on the 103rd floor

The skies were partly cloudy, the tempurature was 68 degrees, the wind was out of the west at 10 miles per hour. A beautiful day. At 8:45am, people working on the 103rd floor were pouring in their morning coffee, straightening their desks, reviewing their Tuesday appointments, bantering with office mates, glancing at the harbour...

One minute later none of that mattered. Twenty floors below, a 757 transected the building, leaving the 103rd cut off, trapped, hopeless. But not yet dead.

When you have ten minutes to live, what are your thoughts? What is important in the last seconds? As a tribute to those nameless faces staring down at us from the smokey inferno, can we stop what we are doing long enough to listen to them? Seeing death from this perspective is not morbid: on the contrary it can help us see life.

Those who found phones called - not their stockbrokers to check the latest ticker, not their hairstylest to cancel the afternoon's appointment, not even their insurance agents to check coverage levels. They called their spouses to say 'I love you' one last time, children to say 'You are precious', parents to say 'thank you' one last time. Through tears they called best friends, neighbours, pastors and priests and rabbis. 'I just want you to know what you mean to me'. And surely those standing on the brink of another world thought of God - of truth and eternity, judgement and redemption, grace and the gospel.

Imminent death has a commanding power to straighten life's priorities with a jolt. At such dramatic moments, people suddenly realise that priorities matter.

Tragically, however, chronic overloading obscures this truth. How we live influences how we die, and misplaced busyness leads to terminal regrets. If we don't move to establish and then guard that which matters most, the breathless pace of daily overload will blind us to eternal priorities, until one day we too stand at such a window and look down. Perhaps with regret.

William Law said 'If you attempt to talk to a dying man about sports or business, he is no longer interested. He now sees other things as more important. People who are dying recognise what we often forget, that we are standing on the brink of another world.'



This video is incredible.

vulnerability

Last Sunday was one of my all time favourite nights at Sunday @5. It was also very intense. Still discussing the role of the Holy Spirit, we talked about vulnerability and the freedom it can bring to people. We had a great time of people being open about their weaknesses and getting real about stuff. This really excites me because I want a church full of people who are willing to ditch the pretense and to really walk together in truth. I think we're heading in the right direction.

A book that I've been reading every now and then over the last year or so is a book called 'Abba's Child' by Brennan Manning. It's had a profound effect on the way that I see God and some of what this man has written is gold. So good for the soul. I thought I would share a few paragraphs. Read them slow!

This brokeness is what needs to be accepted. Unfortunately this is what we tend to reject. Here the seeds of corrosive self-hatred take root. This painful vulnerability is the characteristic feature of our humanity that most needs to be embraced in order to restore our human condition to a healed state.

It used to be that I never felt safe with myself unless I was performing perfectly. My desire to be perfect had transcended my desire for God... my jaded perception of personal failure and inadequacy led to a loss of self esteem, triggering episodes of mild depression and heavy anxiety.

Some of us believe that God is almighty and can do everything; and that He is all wise and can do everything; but that He is all love and will do everything - there we draw back. As I see it, this ignorance is the greatest of all hindrances to God's lovers.

...they over-extend themselves in people, projects and causes, motivated not by personal commitment but by the fear of not living up to others' expectations. Everybody will admire us but no one will know us.

...I have always loved you. And I have been waiting for you to hear me say that to you. But you have been so busy trying to prove to yourself that you are loved that you have not heard me.

Experiencing the inner healing of the heart is seldom a sudden catharsis or an instant liberation from bitterness, anger, resentment, and hatred. More often it is a gentle growing into oneness with the Crucified who has achieved our peace through His blood on the cross. This may take considerable time because the memories are so vivid and the hurt is still so deep. But it will happen.

May you know the God of love as a stronger force than the fight inside.

windsor does TED

Excited all over again to be hosting the second Think Tank discussion night of the year! We had a great turn out to our first one discussing the drop out problem in church. That event looked like this, and the feedback looked like this.

This time we're not looking at the problem so much, but looking at 5 key areas of church life, and seeing if they could be approached in a little more 'out of the box' kind of way. The world has changed hugely, and ecclesiology doesn't seem to reflect that. What do we think about this?

