A CHURCH DECIDES TO EXCLUDE WOMEN FROM LEADERSHIP POSITIONS

It's with some trepidation that I finally decided to share my thoughts on the recent decision of the Reformed Church of South Africa (locally known as the "Doppers") to not allow women as elders or pastors. I am not a member of this denomination, and therefore I am not privy to its internal culture or ethos. As an outside observer, though, I see a very traditionalist church with a fundamentalistic approach to Scripture and the reformed tradition.

My initial feeling after reading about the decision was to proclaim, "we're not all like that!" We, meaning the church in general and men in particular. It is of great theological consequence that their intepretation of Scripture got stuck in a legalistic, prescriptive mode by looking for Scripture demands to be met, rather than asking what exactly is the testimony of the texts about God's work in that context and how one should stay faithful to its message in another context.

Also, the modernistic mindset of looking for never-changing general principles clearly permeated the decision's drive. The decision implies that this church will struggle for decades to come to get it reversed - as it will be stuck in reformed church polity procedures governing the reversal of decisions and internal politicking by members.

Finally, this church lost an opportunity to re-align itself as a missional movement geared towards reaching late-modern people in a secular society for Christ. Even if one's interpretation of Scripture dictates women from being excluded as leaders, the openness should've existed to create new structures that would respect this intepretation while searching for ways to allow women to be reached authentically for Christ.

Personally I do not think the Bible writers intended to prescribe never-changing principles to churches for all ages. The instructions were given to specific contexts to enable churches to stay faithfull witnesses for Christ in their communities. In other early-church communities there clearly were women in leadership and ministry positions.

If the Doppers want to be serious about their fundamentalistic commitment to Scripture, all women should start wearing hats to church, all young people who are sexually active should be forced to marry or censured, all divorcees should be cast into hell as adulterers and church meetings should be closed for all but the initiated few.

Ah, but I forgot, this is the church who threatened to split over the use of the communion cup and the singing of songs other than psalms ...

Found on the Web: Paradigm Shifts doing Christian ministry in a pagan environment

This little article was posted on Don Miller's website and can be found here.

Thirteen Paradigm Shifts we encountered doing Christian ministry in a pagan environment…

1. Other People Exist: Simply coming to the understanding that the world does not revolve around “me” but that everybody is having an experience, created by God, loved by God, and that we needed to repent of showing partiality…

2. Nobody will listen to you unless they know you like them: We began to understand that people, subconsciously, merit a religious or philosophical idea not on logical conclusions, but on whether or not the idea creates a “good person”…the definition of a good person being whether or not a person is kind to them, tolerant and understanding, able to listen without arguing and so on.

3. Nobody will listen to God unless they know God loves them: We came to believe there was usually a hidden pain behind hostility, that many people have been hurt by the church, or people or perspectives they believed to represent God. Many times its as simple as an interview they saw on CNN, but an apology and kindness went a long way in helping people understand God was loving.

4. Other people have morality and values: We came to understand that Christians do not own morality, that everybody lives by a moral code, not always informed by an ancient text, and yet it is there. Calling people or even thinking of them as immoral was, then, inappropriate. In fact, we often found that people who did not know Christ lived a morality close to his heart in many areas we had ignored, ie; community, tolerance, social justice, fairness and equality, freedom, beauty and so on and so on.

5. Find common ground: Often the morality of others overlapped Christian morality, and we came to understand that in these cases, we would focus on the overlapping issues. We came to see this as kindness, just as though we were on a date or making friends, we did not focus on what we didn’t have in common, but rather on mutual feelings about life. We would not say or do anything to combat people unless they knew we loved them, and this takes a great deal of time.

6. Define terms in their language: We were careful about Christian sayings and phrases that might be offensive: Crusade, sin, immorality….we came to understand that concepts were more sacred than terms…

7. Telling somebody about the gospel is about them, not us: We were careful not to try to “build our organization” and respected peoples freedom and space. Sharing the gospel became an exercise in friendship, rather than an attempt to grow a machine. Often, people feel used if they feel they are being recruited. The gospel, we learned, is really about them, their feelings about God and truth, about sin, about life

8. Don’t let spreading the gospel feel any different than telling somebody about a love in your life, about your children or a great memory: We realized that in telling somebody about Jesus, we were telling them about somebody we have come to love and need, and about something that had happened to us, an encounter. This keeps us from sounding preachy, and allows us to share part of ourselves in a friendship.

