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Sunday church after COVID-19

20 May, 2020 — Leave a comment

According to McCrindle’s latest Wilberforce Foundation research project (COVID19 NZ Values Study) conducted during the fourth week of Level 4 lockdown, the top emotions New Zealanders were feeling in response to the COVID-19 situation were hopeful (45%), anxious (39%), frustrated (27%), reflective (26%) and relaxed (25%). The research doesn’t dig down to what exactly New Zealanders were hopeful/anxious/frustrated/reflective/relaxed about, but I want to make a big deal about ‘hope’ as the top emotion. This hope could simply be because New Zealand has done so well at being kind, staying home, and saving lives.

My household repurposing the church carpark during Level 2 lockdown

With this backdrop of hope – which I too am filled with, I think the church is positioned for what could be its most significant change in living history.

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Faith and belief in New Zealand: McCrindle Report May 2018

19 May, 2018 — 12 Comments

The latest research on faith and belief in New Zealand has just been released: commissioned by the Wilberforce Foundation, undertaken by Australian research company McCrindle. It explores attitudes towards religion, spirituality and Christianity.

I love this stuff! Research like this helps clarify the picture of the state of things, which can then lead to greater and more sensible engagement.

Firstly, thank you to the Wilberforce Foundation for taking the initiative and making this happen. Secondly, don’t just read my blog post about this, please download the actual report and read it for yourself (it’s a 67-page free PDF online at https://faithandbeliefstudynz.org). Share it with your church leaders, small groups, and denominational leaders – talk about it!

The report is hot off the press – in this post below I share some initial thoughts and reflections. Continue Reading…

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Church in the media: a PR perspective

16 April, 2015 — 1 Comment

Have you thought much about how the church is presented in the media, particularly from the perspective of PR (Public Relations)?

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In this post I draw your attention to an interesting article over at PR Week website where David Benady looks at what “four major religions are doing to keep themselves relevant to an increasingly secular and critical society.” He looks at The Church of England, Catholicism, Islam, and Judaism and how they have set themselves up (in the UK) to respond to the media.

Below I highlight a few points of particular interest to me from the article and I ask two questions that you might like to ponder around this issue of how the church is represented in the media. If this interests you I suspect you’ll find the original article called Spreading the word worth a read.

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Local church vs commuter church

26 March, 2015 — 22 Comments
Over the years I’ve been part of church communities close to home, and others that I’ve had to get into my car and drive a decent distance to participate in. I define these as “local church” and “commuter church”. For me, at the present time I’m leaning more toward the value of being part of a church community that is near where I live because it adds value and connection to a place I already spend time in and care about: my neighbourhood.
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There are some good reasons behind the concept of commuter church, and others that seem more about consumer choice than anything else. In this post I’ve started a pros and cons list for both concepts of church expression, and I would love to add your input into the tables below.

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5 churches 1 village: a church service first-timer

18 March, 2015 — 9 Comments

I’ve been living in Howick Village for two months. It’s referred to as a village because the main street is the historical centre of this now highly populated and affluent suburb on the eastern side of Auckland. I took the opportunity as a new person in the area to visit every local church. This post is a story of my experience as a first-timer to each of these church services.

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My comments here are to illustrate “first impressions” that might prompt some pondering about your own church context – so don’t think this is just about Howick Village. At the end I ponder some factors people might consider when choosing a church community to become part of. Continue Reading…

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Some Christians do amazing good

21 August, 2014 — 2 Comments

In my doctoral research I interviewed people outside the church who have never been Christianized. If you’ve read other things in this blog you’ll probably know that there wasn’t a lot of positives in the perceptions people outside the church have of the church. However, some amazing good had been noticed by these people outside the church, and in this post I explain this significant contrast.

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The interviewees noticed some Christians who were committed to the practice of their faith (rather than just belief), specifically: Continue Reading…

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Majority resort: Church singing

23 July, 2014 — 20 Comments

Last week my post Church music: a wicked sin? used a quote from Saint Augustine to support my discomfort with what seems like an over emphasis of singing songs in church services. In this post I continue that theme with a theory that explains why so many people are bored or disinterested in the singalong part of church services, which perhaps even gives reason to why some people leave the church, or why some never fully check-in.

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A theory I have about singing songs in church is that probably about one-fifth of people are actually “worshiping” through this activity we call “worship”. I wonder if this one-fifth are people for whom “Words of Affirmation” are their primary “Love Language”.

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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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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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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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