I’ll be speaking on “Rearranging the pews while the neighbourhood burns”.

‘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 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

In the Christian youth community I was formed in, we once ran a church service with the title “The E Word”. Seems trite now, but that’s how many of us felt about it, although we knew it was important enough to address in our bumbling stumbling way. Not that it was a foreign concept: I grew up in a climate of Anglican evangelicalism in which sharing the good news verbally is an indispensable dimension of mission.

But the aim of persuading people to believe in Jesus, or gain a personal relationship with Jesus, begged a question that was not easily answered. What for? I wanted to know why we evangelised…where was it leading people? The answer I got usually involved our sin and separation from God, the need for restoration and Jesus’ death and resurrection as the means of that restoration. Simultaneously I, along with a group of young adults, were experimenting with a theology and practice of the Kingdom of God, which we then understood as faith expressed in works of compassion, community, justice and public protest – all focussed primarily on the marginalised. I no longer believe that these 2 positions are in conflict (or that there are only 2 positions), but then they seemed in tension. It also was obvious that our concentration on one tended to put the other in shadow.

Evangelism, to me at that time, became suspect unless the evangelist had, well, pretty much perfect life to back up the message. Which fitted with my unreasonably judgemental mindset. But I have continued to believe that there must a serious and sustained attempt to live out the message.

But what of the initial questions: (1) What is the good news?;  (2) How should it be communicated? Having read a good many books (and some not so good) on the topic, it is clear that those questions can’t be answered quickly; Paul used countless images and arguments to explain it. But let me quickly add that such an attitude is a cop-out. If the core questions of faith can only be answered by intellectual types who read a lot then it’s a sham. Let me give a one-sentence answer to each of these questions, and then explain why I believe in verbal evangelism.

1. The good news is the redemption & transformation of every aspect of Creation, which works through humans as we accede to the truth & grace of Jesus Christ in every aspect of our individual and common life. (OK, that’s probably a few sentences).

2. We should communicate the good news through integrated lives that witness to the life of Jesus Christ.

However, doesn’t this definition leave verbal evangelism as a core expression of Christianity? Well, no, because “integrated lives that witness to the life of Jesus Christ” can’t help but evangelise, which is simply the verbal parallel or corollary of our ‘active’ expression of faith. Humans do things, and we talk about them. That is communicating the good news. That is evangelism.

One last point. Can we talk about Jesus if we don’t have the walk sorted out? Of course we can. We wouldn’t dream of not doing the walk just because we didn’t have the talksorted. With all the biblical provisos of humility, integrity, respect and truthfulness, we can talk more than we walk if we so wish…the only question I would raise is a cultural and missiological one – is such an approach effective in post-Christian Australia?

Listen to the podcast.