Whenever two or three people have been gathered together in the name of Australian religious history one question has always been raised: “why is the Diocese of Sydney so Evangelical?”

From Stephen Judd’s Ph D. thesis, Defenders of Their Faith: Power and Party in the Anglican Diocese of Sydney, 1909-1938, 1984, p. 8.

(And yes, that means I’m still very much in the research phase of my 6000 word church history essay. Thanks for asking.)

In March 1920, the trustees agreed to install a separate telephone for the students; this was a great relief to the principal’s residence.

Ouch.

From M L Loane’s A Centenary History of Moore Theological College, 1955, p. 125.

Siestas sound lazy, but this is all about feeling just as well rested for less actual time sleeping. Interesting.

How to Hack Your Brain, Pt 1 - Sleep.

I still thought it could be negatively powerful, in terms of the harm gossip and slander can cause, but not positively powerful, in terms of spurring people on to change their lives under God, serve others, make sacrifices, worship God with their lives, and be committed to interceding for others before God in prayer.

This was probably the result of a thousand morning tea conversations that weren’t anything to do with God or his word. I felt awkward trying to draw a 55 year old businessman into a conversation about the sermon or his walk with God, so I let him take the lead and we talked about other things.

Gradually, I (unconsciously) came to think that speech with others wasn’t actually able to effect change, grow people, or challenge them. I can’t quite lock down the logic here, so if the causation is a bit fuzzy, let’s just say my shrinking faith in the power of words seems to have correlated with this period in my ministry.

A lot’s changed since then, and I recently* had a conversation with a young woman at my church, which seems to have had a really positive impact.

She’s Indonesian, like almost everybody else at our church except us, and was lamenting the lack of good Christian music and congregational worship resources for churches in Indo. She’s involved in music at church, and it’s really her primary ministry, though she’s gifted in other ways too.

Over lunch in Kingsford Chinese Restaurant, or somewhere similar, I suggested she talk to Emu Music about the possibility of translating some of their great congregational songs for an Indonesian audience. This came about because I asked her what she loved to do in ministry, in service of others, and what her dream ministry would look like. And then tried to help her work out how she could get there.

As far as I know, she’s made some progress in that direction, and seems to have been encouraged to be innovative and expansive in the way she thinks about her ministry.

My point is, this is an example of one of many conversations I’ve had in more recent years, since MTS, that has restored my faith in the power of words.

More recently,** I spoke to a bloke after church about the sermon, and just a couple of questions led to a conversation about how a person can be a Christian but continue to struggle with sin.

It’s easy to turn up to church each week and not pursue meaningful conversations because we don’t think it will make much difference. But those small conversations really can make an impact. And it’s easy to think an individual Christian’s growth will happen automagically, or though conversations with other people, but each of us is “other people”, and we have the opportunity as we gather on Sunday or mid-week or for dinner and a movie, to effect change in people’s lives by the power of God’s Spirit.

* By “recently” I mean “within the last six months”.

** This actually was relatively recent.

Or you can view the primary documents.

In theatre, age 4min:

At 15min old:

And a “control” shot of Cordie at the same age:

Home and post-feed:

See you on the other side!

UPDATE: Back on Twitter, just for this.

For example, from the Sydney City website (of which north Newtown is a part–where we live), you can access the city’s community profile.

And from the Canterbury City site, you can jump to the area’s community profile.

Unfortunately, some councils, like Marrickville, don’t seem to have purchased these profiles, and instead offer a single PDF with some data in it.

Numbers 1 and 3 are both Shaikh people, in Bangladesh and India respectively. Together they account for 200 million people, with roughly two-thirds in Bangladesh and the other third in India. They are overwhelmingly Muslim.

The Joshua Project describes the number of Christians among these people as “very few, if any, known believers,” with approximately 0.0% Evangelicals.

Check out The Joshua Project. For Christians, it’s much better than the CIA World Factbook, for example, because it deals with people groups, not just nation states. Loads of information for education, encouragement, challenge and prayer.

Check out the NSW Food Authority’s name and shame list. Search by postcode or suburb name to view penalty notices on food retailers.

I’ll be avoiding this restaurant in Newtown, for example.

One thing that struck me recently was in TIME magazine’s annual top 100. One of the profiles was on the ladies from The View, a US talk show I can’t bear to watch.

There was a caricatured drawing of the ladies from the view, accompanying the profile, which bore this caption:

Fast Fact: All five hosts are mothers; they have six children among them.

Isn’t that interesting? Out of the five of them, four have only one child. And the other one has only two children. When I first saw it, I said to Sally that I’d bet the one with two children was the young Republican, turns out that was right - and she’s expecting her third.

From recent comments on another blog…

Me:

I love playing this game with my little girl: she’s looking at a picture of a crab and I say, what’s that?

She says, “Prab.”

I say, “What did you call it? Prab?”

“Prab!”

“Prab.”

“Praaabb!!”

“Prab.”

“PRAAABBBB!!!”

“Prab.”

“Don’t, daddy.”

We can argue that for hours.

Ben McLaughlin:

Hey Ben, thanks for stopping by. Nice to hear you exasperate your child too.. no wonder she get’s prabby.

