Forgiveness trumps Revenge

A Review of Amsterdam by Ian McEwan.

Having been made aware of Ian McEwan through the film adoption of his novel Atonement, I mentally shelved him away into the “popular/chick-flick/Jodi Picoult-brand” section of my mind after skimmed through the DVD of Keira Knightley’s lost love. I also vaguely recall his name being mentioned at the centre of a controversial, cross - Atlantic review battle regarding the merits of his novel Saturday. However it wasn’t until meandering through library shelves that I was surprised to find that an earlier novel of his, Amsterdam, had won the 1998 Man Booker Prize, so I decided to him a shot.

Amsterdam describes the friendship of two men, both the lovers of the recently deceased Molly Lane, and both struggling to cope with work deadlines and employer expectations. Clive, Britain’s most successful modern composer has been commissioned to write the Millennium Symphony. Overworked and unable to capture the finale of his masterpiece, he hides hermit-like in his studio apartment racing to finish before the deadline. His friend Vernon is the newly elected editor of a quality, but failing newspaper. In order to retain old readers, and capture new ones, a breaking story is needed. Molly Lane who died slowly and with little undignifying, also had other lovers, among them the rightwing Foreign Secretary tipped to be the next PM. In the days following her death, Clive and Vernon make a pact to help the other in quickening their deaths, if need be, through voluntary euthanasia, so as not to suffer as she had.

When a story, linked to Molly, surfaces which would increase sales, save his job, and influence the upcoming election for the better, Vernon’s ethics and friendship are questioned by Clive. The confrontation leads to miscommunication and spiteful vendettas which consequently end in both men’s destroyed careers. In hatred the two friends unwittingly use their earlier pact in revenge to devastating and tragic effects.

The novel explores morality, forgiveness, and the ethical nature and pressure of the modern working environment. The sacrificing of morals in the interest of furthering oneself up the career ladder is not a new notion for Christians, and McEwan endorses the need for restraint in unconscientious self-interest. Vernon’s need to run the story meant compromising his morals, which cost him his friendship and subsequently also lead to his dismissal. McEwan highlights the bitterness and malice that arise and fester in the soul when hurts aren’t healed and forgiveness isn’t shared. The fatal feud between Clive and Vernon could have been hindered from escalating with sincerely placed words of forgiveness.

As always, society’s changing pluralistic values and attitudes are captured by the novel and mostly endorsed. The lives lived by the characters are mirrored by many of our friends and family members. Nevertheless this contemporary morality tale still reveals truth – if someone wrongs you, forgive them, seventy times seven.

I always find it interesting that self-proclaimed atheist writers, such as McEwan, despite their denial of God, still uphold biblical principles and values, possibly unbeknownst to them. Arguably the novel’s ending is conceited, as many critics have pointed out, but the characterisation, imagery, and themes raised make this tragic saga a worthwhile read.

Joshua Zane Eicker

Future of Unichurch: Option 3: Split

Well, if option 1 is faithless and option 2 is thinkable but seemingly impractical, then we need to move to option 3–split.

Now, there’s splitting and there’s splitting. You could just split on purely practical grounds. That is, it looks like we could fill the venue, there’s no other venue, so lets try to minimize the pain of chance as much as possible by offering two identical services and two convenient times (say, for example, 5:30 and 7:30). This would have a few things going for it, and it’s certainly on the table.

But, what if, instead of just being motivated by minimum change and maximum continuity, we actually allowed the mission to shape our split? Let me explain this by way of a concrete example.

What if we decided to meet at 6pm and 8pm. My guess is that 6pm could be well positioned to be a large, broadly based congregation of high school students, uni students, young workers and others. Much like the current 7pm and in some ways better (ie, better time for workers and high school students.)

And 8pm? Well, who knows what that time slot would through up! Just guessing, but I wonder if that time could set us up for doing something really interesting. Maybe College students would be attracted to the idea of coming down to church at that time? Maybe a more edgy service, geared toward young, post-Christian people would emerge? Maybe Emos are kicking around at that time wondering what to do? Who knows! All I do know is that it would be different.

