Blasphemy Challenge

Hi guys, as you are aware, I have been playing around a lot on myspace of late (in an attempt to get my head around it for UNOH promotional purposes - see shobie's myspace page... I did that! - but I did not come here to blow my own trumpet). While playing around on myspace I came across a group known as the Confession Campaign which is a direct response to another group known as the Blasphemy Challenge. The Blasphemy Challenge is a bunch of sceptics or rationalists convincing people to make videos and post them on myspace or youtube, renouncing the holy spirit in their lives. I am not quite sure of the rational behind it, to me it seems quite juvenile, but in the U.S. it has got a lot of attention and the church is up in arms about it.

The Church of course has responded, and the Confession Campaign is one such response, here is what they see their mission as...

We have one weapon, prayer that is aligned with the WORD OF GOD. This is how we'll fight off this challenge and whatever else Satan schemes with. Our goal needs to be to expose these fads, educate people about these fads, and to help the lost from falling for these frauds. This is our mission statement: 1. Confess Jesus with your mouth. 2. Confess Jesus with your lifestyle. 3. BE BOLD!!! Do you want a challenge? Then follow these 3 things. Make a video, we'll put it on this site, leave a comment, send pictures, confess Jesus at school, work, or the street, do whatever you feel challenges you... but BE BOLD

Now I strongly agree with the sentiment above - this is how I am trying to live out my life... the problem is that the only real outcome seems to be that people are making videos stating that they believe in the Holy Spirit and follow Christ. What it ends out as is a Tit-for-tat battle, and really, what good is that?

Yet again, I think that we have missed the point (I don't think that the confession campaign has missed it - I think those subscribing to it have). Yet again the church has circled its wagons, trying to defend itself against attack. I hate to tell you this guys, but a video stating that you believe in OR renounce the Holy Spirit is going to do nothing in the bigger scheme of things.

A friend of mine, Ash Barker once said something along the lines of "The world does not need more words, the world needs more words become flesh" which to me follows on from St Francis' famous quote of "everywhere you go preach the Gospel, and if necessary use words". The blasphemy Challenge in my opinion only exists because the church has lost it's way, has become a laughing stock & is viewed as hypocritical. If we actually stopped trying to defend ourselves and stepped out & lived the Gospel (and the Gospel is good news TO THE POOR! - the hurting, the lonely, the marginalised etc), then maybe the world would once again see that the church is a force of change for the good.

If they are going to persecute us - and the bible says they will, let them persecute us because we are doing the right thing and not because we are sitting back, getting fat, protecting ourselves and hurling judgement and condemnation onto the world.

The church in the west is once again being forced into the margins, we are no longer main stream! - we are getting back to where we were in the first 300 years of the church's history, a powerful time for Christians, a time of persecution, but also a time of witness (through action) and effectiveness. Lets pray that the church wakes up, sees the position it is in and starts to head out into the world to make a difference and does not become defensive and circle its wagons until it is finally taken over.

heartache and joy

We are going through a particularly tough time at the moment. There has been a very large amount of heartache and pain in members of our extended family of late, I will not go into any details about it, as many of the people who read this blog are known by these family members and I have to give them the respect that they deserve. Needless to say that these situations are playing in the back of both Naomi & My heads as we continue on in our work here in Noble Park. It is difficult as we dedicate ourselves to our work to know that family members are suffering, and while if it is ever really needed we could go and be with the family, there is a sense of separation as we have dedicated to living and working in this community 24 hours 6 days a week. Our prayers and thoughts are with them all.

At the same time, we are facing heartache here in our community too, we have now been in the community long enough to experience the ravaging power of addiction, as two of our regular friends have lapsed into their addictions again and have ostracised themselves form the community. It is horrible to think that just a month or two earlier these two people were active participants in our community and now they have hidden themselves from any assistance and are suffering under the influences of their addictions. I am told however that more often than not these things are cyclical, and that these people will most likely be back, and the hope is that eventually, as we demonstrate the liberating power of Christ, the cycle will be broken.

Needless to say, these things make us feel like we are under attack, (and this is where the old Pentecostal theology comes back into play guys) and the only time that we get attacked seems to be when Satan feels under threat from our actions (I am not saying that these things are only happening because of us - that would be extremely egotistical, the universe is way too complex for that, but things do seem to align and occur at particular times, it is almost like there is some higher power at work). We will continue to do our work regardless, we will continue to stand in opposition of the work of the enemy, we will continue to see God's Kingdom come.

The reason for Satan's attack on our lives would have to be that like no time before in the year or so that we have been living in NP, Naomi and I feel really plugged into the community, we feel like we are really contributing and really digging deeper in the lives of those around us. We have become extremely involved in a group of Burmese immigrants, working along side their kids, teaching them English and helping with their homework, visiting these people and really building relationships. We have also started to build friendships with others in our community, including a Sri Lankan family with a son who suffers from the same disability that I myself do - cerebral palsy. Anyway, all this to say that we feel that we are really at home and in the flow here and we praise the Lord as a result!!

