Pacific Parks Uniting began with a group of people who were keen to explore an alternative to the hectic pace of a church addicted to excellent performance. We’d been in churches that measured effectiveness by the number of people attending Sunday worship and midweek on-campus programs. We’d also been in churches with a focus on correctness, in which newcomers were carefully tested for right belief and respectable lifestyles.
We were committed to exploring an alternative approach to church that would equip its members to live out radical discipleship largely in the context of everyday relationships. Our gatherings would need to inspire and support people to engage with real life, seven days a week.
To summarise this approach, we started describing ourselves as “Relaxed Church”.
We come together in a welcoming, warm, encouraging and inclusive way.
The primary doctrine that we affirm here is the doctrine of grace.
Serene Jones describes a similar connection between the doctrine of grace and the ryhthms of a church’s life in her article, “Graced Practices: Excellence and Freedom in the Christian Life”, found in Practicing Theology: Beliefs and Practices in Christian Life, edited by Mirsolav Volf and Dorothy Bass, 2002. Jones is a theologian with membership in a United Church of Christ congregation in New Haven.
Serene Jones describes the ambitious vision-casting process developed by a ‘Millennial committee’. As they presented their plans to the congregations they found people becoming tired, overwhelmed and without enthusiasm. In response, the committee went back and explored the benefits of the good news of Jesus Christ. They unpacked what it meant to live out of justification and sanctification. They revisited the Scriptures and found there the narrative of God’s grace, from creation through to the life, death and resurrection of Jesus. The congregation’s leaders then began to explore what it would mean to develop gatherings that would be good news to their participants. Practicing the sabbath, grounded in the freedom of justification, became a gift to people already exhausted by hectic lifestyles.
So what would living in the grace of God look like for a new network of house churches? Pacific Parks began with the grace-imbued practices of Sabbath and hospitality. Instead of beginning with running worship services, we started with leadership meetings on Sunday mornings in each others homes, over a barbecue. We moved to public parks and started inviting friends and family. Our first purchase as a church was a large catering barbecue. We followed that up with sports equipment.
At first some of us felt a little anxious, perhaps guilty, about missing out on Sunday morning worship. We weren’t busy ‘running Church’. There were no rosters to fill. There were no offerings to take up and count as we had already made arrangements for direct debit giving. There was no ‘order of service’ and no post-event evaluation. It was strange for people who had spent all their lives ‘doing church’.
We discovered that our energy was now available to focus on expressing the hospitality of God to those around us. God brought into our circles people who would not have fitted neatly into a church committed to excellence. Like the woman with only one outfit for wearing in public who was anxious that her grandson was sipping on a drink during a worship time. We pointed out that most of us had a cup of coffee in our hands. The couple who were living together who joined one of our house churches, later holding their wedding in one of our homes and regularly bringing their extended family and network of friends. The young people who struggled with multiple addictions, who time and time again found themselves responding to God’s grace.
We seek to be flexible, accepting and authentic, creatively responding to others.
As in the relational approach to Church, our relaxed approach is connected with our perception of how God dynamically relates to the world. We believe that God interacts with the world as it is, continually helping creation respond in tune with God’s call. We don’t believe that God has a blueprint that we must discover and follow slavishly. In the life of Jesus we see constant examples of responding to people as they are, in the settings in which they live, using the elements of each scenario.
Earlier this month I met with a family network for a baptism in the park. When the parents of the boy being baptised asked if we had to hold the service in church on Sunday I explained that the Uniting in Worship regulations did specificy that baptism should be held after a sermon during a Sunday worship service. But because Pacific Parks was committed to developing flexible and creative approaches to church, we could say yes to Saturday morning in the local park. Besides, we didn’t have a church service on Sunday. Neither did we have a church building to hold it in!
So where’s the doctrine here? The Uniting Church in Australia does have well developed doctrine around the connection between word and sacrament, designed to ensure that baptism is a corporate experience of the wider Church and not just an individual rite of passage. In planning the baptism service one of my first priorities was to ascertain who the congregation of the faithful would be in this case. I had two couples from Pacific Parks Uniting who would be affirming a commitment to nurture faith in the child and his family. The parents themselves were keen to express their own emerging faith. His parents, sister and brother-in-law were Catholics and were able to participate meaningfully. For others it was a case of being welcome, included and encouraged to explore faith for themselves.
