If a book can be both brutal and beautiful then Plum by Brendan Cowell is that book. I picked it up at the suggestion of a friend and have been reading it in snippets over a couple of really busy weeks. I have been working 10 hour days in the sun so most nights I have taken it to bed with me around 8.30 and fallen asleep just 15 minutes later with the tablet having fallen on the floor. I was about to give up altogether and wait for autumn – or holidays, until today when I was able to grab an indulgent 3 hours, curl up on the couch in our bottom lounge and just read…
It literally left me reeling – both laughing and in tears – which is a no small accomplishment. A few months back on our trip I read Shuggie Bain, another fantastic piece of writing – also brutal in it’s portrayal of young life in Glasgow, but lI felt it lacked any genuine redemptive edge. Plum manages to achieve a redemptive angle that without wilting or getting sappy.
At face value it’s the story of an ex NRL star who leaves the game and at the age of 49 develops a brain injury as a result of the head knocks. The book opens with 4 very rough and raw Australian men living their self centred lives and doing as they please even if it leaves a wake of destruction. Peter Lum (Plum) is a local (Cronulla) rugby legend who is held in awe by those of his generation (he is 49), but less so by the new generation who have no clue who he is. His son worships him and wants to be like him – wants to win his affection and his attention. But history repeats and Pete fails to really support him, just as happened with his own father. It’s a story of generational failings and of the culture that stops men from getting past their bravado to honest interactions.
It’s a story that reflects on ‘mateship’ when it’s not all it seems to be, on loyalty, even on the place of alcohol in our lives. We see the destruction it creates in so many relationships and the belief that ‘I could quit if I wanted to.’ But at it’s best it’s a reflection of redemptive relationships and the courage it takes to enter these. I could write so much more but it would spoil the story for those who will read it.
On one hand it’s a very blokey story with lots of sport talk, drinking, sex and male banter, but on the other it’s an incisive reflection on the deep sadness many men carry at their inability to actually love and be loved – to express honest emotion. Some books lilt to a finish, but this one punched hard.
Maybe it was just me but this was a cracker and one for men to read and talk about.
My favourite miracle of Jesus has to be his first – the most outrageous and irresponsible of them all. You can understand healing lepers, lame people and the blind. Even raising Lazarus seems kind and compassionate, but providing extra alcohol for a crowd who have already drunk the place dry just seems utterly bizarre.
Why does he do this?
I was sharing some thoughts around this passage in John 2 at church as my own learning in this area was quite the revelation. I began by asking people which of these descriptions best matched their experience of faith
a) The Christian life is about death to self, taking up your cross and going hard after Jesus #nocompromise
b) The Christian life is about living in the wonderful blessing of God’s grace and enjoying his provision. #soblessed
The right side of the room was for those who totally resonated with a) and the left was the opposite. Choose a place on that continuum that reflects your experience. We did that, chatted and then we moved from the place that reflected our experience to the place that reflected our understanding – or our theology – because reality and ideas sometimes are quite different. This proved to be the case as people shuffled around. I’m sure most people learnt more from that experience than anything I may have said!
Personally I have always leant much more towards ‘a,’ a tough and somewhat stoic approach to faith. If God happens to bless me along the way then I’ll take it as a bonus, but there are no expectations on him and plenty of sacrifice required from me. It was partly the era I grew up in and partly a function of my own approach to life.
However several experiences on long service leave messed with my script. I blogged a while back about the caravan we bought for the trip, a once in a lifetime bargain that we were fortunate enough to stumble upon and purchase. I expected to travel Oz in a modest unexciting caravan, but we finished up owning and living in a top of the range, prestige kind of van. Admittedly it was a repairable write off that had been all fixed up, but was 25-30k under market value. Perhaps my coolest bargain ever. As we travelled there were times when I would say to Danelle ‘I can’t believe we own this van! This is way outa our league!!’
Then a few curious things happened.
We met friends in Torquay and told them the story of how we had acquired the van and they said ‘What a blessing! What a wonderful blessing from God!’
‘Really?…’ I said. Like we deserve a blessing! With kids starving all round the world why would God bless wealthy middle class westerners with a caravan that exceeded their expectations???’ I thought it was a fair point. If anyone needs blessing it aint us – or if he does want to ‘bless’ me then maybe he could heal the nerve pain that has been hanging around me!
Then it happened a second time. Some friends in NSW simply said again ‘what a blessing…’. I am starting to think there is some dodgy theology going on around Oz that I need to correct. I don’t deserve a physical ‘blessing’, it’s just very good fortune. But I began to wonder if maybe God would actually do stuff like that.
But why? Why us?
