The Lord's prayer - a modern interpretation

I was recently on an event where I was inspired to encourage others to interpret the Lord's prayer into clear contemporary non-religious phrases while staying true to how most Christians understand it (for older people, use a few more respectful terms).

This was my first result:

Excuse me, 
you big and powerful guy (who could kill us easily), and is far, far away from us.
Religious & non-physical is who you are.

May things be on earth the way they will be after we die - lots of singing and feeling high all the time.
Give us lots of food and choice in all that we can have.

Let us not feel guilty anymore for any bad stuff we’ve done as we try to be nicer to others (but maybe not go too far as to really care about them).

Keep me away from bad stuff (except for the stuff that is really interesting) and give me an escape route whenever I get into trouble.

For you are the biggest superpower around, and can do whatever you want and bomb and destroy whoever you like without accountability.
And we should say great things about you regardless.

Let everyone agree with this.

Works versus grace: love and action

"Welcome to the ringside, sports fans one and all. In the blue corner and crowd favourite 'Works'. I'm yelling out loud into this microphone and you can just barely hear me over the roar this crowd has. And it's not just the Christians or Muslims fans that make up a huge percentage of the audience tonight, but also the countless others that have been drawn to what promises to be amazing display of strength, power and endurance!
In the red corner, is 'Grace', who frankly is a bit of an unknown despite being surrounded with an unbelievable multitude of stories and rumours. Fans of Grace are largely made up of people that are just passionately anti-works, as not a lot has been discovered about grace at all!
Yeeow! Works has just head-butted Grace before the match has even begun. We are in for a titanic battle tonight!"

I've often said that works is a easy way of knowing you're right and proving you're in with god (whichever god you want to believe in or make up).

Grace - getting God's goodness when you don't deserve it - is really the defining unique (and often criticised as foolish) feature of Christianity from all other 'religions' or worldviews. No other religion is as idealistic or naive to propose that if people knew they could get away with this, that they would shed their selfishness and puts others first.

But astute people who've been around me, know that one of the great criticism I have for the people that claim to know God, identify with him, and are recognised as being his followers, is that they largely are not seen today as reflecting God in their actions... essentially 'works.'

Certainly in Australia, public Christians, Churches and Pastors are not generally viewed as people or bodies that are self-sacrificing, authority-defying, gracious, humble and sinner-loving people in line with Jesus who gave up all by dying on a cross for all of humanity.

We are to be visible as people that do the works of Christ- but at the same time, know that none of those works save us or make us more special in anyway. It's a tension so many find hard to resolve for themselves, much less explain to others...


I've been reading Dietrich Bonhoeffer's Cost of Discipleship...

"The first question to ask is: From whom are we to hide the visibility of our discipleship? Certainly not from other men, for we are told to let them see our light. No. We are to hide it from ourselves. Our task is simply to keep on following, looking only to our Leader who goes on before, taking no notice of ourselves or of what we are doing. We must be unaware of our own righteousness, and see it only in so far as we look unto Jesus; then it will seem not extraordinary, but quite ordinary and natural. Thus we hide the visible from ourselves in obedience to the word of Jesus. If the 'extraordinary' were important for its own sake, we should, like fanatics, be relying on our own fleshy strength and power, whereas the disciple of Jesus acts simply in obedience to his Lord. That is, he regards the 'extraordinary' as the natural fruit of obedience."


Following Jesus is about falling in and growing in love with Jesus and God. Love always produces action towards what you love. The action doesn't make the true love occur, and action cannot be the reason for true love. But true love always produces action, and usually that kind of action is always creative.

May your love continue to deepen. May you encourage and inspire others to love more deeply too. And may the world benefit from the fruits of yours and others deeper love.

School environment, overpolicing, and sharing love

On Thursday, a student got angry, shoved me and stormed out of one of my year eight classes. When I reported it to the vice-principal, I told him it really wasn't a big deal. I was shocked to discover later that the student had been suspended for four days.

On the one hand, the student in question is not known for his skills at respecting other students or staff, or working productively with others. I don't know exactly how many other occasions he has been suspended or what the nature of them might be.

But looking from a different perspective, I am somewhat uncomfortable with the amount of traditional 'policing' that is expected of a teacher.

In the course of my normal life, I don't see much of police (except for one of my best mates). Some weeks I don't see any sign of them (except passing the cop shop on my way to the supermarket). And that's ok. I know they exist and they are doing their job somewhere else. It's that traditional line of "if you're not doing anything wrong, you've got nothing to worry about".

