Andy spent the sunny afternoon of Father’s day clearing out the drains on our long driveway. As I worked alongside him It reminded me so clearly of the illustration I heard a few years ago in the Alpha Marriage course. They said that, in marriage, if we donโt deal with issues that annoy us, or we shove things under the carpet, what happens is these things build up and then get blown up out of proportion later.
Our drain is a lot like that: If Andy doesnโt clear out the accumulated leaves on a regular basis, when the heavy rains come (like this week!) the leaves block block the drains and cause a quagmire of mud all over our driveway and we have a major problem to deal with.
There are a few analogies we can draw from this:
Firstly, itโs far better to deal with issues when they are small. It still hurts but much better than allowing these issues to grow and intensify later.
Also, Andy clears the drains out on a nice calm day – and not when itโs raining.
Why is that? Cos itโs so much less of a chore on a nice day.
The same with resolving issues. Timing is everything. What ever you do, do not try to confront issues when youโre still angry, or upset. Do it when youโre feeling calm and have a ‘sunny’ disposition. The outcome is likely to be a lot more constructive.
So for example, the wrong time to confront your spouse about budget issues is not when youโve just tried to reconcile your bank statement and you’re feeling stressed.
Much better to wait until those feelings of frustration have calmed a little.
And hereโs a tip that has come out of Dr John Gottmanโs marriage research:
the way you start a conflict usually determines how it will end. So start gently, and with a mindset that you want a good outcome. Donโt start when youโre angry, with the intention to win, or find fault. It wonโt achieve anything positive.
In our house of 2 adults and 2 teenagers we have a fair bit of conflict. But we try to deal with things when they are little, rather than storing them up to intensify into a full-on argument.
Maybe try the same approach and hopefully you’ll avoid a build up of ‘verbal’ mud and debris.
Nikki Jump in Puddles
Congratulations to Andy and Nikki Bray! Recipients of the NZCN Unsung Hero Award 2013 …for all the work they do towards helping New Zealanders build better marriages and families.
No matter what your atheist friends or relatives tell you, theyโve got deep spiritual longings. And Jesus is the answer to those longings.
Nat Case calls himself an atheist. He says that he doesnโt believe that God, in the sense of a โliving presence, with voice and face and will and command,โ exists.
Yet, as he recently wrote in the online journal Aeon, he regularly attends Quaker meeting services.
The โwhy?โ behind this contradiction says a lot about how impoverished the modern worldโs alternatives to Christian faith are. Caseโs contradiction can be traced to his childhood. A โvoracious reader,โ he was โmoved to tearsโ by magical stories. Even as an adult, those stories and the magic they portrayed stayed in his heart and despite knowing theyโre fiction, he still โbelieves in them.โ
Most of all, they didnโt bore him, which atheism does because it tells him what he isnโt, and like all of us he yearns to know what he is.
Fifteen years ago, Case started attending Quaker meetings after being turned off by what he calls the โmushiness [he had] found in the liberal spiritual communities that admit non-believers.โ
He says that โ[B]inding oneself to specific patterns, habits, and languageโ provided what he calls a โspineโ that was missing in other groups.
Still for all its subjectivity and theological imprecision, a Quaker meeting is still, as Case acknowledges, โa religious service, expectant waiting upon the presence of God.โ And to put it mildly, that places someone who doesnโt believe in God in a difficult position: How do you submit, in the way that believers are supposed to, to something you donโt believe exists?
And how does that โsubmissionโ produce a โhumbling of selfโ and โlaying low of egoโ when you canโt even muster a โvagueโ and โinwardly detected sense of the divine?โ
Caseโs โsolutionโ is to treat the whole experience as a kind of shared โbubble of fiction,โ in which โprayerโ is addressed to โwhom it may concern.โ Itโs all his materialisticโor as he puts it, โstuff is all there isโโworldview will permit.
