CREED

In case I haven't boasted about this yet. For a few months now I've been hosting a discussion group on Wednesday nights with ten guys from Zeal (the youth ministry I work for). It has been an amazing time. The idea of the forum was a free discussion where they feel they can chat things over as brutally and uncensored as they want. Here comes the boasting...

These kids are amazing! Often I walk in with some self-righteous agenda to 'impart wisdom to the youths' and instead often find my own views challenged and altered by how well thought out and articulate these guys are.

As part of last week's discussion we talk about creeds. I showed them the Nicene Creed and the American Creed and explained to them that these were the fundamental core beliefs of their people. From there the ten of us spent an hour and a half over dinner trying to form a creed we could all agree on. The transcript of the conversation is incredible to look through. What started as a shallow discussion about homophobia and defication soon led to an incredibly deep exploration of what was most important to each of them, what price they'd sell their beliefs for, and what they're willing to die for.

Incredibly, out of the ten (three of which are Christian) every person agreed that there is a soul, and that that soul goes somewhere after you die. One particularly brave participant even went as far as to say "I'm not a Christian, but I can't deny God is there, I know it." It was awesome.

Anyway, here's what we could agree on. The 'Zeal Kids Creed' if you will...

We believe our creed to be the things we will not back down on.
Not fear of death, nor instinct to survive, will change this core understanding of who we are.

Spiritually, we believe every being to have a Soul.
That our earthly life is not all we have
We believe the Soul to be the only gift that can never be taken
In spite of physical impairment or infirmity, your Soul is still your own.
In Love, you may end up sharing your Soul with others.

We believe that every perspective is to be respected.
With this in mind, we hope to be treated by others with the values of forgiveness, loyalty, and sincerity. We desire to be treated as we would treat others.

We hold family, both biological and inherited, of key importance

We are not patriotic or bound by borders
We are part of the human race of Earth, not anything defined by geographical lines
Our homeland is not worth dying for

We believe in personal absolute truth

This experience has been a huge wake-up call to me. I think young people in New Zealand are much more spiritually open and aware than we often give them credit for. I'd love one day to do this exercise with fifty or sixty groups to form a cross-section of New Zealand young people. Without a doubt, this has opened my mind and will impact hugely on the way I work at Zeal in future.

Maybe it's something you could try...

THIS WEEK IN SHORT...

Just a few little updates of some cool goings ons this week. Traffic on this blog has been crazy, no doubt thanks to the couple of links Sam Harvey gave me over the last few posts. I tell you, it's not easy riding the fame wave of a minor Christian celebrity like Mr Harvey. Watch this space, samharvey.com coming soon I'm sure!

After an insanely busy time working at Fuse last weekend I took a day off. Some of the flatmates and I ventured out to Lyall Bay and went to an awesome cafe in the old Surf Lifesaving Club called 'Maranui'. Apparently this is the local haunt of none other than 'Fat Freddy's Drop'. It's an awesome place with some really friendly staff and quality coffee. Get down there if you get the chance.

After this short sabbatical I boarded a plane to Auckland with a few of the Zeal/Blueprint crew for the official handover of 'Zeal Waitakere'. Mayor Bob Harvey and the councillors made us incredibly welcome. For many of us this marks the end of the monthly trips to Auckland we've had for the last few months. It's nice to hand over the project. The new youth worker, Stacey Hitchcock, has been hanging with us in Wellington for the past six months and will no doubt do an amazing job in Waitakere. If she was staying in Welly I'd probably have reason to fear for my job so it's great to see her take charge in Auckland. What I found most amazing about the trip is the amazing calibre of people involved accross the Blueprint/Zeal/Global Tribe ministry. A few of the crew are pictured here.

I spent today out in Tawa helping friend Dave Alve with his film project. Afterwards I took a brief reminiscent walk through Linden past our old youth group stomping ground. The local Dairy owner even remembered me from Friday Nights a few years back when we used to go down and buy $1 lolly bags and chocolate milk beforehand. Probably a great time to pay respect to Chris and Heather Darnell who tolerated me and even led me into loving Jesus. Nice one! Chris' Blog can be read here.


Finally, Mason the Author is finally kicking into high gear. The first part of 'The Adventures of Farmer Goatbeard' is up and ready for reading. Get amongst it and give this up and coming children's writer/illustrator the support he deserves.

