When you say “Pastor”: What Images of Clergy tell us…
Don’t know if you have ever thought about the collective nouns for various professions. Some are perceptive, others tongue in cheek. Apparently one should speak of a “rash of dermatologists”, a “shower of meteorologists”, and a “boast of barristers”. When it comes to clergy the best I could find was “a rumble of clergy” – most were less flattering. What do you think of when you hear the word “pastor”, or “priest”, or “minister”, or “clergy”? The images that spring to mind are likely to...
Read MoreTowards a 21st Century Church (2): Time for the 500 year Rummage Sale?
In my earlier blog post “Towards a 21st Century Church”, I discussed four assumptions we should challenge if we are to make a constructive journey towards the future. In this post I explore Phyllis Tickle’s contested but thought provoking thesis that roughly every 500 years a “great emergence” occurs within Christianity during which a new and “more vital” form of faith emerges. Roughly stated, Tickle’s big idea is that every five hundred years the Church cleans out its attic and has a giant rummage sale. This enables the church to reevaluate and sometimes discard forms of faith she...
Read MoreTowards a 21st Century Church: Four Assumptions to Challenge
Now that we are almost a fifth of the way through the twenty first century, it is becoming increasingly obvious that the church can no longer act as though it is still the twentieth century. People give various reasons for why significant change is needed – some of the more common contenders being that we now live in post-Christendom (and the church therefore no longer operates from a platform of privilege, nor can it assume that people have a basic understanding of the Christian faith); or that the postmodern turn in society has rendered everything relative, making the truth claims of the...
Read MoreWhen a Cardinal Sins: Reflections on the conviction of George Pell
For those not in the loop (and they must be a very small number), Cardinal George Pell has been found guilty of child sexual abuse, and is being held in detention while his sentence is awaited. As he is the most senior cleric in the world to be convicted of this crime, it is deeply unsettling. He could have become the Pope – having been a serious contender (though not the front runner) when Pope Benedict resigned in 2013. Until stepping down from his role at the Vatican to face trial in Australia, he was the third most senior figure in the Roman Catholic Church (far and away the...
Read MoreReframing Competition…
In a 2017 address to Baptist Care Australia, Competing with Purpose, Traverse director David Benson encouraged listeners to consider what it might mean to reframe our understanding of competition, so that instead of seeing it as a means to beat and defeat our competitors, it is transformed into a mechanism to ensure that we are both stronger and better as a result of the encounter. His work has set me thinking about the role of competition in the Christian faith, and as part of our journey of discipleship. There are many portraits in scripture which encourage us to be the best that we can...
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