Gospel Activity

At our staff prayers this week I was really struck by all the Gospel activity going around St Jude's at the moment.

• This week is the Don Carson – Christ Expo at RMIT Story Hall.
  
• Don has been speaking at the 5 Weeks 5 Questions at Melbourne Uni CU.
  
• Several staff mentioned people by name with whom they were sharing the gospel.
  
• Two short term mission trips are being planned one to Pakistan and the other to Thailand (with the youth)
  
• There are several camps (5, youth group, Unichurch) in the pipeline.
  
• Our 5x2 Project trying to find a new venue for St Jude's ministry is well underway.
  
• City Bible Forum events kick off next week.
  
• Two baptisms are planned for this Sunday at 11am and 5pm
  
• Cross Cultures are having dinner in Leader's homes this week.
  
• Kid's ministry planning a film and pizza night
  
• And a Taste of Mission event next week
  

On Sunday I continue my sermon series on the ten Commandments on Sunday morning 9am and 11am.

What a joy to be involved in all of this.

Nothing New Under the Sun

It has been so good to see City on a Hill grow so well over the last couple of years. Earlier this month they took up a new home in the Hoyts Cinema in Melbourne Central, and God really seems to be blessing his church right in the City http://www.cityonahill.com.au/.

It seems a bit edgy to have a church in a Cinema, very 2010! Until …

I was cleaning up my library after moving house, and found a book by the Revd Arthur Preston, who was the minister at my parents' church, West End Methodist Mission in Brisbane in the 1940's and 50's. Having re-heard some of his story when planning Dad's funeral, about how he began the Blue Nursing Service in Brisbane and Dad helped him out, I decided to read the book.

In an attempt to reach the ordinary working person in West End in the late 1940's, Arthur Preston, much to the shock and horror of the established church, rented out the local cinema during the week for church meetings. He gave "Plain talks to the people" and basically used the Cinema as a gospel preaching platform! Many hundreds of people came to Christ as he took the message to them in their own space. The book is filled with testimonies of conversion.

May God bless City on a Hill like that again, 60 years later in Melbourne.

Gospel Fruit

When I was at university, we used to run missions in local country towns during the semester breaks. One of these was in the far NW NSW town of Collarenebri. We never heard much about the ongoing fruit of the Gospel in those places. Today I received this great email from a Uni friend, Ian, who was on the Collarenebri Mission:

Hi Richard,

Thought this would encourage you. Billy Williams is a dynamic indigenous leader and preacher up here in Qld. We had him come and preach at our Church last Sunday. Here is his story:

Last Sunday night I was preaching at North-East Baptist church for the first time. In order to fill the congregation in I commenced by telling them I was originally from a small town in North-West NSW called Collarenebri. After the service concluded the Senior Pastor, Ian Hussey, came over and told me that in the early 1980's, when he was living in Armidale NSW (400km away from Collarenebri), he and some other students had travelled there to conduct a kids holiday program. I asked him, "Did it have a frog in it?" to which he replied, "I think so." We both cautiously agreed that I may have been a participant because there wasn't much to do in Colly during holidays and one of my Aunties was part of the Anglican church at that time and I remember going to a program when I was about 10 before I left for school in Tamworth (356km away from Collarenebri). I remembered that I had kept a memento from the program (why is only apparent now!), a folded A4 sheet of paper with encouraging notes from The Adventures of Ernie the Frog leaders; so when I got home I dug up amongst some old papers and found it. My Mum, who is staying with us, heard me cooee and wondered what was going on. There on the front page was this message, "Dear William, Good luck in the future. Remember that Jesus is always there waiting for you... Ian Hussey." How true those words from 1984 proved to be, truer perhaps than Ian, and certainly I, could have ever imagined as 15 years later I came to faith in a Baptist church in Townsville (1410km away from Collarenebri) and 26 years later I came to preach in Ian's church in Nundah (645km away from Collarenebri).

Now doesn't that send a shiver down the spine!

Kind Regards

Ian

God works in amazing ways, sowing seeds and reaping when he wills.

Honour your Father and Mother

This seems particularly pertinent this week. Not only is Sunday Mother's Day, it is also just over a week since I attended my father's funeral. So preaching on the 5^th Commandment is especially relevant.

It is easy to think that this commandment is directed at small children. And certainly some of the NT applications of it, like Ephesians 6:1-3, seem to be directed there. But it is most likely that the target audience of the Commandments were adults. Today we live in a very different world to Ancient Israel. Rather than living in the home with my parents as they did, my folks have lived thousands of kilometres away from me, for most of my adult life. What on earth can honouring them mean now?

