NZ Baptist’s brick wall: women in leadership

24 June, 2014 — 32 Comments

Back in January I wrote a post entitled New research shows women can make a difference, which was a reflection based on some research that showed women are under represented as conference speakers, and how this problem could be addressed… I compared the differences between being an egalitarian and complimentarian and why it is important for Christians to think about this.

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A few days ago a colleague and friend here in New Zealand wrote a detailed post on her blog headed up The Church’s Missing Workforce. Thalia confronts the issue of New Zealand Baptist Churches having nearly 40 years (1976) of affirmation of women in church leadership roles, yet in 2014 there are not even 2% of senior or sole pastoral leadership roles in New Zealand Baptist churches filled by women. In this post I respond to Thalia’s post.

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Churches combine earthquake insurance payouts to buy Airbus A380

13 June, 2014 — 21 Comments

In 2011 there was a devastating series of earthquakes that destroyed a lot of Christchurch New Zealand. Many buildings, including church buildings, have now gone, and insurance companies have paid (or are in the process of paying) large sums of money to building owners to repair or replace what was lost.

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Last week I heard that between the churches in Christchurch there was a total of $400 million in insurance payouts. I wondered what you could buy for $400 million, and it turns out an Airbus A380.

I love planes and travel. During the week I’ve been floating the idea with different people to see how much traction could be gained to buy an A380, below I list the various responses: Continue Reading…

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2014 Christian/not-Christian comparison survey

20 May, 2014 — 23 Comments

I have surveyed 1079 people asking them to respond to thirteen statements about the church and Christians (in New Zealand). The statements are based on the results of my PhD research. There are striking differences between what Christian people think and those who are not Christian, but there are a couple of surprising results that break the usual comparison pattern between these two groups. I believe the information visually shown by the graphs below is of critical importance to 21st century missiology: how the church engages with society.

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In an earlier post I described one way to think of communication as being the establishment of common ground in terms of shared understanding. If there is no common ground, there is an inability to reach shared understanding, which means there will be an inability to communicate effectively. Continue Reading…

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New Zealand’s biggest church service: ANZAC Day

23 April, 2014 — 12 Comments

It’s ANZAC Day this week. In New Zealand ANZAC Day has the biggest church service this country has each year. The irony is that most New Zealand churchgoers probably don’t attend.

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ANZAC stands for Australian and New Zealand Army Corps and 25 April is a day for remembering. On this day services happen simultaneously throughout Aotearoa that greet the new dawn. I call this a ‘church service’ because most of the components of a church service happen as the people gather to remember the multifaceted dimensions that ANZAC Day now has attached to it. In this post I give my review of a recent ANZAC Day service I attended, and why churches should find ways to engage with this day: Continue Reading…

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5 time management tips for part-time pastors

17 April, 2014 — 10 Comments

Pastoral work isn’t easily confined, it’s more of a lifestyle than a job. It’s sometimes hard to draw lines between what is work and what isn’t, and in an ideal world these lines probably wouldn’t need to exist. In my experience part-time pastoral work has been much harder than full-time, simply because balancing multiple ‘employment’ demands is more complex than just one.

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I have only had full-time employment for 3 of the last 15 years, so I’m going to self-proclaim myself as a bit of an expert in juggling multiple ‘calls’ on my time. In this post I outline 5 time management tips that help me to feel healthy about work/life balance, free of stress, and full of productivity as well as recreation: Continue Reading…

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Cringe communication #2: same-sex marriage “a failure of democracy”

3 April, 2014 — 12 Comments

In 2012 a private members bill was put forward in New Zealand called the Marriage (Definition of Marriage) Amendment Bill. This was passed in April 2013 allowing same-sex marriage. I believe the dominant church response to this bill in the public sphere was an example of bad communication.

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This is another post in a series where I give some real-life true stories of what I call cringe communication from the church. The first one was called Cringe communication #1: Student survey tricksters where I introduce this series and basically say I believe we can improve the communication of the church by eliminating cringe communication.

I want your feedback: do you agree that my example in this post about same-sex marriage is bad communication? Or communicates the church in a bad way to those outside the church. If not why not? Vote in the poll below and feel free to comment. Continue Reading…

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Just Church: my review

28 March, 2014 — 4 Comments

Just Church was a conference I attended last week put on by World Vision (NZ), which I promoted online here… In this post I share a few of my thoughts – not so much a comprehensive review, but more about what I’ve been left thinking about.

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To be honest, I was attracted to this event because of my friendship with the organiser: Mark Pierson – I had been to the Just Worship event he put on in 2010 and I thought if Just Church was half as good as that earlier event it would be worth my effort being there. In the promo Just Church was certainly more “World Vision” connected than the Just Worship event had been, and I did wonder if I would be pressured to sponsor a child in Africa every lunch break. This is what happened: Continue Reading…

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Cringe communication #1: Student survey tricksters

14 March, 2014 — 17 Comments

This is the start of a blog series where I will give some real-life true stories of what I call cringe communication from the church. I want your feedback: do you agree that my example is bad communication? If not why not? You can vote in the poll below.

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I believe that the way people outside the church see the church has a massive impact on their understanding and appreciation of and for the church. This then affects any possible engagement with the church and the story of the church (or using in-house speak: the gospel). All of this comes down to communication, in particular communication from particular church representatives to those outside of the church (the society in which we live). I believe we can improve the communication of the church by eliminating cringe communication. Continue Reading…

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The disconnected church: online lecture

5 March, 2014 — 2 Comments

In November 2012 I gave the Baptist Research lecture at the annual Baptist Assembly (The Gathering) which was held in Hamilton, New Zealand. The recording of this lecture has recently been put online. If you’d like to hear me give an introduction to my PhD research, click the image below to have a listen – it will take you to the Resonate website that also contains the PowerPoint from my talk.

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The Resonate website is a storehouse of mainly sermons recorded at many different churches around New Zealand. Baptist Research have a few lecture recordings on Resonate and I list them below:
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Christendom is over: the end of Bible classes in schools

26 February, 2014 — 55 Comments

The issue of Bible classes in New Zealand state schools has been in and out of the media for several years. A week ago parent Roy Warren, through the Human Rights Commission, got religious education classes removed from happening during school time in his son’s Auckland school. I felt the “Christian” viewpoint in my local newspaper last week was inadequate, so I sent in a letter which was published on 22 February.

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I think Roy Warren’s views are fair and reasonable in a post-secularised country that has never had an official religion. While I acknowledge the historical significance of the Christian church in New Zealand, with only 10-15% of the population being active church participants, it is unreasonable to expect society to remain the same or hold to the past to please such a minority. To think otherwise is to maintain a Christendom mindset which I believe is unhelpful in this post-Christendom time. Continue Reading…

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