I’m looking for work at the moment. There are some good looking jobs out there. I find it such a huge effort to fill out selection criteria though, that I wish each potential employer would get back to me straight away so that I could know if I had to fill out the next selection criteria or not. I guess it is a bit like fishing. Hopefully the timing of it works out well so that I don’t accept a crap job before applications close for a good job, and then get an interview for the good job after I’ve already accepted the crap job. How does anyone ever actually get a good job? It seems like there is too much chaos involved. So I guess I will just throw my line in the water and see what comes along. Hopefully I’ll catch one of these

a good job

and not one of these

a crap job

“Why do Christians feel the need to tell other people about Christianity, and seek to create converts?”

That’s a good question. Why can’t we just be good people without having to convert people to Christianity? Where to start? How do we understand what Christianity is, and what it means to create converts?

Christianity was founded by Jesus, who said about himself that he had come to preach the good news of the Kingdom of God. The Kingdom of God can be tricky to understand. Part of what it represents is people being returned to a whole and healthy relationship with God (even if the wholeness and health are still growing), and with each other. In this process God has taken a lot (all?) of the initiative. He did the creating in the first place, and took responsibility to restore our relationship to him. Christianity in its simplest sense, without centuries of politics and religion, is about Jesus inviting us and giving us the opportunity to reconnect with God and to restore relationships between each other.

Knowing God affects the way we relate to him and others. That is where conversion really happens. People don’t have to change from one community and set of practices into another. The real conversion is changing the way we live together: showing mercy when we used to show hate, being a servant when we used to be selfish. Some people use the word transformation. In that sense conversion is the main event. I think a quick survey of history and current affairs, and most importantly, our own relationships, suggests to us that something is broken. Not destroyed and ashen; beautiful but broken and enfeebled, in need of repair.

Even if Christians were not trying to ‘convert’ people, in the old sense, they would be trying to live in whole relationships with the people around them. For that to even begin one individual needs to be whole and free themselves, that is, not being in the relationship because they have needs they have to meet, or because they want something from the other person. For the relationship to grow more in wholeness, both individuals need to be free, and the free person would want to invite and help any broken person to become free themselves. The origin and source of their freedom is being connected in relationship to God. (This is one description of what God has done with us).

There’s more that could be said (and might be one day), but that’ll do for now.

I have been thinking about the art of asking good questions lately. Jesus was really good at asking questions. It seems though in our culture, that people are not so good at asking good questions. It seems we all want to have the answers, and we are looking for opportunities to give them. Maybe this is cultivated in our education system: the teacher asks the questions, and the thing all the students are supposed to do, is have the answer. I wonder what would happen if a student answered by asking the teacher another question like Jesus did. Not so good I think.

I have been thinking about different categories of questions, mainly teaching and training, and in personal relationships. I think that success in questions will come from having the right posture towards others, and the right attitude towards myself, more than from having a list of good questions. I don’t even know necessarily what it is about questions that is so powerful. Why are questions so powerful?

A long time ago I ripped what I thought was most of our music collection to our computer. Comprised 1154 songs (or there abouts). The other day I wanted to work out one of the songs in our collection but discovered that the album that it was on hadn’t been ripped. I decided that this indicated a good time to go through and rip any cds I had missed the first time. On top of that, we have bought a few cds lately that I wanted to add to the collection. Anyway, I added about another 60% to our library! The moral of the story? Of 154 albums that I ripped in total, only John Mayer, Room For Squares had copy protection. Bloody Sony BMG!

Their intentions were not entirely futile. It did make my computer freeze every time I tried to rip the cd. I initially misinterpreted this behaviour as hard disk failure and spent ~3hours checking my disk and moving my operating system (everything turned out okay, thanks for your concern). The freezing problem is not just a problem caused by Linux being crap. Apparently, trying to load a cd with copy protection on some imacs causes the computer to freeze, after which the cd loader won’t eject and the computer won’t reboot properly. Further, this problem is not user serviceable, and means a trip down to the owner’s local apple service agent! Maybe Linux (Ubuntu specifically) and imacs are equally crap? In the end it meant that it took me 3 hours and 5 minutes, instead of 5 minutes for me to add the cd to my library (‘rip’ sounds too illegal for my taste; I am sure the bigwigs in some record company coined the verb). Nice work Sony BMG.

