Series: Gospel Growth vs Church Growth USA 2007 (6 of 6)

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Series: Gospel Growth vs Church Growth USA 2007 (5 of 6)

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Series: Gospel Growth vs Church Growth USA 2007 (4 of 6)

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Series: Gospel Growth vs Church Growth USA 2007 (3 of 6)

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Series: Gospel Growth vs Church Growth USA 2007 (2 of 6)

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Series: Gospel Growth vs Church Growth USA 2007 (1 of 6)

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Passage: Mark 8
Series: Mark (8 of 16)

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Passage: Mark 7
Series: Mark (7 of 16)

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From the Dean | 26th February 2010

Did Dr Spock change his mind?  This is not the fictional Spock of Star Trek but the most famous Paediatrician of the twentieth century: Dr Benjamin Spock of “Baby and Child Care” fame.

Dr Spock has been blamed for the 60’s sexual revolution.  These were the children brought up on the permissive child raising advice that he gave to the baby boomers’ parents.  But did he change his mind?

In one sense you would hope that he did.  He studied medicine in the 1920’s at Yale (when, incidentally, he won an Olympic Gold medal for rowing).  He was still giving advice in the 1990’s.  If he did not change his mind during that period of huge advances in medical knowledge, he would have displayed incompetence, verging on culpable negligence.  What we want from our medical practitioners is evidence-based decisions.  As new evidence arrives, changes of opinion, advice and decision are mandatory.

Yet not all evidence is conclusive or unambiguous, nor are all professions backed up by such scientific research as medicine.  Even the science of medicine, such as Dr Spock’s education in psychoanalysis, is not as objective and evidence-based as the community would commonly believe.  There is a great art in good medical practice.

So what is meant when social scientists, and especially politicians, speak of evidence-based decisions?  It sounds right and sensible, as indeed it is.  It is one of those phrases that seems impossible to object to.  What would it mean to make decisions contrary to evidence?  Who, other than one’s opponents, would ever want to do such a foolish thing?  But what does ‘evidence-based decisions’ mean?

The phrase has many uses.  One chief use is to procrastinate on difficult decisions, while sounding reasonable and decisive.  “We are still waiting for the evidence to come in.”  Or, more particularly, “We are waiting for the conclusive evidence to arrive”.  Or “We are commissioning another report or study” - and so avoid make a decision.

In many of life’s decisions the evidence is unavailable to us.  There are often too many variables and complexities for us to evaluate.  There is a certain hubris in imagining that we will be able to know, of a certainty, the best path forward.

Sometimes we cannot know the results of our decision till after the event, and even then, the evidence will be uncertain and inconclusive.  At what point in social experiments do we conclude that we have ‘the results’?  In the first flush of experimental enthusiasm many trials prove a success that is hard to sustain in the long run.  In some areas, like education, it can be the enthusiasm of the experiment that succeeds rather than the new approach that is being tested.  Sometimes the precise point of the experiment shows success but only later does the collateral damage demonstrate that the change was for the worse not the better.  The introduction of asbestos into our buildings was an evidence-based insulation decision that proved to have dreadful health consequences.  In cases like these, later evidence should change our previous decisions.  We should not be afraid of change or of evidence-based decision-making.  But we cannot be sure that our changes will necessarily be any more beneficial than our previous decisions, for we are not in control of the world or the future.

In fact some of our decisions so change the future that we are no longer able to reverse the damage and start again.  We cannot replant the ancient rainforests nor return to a society where pornography was censored.  It will be difficult for a generation of teachers, who were educated without grammar, to fulfil Ms Gillard’s new curriculum, which requires the explicit teaching of grammar in every year from K to 12.  How can we ever unravel the mess we have made of marriage and family life in the last fifty years?

Some issues are beyond measurement.  The Utilitarians’ desire to ‘maximise the happiness of society’ was always dogged by the impossibility of measuring the intangible quality called ‘happiness’.  So deeply committed are some people to the happiness of their personal freedom that no amount of evidence would ever persuade them to return to a happier social structure if it limited their own liberty in any way.  Their freedom to smoke pot, get drunk, gamble recklessly, eat gluttonously, acquire insatiably, watch porn, commit adultery, and generally sleaze around must not be questioned in the calculation of maximising human happiness.

Here is the problem when politicians and other social engineers talk of ‘evidence based decisions’.  It is critical that we understand the context, viewpoint and bias in which we gather and evaluate evidence.  ‘Utilitarianism’, ‘harm minimisation’ and ‘outcome’ philosophies are grander in rhetoric than in close analysis or the delivery of a better world.  They have the hubris of taking our God given human responsibility for the world, without remembering our dependence upon our Creator, the sinfulness of humanity, or God’s present judgement upon this world.  We do not make decisions rationally because we are sinfully disposed.  We are not able to rule the world for we live outside of the paradise of creation, in the hostility of a world under God’s judgement.

