Rights of passage

For a few years now I have been involved in Leavers. One year a few years ago a particular youth stood out to me. He exhibited all the signs of being rather inebriated. This is, of course, not uncommon during leavers celebrations. It is also not uncommon that the time was approximately midday. It is also not uncommon that he was randomly walking around, not really sure what he was doing. What was a little uncommon was what he was carrying. A 2 litre sauce bottle. Upon seeing this I thought to myself ‘that is actually a rather ingenius way of carrying around one’s alcohol.’ Due to the fact none of this was uncommon I continued walking, not thinking for a moment I’d see this youth or the sauce bottle again anytime soon.

The next day, about the same time I noticed the same youth carrying the same sauce bottle walking around in the same manner in around about the same place. Again I continued on doing whatever it was that took me to that spot. When this happened a third day in a row I thought I might engage him in conversation and ask him about the sauce bottle. I expected to get some story about needing to ‘hide’ his booze, about the ease of carrying it around in the bottle etc. What i discovered was a lot more disturbing.

We started out with the usual questions. Name, what school he was from, what he was going to do next. These initial questions continued for a little while until I finally asked ’so what is the deal with the sauce bottle’? His reply? ‘Well, we spent all our money on alcohol…this was all we could afford for food for the week’. Yes, that is right, inside the 2 litre sauce bottle was indeed…sauce. This was to be his nutritional intake for the week. Scary.

Leavers, or schoolies as it is called in the rest of Australia, is an amazingly jam packed environment that over the last few years has almost become a ‘right of passage’ for teenagers desiring to enter adulthood. The major provider of alcohol for teenagers celebrating the end of school is not illegally purchased with fake id’s OR an ‘older brother’ but generally is provided by parents who want their kids to have a ‘fun week away discovering themselves’. The modern day right of passage for teenagers in Australia is…binge drinking and sexual experimentation on a scale not experienced anywhere before or after, to the same extent. This right of passage has the ability to take a completely rational, sane, smart teenager and turn them into someone who, in normal circumstances, would be seen as immature and making bad choices. I remember a school dux(top student) telling me ‘normally I don’t drink and I until now planned on waiting till marriage to have sex, but this week I don’t care what i do!’ Indeed, he believed to enter ‘adulthood’ he had to have a week of craziness.

This is but a snippet of something I plan on discussing in my book on ‘Why Youth Ministry?’. We really do lack any semblence of worthwhile rights of passage in modern, western society. An article I was reading today suggests that where normalised rights of passage are lacking, adolescents will create their own, often less beneficial forms.  Another article from youthspecialties.com suggests that

“It’s unfortunate we don’t have an official Christian coming of age ceremony for our boys. For most young men there’s no “well done, my man” moment. The Jewish culture has the bar mitzvah. The first nations people have ceremonies—an African friend of mine told me about his three-day gathering. The closest thing to a rite of passage in our culture is the party at the bar when they reach legal drinking age.”

The same can, and is often said, for girls. Perhaps one area that youth ministry really could provide something ‘unique’ insociety is some form of ‘right of passage’ that is more useful and less destructive than the usual ‘Get drunk, party, discover my limits’ form that currently exists. Perhaps we’d get less Peter Pan’s…teenagers who never grow up and are still, effectively, adolescents into their 30’s! Just something I am interested in exploring.

Why Youth Ministry?

I was walking down Rokeby Rd today in Subiaco and had to pass some time so I dropped in to Dymocks bookstore to check out what they had on offer. Usually I browse for a pretty short period of time and then just leave but today a book peaked my interested and I eventually ended up buying it. The book is Teenagers – a natural history by David Bainbridge and it was published just this year. It mostly peaked my interest because I could tell that it was a secular approach to the history of teenagers which I figured could be a good read in light of my desire to write a book on why I am so interested in Youth Ministry.