The first option (maximum continuity) would mean that people simply looked at their Sundays and committed to the service that made the rest of Sunday’s commitments as do-able as possible. Okay, but not exactly “doing all things so that by all means some might be saved” (1 Cor 10) The second would force us all to make more missional, other person centred decisions, thinking not just of our own convenience, but of those who don’t yet know the Lord. Especially in the case of the 8pm, it would require a small group of committed people to get together, work like mad, pray like mad, and orient themselves for mission.

Don’t get too caught up on the times. They are all negotiable. But do get caught up on the mission versus convenience thing. Allow yourself to put your own comfort down the list and ask: “How could we best shape our lives together to see unbelievers come into relationship with God?” I like that question. Sounds like something Jesus might say…

Thoughts? 

Love, Rory

Future of Unichurch: Option 2: Move

The second option to consider for the future of Unichurch is to move venues. Given our missional commitment to meet on campus rather than in a church building, this only gives us one option: the Octagon Theatre. This venues seats around 800 people, and would therefore give us room to more that double in the next few years. Why would we consider this option?

1. Room to grow.

Unlike the do nothing option, this would be a move with a view to the future. It would be a space in which we could grow, and the empty seats would be a powerful reminder that our work is far from finished.

2. Being noticed.

Would a large crowd in a large venue attract the attention of non-Christian students at UWA and perhaps spark an interest in Jesus? Maybe it would. Only one way to find out…

3. Quality.

Size allows an increase in quality. Everything: our music, our preaching, our graphics, our programmes, could all increase in quality under the conditions of a larger crowd.

4. Rationalization.

There is something inherently rational about doing one service in a larger venue. No re-inventing of the wheel.

Well, they are some of the positives. However, there are strong–very strong–reasons to think that this move might not be the best move. Among them are:

1. Expense.

The Octagon would cost around $1000 per week (!). There is no economy of scales to help us here. And we definitely wouldn’t be able to get the Octagon every week at any rate.

2. Limiting of training and opportunity.

Contra the positive of rationalization, when you look to grow rather than multiply, you limit training opportunities. You need less preachers, less welcomers, less bible readers (in proportion to the congregation) which means that less people get to develop in these areas. Large churches tend to have a much larger proportion of non-active members.

3. A lighthouse versus communities of light. 

To borrow an metaphor from Steve Timmis, large churches are like lighthouses: they send their light out a long way across the city; but, again like lighthouses, the light may go a long way, but it goes over the top of the city. However, smaller communities of light allow the light to get into the nooks and crannies of the city. They don’t reach as far, but they do go down deeper into the lives of the people they are serving.

Personally, I think that in Perth we need both. We desperately need large regional churches that are faithful to the word of God, resource rich and (more importantly) resource generous. But we also desperately (more desperately?) need hundreds of communities of light: small gospel communities whose impact is small but deep, communities that are thoroughly convinced of the gospel of Jesus and thoroughly open to doing what it takes to bring that gospel to the people in their area.

While this option is worth thinking through, I note that expense and limited venues means that it is hard to imagine how it would happen. Perhaps this is God’s way of telling us to look at other options?

Love, Rory

Future of Unichurch: Option 1: Do nothing

Thank you everyone for your engagement with the last post on the future of Unichurch. I really appreciate it and hope it will continue. 

In order to stimulate discussion I thought I’d post on each option separately so that we could tease out the implications more. So, what would the first option look like; namely, do nothing?

Well, firstly, it would be incredibly easy. Nothing would have to change, no new plans worked out, no new ideas enacted. 

Secondly, it would be cautious. Unichurch has grown by something like 60% in the last 12-14 months. But who knows what that means? It could just be a fluke and this time next year we’ll be back to normal. Or it could be that we change and in changing we actually loose all the growth and end up with irrelevant structures.

Thirdly, it could be prudent. I think we have about 50 spare seats in the lecture theatre on our fullest evenings, and it could be that we could work out how better to use the space (like for example, opening up the second entrance behind the musicians).

