And to be honest my first reaction was to tick the “not really” box. I know, that sounds hypocritical given you are probably reading this post via my Facebook. I’m a pragmatic social media user – it’s a communication channel.

But social media, whatever the platform, is fundamentally reshaping the world for good and for ill. It is enabling people of all ages to form connections, and community on a scale never before seen in history. I love the fact that I can connect with vintage VW lovers all over the country! It is also giving voiceless people a voice and disempowered people a powerful platform to bring positive social change e.g. the #metoo movement.

But it is also reshaping politics, news reporting, the nature of social interaction, relational etiquette and even the concept of ‘friend’. Social media is transforming the way we know our world and the way our world knows us – our future employers, even our future partners. Social media has scratched our primal itch for connection and community, all be it a digital replica of the real thing.

Is the phenomena of compulsive self-publication (like selfie posting) just todays form of self-expression? Or is our tech stimulating more pathological problems – addictive or obsessive behaviours, self-objectification or conversely, narcissism? Are we happily fuelling a new class of social and psychological problems or am I over thinking it all?

Have you wrestled with how to interact with the world at your fingertips? I do. And while it seems nonsensical in modern life to be a disengaged, social media hermit. It also seems perilous to have no internal guide-rails which protect and direct such engagement with a potentially massive audience. Organisations the world across have learnt that a social media policy for employees is now essential. Perhaps at a personal level, the same applies?

I think it does. So before I post or share anything on my Lifewords website, Facebook or Instagram - here are 10 questions I ask myself:

1. Why do I really need to post this?

2. What benefit is it to others?

3. Is it respectful and well considered or insensitive and ill informed?

4. Could this leave someone feeling like they are lacking or less in life?

5. Do my hundreds of ‘friends’ really need this much detail about my life? Really, why?

6. Will I be even slightly disappointed if my post doesn’t get likes or reactions?

7. Can I post this and not look at how it is being reacted to for 24 hours or will I be checking in every hour to see how popular I am?

8. How many posts have I already made this week and how much time does that add up to?

9. Who or what is missing out because I’m focused on my next social media interaction?

Lastly, as a follower of Jesus, one more question crowns all the others:

10.Whose kingdom am I building with this – mine or Jesus’? Or to put it another way, does my post or selfie or whatever leave a person longing for what I have, or what Jesus has - attracted to me or Him?

Maybe you think this is all a little over the top, too heavy for something that’s meant to be light hearted fun? Maybe you are right. But to me, everything is leadership and almost everything has an influence on someone else, right down to what you click ‘like’ to. And not just because I'm a pastor, but because I, like everyone who is a Jesus follower, is a 24/7 revealer of another kingdom and another king – Jesus, the one to whom I am ultimately accountable.

Social media presents us all with an unparalleled opportunity to communicate to a worldwide audience. Let’s do that well.

What do you think?

If you were about make a huge decision which you can never change, you will never forget and has life or death implications for someone else - would you want to be sure you were making the right choice? Would you want as much information as possible? And if you are under intense time pressure and social pressure to act now, how would you know you were making the best decision?

Under laws passed last week in our state parliament, that decision just became a little harder. The new bill bans ‘protesters’ who intimidate, harass or film people within 150 metres of clinics or hospitals that provide terminations. It also excludes any form of communication around alternative choices to abortion in the exclusion zone. Those caught face heavy fines and jail time even.

Now I’m all for prohibiting the intimidation and harassment of anyone at all, let alone vulnerable women about face to such an awful, invasive medical procedur. And there is no justifying any guilt laden, ‘wrath of God’ tactics that leave a person feeling any more condemnation than they already feel. That to me is psychological and spiritual abuse.

But is this the whole picture? Interestingly the current and former Ministers in the portfolio of Women’s Affairs both voted against the bill. The Minister for Women, Tanya Davies, refused to vote for the bill on the basis that it allows for no distinction between intimidating protesters and ‘sidewalk counsellors’ that offer pastoral support and information to women. Pru Goward, the minister for Family and Community Services, rejected the bill because of its fundamental departure from the right a person has to free speech (and this is a red-hot issue constantly surfacing in our social landscape since the same sex marriage debate of last year).

I suspect the majority of Christians fundamentally believe in the sacredness of life from an early point of gestation because we read classic passages in our scriptures like Psalm 139 like “you knit me together in my mother’s womb”, “your eyes saw my unformed body” and we can’t not ascribe worth and dignity to the life growing within the mother. We rejoice with those who announce they are expecting and weep with those who miscarry. Why? Because in our simplistic understanding, the life inside the mother is exactly that, a life “fearfully and wonderfully (being) made.”

But we also recognise the dignity of the woman carrying the child. This is her body also, and there is an inseparable connection between her life and the new life within her. We feel a sense of awe and wonder for the mother who is now pregnant with new life - a miraculous and sacred thing is happening to her.

