Linda, a librarian by vocation, was a lover of ancient and modern thought. It was commonplace to see a freshly folded photocopy of some article or chapter from a new book materialise from the depths of her handbag with a wry smile and an air of optimism that I would be hooked by an unfamiliar idea. It was Linda who introduced me to writers like Brueggemann and Willard and McLaren, who have since shaped me profoundly. She also exuded a passion for the arts and how the imagination could awaken one’s spiritual senses. She was a gifted and creative person who stepped forward into places of leadership because she cared deeply for Jesus, the church and the future.

But truth is, we didn’t always see eye to eye. In fact, Linda left me frustrated at times and I’m pretty sure I left her the same. You see, Linda had a way of seeing life and spirituality from left field. At times that alternative perspective was painful to hear for a young, male, know-it-all like myself. But thankfully she persisted with me and did so with grace and honour. She was a strong woman yet never arrogant. Passionate but never overpowering. She would usually say what she thought, but with a gentleness couched in terms like “I wonder if….”

Leaders like me need people like her somewhere in the ecosystem of our leaderships. And I suspect that in every church across the world God has planted Lindas – people who are strong minded, wise and deep-hearted – wanting the best for their leaders and their churches. Sadly, they are often side-lined or silenced because clergy (usually male) forget that their congregation have so much more to offer than filling rosters and funding the ministry.

I read a recent article by the Washington based Brookings Institution, analysing the staff turnover within the Trump administration. In summary, the report shows that 57 of the 65 (88%) “A Team” positions in Trump's administration have turned over in his first term - some as many as 6 times. There have been 6 Deputy Directors of the NSA, 5 Communications Directors, 4 Chief of Staffs, 3 Press Secretaries …and a President in a pear tree.

Now I don’t know the circumstances of all of these resignations and sackings but I suspect that if you have double the next highest turnover rate in a Presidential administration in history, it may have something to do with the man at the top. Trump seems to remove the voice of dissent from his life, and from my limited experience, that makes you a weaker leader, not a stronger one.

Strong people need to allow other strong people to have a voice in our lives so we don’t live in the echo chamber of our own thoughts. We need people to challenge us when we think we can’t lose and encourage us when we think we can’t win. We need people to bring alternative viewpoints when we can’t see, and people to bring God's voice when we can’t hear.

King David needed a Nathan to call out his moral failure. The Apostle Peter needed a Paul to call out his hypocrisy. Moses needed a Jethro to counsel him concerning his workaholism. And Nebuchadnezzar needed a Daniel to interpret his dreams.

So, three cheers for the Lindas of our leaderships and our personal lives. And if you are the person with the most power in your organisation - build a culture of feedback around you and make sure you invite people into your life who can speak their mind and tell you what they really think. You may not always like it, but it just might be what you most need.

Before we jam the keys back into the ignition and hit the accelerator of our old life (or old church), we have a window of time in which to listen – to the leanings of God and the learnings of each other. At my church (Georges River Life Church), we have dedicated ourselves to listening to God and one another for the next few months, anticipating that in the listening we will be changed. It’s a time to reassess (personally and as a community of disciples) what matters most, to ask: what does it mean to be the church? Why do we do what we do? What do we want to be known for in our communities? What is the invitation available to us all?

We would all be wise to slow the instinctive reflex of ‘going back’, to relax our anxious thoughts about what we think we are supposed to be urgently doing as leaders, and to consider that we are not in truth, ever ‘going back’, but going forward – with Jesus, in community, for the sake of the world.

So regularly check in on your neighbours. Look to serve those especially vulnerable like the frail and aged in your community who may need to avoid public exposure. Shop for them, take out their bins, phone them and just make sure that they are ok. If you are a part of a church community, work with your leadership to formulate a broader response by the church for its community. Our communities need churches to lead the way in loving and serving.

The current Australia day campaign has the slogan – “we are all part of the story” – and that is a good and unifying message - but I’m not so pleased with my part of the story. Over the past month, really since the fires began, I’ve taken to digesting as much information as I could about Indigenous culture, spirituality, land management and what happened in the years after 26th January 1788.

I discovered I have a blind spot not only in how rich is their culture but how dark is our history since 1788.  (Check out my last to blogs for those reflections and a resource list here and here). 

