What's that on the horizon?

Last night I entered a new, strange and dark world. A world full of drugs, alcohol, violence, abuse, anger, flashing lights, and Red Bull. This is the world of the Street Chaplain, more accurately it's the world of Chaplain Watch as they patrol the streets of Brisbane's CBD and Fortitude Valley.

My night started at 11pm in the vacant lot behind Brisbane City Church where I was met by the Chaplain watch car, kitted up with torches, radios, special Chaplain Watch shirt and surgical gloves (yes, they were used) before being whisked away into the night. A quick run through some of the more important procedures is about the extent of the training given and a quick call around on the UHF lets people know we are out and about; people like the taxi rank officials and security personnel through the Valley and CBD.

It's amazing how many people know us and recognition a bunch of Chaplains have on the streets. Well I thought it was amazing. Every taxi rank official and security guard, every bouncer and door girl, every street sweeper driver and council official seems to know us, most by name! I quickly realise this is the net result of 5 years of the chaplains being on the streets every friday and saturday night, earning these peoples respect.

The first few hours were reletively quiet. We checked on a few people who had passed out on the street or in parks and moved them on, hopefully to home and not the next pub. Then we got a call that a girl had collapsed after taking ecstasy at a Valley nightclub. On arrival I watched the Chaplains go to work. They both councelled her and delivered first aid in a way that amazed me. Calm and efficient would explain it but I think deliberate describes their manner best. This is a word that would come to my mind many times this night.

I'm amazed at the amount of people on the streets at 3am! Don't these people have a home to go to? Well, actually, no not all of them do. Possibly the sweetest part of my night were the few, short interactions with Brisbane's homeless. People who's whole world fits into a plastic shopping bag sit in doorways and on benches, waiting for the hordes of drunken teenagers to leave their living rooms before they set up their beds. But, I found these people were often the quickest with a smile and a laugh and rarely had a complaint about their living conditions. We worry about plasma tv's and private schooling while these people are overjoyed if they find a backpack or suitcase so they dont have to keep looking for new plastic bags.

Around 3:20am we happened across a fight in progress across the road from the Beat nightclub. Two large groups of large men were facing off and as we approached it was obvious from the blood that a few of them had already traded blows. One Chaplain ran straight in between the two groups, shouting orders and telling both groups to leave with an authority that is surprising, both to me and to the two groups by the look of them. Without really thinking I join my comrade in the no-mans-land between the two groups of large men (did I mention they were big?) and find myself staring down men who would have me running scared any other time, telling them to grow up and leave it alone, acting like I could actually stop them if they tried something! I get another word starting to rise to the surface of my thoughts - Authority. Deliberate, and now authority.

There is much else to tell but I have to say that at the end of the night as we were headed home I had a third word come to mind - Grace. An overwhelming feeling of God's grace. Not for me but for all the people I saw tonight, for all the people I met, all the people who cursed us and cursed God. And then I realised how these chaplains, and how I, manage to do what they do every week.

It's all through the grace of God.
God's grace, activated in our lives, means we become aware of who we are in Him, and also become aware of the fact that we are only who we are because of Him.

This knowledge leads us to work for His Kingdom using the gifts, talents, skills and opprotunities He gives us, meaning we work with deliberate intent in our area of influence.

And because we are working where He wants us, how He wants us then we know we go out with the full assurance of our authority in Christ.

And that's what it comes down to for me. Authority. I don't think I've ever felt such authority as I did on the streets, knowing full well I was there doing the Lord's work but at the same time having no idea how I was going to do it, relying on Him every second, every step of the way.

I think I may do this all again very soon.

Parental advice needed!

Dear Reader,

How do you even begin to discipline your daughter when no matter how serious and stern you are with her you just cant help but smile when she grins and puts her head to one side, which obviously makes any authority you had completely null and void?

Signed,

Giggling Dad

New vs Old

I had a conversation with a good friend today, you know, the type that always leaves you thinking way too hard about topics you'd never considered before. Well, he made an observation which is at the same time plainly obvious and quite perceptive.

Why is it that we, as a 21st century church, are more able (or willing) to believe for spiritual/emotional healing than physical healing? Why do we unerringly believe that God can help us through a 'bit of a rough patch' but we shy away from having the same faith for someone needing physical healing. Is it because the success or otherwise of prayer for a physical ailment is more easily seen? If they get better then it is obvious and, usually, medically verifiable. Conversely, it is entirely up to the individual to decide whether God healed them of their anxiety, etc.

Let us take a step back at this point for a little history lesson.

