Not heard even one time in the last two decades:  “I am concerned about my poor performance in laying up treasure in heaven.”

[From Dan Edelen at Cerulean Sanctum]

President Barack Obama

After a seemingly endless campaign, Barack Obama has been elected to be the 44th President of the United States of America.  Our newspapers and televisions have been full of images of queuing voters and cheering crowds, as well as endless speculation about what this will mean for America and the rest of the world.

I don’t think anyone can doubt that this was a highly significant election.  People loved the message of change – and that voice must be heard.  We must give thanks also that this marks a significant step forward in race relations in the US.

However, I am very concerned that Christians in the UK have not seen the full picture.  Many Christians in the US were deeply opposed to an Obama win, but the mainline media has simply ignored the issues that led to such concerns.

The primary issue is that of abortion.  No doubt there will be a variety of opinion on this matter among magazine readers.  And of course the first thing to say is that Christianity is not about imposing a moral code on others, but about forgiveness and new life in Christ.  However, Christianity insists on the sanctity of human life.  Humans are created in the image of God.  Some abortions take place in terrible circumstances (e.g. rape or to save the mother’s life).  But the vast majority are for social reasons: a pregnancy and child would be “inconvenient” so the unborn baby is murdered.  This is a tragedy on a colossal scale.  And here’s the problem: Barack Obama views on abortion are extremely bad.

“Extreme” is the right word to use:

“Barack Obama is the most extreme pro-abortion candidate ever to seek the office of President of the United States. He is the most extreme pro-abortion member of the United States Senate. Indeed, he is the most extreme pro-abortion legislator ever to serve in either house of the United States Congress.”

This is the carefully considered opinion of Robert P George, McCormick Professor of Jurisprudence at Princeton University (simply one of an impressive list of posts he has held).  Obama has promised that “the first thing I’d do as President is sign the Freedom of Choice Act”.  This would make abortion a federally guaranteed right through all nine months of pregnancy for any reason.  He opposes the ban on the horrific practice of partial-birth abortion, in which a baby is partially-born (feet first, with the head remaining in the birth canal) before the brain is suctioned out causing the skull to collapse.  Obama wants to strip federal funding from pro-life crisis pregnancy centers that provide alternatives to abortion.  He has opposed legislation to protect children who are born alive following an unsuccessful abortion, instead of leaving them to die (something that happens in this country too).

There are other reasons why many Christians opposed Obama, some ethical, some economic, some political.  It is a shame that these reasons have not been made apparent in our own press.

We must pray for Obama and the tough choices he will make.  American Christians need to repent where they have overlooked the Republican Party’s failure to reduce abortion levels significantly.  The solution is not politics, although there are battles still to be fought and won.  No, the solution is to trust Jesus and live in his strength, to proclaim the gospel and love our neighbours.  More important than campaigning is the need to demonstrate that following Jesus really does produce a radically different lifestyle: looking after orphans and the elderly, the poor and the troubled; providing extended families for those don’t have abortions; demonstrating grace to those who do.  That is an authentic pro-life position, and ultimately will be more powerful than whatever President Obama does.

For some good post-election reading, check the links at http://vasbyburnie.net/2008/11/15/some-election-round-up/

Obama’s Extreme Pro-Abortion stance.

Obama’s anti-Christian policies.

What people were looking for in a President, and why only Jesus can provide.

From the incredibly insightful Cerulean Sanctum, two great articles calling on Christians to repent of our hypocrisy, stop trusting politicians to be our Saviour, and start living like Jesus.

1. On Election Eve

2. Aftermath

Here are some good quotes:

Well, conservative Christians are most definitely prolife, right? Not really. What we are is antiabortion. We are by no means prolife. If we were truly prolife then orphanages would be relegated solely to Dickens’s Oliver Twist, and nursing homes would be empty, instead of filled with our elderly parents. Again, what we are against and what we are for are not the same thing. We have to stop pretending they are.

Evangelizing the world is much tougher, especially in a post-Christian West that has been inoculated against the Gospel by Christians who talk a good faith but who live it haphazardly. Heart change only comes, though, when Christians stop talking about evangelism and actually start doing it. It’s when our walk matches our talk. When our rhetoric matches the Bible and is lived out before the world, then people might sit up and take notice. We have to stop dedicating so much time to erecting our individual kingdoms and spend more time working with the Lord to build His Kingdom His way.

