Corps Resources Articles

Uncle Graham Paulson: Developing Australian Identity

Fri, 25 May 2012 00:00:00 +1000

What Does It Mean To Be Australian?
There is a great need for a better understanding of what it means to be authentically Christian and authentically Australian. This new understanding will need to integrate the realities of Australian history, its successes and its failures. It will need to respect the diverse cultural backgrounds of the many people who now call themselves Australian, from the original Aboriginal custodians of the land, to the various migrant peoples who have come to Australia over the last two hundred and twenty-four years. The current understanding of Australian identity tends to cover over the multicultural background of Australian identity. It tends to ignore the rich culture and history of Aboriginal people in this nation.

As an English migrant I have also observed that there are strong negative feelings towards Britain in Australia. It would seem that there is work to be done in the Australian identity in relationship to the British colonisation of Australia, and the transportation of convicts to Australia. Many British people were brought here against their will, rejected by the people of their homeland. I suspect that the feelings of rejection have in some cases passed down the generations to the present day.

There also seems to be quite a strong fear about so-called “Australian identity” being swallowed up by today’s incoming migrants. This points towards an instability in our understanding about what it means to be Australian. When someone is settled and comfortable in their identity, relationship with others who are different is not threatening.

For all these reasons I was very excited to hear Uncle Graham Paulson’s model for developing an authentically Christian and authentically Australian identity, at this year’s Surrender conference. “Uncle Graham Paulson is the first ever ordained Indigenous Baptist pastor in Australia and has been involved in ministry for over 50 years. In that time he has worked in remote, rural and urban contexts and brings an incredible depth of knowledge regarding Indigenous Australian cultures. In addition, he is one of the premiere Aboriginal theologians within Australia and is focussed on the key task of exploring what it means to be truly Aboriginal and truly Christian in a post-modern Australia” [1].

Identity Framework
Uncle Graham used a sociological model developed in Papua New Guinea as a basis for understanding what identity is made up of. The first layer of identity is our cosmology and cosmogony, these are the stories a culture tells about the origins of the world. What we believe about our origins drives much of our self-understanding.

For example, in biblical times the Jewish understanding of the beginnings of the world were in sharp contrast with the prevailing Babylonian creation myths. The Babylonian story is that the world was created out the corpse of an evil goddess who had murdered her children. This story then teaches that creation and everything in it is evil. In contrast, the Hebrew creation stories tell us that God created everything from nothing by the power of his spoken Word. It also tells us that He looked on everything He had made and declared it “good”. The way Babylonian people and Hebrew people understood themselves and their place in the world was starkly different based on these opposing starting points.

The second layer of identity, built on top of our cosmology and cosmogony is our values and customs. These are the things that as a group of people we define as “good”. Values and customs are the way we think about life and relationships. The third layer of identity is social institutions which implement our values and customs. The final layer of identity is our outward behaviours. Our outward behaviours flow out of the other layers of identity, and show others who we are.

Cosmology & Cosmogony: Christ My Life
In the book of Philippians Paul talks about his identity in ways that relate to the model just discussed. In chapter 1, verse 21 he says, “For to me, to live is Christ”. Paul defines his cosmology and cosmogony as the person of Jesus Christ. For every Christian the foundations of identity must be “Christ My Life”. Jesus Himself is the centre of Christian culture and identity. Romans 8:14-17 tells us that being in Christ is to be led by the Spirit.

The entire process of living in Christ is relational. Family identity and national identity are both relational and spiritual. Australia’s identity as a nation comes from the identity of individuals. The identity of Australia’s people are made up of a diverse range of factors—family, race, occupation and personality. These are all relational factors. Identity is also spiritual. As Christians we are identified with the Spirit (Romans 8), gifted with and led by the Spirit (Romans 12, 1 Corinthians 12) and fruit-bearing by the Spirit (Galatians 5:22-23). These various factors all combine to form our base identity.

Values & Customs: Christ My Mind
Back in Philippians, Paul goes on to say “Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus”. The very way that Jesus thinks should define the way Christians think. Paul further defines how Jesus thinks, “Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness. And being found in human form, he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death—even death on a cross” (Philippians 2:5-8 NRSV). “Christ My Mind” leads us to self-emptying, servanthood, humility and obedience.

For the church in Australia this call to have the mind of Christ requires looking at the way we have colluded with colonialism. It requires asking the question “what do we need to give up to do the ministry and mission of God in Jesus’ way?” The first thing that should define the way we approach ministry is taking the nature of a servant. Jesus was by nature God but also servant. Servanthood should also define our mission and ministry. Jesus demonstrated this by washing his disciples’ feet. Servanthood needs to be accompanied by humility. Servanthood without humility can easily turn into paternalism.

Every culture is different, so the way that these values apply will vary. For example, postmodern Australians emphasise time, Aboriginal people emphasise events. Where postmodern Australians tend to be task-focussed, Aboriginal people are people-focussed. Where postmodern Australians tend towards dichotomistic thinking, Aboriginal people think holistically. We focus on achievement, Aboriginal people focus on status. We have a crisis orientation, they have a non-crisis orientation. We conceal vulnerability, they expose it. Self-emptying, servanthood, humility and obedience will look different in conjunction with each person’s values.

Social Institutions: Christ My Goal
Paul dealt with these sorts of intercultural questions. He came from a background that gave him all the social brownie points that anyone could want. However he gave up all his social capital in order to know Christ, “whatever gains I had, these I have come to regard as loss because of Christ” (Philippians 3:7), and pushed forward to take hold of a different goal. “Not that I have already obtained this or have already reached the goal; but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own. Beloved, I do not consider that I have made it my own; but this one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the heavenly call of God in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 3:12–14).

Our social institutions should work to move us forward to the goal. “Christ My Goal” will lead us to setup processes and institutions that move us closer to Christ in all spheres of life. Large parts of the church have failed in the social sphere, which has led to the creation of parachurch organisations. The church needs to regain a holistic gospel, because God wants to save whole people.

Outward Behaviours: Christ My Practise
Summing up everything that comes from “Christ My Life”, “Christ My Mind” and “Christ My Goal” is “Christ My Practise”. What we do should flow out of how we understand the world, our values and attitudes and the goal of Christlikeness. It will mean breaking away from cultural practises that do not embody Christ’s life, mind and goals. This will not be easy. However, we have the promise of God’s presence, strength and supply (Philippians 4).

Christ promises to be with us (Matthew 28:20, Philippians 4:9). Our authority and power for mission comes from God’s presence. Part of “Christ My Practise” is learning to practise the presence of Christ. This is where our strength to face any circumstance, and to achieve any God-given purpose comes from (Philippians 4:13). It is also where the supply to do everything He’s calling us to comes from, “And my God will fully satisfy every need of yours according to his riches in glory in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 4:19).

With all this in mind, is the church asking the right questions? What has God called us to be and do and know? If we are doing what he has called us to his presence, strength and supply are attached to the call. The church has the capacity to lead the nation in forming a new Australian identity. Is this a call we are ready to hear?

Notes

1	Jisas Wantaim. [Internet]. 2012 [cited 2012 March 28]. Available from: http://jisaswantaim.org.au/?page_id=9.

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Bringing Your Corps To Life (Part 2)

Fri, 18 May 2012 00:00:00 +1000

What is church health?
First of all it must be stressed that church health is a relative term. No one is devoid of some health problems. Everyone for example gets a cold from time to time or is allergic to something. Nevertheless, some people and some churches can be judged to be in good health and some to be sick, or even terminally ill. Being small says nothing about one’s health. A child can have excellent health and slim people are often the fittest and live longest. Conversely we are often told by our medicos that to be fat is plain unhealthy.

Secondly, health is a systemic phenomenon. When we have an illness it affects our whole system. We become ill; we don’t just have certain symptoms or parts not working well. When we talk of systems we are thinking organically, of parts being dynamically connected to the whole. Paul thought of the Church in exactly these terms when he likened it to the human body (Rom. 12:3-8, 1 Cor. 12:12-31.). Thus when we speak of the church as a system we are only using a modern term to complement Paul’s own understanding of the church. Sick churches are systemically sick – their illness tends to affect everything.

Thirdly, just as bodily health or ill-health is indicated in a number of ways (temperature, blood pressure, headache, nausea etc) so too is church health. One deficiency on its own may not be significant but when a number of indicators suggest something is wrong then sickness may be diagnosed.

The relationship between church health and church growth.
There is nothing meritorious about being a big church. We can thank God for big churches and we can also thank him for medium and small sized churches. The goal of any sized church is not to be a big or bigger church but to be a believing, loving community with a sense of mission. When any church is a believing, loving community with a commitment to mission it does attract new members. In today’s world where Christian faith is out of fashion simply holding ones numbers is a positive indicator that our church is healthy, alive and blessed by God. If we are one of the 30% of churches in Melbourne who have seen a 10% or more growth in numbers in the last ten years then we are very healthy, much alive and greatly blessed by God! Bill Easum, an American church consultant says,

“I have never seen a healthy, Christ-centered church that failed to grow both in Spirit and in numbers. …Churches that are alive with the Spirit, filled with love, and focussed on carrying out the great commission always attract people. People are attracted to loving, caring congregations who live in the present instead of the past. People avoid congregations oriented to the past.”

The healthy church.
What does a spiritually and emotionally healthy Church look like?

A healthy church has an emotionally and spiritually healthy pastor. Nothing will work well in the church if the pastor is in burnout or has lost his faith. However, ill-health in the clergy can show itself in other ways. The bossy pastor who always has to have his way; the rude pastor who speaks harshly; the prima donna pastor who must always be on centre stage and the unspiritual pastor are all sick ministers who make churches toxic. One clear symptom of “pastoritis,” or in Salvation Army corps, “offerceritis,” is when most effort in the church is given to ministering to the pastor in one way or another. Pastors are supposed to care for the flock. That’s what shepherds do.
A healthy church has lots of lay ministry. Ninety-nine percent of Christians are unordained. They are the “prime ministers.” All but the biggest churches are “owned” by the laity. If a church is to be a healthy church the main ministry of the pastor needs to be the empowering and support of the whole church in its ministry.
A healthy church does not allow one or two lay people control the life of the church. Leadership is dispersed and key elected roles /offices change from time to time.
A healthy church will have inspiring worship. People will want to come to church and be sad when they have missed church. The worship can take one of many forms but people will find it evocative of the presence of God. The singing is what people comment on first and then the sermon. In all churches where sermons are rated highly the same person does not speak every week.
A healthy church has a commitment to ‘mission’ in the double sense. Congregational members are out in the community speaking about the Gospel and serving. This can take many forms. Door to door evangelism, carrying for the poor and marginalised, teaching scripture in the local school, visiting the sick, teaching English to migrants, etc. Healthy churches are outward looking.
A healthy church handles conflict well. Healthy human beings and healthy churches have upsets and conflicts. How these are handled is the key issue. Today it is absolutely essential that major decisions are brought to the whole church and consensus is sought. In healthy churches the pastor is a democrat who consults and helps the church move to a common mind. In a healthy church neither the pastor nor the key lay leaders give ultimatums such as, “If you do or do not do as I wish, I will leave the church, stop giving, write to the bishop/area superintendent ” etc. People act as adults and speak civilly to one another as fellow Christians.
In a healthy church people love one another. This does not mean everyone likes everyone else equally: it means people genuinely care for one another, listen to one another and are not constantly criticising one another. In particular it means that the relationship between the pastor and the congregation is basically harmonious and mutually respectful. In sick churches a large number of parishioners are alienated from their pastor and from one another.
In a healthy church people give sacrificially. When people endorse what their church is doing they love to give. One sure indicator of the degree of health any church enjoys is the level of giving.
In a healthy church change occurs. Churches are characteristically conservative and change does not come easily but healthy churches do change when they see they must. It is only unhealthy churches in the terminal stage that resist change at all cost.

Let me say again: no church and no human being is completely well and healthy. A healthy church is one where attenders give it a score of 65% or better on most indicators. If your score your church low on one or more indicator then you have pinpointed the matter(s) the church needs to work on and where change is needed.

What this tells us.
All this reminds us that the most important thing issue for any church/congregation is its own spiritual and emotional health. Our primary goal must always be to work to make our church what Christ wants it to be. A community grounded in a lively faith in Christ, where everyone is encouraged and empowered for ministry, the Sunday worship is inspiring, the fellowship engaging, people love one another, change is embraced when it is demanded, people speak about their faith and conflicts are faced and well-managed. Our church may never draw 500 people on Sunday but if our church is “healthy” it will never fail or falter.