We have deliberately sought to delineate between primary doctrines of Christian faith and more practical doctrines that are not essential in these settings. For the sake of authenticity and consistency we seek to develop shared experiences of faith that are consistent with the Uniting Church services of baptism and communion. However, we sense no obligation to maintain the traditional or even contemporary ‘order of service’ for worship. For example, we rarely sing together. In our earlier days together we did. We bought a keyboard and practiced hard for our corporate gatherings. But as we moved into separate house churches we discovered that not everyone finds singing helpful in connecting with God. We came to see singing as a practice of faith that would be used when appropriate.
We have struggled with issues of sexuality and how they apply to doctrine. The Uniting Church Assembly in 2003 clarified that each Presbytery had the capacity to ordain people on a case by case basis. As a local leadership team we found it impossible to develop a shared understanding of how that related to doctrine. Was the Church’s traditional doctrine relating to homosexuality a primary affirmation, requiring a Christian to be heterosexual or live a lifetime of celibacy? Or was it possible that God was more flexible and welcoming than the Church had allowed for over time?
The next post will focus on doctrine in relation to being ‘Relevant Church’.
Pacific Parks Uniting began with a group of people who were keen to explore an alternative to the hectic pace of a church addicted to excellent performance. We’d been in churches that measured effectiveness by the number of people attending Sunday worship and midweek on-campus programs. We’d also been in churches with a focus on correctness, in which newcomers were carefully tested for right belief and respectable lifestyles.
We were committed to exploring an alternative approach to church that would equip its members to live out radical discipleship largely in the context of everyday relationships. Our gatherings would need to inspire and support people to engage with real life, seven days a week.
To summarise this approach, we started describing ourselves as “Relaxed Church”.
We come together in a welcoming, warm, encouraging and inclusive way.
The primary doctrine that we affirm here is the doctrine of grace.
Serene Jones describes a similar connection between the doctrine of grace and the ryhthms of a church’s life in her article, “Graced Practices: Excellence and Freedom in the Christian Life”, found in Practicing Theology: Beliefs and Practices in Christian Life, edited by Mirsolav Volf and Dorothy Bass, 2002. Jones is a theologian with membership in a United Church of Christ congregation in New Haven.
Serene Jones describes the ambitious vision-casting process developed by a ‘Millennial committee’. As they presented their plans to the congregations they found people becoming tired, overwhelmed and without enthusiasm. In response, the committee went back and explored the benefits of the good news of Jesus Christ. They unpacked what it meant to live out of justification and sanctification. They revisited the Scriptures and found there the narrative of God’s grace, from creation through to the life, death and resurrection of Jesus. The congregation’s leaders then began to explore what it would mean to develop gatherings that would be good news to their participants. Practicing the sabbath, grounded in the freedom of justification, became a gift to people already exhausted by hectic lifestyles.
So what would living in the grace of God look like for a new network of house churches? Pacific Parks began with the grace-imbued practices of Sabbath and hospitality. Instead of beginning with running worship services, we started with leadership meetings on Sunday mornings in each others homes, over a barbecue. We moved to public parks and started inviting friends and family. Our first purchase as a church was a large catering barbecue. We followed that up with sports equipment.
At first some of us felt a little anxious, perhaps guilty, about missing out on Sunday morning worship. We weren’t busy ‘running Church’. There were no rosters to fill. There were no offerings to take up and count as we had already made arrangements for direct debit giving. There was no ‘order of service’ and no post-event evaluation. It was strange for people who had spent all their lives ‘doing church’.
We discovered that our energy was now available to focus on expressing the hospitality of God to those around us. God brought into our circles people who would not have fitted neatly into a church committed to excellence. Like the woman with only one outfit for wearing in public who was anxious that her grandson was sipping on a drink during a worship time. We pointed out that most of us had a cup of coffee in our hands. The couple who were living together who joined one of our house churches, later holding their wedding in one of our homes and regularly bringing their extended family and network of friends. The young people who struggled with multiple addictions, who time and time again found themselves responding to God’s grace.
We seek to be flexible, accepting and authentic, creatively responding to others.
As in the relational approach to Church, our relaxed approach is connected with our perception of how God dynamically relates to the world. We believe that God interacts with the world as it is, continually helping creation respond in tune with God’s call. We don’t believe that God has a blueprint that we must discover and follow slavishly. In the life of Jesus we see constant examples of responding to people as they are, in the settings in which they live, using the elements of each scenario.