9. Include lost People in Your Community: Our organization was not exclusive. We invited non-believers into the community if they wanted to be invited. We were careful not to not be ourselves with them, but they were certainly invited and enjoyed being a part of the group. We explained terms that we used, what we believed, but other than that, continued as normal.

10. Apologize for what you represent: We discovered that many people have been offended or hurt by what they perceive Christianity to be. We allowed ourselves to stand in the place of “Christianity” and apologize whenever necessary.

11. Be authentic: We discovered the need to be as honest about our lives as possible. We did not feel the need to sale Jesus, as much as share what He has done in our broken lives. We had no problem sharing our doubts and fears about faith, along with our commitment and appreciation for what God had done.

12. Pray for the Salvation of others: We discovered the need to pray for others. This would insure God was working in peoples lives, as we asked Him to. We discovered the work of evangelism is something God lets us watch, but very little of it is what we manipulate. We repented of not believing evangelism was a spiritual exchange between a lost person and God, rather than believing it was a series of ideas we were supposed to convince others of.

13. Ask people if they would like to know Christ: We decided to initiate, whenever the relationship called for it. We were not afraid to ask people if they would like to know God.

CAN A CHRISTIAN LEARN SOMETHING FROM AN ATHEIST?

The following is an article published in the daily Afrikaans newspaper, Beeld. Unfortunately, the website doesn’t say who wrote it. You can read it in Afrikaans on Beeld’s website, here.

Let us learn something from atheists

Atheists are people that believe there is no God. Agnostics believe a person cannot know if there is a God. It was especially the first group who reacted sharply to religious pronouncements in recent times.

The making known of their viewpoints, that was previously unheard of, is good for us. Many religious advisors suggest that we should have unbelievers for friends to aid our growth in credibility ...

· We learn from conversations with unbelievers how loveless and arrogant religious persons act towards them. perhaps it helps us remember that the earliest Christians, who rejected the religioons of their time, were branded as atheists and were discriminated against.

· We learn that we cannot represent our faith with cheap emotion. According to Hans Küng faith isn't based on rational proof or irrational emotions. Faith is "reasonable trust"; that is why healthy faith should remain open to critical investigation and discussion.

· We learn from such conversations that relgion has a diverse effect on the world. There is a tendency by religious leadersto ignore their age's core issues or only philosophize about it. There are few indications of real guts to alleviate the need of society, but many where the powers in control were legtimized.

· We learn that certain similarities exist between atheism and the movement of Christ. Klaus Nürnberger showed that both want to free people from religious and social enslavement.

· We learn that our stubborn ignoring of scientific discoveries and our desperate holding on to ancient presentations create stumbling blocks. It prevents the mesaage about God from reaching atheists in a contemporary way.

INFLUENTIAL CHRISTIAN BLOGGERS & WRITERS OF SOUTH AFRICA

Some guy on Twitter gave me this idea - he made a list of the top ten pastors in America who's twitter thoughts you should follow. That got me thinking on the influential Christian leaders of my own country: If I would have to propose blogsites and Tweeters to someone asking me, who would I suggest?

Let's see ...

* Braam Hanekom
* Andries Louw
* Dries Cronje
* Reggie Nel
* Tom Smith
* Cobus van Wyngaard
* Roger Saner
* Dries Lombaard
* Jan van der Watt
* Stephan Joubert
* Hennie Stander
* Theo Geyser
* Francois Mulder
* Frederick Marais

Cartoon: LAISSEZ-FAIRE

Experts call it the Laissez-faire style of discipline. Put this way, by WeeJee of Life is a Cheese Curl, I think you'll agree it could also be called stupid.

Video Clip: "LAUGHING WITH" by Regina Spektor

This song made me think. Read the lyrics and then listen to the song.

