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.

zane: spoken word

Zane Scarborough from Attitude was with us last week sharing some of his spoken word poetry. We were all pretty inspired by this guy and his encouragement to express ourselves in new ways. I found Dietrich's poem the most moving, "Which hill will you die on?" Good stuff.

Have a listen!

coming out about doubt

Well, I sure wasn't ready for that.

Last Monday I decided to write a post trying to put words to how I felt about some of my experiences with church. I really went for it. I think it's fair to say that I was a bit angry about the way I felt managed, kept in line and essentially controlled in the past. I felt like the church at times had been my thought police who had stepped in when I failed their orthodoxy test. I guess what I was trying to get across was that I feel there are more important things to church life then holding up values or doctrines. Not that they're not important.

But what a reaction! In 24 hours the post had been read 400 times, had been shared all over New Zealand, Australia and the UK and had been met with quite a reaction. Many people felt understood by the fact I was acknowledging these struggles, and many seemed to feel exactly what I did. People actually thanked me for writing it. Personally, it felt like a huge relief to know there were so many others who understood. Sometimes it feels like I'm a bit of a lone wolf. Anyone else relate?

Others got on the defensive and completely disagreed. Some felt I was undermining the Bible and the teaching of Jesus and promoting something contrary to scripture. Some felt I was promoting an empty ecclesiology, nothing more than an intellectual focus group while I was neglecting other important jobs of what the church should be doing, like walking in the Spirit, evangelism and caring for communities.

Whether you agree with the post or not, it seems that it hit a nerve. Whether you agree with it or not, the fact that there are so many people who feel like that means that you cannot just dismiss this way of thinking, you have to engage with it. And it isn't just me and my friends. The studies are saying that these tensions are causing young adults to walk away from church in huge numbers.

A few notes on what I wrote. It was not a treatise on ecclesiology. It was an expression of frustration in ecclesiology not implictly making room for these concerns. Sure, not everyone cares about the way the biblical canon was decided, not everyone cares about the complexities of interpretation and not everyone cares about what we mean when we use certain words. So of course the blog post didn't resonate with everyone. And that's great for them, because churches tend to give them exactly what they want in Sunday teaching, in small group discussions and doctrine: neatly packaged faith statements and application points. We all know people who just like to be told what to believe about something, and that really is fine. The point is, if we run church like this all the time, we are implicitly saying to those who do think about this stuff that their concerns don't matter as much. We confine it to one-on-one conversations with people who quite often haven't thought about it to the same extent and usually don't know how deep the rabbit hole goes with some stuff, causing even more frustration.

Similarly, there are some that go to church primarily to experience God, maybe in a worship time, to hear from Him and feel His presence, and so these issues are maybe side issues for them. But what about those who don't engage with God like this? What if someone is struggling with questions of spiritual experience, hype, musical emotional manipulation and criteria that we use to deem whether or not the Spirit is present? We implicitly tell them that the show must go on. How can we make room for this important stuff?

The other thing to bear in mind, is that this is just a blog. A conversation starter. And I'm learning lots about how things can be interpreted once they're in a public forum. Try and hear the spirit of what I'm saying if you can!

Many messages are picked up in the way we do church, the fact that we use stages, the way we structure our services, the amount of time allocated to different activities, and the conversations we allow to take part on a Sunday. All these things say something about what we really believe.

But what do I think? Well the things is, I don't really know yet! But I'm excited to be part of a community that is open to trying new things, to rethinking preaching, worship, belonging and doing community together. To be flexible and not too prescriptive with Sunday church. Essentially, I'm thinking along the lines of listening to the concerns of the people you have first, before storming ahead with a vision statement. Turning up in a new community with a framework already worked out could be pretty silly. However, I will think about this over the next little while and try to flesh out my thoughts, and we will also be running a discussion night next month on some new ideas, so stay tuned for that.

New thinking around preaching and worship can be difficult when there is a strong theology around apostleship, the word of God and anointing of the people of God. This is particularly where theology becomes significant for church life.

Other questions were raised about my use of scripture, what does the bible say about doubt? Does Jesus endorse it like I seem to? He doesn't seem to discourage it, and doubt certainly isn't the antithesis to faith - maybe certainty is. But that's another huge discussion.

In closing, I'm beginning to see my role a bit more clearly. I'm in a unique position - I am a young adult in New Zealand who feels what many of my peers feel about the church that cause them to walk away from it. Yet I work for a church, in young adults ministry. A church that I love and believe in and feel trusted by. So maybe a big part of my job is to give air time to these concerns, to make them heard, to try and make people sit up and listen to them. To show that the church cares about this stuff and is working hard to address it in all areas of church life. Part of this will be having people tell their stories on this blog. If this sounds like something you would like to do, you can email me.

Change might hurt a bit, but I'm hopeful. Let's keep the conversation alive!