Whenever we hope and pray that God might save 10% of Australia - we
need to be prepared for the new kinds of problems and mess it would
create. We would have to deal with all sorts of Right Wing Christian
groups and wide-scale press/business/politics scandals and hype. I
want God to save 10% of Australia. But I know it would bring with it a
whole swag of new ugly problems.

So here’s a round up of media
surrounding the ‘Elephant Room 2’. Worth a read because:

1. It highlights the importance of trinitarian theology
2. It highlights the need for careful, probing questions about doctrinal beliefs and changes in doctrinal beliefs, rather than asking broad questions and giving someone the benefit of the doubt
3. It challenges us to think through carefully what centred-set networks like The Gospel Coalition look like. I think there is a place for organisations that aren’t as tight as churches or denominations (if you can call denominations tight!). But do all Christian networks need to be like that?
4. It demonstrates the risks of Chritsians being led be theological untrained or under-trained celebrity preachers who may not provide enough theological rigour to their leadership
5. It shows us the unique challenges American Christians face in such a big Christian community. Imagine having to live in a world we get a glimpse of in this roundup? - indeed even ‘the race card’ gets played in the controversy.

Thanks to Craig for linking this this on Facebook.

I like Melbourne heaps. And it’s great that this year the conference
is right in the centre of Melbourne, at
Melbourne City Conference Centre.
I heart that.

I’ve been speaking at Xpose since 2007 when Murray and Stu started it.
The whole point was to provide a rallying point for listening to,
thinking about and training young preachers. They’ve tried to make the
kind of conference they’d like to go to. And they’ve always worked on
the assumption that the best way to learn how to preach is to listen
to preachers.

It’s kind of through Xpose that I got involved in Geneva. One year at
Xpose I shared the platform with
Pete Ko. Who then introduced me to
Steve Chong, who then
invited me to join the Aussie trip to Seattle back in 2009 out of
which Geneva was born.

Xpose 2012: Preaching to be heard
Anyway. This year Xpose I will be preaching on 1Corinthians 2:1-5 -
‘Preaching Knowing Nothing’. It’s been fun preparing for that,
thinking about how sometimes cultural relevance is being sensitive
enough to know when to be different to the culture in our
communication.

The other speak is Ed Stetzer, who
is the church planting guru of the Southern Baptists and who wrote the
great book ‘Planting Missional Churches’. It will be nice to meet Ed,
after reading his blogs and books for many years.

Come to Xpose
So why not come and join us? If you don’t live in Melbourne, that’s
sad. Come to Melbourne. It’s a lovely city. We can go drink coffee in
some weird Dark Knight sort of alleyway and then eat duck in
Chinatown.

If you are in Melbourne, I assume you’re coming - aren’t you? Should
be a great time. And make sure you clock in for the duration. It’s not
a super-long conference, but you will benefit and the other delegates
will benefit from you sticking around for the whole thing.

PS Both ‘Xpose’ and ‘missional’ make my spellchecker angry.

This episodetold the story of Mike
Daisey’s investigation into working conditions in Foxconn - the
notorious factory in China where parts are made for many Western
electronic companies - including Apple.

The descriptions of the awful working conditions were really moving,
shocking and confronting. We should grieve about this.

One chilling comments was:

” In a place where the monetary cost of labor is effectively zero…
anything can be made by hand.” And so when we in the West always talk
about how we want things that are hand-made and not mass produced…
well actually, in these factories more things are made by hand than
ever before!

Another amazing thing about this radio show, however, was the fact
that they took time to explain the other side of the story. It can be
easy as the left-leaning, outraged idealist to poke a finger at
horrible abuses, without seeing the big picture. It can be easy to
just assume the multinationals are run by simple eeeeevil bad
corporate guys with moustaches. and double-breasted suits, rather than
try to understand what difficulties they may face.

So I was impressed that they generously explained what Apple tries to
do to audit and improve the situation (while saying that Apple really
should do more). This was no passing disclaimer, but an
acknowledgement that they were doing something.

Moreover, they spelled out the economic arguments in favour of bearing
with the horrible reality of sweatshops. In particular, the fact that
Chinese people living in abject poverty and working in the cruel
conditions of the rice paddies were worse off.
They spoke to the author of this
article from the New York Times for that argument.