Booth College 2012 Semester 2 Courses

Wed, 16 May 2012 00:00:00 +1000

Why not consider enroling in the following courses offered at varying levels of study in Semester 2, 2012 Commencing July 23rd. Students living outside of Melbourne can enrol in our online streaming program.

Mondays
Introduction to Church History (AM)
History & Theology of the Salvation Army (AM)
Social & Community Services 1 (PM)
New Testament - Jesus and the Birth of the Church (PM)

Tuesdays
Salvationist Theology B (AM)

Thursdays
Mission Foundations (AM)
Biblical Ethics (AM)
I’ll Fight (PM)

Extensives (Contact us for dates)
Eighth Century Prophets
Johannine Literature - Narratives & Perspectives

Please contact Margaret Coombridge to enquire about any of these course offerings.
03 9347 0299
margaret.coombridge@aus.salvationarmy.org

Click here to download more information.

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Bringing Your Corps To Life (Part 1)

Fri, 11 May 2012 00:00:00 +1000

In the 1980’s “the Church Growth Movement” gained a wide following and many supporters. The advocates of Church Growth argued that if pastors and congregations did certain things the church would grow numerically. Good leadership, strong lay involvement, contemporary singing, relevant preaching, adequate parking and advertising were the kinds of things stressed. At one time Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena, USA, had over a thousand ministers each year enrolled in their “Church Growth” department. Hundreds of books on “Church Growth” were produced. I even wrote a little booklet on this topic myself for the Australian Anglicans. Now the “Church Growth” movement has stalled, if not died. Fuller Theological Seminary has closed their “Church Growth” department.

What people discovered is that doing things on their own does not bring new life to any church, or increase membership. Indeed, leading people to think that if they did this or that would lead to growth when it did not made things worse. It led pastors to raise their sights too high and then to feel failures when their goals were not met. There is much to learn from the “Church Growth” literature and its emphasis on numerical growth is a good reminder that the church has a missionary/evangelistic mandate. However as 99% of churches did no double, let alone triple their numbers no matter what the church leaders did, the conclusion was reached that every effort to promote church growth or renewal that starts by advocating certain actions is mistaken. It puts the horse before the cart. Churches flourished only when they are “healthy.” If renewal of the congregation is wanted then how the congregation operates has to be examined and where it is failing corrected. Only then will the church start to grow. On this view “church health” is the fundamental issue.

The other major problem with the “Church Growth Movement” is that the focus fell almost entirely on growing in numbers. Other sorts of growth were mentioned but invariably only in relation to growing in membership. (I.e. if you grow people in their knowledge of the Bible this will make your church more attractive to people.) In this approach big churches are “successful churches.” On this view the 90% of churches under two hundred people, or the 75% of churches with a membership of under 100 are “unsuccessful.” God loves big churches but he also loves small churches – he must because he has made so many of them. I for one don’t think every church needs to double its numbers in 5 years, or whatever goal a “Church Growth” approach suggests. If your church/corp is seeing a few new people each year, a few are finding faith in Christ and the age profile is not increasing you are growing.

The new trend: church health must come first.
In the 80’s Christian Schwarz and a team of German scholars set out to discover what were the key issues that lead one church to do better than another. They devised a detailed questionnaire that went to 32 countries, covering 1000 churches on all five continents. The data collected showed conclusively that churches that scored high on eight distinctive “church health quality characteristics” always did better than churches that scored low overall, or on several key areas. It was not that churches had to get perfect scores or distinctions. All that was needed was that on all or most of the eight indicators the church scored 65% or better. In 99.4% of cases churches that scored 65% or over on these church health indicators were doing well. Some were large, many were small churches. Indeed percentage wise more small churches scored better on church health then large churches and thus showed more growth. Schwarz in fact says the statistics show that “the growth rate of churches decreases with increasing size.” (p 46) (See C. Schwarz, Natural Church Development: A Guide to Eight Essential Qualities of Healthy Churches, Church Smart Resources, 1996).

Schwarz uses far too much Christian jargon so the eight quality health characteristics he lists. I enumerate them in plain English.

Empowering leadership. (The leaders, especially the pastor (s), encourage and affirms body ministry.
Gift-orientated ministry. (It is believed that the Holy Spirit gives a ministry to every Christian and so the church has high lay involvement.)
Passionate spirituality. (People are encouraged to grow their faith.)
Functional structures. (The church is not bound by the past: it is open to change)
Inspiring worship services. (We know what he means.)
Holistic small groups. (There is the opportunity to belong to a small group where people know one another well and can give support.)
Need-orientated evangelism. (People share their faith in Christ with others making contact at relevant points in their life.)
Loving relationships. (People in the church love one another and their pastor/officer and they handle conflict well.)

On the basis of these findings Schwarz rejects all quantitative approaches – “What should we do to get more people in church,” and all programmes that are based on pragmatism – “What should work well.”- which characterised the old “Church Growth Movement.” Instead he argues all attention should be given to the qualitative issues – “the health of the congregation.” On this view the key question is not, “How can we attract more people to our church?” but rather, “How can we grow the quality of our Christian communal life and witness.” Behind this second question lies the conviction that “genuine quality will ultimately impact on quantitative growth” (p 42).

I want to argue that there is nothing so important as being a spiritually and emotionally healthy church. This is true for the big church, the medium sized church and the small church. If we want our church to flourish the first thing and the most important thing to be addressed is church health. Sick churches if they do not change get sicker and always die. Healthy congregations never die. The going may be very hard but they survive and do well. They see growth that is modest yet significant.

Seeing The Big Picture

Fri, 04 May 2012 00:00:00 +1000

Passionate about people understanding the Bible’s narrative, Andrew Bawden of Biblical Turning Points has created a resource for churches and schools, writes Julia Hosking.

Although Andrew Bawden, founder of Biblical Turning Points, grew up in a Christian home with parents who fervently read the Bible every morning, he did not share their passion for most of his teenage years. At the age of 19, however, his new spiritual mentor set some rules that changed Andrew’s attitude permanently.

‘He said, “If you’d like me to mentor you, we’re going to read two chapters of the Bible a day and we’re going to set the reading for two weeks at a time”,’ Andrew recalls. ‘He also said if anyone hasn’t done it, we’re going to go back and read it again. That task seemed impossible to me. But that year, the Bible came to life.’

From then on, Andrew’s passion to learn more about the Bible grew. Yet, despite studying the Scriptures in detail as a Bible college student, he still felt there were parts of the story missing. While delivering an impromptu explanation of the Bible to some teenagers at a youth camp, Andrew realised ‘This is such a good story to tell’.

‘I decided I had to find a way of telling the Bible’s story in a short space of time so people wouldn’t have to study for a whole year to understand it,’ says Andrew.

As a member of Melbourne’s Syndal Baptist Church, Andrew partnered with the leadership team to run a Bible walk-through course for the congregation in 2005. This course evolved into ‘The Bible—The Big Picture’: a school curriculum at Waverley Christian College where Andrew teaches biblical studies, and a well-informed course for churches.

Today, more than 30 schools in Victoria, Western Australia and Queensland teach ‘The Bible—The Big Picture’, as well as another of Andrew’s curriculums, ‘The Kings and Prophets of Israel’. Andrew has also taught several live courses in churches across Melbourne, with enthusiastic feedback from all attendees.

‘I was expecting it to be interesting,’ one course participant comments. ‘It was so much more, I was enthralled.’

‘The Old Testament came alive...[it was] not a dry book anymore,’ shares another. ‘I have grown up in the church and heard many of the stories, but have never seen the link between them.’

‘The Bible is a great big narrative that is grand and powerful,’ says David Tolputt, state director/ CEO, Scripture Union Victoria, a partner with Biblical Turning Points. ‘If you lose track of that, it’s much harder to read the Bible. If you think about the time of Jesus, there’s a lot of presumption that the people of Jesus’ day knew the stories of the Old Testament. Andrew has created a learning framework that helps make the whole story understandable.

‘If the Bible is taught like dry, dusty history,’ he continues, ‘it won’t bite anybody’s life. It’s when the Bible is opened up as being powerful to today’s issues, and the narrative speaks for itself, that you have a sense of identifying God at work throughout the whole story.’

A Wider Reach
‘The Bible—The Big Picture’, which is typically taught over eight weeks, includes topics from creation through to God’s covenant with Israel, the life of Jesus and the new creation. For the past few years, it has been available only as a school curriculum and live course, but as David—who has run a few sessions—says, ‘We wanted the course to be available to more people’.

Thanks to a partnership with the Bible Society, ‘The Bible—The Big Picture’ was released on DVD earlier this year. Although the live course is still available, churches and small groups across Australia, especially those in rural locations, can now engage with the teachings.

To make it accessible to all Christian denominations, Andrew deliberately uses the Bible’s language, rather than adopting any particular theological standpoint.

‘“The Bible—The Big Picture” is not a narrative told as if it has no meaning, but it goes into biblical theology, which I think is important,’ David says. ‘For example, when you open up the story of creation, you learn that God created the world and that humans have a particular place in it.’

‘We’ve also tried to shape the course around the average person in the church,’ says Andrew. ‘It would be better not to run it than have people think, “I could never understand this”.

‘Our aim for the program is to empower people to read the Bible,’ Andrew goes on. ‘People actually want to like the Bible and Bible study should be transformational. One of our catchphrases is “Allow God’s story to transform yours”. We also say, “We’ve got the best story to tell, we need to tell it well” because we don’t want to “kill” the story or cut out the bits that are in there for a reason.’

‘If you are trying to make sense of a broken world and you’ve been taught that the Bible is all sweetness and everything is about love and joy, it’s hard for people to bring their faith to play into those deep and dark questions of life,’ adds David.

David also notes that ‘The Bible—The Big Picture’ answers two important questions: what is the story and why. ‘The “why” questions are the existential questions with which all people grapple, and if not grappled with in Scripture, they’ll find answers to existential questions elsewhere,’ he says.

As a Salvo from Brimbank City Corps (Vic.), David recognises the importance of God’s mission for The Salvation Army being shaped by God’s Word. And yet, research from a National Church Life Survey suggests that only 19% of believers read their Bible daily.

‘The Salvos were born as a people of the Word. That’s our heritage; we’re an evangelical Christian movement,’ David says. ‘God’s Word is the base on which the church knows its life and calling in the world. Apart from the concern that people can’t grow in their faith without the Word, it’s dangerous to have God’s people not reading God’s Word. My heart is to see The Salvation Army engaged with the Bible. I have a hunger to see young people not just passionate for activism, but passionate for the root that keeps them grounded in that activism.’

With a strong passion for people to truly understand the Scriptures, Andrew is willing to speak with anyone needing assistance in running the course in their area of ministry.

‘We just want people to love their Bible,’ he says, speaking of the partnerships formed with Scripture Union, the Bible Society, Syndal Baptist Church and other church pastors. ‘We all want to see a revival in Bible teaching.’

For more information, or to order a copy of the DVD and course book for ‘The Bible—The Big Picture’, visit biblicalturningpoints.com.au

Coming Soon… ‘The Kings and Prophets of Israel’ church course and DVD *‘The Kings and Prophets of Israel’ was the first course Andrew ran at Syndal Baptist Church and is currently taught as a school curriculum. An epic, 14-session course that targets one of the most complicated periods of the Bible, Biblical Turning Points plans to offer ‘The Kings and Prophets of Israel’ to churches and release the teachings on DVD in the near future.

This article was originally published in OnFire on 27 March 2012.

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From Athens to Corinth

Fri, 27 Apr 2012 00:00:00 +1000

From Clear and Erudite...
Acts 17:16-34 contains the story of the apostle Paul’s visit to Athens. It contains one of the most well crafted pieces of Christian apologetic of the New Testament. In this story Paul clearly articulates to the Athenian people the connection points between their religious views and the gospel. “People of Athens! I see that in every way you are very religious. For as I walked around and looked carefully at your objects of worship, I even found an altar with this inscription: TO AN UNKNOWN GOD. So you are ignorant of the very thing you worship—and this is what I am going to proclaim to you.

The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by hands. And he is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything. Rather, he himself gives everyone life and breath and everything else. From one man he made all the nations, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he marked out their appointed times in history and the boundaries of their lands. God did this so that they would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from any one of us. ‘For in him we live and move and have our being.’ As some of your own poets have said, ‘We are his offspring.’