About the book
The book is not ‘Christian’ and is basically an attempt to account for the phenomenon of teenagerdom from both a historical and evolutionary perspective. What I have read so far has been really, really  interesting regarless of one’s view on evolution and its role or non-role in the Christian worldview.  The book discusses what makes teenagers who they are and what the importance of adolescence is from a historical perspective. The first chapter gives an evolutionary history of ‘puberty’ and how humans correspond to other animals. Again, regardless of ones beliefs I have found this an interesting approach. Reading all about the physiological changes that take place, what causes them scientifically and what they ’cause’ in the teenager really opens your eyes to the everyday challenges that teenagers face from WITHIN their own bodies.

Some quotes from the book that I have found interesting or that I think could be useful in my book are as follows.

“The teenage years are in fact the most interesting of your life. Science says so. These years can also be the most positive – it all depends on what you make of them.” (Page 1)

“Everyone wants to give you advice on what you should and should not do, how you should do it and with whom you should do it. There soon arises in the young mind a suspicion that adults cannot really remember their own teenage years clearly enough to be able to give good advice. The suspicion feeds into a growing mistrust of authority, which gets even worse when teenagers discover that adults cherish such distrust in themselves, but dislike it in anyone under twenty years old.” (Page 2)

“As I have distilled the developmental biology, the paleoanthropology, the neuroscience, the physiology, the therapy and the politics, I have become ever more convinced that adolescence is the most crucial time of our lives.” (Page 3)

“It [puberty] was all much vaguer and mixed up than the books suggest, and perhaps it is that chaotic unpredictability that can lift a teenager to a higher, more intense level of experience than any other phase in our lives.” (Page 6)

“And the reason why being a teenager can seem more confusing than any other ‘life stage’ is that there are simply more things happening than at any other time – a teenager is neither a child nor an adult, but a complex mixture of both. These years are not a gap – rather they are a wonderfully exciting collision when all the different strands of our life get tangled together in a way that will never happen again.” (Page 7)

Put quite simply, the teenage years are virtually unique in our lifetime. We never again go through such radical change in such a short space of time. Our brain never again develops at the same rate as it does during adolescence. We never again have the same level of crazy hormones convulsing through our veins as we do during puberty. So what can teenagers do with all this craziness?

What does this have to do with Youth Ministry?
One of the topics that I wish to cover in my book is based on a discovery by the Barna group in a study some years ago. Basically they discovered that approximately 80% of people that will become Christian in their lifetime had significant involvement in some Christian setting or from some Christian person before the age of 20. 80%!! Now I obviously believe that God can win anyone over, but this statistical finding still says something important I believe in regards to ministry to youth and I think it is uniquely tied in with a teenagers physical and spiritual development. During the teenage years, as I have quoted above, so much is going on. Much of who we are to be as adults is developed and shaped in the teenage years. It is a transition phase from childhood to adulthood in every sense. The blueprint for how our brain will think, function and grow for the rest of our lives is virtually cemented before we have to get our first real job. If Christians don’t get a chance to influence this development we make it much harder, I believe, to reach people when they are older. It does happen, but it is much more difficult.

One of the difficulties of youth ministry is that the fruit may not be seen during these teenage years but the more I read about both youth ministry and the physiological development of teenagers, the more I am convinced that youth ministry is a pivotal ministry for the gospel. If we can help teenagers to catch the vision while they go through all these crazy changes, I believe we can both make their teenage years easier and also use their enthusiasm and energy to catalyse a whole new generation of followers of Jesus. Tonly Campolo once said something along the lines of  ‘the problem in youth ministry is not that teenagers don’t want to do anything, it is that we do not expect enough of them. Teenagers are more than willing to fight for a cause if they are invited and encouraged to take part.’ Are our youth ministries fighting hard enough to challenge our teenagers to use their adolescence to benefit society or do we just accept that teenagers are at best are difficult and at worst are good for nothing youth’s whose blatant disrespect for authority proves they are a lost cause? I’d prefer to fight for the former. As Bainbridge says, ‘These years can also be the most positive – it all depends on what you make of them.’

