Snapshot #1 Outside The Square

What are the church experiences that stirred your heart to dream “outside the square?” Over the next while I want to share three vignettes or snapshots from my experience. (I have changed the names and edited personal details to preserve the privacy of the people mentioned in all these stories). These have been life-giving to my understanding of what thriving Kingdom community might mean in our western context. What are your stories of church thriving “outside the square?”

Here’s my first snapshot:

Outside the Square - Story one: The Neighbourhood Community

Some years ago, I was invited to speak at a church camp. I can remember standing in the campsite kitchen with John and Jane, the organisers, looking through the hatch at the hundred or so people mingling, laughing, and preparing for their weekend together. “Now, you understand,” said John, “that there are three churches represented here. We started the first church in our home and now there are two more congregations.”

“Where have all the other people come from?” I asked. “Are they from other churches in the area?”

“No,” Jane replied, “We and two other couples are the only traditional Christians, and after the trauma of seeing our former church implode and close, we started the first group together. It was a difficult time, and we even wondered if doing church was worth it at all. But all the rest here are neighbours or work friends who have come – or are coming to faith. Most have never been in a traditional church before. As a matter of fact we discourage conventional church goers from leaving their home congregation to join us.”

“That’s right,” added John, “We have found that people who have grown up in a denominational corporate church setting can’t help but bring that DNA with them. They need buildings, committees, attractive needs-based programs, age segregated meetings, and so on. And if that’s what they want, that’s fine, but it douses the flame we believe God is fanning here.”

They went on to explain how they and their friends had come to the conclusion that local church was about the people of God living in authentic relationship in their local neighbourhood community. They were sent to be “on mission”, and the way in which they lived and talked their faith was the proclamation of the gospel. They had eventually arrived at a set of spiritual disciplines (or habits) which they practised in accountability to each other. Some were spiritual disciplines, some had to do with maintaining a healthy structure. Though quite different to the more corporate models of church, there was a well thought out and strong set of processes and structures supporting the relationships. They also related to a larger, national house-church network for support and training. Their weekly gathering centred on the Lord’s Table and application of the Scriptures – which flowed from rigorous discussion and reflection of their weekly experiences.

“No we don’t have any pre-set evangelistic programmes,” John replied to my question, “We’re all involved with an assortment of local projects, sports clubs, schools, community groups – depending on our interests – and our friendships and actions flow from a response to what we sense God wants us to say and do. But no, we don’t have the time to be running extra official church events. We’re having too much fun out there with people!”

As I got to know the larger group, it was inspiring to hear the stories: new neighbours welcomed in and embraced, fellow parents from the local school, co-employees, volunteers and clients of a local citizens advice centre, extended family members, children and friends of children. To summarise what many of these newer members expressed: “It started because my neighbour genuinely cared for me. I didn’t know anything about religion, and was actually suspicious about what her motive was. But she valued me regardless. Eventually when I got to know some of the others they included me – foul language and all – even though they knew I didn’t believe like they did .... I appreciate now that religion is not about going to a service but living differently – being set free!”

For me this was one of the first images of what “missional church” could be. God’s people were intentionally living and serving in their local community, interpreting and acting contextually, hearing the narratives of their neighbourhood, and responding appropriately, years before the missional terminology entered the mainstream.

Next time: An underground house church.

Radical Hospitality For The Rest Of Us

1. Radical Hospitality must be modelled by the leadership and  owned by the community members. @3:42
2. Partner with a 'bridging' group that's already doing hands-on work in the neighbourhood. @4:32
3. Invite people into service and leadership @5:08
4. Eat together regularly. @5:40
5. Keeping the vision alive @4:58
6. Ecumenically minded @6:53
7. A space of grace and non-judgment @7:18

Diary 03

Thursday 23rd of May 2024 

I've been sitting at home in my armchair working my way through a miserable dose of covid, frustrated at not being able to get out and do things. Yet sometimes, enforced rest lets you notice things you would otherwise miss.

I've been sitting in my blue recliner gazing out the front window at the large eucalyptus trees and listening to the sound of the birds calling. They call it 'birdsong' though watching them in action, swooping and chasing, I think avian abuse is more like what they seem to be hurling at each other!

The butcher birds, now. They're not large compared to the crows or the magpies, but by golly, they scratch and chase and claw like mad things at other species coming anywhere near their territory. They're maniacs! I'm surprised we don't have a AFL footy team called the 'Butchas.' They risk everything to look after their own. [Addendum, actually, the common miners have form too].