A CULTURE OF EXCELLENCE?

At college I was lazy. I've always been quite academic and could get by with at least a B in most subjects without breaking a sweat. When it came time for school reports at the end of term one my concern was never with how high my grades were, it was with how my grades compared to others. I think this was the case for many. At the bottom of the page were five little tick boxes (poor, below average, average, very good, excellent). This was all I really looked at. My biggest concern was that I was 'above average', then at least I knew I was good enough to stand out from the rest.

In recent times there has been a huge growth in 'excellence-driven' ministries in New Zealand. I have been fascinated by this, particularly with the recent 'Pursuit of Excellence' conference held in Auckland a couple of weeks ago. What exactly are we pursuing, why, and for what purpose? Where in the scriptures are we advised to pursue excellence, and furthermore, at what point does a ministry become excellent?

Perhaps one of the greatest models of excellence-driven ministry at the moment is Hillsong Sydney. Everything appears to run seemlessly, they are recognised in their local community, and they have a worldwide following for their worship releases. But what if every other church in Australia began to do the same thing? What if they all had slick production and a worldwide following, would they be excellent too?

I would argue that excellence is a comparative term. When we call something excellent, we infer something else is not. Excellence-driven ministries should perhaps ask this question of themselves.

If they knew no way of doing church, if they had seen no other form of church than their own, how would their approach to excellence differ? With what we know of the character of God in the Bible, what would excellence look outside our ability to compare ourselves with other ministries?

At school I had another friend. He worked hard the whole time, he wanted the best grades he could get. His concern was never with how well others had done, but instead with whether he had achieved as well as he knew he could. It was not about whether he was excellent, but instead about whether he had reached his potential.

I would challenge each faith community to ask themselves what their God-given potential is. We don't need another dozen Hillsongs, we need another thousand vibrant, different, and dynamic faith communities built to reach their own local society. Faith groups must not all strive to 'pursue' replication of the latest big thing in Christian culture, but instead begin to forge their own outworking of faith and intimacy with Jesus.

In his book, 'The Forgotten Ways', Allan Hirsch suggests that 95% of faith communities are reaching only 12% of the world's population. Hence why nearly every youth group in New Zealand looks and feels the same. I would argue that our pursuit should be for nothing more than holiness. For radical, diverse, and different expressions of holiness that infect our local community and begin to change them from the inside out.

Interested to hear the thoughts of others on this...

MASON THE AUTHOR

After some work I am proud to announce that 'Mason the Author', the blogspot of children's author Mason Ward, is now live. I'm looking after the technical stuff, while Soul Purpose champion Elliot Taylor is editing.

The first release comes out this Thursday, but take the time to familiarise yourself with the space and get ready for the roller-coaster that is the word of Mason Ward.

http://masontheauthor.blogspot.com

MUSINGS ON FUSING...

No doubt you'll see a few posts about this around the place over the next couple of days. I've just spent the past weekend working at 'Fuse', Global Tribe's replacement for the former YFC Capital Teen Convention (or CTC). It seems this rebrand was exactly what was needed to breathe fresh life and energy into the event - it was an amazing time. Here are some great links to check out who were instrumental in making it happen.

Global Tribe
The key sponsor of the event. Global Tribe set out with the goal of raising $5k during the weekend to build a new home for an impoverished Mexican family. As far as I know they achieved it. Good stuff!

Soul Purpose
A New Zealand Christian Youth Magazine who went way beyond the call of duty constructing an entire village of stalls and shops to support the cause. By selling Pinatas and running a coin trail they raised almost a thousand dollars of additional funding.

Blueprint
This was one of the highlights of the weekend for me, seeing so many of my home church give their time to bless young people through serving at the event. Out of a core membership of about 50, over 30 community members volunteered throughout the weekend. I was incredibly proud to call myself a Blueprinter this weekend :0)

That's it for the moment. I'm sure Sam will post something more substantial soon so refer to his blog for more details on the event. Otherwise keep an eye on the Fuse website.

QUESTIONING...

Just a quick moment of self-reflexivity to look back on my own hypocrisy.
It seems the further I get into 'the conversation' the more I wish I'd never stumbled upon it.
Here's a query for myself and others in our quest to know how much critique is too much...

