I played music by Eddie Vedder, Steve Bevis, Michael Franti, Ben Harper, U2, Paul Kelly, Shane Howard, Kev Carmody, Billy Bragg, Surrender

Australian Christian Lobby Forum – Wednesday 17th November at Bendigo Baptist, 7.30pm.

TEAR Gift Catalogue

Gordon Preece Seminar

His main point, I think, sheds light on a key tension within my own movement, which in the fashion of Wendell Berry, I will call the Movement for biblically-based Christ-centred Spirit-empowered evangelism + justice-making + church-planting + community-growing + disciple-forming + godly child-rearing  + creation-caring + music-making + other good stuff which we haven’t thought of yet, which tends to exist on the fringes of inherited church structures.

Why doth it shed such light? Aly He points out that conservatism has an ‘organic’ approach to change. He doesn’t mean home-grown food. He means that change is tied to what has gone before, it ‘grows’ out of the past, as a plant grows from its roots:

…human society is organic. It is something that has evolved slowly and naturally, incorporating the wisdom of generations and gradually leaving behind those things that have proven themselves to be folly

Conservatism has no place for complete breaks with the past in order to forge a new and bright future, and when you put it like that, you can see why it has it’s roots in the French Revolution, which certainly tried to erase the past in order to blaze a new and more excellent future, mostly by killing its opponents.

What has this got to do with the above-mentioned movement? There is a tension in this movement, and therefore within myself, between wanting change to happen slowly, in continuity with the past and at the same time calling for massive reconstruction of the whole of our culture according to the radical vision of Jesus Christ. I want to move with the slowest person in the community, but I want the war to stop now. I want to value the past, the traditions, the hand that has fed me, but woe betide the church structure that stands in the the way of the prophetic voice of Jesus through the ages.  Waleed Aly would call these two approaches to change ‘conservatism’ and ‘revolutionary’.

Both of these approaches to change are needed in our movement. There are times when decisive, sudden and un-usual (that dash is intentional) change is needed, and times when slow, organic change is needed. I would also say that these approaches to change depend on each other. Revolutionary change will struggle to last, if happen at all, if the slow and incremental and organic changes have not been taking place. And organic approaches to faith will simply wither and choke on their own reverence for the present and past without the tectonic slide of revolutionary change.

(The image to the right is called “The Foreign Tree”. According to the site I got it from: These painted engravings ridicule the unrest wrought by French revolutionaries by contrasting French subversion with British stability. The “British Liberty Tree” (depicted in the preceding image) is assigned to the mock Latin genus of “Stabilissimus,” while the more sickly looking “Foreign Tree” in this image is put in the genus “Subitarius.” Notice in the background of the latter, a guillotine, symbol of all that is wrong with France.)

For those of you who know me a bit, you will have heard me rave about “The Social Entrepeneur”, a book by Andrew Mawson, an English clergyman who turned his decrepit church into a centre for social enterprises – initiatives that are based on the following principle:

We know that every human being has a unique talent. By applying these talents in local communities it is possible to make them strong and vibrant instead of soulless and “deprived”. What matters is backing people before structures.

Andrew sought out people in his disadvantaged area who were passionate about an idea, and supported them to get it going as a business. I cried when I read his book. It wasn’t sad, rather the joy and hope that sang through his stories got to my heart. He was describing truly Christian community development.

Welfare Mentality vs Social Entrepreneurship
One of the sad things about Christian community work is that it often gets dependent on handouts, just like the people it aims to serve. Once dependent, we stick with programs that will ensure the transfusion of funds that we need. We eventually find we have strayed from our original purpose. We internalise the same Welfare Mentality that afflicts many of those we serve and become unable to break free of its bonds.

Social Entrepreneurship rejects this way of being and working. It starts with what people are passionate about, not what gains funding. It supports that passion, but always with the aim of self-sufficiency. I think this is incredibly important in poorer communities, because independence from outside help breeds confidence, dignity, responsibility and generosity. The constant supply of government benefits, cheaper housing, food handouts etc breeds apathy, boredom and self-loathing.

The Kingdom & Social Entrepreneurship
The links between God’s reign and social entrepreneurship need to be teased out. But some preliminary thoughts are:

• God created humans with passions and desires to create. Social Entrepreneurship taps into those passions and desires, whereas Welfare Mentality drains passion and desire from a person.
• Dependence, as in Welfare Mentality, is the flip side of domination. God did not create people to be dependent on others, but interdependent. Social Entrepreneurship enables people, especially the poor, to contribute to others as well as receive.
• God created humans with the need to give. Welfare Mentality focusses on receiving, which makes us bloated and unhealthy. The gospel motivates us to give, and when we do we find that feel more human than ever.

More to think about here…

But for now, if in Geelong go to Urban Bean, and if you want to support Bike Butcher, buy a cool fixie.

‘Where do I join this kingdom revolution?’