Within a few years of Arthur Phillip landing on the shores of Botany Bay the majority of the Aboriginals in our part of Sydney were gone. After thousands of years, gone. Firstly, through disease, then deprivation as food resources were gobbled up, and eventually government sanctioned murder. And over the next 100 years the custodians of our continent were pushed to the point of extinction –Tasmania Aborigines for example, were, barring a few survivors, systematically exterminated. Our history is a record of great cruelty and inhumanity on a genocidal scale – I was not taught this at school in the 80s.

So today I would like to lead you in a prayer in three parts – a thanksgiving for Australia, an acknowledgement of country, but also prayer of repentance.

Jesus we thank you for this great nation. For the freedom we enjoy through a stable democratic system of government, a healthy economy, to clean drinking water, access to excellent health care, to excellent education for our children, to freedom to speak and to practice our faith, to the tapestry of cultures that make us who we are, to the way that community comes together in times of crisis like the bushfires and the way , to our RFS volunteers who have magnificently given of themselves and to those who have served our country in our armed services to protect all these freedoms. We thank you.

But Jesus, we acknowledge that the colonisation and development of Australia brought with it terrible pain and destruction to the original custodians of our nation – to their culture, their way of life and to their connection to Country – and also as a result, to the health of the environment in which we now live. We recognise that your Church in Australia has at times played a role in their suffering – through ungodly actions or in many cases inaction.

But we also recognise that this is not only the sin of past generations. We repent of our own indifference, ignorance and neglect concerning their past suffering and their marginalisation in Australian society today. We are grieved that they are still fighting for the same basic rights that we celebrate, and recognise that human dignity is not restored simply with increased government funding or good policy. That we each have a part to play in restoring dignity.

So, we your church by the Georges River…

"We would like to acknowledge, the traditional custodians of the land on which we gather today - the Dharug people this side of the Georges River and the Dharawal people to the south. We would also like to pay our respects to the elders past, present and emerging. They are the people who for thousands of years fulfilled the creation mandate of our creator God, and we honour them for their stewardship of this great land.

Jesus, your ministry was to proclaim good news to the poor, freedom for the prisoners, recovery of sight for the blind, to set the oppressed free, and to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour. We pray, your ministry be our vision too - you may open our hearts with compassion and see our Indigenous peoples with dignity and honour, to co-labour with them in the care for our natural environment, to be an advocating voice for justice, to lift up the oppressed, proclaim your favour. And we ask this in the name and power of our lord and saviour Jesus Christ.

Amen.


“We are all part of the story." Ok, well what part of the story are we writing today and into the future as the dominant culture? Are we choosing ignorance over truth? What are we teaching our children? Are we giving them an appreciation for Indigenous culture and for the Australian environment they worked so faithfully to tend? Are we turning toward Indigenous people or away? What would Jesus do if He were you?

Tending to land is no small feat, it requires vision, insight, intuition and love.

Imagine then that a space ship lands in the back yard and after examining the surrounds, the aliens conclude that the land is unoccupied and empty other than a well-aged primitive and her husband. So, they claim all the land as their own and proceed to flatten the garden, demolish the house and set up their own martian civilisation. Surely they can see the evidence of people living their lives together in community and tending to the land? Surely they see culture and the work of these people? Clearly the land is not unoccupied.

It sounds fanciful but that is basically what took place in in 1770 when Lt. James Cook in his journey around the great southern continent declared the land to be terra nullius – empty, unoccupied and ripe for the taking. And that mind set returned with devastating consequences in 1788 when Arthur Phillip established the first colony in Sydney cove. Sure, they found people but not civilisation as they understood it – the British kind. And because these people lacked so many of the cultural and technological markings of modern life, they were simply treated as unsophisticated primitives, lesser humans with no claim to the land. The church, echoing this imperialistic mindset, thought the best thing it could do was teach them how to wash regularly and dress appropriately, and do away with their own spirituality!

What they failed to understand, let alone appreciate was that Indigenous Australian culture was not only socially complex but perhaps the most ecologically sophisticated culture to ever exist – the product of thousands of years of refinement.