So let’s look to Jesus!  Two articles from Christ The Truth will help you do this:

1. Election results - latest.

2. Sending our Man to the seat of power.

It’s arrived!  The following is taken directly from Goodmanson.com:

The Audio for The Total Church North America Conference 2008 have now been uploaded. Total church is a way of thinking about church and mission in the 21st century which sees the local Christian community as integral to Christian living and Christian mission. The Christian life is ‘total church’ - our identity is communal. View all at the Session Archive or browse the Main & Breakout sessions below:

Main Sessions

A Community-centered Gospel – Steve Timmis
The gospel is about a King who died to rescue a people who would reveal his character by their shared lives. In keeping with who I am ‘in Adam’, I individualize and privatize the gospel so that church is reduced to a necessary but often intrusive addendum. The gospel calls us to live ‘in Christ’ corporately and so show the power of the cross to reconcile and create community. (A Community-Centered Gospel Q&A)

A Gospel-centered Community – Steve Timmis
The gospel is that which creates, sustains, nurtures and perfects the church. To achieve this, the gospel needs to be at the center of all we are and do as the people of God. The gospel needs to be taken out of our pulpits and meetings and applied into the mundane and routine of our corporate and personal lives. (A Gospel-Centered Community Q&A)

Rethinking Attractional Church – Tim Chester
Attractional church (‘come to us’) and missional church (‘go to them’) are often set up as alternatives, yet throughout the Scriptures God calls his people to a life that attracts the nations. We can bring attractional and missional approaches together by re-conceiving church as a community rather than an event. (Rethinking Q&A Session)

Remodeling Attractional Church – Steve Timmis
As we focus more on the quality of our lives together rather than the slick performance of our Sunday meetings we will see how a gospel community is an integral and indispensable piece of the evangelism jigsaw. In fact, people won’t be able to fully understand the magnitude of what God has done in Christ without it. (Remodeling Q&A Session)

Making Disciples for Missional Church – Tim Chester
‘I’m free and belong to no man’ could be the slogan of our age. But Paul continues: ‘I make myself a slave to everyone, to win as many as possible.’ What kind of people are going to sustain a church planting movement? This session explores how the cross and resurrection should shape our lives. (Making Disciples Q&A)

Making Disciples in Missional Church – Tim Chester
This session looks at how we train and pastor one another in the context of ordinary life and the context of Christian community.

Breakout Sessions

Being Neighbors: a Gospel Strategy (Steve Timmis)
When so much emphasis is placed on being missional and incarnational, contextual and radical it’s easy to forget the simplicity and significance of the truth that gospel makes us into lovers, of both God and others. Instead of trying to send out edgy, hardcore dudes with body piercing and tattoos, we should be satisfied with sending people who will be the neighbors everyone wants to have as a neighbor.

Forming a Gospel Community (Jeff Vanderstelt)
Now that many are aware of the need to form gospel communities, how do we move from theology and theory to actual forming and leading them? This session will explore the process and the specifics of moving an individualistic group of people toward a gospel-centered community on mission.

One-Anothering: A Communal Gospel (David Fairchild)
Why are so many Christians detached and isolated from one another? How can we experience a radically reshaped community? What kind of social ethic does the Gospel produce? What would it look like if we lived lives together as if the Gospel were true? Join us as we unpack the various “one another” passages in a quest to answer these questions together.

Evangelising the Urban Poor (Tim Chester)
We have endless resources on reaching postmoderns, most of which in fact address student and professional culture. In comparison there’s very little on understanding and reaching the urban poor. Drawing on insights from biblical counselling, this session suggests some ways forward for evangelizing and discipling the urban poor. Join the work-in-progress!

Story & Rhythm of Soma Community (Caesar Kalinowski)

Reading Cultural Texts (Mike Gunn)
This is a missional gaze at pop culture. We will be taking a look at the “Other” gospels in our culture (Media, film, books, etc.), and how to read them in a way that can help propel you to a better understanding of them for the sake of the gospel. We will look at the reason why this is important to our mission, as well as, some help for understanding and engaging pop culture in authentic ways.