Then a third time it happened in Darwin as we had dinner with my cousin. She pushed a little harder and asked why I struggled to accept this as a blessing. ‘Why wouldn’t God want to bless us with something good?’ she asked.
The simple truth was that I believe God is generous in theory, but in practice I just couldn’t see him being generous in a tangible way toward me.
The question struck me though, because it cut to the core of my perception of God. It began to reveal God as like a ‘good boss’, rather than a good father. A good boss gives you what you’re due and occasionally might give you a little bonus. But it’s a purely transactional kind of relationship. It’s nothing like a ‘father’ kind of relationship that we claim to have with God.
As we talked the wedding in Cana came up and the outrageous, unnecessary generosity of God became the focus. If as John indicates, the miracles are ‘signs’ of some sort then surely Jesus first miracle is a sign that this is what God’s kingdom is like. Overflowing with generosity and grace – the undeserving get the very best. It’s a concept that just doesn’t compute easily – that God would somehow provide the best wine of the day to people who had already pushed their limits.
In the end I actually came to a point of saying ‘this van is a beautiful blessing from God’. There is no rational reason why we should have it – but we do.
And while I get all the symbology and deeper meaning of the miracle (ceremonial jars / law / old cov / new cov / weddding feast of the lamb etc) the point that stuck with me was the outrageous actions of Jesus, to bless that party with the very best in wine – even though they were completely underserving.
I have just finished the gut churning, heart breaking memoir that Phillip Yancey released last week.
How this man came to write so eloquently about the subject of grace is a beautiful mystery. It could have gone so much differently… His title ‘Where The Light Fell’, makes a lot more sense having heard his story.
Let me lead you into it without spoiling it. Yancey is 71 now, so a few years older than me and he grew up in the centre of a fundamentalist religious world that I remember all too well.
The first chapter opens with his father (a pastor) having contracted polio and being hospitalised in an iron lung. He and his wife decide to exit hospital and ‘trust in the Lord’ for his health needs. He is convinced that God will heal him, but he dies in around 6 weeks and in the aftermath Yancey’s mother dedicates her children to missionary service in Africa. As the story unfolds it’s as if she put a curse on their lives.
Yancey also writes about her theology of ‘perfectionism’ (she believed she hadn’t sinned in 12 years…) that held her captive and prevented her from showing any vulnerability. She was harsh woman and especially tough on her kids, while presenting a face of love and joy to others around her.
Yancey grows up on the outer in school and lives in a caravan / motor home with his mum and his brother. The story focuses largely on the world in which he grew up – racist, Southern Baptist and deeply committed to maintaining pretences no matter what.
I remember this world and part of the reason I am a pastor today is because I was compelled to be part of creating something that doesn’t reek of the same pompous religious tones, but rather was a place of grace and authenticity. Yancey clearly ‘transformed his pain’ (to quote Richard Rohr) into magnificent writing that was never afraid to explore the hard questions in an accessible way.
I expected to hear more of Yancey’s life as a writer / communicator but this was a ‘family history’. In many ways a truly tragic story, but one that is well worth reading. We see two lives (Yancey’s and his brother) take two very different trajectories and both were a response to their upbringing. This isn’t a book for the faint hearted, because it is littered with stories of dark religious behaviour that in places is simple abuse. But if you have ever read Yancey’s classic ‘What’s So Amazing About Grace’, then this story will give context to his writing.
Every now and then there is a part of me that gets rubbed raw and I have to articulate what’s going on. There were two moments today that brought that inner disturbance to light again, so let me fire off some thoughts and you can tell me what resonates and what is just dumb
I was listening to the Rebuilders podcast today, where Mark Sayers was interviewing Terry Walling mostly in regards to what we have learnt from the ‘Mars Hill’ podcasts (google it if you are out of that loop). During the conversation they got talking about the priority of making disciples and how this has been supplanted by the challenge of growing an outwardly successful church (think BIG – funky, cool, busy etc. To be fair discipleship is not purely correlated to church size. You can have a small church with no discipleship going on and a large church with a culture that forms people into Christ. But by and large we must concede that no one sets out to maintain a steady 60 or 70… We all want to ‘grow’ and in that aspiration there is also a subtle seduction – to give top priority to Sunday gatherings – to the shop front.
From Pete Scazzero
Ok so Sunday gatherings aren’t ‘bad’ and they do some good, but Wallings observation was that because the sacred cow of the Sunday morning gathering is the epicenter of church life, actual discipleship will always be a challenge. While the focus is on attracting people to Sunday events – either as congregants or as participants, our most significant energy is spent here. Hence there will be less time and energy for the kinds of relationships and conversations that are confronting, transformational and purposeful. In fact simply put, when we focus primarily on Sunday we take the focus away from everywhere else.