If you’ve read this far, you have probably already decided that you want to join this kingdom revolution. Next step is to find some people who want to do it with you. If you don’t have anyone like that, look up some of the communities mentioned previously. They’ll help you on your way.

Most importantly, do something. This movement is not about standing on the banks of the river while others swim by. It is about getting personally involved in people’s lives, people who are isolated, persecuted and poor. Knock on the door of the elderly neighbour. Stand up to bullies, be they small or large. Make peace. Spend a week’s coffee money on someone who actually needs it. Foster a child. Pray with a suffering parent. Invite the new person over for tea. Sit down with the loner at school. Sell your possessions and have a party for the outcasts. Tell the truth despite the consequences. Move to the wrong side of the tracks.

The disciples simply left their nets and followed, and Jesus wants nothing more and nothing less. Jesus doesn’t care how much we know, or what we are doing now, or what we’ve done in the past. He cares about where we’re headed. In the river of Jordan, John baptized Jesus in a symbolic drowning and rising to life. In following Jesus among the poor, we not only drown with all our inadequacies, flaws and sins, but rise to a new life of compassion, truth & justice.

The Road to Emmaus

‘Who can walk with me on this journey?’
Jesus walked with 12 disciples as he went about preaching, healing and casting out evil. Why? This journey of compassion & justice is joyful, but it’s also a battle against the forces of evil within ourselves and in our world. The pain in the world is real, and our own sin can often paralyse us. If we try to swim by ourselves, we will drown. We need others alongside us. It’s no surprise that Jesus sent out his disciples two-by-two and that the lion’s share of the New Testament is addressed to communities, not individuals.

Often you may feel alone as you feel your way into this way of compassion and justice. But there is a growing movement of Christians who are rediscovering the radical roots of our faith, who are seeing that life following Jesus means nothing less than allowing the Spirit to lead us into dark places, into hard places, to be light and life. We are discovering, to our surprise & joy, that Jesus was always walking before us, and beside us.

Visiting some of the communities in Part IV will put you in contact with many people who are on the same path. But if you can’t come, then check out some of these resources:

1. Websites/blogs:

• Mark Sayers Thinks
• Urban Neighbours of Hope (Sydney)
• Hold: this space
  
• Jarrod McKenna
• Mustard Seed Associates
• Marcus Curnow

2. Books:

• Not Religion, But Love (Dave Andrews)
• The Irresistible Revolution (Shane Claiborne)
• Make Poverty Personal (Ash Barker)
• Check out some of my articles

3. Conferences/Gatherings/Training (Australia)

• TEAR Australia 2009
• Surrender 2010
• Just Salvos
  
• Forge
• UNOH

Part I

Part II

Part III

Part IV

‘Where can I see this good news in action?’

Although we can read about it and hear about it, the good news of radical discipleship only makes sense when we see it in action. So many people, in history and in the world today, have chosen to take this path of downward mobility, setting their face against the world’s obsession with success and image, and seeking the image of God in the forgotten and destitute. See Father Damien as he moves to Moloka’i to live among the lepers for 16 years, sharing their joys and hardships, eventually succumbing to leprosy himself. Or Dorothy Day, who fed, clothed and housed the poor of the Depression while speaking out against war and violence.

In Australia and beyond, there are dozens of communities and organisations who have been inspired by Jesus to serve on the margins. These are just some of them:

Catholic Worker

Concern Australia

InnerCHANGE

UNOH

Urban Seed

Waiters’ Union

Youth For Christ Durban

Although this river of justice and compassion comes from one source, it has many branches. Visit some of these places and people and dip your toe in the water.

Part I

Part II

Part III

‘Where does this journey start?’

The journey of compassion & justice begins when we see things clearly. When William Wilberforce set foot on a slave boat and saw, truly and clearly, the horror of oppression, his journey of radical discipleship began. When we see the injustice of the gap between our wealth and the poverty of millions, our journey of radical discipleship begins. Whenever we open our eyes to the cruelty around us, and respond with compassion, we have already embarked on the journey.

The journey starts wherever you find yourself. Zacchaeus the tax collector was in a very different place to Bartimaeus the blind man or the Samaritan woman at the well. That didn’t matter. They all followed. The journey starts despite how inadequate you feel or how little you know. The disciples knew very little of Jesus when they started and not much more by the end. That didn’t matter. They all followed.

In this river of compassion, truth and justice, Jesus doesn’t really mind what sort of stroke we do, how fast we swim or if we need floaties.  In fact, knowing our own inadequacies and poverty is essential if we are to enter into the poverty of others. We do not love the poor because we have the answers. Our wealth & privilege are actually barriers to reconciliation with God, and with all those who are oppressed. By serving those on the margins, we are given the opportunity to shed the skin of privilege, thereby entering the kingdom of God, where there are no rich or poor. We love others because we know that, despite our indifference, selfishness and greed, God loves us.

Part I

Part II

‘I’m not convinced, isn’t this just for a few who are ‘called’?