Lyrics

No one laughs at God in a hospital
No one laughs at God in a war
No one’s laughing at God
When they’re starving or freezing or so very poor

No one laughs at God
When the doctor calls after some routine tests
No one’s laughing at God
When it’s gotten real late
And their kid’s not back from the party yet

No one laughs at God
When their airplane start to uncontrollably shake
No one’s laughing at God
When they see the one they love, hand in hand with someone else
And they hope that they’re mistaken

No one laughs at God
When the cops knock on their door
And they say we got some bad news, sir
No one’s laughing at God
When there’s a famine or fire or flood

*Chorus*
But God can be funny
At a cocktail party when listening to a good God-themed joke, or
Or when the crazies say He hates us
And they get so red in the head you think they’re ‘bout to choke
God can be funny,
When told he’ll give you money if you just pray the right way
And when presented like a genie who does magic like Houdini
Or grants wishes like Jiminy Cricket and Santa Claus
God can be so hilarious
Ha ha
Ha ha

No one laughs at God in a hospital
No one laughs at God in a war
No one’s laughing at God
When they’ve lost all they’ve got
And they don’t know what for

No one laughs at God on the day they realize
That the last sight they’ll ever see is a pair of hateful eyes
No one’s laughing at God when they’re saying their goodbyes
But God can be funny
At a cocktail party when listening to a good God-themed joke, or
Or when the crazies say He hates us
And they get so red in the head you think they’re ‘bout to choke
God can be funny,
When told he’ll give you money if you just pray the right way
And when presented like a genie who does magic like Houdini
Or grants wishes like Jiminy Cricket and Santa Claus
God can be so hilarious

No one laughs at God in a hospital
No one laughs at God in a war
No one laughs at God in a hospital
No one laughs at God in a war
No one laughing at God in hospital
No one’s laughing at God in a war
No one’s laughing at God when they’re starving or freezing or so very
poor

No one’s laughing at God
No one’s laughing at God
No one’s laughing at God
We’re all laughing with God

Here's the clip - thanks to Youtube

SUNDAY MORNING PRAYER

Lord,

Here I am.
The commotions inside my soul cause me to listen with a cluttered mind.
If you speak today, I want to hear.
I am of little faith.
Can I ask for mustard seed, please?

AMEN

AFRIKAANS POETRY - "25 Junie 2009"

25 Junie 2009

Michael Jackson het kom groet.

(Hy sal nou nooit weer sing nie.)

Ek het hom ook nie ontmoet nie

en sal dus nie hulde bring nie.

Sy stem bly ewig klink -

ons gaan aanhou na hom luister –

al was sy lewenspad versink

in die skadu’s van die duister.

Dit was nog altyd of Swart of Wit

of Billie Jean is 'n Riller

voor hy in die skande sit …

Iewers in die wêreld is dit nou stiller.

Michael Jackson laat drie kinders na

wat vir altyd oor hulle pa gaan vra.

***

Sy het ook die stryd verloor.

Haar soektog na ewige roem

het langsamerhand versmoor

in 'n kanker wat mense verdoem.

Sy was Charlie se mooiste Engel

en romanties verbind aan 'n Man van Staal.

Later was haar lewenspad verstrengel

met een wat haar sterfkreet wou vertaal.

Ongelukkig het haar laaste asem

verdwyn in die kameraflitse van skok

oor 'n ander, dooier wasem

wat eerder die kykers gaan lok.

Farah Fawcett is ook dood,

maar Michael het haar van die voorblad af gestoot.

WHAT DO MEN EXPECT FROM CHURCH?

This article was originally published on the website of the Dutch Reformed Church's newspaper (and can be viewed in the original Afrikaans here). Angus Buchan is a Zambian-born farmer from Scottich descent who eventually started farming near Greytown, in Kwazulu Natal. He wrote a book about his experiences on God's provision, which was made into the movie - Faith like potatoes. He also pastors a charismatic church in Greytown, and he holds a yearly gathering for men on his farm, to which around 100,000 men came in 2009.

WHAT DO MEN EXPECT FROM CHURCH?

