Simplicity

Following up the last post about "Living Below the Line", I am interested to hear of people's experiences of taking up the challenge.  Sue and I, for a number of reasons couldn't tackle the challenge last week, but are planning to do so this coming week.

This topic has raised issues of simplicity.  How do we simplify our lives? This is not easy, especially living in a relatively affluent nation like New Zealand.  There are some classic resources to help us such as Ron Sider's "Rich Christians in an Age of Hunger" and "Living More Simply".

John Wesley was a great revivalist and preacher. But he was also careful with money.  He was born into a poor family, and when he followed his father by becoming a preacher he had no illusions about financial rewards.  His income began at 30 pounds a year – more than enough for a single person to live.  He determined to live on 28 pounds and give the rest away.

In the years that followed his income rose dramatically: 60 pounds one year, 90 the next.  Instead of letting his expenses rise, he kept the 28 pound ceiling, and gave the rest away.  Wesley felt that Christians should not merely tithe but give away all extra income once family and creditors were provided for.  Wesley’s income peaked at 1400 pounds per annum, but he kept living on 28.

This was so unusual that he was investigated by the English tax commissioners.  He limited his expenses by refusing to buy items considered essential for someone of his income.  His simple rules were: “Gain all you can, Save all you can, Give all you can.”

Some other key steps:
1. We need others around us for mutual encouragement.
2. Make it a spiritual exercise, not a religious rule.  (I paste below some insights I've gathered)
3. Don't forget to celebrate.

Simplicity – as a Spiritual Practice

Simplicity is an inward reality that results in an outward lifestyle that is not extravagant, not lusting for status or power, and not dominated by material possessions. 

Some Hints:

·  The key is in Matt 6:33 “seek first God’s kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things shall be yours as well.”  God’s Kingdom comes first – even before a simple lifestyle.

·  Try having a simple (and cheap) meal once a week and giving the money you save to someone in need.

·  Instead of asking, “How can I earn more?” ask, “How can I spend less?”  The greatest saving is the ‘bargain’ you decide you don’t need to buy.

·  Learn to enjoy things without owning them.  Enjoy the beach without feeling we have to buy a piece of it.

·  Avoid making new ‘laws’ about Christian lifestyle, but discover what ‘treasures’ you have that may compete with God for your heart.  “For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”  (Matt 6:21)

·  But, don’t be stingy, shabby, small, or mean.  God is not poor.

 Some Benefits of Simplicity:

Ø  Simplicity trains us to be comfortable without having all our wants and desires met.

Ø  It helps break the power of mammon (wealth) over us and sets us free to give.

Ø  Simplicity helps us to be free from anxiety.

Ø  We learn more about being grateful for God’s gifts to us.

Live Below the Line

Next week (23-27 September) offers an opportunity to both help eliminate extreme poverty as well as experiencing something that will shape you as a disciple of Jesus.  It is called Live Below the Line.

The idea is that we spend 5 days feeding ourselves with $2.25 a day – the New Zealand equivalent of the extreme poverty line. The reason? To give a glimpse into the lives of 1.4 billion people who have no choice but to live below the line every day – and who have to make $2.25 cover a lot more than food Live Below the Line is a campaign that's changing the way people think about poverty - and making a huge difference - by challenging everyday people to live on the equivalent of the extreme poverty line for 5 days.  Click on the link below to find out more!https://www.livebelowtheline.com/nz-tearfund

You can sign up on the Live Below the Line website and choose which charity you will support.  TEAR fund is one example.

Like the 40 hour famine, this kind of experience has the potential to shape our lives because it addresses both our thinking and our behaviour.  For 5 days we behave differently, and while doing so we will be thinking about the realities of poverty and how we can make a difference.

I believe that developing a simple lifestyle is one of the biggest challenges facing people today.  I know I am wealthy by world standards, so I am not writing this blog as a claim that I have arrived.  But I want to be on the journey.  If we are to end extreme poverty, we need to simplify our own lives.  If we are to be good stewards of the earth's resources, we need to reduce our consumption.  If we are to worship God not mammon, then we need to curb our desire for more.  If we are to have time to reach out to people who do not yet know Jesus, we need to reduce the frantic busyness of our lives.  The practice of simplicity is key.

Let me know what you discover.

Martin.

The Forgotten Ways - Alan Hirsch

On holiday I read Alan Hirsch’s book “The Forgotten Ways: Reactivating the Missional Church.”  Hirsh is a missionary at heart serving in urban Australia.  He is a practitioner who gets on with the job, but also a thinker who reflects biblically on the changing culture we are seeking to engage in God’s mission.  Alan challenges his readers to look back to our roots and remember what we so easily forget.  We are called to be a community of people under the lordship of Jesus, defining ourselves and organising our life around being an agent of God’s mission to the world.  This is true both here and there, on the Taieri and in Thailand!

