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9/29/2006 Sunday sportI suppose it's just a sign of the post-Christian era that we live in. But for sporting associations to hold their regional sporting events on a Sunday clearly shows just how little an impact Christianity is making into that segment of community.
If there were scores of Christians who were signing on to teams, but who couldn't play becuase they wanted to be at church instead - if that were the case, well, then sporting associations would be forced to think twice about putting those events on a Sunday morning. But they're not, and organisers don't even blink any more.
I was recently in Melbourne for a conference. And making my way to the conference centre (Amberley, in the North of Melbourne), I was on a fairly empty train on the Hurstbridge line. It was a quiet Sunday afternoon, and not many people were around. But then as the train pulled into Jolimont station, crowds of people piled into the train! Absolute crowds of people wearing black and white jumpers, and all talking very loudly about the game. Yes, a whole pile of Collingwood supporters - including not a few kids - had suddenly made like sardines in my train!
That was quite a cross-cultural experience for me. But later on I reflected that, boy, that was a heck of a lot of people on the train platform - and probably a heck of a lot more were at the game - and they'd probably been there for most of the day! And that's a lot of people not going to church.
Now we shouldn't expect that we transform society such that non-Christians can't play sport on Sundays. But what it does do is show us that there is a whole other subculture that we are just missing. Christians are simply invisible to the sport-loving Australian!
Perhaps the thing to do is for Christians to be joining sporting clubs and associations, building relationships with new friends, and having a 'run'. To show them we're normal people - but also that we're different in our behaviour, and values. So we play fair. We bring up the level of behaviour and language. And when we're asked to play in the game on a Sunday, we show them that there are other things that we value even more than playing in the big game.
After all, sport's fun, and we get to meet people - but it's not our god!
[ PS: I heard later on that the Collingwood Magpies had just lost to the Bulldogs, and that was their final game of the season! ] 9/27/2006 Chinese immigration in AustraliaAside from information on what it is like to travel on a ship as a migrant, and the kinds of reasons people migrated to Australia, there were also displays about the notorious White Australia Policy...
1. White Australia Policy
Victoria was host to the first great influx of Chinese people into Australia during the Victorian gold rush of the 1850's. During 1851-1861, half a million immigrants headed to the goldfields of Ballart! However diggers of European descent were suspicious of Chinese culture, and resentful of Chinese competing for claims, and their industriousness in finding gold in claims that had already been worked over by European diggers. This led to violent anti-Chinese riots on the goldfields, and the government imposing a ten-pound tax on every Chinese entering a Victorian port.
In December 1901 the Immigration Restriction Act was passed, 'to place certain restrictions on immigration and to provide for the removal from the Commonwealth of prohibited immigrants'. This act was the cornerstone of the White Australia Policy, and was only abolished in 1973 under the Whitlam Labor government. This Act placed restrictions in the path of non-Europeans wishing to migrate, and included the notoious Dictation Test. This was used as a means to exclude non Europeans ostensibly on an objective, non-racial basis.
The effect of all this was to greatly restrict Chinese migration to Australia for many decades.
2. Origins
The musem also had an interactive display called Origins, which filled to the brim with statistical data drawn from ABS census information. Origins allows you to see the trend of migration from different countries over the years, as well as seeing the breakup of religion among those migrants for any particular census year ... a very powerful tool! And surprisingly, Origins is accessible for FREE via the Internet here! It is limited to Victorian statistical data, but it'll at least give you a glimpse about the trends.
The two graphs below are from Origins, and is a summary of the number of people in Victoria who were born in China and Hong Kong over the years...
From these graphs you can see the impact of the White Australia Policy in the years before its abolition in 1973. The graphs also show the influx of people from China after the Tianamen Square incident of 1989, as well as the the influx of people from Hong Kong in the years leading up to the British handover of Hong Kong to China in 1997.
It's because of these factors that the Chinese churches in Australia are relatively young compared to those in other countries, such as Canada and USA. Here in Australia, we are only now going through issues that Chinese churches in other places have already gone through!