So how do you honour both the sacredness of the child’s life and the mothers?

I think women (and their partners) need both a medical and an ethical perspective in their decision-making process. They also need help with social, psychological and economic support to best aid their decision. I wonder if the hospital or the clinic can provide that? How do people make these massive decisions? And who can ask them to consider not only what their rights are, but also what might their obligations be?

Without question the first priority is preserving the life of the woman without whom there can be no child. But does the child have any rights at all? And who determines when those rights kick in - when theoretical life becomes practical life? Is it reasonable to end the child’s life because of say, inconvenience? Would that be acceptable at the other end of life when a person is too old and frail to be cared for by the family?

There appears to be very little good data on this issue. Most states don’t keep detailed records on terminations or reasons for the procedure - perhaps such information would be too confronting. A Royal Women’s Hospital report published in the Sydney Morning Herald revealed that of the 3018 women seeking terminations between October 2006 and September 2007, 80% were for reasons of poor timing or other life factors (excluding significant hardship 19% or rape 1% rape). These figures tend to correlate with other minor pieces of Australian research however after consulting with two medical professionals in preparation for this article, they advised that these figures may not be adequately encompassing of medically recommended terminations such as in cases where there is a genetic problem in the foetus or a life-threatening outcome for the mother (such as ectopic pregnancy where the foetus is developing outside the uterus). Note also that this report is 10 years old.

For years I’ve been pondering this issue but have never articulated it. I find it really hard to disregard the humanity and personhood of an unborn child on emotional, theological or scientific grounds. This is perhaps shaped by our own experience of miscarriage and the lingering grief and loss that has never fully disappeared.

Embryologists have no doubt we are dealing with a human being from the earliest days after implantation of the fertilised egg (blastocyte). As one medical professional advised me, that moment of implantation (which only occurs in maybe 20% of fertilised eggs) is the critical moment when new life is not only possible but viable. Similarly, Dr Meghan Best (watch here), contends that after implantation the life quickly becomes a ‘unified, unique, dynamic, self-directed whole human being.’ And given the foetus is fully formed at 12 weeks with just the growing to do, I can’t get my head around the Victorian Abortion Law Reform Act 2008 which allows for ‘the provision of abortion on request by a qualified medical practitioner, nurse or pharmacist if a woman is less than 24 weeks pregnant; after 24 weeks a second practitioner must agree the termination is in the patient’s best interest for an abortion to be lawfully performed.’

24 weeks! 

The grand irony today is that we spend countless millions of dollars on the latest medical technology keeping wanted children alive in utero or when born premature, but terminate tens of thousands of unwanted children. Or that a mother can elect to have a termination but if that same termination happened against her will, say in the case of John Andrew Weldon who tricked his partner into taking ‘misoprostol’ (Ru-486) killing the 6-week-old child, that was considered a criminal offence.

I realise this is a highly complex and deeply personal issue that is perhaps too painful, too awkward or too controversial to deal with. I hardly feel qualified to write anything on this topic and I accept this may to be offensive and painful to others who have been in through this. But if our convictions don’t at times draw us into contentious places, I wonder if they really are convictions after all. 

As a pastor, I’ve conducted several funerals for devastated parents who have lost premature and full term children. These little lives are not just significant because their parents thought so, or wanted them. No, they are significant because they are human beings, miraculous creations formed in the likeness of their biological parents and bearing the blueprints of a divine creator. 

Where to from here? I don’t really know. But I take comfort in that same divine creator, Jesus -
    Through whom all things were made and have their being.
    Himself born in flesh, who said ‘let the little children come to me.’
    And at the end of days declares ‘I am making all things new.’

That Jesus has infinite capacity and longing to redeem anyone He knows, regardless of age. And equally that Jesus has infinite grace for our darkest days, our greatest heartaches and deepest regrets. That whatever our experience in this sad story, our next chapter need never be shame or condemnation – but forgiveness, redemption and new life.


“Look! God’s dwelling place is now among the people, and he will dwell with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. ‘He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death’ or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.” He who was seated on the throne said, “I am making everything new!

Revelation 21:3-5 

Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. And we all, who with unveiled faces contemplate the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into his image with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit. 2 Corinthians 3:17-18

First there is the fall and then we recover from the fall. Both are the mercy of God. 

Lady Julian of Norwich 

 If you cover up your sin you’ll never do well. 

Now as I’ve already written in older posts, I am an advocate for a substantive and meaningful constitutional recognition of our Indigenous peoples. I also believe the first history and culture lessons our children should be learning is our indigenous history and culture, and we should take pride in our nation having the oldest continuous living culture on the earth. Our story must also remind us of the gross injustices that followed colonisation and we need to keep recognising and responding to the ongoing need to provide equity and respect to indigenous people and culture.