These are the positives for the ‘do nothing’ option. It’s hard not to see this as the most faithless option on the table. Contra point 1, when ever did Christian ministry and mission go forward by choosing the easy option? Contra point 2, when ever did the Kingdom go forward by people being risk adverse? Nearly 16,000 UWA students haven’t have a decent chance to respond meaningfully to the gospel, so it’s hardly like we have hit some magic formula that means we’ve got the mission sorted. 

I think point 3) is the only one that has something to commend it. There may be some wisdom in working out how to use the space we have as best we can, and by doing so buy ourselves another 6-12 months in which to make a good decision about the future. But I’m determined we don’t in effect make a non-decision and just maintain the status quo because it’s all to hard. If we go with this option on the basis of point 3), and if in 12 months we are still playing it safe, kick me in the butt and ask what’s going on. If nothing has happened in 12 months, you can be nearly 100% sure that it’s because we are not being truly missional; that is, not being like Jesus. And that’s bad.

Love, Rory

Next Move for Unichurch

Last Sunday I mentioned that we as a congregation need to think about what we do next. To make an interesting story boring, we are nearly “functionally full” in our present lecture theatre. In reality, even on our fullest night we still have a good 50 spare seats, so we are not actually full. However, churches often get to a point when they appear full, and this can have the unfortunate effect of a) giving newcomers the impression that there is no room for them and b) giving regulars the impression that, actually, we are doing okay. We don’t want to create either impression.

So, what to do? We could:

a. Do nothing.

b. Move to the Octagon theatre (the only larger theatre on campus, which seats 800 people and would cost something like $1000 per week to hire)

c. Spilt into two congregations, meeting at, say 6pm and 8pm in the current threatre.

d. Send 30 or so people out to plant a new church, replenish an existing church, or just stop coming to church altogether and go to Clubba instead.

If we don’t think and pray this through now, we risk having a decision forced on us by circumstances. Much better to get in early and make a decision based on mission instead.

Looking to make a decision by the end of January 2009. Very interested to hear your thoughts, questions, and comments.

Love, Rory

The Other Side of the Booth

A review of:

Confessions of A Reformission Rev.;
Hard Lessons from an Emerging Missional Church
by Mark Driscoll.

Who: Mark Driscoll, his family, associates and Mars Hill Church.

What: An autobiography of Mark in as much as it relates to the main subject; the history of the inception and growth of Mars Hill Church. As an Emerging Reformissional Church.

When: 1996 – 2003

Why: To assist church leaders in growing a reformissional church.

Who should read this book: Anyone who is interested in the growth of one of the most amazing centres of growth in God’s Kingdom in the last couple of decades, anyone who loves a ripping good yarn, anyone who is interested in the future of Uinichurch, and specifically in how we can become more missionally radical

Who should not read this book: Anyone with an attention span shorter than mine (perhaps if you failed to complete The Kids Menu at McDonalds), Anyone who is a new Christian or does not have much knowledge of theological or ecclesiological jargon (if you understood that you should be fine).

Vibe

Firstly, this book is entertaining. Speaking as a man who has begun but failed to complete Knowing God, Desiring God, How Long, O Lord, The Oxford English Dictionary and The Hungry Caterpillar, let me tell you, this book is a page turner, I bought it on Sunday afternoon and had finished it by Tuesday night. I even missed watching beautiful Canadian countryside roll by my panoramic cabin to immerse myself in it. Driscoll writes in a way that is engaging, entertaining, frank, honest, funny, simple, not using big words (I’m sure there’s a big word for that….) and concise. The book is short, without being a pamphlet, ringing in at 207 pages with a few pages of notes, it represents only a few hours of reading time.

Subject & Target

The subject of the book is the inception and growth of Mars Hill Church (Seattle, Washington, USA) and Mark Driscoll’s reflections as its senior pastor for all the years of its existence. It is clearly intended for those who are seeking to think seriously about the church they are in, and specifically probably for those who have some leadership capacity within a church. Each chapter is concluded with a series of questions for the reader to consider in relation to their own life and church, based on topics that have been covered in the preceding chapter.

