Forgive me Father - for I wear Nike

"Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world - the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life - is not of the Father but is of the world. And the world is passing away, and the lust of it; but he who does the will of God abides forever." (1 John 2:15)

In the world, but not of it… This phrase has been one that has haunted me throughout my life (especially my adolescence). I can still remember the preaching from the pulpit, or the lectures from my Sunday school teachers and youth group leaders. To be in the world but not of it, meant that you had to live up to a strict code of moral behaviours… No drinking, no swearing, no drugs, no rock music, no discos, no D&D, no Harry Potter, no Sex, no late nights, no parties…etc…etc. These sort of behaviours were supposed to make us some sort of beacon of hope in the darkness of the morally corrupt world, and the sinners were to be attracted to the light of Christ in you. Or at least those that were ready to see the errors of their ways would be attracted… clearly none of my friends were ready, they all thought I was a loon. As a result, more often than not I would fall back into the world to be with my friends and therefore stuff up any sort of witness that I could have had.

I think somehow, we have missed the point here, Jesus taught that the world would HATE us, not simply think that we were weak or out of date. DON’T GET ME WRONG, I think that many of these sort of ‘rules for Christian living’ are valid and should be practiced by Christians (but clearly as you can see from my above list I also think that often these rules can be manipulated for the sake of control rather than Christian character). But there seems to be some real problems if these ‘rules’ are presented as the way we stand separate from the world.

Firstly, the ‘rules’ are extremely judgemental, If you follow them you are good, if you don’t your bad. If you follow them you are ‘in’ (‘in’ the club, and therefore out of the world), if you don’t your ‘out’ (‘out’ of the word and therefore in the world). If you follow them you can feel very proud of yourself and self righteous (oh, wait… that’s a sin too isn’t it??), if you stuff up and break a rule you are condemned either by your peers/leaders or by your own self talk. In fact, as I write this I notice how close this attitude would seem to be to the actions of the Pharisees that Jesus condemned…

"Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You give a tenth of your spices—mint, dill and cummin. But you have neglected the more important matters of the law—justice, mercy and faithfulness. You should have practiced the latter, without neglecting the former”. (Mat 23:23)

Secondly it all seems a bit cheap to me, a bit surface. It seems to be one of those Christian double standards, we are called to live a morally upright life, by following the highly visible and external ‘rules’, but we are not called to address the issues in our life that have to do with mercilessness and injustice. For the most part we are so busy living up to the rules and being a good witness that we have missed how the way we are living our lives is hurting others. We are the rich man, and Lazarus is at our gate. What is worse is that our sin is not simply ignoring Lazarus, it is being part of a system that is harming him!

These sorts of parables and Jesus words quoted above were what made the leaders of His day hate Him. It was this that caused Him to die on the cross. If we limit the purpose of Jesus’ time on earth to simply the atonement, we miss a lot of what he was about… yes he died for our sins, but the reason he hung on the cross is because he spoke out and lived a life that condemned the powers that be… his very life was pointing the finger at the evils of the system.

Think about it… He broke the Sabbath laws to heal a crippled, essentially worthless man. He became unclean when a menstruating woman touched him and he did not condemn her, but rather spoke with her and validated her in the sight of the crowd. He prevented the stoning of a woman caught in adultery, she sinned, and this was her due punishment, yet he stopped it happening. He upturned tables in the temple. Jesus lived a life that was in opposition to the system, and the system hated Him for it.

Anyway… All that to say, maybe it would be more effective to ask if we are in the System but not of the System … if we truly stand up against the system and live an alternative and Godly life following in the footsteps of our Lord Jesus, then the system will not simply think we are old fashioned or a bit wacky, it will truly hate us… and whether we like it or not, that is what Jesus has called us to!

Peter

PS. I know I have not really addressed the title of this blog post – unless you read between the lines a bit… I’ll get onto that confession another day

Journey towards the poor...

I was recently asked what it was that started my journey in ministering to the poor and marginalised. As I thought about it my mind initially went to my introduction to UNOH, visiting and volunteering at Foodbank during my RDO every second Tuesday, or reading some fantastic books by Ash Barker, or even attending the Surrender conference and hearing Jackie Pullinger or Tony Campolo speak. But as I thought about it more, I realised that the Lord had introduced me to the need for ministry to the poor much earlier than I had originally thought.
It was many year earlier as I was just beginning to be introduced to the concept of Missions that I had the opportunity to visit a church plant in Sri Lanka. My home church at the time was a kind of parent church to the church in Sri Lanka, and was a major financial supporter of the church. I was asked to go and visit the church on an annual basis to touch base with them, check them out and let them know they were supported (I guess morally more than financially).

There are many things that today bother me about this scenario, and there were many things that were being done by both the Parent and Daughter church that I would struggle with today. But regardless of the fact that the Church in Sri Lanka relied on outside support to function and that the relationship was fairly imperialistic, the church was essentially reaching out to the poorest people in the city of Kandy, and the reality was that the structure of the church (with two paid full-time pastors) could not have functioned without outside support as the congregation barely had enough money to feed themselves let alone support any sort of church structure. The church was trying to model itself after the classic mega-church model of Australia and trying to emulate our worship, preaching styles and trappings. They were being influenced by the teachings of Benny Hinn and Kenneth Copeland by video that some well meaning but direly misguided supporter was posting out to them on a monthly basis.

When I visited I was expected to preach every Sunday as the VIP western Pastor, and although I preach predominantly on how much this church had to offer the wider church and how they should not try to emulate the west but recognise their own forms of worship as pleasing to the Lord, I was obligated to hold an altar call and pray for each and every member of the congregation and see them ‘slain in the Spirit’. But besides the heavily colonial dynamic of the Sunday service it was on the day to day of church life that the true church amongst the poor could be seen.

It was in the nightly bible studies and prayer meetings that various members of the congregation came together to share a meal and simply fellowship, it was at these times that worship was casual and much more culturally relevant, and prayer and study were dialogical and passionate. The congregation were committed to visiting each other on a regular basis and helping each other out when things were difficult. As I reflect back on the church I realise how much they emulated the Church seen in Acts 4. The real inspiration to me was one of the paid pastors who lived on a bare minimum despite being given a very generous income from our church. The rest of his money was given to those in the church who were really struggling, the widows and the lame and he spent all his time visiting congregation members and being a real hands-on support to anyone who needed it.

Unfortunately my involvement with that church was cut short due to the other full time pastor being sent to study in Australia and having his head filled with grand visions of mega-churches, his decision was to no longer come under the cover of our church but to look for support from another bigger, more impressive Aussie mega church who said they would support them for six months after which time they would have to be self supporting. This concept at face value sounds great, however the reality of it was that when they asked how they could support themselves the suggestion was that they should stop trying to attract the poor in the community but should rather aim their church towards the middle class of Kandy. Needless to say the dream of a shiny rich mega church won out in the end for this pastor and they decided to follow that course.

I have not heard from that church since that time, I have no idea if they are still operating. I often think about the generous pastor and what he is doing with his life at the moment. Although I have a lot of sadness about the future of this congregation, I thank God for the experience of this church and the chance to see how a real church amongst the poor can function. This experience was truly foundational to my current vocation even if at the time I did not realise it… But then I guess most of our formation is done on a subconscious level through experiences like this.

I'm Back.... No Really I Mean This Time!!

IT has been almost a year since I last blogged, It has been a tough time for me with a lot of soul searching on top of all the other stuff I do, But I am dedicated to continue Blogging again...

I have found it is an essential outlet for me... I guess it is the same thing as journaling for some, but this is more electronicy as well as more publicy...

So anyway here goes!!