But I think it is possible to over-police, where an atmosphere of distrust is actually generated. Unfortunately we can easily think of situations locally and overseas, where this is happening.

During these moments of being 'overpoliced' - and maybe it's the deviant streak within me, but I feel more self-conscious of how my actions are going to be perceived, and think a lot more of what I could be doing wrong - thoughts that I wouldn't have been inspired to have if not for the surveillance I was undergoing.


It's strange, in my previous work with groups of youth, I was conscious of my supervision role and ensuring control over my 'charges' but never seeing it as 'policing'.

I think the difference is that in the past, I have had more direct control over the 'feel' of the environment, whereas at school, I play only a very small role in how the overall atmosphere is experienced by students. So many other forces are in play, and some of which I am expected to support even if I personally disagree with.

Looking back, working in youth group settings affords so much freedom and ability to recreate 'life' as we like it to be, and, due to the voluntary nature of participation, a greater sense of love and appreciating them being there.

Although I've verbally said that to many students, I'm not sure if I fully convey that sense to my students in general... particularly this year... that is, that I value their presence in my class and around me in other settings.

Hmmm. Any suggestions on how I could do this would be appreciated for the school setting.

Sure, in youth group, there is also a greater sense of the love and grace that flows directly from our Saviour, but... maybe it would be of great benefit to 'our youth', to be more intentional about equipping them to somehow bring more of the 'youth group vibe' into other areas of their lives... which some of that is just having an attitude of greater consideration for the people in their lives - not just teachers, but their parents, bosses, other 'authorities', and fellow students and peers in general.

One way could be... actively target one person (it's always best to start on only one or two) to pray for, and then to think of practical tangible ways to bless them each week. And for each person to report but regularly how they are going and what is happening as a result of these actions.

Any other suggestions along this theme would also be valuable.

Followers falling away...

"What happens if your disciple falls away?" he asked.

My spoon paused in its journey towards my mouth. We're catching up in an Indonesian restaurant that was closed last time we tried to visit. I am a big believer in exposing any person that journeys with me to different cultures and the experiences they offer. It's an object lesson of the global perspective God has of humankind - an easy thing to miss as our culture tries to convince us that it is the only reasonable lens in which to view and experience the world.

I've been journeying with these guys for many years now. And I've been encouraging them to take on their own companions for journeying - disciples, for a more spiritual trendy word. My problem is that the term disciple tends to imply the training, encouraging and correcting is primarily one-way. For me, sometimes it is their wrestling with the reality of their faith in their lives that has been so valuable in fanning the flames of my faith or reminding me of how I am straying.

"Just keep journeying with them. They might reject their 'faith' but if you've been around them for a while and continue to be there for them they cannot deny the reality of your faith and the reality of THE faith. Sometimes their faith may be based on the wrong things anyway and needs to be abandoned. They might need to let go of misunderstood or selfish concepts of God or what he actually asks of us...

We also have examples from the Bible of people who fell away from their faith at one time and came back to it later on because people persisted with them. The gospel book of Mark is written by John Mark, who initially travelled with both Barnabas and Paul. As John Mark deserted them on a previous occasion, Paul refused to travel with John Mark and Paul parted company with his former mentor Barnabas over this issue. Barnabas persisted with John Mark and many years later Paul praised John Mark for his helpfulness in Paul's own ministry.

Also for me, there are people I've journeyed with that will no longer identify themselves as 'Christian', but I think in terms of the foundation built into them, they are doing mighty works in helping others experience the kingdom of God around them. I don't consider those people lost. They know God is real for me, and still involve me in their lives and some of their life thinking and decisions.

I don't think our job is to always be keeping score of who's in or out... but helping others see they should be looking to Jesus for the big (and small) issues of their lives."

I was made for loving you...

I don't think I love people enough. Excluding myself, of course there are some people I do love. But in general I don't love people enough... especially those that I claim to be trying to serve.

I like them. I always try to be nice to them. I respect them and am impressed with them often. But love...

I suppose I better clarify what I mean by love, since our use of the word today is so open and means so many different things to different people. I'm not talking surface, romantic, sexual or obsessive-stalking kind of love... though of course there's a certain amount of obsessiveness to any love.

I'm talking about love where you want to know the other person really well, and you let them know you well without pretence, where you want to see existence from their perspective and help them achieve their goals, where you are wanting the best for the other person, where you think about the other as much as you think about yourself.

I can't say I love my students like that... any of my students like that. I like them and happy to do some of that, but for the most part I don't do that kind of love... Sure I pray in general for my students and think about my students in general.