Caring for Country was the vocation of every inhabitant of the Australian continent before 1788. Land management was no indulgence, no ancient version of Better Homes and Gardens. Life was land care, it was a spiritual mandate of the Dreaming and a social necessity for communities. Too much fuel on the ground not only might unleash a hot, angry fire that could not be controlled, but it may unnecessarily kill precious flora and fauna so vital for the balance of the local ecosystem. Fire was the daily tool of trade for Indigenous people (under strict guidance from elders) and they could wield it with the sharpness and accuracy of my mother’s secateurs. Patches of bush were carefully burnt each year across a tribe’s land, determined by a multitude of carefully considered factors. Land was often burnt in a mosaic pattern which preserved cover for vulnerable fauna whilst killing or clearing other vegetation or fuel in others. Indigenous peoples had such a vast and intimate understanding of how every plant and animal beneficially interacted with fire. Tens of thousands of species were catalogued in their collective memory. It showed as Bill Gammage wrote, “the breath taking complexity of land management at a continental and scale.” Particular animal and plant communities needed and got very precise fire timings and intensity. Gammage illustrates,


All plants and animals thrived in 1788 and people timed a great variety of local and specific fires over years, decades and even centuries. Many parts of the continent was burnt about every 1-5 years and one of the most frequent observations of new arrivals from 1788 onward was the continual and systematic burning of the land, accompanied by smoke. Aboriginal elders from one tribe would be concerned if neighbouring land was not marked with rising smoke - it suggested something was wrong for the tribe to not be burning land, and people should go and visit!

A byproduct of this continental curation was that many early settlers could not help but think that the Australian outdoors had been landscaped by gardeners. Gammage details dozens of early accounts, summarising their observations, he says - “trees planted as if for ornament, alternating wood and grass, a gentleman’s park, an inhabited and improved country, a civilised land.” Much of Australia was like this in 1788 and the most common word newcomers used about Australia was not ‘bush’ but ‘park.’ At Bong Bong for example, Lachlan Macquarie named Throsby Park for its very ‘park like appearance’. Hardly terra nullius!

At some stage in the future my mum has admitted she won’t be able to maintain such a big garden. I imagine when the time comes, the disconnection will be a source of grief and concern. Grief because any true gardener will tell you, they have a deep connection to their gardens. And concern because of the uncertainty of whether the future owners will have the same devotion. How much more must our indigenous peoples experience the trauma and dislocation at being separated from Country (which is inseparable from culture), and anguish that the grand estate they, and a hundred generations before them had so carefully stewarded, is a shadow of its former glory.

As a Christian I am challenged by all of this because there are some ageless parallels between Indigenous spirituality and my own. The Bible begins with a creator’s vision, insight, intuition and love. And the final act of creation is God breathing into a creature that will bear God’s likeness and creativity. In Genesis 1 we read The Lord God, took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it.

The very first command given to humanity was to work it (the land) and take care of it. Here are two fundamental roles built into a biblical vision of life. We have a dual role to work the land in productive ways, but equally to take care of it, love it, enable it to display its glory. These have become opposing rather than complementary forces today. And the result is a planet increasingly diminished in glory and capacity to sustain life.

It seems to me that our Indigenous peoples understood this transcendent mandate in a way that all of us, the church in particular, should urgently recapture. Christians, the gospel begins in creation and ends in the renewal of all things – How did we forget this? How did we think the gospel was only about saving souls and exiting the planet? How do we recapture this creation mandate? How might we partner with the one culture that just might have the answers we need?



If you would like to dig deeper on any of these issues I can recommend the following books:
The Biggest Estate on Earth – How Aborigines Made Australia - Bill Gammage
Deep Time Dreaming – Uncovering Ancient Australia – Billy Griffiths
Dark Emu – Aboriginal Culture and the birth of Agriculture – Bruce Pascoe =
Blood on the Wattle – Bruce Elder
www.sbs.com.au/firstaustralians

A string of hot summers and a long drought has certainly contributed to our current crisis, but it seems our collective memory is very short and it was a little strange to hear the Science Minister Karen Andrews in parliament recently call the latest fires “surprising” as if this is somehow a unique occurrence.

This summer, tragically, 29 people have died, and 17 million hectares of land has burned – bringing with it massive impacts on livelihoods, communities and native flora and fauna. This is awful, but it is not unprecedented.

In the summer of 1974-5, 117 million hectares burned (15% of the entire continent) but this event lacked publicity because of its minimal impact on communities. In the Northern Territory, in 1968, 40 million hectares burned, and again, in the summer of 2002, 38 million hectares of the Territory burned. We have recorded fires as far back as the Black Thursday fires of 1851 when 5 million hectares burned. More recently the Black Saturday fires in February 2009 only burned half a million hectares but killed 173 people and destroyed over 2000 homes.

The latest fires were massive, but I reckon an exclusive link with climate change is a myopic and convenient answer to a much broader problem.