One of these is the identity crisis of Australian Born Chinese (ABCs). I often hear ABCs ask the question: is there a future for Chinese churches in Australia? Will the next generation see Chinese churches die out, as ABCs join Aussie churches? For that answer we can look to the experience of Canada and USA - where Chinese churches are still thriving, despite having a much longer history. In those places, Chinese churches still remain the most effective way to reach the Chinese!
3. Religion amongst those from China and Hong Kong The Origin software also includes statistical data such as gender, profession ... and religion. The following two graphs show how Victorians born in China and Hong Kong identified their religion at the 2001 ABS census.
As you can see, a huge amount of Chinese and Hong Kong migrants identify themselves as having 'no religion'! These graphs show how much more work we need to do to reach the Chinese in Victoria - and probably in the rest of Australia as well. So let's get on with the job of bringing the gospel to the Chinese!
[ PS: if you know of a similar database to Origin for NSW, I'd love to hear about it! ] 9/25/2006 Why ABC congregations need OBC congregationsBut I think this is not a good idea at all! It's much better for the sake of the gospel to have a Chinese-language congregation working side-by-side with an English-language congregation, even though that causes conflicts.
You see, in the Chinese culture the gospel grows fastest through the relational networks that people have. And Chinese people have strong family networks made up uncles, aunties, nephews and nieces - all of which need the gospel! And when two such congregations are side by side, they grow together. The aunties and uncles in the Cantonese congregation can bring along their kids and their English-speaking relatives along to the English congregation. And those in the English congregation can bring along their Cantonese speaking relatives to the Cantonese congregation. Together, the two congregations grow much faster than if they were seperate congregations - and this is great for the gospel!
Sometimes a church will try to establish a stand-alone ABC congregation. But generally these don't work very well, even though they pour lots of resources and energy into them. Most such congregations tend to grow to 30 or 40 people ... and then just sit there. And generally a lot of that 'growth' will only be transfer growth - disillusioned people going from other churches, to a newer and fresher church. The exceptions to this are churches that are close to some kind of 'feeder' - such as a university with lots of Asians in it. But by and large, stand-alone ABC congregations struggle - despite the huge resources that are sometimes poured into them!
Now, this is not to say that it's easier to have a Chinese-language and an English-language congregation side by side. It's not easy at all - the different cultures create communication problems, tensions about ministry philosophy, and suspicion ... not to mention all the energy spent resolving those tensions! But it is much better for gospel growth for Chinese churches to be set up with OBC and ABC congregations in partnership with each other.
And that is what it is: a partnership in the gospel! Instead of the ABC congregations wanting to go off and do their own thing, why not tell the Cantonese congregations about your evangelistic events so they can invite along their English-speaking friends and relatives? And instead of ignoring the OBC events, wouldn't it be better to tell the people in the ABC congregations about these events, in case they have non-Christian parents or relatives who might benefit? This is partnership in the gospel - and I truly believe that Chinese churches could do much better in partnering with the 'other side' to reach our relational networks!
[ PS: in being partners in the gospel, what other things can you think of, apart from telling them about our evangelistic events? ] 9/23/2006 Culture: an outsider's view of Aussie cultureWhen people think about the differences between ABCs and OBCs in a Chinese church, they think it's only an issue of a generation gap. And the reason why they say this is because when they look around at other churches - such as the Aussie church on the corner - they see the same kind of tensions there as well.
"Look", they'll say. "The same thing's going on over there as well - so clearly what we're dealing with is merely a generational gap!"
But this is to misdiagnose what is going on. Aussie churches are in fact also experiencing both a generational gap, and a cultural gap - it's just that it's not as large a gap as in a Chinese church, and often Aussies themselves not aware of the cultural shifts going on! 2. A growing cultural gap as well!
A feature of the current younger generation of Aussies is individualism. People nowadays are much more willing to do their own thing, even to the detriment of others around them.