Therefore since we are God’s offspring, we should not think that the divine being is like gold or silver or stone—an image made by human design and skill. In the past God overlooked such ignorance, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent. For he has set a day when he will judge the world with justice by the man he has appointed. He has given proof of this to everyone by raising him from the dead” Acts 17:22–31.

Here we have a tightly argued, well formed argument. Paul’s background as a Pharisee and his training in both the Hebrew Scriptures, but also in the Greek poets is on display. Paul was a highly educated man, and at Athens he used it to full advantage. Acts 17:34 reports that “some people” became believers that day because of Paul’s preaching.

To Shaking In His Boots...
Something seems to have happened to Paul after he left Athens. The book of Acts tells us that after visiting Athens he went onto Corinth. Acts does not tell us much about his mental state, or about the methods he used in preaching. However in 1 Corinthians, Paul goes into lots of detail about how things had gone down in Corinth. Perhaps the most comforting verse in the entire bible for those in ministry is where Paul says, “I came to you in weakness with great fear and trembling. My message and my preaching were not with wise and persuasive words, but with a demonstration of the Spirit’s power, so that your faith might not rest on human wisdom, but on God’s power” (1 Corinthians 2:3-5 TNIV).

It is interesting that after such a strong performance in Athens where the best of Paul’s theological training was on display, that shortly afterwards he is trembling at preaching in Corinth. Something seems to have happened on the road between Athens and Corinth, something that changed the way he approached ministry in Corinth. Scripture does not tell us what happened, but the shift is interesting.

In Corinth Paul says, “I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and him crucified” (1 Corinthians 2:2). Paul made a decision here, at a minimum, to simplify his message. This change in approach was accompanied by “great fear and trembling” for Paul. Acts 18 tells us that God actually appeared to Paul in a vision to comfort and encourage him in his fear: “Do not be afraid; keep on speaking, do not be silent. For I am with you, and no one is going to attack and harm you, because I have many people in this city” (Acts 18:9-10 TNIV). It is comforting that it appears that even Paul wondered sometimes if God was going to come through for him.

2 Corinthians 10:10 tells us that Paul did not make all that good an impression on the Corinthians, they said of him, “His letters are weighty and forceful, but in person he is unimpressive and his speaking amounts to nothing”. Tom Wright talks about this in his commentary on 1 Corinthians, “And yet there was power in it... without using any of the normal rhetorical tricks of the trade, people’s hearts, minds and lives were changed” (p.21). It appears that many people in Corinth came to faith through this “unimpressive” speaking of Paul that was accompanied by “a demonstration of the Spirit’s power”.

Where Are We?
The pertinent question is “Where are we?” In Australia the church is experiencing much decline. There are pockets where things are going well and the kingdom is advancing, but on the whole we are losing the battle. For a long time now, ministry has been a professional role, carried out by those with a theological education. The early Salvation Army had a good practice of getting people into the mission straight after conversion, and that was a great strength of the army in those days. However, is this now our practice? Are we quickly releasing every convert back into the mission field? Or is ministry in the Army now primarily the prerogative of the officers and soldiers? Are we resting on our own skills and ability to persuade people of the gospel or are we resting on the Spirit’s ability?

My gut feeling is that the church in Australia, even more broadly than The Salvation Army, is being lead by God on the journey from Athens to Corinth. I believe we are being challenged to step out of what has been comfortable for us and more and more into that which we cannot control, and which has infinitely more potential to change the nation. As I wrote recently, Jesus’ scorecard for ministry was the proclamation of the gospel to the poor, the healing of the sick and the driving out of demons. I believe it is supposed to be our scorecard too. But it requires a change in our perspective on what constitutes ministry and mission. Never let it be said of us that we are people with “a form of godliness but denying its power” (2 Timothy 3:5 TNIV).

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The Challenges Facing Officers Today (Part 2)

Fri, 20 Apr 2012 00:00:00 +1000

3. Reinventing the church: empowering the laity is the solution. Loren Mead, the founder of the Alban Institute in America, has been one of the most important commentators on changing directions in church life and on how to shape them. In his 1991 study, The Once and Future Church, he notes how the church has reinvented its institutional form a number of times over the last two millennia, arguing that reinvention is demanded once more. What is required, he argues, is nothing less than the re-establishment of what he calls the ‘apostolic paradigm’ of the church. In this model, all the members of a congregation/corp are active disciples of Christ and all sense their responsibilities to their Lord and Master and to one another. In his 1996 publication, Five Challenges for the Once and Future Church, he makes as the first and most important change, the transfer of ownership of the church from the clergy/officers to the whole Christian community. For too long, he says, clergy/officers have been ‘overfunctioning’ and lay people ‘underfunctioning’.

There is much in what he says. The prevailing idea among so many Christians does seem to be that church is a spectator activity. The clergy/officers are the players and lay people/soldiers show their support by coming on Sundays and by putting their money in the plate. This pathology developed over centuries and is now supported by the structures and formality of so many of our churches. Member’s passivity and dependency on the clergy is actually fostered by the system. As a result, the clergy/officers have become parent-like figures who take responsibility for everything and church/corp members have become child-like dependents. When the culture supported churchgoing, this model went unchallenged. Today it does not. Thoughtful Christians now recognise that things have to change if the mainline congregations are going to survive as vital centres of Christian community.

In the apostolic paradigm of the church, the congregation is an expression of the body of Christ, a community in which each member has a vital part to play. Thus St Paul insists that the Holy Spirit gives to every church member a ministry (1 Cor. 12:7). We can thus speak of the ministry of all believers. However it is important to note that Paul also recognises that while all have a ministry in the congregation and beyond, not all are leaders. ‘In the church God has appointed first apostles, second prophets, third teachers’ (1 Cor. 12:28). The actual titles are not important. In the epistle to the Ephesians, he adds ‘evangelists’ and ‘pastor-teachers’ to this list of leaders. In his epistle to the Philippians, Paul calls the leaders of the church there, ‘overseers and servants/ministers’. What is important is the principle: all have a ministry, only some are leaders. The leaders are plural in number, offering different contributions.

In today’s world of specialisation the church needs specialised and trained leaders. These leaders, however, if they want to follow the apostolic paradigm of the church, should make it their priority to equip every believer for their ministry. Paul says the leaders in the church should work all ‘the saints’ (believers) for their ministry until we all reach maturity, the full stature of Christ himself (Eph. 4:11-16). When the leaders of the church and the members of the church accept equal responsibility for the life of the church, then the apostolic paradigm has been reinstated. Today we often hear the term, ‘collaborative ministry’ to describe an understanding of ministry which is shared between the leaders and the membership.

4. Church health: improving the spiritual and emotional climate is the solution. A fourth approach is to emphasise church health. The expression ‘church health’ can be understood in more than one way but I use it to refer to the emotional and spiritual ‘climate’ within a congregation/corp. A healthy church/corp is one where people are growing as Christians, open to the work of the Holy Spirit, prayerful, loving and gracious to one another, see conflict as something to be expected and managed, and there is a real concern to commend Christianity in both word and deed. God loves churches/corps that show in large measure these signs of health, and people like to join them and seldom leave. What is needed today are more healthy churches/corps. We have too many chronically sick churches, some terminally ill. To have healthy churches you need spiritually and emotionally healthy leaders, officers and soldiers. Sick leaders produce sick churches.

Speaking of church health implies that the local church is more than an aggregation of believers who freely choose to gather together on Sundays. It is the body of Christ, a community of people bound together by God. It is a living organism: a social system, something more of an entity than the sum of the parts. On this understanding of the church you cannot isolate anything and understand it. Your church/corps and every other functions as it does because of how members interact with one another and how they think and feel about their corporate life together. Conflictual relationships and poor communication undermine the health of any church, but the impact of negative and unchristian thinking and feeling are equally debilitating. The more healthy a congregation/corp is the more positive members will think and feel about their community of faith and behave accordingly. They will enjoy going on Sundays, want to ask their friends to come with them, gladly undertake ministry for others in the community and beyond, give sacrificially and sense that they are growing as Christians. Less healthy churches in contrast seem to be stuck in a sea of negativity. Somehow the presence of Christ seems distant. People are not growing as Christians. There is a prevailing dis-ease in the church/corp.

In speaking of ‘more healthy churches’ and ‘less healthy churches’, I indicate that I am aware that health is a relative term. This is true of individuals and the church. No-one’s body functions perfectly and in a lifetime we all experience times of ill health. Thus when we talk about the health of a church we are not talking in absolutes. The perfect church is nowhere to be found on earth. We are envisaging a continuum where some churches score better than others. What is more, the concept of health implies that at times there will be sickness. The word ‘health’ would be meaningless if this were not so. The healthiest of churches are not characterised by peace and tranquillity at all times. Dis-ease is not unknown. Healthy people and healthy churches from time to time face huge challenges, painful conflicts, financial burdens and troubles of all kinds. Some people and some churches handle such dis-ease better than others. Their prior physical, mental and spiritual health is the best indicator of how well they will meet these challenges to their well being.

Many believe that in our age, what we need to work on more than anything else is the health of our churches. There is a spiritual hunger abroad in Australia, yet people are not attracted to Christianity. Our churches are definitely part of the problem. Unbelievers do not feel they offer an exciting alternative to the life they know in the world. The Danish thinker, Soren Kierkegaard once wrote, ‘Whereas Christ turned water into wine, the church has succeeded in doing something more difficult; it has turned wine into water.’ To effectively communicate the good news in our age we need churches that are in reality, alternative communities.

The Long Haul
The one thing that is uppermost in my mind as I look back over my more than forty years in congregational ministry is just how hard it is to be a Christian leader and how long it takes to achieve positive change within a church. Nothing of any significance happens overnight or simply by deciding this is what you or perhaps others in the church would like to see happening. Establishing children’s work, a youth ministry, a pastoral care program, a social action group or whatever, may take years to get under way and to consolidate. Young clergy/officers tend to grossly overestimate what can be achieved in one year and grossly underestimate what can be achieved over a much longer period. The length of stay in itself accomplishes nothing. Some leaders with little vision for evangelism and growth kill churches by staying too long. Commitment to the long haul is only important when you are working with a church/corps that wants to grow and is willing to change, and your leadership can facilitate this.

There are many reasons why it takes a long time to see qualitative change in a church. The most important to recognise is that real and lasting renewal only takes place when the whole ethos, the spiritual character, the attitude of the people who make the church is transformed by the Holy Spirit. In other words churches only change as the people change. This never happens overnight. Renewal is not brought about by doing things better and by adding new Christian ministries, although these things can certainly help when maintained over a long period. Churches change when the people who collectively make up the church come to see themselves as the body of Christ, and that they are to love one another, minister to one another and be involved in God’s mission to the world. The key to such transformation is always good leadership.

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The Challenges Facing Officers Today (Part 1)

Fri, 13 Apr 2012 00:00:00 +1000

In the last forty years the Western world, and to some degree the whole world, has been experiencing one of the most profound periods of social change known to humankind, and it does not seem to be slowing down. Twice before human beings have passed through cataclysmic periods of change. The first was linked with the agrarian revolution, which began 8,000 years ago. At that time people gave up hunting and gathering food from the wild to graze animals and till the ground. This change took place very slowly. Even today not everyone has made this transition.

The second took place at the time of the industrial revolution, which began about 200 years ago, as people left farming to work in the factories in the emerging large cities of Europe. This revolution is still changing people’s lives today, especially in the third world. What is now happening is as momentous as these former revolutions, probably more so, and it is happening more quickly and more widely than in the other two cases. Change has now become the one constant in our lives. In this situation nothing seems quite as certain or secure as it once did. Speaking specifically of the Australian situation, Hugh Mackay says, ‘What we are really living in is an age of redefinition. Since the early 1970s, there is hardly an institution or convention of Australian life which has not been subject either to serious challenge or radical change.’ [1]

In this series of articles we are going to look at how the churches have fared in this ‘age of redefinition’ and what can be done to help them to be more effective and welcoming.

The Australian Bureau of Statistics reports that in 1901 96.1% of the population identified themselves as Christian, only 0.4% identified themselves as “no religion”. By 2001 the percentage identifying themselves as Christian dropped to 68%, and those of “no religion” increased to 15.5%. Other religions grew from 1.4% in 1901 to 4.9% in 2001 [2]. In Melbourne, between 1996 and 2006 those identifying themselves on the census as Salvation Army dropped by 15.4%. In the same period, the Pentecostal churches grew by 36.3%, and those identifying themselves as “no religion” grew by 20% [3].In The Salvation Army Australia Southern Territory, the number of Soldiers, Adherents and Junior Soldiers dropped by 5% between 2005 and the end of 2011.