God’s word teaches us to use the minds He has given to us in creation to look for evidence upon which to base our decisions.  It teaches us to expect new evidence that will change our mind, repent of our actions, and seek better ways forward.  It also teaches us to respect the wisdom handed down to us by those who experienced life before us.  But we must do this with the fear of the Lord in our hearts, for only then will our decisions be based in the wisdom of humility.  We must trust in the Lord and not lean on our own understanding.  His ways of righteousness are to be our guide.  And we must look to Jesus, for only in him do we see the man to whom the creation is in submission.

Series: You, Sex And Society (4 of 4)

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From the Dean | 19th February 2010

Organising congregational life is one of the difficulties of modern churches.

The first problem is that congregations become wed to their existing pattern as ‘the right way’ for church to gather.  Thus we become committed to patterns inherited from previous generations.  Anglicans even appeal to the 17th century Book of Common Prayer as their blueprint for church.  However, the pattern envisaged in the 17th century has undergone considerable change since then.

In the first half of the 20th century a fairly common pattern developed across most of Sydney’s parishes.  Most Sundays would commence with an early morning Communion.  Then, as late as 11am, there would be the main church gathering.  This was usually Morning Prayer but would sometimes involve the Lord’s Supper either once a month or after Morning Prayer for those who wanted to stay.  In the evening there would be Evening Prayer, which again, in some parishes, would have Communion once a month.

Around these formal liturgies there were other ministries such as Sunday School, and from the middle of the century, youth fellowships.  Sunday School used to be in the mid-afternoon but as the century wore on it was almost universally conducted in the morning, while youth fellowships were in the late afternoon and became associated with the evening congregation.

Over the second half of the twentieth century large changes happened both in society and church.  The suburbs of Sydney expanded in post-war reconstruction leading to building programmes and parish re-organisation across the diocese.  The coming of television, the proliferation of the car and the introduction of organised and professional sport on Sunday meant the demise of the ‘twicers’ (those who came morning and evening) and the nominals (who attended occasionally and regularly sent their children to Sunday School).

So by the end of the century the pattern of an early morning communion remained – mainly attended by senior members who live locally.  The main morning meeting changed to a mid-morning family gathering, with concurrent children’s programme for the children of the congregation.  The evening congregation became a youth oriented gathering, which loosened the pattern of prayer book liturgy and 19th century hymnody.  So came the homogenous congregation, mainly developed along age and stage of life – elderly at communion, families mid-morning and youth at evening.

This acceptance of special focussed congregations opened up the possibility of other specialised churches.  So congregations for students or particular ethnic groups or particular interest groups came into existence.  The effectiveness of this strategy added fuel to the planting of new churches.  Some of these were split from already existing churches; some of them were mission churches starting with not much more than a couple of people with a vision.  Some were adding congregations to the parish organisation, utilising school or other community facilities, or the parish buildings on a different day or time slot to the existing congregations.  Instead of three congregations some parishes started to run five, ten or fifteen.  This enabled resources to be put into ministers and ministries rather than into increasing the size of church buildings.

However, some people have rightly seen the advantage of a single large congregation over a number of smaller congregations.  Larger churches can afford to provide more specialised quality ministries, especially larger and better-organised children and youth ministries.  The size of a congregation has a distinct and decided effect on how church is organised and conducted.  A simple illustration is the quality of acceptable music, reading or even preaching of a church of fifty people compared to a congregation of five hundred.  The little church rightly glories in the intimacy and personal care of all its members and rejoices in the stumbling attempts of any of its sons or daughters trying to use the gifts God has given them for the benefit of the whole.  Whereas a larger congregation needs to be run with a degree of efficiency in order to help the many and varied people who attend.  A little congregation can afford to wait for its members to turn up before starting whereas the bigger church has to start on time whether or not some of its members are running late.

So at least two models of church growth are at work in Sydney now: the large congregation model and the congregational planting model.  Both have advantages and disadvantages, though sometimes writers and consultants promote one in opposition to the other.

The large church model is good when there is a large central building and a staff of specialists (senior pastor, children’s or youth worker, families pastor, singles pastor, music director etc).  Its weaknesses are that it can be a ‘consumer’ and ‘professional’ church with staff instead of members ministering.  It can also fail to recruit and train others for ministry as it provides everything for people and does not even train its staff with a sufficiently broad experience of ministry.  These are not inevitable outcomes, they can be overcome by intentional planning.

The congregational planting model is good when it is impossible to build large facilities, or there is a great diversity of people groups to reach, and a staff of generalists who can each take responsibility for a congregation and its outreach.  But it has the disadvantages of small congregations, struggling to gain critical mass to survive and grow.  These are often congregations with tired members and seemingly unnecessary and inefficient duplications of activities.  It is inefficient to have five men preparing sermons for five small congregations, instead of four of them freeing up one man to preach a better sermon to a larger congregation.  But there’s the rub – how do we get better preachers for the future if we do not have young preachers being forced into the regular pattern of preparing and delivering sermons.

The Bible tells us very little about how to organize our church, for the heart of the gospel is not organizational but spiritual.  There is no right way – neither the traditional nor the contemporary; the single congregation or the multi congregation; the large church or the church-planting model.  Each has its advantages and disadvantages for the particular situation.  For the sake of Christ’s church and the benefit of his people, we must be prepared to make the changes necessary to minimise the disadvantages and maximise the advantages of our congregational organization.