Caught in Eden

I am currently in the process of re-reading Rob Bell’s book ‘Velvet Elvis’. It has been a number of years since I last read it but even now, re-reading it, I am virtually unable to put it down. However as I am reading, some of what Bell says has reminded me of a discussion I had on one of my flights on my round the world trip. From the USA to England I found myself sitting next to a young guy, about 19 years old. He was tall, still had a very child-like face but he was absolutely a very deep thinker. We spent most of the trip talking deeply about matters of life, faith, spirituality and God. Though he has not grown up in the church he has obviously had a bit to do with it at some stage because he was actually pretty knowlegable about the Christian faith. He however was more interested in New Age beliefs and scientific understanding. As the conversation progressed something struck me, this obsession with New Age beliefs and scientific understanding that exists in the world today is nothing more than a continuation in eating the fruit from the tree in the garden of Eden. Let me explain.

The relevant biblical passage can be found in Genesis 3:1-7

¹ Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the LORD God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden’?”² The woman said to the serpent, “We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, ³ but God did say, ‘You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.’ “

⁴ “You will not surely die,” the serpent said to the woman. ⁵ “For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”

⁶ When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it. ⁷ Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves.

The key verse for me is verse 6. Eve realises the fruit is not only good for food but ‘good for gaining wisdom’. Now the first question I always have when I read this verse is why is wisdom appealing to eve?’ For now though I am going to put that question aside and just focus on the knowledge aspect. Eve is attracted, for whatever reason, to knowlege.  She wants to be ‘like God’. She wants to be able to comprehend God, least that is what it seems like to me.

In Velvet Elvis Bell talks about how everyone has faith, it is just a matter of what a person places their faith in. Some people believe in a God far outside our understanding and they believe he is the reason for our being. Some believe in many God’s who each have determined roles and they mould and shape our life based on their whim. Some believe that we exist purely due to random chance. There are many more ‘beliefs’ but they are ALL belief systems. They all rely on a level of faith.

Bell talks about how in Moses time, people honoured their God’s by making statues or carvings of them, such as the Israelites Golden Calf. These were God’s they could grasp, they could understand, they could…be like or at least comprehend. This sounds an aweful lot like what I said before about Eve in the garden.

One of the biggest debates that is raging these days in creation vs intelligent design vs evolution vs other varied beliefs about the beginning of our existence. Each of these is based on one desire though, the quest for knowlege. The desire to be able understand and comprehend all that is around us. It is all a quest for knowlege, just like Eve way back in the beginning.

Now don’t read this and hear me saying ‘knowlege is bad’ because I am not saying that. Many have come and gone in the past 2000 years and have made a big deal about this. I am not arguing that knowlege in and of itself is bad, for it is what God HAS. But it is making knowlege our GOD that becomes an issue. Eve’s desire for knowlege was greater than her desire to honour God’s commands. New Age religion, scientific reason, many of these beliefs seek to put God (or the lack of a God) in a box. New Age God’s all play defined roles, they are almost always fully comprehendable. We can ‘explain’ what the God of fertility does. We can ‘know’ exactly how to appease her. In fact in some New Age beliefs we can ‘become like God’ through ascension or enlightenment. It is all the same as Eve. It is all based on still being stuck eating the fruit in Eden.

The answer to all this is not to shun knowlege. To say that scientific discovery is bad. To say believing in any of the creation philosophies is bad. It is simply to realise that God is above our understanding. Whether or not creation or evolution is true, God is real and God created the heavens and the earth. Whether or not we believe in God or not does not make his existence any less real. We cannot define God. We cannot say ‘this is who God is’. The name we have for God, being ‘I am’ tells us all we can know and all we need to know. He is. He was, he is and he always will be.

Our task as Christians in my opinion is to not continue to get caught up in the quest for knowlege, but point people in the direction of the God who created knowlege. Now, we may USE knowlege to do this. We may USE discussion and understanding on the different New Age philosophies to do this. We may USE discussions on creation, evolution, intelligent design or whatever to do this but at the end of the day Christians say ‘you will not be able to say ‘i definitively know God’ and people who choose to follow God have to be ok with this! Because if we are still living in the Garden of Eden eating the fruit, we are in trouble.