Firstly, it’s myopic because we forget what I just described, our recorded history of massive fires. But also, because we ignore how perfectly our landscape has adapted to bush fire. Localised and large scale fires have been, and will remain, common to, and vital for, the Australian landscape. This is Australia, not Alaska – we already were the hottest continent on earth and it wants to and even needs to burn. Fire is one of the most important forces at work in Australian ecosystems. Fire is, as Bill Gammage described, “drought with legs and the majority of plants deal with both in the same way.” 70% of Australia’s flora either need or tolerate fire. Thousands of species would cease to exist without the regular, direct intervention of fire. Most of the approximately 700 species of eucalyptus trees across the continent need some aspect of fire to germinate, grow or fend off competition. The oil within their leaves is highly resistant to drought yet also highly flammable in fire – they actually promote fire. And when the fire has passed a miracle of regeneration takes place renewing and nourishing the tree and its surrounding landscape.

For tens of thousands of years, the Indigenous peoples of the Australian continent have learnt how to harness ‘cool’ fire for re-creative purposes – to control or promote specific kinds of plants and nurture habitats into which native animals may feed and reproduce – so that food is predictable and plentiful for consumption. In addition, Aboriginal communities would regularly burn specific areas of their tribal lands so that, unlike the present situation, fuel levels on the ground were reduced and fires were less explosive. Tim Flannery, in his 2002 work The Future Eaters, writes that “The use of fire by Aboriginal people was so widespread and constant that virtually every early explorer in Australia makes mention of it. It was Aboriginal fire that prompted James Cook to call Australia ‘This continent of smoke’.”

Adjunct Professor, Bill Gammage’s outstanding book The Greatest Estate on Earth (from which I’ve drawn extensively) has left me in awe of how the Indigenous custodians of our land insightfully tended their environment and how Australian flora is so finely and uniquely tuned to thrive in this inhospitable land. But I am also left dismayed that the Australian environment of 2020 is almost unrecognisable from the Australia of 1820 and there is little hope of slowing that trend at present.

Secondly, I’d argue that the exclusive link to climate change is also a little too convenient or easy. Hanging the debate on something as global as climate change enables us to shift the blame solely to politicians, big business and forces beyond our responsibility. I’m not letting our leaders off the hook, but they are ultimately us, and us is very conflicted in what we want.

We want a pristine environment but our high-consumption way of life is in direct competition with that desire – from our flat pack throw away furniture, to our second vehicle, our international flights, our almond milk lattes and our expectation that all kinds of food are available all year around.

We convince ourselves that putting out our yellow bin and installing solar is doing our bit for the environment. Or at a national level, we feel righteous by not building any new coal fired power plants yet happily dig up and sell as much of the black stuff as we can to power all the coal fired power plants around the world. Sure, some protest when an Adani or a Santos want to make a new hole in the ground, but for the most part, economics win almost all the time and our politicians and super funds are simply echoing the collective hunger for more. If we (I) were serious about our environment, let alone the planet – we would all have to lower our standard of living and rethink much of what typifies modern life. On a mass level, we would have to reject tokenistic environmentalism and radically change the way we live. Could I do that?

Aboriginal communities lived a low carbon, environmentally symbiotic lifestyle that Australia in 2020 can never return to. Eden is lost, the landscape is permanently changed and in many places unrecognisable from the Australia of 1788. We have trodden heavily over this ancient land, it has suffered greatly and so it is hardly surprising that from time to time we, in a kind of environmental karma, suffer along with it.

While the habitually outraged love to direct their anger on social media at the Prime Minister for taking poorly timed holidays, or governments for “not doing enough” or primary industry for environmental vandalism – I guess all I am saying is that we each need to look at our own lives before throw stones at others. We are all part of the broader problem. We are all implicated in the groaning of a continent that dispossessed its custodians, disregarded the wisdom of indigenous land management and in the classic words of Joni Mitchell, greedily “paved paradise with a parking lot.”

Gosh that’s such a depressing ending and I just can’t leave it there...

I predict the next three decades of this century will be just a revolutionary as the 60’s and 70’s were in the last. The seeds of the future have already germinated and the young global citizens of today just might have the motivation, technology, adaptability, and – in the not too distant future – the power to affect change on a global scale. My hope is that they do so with great respect for the ancient wisdom of our Indigenous Australians. I suspect it may be too late for my generation to lead the way because we are the product of a very different time. But it is not too late for Gen X and their parents to be the supportive shoulders on which they stand.

