Month: May 2012

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Why Church? – Good Question…

Recently, I preached a series of sermons called ‘Love My Church’. I was seeking to develop a very positive mindset toward the church, and why we should engage more deeply with it. That got me asking another set of questions, and those questions have grown into a series of posts…

For those who don’t know God…

I wonder where the church fits in the experience and awareness of the general community. Maybe the question is not one of ‘where’ but ‘whether’… I guess we have all heard the cliched responses that in the mind of the general community the church is irrelevant, or invisible, or worse. Church leaders have asked often their congregations “if our church was to disappear overnight, would we be missed?”. The question my be cliched, but the answer often troubles us, and that may be for good reason.

For those who know God…

You might expect that for those who know God and follow His Son, Jesus, there would be a more ringing endorsement. Here, the feedback varies. Some Christian love their church, and dedicate much time and energy to making their local church a really terrific place.

But how many of us would say that they love their church, and that meeting with other Christians ‘at church’ is the highlight of their week? And if their answer is not resoundingly positive, what are the factors there?

what we think about the church has enormous impact on how healthy it is

Maybe how we talk about church exposes something of the issue:

People ‘go to church’

People ‘get fed with the word at church’

People ‘have fellowship at church’

People ‘are blessed by the ministries, programs and services their church provides’

Pastors ‘work at church, serve their church, and prepare for the services to be held at the church’

My thought is that what we think about the church has enormous impact on how healthy it is, and how well it does what God calls it to do in the community and the world.

The next posts will explore these thoughts a little more.

Love to hear your thoughts…

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“When I was a stranger…”

This morning’s news reports Bernie Fraser, former Governor of Australia’s Reserve Bank, as saying, ‘For a long time I’ve thought Australia could become something of a special country, a demonstration of a country that was competitive, fair and compassionate and I’m afraid those hopes have been dashed…’ [ABC News]

One area where compassion and consideration could be brought to bear is how we receive asylum seekers.

At the outset, we recognise there needs to be expedient processing of claims and an even handed establishment of the bona fides of those who seek asylum. While around 90% of all claims are typically found to be genuine, we need not neglect due process because most seem legitimate. We do wonder, though, whether it needs to take as long as it does sometimes take.

Muddy

Jon Owen’s book, “Muddy Spirituality: Bringing it all back down to earth” tells the story of how one local Melbourne pastor collaborated with Hotham Mission to provide lodging for a group of asylum seekers:

“Aside form having to keep strong communication lines open, and with nearly daily cultural misunderstandings from a multi-national household, we also sought to make the house a home. When men live together the natural tendency is to shut off and make the place more like a boarding house, rather than a place where support can be found … it was a place where God was regularly sought, as we all learnt what it meant for people who were never meant to meet, to be forced by circumstances to live together. Regular common meals were the place where community was formed and relationships built”

They called it “The House of Hope” because they received people who have so few rights and so little protection, and they created a place where they received shelter, support and community. For the asylum seekers who stayed there and for those who oversaw the project, “The House of Hope” provided an opportunity to rediscover God’s compassion and the meaning of humanity.

“We got to meet many men from many nations and hear heart breaking stories of murder, torture and painful separation that left them scarred and traumatised”

See, all of us get to choose how we respond to the issue of refugees and asylum seekers. We can listen to the voices of fear and suspicion, and retreat into isolation and rejection. Or we can live in the values of mateship, a fair go, of justice, humility and peace that reveal the kingdom of God.

We can listen to the voices of fear and suspicion, and retreat into isolation and rejection. Or we can live in the values of mateship, a fair go, of justice, humility and peace that reveal the kingdom of God.

“Ministry begins with noticing the people who are all too easily overlooked. For those of us seeking to follow Jesus there are no invisible people. We need to pray that God provides us with the same eyes as Jesus. This vision begins when, instead of looking upwards, we look down at those who exist at our feet. The image of the Good Samaritan, getting off his donkey can truly become an icon for our transformation if we begin to allow the donkey of our culture’s hopes and dreams to stop driving us along the road, and we hop off for long enough, we will meet the people Jesus met.”
[Jon Owen, Muddy Spirituality]

On the night before one of the residents left to marry his fiancee, he spoke these moving words to everyone in the house, “thank you for helping awaken something within me what I thought was lost forever – the ability for my heart to once again love and trust, what I once lost has now been found, my heart thanks you.”

Read those words. Listen carefully, and you may be able to hear angels rejoicing…