This sort of protective behaviour, common to many animals, is has been studied and described as 'Hamilton's Rule'. It says that an animal is more likely to behave altruistically toward others that are close to it. Dogs are more likely to defend their own pups or owners before they defend others they don't know. Ants will give their lives for their own nests, but not for others, and as for Butchas, they take it to another level!

Humans are equally subject to this instinct, because our caring instincts are triggered more often by those we know and have a relationship with.So we are happy to acknowledge the wise words of Moses -- 'Love your neighbour as yourself.' It makes sense to look out for others in our family or tribe.

In Luke 10:25-37, when the teacher of the law asked Jesus 'Who is my neighbour?', he was looking for a line to divide those we have to care for, from those we don't need to attend to. Jesus turns the question around in the parable of the Good Samaritan by making it 'who can you be a neighbour to?'

At the heart of Jesus' message is the idea that we can move beyond Hamilton's Rule, that we do not have to be driven by instinct or corporate memory or race or ancient feuds. Even the 'pagans' (the people most despised by the religious people of Jesus day) -- even they love those close to them. Butcha birds do that too. 

"If you love only those who love you, what reward is there for that? Even corrupt tax collectors do that much. If you are kind only to your friends, how are you different from anyone else? Even pagans do that. But you are to be perfect, even as your Father in heaven is perfect." (Matt 5:46-48, NLT)

We should be recognised as God's children if we love even our enemies. Be perfect ('teleos', or fully extended like a telescope) as your heavenly father's love is fully extended even to, as Paul puts it, the very worst of sinners.

The reign of Jesus proclaims the barriers have come down:

"There is no longer Jew or Gentile, slave or free, male and female. For you are all one in Christ Jesus." (Gal 3:28, NLT)

When I consider all of the racial and social divides in our modern world and all the bitter and entrenched conflicts, where the children of the children of the original protagonists fight zero-sum battles raising angry fists against those who are 'other-than-us' -- the way of Jesus, the way of fully extended love is as necessary but as unpopular now as it was way back then.

How do we as followers of Jesus show this as we seek to be communities of faith, day by day, in our relationships and our neighbourhoods? 

Pentecost: This Grace That Scorches Us

Pentecost Fire © Jan Richardson

Divided tongues, as of fire, appeared among them,

and a tongue rested on each of them.

All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit

and began to speak in other languages,

as the Spirit gave them ability.

Acts 2.3-4

If we didn’t know it before, we surely know it now, as the second chapter of Acts unfolds: this is no tame God who comes to us, no safe and predictable deity. This is the God whose loving sometimes takes the form of scorching.

Before he left, Jesus told his friends he would send them the Advocate, the Comforter. Now we see this Comforter coming as wind, as flame, reminding us that comfort is not always comfortable, for it makes itself known in community, where we find the most searing challenges—and the deepest blessings—we will ever know.

This Grace That Scorches Us

A Blessing for Pentecost Sunday

Here’s one thing

you must understand

about this blessing:

it is not

for you alone.

It is stubborn

about this.

Do not even try

to lay hold of it

if you are by yourself,

thinking you can carry it

on your own.

Diary: 02

Wed 15th of May 2024 

We'd been planning our first Haven Zoom prayer time for a while. 'An opportunity to invite those interested in praying for the general Mernda, Woollert, Woodstock area and for the birth of Haven a proposed new faith community there.

Well, having written about the prayer time on this very blog, I then linked it, as you do, to my Facebook page to let people know -- and was promptly wrapped over the knuckles by a stern Facebook algorithm telling me I'd contravened their community guidelines. I tried again and again and again -- no good! Helpful friends suggested interesting,  but futile work-arounds.

Then a mate of mine kindly shared the exactly the same blog-post on their Facebook page with no problems at all,  but when I tried to share his Facebook post onto my Facebook feed -- Again with the stern warning and post removal! Why? Why THIS one post? “Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world, she walks into mine”

That left me picturing Mark Zuckerberg, evil red glint in his narrowed eyes, sitting in his control room reaching out like the Emperor in Star Wars and pulling the "kill-the-prayer-meeting" lever! Mwuahahaha!

Then on the morning of the Zoom prayer time, my wife came down with a dose of Covid and went to bed early and early that same afternoon I got a winter lurgy with a thumping headache. I was just too out-of-it to coordinate a Zoom meeting of any sort .... So we cancelled the Zoom meeting. As I lay in bed miserably listening to the drums in my head I couldn't help wondering if Bill Gates (probably sitting a-top Sauron's dark tower) hadn't issued the order: "Send out the 5G Covid viruses!"

