On Shepherds and Sheep

My friend Linda has helped me a lot with understanding the shepherds and sheep analogies in the Bible, as she grew up on a sheep ranch - but you can see her blog for that. However, the recent election coverage here recently used the old term "bellwether." Thankfully we still have experts in language studies that can help us unpack words like this.

A wether is a castrated male sheep. Obviously such a sheep would be one of the first to face the chop for meat production, as they have no ability to help grow the herd. However, farmers by observation noticed something interesting: if an adult wether can be convinced to enter a gate, the rest of the flock will follow. Anyone with experience in herding sheep would be happy to find a semi-leadable (or maybe even less flighty) sheep with such an ability - and thus these sheep were belled so they could easily be located by the shepherds and they were called bellwethers.

So often our views of the leadership of the church (and specified ministry in particular) are based on the shepherd-sheep analogy and this really does drive home the privilege and responsibility of ministry, but how would this look different if we thought of ourselves as bellwethers? How would it look different if we saw our role of leadership and developing trust with our congregations as something that still places our welfare within that of the group rather than considering ourselves as an alien from outside? Most importantly, is not our primary aim in ministry to develop our reception of and obedience to the will of God?

What do we expect?

On Saturday I led a prayer afternoon and evening at my congregation. The question I wished to ask was how our activities would be different if we expected God to be there, and if indeed they could be considered to be as prayer.

So we had a day where we did several different activities, each preceded by a scripture reading and prayer and each followed by a review and prayer. So we did indoor bowls, craft, garden work, cooked together, ate together and sang together.

In order to frame the reflection I looked to what prayer does in our lives, and ran into the thoughts of Richard Foster in "Prayer: Finding the Heart's True Home" and the broad structure of the book is based on three foci: Looking inward, looking upward and looking outward. In looking inward we look at the realities of our lives and ask God to make the changes we need in our lives. In looking upward we seek to develop our relationship with God. In looking outwards we seek God's calling to go into the world.

However, I found this model much more appropriate to individualistic rather than community prayer. We are called to be a community in the church, and when we share in prayer I would hope we also grow together as a community. So I would add the focus of looking around.

When we did this, we actually had fun but there was an air of expectation that helped us grow as a community. This made me think about how much the use of words can be used to control the agenda of our prayer lives. Just as sometimes we just need to be with each other, we need to spend time just being with God, and I wonder if we do enough of this as a community.

I'm not sure if this has made any difference in any people's prayer lives, but I did have a person ask me about dismissing the congregation prior to morning tea as it should also be considered as worship.

Life dishes up another lesson

Today I walked into a circular building I frequent. The stairs for these houses go down the side of the building and have fixed windows recessed into the wall for lighting.

When I walked in I heard a fluttering and saw a Brown Honeyeater (pictured) struggling to escape through the window. As I approached it got more and more frantic, and as it got more and more tired it kept bumping up against the window and falling until it was basically bouncing up and down on the sill of the window.

I was washing my bed linen, so I had a pillowcase handy and was able to capture the weakened bird in its folds. It was amazing, the bird ceased to struggle almost immediately once it was in darkness and its heart rate slowed perceptibly as I carried it to freedom and released it. No animals were harmed in the making of this blog entry.

I cannot help but think we can be a little like this poor bird. We can get ourselves so caught up in the one solution we see for a situation that we just keep butting up against it and tire ourselves with our striving.

Thankfully we have God and each other to release us from any thought that we have to solve everything for ourselves, but I do suspect I am one of those who has to absolutely be exhausted before I'm willing to accept help. One of the great things about having friends and being church is that we have people who look out for us and can help us spot when we're heading for trouble.

What does it mean for the church to specify ministers?

I have had a few reasons lately to think about where the ministry of the church resides.

The first was when a student I was mentoring told me that God only communicates with ordained people.

The second was at a conference on the diaconate that I attended over the weekend.

At the conference, the thought of a diaconate that exists in a distinct identity from congregational life was critiqued on the basis of a re-examination of scriptural references to diakonia, but I don't really want to draw too much from that.

What makes a person in specified ministry different from a lay person? The answer lies in their specification: the church sets them apart (and may or may not liberate them from their prior employment) to perform ministry on behalf of the church.

