New Podcast: Do this and Live 2. Discipling the Body

 

This week is part two of our series Do This and You Will Live: Following God with Your Mind, Body, Heart and Guts. This week we examine what it means to disciple the body. Our culture is at war with their bodies, veering from body obsession to body hatred. In this talk we explore how we can escape this body battle by embracing the idea of discipling our bodies, plus we also discover how I survived a road rage incident with a Ric Flair lookalike.

Listen, download or subscribe here.

You can download or subscribe through itunes here

Interesting to read this article in The Age about the rise of violence committed by young men in light of this talk’s call to disciple the body. After listening to the talk read here.

TechnoNarcissism

A national study fresh out of SDSU is confirming that Generation Y really is Generation Me. The jaw-dropping conclusion? 57% of young people believe their generation uses social networking sites for self-promotion, narcissism and attention seeking. While it’s no surprise that social media would cater to a more self-promotional audience, it’s certainly interesting to note that not only does Gen Y think of their social behaviors as narcissistic, but almost 40% (39.27%) agree that “being self-promoting, narcissistic, overconfident, and attention-seeking is helpful for succeeding in a competitive world.”

Read Full Article here. Thanks to Joyce for finding this.

New Book Cover. The Vertical Self

Well its all happening now. The funny thing about writing a book is that for ages it is just this word document on your laptop. It seems so ephemeral, like some extended high school paper that you have forgotten to hand in. But then bit by bit it takes on flesh, and it all begins to seem real. Normally the first moment it begins to feel real is when you settle on a title, but the most concrete moment apart from getting the book in your hand is seeing the cover. This time I had the privilege of being able to work closely with the designer on the cover. This was so great because despite the old saying you can’t judge a book by it’s cover, most people do. So it was exciting to be able to make sure that the cover captured the essence of the spirit of the book. So thanks to Matt Deutscher for doing such a great job.

New Podcast:Do this and you will live

This week at Red we have begun a new series focusing on what it is to be a complete human and disciple of Christ. The series was inspired by a couple of books Dallas Willard’s Renovation of the Heart and Rodney Clapp’s Tortured Wonders. The series sprang out of a thought that I had the other week in which I realized that in our culture today almost all of us can operate a car, or use a pc or a mac. Yet so few of us understand or can use  or let alone master the parts of us namely our hearts, minds, guts and bodies which make us human. This podcast introduces the whole series and gives and overview of holistic Christian discipleship.

 Listen or download here

You can download or subscribe through itunes here

Cultivate Training Event

If you are in Melbourne you might be interested in this event. For those of you who have heard me speak about Gen Y this one is going to be a bit different with a fair bit of new content and reflection, might see you there!

Today I Found True Religion

I have often talked about how advertising operates as a contemporary pseudo-religion but this is just plain stupid.

A Conversation with Myself about Twitter and Humility

Me: Maybe I should twitter?

Me: Why? You  have been criticizing it no end on your blog? You will look like a hypocrite.

Me: Well I have a new book coming out in the new year, and it is a great way to promote the book. And  besides everyone in ministry seems to be doing it these days. You can link it to your facebook status updates.

Me: Would you be promoting the book or yourself?…If everyone jumped off a cliff would you do it?

Me: No I would not jump and its the book of course.. well both… leaders and their messages are linked these days in this new media environment. It could be great for my Church and ministry.

Me: Why does a leaders’ personal life have to be broadcast now? What are you going to do? Write that you just went to the fruit store and bought a zucchini, spinach and mushrooms? Wow that is really interesting.

Me: No I would not do that! Why do you have to be so sarcastic? I would put interesting stuff up.

Me: Yeah like what? How would it be interesting? What do you want to be?  the Christian Ashton Kutcher or something?

Me: No more like Stephen Fry, he twitters, he is really witty guy. I am smart, I can put up clever and interesting things. It could be really cool, my tweets could be really different to what most Christian leaders put up. I read complicated books, I could put up quotes. I could be like the Christian Stephen Fry. I could put up a quote from the Tolstoy novel that I am reading, then a link to some burningly hip Czech  conceptual artist, then I could put up a link to a new underground dub step DJ that no one has heard of, maybe then an obscure verse in Ecclesiastes, and then a link to some justice issue that no one has followed yet, like the whole workers rights issue at the i-phone factories. It could be really good!

