Stephen's weblog

A lot of people have been asking me about my plans for next year, which is a fair enough question. Unfortunately my answer isn’t all that clear. On the one hand, I have no idea what I will actually do next year. I want to be as open as possible to anything God might have around the corner for me. I’ll consider secular work, working for another Church and a few different study options. Anyone that wants to talk to me about a job I’ll talk to, but I’ll need to be praying and thinking heaps to discern what will be best for Ruth and Elizabeth and myself.

Whilst waiting to consider any other options, I am making plans to spend a year studying. Fortunately, in 2006 Education Queensland is changing the requirement for teacher training so that graduates only need to complete a 1 year Graduate Diploma in Education instead of a 2 year Bachelor of Education to be eligible to teach. I’m looking at any of QUT (external), ACU, UQ or GU, and all have their pluses and minuses.

I like the idea of being a Christian studies teacher or a chaplain. The consensus seems to be that teaching is my strongest gift from God, and my passion seems to be for young people, so this might just be the best ministry possible for me. It may also allow a bit of travel at some point, provide an income source to explore various ministry options without having to be paid by a Church and allow me to go back into Church ministry in the future if that seems right at the time.


One of the key variables for me is working out what subjects I could be qualified to teach. I have heaps of subjects clocked up for Economics and Theology, plus a few here and there for social sciences and maths. However there isn’t a great demand for economics teachers, and Christian studies will restrict me to private schools, so I may lock myself out of a lot of jobs if I restrict myself to those two!

Anyway, we are simultaneously scared and excited about the future. I’m sure it’s going to be good!

I’ve been in a bit of a blokey mood lately. (even fixed our fence the other day) We’ve been doing valiant man – which is fairly cool, and I’ve been listening to MP3 sermons on maleness. GRUNT GRUNT Valiant man has you watching some DVDs by Allan Meyer of Careforce Church of Christ (which are OK) and then meeting in a small group of guys to talk about sex stuff. It’s been fairly interesting and had had a surprising level of honesty. Quite helpful for most I think.

The sermons I’ve been listening to have been very interesting! Mark Driscoll is the pastor of Mars Hill Bible Church in Seattle. I heard him with Chris Seay (?) in 1999 at the National youth Pastors Convention in San Diego on post-modernity, and he was fascinating then. His messages are very direct, no beating around the bushes, and rather long – often an hour or so! Overall I disagree with him on more issues that I would like to list, but he is fun to listen to

Most of the sermons are biblically focuses, but a mini-series during a year-long stint in proverbs focused on men and masculinity etc. Very cool. I think every bloke should have a listen – of course, compare to the Bible prayerfully rather than taking every word as gospel, but for me it was very challenging and inspiring stuff.

Here are some cool links:
http://www.marshillchurch.org/audio/10.21.01_11am_covenant_headship_driscoll.mp3

http://www.marshillchurch.org/audio/10.28.01_11am_masculinity_driscoll.mp3

http://www.marshillchurch.org/audio/11.04.01_11am_men_as_husbands_driscoll.mp3


http://www.marshillchurch.org/audio/11.11.01_11am_men_as_fathers_driscoll.mp3

Or to look up any sermon – go to http://www.marshillchurch.org/ , click on the link that says MP3/audio, then sermons and go exploring yourself. It will be fun!

Another great quote is from Mark Sayers – phuture, forge, Red Network, ex salvo, all round good guy
A Chinese proverb is : “If you want a definition of water, don’t ask a fish.” Deep.

It’s possible the fish doesn’t even know that the water exists. The water is all that the fish knows – it swims in it, breathes through it, sees through it. Ironically you might think that a fish would know more about water than anyone else, as they spend more time with water than anyone else, but by being so close they can’t actually look at water objectively. One of the few ways a fish would be able to work out what water is would be to jump out of the water, experience the air briefly, and then they would notice the water more as they re-entered it. You need to get some objective distance up before you can see it clearly. We really see how the earth itself is a sphere by going out into space and looking down at it .

For us, it’s almost impossible to understand the situations we are in and the assumptions that we make about them, because we probably don’t even know where we are making these assumptions. For our Churches, it is hard for us as Christians to think through what happens in our Church objectively, as being Christians inside the Church is like fish being in the water.
Two things spring to mind. One, new Christians might have the best perspective on Church when they first enter into it as they have objectivity and are not yet part of the system. The problem here is they probably don’t have much Christian maturity at that stage. The second thought is that to analyse the Church objectively we need to be listening to the voices of those who think or practice Church radically differently to us. Those voices are often annoying, because they are often critical of what we do, but we need to listen to them to help us to jump outside the fish bowl that is the Church and see how someone else views what we do.