But what then separates a deacon that works for the wider community from a person employed by the church to serve? It comes back again to the call to serve. The particularities of the call include a lifetime commitment and the decision to submit to the guidance of the church in both the manner of seeking a placement and the discipline of how it is carried out.

In specifying people, we recognise God's presence and activity in a call. This is a sign of hope to the church in that we recognise the work of God in the person, but we also recognise the work of God in the work of the specified person.

A person who engages in prayer and meditation of the scriptures indeed gains much, but one who does so on behalf of a community is specified. But what would a congregation where a minister was the only one who prayed or studied the scriptures look like? Obviously, this is an unhealthy situation. How does this relate to service?

We are in a church who employ deacons and have developed agencies that perform ministry on our behalf. If we consider relationships to be an important thing in what we do, I feel we have to look seriously at how we articulate congregations and agencies so that we do not artificially divide the worshipping life of the church from its service. If congregations lose the connections to the needs of the real world in their place that the agencies can provide, we lose much of our call to ministry and are asking for a church of ill-health.

Blue Care Sunday is a great idea, but we need to do more than launch a web-page and expect people from within the worshipping community to deliver them. Wouldn't it be great to work on a local worship together - maybe even combining congregations in order to celebrate this important part of our ministry? I have suggested to my minister that we offer a pulpit swap to a neighbouring deacon.

How can a congregation learn to respect and participate in the ministry of the diaconate if they never see a deacon?

I mean no disrespect to deacons or other specified ministries (or candidates from these streams), but would appreciate any comments to develop this conversation further.

A noted change

I know this is a little late at night, but its time to think this through. Today I had two people remark that there was "something different" about the way I have been leading in worship, and in a good way.

Today's worship in particular had a few changes: I did not wear a tie, instead I wore a wooden cross that has a story of its own, instead of a cardigan or a suit jacket I wore a more contemporary type of jacket and in the end I had a sizable proportion of my aging congregation participating in singing and dancing "Father Abraham" with the four children of the congregation. Just a few changes, and it seemed totally out of step with a challenging message asking the congregation what we have to let go of to follow Christ more fully.

But was it? If I am going to proclaim the challenging message of Christ, how can this be done from a life of half-measures? If the lack of a tie makes the gospel unable to be heard through me, how deaf will we be to the word of God coming through anyone who doesn't fit our narrow definitions? This is not to say that I do not treat my calling with respect, or am unwilling to give the congregation a chance to participate in the shaping of my ministry (and indeed, thus large segments of my identity.) However the leap of faith has to be made, I do this through the call of Christ. If Christ found me worthy to proclaim the gospel to the youth I was comfortable with and to the congregations I used to call home, why did I convince myself that changing my status and receiving training to enhance my ministry would need to make me go back to relearning everything from the beginning again?

Perhaps instead of learning how to be the minister that I envision when I think of the word, I need to start learning how to be the minister that my Lord envisions when he thinks of me.

Am I a radical fundamentalist?

Yesterday I was having coffee with one of my friends who is an atheist playwright. He says that he is always willing to discuss the big issues about God and life, but all he generally hears from the church is the side issues: homosexuality, ordination of women and the list goes on and on... He stated that he can't get to the basic truths of the faith without working his way through centuries of overlaid tradition.

I cannot say that I have sorted out all of the side issues in my mind, but then again I thankfully have not been in the situations where I have needed to. Yet one things stands out far and above over all others. If fundamental is seen as being that which is at the very basis of something and radical is taking something to its logical extreme, I probably have to plead guilty. For me, the basis of Christianity comes back to something quite simple. If you were able to travel back approximately 2000 years and witness the crucifixion of Jesus, the carpenter from Nazareth and convicted blasphemer, what would you see? Do you see the death of a criminal whose claims were treasonous and could be interpreted as being delusional? Or do you see the Son of God dying for humanity on the cross, and interpret the resurrection as the validation of those claims? If your answer is "yes" to the second question, how does this inform your view of God and of humanity, how does it affect the way in which you live your life?

I am aware that this could be seen by some as a diminishment of the role of scripture to merely carrying one little section. Scripture is important for me as it carries that we know about Christ that I may hold most certain and the reflections of a community over centuries about what it means to be in relationship with God. As such, scripture stands at the centre of my meditative, contemplative and proclamatory life. However, I am not willing to stake my faith in Christ on a line-by-line street battle against the tools of modernity. Perhaps I'm making my faith a small target, but this is the rock on which I may stand.