When I moved to Newcastle in January last year, I was disappointed. I was reluctant to accept this at first, and put it down to needing to learn my way around, and how to make the most of living here. While I think there is some merit in that, as time has gone by, and I have done some travelling to and from Newcastle, and I have learned more about Newcastle’s history, I have slowly come to understand Newcastle for itself. My summary understanding of Newcastle is that it is a bit of a battler town.

It’s a funny sort of size too. I can’t quite get a comfortable grasp on it. It goes from Hexham (or maybe even further North) down to Belmont in the South. That seems pretty large to me, but in spite of this, Newcastle doesn’t seem to have the corresponding amount of business that I’d expect for a town of this size.

Newcastle has a reputation for having a disproportionately large music community and life. This reputation might be accurate and deserved (not that’d I’d know one way or the other yet), but I don’t understand it. I don’t know where all the music would go on.

Having said all this, the place is growing on me. I should spend some more time becoming better acquainted! Maybe I could post some blog covering the best things about Newcastle.

This semester I achieved my second High Distinction in my uni degree. The last time I got a HD was in first semester, first year, for Mathematics. This semester I got 85 even for Embedded Systems. My lecturer for the course said, “I have a good reputation, or a bad reputation, for giving good marks.” Regardless, I’ll take it. My plan is that this HD won’t be my last.

I was describing Christianity to a friend the other day and invited him to point out any points that he disagreed with or found hard to believe. I thought it might be interesting to discuss these things on my blog so that people can comment, disagree or whatever. Typically I will try to consider one issue per entry. My friend and I agree that God exists, and is responsible for Creation. This much I will take for granted but not more.

The first question was, “How does the anthropocentrism of Christianity fit with all other things in existence?” (roughly summarised). If I understand my friend’s question it could rephrased, “Isn’t the anthropocentrism of Christianity a bit arrogant or narrow minded?” My friend is right to point out that there are some amazing things ‘out there’: plants, animals, astronomy, physics etc. Why do humans think that they are so amazing and more valuable than other parts of Creation?

Traditional, conservative Christians are not famous for their environmental conscience, and are more commonly associated with SUVs, and international policy that supports foreign wars over oil. (You’ll have to forgive the absence of statistics to back up my arguments.) So, it might be inferred that Christians don’t care about the environment because Christianity says that humans are the most important thing, and everything else exists for them.

Let us agree that God made the universe and all that is in it, although at the moment I am skipping the discussion about the means and mechanisms of that process. (If you are curious, I believe that our Earth is about 4-5 billion years old). The Christian story of creation paints a picture of God creating variety and intricacy to fill what was previously desolate. From darkness, God creates night and day. From a formless void God separates land and sea. God continues, filling the ocean with fish and the air with birds. God creates all kinds of creatures and plants to inhabit the Earth. In a different realm, God imagines and creates all the intricacies and paradoxes of Chemistry and Physics. The way CS Lewis tells the story of Creation really struck a chord with me. You can find it in chapter nine of The Magicians Nephew: The Founding of Narnia.

God poured his self into these efforts of creation. Creation is valuable because God, who needs nothing, thought it worthwhile doing. As the story of creation builds and more voices join the tune, it builds to a crescendo that culminates with God creating Mankind. God made man higher than the animals and a little lower than the angels, but bestowed upon man a special honour: God made man like himself and breathed his spirit into him. The commission that God gave man was to continue the work that God had begun and to fill the whole Earth with the same brand of variety, creativity and prolific abundance. If mankind is the head of Creation it is because God put him there to rule over the Earth with the same self disinterest and generosity that God demonstrated.

I think that is enough for the time being. It is already becoming a longish post. There are other things that I have left unconsidered like, “what does Creation tell us about its creator?” I will have to set aside some space for that in a later blog. The second question my friend asked me was, “Why do Christians feel the need to tell other people about Christianity, and seek to create converts?” I’ll give it some thought and write about it in my next post.

Adios.