It is also rather important for us to understand our cultures, as this will help us to communicate to those around us, and help us to understand what it really means to be a follower of Jesus today. The problem here is that once again we are a fish in water, as we really can’t see our culture clearly enough as we are part of it. We can critique those cultures who are different to us fairly easily, but the culture that we are part of personally is like the air we breathe or the water fish swim in – a fact of life, an assumption that we hardly notice.
What would a non-Christian looking at us from a third world country say about our culture or our Churches if they could see us clearly? Where would they notice our blind spots? What would make them think that we are morally bankrupt?

On the study tour heard an interesting quote from Paul Cameron, the Executive Officer with the Churches of Christ in Vic/Tas. He says that Churches should be a laboratory, not a museum.

It got me thinking….

What actually is a museum? It’s a place where people come to look at things from the past. It is normally backwards and focused on the way things used to be done. In a museum, you are a spectator, you’re not meant to touch the objects or get too involved. You look at a variety of different things, and your job is not to make the place better for anyone else, but to only pass critiques. Yes, lovely painting. Ooh, that sculpture, it’s terrible. A museum is something that doesn’t change very often, and let’s be honest, can be a bit boring. Going occasionally isn’t too bad, but you wouldn’t want to turn up too often. And in the end, there are some people who will just never go to a museum. There are some people that will enjoy going, some people that you can convince to go, and some that think the roof will collapse if they go to inside.

Sounds Churchy enough to me.

I haven’t been to a laboratory for quite a while, but when I used to go to them they were fun. You were always doing things that were cool, making experiments to try to create something new. A lot of the time what we did didn’t quite work, but that was all OK. Each mistake was another step closer to making it work. You never got in trouble for trying something that didn’t work, as long as you were experimenting and heading in the right direction. In fact I did get in trouble a few times for just talking to my friends too much and not bothering to try the experiments. The lab sessions were normally cooperative, as you relied on others around you. Sometimes we’d watch someone else in action doing an experiment at the front, but then we’d have the responsibility of doing it ourselves. After our experiments, we always had to reflect on what it was we’d just done, think how we could have done it better and see what we could learn from our experience. Occasionally there was an explosion, but it was all OK. I’m glad we have scientists who spend their time in laboratories, as by their coming up with innovative ideas and testing them in their labs, our quality of life improves as their experiments prove successful.
I like the idea of Church as a laboratory. Fun, looking to be innovative, experimenting with different things, getting people involved, reflecting on what we do, coming up with new ideas, making the world a better place when something succeeds. Rather than just locking Church into the formula that has been used for the last century, being prepared to use imagination to create new forms of Church, new methods of mission and new ways of becoming like Jesus. What if our best energies were taken out of TV, gossip, sport and making money, and put instead into re-imagining what Church could be?

** WARNING - NEW SCAM **Generally, I hate the warnings that get sent around, but I have to admit that this one is important. Please protect everyone you know by sending this to your entire email list.If a man comes to your front door and says he is conducting a survey and asks you to show him your bum, do NOT show him your bum. This is a scam - he only wants to see your bum.I wish I'd got this yesterday. I feel so stupid and cheap.

(Thanks Nick!)

A group of us have just been part of the second Youth Vision Study Tour. 2 years ago we took 14 from QLD and 17 from WA to Sydney. This year we had about 45, with 15 from QLD and others from every state. Firstly we had a 2 day National Gathering of http://www.youthvision.org.au/ , where we stayed in a monastery, which provoked numerous immature jokes.

Then for the tour we moved from the monastery to the nunnery (he he), a backpackers resort in Fitzroy, walking distance to the city. Great place. From there we visited a great variety of ministries. If you want more info on any of that, have a look in comments

It saddens me to announce my resignation from Springwood Church of Christ, effective January 31st, 2006. For many years I have wrestled with the issue of how best to use my passions and gifts. I believe that now the time is appropriate, with God’s help, to seek a position where I am a better fit. I am confident that this will be best for myself and the Church.

Although I am optimistic about the future, this decision brings me an enormous amount of sorrow. I have thoroughly enjoyed the nine years I will have worked here. The people I have had the privilege of working with have been exceptional, and I bear malice towards noone here. I love God’s Church at Springwood, and it has felt like a real family all my life.
For the future, I don’t know what is around the corner. I am open to anything – ministry, secular work, further study. Whatever I am doing, I plan to be a representative of the Most High God and seek to serve Him wherever I am. At this stage I assume that Springwood will remain my home Church next year. Please pray for Ruth, Elizabeth and myself in this time. This will be extremely painful for us all. We will need wisdom, guidance, and courage to navigate this change