But changing the date of Australia day, really? “Invasion day” if there was one was not the 26th of January. Cook arrived at Kurnell on the 29th April 1770 and Arthur Phillip arrived with the first fleet at the same location on the 18th of January 1788 and the formal establishment of a colony by Phillip did not take place till the 7th of February the same year. All that trivia to say that the arrival date is all a matter of interpretation.

For me the problem is not the date, but the modern bias in our national story rather than a celebration of our greater story - which is not hundreds of years old but thousands of years old. Today we should all pause for more than a moment to consider the past, both our indigenous peoples and our colonial pioneers. But let’s not feel guilty for also celebrating the immense privilege it is to live in Australia today - not perfect, but pretty darn great. C’mon people, travel a bit and you realise just how blessed we are.

The SSM poll is behind us now and as was widely predicted, the yes vote is the clear majority. I know I’ll have some people close to me cheering, and others telling me the countdown clock to Armageddon just sped up. No one really knows what the implications will be till the legislation is finalized, though I’m not losing sleep over it. Frankly, any form of ‘religious persecution’ that may come from the change is a trifle compared to say, what our Christian brothers and sisters in Egypt, Syria or North Korea face every day of their tortured lives. I’d be embarrassed to call just about anything our essentially reasonable politicians can throw at us as ‘persecution.’

The church in Australia (and certainly my own church, Georges River Life Church) have always had only 2 options. We either sincerely open our doors and hearts to anyone to come, or we continue to shrink from society and betray the kingdom that Jesus ceaselessly embodied.

That kingdom is not an exclusive club for the righteous. No, it is a regal wedding invitation gone viral, shouted from every street corner to anyone who would come—just as they are (Matthew 22.9). That kingdom is like a giant fisherman’s net that indiscriminately scoops up everything in its pathway (Matthew 13.47). And that kingdom demonstrates a radically subversive power in strange ways—like an innocent king willfully hanging on a Roman cross for a world gone mad, lost in its own distortions of the ‘good life’.

Jesus’ kingdom is the paradoxical marriage of a perfectly good and holy God with perfectly broken and unholy people. His invitation is to all people to come and be re-formed by His truth and grace, from the inside to the out. Which is why Jesus also described his kingdom as like yeast - a tiny amount works its transforming power slowly and invisibly through all the ‘dough’ of our lives (Matthew 13.33).

Surprisingly, Jesus, post-resurrection gave his followers, the church, the task of being his ambassadors, representing and progressing that same kingdom. That decision through history has looked like a tactical blunder at times, and equally an act of sheer brilliance. Either way, the church today must constantly ask itself this question: ‘Are we accurately representing the kingdom Jesus inaugurated or something else?’ If the LGBTIQ community are left feeling like lepers at the front doors of our sanctuaries, then I suspect we need to go back and re-read the gospels.

Does that mean we all roll over and say anything goes? I’m not suggesting that at all. What I am suggesting is that Jesus is always the one who does the heart surgery and the churches role is to not scare people away from the operating theatre.

So, after all the rainbow-colored balloons have deflated, the flags folded and last drinks are had at the victory parties; after the media move on to the next story; after the surge of new marriages have been registered at the office of births, deaths and marriages; after the gloom of those who feel disaffected or betrayed by it all; and after we settle into a new norm in the Australian landscape; I have a sneaking suspicion that the answer, the real answer to all our angst and longing for validation, significance and hope will ultimately remain unfulfilled.

I seriously doubt an equality utopia will now suddenly descend from the heavens and people will live unoffended, unoppressed or burden-free lives. No earthly marriage of any kind, and certainly no legislation (just look at Indigenous Australia) will quiet the nagging ache of our souls nor our innate propensity toward brokenness. The gospel reveals that progressive or conservative, straight or gay, rich or poor, privileged or unprivileged—our crafted identities and mini kingdoms only go part of the way toward a life that is truly free and flourishing. Jesus and his kingdom remains the ultimate answer to all our hopes and fears—and maybe this is a time for getting our focus back onto that message.

So now may we walk in the beautiful tension of living uncompromisingly, disagreeing respectfully, engaging purposefully and loving relentlessly.

I wonder how often our sensible choices sabotage the very life we long for?

The Sabbath was a gift for people to keep them from ceaseless toil and create margin where their hearts and lives could be reoriented toward God and one another.

Where would you begin? Here is an interesting exercise to try:

1. Make a two-column table with ‘Toil’ on left side and ‘Sabbath’ on the right. Take a look at your calendar for say a month and categorise all your activities into one column or the other. Ask the ‘why’ question behind each activity.

2. In the Toil column put a question mark next to anything that may need further reflection. Why must this activity remain on my list?

3. Consider and pray about what you may need to reduce and how you may need to restructure your time to create more margin for Sabbath.

Experience tells me that when people get super busy the first thing to go is the right-hand column and the priority of Sabbath activities. What if we valued this right-hand column so much that we would instead ask ‘what needs to go from all my toiling?’ Perhaps we would eventually discover not only a more sustainable life, but a more productive one too?