Who Are You?

Bloom is a community of people being part of each others lives; helping, encouraging and learning from one another. They're a little bit different from an average church, and were named as one of the 2010 Firestarter churches. But they warn against the "copy the great stuff we're doing" philosophy.


Instead of trying to be like "every other church that's out there", Luke suggests that churches find their own identity, reflect who they actually are (instead of trying to be someone else).

It strikes me that if this happened, then maybe there'd be a whole bunch of different types of churches - and a greater range of people would be able to discover Jesus.

that doesn’t mean you should all look and speak and act the same. Out of the generosity of Christ, each of us is given his own gift.Ephesians 4:7 (Message)

Blessings of Anger and Tears

The other day i wrote about how church can tend towards bench-sitting rather than action. Then a friend showed me this old benediction (seen on Mark Hyatt's blog). What if we had the courage to pray this kind of thing today?

May God bless you with discomfort
At easy answers, half-truths, and superficial relationships,
So that you may live deep within your heart.

May God bless you with anger
At injustice, oppression and exploitation of people,
So that you may work for justice, freedom and peace.

May God bless you with tears
To shed for those who suffer pain, rejection, hunger, and war,
So that you may reach out your hand to comfort them
And turn their pain into joy.

And may God bless you with enough foolishness
To believe that you can make a difference in the world,
So that you can do what others claim cannot be done
To bring justice and kindness to all our children and the poor.
Amen

Bench Believers

CMS has a great article on Bench Believers. The term is a reference to the Soccer World Cup, and Nike's Write the Future campaign.


By contrast the church's message seems to be less about passionate pursuit of ambitious actions to create a glorious future (which you might expect it to be) and more about seeking refuge in the safety of a holy huddle.

The vibe of church is "Come, sit and stay", as opposed to Jesus's "Go, tell and do".

On a side note, it also makes me wonder if this is another reason that the church's message struggles to inspire men, while the message of Jesus excelled at it.

"God Hates Figs" :)

Something that depresses me is when anti-homosexuality masquerades as Christianity (for why, see here). But something that pleases me is intelligent good-humoured people with a heart full of fun and love (rather than animosity). So I quite enjoyed finding out about the "God Hates Figs" parody campaign - satirising the similar-sounding (but more aggressive) campaign that actually exists in America.


Also, there is a God Hates Shrimp parody campaign - which humorously demonstrates the absurdity of picking obscure verses out of Leviticus.

Hehe - comedy gold!

Permission To Speak Freely

You may have heard of Anne Jackson, the writer of Mad Church Disease, and now Permission To Speak Freely. On her website she asks "What is one thing you feel you can't say in church" and this is one of the responses.


This and the other confessions provided an interesting reality-check. You can read more on Anne's website or see a couple of slideshows on her facebook page.

ps. if you're interested in her book, she has 7 excerpts online - 1 2 3 4 5 6 7.

Atheists Know More Than Christians

Perhaps you heard about this survey in America. A phonepoll group did a survey asking questions about religion. From 32 questions, Atheists averaged 20.9, Protestants 16 and Catholics 14.7.

It's tempting (if you consider your self a protestant) to wipe your brow in relief and say "Whew! Just passed! At least we beat the Catholics." But that's not the comparison i'm looking at.

The survey is about religion - and Christians know the least!

OK, so the questions were on all religions, but why are Christians the most ignorant when it comes to understanding our neighbours of different beliefs. These are the same neighbours we are called to love. Have we become so insular that we understand only those in the same little niche as ours. (See Black Box Theory). Remember, this was a test about religion - Christians should be way up the top of the class. Or at least as high as atheists. That would be less embarrassing ;)

Anyway, you can do a sample from the test yourself. I got 14/15 and my friend 13/15. You'll probably do quite well. Maybe the selected 15 are the easiest from the original poll, or it maybe it's just that we're not American ;)

More about the poll here and here. In the second of these articles it says that only 57% of Protestants could name the 4 Gospels. That's probably a whole separate blog post just there!

[Full report on the survey here]

How To Speak Christianese

The other day i wrote about talking in code, and then today i found this great spoof infomercial for learning 'Christianese'.