But consider this: where does that come from? Think about what their parents are like. Think of what their grandparents are like. Individualism has never really been a feature of Australian culture in previous generations - until now!
And this is because Aussies are going through a significant cultural shift. You see, the previous generation of Aussies looked to Britain for its cultural cues, as did the previous generations before them. That was the Old Country, that was what people aspired to be like. In previous generations, the fashions and tastes of Aussies followed the fashions and tastes of Britain. But the current generation of young Aussies are now looking to the United States for their cultural cues! Where does Western Individualism of the current generation come from? Clearly not from the United Kingdom - but from the United States!
And this is a dramatic culture shift that has really kicked into high gear this last generation. The cultural identity of younger Australians is now being fed from the other side of the Atlantic Ocean through the music, the TV shows and movies that we import and so readily consume.
This cultural gap between the younger and older generation of Aussies is not as large as the cultural gap between OBCs and ABCs. However it's still substantial, and you can see Aussie churches instinctively responding to this by creating culturally appropriate services - the 'contemporary 6pm service', and the 'traditional 8am service'. Though of course they will think of it as being age appropriate rather than culture appropriate. However it's clear that what they're responding to is not merely a generational gap, but a cultural one as well.
So when people think that Asian churches are merely going through generational gap issues, and their reasoning is that they see the same things in Aussie churches - well, they are seeing a culture with similarities. But it's becuase Aussie churches are going through generational and cultural shifts as well, just as in Asian churches.
[ PS: I'm back in Sydney now from a conference and then a holiday in Melbourne! ] 9/9/2006 The lie of the Evil masterminds
That of course is from the 1965 James Bond movie, Thunderball. And what would James Bond movies be without the evil masterminds? What would they be without those villains intent on world domination? James Bond movies wouldn't be the same if he was fighting global warming. Or noise pollution. No, the Bond movies need villains like Ernst Stavro Blofeld, hidden away in elaborate lairs, with sinister plots to hold the world to ransom.
But you know, the general public also needs the fiction of evil masterminds to make them sleep better at night. They need the lie of the evil mastermind.
You see, movies are partly realistic. They do acknowledge that evil is real, and exists. Look, there is the evil mastermind in his lair! There is real evil about, that threatens the world! But when movies present evil masterminds, they are almost always portrayed as somehow different to the rest of us. They are twisted out of normal. And it's because they are crazy, because they are dysfunctional and abnormal that they have turned evil.
Consider the megalomaniac Elliot Carver of Tomorrow Never Dies. Or the obsessed Auric Goldfinger in Goldfinger. Or the psychopathic Max Zorin in A View to a Kill. None of these are really 'normal' - there is something wrong with every one of them.
And that is a lie that makes us feel more comfortable about ourselves. The movies tell us that yes, there are evil people in the world - but they are evil because there's something wrong with them. Normal people are not like that at all! And such abnormal villains are needed - not just for the plot of the movie - but by the moviegoing public. Because people need to feel that they are OK. They are unlikely to become evil, unlike the megalomaniacs and psycopaths on the screen!
But the Bible won't let us feel that secure about ourselves. In Romans 1-3 Paul has bad news for us: no one is really righteous in God's eyes. In fact wholesomely normal people are evil. It is well adjusted and suburban people who are evil. Evil is not just found in the heart of deviants!
And this is why sometimes a movie comes along that unsettles us. A movie like (say) A Simple Plan, where it is blandly normal people who go wrong. Where the everyday characters you identify with at the start of the movie ... they are the ones who end up doing terrible things. Such movies unsettle us because it shows us the truth about ourselves - and exposes the comfortable lie about the evil mastermind.
[ PS: next time you see an evil mastermind in a movie, consider how he is portrayed - normal? or crazy? ] 9/7/2006 Why I hate Mother nature
But of course, that's a bit misleading, isn't it? And ultimately it's not so good for Christians to talk this way. Yes, there is a beauty in the birds and the trees, and the wonderful perfume of flowers. But we have to be careful how we talk about these things!
