Discipleship

“Discipleship” does not exist in the New Testament. That is, the word does not occur, even if everywhere, we are shown what it means to be a disciple. This is the point. Discipleship is only evident in being a disciple and making disciples in the difference between a noun and a verb (mathēteuõ); a disciple is an active learner.

Being a disciple is not a nominal status but is instead, an expression of learning—being discipled and discipling others as active disciples of Jesus Christ. Like expressions of freedom, which are exhibited through decisions and commitments by contrast to the contemporary assumption that “keeping my options open” defines freedom, to disciple (infinitive), discipling or being discipled (participles) is dynamic—a verb, not a static noun.

The word “discipleship” may be used to imply a status, a benchmark or a level of attainment that does not actually exist, because “discipleship,” in the absence of being and making disciples, finally only exists as a word on paper. Disciples are disciples as they hear and respond to the imperative word of call that is to be lived intentionally, decisively, with disciplined passion.

Dr. Stephen Curkpatrick

Lecturer in biblical studies & systematic theology at Stirling Theological College

 

Thanks Stephen great read

Shalom Mark

The frontier of community leadership

As part of the famine village in Blackwood SA we have local businesses supporting our 40 hour famine fundraising this weekend. Each business runs their own expression of a party with a purpose from having staff gatherings to getting their customers involved. The most consistent and creative business for the 3rd year running has been Bank SA Blackwood. Read the pervious post or related tags to find out why we started the famine village and party with a purpose.

Branch manager, Irena was the first to get on board when I floated the concept with her in 2009. Her heart and passion for being involved in a community event and raising money and awareness for a good cause has positively infected her staff and customers. In the first year I helped her with some ideas and to set up a 40 hour famine display. This year the Bank SA staff have gone all out and I didn’t have to provide anything except encouragement.

Verity, Daniel & I with Irena and Sarah from Bank SA Blackwood at their 40 hour famine party with a purpose

My wife Verity and I dropped in this morning with our son Daniel to support Bank SA’s morning tea party (which runs all day) I was amazed at the atmosphere Irena and her staff had created. She made sure one staff member was at the door greeting people as they came in and directed them to the 40 hour famine display, the morning tea, offered them a tea or coffee and invited them to sit down, learn about the 40 hour famine and make a donation.

The atmosphere was fantastic with lots of food the staff had made laid out on a table surrounded by couches. Verity and I sat and talked with people but not just about the 40 hour famine. It was a fantastic opportunity for community pastoral care as people shared their stories and struggles. We felt like the community chaplains.

Bank SA had 40 hour famine donation boxes on the table and at the tellers. They had a fantastic display board talking about the global food crisis and how money from the 40 hour famine will help. Next to that board they had set up another display for Verity’s CD ‘Advocate’ that she launched last year. They had a CD player playing her CD in the branch throughout the day because they are songs of justice and awareness. They were even selling her CD!

This is a corporate business who has gone above and beyond the call. Some other corporates I visit in Blackwood shrug me off saying that as a corporation they are already committed to a charity. Bank SA, are also committed to other things, but the Blackwood branch, to their credit, have made room to be part of a community initiative. They have caught the vision that it’s not just about ticking the box and not just about charity, it’s about community and participating in something together.

Other corporate businesses in Blackwood supporting the 40 hour famine are Bendigo Bank, Flight Centre, Raine & Horne &  Commonwealth Bank. Some smaller businesses in Blackwood supporting the 40 hour famine this weekend are Foods from the Edge, Blackwood Fitness Centre, Belair Hotel & Blackwood landscaping. There have also been a number of schools and churches hosting events, running education programs and fundraising initiatives. Our community target is $100,000 and from what I’ve heard so far we are well on the way.

Tune into 891 ABC Radio at 6:50 tomorrow morning to hear me speak more about the famine village concept.

Shalom Mark

P.S. If you click on the link above for Verity Skye’s CD we’ll be donating some money from CD’s sold this weekend to the 40 hour famine

A silent tsunami we can stop

A couple of weeks ago a friend and colleague posted a facebook note responding to the growing crisis in East Africa. Adam challenged his 632 facebook friends to respond by giving at least $20 each. He figured if people used social media and the resources they have available in a simple way such as this he could raise over $12,500. I was the only one to respond to Adam’s note suggesting I would call on my 786 facebook friends to do the same. I gave my $20 to a ‘Horn of Africa’ appeal that Sunday.