Me: One question. Why? What on earth are you trying to prove here? That you are the ultimate Christian hipster? Or how smart you are? Are you so insecure that you have to tell the world all of your interests and activities? I thought this was about your book? It sounds like you are trying to sell yourself here. This sounds suspiciously like this all about crafting a public image of yourself. Who are you fooling? You live an ordinary life. You are a Dad, You go to the supermarket, you wash your car… Hang on, there is a book about this whole thing It’s called The Trouble with Paris? Have you read it? Oh hang on that’s right you wrote it. And isn’t this the whole premise of your new book, that we have given up rooting our identities in the image of God and instead look to our peers for a sense of meaning?

Me: No you don’t get it! Seth Godin says that leadership today is all about getting followers, about creating a tribe.

Me: Are you called to make people followers of you on twitter or followers of Christ and his way?

Me: But I know heaps of stuff, Technology is not wrong in of itself, it’s how you use it. I could really help people by linking them into cool new things that they would find useful. Malcolm Gladwell talks about this in The Tipping Point, he uses the term Maven. It’s a Jewish word. I could be a twitter maven.

Me:Yeah well I know this guy; he was also called a Jewish word beginning with M. He got killed in his thirties. He talked about going and praying in private and not making a big show of your faith like the Pharisees did. He was a leader yet ran from the crowds. He must have been a pretty crummy self promoter because he died on a cross abandoned by his followers, with the exception of his mother and a couple of others. Maybe he could not get wireless so could not update his twitter account and could not tweet his ‘followers’ to get him down off the cross.

Me: That was below the belt.

Me: Below the belt or too close to home?

Me:…No…Now I am getting frustrated. Have you read ‘Tribes’ Or Clay Shirkey’s “Here Comes Everyone’? It’s all about movements today. It’s about social networking and being viral.

Me: Yes I have read those books, we read the same books remember, yes they have some good stuff in them, but here is a verse from a book you read but might have forgotten. Micah 6:8 – Act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God. Yes that verse is popular, justice is cool in the church right now, but did you get that last verse ‘walk humbly’? It seems that when it comes to Christian leadership and discipleship that commandment has been re-written ” Act Justly and to love mercy and promote the heck out of yourself whilst you do it“.

Me: Yes but people want this from me. I have one of the most popular Christian blogs in Australia you know. It’s read by people all over the world.  I get stopped all the time at Christian events by people who love my blog. The stats don’t lie. Thousands of people read it every week.

Me: Yes but who is really reading? Don’t the stats also say that one of the most popular searches from which people reach your site is “Brigitte Bardot”? You wrote that article about Bardot, and now your blog is inundated with thousands of randy old French blokes trying to locate sexy pics of Bardot in her prime. All I can say is there must be a lot of men with life long crushes on Bardot who must be pretty disappointed when they reach your blog.

Me: Shut up…people are reading this. You are ruining it all! This article is terrible P.R.

Me: Here is another verse for you, ^“for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” By the way that’s you. You’re looking for glory for yourself. You are called to worship; do you know what that means? That means deflecting attention and glory away from yourself and instead towards God. How on earth is any of this doing that? Maybe deep down this is really just about trying to prove to yourself that you are not the shy kid who was terrible at school.

Me: I really hate you sometimes.

Me: Maybe this is an excuse to tell the world that you are clever, because for years you thought that you were hopeless. Maybe this is you trying to control your social environment, because despite the fact that you speak and write books, that you still are that shy kid sometimes, that you still struggle socially and feel awkward. This way you can just stay aloof and hide behind tweets without having to do the hard yards of face to face relationships. Maybe this is just the broken, hurt, and sinful side of you wanting to be appreciated and loved.

Me:……….