What stops us being active in God’s mission like this?  Sometimes we forget that we are called to be disciples – apprentices who are learning from the Master.  All the congregations at East Taieri Church will be participating in a series in August titled “Called on By God Together.”  It aims to reaffirm our sense of being called to be followers of Jesus, who help others to follow also.  Sometimes we lose confidence in the gospel, forgetting that we are sent out with marvellous news to share.  This is part of the reason I’m keen to host one of the African Christians the Church Missionary Society are bringing here in 2014. They have a white-hot faith in the gospel.

But in Hirsch’s book I read: “for we who live in the Western world, the major challenge to the viability of Christianity is not Buddhism, with all its philosophical appeal the Western mind, nor is it Islam, with all the challenge that it poses to Western culture. It is not the New Age that poses such a threat... I have come to believe that the major threat to the viability of our faith is that of consumerism.  This is a far more heinous and insidious challenge to the gospel, because in so many ways it infects each and every one of us.”[p.106]

Our identity, meaning and purpose are found in Christ, and not in consuming ever more sophisticated goods and services, not even religious goods and services. 

Positively, Hirsch looks at the early church and the growing Chinese church and asks what makes them tick?  He describes the DNA of a missional church as mDNA (missional DNA).  It is this mDNA which codes the “apostolic genius” which pulses through the early church and apostolic Jesus movements through history. [p.76] His working definition of missional church is: “a community of God’s people that defines itself, and organizes its life around its real purpose of being an agent of God’s mission to the world.” [p.82]

He explains the key components of this mDNA using the following diagram.  The heart is having Jesus as Lord.  (Not as simple a thing as we first imagine).  He goes on to expand on each of the other five key elements.

 

Lent

This Sunday is the first Sunday in Lent. 

Lent is a season of preparation and  (an unpopular word in today's culture) self-disciple.  It begins on Ash Wednesday (Feb 13th) and concludes at sun-down on Holy Saturday (Mar 30th, the day before Easter Sunday).

During the forty weekdays and six Sundays in Lent, Christians traditionally remember the sacrificial life and ministry of Jesus leading to his death on the cross.  Lent is a time for renewing our commitment to following Jesus as his disciples or apprentices. 

The forty weekdays also remind us of the forty days Jesus spent fasting in the desert before the beginning of his public ministry.  Because of this, some Christians choose to fast from something during Lent.  I've heard of people giving up chocolate or a favourite TV programme.  This might sound silly and even unnecessary, but it has the benefit of reminding ourselves that our wants and desires don't need to rule our life.

Sometimes Christians do extra kind and generous things during Lent to share Jesus' love with others.

This Lent my wife Sue and I have decided to be more disciplined in our prayer together.   We have much to pray about in life and ministry and yet sometimes it can be difficult to synchronise time together to pray.  Hence our resolve.  We have also downloaded some Reflections for Lent (one Bible reading and reflection each week for seven weeks.)  If you would like to do these readings and reflections at home, you can download the resource from the Presbyterian Church website.

 

When we spend time reading the Bible and seeking God in prayer, we catch the heartbeat of God and hear his call to care for those who are poor, vulnerable, lost and lonely.  Other spiritual disciplines help us train to be more like Jesus, allowing the Holy Spirit to work in us and through us to others.

 

May you know God's blessing this Lent,

 

Buildings in the Post Canterbury Earthquake Era

Attitudes to historic, unreinforced buildings have changed enormously since the Canterbury earthquakes.  As pastor of a church I have noticed this in several ways:

• Insurance premiums have risen significantly. 
• Perceptions of the risk of old buildings have changed.  One woman who had left Christchurch after the February quake and moved to Dunedin told me she didn't like going into old brick buildings anymore. 
• Government and local council building standards have changed.

At East Taieri Church we have sought to navigate our way through this in a reasonable and responsible way.  Not over-reacting, nor pretending nothing has changed.  We have also sought to avoid any sense of worry, panic, or preoccupation with buildings. The key question we seek to keep before us is:

"What is God saying to us about the facilities we need for God's mission here?"

 

The elders and other leaders at ET pray about the future of God's mission here and seek to discern God's leading.  Some of the vision we have expressed in the council of elders for facilities to foster God's mission include:

• A vision for a large, vibrant, contemporary worship setting.  We see value in a multipurpose worship space which could accommodate up to 500 people.  This would also be of value to the wider Mosgiel community.
• A vision for continuing to run large events well.  We see this as part of our calling – our Christmas Eve services, Ministry Conference, large combined services, etc.
• East Taieri is family friendly.  Families identify with ET as a place where their children, young people, and their whole family can grow in Christ together.
• Part of being family friendly and hospitable is the need for settings where we have good facilities for children, and we can serve food and good coffee, engaging people in interactive, alternative worship.  (FUEL and Church @6 are good examples of this) This highlights the need for catering facilities.