Please pray for our family and friends who are suffering.

Pray for our own peace of mind and strength.

Pray that we can continue to dig deeper into this community and these relationships, seeing real transformation occur.

Thank you...

Peter

Sacred/Secular Duality

In playing around with myspace over the last few weeks, I have been confronted by a theme that I often think about and probably have blogged about in one form or another many times, and that is, what does it mean to be a Christian…

I came across one site of a guy professing to be a Christian. In his “about me” blurb, he mentioned that he believes in forgiving but not forgetting, and explained about how he has a 3 strikes and your out policy (as if this is a virtue), unless of course you do something really bad and then you are out on the first strike. I have read other myspace entries by Christian musicians explaining about why they don’t sing Christian songs, and whilst I understand the dilemma they are going through and understand what point they are trying to get at, there seems to be this duality going on in their lives, where they can separate the sacred from the secular within their own lives.

On the subject of Christian art, I agree, a Christian should not feel compelled to sing about Jesus, just like a painter should not feel compelled to paint the cross in their work, but if an artist is a Christian, doesn’t their artwork by default become Christian? The values sung about the feelings expressed, should be a reflection of that belief (and again I am not talking about veiled love songs that actually are dedicated to Jesus and not a girl/boy friend). In the same way, the work of an abstract artist who is a Christian, is imbued with the values of that persons relationship with Christ, even without Christian icons being present on the canvas, and even without anyone else understanding the value of the work…

My point by all of this was not to defend the work of a ‘non-religious’ Christian artist, but to challenge the separation of sacred and secular in our lives. I don’t think it can really be done. Again I am not saying that we need to fluff around acting religious, greeting everyone we see with a “Jesus Loves You” and calling everyone brother or sister, but if the values of the Gospel, the values of the Kingdom, are not present in our lives, then our lives are not given over to Him, and we need to reassess our values.

This kind of concept reminds me of the movie “The people versus Larry Flynt”, a biographical movie about a pornographic magazine editor. In this movie, Larry becomes a Christian at one point, and from the portrayal in the movie, it seemed to be a genuine conversion, but Larry tried to continue his magazine editing work whilst professing Christ (from memory he even tried to put Christian articles in his magazine). Anyway, the point was that something had to give in the scenario, and for Larry, he let go of his Christianity. Similarly, I had a friend who was involved in the drug trade (and other shifty dealings) who became a Christian and tried to balance the two, again he found it impossible and let go of Christ (the positive side of his story is that God has continued to pursue him and through business failures and marriage failures, this man is beginning to turn once again towards Christ). For myself, I used to work in a newsagency, every day I would sell Tatslotto tickets, now that I work in the context that I do, amongst those who are affected by gambling addictions I do not feel that a Christian should work within such a destructive industry.

But those examples are extremes, which make a point, we are faced with these sorts of decisions every day, and not only referring to big things like the industries we work in. We are to be challenged by day to day things, do we display forgiveness in our live (70 x 7 – and this is not literal), we should display morality in our choices of how we live our lives (do we support industries that cause harm to others, do we lie to get advancements in work, do we manipulate situations to our advantage), we should also display compassion (opening our eyes to the hurt that is in others and helping them wherever possible). We will never be perfect in these things, it is a continual learning curve, but if we don’t challenge ourselves in these things we will never change, if we continue to justify our actions, because it is the way of the world then we will never see His Kingdom come.

This morning as I did my reading I was challenged again by this passage; it is relevant and I think that all of us in this comfortable western existence that we are in need to keep it constantly in the back of our minds as we go about our day to day…

"Anyone who loves his father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; anyone who loves his son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me; and anyone who does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me. Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.” (Matthew 10:37-39)

Australian Poverty

Poverty is a confusing word. Probably the first thing that comes to mind when we think of poverty is the starving children from African nations that we see on T.V. through World Vision (and other groups) ads. This is extreme poverty, the sort of thing that the Make Poverty History campaign is aiming to eradicate. Fortunately for those facing extreme poverty, this form of poverty is easily marketable; for those of us that have not been desensitised by the ads, the injustice and suffering of the sunken eyed, swollen bellied kids standing in the squalor of the slums they live in breaks our hearts.

Unfortunately, poverty affects many here at home too. It is not the same sort of poverty, and it is difficult to market, in fact many of the people facing poverty in Australia have been vilified in the minds of the general public. Thanks to people like Derryn Hinch and other similar talkback radio presenters, these people are labelled as dole bludgers or no hopers or other derogatory titles that just help in keeping these marginalised people in their place.