What that worldview definitely will not permit is to contemplate the possibility that the stories he lovesโor as C.S. Lewis puts it, โThe Great Storyโ โreally are true. His materialism causes him to reject the idea of God โas a living presence, with voice and face and will.โ
Thus, heโs left feeling something akin to the โstab, the pain, the inconsolable longingโ that Lewis described in โSurprised by Joy,โ with no real prospect of having that yearning satisfied.
The sad irony is that when he suggests that what people like him need is a god they can โplausibly imagine,โ he is apparently unaware that such a god actually exists: His name is Jesus. As John 1:18 says,
โNo one has ever seen God, but the one and only Son, who is himself God and is in closest relationship with the Father, has made him known.โ
When Case yearns for a god โthat we talk to, and who [talks] back,โ he is describing the GodโFather , Son and Holy Spiritโwho Christians profess and worship.
This was the God who satisfied Lewisโs yearning and can satisfy Caseโs. He is the one towards whom the stories Case loves ultimately point. He both models and empowers the humility Case speaks of.
His name is Jesus. Itโs our job to proclaim Himโboth in word and deedโand to pray that peopleโs worldviews donโt keep them from finding what they desperately long for.
Listen to a panel discussion from the Centre for Theology & Public Issues (CTPI) recorded in August, 2013.
The questions discussed
were submitted by prospective members of the audience relating to issues of current concern including:
surveillance
the living wage
the Michael Swann case
regional development
Christchurch’s new cardboard cathedral
affordable housing
the state of political parties
The panel included:
Laura Black – CEO, Methodist Mission
Dr Bryce Edwards – Department of Politics
Greg Fleming – CEO, The Maxim Institute, and
Jolyon White – Social Justice Enabler, Anglican Diocese of Christchurch
Andrew Bradstock, NZCN Unsung Hero Award recipient in the Secularism category for 2013, recently stepped down from his role as Centre Director to return to the United Kingdom and was not present for this discussion.
Glyn Carpenter, NZCN National Director, was in Dunedin for the three days prior to this recording, participating in discussions on similar issues with our secularism panel together with Andrew Bradstock.
Wow, what a statement. I didn’t know what to think when I saw the title of the video clip that one of NZCN’s Secularism discussion panel members circulated, but I’m glad I watched it.
What Role Can Churches Play in Community Renewal?
On 9 August, 2013, The NY Times shared the story of Kip Jacob’s church in Portland, Oregon and the amazing partnership they’ve had with Roosevelt High School. “Help from Evangelicals (Without Evangelizing)“ The Times called it. The initial paragraph reads:
PORTLAND, Ore. โ Four summers ago, on her first day as an administrator at Roosevelt High School here, Charlene Williams heard that the Christians were coming. Some members of an evangelical church were supposed to be painting hallways, repairing bleachers, that sort of thing. The prospect of such help, in the fervently liberal and secular microclimate of Portland, did not exactly fill her with joy.
Following is a 6:31 minute sizzle reel of the documentary made about the project.
Qideas.com filmed an interview with Kip Jacobs, pastor at SouthLake Church, about this project. Click here to watch the story of what happens when a mostly white, affluent suburban church shows up at the doorsteps of an urban high school with a desire to work together. Through his experience, Jacob challenges churches to get involved with their neighbourhood schools and invest in their renewal.
After watching these videos, I followed the link on Qideas.org to a follow-up story. In this clip, The presenter interviews two friends, Tom Krattenmaker, who is a regular contributor to USA Today, and Kevin Palau, president of the Luis Palau Association, as they discuss how God is moving in Portland, what dynamics are at play that movements in other cities might resemble and urge us to prepare for future cultural shifts.
Other videos about this particular project in Portland can be found on the BeUndivided YouTube channel. Their website, which is full of resources and ideas, can be accessed here.
What do you think? Is it better than prayer in schools? What can we take from this and apply to our culture, here in Aotearoa?