It’s this kind of optimism that caused Adam and I to start the ‘Blackwood famine village’ back in 2009 and then ‘party with a purpose‘ in 2010 to support the 40 hour famine. Our aim was to educate and recruit. Both concepts took off well in their pilot year but this year both are struggling for momentum. We went from raising $63K in 2009 to $78K in 2010 as a community helping to feed hundreds of starving children for an entire year. I worry this year that we won’t get close to our previous targets.

We have some valid concerns in our communities in Australia, so many I can’t count. Yet to put it in perspective we are still incredibly blessed in Australia. We have seen our fair share of tragedies and when we do, we respond. I was a chaplain in the aftermath of the Vic bushfires and I saw how Australia rallied around affected communities. My sister and her family are living in Toowoomba experiencing the same Aussie spirit helping their neighbours recover from floods.

In the case of East Africa we haven’t seen images of a wave washing cities away or rumble from an earthquake but I have been hearing reports of more than 13 million people displaced. Directly affected countries include Somalia, Kenya, Ethiopia, Tanzania, Uganda, Sudan. We know how hard the 10 year drought was in Australia, they’re experiencing a 60 year drought! It’s the tsunami we don’t see.

Our friend and mentor for famine village, World Vision CEO Tim Costello, is with World Vision on the border of Kenya and Somalia at the moment. He has witnessed a refugee camp built for 90,000 people currently housing 400,000. He says there is at least 1000 more arriving everyday waiting outside the camp and they still don’t have access to food or clean water. Tim spoke at our party with a purpose launch event in Blackwood a couple of weeks ago and he spoke about Australians becoming inward looking because of the global financial crisis and other global external pressures that cause us to retreat, look inward and only look out for ourselves. He encouraged us that what we are doing in Blackwood is reminding our community that together we can make a difference. Our famine concept not only encourages us to give generously to save lives but we build one another up. Our community issues become a shared load, we rise above our own problems and we gain some perspective and realize that 13 million starving people is an unacceptable number.

What really blows me away is we actually do have the resources in our world to alleviate this crisis significantly. What I struggle with is we don’t all seem to have the will or the same optimism as my friend Adam. We need to transform our doubt into the belief that we can join with Tim and the World Vision team and many other fantastic organizations doing their bit to make a dramatic change. The UN are asking for $2.2 billion to alleviate the crisis. That’s about $2 from every facebook user. We may think the problem is too big but if everyone did their little bit we could send Africa a message about how compassionate the world really is toward their plight.

This year the 40 hour famine in Australia is focusing attention on East Timor being our closest neighbouring country. 1 million children face starvation there. However with the growing crisis in Africa I have just received word that 40 hour famine money will also be directed to places such as the refugee camp on the border of Kenya and Somalia.

Please, please help me raise money for the 40 hour famine and consider sponsoring me at Mark’s 40 hour famine donation page Let’s stop this tsunami!

Please also consider giving to organizations meeting the crisis head on in Africa. There are many so I am just going to name the ones I’ve been following and giving to.

World Vision Aus

Global Mission Partners

Shalom

Mark

Frontier Leadership?

I attended a national conference titled ‘Frontier Leadership’ earlier this year. With good intentions the title inspires us to seek new ways and new ideas of pioneering new initiatives for the future. I fear ‘Frontier Leadership’ has become yet another cool catch phrase like ‘Fresh Expressions’, ‘Emerging Church’, ‘Future Directions’ and the like.

I have been part of these conversations actively for around 7 or 8 years as a Christian minister working with Churches of Christ. While I wrestle with all the realities and challenges that face the Church in the 21st century, I’m not convinced that the mainstream churches are coming up with anything radically new to inspire younger leaders for Christ’s mission to a radically different world to the one we constructed our churches for.

I am a minister of a church that has been established for 95 years, I fit into the category of traditional ministry within a traditional church model. I’m not sure that our church would fit into any of the titles I’ve stated above but I live with the belief that the Spirit of God who actively moves among us can create new things from the old, can bring forth new inspirations and stir in the hearts of the faithful people of God. Whether we are ‘emerging churches’ with cool names or traditional congregations established for a long period of time we must live with the belief that through available and faithful people God can create something new and use us to usher His kingdom into the 21st century. All is not lost, the church is not dead or dying, God is refining and reshaping for something new.