Adjusting

Returning from travels I expected that there would be an amount of adjustment to make in getting used to being back in Australia. However I am definitely finding it harder than I thought! This is mostly because I am not just adjusting BACK into Australia but back into life in Perth! I have not lived in Perth for nearly 2 years and in that time a lot has changed in the area’s that I used to be involved. I’m finding myself trying to pick up where I left off without the ability to actually do so. Compunding this is the fact I know my stay here is not long term but a short term stay, limiting my ability to actually ‘get involved’ in any meaningful way in places.

One of the issues I am facing is what to do with church. When I lived in Perth I was invovled heavily at Subiaco Church of Christ. I love the church and have enjoyed visiting when I lived down south but am not drawn, in any particular way, to the need to make that my home now. However if I was to call somewhere else home it would be difficult too because I will be away for at least 3 months of 2010 and then will leave again in 2011. Wherever I go I like to be involved, if I was to return to Subi I could probably get involved in some way in the new year, if I was to find somewhere else it would be more difficult as, obviously, they would need to get to know me and would have to work out where I could get involved for a short term stay. But then again Subiaco has also changed a lot in 2 years and a lot of what used to be the case there is not now, it is not the same as it was (in a good way) from when I left. I have a lot of friends there but still, it feels very different to what it did when it WAS my home. Being involved in a small country church has, in some ways, changed what I look for and sometimes since I’ve been back I’ve felt a little daunted by how big Subi is and how easy it IS to just rock up and leave, without really being noticed, even as an ex-staff member.

Not really sure what I am saying or thinking right now. I feel like I am in a strange place, like I am waiting for something to click, like I know God has a purpose for the year ahead but what that purpose is has not been revealed to me yet. I don’t just want to ‘work’ for work sakes, I want to ’seek first the Kingdom of God’ and trust that, while doing so, God will provide all my needs for now and the future. Just not sure what my role in that is for now!

We’ll see. I am sure in a month or so I will be back to my usual self with a bit of purpose and the like and it will be much easier. Right now though I am in a strange place that I am not used to!

My 2010 project

Due to some of the outcomes of my recent travels, my expected plans for 2010 have been put on hold, that was to try and move into a youth pastor role at a church somewhere. However this hasn’t and doesn’t stop my mind ticking over, thinking about and dreaming about what youth ministry is all about. As such I have decided to undertake a project in 2010…to write a semi-autobiographical book on youth ministry.

My plans for this book are not really to look at publishing it. It is more a structure to hopefully pull together the different strands of thought I have on ‘why’ I want to be involved in youth ministry and ‘why’ I think it is such an important and pivotal ministry. There is plenty of discussion and debate on the merits of target specific ministries and I will hopefully tackle some of these. I hope that in writing this book I can grapple with some of the philosophies, idea’s and concerns in youth ministry and help piece together in my mind why on earth I’d want to be involved in such a topsy-turvy area of ministry!

I have come up with a skeleton outline, some basic topics that I want to cover and have an exhaustive booklist that I either need to read for the first time or re-read. The books that I plan to read are as follows.

1. The Trouble with Paris – Mark Sayers
2. Fruit that will Last – Tim Hawkins
3. Messy Spirituality – Mike Yaconelli (re-reading)
4. Velvet Elvis -Rob Bell (re-reading)
5. Blue Like Jazz – Donald Miller (re-reading)
6. The Church and the American Teenager – Tony Campolo
7. UnChristian – George Barna
8. Postmodern youth Ministry – Tony Jones
9. Youth Builder: Today’s Resource for Relational Youth Ministry – Jim Burns
10. The Be-With Factor – Bo Boshers & Judson Poling
11. Deep Ministry in a Shallow World – Chap Clark, Kara Powell

In most cases I know roughly what the above books talk about and know they cover some or a lot of what I want to clarify in my own mind, though some of them just sound like good reads! I hope that by focusing my train of thought for a while I may be able to go a bit deeper than the surface reading books normally get, at least from me!