So – let’s ditch Sunday gatherings and just focus on ‘discipleship’?… Let’s get up close and personal – the kind of interactions that stretch us and challenge us… yeah?…
If only it were so simple. The problem we have is not one simply of structure – it is one where both pastors and congregation perpetuate the problem. Many people like a large Sunday gathering where they can come and be inspired, uplifted and then go home while remaining largely anonymous. ‘Church box’ ticked and now I feel better. All good right?…
Many pastors also like a larger gathering where their oratory capacities are praised and they get to feel good about themselves. (Not me – other pastors…) But when we play this game we end up in a co-dependent cycle where people are educated, inspired and maybe even formed into Christ, but the focus is on growing the crowd and discipleship comes second if at all.
Sometimes I think to myself ‘let’s re-organise Sundays into smaller groups so that we can facilitate the kinds of interactions that enable more gritty conversations – that evoke honesty, vulnerability and transparency… but I know exactly what would happen if we took that approach.
People would either stay home that week or (if it continued) they would simply go to another church. We have en-culturated people into a particular liturgy (whether you are high or low church) and they have come to see this as the primary expression of church. This is church to them.
But this is not church. It is but one expression of it – and one I feel we have given way too much weight too. Sunday looms large every week for churches and the need to do it with polish and pizazz often contributes to a culture that is reflective of this. Typically churches with more flair and polish attract the beautiful people, the hipsters and the cool, while churches that are just ‘passable’ on Sunday are populated by aging congregations or people who don’t care about ‘cool’.
That said, I honestly can’t see a way out of this maze. If we choose a path away from the Sunday centred church – the church that is all about the gathering – then (unless there is very skilled leadership) people will simply leave. They will stop coming, find a ‘real’ church and any pastors dependent on them for their income will soon be tested as to whether they really want to pursue this path… I remember when we led Upstream, many years ago now, people wouldn’t join us because we were unfamiliar, we didn’t look like church as they knew it. They just wanted an ordinary church to attend and we didn’t tick any of the boxes on their wish list. It was really difficult leading a community that struggled to grow. Even those who weren’t Christians still were curious about when we did ‘real church’. This perception of church as a gathered community on Sundays where songs are sung and sermons are preached is present in non-Christians because they have seen it in the movies.
Having led in both Upstream (smaller home based) and in more conventional church I can’t say that the discipleship processes of one clearly out-did the other. In each group there was a ‘normal curve’ of how people followed Christ. Some went hard, others ambled. I sense this is just how people are.
But I am concerned that we are trapped in a co-dependent cycle that keeps us nibbling at the edges of discipleship rather than opening the floodgates to the real deal. What do I mean by that? Simply people who show up wanting to follow Jesus more – who want to know him better – live their faith with more integrity – encounter God more genuinely – where these conversations pervade the life of a community, not in a weird way, but simply because it is who we are.
I sense the ‘success’ of discipleship in any church will have more to do with the culture set by leaders than any structure or process. If leaders clearly communicate that Sunday is the big deal and you don’t want to miss it then that will be heard loud and clear, but if leaders communicate that Jesus is the big deal and your priority is always moving closer to him then perhaps this will be seen as core.
But can you communicate that Jesus is the big deal – and so is Sunday?… Honestly – I am not convinced it is possible. The Sunday box is easy to tick – especially if it’s a rockin funky place, but ‘Jesus’ box requires much more than a tick. It is long hard work to form disciples.
I sense we have become so reliant on the Sunday form that we always struggle to re-imagine church without it. Perhaps the test of discipleship is in the kinds of relationships we participate in outside of Sundays. Do we meet with people who both inspire and challenge us? Do we have those in our lives who sharpen us and who call us on to follow Jesus more closely? Or do we just have people who will discuss football, interest rates and cars?
I get the sense that so long as Sunday is growing and feels energetic we are content, but I think Pete Scazzero’s statement (pic above) is on the money. We have to change the scorecard and I feel like I have been banging on about this for so long now… but perhaps that’s because we are still stuck in the Sunday loop.
I wish I had an answer, but I sense we have created a monster and now, because we don’t know how to tame it, instead we feed it.
I remember well my time as a ‘zealot’ type youth pastor giving altar calls while preaching and seeing many young people come forward in response – ostensibly to express their desire to follow Jesus. These were moments of great excitement and immense joy. Young lives had found their way to Jesus and they were boldly putting it all on the line. Even as I reflect on those times now it evokes a wonderful feeling of happiness at what was happening.