Me: Maybe everyone is getting sucked into this. We all have had a fast one pulled on us and we don’t even realize it. Maybe we fill social networking sites with mundane details of our lives, to try and feel like we exist in this life? We tweet and do status updates because we want to believe that what we are doing at any moment matters, and that someone is watching, listening, and caring. 

 Me:…I need forgiveness…I need God.

Me: You and me both.

New Book News

As I have mentioned here recently I have a new book coming out in the new year. Well we finally have a title and subtitle. Drum Roll please…

The Vertical Self: How Biblical Faith Can Help Us Discover Who We Are in An Age of Self Obsession

and the official product description,

Welcome to the 21st century where you can now purchase and exchange personalities, depending on mood and circumstance; where you are told that you can be anyone you want to be, and identity is no longer based in a sense of self but rather in the imagery you choose at that moment.

The Bible contains a radically different way of understanding our identity. The path that God has chosen for us to discover who we really are is the path of holiness. The most exciting thing is that this path is not for otherworldy saints, rather it is a path of earthy, gutsy holiness. It’s a path that is not about basing your life on this world or of shunning your desires. Instead, it is about bringing your hopes, your dreams, your brokenness, your desires, your humanness under the Lordship of Christ. By doing this we don’t just discover a new way of living out our faith, we discover a liberating, revolutionary, life-embracing way of being truly human.

There as going to be some cool elements to this book, but will let you know as things develop.

F…F…F…Fashion

One of the most basic markers with which we can understand a culture’s worldview is through the study of fashion or clothing. Clothing is not just something which protects us from the elements, it also a collection of symbols, signals and meanings with which we communicate with those around us. For example watch some of the following video from Sophia Coppola’s Marie Antoinette,

The fashion featured is an example of how during the 18th century clothing was used as a way of reinforcing social order, the incredibly intricate and totally impractical fashions worn by the French aristocracy could only be worn by people who had a bevvy of servants who could dress them each morning. Such outfits were the symbol of a culture in which the elite and wealthy differentiated themselves from the impoverished masses through ostentatious, displays of high fashion.

This however was about to change, as Marie’s was executed by the uprising known as the French Revolution, in which the monarchy which had ruled France for centuries was overturned and a republic was created. This revolution was one of the key developments which lead to the contemporary understanding of self that guides our lives today.

So what on earth then does this piece of clothing tell us about our contemporary culture?

 

Outsourcing Religion to India

I am sure we are all now used to taking calls from outsourced phone centres in India. Now it is more than just I.T. support that is being outsourced to India.

Outsourcing, a practice where tasks are sent to cheaper, more efficient locations, has been a sore point for Westerners especially in these economically depressed times.

For the last decade, India has particularly benefitted from the outsourcing of a multitude of tasks such as writing software code, providing customer service, reading x-rays and filing tax returns.

With religious outsourcing, Westerners request Indian churches to hold Holy Mass in memory of a dead family member, or thanksgiving for a child’s college admission, to celebrate a wedding anniversary or even for unusual causes such as the well-being of their favorite sports stars.

“Each mass is paid a stipend of $5 (250 rupees) upwards, supplementing the income of priests who are otherwise paid 50 rupees for the same service by locals,” said Rector Father Augustine Thottakara of Bangalore-based seminary Dharmaram College.

About two percent of India’s 1.2 billion population is Christian, mostly of the Roman Catholic faith. Kerala in Southern India has a big concentration of churches and the faithful.

The requests come to the churches and the local clergy through the Vatican, through clergymen in overseas churches and even through religious bodies. In these days of digital communication, requests have speeded up through email.

Western labor unions have criticized such outsourcing as commoditizing spirituality.

Read Full Article Here

“News of my death has been greatly exaggerated” (so says The Present Moment)

…recently socialites in Manhattan rediscovered the present when they hosted a series of small parties which were explicitly “off the record”, which meant “no tweeting, no blogging, no photos”. The idea, according to one of the party’s hosts, was “to let invitees talk fearlessly in the present.” He goes on:

We are fighting against this whole idea that everything people do has to be constantly chronicled…People think that every thought they have, every experience – it if is not captured it is lost.