Only last week did I pray individually through students in two of my classes. I wish I could say I did that for all my students, or even some of my students regularly... but I can't.

Sure I think of them in a general sense, and in preparing classes or thinking of other activities or approaches, I think of the 'students'. In and out of school I occasionally think of what would be beneficial for my students, what they would like and enjoy, and what else I could do for them... but it generally as my 'students' as a block of people. Not individuals... not as individual images of God... not as individual persons loved by God... not as how Mother Theresa and her Order saw those they ministered to - as each person being Jesus himself.

I know some might say I'm not being realistic in this line of thinking... but I don't think Christianity is about being realistic.

Christianity and discipleship is about reflecting Jesus - which isn't about realism, but about being God with God where ever you are.

Before people worry that I'm going through another guilt-martyr stage again with this being something else to beat myself up with... I have God's grace and that's all I need. God loves me heaps and there's nothing I need to do more (or even can do more) for God to love me more.

Lord, help me to think of others beyond their groupings, and to love others as you love them, as individuals, each created in your own image, but also each as unique expressions of you.

Life... or something like it

One of my friends wrote in an email recently about his wife and him "...things are normal I guess, you know, work, sleep, eat, etc. Pretty boring you'll probably say, and yeah you're probably right if that's what you may be thinking."

When I first read it, I thought that's not boring, that's how I yearn for my life to be. Having steady rhythms of life makes it easier to have other people involved in your life, as they know when they can intrude and become more part of your life, and not having your life too packed with lots of different things makes it easier for them and you to spend more time together sharing life.

As I meet more people, they usually ask about what I've thought about my move to Shepp from Melbourne last year.

To be honest, one of the reasons I moved was to create a life filled less with running around 'ministry-related' activities, but more of a life of missional rhythms. I haven't succeeded. I've largely recreated my ministry-related-activities-filled life with different expressions.

I think we value activity in this society - it gives the impression things are being achieved. But like so many of the trinkets in our consumeristic society, they generally don't amount to much at all.

Rhythms of life should be encouraged and highly valued... Being God with God with the same people around you over time is something precious and greatly fruitful. Keep it up and know you are serving God well.

Church... now serving its xx billionth customer

"So how do we do it?" was the earnest question.
And as the speaker tried to explain it was about principles rather than getting a template, a thought formed in my mind and I put my hand up.
The speaker indicated for me to speak.
"The problem is that when people say they want to improve church, they are really wanting to improve the event, and not the people."

Whether it is school, church or another organisation, we often don't step far back enough. Their goal is usually how can we keep doing things essentially the way we always have but get a better result. Too many people seem to be just too invested in how things are - even if they say they are not.

So I was at a conference last weekend about how do we contextualise Jesus' story and mission to the different sectors of Australia (that is how do we present the message of Christ and help people grow as followers of Jesus wherever they are particularly located in Australia). It was a given that huge sections of Australians (and by implication Australian Christians also) aren't receiving what Jesus has to offer in ways that are relevant or understandable to them.

The evangelical speaker, internationally renowned, was pushing the point that the main mission of the church (that is the people of Jesus) should be about making disciples and not evangelism, that is our purpose is to concentrate on making robust 'little Christ's.

He had explained the Christian church in 180AD had processes (catechisms) whereby people who wanted to be followers of Jesus could not make a profession that "Jesus is their Lord and Saviour" until they had completed a training period of at least 2 years and sometimes up to 5 years. The time duration didn't depend on that individual, but when the elders and his sponsor/discipler decided he was ready.

Then the question was asked how do we do that in today's context.

In addition to the above point about church being 'people not event', I also commented that the church seems to be obsessed with mass-delivery systems, as if it can't be successful unless the processes could be delivered to large numbers of people at the one time. Anything that could not be delivered to the masses didn't seem to register as being a viable way of 'doing church'.

[I'm having trouble writing this blog at this point. One of the reasons I've resisted writing blogs is that on one level it can often encourage vanity. There is a certain level of 'oh, aren't I clever that I came up with this idea and recorded it down' or 'look didn't I show that person or those people how clever I was by saying that at the time.' No matter how I try to write about this situation, it still comes across along those lines. And by writing this aside, I can compound my ego-masturbation further by implying 'oh, look how humble I am by trying to downplay how clever I was in that situation.' Lord, forgive me.]

Anyway, the speaker who is much much wiser than I, and probably realised I wanted to say more at this stage, allowed me to vent my more ignorant views instead of talking from his much greater experience...