The rise of Modernity brought with it a rising faith in humanity and our ability to solve our own problems ourselves. The enligthenment, the industrial revolution and, later, the technological age led the world into an age where scientific proof was the measure of truth and the individuals opinion was of little matter in the whole scheme. Now, however, in this increasingly post-modern world the individual experience is quickly becoming the measure of truth, leaving any solid definition of truth slipping out of societies vocabulary.

Now back to the 21st century church. Could it be that we have, unwittingly or not, succumbed to the post-modernist mindset? Do we shy away from that which requires us to rely on absolutes as a measure of success? Are we afraid that absolute faith requires that we see absolute results?

I would hate to think that we have become so comfortable in our pseudo-spiritual, self-centred religiosity that we have lost sight of who this God person really is...

I'm nothin' if I can't have You

I was listening to a song the other day by Wes Carr of Australian Idol fame. Now I usually don't admit to listening to AI contestants but I'm putting aside my pride for this one. The song is called 'You' and I was struck by the lyrics:

Got guitars I have never played
Every Elvis album ever made
Got the cars that I should learn to drive
could have a house that would blow your mind

I’ve been to places all around the world
I’ve seen the faces of so many girls
never thought I would fall in love
and with the songs I write I’m not enough

You can take what I got cause I don’t got nothing
worth havin I if I aint got you
You can take what you want cause I don’t want nothing
I’m nothing, if I don’t have you

Now, bad english aside, there are some great little reminders in there for us.

1, Without God in our lives we may as well have nothing, because nothing can fill that God-shaped hole and nothing can give us what He promises.

2, Without Gods provision we would have nothing. We act like we're doing God a favour giving Him little bits and pieces when really it all comes from Him in the first place and He deserves nothing less than to have it all given back.

3, We are nothing without God. It is in Him we 'live and move and have our being' (Acts 17:28) and it is through His love, grace, mercy and salvation we become whole, the people we were meant to be.

Thanks Wes.

Holistic healer

I was inspired last night by something Pastor Andrew said in his message, or more accurately, a scripture he used. It is Matthew 4:23-24:

"From there he went all over Galilee. He used synagogues for meeting places and taught people the truth of God. God's kingdom was his theme—that beginning right now they were under God's government, a good government! He also healed people of their diseases and of the bad effects of their bad lives. Word got around the entire Roman province of Syria. People brought anybody with an ailment, whether mental, emotional, or physical. Jesus healed them, one and all. More and more people came, the momentum gathering."

Sure, nothing too startling about that you say, until you focus on one small part of that passage;

"anybody with an ailment, whether mental, emotional, or physical. Jesus healed them, one and all"

That is HOLISTIC healing!

Earlier in the passage it tells us that these people were suffering from "the bad effects of their bad lives". What would that entail? Certainly there would have been people released from demons of witchcraft, adultery, etc, but what else results from a bad life?

Could it be that Jesus spent His good time healing people of anxiety? Depression? Anger? Obesity? Diabetes? Stress? Irregular bowel movements? Bi-polar disorder? Exhaustion? Alcohol poisoning? That is a long, winding list but hopefully you get my point, two points in fact:

1, If Jesus healed holistically when He walked the earth then surely He can and will heal holistically now.

and

2, If Jesus healed holistically then surely He is interested in keeping us holistically healthy in the first place.

We are told to love the Lord with all our heart, soul and mind (Lk 10:27). If one part of us, either mental, emotional or physical is in need of healing or is not up to the job then how effective can we be in our lives for God?

Enough room to swing a cat.

The root of the Hebrew word for salvation is ysa. The verb ysa means 'to be roomy' with the idea that deliverance makes things more spacious, more freeing.

It also indicates that without salvation we are bound, confined, narrow and imprisoned.

The name Jesus is also derived from ysa.

Why is it then that some people enter salvation as one who enters a prison cell, a concentration camp, or a straight-jacket?

Salvation is our gateway to wholeness. All we have to do now is come to terms with what wholeness is.

Couldn't have said it better...

"We shall bleed and squeal as the handfuls of fur come out; and then, surprisingly, we shall find underneath it all a thing we have never yet imagined; a real Man, an ageless god, a son of God, strong, radiant, wise, beautiful, and drenched in joy."
- C.S. Lewis

A brilliant picture he paints.

But...

What is this 'thing' that is being de-furred so savagely? Is it us? That would seem the obvious answer yes, however, what if he speaks not of beings but of perceptions? What if it is our perception of God, the church, religion, salvation, grace, love or faith that is being torn out before our eyes? Maybe our bleeding and squealing is akin to the 'wailing and gnashing of teeth' so oft used to describe those undergoing extreme grief upon finding out that everything they held dear has actually led to their own demise.

Are you holding onto perceptions you know to be right even as they are torn apart in front of you?

Maybe we all need to look at what is being revealed, not what is being destroyed.