Please leave your thoughts and comments below and share this link with others. Challenge your Christian friends to think about what role they can take while living in a secular society. We look forward to the discussions!
Blessings,
Gayann
Gayann and her husband, Stephen, have provided web design and email communication support to NZCN since 2006. She has home schooled their two children for the past nine years, but was โmade redundantโ at the start of 2013. Since then, she has taken a more active role with NZCN.
Last week, we posted an essay by EAUK’s Danny Webster titled One Way Christians Can Respond to Secularism. In his essay, Danny described how the churches of Southampton partnered with local government when the council asked for their help. Fantastic.
It has been 50 years since Martin Luther King gave one of the most famous speeches in American History. A lot has changed in the USA since then, but how far has his dream come to being fulfilled?
How relevant would this speech be in society today? Are all people, everywhere, free… equal in the eyes of men? Do we live in a democratic age or do we just think we do?
Click here to read the full text (courtesy of NPR).
Have you ever asked a young atheist why he or she doesnโt believe? Well, one researcher did. And the answers may surprise you.
Itโs something most Christian parents worry about: You send your kids off to college and when they come back, you find theyโve lost their faith. The prospect of this happening is why many parents nudge their kids towards Christian colleges, or at least schools with a strong Christian presence on campus.
But in many ways, the damage has been done long before our children set foot on campus. Thatโs the message from a recent article in the Atlantic Monthly.
My friend Larry Taunton of the Fixed Point Foundation set out to find out why so many young Christians lose their faith in college. He did this by employing a method I donโt recall being used before: He asked them.
The Fixed Point Foundation asked members of the Secular Students Associations on campuses around the nation to tell them about their โjourney to unbelief.โ Taunton was not only surprised by the level of response but, more importantly, about the stories he and his colleagues heard.
Instead of would-be Richard Dawkinsโ, the typical respondent was more like Phil, a student Taunton interviewed.. Phil had grown up in church; he had even been the president of his youth group. What drove Phil away wasnโt the lure of secular materialism or even Christian moral teaching. And he was specifically upset when his church changed youth pastors.
Whereas his old youth pastor โknew the Bibleโ and made Phil โfeel smartโ about his faith even when he didnโt have all the answers, the new youth pastor taught less and played more.
Philโs loss of faith coincided with his churchโs attempt to ingratiate itself to him instead of challenging him. According to Taunton, Philโs story โwas on the whole typical of the stories we would hear from students across the country.โ
These kids had attended church but โthe mission and message of their churches was vague,โ and manifested itself in offering โsuperficial answers to lifeโs difficult questions.โ The ministers they respected were those โwho took the Bible seriously,โ not those who sought to entertain them or be their โbuddy.โ
Taunton also learned that, for many kids, their journey to unbelief was an emotional, not just an intellectual one.
Tauntonโs findings are counter-intuitive. Much of what passes for youth ministry these days is driven by a morbid fear of boring our young charges. As a result, a lot of time is spent trying to devise ways to entertain them.
The rest of the time is spent worrying about whether the Christian message will turn kids off. But as Taunton found, young people, like the not-so-young, respect people with convictionโprovided they know what theyโre talking about.
Taunton talks about his experiences with the late Christopher Hitchens, who, in their debates, refrained from attacking him. When asked why, Hitchens replied, โBecause you believe it.โ
I donโt know what that says about Hitchensโ other Christian debate partners, but it is a potent reminder that playing down the truth claims of the Christian faith doesnโt work. People donโt believe those they donโt respect.
Hereโs something that one of the students told Larry Taunton; he said,
โChristianity is something that if you really believed it, it would change your life and you would want to change [the lives] of others. I havenโt seen too much of that.โ
Folks, thatโs pretty sobering. This puts the ball in our court. Are we living lives that show our children that we actually believe what we say we believe? And hereโs another questionโdo we actually believe it? I have to say, as a parent Iโm taking this very seriously. If possible, join me in reading Tauntonโs excellent article here…