There is this financial measuring stick in Australia known as the Henderson Poverty Line. The HPL was developed in the 70’s as a guide for what it would take for individuals in Australia to cover their essential living costs. This figure takes into account whether a person is living as an individual or as part of a family of differing sizes and is adjusted every three months in relation to costs of living, inflation etc. Obviously, the HPL is the line that is used to say if a person is living in poverty or not; a person living on full Centrelink payments is living below the HPL. Having said that then, a person living on Centrelink cannot meet their day to day costs of living; this is probably done in the government’s infinite wisdom to encourage people to get a job, however, for many this is not possible.

For myself, I have gone through a stage in my life where I was classed as long term unemployed. I know how degrading it is to be in this situation, and I came from a privileged background… I had a stable and loving family, I had all my needs and most of my wants met as I grew up, I had a good education, yet I could not get a Job. Every fortnight as I filled out my jobseekers diary, I felt the humiliation. Every time I had to queue up and hand in the form I felt the same oppression as those around me.

The people who I meet and walk with every day all have different stories, some of them suffer from physical disabilities, some have had unstable childhoods, that resulted in them not getting a great education, many have fallen into the trap of addiction, many of them are mentally ill, and many come from third world countries where even if they were educated and employed back home (and few of them are), they find themselves without recognised skills here in Australia. Some more of these people have simply made bad choices, but what ties these people all together is that they are trapped within the welfare system; a system that is very hard to claw your way out of.

Few of these people will have the opportunity to work their way out of the welfare trap, some will try and fail time and time again, and others are doomed to be dependant on the welfare system for the rest of their lives with no support structures in place to help them out. Those stuck in the trap will continue to live in a situation where they don’t have enough money to meet their basic needs, for those facing addictions, the problem is only made worse, as they need to gain money to feed that habit and eat as well. Rehab, psychiatric, counselling and medical help is hard to come by, it is expensive or inadequate; free support is often stretched thin and as a result only basic care can be offered.

These people do not have the family support that many of us have, they often have been ostracised from their family, and have worn out any friendships they had. So they are alone, the only contact they have with people is with case workers or centrelink staff (where they are usually only a number or a commodity – I once heard of a centrelink manager referring to people who come through their doors as “STOCK!!!”). Our society in general looks down on those suffering with issues of poverty, if they recognise them at all, so there are very few supportive, healthy relationships that these people can create. These broken, hurting and lonely people can build friendships with others in similar situations, however this too can often lead to further hurt and hardship, and people can find themselves deeper in the trap of oppression, depression and degradation.

My aim in this blog entry was to try and make a case for poverty in Australia, it may not look the same as third world poverty, but it is still robbing people of a decent quality of life. Hopefully I have conveyed the hopelessness that these people face – this is not what God wants for any of his children, and it is something that we as Christians need to face. The Salvation Army estimate that 2.5 million Australians live in poverty, that is 12% of our population. According to a report by the Salvos, this is an increase of 400,000 over the last 3 years. There is a big job ahead of us, and we can no longer justify living for ourselves…

Quote of the moment

I have to admit that I ripped this quote directly off a fellow unoh workers newsletter, but I'm sure he wont mind....

“You may be 38 years old, as I happen to be. And one day, some great opportunity stands before you and calls you to stand up for some great principle, some great issue, some great cause.. And you refuse to do it because you are afraid… You refuse to do it because you want to live longer…You’re afraid that you will loose your job, or you are afraid that you will be criticised or that you will loose your popularity, or you are afraid that somebody will stab you, or shoot you, or bomb your house, so you refuse to take a stand. Well, you may go on to live until you are 90, but you’re as dead at 38 as you would be at 90. And the cessation of breathing in your life is but the belated announcement of an earlier death of the spirit”

Rev. Dr Martin Luther King Jr.
November 5th, 1968.

I Need Some Friends

Hello everyone,

I have been playing around with myspace a bit of late, as everyone tells me it is soooo good and the wave of the future...

Personally I don't like it that much yet, but maybe it will grow on me...

anyway, I've got no mates - well actually I've got 3, but I need a few more...

if you are into myspace please visit my page and become a friend so I don't feel like such a looser...

http://www.myspace.com/dekkersjourney

thanks - Peter

analogy...much!

I was at one of my favourite blog sites today and I saw this youtube video, I thought it was so good that I wanted to share it with you...

what do you think the fleas teach us about ourselves and the circus ... uh, I mean church???