Earlier this month I met with a family network for a baptism in the park. When the parents of the boy being baptised asked if we had to hold the service in church on Sunday I explained that the Uniting in Worship regulations did specificy that baptism should be held after a sermon during a Sunday worship service. But because Pacific Parks was committed to developing flexible and creative approaches to church, we could say yes to Saturday morning in the local park. Besides, we didn’t have a church service on Sunday. Neither did we have a church building to hold it in!
So where’s the doctrine here? The Uniting Church in Australia does have well developed doctrine around the connection between word and sacrament, designed to ensure that baptism is a corporate experience of the wider Church and not just an individual rite of passage. In planning the baptism service one of my first priorities was to ascertain who the congregation of the faithful would be in this case. I had two couples from Pacific Parks Uniting who would be affirming a commitment to nurture faith in the child and his family. The parents themselves were keen to express their own emerging faith. His parents, sister and brother-in-law were Catholics and were able to participate meaningfully. For others it was a case of being welcome, included and encouraged to explore faith for themselves.
We have deliberately sought to delineate between primary doctrines of Christian faith and more practical doctrines that are not essential in these settings. For the sake of authenticity and consistency we seek to develop shared experiences of faith that are consistent with the Uniting Church services of baptism and communion. However, we sense no obligation to maintain the traditional or even contemporary ‘order of service’ for worship. For example, we rarely sing together. In our earlier days together we did. We bought a keyboard and practiced hard for our corporate gatherings. But as we moved into separate house churches we discovered that not everyone finds singing helpful in connecting with God. We came to see singing as a practice of faith that would be used when appropriate.
We have struggled with issues of sexuality and how they apply to doctrine. The Uniting Church Assembly in 2003 clarified that each Presbytery had the capacity to ordain people on a case by case basis. As a local leadership team we found it impossible to develop a shared understanding of how that related to doctrine. Was the Church’s traditional doctrine relating to homosexuality a primary affirmation, requiring a Christian to be heterosexual or live a lifetime of celibacy? Or was it possible that God was more flexible and welcoming than the Church had allowed for over time?
The next post will focus on doctrine in relation to being ‘Relevant Church’.
My servant Caleb thinks differently and follows me completely.
Numbers 14:24 (NCV)
Think of youdselves the way Christ Jesus thought of himself.
Philippians 2:5 (The Message)
For some reason, I’ve put off posting this chapter. I think I had to process Day 33, thinking through the implications of serving while having a public profile.
Rick Warren today addresses the attitudes that mark genuine servants:
Thinking more about others more than ourselves.
Rick points out how difficult it is to move beyond manipulation, in which we serve others to achieve our goals or to win admiration. I appreciate Rick’s honest confession that humility is a daily struggle. I’m with him on that one. I suspect that some people don’t have the same struggle, but for me I find it hard to practice self-denial.
Thinking like stewards, not owners.
“If you’re a servant of God, you can’t moonlight for yourself”. Challenging words. Especially to a blogger building an online income. Am I developing an income for my own ends, as a wealth builder, or is this part of what Rick calls Kingdom building?
Thinking about our work, not what others are doing.
I have a vivid memory from childhood in which my younger brother was mucking around while I was busy hanging out the washing. I complained to my mother about his lack of attention. She told me to focus on doing my own task, and not to worry about his. Using the story of Mary and Martha, Rick reminds us that it is not our job to evaluate the Master’s other servants.
Basing our identity in Christ.
With the poise that comes from living in God’s acceptance and grace, there’s freedom to serve without posing. No need for name dropping. No point in impressing with qualifications, experience, titles or other symbols of status.
Thinking of ministry as an opportunity, not an obligation.
Serving gladly. That’s the byproduct of the other attitudes.
Earlier this year I started on a theology paper on doctrine and truth after modernity, a course I thought could be helpful in unpacking the role of doctrine in what we regard as a postmodern environment. When I was given the challenge of exploring in words the doctrines at work in my community of faith, I had to think carefully. For four years I’ve been a member of Pacific Parks Uniting, a house church network that would sit most comfortably in the Emerging Church movement.
Together with other leaders in the group I’ve struggled with the distinctive values and how they’re worked out in practice. But how do these values link in with the doctrines of the Church?
