The X Factor

No, not the show...

This post is for those of you among my vast readership (cough) who are asking questions about what church should look like today, in light of how things are continually changing in the way people understand and live in the world. I'm one of these people... I ask this question all the time and have considered and even experimented with, from time to time, things that might be some of the answers...

Anyway, my friend Carmen sent me this article the other day. The article is called "The X Factor", and is put out by LeadershipJournal.net. It is a great article that looks at some of the most well known experiments in this area from America, and some of the results (also lots of "lack of results") and conclusions that people have come up with along the way.

This post won't be for everyone. But if you ask questions about the nature and structure of meaningful and engaging church for today, then take the time out to have a read through this article. You won't regret it.

Shalom...

Be The Change You Want To See In The World

Dave Andrews has written a great book called "Plan Be" with the tag line, "be the change you want to see in the world." (a quote from Ghandi I think)... It is a great little book on the beattitudes of Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount. The Bible Society of Qld have got right behind it and developed a range of reflective, small group, musical etc resources to help process the challenging content. There is also a great website where you can engage with the material in a different way again.



Check it out...

Shalom...

We Are All African Now

Back in May, I wrote a blog called "Genetics Reveals the Real Eden". My friend Francis found the complete article in a magazine called "Intelligent Life". It is all about a complex and sophisticated genetic study that has sought to uncover the origins of humanity. The study has uncovered, to the best of its ability, the likely location of "Eden", and the genetic version of "Adam" and "Eve". The problem here is that Adam and Eve they have discovered at this stage lived 60,000 years apart. It looks like there is still some more work to be done, as it would have been very difficult to produce a "Cain" or "Abel" with that time-lag of existence.

Anyway, fascinating stuff and well worth a read. For those of us that read the Bible and see it as a source of truth for our lives, such research and evidence challenges us about the way in which we read and interpret important Bible chapters like Genesis 1, and really, how we understand the Bible in general. It also challenges us on how we consider the range of creation stories that various indigenous groups tell as a way of understanding their / our origins.

I've attached the article here if you are interested in reading it.

Something to Snort About...

Last Friday, a good guy that we know took his own life. He leaves behind a wife and three kids... It is hard to find anything good in this situation. Every way you look at it - it's pretty crap. It makes you want to scream, cry, rant and rage against God, life, and the way things are in this broken and fractured world. One of the strong feelings I feel at the moment is one of disgust - disgust that we live in a world where this kind of thing happens and that this is what life can dish up for the people who are a part of it.

I was reflecting on my response to this tragedy and that feeling of disgust toward life I was feeling, and a passage from the Bible came to me. It was John 11- a story about Jesus going to the grave of his dead friend, Lazarus. Jesus goes there and the passage says that he was "deeply moved" and called for the stone across the doorway of the grave to be removed, so that he can go ahead and raise Lazarus from the dead. A very cool story in that sense. Jesus doing his thing...

Apparently, the original word that is translated into English as "deeply moved" is probably better translated into English as "a snort of the spirit". The kind of snort that a stallion might give, while rearing on his hind legs as it gets ready to charge into battle. (Thanks to Dave Andrews for this insight from his "Plan Be" book). I imagine it as a kind of snort of contempt from Jesus as he comes face to face with the tragic consequences of sin. I felt and still feel that feeling this week - a snort from my spirit as I wrestle with the contempt I feel for life at this bleak time.

The thing I like about this passage though is that Jesus' contempt for this life and its broken-ness did not stay at that point of despair and it did not remain at the place of hopelessness. He got the stone moved and raised Lazarus from the dead - and that is a pretty good response, although only temporarily good. Lazarus would die again one day in the future and the grief would come again. But from that place, he "set his face like a flint" towards Jerusalem, and went there to be arrested, tried, beaten and crucified. And of course the Bible teaches us that he rose again from the dead, to deal once and for all, with the sin and broken-ness of the world, so that the day will come when we won't have to put up with crap like this again.

Bring it on (or "Come Lord Jesus, Come" as they say in the Christian classics)...

God's Shalom to you all at time...