Today was the Surry Hills Festival, arguably the biggest of all Sydney’s local “Mars Hill” type gatherings. Here were several tens of thousands of mostly pagans coming together to look for the latest fad and not an Anglican in sight. In fact, did I find a single representative of the Church outreaching today? Nope, not one.
I guess the Sydney Anglicans have an excuse: they were all earnestly working out their strategies for 2009.
So, the question is this, our hubristic SAD friends: If you have a message for the world, why weren’t you there sharing God’s message of love with these fallen men and women who are made in God’s image? By your absence you demonstrate to us that you don’t have a message to give because if you did, you would have been there. Of course, if you have a message then you must be keeping it secret. You know, having the key of knowledge but locking the door and stopping all others from entering. A double dose of sin, if that’s the case.
One last point. Actually there was one Christian witness all day at a stand. There stood 2 creationists, in the sun, who had barely a moment to themselves because they were continuously engaged in conversation with men and women who were searching for answers to such side-issue questions as ‘Where did life came from and how did it arise?’, ‘Is there a God?’, ‘Who is this God?’, 'Is evolution true?, etc etc.
With all those resources, all that money, with all those paid clergy, with all that over-the-top self-belief (i.e. delusion on the level of corporate personality disorder) that we have it all and our theology is the envy of everyone else in Christendom ("Could there possibly be anyone else out there?"), and not an Anglican stand at the festival.
I shouldn't be surprised, though, as they've given the bird to the Archbishop of Canterbury and eschewed Lambeth, so why would they give a toss at some minor bumpkinish celebration in their own backyard over there at Surry Hills.
You’re a joke Sydney Anglicans. In fact, you are your own caricature!
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11 comments:
John, I'd seen similar things at the Mind Body Spirit festival. On the couple of times I attended I saw two or three Christian stands; one using creation, another using health and another using Tarot cards as ways of talking to people. They were all packed with interested looking visitors each time I strolled by. The creation stand featured walls of pictures that really hooked people and got them into the stand.
I thought it to be a very effective way of connecting with people: it was where they were, and where they had indicated possible interest in spiritual questions: true 'outreach' as opposed to the comfortable SAD way of attempted 'indrag'.
Hey, this takes me back! About 15 years ago, when I was at Barney's, I was on a similar street stall at the Glebe markets. We were out to talk to people about our faith. The vehicle was a book stall: not as naff as face painting, but not a big hit. We had a few takers, and a few conversations (no training tho', and no review afterwards!!).
I spoke to one bloke, a middle aged fellow who had it all sewn up. We came from spirit worms that came out of the ground: a weird blend of evolution and new-age ideas.
I was struck dumb. Nothing had prepared me for this.
That's what got me to study what the Bible had to say about our origin, because clearly, for this man, how we formed explained all about us, and where we were going to.
No one at Barney's was interested, even the rector thought that Genesis was fictional (some sort of fairy story, I gathered). I was very saddened. I wondered what other parts of the Bible he'd crossed out, and how many other people he couldn't engage with the gospel, because he was disconnected from the Bible's world view.
I left.
John, I think I know the guys you are talking about. If it is the same they were at our Granny Smith Festival in Eastwood last October. They know their stuff and seem to get plenty of interest.
Worth doing but I am worried about 'stepping on their toes' if I was to do something similar.
I am keen on outreach but the task is coming up with something fresh and interesting. The church's traditional means of outreach doesn't work in today's society.
The church certainly hasn't got it right yet and your experience at Surry Hills exposes a church or in this case, a Diocese, which is well aware that the public are not interested in engaging otherwise they would be out there where the crowds are.
Neil Moore
I forgot to mention one thing about my experience at Barney's.
It hit me that they were keeping something from me about the Bible. Not that I recall anything being mentioned from the pulpit about Genesis 1, but it seemed that they 'really' believed that it was not factual. Yet, I'm sure many of us in the pews went on in the belief that it was, and our clergy would support this position.