Boys in da Hood

One of the main ministries that we have found ourselves in here in Noble Park is amongst young boys. This is mostly out of organic growth, a direct result of having 3 boys ourselves. Most afternoons and weekends we have at least 2 extra kids hanging around our home, sometimes we will even have up to six extra kids hanging out, running up and down the driveway, riding bikes, rollerblading, playing on Playstation, board games or computer… it can sometimes be quite mad, and always very noisy…

We were confronted a night or two ago about the importance of this ministry, and has changed my view point on it, to view it as an actual ministry, rather than just a bunch of kids hanging around giving me a headache (yes… I am a grumpy old fart). Two nights ago we had a kid that often hangs around our place turn up with a gang of five or six early-pubescent friends to beat up on another kid who was hanging around our place that night for a sleepover…

As you may or may not be aware, Noble Park has a bit of a reputation for its gangs, they are a bit of a problem, and there are certain areas your average Joe Bloggs would not like to go at night. That night, we were confronted with the next generation of NP gang members, six 12-14 year olds, leaning up against our car, with the body language of the worst of the U.S. gangs, talking tough to Jake and his friend, that was until I came on the scene, then all of a sudden these kids seemed to have messed their pants (it is nice to have that sort of a presence in this sort of a situation, though it wont last long I’m sure…). The next day, this same boy who brought his gang to our house turned up, and was happy to play with his enemy again, in fun innocent kids games, there was a bit of tension to start with, but that quickly melted away, and soon these hardened gang-bangers that I saw the night before, were fun loving innocent kids, running around playing hide and seek.

We have the opportunity here to be at a cross-road of these children’s lives. We have the opportunity to impact their lives, to give them a safe haven to hang around in, where they can be kids, where they can have safe, innocent enjoyment, rather than hanging around on the streets, learning how to behave from those they inevitably will look up to, the real gangs out on our streets. These kids are at the point where they will be choosing the sort of life that they want to live, we pray and hope that the experience of seeing the life we live, of having input from our own children as well as ourselves, and the opportunity to speak a word of wisdom into their lives when the opportunity arises, will see these children start to take the correct choices. It would be naïve to believe that we would solve all of these kids problems and protect them from the dark path that many of them will choose in the future, but any impact we can have is better than none at all, any seed that we can sow, has to be better than allowing the field to remain barren.

Blood Diamond

It was Naomi and my wedding anniversary on Monday - it has been thirteen years. We thought that we would celebrate our special day by going to a movie, you know, something romantic... something like BLOOD DIAMOND??????

Well, it was not exactly romantic, but it was the only movie worth seeing at the moment so even though we knew we were in for a heavy time we thought we would go see it anyway...

If you have not seen it, Blood Diamond is based in Sierra Leone during the civil war (it is officially at peace at the moment), following the story of a fisherman who is captured by the RUF and forced to work in a diamond mine where he finds and hides a massive pink diamond, the mine is attacked by the government troops, the fisherman "Solomon" is captured by the troops and put into prison where he meets "Archer" a diamond smuggler who wants to get his hands on the diamond and sell it to a UK diamond company (ripping off Solomon in the process). Meanwhile Solomons son Dia is captured by the RUF and trained to be a child soldier.

I won't go into any more details about the movie, however I have a few reflections to make...

We recently made the acquaintance of a family of 11 from Sierra Leone who just came to Australia (we were asked to help find them housing and clothing and other such things as they came out with next to nothing). The stories told by this family are very similar to what happened in the movie, however the real horrors of rape that they had to endure were not depicted in the movie (thankfully).

From what I understand the SL family were quite happy that the movie was released as it shows the plight of the people and raises awareness of what is going on in war torn countries. And I agree with that, a person who is sensitive to what is going on in the world will be shocked into a sense of urgency and desperation... unfortunately there is no real hope presented in the movie, even though it does have a happy Hollywood ending (I guess that is where the quote by Dave Andrews comes in - we can see change).

The most disturbing thing for me in this movie however was the audiences attitude. We had a young couple in the cinema with us who chatted through the whole movie, making excited noises at signs of violence, and walked out of the cinema as if nothing had happened. Meanwhile Naomi and I were shattered by the harsh reality of the movie. Is there really any advantage in making a movie like this if it is only viewed as entertainment? To see the horror that real life human beings have had to go through viewed as nothing more than another Lethal Weapon movie or something like that is really disturbing...

Anyway, this movie brings home the reality of many of the refugees that we work with here in Noble Park and Springvale, it explains the tendency of these refugees to hide away and keep to themselves, not participating in the wider community, not interacting and not learning English. It also highlights the ignorance of people who complain about immigrants entering Australia and behaving this way.

At one of the houses that we stayed in when we first moved into Noble Park, there was a young African child living there, this child would often have nightmares, waking and screaming in absolute terror. What had this child seen? How can we ignore the evil that is going on in the world, or reduce it to entertainment....

anyway that's about enough from me....

Peter

Quote from Dave Andrews

Hi,

I am currently reading "Can You Hear the Heartbeat" by Dave Andrews of the Waiters Union, which is a great little book Andrews' personal reflections and lessons learnt. Sorry, it is not up on the side panel as books we are reading because it is an old book and out of print and I could not find a pic of it anywhere...

Anyway, this Quote stood out to me, it is probably not the most insightful or deep, it just really struck something in me when I read it...