An amazing few days

This may not be my most coherent post, but this one is as much for me as anything. I've just been lying in bed with thoughts rushing through my head, so lets see how we go.

I am amazed by the places that ministry takes us, the privileged, private places that we are allowed into by the people around us.

The first place I visited was that of a desert, speaking with a lady who has worshipped at the same congregation for 17 years, but still does not feel like she belongs. I can only pray at the moment, there is not only a great need for her to forgive, but also a lot needs to be forgiven.

The other place was that of great celebration. Two of my friends needed to get married in January for visa reasons, but also wished a ceremony for their friends and family. As they did not wish a specifically church wedding, I was able to help them when they asked. In the planning progress, I still was able to keep God as a small part of the service and they graciously allowed me a Bible reading, some short words of advice, and a prayer at the end.

What really surprised me was the lack of pressure. I was not marrying these people (even in a hypothetical where I was acting as a legal celebrant), they were marrying each other, in addition I believe that any gifts given by me are given through Christ. Thus I was merely a facilitator, a friend not only offering to help their day smoothly but also helping them in crafting and giving vows to each other. This was easy, I've sorta got used to going in front of people and saying words of faith. What is not so easy is now realising that I hold a special place in these people's lives by my connection with such a special event. The gifts I have been given have been used and thus passed on, but the glory needs to go to the giver rather than the vessel.

How can we do this better? Perhaps I need to stop thinking of witness in instantaneous terms and think in terms of the opportunity for witness long-term that this has drawn me into.

What makes us happy?

I was having lunch with a friend who is a playwright, and not a Christian. He remarked on the way that I have become a happier person over the last five or so years, and this has contributed to his theory of the two things people require to be happy:

• A clear sense of values and living a life in accordance with it
• Having something in life to look forwards to

This is of course my summary of a longer conversation, and may not fully reflect the depth of his thought. When I considered further, I would place the source of my happiness as coming from similar, but distinctly different places.

• Being comfortable in your own skin
• Having a place in the world

For me, both of these are only available through Christ.

It is through Christ that we have the gift of forgiveness for ourselves and others and, as we were told on Monday, "releasing us from the fear of our history." Our relationship with God both brings us peace and something to live for. What is scary for me is that my place in the world seems to be that of the nomad.

What makes you happy?

It is finished?

It's been a while since I blogged, but I've been working on my congregation's web page.

Yesterday we had a ministry team retreat and were encouraged to think on God, God's ability to change us and the acceptance of our own humanity.

The final session used (among other things) some writing by the martyred Archbishop Oscar Romero of El Salvador titled "A Future Not Our Own" (You might want to Google it).

When I read this I was reminded of the words of Jesus on the Cross, "It is finished."

This is ridiculous, almost offensive!

Jesus entered his ministry proclaiming the words of Isaiah, yet at the time the one who claimed to be the bringer of that grand proclamation is hung, broken on an instrument of torture. Mission accomplished?

The world moved on, people were still lost, hungering, thirsting, sick and imprisoned.

At that moment, Jesus was mindful of his own humanity. He was in a body, at one moment in time. He had one set of legs, one heart, one mouth, yet Jesus changed the world beyond description. it still is an object of wonder to me that Jesus submitted to death, the ultimate acceptance of humanity. His earthly ministry was finished, but God's work in the world continued, and continues...

Are we humble enough to accept the limitations of our own bodies and situations? This is not a cop out, we are called to be bold and audacious for the gospel. On the other hand, are we like Christ, humble enough to accept that we have only a limited part in God's plans? I will die, but God's plans will live on without me. I can take risks, because God's plan will not stand or fall on my witness. A call to work with diligence, but without fear, is one that is well worth listening to.

A note of caution...

Sometimes you need a bit of forewarning about where your ideas might take you...

I tried out the children's talk last weekend, but the congregation was only small.

When I was handing the drinks out to the children, one said "Why don't you give a drink to everyone?"

Suddenly even those people who did not like lemonade were asking for an empty glass, or a half one.

Who would think saying a prayer of thanks over a drink and then consuming it together would be so precious?

Ooops, I forgot what eucharist means (prayer of thanks). After our moment together, and me not giving people long enough to reflect, the rest of the service seemed like an anticlimax, like me coming on to sing a solo Rolf Harris medley after a U2 concert.