Over our first two months together in 2002, we developed the following statement about our life together:
“We are learning to be a relaxed, relational and relevant church in our community”.
In this post I’ll be exploring our understanding of being ‘relational church’, and how that relates to Christian doctrine. In the next two posts I’ll be exploring our values of ‘relaxed church’ and ‘relevant church’ and how they relate to Christian doctrine.
I’ll also be posting on how Pacific Parks’ approach to doctrine relates to George Lindbeck’s approach to theory of religion, considering his typology of cognitive-propositionalist, experiential-expressivist, and cultural-linguistic understandings of truth, expressed respectively in propositions, pre-cognitive experience and performance.
Relational Church
1. We value our personal and corporate relationships with God.
Here we begin with our primary assertion that our life’s meaning is found in relationship with God whose very being is relational. We discover in the way God interacts with creation, and indeed within Godself, that we are created to live in community. We’re invited to join in an experience of community expressed in that already developed in the being of God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
We affirm both personal and corporate expressions of relationship, reminding ourselves that no one person or group of people can claim to express or live out the fullness of relationship with God. Although we each have individual perspectives that are shaped by our unique life experiences and formation of beliefs, we are committed to our connection with the universal community of Christian faith through time. We are shaped by our dialogue with people who inspire us, as well as people who irritate us!
Our worship is shaped by that commitment to personal and corporate expressions of relationship with God. Each week as we gather, we find ways to grow in our everyday spiritual disciplines. Our worship style allows for a diversity of approaches to prayer. Some of us are aided in connection with God by prepared prayers and use of symbolic images, objects and acts. Some of us connect with God through corporate singing - which we do by linking up with celebration services in conventional churches in the weekend. Some of us worship God most meaningfully in active service in the home and community.
2. We value genuine relationships which are caring, generous and empowering, and which show integrity and mutual accountability.
It has been said that conventional churches tend to measure the quantity of relationships, while the house churches measure the quality of relationships. As a house church we have set out to measure our effectiveness by the capacity to foster authentic conversation in which we open ourselves to the transforming work of the Holy Spirit. We don’t expect to stay the same.
Although many of us have been influenced by our engagement with the behavioural sciences, we ground our commitment to genuine relationships in the person of Jesus. The Uniting Church in Australia in its founding document, the Basis of Union, begins with Jesus Christ, the risen crucified one. As the fellowship of the Holy Spirit we confess Jesus as Lord over our own life, the beginning of a new humanity. Our commitment is to practically live out what that new humanity is about.
We see in Jesus the expression of God’s intention for servanthood (rather than grandiosity), generosity (rather than cynicism and acquisition of wealth), empowering leadership (rather than controlling leadership), integrity (rather than unthoughtful reflection of surrounding values), and mutual accountability (rather than self-righteousness).
So how does this translate into doctrine? Our belief in Jesus Christ affirms his reconciling work in the world, through his death and resurrection. The Uniting Church describes Jesus as the risen crucified one in whom God has taken away the world’s sin. But our doctrine of Christ goes beyond a one-off transaction that deals with sin. It’s this, and more. We believe that calling Jesus the Christ and referring to his reconciling work implies much more than preparing people for eternity in God’s presence in heaven. From a relational point of view, we perceive Jesus to be repairing the social fabric that has been marred by distorted expressions of humanity. We are called to be part of that transformation by learning, under his leadership, to be ‘relational church in the community’.
Earlier this year I started on a theology paper on doctrine and truth after modernity, a course I thought could be helpful in unpacking the role of doctrine in what we regard as a postmodern environment. When I was given the challenge of exploring in words the doctrines at work in my community of faith, I had to think carefully. For four years I’ve been a member of Pacific Parks Uniting, a house church network that would sit most comfortably in the Emerging Church movement.
Together with other leaders in the group I’ve struggled with the distinctive values and how they’re worked out in practice. But how do these values link in with the doctrines of the Church?
Over our first two months together in 2002, we developed the following statement about our life together:
“We are learning to be a relaxed, relational and relevant church in our community”.
In this post I’ll be exploring our understanding of being ‘relational church’, and how that relates to Christian doctrine. In the next two posts I’ll be exploring our values of ‘relaxed church’ and ‘relevant church’ and how they relate to Christian doctrine.