A helpful balance to the splurge of Reformed evangelical books on
counseling, parenting etc that urge us to always in everything get to
the theological root of the matter - always talking about the
underlying sins, heart-idols and grace-motivation. There is a right
place for this biblical worldview thinking. But there are times when
it is manipulative or distorting.

This was especially awesome (last sentence = ‘ouch!’):

“We must not equate courage with success, or even youth with success. We must avoid ever leaving the impression that these equations are valid. I have spent too much time in places like Japan, or in parts of the Muslim world, where courage is not measured on the world stage, where a single convert is reckoned a mighty trophy of grace. I am grateful beyond words for the multiplication of churches in Acts 29, but I am no less grateful for Baptist ministers like my Dad, men who labored very hard and saw very little fruit for decades in French Canada, many of whom went to prison (their sentences totaled eight years between 1950 and 1952). I find no ground for concluding that the missionaries in Japan in the 20th century were less godly, less courageous, less faithful, than the missionaries in (what became) South Korea, with its congregations of tens of thousands. At the final Great Assize, God will take into account not only all that was and is, but also what might have been under different circumstances (Matt 11:20ff). Just as the widow who gave her mite may be reckoned to have given more than many multi-millionaires, so, I suspect, some ministers in Japan, or Yorkshire, will receive greater praise on that last day than those who served faithfully in a corner of the world where there was more fruit. Moreover, the measure of faithful service is sometimes explicitly tied in Scripture not to the quantity of fruit, measured in numbers, but to such virtues as self-control, measured by the use of one’s tongue (James 3:1-6).”

“[He] preaches himself. He is nothing unless he is an actor—unless
exhibiting that matchless impudence which is his great characteristic,
indulging in coarse familiarity with holy things, declaiming in a
ranting and colloquial style, strutting up and down the platform…
and boasting of his own intimacy with Heaven with nauseating
frequency.”

A criticism of….

Charles Spurgeon :-)

“There are some worthwhile exceptions but, in general, most of these
books show one of two deep flaws.

One is to illustrate a theory that is based on lots of data with
carefully chosen cases, but leave the larger population that justifies
the theory invisible. In other words, we are offered “for instance”
instead of proof. The second is to examine only carefully chosen
outliers, usually high-performing firms. This is especially
problematic since, without showing any connection between the sample
and some larger population, there is no good reason to conclude that
the sample is representative of anything other than itself….

Most business books move from overstated claims of explanation to
entirely unjustified predictions based on the notion that because
something seems to have worked for them over there it will work for
you over here. This belief is based on a flawed assumption that using
ideas that worked out in the past will somehow allow you to shape the
future in a desired way.”

This interview at Harvard Business
Review reflecting on how women entering the workforce has change
domestic life and personal happiness. It highlights positive changes
that have come as a result of women entering the workforce alongside
men.

Now I know that every piece like this is ideologically weighted, just
as conservative Christian pieces are. But it’s helpful to realise that
the studies and reports and arguments that we are used to hearing are
not the only way to interpret things. And it allows us to honestly
embrace positive changes, rather than only being prophets of gloom.

Some of the interesting claims in the interview that I can remember:

• After divorce rising in the 60s, 70s and 80s, American divorce rates have actually begun to decline again
• When children are asked about what they most want from working parents it is primarily:
  1. That they get more time with their dad
  2. That their parents be less guilty and stressed

 

• Advice in the 1950s was generally to make the woman responsible
  for any problems in the marriage (like infidelity in the home) and to
  accuse a husband of mild deviance if he wanted to help with child
  rearing and housework

• The most important thing for healthy, happy children is for their
  parents to:

  1. Have sex
  2. Socialise with other adults

   

• Rather than assuming that that the solution to overwork is always
  for the woman to work less, couples should be open to the husband
  working less, so that together they can share in domestic life and
  responsibilities.

 

I have bought a couple of books and dragged in a bunch of ccel.org PDFs.

What must I do next? Hot tips on making the most of my new toy?

My friend Nick linked to this article by David Foster Wallace on my Facebook:

Watching Federer as Religious Experience.