Prayer & Hard Work
I write this article because I believe we Australian Christians have the responsibility of ‘shaping the future’ of our churches. I don’t think we can bring about a great national revival simply by doing things better, but I do think that significant changes in how we go about things and how we behave as disciples of Christ could vastly improve the effectiveness of mission in the Australian context. This could make our churches far more attractive to people who in this age of transition are more interested in spiritual questions than ever before. ‘Doing things’ cannot bring about Christian revival. Good theology reminds us that we are always dependent on God for every breath we take and every spiritual blessing we enjoy. If we are going to find new vision for spreading the good news about Christ, and new vitality for the corporate life of our churches in Australia, we must first of all be people of prayer. We need to ask God to change us and to open the spiritual eyes and ears of our friends and neighbours so that they see in Christ ‘good news’. This truth, nevertheless, does not take away our responsibility for mission or for working for the renewal of our churches. God always works through people who want to do his will with a glad heart. The person who first said, ‘We should pray as if everything depended on God and work as if everything depended on us’, was very perceptive.

Competing Solutions
In this age of redefinition, there are a number of competing suggestions on what response(s) should be taken to meet the challenges facing the churches. Four competing overall solutions will be outlined and then I will give my own.

1. Do nothing: the leave-it-to-God solution. By far the most common response to be seen in the mainline churches is passivity. Sometimes this is justified by contesting the facts (e.g. ‘Since those figures were given, attendances are now moving upwards’); sometimes by putting a positive spin on things (e.g. ‘Numbers are down but commitment is up’); sometimes by resigning ourselves to the inevitable (e.g. ‘There is nothing we can do’). The clergy/officers and church/Corp members who adopt this response invariably feel overwhelmed by the challenges facing the church and completely lost to know what to do. I think we would all agree this response is not worthy of further discussion.

2. The church growth movement: talented clergy/officers and relevance are the solution. ‘Church Growth’ is a technical term which designates a specific approach to the mission of the church that was very popular in the 1980s and is still around. It maintains that if the clergy and people go about things the right way, the church will grow. This growth is spoken about generally, but growth in numbers is never out of mind. Any reminder that the churches should have a vision for numerical growth is good. However the suggestion that big is always more pleasing to God than small, is erroneous. What the church growth literature emphasises is the importance of gifted and creative pastors who have a vision for growth, and the need of the church to change to keep up with the times. The church destined to grow, we are told, aims at a ‘niche market’. It is ‘seeker friendly’, ‘fully programmed’ and everything done is ‘audience driven’.

Since the 1970s, when church growth first came into prominence, many have thought that the solutions given in this literature offered the way forward. Today, except for a very few church leaders who are themselves ‘success stories’, hardly anyone thinks the church growth movement offers the answers for mainline small to middle sized churches/corps under pressure. There is, nevertheless, much to learn from the church growth literature, especially about evangelising the unchurched. We can also discover lots of practical suggestions on how churches/corps can be run better and made more welcoming. Books on this topic are right in insisting that churches should be relevant to human beings and their needs and that church should not be boring.

To be continued next week...

Notes

1	Reinventing Australia. Sydney: Angus & Robertson; 1993.
2	Religious Affliation. [Internet]. 2007 [cited 2012 March 14]. Available from: http://abs.gov.au/ausstats/....
3	Hughes P, Reid S, editors. All Melbourne Matters. Melbourne: Christian Research Association; 2009.

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How Did Jesus Define the Mission?

Fri, 06 Apr 2012 00:00:00 +1000

Many Different Perspectives
There has been much discussion in recent years about what the mission of the church really is. Different parts of the church have different perspectives. Some parts of the church emphasise the preaching of the word, some parts emphasise acts of social justice and mercy. Other parts see the work of the church in the weekly worship service. Others emphasise healing and deliverance as the work of the church. All of these views can be traced back to scripture, and yet different groups of Christians emphasise different aspects of the church’s work as defining the mission. However, how did Jesus define the mission? What was the mission he was on, and what did he commission his disciples to do?

When John the Baptist Wondered...
The gospels are full of stories of Jesus preaching about the kingdom, healing the sick, driving out demons and raising the dead. Meanwhile John the Baptist was sitting in prison hearing about all that Jesus was doing. John sent his disciples to Jesus to ask, “Are you the one who was to come, or should we expect someone else?” (Matthew 11:3 TNIV). Jesus responded, “Go back and report to John what you hear and see: The blind receive sight, the lame walk, those who have leprosy are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the good news is proclaimed to the poor” (Matthew 11:4-5 TNIV).

For Jesus the way his ministry could be defined, measured and vindicated was that he was healing people, raising the dead and proclaiming the good news to the poor. From Jesus’ perspective this activity was sufficient proof for John that Jesus really was the Messiah. For Jesus, these acts of divine love and compassion were what defined authentic ministry in the name of God. Just a few verses later in Matthew 11, Jesus denounced the towns in which most of his miracles had been performed, “Woe to you, Chorazin! Woe to you, Bethsaida! If the miracles that were performed in you had been performed in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes” (Matthew 11:21 TNIV). Later at Pentecost, Peter makes this same point that “Jesus of Nazareth was a man accredited by God to you by miracles, wonders and signs, which God did among you through him, as you yourselves know” (Acts 2:22 TNIV). The miraculous acts of Jesus were part of his gospel proclamation. Healing the sick, raising the dead and proclaiming the good news are all part of one package.

The Sending Out of the Disciples
Just in case we are inclined to think, ‘that is good for Jesus, but we are not the Messiah’, the gospel of Matthew makes clear that Jesus gave the same mission to his disciples. In Matthew 10, Jesus gave the twelve disciples authority “to drive out evil spirits and to heal every disease and sickness” (Matthew 10:1 TNIV). He then sent them out, saying “proclaim this message: ‘The kingdom of heaven has come near.’ Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse those who have leprosy, drive out demons. Freely you have received, freely give” (Matthew 10:7-8 TNIV).

Just in case we are inclined to think, ‘that is good for the twelve apostles, but we are just ordinary Christians’, the gospel of Luke makes clear that Jesus gave the same mission to a group of seventy-two other disciples. Jesus instructed them, “Heal the sick who are there and tell them, ‘The kingdom of God has come near to you” (Luke 10:9 TNIV). When they returned from the mission, they reported to him, “‘Lord, even the demons submit to us in your name.’ He replied, ‘I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven. I have given you authority to trample on snakes and scorpions and to overcome all the power of the enemy; nothing will harm you” (Luke 10:17-19 TNIV).

What Happened in Acts?
Just in case we are inclined to think, ‘that is good for back then, but Jesus was still on the earth’, the book of Acts makes clear that the ministry that Jesus did on the earth by the power of the Spirit was continued by the early church also in the power of the Spirit. Immediately after the falling of the Spirit at Pentecost, Peter stood up and preached like he had never preached before. Three thousand people came to faith that day (Acts 2:41). One chapter later, Peter healed a lame beggar (Acts 3:1-10), and then preached up another storm (Acts 3:11-26).

Peter and John then got hauled in before the Sanhedrin and refused to stop preaching in the name of Jesus (Acts 4:1-22). Instead they had a prayer meeting and asked God to help them “Now, Lord, consider their threats and enable your servants to speak your word with great boldness. Stretch out your hand to heal and perform signs and wonders through the name of your holy servant Jesus” (Acts 4:29-30 TNIV). So not only did they not stop, they prayed to become even more annoying to the authorities, they prayed to be able to preach with even more boldness, and for a continuation of the signs and wonders.

A few chapters later, there was a bit of a disagreement in the church. The Hellenistic Jews felt that their widows were being overlooked in preference for the Hebraic Jewish widows in the allocation of food (Acts 6:1). The twelve apostles decided to setup a special group to overlook the distribution of food so that they could focus on preaching the word. A group of seven men who were full of the Spirit were selected, one of whom was Stephen. A few verses later we are told that this same Stephen, the guy who served the food to the widows, was “a man full of God’s grace and power, [and] performed great wonders and signs among the people” (Acts 6:8 TNIV). Who would have thought that serving widows their daily food distribution could be so offensive! However we are told that opposition arose and people started arguing with Stephen, but could not stand up against the wisdom the Holy Spirit gave him. So they conspired against him, framed him for blasphemy and stoned him to death (Acts 6:8-15, 7:54-59).

Stories like this continue throughout the rest of the book of Acts. Strange miraculous happenings accompanied the preaching of the word. It came with persecution, but yet by the end of Acts, Paul is under guard in Rome with freedom to preach to all who come to him. And presumably, later when his case was finally heard, Paul would have had the opportunity to share the gospel with Caesar.

What About Today?
Just in case we are inclined to think, ‘that is good for those days, but nothing like that happens today’, we have the testimony of the churches in Africa, Asia and South America where the gospel is exploding like never before. The sick are being healed, the dead are being raised, and the good news is being preached to the poor. This stuff is really happening, and not just in a spiritualised sense. Who Jesus is, his mission and ministry, has not changed in two thousand years, “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever” (Hebrews 13:8 TNIV). What would happen if we used this list as our measure of ministry effectiveness? What would we need to start doing differently? What are we already doing well? How could this list lead us into a deeper dependence on God for our ministry outcomes?

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There is No Junior Holy Spirit

Fri, 30 Mar 2012 00:00:00 +1000

I love seeing children experience God and discover Jesus. They are so keen, enthusiastic and natural about God. I love seeing them grow, change and become more like Jesus. While they are still children, God gives them all they need to live a complete Christian life as they apply God’s truth to their everyday living.

From the moment children are born, God has a vision for their lives. He calls them to serve him and he trains them. When God was looking for someone to lead his people out of Egypt, he selected Moses. God chose Samson to be a warrior before he was born, and told his parents how he should be nurtured. When God was looking for a king, he chose a shepherd boy. God has no problem choosing children, because they have this natural trust in God knowing for certain they cannot do anything on their own - and like us they need the power of the Holy Spirit.

I once read a parable about a great king who decided to give a party that included everyone in his kingdom. Everyone was excited. The king took time to talk with all his guests and give everyone a gift. When the parents looked at their children’s gifts they were astonished. Some had received a gift of wisdom; others, a gift of prophecy. Some had been given a gift of prayer. Others had encouragement, still others, helping. The children were delighted. They thought it only natural the king would give them such gifts to use.

The parents, on the other hand, were amazed that the children’s gifts were exactly like theirs.

The Bible makes it clear that every believer, including children, has at least one spiritual gift. 'Each of you has been blessed with one of God's many wonderful gifts to be used in the service of others. So use your gift well.' (1 Peter 4:10)

In the book of Acts, Peter quotes the prophet Joel:

In the last days, God says,
   I will pour out my Spirit on all people.
Your sons and daughters will prophesy,
   your young men will see visions,
   your old men will dream dreams.
Even on my servants, both men and women,
   I will pour out my Spirit in those days,
   and they will prophesy. (Acts 2:17-18)

Just to be sure the people got the message, Peter said it again in verse 39:

This promise is for you and your children. It is for everyone our Lord God will choose, no matter where they live.

As Salvos, we take seriously the capacity of children to have an authentic relationship with Jesus. This means children and adults are equally capable of participating in the mission of God.

There are many practical ways you can help children to find their place in God’s mission:

Equip children for evangelism. Younger kids don’t have the same shyness about talking about Jesus in their normal life as adults. They naturally invite their friends to church.
Encourage your children to develop spiritual disciplines. Celebrate their maturing spiritual capacities and help them become consistent in daily private worship times as they apply God’s truths to their lives. Watch out for 9-11 year olds. This is a prime time when they learn to pray long and deep.
Involve children in your Sunday morning worship. There are many ways kids can join in Sunday morning worship. Find out how the kids in your church are gifted and help them to find ways to use their talents.
Invite children to pray for you. Asking children to pray for adults is a great way to show them that their ministry is valued and taken seriously.

Let’s give children the opportunity of recognising, developing and using the gifts God has given them in the ministry of our church.

Let’s nurture children on their spiritual journey, helping them to develop their faith and their understanding of God, the Bible and the teachings of Jesus. Let’s equip them with skills and values for their everyday living including what they think, say and do and the choices that they make.

