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Monthly Archives: July 2007
If you don’t believe me then listen to an expert…
I’ve offered some of my thoughts on kids in mission but I must say that it is my beautiful wife who really is the expert here.
On Monday she presented a session at our Forge intensive entitled ‘Risk & Reward – Families Together in Mission’ where she spoke about what she has learnt about nurturing healthy family life while being engaged in missionary work.
Our good mate Darryl Gardiner gave her a shove in this direction last time he was here and I’ve been nudging her ever since. Danelle would not see herself as a ‘speaker/teacher’, but she has some great stuff to say and is a fantastic communicator. Some people aren’t cut out for the weekly bump and grind of teaching, but cut them loose 3 or 4 times a year and watch out.
If you want to be inspired in this whole area then listen in!
But What About Your Kids?!! II
Terry’s comment below was an excellent one.
He reminded us of the old African proverb – ‘it takes a village to raise a child’. Its a proverb I often use and I have to say I am very grateful for the ‘village’ we are a part of who help us with the job of raising our kids. No doubt if we were left simply to our own devices our kids would not be as healthy as they currently are.
For us that village includes:
– extended family especially grandparents who love and nurture the kids.
– our church community who really do engage with our kids in significant ways. We feel privileged to have such a fantastic bunch of people around us.
– our friends in the local community, who may not share our faith, but who love our children and help us as we parent. We have connected with some beautiful people in this suburb and I believe its an essential part of our kids development to be loved by people who are not from a church community. By not separating them away from ‘heathens’ they learn early that there is much goodness and common grace in our world.
– our friends who are outside the local community. There are way too many of these to consider, but this diversity of people all influence our kids in various ways.
– the people we have in our home as guests. I was reminded of the value of this again last weekend when Geoff & Sherry came and stayed. They talked to, played with and loved our kids when it would have been easy to fob them off. The kids now think they are the greatest people on the planet. They even like Alan Hirsch
… because of his many visits here! 🙂
Its a great ‘village’!
Of course you can choose not to be part of a ‘village’, and many people do. The cost of genuine relationships is high so many will live with superficiality or surface engagement because they don’t want to invest time or energy in more.
Like most stuff in life – you get what you ‘pay for’…
But What About Your Kids?!!
In venturing out from the familiarity of the established church environment to start again and re-imagine church, one of the core issues for Danelle and I to consider was how we would look after our children away from Sunday schools, kid’s ministries and youth groups. It’s a question overseas missionaries have been facing for years, but for most in the western world it just seems normal practice for children to learn about faith through the various mechanisms in church.
While these different ‘aids’ can be helpful and can assist parents with the discipleship of their children they can also be used as a substitute for godly parenting and thoughtful engagement with the faith development of our own kids. I am grateful that over the last few years I have been able to participate deeply in the lives of my children as they have grown to know Jesus. They are still only 6 & 4 years old but it has been great to see their faith develop and a real, albeit childlike, love for God emerge.
It was a short time ago that it dawned on me just how vital our input and role modeling is to the children we raise. On a Monday morning after making the kids breakfast I let them know I was going to spend some time in my study ‘talking to Jesus’. They have seen me do this each day and it is just part our routine now.
My 6 year old daughter Ellie, asked ‘Daddy can I talk to Jesus with you some day?’
‘Sure honey’ I answered. ‘Finish your breakfast, grab your Bible and come in!’
I began wondering what to do and how to teach my 6 year old daughter to speak to Jesus…
She arrived five minutes later with her ‘Bible for Little Hearts’, a children’s book with one verse per page. As she sat on my lap we read two verses and discussed together what they were saying to us. We then took some time to pray for the people we know. She would pray a sentence, then it was my turn and so on. After that we would stop in quietness for a minute or so and ‘listen’ to Jesus, seeing if we could hear the voice of the spirit speaking to us. (Inevitably Ellie hears God telling her that he loves her!) The whole process took just 3 or 4 minutes, but I found she came back quite regularly in the mornings to sit with me and ‘talk to Jesus’.
Then a morning came when I was heading out for breakfast and I couldn’t spend the time with her. She was concerned, wondering what she would do, when I heard her say ‘Its ok dad, I know what to do now. You can go’. As I walked out the door I saw her sitting in my office armchair with her Bible open reading a verse of scripture. It was wonderful to see that she had ‘got it’ and didn’t need me there. But the most encouraging bit was yet to come…
When I got home that afternoon my wife told me that shortly after I had left, her little brother Sam came in and asked if he could speak to Jesus too. So, knowing what to do now, Ellie placed her brother on her lap and began to teach him the same process I had gone through with her. They read scripture, prayed for friends and listened to God. She was discipling her 4 year old brother and teaching him how to encounter Jesus. I was reminded again that discipleship is not rocket science. (Danelle secretly took the photo below!)
I realise the teenage years are still a way off and they are always testing times, but my conviction is that the time we invest in our own children’s discipleship is the most critical time of all. We may be privileged to be part of churches with excellent programs or we may have other adults who love our kids and lead them to Jesus, but at the end of the day the biggest privilege and the greatest responsibility still rests with us.