On the night we will be hearing five different TED style talks, each followed by 10 minutes of discussion. We will explore how teaching could have a different approach, how community worship could be done differently, the role social media has in church life, the issue of belonging and what community gatherings could be if we relied less on programs.

This is open to anyone interested in what church could look like in the 21st Century and how to best engage with people in our churches.

Good times!

5th June
cafewindsor - Mairangi Bay
7pm

the power of metaphor

I've been thinking lots about language lately, and the way that it shapes our experiences. In particular I've been thinking about the metaphors we use to describe the way we approach faith. The idea is that language is not just a tool, but also something that tells our brains how to interpret experiences. Confused? Let me explain a bit better.

The school system loves to teach you about metaphor. Sitting in a third from English class you get taught how to use a metaphor in your creative writing, and before you know it all the world is a stage, you have a heart of gold and you're walking through a blanket of snow. You begin to learn that a metaphor is simply a linguistic tool, a way to be a little bit more spicy with your words. The idea is that you use the metaphor, you are in charge. It is only a mode of expression. Metaphor is poetry. End of story.

But this is simply not the case. Metaphors actually structure our brain and have a significant influence on the way we operate in different situations and how we interpret experiences. Here are a few examples if I sound a bit nuts so far.

Have you noticed that we often use the metaphor of battle to describe arguments? An argument is seen in the category of fight, where you have a winner and a loser. One person beats another in an argument, and the point of the discussion is to have a victor. You can attack someone else's view point and get shot down by them. We consistently use this metaphor to describe arguments and it has ended up having a massive influence on the way we think about them. It becomes a form of conflict, and scares many people from entering into robust discussion for fear of losing. But what if we were to talk about arguments like a dance? Or an archeological dig? Or the sculpturing of a piece of art?

Again, have you noticed that we talk about love like a journey? We say things like "the relationship is moving fast" or "we're in a rocky patch" or "we're just no longer on the same path". We want to make sure that we are "going in the same direction" and sometimes want to "take things slow". Interesting. Is this a helpful way to talk about love? Does it put the idea of commitment into unhelpful categories?

When you start thinking like this it becomes clear that we need to have a good think about the metaphors we use when it comes to faith. I am often fairly confused by them. Often I hear "I'm really pumped on God at the moment!" and then worry that in people's minds God becomes merely a way to feel excited about things, and God is there to pump us up, to be life's prozac. God pumps us up. He is the heavenly protein shake. I find it confusing.

In some churches I've heard faith described as a battle. Unhelpful confusions with biblical imagery often serve to reinforce this, and because humans aren't the enemy, we are told to wage war on Satan and the powers of darkness. It isn't that this isn't appropriate sometimes, but that the metaphor is often badly used and the gospel can become about a victorious life, about being conquerers of sin, about winning all the time. A successful human is someone who crushes sin and walks in strength. I know Paul draws on this metaphor, but we have to be careful as to what extent we use it. The most worrying thing is that sometimes we forget the battle has already been won by the ultimate warrior. And it didn't look much like combat at all when he won the fight. No need to walk around the room stomping on the devil. I don't even know what to do with people who do that.

Probably the most common metaphor used at the moment is to describe faith or life as a journey. It seems to be a fairly recent phenomenon and it is something that Mark Sayers has touched on here. If life is a journey then we're always on the road. We have no real destination, living in incompleteness and always looking for the next experience that will add meaning to our lives. Maybe this is why we liked to get pumped? It's part of the journey, an experience that gives us meaning. Does anyone know where they're going though? Because what this metaphor does is to keep us in a dissatisfied state of mind and can give us an excuse to push accountability aside because "these decisions and consequences are all part of my journey". It can often serve as a barrier to rebuke because "everybody's journey is different". Despite its popularity, it is really helpful?

What are the good metaphors? And how do they structure our thinking? Do they have much in a say in how you approach life?



For more on the power of metaphor, check out 'Metaphors We Live By' by Lakoff and Johnson.