This article was originally published on Australia Eastern Territory's mySalvos website at: my.salvos.org.au/inspire/articles/theres-no-junior-holy-spirit/

The Transfiguration: Revelation, Sonship and Suffering (Part 2)

Fri, 23 Mar 2012 00:00:00 +1000

The disciples assume that glory comes with triumph, the visible restoration of the kingdom to Israel and the removal of the Romans from the land. They assume that Jesus being the Son of God guarantees victory over their enemies, and positions of honour for themselves. Meanwhile Jesus is talking about crucifixion at the same time as accepting Peter’s confession that Jesus is the Messiah! To the disciples’ minds these two ideas do not belong together. For this reason Jesus is shown to them in glory, they are told to listen to him, and then the majority of the surrounding conversation is about Jesus’ impending crucifixion.

It is in this context that Jesus said, “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me” (Matthew 16:24 TNIV). To follow Jesus is to accept the cross not only as Jesus’ fate but also our own. To follow Jesus is to put down our own agendas and ideas about how God should establish his kingdom on earth. Dying to ourselves is not only about giving up what is obviously sinful, but also our pious human plans for God’s glory. God is well able to expand his kingdom in his own way; he has not appointed us as his policy advisors. This makes greater sense of Jesus’ rebuke of Peter, “Get behind me, Satan! …you do not have in mind the concerns of God, but merely human concerns” (John 16:23 TNIV). The path of glory and the cross does not make sense to us, but it is God’s way.

God Calls Us His Sons & Daughters
This can all seem a bit depressing. Sometimes it is difficult to see the glory in amongst the daily grind. Sometimes the difficulties of life and the crosses that we have to bear make stories of glory seem a bit far off, a bit distant. Often as much as we might wish differently, the world does not see much in us that they find compelling. This can be discouraging.

However, I think we can take comfort from the Transfiguration in this regard. Firstly, as we have discussed, the revelation to Jesus that he was the Beloved Son of God happened at his baptism. It was some time later that his status as the Son of God was revealed to the disciples. We can live with the inner certainty that we are sons and daughters of God even though the glory does not seem to burn so brightly sometimes! Just because the world does not often see the glory of God in our lives, does not mean it is not there.

When Jesus descended back down the mountain, his glory was again veiled. He lived out the rest of his time on earth with his glory veiled. This is how we live too, the glory of God in our lives veiled. I think we can take the images from the bible about the monumental change that occurs when we are saved as saying that by nature we are now something very, very different. The pictures of new birth and new creation indicate that something very significant has changed. But this is largely veiled; we operate in the world under cover. Paul put it this way, “we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us. We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed” (2 Cor 4:7-10 TNIV).

The apostle John also wrote about this in his first letter, “See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are! The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him. Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when Christ appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is” (1 John 3:1-2 TNIV). We share in Jesus’ hiddenness, the reason the world cannot see the truth in us is because it cannot see the truth about him.

This is important to remember, because I think sometimes it can be easy for doubt to begin to creep at the edges of our belief. Sometimes the world’s explanation of things can seem to make more sense of our difficulties and suffering. The world asks, ‘if Christians are children of God, why do bad things to happen in our lives?’ This is effectively what Jesus was taunted with on the cross, ‘if you are the Son of God, save yourself’. But the world is wrong. We can be secure in our adoption as sons and daughters of God, even in the face of suffering. The way of the cross is what brings salvation. One day the truth about Jesus and the truth about us as his followers will be revealed. One day our identity will not be veiled; everyone will be able to see clearly that we truly are the sons and daughters of God.

Paul wrote about this compellingly, “I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us. The creation waits in eager expectation for the children of God to be revealed. For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the freedom and glory of the children of God. We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption, the redemption of our bodies. For in this hope we were saved. But hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what they already have? But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently” (Romans 8:18-25 TNIV).

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Integrating Service Delivery

Fri, 16 Mar 2012 00:00:00 +1000

Captain Allan Morrison is a busy man. Three days a week, as of January this year, he is the assistant corps officer, working with his wife, CO Captain Glenda Morrison, at Boronia Corps. For the other three days of his working week, Allan is the head clinician and assistant manager at The Basin Centre, located a few stones’ throws away, working with centre manager Major Alan Meredith.

Boronia has the usual pastoral responsibilities and imperatives of a corps officer, as well as burgeoning community programs. The Basin, where Allan is now in his third calendar year, is billed as ‘a service to help residents address issues of addiction in a therapeutic environment’. So, as well as bringing administrative skills, empathy, life experience and counseling skills to bear, Allan serves as an example of integrated mission and ministry.

As with other operators, Allan is a walking, breathing embodiment of the much-espoused quality of holistic Salvation Army mission; he is bridging the social/spiritual divide.

While the Morrisons have substantial background in the social welfare sector prior to being commissioned (see chart below) Allan says that ‘throughout our work as Salvation Army officers we have always seen and taken up the opportunities to formulate and integrate mission; we work with people to discover wholeness of life, moving towards their well-being.

‘That means an equal addressing of all their needs, social, spiritual, physical, psychological and emotional. And so, while I have always worked both sides of the street, in corps and social, this new dual role of being both a corps and a social officer at the same time means I am back to doing what I love.’

When asked what he has done to try to connect the different parts of his working life, Allan gives solid, practical examples. He has helped to reinvigorate the pre-existing links between the Basin and Boronia through a bus run that transports basin residents to and from the corps. He has encouraged people from Boronia to come into The Basin as volunteers, helping to provide Sunday lunches, engaging in mid-week leisure activities, participating in transport as needed and undertaking Bible study discussion groups. Allan has also helped the centre to re-engage with the chaplain.

Ultimately, Allan explains, ‘holistic mission’ boils down to the fostering of genuine relationships.

‘It’s about community; creating, providing and sharing,’ he explains. ‘People want it and people need it. We are social beings.

‘The people who come to The Basin Centre are wanting to break free from addictions. They find during their stay and upon completion that the sense of community they find here is helpful, they don’t want to lose it, and they want to take that sense of community away with them as they leave.’

That desire segues into sporadic links to scattered Salvation Army corps such as Ballarat, Boronia, Camberwell, Doncaster, Ferntree Gully, Mooroolbark, Preston, Rosebud and Traralgon.

In addition, Allan explains The Basin Centre is transitioning from a psychosocial model offering counselling and cognitive behavioural change to a case management model, which will engage residents with Christian spirituality on an invitational basis as part of a process whereby ‘all holistic factors are addressed’.

‘Through techniques such as motivational interviewing, our new model will allow us to empower the individual to help steer the ship of their own treatment plans,’ Allan explains.

While it’s a double load of demands and stress, the dual appointment makes sense to Allan; he wouldn’t have it any other way. But that statement, in itself, misses the point; Allan’s focus is on others.

The life journey for people engaged in recovery work at The Basin has sometimes led to their faith in Christ and involvement in Salvation Army corps. One man, he cites, ‘came to faith while worshipping at Boronia Corps and living at The Basin Centre. He is currently in the process of commencing soldiership classes, and is an encouragement to others.’

Allan says community is experienced in real terms; this does tend to influence people towards embracing faith. Life is capable of summoning up both ease and trials. Asked about the positive and negative implications that arise when The Salvation Army looks to integrate clients into the life of the corps, he says that bringing clients into the corps community gives ‘corps a renewed sense of purpose, and give clients somewhere to turn when they leave the program. We try to link them to corps in their home area.’

Asked to advise corps on how best to welcome new people ‘with serious life problems’ into the corps, Allan’s message strikes a familiar chord of ‘love one another’: ‘Be prepared to be there for the long journey and accept people where they are at any particular time ,with unconditional love,’ he says.

‘Create a sense of community where people can find non conditional acceptance and love.’

* At the time of interview, the 250-acre property housed 23 clients; it has the capacity to house 36. The Basin Centre has eight female beds.

Major Allan Morrison: A Journey
Allan has undertaken social welfare and theological training; he has a Bachelor of Social Welfare, an Advanced Diploma in Ministry, Cert IV (Community Residential Studies), Cert IV (Emergency Management) and Cert IV (Training).

Allan studies at La Trobe Valley campus of Monash University and Melbourne University.
Time spent working for Caterpillar Australia as manager; he later runs an earth moving construction company and keeps his hand in driving diggers and dumptrucks, etc.
Works in the operating theaters and trauma centres of West Gippsland and Maryborough private hospitals, as a theatre technician engaged in patient care and support roles to surgeons, nurses, anaesthetists, etc.
He works as a stipendary worker in child protection/juvenile justice sector for DHS in Gippsland region in Leongatha, while worshipping at Warragul Corps from 1992 onwards – he works with teenagers in case management and follows through on court orders; rises to supervisor and later manages the site.
Allan becomes a Salvation Army soldier and YPSM (young people’s sergeant-major); says his work was ‘part of the call to officership’.
The then- DC, Lieut-Colonel (now Commissioner) Ross Kendrew headhunts Allan to manage the Army’s Gippscare site, including domestic violence and children’s placement programs, homelessness services and accommodation, and transitional programs
Allan is an active member of the critical incident and stress management (CISM) association of Australia.
Allan and Glenda enter training college in 1999-2000.
Allan and Glenda serve as corps officers, in diverse settings such as Horsham and Bentleigh (Vic.), and Moonah and Ulverstone (Tas.). They develop and maintain integrated mission sites in several areas, dealing with roles such housing, drought relief work, court chaplaincy, the Positive Lifestyle Program, thrift shops and emergency relief.

The Transfiguration: Revelation, Sonship and Suffering (Part 1)

Fri, 09 Mar 2012 00:00:00 +1000

Why “The” Transfiguration?
I have a theory about any of the biblical events that we prefix with a “The”. The “The” is there to signify that something significant happened that we ought to take notice of. “The Virgin Birth”, “The Crucifixion”, “The Resurrection”, all these events hold rich spiritual and theological meaning. There is rich faith-fertiliser in each of these events. For a while I have been trying to figure out what about the Transfiguration justified it being “The Transfiguration”. What impact has the Transfiguration had on people’s lives that we have enshrined it with the definite article? Why do some parts of the global body of Christ give it a special day all of its own? Is the Transfiguration just supposed to give us a warm spiritual glow or is there something deeper here to be gained? The conclusion I have come to is that the Transfiguration teaches us about Revelation, Sonship and Suffering. Let me explain why…

The Connection with Jesus’ Baptism
Have you ever noticed that in the gospel of Matthew the phrase “This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased” appears twice? The first time is at Jesus’ Baptism, the second at the Transfiguration. At Jesus’ Baptism, Matthew tells us that “As soon as Jesus was baptized, he went up out of the water. At that moment heaven was opened, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and alighting on him. And a voice from heaven said, ‘This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased.’” (Matthew 3:16-17 TNIV). This seems to indicate that this vision of the Spirit descending like a dove, and the voice from heaven was a spiritual experience that only Jesus and John the Baptist (see John 1:32-34) was party to. Matthew says explicitly that “heaven was opened, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove…” (verse 16).

In contrast, at the Transfiguration the audience for the Father’s announcement of Jesus’ sonship was broader; Peter, James and John were each present and aware of what was going on. For this reason the God added “Listen to him!” to his declaration that Jesus “is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased” (Matthew 17:5 TNIV). Why did the Father find it necessary to affirm to Peter, James and John that Jesus was his Son and that they really must listen to him?

Glory and Suffering Go Together
Preceding the Transfiguration, there were a few significant events that give us a clue as to what God wanted to achieve through the Transfiguration. Firstly, Peter declares that Jesus is the Messiah. A few verses later, Jesus’ says “Get behind me Satan” to Peter for rebuking Jesus for talking about suffering and dying in Jerusalem. Following this, Jesus then says to his disciples “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will find it. What good will it be for you to gain the whole world, yet forfeit your soul? Or what can you give in exchange for your soul? For the Son of Man is going to come in his Father’s glory with his angels, and then he will reward everyone according to what they have done. ‘Truly I tell you, some who are standing here will not taste death before they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom.’” (Matthew 16:24-28 TNIV). This is the immediate context of the Transfiguration, for it is straight after this that we are told that Jesus took Peter, James and John up the mountain where he was transfigured.