My biggest fear is this will end up like many of the other projects I start myself and fall in a heap. However, I started this project way back in June while travelling (and before my plans changed!) and am still going. Today I infact sent an order off for most of those books (www.betterworldbooks.com – good prices and also helps world literacy etc!). We’ll see! Hopefully I’ll talk a bit about how the project is going as 2010 unfolds and progresses!

Job Hunting

Now that I am back in the real world (even if this week I am still in holiday mode!) I have begun hop around the dreaded ‘job hunt’ circuit. I can’t say that I extremely excited about having to find a job (but then really, many people are not) and it will definitely be hard to adjust back into a life of work after 4 and a half months of travel! What is most difficult for me right now is I will most likely have to settle for some mundane, boring job that doesn’t at all inspire me. Sure, it is possible I will find something stimulating…but the chances of this are probably pretty low. For now I only need a 6 month job, so that limits what I can apply for. I refuse to do the dodgy on an employer and lead them to believe I am looking for a long term position, I am not, and I value my integrity too highly to ‘pretend’ to be looking for more than I am. As such, temp contract or casual work is probably all I can hope for. What makes it more difficult is I need to earn as MUCH money as I can with my hopeful migration to the US in 2011 not being a cheap affair!

What is probably weighing most on my mind is I don’t have a fantastic track record when it comes to ’sticking it out’ in jobs I simply don’t like. I’ve always had the philosophy that ‘life is to short to work in jobs I hate’ so…I basically move on as soon as I realise I hate the job. I realise posting this on the internet may not be the BEST idea but this time around I realise this won’t really be an option for me, whatever job I get I will need to stay with and this hurts my brain to think about!

When I left I expected to come back from my trip and return to the ministry journey that I still believe I am on. When I left I expected to come back and have interviews for youth or other church leadership positions, area’s that I have worked in and enjoyed immensely! I am still holding out vain hope that I will somehow stumble into a position with some Christian ministry that needs a worker for a short period of time but, once again, this is not highly likely.

On top of all this Matt 6 plays over and over in my head.

But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. ³⁴Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.

I should know this…I have preached on this passage on more than one occassion! I guess what I should be doing is looking forward to the opportunities that will be opened to me to ‘live out’ the Kingdom principles in ANY job I find myself in. I should stop ‘worrying’ about it all and just trust that God is in control. I should. But then, knowing something in your head and then having that get down to your heart can take some time!

We’ll see. Either way I DO know God is with me, just gotta keep reminding myself sometimes!

Hell – Part One

Is there any more contentious idea in Christian theology than the idea of a loving God ‘sending’ wicked people to hell for eternal punishment? If a Christian even mentions this 4 lettered word to an unbeliever, world war 3 usually erupts. In fact I have held many conversations with people who have stated that it is the doctrine of hell that makes it most difficult for them to begin to consider the Christian faith. This is ironic given as traditionally the Christian faith believes that unbelievers will be the ones to end up in hell. Tim Kellar talks about this in his book, The Reason for God when he says,

“Modern people inevitably think that hell works like this: God gives us time, but if we haven’t made the right choices by the end of our lives, he casts our souls into hell for all eternity. As the poor souls fall through space, they cry out for mercy, but God says “Too late! You had your chance! Now you will suffer!”’

This just about sums up what I believe is a common misunderstanding on hell from people  both inside and outside the church.

Is this all there is?

I want to take a little bit of time and flesh out some thoughts on this whole doctrine of hell. This discussion will by no means be entirely exhaustive and probably would not, in this skeleton stage, hold up to serious questioning. However, I want to at least attempt to portray some thoughts I have been having over recent years, stimulated by various teachers and authors. I, like so many other people, also struggle greatly with the traditional view of hell being a place of fire, brimstone and eternal punishment, but ‘struggling’ with an idea is not enough to cast it aside. Still, for a long time I have been caused to wonder “Is this all there is? Does our loving God eventually send everybody who chooses to not be re-united with him as we were always meant to be, to a place where they are eternally and unconditionally punished? Is this our only option?”

Another way?