We must grow into a new maturity. A maturity which neither rejects faith in the possibility of change nor ignores the facts that say change is impossible, which acknowledges the difference between dreams and realities; yet recognises the difference God can make in turning Utopian dreams for the community into practical reality. We must begin to live as if the impossible is possible, because unless we do, nothing will Change.

Peter

Master of the Slow Reveal

I often struggle with the concept of salvation... what is it really? - have we relativised it in our western context to make it fit into our mediocre middle class lifestyles? Is it really just a simple decision that can be made when we walk to the front of a church, or does it go deeper? and if it does how deep... it is called the narrow path in scripture - the path seldom traveled- it must be harder than all that, but how hard? I pray it is not too hard, or if it is that Jesus will wake up his church in the west to realise their slumber before it is too late... or are we the 5 virgins without oil for our lamps? I hope and pray that we are not...

there is a classic bible verse that is splashed around in tracts and evangelistic crusades and stuff that says...

That if you confess with your mouth, "Jesus is Lord," and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. (Rom 10:9)

That sounds very simple & that's probably why evangelists love it so much... but have you ever thought about the term "Jesus is Lord"? I think that this phrase is the key to it all. We have no concept today what the word Lord entails. Even if it is explained, there is nothing in our experience that we can really relate it to, and as a result I think we just ignore it's significance - using it as a simple placard, that sounds good.

When we think of the term Lord, I think we could probably think of something like a Master/slave relationship, where the slave is the property of the master, he has no rights, he lives to do the will of the Master. In medieval times there was the concept of a serf, that was the subject of their Lord, and owned by them, the serf lived on the Lord's land and farmed or toiled for basically enough to get by in a subsistence type lifestyle. They were very much regarded as sub-human...

Of course, following a loving God, our relationship to him will never be like that, but the concept of our rights to live our own life in relationship to our Lord & Master, must be remembered - WE HAVE NONE!!! ...

Does this mean that we are saved only when we learn to surrender our entire life over to his will????

I don't think so & I think that this is where the title of this blog entry comes in... God is the Master of the Slow Reveal... Think about it... what does the entire bible show us? It shows us that God had a plan, a plan that took thousands of years to come about and we have been waiting about 2000 years more to see its completion. Throughout the bible, we see the nature and person of God develop into the God of the New Testament, a God of love and forgiveness. I am not suggesting that God has changed over time, that would stand in direct opposition to what the scripture itself says. but what we do have is a God that took his time to reveal himself in his fullness... Why? maybe if he revealed himself in one hit (and lets face it he still hasn't revealed himself entirely), our brains would turn to mush, or we would run away and hide screaming "There's no place like home, there's no place like home" or something like that.

I think that our private walk with God works in very much the same way, it takes time for God to reveal himself to us, & it takes time for us to submit to him as Lord of our lives. This is why salvation (or Christianity if you prefer) is a journey, not a decision. We are constantly being called to go deeper, to surrender more... some times we go through cruisy times, but then He tightens the screws, and reminds us that He is there, if we don't respond to this call, to this challenge to step up and continue the journey, then he is not Lord of our lives, because if he is Lord, we have no right to say no...

Having said that, can we say that comfortable, Sunday Christianity is Christianity at all?
........ if we cruise around praying for car parks and not a whole lot more;
............. if we pray that the Lord returns soon but do not get out there and help
..............see his Kingdom come;
....................if we perceive that Jesus is there only to bless us and fulfill our needs;

can we really confess that Jesus is Lord??? And if you cannot confess that, then are you really saved???

Thankyou

Hi Everyone,

I wanted to get this message done a couple of weeks ago, but I have not taken my wife's own advice about busy-ness and so have not had a chance...

I want to thank everyone out there, all our regular readers and supporters, the support we are getting is phenomenal, and really means a lot to us.

A few weeks ago we had a commissioning service at our sending church, it was a great opportunity to catch up with old friends, a lot of our new friends (both UNOH workers & community people) also turned up, as well as family. It was great to get the feeling of support from everyone, it is easy to feel alone when you are doing these things, especially when you are so busy working within the community that you don't have the time you would like to catch up with those outside who care about you.

Many of you who are family and friends will have received (or will soon) an invite to a special information afternoon we are holding, already from those invites, we are getting some great feedback from people, and again it lets us know that we are not alone, it is great to have such prayer and moral support behind us as we do the work we are doing.

Please continue to keep us in your prayers, and don't hesitate to drop us a line (either on the blog here or over e-mail) if you would like to get together... we have started on our support raising, and if you would like to support us, and wanted to chat about it or wanted us to speak in your church or small group or something, don't hesitate to ask, we strongly believe that one of our callings in working in UNOH is to bring the message of Jesus' heart for the poor and marginalised to the wider Church body...

Anyway - thank you again, you are all really appreciated...

Peter

I am excited by what I am reading

Hey everyone,

I know you don't hear from me much..........I don't get to the computer as often as Peter.

