Couldn't Help Noticing

From our family to your family ...

... have a very happy Christmas and New Year.

(Eager readers, please note: CHN will resume on 3rd January. January web extras will be available then as well - Ed.)

A toilet for Christmas

With a couple of days to go, I've realized that I'm changing my mind about Christmas.

There was a time a few years ago, when I hated Christmas. Really hated the consumerism, the fake sentimentality, the frenetic whirl of December with its obligatory round of parties and celebrations and end-of-year concerts, the panicked gift-buying in which (largely self-imposed) guilt and desire-to-please led to the budget being blown yet again. I even found myself growing tired of the almost desperate cries of the churches to remember the ‘reason for the season’.

But I think the moment that marked the beginning of a gradual change in my attitude was when I received a toilet for Christmas. A toilet in Tanzania, to be precise.

You have probably seen the catalogues that contain Christmas gift ideas like this. Instead of giving a relative something they neither want nor need, you buy an item of overseas aid in their name—a set of blankets for a family in Afghanistan, a bullock for a farmer in Bangladesh, or (in my case) a toilet in Tanzania.

As much as I was pleased that Tanzania contained one extra amenity, I couldn't escape the feeling that there was something strange going on; something that didn't quite work. A gift to Tanzania is clearly a wonderful thing, and there should be more of it. But it wasn't a gift to me. So why try to make a gift to Tanzania look like a gift to me, when it wasn't? If generosity to Tanzania is wonderful and God-like, then perhaps generosity to me (or even the rellies) was as well. Why can't we do both, if both are good?

I began to realise that although there was some justification for my hatred for what Christmas had become, perhaps there was also something just a little bit life-denying in my increasingly ‘bah humbug’ stance towards all things Yule. After all, family togetherness, mutual gift-giving, feasting and joy—these seem to me to be wonderful gifts of the Creator, to be received with thanksgiving. And what better time to enjoy them than in a communal remembrance and celebration of the birth of our Saviour? It's all good, as my kids would say.

The world, of course, will always spoil and misuse the Creator's good gifts. Mutual generosity is perverted into greed and rampant consumerism; feasting becomes drunkenness and gluttony; joy becomes phoney sentiment; and the Incarnate Christ becomes the harmless baby of Western folk religion.

But that the good is overlayed with an unhealthy layer of lard like a good ham, makes it no less truly good, and no less to be savoured with relish (so to speak).

As First Things author Joseph Bottum recently wrote:

Just because something is sentimentalized does not mean that it is untrue—or even that we are wrong to layer it over with sentiment. The distaste for sentimentality begins as a rebellion against false feeling, but it finishes as a rebellion against all feeling. It starts as a plain-speaking person's refusal to be deceived by a coat of paint, and it ends as a rude person's refusal to use paint at all. It opens as a wise man's ability to point out the fool's gold, and it concludes as a fool's inability to point out the real gold.

So I am as grateful for the toilet as the Tanzanians undoubtedly were. It has helped me to start liking Christmas again.

This sermon brought to you by ...

At church, a few of the guys on the ministry team have taken turns setting word challenges for each other whenever they have to preach or lead the service. One them had to use the term “pony ride” in his welcome. Another, in his address, had to use the word “bunyip”. But now, mentioning the word “Narnia” might win you a free trip to London:

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(Source. Link via Christianity Today.)

The organisers may be keen to exploit the opportunities that Narnia on the silver screen affords but instead of using the gospel to advertise Aslan, shouldn't we be using Aslan to advertise the gospel?

Left, right, wrong?

Given the dire recent history of independent, intelligent monthly magazines in Australia (The Briefing, of course, notwithstanding), we can only wish every success to The Monthly, launched in May last year. Certainly judging by the first few issues, it deserves to succeed. The quality of the writing is superb, the range of subject matter impressive, the production values high. And most interestingly, there seems to be no particular political agenda, other than to “enlighten and entertain”, as its editor Christian Ryan claims.

The December/January issue features one of the fairest and most thoughtful assessments of Sydney Archbishop Peter Jensen that I have read in the past five years (and there have been quite a few). The author, Andrew West, takes the time and trouble to try to understand Peter's recent criticisms of the Howard Government's Industrial Relations legislation, and make sense of what to most media commentators is a contradiction: Why does a supposedly ‘arch-conservative’ churchman who is against women's ordination and homosexuality, criticise a conservative government for some of its economic and immigration policies?

It's a fascinating piece because West seems to understand that Peter's view is not to be located within the old, and increasingly discredited, left-right paradigm. “Jensen argues that it is biblical orthodoxy—this absolute fidelity to the Scriptures—which liberates him to be an entirely different, and surprising, man when it comes to politics. It means that when it comes to wagging a finger at governments, he is not one of the usual suspects.”

This is the ongoing challenge, of course, for us as evangelicals—to continue to develop a ‘political theology’ that is not captive to the left-right paradigm, but which thinks out from the Bible to bring God's wisdom to our social, economic and community life.

More time to open gifts

The last time Christmas fell on a Sunday was in 1994. I was only a teenager, but I still remember major news stories. One thing I don't remember is any church canceling its morning service because Christmas happened to fall on a Sunday.

As the cliché goes, “My, how things have changed!”

All the major news outlets in America have picked up the story that many megachurches are canceling their morning services because of this apparent conflict. The most notable of these churches is one of America's largest, Willow Creek Community Church near Chicago. According to one article from CNN, pastors at Willow Creek “are canceling services, anticipating low attendance on what they call a family day.”

Cally Parkinson, a spokeswoman for Willow Creek Community Church, said that church leaders decided that organizing Christmas Sunday services would not be the most effective use of staff or volunteer resources. “If our target and our mission is to reach the unchurched, basically the people who don't go to church, how likely is it that they'll be going to church on Christmas morning?” she said. She also pointed out that the last time Christmas fell on a Sunday only a small number of people showed up to pray.

Is there something terribly wrong with the above? Willow Creek is America's leading evangelical church and it is sad to see it be so off-base with its representation of evangelical ecclesiology.

Here are the questions I would like answered before I cancel:

1. I wonder what they would say to a pastor like me who only has 50 people show up for a weekly gathering. Since I anticipate low attendance every week, should I cancel?
2. There is no denying that Christmas is a wonderful opportunity to spend time with family. However, is it primarily a family day? Is there any reason it can't be a church day and a family day? Should we not be rearing our family up with the idea that time spent together hearing God's Word and encouraging others is truly the most valued family time?
3. If the only mission of the church is to reach those who are unchurched (defined as people who ‘don't go to church’) then why not cancel every week? For, every week, not just Christmas Sunday, 100% of the people who ‘don't go to church’ don't go to church. Okay, maybe I am reading her a bit too literally here. However, my point is that the above stated goal of the church and the Sunday morning service seems to be a bit limited.
4. What exactly is ‘effective use’ for a staff member? I hope that the opportunity to speak God's Words to others, however small a number, would be considered useful and effective.
5. Can I be let in on the secret to getting a group of people, even if only a ‘small number’, to come together with the sole expressed purpose to pray? I can think of no better reason not to cancel a service than knowing that I'll have a group of people intent on praying together.