But I also remember that when I shared this information with other older people their responses seemed less exuberant than I anticipated. I expected long term God botherers to be whooping and hollering at the stupendous news of new birth in the kingdom of God. But often the response was restrained and quite unexpressive, as if I had said ‘tonight the youth watched a movie.’
‘Oh yeah… Nice.’
I remember when I had these experiences I would wonder what was wrong with these older Christians who did not seem at all inspired or encouraged by the news of new faith. To this day I still feel their responses were a little befuddling and may have spoken somewhat to the state of their own spirituality. I judged them much more harshly then, as half hearted, luke warm wannabes who had lost the plot in their own faith, so it was no wonder they found it hard to share in the joy of new life.
Interestingly over the last few years as I have heard similar stories both from our own church and others I have found myself with some similar reactions. I certainly share in the good news of young lives saved, but inwardly my responses are more muted and nuanced. Because 20 years on from my time doing this kind of evangelism my ‘where are they now?’ filter suggests many did one lap of the track and then found something else to devote their lives to.
Perhaps it was a failure of discipleship processes or perhaps it was just that they ‘got a better offer.’ Or perhaps the altar call’ itself is a problematic tool in evangelism. In my teen years I remember attending rallies and events where we painfully endured ‘just one more verse’ of ‘just as I am’ because there was still someone out there who needed to make peace with God. The potential for emotional manipulation in these spaces is very high and young people are particularly vulnerable. Did they really understand what they were signing up for?…
Who else remembers those words ‘every head bowed and every eye closed’? It was the cue for the Holy Spirit to begin his work… Or it was a part of a process that not so subtly messed with people’s emotions and may have even manipulated them into a position they would not have been in if they had been sitting in a silent, well lit room.
I’m not a fan of altar call evangelism. I’m not even sure if it ‘has it’s place’. If it means mood music in a dark room at the end of a long night and a persuasive speaker offering a choice between heaven and hell then it feels like a bit of an ambush for those who have attended.
My final few attempts at ‘altar call’ style evangelism – probably 12-15 years ago – met with minimal success. Because in I painted a picture of discipleship to Jesus, we don’t have any ‘sign me up’ music – just silence – and I invited people to stand up where they were as a statement of their intent. No eyes closed and heads bowed, no mood music, just a raw decision.
Do it or don’t do it. I’m not going to make it easy for you.
I’ve only done this 2 or 3 times and the response has been underwhelming on each occasion. However by setting the bar higher and choosing to paint a more holistic picture of what it means to follow Jesus I think those on the edge may have said ‘Oh… I need a bit more time to really think this thru…‘ If that is all my altar call accomplished on these occasions then I am content, knowing that if one day that person does decide to sign up they do so with a much greater consciousness of what it entails.
So hear me on this; I do want to be able to share in the joy of our young people as they see their friends find faith. I don’t want my years in the game to simply turn me into an old cynic. But I also want to acknowledge that the ‘conversion moment’, if there really is such a thing. Is but one small step in the journey of faith. When Paul wrote of those who are ‘being saved’ he seemed to be implying that it is an ongoing process, an experience I would concur with. I cannot track my ‘conversion’ to any one moment, but I can speak of many ‘moments of conversion’ where I chose Christ over the other options life offered me.
Somehow 40 years on from my own teen years I am still following Jesus and still ‘being saved’ regularly. Now I am less attracted to shiny things and more able to make the choices intuitively as distinct from my teen years when I was having to choose intentionally and often.
There is a line between cynicism and wisdom and it’s a hard one to walk in these situations because there are people who have responded to these calls and walked in faith for years to come. My unverified hunch is that those who responded and are still going likely came from Christian families where it was hoped that at some stage they would respond in faith, but for those who live in families as the only Christian I’d suggest the attrition rate is much higher. (This is a generalisation so your own story may prove me wrong…)
So – by all means please celebrate the young people finding faith and beginning a journey of discipleship. But more than that let’s make sure they have the support around them that enables them to keep making ‘conversion decisions’ when the option to give up will often be much easier. And as older people who may be aware of this, let’s enter into the joy and maybe we can just do our bit by praying for them.
And if you want to explore the (very recent) origins of the altar call then here is an article that may be helpful.
While we have been on the road part of our pondering has been around future ventures, how we invest our lives, our time, our money so that we make the best contribution we can to the kingdom of God at this point in our lives.
