It isn't you not you - it's me

Dear Blogger.

Thanks for agreeing to meet with me for coffee. Ohh sure we could have done this somewhere more private, but, well... having people around... it's nice isn't it!

Things have been... strained recently, haven't they?

Yes they have. We started out having fun, I'd post on you, a few friends would comment. Good times.

But then things started getting weird. All of the sudden I wanted you to pretty yourself up and you refused!

And now I need to drop the bombshell. There's another blog. I've been posting on it. You know my compost series that you said was dumb - well Wordpress loves it. It's more user-friendly – more attractive.

So blogger, I think we need to... break up.

Ohh please don't sob, we knew it was coming.

No I'm sorry, my mind is made up.

That's just it, I'm not sure you can change. There just aren't the same hassles with Wordpress.

No I'm sorry, if you're going to be like that I'm just going to leave right now. Goodbye blogger.

World-Views - making it better

In my last post I explained how the world views evangelistic tool works, now I want your help in making it even better.

The actual survey that I've used in the past was created by UCCF, which is the UK IFES member organisation. They developed not only the survey but the computer programme as well. Both can be found here.

Now here's the thing. The survey asks six questions and from those six questions tries to box you into a particular world-view (with inconsistencies anticipated). My concern is that some of the questions are a bit too simplistic and aren't nuanced enough. The survey does not make any distinction between post-modernity and existentialism or between eastern panthiestic monism and the new age movement.

This was something I had to live with until James Brennan offered to update the nuts and bolts of the survey programme to make it more user-friendly and adaptable. I'll explain more about that when I actually understand what he's wanting to do but for now what I need is your thinking caps on. Below are the survey questions. The survey contains other text explaining that we all come to life with a set of bedrock ideas and this survey aims to strip us back to that bedrock. It also explains that more than one answer is acceptable for the survey's purposes if they can't make up their mind.

Dependent on how you answer the different questions, you can either pop out as a Theist, Deist, Naturalist, Nihilist, Existentialist or Eastern-Panthiestic Monist. You should be able to figure out which answer will be for which. Got any suggestions for how to make it better?

1. ETHICS

1. Morality is relative to each individual & situation; therefore, whatever works best or seems right at the time is the right thing to do.
2. All moral abuses result from being out of harmony with nature.
3. There are no absolute standards; therefore, each person develops their own moral standard.
4. Morality is meaningless.
5. There is a set of absolute moral guidelines established by God that applies to all cultures and times.
6. None of the above.

2. HUMAN SIGNIFICANCE

1. I have significance and dignity specifically because I am made in the image of God.
2. I create my own significance in spite of the fact that there is no ultimate meaning or purpose.
3. I am significant because I am a human being, one of the most highly evolved forms of life on earth.
4. I am significant because of the god-like potential within myself.
5. As a product of directionless evolution, I have no more significance than a rock or a snail.
6. None of the above.

3. A HUMAN IS...

1. A physical being who makes itself miserable because (s)he asks pointless questions about meaning and purpose.
2. A higher animal; the grand result of millions of years of evolution and his/her immediate social upbringing.
3. A being who is incapable of moral perfection and who is therefore in need of God's forgiveness.
4. A being who has the capacity to create meaning and moral values for him/herself and then to live by them.
5. A spiritual being who should look within themselves for divine potential.
6. None of the above.

4. IN YOUR OPINION 'WHAT HAPPENS TO A PERSON AT DEATH?

1. They cease to exist.
2. They are judged and then rewarded or punished in an after-life according to their choices/actions in this life.
3. They come back in another form (reincarnation), OR pass from one state of illusion to the other.
4. None of the above.

5. THE BEST WAY TO FIND TRUTH IS...

1. Through experimentation on data observable through the five senses.
2. Through not only the senses & reason but especially through special revelation from God (Holy Scriptures, etc.).
3. God reveals truth only through the senses and reason, not through special, supernatural revelation.
4. Truth is subjective; it is whatever I decide it to be.
5. Through mystical experience (Yoga, meditation, visualisation, chanting, astral projection, etc.).
6. Because our brains & senses are the products of directionless evolution, we cannot trust our own perceptions of reality; thus, the concept of truth is meaningless.
7. None of the above.