But why? Sometimes it seems like the universe is conspiring against you just a little bit, doesn't it? I'm sure some of my dear friends might have told me that it was the evil one working against us. And other friends would have said actually,  it was God testing us. And yet others might have said it was a sign that Zoom prayer meetings are just plain wrong!

Maybe. But sometimes an algorithm is just an algorithm and a virus is just a virus. 'Stuff' happens and our patience and resilience is tested. And this here, is a just a very, very small first-world bit of 'stuff!' Plenty of people face massive 'stuff' and it's genuinely hard and perplexing! It's standing with them and sharing the load rather than finding answers. I'm put in mind of this poem by Carol Penner called "God Chooses Face Time."

We’re always calling God.

Where are you God?

Why don’t you pick up?

The phone rings and rings,

echoing in that heavenly chamber.

We check the number,

this has got to be right.

Finally God’s answering machine clicks in.

We hear God’s voice,

“Why are you calling me?

I’m standing right beside you.”

God present, alongside us in the messiness of life, in the internet glitches, viruses and all. Prayer times are about learning to see and hear as Jesus does and to put ourselves next to others with understanding and compassion. Anyway, I'm sure those who were planning to join in our Zoom meeting paused to meditate where they were! And we'll reschedule the next one for Monday week -- 8pm Mon 27 May -- SMS or email me if you are interested! (therevhead@mac.com) And you're welcome too, Mark and Bill!

Diary: 01

 Sat 11th of May 2024 

I've been sitting down with an assortment of different people and bouncing off them the idea of a new church community based out near Mernda.

Being a nerd, I've put together a keynote presentation with about six slides and as we've sat in cafes around Mernda, Yarrambat or Doreen quaffing our coffees and chatting I've gone through the points on my presentation! Am I a nerd or what?

Three of the points in my presentation seemed to particularly resonate with people:

1. We want to engage life-giving conversation around meaning and identity: We want Haven to be a safe space for those thinking about or deconstructing elements of their faith and working through what they believe.

Our grandparents lived in the certain and confident (western) world of scientific modernity. Their great-grandparents lived in the late stages of Christendom. For them, there definitely was a God, the scriptures were 100% certain and propositional truth was evident to all. Black was always black and white was white -- But our world has rapidly changed. 

We live now  in a post-modern world. Traditional institutions are mistrusted and often seen as unhelpful. The idea of immutable ethical and religious truth is no longer assumed. Also, in a smaller, mobile, internet world, a multiverse of cultures, religions, ethnicities and lifestyles swirl around us. 

And in a social-media, fake-news, Dunning-Kruger world, uncertainty is greater than ever. The big questions of identity and meaning and belonging are as real and as challenging as ever. 

Anxiety is at an all time high, so is loneliness. That's why, for example, post-colonial theory, critical-race theory, gender theory, green-politics, and identity politics have emerged. On the other hand, fundamentalism in all it’s forms is also re-emerging as a bastion of safety in uncertain times.

For many who have been raised in church circles and have always just assumed the beliefs and traditions handed down, this raises existential questions. Some will engage those questions, find satisfying answers and continue on content. For (many) others, their parents’ church and faith lenses no longer provide an adequate understanding of the world. Before these lie the tasks of deconstructing and reconstructing a meaningful worldview. I think, too often, this happens in isolation. There is the fear of being judged or rejected by significant others. Sometimes there are no few or safe spaces in which to express doubt or ask hard questions.

So it becomes important to discuss what authentic and satisfying worldviews might look like and how we can we construct a biblical faith-based framework for living ethically and lovingly in such a multiverse of cultures?

How do we live consistently with our beliefs whilst also understanding and respecting those who view life through different lenses? Haven is to be a space where we can have those conversations together over as many strong coffees as are needed!

This strikes such a chord! So many people have questions but don't know how to express them. What often happens is we go to church for the music and friendship, but we live bifurcated lives: There's our Sunday life and our weekdays life; there's our emotional/spiritual life and there's our reasoning mind, and  the two remain disconnected or in conflict. 

2. We want Haven to have a 'centred-set'culture rather than being 'bounded set.' 

In a centred-set church it is recognized that we are each on a journey. The closer one gets to the centre (Christ), the more one’s understanding and actions are shaped by Jesus. Each individual has the freedom to navigate kairos (ah!ha!) moments that might require change.