Gist

Driscoll’s main point in writing the book seems to be to inform, encourage, inspire, and equip other people to follow his lead in creating a reformissional church, with a reformissional pastor, reformissional leaders and a reformissional congregation. By reformissional, Driscoll means that the Christian outlook on mission needs to be reformed, specifically that our outlook on mission needs to include our own backyard, and that we need to have churches that are theologically conservative and culturally liberal.

Confessions and Unichurch

In the last sentence alone you may have recognised a unichurch motto; theologically conservative, missionally radical. Recent Unichurch methodology has borrowed heavily from the Mark Driscoll/ Mars Hill paradigm of church, and I believe, benefited greatly from it. Unichurch is on a similar path, methodologically and theologically at least (although also perhaps somewhat demographically and even maybe numerically) as Mars Hill was some time ago, and so there are lessons to be learned from Mars Hill’s trials and successes as we undergo similar stages.

- Brian John Snell 14/10/08

Liar: Jacob and the blessing

On Jacob: “The narrative is not edifying in any conventional religious or moral sense. Indeed, if anyone comes to the narrative with such an agenda, the narrative is offensive. But for that reason, the Jacob narrative is most lifelike…The claim of Jacob seems to advance even against the wish of the narrator.” W. Brueggmann.

A rascal. A deceiver. A grasper. All these adjectives and more are used by commentators to describe Jacob, by far the earthiest and most compromised of all the characters in Genesis. And yet God chooses this man, the foolish of the world, to shame the wise. 

For all his faults, I am very drawn to Jacob. Very much looking forward to spending the next two weeks with him at Unichurch.

Fear and Trembling

“No other story in Genesis, indeed in the whole OldTestament, can match the sacrifice of Isaac for its haunting beauty or its theological depth.” Gordon Wenham.

The story of the sacrifice of Isaac is certainly one of the most haunting, beautiful, deep and yet baffling stories in all the Bible. As a piece of literature, it is brilliant. As a narrative, it is heart-breaking. As a theological reflection, we at once recognize it is saying something of profound significance about God and faith–but what? What, exactly, are we to take from this extraordinary tale of faith and sacrifice? Well, that will be our task this coming Sunday evening. I hope you can join us for it.

Last week, in preaching on Sodom, I mentioned that the story of Sodom is not the place to go to build a grasp of what the Bible says about homosexuality. Not because the Bible says nothing about homosexuality; just because this story is not where it says it. Please find below a link to a sermon by our senior minister, Kanishka Raffel, on the topic of the Bible’s teaching on human sexuality and homosexuality. Find it here:

http://stmattsshentonpark.org.au/c/stmatts/pub/stories/audio/2006/Born_to_Love/Kaniska%20Raffel%20-%20Wisdom_about_Homosexuality.mp3

Love,

Rory

Pleading: Sodom and Gomorrah

This Sunday we return to our Genesis series with a talk on Abraham’s remarkable conversation with God concerning Sodom and Gomorrah (Genesis 18).

The passage (Genesis 18-19) raises all sorts of interesting issues. One relates to the sin of Sodom itself. Traditionally, it has been seen as the sin of homosexuality–hence the term ’sodomy’. But, as a quick word-search of ’sodom’ in the rest of Bible reveals, Sodom is condemned for all sorts of things–injustice, treatment of the poor, sexual perversion, adultery and inhospitality. Does the story have anything to say about homosexuality? Well, I might say something about that on Sunday…

See you then!

Next Two Weeks

I am really looking forward to the teaching over the next couple of weeks at Unichurch. This Sunday (14 September) we will be joined by David Seccombe. David was the senior minister of St Matthew’s from 1979 until the early 1990s and saw the church transformed and established as a thriving evangelical ministry. He is currently the head of George Whitfield Theological College in South Africa. David will be speaking to us from Psalm 110.

Then, the following Sunday Andrew Reid, who currently lectures at Ridley College in Melbourne, will be speaking to us from 1 Samuel 1. Andrew was the senior minister at St Matthew’s after David, and before that was the director of the Australian Fellowship of Evangelical Students. Under his leadership, the AFES was re-established as one of the most significant evangelical ministries in Australia.