"I think the problem is people are only thinking about making disciples on a mass-delivery scale and I don't think that is effective at all. It has to be on a one-to-one basis. It has to be long-term. Jewish Rabbinic discipleship, was like what Jesus did with his disciples, the students lived with their teacher over a long period of time, eavesdropping and spying on their teacher, seeing them in a huge range of contexts, watching and remembering how their teacher reacted to all those circumstances. Too often the church talks about becoming Jesus' disciples in largely mystical terms, something completely nebulous and unpredictable. We can use 'spiritual' terms in our explanations and sound like we are saying a lot, but in fact we are saying nothing. Sure, there is the work of the Holy Spirit and aspects of how God works that is completely unpredictable. But I don't think God made it too hard for us to get it.
To make a disciple is a quite simple. Spend time one on one with them over a long period of time in a wide range of circumstances - not to just talk, but share in real life experiences - be involved in the practical aspects of each other lives."

A couple of days again I was speaking to a friend who had read my blog and said not everyone can become a school teacher. And I agreed.

In fact, just being a school teacher as a Christian isn't discipleship either. Sure I have long-term exposure to many, but again it has to be a one-to-one process long term. Being a school teacher however puts me in a space long term where I can be observed, spied on, and eavesdropped in many different circumstances. Sure there is still a disparity between who I really am and what I am on about and what my role as a school teacher sets me up as - but I do have some opportunity to help them see past the facade every now and again.

Because of the fragmented lives most of us live today, many of us don't get to see other followers of Christ live out their lives as 'little Christs' in different circumstances. That is why I said to my friend, the best thing he can do (and by implication, any one else that calls themselves followers of Christ) is to adopt a disciple - whether that is someone who identifies themselves as a fellow follower or not is irrelevant - and spend a lot of time with them long-term (ie years) - doing life together and on occasions talking and reflecting about that. Our job is to help them understand what it really means to live as a follower of Christ. It's up to them and the Holy Spirit whether they make a lasting commitment to Christ. To force them to make a commitment prematurely happens way too often as it is, and probably goes a long way to explaining the high drop out rate from Christianity.

My friend complained he was more flawed than I and was worried he didn't really have that much to offer others by being a discipler. I said that helps his prospective disciple to feel like he can identify more with him. And by being deeply involved with another person genuinely striving to be more like Christ, will result in his student posing ideas and questions that will push him further along. We learn more about our faith when we actually have to engage it in real ways. For the majority of Christians, their faith is largely an intellectual pursuit with some moral guidance thrown in.

I also commented that like the 12-step process, discipling some one else, helps us with loving our neighbour as ourselves - as it forces us to think more and more about others rather than allow us to remain self-absorbed as we naturally tend to.

So despite our natural tendencies to think about church, discipleship cannot be yet another mass-delivery system of the church. But if every one in a church community was to become an active discipler of one other, that community would affect many.

Impractical? Ineffective? Too hard to get everyone on board? Just an excuse to spend time with others not really achieving anything of worth? Comments?

Christians versus Jesus

At a recent national Christian conference I presented a session on the state of children's and youth ministry today, where I ended with a slide of the following table, highlighting the difference in public perceptions between Christians and Jesus:

Jesus	Christian
Loves everyone	Hates certain people
Enter sinner’s world	Avoid sinner’s world
No possessions	Resource-rich
Freedom from man rules	Restrictions

Any further additions, corrections or refinements?

How can we call ourselves "little Christ's" (Christians), when we are seen as so different than the person we are supposed to be like? How can we point to God, when so many already see us as different to the values of God?

Why aren't we as the whole body of Christ putting an urgent priority on changing these perceptions? Or are we actually guilty of these sins and unrepentant?

Good intentions...

Tonight I attended a consultancy seminar held by the Victorian Institute of Teaching about the upcoming implementation plans for re-registration of teachers every 5 years. Like so much in life, the intentions behind the thinking of re-registration are not bad. It's just the implementation is. Or at least it comes across as being so.

Re-registration is dependent on demonstrating two things: maintenance of professional practice; and suitability for teaching. There's practically no problems with the second criteria (to screen out paedophiles and serious incompetence). The problem is that they define adequate maintenance of professional practice with just attending professional development (PD) activities. Now the VIT agrees it's not just about attendance of PD activities, but should involve adequate reflection and implementation of knowledge and skills gained from the PD. Their problem is that they believe they can't control the reflection and implementation part, so they will just control the amount of PD that is required. The other problem they have is that they want one re-registration system that equally applies to full-time teachers and casual relief teachers, across all sectors.