We also see this connection between God’s glorious plan and the way of the cross as Jesus and the disciples walk back down from the mountain. John the Baptist, who was also part of God’s plan, walked the same path of suffering. Jesus says “^’Don’t tell anyone what you have seen, until the Son of Man has been raised from the dead.’ The disciples asked him, ‘Why then do the teachers of the law say that Elijah must come first?’ Jesus replied, ‘To be sure, Elijah comes and will restore all things. But I tell you, Elijah has already come, and they did not recognize him, but have done to him everything they wished. In the same way the Son of Man is going to suffer at their hands.’ Then the disciples understood that he was talking to them about John the Baptist.” (Matthew 17:9-13 TNIV). Later again in the chapter Jesus tells the disciples “The Son of Man is going to be delivered over to human hands. He will be killed, and on the third day he will be raised to life” (Matthew 17:22-23 TNIV).

What is happening here is that Jesus is challenging Peter, James and John’s ideas about what it means for Jesus to be the Son of God. This is a lesson Jesus had learnt after his baptism, God had affirmed him as God’s Son, and immediately following he had been driven out into the wilderness by the Holy Spirit to be tempted by Satan. All of Satan’s temptations were aimed at getting Jesus to use his power and prerogative as God’s Son for his own glory. Jesus was tested in this, and overcame. But the disciples did not understand this yet…

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Easter: Victory By The Cross

Fri, 02 Mar 2012 00:00:00 +1000

A Wonderful Victory
One of the testimonies of the church about Jesus’ death is that was the Victory of God over sin, death and Satan. In Colossians, Paul describes it this way, “When you were dead in your sins and in the uncircumcision of your sinful nature, God made you alive with Christ. He forgave us all our sins, having canceled the charge of our legal indebtedness, which stood against us and condemned us; he has taken it away, nailing it to the cross. And having disarmed the powers and authorities, he made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross” (Colossians 2:13-15 TNIV).

This year’s Easter resources focus on this theme of Victory by the Cross. The Easter resource packs were sent out to Australia Southern Territory corps in January. All the resources are also available for free download here. The ‘Victory by the Cross’ pack emphasises Jesus’ complete victory and supremacy over the forces of evil. It looks at the only security we really have, that Jesus has completely defeated the forces of evil that wage war against his kingdom. Any trouble that the devil and his forces give us now is only the guerrilla warfare of a defeated enemy.

The pack includes sermon outlines, powerpoints, a poster and videos. The sermons rely on Luke for the Easter narrative and Colossians for the explanation of how the cross is God’s triumph over evil. Keep reading for an overview of the teaching content of the pack...

Palm Sunday - Luke 19:28-40 & Colossians 1:15-20
It is a bit odd that we call the Triumphal Entry “Triumphal”. Only a few days later Jesus was murdered by the Jewish religious leaders and the Roman Empire. Upon reflection, ‘The Last March’ or ‘Into the Lion’s Den’ might seem more appropriate names. However, the witness of the donkey and the stones in this passage point to why Jesus received the response he did as he entered Jerusalem. The donkey had never been ridden. Most animals that have not been ridden or trained would not submit to being ridden without attempting to throw their rider off. This passage shows us Jesus’ lordship over creation, without being broken in.

Colossians 1:15-20 tells us that everything that has been created was created in him, through him and for him. This passage emphasises that Jesus’ lordship extends over all creation. Paul contrasts heaven and earth, visible and invisible to emphasise that everything we would call spiritual and physical all fall under Jesus’ lordship, as he is the Creator.

This means that the forces of evil that rebel against God and disobey Him even without the cross were under Jesus’ authority because of his role as Creator. We see this in the way he was able to cast out demons from people and heal the sick even before the cross.

Maundy Thursday - Luke 22:1-34 & Ephesians 6:10-20
The opening scene in this passage from Luke is about Judas going to the chief priests and officers of the temple guard to sell Jesus out. Throughout Jesus’ ministry he had continually fallen foul of the religious people of his day. Jesus did outrageous things like healing the sick on the Sabbath, casting demons out of people attending synagogue, teaching women alongside men as disciples, allowing women to finance his ministry, eating with prostitutes, and proclaiming that the rich and powerful would be brought low and that the poor and powerless would be uplifted.

Jesus was popular with the crowds and with ordinary people, but with the religious elite, he had endless troubles. They did not like Jesus upstaging them and drawing attention to their ineptitude. They were scared of the Romans, and thought that they might lose the temple if the Romans found out about what Jesus was up to. All of their conversations with Jesus were aimed at helping them to keep their power and position, both in the eyes of the Jewish people, but also in the eyes of the Romans.

These are the people who wanted Jesus dead. These are the people through whom Satan was fighting against God and what God wanted to do through Jesus. Satan still uses human institutions and systems today to fight against God. Structural and institutional evil is real. Satan also works through individuals, as illustrated in this passage by Judas and Peter. Judas betrayed Jesus because of the influence of Satan; Peter denied Jesus also under the influence of Satan.

The apostle Paul took up this theme in Ephesians 6:10-20, he points out who the enemy really is… It isn’t flesh and blood, people who come against us. It is ‘the rulers, the authorities, the powers of this dark world and the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms’. So we need to do is love the people through whom darkness manifests itself, but fight the battle against the spiritual forces behind them.

Good Friday - Luke 23:26-49 & Colossians 2:9-15
From whatever perspective you look at it, death doesn’t look like victory. In the Roman Empire, crucifixion was a type of death reserved for criminals. Alongside the normal tragedy of death, Jesus’ death was a shameful one. And yet, Paul says that God achieved two things by the cross: the disarming of the rulers and authorities, and the cancelling of our debt. How can this be?

Revelation 12 tells us that Satan is “the accuser”. He reminds God of people’s sins “day and night”. Our record of sin is the weapon that Satan and his demonic forces use against us in the spiritual war. When Paul says that the rulers and authorities have been disarmed it is this weapon that he is saying God has taken away from Satan. Satan can no longer stand before God and accuse us of sin, because Jesus has dealt with our sin on the cross.

Everything we need to face life and all its difficulties has been provided for us by God through Jesus Christ. Because of the cross, there is no accusation that can stand against any who follow Jesus. Because of the cross, there is no attack that Satan can bring against us that will stand. Because of the cross, there is nothing that stands between us and the love of God. Our debt has been completely paid, we are free!

Easter Sunday - Luke 24:13-35 & Colossians 3:1-11
Can you imagine how Jesus’ disciples were feeling that weekend? We read here in Luke that some of them decided to leave Jerusalem. They had believed that Jesus would be the one to redeem Israel from Roman occupation. But now Jesus was dead, they had given up, and so there wasn’t much sense in sticking around. The new kingdom reality they had dreamed of had died with Jesus. So they walked away.

They didn’t yet understand all that Jesus’ death meant, and they certainly weren’t expecting him to return from the dead. Some of the women who followed Jesus had gone out to the tomb and found it empty that same morning. They had seen angels who told them that Jesus was alive. The women had told the other disciples, who also found the tomb empty. But they still couldn’t believe that Jesus wasn’t dead anymore. When they realised the truth, that Jesus really was alive, it changed everything. THE RESURRECTION CHANGED EVERYTHING!

But how is Jesus’ resurrection good news for us? How does Jesus’ resurrection change everything for us? This passage from Colossians says that we have been raised with Christ. 2 Timothy 2:11 says, “If we have died with him, we will also live with him”. Colossians tells us that if we have been raised with Christ, that we should seek the things above, because that’s where Christ is—seated at God’s right hand, that is as God’s 2IC, and as our high-priest who intercedes to the Father for us—our life is now hidden with Christ in God. This effectively means that we get to live out a heavenly life on earth. This is another dimension of the Victory by the Cross; because of this we get to live a different kind of life.

Colossians tells us that in light of all this we should put to death what is earthly in us and put on the new self “which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator” (verses 5, 10). The old nature has died with Christ, and our in the resurrection with him have no place. Jesus’ resurrection gives us victory over our old nature, and power to live in a new way. Those behaviours are to be replaced with the characteristics we learn from God. Instead of those earthly traits, we should emulate the character of Jesus. All of this is empowered by the resurrection, our victory over the old nature is through Jesus’ resurrection; not our own efforts.

Click here to check out the Victory by the Cross Easter Resource Pack.

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Spiritual Practises: Sabbath

Fri, 24 Feb 2012 00:00:00 +1000

Remember the Sabbath?
In the ten commandments, God instructed the Israelites to “remember the Sabbath and keep it holy” (Exodus 20:8). In the past this Sabbath rest was built into the regular cycle of our working weeks. Shops did not open for very long on Saturdays, and not at all on Sundays. Nowadays Sunday trading has become a norm and the boundaries between work and life have been stretched out further and further. More and more people are increasingly busy, and time for rest, time for God has slipped down the list in importance.

When Jesus was challenged by the Pharisees about healing on the Sabbath he made the very important point that the ‘Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath’. The intention behind the creation of the Sabbath by God was to be a blessing to us. The Pharisees of Jesus’ day had turned the Sabbath into a set of rules and regulations; they had turned the blessing of God into a legalistic prison. Sometimes the rhetoric around why there needs to be Sunday trading seems to suggest that not being able to shop on Sundays, and not allowing people to work on Sundays is an inappropriate restriction of our freedoms. But this misses the heart of what God was trying to do when he gave us the Sabbath. The Sabbath was designed to be a blessing for us.

The Sabbath Reminder—We Are Not God
The Old Testament provides two reasons for the Sabbath. The first is that God himself took a Sabbath rest after the first six days of creation (Genesis 2:2). When we talk about creation we talk about seven days, which means that the rest of God on the seventh day completed the process of creation. Rest is something that God built into the fabric of creation. The Genesis account also tells us that God set the Sabbath apart and made it holy. Holiness is about being set apart for a special purpose, it is not a pious evacuation from reality, it is placing a special emphasis on something because it is valued in a special way by God.

When we stop and rest on the seventh day, in recognition of God’s rest from his work of creation we recognise him in his role as creator. It can be easy in modern westernised society to look around at our largely man-made environments and forget that we are not the creators of our world. We carry terrible burdens when we try to do everything in our own strength. When we spend so much time emphasising what we can have because of our work it becomes more difficult to remember that God is the one who made the world and everything in it. Everything we have comes from him. Anything we do, any contribution we make to the world is derivative of God’s original creative genius. We are just very fortunate that God does not hold onto his intellectual property rights and demand we pay him royalties when we trade upon his copyright.

Stopping to rest on the Sabbath and observing that the world continues to go on as it has since God created it is a reminder that we are not God, we are not the Creator. It all continues on under his guidance without our input! Our contribution to the world is limited. This is particularly important to remember as westerners. We have so much more power, wealth and opportunity than other people and it can become easy to forget that in the grand scheme of things we are still ultimately powerless. This is what the Sabbath gives us time to remember. When the busyness of the week stops, and we are left only with our own thoughts and with God, then it becomes increasingly apparent how limited we really are. This knowledge is a blessing! There is no point in trying to be God, or putting the entire burden for the world on our own shoulders. God is good at his job, and he does not need us to try to be him. He just needs us to play the part he has appointed us.

The Christian Rest
The other reason the Old Testament gives for observing the Sabbath is that it is a reminder of the deliverance of the Israelites from Egypt. In Deuteronomy 5:15 it says, “Remember that you were slaves in Egypt and that the Lord your God brought you out of there with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm. Therefore the Lord your God has commanded you to observe the Sabbath day”. Does this also apply to Christians? Yes, as the Exodus is a signpost in the Old Testament that points forward to the redemption that would become available through Christ. As God delivered Israel from Egypt and the oppression of Pharoah, so God has delivered us from a life of sin and bondage under the oppression of Satan.

The Sabbath then is not only a reminder of God’s role as Creator, but also God’s role as Redeemer. Like creation, redemption is not a job God needs us to help with. It is entirely God’s work that leads to salvation. He is the Saviour and Redeemer, we are the saved and redeemed. Yes, there is a role for us to play in helping others come to know God, but ultimately it is God himself who does the saving. Sometimes we forget that our acceptance by God is because of the finished work of Jesus, it can become easy to think that we impress him with our religious observance, our faithful witness, or our eloquent prayers. This is something that it is regularly worth taking time out to remember. We are accepted in Christ because of Christ, and our good works while good, do not bring us any closer to God. In fact Ephesians 2:10 tells us that the good works we do now, God prepared in advance for us to do! Again the initiative lies with God.

