For What it’s Worth…

My invitation to World Vision’s “An evening with Brian McLaren” arrived in the post today. The nicely recycled-looking brochure didn’t do anything to alleviate my surprise at the partnership between this organisation (of which I happen to be a former employee) and McLaren, the “speaker, thinker and activist.”  I think I was at least expecting some acknowledgment of his position on the fringe of Christian orthodoxy, but none was made.

It is helpful to hear from people from outside our own “stable.”   We appreciate it when people are well-read and able to see past our own cultural blind-spots.  And as someone preparing to plant a church and seeking to engage the community around me with the gospel of Jesus, the opportunity to hear from one of the leaders of the Emerging/Emergent Movement definitely has some appeal.   As a pastor though, I believe there are good reasons for me to politely decline the invitation.  It’s my privilege to spend my time with people who wrestle daily with all sorts of issues, including many which are staple fare in McLaren’s writing and speaking.

If you’re learning our memory verses with us, you might like to use the computer desktop images we’re producing to help keep the Bible passages in front of you
Our first passage is Philippians 4:8.  Download the desktop image for your computer below.

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If we are actually speaking truth … why isn’t anyone listening?

I’ve been reading Branding Faith by Phil Cooke.  To some in the church, the idea of branding is anathema,  but I suspect this is mostly due to misunderstanding the concept.  Branding is part of the reality within the church exists.  Cooke quotes a study which found that one in four babies, speaks a brand name as their first word!  This study, by British Market Research Bureau  is also quoted in a slightly alarming 2003 article in the SMH.

At the heart of the challenge laid out in the book is Cooke’s distillation of the definition of marketing: The art of surrounding a product, organisation or person with a powerful and compelling story.  The gospel of Jesus Christ is a powerful and compelling story, we don’t need to find it, or create it, just tell it!  The task seems to me to be local churches finding answers to the question, “how do we tell the powerful and compelling story of the gospel of Jesus Christ in our communities?”

Pastor and author Kent Hughes tells the following story: A number of years ago, a church in Dallas, Texas suffered a terrible split. Each of the two factions into which the members had drawn filed a lawsuit to claim the church property. A church court assembled to hear the case.
During the hearing, it was revealed that the conflict had begun at a church dinner when one of the church elders had received a smaller slice of ham than a child seated next to him. Sadly, this slight was reported in the city’s newspapers. Imagine how all the people of Dallas laughed about that situation! Such a display of disunity brought great discredit not only to what was left of that church, but also to Jesus Christ.

It’s impossible to do justice to such a significant topic in a limited space, but we can think of God’s holiness as being both his unique ‘otherness’ in terms of power, authority and glory, and also his perfect purity. There is none like our God! Because of God’s holiness, the New Testament urges Christians also to be holy, (ie 1 Peter 1:15), that is to be ‘separate’ in the sense of distinctive, and pure.

In his letter to Titus, pastor of the church in Crete, The Apostle Paul identifies God’s desire for holiness among his people as the reason for Christ’s life, death and resurrection, “to purify for himself a people that are his very own, eager to do what is good” Titus 2:14.