I have begun addressing some of these challenges through my Masters studies and my ministry with Blackwood Church of Christ. I have attended numerous conferences and participated in even more conversations and I’ve come up with a theory – although not all conferences I’ve been to support this. The theory is; there is no one solution, there is no big idea, no program, no 10 steps or 12 steps for that matter. There is no one answer to the challenge we face.

Frontier Leadership is this: being available to the pioneering Spirit of God who moves among us and goes before us. We seem to forget that God’s done this before. This is not the first time human beings have come to the point of realizing we don’t have the answer or the map to give us directions into some promised future. Our answer in the past, which worked for a while, is to look to the guru with the answer. That guru leader provides the vision, inspiration and way forward. The risk in looking to this as Frontier Leadership is that we suppress the grassroots movements of the people of God, we neglect the priesthood of all believers and we make idols out of the guru leader listening to the voice of the leader over the stirring of the Spirit.

Yes the old constructs are being deconstructed and maybe for our own good. What I’m seeing beginning to emerge is the imagination of the people of God once again daring to go to the margins and provide leadership in places the church has been absent from. But here’s the critical realization. There is no one big thing! There’s lots of little things each one of us can do and do well. When we engage God’s mission to the world with the conviction of the Holy Spirit we see Christ’s promise come to life, we can achieve immeasurably more than we can imagine.

Watch this space because I want to start telling the stories that are emerging in and around my ministry context. Stories of grassroots movements, the small yet meaningful ways people are engaging God’s mission to the world; the stories of what I think are modelling frontier leadership.

Shalom, Mark

Welcome to Australia – unity and diversity

Yesterday I had the privilege of visiting people in the Inverbrackie Detention Centre, Woodside, South Australia. I was there on invitation as a clergy member of a Protestant Church. My wife’s cousin is a co-ordinator of programs and activities in the Centre. So when the request came from some Christian detainees to meet with a pastor, she called me.

My first impression when I pulled into the car park was surprise at the amount of cars there. It was hard to get a park. I found out the reason why. There are so many staff and volunteers working in the Centre to meet needs its phenomenal.

I enjoyed my walk through, it certainly doesn’t look or feel like a Detention Centre. There’s no razor wire or high walls, it’s like a small suburb with housing spread along a street like any other suburb. The difference is, the ‘suburb’ is surrounded by a neighbourly fence and there is a check point in a little portable building at the entrance gate. I thought the Centre had a good feel about it. I am unable to go into detail but know my impression is positive and conditions are very good.

I am disappointed that the media did a big beat up of the Centre before it opened but there has been very little reported about the positive way in which the Centre is being run and the needs of the people are being met. I was fortunate to meet with the community program and activities team for a short time. It was exhausting just listening to the conversation. They are so busy not only organizing onsite activities for entertainment, learning and development but off site excursions to all kinds of cool sites and activities around Adelaide.

The main reason for my visit was to meet with detainees who nominated they were ‘Protestant – Christian’. I met Sister Meredith who co-ordinates religious programming. I admire her ecumenical and multi-faith approach. I found out that she had been running a Catholic mass on a Sunday afternoon but the Protestants wanted a Protestant minister to meet with them. This is understandable particularly when you are in a context where everything has changed and maybe being taken away from you, they search for something familiar to hang onto.

Our meeting was enlightening. It was only a small group and I was mainly there to listen to spiritual needs. I discovered that among the small group was a Muslim couple who were keen on getting involved with the Christian conversation and wanted a Christian bible. Sister Meredith shared with me that she would often get not only the small group of Christians (Catholic and Protestant) to catholic mass but a large group on Muslims and Hindus. The Muslims and Hindus participate in the worship and read prayers and readings, then when the Catholics come forward for the Eucharist the Muslims and Hindus come forward for a blessing. She thought this was unusual given there are worship meetings for Hindus and others for the large group of Muslims on site. But what they experience at the Christian meetings is unconditional acceptance. What a testimony, I wonder if that is why the Muslim couple are interested in more Christian meetings.

Talking with a group about spiritual matters through an interpreter was a challenge. I recognize that not only was there a language barrier but given the interpreter was not Christian there was a cultural barrier on top of the other cultural barrier given that we are from different countries and experience different expressions of the Christian faith. But given I have worked with Christian asylum seekers before  we were able to communicate and appreciate some of the difference. I was able to pray with the Christians and the Muslims in the room together through the interpreter which was a challenge and an absolute privilege.