I wanted people to see the sacred in the everyday, but you can't do that without touching God and being changed.

After all the fun we've had about the use of dealcoholised wine at the Eucharist at college, I wonder what they'd think of lemonade! After all, its not about what we do but the recognition of what God has done and continues to do.

Goodbye minister, mentor and friend

This morning I have received news that the person originally appointed to be my field education supervisor has passed away after over six months of incapacitating illness. He is part of the reason why I started the blog with its title, as he encouraged me to retain my connections with science as something that gives a particular distinctiveness to my ministry - and to contribute to the diversity of the church.

It is both good news and sad news, and I feel very much for the congregation and his family, but I cannot get past the enormity of the change of attitude towards death we have in Christ.

I feel grief and loss, the absence of a wise man who had contributed so much, and held the potential to contribute more to my formation in ministry.
Yet I cannot get past his gain and legacy, the people he changed and his work that lives on.

I feel pain, the recognition of human existence, the mortality of myself and those I love.
Yet I cannot get past the joy for a friend's life lived in Christ to the end.

I feel the absence of a leader, a man who was sure that Christ leads us on into the world and constantly called us to look for our own signposts.
Yet I cannot get past the fact that he has run his race, and is receiving his reward, but the road leads on for us all. Our work is not yet done, we have our own joys and sorrows to face.

I feel loneliness, never again to meet in this world with a man with a huge capacity and openness for love, and particularly think of those who were most close to him at this time of loss.
Yet I cannot get past the joy of a faithful man who gets to sit at the feet of his master at last.

Goodbye minister, mentor and friend.
See you later, once my own race is run...

Who is my neighbour

When thinking about who is our neighbour, what came to mind is the current myth of self-sufficiency. I buy my products with my money and it is my right to enjoy them for my own purposes. right?

We still maintain the good habit of thankfulness to God when we say grace, but what does this mean in our disconnected world? And so I came up with my children's address.

I will bring several aluminium cans of lemonade and ask the children about what it means to say grace (They already know about this).

When they say it is giving thanks to God, I will ask if the person who purchased it had served God, and the how about the people who made it.

My working life had been in the aluminium industry, and I will show them my old work uniform and explain to them how thousands of people contributed to making the can. In one can of soft drink we have thousands of neighbours, who have contributed to our lives and us to theirs.

We then will prayerfully drink glasses of lemonade together as we thank God for all the people who helped made it.

Prayerful consumption as a way of recognising neighbourhood in a seemingly disconnected consumerist society? Hmmm, its almost crazy enough to work.

A strange way to answer a question

This week I have been at a media training course. We were told that whenever we face the media we need to have a clear idea of the message we wish to convey, or the interviewer can dominate the discussion. This may seem a little domineering, but we see similar behaviour in the life of Jesus.

One of this weekend's readings in our church is that of the Good Luke 10:25-37 and I have been preparing my sermon on this for a while.

One of the interesting things I found in this account was the way in which Jesus did not answer the question. Jesus was essentially asked, "Who am I compelled by the law to love?" Jesus' story essentially gave the answer to "Who may act towards you in love?" We have lost the sense of outrage that this story would have caused in the original community. The behaviour of the Priest and the Levite would have been totally understandable, as they were subject to Levitical laws that would not let themselves be made unclean for anyone other than a blood relative. There are historical accounts of Samaritans killing dozens of pilgrims travelling from Galillee to Jerusalem about the time of Jesus, and only a chapter or so earlier we hear the disciples asking Jesus to call down fire and destroy a Samaritan village. Are we ready for the parable of the Good Moslem, or the Good Communist?

One other thing this also brings out for me is the concept of neighbourhood in the unexpected. Are we able to accept charity from those we think of as being lesser than us or threats to us? God's grace and love is universal, there are story after story of unexpected heroes inside or outside of the Hebrew community all through the Old Testament. Even a donkey manages to get a word in! The man dying on a cross in abject loneliness and agony is the saviour of the world! When we go forth to do the work of God in the community, are we ready to accept God working through those we go to serve? Are we too proud to accept the widow's mite so valued by God for the love and sacrifice with it shows? Are we willing to accept the love of the hurt and broken? Are we willing to listen for the word of God through the witness of the young, the frail, or those who we just don't seem to get along with? Perhaps we have to be stunned like the hapless traveller to accept the gifts that God sends us through these people.