One of my ‘hunches’ was that I’d like to get a business up and running that could be both a source of income for Danelle and I as we get a little older, but that could also be a means of employment for people we would like to support – thinking mainly of church planters, or those needing a ‘fresh start’, or other folks who we may want to help from time to time. We chatted about 3 options that all had some potential. We looked at possibly buying another caravan or two and slowly building a hire business… That would require a storage yard and other staff… The numbers didn’t look great on it unless you go big. We knew of a lucrative evergreen school bus run that was due for sale and when we enquired it was $100K less than we thought… but unless we drove it ourselves the investment return was pretty ordinary – and then that would have consigned us to living in school terms again… nooooo. Then I noticed 2 or 3 competing irrigation businesses for sale via business brokers…
We ran the numbers on each opportunity and they all came up less exciting than we anticipated. Each opportunity introduced an extra layer of complexity to life and as we pondered it we felt none of of them were going to be worth the investment of time or money. We sensed we may end up ‘being owned’ by our business and possibly we would get distracted from our core business of being who we are as missionaries and Christian leaders. Maybe they are just ideas for another phase of life… A few years back I wrote a post about 3 core values I wanted to keep in the way we operated – they were simplicity, autonomy and flexibility. They are still big for us so any larger operations may well see them compromised.
Then a week ago I was camped up at 80 Mile Beach near Broome when an older guy walked over and began chatting with me. He had ‘just retired’ at age 70. What were you doing I asked? ‘Mobile caravan weighing was my business’ he said. I did it for 5 years then 3 weeks ago I was on a job and talking to a client about possibly selling the business and right there and then he bought it!’
‘Interesting,’ I said. ‘How do you weigh caravans? And what’s the going rate for a caravan weigh? Do you weigh other stuff? How busy were you?’ I barraged him with questions.
What followed was a very brief conversation about his enterprise and how he found himself a little overwhelmed with work. Really?… I thought… Hmmm…
From there I began researching ‘mobile caravan scales’, (as you do) and all matters related. I think I have read the entire internet on caravan weighing in the last week! And the conclusion was that for the investment in simply buying a set of scales, as well as some web dev and marketing stuff, we could have a new business that can slowly kick off in the background of Brighton Retic and hopefully in 10 years time will be at a point where it can employ someone all year round and perhaps even be saleable. And it will be simple, flexible and allow us autonomy.
One thing that attracted me to a business of this type is its potential portability. Now we have a service we can take on the road any time we travel and a source of income if we want to make some $$ while travelling.
TBH I doubt we will see a lot of action in this first twelve months, but as the word gets out and the marketing happens we will begin to generate work. So if you are interested you can head to our website here and like the FB page… And of course the great irony is not lost on me – that ‘she’ll be right Hamo’ is now running a business that is all about safety… Chuckle…
I’ve been pondering this a lot lately. Why do churches get planted? And why do churches sometimes talk about planting but struggle to ever get around to it? Why do some never even consider it?
I remember my own experience at Lesmurdie trying to lead the church to a place of planting a new church. I don’t think it would be unfair to say that in the absence of my driving the project it just wouldn’t have happened. I pushed it hard.
It wasn’t especially high on anyone else’s radar, because most people don’t think about planting churches in their day to day life. That’s not bad – not a ‘judgement’. It’s just an important observation because in the absence of an apostolic (Gk ‘apostello’ = sent one / missionary) type leader it probably won’t ever be on the radar in a serious way.
At Lesmurdie discussed it, approved its progression as leaders and then even voted on it as a church. We agreed to the idea, but no one put their hand up (either internally or externally) to grab the bull by the horns and actually lead it. I spent 14 frustrating months trying to persuade existing pastors to leave their full time jobs and move into a new and risky space, with little guaranteed income and when no one was keen I approached some entrepreneurial types and asked them if they would consider applying their skills to church planting. No one had been sitting around thinking ‘gee I wish someone would ask me to plant a church!’ (And – on reflection – if they were waiting to be invited then chances are they may be the wrong people anyway.)
I have realised most people don’t wander through their days thinking about where, how and when to plant churches. I rarely stop thinking about it. That’s not especially virtuous – it’s just a product of how I have been gifted and formed.
Nowadays I still think about planting churches, I see opportunities and I wonder about how we will move forward into them, but (unless I have a bolt out of the blue) it is more about having an eye out for the up and coming, younger apostolic types. I sense the bottom line is that churches don’t plant churches – apostolic leaders gather teams and plant churches. Existing churches support these people with prayer, resources and encouragement but churches don’t just plant other churches. There is too much bureaucracy and red tape to get thru for churches to do this – and committees rarely move quickly. So my advice if you are a church and wondering if this should be on your radar:
First – the answer is yes – in healthy organic systems birth happens, but it is preceded by desire, conception and gestation. It takes time… (If your system is unhealthy then it shouldn’t be on the radar until the issues are resolved.)
Second – if you have someone with the apostolic (missionary) drive to initiate this kind of thing then get behind them and support them. They may not even realise that this gifting is in them! So encourage them and help them flourish into the unique people God has created them to be.