And they are bravely fighting the idea that everything needs to be chronicled, by chronicling this fight in The New York Times.

The rediscovery of the present moment has led to further rediscoveries of things once thought lost, like conversation. One of the hosts exclaims:

When it’s off the record, you actually listen to the conversation, not just wait for your turn to speak.

That a leading newspaper ran an article about a party in which people actually had a conversation tells us something striking about the world in which we live.

From an article by Andrew Shamy. I had the pleasure of meeting Andrew earlier in the year while I was in New Zealand, make sure you read the whole article here.

The Vanishing Middle.Church in a Post Covenantal Context

Here is a little talk (11min) complete with power point, on the whole idea of the Vanishing Middle. As you will learn from the presentation, the vanishing middle refers to the fact that it is not just the church which struggles in the West, but any organization or group which occupies the ‘middle’ that is the communal or covenantal space in which volunteerism, duty and service are essential. Hope it stimulates some thought on mission and ministry in a Western context for you. Just press the green play button.

Stock Photography, The Ethics of Beauty and the Early Church

Not too long ago after one of my talks, I was approached by a graphic designer with an ethical question. The designer did a lot of work for Churches and Christian conferences; the designer asked me “Is it right for Christians to use stock photography of attractive people in order to promote churches, ministries or Christian events?”For those of you who do not know Stock photography usually refers to images that designers can purchase for their work. Normally stock photography features groups of multi-ethnic people of all ages who despite their diversity are united in their common physical attractiveness.

I thought that it was a really interesting ethical dilemma worth exploring. I could not be help wondering to myself what the early church would have done if they had access to the technology that we have today. Would they have produced websites and brochures? And if so what sort of images would they have used? Would they have picked the most attractive young woman in their church to feature on their conference brochure?

In his book Pagans and Christians Historian  Robin Lane Fox notes that the Pagan worship of the Greco-Roman world was marked by an emphasis on status and physical attractiveness. The civic pagan festivals featured parades of prominent citizens, renowned athletes and well to do young people who were known for their physcial perfection. In short the parades would feature the beautiful, the rich and the famous. However in contrast, the early church totally subverted this status based, superficially obsessed religious system. Taking their cues from the coming Kingdom in which all would be equal before God.  The early church lived by the following,

11Here there is no Greek or Jew, circumcised or uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave or free, but Christ is all, and is in all. Colossians 3:11

28There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.Galatians 3:28 

This radical equality was almost unimaginably offensive to the Greco-Roman world obsessed with status and physical perfection. Yet for the millions within the Greco Roman world who were ordinary women, slaves, servants, manual labourers and generally not part of the elite, this radical new Christian concept of equality regardless of social status, looks, and economic position could not be more relevant. Maybe the same could be said for our looks obsessed culture today?

I want to be famous…

Sadly, increasing numbers of young folk believe they are both entitled and able, thanks to their parents, thanks to lazy new-age mumbo-jumbo, and thanks to a general milieu that makes it all seem so easy. The roster of TV and radio game shows and talent quests is endless. Just this week a promotion for a remake of the movie Fame opened with the line ”Got talent? Get famous!”, and offered a chance at – you guessed it – instant celebrity. And that’s on top of an advertising and marketing machine that makes a glamorous life seem not just accessible, but the norm.

”We market unrealistic aspirations to young kids all the time,”…”They’re bombarded by messages all the time of this perfect, exciting, sexy adolescent life. It’s hardly surprising their desires far outstrip their needs, and their abilities.”

A report from the Pew Institute in the US a couple of years ago found that for 81 per cent of 18-25-year-olds, their chief ambition in life was to be rich. For 51 per cent of them, what they most ardently desired was to be famous.

From the Age. Read full article here

UFO’s and Religion

For those of you in Melbourne. I will be on the radio this morning discussing UFO’s and their relationship to belief in a secular society.