The show is a televisation of a book by the same name. The book is authored by an Arab-American academic who wants to lift the veil, so to speak, on what he thinks is a conspiracy of racism, fear and hatred in Hollywood against Arabs.

He cites (and shows clips from) films such as Death Before Dishonor, Rules of Engagement, True Lies, Aladdin, and everyone’s favourite, Navy Seals, starring Charlie Sheen.

The premise of the program is that Hollywood continues to present Arabs in films through a series of archaic stereotypes, in a similar way to representations of Chinese and Jewish people in literature past.

Although I felt he was overstating his case early on, the evidence mounts, and I found it amazing to see how blind I am to these kinds of things in film.

It’s a shame that Middle Eastern culture isn’t given more positive press. Obviously Islam has some serious issues, and the author in the program admits that religion (dominated by Islam) plays a massively significant role in Middle Eastern life and culture, but there seems so much else to embrace; Persian culture, for one, is fascinating (though it’s not Arab, of course).

Byron has posted a thoughtful entry regarding a video which warms of the “Islamic threat” to Western civilisation and culture. The video is a depressing piece of sensationalised manipulation.

Fish’s most recent article in the NY Times is an exceptional and easy-to-read argument for faith statements being the ground of all epistemologies, not just ones that explicitly involve faith: ie religions. That is, believing that science/reason is basic and the ultimate method of obtaining truth is a faith statement.

I read a paper Swanny sent me last year by Fish on conversion and adopting new beliefs. It was a great read, and Paul Campos gives a taste of it here.

This stuff is great for helping Christians think clearly about their own presuppositions, while also giving us a powerful set of tools to employ in conversations with atheists or agnostics.

Don’t ever let anyone get away with saying that science has disproved religion.

I’ve realised there’s a bit of a feedback loop going on with prayer (or lack of it). I fail to pray for ministries I’m planning or involved in, if they don’t work for whatever reason, I look to myself for the reasons why (since I was the only contributing factor because I didn’t talk to God about it), that makes me think I’m the only factor in ministries working or not working, so I work much harder on being effective and continue to fail to pray.

Lame.

It’s all in God’s hands, whether I pray or not, but he listens to my prayers and responds to them. That’s why Jesus could say to his disciples:

“The harvest is plentiful, but the labourers are few; therefore pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out labourers into his harvest.” (Matt 9:37-38)

In that spirit, there’s a group of us at college meeting to pray for ministry in Indonesia tomorrow: Tuesday 19th May, 3pm, Upper Lecture Rm, DBK Centre, Moore College, 1 King St Newtown. All welcome.

And also on my radar, who’s going to the “prayer assault” the Archbishop has planned this Friday at the cathedral?

“If we are hoping that somehow there is to be a great movement to God in our generation it is hardly likely to be as a response to tepid and half-hearted prayer by Christians. But I sometimes fear that this is all we have time for,” Archbishop Jensen says.

“By agreeing to meet together like this we encourage each other and are more fervent in our prayers. This is the sort of assault which Satan dreads.”

Details: Friday 22nd May, 10am-2.30pm, St Andrew’s Cathedral, Sydney.

I won’t be able to make all of it, but I’m keen to get there for some praying. This isn’t the only reason I’ll be going by any means, but on a personal level, I don’t want to look back on the great work God did in Sydney and Australia in 2010-2020 and remember how little I was a part of it in prayer - the ministry activity that matters above all others.

The brief for the ad, made by The Foundry, was to end shape (fat) discrimination. They took that brief very seriously and ad they came up with is offensive, provocative and clever.

They couldn’t show the ad on The Gruen Transfer, but it’s been posted at antiprejudicead.net, and the ad video also includes 15 minutes of panel discussion, which is really interesting.

For my part, I don’t think the ad would be effective if it ran for real, mainly because people who discriminate on the basis of shape (and who can say they don’t?) aren’t going to agree with the premise of the ad. I’ll let you watch it.

The book is a model of reasonable, biblical discussion of important issues. He says a great many interesting and edifying things, but one struck me as I was thinking recently about people, the people who live and work around us, who we seek to reach with the gospel.

In the context of regeneration, that process whereby a person’s heart is moved to consider God and the gospel of Jesus, and turn in faith, Ryle says,

… we must furthermore be aware that the vast majority of people are utterly unfit to enjoy heaven in their present state. I state it as a great fact. Is it not so? Look at the masses of men and women gathered together in our cities and towns, and observe them well. They are all dying creatures; all immortal beings; all going to the judgment seat of Christ; all certain to live forever in heaven or in hell. But where is the slightest evidence that most of them are in the least degree meet and ready for heaven?

Look at the greater part of those who are called Christians, in every part throughout the land. Take any parish you please in town or country. Take that which you know best. What are the tastes and pleasures of the majority of the people who live there? What do they like best when they have a choice? What do they enjoy most when they can have their own way? Observe the manner in which they spend their Sundays. Mark how little delight they seem to feel in the Bible and prayer. Take notice of the low and earthly notions of pleasure and happiness which everywhere prevail, among young and old—among rich and poor. Mark well these things—and then think quietly over this question: “What would these people do in heaven?”