There’s not a set of gate-keeper rules or a fixed boundary, as is in a bounded set. No one is considered unworthy of belonging. In a centred set model of community, people of all backgrounds and beliefs will be welcomed at the table to join in the conversation. 

It's a filter that asks not: ‘Are they in or out?’ but ‘Are they able to move towards the centre?’ 

3. Church as 'meal' more than 'meeting:' One key question is around what means to be ‘church’ in post-Christendom. There is a suspicion of religious institutions and structures.

It's interesting the only liturgy Jesus gave his followers was a meal -- whenever they eat and share bread and wine -- they are as family remembering Jesus' incarnation and death and their new identity and they are looking forward with hope to Jesus return and creation restored.   

We want haven to (try to) be a community that meets and shares around meals and conversation ahead of being a congregation attending "services" with a liturgy, sermons and songs. 

Picture meeting as a smaller group over a meal talking about issues on our plate, our world, our joys, Jesus and the Good News. What if was OK to ask any questions or express doubts about what faith looks like? Picture imagining together about what the reign of Jesus might actually look like for our broader context.

So, how do we start? And how do we resist becoming an inward huddle that doesn't connect or bless its neighbourhood? Much to ponder!

Haven Prayer Times

We're planning to start a fortnightly online prayer time in the next while.

It will be an opportunity to pray together for the northern suburbs around Mernda, Doreen, Woollert, South Morang. We want to:

• Pray for the people who live, work and play there
• Pray for followers of Jesus who serve there as salt and light
• Pray, seeking God’s guidance about the launch of Haven, a new faith community to serve that area.

As you will be aware, the area all the way from Donnybrook in the west through to Yan Yean in the east, and up north towards Beveridge and Eden Park — and down to Woollert through to Doreen are a massive growth area! Many houses are going up, and thousands more people will be moving in over the next 10-20 years. 

We want to birth a missional community, to the east of that area to bless the emerging neighbourhoods. Initially it would be through the friendships that arise in connecting with other local people through work, sport, school and other such activities; in time it could mean initiating some sort of social enterprise or developing a space that meets the needs of the community.

A vital starting point is to gather together to pray regularly. I get that all of us are busy and driving out to another long meeting, no matter how worthy, is the last thing we need!  So we want to keep the Haven Prayer Time easily doable! So the prayer time will be:

• An evening  Zoom meeting — Easy to join in from home
• Only every second week.
• Just 30 minutes long — Time to just share some prayer points and to pray.
• An email to be sent earlier on the day of each prayer meeting — If you can’t make particular night — Check your email, pause & pray briefly. 

If you are interested in learning more, let me know your details via email HERE

Distrub us, Lord

  

Disturb us, Lord, When we are too well pleased with ourselves;

when our dreams have come true because we dreamed too little;

when we arrive safely because we sailed too close to the shore.

Disturb us, Lord, when with the abundance of things we possess

we have lost our thirst for the Waters of Life;

having fallen in love with life, we have ceased to dream of eternity;

and in our efforts to build a new earth,

we have allowed our vision of the new heaven to dim.

Disturb us, Lord, to dare more boldly -

to venture on wider seas where storms will show your mastery;

where losing sight of land, we shall find the stars.

We ask you push back the horizons of our hopes,

and to push us in the future with strength, courage, hope and love.

For possible Source: Here

What is Haven Community?

WHAT? 

We are hoping soon, (some time later this year), to start "Haven" in the Mernda area. Haven is to be a faith community which can be a genuinely safe space in which to explore faith with others and participate in the way of Jesus. 

Take note, everyone -- Haven is NOT yet active, we are still doing the groundwork! We will let everyone know when we are ready to start!

There are so many people who used to do church or who have deep questions about the Christian faith as they have seen it. There are also so many people with a deep spiritual hunger as they grapple with questions of identity and meaning

We want this to be a community that forms over conversation and food rather than just starting with a ’traditional’ morning service with songs and a sermon (tho’ there’s nothing wrong with that)!  

To that end, the idea will be to start by hold our regular meetings either in a home (or in a cosy hall), probably early Sunday evenings over shared meals. In time, that could well evolve into other times, styles and activities. 

There will be three ingredients in the mix:
WAYS: Taste-testing the ancient ways and wisdom of Jesus together. 
WORKS: Seeking to act as instruments of peace in our local community and beyond. 
WORDS: Engaging in life-giving conversation around faith, meaning & identity. 