I vividly remember sitting in a class at college under the teaching of Keith Farmer. Keith has a way of explaining God’s love for people that makes you almost drift off into some place of pure bliss. In my classes he was so passionate about the love of God that all I ever wanted to do was to sit, listen, and in some way, for the first time realise just how much God loves us. I remember this because not long into the conversation one student was bold enough to ask ‘So how does Hell fit into all of this bliss?’ The answer was short, because we did not have time at this stage to flesh it out, but the answer opened a door that I have been slowly peeking through for the past few years. As many great teachers do, Keith answered the students question with another question. He simply said something like, “What if Hell is not a place of fire, brimstone and punishment…but simply a place people have freely chosen to be when they have decided they want nothing to do with God?” This probably doesn’t quite do Keith’s question justice, but it conveys the basic idea’s. Tim Kellar says something similar in The Reason for God when he says,

“In short, hell is simply one’s freely chosen identity apart from God on a trajectory into infinity.”

‘What if Hell is not as I had grown up being taught?’ This idea knocked me over. Is it even possible for there to be another, entirely different view of hell that more closely ‘fits’ (I hesitate to use that word) the idea of a loving God? This is a question I had not given too much more thought to until I read Kellar’s book which re-ignited within me the flame seeking to discover what this ‘other’ idea of Hell might be and whether or not it actually fit biblically.

Could hell ACTUALLY be a symbol of God’s love for us? If so, how?

Kellar devotes a whole chapter to the question ‘How can a loving God send people to hell?’ In it he basically argues that this whole notion of God ‘sending’ people to hell, as I quoted him explaining above, is preposterous and entirely the wrong way to look at God and his role. Kellar basically asserts that hell is nothing more than the place people go who have freely chosen to reject God. This is interesting because it almost makes sense. What if, in God’s love, he actually allows us to choose to live for eternity without him? As Kellar sums up,

“All God does in the end with people is give them what they most want, including freedom from himself. What could be more fair than that?”

In this way of thinking, far from Hell being some place of God’s eternal punishment, Hell is a symbol of just how much God loves us! That ultimately we do choose where we spend eternity. Who do we love most, God or ourselves? Kellar quotes the great theologian C S Lewis, who once wrote,

“There are only two kinds of people – those who say “Thy will be done” to God and those to whom God in the end says, “Thy will be done.” All that are in Hell choose it. Without that self-choice it wouldn’t be Hell. No soul that seriously and constantly desires joy will ever miss it.”

Kellar goes on to explain that,

“We know how selfishness and self-absorption leads to piercing bitterness, nauseating envy, paralysing anxiety, paranoid thoughts, and the mental denials and distortions that accompany them. Now ask the question: “What if when we die we don’t end, but spiritually our life extends on into eternity?” Hell, then, is the trajectory of a soul, living a self-absorbed, self-centred life going on and on forever.”

A place without God

So what if hell is simply a place ‘without’ God that God allows people to go for eternity if they choose to live a life without him? I remember Keith Farmer talking about how every good thing comes from the love of God. To chose to live without God is to chose to live without love and everything that comes from it. Though in the world some people who choose to live without God experience and in fact exhibit elements of love, at the end of the day, what if God grants people who choose to live without him what they are ultimately desiring, complete separation from him? This is as painful to God in many ways as it is to those who choose it. Each and every single person was designed and made to be in relationship with God. When Jesus died, he died so that EVERY single person could be re-united with him, but they have to choose it! All sin IS forgiven (not will be forgiven), it IS, but people have to choose to accept to be re-united with God. Perhaps hell is simply the place God makes for people who choose to reject this? And, it just so happens, that this place is terrible because, ultimately, for a person to be without God…is hell. As Kellar says,

“That is why it is such a travesty to picture God casting people into a pit who are crying ‘I’m sorry! Let me out!”

Anyone who CHOOSES to live with God will get that choice, it is only those who make the decision to either not believe IN God or not to enter into relationship with him, who miss out, and are granted what they actually desire?