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From the Dean | 12th February 2010

Inside the Northern or Town Hall door of the Cathedral is a large monument recounting the many ways God used Samuel Marsden for the benefit of others.  It does not call him the “flogging parson” but the “Apostle to New Zealand”.  It is a tribute not an exhaustive history, but reading it is generally exhausting - for few men achieved so much in their lifetime.

As the second chaplain of the prison colony he not only consistently taught God’s word and led His people but also conducted marriages and burials for the whole community.  At the same time he was engaged in the civil matters of the colony, bringing him into the position of a magistrate with all the unfortunate consequences of his reputation.  He was also engaged in the economic construction of the community being a farmer and ship owner.  In many ways he was the father of the sheep industry of Australia and the grape industry of New Zealand.  Furthermore, he took a leading and active role in caring for the children of the colony, establishing and governing schools and orphanages, and with frustratingly little success, he tried to help the Aborigines.

Samuel Marsden was a convinced evangelical and so was committed to world evangelism and the missionary cause.  He was deeply involved with missionary activity in the Pacific islands, and personally took a leading part in reaching the Maoris.  While Marsden struggled to find a way forward with the indigenous peoples of Australia he found progress in New Zealand.  He was the first man to preach Christ there and set up a mission, which required him to cross the Tasman many times.

In his period of history this concern for the salvation of mankind was often confused with improving and civilising society and especially the ‘savages’ of the world.  The war on slavery was still in full swing and the horrors of human abuse touched the evangelical conscience.  Adding to the complexity of these issues, the missionary movement was also inextricably bound up with the development of the European empires and their financial interests.

All this has led to very confused verdicts of later generations.  Samuel Marsden’s motives and actions have often been questioned.  The good that he did has often been discounted by the associated evils that he was engaged with.  Late last century the Australian academic A. T. Yarwood published a full and interesting biography: “Samuel Marsden; The Great Survivor”.  But dispute and controversy continues to reign over the work and life of this colourful character of colonial times.

Though I knew all this, nothing quite prepared me for a recent reading of a New Zealand travel guide.  In it the author recounted the state of New Zealand in the time of Marsden.  There was a toxic combination of Maori culture - practising cannibalism, slavery and fierce inter-tribal warfare - with the off scouring of European adventurers, profiteers, escaped convicts and “all manner of miscreants”.  Alcohol and tobacco abuse, European diseases and gun-running led to the collapse of tribal structures.  “Maori women were prostituted to the Pakeha sailors”.  One settlement was described as “the Hellhole of the Pacific” and Darwin in 1835, found it as a lawless place, the home of “the very refuse of Society”.

And Marsden?  The travel guide had this to say of him: “Into this scene stepped the missionaries in 1814, the brutal New South Wales magistrate, Samuel Marsden, arriving in the Bay of Islands a transformed man with a mission to bring Christianity and ‘civilization’ to Maori, and to save the souls of the sealers and whalers.”  In our terms, Marsden may have been brutal, but in the day in which he lived and compared to the people he was seeking to serve, his brutality is hardly the most striking feature.  And yes, he served as a magistrate in Parramatta, but he was first and foremost a minister of the gospel and came as a missionary not a magistrate.  In the guide book he, and the other subsequent missionaries, are further attacked for ruining the Maori culture even for demanding that they “abandon cannibalism and slavery”!
What we have here is the later generations’ judgement on the sovereignty and sanctity of all cultures.  Today’s European (Western) culture claims there are no moral certainties or absolutes, and nobody should impose their ideas upon anybody else; even by persuasion and prayer.  We now are being taught that no culture is superior to another and the only immorality is to spread your culture to others.  People should have been left in their own culture, whatever it was, without the arrogant intervention of Europeans.

Indeed Christians can agree that the European cultures with their rapacious exploitative greed were far from righteous.  But travelling alongside those cultures, and deeply critical of them, was the Christian view of humanity, which sought to preserve the sanctity of human life, while bringing the enlightenment of God’s word on how to live it.  That meant opposing slavery and cannibalism and other appalling practices such as polygamy, prostitution and (in India) suttee.  Missionaries brought education and medicine, and intervened to stop the endless round of tribal warfare.  They frequently helped those invaded by the commercial interests of Europe to adapt to a new world order that could not be avoided.

Those who do not believe in spiritual realities have little sympathy for the work of liberating those who have lived all their life under the fear and terror of the occult forces administered by witchdoctors.  Those who were liberated rejoiced in receiving the great news of salvation.  For them the images and idols were not fascinating collectables of indigenous art but the instruments of the torturous darkness of evil spirits.

The imposition of Western culture is as great today as ever – both the commercial interests and the social cultural norms.  The critics of cultural imperialism often unwittingly impose the intellectual norms of Western ethical and religious relativism on others.  Christians must remain as committed to world mission as ever, for as Paul told the philosophers of his day: “The times of ignorance God overlooked, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent, because he has fixed a day on which he will judge the world in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed; and of this he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead.”  (Acts 17:30-31).