I’ll also be posting on how Pacific Parks’ approach to doctrine relates to George Lindbeck’s approach to theory of religion, considering his typology of cognitive-propositionalist, experiential-expressivist, and cultural-linguistic understandings of truth, expressed respectively in propositions, pre-cognitive experience and performance.
Relational Church
1. We value our personal and corporate relationships with God.
Here we begin with our primary assertion that our life’s meaning is found in relationship with God whose very being is relational. We discover in the way God interacts with creation, and indeed within Godself, that we are created to live in community. We’re invited to join in an experience of community expressed in that already developed in the being of God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
We affirm both personal and corporate expressions of relationship, reminding ourselves that no one person or group of people can claim to express or live out the fullness of relationship with God. Although we each have individual perspectives that are shaped by our unique life experiences and formation of beliefs, we are committed to our connection with the universal community of Christian faith through time. We are shaped by our dialogue with people who inspire us, as well as people who irritate us!
Our worship is shaped by that commitment to personal and corporate expressions of relationship with God. Each week as we gather, we find ways to grow in our everyday spiritual disciplines. Our worship style allows for a diversity of approaches to prayer. Some of us are aided in connection with God by prepared prayers and use of symbolic images, objects and acts. Some of us connect with God through corporate singing - which we do by linking up with celebration services in conventional churches in the weekend. Some of us worship God most meaningfully in active service in the home and community.
2. We value genuine relationships which are caring, generous and empowering, and which show integrity and mutual accountability.
It has been said that conventional churches tend to measure the quantity of relationships, while the house churches measure the quality of relationships. As a house church we have set out to measure our effectiveness by the capacity to foster authentic conversation in which we open ourselves to the transforming work of the Holy Spirit. We don’t expect to stay the same.
Although many of us have been influenced by our engagement with the behavioural sciences, we ground our commitment to genuine relationships in the person of Jesus. The Uniting Church in Australia in its founding document, the Basis of Union, begins with Jesus Christ, the risen crucified one. As the fellowship of the Holy Spirit we confess Jesus as Lord over our own life, the beginning of a new humanity. Our commitment is to practically live out what that new humanity is about.
We see in Jesus the expression of God’s intention for servanthood (rather than grandiosity), generosity (rather than cynicism and acquisition of wealth), empowering leadership (rather than controlling leadership), integrity (rather than unthoughtful reflection of surrounding values), and mutual accountability (rather than self-righteousness).
So how does this translate into doctrine? Our belief in Jesus Christ affirms his reconciling work in the world, through his death and resurrection. The Uniting Church describes Jesus as the risen crucified one in whom God has taken away the world’s sin. But our doctrine of Christ goes beyond a one-off transaction that deals with sin. It’s this, and more. We believe that calling Jesus the Christ and referring to his reconciling work implies much more than preparing people for eternity in God’s presence in heaven. From a relational point of view, we perceive Jesus to be repairing the social fabric that has been marred by distorted expressions of humanity. We are called to be part of that transformation by learning, under his leadership, to be ‘relational church in the community’.
I taught a class this morning on contemporary and alternative approaches to worship. It’s part of a course on Reformed and Evangelical Worship run by Trinity College for the Uniting Church here in Queensland.
We opened by looking at different interpretations of ‘contemporary worship’. I used “Contemporary Worship for the 21st Century”, by Daniel Benedict and Craig Kennet Miller, to explore contemporary approaches to the Book of Common Order, Book of Common Song, and the Seeker Service.
Benedict and Miller, United Methodist ministers, help us realise that the Book of Common Order, basically a poetry-based experience, can be expressed in fresh language and with new expressions of music, while keeping the same form. Be Our Freedom and Uniting in Worship 2 are valuable resources for this approach.
The Book of Common Song, usually known as the praise and worship service, focuses on contemporary song and Biblical teaching. We considered the tension created when developing an expectation of energy and intimacy in the meeting with God and God’s people. Where do we draw the line between manipulation and neglect?
The seeker service, based on the Youth For Christ rallies of the 1940s, seeks to develop an environment in which Christians, their friends and families can explore faith in a non-threatening environment. Willow Creek is obviously the dominant resource for this approach. We explored the criticism of worldliness. Marva Dawn, for example, sees this approach as ‘dumbing down’ worship, diluting true church culture. But, I asked, why is it that we expect Christians to become bland in their approach to popular culture? Is it not possible that someone might worship their whole life in the context of a night club or cafe?