You see, we have been trained by the secular world to talk about it as though it is 'nature', something that has its own existence. And we are trained to talk about 'nature' as being beautiful in and of itself.
But there is a danger to this. Becuase what we are doing in praising 'nature' is that we are praising the work as being wonderful, while ignoring the person who has actually made the work. It is to separate the maker of the work, for the work itself. And this is not how it's meant to be.
You see, the Bible never thinks of 'nature' as separated from God. Instead, it is called 'creation' - its very name implies the creator behind the creation. And throughout the pages of the Bible, when humans reflect on the created world, it is right for praise not to go to the created works themselves, but to the God who has created these things. In Psalm 19, David says that,
And so the correct response to a beautiful creation is to praise the creator behind it - not just 'nature'! After all, even now God is sustaining all things by his powerful word (Heb 1:3)!
But even more troubling is when people talk about how wonderful 'mother nature' is, and how we have to respect 'mother nature'. Here at least people have realised that it can't just be an accident that the world is designed in such a beautiful way. But instead of praising the God who has created it, they have actually attributed the work to someone else - an entirely fictional 'mother nature'. This actually robs God of the priase that is rightfully due him!
And the Bible sees this as a very serious thing. In Romans 1:18-23 Paul says that they "neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened." And this refusal to glorify the creator becomes the basis of God's judgment on humans. This is serious stuff!
Words matter - because they remind us (and others around us) of what is true, teaching the doctrine of creation. To use words like 'nature' and 'mother nature' ends up denying the doctrine of creation. And so instead of using those words, we need to be diligent in calling it 'creation' - and then to praise the gracious and marvellous God who is behind it all!
[ PS: on Sunday I'll be leaving for a conference in Melbourne, and after that I'm on annual leave for a week... ] 9/5/2006 Memento moriWhen people are close to death, our society ships them off into nursing homes and hospitals. When people die, their bodies are tidied up and presented neatly and unoffensively. And grave sites, with their grave stones and other symbols of death, they are located in out of the way places.
And so when there is a shocking, unexpected death in the media, this is a good opportunity for us as Christians to share the gospel. Because while people are often caught up in the triviality of day-to-day living, here is one of those rare moments when they are confronted with their own mortality. They too could die suddenly, unexpectedly. What then lies beyond the grave? What is in store for them?
In the past Christians in fact did make use of death as a warning for others to examine and mend their lives. Churches used to read out lists of those who had died that week in the parish, as a reminder of the closeness of death. And in the 16th century a form of art known as Vanitas Art developed - still-life paintings that juxtaposed symbols of the frivolity of life (eg. coins, plays, champagne flutes, musical instruments) ... together with a human skull and an hourglass, the two symbols of death. Grim reminders that served to highlight the impermanence of life's pleasures.
So in your break room conversations today, as people talk about death in the news - carefully turn the conversation to the topic of our own death. Share about how ready you think you are for your own death (being honest, but also reflecting the certainty of the gospel). And probe gently to get them reflecting on how ready they are for death.
[ PS: Memento mori is Latin for "Remember you will die"... ] 9/3/2006 Paul's job for dads1. Absentee fathers
In some cases, fathers are quite absent from the family. They may have gone overseas to work for several months or even years, sending money back to the family and visiting once in a while. The premium salaries that they can command while overseas is very attractive to them, and that settles the matter.
However this is dangerous, and places fathers in a position where they can easily fall under sexual temptation (see previous post). While at the CCCOWE conference I spoke to a missionary stationed in Macau. He shared with me that an increasing problem in their churches is fathers going overseas to work, having an affair... and secretly maintaining two families.
Not only that, absentee fathers are unable to take up any real role in bringing up their children in the Lord - but more on that responsibility in the next bit...