There is much more to say on this topic which I will leave for another time. At this stage it sits as a great ‘idea’, but how does it fit biblically? I mean, the view of hell being a place of fire, brimstone and eternal punishment must have come from the bible, how can all that just be swept away for an idea? I won’t say much but what I will say is this, in looking into the biblical argument for the traditional view of hell I was highly surprised with what I read. Those discoveries are for another day!

Coming to and end

So tomorrow marks 2 weeks until I return to Australia. I’ll be honest and up front about it…I am ready to come home. It has been an absolutely AMAZING trip but I am weary of travelling and am ready to try and resume normal life.  As I said to my girlfriend, the travel bug within me has entered hibernation and left me in another country! Still I do have a week in Germany left and also a week in Singapore. It will be good but I am having a hard time enjoying it when my body is telling me to stop. Friday I go to Berlin though and no matter HOW I feel that day I AM going to enjoy it. Berlin is to significant in terms of 21st century history to NOT do it well and I would kick myself for forever and a day if I did not make the most of it.

So some of you are probably wondering what my plans are for when I return to Australia. Let me be honest up front, everything in my life for the next 12 months is about moving to the US. Yes, that is right, I will sadly be leaving the beautiful place that is Australia (recently ranked 2nd best country in the world to live in) because something more beautiful is calling me and her name is Kelsey. Though Kelsey and I have only been together for 2 and a half months, it is abundantly clear to me that she is to play a significant part in my life and as such I am going to move over to at least live in the same town as her until she finishes college in 2012. What happens from there is up in the air.

So when I get back to Aus I will be looking for a short term, fulltime job. As much as I would love it to be in a ministry field I am unlikely to find a ministry willing to hire me from December until June (however if you know any fling them my number or email or tell me!). As such I will probably hit the temp work agencies and HOPE that the GFC has not dried up all the temp jobs. In June I will head over to the US and staff another summer camp. Part of me feels guilty for using summer camp as a means to be with Kelsey (rather than simply going for summer camp itself) but most of me does not. I know I have a lot to offer to the camp in 2010 so although my MOTIVES for going are not entirely focused on camp, while I am there I will be totally committed to making the place the best Christian ministry that it can be.

After camp I will come back to Aus and start the visa process for the US. Exactly what visa I apply for is a fluid concept at the moment. It all depends if I can find someone willing to employ me and so go for an employment visa or if I have to look at other various alternatives. The US is RIDICULOUSLY difficult to immigrate to so we shall see. I imagine it will be 6 months to a year (or sadly possibly more) AFTER I start the ball rolling that I will be able to go over there. So when I get back from camp I intend to work again until I have to leave. This means I will be in Aus for 9 months of 2010…so again if any ministries need someone for that period of time and don’t mind a 3 month hiatus, I’m happy to discuss! Again I am not holding my breath regarding this option and will pursue the temp agency work.

It is safe to say I got what I was looking for out of my big trip, direction. Not quite in the way I was expecting it but that seems to be the way God works in my life! I look forward to the challenges that face me in the next yearor so, least of which is dealing with being SO FAR from the woman I love for the vast majority of the next year or so, which I have to admit is by far the hardest thing I have personally faced. Still, she is entirely worth it.

Once back in Aus I will have regular internet acces as so intend to blog a lot more regularly. I have started a project while travelling. I am notorius for starting projects and not finishing them but I truly hope I stick at this one. I will reveal more at a later date (if I indeed stick to my plan and keep it going) but if I do, I hope to have some discussion on my blog in various area’s regarding it.

For now it is late and I need sleep. Good night world!

Weaving a tapestry

Have you ever watched a skilled weaver design and make a beautiful tapestry? I haven’t seen it often but I once watched a documentary on it and it was amazing. The skill it takes to see random threads and make a beautiful piece of art out of them is huge. The thing is, the tapestry often doesn’t look beautiful until well into the process. For a long while it looks, well, quite disturbing at times.Yet the artist is always in control of what the final product will look like and one thing is certain, the final product will be fantastic.