As a result of Christendom, our churches are light on for apostles, prophets and evangelists, but we need these people to be encouraged and empowered to do their thing in the church so that we can achieve our mission.
I remember leaving Scarborough Baptist after 5 years as a youth pastor and heading to the hills for a new role. In between time the BUWA ran a church planting course. I remember hearing of it and thinking I must spend a week of my holidays here! I did and I was inspired by what I heard. I knew then that this was going to be high on my life’s priorities and that at some point in the future I would be doing this.
Later, when we were leaving Lesmurdie, a long time member said ‘well good luck to you. It isn’t something I would ever want to do!’ I heard his words but all I could think was ‘What a hoot! What a buzz! What an adventure!’ It wasn’t his thing – and that’s fine. But if you are reading this and thinking ‘yeah, yeahYEAH!’ – then maybe it IS for you!
Did you know most people would rather receive an electric shock than be alone with their thoughts for half an hour?
True story.
We struggle to sit still and not have something to fiddle with or look at.
I have just finished reading Daniel Sih’s book Spacemaker, where he writes of how we can have spacious, full and joyful lives by reflecting on our current patterns of living, taking stock, and then taking action to move towards a healthier and more invigorating life.
Dan is a long time friend and associate from days with Forge Australia, so when we visited he and Kylie in Tasmania this year he happily flicked me a free copy of his book. As is often the case a PDF can sit on a computer for a long time without being opened and with so much reading already scheduled Dan’s book took a back seat.
But when I opened it I literally guzzled it down in two days. It is a really valuable, genuinely interesting, but also personally challenging read. One of the big themes that pervades each section of the book is the impact of technology on our ability to live whole, joyful lives. Most of us know the lure of devices and screens and for many of us life is now incomprehensible without a screen nearby. Dan doesn’t suggest we abandon technology and pursue Luddite like ways, but rather he alerts us to the reality that what technology promises (greater productivity and space in life) it can actually end up removing if we aren’t careful. The law of diminishing returns seems to apply as we end up achieving less with more tech.
Dan has written a thoughtful, but also thoroughly practical book. It is divided into 3 sections:
Paradigms – the thinking and logic that undergirds ‘spacemaking’
Principles – the ways we can frame life to create space
Practices – the things we actually need to do to see space become a reality rather than a nice idea
The goal of the book is to help us live more productive and peaceful lives – to learn to be content – to rest – to do one thing well rather than many things poorly.
If you find yourself feeling too busy, like life is out of control and frustrated that you are not the person you want to be then I can definitely recommend Dan’s book. It presses on some nerves, so it will challenge you, but at every turn it recognises that it is better to make small gains than feel the need to upend our world and start over. Most of us have complex lives, so a complete makeover may be out of the question, but what Dan offers is some very helpful strategies (I found myself journalling as I was reading) for planning and framing both our days and our years.
After a dark history of workaholism, I have moved to a much more even keeled and gentle paced life – so much so that my physio recently introduced me to a work experience student by saying ‘this is Andrew – he’s semi retired.’ I didn’t know that… but perhaps my life gives off that vibe… When people ask me my philosophy on life it is to live a ‘spacious life’, rather than a cramped and cluttered existence so I resonated with Dan’s language. I want to be able to give both people and tasks my full attention, so I have chosen to keep my days under-loaded rather than over-loaded. It means there is always time to stop for a chat when my neighbour is outside. There is time to take a random phone call from a friend or just to hop in the hammock and enjoy the view of the ocean and the afternoon seabreeze.
Dan’s book is less written for those of us who have chosen to live life slowly, but is more written for those who live busy lives either because that is what is required of them, or by force of habit. As well as challenging us to consider our use of technology a recurrent theme is that of rest – of living from a place of rest rather than working in order to rest. Read it and try it. It really does work.
The practices Dan suggests are helpful and I found myself beginning to consider how I may better organise my life to be someone who is both spacious in living, but also productive. I know I have sacrificed some of my productivity for space in recent years and some days it feels like it could blur into laziness – not a place I want to live either.
Dan’s book has a distinct spiritual basis and yet it is not likely to be offensive to anyone who doesn’t share his worldview. He draws on wisdom from various spiritual traditions as well as his own Christian faith.
Oh and those people who got the electric shocks?… It was to show that most of us would rather experience pain that be alone with our thoughts for an extended period of time. We would rather just do ‘stuff’ – even if it is mundane unproductive stuff than be still. Bizarre hey?…
I’m one of those people deeply connected and perhaps even addicted to devices, so my pondering has been around how I can shape a less device oriented life. It isn’t just that I need devices for business. I like what they do and how they do it so I will need to do some ‘screen fasts’ and digital detoxes as Dan suggests… Even thinking about it is uncomfortable, which I guess tells you something…
If I didn’t know Dan personally I’d probably write a generous review of a very good book, but knowing him it feels like I want to point to it and say ‘hey this is good and my mate wrote it! You should read it!’