2. Spiritually uninvolved fathers
In other cases, fathers may actually be there with the family - but they are uninvolved in the spiritual upbringing of the children. Either they will have left that to the mothers, or they will have left it to the church to do. But in any case, some fathers think that prayer and Bible reading and talking to their kids about what God is like is just not up their alley - and best left to other people. They are just there to provide lots of money for the family.
However in Ephesians 6, we see that God's vision for fatherhood is very different. Paul says, "Fathers, do not exasperate your children; instead, bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord."
Far from being uninvolved (let alone absent), fathers are actually involved in the upbringing of their children. And far from leaving the spiritual development of their kids to mum or the church, Paul lays that responsibility squarely at the feet of the fathers! It's not just a general responsibility for one of the parents - no, it is the fathers who are to bring up kids in the "training and instruction of the Lord."
And just as fathers are interested in the "training and instruction" of schoolwork, so are Christian fathers to be involved in the training and instruction "of the Lord".
Fathers have a special role in modelling, instructing and growing their children in their Christian character, knowledge and skills. This is something that they are to be intentional in. This is an area where they are to take leadership. And it's a role that no one else can adequately do for their children!
As you can imagine, this is a hard job! So support the fathers in your congregation in their ministry: pray for them. Encourage them. And if your dad is trying hard to fulfil their responsibility, honour them for it ... don't make it harder for them.
[ PS: training and instructing children in the Lord doesn't necessarily have to mean full-on family services! It will mostly involve a lot of informal ministry... ] 9/1/2006 The idols of high schoolFor instance, consider the idols that people worship while they're in high school (or at least, the ones their parents tend to make them worship). Becuase you know it's different for different cultures.
For Asians, it's clearly the god of study. This is the idol towards which everything seems to bend. This includes the use of 'holidays' and 'free' time (from primary school all the way up to the end of the HSC). It includes how money is spent (on tuition and extra study opportunities). It might even include the friends we're allowed to have (or not, as the case may be). Study is the god around which everything revolves, and every decision is made with the goal of a good mark in mind.
While we can see this quite clearly in the lengths our Asian friends get up to here in Australia (and we might even see this in ourselves), it is an even greater phenomenon in Asia where marks, qualifications, and a chance to get ahead in front of the crowd is paramount.
But that's not the case for other people. I'm sure you know others who aren't all that eaten up by study. That's because study is not their god. However it's likely to be something else - and for some it'll be the god of sport. And for some people what matters most of all in their high school years is how they are doing on the sporting field - be it cricket, hockey, or football. It's all about whether they get into the 1st XV and represent their school. Or better yet, to be captain of their school team. Maybe even to represent the state - or even captain the state team!
Now for most of us this will just seem like pure silliness. But believe it or not, this is the god that some high schoolers (and their families who push them on) will be worshipping. And as with the god of study, their use of time, the decisions they make, even the food they eat will be governed by thoughts of making that team.
Of course, sport isn't for everyone. And that's because there are others who have broader interests - more social interests. There are those who worship the god of popularity. And you see it in the number of extra-curiccular activities they're involved in. The debating clubs, the prize roles in the school play, their parents on the Parent's Association and knowing the principal on a first name basis... For some, the goal is to become a prefect - if not the head prefect. It's all about the popularity game, doing the things to make a big name for yourself.
And again, for a lot of us who just aren't in that game, that'll just seem like foolishness. But I'm sure you can identify people in your school who are (or were) like this. Driven by their parents (and their own) desire to be influential, well known, well regarded. To make a name for themselves - and in Year 12, to become a Prefect.
These are three gods that stand out, because they make people to do amazingly silly things, and so their disciples are quite noticeable. But don't be fooled into thinking that these are the only three gods around! No there are others around as well...
But you can see at least that not everyone is on about study. No, people in high school also worship other gods. Their lives revolve around other idols - and in the eyes of the true and living God, they are just as silly as those who devote their lives to the god of study! In Isaiah 44, the Lord declares,
As John says in 1 John, "keep yourselveds from idols"!
[ PS: what other idols do you think people worship? ] |
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