I was thinking about this last week as I stood beside my father's bed. He was sweating profusely with a fever, as his body struggled to fight the infections in his lungs. I was mopping his brow with a damp face washer. I remembered how he had done the same to me as a little child. How he held me strongly when I was ill. What an amazing privilege to honour my Dad, by tending to his needs as he had done to mine so many years before. The role reversal in honour was quite something.

I am not a child any more. I was an adult serving another adult. But at the same time, I felt like such a little helpless child, as my Dad's life ebbed out of his body. Here was my father, so helpless. And his loss in my life is profound. With him goes his voice, his kind words, his pride in me, his disappointment in some of my choices, the discipline I had as a kid, his laughter. To honour him now seems to be to grieve him well, to speak of him, to tell people what a great guy he was.

And to honour my Mum, who is now widowed of her husband of 53 years? Well I try to call every day. I pray. I will try to relieve her administrative burdens. and so on. But it goes deeper than that. Honour is an attitude of the heart.

I wonder if others want to share what they think this commandment can mean today?

Movements

Yes I knowthe list of books to the right it looks a little bit ridiculous. But yes I am reading all of these books at different times.

We have just invited Steve Addison who wrote the book on Movements to speak at our staff conference in June. I heard him speak a few years back on what has fuelled missionary movements around the world. His book is study of this. He also blogs about it here.

It is really exciting stuff, about when things just take off and multiply. The sad thing is he claims that movements never ever take off from the centre of an organisation, and that's where I find myself most of the time. But maybe we can create an organisation at St Jude's, or even the Diocese of Melbourne, which is a good seed bed in which movements can grow.

I bought the book ages ago and skimmed it then. But I read 1/3 of it last night. Trouble is, it is so good it keeps me awake.

Idols

Beginning to think about next Sunday's sermon on "idolatry". Wonder what makes the difference between enjoying something like food, or a new car, or a job, and making it your idol. Well, not what "makes the difference" because that is clearly worship and the place the thing has in your heart. But more the question is: How do we stop good things that we enjoy, becoming idols in our lives? Any ideas?

10 Words

Preparing to preach on the Ten Commandments beginning this Sunday. I am stunned by how contemporary they are. They address so many issues that are live in our world today: (the links take you to the secular media)

· Atheism and Belief in God (#1 No other gods)
· Materialism, Workaholism, Environmentalism, ???ism (#2 On Idols)
· Swearing Oaths and the ubiquity of the phrase “Oh my God” on the TV (#3 on the Lord’s Name)
· Work-Life balance (#4 Sabbath keeping)
· The breakdown of the family (#5 Parents)
· Wars and Rumours of wars, capital punishment, street violence (#6 Murder)
· Marriage and Sexuality (#7 Adultery)
· Global Poverty and Western wealth (#8 Stealing)
· The main backdrop to every story on A Current Affair (#9 Lying)
· The darkness of the human heart (#10 Coveting)

I have called the series “Words of Life” because I think that, far from being restrictive, negative and outdated, these words give us a vision for the good life. The life as God intended. A life full of hope, security, confidence, work-life balance, strong families, peace, faithful relationships, generous care of the needy, truthfulness and purity of thought. Now THAT is a world I want to live in.

Serious Issues

Isn't it interesting, that 1500 people have signed up for the Global Atheist Convention this weekend in Melbourne, but that there has been so little in the paper about it?

This morning a report on the opening night of the Rise of Atheism appeared on page 12 in The Age. All the while Lara Bingle and Michael Clarke have been on the front page for days on end.

Doesn't this tell us something about the appetite of Australians to talk about serious matters? Life is more a soap opera than a serious endeavour. Still thank God that there are people who really do want to talk about truth and reality.

Looking forward to hearing Greg Clarke at BMW Edge tonight - on the Difference Jesus makes to Atheism and Belief. The Atheist mantra is that belief is basically irrational. It will be good tonight to hear some reasonable faith!

Atheism in Melbounre

The Global Atheist Convention hits Melbourne on March 12. That got me thinking about how well prepared I am to engage with the big questions about why I believe in God. Someone recommended A friendly Letter to Sceptics and Atheists, by David Myers. I have just started the book, and am enjoying it a lot. (Don't agree with it all, but general approach is good.) I have another book recommended to me on order as well.

I simply won't do, for Christians to contend for their faith by answering the question why we believe, with "I just do". That is intellectually sloppy.

One of the things I love about St Judeans is that they want an intellectually robust faith, that stands up to reason and scrutiny. Sometimes this means we are a bit heady and forget where our hearts are. But the upside is that debates about the existence of God, are well and truly within the scope of normal.

We have decided to respond to the Rise of Atheism conference with a series of events called The Resurrection of Theism. These range from equipping Christians to engage with Atheist thought, through to events designed to promote further conversation. Have a look here for some more information.