Out of the Frying Pan… (David Fairchild & Mark Moore)
Is God calling your church out of Ur? How do you get your church to move from traditional to missional? Both Mark Moore and David Fairchild are practicing church planters that initially planted relatively traditional churches built around the Sunday gathering. As they labored to develop deep community as a gospel display people for their cities, they realized things needed to change. Come and hear their stories and insights as they share what pitfalls to avoid and what challenges to accept as missional leaders. This breakout is intended for anyone looking to turn the corner missionwards!

Beyond Total Church – Sowing the Seeds of a Movement (Tim Chester)
How can we plant churches that plant churches? What can we learn from church planting movements? How can we build in reproducibility?

Communication in a Post-Christian World (Drew Goodmanson & Caesar Kalinowski)
The culture is changing and it requires new thought in communication. This session will help you learn how to effectively minister in a post-Christian context. Come learn the 1) five values of this Post-Christian generation, the 2) ten idols that enslave them and 3) effective ways to communicate the eternal and unchanging gospel message.

The Everyday Rhythms of a Gospel Display People (Jeff Vanderstelt)
The gospel community is called to be a display of the gospel in everyday ways of life so that others might see what their life would look like in the gospel. In order to do this, the church needs to lead their people to identify everyday practices and then lead them to live out their identity in Christ within them. This session will identify some of those everyday rhythms and and then explore how we can display the gospel through them.

True Gospel Community in a Truly Big Metroplex (Mark Moore)
Being a gospel community that does life and mission together is sometimes easier said than done. This is especially the case in large cities that are characterized by sprawl as well as population. This session will concentrate on leading your people to make missionary decisions in their everyday lives in response to the gospel. Specific challenges to this way of life in a metroplex setting will be examined.

Reaching the Domains of Society (Drew Goodmanson & Caesar Kalinowski)
How do we bring gospel renewal to our cities in the 7 pillars of society… Business, Education, Healthcare, Government, Media, Social Services [including other churches] & Marginalized? We believe the gospel informs all of life and this good news helps shape how we view the world and our involvement in it. How do we equip Christians to engage in redemptive work in science, politics, art, culture, business, economics, education, local concerns, mercy ministries, social justice, environmentalism, law, media, social concerns and spirituality.

Panel Q/A Session

Wrapping up Total Church (Tim Chester)
This session will be built around the questions of those attending, especially concerning the application and implications for the issues Tim raised during his main sessions.

Developing Missional Leaders (Jeff Vanderstelt)
There is plenty of opportunity to hear and learn about being a gospel-centered church on mission. And, after a few days at a conference, the tendency of teachers and preachers is to go home and tell our people to get going. If we are going to lead a gospel-centered church on mission we must do more than that. During this session we will explore some ways to identify, equip and support a group of gospel-centered leaders to share in leading the mission with us.

Urban Discipleship (Mike Gunn)
The city holds more than 50% of of the world’s population, and is growing rapidly toward a world-wide megalopolis, while the church continues to migrate to the suburbs. The city also holds both the keys to the culture, and abyss of brokenness. In America our cities are becoming multi-ethnic/racial posing unique challenges and opportunities for our churches. In this session we will take a look at the role of the church (Make disciples), what it looks like to make disciples, and why we should be doing it in the cities of West and the world! ]]> http://vasbyburnie.net/2008/10/25/total-church-audio-has-arrived/feed/ http://vasbyburnie.net/2008/10/17/an-assembly-on-the-prodigal-son/ http://vasbyburnie.net/2008/10/17/an-assembly-on-the-prodigal-son/#comments Fri, 17 Oct 2008 11:26:04 +0000 admin http://vasbyburnie.net/?p=96 A few weeks ago I did an assembly for our local First Schools (ages 4-8/9) on the Prodigal Son.  The method was:

1. Read the story

2. Explain the basic point

3. Re-read the story with the children making actions / sounds when they hear key words.

My main aim was that the children learn the story, as so many people these days have no knowledge whatsoever of the Bible.  Having the children listen for key words means they are paying close attention to the reading.  I used the Good News Bible (I think) but adapted it so that the key words were more frequent.  For example, at the end the father says “… your brother lived with pigs but now he’s home. He was lost but now he’s been found.”  Okay, it’s a bit dodgy to change the Bible - but I reckoned the children would enjoy another opportunity to oink!