As a Dad with three children, I wonder, what passions will I nurture in them? What experiences will I give them to shape their perspective on the world and on environmental stewardship? And, personally, how will I do more than write words and have good intentions?

As widely reported, ARU winger Israel Folau, recently had his $4million rugby contract torn up after posting the following words on his private Twitter account: 

Merry Christmas to you! If you didn't plan to, or weren't able to make it to a gathered celebration of Christmas this year, here is a message that I shared at Georges River Life Church this year. So after all the food and festivities subside, the food coma lifts and you have a quiet moment in this holiday season, pause a moment and have a read.  May you know a lasting peace today and for the coming year.

Long before the birth of Jesus a coming saviour king is foretold by prophets and leaders for hundreds of years in remarkable detail, even down to specific times, locations and events. One key insight from a prophet named Isaiah 700 years before Jesus, describes the kind of saviour that would come. In Isaiah  chapter 9 he says "For a child has been born for us, a son given to us. The government will be on his shoulders and he will be called wonderful counsellor, mighty God, everlasting father, prince of peace."

I’d like to propose that the kind of peace we all need is not the kind of peace we all want. 

I think the kind of peace we generally want is simply the absence of something - anxiety, conflict or discomfort, hurry or trouble. And who wouldn’t want that! But I don’t know if being permanently anxiety free, conflict free, cancer free, care free, debt free, fat free, stress free is ever a realistic portrayal of being human. Is it?

Jesus says this on several occasions. Like in his sermon on the mount in Matthew 6.34 he says – "therefore don’t be full of anxiety about what tomorrow brings – each day has (peace sapping, anxiety generating) trouble of its own." And in John 16, before Jesus was crucified, he shares at length with his disciples what trouble will befall him and them - “I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart I have overcome the world.” If you are looking for certainty in life about anything – it’s that you’ll have trouble that will steal your peace. Merry Christmas!

It appears that wherever we are, trouble or anxiety is not far away because it’s not just around you in your circumstances, it is you! Like that comical sign that was erected on a congested Sydney street that read “you are not stuck in traffic, you are the traffic”. We encounter trouble and let’s be honest, we create trouble.

What I’m saying is that we humans are bombarded with peace-sapping situations and behaviours every day, in one form or another. So the peace we want is almost guaranteed to be fleeting or a tantalising tease – just out of reach. Like the moment of wonder and nostalgia I had as we finished decorating our live Christmas tree last week only to have our 2 cats descend on it and proceed to gorge themselves on the green grassy needles in order to bring on a good fur ball vomit. The sound of dry reaching Burmese on the Persian rug was not in my Christmas picture.

So I wonder if there is another kind of peace that we need? I suspect there is a clue in Jesus words back in Jn 16.33 I have told you these things (that you’ll be faced with extreme hardship) "so that in me you may have peace." I wonder if peace is not so much the absence of trouble but the presence of something, someone greater than our trouble. In me, you, may have peace. What if real peace is not a thing of human enterprise? What if peace is not made, but encountered in someone greater than us. Someone who can be with you in both the joys and victories of life and sorrow and defeats. Someone that doesn’t violate human freedom yet someone that will have the final word on all of this mess.

In me, you have peace. What if there is a peace that is available to you right now that has little to do with your circumstances? What if that peace is found when you find yourself in (friendship with) him? What if the kind of peace you need to pursue is a person who longs to overcome the world within you more than around you – because if he can change the world within you, you can change the world around you.

And what if it is available not because we managed to wrestle back every difficulty in life in our favour but because someone outside of us has entered into our mess and overcome the power, the finality of our mess. People thought they wanted a king to established a government of power… Jesus came to establish his government of peace in our hearts and to be our enduring peace.


You might be thinking that’s all nice but how do I start experiencing this kind of peace? The stoics said if you want peace, don’t love anything at all – because everything you love you will eventually lose - they’d be great to go to a party with!  But St Augustine said peace rather is found in the correct ordering of what you love, and the first thing you should love is that which doesn’t change, that which you can’t lose. He said



If you love anything more than God or live for anything more than God peace will be as sustainable as your capacity to hold onto those other loves. And to be honest we lose more sleep gaining and retaining our loves than we do experiencing the gratification of them. Like the person who loves owning that big boat but they never enjoy it because they are exhausted from having to work 70 hours a week to pay for debt they racked up to get it - let alone the stress to maintain it. And if for some reason it sinks so too will your peace in that moment.