Below is an extract of an email that I wrote to my wife last week, while I was in the middle of writing the Reachout blog post. I have obscured my lecturer’s name to protect his identity.

date Tue, Aug 25, 2009 at 11:28 AM
subject transparency and honesty
mailed-by gmail.com

Hi

In the spirit of transparency, honesty and accountability, I thought I would tell you that I spent most of this morning’s (two hour – holy smokes) lecture writing in my blog about Reachout. Our lecturer was C**** S****, who I had last semester for part of Engineering Project Management. This subject is ‘Introduction to Engineering Practice’ and C**** has a section on Project Management, and last semester the whole subject was about Project Management (and it was a third year subject, and today’s lecture was in a first year subject), so I actually think blogging was a good use of my time. But sometimes I do think that I should not take my laptop to lectures because I don’t concentrate enough.

Went to Reachout Missions Conference a couple of weekends ago. I found it a challenging weekend, but there was some stuff that was really good as well.

The Good
It was great to have Nick and Nat come along. Their enthusiasm was encouraging, and they showed a lot of interest in the displays of the other mission organisations. Nick connected really well with some of the other representatives at the reps retreat. Jodi bumped into a couple of friends that she went to primary school with. Those sorts of connections are always the best thing about Reachout.

I was really proud of our display. Mush made the comment that she thought it was the best it had ever looked. There were some things we did wrong though. All of the banners we have, have ‘Cornerstone Community’ written on the bottom of them. On other occasions it has not been clear by looking at our display who we actually were. This year we solved that by putting the banner on the table, so our name was almost at eye level. Additionally our table was as wide as our allocated space. This meant that we had a lot of table space to neatly and minimalist-ly present some of our printed media, but it also meant that we had nowhere to stand except in front of our display. There were rumours going around the display community that next year you can’t just register for a display, you have to actually apply and tell them what you want to do. I am keen on setting up a publican’s bar.

The input from the speakers was good. It was funny discussing the talks afterwards. It was almost always something like, “That was really good. I got a lot out of that.” To which person two replies, “Really!? I was really bored. I thought the other guy was much more insightful.” After which person one incredulously exclaims, “Really?! I didn’t like the first one. I thought the second was better.” And so on. It wasn’t just that we had different opinions and different experiences of the talks, it was that our opinions seemed always to be split. There was seldom (never?) a unanimous opinion.

The debrief was also really good. We had a good chance to talk things over, and discuss what worked and what didn’t. More on that later.

Oh, and the weather! Contrary to every prior experience I have had in Katoomba in August, the weather was really mild. That made it much more pleasant, especially in the auditorium.

The Bad
Consistent with the above comments about the split opinions about the talks, some (anonymous) people thought some of the talks were (intolerably – that might have been their own shallow reserve of tolerance) bad.

I was actually really disappointed by the Reps Retreat. It is a bit like Pete Vol says: No surprises. Maybe it was my fault for having misplaced expectations, but my unwavering summary is that it was not a retreat. It was a ruse (type “define:ruse” into google and read the first result; it gets it perfectly) to have a captive audience for rep briefing. It really made me appreciate the practical steps Cornerstone has taken to prioritise connecting and contributing, in things like the Gathering and Muster. At the reps retreat, as much time as possible was set aside for talks by the guys who were going to be talking at the conference. It was like two days of church, before a weekend of … church (in a bigger auditorium). I decided (and I stand by this decision) that this was not where I was at, and that I would be more enriched by spending some of the time reading, reflecting, and relaxing. I took this approach into the conference as well. It wasn’t all smooth sailing though. (Maybe my attitude should have gone in the ‘good’ section.)

The Ugly
This is where it gets a bit more personal. All of what follows in this section comes with the following disclaimer: how I feel about things is not necessarily correlated with external reality, and I acknowledge that a lot of it has to do with my own insecurities and compulsions, and as such what follows is mostly about me.

Having adopted what I think was a good approach to a program that I did not like, I began to feel the judgement of the other reps, especially the reps running the prorgram. It did cross my mind that I have a rebel complex, and it wouldn’t matter what the program was, I wouldn’t be able to participate. As I thought about it I decided this was not the case. Over the last few years I have become detached from contemporary church culture (partly intentional, and partly not), and I have tried to become more connected with contemporary ‘popular’ culture (as in the culture of the populace). I think that is part of what made me uncomfortable. I was experiencing church culture as an outsider. I knew it, and what made me feel uncomfortable (other than just being in a foreign culture) was the sense that the opinion of some of the other reps was that I shouldn’t be there. This is the problem in hypothetical scenario: If I was not a Christian, allowances would be made for me, and a hand of welcome and introduction would be extended to me. But because I am a Christian (and a ‘rep’ at that) I should know better. [End scenario].