As part of my UNOH apprenticeship I am doing a full time course which will give me a certificate IV in Ministry at the end of this year. At the start of this course I was pretty anti the idea of studying, I am such a practical person and the idea of sitting in a classroom and reading endless books and then writing about it does not appeal to me..........

so yesterday I was struggling to get through all the reading and writing that I had to get done before tonight's class, and I tried to read the same thing about 4 times and realised I was reading the same paragraph over and over, when finally I really cleared my head and decided to make a go of it, and what I read blew me away. The reading was basically about the idea of Shalom......something I had heard before but didn't think about much. The usual English translation of shalom is peace.......but it was described as so much more in my reading.......it was described as "wholeness" or "completeness" and the text read as follows "in essence Shalom embraces Gods' desire to restore all things to the wholeness and harmony of relationship in which they were originally created"

This really excited me.......there was a lot more to the reading but I don't know if it's plagiarism if I keep copying bits into my blog........so anyway....if you wanna know more read : Living on purpose by Tom & Christine Sine.

I am again feeling very inspired by the idea of an all encompassing faith that is lived out in my whole life. Even living in the context I live in, I can sometimes forget that I am here because of God and because of my strong desire to live what I believe and to NOT have my faith and the rest of my life compartmentalised and separate. I am grateful that God reminds us of these things again and again.

Naomi

Riots & Stabbings & Murders.... OH MY!!!

Hi everyone, forgive me for being so slack...

Things have really rev'ed up since the apprenticeship started 2 weeks ago - there has been a lot of training and meetings to get through to get us up to speed, and when those things happen, it seems that you need to play catch-up with everything else...

having said that, things are slowly starting to normalise... so hopefully I'll start to blog again soon.

I read a local newspaper yesterday that had a front page story about how Noble Park is in the grip of fear, after the riots, a local stabbing murder, and various other unrelated acts of violence... Now, I would not say that Noble Park is the safest, nicest place to live in the world - if it was there would be no need for the presence of a group like UNOH, but what purpose does an article like this serve?? There are enough people in this neighbourhood hiding behind massive security fences and roller shutters, people are already living in fear of the random attackers out there... I just wish that the newspapers would actually care to mention that in the vast majority of attacks and murders, there is some sort of a reason for it - the murder that happened a few days ago here was drug related, it was not just some random attacker breaking into someones house to murder them for the fun of it...

maybe our "entertainment" has a lot to answer for all of this as well, I have to admit, when it came out "silence of the lambs" was a bit of a hit with me, but as time has gone on, we have begun to swallow more and more crap that deals with death, rape, murder, so much so that they now serialise such things, with CSI, SVU, NCIS, Medium etc... they even advertise episodes of SVU dealing with paedophilia along the lines of "an episode no parent will want to miss..." WHAT IS THAT ABOUT!!!!!!! - have we gotten so thick in the head that feeding fears is now seen as educational, or at least being aware of what is going on in the world.

Little wonder community in general is dying out, little wonder people lock themselves up in their palace like prisons they call home, never having any sort of relationship with neighbours, and I guess, if we are to believe the increase of violence in the streets and unruly bands of teenagers causing terror in neighbourhoods this is the reason for that too...

here are some thoughts...

Who is going to harm you if you are eager to do good? But even if you should suffer for what is right, you are blessed. "Do not fear what they fear; do not be frightened." But in your hearts set apart Christ as Lord. (1 Peter 3:13-15ish)

And so we know and rely on the love God has for us. God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in him. In this way, love is made complete among us so that we will have confidence on the day of judgment, because in this world we are like him. There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love. (1 John 4:16-18)

There are plenty of other scriptures that deal with fear and how we should not be a slave to it, but I keep being told to keep my blog entries short, so I wont go into them all...

We as the Kingdom of God, are the answer to this problem, I am certain of it, but how can we solve this problem, when we are a slave to it ourselves???

a bit of a challenge from Naomi

I know it's not often that you get to hear from me, and as usual it's bed time and I can't sleep due to a racing mind........so my hope is that once I unload onto the the blog, sleep will come for me!!!

So I recently had this thing on my mind about how everyone is always busy these days, and not just busy but obsessed with being busy, like it is some sort of status symol......."I am so busy that I didn't even get time to sit down for a meal this week" "What you think that's something, I am so busy I never sit down for a meal, I never even saw my husband this week" "what, you two have nothing on me, I haven't seen my family in a month, I don't ever get time to eat and I can't remember the last time I had a proper sit on the toilet"!!!!

OK.....so these three people don't really exist......but they may as well, we are all caught up in the competition and ego surrounding how busy we are. It's like if we aren't constantly doing something (even if it's really nothing, but we can present it to others as something) then we must be worthless, and we are so afraid that someone out there might actually find out the truth of it all, that we have to present ourselves as busy to keep hiding the truth.