One can reason until daybreak about the 'Mighty Men-conferences. There are academic questions on the why and how of the gatherings that can keep psychologists and sociologists busy for hours on end. There are theological questions about the message being preached and more specifically the theology of manliness that's being preached. There's also the question of the financial profits. And much more. But: It remains a fact, men find something at these meetings that they don't necessarily get at their own churches.

All over the world people talk about the "disappearing men syndrome," that is men who increasingly leave the church. The modern-day Amos figure, Angus Buchan, is enough to give a local pastor a inferiority comlex for the rest of his life and pushing the congregation's evangelism committee to dissolution. Men go to listen to him in hordes bigger as Daniel or Gideon's.

What is happening here? According to a recent study in Britain 60 percent of men said they do not like flowers or embroidered drapes or table cloths in the church. They do not like holding hands or sitting in a circle where they have to talk about their feelings. The part of the church service they like the most, is the sermon, and they'd like to sing more macho songs such as (Onwards Christian Soldiers," or "How Great Thou Art," or "Amazing Grace." They are tired of sentimental lovey-dovey songs. They don't like churches that are made up to look like a Laura Ashley showroom.

It seems therefore as if the church provide more in the needs of women when it comes to the setting up of the church building as well as the structure of the meetings. Little girls sit during lunch break on the school's steps to share their sandwiches. Boys eat theirs quickly and go play competitive games on the playground. In the church, women can do the same, but what challenges are there for the men?

On the question in the investigation of what sort of activities men enjoy, they answered they like doing stuff in teams, such as organising sport competitions, launching do-it-yourself projects, participate in curry-evenings, go bowling or go out together for a beer or watching sports events together. And they want more purpose, more inner discipline (better defined parameters in which they should stay) to live out their faith, less changes in church services, i.e. more continuity and less sentimentality. They want sermons to challenge them intellectually.

Does this mean a return to and enforcing of the traditional roles of (men are from Mars and women are from Venus?" Not necessarily. But Buchan seems to be doing something right. The church has much to learn from him.

IS EVERYTHING ON THE INTERNET IN THE "PUBLIC DOMAIN"?

This is what happens when you think every single thing on the internet falls under the denominator "public domain." Being published on the Internet does NOT mean it's a free-for-all. At least this family didn't find their photo being used to advertise a porn site or something! The article was first published on BBC News. I did not ask BBC's permission to repost their article, as I am not trying to pass it off as my own and I hereby acknoweldge their authorship and copyright. You should therefore go visit their site! Read the article on it's original spot here.

US family turned into advertising

From this family photo in St Louis...

A couple from the United States got a shock when they learned their family photo was being used, unauthorised, on an advertising poster in Prague.

Danielle and Jeff Smith used the photo as their Christmas card, and also posted it on an internet blog.

A friend travelling in the Czech capital alerted them when he spotted the Smiths smiling at him, life-size, from a poster in a supermarket.

The owner of the shop has promised to remove the image.

...to a supermarket advertising poster in Prague

"It's a life-size picture in a grocery store window in Prague - my Christmas card photo!" said a startled Ms Smith, 36, who lives in a suburb of St Louis.

Mario Bertuccio, whose Grazie shop specialises in Italian food imports, said that he thought the image had been computer-generated.

He used it to advertise his shop's grocery delivery service.

When told that it showed a real family, he took steps to remove it.

"We'll be happy to write an e-mail with our apology," said Mr Bertuccio, adding that if the family had lived locally, he would have offered them a bottle of wine.

The Smiths and the photographer who took the picture, Gina Kelly, say that no permission was sought or given for the photograph to be used.

They said they would add a watermark to any family photos they post in the future.

Cartoon: God, where are you?

Sometimes one just have to be put into perspective with regards to God. We tend to think we are so important and God has to answer all our demands.

We create some sort of a genie in a prayer and base it on the belief that, because we are safe in God's hands, God must hand us everything we want. And if our prayers don't get answered, we get angry and accuse God that He has forsaken us.



Thank you Naked Pastor for the contradictory insight through art to this ill-fated belief.