It was interesting reflecting on the experience from a perspective of cultural theory. It would be interesting to think further about the ways that I (and/or Cornerstone) don’t fit in / upset church culture and the way the culture responds in order to protect itself. When I think about it in that light, it easier not to take it personally, because it is not these people being mean to me, it is just the culture responding the way cultures do. (Bring on the culture wars?) The thing with culture is that it is just the ‘atmosphere’, and in that atmosphere all of the things I do were deemed as wrong and the way I do them as incorrect. Maybe that’s how non-Christians feel at church?

I mentioned earlier that the debrief was really good. There are a lot of good things about going to Reachout, but it has its challenges too, and I may not be the best person to meet those challenges, at least not on my own. Every year that Cornerstone goes to Reachout, people afterwards comment that there are good reasons for going, but it is not worth the expense and the effort if we are going to continue doing it the way we are doing it. We said that this year too.

The thing that is good about it is connecting with people you already know who are a part of local churches and who are interested in mission. I am not the best person for this because I grew up in Queensland and I don’t have a long heritage of church connections. The reps retreat is a bit the same. Someone who has connections with people in the traditional mission organisations, who really enjoys connecting with that crowd and feels comfortable among them could really help me out. That person may not exist; that person might be you; I don’t know.

We were thinking about how Cornerstone could have a really Good time at Reachout, as well as achieving recruitment and PR goals. One of the strengths we have as an organisation is our culture. We thought about ways that we could bring that to Reachout. One idea we had was to see if Cornerstone’s Supper Club persona could run the cafe at Reachout. It might help to keep costs down for us too, if workers in the Supper Club don’t have to register for the conference. (They may not be able to get into the conference, but that’s probably not a bad thing ).

So it would be really great if next year, there was a whole mob of us there, having interesting conversations, and finding out the different ways that the Kingdom of God is growing in different areas, and ways that we can work with, help and serve each other.

I’ll see you there next year.

My parents booked a holiday two years ago for them and their four sons (and the one daughter-in-law and one grandson) in the Hunter Valley this winter. It was their way of bribing us all to be in the same place at the same time, and fair enough I say. Anyway, as it turns out, one of my brothers had just moved to Emerald in Queensland and had a new job, so he couldn’t make it, and another of my brothers was in China, so he didn’t make it either. There were a few jokes about the lengths that we would go to in order to get out of going on the family holiday.

The holiday was a week in the Hunter Valley. We spent a lot of time cooking at our apartments, and that was a definite highlight. Our cooking was quite successful too. The only weak link was Dad with the bread maker. He had a 50-50 strike rate. Otherwise we checked out a few wineries, drove around the countryside etc. The end of the Tour de France was on telly, so we watched a bit of that. One of the funnier occasions was going to the driving range and hitting a ‘pyramid’ of golf balls (golf balls apparently don’t get served in buckets at this place, instead they get stacked in a pyramid). All in all a great week.

Uni started back this week. Today marks the last day of the first week of semester. I think we have started this semester quite organised: we have a shared spreadsheet on Google Docs that has all of our timetables on it, we know when Black Stump is on etc. If we can keep this up we will be unstoppable!

I am doing one 4th year subject this semester called ‘Wireless Systems and Advanced Comms’. There are only about 7 of us in the class which is pretty cool. Other than that, I am doing one first year subject (Introduction to Engineering Practice), and two third year subjects (Embedded Systems and Introduction to Electrical Engineering). Hopefully I will get credit for Introduction to Electrical Engineering because I don’t really want to do four subjects this semester because…

I got a job over the holidays. I am a ‘University Mission Worker’ for the Uniting Church. So far everyone has been really pleased and encouraging of my appointment in the position. I feel excited about the work, and also about having some money.

The first event in our rhythm for this semester is cards tonight. We are feeling very excited about having decided on a few things that we want to do this semester. We have managed to agree on some times, and put them into our weekly calendar.

Blog beautification works might have moved from the pipeline to the pipe-dream. Tim will tell.