The request by the end of the meeting was for the Protestants to have a separate Christian gathering to the Catholics. Sister Meredith and I were able to work in some subtle ecumenical desires into the conversations such as explaining how in Australia Christians do a lot together. We appreciate the difference in worship style but encouraged unity (last week was Pentecost Sunday after all) We agreed that we will have 2 services on a Sunday afternoon. An open Christian service run by me and other protestant ministers I can gather at 3:30pm followed by a Christian (Catholic) service at 5pm. This way we would still be able to get Christians of different expressions talking with each other. This divide is not unique to Christians, the Muslims are experiencing the same denominational divides. Sister Meredith and I are doing our best to communicate the spirit of Australian culture, tolerance and unity in the short time we have with them in the Centre.

I now have a team of pastors joining me to run  a Christian communion service working in partnership with Sister Meredith.

Shalom Mark

Faithfulness

I renamed this blog around the theme of radical discipleship because at the time, discipleship for me was about radical action. I haven’t changed my mind about that, however since this year began I’ve been reflecting on discipleship a little differently and, I think, engaging with it on a deeper level.

I think what lies closer to the heart of radical discipleship is radical faithfulness. I’m not exactly sure how many other themes will resonate with me around the heart of discipleship and i don’t have a plan to blog about it daily or weekly. but just musing out loud whenever God lays something on my heart and if this sparks conversation then i am happy to engage with it. however I’m not looking for solutions or answers or the next 10 steps program. I’m looking for people willing to engage the conversations that lie at the heart of our faith communities. What ought to shape us as the people of God and what does that look like?

Faithful discipleship, the more I think about it and attempt to practice it, is actually quite radical and counter cultural.

Tonight I was prepared to run a service we call Sacred Space. We started this in October last year out of a need within our community to have a worship space that wasn’t busy but reflective and prayerful. There are lots of spaces to listen for God and space to be. Each Wednesday evening at 8pm  6 or 7 people (sometimes more, sometimes less) would enter the space for half an hour. We would pray, listen, hear scripture read out loud, light candles and share communion. It was healing and life-giving. We had a break over Christmas and recommenced this month.

At our first service for the year one person showed up. So I went through the motions of the service, sharing readings and prayers and sharing communion together. The next week (last week) 3 people showed up. Tonight, no-one showed up. So what did I do? I ran the service. i read out loud the welcome and the prayers, the scripture readings and then my own unscripted reflections about communion and relationship with God through Christ, all out loud. Am I crazy talking to myself? No actually it didn’t feel like that at all.

Maybe the old me would have packed up and gone home disappointed that no-one showed up. By the conviction God has laid on my heart is faithfulness. i think faithful discipleship is responding to a call even if no-one shows up, even if no-one recognizes you, even if all seems lost. Radical discipleship is about being faithful.

The them of tonight’s sacred space was radical enough from the Gospel reading Matthew 5:38-48. The prayers and reflection, the space and communion were all based on the theme of loving our enemies and praying for those who persecute you. But God did a work in me because I was available and faithful. The space was essential for me, i needed to be there even if no-one else was. And so I was grateful to be there in the half hour space hearing the words of scripture out loud and communing with God out loud. And if anyone were to walk in late they could still join the space .

So what does it mean to be faithful and how counter cultural is it really? What sorts of things are we faithful to? What demands our attention and where do we give it? Does God deserve our faithfulness?

 

Shalom

Mark

Blogging

I’ve been absent from the blog for a few months because since the launch of Advocate, Verity and I became first time parents. Daniel was born on May 28th 2010. Now we are settling into parenthood i thought I would come back to the blog and let you know about 2 more blogs I am writing for.

Advocate launch

If you missed the launch of Advocate you missed a fantastic show! You also missed an exclusive preview performance of a song from Verity’s second album to be released in  late 2011. If you missed it, you’ll have to wait until then.

We had a full house at Blackwood Church of Christ, even though so many of our friends gave apologies and couldn’t be there. Around 250 people turned out to support Verity. What they didn’t expect is the well rehearsed professional performance Verity had worked so hard to put together.

More than Sundays

How often have you stood there in a church service, singing a worship song and in the middle of the song you ask yourself…’what on earth am I singing about?’ Furthermore, what are we all doing here standing in rows, facing the front and the back of each others heads in uniform like robots? This may not be the case in some more charismatic/pentecostal churches, but when you look around it seems you in a room full of stunned people going through the motions

Be my eyes

Have you ever sat down with and listened to the story of someone who has been displaced from their home? Do you have a friend who is seeking asylum, or who has become a refugee in a strange new place?