All posts by Graeme

Book reviews, Church, General, Missional, Sermons, Social Justice, Theology

What the Incarnation Means for the Church

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Originally posted on 1 May 2006

These are notes I used for a study on the issue of the Incarnation.

One of the greatest mysteries of the Christian faith is the Incarnation. This is a technical theological word that describes the fact that God became a human. Jesus Christ was both 100% a man and 100% God. The implications of this has kept theologians both thinking and fighting with each other for the past 2000 years. I am not sure that we will ever fully understand the Incarnation, but I want to share with you tonight what I believe the Incarnation means for the church – for us, today.

When Jesus was on earth, he taught us how to live lives pleasing to God. It is not just His words and his preaching that are important. Its His example and what He actually did that are important, too.

When we think of the Incarnation as a model for us, we probably immediately think of missionaries who leave the land of their birth and go to a far off country where they have to learn a new language, wear strange clothes and participate in weird customs. But that isn’t the only application of Jesus’s example. The Incarnation is a model of ministry for us here in our church.

Right at the start of His ministry, Jesus called a select group of 12 disciples to be with him, and live with him in community for 3 years. In addition to this group, there were at least 72 others who regularly lived with the disciples and travelled with them. There were many hundreds who offered them hospitality and, of course, many thousands who would come every now and again to hear Jesus preach.

Continue reading What the Incarnation Means for the Church →

General, Theology

On Liberty and dissenting voices

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John Stuart Mill’s timeless essay On Liberty contains the following stirring sentence: “If all mankind minus one were of one opinion, and only one person were of the contrary opinion, mankind would be no more justified in silencing that one person, than he, if he had the power, would be justified in silencing mankind.” This was the basis of Mill’s argument about the importance of liberty or freedom.

While I do not believe that freedom is a right or should be our ultimate goal, I do believe that it is this view of liberty – and especially of freedom of speech – that has done much to bring about a generally better world.

Less often cited from Mill is another passage: “However unwillingly a person who has a strong opinion may be to admit the possibility that his opinion may be false, he ought to be moved by the consideration that, however true it may be, if it is not fully, frequently and fearlessly discussed, it will be held as a dead dogma, not a living truth.”

One of the major problems of evangelicalism these days is that most evangelical leaders believe that they have arrived at a set of truths that are without error. There is an important distinction that they fail to make. Our faith is based on a set of truths that are without error (God’s Word and God’s Himself). But to claim that our understanding and knowledge of God (and His Word) is faultless is clearly wrong (and contrary to Scripture itself, as it happens). If, therefore, we know that our understanding of God is flawed, we MUST open ourselves to the type of “freedom of speech” that Mill was encouraging.

Yet so many evangelicals shut this type of discussion down, and shout down anyone who doesn’t believe what they believe. Such a shame, really, since what they end up with is exactly as Mill envisaged: a dead dogma.

General

Presenting in Johannesburg, 6 and 7 May

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I will be in South Africa next, doing a number of different client and public events. You can see my itinerary here.

Two events might be of particular interest to anyone living in Johannesburg. Firstly, on Thursday morning, 6 May 2010, in Woodmead, you can come to a business workshop focusing on the new world of work. It is being run by the TomorrowToday team, and promises to be hugely insightful. Details can be found here. I will be speaking about the disruptive forces that will shape the new world of work in the next decade.

XChange breakfast flierThen, on Friday early morning, 7 May 2010, at the DiData Campus in Bryanston, I am speaking at a fund raiser for Rosebank Union Church’s XChange youth programme. Find details and sign up for the event here. I will be speaking about “The Millennial Kids” at this breakfast.

Out of interest, I will also be presenting “Mind the Gap” at Waterstone College in Kibler Park on the evening of 6 May. This is open to parents and prospective parents of the school.

Church, General, Theology

A Conference Parody: Our Gospel is Bigger than Yours

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A Parody of The Perfect Conference from Tall Skinny Kiwi. Andrew Jones is one the most established commentators on the emerging church, and a fresh voice in the blogosphere. I was sent an email attributed to him, but can’t find the piece anywhere on his blog – so who knows where it comes from. It certainly could be his. But, whatever its source, I laughed out loud at this parody advert for a Christian leaders conference…

Our Gospel is Bigger than Yours

Cost $599.99

Location: Nashville with telecasts in Louisville, Dallas, Seattle, LA and Orlando

Speakers are 10 White Men, 5 of which wear suits and 5 of which cuss and wear Ed Hardy shirts.