In one of Jesus’ most confronting parables, He says that when we visit the sick and imprisoned, feed the hungry, clothe the naked and welcome the stranger, we actually do these things to Jesus Himself. That is, Jesus is present in all who are poor and oppressed, and when we serve them we also serve Him.

But our culture teaches us to believe that this work is best done by experts who really ‘know what they are doing’, as though poverty is a leaky tap to be fixed. Our role is to support the professionals through taxes and donations. But the parable claims that serving the poor is not a task to be completed but participation in the life of God! In serving those on the margins, we have the privilege & opportunity of encountering Jesus in the flesh. If we only pay others to do this work, and do not get involved personally, we are giving up this opportunity.

Sure, not everyone is called to live in a slum, but everyone is called to enter hard places with no weapon but love. Certainly, not everyone will sell all their possessions, but Jesus reminds us that what we have is not ours, and has been given to us by God for the sake of others. Definitely, not everyone is called to abject poverty, but we are all called to get involved personally in the lives of the poor & oppressed.

God sent Jesus, as vulnerable baby, into a world of pain, confusion and injustice. Jesus said to his followers, “As God sent me, so I send you”. We are sent by Jesus, as He was sent by God, into unfamiliar and difficult places, with nothing to lean on but His love. This is not a call for the special or the few, but for all. Following Jesus is not a matter of standing on the banks, cheering on those who are swimming. God wants us all to submerge ourselves in the river of compassion and justice, where we experience not only the pain of serving Him, but the joy of finding God amongst those who have been abandoned.

Part I

But as a young(er) adult, I was obsessed with love; not surprising, you snigger. But eros aside, the community I was part of explicitly sought to love others, particular the marginalised. For inexperienced and youthful people, I think we did so reasonably well. We opened our homes to the offensive, difficult and lonely at the expense of our time, energy and comfort. Since I started in that endeavour, quite a few years have passed, and thoughts of loving others seem to have faded.

Maybe we’ve become so committed to the task of ‘making love a reality’ that we have removed ourselves from love’s source. In carrying out the demands of love, have we lost our grip on love itself?

Here are a few (positive and negative) possible reasons why we don’t think and talk about ‘loving others’ these days:

1. We realised that ‘love’ is meaningful only in embodiment, rather than in emotion. It’s possible, and desirable, that our lives have become more loving, and so the need to continually talk and think about it has lessened.

2. Similar to the first reason, we became tired of talking about love and not actually loving. All talk and little walk, we decided not to talk about love until we started doing it more. Our need to talk through things is also related to ‘forming’ a cohesive community; after this is done, there are some ‘unsaid norms’ (ie. “loving others is crucial”) that don’t need rehashing.

3. As loving others became exhausting and difficult, we faced ‘compassion fatigue’ – a syndrome common to people in ‘helping’ roles. When those we tried to love refused to respond, or abused our care for them, we could become resentful and bitter. In its more extreme form, compassion fatigue results in an attitude of complete futility regarding loving others.

4. As we became more experienced in working with people, we took on roles and responsibilities that were intended to help other people love others (eg. co-ordinators, managers, mentors etc). With their jargon, meetings and protocls, these roles supplanted our original passion.

If the reasons for our lack of love are 3 & 4, then we need some form of spiritual direction, counselling and ‘re-conversion’.

But what if the reasons are 1 & 2? If we simply have stopped talking and thinking about love because it’s become passe to us, we need to start talking about it again. Why? I’ll explore that in a later post.

Erik Erikson, the developmental psychologist, identified 8 stages of development in which a core tension must be resolved before a person is able to grow. For young adults, the tension is ‘Intimacy vs. Isolation’. They must resolve questions of long-term partnering, where to live, what to do with their life. It’s a sociological fact of Western societies that young adults are deferring the resolution of this tension through university study and the tendency to stay in the family home until their late twenties and beyond (as an aside, this fact has an economic dimension – and how does this affect Christian communities?). In his book “Secret Men’s Business”, John Marsden addresses how adolescent boys become men. Although the book is about ‘boys to men’, it’s also about leaving home to find home. Indeed, Marsden insists that boys must leave home to become men, as well as defeat their fathers. It’s all part of leaving the symbolic home. Erikson thought that failure to resolve a core tension results in stagnation and immaturity.

Christian communities of purpose will often become secondary or tertiary homes for those who have left home, or moved on from study, and are still trying to resolve the tension of ‘intimacy vs. isolation’. To an extent, this is OK – in fact, I wouldn’t have decided to take the path I have if I wasn’t able to experiment with radical discipleship through the alternative home of Christian community. But if the journey of following Jesus can start with that alternative home, it can’t end there, or our discipleship will stagnate. Sooner or later we need to leave the nest. The difficulty for Christian communities is that young adults are often the most energetic and vibrant members! For their spiritual health they will need to leave, but encouraging them to do so seems like self-harm. I think we can only trust in the mysterious economy of God – a kind of redeemed prosperity doctrine in which those we farewell will go on to be a blessing to others and we will receive as we give.