St Barnabas

Last week I started a blog. (A blog is an online diary/magazine/journal but if you’re reading this you’ve probably figured that out) I’ve been reluctant to do this for a long time because I think there are people who blog and people who do – I didn’t want to commentate on life from the sidelines. But I’ve been persuaded to give it a crack by blogging friends who claim blogs are useful to get people talking with each other about stuff that matters. The early statistics suggest lots of people are actually reading what is there. I’m not sure what shape this blog will take but I’d love it if you could read it and even more if you could post some comments and get discussions happening. I’ve called it ‘that great city’ (visit it to find our why). You can find the blog at http://thatgreatcity.wordpress.com/

Thanks to all who came to Barneys to vote.
It was great to meet some of the neighbours.
We hope you enjoyed the jumping castle and the cakes.
Thanks too for your generosity to support the great work done by Anglicare. We raised a couple of hundred dollars for them.
Should we wait for another election or just do an election day without having to vote in ’09?

OK it was a weird title!
10000 people crowded the booked out Entertainment Centre to hear Mark Driscoll speak about Jesus. And speak he did. For an hour of half he spoke about false or plastic Jesuses of our culture – religious Jesus, moral Jesus, bling Jesus. Aussie Jesus, Country Jesus, Spiritual Jesus, Pensioner Card Jesus. We then turned to the Bible to meet the true and living Jesus. It was great to see many make decisions to become Christians.
Those coming from Barneys had a great night with dinner in Chinatown beforehand.
There were many great challenges, perhaps none more so than those directed at the young men to grow up, stop living with mum, get married, read the bible, stop watching porn, and take Jesus seriously.
The Engage Conference was also a great weekend with many from the evening congregation personally challenged.

Many many thanks to all those who helped spruce up Barneys for Spring. With a couple of August weddings your hard work will look great on mantel pieces forever!

We are looking at the topic of God & Money at church.

Each year BRW puts out the Rich List. Have you ever looked at that list enviously and wondered what it would be like to have that kind of money?

Check out your chance to make the Global Rich List

In Exodus 15 we’re confronted with God in terms that may make our city squirm – the Mighty Warrior who drowns the army of Egypt.

I wonder how different our sensibilities would be if we read this in a different cultural setting? I’m reading Philip Jenkin’s The Next Christendom which describes Global Christianity. In it he points out how most of the world’s displaced and exiled peoples are Christians in sub-Saharan Africa. When they read Exodus and hear of an evil despot who wants them dead they rejoice that God saves his oppressed people. They gladly worship the mighty warrior who promises justice for his people.

Our sanitized western reading is in danger of domesticating the Mighty Warrior God who saves his people from an African despot.

I’ve been reading Tim Keller’s The Reason for God It’s a great read and I highly recommend it. He spells out the major objections to Christianity and takes them quite seriously and considers whether there are good answers to these objections.
One of the biggest deterrents to Christianity for the average Sydney sider is the fear of ‘fanatical’ Christians. Fanatical Christians seem to have gone off the deep end and are against all sorts of things – internet, television, movies, art, homosexuals, members of other religion… When arguing for the truth of their faith they appear intolerant and self-righteous. This is what many people would call fanaticism.
Keller rightly argues many people try to understand Christians along a spectrum from ‘nominalism’ at one end to ‘fanaticism’ at the other. A nominal Christian is one in name only, who doesn’t practice it and may believe it. A fanatic is someone who over-believes and over-practices it. On this understanding, the implication is clear – avoid both extremes! The ideal is in the middle – don’t go overboard with it!
The problem with this understanding is that it mistakenly sees Christianity as a form of moral improvement. The fanatics are the ones most committed to intense moralism, who look down on others who don’t share their religiosity. In Jesus’ day these people were known as Pharisees and Jesus condemned them for their assumption that they were right with God because of their right doctrine and right behaviour.
What if Christianity is, at its very heart, not about moral self improvement but grace? Grace – salvation not because of what we do, but because of what Christ has done for us? Belief that you are accepted by God by sheer grace is profoundly humbling. The people who are fanatics, then, are so not because they are too committed to the gospel but because they’re not committed to it enough.
People we see as fanatical are overbearing, self righteous, opinionated, insensitive, and harsh. The problem is that they are not Christian enough – they are not fanatically humble, sensitive, loving, empathetic, forgiving, or understanding – as Christ was.
The antidote is not to tone down and moderate their faith, but rather to grasp a truer and fuller faith in Christ. In his teaching Jesus continually says to the respectable and upright, ‘The tax collectors and the prostitutes enter the kingdom before you’ (Matthew 21.31)