We then explored the Alt Worship movement, learning primarily from the UK and New Zealand scenes. We used Sally Morgenthaler’s introduction to Alternative Worship: Resources from and for the Emerging Church, compiled by Johnny Baker, Doug Gay and Jenny Brown. Sally provides a useful list of intrinsic values found in the alternative worship scene across the world:
Faithful Improvisation
Worship focused on triune person of God and acts of God through history
Profound engagement with postmodern/popular culture
Worship emerging out of lived community
Worship reflecting a transforming, resistant presence of the church in the world
Morgenthaler outlines common commitments in alternative worship:
Commitment to:
Reveal, respond to, experience God through all the arts
Excavate the rich deposits of visual history, including icons past and present
Creativity
Craft worship collaboratively
Provide tools for honest encounters with God
Open-ended responses
Diversity
We went on to explore the narrative developed by Johnny Baker and Doug Gay, in which the UK Alt Worship movement helped post-charismatic and post-evangelical worshippers discover the freedom to dance, interact with imagery and ancient-future forms of liturgy.
The input finished with a consideration of Tex Sample’s typology in which he explores oral culture (focused on repeated proverbs, stories and relationship thinking), literate culture (focused on theory, conceptualising and linear discourese), and electronic or multisensory culture (focused on images, sound as beat, visualisation, convergence and immersion).
With all those frameworks to consider, the class set out to develop a worship experience. We were aware of the GAS principle - we chose Accurate and Simple - an excellent experience with minimum set up that didn’t try to provide a General approach to every element of worship.
Our theme - God saving the world - was inspired by watching Steve Irwin’s memorial service during the class. We’d seen Steve talk about being put on earth to help save the earth - protecting the animals and nurturing a love of the earth.
To the soundtrack of Moby’s “God moving over the face of the deep”, we played samples of Baraka, land and people scapes with “Good” on PowerPoint, and readings from the Scriptures about God’s mandate for the whole earth. We took part in a short responsive prayer of confession.
Resources we didn’t get to cover were Dan Kimball’s “Emerging Worship”, Sally Morgenthaler’s Worship Evangelism, Robert Webber’s Blended Worship, and The Prodigal Project, by Mike Riddell, Mark Pierson and Cathy Kirkpatrick.
Michael Madigan, Courier Mail journalist based in Canberra, reported yesterday on the injection of religion into the Australian history syllabus. He says that Julie Bishop, Federal Education Minister, has thrown her support behind a move to incorporate study of religious issues into study of Australian history.
Madigan is reporting on the Federal History Summit held in Canberra on August 17, during which it was agreed that history be made a core subject for Years 9 and 10 throughout Australia.
Professor Geoffrey Blainey told delegates that much of society could not be explained to students without religion. It appears as though discussion was vigorous. Religion was taken out of the syllabus for two key reasons - the Christian churches’ tendency to assume too much influence, and their inability to get on with each other. The introduction of religion back into mainstream syllabus would need to ensure that education was the focus, not proselytization, nor competition between faiths. Clearly not all the stories would be positive. Which would mean that honesty and a non-defensive attitude would be needed. As Tom Stannage said, we’d need to re-inject religion back into the state schools in “a non-controversial, open, inclusive sort of way”.
Religious topics could include the Catholic/Protestant divide and its impact on pre-war Australian society, with particular reference to the conscription referendum of 1916-1917. The examination of religion would not be confined to Western Christianity. Historians in Canberra raised the influence of Aboriginal spiritual beliefs, Muslim and Jewish religions.
Yossi Aron asks if it’s time to hold a Jewish history summit. He asks how much we know about the Jews included in the First Fleet, during the gold rushes, and after the 20th Century Holocaust, as well as the significance of Australian troops in the British fight for Palestine in both world wars.
Last Monday I worked with a Jewish Rabbi and Muslim Imam to introduce two Year 11 classes to the cultures and beliefs of the three main Abrahamic faiths. It was refreshing to engage in comparative religion together. The highlight for me was when we took a group of four students each, providing a tour of the exhibition of religious artifacts and photographs. The beauty was that we had the privilege of explaining all three religions to the students. Such collaboration could be useful in the local exploration of Australian identity and its connection with the story of religion.
The Australian Democrat Party online survey on religion and politics has been completed, with 40,000 returns. However it’s unlikely the results will ever be published.
