary Series. He still teaches at several Sydney colleges and at Macquarie University, Sydney.-Editorial Review."