Pete Ward wrote a book by this title way back in 2001 when we were all busy trying to understand the impact of post-modernism on the church. The blurb for the books says:
The church must be like water–flexible, fluid, changeable. This book is a vision for how the church can embrace the liquid nature of culture rather than just scrambling to keep afloat while sailing over it. Ward urges us to move away from the traditional understanding of church as a gathering of people meeting in one place at one time to a dynamic notion of church as a series of relationships and communications. In the Liquid Church, membership is determined by participation and involvement. Liquid Church is continually on the move, flowing in response to the Spirit and the gospel of Jesus, the imagination and creativity of its leaders, and the choices and experiences of its worshippers.
Ultimately he was advocating church as a fluid community and set of relationships that could adapt to the culture, rather than the more rigid ‘modern’ structures that see the Sunday gathering as central and essential for church to exist.
Ward wasn’t overly suggesting we abandon existing structures, but he was pointing in that direction. Curiously he also advocated for us ‘commodifying faith’ and appealing to the consumer… Like we needed a voice to tell us that! But it does seem a bizarre thing to call for, when it’s clear that ‘consuming’ is one of our greatest idols. I didn’t resonate with that part of his book at all.
Anyway I googled Liquid Church and discovered an Australian church by this name, who seem in most regards to be a fairly stock model of Church of Christ. Is this what Ward meant? I don’t think so…
I don’t know exactly what the definition is for a ‘liquid church’, but I wonder if we should begin explorations more intently in this direction – begin trying to imagine a church beyond the gathering that is still genuinely a church.
It’s hard to do. Our imagination is calibrated so strongly to believe ‘Church = Sunday‘. No matter what we may say – this is our default paradigm and it’s almost set in stone! So to develop a conversation around a richer, stronger, more impacting form of church that is not ‘Sunday centric’ is really difficult for us. I know when we started Upstream our missionary church experiment in 2003, we did not meet on Sunday for over 3 years because we wanted to try and shift the thinking around what ‘church’ meant. Even then it was difficult and in time we all reverted back to the conventional understanding, largely because there were few willing to venture down an alternative path.
But – why should we even bother? Aren’t people just happy with Sunday as is?.. Hmmmm, some are, but I also know that:
a) for a substantial number Sunday gatherings don’t work especially well in forming them into disciples of Christ. (Which is not say they don’t work as helpful social gatherings of Christian people)
b) the compliance demands on formal expressions of church have become so onerous that it may be necessary to re-imagine informal ‘fluid’ expressions of church if we don’t wish to align with the various not for profit regulations.
The last 10 years especially has seen the role of the pastor in church life change dramatically as churches have become ‘Incorporated Not For Profit’ entities in the eyes of government and with this has come a plethora of administrative and bureaucratic tasks that must be done. For those in single pastor, smaller outfits the demands of compliance and conforming to regs has become quite a challenge. We’re talking ‘policies and procedures’, risk assessments, incident reports and plenty of other reports and administrative data that has created a black hole of bureaucracy for churches – and most of us didn’t sign up for this stuff. To master it takes time and effort – and it doesn’t end because we need to stay on top of it. It is tedious and weighty especially for smaller churches and it is one of the reasons I have intentionally changed roles. I could not muster the heart to stay on top of it all and yet the reality the person ‘at the top’ – or however you frame it – must be across it.
Yesterday morning we went to a local Anglican church in Darwin and my conversation with the pastor afterwards was around this exact subject – the burden it places on small communities and how we may be able to move forward?
The option most of us take is simple compliance and conformity – doing what’s asked and just working it out as best we can. For some people this is no issue. For some larger churches with admin staff they can outsource this to a person who finds joy making sure these i’s are dotted and t’s crossed. (I believe these people exist…)
But the other option is to ‘decommision’ or ‘dis-incorpate’ (is that the word?) church as we know it and simply gather as informal groups of people. I remember a few years ago when we had a Sunday event planned at a local park someone heard of it, rang the council and ‘dobbed us in’. Apparently there is form to be filled in, a risk assessment to be completed, and a fee to be paid before 50 people could have a picnic in a park. No kidding… We cancelled the event and on the Sunday before announced that church was also cancelled for the following week, but that a few of us ‘may be down at the park… if anyone wants to join in…’ The next week a group of 40 or 50 people met informally at the park.