WHY?
As you will be aware, the area all the way from Donnybrook in the west through to Yan Yean in the east, and up north towards Beveridge and Eden Park — and down to Woollert through to Doreen are a massive growth area! Many houses are going up, and thousands more people will be moving in over the next 10-20 years.

Already there is an awesome Baptist placemaking programme and new church starting further west in the Donnybrook area, and there are other church groups doing good work too. We’re looking more towards the East, broadly in the Woollert - South Morang - Mernda - Woodstock area.

We want to birth a missional community that could in time partner with the established congregations (further south) to bless the many emerging neighbourhoods. initially it would be through the friendships that arise in connecting with other local people through work, sport, school and other such activities. In time it could mean initiating some sort of social enterprise or meeting space that meets the needs of the community.

HOW?
We’ve spent the last many weeks writing up how haven could work; doing some research, lots of prayer and having great conversations with insightful people to test the idea and tweak the planning!

In term two, it will be time to invite some key people to meet up and to run the idea past them more formally. That will most likely be April/May.

After that we want to ask these to prayerfully consider becoming the core group and to then we plan to meet for 10 or so weeks for orientation, some training, prayer and to ‘road test’ the idea.

Some time after that we would agree on a timeline and date to invite others to come and join in.

Please pray with us so that we find local, passionate, people of faith to join us for this stage of the journey. If any names come to mind - send me a message with their details!

Please be praying for the people, homes and neighbourhoods around the Mernda, Doreen, Woollert, Woodstock and South Morang areas!

Pray too for the other church plants getting established through these northern suburbs!

Starting something new like this needs the Spirit of Jesus to bring about life and fruit! We can’t do that ourselves!

As Paul puts it: "I planted the seed, Apollos watered it, but God has been making it grow. So neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is anything, but only God, who makes things grow.” (1Corinthians 3: 6-7).

Penny Lane

I love the Beatles song Penny Lane (below), a portrait of a
village virtually teeming with ‘nowhere men’.

Written by Paul McCartney, recorded during the Sgt. Pepper sessions, and released in February 1967 as one side of a double A-sided single, along with Lennon's "Strawberry Fields Forever". Beatles producer George Martin has said he believes the pairing of these songs resulted in probably the greatest single ever released by the group.

Penny Lane is a study in ‘mundanity’. The simple sights and sounds of an ordinary suburban neighbourhood; of completely commonplace and inconsequential people and events, all set to that rich melody, with the horns, the flute.

The chorus: "Penny Lane is in my ears and in my eyes/There beneath the blue suburban skies..." highlights the importance of memory - the importance of experience - the way the smallest visual and aural details build up to form and inform this amazing thing we call Life. 

All around us are ordinary phenomena – people, homes, school, shops, shopping centres, neighbourhoods, parks, phone calls, emails, street scenes, routine family life, artistic and cinematic depictions of how we live our lives, everyday work and commercial situations, sociable occasions, non-professional sports activities, transportation contexts, venues of legal and political action, viewing televised entertainment, consuming information from various media, and so on and so on. 

Latte Interrupted

One of my mates and I were sitting, one morning, deep in conversation about faith
stuff in a northern suburbs cafe. Suddenly from behind us a voice calls out: “Excuse me, do you two know where I might find a church out this way?” 

We turned and found ourselves in conversation with a young woman and an older friend of hers. The younger woman told us her story about how challenging life had been to her and how in despair, after moving from city to city, she had found herself alone in Melbourne facing serious surgery. 

She had been befriended and cared for by a local woman who was clearly a follower of Jesus. Her authentic faith had deeply touched the young woman, and she had come to faith.

She had found hope and compassion beyond her wildest dreams! It was amazing to see her radiant face and hear the joy in her voice. Now, some weeks later, she had been sitting in the same café as my colleague and I, and sharing with another of her friends about her experience of Jesus – and asking about local churches she might join with! 

Our sitting on the next table was just another answer to prayer for her! And she wanted to talk about her experience and ask questions about how to grow spiritually!

You know, I’ve had four other similar ‘interruptions’ to cafe conversations in the last while. Not conversations I've initiated, but people so hungry to talk about, or ask about faith and meaning, who have not been able to resist jumping into interrupting strangers, once they’ve figured out that there were Jesus followers on an adjacent table. 

In the midst of the lonely and materialistic world we inhabit – there is a ripe harvest!  People are hungry for belonging, meaning, forgiveness and hope. 

God is at work around and ahead of us and calls us to serve alongside.  “Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to His power that is at work within us....”  Eph. 3:20 : (NIV)