This is what Hebrews 4 talks about; entering into the truth that the Sabbath points to, is done by faith and obedience to Christ. “There remains, then, a Sabbath-rest for the people of God; for those who enter God’s rest also rest from their own work, just as God did from his. Let us, therefore, make every effort to enter that rest, so that no one will perish by following their example of disobedience” (verses 9-11). And verse 3, “Now we who have believed enter that rest”. The practice of the Sabbath reminds us then of the greater rest from our works that we have already entered into by faith in Christ. Remembering the Sabbath and keeping it holy is a worthwhile practice in a world that believes in the self-made man, and that we have ultimate control over our lives and our world. The truth is, we are not God, and the Sabbath reminds us of that.

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SURRENDER12: Hope Speaks Hope Acts

Fri, 17 Feb 2012 00:00:00 +1000

Hope in times of Turmoil
We live in a time of turmoil. Many people are afraid and confused in light of the economic, political and environmental upheaval that is being experienced around the world. Earthquakes, bushfires, cyclones, floods and tsunamis have lashed many nations and left many wondering about whether there is any hope for the future.

The markets have crashed plunging much of the Western world into financial difficulty because of the greed of a few. The developing world has been hit by food shortages and declining aid. Governments have fallen and in many western nations minority governments are trying to govern in unstable times. All of this has caused fear throughout the world, but also in our neighbourhoods. How will people pay their rent or mortgages? How will they provide for their children? Is it even a good idea to have children, since the future is so uncertain? What kind of future can young people aspire to?

How should Christians respond to this despair? The good news of Jesus Christ means that there is hope. This is the sort of hope that is certain, it is not wishful thinking. Jesus’ life and resurrection give us a solid hope that cannot be shaken. The bible teaches us that “The Word became flesh and blood and moved into the neighbourhood” (John 1:14 MSG). In living with us as flesh and blood in our neighbourhood, Jesus transformed chaos and confusion into a place where God’s peace and God’s hope can be lived out.

Jesus’ resurrection also gives us hope that it does not matter how bad things get God’s plan will be accomplished. The God that raised Jesus from the dead is working to bring this world back to the peace and wholeness that he originally intended for it. It is from this place of knowing that God is actively working in people’s lives and in the whole of creation that Hope Speaks Hope Acts.

As God’s people we are invited to join with him to share the hope that we have in Jesus. What God has given us is not only for ourselves but is meant to be shared with the world. The fact that Jesus does not rapture us to heaven when we are saved is because he wants us to live real human lives in the midst of the messiness so that the world can see and share in the hope which he has given us.

Jesus Brings Hope to Communities
What does it take to transform tough neighbourhoods from places of violence and despair into healthy communities that sustain and build people up? Andy Hawthorne, founder of The Message Trust an award-winning Christian mission organization that works with over a 100,000 of the hardest to reach young people in Greater Manchester and beyond says it is Jesus that transforms communities.

Andy has been working with young people in Greater Manchester for nearly 20 years. He started work with youth after seeing how the young people working in his business had no knowledge of the gospel and were prone to destructive behaviour. Andy and his brother booked the Apollo in Manchester and ran a week long event. 20,000 young people attended.

From there the World Wide Message Tribe ministry to schools started. At a mission to Wythenshawe one hundred young people responded and then turned up at their local church on Sunday. The need for long-term support for these new Christians became apparent, this lead to the birth of Eden. Eden is a network of missional communities in which teams of Christians move, work and support local churches in some of the UK’s most disadvantaged communities to reach young people. Over the years, more than 300 people have become part of Eden’s intentional missional communities.

Eden started by focussing on youth, however after moving into the communities it became apparent that they needed to participate in the life of the community in a number of different ways. The long-term presence of Eden teams in various communities has shown that hope can be found in the toughest of neighbourhoods. Eden are following Jesus’ example by becoming flesh and blood and moving into the neighbourhood (John 1:14 MSG).

Andy Hawthorne was awarded an OBE in 2010 in recognition of his work with young people in Greater Manchester. Andy will be speaking at next year’s Surrender Conference on 23-25 March which will be exploring how we can serve God through both words and actions in our neighbourhoods. Through main sessions, workshops, worship and conversations we’ll join together to seek God’s heart for our neighbourhoods, to be inspired to proclaim good news and join with the healing work of His Spirit. For more information on Surrender12 visit surrender.org.au

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Church Year: Lent - Feasting and Fasting

Fri, 10 Feb 2012 00:00:00 +1000

We Can’t Feast if We Don’t Fast
Lent is traditionally a time of fasting. There are many spiritual benefits to fasting. It reminds us of our frailty and our need of God. It puts us in a position to remember that we do not live by bread alone but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God. Last year for the first time I observed a Lenten fast, and I learned that fasting also has a strong relationship with feasting, and that feasting is not the same as gluttony. After 40 days of simple eating, a single Easter egg on Easter Sunday to celebrate the resurrection actually meant something more than my taste buds being tantalised. I then did not feel the need to eat more, because the real joy was the knowledge of Jesus’ resurrection and defeat of sin and Satan, not the endorphin rush from the chocolate.

We have forgotten how to feast because we have forgotten how to fast. “We live in a culture that revels in feasting, and not just on holidays. With so many food options available at all times, whether through grocery stores or the multitude of restaurants, it’s rare that the average [Westerners] experiences true hunger. Studies have shown that more than 66 percent of all Americans are overweight, indicating that most of us are having our fill and then some” [1].

When Easter eggs and hot cross buns start to be sold in January just after the Christmas decorations have been cleared from the shops, it really undermines our capacity to feast properly when Easter Sunday arrives. By Easter Sunday are we not all getting sick of chocolate and hot cross buns, feeling a bit guilty and wondering how we are going to lose the extra weight from weeks of indulgence? Not if Lent has been spent in fasting, eating simply. After 40 days of moderate eating a moderate amount of rich food is a feast, without having to go the extremes of gluttony. “For fasting to be truly effective, it must be joined by its companion: feasting. Get together with family and friends after a fast to celebrate the good things God has done, and enjoy the bounty of creation” [1].

Jewish Feasts & Fasts
In the Old Testament God gave the people feasts, but their worship also included fasting. These two acts related to our intake of food reveal spiritual truths to us that are not accessible through the everyday rhythm of constant gratification. “feasts, festivals, and fasts [were] observed to commemorate or emphasize events in the relationship between God and human beings. In the OT, feasts and festivals were occasions of joy. They were times for thanking God for blessings and granting relief to the poor and oppressed. They were often accompanied by singing, instrumental music, dancing, elaborate meals, and sacrifices. Depending on the nature and the requirements of the occasion, they were celebrated either at a sanctuary or at a person’s home” [2]

One of the interesting things about the way God setup the Jewish calendar is that he only specified one mandatory annual fast on the Day of Atonement. However there were many feasts and festivals. The emphasis is predominately on celebrating the goodness of God. Other fasts were also completed by the Jews; however these were in response to various events such as mourning and repentance. By Jesus’ time Jewish people regularly fasted two days a week, a practise that was also adopted by John the Baptist and his followers.

Early Christian Fasting
Early Christians also practised fasting on Wednesdays and Fridays^[3], after Jesus’ ascension, as Jesus had prophesied “But the time will come when the bridegroom will be taken from them, and on that day they will fast” (Mark 2:20 TNIV). Early Christians also practised fasting during Lent which initially was a 2 day fast, but extended to 40 days by the fourth century^[3]. In the Eastern church three other periods of fasting are also observed, Advent, from the Monday after Pentecost to Sts Peter and Paul, and the fortnight before the Assumption^[3].

“In the early Church, fasting was not an isolated practice reserved for a day or a season. It was a clue to all Christian living, a perspective on the whole of discipleship. To be a Christian meant to participate in a great feast. It meant also to observe a great fast” [4]

Fasting was practised in different ways. In the early days, fasting meant completely abstaining from food for a period of time. Later fasting was also practised through a restricted diet. “In the [Eastern] Church it is still observed with considerable strictness: during the whole of Lent, for example, the ancient rules continue to be followed by many, no meat being eaten, nor animal products (eggs, milk, butter, cheese), and fish only on certain days”^[3].

Moral Aspects of Feasting & Fasting
One of the great traps of feasting and fasting is that the outward behaviours can easily be adopted without the appropriate inner motive. This is something that the prophets pointed out to the Jewish people a number of times. In Isaiah 58:6-7, the prophet reminds Israel that the fasting that God requires is “to loose the chains of injustice and untie the cords of the yoke, to set the oppressed free and break every yoke? …to share your food with the hungry and to provide the poor wanderer with shelter—when you see the naked, to clothe them, and not to turn away from your own flesh and blood?”.

Similarly in Zechariah 7-8, the prophet challenges the people of Israel about their motives for fasting. This passage is from when the Jews had returned from exile and had started to rebuild the temple. The work was hindered by the Samaritans, and the Jews became disillusioned. By the time Darius came to the throne in 521 BC, “instead of recommencing their labors, they pretended that as the prophecy of the seventy years applied to the temple as well as to the captivity in Babylon (Hag 1:2), they were only in the sixty-eighth year of it [Henderson]; so that, the proper time not having yet arrived, they might devote themselves to building splendid mansions for themselves. Haggai and Zechariah were commissioned by Jehovah (Hag 1:1) in the second year of Darius (Hystaspes), 520 b.c., sixteen years after the return under Zerubbabel, to rouse them from their selfishness to resume the work which for fourteen years had been suspended. Haggai preceded Zechariah in the work by two months” [5].

Before the rebuilding recommenced under Darius, the people had been practising four annual fasts in mourning for the destruction of the original temple, in the 4th, 5th, 7th and 10th months. The people asked Zechariah whether they should continue the fasts, and God challenged them, “When you fasted and mourned in the fifth and seventh months for the past seventy years, was it really for me that you fasted? And when you were eating and drinking, were you not just feasting for yourselves?” (Zechariah 7:5-6 TNIV). Rather God tells them that what matters to him is that they “Administer true justice; show mercy and compassion to one another. Do not oppress the widow or the fatherless, the foreigner or the poor. Do not plot evil against each other” (Zechariah 7:9-10 TNIV). The exile was a result of the people ignoring these commands of God, and he says that in returning to the land he still has the same expectations of them—love and justice. He then goes on to promise that he will restore Israel, that they should not be afraid, and that “The fasts of the fourth, fifth, seventh and tenth months will become joyful and glad occasions and happy festivals for Judah. Therefore love truth and peace” (Zechariah 8:19 TNIV).

Jesus also instructed his disciples about how they should fast, “When you fast, do not look sombre as the hypocrites do, for they disfigure their faces to show others they are fasting. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward in full. But when you fast, put oil on your head and wash your face, so that it will not be obvious to others that you are fasting, but only to your Father, who is unseen; and your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you” (Matthew 6:16-18 TNIV).

1 Corinthians 10:31 says, “So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God”. Feasting can be done for the glory of God, but it can also be done to feed the appetites of the flesh. Fasting can also be done for various motives. Whatever choice we make about how we engage with these practises, we need to ensure that our motives are pure and that we are not ignoring God’s instructions about how we love and give justice to others. Without this regard for others, and with self-centred motives these practises become empty rituals which will not bring us any closer to God, nor honour him. OWSOMS is a good opportunity to practise this justice-focussed fast.

Notes

1	Lawrence C. Fasting & Feasting: Finding the necessary balance. [Internet]. [cited 2012 January 17]. Available from: http://www.intouch.org/magazine/content/topic/fasting_and_feasting.
2	Achtemeir PJ. Harper's Bible Dictionary 1st Ed. San Francisco: Harper & Row; 1985.
3	Cross FL, Livingstone EA. The Oxfored Dictionary of the Christian Church 3rd ed. rev. Oxford, New York: Oxford University Press; 2005.
4	Leithart P. Keep the Fast, Keep the Feast. [Internet]. 2009 [cited 2012 January 17]. Available from: http://www.firstthings.com/onthesquare/2009/03/keep-the-fast-keep-the-feast.
5	Jamieson R, Fausset AR. A Commentary, Critical and Explanatory, on the Old and New Testaments. Oak Harbor: Logos Research Systems; 1997.

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National Day of Prayer and Fasting - 19 Feb 2012

Tue, 07 Feb 2012 00:00:00 +1000

Greetings in the wonderful name of Jesus! I am requesting an urgent 'CALL TO PRAY' on SUNDAY 19TH FEBRUARY,2012, this has been declared Australia's NATIONAL DAY OF PRAYER & FASTING , we are invited to pray for Australia to turn back to God, and purposefully pray for the Renewal & Transformation of Australia as a nation with Jesus Christ as Lord.