Music will be led by a good natured bearded folk singer with “edgy” lyrics about sovereignty and reworkings of really old hymns of proper theological content all with never ending crescendos … and his pregnant wife.

Each sermon will be 45-50 minutes long, unless more time is desired. Topics will include:

  • The Primacy of Sovereignty in Theology,
  • The Primacy of the Word Primacy in Preaching, The Primacy of Men in Relationships,
  • The Primacy of Church Discipline,
  • The Primacy of the Pastor’s will being done as an indication of His role as God’s Appointed,
  • The Primacy of the Heresy of Emerging Christianity,
  • A Discussion of the Heresy of Brian McLaren by the 10 speaker in which no one is allowed to dissent from the norm,
  • Why Our Bible is better than yours,
  • Why the Atonement is Not a Rose, but is a Tulip and
  • Why We believe in Depravity of Man and the Sovereignty of God but Are Still Right about Everything.
General

MBTI and spiritual development (Part 1 of 2)

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I am a great advocate of self awareness. On the path to self awareness, I believe that personality profiles are great aids – they may create small boxes of personality types, but they provide windows of understanding into oneself and others.

I prefer to use the Enneagram as a profiling tool. I also like DISC and Meyers Briggs (MBTI). On a recent weekend youth camp, I tried to help the young people work out their MBTI type. Use this website to do an online test. You can see an overview of the MBTI profile here or here.

I then talked about spiritual disciplines – see a great website on this here.

Finally, I helped them to link their MBTI types to the type of spiritual disciplines and activities that would help them take their next steps with God.

For more info on your MBTI type, go to this website, and click on the icons at the top to look at careers, relationships and more.

Here is a summary of what I told them. You are free to use this as you wish – please just reference back to myself and this website:
Continue reading MBTI and spiritual development (Part 1 of 2) →

General, Theology

Updated list of mortal sins

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Originally posted on 20 March 2008, updated in April 2010

NEW COMMENT (April 2010): With the Catholic church, and the Pope personally currently mired in a controversy about child sex abuse, it is interesting to be considering what the church does or does not consider to be truly grave sins. Here is something from two years ago…

This past week, the Pope has released an updated list of mortal sins. Well, actually it was announced by Gianfranco Girotti, the head of the Apostolic Penitentiary (basically, the Vatican’s department of sin, confessions and absolution). While I am not a huge fan of the continued use of guilt that underlies the application of Roman Catholic Christianity (as it does in Jewish thought, too), I am thrilled with the mindset behind this list.

The new additions to the “seven deadly sins” are:

  • drug dealing
  • causing social injustice
  • causing poverty
  • polluting
  • becoming obscenely wealthy

The list was published in L’Osservatore Romano, the Vatican newspaper, and was accompanied by the Pope’s concerns for a “decreasing sense of sin” in today’s “securalised world” and the falling numbers of Roman Catholics going to confession.

In addition to the new sins listed, the Vatican took the opportunity to reiterate its concern about abortion and paedophilia.

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Book reviews, Church, General, Generations, Youth

Generations @ Church

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Originally posted on 19 February 2005

Based on a chapter in my 2004 book, ‘Mind the Gap’, here are some insights into the generation gap in church.

The era in which you were born shaped your value system more than you probably realise. Your value system is that part of you which helps you decide what is right or wrong, good or bad, normal or weird. Your value system is largely cemented in place by the time you turn ten years old, and the events and forces that shape you in those first ten years are critical in shaping your value system.

Over the past century, global events have become more and more influential on people across the planet. With increased communication, telephones, television and now the Internet, its possible for single events to influence billions of people at the same time. ‘Where were you when” type questions become increasingly familiar. Where were you when the planes crashed into the twin towers on 9/11? When Mandela was released in 1990? When the Berlin wall came down in 1989? When Neil Armstrong stood on the moon, or when JFK was shot?

Global events like these can shape the value systems of all the young people of a particular era. That means that people about your age may have a similar worldview to you. And you probably differ dramatically in outlook to those people older and younger than yourself.

Generations @ Church
There are few areas in our lives where the generation gap is greater than it is in the church. The church throughout the world is in crisis as an increasingly greying clergy is not attracting youthful priests and pastors. Youngsters don’t relate to people a generation or two older than them as role models, and the older generations boycott ‘youth services’. And so we see a vicious cycle of falling figures, both in church attendance and people prepared to don clerical robes.

Continue reading Generations @ Church →