CofE recognises ACNA

Last year at the Melbourne Synod, I moved a modest motion to recognise the newly formed Anglican Church in North America (ACNA) as authentic Anglicans, and to extend the hand of fellowship to them, expressing our desire for them to become part of the Communion once again.

(ACNA is the new grouping of Anglicans formed, who hold the historic Anglican faith, rather than the novel new faith espoused by the leaders of The Episcopal Church, and the Anglican Church of Canada)

Sadly the Melbourne Synod declined (by the narrowest of margins) to take this step. It was argued by more than one person on the Synod floor, that this was "premature" given that ACNA is so new. I am amazed by this, because the motion simply asked the Synod to recognise other faithful Anglican believers, and extend the hand of fellowship to them. How could Christian fellowship be "premature"? Still this was the mind of those gathered.

How encouraging to read today that the Church of England showed itself big hearted enough to to do exactly this. You can read more about this here. Maybe the Melbourne Synod will one day have the same generosity of heart!

Australia Day

I have a love / hate relationship with Australia Day.

I love living in Australia. I love the people who live here. I love the lifestyle. I love the opportunities and freedom. I love it that there are people from every nation on my local tram, who either do or aspire to call themselves Australians. I love lamb! And I love having a day off to celebrate it all. "Break out the thongs and light the barbie", I say. I am very thankful to God for allowing me to be here.

But Jan 26 seems a sad day to be celebrating this. A friend always wishes me a "Happy Invasion Day" on this day each year.

Fundamentally I struggle with a celebration that recalls the day when the British Empire decided that this was terra nullius - land "belonging to nobody". I hate that disregard for the inhabitants of the land. I hate the fact that Australia was taken from the Indigenous people of this place, and that we stole what was theirs. I hate the fact that there are still deep inequalities between indigenous and other Australians. (See here for an interesting view from Peter Adam - my good friend and Principal at Ridley)

Psalm 145 is the reading in the lectionary for Australia Day this year. Here are verses 8-9 - a true promise for our country:

The LORD is gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love. The LORD is good to all, and his compassion is over all that he has made.

May he continue to show his steadfast love and faithfulness to us and exercise his compassion and mercy on us. May we become a just nation, and not forget the God who made us.

Summer Under the Son

We got back from "Summer Under the Son" conference on Wednesday. What a great 5 days it was too.

Bible expositions from Acts 9-11 by Kanishka Raffel. I found these very challenging. A couple of highlights -

• In Acts 9 thinking about Paul's Conversion on the Damascus Road. How easy it is to give up praying that God will move in some people's lives, yet here is a story of how he turned an arch enemy of Jesus around in a moment. We so often want to see people take little steps towards Jesus, little signs that God is at work - but of course in Paul's case there were none. I have a renewed desire to pray that even the most resistant of my friends can be converted to Christ.
• In Acts 12 considering the secret sovereign hand of God at work behind the scenes: rescuing Peter from prison, but letting James die. We so often can't fathom what he is up to, but assured that his purposes are good. There were lots of damp eyes as KR reminded us to hang in, trusting in God even when we can't see his purpose.

Then there were terrific missionary talks. So inspiring to hear ordinary people talking about the work they do for God around the world. There is so much need - in so many places. I often found myself wondering if we should pack up and go overseas. But for the time being think that staying at St Jude's and raising up more missionaries from the congregation is probably the right strategy.

It was great to see so many St Judeans involved: from the tech team to music, to leading among youth, to leading sessions in the auditorium, serving on branch council etc. Praise be that we have a mission minded church. However it would be good to see more St Jude's folk at SUTS each year. Watch out for 2011!

A long silence

I have been away from my blog for ages.

Last year got caught up finishing my D Min thesis on Church Culture. I submitted it on Nov 30 and now await the examiners reports. They give no indication of turnaround time. So a good exercise in trusting patience.

Since then I have been on holidays enjoying God's creation in northern NSW (Byron Bay) and south east Qld (Gold Coast and Brisbane) and have just returned from two weeks on a Theos Beach Mission in Mallacoota.



My wife and I were team parents for a team of young adults running programs to reach 15-25 year olds on holiday or living in Mallacoota (in far eastern Victoria) with the good news about Jesus. It was such a privilege to spend time with energetic committed Christian young people, who give up their own time to reach out like this. It was a great boost for our faith too.



I got to teach through the whole of the Book of Judges. Such an amazing story of the stupidity of God's people. Yet so close to our own stupidity. How often we find ourselves doing "what is right in our own eyes" and ignoring what God wants of us. How slow we are to learn.



Now we are about to spend 5 days at the Summer Under the Son conference at Philip Island run by CMS Victoria.It promises to be a great week of good teaching and hearing from CMS Missionaries around the world. The kids are off to the youth program.