The survey site has the following message:
Thank you to all of those who have completed our online survey and shared their views with us. The response has been very interesting and has informed our thoughts on this complex topic. We hope that it has encouraged people to think about the issues and we look forward to more discussion.
We do not plan to publish results of this survey. Online surveys are useful because they are fast, easy and inexpensive but they do not typically gather in-depth, rigorous scientifically valid information. Indeed some complained that ‘yes’/'no’ answers were inadequate for the complex questions raised.
Furthermore, respondees were self-selected rather than chosen at random. This means the survey, despite its 40,000 returns, is unlikely to be representative of the broad population. Indeed we understand it was widely promoted in ways likely to have skewed the results - in itself an interesting development in debate about the influence of the churches over matters of state!
I can understand the reluctance of the survey organisers to go any further. As they imply, the survey was well publicised on Christian blogs and email lists. On top of that, the questions were loaded and in some cases contained inaccuracies.
It’s interesting to note the Queensland Government’s promise to invest three million dollars over three years towards chaplains providing support for young people in state schools. Schools will be able to apply for up to $10,000 to help cover the cost of chaplains. See the Team Beattie paper (pdf). This is an election promise which means that we’ll have to wait and see if it actually gets put into action. Clearly the Atheist and Secular Humanist associations are not happy. I’d guess the Australian Democrats will be miffed, judging from their God and Government policy.
ENFJ: God, help me to do only what I can and trust you for the rest. Do you mind putting that in Writing?
ENFP: God, help me to keep my mind on one th-Look a bird!-ing at a time.
ENTJ: Lord, help me slow downandnotrushthroughwhatIdoAmen.
ENTP: Lord, help me follow established procedures today. On second thought, I’ll settle for a few minutes.
ESFJ: God, help me have patience, and I mean right NOW!
ESFP: God help me to take things more seriously, especially parties and dancing.
ESTJ: God, help me to not try to RUN everything. But, if you need some help, just ask!
ESTP: God, help me to take responsibility for my own actions, even though they’re usually NOT my fault.
INFJ: Lord, help me to not be a perfectionist. (Did I spell that correctly?)
INFP: God, help me to finish everything I sta
INTJ: Lord, keep me open to other’s ideas, WRONG though they may be.
INTP: Lord, help me be less independent, but let me do it my way.
ISFJ: Lord, help me to be more laid back and help me to do it EXACTLY right.
ISFP: Lord, help me to stand up for my rights (if you don’t mind my asking).
ISTJ: Lord, help me relax about insignificant details beginning tomorrow at 11:41.23 a.m. EST.
ISTP: God, help me to consider other people’s feelings, even if most of them ARE hypersensitive.
(c) 1987 Ellis N. Harsham
Ellis Harsham was a teacher at St Gregory Seminary in Mt Washington, Ohio, who resigned from the priesthood in 1993 after allegations of abuse from a former student. He served time in prison and was only this year removed from clerical status by Pope Benedict XVI. More ammo for the cynics looking for hypocricy in the church. More ammo for the cynics looking for evidence that the Myers Briggs Type Indicator is flawed. So is it just best to overlook the authorship? Or is it possible that flawed writers have the capacity to enhance the lives of their readers?
Clearing out my inbox I found an email from Steve Sjogren announcing a conference coming up in November. “You Say You Want A Revolution” will be held in Seattle, November 3-4. The email arrived on August 30. Early bird prices finished on September 1. Dang! So what’s it all about? Off The Map are presenting mainstage presentations from Brian McLaren, George Barna and other guests who will talk about what a revolution looks like when it’s put into practice, in large public expressions as well as in small personal and often revolutionary acts of kindness. Workshops will provide an opportunity to stretch the concept out in local practice.
Duncan Macleod posts on life, faith and culture in Australia, drawing from his involvement in the creative industry, the Uniting Church, the blogosphere, generational research, the emerging church and life on the Gold Coast.
Serene Jones describes a similar connection between the doctrine of grace and the ryhthms of a church’s life in her article, “Graced Practices: Excellence and Freedom in the Christian Life”, found in Practicing Theology: Beliefs and Practices in Christian Life
We opened by looking at different interpretations of ‘contemporary worship’. I used “
: Resources from and for the Emerging Church, compiled by Johnny Baker, Doug Gay and Jenny Brown. Sally provides a useful list of intrinsic values found in the alternative worship scene across the world:
The input finished with a consideration of 