Light FM 89.9 10:30am ish Friday. You can listen live on line here if you are elsewhere

The Super Self pt 2 – Walking into Your Fears

The ‘Super Self’ operates as a kind of personal armour, designed to protect the contemporary individual from the stress and horror of living in a meaningless universe. Like a tortoise, it’s shell is a place to retreat into when the going gets tough. Its skin is designed to repeal the fears that the contemporary person feels about the world. Fears that involve rejection, pain, betrayal, mockery and ultimately death.

In some ways this super self is not that new it is simply the newest incarnation of idolatry, however this time it is not things of stone and wood which are worshipped but rather the individual. It is in the light of this protective self worship, we realize that its polar opposite is the cross. When we hold up to the ’super self’ up to the story of Jesus’ death, we begin to see the stark genius and truth God’s plan.  

Unlike the ‘Super Self’ which runs from its fear, we find Christ running headlong into everything that we fear. During his passion, Jesus is subjected to every primal fear that we as humans harbour. For example;

FEAR OF ANXIETY

“My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death

Mark 14:34

FEAR OF PAIN

Then some began to spit at him; they blindfolded him, struck him with their fists, and said, “Prophesy!” And the guards took him and beat him.

Mark 14:65

FEAR OF BEING ALONE

Then he returned to his disciples and found them sleeping. “Simon,” he said to Peter, “are you asleep? Could you not keep watch for one hour?

Mark 14:37

FEAR OF BEING MOCKED

31In the same way the chief priests and the teachers of the law mocked him among themselves. “He saved others,” they said, “but he can’t save himself! 32Let this Christ, this King of Israel, come down now from the cross, that we may see and believe.” Those crucified with him also heaped insults on him.

Mark 15:31-32

FEAR OF BETRAYAL

66While Peter was below in the courtyard, one of the servant girls of the high priest came by. 67When she saw Peter warming himself, she looked closely at him.”You also were with that Nazarene, Jesus,” she said. 68But he denied it. “I don’t know or understand what you’re talking about,” he said, and went out into the entryway.69When the servant girl saw him there, she said again to those standing around, “This fellow is one of them.“

Mark 14:66-69

By taking on these terrors, he transforms them, taking away their power. The fear of death is defeated by dying. It is no wonder that Jesus tells his followers ‘ I have overcome the world’. Through his suffering both leading up to and during his crucifixion.  Jesus sets his followers an example that could not be more starkly different to the one that the world offers us. He calls us to walk a different path, not the path of self actualization, but a path of submission, of walking into ones fears, of the giving up of ones life in order to gain it. A path which ultimately leads to transformation not only of self but one but also of culture.

As I think of the kind of living which flows from this submission of self, and the type of discipleship that emanates from truly taking up your cross and walking towards your deepest fears, I cannot but help think of Martin Luther King’s final sermon, given the night before his murder.

Sad News: My Shame of being caught red handed

The Bognor Regis Observer Date: 30 July 2009

A burglar found wearing a ladies’ cocktail dress has been sent to jail after he broke into a fancy dress shop in Chichester.

The dedicated follower of fashion was himself pursued after a burglar alarm was raised at Chichester Fancy Dress shop at around 2am on Wednesday, July 22.

PC Stephen Pratt, from Sussex Police’s dog unit and his dog Saxon were sent to look for the male who was believed to still be in the area at the time.

Mark Sayers, 40, was found within two hours.

He was found with a crowbar, a torch, a pair of gloves and was wearing the black dress which was taken from the shop.

Sayers, of Southdown Close, Chichester was convicted on theft at Chichester Magistrates Court on Thursday, July 23.

He will spend 13 weeks in jail.

From Bognor Regis Observer. Read Full Article Here

Sorry could not resist, was just too funny. I love the details, the dog Saxon, the line ‘a dedicated follower of fashion’, the Bognor Regis Observer. It sounds like I have made it up but it is all real.

Relational Poverty

“I think there’s a worry that an excessive use or an almost exclusive use of text and emails means that as a society we’re losing some of the ability to build interpersonal communication that’s necessary for living together and building a community.

“We’re losing social skills, the human interaction skills, how to read a person’s mood, to read their body language, how to be patient until the moment is right to make or press a point.