I think (note, this is just my theory) that the reason for all of this feigned busyness, and need to fill our lives constantly is there for the sole reason that we don't want to really face what might be going on inside us...........if we are always full of stuff then we never have time to sit in Gods presence and wait , that's scary......imagine emptying your schedule and your mind for a little bit each day......and waiting on God, you might end up having to face fears that you pretend you don't have, you might have to be reminded of people you need to forgive, you might be confronted about the way you live your life and you might even find that without God at the centre of your existence you are nothing, worthless and scummy!!!!!!

My challenge is to stop saying you're busy all the time, do what you need to do and at some point in your day STOP, turn off the T.V, home and away is not that important.........put away the vacuum cleaner, put down that trashy novel (or that good novel) , get up a little earlier, spend a bit less time at the gym, actually take your lunch break at work and find somewhere quiet to spend some time in solitude............do what ever it takes to put an end to this infectious disease called busyness!!!!!!!

And just so you know, I am blogging this because it is an issue for me, of course I feel special and important when I can tell others how busy I am (we all do) so don't feel like I am pointing fingers and missing the plank in my own eye, I feel really challenged about this at the moment and want to share the challenge with others........please keep me accountable if you know me personally. And if you want to know more about where this all came from for me then read "Reaching Out" by "Henri Nouwen"

I would love to hear back, even if you hate my ideas and think I am the only person in the world who thinks this way!!!!!!!


Goodnight

Naomi

The Next Step Begins

Well, as of today, Naomi & I are officially UNOH Apprentices!!!!

It has been a long time in coming, but finally it is here. For me, it has been a ten year (or probably more) journey since I first got my love for missions & wanted to enter the mission field. Back then , I was introduced to missions more or less accidentally, I was forced to choose an elective at bible college, the choice was between Missions & Creative Ministry, and as I am not really into drama or messianic dance or anything I chose Missions as the better of 2 evils. My perspective of Christianity and Theology was turned up-side-down during that course. So much so that I changed my course to be a missions based course. The following years saw my passion for mission grow and mature from a purely Evangelistic view to a more holistic view seeing the importance and value in social action.

During that time, Jesus was also working on Naomi. I had expected to go to the mission field straight after Bible College, but God had other plans, Naomi was not ready, and I had learnt through my experiences at BC the importance of a married couple being a team on the mission field. Too many men have dragged their wives onto the mission field, where their wives have learnt to resent them, and this often harms the work & ministry of the mission. I did not want this, so I had to wait.

I would like to say that I did not put any pressure on Naomi over this time, but I did put out my feelers every now and then. I guess Naomi was aware of this and felt that I was putting pressure on her, so much so that she would explode in anger towards me. Little did I know that this was because God was working on her and she was resisting it out of the fear of putting her trust completely in Him.

Finally the crunch came for Naomi at the Surrender conference in 05, and since then Naomi has been running towards missions and I have been holding on tight in an attempt to keep up. The last 7 months have been about us getting used to life in Noble Park, settling ourselves and our kids in here, getting to know the people in the community and Rainbow Church, but now the aim of all that waiting is here and we begin the apprenticeship...

Please continue to pray for us as we begin this time, that God will be with us, that we learn to balance our commitments of study and practice, and that we will get a lot out of this time and grow in the Lord & what he has in store for our lives

Transforming Lives

The last few weeks have seen the loss of 2 valuable families to the Springvale Team as they head off to continue their UNOH work in Bangkok and Sydney. They will be missed, but they have important work to do in other parts, & God goes with them as they head out to make a difference...

With the loss of 2 couples from UNOH Melbourne, comes the inclusion of 4 new UNOH apprentices, of which Naomi & I are included, we will go through a year of training to become part of the team (before we go through another 2 years of training as novices but thats another story...).

It is an important work that needs to be done here... there are many lonely and hurting people here, it is amazing the divide that we make in society between rich and poor, a place like Noble Park seems to be ignored by most, until something like the Riots happen and then the commentary is on for young and old - well mostly old - as you listen to talk back radio about the the riots, and why they apparently happened... its never our fault (our being the wider community)... that's too hard a thought to deal with...

But transformation is happening here, it seems to be a slow process of 3 steps forward 2 steps back at times, and there are many questions that I have as a newby here that I know will be answered over the next year or so, but the rewards are obvious...

Recently I heard the testimony of a community member who had just been baptised. It was an amazing story... this person has had a very lonely life, particularly over the last however long... he had been looking for a place to belong, getting involved in various church and community groups, but never feeling a sense of belonging until coming to Rainbow. This person is old, and has many health issues and comes across quite ruff and gruff, but he is a person, and when you get along side him, you get to see an amazing man, and occasionally you get a smile out of him. He has an amazing smile, when he gives it, you are given a gift, and you know it really means something...