A good friend of mine believes the VIT's proposed use of mere PD attendance to 'demonstrate maintenance of professional practice' is based on flawed thinking, and is presented that unless this dubious requirement is met, teachers (who do demonstrate professional practice but choose not to follow this enforced process) will be de-registered. Additionally, the enforced process involve more unproductive work (keeping records of all PD attended) for teachers, is likely to encourage more dubious PD providers to emerge in order to meet these new demands created by this flawed definition of 'demonstration of professional practice,' and continue to alienate teachers from this body (VIT) that aims, among other things, to support teachers in their professional lives. He also questions whether all teachers should be treated the same, after all, although there are similar aspects to casual teachers as opposed to full-time teachers, surely there are quite different demands and expectations placed on full-time teachers than CRT in what they are responsible for and the expected results each are to produce.

My more specific concerns lie at how low the bar is set for teachers by this process as well as the process for initial registration as a teacher... not because I want to create more obstacles for people to become and stay a teacher, but if we're going to place any obstacles in the way - at least make them be worthwhile and relevant ones to overcome (and enhance one's performance as a teacher) rather than just mere annoyances (that seem arbitrarily set just so people can point to them and say 'hey being a teacher is hard, because we've had to prove we can sing the national anthem in Klingon and untie our shoelaces with our teeth'). In psychology we have a term called 'face validity' - they look on the surface as being related and beneficial for teachers, but at the end of the day - they are not. First year registration was an annoyance to me - yeah, maybe I'm not quite a typical first year teacher - but that's part of the problem with the one-size-fits-all options that exists around.

Reflecting on the process, I now realise all the good things about the first year teacher registration process - could probably have been achieved without the process in place for first year teachers - as most of them was about changing and moulding the culture of the school and its leadership. What were these things: mentoring and supporting each other (something that really benefits not just 1st years but all teachers); collegiate activities which is a fancy way of saying teaming up with another teacher to teach the one class, observing another teacher teaching, and getting feedback from another teacher observing you teach (again all things new and experienced teachers would welcome - if the school was better structured for it); and a proper induction program for new staff (again not specific to just first year teachers but any new staff - and also good ongoing reflection for any existing policies in place).

And likewise with the re-registration process, which is about ensuring teachers maintain an adequate level of professional practice - this could be achieved by educating schools and their leadership to value, acknowledge and encourage continuing maintenance of their professional practice which most schools already have in place. The enforcement approach seems to be motivated by the fear that unless it is mandated for all individuals teachers, the schools and their leaders that don't currently support this approach, won't fall in line.

VIT would be seen to do more for teachers by liaising with the schools and their leaderships on behalf of teachers about ensuring they have these opportunities - rather than putting the onus on individual teachers to make sure their schools are providing them with the right opportunities and jump through hoops.

However, the spanner in the works of my thinking here, according to the CEO of the VIT is that how do you ensure the 1/3 (or whatever the number he used) of teachers that are classed as casual and not full-time are also meeting the standard of professional practice of full-time teachers in the right environments. And this is where my friend's points has some bearing...

Why should we treat casual teachers the same way we treat full-time teachers? Do parents have the same expectations of full-time teachers as they do of casual relief teachers? Oh, that's ok you don't know my son who's been with you for the full year, after all you're just a (full-time or casual relief) teacher. Oh, that's right you had to teach a subject outside of your initial training, we can't really expect you to have a suitable year's plan for my daughter's learning in physics for VCE. Oh, that's fine, my son will enjoy singing pop songs for the whole day everyday for the rest of grade four.

This is not an issue of the competence of the Casual relief teacher... but of their practice.

Again at the end of the day it is an issue for the school and its leadership. Do you employ a CRT because they are capable or just because they are apparently 'well-trained'? I think most school leadership are happy to take on some CRTs because they are desperate in the short-term, whereas others they would be more than ecstatic to have them as full-time if that individual CRT decided to. How much PD attended by any potential CRT is hardly going to be the main decider for any school leader as to whether they actually feel confident that this person is right for their school.

Why is the world so caught up with trying to find the most efficient way of rolling things out - the one-size-fits-all, the love of 'face validity' as opposed to looking deeper for what will actually produce the results they are after in ways that convey their intentions properly? It happens everywhere - schools, churches, and other organisations... with most content to say, well if someone else is doing it that way (especially if they are big) that's good enough for us...

My friend said later "I wish I didn't have to think about these things, I wish I could trust someone with more experience and competence was actually working on this stuff so I could just play my playstation instead, maybe someone who is actually paid to do this stuff and work on this stuff was actually working on this stuff - so I wouldn't have to. But that just doesn't seem to be happening."

Amen.