6. GOD IS...

1. The Creator of the universe. He has concern for and is closely involved with his creation, especially human beings.
2. A being who designed the universe and "set it in motion" but who remains uninvolved or, at best, a distant observer.
3. Non-existent.
4. God exists in the minds of some individuals only for the purpose of creating meaning and value.
5. There is an impersonal divine force that exists within everything and everyone.
6. None of the above.

World Views evangelistic resources revised

Over the last 5 years or so I have been tinkering away with a resource called the world views survey. I’ve used this resource about 20 times and I have personally walked about 200 people through the gospel. After a bit of thinking, reading and pondering the new context that I’ll be using it I’ve decided it needs a bit of a review in a few directions. Before I go into that, I’ll explain how it works so we’re on the same page.

So, what happens is a bunch of people go to a spot where people hang out (e.g. a park)

Then one or two members of the team walk around handing out surveys that have six multiple choice questions on them about things like truth, God, death, ethics, etc.

Once people have completed the surveys they come over to our table to have their results “analysed”. The participants bring their sheets back and one of the team members enters their answers into a specially created computer programme. The computer programme calculates their answers and exclaims at the end "You are an…” (e.g. “You’re an Existentialist" or "You are a Deist" or "You are a Theist").

The data entry person then gives the participant a sticker with their worldview on it. This sounds dorky but people seem to love it.

Not a lot of evangelism going on yet, I know. But here’s where it all begins. Very few people know what a deist is, though they may be practicing deists. So we have team members sitting in chairs with a sticker on that says "Talk to me if you're a…” (e.g. “Talk to me if you’re a Nihilist" or "Talk to me if you're an Eastern Pantheistic Monist") stickers on their shirt. The participant then sits down with those team members and that kicks off some amazing conversations that invariably lead to the gospel.

There are many great benefits of this kind of evangelism.

a) Firstly it is “cold contact” (i.e. it is rare that you’ll actually evangelise your friends, participants will most likely be total strangers). As over 40% of Sydneysiders don’t know a Christian, this ministry is really important if we’re going to reach these people.

b) Secondly, although it begins cold, it is relationally intense. Within a few seconds of chatting you are dealing with the most significant of life issues: death, truth, ethics, human dignity, God. Best of all a huge component of this style of evangelism is listening (The participant shares before we do!)

c) Thirdly, a by-product from all this evangelism is that the world-views survey is just that: a survey. In doing it we get to better know the people around us, their thoughts, needs, and the assumptions that sit behind those thoughts and needs.


Got it? Cool. Now I need your help. Come back tomorrow and I’ll tell you what I mean.

Walk up in Newtown

Cold-contact evangelism is a gospel necessity in Australia. With frightening stats floating around about the high percentage of people in our cities who don’t know a Christian (A Christian!) it is time to suck it up, relinquish our pride, our fear, our shame of the cross and begin relationships with people who are dying in their sin for the express purpose of introducing them to Jesus - the only source of life.

Our church Resolved in Newtown (we’ll tell you all about it later) is still enjoying the curiosity of the new. We are regularly getting 5-10 visitors a week, but without wanting to be too pessimistic, that will soon dry up. What will be left is the work of building relationships with people from the ground up.

So what I want to think through is how do we do that in our context. How is doing “walk up” in Newtown different to doing it anywhere else? What things do we need to be careful of? What opportunities can we exploit for Christ?

Books and Coffee. Two of my faves

Just taking a brief break from the Reformation articles to tell you about a way cool cafe Berkelouw Books I went and saw Con Campbell do his Jazz thing there this afternoon and I loved it. The atmosphere is tops. The building is a converted warehouse and the art and decore is really well selected for the building.

This place would make an excellent venue for a dialogue meeting!

I liked it so much that I went back a after dinner. Anna and I were with friends and we played a game where we had 5 minutes to find two books - one with the best cover and one which everyone should read. I selected at the tomb of the inflatable pig and as my book everyone should read I selected "Texas, Yesterday and Today, with the Constitution of the State of Texas". It has Texas at the start and the end leading me to think that "with the" was the central part of the books chiastic title.

English Reformation 2

Last I posted I mentioned that Henry VIII was keen to annul his marriage with his first wife, well his reasons for doing so weren’t… only about getting a son.