The Church
I’ve just started reading a book called ‘The reason for God’ by Tim Keller and it has got me thinking once again about church. It is fairly widely commented that the church is going through a second reformation of sorts, or if people don’t believe it already is then they often believe that it needs to! For about the last 100 years or so many people both within the church and outside it have expected ‘religion’ to die. However this has not occurred. Instead, as Keller points out, “We [now] have neither the western Christendom of the past nor the secular, religionless society that was predicted for the future. We have something else entirely.” So what is this something else?

God’s tapestry
There is not much that I am certain of in this world but one thing I draw hope from is my certainty that God is weaving a beautiful tapestry that is perfect for the times that the church today finds itself in. As happened during the first reformation there is much debate between the different ‘camps’ as to what this new, or different church might look like. There is great debate about who is right, who is wrong. There is great debate about how much of the old and how much of the new is needed. What if the answer to all the debate is simply ‘yes’?

The old and the new
Though the church today is very different thanks to the reformation and all that followed, one thing that is clear is that there were still definitely many parts of the old that carried through to the new.  Though there is little debate that some of the current methods of church will be a part of whatever God is forming, just how much is usually the issue. What also amuses me is how almost all people discussing this argue that the way of the bible is the way we should go…which I don’t debate, it’s just the many varied interpretations of what that means that amuses me! So will house churches become the norm? Maybe it’ll be the megachurch that wins out? Perhaps those ’sticklers’ hanging on to the old orthodox and traditional styles that will ‘win’ the so called battle. Or perhaps God is simply saying ‘yes’?

The Dream
I’ve long been interested in these discussions about the church. This has often strained me though because I don’t tend to fit nicely in any one camp. I listen to people talking about the emerging church and how it is shaping the world. This get’s me excited and I want to be more like that. Then I read about the persecuted churches and how they are taking off in the developing world under extreme difficulty and this makes me feel like praying for the Western church to be more persecuted! Then of course I have the positive experiences of the larger style churches that I have both been in and regularly read about. How much time do we spend arguing whose thread is the one God either should be, or is, using? What if all the threads are both being used…and being fixed to best fit the tapestry that God is weaving? I don’t doubt for one minute that a lot that is done in the name of the church makes me cringe and cry…but then I read some of the stuff that Martin Luther talked about and I realise that he too was a little rough around the edges and didn’t have it perfect!

My place
I’m not entirely sure where I am going with this other than to reflect on something I have believed for a number of years, my position in all this is to straddle the middle between the many different strands of ‘church’ that God is weaving into his masterpiece. I don’t quite know how this looks, I don’t yet quite know exactly what my role is but every day, more and more God refines in me a heart to see the big, the small, the rich, the poor working together to allow God to make the tapestry that he desires the world to see. And though at times I wonder if the masterpiece is ever coming together I just have to remember that even the best weaver starts with something that looks less like a masterpiece and more like something destined for the trash! What a journey this is God has me on.

Saying farewell

So I am sitting here at Albany International Airport, waiting for my delayed flight. I just had to do one of the hardest things that I personally have had to do in my life, say farewell to Kelsey for 5 months! For the past 2 weeks we have been hanging out in Oneonta getting ready for this day but I don’t think anything could have really prepared us to say farewell. In the end the actual farewell was quite rushed and I almost don’t feel like I got to say farewell properly but there is not much I can do about it now!

Today marks our relationship entering a new stage, that of ‘long distance relationship’. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t a little apprehensive about it but ultimitely I know we have built a good foundation to keep us going strong. I haven’t had many relationships and honestly, going 5 months without being together is going to be tough, skype is going to be our new best friend! We spoke about this and both believe it will be good for us because it will force us to develop our communication skills. This can only be a good thing.

I continue to be amazed at how quickly our lives can take divertions. 4 months ago I had NO IDEA I’d meet someone who would become such a pivotal part of my life and now I’m left to contemplate continuing travel and returning to Australia without her. Yet at the same time I know the same God that bought us together is in control and will help us to remain strong. We truly serve an awesome God!

I haven’t really written much of note in this entry but it really is more about distracting me from the tears that are continually trying to force there way out. It really is a weird feeling I have at the moment, almost a numbness. But I have an awesome God and right now I am very, very glad that I can rest on him.