I was struck by this comment:

“The human beauty we’re talking about here is beauty of a particular
type; it might be called kinetic beauty. Its power and appeal are
universal. It has nothing to do with sex or cultural norms. What it
seems to have to do with, really, is human beings’ reconciliation with
the fact of having a body”

Then in typical Wallace style there’s a footnote too:

“There’s a great deal that’s bad about having a body. If this is not
so obviously true that no one needs examples, we can just quickly
mention pain, sores, odors, nausea, aging, gravity, sepsis,
clumsiness, illness, limits — every last schism between our physical
wills and our actual capacities. Can anyone doubt we need help being
reconciled? Crave it? It’s your body that dies, after all. There are
wonderful things about having a body, too, obviously — it’s just that
these things are much harder to feel and appreciate in real time.
Rather like certain kinds of rare, peak-type sensuous epiphanies (“I’m
so glad I have eyes to see this sunrise!” etc.), great athletes seem
to catalyze our awareness of how glorious it is to touch and perceive,
move through space, interact with matter. Granted, what great athletes
can do with their bodies are things that the rest of us can only dream
of. But these dreams are important — they make up for a lot.”

“It is always Calvin the theologian who speaks, and who in a very eclectic
way makes fire of any wood he uses, in the theological, exegetical and
administrative works of the fathers.”
Millet, Dynamique de la parole, cited in P. Moore, “Gold without
Dross”
Reformed Theological Review 68.2 (2009), footnote.

• It’s a courtesy that allows them to select the bio and photograph that they would like to use
• It acknowledges ownership of photographs and seeks permission to use them. Just because Facebook has reserved the right to use people’s photographs doesn’t mean you have that right!
• It protects you from using a mish-mash of photographs that don’t blend well on your promotional material (some colour, some black and white, some bust shots, some action shots)
• It safeguards against publishing out of date biographical material - what if the speaker has more children than the bio you found says they have? What if they have moved on from a previous ministry in less-than-happy circumstances?

There are ways of asking that puts all the work on the person being
asked - a one line email that demands a lot of thinking and typing to
reply.

And there are ways of asking that does all the work for the person
being asked, gives them all the information they need to make a
decision easily.

Here’s how:

1. Give all the information about the thing you are asking about, even if the other person should already know - dates, times, people, cost - include attachments if relevant
2. List at least three options, as least one that involves doing nothing.
3. Compare the options - including cost, time, risk, quality, impact, relationship to goals and mission.
4. Make your recommendation.
5. Explain what response you want from the person you are asking.

As always be clear at the beginning what you will ask for at the end.
As always, if you are emailing, use bullet points, short paragraphs
and put the most important information and actions in bold.

1. Speed
2. Cost
3. Quality

It’s almost impossible to guarantee you will hit all three. So you
have to choose two.

Perfectionists tend to not value speed. But sometimes speed is more
important than cost or quality.

Many pastors undervalue quality. They are too focused on getting the
job done, they fail to realise that sometimes the job will have more
impact if it is better quality.

I suspect many in Gen Y will undervalue cost. It’s the Apple
philosophy. As long as something is fast and convenient and looks
cool, we’ll pay anything. But we might be able to do more of the
important stuff for longer, if we don’t make everything as sexy as an
iPad.

Which one do you undervalue?

Nikki suggested we get a nice black table cloth to go over it. Simple
and obvious and awesome.

We’re also thikning of getting some nice signage done to sit on top of
the table. Perhaps some solid A4-standing posters? Or even a
three-folder display screen that we can pin laminated signs on? A bit
shopping centre display…

Any advice? Any companies you can recommend or particular designs that
you think work well?

1. Read the paper regularly. I find this mind-numbing and annoying. But I’m a grown-up now and it is kind of important to know what’s happening in my city, in my country and in the world I suppose. So yeah. I am going to work a bit more at this. Probably scan the websites in the mornings and read a broadsheet on the weekend.
2. Work the room. I am not a great small-talker. But I would like to work harder at being warm and friendly and chit-chatty. This is for things like before/after church, at conferences, at parties, on aeroplanes, with service staff.
3. Get back on the wagon with the languages. My Greek, Hebrew and French study suffered last year. I want to get back on track with these.