Henry’s interests had been set on another woman as well, Anne Boleyn. Anne was a smart girl who, it is thought, put a copy of a little tract by Tyndale in Henry’s hands which argued that in any realm there ought be only one King (i.e. the Pope wasn’t the boss). Henry loved it. With the help of two of his underlings, Cromwell and Cranmer and with an Act of Parliament the English church was born. This enabled Henry to annul his marriage to Catherine (ta Cranmer) and bastardise Mary.

Cromwell and Cranmer were an interesting pair – the politician and the parson. Cromwell managed to suppress a great deal of Catholic resistance (and there was heaps of it) and Cranmer, who was heavily influenced by the Reformers, set about making significant changes to the way church was done in England (starting with ending the mass and writing several prayer books in English.

Unfortunately for Anne, she too did not produce a son, and after producing a daughter (Elizabeth) and a miscarriage that would have been a boy, Henry turned on his young bride. Cromwell, opportunist that he was, moved against Anne and within a few months her head was on the block in the tower of London. Elizabeth was also bastardised (woot! Bastardised used twice in the same blog!)

Henry went on to have two other children, one illegitimate and the other in marriage (and this time a boy!) Edward (being the first male heir) went on to become king.

Henry is a bit of a disappointment as the reforming king. Not only were his sexual exploits not exactly honourable but he seemed to want a very catholic looking church, just with him as the English Pope. When he died he payed for two priests to say the mass for him forever. But not a single mass was ever said. Edward saw to that.

Edward was a deeply protestant young man (well, as much as you can be at age 9). He had no time for the superstitious nonsense his Father had organised so he scrapped it. But he was also very ill and died at 15. It was such a pity, as he had shown incredible promise, even competently attending parliament at 14. You’ve got to wonder what England would be like if he hadn’t died so young.

Being 15 and all Edward had neglected to have any children and so Mary (who, with Elizabeth, had been… un-bastardised… just before Henry VIII’s death) became the first queen of England since Matilda.

Things at this stage went really bad for the protestants, as Mary remained a devout catholic. Mary rounded up not only protestant leaders for the execution by fire but also ordinary people (such as a blind woman who saved up, bought a bible and paid people to read it to her). Fortunately for the reformation cause, she had two false pregnancies, with the second being a tumour of the bowel. She died childless and with her Catholic England failed.

Next post on her successor – Elizabeth 1

Making sense of the English Reformation

One of the joys of studying at College is, from time to time you have to write essays on topics you know nothing about. I mean it. Nothing. Due to a clerical (deliberately ambiguous, do I mean administrative staff or clergy?) error, our Church History 2 essays, of which all the questions are about the English reformation, have been set to be due before we start that bit of the course.

So I thought I might put together a (very) basic overview that shamelessly links to wikipedia but gives everyone an idea of what was going on in the period, and some mental hooks to hang new knowledge on. I should say, I'm not going to interact with all the fancy shmancy historical theories, I'm just giving a brief overview. It’ll come over a few posts.

Ok. Firstly, what’s a Tudor or a Stewart etc.?

Where you and I have last names, Kings and Queens and their royal families are in houses (like at Hogwarts). Elizabeth II, the current monarch is in the house of Windsor. Henry VIII was the son of Henry VII, the first of the Tudor kings. The house of Stewart followed the House of Tudor after Elizabeth I didn’t make any babies, but we’ll get to that later. We’ll start our story with Henry VIII

Well for starters he was never meant to be king. His older brother Authur was meant to be king. But with his premature death, the young Henry was required to take his brothers widow, the Spanish Catherine of Aragon to be his wife.

Henry VIII was at some level a religious man, brought up a good Catholic as you’d expect him to be. In fact to look at him in the early years of his reign you’d never think that he was in some way a reformer. He even wrote a treatise against the Lutheran threat on the continent. This little tract earned him the title “Defender of the Faith”, which he kept, even after he separated from the Pope who gave it to him.

But then there was a problem. No male heir. Catherine and Henry did have a child, Mary, but (and remember we are traversing culture here) a male heir preserved the House’s claim to the throne. When a female gets married she changes houses and thus the house in charge changes.

Henry, being an amateur theologian, was reading through Leviticus one day and came across Leviticus 20:21 (not 19 as it says in Heinze). Henry freaked out (and seemingly forgot that he wasn’t childless, Mary just wasn’t a boy). So he planned to annul his marriage with Catherine. Ordinarily the Pope would’ve been only too happy to ablidge, but he had just been invaded by the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V Catherine’s nephew. Awkward!

How’d he sort it out? Next post.