The text (and a few suggested actions / sounds) can be found here.  If you use it for real, I suggest you ask the children to come up with sounds / actions but don’t hesitate to bring your own ideas in.

And for Glen’s comments on this parable: go here.

“The Peasant Princess” is a website about the new sermon series on Song of Songs at Mars Hill, Seattle.  Even if you have no intention of viewing the sermons, check it out and enjoy the quality of the site.

“Pastor: Mentor the Young Men” is a sermon / article about mentoring men (duh!).  I’ve only flicked through it, but it could be helpful for getting ministers to put the “Two-tee-two-two” principle into practice (read 2 Timothy 2:2 to make sense of that).

A series of talks by Tim Keller and Edmund Clowney on “Preaching Christ in a Postmodern world” is available free from iTunes.  [Grrr. I had to exit Linux and go into Windows XP to install iTunes in order to download these.  It reminded me why I'm happy with LinuxMint]

Have you been reading Christ The Truth recently? No? Well abandon this site immediately and go there. Your time will be far better spent

Pittsburgh Diocese is soon to vote whether to leave TEC and come under the authority of Greg Venables, Archbishop of the Southern Cone (see an excellent interview with him here).  This has so angered the “inclusive” part of TEC that, breaking their own church laws, they have voted to have him removed from office.

For the evidence: see this from the Anglican Curmudgeon:

Despite last-minute pleas for reason and common sense to prevail, the House of Bishops of the Episcopal Church has voted to depose Bishop Robert Duncan of Pittsburgh, by a reported vote of 87 to 36, with four abstentions. It is now appropriate to ask: what have they accomplished? What have they wrought?

(Note: my use of the pronoun “they” in this post refers only to the majority, and not to the courageous 36 who voted against the tyranny of the majority. My hat goes off to the latter.)

1. Have they in fact legally deposed him? No. The motion in fact failed, for lack of the required number of those in favor. Counting active and retired bishops, there are approximately 300 bishops entitled to a seat and vote in the House (there were 294 as of the last meeting, in March). Given what the plain language of the Canon has always required, there needed to be at least 151 or so bishops present at the meeting and all voting “Yes” for the consent to deposition to take effect.

2. Did they even try to follow the Canon? No. The announcement of the meeting on August 20 contained no hint of any vote to consent to deposition being on the agenda. It was only on September 12—five days before the meeting began—that the plan for the vote to be held was announced. So there was no attempt, not even a pretense of going through the motions, to do what was necessary to have the required number of bishops in attendance.

3. Were the parliamentary rulings announced in advance of the meeting valid? No. The announcement that they would require only a simple majority of those present and voting was an admission of their cowardice in failing to call together the number of bishops that the Canon requires. And both that ruling, as well as the ruling that the deposition could go forward despite there having been no previous inhibition of Bishop Duncan, were based on the Chancellor’s and the Parliamentarian’s resolution of what were claimed to be ambiguities in the language of the Canon.

NEWSFLASH for the Chancellor and the Parliamentarian: The House of Bishops governs itself by Roberts Rules of Order in situations not expressly addressed by the House’s own rules. And Roberts Rules Revised (latest [10th] edition) provides, at page 573:

Each society decides for itself the meaning of its bylaws [here: Canons]. . . . An ambiguity must exist before there is any occasion for interpretation. . . . Again, intent plays no role unless the meaning is unclear or uncertain, but where an ambiguity exists, a majority vote is all that is required to decide the question.(Emphasis added.) So neither the Chancellor nor the Parliamentarian were allowed to decide the question of “ambiguity” in advance of the meeting—no one, not even the Chair, was so authorized. The question was required to be put to the meeting itself for a vote (but only if there was an ambiguity in the first place!), and that was not done—instead, the Chair made “rulings”, both in advance and in the meeting, and the appeals from the rulings were denied, by voice vote. So now we have another canonical (parliamentary) violation to add to the catalog.

4. Have they managed to stop the vote to amend Pittsburgh’s Diocesan Constitution from taking place? No, again. The Standing Committee will temporarily replace the Bishop, as the Constitution provides, and the Convention will go forward as scheduled.

