Thursday, 25. June 2009, 01:23:01
church, society, community
Brian McLaren makes some great points in this article about getting away from the "bigger is better" mentality and towards generating real community at all levels of our existence.
Getting beyond a foolish argument ...
One of the distracting polarizations under which we've been laboring over recent decades is typically framed like this: big government versus big business. There are a thousand ironies in this. Those against big government are generally for big military, which is government working with taxes and weapons instead of taxes and laws. Those against big business generally depend on it for campaign donations.
But there's a deeper irony: what if big usually means unaccountable, and what if big and unaccountable are inherent to our problems? 
I think it was Rick Warren who said, "Bigger isn't better and smaller isn't better. Better is better."
Read more here
Thursday, 5. March 2009, 06:32:00
family, community, fellowship
Last night I had one of those gracelets that sometimes come our way without us even looking for them. C.S. Lewis called it "Surprised by Joy" a reference to the fact that joy often overtakes us, but if we pursue something called happiness in the hope of finding joy we are inevitably disappointed.
The boys came home from work with a Wii which someone had left in their will to the shop. They gave it a thorough testing in the church, playing virtual golf, tennis and bowling.
As a result of that, we had the normal Wednesday prayer meeting at home.
I realised much later that the television was off and nobody was showing any sign of wanting to turn it on. We engaged in that old-fashioned thing called conversation. And then I got inspired to siphon all the crud from the bottom of the fish tank and replace some of the water, which inspired conversation about water chemistry (mainly ammonia, nitrites and nitrates) and biological filtration.
All through it was very pleasant and everybody was relaxed. I think it's called fellowship or family time. But nothing was staged or planned- it was all spontaneous. The way it's meant to be.
Thursday, 31. July 2008, 04:42:13
Narrabri, society, community, mission
I had an interesting few hours with my old friend Dermot this week.
Dermot is now a big-shot city lawyer- well all right he's a big-shot city lawyer working for the NSW Department of Water. He was here to talk to the Department's employees about issues of farmers breaking water regulations, stealing water etc.
Dermot and I go back to High School days when we were the nerds who just didn't fit in. He was always going to work in the law and I was always going to be the engineer/ scientist. He was dyed in the wool Liberal and I was radical Labor. We spent many hours debating political and economic theory- talk about a misspent youth!
It was clear that Dermot just doesn't get the idea of community. He lives in the suburbs, and life is about sitting in a metal cubicle that transports you to a concrete cubicle where you spend your days in fake interactions called "professionalism." Weekends are spent ferrying the various members of your small group (a.k.a the nuclear family) from your little brick cubicle to events and activities that are meant to make you feel like your life has some direction.
In that lifestyle church is just another event at a different cubicle.
He seemed to find it hard to understand a church building that is set up as a family room, and a ministry that is little more than sitting around talking to people in unstructured ways. I can understand that, because 20 years ago I would have had trouble with the concept too.
Whereas most churches are about building programmes and staging events, we seem to major on building up people. I hope that never changes, and that as our church grows in size we can find ways of keeping that space for people.
We talked about the relative merits of city versus small town living. I can see why living in the inner city might appeal, but living in the suburbs and commuting is crazy. He told me how in the suburb we grew up in, it now takes 20 minutes to drive a few kilometres. It takes him the best part of an hour to go to work in Parramatta which used to be a 20 minute drive.
With so much of work being knowledge and information based these days, most jobs can be done from anywhere. Why people commute like this is just beyond me. Perhaps it's because they cannot imagine a different way of living.
As we put him on the plane to return to Sydney, I realised that we can actually get to Sydney Airport in little over the time it takes him to get there from home.
There is so much to be thankful about living in the country. The biggest thing, I think, is the time and desire to travel at a slower pace with time for real community.
Friday, 18. April 2008, 11:28:44
creation, photography, community
I've just got home from tonight's photo exhibition at the Bowling Club. It was a fund-raiser organised by Margaret Baxter for the High School Community Centre. It was a pleasant night out and probably raised about $1000.
I was blown away by the amount of talent that our local photographers have, but even more blown away by the beauty of God's creation glimpsed in so many different ways.
Praise be to God!
WIDGETIZE