This day will take place at Parliament House , Canberra from 10.00 am -4.00pm as well as in churches, corps centres, homes, and public places all over this country , each seeking the face of Jesus to come with renewal , refreshment , and revival for Australia.

This date will signify also a promotion of using Prayer & Fasting as a spiritual discipline in the forty days of lent , commencing 22nd February through to 1st April. This call is for us as an Army , ( part of 'the Body of Christ') to be engaged in this prayer call, in order that OTHERS will come to know Jesus Christ as their personal Lord & Saviour . If this nation is to come back to Christ we must first see individuals fall at the feet of JESUS, as HE ALONE is the only hope for our nation.

The theme for this season of sacrificial prayer during the National Day of Prayer & Fasting and the forty days of Lent is 'SOUL FOCUS'.

Please register your corps at www.nationaldayofprayer.com.au, and use this website to download advertising for your corps NOW .

We absolutely need SPIRITUAL REVIVAL as a nation and this will only come as we PRAY!!!!

Grace & Truth,
Marney Turner ( Major)

Please find Video Promos;
http://www.nationaldayofprayer.com.au/media/video-promo

Please find Radio Promos;
http://www.nationaldayofprayer.com.au/media/radio-promos

Media Release;
12-01-17 Media Release-NDOP(PDF)

Posters:
40 Days 2012 DL Brochure Side 1
40 Days 2012 DL Brochure Side 2
National Day Prayer 2012 A4 V3

Your New Corps Has Personality: Get To Know It

Fri, 03 Feb 2012 00:00:00 +1000

In the Australia Southern Territory of the Salvation Army, the beginning of the year is the time for field changes. Many officers are now settling into new corps and getting to know their new congregations. There are a number of questions they will no doubt be asking, including how will I cope in this new communal context? What is this corps like? What are the touchy issues that divide people? What has taken place in the past? What gifts has God given to the members of this corps? What does their mission to the people in this area involve?

In trying to understand your new corps, it is tremendously important to realise that no two corps are exactly alike. Corps are not like McDonalds franchises, each one virtually identical. Your corps and every other has its own distinctive personality. Just as our own personality is the product of many forces: genetics, home environment, life experiences, education, health, socio-economic standing and so on, so too is the personality of your corps. It has something distinctive about it, which despite the coming and going of officers and people, has a degree of continuity. Nevertheless, corps, like people can change. They can discover a new lease of life, overcome blockages and head off in new directions. What you will be doing in the next few months is getting to know the personality of your new corps.

A Collective Personality
The personality of any corps is the sum total of everyone and everything that constitutes it. It is made up of individuals, each with their own personality and concerns who somehow, Paul insists, are in God’s sight a single entity, the body of Christ. The fact that the local church is more than an aggregation of those who gather together on Sundays is also highlighted when Paul and other New Testament writers liken the local church to a family. In using this evocative communal language, the Bible anticipated modern day theorists who speak of families, churches and institutions as ‘systems’. Systems thinking is basically a way of seeing groups of people as all of one piece. It encourages reflection on how the various parts interact, and how the relationships between the parts produce a collective whole with a distinct character. A systems approach maintains that any one member or part of a family, congregation, or a secular institution, functions as they do because of the way the other parts function. Change in one part will impact on other parts and thus on the whole. Probably the best illustration of systems thinking is the finely balanced children’s mobile.

Thus whether we think of each corps as the body of Christ, or as like a family, or as a system, the conclusion is the same. A church is more than the sum of its parts. As an entity it has its own distinctive character and personality.

Denominational Allegiance
Many Salvation Army Officers and soldiers would like to think they are ‘just Christians’ but after two thousand years of church history this is not possible. Each denomination has distinctives and The Salvation Army is no exception. There should be full fellowship with other Christians but Salvation Army Christians also make a distinctive contribution to the rich tapestry that is the twenty first century world-wide Christian Church. Just as our personal history is part of what makes us who we are, so too Salvation Army history in important ways makes all Salvation Army corps what they are. Distinctively, under the guiding force of General Booth the Salvation Army insists that evangelism and social action, Word and deed, the love of God and the love of neighbour go together and can never be separated.

Social and Geographical Context
A corps in ‘the bush’, one in a new housing area, one in a socially deprived suburb and one in affluent middle class suburb will be very different from each other, simply because of where they are located. In seeking to understand your corps, the social context is very important. In the bush, one or more key families may run the corps and give it stability. Officers come and go but the corps continues as it is, basically unaltered by the impact of the Officers. From year to year, numbers probably remain about the same with a few people joining or leaving for one reason or another. Change is resisted strongly. The social and political ideas that prevail are often basically very conservative. In the new housing areas often mostly mothers and children attend, with a few fathers and teenagers. In this context, as in corps in older suburban economically deprived areas, the needs of the people are often very great. In both of these contexts money is scarce, as are people who can teach in the Sunday school, or play the piano, or read the Bible aloud in gatherings. Corps in older, poorer suburban locations often have declining numbers and an increasing average age. Very few, if any, young or younger families are involved. People tend to think that their corps has a limited life span. Maintenance rather than mission is the main agenda. In affluent middle class suburbia things are different again. For many Corps members in this context, church is only one aspect of a very busy and full life. They may come with high expectations and with little inclination to become involved in any costly way. They expect their Officers to run things well, while a few very committed soldiers do most of the work. Money to run the corps is no great problem although what is given each year is invariably just a little less than what is asked for in the budget. What is of huge concern in many middle class suburban corps is that so few are involved in costly mission.

Disposition
Some people seem naturally welcoming and warm and we find them likeable because they are always pleased to see us and affirm us by what they say. They are interested in us and in what we are doing, support us in hard times, and always speak well of us to others. Others are just the opposite or between the two extremes. It is the same with corps. Some are unfriendly to visitors and little love appears to prevail among members or between the Officers and the people. Hopefully such examples are rare but they do exist. Most corps are welcoming. Members care for one another, and there is a sense that the Officers and the people value and respect each other. Such corps could be described as having a warm, sunny, welcoming personality. Most Officers want to see their corps become more welcoming and on arriving set this as a goal.

The Interpersonal Climate
How the people relate to one another within the corps and how they relate to their Officers is hugely important. A corps where people speak negatively of one another and constantly criticise their Officers is not a very positive social environment for regulars or visitors. The way criticism and conflict are dealt with is a profound personality characteristic of any corps. In no corps is everyone equally enthusiastic about the music played, the time of the meetings, the length of the sermons, and the mission work undertaken. From time to time there will be criticisms voiced on such matters and conflict will arise when change is on the agenda. How these things are dealt with generates a distinctive emotional and spiritual climate. Where on a regular basis criticism is rejected and dissenting views are ignored or attacked, the emotional and spiritual climate soon becomes very negative. People say things like, ‘No one ever listens to me’, or, ‘Nothing is ever resolved in this corps, or, ‘Our Officers only like people who agree with them’. In contrast, corps where criticism and conflict are accepted as a fact of life and dealt with well, develop a positive climate. They come to have an integrated personality where openness and good will prevail.

The word ‘happy’ needs to be used with caution in relation to congregations, yet it is hard to avoid. In some, people feel really positive about their corporate life while in others the feelings are just the opposite. The first are accurately called ‘happy corps’, the latter, ‘unhappy corps’. More than any other factor the way conflict is handled determines this. The congregations where as a general rule conflict is not faced, upsets not dealt with, criticisms met by hostility, soon become seedbeds of discontent. People feel frustrated and angry. Conversely, corps where these things are faced and dealt with maturely seem to blossom. Goodwill flowers.

Size
In human beings, size bears on personality only marginally; with corps it is very significant. Some think this is the most important factor in determining the personality of any corps. A small corps is a very different phenomenon to that of a medium sized one, or a large one, possibly with several officers. Quite a lot has been written on the different characteristics of different sized churches, and this makes interesting and informative reading.

To Sum Up
Your new corps is more than an aggregation of those who attend. It is the body of Christ, a corporate entity with its own distinctive personality. A number of elements which go to make the personality of any congregation have been discussed. You may think your corps is much like any other. Be assured it is not. There is no other corps anywhere in the world the same as yours. The God of the Bible seems to like variation. He makes no two persons exactly alike and no two congregations exactly alike. It is important to know the individual strengths and weaknesses of your unique personality and it is important to know the strengths and weaknesses of the unique personality of your corps.

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REPOST: Covering of Shame

Fri, 27 Jan 2012 00:00:00 +1000

Noah’s Nakedness
There is an odd story in Genesis about Noah which occurred after he and his family left the ark. Apparently, Noah planted a vineyard, and started to make wine. One day, he drank some of the wine and became drunk. He went and lay in his tent naked. His son Ham saw that he was naked and went and told his brothers. His brothers took a garment, walked backwards into the tent and covered Noah up, in such a way as they did not see Noah naked. Noah later woke up and got cross with Ham and cursed him “Cursed be Canaan; a servant of servants shall he be to his brothers” (Genesis 9:25), and blessed his brothers “Blessed be the LORD, the God of Shem; and let Canaan be his servant. May God enlarge Japheth, and let him dwell in the tents of Shem, and let Canaan be his servant” (Genesis 9:26-27).

From a modern perspective this can sound all rather strange. Why did Ham get cursed when it was Noah that was drunk and lying around naked? Surely the sin here lay with Noah, how was Ham to know that he would find his father passed out naked if he went into his tent? Seems a little strange, even a little unfair. However, the story makes more sense when we look at the broader theme of nakedness and of covering of nakedness in the book of Genesis. There is another story where this plays a big part…

Just After The Fall
Before the fall, the bible says Adam and Eve were naked and unashamed. When Adam and Eve sinned, they became aware that they were naked. Their first reaction was to sew together fig leaves to make loincloths (Genesis 3:7). Then when God came to walk in the garden and spend time with them, they hid (Genesis 3:8). The “LORD God called to the man and said to him, ‘Where are you?’ And he said, ‘I heard the sound of you in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked, and I hid myself.’” (Genesis 3:9-10). Genesis links the awareness of nakedness with sin and shame. God said to them, “Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten of the tree of which I commanded you not to eat?” (Genesis 3:11). This shows the link between the awareness of nakedness and sin. God is saying here, if you know you are naked, feeling shame about it and needing to cover it, then you must have sinned. This is instructive for understanding the story about Noah. His nakedness after getting drunk is also a symbol of shame.

Responding to Sin
The question this story about Noah addresses is about how to respond to sin. Ham presents option 1; he walks out of the tent and starts gossiping about his father. Shem and Japheth present option 2; they walked into the tent backwards, with a garment on their shoulders, laid the garment over their father and left the tent, all without seeing his nakedness, his shame. Through the curses and blessings Noah then gives to his children, the bible affirms the choice of Shem and Japheth.

This story is not primarily about respect of parents. Yes, what Ham did was disrespectful, what Shem and Japheth did was respectful. However, it is the reasons behind the choices that are most useful in understanding this story. When we flip back to the Adam and Eve, naked and ashamed after the Fall we see that God clothed them, “And the LORD God made for Adam and for his wife garments of skins and clothed them” (Genesis 3:21). The skins he gave them were far more useful than the fig leaves that they had sewn together themselves.

So we see in God’s actions a desire to cover nakedness, cover shame, to cover sin. Scripture calls Satan the accuser, and that role stands in opposition to God’s desire to cover shame. So in the actions of Noah’s sons we see one who chose the route of accusation, of leaving shame exposed; and of the other two who covered their father’s nakedness, as God had covered the nakedness and shame of Adam and Eve. What Shem and Japheth did was reflective of God’s own actions and desires.

Fulfilled in Christ
Some theologians see a sort of proto-sacrifice thing happening in the passage where God clothed Adam and Eve. Animals had to die to provide the skins that would cover Adam and Eve’s shame. This of course points forward to later sacrificial customs practiced by Israel and ultimately to Christ’s sacrifice to cover our sins. So we see again that the actions of Shem and Japheth were in line with Christ’s own actions on the cross.

The book of Hebrews tells us that we live under a better covenant, one that is really able to deal once and for all with sin. Before Christ sacrifices had to be made continually to deal with people’s sin. Under the new covenant established in Christ, the sacrifice has been made once and for all. When “Christ appeared as a high priest of the good things that have come, then through the greater and more perfect tent (not made with hands, that is, not of this creation) he entered once for all into the holy places, not by means of the blood of goats and calves but by means of his own blood, thus securing an eternal redemption” (Hebrews 9:11–12). This means our sin and shame is covered over once and for all.

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