Archives For New Zealand

Pastors and politics

13 February, 2014 — 2 Comments

Last week I asked my Facebook friends: “Are you a signed-up member of a political party? If so why? I’m thinking about it…” There were over 70 comments which is a lot for one of my Facebook status updates. I have found the engagement interesting so share some of the ideas here.

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My initial question wasn’t intended to be about pastors and politics, but that was one of the dominant themes that emerged – probably because a lot of my Facebook friends are pastors.  A few main themes emerged, and I outline them below.

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New research shows women can make a difference.

30 January, 2014 — 15 Comments

I read an article last week in which I saw parallels with the church context so thought I would write about the same topic. The article by Olga Kahzan in The Atlantic is titled: “The Easiest Possible Way to Increase Female Speakers at Conferences.” The quick summary is: having just one woman on the organizing committee for a conference greatly increases the likelihood of women appearing at the front of the room.

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The contribution of women is a topic that concerns me because I am part of a Christian ‘movement’ that struggles with this: the New Zealand Baptist Church. This also appears to be a widespread problem for the church in general. Three points come to mind and I outline them below. Continue Reading…

In church, church decline, communication, education, local context, New Zealand, society, women , , , , , , , , , ,
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The best communication ever: God with us

20 December, 2013 — 7 Comments

The city I live in is recovering from a series of earthquakes that began three years ago. It’s a long slow grind. Earthquakes damage a city’s infrastructure, such as roads, and the sewers and water pipes that are mostly hidden deep below the road surface. Christchurch post-earthquakes has been riddled with orange road cones to highlight damage and repairs in progress. In June last year there were 100,000 road cones in Christchurch, worth more than $3 million. A day doesn’t go by without seeing many of them, they are a part of life here.

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This photo is a simple nativity scene made of road cones. Local artist Pete Majendie from the Side Door Arts Trust has placed this pregnant Mary and Joseph upon a pile of rubble on the corner of a busy intersection. The pile of rubble was once an historic church building.

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In communication, education, explaining our faith, local context, New Zealand, receiver, society , , , , , , , , , ,
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Perceptions of church

12 December, 2013 — 10 Comments

How some New Zealanders view the church

In this post I list the nine perceptions of the church discovered in my recent doctoral research titled The disconnected church. This involved qualitative research where I talked to some people who were not what I call Christianised. This means they had never had any intentional engagement with the church throughout their life. The people I talked to also defined themselves as “spiritual”.

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In previous posts I’ve attempted to get you thinking about how people outside the church see or perceive the church. In this post I start talking about what I actually found out. Continue Reading…

In church, communication, local context, mission, New Zealand, PhD, society , ,
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See the church in someone else’s shoes

6 December, 2013 — 3 Comments

You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view – until you climb into his skin and walk around in it. [Spoken by Atticus Finch in “To Kill a Mockingbird“, by Harper Lee (1960)]

The quote above and the play on the saying in the heading are known for their attempt at getting us to consider understanding others: people not like me.

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If church people are serious about what some of us call “mission”, or evangelism, or simply any sensible, authentic and transparent connection with Christian spirituality and people not part of the church, we need to consider and apply the type of understand the above quote is getting us to think about. How do people outside your local church context understand the church? …understand your church? Continue Reading…

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The disconnected church

26 November, 2013 — 21 Comments

My PhD thesis has been signed off and it is now public on the university’s online scholarly commons. It is called:

The disconnected church: a critical examination of the communication of the Christian church in New Zealand.

Below is the 500 word abstract from the start of the thesis which gives a concise picture of what it’s all about. If you’re interested in reading more, you can download the entire thesis from AUT here: http://hdl.handle.net/10292/5922

Crudge-PhD-Thesis-The-Disconnected-Church Continue Reading…

In church, communication, education, local context, New Zealand, PhD, society , , , , ,
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Calamity or Intrigue: An artwork for Oxford Terrace Baptist Church, from Cityside

23 October, 2013 — 1 Comment

After the Canterbury earthquakes of 2010/2011, the Baptist Union of New Zealand partnered together churches around the country to support churches in Canterbury.  At the church I’m part of we had five churches doing various things to help, such as regular prayer, sending teams of people for a weekend to help tidy up, or to run a Sunday church service to give pastoral staff a rest.  Cityside Baptist Church in Auckland is one of our supporting churches, and last Sunday I was at Cityside representing the Oxford Terrace Baptist Church as they presented to us something they do so well: art.

Calamity of Intrigue artwork by Cityside Baptist Church Continue Reading…

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The queen’s English was good enough for Jesus Christ

18 September, 2013 — 6 Comments

I’m currently outside my usual routine, having spent a month away from New Zealand. Today I’m traveling home from China where I’ve spent the last ten days. In this post I’m recycling an idea I wrote about several years ago in another context, on the subject of language, based on a song from a New Zealand band called The Mutton Birds. Being an English-only speaker in China has reminded me of this song, as well as listening to a Mutton Birds live album at my kiwi friends’ place in Beijing yesterday. Listen to the track:

“The queens English was good enough for Jesus Christ and it’s good enough for me”

According to the song, this was the supporting argument of a US Congressman who was a guest on a talk show on the subject of “language”. Among other things, this guy is a xenophobe, and wants the whole world to speak his language. You could say he has an inexcusable naivety merged with arrogance and ignorance – and that makes for a really good song.

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In church, communication, discipleship, New Zealand, Song , , , , , , ,
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Cathedrals and Hairdressers

26 July, 2013 — 6 Comments

It’s been a while since I went to a hair dresser. I still remember what it was like. It’s not actually something I miss. My stereotype of hairdressers are people who talk a lot all day with many different people. They have their ear to the ground, their finger on the pulse, and are probably happy to give their opinion about anything (I say that all positively).

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For my doctoral research I interviewed some people who were not what I defined as being Christianised.  I wanted to gain their perception of the Christian church in New Zealand. One of these people was a 30-year-old male hairdresser working in the inner city who was born and grew up in Christchurch.  He had some fascinating thoughts about the Anglican cathedral which was a central icon in the inner city.  This is part of his story:

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In Anglican, Christendom, church, church attendance, communication, New Zealand, society, The Hairdresser Test , , , , , , ,
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Pop quiz: When did regular church attendance peak in New Zealand?

19 July, 2013 — 31 Comments

I only found this out last year and the answer was not what I had expected. Since then, as conversations have allowed, I’ve been asking people to tell me a decade when they think church attendance peaked. Not many people have given me the right answer.

When do you think it was?

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It’s a pretty blunt tool to use as an indicator of the church’s health in a country, but people going to Sunday church services regularly does indicate something of their commitment to the traditional way of being “the church”.
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In Christendom, church, church attendance, church decline, New Zealand, society, statistics
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