Anyway, this guy got baptised at rainbow a few weeks back, he has been involved with the wider church quite a bit, and has been baptised as an infant as well as later on in life to become accepted by another church. but this time he was baptised because he wanted to show that he belonged to God, & was involved in a group that was majorly important to his life. Baptism was not something he had to do to gain acceptance, it was something he chose to do to show that he was at home...

The difference in this man's life is obvious, even over the six months that we have lived here (I have know him for quite a bit longer than that but it is only over this time that I have been able to get involved in his life). This is one story that to me shows what UNOH is here for, what transformation is about - it is not about winning souls, or growing rainbow numbers, it is about giving value and purpose to a person who is lonely & often forgotten by the wide community.

To see UNOH reach out into the Mt Druit area in Sydney and grow larger in Bangkok, fills me with hope and a sense of purpose - God is seeing his Kingdom established on Earth, it is a slow hard process, but it is happening....

Noble Park Riots

Some people have been getting a bit worried because they have not heard from us after the riots here in NP... this is just a quick one to let people know that the riots did not affect us or our immediate community in any real way - except that our favourite DVD store is closed down. The riots happened in quite a remote part of NP in relation to the town centre.

Thy Kingdom Come.... What's up with our Eschatology?

I struggle with Eschatology, I struggle with all the different views, I struggle with the word itself (The study of the end times), and I have a feeling that most Christians do. It is so confusing, in my life I have probably been convinced that the end was coming 3 or 4 times, but you may have noticed, it has not happened yet. When I was a kid, the big bad was the USSR, now I think it is Iraq, or possibly North Korea, but most likely the USA... It all gets so confusing.

One thing I have learnt however is that the predominant view on eschatology is not a good thing, and to me it seems to hold elements that are contrary to the gospel and what Jesus called us to do in this world. If you have read any of the Left Behind series, then you already know the basic outline, it goes something like this...

The world is getting worse, it is getting more heathen, but don't worry, the good guys get raptured just before it gets too bad, and then the poo really does hit the fan. Without a Christian influence in the world, it becomes one big hedonistic orgy, of premarital sex, gay marriages, and abortions. And the anti-Christ will rule this world and see everyone damned to hell. Some will become Christians in this time, but they will have to endure the sin in the world, and the persecution they must face as the anti-Christ tries to eradicate them... finally Jesus will return, smite the wicked with his great big smiting stick and all will be good in the world - I think he creates a new earth, or we all go to heaven for a big party or something, I can't really remember.

What is the problem with this outlook? - well I guess to me it seems to encourage us NOT to act in the world for the good of mankind, not to try to stamp out evil, or see evangelism happen or anything, because the world is getting worse and the less we do the worserer it will become, meaning that Jesus will return quicker - YAY!!! This view is what seems to be encouraging Christians to establish their own little Christian compounds where Heathens dare not enter... our friends are all Christians, we send our kids to Christian schools, our charity goes to the church in the form of tithes, so the church can grow and offer us better resources, so we can have Christian cafes, and gyms, and dating services, and theme parks.

This sort of Eschatology has resulted in the Church circling its wagons and becoming defensive, protecting itself & hanging on till the rapture, meanwhile the Western Church is in decline, because we are seen as ineffective, irrelevant and scared. But this is just more evidence that the end is coming right? - well it is a sort of self fulfilling prophecy really, if the salt stays in the shaker or the light under a bowl then of course things are going to get worse...

Where does Jesus' call for us to go into all the world and make disciples come into it? where does His (and hopefully our) prayer that "Thy Kingdom come, Thy Will be done, on earth as it is in heaven" come into effect, if we are not out there being the Kingdom (I often think that the Kingdom has been relegated to a post apocalyptic reality as well). Jesus taught that the Kingdom of God is at hand, yet we are too afraid to reach out and grab that Kingdom.

The Kingdom of God has been instrumental in being salt to the world for hundreds of years, we have seen the eradication of slavery in many nations, education offered to many not just the wealthy, the abolition of child labour... etc, etc, what happened to the salt... Why has the Make Poverty History campaign (that had it's origins in a Christian initiative) been picked up by the secular world, while we sit around with egg on our face playing catch up or worse still denying it's importance...

I heard that this interpretation of the end times has only been around for less than 200 years and has been growing in popularity ever since, could it be partly to blame? Could an eschatology that calls us to protect ourselves rather than risk all for the sake of the Kingdom be responsible for the worsening of the world, rather than the anti-Christ?

Anyway, I don't have any real answers here, this is only a bit of an embryonic thought, I can't get into an argument about what view of eschatology I hold, because I just don't know, I just have my misgivings about this one, it seems to stand in opposition to so much of what the gospel teaches us...

what are your thoughts?

Judging books by their covers....

The Truth Behind - LEFT BEHIND.

Retails at $9.95 - that is one expensive note book....

Note book - get it? - its got blank pages.... Ha, Ha, Ha .... I am so funny!!!! ;p