Over a year ago, the elders established a Future Property Development Group (FPDG) to prepare a development plan for the East Taieri site.  They have consulted widely about the future needs of ministries of the church.

 

Over this same period the Dunedin City Council, like all councils, established a plan to assess and identify those public buildings that are earthquake prone. The Synod of Otago and Southland (who are the trustees for Presbyterian churches south of the Waitaki River) followed up on this by establishing a well researched and informed policy for Presbyterian buildings in the south. This policy includes the engagement of an engineering firm to carry out a seismic assessment of buildings.  They will inspect and do what is called an enhanced Initial Evaluation Procedure (IEP Plus).  That will tell us what percentage of the National Building Standard (NBS) each of our buildings meets, and other helpful information.
 

These engineers will be visiting East Taieri Church in March 2013 to carry out this seismic assessment process with the report due a couple of weeks later. Synod now require that buildings like ours meet 67% of NBS. It is unlikely that the Kinmont Hall and the East Taieri Church will meet these standards.  We will then be faced with deciding the future of these buildings.  What can be preserved and what cannot?  Synod has set a timeframe of 8 years for either the strengthening, sale or demolition of buildings that don’t meet these building standards.
 

Where does all this leave us? We have a wonderful heritage at East Taieri. For example, the gospel stories contained in the stained glass windows have spoken to generations of worshippers.  One of the challenges we face is how to best honour and preserve our heritage as we move into the future.  In the long term, the existing East Taieri church building doesn’t meet the mission needs of the congregation, and we expect it would need major strengthening work in order to meet earthquake national building standards.  No final decision on the future of the buildings has yet been made, but future investigations will include replacing the East Taieri Church with a new worship centre connected to the existing fellowship centre.  Elders and the Resourcing4Mission board will report to the congregation again in late March 2013 after the engineering assessment report is available.  There will be careful consultative, evaluation, design and planning processes put in place. 





General Assembly 2012

I appreciated attending the 2012 General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church of Aotearoa New Zealand (PCANZ) last week in Rotorua.  There were some great times of worshipping God together with elders and ministers from all around the country.  Ray Coster has made a great start as our new moderator, which is a kind of national leader.  His theme for the next two years is "Reviving the Flame: Living in the Power of God's Presence and the Presence of God's Power."  For the Sunday morning worship service, assembly met outdoors in the centre of Rotorua's streets - a fitting place for a church in mission to meet.  I thought Ray led with much warmth and grace, and preached with much passion, biblical insight, humility and real life application.  I valued the way Malcolm Gordon led us in song and prayer, and it was a delight having my daughter Sophie in the music team.  One key highlight for me was catching up with many people I knew and sharing stories of what God is doing.

I had a real sense of God at work through much of the assembly - I'm sure he was at work throughout - so thank you for praying!

I thought Assembly showed that the PCANZ is seeking to move from being a settled, somewhat inward focused church, to a mission church on the move and looking to join in with what God is doing in the world (here in NZ and around the globe).  There are some encouraging signs.  The Presbyterian Youth Ministry presentation was inspiring (and I saw many people from East Taieri in their photos).  The titles of their national programmes communicate that they are on mission: Going Further, Going Deeper, Going Global...

Assembly is sending out discussion papers to parishes and presbyteries about various efforts to focus more on mission.  There is a proposal for a four year, full-time term for the moderator who would become more of a missional leader.  I don't aspire to ever being moderator, but I'll know East Taieri have had enough of me if they nominate me for moderator as this four year term would necessitate ministers leaving their current parish.  Assembly affirmed that the purpose of the Church's property is to serve God's mission, and that the accumulation of significant wealth in church property and investments raises important biblical, ethical and financial issues.  It is proposed that in the future, a percentage of church property sales will go into a mission enterprise fund, that will make grants toward mission projects around NZ.  I thought this could have been approved there and then, but assembly was more cautious and decided to consult with parishes and presbyteries.  I do think we have to be prepared to trust people enough to get a move on with this.

