Category Archives: General

General, Social Justice

The Adoption Option

8 Comments

Originally posted on 9 July 2009

My wife, Jane, and I adopted a Zulu orphan in July 2005. Since then, we have discovered hundreds of families who have done the same – responding to the tremendous crisis in sub Saharan African, brought on by the AIDS epidemic.

Often, as Christians, we read the Bible selectively. We’re so quick to claim certain promises, and get hot under the collar about certain instructions and commands. But, then, we feel happy completely ignoring others. My wife and I became increasingly convicted about James 1:27, where it is very clear that “religion that is pure and acceptable to God is to take care of widows and orphans…”. That doesn’t mean adoption, of course – there are many ways of taking care of others. In fact, adoption means that we have reduced our impact because our focus is now on only one orphan, rather than the possibility of caring for many. But, religion that is acceptable to God must include significant amounts of social action and social justice.

In May 2008, I spoke at TGIF in Hyde Park, Joahnnesburg, and told the story of my family’s adoption of our third daughter, Rebecca. I told her story, our story, and gave details on the process of adoption in South Africa. For those interested in the story, it was recorded and is available for download as an MP3 file, by right clicking here (select SAVE AS).

Church, General, Missional, Sermons, Theology

The Transformational Gospel vs the Evacuation Gospel

4 Comments

Originally posted on 7 May, 2007

I attended a conference in Uganda in 2007 which was a significant moment in my “emerging church” journey. It as the first time I really understood that the “stories” of my faith were incomplete, and that a future church would need to find new ways of expressing what it meant to be church. The talk I make available below was one of those “aha” moments for me. I hope it can be for you, too.

A message by Claude Nikondeha, from Burundi, delivered at Amahoro Gathering in Uganda

Download the MP3 recording here

The sections marked (GC) in italics are my commentary, not Claude’s words. This is a message we should be hearing at church, but are not.

The problem with a Gospel that only promises release when Jesus returns, is that Jesus has not yet returned. The people are not released – they live in suffering, poverty, famine and wars.

“The Gospel is not a doctrinal formula for the salvation of the individual but it is the Good News of God’s movement through Jesus Christ to carry out his purpose for the entire human race.” Rene Padilla

Jesus did not come to announce an evacuation plan, but a transformation plan.

Continue reading The Transformational Gospel vs the Evacuation Gospel →

General, Global issues, Social Justice, Theology

The Archbishop of Canterbury on Global Warming

1 Comment

Originally posted on 11 Nov 2009

Recently, Dr Rowan Williams gave an excellent speech on the issue of our responsibility towards Creation and a Christian response to environmental crises. The Bible has a clear message about caring for the environment – not just for the here and now, but also because at the end of time this planet will be renewed and restored to pre-Fall glory and be the paradise heaven of God’s Kingdom.

I don’t agree with everything Dr Williams says, but his message is well made and worth listening to. You can read it on his own website, listen to it online (42Mb MP3), or see an extract below.

Continue reading The Archbishop of Canterbury on Global Warming →

General, Generations, Missional, Youth

Evangelising the generations

1 Comment

Originally posted in 2002, and then updated in July 2009

It has been a tremendous privilege over many years to be able to (almost) seamlessly blend my ministry and work aspirations. This is something many people spend their whole lives striving for – to integrate what they do for a living with the passion in their hearts. I fell into this very young, and have been privileged to continue to do so.

Specifically, the work I do on different generations, and seeing the world through other people’s eyes (see http://www.graemecodrington.com) has application in many different areas – from schools and churches, to marketing and HR departments of large corporates, and even government institutions, too.

A few things have happened recently to remind me of work I did a number of years ago on evangelising the next generation. I wrote a chapter on “Generations at church” in my 2004 book, “Mind the Gap”. Now, EE3, the global evangelism movement, will be providing my book to its members. I have also been in contact with the organisers of the upcoming Lausanne Congress on World Evangelisation, to be held in Cape Town 2010.

So, previously unpublished on this blog, is an article I wrote in 2000 for the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association magazine.

Continue reading Evangelising the generations →

General

Welcome to Future Church Now

2 Comments

This is the new home of Graeme Codrington‘s blog on the future of Christianity, emerging church, missional theology and all things spiritual.

I am a business strategy consultant, living in Johannesburg, South Africa. My focus is on helping organisations to understand the forces that are shaping the future of work, and working with them to develop practical responses to the trends that will disrupt their industries in the next decade. I work with a number of business partners in TomorrowToday Global, a company I co-founded in 2002. I blog on issues relating to these trends here, and have a Twitter feed here.

In addition to doing Chartered Accounting articles at KPMG and a Bachelor of Commerce (with majors in accounts, business economics and business information systems) and a Doctorate in Business Administration (majors in leadership and future studies), I also have a Bachelor of Arts (major in theology), an Honours in Theology (major in youth work) and a Masters in Diaconology (a combination of theology and sociology). I have worked as a youth worker, honorary youth pastor, articled clerk, auditor, computer trainer and solutions developer, strategy consultant, futurist and professional speaker.

My church background includes Salvation Army, Brethren, Church of England (while living in London), Baptist, Methodist and independent. I was ordained into Baptist ministry in South Africa in 1999. I left the Baptist church a few years later, in protest to both their treatment of female pastors and their unwillingness to even engage in dialogue on homosexuality issues. I now worship at a Methodist church in Johannesburg, and have qualified and been accepted as a local preacher and elder in this tradition. My wife was the campus pastor of our church, until Covid caused the Methodist church to shut our small community down. We now gather together with a small group of Christians in Johannesburg and call ourselves, “We Are Church”.

I have been blogging on the issues related to “a new kind of christianity” for over 20 years, with a long archive at this site and elsewhere. This blog is home to my musings on this topic, with a particular focus on saying things to the church that it should be hearing but is not. I have a particular passion for diversity and inclusion, especially LGBTQI inclusion in the church.

Enjoy it, and contribute to the conversations!