I doubt we could ever replicate that type of thing on a weekly basis and keep it running. But perhaps we will find ourselves in a place one day when the screws tighten further where we simply say ‘ok, we are closing the book on this organisation, but we want you to keep gathering informally as ‘the church”.
I know some of you are already thinking ‘that’s a dumb idea and it won’t work.’ I agree in parts that it is very likely going to die a dismal death. But not because we couldn’t pull it off.
It would die because we are by and large more committed to the Sunday event as ‘church’ than we are to one another as church. Can you see the serious problem there? If we ditched Sunday events for a year how would your faith fare? Where would it be nourished and resourced? If Sunday didn’t exist who would you actively seek out to connect with and ‘fellowship’ with – as in talk of Jesus with?
Anyone?
I would sense that a way too large percentage of Christians ‘attend church’ but struggle to ‘do church’. If we were to move to informal gatherings, with no central pastoral team to make the wheels turn then would we see faith nourished and sustained or would we see it drop off a cliff? I have a sense that for some people the act of being in a church community is so linked to Sunday that they would struggle to imagine another way. I imagine some would actually thrive as they latched on to the opportunity to share life with others and sustain one another. But it would be fluid and may not look like church. Those who find security in ‘ticking boxes’ would get the jitters.
I sometimes get the jitters writing stuff like this, because I don’t know that I could give leadership to a bunch of people in this form – or that I could see missional intent sufficiently present in a group of this kind.
THe word ‘busyness’ keeps crossing my mind as a reason we would fail at liquid church. You need large slabs of available time to be with people. Too many of work too long and too hard for this to be possible.
And then if we did pull it off, how would we stop simply gathering with ‘people like us’? Those in our age and stage? How would we keep the diversity of the body? How would we connect with the broader body?
If church went ‘underground’ and was invisible except to those with eyes to see would we become better disciples of Jesus? Better missionaries? Better human beings?…
Would ‘The Church’ do better or worse in this mode?
My working ‘definition’ of church is that of a ‘covenant community of people committed to loving God, loving one another and loving the world’. A key concept in there is that we covenant to be those kinds of people and to be committed to one another. It’s a much bigger ask than a Sunday gathering and it’s intended to be how we operate today, but the struggle is that often ‘ticking the Sunday box’ leads us to believe we are fulfilling the requirements of church.
What if church was 2 or 3 families a couple of oldies and singles geographically based who were in each other’s lives to the point where when they gathered it was not to catch up on the news because they already lived in those kinds of relationships, but was rather to purposefully focus on Jesus and share what they had been experiencing of him since the last time they met? It was to purposefully pray for their friends and neighbours and to live as missionaries.
We could do this without all the red tape and hoops that we currently have to jump thru, but could we?… Really?… Could we?…
Nah – lets just stick with 3 fast, 3 slow, offering announcements and sermon followed by a cup of tea and a biscuit… that oughta crank out serious disciples!
In just a few days this has become an iconic image all around Australia and anyone who watched that bronze medal game the other night will find it hard to look at without a teary eye. Two mates, two comrades, two warriors who finally saw their hard work bear fruit and the cards fall their way as the first Aussie basketball team to have the honour of taking home an Olympic medal.
I read one newspaper article that said It was the’ bronze medal that felt like gold’ and when you watched the Aussie boys on the podium, the joy they showed and the comradeship with one another, that was the message that came thru. Contrast that with the Americans who seemed fairly nonchalant and you realise how significant this moment was.
Personally, I have been watching these guys since 1976, when there was minimal TV footage of basketball games, when Phil Smyth, Ray Borner and Larry Sengstock carried the team. The Gaze years were strong and ever hopeful, but we just couldn’t get there and then there was that double overtime heart break against Spain when we looked every bit a world class team, but luck was against us. We just seemed to be ‘that team’ constantly dogged by bad luck.
As I sat down to watch the bronze medal game on Saturday night my heart was literally beating faster, hoping that this might be the year – hoping we wouldn’t have a sleepy spell like we did against the Americans two days prior. Jerry Seinfeld has a sketch where he mocks the ‘we won!’ line that spectators often cry when their team does well. ‘You didn’t win – you watched‘, he says. Well on Saturday night Seinfeld was wrong. I know I was one of thousands of hopeful Australian spectators sitting on the edge of their seats wishing their team to their first ever Olympic medal. I know I have walked the road every 4 years of devotedly watching them when they were abysmal as well as watching when they finally made it to the bronze of the podium. I don’t get animated easily but that night the whole caravan park new that ‘WE WON!’ because WE did and it was glorious!
Two steps to go and whether we get there or not is kinda not the point. WE did win and we can be incredibly proud of a bunch of men who modelled for us teamwork and comradeship.