The dislocation we have experienced as a family has actually been the catalyst in helping me discover the joy of investing in my own children. I know there are some who worry for us, that we lack the resources of a larger church, but quite honestly, I am confident that the best people any child could have to help them on a faith journey are the ones who love them most!
Hamo’s Random Coffee Commentary II
Giardini’s – Oxford Street Leederville – Now… I had better be careful because this is where I work (meet people) and I wouldn’t want to offend those fantastic staff who are there! They use Vittoria coffee and do a pretty decent job with it, but it does mean they start a few steps off the pace in terms of quality. When Greens closed earlier this year a few of us were forced to move location and I finished up here. Their food menu is good, but not cheap and their coffee is decent, but not brilliant. The reason I stay is because they are top notch people and their service has always been sensational! In the Leederville area there is very little top notch coffee being made, so the decision becomes one made around other factors. For me friendly staff who don’t treat you like an inconvenience is the key element and Leon,Deb and the crew are a 10/10 on that score. I will be there for a while to come even if the coffee is a 7/10. There is also plans for a wireless network here so it could be an even bigger hit for the crew who use cafes as offices.
Sayers – Ok here’s a relatively new cafe in Carr St in Leederville. It is owned by a bloke called Mark Sayers, so when my friend and Forge colleague (called Mark Sayers) was in Perth for the Herding Cats seminar earlier in the year I took him here so he could meet his namesake. These guys are fast getting a reputation for high quality food and good coffee. They also use a five senses blend for their coffee and generally it is very good albeit a tad frothy. If you go here, then make sure you order a large cup of whatever because those small cups just don’t last real long at all! The service is very good and friendly and the vibe of the place is modern although a tad cramped in areas. If it weren’t off the main strip I would probably go here a bit more often. Its probably the best coffee in the Oxford St area. 8.5/10
130’s – Oxford St Leederville – Well… some places just leave you wanting to never return. My first two experiences here were with staff who were so rude I almost walked out. I wonder if its the fact that they are popular that makes them behave like this? I find their coffee quite average – probably a 7/10 at best. The grungy & somewhat noisy vibe will suit some people but it is not my cup of tea. I like to be able to have a conversation and not have to yell at people to be heard. I go here when someone suggest it, but otherwise I avoid like the plague.
Tired, but Loving It
Its been a great weekend at the Forge WA intensive!
We have had around 25 of us down at Subiaco enjoying the rich theological insights and challenges from Geoff & Sherry Maddock and the inspiration and creative engagement of Olivia McClean and Stuart Davey.
We have been privileged to have such quality people come and meet with us, but I should also add that the quality of the intensive is also largely shaped by the participants and in that regard we have not pulled up short at all.
The focus of the weekend has been on discipleship and missional spirituality, with a focus on creation care as an integral part of our lives as Christians. Geoff and Sherry have really done some excellent thinking on this topic and in a very unassuming way have been able to lead us to much deeper reflection on it also. Olivia and Stuart have been helping us reflect on how we engage with God and how we encounter his grace thru the disciplines and spiritual practices.
Tomorrow we have:
Geoff & Sherry – the practicalities of creation care
Geoff Westlake – I don’t know how to describe Geoff’s topic!
Jarrod Mckenna – A spirituality of activism
Gareth Williams – lessons from the road
Danelle Hamilton – Families together in Mission – Risk & Reward
It will be an interesting day as we hang out with the crew and our kids and navigate the path between learning and looking after the children!
Change the World?
The Time Has Come… surely…
At a recent Forge National directors meeting one of our crew shared this insight from American church leader Erwin McManus. During his time in Australia, McManus urged Aussies to be more diligent about responding to their own context and doing their own missiology. He insisted that we have to stop following what is happening in the US.
To do this he showed where we are in relation to Christendom.
The Australian culture is much more secular and further removed from a Christendom mindset than the American one (by and large). No surprises there hey? But the problem comes in that while the American church is responding to its own culture (de-churched / nominally Christian) the Australian church by and large has chosen to follow the American church.
For some reason we have chosen to imitate US models and practices rather than seeking to develop our own home grown approaches to church. In a highly secular context where church just isn’t on the radar for most people we must radically re-think what we are doing as our context is vastly different to the USA!
Back in 1981 when John Smith wrote Advance Australia Where he argued strongly that we have never had a truly Australian church. We have imported British forms and Americans models, but we just haven’t done the work of thinking thru what an indigenous expression of church would look like.
(And yes – I realise its ironic & amusing that I am quoting an American telling us not to follow Americans!)
Forge Intensive Starts Saturday
This weekend sees the start of our second Forge Intensive for 2007 and it will be fantastic.
We will be exploring what it means to follow Jesus in a consumer culture and discussing issues of discipleship, spirituality and sustainability in a missionary context.
We have Geoff & Sherry Maddock coming to join us for the 3 days and we’re looking forward to the stuff they will share around the place of caring for creation as an integral part of discipleship. They will also be telling the story of the community they are involved with in Lexington Kentucky
We will also have Olivia McClean and Stuart Davey from Solace in Victoria coming to help us think thru issues of discipleship and spiritual formation.
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If you haven’t registered yet then you can drop me an email today!