People of a similar ilk to me will often argue the two following points:

a.) That the 'Way of the Master' method of Evangelism is off. That to ask people to turn-or-burn is wrong because scripture tells us that it is the job of the Holy Spirit to convict people of their sin, not ours.
b.) That if we do not critique and discuss issues with other ministries our brothers and sisters will create a distorted presentation of who Jesus is. That critique is an essential part of us giving the best we can to this world.

Here's are my questions:

Q:Why is the Spirit enough to convict non-christians of their sin, but not enough to convict Christians of their errors within ministry?

Q:Why do we trust God will prompt those who don't know him, yet feel such an urgency to tell other christians how they should present him to the world?

Interested to hear your thoughts...

A LITTLE RESPECT FOR MR. LUCAS

Okay, so I agree he totally botched Episodes I-III, but this Tuesday the 29th of May commemorates 20 years since the original Star Wars (Ep IV: A New Hope) was released to worldwide acclaim in 1977.



This trailer is also a convenient distraction from my lack of wisdom, insight, or thought to add to the blog community at the moment. You didn't notice did you?!

WORK

Work is crazy at the moment. Currently I'm trying to juggle about 15 concerts. 5 of them throughout the North Island, 5 of them in Wellington High Schools, and the last 5 back at Zeal. One of these mini-tours involves an amazing performer named Kimbra. Enjoy!

PRIMAL WELLY

Why I loved my time at Primal Wellington last Thursday night...

"...there's more to it than just mission; most great movements of mission have inspired significant and related movements of renewal in the life of the church. It seems that when the church engages at the fringes, it almost always brings life to the centre."
Alan Hirsch, 'The Forgotten Ways', p.30

www.primal.net.nz

SESAME STREET CRUSADE 2007

Over the last couple of months I've started listening to Tony Campolo's podcast, 'Accross the Pond'. Each week he works through a current issue in the media and discusses it from a Christian point of view. He made an interesting point a few weeks ago when discussing the Media's influence on young people.

When a 4 year old wakes up in the morning the first thing they may tune into is Sesame Street. On the surface the show is great. It introduces them to letters and numbers in a fun and accessible way. Rather than the letter 'A' simply being written on a chalk board, it has a little song and dance to go along with it. 'A' may even have the enormous honour of appearing alongside child royalty such as the Cookie Monster or Elmo (who in my opinion requires far too much tickling to maintain safe boundaries in youth work).

Now 'A' has as much right to a song and dance as any other letter, but what happens when the observer (your son, daughter, niece or nephew) turns 5 and heads to school? The letters and numbers no longer dance, the animals no longer talk, and one must face the stark reality that Elmo has a hand up his ass! Campolo argues that because young people are raised with an understanding of the alphabet soaked in stimuli and sensory bombardment, they struggle to engage with the actual reality of the alphabet. In other words, anything outside television now appears boring.

It's an interesting idea which I'm still wrestling with. Immediately I start to think about one of the highlights of the Soul Survivor New South Wales conference I was at in Sydney a couple of weeks ago. Mike Pilavachi (a visiting speaker from the UK) made a fantastic call on the last night of the festival:

"I don't care for big shows, big sounds, and big lights. If God doesn't show up at one of our meetings we should be saying 'That was a crap meeting!'" (paraphrased)

What a beautiful way of putting it. It gets me thinking, perhaps often our relationship with God is somewhat similar to Sesame Street's relationship with the letter A. The letter is the not the way the medium of television needs it to be, so they sex it up! The letter A doesn't make you wanna dance, so they put a soundtrack to it. It seems to me much the same as some of the ways we do services today.

I would argue that there is a fear in some faith communities that God may not turn up the way we want him to. He may not be able to be heard, felt, smelt or seen, so we create a sensory experience just in case. Could it be that our extravagantly put together services are merely a reflection of a lack of faith that God will move in a Godly manner, not necessarily the in the way we desire him to. How many pastors out there are actually content to have what appears to be a 'crap service' every now and then? Where maybe God doesn't show himself the way we understand him, but still ministers to our hearts at a level our minds just can't understand?

I believe that God will often move in ways we can experience tangibly. I am not denying the importance of God moving through understandable feelings or a sounds. But can we accept God for who he is? Is God still God to us when we strip away the packaging? Nearly every experience we have in life is mediated by someone. The information is passed-on, repackaged, and rejigged to suit our circumstances.

Are we happy with a second-hand saviour?