Finally, I haver been looking at some writing by Moltmann in "The Crucified God" in preparation for the coming semester and some of his comments on the church are rather pointed and suitable for this meditation:

"The cultic division between the religious and the profane is potentially abolished in faith in the Christ who was profaned by crucifixion. Thus the eucharist, like meals held by Jesus with sinners and publicans', must also be celebrated with the unrighteous, those who have no rights and the godless from the 'highways and hedges' of society, in all their profanity, and should no longer be limited, as religious sacrifice, to those who are members of the same denomination.
The Christian church can re-introduce the divisions between those who are within and those who are without, only at the price of losing its own identity as the church of the crucified Christ" (p 40)


Who is worthy of our love? Only those who are worthy of the love of God... and that distinction has been obliterated by grace.

What's the picture?

I suppose I'd better do something to explain the picture I have for this page. For those scientifically inclined it is the 3dz2 orbital density plot. It is one of many places of mystery that I found in my studies in chemistry.

For some people, the explanation of things by science can cause a reduction in the level of beauty or wonder in them. For me, the further that I delved into science the more things I found that were full of beauty and wonder. Whether they are the wonderful balances seen in ecology or the absolute perfection seen in the properties of certain chemicals for life, I found they added to rather than removed from my sense of faith. I believe that science and wonder can co-exist, I see no difference in the wonder of God parting the Red Sea by miraculous event or by the extremely coincidental event of a major undersea land collapse occurring at the most absolutely opportune time (as was offered as a debunking of this story by an atheist friend to me last year). What's most important to me is that I don't let petty debates about mechanisms of God's activity either get in the way of approaching the world of science with rationality or, most importantly, from approaching my relationship with God through faith in Christ crucified.

Sometimes God acts in strange ways...

One of my greatest struggles of going into ministry has been that of worthiness. I have often caught myself struggling to accept I am worthy to lead humans, let alone to serve God. It is often more easy to see what we lack than the gifts we have been given.

To some extent, thinking on the fact that participation in God's plan is an act of grace freely given by God to humanity has corrected this. It is not a matter of our worthiness but God's grace, as I said yesterday.

Then I read one of my scheduled Bible readings for today. It included Acts 16:16-18. In this passage Paul and Silas are harassed by a person possessed, who continually proclaimed their identity. I don't know if any of you have ever worked with those who have diminished mental capacity, but I know from experience how hard it can be to convey a message to the wider community while being enthusiastically and continually interrupted by someone with a limited sense of boundaries. After two days, it would be no wonder that the ministry team would have been more than a little frustrated and annoyed.

In a moment of what seems to me like sheer frustration, Paul casts out the demons in Jesus' name. While it is not one of Paul's greatest moments, it is a moment where Christ was present and active through Paul's ministry. I believe that if Paul was genuinely concerned about this woman on his own basis, he would have done this much earlier. It was not through Paul's love, but through the love of Christ that this woman was healed.


So what does this mean for us in ministry? To me, it shows that Christ is able to do great things with and through people, despite their weakness and even uses a moment of weakness to bring profound change to the life of one of the most disadvanteged in the community. While I don't believe that this means that God does not strengthen us and change us on our walk, it does serve as a reminder of the unconditional love of God for us and the strange ways in which God is free to work in the world. If we get too hung up on our needs to be worthy for ministry, we deny the grace that is inherent in our call.

Into the great unknown...

Hello, and welcome to my blog. This is a new thing for me, but I'm willing to try it for a while and see how it all works.


I've only put limited information about myself in my profile, but those who know me will know me and it'd be a little too easy to identify me if I speak too much about myself. Hopefully I'll be able to say enough to keep things interesting.

To kick things off and let people get some idea of at least how I think, let's start with a little bit of thought that came out when I was thinking about preaching lately. My supervisor kept telling me that I can only ever preach my own gospel, and this got me thinking. So here's the latest version of the gospel of Bunsen.

God loves us
God calls us
God renews and transform us
God has a future we are blessed to be able to participate and share in.
This is an awesome task;
we cannot do this on our own.
We can only do this through

• the Father's unimaginable and immeasurable grace,
• the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ,
• and the power and gifting of the Holy Spirit.

In this there can be joy and hope with the humility that comes from the acceptance of our own brokenness.


It might not be much, it may not be theologically complete, but it (like me) is a work in progress.