5. Have they achieved a self-fulfilling prophesy, in making inevitable the withdrawal of the Diocese from TEC that they wanted to prevent? Emphatically, YES!

So it is that we may ask, not with Samuel F. B. Morse, “What hath God wrought?”, but instead:

“What have they wrought?”

Well, whatever it is, it is entirely of their own making.  One of the Bishops who voted to depose is reported to have said, after the vote: “Our decisions today were very difficult and came out of our deep love for our Church, a commitment to honor our ordination vows, and a desire to strengthen the Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh.”  (I have added the emphasis.)

Quos deus vult perdere prius dementat.

I’ve just read an article from Professor Gordon Wenham & Revd Dr John Nolland, of Trinity College, Bristol, which is an excellent response.  Essentially they argue that, although the Guardian had overemphasised one aspect of what Bishop James had written, he has failed to take the Bible seriously enough.

James Jones says that his change of mind came because of considering the differing contexts of Christians in Africa and America.  “He says he now sees the African rejection of homosexuality as determined by their context and the American acceptance of homosexuality as determined by theirs. Nigerians oppose homosexual activity because it is illegal and disapproved by Muslims. African Christians do not want to be seen by Muslims as taking the path of Western moral decadence. American Episcopalians however see the question of homosexual rights as a question of civil rights.”

Wenham and Nolland’s response is a great read.  They conclude (emphasis mine):

All this evidence points in the same direction, that the biblical writers cannot be affirming the legitimacy of homosexual practice when they describe same-sex friendship. They clearly approved of the latter, while rejecting the former. It is a pity that Bishop Jones did not pay as much attention to the context in which the Bible was written as he did to that of the contemporary American and Nigerian churches. Would-be preachers are often told that ‘a text out of context is a pretext’. It seems to us that Bishop Jones has by ignoring the context of the biblical writers found a way to keep on the table views that are quite contrary to Scripture.

The article points to a very problematic trend within evangelicalism, certainly in the Anglican church.  The Bible is minimised in an attempt to keep people together.  No one is prepared to say “that teaching is wrong”.  That’s what Rowan Williams consistently fails to do.  It’s why many evangelicals are driven crazy by Fulcrum.  It’s why we have so little confidence that our Bishops have any backbone.

An essential part of the pastoral ministry (whatever words you use: minister, vicar, Bishop, Bible-teacher, etc) is protecting the flock from wolves.  But that means recognising some people are wolves, or at least that their teaching is wolf-flavoured.  And very few people are prepared to do this.

Anyway, this challenged me again to get disciplined in my prayer and Bible reading.  If one was to do Morning and Evening Prayer from the BCP one would read through the Psalms every month.  What a great idea!  As a monk, Luther would go through all the Psalms every week, and there’s a wonderful line as he describes the moment when he discovered the precious reality of justification: he goes through the psalms in his head! looking up the use of the word ‘righteousness’.  The repetition had made him memorise the psalms.

Adding to this, somewhere I read that it was the practice in the Early Post-Apostolic Church that those who were going to be ordained had to memorise the Psalms. (Don’t ask me when, where or how widespread the practice, I can’t remember.)  More recently, in one of the various Anglican splinter groups in America someone was being interviewed by a Bishop as part of the process of being selected for ordination.  His bishop asked him to go through the Psalms, one-by-one, explaining the basic message of each psalm.  After all, the Bishop reasoned, if you are going to be using the Word of God to pastor people, surely the Psalms are your key resource?  The candidate struggled through the first few psalms, but came back a year later having learned them all.

If you don’t want to carry a BCP around with you, not least because you want a modern translation of the Psalms, I have a spreadsheet showing what Psalms are to be read each day: here (as Excel spreadsheet) or here (as OpenDocument spreadsheet).

We’d value your prayers on Friday and for recovery afterwards.

UPDATE:

Thanks for the prayers. She waited happily and patiently until 11.45am to go down to
theatre, and was a real star as she was given the anaesthetic.  Two and a half hours later we collected her from recovery room.  She was a little sad to begin with but after a 3 hour sleep she woke up full of smiles and a very big appetite!

We came home last night.  Since then she’s been happy and not at all bothered about the bandage.  The surgeon seemed pleased with the op and we go back on 9th September to have this bandage removed and see how the hand is progressing.