See I’m sure there is another kind of peace we need. To be plain, peace found in Jesus – Prince of peace, God in our midst, God coming to us, God coming for us. Christmas reveals that in the midst of our trouble, the prince of peace will meet you right there – Jesus enters into the chaos, exchanging glory for rags, perfection for fragility and in our shoes – reveals both what peace looks like in a person and eventually would be our peace by surrendering his peace on a roman cross – so that you can permanently enjoy the gift of peace in and with God.

'Isn’t that too wonderful… and this Christmas our prayer is that you’ll see through any anxiety, striving, and trouble, your highs and lows. Because just at the right time, in the most unexpected way, one brilliant, cold starry night, God broke into this muddled world. True love came hurtling our way, slipping through a back entrance, in a place that we didn’t expect and hadn’t thought to look, offering us another foundation that can’t be so easily shaken, a peace that can’t be so quickly stolen. You know the peace you want. May you know the peace you actually need this year…

Pride is seldom used in a negative sense these days. But when you ponder it for a moment, we might just be in the grip of a pride pandemic - maybe even in federal politics! So just for fun, and to commemorate yet another leadership crisis in our nation - here is my light-hearted, awfully cheesy, ode to pride. (If you are on a mobile, turn your phone sideways)

It could be pride

Pride makes you make purchases you can’t afford, to impress people you don’t know.
And did you know we Aussies spend over $2bn a year on cosmetic surgery?
I suspect some of that could be from a tide of pride.
Pride makes nations end up in war and pride makes marriages end up in court.
How many families and friendships are forever fractured when pride sees them refuse to forgive?

People might send their kids to elite private schools because of pride,
and they might drop little Johnny to the gate in a luxury ride, because of pride.
Some swagger in their high moral standards, their virtuous life, because of pride,
and some strut in their spirituality, their zeal for God, but on the side, it’s really pride.
People leave churches because of pride, and some never go in the first place.
Pride takes a leader adored by his flock, and ends their career in disgrace.
Soccer fans start riots because of pride for their tribe,
And if you mix religion or nationalism with pride, well, you might get genocide.

Pride could see a leader, or even a prime minister, stay too long, or their understudies come on way too strong.
Pride repels us from people not like us and gravitate to those who are. Pride avoids vulnerability, never exposing who we really are.
Because of pride, some men I know don’t go see the doctor, nor ask for directions - even when they need it. And pride creates a desperate addiction for more of whatever will feed it.

We Christians are brilliant at spiritualising our pride. 
So as one of them let me just say,
If you do most of the talking in your small group – it could be pride.
If you sound like you are the authority on a subject – it could be pride.
If you hear from God sooo much more clearly than others – it could be pride.
If you can’t take feedback when someone offers it – it could be pride.
If you need to win the debate – it could be pride.
If you need to share your resume of why you are great– yep, that’s likely pride.
If you get cynical, critical or sarcastic about others – it could be pride.
If it’s not your responsibility to serve or give – it could be pride.
If your serving must always be satisfying or fulfilling – it could be pride.
If you need to rescue people who are making dumb choices – it could be pride.
If you need to avoid people who are making dumb choices – it could be pride.
If all your relationships are beneficial to you – it could be pride.
If you are daily posting selfies on social media – it could be pride.
If you need to edit said photos so you look so much better – well, it could be pride.

Are you offended easily? It could be pride.
Are you tired or stressed out all the time? It could be pride.
Are you secretly jealous of someone’s life, their looks? It could be pride.
Are you desperate for praise or promotion or a platform? It could be pride.
Are your more likely to worry than pray? It could be pride.
Are you convinced you are really quite humble and surely none of this applies to you?

It may not always be pride in this negative sense of the word, but if you and I dig down, past the good common sense, the logic and all the spiritual justifications – it is not beyond the realms of possibility that some of the heartache we feel or give, could indeed be born out of pride.
Perhaps when we shrink the transcendent from our lives, a higher authority to whom we offer our thanks and praise – all that remains is ourselves to promote, our interests to advance and our glory to behold. And in time, all of that eventually evaporates too and just maybe then we realise that all those pride-filled years yielded such a low return on investment. Pride is a prison that keeps you from the life you could have. 

In large or small ways, if we ruthlessly limit pride in our lives, we all might enjoy life together a whole lot more.

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