This is the first letter I’ve written to the Herald. As they saw fit not to print it, I thought I’d inflict it on you! I wrote in response to an article that implied Christianity was in serious decline and that moving ‘No Religion’ to the top of the Census Form would prevent Jesus getting the ‘donkey vote’ effect.

Dr Wallace is right to point out that large sections of Australian society have turned their back on Christianity. We do not have the Christendom of the past – but neither do we have a secular society without religion. There is no evidence that religion in general, or Christianity in particular will become extinct.
Instead we have the strange situation where religious belief and a doubting skepticism are on the rise. Church pews are no longer filled by inherited sectarianism or nominalism. Instead, today’s churchgoers are highly committed and typically conservative and orthodox in their beliefs.
Likewise, those of ‘no religion’ often have no commitment to an institutional faith but do have a significant personally constructed spirituality. Believers and sceptics alike need to stop thinking their existence is threatened by the other, put aside squabbling over census forms, and listen humbly to each other beliefs and doubts. 

There has been much talk of late about the crisis in the Anglican Communion. To find out what is going on a great starting point is the GAFCON Statement
This gives a description of what has taken place and charts a way forward through the mess. It is worth a careful read.

It has been good for us as a church to go back to the Reformation Slogans. I hope, like me, you’ve been challenged to think through what it is you believe. As I prepared I came across this great thought by Tim Keller, the minister at Redeemer Presbyterian Church about the place of the Gospel in the Christian Life:

We never “get beyond the gospel” in our Christian life to something more “advanced.” The gospel is not the first “step” in a “stairway” of truths, rather, it is more like the “hub” in a “wheel” of truth. The gospel is not just the A-B-C’s of Christianity, but it is the A to Z of Christianity. The gospel is not just the minimum required doctrine necessary to enter the kingdom, but the way we make all progress in the kingdom.
We are not justified by the gospel and then sanctified by obedience but the gospel is the way we grow (Gal. 3:1-3) and are renewed (Col 1:6). It is the solution to each problem, the key to each closed door, the power through every barrier (Rom 1:16-17).
It is very common in the church to think as follows: “The gospel is for non-Christians. One needs it to be saved. But once saved, you grow through hard work and obedience.” But Colossians 1:6 shows that this is a mistake. Both confession and “hard work” that is not arising from and “in line” with the gospel will not sanctify you—it will strangle you. All our problems come from a failure to apply the gospel. Thus when Paul left the Ephesians he committed them “to the word of his grace, which can build you up” (Acts 20:32).
The main problem, then, in the Christian life I that we have not thought out the deep implication of the gospel, we have not “used” the gospel in and on all parts of our life. Richard Lovelace says that most people’s problems are just a failure to be oriented to the gospel—a failure to grasp and believe it through and through. Luther says (on Gal. 2:14), “The truth of the Gospel is the principle article of all Christian doctrine… Most necessary is it that we know this article well, teach it to others, and beat it into their heads continually.” The gospel is not easily comprehended. Paul says that the gospel only does its renewing work in us as we understand it in all its truth. All of us, to some degree live around the truth of the gospel but do not “get” it. So the key to continual and deeper spiritual renewal and revival is the continual re-discovery of the gospel. A stage of renewal is always the discovery of a new implication or application of the gospel—seeing more of its truth. This is true for either an individual or a church.