Levels of trust are not increased by the difficult debates we encounter at assembly.  Every Assembly some liberal parishes bring proposals to fall from the 2006 ruling prohibiting those in sexual relationships outside of faithful marriage between a man and a woman from being ministers or elders.  This time there were three and each one was defeated.  These debates are emotional and often torrid, leaving everyone feeling bruised.  It is important to understand that those in favour of people living in gay and lesbian relationships being ministers and elders see this as an issue of justice, liberty of opinion, keeping up with the times, and avoiding discrimination.  The majority of assembly seemed to believe that the Bible teaches us that God calls us to his standard for sexual relationships as within heterosexual marriage.  As I voted with that majority, I reflected that being in the majority can easily lead to a harsh judgementalism of those who are different.  Christians are called to both grace and truth (John 1).  We must demonstrate love while standing for biblical values.  Is it possible to welcome gay and lesbian people into churches while saying we believe a homosexual lifestyle falls short of God's standards?  Gay and lesbian people would say that isn't possible.  I would argue that we welcome all people, and all are challenged to repentance in some area or other.  But the "love the sinner, hate the sin" argument isn't easy to live out in practice.  My challenge to myself and to all who believe that a homosexual lifestyle is sinful is: How many gay and lesbian people are you showing the love of God to?

In a related debate, Assembly voted by a large majority to affirm the historic Christian understanding of marriage as the union of a man and a woman, and urged Parliament not to proceed with the "same-sex marriage" bill.  A submission from the PCANZ will be made to the select committee.  Assembly was one vote short of passing a resolution to restrict ministers to conducting marriage services to only a man and woman.  Was such a resolution necessary?  Can we rely on all ministers of the church to abide by the stated position of the General Assembly on marriage?  The answer will become obvious if Parliament passes the "same-sex marriage" bill.  I do encourage people to have their say by writing a positive, respectful, constructive letter to the select committee and also to their MP.  The East Taieri elders are also making a submission.

Some people claim that we must find a third way through such debates.  But neither side has been able to do so in over 20 years of study, dialogue and debate.  I think the issue is whether or not God has given definite boundaries for sexual relationships.  It is hard to find a third way of answering that.  Having said that, I believe we must not hate or fear people who believe different things to us.  Jesus even calls us to love our enemies! 

I have allocated too much of this post to the debate on marriage and sexuality.  Sadly it also took too much of the assembly time.  It is important because it reflects basic understandings of the nature of the Bible and of human beings created in the image of God.  However, I look forward to the day when I don't come home from an assembly feeling battered and drained from such issues.

Assembly made other decisions.  The Pacific Islands Synod gained the status of a presbytery which is a hugely encouraging decision for the large PI section of the church.  The new contemporary confession of faith, the Kupu Whakapono, was formally adopted.  We have used the Kupu Whakapono in worship at East Taieri on several occassions.  Assembly also agreed to work for the interests of vulnerable children; endorsed the concept of a living wage; and agreed to advocate for climate change refugees in the Pacific.  The moderator-designate who will take over from Ray Coster in two years was elected.  He is Andrew Norton, minister of St Columba (Botany, East Auckland).  I think Andrew will make a fine moderator.

My Sister Karen

In the run up to Christmas my little sister died.  Karen was 44 and her brave battle with cancer was over.  I want to pay tribute to Karen's love of life and family.  She expressed her emotions openly and told us she loved us.  She had a smiling determination, a love of sport, animals and the outdoors.  Her lasting friendships were obvious at her funeral when we heard from three friends from three particular stages of her life.  I particularly appreciated hearing about her high school years, which were largely unknown to me having left home for University by then.  I also want to pay tribute to Karen's husband Dallas who cared for Karen so faithfully and well right through her many health struggles. 


My family and I have so appreciated the support of friends, family and our church family at East Taieri.  It has drawn us closer to people here.  As I said one Sunday morning, in a church the size of ET, some people won't have known that a sister, let alone that she had cancer.  That is completely understandable.  The wonderful thing is that some people knew, and those who were close to us have been incredibly thoughtful and supportive, especially elders and the ministry team, and those I work most closely with.  Thank you everyone.

I have taken many, many funerals in my 20 years as a pastor, and sat with many grieving people.  I'm reminded again how true it is that comfort came from people who managed to say a few halting words of sympathy or write a simple card.  It wasn't their profound words, but their love and care that counted.

It isn't easy for me to speak about the trials we face.  It makes me vulnerable.  In this case, the vulnerability led to people being able to care for us.  Keeping a "stiff upper lip" and not saying anything would have shut people out and kept the relationships shallow.  Have you had an experience of being vulnerable leading to deeper relationships?

This time has also reminded me that the message of the resurrection is amazing and full of hope.  I know this in my head, and preach it from the scriptures, but I've been reminded of the importance of the resurrection by seeing Karen's body waste away.

"Therefore we do not lose heart.  Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day.  For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all.  So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen.  For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.  Now we know that if the earthly tent we live in is destroyed, we have a building from God, an eternal house in heaven, not built by human hands... Now it is God who has made us for this very purpose and has given us the Spirit as a deposit, guaranteeing what is to come."  2 Cor 4:16ff

I have preached from these verses in the last week at a dear saints funeral.  I think I'm more motivated to share the good news of Jesus than I have ever been!

God bless you,
Martin.