Peter Jensen wrote something similalr in Southern Cross a couple of years ago. He referred to the Genesis creation account with approval and to support an argument he was making. But what he didn't say was that he didn't believe it: he didn't think it was a factual representation of God's action and that the materialists, have it right, and the universe made it self!
Do they really think we are such dills that they will keep the 'clergy secrets' but entertain us with ambiguous language that keeps us happily in the dark, on our communion wine.
Critias,
I think you've hit the nail on the head. Because Moorites are very much neo-orthodox, they've split the realm of knowledge into 2. They have scientific "facts" in front of them (i.e. evolution and long ages are lies which have been transformed into "truth") and they have pushed the real history of Genesis 1 into the transcendent realm and transformed it into a spiritual truth with nothing really to do with actual history. Notwithstanding that their emaciated version of Genesis 1 says nothing at all, it could say anything one wishes - and I mean, ANYTHING - because it is no longer open to verification.
As creationists, on the other hand, because we take Genesis 1 straightforwardly as genuine history and claim that the Earth's age is young, we can actually provide bucket loads of scholarly evidence to support this model of a young earth. The young earth model is quite a testable scientific enterprise.
The two blokes at the festival sounds like the Curious Earth ministry featured in the Sep/Nov 2007 Creation issue.
For all the Moorite pontificating, it's clear that the way these two blokes are engaging the culture is better than they way the Moorites are NOT!
That's the name! Curious Earth, that was the one at Eastwood. Thanks, Jase!
John, are they the people you saw at Surry Hills? If so, I hope they present the whole Gospel and recognise that revealing Jesus Christ as Creator is not the whole Gospel. In my time listening in at the Granny Smith Festival at Eastwood I didn't hear a conversation go to that point. In saying this I appreciate that the society we live in today is not the one that Billy Graham encountered in Australia in the 1950's. That society had an understanding of the Creator God and could acknowledge they were out of relationship with Him. Presenting Jesus Christ as Redeemer and Saviour did have potential for greater response then.
Today's society has had a couple of generations of denial of a Creator God from many fronts. We have to emphasise the reality of the Creator God, the world which corrupted itself, that Jesus Christ demonstrated all the capacity of the Creator God, and that He paid the price for us to become inheritors of the pre-Fall estate (well, its eschatalogical equivalent). It is interesting to note that many false religions are absorbing evolution into their doctrine. We have the uniqueness of Jesus Christ's capacity as quick acting Creator and His redemptive work which ought set Christianity apart from all the pretenders.
Anyway, I hope those guys make the most of the opportunity of large crowds of lost souls.
Neil Moore
Sometimes I don't like hitting at the SAD all the time, but then I think of the vast opportunties lost that call for a 'wake up' to the diocese. I walk past the cathedral in Sydney from time to time: it looks like a great big silent edifice with back turned from the city (the doors were repositioned to the west and away from George street: correct, but unhelpful). In Lance Shilton's day at least he went onto the square and had open dialogue with passers by.
Similarly with the Connect 09 'strategy' (now that sounds like a bit of business world recipe following that substitutes slogans for real transformation): how is a one year burst going to do what an in-grown culture clearly is incapable of doing!
I like how Jensen started the 'mission'. Not with internal change and reflection, a year of prayer and retreats to see spritual growth and enduring change, but a bunch of 'pat' machinery moves that have spluttered out.
Then there are the great contact points with the community: anglicare and ARV; almost totally unused. There are the post schools: de-poshing them would have been a tremendous signal of change. Encouraging parents to get into their local public school and get really involved: working for change on P&C assns, and the like . . . these are the easy yards, but they weren't taken.
Funny thing about slogans: see
http://curiouscat.com/deming/management_by_target.cfm
Article on how sloganeering betrays sloppy management: they are a sign of distress, not success.
'Connect 09' does seem to have some elements of Charles Finney about it.
Neil Moore
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