“Too much exclusive use of electronic information dehumanises what is a very, very important part of community life and living together.”

From the Sunday Telegraph read in full here

Hitler, Madonna, and the Super Self

One of the biggest threats to both our culture and the church is what I call the ‘super self’. That is the belief that we as individuals are the ultimate sources of authority in the universe and that the entire purpose of life is to make us subjectively happy.

This concept has deep roots. Friedrich Nietzsche the German philosopher, sensing that religion was exiting European culture, proposed a radical solution. The vacuum of belief would be filled by what Nietzsche labelled the Ubermensch (meaning over man or super man). An individual who by sheer personal will, will triumph in a godless world.

This belief can be seen in its most chilling incarnation in the person of Adolf Hitler. Hitler commissioned filmmaker Leni Riefenstahl turn his rally at Nuremberg into a movie. The title that Hitler used for the film was ‘Triumph of the Will’, a direct nod to Nietzsche and his theory of the Ubermensch.

However as humanity saw the full horror of the effects of Hitlers will, a reaction occurred. A new type of self emerged, it was more sensitive, more cuddly, it was the chilled out version of the Ubermensch. It did not wear uniforms, it did not shout and rant. It was not racist or violent. It did not attempt by the power of its will to take over Poland, rather it attempted to carve out a small empire of personal pleasure. An empire in which the happiness of the individual would be placed above anything else of matter or meaning in the cosmos. This was the emergence of the ’super self’, the groovier, more laid back child of the Ubermensch.

And so we move from a ranting, sweating fascist, to a fifty year old woman gyrating in a music video. She dances a sad dance, attempting to project a sexuality that seems forced and fading. Her sinewy limbs betray a woman fighting with all of her will to defeat the reality of her own decaying body. Madonna’s lyrics seem to be an attempt to convince her self rather than her audience that she is immortal. That the truimph of her own will can still occur against all the prevailing evidence to the contrary.

Give in to Me: Maddonna

What are you waiting for?
Nobody’s gonna show you how
Why work for someone else
To do what you can do right now?

Got no boundaries and no limits
If there’s excitement, put me in it
If it’s against the law, arrest me
If you can handle it, undress me

Don’t stop me now, don’t need to catch my breath
I can go on and on and on
When the lights go down and there’s no one left
I can go on and on and on

Give it to me, yeah
No one’s gonna show me how
Give it to me, yeah
No one’s gonna stop me now

They say that a good thing never lasts
And then it has to fall
Those are the the people that did not
Amount to much at all

Give me the bassline and I’ll shake it
Give me a record and I’ll break it
There’s no beginning and no ending
Give me a chance to go and I’ll take it

Don’t stop me now, don’t need to catch my breath
I can go on and on and on
When the lights go down and there’s no one left
I can go on and on and on

Give it to me, yeah
No one’s gonna show me how
Give it to me, yeah
No one’s gonna stop me now 

This is the super self writ large. In the quiet moments we all know that it is a fallacy, yet we still play the game, we partake in a consensual hallucination. There seems nothing that anyone can do, the ’super self’ seems to subvert everything. Yet into this space a voice ancient yet fresh speaks, with one breath, this voice demolishes the power of the ’super self’.

“If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me and for the gospel will save it. Mark 8:34-35″

Stranded in Never Never Land

Our consumer society’s exaltation of immaturity goes beyond finances. Joseph Epstein acknowledges that today more adults are “locked in a high school of the mind, eating dry cereal, watching a vast quantity of television, hoping to make sexual scores,” and generally enjoying “perpetual adolescence, cut loose, free of responsibility, without the real pressures that life, that messy business, always exerts.” Statistics reveal that more adult children, formed to avoid responsibility and satisfy desires, are living with their parents well into their 30s; the average age for marriage has risen steadily among both men and women since 1980; and the age of cosmetic surgery patients is rapidly declining. Consumerism has made maturity an exception rather than the rule.

From Standed in Never Never Land by Skye Jethani. Read in full here